MINUTES
OF MEETING
PINE
TREE WATER CONTROL DISTRICT
The
regular meeting of the Board of Supervisors of the Pine Tree Water Control District
was held on
Present and constituting a quorum were:
David Rosenof President
Margaret Bertolami Vice
President
Paul Brewer Secretary
Mark Weissman Supervisor
Also present were:
Ed Goscicki Interim Manager –
D.J. Doody Attorney
Peter Colussy CH2M-Hill
Randy Frederick Field Superintendent
John McKune District Staff
Susan Walker
Dan Daly
Several Residents
FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS Roll Call
Mr. Rosenof called the meeting to order and Mr. Goscicki called
the roll.
I
apologize for the confusion in the meeting time. I want to thank Mr. Doody and Mr. Goscicki
for their assistance.
For
those of you who do not know, I am running for the City Commission in the
fall. In the meantime, I will need to
resign from the Board in order to run.
Therefore, effective the date of the landowner’s election, I will tender
my resignation from this Board.
SECOND ORDER OF BUSINESS Audience Comments
There
not being any, the next item followed.
THIRD
ORDER OF BUSINESS Approval
of the Minutes of the April 10, 2007 Meeting
Mr.
Rosenof stated each Board member received a copy of the minutes of the
Mr.
Goscicki stated these minutes are in summary form because there was a problem
with the recording. If I missed
anything, provide those corrections to me now or email them to me and we will
include in the minutes for the next meeting.
On MOTION by Mr. Weissman seconded by Mr. Brewer with all in
favor the minutes of the
FOURTH ORDER OF
BUSINESS Discussion of
Tree Repair at Winner’s Circle/Country Acres
Mr. Colussy stated the last two outstanding tree removal
areas, Country Acres and Winner’s Circle have been completed. NRCS has been out for the last two weeks
performing final inspections. They
approved everything and are satisfied with the work.
I
have a photograph of the
Mr.
Rosenof asked are you required to install Turbidity Barriers?
Mr.
Colussy responded during construction but only when there is work taking place
in the water.
Mr.
Rosenof asked do they require you to keep the Turbidity Barrier up until the
grass comes in?
Mr.
Colussy responded no. We are not
excavating anything. We are just
installing sod.
Mr.
Rosenof asked did you get a permit from DEP?
Mr.
Colussy responded no.
Mr.
Rosenof stated DEP does not require them.
Mr.
Colussy stated we have not received any negative comments. All of the comments seem to be positive.
Mr.
Brewer stated the palms ended up being a good size.
Mr.
Colussy stated there are almost 300 in there.
They had so many; they had to squeeze them in.
Mr.
Weissman stated it looks more like a barrier than I expected it to be.
Mr.
Goscicki stated I agree. Mr. Colussy and
I were out there this afternoon and it is a dense full barrier.
Mr.
Rosenof asked have we heard anything from the resident who was upset about his sod?
Mr.
Colussy responded apparently he stopped by several times and talked to some
Stiles crew members. My understanding is
he questioned them on the hydro-seeding of the grass. We are doing what we can. They guaranteed us a year warranty but said
“Let it start raining and you will see a nice berm”.
Mr.
Rosenof stated sounds good.
Mr.
Colussy stated Winner’s Circle is much the same. The only problem we are having is Iguanas are
starting to eat some of the small plants.
I guess the pepper is sweet. NRCS
performed an inspection and they are satisfied with everything. The City of
Mr.
Rosenof asked did we receive any comments from the neighbors? We saw some neighbors across the pond who were not happy.
Mr.
Colussy stated I have not heard anything nor have our inspectors.
Mr.
Goscicki stated the only comment we received through the District office was
from Mr. George Rocca regarding the hydro-seeding. He was concerned the entire
area was not seeded. We had Mr. Colussy
confirm to him the hydro-seeding was completed.
Mr.
Colussy stated as we receive invoices from Stiles we will submit them to NRCS.
Mr.
Brewer stated good job.
FIFTH
ORDER OF BUSINESS Consideration
of Change Order No. 2 with Stiles Landscape Company for Hydro-Seeding the Canal
Adjacent to
Mr.
Rosenof stated I thought we already approved this.
Mr.
Goscicki stated this is a ratification. The Board approved it in concept at the last
meeting.
On
MOTION by Mr. Weissman seconded by Mr. Brewer with all in favor Change Order
No. 2 with Stiles Landscape Company for Hydro-Seeding the Canal Adjacent to
Mr.
Weissman stated I spoke with Commissioner Ilene Lieberman regarding a $5,000
grant. She already spoke to people about
this and I spoke to someone in the District Office. If there are any questions
about where we need to go, call Commissioner Lieberman’s office. She has pre-approval to receive $5,000. There are no discretionary funds.
Mr.
Rosenof asked are you aware about the process?
Mr.
Goscicki responded no.
Ms.
Walker stated I spoke with Mr. Weissman and we are working on it.
Mr.
Daly stated emails were sent and phone calls were made. I recall seeing on the commission website,
the grant for 2006. I called
Commissioner Lieberman twice and received no response.
Mr.
Weissman stated call Commissioner Lieberman’s office and ask for her aide,
Dorathea. She is aware of this.
Mr.
Goscicki stated I can meet with Mr. Daly tomorrow.
SIXTH
ORDER OF BUSINESS Manager’s
Report
A. Distribution of Proposed Budget for
Fiscal Year 2008 and Consideration of Resolution 2007-3 Approving the Budget
and Setting the Public Hearing
Mr.
Goscicki stated I distributed the proposed budget for fiscal year 2008. The budget process begins with us submitting
the budget to the Board for approval.
This approval allows us to establish the public hearing date, at which
time the budget will be adopted. Between
now and the public hearing date, the Board has the opportunity to review and
modify this budget. There will be some
modification of this budget as we move forward.
This year’s budget anticipated taking out a short-term Line of Credit to
fund some of the hurricane tree removal.
We have not moved forward with this short-term financing and we need to
do so. The numbers in the budget reflect
this fact. According to the first page
of the budget, we are in the negative by $91,402 in the fund balance. Without taking out the short-term loan, we
used all of the reserves to implement this $500,000 improvement. We will be taking out the short-term loan
towards the end of the fiscal year.
However, there will still be an increase in assessments from this year
to the next.
Mr.
Rosenof stated from $142.75 to $226.81.
Mr.
Goscicki stated it will probably be less because when we put the short-term
financing in place, it will reduce the $91,402 to zero or maybe into a slight
positive. We wanted to give you a budget
we know will not come back and exceed.
This budget is fairly conservative in terms of what the maximum
assessments could be so we are not in the position later on of raising them
because it creates another notification problem.
Mr.
Rosenof stated this is the first time in years we have not changed the taxable
units.
Ms.
Walker stated it will be changed later.
Mr.
Goscicki stated it will work its way through the process. This is why I requested Mr. Colussy and Ms.
Walker attend tonight’s meeting. The
public hearing is scheduled for July 5th. We may want to discuss this date as Board
members may be planning a long weekend for the July 4th holiday.
Mr.
Weissman stated there is going to be a special section of the legislature. How will this impact our ability to collect
what we are proposing?
Mr.
Goscicki responded from what I understand, the issue in front of the
legislature deals with ad-valorem assessments and not special assessments.
Mr.
Weissman stated there have been some members who focused on some of these
Special Taxing Districts, including some from this area.
Mr.
Goscicki stated I will have to defer to District Counsel and other experts but
my understanding is the focus of the legislature to date has been on ad-valorem
taxes and the increase in property values and the inflation it created in
governments and districts alike. In the
case of this District, we are talking about a special benefit tied to the
property, which is separate and different from an ad-valorem tax that is not
property or unit specific. We will
create this tax across the entire system and recognize some people will use the
service.” For the legislature to approve
some legislation requiring us to rollback a special assessment, in some cases,
this may not be possible to do.
Mr.
Weissman asked can they do this by general law?
Mr.
Doody responded yes.
Mr.
Weissman stated as I see it, during those 10 days, everything is going to be
wide open. The House and Senate are
obviously on different pages. They might
get away with it this year because there is no election.
Mr.
Goscicki stated we are watching this.
For CSID and NSID, we have a paid Lobbyist in
Mr.
Weissman stated we should have a contingency plan if we are rolled back to
2004, which is a possibility as opposed to sitting here on July 5th two weeks
after the session ends and it is too late to do anything. Maybe, this is something we should look at
today as we have more time.
Mr.
Goscicki stated we will go back and look at potential rollbacks to 2004.
Mr.
Weissman stated this seems like something they were negotiating. At one point they were talking about 2001 or
2002.
Mr.
Goscicki stated we will go back to 2004 to see what this means in revenue. It is probably dire in terms of the impacts
on the District. The challenge the Board
has is you just spent the reserves you had to deal with the hurricane
issues. You could be in a dire situation
of almost having to shut down all of your maintenance.
Mr.
Weissman asked do we have the ability to special assess the residents?
Mr.
Doody responded you may have this ability but I will have to research this
further. We are a creature of a special
act. I am inclined to say yes but I want
to make sure I will be able to cite you the section of the special act.
Mr.
Weissman stated unless they pass some general law precluding this. We should analyze what we can do and what we
cannot do to see if we have any options.
Mr.
Doody stated passing a special assessment on a blanket basis becomes a legal
challenge.
Mr.
Rosenof stated let’s move forward on this basis. In two months, we will have a public hearing
and look to staff to bring options to us as far as contingency funds for
whether or not we can levy a special assessment or put the roots back into the
canal.
Mr.
Goscicki stated we will bring back a contingency plan at the June meeting.
Mr.
Doody stated to clarify; the Board is not approving the budget. The budget is still subject to approval.
Mr.
Rosenof stated we are approving the draft as the basis of setting the public
hearing.
Ms.
Bertolami asked will it include the contingency plan?
Mr.
Goscicki responded no. You are approving
a set of numbers for the purpose of establishing the public hearing.
Mr.
Rosenof stated if it was egregious enough to where we did not want to let the
public see it, then we would not vote on it but if it is close enough to where
we think it will pass public scrutiny, we should approve it now and it will be
brought before the public in 60 days.
Mr.
Goscicki stated correct. You have the
opportunity during the 60 days to amend this budget.
Ms.
Bertolami asked will the reimbursement be shown through September of 2007?
Mr.
Goscicki responded yes. It represents
monies not collected and we anticipate collecting. The uncollected money is what we anticipate
collecting on the 75% of the $68,000.
Mr.
Doody stated Resolution 2007-3 by title is:
“A
RESOLUTION OF THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS OF THE PINE TREE WATER CONTROL DISTRICT
APPROVING THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2008 AND SETTING A PUBLIC HEARING THEREON
PURSUANT TO FLORIDA LAW”
On
MOTION by Mr. Brewer seconded by Mr. Weissman with all in favor Resolution
2007-3 as stated above was adopted.
B. Consideration
of Resolution 2007-4 Designating Signatories
Mr.
Goscicki stated this is a housekeeping issue in order to have Ms. Pamela Rower
who is our Fiscal Manager be designated as Treasurer and me as Assistant
Treasurer. This will allow us to get our
names on signature cards at the bank to make sure your funds are taken care of
and checks get cut.
On
MOTION by Ms. Bertolami seconded by Mr. Weissman with all in favor Resolution
2007-4 Designating Ms. Rower and Mr. Goscicki as Signatories was adopted.
SEVENTH
ORDER OF BUSINESS Attorney’s
Report
Mr.
Doody stated in regards to the budget, our legal representation provides
services to the District on an hourly basis in the amount of $185 per
hour. This is a governmental rate, which
we provide to our governmental clients.
The rate does not increase based on any requests you make but on
increased activity. Hopefully it will
decrease in the coming year.
Mr.
Brewer stated unless we have a hurricane.
You are saying there are no hourly rate changes unless there is more
activity.
Mr.
Doody stated there have not been any changes over the past year or two.
Mr.
Rosenof asked can we look at cost recovery for any of your time with the Stiles
matter?
Mr.
Doody responded it was discussed but never finalized.
Mr.
Rosenof asked how can we pursue this?
Mr.
Goscicki responded at this point, you can resolve your final change order with
Stiles and close it out. To try to go
back and resurrect it now, will be difficult.
Mr.
Rosenof asked do you agree?
Mr.
Doody responded yes. With respect to the
un-permitted culvert, I have been sending letters to contractors and the
developer. I also called the City
Attorney and provided him a copy of the letters saying the culvert needs to be
removed as it was not approved by the District and failure to do so, the
District will consider other avenues. I
am not threatening them but simply asking them to remove it.
Mr.
Rosenof asked do you know who issued the permit?
Mr.
Doody responded I think it was the city.
Ms.
Bertolami stated the process has been the city issues the building permit for
construction and is a part of what is required in Pine Tree and what the
engineer looks at, signs off on and makes recommendations. This individual is now the one running the
department. In order to obtain a
building permit, the applicant has to submit drainage plans.
Mr.
Rosenof stated your signature is on the permit.
Ms.
Bertolami stated in order to obtain a building permit; it has to go through an
engineer for review independent of the city.
I was not aware of this either.
Mr.
Rosenof stated it is unsafe.
Mr.
Brewer asked how long have we had the letter out to the city?
Mr.
Doody responded not long. Mr. Craven
just got back to us with the information this week.
I
spoke to Mr. Tom McDowell of Craven, Thompson.
There had been some discussions in terms of Mr. Craven along with
Craven, Thompson. Once they close their
matter, I will move forward to formalize the relationship Craven, Thompson has
with the District for the services of Mr. Warren Craven. They seem to be going in separate
directions.
Mr.
Rosenof stated we are on loose agreements with many of our consultants.
Mr.
Doody stated in terms of the ongoing discussion of notices, I want to bring
this matter to conclusion. I spoke to
the manager prior to today’s meeting and suggest the Board give us some
direction as to a convenient time. The Special
Act does not mandate the Board meeting at
Mr.
Rosenof stated
Mr.
Brewer responded no.
Ms.
Bertolami responded
Mr.
Goscicki stated the problem with moving the time up is providing reasonable
notice. This is where we start getting
uncomfortable. There is no problem
moving it back because all we have to do is put a note on the door saying we
will be there in half an hour but if you move it up, the burden is on us to
show we gave reasonable notice. It takes
three days to get an advertisement placed in the newspaper.
Mr.
Rosenof asked does it have to be in the newspaper? Can we put it on the website?
Mr.
Goscicki responded we could but then again it comes down to what is reasonable
notice. Placing an advertisement in the
newspaper in the community section is reasonable notice. Whether or not it is reasonable for everyone
in the community to know you have a website and know how to access it are
arguments we do not want to get into.
Mr.
Doody stated it is not mandated or legally required by a statute of the Special
Act. However, a better course of conduct
has been one that is followed. If you do
not want to spend the money, discuss it during your budget deliberations.
Mr.
Rosenof stated good idea. You are tied
to
Mr.
Goscicki stated the District has a website, which is www.FLADistricts.com.
Mr.
Rosenof asked can we get a link for the
Mr.
Goscicki responded there is a link from our website to the City of
Mr.
Rosenof stated I would like for there to be a link from their websites to the
District website. For the City of
Ms.
Bertolami stated her email address is: Shayes@CityofParkland.org.
Mr.
Rosenof stated maybe she can add a link for NSID, which is on the other side of
Mr.
Daly stated two years worth of minutes are already published.
EIGHTH
ORDER OF BUSINESS Engineer’s
Report
There
not being any, the next item followed.
NINTH
ORDER OF BUSINESS Supervisor’s
Requests
Ms.
Bertolami stated the engineering fees are excessive over what was
projected. I suggest going forward, staff keep a handle on what transactions are causing these
peeks and try to initiate some cost recovery work. Is this reasonable?
Mr.
Rosenof responded absolutely
Mr.
Goscicki stated I agree. Most of the
overages are due to CH2M-Hill and not your District
Engineer. CH2M-Hill provides services to
a number of districts we work with. I
have been meeting with them on how to get better reporting on a routine basis
so we as your manager are better informed on the status of each project and
their fees.
Ms.
Bertolami stated if there is something we can put into place to curb those
fees, it would be appropriate.
Mr.
Goscicki stated a large part of the engineering fees associated with this
project are also reimbursed. We did not
put all of those engineering reimbursables into the budget yet as we are still
working through some of the numbers. It
is getting better. We spent a great deal
of time today with the team working through some of these issues.
Mr.
Doody stated if this Board wants to go the cost recovery route, I suggest you
enact a resolution clarifying what you are going to do in terms of recovery
based on recommendations from staff on costs such as administrative and legal.
Mr.
Rosenof asked have you looked at our permit fees to make sure they are
reflective of the engineering costs?
Mr.
Doody responded I do not think there has been any increase.
Ms.
Bertolami stated it surprises me some of the costs coming through here were
specific to a small number of people who benefited from it.
Mr.
Rosenof asked can you prepare a resolution for the next meeting?
Mr.
Doody responded this may be premature as you need to have recommendations from
staff such as your engineer.
Mr.
Rosenof asked does the resolution need to be based on activity?
Mr.
Doody responded the resolution has to set forth the basics on how much you are
going to recover and what activities you are going to recover. Legislatively, you are going to create a
document establishing your legal basis for the recovery of fees. You are charging people and you are not going
to know what those costs are. You are
only dealing with the concept. You need
the recommendations to put those costs in there.
Mr.
Rosenof asked is this something Severn Trent Services can put together for us?
Mr.
Goscicki responded this is something we need to work with the engineer on. You currently have a permit process but the
fee is based on some historical estimate of the cost of providing this
service. What I hear the Board question
is whether there are real spikes in the engineering activity, probably
associated with some of these issues.
Most of your engineering costs deal with construction and the Stiles
issue and not so much on the permitting.
Mr.
Doody stated in fairness to the HOA, they wrote a check for my fees and for Mr.
Craven’s fees.
TENTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Approval of Financials
and Invoices
Mr.
Weissman stated we did not receive a balance sheet.
Ms.
Walker stated when I emailed them to Ms. Ilana Rabone last week, the financials
were all there. Maybe the Recording
Department did not include them with the agenda package.
Mr.
Goscicki stated I am not asking you to assess blame on anyone. Did you bring copies with you?
Ms.
Walker responded no. We will get this
out to you.
On MOTION by Mr. Weissman seconded by Mr. Weissman with all
in favor the financials and check registers for April were tabled until the
next meeting.
Mr.
Goscicki asked do you find the balance sheet to be a useful tool? Some Boards look at the balance sheet,
especially those who have a financial background and understand it. Other’s do not care and look at what was
budgeted and spent. If you find this to
be a useful tool, we will certainly keep giving it to you but if you are not
satisfied we can change it.
Mr.
Brewer responded you can make some of these municipalities place a deposit and
then we would draw off of this amount.
Then if it is a returnable fund, we could give them money back.
Mr.
Weissman asked do we have a collection problem?
Mr.
Brewer responded not so much collecting the money but we are not recovering our
costs.
Ms.
Walker stated we were required to retain a deposit for certain projects where we
had to keep track of it and at the end, I refunded the money.
Mr.
Rosenof stated from a realistic point of view, we have not issued many permits
this year. The bigger problem is these are
special exceptions. The money is
bleeding out from special projects.
Mr.
Brewer stated due to the hurricane and the Stiles matter, we exceeded our
budget. I am going to have to go through
this budget line by line because I am confused.
We will have to issue a higher assessment for every homeowner and borrow
money. I do not know how much cost recovery we can do.
Mr.
Goscicki stated if you have any questions on the budget; feel free to give me a
call.
Ms.
Bertolami stated we can establish a Special District to benefit specifically
from procedures we put into place.
Mr.
Rosenof stated Mr. Doody would have a problem with this. We talked about this a couple of times.
Ms.
Bertolami stated I thought this was doable and we could have an unnamed
subdivision benefit specifically from something this Board could provide to
them.
Mr.
Doody stated you can levy a special assessment.
Ms.
Bertolami stated maybe we need to see something in writing outlining this going
forward.
Mr.
Doody stated you can do this on a smaller scale as it will be difficult on a
legal basis to apply it across the entire District. I think there is discussion on cleaning up
the canals.
Mr.
Rosenof stated a lot had to do with the
Mr.
Doody stated the question was where the District gets the money. There was the discussion on issuing them a
special assessment. Other members of the
District not affected by this canal were going to be asked to bear this
burden. Legally you cannot do this.
Ms.
Bertolami stated going forward; we need to keep in the back of our minds
whether there are procedures we can follow; something affecting a small group
of people rather than the entire District.
Mr.
Doody stated we can do this if there is a special benefit accruing to them and
we can identify this benefit.
Mr.
Daly stated I work for CSID. I had the
opportunity to go the city to receive a plaque of appreciation for the waterway
cleanup, which Mr. Frederick and his staff were
involved in. I wanted to give the Board
some t-shirts.
Mr.
Doody stated for the record, you should ask members of the public for questions
regarding any matters considered today.
Mr.
Rosenof asked are there any questions from the public? Not hearing any,
ELEVENTH ORDER OF BUSINESS Adjournment
There
being no further business,
On MOTION by Mr. Brewer seconded by Mr. Weissman with all in
favor the meeting was adjourned.
Paul
Brewer David
Rosenof
Secretary President