City Commission - Regular Meeting

Agenda number nine for first reading of ordinance number 2026-017 regarding an amendment to chapter 13 of the Code of Ordinances related to fee reductions for private providers performing plan review and inspection services has been removed from tonight's agenda and will not be heard.

City Clerk, what do we have today on the jukebox? So tonight's music selection made by Commissioner Raley was blessed by Martina McBride. The next commission meeting on June 25th The song selection will be made by Commissioner Welch.

SPEAKER 1. Commissioner Raley, any insight on the song and what it means to you and why you chose that tonight?

COMMISSIONER RAYLEY. Well, I do. Anyone that listened to the words or know it, please listen to it because you can't help but be grateful every time you wake up in the morning and see a beautiful sky and your family and friends. So you're truly blessed when every morning you wake up.

Thank you for sharing.

City Clerk? As we begin, we kindly ask that all mobile devices be silenced. To ensure the best possible sound quality, please speak clearly and directly into the microphone. And remember to mute your microphone when you're not speaking. Should anyone experience difficulty hearing at any time, please raise your hand and a hearing device will be provided to you. Thank you for your cooperation. Clerk, please call the roll. Commissioner Rydell.

Here.

Commissioner Welch. Here. Commissioner Raley.

Here.

Vice Mayor Brody. Here. Mayor Wasserman. Here. City Manager Rose. Here. City Attorney Pieper. Here.

Okay, so now we're all going to please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and it will be led by Commissioner Rydell tonight.

to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God.

This meeting is being conducted live with a physical quorum present. The material for today's meeting is available online at coconutcreek.gov. 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 archive of this meeting may be requested from the city clerk or may be heard online at coconutcreek.gov. If you haven't already, please silence your mobile devices. If you must take a phone call, please excuse yourself and step outside. Respect and proper decorum will be maintained throughout the meeting. Vocal outbursts, cheering, cheering, or applause can impair the rights of others and derail the decision-making process.

Thank you, city attorney. I'd like to give a shout out to Chris Michael and Officer Carmichael who are here, police, public works, also IT. They help keep our meeting safe and our meeting running. So we appreciate you guys being here tonight. We're going to start. We're going to go a little off script. We're going to start a little bit talking about why a lot of people are here tonight. And it's about the South Creek Fitness Center. So we've received a lot of emails, a lot of comments about the center.

And I'll be very, very blunt.

like I told, and I'll let everybody speak to it, like I told City Manager Sheila Rose, that's not the type of city we are. We don't give residents two days notice of a decision that's gonna impact their life, which I think is their health. So I was not okay with how it was handled, all right? And it kind of goes into what we said in the previous meeting where we had the review, where when things directly affect our residents, It'd be nice if we are at least given fair warning and have the ability to help problem solve some of these things. Because I know a lot of our residents have a lot of solutions that they want to offer to this. And we're going to hear them all out, whoever wants to speak during a public comment. I'm appreciative of us reopening the gym for the time being and giving people, from my understanding, I saw the message. It said the gym is... being closed definitively on September 30th. I didn't know that was happening either. I knew we were reopening the gym. I know you had some concerns with the elevator. But then I also say to myself, who the heck puts a gym on the second floor? it to me you know none of us were here when it was built so we really can't talk to that but you know that's what makes our commission so unique is we really like to be a part of problem solving we really want to be a part of giving our residents the services that they deserve and this to me is a service for south creek i do understand the financials Think the Commission understands the financials and if city manager rose would would like to talk about anything during this I'm open for it But when people are used to something and the rug is pulled out from under them within a 48 hour time span I'm not okay with it. It's not the type of city we are and I'm glad we're reopening at least till September But that also gives us enough time to find a better solution for this fitness center and if anybody on the commission would like to speak to it i'm open for that because we're kind of going off script here but there's so many people who came and it's so rare when we see so many people that this impacts you i'd hate for us to you know be here all night so i'd like to jump to it now and commissioner idel if you have anything to say and then we'll go down the line whoever wants to speak

Yeah, briefly. Thank you, Mayor. And the only thing I'll address is I do echo your comments. I think on a policy decision, I think it's important for all the people here that chose to come out on this item. The people up here represent the residents. The elected officials in the city were elected by the residents to represent the residents and to represent what the residents' desires and wishes are. I think that's the most important thing. So I think it's a win right now. We're going into budget, obviously, and I think those are conversations that we're going to be having. I too echo your comments, Mayor, that there was a definitive answer in that one. Ultimately, final policy decisions in terms of how we want to proceed are up to this commission. I know Madam Rose is getting us all data. I'm curious to see some of that. But obviously, exercise in this day and age is one of the most important things you could do in whatever you do. So there may be creative alternatives. There may be creative solutions. So I look forward to addressing that. And I thank anyone that took the time out this evening to actually come to a meeting. Thank you. People usually come out for really good things. So we don't see groups. We usually have students and promotions and really exciting things. But anyone that came, I thank you for that. And I do echo and would agree with your comments. And I think this is important that the residents that chose to engage in this here, engagement matters. Your elected officials up here work for you, at least that's the position I think that we've all taken, all five of us I can speak to. We may not always agree with each other up here, but we all are active and engaged with our resident base. Thank you, Mayor.

Yes. I spoke to city manager Rose at length about this, that the communication went out too quickly, was too short of a time frame. We both agreed. But I ask that we not just look at what's already taken place, but we look going forward. And I think she and I agreed on doing that. So I'm very happy, actually, I used the South Creek Fit Gym. That's my gym of choice. I haven't been to the gym since it closed. I've taken yoga. But yeah, my main concern was that, the communication, and the elevator. Because I know many of the residents that use the Creek Fit Gym, and many, several, rely on the utilization of the elevator service. And I was just very concerned that it wasn't getting repaired. So we'll listen, and hopefully something will occur. Thank you.

I think it's great that you guys do work out, and I think it's great that you guys came out so you could be heard. I think what is also important here is that we listened. Our city manager listened, and every single one of us received emails and phone calls, and we listened to solve the problem. So I do want to say how happy we are that we are reopening. I think it's great, and hopefully we can come up with a solution that everyone can live with. Thank you.

Yes, thanks everybody for coming. I have the same sentiments. I was in the weird position to say I've never seen a city move that quick. All right, so we don't move quick on anything. All of a sudden, we shut the door quick. So yeah, I'm a little critical on how we did it, but I'm not critical on the outcome. Here's my problem. I run fitness centers, and it's hard for a business to run in $100,000 debt and still say that's a good thing. Now we're looking at property tax. It's going to hurt us. Tonight, if you weren't in here earlier, the city manager turned down a bonus because she's so sensitive to what's going to happen in the future with this property tax. And if she's being that sensitive, I think we need to take heart on what we are doing in our budgets. and find a very creative way to keep that open in a way that, A, we're not hemorrhaging money to it on a line item, and that we still provide a service to the people in South Creek. Because I think it's important that fitness. I rent fitness centers. During my cancer treatments, you can ask Rydell. I always bragged I was in the gym. So it's not about the gym. It's about how we can make this thing work more efficiently so we have a value to the tax dollars we're putting to it. And so I'm looking forward to seeing how creative we can get on how we can keep that gym open in the long term. But it's got to be in a creative way that we're not hemorrhaging money, you know, taxpayer money. So that's where I'm kind of standing on this. I'm looking forward to hear a plan on how we're going to get this beyond September. Thanks.

And I'll just say one thing if you want to address. This is community in action. People reached out to the people who represent them. And we listened. And I think Commissioner Raley kind of just had my mind think about it for a second. Like, this is how things happen. And super props and super proud of our residents who engaged in communicating with us and reaching out to us and expressing themselves. And all five of us, I know, as a unit, spoke to Sheila individually, of course. But we all shared that sentiment of, hey, this is what the residents want. What can we do to at least figure this out for now, give them what they need, but then also let's figure something out in August when budget comes around of what makes most sense for that fitness center. City Manager Rose?

Well, thank you. And I do certainly apologize. I apologize to the residents for pulling the trigger so quickly. We had, for the third time that year, had the elevator down and had concerns raised related to the accessibility, which exposed the city to liability, which at the time I did not find acceptable. And I did pull the trigger very quickly. The next day, we did have the elevator repaired, but it's down again today. I will caution you that the elevator repair is estimated to be in the realm of $150,000 to $200,000 and won't occur. It takes months to have the equipment ready to do that. The equipment in the gym is also well beyond its warranty. So we will have to have these tough conversations about prioritization related to the budget.

Sure, Commissioner.

Thank you. Just a quick question. When you're talking about the elevator, are we talking about replacing the hydraulic system, the motor?

The pistons.

The pistons.

I think Harry may know more about the pistons. The piston. Would you like more information on? If you don't mind, just briefly. Right now, it's leaking hydraulic fluid. OK. Right now, today it is.

OK. Yes, good evening. It's an older elevator, so we do have frequent and various problems with it. We call our service contractor out. He'll fix it right away if he has the parts. Or if they have to order them, they order them, come back and repair it. They're usually out within a day or two to repair. Next year is the budget, $150,000, $200,000. That is just about a complete replacement in terms. It's the cab, the electronics, the guts, everything. And they're The elevator maintenance company a few weeks ago is recommending that we replace the piston. That's about $100,000, and that takes 12 months from the time we cut the PO. Now, that doesn't mean the elevator is down in the meantime. It's just they recommend doing that as well. So we will repair the elevator each time it breaks until it can't be repaired anymore, but we hopefully will be able to keep it somewhat running and functional. We're just going to experience frequent breakdowns, most likely, until it's fully rebuilt.

Thank you. Yeah, we've had a lot of experience in Windmoor about elevators and replacing elevators and pistons, actually. So, okay, thank you.

Quick question. Has anybody been caught in the elevator? Trapped? Not to my knowledge. Okay, so you hit the button, it just doesn't work?

Yes.

Okay.

OK. So tonight, we're not going to come up with any solutions tonight. We're going to hear solutions, hopefully, ideas from residents. And then in August, when we do budget and we figure things out, we'd invite people to come and watch and be a part of the conversation. We are going to move into our proclamations now. And then we're going to come to public comment right after. So for those who've signed up, who haven't signed up, would like to speak, we would love to hear you. But first, we're going to hear a proclamation. Recognized in June 2026 as Scleroderma Awareness Month, our Vice Mayor is going to read the proclamation into the record and present it to Desiree James and Katia Leo of the Florida and Puerto Rico chapter of the National Scleroderma Foundation. Vice Mayor? Thank you.

Just for the record, I am wearing my bracelet. I actually went to their picnic and did the walk with them. It's a great organization, and I think this is a great way to show some awareness for it. Whereas the National Skiderma Foundation mission is to advance medical research, promote disease awareness, and provide support and education to people with skiderma and their family and support networks. And whereas skiderma affects approximately 300,000 individuals across the United States, including more than 25,000 people within Florida and Puerto Rico. And whereas comprehensive and coordinated health services for people with scleroma are critically important to achieving the positive patient outcomes. And whereas through public awareness, community partners can focus efforts on the needs of people with scleroma and improved services for those individuals and their families. And whereas for over 20 years, the annual Stepping Out to Cure Scleroma Foundation walk has taken place at Tradewinds Park in Coconut Creek, making the city a place of deep significance in raising awareness and critical funds for research and support services. Now, therefore it be resolved that the City Commission of Coconut Creek, Florida hereby recognizes June 2026 Escodoma Awareness Month, signed by the Mayor, Vice Mayor, and the Commissions and City Clerk.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Would you like to say anything before we welcome you?

I promise to be real quick, because I know you all have very important business to discuss. But my name is Desiree James, and I am the chair of the Florida and Puerto Rico chapter of the National Scleroderma Foundation. And I have here with me, they are actually, we are all scleroderma patients. I have Katia, and we have Barbara, and both of them are actually residents of the city of Coconut Creek. So... I just want to say thank you because this helps to raise awareness about this awful disease. It's a disease that does not have a cure. They don't know what causes it. And it can affect every organ of the body. from heart to lungs to skin to everything. And each scleroderma patient is different. So we are honored to be here tonight and really appreciate your support. And we will be back at Tradewinds Park next year on March 20th. And we extend an invitation to everyone that's here. So thank you.

Okay, we're going to move on to a proclamation recognizing the week of June 8th to the 14th as Code Compliance Officer Appreciation Week. Commissioner Welch is in the house and she's going to read this proclamation into the record and present it to the members of our amazing Code Compliance team.

I'm very happy to do this. Whereas code compliance officers provide for the safety, health, and welfare of the residents in this community through the enforcement of buildings, zoning, housing, animal control, fire safety, environmental, and other codes and ordinances. And whereas code compliance officers are responsible for improving neighborhoods and the quality of life of the residents in the community. And whereas every day, assisted by support and program staff, our code compliance officers provide quality customer service to the public for the betterment of the community. And whereas too many times their efforts go unnoticed, even after code compliance has been accomplished due to their efforts and expertise. And whereas code compliance officers are dedicated, well-trained, and highly responsible individuals, who take their job seriously and are proud of the department, division, and the local government within which they serve. And whereas the Florida Association of Code Enforcement, FACE, supports this week-long recognition set aside to honor and recognize code compliance officers for their dedication to the communities they serve, Now, therefore, be it resolved that the City Commission of the City of Coconut Creek hereby proclaims June 8 to June 14, 2026 as Code Compliance Officer Appreciation Week in the City of Coconut Creek and urges all community members to express appreciation for the dedication and outstanding service provided by the individuals who serve as our Code Compliance Officers. It's signed by the Mayor and the Commission and attested by our City Clerk.

We'll both do it. You guys are the best. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Seriously, thank you so much.

Hey, you guys are good. All right. One, two, three.

So if anybody who lives in South Creek has any code questions, they're here.

They're here. All of them.

They want to highlight their districts, by the way.

True, true, true. Just figure out, you know, find which one. All right.

Yeah, of course you can. Hi, guys. My name is Tony, city of Coconut Creek, obviously, at Code. So we are very open. We are very here to help. So any questions, concerns, feel free to just go ahead and reach out to our code department. We are here for you guys. So we can do everything we can within our power. And we thank you for choosing our city to live. Thank you. Oh, awesome.

Very nice. And that's, South Creek, that's your guy. Just letting you know. So we will now have input from the public on non-agenda or consent agenda items. I remind everyone wishing to speak that all comments must pertain to city business. Respect and proper decorum will be maintained. Behavior that disrupts the orderly conduct of this meeting, such as clapping, shouting, booing, and cheering is not permitted. Any person who violates the decorum rules will be subject to removal from the commission chambers. As a reminder, all comments must pertain to city business. City Clerk Cavanaugh, is there anyone who is signing to speak on non-agenda or consent agenda items?

Yes, Mayor. We have several individuals that signed up tonight to speak on non-agenda items. The first individual is Amanda Tang.

All right. Amanda, come on down.

Hey, everybody. All right. Good evening. I've been a resident of Coconut Creek for over 28 years. It's a city that I do love. My kids grew up here, and my daughter was actually coached by John. And I can still remember to this day, woo, let's play some softball. The girl, six years old, would get up to bat, and they hit it and run to third base, and that was the start. But when she was six, now she's in her second year of college, which also means I'm getting old, too. And it's why I need weight-bearing exercises in the gym. So over the years, you the commissioners in the city have shown that you listen, that you engage, and that you respond, and that you genuinely care. With that, we really appreciate you listening to the residents of South Creek by extending the operation of the fitness room through September 30th. We truly value your willingness to pause and to take another look. We understand that the challenge before you is not whether the residents value the gym. We get it. The challenge is finding a financially responsible way to keep it open. My request tonight is simple. Before making a final decision, let's fully explore the options. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing decision. For example, if the equipment warranties or driving costs up, perhaps we don't need 15 or more cardio machines in this gym. Maybe we just need four and focus on the equipment that the residents use the most. If the machine eventually breaks, the city can evaluate whether or not it should be repaired or replaced at that time. But you don't, in our opinion, need to warranty these machines if that prevents the gym from staying open. If staffing expenses are a concern, perhaps there are alternatives worth considering. Maybe the room can be monitored, members can sign waivers, operate without dedicated trainers supervising every single workout. Maybe you want to open up that particular space to a city employee where there's somebody there, but they're not necessarily a trained, a dedicated trainer supervising the gym. So somebody's there, but overall you can sign a waiver saying, okay, we understand that there's not a trainer there. Trust us. We're not looking to build up muscle and everything. At least my friends over there and I. Lastly, the weight equipment itself, the weight training stuff, is already a long-term asset that continues to serve residents. There's no reason to close access to the weight equipment in the city that the city has already invested in and needs little, if any, maintenance. We know it doesn't look pretty, but it doesn't care. It still accomplishes the goal. Many South Creek residents rely on the facility. Those are taxpayers, seniors, retirees, residents who are trying to stay healthy and active. South Creek is one of the older communities in our city, and strength training really does play an important role in maintaining health, mobility, independence, and quality of life as we age. I'm not asking the city to ignore the budget. Like I said, we get it. We're asking that we continue to work together to find solutions that balance business fiscal responsibilities with community needs. Can I say one more sentence? Okay. Before eliminating a valued community resource, we respectfully ask that we fully explore reasonable alternatives that reduce costs while preserving access. So thank you for listening. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Amanda.

And for the record... Amanda also took pictures of my daughter in her prom. And so if you need a photographer, she is excellent.

The next person that signed up to speak is Tammy Latire.

Tammy Latire, 3302 Carambola Circle South, Coconut Creek. I'm sure you would all agree we can't put a monetary value on human life, yet we do precisely that by mandating a for-profit healthcare system which systematically denies care unless we pay up exorbitant fees and premiums, bankrupting people and families in the process. For those who can't pay the ransom extracted by these healthcare-denying corporations, they die, 68,000 of them every year. We've spent $6 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan under the guise of avenging the lives of those who perished on 9-11, Yet we won't act to save 68,000 people from needless suffering and death year in and out with the stroke of a pen. Your signatures on this Medicare for All resolution can do just that. If you're concerned about what Tallahassee might think of you, don't be. They don't think much of municipalities. And with the impending tax cuts and subsequent job losses in the thousands, those numbers will likely increase as people lose what little insurance they have. If you're concerned about the dreaded socialism moniker, my answer to that is you should be more concerned about the loss of 68,000 lives each year because they can't afford healthcare. In my humble opinion, as a clinician, That's a hill worth dying on. In the words of the esteemed healthcare practitioner, the late Dr. John Guymon, healthcare should be treated as a public service, not a market commodity. Medicare for all guarantees that public service. Thank you.

Thank you, Tammy.

The next individual that signed up to speak this evening is Pat Gesterwitz. Hopefully I pronounced that correctly.

First, I would like to thank Mayor Wasserman, the other commissioners, and Sheila Rose for listening to us and extending the Creek Fit closing until September. My husband Ron and I have lived in Coconut Creek for over 51 years and have enjoyed the many recreation opportunities here. When they first built Windmill Park, we were the first people to step on the courts. We played a lot of tennis and taught our three kids. Since then, we've moved on to pickleball, both at Windmill Park and the community center gym. We joined Creek Fit when it opened, and it was really nice. There were two trainers who walked around and showed people the correct way to use the machines. There was no North End then. But it never felt overcrowded. Everyone was respectful and politely waited to use the machines. Then the north end opened, and it gradually became less crowded. Eventually, there were no trainers in the room. But that was OK. I was very upset about hearing the fitness room closing. I got an email on Monday saying the final day would be Friday. When I asked other fit members, many of them had not gotten the email. We had little time to think of ways to keep it open. There was a South Creek Homeowners Association meeting a couple of weeks ago with the mayor and city manager there to talk about things going on in the city, but there was no mention of the creek fit closing. When I wrote to the commissioners, you all said you hadn't heard about it. It made me feel like they didn't want anyone to know about it, the recreation department. We went to the fit room Thursday and Friday before the closing, and there wasn't even a sign to tell members that Friday was the last day. And we would all like to figure out a way to keep it open. Thank you.

Thank you, Pat. Ron should be very proud.

In the last individual to sign up to speak on non-agenda items is Daniel Van Kennell. I apologize.

Good evening. So I was shocked also. And my wife is in Ohio, and I sent her a message. I said, our gym is closing, she said. I can't even tell you what she said, because it's really a bad word. We've been going there since 2022, after I retired.

I never even knew that that was up there.

I've coached for over 20 years in this city for basketball for the boys. So our playing is downstairs, right there. Never even knew that it even was up there. until I was ready to retire, and I said, I got to do something because my muscles are falling off, and I wasn't happy about that. So I joined the gym, and my wife and I enjoy it a lot. We do occasionally go to the North Gym. I live in Buttonwood Hammock right over here. It's 1.3 miles. The other one is over five miles to get there, and you've got the traffic on Lions, and you've also got the middle school up there, that the congestion gets insanity when it's let out and when it's opening for the day. So what I'm saying is the 28 steps I use is my cardio. So I don't need the elevator. What I'm telling you is that we use it Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and we usually go around 2.30 and we stay until 4 when it's closed. And when they changed the hours, it was so, why are we changing the hours, but there are people that wanted to go later. I don't think that there's a lot of people that go from 5 to 8 at night. It's mostly the people that come in for the classes and then go up and do a little weight training. The 17 machines, and since 2022, I haven't had one machine break on me. There's never been a sign on any of them, do not use. It's good equipment. It's life fitness. It's their old style, but it's amazing stuff. And to close this was like, whoa. do go to the north one occasionally like on the weekends because we don't have weekend hours here but my suggestion would be possibly to do Monday Wednesday Friday from the 8 to 4 o'clock or expand it a little to 6 so the people that work can also get there so other than that I'm just saying that and there are so many people who don't don't know about this gym If I went through our neighborhood and asked, I would tell you that probably 5% of the people in our neighborhood even know that that gym exists. So do we want more people? We like it the way it is. But if it takes more people to keep it open, I would gladly go through our neighborhood and let all of our neighbors and take them on a

time to just try it because it is really good and it's still very very good equipment that's all i have thank you daniel hold on sir are there any more people who've signed in to speak not at this time there okay is there anybody here who would like to uh speak yes okay

Yeah, sorry it's so hard to sign up. Yeah, so I'm Kenneth Hawkes. I live over in Tamarack. So I'm here because of what happened with the police. You know how the cop jumped me. And I'm like, God, man, I got it all on video. It's on YouTube. And they did it on purpose to make it egregious. Because I'm supposed to do a lawsuit or whatever. They just leave it messed up. But they did a bake rack thing and put me, as soon as they took me to the thing, emergency room, they injected me with this really messed up stuff and stripped me. But that's, you see all the niceness, the kindness here is weaponized. Like you guys are, you probably had a genuine thing. But then it'll come right back around, and it'll be the really bad, gruesome stuff. Like this one police officer, female police officer. Yeah, it was either six weeks ago or eight weeks ago.

I put that on video, too.

But she might even be just doing it to make a thing out of it, because it's crazy world. So when I didn't want to listen to everything, that's why. Because otherwise, I have to think oppositional stuff or whatever. I can't really place it with where I'm really coming from. So since last week, two weeks ago when I was here, I didn't know the CIA director grew up in my hometown. Or he didn't grow up. He didn't. No, they parachuted him in for the seventh grade. We're in the same class, class of 1983 in Carbondale, Illinois. So everyone on the street, they're running around. I'm thinking it's this, that. I didn't know it's, like, all the way like that. Like, it's like that. Because, like, I come from a town, CIA town, I guess, my university town. Man, I didn't see any Jewish kids. Like, one kid took me to a synagogue. I never saw him again. They keep that. And my mom is Jewish, adopted, like I said. But we go to the Unitarian Church, and they don't even use that. And it's like, who knows? And all the Germans and the, But yeah, so I didn't know. But the thing that runs you guys or runs the thing knows. And that's why this guy came up. Can I get a job? A $350,000 a year guy. I was back in, I don't know, 2019 or 20. That's when Director, because Trump put him in as the thing for a little bit, Director of National Intelligence. So anyway, I'm probably going to make contact to one of you all. I don't have a lawyer. And so I don't know if it's, so I've been kind of delaying because they gave us back all our $4,000. or whatever, they're not going to deal with it. But, you know, I don't know how it is with me talking to you. If I don't have a lawyer, but then you can tell me, whatever. Yeah, that's kind of what it is. You know, James Quisenberry, Urbana, he's city councilor up there. Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Kenneth.

Good evening. My name is Rachel Zamora, and I have been a resident with Coconut Creek for over 20 years. In fact, my family has also been impacted by Coach Brody's loud screaming on the park. And it was fun, and we still live here, and we love living here. But I'm here in the capacity of coming up to say thank you for the grant that was provided to Lighthouse of Broward last year. I am a member, actually a board member, of the Lighthouse of Broward. And I didn't do this last year because obviously this type of stuff unnerves me. But I said I was going to come and do it this year to say thank you so much for providing the grant that you paid to Lighthouse of Broward. And again, this year we've requested a grant, but I'd like you to know that currently there are about 20 residents who get services from the Lighthouse at Broward. And we learned, because I always had my sight, and recently my sight has gone, but I still have a little bit. And I just wanted you to know that whatever you are able to give to the Lighthouse of Broward, that it provides independence for your 20 residents. And we are extremely grateful. That's it.

Thank you. Have you submitted a request? Yes.

I'm in the possession of a letter that was sent. However, there's no date on it, so I can't tell you what... Okay. But a letter was sent and mailed.

All right. Thank you.

Okay. Thanks.

Can we make sure we get a copy of that letter, Commissioner Rydell's request?

So we have a closing date of June 15th for the applications for various charitable organizations, and we'll package those if you'd like to see the whole package or if you want to just see the individual ones.

No, no, I get that. We want to make sure we have a copy. A young lady brought it today, so if somebody wants to grab that, I don't know.

Thank you, Maureen. Have a good evening. Is there anybody else who would like to speak on non-agenda items this evening?

Okay.

Let's move along. Of course you can. Come on down.

My name is Michael Vignale. And I came to Coconut Creek 18 years ago. I have been using the gym for 14 years. I found it very convenient. I met a lot of nice people. And I improved my health by this. I sold my big home in Connecticut and came here. I needed something, so I turned to the gym. I have benefited by it. I have seen many of my friends that I met. Their bodies were really healed. I know that bottom line, you're looking at money. You should be. I'm a businessman. I had many businesses in my life. I know, bottom line, it has to be worth a dollar to keep it going. I know that you're working with constraints. But this is, how should I say, this is a gift to this community, this gym. We need it. I was floored when they said it was closing. I heard it from just a friend who went to the gym. And I said, I didn't get an email. But this gym needs to be open. It's an asset to Coconut Creek, and it's vital to many residents here. If you have to cut hours, if you have to, like somebody suggested, get someone to just monitor, or we sign waivers. Any way you can cut hours, you cut Tuesday and Thursday. We worked around that. I, fortunately, have been going to the North Gym Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. But I will tell you, that Monday after the gym closed, I was up there, and there were lines from the people who had to go to that gym because they need this exercise. There were lines at the machines, and there were machines that I could not even get on because there were so many people. That gym up there in north, it may have a lot of exercise equipment. But I'll tell you, if the multitude of people go up to that north gym, it needs to be doubled. And that's going to cost the city more money. Thank you.

Thank you, Michael. Hold on. I think, Commissioner, you'd like to say something? Of course.

I think, thank you, Michael. I think this has been a learning experience for all of us. So thank you.

I learned.

If we learn nothing else, we should all get out there and work out.

I'll see you in the morning. Commissioner, last time, you want to say last time you were in the gym? No, I'm just kidding. last week commissioner i'm sorry i don't get there as much as you all right um consent agenda you want to put in your microphone no we appreciate the residents coming uh decisions will be made and everybody was heard tonight and continue to reach out to us if you have any questions um that's what we're here for Consent agenda items 3 and 4. A motion approving the minutes from previous city commission meetings 2026-0514SP and 2026-0514R. Resolution 2026-083. A resolution authorizing the mayor and the city manager or their designees to execute the attached security lien agreement among Broward County, the City of Coconut Creek, GRP, Greenbow, 1, LLC, and GSRE Partners, LLC, which agreement transfers and assigns responsibilities for the project funding, construction, and security of the future roadways and other infrastructure within the Main Street at Coconut Creek development project. Are there any items the commission would like to pull?

Yes.

What would you like to pull?

Four.

All right, Commissioner Welch is pulling number four. Move three. All right, and we see a move three.

Second.

And we have a seconded by, moved by Commissioner Rydell, seconded by Commissioner Raley. So we are now going to have a vote, please, on number three.

Commissioner Rydell. Yes. Commissioner Welch. Yes. Commissioner Raley. Yes. Vice Mayor Brody. Yes. Mayor Wasserman.

Yes. And I'll kick it over to Commissioner Welch as to why she pulled number four. Move four.

Oh, don't we have to move it to call it?

Doesn't say. But okay.

Move four for discussion.

All right. Move four for discussion. And a second?

Second.

Thank you.

Okay. So who am I talking to? I... Thank you very much.

Yes, ma'am.

Good to see you again. The reason I pulled this is to reiterate where the funds will be coming from and what they will entail and how much responsibility is particularly towards the developer as opposed to surtax dollars, et cetera. But I'll leave that to you to give the nitty gritty details. Thank you.

Yeah, sure, Justin Provitt, RDD director. Ultimately, the developer in the development of regional impact has responsibility for construction of all the roadway improvements, right? That's the first place we start. However, in terms of Cullum Road and the signal at Cullum Road, in the application we filed with the Surtax, Broward Map Surtax, The funding for that project will come from the Certax grant dollars. All the other improvements in Main Street, roadways, driveways, right turn lanes, other traffic signals, are all the responsibility of the developer. When you have traffic signals or when you have public roadway improvements on county roads, for the traffic signals, the county requires a separate signalization agreement that outlines all the procedures for establishing traffic signals. And then for all the other roadway improvements, they require this agreement that you have here tonight. It outlines and memorializes all the funding requirements and procedures for doing that for the developer and the county.

But no taxpayer dollars.

That's correct.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Appreciate it.

Say it again. I'm just kidding. No taxpayer dollars. Correct. All right. Thank you. OK. Anybody else like to talk about this? All right. So we have a motion to approve. Motion to approve number four. I thought we moved to discussion. All right. Call the roll, please.

Commissioner Rydell. Yes. Commissioner Welch. Yes. Commissioner Railey.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Brody. Yes. Mayor Wasserman.

Yes. Resolution 2026-059, a resolution authorizing the city manager or designee to execute an agreement with Becker and Polykov, PA, for federal lobbying and funding advocacy services pursuant to RFP number 04-29-26-11. Is there a motion and a second to approve? Move it. Second.

Oh, oh, oh.

Moved by Rydell, seconded by Raley. No. Brody. Brody. Okay.

We sound alike. I can see that. I thought it was you.

Are there any questions or comments from the City Commission? We're going to have City Manager report from Bernadette. Yes. Let's do it.

Good evening, Mayor and Commission. For the record, Bernadette Hughes, Government Affairs Manager. The item before you is a resolution to execute an agreement with Becker and Polykov, PA, for federal lobbying and funding advocacy services pursuant to RFP number 04-29-26-11. The city's previous agreement for federal lobbying services with VanSkoyak Associates expired on March 31, 2026, and was extended for 60 days through May 31, 2026 to allow staff to complete this competitive procurement process. An important distinction in this solicitation is that both the title and the scope of services were intentionally updated from previous procurements. Rather than focus primarily on traditional federal lobbying services, this solicitation expanded the scope to include federal funding advocacy including congressional appropriations, competitive grants, and other federal funding opportunities. The intent was to ensure the city is not only advocating for legislative priorities, but also proactively identifying and pursuing federal funding opportunities. The city issued 66 electronic invitations and received eight responsive bids. Based on the written submittals, the selection committee consisting of a dream team, I will say, of myself, Deputy City Manager Scott Stoudemire, Finance and Administrative Services Director P.D.K. Lake, Deputy City Clerk Mary Ann Bowers and Grants Administrator Dan Nelson, some of whom are here tonight, shortlisted three firms for interviews, Vance Goyack Associates, Becker & Polyakoff, PA, and Thorn Run Partners. After reviewing the written proposals and conducting interviews, the committee unanimously selected Becker & Polyakoff, PA. The evaluation criteria included the firm's proposals, presentations, references, qualifications, resources, past performance, and price. While this firm was not the lowest priced proposer overall, their pricing was competitive amongst the three finalists, and the committee determined that they would provide the best overall value to the city. Of particular note, while several firms discussed funding advocacy, Becker and Polyakov went a step further. Their proposal and presentation identified potential funding opportunities based on the city's ongoing initiatives and Vision 2030 priorities and outlined a specific process for working collaboratively with staff to identify and pursue those and more opportunities. Rather than presenting a generalized approach, they demonstrated how they would apply their strategy to Coconut Creek's activities projects giving those projects in their presentation and that level of preparation and specificity distinguished their proposal this agreement provides for a three-year term with the option to renew for two additional one-year terms at a cost of $5,000 per month I hope they're ready to hit the ground running because we actually have a couple of grants ready that are due on June 22nd and so as soon as the fir you all vote tonight we would move forward with those um staff recommends approval of this resolution and amanda wood from becker and polyakov pa flew down here from washington today and if you would like um she's prepared to say a few words all right um would you like to hear from her first before because we have some people who've signed in sure yeah come on down amanda

Good evening, Mayor and commissioners and staff. It's a pleasure to be here. We're very excited to hit the ground running. We're already speaking a little bit today about those grants and how we think we can support you. I think the distinction that was made is an important one. I worked on Capitol Hill for many years. I've been lobbying representing local governments for over 20 years. And I really do like, and our team likes, to really dig into all of your operations. Figure out if there are projects that may have a federal nexus you weren't even aware of. And do a complete review and make sure we're matching you up to opportunities that are high viability and that are really going to make an impact on this community. I know that we may be under increasing financial pressure throughout Florida for local governments. And so at this time, it's an even more acute need. And we're really very excited to get started. One note, I know when you bring in a new firm, there are always sort of questions about conflicts. And I just want you to know that as a law firm, and I should say I'm a happy non-attorney, but as a law firm, our standards are really at a very high level in terms of conflicts. So when we engage with you, which we hope to this evening, we will not be able to be adverse to you in any sort of legal proceedings. there may have been some in the past long before my time but just know that would no longer be a possibility so i just wanted to address that up front in case there are any concerns we're very excited to get started my favorite party game is tell me how to fund that using federal money i really look forward to working with you all to do that for this community so much joy that's what i'm talking about i like my job that's awesome yeah um we're going to start with the vice mayor

how you doing so my question is more going to be towards uh staff yeah um with our last uh company that we had we we seemed to have lost what the value was that they did uh there was a disconnect between getting information back and so i'm going to recommend that we make sure that we evaluate this return of value on what we're paying and what we're getting That way we can judge how impactful this whole agreement is. I know it's a three-year contract, correct?

Yes.

So I think doing an annual review of this to say what is our taxpayer money going to and what is the return of our value, what you're doing up in D.C., I think is critical in how we're going forward, especially, as you know, Florida property tax thing is every penny is going to be counted for. Every dollar that we spend has got to be something that we could tell our residents that we are having a value to that taxpaying money that we're still getting. And so I think we need to evaluate annually as far as what you guys did and the value that we were going to return. And unfortunately, it sounds like it's dollars. So it's really about what are you going to bring back to us and the value of the contract. So I'd really like to see that we put that into place on those two. Bernadette?

Yes, and we have it built into the agreement, the same as we've had in the past, which is to have an annual, they'll be flying down here annually to provide a report of what they've worked on and, you know, to hear what your concerns are or what you'd like them to look at.

I mean, to be completely candid, I don't even know what the last ones did. with the value they brought to our city. And I'm just going to be honest with you. When we look at our local Florida lobbyists, we're engaged with them all the time. So we're seeing the stuff that they're sending us emails. They're keeping us in the loop of everything going on. As far as I know, I don't know what the DC guys did. And so we lose the value of that. And I have to, and we all do, explain this to the residents of what that value means. And if you're going up there and you're saying, oh, we're going to get all this money, and we get all this money, then I can say, okay, this is the value of what they're doing, the value of their work. So I want to make sure that it's crystal clear that we need to keep the valuation on the table to make sure that we're getting the best bang here.

Absolutely. I look forward to visiting often, to getting to know you all better, to getting to know your community better, and to showing you that value, for sure.

Because if not, you know, he's going to... I know. Commissioner Welch, please.

Yes. Thank you very much, and I really appreciate you Discussing head-on my one concern of a past Representation so that was very commendable and I certainly do appreciate it I I have to ask did you drink some of the same? Juice that Commissioner because you very excited about what you're going to be doing and I'm I'm very happy about that the reason I asked to address the agenda item before us is because there were three of you that it was The same price point and the same ballpark. So I just needed to know firsthand, because we didn't get to see and hear the presentations that all of you made. So there had to be something that was very outstanding to have received the merit from all of that, would you call it, dream team. But that's your best asset, because she spoon fed our previous vendor, and I I think it should be in tandem rather than. But anyway. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming.

I'll talk about that just a moment. I'm a former staffer. I worked on capital for seven years. I was a Senate legislative director. And folks on the Hill work really hard and want to help every constituent in every community. And when it comes down to it, they're able to be most helpful when we put together really good projects. So I really see myself as an extension of your staff and an extension of Hill's staff so we can put together projects that everyone's really going to be proud of and everyone's going to want to take credit for.

We have no shortage of projects.

I see. Just getting the money. Absolutely.

Commissioner Rydell.

thank you mayor thank you amanda for being here just to you know i looked into your your bio a little bit and some of the team that's going to be presenting specifically working for the city i think something that didn't come up today is i mean your expertise in fema um some of the things that you've specialized in and i'm kind of tooting your own horn right now um i welcome the change in federal lobbyists i was probably a little more critical of the last federal lobbyist than than most um i would urge my colleagues to sign up for becker updates Obviously, it's one entity that we're approving a contract from today, but as a law firm that does a lot of different things, some of their, I guess we'll call it community updates, and I want to say webinars and things of that nature, are absolutely amazing and educational. So I look forward to the new relationship, some of the other work you've done out of the state and for some of the other counties. some of the federal lobbying you've done from we'll call them fortune maybe fortune 100 companies is is very commendable and i look forward uh to seeing the updates and i think it speaks volumes that our selection committee ranked you across the board so welcome to the great city of coconut creek thank you and commissioner rayleigh yeah thank you commissioner rydell you echoed actually what i was going to say becker pollakoff has a great reputation for being proactive

and keeping in touch with their constituents. I know I get emails almost every day about seminars and what they're offering. So I want to say, and you are a great representative of Becker-Polakoff. Thank you. Love your enthusiasm. Thank you for being here. Look forward to working with you. Bernadette will mainly be working with you and our staff. But would we be getting written reports periodically?

Absolutely. We're happy to submit reports in whatever format you all prefer. So we can do a monthly report. We'll do a large annual report. We get sort of an Outlook email once a week so you have a sense of what's going on in DC.

And I'll communicate.

probably on a daily basis is bernadette and i'll count on her to forward some of that on to you when she thinks they're items you'll be interested in terrific thank you thank you for coming all the way down of course yes thank you for being here uh i think a change was needed and uh look we got a ray of sunshine it's awesome so we appreciate you being here and we look forward to what you're going to do for our city and um is there anybody in the public who would like to speak on this item all right any further questions comments from the commission All right, clerk, please call the roll.

Commissioner Rydell?

Yes. Commissioner Welch?

Yes. Commissioner Raley? Yes. Vice Mayor Brody? Yes. Mayor Wasserman?

Yes.

Thank you.

That's it. Thank you so much. Burned out, you got a new best friend. Resolution 2026-086, a resolution approving the Abaco Village Condominium Association application for matching grant funds from the Neighborhood Enhancement Grant Program for security enhancements. Move it.

Move it. Second.

Commissioner Raylor, are you, are you, it's, one more you want to recuse? It's okay.

Okay. Yes. For the next two items, I will be recusing myself since I am affiliated with one more.

Yes, ma'am. Recuse accepted.

Please don't forget to come and get me when it's over.

Okay. So we already had the motion from Commissioner Rydell and seconded by Commissioner Welch. Hello. Hello.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Dan Nelson, Grants Administrator, City of Coconut Creek. You got it. This resolution is associated with the Abaco Village Neighborhood Enhancement Grant. Association is requesting $10,000. The project will improve the security in the community. Total project cost $22,278. The applicant has committed to maintain the project. project is eligible and satisfies all requirements of the neighborhood enhancement grant program guidelines. We do have representatives of Abaco Village here tonight as well. I'm happy to answer any questions you have.

Where are our Abacoians? Hello. Are there any questions or comments from the city commission? We do have one, Vice Mayor Brody.

Yeah, just the status. So this fund, how much is left in there for the rest of the remaining fiscal year? By the way, this is the dream team guy here, so I want good answers.

This project, the total allocation for this project is $195,000. Remaining in the account is $111,187.97. Damn, down to the penny. Love it.

Thank you. Anybody in the public would like to speak on this item? All right. No further questions or comments from the commission. Let's roll. Clerk? Commissioner Rydell? Yes.

Commissioner Welch? Yes. Vice Mayor Brody? Yes. Mayor Walker? Yes.

Congratulations, Abaco. Thank you. You're welcome. Resolution 2026-087, a resolution approving the Bermuda Village Condominium Association application for matching grant funds from the Neighborhood Enhancement Grant Program for security enhancements. Motion to second? Move it. Second. Oh, it was moved by Vice Mayor Brody. He got it. He snuck it in there and seconded it by Commissioner Welch, because she said second. And then another update.

Very similar to the last project. This is a security enhancement. This is at Bermuda Village. Total project cost is $8,571. And the community is requesting $4,285.50. Thanks, Dan. Are there Bermudians here? Hey, there. Hello.

um any other any questions or comments from the commission uh all right anybody from the public like to speak on the item all right let's move along clerk call the roll please commissioner yes commissioner welch vice mayor brody yes all right let's please uh get commissioner rayleigh back you let her out of the room thank you she's free All right. We are now going to move to ordinance 2026-016. City attorney?

thank you mayor an ordinance of the city commission of the city of coconut creek florida amending the city's code of ordinances by amending chapter 13 land development code article 1 administration regulations and procedures division 3 implementation procedures by creating section 13-43 workforce home buyer purchase assistance program providing a purpose definitions criteria and methodology for providing funds to assist qualified purchasers in the workforce target income group with the purchase of residential dwelling units within the city of coconut creek providing for conflicts providing for severability providing for codification and providing an effective date move it second moved by commissioner welch seconded by commissioner rayleigh he's back

Nice to talk to you about something besides a neighborhood enhancement grant. Let's do it. What you got? Tonight I'll be providing you an overview with the city's new workforce purchase assistance program and the associated workforce housing ordinance. And this program is designed to expand home ownership for workforce households in Coconut Creek. A little bit of background. In South Florida, in Coconut Creek, rising housing costs have drastically reduced affordable housing stock. Like many well-designed cities, Coconut Creek, it's a priority for Coconut Creek. We've been administering housing programs since 2008. These programs utilize federal, state, local developer sources. From the federal level, we get our funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development through the Community Development Block Grant. Through the Florida Housing Finance Coalition, we utilize funding from the SHIP program. These programs come with restrictions. They restrict type of activities and income limits. And this program expands on that. The purpose of this program is to provide down payment assistance to qualified workforce households. It supports home ownership opportunities within Coconut Creek. And it helps maintain a workforce. So let's talk about who's eligible. Qualified purchasers, less than 140% annual area median income. And the home must be purchased within the city of Coconut Creek. Funding sources. The funds for this program come through the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Developer contributions are eligible. And we can combine those as down payment funding. So how the program is offered. Programs are created through resolution. and through developer agreements. Now each program will have its own specific development criteria. Starting with the lottery process, all programs are required to have a publicly advertised lottery process. The application period will be open for 30 days, and applicants will be randomly selected to ensure fairness and transparency. Records must be maintained for a minimum of five years for compliance purposes. Once you win that lottery, we're going to create a list. And then you're going to start the pre-qualification process. Applicants will need to obtain a conditional approval from a lender. You'll need to complete an application package within three months. These requirements will help ensure applicants are financially prepared for home ownership. After you meet those pre-qualifications, you go into the qualified purchaser phase. So you'll have one year to actually close on the home. During this process, we will have a six-month extension if necessary. Assistance is provided through a no-interest forgivable loan. Purchasers will enter with a promissory note and mortgage agreement. And the funds are distributed to the title companies at closing. So this structure protects public funds. There will be a 10-year affordability period. If the home is sold before that 10-year term, the money is owed back to the city. So just because you win the award, it's not automatically a grant. There are terms associated with it. So if you do maintain the home for the 10 years, it turns into a grant and it is forgiven. Any repaid funds received due to a sale before that 10-year period will be returned to the city, and it will go back into the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Developers can partner with the city through a written agreement. Developers can administer the lotteries, the pre-qualification, and the retention period. But the city maintains the audit rights. the city will retain regulatory authority all state federal and local laws must be followed city officials and administrative officers are not eligible to participate in summary This ordinance establishes a structured workforce housing assistance framework that promotes attainable homeownership opportunities, supports long-term community stability, and creates a sustainable funding mechanism for future housing initiatives. Staff believes that this ordinance provides an important tool to help address workforce housing needs within Coconut Crete while maintaining transparency, accountability, and flexibility for future programs. I'm happy to answer any questions from the commission.

Thank you, Dan. I'll go first. And I think, Vice Mayor, anybody else? I think this is great. I know the details. What's up? OK. I know the details with the developer aren't a part of this, but this is more of the broad scope of the program. And it's a breath of fresh air to see us doing something. And the key here is no taxpayer money is being used to help residents buy a home. I think that's always this thought process where the taxes are going to, you know. But it's very clear. And our job really is to drive that perception that it's not because it's the truth. And I appreciate you highlighting that. And I know as a commission, we'll highlight it down the road. But really cool, really unique project, especially with new construction coming. It's very rare you see this happening with new construction. A lot of people don't have the means to buy new construction. But with this, it's a very unique opportunity. And thank you for all your hard work. doing it. And thank you to you, Justin, and Scott. Kathy. And Kathy. And Kathy. And Kathy. For doing this and for really representing our residents the best way possible. Vice Mayor Brody. Thank you, Mayor.

So I just had a question on the term of 10 years. So where was that driven from? Is that something that was pulled out of there, or is there some kind of statute that we have to follow?

Just curious. There's not a statute that we follow that is consistent with our past workforce housing agreement. We did a public-private partnership with Affordable Housing Trust Funds in Paloma Lakes that also had a 10-year recapture period. OK, let me ask you this.

Since this is a 10-year and we've done it before, has there ever been that they've sold the house under 10 years and the money was brought back to this account?

That happens all the time.

That what? That happens all the time. All the time? OK, that's what I was curious about. So then in that case, so the lender gives the money back to us. It's not up to the resident, right?

So there will be a second mortgage agreement associated with this program. that outlines those terms specifically. So when a successful applicant, new homeowner, decides to sell that property before those 10 years and they run a title search, they're going to see that second mortgage and say, oh wait, you owe the city x amount of dollars if you sell the property before x date. So that would be disclosed on their form and everything. Correct. And out of closing, that will come back to us, and it goes directly back into the Affordable Housing Trust Fund to help fund future programs.

Yeah. Is it prorated, or is it the whole thing has to come back? The whole thing has to come back.

Wow.

OK. All right. That'll answer my question.

I guess in a future developer's agreement or resolution, we could incorporate those terms if you wanted to. This isn't

Oh, yeah.

As it's currently proposed, it would be only fully forgiven if you stay for 10 years, but it is effectively a non-interest. There's no interest on the loan, the second mortgage, for 10 years.

So if you don't fulfill the 10 years, you pay back the whole thing when you sell?

The whole thing, but you have benefited by the down payment assistance without any interest.

Got it. Commissioner?

Well, Paloma Lakes, we had some issues. I was here for it. I think you were here as well, just because with the economic downturn, kind of the recession hit, and then you had some people that maybe ended up in foreclosure or something like that. So I don't think you stressed one thing, Dan, that I would just stress to my colleagues. It's like a recorded lien. So you can't sell without that being addressed. I mean, I know you meant it, but I think it's really important. It's just like putting a HELOC or putting a second mortgage on your home. You have to deal with it. It's not something that they can forget about it. I'm just curious, Dan, did you do the PowerPoint Yeah, I did. I got to commend you on it because I love a good, clear PowerPoint. So thank you. Thank you for a good PowerPoint. Seriously. It really is. It's definitive. It's crystal clear. I said that before the meeting. The other thing I'll say, because I fully support this. I don't know which you gentlemen said it first. It's not coming from taxpayers. The problem is there was an article already posted about this where it perceives that we're giving money away, but that's not it. So you really hope that there's some clarity in reporting that this is a fund that is dedicated, that it can't be used for anything else, and it's not people's tax money. so i just think it's an important clarification i appreciate i think it was the mayor pointed out it's important the other thing i'll say if this commission ever debates the people we appoint to boards i don't know if you guys all looked at the minutes of the planning and zoning board meeting there are some of the most thoughtful questions that deal with tax implications that deal with developer versus city funded it is it is literally i was impressed prior to this meeting reading those minutes about some of the really thoughtful deep questions that our people were asking and that's why i love reading the minutes of something like this to see how we got to this point it was just it was it was very enlightening to see how significant and serious our planning and zoning board is taking it so i support the item thank you mayor commissioner rayleigh thank you dan dan could you explain

For those that don't understand, that's a very good point about taxpayer money, but this fund, where this trust fund, where that money originated, where that comes from.

So I'm not sure when the Affordable Housing Trust Fund was established. I think it was right before Strata.

2008 was said in the presentation. But yeah, where it came from.

This is a fund and an entire ordinance in our land development code. And the money comes from non-residential development. So when a non-residential development comes to get a building permit, there's definitions on what that means exactly. When they get a building permit, they have a fee they have to pay on top of the building permit fees. That money goes into this fund.

Great. Thank you. Yes. So it comes from the developer. And I just have a question about the lottery. And do you need to have a purchase contract before submitting an application? And it's good for a year. What happens if you, so you're saying no, you don't have to have a purchase contract, a home contract, purchase contract, to throw your name into the lottery.

Absolutely not. Right.

So I throw my name in the lottery. I'm picked. I don't have a place to buy. I'm one of those picky home buyers that I can't find anything within a year. So somebody else gets a chance?

You can request a six-month extension.

OK.

So it's a two-phase. And really, there's another three months built into that as well. Because the first part of it, you need to pre-qualify. So you need to go to a lender, and you have three months to go through that process to make sure that you're able to purchase the home. Right. And then you have one year. If you can't close in one year, you can request a six-month extension.

Okay. Thank you. But if I don't find anything and I don't use that money, it just goes to the next person?

Correct. It goes right to the next person on the lottery list. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Welch?

Okay. I think I love the idea of the lottery. That way it's very transparent and very fair. I did ask this question, so I'll just ask you to, earlier, to make it public. What are the anticipated Main Street linkage fees that will be added as a result of that development? Or maybe I got that information from Someone sitting here.

I can answer that question. Current estimate based on the commercial blocks that we've approved, it's $122,000. Yes.

So that'll go right back into the pot.

Correct.

Okay. That's great. Thank you.

How much is currently in that fund? $1.6 million. Well, obviously, I don't know why I said that. Maybe it was a billion, possibly. I guess. All right, thank you so much. Any other questions? Anybody from the public like to speak on this item? All right, if there's no further questions and no public comment, clerk, please call the roll.

Commissioner Rydell.

Yes. Commissioner Welch.

Yes. Commissioner O'Reilly. Yes.

Vice Mayor Brody. Yes. Mayor Watson. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, and excellent job. Okay. As noted at the beginning of the meeting, agenda number nine, for the first reading of ordinance number 2026-017 regarding an amendment to chapter 13 of the code of ordinances related to fee reductions for private providers performing plan review and inspection services has been removed from tonight's agenda and will not be heard. We will now move to ordinance 2026-005. And we're going to kick it over to City Attorney Byburn.

Thank you, Mayor Wasserman. An ordinance of the City Commission of the City of Coconut Creek, Florida, amending the City's Code of Ordinances by amending Chapter 5, Animals, Section 5-12, Retail Sale of Dogs and Cats, to delete the definition of hobby breeder to focus regulation on retail sales of dogs and cats. Providing for conflicts, providing for severability, providing for codification, and providing an effective date. This item is before you at this time for first reading. And Assistant City Attorney Cassie Harvey will give you an overview.

Thank you, Ms. Pyburn. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Commissioners. Move it.

Second. There you go. Start again, Cassie.

We're here today on proposed ordinance 2026-005, which amends city code section 5-12. By removing the will regulate the breeding or, excuse me, breeders. This helps to avoid any duplicative or conflicting oversight. The commission previously approved an earlier draft on April 9th, 2026, and postponed second reading on April 23rd of 2026 to allow the staff to work with American Kennel Club advocates. The collaboration produced this revised, compromised version. There is no fiscal impact, and staff recommends approval on first reading. Thank you.

Any questions or comments from the city commission? Nobody has signed in. Are there any members of the public? Well, I'm saying for the commission. I understand. I'm going to get to that. I said, are there any questions or comments from the city? OK. Are there any members of the public who've signed in to speak on this item?

Yes, Mayor. We have one member of the public who signed to speak on this item, Michelle Lazaro.

I just want to say thank you.

And I'm so sorry. Thank you.

Hi, everybody. Good evening. Hi, John. Hi. Can I call you John? Sorry. You can call me anything you want to. Thank you. I'll call you John. And Commissioner Welch, amazing to see you. Nice to see you. And thank you, Commissioner Rydell. So good evening, everyone, and thank you for your consideration of this matter. I know with our property tax issue that's going on, this seems like a very minor situation, but it's not. i want to thank you all anyway for uh sponsoring commissioner rydell sponsoring this but especially thank you to commissioner welch who sponsored this over a decade ago and this was before it was on anybody's radar before anybody knew what was going on with this issue and now we have 80 bands in the state of florida so you were one of the trailblazers you and the past commission so i want to thank you for your leadership on this issue Unfortunately, there was a loophole in the ordinance, and so what we've seen in Pompano Beach particularly is that the ordinance was being usurped by this loophole, and stores were coming in and saying they were selling from hobby breeders when they were actually selling from large-scale commercial breeders and puppy mills and some of the worst offenders in the business. There's no good ones, but these were some of the worst. And in spite of the fact that we proved to them time and again that this store was a bad actor, they said, well, we can't do anything about it now because the store is open and we don't want to get sued, even though the intent of the ordinance was very clear. So now I have had to run around to a number of cities and try to close this loophole before that happens in any other cities. So we're really stopping a problem before it starts. And thank you to the city attorney who dealt with this in Delray Beach. It's like a nightmare, isn't it? I know, it's all coming back again for over a decade. But this ordinance is not new. It just cleans up doing the intent of the original ordinance. This is just... basically cleaning up something that was a problem before it happens. And it doesn't stop any businesses from opening in Coconut Creek. It invites them to be in Coconut Creek as a pet store, but follow a humane model of pet sales, pet retail sales. This does not deal, as your assistant city attorney said, with regulating hobby breeders. That has nothing to do with this ordinance. It should never have been in this ordinance. I don't want to talk about how it got in this ordinance. We don't want to go back. We don't need to. But hobby breeders are regulated by the county. All this does is stop anybody from selling a retail sale dog through a brick and mortar store. This does not address who breeds at home, who sells directly to the public, who's shipping their dog. As much as we would love everybody to adopt, we're not looking to regulate that. So we just want to focus on the actual puppy mills that sell to stores, because 99% of pet stores get their dogs from puppy mills. It's known. That's why big box stores, PetSmart, Petco, Pet Supermarket no longer sell dogs. So this is the new normal. We are moving into the modern age. Dogs are no longer being sold in stores. So I want to thank you very much for taking care of this, for sponsoring this, Commissioner Rydell. And I asked Commissioner Rydell on purpose for a reason, because he and I have addressed numerous animal issues in other cities. So he was redeeming himself. So thank you.

No, I just want to thank you.

Listen, it's an insult. Not really, not seriously, but I do want to thank you. Thank you. I'll tell Anacampos you sponsored this, so thank you very much. Anyway, and thank you again to everybody, and I can answer any questions if you have them. And thank you to everyone who took the time to talk to me on the phone and do this. I appreciate it. Thank you. That one and Commissioner Red... I don't have my glasses on. And John, of course, I'm sorry I didn't get to the mayor, but you all took the time to take my call. So thank you. Thank you again.

Thank you. Any comments from the commission?

I just want to thank Michelle for coming and putting her sign down in Margate to come to the city of Coconut Creek tonight. And I'm glad we were able to do this, and I support the item.

All right. Clerk, please call the roll. Commissioner Rydell? Yes. Commissioner Welch?

Yes.

Commissioner Raley? Yes. Vice Mayor Bruni? Yes.

Mayor Wasserman?

Yes.

Thank you. All right. We're going to move up agenda item number 12. Are there any objections from the commission here on item number 12 next? No. All right. City Attorney? Ordinance 2026-019.

Thank you, Mayor Wasserman. An ordinance of the City Commission of the City of Coconut Creek, Florida, repealing ordinance number 2018-24 in its entirety, providing for a revision of the boundaries of City Commission voting districts, accepting the recommendation of the 2026 Redistricting Board, which provides for a revision of the existing legal boundaries for the five at-large commission voting districts to establish four at-large commission voting districts with a mayor elected at-large, as depicted in Map 13, labeled Exhibit A, providing for conflicts, providing for severability, and providing an effective date. Move it. Second.

Seconded by Commissioner Welch.

Seconded by Commissioner Raley.

And I do want to mention that we have our consultant, James Gammack Clark, here if you have any questions. We also have our board chair, Alex Escoriaza, and our board vice chair, Craig Valvo. I also want to mention that the board did a wonderful job. They had four meetings in which they considered all of the possible options for again breaking the districts from five down to four since in 2029 we will then have the elected mayor elected at large and it seemed very important to them to make sure that the map that they chose provided for the neighborhoods to be located all entirely within one district so each neighborhood is within one district not spread out over multiple districts with that i'd like to if you don't mind mayor see if they have anything they would like to add to that okay i guess not all right And I would like to thank them for their service.

Are there any, Vice Mayor Brody?

listen um i got to see the and i don't want to take anything away from the other dream team but i'm going to be honest with you i watched these guys in action and you couldn't have a better representation of our city than the five people who sat on that board because wow did they ask good questions uh you guys kept focused and you know you were you were diligent understanding the how important this was uh for the probably the rest of the existence of this city uh because i seriously doubt there's gonna be any major changes at this point even with the consensus in 2030. So you guys did a great job. I watched you guys in action speaking. You're very understanding of the nature of this. You guys did a great job. I also want to, James, thank you so much. You did a great job in being able to give them all the data they needed. By the way, my son's girlfriend actually was a student of yours. She's GIS in Deerfield now, so you did a good job. If you didn't know, he's a professor at FAU. So the whole thing just came together. And I think watching you guys kind of interact with each other was really enlightening for myself, because I sat in there as a learning moment. not being, you know, like my colleagues here, they've got to see it before I didn't get to see it. So it was very enlightening to be able to see the process. And I want to commend the five that sat on that board. And you guys did an amazing job. And I just want to let you know that I certainly am proud of how you guys did this and thought that you did an outstanding job. And definitely the highlight of our city is the five people that sat on that board. So thank you very much for your participation. Commissioner Welch?

Yes, thank you very much. I just echo, I didn't attend. I was going to attend the last one, but I didn't, because I spoke to some of the members before. But I have to say, when I listened, there was extremely robust conversations. thoughtful mediation on how to get there. And I just am so glad that we finally got to a place that we could keep the majority of neighborhoods intact. And I live to see it. So anyway, great job. Job well done.

Commissioner Railey?

I just want to say thank you. The journey might have been a little rough. But you did the right thing. And I just want to thank you. I did attend a meeting in the beginning. And I know it's difficult to just maneuver difference of opinions, but you did get it right. You ended up in the right direction, because keeping communities together was utmost in our minds, to keep them together. And you did that. And I believe you just satisfied everybody. But thank you. Thank you, committee. Great job. Again, I know a lot of you serve on different committees, and I thank you for all your service.

Commissioner Rydell.

Yeah, again, I would commend you all. I listened to the minutes of everything. I even got to hear our Vice Mayor chiming in at meetings. So that was always insightful at an independent standalone board to hear. But, alas, you know, we wouldn't expect anything else. But the robust discussion nature is significant. What I will say, the thoughtfulness, and I think To give an example now, we have two commissioners up here representing the largest single-family home neighborhood. How we condense this is the right way to move forward. So, you know, I look forward to it. Thank you, Alex. Thank you, Craig. And thank the rest of the board. Hopefully we give them certificates or something. That's all I have.

Yeah, no, I echo everybody. Leni couldn't be here tonight. She was dealing with something, so she wanted to send her appreciation for the support and for working with you guys as well. Yeah, no, it makes sense. What you guys did makes sense. Sometimes things happen and don't make sense, but what you guys did, it does make sense. And I think... you know going back and forth there's multiple maps and you finally work your way down and it's practical it's rational and it's a breath of fresh air for the city to keep these neighborhoods together you know township right now has three commissioners you know and it went to 520 homes i got 101 responses which i thought was pretty good and

I ask, was curbside recycling very important or not important? It was very important to, I think, about 80% of the homeowners. But I also put it out there that if it is important to you, would you be willing to pay $13.60 a month more to start this year, the curbside recycling this year? Well, obviously, the numbers became different. Because and I left room for comments. I got like 49 comments I had the city manager read them because you know just asking a Question in a survey and getting a yes or no answer isn't really significant to me. I needed to know where those Homeowners were going with the number that I had given them and many of them had very positive comments about bringing curbside recycling back, but not to the tune of $13.60. So many of them even cited the $10 rate. So given this, $6.25 a month increase is certainly almost half what we were suggesting to the residents that it might be, and even included in part of our discussions that we had as a commission. And the cardboard recycling only, the pain points that I seemed to run into about it were, when I delved a little deeper, was that cardboard going to go in a bin? No, it's not. It will be at a curb. Now, most of our single family homes have irrigation systems. And they are pretty much in place. And on any given day, we may or may not have rain when a truck is going to come by. A second truck, mind you, will have a waste truck. It's going to pick up our garbage. We'll have a cardboard recycle truck But he's only going to pick it up if the cardboard is broken down and not wet or damaged. And then we'll have a third truck on that day that's going to come and pick up bulk. Because if that cardboard is wet, it's going to go with the bulk pickup. And there's really not, even if you use the numbers here, a significant difference between the price point of what you're going to get. We signed a solid waste agreement. We were one of the first cities to take part in a regional effort to recycle and reduce. And I feel like, as a commission, we really believed in that mantra. And I think we're doing a disingenuous service to what we signed if we're not willing to put the curbside recycling of the marketable products in place. especially given that there really is not that much of an increase to our residents per year, $74.80 to have this recycling returned curbside to our residents in a true de minimis fashion. Because we're going to put an extra truck on. The truck that's going to be picking them up is going to be a back-loading truck. It's going to be the same as what our garbage is, our bulk garbage is today. So... We don't want any more carbon emissions, but yet we're going to have a discussion about putting an extra truck on our streets across our homeowners. So I'll reserve time for later, but I did do a little more digging because I feel like the more accurate and dialed down information that we have about the possibilities of doing this this year and getting our residents off to a good start because in that survey I realized I wondered why so many residents were taking their Amazon box out like a little gift to the gutter every bulk day because many of them think it's being recycled today. If they take it out to the curb, they think It's being recycled. They do not realize it is not. It's going to bulk, the same as everything else. So I'll reserve. But thank you for listening, and I hope you will take my comments into consideration.

All right. Nobody has clicked in, so I'll talk, I guess, and then somebody else wants to chime in. Oh. Oh. Oh. No, you go. It's fine with me.

I also took a survey. Sorry. I also took a survey. However, I did it verbal. every chance I got, whether I was in the store or I was having my nails done. I did ask permission first from the proprietor, but I did speak to anyone I could and in the communities as well. And I have to say, I was very surprised that most people want, they want to recycle. Half of them didn't want to be bothered, even though they said they started collecting their recycling, bringing it here. They didn't want the inconvenience of Friday, Saturday, Sunday being restricted and coming to the police station. They welcomed the curbside pickup. I think as a responsible municipality, we don't have a choice. I said this from the beginning. We need to recycle. We've spent years in discussion with solid waste. We need to do this. This just needs to be done. And hopefully the price will come down eventually once the Solid Waste Authority kicks in. But I think this is something that we have to do since we do promote our city as a green city and do everything we can for our ecosystem. So thank you. Thank you for listening.

Okay, yeah, nobody else has signed in, so I'll address. We were at the South Creek community meeting. I'm just going to go, because you just, you played a little game with the clicker thing. It was working, Mayor, I apologize. I know he is. No, we were at the South Creek meeting, Sheila and I, and there seemed to be positive sentiment around the idea of this. The idea was just education and how are we going to educate and how are we going to get people, you know. And then Becky was there. Would you agree that there was positive sentiment at that meeting other than just educating?

I do.

right well that's it that well that's if we start in year two but but fair enough I agree I agree so but yeah looking at this and looking at the numbers you know seeing no recycling so if we don't do recycling we are the last column is what we got Right? $398.95. And then you look over to recycling beginning in year one, which is $493. It's a difference of $7.91 a month. Then the next year, it's, you know, the difference between the two is $8.33 a month. $8.50. So regardless, we're going to be seeing a 70-something dollar increase from what people paid last year to this year if we do not go recycling. Is that correct?

That's correct. Currently, the assessment for single family is about $326. Okay.

So, yeah, about, you know, $72. So, you know, what do we justify, right? How do we justify? Do we justify that this $95 extra per year because we're already going to see an increase, do we justify that that is helping save the world in a way? We're recycling, because at the end of the day, that's kind of the goal. We want to stick to leading the way and being a sustainable city and being resilient in times. So looking at the numbers and breaking them down, You know, it is intimidating to see, you know, a potential of $170 increase from last year's to this year's solid waste. But we're already seeing a $70 increase without even getting recycling. We're just getting the same service. We're going to have four trucks coming per week, right? There's four trucks a week coming into our neighborhoods, which... What? Right, we already have three. So now adding on that additional recycling stop... For $95 a year extra, $7.91 per month, $2 and something cents per drop pickup, If I'm breaking that down, I'm getting a little more comfortable with the idea because Commissioner really brought it up. You know, this is what we wanted to do. But sticker shock can hurt people. So let me, let's kick it over to Vice Mayor Brody, who was, yeah, you were next, man. I think he clicked out. He clicked out and clicked back in. He was playing a game with these buttons. He was strategic. Oh, OK, here we go.

Oh, man. I smell garbage. So I don't think the argument is whether we should do recycle or not. I think all of us up here understand how important this is on the global picture and us setting the precedence of doing the right thing. So it's really picking, do we start in year one or year two? Because the cardboard only does nothing. And no recycling is not an option, in my opinion. So really you're talking about year one and two, and I think that's where we need to kind of focus the end of this discussion on, is it we start year one, year two, and what's the advantage and the pricing and all that, and that's where we need to make our decisions because I'm going to tell you, morally, I can't see another way but recycling. So it's just do we pay a lot, you know, the $40 difference or whatever it is, and get moving on this. So that's the discussion I want to lay out to my colleagues is year one or year two, let's get down to the nitty gritty.

You've you've you've clicked out and clicked in enough time.

It's now it's now your turn This is a really this is a really Difficult conversation and I'll say why morally I completely agree with the vice mayor that being said We're not always up here for our own morals, right? We're elected to you know govern and make choices I can imagine saying to not recycle. That's a hard thing to say. That being said, every single person I talked to, ironically, people that use the drop-off centers, when I said, hey, do you want to bring back curb recycling? Oh, I'd love to. Is it going to cost me anything? Yeah. No, I don't. Professionals. I was in court today talking to two highly educated attorneys, and they were skeptical of like, why are we going to do that? It doesn't really get recycled. Like these are the themes we have to compete against. So if they're going to sound crazy, but as a litmus test, our community doesn't seem to want it and doesn't want to pay for it. And you just got the sentiment from former Mayor Tooley. Oh, if everyone wants it, they just don't want to pay for it. So the elected official that does what the people wants in me says, okay, then let's not do it. Now, let's flip that. On the conversation I had with my wife before I came here, and she looks at me and she goes, what's wrong with you? How on earth can we not do that? Like, you have daughters that are going to grow up here. Like, what kind of world are we going to have morally? Right? That's the struggle. Because I do not think our community is going to embrace the financial decision that this commission appears prepared to make. I don't. But then the question becomes, how do we educate? How do we engage? How do we build something that justifies this? this is going to be looked at another oh this is government waste at its finest it's it but i don't think morally it is so that's what i struggle with because i talk to a lot of people about this and it's like totally contrary to like what i i don't want to say waste all my time what i spend hours and hours doing every other week i've gone to more and i'll save that for commission comments i've gone to all these other cities advocating for a plan that includes recycling and includes curbside recycling so this is a to me it's just a hard decision because we're i think we have an edict as elected officials to being the best. And I don't want to say we're boxed in with these numbers. We kind of are. But I think the moral high ground here is how do we not be better citizens? How do we not be better global citizens? How do we not be better for our kids? And I say that. My daughter was born on Earth Day. You know, it's just very difficult for me because, you know, fiscally, this is crazy to me. This is crazy to me fiscally what this is going to cost. And I get the tacit breakdown, which I think we're justifying on our own heads of all of us of saying, oh, it's going to be this, it's going to be this. But Sandy, I appreciate your comments kind of the most of saying, hey, I love the poll, like whatever you did, because I was doing it in a more... I love it. But I do, candidly, and I give you a lot of credit for that because I was just engaging people in the community. Hey, what do you think? And ironically, Susan may stab me for saying this, but ironically, I found the people that genuinely are using our recycling drop-off centers don't support curbside recycling. They're like, we're doing it great. Why are we going to pay more? We love it. We're doing it right, which is so weirdly flawed. that somebody that's using a drop-off center says, I'm happy doing it. But then the question is, those people that are skeptical, the people that are leaving recycling on the curb, the people that are throwing it away, I mean, how do you really educate them of this concept of you've got to save the world? Because that's what it is. And that's my internal struggle of saying, because I think, and again, it's not the job. So I mean, I'll leave my comments at that.

Yeah, it's one of those things where if you want to eat healthy, it costs money. If you want to save the world, it's like to do the right thing for yourself and for your community and for your environment, it costs more than just not. It's very interesting. You think about, because you were saying that, I started thinking about food. And if people want to eat healthy and they want to stick to it, they've got to put the money in. They have to pay for that. And it's the same thing here. It's very... Yeah, I wrote down these monthly numbers to justify in my head that maybe it is OK to increase, because we're already seeing that $70 increase, no matter what. Yeah, open forum. It's open forum. Just go for it.

So let me ask you something. The Solid Waste Authority contract, doesn't that include recycling? No. So we have to be recycling if we want to stay in the Solid Waste Authority. Am I correct in that?

I mean, I'm not going to take Terrell's thunder, but I mean, that would be theoretical, but assuming things pass, assuming it moves forward and assuming, depending on what the new global amendment is after October of 2027. So there's a couple of little check boxes, but to a degree, yes, I would agree.

Thank you. And also, I mean, we are in a global crisis, a garbage global crisis here. So we have to do what we have to do.

I think what has become the stigma about curbside recycling is because other cities have either kept the recycle bin out at the curb, or when they tell the residents it's recycled not and as one of the first cities in the county that is truly looking to bring it back in its truest form does come at a cost but I mean those occurrences in other cities where it doesn't take place and has caused people to be skeptical has influenced some of the opinions of our residents as well. Because that also was part of the comments. Well, I know other cities don't recycle, so what are you going to do with yours? And so anyway.

I think the fact that Republic, thank you for being here, is also looking to have, and it will be, an all-electric fleet. And with AI, and that we will be able to detect if the recycling is contaminated or not, I think that effort alone will show that we're serious and that they are serious about recycling and that it will go where it needs to go. I mean, we've never had that before. We've never had that technology before. So this would be a great advantage as well.

But I mean, also, the other component of this, we're looking at these numbers rolled out. And then if you look at it extrapolated over 10 years, there's also, if there's a real education, like a concerted education effort, these numbers, I'm not suggesting they're going to change. But you start throwing away less, you start recycling more, you start really modifying your plan, it actually does save money. This doesn't portray that. But if you as a community in the next five years, if we're able to cut down solid waste significantly, increased recycling, the amount of recycling, cardboard hypothetically, becomes a commodity. That becomes a kickback on the contract that, not a kickback, bad word in government. That becomes a, what's the right word? Give me a word, one of you. A rebate. Okay, better word. It becomes a rebate on the contract, which ultimately saves you money that's not demonstrated here because we have no ability of highlighting that demonstration.

You have North Broad Prep to use as a prime example. Correct. They've proven that to be true.

It's, you think about like, just, and Commissioner Rydell, you brought it up, it's like that perception, it's like, is the recycling really happening? Like, is it really working? And how do we know, how can we tell our residents that it is effective? And I spoke to JP about it. I was saying there is such skepticism in what government does. And it's a shame, because this city really does a great job of staying in between the lines. But other cities, we get clumped into that, because we're a local government. how do we how can we share with residents you know all right we've recycled this much per month this is how much we've saved going into the landfill even though we don't put into our landfill but we have a landfill in our backyard I know our stuff goes up north but There's this, you know, how can we really show that it's working and it's effective with a graph, with an email, the Cocogram, something that we can really allow the residents to reflect on that, hey, it's actually doing something.

And maybe that's for you guys to say. But that's the commitment. So if this commission votes tonight to do, like, right, we all agree on a moral level. But if this commission votes to do that, then there's a commitment from them being Republic. And there's a commitment from staff that there will be a rollout significantly to show that, yes, there may be some sticker shock right now. But if you recycle right, this comes down. Here's what you're diverting. It has to be a really concerted effort on, really a social media level to some degree, because that's where you're going to get hit the most on it. Solid waste already came out with some pretty decent videos and things like that. And then Republicans committed, in the last meeting at least, I mean, I'm happy to hear them today, that's a Republic issue as well, because they're investing in this contract too. Media, relations, education. So it has to be timed right. Because I'm not trying to get the superfuge of what we do, but if you can educate residents to the effectiveness of this and the long-term savings of it, that's how it has to be delivered in a package that we're going back to recycling.

Right, because people pay money. They want to see what's happening with the money. Yeah, and I think as a commission, we're so hyper-focused on really what's being in touch with the residents and really delivering on those things. I mean, we saw it today. I mean, we've seen it over the past week with talking to the city manager in regards to the gym that if we can show the evidence, if we can show what it's really doing to our environment and our society, then people will have a feel-good feeling about the money that they're putting in per month. Not everybody might, but I do think over time you'll get that positive feeling about that it's actually doing something And how would that look? I don't know. It's like, we've recycled this amount of cardboard boxes.

That equals a rebate of X. Yeah.

And Vice Mayor Brody's point tonight on something earlier, the return on the value. So it's very similar in that regard. I mean, you could certainly compare what you're talking about as a result of the rollout how adding this reduces this. So they need to know what their money is buying them.

And the positives to that.

Yes.

right and and i think uh commissioner you brought up like blog and you know article and whatever um damned if you do damned if you don't you know i think regardless there's going to be something written and i don't think we can lead in fear i think we have to lead you know with disability this this mindset that we're going to be doing the right thing And it might cost a couple bucks, but over time, it's really going to help us and help our future kids and grandkids and all that good stuff. Anything else from, what else we got? Yeah, no, keep rocking and rolling.

Let's go. I think it will bring more awareness as well. to the residents, to each one of us. We'll become more conscious of what we're doing. I know even in Windmoor, we have cases of plastic bottles of water. I said, what are we doing here? Get rid of all this plastic. no more let's get just containers let's just use paper cups no more styrofoam we just have to be aware of what we're doing i mean you know you don't think of it you just grab a bottle of water or you grab a styrofoam cup or dish and you just don't even think about it and then all of a sudden like now we're in a crisis because that stuff doesn't go away we have it forever so i told them i said stop ordering bottled water Buy nice containers. It doesn't have to be these ugly things that look like they need to be washed and thrown out. But just nice looking containers. Hotels do it. They have these nice containers of water that are sitting there with cups instead of bottles. I mean, do that. Put that. So communities can do that. Restaurants can do that. Any one of us do it. We do it here. It's more awareness. We just, all of us, have to be aware of what we're doing. And hopefully this will bring that to us.

I want to address Brody real quick, Vice Mayor. You made a comment, and I'm inclined to agree with you, and I just want to hash it out, year one or year two, which is the question you asked. And the only reason I think that's a salient question is that you may have, while the cost increase for year two is a little more, right, what's the value in a year of education what's the value in a year of prepping prepping prepping prepping re-educating the community in a i'm just this is a question for the commission right because that if we're having that conversation while i look at the obviously the cost differential on that what's the roi on that like is that the better way to do it i just say for discussion

Right, and so that's what I was just going to say. We need to narrow our discussion now to year one or year two. I think that's where we need to kind of drive our conversation. I think we all understand where our moral value, and we've talked about how we feel, and people we've talked to now. It's time for the dirty decision of year one or year two. And I'm kind of inclined to the same thing, is the more education, the better off we are, right? Because that's kind of how we got in trouble with the gym, was we didn't give education of how we were going to close this gym, right? So even that, we were talking about how do we educate we're about to make a decision that's going to change the outcome of our city. So what is it, year one or year two? That's our discussion right now. So let's talk about do we do year one and we just run like a bull through a china shop, or do we say year two and let's get an education out there in front of this to make sure that when we do our recycling that people understand what they're doing and what they're going to put in there and all that stuff that we do and give people to kind of understand the concept of what we're doing. So really those are the two discussions, the two things that we need to discuss.

What I understand is we are doing that now as a part of being a part of the Solid Waste Authority. I know Yvonne has pushed out through her PIO collaboration amongst the others in the county. And we're doing that now. We're promoting what we signed to reduce and recycle. So I... We are educating. We are already educating. We can just dial, I mean, really divvy it down into even more aggressive because now it's personal.

So, Commissioner Welsh, so what I'm hearing is you're more a fan of the year one.

I am.

Okay. So, let's start narrowing it down. Okay. Commissioner Rydell, what do you think? You are year one too, Commissioner Raley? Okay.

You know, while we're pushing out the solid waste authority message, I don't think that goes directly to how our community has to recycle, wants to recycle, needs to recycle, and what goes in those cans. Right? We're not putting that message out. I mean, if you roll the can out right now, I think we'd probably have a 30% contamination rate right now. Does anyone disagree with that, Mike? So you're running 30% contamination, and you're scrapping the whole thing, aside from whatever AI is pulling out. I'm just asking your opinion on that.

Yeah, so generally speaking, 30% is very common in the industry. So if you just rolled out a car today, yes. But education, as we've talked about, in addition to artificial intelligence, we think will make a difference.

Whoever wants to give us a specified time frame, and then I'll answer your question, Brody, Vice Mayor. Can you give me a time frame of when that can is hitting a street? That's what I want to know. If it's year one, when is the can hitting the street?

And I could ask Mike, could you please give an overview or have Republic give an overview of the rollout campaign? Because that is something that we've discussed.

Yeah, they do that a lot.

Do you mind if I address a couple of the questions to start, and then we get into the rollout piece of it? Yeah. So if you pull out the other fees in the assessment, HHW, the things that don't necessarily apply to collection, it's a $4.03 per month difference for no recycling versus recycling year one. $1 per week is essentially, you know, we're doing that kind of justification math in our head, but that's what it ends up being, about $4 per month to have the recycling instead of the no recycling option. Oh, yes, I apologize. Would you like me to repeat that? Yeah. So if you compare the no recycling to recycling in year one option, it's a $4.03 difference if you take out the other fees that aren't necessarily relevant to the collection process, right? HHW, franchise fees, and whatnot. So we're talking about a dollar per week for the recycling starting in year one option. When what? Year one. Yeah. October 1st. When? October 1st, yeah.

So hands on the street, October 1st, 2026.

Correct, yes. And just a thought there, as we're talking about education, what's the most important part of education? We've agreed to partner with the city on events, on flyers. We'll have flyers on the containers, stickers and whatnot. But I think the most important piece of the education will come from the technology to identify contamination and the follow-up after the fact, right? Educating the residents. through the communication that we're able to send out via emails, providing hot spots of contamination zones to the city so that we can have a more targeted education approach. And that would all begin once we start recycling in year one, right? So my only concern with pushing it to year two, and we can absolutely do either, is that you can have that ramp-up period in year one. So, of course, we can do either, but...

When it comes to education, I mean, listen, we really have to, and I don't know, it just came up to my mind, but like a recycling block party, right? For a lot of these neighborhoods, instead of sending out flyers or putting stickers I think really taking a concerted effort to having like going into Winston Park and having a block party, a recycling block party, going into Coquina, going into South Creek, really taking action. Rather than just giving a piece of paper that might just get thrown away, That's the real education. It's the you guys being on the boots on the ground. It's us showing up to those things. It's our staff going. That's really educating. When you're face to face and you kind of like make it fun. That's kind of like I'm thinking what we should do. What? With the new truck. Take a selfie with the truck. EVs are new in this market. It'll draw a crowd. Absolutely. So that's kind of like if we're going to rock and roll, I would be like, yeah, we should. I mean, I don't know how the party gets funded, but I'm sure you guys will do it. But that's kind of how I think. Identifying these single family home neighborhoods, really making that effort, getting in touch with the HOA presidents or the organization president, I should say, for South Creek, and really doing that. I don't know how the commission feels about that.

It's very similar to the turnouts that we have for the police and the fire cookouts. I mean, people come that haven't been out of their house in years, but they come because it's fun. There's food. You have to bring food. Then you'd have to bring the food diversion thingy. But no, I totally agree, because you're hyping it, making it fun.

Oh, absolutely. That's something we'd like to do is have a big event showcase the trucks, but also recycling education with it, do different touch of trucks, go to all the schools, educate the youth on it. Absolutely something we want to do. And to your comment earlier about what metric do you put out there, how do you track it? I think a fun, exciting thing is contamination rate for the city. Post that, track it, see how results come down over time. You could do it by area. Simple metric to track that you can get a lot of eyeballs on.

It's kind of like the national debt calculator. Did you just, hold on, did you just say national debt calculator?

Yeah, no, I said it's like the national debt calculator. That's what I said. I mean, it's something you could, it sounds crazy, but like it's, you know, you can have that as a function. It's a great idea, Austin. And that's something you have the ability through this contract of doing and maintaining.

So I'll just, is there anything else you wanted to address? No. So I will, I'll lead the way. I'll lead the charge. i'll say year one because i just think let's rock and roll let's do this thing let's go in and um let's really make a difference because they're gonna we're gonna see an increase anyway i'd rather see that increase from number one to two on recycling year two you know that's intense That's intense to me. And then when you go from year one to year five, I mean, if you do year two, really, it's going to cost the resident more money. Even if it's like a couple dollars, it's still more on the long term. So I'm a year one guy. I'll leave it at that. Oh, yeah, sorry. Susan, come on down. I apologize. I apologize. I wish you were doing this. I was going to say, oh, just vote.

I'll give you my three minutes back. But I have to say, I think I am more excited than that lovely woman from Becker and Poliakoff. I am, so I want to thank you for that. And I just, all right, I do so, okay. Number one, I've been talking lately, going city to city, about the master plan and the facilities amendment. What a pleasure to be speaking with you here, not looking up at people who are on their phones. So thank you for being you. Every time I come to a meeting, I say I love Coconut Creek,

I really do.

And Tammy, I hope you're watching. They're going to vote yes, huh? Just a question of which year. I had all these remarks about why we should do this. And I don't really care when you do it, as long as you do it. And now the whole conversation has shifted. So I'd like to remind you that education is going to also come from the Solid Waste Authority. And we are going to get Fort Lauderdale to sign yes. We are going to get Hollywood to sign yes. That will be by August 14th. So we can start education right away, working with conceptual everybody. We will be on this. I do want to take a moment, since I do have three minutes, I want to thank you guys for everything you've been saying. But I also just want to go back. I want to thank you for protecting animals. Thank you for securing workforce housing. And thank you more than anything for the composure that you've shown sitting here listening to everybody who came before this microphone today. It's just... I really just cannot thank you enough. You guys are an inspiration, and I just hope to live up to your guys' standards the way you compose. Your composure is phenomenal. I want to cry. Anyway, hopefully, maybe, I don't know how, if Becker and Polyakov can somehow secure funding for South Creek, funding for... Any of this? I can't help but think that there have to be grants out there. I started Googling a little bit, and there are grants. I just don't know how you go about getting them. So that was my other thought. Oh, Becker-Polyakov grants something for solar carports. Solar canopies over playgrounds. They will pay you back. You will make money in the not too long term. So that's something to think about when you're looking for projects to do. And that was it. Just thank you all for being leaders.

What a breath of fresh air. We appreciate you, Sue. What a breath of fresh air, you coming down. We got to clone you. We need a bunch more of Susan Steinhausers. Okay. Anybody else from the public that would like to speak on this item? Come on down. And then Becky will wrap up.

Hello, Commissioners, Mayor. Can everyone hear me clearly? Thank you so much for... First name and address. My name is Kevin Caskell. I'm the Vice President of Recycling for Coastal Waste and Recycling. I just want to thank everyone for being here tonight and hosting this incredible event. I also want to thank Bella Martinez. She's our... President of Government Affairs and the Republic Services team. They do a fantastic job. I actually will be meeting with Austin tomorrow at our facility. Just want to let everyone know, our organization has invested tens of millions of dollars into Broward County for different recycling facilities, including for yard waste, C&D, and single stream recycling. The question of education and whether or not What you're putting in your dumpster is actually being recycled? It is. My whole career has been based on recycling. Our facility for recycling cardboard PET bottles, HTPE, it opened two months ago. It's the first single stream recycling facility that's open in South Florida. besides waste management ever. The material that comes to us would just be dropped directly from Republic to our facility. There would be no carbon footprint going to a transfer station, then going to another facility to be processed. In addition, we are building an education center on the top floor of our building. We're going to have an interactive education center for the public, for kids, for the local community. We're going to have education on how much cardboard and trees are being saved and so forth and so on. So that is in the works, and we invite everyone. The Public Works has already visited our site, and we want to collaborate with Republic Services, this incredible group of individuals, to make the most of our education center and our facility for Broward County.

That's all I have. Thank you. Appreciate it. And I appreciate you really hyping up the block party. You were like, you're coming. Commissioner Raley, of course.

Excuse me. Was it Michael? Kevin? Yes. Kevin, so that facility that you're redoing on the top floor of the building, you're going to invite classes there from schools to educate the kids?

We want to invite everyone, including you.

OK, wonderful. That would be great. That's a great concept. Thank you. I'd love to come and tour the facility. I haven't done that yet.

If you're available next week, please give me a call.

I'll happily give you my phone number. Will do. Great. Thank you, Kevin.

I'd love to see the commissioner in a hard hat, you know?

Plenty of PPE.

Former Mayor Tooley?

You guys should pay for this. Come on.

Becky Tooley, 4411 Coconut Creek Boulevard. I spent at least 10 years on recycling and with the garbage thing. Mary Blasey and the city manager from Sunrise and I started this off. And we had to talk the League of Cities into a group in order to talk about this. And I was very disappointed in the whole 10 years with the county and being fur. The other thing I was devastated when we had to stop recycling because it was costing us too much because people weren't paying attention. I was so devastated that I walked door to door and garbage recycle can to recycle can and put a list on what you should recycle and what you shouldn't. I would say 90% of it was wrong. And that's why it cost us so much. And my question is, are you going to find the people if they don't recycle? Right? And who's going to do that? And that's the questions I'm getting.

Former Mayor Becky Tooley, this is Sheila. We've had that conversation. What's your name? I'm sorry. I'm like, oh, I don't know what to call her. Becky, what? We've had that conversation. And in fact, we actually started the conversation about there being a fine. And based on the conversations with the commission, it will only be an education process with the residents. There will be notices that will be developed showing what type of contamination that will go to the individuals. We'll also have either Mike or Steve knocking on doors to educate people. So the plan is not to have a fine, to be a very robust education campaign.

Well, I think that's rumor central out there, because people are saying, are we going to get fined $100 or whatever? I don't want to do this. Can I opt out? I said, why don't you come to a meeting and ask them? Good question. It's a big step. I know it is. I love recycling. But I know it also can be a real PIA. And I think that Republicans should pay for all the block parties.

Oh, no. I think we're all on the same page for that. But I think as a unit up here, we look to former elected officials like you to share your viewpoint and share your opinion, but also contribute to the community messaging. And I think We lean on you, and we lean on Mickey and Lisa, people who are up here, to share the positive of what this will do for our community. So I appreciate you coming out.

Well, I have. And also, I can tell you, everybody I can talk to, I tell them, don't vote for the property tax thing. So that's the other thing.

I think the vice mayor wanted to address you. Former Mayor Becky Tooley. what's the great thing about the ai is that these trucks will actually be taking pictures of it as the cans empty to see what they're putting in their cans that way it takes a picture of their address and what they're dumping at the same time so we know specifically which houses are in violation and then the education piece follows that so they're going to know which guys are screwing this up and we'll be able to address it pretty quickly okay because that's that's most of the questions that i'm getting and like i say you need to come to a meeting like i know christine's having a meeting on tuesday with the property tax and i've been telling

People should come, because they have a lot of questions. And the only way to get your questions answered is come here. So that's it.

Thanks, Peggy.

You're welcome.

Josh, you have something? Oh, good. I'm glad you didn't. Good. Good.

All right.

So is there anybody else from the public that would like to speak? Is there anything else from the commission? I already said where I stand. I'll leave it to you guys to express your opinion.

Year one. Year one.

I'll be year one. Year one. We've got a consensus.

We have a consensus, and it's a unanimous consensus.

I think really it's important to stress the rollout, education, long-term savings. Those three things. Rollout, education. But Jeff, there, long-term savings is an important component of this because while there may be sticker shock on what is going to be presented in our community, the long-term savings of doing this right and robust are legitimately real.

legitimately real and that is an important component of delivery and that's what we've tried to stress on the solid waste authority as well well and what I would say to that is you know I keep going back to you know what's going to be written about this decision and I'd really like to lean on our city manager and our communications department to reach out to the to the blogs inform them of what decision was made the effects of the decision that's being made and get ahead of what can be written over the next 24 hours to 48 hours. That's what I would suggest. I would really appreciate it if you guys reached out to them and provided them all the details to show them what we've done rather than letting them create their own narrative. And us actually taking that step to communicate with these people who do write things and put headlines and things that aren't necessarily true and, you know, they could be loaded headlines, I'd appreciate if we could make that effort. And hopefully the Commission agrees.

absolutely yeah i think as well uh hard numbers would be good because accurate numbers because they're going to be flying all over the place if we don't appreciate it let's call uh do we have to call the roll on this let's do it commissioner rydell

It is a consensus. Yeah, what are we voting on? We have a consensus.

We'll bring the contract back. The contract will come back to you for formal adoption.

Who whispered in my ear that we needed a vote? Brody, I think. All right.

So the contract will come back to you at our next meeting with these parameters included. Thank you.

And thank you to you and your staff and our communications team on taking care of that for us. And thank you, Republic, for being here. We look forward to a great five years. Well, we haven't done that part yet, but yes, we hope so. Could you imagine? All right, city manager report, what you got?

Next week, we have critical incident training with the police department, and the scenario will not be disclosed until next week. There will be message boards. There will be social media postings. It will be a training exercise, but it will be significant. So helicopters and a lot of action next Thursday in preparation for a potential training for a... Critical incident. So better to be trained. We will need to be discussing in the next several months water rate stabilization. I know you mentioned the issue from Mark Bogan about the need to address PFAS improvements to the water treatment plant. So we'll be talking about that. And I did ask Fred Hofer if he would, or Fred Shelton, if he would mind giving a quick update related to red speed. on red speed. There was a request for an update.

Good evening. I'm Captain Fred Shelton with Special Operations. I'm here this evening to update you on the school zone safety enforcement program. Currently, we have eight areas of enforcement, three of which were active, but we shut down for the summer session for maintenance, five of which that are currently under review by the Broward County Traffic Highway Construction Engineering. As of yesterday, I learned that those five locations have been approved and are now with the engineer who is going to formulate two RLA, which are revocable lease agreements. Once they are formulated and I receive it, I will request that they be placed on the August agenda. for commission approval, then they'll go back to the county commission for final approval. Now, our commission has already signed one of the two agreements, but there was an amendment to the original agreement. We repositioned two speed zone cameras on Coquitlam Parkway, and with that repositioning, they required their agreement to be re-signed. Once those agreements are approved in August, installation will commence and we'll expect to have the remaining five areas operational in September. As for the school zone safety enforcement program, we'll resume operation August 10th, the beginning of the new school year, for session 2026 to 2027. As of today, since the start of our program, we started our warning phase on May 22nd, and it ran for 60 days until May 21st when it ended. We issued 1,223... Do you want to redo those dates, Freddie? May 22nd to May 30th? It's a 60-day warning phase. We started on March... That's better. March 22nd. Did I say something? You said May.

It's okay. I just wanted to clear.

You're doing great. I love you. March 22nd ran 60 days and ended on May 21st of 2026. We then issued 1,223 warnings. Upon the ending of our warning phase, we began enforcement on May 22nd, ran to June 3rd, ending of school year, just less than two weeks, and we issued 415 violations. I'm sorry, 415 violations since the start of our enforcement phase, which only ran for just under two weeks. So I believe when all our errors in enforcement, all eight are up and running, it'll be busy.

All right, let me ask you a question, gentlemen. How many of those license plates were unreadable? Because I saw that stat, and it was kind of strange.

I don't have that number in front of me now, but I did update on what is readable and what's legible. It has to be verified through the system first. If the system does not verify the tag, then it will not issue the citation.

So it could be a cold plate. It could be unregistered plate, stolen plate.

If this reads a number or is not able to identify the state that it's from or it's obscured, then it goes into a different folder that is basically non-enforceable. It has to be able to verify it. Yeah, and even if we can verify it, it doesn't matter. The system has to verify the plate that's on the vehicle. But it is effective.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Good evening. First of all, I would like to wish Commissioner Rydell an early happy birthday.

I would like Commissioner Welsh to sing to me.

Also, I would just like to say that it has been a pleasure working with City Manager Rose. I know that she was reviewed earlier, and I didn't have the opportunity to speak. I think that she's doing a wonderful job, and it's fantastic that she includes me more in things, which makes my job easier for me and my department, and so I just want to thank you for that. And then additionally, I just wanted to mention that the city attorney's office is looking with staff at Senate Bill 1134, which is diversity, equity, and inclusion, which, as you know, was effective while it passed into law, was signed into law on March 23rd of this year, and will become effective officially January 1st of 2027. and we are looking at all policies, procedures, events, code sections, anything and everything that may be impacted by that, and we will keep you updated as to what we find out. But just wanted to let you know that we're on it, and we're available for questions if you have any questions on that. Thank you.

So you do have, this is, if you want it, you got it. If not, it won't be, we won't be able to do this again. So if you want to speak before, you can.

Can I reserve the right for a meeting where I may need it more?

This is it. This is it.

This, one time only?

Take it.

Okay, fine. Then I will. Yes. Sorry. Birthday. You want me to sing?

I just want you to say no report.

I'm not going to. I am not going to.

That's my birthday gift for everybody. I'll take no report down the line. And it's all a happy birthday to Josh. I can get home to my kids before they're asleep.

I'll make it brief, but I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge the incredible notes and assistance from Michael Rigetti at the MPO meeting today. I didn't realize he was going to be there. And someone else that may or may not have chat GPT'd. Anyway, there was only one action item at the MPO the day, and it was on the list of priority projects. And of course, we made note of the September 10, 2025 letter that Tina Polsky, our senator, and Christine Havchosky, our representative, had received from the FDOT and the Turnpike Enterprise to say that they would not expand past eight lanes. And so we asked for that same consideration to take place on three other priority projects, which would take it from Atlantic to Copens, Copens to Sample, all the way up to the county line. It was a very light turnout at MPO today, but I have to tell you there were 18 present, and everyone voted in favor of the amendment. So it's now included that all of those considerations for the other projects, any widening beyond eight lines will require additional traffic analysis as part of the new PD&E evaluation, including but not limited to more, public engagement, evaluation of reasonable alternatives, and mitigation of community and environment impacts. So thank you, Michael. And thank those other 17 people and the 13 people that were not there. Can you believe 13 out of 18 were missing? So, but we still got the vote. So, yay. Other than that, I have no report. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, Commissioner Riedel. Happy birthday to you.

Commissioner Raley? That made my day. No report.

Oh, wow. Okay. Commissioner Raley? Happy birthday, Josh. No report.

No report.

Happy birthday, Josh. No report.

Well, I'm so sorry. It's just a few things. So pedestrian, on Lyons at 30th, Um, there's a lot of people that are walking, you know, a lot of people walk from Cocoa Plum across to go to the pool at the township. And, um, you know, it's a, it's a community pool right for the town. So it's, um, I've been seeing a lot of people walking across. I've seen strollers walking across and that's like a really busy, obviously that's like a, you know, it's the, it's the, you know what I'm talking about. It's the intersection just north of Tamarin. So I don't know if there's something that can be done, like a pedestrian walk. Hit the button, people can walk. I know it's a busy road. I don't know if there's anything. Just an idea to do something there, because there's bound for something to happen.

Yeah, the first study would be to do a study and an analysis of it that we would do with Broward County. So we can certainly do that.

Excellent.

Abbott's opened.

Abbott's Custard opened. The Seed opened. Crane was about to open. Life in Creek is pretty darn good right now. There's a lot of great things for our residents. It's just, we are, we're really awesome. Awesome location. We have great things coming into our city. Just super proud of all the great, I mean, it's awesome. Police training. Is there, is there police training for dealing with autistic people? Okay. How often do we participate in that training? Once a year. We do it once a year? So it's a mandatory thing that each police officer has to go through? Yes. OK. Last meeting, one of the people who was here, Bela from the Chabad, she brought up a really good point. She thought that maybe somebody who had publicly spoken, who had gotten issues, might have been autistic. And she was like, is there training on things like that? So for me, I just wanted to make sure there was training. So there is. That's that. That's that. I got that. Jim, great conversation today by the dais. And just great discussion with the garbage. No, with the recycling.

We...

It really was. It was just authentic. It was genuine. It was a really good flow. I feel like we really have the best interests. It just felt good for us all to finally cross over that and make that decision. And let's go Knicks.

Motion to adjourn.