Village Commission - Special Meeting

All right.

All set. Great. All right. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Madam Clerk, would you please call the roll for us?

Mayor Groff?

Here.

Vice Mayor Gonzalez?

Here.

Commissioner Ansler?

Here.

Commissioner Huntington?

Here.

Commissioner Samara?

Here.

Mr. Mayor, you have a quorum.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Can we please do the Pledge of Allegiance? All right. So let's go on to our public comment. We'll start with folks here in the log cabin, and we will move on to Zoom after that. Just a reminder for everyone, please, public comment is limited to three minutes, and just provide us with your name and address before you address the commission. Thank you very much. Doesn't sound it.

There we go. Thanks. Judy Hamelberg, 1015 Northeast 116th Street. One of the first things that occurred when I was elected to the commission many years ago was that Mario Diaz, our village manager at the time, discovered that we were in the hole with the county because we had some CITT funds that that had not been used properly we were using them for road repairs and other things and it was supposed to be for um public transport which of course we haven't had for ever and ever and ever so that was what brought the freebie program to us um i'm i have used it myself um we used it because we were supposed to pay them back hundreds of thousands of dollars going back for years and years do you remember that art and so we bargained with them for it the freebie um the way the county funds it is supposed to be in your jurisdiction but because we have no businesses in our jurisdiction it was allowed to take us to other areas like Publix and Walgreens and and over to Aldi's and I will tell you I have used it. I've used it when my car is in at Goodyear and I need to go get it because it's the Publix over on 6th Avenue backs up to the Goodyear. I've used it after I've had surgery and wasn't allowed

Hold on.

How's that working? Okay. To go to and from the store and to go... We lost you again.

Hang tight.

Take that one. All right.

Okay. Nope.

There we go again. The light's on.

I can hear you tapping.

Okay. Can you hear me now?

I think the volume is just very low.

It's nothing.

Well, now we've got three of them.

Yeah, that's another thing we need to straighten out. We've been talking about the sound systems in here for forever as well, and they still stink. But the freebie got us out of a hole that we had dug ourselves into with the county. It gave some transport to us. I don't mind if we modify its hours or what we do, but we are getting older in this community, and as people like me age, We are going to need some services to get us places. And it's nice to have it when you need it. It's not my primary way of getting around. It's limited in where it can take us. But I think before you toss it out, you really need to think about what the ramifications are, what we're going to have to do with that little hole in our funding that is in the CITT funds that we hadn't used for forever. What we had done in prior years is we used it for the Nomi bus, which came through here and never picked up anybody and cost us money either. So but that, again, is still very limited and limited access to get on their bus. But I'm concerned about it. And again, as this community ages, I think we need to be more sensitive to the needs of people who are aging.

Hey, everybody. Mike Oliva, 590 121st Street. I'd like to read a letter from my neighbor, if that's okay?

Sure.

Okay, cool. This letter is from Vicky Sassani, 528 Northeast 121st Street.

May I make a suggestion? Are you going to have.

I will not do it in her accent. No.

Okay. I was just going to say, if you're going to have comments, perhaps you can give that letter to the clerk and she'll read it. And then you can have your own comments because you have three minutes. All right. So I'm just saying.

I can get it all done. I appreciate that though. Thank you for the suggestion. Okay. So I'll read her a letter first and then my own kind of comments. Dear commissioners. I wanted to share my personal experience with freebie. both as a resident and a short-term rental host. As a resident, I've used Freebee several times. One time that stands out was when my daughter was in a car accident and needed to borrow my car to get to work while hers was in the shop. During that time, I relied on Freebee to pick up my diabetes medication from Walgreens and to get groceries at Aldi. Just know that this service was there and gave me real peace of mind during a stressful time without my car. As a host, I welcome students, especially foreign medical students, into my home for more than a decade. Many of them depend entirely on public transportation to get to their critical, I'm sorry, clinical rotations. Having a service like freebie available to get to the supermarket or to the laundromat has made a real difference, and it's something the students have told me they consider when choosing where to stay. I understand that for those of us with reliable transportation, this service might seem unnecessary, but that's simply not the case to everyone in our community. We have seniors who no longer drive. We have residents with potentially suspended licenses. We have students who don't drive yet. We have people with disabilities. We have mothers at home with newborns, especially in households with only one car. So I understand the reasoning behind cutting freebie is to redirect funding toward road repairs. But based on the numbers I've seen, only $20,000 would actually go back into the transportation share to fund our roads. That amount will not fix any of our roads in a meaningful way. We'd be giving up service that real people depend on every single day for a sum too small to deliver the road improvements being promised. I also understand that part of this funding is proposed for public transportation benches. With respect, I'd ask the Commission to reconsider this as well. Our bus service was out of operation for nearly two years and has only recently come back, and the benches we currently have are still in very good condition. Spending money on new benches right now doesn't serve our residents nearly as much as freebie does, a service people use every single day. This isn't a fair trade for our community. We would lose something of real daily value and gain very little in return. We have diversity and we are inclusive. And I believe this is one of the best things about our community that we accept and accommodate everyone, not just those who happen to have it easily, excuse me, happen to have it easy. Please don't take that away. I'd ask the commission to find more meaningful, dedicated funding sources for our road repairs and to keep Ruby intact. Thank you for your time and for your consideration for the real impact the service has on the people who call Biscayne Park home. And I understand I took my whole three minutes and I'm okay with that. I also personally fully support freebie. The bench in front of my house is in perfect condition. No need to repair it. So I encourage you to please vote yes.

Brian Kuehl, 777 Northeast 111th Street. I spoke out in favor of freebie before. I just want to do it again. I've been using freebie I think almost as long as we've had it here. All the drivers have been really helpful, have been really responsive to the people. And Having dedicated drivers, we have our own drivers, which is really helpful, a big trust issue. Also, For a lot of residents, Biscayne Boulevard is kind of difficult to get to, depending on where you live. 125th Street calls to be difficult to get to. I've used it to go out to Walgreens, Whole Foods, that area. A very quick response time, which probably more to do with the fact that it's not advertised as well as it should be. I think if you're advertising it more, more people would be using it. The government is not supposed to be a money-making venture. Yes, we need to be responsible with the money that we have, but the money is supposed to be going to services like trash, rec center, police. You can't think of the police. Obviously, no one wants to use the police station or the police to call 911. So there's not a direct correlation. It's more about having it available should somebody need it. Now, as for the roads, I've lived here 50 years. I can recall maybe twice that the roads were repaved. Once was 6th Avenue, which I think is the county or the state. So there wasn't even Biscayne Park paying for it. I do think that money will be better spent with something like freebie. Unfortunately, there is not direct competition. Uber would not be a one-to-one correlation, but Phoebe does provide valuable service to the community. I do think we should keep it. Thank you.

Gary Kuhl, 777 Northeast under 11th Street. As Brian pointed out, you know, this is a service a lot of people don't know about. It hasn't been advertised. And it's just an example of how this has been mismanaged and how we've been misinformed from the get-go. I'm developing a list because I have a flipper. It's very difficult to talk. Okay. One of the things that should happen immediately is that assuming, and hopefully you're going to move ahead with this, that it will be advertised so people can take advantage of it. I reflect on the fact that that wasn't handled in terms of informing people, that we were giving a very confusing, if not distorted, if not absolutely inaccurate explanation of the funding by the village manager. The fact that a vote was orchestrated to eliminate it by the village manager. And here we are tonight. Totally unnecessary. We shouldn't have a meeting tonight. If this had been handled properly, to me, voting tonight, if you vote in favor of Phoebe, to me is almost like a vote of no confidence in our village manager. Thank you.

Barbara Kuehl, 777 Northeast 111th Street. First, I would like to thank our mayor for calling this special meeting, because we were pretty sure last week that this was a doomed deal. And I think everybody appreciates this, and for the other commissioners who are attending. So thank you. Brian and Gary both said a lot of the things I was going to say. I've written to you enough, you know that I'm in favor of freebie and I think it really is an important service. A lot of the residents brought up points. The one was interesting about the woman who ran the Airbnb. I never even thought of that, but that is another nice amenity. And it's something that I think a lot of our residents don't even know about. Again, if you do decide to vote for this, I really hope that at the next meeting, you're going to instruct our manager to do a comprehensive advertisement about Freebie. The representative that was here for Freebie said she had promotional material that she could provide, and we should be taking advantage of it. The other thing that I read on Nextdoor from several people, they had trouble with the app. They had trouble navigating. I'm not sure what the exact problem is, but if you bought an iPhone, you have an opportunity to go to an iPhone workshop. That's what we should have. We should have a workshop for freebie. Inform residents where they go, what it does, also helping them set it up on their phone. I'm not gonna say most of the people, but many of the people using it are older. Maybe they're not that familiar with technology and they could use some help, but they don't even know who to ask. So this would be another way of getting more residents involved. And the whole purpose of this is we're providing a service, but you should be informing the community of the services they have so they can use it. This is a tremendous asset. And, you know, a lot of the people may not have a car. We used to have three cars. Now we only have one. Normally it works. But there are times that you're short a car and you have to go someplace to do something. And it's nice to have that. And that's it's a nice amenity for this village. But we should get the word out. And I think it would be you'd have a lot more activity.

Thank you.

Good evening, dear commissioners. My name is Alan and I'm residing at 528 Northeast 124th Street, hosted by Vicky Sisani. So I'm here for a summer internship at Bay Harbor Islands and it runs through the end of August. So since arriving, freebie has been main mode of transportation for me. Yeah, it's a lifesaver. I use it for going to groceries at Aldi, Whole Foods, taking my laundry runs and getting around when I don't have any other options. I did bought an electric scooter, but you know the weather of Miami. frequent rains and heat and lightning. So without freebie, a single trip to the store and back would cost me like $15 to $20 on a ride share app. This adds up very fast for someone living on an intern's budget. So one of the main reasons I chose to stay in Biscayne Park is instead of somewhere closer to my internship was the safety of this neighborhood, combined with the service of freebie. So this combination made it possible for me to live here and still get to the places I need to go safely and affordably. So I'm not the only one who depends on this. I've seen elderly residents, students and people without cars using freebie too. So for people without their own transportation, it's not a convenience, it's a necessity. Cutting it, it just wouldn't affect a few people. It would take away independence and access for everyone who relies on it to reach work, food and basic errands. I respectfully ask the commission to keep freebie running and to recognize how much value it brings to residents and even temporary visitors like me. Thank you for letting me share my story. Thank you.

Hello, commissioners, mayor, everybody else.

Can you hear me now?

Okay. My name is Howard Goldman, 11950 Northeast 6th Avenue. Sorry? Oh, okay. I've come late to the party on the whole project of Freebie, but as soon as I heard about this, I started thinking to myself, it's not about the money. It's more about who we are. It's village, village of Biscayne Park. And we as residents of a village should take care of our own. We spend a lot of time talking about cats and trees and birds. What about our elderly and those of us that are incapable of being transported to and from simplicities like Walgreens or CVS, a library, picking up a kid from school and the market? I say it's an absolute must that we reconsider this and go with freebie. And that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Michelle Newman. I've lived here for 70 years. 70. Finally, we've got a service that will help us get places when we're older. Do you know that when you get older, all your friends die or your neighbors die? You can't get around. So what are we fighting about? They provide the most incredible service I've ever seen. You call, they come. they care and we're not caring here this should not be a problem of ours if we don't have the money let's figure out a way to get the money if we have to have garage sales so we can afford a service that helps us old people get to the doctor what do you say the drug store how about food if you cancel this for us You're not being fair. You're sitting there in judgmental positions that will not help the city that we live in and have lived in for a long time. I love Biscayne Park. I love the way we do things. So let's do it right. We shouldn't have to gather here at night. and decide for you, you should know that, gee, that's a good idea. We shouldn't have to do this. You should know that because you're people like we're people. And I don't know why I was dragged here, but it makes me mad to think that you think we don't need a service that we need. Very much so.

Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. Okay, can you hear me? Barbara Watts, 720 Northeast 118th Street. I apologize for coming in late. If there had been freebie in place, I would have been on time, but there isn't, and I'm carless. All right. We're lucky that so many people in the village don't need freebie on a regular basis. But for those who do, it's a lifesaver. I'm not going to name names, but there are certain people in the park that you see that have grown up here that for one reason or another cannot drive. They're walking around all the time. But I see them over at Walgreens. I see them at LA Fitness. They can't get here except through freebie. I have, unfortunately, I'm a poster child for osteoporosis. I have a broken foot every year at Thanksgiving. I couldn't get to the store, to the drugstore or anywhere without Priebe. And as the lady said, many of your neighbors have died or moved. And so, and if your children are living in California, You know, you've got to rely on friends, but that's a lot to ask all the time. So this allows us a certain amount of independence, those of us who are elderly. I grew up here. I moved here when I was in my 30s. Well, now I'm pushing. I'm 75. I could go toes up at any minute. But when I can't get somewhere, I need to do this. I told my brother who lives in Hawaii. I'm safer here in Biscayne Park. I can get to the essentials, and then I can afford a cab to go somewhere else. The freebies app doesn't work long. I use a telephone because I don't have a cell phone. Maybe that's the way, even though they complain, it works. I think that what you do to the least of your brethren, you do to me. Who has said that? We all know. All right, think about this. We no longer do Meals on Wheels. OK, the meals were not all that nutritious. But what about for the elderly and those who cannot work or who don't have cars and for cars that are in the shop? I think it's a really valuable, valuable service. And BP is a community, all right? wealthy people moving in here that don't need freebie, but a lot of us, all the teachers and firemen and policemen and librarians, we're the people who can really benefit from maybe when we need to. And it's a very valuable thing. All our money goes to the rec center and all the kids. Not much goes to the elderly and to other people. So I really encourage you to think with your hearts and get hope and support the freebie. Thank you.

That's good.

Hi, good evening, Mayor and Commission. My name is Dionisia Drury-Fecht. I live at 600 Northeast 116th Street. And we've been residents since 1992, so we've been here a while as well. Not 70 years, though. Freebie is very convenient. It's very useful. since Miami-Dade removed the bus services on Northeast 6th Avenue, which I used to take. But now that I'm retired, I'm glad that I heard of this new service, Freebie, and so I've started using it. And I've used it when my car was in an accident, and I couldn't use it, so it was very convenient. And I go to the, you know, I use it to go to the nearby shopping centers, the pharmacy, because my husband does need... medication from there. And like I said, it's very convenient. The door-to-door service is greatly appreciated since my husband has a little difficulty walking far, so it helps him. Even my granddaughters, when they come to visit, we sometimes use freebie to go to the park during these hot, hot days. It's very, you know, useful, and I like it a lot. And our drivers, Laura Mayer and Scott, they're both friendly and very dedicated people, and they make us feel safe when we go in their cars, in the cars. So please reconsider and keep freebie in North Bay. I mean, I'm sorry, Biscayne Park. I used to work in North Bay Village many years. Thank you.

I'm her husband, the one who can't walk. I was disappointed when I got to the door and that one was locked and I had to walk all the way around. I have a serious heart condition and I get out of breath very easily. I have a built-in defibrillator. At one time, it went off 17 times in a row. It saved my life. It has saved my life a few times. Now, what I would like to do, I would like to tell Biscayne Park that we really appreciate everything you do for the village, the concerts, the parties on Halloween and such. But this is the first thing that you have done for us individually. And we all appreciate it and we all need it. So please don't take it away. Thank you very much.

I just want to make sure I was going to change topics. I want to make sure everybody that wanted to talk about the freebie got a chance to do so. First of all, I am in favor of you keeping it. But I've been coming to Linda Dillon, 712 115th Street. I've been coming to these meetings for many years. In fact, longer than some of you are old. And every new commission that we get, we get the same promise that the meetings are going to be kept shorter. Well, I think you guys have taken it to new Heights, particularly from the last meeting, which was evidence when one of your own walked out of the meeting. I think one of the reasons that these meetings have become so long is that you are no longer following Robert's rules of order. The chapter four, of the newly revised version 12th edition talks about what you can and cannot do when it comes to talking at the meetings. You're allowed only two times to talk about a topic. Number one. Number two, you're supposed to be limited to 10 minutes unless you all make some kind of a motion to make it a different time, which, if I remember right, Commissioner Huntington tried to do, and he didn't get a second, so you didn't vote on it. So I think you need to start following Robert's rules and keep these meetings to a reasonable hour.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for inviting me today. My name is Laura, and I have been living in Biscayne Park for the last three years. At the same time, I am one of the drivers of freebie service. I know all the users, and they all know me. And I become not only their drivers, but their trusted person. Today I made the decision to stand up for our neighbor and users, necessity and rights, for our seniors and youngers that count on freebie to reach different destinations through this service. I see firsthand how essential it is. Our neighborhood is a vibrant mosaic of cultures, residents that came from different parts of the world. We have ballerinas that came from Indonesia and Malaysia, people from India, Portugal, who have came to study and build their future here. Freebie is a lifeline connecting them to education, opportunity, and belongings. Thank you very much.

Any others here in the log cabin before we move over to Zoom?

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Commissioners. My name is Claudia Miro with Freebee with offices at 371 Northeast 61st Street. I just wanted to come and introduce myself. I know I was here virtually and I may not look the same on camera as I do in person. Not my fault. I am here to be available to you for any questions that you have or any issues that may come up that need clarification. I also just want to put on the record that I am here tonight because we care about the service. We care about the community. We have over 55 cities, and we are here for this service, which is one car service, and I want to echo what our driver Laura said. We really do care about the community. We are familiar with the folks who are riding it. We speak to our performance managers. We speak to our drivers. how beloved this service has become and how necessary it has become to certain members of the community. So we are here to answer any questions and be useful in any single way that we can and to clarify anything. If you have questions on numbers, I know a lot of those things came up last time. I'm here and just all you have to do is call me up. Thank you very much.

All right. If there's no others here in the log cabin, we'll move over to Zoom. One more chance. Going once, going twice. Okay. All right. Let's move over to Zoom. Do we have anyone on Zoom that would like to provide public comment at this time? Please raise your hand, and the clerk will unmute you to provide comment at that time. Once. Make sure everyone can hear me. Okay. Seeing none. Okay. All right. You got one? Okay, medical. Can you unmute, please.

Medea. Irving.

Hello.

Okay, perfect. Yes, greatly.

I'm sorry.

If you could just try to maybe speak up just a little bit, but yes, we can hear you.

Okay, perfect. So I'm Nadia Derevine. My address is 11115 Northeast 10th Avenue. Okay. So, hello, commissioners. I wanted to express my strong support for the continuation of the freebie transportation service in Biscayne Park. As a Biscayne Park homeowner and caregiver to my elderly mother, I personally experienced the tremendous value that this service provides residents. Recently, I was involved in a car accident and my car is basically totaled loss as of last month. So I'm carless. And so as a result, I have been using freebie transportation. as a primary transportation for all my grocery store runs, going to the library. Even when I have to go to class at FIU, I'll have them drop me off at the last point so that I can catch the other free know me, bus service to drop me off at the campus. Okay. So during this challenging time, freebie service has been super invaluable, has been a good resource for me and my family. My mother, she is also retired and frequently needs the transportation for all her errands. So due to her age and, you know, walking distance is not an option for her. Rather, if she's walking to Publix or something, no, we would have to used a freebie. And so freebie has provided us with safe, reliable and accessible transportation that allow us to maintain our independence and meet our basic needs. Beyond my personal experience, I do believe the freebie service serves as an important role within the Biscayne Park Village. It benefits seniors. It benefits residents with limited mobility, families facing financial hardships such as myself and individuals without access to reliable transportation. This service has also helped residents access local businesses, grocery stores, and it's also a reliable transportation. Excuse me. So I just wanted to respectfully urge the commission to continue supporting freebie and investing in the freebie transportation service. It is a valuable community resource that has made a significant difference in my life as well as my family. Thank you for your time. And that's all.

Thank you. Are there any other commenters on Zoom? Give it another second to see if someone's trying to get the hand raised. Okay, I don't think so. Okay, great. All right, so... That will close public comment at this time. I very much appreciate everyone sharing your comments with us this evening on the issue. I will go ahead and I'll move on to our commission reply and ask the commission if they have any reply to the comments at this time.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Last meeting, I requested that if residents really cared about freebie to show up. And boy, you people really showed up. So I am glad to be proven wrong. We have to decide whether service to our residents is more important than money. And as a businessman, I believe residence is more important. We have a model in the United States Marines is we never leave anybody behind. And if we get rid of this service and it leaves one resident behind, that's a failure. And so... make my decision when we have the numbers and stuff like that. But I feel what I've heard tonight has... changed my mind about what I was saying before because the residents spoke up. If we have one resident that this hurts, that's not good enough for me. And I think we can, hopefully we can find the money somewhere else. So I'm just waiting for the money, but I request that people show up and residents did. So you put me in my place, that's what you're supposed to do.

So I want to say thank you to all the residents that showed up tonight.

Thank you for pointing that out. What do we have, Madam Clerk? Okay, great.

This email comes from David Raymond. I can't for the life of me fathom why freebie will be eliminated. The 20,000 net gain, this move to buy will do a little more to improve the roads in the village.

We just into the mic. Yeah. Yeah, please.

Can you hear me?

There we go.

I made a question is what will you spend the 40,000 a year or that requires the proven situation service. I heard bus benches have you examined bus ridership numbers the same way you examine hopefully for the freebie numbers. Do we need bus beaches is this every current calls where we were in bus beaches each year if not what happens to these the market transit was for the future. I was a department director at Miami-Dade County when the People's Transportation Plan was designed. The Citizen Independent Transportation Trust was modeled by my boss, Mayor Alex Pinellas. After my department, the Homeless Trust, both my parts or the Ford County Trust with independent oversight boards was relied on dedicated taxes. which includes the Church and Trust, Public Health Trust, the half penny surtax. We the people voted to pay on taxable items was sold to the public as a way to improve transit service as the people transportation plan. While the village large share of funds goes to roads, we have been poor shepherd of these funds over the years. In fact, didn't spend these monies for several years and almost lost them. Perhaps none of you were around for that time, but we only live here a bit over a decade, and I recall researching the CITT file along with Chuck Ross, who actually had to dig through boxes to find out where these funds were spent. The CITT folks was not pleased with us at the time and not sure how they'll feel about the involvement of our decision-making regarding freebie. or if anyone has reached out. But it might be a good idea to ask them what they think about eliminating our transportation service we have in transit poor communities to buy new bus benches. What's wrong with the existing bus benches? Does this really serve the people? Think about it. In terms of our roads, some are nightmares, but 20,000 is a drop in the bucket. And what is your plans for the money? Most importantly, commission, what is your plans to fix our roads? P.S. In my opinion, the roads around the village halls is more for, to fix the roads around the village hall is more for show. Have you walked alone 111 at night with a flashlight? I dare you to. I hope logic prevails and wish luck in your deliberation. This one comes from Dory Zeman. To the commission, I respectfully ask for you to reconsider ending this freebie riding service. For many members of our community, it is not just a convenience, it's a lifeline. Senior people with disability and residents without reliable transportation depend on it and get some medical appointments, grocery stores, and other essential places. Eliminating this service will create hardship for many people who may not have other affordable options. I ask you to consider the impact on those who rely on it every day and explore alternative and cutting a program that provides such a valuable service to our community. A community is measured on how well it takes care of its most vulnerable people. Please keep this service available for the people who need it.

Okay, great. Thanks very much. Thanks for pointing that out. All right, so let's get back to our reply. Does the rest of the commission have any reply to comments before we move to resolutions?

I have a really quick reply to Linda's point. Linda, I brought that to the commission about limiting debate. And it was, it was voted down, but I was also assured that the meeting would be run more efficiently and more effectively. And that obviously is not the case, in my opinion. So, to your point, you know, perhaps we need to bring it back. Perhaps we'll try it again. But that's all we can do, you know.

Just like to say thank you to all the residents to come out they got me hear your voice is always great to hear and we'll talk more on the item when we get to it.

So it's great to see a lot of new faces and a lot of you hear me now hello there that's better. Oh, yeah, I can hear myself loud. All right. So thank you. Thank you for coming. A lot of new faces, a lot of usual faces. All of this is very welcome to to help us vote conscious of your thoughts. um especially to the senior community i don't think you need to be here again i agree with you the vote does that for you when you voted for us we're here to represent in the best opportunity that we have and on that note and some questions i got on this I found out about last meeting that happened on Tuesday through my husband who saw a notification in the app. It's important for me to be here to represent and sort of play the role I was voted to do. I didn't get notice of that meeting. So I want to put that for the record. I also did not get noticed for the meeting today. I got a call and no voicemail about what was going on. So I had to catch up a bit. doing some YouTube listening on the meeting on Tuesday. So I don't think it's fair for people that voted for me that don't get the chance to see me here voting today. I could have missed it. I'm glad I was here and participating. So I thought it was fair for you all to know that. For the rest, again, thank you. And I hope this moves through. You heard my vote already. So thanks.

Okay. I just will repeat what I said already. Thanks for everyone for coming out and talking with us about this issue. We have a few folks here to provide some additional information for us this evening. I know Freebie is with us. Appreciate you being here. I know we have Paul. with our finance group department. He's with us as well. So they'll be here to answer any questions the commission has. So let's jump into our resolutions. The first resolution, 2026-49. John, could you read it onto the record for us? And after you've done so, could you just give us a quick reminder about the need for this one? I think it kind of works in conjunction with the freebie contract, correct?

Yes. This is resolution number 2026-49 entitled, a resolution of the Village Commission of the Village of Biscayne Park, Florida, adopting an amended building permit fee schedule to ensure compliance with section 553.798F Florida statutes as amended by House Bill 803 and providing for conflict, scrivener's error, severability, and effective date. Mr. Mayor, members of the Commission, as mentioned at the last meeting, this is an add-on that we are required to implement a new building permit fee schedule that complies with the mandate imposed upon us by the Florida Legislature to essentially go away or move away from charging building permits based upon project cost to actual cost of inspections by staff. It's intended to make sure that the building department is operating properly as an enterprise fund, which pays for itself, and not improperly generating income or exceeding fair cost of services and overcharging residents. I do know in speaking with the building department, the building official, that for the most part, it's going to be revenue neutral in that the new fee schedule is going to be close to, if not equal to what we're already charging because they're doing a good job. And certainly the building officials here to answer any questions about that new fee schedule that you may have.

OK. I thought I saw Pedro. He's here. OK, great. Yeah, please, if you could. So Pedro, in addition to what John has just told us, is there anything that you'd like to provide us with before we go forward on the resolution?

No, I just want to confirm that that's what we did. We translated the fees we're charging now into a fixed dollar value per square foot. We are allowed to charge per area per square foot, and most cities are moving in that direction. Now, the disadvantage is we will have to revise our fee schedule every year to adjust for inflation. The advantage on the other side is we don't have to argue with developers telling us they're building a mansion at $50 a square foot. So that takes a lot of load from me because I usually have to argue about that, but the Section 105 of the building code allows me to set the minimum price. We are not charging for... I know some mansions are built at $1,000 a square foot or $800. We're not charged that high. So we're based on the average middle... middle income house is about $300 a square foot. That's how we've been charging until now. And we're not losing money. Our fund is not exploding with extra money reserves. So it means we're running correctly. And that's the intent of the law. That's the spirit of the law. And that's why we translate it We did that conversion using the same calculators to try to get the same way. Now, we had to adjust the minimum permit fee to $130 because it was set at $125 three years ago. So we had 3% a year. We came up to a little more than $130. We came up to $130. I'm not sure if you have a printed version of it, but the first, the minimum fee has a typo that we needed to correct. We had very little time to do this. When you integrate, we'll go to 33% of the permit fee, minimum 130. We try to leave AC change-outs and water heater exchanges at minimum permit fee, so we don't produce extra problems for residents who need to maintain their house.

Okay. All right, Pedro. Very quickly for you, John, is there any provision or portion of this that would require us to decide on freebie before we pass the fee schedule? Or is this, they're independent?

They're independent of each other completely. I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear.

No, that's fine.

And, you know, the fee schedule is available and will be attached to the resolution. To the point of the building official, we have built into the draft resolution. If it's approved as is, it will provide for our ability to increase the fees on a yearly basis to reflect the CPI. So we don't have to keep bringing back to you this resolution just to update it to reflect the Consumer Price Index requirements. adjustment.

Okay. All right, great. Do I have a motion and a second from the Commission to discuss?

Yes, I make a motion to approve Resolution 2026-49 about the new building fee structure. Second.

Okay. Is there any, any point or any discussion? Is there any questions for Pedro or John that the Commission would like to lead with? No.

Pedro, I have one. So do we have a comparison about what we currently had up to this point of what sort of impact is going to be there? I don't know why you can I can hear myself loud, but you guys don't know. So what's going to be the impact of this fee changing starting today versus what we had until yesterday, we're going to make it neutral. So be no change in effect for residents, they're going to come forward and pull permits on any of these items. For them, it will be

Almost the same. We're trying to get as close as possible as the current fee. So the formulas we have will come out with the same number at the end.

Okay. Okay. So, and why is it, and maybe this is for John, why is it that it has to happen now?

Because the state legislation says that we have to do this and have it in effect by July 1st.

And when did this legislation pass?

This past legislative session.

Okay, when was that?

The governor signed it in May and, you know, gave us didn't give us a very large window. No, that's what I'm saying. And so when we were aware that there was going to be a special call meeting for tonight, he asked to be able to add it so we could get it in place and not have to do it retroactively. OK, next commission meeting.

All right, so I don't feel comfortable approving stuff without seeing the impact that it reflects. There is no comparison of what this looks like versus prior. That would be my only comment. I'm going to take you on your word that this is no impact for residents moving forward. But then you and I can just sit down. I would like to see that comparison, especially if the idea is it's not going to come to the commission. It's just going to be updated on a CPI on an annual basis, right?

Yeah, I want to make a comment maybe to help explain better is that we don't have a choice.

Yeah.

So, you know, if there's if there's a negative revenue building dependent cost neutral. It doesn't matter. The legislature saying this is how you have to do it. And we or staff, we've tried to do it as best as possible to try and make it revenue neutral. We really won't know how successful we are in accomplishing that goal until we have an entire year or at least a reasonable period of sample size to be able to make that determination. You know, in theory, if it's really out of whack, we can bring it back to you as a resolution to change it. But we, you know, we've made our best guesstimate. And we're hopeful that we're just going to be able, we will be able to make that annual adjustment with the CPI and not have to bring it back to you. But obviously, if that does become necessary, it'll come before you.

That's a good point. And I think it's a good idea to do a check in maybe somewhere in the middle to see where that lands. And again, I wonder, you know, you made some examples of, you know, there's specific permitting fees and what's it going to look like for for everybody. So

Yeah, we ran out to our formula. So again, like, like Joe says, we, we, I hope we don't have to be back here soon revising it. Yeah, that means we did a good job, but we're forced to make this decision and have it active in July 1. Hmm.

Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much.

Thanks, Pedro. All right. So if there's no further questions from the commission, then I will ask all in favor of approving the resolution.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Thank you. Pedro, thanks very much.

John, thank you for the guidance. All right. So let's move on to our next resolution, 2026-45. John, if you wouldn't mind reading it on the record for us.

Yes, sir. This is Resolution No. 2026-45, entitled, A Resolution of the Village Commission of the Village of Biscayne Park, Florida, approving an on-demand rideshare agreement between the Village of Biscayne Park and BeFree LLC using a competitively awarded agreement by another governmental agency in providing for conflicts, scrivener's errors, severability, and effective date.

Thank you, John. Do I have a motion a second to move to this session?

I make a motion to approve Resolution 2026-45, approving the freebie contractor.

Second. Okay. So, Paul, are you still with us?

Yes, I am.

There he is.

Hi, Paul. Thanks for being with us.

Paul, so I know you've spent some time with this. I'm wondering if you can give us the rundown of the current status of the CITT with Biscayne Park for the benefit of the commission as we discuss. Can you do that for us?

Gladly. So your CITT fund currently has generated a little over $600,000 over the years. You have spent some money. You have not spent any in the transit. You've attempted to, but it had not been processed. The funds annually work about $200,000 per year. The reason the CITT funds were not processing the freebie is because we're in the middle of an audit and they freeze them. That's one of the main reasons. And for other reasons, once this audit's finished, I anticipate that those funds will be available and you can anticipate backpaying what you owe from the general fund back into the freebie expenses and balancing that account. And you should have the funds to operate balanceably. probably the next year, maybe easily two years. It's about $120,000 a year to run freebie. The manager can give an update on any other grants. Previously, you had an FDOT grant that paid $60,000. So in short, the conditions are set for you to be able to enjoy the transit side of the CITT money and keep the program funded for the near future.

Okay. Thanks, Paul. Just one point of clarification. You said audit. I want to just make sure that you agree that this is not a bad audit. This is a five-year standard audit, correct?

Correct. It's the 2020 through 2021 through 2025 five-year audit. And during that process, they freeze all activity and that's normal. So we'll be finished with that. We've been right on time with all their submittals, so we should be in good shape.

Okay, and once we clear that audit, the expectation is that CITT will release the funds that they've been hanging on to for us, correct?

Yeah, there's two steps. Prior administrations had gotten permission to... Patrick Baur, approve a reimbursement, but they only asked for a construction project they didn't, for whatever reason, include the transit part whatever you know, moving forward. Patrick Baur, I think that's going to be fixable I think everyone wants these funds, the transit funds to flow through and benefit the residents like we heard about earlier. Great.

Thanks, Paul. So can I give a very high-level understanding, and can you confirm for me if I'm correct, just because I'd like it to come from you, from finance, from the person who really understands this stuff. So the CITT, and I'm going to use approximations. That's fine. So approximations, approximately CITT granting to Biscayne Park annually about $200,000, approximately, correct? Correct.

Correct.

And 80% of that money is freely used by Biscayne Park for things like capital projects, things like road paving, infrastructure, things of that nature, correct? Correct. And 20% of that money, approximately $40,000, needs to be allocated to transit, which freebie would fall under, correct?

Correct.

Okay. So that's just a high-level breakdown of how... those numbers shake out without considering what other revenues are coming in, what other grants are coming in, just that money and the two allocations that we need to make. All right?

Can you say that again?

Sorry, yes. That covers kind of a high-level understanding of the money that comes in through CITT and the two buckets that we need to fill with those funds.

Yes.

And is it also correct that if we don't spend the 20% on one of these kind of qualifying transit style projects that we are in danger of losing all of our CITT funding, is that right?

That's that's a little overstated. Yeah, the concept of the 20 percent is so you don't spend it all on roads because every city would just do that. Right. So you're forced to use up to 20 percent for a circular transit bus stops, things like that. Sidewalks to bus stops are eligible. You don't have to spend all 20 of it, but it keeps accumulating in that account. If you never spend, which was our case for many years, then you're absolutely right. The reaction of CITT is to, okay, guys, time out. You're not doing anything. We're freezing all of your funds. And until you spend some transit money, we won't re-release you. And that happened to the village at one time. Prior manager, Mario Diaz, identified this problem, identified a project for the 80% side, for the roadside, and simultaneously identified the freebie idea, which was happening in most municipalities or many municipalities in South Florida, as we all know. So he got that He stopped them from taking the road fund. And that was the central part in the committee, just to encapsulate what I remember the commissioners choosing is that, okay, we'll start the freebie, we'll test pilot it, see how it goes. It'll fund itself. John Potter, event, but eventually it'll either take a grant or general fund contributions or be cancelled one all those options right on the table, none of them were required or are necessarily discussed which one was preferred, but that that was the state of the decision.

Okay. All right. Helpful, Paul. Thank you. And I know you mentioned this already, but without any additional funding, without any additional grant funding, if we were to just, and Claudia, I know you're here with us too, so you can feel free to jump in if you need to, if I'm stepping outside the bounds here. But I think what you'd said, Paul, was approximately the total annual spend on freebie is about $120,000. Is that right? Correct.

Correct.

That's not considering where the money's coming from. That's just straight cost.

That's your annual. Yeah. That's the annual it's $10,000 a month.

Okay. Got it. All right. And. One last thing, and I think you already mentioned it, so please forgive me if you had, but assuming that we're successful, that we have no issues with this five-year audit that sounds like it's going along as it should, and we continue to pledge and spend that 20% on a transit-related project, we would anticipate Freebee releasing those funds that they had on hold for us for some time.

Correct.

Okay. About how much is that fund?

There's two parts.

We need you up here, though, just because we need you on the mic. Go ahead, Paul.

Yeah. So currently, transit has an account balance of about $219,000. But I do want to point out that you've been paying out of the general fund. And technically, you should transfer that first $176,000 of that money to the general fund. And so basically, there's about a $50,000 balance. difference you could simply choose how you want to sort the money but i did want to put that out for your discussion and thought today is that you've already invested 176 000 of general fund money to date okay so that's money that would be re is reimbursable right so it's a left pocket right pocket at some point but the outside money that you don't have is the 218 000 that we anticipate you will get

Got it. Go ahead, Claudia.

Just wanted to clarify. Claudia Miro with Freebie. You had said Freebie would be releasing the money. CITT would be releasing that money back to you. My apologies. Right. And then the other thing I wanted to say, just another technical... He had Mr. I'm sorry, I lost his name. Paul had said that it was up to 20%. It's a minimum of 20%. So minimum and up to 80% for the road repairs or whatnot. So just wanted to clarify that. And then the other thing is that you had a 204,000 and some change allocation last year that that's the amount that's currently being on hold. And the amount for next year is estimated to be less right now. It's about being estimated 186 and some change. So I just want to say it is a little bit less because less money was collected.

So I just kind of like to approximate.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we round up in here. OK, yeah.

All right. Great. Claudia, thanks for the clarification. All right. So I want to give the commission certainly time to to ask any questions to Paul about the numbers. before I provide my comments on my understanding of all this. So go ahead. If someone has questions or you don't want to talk to Paul about the numbers, please go ahead.

Before this meeting, my questions that I had was I wanted to find out what the actual costs of running freebie. And if we advertise, would that help a lot? And I think that second point is from what residents brought up tonight. I think if we did more advertising, that might help. By using the money for free, does it take away from any of the projects that we have? That's my main three concerns. But after listening tonight from what the residents are speaking, we have to decide Are residents more important than money? We can always find money. Whether or not we help residents is very important. So if one, as I said before, the model in Marine Corps is we don't leave anybody behind. So if we leave one resident behind, then we're shortchanging. So that's just my comment.

Commission. Yeah. So where do I start? I said this at the last meeting and I'll say it again. You know, we didn't fix the roads before freebie. We haven't fixed the roads since freebie. So, you know, let's let's let's just be honest with ourselves. I know we're going to talk about stats. We're going to talk about data. We're going to talk about finances. But I just want to make sure that, you know, the last meeting in May, everybody knows that I was a yes vote. And I also mentioned that I felt that that freebie did a service to some of the most vulnerable in our community. And I thought that that had value. And that's the reason that I was a yes vote. Having said all of that, the reason that I ran six years ago, and by the way, there's an election in November in case anybody's wondering, but there is an election. The reason that I ran six years ago is because I sat right there where you guys were, and I felt that I wasn't listened to, that the residents weren't being heard. I wasn't being heard. Emails were sent, and they went unanswered. So it's great that we're hearing from all of you that are here and all of the people that sent emails. That's all wonderful. But the reality is that the only place that I'm hearing about getting rid of freebies from this day is I have yet to hear a resident say to me, hey, let's get rid of freebies. A horrible idea. You know, maybe we'll fix a driveway or or half a street. I haven't heard one resident tell me that. So. The reality is that we're here to serve the residents and what they want, not what art wants or what the administration wants. So for that reason, I will continue to be a yes vote. So that's where I stand, guys.

We're doing questions for Paul first. I'm going to go to questions for Paul, and then I'll make my comments. Paul, what's the current balance approximately in the CITT fund? Is it positive or is it negative?

Well, I'm going to have to clarify your terms a little bit. In the overall project of CITT, it's a little over $650,000 in the total project fund.

But is that money in the bank currently right now or is that money?

No, they've stopped. Right. They've stopped transmitting, transferring the funds on a monthly basis to the village. But we we track it simultaneously with the county.

So current on hand funds to be expended tomorrow because this service continues tomorrow. What's that on hand funds in the CITT fund?

Zero.

Zero. So we have no money in CITT. So every dollar we spend would come out of which fund?

Your general fund or a grant. You had a grant at one time. I don't know the status of it, but you had a $60,000 DOT grant that was funding it.

And what's the current O from CIT to the general fund? How much does the CIT owe the general fund right now?

For transit, $219,000. $219,000? Yeah, it's $218,952. I round it up.

And what's the number that is projected if we continue freebies through the rest of the year to be owed by the end of this fiscal?

You should gain about another $35,000, maybe a little less.

We're going to round out about $250,000 in the whole for CITT, correct? Correct.

I misunderstood.

We're going to end up about $250,000 negative in that balance by the end of the year, correct?

Let's see how you're saying it. We are already budgeted and are paying the difference for this year, so I'm not... It's not going to be a deficit. It's already in your budget to pay it.

Okay. So it's already in the budget to budget it from the.

Yeah. So you're funded for it in terms of operating. But the question is what, you know, CITT needs to, you know, when that process cleans up, you'll, you'll be reimbursed.

I understand, but right now, I'll quote you here and say that last week when we talked about this, you said it's a long uphill battle to get the county to release the funds. Yes. What would be the projected O from CITT to the general fund at the end of the fiscal?

Yeah, so that's what you meant by that. Yeah, so it should be about $250,000 for transit.

Okay, thank you. That's the question.

Sorry, I didn't mean to be evasive. I just didn't hear it correctly.

All right, that's fine.

Commissioner, any questions for Paul?

So, Paul, you touched on my main thing. I think I wanted to clarify with you is, and with staff, is what's the deadline? I don't know why.

Hello.

I'm going to eat the mic.

You sound great online.

Thank you. I'm glad. So the question for you, Paul, was going to be about the FDOT money. So we have 60 grand. When's the deadline for that?

I don't have that detail. I'm sorry.

I figure you didn't, but I just want to make sure. So that's a $60,000. I believe that there, Isa, you might be able to answer this one or someone from staff. What's our deadline for FDOT 60 grand attached? Currently we're paying freebie portion comes from this money, the $60,000. Yes.

Good evening. So that's why we were on that deadline to make a decision last meeting. Because we needed to renew. We had one more extension for that grant. We needed to renew it. So we needed to make that decision last meeting. So right now, I think the manager is trying to see if there's an opportunity to, but I think they're going to make us reapply instead of having to just, we were just going to roll over into the extension for one more year. But that's by missing that deadline of... not signing the agreement the last meeting, we now would have to reapply.

And what happens if we miss?

There's a 30-day notice that is required for canceling. So that's why I said the manager is trying to negotiate the opportunity to see if we can do the extension without having to reapply.

All right. So I know the deadline. I did call FDOT. I just wanted to confirm. I don't know what the process is, and that's why I need clearance from you guys. What's the next step is my question, because if we do decide this and we move forward, do we have the money? Do we have 60 grand to move forward? That's been paying half the bill.

So like Paul was saying, the money for $120,000 is in your budget out of the general fund.

Yeah.

It's for this year. Absolutely. So we're budgeted for that under the idea that you're going to get that money back 60 from CFTT, 60 from the grant. But it's already budgeted for this year out of your general fund.

Yeah. But the difference is if we do move forward.

Right.

Right.

You would be banking basically without the grant and just the CITT money. So now you would be 60 grand coming out of the pocket that's not getting refunded.

Correct. So that's the impact I see, and that's the clarification between the deadlines you're referring to, what the process is, which I still have questions about, is how do we make sure that whatever we pass today, we are going to cover it the way we've been covering it So far, because that money, $60,000 came from FDOT for us. If we pass a deadline and that doesn't happen now, how much, Paul, are we subsidizing? So I'm guessing between the 60 plus the extra 22,000 or so then.

Yeah. It's 120,000 on an annual basis. Right.

Yeah.

So, but the minimum that we have to use is 20%, right? Yeah.

Yeah, but what I'm asking...

But we can use more of the CITT money. Correct. We don't have to just use that small percentage. That's the minimum. So the money that we get from CITT, we can actually pay more out of the CITT for freedom.

Okay, so that's where I'm going. We are essentially telling FDOT, no, thank you for your grand money. We have a deadline that we told them we don't need it. That's what I'm trying to verify because we passed the deadline and we had a money coming in 60 grand that was coming from FDOT, not our general fund, not, right? So the question is- if we move forward which i think majority will agree tonight that we we want to do this i know my vote is a yes who pays what and you know how do we solve the issue of procedurally that starting the next contract um claudia were able to have the money from fdot so i think maybe the answer you don't have it i would say the goal would be to try to re-establish that grant obviously um

If that isn't capable, we'd have to search for other money avenues. The other opportunity is that, yes, you spend more than the 20%, which you're already spending technically more than 20% because the 20% is only $36,000, but you're basically taking $60,000 from CITT to cover the half. You see how we were kind of splitting it there? Grant was $60,000. You were taking $60,000 from CITT. You were already spending more than 20%. We've already, but it's budgeted. So, yes, $60,000 would need to be found, whether it's another grant opportunity or spending more out of CITT.

getting $200,000 a year from CITT, technically, right? And again, we've been using that money, the additional money, in theory, for stormwater, other projects. So to your point, that money, that $60,000, if we lost it, it would be $60,000 less that we would be able to use other projects.

Correct. And that's my concern. So for me, it's not so much like the percentages. To your point, I think that we've figured out Paul has a very good idea of the 80-20. We control that. The key point is if we don't have that money, which is what I understood in the meeting we all voted for, is that you had a deadline. And that was the reason why we needed to pass this resolution. And the deadline was attached to the fact that we're receiving free money. My question is, where is the money going to go? Because I am upset now that if we can provide the service for 60 grand out of our pocket, that's what's going to happen. I don't know what the answer is. That's why I'm trying to put it out there. And if it is, we're going to pull that out from where? From the CITT fund?

From CITT. And obviously, if we sign a year agreement now, you're starting a new year with freebie. Right now, we're on month to month. There is no active contract. And that's why this debate is happening now. So budget season will be in, what, another five months?

Not even. We're going to start in a month. But yeah.

So two things for me. The first one would be the CITT. The first call for FDOT for me was to understand, I didn't know the name of the grant itself. So I was trying to understand how this works. And the deadlines being for F, I mean, what it was told is that if we do apply, it will be like 2028, I think, because of the deadline on their fiscal. Again, I don't understand that. You know, that's what you guys do. So what's your problem, Judy? Okay.

All right. Look, I'm going to answer the question on the funding thing. I think there are multiple sources from which we can fund if there's a shortfall. Yeah. We can still get the grant. A grant can be pulled at any time. So we could have lost that money today because FDOT said, sorry, we're not going to fund it. So we can fund it from CIT. And if we fund it from CIT, in theory, we still have money for capital projects on top of a full $120,000 fund from CITT. And we have Al already shared with me an early plan to claw the money back from CITT to finish the five-year audit to bring that money down. I'm going to cut right to the chase for everybody up here. I see this as being a right down the middle satisfies both parties. We can either fully fund it with the grant money, we can fully fund it with the CITT, and even if we fully fund it with the CITT, we still have money left over for capital projects. And that includes a potential $60,000 to $80,000 for road paving. And that doesn't even consider the other $200,000 plus that we're trying to pull down right now. from CITT to do that. So I see this as a perfect solution. We can renew the freebie, we can continue to pay through CITT, and whatever excess we have and whatever more money we pull down, we can use it for the roads. So I was very happy to hear that today in the discussions with Al, in the discussions with Paul, in the discussions with Freebie, that we have an opportunity here in front of us to renew a service that we hear people want, And we are able to cover it. And we still have money left over to do the things that we wanted to do with this money in the first place. Let me just be very clear, too. I'm voting in favor for this very reason. But let me just be very clear that the work that you guys did on this. I appreciate you just bringing up the ideas. This is the job of the manager and the staff to say, let's look at the things that we are doing and see if there's an alternative view. That's all it is. People came out and said, we want freebie to stay. Great. Then it stayed.

Right.

But there are other ways to use these funds.

Absolutely. I appreciate- We don't have a horse in the race as administration. I just want to kind of throw that out there. I get it. We get a little slack like this. We're trying to save the village money and do roads and provide a service. And within that month that you all tasked us, we went to freebie. They've extended the range of the freebie service. The range will be- We included a public. So whatever you all tasked, we went to bat for it and got it for the residents and for you all.

Sorry, he's in a discussion with Claudia. She said they're open to expanding it even further and helping us with marketing and advertising.

So it's on the resolution we have today or no.

Well, this is a discussion that we have as we continue to partner with them. But, you know, the fact that this came up and the fact that you're you're willing to work with us and that we're renewing a partnership, if there's a full vote for it. I don't know. From all sides of this, I see this as a positive development that we found that there's additional funds that we can pull down for the projects that we want to do, and we can continue to provide freebie out of the CITT. I'm very happy with this development, guys. Yeah.

Thank you. We'll get a lot more people to run it. So I would believe

Your mic's not on, Dan.

I was believing that people just didn't want to use it. Looks like it was because we wasn't advertising. So I think you pulled the point tonight that you will help us with the advertising. I'm happy to put that on the record. We can do that.

Yes, I'm happy to put that on the record. We are happy to help with any type of advertising, you know, marketing materials, getting the word out. And then one of the residents brought something up as well that we also do. She mentioned about some of the seniors. We're happy to come and do a town hall meeting. If there's a bingo game or what have you, where we can go and go ahead and kind of help them download the app, teach them how to use it. And for the folks who don't have a smartphone or may not be as tech savvy, just don't feel comfortable. You know, we, we teach them about the 800 number that they can call and request a ride that way. We teach you about managing expectations as somebody else, one of the other speakers this evening said, okay, And microtransit is not Uber or Lyft, right? It's one car, not 100,000 cars available when you request a ride. So we talk to you about what the average wait time is, what your base wait time is, that it's higher during peak times, et cetera, so that you know, you know, we educate what the national average is on wait time. So folks understand and they imagine their expectations. So if they do have to go, okay, if they have to go to Publix, they're fine. But if they have to go to a doctor's appointment, which is a time-certain appointment, they know, you know what, I'm going to have to call 30, 45 minutes in advance because my peak time is between this time and this time. And if I'm calling between those hours, my wait is going to be longer. So now you have a happier rider, a happier user because they know how to use the service, get the best out of the service as possible. So, and then again, This is a partnership, so I would also encourage the city, if you could put some information, we'll put it together, add it to your website. If you have a newsletter that you can send out or just to kind of keep the word out. And of course, the caveat that I will also put on the record is when you put out and more people find out about it, the more users you have and then the higher your wait times are. So it's kind of a balance as well, which is why we usually don't advertise. We always do it right before we start the service and let kind of the community know that it's coming. But we're not here. We're not just vendors. We're here to be community partners with you, work hand in hand with you and anything that you need. Please call me. All of you should have my phone number, my cell phone number. Call me. I'm happy to work with you. Any ideas you want to troubleshoot, we'll do. If there's another other locations close to that other Publix that we added that you want to add, let us know. We'll go ahead and add it. you know, and listen to the feedback. And we also listen to the feedback that, you know, the community gives our drivers. So if you're riding along and you have an idea, definitely tell the driver, the driver will tell their performance manager and the performance manager tells me directly. So we're happy to help. And thank you so much for your time.

Thank you, Claudia. So listen, I, yeah, go ahead.

I haven't got a chance to speak and I see my breath here because I'm a no vote, but I want it to be on the record why I'm a no vote before we vote. So ridership, 2023, we're at 6,205 riders. In 2024, that dropped to 5,337. That represents a 13% decrease. 2025, that dropped to 4,183, a 21% increase, or decrease, excuse me, from 2024 to 2025. In 2026, we don't have a complete year, but in the first quarter, we have 840 riders. That's a 12% decrease. That shows from 2023 to 2025, our completed years, a 34% decrease over three years. I tried to compare this to our neighboring municipalities. I pulled up CITT's ridership manual, which they published one in 2025. To my surprise, we are the smallest municipality in Miami-Dade County that offers this service. The only one close to us is Village of Bal Harbor. They boasted in 2025 11,296 riders. We are almost comparable in population, but when you add in their commercial property, we are nowhere near the size of them. So I looked at our neighbors, North Miami, Miami Shores, El Portal. El Portal does not have this service. Miami Shores, which has four times the size of our budget, does not have this service. They have an internal bus route that runs for four hours a day. We run for seven hours a day during the weekdays and 10 hours on the weekends. They spend $40,000 a year on transit. We spend $120,000 a year. North Miami does have freebie. They spend $130,000 per car. They have four cars, but $130,000 per car for their entire city. We are one square mile and we're paying 120 for our city. Then if you look at Wellington, the contract you guys are about to piggyback off of, there are 44 square miles and they cover their entire city for 230,000. To me, 120,000 for one square mile is way too much money. So then I looked at efficiency. Currently we have a Tesla. If you look at, where does that Tesla charge? It charges at Public Works. If you look at Public Works as utility bills, which is another added cost because we pay the utility bills that charges this vehicle, not freebie, we've gone up close to $10,000 a year in utility bills every year since we brought in freebie at the Public Works. That's outpaced Parks and Rec, this facility, or City Hall. That's an added cost that's not being added into this. But the reason we're moving this year from a Tesla to a VW is because of the Florida DOT grant, which is not a operations grant. It's a developing your transit system grant. The only way we qualify for it is by adding a larger car we're putting on the road that's 20% less efficient than the Tesla. So every mile that car drives, we're going to be using 20% more electricity that we pay for. So then I looked at the environmental impacts. Last month, we had 242 riders. That averages about 12 minutes a ride, comes out to 48 hours of active driving time last month. Of the 247 hours we were open in business to drive, 199 hours were wasted electricity of the car driving around that was not serving the residents. When our power comes from FPNL, that is 70% fossil fuels. You cannot tell me that there's not an environmental impact when we're wasting 199 hours of electricity a month. And that's going to go up by 20% when we put the VW on the road. VAT payments, we've already talked about. It has been no payment since 2020. our last payment was in january 17th of 2020 our balance was 700 000 at that time the reason we brought in the service is because we had a exorbitant amount of money that needed to be spent so we could reactivate these funds we are now sitting with a negative balance of over 250 000 by the end of this year in citt and as our uh finance manager told us it is a long uphill battle to get the county to release the phone so what is the negative account going to be by the time we get there Like I said, this Florida DOT grant, it's a means to an end. It is a developing your transit system grant. The only reason we qualify this year is because we're moving from a Tesla to a VW. What is the future there? Are we going to have a EV Hummer, EV Semi, EV Tour Bus? You eventually are going to outgrow that grant, and it's not going to be kind of a funding source anymore. So the future is we have a transit share of $37,378, the 20%. We're going to have to make a choice at some point what projects on the transportation side, which are road repair, stormwater drain cleaning, street lighting, which one of those do we not want to fund with CITT so we continue to fund this service? To me, this is too big. I remember Mr. Gonzalez sat right here and said, sometimes we have to realize we are a little Biscayne Park. This is a too big of service for our community. I understand that it serves a need, but there are many other services that serve this need. STS, which provides services through Miami-Dade County, through CITT, for senior residents and disabled, does it at door-to-door service for $3.50 a ride. There are many other services as well. We could provide a toolkit to give out to our residents and provide them the service. It shows when you look at El Pratau and Miami Shores, two communities that are so close to us that do not have this service. There is a reason for that. So for me, that is why I'm a no. It's not a sustainable solution. There will become a time where we're going to have to sunset this. So for me, that time is now.

I understand. Ryan, I can tell you put a lot of time and effort into the research. I appreciate it. You know, well understood. Well heard. Listen, I don't know if there's any other discussion or anyone else wants to speak or ask questions. I'm ready to call for a vote.

I'm going to finish my points, if I may. I'll take, and at any time, if you feel I'm talking too much, please utilize the five-minute rule we have in our procedures. And allow me to just direct some of the comments from the audience, please. My two points, $60,000 from FDOT. I'm hoping we can continue to fund it. That was my first point. And the second one, I do believe this service does not have a one-to-one evaluation on the money, okay? We are not talking how many seniors are actually using dividing by $120,000. The same way we're not doing that when we talk about kids playing in the park or other services that we provide. This is one of the very few things we have for seniors in our community. It's a must, and it was a must when I voted yes. That's it.

Thank you. Okay. Anyone else? No? All right. All in favor of approving the resolution?

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

Got it, Madam Clerk. Okay, great. All right. So having no other business for tonight's meeting, I will ask for a motion to adjourn.

Make a motion to adjourn. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. Thanks, everyone, for coming this evening.

Claudia, thank you for being here.

Paul, if you can still hear me, he's still there. He's not. Sorry. I'm sorry. Thanks.

Bye-bye.

I'm going to get it all out.