Village Council - Regular Meeting

All right, shout out the full moon. The regular council meeting for Tuesday, February 24th, 2026 is called to order at 7.03 p.m. We're going to have a moment of silent meditation followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance.

Manager Janice Jacoby village clerk, and I'm assuming Attorney Geller is running late. You have a quorum.

All right. Thank you very much. May I have a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. Moved by Councilperson Winters. May I have a second? I'll second. Seconded by Councilperson Irvine. All in favor say aye. Aye. Appreciate it. Next is building welfare. This is the time where anyone from the audience can come up and talk about anything at all. Three minutes and your name and address.

I JUST WANTED TO BRING UP A FEW RED FLAGS ABOUT THE SOULFUL CHURCH. NUMBER ONE, 3-D PRINTING. THEY MADE A BIG DEAL ABOUT IT, BUT APPARENTLY WHAT CONTRACTORS LIKE MOST IS IT'S FAST AND IT'S CHEAP. IT'S ALSO NEW. HOW MANY HIGH SCHOOLS OR ANY SCHOOLS FOR THAT MATTER HAVE BEEN BUILT IN FLORIDA USING 3-D PRINTING?

NONE.

Zero. How many have been built in the United States? Zero. Europe? Zero. In fact, there's only two in the entire world. The point is that this is very much an experiment in construction. They're using El Portal as a beta site, a testing ground for a new and unproven construction method. So we're basically going to be a guinea pig for a billionaire with a not very successful track record. Number two, sewer. El Portal has been talking about installing a sewer system for what, 15 years? Now they're going to wave a magic wand and it'll suddenly appear? ARE THEY GOING TO ASSUME 100% OF THE COST, GUARANTEE THAT NOTHING COMES FROM THE VILLAGE, THE COUNTY OR THE STATE? DO WE HAVE AN ENGINEERING REPORT OR CONFIRMATION FROM WASDE THAT THIS IS EVEN FEASIBLE? WHERE IS THE PUMPING STATION? FIRST THEY WERE GOING TO GO NORTH, THEN THEY WERE GOING SOUTH. THEN THEY FIGURED OUT A WAY TO INSTALL A SEWER SYSTEM WITHOUT TEARING UP THE ROAD. If you remember the North Miami bridge project that was supposed to take a year took four years. I spoke to the broker who sold the Raider church to the former owners. The sanctuary. They said they spent months trying to figure out the sewer connection. And in the end, they decided it was too expensive, too timely, and going to be too difficult. I don't know what's changed. And finally, I wanted to say something about Live Local. At the last town hall meeting, we all saw the rendering that Jeff Davis presented of his version of Live Local. It looked like the Death Star from Star Wars. The only thing missing was Darth Vader. Neither he nor Lauren are attorneys, much less land use attorneys. A few of us residents have hired a land use attorney, Amanda Hand. She's been practicing for 20 years. She's a former assistant city attorney for Miami, responsible for all the planning, zoning, building-related matters. She's Florida Bar board certified in city, county, and local government law. And she said, and I quote... Every Miami developer, when they don't get what they want, threatens Live Local. We were told repeatedly that this is a binary choice, that it's the school or Live Local. Misinformation. There are a lot of things that could be built on that site. They just choose not to. They also choose not to move it to Little Farms. Back to Live Local. What is so wrong with Live Local? Are we now as a community against affordable housing?

Got another minute.

Live Local is just affordable housing with a streamlined approval process. It only requires about 40% of the apartments to be income restricted. And in Miami, that threshold is pretty generous. In fact, a single person can make up to $105,000 a year and still be eligible for a discounted apartment. This is not Section 8. This is middle income, teachers, nurses, first responders. Are they not welcome in El Portal? Now, the site is zoned Z4, so it's up to three stories. Maybe they get to six, but that is not a given. considering it's surrounded on three sides by single-family zoning. And finally, you have to offer onsite parking, which will further reduce the envelope. Most important, it pays property taxes. The 10-year tax abatement that Jeff Davis mentioned is more misinformation. Even the Covista, which also qualified recently for affordable housing tax reduction, pays $1.1 million in taxes. And of that, we receive $400,000 a year. And it goes up every year. It's a lot better than the $100,000 they're offering. All this with a no eight-foot wall, no police, no traffic bottlenecks, no off-site parking. So if they want to build live local, let's see an actual plan because they must have put something together besides a Death Star. In the end, let's not be bum-rushed into making an irreversible mistake.

Thank you.

Timbosity, 149 Northeast 89th Street. So I spent a little bit of time going through the street plan that was on the agenda for the walkthrough tonight. And I thought there were some really interesting ideas in there. But my ask for the council, the mayor, I think that we should discuss More amongst ourselves is I just I don't think it's necessarily ripe right now to be spending much time or energy on that. And if there's money involved as well from a consulting or design standpoint until we're able to draw out what the plan is for. everything that's coming to our community that's going to drastically change the character of the community. We've heard potentially proposed up to 2,000 apartment units on Little Farm, whether at the Raider Church site, whether it's a school or whether it's a live local project, traffic around that site will change one way or the other. And so I think one of the big things that I just urge from the council is since we know there's one stakeholder behind a lot of what is being proposed or we know is in a pipeline and on the come, that we are able to look at a holistic traffic plan and a holistic community environmental impact. Because I think we would hurt ourselves if we start spending money, time, resources on nice-to-haves without taking those impacts into account. And potentially, if there are things that come to the council, there are abatement issues that might need to be paid for anyway from the developers with the properties on the come. And so again, I'm glad that we're paying attention to beautifying our streets, to reducing environmental impact, to figuring out flooding mitigation issues, to increasing safety on our streets. I think all of us have asked for that and I think it's all incredibly important. But I just want to make sure that we are spending the time to make sure that we're taking everything that's looking to change our community in a huge, huge way into account when we're doing these things. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Hello. Francisco Scutia, 137 Norris 89th Street. This is my first time doing this. And I received a chat information regarding to the parking lot between 89 and 90. That was my first concern about this. Not have much idea about the church and on the school development, but I'm here right now because I was talking the other day with some of our neighbors uh i it's very important to know if you as a local government officials from the portal and we need to have the big picture from you the big picture from the developers because in the the past two meetings and one of the developers says we are trying to do a parking lot on the 89 and 90. And at some point, we decide not to go to the parking lot. So that's simple. So I don't trust because we need to write it down. And besides that, we need to understand what will be happening with the properties that they get. It's supposed to be a parking lot. It is not a parking lot. What's going to be? The school will be... here in the portal, the people says it's gonna be a 300 students, right? 300 students and probably a 30 people from the staff, school staff. That means it's gonna be a 350 cars. in addition to the regular traffic in the area, right? So what will be happening with that 350 cars? Because sometimes, as you know, when something happens in I-95, all the traffic is going to the North Miami Avenue, Northeast 1st Avenue, Northeast 2nd Avenue. So I guess you have a plan. Then when the school has some extracurricular activities, like a festival, something like that on the weekends or during the days, Thanksgiving, whatever it is, we need to add the 350 cars. It's going to be probably 500 cars in the area because all the parents, friends, family is going to be... And then where will these cars, where it's going to be parking? And the parking lot that doesn't exist probably is going to be parking in our streets in front of my house. And I don't know if you know that, but that's the real things that happen when you have a school around. And the other part, I think it's very important as you as government officials, they need to coordinate with the Miami Shores with Little Haiti, with the Miami-Dade, because we understand the 87th Street is part of the Miami-Dade. And now, as you, I don't know, you're driving around the 7, 7.30 a.m., the traffic in 92nd Avenue from 89 through just passing probably 77th Street is traffic, heavy traffic on the mornings. Going on at the afternoons, the traffic is heavy from the same streets because it's on the way back to the north. So for me or my request from you, it is very important that you need to know the big picture from the developers. Because probably the developers, they don't want to share the business because by the end it's a business model. They don't want to share because it's very, it's totally understandable. But I believe that you as government officials, you will need to ask questions. The other day they said the demolition is not going to happen because it is any permit of the demolition in the portal. What happened was on the Miami-Dade County. And these people said, we are not demolish the church. What happened? The people getting offended because when they just awake, they noticed that they started the demolition. And we don't hear nothing from them. El Portal Village. At least not me. I don't receive any notification, any news, nothing. When I just arrived here in Miami like 20 years ago, I used to live in Brickell Key. As soon as the following week, just one week of living in Brickell Key, I received a notice from my building notifying me that it's going to be a demolition inside the Brickell Key. So you need to aware, you need to be prepared for everything. Here, We don't even hear nothing. So it's just we need to start working on the communications because at least the communication is not that good. You're not communicate that Miami-Dade doesn't communicate with you. I don't know. You have communications with Miami Shorts regarding to the traffic. And there's a lot of stuff that we need to know because we can think a lot of many options, but it's going to be. Wasting our time, because if we don't have the big picture of that, this cannot be happen. It's cool. What happened with the property is going to be tried to build a building. Yes. No, it's going to be a new offices. It's going to be a retail. I don't know. You guys need to know to share with us, at least with me, because. As soon as that parking lot is going to be there, it's going to be a huge problem with me and my street, and I have two little kids. Thanks so much.

Thank you.

Good evening, I'm George Alvarez 165 Northwest 88th Street in El Pertel. I'm not sure if anybody's aware, but there's A large-scale development being proposed for the former Raider Church site at 205 Northeast 87th Street here in El Pertel. Because I'm growing more and more familiar with the site plan every day, it's obviously a formidable site plan. It originally came in, I believe, at over 420 pages. Most of it was a... traffic study the more I look at the traffic study the more confounded I get so unlike my my friend whose name I forget I do think it pertinent to think about the old idea of the Plusserbia study and other traffic considerations that were made in good faith over the years because there might have been a great deal of study that may contextualize any future development that happens at that site or any other. I think it's highly relevant for some of the discussions that we're having tonight, although at the same time to put the cart before the horse To put the charrette before the chef would be a waste of time. So perhaps it is good to refamiliarize ourselves with. WITH IDEAS THAT WERE DISCUSSED IN THE PLUS SERBIA REPORT. WE PAID FOR IT. IT WAS WITH GOOD INTENTION, AND IT WAS, I BELIEVE, RECALLING A LOT OF THE QUESTIONS AND INTENTIONS THAT RESIDENTS HAVE HAD THROUGHOUT TIME, ESPECIALLY RESIDENTS AROUND THE MAIN STREET CORRIDOR. SO I ALSO WOULD CALL UPON THE COUNCIL TO ASK OUR VILLAGE to ask the developers of the proposed soulful development to provide us not only with a new traffic report, but with other studies regarding to public safety, flood mitigation, public safety, a new traffic report, And environmental and historical analysis, the place at 205 Northeast 87th is a high probability zone for Tecusta native artifacts and even remains. And in addition, and this is something that's not routinely called for in developments as, say, traffic or public safety are. I would like to see some prognostication about property values, especially around that corridor. And I would extend that request to be put on deck for any development that happens in the old little farm. And in fact, to that, I would add another request for I would suggest that the council also ask the village manager to start seeking other communities of smaller populations or of under-representation because these communities like ours, are at great fiscal risk if we have a lot of development and not enough tax base coming into our coffers. As you recall, we don't really have much in the way of reserves. We'd all like to change this. And I think... I think that severe tax abatements and religious exemptions is probably not the ideal way because then the burden gets put on everybody else who does not own a large apartment building or religiously affiliated institution. So I hope you folks will consider that. I think it's reasonable, and I think it might answer some of the questions that seem to bottleneck much of the discussions about this project and development in general, especially as regards to Northeast 2nd Avenue. So thank you for your time. Hope you consider it. Thank you very much, myself.

Ashley Lucio 127 Northeast 90th Street. I just want to second what George and Tim and Greg eloquently said. I think that, and Francisco as well, we ultimately need to see the larger plan. Not just the larger plan, like what is planned for El Portal, but the long-term plan as well, right? And I think that requires, we can't do it in a bubble. It does require coordination with Miami Shores, with Little River, with the county, right? you know i feel like it is a bit premature to be talking about changing up our streets when we don't really know what's going to happen with our properties and our buildings um i mean you know this this plan could change from a school to live local and then what is the traffic impact then right and that hasn't even been studied so um to get on the on the roads topic um i was looking over the comprehensive plan i i love what has been put together especially for northeast second i am not against um the road diet and the median i think it's beautiful i think that's what we should be aspiring to have throughout our community you know separate bike lanes walking lanes all of that i think it's really really beautiful But again, I think it's just premature to look at doing this right now. And one other thing I just want to add is that I live on Northeast 90th Street, which in one of those plans has it only going one direction, which would be towards North Miami Avenue, right? That's a really big issue for us because we're blocked off. on north east nine first we're blocked off from from getting out of our neighborhood basically will have only one way out and that's towards north miami avenue we can even circle around like it's only one way out and it's a long it's like two blocks out before we can get out of the neighborhood so that's just something to think about the impact of Miami Shore is closing off their streets to us. And then us creating, you know, this kind of labyrinth type of way to get around, it's it's going to be very, very difficult. I don't know the answer. I mean, we do need some traffic calming measures throughout the village, right? And Northeast Second is a big one, I think. Although it's tough because it's a main corridor, but Yeah, I don't know. I think we're just not ready to look at this yet. And I know it's been on the table for a couple of years. I think this study was done a while ago. But we just have, we're in too much flux right now to look at that. That's it. Thanks.

Thank you very much.

Daniel Rojas, 16 Northeast 86th Street. So I just wanted to discuss a little bit. Our neighbors, Greg, everybody has discussed the whole project with soulful. I think there's also an issue that we need to discuss is as villagers, I believe we have a bit of a trust issue. and i think there are ways that we can regain trust in our council members in our village and i think one of those would be to have an open and clear disclosure of conflict of interest by any members of the council with respect to soulful or any other developments in the village And further than that, the disclosure, I think any members that have such conflict of interest should be recused themselves from any discussions or votes pertaining to those developments. And that's basically what I have to say right now. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Rojas.

Good evening. Denise White, 173 Northwest 88th Street. I'm scratching off my ticket so I too can be a billionaire one day. To my council. Ooh, wee, it's been a hot month, ain't it? Ooh. But I tell you what, they had great snacks. So first I want to talk about my, ooh, I'm in love with this man right here, Mr. Erbal. Hey, Mr. Irvine. So I know some people is upset because they said they didn't like what you said. Some people even said that maybe they scared. Now, understand this. Like you've been on this council for years, right? And other people have been on this council for years. And you speak like that. From I got here, you've been speaking like that. That was the first time you ever used the F-bomb. That was crazy. It was probably hot inside here. But usually you speak like that, usually. And I don't remember anybody being afraid of you then. So I just want to say that I want to thank you. Not because of what you said or what you didn't say. I don't care about that. Because special things are in everybody. And what you do do is vote no. Whenever there's questions in here and everybody's heart is all crazy, what you do do, if nothing else, ooh, my most wonderful, beautiful, crazy brother. Ooh, my baby. My baby is beautiful. I want you to know that you vote no when your residents Sometimes I'd be wondering what's going on up here, and then all of a sudden, here comes Urban, and he says, hey, can we table that till 2027? What? Did he say that? Y'all remember that? Y'all remember that? When somebody wanted 67, and he said, no, no, no, no, no, no, wait. Let's make that 2027. I think they're not in the mood for that. That was Urban who did that. Sometimes when we don't know what's going on up here, it's Urban. Oh, my city manager. Oh, Urban did that too. Understand that sometimes there's no reason up here, but her bomb is listening to us now He might not always get it right and everybody doesn't nobody gets it right every time But I will say the majority of the time that I've been here he votes shorter in our favor so You my hero. You my man. I don't care what nobody say about you. You my man. You want some chocolate? Let me know. Right. Ooh, it's getting hot up in here. Ooh, some people just, you know, I feel like my hot flash is coming on. So second of all, it's been a real hot week. I want to thank the council members who did come to listen to the town hall meeting because they know how passionate our residents are. Ooh, my residents were passionate. Some people was like, get out. We don't like you. Right. But like everybody else, I urge you to listen to us. And let's say you say to yourself, well, this I think this is the best for us. And I know y'all don't agree, but I think y'all will agree in two years or three years or whatever. Oh, you better make sure you bring us some stuff. If you won't make it so that this church is here because that's what you think your little soul think it should be. Oh, you better go study. I was on chat GPT the other day. I think he is a very great, useful tool. And he was explaining to me that if that school and that place right there comes over, they have the power to change the culture. Ooh, it gave me some ideas of my own, changing my culture somewhere else. But, you know, it would give them the power to change the culture here. Right now we are multicultural. Ooh, the buzz went off, y'all. We are multicultural. And I think our big thing is we want to stay multicultural. But okay, maybe we can't. No big deal. Okay, cool. Things change. People evolve. Evolution happens all the time in small cities. And again, I am not one to say people cannot move in once they have paid for their property. Never. My people did that. That's just where my heart is. But if you are going to say yes to whatever's coming down the road, ooh, you better make sure you study and you make sure that you got our little village the best deal. Those people, they were crying. They were like, ooh, we can't give no more. And you said, mm-mm, we need more, one more last thing. Because I'm scared that you might vote against us. So if you do, make sure you get all there is to get from them people to make sure our little village, at least for a little while, stays the way it is. Now if we put live local there, we're not sure what we gonna get. And because it's from the state, they get to do They don't get, they don't have to ask us for everything. Like they have to ask us for everything about this church right here. That's what my little chat said. I don't know. He going to tell y'all, but that they don't have to ask us if they do live local. They don't have to ask us for the little things about how, how, how many stories know the state gets to tell them that we know our state. Sometimes he Lukey Lukey, you feel me? You don't care about little Elport town. so that is something that we need to take into but if we do have the local we will always be multicultural because there'll be a whole bunch of different people up in that building so we will at least keep our multiculturalism so as we move forward on these decisions and these yeses and these no's we have to understand what is it that we want we could tell them no no no and they could bulldoze us and these people could say yes and then where we at We also need to have a plan B, a contingency plan, just in case billions of dollars beats thousands and millions of dollars. Because I know some of y'all got some money. Anyway, that's just my little two cents. I ain't nobody up in here. I'm just a little resident. Amen. Hallelujah. Thank you.

Johnny Hector, 260 Northeast 88th Street. There's a lot of things that people have been saying that make a tremendous amount of sense. I agree with you. We need to get whatever we can out of them. But one thing I want you to ask yourself, because I feel like certain people's attitudes might have changed when they took the parking situation away from 89th and 9th Street and 2nd Avenue. I live right next door, and I want you to ask yourself, what do you want? being right next door to where you live, because it's not pleasant to think about some of this stuff. That's it. Thank you. Oh, one other thing. I happened to notice on the agenda the very first paragraph that talked about getting rid of people that are destructive and heckling. Thank you very much for that. I thought that was a great idea.

Thank you very much.

Pamela Mills, 166 Northeast 90th Street. So as we, you know, make, get together and discuss what we think is good for the village and what's going to come down, I've noticed that from 87th to 90th on Northeast 2nd. On the west side, everything is for sale practically now. What used to be homes are empty. The cottages are empty. There's a building for rent that's empty. So there's very little from 87th, I don't know if you've all noticed, to 90th that hasn't either been bought probably will be bought including all the apartment buildings so you just need to walk up and down Northeast 2nd to know that something's going to happen but that's the problem is that we don't know what's going to happen it's obvious because things are either sold or for sale or empty vacated and that but we don't know what the plan is um we're always playing catch up and i don't understand like why we aren't informed and not only that if there's going to be buildings why why can't we see them the worst thing that could happen is they're going to be like square boxes with glass they aren't going to even look like they're amalgamated into El Portal, don't we want it to at least assimilate these things? Do they have to look like they came from Aventura? No offense to Aventura if anybody lives there, but the charm of our village is that their old homes, their Spanish Art Deco, some of them, I know mine is 1938. So whatever the plan is, if anybody's ever seen it, wouldn't it be nice for it to at least look like it belongs? Not only is it going to change our lives fundamentally in traffic and everything else, but does it have to look bad too? Does it have to look like it's a brand new building in a village that has great character? So my question is, at least let us know. Do we even have a say on what it's going to look like? And then another thing I got to thinking about is you have all the power, right? You have the voice. You have the vote. Why can't we vote? It's affecting us. We're the majority. You're definitely the minority council. Yet you're making fundamental decisions on all of this that we don't even have a say. We come up here and we beg, we plead. I mean, but at the end of the day, we really don't have a voice, do we? I mean, I think it would be great if there was some sort of amendment or something, the buzzer went off, where we could actually have a say, a real say. And that's all I have to say.

Thank you.

Yeah, that's fine.

Tim Bossey, 149 Northeast City, 9th Street. Again, one of the things that might be helpful for Attorney Geller to comment on, we spent some time talking about this and hearing some expert opinion on this today in a small group, is that live local, even though a lot of the decision-making power goes to the state and the statute there, that we would have potentially still rights over facade. um that there are things around setbacks uh environmental potential impact and things that we can manage and do around that so i thought that you made a great point and i think that's really important to all of us is that things that come here are within the the look and the feel and part of the environment and the fabric here in el portal and so i i would like to not only hear about things like you know even if local projects pop up do we actually have that oversight but also i'd like to hear more about who's fighting for us Like who is, what are we doing to make sure that with all of these things that continually come up that are our concerns is what are we doing to make sure that whatever the outcome here is, that it is in line with residents. So what the mayor, the council member, what the city attorney, what everyone is doing to fight for our interests to get to that best possible outcome. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Werner Dreyer 486 Northeast 87th Street. I've approached a couple of the council members, including the mayor as well. I just want to hear a little bit more who's negotiating the offer list. I keep hearing somebody is actually sort of leading or spearheading the way. I brought my concerns to the mayor, right, that we probably need some external support. partners out there to help us negotiate. I know from a law perspective, I think our attorney, you make sure that it's only, um, law binding. Uh, so I just want to make sure we have some external party out there who can help us negotiate, you know, this big, uh, task. And I would appreciate it. We could hear a little bit more from it. Um, I brought it up on the first, um, meeting we had with so flow right? The actual thing is on. Yeah, the planning is only and also the the tunnel. Yes. So thanks for that.

Alexander Baza, 120 Northwest 36th Street. First of all, I want to thank Council Member Urban, who met with us and a few of our neighbors to discuss what is crucial for the identity of our village, which are the trees and nature preservation. So we can look more like Miami Shores and Coral Gables. was thinking why do they have such a strong why can we have what they have you know that the tranquility the peace of mind that we're gonna have those trees and it's because they have a very strong sonic code and they know who they are they don't feel like they are a bargain town where they should be thankful that any developer can come and do whatever they want so i am asking you council members uh to stand up for us not to let uh what's on what happens in sunny isles that next thing they knew the whole town was completely changed and didn't keep any of the character. The other thing that I wanted to talk about is property taxes. So I know a lot of the neighbors keep saying, oh, we're going to repave the 88th Street. We're going to have sewer on 42nd. But what about the rest of the neighbors in El Portal who also pay taxes? The property taxes, with all the exceptions that all these developers will not pay, are supposed to cover for what we all need. We all need paved streets. We all need sewer. So that's why I'm asking you, no exceptions. Because we cannot afford it. We have a lot, a lot of a big deficit in our budget. And the last people that we should be giving exceptions and taxes are big developers. I don't know in what world does it exist that we're paying for that if we're at this countdown. So, thank you.

Yeah, that's it.

This is a small thing, but I think that it makes sense, too, because we have big issues, but we have to take care of small things, too. So I would like to speak about the importance of swales in our public infrastructure. As you know, swales are those spaces between the boundary of our property and the street pavement. and although adjacent homeowners maintain them, they are public space and part of our shared infrastructure. So swales are much more than strips of grass. They are critical components of our stormwater and environmental system. They absorb rainwater, reduce flooding, protect water quality, and support our urban tree canopy, which is especially important in flat, fruit-prone areas like ours. To have them and to maintain them makes a huge difference from other neighborhoods in Miami. In El Portal, which proudly defines itself as a birth sanctuary, these green spaces are even more meaningful. They provide habitat shade and ecological continuity throughout our village. So I would also like to note that this council has been very careful and sometimes really strict when evaluating private development proposals, even when those project proposals comply rigorously with existing codes and regulation. And my concern is that we may not be giving the same level of attention to protecting and improving our public spaces, particularly our swales. If you walk through the village, you will see swales without greenery, swales used for parking, and in some cases, even worse, swales that have been completely paved. So I respectfully ask the council to prioritize the protection and enhancement of this critical infrastructure, keeping swales green, preventing parking on them, enforcing code and regulation where necessary, and expanding our tree canopy by planting additional trees, not in some, but in all the swales that don't have any. I think that if we as a village truly value our identity as a bird sanctuary, our public spaces should reflect that commitment. Thank you.

Hey everyone, Adam Old, 140 Northeast 86th Street. Sorry if I'm repeating anything anyone said, I got here a little late. I support also the street plan that Serbia's spent maybe 10 years developing. It's very important for the city to maintain our walkable character. One of the things when I moved here a couple decades ago, I got here and I said, oh, this is cool. I can walk on the street with my kids. The streets have changed a little bit since then. Northeast Second is a lot faster than it used to be. They've repaved it, made it wider. The bridge was widened. I don't know. Some of you may have gotten my WhatsApp. I really think we need to look at Northeast Second. We need to look at making it narrower and easier for our kids to cross. My kids went to school in Miami Shores Elementary. It's like a short walk away, but I didn't let them walk because it's scary as hell crossing that street. Cars are flipped on their roof all the time. It's just nuts. I know we want the police to be there to... you know, save us from ourselves, but like, that's not their job. They have better stuff to do. And, and like people speed because it feels like a highway, right? Like people aren't speeding through Miami shores downtown. They're driving slow. People don't speed on 87th as bad because the trees are close. So like, I think we should really like think about getting the trees closer to the cars, slowing the cars down. It's like, yeah, you know, urban planning thing we should do. Anyway, that also in terms of like taxes and development, You know, I think when people buy a property, the property value goes up, and then there's a period of time during which they can appeal that property value. I don't know if there's any big pieces of property in the village that have sold recently, but I would hope that the village doesn't repeat the mistakes it made years ago when we failed to challenge those appeals in court. That's my take.

Good evening. Serial Emanuele 172 Northwest 87th Street. So we've heard a lot of people about the projects that is the hot topic of El Portal right now with this school planning to come in the community. There's a lot obviously to put into consideration for this project. But as the Council has a lot to say in this decision, and also to listen to the community with everything that was discussed during the presentations of the developers, I want to remind the Council that a lot of members are obliged to to do by the code of El Portal. And right behind me, there is a lady that came here, Georgette, and she has a roof falling apart. And she came to you. It's on the videos. And she asked for an exemption because she cannot afford to replace with tile. and she can only do shingles and as of today, the roof is still in pieces because she is not allowed to do it any other way that it is. That's what she came in front. My point is that we all live in El Portal, we're all part of the community, so it's important that everyone that comes to the community must respect the rules of El Portal. And that's one point. The other thing with the presentation that we had with the developers, they came with very low offers of money-wise and police officers and things like this. And I think in the interest of the community, whatever they can provide and whatever way this project will go. Today, we just don't know. We just know that they have a lot of money and we can probably squeeze a lot more than what they're offering now because it's a negotiation. So I don't know what's going to be the final decision, but in between today and whatever it is, we can still work and ask a lot more for the community. Because a lot of... The point that was brought is, of course, the fact that the school is an exempt program, so there would be less tax, and the budget of El Portal comes from the property taxes, so it's important that... We can get a replacement of the lack of funding that we'll get from this project if it goes all the way and compensate fully even more than what they would pay as a regular property tax contributory. So we'll see where we go. It's too early to say, but I would like the council in the decision to keep this in mind that it has to be fair to all the people of El Portal in the decisions and that the economic City Council Chambers, budget that we're dealing with is also very important to all of us because it's funded with our tax and and that has to be. City Council Chambers, compensated in a way, if we go this this way. City Council Chambers, Thank you, thank you very much.

Good evening. So since it came up so many times, the school topic, even though I don't think it was in the agenda tonight, one thing I wanted to address is we talked about property taxes, property values.

Sorry, just one more name and address for the record. Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm so sorry. Nick Schmidt, 255 Northeast 89th Street. So one concern that I have is we talked about the school, but not about the alternative. So the alternative that was proposed was a live local. So I'm very concerned about our property values if that alternative comes to play. And then also my understanding is that this development group is now the largest land owner, single land owner of El Pertal. So I would hope that we could, as a community, keep an open line of communication, because if we fall out of favors, I'm very worried about the downstream effects of a live local. What does that mean? There's talks about that can override local regulations. So does that also have a downstream effect in terms of expansion projects, et cetera, what they can plan? So that is a big concern to mine. And then also I think they have denied it, but there is some affiliation apparently with the other project, which is the little farm. so also that we keep good favors there because when we're talking about revenue i see much more potential for that project and so that's just what i wanted to put out there for your consideration and thank you very much thank you

velvet connelly 355 northeast 87th street um so i know it seems like we're talking about a lot of stuff that wasn't on the agenda so i'm just gonna bring up um a few other things i mean as i came a little late so i apologize if if you guys already had discussed some things that i wasn't aware of um obviously as far as a school i've expressed it a lot of times i'll just say it again that um i am very uncomfortable with the level of negotiation that has taken place up until this point as far as what I've heard are the items that we're asking for in the development agreement. I would like to see larger items secured for the village versus a long list of small things. That's just my opinion. That's what I would like to see for the village. I would like to see us come away with, like I said, a community center, something along the lines of of a major amenity developed in our community that's not just you know random funds that may or may not ultimately get paid may or may not be used according to the way the community wants to see it um and that i don't know that we have like a guarantee over the length of time the way that it's being discussed um i brought this up to you guys already so just saying it again um also uncomfortable with how this has been handled on the council I know this is a nonpartisan council. It's supposed to be. Everybody here, as far as I understand, is supposed to represent all of El Portal, not just people that we agree with or disagree with. And what I saw happening around this project is that if you didn't, like, it seemed like the council people who were for it would meet with the people who were for it, the people that were against it, meet with the people who was against it, but then we couldn't get any cross meetings, right? We couldn't meet, because I know I reached out to you, Erbam, about like your... stance on the school and you did tell me that you were opposed to it. But when I asked if you could explain to me and I'm not meaning to put you on the spot, I'm just saying I really was genuinely interested in just understanding what the other side, you know, just to be educated. And I just generally see that that. kind of is a stance that people take um I've had the same thing happen with Darian Martin on things that she didn't agree about that it was like well then we can't talk about it and I'm just not really sure where that fits in a community um I'm interested in hearing all sides of an issue. And I shouldn't have to be in agreement with somebody to be able to have a conversation with them, especially if they're a representative of me and my village. And so I was concerned about that. And I'm concerned that, I don't know what number meeting this is, that we only have three people at our council that are showing up to these meetings. And I'm also more concerned as a community, I don't know what the right channels are for accountability. I'm not sure if that lies with the council or with the village management staff, but I'm also concerned as a community that we haven't demanded more. We've come out, we've tried to hold the developers accountable, but every time there's something that we need to hold our own officials accountable for, I don't see the community band together and demand a higher level of representation and i think that that makes it hard for everyone to take our village seriously especially developers right when it's like our own council members don't take our village seriously um so i'm not sure what the proper channels are if people are elected and then they don't show up they should step down that's my opinion um But to create this continuous habitual just not showing up, nobody even says anything to us about it. There's not even an explanation given. I'm just not clear what's happening. Sorry? Oh, yeah. So I'm just I'm not clear what's happening. I don't know what the answer is, but I do just want to surface it as a resident that if I can take time out of my day to come to these meetings, the people that we elected should absolutely be here at the meetings. If they can't be here, there should be a reasonable explanation why they're not here. And if it continues to happen, they should step down. That's my school of thought about that. And I would just say just the last thing that I – Also, I'm just hearing from the community about our community being preserved. I'm gonna say it again. I've said it a lot of times. I come to all of these meetings. We always talk about spending money. I never hear any meetings being put on the agenda about how this village is gonna make money. And the only way that we can really preserve our village in the way that we can control things is if the village starts to own some of the sites. The church was for sale for a long time. Why didn't the village buy it? There are other sites that are available right now that if we want to make sure that people are not coming in and doing what they want, then we have to buy those sites. We have to own and control them. And so the village then has to have ways that they make revenue to be able to be in position when those kind of opportunities come up. And if we're not discussing those things, if we're not making a way for those things, we are not going to have control over how our community is shaped. Thank you.

How you doing? Scott Kobrick, 400 Northeast 85th Street. How's everybody doing? So I wanted to address specifically Live Local and just my experience that happened in over a year ago when we were doing the launch situation. And I was told at that time by the developers and several of our council members that complete inaccurate information that they could build as high as they want. That's what I was being told by everybody, by the developers, by our council, that they could build as high as they want. There was no restriction on it, et cetera. I understand there might have been some confusion or misunderstanding of it at the time. It's been a year since then. Obviously, I think that a lot of... One of our council members sent me an email afterwards explaining why they voted yes on it because of the live local threat, right? And so understandable that we're nervous about that as a community. But I think we sort of seem to unanimously want to protect ourselves against that threat and be able to control what happens in our community as much as possible instead of on a state level. And so it's now over a year later and it seems like now that we're having this huge potential development come here with, you know, the little farm and the school building, how do we still not have an understanding of what the live local threat actually is? And can we get a clear understanding who in our community is supposed to provide us this understanding? I would expect that maybe the law firm that our community hires can potentially get us some clarity on this. So we understand this is what live local means to El Portal. And this is what the threat is. And so when we have this, we don't all as a community have to be trying to pay our own attorneys, figure this out on our own and talk to chat GPT. We have council in this city, in this village. So hopefully we can please try to get some clarity on that and work together as a community. We have a wonderful new manager, and hopefully we can work together to get this figured out so that we know where we stand and can negotiate properly with the developers that are coming.

Thank you.

Alexandra Bassa, 120 Northwest, 36th Street. One way that we should be able to protect ourselves is through our code, through the charade that, from what I understand, it has not been updated. It's overdue to be updated for more than three years. So, yes, we need to hold accountable everyone who's responsible to make sure that we are prepared because, yes, development is coming. Development will happen. It's growth, and that's how life is. But we have to have a stronger... code that actually provides to give us answers, to establish what the parameters are. Many people are saying, oh, we don't want bars. Well, we're not going to have a bar here. That is, I mean, it's a fact. We can't have a bar if we don't have a sewer. And we cannot have a bar in front of a school now. is the way it is. So there's a lot of misinformation that just happens because we don't have the code and the frame that we need. So I'm asking Mr. Geller or whoever needs to move forward so we can put together a comprehensive plan to be prepared for all this development. Thank you.

Thomas Pulliam 205 Northeast 86th Street. I want to start off with a really positive note. Love the work that's been done at Sherwood Forest Park. If you guys have seen it, it has new sod, rocks. It's actually looking, even though it's winter, it's super cold tonight, looking more alive than I've seen it in four years. So whoever is responsible for that, thank you so much. I hope it continues to be upkept and whatnot. So thank you for that. Very excited to see that change. Now I have several comments regarding the SOFL proposal. A lot of them have been discussed already, but I'm pretty organized and quick here. So I want to start out just by saying I live within a few hundred feet of the proposed school. So I received a letter in the mail when this came to the first PNZ meeting, however many months that was. And I've been involved in every meeting, including both town halls that have taken place since then. to try and understand the intricacies of what is being proposed, what the impact might be, and frankly, where I stand on it. So, as we know, what's being asked for here is really significant, the developers requesting special exemptions to our code and zoning changes that encroach directly on residential single-family homes, some of whom are my immediate backyard neighbors. So that's not a small ask in terms of the impact in the area. I reached out to the school spokesperson, Lauren, with a written list of questions covering traffic design, community impact operations and projected enrollment at the last town hall on Thursday. She said that she would follow up with answers to that. She also admitted that she doesn't have all of the answers. because she is only representing the development, doesn't have insight on the actual operations of the school and all of these other items that would be super useful to know from an unproven school that's seeking El Portal as its launch bed and test ground. So transparency really matters here. So, Since the town hall, she has responded requesting an in-person meeting with me, which I thought was very odd. And I responded to her that I would prefer any answers to the questions provided in writing and available to the public. And I also copied... Our clerk, our attorney, all of our council members, our manager on those threads as well. So I'm optimistic that hopefully they'll come back and give us more details on this school that they really want to put here in our backyard. Next, since the Raider Church was bulldozed seemingly out of nowhere, a lot of WhatsApp groups have popped up and formed within the community. since the church started to be bulldozed. I'm active in them and was asked by a community member to circulate a community wish list of improvements that came out of the town halls. I want to be transparent with this council. I'd like to hand that list off. I think that should be done by the village manager or someone actually within the village government. And... they really should be taking ownership capturing and organizing those resident priorities and flag whether any of them are should be carried forward to developer agreements if it might be a more appropriate vehicle to address some of those wish list items of course we've also asked about the attorneys involvement in those negotiations who is actually negotiating on the villages behalf so again just from the the peon residents we have some thought starters Just that we've been gathering because we haven't seen any action or know where that's coming from within the village at this point. Also, what we have on that wish list is just a few of the most vocal residents. It doesn't capture 1% of the population here. So it's just a very small fraction of that. The bigger point though is that most of the items that are on that wish list aren't school specific sweeteners They're things the village should be planning and budgeting for regardless the school conversation has just brought them to the surface So if we actually could capture the voices of the voters the residents to build a strategic plan around that that would be really amazing for the village to take on and I'd like to see this village set a concrete target. So by 2036 or sooner, we should have a plan to fully resurface all streets, complete septic to sewer conversions, implement the stormwater infrastructure plan, underground our utilities, add more parks, all while maintaining healthy reserves. That's a 10-year vision. We should name it. We should own it. We should figure out if that's the right vision. We should have a strategic plan to actually get us there. And I would like to request the village council to ask the manager to take this on to build a strategic plan for 10 years and report back within a reasonable time that also considers the urgency of this matter. I'd also like to ask the council direct the village resources to validate that with planning and zoning staff. So the coordinate group, what size of live local development could be. Could be put in that location as was threatened by soulful at the Thursday town hall. So we need a village point of view on. What actually can go there? Is it four stories? Is it six stories? What are the setbacks? To Scott's point about the facade and what optionality we have there. Last thing I know this village holds the line on its code. No exceptions vary by the book I respect that and I expect that to apply here. That was the case when I came before the village asking for a variance For a wall that I constructed in that same spirit currently I also have a public records request pending with the PNZ staff. My question is straightforward How does an eight-foot wall at the school property line? comply with Z4 setback guidelines and with the general character of this neighborhood. Thank you.

Thank you.

Janelle Rodriguez 8825 and 8835 Northeast 2nd Avenue. I had no intention of talking, but... What's your name, Tom?

Yes.

Hi. He just struck a chord with me that was so heavy on my heart. Transparency. So, I own the business directly next to the church. It's called Janelle's Naked Face Med Spa. And the girl also reached out to me very oddly. Somehow she got my personal cell phone number. And I explained to her my... issues with the school and you guys might not share my same issue but transparency is what hit with me we all need to be transparent so my employees park right next to the med spa four of them on the swell I went through a lot to get my like my parking lot poured to have my four parking spaces the zoning and the codes are so strict here and I was never against them I removed every tree I did everything they asked me relocated the birds whatever they wanted and now. If you guys seriously want to have any downtown there or a business there, I, if my employees park there. On my 4 parking spaces, then I no longer have a business. And I walked down that street today and took a video. It was 2 and a half minutes. Just just just the last. time maybe i'm ever going to see the remaining part of the church and i used to park in that parking lot we all did but the point is the transparency because when lauren called me i told her my issue and she said maybe we can make two spots for you right there right you know in front of the oak tree and she sent me the pictures of how it is And I thought, wow, this would be great. And it would be great because then my employees could park there. But the point is that I need to be transparent. You know, if she's doing that for me and then I'm going to welcome the school. I don't know. Who am I helping? I'm so confused about all of this. And I don't know if it's true and it's valid. And I'm just when Tom said that, it just hit me hard. because whatever they're saying or whatever they're promising or I don't know. And so I would like that from my council members, just whoever, somebody help us to understand what is going on.

Anyone else for good and welfare? Okay, good and welfare going once. Good and welfare going twice. All right, so we're gonna close the public comment section. We're gonna go back to the agenda. So there were a few questions that were asked just now. One was about negotiations. I sent them my list that a lot of you guys have. They've never negotiated with me since I sent them that list. So I don't know if they've been in touch with the manager or not, I'm not sure. But they haven't negotiated with me. really on that list. So as far as I know, negotiations haven't began in that respect, is what I would say. As far as There was a comment about, a small comment about the woman's roof, Ms. Georgette. We not only passed to help her out with her roof, Councilperson Winters personally went and found the roof material for her. So I don't know what the holdup is with that. I don't know what's going on. And Councilperson Erbom actually paid for it himself. That all covered the cost that needed to be paid for this. I don't know what happened to that. There's a lot of things going on as far as

Just to be clear, administrative fees, I did not. I did not pay for the roof. I covered administrative fees out of my discretionary income.

You did a great thing, Councilperson Irvine. Councilperson Winters found the roof material for her for free.

Yeah, donated what I could.

Okay. There was a lot that brought up with the live local act. Just so you know, there's a there are there are experts being brought in about that. Okay, being spoken to and being brought in about that the live local act. There was also a question about do we have the representation that we need from our side? We do have Attorney Geller, but I will say that I've also been looking at land use experts and urban development experts that can fight for our side who are more senior expertise when it comes to that. And thank you for those of you guys out there who've been talking to me about that. I appreciate it. What other questions am I missing? I know there were a lot of comments that were said. I'm just trying to look for the questions to answer those questions.

I think the biggest one was about our disclosures of any topic of interest.

Well, I'll let you guys get to that. But there was also questions about what we know transparency. They've told us what they've told you guys. They haven't given me any extra information. So I haven't seen any site plans for that live local thing that they showed. Our planning and zoning department, I reached out to them. They haven't gotten any site plans for that live local thing. So that live local thing that they showed was just them showing that live local thing. they haven't submitted anything to our building department they haven't submitted anything to our planning zoning department they haven't shown me anything when it comes to that the local thing so i think that's something they're using to scare us but i don't even know if they have the plans for it so um so so that's what that is as far as what else is there um oh the demolition The way I felt about the demolition was I had a couple residents that were in here. They reached out to me and was like, Mayor, did you know they're demolishing the church? And if you guys, I don't know how many of you guys saw my statement about that, but that's the reason why I released that statement to the media and to the public was because they didn't give me a heads up. I don't know if they gave the clerk or the manager or the attorney a heads up, but they didn't give me a heads up at all. So they just started doing that. If I would have known, then I would have definitely told you guys. Not only that, I would have tried to at least, you know, stop it or slow it down to say, let's have a town hall to let the residents know. Maybe we can have, you know, if it was something that they felt was inevitable, I would have said, well, let's do something like Can we do like a walkthrough of the church? Can we like have a meeting on the church grounds? Because, you know, we're all used to seeing it for so many decades that can we at least say goodbye to the church before you guys do this? But I woke up, you know, that's what I would have said. But I woke up to, you know, a couple residents in here that contacted me and was like, Mayor, do you know that they're demolishing the church right now? And that's how I found out. So they didn't tell me anything. So it just goes to show, and I'll just say this, you know, I usually try to keep just things on a factual level, but in my opinion, I would just say, it just goes to show that they don't really care about our community or being good neighbors, you know, in that respect. Councilperson Irvine, Councilperson Winters.

So can you hear me? There we go. So the first thing I'd like to do is thank everyone for their wonderful, wonderful attitudes tonight. It's been a beautiful meeting. Everyone's been really kind to each other. It's been a great decorum. And I love to see this. I want to see this keep going at every meeting, be respectful of each other and everyone's opinions. I'm telling everyone this because there has been some divisions in our neighborhood recently. Neighbors ostracizing other neighbors, people kicked out of WhatsApp groups, people having issues. And instead of being able to talk through the issues, they just push them away. And we want to make sure that we treat everyone with respect. Whatever their opinion is, everyone's opinion matters. So I heard Tom mentioned the Mr. Pulliam mentioned the WhatsApp group that has grown very large, and you were asked to put together the wish list. Did you know that my wife started that group? So there's a lot of people inside the group now, and everyone's trying to be respectful of each other. And I think that's extremely important. And I've looked at your list. I've gone on the Google Drive, and I created a list to give you myself so you could put it on there and have my wish list as well, because it's not on public record. So I want to say something about... who is negotiating so everyone who comes here every time they talk at the council meetings or the planning zonings you guys have been negotiating now i've met with the soulful representatives a few times and when they meet with me this is what they tell me council person winners you're the only elected official that has answered my emails or answered my phone calls or made time to meet with me i said well I do that for everyone. If you guys don't know last week, I met with hundreds of residents. I went to multiple meetings at different houses to hear what everyone had to say. I think everyone has a voice here and we, as a council, have the responsibility to represent everyone in the village. So in the end, hopefully we'll all come up with whatever is best for El Portal, whether it's without Soulful or with Soulful. The main thing is that we need to be united here, and we need to be united together to make sure that we all enjoy the city and love what we have here. I did want to say that... There is no conflict of interest. I do not have anything to do with them. They do not buy from me. I do not work with them. I. I've only seen the few times that they came in and talk to me about the stuff, but it's only because I'm the only one answering phone calls. I would say. Ask all your representatives here to answer phone calls, answer emails. A lot of you can vouch for me when I say I try my best to get to the emails or phone calls whenever I can. And I really want to make sure your voice is heard. And regarding the demolition of the church, Warner, are you here? He's the one that called me and told me it was happening after you actually woke me up that morning and told me it was happening. I was not informed ahead of time, and I think it's a shame that it was done in the way it was done. So, yes? Yes? Yes? I drove out to the site personally, I'm with the chief of police personally and tried to find out if there was a way to stop it. meet to say that again. He comes to come to the mic or no.

yeah you're gonna have to bring to the mic I can't hear him.

recorded on the record, 486 Northeast 87th Street. I did reach out to both the mayor and to Councilperson Winters, right? The first day that I did see the demolition, I did request both of you to please reach out to the developer, and just on a voluntary basis, have the developer stop the demolition until we had the two meetings with the community. And that was my request to you, Councilperson Winters. You did respond with all the pictures of the permits, but my request was never answered.

Did we reach out to the developer and request hey guys at the site when I was looking at the permit and Mr. Geller can attest. I also called him to find out if there's any way to delay it as well. We have to do everything within legal bounds and I cannot force them to stop something because then we're liable for lawsuits.

Correct. That's why I said it's a voluntary request. That would not be a legal binding. So it was very clear a voluntary request. So and that was never come back to me and said from your behalf. Hey, Werner, I reached out to Attorney Geller from my perspective. There's nothing we can do.

To be fair, you did wake me up in the morning and I answered it half asleep. So I don't remember that part of it, but I did ask him to stop.

But just to be fair with the audience here, it was 11 o'clock in the morning.

My business is open from 11 to 8. I go to bed at 3 o'clock in the morning. Yeah, you did say that. That's my morning. I was just waking up or you woke me up. So I'm not trying to avoid anything, and I'm trying to do my best here, but I can't remember everything you told me on the phone that morning. I need a copy. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Thank you. I appreciate it. Councilperson Winters, continue. If you have engagement with the residents, you've got to answer the questions there or respond to what they've asked.

So, um, a lot of the residents in here I have spoken with, and if you've not spoken with me. Please email please phone call. Um, there's a few emails I didn't get to on Friday and Saturday, but I'm trying to get to everyone's emails because I really have. Dozens and dozens and dozens of them and I know a lot of you have copied. The manager and the clerk, and it's, I'm trying my best to give everyone full amount of credit and not just writing it off in a short response. Anyways, I think the main thing is I'm very thankful that everyone is so respectful today, and I want to see it continue going forward. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Yes, so. So a few months ago I met with lauren, who is the project manager, or at least was at the time I had two meetings with her, and then the gentleman jeffries came into the picture. I had one meeting with him. I met with Lauren and a couple of residents who were in favor of the project. I've talked to other residents who are not in favor of the project. I am on the record for three meetings straight, I believe, essentially voting no on the project overall. And I'll just succinctly tell you the top three reasons why I am at that position. The first is simply the request for exemption for use of the property as a school. So that all by itself essentially goes against the charrette that was laid out ten years ago, which, although it is outdated, that is something that was added in something as a long term plan. I come from the bar business restaurants twenty five years um so i'm well aware of what is involved in this discussion of you either get a school or a bar. That's not actually what I see for second avenue to be perfectly honest. The lady who got up and spoke the owner of the spa. That's actually what I see is the future of businesses on on the corridor. is a high-end service-oriented businesses. So I worked in restaurants for a long time and now I work in retail sales business to business. And retail is forever changed, forever changed, forever changed, forever changed. So I survived a second round of layoffs recently. I will be rewarded with extra work, which will actually feel good after the past 14 months of feeling like... last March, my wife was asking me if I still had a job. Because of the lack of need for me to physically go see my clients. Because in retail, the business has been non existent since the beginning of January last year. And so so as I look at what's going to be here in the future, on Second Avenue, One thing that is unavoidable is new money coming into the area. I mean, there's already over, I mean, conservative estimate, a trillion dollars held by developers just waiting for the collapse of the economy so they can buy materials cheaper, businesses cheaper, industries cheaper, land cheaper. All right, so that's coming. So new money coming in and significant development. significant development. I've been saying this for three years. The council needs to be prepared to say no to people who've never heard the word no before. And so, um, So my first concern is simply the request of an exemption that all by itself has me to know because it goes against what we're trying to accomplish on Second Avenue, and we can accomplish a thriving business district district with tax receipts. through what is already essentially being demanded in the now. And as as these things shift high end service oriented businesses like a spa, like a salon, like I see a jewelry store, high end fashion is already showing up. These types of businesses are really what's going to be here as this entire region that we're in the high ground. OK. So that's the area west of the FBC berm. OK, that's 12 foot of protection right there all the way to the hard barrier of 95. So that includes a lot of unincorporated aid. And there's going to be competition for those properties between Miami Shores and ourselves and the city of Miami in the very near future. Now that rents are squeezing out some of the lowest income people. Which are frequently associated with some of the higher crime rates that is a subject for a different day so that's my number one reason for being at a know on this number two is the parking lots. I have significant problems with that as a unimaginative, uncreative solution. I just cannot get around the lack of imagination in turning those two properties across the street into parking lots. It's indicative of A lack of examination of what the village actually needs as a developer coming in with one of the largest and most iconic lots of land that we have. And then, for me, the third there are more, but for me the top three these are things I cannot get past and excuse me, the third is actually. Well, it's a combination of things. But for me, it is the wall. So this is how I put it to both representatives from the developer. I said, I'm sure it's going to be beautiful. I've seen the renderings in the plan. The school itself is going to be a iconic kind of property. It's going to be absolutely beautiful. But no residents ever going to see it. Because it's going to be behind a wall. So we discussed the wall. Don't worry, the wall is going to look aesthetic. We're going to put greenery. It's the wall is going to look beautiful, right? But the experience for the residents with a property that's walled off to that degree is going to be that that property disappears. It's going to be out of sight out of mind. And so an iconic cornerstone property that should be. I like the resident said, I mean, I wasn't on the council, but we had the village had an opportunity to get that property for $800,000 like 1112 years ago, 10 years ago. It's been time keeps ticking fast. I'm not sure exactly when that was, but it did go up for sale for $800,000 about a decade ago. And so And so to have that property never be visited by residents again is is a hard is a hard pill to swallow. And so those are my top three reasons for not being able to get to a yes on this project. And then overarching in all of this is that there really is nothing beyond verbiage offered to us from the developer yet. So there really isn't a lot of things to discuss yet because we really haven't been presented with something that is sincerely in writing yet. I would like to see the village in the future have a coordinated team made up of the attorney, the manager, and the mayor who are in a position to receive a development team as they come into our village and begin negotiating for what they want. I would like to see us have that team in place and ready to sit down and advocate for the future of El Portal according to the charrette that is designed with resident input.

Mayor Mrakas, Right, so I just want to clarify one thing Adam old told us a few weeks a few months ago about the code does not allow a parking lot to stand alone, I did share that with them again. Mayor Mrakas, And they did pull out they're not going to put the parking lots where those two buildings are so we actually have a solution for that. Mayor Mrakas, That doesn't mean there's a solution parking but there's a solution for not having those buildings torn down to make parking lots Thank you Adam.

Mayor Mrakas, very much. Moving on, consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve consent agenda?

Motion to approve.

Second. Councilperson Erbom, seconded by Councilperson Winters. Madam Clerk, please do a roll call on consent agenda.

Roll call. Councilperson Winters.

Yes.

Councilperson Erbom. Yes. Mayor Nickerson. Yes. Motion passes three to none.

Thank you very much. Okay, so for the agenda item, this was brought up, a few individuals brought this up. So I'll just go through this, and then I'll kind of punt it over to Councilperson Winters. So... The reason why we have this agenda item on here, the five-year road plan, proposed one-way street components, Northeast Second Avenue road diet, this is not because we're looking to implement this. This is something that Manager Liu, it was a conceptual plan. It was never funded. It was never submitted to the county. It was never, usually plans have to go from design to engineering to construction. It never even went to the design phase. And so, and I'm not saying this is Councilperson Winters, but I'm just kind of giving you guys a background. So what happened was that Councilperson Winters last month said, I don't like this plan, I want to rescind this plan, kind of like trash it basically. So I said okay, I said well, I'll contact the Serbia, I'll get the actual plan, I'll put it on the agenda for you Councilperson Winters next month, I'll put the plan out to the public when we put out the agenda, I'll have the clerk put it out. So that's what we did, so we're here, Because Councilperson Winters really wants to get rid of the plan. That's why it's on the agenda. I would just say this. So I understand what Councilperson Winters is saying, I guess, from his point of view, he doesn't like the plan. I think that, this is what I think. I think that we should, because it's there. And like I said, it's a conceptual plan, you guys. So I think there's no harm, no foul to just keep it in our files. And that way, if we ever want to even look at doing any streets one way or something, we have like something to even look at, even if there's two or three ideas we can get from it, it's already done. And so I think it doesn't hurt us to just keep it in our files. You know, we've never submitted it to the county. We've never done anything with it. I didn't see any submission to the county. We've submitted to the county, Mr. Manager? When I reached out to the county, they don't have it. So what I'm saying is that plan doesn't bind us in any way. That's just my opinion, but I'll open it up for Councilperson Winters so he can say his piece.

All right, so i'm gonna have to find the information I have it for you, though. All right. So for those of you who don't know this plan was voted for in October of 2,024, and this conceptual plan shows that you're going to be taking most of the streets here into one-way streets. There'll be a few two ways. It also shows the road diet, which was in the manager report for the last year and a half. It was, according to one of the manager report was submitted to the city. There is an issue with this plan, and for those of you who care about traffic and speeders, this. This is about you. We have eighty-five, eighty-six, eighty-eight, ninety going from West to East. 87th Street is going back and forth. This means when people want to drive to their houses on this east side, they have to drive down 87th Avenue going to 4th Avenue Road. Once they go to 4th Avenue Road, they got to take a left or right to go down to the streets and come backwards towards their homes. Now, what does this mean? Well, you have now the entire streets of this entire side of the neighborhoods driving down 87th Street towards a train track that gets 55 trains a day. These 55 trains a day are stopping people going across that train track. So right now you have a little line going out here. Imagine every single person who lives here wants to go to their house, get stopped at the train track. Now imagine that train track stops people, but there's a big building over here and people are going over there. Now it's even longer. Now, this conceptual plan also has two lanes on 2nd Avenue. This means when people are turning onto 87th, if 87 is backed up, now these two lanes means everyone on 2nd Avenue is going to get stopped because they're waiting to turn right or left onto 87th Street. This is going to be a huge mess. Now, if we want to have any kind of cafe or little shops down on 2nd Avenue, You need to be able to have deliveries. Now, what happens if you have two lanes, one going north, one going south, and the Cisco truck shows up and stops right in the middle of the road and starts unloading? Now, everyone has to drive around that truck into oncoming traffic to go around it. Now, imagine the kids crossing the street. Imagine people. Imagine the amount of wrecks will happen. Now, going from four lanes to two lanes is a disaster. And I know from experience. If you guys don't know, I have a little property by the Citadel. It's over on 82nd Street. When it changes from two to four lanes, people cross through 82nd Terrace. And when they cross through it, they go as fast as they can so they can avoid those two to four lane change. I've had four cars drive into the property, two into the house in one and a half years. This is because of a narrowing from four to two. So not only are we looking at dangerous possibilities that could happen in El Portal, but we're also talking about more traffic, people getting frustrated, driving every way they can to get around it. And of course, the 55 trains a day do not help us. And who knows, Brightline might get more popular, and there might end up being more trains. We don't know, but right now, the purpose of us reviewing this is not to just get rid of it but we need to find an alternative because i think we all want to keep el pertal safe and beautiful and i do not believe that this plan is the way that's going to be safe and beautiful for us

I'm gonna let you jump in. But I guess, while I let you jump in, then we'll come to you. I guess my point is, though, is that I understand your passion, I understand what you're saying. Even if the plan is not good, we're not binded to it, you guys. It's a conceptual plan, it's not funded, it's not at the design phase, not at the engineering phase, not at the construction phase. So even if we just throw it in the Albert Tau files, it's like, we can never look at it again if we don't want to. If we wanna come up and do like one way streets or something one time, or a road diet on Northeast 2nd or something like that, if you guys want to, we can start another design plan. You know what I mean? So it doesn't hurt us to at least have it to even if we want to reference it yeah we paid for it also but it doesn't hurt to at least have it even if we want to reference it in the future i just think it doesn't hurt us just to have it i don't think we have to officially trash it that's the only that's that's just where i stand but um i'll come to council person erbom and then we'll go to the audience i'll open it up and we'll come back to you

yeah without being redundant just a little background on what this plan is so it's called the resilience streets plan, so the purpose of this is to essentially. Use data and planning to establish what the. Most highest ideal outcome of what the future of the neighborhood looks like as like if we're going to tear up the streets and do septic to sewer tear up the streets and finish the stormwater mitigation plan. So the idea is that when those streets get torn up and replaced, we have a plan in place of how to, without redoing the streets later at that time, put in what we want, how we want, right? You know it's not a perfect world, so you know it's all budget limited right and right now our budget is zero. But, just like the stormwater mitigation, we have the plans we have the engineering done we don't have a budget, just like the septic to sewer we have the plans we have the engineering done we don't have the budget right similar with the resilience streets, we have the plan. We don't have the budget, so I just want to establish what the resilience streets plan is and so it's essentially conceptual just as the mayor's outlining it's. it's not anything hardened that we're locked into or saying we're doing this that or the other so firstly the purpose behind re-shuffling of streets to be one way or not the primary goal of that is to confuse outsider traffic to to dissuade them from using our neighborhood streets as cut-throughs to confuse them and make it difficult and unwelcome right and so the idea the final outcome of this would be that it would also be an ideal you know uh that we would eliminate the concerns of you know having to for emergency vehicles wells residents everybody involved uh under no circumstance would we want to trap or leave only one uh alternative for any homeowners within the village so that already would be a non-starter and we would have to find another path because that would be you know a non-negotiable uh Unwelcome outcome right so so the way you see it on the map in terms of which ones are one way and that that is all completely in 100% gray area up for discussion and yet to be determined, so the concept simply is let's try and make it so it's unfriendly to pass through traffic and navigable for local traffic. Now the swales, another benefit essentially of making some streets one way is that you reduce the asphalt coverage. So by eliminating some footage of asphalt coverage, you allow for more green space, swales to be even further extended. And the concept would be that sidewalks would be accomplished through hard pack, which would be ADA compliant. but yet permeable and able to assist with flood mitigation, water retention for trees and things of this effect. So the swale concept is called bioswales. The idea is that you work with the terrain, you work with native vegetation to accomplish flood mitigation, stormwater mitigation, right, as well as beautifying, as well as storm resistant, as well as accommodating pedestrian traffic, right, both wheeled. And on foot. And then finally within all of that is essentially just an overarching reminder of beautification, native beauty. So native plants, you know, pollinating plants, things like this. So so low maintenance. Right. So you don't have to employ public works to be constantly maintaining these. So in the concept, I'm sure you guys have heard here in Miami-Dade County of blue ways and green ways. This is essentially a greenway concept to be implemented within the village of El Portal. It is. ambitious. It is high minded. It is expensive. Uh but it is uh it is essentially an outline right now is we have a it's a very good outline. But just as the mayor saying this is not a This is in wet clay and not yet fired to stone, I will say. So we can smudge it back over and remake it how we want it before we get to the point of implementing anything like this. So those are the goals of the resilient street plan. And then what it looks like, final product, how we get there, how we fund it. Now we have the devil in the details.

I'm going to open it up to the public. Sorry about that before you speak.

Adam Old, 140 Northeast 86th Street. So back in 2012, Claudia Hessels, who lived in Sherwood Forest, was walking her baby with a baby carriage and almost got hit by a speeding car and went on a mission to slow down the traffic In Sherwood Forest, her idea was that we should block off a couple of the entrances to Sherwood Forest and leave a very limited number. That didn't happen ever, but she got petitions. She talked to a state senator. I was just looking through the emails tonight. And ultimately, what came out of that was she convinced me to run for office. And what came out of that was the Charette process, which Very clearly, the village, hundreds of residents, like way more people than you've seen in this whole ordeal that we've been going through here, came out, sat for a week with the county's planners and the city's planners, and we decided, like, what do we want? Well, like, what do we want on Northeast 2nd? And what we didn't want is what we have now, right? We didn't want a high-speed, multi-lane, throughway for county arterial drivers. What we wanted was a lot closer to what they have in Miami Shores. And Miami Shores didn't used to have that either. Miami Shores used to have what El Portal has now, which is four lanes of traffic, high speed roadway. People couldn't cross. Businesses were crummy and didn't exist there. They had a hard time. They had one brave council person that said, look, let's try it differently. Let's get the Chamber of Commerce involved. Let's get the businesses involved. Let's put parking on the street so people can park. Let's narrow the street. Let's make it so kids can walk from the Brockway Library to Pura Vida. Right, so I know that my my kids do that after school when they went used to go to the library when they were in fourth grade right and I felt comfortable letting them do that I wouldn't let them do that down here in El portal. So. that's that's what the community wants and that's what's enshrined in our zoning code and it's what's enshrined in our charrette and it's what's been worked on for the past decade by plus serbia in this um in this plant now i like i there's always like people are afraid they're like oh my god we're gonna have to do so much more we're gonna drive so far and we're gonna wait so long Like, I figured out, like, if you lowered the speed limit in this village to 15 miles an hour, the amount of time you'd have to spend if you drove all the way from the west side all the way to Little Farm, it's like 30 extra seconds of your day, right? So, like, forget the fear and uncertainty. It's not happening. Miami Shores has the same train issues. Nobody cares. There's no backups. It's totally fine. Drivers will deal with it. We all drive. We all deal with it. The thing that people get mad about, and sorry to throw it going over, but the thing that people hate is when you're going from a fast street to a slow street, like what happens right here. If our streets are all slow, it's all good. People drive slow. People are happy. I'm not mad when I'm coming through Miami Shores. I'm like, hey, this is cool. There's businesses. People are out. People are standing on the corner and talking to their neighbors. It's great. So all of this like fear and uncertainty, don't listen to it. Every single bike lane that gets put in in New York City is going to like cause the property values to fall and chaos and all this never happens. People always love it when it's there. people love sherwood forest the little streets that are narrower than the county would allow if we were doing them today right like if we redid your street we'd have to redo it 20 feet wide because there's two lanes nobody wants that we want like quiet small closed you know cool streets anyway thank you

Lynette Purcell, 451 Northeast 88th Street. I almost forgot what I was thinking about. But anyway, I'm piggybacking on the mayor. I feel the same way because if you've been here 40 years ago, El Forte was like a little small place of family. That's what it was based upon. Everybody knew each other. We had things going on. We did senior citizens meetings. Like we had little parties inside, you know, entertaining and all that stuff. It was great because everybody knew each other. Everybody was friendly and everything. I feel the same way that when it comes to traffic, everybody dodges 79th Street and they found a pathway through here. And I feel that if we do have one-way streets, it would make a big difference because it would... defer other people to go different ways. They would want to come rushing through here because they're trying to get where they're going at the last minute. This is a family residential area, and you do have children that walk to school. You have parents that are pushing their children in strollers, and with all that fast traffic, it's bad for me because it's taking a resident and turning it into a corporation with all these different cars and trucks, the big cement trucks, all that's coming through here and tearing up Our streets, and you see it all the time, even the buses come flying through the residential streets. Not just 87th, 88th, 89th. They're flying through there. They don't even care. And they're bus drivers, and they should know better. So I feel, too, that if we turn it into some of these streets at least one way, it would defer them to go somewhere else instead of go back down to 79th Street. Nobody's afraid of this place, you know, of it being... Catching up with the new, you know what I'm saying, evolving. Nobody's afraid of being evolved, but let's evolve into a resident like we had before.

Thank you.

Scott Kobrick, 400 Northeast 85th Street. So I just wanted to, I guess, understand. So basically, it is on the agenda tonight to either, like, trash it and not use it, ever be able to refer to it again?

No, no. Okay. Basically, we can alter it. We can see what works best for us because we know what's better for our city than Serbia does.

Okay. Got it. So, okay. So on that note, I just wanted to, like, obviously... No, I'm okay with that. To your point about the, about the, the trucks pulling over you know I think that's great but I'm just curious because I'm looking at the, the plan here so like there is basically a median right so there's obviously the different elements that I think we have to all figure out like whether it's through sure process or whatever what's the most important. There's a median with green infrastructure. There's the two lanes. It looks like there's parking lanes, right? So would, in those parking lanes, potentially areas that have loading zones for trucks would be able to maybe be cross-utilized with the parking lanes. Of course, a bike lane, I think, is extremely important. I have a bike. I try to ride up to Miami Shores because that's where some of the shops are and whatnot. And it's really not a safe drive. There's a tiny little sidewalk and you have to drive on the street. And yeah, I mean, there's in here, if we are indeed moving toward what we're talking about in the Charette, in this plan, with cafes and restaurants and boutiques and stuff, things like wide sidewalks that are incorporated here are extremely important as well. So, you know, I think that, like, we have to figure out exactly what what's important to the whole village, and then move forward with that. But I also wanted to mention how, you know, from the school perspective, how does this, how does the potential school impact? You know impact us being able to execute on a similar vision to this to this even if it changes a little bit How does it impact that? And what's in the charade as well, so that's that's all thank you very much.

Thank you timbosity 149 northeast 89th street so i i would be in favor of keeping this as a working document that is clearly caveated on on record um that needs a lot more information and a lot more revision but i do think there's some great things to work off of um especially with the green spaces storm water management swales all that but i think There's always, there's so much that's coming down the pipe, as I said before, in terms of new people living here, new people commuting in here, and the flow of traffic is really important and needs to take that into account. Because I think since this has been done More and more people rely on Google Maps and on ways to avoid traffic. And so depending on where the one ways are put in, depending on where all the new sources of traffic are, it could actually create a hugely negative impact on some of these streets. where you're going to run into the same or maybe even worse safety issues, but definitely much worse issues in terms of flow of traffic, number of cars, and noise coming down those streets. Like if, for example, we had the only one way to get from North Miami Ave to Second Ave and the school goes in, then everyone coming off of 95 is going to rip through 89th Street. Same getting back out, going back out onto the highway out of school. If there's 2000 units that do come into Little Farm, 87th is going to become completely impassable. That corridor of Biscayne is going to be completely impassable. We know, unfortunately, we're probably not going to get any sort of public transportation stop with the light rail up there. And so then where are people looking to cut through? Where are they going to punch in Waze, Google Maps, and say, okay, take me around the traffic. Where does then that traffic go? And I think that just all needs to be looked at holistically based on all the development coming down the pipeline here. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening. I'm Ian McKenzie, 8950 Northeast 4th Avenue. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and council members, audience. I'd like to first point out several things regarding the corridors here. 40 years ago, Miami was a small city. It's grown substantially since then. Downtown, the condos, all the buildings, everything. One thing no one's talking about is hurricanes, emergency evacuation, and radioactivity meltdown from Turkey Point, which is always a possibility, and an aging nuclear plant, which is supposed to be decommissioned sometime in the future, but we don't know yet. But there are these problems. The FDOT has designated I-95, Northwest 7th Avenue, Northeast 2nd Avenue, North Miami Avenue and US 1 as hurricane evacuation routes from downtown. If I-85 becomes incapacitated for some reason or wreck or something like that during the evacuation process, everybody has to take these other areas. The more we shrink these corridors, the worse it's going to be for everybody in an emergency. You may be on foot. I just want everybody to realize that and put that in the back of your mind before you, you know, or just to sort of marinate that thought process. It's really important that we do that. I know that there's some areas that have reduced their size. Some of them have left parking on the side, so it could be expanded technically with a police order saying no parking along and then you have two more lanes, you know, access. both ways. So just, I think, you know, if there's something that's in a file or folder like that, you can always file it away. But if you need to do a motion or something like that, to not act on it for a period of time, you can always reinvent it and re examine it, the probably time will pass, and you'll have to re examine it again, anyhow. So that's just my suggestion. My two cents was, thank you.

Thank you.

Alexandra Baza, 129 North 36th Street. I just wanted to, A, support the ideas of, you know, alternative ways to reduce it without being like a physical barrier. Like the bicycle, I think it's a great idea. You know, parking on both sides, a great idea. And, you know, but keep it flexible. And the second question, the second thing is, I wanted to ask about the documents from Serbia. I believe that you were working on getting them um you know so i just wanted to ask them i'll let you know okay thank you

I'm about to knock my head off. Denise White, 173 Northwest 88th Street. I'm sitting in the back and I'm listening to us decide whether we're going to have the street or not the street or whatever. And then I'm like, don't we have to figure out whether we got a school or not a school or little farm or not a little farm? Because the man is right when little farm comes in. some streets gotta be opened up because that's a lot of people. What, 2,000 people? That's 2,000 people? So how do we decide on what's gonna happen to a street before we don't even know think really we need to have our own town hall meet and sit down and decide what it is collectively we want because if Little Farm is here with 2,400 people now I'm all for keeping the streets all cute and nice I love Sherwood Forest and how you got to drive through and stop some time and move over you know and 88th street is really really really really quaint and stuff I do understand evolution we've been talking about it the whole time right But how do we decide on what we're going to do with a street or two or what have you when we don't even know what's going to happen yet? That's really confusing. That's number one. I think we got to put that on pause. Number two, I spoke to Lauren too. Since we confessed and I spoke to Lauren too, dang it. I spoke to Lauren three times. She was really sweet. Nice lady. You know, person, just a person. She's a nice lady. I spoke to her three times. But there were people who had access to them long before we had access to them. People that had access to them long before we had access to them. They speak of being guided not to speak to us before, before. She says stuff like that. Well, somebody, somebody told us that we shouldn't speak to you guys right now. They told us to wait. Somebody. Somebody. But yet everybody right now says that. No, I talked to her, but I didn't say nothing. I talked to her. I didn't say nothing. I talked to her. I didn't say nothing. Okay, so then why are we so mad? I just don't know why we're so mad. Y'all, if our council is all on our side, why are we scared? And why were we yelling at that lady? She's not going to build nothing. Our council just told us they're not even with them people. They don't even.

They said they don't know them people.

That's what they said. Even though we know somebody was talking to those people way before they was talking to us. We didn't meet Lauren until the other day. And then two months later, our church got a hole in it. Who was talking to Lauren? Who was advising Lauren? What the, who the, who, oh, there go the buzzer. Anyway, this is just questions I have to ask. And I don't understand how we're going to decide on any streets when we ain't even decided on who going to live here.

Hi, Ian McKenzie again, 8950 Northeast 4th Avenue. I just forgot to point out, too, to address the issue about speeding and so forth. That's a revenue source for the village, and I know every morning I see policemen out there catching speeders on Northeast 2nd Avenue, and they're doing a good job, and so I'm glad I'm not getting a ticket because I'm crossing the other way, but going down, you know, they are catching people. That's a revenue source for us. If you know Biscayne Park, You don't dare speed through there. You go one thing. And I know that because I know this area for over 40 years. And you don't speed in Biscayne Park. Well, then we can enforce it more. You know, people do.

You have a question? Sure.

No. I don't think it goes the only thing. It's like ultimately... It only goes to blue sport? Oh, too bad. Well, that offsets money that we have to pay for the overall budget. You know, if the revenue comes up short there, we have to support them. I hate to tell you that with our taxes. So it all goes into one pot in the end when you have to balance the budget. So it does help us, actually, indirectly. Thank you. Bye. Thank you.

Just thought I'd come back again. Every ticket the village used to write, we used to lose money on because a certain number of those are challenged in court and we have to pay overtime for the police to go down there. So overall, writing tickets is not a revenue generator for the city. And also, even if it were, why are you going to put my kids' lives on the line so people can speed through on a fast street and you can write a ticket for them in one out of ten cases? That's bullshit. That's not acceptable. We cannot do it like that. We need a street that is safe for children to cross. Period. That's it. Evacuation, you're talking about Turkey Point. You think people are gonna come up through Little Haiti, and when they get to El Portal, the three blocks here is gonna make it or break it on whether we're living or dying from radiation poisoning? Ian, come on, man. I'm sorry, but I had to say something.

Thank you.

Velvet Connelly, 355 Northeast 87th Street. I agree that I think this should be tabled until after there is a clear understanding of what is going to happen with the school. It seems like making decisions about the streets before we understand what traffic will come into the community, either through the school or the little farm development, which both of those have the ability to be transformative to what happens in our village on a daily basis especially as with the school in particular two times a day right so it seems to me like it might be a little premature um it seemed to me like it might be a little premature to make that decision about the streets, because depending on what happens with the school and with Little Farm, you might decide that you want to see something else happen to try to mitigate the traffic that comes from those developments. So I would definitely agree with Denise's sentiment on that. I would also just like to second what the gentleman said before, Ian, about, you know, I think there's a lot of misunderstanding around what actually generates revenue in our village and what costs us money. And so I think there's just more education that we need as the public to really understand how our city runs, how our government works, so we can be more civically engaged. in that process, because I was actually very surprised to learn that tickets are not a revenue generating source in the village, and I learned that recently. And to the same point, like you said earlier, I'm sorry, I don't know your names there, but about the swales, That's something I think we have to really consider right now. The swales is a problem when we say you can't park on the swale because we don't have parking for even our guests in our homes. Right. And so there's a lot there's a lack of parking available in our village, period. That's why a lot of people park on the swales. And then if we're talking about bringing, you know, 2000 more people into the village and then traffic up and down the street from the school. You know, that is something for us to consider is how much that we can restrict those things. And I'm not saying that not to do it. I'm just saying, like, I think we have to decide what's happening with those projects and then know what we can do in our village to be realistic about what type of traffic might be coming through our village every day.

Thank you.

Daniel Rojas, 16 Northeast, 86th Street. I'm very appreciative of Councilperson Anders Erbom for explaining to us what really this study is. very appreciative of the study itself. I've been living here since 2012. I used to only, I used to have my dog and we would walk all over the city, all over the village, Miami shores, and we would have to cross these streets. And we never felt, I never felt safe walking across northeast second now i have an eight-year-old and through her eight years of life crossing northeast second has been a a life harrowing event for her and her bicycle when i had to cross with a stroller it never felt safe i don't think we Can this count the effort and the resources that were input into this study? But as it was explained by our Council Pampers, this is supposed to be aspirational and guide us, and it can be amended and can be changed depending on what the village needs. I think that it's wise to have a plan for resiliency with respect to drainage and these the sidewalks the blue and green swales all this stuff we need because even if if we are planning for a increase in traffic we are putting ourselves in danger when we try to walk around these streets when we don't have these things so at some point we do have to have a plan because if we wait until later it's going to be really late to do anything So I think it's really good that this plan is done. I really appreciate it. I agree with a lot of it. I think that we cannot have a thriving downtown with the Northeast Second the way it is because people just fly through here. Nobody's going to stop by if they're flying through our town. Nobody's going to stop and use our businesses if they're flying straight through. There's a reason why Miami Shores did what they did. There's a reason why the Citadel is actually doing really well with also narrow streets. There's two bottlenecks right before and after us either way. I do not think that actually slowing down our traffic in the portal will really affect how traffic works there. i'm i'm highly affected by whenever there's traffic on north miami and northeast second they live between those two whenever there's traffic on on 80 because of 82nd or on either street people start crossing through our streets and it seems like even though we ask for enforcement it's never enough and people don't behave you want them because you punish them or because you give them tickets they be you you have to guide behavior Like, through nudging. Like, you have to nudge people to behave the way you want them to, because they don't respond to threats. They don't respond to punishment. They actually, it's a lot easier to do the nudges, like this study kind of alludes to. And I just want to support it. I'm very grateful for it. And again, I understand it's not a decision on what we're going to do with the streets. It's aspirational. Thank you.

Ian McKenzie, 8950 Northeast 4th Avenue.

I'd like to say that there's also the possibility of putting in traffic lights. can reduce the speed limit you can put do a new study for fdot so they can determine whether the traffic is substantial enough they can look at the safety issues their traffic calming issues and so forth look we just put in a traffic circle to calm the students our traffic around the schools and so forth so um there are different methods of looking at it too including uh programs that they go into the schools where they educate the students The University of Miami, like I said once before, has a WalkSafe program, which they do teach people, and they do analyze data on traffics. I used to work at Rider Trauma Center, so I do know we do have studies that we've done, shows the incidence of where people are getting hit, where pedestrians are being hit, and so forth. So they do look at that stuff. So, you know, those are all tools that are available. So I suggest the council, you know, you can always, you know, further update the plan, too. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Hi, Ashley Lucio, 127 Northeast 90th Street. I am asking that you keep the study. I think it's, like I said before, really, really great. And we're obviously not in a place financially as a community to be throwing away studies that we've done. I mean, and reinventing the wheel each time, right? We need to rely on the studies that we've already conducted and use those as as part of our framework i mean yeah they might need to evolve a bit but i think that it's worth so much more to build from something that exists than to just throw it away and have to come up with something later i did say earlier that this plan is a bit premature right but i think knowing that what's coming here potentially we do need to kind of urgently do some things to to calm our traffic and to reduce noise all of that right so you know i think we need to consider things like crosswalks on northeast second avenue there's none between 87th and 95th right or 94th um crosswalks things like can we do a roundabout at 87th and second I would love it. I think it would be great. No stoplights. Just send them in a circle. It's how we do it in Europe. You just send them in a circle and they'll figure it out. Right. Well, hopefully not $750,000 worth of roundabout. But the other thing is, is we need to really consider the impact of the closures of the streets of Miami shores and how it's impacted us, you know, not just on our infrastructure, but drainage, all of that stuff, blocking us in creating new routes for people to cut through from 95, etc. Right. So is that potentially something that we could look at is coordinating with the shores to open their streets up again? Maybe it's even I don't know, a lawsuit. I don't know. I don't know. Just saying. Yeah, so there's that. And also, oh gosh, I lost my train of thought. Yeah, I can't remember what I was going to say. There was another big point I wanted to make, but I totally blinked. But yeah.

Just come on back up.

Okay, thank you.

Alexandra Baza, 120 Northwest 36th Street. I just wanted to reiterate a little bit on the parking idea. I think if we see the overalls, how people want to use their streets, how we want to use Northeast 2nd, we want to promote businesses, so parking on both sides would be great. for the future of new businesses coming. I also like, you know, if we want to avoid people to have to park on the swales and forced to remove trees, so that would be a great idea. I was trying to, you know, film the other day the demolition of the school. I was trying to pull aside, didn't find a place to park, so I got in the... getting a parking parking ticket by police just for slowing down back to the school. So thank you.

Thank you.

I remember on one nine nine northwest at the 7th Street. Well, in terms of the two-way streets or one-way streets, I think that is going to be discussed further in another date because I'm sure that we're not going to decide anything now. I think that in the corridors of the avenues, northeast is a good idea to reduce the lanes and put parking there. I agree with that. But what really concerns me is to increase the parking space in the streets in El Portal. Because we have to remember that this is public parking. So anybody can come to your place and park just in front of your house. And I really think that in terms of character of the city, it will change a lot. Now you go through your streets and you can see greenery. You see plants and trees or whatever. And what we are talking here is that you're going to see a line of cars parked on one side or both sides of the street if we talk greenery. Or different streets another thing that regarding the one way or two ways and all the streets is that we have to think about the balance of the traffic in the city. So I understand that it would be nice and it would be beautiful to have some kind of residential area that nobody can cross with their car, but it means that all this traffic is going to go. to another street, in this case, for example, 87th. And some residents live in 87th. So we don't want to have all this traffic that you are taking out of other streets in our street. So we have to think about this balance of all the different streets. I definitely, about the parking, what I would say is that we don't want to encourage and to engage people to come with cars and to increase the number of cars of our city. And I think that to put available free parking there is a risk. And more, if you are thinking about some projects, for example, the school, that they don't have parking. So you are providing a lot of free parking for these kind of projects that they are going to use our streets and our public space, this space world, to use for parking. Thank you. Thanks. Say your name.

I just put a record for us.

Okay, so the other thing I wanted to talk about is I've been meeting with a few residents. Oh, okay, Ashley Lucia, 127 Northeast 90th Street. I've been meeting with several residents from Northeast 89th and 90th, so our two blocks west of Northeast 2nd, as we're planning to actually meet with Jeff Davis with our own wish list and... Absolutely not lists as well. And one thing that came up kind of unanimously with all of us was, and it's kind of ironic because I was like, well, let's get Miami Shores to open their streets. But at the same time, it also came up for us that maybe we close our streets on the west side. So, you know, if we can't do things like this really magnificent conceptual study, what can we do? In the meantime, that's maybe a bit more cost effective, and we'll eliminate some of that. It's really the cutting through, right? It's that. So, you know, that's another option to consider, and it's something that we are going to be raising as well as a little neighborhood project.

I have an answer for that once we finish public comment.

Okay. Velvet Connelly, 355 Northeast 87th Street. Just as a point of clarification, when I was thinking about the parking, I thank you so much for being clear that, yes, because you're right, that right now the swales, you know, being public could then open it up for just random people to park there. And I definitely was not advocating for that. At all, I was saying that I know that's been an issue in the past, especially with residents in Sherwood Forest, and I think on 87th Street as well, where I've had guests in my own home that had to park on the swale, and then we would risk being given a ticket. And I know there were some residents who had been given tickets for parking on their own swale. So that's what I was trying to speak to of just like, you know, that obviously being an issue for some residents about the amount of parking that we have in our own driveways and front yards, but definitely not advocating for random people to park on our swales. But I do agree. As far as like the study is concerned, I just want to be clear about that too. Like I I have not read this study, but any study that we've spent money on, I definitely would not advocate for just throwing it away. But I would love to understand what potential there is for anything that has been thought through concerning our village to now take into consideration the new things that have come online. And how that might change some of the suggestions, if at all, I'm just asking. Because it seems like probably from the time when that study was done, the idea of what El Portal was and what it would become might have been very different than what situation we're in today. So I would just love to know what consideration could be given for the direction things are going now and how they might view those same questions that they were looking at in the study.

Hello, I'm Juliana Collinger, 8650 Northeast Miami Court. I was looking at this plan of the one-way streets, and I'm really grateful that you guys looked at it and it's been done. And I know that these things might be necessary for us as we try to reduce the volume of the cars and the speeding and the traffic and all that. But right now, as I look at this, I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to get to school. And these are the things that we worry about as parents every single day. How are we going to make it for our children to be where they need to be? And I was wondering if 86th Street here, as you turn left, which you can't on Northeast Miami Avenue. On Miami Avenue, you can't make a left there on 96th, and I need to go south. So what that makes me is it makes me go north, and not only north to come around one block, but to go up to where traffic becomes even more intense. So I know this is an overall picture for everyone, but I really would like for you guys to take a really close look at this and see how it affects everybody going north and going south in the peak hours of our days. Because right now, with this plan, I can't get out of my house to take my kids to school. Um, and, and that for me is, is definitely a no, something to consider very closely. Um, and then granted with the other school coming in, if they do come in, we would have to redo and look at this, everything anyway. So, um, just for your consideration, I agree with everyone who says that they, maybe this is not time to continue this. Anyway, so but just those are my thoughts for this. Regarding the parking, from what I understand, someone said that anybody can park in our swell. Well, actually, they can't. And that has been an issue for me because our streets are so narrow. We actually want people to park. I mean, my guess, I need them to park there sometimes because they don't fit anywhere else. And I've had to make them come in all the way almost to my wall. just because I want to avoid them coming in and being on the swell. So those are obviously considerations for me to take a look at this, being respectful, of course, of everybody else's swell. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thomas Pulliam, 205 Northeast 86th Street. So I was at, I don't know if it was one or two workshops, but whatever Placerbia facilitated. to get to that information. My question is, when I look at the report, it looks like they've only assembled what the villagers, what our thoughts and suggestions are. I don't see that they have actually taken the step of pressure testing it, validating it with evidence, with these traffic patterns and whatnot people are talking about. And that's aside from future development that may be coming in and impacting us. So, I love that we're actually having one of the first conversations at a regular meeting about advancing the village infrastructure, because that very rarely happens. From where I sit, the next step is to actually get, and I would think Placerbia is already on the hook for this, I don't know if they've delivered this or not, but for them to actually pressure test the concepts that the village came up with. and report back on what actually would be the most feasible considering all these various circumstances. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks. George Alvarez, 165 Northwest 88th Street. Thank you for the opportunity to speak about this issue. I have no doubt that the Plusserbe report was well intended and well thought out. I see no reason to scrap it entirely. Yet at the same time, I think Councilperson Winter's points were cogent as well. What the truth is, however, we don't know yet. And that goes to what Mr. Pulliam just said, that these things need to be stress tested, considering the likely future infrastructure and development opportunities. So there's only going to be so much that we're allowed to do with arterial roads, with J roads, and with county roads or FDOT roads or priorities. And as we know, mandates from Tallahassee are now like a new seagull who sweeps in and steals your french fry on the beach, right? So what we can do is we can look, because everybody is suggesting different things based on the fact that we're going to get too much damn traffic in El Pertel. I'm all in favor of anything that keeps a neighborhood looking and feeling like a neighborhood. Ostensibly, it may be two-way streets. It may be one-way streets. The one-way streets, the argument about not needing to re-asphalt them as often, protection of our swales for flood mitigation. Those are excellent points that do need to be weighed against the other needs of people who need to go to work and get home. But where we can really truly control things... is as we look at future buffers. So when we look at Little Farm, and it's not 2,400 people, it's a maximum of 2,400 units, which, you know, if you've got 10 people per unit, I'm joking. Or am I? I don't know. We don't know. Because we can't look into the future. We cannot look into the future. So... So our rolling up our sleeves and digging deep into the urban planning of Little Farm, that's something that we can control, right? That's where we can speak to our county commissioners, our brothers and sisters in the city of Miami commission as well, because they'll be affected right across the street. So that's the type of stuff that we get to ask now. What does Little Farm look like? How is traffic mitigated? Are they going to be flushing traffic right onto 87th Street so that our roundabout here is never allowing anybody to go around about it? So this is the future thinking. There's only going to be so much that we can do in terms of the state of Florida, Miami-Dade County, and also in terms of just reality. So I would suggest that it's not just looking at directions, directional traffic, one ways, two ways. It's not just looking at any singular element. But we have to be willing, and I would encourage you guys to do this. The mayor and I talked about this briefly. I know that there's bigger things. Simple thing would be prohibiting the re-parceling of properties. So, for example, let's say a very, very wealthy person comes to El Patel and buys a whole bunch of properties near each other and eventually starts to fill in those gaps. And they are contiguous and or even adjacent. And they say, you know what we would like to do, Mr. Mayor, Mr. and Mrs. Council people? We'd like to take these four lots, these six lots, these nine lots. We'd like to make them one parcel. What could that possibly be for? So that was the game plan in Wynwood. Remember, you used to go to the bar, not you. I see Councilperson Winters and Erbom at the bar ahead of Mayor Nickerson, and I will join them with all due respect, Mayor Nickerson. used to go to the wood, used to go to Gramps, used to park in front of somebody's house, used to park outside of a sidewalk, used to walk to the bar, and then, you know, even before or after the apps came, you could park there. All those little houses are gone. So that's the playbook. So one thing that this council could be doing now is making, no draconian anti-property rights baloney, sensible stuff because if the entire block between 87th and 88th between northeast second and northeast third is one big building whether it's live local or or live high on the hog it's not el pertell anymore it's not a neighborhood anymore and there's five times as many cars And that can happen not just within one full block. That can happen as it's now happening west of El Pertel around 93rd, 94th Street, Northwest 4th Avenue. They bought two lots, two lots, which they're building into allegedly, I believe it's 10 townhomes where two single family homes used to be. Now, it might look cool, and they might sell for $2 million each, although right now the grass is about four feet high, so I have a feeling there's a pause on the project. But that's what we're looking at if we don't prevent it now. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else for public comment? All right, seeing, hearing none. Closing public comment, back to the council. Okay, before I, I need to go look, Councilperson Winters, Councilperson Erbaum. Before that, so unfortunately we can't close the streets. So when six years ago when Mayor Levine-Cava got into office, they put, she put a moratorium on closing streets because she said the reason why they were originally closed way back in the days was more of a separatism type of reason. And she didn't want that anymore, so right now there's a moratorium So right now there's a moratorium on any municipality closing streets off right now. So that's how that goes. Since this is your item, I'm gonna let you close it out. Let me go to Councilperson Erbom really quick.

Yeah, just 30 seconds. So you as residents are aware of what my two cents is on this. So as far as the one way streets go, when I first heard of this concept from Serbia some years ago, I envisioned it as a need for, say, I don't know, three to five sections of one way street strategically located. I do not I do not envision that. a neighborhood full of one-way streets. I think that with just a few surgical applications of one way, not even necessarily, you know, even like one block at a time in some circumstances, we could accomplish what we're trying to accomplish with that. And I definitely, you know, computing power would be a match with data would be something that might be curious to look at, you know, accomplishing a final product than that. A side from that the road died on Northeast second Avenue. What I would like to see as a low cost effective. Implementation would be to take the. Lanes the one lane north the one lane south that are adjacent to the sidewalk and the curb. and create a fluid, like a drop-off lane. So it would be accessible to jitneys, to buses. You could strategically put lined loading dock spaces with certain hour restrictions just ahead of where the bus stops are so that a bus could accomplish its stop successfully and still be able to pull out even if there were a delivery vehicle in front of it. Um, so I see, I see those lanes as being essentially, uh, available to accommodate fluid traffic, like ride share, like Uber and lift drop off points, for example, would be there. Um, as opposed to say, like fixed parking, right? So in my mind, you still keep your medium with the turn lane. You still have the ability to turn it into four lanes under something like an evacuation order. I do not take that lightly, by the way, because the neighborhood that was most impacted in New Orleans that was outright flooded, the images you see of the water to the rooftops, one of the neighborhoods that was most significantly impacted that way was built inside of a cistern that was like 150 acres that they built 30 years ago before Katrina to accommodate something exactly like Katrina. And then two decades go by and they never needed it, never used it. And guess what happened? Developers convinced the council to say, hey, let us build a housing development inside the stormwater retention cistern, 150 acres large. because clearly we don't need it. And then Katrina hits and that entire subdivision was under like 20 feet of water as it was designed to be. So I do not take that lightly. I hope that we would never need an evacuation route, but the way I see a road diet would be something that could be flexible, could be fluid and used in different ways at different times as you would need it.

Thank you very much, Councilperson Winchester.

All right. So there's a lot to answer to over here with everyone's comments. So the first thing is, if you read the first paragraph that this is page five here, the beginning, it says straight serve as crucial arteries. And as we all know, arteries in our own body, they need to be not blocked. They not need to be constricted. right now by creating constrictions we're going to create more crazy traffic and it this isn't something i'm just making up you go around miami find the streets that are been narrowed and you can see it the way people drive i talked with the mayor of miami shores when they narrowed it down to three lanes with the middle lane he says it's very difficult to cross the street now in miami shores i know we're trying to copy them but their own council is worried a little bit about that and we need to have crosswalks which should happen but I wanna maintain that I'm not against this, I'm against unsafe El Portal, and a lot of this leads to that. In this case, this plan was already submitted to the city. The city, the county, I mean the county. The county road is Northeast 2nd, and in July 2023, in the manager report, she announced that she gave the road diet to them. So at any moment, It could be now. It could be 20 years from now. They can implement it. And suddenly we have two lanes. And once we have those two lanes, again, if we have those 55 trains and everyone's going down 87th and spilling out onto Northeast 2nd, then everyone's going to be stopped there. And people are going around it. It's going to be unsafe. And safety is our number one concern here. The one-way doesn't also either stop swales from being destroyed. What's going to happen is Amazon, UPS, FedEx are going to stop on that one-way street, and then everyone's going to drive around them and still ruin the swales. This isn't protecting us. And, of course, people are going to drive around them, and there might be a pedestrian right there. This is, again, we're creating unsafe situations. If you look... At this entire thing, there's a lot of filler and fluff. In fact, they even use some of the same slides for multiple pages, like page 37 and 39 are the exact same pages. And we paid a lot of money for this report. So, and they also have North Miami going down to two lanes as well on page forty six. Um, so and it's not just for planning purposes as I'm hearing over from the other elected officials. So planning is on neutral. Um, once a plan is approved, it becomes an official policy reference. It guides staff behavior. It guides grant applications. It guides outside agency coordination. It guides the consultant scopes. So if we plan towards the wrong outcome, it's gonna be counterproductive as it's guiding everything else in the city. We already have enough issues in this little government without giving them a guideline that's not gonna work for us. Now again, I am not against having beautiful sidewalks with bike lanes and swales. I wanna keep all that. I'm against having one-way streets. because one-way streets lead to people driving in different directions and causing congestion. I'm against two lanes. Now, as Council Member Ervam said, you could put maybe some kind of loading, unloading, but honestly, I think that there shouldn't be no center median. There should be a left or right, left-hand or right-hand turn lane from the center. So of course, if there is an issue, if someone needs breaks down or they have to put somewhere, there's right there as a place to put people. Now, if you guys seen, This here, this is the, this is the project. This is the one from 2013, okay? In this charrette, it actually shows Not only all of the, uh, buildings demolished by the way, they're all directly against the sidewalk. So, if we're going to have a future that is business corridor, um, all these buildings are going to be up against the sidewalk. So you're going to need to make sure there's obviously that the space for the cars to park, but the doesn't show the cars parking on in front of it. The shred hasn't parking behind it every. Place that's a storefront has a parking lot behind it, not on the road. So, as we clog the arteries, and we make the roads more scary to get around, has anyone turned from 95th street on to to northeast 2nd and there's a truck right there unloading from a Starbucks. You're like, oh, I got to swerve around it. I imagine there's nowhere to. Yeah, imagine there is no place to start because that truck's right there unloading or loading or FedEx because FedEx doesn't choose when the drop off times are or pickup times are. This is important. This conceptual plan. This is okay. So The plan that assumes one-way streets preloads traffic concentration. It ignores emergency response patterns. It normalizes disruptions as acceptable. So a plan that relies on minimal public input, faculty assumptions, comparisons to cities with different road geometries, we're gonna create a disaster. And again, I'm not trying to get rid of this. I wanna have a bike lane. I wanna have beautiful swales. I wanna have a gorgeous inner part of the city. But we're planning without the ground of truth is bad. So we just start with what exists account for real traffic behavior. As Mr. Pulliam said, we should test it and see if this actually works. This would reflect how residents actually live. and so when we participate when participation is extremely low which the original one when they did over here and they passed it there wasn't a full audience like it is today so i'm so thankful that a lot of raise your hand if you this is the first time you've seen this this last month Okay, so about half of you. No, not the Charette. We're talking about the streets conceptual master plan. So if a plan is counterproductive, why would we use it as the foundation for future decisions? Planning is supposed to reduce risk, what are we playing towards outcomes that increase congestion reduce access and concentrate traffic. So i'm not sure if I would get a second to motion to change some of this because i've heard some people wants to table it. But in my personal opinion right now, I believe that the one-way streets are going to be a disaster. And if we're going to do two lanes, there needs to be a center lane for emergency center lane for people to turn at. We've got to make sure we don't create congestion as all these people drive down towards this train, and it's suddenly backed up onto Northeast 2nd, and then we're sitting on Northeast 2nd waiting to take left or right. So this has nothing to do with the school. This was something that the mayor can tell you I've been thinking about before I've been ran for office. It's something I cared about.

I would move to ask the manager to have a report ready to present to the Council at the next general Council meeting in March to update us on what if any plan has been officially received from either the city or the county so that we would be able to make a decision about how to proceed from that point.

I'm not against that, Councilperson Erbaum. I just want to reiterate, you guys, one more time that this was done by then-Manager Alou. This was done years ago. This was done as a conceptual plan. For something to go in, you have to go through a design phase, an engineering phase, and then there's a construction phase. This conceptual plan, we don't even have the funding for a design phase. This is something that Manager Alou did a couple of years ago or a few years ago. They started it. And it's just something that if we want to change it or adjust it and, you know, and, you know, I haven't against you, but that wasn't what was spoken about last month. You wanted to rescind it.

I asked for discussion and possible motion, but I didn't get the possible motion. So I wasn't able to do anything. I didn't make a motion, though.

But last month, your proper motion was to rescind. It wasn't to keep it and alter it. It was to rescind it.

The motion was never made, and I'm speaking today of how I believe it should go forward. So if you think it should be rescinded, I can listen to your... No, no, no.

You wanted to rescind it. That's the reason why I was first brought up, because you didn't like the plan, you wanted to rescind it, which is fine. I'm glad that now we're at the point to where we can keep it and alter it. That's much better than rescinding it.

So as I seek a second, I'm not gonna reword my motion. I keep my motion on the table as stated. Just the purpose of the motion is to accommodate some of the many comments that were made by residents tonight revolving around trust issues between the residents and the Council. So that's that's the first and foremost reasoning behind my motion and the second. is simply so that we might, in March, begin to all proceed from the same point together towards a outcome that we all are looking for. So those are my two overarching reasons behind the motion as stated.

And I don't disagree with you, Council President Urban. The only thing that I would say, you all, is that nothing should even be moved on this right now, it's been there for years, it's been in our files for years, until we figure out the pressing issues of live local and how we're gonna protect ourselves against that, not only from the property coming in from future properties, the question of what exactly are we doing with the school, the question of if we deny the school what exactly is going in there, I understand, yes, we can walk and chew at the same time. We can look at this, but this is not the pressing issue. This is something that is a conceptual concept of a plan.

I completely agree with you.

I'm not against what you're saying, but let's keep our eyes on the prize as far as we're up against the time clock, you all. Like, we need to move on certain things to protect our community and protect the village that we have. So I understand what you're saying, Councilperson Erbom, I'm not against you. I appreciate you, Councilperson Winter, saying that you wanna keep it and alter it. That sounds great to me also. Councilperson Erbom, repeat your motion again for the record, and then we'll see if we get it set.

So a third reason just to accomplish placing this appropriately in our list of priorities as we receive a report next month, my motion is to ask the manager to prepare a brief a report to present to the council at the next general council meeting in march regarding what if anything has been officially presented to either the city or the county but specifically the county that would obligate us to anything within the resilient streets plan

We have a motion. Do we have a second?

So planning isn't neutral. Once a plan is approved, it guides every decision that follows. So I will second the motion with an amendment that if we're going to have the manager bring this and give it to us that we have this item on the agenda again in case we need to make a motion.

So your amendment to when was time for the record?

Just have this item on the agenda again with adding on to his motion.

But if the motion is for the manager to bring back the information on this item, the item's on the agenda now.

Honestly, it could be the manager's convenience report. So that's why I'm not sure. If you're going to put it on the agenda, that's fine.

Okay. Well, the mayor sets the agenda, so I'll put it on the agenda. Okay. All right. We have a second for the motion. Can I have a vote?

Roll call. Councilperson Winters. Yes. Councilperson Ervam.

Yes.

Mayor Nickerson.

Yes.

Motion passes 3-0.

Thank you guys very much. You guys see or manager Roseman, do you have a report for us today?

Good evening, everyone. I'm sorry, my report was supposed to be much longer, but as you can see, there are lots of issues that I have been processing and addressing, and there is a transitional period that I ask you to give me a little bit of time latitude to be able to implement those things. I have gotten feedback from some of you and some of the Council members are that there are people who have tried to reach out to me and I have not responded. My apologies. My transitional period and being able to have the equipment in the office operational has been quite challenging, but I can assure you that I give it myself until February 28th to have everything operational. I have been attending meetings. I have been interacting with some of you and some of the residents. I am very, very happy to announce that thanks to our very, very able village clerk. The tap lab has been operational again. We hope that we can have nice hot weather so that the children can enjoy the toys and the water. We will proceed to work on the bathroom and the park so that everyone can use it and they don't have to make the way back here to be able to use the restroom. We have been going through a very tedious process of making sure that we can prioritize all the things that are left to be done here. I can tell you that I'm not getting much sleep at night because in the mornings I get up and it's like I realize that there's still some things that I have yet to do. But I am very, very committed to seeing through all of those tasks and the challenges before me. And by the time that I bring back this report, I will have been able to clear the deck, so to speak.

Thank you very much. You guys see my report there. Reach out to me if you ever have any questions or comments about anything.

Hi, Mayor May.

Go ahead.

I actually wanted to address Mr. Pulliam about his comment about Sherwood. Actually, I did get in the short term lived that I was doing the manager's job, which is a very difficult job indeed. I had Mr. Winters reached out to me about that. It was leaking and there was a water leak. And then shortly after that, I went to the site to see what exactly it was, because I like to see it for myself. I just don't want to send staff or send someone out there. I want to see for myself and follow through. So when I went there, I called the mayor and the mayor came out with me, too. And I told him because much to my surprise, it seemed very sad. that area where a park should be like lively and sherwood is known for that for having the trees for being lively so him and i were like and i told him i don't like how this looks it made me sad and i saw a senior lady who comes and they actually stole her in a wheelchair and i'm like she's sitting there and i guess that they bring her there for her to see beauty therefore i found myself not finding beauty at all the leak was fixed and i the mayor had addressed he told me that for years you have been complaining about not complaining but it's normal there was a massive leak the leak is no longer there and we are going to work on that part because i was not satisfied at all i don't have to go by it i don't have to i live by it and i felt like we can do better and we're gonna do better i mean i'm not in that position anymore but i'm still working with mr roseman in order to bring It's not part of my job, but I I work here. I feel like I've been here so long. I'm a part of the community, too. And when I drive around, I want the people to feel good because that's, you know, another reason why you also live in this community, because you want to feel good about it and you want to come and you want to, you know, be proud. But when you said that, I was very happy. We actually looked at each other because I was like, you know what? It's noticeable. It's a small change, but it's noticeable. And We're going to definitely make it. We've talked about I want some color in there, lively, like you want to feel happy.

Yeah, I want to say thank you to Clerk Jacoby. We've teamed up on so many different things. And even today with fixing the water, the individual who got the part to fix the water, Ms. Morales, she reached out to me. I'm downtown in a Chamber of Commerce meeting. I send out a text like, hey, she'll be there at 3, 3.30. Please be there to help her with the... And we got it fixed. So there's a lot, but... I mean, we've been here for so long working together her and I and so we get so much accomplished together. So I really appreciate that. Thank you guys very much. And like I said, my reports there. Attorney yellow, do we have any attorney reports?

I actually do have a couple things, Mayor, unusually. Our one lawsuit, Coburg versus the village of El Patel, is proceeding. We've had some action on it, and it's moving forward. But I really, you know, sitting here, I'm sorry so many of the people who spoke about issues have left already. You know, we're not a potted plant over here. I've been here a long time, too, and two things jumped out at me from what I heard tonight. One was something that Denise White said when she said about how we need to figure out where the village is going. Like Adam Old, I was here when that Charette was done. And it was a great thing. You know, it was really good. But people talk about it like, you know, it's the Ten Commandments and it was handed down from on high. That was a reflection. That charrette was done not 10 years ago. It was done in 2012. It's almost, I mean, it's 14 years. That's a very long time ago, and as somebody who's been here most of those years, El Portal is not the same El Portal that it was when that charrette was done. It's just, it's changed. And not just El Portal. Miami Shores has changed. The city of Miami has changed. Everything around this village has changed. And there is some loss of control to the state. We'll talk about that in a moment. But honestly, for what can be controlled, I'd like to suggest, and I don't make suggestions often. I'm here to tell you how to do what you decide to do. But after listening to this tonight, it's time for another charrette. It's overdue. By the time it's up and running and you get the final results, it'll be 15 years since that last charrette was done. A lot of new people live in this village that didn't live here when that charrette was done. And it's time to take a couple of steps back. It's a big undertaking, but you have... You don't mind my saying, great staff and our fabulous clerk who did double duty and this wonderful manager who's back who knows so much. I'm ready to pitch in on it. And to listen to the council discuss back and forth, I mean, at great length, I might add, but with a lot of passion about this. This village deserves a new charrette. It deserves a new look at what people, yes ma'am.

So it's not a whole process.

I honestly, to answer you, I think it needs a whole new process, but that doesn't mean that you disregard the history of your village. That's part of the history. It is a foundation that you can build from, but for all the people in this room that weren't here, that never had word one in that charrette, Your voices need to be heard, too. And, you know, nobody's going to close their eyes. That's a foundation. Any good planner that really is going to conduct a... It doesn't have to be a week long again, as Mr. Old Councilman Old remembers. Well, I mean, we could certainly get some support for doing it from people who want to invest money because, you know, with the focus about the school, that's great, okay? And with the focus about, you know, the streets and the traffic, but you've just got two buildings now that are going, one's online, one's pending, that are coming. When that charrette was done, You had a broken-down, disgusting trailer park that I went into court and shut down because no one, you know, it was some controversy because people did live there cheaply, but it was unfit for human habitation, and this village went to court, and we shut it down. Now you have something out there And if you're going to plan anything to the degree we still can, and I'll talk again in one minute, you better do it fast. You better do it and get something about what you want to see before someone comes in with a completed plan and says, this is what I'm doing, this is what I invested in. So I urge you, Mayor, Council, like I said, I don't do that much, but... It's time to begin looking at that. As I said, I've been through them. I was through that one. It's not the only one I ever did. We did one in North Bay Village back when I was the mayor over there. I'm happy to work with this clerk and this manager and any of you and any citizens that you can engage, but it's time. It's time. Number two, I just want to say a word about Live Local. I spent eight years in the state legislature. I was up there. I watched as these things were approaching. And Live Local itself was 23. I left in 22. But this current Tallahassee fever for having the state tell every municipality in the state how to do, what to do, when to do, why to do. It's disgraceful. I listen to so many people here talk about what you want, what you'd like to see. People live in a little village like this. That's a choice. You choose not to live in the city of Miami. It's a few blocks away, but you choose to live here. When I was mayor of North Bay Village, a lot of people asked us, well, why didn't we just become part of Miami Beach, which is one island, one island more, three islands really, but just right across from Normandy. You have your own police department that you can rely on. You have your own arrangements that you make for sanitation. There are reasons people choose this. And I listened to so many people talking tonight. And I had to say, I wished your voices were heard in Tallahassee to tell people up there in that government. I used to tell them that they thought they walked into that building and all of a sudden they got a lot smarter. Well, let me tell you, they are not smarter than your government. city, town, village council members who sit here. They're not. Government is best when it's closest to the people. I wish that there had been a way those voices, and by the way, you still have the ability to reach out, not just to the legislators who represent you. The Speaker of the House is from Dade County. I don't know how many people in this room have reached out to that speaker, have called his office, have emailed him or written him and made these voices heard. You need to be heard. It's a shame what they're doing. Live local has been changed every year. What does live local allow? It's a point in time. It's a little hard sometimes, honestly, to get your arms around it. Because they, they adopted it in 23. But they changed it in 24. They made massive changes in 25. In the law, we don't just look at statutes. Law in this country, because of English common law, this is more than I ever talk about with you people, but there's such passion here tonight, I cannot ignore it. The law is defined by case law in this country. And case law has to arise because somebody sues, and there's a decision, and really, and it goes to appeal. And the law is so new, there are very few cases that really define it. That's why we have these arguments about whether Plus Urbia can even complete the code amendments that they delivered or something by handwritten to the mayor. I still didn't figure that one out there. To the manager.

Yeah.

Because, well, the law prohibits that. I don't agree with that. There are some things you can't do, but there are some that you can. The swales issue could be addressed, I believe, under the law. as it exists, but they changed it again. And you know what? They're going to change it again this year. So if you're trying to say, what is it allow right now? Anybody who gives you an absolute answer is not telling you the complete truth because they're going to, they're, they're working on it again. There are things that look, the purpose of, of making sure that there is more affordable housing is a laudable purpose. It's needed. My God, we need that desperately. But to say that that means that there is no local control at all, that they can come in and force things in height, in density, in all kinds of things to encourage affordable housing, it's wrong. We have to live with it. But what's done this year may yet change it. And it's very dependent. It varies because it's dependent on what else is located within certain distances from us. You know, what Miami Shores or the city of Miami does affects what Live Local will allow. So, you know, that's something, by the way, Mayor, we should talk about separately. My firm is probably one of the leading companies uh land use and zoning firms in this city and you know we're i know mostly people see me here but my firm is 250 lawyers we're in 10 states and we have some of the most noted recognized land use and zoning experts that work in south florida that's good we're going to lean on you uh attorney gillis and we're going to be there i i just want to let the community know I want to shout out one more thing that Councilman Erbom said about your charter officers lined up here working as a team to help with negotiations. As a lawyer, I make it my business not to try to overstep my role. We're not, any of us here, the manager to some degree, but we're not decision makers. That's why You council members who take the time, who go to people's houses, who knock on doors, who sit in living rooms, that's why they're the policymakers. I know I'm not a policymaker. I'm a tool. I'm here to effectuate what they want, and what they want is what you want. And that's why every meeting, this mayor... makes so sure to listen to people honestly getting up three four or five times sometimes so that everything is heard that's why councilman our bomb councilman winters the mayor and by the way the two that are not here tonight make it their business to listen to you but The last time we had a big development, we changed the documents. We worked it over. But no, we don't make basic decisions. But with guidance, we are prepared and have gone toe to toe with these developers. I just want you to know, you see things that happen when it ends up at yes. What you don't see is the times we've said no. You don't see the times that somebody tried to push this village around and we didn't allow it. The times people tried to get shortcuts and we said, no, it's written and we're going to follow what's here. So you see end product sometimes, but I want you to know we fight for this village. We get our marching orders, but we fight. And will continue to do so, so know that we can come back after this session and the legislative session and talk more about live local and i'm sorry to say so much it's not normally what I do, but so many people asked. What's going on? What can the attorney do? Who's representing? I felt I had to say something about that, Mayor. I felt I just had to let people know what's going on because it's not always what it looks like.

And that concludes my report. Thank you. Thank you very much. Before I ask for a motion to adjourn, Councilperson Winters really quickly wanted to say something.

I just wanted to mention something on what you said. Thank you for the speech. Um, this, uh, unlike the conceptual master plan, um, the Charette was not a resolution at the form. I have it still calls it a draft, and there was a purpose for the for it. Right. So our Charette's purpose was for our two thousand and seventeen form-based code, which we use the Charette to actually be the foundation for that form-based code. So again, everything needs a purpose. Just throwing that out there. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Do I have a motion to adjourn?

Mayor, wait before. I'm so sorry. I meant to mention this is kind of important. The meeting today has been live. We're test trying it. That's why I didn't put it out there. So, because it has to be closed captioned. So for the next two meetings, we're testing it. So now you can see it from home live. So as soon as this ends, it should be able to be uploaded automatically.

Okay.

No, no. I've asked other municipalities and you need a whole team for that. I'm sorry, what? Yes, but on COVID it was Zoomed. we're not in COVID times and the removed COVID, right? Removed that so we were back live.

So Governor DeSantis, after COVID was over, he requested that all municipalities have to go back to in-person meetings. And then some municipalities went to the hybrid model, which is what we're trying out tonight. Yeah, so because what happens is, when she talks about, staff. So other municipalities that do it, they do like a webinar type of thing like we're kind of doing. I think there's only one municipality I think maybe or two that does it to where someone monitors all the the comments as they're coming in, and then kind of reason to the council and then so you need more staff for that.

That has a staff for the clerk's office. That's highly for that.

What some what what's what I know a couple municipalities what they do is, but this wouldn't benefit you all any, because you guys kind of start getting your ideas and your questions in real time. But what other municipalities do, prior to the meeting, you have to submit your questions to the clerk by like 5pm or something like that the day of the meeting. And that's it. And that's the cutoff time. But after that, no questions can be submitted. So that's something with some others.

And it's not like it's here that they keep repeating or coming in. That's it. One comment and it's done.

That's it.

I asked Miami Shores because I think that that's our closest municipality, which has live, not Biscayne Park does not. And she has, she's had a deputy and she's never, she told me you need more resource in that. Cause remember we have to, our biggest thing is that we have to have the minutes for it. And you guys have to state for the record, your address, all that, all that would come through. So COVID, like I said, it was a special time and things, there was a lot of exceptions that were done that local government doesn't do anymore after the Santis passed that law again, bringing it back.

We'll continue to improve.

So this is a big step actually to bringing it back.

Do I have a motion to adjourn? Moved. Moved by Councilperson, Councilperson Erbom. Councilperson Erbom, seconded by Councilperson Winters. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. Hearing none. The regular council meeting for Tuesday, February 24, 2026 is adjourned at 10, 18 p.m.