MINUTES
OF MEETING
CORAL
SPRINGS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT
The
regular meeting of the Board of Supervisors of the Coral Springs Improvement
District was held
Present
and constituting a quorum were:
Robert
Fennell President
William
Eissler Secretary
Also
present were:
Gary L.
Moyer Manager
Rhonda K.
Archer Finance
Director
Dennis
Lyles Attorney
Donna
Holiday Recording
Secretary
John McKune Gee
& Jenson
Roger Moore Engineer
Bill Joyce District
Staff
Rich Hans District
Staff
FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS Roll Call
Mr.
Fennell called the meeting to order at
SECOND ORDER OF BUSINESS Approval of the Minutes of the January
27, and
Mr.
Fennell stated that each Board member had received a copy of the minutes of the
January 27, and
On MOTION by Mr.
Eissler seconded by Mr. Fennell with all in favor the minutes of the
Mr.
Fennell stated I have a minor correction to the minutes of the joint
meeting. I want to add that in regard to
additional legislative needs, I felt that we need to have a consolidated
emergency package in which we would talk about the response not only for
terrorism but hurricanes and other kinds of emergency areas where these things
may overlap and help one another.
On MOTION by Mr. Eissler
seconded by Mr. Fennell with all in favor the minutes of the
THIRD ORDER OF BUSINESS Consideration of Resolution 2003-1
Updating Money Purchase Pension Plan & Trust
Ms. Archer stated we have a pension
plan and periodically we have to have that plan updated to conform with changes
that are made in the IRS tax laws. The
company that services our plan did the update and now that they have rewritten
the plan to conform with the tax law we need the Board to formally approve that
document. There are no material changes
to the plan.
On MOTION by Mr.
Eissler seconded by Mr. Fennell with all in favor Resolution 2003-1 updating
the money purchase pension plan & trust was approved.
FOURTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Consideration of Permit Requests
A. Permit Modification to Centerline Office
Complex for an Additional .38 Acres
Mr. Moyer stated both permit
requests are in the same area which is just north of
On MOTION by Mr.
Eissler seconded by Mr. Fennell with all in favor the permit modification
request for Centerline Office Complex was approved.
B. Surface Water Management Permit for
Mr. McKune stated we were waiting
for a response from the applicant that we received yesterday but was not in
time to get into the agenda package. It
is acceptable and we will provide a letter to you.
On MOTION by Mr.
Eissler seconded by Mr. Fennell with all in favor the surface water management
permit for Kids Academy Preschool, Cypress Run Parcel C-2 Canal L-203 was
approved.
FIFTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Consideration of Conversion to a 190
Community Development District
Mr.
Fennell asked did you provide this information to Representative Ritter?
Ms.
Archer responded I sent it to her just after I sent it to you and the North
Springs Board.
Mr.
Lyles stated I was asked to prepare a memo explaining the conversion process
for a special district such as this one and North Springs. I have done that and through the Manager’s
Office provided it to Representative Ritter.
We have not had any response from Representative Ritter’s office. The week following the joint meeting, there
was a meeting of the North Spring District at which her aide was in attendance
and advised that Representative Ritter had in fact had a bill prepared by
legislative bill drafting staff in Tallahassee to call for essentially all
special districts in Broward County to convert from a landowner election to a
one person one vote election. There was
still some thought that if these two districts, North Springs and Coral
Springs, go forward with their discussions and started the 190 conversion
process she was thinking she might withdraw the bill. The bill will need to be filed before the next
North Springs meeting in order to remain alive for this session. She can’t refrain from filing it but she
could file it and then withdraw it. She
is holding that out as a possibility and in fact if we convert to a 190
District, then that bill would not effect us. We were notified by the executive
director of the legislative delegation that the Coral Springs Improvement
District codification bill had been resurrected by Representative Ritter. No word on the North Springs bill, but this
District’s bill is not dead for this year.
We are waiting to hear more on that and I imagine people on the other
end of the spectrum are waiting to hear what this Board does in connection with
the conversion process. That is where we
are and the only new information that we have.
We have had no further information from Mr. Book about changes in those
matters.
Ms.
Archer stated we did contact Ken van Assenderp about being special counsel to
the District to file the petition on our behalf to convert the District from a
special act district to a 190 district.
He is one of the original authors of 190. We felt he had the most expertise to go
before the Governor and Cabinet on our behalf.
He gave us a letter to do that, he is very interested in doing it but he
did not put any numbers in the letter.
Mr.
Moyer stated this will be an issue that goes before the Governor and Cabinet
but in terms of actually preparing the petition, the petition process is very
simple and straight forward. In our case
everything is basically built out.
Everything is known. It is not
like we will be giving them a plan of future development. I am comfortable telling you that staff can
prepare the petition and I think where Mr. van Assenderp becomes an asset and
maybe we should do this on a time and material basis with him at his hourly
rate, is when it goes before the cabinet aides and when we have our local
hearing before an administrative law judge which is part of the process. If there is opposition then we might need
someone of his caliber to assist us but if the City of Coral Springs is on
board and Representative Ritter is on board and we have our local hearing and I
have been to many of those local hearings, probably 90 of them, if they are not
contested then all you do is enter the items that you need for the
administrative law judge to reach the conclusion that a C.D.D. is the best
vehicle for continual provision of these services that we are already
providing. That can be a fairly simple
process. Of course, like anything else,
if there are adversaries involved in that process, then it can go haywire in a
hurry. We won’t know until we actually
get through the process.
Mr.
Eissler asked does the City of Coral Springs have any objection to this?
Mr.
Moyer responded we haven’t talked to them.
Mr.
Fennell stated in reading through the material there are two political entities
we need to be concerned with and that is the city and the county. I think we need to go forward but we need to
approach the city to make sure there is no objection before we go further.
Mr.
Eissler stated maybe a better way to put it is “should” we do something like
that before we apply for the conversion?
Do you go to the city first?
Mr.
Fennell responded they will be notified and they will be at the meeting so we
want to have a good understanding and a good relationship with them going into
this process.
Mr.
Lyles stated if they wish to they can have their own public hearing and once
that is done, then we go forward and have the mandated local public hearing
conducted by an administrative hearing officer that will be directed out of
Tallahassee to conduct the hearing and compile the record and make a
recommendation to the Governor and Cabinet.
It is an optional hearing on the part of the city and we don’t know if
they would decide to have a hearing or not at this point because we haven’t
discussed any of the details with them.
Mr.
Fennell stated there might be more they want us to take on and that may be an
issue.
Mr.
Lyles responded there really is not a way for them to add to or subtract from
the services. It is spelled out in
Chapter 190, F.S. what the powers of a 190 district are. Certain powers are in the optional category
and at the consent of the city you exercise those and those are things such as
recreation and security. They could withhold
that consent going forward but things that we are already doing we are already
authorized to do.
Mr.
Moyer stated in 190.012 the (a) part comes with the district which is basically
water, sewer, water management, roads and street lights which you get. Those are not negotiable, those are the
powers you get. Then if you want to do
more such as playgrounds, parks and recreation, cultural, mosquito control, you
have to get specific approval from the city to do that.
Mr.
Eissler stated if we convert to a 190 district, could someone in the city say
this group is responsible for playgrounds?
Mr.
Moyer responded no, we would have to ask them for that grant of power.
Mr.
Lyles stated even if we had that power granted to us, they could not compel us
to exercise it.
Mr.
Fennell stated even though we have a great drainage system, we still get
flooded streets now and then because the drains are not taken care of in a
timely manner. It is supposed to be the
city doing that. From a homeowners
standpoint, I don’t care whose fault it is, I want to make sure the corner
drain gets taken care of.
Ms.
Archer stated the city says they do have a program to do that. We don’t own those drains, the city
does. It would be difficult to take on
the responsibility of maintaining property that isn’t ours.
Mr.
Joyce stated the city has a vacuum truck and it is their responsibility but it
is a hit or miss situation. We have in
the past sent crews out to take the debris off the catch basins and rake it
onto the lawn, even though it is not our responsibility. We get a lot of calls here relayed from the
city telling them to call the district.
Mr.
Eissler stated if we pursue this 190 conversion, and North Springs does not, if
Representative Ritter goes ahead with her legislation and it passes, would it
effect us?
Mr.
Moyer responded no.
Mr.
Eissler asked if we become a 190 district, from an operations standpoint, are
there negatives to this if the City exercises their provisions in 190.046(4)?
Mr.
Moyer responded your rates will never go down.
If the city takes over, they will basically absorb all of the good work
you have done in building a financially strong utility system. They would get the benefit of that.
Mr.
Fennell stated I saw two problems when I looked at this a couple of years ago
when that was tried. I went to the city
and looked at the budget and it was apparent that they are taking about 10%
from their utility system and putting it into the general fund. The second thing I saw was that they didn’t
have any expertise in running utilities.
They don’t have wastewater treatment.
They do generate their own water.
We have more expertise than they do.
I didn’t see where we would gain anything from that. There were no economies of scale or anything
like that. We take advantage of private
management for economies of scale.
We have an interconnect system for
water but there is no interconnect system for wastewater. I don’t know what we would do but we do have
some redundancy.
Mr. Eissler asked in the event of a
disaster, can we dump the wastewater elsewhere?
Mr. McKune responded yes, our
current operating permit allows us to discharge into the canal. If something happened to your plant, it
discharges into the canal, goes through the stormwater pump station, out into
the C-14 Canal and eventually the ocean.
As long as you are providing drinking water, you can do that.
Mr.
Moyer stated even in a hurricane situation and you get 18” of rain that totally
inundates these plants, that happens anyway and there is nothing you can do
about it, whether it is us or Fort Lauderdale or anyone else.
I
want to raise one other point that you need to be aware of. If we convert to a community development
district, there is a proscribed conversion process from landowner vote to
registered voter vote. In our case we
are over 5,000 acres, that conversion is 10 years. The issue is that we are already built out,
we are not starting something from scratch.
How do you get from an initial C.D.D. out ten years, in day one and I
don’t have an answer for that. I don’t
want to mislead Representative Ritter if the law says you create this district
and here is how you are going to vote for ten years, this is a general law of
the State of Florida, I’m not sure a special act can get us around that; I’m
not sure the bill she filed about all districts in Broward County will get you
there. We all deal with our reputations
in this and I don’t want to mislead her into thinking she has taken care of
that problem only to find out that we knew it was 10 years before the voting
converts. If we have less than 5,000
acres, it is six years.
Mr.
Fennell stated the election process outlined in 190 is for a new district not
for a conversion.
Mr.
Lyles stated it does not distinguish between a newly created district and a
district that exists and is converted to a 190 district. It does not have special conditions for a
district that is converted. In the absence
of special provisions, one reading is that you are stuck with what is there
which is the 6 or 10 year process. We
were sort of brainstorming this issue and wondering if there was a way to put
in the order something about advancing the timing issues, I’m not sure that can legally be done and
that is something that Mr. van Assenderp was gong to consider through this
process.
Mr.
Fennell stated the intent was that there was a certain age to the district and
as it develops, these things happen. We
certainly have that kind of aging process and the number of voters. It seems to me like a technicality as opposed
to the intent of the law. Who can we
inquire of about these issues?
Mr.
Moyer responded depending on what other legislation is out there dealing with
community development districts, and there probably will be a piece of legislation
this year dealing with C.D.D.’s, one was filed out of Pasco County, we could
amend that section of 190 that would tie the election process for non community
development districts that convert to a C.D.D. back into another Florida
Statute, which is Chapter 189 such that if your area is urbanized and in
Chapter 189 that is in 25% segments, for every 25% of urbanized area the
resident registered voters get to vote for one supervisor of a five member
board. In our case, that gets you to
where you need to be. We are fully
urbanized and therefore, all five supervisors will stand for election by
registered voters. That is somewhat of
an innocuous way of doing it. I don’t
want to raise this issue before the legislature to have them focus on it, but tying
it back into the 189 process is just ten words and I think that might be
something we can look at.
Mr.
Fennell stated Representative Ritter sits on some kind of committee for
consolidation of government. This may be
exactly what she should propose, for groups changing over, the conversions can
happen quicker given that they have the maturity that meets the criteria.
Mr.
Eissler stated before we start a conversion to a 190, I want to learn more
about it as to the pros and cons. If we do nothing and her legislation goes
through what does that do to us?
Mr.
Moyer responded if it is as narrow as what Mr. Lyles has been told, given what
we talked about under 190 the way the city can take power away from you, you
may say you have accomplished your purpose and going through the 190 process is
too difficult, too expensive, so we are going to abide by your bill and we will
implement the conversion according to the bill.
Ms.
Archer stated the way she is supposedly structuring this bill is that it is a
general bill relating to counties with a population of 1.5 million. It may effect other counties.
Mr.
Lyles stated essentially this bill will apply only to Broward County right
now.
Mr.
Eissler stated looking after the interests of the people who live here, if we
stay the way we are and all the refurbishing is done to the plant and we start
generating surplus, the rates can be reduced to all the residents. As a resident, I think that is good. I think that is what we are here for, to give
the best service for the lowest possible rate and that is good. Representative Ritter’s bill may fail. Looking after the residents of our District,
I think the prospect of lower water rates behooves everyone without doing a lot
of anything.
Mr.
Fennell stated we may be out of business in a year and a half if we don’t get
our bill read.
Mr.
Lyles stated we are required to prepare and submit a proposed bill to codify
our special acts that have passed over the years, into one. We have done that. We have prepared and submitted the bill in
the form required by the Florida Legislature to be passed by the full
legislature and to codify our bills. Due
to events that occurred at the local level at the delegation, the bill hasn’t
been heard in the past year. It was
taken up a couple of years ago and ultimately vetoed but the Department of
Community Affairs knows we have done what we are supposed to do. We have complied with the statute and will
continue to do that. I am not concerned
that the lack of a codification bill being passed would affect the viability or
the powers of this District at all. If
the delegation keeps having problems hearing our bill and letting it go forward
even though they sent others up, then that is their problem. We have done what we are supposed to do under
the law.
Mr.
Fennell asked how else can we convert to one man one vote?
Mr.
Moyer responded you can amend your own statute, your special act would be the
most targeted way to get it done instead of going through general law.
Mr.
Fennell stated that is basically what Representative Ritter did and it was
vetoed.
Ms.
Archer stated if we amend our own act, at the same time we should amend our
purchasing section and bring everything up to date all at once.
Mr.
Moyer stated the intent of making it a C.D.D. is good because there are a lot
of good things in community development districts that are more reflective of a
government in 2003 than they were back in 1970 which would help us a lot in the
way the District is operated.
Ms.
Archer stated we could put together our own amendments to our act and put it to
next year’s delegation.
Mr.
Moyer stated you heard me talk about 189 which is a companion bill dealing with
special districts. It is a general law
of the State of Florida and has a section that by referendum or by petition,
the District would go through a process of determining the amount of area that
is urbanized. If we are talking about
amending general law legislation, you could put in there that an existing Board
of Supervisors can make that determination without calling upon a referendum or
petition and give you the right to do that.
Then you would say, we are going to have our elections based on this
provision in Chapter 189 and we have determined that the District is 100% urbanized
which means all of our supervisors would be elected by registered voters. That is a fairly innocuous change to 189 that
doesn’t effect 190 districts, and doesn’t effect your special act. That doesn’t do any good in terms of
purchasing but that is another way to get to the end result, to give you the
discretion to make your own determination.
The nice thing about that is you could control when those elections
started and that is important because you don’t want to be on an odd year basis
which is what would have happened if Representative Ritter’s bill passed last
year. We would have had a general
election in 2003 and you would have to pay for that and that is expensive. You want to tie it to an even year general
election, then you are not going to pay very much for that.
Mr.
Fennell asked what would it cost to get 10% of the people signed up on a
petition?
Ms.
Archer stated the petition process just gets it on the ballot for a referendum
vote. It doesn’t mean the referendum
will pass.
Mr.
Fennell stated on one hand we are talking about $70,000 and I know there are
professional people who will go out and get signatures on a petition. How many
signatures do we need?
Mr.
Lyles stated we can get that number before the next meeting.
Mr.
Fennell stated it might be a more practical matter to just go do that.
Ms.
Archer stated that is what the Governor told Representative Ritter.
Mr.
Moyer stated Ms. Archer and I are good friends with Terry Lewis who is counsel
to the Association of Special Districts and they sponsor legislation. Terry Lewis wrote 189. I would be interested in his opinion on
amending 189. That is the easiest thing to
do.
Ms.
Archer stated that wouldn’t go through the local delegation. It is general law and will come out of bill
drafting. We can amend it such that this
Board will determine to go to an elector election.
Mr.
Eissler stated I was concerned when I read all of this. The easiest way is the way to go.
Ms.
Archer stated you still need to consider one day making amendments to your
special act to bring it into the real world.
Mr.
Moyer stated that will only take a couple of phone calls.
Mr.
Eissler stated that is fine.
Mr.
Fennell stated that sounds like a major change to 189.
Mr.
Moyer responded not really. It protects
those districts that have a very low urbanization but a large landowner
constituency base. This language doesn’t
jeopardize the landowner constituents, even if the Board wanted to go through
this process for the engineer to determine the amount of urbanization without
the referendum then I don’t think the major landowners really would have much
of a case to make because it converts based on urbanization and that is
consistent with the intent of the Chapter 190 legislation that at some point
these boards need to convert to a registered voter format rather than a
landowner format.
Mr.
Eissler stated that is the crux of the matter.
I have no objection of going to one person, one vote.
Mr.
Moyer stated in some cases it is much ado about nothing. Because districts are so specialized in what
we are doing, we do utilities and we do drainage which is not overly
political. You will find that when we go
through all of the gymnastics and we get it to a registered voter format, when
it is time to qualify to run for supervisor, in most cases you will be lucky to
get people to go down and qualify.
Mr.
Eissler stated I propose that we delay anything on 190 at this time and think
about it for awhile. I think there is
merit in doing nothing in this case.
Mr.
Moyer asked do you want me to make the call to Terry Lewis to see if he is
amenable to help us with that change to 189?
Mr.
Eissler responded yes.
Ms.
Archer asked do you want me to write a letter to Representative Ritter
explaining to her why we are not going forward with the 190 conversion at this
time?
Mr.
Fennell stated we did say we wanted to do this.
Ms.
Archer stated we can write a letter to Representative Ritter telling her the
reason we are still studying this is because we have a concern about when the
election would take place. That is
bringing her on board and letting her know that we are trying to get them done
sooner than later. We felt ten years out
was not going to be acceptance to either party.
If we are concerned about the elections and concerned that we will need
the city’s support in this and we haven’t talked to them yet and tell her one
of the options that we considered was an amendment to 189 that would allow the
Board to by-pass the 10% petition and referendum and go ahead and call for an
election on our own, then maybe we can get her support behind that move to
amend 189.
Mr.
Eissler stated that is very logical and sounds good.
Mr.
Fennell stated I think we should write a letter to her explaining what we are
thinking and what we did find.
Mr.
Eissler stated we have to remember we don’t know what her legislation looks
like either. I know what she said but it
may be different when it gets to Tallahassee.
Let’s not jump before there is a need to jump.
Ms.
Archer stated we may propose to her that our other option is to amend our own
act to allow for us to do that. We might
get her on board behind that as well.
Mr.
Moyer stated the problem with that is the Governor vetoed it last year and may
veto it this year because we are not following 189.
Mr. Fennell stated write a letter
but I think I will call and tell her what our thinking is and what issues we
ran into. We may still end up going door
to door with a petition.
Mr. Moyer stated the easiest thing
would be to send a letter and if you get 10% response then you probably have
the number you are looking for.
Ms. Archer stated under the option
to target the mechanism already in place in 189, would you be looking at the
2004 election to put that referendum on the ballot? We would have to gear up to target that and
there are probably due dates for referendums to be presented for the ballot.
Mr. Lyles stated if you go with
Chapter 189, then we would have to call a special election at our expense
within 6 months of certification that we have 10%. If you could accumulate the 10% petition
numbers you would be required to call a special election within the District in
June.
Ms. Archer stated you will have to
pay the full cost of that election.
Mr. Moyer stated the threshold on
this is when it is certified by the Supervisor of Elections and if we undertake
this project as a District and we are the collection agent, we are the ones
getting the letters back, we could set the time frame in which we get those
back and try to make it so that we hit the window so the election happens in
March 2004 if that is when municipal elections are taking place.
Mr. Eissler stated in order to do a
more in-depth review I suggest we delay any kind of vote pursuing conversion to
a 190 district. Write the letter to
Representative Ritter and tell her where we are at. There may be other options that are easier,
quicker and less expensive than conversion.
Ms. Archer stated you need to let me
know if you want me to write the letter to Representative Ritter.
Mr. Eissler responded I prefer to
see a letter go out.
Mr. Fennell stated I think we should
send a letter but I will call her too.
Mr. Lyles stated a letter would be
appropriate if signed by the President.
Ms. Archer stated I can draft it for
you.
Mr. Fennell stated I have other
issues I also want in the letter. We can
do both. We are asking staff to come
back with more information about other issues in 190 and other possible
solutions; what it will take to get 10% of the signatures for a petition and
what that will cost; and we need the actual proposed change to Chapter 189,
F.S.
Mr. Moyer stated it will only be one
or two sentences to add to 189; “in lieu of the provisions identified in this
section, an existing sitting governing board may make the declaration that they
want to convert to the provisions of . . . “
Mr. Fennell stated she is proposing
some type of legislation and maybe it should be this.
Mr. Lyles stated this language makes
it optional with the existing Board of Supervisors. Her legislation will make it mandatory.
Mr. Fennell asked are you saying it
is too simple?
Mr. Lyles responded the simpler the
better when you are talking about a lot of districts around the state. The simpler it is, the more likely it will pass.
Mr. Fennell asked then why don’t we
propose it to her?
Mr. Lyles responded I think the
letter you send will suggest that you are looking at that and reviewing that
and looking towards proposing that. I
don’t know that you want to be locked into certain words so that you can put it
in the letter. I think the letter ought
to be quick and go out timely and we ought to be able to reflect upon what we
are doing. Do we want to say something
in the proposed amendment to Chapter 189, F.S. to address older special
districts who would like to be modernized in terms of competitive bidding
requirements to keep it in line with other state statutes and upgrade that
while we are at it.
Ms. Archer stated our act
specifically limits us, it is not 189 that limits us and I think our act takes
precedent over general law.
Mr. Fennell stated I think we need
to mention that in this letter. I want
to make this as close to what you want to see.
Mr. Lyles asked mention the proposed
amendment to 189?
Mr. Fennell responded yes.
Ms. Archer stated I can talk to
Terry Lewis about that when I call him and we can draft the proposed language.
Mr. Fennell stated given the issues
we have we are going to ask staff to pursue those three different things and
delay this issue until next month.
SIXTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Staff Reports
A. Attorney
There not being any, the next item
followed.
B. Engineer
1. Monthly Water & Sewer Charts
2. Update on Construction
Mr. Eissler asked is the membrane
filtration proceeding?
Mr. McKune responded it will be
delivered by the 25th.
C. Superintendent – Continuation of Discussion
of Water Management Permit Renewal Policy
Ms. Archer stated I distributed the
proposed policy at the last meeting and we will set a public hearing to adopt
it for the March meeting.
Mr. Eissler stated a neighbor called
me because he had a high water bill and asked what he should do. I told him to call here. He is using 19,000 gallons per month. What happens when someone calls with a high
bill?
Ms. Archer responded the first thing
that we do is read the meter to see if he still has a problem. We will send someone out to see if the
irrigation system is hooked up to the potable water and if it is we will tell
him how it should be set. We will check
for leaks. We will help him identify the problem. He will have to call a plumber for any
repairs.
SEVENTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Supervisors Requests and Audience Comments
There
not being any, the next item followed.
EIGHTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Approval
of Invoices and Requisitions
On
MOTION by Mr. Eissler seconded by Mr. Fennell with all in favor the invoices
and requisitions were approved.
Meeting
adjourned at 5:45 p.m.
William
Eissler Robert
F. Fennell
Secretary President