City Council - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our June council meeting. Today is Wednesday, June 10th, and the time is now 10.16 a.m. And we are calling our regular scheduled council meeting to order. A reminder to please silence your phones. If you must take a call, we ask that you please step outside so that we can maintain a respectful atmosphere. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilman Nico Reynoso. Present. Councilwoman Maureen Porras. Here. Councilman Rafael Pinedo. Present. Vice Mayor Degna Cabral. Present. Mayor Chrissy Fraga.

Present. Mayor, you have quorum. Okay, thank you very much. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance led by Councilman Pinedo.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible,

Thank you. Before we go into our invocation, I'd like to ask for a moment of silence. We are having a moment of silence for a family in our community that has lost loved ones. We will remember Melanie Heyer and her daughters, Savannah and Sienna. This heartbreaking tragedy has touched our entire community and serves as a reminder that behind every smile There are many struggles that we cannot see. It is also a reminder of the importance of supporting one another, checking in on loved ones, and ensuring that those facing challenges know that help is available and we are a community that supports each other. As we mourn the loss of these precious lives, let us come together in compassion, prayer, and support for all those affected. Thank you. We will now ask Pastor Edwin Castro from Presidencia Viva to please join us for the invocation today.

Thank you. Good morning. May your members of the city council and members of our community. As I was praying this morning about this meeting, I remember the story of King Solomon, the son of King David. When he was very young, he faced a similar situation like yours. He had to make big decisions that will affect a whole nation, just like your decisions will affect the entire community. Solomon felt overwhelmed because he knew he was young and did not have enough experience. Because his heart was in the right place, he asked God for wisdom. The Bible says that God gives wisdom to anyone who asks. But also the Bible says in the book of Proverbs that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. For that reason, even more than asking for wisdom, we need to ask for the fear of God. And this simply means being aware in every decision you make how to please him and make choices that align with his word. And that is exactly what I pray for you today. Father, we come before you to ask for your wisdom to be manifested in this meeting. Give each member of the council a humble heart so they can ask for your fear and your wisdom so they can lead us in a future of peace, prosperity, and joy in our community. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Amen. Thank you, Pastor. Thank you. All right, we'll now move into the agenda order of business. Go ahead and start with the city manager's office.

Yes, good morning, Mayor and Council. I need to defer item 21L to the August meeting. That item is in the evening.

Mr. City Attorney, do you have anything?

I have nothing, Madam Mayor.

Councilman Pinero?

I don't have anything, Mayor. Thank you.

Vice Mayor Cabral?

Yes, I have 6A, 6B. I'm still waiting for some information on 6Q. So I'm going to put 6Q, if anything, and 6Q, those three.

It's A, 6B, and 6Q.

Q. OK. Councilwoman Reynoso?

No, Mayor. Thank you. Okay. Councilwoman Porras?

No, none. All right. I'm going to go ahead and pull 6K. And I am actually deferring 9A. I have been having conversations with... the manager's office and finance, and I've been asked to have this discussion during budget. It would be most appropriate with a full presentation, so we're going to do that. So I'm deferring indefinitely, and it'll come back in some shape with the budget as a discussion. Motion. No motion right now. We don't need one. Nothing else has been done. Great. If there's nothing else to be pulled, we'll go into public comments. Everyone's good? OK, we will now open the floor for public comments. Each speaker will have three minutes to address any item on the agenda today or any matter related to the city of Doral. Please begin by stating your name and address for the record and ensure that you have registered with the city clerk. We will first hear from those who have pre-registered to speak. If you have not pre-registered, I will follow by asking anyone who would like to speak for any final comments before we close the public comments. As a reminder, in accordance with our city's code of conduct, we do ask that all remarks remain respectful, courteous, and in an orderly manner. Personal attacks, offensive language, or disruptive behavior will not be permitted. Let's work together to keep this forum productive for all. We will now open public comments. I do have a few public comments, pre-registered speakers, starting with Theo. Good morning.

Good morning. My name is Theo Karen Salas, 289 Shadow Way, Miami Springs. Some of you may remember me as the librarian at the old Doral branch. Others may be as the barista who opened Doral's first Starbucks in the late 90s. Today I'm here as the former chair of the Miami-Dade County Disability Board and as a current member of the Miami Springs Disability Board. I'm here in strong support of Chief Matthew Castillo, When I brought to his attention that people with disabilities were being shut out of downtown Miami Springs life because others were illegally parking in disabled spaces, he organized an enforcement operation that netted 30 violators in just a few hours. Those of us with proper placards can engage in civic life again because of his leadership. Chief Castillo has trained his officers to serve people with all types of disabilities. My adult son has autism and schizophrenia and sometimes runs away from home. His officers know exactly how to respond with patience, skill, and humanity. Chief Castillo also spearheaded Coffee with the Cop events at Starbucks My son went, took photos with the officers, and came home and told his mama in Spanish that the police were his friends, and many of whom he now knows on a first name basis. I'm a retired assistant library director. I worked at Miami Dade College when Matt was training at the academy next door. He has always been an avid reader. a man with a genuine passion for continuous improvement, and it shows. I was at a swearing-in ceremony in Miami Springs in 2015, and I've watched him rise through the ranks ever since. He is visible, he is approachable, and he gets things done. And you could not be choosing a better person to lead this city's police department. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Karanasi. Mr. Richard Glitstad.

Richard Gluckstad, 4768 Northwest 114th Avenue. I show everybody this. It's a medallion that I received from the City of Doral Police Department for my work with them. I've been helping them for many years. I have limited law enforcement experience myself. The state of Florida and two different positions. So I think I know what I'm talking about today. Answer true or false. to the following statements. Number one, the city of Doral has had three mayors. Two, two mayors were Cuban. Three, one mayor was Venezuelan. Four, under the Venezuelan mayor, the police chief was Italian American. Number five, under the Cuban mayors, all police chiefs were white Cuban Americans. Number six, all of the Doral police chiefs were brought in from other places. Number seven, no Doral police chief has ever been promoted from within the department. Number eight, no Doral police chief has been a female. Number nine, no Doral police chief has been an African American. Due to the efforts of Chief Edwin Lopez, the police department has become a very successful and, most importantly, a diverse organization. At present, the department has a black female assistant chief of police and a female African-American major. They are Alicia Neal and Samika Gibson. The department also has a distinguished male major who is a Bronze Star recipient of mixed Colombian-Cuban heritage, Major Leonel Ochoa. I think some of them are sitting over here, right? I don't see... The men and women of Doral PD may feel they are never fully trusted as displayed by the history of outside hiring of his chief of police. The history of not hiring our best from within negatively, negatively affects morale and level of service to citizens. 15, Doral has two other options, either hire from within or advertise the position nationwide. Doral can eradicate its history of political and social cronyism by changing its hiring practices. 17, Doral can be its best when it gives all groups a chance, not just Cuban Americans or other white males. Number 18, nobody can be a better police officer than one who already knows and cares for Doral. Since all the statements are true, I reach the following conclusion. Twenty, hire our new chief of police from within. There is no other reason to look any further. Long live the Doral Police Department, and may they prosper and be successful always.

Thank you, Mr. Glutz. Next, I have Mr. Tobias Roche.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Pleasure to be here today. My name's Tobias Roche. I live in Miami-Dade. I'm a retired supervisory special agent with ICE. Here in Miami, I served as a consultant to ATF Secret Service. and other federal law enforcement agencies, been part of HIDA task forces with state and local. I'm a former police officer in Massachusetts. My expertise is in Venezuelan investigations. I've appeared on numerous television shows, radios, also consulted with Marco Rubio and Carlos Carbello. I'm here to tell you that Durrell and Rafael Pinero, who I know well, we had concerns about infiltration of Chavistas here in Trende Agua coming here since 2012. My cases have resulted in a new book, and I'm not here to promote it. I have one for the mayor, one for Chief Castillo when he takes office, and one for my good friend Ralph. It's called The Chavista Hunter. It's written by Pete Thrawn, a New York City police officer. It's number one in law enforcement on Amazon. Unfortunately, Dural has been infiltrated. It has been infiltrated. They have run Chavista operations through here with businesses. I had talked with Mr. Pinero years ago about filtering that out. But the city manager at the time did not want to do that, licensing and things like that. I think now with the state of Venezuela, with Maduro in custody, it's time to clean house and look at things like that. So if you need me, my contact information is available. And I'd be more than glad to help here. But there are some of the names in the book you'll be very familiar with. I'm not going to talk about the book. But it's very detailed on the operations here in the Doral, Miami-Dade, some of the people that there's $5 million rewards on. So thank you very much for your time. And who should I leave this with, Mayor?

You can leave them with the clerk. She'll give them to us. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you so much. All right. I have no other pre-registered speakers. Now would be the final opportunity to speak. If you have not pre-registered and would like to speak on an item on the agenda or germane to this council. Please approach the podium.

Good morning, Mayor Fraga. Good morning. Councilman, I'm not sure if this was the right part of the program about the HOA pilot program.

You can speak now. Just state your name and address for the record. And once you finish, you can just register with the clerk.

OK. My name is Brent McNabb, resident of Doral, 7863 Northwest, 111th Court. I WANTED TO JUST TOUCH A LITTLE BIT ON THE, AND MAYOR FRAGA AND I HAVE CONVERSED SEVERAL TIMES IN THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS ON HOA PROBLEMS HERE IN DORAL. BUT IT SEEMS THAT WE'RE ALWAYS ADDRESSING THE OUTSIDE OF IT. AND WE'RE NEVER GETTING TO THE ROOT PROBLEM OF HOAs HERE IN FLORIDA. THE HOA IS A MAFIA OF THE DEVELOPERS. THE DEVELOPER CREATE THE HOA, THEY GOVERN THE HOA UNTIL the completion. They install their own boards. They create the rules. As a homeowner, if you want to live, you're entitled, you have to join it, or you don't buy your house. And we've seen that everybody is looking at everything, the fraud here, the fraud there, but we never get to the root of the problems we have with HOAs. Further, the problem is there's no support for the homeowner. As a homeowner for an HOA, I'm governed by 720, Florida Statute 720. Mayor Fraga knows my fights in Islands of Doral for the past couple of years. You go to the DBPR, and I was here at the event yesterday to talk with them with a problem I have. And the first question from DBPR, are you here to discuss 720 or 721? I have a 720 issue. Sorry, we can't help you. Who can help you? Nobody. There is no entity in the state of Florida there to support an HOA. And I'm the president of the HOA now, because we took over the board from last year, which was the first election in 20 years. 2,900 homes and an HOA. 20 years, never had an election. because the rules of the community are in favor of not having an election. It took a tremendous effort of over 200 volunteers in our community to get it, and we're moving forward. But I just wanted to see, like, you know, and we met with Representative Porras at your last event, and he put forward the bill, vote out your HOA. How are you going to do that? get a quorum. It took six months and 200 volunteers to get a 20% quorum for an election, which they give you 14 days, the board. We're going to hold the election. They let you know 14 days ahead of time. How are you going to get? We needed, I believe it was 897 homeowners to vote to have an election. But there's so many things and it's being addressed, but we're never looking at the root of The developer.

Thank you. Yes. We'll have a discussion on it. If you could just see the city clerk and register, and we'll be having a discussion on this. Thank you so much for being here. Anyone else would like to speak at this time? Now would be a reasonable opportunity. All right. Being none, we're closing public comments, and we will move into the agenda. I'll just give the clerk. All right. Madam Clerk, would you please read the items that have been pulled from the agenda so we can get a motion on the consent?

Yes. It'll be all of the items on the consent agenda with the exception of 6A, 6B, 6Q, and 6K.

Motion. Motion to approve by Councilwoman Reynoso. Second. Second by Councilman Pinedo. All in favor say aye. Aye. All right. Let the record reflect that the consent agenda has been approved unanimously. Now I need a motion on the minutes.

Motion.

Motion to approve by Councilman Reynoso, second by Councilman Pinedo. All in favor say aye. Aye. Let the minutes reflect that they have been approved unanimously. We'll now move into presentations.

Item 8a, presentation, Keep Draw Beautiful Business Award.

Good morning, honorable mayor, vice mayor, members of the council, Madam Manager, Mr. Deputy Manager, Mr. City Attorney, and Madam Clerk. Genovania Assistant Co-Compliance Director, this month we are pleased to recognize Holiday Inn Express for their outstanding commitment to keeping Doral beautiful. The property for which they are being recognized is located at 1691 Northwest 107th Avenue. Holiday Inn Express has been in the city for five years. The property is approximately 50,170 square feet, and it is managed by 22 employees. Holiday Inn Express is a contemporary hotel in a proximity to Doral's Bavarian Shopping Districts, accommodating guests seeking high-quality, affordable, and reliable stays. Recent improvement and ongoing maintenance efforts at the property include daily leaf blowing, weekly pressure cleaning, daily pavement scrub, MONTHLY GRASS AND BRUSH STREAMING, QUARTERLY WASTE TANK CLEANING, YEARLY WINDOW CLEANING, AND THE PRESENCE OF ON-SITE MAINTENANCE TEAMS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DAILY MAINTENANCE OF THE EXTERIOR AREAS. IT IS WITH GREAT PLEASURE THAT WE NAME HOLIDAY AND EXPRESS FOR THE KEEP THE ROAD BEAUTIFUL BUSINESS AWARD FOR THEIR CONTINUED EFFORTS TO KEEP THE ROAD BEAUTIFUL. MADAM MAYOR AND COUNCIL, HERE TO OBSERVE THE AWARD ON BEHALF OF THE PROPERTY. YOU MAY STEP UP. He's General Manager Daniel Orellanos, from Office Manager Emily Prats, Director of Sales Jessica Machado, Executive Housekeeper Tania Batista, and Chief Engineer Rolando Quintan.

Hello. Welcome. Thank you. Would you like to say something?

Hello, Council for Doral. I just want to say thank you to the city of Doral, Madam Mayor, the whole council. It was an honor to be nominated. It's even proud of us to receive this award, and we will continue to be a beautiful image for Doral.

Thank you for your investment and care for the city. Can we have a photo? Would you mind coming up here?

Perfect.

Wait a second.

Moving along, we are moving into the next presentation item, 8B.

Item 8B, fiscal year 2025 annual comprehensive financial report.

Adam, city manager or finance?

Yes, good morning, mayor and council. We have our consultant here and our finance director who are going to give us a presentation on the results of our ACFOR. THANK YOU.

GOOD MORNING, MAYOR AND COUNCIL. WE HAVE HERE GERRY DONATES, A PARTNER WITH THE FIRM GARCIA ESPINOSA MILLARES RODRIGUEZ TRUEVA, WHICH IS OUR EXTERNAL AUDITING FIRM. I'M HANDING OVER THE PRESENTATION TO THEM. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU, SOUL. GOOD MORNING, MAYOR FRAGA, VICE MAYOR, COUNCIL MEMBERS AND CITY ADMINISTRATION. AS SOUL MENTIONED, MY NAME IS GERRY DONATES WITH GEMRT. I WAS THE LEAD PARTNER ON THE CITY'S AUDIT FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDED SEPTEMBER 30, 2025. SO I'M JUST GOING TO GIVE A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF SUMMARY RESULTS OF THE AUDIT. SO THE ANNUAL COMPREHENSIVE FINANCIAL REPORT OR THE ACFER AS IT'S ABBREVIATED WAS ISSUED TOWARDS THE END OF APRIL AND THE CITY SUBMITTED THESE FINANCIALS TO THE GFOA FOR THE PURPOSE OF THEN OBTAINING THE CERTIFICATE OF ACHIEVEMENT FOR EXCELLENCE IN FINANCIAL REPORTING. The opinion in the audit report, it was an unmodified opinion, so that just means that the financial statements are presented fairly in all material respects. In essence, it's a clean opinion. So we did not have any findings to report, and there were no prior year findings to address in this year's report. In terms of our fieldwork and testing, we did not have any difficulties in dealing with management, and we didn't have any issues in completing our procedures and our audit. Throughout the audit, we asked for a lot of information, supporting documents, a lot of inquiries, questions, and Sol and her team were able to provide responses and documents in a timely fashion. In terms of some technical aspects, accounting practices and policies, everything was consistent with the prior year. There was one new standard that needed to be implemented, GASB standard related to compensated absences, but that did not have a material effect on the financials. In terms of some key financial highlights, property tax revenues increased by approximately $3.7 million when compared to the previous year, mainly attributed to assessed value increases, new construction. Now, obviously, that's a hot topic in the state of Florida with the property taxes, so that's something that will need to be monitored in the upcoming months. Capital expenditures were approximately $53 million, including the land acquisition, ongoing construction, infrastructure, and acquisition of vehicles and equipment. In terms of fund balance in the general fund, at the end of the year, it was approximately $86 million. Out of that balance, approximately $70 million was unassigned. So that's well above the city's requirement of its minimum unassigned fund balance requirement. In terms of the budget, revenues and appropriations were sufficient to cover expenditures. And then lastly, we also did complete a federal single audit that's related to the federal grant awards and the spending. based on the expenditures and the threshold. So there were two major federal programs that were audited. And for that audit, in the single audit, we also did not have any findings. And the opinion in the single audit report was also unmodified. So basically, that's a high-level summary results of the audit. As I mentioned, I'd like to thank Seoul and the finance department as a whole for working with us to complete this audit, and my team as well. Frances Cabrera-Yeck was the lead senior manager on the engagement. She's currently on maternity leave, so she couldn't be here, so we wish her well with the baby, and my entire team for getting through the audit. If you have any questions, and as always, we're available throughout the year if anything arises and you need to talk.

Thank you very much. Is there any questions for the consultant? All right. I don't think we have any questions. Thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Appreciate it.

Thank you so much. All right. We'll go ahead and move into our discussion items.

Discussion item 9B, a resolution of the Mayor and the City Council of the City of Doral. Schedule for the City of Doral Parks and Recreation Department, providing for implementation, incorporation of recitals, and ineffectiveness.

Okay, Madam City Manager, Deputy City Manager, I don't know if there will be a parks presentation regarding the fee schedule?

Yes, Mayor. Good morning. We have our consultant here from JRD and Associates. As you're aware, last year we voted on an item to have JRD and Associates conduct an overall fee study for the city. We are in the process of finishing that study. However, we wanted to address the park's fees now because, as you also know, we are in the process of rolling out our software program, which is going to be handling park operations called Amelia. And we wanted to be able to have the fees in place in order to be able to roll that out as it should. So I have George Duyos here, who I've had the pleasure of working with in Coral Gables. as he provides service to that city. He also did our fee study for our building department a couple of years back, so he's familiar with Doral. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to George.

Thank you, Madam Manager. Good morning, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council Members. George Duyos with JRD and Associates. I believe we have a presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you. As the manager stated, our firm was hired to conduct fee assessments for several city departments, including Parks and Rec, Public Works, Planning and Zoning, and some others. So today we're presenting the Parks and Recreation. I will kick off the presentation with some background, talk to you about how we went about the fee study, and then turn it over to the Parks Director to walk you through specifics of fee changes for PARKS DEPARTMENT. THE OBJECTIVE, AS YOU ALL KNOW, NOW IS A TIME WITH ALL OF THE PROPERTY TAX DISCUSSIONS AND LEGISLATION, NOW IS A TIME TO TAKE A LOOK AT THOSE SERVICES THAT YOU PROVIDE AND THOSE THAT ARE ELIGIBLE AND SHOULD BE costs recovered by adequate fees. So this was one of the objectives of the study. Also, to improve transparency and the clarity of your fees and to simplify and standardize your fee structure. Right now, it's a very large fee structure. There's inconsistencies. And so working with the department over the last few months, we've been able to arrive at what we think is A FEE THAT'S GOING TO ACHIEVE COST RECOVERY, BUT ALSO MAINTAIN THE LEVEL OF SERVICE THAT YOU PROVIDE TO YOUR RESIDENTS. COST RECOVERY IS ONE OF YOUR KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS IN YOUR PARKS URBAN, IN YOUR PARKS MASTER PLAN, SO IT'S VERY IMPORTANT THAT THE CITY KEEP GOING WITH LOOKING AT THE FEES FOR THE PARKS. SO WHAT IS A FEE? Basically, user fees, unlike property taxes, are those fees associated with receiving a service. They help to maintain your facilities, administer your programs, and they also help the city continue delivering those high-quality services that your residents are used to in the community. They also help alleviate the financial burden on the general fund. Why are they needed now? Well, as you all know, your parks, your facilities, your programs, your amenities have expanded significantly in the past few years. It was a good time to take a look at how your fees are structured, what the actual fees are, how you can better serve the community by having the appropriate fees and how the new software can implement these fees. As the manager mentioned, your software, Amelia, is in the process of being implemented so this is a good time to get these fees approved so once you go live with your software program the the appropriate fees will be included the approach that we took was to basically as I mentioned we worked very closely with the department with the director and his team We looked at your current fee schedule. We assessed what fees were in need of change. Some fees were eliminated because you don't need them anymore. Some new fees were created. Some were consolidated. And the director will go into some of those in a little bit. We also gathered cost information to make sure that as much as possible, your costs could be recovered for the services you're providing. We benchmarked also against other municipalities. I'll talk about that in a minute and develop some options for the department to consider when looking at a simplified fee schedule. The cost recovery approach, which is essentially what we wanted to obtain, is one that balances recovering your cost with the community benefit. So we wanted to make sure that the programs that you provide, some of which will not fully recover your costs, such as your senior and special needs programs, are maintained at a reduced cost, and you want to maximize your community participation. So for instance, some of your senior programs on the new fees are like a Tai Chi class, for $2.50. Well, you might have three or five people attend that class, and you're paying an instructor maybe up to $100. But you want to keep providing that service. You want to make it affordable to as many residents as possible. So there are some of the fees that are not going to result in cost recovery. However, there are others which should that involve significantly more staffing, operational requirements, complexities, and those have to do more with facility rentals and pavilions and some of the other programs that the city provides. I mentioned the comparative analysis. We wanted to make sure that, because there are other options, especially when you talk about non-residents or businesses that are in your city, to maximize the use of your facilities, we wanted to look at what others charge. So we looked at all of these cities here. And our findings included that your department Your parks facilities are newer. They're very well maintained. They offer many more amenities than other parks facilities offers. But we wanted to make sure, again, that the costs were on the same level as the others to the best degree possible. For several facility types, such as athletic fields, baseball fields is an example where your fees are lower. In right now, you currently charge for one hour of a baseball field rental $40 for the hour. We looked at some of the other municipal parks. City of Weston, for example, charges $45. Not a big difference, but you'll see in the proposed fees, We're proposing $45 for that. Again, that's to achieve cost recovery, but not to increase it to a level where it becomes unaffordable. You obviously want those fields used and the community to be able to enjoy them. So even with moderate fee increase, such as the example I just gave, Doral would maintain its competitiveness regionally. And finally, targeted fee adjustments are warranted to better reflect the premium nature of the services that you provide. So at this point, I will turn it over to the director to walk through some of the specific updates.

Good morning. Michael Festov, Parks and Recreation director. So with youth programming and programming across the board, With the non-resident rate, we're going from 20% to 25%. And we're setting that as a benchmark. Previously, it was a different percentage depending on different programs. But we're across the board. So it's easy to understand for staff, easy to understand for the customer that it's a 25% surcharge for non-residents. On our recreation leagues, we're consolidating the fees. So it's one fee or a set number of fees instead of the six or seven that we have now. and then we've adjusted some of the programming fees, especially the smaller programs where you have a lot of, it's a very low instructor to participant ratio. Event venues, so anything involving event venues, the non-resident rate is going to go from 25 to 30% across the board. We're applying discounts for things like nonprofits, public schools, and government organizations that use our venues at a discount. We're also consolidating our security deposits to have three security deposit amounts across the board, depending on the value of the rental. So it's easy to understand for the customer and for the resident. And we're eliminating any inconsistencies between facilities. So all facilities, all pavilions will have a set fee within a small category that we have. And then we standardize the pricing, and we'll give an example at the end. So for field and court rentals, we are eliminating all administrative fees, and we're just moving that into our hourly rate. Again, so the customer understands you're renting a field for two hours, you're paying $90. It's not $90 plus where the lights are on and off, administrative fee. It's just one set number that's easy to understand. And then those resident and non-resident rates and the discounts for nonprofits, public schools, and government institutions carry forward towards the use. This would not impact any schools in which we have joint use agreements with Miami-Dade Public Schools. This is add-on if any other school that we do not have an agreement with wants to use our facilities. special events we adjusted the vendor ranges for food trucks and we standardized pricing across the board and then we introduced some fees that we've been charging for parking for special activations that you'll see at the 4th of July where the residents are going to have still the free event but we're going to have some ticketed events as part of that for example we'll have the Doral Central Park fitness members which we have over 2200 members in the fitness gym we'll have access to the rooftop patio that we have at the center as a member perk, but also as an add-on. Camps, we eliminated some of the seasonal camps and we restructured fees on that. We added fees for the summer camp that we are running in-house now. And I think going forward, what we're going to do is primarily we've outsourced a lot of our camps but we've had tremendous success in the camps that we've been doing in-house, and we'll be expanding that in the summer and during seasonal. So spring break, we have the Thanksgiving break now, and winter breaks. Senior special needs, we've eliminated all fee ranges that we have, and now on our fee sheet, it's a clear fee that is easy to understand. We have it based on fitness classes. We have enrichment for seniors, but the programs themselves are not going to change. The fees for the most part are not going to change because we're already charging this. It's just standardizing it to what's on the fee sheet versus a range. Before it would show $2 to $5 for a senior class. Now we're setting it at $2 a class or $2.25 a class to $2.75 a class. for Doral Central Park, the fitness center. And to George's point, this is a facility that we run more as a business than a community benefit because it is a gym. We do have members. We've consolidated membership categories. We've expanded membership. what membership includes to have perks, discounts. We've expanded the ability for members in the Aquatic Center to use the child care in the gym. And for members of Doral Central Park Fitness Center, we are adding access at Doral Legacy Park. The idea is that it entices individuals that are wishing to sign up for memberships to have the more encompassing packages so they have access to all three facilities with one membership. You will still be able to buy individual memberships per the fitness center, the pool, and at Legacy Park. And then one of the things that we're going to be able to do with Amelia now is we're going to consolidate the add-on classes for fitness, where you're going to pay one set fee a month additional onto your membership, and you'll have unlimited access to the fitness classes at the fitness center at Doral Central Park. And then we consolidated the fees at Doral Legacy Park. Doral students with an ID will still have free access, but they will receive a membership fob so we can track who's coming in out of the building. And this is something that we're going to be rolling out for memberships at Doral Central Park, Doral Legacy Park, and at the Aquatic Center. We had a very convoluted veteran and military discount section that was passed about 10 years ago. We've consolidated it. So it's one set percentage fee, easy to understand, easy for us to track. It removes a lot of the administrative back end that we used to have with the old veteran discount. And we've expanded it to include all personnel at USL increment. So just a summary, we've consolidated a lot. It's going to be easier for the residents to understand. It's going to be easier for staff to communicate this. It's going to be able to allow us to, when we move staff between facilities, reduce the training time that's needed. We've expanded the surcharges for non-residents. We are going to be treating commuters, so people that work in Doral and can show a pay stub that they work in Doral, at the fitness center and the aquatic center. We will be treating them as residents. Anyone that is a non-resident will still pay the surcharge. And then we're just eliminating just a bunch of underutilized and redundant fees that we had. And then just to give you some examples, this is an example of our youth basketball league. Instead of having two fees per season, it's basically the same season in the fall and the spring. We're consolidating it to one fee with the non-resident surcharge at 25%. And then this was our fee structure for pavilions. Now it's easy to understand depending on capacity. You're going to pay one of three rates. And then you'll have the discounts under there. And it's a flat $100 security deposit. The good thing with Amelia is we will be going away from security deposits being checks, which a lot of people don't carry checks. We'll be doing that all electronically. And that'll be something that'll be done on Monday after the rental. is once we've confirmed the facility was returned in the condition it's supposed to, that gets all refunded to the resident, to their credit card. For most pavilion rentals and high dollar amount rentals, we're going to go to strictly credit card. We will not be accepting cash at the park, just to allow us to have better accountability of the funds. But the smaller ticket items like the water park entries, your small programs, that will still be cash or credit. And this is an example of some fees went up. In this example, fees did go down after we assessed the rental at that facility, the use, and balancing the resident, non-resident rate. So one of the things that's going to change for us and why we brought fees up is on the software, you're not going to see a non-resident resident rate. What it'll be, it'll be the non-resident rate with a resident discount. So we had to adjust all our fees to be able to configure within that percentage versus a dollar amount. And that's my presentation. Thank you.

All right, great. Any other questions?

I have some comments. I have some questions. Councilwoman Porras? Thank you. Thank you to Michael and the city manager's office and the consultant for putting this together. I just have a couple of clarification questions.

Yes.

So the first one is regarding the use of facilities by the government agencies. I think before we had fee waivers, right? And now, if I understand it correctly, it's a 30% discount. Yes. Okay, so we moved away from allowing government entities to use our facilities for free at no cost to a 30% discount, the same as nonprofits.

We'll get the health department that will have an employee gathering not related to any business that an elected official has, and they still pay the fee to use the facility. It's very popular to do that across the street. We've had the sheriff's office use the event hall at Doral Central Park, and we have assessed it. It depends on the usage. Typically, the fees for, like the tax collector will use the space. We don't assess fees for those things. But if it's like an employee gathering type activity, we have been charging the rental fee.

OK, so just to understand, so if it's part of an event, part of their duty, we're not charging fees? If you can clarify that, please. Can I jump in here?

Because we had this discussion. What's been noticed is that there's been a little bit of an excessive request, because we're one of the only places that doesn't charge other governments.

I remember that.

So what we have talked about doing is potentially allowing once a year for free. And then after that, they'll have to pay to be able to utilize unless they're doing something directly with the city. Some of our agreements have MOUs or MOJs. And so in those cases, then the agreement will stipulate whether the space can be utilized within that agreement. But we have to create the revenue. So there has been an excessive amount of, requests for here because we're the only one of the only cities to have a newest facilities and free facility for other government agencies so we're working on reducing that that request to being once a year it also takes staff time and effort and i'd just like to have one thing um uh so um if there has been an excessive amount of requests like the mayor said also we have to take into consideration that

Those events require setup, resources to go take down everything else. And so it's taking an inordinate amount of staff time to be able to plan, to have people here, to do everything else that is needed as support for the meetings. So that's mainly the reason.

Yeah, no, and I'm in support of it. We had that conversation where we determined that there was a lot of requests. And I just wanted to see if there was something across the board, if this was the policy. So it sounds like there's maybe something else that could come before us to set sort of like the uniform policy, right? OK. The, let me see, there's one more. So I'm obviously excited about the use of Amelia because it's just going to make our work so much better too. I know I bombard you with a lot of emails for facility rental, so that's going to be really great. You know, I don't remember my other question, but I don't think I have anything else that's concerning. That was just my main question, because I remember that we had talked about it. But if we're going to see something else come up, you know, I'll look forward to that. Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Mayor, I do have a comment. Yes, . Again, also thank you, staff, for the report and our consultant. Thank you. My question is, are we giving discounts to our seniors?

So right now with how it's set up, The fees for programs are heavily subsidized. And then for the membership at Central Park and the Aquatic Center, meaning for lap swimming, we do offer $25 a month versus the $40 that other adults would pay for that. We have discounts for the 5K that have been used by the Silver Club to register for 5K. But as far as like a blanket senior discount, for other, like the water park, that's not in this fee schedule.

OK. And did we analyze potentially doing free classes or giving something of the programming, some aspect of the programming for free? Was that analyzed?

Yes. Yeah. So we do the bingos. We do seminars. We do some of the activations that we'll do aside from like the big socials that those are, we offer those for free. They also have access to with a paid, not with a membership, but if they have a fitness class at Central Park, we give them access to the walking track within the gym outside of a membership. So most of the seniors that use our facility at Central Park, they're paying as they go for programming. They don't have to have the senior membership plus the program fee. That's separate. They're treated separate from that. But what we will be doing going forward is issuing them membership fobs so they can sign in and out. Because right now it's kind of like a free flow inside in and out of the building. And we need to know kind of what we have in there. So that'll be a part of that. They have certain discounts for certain programs, and they have certain privileges. And that access to the walking track includes the track at Legacy Park on the second floor of the gym. With a paid fitness class, they have access before and after the class to use the space. Part of the upgrades that were just approved in consent, we will be expanding the cardio deck there at Legacy Park, and that will be included in that access.

OK, I appreciate that because that was definitely a concern for our seniors, particularly a few. And then the other question is, we are expanding the military discount to those that are in the armed forces in Southern Command, correct?

Yes. OK. Yes, so we'll be expanding that. The previous resolution was vague, so we've defined it to include active military and And veterans.

And those that are working within Southern Command as well.

Correct. With an ID, they can show an ID at the park and they'll qualify for the discount, any discount at any of the facilities that we have for programming.

And I also appreciate those that are working within the City of Doral to obtain some sort of benefit, especially when it has to do with health and quality of life, that they're able to have some buy-in into the programming at the resident rate. So I did appreciate that being included in two. was assessed and in the study. So those are my questions. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good job, guys.

Councilman Pinero?

Just a follow-up on that, Mayor. Well, first of all, Michael, thank you for bringing this forward. As a former park manager, I get excited every time that you've Especially you, since you came on board, have been implementing a lot of positive changes that I believe the department needed as well. So thank you for doing this. When we speak about the operational cost recovery that, by the way, has been part of the 2017 Park System Master Plan. So it's something that we needed to do. So I'm happy that we're doing it now, especially with what we can face after November with all the changes. that might take place. But at the same time, following up on Councilwoman Reynoso's comments, certainly, you know, seniors is important for us, special needs programs are important for us. There is a program, actually, as a matter of fact, for seniors that is the first Monday of every month that is for free. Yes. It's Aqua Zumba, right?

It rotates, but yeah, it's the senior splash day.

That one, yeah. So we're going to keep that one, correct? Yes. So those are good things that we still provide and we're going to keep providing for the seniors. And I just want to make a comment. I'm glad that we're increasing the age from 55 to 60. So I always thought that 55 was too young to be part of the Silver Club. I don't know if it's because we're getting closer and closer and closer every year. But I'm glad that we're moving forward and increasing the age as well from 55 to 60 and putting a moratorium. for non-residents because that has been always one of the concerns from a lot of our seniors. There are residents of Doral having seniors from other places in Miami-Dade County coming to our program. So I'm glad that we also put in a moratorium on that. So those were my comments and I place the motion to approve.

I have one more question. All right. We have a motion to approve.

Second second by councilor.

I know so and we have a question from Councilman for us. It's just really quickie so looking at the rentals for example for the The Cultural Arts Center Those are not hourly right there her rental for the day correct, okay? It's a window of time

It's usually like a five or six-hour gap that you have the facility for. After that, we assess an additional usage fee for that.

Okay. And that's also for the other multipurpose rooms, Morgan Levy and all the other parks?

Yeah. They all have a four. It ranges between four to six hours. So when you rent a pavilion, you have it for six hours. And that includes your setup and breakdown time. And the same goes for the indoor spaces.

Okay. And now it includes the tables and chairs as well?

Yes, for the most part, except for this facility because it's very flexible. If you're using the event hall at Morgan Levy Park, at Doral Meadow Park, at Legacy Park, and Central Park, your fee is inclusive of what you need with tables and chairs. Anything above that that you need additional tables and chairs, There is a fee for that, but for the most part, people just need, hey, if the room sits 100, I need 10 tables and 100 chairs. So we're rolling that into the fee because what we saw is it wasn't consistent across the system, and people pick up on that. They'll say, I had to pay tables and chairs at Central, but it's included at Morgan Levy. So we rolled that in. I think it eliminates that perception that we're trying to nickel and dime when you get your estimate on the rental.

I guess the last question, is the garage still an add-on for the Culture Arts Center?

Right now, I think we eliminated that. Okay. Let me see.

Separate?

Yeah, I believe that was assessed through the public works side, because it's a facility managed by public works, so it was in coordination where they would contact public works, advise that the facility was needed, they will make sure it will remain open, and then that fee was included as part of the rental.

So it's included now?

No, it's still part of Public Works.

It's on our fee sheet. It's on Public Works' fee sheet.

You choose to use the garage or not, but there is a fee assessed.

Yes. Just to add, the whole purpose of the fee schedule and the fee study that we have done with JRD and Associates, as I explained to all of you, And for the benefit of the public is why I'm saying it is we needed a methodology of how to do this over the city with each of the departments to be able to have a standard that we could proceed from going forward. So there needed to be a methodology behind all of this, which is what George has helped us to do, which is very important. And that's why we've separated the departments and who charges for what and what to do.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. If there's no additional questions, Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Motion to approve by Councilman Pinedo, seconded by Councilman Reynoso. Councilman Pinedo? Yes. Councilman Reynoso?

Yes.

Councilman Porras?

Yes. Mayor Cabral? Yes.

Mayor Fraga?

Yes. Motion passes. All right, thank you very much.

Okay, next item, Madam Clerk. Item 9C, a resolution of the Mayor and the City Council of the City of Colorado approving and adopting the Condominium Owner Association and Homeowner Association Fraud Detection Pilot Program, providing for authorization, implementation, incorporation of recitals, and an effective date.

All right, thank you very much, colleagues. Over the past several months, we've heard directly from residents across our community who feel frustrated, overwhelmed, and in some cases financially harmed by issues related to their homeowners and condominium associations. These concerns are real, and they are impacting not only quality of life, but also affordability for many of our families in the city. At the same time, it is our responsibility as policymakers and stewards of public trust to be clear and honest about what we can and what we cannot do as a city council. As outlined in the attached resolution under Florida law, the city of Doral does not have jurisdiction to regulate, audit, enforce, or oversee HOAs or COAs, that's condos. We cannot intervene in elections, management disputes, or governance decisions. Those authorities rest either with the state of Florida, the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, also known as DBPR, in limited cases, or the associations themselves. And that is precisely where our challenge continues to lie. Residents often turn to the city because it is where the closest level of government is to them. We are accessible, responsive, and engaged. But the reality is many of these issues they bring forward fall outside of our legal authority. If we are not careful, we risk creating a false expectation or misleading residents to believing that we can solve problems that by law we simply cannot. That said, there is one area where we do have both a responsibility and an opportunity to act. Criminal conduct, specifically in this case fraud. When allegations rise to level of potential financial fraud, organized schemes, or exploitation, especially of our seniors or vulnerable populations, such as the elderly, our police department has both the authority and the obligation to investigate, provided there is sufficient evidence to support such claims. However, as we have discussed, approving fraud is not as simple as it may seem. It requires financial expertise, documentation, and investigation resources that go beyond a typical complaint. This is where this proposal becomes both important and measured. What is a pilot program and what is this pilot program? The proposed HOA and COA fraud detection pilot program is designed to fill a gap, not overreach on an authority we don't have. It creates a structured process within our police department to evaluate whether a complaint may constitute actual fraud, provide residents with a pathway to present credible evidence documented, and advance only those cases that meet the legal threshold for investigation and potential prosecution. It is critical to emphasize this program will not resolve HOA direct disputes, like enforcing rules and regulations. It will not overturn elections or address dissatisfaction of your board's management. What it will do is help determine whether a criminal crime has occurred, and if so, will help build a case that can be persuaded through the legal channels. Why this matters? This is fundamentally a quality of life and affordability issue for many. The largest investment of our residents is their home. When funds are misused, when assessments are improperly handled, or when alleged financial misconduct impacts our actual impacts and not just theoretical, it's deeply personal and often a financial burden for our residents. At the same time, the state continues to place the burden of these issues on residents and indirectly on municipalities. Without providing meaningful tools, resources, enforcement mechanisms, this creates a disconnect between where problems occur and where authority truly exists. This program is to a direct response in this gap. It is also an example of what local government does best. Step up, provide solutions, and put people first, even when the system above us falls short. Fiscal responsibility and the need for this pilot program equally is important to the approach is the responsibility of the financial standpoint for us as a city. It's a reality that we just don't know yet. How many complaints will we receive? How many will rise to the level of actionable fraud? How many hours of investigation work will be required? whether we will need an ongoing external financial forensic support or whether long-term this function should be supported by dedicated personnel within our police department. It is entirely possible we receive a handful of cases or hundreds of cases. We simply just don't know the data today. That is why I think a responsible approach is implementing this one-year pilot program to study and look at what we can solve, and how much it will cost us. During this period, the city will absorb the associated costs with training and outside financial auditing services. We will track utilization outcomes and resource demands, and we will evaluate whether the program is sustainable, scalable, or requires restructuring. At the conclusion of the pilot, we will have real data to answer critical policy questions, including whether a dedicated funding mechanism is necessary, whether a fee structure should be considered, whether cost recovery is possible in cases where fraud is successfully prosecuted, and what the appropriate long-term model should be. This ensures that we are not making permanent commitments based on assumptions, but rather on true measurable results. I also want to be clear that this program is not a guarantee of outcomes. Not every complaint will lead to an investigation. Not every investigation will lead to a prosecution. And not every case will result in recovery of funds. What this program provides is something equally important, though, a pathway to accountability where none may currently exist. It will allow us to filter legitimate cases from general disputes, support residents in navigating complex situations, and work closely and collaboratively with the state attorney and the US Attorney's Office, of which both I have met with regarding this issue and have committed to strongly supporting us in prosecuting cases. The bigger picture here is an initiative that underscores a broader issue that we continue to face. Local governments are being asked to do more, respond to more, solve more, and serve more while simultaneously facing constraints on revenue authority. This is a clear example of how policy decisions at the state level fail to fully recognize the role municipalities play in delivering real, tangible quality of life improvements for residents. And yet, we have consistently demonstrated in Doral, we do not step back from challenges, we step forward. For all these reasons, I respectfully ask for your support in this resolution so that we can provide ongoing training to our police officers. I have asked Tamara Reyes to be here, which her proposals are attached. She currently works with the city of Miami and the city of Homestead in training their officers to be able to look specifically at these types of complaints and reports. I will ask Tamara to come up and maybe just say a couple words. I've been working with her for years on not just what we can do locally with our limited authority, but how we educate our community and particularly the investigators that just don't have the training to understand the complexities of these financial crimes. More importantly, we must continue to advocate. So in addition to this, I will continue to do the expo that we do every year, the resource fair, which I do along with Tamara and many attorneys in our community to give their time for free to educate and train our community. And I encourage our residents to come together. We will be hosting, I will be hosting a legislative workshop later this year where we will specifically talk about very key legislation that we will take to Tallahassee and hopefully be able to get passed. My goal is to start signatures after we formulate what legislation needs to happen. As was discussed earlier by the president of the Islands of Doral, clubhouse and association is that the root of this problem is that there is no accountability and at the state level and in legislation. And we must see that change. And as much as we've gone and advocated yearly and proposals have come forward, they just haven't taken priority and have not gained the support. So we are going to have to collectively have stronger voices to truly get relief for our residents and see real change. Just before I turn it over to Tamara to say a couple words, I also want to say that Personally, I have also made it a goal to see CDDs reformed and hopefully eradicated from the legislators' ability in cities. I think that they are extremely important. excessive and just pass on the bill for years to come to our homeowners, making homeowner entry and costs even more expensive. People don't understand what they're paying. They think they're paying a city or a government entity, and they're not. They're paying basically another group of residents to manage and upkeep infrastructure and that wasn't paid for by the developer. It's the developer passing the buck. I can tell you here, I will not be supportive of CDDs expansions any longer or establishing any new CDDs. And the other thing I want to say about something that was said earlier is, unfortunately, we don't have the authority to vote for the creation of HOAs or condos either. When a development comes forward, it comes forward to us under zoning categories of either multifamily, so on and so forth. But we do not have a say on whether a HOA is actually created or not. So with that, I want to turn it over to Tamara, who has extensive experience with this and has a true understanding, has been up in Tallahassee for I don't know how many years. Tamara advocating for this over 15 years. advocating for this, and was the investigation company behind the issue that happened at Kendall Village, I believe it was called, right? At the townhomes over there. So I want to go ahead and turn over to Tamara for a couple minutes to have an opportunity to present what her proposal is. Good morning.

The reason I'm here is because these HOA complaints and condo complaints are not going away. As a matter of fact, they're getting worse. We have a private entity where people can pay to have us look into their books, their financial situations, and see if we can identify any misappropriations. The issue is that not everybody has the money to pay for our services. And then once we do get involved, And we do the investigations. Our accountants do the financial reviews, or the accountants do the audited financial. And we do find that there might have been misappropriation. We hand it over to the law enforcement agencies. And what we found is that these officers have no clue on how to handle these cases. These condo cases are complex. They're document heavy. But more importantly, they work differently. And the example that I always give is if you come out of your house and your car's not there, you know that it's a grand theft auto. If you walk into your home and your home was ransacked, you know it was burglarized. With these condo cases, we know who the subjects are. It's anyone with a decision maker or someone with a checkbook. Now we have to figure out the crimes. And that's what takes, and that's what's so tedious. And the law enforcement agencies, even now some civil attorneys will refer the clients to us and say, if they find it, then you can bring it back and we will prosecute it. So what we're trying to do is not only train the law enforcement agencies, something we've been doing for years, but we're also trying to establish patterns where The cities, the counties, the municipalities are not getting bombarded with these complaints, because now you'll have a direct place where you can come in and make your complaint. We're going to establish an intake procedure. We're going to establish what the person coming in making the complaint, what they have to bring in order for this complaint to be done. But more importantly, on the onset, oftentimes people come in and they're making these allegations. But a lot of the times, it's because they don't have access to the records. A lot of the times, it's because even if they have access, they don't know how to read these financial statements. So they're immediately assuming that there's misappropriation of funds. So on the onset, we really don't know. It's our job to find out if there is misappropriation of funds or not. Because in our reality, we've had a lot of cases that when we start looking at the case, We may think that there's nothing there. And when the accountants get into all the accounting, we find that there's hundreds of thousands of dollars that are being misappropriated from the communities. And as a result, there is a special assessment to be able to compensate for that loss. And people can't afford it. And if you can't afford it, then they're going to foreclose on your home. So we have to establish something that not only are we training these officers, but we're also establishing procedures on how it is that someone can come in so people are not shopping around. Because one of the things that we find is that they'll send emails. I get emails that are copied from everywhere, from the governor all the way down, the state attorney's office, the cities, to see who would actually respond to it. And people aren't responding because they don't know. It's no fault of the police department. There's no training on this. I'm sorry I started backwards, but I do want to add I worked for the Miami-Dade Police Department for 29 years. The last nine years, I was assigned to economic crimes. And it was then that we started seeing homeowners with a lot of complaints. that they're thinking that there may be money missing from their associations, their maintenance is going up, and the associations are not being well cared for. It's not until we started getting involved and seeing and bringing in all the resources that the state was missing that we decided we were going to do this as a way to bridge the gap between law enforcement and the DBPR. And I also want to speak really briefly about an important topic because everybody knows, and I don't know if people have been made aware of this, but the reason that the DBPR does not regulate HOAs is because they don't pay into the fund. So every condominium unit in every building, every unit has to make a contribution of $4 per year to the state. And that's how they fund the regulation of condos. HOAs don't pay into that fund. So although all of these rules and all of these state statutes are on the books, they're not enforced and they're not regulated. So if you live in an HOA, which is the majority of the people here in the city of Doral, unless there's a crime or unless we put a case together against a property manager, and then we can do a regulatory complaint because we'll go against their license. Unless it's something like that, there's no other recourse. So I feel that we should at least give them an opportunity to look at these complaints and see if there's any validity to it instead of just saying we can't help you.

And just I want to add, so how many years have you and I been talking about doing this and working on this together for like five, six years now? Yes. When I was mentioning at the last meeting there was an idea to bring forward an advisory board, it really is not solving an issue that we will continue to see. So I think this does truly at least provide some additional relief to residents that don't seem to find a place to find relief because there's no there's no mechanism for it at the state level or locally. So this truly will provide some ability to find where fraud can exist. Again, I'm going to reiterate, and I hope you all read, I really took a long time writing this full policy with very specific guidelines for our police officers and the task force that will be created of police professionals that will have the ability to carry forward any criminal cases that may come out of this. There will be an intake process, which I have asked Tamara to work with the police department to create in this process, so that some of these cases that may not have a criminal but may have a code compliance issue will be referred to code compliance. So there will be a process for... receiving complaints so people feel that they actually have a place to go and take them. Not everything will result in an outcome that is positive because there are some things we just can't get involved in regulating and that truly just have no mechanism for regulating because we can't also sit there, we're not first attorneys, and we also can't sit there and read the rules and regulations of every HOA. But I do think that this will at least tackle the biggest problem, which is the financial crimes and the burden that that causes to the homeowners. So that's really the essence of putting this together. We've been talking about it for years. And the other reason I mentioned the fee structure last time was because we've been talking about that there should be some fee structure or fund that HOAs build to be able to pay people back if something is found to be a criminal case, but also so that there can be enforcement mechanisms. And there's just not that ability right now. So again, for this pilot year program, we will be burdened as a city with the cost of it. And we'll see how many cases come forward and how many of them actually result into crimes. I put in there that maybe we can recover some of that because if something does come out of it and it's a crime that funds can be recovered, then maybe the city can be paid back for all of the financial auditing fees that we'll have to endure and incur. to be able to then be paid back for it. But in the meantime, it's a service that we'll be providing to our residents through our police department and code compliance. So that's really the essence of the proposal. If anybody has any questions for Damara or myself, Lorenzo also took a look at the policy and gave it his blessing, but really took time to think about what would be the best solution and provide real relief to our residents.

I have a couple of comments. Yes. Councilwoman Porras. So I think it's a great idea. I think it's something that's been said to the residents that we would do at the police department. And I think it's great that now our officers, or at least I think it's one officer, right, that's going to receive training or maybe multiple. OK, that's, I think, great. And I think that it's great that we're doing it as a pilot. Anything that the city does to bridge that gap and those issues with HOAs, condos, and the residents, and even the board members, I think helps. So the constituent days, the DBPR days, everything adds up. And I'm all in favor for that. And I'll be in favor of this, of course. I just want to reiterate that, you know, once this pilot program is done, I don't support adding additional fees to associations or residents to do this work. I think this is work that our police department. can do and hopefully will be equipped to do once they do the training. I know that the county has a specific task force for this. It's something that they've been doing as part of the police services. But again, I'm in support of everything and anything that we can add and continue to add to help the residents. And again, I'm not going to be supportive of any fees, additional fees that will be tacked to residents.

Yes. Well, I'm in complete agreeance with my colleague, Councilwoman Porras, in terms of obviously never passing down anything to the residents that necessarily they don't have to be accountable for. Now, from my understanding, okay, in layman's terms, there is a difference between condo law and HOA law. In order for the DBPR to have any type of accountability component to what is happening with HOAs, there needs to be a buy-in into the DBPR per unit of that HOA association. If not, that's what really cuts off the accountability portion and the investigation portion of what the DBPR can do, correct?

Yes. So I want to... I want to be clear on something. The DBPR is a regulatory agency. So all it's doing is saying, you committed this violation. And so you know, like the mayor said, the burden of proof is always on that owner. And that's not fair either. But what happens is, if they do find that there was a violation committed, It's not the board that pays. That fine is assessed to the building or to the community, which in turn, the same person that made that complaint is now going to pay for it. So that's never a solution. The solution is to ensure that they know that there's accountability, that they know that there's an agency that's looking into their books that's looking into what they're doing if indeed there is some sort of misconduct. And for a long time, for many years, as long as I can remember the nine years that I worked in economic crimes, everything that had to do with an HOA or condo, they looked at it as a civil. And it was a civil matter, and go get an attorney. Right. That's not the case. We just don't have the people, we don't have the expertise, and we don't have the units that are willing to look at it. We do this. My entire team, with the exception of the accountants, are all retired law enforcement officers. Today here with me is my girl. She just retired. She was a major in Palmetto Bay. And she has joined my team. So we have very, very skilled people. We know investigations. We know the importance of the evidence. We know how to read these documents. And more importantly, in the process, we know how to educate the person, the community member that comes to us. Because we're not just going to send them away. We're going to tell them why. We're going to show them this isn't civil or this isn't criminal because of this. And we're going to educate them in the process. Because what we want to do is prevent them from continuously coming and coming and coming with these complaints.

Right. And then so this item essentially is what we're doing is we're giving law enforcement, the police, the tools that they need to look at these claims that are made by HOAs to see if there's something that they can take and make a case out of it for the HOA and the community. Okay, and I think we're all aligned here I'm speaking for my colleagues in that we want to find a solution wherever it is our authority of power allows and Whether that is advocating whether that is finding these types of solutions for our residents What what I don't want and I'm sure my colleagues don't want either is to give false expectations and I think This is part of the steps that have been taken as a council to find these remedies for our residents. It's pretty incredible to think that it's 2026. and with all the complaints and all the feedback that we have been getting, just not in the city of Doral, but really throughout Miami-Dade County of this being a very apparent issue, that there isn't laws, guidelines, and real outcomes for these types of issues that are happening within communities. So I think that this is right now the best effort that the city of Doral can do to try to the word that's been used, the bridging the gap between the complaints and actually giving it meat within law enforcement to actually do something about it.

All right. Any other questions? Councilman Pinero?

Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to place a motion to approve. But first of all, I want to say thank you, Tamara, for being here. And thank you for everything that you do. I know that you have been doing this for years. And the mayor has been working with you all this time. And I also want to thank the mayor for bringing this initiative forward. I think that, you know, next year should be a very interesting year when it comes to the Florida legislation. You know, we know this year State Representative Juan Carlos Porras tried to, the House passed the Bill 657, and hopefully next year something similar can bring to the House again. But we also have to, I think we have a... a responsibility as well as an elected officials. That's why when we spoke last time about a potential advisory board and all that, I think that we as a board have the responsibility since we represent the residents as well. So yes, this is a great initiative, Mayor, and I agree with you and my colleagues on this. But at the same time, I think this is a great opportunity for us as an elected officials to raise the voice And speak about something similar to that House bill that unfortunately the Senate's leadership didn't want to move forward. So we should be questioning the Senate's leadership right now for the Florida legislation because they didn't want to move forward that specific bill for different reasons. So next year, I think that we should have a very good opportunity to move legislation similar to that one because I do believe the residents should have the right to initiate the dissolution of an HOA, for example. They should have the right. Why not? They created it. Let's give them the right to actually dissolve an HOA. That's the conversation that we should have from now until legislation reconvene next year in 2027. I agree with everything that we said. Obviously, I hear the concerns from all the residents, but we have to tackle the main issue, which I believe next year, again, and hopefully we work on that together as a council, residents should have the right to initiate the dissolution of an HOA. I think that that will be the real solution, but we also have a responsibility as elected officials that, again, I thank the mayor for this initiative, but at the same time, we have a great opportunity to actually push OUR REPRESENTATIVE AT THE STATE LEVEL TO HOPEFULLY CREATE A REAL CHANGE IN THE STATE OF FLORIDA.

WELL, THERE IS ALREADY THE MARTA IS IN PLACE FOR HOAs. AND WHAT THAT IS IS AN ASSOCIATION, AN HOA ASSOCIATION, THEY HAVE TO REVITALIZE THEIR DOCUMENTS, THEIR BYLAWS. THEY HAVE TO REVITALIZE HOW THEY INCORPORATED BY YEAR 30. And oftentimes, Doral's a relatively young city. But oftentimes, they don't do it. They forget to do it. And nobody even realizes until three or four years down the road, they're still issuing fines. You're still paying maintenance. But there is something already in place. for them that they have to revitalize before year 30. And if they do it prior to the year, they can do it with a simple board of directors meeting. If they wait for those articles to expire, then the entire community has to sign. and agree to continue with the HOA. Most HOA unit owners don't even know that. So there is opportunity there to where maybe once those documents or if the documents are not revitalized is to try to see if something can happen at that point where maybe some provisions can be in place making it harder or I don't know, that be up to Tallahassee. But there are things in place already and unfortunately It's just too difficult.

And if they're not renewed at the 30 years, what happens? They can't collect fee. They're not supposed to be collecting fees. Basically, the organization doesn't exist.

Right.

It abolishes. Mayor, I have an additional comment.

OK. Yes, Council Member Reynoso.

So just kind of piggybacking off what Councilman Pinedo said, we have been supportive. And I think unanimously as a council, when it came to supporting STATE REP PORRAS'S ITEMS REGARDING HOA REFORM. AND I KNOW THAT WE WILL CONTINUE TO DO THAT. WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO DO IS I WOULD LIKE TO SEE IF THE CITY COULD ORGANIZE, AND MAYBE THIS IS OUT OF TURN, SEE IF THE CITY CAN ORGANIZE PERHAPS MEETINGS WITH THE DIFFERENT HOA PRESIDENTS TO KIND OF GIVE THIS INFORMATION THAT YOU'RE GIVING OUT TODAY IN A MORE ORGANIZED FASHION. AGAIN, IF THERE'S RESIDENTS WITHIN THE COMMUNITY THAT WANT TO PARTICIPATE TO THAT. THIS INFORMATION IS SO VALUABLE, AND AT LEAST FOR ME, IT HAS BEEN EXPLAINED VERY CLEAR, AND I FEEL THAT THIS IS VALUABLE INFORMATION THAT THE MANAGING BOARD MEMBERS OF HOAs SHOULD RECEIVE. At the minimum, the presidents of the HOA should come in here. So when, let's say, for example, this 30-year mark of reevaluating the bylaws within the HOAs, making sure that they do that before, what are the certain remedies? What is the city looking into doing now? there at least that type of support is given from the city and I and I and I think that's a Another thing that we can do.

I know that we do other workshops No, but so there I believe do the HOA is also fall into the certifications required by board members now. Yes, or it's only condos No, so there is a certification that the when you're on the board You must have the certification out by state you by the state And and so there's it's similar they have to get the certification which it teaches them all of these rules and And statutes that govern their HOAs. And we have been providing opportunities for those certifications for free from the city. So it allows them to come. And they learn all of this. And actually, Tamara does them. And so does an attorney that she works with, which we've provided a room at the training facility several times to do these certifications. to do this certification. So we can continue to do that and open it up and invite them because they have to be certified to be able to be on the board.

And I understand that, but really it's really like a gathering of the minds event too, right? Just to, I understand that there's a certification component that they have to do, but more like let's gather, let's talk about the different issues, let's go through what we can do and just make it more of a board member, but for sure the president oriented of the different HOAs hopefully the city can at least facilitate the meeting room for that.

I would like to see. Especially if we're going to advocate for legislative changes. Correct. Correct. Input is valuable. Absolutely.

Yeah, that will definitely be doing a workshop to be able to gain information from the entire community, definitely the board presidents and directors, because that's basically the governing body of those HOAs. All right. Well, that's this is I just want to clarify also this proposal has no fees attached to it But again, we just don't know what it'll cost us at the end We're gonna be keeping good track of that. So it's important that we have this information in a year So when we reevaluate we know what the city's contributing to these cases and it'll also be a good way opportunity to use that in Tallahassee and take it to the state and show them this is what the local municipalities are facing in order to help the affordability crisis of our residents. And what we're facing also in deductions in our revenue that fund our police department and things like that, it's going to be something interesting to watch how we're able to subsidize a lot of these programs that really are not our responsibility, but we do it because we know it directly impacts our residents.

Correct. Yes.

Well, the motion again. I think we have a motion by Councilman Pinedo. We need a second. Second by Councilman Reynoso. Final comment by Vice Mayor Cabral.

I want to thank you for bringing this up and for your service and your team too. I actually can tell you that I was the president of my association for nine years before I even thought about running. At the time that it was not an obligation to have the certification to be part of the board. That's something that I brought up when I first was elected to have everybody understanding, you know, what are the bylaws when it comes to 718 and 720. So and also I like the gentleman that came before and he was talking about. The transition from the developer, I actually experienced that twice. And I can tell you that even though the developer is still there, you have a voice. In my case, at that time, we're talking 20 years. The first property that I bought here in the city of Doral at that time was within the transition. Well, before it was a transition with the developer to the residents. And I was able to bring down the monthly fee from $308 to $198 plus they had to give a check for $50 to each of the residents. So you still have a voice even though they're there. If you gather everybody and you just sit down with the budget and go line item by line item, you will be able to accomplish a lot because I already experienced that. And also then I got involved in the community development district at that time of my community. That was in 2015. I came here to the city at that time because I noticed that the elected officials at that time were just approving CDDs. And they were not even, they would not even understand what was the entitlement of CDDs. approving those CDDs. And I said that because at that time when I came here to the podium and I explained them, many of them had no clue when I asked. And they were approving all this different development here in our city. And at that time I requested to have a workshop that actually was overwhelming the amount of people that came to understand what is Florida Statute 190. And I'm all science, so I don't have nothing when it comes to any background of law or anything, but I think that it was very important for people to understand what it is that they were paying and understand also that time that that was not part of the city, those fees, because many people thought that those taxes would go directly to the city. And I think that we needed to keep educating the community. So I make sure that my board, before none of this was required, that they would do the course and understand. And that's why I brought that up when I came into the city and worked very close with our now Senator Ana Maria Rodriguez, who was one of our elected officials. And I'm pretty sure that you know her and you know how much she has advocated for when it comes, but I do understand that there's a lot of lobbying, strong lobbying with developers against all of this. So definitely we have to keep working together and make sure that our neighbors look after our neighbors because when you're part of a board, you're looking after your neighbor. WHEN YOU LIVE IN THAT COMMUNITY. AND ALSO TO MAKE SURE THAT WHAT IT CALLS COMMON FLORIDA PRACTICE, LIKE I WAS TOLD BY VENDORS THAT WILL COME AND TRY TO GET THE CONTRACT AND OFFER ME CASH, THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS OF CASH, I WILL DEFINITELY COMPLETELY TAKE THEM OUT OF MY COMMUNITY. BECAUSE FOR ME, WE HAVE TO KEEP TRANSPARENCY, HONESTY, AND MORE THAN ANYTHING IS TO LOOK FOR EACH OTHER. So I hope that by the time that comes, the results on the pilot. And something that I would like to suggest, if it is possible, I mean, within your experience, is that within six months, if you will be able to come back, I will not be here on the days, but still, I will be a resident of the city. if you can give us maybe a summary of what have you found and see how soon we will be able to progress on this issue. So if my colleagues also agree that within six months you will be able, because I'm pretty sure with your experience taking a few of the cases, hopefully there will not be too many cases in our city. And like I said, people are really looking for each other instead of taking advantage within months. and also not just the residents that are part of those boards, but also the management companies too. Sometimes, unfortunately, they mislead some of the residents that have the best intention to make the right thing for everybody within that community. That you will give us an overview or a summary of what you have found, if that's okay with you.

Perfect. We'll be capturing stats from the onset.

Great. Thank you so much for that and to your team too.

All right, so we have a motion to approve by Councilman Pineda, seconded by Councilman Reynoso. If there's no additional questions, Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Motion to approve by Councilman Pineda, seconded by Councilman Reynoso. Councilman Pineda?

Yes.

Councilman Reynoso?

Yes.

Councilman Porras? Yes. Vice Mayor Cabral?

Yes. Mayor Fraga? Yes. Motion passes. Okay, thank you very much. We'll move on to the next item.

Item 9D, a resolution of the man of the City Council of the State of Doral, Florida, approving and adopting the Doral Seeds Business Grant Program, providing for the expenditure of budgeted funds, providing for implementation, incorporation of recitals, conflicts, severability, and an effective date.

All right, so this is the Doral Seeds program. If you remember, this was passed in our budget. This year, it's $20,000 for our first ever Doral business grant program. We did get matching funds, so we have $40,000. The other $20,000 will come from Banesco Bank. Through the manager's office, I'd like to ask our economic developer, Luis Amor, to come up, who helped put this whole thing together, along with our city attorney's office. Everything was attached as far as the policy that would govern how this is going to work. It's kind of like a Shark Tank type style competition that we'll do, where there will be a period to receive applications, a close period, a review period. It'll be scaled down to a certain amount of businesses that will be qualified by the rating sheets that are attached. and then they'll go into the presentation. The committees will be independently made up, and Luis, can you tell us a little bit about the committees that we envision having created along with the sponsor, the SDEC, SBDC, and they're also going to be doing the educational component, which is the part I wanted to add. In our policy, after reviewing it again yesterday, I noticed that there was no requirement for the final top tier businesses to go through the education component, which is probably one of the most important things of this whole process so that they're successful. So to section 8.2, I wanted to add G, so 8.2G, which would be the educational and technical assistance component that would require applicants to go through the program-related educational and technical assistance sessions prior to demo day as determined by the city. That's the only little change I wanted to make to the policy. But besides that, everything was attached. I hope everyone got an opportunity to review it. I want to thank Luis. He did an amazing job. along with Nick and everyone who was involved in putting this together. And our goal is to award this first grant by September 1st. So that's why it's on the agenda now, and the whole process will take place during the summer.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I appreciate the opportunity of being part of this. And if you have any questions about the grant, I'll be happy to answer.

All right. Are there any questions?

Motion to approve.

Motion to approve by Councilman Pinedo. Second. Second by Councilwoman Reynoso. If there's no additional questions, Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Motion to approve as amended, made by Councilman Pinedo, seconded by Councilman Reynoso. Councilman Pinedo?

Yes.

Councilman Reynoso? Yes.

Councilwoman Porras? Yes. Commissioner Cabral?

Yes.

Mayor Fraga?

Yes. Motion passes. OK. So just real quick before we move on, we have a little bit of a time constraint. Some of us, myself with the development services director, were invited to speak at a conference for the Realtors Association that's taking place at Intercontinental. And we made a commitment to be there. So I'm going to respectfully request we'll hear item 9E and then the items that were pulled, and then I'm going to ask for 9F through H along with the reports to be heard this evening. Is everybody okay with that? Yes, through consensus. Okay. So let's go ahead and do item 9E real quick, and then we're going to do 6A, B, K, and Q.

All right, item 9E, a resolution of the mayor and the city council of the city of Ralph Florida approving the co-designation of Northwest 117th Avenue from Northwest 34th Street and Northwest 25th Street as Father Elkin Sierra Way, providing for implementation and cooperation of recitals and an effective date.

Councilman Pineda, this is your item.

Thank you, Mayor. It's my honor to present this resolution code designating Northwest 117 Avenue from Northwest 25th Street to Northwest 34th Street. And we're making a change from way to path. Father Elkin Sierra Path, as today we honor certainly his life and legacy of a man that had an extraordinary journey, that was defined by service, sacrifice, and faith. As many of you might know, before answering the call to the priesthood, Father Sierra served our community for 21 years with the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department, rising to the rank of lieutenant and serving as a chaplain. Throughout those years, he dedicated himself to protecting life, comforting families in times of crisis, and supporting his fellow first responders. Yet, Father Elkins' story is remarkable not only because of how he served, but because of the sacrifice he was willing to make. Just a couple of years before becoming eligible for full retirement, he answered what he believed was God's calling and left behind a successful career to enter the priesthood. The decision certainly speaks volumes about the kind of person he was when faced with When faced with the choice between personal security and a higher purpose, Father Elkins chose service. He chose faith. He chose to dedicate the rest of his life to helping others find hope, healing, and spiritual guidance. Through his life, he touched countless lives across our community. He celebrated our joys, comforted us in certain moments, reminded us of all the power of compassion, humility, and love for one another. Although Father Elkin is no longer with us, his legacy lives on the life he transformed, the families he guided, and the community he helped strengthen. His example reminds us that true leadership is not measured by titles or accomplishments, but a lifetime dedicated to serving others. It is therefore fitting that we permanently honor his memory through this street call designation, ensuring that future generations will know the story of a man who devoted his life to serving both his community and his faith. I also want to leave on the record this resolution was also approved by Miami-Dade County Board of Commissioners, sponsored by our commissioner. And it certainly, and I hope, and I respectfully ask my colleagues to support in approving this resolution.

Thank you so much for bringing this up. As a catechist for the past 19 years, Our Lady Guadalupe, I want to thank you for allowing me to co-sponsor this item. I can truly tell you that I knew personally Father Sierra, how he actually touched so many young lives. with his experience as a firefighter and his vocation of service, he had that experience on how to really embrace the youth of our community. He is very well-missed, and I can tell you that in our community, it was not just in our Church of Our Lady Guadalupe that he was able to bring so many Into the faith, but many others from around our community.

So thank you so much for bringing that and motion to approve Yeah, we have a motion to approve by Vice Mayor Cabral second by Councilwoman porous All right, if we have no other comments or questions, this is great. Thank you councilman Pineda I'm clerk.

Please call roll motion to approve a vice mayor Cabral seconded by councilman porous vice mayor Cabral

Yes. Councilman Porras? Yes.

Councilman Pinero?

Yes.

Councilman Reynoso? Yes. Mayor Fraga? Yes. Motion passes.

OK. I forgot to mention real quick, in my mayor's report, we have a check presentation from the PGA for the donation to PP4K, so we're going to take up the other items and we'll do it right before we break. Okay? Sorry. Okay, Madam Clerk, next item. I guess, Mayor, we will go back to the items that were pulled from consent? Yes, please. Item 6A.

Item 6A, a resolution of the Mayor and the City Council of City of Guadalajara approving the employment agreement with Matthew Castillo as Police Chief, providing for authorization, implementation, incorporation of recitals, and an effective date. This was pulled by Vice Mayor Cabral.

Okay, Vice Mayor Cabral, you pulled this item? Yes, I pulled this item because I think that it's important to have our new chief that is coming in through the manager if he will be able to come to the podium.

Yes, Vice Mayor.

Thank you. Welcome, Chief Castillo.

Welcome.

Chief Castillo, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. And the reason that I pulled the item, and I think that it's just fair to want to welcome you here on the podium and also to be able for you to talk a little bit about you. I know that we had a brief meeting just on my gender review, and we met in an event briefly with your beautiful wife. And I wish you your union for many, many years together. And I would like you to talk a little bit just briefly about the things that we actually talked that day on your introduction when you said the things that you're looking to bring into the city. Just briefly, I think that it's just fair for our residents to have this opportunity to know a little bit about you. I reviewed your contract. And as we spoke in the meeting, it's the same as what at that time was offered to our Chief Lopez. And thank you so much for your service in the years that you were here. I also want to recognize that I know that we have excellent officers in our department. So many that have started with us since we started the department. And I know by just having that brief conversation with you that you will be open on any experience that they can and any support that they will be able to give you because they already have the experience here. on our city, on how things are run, and also how is the culture that we have. Different cities have different issues, different culture. And I also talked to you at that time what are some of the concerns that our residents I also had that I know that has been worked and been working with our chief and our officers as well. So I just wanted to give this opportunity to you to have a floor.

Absolutely. So in Miami Springs, I didn't really have to do this because I was born and raised there. So pretty much everyone knew my story. So I went to the local high school in Miami Springs, born and raised there. I got the opportunity to become a public service aide over there, fell in love with the profession, and then I became a police officer over there. From day one, I never stopped learning. I grew such a passion for this profession and ultimately rose up the ranks to the chief of police of the city of Miami Springs. It was an honor to serve that city for such a short amount of time, but we did so much in such a short amount of time. One of the reasons I wanted to come over here, and thank you for the opportunity, thank you, city manager, for giving me this opportunity, was because we have similar issues in Miami Springs, but a little bit different. Miami Springs is very unique, but one of the main problems in Miami Springs was traffic. And traffic was a big problem for us, for the residents. And I was deeply affected because I lived there. So anything that happened, traffic related to the residents, it affected me. So I wanted to make sure that we tackled that head on. And one of our problems in Miami Springs was 40% to 60% of our calls for service were at the Northwest 36th Street corridor, which is where our hotels are, which gave us a lot of issues. And we had a lot of homeless encampments in that area. As a resident, it wasn't fair to them that all of our resources were going over there and not to the residents. Because I think that we can all agree that our number one primary responsibility is the safety of the residents. So I want to get a chance to know the community. That's what I'm big on. I'm big on the community relations. And I want to get a chance to evaluate the different problems we have here in the city of Doral. And it's very minor compared to the problems we were experiencing in Miami Spring as far as crime is concerned. And today, it was very knowledgeable that I was able to sit down and hear the residents' concern about the HOA, which I'm definitely going to go ahead and get with our staff that are very, very competent individuals and tackle that problem head on and the traffic problem as well. So you got me. I'm an open book. I had a great relationship with all the council members, with the community, and I can't wait to get started.

I wanted to say also that I check, I mean, review your background and not just the experience that you have as a chief, but the years that you have a service. Like I told you, you have many family members that are also part of the service in the military and also the police department in the United States. Yes. Not in this state, but in other states. Yes. And also your academic background. So your academia is very important, too, to be able to understand certain issues. So like I said, I just want you to please to work together with the officers that are still here, especially with those ones that have been for a long time that have vast of experience. And I'm pretty sure that you were enriched that to be able to continue the great work that they have done here in our city and to take your time to make the decisions on how you're going to allocate and make those changes within the department so then you will be making a wise decision by the time that is needed

Absolutely. Time is of the essence, but time is very important. I want to commend Chief Edwin Lopez for doing a phenomenal job here in Doral. And I just want to continue to build off of his legacy and continue to build the foundation of the city of Doral. And thank you so much. for calling me up here so I can introduce myself. And I know there's going to be a lot more time for me to introduce myself. I want to meet all the residents. I know we have 80-something thousand residents, but I'm going to be sure to shake a lot of hands and meet people and introduce myself to them.

Sure. I know that our city manager was concerned to see what was my questions, if I have any. But sometimes, like I told her, it all depends on the comments that will come up and things that maybe I needed to ask. But we will have more time to go over a few other things in other meetings.

Whatever you need, I'm here.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. Yes, Councilwoman Porras. Well, again, welcome, Chief Castillo. We had a great conversation, and I'm looking forward to your leadership as well as your deputy chief. Welcome as well. You are coming into a really great city where I think our residents respect and really care for our police department. And that is a lot. Thank you, Chief Lopez, because he's the one that has created that with the great work and service that he's provided to the city. And thank you for your commitment to continue being that connected to the community and that voice for people, and as well for your commitment to respect also our hardworking immigrant community.

Absolutely.

It's something that we definitely are looking forward to. And as my colleague, the vice mayor, has said, your background is really great. I think it's definitely going to help with a lot of the issues that we have here. And I'm looking forward to that. So welcome again. And Deputy Chief Dweck, right? Is that how you say it? Dweck. Dweck. Dweck.

Welcome. Thank you. I promise I'm not going to disappoint you guys. Thank you. Anything else for me?

Yes. Councilman Pineda.

Thank you, Mayor. Well, first of all, welcome. Welcome to the best police department in Miami-Dade County.

Absolutely.

And we're going to keep it that way.

100%.

Just for the record, Chief Lopez.

And no disrespect to Miami Springs, we have a great department over there.

Next year, we're going to keep saying the same thing.

But I just want to welcome you to a department that, and it's true, Chief Lopez has done an incredible job, especially in the last couple of years. I think that, and that's why I'm always very proud to say it that way, because we are. It's not because I believe. And I know that, and I'm very confident that you're going to continue that path. We have great men and women in uniforms. A lot of them are here today that, yes, have offered and have been with the city of Doral for a good number of years. And they have done a great job. But as always, everything comes through leadership. And I believe the last year, especially the last year, probably has been one of the best years when it comes to our police department. When you look at the numbers, we had the lowest crime rate in 2025 in Miami-Dade County. So Doral is a city, it's a diverse city, of course. There are some concerns that have been putting out there with you coming on board, that those have been clarified? Because again, it's a city that is a diverse community. A lot of people from Latin America, a lot of immigrants. I know immigration has been one of the things that have come forward. A lot of those comments were, I'm not going to say fake news, I'm not going to use that term, but it was misinformation or misleading information for not actually looking into the details of what you have done in Miami Springs. So I'm very confident we're going to keep that way. The city of Dorado has done, again, it's about community policing. It's not about serving as immigration agents or ICE agents. So I just want to put that out there because it has been something that unfortunately has been misused and misleading out there to create issues. chaos for no reason, and in a community that is already facing a lot of challenges when it comes to these particular matters. So I just want to put it out there because, again, I'm very confident of your background and what you're coming to do here in our city. You're going to continue what Chief Lopez has been able to build in the past years. And I'm very confident that next year, once we celebrate your first year in the city of Doral, we're going to keep saying that we had the best police department in Miami-Dade County. So congratulations and welcome. Welcome home.

Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

Councilwoman Reynoso.

Well, first of all, I want to start with actually recognizing the actual police department that we have here within the city of Doral, all the men and women that serve within our police department that have great skills that are really dedicated to the community. I think that they do their work with heart. with integrity and always looking for what is best for our community and those that transit within our community. With that, I want to thank Chief Lopez for his leadership, for everything that he's done for our community, for leading the great men and women of the City of Doral PD, and welcome. Chief Castillo, I mean, you have such an incredible police department, such an incredible city that you're going to be in charge of. I know that you're going to serve our community well. I know that you're going to win over the residents that we have in our community. And, well, welcome aboard.

Thank you so much, Councilwoman. And just to address Councilman Pinero's comments, Miami Springs is 80 percent Hispanic, 80 percent Hispanic or 80 percent residential. And not one concern about the immigration issue. My dad came to this country at 10 years old and my wife came to this country at seven years old. I have a deep empathy for the immigrant population. Just want to put that on record. Thank you.

And this council is representative of immigrant backgrounds. I believe we all represent either families that had to leave the country to come here or second generation. from immigrant community. So I welcome that you also have an immigrant background and can empathize with the residents and their concerns. And again, you're in law enforcement. I know that you're going to take care of our city as best as you can within the parameters given to you.

Absolutely. Wearing this together. Everybody here. Doesn't matter if you're wearing a gun or a badge. It doesn't matter. We're in this together.

So motion to approve. Motion to approve by Vice Mayor Cabral. Second by Councilman Pinedo.

Mayor, I'm sorry. Can I? I just, really quick, I wanted to make a small comment. I know we're pressed for time, so I won't speak long. But I wanted to just, I wanted, for the benefit of the public, to understand that we took a look a lot about what the organizational needs and what the best interests of the city was when I made this decision. Chief Castillo is a highly qualified law enforcement professional with leadership experience, command background, education, and operational knowledge that is necessary to lead this department. He has risen through the ranks. He understands modern policing. And he's demonstrated the ability to lead with professionalism, accountability, and strong commitment to community trust. This appointment was made with careful consideration for what the police department needs at this particular moment. We're at an important point in the department's history with major public safety priorities ahead of us, with highly visible events such as the G20 coming up, including continued modernization of our department, operational growth, and future police facility. Having said all of this, I also want to put on the record I had conversations with Deputy Chief Neal, and with one of the majors. The deputy chief indicated that she was not interested in pursuing the chief position, and she has requested to return to her previous position as a chief executive officer. I am extremely grateful for Alicia Neal staying with us. I know we're going to recognize the chief today, but Alicia has a very special place in my heart because she has been an incredible support to Chief Lopez. And I just wanted to put that also on the record. And I think she will continue to be an incredible asset to Chief Castillo and to Deputy Chief Dweck. So I just wanted to put that on the record. My husband always tells me not to speak past the yes, but I think this was important.

Yes. Thank you, Madam Manager. Welcome, Chief Castillo. This was not something we foresaw having to have to face. Chief Lopez has done an incredible job. And I'm not going to talk about him, because we're going to talk about him tonight. So I'm not going to give him that much importance. Clearly, he chose otherwise. So I'm just kidding. But this is something that is extremely important to us and a huge priority for our city. When I became mayor, I thought I knew what I envisioned for this city in certain things. And for many cases, I did. But there was one thing I knew for sure. When I came, I knew that there was a strong administration that we needed to have. And at that time, our city manager was Barbie Hernandez. And when we talked about the chief of police, at that time, we had a chief who resigned. We worked together to find somebody. And I told her, the chief of police in the school district is amazing. and has so much potential to really lead and create an incredible morale in our city. And so coming in, I knew Chief Lopez would be our chief. He had to say yes, and the manager had to say yes, but he did. And so that, for me, was always a priority, was the position of chief of police as well as the department that we have. And we have an incredible team, and that has taken time to build. And we've had people that have been with us from the very beginning who have given a lot of sacrifice, time, and care and passion to this department. So the way I look at this is like building a basketball team. And I don't know much about basketball, but what I do know is that I see teams going out and recruiting the best. It's not about the titles, and it's not about the position you play, because every position is important. If we don't have good defense, you don't win. If you don't have good offense, you don't win. And so in looking at it that way, I think that as a department, it's important that we're always recruiting the best. I saw your work from afar. I got to go to your chief's gala last year. And I remember telling our chief at the time, I go, he's a rising star. I saw how much your department admired, respected, and trusted you. And I saw the care and the love that your community had for you. And I don't go off and read blogs too much, because they can get in your head. But I saw when the city of Miami Springs posted that you had accepted the position here. And I went and I read a lot of the comments, and even when it was being talked about. And the comments were all extremely positive. I know Theo, who came and spoke today as a resident from when I was a school board member and represented Miami Springs. He was a very vocal and active resident. He still emails me today here in the city of Doral. So I was not surprised to see him come and speak on your behalf and support you. And many of the residents that I know from Miami Springs that I've run into or have called me have said, what a great choice. amazing. So when the manager was faced with the decision that had been made by our chief that we will always love very much for all the work that he's done and the incredible job that he did in valuing and seeing the professionalism and the team we had and putting people in the right place, we had a discussion because that's how we work as a team. And so the discussion was about making sure that we continued on this path, understanding the very, very hard year that we were going to have policing-wise. And it was important that everyone felt valued, respected, understood, and that the chief had made very strategic choices on putting people in the right place for their expertise. So it was about recruiting the best to continue building on the best. But they can't do it without you, and you can't do it without them. And I think everybody knows that. And so I think that this is a great opportunity to continue the work that has been done, the foundation that has been laid. I know the residents are going to see your heart. I get asked a lot, if you had one superpower, what would it be? I wish my superpower was that people could see my heart. That you could just see right through it, and I wouldn't have to say anything. You would just be able to see my heart. And I see that from you, just from the conversations we've had. You want people to see your heart, and you show it through your passion. Very similar to what I saw in Chief Lopez. So I am excited to have you on board. Deputy Chief Dweck, as well, who is a resident of the city of Doral. And when Chief Castillo and I had a chance to meet, and we talked a little bit about the organizational opportunities in the city, knowing that Deputy Chief Neal wanted to stay, which I was very excited about. Sorry, Chief Lopez. But she wanted to stay and go back to the XO position that we had that discussion. You mentioned Deputy Chief Dweck, which will be coming on board, and that he was a resident and everything. I went back into my Instagram, and I was like, I wonder if he's ever written me. And I have had several conversations with him as a resident, very active, very attentive to what was going on policing-wise. We even had a conversation about a homeless who was around your community, and we sent police out, and you were very supportive of how the officers handled it. So someone who not only cared as a resident, but obviously is going to have double the care as a member of this team. So my point is, it's not about the titles. It's about your passion, your heart, It's about the commitment you make in serving the people of Doral behind that badge. So thank you for being a part of the Doral family. I basically just said what I was going to say. You're swearing in. So we might as well just skip the swearing in ceremony. But thank you for choosing us. And thank you for choosing this profession. All of you for choosing this profession. We know it's difficult. We know your families endure it as well. And so that's why for me it's always important to build on not just the relationship we have as the Doral family, but also the family you bring with it. So thank you for your service, and I look forward to an incredible tenure here, you serving the city and the residents of Doral, and all of you, the incredible job you do. Really, we couldn't do what we do as a city without this department and without the leadership that each of you shows. So thank you, and you have our support in each of you being able to grow in your in your talents and in your passion and profession. So thank you. God bless you. I know you're going to do a great job. Deputy Dweck, same to you. We appreciate you. And I look forward to continuing to work with you.

Absolutely. Thank you for those kind words.

All right. Madam Clerk.

Motion to approve. Made by Vice Mayor Cabral. Seconded by Councilman Pinedo. Vice Mayor Cabral. Yes. Councilman Pinedo.

Yes.

Councilman Porras. Yes. Councilman Reynoso.

Yes. Mayor Fraga. Yes. Motion passes. All right. Thank you. Welcome aboard. Thank you.

Okay, we're going to move on to the next item. Take these up quite quickly.

of the existing city manager's office and finance department office areas in the amount of $393,798, plus a 10% contingency for a toll not to exceed amount of $429,878.06, authorizing the city manager to negotiate and enter into an agreement with the next highest-ranked firm successively if an agreement cannot be reached with the top-ranked firm, authorizing the city manager to expand budgeted funds and further insure off, providing for implementation, incorporation of recitals, and an effective date. This was pulled by Vice Mayor Cabral.

Vice Mayor Cabral. Everybody knows what I feel when it comes to this type of resolution, the same as the one with our office. For me, it's not operational necessary, and it's not fiscal responsible to approve this.

OK. There's no additional questions or comments. I need a motion to approve.

Motion to approve.

Motion to approve by Councilman Pinedo. Second. Second by Councilman Reynoso. All right. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Motion to approve. I back Councilman Pineda. Second, I back Councilman Reynoso. Councilman Pineda.

Yes.

Councilman Reynoso. Yes. Councilman Porras. No. Vice Mayor Cabral. No. Mayor Fraga. Yes. Motion passes.

Okay.

Move on to item K. Item 6K, a resolution of the mayor and the city council of the city of Doral, Florida, awarding a request for proposals RFP 202610, custodial services for city of Doral Park facilities to Acima Facility Management, our most responsible proposer. authorizing the city manager to enter into an agreement with a SEMA facility manager for the provision of City Park facilities custodial services in an amount not to exceed departmental budgeted funds for a period of three years with an option to renew for an additional three one-year periods under the same terms conditions and prices as a contract authorizing the city manager to approve as qualified service providers the second and third highest-ranked proposers on this RFP allowing the city manager to select the provide services and the top-ranked proposer is unable to fulfill the full scope of the work or meet the terms and conditions required in the RFP Authorizing the city miners execute the agreement and expend budgeted funds on behalf of the city Providing for implementation and corporation or recitals and an effective date. This was pulled by Mayor Fraga.

Okay I'll make this very quick. I'm actually recommending to go with the second Bitter it was off by one point a SEMA was scored a an 88, and SFM was our current service provider, scored an 87. But when I looked at the scoring sheets, I pulled them up, they were not very consistent. When I looked at it, it was four people who rated. Three of the four rated SFM extremely high, with one person rating them extremely low. And there was consistency amongst the rating and not consistency for one, and then an Aseema's, it was the reverse. So I spoke to the director, and we were out in the park actually on Monday, and They're very happy with the service with SFM. And I think more importantly, the relationship is there where they can pick up the phone and call, and there's a dedicated person there all the time. I was concerned also with the pricing structure. If you look at the pricing, ASEMA came in 63% lower than every bid that was received. And that's concerning to me. When someone lowballs that much, especially when it's a manpower operation and really what you're providing as a service through manpower. It's not a product. That tells me you're not going to have the personnel to really do the work. And this is extremely important in this park. This contract services our showers, which need to be cleaned very well, the floors, the windows. So maintenance is extremely important. And I feel uncomfortable moving forward with someone who went so low that they won't be able to give us the level of service that I think our residents expect and deserve in the maintenance of the park. And again, SFM has currently been doing the service, and our team is happy. And so I just don't want to jeopardize level of service for one point. And I did talk to SFM about the price. to try and work that out a little bit. It is by hour, so this is like a budgeted amount. That doesn't mean we actually expend that amount, because it's based on the service that's requested from the director. So that's my recommendation, is to go with SFM, who is our current service provider. Second. We have a motion by Councilman Moreno, so second by Councilman Pinedo. You have a comment? Councilman Pinedo?

No, no, I was going to make the motion.

Okay. All right. Is there any other comments, questions, concerns? No. I hope everybody was able to review the bids. I have copies of what I was discussing if anybody wants them. If not, Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

I have a motion to award RFP 2026-10 to SFM by Councilman Reynoso, seconded by Councilman Pinero. Councilman Reynoso?

Yes.

Councilman Pinero?

Yes.

Councilman Porras?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Cabral?

Yes. Mayor Fraga? Yes. Motion passes. All right. Thank you very much. We'll move on to item Q.

Item 6Q, a resolution of the City Council of the City of Doral, Florida, approving an amendment to an existing agreement to provide real estate consulting and advisory service in support of invitation to negotiate ITN 2026.05 public partnership P3 Doral 10, authorizing the city manager to execute said amendment to the agreement and to do all things necessary to effectuate this resolution, including expand funds with the firm in an amount not to exceed budgeted funds, providing for implementation and incorporation of recitals on an effective date. This was pulled by Vice Mayor Cabral.

Vice Mayor.

Thank you. I just want to understand, what is the additional work that requires increase? I mean, this contract was signed in January, just a few months ago. I know that it's not a lot. It's from $50,000 to $75,000. But I just wanted to understand, what is the additional work that needs to be done to have that increase within just a few months? And what is remained within the scope of work for what they were hired for?

Okay. That's an excellent question, Vice Mayor. So this consultant we hired to help us with the preparation of the RFP for Doral 10. That was a specific engagement that he has been working on. He actually supports our office in doing that. And that was the first part of the contract. The second part of what we're doing right now is the committee that will be evaluating whatever proposals we get. And the ITN is out for bid right now. He is going to be supporting the committee, being able to talk to them and advise them. And also, he is going to help us with the negotiation process. While I am very and feel I am very qualified and capable of being able to do that, I cannot from my role, which is why we had to hire a consultant. I have spoken with the city attorney. And he suggested from day one that if we were going to do this this way, there needed to be a consultant in place. I cannot play asset manager and city manager at the same time because I'm the final arbiter.

Exactly, a conflict of interest.

So that is basically now what he will be doing. And we don't expect that we're going to get all the way there, but he needs to be on board. So I wanted to be able to have ample room to be able to have him. advise the committee and help us with the negotiations.

I wanted to understand what was the scope of work and what is it that still was remaining for that increase?

It's also important for the benefit of the public and to be totally transparent. This is a person that has extensive experience. He ran the Department of Real Estate and Asset Management at the City of Miami for many years. I had the opportunity to work with him from Coral Gables while he was there, which is why I wanted to bring him here to advise us.

Okay, thank you for clarifying that.

Okay, do we have a motion? Motion. Motion to approve by Council Member Pinedo. Second. Second by Council Member Reynoso. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Motion to approve by Council Member Pinedo. Second by Council Member Reynoso. Council Member Pinedo. Yes. Council Member Reynoso. Yes. Council Member Coporos.

Yes. Vice Mayor Cabral. Yes.

Mayor Farrell.

Yes. Motion passes. All right. Thank you very much. So we're going to do very quickly the chat presentation from the PGA to RPP4K. This was... As many of you may recall, for years, when they used to be here, and then they left for a period of time, and now are back for five years. We're super excited. We basically reestablished the agreement that had taken place since 2009, where in-kind services are given to the PGA in an effort for the city to be involved. and encourage this type of event in our city that provides economic impact to our area. And so we donated in-kind police services, and they in turn do a donation to Parks and Police for Kids. This year's donation is $120,000. Hold on, I have the full amount here. $120,420.19 is what PP4K is receiving from the PGA for the services. So we're very, very thankful. And if everyone would join me to take a picture at the bottom with the big check. with the members of the PGA that are here. Dave Mack is here. So we're incredibly proud to receive this and incredibly proud to have the PGA back in the city. It's a great opportunity for us, another opportunity for the city to be in... known and recognized internationally. We have world-renowned golfers that come and play here and people that come from all over the place to watch the PGA. So we'll do this check presentation and then we're going to take, so I'll take a motion to recess. till our 6 p.m. Remember, we do have LPA and also to let everybody know that we are starting protocol hour a little earlier today because we do have a lot of certificates. So we'll see everybody back this afternoon. Need a motion to recess?

Motion.

Motion to recess by Councilman Pinedo, second by Councilman Reynoso. All right. We'll see you back here for LPA. Please take your seats. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to our evening June council meeting session. Today is Wednesday, the 10th of June. The time is now 6.05 PM. I hereby call this meeting to order. A reminder to please silence your phones and you must take a call. We kindly ask that you step outside to maintain a respectful atmosphere. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

All right, please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance led by Councilwoman Reynoso.

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

Okay, so for our agenda order of business, we do have a couple little changes here. So I'm just going to go through it very quickly, and then we'll go ahead. So we have items 9F, G and H that were deferred from this morning. So we're going to hear those first, then we'll go into our presentation or recognition of outgoing police chief Edwin Lopez, and then we'll go into our public hearing items, and then we'll go back to our reports. When it's time for the recognition, I will go through our protocol just so everyone is aware. Okay, any other changes or agenda order of business? Okay, being none, we'll go into our public comments. We will now open the floor for public comments. Each speaker will have three minutes to address any item on today's agenda or anything that pertains to the city of Doral. Please begin by saying your name and address for the record. Make sure you have pre-registered with the city clerk. If you haven't pre-registered, you could speak and then register with the clerk. We will first hear from those who I have listed as pre-registered. As a reminder, in accordance with our city's code of conduct, we ask that all remarks be made in a respectful, courteous, and orderly manner. Personal attacks. Offensive language and disruptive behavior will not be permitted. Let's work together to keep this a forum that is productive and constructive for all. Okay, we'll go ahead and go right into the items that we deferred from this morning. Madam City Clerk, you're going to do this.

Item 9F, a resolution of the Mayor and the City Council of the City of Doral Florida authorizing the establishment of the City of Doral Historical Archive to present and exhibit the city's arts pieces, significant historic events, and the contribution of its residents, directing the city manager to coordinate with the city clerk, local cultural organizations, and relevant departments to develop and maintain the archive, providing for authorization, implementation, incorporation of recitals, and an effective date.

OK. Councilwoman Reynoso, this is your item.

All right. Thank you, Mayor. So our city is 23 years old, and as the time goes by, it's going to be a little harder to really collect events that have taken place. So basically what this item is doing is establishing history a history and someone to collect the history of things that have already happened and things that will continue to happen and Because we're a younger city. I think this is the right time to do that So as we continue to grow as different events take place we have somebody collecting and storing and keeping together these events and in a place, whether it be digital or here somewhere in the city, that we can see whether it's artifacts. Think about the Trump golf course, how that was really not always the Trump golf course, that there's probably a special golf club there that, the Jewish community first use as their way of being able to play golf many, many, many years ago. The starts of our park, different documents, even recording special residents that live in our city and getting their testimony of their time here in the city of Doral. So this event is, I'm sorry, this item will open up that opportunity to be able to record things that are special within our city starting from now.

Okay, thank you, Councilwoman. Great item. Any questions, comments?

Motion to approve.

Motion to approve by Councilman Pinedo. Second. Second by Councilwoman Reynoso. Assume that you'll work with the city manager's office to establish what that protocol will be. Yes. Awesome. Great. There's no additional questions. We will go ahead and call the roll.

Motion to approve, made by Councilman Pinero, seconded by Councilman Reynoso. Councilman Pinero? Yes. Councilman Reynoso?

Yes. Councilman Porras? Yes.

Vice Mayor Corral? Yes. Mayor Fraga? Yes. Motion passes. All right, we'll go into item 9G. A resolution of the Mayor and the City Council of the City of Doral, Florida, directing the City Manager to add voluntary pet insurance as an opt-in employee benefit for the City of Doral employees to be administered through payroll deduction at no cost to the City, providing for authorization, implementation, incorporation of recitals, and an effective date.

Councilwoman Reno says is your item Thank You mayor this item simply will allow for our employees to well if they're interested in Getting pet insurance to be able to do so this month is bring your pet to work day I think it was inappropriate to bring it to this month's meeting and when I believe when the October budget cycle comes and it's time to do our open enrollment and This may be available for our employees to take advantage if they choose to. If not, it's not going to cost the city any additional money, but I thought it was a benefit that we should be looking into for those that do have pets, because our pets are our family, and we deserve that opportunity to have that insurance if it's something that they choose to have.

Thank you, Councilwoman. Any questions? No questions? OK, we need a motion.

Motion.

Motion to approve by Councilman Pinedo. Second. Second by Councilman Reynoso. I'm sure all of our pet owners are going to be happy to be able to have that benefit. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Motion to approve by Councilman Pinedo, seconded by Councilman Reynoso. Councilman Pinedo? Yes. Councilman Reynoso? Yes. Councilman Porras? Yes. Vice Mayor Cabral? Yes. Mayor Fraga?

Yes. Motion passes. OK. We move on into 9H. And this is our final item from the morning besides the reports.

I need a resolution of the mayor and the city council of the city of Doral, Florida, approving requisite ballot language for the submission to the electors of the city proposed amendments to the city charter prepared by the city council pursuant to section 6.01 of the city charter, providing for copies of the Texas charter amendments to be made available for following inspection, authorizing the city clerk to request and utilize the services of Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections to administer a special election by placing the charter amendment ballot question in the congressional general election, providing for implementation, conflict, servability, and an effective date.

Okay, Mr. City Attorney.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, Council. So this item is one that I've discussed with many of you at different points. And what it does is really establish a lifetime term limit for the position of council member and the position of mayor, both independently. So it's a four term. So, you know, four times four. 16 years for a council member and then a full 16 years now the remainder portions of the Charter which require that After two terms there is a period of time in which the person is not in office still remains in place that has not been disturbed So that's the item that's before you and what it would do would be to bring the Charter question before the electors of the city of Doral to choose if this is something that that they wish and I can let you know that the idea kind of came to me. I also serve in other municipalities. One of the Miami Lakes, in the charter review, this is something that they're going to be putting out to their voters. I know the city of Miami also last year did the same thing, and Miami Beach also has this very similar provision. So that's what's before you, and I'm open to any questions that you may have.

Thank you, Mr. City Attorney.

Any questions for the City Attorney? Just to confirm. So I know we spoke about it, but just to confirm, this is establishing limits, and also the four terms cannot be consecutive.

Correct.

Right. They need that break in between four years, just to confirm.

Absolutely.

Thank you. Motion.

Motion to approve by Councilwoman Porras, second by Councilman Pinero. There are no more questions.

We will call the roll.

Motion to approve by Councilman Porras, seconded by Councilman Pinero. Councilman Porras? Yes. Councilman Pinero?

Yes.

Councilman Reynoso? Yes. Vice Mayor Cabral? Yes. Mayor Fraga? Yes. Motion passes.

All right. That exhausts our items for the morning agenda, so we'll go ahead and move into the recognition that we have today. Madam Clerk, want to read that item?

Yes, Madam Mayor. Let me find my spot on the agenda. Presentation, recognition to outgoing police chief, Edwin Lopez.

All right. Thank you very much. So I'm going to go ahead and just open this up. So today we will be recognizing the accomplishments and the contributions that our outgoing chief, Edwin Lopez, made to the city of Doral. We're going to first watch a video. Then I will ask Pastor Steve Alessi to come up and do a blessing over the chief and his family and our city of Doral. Then Each of us will get an opportunity to do our special remarks, and then we're going to go down, and we have several recognitions for the chief. The only thing I will ask, please, because we do have a heavy agenda tonight, is that once we wrap up the pictures, anyone who would like to take additional pictures with the chief, we highly encourage it. We just ask that you do them outside the chambers so that we can get our meeting done, because we want to also be able to go and recognize him and spend some time with him and his family. we would ask that you please respect that we have to continue our meeting right after the recognitions are done. So with that, cue the tribute video.

It's never easy saying goodbye to someone who meant so much to this community.

So leaders leave a mark that lasts long after they're moved on, and Chief, you're one of them. We love you, sir. People move on to new chapters.

Times change. Any opportunities lead us down a different path.

But the impact we leave on others lasts forever.

Thank you for your leadership. Thank you for your leadership. Thank you for your friendship. Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Chief. I want to say thank you for your mentorship, for your friendship, and good luck to you.

And thank you for the difference that you made in the lives of so many different people in our city and the police department.

Thank you for your support, and you'll be missed. Thank you, Chief.

Edwin, thank you for your service, for everything that you've done for our community. We will miss you, and we wish you the best always.

Even wherever life takes you next, you'll always be a part of us because you've already become part of the heart of Doral.

All right, we'd like to ask Pastor Steve Valesita to please come and say an invocation.

Do something. Would you mind just coming and standing over here for a second? Precious family, come on. This is a family affair. If you believe in prayer, I'm just going to ask you to bow your heads and pray along with me as we just bless this family in this new endeavor that they are stepping into. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunities that you bring in life. Some of those opportunities... of the kind that allows us to blend with people and build relationships with them that far surpass even the opportunity that we're presented with. And that seems to be the case at this season with Chief Lopez. He brought me to the city just a few short years ago, and the impact he has made has truly been felt in so many individual people's lives. That though we're so grateful for the opportunity that sits before him, there's a bittersweet moment that we all share. Because as much as we want to see him elevate to the levels that you have planned for him, we're going to miss him. So tonight, we just want to bless him and Jeanette and the wonderful children that he has. as they step into this new endeavor together. Father, bless his heart. Strengthen these shoulders. Give him the wisdom. Give him every aspect of courage that is needed to step into this role that's going to be impacting the larger city that we all live in. We know you've never called a man to a place that you haven't prepared him for. This is one of those moments that he's ready for. So we bless him. We encourage him. We stand behind him with our prayers. And we know that the weight of his leadership will be felt as even the new administration will sense, Lord, the strength and the platform and the foundation that he's been able to build. But touch our friend. Encourage him. Anoint even these hands in every place that he steps into. For the best is yet to come over his life And his destiny. In that wonderful day we pray. Amen.

Thank you, Pastor. All right, so I want to open up the opportunity from the dais to say our message. Chief, will you join us for the last time on the podium, at least on this podium?

I'll be here next week with the new team as well.

That's right, yes. Our new chief of police is here as well, Matthew Castillo and Deputy Chief Jonathan Dweck.

Madam Mayor, may I say a few words? Sure, absolutely.

I was going to let you go at the end, but you're welcome to do it right now.

And it's impossible to really truly recognize everyone individually like I really want to do, but the most important people, and as I look at those pictures and it brings me back to three and a half years of amazing times, challenging times, but times that we collectively overcame. The true heroes are the cops, the ones on the street that are doing the work every single day. It's the people I got to thank first. The pastor thanked the good Lord Jesus Christ first before I did, because that is truly the one in control. But my time here in Doral has been wonderful. The most precious time, the time that I've looked back in my career, 26 years in public service, started from the ground level as a teacher in a classroom for a year. It wasn't my calling. Navigated into the uniform as a police officer, worked my way up the ranks to the chief of police after the tragedy at Parkland when I believe 17 individuals were killed. I became chief a month after that, leading the nation's largest school district. Extremely challenging times. Amazing cops I work with. What a blessing to be able to come to Doral. Three and a half years here, working alongside you, Mayor, and the entire team. Five city managers. to finally get some stability with Seda, who's amazing. Frank holding the fort down for a few months during some of the most troubling times in my career. Fernando, where's Fernando? Fernando on my other side as well, playing therapist one day, playing CFO one day, playing assistant city manager the other day. Just the entire team. Ray in the back as well. playing a pivotal moment for a short time, but just a lot of conversations. And through it all, our cops did their job every single day. And as a leader, I went to work every single day with the pressure on my shoulders, not because I'm strong, but because the good Lord provided me a solid foundation. And some of the unsung heroes, like my wife, every single evening, hearing the stories, going to work the next day, not knowing if I was going to have a job the next day, not because of anything that I did, but because of the stressors and what comes with wearing the four stars. Wearing the four stars, a lot of people desire or aspire to be that, not knowing at all what it takes to wear that uniform and wear those stars. And that's where I feel comfortable leaving knowing that Matt and John will come in and continue driving this Lamborghini that we've built collectively here. And I told them, you have an amazing opportunity to do amazing things here. Don't crash the damn car, though. So like I said originally, the officers on the streets really deserve the credit. They're the ones responsible directly with lowering our crime rate over the last three and a half years to over 50%. They're the ones that have assisted me shoulder to shoulder developing the operational plans that have kept our community safe. the ones who have helped us safeguard this community during the Shield of Americas, during the congressional delegation, during the countless amounts of presidential visits and dignitary visitations that we've had here in our city. Our city has been ground zero for the world several times over the last three and a half years. And we've done it with a smile on our face. We've done it effectively. We've taken action when we need to take an action. We've had mass shootings in our community. We have officers shot in the line of duty here. And still, we've come to work every single day and with a smile on our face and doing the amazing work. And the cops that get no credit, not because they seek it, but no one's giving anybody credit at 3.30 in the morning. on New Year's Day when everyone's sleeping or partying or opening up Christmas gifts on the 25th or going trick-or-treating with their families or dropping their kids off at school while they work. It's important. A lot of our cops don't even light up a sparkler on the 4th of July with their kids because they're working Central Park with 10,000 people enjoying the amazing park systems that we've built here collectively under your leadership. And those are true unsung heroes. So as I stand here before you, with the opportunity to go to the city of Miami, God has opened up that door for me. It's hard to leave the city, but I know that if it wasn't in God's plan, that door would never have opened. So I'm always going to be a Doral, part of the Doral family. I was at El Arepaso when The mayor called me at 3 in the morning saying, hey, this just happened. And I was there for the next week, every single day, alongside them, and celebrating with this amazing Venezuelan community as well. Because at the end of the day, I'm part of their family as well. And they brought me in here with open arms. So thank you all. I appreciate the honor, the recognition. But most importantly, I appreciate the friendship. I love you guys.

Thank you.

Madam City Manager, would you like to kick us off?

Wow, Mayor. Edwin, I think I said it took a few takes because I couldn't get it out when I was trying to do this with Carlos Fung and do the video. But we have so much to thank you for. I've been with you for a year and a half. I don't want to get emotional, but it has been wonderful. You are an incredible leader. You're going to do great things after you leave here, but we have to be grateful for what you've done here, what you did for your department, what you did for all of your officers, and what you did for the community. So for that, I'm eternally grateful. I'm eternally grateful for everything you've taught me since I've been here. So we made a great team. I'm going to miss you terribly, but I do wish you so much success and so many blessings.

Thank you. Deputy City Manager, would you like to say anything?

I'll keep it short. So a critical part of our team over the past three and a half years, I thank you for the support and I thank you for being a key member of that team. And what I will say is I think the word is alumni. You leave here an alumni of the Doral team. And as alumni, the door's always open. And you know anything you need from me, brother, you have it. So good luck. And I know you're going to do great things.

All right. Anyone else have a comment?

Chief, it was wonderful to meet you and work with you. The one thing that I've learned most about you is you're a man of faith. You keep that in front of you, and you lead with that faith that you have. And it's evident in your officers that I've followed in their conversations and how proud they are to work with you. I know you're going to be a phenomenal leader in Miami, and I wish you all the best.

Honey? I'm a woman of few words. Chief, congratulations and best of luck. And congratulations to your family as well, because this is an all family affair. So best of luck.

Well, I will say that congratulations to you. I know that we might have a few differences, but we work together. And I really appreciate everything that you did for our community for all these years that you were here and for the department as well. As you know and everybody knows, I really admire the work of, more than anything, the vocational service. Because at the end of the day, being a first responder, it is a vocational service. Because you go beyond what a job description shows. So congratulations to you. I hope that God will keep enlightening you and guide you on this new journey. To you and your family as well. And many blessings to you.

Thank you. Councilman Morris.

Well, Chief, I mean, we can't thank you enough. And we really can't find all the words to say how grateful we are for your service and for your leadership. You're a great person. You really, really are. And it showed. That's why so many people are here to recognize you and thank you for the work that you've been doing. And I know you're going to do even greater and better things. Like I said, don't forget about us. And this is definitely not goodbye. I know that we'll be seeing you. I know that we're going to be working with the city of Miami, I'm sure, as we work with other police departments. And again, thank you for coming in. Some days when it was chaotic, you look like you had it all together. And that counts for a lot because your team saw that. Our police officers saw that. And as the great leader that you are, you recognize that They were a lot of the force behind everything that was done. So I do want to thank our police officers as well. I know that we're going to continue doing great work under new leadership. And again, thank you for all that you've done for this community.

Councilwoman? Well, Chief, thank you so much for your leadership. I think you're leaving behind the best police department there is in all of Miami-Dade County. And I know I took your line, sorry. Thank you. But it's true. It's true. Our men and women in uniform are really the heart of our community. It's thanks to that leadership, that bond that you created for them and the representation that they've been able to give our residents and just be out there every day, connecting with them, establishing relationships with them, which is super important. And I know that's going to continue. The other thing is I'm going to miss our hip hop and rap sessions. So I don't know if Matt's going to be able to take over that one. But, you know, that was pretty cool.

He loves all these.

Yeah, I got it. I got it. But thank you. Thank you again for your leadership. And I know that you're going to do great things at the city of Miami. They really got a good one. Thank you. Yeah.

Councilman.

Thank you, Mayor. Chief, listen, I think that, you know, I'm lucky enough to serve this community at the same time that you have been our chief of police. Because There's no doubt that you transformed the department in all sense. You have shown what leadership is about. You have shown that you were serving a whole community. You were not serving elected officials. And that, for me, shows a lot of respect. And I want to congratulate you, because you alone and your family, you have become part of this community. People know that. People feel that. People that are here have been next to you for the past years. And you have served a community in all sense. You have been present. Good moments, bad moments, moments that we as a council and as a community had to come together. But at the end of the story, you have shown, again, what the truly meaning of service is. You do it with passion, dedication, faith, which is very important for you and your family. And that's something that sometimes is difficult to find in leadership, overall. It doesn't matter where you go. So, yes, I'm proud to say that we have the best police department in Miami-Dade County. But we're going to stay as the best police department in Miami-Dade County. So I just wish you the best. I mean, it has been a great ride. I think that you're going to pass as probably the best or one of the best chiefs that we have ever had in our city. I know we're going to stay working together. You're always going to be welcome. You're always going to be part of the route. And I wish you and your family the best because we love you guys. And it's not that I say it because I'm trying to be nice with you. It's because you have earned that. And me and my family share the same sentiment, and I just want to thank you. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your dedication. And thank you for making a difference in our community.

Thank you, sir.

Chief, I think everybody said everything, and this is why it's hard to go last. But truthfully, what's been said is the honest truth about everything that you have done in this department. You do lead it with your faith. And that's what's made this department what it is. I'm very grateful for your service. You're a critical part of the team that we built. So we will miss you tremendously. And I know that we have great people. It's nothing but amazing people that we have in this department. But you really created a heart and soul in the department. So thank you. And more importantly, thank you to your family. To Janet, Evie, EJ. You guys don't realize how much sacrifice is put with all these men and women every day. But your dad bared the weight of that on his shoulders. And he's going to do bigger things now in a much harder department. But I think he's proven that he's ready for that and that the leadership that he has will transform that department too. So we are forever grateful for your professionalism, your love of this community, your passion, and the transformation that you leave behind, which will carry Doral's police department stronger than ever into the next generation and the next years. But your work has left a footprint, has left a heartbeat, and has left a new soul for Doral. So thank you for everything you've done. I know this is not goodbye. First, we're friends anyway, so I have to see you and your family. And I'm so grateful for that friendship that was built upon a foundation of faith, of care, of the same passion to serve a community. And that's really why I think people talk so much about what Doral is, because Doral We wear our heart on our sleeves and our passion in front. We lead with our faith and passion for what we do every day and for the people we impact. So thank you so much. There was a lot of firsts, first mayor and chiefs gala, which you'll buy a table for now from the city of Miami, right? getting our first sponsorship here. And so many incredible opportunities, units that have been established that provide so much to our residents and give so much more purpose to our police department and to the men and women in blue, which you so rightfully recognize. And we want to always let them know how much we value them and that The members of this team that continue to be added are there to continue to add value to what we're doing. So thank you once again for your service. And we look forward to continuing to work with you all. And I know that our paths will cross again and we'll continue to serve this community together. So thank you. We're going to go down. We have a couple of really nice presentations for you. So you can take a piece of Doral with you into the office. When you have hard days, you can look back and be like, What did I do? I'm just kidding. I mess with him a lot. You turn around and be like, can I go back to Doral? You have to deal with Matt at that point. But no, you always have a home here. We love you. And I know you're going to do amazing things in the city of Miami. And we know that you're going to win the hearts of that community as you did here. So we'll come down. We're going to do a recognition from My Safe Schools, which I know is an organization that truly cares about you too and is so grateful for everything you did. From the Doral Hispanic Women's Chamber of Commerce, and then the city manager's office, and the council has a recognition for you. We have a key to the city for you, so that you can come. It doesn't open any doors, but we had to change all the door locks at the police building. And then we'll just do a photo op. So thank you very much for everything. Thank you.

All right.

All right, so do we have Tammy from MySafeSchools? All right, we have Tammy.

Hola, voy a hablar en español. Nosotros pasamos con Edwin del odio al amor. Es cierto, nos conocimos peleándonos y ahora se va dejándome el corazón roto. Eres malo. Pero nosotros estamos muy agradecidos con Edwin. Edwin nos ha enseñado mucho en esta ciudad. Nos enseñó a creer en la policía. Nos enseñó a que todos podemos juntos hacer las cosas mejores en la ciudad. Nos enseñó que es un gran ser humano que aportó mucho a My Safe School. Y por esa razón que nos enseñó tanto con su colaboración, es por lo que nosotros no lo vamos a dejar ir. Porque nosotros le estamos dando un reconocimiento, pero ese reconocimiento es un compromiso porque My Safe School lo está nombrando miembro honorario de My Safe School. El miembro honorario, el MySafeSchool tiene sin fines de lucro honra con conferir la designación miembro honorario al jefe Edwin López en reconocimiento a su inquebrantable apoyo y excepcional compromiso con nuestra causa. Su respaldo ha sido una piedra angular para fortalecer nuestra misión de proteger la seguridad y el bienestar de todos los estudiantes de nuestra comunidad. Su legado siempre será parte de nuestra historia. Gracias, jefe.

Carlos.

Guillermo. Vengan. Hasta Guillermo.

OK, next we have the Doral Hispanic Women Chamber of Commerce, Roxana Silveira, la presidenta y fundadora.

Antes que nada, quiero dar unas palabras para usted, Chief. En nombre de Doral Hispanic Women Chamber of Commerce, es un honor hacerte entrega de nuestra moneda de reconocimiento, una distinción reservada para personalidades, líderes y oficiales electos que a través de su servicio, liderazgo y compromiso han realizado contribuciones significativas a nuestra comunidad. Today we recognize not only your professional career, but also the human quality, integrity and excellence with which you have served the city of Doral. Your leadership in front of the police department has left a positive mark in our community and has contributed to the well-being and security of thousands of families. We deeply appreciate your dedication, your vocation of service and the respect con el que siempre trabajó junto a nuestra comunidad. Mientras inicia esta nueva etapa como Chief Police de Miami, le deseamos las más abundantes bendiciones para usted y su familia. Que Dios continúe guiando cada uno de sus pasos, le conceda sabiduría en cada decisión y le permita seguir ejerciendo su liderazgo con la misma selección, profesionalismo y compromiso que demostró en Doral. Sabemos que será extrañado por nuestra comunidad, pero también sabemos que llevará su experiencia, compromiso y el corazón de servicio a esta nueva responsabilidad. Que Dios... Abra puertas y multiplique sus bendiciones y continúe usándolo para impactar positivamente la vida de muchas personas. Con gratitud y respeto. Le quiero hacer entrega de esta moneda, pero no solamente la moneda. Le voy a dar el pin de la presidenta para que usted se lo lleve. Porque sé que va a ser de mucha bendición para usted. Thank you very much.

OK, now we have a recognition from the administration for you to take Edwin.

I hope to come visit you and see this at your new place. It's small, but with a lot of heart for you to take with you.

We have the key to the city?

I know.

We know you like to hang things on your wall.

All right.

And well, actually, before we do that one, we have, I believe, your staff has something for you. OK.

Good evening, everybody. On behalf of the nine, the very first group sent by the City of Doral Police Academy, we would like to take a moment and recognize and thank Chief Lopez. Chief, being the first group entrusted with this opportunity is an honor that we'll always carry with pride. Your leadership, guidance, and belief in us helped lay the foundation for our careers and inspired us to strive for excellence every day. Thank you for investing in us, mentoring us, and giving us the opportunity to begin our journey in law enforcement. The impact you have had on our lives and careers goes far beyond what words can express. As you begin this exciting new chapter as a Chief of the City of Miami, we wish you and your family continued success, happiness, and many blessings. We are proud to have been a part of your legacy, and we'll always remember the role you played in our journey. Please accept this plaque as a small token of our gratitude and appreciation. Thank you, Chief, for everything you've done for us. You'll always hold a special place in our hearts. Congratulations and best wishes on your new role.

Thank you. You guys can all take pictures. We have to get therapy. We do have one more, but it's not for you.

We have one more surprise. We also have a plaque because he is taking one of our originals with him. We have a plaque for Ricardo Arenas. We love you too, Ricky. All right. This concludes our recognition of the chief. Anyone who would like to take photos, please, like we asked, if you could just quietly exit outside. You're welcome to stay, take photos, and then we're going to wrap up our meeting and come out and join you guys. So thank you very much. Thank you to everyone who joined us for recognizing our chief. We will join you in a couple minutes. I'm being optimistic. Yeah, no. No, no. Yeah, I didn't. Ladies and gentlemen, please exit the room. We are in session. Please and thank you. OK, we're going to go into our public hearing items. Let me explain how this is going to take place. We do have quite a few items that we can take up at the same time. So we're going to go ahead and take up item 21B and 21C together. Ladies and gentlemen, please. OK, so we're going to go ahead and take up items 21B and 21C together. However, 21D, E, F, and G are also for the same presentation. So we will hear one presentation from staff, one presentation from the applicant for these items. And then we will take them up at the same time. So we'll go ahead and have the clerk swear in the witnesses.

If you'll be presenting testimony in any of the public hearing items tonight, please stand up, raise your right hand, and repeat after me. I do solemnly swear that the information that I'm about to present shall be the truth and nothing but the truth. Thank you very much.

OK, Madam Clerk.

Item 21A, a resolution of the Mayor and the City Council of the City of Doral, Florida, approving a modification to the approved site plan and associated conditions of approval for Shelton Academy to permit a two-phase expansion of an existing school facility, providing for increase in student enrollment up to 800 students in Phase 1 and a maximum student enrollment of 1,000 students in Phase 2, approving the development of a three-story parking garage located west of the main school building, amending condition numbers 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, and 9, OF RESOLUTION NUMBER 2131, DELETING CONDITION NUMBER 3 OF RESOLUTION 2131, PROVIDING FOR CONDITIONS OF APPROVAL, IMPLEMENTATION, AND AN EFFECTIVE DATE.

OKAY. WE'RE GOING TO GO AHEAD AND OPEN UP A PUBLIC HEARING. PUBLIC HEARING IS OPENED FOR ITEM 21A, OR ALSO KNOWN AS 26-6614. ANYONE WHO WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK ON THIS ITEM, PLEASE APPROACH THE PODIUM AT THIS TIME. BEING NONE, PUBLIC COMMENTS IS NOW CLOSED, AND I'LL TAKE ANY EX PARTE COMMUNICATION ON THIS ITEM. Has there been any ex parte communication on this item? I've met with the applicant, and I will not influence my decision. OK. I also have met with the applicant. It will not affect my decision.

Me as well. It will not affect my decision.

I also met with the applicant. It doesn't affect my decision.

Same, Mayor.

Will not affect my decision.

OK. We'll go ahead and start hearing presentation from our staff.

Good evening, everybody. Alex Magrisso, Planning and Zoning. Good evening, Mayor, Madam Manager, Deputy City Manager, Mr. City Attorney, Council, and Madam City Clerk. So I have a presentation for Shelton Academy today. We can pull that up.

IT, can you pull up a presentation?

OK, so the applicant is Shelton Academy. It is located at 9455 Northwest 40th Street Road. And it is a current existing Catholic school that is seeking a modification of their site plan that was approved back in 2021. This is just a couple aerials of the location itself. You can see the surrounding locations, their adjacent uses, and the land use categories and zoning designations. This is pretty close to the Miami-Dade County Fire Rescue Department, City of Doral Police Department, and there is a couple of residential commercial locations within the neighborhood. These are a couple existing views of the current location as it stands. They are seeking to include two phases of expansions. Their first request would be to increase the student enrollment to 800 students. Currently, they are capped at 600 students. And that would be the phase one of their project. And phase two would increase their maximum enrollment from 800 to 1,000 students. And the second phase would also include a parking garage on the west side of the development that is three stories in height. so you are deleting condition number three I won't get into all the amendments of the of the conditions one two four seven eight nine but the deletion of condition three has to do with public art the original modification or the original site plan required a public art component and However, there is a carve-out in your code that exempts religious institutions from this public art component, so we're removing the public art condition within the site plan. So everything's pretty consistent with the comprehensive plan. You'll have a better design. There's not going to be any modifications to the exterior of the building itself. They are going to be making interior modifications, but that'll be done with required building permits, and there won't be anything that needs to be done to add to the building itself other than the creation of the parking garage. SO STAFF RECOMMENDS APPROVAL FOR THE ITEM AND I'M HERE TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS AND THE APPLICANT IS ALSO HERE TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS THAT YOU MAY HAVE.

THANK YOU MR. MAGARIZO. THE APPLICANT WOULD LIKE TO MAKE SOME BRIEF REMARKS.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. James Williams with Gunster Law Offices, located at 600 Brickell Avenue, Miami, Florida, 33131. Mr. Magrisso did an excellent job, as always, explaining the application. I'm joined by several members of the school, the entire design team, the community. They are all supporting this application. I had a presentation, but due to the number of items on the agenda today, I'm happy to just answer any questions you may have and just keep it at that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Williams. All right. We'll open it up for any debate or questions at this time for the applicant or for staff. Motion to approve. Motion to approve by Vice Mayor Cabral. Second. Second by Councilman Bineto. We'll start with Councilman Reynoso. We'll go to Councilman Bineto. Thank you.

So actually, I got to look at the project. I got to discuss the project. I think the project is beautiful. The amount of students that are going to be able to grow within the planned school is going to be great. So I do appreciate the upgrades that they're doing around the area as well. So for that reason, I will be approving this project.

Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Pinedo.

Thank you, Mayor. First of all, I want to thank Mr. Padula not only for trusting in our great city of Doral, but also for setting an example when it comes to education. And everybody, when he talks about Shelton Academy, I believe it's one of the best. And we're proud of him. have been here in our city, this is something that is needed, not only because I know they have a very good waiting list. And that speaks highly about the great work that you guys do. So not only to Mr. Padula's family, but the entire team that is here, congratulations, because you guys do an amazing job. And we're here to support you because we believe in education as well. So that's why I'm supporting this as well.

Okay, thank you very much, Councilman. Likewise, I'm glad we're here. I think that Shelton Academy has done a great job, has met up to the commitments and making the improvements. I think the footprint within the boundaries that will be enhanced and increase student stations are very well merited and will be a great addition to our community. So thank you very much for the work. I know it's been a long road, but we're here. So happy to see this moving forward so that the students can join the community in the coming school year. I have a quick comment. Yes, Councilman Forrest.

Yeah, I also want to echo what was said here, and I think something that was extremely impressive was the percentage of students that are Doral residents, right? What was it, James? It was like 80%?

It was roughly 80% according to a dispersion study they did.

So this is really going to have a really great impact in our community. So we're very proud. Thank you guys for the great work and for setting that example in bar for education. So I'm happy to also support it.

Thank you.

All right.

I just want to say that I'm glad that we are here. I know that it took a while and a little bit of effort. But thank you for being patient and for us to be able to be here at this point to make the decision for our community.

OK, we need a motion to approve if there's no additional questions. Oh, I'm sorry, was there a motion? I forgot.

Madam Mayor, if I may interject really quick. And this is something that we just want to read into the record. This was just a minor change that was done, but I want to bring it to your attention. It was the last paragraph in Section 2. And if I could just read into the record what the new clause is going to be, it's very simple. Failure by the city to timely enforce any of the above conditions shall not constitute a waiver by the city's right to enforce the same. Any enforcement of these conditions shall be undertaken in accordance with the city's of Doral's code enforcement regulations set forth in Chapter 11, Article 3 of the city's code of ordinances. So this will replace the language that is currently the last paragraph in Section 2. That's okay.

Thank you, Mr. City Attorney. All right, Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Motion to approve, made by Vice Mayor Cabral and seconded by Councilman Pinedo. Vice Mayor Cabral? Yes. Councilman Pinedo?

Yes.

Councilman Porras? Yes. Councilman Reynoso? Yes. Mayor Fraga? Yes. Motion passes. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you all so much.

Congratulations.

All right. We'll move on to the next public hearing item. Again, I will reiterate, we're hearing 21B-C-3. together, but they are all part of the same presentation for 21B, C, D, E, F, and G. There will be one presentation. Actually, let's go ahead and open up the public hearing. Read it into the record. Yes, go ahead and read it to the record, and we're going to open up public hearing.

First reading, item 21B, ordinance number 20-26-09, Gray Star Comprehensive Plan Amendment. An ordinance is in the name of the City Council of the City of Doral, Florida, amending the City of Doral Comprehensive Plan Future Land Use Element by creating the Mall Mixed Use MMU Future Land Use Designation. Establishing purpose and intent, applicability and development parameters for regional shopping mall properties 15 acres or greater currently designated on the future land use plan map as business B. And providing for residential development opportunities within qualifying developments. Authorizing the transmittal of the text amendment adoption package to the state land planning agency and other required governmental review and agency pursuant to provisions of section 163.13184 Florida statutes. Providing for conflicts of ability authorization and adoption and an effective date.

Okay. If you're from Shelton and you need to go, go ahead. Just go, but just do it quietly. Thank you. Don't feel embarrassed. Go, go, go. Good night. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and open up public comments for item 21B, also known as 26-6615. Anyone who would like to speak on this item and this item alone, please approach the podium. BEING NONE, WE'LL CLOSE THE PUBLIC HEARING. WE'LL NOW HEAR FROM OUR CITY STAFF. MR. MAGARITO.

I HAVE AN ENTIRE PRESENTATION. DO YOU WANT ME TO DO THE WHOLE PRESENTATION?

YES. THANK YOU.

SO THIS IS THE GRAYSTAR DEVELOPMENT, ALSO KNOWN AS MIAMI INTERNATIONAL WALL. Like I said, Miami International Mall, it's located off of 107th, bounded by the 836. Currently, it is designated as business with a zoning as commercial corridor. This location is pretty much centered at the heart of Doral. It has easy highway access and is relatively close to Miami International Mall within 10 minutes. So this applicant is requesting six different requests for this specific site. You're going to have one request, which is the comprehensive plan text amendment, the actual form amendment itself, Then you're going to have the zoning land development code text amendment, the rezoning itself. Then you're going to have the DRI modification, and finally the master development agreement approval. So why this project? As we all know, Miami International Mall has been around probably since the 70s, I would say. And the growing trend in malls has declined based on Amazon and ease to get things delivered to your door. So we are kind of converting it into what we call a modern mall. And it's something similar that is what is being done in South Miami and in Cutler Bay. where old malls are being redeveloped to include a residential component to increase the density of the area. So the first application is for the comprehensive plan text amendment. Like I said, this is a novel idea for the city, so there was nowhere in the code to include it. So the city is in... creating a new district designation called the Mall Mixed Use Designation. This amends the comprehensive plan to create this new district and new land designation and applies to all mall properties of greater than 15 acres and an existing business designation. Like I said, the purpose of this is to increase density and increase underutilized malls so that people can visit more often. The... You'll have many different inclusions within your new designation. You'll have a 25 density unit per acre, and then that could be increased to 35 units per acre if you achieve creative excellence. The maximum stories permitted will be six stories, and we are requiring 35% minimum open space on residential and 20% minimum has to be dedicated to landscape. So like I said, maximum density would be 25 units per acre, and this would only be applicable for areas that are 15 acres or more. The permitted uses will be multifamily residential, townhomes, and existing retail commercial entertainment centers. The next item is the actual zoning text amendment. So likewise, there was no area in the code. So you're creating a new zoning category, similarly called the mall mixed use zoning district. What I want to really focus on is the density table so I can explain how the density is going to work. The total project is 25.617 acres. So what we did is we – Split it up into three separate phases. Phase one, phase two, and phase three. Phase one has a total of 7.3 acres. Their base density gives you approximately 183 units. If they achieve creative excellence, they can reach up to 256 units. Phase 2 has about 5.6 acres. That gives you 142 units with base density and 198 with creative excellence. The final phase, which we don't have the final site plan for yet, and we're not sure whether or not they're going to achieve creative excellence, you have a total acreage of 12.62 acres, giving you a base density of 315 units. And if they do achieve creative excellence, they would be allotted 441 units. The total number of units that they are allotted to go up to is about 896. So what we did was we allowed them to share density between the three different phases. And we're allowing them to share density from phase three to donate to phase one and two. So you can see that they are donating 67.25 units, and they are splitting those between phases one and phase two. So that's going to give you 292 units for phase one, 200 and... I think that says 30, maybe 230 units for phase two. And then there is going to be a termination of whether or not phase three meets creative excellence or not. If phase three does meet creative excellence and they're entitled to the three, 35 units per acre, then they would have the, whatever the, total number of creative excellence is minus the 67.25 units. If they don't achieve creative excellence then they will be limited to the 315 and they all have to subtract the 67.25 units from that calculation. But in no case can they achieve more than 896 units for the entirety of the project. Sorry. This is just a visual of the actual conceptual site plan itself. You can see it's divided into three separate phases and two different sites. This encompasses the current JC Penney's and the former Sears locations on the northeast side of the mall. This is the amendment from business to your new mall mixed use future land use category. And this is the rezoning from commercial corridor to the new zoning creation, which is also mall mixed use. YOU CAN SEE THAT WE HAVE CONSISTENCY WITH THE COMPREHENSIVE PLANS, THE EFFECTS ON THE SURROUNDING PROPERTIES, THE SUSTAINABILITY FOR PROPERTY AND PROPOSED USE, AND THE EFFECT ON TRAFFIC, UTILITIES AND PUBLIC FACILITIES. AND IT IS ALSO CONSISTENT WITH THE LAND DEVELOPMENT CODE. THIS IS YOUR NEWLY CREATED ZONING MAP. changing from commercial corridor to a moment excuse the next item is the DRI development order modification back in the DRI was created back in 1979 it has been amended throughout the years in 2018 I think it was 2018 the state DELEGATED ALL THE DEVELOPMENT ORDERS TO THE CITY ITSELF. SO ANY MODIFICATION HAS TO COME FROM THE CITY ITSELF. SO YOU'RE GOING TO BE LOOKING TO 2026 FOR THE PROPOSED MODIFICATION TO INCLUDE RESIDENTIAL DWELLING UNITS ON THE SITE. Transportation improvements and concurrency. So you're going to see a new traffic signal. You're going to have extended turn lanes. We are coordinating with the county to ensure compliance with all their regulations. So, you know, you'll have a better flow of traffic within the mall area itself. So staff finds all six applications are consistent with the comprehensive plan, and we recommend approval for all six items. And if there are any questions, I'm here to answer anything you might have, or the applicant is also here to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you, Mr. Margarito, Mr. Williams, or Mr. Navarro, I'm not sure who's doing the presentation.

Thank you so much. James Williams again, 600 Prickle Avenue, Miami, Florida, 33131. I'm here representing the African Great Star Development East LLC. I'm joined by the entire design team. We also have George Navarro from Greenberg that's joining me here. And I have my colleagues, Catherine Carbonell and Alberto Torres. Like I said, like Mr. Magrisso said, he went through it in detail. It was fantastic. I have a brief presentation, if we could put it up on the screen.

All right, team.

So I'll quickly go through it. Like I said, Mr. Magroso did a wonderful job. So just going back into the site, the subject application I've outlined in green, it consists of the Sears property with the JCPenney. I do want to put on the record that JCPenney is not closing anytime soon. They have roughly about 15 to 20 years left on their lease. And they would be very upset with me if I didn't mention that. You have the old Sears site, which will develop into phase one and phase two. And then the JCPenney site will be phase three. And as Mr. Magroso said, there is no site plan at this time for the phase three. Now, there's a number of project requests before you. Today, you have 11. There's a total of 11. Today, you have six. And I'll quickly walk you through them in order. So I've outlined them in green. Starting from number one, you have the comprehensive tax amendment. That's creating the mall mixed use on the comp plan side. You then have the feature land use map, which is the designation we would ask now that it's being created that we get designated to, from business to mall mixed use. You then have the creation of the zoning district to the land development code for the mall mixed use zoning district. We would then ask that we be rezoned to that zoning district as a matter of fact. Then you have the modification of the Miami International Mall development order, the regional impact. That is from 1970s. It's something that there was two DRIs essentially. It was consolidated in 2005 by the City of Doral. It's been amended once in 2012. And what we're coming to do is we're asking to do residential because it currently doesn't allow for residential. And we'll bring in the residential site into that DRI as a condition number 17. And then you finally have the master development agreement, which really talks about the density sharing of the whole site and how we're going. We're adhering to the 35 units an acre with creative excellence standards. Phase three is up in the air as to it, but we also show how we density share across the board. So there's a national trend. I'll fly through this a little bit. There's a national trend to do this. This is not something that's been created because of COVID. With the advent of online shopping, with Amazon being able to deliver in less than two hours now, you have Walmart, you have all these large retailers that are able to make these deliveries in such short time, a lot less people are going to brick and mortar shops. And when you look at the trend across the board, they're trying to do two things. Revitalize the malls and bring housing that's needed to these areas, especially in South Florida. And in the last, as of 2024 in December, over 200 malls across the country are now putting in residential. So if we... You know, we can't get the customer to us. We'll let them live right next to us. If you go to the next slide, I like to hit close to home, right? Because I want you guys to see that this is something that's being implemented not just across the nation, but in our own backyards. And so when you look at Color Bay Southland Mall, they approved 5,000 new market rate apartment condos. They still retain over 500,000 square feet of commercial retail. And then they also have a hotel medical facility. You have City of South Miami, Sunset Place. They've been approved for over 1,500 residential units across seven towers. And they also have office, hotel, movie theater, and significant retail space. And these are some of the renderings up there. Now, the existing land use and zoning on the site, your existing land use is on the left-hand side. That's business. On the right-hand side, you have your zoning map, which shows the area to be corridor commercial. Now, I want to premise this, right, because I've always liked to be very clear on the record. When we're doing a land use change and a rezoning change, we have to anticipate and look at it at the maximum development potential possible. So it's not what is the project. or what is the existing, but what could the max be done? And the reason we look at maxing it out is simply for infrastructure purposes. The council can't approve something without knowing that the infrastructure is in place, knowing that they could go to the max development of it. So we've analyzed the existing business at 836,000 square feet approximately. even though the mall itself in that area is currently built out at 341,336 square feet. That's the JCPenney, and that's with the Sears building. The existing land use and zoning does not permit residential, which is why we got creative working very closely with your staff. We came up with the mall mixed use district. Now, not anyone... there isn't someone that could just come and apply for it as a right, right, in front of you. It's going to have to go through an approval, but you have to meet certain criteria. It has to be a regional shopping mall. There has to be 15 acres. There has to be at least 300,000 square feet of gross leaseable retail area. And you have to have an internal pedestrian corridor. The internal pedestrian corridor requires that you have a business on each side of the corridor. So this could not apply to district malls that do not have that internal corridor. On top of that, in the land use section, we're doing the density as a 25 units base with the ability to go up to 35 units an acre. That is consistent with your CMU and that's consistent with the DMU. Your max density. So if everyone used on this site, right, the JCPenney, the Sears, if everyone used Creative Excellence, you'd be looking at 896 units. If you go forward and hopefully approve the site plans that are currently under review, you would have two with Creative Excellence, and if they decide not to do it, you'd be looking at 770 units. The height, when we're drafting this, we want to be consistent with what's existing there, right? Consistent, compatible is key. So we set it up to where it's no higher than six stories. Now the 75 feet, that's more in the zoning code. It doesn't say that in the actual land use. But I thought it would be helpful to include that. The open space that we're providing is currently 20%. So this goes hand in hand with request number one. We created the mall mixed use district. We'd like to be re-designated into it. So this is just showing, I had purple because at the time we hadn't selected a color. So I just showed it as purple. But we'd like to go from business to mall mixed use. Now, we're now in the zoning side of things. We're at the creation of a mall mixed use on the land development code. And what I did is I highlighted just certain important aspects that are usually concerns when we're drafting these provisions. So what I did is you have three columns. You have your existing corridor commercial, which is what the designation is right now. You have your proposed mall mixed use, and you have your downtown mixed use, which is kind of what we use to model it after. Urban areas, we want to be able to expand and have mix of uses. When you look at the corridor commercial right now, there's no density permitted because there's no residential. We're consistent with the downtown mixed use and the mall mixed use. The minimum lot area, under the commercial corridor, we can build on one acre. As long as we have an acre, we can do a project. Under the mall mixed use, to apply it, you have to have 15 acres. Under the CMU, we've actually gone above and beyond. The CMU allows 10 acres standard, but it actually goes down to five acres if you're in certain locations of the property in the city. The max height under the existing corridor commercial, six stories. Under the proposed mall mixed use, six stories. We are not trying to take advantage. The DMU, though, allows for eight stories. but with an advantage where if you meet the creative excellence, you can actually go higher than the eight stories. The FAR is straight across the same for all three. Your minimum open space under the existing corridor is 17%. Your proposed model mixed use is 20%, which is double what the DMU permits. Residential parking. not permitted in the quarter or commercial. In the mall mixed use, we have a minimum of 1.5 spaces per unit. So one bedrooms, two bedrooms, they all get 1.5 spaces per unit. That's a little different from the DMU. The DMU allows for certain situations where you have over 1,500 dwelling units and over 500,000 square feet of retail to just do one parking space per unit. In the Dorado Decor District, it also allows for one space per bedroom. So we are exceeding that. Now, again, that was the zoning side of things. Now we're asking to be rezoned into that mall mixed use. So this is the fifth request. This is the modification to the DRI. This is the Miami International Mall Consolidated DRI Development Order. This, again, was originally approved and started in 1979 with Miami International Mall. You have your 896 dwelling units that have been permitted max on it. It's going to apply to 25 acres. And then you're still sticking to your 25 base with your 35 increase for creative excellence. This is essentially just one more sentence added to the DRI to allow for residential to be used on the property. And as Mr. Magrisso said, In 2018, before this had to go to the state and get reviewed, those laws were changed. So this is all up now to the city. The final request for tonight is your master development agreement. And this is to show you just the conceptual site plan that we're showing. The site is broken up, I said, into three sites, three phases. Your phase one total is 292 units with creative excellence. That is currently under review. Site plan is submitted. Your site two, 5.66 acres, that's the east side of the CEOS site. That is currently submitted, and that's 230 units with creative excellence standards. Now, site three is not going to be submitted for some time. Under the Mastery Development Agreement, Site 3, if they use Creative Excellence, they get 374 units. If they do not use Creative Excellence, they go to their base, they are 248 units. Now, Site 1 and Site 2 combined have pulled 67.25 units from the overall Phase 3. So no matter what, Phase 3 has lost their units, and those are the numbers that they stick to. Base, 248, and then with Creative Excellence, 374. Going to the next slide. Now, like I... Wait. Let me go back. Going to the next slide. Now, these numbers are staggering. And like I said early on, for the clarity of the record, when we're analyzing a CDMP or rezoning, any of these kinds of requests, we have to look at the max build-out capacity. So what we did here, under the requirements, is we analyzed 836,000 square feet of retail development versus 896 units maximum development potential under residential. When you do that analysis, you actually have a reduction of 26,391 daily trips. That is a huge reduction. AM peak hour is reduced by 274 trips. And then your PM, your PM rush hour, afternoon rush hour, that's reduced by 1,412. So significant reduction. Now, your neighborhood, there's benefits to the neighborhood, obviously, with this. You're enhancing property values with the beautiful buildings coming in. You're bringing in retail attraction because now you're bringing in all this residential. You have the customers not trying to get them in the door because they live right next to the door. So they can come over and they can have the benefit of entertainment with the 11 tenant that's coming in. They can have retail commercial. They can have dry cleaning. They have access to food, food courts. The whole purpose of this district is to create that functionality between the residential and the commercial. You have an expanded tax base that goes up because you have new infrastructure that could be used for city benefits. And then you have just the overall aesthetic upgrades. You're going to have beautiful landscape paseos, connection to the mall. It really goes above and beyond. And this really fits in perfectly with the 15-minute neighborhood. Essentially, what you want is when you're urban planning, you want to have everything within 15 minutes of a walk. In this case, you have everything within 15 minutes of a walk because the mall will be right next door. And so, like I said, you have your food, your retail. Everything is going to be right there. It actually beats Amazon's delivery time because you can literally just go downstairs. With that, I'll conclude that staff, we've worked very closely with your staff, and I'm very appreciative. Mr. Regresso has been just unbelievably wonderful to work with. He's twisted an arm or two a couple of times, but that's how you know he's doing a great job. And we're really honored to be working with him. We've worked closely, and we're very excited to say that staff has supported all of these applications for approval, and we're really honored to be able to bring a project like this into the city of Doral. And with that, I'll conclude. If you have any questions, myself and my team are here to answer them. And I'd like to reserve some time for rebuttal just in case if necessary, but I don't anticipate it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Williams. So as I said, we're taking up these items together. So this will be the only presentation and the only time for questions and answers. We're only going to open up the other ones for public hearing, expert take communication, and for a vote. So now is the time to ask your questions and to discuss the application. Mr. Pinero, Councilman Pinero.

Thank you, Mayor. Well, first, I place the motion to approve, but I'm going to make a quick comment. Thank you, James, for the great work. When I heard about this project around the mall for the first time, I made the same comment a couple of years ago. I'm going to make it again. I think it's needed. I think it's a win-win, not only for the city, but at the same time for the mall, especially for the mall. Because with a project like this, you guys are pretty much saving the mall. I mean, unfortunately, everybody knows it's not a secret. International Mall has been suffering for the past years, especially after COVID. It's not a secret that Dolphin Mall is taking over pretty much the whole area. So I think this actually goes along in a location that doesn't affect when it comes to any concerns about density or traffic. As you show, actually, the number of trips are actually going down with a project like this. So again, it's something that makes sense to me. And that's why I'm in faith. Not because you're here. You do a great job, by the way.

Thank you.

Thank you. But since the first time that I heard about this, it's something that I said is needed. So I'm glad that, you know, we're moving forward now. And I'm happy that we will see it coming along very soon as well. You find me?

Yes, Ms. Mayor? I would like to second the motion, and also I want to thank you for listening to my suggestion and including them when it comes to the connectivity from the building to the mall. Also, the green spaces are very needed, and that's something that we also set as a difference from other communities that we keep our green areas. So thank you for that and the path around so that people will be able to have more access around the community.

Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments, questions? Councilwoman Reynoso.

Well, I really like the, hold on.

I really like the redevelopment idea that's going to take place sooner rather than later in that area. The traffic improvement is a big plus. The potential of having people that work in the area, live in the area, I think is also very beneficial for our community. I think the project was very well organized. Thank you, James. Thank you, George. Thank you. And the Gunster team. So thank you.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

Thank you for a thorough presentation. And we went over it. And again, I think it is going to bring new life into the mall and hopefully revitalize it as well. So thank you. Thank you.

I'll just keep my comments very brief, too. We've been working on this for quite some time now, so I know it's been a long journey, but I know that there was a lot of thought and intention put into this. When this was first discussed, there was a lot of concerns of proliferation throughout the community with what could potentially take place with creating the district, and I think that The way it was done was really methodical for the area. That is an area that hopefully one day will be considered a high transit-oriented district because it's close to the rail. You've got access to two expressways and really leading into a third. So the connectivity is there. I mean, the infrastructure is there for it to invite this type of redevelopment and community. But it's also not overbearing. I think the density is the right amount of density. We really thought about the heights, which was something that was important in that area. So the way that Doral has been planned and the way you all came to the table And we were able to find a product that would stand the test of time, that would not jeopardize the quality of life of Doral, revitalize the area, and think about the connectivity was very intentional. So I want to thank the entire team. Michelle was a big part of it, too. Thank you, Michelle. I know it's been a hard, long road. We've had lots of conversations about it. Alex came in and just hit the ground running with it, too. We're here. We got it done before summer. Look forward to seeing the site plan where we'll get into some of those other little details. And I know staff is really working on. But I think you guys have really taken the comments of the city. And what we have done over the years to really plan for growth in a responsible way is important. I'm glad you talked about JC Penney not moving yet. Because I know there is a little bit of concern over the amount of units going up so quickly. But this is really a phased out project. With Elevate coming in, hopefully that's a success. And I think it's really going to create, it's going to revitalize the area, but it's really going to create a good foot traffic. So I'm excited. I know that you guys built a good product. I think that this is a great addition to the city and will bring new tax revenue, which is also appreciated. So we're looking forward to seeing this be a product that will bring residents an opportunity to live, work, learn, and play in our city in this new development. So thank you once again and I'm ready to support the item and move forward if there's no additional questions. There is a motion on the table by Councilman Pinedo and a second by Vice Mayor Cabral. So if there's no additional questions, we'll go ahead and take up each item individually.

Motion to approve ordinance number 202609 on first treaty made by Councilman Pinedo, seconded by Vice Mayor Cabral. Councilman Pinedo? Yes. Vice Mayor Cabral?

Yes. Councilman Reynoso?

Yes.

Councilman Porras? Yes. Mayor Fraga? Yes.

Motion passes. All right. Let's go ahead and read the other ones into the record. We'll open up, take a vote, and move on.

ORDINANCE NUMBER 20-26-11, GRAY-STEM-FROM AMENDMENT, AN ORDINANCE OF THE MAYOR AND THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF DROVE, FLORIDA, APPROVING A SMALL-SCALE LAND USE AMENDMENT TO THE CITY OF DROVE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN FUTURE LAND USE MAP TO CHANGE THE LAND USE DESIGNATION FROM BUSINESS B TO MALL MIX USE MMU FOR PLUS OR MINUS 25.61 ACRES OF THE PROPERTY GENERALLY LOCATED AT 1625 NORTHWEST 107TH AVENUE AND 1603 NORTHWEST 107TH AVENUE, PROVIDING FOR INCORPORATIONAL RECYCLES, SEVERABILITY CONFLICTS, AND AN EFFECTIVE DATE.

All right, I'm going to go ahead and open up for public comments, public hearing for item 21C, also known as 26-6617. Anyone who would like to speak on this item and this item alone, please approach the podium. Being none, we will close the public hearing. Madam Clerk, no one has chosen to speak at this time. We have incorporated the comments and the presentations from the last item into this item, and I will entertain a motion. Motion. Motion by Councilman Pinedo. Second. Second by Councilwoman Cabral. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Motion to approve ordinance number 202611 on first reading by Councilman Pinedo, seconded by Vice Mayor Cabral. Councilman Pinedo?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Cabral? Yes.

Councilman Porras? Yes. Councilman Reynoso? Yes. Mayor Fraga?

Yes.

Motion passes.

All right. Next item, Madam Clerk, please read into record.

Item 21D, Ordinance Number 202610, Gray Star, LDC Text Amendment. An ordinance of the Mayor and the City Council of the City of Doral, Florida, amending Chapter 68, Land Uses and Zoning Districts, Article 5, Mixed-Use Districts of the City of Doral Land Development Code, by creating Division 6, Mall Mixed-Use District, MMU Zoning District, establishing purpose and intent applicability permitted and prohibited uses, development standards, design criteria, and development review procedures for original shopping mall properties 15 acres or greater, providing for the integration of residential uses within qualifying developments, providing for incorporation into the Land Development Code, severability conflicts, and an effective date.

All right. I'm going to go ahead and open up the public hearing for item 21D, also known as 26-6616. Anyone who would like to speak on this item and this item alone, please approach the podium. Being none, public hearing is closed. Madam Clerk, let the record reflect. No one has chosen to speak at this time. And now I will take ex parte communication.

I have spoken to the applicant and will not influence my decision.

Same. I have already met and will not influence my decision.

Same, Mayor.

Mayor, same, ex parte. Likewise, I've met with the applicant, and it will not affect the decision. We are incorporating all the previous presentations and communications about this, I'm sorry, and debate about this as well. Questions? And we'll take a motion. Motion. Motion to approve by Councilman Pinedo, second by Vice Mayor Cabral. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Motion to approve ordinance number 202610 on first reading by Councilman Pinedo, seconded by Vice Mayor Cabral. Councilman Pinedo? Yes. Vice Mayor Cabral? Yes. Councilman Reynoso?

Yes. Councilman Porras?

Yes.

Mayor Fraga?

Yes.

Motion passes. NEXT ITEM 21E ORDINANCE NUMBER 202612 GRAYSTAR REZONING AND ORDINANCE OF THE MAYOR OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF DROP CORDA APPROVING AN AMENDMENT TO THE CITY'S OFFICIAL ZONING MAP FROM CORRIDOR COMMERCIAL DISTRICT CC TO MALL MIX USE MMU FOR PLUS OR MINUS 25.61 ACRES FOR THE PROPERTY GENERALLY LOCATED AT 1625 NORTHWEST 107TH AVENUE AND 1603 NORTHWEST 107TH AVENUE PROVIDING FOR INCORPORATIONAL RECITAL SERVABILITY CONFLICTS AND AN EFFECTIVE DATE.

PUTTING UP PUBLIC HEARING FOR ITEM 21E ALSO NOTES 26.6618 ANYONE LIKE TO SPEAK ON THIS ITEM IN THIS ITEM ALONE P Seeing none, close public comments at the record. No one has chosen to speak at this time. And I will take any ex parte communications for this item.

I've met with the applicant, and I will not influence my decision.

I am also putting into the record previous, as far as all these applications I've met with the applicants, it will not affect the record. I'm incorporating all the presentations, comments, and questions that were from the last item into this item, and I will entertain a motion.

Motion.

Motion to approve by Councilman Pinedo, second by Council and by Vice Mayor Cabral. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Motion to approve ordinance number 2026-12 on first reading by Councilman Pinedo, seconded by Vice Mayor Cabral. Councilman Pinedo? Yes. Vice Mayor Cabral? Yes. Councilman Reynoso? Yes. Councilman Porras? Yes.

Mayor Fraga? Yes. Motion passes. Okay. Item 21F.

Item 21F, Ordinance Number 202614, Gray Star International Mall DRI Modification. An ordinance in the name of the City Council of the City of Doral, Florida approving a modification to the Miami International Mall Consolidated Development Regional Impact DRI Development Order to allow residential development within certain parcels of the DRI totaling approximately 25.612 acres for the property generally located at 1625 NW 107th Avenue and 1603 NW 107th Avenue. finding that such change does not require review pursuant to section 380.06 Florida statutes, providing for findings of fact and conclusion of law, and providing for an effective date.

Okay, I'm going to go ahead and open up a public hearing for item 21F, also known as 26-6620. Anyone who would like to speak on this item and this item alone, please approach the podium. Being none, we are closing the public hearing. Madam Clerk, I feel like no one has chosen to speak at this time, and I will take any ex parte communication.

I've met with the applicant, and it will not influence my decision.

Same, Mayor.

Same.

Same, too. All right, likewise. And we are incorporating all the former presentations, comments, and questions into this item, and I will entertain a motion.

Motion.

Motion to approve by Councilman Pinedo, second by Vice Mayor Cabral. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Motion to approve ordinance number 202614 on First Street, amended by Councilman Pinedo, seconded by Vice Mayor Cabral. Councilman Pinedo? Yes. Vice Mayor Cabral? Yes. Councilman Reynoso? Yes. Councilman Porras?

Yes. Mayor Fraga? Yes. Motion passes. All right, 21G.

21G, ORDINANCE NUMBER 202615, GREYSTAR INTERNATIONAL MALL MDA. ORDINANCE OF THE MAIN CITY COUNCIL OF FLORIDA APPROVING A DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT WITH EWE RETAIL 2LTD, JCP INTERNATIONAL 1LC AND WEST DAVE COUNTY ASSOCIATES FOR A CONCEPTUAL MASTER SITE PLAN FOR A RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECT WITH THE MIAMI INTERNATIONAL MALL CONSOLIDATED DEVELOPMENT OF REGIONAL IMPACT DRI LIMITED TO CERTAIN PARCELS TOTALING APPROXIMATELY 25.612 ACRES FOR THE PROPERTY GENERALLY LOCATED AT 1625 NW 107th Avenue and 1603 NW 107th Avenue in the Mall Mix U zoning district, MMU, providing for incorporation and recitals at an effective date.

All right. Opening a public hearing for item 21G, also known as 26-6621. Anyone who would like to speak on this item and this item alone, please approach the podium. None. Public hearing is now closed. And I take any expert take communication.

I have met with the applicants and will not influence my decision. Same.

Same, Mayor. Same. All right, I think we all put it on the record. We're incorporating all the comments, questions, and presentations from the former items to this item, and I want to chain a motion to approve.

Motion.

Second. Motion to approve by Councilman Pinedo, second by Vice Mayor Cabral. Madam Clerk?

Motion to approve ordinance number 2615 on first reading by Councilman Pinedo, seconded by Vice Mayor Cabral. Councilman Pinedo? Yes. Vice Mayor Cabral? Yes. Councilman Porras? Yes. Councilman Reynoso?

Well, yes.

Mayor Fraga?

Had to do it. Yes.

Motion passes.

All right. Thank you very much. That exhausts those items. We'll move on to the next items.

Thank you all so much. Really appreciate it.

Thank you, guys.

Item 21H, ordinance number 202613, text amendment digital signs for public institutions. An ordinance of the mayor and the city council of the city of Doral, Florida approving slash denying a text amendment to chapter 80 sign regulations of the city's land development code by amending section 80-.3 definitions to create a new definition for public institution. Amending Division 4, Permanent Signs for Non-Residential Uses of Article 5 Sign Standards and Requirements by amending Section 80-259A1, Office Signs, and Section 80-260A1, Industrial Signs, to provide for the inclusion of a digital changeable message sign as detached, freestanding, or monument sign as allowable sign type for public institutions, providing for conflicts and an effective date.

All right. I'm opening up the public hearing item for 21H, also known as 26-6619. Anyone who would like to speak on this item and this item alone, please approach the podium. BEING NONE, PUBLIC HEARING IS NOW CLOSED.

THIS IS A SIMPLE AMENDMENT TO THE ORDINANCE. IF ANYBODY HAS ANY QUESTIONS, I'M HAPPY TO ANSWER THEM. IT'S JUST CREATING A CARVEOUT FOR PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS, THE STATE, FEDERAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS.

I JUST WANT TO, FOR CLARITY AND FOR PURPOSES OF BENEFIT OF THE PUBLIC THERE WAS A REQUEST FROM THE ELECTIONS DEPARTMENT TO PUT A DIGITAL SIGN YES WHY THIS IS COMING FORWARD SO IT'S ONLY RESTRICTED TO GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS FEDERAL LOCAL CORRECT MOTION TO APPROVE THERE'S A MOTION TO APPROVE BY COUNCILMAN PINERO Is there a second? Second. Second by Councilman Reynoso. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Motion to approve ordinance number 202613 on first reading made by Councilman Pinero, seconded by Councilman Reynoso. Councilman Pinero? Yes. Councilman Reynoso? Yes. Councilman Porras? Yes. Vice Mayor Cabral?

Yes.

Mayor Fraga?

Yes.

Motion passes.

All right, move on to the next item.

Next item, item 21I, ordinance number 202616, text amendment nurseries. An ordinance of the mayor and the city council of the city of Doral, Florida, amending chapter 74, entitled Miscellaneous and Supplementary Regulations, Article 3, entitled Special Setbacks and Uses, Division 3, entitled Regulations for Uses Under Power Lines. Specifically, section 74-123, entitled Permitted Use and Conditions of the City of Doral Court of Ordinances. Adding subsection 74-123.1, entitled Nurseries. 74-123.2, entitled Definition. 74-1.3.3, entitled Permitting and Approvals. 74-1.3.4, entitled Permitting Facility Types and Portable Structures. 74-123.5, entitled Setbacks, Buffers, and Street Distinction. 74-1.3.6, entitled ADA and Accessibility Requirements. 74-123.7, entitled Structural Standards. 74-123.8, entitled Pavement and Draining Standards. 74-123.9, entitled Environmental and Sanitary Requirements. And 74-123.10, entitled City Inspection and Enforcement, providing for incorporation to the code, conflicts, implementations, availability, and effective date.

Okay, opening a public hearing for item 21-26-6645. Anyone who would like to speak on this item and this item alone, please approach the podium. Being none, public hearing is now closed. Madam Clerk, I'd like to reflect. No one has chosen to speak at this time. And we will hear from our Planning and Zoning Director, Mr. Margarito.

So this is another zoning change that we're making to the code. Currently you don't have any set regulations for nurseries that are located under these power lines. We did receive an application for one and going through it we realized that there was not enough information to move forward. So what this does is it creates pretty much a new section where mainly it's building requirements that would need to be undertaken before a nursery can be propped up underneath the power lines to ensure safety with any portable buildings that might be on site. So this just specifies the building restrictions and pretty much mirrors your Florida building code within the zoning section.

Motion.

Motion to approve by Councilwoman Porras. Second by Councilman Pinedo. Any other questions, comments? I do have a question. Yes. Councilwoman Reynoso.

Do we know what type of plants we're going to have in that nursery?

We don't know. Yeah. There was no specific. I think it's plants. I mean, I don't think it's like. Nursery. Yeah, it's a nursery.

Just plants.

Just plants.

However, the site plan will come before us. Yes. So we will have an opportunity to see the site plan. That's important. Thank you. All right. If there's no additional questions, please call the roll. Make sure to refer to Councilwoman Reynosa as the Lorax.

Motion to approve ordinance number 2026-16 on first reading, made by Councilman Porras, seconded by Councilman Pinedo. Councilman Pinedo?

Yes.

Councilman Pinedo?

Yes.

Councilman Reynoso?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Corral? Yes. Mayor Farah? Yes.

Motion passed. Next item.

Item 21J, ordinance number 2026-17, adopting a ratified investment policy. An ordinance of the Mayor and the City Council of the City of Doral, Florida, adopting a ratified investment policy for the City of Doral, providing for survivability, implementation, conflicts, and an effective date.

All right, opening up the item for public hearing, item 21J, also known as 26-6634. Anyone who would like to speak on this item and this item alone, please approach the podium. Showing none, public hearing is closed. Madam Clerk, I have the record of neglect. No one is chosen to speak at this time.

We are adopting the ratified investment policy as we do every year. There are no changes from this policy and the one we adopted last year. It's just we have to do it every year. So if you have any questions, this CFO, ACM, Fernando Casamayor is here and our finance director, Sol, as well.

I was hoping to hear from both of you, but I think we're good.

Motion to approve.

Thank you, Madam City Manager. Motion to approve by Councilman Pinedo. Second. Second by Councilwoman Reynoso. There's no additional questions. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Motion to approve Ordinance Number 202617 on 1st Street. Amid by Councilman Pinedo. Seconded by Councilman Reynoso. Councilman Pinedo.

Yes.

Councilman Reynoso.

Yes.

Councilman Porras. Yes. Vice Mayor Cabral. Yes. Mayor Fraga.

Yes. Motion passes. Awesome. Second reading items. Second reading.

Ordinance number 20-2606, amending chapter 26, article 3, shopping carts. An ordinance of the Mayor and City Council of the City of Doral, Florida, amending chapter 26, article 3, shopping carts, providing for implementation and incorporation into the code, incorporation of recitals, severability, and an effective date. This was approved on first reading on May 13th.

All right. Opening a public hearing for item 21K, also known as 26-6591. Anyone who would like to speak on this item and this item alone, please approach the podium. I didn't think you had anything to say about it. Being none, public hearing is now closed. Madam Clerk, I have the record that no one has chosen to speak at this time. And we will either hear from the city manager, staff.

Yes, once again, Mayor. This is second reading. The only change that we have is that the start date, which it will be to start in October. But otherwise, there are no changes between first and second reading.

Perfect. I'm giving people time. giving the supermarkets enough time to comply.

To comply. And the assistant code compliance director is here if you have any questions.

Thank you. All right.

Motion.

Motion to approve by Councilman Pinedo. Second. Second by Vice Mayor Cabral. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Motion to approve ordinance number 202606 on second reading by Councilman Pinedo, seconded by Vice Mayor Cabral. Councilman Pinedo. Yes. Vice Mayor Cabral.

Yes.

Councilman Reynoso.

Yes.

Councilman Porras.

Yes.

Ms. Fraga.