Village Commission - Special Meeting

Anyone know if Commissioner Ansler is coming through? No? Yeah, please. Nope. Is that her? I didn't want to get started if she was on her way.

All right then.

9 o'clock, right? Are they playing? Doesn't matter. Some days they'll start earlier. I think just yesterday they started at noon. Yeah, and then that night, there's like a late game that starts at midnight. It's all, yeah, it's like West Coast. Right, exactly. It's 9 o'clock there at times. Answer? Is there someone else on Zoom? Okay. All right. Good evening, everyone. It's 6.04. We are here for our special commission meeting today, Tuesday, June 16, 2026. And we will call the meeting to order. Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Mayor Groff?

Here.

Vice Mayor Gonzalez? Commissioner Amsler? Commissioner Huntington?

Here.

Commissioner Samara?

Here.

Mr. Mayor, you have a quorum.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Can we do the Pledge of Allegiance, please?

And I'm stuck.

All right, so let's go ahead and move on to our public comment. We'll start with folks here in the log cabin, then we'll move on to Zoom. There we go.

No problem.

590 Northeast 121st Street.

First of all, I really appreciated the discussion around the property tax amendment during the last meeting. I just want to mention one thing that wasn't mentioned was how this would affect renters in the village. The tax burden would most likely be shifted to landlords, causing increases in rent, which is already way too high in Miami-Dade. I know that's for the Commission meeting. But regarding the freebie termination, there is something we could do today. The way this all went down was not befitting of a village that cares about its elderly and disabled residents who cannot walk to a bus stop. For a matter of 20K, it should be a no-brainer to keep the service that was added after bus routes were removed. It's actually a matter of public safety. I'd like to remind you that when Al was hired, residents brought up concerns that doubling his salary would take away from much-needed road repairs. We were promised it wouldn't, that our current services wouldn't be affected, and that a village manager of his caliber could figure out how to fund his salary and road repairs another way. I continue to be dumbfounded by your decisions that are making us a less inclusive community, like eliminating emails as communication to elderly residents who do not use apps. Mayor Groth, please call a special meeting to vote again on freebie when all commission members can be present. If there are defensive responses made to the public's freebie comments, I ask everyone listening to ponder exactly who those rebuttals are serving. Thank you.

Barbara Kuehl, 777 Northeast 111th Street. I also urge Mayor Groth to call a special commission meeting to hear the freebie issue once again and allow a full commission to vote on it. at the main meeting for a view voted for extending the freebie contract and I don't think anybody expected at the June meeting that it was going to end up the way it did and. I watched the video at home and when Commissioner Gonzales left at 10, which is his normal practice, everybody knows 10 o'clock comes, he's going to be leaving. You asked to bring forward several items that were time sensitive. Freebie was one of them, yet that was left off that list. As soon as he left, then Freebie came up. And actually, it was only the manager who knew that Dan Samaria had already changed his mind, which meant it was going to be a 2-2, no vote, which is pretty disingenuous. The purpose of commission meetings... should be that the will of the majority prevails, and that's not what happened. Several times the manager has also given out misinformation stating that $120,000 that's being used for freebies somehow is going to be used for roads. I wrote to you i think you all know by now that there's only about twenty thousand dollars that could could be used for roads the others would be used for direct transportation and sixty thousand dollars would be lost when you because of the mat the match the grant of sixty thousand dollars provided by the county this is an important service and for twenty thousand dollars a road repair please revote this and extend freebie thank you you know trying to claw back the 20 grand when

Pardon me. Oh, Gary Kuehl, 777 Northeast 111. I thought you were reminding me what my name was. Anyway, trying to claw back 20 grand when there's a balance, even if you were to use that money for a freebie, you have $139,000. And what about last year? And what about what's happening with that money? What is the significance of that $20,000? In the sense of, well, like I don't use the tot lot. So should I say that we should eliminate it? Or I don't use freebie. That's not why I'm talking, but I don't want to eliminate it. And we could eliminate tree planting, but I don't want to eliminate it. Part of what makes a community out of a village are the things that are different, that serve the community. And that's very much a part of it. It's not only the disabled, the disadvantaged. We have one car. If I want to go to the mechanic or go to the grocery store, it would be a great convenience to be able to use freebie. And there are other people that have spoken to that as well. The other thing that's really disturbing, aside what from Barbara and Melanie said, is that everybody in the community had the impression this was a done deal. And then unless you came to the meeting or watched the meeting, you didn't know. So, in effect, we were misrepresented at that meeting. Thank you.

Okay, thanks very much. Do we have anyone on Zoom?

Okay.

Say I seen a head shaking. No. Okay. All right. Well, I appreciate folks here providing public comment. Thank you. And I completely lost my agenda. Here we go. All right. So is there any commission reply to public comment?

Yeah, I just want to say something about the roads. You know, I keep hearing about, you know, whatever we're going to do to fix the roads. We didn't fix the roads before Freebie was here. We haven't fixed the roads since Freebie's been here. We're not going to blame Freebie for the roads or that that's the solution to fix the roads because, honestly, we've just ignored the roads. I don't even know the last time anybody's paved the road here. So... the this whole road thing is is is a mute point uh for me okay just and so i want you guys to understand that i don't get i don't get the core the the connection there but we'll talk about that later okay okay um well i think we can

I do want to address, obviously, what we've heard very quickly, but also I do want to take care of the business that we have on the resolutions. The resolution that we have before us for this evening's agenda, John, would you please read it for us?

Yes, sir. This is Resolution No. 2026-48, a resolution of the Village Commission of the Village of Biscayne Park, Florida, amending Resolution No. 2025-46 to reschedule the July 7, 2026, regular commission meeting to July blank, depending on what you all say, 2026, and providing for conflicts, scriveners, errors, severability, and effective date.

Okay, thanks, John. Do I have a motion and a second to discuss?

Make a motion to approve resolution number 2026-48.

Second. Okay, great. So I understand that we are talking about amending the resolution for the July date simply because there's going to be two of us that are traveling at that time. So I know we were set for the 7th. If we were to look at... I'm coming back to 10th. But I can be there on zoom for the night.

When do you get back or back on the on the eighth at two o'clock in the afternoon? So I mean, I can make that.

Okay.

Fine. I'm good.

Yeah.

All right.

Yeah, we're looking at so nine is Thursday. 10 is Friday.

Yes, I'm available.

Both of those. Okay. Al, by any chance, do we have any understanding of whether Commissioner Amsler has availability on that, like those dates? I'm going back. Okay. Well, I'm, you know, I'm remiss to reset it without knowing when she's here, but this is really our, probably our only opportunity to do it. How is, I'm not available on the 8th, and I'm going to be flying back on the 10th. I just don't know what time yet. Okay. And I can be here on Zoom on the 9th. So are we all right? I'm sorry? Should we say that again? I'm sorry.

There is three. Yeah, we have three. All right. Would you have a tag team partner? Yeah, I can. Or, you know, certainly any other. Well, I will make, I will arrange myself. That's what it looks like.

whatever you whatever works for you guys i don't i'm open the rest of the month what about the following tuesday the 14th 14th is a monday yeah planning and design on the 13th it's monday planning and design on on the 13th that monday yeah well then let's just we can go with the ninth And if anything changes from here between now and the 9th, I guess we can reset. We'll have to call again. But we have three. We have quorum. And hopefully, presumably, Commissioner Hamzah will be available, too, on that date. John, sorry. Apologies. Wait. You're going to postpone your vacation?

No, .

I mean, I don't want to take that away from you, John. Do you have someone that can sit here in your SPAD? Sure. I understand. I'm just trying not to inconvenience you because we're moving this around a little bit, John.

So I'm not advocating for this, but I will point out that it says in our charter, we're allowed to not have a July meeting and take a vacation. Just saying, just. So everyone, I'm not advocating for this. It's just a lesson of our charter. It's in there that the crafters of our charter even thought this could be a problem.

Understood. Well, we'll keep it on, I think, for now so we can address anything that might be time sensitive at that time. All right, so it sounds like we're good with the ninth.

All right. So the resolution file would be biased .. So you're talking about .. All right.

Well, very good. Well, that handles the resolution. You know, I'm sure everyone has seen over the last couple of days, there's been a lot of attention drawn to, and we've heard this evening here about the item with freebie. You know, Art, I know you didn't have the benefit of being with us when we discussed it. You know, it was my intention to ask the commission this evening if there's a desire to, what's the motion, John?

i would say there is some possibility um there's a mandate that provides um holding permit fees to reflect um access costs planned on raising that item to you in the fly meeting uh it would have been right time that Okay.

And just to be clear from a procedural perspective, John, we wouldn't be able to take that action here this evening because it's not on the agenda and it's a special meeting agenda is that correct robert's rules of order uh specifically provides that um

of order use the rules of orders uh language for this commission got it okay mr mayor if the contract ends in by the end of june that means we have to have this special meeting before the end of june correct that would be correct it's my understanding would that be correct john okay

So let me just say a couple things. I reached out to the attorney. I've talked to Al about this. Obviously, I was surprised at the vote. I didn't expect that to be the case, but it is what it is. And obviously, you know, it's disappointing that I wasn't here. But I am very much for another meeting to discuss this and ideally have everybody here. But now,

that uh commissioner hams was not here uh we don't know if uh you know if she's going to make the special meeting and then we're back to a two with two two people um so point but i think the i think the the answer to that is that in setting a special agenda meeting uh the manager or the clerk is allowed to pull commissioners via email to get a date for which that person would each of us is available okay good We don't all have to agree on the date right now. We can say, hey, let's hold a one-item special agenda on this issue, or you'll have the benefit of being with us to discuss it, and we can go from there. Okay. That sounds good. Go ahead, Brian.

What's the noticing requirement for this special meeting? Is it 24 hours, or is it 24 hours?

Look, we have two weeks before the end of June, so I think there's

I think we have to giddy up because of state funding. I think we've had conversations already with the state, and we need to notify them again that we're either proceeding or we're not.

That would be my ultimate concern is if you even have any, if this passes, any inclination of staff trying to resurrect this. I'm sure they've already had conversations with the state, the county. Sure. Time is of the essence, and I wouldn't expect to pass this on June 30th and then see...

No, I don't. Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest June 30th as the date.

I would select a date if you're calling this special meeting and go from there. I'm not going to support it because I did not extend that meeting. I voted no to extend that meeting. I understand. And so did Commissioner Gonzalez. I'm not going to support a special call meeting because I didn't support continuing the meeting that we had. So the votes are the votes. If you would like to call on Mr. Mayor, you're more than within your rights to, and we could pick a date that we're all available, but time is of the essence for administration.

I understand. I understand and appreciate it, Ryan. Look, so understanding, sorry, Dan, you have anything you wanted to add?

Okay. Yeah.

Yeah.

I know we got some of the data from Paul, too, on that, I think, right? From the finance? On the numbers? I think Paul had supported something. Did Paul prepare anything, or am I completely misremembering? Maybe I'm misremembering. All right, so in that case, I know we have a federal holiday on the 19th. If we tentatively set it for Thursday...

Is that an issue for anyone?

Yeah.

Tomorrow's Wednesday.

Mr. Mayor, I'll be out of town.

You're out of town on Thursday?

Okay. Do you need to be here, though?

Basically, yes. If you want facts and figures, you have to ask for them.

Different figures and stuff.

But he can send them to all of us individually, can he not?

Yes.

I mean, I don't want to inconvenience Al, but at the same time, I want to get this done.

Different numbers when facts and figures. Okay, Matt. There's no numbers, so I want to have exactly what it's going to cost us.

Again, he can send it to you, can he not? Or do you need him here to have a conversation with him is my question. That's all.

What would you prefer?

The residents would have a conversation. I just think that, you know, you need to have him here. Because we had the numbers. I don't think so, but that's my opinion. Issa was here as the temporary city manager. We had information from the city manager.

I'm fine with whatever's convenient for everyone here because I've done ample research on this topic. I have my facts and figures, so I'll have to be here until your vacation. I'm ready to go.

So then why don't we do this? I want to give us enough time to go back to the state. Why don't we tentatively set it for Thursday? And if we have an issue, if Commissioner Amsler is unavailable, we can look at early next week, but I really don't want to push it past. I really don't want to go past Tuesday, Wednesday of next week because every day, new weight is every day. It's another day towards expiration, I guess. So are we comfortable setting it tentatively for Thursday night?

Dan, is that all right?

OK. John, is that all right?

Sure. 6 p.m. Instead of 6 p.m., 6.30 p.m. Okay.

Okay.

And one of the things, one of the things that I'm asking from the public is if you really, I mean, I'm seeing the same people here, so I know what they're saying, but I want to hear from the public. Okay. If all these people talking about how freebie is so important, then they need to show up to the meeting and to have a talk about it.

Mr. Attorney.

Yeah. I'm sorry.

Are we listing two items or one?

okay so then at this point we'll yes thank you so we'll have the special meeting we're tentatively set for Thursday if there's any issues that come up or if we need to reschedule I know you can call us to reset for early next week if we have to but for right now tentatively we'll look at Thursday night okay all right Well, very good. Well, then we'll plan on being back on Thursday. And that covers all of our work here for this evening. So I'll ask for a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn.

All in favor? Aye. Aye.

Thanks, everybody.