City Commission - Regular Meeting

Sorry. Good afternoon. I'd like to call to order a special budget workshop of the city of Hallandale Beach. Today is Wednesday, August 19th, 2026. The time is 4.12 p.m. Could I have a roll call, please?

Mayor Cooper.

Present.

Vice Mayor Lazarus absent. Commissioner Adams. Yes. Commissioner Butler.

Here.

Commissioner Lima-Topp. Here. City Manager Doctorow. Here. City Attorney Marino. Present. Madam Mayor, you have a quorum.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Before we rise for the Pledge of Allegiance, I would like to call to mind a dear friend of Powell in this city who had passed away recently, Kenny Cohen. If you're not familiar with him, he's been in front of us a couple times. He works directly with schools. He had passed away. Our prayers go out to his family. and everyone that he's touched here in the community. And we also call to mind the continued war in the Middle East and Ukraine and all our armed forces that are fighting overseas, putting themselves in harm's way to protect people in harm's way. And I've always called to mind our first responders here in our city, county, state, and nation that protect and defend us every day. A moment of silent prayer, please. Thank you. Commissioner Tau, would you lead us in the pledge, please?

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

Okay. We have anybody signed up for public participation?

No, Madam Mayor.

No, we do not. And we don't have any change of the order of business. No, Madam Mayor. So we will have at it.

All right. Thank you very much, Madam Mayor, and good afternoon, honorable commissioners. So we are here for our final, but one of our close to final budget hearings. I'm going to ask Director Mazzei to come and lead us through. We are going to present to you the framework for what will be at the official hearing on the 14th and the 28th. I want to thank staff very much for all of their hard work because it has been an effort behind the scenes to ensure that we are able to present to the commission not only another balanced budget, We've had to make some very difficult decisions Throughout this process. I want you all to know that but again staff has done a tremendous job in getting us to this point and I am happy to say that we We are going to recommend The rollback rate that's what this budget is structured for so I am sure at the time that we are in in this state's history with what might happen in November we are probably one of the few cities that IN THE STATE WHO WILL BE DOING THAT. SO IT'S A TESTAMENT AGAIN TO YOUR LEADERSHIP COMMISSION AND YOUR TRUST OF STAFF TO CONTINUE TO DO THE RIGHT THING FROM A FISCAL PERSPECTIVE. SO DIRECTOR MAZZI IF YOU COULD.

THANK YOU SO MUCH CITY MANAGER DR. EARL. GOOD EVENING MAYOR, VICE MAYOR, COMMISSIONERS AND CITY MANAGER MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC. Today we're presenting the city manager recommended budget and financial plan for fiscal year 27. This presentation reflects the updates and changes made since the prior budget workshops from June 22nd and provides the current path towards adoption. Tonight's presentation will cover four main areas. First, where we are in the budget timeline, current situation. Second, the proposed changes to the recommended budget. Third, the proposed millage. And finally, the recommended five-year financial plan through fiscal year 31. The goals provide a clear picture of the 27 budget and the longer financial . The budget process began in January with budget planning. and continue with the department submissions in February. City Manager's Office reviews the budget in April, and we have commission workshops in May, June, August 5th, and today, August 19th. The next formal steps are the first and second readings for adoption of the millage and budget on September 14th and 28th. Once adopted, the 27 budget will take effect on October 1st, 2026. The main message on this slide, we're on slide four, is that the 27 budget, tentative budget, is balanced. In the general fund, both revenues and expenditures total approximately $134 million. There is no projected general fund shortfall for FY27. The balanced budget reflects the proposed changes from the city manager recommended budget we provided on June 22nd, reduces the proposed millage to the rollback rate, and still maintains the city's focus on long-term financial planning and the potential impacts of future property tax reform. This next section walks us through the proposed changes to the city manager recommended budget. These updates reflect refined estimates, updated fund level activity, and additional staff reviews since the prior version of the budget.

Is there a question? No? Okay. We're good. We're good. I have no button for it. On slide six.

Wait, am I on slide six or slide five? Yeah, slide six. The general fund, which is the city's primary operating fund, supports core services, including public safety, general government, parks, community service, and other city-wide functions. On slide six, you will see that we proposed the millage at 7.3848 on June 22nd. Today, we're proposing a rollback rate of 7.3189. That is an impact of $443,000. So on this slide, we have $993,000 reduction in the general fund. That's due to the rollback rate. And we moved some items from the general fund to the developer agreement fund as we felt it was best suited there. There's details on slide six of the differences in the general fund. Salaries and benefits, we had slight adjustments of $162,000. Transfers out, that's the decreased contribution to the renewal and replacement fund. Slide seven provides you with the detailed version of those items. The BSO contract, we received a few weeks ago that the BSO contract increased by $372,000. That is due to the impact of the increased FRS contribution on the city side. So we received a revised consideration letter from BSO, and that impact was $372,000. The TIF payment to the CRA is reduced by $156,000. That is due to the rollback rate, that impact there.

Sorry, transportation fund, that difference.

I'm sorry, hold on a second. transportation fund that is because we increase the roadway improvement project and we also removed the FEC lease because that is no longer a viable option for the city at this time so that's the difference impact there we also reduced the contribution to the renewal and replacement fund We identified that we were going to smooth out the R&R fund and we used those dollars to fund more immediate priorities such as roadway improvement, funding the BSO contract, and rolling back the millage. So the total reduction to the general fund from the proposed recommended budget is $993,000. SLIDE 8, WE'RE ON SPECIAL REVENUE FUNDS. THERE ARE SOME CHANGES TO SPECIAL REVENUE FUNDS. WE REDUCED THE RENEWAL AND REPLACEMENT FUND. SMALL CHANGES TO THREE ISLANDS AND GOLDEN ISLES. THAT'S BASED ON THE JULY 1ST TAXABLE VALUE THAT CAME OUT. THE CEMETERY FUND, WE DID ADD $75,000 TO THE CEMETERY FUND FOR THE RECORDS AND ASSET MANAGEMENT PROJECT. DOWN ON SLIDE 8, I JUST... Yes, we removed the FEC lease payment and increased roadway improvements for the permit inspection fund, the building fund. We did add marketing for a pilot program. On slide nine, we did add two positions. This slide highlights the strategic personnel updated funded by the utility funds. This budget adds two utility engineer design professional positions. These are senior level positions intended to strengthen in-house design and project management capacity for major utility capital improvements.

Just to confirm, and I know I asked you, Dr. Earl, about this. This would be kind of putting in place that construction management component of projects throughout the city?

Correct, and by also being able to design some of our projects in-house, we hope to move faster and also save a lot of money as well. So it's gonna be where we still use consultants, but we're gonna try and take over as much as we can internally just to drive these projects home faster.

Okay, thank you. Sorry for the interruption, Ms. Messing.

Slide 10, we have no proposed changes to the enterprise funds at this time. Those funds include sanitation, stormwater, and the utility fund. Other governmental funds, on slide 11, the proposed budget is $31 million, a net decrease of $86,000 from the developer agreement fund. Most of these funds remain unchanged. The debt service fund has a minor increase of $700. And that's it for slide 11. Total proposed budget across all fund groups is $251 million. That includes enterprise funds, intergovernmental special revenue, and the general fund. The general fund represents 53.44% of the total budget. Enterprise funds represent 25.52% and so forth. This summary reinforces that the overall changes are targeted and primarily reflect refinements to assumptions and fund-specific adjustments rather than a broad reduction in service levels. The city's proposing a millage rate of 7.3189 for FY27. This reflects a decrease of 0.0660 mills in the operating millage and a decrease of 0.0053 mills for debt service. This chart shows the city's millage trend over time. including a decrease from 7.3848 in 26 to the proposed 7.3189 in 27. The proposed rate supports a balanced general fund budget while reducing the millage rate and recognizing affordable concerns for property owners. If we had not decreased the millage rate to the rollback rate, an average single family homeowner would have paid approximately $30 more. The final section is a recommended five-year financial plan. I know we've gone through this a few times before, but we're gonna take some time on it today again. This section is important because the 27 budget is balanced. With the city, we need to plan for future structural pressures, property tax reform, public safety costs, pensions, and capital needs. The five-year plan includes several revenue assumptions. For property tax reform, the model assumes a $150,000 homestead exemption impact beginning in FY28, a $250,000 homestead exemption impact in 29 and future years, and a reduction in the commercial property cap from 10% to 5%. Ad valorem revenue is budgeted at 2% growth for FY28 in future years, with FY27 based on the BCPA estimate of 2%, 2.25%. The plan also includes the increased fire assessment rate being in FY27 with estimated additional revenue of approximately $800,000. All other revenues are based on recent trends. For expenditure assumptions, the plan includes a 5.5% increase for non-police bargaining employees in FY27 and subsequent years, made up of a 3% COLA and a 2.5% merit assumption. For police bargaining employees, the plan assumes an 8% increase in 27 in subsequent years, made up of a 3% COLA and 5% merit assumption. These assumptions are intended to reflect anticipated personnel costs growth while giving the city a realistic long-term forecast. The plan also assumes a 5% annual increase for police and fire pensions from FY27 through FY31, It also assumes a 10.2% increase for health insurance and FY27 in subsequent years. For BSO, the plan includes the 27 consideration proposal and a 5% increase in subsequent years. These items are significant cost drivers and are important to include in a long-term outlook. On slide 19, this is the five-year financial plan. This slide brings together the five-year general fund forecasts. The FY27 budget is balanced with revenues and expenditures showing both at $134 million. Under the assumptions shown, FY28 has a small projected surplus of $268,000. Beginning in FY29, the model shows a projected shortfalls of approximately 4.6 million and 5.8 million and 9.8 million through FY31. The reserve section shows that the city begins the forecast period with strong unassigned fund balance, but reserves decline over the long term if projected gaps are not addressed. This is why the five-year plan is being presented alongside the annual budget. It provides us time to plan early, evaluate strategies, and avoid making reactive decisions later. The next steps are the two formal public hearings. On September 14th, we will hold the first public hearing to set the tentative millage and budget. On September 28th, we will hold the final public hearing and consider adoption of the 27 budget. I do want to add that the trim notices are being mailed out this week. If you go online, you should see your trim notice online right now. And not to forget that we did add the Three Islands item to the trim. Stormwater is now also being added to trim. So if there's a substantial increase, it's because of those items that are on there. And that concludes the presentation.

Cool. I don't have any buttons lit at this point. Commissioner Butler, you're recognized.

Thank you. Okay, I have a couple of items I just wanted to get some clarification on if I could. So some of my questions are gonna be focused on these three priorities that I know keep coming back up about traffic, flooding, and beautification. So you mentioned that we're adding additional money to the Department of Transportation. What is that funding?

We added $500,000 to the roadway and street improvement project.

And so is that intended to improve traffic?

No, it's intended to address the streets and roadways in the city to repay them.

So we increased roadway improvements by $150,000. Did we not also put additional money in the Department of Transportation? Did I misunderstand?

Yes, we did not put additional money in the Department of Transportation. There's additional money in the Inter-Transportation Fund. All right. The Inter-Transportation Fund includes streets, roadways. Okay, I misunderstood it. Is it Quick Build, maybe? I'm sorry? Quick Build? Is that tied to Quick Build? No, that is not tied to Quick Build. Oh, okay.

All right, so these are for increased roadway improvement. So that's part of our street repaving program?

That's correct.

All right, so I just wanted to get into a couple of questions about this because Dr. Earl and I shared an email back and forth. It's been going on for quite some time. And I just want to kind of air this out on the city commission so we make sure we're all on the same page here, right? So last November, we were provided an email about the status of the street repaving program. Now this program I think started in 2023, Dr. Earl? All right, so we've had this program now operating for three years. In November, we were sent a list of streets that are being repaved, and my question was, what is the prioritization? How are we prioritizing? How are we identifying streets? I know the same issue just came up about a month ago during a city commission meeting. So the concern that I have is that since November, I still haven't received anything that indicates how we're identifying streets and how we're repaving streets. So we're putting, I don't know, a million and a half? I don't know what the number is today. A million and a half into this program. I know we did for the last three years. This year, maybe another million or million and a half into street repaving. And I still don't have a way of telling my residents that ask, when their street is going to be repaved and what the schedule is going forward. Now I understand that we have a lot going on and I know that there's a lot happening, but this is something that has been going on since November of last year. And so I just want to make sure that we're all on the same page, that when we first approved this, I went back and I pulled the original presentation that we had about the street resurfacing, and I agree with it wholeheartedly. So one of the challenges of inadequate planning, that was the presentation that we had for the renewal and replacement program, and one of the challenges for inadequate planning, which I agree, financial instability due to reactive spending, service delivery disruptions, increased public dissatisfaction, escalation of long-term costs from emergency repairs. I agree with all of that. And so the solution that we had been presented and proposed to us was to adopt a proactive multi-year planning policy. So that's really what I'm asking us to do, is to do exactly what we suggested that we were gonna do. And the... The heartburn that I have with this really is that we have been selecting streets for three years, and I just want to know what process we've been using to select streets for the last three years. I don't need to know that we have a whole new process. I don't need to know a formalized process. I just need, or something that is particularly formalized, I just need to know what we've done, and I assume that we have a process. It may not be a pretty process. It may not be a perfect process, but we need to have a process that we can share with our residents. And I think waiting almost a year to get that information on a program that's been running for three years, I'm not asking this to be a priority, I just want to make sure that this is clear, that my fellow commissioners are hearing what I'm asking for and why I'm asking for it. And I just think it's an important issue that we need to address. So I'm gonna leave that there. We've had extensive back and forth and I feel like I try to get these things resolved without bringing them up during a city commission meeting and airing our dirty laundry, so to speak, in public. So that's the first item that I wanted to talk about, and that's the street repaving program.

Yes, ma'am. I know you've asked, and I've even dug up some old records. To get clear and concise, you're really, is it possible, I guess the question is, Dr. Earle, is it possible to list every street that we have paved and just have a program of when the next, a list of what streets are queued in again? Cause I know the original plan had a map. It had all the documentation on it. It was different color coded for different years. You know, it was a single snapshot of that. And, um, you know, I, I don't know if it's just a basis of presentation and this is what it is. Cause kudos. We did all these streets. Um, I know my street isn't paved Jack cause we have work under it, you know, and a lot of times people all ask, I say, well, let me see if more than likely has something underground. There's water, sewer, wastewater, or something happening here, but let's figure out what it was, because I had one that I'd been asking for for a while that ironically, it was a dead end, and I don't think it was on the plan for a while. So maybe it's just, if I'm hearing you properly, even just an Excel sheet of the inventory of what we did, what's still in the pipeline, and maybe a time frame for it.

is that simplifying your request yeah let me just i just want to i i know if it's not then correct it because that's what i'm hearing let me and let me just say yes and i want to i want to add some additional context to that because you're right that that's that seems like it should be available this is the the note that we had from the um um at the time the dpw director so The note was roadway evaluations were conducted through field assessments by the streets division and documented through the city's GIS roadway inventory and internal maintenance tracking systems. Due to licensing issues, we're unable to access our GIS system to provide the tracking maps. We have been informed by IT the issue is resolved. and they will provide the maps from fiscal year 22 through 25 once the licenses are reissued. So that was in April of 26. They said that roadway selections were resurfaced based on field observations and several condition indicators including the frequency and severity of potholes, alligator cracking, structural pavement fatigue, longitudinal and transverse cracking, edge failures, base deterioration, drainage-related pavement stress, overall ride quality, resident service requests, and maintenance history. That's a lot, I just had a whole lot of information. But clearly there was something. They did something. And this was from April of this year. And I understand there's been turnover. But we have a program that's been ongoing for three years. And I assume we're going to continue to do. We have more streets to do, I hope. But I don't know. I literally have a resident that I can't even tell them when their street is going to be repaved or if it's being repaved. or if it's even someday will be repaved. So yes, Mayor, I agree with everything you just said. I'm asking just that we provide, I don't need us to go out and hire a consultant to put together a whole new program. I don't need us to spend more money on this. I just need to understand what the program that we've been using for three years and how that applies for the next year or two to the streets that we still have to repave, which I understand we have quite a few still left.

So I'm happy that Commissioner Butler read that because what he read is a response to the question of how did we evaluate the streets. So everything Commissioner Butler just read is exactly what we've said for three years in terms of how we actually evaluated the streets. We started this process over three years ago and at that point this was a project that at that time in the middle of everything else that we were doing we said that we would now take on under recommendation from Commissioner Butler that we would take on the repaving of our streets throughout our city. Now this commission will remember that we have not paved or repaved our streets for decades. And so we had to quickly pull something together in terms of how do we evaluate the worst streets that we have in our city. We put together what was initially an eight year program that we were able to condense down to now what's roughly a three year program because initially we were looking to deal with these streets that we had not dealt with for decades over an eight year period of time. Our team worked extremely hard to get that down from eight years down to three. Where we are today is We've been given regular updates in the past with the commission in terms of all the streets that we were doing. We are at the end of those streets. Now, in terms of what was given in April, between April and today, in fact, between March and today, we've had significant turnover in our Department of Public Works. And we have lost the people who are literally doing the street program. And what I have asked this commission for is for time so that we can deal with our internal issues, remembering that our team has been doing the work and has not stopped doing the work. But there is a transition period internally that we have to deal with. And so yes, is the commission going to get a whole new slew of streets that we are going to do? Yes. Will the residents get a response to every single thing that they ask today? The answer is no. Because our team is working hard. They are burning it at both ends. Again, let me say it on the record, we took what was an eight-year program and turned it into a three-year program. And our team has been working extremely hard. I don't sit here not wanting to give the commission information. But we are literally in a transition period, and I have said we will get the information. I need to get the people on board who are going to take over this program. We have not shied away from anything that this commission has asked us to do. Now, JT, if you can. I KNOW YOU GUYS HAVE, WE ARE CLOSING OUT THE STREETS THAT WE PROVIDED TO THE COMMISSION THREE YEARS AGO.

CORRECT.

CORRECT?

YES. WE HAVE PUT THOSE ON GIS LEVELS. Just layers on our map, so I can provide that to you as the program dear what I wanted to do was what we had originally programmed here. And then have another layer that would be the years in which they were actually constructed, so you could see if there's any streets that we did extra so planned for the eight year program completed in three. We do have a list that I'm working with right now on the next five years.

And I know that Charles was also working on this when Charles was here. Correct. Charles, who is no longer here, was a primary contact for this program.

And Charles and I are still working on that list.

And Charles, even though he's not here, is working with JT on trying to get this thing together. Go ahead, JT.

Yes, so we have the next five years. What I wanted to do is put LENGTHS ATTACHED TO IT. I HAVE A LIST OF ROADS BUT I WANTED TO UPDATE THAT LIKE WE DID THE FIRST FIVE YEARS TO GIVE US LINEAR FEET OF PAVING SURFACE THAT WE NEED TO DO. AND THEN I WANTED TO COMPARE THAT ONE MORE TIME TO ANY KNOWN WATER, SEWER, STORM WATER PROJECTS THAT WE'RE GOING TO HAVE ON THOSE ROADS SO I COULD GIVE DR. EARL A COMPLETE LIST OF WHAT THE PLAN IS GOING TO BE FOCUSING ON 27 FIRST AND THEN MAKING SURE THAT ALL THE OUT YEARS ARE carefully considered in conjunction with the other multiple projects that we have throughout the city. Same type of thing that we did the last time, but now we have more information on the stormwater from the stormwater master plan being developed, the force mains, and the water lines that we're looking to do. So it will be based on very similar conditional assessments by our team internally. We did consider going out to a CCNA company to see if they could add some value to our list once we came up with it. But we haven't brought that to Dr. Earle yet.

No, we did. I said no, we can do this internally.

Yeah. Did Robert bring that to you?

That was done by the previous.

Okay. So long story short, the list is getting close to being finalized. We're going to do the same thing we did the last time, put it on a GIS map layer. so that you can see it by section of the quadrants. We're going to do a multi-quadrant approach each year, again, going forward for the next five years. And then from there, we'll see how much is left after that of the city. And then we'll end up doing a maintenance program to maintain the roads in a satisfactory or better condition going forward with our annual maintenance program. So first is to get the roads in satisfactory condition for the ones that aren't. and then to do whatever we have to do to maintain those so that they don't degrade and we have to go into the sub base of the roads and it costs three to four or five times more than just milling and resurfacing on a regular scheduled basis. So we are working on that plan. Charles is still involved and as soon as the new director comes in and as soon as the city engineer gets the opportunity to continue to look at this program, we'll bring it back through the city manager to the city commission.

We're good? Good.

Thank you. So, Dr. Earl, I just want to be clear that I am very supportive of the work that the city has been doing and that I fully support, obviously, repaving the streets. My concerns are just that we have a three-year program. This is an item that I requested originally in November of last year. So we're coming up on a full year of asking for information of how we're doing something that we've been doing for three years. So while I fully appreciate all the turnover, and I certainly have been very patient, as you've seen in my emails, I certainly haven't brought this up for the entire city commission. But I think it's something that the residents deserve to know. And I still have a resident who still asks me all the time about their roadways.

May I ask what road it is?

I don't know off the top of my head, but I'm not going to go into that right now.

No, I don't mean to pry, because I have somebody, too, and I wonder if it's the same one that had the dead-end road that hasn't been done yet. I'm only asking because I keep asking about a road, too, because I keep hearing about it.

So the other thing I just wanted to ask, so we reduced the R&R fund by a million dollars?

We did reduce the R&R fund by a million dollars.

So is there anything that we have pulled out of what we're doing? Is there a reduction in what we're doing? What's driving the reduction, I guess?

So we had set dollars aside for the facilities assessment, but that assessment is still underway. So instead of holding dollars in the R&R fund for an assessment that is not yet complete, we made the decision to take those dollars and use them to fund the roadway improvement in the transportation fund and also use it to fund the gap for the BSO contract and roll back the millage. So the R&R fund is funded. We just set those dollars aside for the assessment, but since those assessment numbers have not come back yet, we made that decision.

In terms of the proposed budget?

The proposed budget. Correct. The proposed budget. The current budget has the R&R dollars in it, and we're using those dollars to fund continuous projects. Okay.

Thank you. So there are two items that I wanted to bring up. So we had a conversation about the annual commissioner action plan. One of the items that we talked about was the green pathway. I had requested that item seems to have dropped from it. I just wanted to ask if I could now I did send an email asking for an update I didn't get a response so I want to just my understanding during a recent city commission meeting we had brought it up and we were told that it was being added back to the action plan, am I wrong about that?

I think it's CRA. It was discussed. Yeah, CRA, go ahead. So that was a CRA program. That's a CRA one.

And that was the art trail and the CRA site. And what we had discussed at the CRA meeting was that initially over a year ago, we took it off because costs were going up and we weren't sure that we were gonna be able to pay for that. um and at subsequent cra meetings we indicated that we were actually doing the art trail project good and that we now have to do the guarantee i'm sorry we have to to go out and do the the guarantee that the the gmp for that the guaranteed price from a contractor for that so that project is still um moving forward i don't believe that project was actually on the commission annual action plan was it natasha i don't recall In terms of the art trail, because it was a... Right, so if we just have a brief CRA discussion, the CRA is doing the art trail. That's the trail that will be throughout the whole city. And the next steps now are for that. We have, I believe, 100% drawings. And the next step now is for the construction manager at risk to actually do... to actually give us the pricing for that, and then we can go out and start constructing that.

That's great news, and I'm glad to hear that, and thank you for clarifying it for me. now where it came up, and it was while we were doing the resident survey, and it was something that the residents indicated that they wanted, so I'm glad to hear, and I don't know if this was Dr. Earle's idea or Director Finn's idea, but it was clearly something that the residents love, the idea of, so I'm glad to hear that it's back on. And I do remember you saying that the cost had gone up and that's why you had taken it back off, but that it was coming back on and I just didn't see it in the action plan. I was concerned that we had changed our minds there.

If I may, Commissioner Bartlett, just one quick comment, just to give full credit. So the art trail, the concept for a trail that wound throughout the entire city, in all honesty, came from Commissioner Lee Murtagh probably eight years ago. We had a discussion where she said, wouldn't it be great to have something that ties all of the communities together? That was probably eight, nine years ago now. So in all honesty, The initial suggestion for that came from Commissioner Limital about eight or nine years ago.

And I can remember her also talking about a safe walking area, right? I think that was COVID, maybe during COVID that you... So that's great news. And it actually, if I could go into my next item, right? So I shared an email about the street lighting on... IN THREE ISLANDS, IN THE THREE ISLANDS SAFE NEIGHBORHOOD DISTRICT. AND THESE ARE THE STREET LIGHTS ON ATLANTIC SHORES AND ON THREE ISLANDS. SO I KNOW THAT THIS IS A, THIS MIGHT BE A FUNDING ISSUE, BUT IT IS WITHIN THE SAFE NEIGHBORHOOD AND I KNOW THAT WE ARE DOING A LOT OF SAFE NEIGHBORHOOD. Commissioner Lazaro has brought up several times that it is a public safety issue, so I think it's an important issue, and I'd like to figure out a way for us to fund that if we can for the next year. Yes, Mayor.

There are programs that, and ironically, just at Florida League of Cities, I think Phillips was there, there was a couple lighting companies that would come in. Now I should have brought the documents with me, but I didn't think about it. I think FPNL has done that. FPNL will do it as well. But then again, I'm not sure what upfront costs they will provide for. And if it's like type of public private partnership where they come in, they'll do it. and then you offset it by paying it out over time. We did that with energy development block grants. We would say, guess what, Siemens, you come in, you retrofit whatever, you'll upfront it, and the savings end up paying for it. So that may be a possibility. Look at a company like that that maybe will do it, but I don't know what the dollar signs would be to do the upfront investment. And then you know you have a revenue source from the district to continue to pay for it. similar as it would be the case for Golden Isles if we eventually do some type of decorative lighting throughout the community to figure out what that would look like. And as a matter of fact, you can do it before anything else because usually the lighting isn't on the sidewalk or the street side.

It's actually put further away from any of those improvements.

But I just wanted to share that with you. That's why I keep kind of talking about those things and I haven't had a chance to sit down with our purchasing director and discuss some of those opportunities as well and what they're gonna look like. I think it's doable, but I don't know if it's germane that we have to do it today or make a direction.

Well, we're just talking about budget, and it came up during the action plan, the commissioner action plan, and the email that I sent to you referenced the fact that the DPW is already coordinated with FPNL and identified what needs to be done if we want to do it. And now it's just a matter of understandably time constraints on the part of the DPW staff. I just wanted to bring it up for the city commission because I incorrectly identified that they were not in the safe neighborhood. They are in the Three Islands safe neighborhood area. And I just want to clear that up and believe still that it's important that we figure out a way to get them done.

Well, let me do this. Dr. Rowe. would you like i know we're not probably going to amend this budget right now but so we have a direction maybe it's to make a motion to direct dr earl to work with staff to research viable alternatives to fund lighting within both districts and set that up as a type of project or priority because the revenue stream, if it's being placed in there, the revenue stream would be paid from the district. Because currently, if you want a light, I can go and say, guess what, I want a light in front of my house. They'll put it in, but then I pay for it. It goes on my bill.

Okay, so would that work, Dr. Rowe? I think it's a great idea.

But we're not in the district budget.

My understanding of the issue, this isn't a dollars issue, this is a time capacity issue on the part of DPW.

Right, well, companies come in and do it. soup to nuts. It's not. I'm sorry. If that's a way for us to do it, great.

Correct.

Dr. Rowe? You understand the question? Like I know Siemens does it, Phillips does it. Sure, FP&L does it. I don't know what has the best competitive pricing or what it would look like, but they do the construction and I believe all the design of it. Like it's all up-fronted by them.

So I think... Give us, well, we can't make a motion here. We will go back and take a look at the funding, take a look at what we have in terms of the funding and come back to the commission with a recommendation for how we do this.

Right, and like I said, I don't know if, again, it might just be they can do it and then it gets paid out, kind of like an improvement loan or whatever. Okay, do you want it as a form of motion?

We can.

I don't even think we can because it's a workshop anyway and we don't have the district budget in front of us, so. Go ahead.

Yeah, that was it. I just wanted to make sure that we brought that back and gave it some attention. Solar would be great. I'm all for solar.

Thank you. If you go to a company like that, it might be something even totally different. Some lighting is even low voltage. I think it's not as easy as saying get it done, in other words, and we know we didn't want to pile on, but I think the timing of it would be something to look at.

Yeah, we can do this. You know, we did this, again, for lighting throughout the city, and we had an agreement with, well, we did it on the CRA side. Yes. And we did that for the length and breadth of the CRA. We worked with some partners. We did the design. We worked with FPNL. I believe on the CRA side, we had a contract. Faith, correct me if I'm wrong. In fact, we did have a contract for FPNL to help us install all of these things. We just have to bring the design, and then we have to pay for maintenance afterwards.

Correct.

Correct. The design and maintenance. That's how it works. And that's what the CRA board actually did. So we will explore it and bring something back to you.

That'd be great. One of the things I just want to mention that I think, so we have, we are assessing this Three Island Safe Neighborhood to enhance the safe neighborhood and not doing streetlights in the Three Island Safe Neighborhood I think is a gap that we've missed and I think if I were a Three Islands resident and I had been assessed and you forgot to do streetlights, I would be a little concerned and it's, from my understanding, it wasn't an expensive item. relatively speaking, but I think it's important for us to at least identify if we can do it, and I think that would be great, Dr. Earle, if you could bring it back.

I think we can definitely do that.

That's great. If it's not part of the, I don't think it is, but if it's not already part of the Safe Neighborhood Plan. Okay, so my next question about the budget. On the five-year plan, and I brought this up before, I wanted to ask on this five-year plan, we used 2.25% as our estimated annual property tax increase for every year going forward. 2% all right 2.25% this year and 2% going forward that's correct okay so the taxable value increases in the past years I'm just going to tell you they were 10.72% 17.26% 9.09% 8.17% those are the last few years and then 2.25% this year so the simple five-year average is nine and a half percent that's the simple average if I throw out that 17.26%, we're at 7.6%, right? So now we're going all the way down to two. Not opposed to it, I think it's a great stress test case, but I would love to see the same thing with 4% and 6%, right? Just easy way to do it, I don't think that's a difficult.

And when you mean four and 6%, you mean 4% in which year?

annually going forward. So we're doing 2% annually, go to 4%, go to 6%. And let's just see what that looks like. I think it'll be a little bit...

It should be, I hope so. Did you want to see the impact of that?

Is that what you were... Yeah, I'm just curious to see how it looks. So that gives us a conservative, a moderate, and a historical norm, right? So that was one of my other requests. Oh, and then... This one, I want to, I guess I can bring this up later because it's not specifically on our budget.

It's okay, we have time and we can't, well, we're almost into, well, no, we have 5.30, so we have some time. Keep going.

Okay, because this I could bring up during the meeting.

I might cover some things under of or to, so go ahead.

Okay, all right. So one of the questions that I had, and I'm all for us doing stuff at the beach, So I want everybody to know that. And I voted in favor of all the funding.

Oh, my God. Now it's like, no, I don't want it. No, that's not. But you have buyer's remorse, Commissioner.

That's not what I'm going to say. That is not what I'm going to say.

I'm teasing.

But I just want to be clear. So when we first said, hey, let's do some beach activation, it was in support of this snack bar. And I'm going to say that over and over and over again because the snack bar didn't open and we're still doing the beach activation. Not opposed to it. Happy to do it. I made a recommendation in a very long email to the city managers and my apologies to everybody for my long email, that we get food trucks out there in order to offset the fact that we don't have a snack bar. So I will be very open and share with everybody that this all comes from spending a month with my kids going to the beach.

There are no amenities.

You go to the beach, you've got to bring everything with you. Good luck buying anything. So I'm still interested in us doing things that will help us activate our beach. And the $75,000 that we approved for South Beach events, and we have another one coming up, I think very soon we also approved the so far sounds which I think is part of our 100 year anniversary. Preparations and now we recently just approved I think $250,000 for furniture for the North Beach facility. Now all of those are great, as long as they all are leading us to eventually getting a revenue generating tenant into both of those facilities. That's the goal. That's what we're trying to do. I don't want us to spend all this money in order to have a good time. Not that I'm opposed to having a good time, trust me. But I do want us to ensure that there is a plan, and I believe that there is, I just want to state this on the record. I have supported all this stuff and I've supported it for the reason, very specific reason, that I want to ensure that this eventually will lead to us being able to fill both the South Beach and North Beach facilities with a tenant. And this ties back to conversations that we had back when we were looking for the South Beach tenant. So I applaud the city for all the work that it's doing. I think, Director Schantz, you've done a fantastic job with the events there. I'm excited about, well, I don't know if I'm gonna be there this weekend. Is it yoga on Sunday, Saturday? 7.30.

You can dance with us.

Yeah, no, no, no, no. I'll come and have a cup of coffee. So I won't be there 7.30, but I'm very excited about that we're doing things and that our North Beach facility will actually have some activity. And I even went to the point where I suggest that maybe some of our staff should use the second floor as offices, right? And the only point is in order to get usage out of it, right? So that people are using it on a regular basis, that the elevators are working, that the air conditioning is working, that we have people that are utilizing the facility. So... I can't imagine somebody wouldn't want to have an office there. I would. But that was just a statement I wanted to make about beach activation. I had meant to do under other, but since we have the time.

I just had a thought on that. Are you done with that one? Yes, ma'am.

I'm done with it. Yes.

You know, it occurred to me sitting here. You know, we rent out a lot of our facilities. We rent them out. We have been sitting on that asset. It has a kitchen. It has a service area. Maybe we look at it as a rental opportunity if somebody wants to have a party or an event at the beach like we do at the Cultural Center. It has a built-in kitchen. It has built-in access. If we put a little bit more money into it, maybe somebody's going to want to have a party there or a picnic or something and a corporate event. So food for thought instead of worrying about one particular vendor because I certainly would rent it out for a party. I think it's a great gig place.

We've done that before, I think. We had weddings there, right?

Are you talking North City Beach or South City Beach?

South City Beach. South City Beach.

Because North doesn't have a kitchen.

No, it didn't have the kitchen or any of that stuff. But we're sitting on a kitchen and an asset that's been empty for like two years. And if somebody wants to have a party or a beach party or a celebration, have at it.

No, I think those are good suggestions. Thank you.

It's just like an aha moment.

I was thinking North Beach, too. Okay, go ahead.

So South City Beach, we started, and I think we are going to complete at some point. I asked Director Shantz to get full commercial fridges, stoves, prep areas, everything, because we're missing all the equipment. And I think you were out there as well. I toured inside. I walked all around. So we're gonna outfit that.

I'm like, damn, sorry. Excuse me, this is a nice spot to leverage.

I also asked Director Shands to see about food trucks there as basically pop-ups as well. So basically we're trying to outfit, because in speaking to restaurants, so I've spoken to restaurants who would wanna come in. Most of those restaurants who would potentially do pop-ups, including local restaurants, the lack of equipment in there is one of our restrictions. And so I've asked Director Schantz to go out and she did.

She's got some equipment. Telepathic, that's pretty good.

No, no, no. So we're doing that. And then we're also going to work on, I know Commissioner Butler mentioned the food trucks as well. So we're also going to work on the food trucks as well. In terms of the North City Beach facility, we're also just this week, because of the upcoming events, we've added commercial fridge, commercial like a prep area and everything to that facility as well. We do have some staff that will be moving in there temporarily for about six weeks at that location. And then we're gonna finish outfitting the facility with with Wi-Fi and everything else. I know that Sean has been working on getting that done. So hopefully with all of these changes, this is only the first step to what you all have asked us to do. So the other big part of it was to try and combine both locations in terms of having an RFP. so you know we're trying to get the first part done which is to activate it i'm happy to say that the events this week are sold not sold out but the events this week are sold out for lack of a better term um the ones that all the wellness events that we planned every one of those things are now sold out so fingers crossed hopefully it will and kudos to to the team who's who's working on that um Faith and Kathy and Rachel and the rest of them. Then the big part was just waiting for the contract agreement with Eteru, Azumi slash related. Now that we have those parking spaces, Well, just to be clear, we have all the parking spaces, but we have less active parking spaces than we need because there's some work going on in the garage from Beach Club that's taken away about 15 of our parking spaces. And then we have some other internal parking needs in terms of the fire department and whatnot as well. And so working through all of these kinds of things, our team is also working on on coming up with a plan to join both facilities together from a parking perspective. So there's a lot of things that our team is working on. Now that we have the parking spaces back as well, that was really one of our triggers, that approval from you all to now go out and try and find someone because now we can say we actually have parking spaces in that facility. So that was huge. We are trying to implement everything that you guys have approved. I know it's sometimes in some cases slow going, but I think we've made significant progress. And the other delay in the North City Beach facility was the elevator, which for it being on the beach and not an active facility, that needed to be fixed. And again, with your help, with your approvals, we were able to fix that. on an emergency basis and now we're going to have a major overhaul of that elevator coming soon as well. So we're doing the things and hopefully we'll do the things a lot faster so you guys can be happy.

Now you pique my interest. What are they using storage for their own construction? Beach club?

No, Kathy, they've just blocked off those spaces. Come on. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, it's for security so people don't damage your cars and stuff for safety reasons.

Okay.

So it's about 15 spaces that are gone for a while. You're good? No?

Two more.

Two more. Go ahead.

Do you have one? Oh, go ahead.

I don't want to slow your roll. Keep going.

Now we're talking about it, though.

Oh, my God. I have no question.

I was checking to see if anybody was in the queue.

Water Tower.

Oh my God, I can tell you about that. Please, I want to... Oh, that's what I was going to bring up.

Okay, good.

Wait a minute. I want to hear it. This is a gray hair moment. Oh my God. You know... I'm going back to FLC, you know, I'm strolling around and one of the companies that we used to use to do all the water towers was there. And I'm like, you know, another gentleman branched out and did his own company. So I'm talking to him. I go, you know, we've been trying to get our water tower painted for like ages. He goes, I am so well aware of your water tower. that when we had our water tower, we didn't plan our water tower to have all the things around it. And it's an issue. I don't want to have total sticker shock like we had the other thing with the mooring field, but he goes, we can look like a million dollars to paint just to paint the tower because the screening and safety and security, and it has to be sandblasted. They have to secure the hotel. They have to secure even Beach Club because everything's around it. And it's not even just about us. It's about everything that goes into it. But it's millions of dollars.

We awarded it already.

Nope.

So we have $4 million that's in it. And now it's the execution of that that our team is now about to work.

So it's just, it's in process.

Yes, it's in process.

Well, I didn't even realize we had awarded or we allocated money. We didn't award it.

You allocated the money to do the project and to your point, it is millions of dollars to do that.

There was not an RFQ awarded? I thought we did.

No. No, no, no, no, no. It was back in 2020. Prove something. Five.

Well, we talked about lighting, and it was something.

No, no, no, no. We proved somebody getting in and cleaning, and I remember reading all the backup material. No, I don't think. Yeah, my staff is.

Yeah, they're coming down. No, because I went like. Sometimes we've done so much. I was like, oh, good. I got the card, actually. I was going to give you the guy's card.

We did something.

I don't know what it was. To talk to him about it. But I was like sitting. I am like shocked.

I remember reading the backup about how you have to get into the thing. I was just totally shocked. It has to be upgraded on a regular basis. And I thought we were doing that in conjunction. I thought we were doing that in conjunction with our 100-year anniversary.

Update? Do we want an update? Or when do we want it?

Okay. So now we're good.

because I'm usually good with numbers, and I'm thinking we talked about 300 and some odd thousand dollars relating originally, and I didn't realize we had executed a line item, and we were already budgeting, and it's in our budget. Oh good, because I got the heartburn. Oh my God, this is never going to end.

It's in our CIP.

Okay, good.

It's in our CIP.

All right, thank you.

Good, thank you.

And if you want to know all about it, I'll give you the guy's card. Oh my God.

I want to, there's one other topic I just wanted to.

Because I was going to talk about that under other. Go ahead.

Oh, you were doing, okay. So we still have time. So this item, I think for me, is a little bit difficult to open up. So one of the challenges I think that we have is, There isn't a, I don't know how to say this. So we are, the number one, to me, the number one purpose that we have code compliance is for beautification. And I have frankly been talking about this. Bless you, Mayor.

Oh, excuse me.

Wow, that was loud. So we've been talking about code compliance and how code compliance can contribute to beautification in the neighborhood, in the cities, in the cities since I think it was a EDAW report. I can't remember the name of the company back in 2006. So this has been a long, long time. I mean, well before I sat up here. We recently had the two resident surveys over a two-year period and the beautification didn't change. We didn't see an increase in beautification. During that time period over the last five years, we've made significant investments in code compliance. And I think, Director Mazzi, I had mentioned to you that I wanted to get an electronic copy of our budget, because one of the questions that I had was, what is our total code compliance current? What is the total budget? How many FTEs do we have today, and how does that compare with five years? And this is part of the email I know that I sent you, Dr. Earle. And the reason I asked for this information is because we're not getting the results out of code compliance that we want. Now, the results that we want is beautification, right? That's the outcomes that we want to get. We received an email that I think is extraordinary that our code increase in cases has increased dramatically. And that's a wonderful thing. That's not a bad thing. But it should also have a net impact on beautification. That's what we're doing it for, right? The cases should lead to an improvement in beautification. So we're missing something. I don't know what it is. but the outcomes that we want after making massive investments in code. When I say massive, if I have my numbers correct, and I could very well be wrong, when I became a commissioner, we had five code enforcement officers and we had no administrative folks. Now we have, I don't know, 12 code officers and at least two administrative people. So we've more than doubled the code department and we get a doubling of the cases. Now from a productivity, you know, person per case standpoint, that's not good, right? That's a decrease in productivity in cases per code and officer. But what's more important to me is that we're not getting the beautification results that we want. And I know this is a challenging thing to measure because it's a little bit amorphous. How do you measure beautification? But something here, obviously, I mean, other than the resident survey, which I.

Should have came in my speech yesterday. No, I'm teasing, I'm just laughing. Yeah, we can talk about that on there too, so by the way. No, because I talked about this. I heard good responses from folks. I didn't mean to interrupt you, I apologize.

So this is something that I just wanted to bring up for the city commission to be aware of because I think it's an important item because it's one of the three things that our residents are asking us to do, right? Right. So traffic, flooding, beautification. We've got a lot of money that's going into traffic. Our Department of Transportation has already made real world results and impact for our residents, which I congratulate them for and thank you again for that. I know we have a ton of money going into flooding, right? I don't know how we're measuring flooding because I think it's important to be able to show to residents the actual impacts that result from that. But beautification concerns me. And I honestly don't know what the answer is. I don't know if we increase our landscaping budget or if we... create a team that goes around and does a lot of the small jobs that need to be done around the city, like painting fire hydrants. I don't know.

Oh my God, somebody just asked me that.

Yeah, I hear it all the time too. So it sounds like such a small thing, but I will tell you an example that I thought was an amazing response. A year or two ago, I had shown some photographs of street signs that the city owned, and they were rusting and falling down, and within a week or two, Dr. Earle, the response was amazing. You had people out there, they painted them, they made them straight again, just little things like that, that if it were in my yard, I would wanna do that, right? I would wanna clean that stuff up, and it made a big impact very quickly. So I don't know what the answer is. I don't know how we move forward, but I think it's a, it's a, it's a, it's an important gap that we need to figure out how to address in order to deliver on this third item that our residents are asking us to are saying is most important for them. Okay. Mayor, I will shut up. I'm done. Thank you very much.

It's actually like to wrap. And this is how I phrased it. yesterday and thought about it. To me, and I keep saying it's called curb appeal. And while code enforcement is important, it stops when the sidewalk, where the sidewalk ends, that's where it is involved with public property. The idea of even just replacing and getting rid of the clutter on the roadway, cleaning the roadways, I brought up even power washing, making sure that we're doing those things. And I don't know how that translates translates into actionable items. I'll give you an example. When I grew up, the sidewalk was ours to maintain, even if we had a swale. You had to cut the grass, you had to clean the sidewalk, you had to do everything you had to do, right? Okay? Now, we're not in urban America. No, we're not in suburban America, we're in urban America. The other day, and I know it might be a little long wind, I was working out at Oasis, I was looking down on the street, and that property owner sweeps, actually, the street. Their maintenance goes out, scrubs the sidewalk, I mean, granted, it's a new area, right? Sweeps the sidewalk, and I basically said, this is a joint effort, people have to contribute to making sure, but more importantly, residents need to understand what we can control and what we can't control. So if somebody's not gonna do it and we're gonna code enforce them and they're not gonna clean it and just ignore it, it's still not getting done. So code enforcement is a tool, but we can fine and fine and fine, but that means the job's not getting done. So that has to go back to the policy. Now, like you said, staff's been great. They cleaned up the baskets on A1A and the trash cans and all that stuff. So I think it's a multifaceted type of approach and means different things to different people. You know, I mean, we drive through Golden Beach all the time. I mean, you know, it's wonderful. They have a beautiful one-way corridor. That's what they have to maintain. Aventura. Aventura has a ton of condos. Think about what they have in the public room to maintain. take care of, a lot different than us. We have much more public realm when it comes to even Pembroke Road, Hallandale Beach Boulevard, all these roadways, and it costs money to maintain them. So maybe we have to maybe sit down, maybe we do our own exercise to say, let's get every bus shelter replaced, let's look at cleaning the streets, doing those types of things, but that goes back to general fund, that goes back to investments. Street signs. All the street signs are in our responsibility. Hallandale Beach Boulevard, it's EPDOT. We can't even pave it. You know what I mean? And that's what I talked about. So if you talk about it conscientiously and say, A1A, we can partner with. We invested money there years ago, redeveloping the street, the lighting. We did everything down there, right? It's been a while, right? Maybe it needs a little further. a little bit more facelift, maybe a little bit more landscaping, but those are million dollar projects. They're not like little, you know, the signs. But getting back to the signs, it's not our responsibility to replace every sign on Hallandale Beach Boulevard. that's not what they did and that's not what they did i know what even our side golden and i'm saying that's good that's good and it was it really made a huge difference but i agree with you mayor so it's so and so i hear you but maybe strategically when we're not worried about all the moving parts with property tax and you know i encourage people go online see what you see what is your responsibility but um some of those things yes we can do better the curb appeal, cleaning it up, doing the bus shelters, getting rid of the million little advertising things, that kind of stuff. So I think we set in play some of the stuff that will be real, but I don't think, we're not gonna change, and I'll shout it out, and it's horrible, old building, where Harry's building it, that whole building needs a facade replacement.

You know, and it's ugly.

But you're going through other areas that aren't 100 years old. They're not as urban as us. Or they're a different type of community than what was a planned design community. So it's a difficult thing.

Yeah, obviously our focus should be on the thing.

And homeless, too. Homeless all over the place and the trash and the shopping carts.

Yeah, I mean, that's...

It's really bad.

We're just talking about beautification. Obviously, what do we have control over and what we can influence? And maybe this should be a workshop. Maybe we should sit down and get somebody who actually is an expert on tying these two things together. We've made enormous investments. I support those investments in code compliance. We're not getting the outcomes that... We wanted.

They're doing better because they're foreclosing again. You lost the component of how our legal department is moving on foreclosure.

I understand the benefit that we're getting out of it, and I'm not opposed to all of those benefits out of it. We just need to figure out how to affect this beautification thing so that two years from now or a year from now when we do a resident survey, people will say, yeah, Hallandale really has improved significantly in that third metric that is so important to our residents.

Yeah, so I'm feeling you. I just talked about it yesterday. Yeah, it's good. So we're good. Yes, ma'am. Talked about the water tower, talked about that. I think we're good. I think we can take a pause for 10 minutes, give everybody a break. Anybody else for budget?

Oh, and great job on the budget. Again, thank you very much to all of you. So I know you guys work hard at it.

Yeah, I usually give everybody props. I'm a little tired today, so. Yeah. Okay.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Dr. Rowe. Good job.

We're going to take a recess. Thank you.