Photo by QUENTIN ROUX

Staff

Steven Thompson is a candidate for the Marco city manager position.

Photo by KELLY FARRELL

Staff

City Planner Bryan Milk, recommended by Parks and Recreation Director Dana Souza, participated in the City Council meeting as Milk will become interim Parks and Recreation director when Souza departs the city Nov. 14.

Special to the Eagle

Bob Creighton, City of Marco Island purchasing/contracts manager is named interim Finance Director after the October retirement of Bill Harrison.

MARCO ISLAND — There are always a number of issues facing any energetic city, and the Marco staff works to avoid surprises and to ensure that the City Council is informed on issues and able to respond to citizens. We do so under a comprehensive communications strategy, using a variety of communication methods and tools, and one important tool is this weekly summary of issues, projects and concerns, known as the “Weekly Update”.

The update is intended to provide timely and regular information for the City Council, and often includes substantive and critical information. Copies are also provided through the city’s Website, cityofmarcoisland.com, for the community.

Public Records Requests

In the past, the City of Marco Island has followed the state statutes on the Sunshine Law and Public Records Requests, and some of the definitions in the state statutes are open to definition on reasonableness and response. As with any organization, the city has interpreted the broad guidelines, and as clarification to the present practice we have developed an administrative policy on this issue. This memorandum serves as guidance to city staff, and of course if City Council would like to address this issue or provide further guidance I hope council will do so.

Administrative Policy on records requests, dated Nov. 6 to city department directors:

In the past, the city of Marco Island has followed the state statutes on the Sunshine Law and Public Records Requests, and some of the definitions in the state statutes are open to definition on reasonableness and response. This Memo serves to advise city staff on the Administrative Policy for Public Records Requests.

Our emphasis is on providing responses on a timely and reasonable basis, with an emphasis on transparency and openness in city government. At the same time, however, at times the volume of requests will affect the workload of the other work going on in the city, and the state statutes, therefore, provide the city with the ability to respond on a timely basis, and charge the cost for this response to the individual requesting the records. Accordingly, the process that we follow is as follows:

• The City Clerk (Laura Litzan) serves as the central contact point for all records requests, beyond any simple request that you can simply answer or provide with an “off the shelf” type of response. In other words, if you receive a request for a copy of the budget or other document that you have in your office readily available, please respond immediately. Otherwise, if there is a need to compile records and to prepare a formal search for the records, send these requests through the City Clerk.

• We charge for the cost of copies at 15¢ per page, and for the time required to meet the request. Again, with the emphasis that anything that is readily available that we do so without question, the first five pages of information are provided without charge. Beyond five pages, we charge the cost of copies.

• We also charge for the staff time taken to meet the request. If the request takes 15 minutes or less, then there is no charge, and we treat this as having the information readily available. If the request requires more than 15 minutes of staff time to meet the request, then we charge the cost of the staff time, special equipment charges, or third party costs that the city will otherwise have to pay.

Please let me know if you do have specific questions regarding this policy, and again we continue to emphasize that the City’s records are readily available to the public. If there is a cost to the City, then of course this cost is passed on to the individual requesting the records, as outlined above.

Thank you for your continued cooperation and support for this community.

Steven T. Thompson

City Manager

50 Bald Eagle Drive

(239)389-5000

E-mail and Records Retention

Comments were provided at Monday’s City Council meeting that the city is not in compliance with the State’s records retention laws and that the city faces a major crisis with this issue. Useful information is often revealed with public questions and concerns, and I never mind researching or responding to these questions. In this instance the comment was incorrect and the crisis does not exist.

In May, my concern was that the city did not have custody of these records and could not guarantee that the state’s requirements for records storage were being met. At that time we confirmed that we do have the records, and that the problem was instead with the difficult archiving or indexing method that allowed our third-party provider to locate a specific record or e-mail in the system – this presented a problem similar to the analogy of finding a needle in the haystack, and made public records requests expensive to fill.

I raised the question and was satisfied with the response that the retention schedules have been met. We immediately implemented the change to Outlook to resolve the archiving/indexing issue, and members of City Council will recall our August discussion on this issue, our changes to your computers, and the training that we provided to the organization.

Following Monday’s meeting I asked staff to again confirm that these e-mails and records are available and now in the city’s custody. City records, crime reports, memos and e-mails are also retained.

City Seeks Volunteers for Citizens’ Ad Hoc Financial Planning Committee

The city of Marco Island is seeking full or part-time residents to serve on the City’s Citizens’ Ad Hoc Financial Planning Committee. The committee is being formed to help City Council better understand key imperatives that council will need to consider in addressing a potential fiscal crisis in the FY 2010 budget. The time frame for involvement in the committee is December 2008 through April 2009. Interested individuals should submit a resume and/or letter of interest to the City of Marco Island, Attention City Clerk, 50 Bald Eagle Drive, Marco Island, FL 34145 no later than November 19, 2008. Call Laura Litzan at 389-5010 for more information.

County Rebroadcast of Council Meetings

We have received requests for broadcast of city meetings over the Collier County government channel, channel 11 on the Comcast system. The county has not carried the broadcasts over the past several months, and in our discussions we understand that the county will not be able to accommodate these broadcasts on a regular basis, either now or in the future. The city is moving forward with plans to add rebroadcast this capability to the Marco Island channel, channel 12, and we do hope to have this available in November or early December with the break between City Council meetings.

Finance Department

Acting Finance Director. With the retirement of Bill Harrison, Bob Creighton has agreed to serve as the Acting Finance Director for the city as the city goes through the recruitment process. Currently, Creighton is the city’s purchasing manager and has been here since May 2004. Creighton’s knowledge and financial background is welcomed during this transition period. He will serve until a new director is selected, with an expected offer date in December.

Parks and Recreation Department

Acting Director. Bryan Milk has agreed to serve as the Acting Director for Parks and Recreation with Dana Souza’s resignation later this month. Milk was recommended by Dana Souza, and after reviewing this with Milk I agree that he is the right person for this position. We will not replace Milk as city planner, and instead he will balance both duties as necessary. Community Development Director Steve Olmsted will have the ability to bring in contract assistance as necessary to meet the workload.

Public Works Department

Sewer Impact Fees. During Monday’s City Council meeting Herbert Schneider asked about the impact fees charged on his property, and the background on this starts with the development of water and wastewater capital facilities fees in May of 2004. These fees are imposed on all new development that places additional demand on water and wastewater facilities to pay their proportionate share of the cost to expand capacity of the facilities. On Nov. 6, 2006, City Council increased the wastewater capacity fee from $2,910 to $4,610 per ERC. This increase is based on increasing the capacity to the collection and treatment system as a result of the Council decision to implement the STRP program.

To summarize, prior to STRP each property in the existing sewer service areas that was being developed or redeveloped was charged an impact fee of $2,910 per ERC. After the STRP start, this was modified to $4,610 per ERC to cover the cost of increasing capacity in our system to accommodate the STRP. We have verbally explained this to Mr. Schneider and asked for him to come in if he needed additional information.

Updated Sewer Construction Maps.

Earlier this week, the contractor completed installation of all gravity main sewer lines on both Sheffield and Lamplighter projects. Over the next month the contractor will be installing the remaining laterals, force mains, and lift station equipment, plus doing neighborhood restoration & testing. City inspection and punch list work will follow. The asphalt overlay will be last and likely in December. Maps of each district can be found on the city’s Website front page, cityofmarcoisland.com, under the “Septic Tank Replacement Program” heading.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at 389-5001.

Steven T. Thompson, City Manager

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