Community Redevelopment Agency Board - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the City Commission conference meeting this February 17. Wow. We're really borrowing into 2026. Anyway, as is as is with all of our conference meetings, we begin with our communications from our advisory boards. And today, we have a couple of those communications. Of all, from our

Mayor, plan if I may?

Yes. I

I think, the CRA meeting would be the first meeting.

You wanna take up the CRA meeting first? So

that one is scheduled for 01:30.

Okay.

That other meeting is over? No. See how easy that was? Okay. Best meeting ever. Yeah. Okay. Let me convene the Community Redevelopment Agency Board. Mister Clerk, please call the roll.

Vice chair Herbst? Commissioner Glassman.

Here.

Commissioner Beasley Pittman. Here. Commissioner Sorensen. Here. Chair Turntellis.

Here. I can't hear you. Oh, we start with m one, motion approving the minutes for 02/03/2026, CRA board meeting. Do I hear a motion to approve those minutes? So moved. Second? Moved and seconded. Any comments? There being none, please call the roll.

Commissioner Glassman? Yes. Commissioner Beasley Pittman? Yes. Commissioner Sorenson? Yes. Vice Chair Herbs?

Yes.

Chair Trentels?

Yes. And that item is now approved. R1, a resolution approving a central city community redevelopment area property and business improvement program incentive forgivable loan in the amount of $225,000 and a non residential facade program forgivable loan in the amount of 125,000 to the Art of Tea LLC. Someone like to introduce the resolution?

Introduce.

No one has signed up to speak. Any comments or questions?

I did just want to say that this is really I don't know if anyone really dug in. This is a great company moving its headquarters from Los Angeles. They really have a lot of outreach to incredible other companies in the hospitality industry. And they are a really high end producer of all products related to tea. And I just want to say congratulations, and I'm thrilled that they're they're moving into the Central City neighborhood, and we welcome that Fort Lauderdale. And I'm just really excited that this is happening. Good, not just for District 2, but for the entire city. This is a real win win. Thank you.

Where is 900 Northeast? What building is that? Do you

do you know off

the top of your head?

I I do, actually. I mean, right now, it's pretty much just like a a warehouse. It's Is

it East Of The Tracks or it's West Of

The Tracks? It's West Of The Tracks, isn't it? It's West Of The Tracks. Tracks.

Yeah. I believe so. Yes.

But this is a this is really a a big deal and it was interesting reading the minutes of the of the advisory board. The the votes were interesting to see and the totals were interesting to see and it was a good tussle back and forth there for a little while and but I think it's a good deal and I I'm really thrilled that we're able to assist and help and I I really look forward to the to the success of this business in Fort Lauderdale.

What's there now

Or what

was there?

They purchased the building in 2025. The forgivable loan would be for the build out of Sears space.

All that. I just wanted I'm just out of curiosity. I just wanna know what was there before.

I'm gonna ask Vanessa Martin

Hey, Rebecca. To share. What was there before?

Just trying to get my parents.

Warehouse Yeah. That's there right now. So they built they purchased the warehouse in 2025 in April.

Uh-huh.

And so they're just requesting to do a build out of interior and exterior.

Alright. That's great.

We'll have a storefront. We'll have a it'll have a storefront.

And there will be some retail for the for the public. There's some photos of the warehouse. Okay.

Okay.

And they currently employ 27 employees and they're looking to add seven.

Yeah. Wonderful. Great. Thank you for coming to Florida. Anyway, alright. Someone's introduced the resolution. Introduced. Someone, I think it's already been introduced. Yes. Right, yeah. So if we could please call the roll.

A resolution board commissioners of the Fort Lauderdale Community Redevelopment Agency approving a property business improvement program incentive forgivable loan in the amount of 225,000 and approving a nonresidential facade improvement program forgivable loan in the amount of 125,000 to the Art of T LLC, authorizing the executive director to execute all related instruments delegating authority to executive director to take certain actions and providing for an effective date. Commissioner Glassman? Yes. Commissioner Beasley Pittman? Yes. Commissioner Sorensen? Yes. Vice Chair Herps? Yes. Chair Trentellis?

Yes. And that item is approved. Thank you. Good luck. Looking forward to coming to your grand opening. Thank you. Okay. Any further business of the CRA? No, Mayor. There being none, that meeting is now concluded. Now we will go back to the conference meeting. We begin with our communications. And our first communication is from the Planning and Zoning Board. Is anyone here from hello. Push the button. Push the button.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners. Jim Metzl, our Design Plan Manager at DSD. Communication from the Planning and Zoning Board occurred from 01/21/2026 was to communicate to the commission to have staff to research on public notice requirements for projects of certain sizes and location and context. And this came about due to a project, that was processing a land use plan amendment and a rezoning of the size of 40 acres, which is very unusual to have a project of that size in our city. It's very unique. We don't have that many properties. This is, Southwest by the Rock Pit property. There's no Oh, in the Northwest. In the Northwest. Yes. About 40 acres in size. So that was the discussion from the commission, the planning and zoning board. Okay.

Are we are you asking for a response in any way or

They're asking for you to direct staff to do research on public notice requirements, and this was due to the fact that the project size was so large, they felt that the the distance requirements, which is normally 300 feet for notification, should extend to a larger distance based on a project size.

Because of the impact?

Because of the impact of the larger project.

Any thoughts or comments on that, Stan?

I think it makes sense, Meyer. I think given the scope of this,

so what do you think the distance requirement should be?

So staff would have to conduct research and also check with the city attorney's office on, identifying larger projects and separating them out from smaller projects could be an issue because of just changing the public notice requirements based on the size of a project. Not that it can't be undone or it can't be done, but basically, we have to check what legal. We haven't done that yet. We'd have to do more research.

Okay. Currently, is there a, definition of how far out like, you're saying large is 40 acres. What is considered the average of a project if this is considered a large project?

Well, I know we don't have that many 40 acre large sites in

the city.

We have much smaller sites than that. I don't know what the average is off the top of my head, but I know they're smaller than a couple acres. Most of 10 acres would be a very large project. Usually, what we deal with, 40 acres is very unusual. We don't get many like that at all, unless it's a regional activity center designation like we've done in the past.

I'm in agreement for, going in this direction. I just wanted a definition as to what's been done in the past in in comparison to what we are calling large

We versus would have to define that.

Or average, I

should say.

Yes. Don't have a definition for it now. We'd have to define what large meant.

But that's definitely large 40 acres.

But up to what distance are we even contemplating? I mean, not a mile, I hope. I mean

Yes. So if I may, Chris Cooper, Deputy City Manager. So when we notice a project, especially for planning zoning board, there are several ways that that notice goes out to the public. One is a direct mail to those within 300 feet of the project. The other is a notice to registered civic association or recognized civic association where the project is located. So there's an expectation that that group is also sharing the information with their membership. We also require newspaper and sign notices. So again,

staff

can look into how to accommodate this request for larger projects, but the result may not be that we are directly contacting individual property owners nearby within a wider area, but it may be that we're looking for a way to communicate information about the project more broadly to a lot of people at once. So I don't know how what that looks like now. We can certainly look at other municipalities and places that do this kind of notice in a broader way. But essentially, what we're looking for today is whether or not the commission would like staff to spend the time to look for those ways that we

could more broadly communicate on those larger projects. Well, think it's only fair that a broader net is cast, especially in these larger projects that are going to have a greater impact than just within 300 feet. So why don't you get back to us and give us your recommendation then?

There was one other item I forgot to mention was neighborhood associations outside of the city because our code only recognizes the city associations. That was another factor that was brought up by the the board was to look at associations outside the city as well to notify them.

Because in that area, we border with the Broward County neighborhood. I forget the acronym that's used, but they are they they're neighbors. We're right next to each other, so I can understand that. And even I don't know if this would be, outside of the scope, but where that 40 acres is, across the highway is the city of Lauderhill Correct. Which is a large association that, in a sense, interacts with, the communities right in that area.

So even thinking I'm I'm in agreement. I'm just trying to get a a visual of this because knowing where it is and when you we're saying only 350 feet, we're definitely not making an impact as to where this information needs to be shared because just I'm thinking just north of there, west of there, east of where you can go so much further than three fifty feet to make sure we're getting the information to the neighbors in the area.

So typically 300 feet is used in planning and rezoning projects as well. So that's why that distance is there, we can look at expanding that or making the distance larger. Do have to do research on that.

Okay. All right. Well, Mayor, I'm in agreement with this.

Okay. All right.

So we'll do research and come back to the commission.

Okay. Thank Jim. Thank you. Anthony, did you have anything you wanted to add to this? No? Beard looks good. Okay. Moving on to the next communication, we have a communication from the Budget Advisory Board, Mr. Bill Brown.

Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the commission, Bill Brown, Chairman of the Budget Advisory Board. This afternoon under Business One, you will receive a presentation on the process that staff is proposing for a, what's called a certificate of use. It's a new process that you'll learn about when they come in. This same presentation was presented to the Budget Advisory Board at our meeting earlier in February. After some discussion with staff and question and answers, we took a vote, it passed nine to zero and we encourage you to direct staff to go ahead and start this process.

We would ask and we did ask that we do it for one year pilot with some benchmarks so we get some feedback to see if it's really truly beneficial for businesses instead of adding an extra burden on them, but if it's beneficial for their use so that they don't get caught up in a build out later on that they weren't allowed to do when they get their business Well, first

of all, Bill, I don't think it's a burden. I think it's a benefit because having represented a lot of prospective commercial tenants and they signed leases saying and this has to be used for a specific purpose. And I always tell them, please check to make sure the purpose is permissible within that zoning area. And that's done automatically. So to now give them an opportunity to say to a landlord, hey, I need to get a certificate of use before you can charge me $1 of rent to make sure that the use that you said I can do can actually be done there is a benefit to a tenant. I'm totally supportive of this.

I hope you are. And not all the members felt it was a burden. They saw much more benefit from it, but they just wanted to make sure that it's being done

It doesn't cost burden them in terms of Right.

And there is a fee that would accompany Yes,

it's a minimal fee. Right.

And in the long run, as you mentioned, it will save them thousands of dollars of doing Yes, legal expense and everything else. So we encourage you to, after the presentation, direct staff to go ahead and start the process. Thank you.

Mayor, if I could just, acknowledge the Chair. Thank you so much for your leadership on the BAB and the entire Budget Advisory Board. When we went through the budget development process last year, I committed to the commission as well as to the BAB that we would identify opportunities to not only enhance services but also to look at opportunities to generate revenue. And the item that will be discussed later reflects cost recovery for these services. So I just wanted you to know this is part of an ongoing discussion that we're having with the BAB in terms of new initiatives and programs that could generate revenue for the city and also provide an enhancement to our neighbors and stakeholders.

Well, if cost recovery, I mean, it's not really revenue generating because we're actually going to spend money to

Well, what initiate we're doing now is providing these services essentially for free. So we do have businesses that come in, they ask all these questions, staff takes the time to do the due diligence to help them through it, but we don't get anything So I just wanted to highlight that. Thank you.

Okay.

Anyone else wish to speak on any of these two communications? Okay. There being none. Thank you. Thank you, Bill. Moving on to CF1, state legislative mid session update, city manager's office. And I guess

Thank you, Mayor. We have Daphne St. Ville, intergovernmental affairs manager, who will be leading the presentation.

Daphne?

Good afternoon. Can everybody hear me? Okay. Good afternoon, mayor, vice mayor, commissioners, Daphne Seinville, intergovernmental affairs with the city manager's office. Gonna do this 2026 mid legislative session update.

We are currently in week six of the legislative update of the legislative session, so we are at the halfway mark. And there are some bills, appropriations that and property tax that we wanna discuss. And based on our discussions this morning, we'll touch on the accessory dwelling units and some housing bills as well. So to get us started, I I also wanna mention that all the policy issues that I'm touching on now are aligned with our 2026 state legislative program. So what you'll see is the basic areas that the policy issues are touching and the bills that correspond with those areas.

So first, we'll discuss the property tax bills in the later slides, all eight proposals, including the three that are with the house right now. House Bill one zero three for revenue taxes and sovereign immunity, The local business tax bill would repeal chapter two zero five Florida statutes removing the authority for local governments to levy a local business tax. However, it allows municipalities that impose the business tax on merchants measured by gross receipts to continue to impose the tax. So this bill is on special order calendar for today, so it will be heard later on today in the house. The senate version is in its second committee of three, which is finance and tax.

It doesn't appear to be moving. However, there is another reference bill six fifty that hasn't moved out of the community affairs committee. And as of last week, Wednesday, the community affairs committee will no longer be meeting.

Oh.

House bill one zero five is touching on sovereign immunity by Rep. McFarland, and there is a senate bill thirteen sixty six by senator Broder. These two bills would revise the statutory cap, attorney fees, and filing time frame provisions for sovereign immunity. The house version allows for political subdivisions to settle, or pay excess claims above the caps without legislative approval. The house version does not address this.

More specifically, the house bill, the per person cap, it would raise that cap to 500,000 for claims accruing between 10/01/2026 and 09/30/2031. The senate bill per cap increase would be 300,000. No increase after that. After 10/01/2031, the house bill would further increase that cap to 600,000. The per incident cap under the house bill would be raised up to 1,000,000 prior for claims filed prior to 2031 and increased to 1,200,000 after 10/01/2031.

The senate version increases that cap to 450,000. However, it's not specified. There are only going to be periodic adjustments. And every five years, there would be a cap at capped at 3% increase per per every three years under the senate bill. So under the house bill, it's an automatic increase of 1,200,000. Under the senate bill, it's a every three year, 3% automatic cap.

That's on sovereign immunity?

That's under sovereign immunity. Yes. That's the sovereign immunity bill that they've been filing for the past, couple years. So right now, the house bill was passed by the full chamber. It's in senate messages, and the senate bill is in its last committee rules. It hasn't been placed on the agenda yet, so we're closely monitoring and watching that that piece of legislation.

Daphne, before you move over to the next slide, can I just ask you a question? Out of the eight Homestead Saver Homes assessment, bills, any one in particular gaining more traction than the others? And are they still looking to maybe just put one on the ballot? Or what are you hearing in terms of possibility of more than one on the ballot, just one? And what's happening in the senate with regards to any of these?

So for property tax, there are three proposals out of the eight that are currently in the house chamber awaiting a vote. We did receive word that one of them will be heard on Thursday, which is, house bill two zero three, which is the gradual phase out, the 10 phase out for property taxes. So that one will be voted on in the house and sent over to the senate. We are currently hearing that the senate has no appetite to file anything. However, we're also hearing that they want to call a special session, maybe in April or May, to discuss property tax.

And then there's also the version where they are going to file their own bill, send it over to the house, and that's what will be placed on the ballot. So currently, there are three different, rumors, you know, that we're hearing. None of them have been confirmed, but once we receive word, we will definitely update you on that.

And and would that special session be done in conjunction with a special session dealing with redistricting? Would that be all at the same time or possibly not?

We we don't know. We don't know where it's gonna go. Currently, the house and the senate, they are not seeing eye to eye. So right now, we're just waiting to see what happens, by the end of session.

Okay. So everything's sort of In the air. In the air right now, and we don't really Approximately, when do you think we would have a little bit more insight in terms of, property tax issues, the Homestead Saver Homes assessment issues? Or in particular, HP203, you say, is getting the most traction?

HP203 is getting the most traction. Yes.

Okay. And when would we, do you think, have a little bit more clarity on this?

The guesstimate would be in two or three weeks as the budget conference as it appears that most of everything is tied to the budget, but the Senate is keeping it very close to the best.

Okay. Thank you.

So 02/2003 is where property tax elimination would be phased in over ten years?

Correct.

Is that

just on homestead properties or

Yes. So the proposal would expand the existing second homestead exemption for ad valorem taxes on homestead property, and it would increase that exemption by 100,000 per year

Per for ten year years.

Ten years.

Okay. Per

the portion of assessed value currently covered by the second exemption.

Okay.

So beginning 2037, it would be a complete phase out property tax. Over a span of ten years, they're estimating that all property tax would eventually be eliminated.

On homestead properties.

On homestead properties.

Okay. So in their discussion, have they come up with solutions on how to augment city budgets that are going to be missing this income from Homestead revenue?

No.

No. Now are they going to deny cities the right to increase taxes on other properties in order to make up the difference, for example, on non homestead residential properties or on businesses? Has that been part of any of the bills?

That is a good question, and we can, ask the sponsors and our legislative delegation to pose that question when that bill comes forward on Thursday. Alright. Thank you. All right. Moving into home rule enforcement and land use.

House bill one zero five, which deals with local government enforcement actions and senate bill five eighty eight, would establish new exclusive mechanisms for challenging enforcement actions taken by counties and municipalities. And to accomplish this, the bill would prohibit municipalities from initiating or threatening to initiate any enforcement action that is determined by a court to be arbitrary or unreasonable and not authorized by an ordinance. And an enforcement action was further defined to mean any decision determination, demand inspection, citation order, denial interpretation, or other regulatory action undertaken by local government entity. It is currently on the house calendar agenda, so for a full house chamber vote. The senate version is still in its committee of reference, which is community affairs.

And as stated before, that particular committee is no longer meeting as of last week, Wednesday, because we have reached that halfway mark during session. So subcommittees and committees stop meeting, which is a good sign in a way because it means whatever bills were in those committees have less likely of a chance to move over as a stand alone bill, but we don't know if they're going to move that language into other moving vehicles that are similar refer to the similar site statutory citations. Eleven forty three deals with local government land development regulations and orders, and it would prohibit local governments from requiring more than one parking space per dwelling unit. So this is the Florida starting Starter Homes Act. It would prohibit local governments from limiting the maximum building height.

It would expedite the timeline for review of development applications, including development permits, orders, and plots. However, local governments may continue to apply the generally applicable architectural aesthetic design setback height or bulk standards to off-site constructed residential dwellings, and they may also adopt compatibility standards for architectural features, but the standards are limited to certain things. It also, provides that local governments should allow lot splits. And currently, it is in its second committee of reference in the house, and the senate bill is also in its second committee. And as of Thursday, that committee and the house judiciary will no longer be meeting as well.

There is a house bill three forty seven. This bill is is not moving because it hasn't moved out of its subcommittee, and it's in reference to the adoption and display of flags. This bill has been filed approximately for the last three years, and it would prohibit and strictly limit what flags government bodies are allowed to fly on public property. Any flag that shows political parties or messages or references to ideology, race, gender, or sexual orientation would be banned from government flagpoles. So while this bill has been filed regularly, it is it's not moving this year, but we can expect it to be filed next year.

So the POW, MIA flag that's, on the flagpole out here would be illegal to fly?

I believe it would not be legal to fly, but let me

clarify and provide you with the product answer. Parameters are.

I thought the POW flag is always legal to fly.

I believe it is. Yes. Yes. It's always legal to fly, but there are also some restrictions. I I didn't put it in here that say that The US flag needs to be flown at the very top.

Well, that's

always always is. Yes. Yes.

And that's fine. But I just want to know what are the boundaries now. And so you'll get back to us. Well, it's not going anywhere you said, so we don't really have to address this now. Okay. Thank you.

So what is not on this slide, but I know the commission was addressing earlier, was accessory dwelling units. There is a housing bill, Senate Bill 48, that is moving by senator Gates, and it would require, municipalities or local governments to have ordinances requiring ADUs. So right now, the way the statute is written, it's a May, so you have the option of having an ordinance to create and allow for ADUs. It would make it mandatory.

Well, we have that anyway. Correct.

Correct.

Mandatory without restriction. So local governments can only regulate the construction, permitting, and use of ADUs, except local governments can't prohibit the owner of an ADU from offering it for rent, for terms of less than one month, notwithstanding a particular statute. I, confirmed with our lobby team as to what that exception is within the prohibition. So in this case, it is protecting local government in the senate bill from short term rentals. So an owner cannot have a short term rental on the ADU.

However, that is addressed in the house version. So it's something that we're closely monitoring and speaking to speaking to the sponsor as well as our delegation to see if an amendment could be proffered, and taken as a friendly amendment in order to match the senate bill.

Okay. Great. Thank you.

This

is interesting. Go ahead.

In our legislative program, firearms, DI equity and cybersecurity and IT are also legislative priorities. So we're going to touch very lightly on some of these bills. Some are moving, some are not moving, such as sixty seventeen, the preemption of firearms and ammunition repeal. So this would repeal the Florida statewide rule that only the state could make gun laws and would give that power back to cities, counties, and other low local jurisdictions. These the this bill has not moved out of its subcommittee, but they're going to file it again next year.

Who's they?

Senator senator Polsky will will file that bill next year.

Okay. I I was I was surprised to see that. I can't see that ever getting out of subcommittee. Okay.

Thank you. So it's been filed before in the past, unsuccessful. However, we know members in the legislature will continuously file it until some traction is made.

Got it.

House bill 10 o one is official actions of local government, which is, referred to as the DEI bill as well as senate bill eleven thirty four. So both of the bills would prohibit counties and municipalities from funding, promoting, or taking official actions, such as adopting ordinances, resolutions, rules, regulations, programs, or policies related to DEI. And it would also prevent, county or municipality from expending any funds regardless of the source to establish or support any DEI office or officer. The house bill was amended last week, and it's differing from its underlying bill in that it provides for a delayed implementation of some of the provisions to 2027. And it doesn't prohibit a county or municipality from recognizing or honoring individuals or groups recognized and honored by a national monument that has not been designated by an act of congress.

It also authorizes a county or municipality to authorize or permit in a content neutral manner, civic and community events so long as no public funds are used to pay for it, no county or municipality employee is required to promote or attend the event, and the event doesn't promote terrorism, racism, or antisemitism. We have asked some questions about our DBE policies or local preference policies as it relates to this bill, and we're seeking some clarification. And once we get answers on that, we will let the commission and city manager know.

Daphne, how does 1566 differ from eleven '34 in the senate?

Fifteen sixty six.

It does not. So they're the same?

So they they refer to the same things in different manners. This year, there are which is different from not in a way, but different from previous years is that several bills referring to the same subject matter have been filed and are moving, but they just refer to them in different capacities.

Okay. So I just wanna take a moment on this one. I know that the mayor at the last commission meeting mentioned when we did the proclamation for Black History Month that this might be in jeopardy in the future. So what is the status of proclamations? I'm not talking about anything else, although I'm gonna get into that in a second. But would we still be permitted to do proclamations? We do proclamations for almost every every ethnicity, every cultural group, LGBTQ group. You name it. We do proclamations. Would those all be, in jeopardy with if passage of h b one zero one and senate bill eleven thirty four happened?

In discussions with the city manager and I'll I'll city manager and the city attorney, we're seeking clarification because the bill is very broad and ambiguous in a way. And I will clarify that, senate bill fifteen sixty six also, is more on the budget cutting exercise. It's it's on the local government spending side.

Okay. Because, so we're still getting clarity on proclamations, resolutions, things like that. Okay. Taking it just a step further, the city spends funds on festivals, parades. Would all of those be then in jeopardy? We have coming up. We have Sistran festival and parade. Would that be in jeopardy?

We're seeking clarification about that as well. In the staff analysis for the bill, there are several observed holidays, state and local, memorials and other recognitions that have been less listed, but we know it's not an all encompassing list, so we wanted to see clarifications. We have reached out to Parks and Recreation with a list of events that may not be on here, such as Saint Patrick's Day, the Sistrunk Festival, Diwali, and various other city programming and youth and neighborhood events. So we wanted to gain some clarity in how, if this bill does become law, what would local governments be restricted in doing, and in what capacity can elected officials attend or promote these events? Because right now, the way it's written, and the city attorney can correct me if I'm wrong, is that it's so broad and ambiguous you wouldn't know if you're actually sponsoring or promoting an event under the way it's written now.

Because it just seems it seems so broad. I mean, it it could almost apply to, you know, any any kind of program that deals with any any group, really. I mean, just seems so broad to me. So I look forward to that clarity. Commissioner, can

I jump in there? Yes, go

ahead, Ben. Sorry,

just to add on that. Sure. No. Just city manager, as we get clarity on this, I'd also like us to advocate while getting clarity that we would be opposed as a city to any limitation that would be thrust upon us to recognize all these identities and heritages that we talked about. So I'd like to not only get clarity but also advocate. So we're not so we're advocating proactively rather than reactively.

And I I think there's still opportunity for us to do just that. Yes.

Okay. Alright. Thanks. Sorry.

No problem. Are we, are we still looking in these bills and seeing the threat of removing city and county commissioners from office if these kinds of programs continued or we participated?

Yes. Yes. We we we so we have sent a one pager to our delegation indicating our opposition to the legislation so they are aware that we are opposed. Our members, our Fort Lauderdale delegation, the Broward delegation, and there are several other members of the legislature have also voiced their opposition, and we are working with the League of Cities, to see how mitigate, if not what we call kill kill the bill during legislative session. So we will continuously work on that.

Right now, we are working on it on the senate side. And based on last Wednesday's meeting in community affairs because they're no longer meeting on the senate. The senate version is what we call stalled. However, that house vehicle is still moving, and there's always the possibility that it could pass off the house floor, and the senate will take up the house bill, waive the rules as they call it, and take up the bill even without a senate companion. So I I was under

the assumption that this bill, was actually scheduled in the house judiciary on this morning at 08:30. Do we have any idea what happened for the final committee hearing on this?

I I will let you I will let you know with the update. I know the committees that have been meeting this morning, because I've been preparing for the presentation, and and here we haven't had an opportunity to look at them, but I'll work with our team. I'll be in Tallahassee, tonight for the rest of the week, and I'll get an update a better update for

the the

commission on what's occurred.

Thank you. I was also told, perhaps I'm wrong, I don't think so, that we'd actually did have, two people from our delegation vote yes on this so far in committee, a state senator and also a state representative. So I'm just looking for clarification on that as well.

Okay.

Because I I and again, I I you know, there are issues here that hopefully we will get the clarification that we need. But some of these things I find just really a little bit troubling and they're serious. And, to me when I look at these bills, they threaten really any any local program or activity that's basically, designed or implemented with reference to race, color, sex, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, you name it. So it's it's a that's gonna be a tough balancing act for a city like Fort Lauderdale. So I'm I'm looking forward

Especially to since there's a certain someone on this commission who's going to be one of the grand marshals at the Black History Month parade and I could be removed from office for being that whoever that person is for being a grand marshal that none of this makes any sense. Well, but they're both

these bills are steamrolling ahead in Tallahassee.

And then and also to add to the conversation regarding that term participation, because I'm thinking even beyond this capacity here. I'm recognized as a commissioner. Right? I am an elected official. However, I have other hats that I wear. I'm a minister. I'm a a community activist who is involved in other activities. Will that be combined into one label because I am elected, but I do operate in different capacities?

I don't think it's in I don't think this law would be enforceable. If it's challenging court, I think it would be unenforced. But but why don't before she answers that question, why don't you find out more information for for us and we'll know how to proceed?

Will do.

I I really appreciate it. I I just think that there's some real some tough issues right here for us to look at. I mean, I I just looked at a couple of ideas and just to throw these out, a county health department sickle cell anemia program focused on African Americans, promoting Tay Sachs screenings for the ethnic Jewish community, funding support for an HIV outreach targeted towards the LGBT community, a city police department providing extra security as an in kind support for a local pride parade, Jewish food festival, women's equal payday event, Miami Dade County, we're already recognized as Cuban Heritage Month every September, and in Broward County and elsewhere, we have commissions on the status of women. So I mean, could go on and on and on, but this is just something that we need to think about, because this doesn't seem to me to be the city that Fort Lauderdale is.

Or the state of Florida for that matter. Mean Or the country. Yeah. This is not what who we are as Floridians.

So Well We can speak for the city of Fort Lauderdale. Sometimes it's tough for us to speak for the state of Florida or for the country as a whole, but, we certainly can speak up for our constituents and what this means to many of our constituents in every single district. So I I I look forward to getting some of that clarity. Thank you.

Definitely, does the Florida League of Cities support our position and opposition to this? Yes. They do. Okay. Great. We need to communicate outside of our Broward delegation our opposition to this?

That's that's a difficult question to answer. We can communicate to the entire legislature that we are in opposition. However, based discussions and the temperature of Tallahassee, I would remain cautious and take a more conservative approach and continue to work with the league and then have me get some more information from our team, have me get some more information with the league to see what they're doing behind the scenes to talk to the senate sponsor, to the house sponsors, and see, you know, where the temperature is with leadership on the senate side and the house side if they are going to take it all the way and then act based on that information that we receive.

Okay. Great.

Do we

know if the floor Commissioner. Sorry, Mara.

Go ahead.

Have every right, obviously, to speak your mind.

Yeah. Thank you. You know?

And so, you know, never feel like you should be held back.

Yeah. Thanks, Mara. I agree. And I will continue doing that. Do we know does the Florida League of Cities have a list, for example, of cities that stand with us in opposition? Do you know if anything like that's

I can find out.

If you could, because I'd love to see who else there, and and that could be a helpful tool for them to advocate. Okay. Thank you.

Daphne, and I don't know if this falls under the, what we're talking about now in terms of DEI equity and small business tools, but are you gonna get into any discussion of h b six four one and senate bill sixteen forty two? Was that listed later? That's the, don't say gay or transit work bill. They seem to be nicknaming it. No. No. I That's, h b six four one and senate bill sixteen forty two. Right. Very extreme, but obviously targeted specifically to the LGBTQ community in Florida.

I am not touching on it on this report. However, I can provide you with an update.

Yes. I I I'd appreciate that because, that's also, very tough for many, especially a lot of my constituents in District 2, and throughout the entire city, and I I would just love to know where those where those bills stand too. Again, very targeted, and many people would say that it's very extreme, anti LGBTQ ideology, throwing that into the workplace and also into the government sector, as well. It really is a really a license to discriminate. Plain and simple. Thank you.

Welcome.

Keep going.

I had turned the page too soon on senate bill 56. That is the local government spending bill by senator DeSigli and also the house bill thirteen twenty nine. It would just require counties and municipalities to conduct an annual budget cutting exercise identifying specific reductions at least fourteen days before the final adoption of the local government's budget. It would also require local government's budgets to be posted on their websites in a manner that allows members of the public to view data in a specific format, and it's basically just calling for greater transparency in the budget process. We did speak to the office of management and budget, and most of what is in this bill, we are already aligned with, and we remain neutral on it.

The senate bill as of Wednesday was in community affairs and doesn't appear to be moving. Senate bill five ninety three, which, talks about governmental agencies and personnels, personnel, is mostly geared towards the state and state agencies, and it would just impose several limits on how state officials handle money, travel, lobbying, and political activity. And it would broaden existing restrictions on political activity, making it illegal for state and local officials or employees to use their official position to ask for campaign contributions. It aligns with some of the ethics rules that that have been out there mostly for the state, but we've been monitoring it to see if it could be, amended to be stricter with local with local government, and so far, it has not. Sixteen sixty two is the prohibited preferences bill, as well as house bill eleven eighty nine.

It would bar agencies from giving preference in employment or procurement based, on race or gender and would repeal many existing minority business enterprise provisions scattered throughout state law. There is also requirements that state agencies and commissions, when they're considering race, ethnicity, or gender when making appointments or hiring decisions. Again, this bill is specifically geared towards state agencies. However, we wanted you to be aware that we are monitoring it in case it was amended to include, counties and municipalities. There are two bills in reference to local government cybersecurity.

That is senate bill five seventy six and house bill six thirty five. They just, one, sets up a new local government cybersecurity protection program run by the Florida Digital Services and require state and local governments to sign data sharing agreements so they can safely share security information with each other, helping, every one spot prevent and respond to cyber attacks more quickly. House Bill six thirty five, just says that governments and certain private organizations can avoid most lawsuits over data breaches and or hacks if they follow the solid recognized cybersecurity practices. I did speak to our information technology director, and he said that we already follow those cybersecurity, provisions, and that bill just helps us, with our liability. The next slides, we will be discussing our appropriations.

We have requested nine appropriations. Both chambers released their general appropriations and implementing bills, last week, Thursday and Friday. The house budget totals 113,600,000,000.0, where the senate budget totals $11,515,100,000,000.0 dollars where there's a 1,500,000,000 difference, still below the governor's budget request of $117,400,000,000 So after the proposals pass their respective committees, both plans will then go to their chamber floors, setting up budget conference, which we expect to happen within the next two weeks.

And Are

these there appropriations included in either of the bills?

Yes. Do you want me to get do want me to get there? Okay. So our aviation techno technical training program, we had requested 1,000,000. It is in the house budget at 500,000 and in the senate budget at 350,000. The fire rescue fire the fire rescue fireboat replacement, we had requested 643 and 78. We received $321.05 40 in the house budget. We did not, we're we did not receive anything in the senate budget. However, we're still in in play during budget conference for that. The substance abuse and mental health treatment program, we requested 250.

In the house budget, we received 200,000. In the Senate budget, we received 250,000. So we received in the Senate budget our full ask. Roadway resurfacing, we requested 850,000. In the House budget, we received 425,000.

In the Senate budget, we received $350,000,000 In the Los Oles Business District safety improvements and ADA upgrades project, this is the Los Oles mobility project. We received $1,000,000 We requested 1,000,000 In the house budget, we received 500,000. We didn't get anything in the senate. For the Rio Vista and Lauderdale Harbors license plate readers, we requested 111,825. In the house budget, there is an amount of 55,913.

We did not get anything in the Senate. The Galtmile Street Safety Improvements Project, we requested $11,250,000.00 in the House. We did not get anything. However, we received the full amount in the Senate. For the Triplex Water Pump Station and the Sunrise Lane District streetscape programs, respectively, we are not in the House or Senate budgets for the amounts that we received. As long as we are in one of the two budgets, we are considered in play during budget conference to get, funding for this legislative session. So out of the nine projects, we have seven in play.

And we'll share this information with you, via e mail. It was not available at the time of printing. It just came out. So you'll get a detailed list that summarizes what Daphne just shared.

So now

Has has commission has state representative LaMarca been informed that the house has not allocated any money to the Gault Mile safety improvement project?

Yes. And we will be discussing that this week.

Okay. Thank you.

And the Sunrise Lane?

Yes. We will also be discussing that this week. Alright. Property tax. So there are eight. All property tax joint resolutions, of the eight, three are awaiting a vote in the House chamber. The remaining five are in various committees. So we'll go through them, relatively briefly.

Well, just go through the three. Through the three? Yes. If the others aren't being considered, what's the point?

Okay. So the

first one that is in, the House calendar on second reading is House Bill or house joint resolution two zero three, which is the phased out elimination of non school property tax for homestead. And this proposal would expand the existing second homestead exemption for ad valorem taxes on homestead property, increasing the exemption by $100,000 per year for ten years on the portion of assessed value currently covered in the second exemption. So that beginning in 2037, the full assessed value of homestead property is exempt from all nonschool ad valorem taxes. And, as stated earlier, we just received notice that it's scheduled for a vote on Thursday, the nineteenth.

Now you say a 100,000 per year. What happens if your house is worth $5,000,000 So you're only exempted up to the first $101,000,000 or something. Is that how it's being interpreted?

Yes.

Okay. Alright. So it isn't a full exemption?

No. No. It just depends on the the assessed value of your home of your home. There are some some areas of the state where the house is valued at 100,000. It would be fully the property tax But would be

fully exempt if their house is worth in excess of $1,000,000 it won't be fully exempt?

Correct.

Okay. Thank you.

The next one is House Joint Resolution two zero nine, which is property insurance relief homes which is considered the property insurance relief homestead exemption. And this proposal would create an alternative second homestead exemption that is $200,000 higher than the existing $25,000 second exemption on the portion of assessed value between $50,000 and $75,000 So it would only apply to homestead properties that have comprehensive homeowners insurance and would cover the assessed value between $25,000 and $250,000 adjusted annually for inflation for all ad valorem taxes other than school taxes. So an estimated 83% of homeowners would qualify. And the third one that is also on the house floor awaiting a vote is house joint resolution two thirteen, which is the modification of limitations on property assessment increases, and this would change how often and how much property values can be increased for local nonschool property taxes. And for counties, cities, and special districts, the assessed value of each property could be changed only once every three years.

For homestead properties, any increase in assessed value at the three year point would be capped at the lower of 3% or the total change in inflation over the three year period. And those are the three that are currently in the House chamber.

Merritt, I'd like to go back to 02/2003. To your point, based on my understanding and what has been provided to us, by the property appraiser, after 01/01/2037, the exemption shall equal the assessed value of the property.

So even So it's a full exemption.

A full exemption.

Okay.

Got it.

Okay. Any questions of Daphne other than the ones we've asked already?

I do, mayor. Thank you.

Go ahead.

So Daphne, I just wanted to bring your attention to the advanced air mobility bills HB ten ninety three and Senate bill thirteen sixty two. I just want to make sure that we're working really closely and coordinating, you know, not just with the folks up in Tallahassee, our lobby teams, but also folks like the Holiday Park Garage partners that we've moved forward with on this project. Because I think that those advanced air mobility bills are very applicable to what we're going to be building in Holiday Park, and that could really be a substantial substantial savings, in the short term and the long term. So I just want to make sure that we're really closely monitoring. I'm hearing that those bills look good Yes.

With FDOT fully funding these verdiports, is that what you're hearing?

That's what I'm hearing. I know the advanced air mobility bill, was amended last week, to ensure that FDOT does fund verdiports.

Okay. So are we all on the same page working together with our partners on this and working with our, legislative delegation and just making sure that we're all moving forward on this? Because it it does have excellent ramifications for our city.

It it does, commissioner Glassman, and we are working with our lobbyist team to promote that.

Okay. Good. Do we see any pitfalls or anything negative at all, down the road on these at all for us in terms of something that I might be missing?

We're only seeking clarification to ensure that the funding for board reports doesn't, come out of the trust fund, to divert from funding from our general aviation airport, FXE. So as long as there's parity in funding and one is not coming from another pot, then that's all that we're seeking clarity on.

Okay. And do we have any indication what the answer is gonna be for that?

I'll let you know by the end of this week.

Okay. I can't wait for the end this week.

Correct me if I'm wrong. As far as the vertiport proposal in connection with the Holiday Park parking garage is concerned, the city was not going to be paying any part of that anyway. Right? Correct. So this would just be to benefit the the contractor who had proposed it?

Yes. But I believe because of the actual dollar amount involved that we can make that advantageous for us also as we move forward with that project. I mean, there just has to be because that can't be just a one-sided benefit for our partner. We have to be able to take advantage of that as well. And whether that's requiring negotiation or whatever, but I just think that the dollar amount is so significant that we have to be able to take advantage of that down the road, whether at the beginning of the contract or as the contract makes its way through. Because we have not, correct me if I'm wrong, we have not solidified that contract or negotiations or developer agreement or comprehensive agreement or anything,

That is correct. We had our first negotiation session a few days ago and the concept of the vertiport was one of the primary points of discussion, to ensure that we're on the same page about its inclusion and how it would work, how the city would participate and how the developer and its partners would participate in the project.

Great. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, wasn't that dollar amount that was assigned to that about $16,000,000 for the vertiport?

That is what was shared during the presentation. You are correct. The mayor is also correct that the city was not contemplated to be responsible for those costs. Right.

But we also did not contemplate this legislation that all of a sudden out of the blue, FDOT was saying we're gonna fund a 100% of these projects.

Correct.

So that's something that we're

saying is that this windfall to the contractor should the city should somehow offset some of the cost of the building of the parking garage.

Without a doubt.

Okay.

And we can incorporate language into the interim agreement to speak to that. So whether or not this came to fruition at this time, maybe it's something that we could build in so that should something like that happen, we would be able to benefit. Excellent.

I just wanna make sure that we're all working on this together. We're coordinating with all of our partners, and we're not gonna let something like this just sort of like slip through, and we're not taking advantage of it because it it really is a big dollar amount for the overall project. Thank you, mayor. You're welcome.

We have one person who signed up to speak. Thank you, Daphne. I think that's it. Did you have something to ask? Yeah.

I just have one more question. No. I apologize. Thanks, mayor. Daphne, Senate Bill fifteen forty eight regarding live local, can you give us an update on that?

Yes.

Thanks.

So senate bill fifteen forty eight is in regards to, some amendments to the Live Local Act. So it would provide that the preemptions to Live Local of of the Live Local Act permitting the development of affordable housing apply on any property owned by a county, municipality, or school district. It would also provide that a local government may not utilize other dimensional means such as setbacks to constructively restrict the height of a project authorized by the Live Local Act. It permits the utilization of the Live Local Act in the vicinity of airports when approved by the airport's governing body. It clarifies language around the prohibition against discriminating against affordable housing development and land use decisions by a local government and waive sovereign immunity in cases based on such discrimination.

It also provides for, provisions regarding farming and farm operations, which we we don't really have in the city of Fort Lauderdale. So it does some specific things to the Live Local Act. I know on the senate side, we we have been in discussions about any amendments, in order to clarify certain things that were bad for local governments in the original bill. The senate is not, receptive to taking any of those amendments. The house bill doesn't appear to be moving much, but we'll know for sure by the end of this week so I can provide a more clear, update to you on where the senate bill is, where the senator's mindset is, but also where the house bill is and whether or not we can work post session with the legislators in order to develop some legislation for the 2027 session?

Okay. So thanks. So this bill makes the bad aspects of Live Local even worse for us as a city,

just to be clear.

Right? So it makes it worse. It makes a bad bill even more horrible for us as

a city. If you're a developer,

it's Fantastic really if that's who you are, exactly. But for residents of Fort Lara, this is bad. So I just want to make sure, city manager, that we're advocating against this bill. We need to in addition create you know bills proposals after the legislative session to improve live local, but we need to advocate against this. Is that correct?

That's clear. Okay. It sounds like there's consensus to do that.

Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you, Daphne. Thanks, Meyer. That's it.

Any other questions or comments for Daphne? There being none. Okay. Thank you, Daphne. Thank you for your great work. You've been very thorough. Keep rocking. Appreciate it. You're not getting anything done, but we really appreciate it. Thank you. Great job. Great job, though. Great job.

And Mayor, if I could, I just want to highlight that this year, we participated in Broward Days in a way that we haven't in the recent past.

I've heard such great comments. You're going up there. We really appreciate all the great work you're doing on behalf of the city. You made a great presence up there. Daphne, everyone when I mentioned Daphne's name, everyone is so thankful that she's there because she provides a lot of good information to the other legislators, what's going on and understanding the depth of some of these bills.

So it's really helpful for the city. But there's a culture up there. I was up there a couple of weeks ago myself on another matter and the culture up there is just so it has a deaf ear to so much of what we feel is just good and right and fair. And things this, like the Live Local Act, I don't think anyone's paying attention up there as to the impact it's having on communities like Fort Lauderdale, like Miami, like Tampa. Everyone's complaining about the impact that these statues have on the quality of life that we're trying to maintain here in our single family home and multifamily home neighborhoods.

So we'll do what we can to try to make the best of it. But at least if we have our lobbying team there, making sure that our voice, our opinion is being heard, I think that's the most important thing that we can expect at this moment. So thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Marilyn, anyone else wish to speak on this item? Since you're the only one, we'll give you full three minutes.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Commissioners. I'm Marilyn Momano. I am speaking on behalf of myself, as a professional planner and as a member of the Broward Section of Florida APA, which I am the legislative representative. Daphne being the consummate professional does not go around crying fire, fire. Okay, house on fire. I'm here to cry house on fire. Okay. Okay. I'm here to speak specifically on SB nine forty eight which is in my opinion incorrectly called starter home, the Florida starter home provision. It's a false promise of starter homes.

I prefer to call it the death of the American dream of owning a single family home. Actually what it is, is it's live local for single family residential districts. And if you read from the staff report, not not I'm not telling you this, this is from the staff report from the staff up in Tallahassee, the bill will have an indeterminate negative physical impact on local governments as they reorganize their entire framework for single family residential zoning and development approval. Okay. Now I'm the first person to say that Lodge Lot single family zoning has been used exclusively, implicitly and explicitly to reduce the opportunities of homeownership for people of a myriad of economic, classes.

And, there's a racial component too when there's literature all over the place that would substantiate that. But this is a false promise of opening up the residential zoning districts, the single family residential zoning districts to multifamily housing. And I will tell you what this bill does, reading from the bill itself. Okay? Under the bill, a local government may not adopt development regulations that govern residential lots unless there is a compelling governmental interest. Zoning protects the welfare and health of the community. It doesn't have to have a compelling government interest. But let's put that aside. That's a planner's, you know, kind of argument. Let me tell you exactly what it does.

If there is a lot on residential real property connected to a public water sewer system, the local government may not require a minimum lot size greater than 12,000 square feet. That's 20 by 100 foot lot, may not require a minimum lot size greater than that. It may not prevent the lot from being developed as a townhouse, duplex, yada, yada, require greater setbacks than zero on the side feet, 10 on the rear or 20 on the front, and a minimum dimension that is more than 20 feet or provide that more or require that more than 30% of the lot be reserved for open space. It may not require a building height less than three stories or a minimum floor area ratio of less than three. It may not require that the property owner occupy the property, very important because we're talking about potential short term rentals here and it may and a minimum size greater than the requirements of the Florida Building Code and it gets worse, it gets worse.

Under the bill, the local governments must allow the lot to front on a shared space and not a public street. Local governments may not require a minimum number of parking spaces greater than one per residential dwelling unit on lots of less than 40,000 square feet, 4,000 square feet, obviously these are smaller than 4,000 square feet, so you may not require parking for more than one dwelling unit or any parking for lots within one half of a mile of a permanent public transit stop such as bus commuter or intercity rail system, okay? This is a nightmare. Think about this. Think about two lots in Imperial Point, okay?

Together, they have two single family homes on them. Somebody comes in, purchases the two lots and starts to subdivide them into townhouse units. Nothing you can do about it. It's live local for single family residential districts. It doesn't preempt, but it provides for a development review procedure where you must approve them if they meet the requirements that I just read, okay.

And if you don't approve it, you must provide written notification to the developer why you don't approve it. So in a sense, it's a preemption or an administrative approval. Daphne has me, Sanneville has said that this may not be moving, it may die in committee. One only hopes that it dies, well deserved death, but we should be careful that this kind of attitude in Tallahassee, which the mayor correctly characterizes as pervasive, anti city, anti local government. This may end up being little pieces being put into other bills that's happened.

We saw that with SB 180. So this is very concerning and I think we should keep our eyes open on this one because if it lives, it will be a catastrophe. And what will happen is the first time it happens, they will come to you and say,

how did

you let this happen?

Well, that's the point. We had that same situation at the Galleria where people were pointing to us that we're letting it happen. And that's why we had the town hall meeting to educate people what's going on. But that alone is not going to be the solution. I remember years ago when I was first a commissioner and we started to see a plethora of townhouse development in Victoria Park and people were saying how do we let this happen? This supposed to be a single family home neighborhood. But what we're going to see is a complete changeover of many of these single family home neighborhoods where they're going to be cluster homes. They're not going to be detached with yards where kids can play and things

like And trees.

Right. And trees. Exactly. You know, it's funny. You know, everyone knows this iconic picture of San Francisco with the multicolored townhouses that are on, I forget the name of the park that it's on.

And if you go up to those houses, they're 20 feet wide. So when you go inside, you have room for a staircase and you have room for a hallway to whatever room you're going particular floor. This is what we're looking at. We're looking at completely changing the identity of our neighborhoods because, someone in Tallahassee has decided that this is how the rest of Florida needs to be accommodated. And you know I'm all about accommodating growth and I'm all about embracing the change of populations that come here and welcoming people to come and experience the paradise that we have for so many years have come to experience, but there's a right way of doing it and there's a wrong way of doing it and this is definitely the wrong way of

doing it. Definitely the wrong way of doing it. My community, Harbordale, we're seeing a conversion of older single family homes into townhomes, but it's not a catastrophe. Okay? Because we're not a single family zoning district. We have townhouses. We have apartment buildings. So there's a natural evolution of the old nineteen fifty houses. You just can't they're not viable anymore and grandpa passed away and the kids don't want to live there anymore. So we're seeing that gradual transition.

No problemo. Okay. I'm not anti townhouse. But I'm telling you that the American dream of buying a home in a single family neighborhood where your kids can play in the backyard and you got lots of room to run around is under direct attack. It's been under direct attack in planning circles for quite some time now because of its exclusionary and past racial, implications.

But I'm telling you that in the, more recent past, a lot more people have been able to afford that American dream. And now that these people have just had this nice new opportunity to afford the American dream, they're going to find out all of a sudden, well, wait a minute, now that I got in, you're changing it. You're changing the rules. And now it's all going to be townhouses and Airbnbs. So there is no affordability here.

The Tallahassee people have bought into this developer dream that if you keep increasing density, okay, increase density, increase density and increase density, houses will become more affordable. And in a closed system, increasing the supply does reduce the price of the commodity. But we don't have a closed system, which is America. People come. You keep building, they keep coming.

The price doesn't come down and you know that's from empirical evidence that we see all around us. We build, we build, we build and the prices don't come down. They're still unaffordable. So this idea that we're going to increase the supply of housing by breaking up the, single family residential neighborhoods and houses will all of a sudden become more affordable, it's a false dream. So let's be careful.

You don't believe in supply side economics? We know. We've had this argument you know.

So Marlon, I I gotta challenge you on a lot of that. Sure. Go. I'm gonna I'm gonna refer back to your background. Right? Sure. So all the row houses and brownstones in Brooklyn and most of those other neighborhoods were on narrow lots.

Okay.

No lot lines whatsoever. They're cheek to jowl and when people wanted a backyard, they moved out to Long Island. When they wanted a backyard and a big lawn in the front, they moved out to those suburban neighborhoods. The reason New York worked was the density is what made it possible for 8,000,000 people to live in a relatively congested area. At some point, and I lived in one of those townhouses in Vic Park.

As did I.

Okay. So yes, all those older nineteen forties era houses that were built there that had a closet the size of this, okay, and and had and had floors that sloped like this. There are people that want to live in that and but most people don't. Most people want a walk in closet. They they wanna they they want rooms that are square, not trapezoidal.

Okay. And and and they want they want more modern amenities in their house, and when you can tear down a single family house that sits on one very large lot and put in four townhomes, yes, increasing density does bring, does increase supply and nobody has repealed the law of supply and demand. So as more people move here, they're going to bid up the prices of existing houses. If we do not create more housing, then the price of existing house goes up more than it will if we create more housing. That again, nobody has repealed the law of supply and demand and nobody ever will.

We have to create more housing. The only way to do that in a constrained environment as you point out, we're not creating more land. So we have to repurpose the land that we have.

May I may I? Okay. I agree with you that we need more housing. I agree with you that townstones of townhouses are perfectly acceptable way of living and that is the American dream for some people. Not everybody wants to live in a a a house on a big lot with a big yard that you gotta Or can

afford you. That's what happened all along You

used you used the example of the people who were living in those townhouses in Brooklyn and then when they had a family and they could afford it, they moved out to Long Island to the burbs where they had a single family home. What this is is an attack on the Long Island Burbs. Okay?

No. That's Weston. That's Parkland. That's Sunrise. That's Plantation. I'm following your That's not the urban

environment But that we live when people want that American dream, I mean we've had this argument that the planners level. Okay. My American dream versus your American dream. Okay. I've had both. I've lived in a townhouse. I built myself a house out in the Hamptons on a big lot. So you know, people move, they change, their lifestyles change, their economic situation changes. So it's about choice, okay? You can't tell one person's American dream. You can't have that dream anymore because we need more houses for other people. It's just not fair. There's a fairness argument here that I would bring to your attention. But I'm not against density. I teach it.

I preach it for goodness sake. Okay? In the appropriate places, in the appropriate amounts, which is not live local. Okay? I don't care what you say. I will never support the density, and and preemption and administrative approval of Live Local. But speaking of Live Local, the bill that we're opposing has got one good part of it. It reduces the affordable, the income limits from 120% of median income to 80%, no, no to 100% of median. That's a good thing. If you know if we have to take the bad, let's take that good one. Let's call that a victory. Okay. So you know we can we can have a couple of years and talk about this ad nauseam but Alright.

Let's Mayor check

your time.

Thank you very much.

Alright. Thank you.

Thank you

so much.

I love my house on Long Island. I don't know about anybody else. Really enjoyed that single family home. We had about an acre and a half. It was really nice. Thank you.

Alright. Let's move on. CF two. This is a presentation on managing your water bill, Rates Prevention, Ordinance Rights and Customer Assistance Program. And this will be presented by the finance department.

Yes. I'm going to invite Linda Short, our Finance Director, to provide a presentation. And as you know, Mayor and Commissioners, we receive e mails and feedback all the time about things related to water billing, and our team is very dedicated to providing excellent customer service and information. And this item reflects an opportunity for us to share some background information as well as, to give our neighbors an opportunity to learn more about what we do and how we can assist them.

Thank And just to piggyback on that, I've had hundreds, hundreds of people with bills in the tens of thousands of dollars. And so we need a more robust answer. Well, to your

point, we initiated this new water meters program, correct? And tell us in your presentation,

tell Yes, us the the presentation does include some information about the AMI program.

Okay. So let's hear about that let's see what steps we're taking to try to ameliorate the situation.

We're trying to fix it at every avenue. Good afternoon, honorable mayor, vice mayor, members of the commission, Linda Short, director of finance here at the city of Fort Lauderdale. With me today that's going to be presenting, I have Aaron Kendrick, who is the Deputy Director of Finance. He handles the utility billing area. Most of the day to day stuff goes through him before it comes through me. Additionally, with me is going to be Ingrid Schinbaum. She is the Program Manager, Utility Services and Albert Carbone, who is the Utility Services Director as well. And additionally, one person here for question and answers is Veronica Wade. She's the Revenue Collections Manager and the frontline working with the customers every day. So let me give you a background about our utility billing system.

We have over 56,000 accounts that we bill for and that's about 66,000 meters. So So the reason why you have more accounts than meters is that some accounts have an irrigation and a regular meter for the residential. So we have more meters than accounts, which makes sense. The more irrigation meters that we have out there, the lower your bill would be because you don't get billed for the sewer as a part of your bill. So let me just walk through some numbers before we get into the presentation.

We bill approximately $200,000,000 worth of revenue every year for the water and sewer system. As an intake and dealing with the customers, we deal about 300 to three fifty phone calls a day as well as about 125 neighbors that walk in to our lobbies day to day to get service whether it's to talk about a bill, pay a bill, open, close service or submit an application. All right. All right. So the discussion today, we're going to go into how to understand and manage your water bill, right?

We'll go through what the current rates are, rate increases that has been adopted by ordinance. We'll go through some of the common causes for high bills. We'll go through high consumption and some steps to prevent the high bills. And we'll go through what the benefits are for an irrigation meter, which I told you already, we have about 10,000 irrigation meters out there. We'll go through the tests and credits that we do to test what's going on with the system.

We'll go through the pay arrangements and the assistance program that was developed this year and funded this year. And then we'll also go through the AMI, which everybody wants to know what's going on with AMI, which is a program we've been working on for several years to implement and we're on the road. Implementation has started and we're excited to talk about what those steps are. All right, understanding and managing your bill. All right, so on the left hand side, you will see what our current residential rates are.

We do a tier system when it comes to the consumption, and the rates that you see there right now are 26 rates. So $4.92 for every thousand gallons up to 3,000. Anything between four and eight thousand is $10.80 per thousand gallons and so on and so forth. So when you have a bill, and on the bottom we have our sewer rates, which is also you have zero to three or above three and the rates are for every thousand gallons, how much you get charged, that's the rate. On your right hand side of your presentation, you'll see what the average bill is for the smallest meter that we have, which is a fiveeight meter using about 5,000 gallons for the month.

If you're looking at that, the middle chart fiscal year 2026, you will see your consumption on a 5,000 gallon utilization equates to $36.36. That is just for water consumption. Included in the bill also is a sewer consumption porch portion, which is $48.94. However, included in the bill are fixed charges that are standard. So whether you have service hooked up or not, there's an availability payment, fixed costs that are required to be paid, and that is your base and your fixed rate for the water and sewer system.

And like I said, if your water is shut off, you're still getting a bill, it's your base charges. Additionally, on top of that, we charge a 10% utility tax on the base and the consumption. And then of course, if you have sanitation with us, you have a sanitation fee. So for a 5,000 gallon consumption on a five eighths meter, you're paying about a $173.83, including sanitation, utility taxes, utilization, and the base charges. All right, so rate increases.

Why did our rates increase? Our rates increased for several reasons. One, we're trying to support needed infrastructure in the water and sewer system. Additionally, we have operational changes that have to happen due to regulatory changes. So we have the Prospect Lake Clean Water Center, which is why that big spike happened in 2025 to 22% increase for water and a 9% increase for sewer.

In 2026, it is nine and nine. And next year in twenty seven's fiscal year is going to be nine and five and twenty eight afterwards is five and five, which was our standard about 5% increase what we had years ago. Like I said, these rates were built in as a part of our rate study to ensure that we had sufficient revenue to manage the system and issue the needed debt that was needed for the infrastructure. Now to go over some common causes, I'm going to introduce Aaron Kendrick, Deputy Director, just to walk you through a couple of these slides.

Good afternoon. As Linda said, my name is Aaron Kendrick, deputy finance director, for the record. Speaking through the city manager to the mayor, vice mayor, and commission. Very pleased to be with you. This is my inaugural discussion with you. First time been in front of very

Thank you good. You'll be judged.

Oh, very pleased to be with you. I wanna talk about some of the common causes of of the high water bills that we hear. When someone applies for a credit with us, one of the criteria or the things that they have to do is they have to, engage a leak specialist in order to determine whether or not there's an actual leak or whether this is an unusual leak scenario. And if there is a leak that it has been repaired because we don't wanna issue a credit on something, and the leak still exists. And so these are the common causes that we see on the applications that comes back from individuals when they're applying for a credit.

And essentially, there's nothing here that's rocket science. It's probably most of these you probably would have guessed, but these are indeed the, items that we see on the applications. Running toilets, the flap, the flapper is either worn out or valve fill or there's a stuck float, those three devices, those three items that are in the back of the toilet there. Usually one of those toilets are probably, very high on the reasons, for most leaks, surprisingly. Leak leaking faucets, shower, and valves, things of that nature.

Water softeners, stuck regeneration mode, stuck in regeneration mode. Essentially, it doesn't realize that it has cleaned that water and it continually cleaning the same bucket of water over and over again. And when that fills up, it causes it to drain. And so it's just additional water going down the drain. Refrigerator, ice maker often leak the leaky lines, washing machine hoses, often leaking.

And then you've got the reverse osmosis, caught in a rerun cycle. And that has that tank often that sit underneath the sink. And what happens is that when it fills with water, the air pressure is supposed to turn off that valve, but it doesn't in a lot of cases. And, you can use up to a 100 to 500 gallons a day, when one of those system gets gets locked up on you. Outdoor causes, irrigation leaks as you like I say, you may have guessed that, of course.

Sprinkler heads, you know, are cracked, things of that nature are just generally running. We've got that overwatering during the dry season. A lot of individuals here are as we all know are here part of the year and somewhere else at the other part, but they leave the water irrigation set at the same system and so they're they're often posit as to why they're using so much water when it's, during these all seasons. Hoses left running, malfunctioning irrigation, and rain sensors, spigots from the outdoor showers and leaks. And I gotta admit, never had an outdoor shower so that one's an interesting one to me.

Other causes? Your other calls are the pool fillings or the pool fill system continually running. Pressure washing, we often get this where people or puzzled, they call us, the first thing they ask me generally is why is my bill so high? Tell me how can that be. And often I'm not there but after a little bit of a conversation, you'll generally find out they've had the house order driveway, pressure wash it, which explains a lot of what that spike is related to.

Guest in large gatherings, people have We see this a lot during the holidays as you might expect. People coming over or people staying, things of that nature actually, you know, creates a significant spike. Flipping that to the next page here, high consumption, and the practical steps, how can we prevent some of this and what how can we identify these issues? Normal indicators of unusual consumption is, a sudden doubling or tripling of your usage. Now utility billing automatically when it sees a doubling of someone's bill, we don't bill that right away.

We sent out the team to do a second read on that just to confirm that the reading that we have is indeed a legitimate read. So doubling, we double check before we actually even put that bill out there. Monitoring of the immediate flow during night hours. If you're curious as to whether or not you've got an issue, a lot of times you can take a look at that meter just before, you do before you've you finished all your shower and everything that evening. The next day or the next morning, before you start engaging in a lot of water usage, take a look at that meter and you will either there should be very little movement.

If you've got movement at that time, you probably got some type of leak somewhere. Spikes during months when the irrigation, isn't normally used as I've kind of indicated earlier. A lot of times that's because the irrigation meters are set and never monitored or changed. And if you have usage that it's kind of significantly higher than your twelve month average, which is what we utilize for most of the calls that we receive. We look and say we take a look at that average and see whether or not you have increased above that or whether or not you're really in your normal pattern.

The benefits of irrigation meters. First of all, irrigation meters do not charge sewer fees, which is the biggest financial benefit to them. Because if if you notice the slide that Linda showed you earlier, sewer sewer charges cost more than the actual water does until you get up to 13,000 gallons, which most households very rarely get up to 13,000 gallons. So most often if you're paying for sewage, you're paying that cost. I can say that that's greater than the actual water usage itself.

So getting an irrigation meter in place can drastically reduce your monthly bill. It also helps isolate the outdoor usage from the indoor usage. As I indicated earlier, the number one thing I hear, why is my bill so high? What's going on here? A lot of times it's difficult to tell if you've got your irrigation and your domestic water usage combined, but if they're separated it gives us an opportunity to be able to distinguish a little bit quicker where the issue may be, and to provide you with some assistance.

And so as I indicated, that's supporting the, future investigation aspect of this. Went the wrong direction. Testing credits. The city offers a couple of well, should say the other way around. A neighbor can request a meter test at any given time, that they are concerned about the accuracy of their readings.

Now this comes with a cost first time at $16, second time at the same household would be $70 However, if we test that meter and it turns out that you're, that is faulty, naturally that would be refunded to you. So you wouldn't have to pay, for a test on a bad meter. Customers, often like to be present during that reading. That is not a requirement of the ordinance. However, we do our best to kinda honor that request when when it's practical.

And so we will allow, as as neighbors to take a a part in that meter test, in terms of being there. If a meter passes as I indicated earlier, we will.

Well,

my apologies.

There we go.

Sorry about that. But I was doing such a good job. Come on. You still

are. You're

doing a

great job.

If the meter passes the full test, then naturally we will adjust that bill accordingly. One key distinction here are clarification. When we say if a meter passed the test or failed the test, what we are talking about is overregistering. If it is overregistering and charging you more water than it should be, that is a failure where you get a credit. If it is underregistering, that's still considered a failure. However, you are not gonna get a credit because we haven't been charging you enough in the first place.

Okay. Let's stop right there. So if we're overcharging and you give and it's determined that that the amount is not correct, but are we giving a 100% credit or just a discounted amount? No.

If your meter is determined to be Okay.

It's all based on the meter. Right. Okay. Right. Not based on a spike where a person gets charged $3,000 a month for water and their normal rate is like $200 a month. So that's different. That's a whole different situation.

It is and it's on the next I believe it's the next slide coming up what you're just, what you're going into, sir.

Okay.

Yes, ma'am. So I'll yeah. I'll see if I can clarify that when we get to that in a minute here. What we're saying here in in this aspect is that you've requested a meter test because you were concerned about its accuracy. We've gone out, we've pulled that meter, we've replaced it with another one. And so we are taking that back to the shop and we're gonna test it. If it fails by because it was over registering, in other words it was charging you more water usage than you were actually utilizing, then we will credit you for that. If we don't have an issue with it, then of course whatever bill we've issued stands.

Aaron, thank you. Is do we have any limit to the credit that can be paid based on a faulty water meter?

The only limit would be your twelve month average. So if let's say if your twelve month average is is 5,000, just 5,000 gallons.

Yep.

And we go out and we test your meter. Right. Because you say, hey, I'm using 15,000. What's going on here? Then we're gonna credit you back down to your average.

Got it. Regardless how high it was.

Correct. Perfect.

Thank you.

The entire amount. So consumption credits, since we're talking about credits and assets, go through that. Essentially, we have two types of credits, that for a known leak and that for an unexplained, scenario where Mystery leak. It's a mystery leak. Don't know why it is and you can't tell us why it is.

And so, it is essentially as as Damir says, it's a mystery. How they how those two credits are applied or or you since they applied, how those two credits are attributed to you based upon, their attributes. If it's a known credit, if it's a known leak, then you can have, I'm sorry, yes, if it's a known leak, we will allow you to do the normal paperwork indicate, show us that the repair that has been repaired and then we will take your twelve month average, provided, and here's this where this is what happens with a lot of individuals, provided that that leak created a scenario that was more than double your normal average. So say your average usage is 5,000 gallons again and you had a leak and you're and it went up to 9,000, gallons. You will not get a credit because your leak did not create a scenario where you went 10,000 or above, double what you normally your normal average.

But should it go above your normal average, you will then be credited everything back down to your to your, normal 5,000 average. Even the mystery leak? Even the Mystery League? Even with the Mystery League.

So but but in many cases the the 5,000 a month average can go as high as 20,000 a month. So what happens to that 15,000 difference?

If well, that's if that's that is what you're getting the credit for. You're if if you're a normal five, you went up to 20 because of a a league. Right. So you're 15 above your normal usage average. We will credit you by everything above the 5,000, everything above your average, the 15 will be credited. You'll get a credit for that because you've done two things. You've you've exceeded double. That double what your normal was.

Right.

Normal was five. So if you

go So that's the latest test. It has to be double or or more.

Right.

Okay.

And then we will credit you everything above your not your average.

The problem that I'm having though with my with my residences, they're having companies come out and testing for leaks and there's no leaks.

Which is

I a guy with a $36,000 bill and no leak. That's how much people are down. I have a 23,000 gallon swimming pool.

So I mean

I wouldn't

be able to float a boat in that thing.

I have seen what you're describing, commissioner several times, but that is where the and and I I could give credit to you, body as well as his predecessors. He said, hey, if if we can't you can't find it and we can't tell you what it is, it's a mystery. We've got a credit for that too. And it's it's this and essentially, it's the same credit for when you have a leak. They're both calculated the same way.

And just so you know, by the way, the mayor and I have both experienced the mystery leaks. So the the mayor had one and I had one and and I've been doing this for the better part of thirty years, so I know how to go out and check my meter for leaks. I stand there, I watch and see if it's spinning. Right. You know, I I know how to look for for, you know, by by, toilets and check if they're leaking. I've done this before. I have a hook. I know how to pull the thing up so.

Now the the the one important distinction between those two credits though is a known credit, you can apply as many times as you have a leak. The mystery, you're only allowed once at that particular residence. And so, forever? Forever. Forever ever as the leak. Now should you move and go to another residence, you then you you get another mystery. But as long as you're at that same residence, only get one

Something doesn't sound right here.

All have to say

a mystery. It's unexplained.

So city manager or mayor, if I can jump. So I think that's an opportunity for improvement, city manager. I think is that if it's a mystery by the way, thank you, Aaron,

and Linda I for what you

email you all all the time, and thank you for your help. I wish they see my name,

they're like, okay. I wouldn't say that, commissioner, but Thank

you. So I think that mystery unknown origin, think shouldn't be a one time only credit. And and so I'd like us to look at Mayor, is it you know, is there a twelve month period where it begins again? Because there's got to be I think rather than a once a lifetime opportunity for something that's that's chronic, right. So that's is that something we can look at or

I think we could take a look at that and figure out what's the right time period or window. Linda, you look like

you want to Hi. Talk

So you know one thing that we need to focus on or keep our focus on is that we're implementing the AMI system. The advanced metering program and the infrastructure we're putting in place, neighbors will have this every minute, every second. They can see it. So I really feel that a lot of the issues You can

see it. You can see it.

They can see it.

How can they see it?

They will have an app and the app is connected as long as you long it and register

Right.

It will give you alerts. It will say is my water running? Is something wrong? It will give you alerts. It will let you

know. Okay.

That's something is going on.

Years now. So tell us

Well, it is coming up. That's later in the presentation.

Look, know.

No. But it is it actually is being you guys awarded the contract. The contractors out there installing it right now.

But that

was just a pilot version.

No. No. No. We're installing meters. Meters are going in the ground area Okay. By And what's the timetable? That you will get at the end of the presentation. We started in December. December. December.

Yes. We're up to about 400 installations per day, and I think we're trying to ramp that up significantly. Right. So while this project took a while to get started Mhmm. We are expediting to ensure that we can get this done by 2027 citywide.

Yes. That's next year? Yep.

Next fiscal year.

It's not it's not 2030. Okay.

No. And Okay.

And that's great. I'm very much looking forward And to the I would just say in the interim, I think we should still evaluate more than one credit for those scenarios. The other question I have around that Linda is do what months are used to determine the average? Is it prior to a spike because we don't want to include the spike. You see what I'm saying?

It is prior. Yes, whatever time that spike is

before twelve months before that. Abnormality. That's correct. Thank you. Thanks, Mary. I just want to ask about that.

Okay. Yes, it's the previous twelve months prior to the incident. This

is great. I'm going

to move to the next slide here and talk about the pool credit. We do offer pool credit as well, provided at least 75% of the pool was filled.

Sorry, Aaron, if I could add one other question So on that last city manager, if I'm understanding it right, for mystery or unidentified mystery or identified leak that credit kicks in if and when there's a doubling of average usage. Did I say that right?

One of the criteria is that we utilize determine whether or you're going to get a credit at all is that whatever usage your average is, it has to be twice that.

Twice that. So both of them. Sorry, for both identified and not identified. So Am I saying that here's another question is instead of necessitating a doubling for credit, could we have a lower bar for that? In other words, so what I'm thinking Aaron is, could it be a 50% increase that's either mysterious or identified? In other words, could we lower that threshold for credit is something I'm interested in exploring if that's

I think if if there's consensus to do that, we could look at our policy and go to that 50% threshold.

And I I guess the only thing that would add to that is that the calculation is not an internal policy. It's actually written into the ordinance itself. And so Right. Yes to your Yep. To to the manager's point, if that is something that the body wants, then naturally we could bring that to you.

But, I would also, emphasize what Linda said earlier though. With the AMI meters, what the neighbors don't have now will be greatly enhanced to allow them to be able to identify these issues. I think drastically ahead of what they're able to do now. You're I think what the what you're trying to do, and I would probably strongly agree with on the normal circumstances, but I'm not sure. I I would probably say allow the AMI to get put in place and see whether or that is still needed. But of course that is your decision, I

think perhaps what I'm hearing is that, we're excited about AMI being implemented, but we have gone through a lot to date and our neighbors have experienced a lot. And we want to do something to address it now while considering that AMI is still being rolled out. Correct. And I do think that we're going to see a significant improvement in the user experience as well as with our operations once the AMI implementation realized. So I do think that there is a benefit to doing something now.

Looking at the data, and let's track to see how it's going. And perhaps once we do get full implementation and we see how that looks, maybe there's an opportunity again to come back to the commission and say, hey, look at all these improvements that we've seen based on the data. And we can ask the commission at that point, hey, is there anything that we might need to do to tweak our implementation process or how we apply consumption credits? So I hear the frustration, and it sounds like we're looking for some sort of immediate relief. It would still need to come back to the commission via ordinance.

And so that's why I'm just trying to make sure we have consensus on those ideas. I think we could do that. But then I think at a later date after AMI is fully realized, if we could then come back to the commission with a status update and say, hey, this is what we've seen. This is where we think we've improved or or it hasn't improved in the way that we thought it would. And then we could ask the commission again to take a look to see if there's anything we need to do.

Yep. Think that's important because there's a potential class action lawsuit hanging out there right now. They're they're collecting names of the hundreds of people that have been complaining on Nextdoor. So I'm just letting you know that this is

out there. So yes, so agreed. So I think that's a great direction, City Manager. And look, once AMI gets fully instituted, we may be able to adjust that percentage and time frame and so forth in some helpful ways. But I think until then, this would be good.

Sure. And Linda, could you follow-up? It looks like you wanted to

share I did. I just wanted to share that even the credits that afforded to people who apply for it is built into our rates. So any changes to the credit methodology would have to we'd have to take a look at how that affects our rates going forward. That's all I wanted to make sure you guys knew.

And I'd point out one other thing as it relates to these credits to it. Terms of unknown leaks on average, the average credit request we get is about 140 people or 140 accounts. Unexplained mystery, we get about 35 of those per month request. The total cost to, the total monthly cost is about $260,000 in credits that we're giving back. Every month.

Every month. In relation but compare it to us billing on average $22,000,000 in monthly. So it's less than 1%. Right now it's not, it's about 1.2%, so it's just 1% basically. So although we're these credits are coming and we're spending a lot of time and energy on them because we need to research them and go through and make sure that they're, valid request. In the overall big revenue picture, they're 1% of what we bill them off.

Okay. Please proceed. Sure. I was

just mentioning the pool credit and like I say, we do offer pool credit and somehow or other that particular credit is not as well known to the neighbors as some

of the

other I didn't know it existed.

Yeah. Yeah. And I get that a lot of times. I say, we we talk with individuals and we find out, oh, you you refilled the pool. Oh, we got a credit for that, know. So it does have to be like I say, almost a complete refill 75% at least. And then we we need a little bit of documentation in terms of what size the pool is and so on. But normally normally that's one thing that we're

able to provide top of it. It's not for topping off.

No, sir. With that, I'm gonna go back. I'm gonna turn this back over to miss Short to talk about the payment arrangements and some of the other items.

That

was a great spirited conversation. I love it. Thank you, Aaron. Good job. Alright. Now just to He quits, by

the way.

He's a

He's like I'm done.

No. Alright. So let's go through what we have to help neighbors who can afford to pay or if the bill is so high that it's giving them an issue. We do allow for payment arrangements. So what we can do is we do a structured payment arrangements are available. We typically do a twelve month repayment period. We can do more if the bill is super high. We've done more than twelve months. We've done twenty four, sometimes thirty months. But twelve months is typically what we offer.

We don't want someone to pay more than double their more than double their normal bill. So if it's gonna be more than double their their normal bill, we would extend it a little further. It's designed to avoid service disruption. So instead of you getting a notice that we're gonna cut off your water because your bill is too high, you can't afford to pay it, you can apply to get a payment arrangement. It's a zero interest, percent to you.

You just basically amortize your large bill or what's remaining of that bill over a twelve month period, and it must be arranged in person through the utility billing office. I just wanna tell you, as of today, we have about a 151 payment arrangements active right now. Total amortized cost was about $580,000 of utility arrangements out there. All right. Now we're going to talk about the new program that started this year. Yes, ma'am. I'm

This may be a little bit off, but pertaining to the conversation, we have that neighborhood in my district that had the problem with, the building and the way that the water bills were being engaged. Are they currently under any of these arrangements? And also, moving forward with the AMI, would they be able to be able to take advantage of the AMI because of the way their infrastructure is set up?

Right. So I will give as much information as I presently have on it. They were offered a payment arrangement but have not accepted it yet. But I don't know where their status is. I think it was sent out to them a little while not that long ago, a couple of weeks ago or so. I believe the letter went out with them with a payment arrangement. And additionally, in order for them to partake in the AMI program we're doing, they have to convert their system from a private utility to a public utility and the cost for that assessment was provided to them. I can tell you that that neighborhood has not made a payment since August. We've kept the water on even though they're not making payments. And so we're hoping to get this resolved.

Now that we've sent the letter out, I'm hoping we can get some movement on that.

Okay. Thank you. And through city manager, I keep in contact to make sure we're staying on point with it.

Perfect. Thank you. All right. And now we're going to go over this is a new program that started this year. It's a municipal services affordability program. I think for the budget, we had about a $150,000 we put aside this year. Neighbors can apply and can get up to a thousand dollars towards their utility bill. I have some numbers here. This program is actually managed through the CSD department, the community services department. You have you have income limitations on there.

You must live within the city limits, of course. Assistance is applied directly to the utility account, so we're not giving you a check. We're applying it right to your account for you. You must have the required documentation to apply. And if anybody is interested, there's a phone number there, on the bottom that they can call to get in touch with someone to give them information about the program. All right. So now comes the exciting part of our program and our presentation, which is to talk about the AMI program. So Ingrid, would you please come up?

Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners. My name is Ingrid Kimbo. I work in the Utility Services as a Program Manager, and I am heading up this AMI implementation. So I will give you a little short, brief update on where we are in the program. And the benefits, we've already kind of gone through many of the benefits through Linda and Erin.

But yes, you will be able to see hourly usage, and we monitor it on an hourly basis. And residents will get access to their own hourly usage once all the meters have been installed through a customer portal where they can log in. They have to sign up and log in, and they can see their hourly usage. The system also can set different levels for leaks. If you have, like Eren talked about, leaking toilet, you can set your individual limits.

If you have a continuous flow of water of, say, 10 gallons per hour, that indicates that there is a slow leak in your house somewhere. And that will be you can notice that within a few hours. It reduces definitely the city's need to estimate billing because we will have accurate billing on demand or you can even do an on demand reading. Customer access, like I said, to the real time data. I even get some calls sometimes when they say I have such a high bill, and they're already in the program.

They don't have access to their usage themselves yet, but I do. And I see a 500 gallon usage at five a. M. Every other day. And they say the sprinkler is not on, and I say, go out at five a. M. Tomorrow morning, and then I didn't hear back from them. So it will be a faster identification of abnormalities. We don't have to wait for average monthly bills. That should be coming up almost instantly.

So the status. We started putting meters in the ground in December 2025. We have started small to make sure that we are installing, that all the systems and the Kayenta and our billing system is keeping up and that we don't fall behind. We need to make sure that this is done right. So we are ramping up rapidly.

We've overcome the first hurdles, I think, so that we feel comfortable to ramp up. We will ramp up. So all the 60 approximately 65,000 meters will be replaced by mid-twenty twenty seven. We are doing continuous neighborhood outreach. We have a really nice website that strategic communication design.

We're going to all the HOA meetings. We also send out postcards before we come and install, and we have a hotline that also takes calls. So actually, I looked at the numbers of meters installed as per 02:00 today because we just started the ramp up, it was ten eighty five. But next time I come here, if I come back or I send out an LTC, it will gradually increase. And here's just a visual in case you have never looked at your own water meter.

This is an actual install of before and after. So now, Vice Mayor Herbst, once you get it in your house, you have to read it digitally. Lift that little there's a little lid you lift on the new Ally meter, and you can see your read.

What's the app?

It's a customer portal that's going to be, it's called Spray Point.

I'm sorry?

It's called Spray Point and it will be implemented, when all the meters are installed.

When all the meters are installed? Yes. So the people that have it now can't use can't use it?

No. Okay. But if they but if they have an abnormality, we can see. And if they call us, we can tell them.

Well, they won't know it until they get their bill.

Is a true point. Does it alert you? It alerts us as well.

Okay. Okay.

So you know one of those things about those old meters is everybody is telling me that when you open them up and you look at them, you can't read them.

Some of them have