February 12, 2002

From audio tapes purchased from clerk of Citrus BOCC by FOI
(Note: there were audio problems throughout the meeting. Some unintelligible words are noted by question marks.)

Speakers:

Chairman of the BOCC:		Jim Fowler (JF), Commissioner
Second Vice Chairman:		Vicki Phillips (VP), Commissioner
Commissioner:		Josh Wooten (JW), Commissioner
Administrator:		Richard Wesch (RW)
Director of Engineering & Planning for Florida's Turnpike:		Kevin Thibault (KT)

JF: We will move to Item 2-K, 2:35 time certain, well… JF: Ladies and gentlemen, this is will be the presentation by DOT regarding the Sunshine Coast Parkway. They are going to…will need a couple of minutes to set up I suppose. KT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Commissioners. Again my name is Kevin Thibault and I am the director of Planning and Engineering for Florida's Turnpike. We are here today to kickoff our Planning, Development and Environmental Study for the Suncoast 2 corridor. We are going to have a very short presentation about ten minutes long with both a voice and video presentation and at which point we'll open it up to any questions that the Commission may have. With that…with me by the way I have Raymond Ashe who is our manager of environmental management office as well as Herschel Conner and Jeff Schlotter from H.W. Lochner who we have hired for this study. With that, Jeff… (Power Point and narration begin) From Presentation: In its 1990 session the Florida legislature passed a bill requiring the development of a Florida intrastate highway system. This plan as defined… (clerk's recording of audio stops) KT (after presentations ends): Now, Mr. Chairman, we now open it up to any questions you may have. JF: Board members, any questions? (short portion with unintelligible audio and noise) JF: Mr., Mr. Commissioner Wooten. JW: I know that there are…can you hear me now?…mike's down… JF: I think your mike is not working. JW: Well my concern is with this 36 months. This puts an awful lot of people with their lives on hold, and while I know that the process (unintelligible??). I'm proposing that we move forward so that those people that are directly in the path or proposed path can have some closure. KT: I understand. We are going to try everything we can to expedite. I think we were trying to project to you, hopefully, that would be a worst case scenario. We don't want to drag it out any longer than we need to but we need to do it justice. We need to do due diligence on it. We are going to need to make sure we do a proper? analysis. That's why we need to take the time to do it right. JF: Anything else Commissioner Wooten? (Not very audible). Commissioner Phillips… I was not here. One last thing is that a letter was sent that they were purchasing? environmental? land…maybe you can clarify that thing (not intelligible from tape)… VP: Yes. When I was chairman, a letter was sent to the state regarding acquiring land for preservation? Around 98 and Sugarmill Woods area. And we had talked about that and Mr. Wesch had forwarded a letter, copy of that letter. Maybe Mr. Wesch would remember. At our request he forwarded a copy of that… RW: To Mr. Gibilaro. In fact Commissioner, there were two letters sent because there were two tracts at issue, one I believe dating back to 1992 and the latter to 1996, 1997. In both cases the Board went on record in supporting the transition? of the property to public ownership provided impacts on the Suncoast 2 were properly taken into account. And those documents have been furnished. JW: And Mr. Chairman, as I recall, we was told that it would not interfere with the routing? If they moved foRWard with this purchase. And I think we have that in writing. VP: Mr. Chairman. JF: Commissioner Phillips. VP: One question that came to my mind now that Commissioner Wooten brought that issue up is that now you are going through a Napa and that will be under the National Environmental Protection and don't, will those, those requirements be more stringent than those, than the state ones? KT: Yes, they typically are. VP: And I have to wonder if they will take into consideration our stance on it at that particular time since we are now looking at federal standards instead of state standards? KT: Well then, as we coordinate the project, the agency will coordinate at the federal? level with the Federal Highway Administration. They're the lead federal agency and we will share with them all the documentation that has occurred as relates to the acquisition of those properties by the Department of Environmental Protection and other documentation. So we'll have that when we go to make our analysis and decision? making. VP: Thank you. JF: Ok, Mr. Thibault, thank you very much. Thank you guys for coming up today. We will move to Item 2-L. End of Item 2-K Transcript