City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. Thank you for your patience. We'll be starting momentarily.

Gracias por tu paciencia. Enseguida vamos a empezar. Danos dos minuticos más. Gracias.

Good evening, everyone. Buenas noches a todos. Gracias por su paciencia. Thank you for your patience. We're going to get started now. Good evening, Mayor. Good evening, Council. And we are calling the meeting of the City of Hialeah Council meeting of June 6, 2026 is called to order at 6.05 p.m. Madam Clerk, can you please lead us in an invocation?

Lord, we are grateful for your continuous blessings and pray that you continue to guide us in benefit of our city.

Thank you. Amen. Oh, thank you. Councilman Luis Gonzalez, can you do us the honors of the Pledge of Allegiance, sir? Thank you.

I brushed that one. 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.

Thank you. Madam clerk, can you please read the meeting guidelines for tonight?

The following guidelines have been established by the city council. All lobbyists must register with the city clerk as a courtesy to others. Please refrain from using cellular telephones or other similar electronic devices in the council chamber. a maximum of three speakers in favor and three speakers in opposition will be allowed to address the council on any one item each speaker's comments will be limited to three minutes no signs or placards in support of or in opposition to an item or speaker shall be permitted within the council chamber any person interested in making comments or posing questions on matters of public concern or on any item on the agenda may do so during the meeting Members of the public may address the city council on any item pertaining to city business during the comments and questions portion of the meeting. A member of the public is limited to one appearance before the city council and the speaker's comments will be limited to three minutes. Individuals should be respectful of the elected officials and staff and make every effort to speak with a moderate tone using appropriate language and avoiding personal attacks. members of the public in the audience shall refrain from shouting or making remarks from their seats to the mayor council members or staff sitting on the days the public can view public meetings on the city's youtube page thank you um item six is presentations we have recognitions for 25-year employees

and recognition for 30-year employees. God bless them, 30 years. What are you still doing here? Okay. Elsa, do you want to lead us in this?

Yes, sir. Good evening. Elsa Jaramillo-Velez on behalf of the Human Resources Department. Today, we again recognize our employees for 25 and 30 years of service. to the city which is a very big milestone and today um we're going to call one at a time i invite the mayor and the council members to come down and make the presentation the first one person is jorge gonzalez from information technology

One. One more. family family thank you To. earn it.

yeah Amelia Toledo is unable to be with us but now we go to Julio Orrego Our next person is Helen Odalis.

They're going to do the family.

Helen or that is .

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Also for 25 years, Sharon Disick.

Thank you.

Another Parks employee with 25 years, Quentin Webb.

A little bit. People.

Thank you.

now for 30 years of service with the city carlos diaz from the fire department the younger guys The other employees couldn't be with us here today, but we will be sending the recognition as well. Thank you. Okay.

All right.

All right. Congratulations again to all those 25 and 30 year service personnel. Thank you.

okay comments and questions uh madam clerk do we have any registered speakers yes sir the first one is michael carabosa michael carabosa come on up sir A name and address, sir, for the record, you have up to 3 minutes. Thank you, sir.

Okay. Good afternoon. Mayor carbon council members. My name is Michael. Dancers dance Academy. My main concern today is where the city blames citizens and small business owners when the architect or professional they hired causes delays. i want to be clear i want i was not ignoring the city i was not refusing to comply i was actively trying to comply i was given consent to operate while correcting violations and following the instructions given by the city i was told to hire an architect so i did the first architect delayed me for a year took my money and disappeared i lost two thousand seven hundred then i hired another architect and paid six thousand five hundred i also paid an mep architect a thousand six hundred I expedited 3,000, surveyed 3,000, inspected 250, and two city variance fees 1,000 each. That is a total of $19,050 spent just trying to comply and move forward. But when the process was delayed, I was blamed. Who was blaming me? I was told I should have hired a better architect by the city officials. That answer is not fair, and it is not realistic. How is a citizen supposed to predict the future? When we hire a professional, we trust them. We pay thousands of dollars upfront. We do not know if that person is going to delay the project, disappear, or take longer than expected. The city needs to be more considerate of other people's money. If it is not logical to expect a citizen to spend thousands of dollars on an architect, then fire the architect, lose that money, and spend thousands more on another one. Small business owners do not have unlimited money, even delay. Every delay, correction, revision, and requirement costs real money. What makes this even harder is that my only source of income was taken away by the city while I was still trying to comply. My business was how I supposed to support myself while going to school. Thankfully, I have parents who helped me because if not, I honestly believe I would be living in the streets because the city took away my livelihood and still expect me to keep paying more fees. Mayor Carver, you had a dream to become Mayor of Hialeah and today you're living that dream. I had a dream too. My dream was to open a dance studio for the youth of Hialeah. That dream was taken from me without clear answers, even though I was trying to do what I was told. My question is simple. Well, is the full punishment places on the business owner when the business owner is depending on the licensed professional to complete the work? I believe the city attorney should look into a better process to protect citizens. Maybe the city can provide a standard agreement between the citizen and architect, making it clear that if the architect causes unreasonable delays, misses deadlines, or fails to do the work properly, then the citizen has the right to hold the architect responsible for the damages, fines, lines, or delays they cause. Right now, it feels like the citizen is trapped. The city tells us to hire an architect, the architect delays and then the city blames the citizen. I am not asking for special treatment. I am asking for fairness, logic, compassion, and for the city to be more considerate for the real money citizens spend while trying to follow the rules. Thank you. I try to get all that in three minutes.

Thank you, sir. You did it. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. I believe you already spoke to my chief of staff, Jose. He's right there in the back. And we're trying to help as much as possible. Obviously, understanding that, you know, there was an architect, an engineer. I think you hired that.

I hired two architects. I paid thousands and thousands of dollars. And the delay is not me.

yeah i've been clearly trying my my heart is no look we're going to try to help you as much as we can obviously you know we have to follow all the guidelines and the protocols but um i know constituent services has a case open to try to help and jose is also aware of it so if you want to connect with him he's right there in the back of the room all right all right thank you for coming thank you appreciate you thank you sir madam clark next speaker please one santana mr santana

Name and address for the record. You have up to three minutes when you get on.

Juan Santana, 5601 West 10th Avenue. Thank you, sir. I just want to give you guys some information. Mayor, I came today to find out where we're at with the HOA Task Force. My friend Belkis lives. I'm co-owner of the property at 460 East 23rd Street, apartment 414. uh these people in the hoa board are ridiculous um you know they're misusing money they're doing they're doing horrendous horrendous horrendous thing and this is something that i've been trying to push You know, we have all these wonderful people running for governor and everything else under the sun. And I asked a simple question. We have all these new laws that came from Tallahassee down this year. I mean, sorry, last year. They're already being enforced. Right. But nobody's doing enforcement. Nobody. DPPR is not doing enforcement. I appreciate you had that workshop. Was it called? Unfortunately, you know, my case has gone already to the attorney general's office, the state of Florida. And God forbid that person does any their job, you know, because they don't follow guidelines. They don't they don't answer emails. They don't answer nothing, you know. So basically we ask for a loan, right, for a special assessment loan with Miami-Dade County. OK, and now, right, they just stop work. It's been already going on six weeks. They just stop the work. I have a big concern and I'm giving the city notice on this. Right. I suggest you send out building inspectors over there. Right. And start checking every single floor on the 460 building. Right. There's there. They have structural beams up and everything, but they haven't done any work. And now the side, literally the pathway on the fourth floor where I own the condo. Right. You can literally see down into the next floor. And you walked that building when you were running for mayor. You know how that is over there. And literally, it's a safety hazard because that building, that 200 unit, all of them is more than 65 and older. You know it. We have people that are 60, 70, all the way to 94 years old living there. So please. And I want to know where we're at with the task force because we need to do something. And hopefully now after July 13th, we're able to sit down and I want to tell you how we could bring real action to hold these people accountable. Every single one of you that sit up there, I was just talking with Councilman Lewis earlier, have the power to call on the license of these HOAs. So I want every single one of you to really think about that. Are we just going to sit up there and say yes or no, or are we going to start holding these HOAs accountable? That's what I want.

right and that's what a lot of residents want okay so please think about that while you're sitting up there thank you yeah so in uh in regards to the task force um for the condominium angle we're doing monthly uh sessions with dpbr monthly office hours anybody uh in the public that has an issue with a condominium can go ahead and sign up it's by appointments and the appointments are i believe 30 minutes so it's a 30-minute session for condominium related issues For homeowners association that doesn't fall under DPBR, that would be through the state attorney's office. And so we're in the process right now of putting an additional police officer for our economic crimes unit. Obviously, it's not somebody you can put in overnight. It requires a lot of training. But we are actively in the process of doing that. They have over 700 active cases in the economic crimes unit. In addition to that, I mean, again, it is a super difficult situation because as much as you want to push the HOAs, we don't want to be in a situation where, you know, we have to shut down a building or something like that. And now you have a bunch of people out on the street. So we're trying to play the delicate game. dance that it is um but you know we have had a lot of issues with some of these associations uh paying their water bills so a lot of them have been owing the city hundreds of thousands of dollars and um you know we're happy to say that uh almost all of them with the exception of maybe one or two almost all of them right now are up to date or they're on some sort of payment plan so that's going to help us a lot in that regard So it's a tricky, tricky situation, but we're doing the best we can. Thank you for coming. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Next speaker, Madam Clerk. Jose Alzi. Jose, you know the drill, sir. Name and address for the record.

Before I start, I want to give each of you two handouts. One is the line that was formed when we gave the food away. Okay. And the other one was a mobile medical unit that we could get in the future.

Okay.

Hey, Jose Ozzie, 788 Southeast Park Drive. Good evening, everybody. I went to the food handout at St. John's Church, and I have some good news. And then I'm going to ask the city council to please help me get involved. So if you see the line, I walked the whole area until 9 o'clock. This was the line, seven blocks long. They even went into West Forest. I don't know if people could see it. It was seven blocks. And the good news is Miami-Dade Human Services, they're gonna open their office back up where we have CareerSource. So we need to take advantage of that, because one of the things they do is once a week, they get money from food shares too, and finally it's getting back. And then Mayor, I know you did a seminar for jobs. CareerSource is also stationed there, and that's where people go get jobs. But when we removed Arnie Alonzo from the Hylia Center and then we removed three staff, that's been little by little because if you don't have an eye on it, the county is going to give you less and less. And we pay 20% of our taxes to the county, and we're not getting that back. So please... just get involved with that because that's a lot of hundreds of thousand dollars and then the response you gave me um mr dogby it was like oh iffy because i got the email to the response the day after i didn't have the response and i'm going to touch on it because i give all of you a copy i'm going to touch on okay so we still have four facilities southeast park the community there the community around my land the community around seminola in the community around palm lakes park they don't get free lunches all we got to do is put a part-time staff there like our our parks on sunday when people are don't work our parks are closed we only have five parks open here are the people close so we're in dire need you know So and we have the monies and I'm going to go over how much money we're asking for special events. That was a little bit of money and City Council, I hope, please, you know, go out, visit your parks, you know, if I'm talking crap, you can say, Pepper, you're exaggerating the truth or you're full of crap or you can say, you know, we're going to look into this, we're going to, because the City Council, you can say, oh, that's Bobo's fault. Oh, that was Mayor, no, because you approved everything they did. I remember the budget, you know, it was approved that and you had these warnings, look, you know, also when you privatize the service, you're giving away, you're giving it to a vendor, right? You don't have control anymore. And I either pull a man in the park, I hope, Councilwoman Perez and Councilwoman De La Vega, go to Mylander Park with your kids. Can we use the park? No, you can't swim there unless you pay $170 for fitness because it's controlled. When you privatize it, it's controlled by that. Like Mylander Park, that's a great thing. I hope they put them back in the school, but you can't use the facility when you privatize it. So I'm gonna give you the handout of the question they gave me and what I asked, and we still have a chance with a lot of money we're approving today. to please read this and help me. I mean, if you don't get involved, then you're approving everything. So you can't say, oh, this strong former mayor is the mayor's fault. No, you all are approving and you should all get involved.

Thank you. Give it to Gabby. Give it to Gabby. She'll give it to us. Thank you. Thank you, Pepper. Thank you, sir.

Through the chair.

Yes, ma'am.

I just wanted to ask our parks department, do we offer breakfast or lunch during summer? and have we have we used have we done that before is is it if you can just give me a little bit information about that program thank you

Good evening, Mayor and Council, 900 East 56th Street, Willie Sanchez. Yes, we do offer lunch and snacks. Our Special Pops program does get breakfast as well. It's provided through Miami-Dade County. There's no cost to the residents, no cost to us. It's a partnership we've had. For over 20 plus years with Miami-Dade County. So it's a great service. Again, it's never gone away. We always had it in the parks. Since I was a part-time employee, it's just much better now. From the times that we worked back in the 90s, it was cold lunches. Now we have hot lunches. So it's improved greatly.

Thank you. And what time do our parks open now now for the summer that the kids are out? What time do our parks open?

So we have nine parks, right? Nine parks, 1010 parks opening up at 730 in the morning, and then the rest open up at 130 in the afternoon. The other remaining five parks.

Okay, the others open up at you said 130 130. And I'm assuming in all parks, we offer lunch and snacks.

All the parks that the morning parks have. Okay, it's nice snacks for the afternoon parks is just snacks.

Okay. In in, in the past, did the county used to offer breakfast or the funds to, to be able to purchase breakfast, even if it's something simple as cereal? And milk? I'm just curious. If in the past, we've been offered that

Steve Diaz, 900 East 56th Street, Deputy Director of Parks. It has been an option, but what they offer is either a combination of breakfast and snacks or lunch and snacks. And typically, what we've selected in the past is lunch and snacks, with the exception of our special populations. They've gone the route of breakfast, yeah.

Perfect. And this just came up because there had been a food drive that I had seen in another county that they did with parks. It was actually a combination that they did with police. So I just want to, we'll meet offline, but it is something that maybe we can brainstorm because I do know that there is a population of kids who will attend the parks and probably don't have breakfast. So if we can just come up with a creative way to,

of maybe getting you know different resources to help us provide breakfast i think that would be great sure but thank you if i made through the chair i just want a little a bit of clarity from what was said so all 10 parks that are going to be open will offer this lunch and snack snacks however is it offered just just to have a little bit of clarity offered to children that are enrolled in a program at that park or anyone that walks into the door like anybody walks in has

We have to feed them. We will feed them.

Do we need to gather any kind of name or some kind of count to have some kind of evidence, some kind of data for auditing purposes of how many children we're servicing in the community? We do. Even though they're not enrolled in our park?

Yeah, we keep track how many lunches are ordered every day, and they have to provide numbers and names. Not names, but numbers.

So typically we kind of run out of these lunches. How do we have like an estimated number, like per park? 10 parks are going to get how many lunches, let's say, per day?

It's the attendance. We base it off attendance.

But if someone just walks in, how do we know?

Primarily what we'll do is we'll use our program registration as sort of a baseline, and then we'll order above that number in order to accommodate for anybody else that steps into.

So if we have 52 enrolled, we order 10 more lunches.

We order about 50 to 70 extras just in case there are anyone else decides to walk in. As long as they're under the age of 18, they're able to be served lunch and snacks.

Wonderful. Okay. And then the other five parks don't have that.

They don't have the snack option.

They have the snack. Do we list this anywhere like online? Because I haven't seen like, oh, you could have lunch at these 10 parks during the summer.

Specifically for the meals, no, but we do associate that information in like our camp flyers, things like that. So if we're promoting our sports camp or our fit and feel camp or that program, those sort of things, we put that information in those flyers as well.

All right. And then as just to do a little follow-up on what Councilwoman De La Vega said, maybe we can discuss maybe with Daniela, maybe we could look at maybe some type of children's trust breakfast options. I don't know if that's something, obviously I think it's too late to do that this year, but maybe that's something that's offered as like a healthy food option that maybe we could apply for something for breakfast.

Sure, that's definitely an option. And also, in addition to your previous question, you had asked if we, I guess, separately market the meal plans. We are also provided banners and sort of the choroplast signs to place at each of our facilities to kind of advertise to the public, hey, free lunches are available here during hours of operation.

I would love to know those 10 parks that you are, just to be able to relate it to anybody as well.

Definitely.

Thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate it.

Anyone else?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Guys, a question for you. On the weekends, are we offering that too?

No, no, not on weekends. Not Saturday and Sunday.

Not Saturday and Sunday. And the other parks, which ones? The one at 1 o'clock. I'm sorry. Which parks are those?

We can send a complete list. We'll send it via email to the city clerk and share it. Got it. The ones that are open in the morning and afternoon parks.

Okay, and the last question, how do we get the food? I'm just curious.

Miami-Dade, it's a partnership we've had with Miami-Dade. So you did mention that, I apologize. So they deliver it to us? Delivery includes milk, juices, snacks, hot food. Fridays they have pizza. It's a great service, and it's improved over the years. Got it. And no cost to the city.

Okay.

and last question willie just that i have in front of you how we doing with staffing we were able to are we good this year i know we last year well we that's on we continue to on board but we had a great uh you know great uh um recruitment effort this summer which were fully staffed we're good we're getting there yes sir yeah okay yeah um gotcha

Um, 1 last thing, can you also include in our parks when you give us a breakdown what programming we have and, like, what activities we have lined up for the summer for the kids for each. Of course.

Yeah, thank you.

So sorry through chair again. Yes, sir. These are the questions we're getting answered every day. So the park, especially now with the economy, the way it is, people are going to rely on our parks more than ever. So we're getting a lot of information. I imagine the council too. So our park's going to be busy. Ice skate already. Very, very busy.

We have great summer camps at a very affordable rate. Nobody can come, you know.

It's exciting. You provide a great service. The programs. Okay. Remember we talked about before, you know, a lot of things have happened that we put on the list of actually what's coming to the parks, what's in the park. So when the parents come show up there, the kids can know exactly what the time. Do we have that going on there, Steve? Yeah.

as far as the parks itself let's say i walk into my lander yeah that we try to push on on social media platforms an actual list uh like a project list uh we have an actual working document that's a list um but we don't have anything posted at parks yet uh sort of an ongoing uh effort there got it okay um is that something we're going to do as far as posting it yeah yeah that's that's definitely something we're gonna we're gonna because the project kind of fluctuates so quickly uh as we kind of jump from one project to the next we have to constantly keep that updated so i'm trying to figure out how what would be the best way without uh you know constantly having to print specific flyers and all that but and one last most of the programs that we're going to be running the parks are probably going to be employee led by the city highly right There's a good combination of both. Staff-led, for instance, our cheerleading program, our elite teams, that sort of thing are all staff-led. But then we have a combination of other programs that are more of the expertise of individuals that are out there that can provide that service.

So what are you going to send the email so we can have that education or something? I appreciate that. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Next speaker.

Miguel Pita.

Yes, sir. Sir, name and address, and then you have three minutes.

Okay. And I have a boat since 2007, 19 years ago, in that same property. I've been living in that property since 1999. And when I bought my property, it says single family, a single unit. And the city of Hialeah has removed the word of the ordinance, has removed townhouse. And that's affecting me. It's the second time I've been here. In the previous government, if they worked well or they worked badly, I can't tell you. The problem is that it was underestimated and now a violation is coming to me. And I would like to know or ask you, who are the ones who are now in the government, who have the power, who have the way and the ability to help us with that, at least in my case. All my life I have worked to have what I like, so that when I retire, that I am retired, that I live on a pension, to be able to enjoy that, that I have fought so much, it has cost me, and I repeat, 19 years I lived with a boat in that same property and all that I am telling you is documented from last year. I presented myself in a similar commission, something like that, where 4 to 3 were voted in favor of me staying with the boat. and I had to introduce myself later to the councilors, but it was dismissed, they took it away, they did a good bad job, they did something. So now we're seeing this. And And then I had a cost in 24 that was like 3,000 and a bit of dollars. It's costing me. The city gave me back the 1,075 dollars for the variant. At that time, as you know, it was given to me and I would like to see if there was a possibility of going back to the variant again with a certain security, please, that I'm not going to throw away my money. And I think you have the power to help us. I want to finish my years that I have, I want to finish them happy with what I have enjoyed so much and I have fought so much.

How old is your vote, Epita? 21.

Basically, look, I think you live where? In Palm Springs North. Correct. Occasionally, when this ordinance was approved, I lived in Palm Springs South, which is the sister property of the same developers. I was in the council at that time. I also happened to be against that ordinance, but. So. So. You have the possibility, if you want, if you want to apply for a variant, which was the process that you were explaining. That process still exists and if you want to apply, you can do it. Obviously, it will take, as I said, a quantity to be able to process that application, it would go in the process of group of zoning and then it would come to the council that later the council can decide. I can't speak for the councilors, I don't know how they would vote or not, but the problem is that the policy is that votes are not allowed in townhouse properties. So it would be a little weird to have a policy that says that and at the same time let it keep the vote. I understand that you had the vote before the ordinance, But unfortunately, the way it's written doesn't give you any kind of additional points for having had the boat before. If simply the idea of ​​the variance is if you have a property that is possibly unique, not special, like the people who have townhouse, but they are the corner house that have a patio, a side where they can basically have the boat hidden, as supposedly has to be done. The problem is the townhouses because at that time it was not allowed to do it in the townhouses. The townhouses have little parking. For example, in my house, I don't know in your house, but in my house there are three parking lots. If you occupy a parking lot, you know that there is much less and almost everyone here has their own car. So you have the situation where people park in the sidewalks, they park on the street. etc., etc. So you have the possibility to apply for the variant if you want to do it. I can't tell you for sure if they are going to approve or not. You can discuss that later, maybe with the advisers, that situation, but as a general point of view, that is the law in force. I don't know what they did in the past, but the law in force at the moment is that.

uh new business new business

that I personally am going to do it because I feel responsible for that if you want to express a moment here in your room as we have more discussion with that now now you sold the boat because you had the possibility look at your age look at my age I don't have the spirit that you have that you have the spirit as the panel has it what is here You're telling me that you can't change that, that you can't change, put an incision, put something to that ordinance where those of us who already have it before, because the ordinance also says that those of us who have it, we had the boat before the order we had that variant of being able to do it he says it in a paragraph excuse the f I think hello he says it but no one is giving me security he says it in the paragraph but now with respect to the parking lots Regarding parking, yes, let's solve a problem. I don't have a problem with parking. I can put my boat, I can put my car and I'll figure out where I put it. And I'm going to park it on the sidewalk. I've never done it because since I have a boat, I had a letter that was sent to me in 2007. that because of the boat I could not build the sidewalk, nor the boat, nor any car. I always respected that. But there is another thing. Tell me what you tell me if my contract says in 1999 that it is single family, a single unit. You, the city, have the power to say that contract, throw it in the trash that doesn't work. That, that, that, that, that's good. That's fine. That my contract says single family, a single unit, even if it's in a multifamily area, it doesn't change the purpose of the house, which is single family. He says it in the contract in multiple places, he mentions it in multiple places. So you say my contract doesn't work, I vote for it. Who violated that? That's what my contract says. I don't know about the others. There are cases by case. I think it should be analyzed case by case. You sold it. Congratulations, you could sell it. Do you think I can sell a boat? Now, when people find out, they're watching YouTube, they're watching everyone, that we have to sell the boat. My boat is worth 16. I have to sell it for the engine value, which is 12,000. I lose everything else. So all my investment, all my sacrifice, you, you, you, you, you are throwing me on the ground what I fought for, what I worked for when I was retired, as I am now, to enjoy that. Please, I'm asking you for mercy, I'm asking you, I beg you. You can change it, don't tell me that it's inviolable, that it can't be done as they put a law. I think they can put an amendment, an incision, they can do something, for God's sake.

Pita, Pita, let me, you've already said that, allow me a moment. Yo me recuerdo cuando se construyó específicamente el tuyo, da la casualidad que estamos hablando del tuyo, de Palm Springs North. Yo me acuerdo cuando eso se construyó en el 73. Era lindísimo. Le sobraba el parqueo. Yo tenía unos amiguitos de la familia, la familia que compraron ahí recién, sobraban los parqueos. ¿Por qué? Núcleo familiar, hogar. Through the years, I saw the change. First of all, the pandemonium that we had to attack. There was a pandemonium in the 90s in Palm Springs North. Another thing that Palm Springs North has had, when I was the chief of the police, I had to have several meetings with the HOA. And we were meeting with the residents because it was impassable. What is that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, When the townhouses are designed, the zoning tells you X dormitory, X parking. A boat was never factored in, which is a permanent thing that forces. What I've seen is an odyssey. We didn't know what to do through the years with that problem. The association asked us for help because people complain that they are blocking what are the entrances where the townhouses are and blocking the street. I lived it, I lived it. And one of the things that I observed being there. Apart from too many people living in the estates that the parking lots were not enough, it was a horrible thing. What was happening there was the number of boats that the people who occupied those sacred parking lots had. Those apartments are limited. Yes, it is the case. I remember, as I told you, since I was a teenager, there was a change, the density that has been created, that has been developed today for the units that were not supposed to occupy so many people. has brought more cars and has brought more problems. And the problem with the boat in a townhouse is that it takes up a sacred parking lot.

You are telling me what I have to do. The car you have is sacred, it has to be there. Why? If I can sacrifice. You have to look for parking on the other side. No, sir, I don't have to do that. I don't even have to park outside of that. And I live in the front. You're talking to me behind the fence. And what will be there will be 10 or 15 votes. What's there? That's what's there. Now you put a limit 24 feet or minimum. If there are votes that have more than 24, I don't know. I come to speak for myself. I don't come to talk about it. When you lived, it was chaos. Today it's chaos. Let's call it chaos. Let's say now that everything is the same. The councilor is going to propose that we review the ordinance again.

I understand what you're saying. You had it, now you can't have it. We did it because the situation in the city has changed. It changed. And then we had to limit recreational vehicles. Likewise, in the United States it is not allowed and people had it. There are times when two parking lots were occupied. No, no, I understand you, but that parking lot is sacred. And that parking lot, when they say... We are talking about the law. When that townhouse was designed, it was designed with the specific parking that you need by dormitory. As I told you, you can apply for a variant, but as I told you, you don't know if they're going to approve it because If you can, he's talking about properties that are in a corner where they don't occupy a parking lot, where they have a piece of patio, an area, then one of those parks doesn't occupy you. That's the problem that's happening now.

Correct, correct.

Okay, then, but well, but we understand, we understand what you're telling us. Okay, I really understand. Yes, ma'am.

A little question, because you mentioned that you came And someone voted 4 yes, 4 no. So you went through that process of variants.

Yes. In November 11, 2024, I came, they were not advisers.

They went through planning and zoning, but the application was withdrawn. I don't know why.

By the applicants?

Who was withdrawing? The money was returned and the application did not go all the way to council. It stopped in planning zone.

Okay. Si usted ya tiene, mira señor, si usted ya tiene una aplicación. No, he does. Vamos entonces a revisar esa aplicación y vamos a intentar hacer ese proceso de nuevo. Porque como usted explicó en la ordenanza, ya está eso escrito ahí de las personas que tienen ese barco, ese RV, que se puede analizar y ver si aplica para esa propiedad. Ajá. ya eso está escrito ya no hay motivo para abrir otra vez esa ordenanza si a él es eso está escrito ahí como usted ha explicado vamos a ver no sé si si el departamento do they have that people worker even if you need to submit tendría que aplicar otra vez obviamente porque el dinero se le había regresado en este es correr sé cuál fueron los detalles no sé esos detalles pero tendría que aplicar otra vez como le dije

and then put that application, it has to go to the zoning group first, as it was at that time, and then it would come later to the council for the final approval, which are the councilors, then they vote on their specific property. What your initial question was, you obviously don't want to incur that expense without being sure, which makes a lot of sense. Not so much certainty.

It is fair to say, well, gentlemen, this deserves to be there. There is a word in English that I don't know how to translate, which is grandfather in. I think that gives me some right to something that you can consider. Just keep that in mind.

It is a factor to consider, definitely. And obviously you appeal to the emotions of the council at that moment. What I can't tell you for sure is if it's going to be approved or not, because first of all, I don't vote. They are the councilors who vote. But point number two is the decision of each council member individually. There are seven people. You would have to convince at least four people to have the approval of four of them.

Correct. Correct. I would have to talk to them independently at another time. Each one.

And that is the process that was designed at that particular time. And what would you do? I wouldn't vote because I'm not, the mayor doesn't vote. But it's the one who has the loudest voice.

I think you have power, you have power. You have power, you can influence, you can influence, you can change. or make a meeting of the ones you do and say we can do this. If you have, excuse me for the word, if you have the intention of helping those of us who find ourselves in certain cases, I'm not generalizing, I'm talking for myself and you have the intention of helping and that I die happy with what I have fought so much. You can do it. Absolutely.

But gentleman, I have to follow the laws that exist. Yes, but you can change these things. My job is to enforce the law that exists. Now, what we are talking about now is a quasi-judicial process. A quasi-judicial process is that the councilors feel like judges. I cannot influence the decisions they make because ethically I am forbidden to do so. They have to make their decision. I don't know what decision. You can obviously talk to each one of them. You more or less have an idea of the feelings of some advisors and others. You have to convince four people. I can't tell you. ¿Qué van a hacer ellos o no van a hacer? Pero sí le puedo explicar cómo fue que la ordenanza vino. ¿Por qué fue que se le prohibió a los townhouses tener? Y todos esos factores va a tomar la decisión. Pero las leyes cuando se hacen a veces perjudican a algunas personas, pero It is assumed that in general it will improve some functioning, that is, nobody makes a law for pleasure, it is done with an idea, a goal and the goal in that case was the issue of parking, that we do not have enough parking in the city. And you are a lawyer.

Correct. I have a contract that says one thing. Can the city violate that contract?

Well, the contracts are between private people. Yes, the government can put laws above the contracts. Correct. That's what I wanted to say. My contract that says single family, a single unit. If tomorrow the city wants to put its commercial property, it can do it. Governments always touch on contractual relations between private individuals, as well as the state can put laws saying that we as a city cannot do this and the federal government can touch to the state and then to the city. So that's the hierarchy of how they govern.

And how can I get the name and the phone number?

On the website of the city, if you search under government, under government and you can translate the website, there is a hyperlink, a hyperlink that you can translate into Spanish. And on that website site, the government tells you and tells you the name and the email.

Next speaker. You have one, wait a minute. And when you come up you have one minute.

Sir, name an address for the record, and you have up to three minutes, sir.

Thank you. Dennis. Can I do it? Como tu quiera. It's going to be easy for me if I do it in Spanish. Yeah. 71, 65. Jeez, I forgot my address. Tranquilo. 71, 65 West, third quarter.

Ah, ok. Vecino de Pisa.

Estoy en la misma situación.

Except for... Sorry. Tengo un... Un momentico, un momentico. Perdón. I just got here like 12 years ago from Cuba and that was my dream so I made it and I have the same situation I'm trying to keep that

Next to the boat. How many cars in your house? I have one. I work in the office. I work as a formal electrician, and I have a van from the office. So I have a park in the office, and that's it.

Just one additional car?

I have a truck that I park.

Where I found it. Okay, that's what we're trying to avoid. But go ahead.

Yeah, but it's allowed. I'm allowed to park in the spot I'm using now. It's from the city. It's in the street.

But if you have a parking lot in your house, you don't have to use a parking lot on a public road. Do you understand what I'm saying? That's the thing. Okay, that's... No, but go ahead.

I'm trying to keep the book. No, we understand you.

You have the same problem as Pete. The same concern. You want... What size does your boat have? 18. Wait a minute. Anybody for him? No, no.

Yeah, that's the only joy I have for my kids. That's the only thing that I have to say.

Do you want to say anything? It's impossible.

Yeah, I know.

Last government. I know it's not impossible. Last government.

I'm sorry.

Two years ago, we were allowed. They stopped everything. I have all the papers. I have everything. They stopped. I mean, Esteban stopped everything, and he was allowed to do it. He was agreed to do it. If we don't go against the measurements that we have, we are.

I'm sorry. I'm going to have to ask for some quiet on that side of the room. You're interrupting our meeting. No te pita. Please. Thank you. See you.

I just want to try to save the boat and the house. Does it through the chair?

Yes, sir.

So through the chair. So what's going to happen now? A little bit of new business. I'm going to propose for opening the ordinance. The council is going to have a chance to open it and we'll revise it. If it doesn't go through, like the mayor said, we have a chance of actually applying for an exception. So if you want to stand by a little bit, you can see what's going to happen soon on this particular case. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Gracias. Gracias.

No more registered speakers.

Frank, did you want to?

Good evening, Frank de la Paz, 11,000 South West 101st Street, Miami. One minute. LBT director is on the screen. I don't know why. But since she's there, downstairs on the employees, the vending machines, they no longer have a valid stickers. for LBT. It's a continuous occurrence and they no longer take coins, only bills. So you buy a bag of chips and you have to spend and then the next item and next thing you know you walk out of the building with $10 in change if you need to get something. So I would like to see them pay their local business tax or get beside it like everybody else and accept cash now they don't accept cash they only accept bills now oh bills no coins so a dollar 25 75 cents you're gonna buy something else you gotta put two other dollars and you get another 75 cents and you know i hear you okay frank if we're gonna have a machine let's have a machine that works properly thank you thank you sir thank you thank you

Right. No other registered speakers? No. Sir, go ahead.

I have some handouts, if the aid would like.

Your name and address. 9297 West, 32nd Lane, Hialeah, Florida. There's seven or eight.

Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

Go ahead, sir. You have up to three minutes. Go ahead.

Mayor and council, first, I want to thank you guys for taking time today to hear me out. I want to start off by saying I support law enforcement. The question I'm raising tonight is not whether Hialeah Police Department should have the tools. It's whether this particular vendor, Flock, has earned the trust that comes with the access it's asking for. And while they're expanding the system, without rent, government's control is consistent with Florida's constitutional right to privacy. Please look at the handouts. That's three minutes, not really enough to express my concerns. But the first post I would like to make, it's about the platform. It's not about the camera. The cameras may say they only read the plates, but the platform that those cameras feed into is something very different. For example, it feeds into Freeform, which is an AI-powered plain English search for people by physical description. Second, Raven, which is thought as a gunshot detector, now expanded to listen for human voices in distress. Under Florida statutes, intercepting oral communications without consent is a third-degree felony. and their own patents describe classifying people by race, gender, height, and weight in a searchable database. That's not speculation. That's what they have in their patents. Additionally, software updates add capabilities without new physical hardware, without hearings, and without a council vote. What you've already proved or may approve may not be what is running in 18 months from now. second point i would like to make is the right to privacy is already severely eroded as it is in this country and we as a city should not participate in further deteriorating it flora's constitution explicitly guarantees every person the right to be let alone from governmental intrusion article 1 section 23 and carpenter v united states supreme court president says a person does not surrender all fourth amendment's rights by venturing into public sphere No Florida court has definitively ruled on automatic license plate rendition, mass retention. So meaning Hialeah is operating in unknown legal territory by implementing without a clear written policy. Third point I would like to make is there has been a documented loss of local control across the country. These are not allegations. This has happened across the country and other local governments and other states. Mountain View, California. Flock enabled nationwide sharing without the police department's knowledge. ATF, the Air Force, accessed local data for 17 months without their knowledge. The police chief later recommended termination. Cambridge, Massachusetts, just last year. Flock installed new cameras even after the city council voted to deactivate the system. Their contract was later terminated for breach of trust. the state of Illinois last year as well. The Secretary of State audit found 4,000 plus immigration related lookups, including searches for ICE warrant on data departments never authorized by that state. Additionally, the cost. Well, I'm running out of time. So my ask today is, do not adopt the system. Hialeah can be a leader in protecting the constitutional privacy rights guaranteed by Florida's constitution. 30 plus cities have already canceled FLOX contracts. Even Amazon canceled it. Thank you, sir.

Thank you. Thank you, sir.

I welcome any questions. Thank you.

Next speaker. Thank you, sir. Oh, yeah. Thank you, Matt, President.

Name and address, please, as formalism.

Thank you. I live in 6915 West, Tercer Acol, Hialeah, Florida 3314. I am a neighbor of Mr. Pilar and Mr. I am in the same case. My vote does not interrupt. There has been no fulfillment, there has been nothing. I agree with you, who are the ones who represent us. And if the law is to be fulfilled, it is fulfilled. That is. But the law is flexible and we can review it. Those people who are having problems, I don't think we have to be so radical. Since, as he said, each person tries to clear their own way. My way is my children, my wife, when you can go out and have a good time. I don't see a restaurant, I don't see anything. I'm a father of a family. I don't have the economy to pay for a place to pay for it because they're super expensive. I've been looking into it, it's worth a thousand dollars, something that can't be done. We're talking about the parking lots, you're absolutely right. I don't take away the reason. You know the place. Why don't we make the decision in front of the third call that there is enough space to do common parking? Why don't you do it? Because it can be done. It's one thing that we can do. Because that's for if in the future you need to expand the street, do it.

It takes, yes, it takes that and it takes green areas there too. You can't occupy everything to facilitate that, but yes.

Not facilitate, not only in me, because in my case it's the same. I'm not affecting anyone. The boat complies with the established, it has 24 other feet, it is far enough from the wax, no one can collide with it. It is what you say, a parking lot I am losing, but hey, you can't send me to swim with the sharks because they are going to eat me. I have to find where to park and that it does not bother. Do you understand? Maybe I'm affecting another person because I'm using that parking lot. I agree with you on that. But I think once again that we can put our hands on our hearts and we can try to review that law again. Since, as Mr. Bobo says, you are there to. Hey, Carlos, excuse me. You are there to enforce the law. And I agree with you, very happy.

What we can do for you, look, you appreciate it a lot.

Excuse me, I'm very happy with the new government, at least on my part, I'm very happy. And with Mr. Bobo, with Mr. Carbo, excuse me, with Mr. Carbo, who said he's seeing the water, many things. Super happy, do you understand me?

Look, it is appreciated that you have taken your time and come here. What we are going to do for you is we are going to take things out of order and we are going to enter the discussion of the subject, which is the subject of you, of the votes. so that you don't have to keep waiting and we can get into that topic right now. And obviously it's an open discussion between everyone. This is one of these issues that reasonable minds can differ and there are many ways to see the problem, but we can do that for you so that you don't have to wait so long.

I have a conversation with Mr. Anthony from his side, the market at ten o'clock in the morning. With Jonathan. Yes, he's here right now. That's why I'm telling you, excuse the annoyance.

No, no, it's not any annoyance, we're here for that.

But I would like to see with the hand of the heart if we can try. I repeat, if you have to take it out, you take it out. As you sold yours, it's going to sell. Give me a second then.

We're going to enter that discussion right now. If you want to stay, if you want to participate, there's no problem with that.

We're going to do that right now for all of you.

Thank you for coming.

You want to take that item now, please?

Under new business? Under new business. Sure. New business. Anyone?

Yes. Through the chair, please. Yes, sir. All right. So through the chair, so council members, so on the ordinance that we're talking about, I understand when we 1st presented to us, we had the issue with the RVs with disaster out there and I think the ordinance did do his job. But. There's some items here I want to bring to us as a council. We can have a discussion at another time. What was you just heard Tom homes? To have a small boat at the time, if the space permits, we can have a discussion, open up for discussion as far as something that we can do, because it's not only that area across the city and I'm seeing the townhouses in some areas. I see that they do fit. They have 1 car. An example repeat is here. I saw it in Google. He does have 1 car 1 boat. So we probably could do something for them in the future as far as that have that strong minorities. Number 2. commercial vehicles 2000 pounds I think it's very that's a small vehicle, I think that I, I think we should discuss about opening a little bit having a. larger vehicle is four or 5000 2000 pound vehicles are very small so let's say you're a plumber or an air conditioning mechanic. Right. So you're looking at a good item.

that's a one ton van that's what is yeah but it's no no that's two thousand pounds yeah no excuse me yeah one time anything above that is described as a commercial vehicle though so yeah so what i think but we can have a discussion so two thousand pounds uh van is probably a very small it's not the standard size van

That a commercial person working in the house with his own private business can have a discussion about it, but those noises are the ones that the residents been telling me about. So, number 1 thing is the boat and the discussion for the small vehicles as well, where you can have your commercial vehicle. But then a large friend, a smaller van, which back then, you know, it's just a small band that's a really miniature about 2000 pounds. So.

So I just want to make sure I'm understanding. What you're saying is you would want to allow the boats in townhomes. Correct. Basically changing that, just that little section to allowed in townhomes are basically what we call R2 zoned or R3 zoned or R4 zoned properties. I guess you wouldn't include R3 because R3 would be multifamily. So you might want to do R2, which are duplexes, and then R4, which are townhomes. absolutely yeah that's a good comment okay so you would include those two and then you're also saying that for the commercial vehicles to raise the weight so right now it's 2 000 pounds or more is considered a commercial vehicle if they have any sort of commercial branding uh electrician whatever you would want to raise that weight maybe to four or five thousand so it's a bigger vehicle and maybe carve out some of the Correct. Yes.

What's happening right now, Mayor, is that if you have a small little van and you've seen the new ones for the past 10 years, very small, two-seaters, that's what the law permits that. But if you have like a regular van, no, we can't have it.

People are actually parking somewhere and they're getting a lot of fines right now because of that.

And we have a blue-collar city. So I think those two things are probably what we need to talk about it because the whole RV, I feel still strong about this. So maybe Claudia was telling me that we can have two ordinance or something like that.

know if she's here now it's uh okay yeah he suggested we had a conversation yesterday she came with a good suggestion maybe we can have two one instead of breaking yeah so right now just so everybody understands because i know some people were on that council somewhere the ordinance is all one thing so the rvs the boats and the commercial vehicles was all packaged together as one thing and they're all kind of put together Um, 1 of the things that even the conversations I've had with thought is maybe we could separate them because there are some things that we may want to allow for 1 that we wouldn't want to allow for the other. So, but that's on our end, right? When the drafting gets done. Um, but I do kind of want to understand where the council's at on the on the specifics. Because, um, obviously, you know, Claudia, and we're going to do whatever the council wants, but, um.

It's a difficult situation. And Zogby's at a valid point right now. I'll get back exactly with the weight. I did look up 2,000 pounds when it came out. Zogby was a very small. I'm in the automotive business.

But it's a regular work van. It's not a step van.

Yeah, the 2,000 pounds.

It's a regular work van, yeah. Francine's Poodle Grooming comes in a 2,000.

Yeah, so I looked it up, and it was a small van. Maybe Google wasn't working specifically, but I leave that as a gray area. I'll come back to you, Mayor. Excuse me, President. Just to confirm that.

Yeah, no, no, I got you. But they are getting violations of something a little bit bigger than that. I do know that. Yeah.

We also bring the orders back. We also got the parking is the question is something when you take care of the neighbors, I get it. You understand? So we got to confirm how many parking is going to be, how many vehicles or car because you can't have three cars and run both. There's that matter. So there's valid questions out there, but I think it needs a second look, Mayor. Claudia.

How do you want?

Let's just talk.

before we move forward just because i opened up the ordinance can you guide me to where we have written um in um the the the part of seeking the the variance and going which letter was that what a little letter f

In regards to, if you're looking at section 98-2200. 98-2200, yeah, I'm here.

Yes, ma'am.

If you look at subsection F, the exact language as it reads, and this is based on the 2024 amendment.

Hold on, because I can't, it's really small. I can't find it.

The parking of commercial vehicles, recreational vehicles.

Okay.

or vessels shall be prohibited on property developed as a duplex, zero lot line or multifamily.

Yes. Okay.

That's where the townhouses where it's applicable that is prohibited in the townhouses.

Okay, and then it says first violation, right, Jean? First violation warning.

If they are, in fact, if they receive a warning, they have 60 days in order to cure, you know, the situation. In other words, to move the boat to where it is allowed or pay at a facility. And that's separate and apart from the discussion we're having today.

So it's letter H then where is where it's on. It's not it goes vehicles. Yeah, the variance part is on each. So vehicles may apply for and may be granted a variance pursuant of Division 4 Chapter 98. Okay.

Which is basically the procedure that the mayor had discussed earlier in regards to the individual filing an application for a variance. It going before the Planning and Zoning Board and after it passes the Planning and Zoning Board and that there's an approval to go

uh before y'all then it comes to city council for approval okay so where is the wording of that fee that the gentleman said that he had to pay to go through that variance i don't see it in here no it's not in the in the section of the code that's an administrative fee that schedule that's uh pursuant to it's like it's like any other variance so you're looking at a cost could vary but about a thousand dollars so he paid a thousand for that plus the 500 for the civil violation

or no so you get a 60-day warning so you don't get a violation immediately you get a warning you have 60 days to cure it we can give you an extension obviously if you're applying for a variance that's rounds for an extension and then that's how the process would work right in theory i candidly i don't know of anybody that's gone through the variance process i mean i've never seen it on an agenda so no i think anybody's applied for a variance so that's one of the things that we could change but again Okay, if it's not the council doing the variance, who's doing the variance right zoning board. They don't really have that power. You could do it administratively. You could give it to Claudia basically to issue the variance, but we wouldn't need some sort of idea because if you have a blanket law that says, no. right then the law is no unless it's something super rare right a corner lot or something a very particular thing but if there would be no point then to the ordinance if we just said okay anybody with a townhouse can get the variance because obviously everybody's gonna say oh they don't you know they don't need the parking whatever if they apply for the variance they're out of the thousand dollars whether it's approved or not approved like any other variance correct yep

OK, so I mean, I think that if it's already written in there and each case is a case by case basis, I feel comfortable with the way that it's written. I think it was written for that purpose of we already heard the gentleman come up and say that he parks it on the soil, you know, and it's an innocent remark that he said. But it's it's what's happening. And when you drive down that area, you know, there's there's it's for enforcement for our PD. I get calls on the weekends for people that live in these townhouses, viejitos that are trying to bark out and they tell me, Monica, I can't see, this boat is in the way and I can't see. I'm 87 years old and I can't see through it. And I almost hit a little kid that was riding on a bicycle because I couldn't see well. And that could have turned into a family tragedy because somebody has this pleasure. This council approved a boat yard for this purpose in the city. You all approved it so that we could have options because this ordinance exists. i mean having a luxury this is a luxury having a boat is a luxury you know and it comes with paying gas it comes with maintaining the motor it comes with maintaining you know having it i don't have a boat you know so i can't afford it i won't be able to to pay it and to put it on the lot somewhere so i think that you know when you have hobbies and pleasures these are the things that abide by it and um this is enforcement and i think that it was put into place for a reason not just for the beauty of the neighborhood, it's also for the safety of the neighborhood, for security purposes, for obstructing streets. I mean, I know many people that live in these townhouses that are complaining that there's no parking, even for their guests on the weekends, because there's so many people parking out on the street. And I just think if we start doing a blanket change on this ordinance, I think we're gonna cause more chaos for PD And I think if there's already something in place, we just need to make sure that maybe we want to do something different. Maybe we say, OK, you're being honest. You have a vote. You want to apply for this variance. Pay the thousand dollars. If it doesn't get approved by the council, we'll credit you that back as a consideration of you're not out of the thousand dollars. You came to do the right thing. You came before us. You intended to see if this would work for you.

What do you think I think we're allowed to do the return just because I mean, that is the processing fee. So it's because of all the leverage that it takes to put it together, but. Do the paperwork bring to council.

I was just considering something, you know, to. To make them be honest, but not feel that they're losing out in the process too, because I think then there's going to be an associated bitterness. No. I went before you, you said no, and now I'm out of a 1000 dollars. I wonder if it creates a bigger issue.

You're making a very good point. I'm sorry, I just wanted to add, and I don't want you to be finished yet. Perhaps if we do something, and I know you want to speak, don't worry. Perhaps if we do something, when they apply for the variances, I don't want everybody applying for a variance if they have nothing to lose. Perhaps when they apply, they could be giving some guidelines. It will not be accepted. He will probably unless your property abides by this, this that that description, where you can actually park it without occupying a designated space, perhaps that and we can give them a warning so they don't spin their wheels and we don't spin our wheels. Were you were you done? Were you done? No, please. Go ahead, Louis. Thank you. Thank you for that. Good morning.

Thank you, Monica. So think about this. Gentleman buys a townhouse 20 years ago. He retires. Anybody, a resident, buys a home, a townhouse, and he has a boat. And now we're telling him to take another one. Number two is, I mean, we're telling who in a townhouse, not in a condominium, you can't own a boat. Because it doesn't make any sense to me. I know if you have a boat that fits in the side, it doesn't bother anybody. And why, who are we to tell them not to do it? So that's just my call.

But I think it doesn't fit on the side. If it's enough.

No, we're talking about somebody specifically putting, if they have a, say you have a 24 foot, your parking, your space needs to be 24 foot.

No, I know, but these particular, like, if I looked up their addresses on Google, you could see the boat parked in the front of their townhouses. They don't have a site.

Yeah, you know, in front of the town. Yeah. Yeah, not in the side.

But there's places that you could park these boats. In Coral Gables, you can't have this. In Miami Springs, I don't know.

Miami Springs, no. Miami Lakes, no.

Miami Lakes, you can't have it. I mean, we're not saying that you can't. It exists for a reason. And it's more, I believe, for obstructing the view of when you back out of these homes and the parking crisis that Zogby was mentioning. I think that's that that crisis that we see and. You know, of these vehicles on the swale wherever you drive.

I don't think sorry.

I just think it was an issue.

I don't think the parking of the boat is really driving the parking issues right now. I think we have another issue is different. I mean, overpopulation, people doing different things in the houses. But if you're a person, usually the homes that I've seen that have a small boat in front of these townhouses, we're talking specifically townhouses, are usually law-abiding people. I've seen them my own two eyes. They have a boat.

and I think that's excellent if that if that is that person then there's a an application process to apply for a variance for that to be analyzed for it not to fall on Claudia because Claudia already has a lot of things and that she should not have to be the burden of of going through that process it should go through the council and I mean that's my my opinion through the chair

Yes, ma'am. Go ahead, please.

So I feel like this is kind of like a double-edged sword. Obviously, we're up here and we want to make the residents' life a quality of life. And I know boating is very important for many of us. I'm a frequent boater as well. But it's hard, right? And I do agree with what we have in place. And I think if we were to remove that or or make changes to that it can go it can go opposite very quickly right um i'm just trying to think of of a way where we can kind of make both sides happy um what if we had some sort of maybe permit process right where certain size boats Um, it would be, you know, I would think it would have to come to council. Um, just because I know we've been up here many times, we've looked up addresses during, during different meetings and we've seen boats that are parked across the you know, and we've seen RVs that take up. My other fear is if we allow boats and RVs and to be parked, people will rent out their parking spots just so people can park their cars. I mean, so that they can park their boats. So it's, I'm a little, yep. I'm a little scared of, of truly opening it up. But I feel like there would be a way of us kind of working with the residents and, If we were to allow variances and it were to come to us, my question would be, does the variance stay with the property owner?

Or does the variance stay with... No, the variance is with the property.

With the property, right.

Which is hard because we all know that there's a lot of rentals and I don't know. I just feel like people can get creative and then we can have a...

So just to be clear, the variance process exists. It's just that nobody's really used it.

So if this gentleman wanted to present his boat to us, right, for us to allow it, there is a process for him to.

There is an existing process. He could do it tomorrow if he wanted to. He would go. He would pay the $1,000 for whatever it is. He would fill out an application. It's a one-page thing. I want a variance because so-and-so. In zoning. In zoning. And then he would get put on the agenda just like any other application. is there any um for boats is there any like length requirements so remember the variance basically says we are moving away from whatever the code says and we're just granting you an exception just you an exception you an exception it goes through that one property you get the one exception based on whatever criteria the council wants to discuss in that particular moment now the blanket rule is 24 feet or less if it's in the front of the house And then if it's on the side of the house, then you can go up to 33 feet. Correct. So that is sort of what the ordinance is now. It's a blanket. No, if you're in a town home, a blanket, no, if you're in an apartment building and a blanket, no, if you're in a duplex.

Which are all very small lots. Um, right.

again uh it's a it's a hard decision but i think having that opportunity of them just having the variance if we have that in place right now i think that's the right thing it sounds like people want to know hey before i spend a thousand dollars like what do you guys you know some people may be more inclined to yes some may be more inclined to no

All right, let's make a, let's take a vote. I know everybody just so we can do it.

Thank you.

President.

What are we taking a vote on his motion? And you want to do a motion to do what? To open it up for.

For what discussion how I think he was saying that he wanted to draft it for 2 things specifically. Number 1 is to allow the boats in town homes. Right? And the 2nd was for commercial vehicles to raise the weight 2000 to up to 5000.

That's correct. Yeah, and that was, Mr. Mayor, on the 5,000th, I had some questions. Sure.

Now, obviously, this wouldn't be definitive that we're, hey, we're going to decide it today. We're just saying to give us the time to draft that up, bring it to a council meeting, a next council meeting, and then we would have a further discussion. It would be an ordinance, so it would be a first reading, a second reading, like any other ordinance. But obviously, we'll be moving towards the aim of trying to approve some.

Um, since there's 2 proposed changes that are being suggested, my advice would be basically to 1st, address the boats being parked in the townhouses and then address the weight capacity of them.

You can come back to the weight. So I motion to. Let the townhouses have the boat so to direct the law department to draft in order in accordance with your proposal.

motion yeah yeah we will we will yeah um let's take a vote on did you say you want a motion to create a draft an ordinance for the boats in townhouses for the prohibition on the boats in town right yes yeah uh do i have a second on that motion to open that up for the draft and ordinance and then of course it would be open up for our discussion that's the motion do we have a second on that we don't have a second motion dies today lack of a second fails today do you want to make another motion on the vehicle then we move on to that the weight back with that let me get more important okay okay councilman that's a good point though okay um all right so we have to tell these people do you want to tell them a councilman or because we that there will be no discussion on the uh they are the the order the tell let them know the variance is still available that route now i would love to be able like i said some sort of guideline if we can somehow come to an agreement with that where they'll know not to exactly Maybe waste their time unless they have a situation which allows them to park in a non-designated space.

House president, and we're talking about the 1000 dollars there wasn't we can return it to them where we can't.

No, we can't because what you're saying is essentially. This is a ministerial fee that you're paying every time you ask for a variance. You can't have somebody applying for parking variance on the development and say, you got to pay it and you don't get refunded. If we say no, and you have somebody else, so you get an inequity there.

Through the chair, but as long as that variance kind of indicates, if you have a boat that's less than, right, that's what it says. If you have a boat that's less than 24 feet, if you have, right, like, is there criterias that the variance does? At least so that they have a guidance of if you meet all these criterias, you possibly have a chance.

want to overstep the city attorney but essentially these are case-by-case decisions right so you're supposed to not take any other factors into consideration when you make these decisions just the ones that apply to that property if you make blanket statements you're creating a legal issue there

So, when it is, in fact, going before the planning and zoning board, that is a quasi judicial proceeding. So, in other words, the person will be before the board and presenting all the facts, all the evidence. And basically, then they make a decision, but they have to look at the totality of the circumstances and every single situation is going to be different. So, in his particular, the constituent that was here earlier in his particular situation, it would be the longevity of how long how long he's lived there and had that boat park there and then other circumstances life circumstances. And then the board will make a decision. And then I'll come before the council through the chair.

Yes, sir question. So you're saying the so just to give the variance stays with the property. Yes, correct. It runs with the problem. Can we look at a way where we instead register the boat to a property? Because I'm seeing like, again, we're going to have to vote on this. Are there requirements for them to ask for a variance? Do they need the boat? was like can someone like i'm about to retire right let's say and i say hey i'm gonna buy a dinghy now that i'm retired it's gonna be a little boat can i get a variance and then i sell my home and i market it hey i have a variance on this house for a boat you know increase the value of the property um yeah and then you don't need the boat there and that you know so it's it's kind of like I'm sure you could do what you're saying um but you would need to rework the ordinance significantly I don't think you would be able to do it as it sits there now can we look at opening up a discussion for the variance process because it's maybe make it a little easier for the residents and then make it sort of make sense where it's to the boat not necessarily the property

yeah i mean look the difficulty is that when we the the authority that we have to legislate over these matters are our police powers where we essentially regulate property and zoning right we don't regulate people that's the state does that so um and we don't regulate motor vehicles either because the state does that we regulate property so i think maybe you could do it i'm just saying it would require

reworking the whole audience i don't think it's not a small change yeah and a variance at the end of the day just the council members are aware it's not a puzzle it's not that all the pieces have to fit it's going to be everything basically looking at all the factors you know as i as i indicated earlier so it's not like you know cookie cutter so gotcha

Mr. Pita, my family, the ordinance to change it did not happen at this moment, it is going to stay only that you can apply for a variant and that is the process that the law is at the moment. That is the process that is going to stay and it is the process that you have to follow the law by this step.

Ok. Name and address, please. And it didn't happen because now I don't have an inconvenience. I can make the variant now.

Yes, I spoke, all the councilors spoke, they gave their opinion, they did not want to change the law for other reasons, the parking and the decrees of them, but without the vote of the council to be able to open the law and make a change for him, he cannot pass the vote and he did not take enough votes for that at the moment.

Now that means that when I introduce myself again and I make the variant before you, correct? In the variance you go through a process, a process, a complete application.

Look, I tried to make a law that all the house juniors had the same. So I changed the law, it didn't happen. It means that the law that is currently is the one that is going to stay. And in that law you can make a variance and apply for the variance. And if you don't, perfect. And if you don't, you have to move the boat.

Okay, when I apply for the variant, I'm going to present myself in a moment before you, correct? It's going to go through building and zoning first. And then the council comes. And if that didn't happen here, it means that when I do all that, they're not going to approve me either.

No, it doesn't mean that. No, what the lawyer was explaining, because You have to explain it in both videos. I didn't hear it. I'm going to explain it to you, no problem. Councilor Luis Rodríguez made a motion to amend the ordinance to prohibit votes in zoned properties such as townhouses. Obviously, the council has decided at this time that it does not prevent it from being done in the future, but at this time, today, they are not going to open that ordinance to change it. The ordinance will be maintained as it is written. But what the lawyer of the city is explaining is that obviously the process of the balance continues. That is in the ordinance. You can apply in the variant and she is explaining to the advisers that each case has to be taken case by case. It cannot be said that everything will be accepted or everything will not be accepted. depending on the circumstances of each individual who is going to explain why he should be allowed to have his boat based on the time he has had the house, based on the size of the boat, based on how many cars he parks. And all those factors have to be taken into consideration by the councilors when they make their decision. And it's case by case.

Put yourself on the microphone.

doing everything with the corresponding channels as it should be done, there is a violation.

So, remember that it is a warning. If you have a warning, it is basically saying you have 60 days to enter into agreement. If you are going to apply to the process of the variance, it is in procedures. At that moment, it extends to what you are in the procedures. That is the problem. Thank you very much.

You have to do it within the 60 days of the notice. You can't wait a year. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, the more likely it is that it has to have the factors that I am telling you. A space that would not hinder, nor is what I feel, nor would it sacrifice one of the spaces that belongs to your house. And if we create a situation that you have to go looking for parking outside, we are not doing anyone a favor. Those parking lots that are public roads are for visitors, for different things, it is not for No es necesariamente para nosotros eliminar los parqueos delante de la casa. Bueno, búscate tu parqueo en otro lado. No hay problema. Pero bueno, quiero que sepas eso. El variante se hace a través de sonificación. El segundo piso allá abajo se aplica. Perfecto. ¿Algo más?

No, no, eso es todo. Una vez más, muchas gracias. Bendiciones. Yo entiendo.

Gracias a ustedes.

Vamos a seguir luchando. Lo último que se pierde es la esperanza.

Gracias. Gracias, caballero.

Anyone else? okay okay any other new business as long as we're on new business or unfinished business okay if not no okay if not we're gonna go back to where we left off item eight madam clerk

Announcements of amendments and corrections to the agenda. A, zoning item 15B is postponed until the city council meeting of August 11th, 2026. The proposed resolution of consent item 9I has been updated to reflect the total amount of the 10% contingency as an amount not to exceed $53,310.30. And the proposed ordinance for administrative item 10A has been amended to reflect that there will be no early voting for the December 8th, 2026 City of Hialeah special general election should a runoff election be necessary.

Thank you. Moving on to consent agenda. Is there anyone in the dais that wants to pull any item from consent? I'm sorry. I didn't have my mind. Anyone in the dais that wants to pull any item from consent?

Through the chair?

Yes, ma'am.

I would like to pull item Q.

Item Q? Yes. Councilwoman Jaylene Perez, item Q. Okay. Anyone else? Anyone from the audience? Yes, sir.

All the, all the 788 Southeast park drive. I want to pull, I like Indian with a map clock and such a stand Kayla kangaroo with a live coverage. I like Indian for the look. Wait a minute.

Wait a minute. I'm sorry. You said I go ahead. I'm sorry.

I like Indian for deluxe party rentals and like moon for the event services, America and like Nancy. Oh, like Oscar. And now they all pertain to special events and we still have a possibility to save our lunches and in the pool. So we have a lot of options. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Pleasure of the Council on the remaining motion from Councilman Luis Rodriguez. Second. Second from Council Vice President Melinda de la Vega. Please call the roll.

And for the record, Council Member Gonzales has left the meeting. Mr. Rodriguez? Yes. Mr. Zogby? Yes. Mr. Marrero?

Yes.

Ms. G. Perez? Yes. Ms. De La Vega? Yes. Ms. M. Perez? Yes. Motion carries. The consent agenda has passed. Accept items Q, I, K, M, N, and O. Madam Clerk, can you read item Q into the record, please? Proposed resolution authorizing the mayor and the city clerk as a testing witness on behalf of the city to enter into a performance agreement with Vid Music Group LLC to engage the services of Juan Luis Morera Luna, professionally known as Artist We Sing, as the featured performer for the city's Independence Day celebration on July 4th, 2026, in a total amount not to exceed $350,000. and in substantial conformity with the agreement attached here to and made a part hereof as exhibit E, and authorizing a supplemental appropriation pursuant to Hialeah, Florida, Charter Section 3.08, Subsection E1, in the aforementioned amount to the General Fund Special Events Budget, and providing for an effective deed.

Councilwoman Perez, you have the floor.

Thank you, sir. I have some questions for the Special Events Director, please.

George Hernandez. Oh, there is.

I've always been a fan of the 4th of July. I've always been one of those people that always brags that Hialeah has the best 4th of July. And you know this. For many years, I've attended for the past 12, 13 years, 4th of July. I just have a couple of questions regarding this item. Since I obviously, as many know, I've worked in the city many years and And we had, this is not the first year that the city does this event. Um, one of my questions for you is what is the total cost of our 4th of July celebration?

So on average, the total cost of just as a formality name and address, George Hernandez, director of special events, 4,800 Palm Avenue. Thank you. On average, 4th of July has always been in roughly $874,000, give or take, depending on what. staffing all that stuff at the time of the year um so that's what it's been going now you add this it goes up the 350 grand um that you take into consideration also production costs all that stuff moves on you know

Is this including the artist fee only, the entire cost, or there's additional expenses?

So there's writer expenses. There's writer expenses that happen with whoever you pick. It's not a plug and play. Every artist has different requirements. Those costs historically have always been incurred by the city when we design the stage, when we bring in the writer. This cost that you're paying for is, we say the artist, but this is all the technicians that come with the artist to do his full show, all the dancers that come with the artist to do their show, the artists, the flights, the hotels. This is an international act that's not here locally. Historically, we've kept... local act where we don't pay hotels we don't pay any of that this is somebody that's coming from somewhere else that has to be housed to do i can tell you there's 37 people on this person's team to do the show that we're getting this is not a track this is a full-fledged performance and that's that's not including the 350. That's included in the 350. Okay. You're paying for his entire act. He's doing what he just performed. I think he was in Chicago two weeks ago. Mm-hmm.

performed the tour you're getting the exact show from that tour fourth of july and if i may um councilwoman i had been involved in the negotiations and the drafting of the agreement in regards to the performance fee fee being 350 000 um that's all inclusive um and it pertains to a 70 minute show so he is to be on stage for an hour and 10 minutes performing understood

How much was the total cost of our Centennial last year?

Roughly about the same. With Gente Sona, that was $100,000. Gente Sona cost $100,000.

$100,000 plus expenses, which was local. $874,000. Yes, ma'am. What are the efforts that we're making to secure private sponsorship?

I know that for many I can tell you for the last four years We were left without a sponsorship coordinator So the same team that you see here tonight were the ones also trying to bring in revenues and bring in sponsorships We did have somebody that was on staff. It kept changing back and forth um since march We now have a dedicated sponsorship director that goes out. And in three months, she's already brought in about $200,000. She has $350,000 currently in negotiations pertaining to 4th of July alone. These are businesses that have been talking where she's creating relationships with that have been lost for a while.

I'm not questioning her job. I know how great she is.

But right now we have about $200,000. We have $200,000 confirmed, and we have about another $350,000 that are being spoken about right now.

This is a law question. Does the agreement that we have includes cancellation, protection, insurance costs, refund provisions, and performance guarantee?

That's the loaded question, but one at a time.

Like for instance, if tomorrow something happens to this artist, do we get like,

Yeah, so the city, there is, in fact, determination for convenience clause, and that the city could actually terminate for whatever reason that this artist not perform at the July 4th. However, he will be retaining. 30% of that amount, however, if there's a breach of the, of the, of the actual agreement, or there's a force majeure, meaning an act of God, there's. Hopefully this doesn't happen. Knock on wood. But there is some type of storm and it needs to be canceled at the end of the day. He is not to perform. There will be the he has like a year in order to perform. Otherwise, the city would be refunded the money.

Okay.

or if he actually falls ill and he's unable to perform, that illness is documented. That's also addressed in the contract itself.

Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Have we already provided, like, do we have a full cost?

It's still a moving target. We're still trying to secure everything. We move into Mylander Stadium in less than two weeks. So everything's being finalized now with riders, with all the different things.

Okay, my last question next year, can we try to make, you know, make this decision prior to these 6 months prior? I think it's important that we are notified to to make sure we better understand and we have other choices as well.

Absolutely. You got to remember, we went through a transition in January.

It's everything was a moving target with a 250. there was a lot of the 1st conversations George and I had was about 4th of July and. um you know special events tried to get i don't know anywhere between 10 and 15 different artists yes the numbers that we were getting back were staggering one million dollars two million dollars i mean just crazy crazy crazy stuff you have fifa uh that's in town and they're pulling a bunch of talent you obviously have the 250 so everybody's doing something city of miami spending north of five million dollars uh the white house is spending a billion dollars literally one billion dollars so and they're doing a big concert too so That is the reality of the situation we face ourselves. Obviously, it's a special moment for the country. But you can see that we're trying to get the most amount of sponsorship money possible and trying to have a nice event. It is a well attended event historically, and we're expecting that with this artist would probably fill out the stadium and we're talking about 20,000 residents. So, you know, again, I'm the first one to criticize inefficiency, but we've been able to develop a lot of inefficiencies during the past few months. And, you know, I think in the totality of the circumstances, it's the best decision that we have. I mean, it's not a perfect decision. I would much prefer to spend less money and get a better artist. But it's a situation that we find ourselves in if we want this event to proceed. The alternative is obviously we don't do the event, but historically it's a very well attended event. People really enjoy it. So I think, you know, and the fact that we're celebrating a special moment in our country's history, I think it makes a lot of sense to do it. And we're going to get a lot of the money back through sponsorships because a lot of people are excited based on the artists that we were able to get. So, you know, it's the best situation.

And I totally understand, Mayor. And for me, celebrating 250 years of this country is something historical and obviously who better than us in Hialeah to celebrate it.

Now we're doing and we're doing it a 10th or a 5th, you know, what other places are spending.

I've always said it. We've always had the best 4th of July. And I'm sure this year, George, even though we haven't had that much time to plan it, I'm sure he's going to do an incredible job because he always does it. I don't know how he does, but he always does. So I have a lot of faith in him. And I know for a fact this 4th of July is going to be incredible. But I just had those questions and concerns regarding the... this item. That's all. Thank you.

Is that a motion?

My vote is no, sorry.

Okay, no problem. Okay, we'll get back.

Yeah, Jose Aldi 78, Southeast Park Drive. This was the last item we're gonna speak on special event, but I'm gonna talk about this now. So I was the director of Mylander Park from 1990 to 96. We always did this in-house, right? I'm not against the 4th of July, but spending $350,000 when we have four parks like Southeast Park that we're not providing lunches, we don't open in the morning, you know? we you said about the you know we still have the the cam from the children's trust fund from our budget you could go to good leg you i challenge you i hope you you're in my shoe you know go look for yourself and say pepper you're full of or yeah we're going to work with you we're going to try to bring this back all right you go to good lit wild you know but babcock there's no programs you know there's a program from the children's trust fund but there's no program so you You know, like in Cuba, right? The millionaires did loquices. Everybody knows loquices, real average, right? And then the poor people wanted to do loquices to show off. We're not in a position to show off. We can't show off. We can't spend this extra money when we have basic needs that are not met, you know? Yes, next year we will go to... I talked about the... Cultural Affairs Council gives $200 million in grants, we only get 90,000. And the reason is we don't have a, but to spend $350,000, we're not providing lunches for four neighborhoods, you know, we're not providing, you know, there's like a lot, we have a lot more need than to show off, you know, like Lokeen says, you know, if you're poor, you shouldn't be spending $10,000 on our kids because you need to buy your kids shoes. You know, we're not even providing food. We saw the need for food. I'm still hope you help me with the lunches. It's not too late to provide summer lunches for $50,000 that could be done. You know, all facilities. I'm going to talk more about summer lunches because we used to provide breakfast and lunch, right? You have the ability like Opelika does breakfast and lunch. You will never get turned down because even if you have 500 kids, the Dade County manages the money from the from the state and the county and federal money. So we gotta think about this. What are we doing? We don't have hope. Please, I'm asking you to go to Babcock Park, go to Goodluck Park, go to any park and see what's going on. There's nothing there.

Jose, the other items that you pulled, is it gonna be the same discussion how we should use that money for lunches?

oh no it's individual okay oh no it's individual all right okay we need to wrap this up we need to vote on this yes yeah i got 30 seconds this is all my first amendment um so We do have a meeting with Ashley Thomas, the Director of Cultural Affairs. I asked Mr. Torres to come join me and Willie. There's money available, but not this year. We have so much need this year. We don't need to show off. We already have a good 4th of July. Let's keep doing what we're doing. In the future, we could apply for grants. There's national endowments, Florida grants. We don't need to show off. We need to provide basic. If we can't provide a lunch, how are we going to spend $350,000 on a thing? Thank you.

Pleasure of the council. Item Q.

Through the chair.

Yes, ma'am.

Um, I have a question and, and pepper, I know you're very passionate about the breakfast and I think we'll, we'll figure it out. We'll figure out a way of making that happen, but, but special events funds. And, and this is really my question, right? Was this allocated during, like, these are part of the funds, right? That are during budget. This is not additional budget. Correct. Okay. Um, so even if we weren't to approve this, it's not like this money was going to go to parks, right? Correct. Okay. Wanted to understand that.

And just if I may. Yes, ma'am. Through the chair. We allocated 700,000, right? Mm-hmm. then additional to that so far we've have through our sponsorship department 300 or 350. yeah so about a thousand fifty let's a million fifty already is set aside so we still need to come up with about another two hundred thousand correct she's working on dreading and yet you also get so the peppers t um point

We get a targeted grant. Yes, there is cultural arts grants out there. Yes. We get a cultural arts grant that is target. It's a targeted grant, which we don't apply for. It's been historically given and it's always gone towards the 4th of July, which I thought when they were and increased from 30,000 to 50,000.

that grant is also coming in towards this fourth of july so we could be part of that meeting again and speak with them and see if maybe we could raise it again from that fifty thousand so that fifty thousand now is added to the million fifty so then that brings us up um and we would need another hundred and fifty thousand to make up a difference correct is what we're saying and and we believe that maybe through sponsorship we could at least meet

Correct. There's other business, sorry, community partners, people that are secured partners that to this day are not included in that number that historically have given us money that have been waiting for us to announce an act so that she can go and negotiate what brand, what activation they have there.

I mean, I understand the binds that the administration and you were in, considering the timeline, considering that our mayor just got here in January, and given all the circumstances that he said of all the events that are happening, it's a very competitive market right now for artists. And I believe that you did your homework, you tried, you were given very high cost. And, you know, it puts us in a very difficult spot to be fiscally responsible as well, because we're hoping that we're going to make that other 200,000, right? Or 150,000. And it puts a lot of pressure on us, you know, to make those decisions when we do have other things happening within the city. But I understand. And I believe that, I believe what Councilwoman Perez said next year, you know, if maybe we could, obviously our timeline will be different than it was this year. Have these discussions earlier, you know, really vet some some artists that maybe would would go a lower cost. I know that everything's gone up. I know the tariffs on the fireworks have gone up. I know that, you know, the build out cost has gone up. That is life. Everything has gone up increasingly. And so I understand. Thank you. Thank you for sharing the information.

Motion. Thank you. We have a motion from Councilman Luis Rodriguez on item Q.

Second.

Second from Councilman Willie Marrero on item Q. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Mr. Zogby?

Yes.

Mr. Marrero?

Yes.

Ms. G. Perez? No. Ms. Dela Vega? Yes. Ms. M. Perez? Yes. Mr. Rodriguez? Yes. Motion carries. The item is approved.

Thank you. Madam Clerk, please read item I into the record.

Proposed resolution accepting the response to invitation to quote number 2025-26-049 for the repair and remodeling of a concession structure at Babcock Park and authorizing the mayor, his designee, and the city clerk as a testing witness on behalf of the city to issue a purchase order to the Elite Floors of Miami vendor in an amount not to exceed $53,310.30, which includes a contingency amount of 10% if required, for reference repairs and remodeling and in substantial conformity with the attached invitation to quote number 2025-26-049, attached here to and made a part hereof as Exhibit A, and authorizing the Mayor, his designee, to sign a construction services agreement with reference vendor attached here to and made a part hereof as Exhibit B, and any related and customary purchasing documents to effectuate this resolution and providing for an effective date.

Thank you. Jose Azeig.

Jose Azeig, 788 Southeast Park Drive. An item like this will be automatically approved, except this year, remember, we have the contract with the Florida Marlins and with Babcock Park. I did go to the tournament last month, and the Florida Marlins had a concession there, a truck, and they were making the money, right? When I managed Hendricks Stadium for six years, we had four food items. They were all the same price, made it easy. Most of the money at concessions are made through the drinks, and drinks bring like 95% profit. They're really. So the answer to keep in mind, so this is going to be future generated money, right? If it's going to us, are we doing this for the four month? If it's going to us. So that's going to be future generated money. I want to talk about the pools, right? So we only have two pools available for the public. Babcock, nine hours a day. McDonald's 18 hours a week, right? So Miami Springs has 15,000 residents, right? Their pool is open from 7.30 in the morning to 7.30 at night. The city of Miami has eight pools. They are all operating, right? So this money, we know we're gonna make money because just in drinks alone, you can make a lot of money. If we didn't have money in the budget and you guys weren't aware of it, sorry, I apologize. You counsel wherever. There's no money for lifeguards. We knew we were going to open up Slade, which it hasn't opened. And you know you have money, right? So with this additional money, we could hire more lifeguards. Like Babcock, we're paying for the maintenance, right, of the pools. And nobody's using. So why don't we get this money? We know the money. We're going to make a lot of money now with that. If it's coming to us, use that money to extend the pool hours. We only have one pool, really, McDonald's. open it every day just like you know miami springs you know higher now you can have money to get more lifeguards uh yeah so that's a possibility it's a very possible possibility And our pools right now are in life support. I don't mean, I come here with good intentions, but I know you have a lot going on, you know, you have jobs and sometimes these things, but that's why the budget is so important. Keep in mind now the state of Florida, that proposal by DeSantis is going to pass. We're going to have even less money available. The budget is so important. That's why I try to stress the budget, the budget. And I want to give credit to Councilwoman Melinda de la Vega. She did try to get more money, but then emergency. the dollar is all of the budget that we passed so i hope come on we can extend the pools and and we could do it and there's additional money coming in thank you thank you motion on item i from councilman rodriguez

Do I have a second? Second. Second from Councilman Willie Marrero for item I. Please call the roll.

Mr. Marrero?

Yes.

Ms. G. Perez? Ms. De La Vega? Yes. Ms. M. Perez? Yes. Mr. Rodriguez? Yes. Mr. Zogby? Yes. Motion carries. The item is approved.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. I believe it's item M. Please read into the record.

K, sir.

Oh, I was missing K. Okay, go ahead.

Requests permission to issue a purchase order to a live coverage LLC to provide professional photography, videography, social media, content creation, and editing services for the city of independence day celebration in a total amount, not to exceed 35,000 dollars. The approval of this item requires the waving of the small purchase threshold. Sure.

Jose Aldi, 788 Southeast Park Drive. Just to go back real quick, the concessions, is that money going to go to Florida Martyrs or is the money coming to us that wasn't answered?

Just for clarification, in regards to that item, specifically what the contractor is going to be doing is some remodeling renovation in the bathroom that's in the concession structure. It has absolutely nothing to do with the sale of merchandise or any of that activity that you're speaking of.

No, but my question is the concession stand. Are we going to run it? Are we going to get the profits or that's for the floor?

That's dedicated to the item at bar.

Yes, it's about the concession stand.

Yeah, it's it's not the concessions where they sell the food. It's the bathrooms. It's called it's the same structure. So they're fixing the roof or whatever. But they're also mainly the most of the amount of money is to fix the bathrooms. OK, thank you.

So I'm going to go to item came and come to present. I congratulate you. I thank you that we're open for discussion. And it's so important. Like that would be an honor. What you did with earlier with those men, I really think I thank you for that. So just the history of the special events department is important to know when i worked at in in in mylander park robbie walker some of you know robbie walker he got promoted to bucket den park and then robbie walker became we robert martinez created the special event department the reason we created the special event department was to bring the the programs i'll wait for So we created the special event department because sponsorship became something in Parks and Recreation. And we created a special event to bring partnerships for our programs. That's why we had all these programs because the special event department was for programs for the park. Why we even had a the Florida Marlins had we had street hockey. We we recognize the best street hockey program in the state of Florida and we got a sponsor for that. So the history is when Julio Urbana was running for mayor Julio Urbana took the department separated right and now Mr. Calvo I know you you took it up. You put the specialty event department in your office right as part of you.

So no, no, that's not right. It's its own department. Huh? It's its own department.

Right, right. So it got first branched out from Parks and Recreation, then it got branched away. So it keeps taking things. So we used to use the Special Events Department to promote events for Parks and Recreation. We had all these things, and we would get sponsors for Parks and Recreation. Now it's become, even if it's 50% political and 50% for the park, I will do 50%, 50%. Just a quick example. Today, I go to Babcock Park, 11 a.m. There are five staff, five volunteers, a lady from Citrus for doing therapy, but there's nobody there. I think the special event should have let people know, look, we have Citrus coming here, it's a free program, it's therapy, but there's nobody there. So that's where one of the areas where the special event could work with the Parks and Rec. And that was the real intention of special events.

Thank you. Nevermind.

motion from councilman luis rodriguez on item k do i have a second second second thank you from uh vice president uh melinda de la vega please call the roll miss g perez miss de la vega yes miss m perez yes mr rodriguez mr zogby yes mr marrero yes motion carries the item is approved

Item M, right? Yes. Please read into the record.

Request permission to issue a purchase order to Event Services America doing business as Corporation Services America for event security services on an as-needed basis, including community events, cultural festivals, concerts, holiday celebrations, sporting events, and other public gatherings throughout the year in a total community of amount not to exceed $65,000. The approval of this item requires a waiving of the small purchase threshold.

ahead sir jose aussie 788 southeast park drive yeah i'm still waiting for the city council to um please get involved because you're approving things and there's things i'm asking you to look into this to please get involved in what's happening in our city i know mayor carver has a lot in his face he's doing the best he can but you have more experience in the city maybe the age experience that counts too i'm asking you to get involved in these issues The history with this is like, because our police department is getting cut, getting cut, getting cut, one of the things I was asking was for the substations. I was able to go to Babcock Park police substation, but because we have no police officers, we closed the substation. So security was always done with the police and Parks and Recreation staff, right? We didn't spend the 65. If you go to Miami Beach, Miami Springs, everywhere, the police department is the one that monitors the special event and all that. Because of the condition of our of our police department. You know, I spent a lot of time in Miami Beach. There you see all the time, four cops here, three cops. They do community policing, which we got, we were going to do community policing where the police get involved to get out. And so the reason we're going to these drastic measures, it sounds 65,000 sounds like nothing. even that would do a lot. I mean, there's so many areas there where special events, man, you know, we have to think about 50% of the population that don't have transportation, you know, they don't have the money to pay the $50. We can't just keep putting all this money, special event, especially like all these need, you know, professional photography when it was all down in-house, you know, we all went to the, I mean, the ladies, Councilwoman Perez, Councilwoman Monica Perez, and Councilwoman De La Vega. When the county had the La Fresa, the restaurant, their own staff had an iPhone. With an iPhone, you could do all kind of stuff, right? And they had one photographer. We have a special events staff. You know, we're paying this for professional photography when we don't have basic needs. We have to rethink of what we're doing. what are we doing here you know we're not a rich city we're a blue-collar city we can't just not give our residents you know and get involved in these yeah yeah we got the best special event we got the best we got the best that but our our purpose first is for the residents right our facility she went for the resident so i i just this is all again it's going to go back to the budget you know we can't forget who's paying the taxes you know and yeah we look good on social media we look good on telemundo on the vision but We're not providing basic services and I hope one time you reconsider because we still have time to save the summer. Thank you.

Thank you item. Pleasure of the Council on item M motion motion from Council. Was that that you sir motion from Councilman Willie Marrero? Second from Councilwoman Jaylene Perez. Please call the role.

Miss Ella Vega. Miss M Perez. Mr Rodriguez. Mr Zogby.

Yes.

Mr Marrero.

Yes.

Miss G Perez. Motion carries. The item is approved.

Thank you add item and madam clerk please.

Request permission to issue 6 purchase orders 1 to each of the following vendors and P event group in the amount of 65,000 dollars printing in the amount of 65,000 dollars print house USA in the amount of 65,000 dollars. printers cove in the amount of sixty five thousand dollars aaa flag and banner in the amount of sixty five thousand dollars best option screen screen printing in the amount of sixty five thousand dollars for event printing and branding vendors on an as needed basis for city sponsored events and community programs in a total community of expense amount not to exceed three hundred and ninety thousand dollars

Jose, LZ 788, Southeast Park Drive. I don't want to minimize what $390,000 is. That's a lot of money. I want to use the example of Julio Urbano when he was running for county mayor. He was publicizing these calendars. There was $100,000 worth of calendars mailing to the houses. while our pools and libraries were only open eight hours a week. And we could afford that article on that. He's closing the pool, but he's running for County mayor. And yeah, you know, he's got the publicity using County funds, you know, $290,000 is a lot of money. You know, Mayor Cabo, I know you're doing a good job, and you promoted like these flyers that you give out. That's very costly, you know? Like, man, we could hire like additional police officers, additional firefighters. The other day, the construction manager was here. I don't know if you remember, before you remember, when we passed the zone, we had required maintenance that we, you were told by Ruth, and now the OUR NEW FINANCE DIRECTOR COULD TELL YOU, REQUIRED MAINTENANCE, WE HAD TO PASS THE BUDGET EMERGENCY BASIS AND WE PASSED IT. HERE WE ARE ASKING FOR $390,000 TO PRINT, PRINT, PRINT, AND WE'RE NOT PRINTING TO PROMOTE, YOU KNOW, LOOK AT THE PRINT, WHAT ARE WE DOING? AGAIN, 50-50, YOU KNOW, LIKE, MAN, WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE? WE'RE PRINTING, YEAH, THE MAYOR, YOU'RE LOOKING GOOD, YOU'RE LOOKING GOOD. Man, you know, that's a lot of money and why didn't we have this money when the budget came up, you know, when we're asking for just the maintenance, we bypass maintenance, you know, we're in trouble. We're not a rich city, you know, we're a blue collar city. You know, I don't know, I hope one of these things you consider, you know, just like consider one thing I say, you know, I'm not here to make nobody look bad. I just, you know, we got to look out for our blue collar community. Thank you.

Item N. Through the chair. Go ahead.

I just, I have a question. Are all these just for 4th of July event or is it, just want to clarify, this is throughout the year, right? As needed.

George Hernandez, Director of Special Events, 4800 Palm Avenue. No, these are not 4th of July items. These are vendors, multi vendors. It's not every single vendor prints. These could be from the road banners that we just put on Palm Avenue for Veterans Day. It could be t-shirts. This is not specific to special events. This is specific to departments. The city has a $25,000 threshold per vendor, whether it's one time or spread out throughout the year. $25,000 in an event could go on one event, then every single event has to come back to the council. This is not that I'm going to expend or pay $390,000. It could be that I spend $40,000 on one vendor and nobody else spends anything for the remainder of the year. It's a threshold. All I'm asking with the amount of items that are coming up is to have that, to pick what vendor it is. Special events does one thing. Parks could go tomorrow and buy T-shirts. If they spend $25,000, I can't use that vendor for $25,000. I have to come to you guys. That's how the charter works. And this is only the authorization, just like they do at the beginning of the year, for Home Depot, for other items throughout the city. That's what this is doing. It's giving the small business threshold of $65,000 on an as-needed basis.

Thank you.

Motion for item N from Councilman Luis Rodriguez, second from Councilman Jaylene Perez for item N. Please call the roll.

Ms. M. Perez? Yes. Mr. Rodriguez? Yes. Mr. Zogby?

Yes.

Mr. Marrero?

Yes.

Ms. G. Perez? Yes. Ms. De La Vega? Yes. Motion carries. The item is approved. Thank you.

Moving on to administrative item.

No, O. We still got O. O and P. Really? O like Oscar.

O? O is next.

okay okay no i just i i didn't get p no i didn't get p i know oh no we already discussed q q oh yes old white council member that's right so i think we only missed oh

Okay.

Oh, and to the record, request permission to ratify the issuance of purchase order number 1 0 0 0 3 2 3 4 in the amount of $25,000 and purchase order number 1 0 0 0 0 8 6 1 in the amount of $22,500. both issued to amusement ride services for amusement ride services utilized in support of city-sponsored events, and request to increase the expenditure amount by an additional amount of $17,500 for a total expense amount not to exceed $65,000. Further request permission to increase the expenditure amount issued to Snow Cave LLC by an additional $55,218 for a total expense amount not to exceed $65,000 for amusement ride services utilized in support of city-sponsored events. The approval of the item requires a weighting of the small purchase threshold.

And just for the record, there's an extra zero there. Yes. It's not $250,000, it's $25,000. Yes. Thank you. Okay.

Go ahead, sir.

Jose Aldi, 788 Southeast Park Drive. Again, so we already have money for this, right? What are we doing here? We're asking for an additional $17,500 and an additional $55,000, right? So what does that add up to, like, $72,000? $72,000 might not be a lot of money, but going back to the budget, you know, the budget, you could say, yeah, I'm going to provide better police, more police protection, but, you know, budget more police officers yeah we're going to increase the the amount of money we whatever we're going to say we're going to do this you know when the budget we had to pass an emergency basis we said there was no more money right it was my emergency we had to pass it yeah we're finding an additional 62 000 here 350 000 here you know What happened? I studied public administration in FIU, and every class dealt with the budget. The budget is your plan. You're going to say you're going to do something, and you don't budget for it, you're not going to do it. What are we doing? We're making all this a special event, special event, special event. Some of this money could be going to the police department, some could be going to the fire department. There's so much need here, more special events, special events. I encourage you to prepare for the next budget. You know, we're not going to get what Governor DeSantis is proposing is going to pass. We're going to have even less money right now. We're not even providing service for our blue collar community. this i think this is madness honestly i think this madness all this special so much money for special event and and not providing for basic needs you know we could use more police officers we use more firefighters and yet we're making even more special events and more television more telemundo more instagram so i i hope maybe if you decided today i hope you really think about where we're going into the city and you cannot, well, yeah, we're strong former mayor, but all of you are approving all this money. So you're part of the decision. You can't blame Steve Bovo because you were part of it. You can't blame Mayor Garcia. Now you can't say, oh, Brian Cobblestone, what he wanted to do. You're all approving this. So you're all approving what's happening here. So I hope you take ownership. And I'm just being honest here. I hope you consider it. Thank you.

item oh yeah the chair george you and i have a conversation about this and i know you would love to elaborate a little bit on this thank you george and his emotion by the way okay again special events special events george hernandez director of special events um this item is not to expend all this amount of money on special events this item we paid again there's that single 25 000 threshold Could be one event, could be scattered amongst 10. It's $25,000. Funds are allocated per budget. I'm not asking you guys for a budget. I'm asking for the permission, the threshold, that $25,000 event. If not, you're going to see me special events at every single council meeting, depending on what we're doing for the month. This is a threshold. Doesn't mean I'm going to go and expend all this money. We paid $20,000 in rides for Snow Blast, which was open to the community. That left $5,000. for the next event easter came around it was 25 000 for all the amusement rides that we had at easter that took me over the threshold at the time because when we got the final call for amusement rides we didn't have the opportunity to come here i said i will bring it at a later date we have back to school coming up we have national night out coming up right after fourth Depending on what rides we choose for the community for that the expenses past $25,000. That's all we're asking for It's not that I'm going to go and spend all this money or anything like that on these events It's asking for the thresholds depending so that I don't have to come back every single moment to you guys It's not that we're not gonna spend it also A lot of the expenses get scattered depending on the department. If the streets department wants to print a banner, it comes to us. They pay for the banner. It doesn't come from special events. It's budget allocations throughout vendors for any items that we put. That's all.

Thank you, George. Mr. Hernandez, I just wanted to confirm again, this is all within your budget, right? This is not going over what we have budgeted for your department.

Correct. And it's on an as-needed basis.

Thank you.

We have a motion from Councilman Louis Rodriguez. We have a second from Councilman Jaylene Perez on item O. Madam Clerk?

Mr. Rodriguez?

Yes.

Mr. Zogby?

Yes.

Mr. Marrero? Yes. Ms. G. Perez? Ms. De La Vega? Yes. Ms. M. Perez? Yes. Motion carries. The item is approved.

Item P we voted on already. We didn't hear that, Jose. We didn't hear item P. We voted on that already. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. All right. We did unfinished business. We did new. I'm sorry. I'm jumping over administrative. So item 10A, Madam Clerk. Thank you.

First reading of proposed ordinance providing for a special primary election to be held in the city of Hialeah on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2026, the same date as the general election for Miami-Dade County to fill a vacancy for city council member group C2 in accordance with section 2.02 subsection c1 of the city charter providing for a special general election runoff election to be held on tuesday december 8 2026 if necessary providing for the office of the supervisor of elections of miami-dade county to conduct these elections and other matters relating thereto and providing for early voting times and dates for the city of hialeah special primary election and no early voting for the city of Hialeah special election. Should a special general election be held, repealing all ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict herewith, providing for a severability clause and providing for an effective deed. Thank you.

Item 10A is on first reading, open for discussion amongst us or any questions for the clerk. Motion. We have a motion on 10A from Councilman Luis Rodriguez.

Second.

Second from Councilman Willie Marrero. Please call the roll.

Mr. Zogby? Yes. Mr. Marrero?

Yes.

Ms. G. Perez? Ms. Zala-Vega? Yes. Ms. M. Perez?

Yes.

Mr. Rodriguez? Yes. Motion carries. The item is approved. Second reading and public hearing is scheduled for June 23rd, 2026. I'm sorry. Thank you.

Administrative item 10B, Madam Clerk.

First reading of proposed ordinance amending chapter 46, historical preservation of the code of ordinances, article three procedures, section 46-66, designation process and procedure and section 46-67, application for certificate of appropriateness to add fees, repealing all ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict herewith, providing penalties for violation hereof, providing for inclusion in code, providing for a severability clause and providing for an effective deed.

Thank you. Item 10B is on first reading, open for our discussion.

If anybody has any questions or for the chair, I just wanted to get a little bit of information of what this was about.

Claudia has been planning and zoning official 501 Palm Avenue. Basically, when we were reviewing this code section, because we are working on also in the planning and zoning fee schedule, we found out that this section doesn't have any fees, meaning if a person comes and he wants to designate or request a certificate of appropriateness for their home or property. a property that is designated historic, there is no fee to process these applications. Thank you. So this is going to be creating those fees. Okay. Thank you.

Pretty much if the city wants to designate a property historic, we would do it at no cost. If somebody wants to designate their own home or their own property as historic, they pay anywhere between $200 and $500, depending on the property.

Thank you.

Motion. Will all my property taxes be waived if I've designated historic?

So the issue is that you wouldn't be able to modify your home, and it goes through the historic review board.

You will have it in motion.

I would recommend it. Thank you, Mayor. Motion.

But I think that that would also prohibit people from wanting to even make it historic, right? They don't want to pay the fee. And then if they do and it gets approved, then they can't do any changes.

I candidly, I don't know that anybody has done this process at all. I've never seen it personally. But obviously, it does take some effort on our staff in order to review the application, put it together, whatever. It's a nominal amount of money, $200. And it could increase the value of the property depending on how you look at it. So anyways, that's basically the cleanup. But to my knowledge, I don't think anybody's ever applied.

i don't think the city's ever designated somebody either but you know it's if the process is there if somebody really wants to do it there's the process it's interesting that we've never nothing we do have properties that are designated historic do we have that online i was just going to ask you we used to is it under your department planning and zoning it's under planning and zoning and it's historically designated or preserved it's under that window it's under one of the documents for the comprehensive plan that you have a list of the properties that they're designated history we do have the list yes which is over there probably in the deer park right area there are several properties i think uh your park there are some properties help me out over here but we have a list of properties i think i said in the land development course

under planning.

Claudia, are you involved in the historical planning preservation board? I support the historic board, but basically it's under the city clerk's responsibility, but I support it. Yes.

Councilwoman, Vice President is aware we also have an attorney that sits on the dais from the law department answering any of the historic board questions that they may have. But this ordinance also addresses an application fee whenever they basically want to obtain a certificate of appropriateness. And that has to do with altering the historic building, making any type of renovations or anything like that. And it happens in other municipalities where there is a fee.

Motion.

We have a motion from Council Vice President Melinda de la Vega.

Second.

And we have a second from Willie Marrero, Councilman Willie Marrero. And did you motion? I'm sorry. I'll give you a chance to vote now. Please call the roll.

Mr. Marrero. Yes. Ms. G. Perez. Ms. De La Vega. Yes. Ms. M. Perez. Yes. Mr. Rodriguez. Mr. Zogby.

Yes.

Motion carries. The item is approved. Second reading and public hearing is scheduled for June 23rd, 2026.

Thank you. I guess we're moving on to zoning.

Just quickly for the record. Yeah. So ordinance number 2026-041 was approved and adopted on May 12th, 2026, which with section three titled conditions of approval, providing that the approval of the variances would be subject to a plans that were submitted by the architect signed and sealed on November 19th, 2025.

however the correct and most updated date is april 8th 2026 thank you so i guess we can move on to zoning now how about unfinished business ah you want to go back to unfinished business yes go ahead i just have a question yes do we have a status on the fire stations and kind of what we had last meeting i know that there were what is it with um the air conditionings. I just kind of want to make sure things are flowing. We're taking care of our firefighters.

Oh, okay.

Uh, deputy chief, uh, like I, 83 East fifth street. Yeah. Uh, the items that were spoken about that were taken care of, and there were other items that were mentioned that, uh, there weren't,

unsubstantiated i think is the word you're looking for thank you but yeah everything else was taken care of there's no issue yeah there were no other issues perfect but if you see something or somebody sees something please let us know i just want to make sure i'm sorry can you clarify what why you use that word what mayor unsubstantiated yeah there was a i think some exaggerations on a couple things but um yeah basically everything that was brought to the attention has already been fixed or was already being fixed and i think the biggest issue was the termites which that um the whole facility they put the tent up uh construction and maintenance was on it and they got it done so that that facility is completely operational right now and termite free and probably no other pests that you can think of

So it was over-exaggerated, the washing machines weren't broken, and the air conditioner didn't break either?

Well, it was a list of things, and like the mayor was saying, a lot of it was exaggerated.

But were those two things accurate that I just mentioned?

There was a washing machine that needed to be replaced, and it was taken care of.

Right, and the air conditioner, was that broken?

The air conditioner, we were waiting for the parts.

But it was broken, right? wasn't working at that time okay yeah but the there was a portable ac that was being put in place so the station did have ac okay because i only mentioned those three things the termites the air conditioning and the washing machine what was told to me i don't know if there was another exaggerated point that was brought up when i wasn't here correction there was another exaggerated list oh okay okay perfect yeah we had it we had an event i think it was the round table where i think a couple of the other comments came up it was unrelated to the council meeting but

Yeah, it was a bunch of different things that came out. Again, we got to understand we're in union negotiations. People are going to say things or whatever. But again, if somebody sees something, I mean, please, please let us know. But a lot of it was not true or at least not to the level that it was set. So the things that you mentioned, they were quickly taken care of and that's it.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Did you make a motion? I forgot on that. No, there's no motion. It said you brought up the subject. I apologize. Are you satisfied? Do you have anything else to say? I don't know what's a motion or what I'm doing anymore. I'm thinking about budgets. I'm thinking about budgets and budgets. Okay, zoning. So we're good with that? Thank you. All right. Let's move on to zoning tonight, Mayor.

Well, all those persons who will be testifying on an item, please stand and raise your right hand.

There's no one standing, so we won't administer you. Okay.

Nobody's here.

Ah, okay. Do you swear or affirm that the evidence you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

So help you God, if so, say I do. Let the record reflect that all have responded in the affirmative.

Thank you. Okay. 14A, Madam Clerk.

Second reading and public hearing of proposed ordinance amending the future land use map of the city of Hialeah comprehensive plan pursuant to section 163.3187 Florida statute, small scale development amendment to change the land use designation from commercial to medium density residential for the property located at 2295 West 4th Court, Hialeah, zone C2 legally described herein. repealing all ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict herewith, providing penalties for violation hereof, providing for a severability clause, and providing for an effective deed.

Thank you. Item 14A is on second reading, open for public discussion. Do we have Dulce here today, the architect? No? Okay, just in case anybody has any questions. Are you Eduardo Martinez or Alexis Gonzalez? Yes. Oh, OK, then he can't. No, no worries. OK, this was if anybody has any question for Claudia on item A, second reading. This was that non-compliant lot, right? They wanted to do the duplex on, I believe, in Seminola. Any questions for Claudia? just for guidance um yeah the companion item uh yes i know is e yeah thank you thank you but we've got to get through this one first i'm having trouble with this one pleasure of the council on a laudia this sorry through the chair yes ma'am this was to allow it has it's a duplex now no it's vacant land it's a vacant lot okay to create a duplex yeah motion okay we have a motion for a 14 a from council vice president melinda de la vega second second for 14a from councilman willie marrero please call the roles miss g perez miss de la vega yes miss m perez yes mr rodriguez he's opposite he's gone yeah

Mr. Zogby?

Yes.

Mr. Marrero? Yes. Motion carries. The item is approved.

Thank you. With the council's permission, this has a sister item, which is E in zoning. Is it okay if we jump to that? Okay, please, item E into the record, Madam Clerk.

Second reading and public hearing of proposed ordinance rezoning property from C2, liberal retail commercial district to R33, multiple family district, granting a variance to allow a street side setback of 10 feet where 15 feet is required. Contra to Hialeah Code of Ordinances Section 98-590 of the City's Land Development Code for the property located at 2295 West 4th Court, Hialeah, Zone C2, legally described herein, repealing all ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict herewith, providing penalties for violation hereof, providing for a severability clause, and providing for an effective deed.

and item 14b is on first reading not oh i'm sorry we're on uh well i'm sorry we went to item see what they've done to me i'm thinking blue collar and i'm wearing a blue collar today item e is on second reading pleasure of the council or any questions for through the through the chair yes ma'am

And Claudia, I usually don't like to review if the applicant is not here, but...

I was just informed that the lobbyist actually had an emergency. They sent somebody else, but that person is not registered as a lobbyist. So I don't know if we can do the registration afterwards or... I mean, the rules don't allow for that.

You need to register prior to lobbying. So my question is if, just help me understand this, if this is an empty lot, why are we making a variance? Why don't they just do it what they're supposed to do?

The lot is very narrow. So basically, this variance is only applicable for the driveway that they're requesting actually for the building to be pushed a little forward. So the driveway is according to the regulations. So whenever the vehicular circulation and the vehicular movements happen inside their property, they have enough space, they have enough parking, they have everything that can happen inside the property. So typically variances are not for a project that is not developed. This is the reason why it is. It is because of the shape of the lot, which is too elongated and narrow.

Understood. Thank you. I didn't know that. Thank you. Motion.

Motion from Council Vice President Melinda De La Vega. We have a lot of non-conforming duplex lots in Seminola. I'm not complaining about that. They happen because they are narrow and long and we've had to give in a little and provide these variances. We have a motion and we have a second from Councilman Willie Marrero. Please call the roll on E. Ms. De La Vega?

Yes. Ms. M. Perez? Yes.

yes mr zogby yes mr marrero yes miss g perez motion carries the item is approved thank you thank you okay back to item 14b madame right yes sir okay no no no he is postponed what's that he was postponed no no b if we're in land use i wish

First reading of proposed ordinance amending the future land use map of the city of Hialeah comprehensive plan pursuant to section 163.3187 Florida statute, small scale development amendment to change the land use designation from low density residential to office and professional services. For the property located at 590 East 8th Avenue, Hialeah, zoned R1, one family district, legally described herein, repealing all ordinances or parts of ordinances in conflict herewith, providing penalties for violation hereof, providing for a severability clause, and providing for an effective deed.

Thank you. Item 14B is on first reading, open for our discussion only or any representative. Are you Joel? Joel? Yes. Okay. Stand by, Joel. Thank you. Does anyone have any questions for Joel or for Claudia? Go ahead, ma'am.

Joel, would you be able to give me a little bit of information on the project?

Sure. Name and address just to start. Joel Tajes Leyva, 590 East 8th Avenue. This is a property that we own. We live on it. My wife is a dentist. And we feel like it's a good spot for a dental office. So we're trying to rezone it.

Will you live in it?

We live in it right now.

And so it's going to be your house as well as a dental office?

No, we'll buy another property.

And this is in a residential area, correct? Correct.

Right. It's in Lejeune. The property is facing Lejeune. Very high traffic at all time. And yes, there's like commercials. It's a commercial corridor. It's on the corner of 6th and Lejeune.

Right. This is not. Yeah, yeah.

If I may through the chair?

Yes, ma'am.

Claudia, I see when I pull it up on the map, it's all residential nearby.

Is this 8th?

This is in Lejeune. This is in Lejeune. So that corner is residential. You have other corners through facing Lejeune that they had been converted into even commercial. There is even an automotive area. use, I think, in the block south of that property. So there are several locations. And the request that they're doing is to convert it into what is called office and professional services. So people, they won't be able to reside on the property. They can just run business from it. And the house is small. The structure is only 900 square feet of site. So it will be basically for the operations of one dentist or probably a couple of more professionals in that industry.

And they would get rid of that structure or they would make it like the same dental structure like we have on 49th Street?

No, what they're proposing is just to maintain the structure, is to do just interior renovations and actually develop the, improve the site for the parking requirements, for the five parking spaces that are required.

Through the chair?

Yeah, ma'am.

I know this is on East 8th Avenue. I know it's a very busy street. However, your direct neighbor to your right is residential. Your front door neighbor is residential. Your corner neighbor is residential. This is truly a residential area. I understand. I just feel like it wouldn't be fair to your neighbors that there is now a business in a residential area. If there was other businesses, maybe, but I think every single neighbor you have is a residence.

I want to bring the point that there's other three properties in the same road, just one block away from mine, two blocks away. At some point, they were all residential, surrounded by residentials, and they were approved for business, and even one, it got converted into commercial, I believe. so that's why we you know it's a we trying to like uh follow every requirements that we get from zoning and planning and we understand that it is a residential area but we see the possibility of it so that's why we read this process thank you

we've uh we've um we we did that a lot starting a few years ago on 49th street we turned residential offices the professional offices right claudia back from when deborah was here and those those streets have the same issue they're on 49th street but what is behind them north and whatnot are residential But yeah, we have allowed on corridors like that to convert what is now a residential office, right?

Yes, that's correct. And also this is our land use request, well, the applicant request. Just wanted to bring the point that our comprehensive plan allows for this type of conversion. Basically is establishing standards for conversions from a residential to a transitional commercial establishment. It is commercial, but it's a professional office. That's why we are limiting and specifying that this is going to be for an office and professional service type of area. In addition, this is basically an adaptive reuse of this structure. They're not creating a new house. They're not creating a new structure. So the footprint, the scale, the environment, the landscaping is going to be maintained the same as a single family home. So it's going to look like, it's going to feel like a residential home, but they're going to operate as a dentist's office.

If I may, through the chair?

Yes, ma'am.

I have to concur with Councilwoman De La Vega. I think if the property would have been like a Northeast fourth place that has like the auto sale next door or something like that, then I would have felt more comfortable converting it. But as considering the whole circumference of this property is residential, I don't think it's appropriate to start expanding from that corner. If this was something that this family had considered, I think they should have purchased a property that was already near an existing commercial location to then expand and convert that property. But I just, I don't feel comfortable supporting this land use change, considering the neighbors that are nearby. I don't think it's an appropriate change.

Can I? Yes, sir. There's like three other properties like I mentioned before. They were all surrounded by residential properties and they were approved at some point. That's what we thought about doing this process. I understand. So that's why we're doing that.

Yeah.

You know, with that being said, I'm a doctor. My wife is a dentist. We could do this in any other city. I came from Cuba when I was 16. I became a doctor here. She came from Cuba when she was 14. She became a dentist here. we have lived in Hialeah the whole time. We never moved out of Hialeah. So it means a lot for us to build a business in Hialeah, especially for her. I work for Leon Medical Center. I don't work, like, I don't have my own practice. So that's why we trying really hard to do it here. But I mean, we understand that it's surrounded by residential properties and

Did you already go through the business tax department to see if that area, if you would be allocated the germ points? Because since that property is residential, did you go through the pre-application process with them to see that area? No.

They cannot even go through that process yet. But I feel like if there's a moratorium in that area. They don't even have the right to do it. It will be denied at the moment because now it's a single family home. So they don't even have the right. But imagine if they go through this process and then they can't because of Yes, exactly. They will have to go even before that to a site plan and concurrency process to change basically the use of that property. So all that process right now, they won't be able to do it with the sonifications that they have.

I mean, I think if we change the land use and then they get into one of those issues that then they're not allocated maybe the term points because of whatever the situation may be, they now have this property on Lejeune that could be very expensive and they could just resell it to somebody else that would want to build something bigger there that's not the scale of the property of the home that they would want to knock down that structure. And now their property cost has gone up because they have a property in a residential area on Lejeune. So I think that there's a lot of things that come into play that I don't feel comfortable changing the land use in that area, considering the neighbors.

Anyone else or pleasure of the council on this? Item 14B.

Motion to deny.

Well, not yet. We have to have a motion, right? It'll be denied. It won't pass, right, if we...

I mean, she can motion to deny.