Charter Review Board - Regular Meeting

Is rolling. I'd like to call this meeting to order 02/11/2025 charter review board meeting. Yep. There it is. Excellent.

Sorry, guys. Stay good.

The board clerk, clerk, please call the roll. Yes.

Chair Valvo? Here. Vice chair Scoriusa? Present. Board member Albo? Here. Board member Minsis? Here. Board member Razib?

Here.

Deputy city attorney Mahaffy? Here. City attorney Piper?

Here. Thank you.

We'd like to remind everyone to please silence your mobile devices. For help with sound quality, make sure to speak clearly so that the microphones can pick up your voice. This meeting is being conducted live with a quorum physically present. The material for today's meeting is available online at coconutcreek.net. Anyone wishing to appeal any decision made will need a record of the proceedings and for such purpose may need to ensure that a verbatim recording of the proceedings is made, including the testimony and evidence upon which the appeal is to be based. The audio of this meeting may be requested from the city clerk or may be heard online online at coconutcreek.net.

Thank you. I don't know if everybody's brought their attention to the minutes from the January 28 meeting. If they've they had an opportunity to review them, fantastic. If not, if you could just take a moment and review them, and then we'll look to adopt those amendments.

Remove acceptance of limits as submitted. Second.

I have a second. All in favor? I got it. I favor. I. Alright. From January 28, everything has been approved. And as we did last week, had three commissioners, two commissioners, and mayor present to review and discuss any thoughts, open thoughts about the city charter. So tonight we have two more commissioners present, vice mayor, really, is here. And it's pretty much open.

We did it last week. Just very much open and if you please share anything thoughts you might have. Then just along the way, might have a couple questions for you just to get your thoughts on it.

Okay. Great. Thank you. Well, thank you first of all for your service on on this on this board. And I know it's very the charter is very important on how we govern our city.

So there are a couple of things that I really appreciate if you took into consideration. I feel that we select our boards more stringent than we actually pick our candidates, so to speak, or allow them to run for office. I mean, it it's very important on who our candidates are and how they're selected and what the requirements are. So I would like to I know we we're limited, but I would like to see some qualifications added to the charter if it's at all possible. Qualifications for commission For mayor and commission.

Absolutely.

Are are you referring to anything in specific qualifications?

I think I would think they would have to be involved in the city at in some capacity, whether it be the Citizens Academy, whether it be to be on a board, whether they volunteered to have some some some involvement in the city, to have some clue as to how the city is run and what it entails. So, I mean, I might, you know, not be speaking totally unbiased, but I think it it it brought to light this particular situation has brought to light that if I walk out and get hit by a truck or any you could the candidate is your commissioner, basically. So I think it's important that there be some kind of experience or background.

Excellent. You know, one of the things we talked about we didn't really distill the thought too much, but was the idea of maybe in addition to being having a one year residency in the city, being a registered voter also for a year or more. I think we discussed that. We haven't really chewed on it at all. Kind of along those lines, I wanted to see if our staff knows. Is there would there be any additional law that would preclude the requirement from being two years instead of one year? Is there any kind of state law?

You're talking about the residency requirements? While there's not any particular law that precludes that, most of the case law is let me rephrase that. All of the case law I've seen is supportive of one year. Not all of the case law is as supportive of two years. Some of the courts have upheld it, and some have not. And I'm just talking about it in So I think that we would run possibly a risk of somebody challenging that and it maybe not being upheld.

I was just thinking about it the other day. The one year several months out of one year are kind of fuzzy. Right? Like where do you establish residency, get a driver's license, buy a house, but you go back up north, you work for another six months, you retire, you know. So I don't know. Was just thinking about that just myself. I haven't shared that with our board at all, but I was just curious about that. I made a note to mention it. Okay. So maybe some additional type of qualification or standings or something. And Has

there been a test of that?

Whatever's been supported. Yeah.

Has there been any test of that kind of thing with the the municipalities in Florida? Requirement is some kind of service or was on board, service on a committee. I don't know if that's ever been tested. A lot of cities have required the same kind of thing.

I don't know if that specifically has been tested. Again, I've looked at some other types of requirements. And generally speaking, the courts have mostly found in favor of providing the opportunity for a candidate to serve, kind of siding on the side of the candidate and making basically not creating obstacles to somebody being able to run for and be selected for office. That said, restrictions which are not arbitrary and kind of are you know, if we have kind of a legitimate government purpose for imposing those restrictions and they're not arbitrary, they've generally been upheld. For example, the one year residency, you can easily verify that and give examples of why you would want somebody to live in the city for one year prior to running for office.

Things, you know, for example, as it relates to background checks, that has been stricken or not allowed. It is deemed to be an obstacle to running for office. And actually, of the case laws suggest that, you know, even at our highest level of government, the presidency, there is not a requirement. And so that's really up to the voters to decide. It is what the courts have said as it relates to that kind of a requirement.

I know in 2024, there was a law that was enacted that, like, to serve on an HOA board, you had to go through some type of educational class, a four hour class or a six hour class. There's probably some just thinking of that, there's probably some thought to it. I think appointing being on a board would probably be an obstacle. Right? Because then the city commission could always just block out whoever they didn't want to ever run for office. They would just never appoint them to a board. But but the HOA thing, I'm just thinking about this. It's it's pretty minimal, but it's like four or

five hours.

Four hours?

It's a four hour

course. Yeah.

For HOAs, for condominiums, association boards. It's a four hour course, and they're very, very specific. Mhmm. You can't leave in three and a half hours where you don't get your certification. Right. Yeah. So yeah. There is but it's interesting that it's sort of an HOA more to serve on condominium or if you meet that kind requirement, but there's no requirement that let's say when you get elected as commissioner, is there a requirement that you take the Citizens Academy or anything Sorry. At that

I didn't mean to interrupt. There's not a requirement currently. However, it is encouraged. That said, it you know, certainly we can research as far as what you're referencing pertaining to education for like an HOA or a condo association board and see if that has been applied in this context and you know what the courts have said as it relates to that. Did you have something to add Kathy? I was going say

when a commissioner is newly elected or mayor, any position like that, they do have some ongoing continuing education requirements. They have required trainings that have to be done by the attorney's office or the Broward OIG or the state on ethics and a bunch of issues related to that. So there is significant training there are significant training requirements that are required once someone is elected.

And then

those go ongoing and reoccur annually.

And to be more specific on that point, Broward County requires eight hours within essentially the first year of being elected in ethics, both at the state and county level as well as public records, sunshine law. And then as it relates to the state level, they require four hours. You can take them contemporaneously provided that it covers both county and state. And then there is the requirement of recurring training for all elected officials, all local elected officials at least of four hours a year, both state state and county level, in public ethics, sunshine law, and public records.

That's strictly, like I said, ethics and behavior, personal behavior, not operations. Correct.

So I had a few portions of the charter to kind of point out to pinpoint where you might want to put these qualifications. So I was a little confused because actually the terminology used for city commission is eligibility versus qualifications. So that's in 301B. I mean, it's a completely different verbiage and terminology than for appointed positions. So if you then look at city manager, qualifications are designated there having worked in a city capacity, as well as then you mentioned another appointed positions, boards.

So I guess my question is, in an elected fashion, you're looking for qualifications then for candidates or even commissioners. Because again, there's now a judge of you're your own judges of qualifications. So if you did have, call it, a candidate's question, would ensure colleagues in the commission also somewhat share and then be judge of qualifications? I guess I'm

Given these other pillars, what are you looking

to add or take away? Qualifications, Tammy, is very open ended.

Sort of of experience or some kind of involvement in the city.

So you use City Academy, I think, as an example?

I would.

And that's offered how many times a year?

All It's offered annually. It's offered Yeah. That's tonight's the first night. It will be happening right next door starting, think, at 06:00.

That's what drew me.

Are there any other cities requiring such a city involvement for any candidates outside of, call it, the eligibility requirements?

From my recent research, I did not find anything. However, I think we could go back and just double check

on that. Okay.

I guess I just feel like, I mean, eligibility seems more open and slightly more democratic rather than, you know, the unappointed position. So appointed, right, you hope your applicants have a resume, right? And, you know, I'm a little vague on the Mr. Smith goes to Washington details, but, like, I guess we're not having a Mr. Smith goes to Coconut Creek issue.

Yeah. Along that line,

does the

is it an elected commissioner, do they become an employee of the city? Is it considered employee, a contractor, or its own special category? And if so, are there employment qualifications for run of the house employees that a commissioner wouldn't be subject to because they're elected?

That's an excellent question. So the short version is our human resources and risk management department does classify them as employees for purposes of payroll, study benefits, that kind of thing, pension benefits, etcetera. As an employee, they are expected to, you know, keep up with if we have some kind of IT security training or to the extent that the city is a drug free workplace, you know, they're supposed to adhere to that.

Workplace behaviors. Right. But at the

same point in time, they are still elected by the public at large and do have separate ethics and other requirements imposed upon them by state law. So in that regard, they are distinguished or differentiated. So without knowing the specific situation, it's difficult to answer that question in

the back. I remember seeing somewhere, and I don't know if I read it here or read it somewhere else, but elected officials being expected to conduct themselves in a manner that doesn't bring embarrassment to to cities, to town, or whatever. Don't think I read it on charter, though. I did read it. For election, etcetera. Before I started the I served with

this board. And, of course, that would not apply to candidates.

No. As we see.

Yeah. That may be in our decorum policy. I'm not sure.

About that? Or I have

a question for us. What is it that we're trying to accomplish with this requirement? Because I think the range is it's all over the place, like, what we could consider as Right. Sure.

That's why I said eligibility keeps it more open. Right. Right. Are we looking to be inclusive or exclusive? Right.

And all all I'm trying to accomplish in this given talking point is just get enough information so that we can put it on a list at some point we'll chew in a little bit on it and You know, I wanna make sure that when we're talking about it or not make sure, I wanna try to ensure that when we're talking about it, say, I wonder if vice mayor meant this or meant that. I don't know. So we're just kinda I

would even even if you want to say eliminate requirements or qualifications, okay, standard, I think then we should zero in on, well, say, the qualify qualifying. Maybe get a little more detailed in the qualifying aspect.

Are you trying to even?

Mhmm. Eligibility. Eligibility. I'm sorry. Eligibility. Yes.

Got it.

Because I think it's very I think eligibility is very big, the way it stands now. It says one year and just bring in two forms of ID. But one year, I could say I've lived here one year, but I don't. You know? So how do we I I know you get we get into muddy waters trying to prove, okay. What do we have in a bed check? I get that. You know? Yeah. But

Did you just sorry. Could you did you just say you violated your eligibility?

Clarification. Yeah. Thank you.

You did mention this actually early on. We talked about eligibility. It was twelve months filing and prior and it said the only qualification is really just a driver's license and it could be a utility bill. Didn't even say a voter registration card. So does it really be the our current charter doesn't even require that it would be a registered voter for twelve months? Technically, you could register to vote just prior to the election.

I We're not registered to vote.

Right now, doesn't matter. We talked about it last time to have the voter registration as part of the eligibility. So in hearing that, do you have another specific line or another way to, I guess, make it a harder check of eligibility? Is that, I guess, what we're trying to think of? And if so, do you have any suggestions?

Yeah. Like, during this week, I was thinking about just on the eligibility with the twelve months, thinking that so many times whether it's somebody trying to get state level tuition, state tuition, whatever over the years, it's kind of fuzzy, know, like if you buy a house, you get some utilities going, but like I said, you can go back up north, finish out your work, come back down. So the twelve months is kind of fuzzy so I was just know I was wondering like twenty four months probably ensures twelve months is for real. But on the other end I guess it could also be at the city clerk level, there could be if that was a concern, and I'm not suggesting it's a concern, I'm just sharing thoughts, but the city clerk, the qualifications for establishing the twelve month residency could maybe be just at a kind of policy level could be a little more I don't know. I don't know what the requirements are now, but, you know, if it's evidenced by multiple utility bills or multiple something as opposed to I don't know how it's done now, but I'm sure it's more than just a driver's license.

No. I'm not

sure it's more than just a driver's license. Two two proofs of identification showing the candidate's address of primary domicile, one being a driver's license plus electric bill, water bill, or other evidence of for trusts. So Yeah.

Are Yeah.

Close to all those are.

Yeah. I can do that.

So I'd like to add voter registration

to that

at least. Yeah.

Indicating you're a registered voter for at least that period.

So we have that, yeah, we have that to discuss at Yeah. Whatever time we break

and chew on these things. Mhmm. It's true because if you're look if you're running for elected an elected office, a position, then you should have at least have voted.

Or be eligible to vote for yourself.

Or at least prepare to vote. Alright.

Anything else you're thinking about?

No. Not really. The March of as opposed to November elections, that's all. You know, we thought about that. I'm sure that's come up.

Yeah. What do you think about that?

Yeah. Well, the more I've I've spoken to people and other elected officials in other cities, they and even those that have changed are sorry that they've changed to March, especially now since they're not saving any money from November from March to November. So and they find that their issues do get lost.

Could you elaborate on What? Could you elaborate on that? They're not saving any money because I think

Evidently, it costs the same to run-in March election as it does in November for the cities, for the municipalities. That's what I'm hearing. I mean, I haven't done the research on that. But that's what a few of the cities have stated. Officials have stated.

So state doesn't pick up any of the cost of November general election? We we pay the city pays the entire cost?

So Broward SOE, every day they come up with a budget, and they set the budgetary guidelines for elections. And my understanding is again, they don't put this formula specifically in their budget, but my understanding is that they cover more of a percentage of the November elections percentage wise than March, where the cities have to cover the entire 100 of whatever the cost is from the administrative work to the ballots to the poll workers. So

So the percentage difference, but the nominal differences might create some discrepancies, it sounds like.

Right, down to absolute cost and based on the most recent research I did probably about a year ago, there would be a savings. Again, maybe at the time when you spoke to those elected officials in the past, the gap was a little more narrow. But now, part of it could be that maybe prior to us, if we want cities to move to a November election, There would be a pretty decent savings moving to a November election based off our current number of registered voters and the number of cities that are on November election versus the March. There would be some savings there. I'd probably estimate, you know, if we pay, say, 110,000 for a March election, a November election would probably be about 50, maybe, 50,000.

Alright. And again, I don't have up to the minute records or data supporting that. But based on my recollection of the research we did about a year ago, that would be in the ballpark.

I know.

Currently, the city pays for both, right? The county helps with the percentage of the November election. Building cover any of the city. But when you have one general election on November and putting the city election along with it, would county cover overall percentage or just the general election portion or or there's no way to separate

I don't know how that they would break down that formula specifically. I don't want that data point with me, unfortunately.

In case you had separated. You got a ballot or ballot.

No. That's what I'm saying. So if it's the percentage, then the saving is more evident.

So can I just make sure that we're understanding the question correctly? Sure. Maybe by way of example. So in the recent November election, even though our elections are in March, we did have a brand item on the November election. I think what your question is is that if, for example, we moved the elections to November, would we only have to pay for our portion of the election, or do we just pay a percentage of the whole election versus if we don't have the elections in November, we don't pay for any of the November election? Is that kind of Yeah.

Yeah. That's basically it.

So I I know recently we had a referenda item on

in November. Yeah. Correct.

Did we only pay for that item?

Yes. Okay. Printing cost for the ballot, the ones that went out is based on the number of registered voters and the booking at the time of the election. So that was only we only paid for our item for that.

But if we didn't have anything on the November election

We would pay nothing.

We would have paid nothing.

Correct. Okay. Okay. But if thank

you for but

if we have a full November elect full ballot here, and that's and to November ballot, we will obviously pay more. Correct.

Mhmm. But is that based just on our portion of the ballot, or is it, like you said, which I or I think you said, which is a percentage that's divvied up by all of the cities that have November elections?

Right. So if we have a municipal election forget about the ballot.

If we

have a municipal election in November, the formula that Barrancao uses is based on economies of scale, it would be cheaper. And it's based on the number of voters or whatever algorithm or metric they use. And I know that years ago, four or five years ago, they substantially increased the price of the November elections. The city was paying $30,000 with the 40,000 or $50,000 Actually, the Sunsettle made the news because when Joe Scott, for our County Supervisor of Elections, came to head, he was given some mandates to make the cost sharing fair because the way that Broward County looked at it, they were bearing too much of the cost of the election, and they were trying to make it more fair. So the question with that is, though, if you go to November election and say it's for '29, what if every year ground SOE increases it by 10%?

And say the March numbers stay stagnant, then all of a sudden four years later, that number is more narrow, then it's less of a financial issue and more of a belief of what, you know, type of election, whether a March or November be feeling better for the city.

I know we've discussed this.

Thought I

Prior commissioner said there might be a stable hop that just moved everything to November.

There was some draft legislation last year, and I think I've seen it in previous years. It didn't get enough traction to pass, but I think it's

think we're I So you got a few other shots.

Right. I I think it's possible it could happen at some point in the future. Okay.

You go back half a second. I hope I don't open up a can of worms, but I was just thinking. I'm gonna be quick. Is citizenship a requirement for it's well, it doesn't. I don't like, it's not, but it would be a requirement to vote. Mhmm. Yep. So if voting was a prerequisite registered voter, there'd be a disconnect Interesting. There. That's interesting. And when I say anyone open up a can of worms, I don't wanna get into, like, national politics stuff. Don't intend

it that way. Point. But That yeah. Someone could therefore based upon our current qualifications, someone could run for the elected commissioner, and they could be a resident.

A resident, be a licensed driver Yeah. Or not. So

I I believe that is part of the requirements by state laws to what is actually turned in. On the application, it requires proof of voters registration. Is that correct?

That is correct.

Even though it's not in the charter, I don't see any issue why you couldn't add it to the charter if you just wanted to be explicitly clear up front. But just wanted to share that.

So the state app the application would require citizenship through the requirement of being a registered voter.

Arguably, yes.

So does that already exist, the registered voter requirement, I guess?

It's part of the application. When you kind of declare your candidacy, you have to fill out an application and submit it with the city clerk's office. And I'll let Joseph

Right. So it's not It's not part of the charter, but there's an affidavit of candidacy and primary domicile document. And when a candidate does qualify for AC, part of the, it's actually number two. Okay. It says, I'm a registered voter and precinct number and it's blank having to be registered to vote with the office of the Broward County Supervisor of Elections. So, that is that has to be filled out and it's an affidavit that is signed Right.

By the candidate. Alright. I guess so for our benefit, I guess it's already addressed the it it just it just be a matter if we wanted to Mhmm. Explicitly stated in the charter. No.

It might be something.

Glad that was on the candidate. Did anybody have any questions from previous discussions for vice mayor really? Anybody?

I mean, well, I missed part of the discussion last week about the, I guess, commissioner Brody's suggestion about the police commissioner. Yeah. Police chief to who've been reporting to the commission.

Yeah. Just your opinion. In previous conversations, it's come up. There's been a difference of opinions of who the police chief should report to. It's been mentioned they should continue to report to as currently the city manager, and it was also suggested it would be better to report directly to the city commission. I think our board would benefit from just knowing if you have an opinion on that one way or

Well, I I do have an opinion that all department heads are employees. Therefore, it's under the purview of the city manager. You don't want it to become political, and it will become political. Position will become political if you're answering to the commission. That's my feelings.

Okay. Thank you for sharing that. Mhmm.

Thank you. You. Appreciate all you do for us. Thank you. I appreciate what you're doing.

Thank you, vice mayor. Thank you. Good luck with speaking. Thank you.

I'll go say hello to our students, and say a prayer for me tonight and Josh. Not so much him as me.

Enjoy it. Yeah.

Don't forget your your cup there.

Alright.

Alright. Is This commissioner Ridell.

We're the last?

Are. Of the guests.

Let's do that. Of

the guests. Now you're in the hot seat.

Honest of seats.

The fifth of five of our elected officials that serve, and we've been kind of had pretty much just an open dialogue with the 1st Floor and the commissioner or other officers just shared some thoughts that they have about the city charter that they'd like for us to consider, and then we've kind of shared some things, gathered some thoughts from whoever's sitting in that seat. It's been pretty it's free flowing conversation. So which you're great at.

Well, first of all, thank you all for doing this.

Thank you.

It's a rare opportunity to get to add to or modify, essentially, the constitution of the city. So it's a pretty unique ability that you have to do this. And so I appreciate you all giving your time, a lot of time, to do this in such a short period. If it's okay, mister chair, I'll run through it chronologically with things that I I see, and then we go from there. Excellent. If that works. Perfect. So first, if you wanna turn to section four zero one. These are all food for thought items. There's some inconsistencies between city manager obligations and city attorney obligations, so it's up to you if you would choose to clean that up.

For example, under 401 b, specifically donated that the city manager may not be need not be a resident when appointed. However, it can reside outside the city. There's no such requirement of our city attorney. So there seems to be a little conflict there. The same is true in later sections, that the city manager isn't given the same liberal authority as the city attorney to essentially terminate her underlings.

So, for example, right now, our city attorney, without cause, in her own will, has the ability of terminating these two young ladies. I don't mean to say it to them and show them that, but hypothetically, Madame Rose doesn't have the same power of her deputy city manager. So there's an inconsistency in the charter in terms of how they both deal with appointed deputies in that position. And that's dealt with both in the city manager and the city attorney section. The other section that I've always never really understood is under sub k in four zero three, which goes into the event of if the city manager is ultimately absent that exceeds a two month period.

I think we have a bigger problem if there's city manager that's absent for a two month period that we probably need to address in a different way than delineating a letter and saying you should be appointed. So it's unique how it's worded. But if you have somebody that's essentially the CEO of city governance and they're gone for three, four months, there should be maybe a different charter requirement or charter trigger that would happen there. In the removal section of the city manager, which is under four zero five, it's a kind of a belaboring process that is sometimes contradictory to the contract that we have. So I don't know if you're all aware of it.

I'm, again, the last to go. Both our city attorney and our city manager have employment contracts. There is conflict, as I read this now, that's I don't know which would supersede in terms of removal versus certain ways for cause firing for both of our cop ladies. So it seems a little wonky there, meaning that the contract may have harder provisions to terminate either a city manager or a city attorney that are a little different when you read it under four zero five removal. I'm just going go through them real quick.

If anyone wants to go back to anything, I'm happy to help with it. If you look at organization, we're gonna go to five zero one, organization of boards and committees. And this is maybe an ask, maybe an offer. We only highlight two boards by charter. There may be, from this board, maybe a recommendation for another board.

Now then there's a debate of should it be by charter or should it be by resolution because the city has the ability of doing that. Other cities, I'll give you an example, I don't think it's necessarily appropriate in this city. You'll hear me mentioning the city of Fort Lauderdale. I don't think our city staff likes that so much because they have a very big convoluted and unique city charter, much larger than this in a lot of different ways, and I'll reference it in a little bit on another way. But for example, the city of Fort Lauderdale has other boards codified in their charter.

They have a police review board, and they have other boards that are mandated to be included in a charter that maybe you all wish to think someone should be included in that. And I can't I don't want to tell you what that is or how it should be, but it's up for consideration. Or it may be a recommendation at the end of the conclusion of the Charter Review Board that maybe the city wants to go through a resolution to enact Board A, B, or C, which I think would be a salient and favored recommendation to the City Commission to look at these things that you're looking at that you say maybe it doesn't rise to the level of a Charter amendment, but maybe it rises to the level that we should probably have something. I think, Mr. Chair, I think you served on our public safety board a year.

I think I I think I pointed you to that. Redistricting. That was what?

Yeah. Not public safety. Not to correct you. But,

yeah, redistricting Board. So there's other there's other boards that exist that we have in the city.

Some of

some sunsetted, meaning that we've stopped some of what we owe some, but I think it's it's it's worth talking about. The other portion of that that some other cities throughout Broward County do is they actually incorporate some form of professional standards on these boards. So something that I always had a problem with is planning and zoning is like who are you friends with. So you're on planning and zoning just because you're friends with somebody. Maybe, maybe not.

There's people that serve on that board in this room, so I'm not taking shots at that, but traditionally you've seen a really unique situation where, oh, I'm putting this person on P and Z when maybe they don't have the qualifications. Maybe you should have an engineer. Maybe you should have somebody that has an expertise in real estate. People that know the substance matter that's coming before them in some capacity. Same would be true from some of these other boards. Don't say that for any other reason than I think we only have one person serving at PNC right now, right? Yep. That's me. Yeah, I know. But in the past, when we've had Parks and Rec, which is not codified in Charter, we've tried to engage people that have really done a lot for our youth communities and our parks and our recreation programs.

Worth a discussion that I see it. Again, if you go to nine zero four that was just the section in in at the bottom of 09/2004 where essentially assistant city attorneys may be removed with or without cause by the city attorney. Again, I I view it as merely as putting something in in in kind of a similar situation with the city manager because although the city manager has much wider and expected duties, I think there should be some consistency in terms of how they look at some of those other things. Really, I'm just gonna read you this. I apologize for taking out my phone.

It's just something when you when you go through this and you think about opportunities, it's really interesting. City of Fort Lauderdale. In light of maybe some of you know, maybe some of you don't know. We have we're in a unique election situation right now, where I think there's some bitch roll in our community on social media and things of that nature. I've never seen anything like this since living in this city for sixteen years, but is the city of Fort Lauderdale has a code. I didn't I didn't give you guys this before, so I apologize to both of you. It's kinda like my left field thing.

That's it.

I was talking to a member of the Fort Lauderdale Commission about it, and they're actually gonna be extending this. It's in Fort Lauderdale's municipal charter, section seven dash 15. No candidate shall promise any office, money, employment, anything of value to to secure an election or give a value to an individual for voters to secure their votes. A violation of these provisions will disqualify a candidate from holding office. If elected, the person receiving the next highest number of votes observing the foregoing conditions shall be entitled to office.

When I read that, now I don't think anyone's buying votes in our city right now, but it would be interesting to see that violating a law, some sort of decorum standard. I don't know the answer to that. Maybe there's some way that something like that could be included just because, you know, it's it's really certain things you could see that I wouldn't hamper free speech at all because I'm a huge proponent of it, but certain behaviors could cause such a lack of transparency in people's trust of government. So this is something that can maybe hold candidates accountable for their actions and their words in some capacity. Who to call?

So you're referencing generically, the full motor bill has a provision provision that prohibits certain behavior.

Buying votes. Is that is there a provision?

And what they're provide and and so you're saying you're suggesting we could chew on chew on the idea of what other things might we be able to legally prohibit to promote decorum and keep the city from going through maybe what it's going through currently or or something similar to

what it is. I think our country is different now than it has ever been in terms of how people view elections, how partisan we are, and how people view government inherently. So I don't think we're ever gonna roll back that world. But I do believe that if you're gonna candidate for office, you should hold yourself to a standard to some degree. And I think that there may be some language, whether it's the same thing, that you can't offer to purchase someone's vote or something similar to that.

And, I don't know how that because I I I like to give them a heads up. I don't wanna ever give one of them not a heads up, any of the three ladies that have been working with you guys, because I want them to respond. I don't know where this came from, and I don't know if it's in conflict with either state statute or some sort of federal election statute. But it's just worth, I think, a discussion. And I guess some overriding principles that I'll just I'll I'll say that I think are important that if you see fit to include in some capacity are mechanisms for the public, referendum, engagement, petition. I think those are important. I say that because our current charter requires, I think, 5%. What is it, 5%?

It requires 5%. State

law requires 10.

Yeah. So are we in conflict with it? Somebody saying we should lower it, Look at that. Guess it can't do that. I think that's a tall order for a resident led initiative to get on a ballot. Right? 5% of your voting public you know, we're a small city. So I think that's worth looking at. Again, Madam City Attorney may be right. You may be preempted from changing that. Or you may have an edict to change that to go higher based on being in conflict with state statute. But I think if you look at those engagement platforms, I think it's really important that those are modernized and they stay current. I think we need I think things you can continue with, ethics and transparency. I don't know. There's other cities, and I and I trust everyone here has done their due diligence.

Ethics and transparency, maybe there's something worthwhile to include in here about ethics and transparency. I think it's it's a principle that can be included. And my final thought, and I think it segues on what I heard you mention to the vice mayor on the tail end of this, is is police oversight. Right? You have the ability of generating a board of of of saying there could be a yearly impaneled board to deal with these issues in a citizen led way. So just kind of food for thought. And when you look at our public safety component in the city, it's warehouse. The majority of our budget goes to police and fire now. Alright. Traditionally, you don't have the citizen engagement and the citizen complaints on the fire side of things.

You have it more geared to the police and things of that nature. But a number of bigger cities, I think it's warranted when you look at cities like Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood. Just I'm a criminal defense attorney by day, so it's you see some kind of things in some of these cities more than most. Don't think we're there. I don't think we have rampant issues with our police department. But it's worth at least having the conversation on if there was some ability to a panel citizen driven board for independent oversight. That's all I got. And I'm open to any questions or comments any of you have. And again, I truly thank you all for being here. Craig, thank you for being willing to serve for District E. For District E.

Do you know the citizen led board as as it relates to, like, public safety? Like, like, what do they do, or do they do they provide oversight? Do they have authority over

So so Fort Lauderdale is a little unique. I can you can probably have one of our staff members provide it to you. I didn't print it. But, yes, it's it has authority. It is very unique, but I think it was an answer to the systematic problems Fort Lauderdale had, and it's different communities. So I don't necessarily think we're the right city for something like that. I think it's worth a discussion. Candidly, I do, just because I think we're in a day and age where independent oversight is is important, and you could It

piqued my interest. Just I've had a couple of people have mentioned to me that well, we've had mentioned to us that, you know, the what people think the relationship should be between the police chief and the city commission or the police chief and city manager. A few people over the years have mentioned to me that it's very it it can be very political. In fact, vice mayor, think just used the word politics in describing what it can be. And I felt like if the city commission were weighing an ongoing issue, hearing from a group of citizenry, like, hey, this is our opinion.

It wouldn't necessarily be binding or have authority, but it would be somebody who doesn't show up to these four walls to work every day or a couple of times a week offering input.

Well, I'll give you I'll give you a situation. Two examples. And I'm gonna have our city clerk to actually chime in on something because I just need some historical information from him. But right now, there's an active I don't wanna speak to the investigation. Right? There's an investigation that was self was requested by a member of this commission. Alright? Our assistant city attorney right there is the conduit to an independent judicial investigator. That could easily not that could be done in a citizen driven way if that trigger event, whatever that is, happened in an independent capacity. Just food for thought.

And now the other coin I'll give you with the second part of your question with who should a police chief answer to I will tell you this. I used to think differently. I used to think that police chief or a fire chief that we didn't have until recently answering to the city commission is actually a good thing. Let me tell you why it's a bad thing. Mr. Kavanaugh, if you don't mind me, sir, when did Morgan change it? This is not testimonial.

Approximately four years ago.

How many Chiefs have they had since?

He's rarely been stumped. It's It's like a game show.

He's I wanna say I wanna say Maybe five. Another fourth.

Okay. Wow. So the city of Morgant did a charter initiative to move all their constitutional, what they call constitutional officers, to answering to the commission. Commission. There's only two, I think, cities in Broward County that have some form of that and some degree. Margate did it and put their whole slate. So for example, Mr. Kavanaugh sitting here as the city clerk would answer to the city commission, their fire chief would answer to the city commission, and their police chief would answer to the city commission. And I think, while I thought things like that could be a good thing, I think it actually diminishes the control you're willing to give your city manager if you trust your city manager. If you don't trust your city manager, who's ultimately the CEO of the city, you've a problem.

You can also remove your city manager if you don't trust your

city manager. That's my point. So you have a vehicle for it, but the hard thing that a lot of people have sometimes is changing their view. Well, I think the police chief is the most visible department headed in this city, probably not necessarily the most important. You know, the person that runs this city, probably the most, you're probably talking maybe our utilities and engineering director who's making water flow and people drive on roads safely, the real day to day. Don't get me wrong, I'm not diminishing that. But for the purpose of city management, where do you draw the line? Is it police just because it's the sous de jure? Right? Or is it every director?

So I don't necessarily subscribe to that train of thought. I thought, when I saw Margate doing it five years ago, wow, this is unique. This could be good for governance. I I I don't believe that today. I think if you have the right person at the helm of the ship, much like the board of directors, you know, you appoint a a day to day operator.

So just for the record, it was actually seven years ago, four years

before I left. Okay.

So that's where I have four years in my head.

So it's

actually seven

How many glues sheets were they had?

Was that correct? I think it was the fourth. I'm trying

to pull up a sorry.

News editorial site. And then you put yourself in an interesting position that the arbiter of any sort of investigation becomes the governing body. But should the governing body be directing an investigation into their own choice, Correct. Hence why it's political. So then the ultimate argument is this, do you want a cop leading your police department or do you want a politician to lead your police department? And I think you can look at the county's history that when you've had real police officers that were sheriffs or police chiefs, things run a little bit different in department than when you had maybe a political law enforcement officer maybe not doing playing a more political game.

I think you'd also have to change the power of the commissioner in order to do that.

So it's not something I support, but I think it's a very good open discussion. So where do you want to start?

Top? That's good. 401, right?

BC. Yeah, whatever you'd to do.

You're definitely the fastest sprinter So of those that we spoke with.

I got

a few and and they they sprawl a little bit. Right? So 401 is the or even 4 is the city manager, which is the employee of the city. But then as commissioner brought up, the other employee kinda gets way less text in 904. And I was actually kind of interested in why that currently is, why the city attorney gets a paragraph versus seven sections for the

city manager. I can only presume because it predates me that

Yeah.

That for two reasons. One, you know, the city attorney provides legal advice to the city and tries to help advise the commission and the employees, whereas the city manager is over you know, she she or he manages all of the employees of the city, all of the day to day operations, and has a completely different role. The city manager does, to some extent, deal in policy and has the ability to help the commission make policy decisions. The city attorney does not. So for those reasons, in addition to that, at the time, I believe that the charter was initially adopted and most of the changes have been made to the section pertaining to the city attorney, although there were one or two that have been made since I've been here.

But I think that that section was created when the city actually used outside counsel as lead counsel for the city and did not have an in house attorney.

Okay. So the position has evolved. Right. Another question just to kinda clear this up because within the city manager article, it also talks about the city clerk. So I guess what I'm trying to figure out

is Kavanaugh works for Sheila. Right? Sorry. City clerk works for Madam City Manager.

So that's almost analogous Oh, before. To The city attorney hiring. Yep. The city attorney. Right? So there's some I guess my question is where can these be consolidated? Can they be consolidated into employees of the city? Or do you literally copy some of these this wording around removal qualification of non eligibility down to nine zero four.

Well, I have a question about that for commissioner Rydell. I wasn't clear by what he was proposing if he was saying essentially to add those items to nine zero four or to take them out of four zero one?

So I I just think they should be consistent. So I leave that to your discretion to choose what that consistency is. There's one side of consistency that will add requirements to one. For example Mhmm. That right now, Carol has the ability of hiring her fire in her deputies. Sheila, it's not delineated that she has those same powers. Or, for example, there's the residence requirement. Right? But that way, that doesn't exist for our city attorney. It does exist for city manager. So I bring those sections up to have consistency. I leave it to your really trusted discretion to say, hey. We wanna make it consistent. We don't. And what should that consistency be?

So then again, this is for a little bit. So that was the consistency, call it, topic. And you brought up

a specific section on around removal. So

it it seems like your comes a reason for it, not reason, but the motivation behind this because it might be also the mechanism for this other problem with appointed or problem with police commissioner, for example. So what exactly are you looking for to enforce or expedite the removal process here?

That there's a provision that a city manager with cause can be removed immediately. Okay. Sorry. Here's the I'll be explicit on that one.

So when appointing a city manager or choosing a city manager, you review the contract. Correct. So then at that time, if there's a conflict, I mean, that's just, oh, we gotta deal with it later or, you know, what is the thinking ahead of time before getting into that situation? So really

there's never been that kind of issue, but it's interesting because I can tell you in terms of the removal of the contract, and I don't have it in front of me, I'm pretty good in my head, there's sections with cause and without cause. Right? So this doesn't necessarily this vaguely references cause. So there's subsections in the contract that are negotiated in terms of if it's for cause, what's the time frame, what's the payout? If it's without cause, what's the time frame?

What's the payout? And if, candidly, you have malfeasance in the city manager's office I don't think we do right now, but again, this is for the future there should be a vehicle of some form of immediate termination. That's all. That's what I'm saying there with the removal section, because I bring it up there because there's no vehicle for some sort of expedited termination. Now, then again, think if somebody in that position or is going to be removed, I think you'd hope that it wouldn't be that way, but I can tell you historically that was an issue before I got on the commission with a city manager twenty years ago. Right? Am I right?

Yeah. Yes. Is there a cold one?

Yeah. So just food for thought.

So, you know, I'm the fastest it could happen right now seems like 60, sixty five, seventy, maybe let's call it ninety days. You're looking for an immediate, you know, without response type of action or what is where does that fit in with the city manager caught appealing that decision? I'm looking

for something a little more streamlined that is delineated with a through d. Okay. That's all.

So you're you're suggesting, obviously, it's very difficult to remove a city manager. I don't see any removal structure. However, let's say, can get that to the city attorney. So how is the city attorney remove the city manager to remove the city attorney, terminate terminate the the city city attorney. Attorney. However, now does that have to be for cause, with cause, without cause?

So I can tell you that both of their contracts talk about cause versus no cause.

That's the contract?

That's the contract, but it's not necessarily codified in the charter. And candidly, I think it conflicts a little bit. So then, ultimately, I think the charter is the constitution. I think you have to follow the constitution, but then the problem is just contract law.

Who governs the contract?

City commission. It's a it's a contract between the employee, which we only have two, our city attorney, our city manager, and the city commission that goes on.

So that could be changed to make it more stringent or less stringent at any time?

Different city managers historically through the city have had much different contracts. I've only seen three of them. Yeah. I'm not here twenty years.

Would it be typical for them to be negotiated to some extent?

I mean, many years ago, a lot of city managers had golden parachute contracts. If they were fired for any reason, they're walking away with half $1,000,000. Sure. We don't have that now. Those provisions don't exist now in our current structure, but the reason of adding something like that to a charter in my mind is to prevent anything like that in the future and really prevent against the politics

of it. Damn.

Because all you need is three votes to get a contract signed. It doesn't need to be a unanimous signing of a either of these employment contracts.

Mhmm. Yeah. And the again, just kinda thinking out loud on this. There's the charter says with a majority of the commission that an action could be taken or begun against the city manager. Would there be any any relevance of thought of a with the majority of a of a commission, a set of actions could be taken place or with a a unanimous vote of commission, maybe a more stringent or immediate action be pursued.

So somebody's caught in significant breaking a law as a city manager. Right? Like, as you said, it could take ninety days to, you know, just conclusively caught embezzling funds.

Great example.

Just the harshest, you know, amongst the harshest examples you can make. It could take a long time. And I'd like to think that there's

something Absolutely where correct.

Commission can meet Wednesday and be reviewing new applications the following Wednesday to get the spot filled.

Or you have the ability I mean, at the end of the day, our current city manager was an interim city manager before her contract was negotiated and we approved it.

As as yeah. As opposed to two months, three months from now, doing the investigation where and in that case, there'd be legal investigations and stuff. So but but maybe with a unanimous vote of commission, an expedited process could begin. And majority vote of commission, a more traditional process. I don't know. Just thinking about it. But

I think it's I think it's worth a discussion, I only say that because I don't think it's gonna happen in this city. But I don't think they thought in Tamarac their city manager was going get arrested. I don't think in Dade they thought one of their city managers was going get arrested. I definitely don't think Sheila's going get arrested. But I say that in a way of openness.

And just for the record, I don't plan to

be arrested. You wanna worry about it.

Know you twice.

Well, it was also that in removal of the manager, the city manager, there's the it's just cause as opposed to just cause. Now I know certainly in employment law there's a different standard for just cause as opposed to cause. This makes it even more difficult to prove just cause as opposed to just cause. It's interesting. It's it's a very long procedure.

Again, you don't want a knee jerk reaction. And I think that's one thing you wanna avoid. Obviously, something goes wrong and the person's accused of it. So, oh, we have to bring this person to staff of the city and they think of oath and gone. But I think I could see where there should be a procedure that could make it a little bit, not so much easier, but a little bit smoother to to remove a city manager if necessary. And, again, I don't see where where it would be necessary. But, again, thirty years

from now, who knows? I that and that's why I I bring this up now because I don't think this has been a problem in my tenure sitting on the commission. Mhmm. But I think it's a a a vehicle for protection of the residents of Coconut Creek. You got anything, John? Not yet?

No. I'm good. Alright.

I think what you said is maybe relaxing relaxing a little bit on just cause versus cause might be something to think about.

Yeah. There's definitely a different standard. It's

else are you talking? Five zero one? Yeah. I was

saying we're moving on to the boards as far as commissioner brought up. Sure. Yeah. So you wanna codify a few more boards? I it sounds like

I I Listen. I I didn't come in here with an an example of something that should be done or shouldn't be done. I don't this isn't my show to put my thumb on the scale. It's up to you guys if you think there should be more, that things should be left. Other cities have more boards codified in their charter. Other cities don't. I brought up that, and I also brought up professional standards. Because I do believe, present company excluded I'm excluding you from the company. But traditionally I say traditionally because I've seen how do I say this nicely?

Don't say don't do.

Historically, there have been people serving on planning and zoning boards that can't find a door, let alone make determinations back when the planning and zoning board had full authority but for a change of all site plans in this city. So prior to me getting elected, the Planning and Zoning Board had full authority over all site plans. That's final say. Not going to the City Commission. That has changed since I got elected, and now it has to go to the City Commission. So you had nonelected, nonprofessionals overseeing site plans of developments in the city. That's a problem. I I thought it was a problem. You may agree, you may disagree, but to me that was problem. So I haven't seen a lot of other professional standards in other charters.

It's not something you don't have the ability of doing. You could make a recommendation, and this is why, specifically Alex, I had said something something you you have have the the ability of doing is saying, listen, we think this change needs to be made. Do it by a resolution or an ordinance. It doesn't need to be chartered. I welcome those suggestions from all of you as well.

What would be the difference because I see that it can be done by ordinance Right. To establish advisory boards. Does it give a board more credibility if it's in the charter or it's established by ordinance? I'm just fishing for opinion here. I don't know what you might think.

I mean, we've asked a couple questions on this. And I guess I would just want to know, similar to expediting and being more efficient on some seemingly important decisions, if there's an important decision, a new advisory board needs to be sprung up. I mean, are we looking to see that, hey, we can help this out or speed this along? Or are we looking to establish some longstanding boards? I feel like their future needs of the city might change, right?

So to say, public safety or police, those issues of today are just they might not be the issues of tomorrow. So is there, I guess, more activity that the the commission can take on for this? Because I brought up parks and rec is in here, and that seems to be an every year board. Other boards are spun up redistricting on a calendar basis, charter review, here. But I don't know.

I guess I'm looking to see if there's any proactivity from maybe these ordinances and the history of that versus, call it, trying to cover all our bases, I guess. Like, do we need to cover all our bases if there's enough flexibility in just spinning up ordinances?

But I think the strong point of why I reference it is, I think, recommendations from you. If the answer is, listen, we think this board's short in place. We don't wanna make it a charter, but we think you should do this. And that's why I'm really I wanted to govern my words accordingly. That if you're saying this type of board, board A, we think is important for the city's needs now, we don't wanna put it in the charter because of future needs, which is a correct assessment. But city commission, we think you should act on this. I think all five of us will act on it. So I I I say that because this is an area that I think there could be strong some strong recommendations made, whether it's by charter or by not. Because we've tried other boards, we've tried. A lot that goes into that as well.

There's lot of I mean, you have the entire legal department of the city attorney's office sitting here with you. You have our city clerk sitting here with you. These things are staff intensive. When have commission meetings now, they're not an hour anymore. They're four hours, five hours.

Can I ask you, commissioner, if Have you

ever called me that my entire life? So uncomfortable. I'm really uncomfortable. It's very nice.

I feel less comfortable.

You see me with tank tops, like rolling into

Or less. Yeah. The have there been any examples in your time here of boards that have been suggested to be formed by ordinance that have not been agreed upon amongst commission?

No. I mean, listen. We've started COVID was hard, so we had a police we had a police safe a public safety board. We had a a public what was it called? Either a public engagement, public or was it with a bond?

Was a

I can't believe it was a white guy. Community Relations That's where it was. We had a Community Relations Board. So there have been ordinances of boards that, I don't wanna call them the soup du jour, that met the community's needs then. It also

Communications advisory board.

Communications advisory board. When the city's trying to understand how to communicate more effectively with residents and things of that nature. So I I do believe, Alex, you're correct on future needs, but the point I reference this now, and maybe this is the wrong forum, is I think this is the exact time to reference some of those now needs as a recommendation, not as necessarily a charter amendment, but as city commission, you should on this. And I know I'm taking you out of your purview a little bit because some of these things you can make the recommendation, I don't know how she wants to do it formally, but you could say, hey, these are the five things we want to put to the people, right, as amendments. These five things we're urging the city commission to act on in terms of the recommendations that come from your board, mister chair.

And those boards that were those commissions that were or committees that were formed, they expired by way of they were they were created with a term, like, for two years or or they just never renewed?

So post COVID, they were sunset. So the city actually went through we were very active and these boards were kind of robust, and then we sunset some of them after COVID because you had all these measures you had to take, you couldn't be in meeting spaces, couldn't do all these things. So now would be, for lack of a better term, a right time to talk about current needs. Maybe not in the chart, because I'd agree with you, you know, that some of these things are not for the future, some of them are for now.

Or maybe in the term, but that's okay.

But that's up to you. That's that's why You guys are some of the history on it. Giving us your Tuesday nights.

You you brought up the the two month absence. It sounds like that was a effect of the COVID review board timing, trying to protect for absences. Was there any different language before then?

No. That's been there forever, I have no idea why, sir. Oh, okay. That should be, like, deleted. It must delete.

It must

change. I believe that was changed in 2020. With

the 17 ballot items we've bought? That one?

No, I think the 17 ballot items might have been in 2015. No, we have 18. Oh, okay. Sorry.

It might have been a different change. I just saw the reference in there and I had assumed that there was just almost an overcompensation for potential absences at the time.

It's weird. Like, you looked at certain things and they're like, why is this even It doesn't even, you know

I think before that absence, it didn't have a limitation, and it was too broad. And in 2020, their

concern become more strict.

So The the two months was more strict. Gotcha.

And I

can actually pull that up quick.

But I think we should all we can all agree that way.

So I can't

pull that off. Back and forth.

What? Gotta go to work. Right. It's

And if the two months was geared towards

Otherwise, guess

making sure that the commission had some avenue to come in because before there wasn't an avenue to come in.

Oh, so it's very open and very

lax. Yes. Okay. Accountability. That's all we ask for.

Do we have a civil service board?

Yeah. Yes.

Yeah. That's and actually on the charter.

Yeah. I see it in the charter. I guess I've never I'm not familiar with it We do. Outside of the charter.

The civil service board, I'll let our city attorney explain it to you, does get triggered in certain employment.

So the civil service board is triggered anytime that there is a situation where we may need to convene the civil service board for civil service employees that have an employee grievance. Perhaps they were recommended termination or for some kind of demotion, and the civil service board is required to convene by law, not just our charter. It's something required by state law. In order to be kind of a board of their peers to hear the grievance to determine if the demotion was, you know, founded or the termination was founded or not. They've convened since I've been here once.

So it it is rare that they need to convene to actually hear agreements. But unlike union employees such as police and fire where they have the ability to appeal a decision to an arbitrator. The civil service board basically would appeal the employment decision to sorry. The civil service employee would appeal to

the civil service board.

That was a decision final or is it a advisory board?

The decision is final. So they may decide to uphold the termination or to strike it, in which case it would be reinstated.

It's to your terms. Right? To your terms?

I believe so. Yes.

Yeah. Back to your on the board.

I

think that was kind of it because we we talked about 09/2004. Already. So

that was through it. I'm going to just wanna revisit a couple of conversations that a couple of points that some other commissioners introduced, and I guess just you're the last one, so it's easiest to do this with you.

Let's see if I can guess who said it.

Let's go. Did you talk about March versus the elections? Right.

Am I right?

Multiple have come up Okay. But including Sandy. And That was all I

looked up on in the next one.

Do you have an opinion on

The date.

On that on that March, November?

I have traditionally supported November elections. I do believe elections should be in November, but I wanna give you some points. And I actually had an interesting conversation with Craig about this, our city attorney, with the current change up of the mayoral structure in the city. Any change like that should be suggested, I think, in probably the maybe the next charter review board or to term date after 2030. And I think that there's a logistical issue with what the people have now voted for and the implementation of that. So I agree with Mark Legend, but let me let me November elections, but let me give you some of that. And I just in candor to you all, correct my friend. He asked me about this one day. I was picking up a pizza. Should I go to the pizza shop if you don't go there, just so you know, support your co member?

But there's interesting schools of thought with elections. I know way too much about elections, not just because I run on them, just because I'm a geek and I study data and look at all these things. When you look at November elections, if let's say hypothetically the city right now was in November elections, you would have if hypothetically we had city elections in November, on this November's ballot would have been me, Jackie, and Sandy. We would have had more people turn out to that election than Brody and Wasserman would have had on a gubernatorial. There's a difference in voter turnout on November slates.

Significant. Your Presidentials bring out a lot more people than your gubernatorials, and we would track those. Right? And there's also ballot drop off, there's a bunch of different statistical things in terms of when somebody's ballot fatigue, when you're looking at a 10 page ballot versus a shorter ballot. March elections are a lower turnout. It's factual. There's no ifs ands or buts around it. You have different people coming out. It's also difficult because there's no early voting. There's been a significant change in laws that you wanna be upset? You know how many ballots went out? Do you know how many ballots went out in Coconut Creek?

Absentee ballot? Vote by mail ballots?

Yeah.

Thus far I can't plan. I heard the number already, but I can't.

I was just asking. So the

law chain that's that's far from

what The law chain, right, in January did reset. Right? So there's a reset in in January. It's two miles.

What? 3,538.

Down from? Almost 3,200.

That's the number I was say. Yes.

So it's just it's just interesting. So the I I can't tell you what's gonna happen with elections. I do believe this issue is gonna ultimately be dealt on on the state level as well. So it's interesting when you're tracking elections and you're trying you're running an election. I mean, hopefully you all know that. Right? March 11, we had an election.

I mean, you only get to 500 people. Just

reminding everybody that we're doing

an election. But you might have hit, like, what percent of

the population percent of the house.

Exactly. But I say it from a purpose of I I do believe this is gonna be a preemption issue. This has been the past three of the cycles has made it out of committees. Just has either died in the Senate or the House getting rid of municipal elections altogether, whether or not that happens. So listen, I've always supported November elections. I think it's different right now because the residents have spoken that they wanna have an elected mayor. And the implementation of that is will be in conflict if this board, I believe, says, let's go to November before twenty third.

We've always had bipart excuse me, nonpartisan elections here. Mhmm. Again, I have to draw back on my experience of North when we went to March elections. They became partisan. People now ran under a party banner. You're not not you're not running under a Democrat Republican banner. When they went to November elections, they tended to. And the problem we have is that people vote party lines. Now, that's one reason why I can see the state jumping in because we have a state that's controlled more or less by one party. And they could see therefore that their people have better chance of getting elected.

I worry about that because they see the elections becoming more partisan, if you go to November. And as I've said before on discussions, our experience up there was that the issues got lost. Who the heck is Josh? Josh Riedel. I mean, I haven't seen him. I've seen a 117,000 commercials for for, you know, for Biden and for this one and for that one and for Trump, but Riedel won. I think I got something in the mail along with stack of stuff. And what are the issues? And that's what I'm afraid of with November elections for for local officials, that the the issues that affect us get lost. And I know that from our from my experience, yeah, it's been a horrible turnout in March elections.

And we tried to get people by saying that your day to day life is often more affected and more impacted by your local officials than by the president.

Yeah. But the rebuttal of that, in all fairness? Argument You're

lying on argument all the time.

No, no, no. I say it for a purpose of, like, you're having the smallest amount of people in the pot vote. It's like inside baseball. Right? Only the people that know that wanna know. There's people School's I guarantee you all of you are voting on March 11. Mhmm. I guarantee that. But there's people that work in City Hall that aren't gonna even vote March 11. So I don't know the right answer. I know that we have a city clerk right now that is ridiculously committed to increasing turnout in our city, ridiculously committed to that. He proved it from the last election we had two years ago. Proved it with the mayoral race, whatever side you fell on. Right? Either or.

There's no good or bad answer. But you ultimately, in a democracy, you want the most amount of people to tell you what they want. That's just the reverse side of it. But I hear you. And the other problem is, to be candid, it's money matters. It's lot easier to reach a voter in March, and this factual, than to get through the noise in November. So then, just because the person can write their biggest check to themselves or has the biggest pocketbook, they become an elected official.

How many registered voters do we have?

Approximately thirty Thirty two?

Or I was gonna say 33,000, approximately. 33,000? Yes, sir. Registered voters. Approximately. Yeah.

Traditional municipal elections will turn up luckily, maybe four or five in a contested race. This year, I don't think we've reached 2,500. Although it's extraordinarily unique this year, so maybe I'm wrong.

Any and off the top of your head, how many turned out to vote in November of the 33,000?

80%.

Yeah. I was gonna say it's like 72%,

72%,

Over 20,000 people voted in Coconut Creek in the presidential.

Yeah. And you'll get about

20% in March. 10. So you're lose about 10%.

And then in the next November election, some number considerably south of?

Absolutely. The data proves that. Gubernatorial embraces are are you know, Especially now that we Regardless of whatever your partisan affiliationship is, it's not a contested state anymore.

That's interesting.

So when you had a contested state, really, it was different. But the drop off in gubernatorial versus presidential is significant. Because the majority of voters, if you look at their voter history, they only vote for president. Yeah.

So Broward County was 48%.

Really? Yeah. We were close to 80, if go to the group.

Well, 48 from 2022. So they're not a non presidential. So that's the drop that Yeah. Was referring to.

The other difference between November and a local election is the November election has early voting, has

Yep.

All kinds of different ways to drop people in, where the March election is strictly for the city.

Agreed. And there's a there's a cost issue there as well. We're costing our residents by having a March election.

So the only way we can vote other than in person on March 11 is by mail in ballots. So can I can I a request in the mail in ballot ballot? You've gotta go on March 11. There's no early voting. Correct?

Correct. That's correct. February 27 is the cutoff to request your mail in ballot. Yeah.

That's correct.

I got

my address. Okay. Just checking. I can give you the link right now if you need it.

I want 530, I guess.

Where the ice cream cone?

I think your name was on that list. That's off.

The Well, I had to because she'd yell at

me. So

there's a huge disparity, though, in the in the election process for two of the seats on our commission as opposed to the other three seats.

If they were to go to November elections, the answer to that is yes. But there's consistency now, but I believe this election, I've talked too fast sometimes, will be a considerable drop off than what you saw in '23. A lot less people are gonna vote. And we have pretty contested races in '23 as well. I mean, that was a contested race.

So you think fewer people are gonna vote in this election than you're gonna vote?

This election is gonna be an apparition to me for anybody that's a member of any Coconut Creek Facebook forum. And I'll leave it at that. Am I wrong? Pitchforks. I don't think I'm wrong. I don't know what that does. That may make people be turned off to the entire process of coming out on March 11. That may make people engaged or want to come out. I you don't know that.

Fascinating. Maybe a dumb question,

but I'll ask anything. Can this city election be online? Is that even possible?

So there's pros and cons. March, November.

I think there was a terrible analogy made by one don't remember who said it on the dais when we were having this debate. It wasn't me. It was quantity versus quality. And I think that's a terrible analogy. Right? I don't want to chagrin anyone that said it. Because sometimes you say things on the fly. But it's actually a very fair assessment. But then when someone's a vote, just because it's not quality to you doesn't mean it's not their god given right to vote in this country.

Sure.

So it's a really difficult debate, especially when you look at how governance should happen. But I think if you're going to do anything, I would just ask or recommend you do it after. We have to do this reshuffling because it's a very difficult thing that both the voters have our city attorney and her staff doing. I think they stay up at night about it. We lost this an assistant city attorney over here. She freaked out a bunch as it went to Monroe County. Not a joke.

I'm very

They've left. They went to the keys.

I'm very good very comfortable saying the city commission and all senior staff seem to be unified around that single point. If anybody's ever not getting along in a meeting, just bring up holding off on changing election dates, and everybody will be on the same

page. Well, the problem is that, ultimately, it's a selfish view. Right? People have a selfish view, but they don't look at it in the best interest. And I don't mean that in a bad way, but there's just people talk about it. Like, after March 11, this isn't my seat. This is a CD in the city of Coconut Creek. People view it selfishly, so they say, hey. What's this best way to help myself?

I

give you honesty.

You do. You should, bro.

And I got John to talk, so I'm happy.

Yeah. That's a win. Any other questions that we have for any? For Commissioner Riedel, anything?

I'd like your opinion on, you know, the commissioners or or any I think it was I forget who brought it up. Having another any kind of board position if they're running for office, either HOA or

whatever what that up, too.

What are your thoughts on that? Can someone with president of HOA run for office? Should they terminate their

You know, that's a really hard question because when I ran for office, was his vice president on our neighborhood board. Fair? I think there's a I don't know how you slice this out. Right? A neighborhood of less than 100 homes to a neighborhood with thousands of homes. That's a really difficult question because then you segue into people's livelihood as well. Like, okay, call it what it is. Jackie's the president of Wynmore. Right? Is that undertaking and a big job? Of course it is. Should she not be doing it? I don't know the answer to that. That's not my view to say. Some people say, oh, he's a lawyer. He shouldn't be on the city commission. He's a lawyer. He's too busy.

Well, what they raised it more is a conflict. Is there a conflict because

There's no voting conflict because commissioner Rayleigh is always always recused herself from any vote that fiscally benefited Whitmore.

I think that I mean, I expressed this here at the first day that we we kicked that around.

I heard it in the current climate. Yes. Well mean, hey. You know my answer to that question? I wish she wasn't the president of Winmore right now with everything going on in the city. No.

It's just not current situation. Right? Like your point you made, future thinking. What is your thought on that? Don't take the current situation.

I think you trajectory see of people that want to be in elected office in general. Forget want to be or people that have transitioned transitioned there. There. It tends to be from people that are community minded and community interested. And people that put other people first, it's not necessarily the self interest, but people that are more selfless than selfish. In most capacities, you'd like to hope. It's idealistic democracy, that people are giving up some of themselves for the greater good. So, to answer your question, yes, I don't think people should be association presidents and run for elected office.

Or maybe when they get elected.

Yeah. I will I'm glad you asked me that because I specifically crossed that out to talk about it today because it's really hard because I'm too personal in it now, meaning I see how one of my colleagues is. Before Jackie was on the commission, she was doing Relay for Life events, I was going to every single one of them, she was a very big community actor. The problem is that job, is a conflict there? I don't know. Does it bleed over? It very much bleeds over now, but maybe that's the way of the future. But do would I see any conflict if Craig wanted to be a city commissioner or being the president of of the neighborhood? Absolutely not. So that's why it's a little it's a little messy. I don't so I don't I don't know how you differentiate that.

I think it goes beyond that. I mean, if you're a little league coach, then you're a city commissioner, and now one of things being considered is whether or not we should spend the next thousand dollars on a new field or creating a new field or rehabbing a field, and you're gonna say, well, wait. This is gonna affect me personally because I'm a coach or I'm head of the little league, so I have to recuse myself. Virtually anything we do, if you're any kind of a volunteer, virtually anything the commission votes on, particularly spending money, is gonna affect you one way or the other.

Not fiscally. And I think

Well, not necessarily fiscally.

But I think that's the differentiation I coach both my daughters in multitude of sports. There's been upgrades to all of our recreation centers. It's not something that I would recuse myself on a vote from, because it's not an independent benefit to me. Now, the secondary issue is Jackie doesn't get paid. So I say this not to personalize it or individualize it to her. There's no physical benefit to what she does, it's selfless. Craig doesn't get paid. He gets yelled at more than anything, right? You do. It's selfless a job to be involved in an association.

I mean, John, all the advocacy that you do, it's thankless. So I don't like it now. I don't know if it should be a prohibition that's in the Charter. But that's a really good question, and it's just a hard question because it's really hard to take me out of my current lived experience of seeing my life for the past two years. And I say that as just a very difficult a big negative boat in the room of just, you know, what we're doing, the work we do every day is bad. And I don't think that's true, and it's hard to kind of codify that a little bit. So I'd agree with you today if you ask

me that.

Yeah. I think it's a great point though to think about all the civic organizations in our community. It's not hard to perceive them as kind of a funnel that leads to higher level of service in your community. Absolutely not. It's not hard to imagine that.

So yeah. But I almost feel like like I mean, not not as a result of the present situation regarding vice mayor but but not not excluding that either. I feel like it's almost a doing that person a service to be above above the accusation. Right? So like everybody should of course be free from guilt of doing anything conflict of interest wise but to be able to be just above approach, above accusation, it just doesn't exist if you're not.

And so but I wouldn't I don't think I'd advocate that you have to resign your civic board to run for office but maybe after you're elected sometime before you're sworn in or something like that you do a transition just to protect yourself. Like, I think of the kind of the hell in some sense that somebody might be going through through accusations and all that and just to not have to be.

And the only to your point, Craig, the only way you do this is this board is and this is why it's different, right, of a coach or, like, if somebody it's an elder in their church, you're actually elected to your position. So we have resigned to run laws, so can't have dual office holding. While it's not a formal elected position, serving on an association board is an elected position at the end of the day. You're elected to that. So if this board was considering that, I would suggest, again, the ladies in this room are much smarter than me. We have an all male board. I didn't notice that. You definitely did, didn't you? Alright. I lost my train of thought.

Think you can couch it in a Truly what you just said, but that'd be smarter. Much smarter. Much smarter. Next time. I I Five years from now.

Right. The scale is more than the scale is more than tipped in this direction, though.

Missing? It sure is. Just say don't

don't say that. I won't I won't go any more than that. In this room, the scale of intelligence is more than

10% audience's favor. But if you were going to do it, what I believe how you could get there, you can do this because of prohibition on holding any other elected office. And elected being whether it's an association board, whether you're elected at the Rotary Club as the president, or an elected. And I think that would be the disclaimer word to use if you were going to add some sort of caveat on the commission. So that's the lawyer

in there. Good thought. I'd love hers to distill that down a little bit more at some point. Good question. I think the other one

I would like your opinion on is one of us having being on two board that was concerned. That was brought up. What's your opinion on that?

I don't have a problem with that because I think it's hard to find we've we've had a lot of people offer to serve. This is a temporary board. So I think this board in redistricting is a is a temporary service board. When I say that, it's, you know, a hundred and twenty days. Right? This is finite. Am I right with that? Mhmm. Okay.

That's a good distinction.

So I think that's the distinguishing factor. And I listen to the and again, this could be one of those now moments as opposed to he talks, he engages. I listen to the minutes of planning a zoning board meeting. So it's not we're not But it means something. If you're telling me that you're getting somebody that doesn't engage, doesn't Isn't forward thinking and trying to So that's my

qualification. That sounded like a compliment.

I was interested. So I

know there's other engineering and sort of real estate development type things. I was just interested.

Or Alex, you could be from District D where I only had one person applied. And there he is.

That's not a compliment.

That's appreciation, Craig. That's what that is. That's appreciation. That's not a compliment.

No free pizza for him? None. Out.

But again, kudos to all of you because this is not an easy task, and I genuinely appreciate you all willing to do this because this isn't this isn't just showing up once a month or every three months to a board meeting. This is this is real work you're doing. So thank you.

Well, thank you. Anybody else? Alright.

I appreciate your time. It's nice.

You're a meeting. You go

to Thank you so much. Yeah. I gotta go to a debate. It's no longer a debate. Oh, okay.

Thank you, commissioner. You.

Bye. Thank you, guys. Thank you.

Appreciate your time. Have a night. Good luck. You as

well. Good.

Good night.

See you.

We

don't currently have anybody lined up, but that was one thing we wanted to discuss with you. Do you wanna go ahead?

We've asked Sheila and Pina K Lake as Sheila Rose, the city manager, and Pina Lake, the director of finance and administrative services, if they would be available that meeting to come back and address six zero four and the which was the appropriations as well as the auditing provisions that you had asked for for information on. I know that the city manager is available. I haven't heard back yet from the director of finance and administrative services. So that's what we're thinking about.

But but they're a combo deal, right? Because we're really missing the finance manager. So if they're not available, then it gets punted to a later one.

Yeah. And also, Peter Gay Lake, our finance director, could also address you had asked some questions previously about salary and benefits of the city commission. I know, I think we provided you with some information, but it's

just a

lot of questions on that.

Okay. Dan. For one city manager's president, probably I'd wanna just at least touch back on the idea of reporting structure for police chief just because it was brought up. But the fact that a commissioner brought it up, I feel like I think I I think I have a pretty firm grip of where I personally stand on it, but the fact that a commissioner brought it up, I just wanna give it a little bit more consideration. So I'd be interested in

her thought on that. Would you wanna know the police chief's thoughts about? Does it seem to be to

have both sides of it? Yeah. We talked at one point about the possibility of the police chief being either available in person or available like through questionnaire or something. And as I'm showing on these other public service boards or advisory boards, the the public safety one, like, for for instance, and I mean, I appreciate commissioner Riedel saying, consider something, And if you don't consider if you can think something's worthwhile, but maybe doesn't need to be codified in the charter to express sentiment to the city commission to consider something for adoption through ordinance, I'd be interested in I guess, I I enjoy the opportunity to talk to police chief about that and what a public safety board might look like.

So we can check with the police chief and see when he's available to come and speak with you as well.

Well, when we say a public safety board, I mean, it's I mean, we're talking about, I guess New York stuff a long time ago with the police review board back in the seventies when they started having problems discussing the police review board as opposed to publics. What does a public safety board mean actually? Yeah.

I'm not I'm not sure like when the term the phrase you brought up, it could mean a few different things to me. It could be an advisory board to commission as a commission's considering matters of public safety or maybe structure within public safety or promotions within public safety or citywide initiatives and maybe hearing from a board of citizens opinions from the perspective of a citizen group.

So it's not really it's not a review board in terms of police conduct, which I guess the police review boards and the

citizens Certainly not an authority. Like like just for instance, again, I kind of add a term but we're just speaking casually at the moment. Like, I I have a concern as a citizen, not as a board member, but as a citizen about the amount of, for lack of a better word, panhandling that just is happening out in public right of ways in the city. At least in my section. See, I don't know what it's like on the southern end so much, but and it's kind of a byproduct, I guess, of homelessness, I think.

I'm not really sure. But it's multiple times a day if I'm stopped at a red light that somebody's approaching my car and asking me for stuff and and I don't I don't know if there's anything I'm not I guess I'm not going so far as to say, hey, let's address that in the charter, but maybe maybe it could be. I don't know. But if I was part of a public safety commission, I'd stand in front of city commission and say, hey. What are we doing about this? Mhmm. How can we how can we curtail it? Near near where I live, there was a decomposed body found of somebody who I was told was probably homeless in a wooded area that was that died and decomposed. That was on Holzboro. Right?

Mhmm. And and then a passerby, I think it was a log maintenance person, found it and found the remains.

But we have the people at the Turnpike entrance. We're talking group parkway, same thing. Very manly.

Yeah. And I think there's probably I think there's some free speech laws maybe that govern it also from higher ups, but but there's public rights away. And I think if I wanted to have a parade down the median of a street, I'd have to at least get a permit or something to have that parade or something. I I don't know. Kind of a sidebar conversation, but I was just using that as an example of something where I

There are some free speech laws that apply among other things. We do have cup well, we have a a code section that addresses soliciting and peddling, which basically covers panhandling. We are in the process of reviewing that because we just do that every couple of years to make sure that we're up with the most current case law. I would be hesitant to suggest that you put anything in the charter regarding something like panhandling because that wouldn't provide us with the flexibility we need to stay on top of

the law.

Sure. I would I would yeah. I would imagine techniques and processes and different ways to go about protecting the city's interest. Well, I

couldn't see putting that in the in the chart. Yeah. I think it would along the lines of what you were saying about the about the public safety.

I was just using that as an example of something that maybe a group of citizens sees and is aware of and something that wells up through that through that channel to the commission that maybe the commissioners don't necessarily see or the police chief doesn't necessarily see. I and I should say, as a as a small business owner, my it's not uncommon for me to show up to work and there's somebody sleeping in front of my business or whatever. 100 times out of a 100, well, 10 times out of 10 when I call the police, they're just fantastic. They respond quickly, they say don't apologize for calling, it's what we do, and I'll probably have to do it 10 more times, but don't hesitate to call. And they always address it, but I always kinda feel bad because Yeah.

They're Somebody's obviously Nothing's yeah. And nothing's really being fixed, it's just kinda being moved over and then they go park

in front of another person's business. Well, wasn't that there was that homeless, I know it was homeless encampment or something in the woods there?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Still have several going through the woods. I know some of the people by name. Oh, alright. We can hop back. Hop back in to try to

That's not a chart.

Everybody had an appetite to try to cover a little bit more on the Charter? We're at 01:50.

Let's have it tonight. Yeah.

Let's have it tonight. Let's have it

tonight. Nobody I don't

I haven't put up a fight fight about without that. That.

Well, that's also I was that was my motivation in asking because we've done two very speaker heavy meetings. So if we have no speakers next time to give ourselves enough time to sort of catch up or or move with a little more momentum. And

we can if that's your desire, we can schedule them for later.

I'm good to recommend that since we've had two speaker

heavy meetings. Mean, also, I think we have some topics that we internally need to try to discuss as well. So

And we have one unconfirmed for next week.

Yeah. Anyway and if if she's unconfirmed anyway and you guys would you would prefer to have next week to kind of mull over, keep progressing through the charter and think about some of the issues that have been presented to you right now, we can schedule them for the following meeting or the meeting after that.

Works for me. Yeah.

That works for the guys. Thank you.

That's fine. Thank you. Alright. So have a second here. Yeah.

So which ones are we doing here? Yeah.

We're doing it with any meetings. We're we're just gonna not have any speakers next meeting.

So just be us. Try to

get through a few more pages.

Question to staff. So these non charter recommendations, is it really a non charter, like, We recommend this, or is it more appropriate to say, this is what we're not putting in the charter and why? I guess,

what's It's entirely the board's pleasure. You if you all reach consensus on something that you want to recommend that may not be appropriate for the charter or you may deem it as better suited for, you know, the Code of Ordinances, you could submit kind of a letter to the Commission with those recommendations based on your discussions. And I think the commission, you know, will review that and take that under advisement and will appreciate those suggestions if you deem those items are appropriate for the charters so long as we determine there's no legal issue why they can't be located the charter, then you can proceed that way as well.

Okay. Yeah. I had no idea that it was, like, in our purview slash scope. So I thought it was just charter only, but that makes that's interesting. Yeah. For some of the, call it, softer issues or does it need to be so explicit issues? They can kinda go in that bucket.

That's a nice option, I think. Mhmm.

So that's kinda all I have for tonight.

Okay. Sounds good. Gentlemen, anybody else?

Think with the heads down, we can get through the rest of this maybe next week. Maybe next meeting. Because the farther the the last few articles, one, we've already started seeing some of this stuff. Yeah. And they're significantly shorter.

So Wednesday, 02/19, we'll start off at 04:05. Mhmm. And if anybody obviously, it's always helpful if we kinda read read forward, but we did we did jump on some of it in tonight's discussions.

And we are keeping a running list, so we'll provide that to you between now and the next meeting.

I think of asking you that about four times per meeting just to reassure, but I refrain from doing it because I'm but, yeah, that's thank you for that. I'm little paranoid about that. No worries.

That's part of why we have the redundancy of my office here in addition to Joseph Kavanaugh. So our wonderful city clerk is keeping excellent minutes and and recording. Jenny Jenny.

My marketing firm. Everybody