County Manager Speaks at East Naples Civic & Commerce Luncheon

East Naples Civic & Commerce (ENC&C) hosted Collier County Manager Amy Patterson as the guest speaker at a luncheon in October at the Lely Resort Players Club. 

The county’s focus is on vital areas such as service roads, stormwater, beaches, and environmental conservation. Specific and evolving complex projects that require ongoing planning and policy considerations, such as the conversion of a former Quality Inn property adjacent to the county-owned Golden Gate golf course, are operational and progressing according to reasonable expectations.

 “We are always looking for good policy suggestions and are open to all recommendations,” Patterson said.  Other notable projects include “maintaining our assets as well as replacing the aging infrastructure…with more aggressive maintenance. We also had a $60 million bond for capital improvements, which we will have expended fully this year. There's much more to come.”

Patterson explained that septic sewer conversion is a high priority for the Board of County commissioners. “It may surprise folks that in the urban area, we have pockets of neighborhoods that are on septic. So Capri is one. There is a neighborhood down towards the city of Naples. We call it west, but between 41 and Goodlette there are about 900 septic systems.”  The county has removed 300 of the 900 septic systems in that area. 

“The thing about these neighborhoods is many of them outfall into sensitive receiving water and those are impaired. Water bodies are ones that are very environmentally sensitive, and removing folks off of septic is a high priority.”

With regard to growth management and the idea that “growth pays for growth” when it comes to needed resources for new developments, Patterson acknowledged growing concerns from the community and stated that “public trust” is a priority. “The number one thing that we have to do is be honest… with our leadership, our commissioners, and be honest with you as our residents. And even when you don't like what we have to say, we owe you the honesty.” Though she feels growth can give a community “character,” she acknowledges there has to be a balance.

The focus of the presentation then turned to the budget. It was explained that 2023 figures were used for the presentation as there was not “much difference in 2024 other than the taxable values and growth components. But really, the slide intends to show you what a $2.8 billion gross budget looks like. And the slices of pie and where they go.”

She went on to say, “Because when we talk about these numbers, remember that the discretionary portions of the budget are those the board has true control over, and how they spend slides down to about 23% of this pie in our general fund. That's about $637 million in 2023, about $650 million in 2024. The rest of these funding sources are specific.” In addition, some of the funds are restricted, which “means they're collected for a purpose and they can only be used for that purpose.”

Update of the Strategic plan and budget “are tied together…we're building things. We're maintaining things. We're providing for public safety. But we're really thinking about being strategic. We want to make sure that from the bottom of the organization, all the way to the top, that the staff and the leadership really know what's meaningful to the commissioners, but also what's meaningful to them and how are we executing those things.”  

As part of this budget process, staff will present a refresh of the plan to the board in January, with an updated inventory report connected to their five-year planning document for “construction of roads, water, sewer, and stormwater,” the latter being a major interest of Patterson’s having served in various county positions over two decades and as deputy manager before taking the helm.

She pointed out on the sample screen that “you can see up on the top our values, vision and mission statement, as well as board priorities and county manager priorities. She added that they are “looking at that next group of people that are going to step up into those leadership roles. And how do we encourage people to come try the county out? They don't. It's not the type of thing where you wake up one day generally and say, I think I'll go work for the county. I ended up there by accident, and we want to try to encourage people that there is a career path at the county. And it doesn't mean that when you start with one thing, that's what you end up doing, there's all sorts of things that you can do, from public utilities to parks, depending on your area of interest and tons of room to move…We're always looking for good help. Our job is to recommend sustainable policies. We like to do things that are going to last.”

In conclusion as the presentation wound down, she mentioned the Pine Ridge and the Immokalee corridor improvements. “These are two that are sequenced with FDOT. Because of the involvement of the interchanges, they are very problematic for traffic, and they are looking to incorporate some of the newest technology in transportation intersection improvements …that maybe they're going to move away from the continuous flow intersection, but this is being pretty innovative because once we get built out to six lanes, not only are we constrained by our growth management plan, but also we're constrained because these roads have everything on the sides of them,” and no large parcels of property can acquired.