City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone, and welcome. Our apologies for the brief delay. I'd like to call the City of Homestead Committee of the Whole meeting to order. Today is Tuesday, April 7th, 2026, and it is 5.43 p.m. Roll call, please, Madam Clerk.

Councilwoman Konski? Here. Councilwoman Avila? Here. Councilman Canabal? Here. Councilman Fletcher? Here. Councilman Roth? Here. Vice Mayor Bailey? Here. Mayor Lawson?

Here. Mr. Manager, are there any additions, deletions, or deferrals for this agenda?

None, Mr. Mayor.

Council, any requests for deletions or deferrals? Okay. Okay. So our first item before us is tab one, the approval of the March 3rd, 2026 Committee of the Whole Minutes. Do I have a motion to approve? Moved by Councilman Roth. Seconded by Councilman Canabal. Are there any objections to the approval? All in favor? Any opposed? Next item is tab two. Mr. Perl?

kawaii tab two would be a resolution of the city council of the city of homestead florida adopting the city of homestead water and sewer master plan providing that the water and sewer master plan shall serve as a policy guide for future water and wastewater system planning prioritization coordination implementation efforts providing for implementation providing for an effective date thank you uh... the stranger think we've all seen this uh...

Do you have a brief presentation?

Yes, sir.

Brief meaning the operative word?

Why do I always get asked that?

Yes, sir.

We all have to be on the same page for what the word brief means.

Exactly.

This is a test.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Well, we have online the consultants that worked on the project. Can they introduce themselves?

Good afternoon, everyone. This is Nikolai Gage from CES Consultant.

So that is from CES Consultant. And of course, my name is Cairo Kangas and I'm the public works director. So tonight we're going to present quickly the water and sewer master plan that the city has been working for a little over a year now. The purpose of a water and sewer master plan, of any master plan, is to establish a plan, a work plan that we can follow that can guide the infrastructure improvements of any municipality. So in order to create this master plan, we first have to define the scope and objectives, that the consultant knows exactly what it is that we're looking for. Data collection and analysis that took countless hours of us trying to compile all historical data and make sure that they put it into our computer, a design system, develop a vision. We needed to let them know what we wanted the city to be. And of course, account for growth and create the master plan, which is the one that we're presenting now. I want to give you a quick overview of what our water and sewer is, or what it looks like. This is a map of the sewer service area. The dashed lines are the city limit boundaries, whereas the thick black solid line is the sewer service area. As you can see, we service outside of the city limits. And what you see dashed in blue towards the top are the areas that are currently with running on septic tanks. This is a map of the water service area. And again, the same as the previous one, the dashed line is the city, the black solid line is the service area boundary. I wanted to point out, which I have during the briefings, the blue area is the one that is being serviced with Miami-Dade County water that the city purchases for those residents, even though they use our infrastructure, our pipes and valves and meters and whatnot. Towards the top you can see that we have two well fields. One of them is at Waco Park that has four pumps and then the one at Harris has two pumps. This is the water mains by pipe material. One could Point that I would like to note is that the majority of our system is ductile iron, which is good. And we have very little areas that have asbestos cement, which was an old material. And it's not dangerous for consumption. It's not asbestos as in the air, but it's something that you want to remove because it is brittle and tends to burst. This slide shows the water mating sizes and age deficiencies. The map shows the age deficiencies. Anything in red are distribution lines that are less than 8 inches in diameter. We have a lot of that in the city, and it's something that we are working towards upsizing. The table shows the age of the pipe system, and again, this is not the entirety because we don't have all the data. Some of it was lost during Hurricane Andrew, unfortunately, but based on what we know, this is data, and we're not doing that badly because, as you can see, the majority of our pipes are from 30 to 39 years old. hitting the upper limit, but it's not as bad as other parts of the system. Now we move on to the recommendations. First, gravity main prioritization. Luckily, gravity mains are not an issue when it comes to emergencies, per se.

They are an issue when it comes to capacity, and that is why

as you can see in the map before you. The chrome, which is a big red line that goes, you know, north and south, and the flagler were prioritized, and those are the ones that hopefully will start construction immediately after the bids are received on April 13th for that project. The rest of the system, there are a few that we do want to upsize, and we also want a line, and this map represents those prioritizations. Force main prioritization. This one is a big deal. There is a big red squiggly line that runs east-west. That one hampers our capacity for growth, especially anything east of the city. So we are actively working with developers and establishing a fast-paced plan to be able to allow them to connect as these pipes are exceeding the threshold of velocities. And that pipe, especially underneath the Sandero Landing, between the wastewater treatment facility and the turnpike, is the one through which all the flows east of the turnpike flows. So it is almost 50 years old, and it doesn't have enough redundancy. It doesn't have any redundancy. So something that we need to work towards. water main prioritization again the red chrome and flagler is what we're doing now we receive a grant to outsize water mains and that is money that is being used towards the flagler portion so we continuously apply for grants and water outsizing is one of our main objectives this is an example of one that we're doing now And I just wanted to highlight real quick the area of the city that has very small undersized pipes. They're approximately two inches in diameter. And this would obviously be one that we would prioritize as soon as we receive grant funding so that we can improve reliability, pressure, and fire protection. So here we have only highlights of the projects that are being proposed and that are being prioritized. Then number one is well number seven. This project has been fully designed and is finalized in the permitting process. We are asking for state and federal appropriations to be able to build it because without this well, we do not have enough capacity to Take over that bluish area that I showed towards the beginning of the presentation. And we definitely want to take over that area because it'll be cost savings to the city and also more reliability and better pressure for the people in that area of the city. The million gallon storage tank and pressure pumps is also a critical infrastructure need because it will allow us to fill up more tanks during off-peak hours and use the pressure pumps to regulate the pressure if there's any emergencies or during peak hours. Well number seven, redundant, is another well that we would need in order to work in tandem with well number seven. These are supposed to turn on and off you know, interchangeably. So that is one that we will start designing fairly soon and it will be most likely in the same well field as Harris field pump stations, wells. And then the last one is the water main upsizing. I mentioned that in the other slides. The $33 million that we're estimating is for the entirety of the system as they're being prioritized now, but the projects will be broken up into manageable cost portions.

Question? Sorry I didn't get a chance to call you on this, but it kind of hit me today. The location of the million-gallon storage tank for the water, where would we be looking to put that?

That is slated. Right now, we have it slated for the Wicca Park, but we also want it to be towards the east side of the city for pressure optimization on that area as well.

That's a big tank, so...

Well, depends what you consider big. Doral has one in one of their parks that is not that big considering what you imagine when you think of a million gallon tank. But it is sizable, yeah.

Thank you. You're welcome.

Councilwoman thank you on this page the 33 million figure is that price based on the phasing? Process where it's probably going to cost more because we're not doing it all at once or is this the cost? And then we can expect it to be more if you phase it out

Well, this is a summary of all the little ones that are in the report. So the report, what we asked the consultant to do was to keep in mind the funding constraints that we have. We can only do a project that is anywhere from $5 to $10 million, depending on the grants that we receive. So the 33 is a conglomerate of all those projects together. It's not each one. As for the sewer projects, Chrome and Flagler, we all know that that one is our top priority, so we wanted to highlight it, and hopefully we'll start construction soon. The 24-inch forest main along Lucy Street is the one that I mentioned that we absolutely need to start working on to allow for the development to continue on the east side of the city. And last but not least, the wastewater treatment facility expansion. Which, if not, if when. With council's approval, we proceed with it, it will allow us to have more control of our financial. State in the in the city, because I don't know if you remember last year. Miami day was the. Increase the wholesale rate by 19% now. We were able to only increase it by 13 because we budgeted you know But it was 19% and every year they can increase it as much as they need as they see fit based on their Necessities so by doing this we're able to take more control over our funding well Let me ask you before you jump ahead that we're going to talk about expanding the wastewater treatment plants

Over the years, there's been a lot of discussion about maybe the whole thing needs to be relocated, that when that was constructed and placed there, believe it or not, it was kind of out in the middle of nowhere, not a whole lot out there. Has there been any thought? I mean, that's probably three or four times that $65 million number to entirely relocate. It would be, yeah.

The entire west side of the city flows into the plant via gravity. That means that you would have to have almost... A regional pump station designed somewhere in the Lucy or maybe in the plant, I'm not sure, to pump it wherever you need to go. And that alone is a multi-million dollar project.

So that one could stay and you could create a smaller scale further east, perhaps?

Mr. Mayor, so the rule of thumb for most cities and counties is to preserve your facility as is and build a brand new treatment plant elsewhere. the cost of replacing the structure and infrastructure that supports it is going to run into billions of dollars. So what the county has done is to decentralize their system, build additional treatment plants, one in Hialeah to supply the west side of the county. You have one in the central district at Virginia Key for wastewater. You have the Alexander Ore plant on Sunset Drive. Then you have one on the northwest side of the county. So the county is decentralizing.

So we relieve the burden from the existing facility to a certain extent. True. Locate. an ancillary facility somewhere else.

That is an option, yeah. Keep in mind that with the wastewater treatment facility expansion, there will be beautification and other steps taken so that it doesn't look or feel or smell like a wastewater. Doesn't look like a sewer plant.

Yeah, we'll take a trip out there.

It does not smell like a wastewater treatment facility. Very proud of that. So yeah, we can definitely look into all those alternatives.

So just to kind of amplify, I've told staff that we intend to schedule a field trip for council to go out to the water treatment plant and wastewater plant and look at it.

Yeah, the smell is from solid waste.

There's not a ton of jokes built into that trip. That's true.

So with that being said, if there's any questions, I'm happy to answer, and the call to action will be for Council to hopefully adopt the master plan.

Okay. Any additional questions, Council?

Good job and move it.

All right, so it's been moved and seconded. Do we need a roll call vote on this or just a voice vote?

Well, this will be a motion to place it on your consent agenda. Okay, is it just a voice vote? No, we're just moving forward to consent.

All right, so it's been moved and seconded. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Right. Well, so moving on to tab three, and as long as you're in position.

As long.

And for the audience, I want to jump to tab seven after this. You will have suffered enough and will... we'll jump to the item that all of the red shirts and your friends are here for. I think he's saying I'm boring.

Well, good evening, Council and Mayor. So we're now going to present the transportation master plan that we have also been working now for a little over a year. This was also a pretty large hurdle to get over. As the manager has mentioned during the briefings, this is something that the city seriously needed and lacked for quite some time. So we're very happy that we finally have one. The purpose is the same, establish a roadmap, make sure that we have our vision and our needs clearly represented, and just like with the wastewater master plan, water and sewer master plan, this one is for a 20-year planning horizon, even though you're supposed to review these every five years to make sure that they still align with your needs as the city grows. Goals and objectives are, well, relatively the same. This one is for enhancing transportation connectivity, optimizing mobility, improved transportation reliability, and develop viable product recommendations for implementation. So the rest of these slides, for the most part, are to show you what the consultant had to go through in order to develop this master plan. They used, as you can see, the existing land use conditions in order to establish the capacity and demand, the maximum and greatest and best capacity and demand for each land area. They looked at population profiles and the needs that they have because senior Citizens and younger residents have different needs than people of a certain age range, 18 to 35, let's say. They also looked at existing population and employment to see where the density was, where the population density was, the employee density, and that also drives the needs for transportation and prioritization. The future employment and household growth, they also took that into account. And the existing and planned multimodal network, this is one of the key elements of a transportation master plan, which is to give people freedom from only having to use, for example, a single family vehicle. Freedom to be able to walk, to ride bicycles, multimodal infrastructure. The planned roadway improvements for Miami-Dade and for the city homestead, they looked at, and for the DOT, they looked at all those plans as we have them available to make sure that they were not duplicating efforts and to make sure that they all aligned with each other, that they made sense.

The methodology for roadway needs, existing and future condition analysis. As I mentioned before, they took all that data and they used SERP M8 as a modeling tool.

And also, they used a data called RITIS, a platform called RITIS, that gives them almost hour-by-hour traffic demand This is something that is maintained by the county or the county gave us access to it. So we were able to use it for this project. The roadway improvement types, we have intersection improvements as well as capacity improvements. And we went over these when we presented this to the workshop and we all spoke about which intersections needed to be improved. That was also taken into consideration. The volume capacity for 2025 is shown on the image to the left. The volume slash capacity for 2030 is in the center and for 2045 is on the right. As you can see, there are some sections that may turn darker red and lighter green as time progresses. And the master plan tried to address this by planning the projects now so that we have better conditions in the future. This slide is just a summary of the GeoBond presentation that was forwarded to Council to review the projects that we are considering. And then here we can see some recommended roadway improvements where the green lines are through lane addition. And as you are aware, we are currently trying to obtain grant funding for capacity improvements in multiple major, well for us are major, but collectors and arterials in the city. For example, East 6th Avenue from Lucy to US 1. Maury Drive from US 1 to 162nd, 147th Avenue crossing the C-103, and 162nd Avenue. So that one we already have a grant for. All those are depicted in this slide. So we have a list of projects associated with mobility impact fees that the Council adopted via Resolution 2025-09-130 on September 24, 2025. If you remember, there were about 28 projects that the Council believed were the most important and that they needed to be sent to the county for them to do one or two things. Either put it in their work program and do it because it's probably one of their facilities or allocate to the city multimodal impact fees that we believe we are deserving of. Recently, that list was circulated internally in ATBW. They analyzed all the projects, and it's funny, because we just met with them to review the list.

They had said that some were not... they did not apply for the work and of course they were not correct.

And the funny thing is that our list is the first municipality that has sent them a list of projects and that is the process that they want to implement going forward for all the municipalities. So they started asking for this from municipalities, and you guys, with the manager's directive, we were ahead of the game, so we may have set the precedent there. So we got that list of projects, we reviewed them, and all we have to do is send it back to them for them to start putting them in their work program or prioritize MIF funding for us. This is the list of projects. I believe you may have been sent this already to review.

May I? May I? Cairo, on the list of projects, when we were doing our workshops and having our briefings in the room upstairs, there was the traffic light on 137th Avenue and Waterstone Boulevard that I had asked to be added to this. Can you confirm if it's there?

I believe it's right there. It's one, two, three, four. They have it right there. 137th Avenue, from the bottom, I'm sorry. Tallahassee Road at Waterstone Boulevard.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Last but not least, this is a list of current and potential available funding for Transportation Master Plan projects. This is a list of the estimated cost of the projects that we have either available funds for or potential funding. And then the numbers, so the footnotes, will tell you where those potential fundings are coming from or the actual funding. As you can see, 162nd Avenue is by far the one that we have the most for, and we're currently working to get a designer on board to start the bridge replacement and the roadway widening. One key note is that we have changed our approach for grant application and decided to break up projects into sizable chunks that will guarantee that we get not only the grant, but also the grant enough for us to do the project, as opposed to, let's say, giving us a million dollars, but the project is 13, where do we come up with the rest? So 162nd is a very good example of that process working really well, because we have the funding for the bridge already secured, and we think we're going to get funding for the road. Sixth Avenue, we have funding not only from grants, but also from transportation fair share agreements that we can use. And then the rest are looking for funding right now.

So Mayor and Council, go back to the list, Cairo, please. So we resubmitted this list of projects back to the state and to the federal government through our lobbyists. Currently, some of these projects are being considered for funding in current year's budget. both the House and the Senate had allocated monies for some of the projects, so we're waiting for reconciliation and a final approval.

Those are that column on potential funding. For example, 147 to 4.1 million is number four, which is federal earmark for fiscal year 27 community project funding request. We'll see.

Councilman Fletcher? If I may, and again, I don't want to... upset any engineers again but i forgot to introduce on their own line ah kim lee horn their consultant but uh... i do want to throw out there again that you know we we tend to put bridges on these locations when i think the cost effective way is to put in giant culverts and we know it works we've seen it done in florida city we've seen it done outside and i think the cost effectiveness would reduce the cost and you won't have to have the recertifications 20, 30, 40 years down the road with that item. So just again, something to think of, but I know you're an engineer and you're going to disagree with me.

No, I'm not disagreeing. The challenge is not really the method of crossing a body of water. It rests with the ownership of the body of water. If you might go in there with a cover, they said, no, for maintenance purposes, they want you to put a bridge. so that their boats can easily go in and do some kind of improvements in terms of desilting the canals. So most of the canals we have in the city is either county or water management district. So they don't belong to us.

Understood, but I see them use cranes to lift the boats in and out of the canals over the bridges now, so they'd still have to lift it over the roadway. We are looking at every alternative, yeah.

And we actually also discussed it with South Florida, but as the manager mentioned, it's not likely that they will approve it. But, you know, when you discuss it with them, they like to think that, yeah, yeah, propose it. But they will most likely want a bridge, and the vertical clearance that they want from the water... It's pretty high. I recently called someone from the county, a friend of mine, and he sent me the bridge they just built on 136th Street over in Cutler Bay. And he told me that one of the biggest challenges that they had was actually the vertical clearance and permitting with South Florida Water Management District. But we are hiring for an engineer, and that was a good idea if you're interested.

So I conclude the presentation?

Oh, yes.

So Mayor and Council, I want to place on the record our appreciation of the support that we've been receiving from Congressman Carlos Jimenez for federal funding and County Commissioner Cohen Higgins. on the county side. That we made progress with the mobility impact fee because her office took it as a personal challenge to assist. And I believe we are scheduled for another set of meetings with the county on that, with her office.

Any further questions or comments from council? Okay, hearing none, do we have a motion to approve the Transportation Master Plan, moved by Councilman Canabal? Second by Councilwoman Konski. All in favor? So this is a motion to place it on the next council meeting. Place it on the agenda, council agenda for approval. All in favor, aye. Any opposed? All right, thank you, Kyro. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right, if there are no objections, let's jump to the, to tab seven. Mr. Perlman, I think you've got a resolution for tab seven.

Tab 7 is a resolution of the Mayor and the City Council of the City of Homestead, Florida, approving an interlocal agreement with Miami-Dade County relating to the publication of legal advertisements. I'm sorry, that's tab 4. I was staying in order. I apologize. A resolution of the City Council of the City of Homestead, Florida, authorizing the city's participation in the CIFICA SOHO program to be implemented at Somerset South Homestead Elementary Charter School, authorizing the city manager and or his designee to take such actions as may be necessary to implement the city's participation in the program, providing for implementation, and providing for an effective date.

Very good. Mr. Manager, is this a presentation by the chief?

Yes, this is going to be handled by the chief.

Mayor and Council, good evening. This is something actually we're pretty excited about, and that is the partnering and what we're seeking is approval to partner with Civica, who's offering a clear vocational pathway into public safety. This is not just for police. This is eventually going to be for dispatchers. It's going to be for CSAs, probably eventually even for fire rescue. It's a program that was modeled after what they're doing in Hialeah. We've been We started exploring this idea several months ago, and I have to say that I'm really impressed with how fast they put this all together. And I thought that the best person to answer technical questions, if there are any, is the principal of Civica, who's the representative that's here today.

Please come forward and introduce yourself. Good evening and welcome. Let's get the microphone turned on.

Can you hear me now? Yes, we can. All right. I am Lyda Morales, the principal of Civica Soho and the principal of Somerset Academy South Homestead Elementary, which is both here and just two blocks away. Do you guys want me to do the presentation, or am I just answering questions?

Whatever you'd like to do. Tell us about the project.

Okay.

Apparently it wasn't transmitted. No presentation?

No.

No? OK, wow. This is great, guys. Thank you so much. I've never been put on the spot like this, but I'm super excited. So our mission is really to just focus not just on the academics of the children that we have, but it's to build a strong character and get them ready for college and careers. So everything that we do is grounded on the principles of honor, respect, and loyalty. So like the chief said, this has been a program that started back in 2008. In 2020, Civica started their network. And now in 2026, Civica will be here in Homestead. So the closest public safety police readiness program is over 30 miles away. which is Cohia and the Florida Memorial School that's downtown. So honestly, our students here in Homestead don't have direct access to a program like this until now. And we are starting two different academies this time around. We'll be adding more in the future. But right now we're starting with education. As we all know, we are in need of teachers. So by the time they graduate, they'll be able to become preschool teachers. And we are starting with the Criminal Justice Academy. So when the students graduate, they'll be able to finish either their certification in PSA, which here you guys call it CSA, I believe. And they can also do the dispatchers. So they'll be able to start in the workforce right away. So here the students have the ability to finish in those career pathways. We will be adding more academies in the future, like agriscience, if you guys have passed by SOHO. We're starting that program. We also have medical, like the Chief said, fire, and several others. So right now, the partnership with the city of Homestead is essential because we won't be able to do what we need to do if it's not for the Homestead Police Department. Our students will have the ability to be mentored by police officers. They'll be able to have direct leadership. We'll be able to have them create relationships and move forward into their, you know, being skilled, certified, individuals that will give back to the city of Homestead. So not only are we building the students up, but they'll be coming back to give back to the city. So that's pretty much it.

Thank you. Council? Questions? Council? Council Fletcher?

Yes, thank you for the opportunity you brought forward to us, and thank you to the Chief. It's an awesome time to be a student now, to get those early buy-ins to these programs, which I understand now is going to lead to the possible some internships with the city. Yes. but I'd also like you to take a look at general government operations. A lot of people don't know about city clerks and other departments, so something to take a look at in the future and maybe expand the program.

Yes, yes. We're definitely looking into all the different options. I know that skill trade is something that has kind of been lost, so we're going to be adding that in as well.

Awesome. Thank you again.

Thank you, Mayor. Again, it's very exciting. I think my only question is, what are your age groups? RANGES BECAUSE I THOUGHT YOU WERE JUST ELEMENTARY.

SO WE WILL BE HAVING MIDDLE SCHOOL AND HIGH SCHOOL AS PART OF CIVICA SOHO. RIGHT NOW WE WILL BE NESTED WITHIN SOMERSET ACADEMY SOUTH HOMESET WHICH IS AN ELEMENTARY WHICH IS A K-5 BUT WE WILL BE ADDING THAT COMPONENT AND WE'LL BE GRADUALLY ADDING THE GRADE LEVELS YEAR AFTER YEAR. SO WE'LL START WITH 6 AND 9 AND THEN THE FOLLOWING YEAR 6, 7, 9, 10, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 AND THEN 12TH GRADE.

Okay, and that'll start this coming school year. Yes, ma'am.

August 2026.

You'll share some information with us. I'm sure you'll have new pamphlets to go out to share with us.

Yes, absolutely. We have all of that.

We'll gladly give it to all of you.

Okay, we were very confused during the briefings. I was like, I know it's an elementary school. Yes. I love the young ones learning things, but okay, that makes a lot more sense. Yes.

Congratulations.

Thank you. Very exciting. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other questions?

Okay. Okay. So, let's have a motion to place this on the council agenda.

I move it.

Moved by Canabal, seconded by Vice Mayor Bailey. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? All right. While you all are here, if we get somebody to move the podium and have you all come up, you've earned at least a picture. We'll stand you here. We'll stand behind you and memorialize your... YOUR INITIATION INTO BORING COUNCIL MEETINGS.

LET ME ASK YOU SOMETHING. YES.

WHEN THEY FINISH THE TRAINING AND WHATEVER, DOES THOSE CREDITS APPLY FOR THEM TO CONTINUE WITH THE STUDIES?

YES.

All right, so let's turn around and we'll let our super duper photographer, Nolan, work his magic. Anybody else need to come down? Thank you all. Thank you. All right, going back to tab four.

Tab 4 was a resolution of the Mayor and City Council of the City of Homestead, Florida, approving an interlocal agreement with Miami-Dade County relating to the publication of legal advertisements and public notices on Miami-Dade County's publicly accessible website, providing for authorization and providing for an effective date.

Moved by Councilman Fletcher, seconded by Councilman Canabal. Any objection to waiving any further report on this tonight? All right, it's been moved and seconded to place on the council agenda. All in favor? Any opposed? Moving on to tab five.

Tab 5 is a resolution of the City Council of the City of Homestead, Florida, approving the First Amendment to the Addendum Increasing the Scope of Work for the Procurement and Installation of Epoxy Flooring at Harris Field Park by Joe Unlimited, DBA, Miracle Method of Miami North, in the amount of not to exceed $177,910, plus a City Manager Contingency Allowance. Up to 10% of the total project cost utilizing the interlocal purchasing system here and after referred to as tips RCSP 24010401 agreement exempting the purchase from competitive bidding pursuant section 2-411.185 of the city code Authorizing the city manager to execute all necessary documents providing for implementation writing for an effective date.

Thank you, sir All right, vice mayor moves it cannonball seconds it. I

With a quick question, please, Mayor. Yes. Does it include the stage? Okay, good. I wanted to make sure.

The briefing indicated that.

Is this the same company that did the kitchen? Yes.

Okay.

Has the color been chosen yet?

So the color has not been chosen. We do have a slide of five, like, finalist colors that we have for recommendation if it's something you guys would like to look at.

Personally, I would. I mean, I understand the kitchen is nice and bright and white, but every scuff, every speck of dirt, perhaps something a little bit darker out in the public area. Just a thought. Maybe even the kitchen, the floor in the kitchen is too bright for the other area.

Yeah, it's exactly where our minds were heading because we know there's more foot traffic on the exterior in the event space. So here you'll see kind of the ones that don't go too dark. So our first one, this is tough to see from the color from here, but it's called Thunder. So this one has some dark blues, gray and white in the mix of flakes. The next one is Smoky Blue, so it gets a little bit darker and more blue. Sorry, I think I clicked the wrong one up there. We're on fog, gargoyle. How do I go backwards? There we go. There we go. So we said thunder. So smoky blue. So this one has more light blues, dark blue. Fog is more, there's no blue in this one. This one's more darker grays. And I don't believe this one had any black. Gargoyle is all dark gray, more charcoal-type colors and white. And then we have Wombat that has black, white, and gray specs. Do you have actual samples?

We don't have actual samples. I can request them.

So, Mayor and Council, this is simply for you to place it on the agenda. So what we can do before the April 22nd meeting? Actual samples. Get the actual samples for you to select. Please do. These five?

Yes. If I may, there's so much wood, you know, that it feels like old homestead. And maybe it would be nice to see some specks of brown on the floor as well.

A brownish palette, yeah. Okay. We'll request some samples with that.

Very good. All right. So did we vote? We didn't. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Moving on to tab six.

Tab 6 is a resolution of the City Council of the City of Homestead, Florida, approving an addendum to the State of North Carolina NASPO Value Point Master Agreement with Civic Initiatives, LLC, for procurement assistance and support services, exempting the procurement from competitive bidding in accordance with Section 2-411.12b of the City Code, authorizing the City Manager to execute all necessary documents, renewals, and to approve a price adjustment of up to 10%, providing for implementation, providing for an effective date.

All right. Anybody want to move this item? Moved by Councilman Fletcher, seconded by Councilman Canabal. Is there any objection to waiving the staff report on this item? Are there any questions or comments from council on tab six? Hearing none, we have a motion and a second to place this on the council agenda. All in favor? Any opposed? That takes us to tab eight.

Tab 8 is a resolution of the City Council of the City of Homestead, Florida, accepting a donation of gym equipment from the Fraternal Order of Police for the City of Homestead Police Department in an amount not to exceed $30,853.50, providing for implementation, providing for an effective date.

I have a motion on this item. Moved by Councilman Canabal. Second. Second. Vice Mayor Bailey. Any further questions or comments on this item with respect to the donation of gym equipment? Hearing none, all in favor? Any opposed? Moving on to tab nine.

Tab 9 is a resolution of the City Council of the City of Homestead, Florida, approving a First Amendment to the Cover Agreement with Toshiba America Business Solutions, Inc., utilizing the State of Colorado Master Contract No. 188037 as implemented by the State of Florida participating addendum through the Alternative Contract Source No. 44L. for the multi-function devices, copiers, and related software and services, exempting the procurement from competitive bidding in accordance with section 2-411.1 of the city code, authorizing the city manager to execute all necessary documents and to approve a price adjustment of up to 10%, providing for implementation, providing for an effective date.

Thank you, sir. Do we have a motion on this item? Moved by the Vice Mayor, seconded by Councilman Fletcher. There's no objection to the staff report, no further questions or comments. All in favor? Any opposed? Tab 10, Mr. Pearl.

Tab 10 is a resolution of the City Council of the City of Homestead, Florida, approving an addendum to the University of Nebraska Omnia Partners GPO... ZNAT number 9200002758 RFP number 3702-22-4618 agreement with Sintes Corporation number 2 for workplace solutions exempting the procurement from competitive bidding in accordance with section 2-411.12b of the city code authorizes the city manager to execute all necessary documents and to approve a price adjustment of up to 10% providing for implementation and providing for an effective date.

Thank you, Mr. Pearl. And moved by Councilman Canabal. Moved and seconded by Vice Mayor Bailey. Any further questions or comments with respect to this item, procurement item? All right. All in favor of placing this on council agenda? Aye. Any opposed? Moving on to tab 11.

Tab 11 is a resolution of the City Council of the City of Homestead, Florida, approving and adopting a law enforcement agency mutual aid agreement between the Florida Gaming Control Commission and the City of Homestead to combat illegal gambling and related activities, providing for an effective date.

Thank you. Do we have a motion on this item? Moved by Councilman Fletcher. Second. Second by Councilman Canabal. Any further questions or comments from council on this item? Seeing none, all in favor of the motion to place this on our council agenda, signify by saying aye. Any opposed? And finally, tab 12, Mr. Perl.

Resolution of the City Council of the City of Hoban State, Florida, approving a revocable license agreement with Legacy Basketball Academy, providing for implementation, providing for an effective date. Thank you.

Move by Council Fletcher. Questions? You move second with a question?

Sure.

All right, Vice Mayor, seconding with a question, and then Councilwoman Avila.

Thank you, Mayor. I heard that the applicant is here. I was wondering if you'd like to say a little bit about your goals, the PALS in my district. I am excited to see things happening there, so I just wanted to hear a little bit from you, please.

Is the mic on? Is the podium mic on? Yeah. Welcome. Good evening.

How you doing? How you doing? Do I get a PowerPoint or I'm going off the dome? If you said one, you've got one. All right. I'm going to pull it up here.

Just a little bit about what you've done in the past. I know you guys have been around for a while. What your goals are with the panel. Just wanted to learn a little more.

Yes, ma'am. Well, good evening, Council, Mayor. Yeah, so, I mean, my name is David Bargamento, Jr. I'm the director of Legacy Basketball Academy. It's been around for about, I'll say, 25 plus years. I am the son of the founder that started this whole thing. And to even talk about legacy, I have to talk about my father because he set the foundation. and impacted the community in many ways. Was able to, there's actually adults here that were under my father at a very young age and now have reached some success in their life. And I'm sure they can credit my father for their guidance in growing up as a man. So, you know, Legacy is a little bit more than just a basketball program. You know, we focus on, you know, just developing the kids in the area that may not have that guidance and, you know, that structure or that mentorship, you know, around. So, you know, we're here to, you know, kind of partner with the facility of Homestead PAL. I actually was part of the Homestead PAL when I was younger. In my PowerPoint, I had a little newspaper where they kind of featured some kids and I was on that newspaper. And that's part of where I got my love for basketball. My father is originally a football coach, but I told him I like basketball because of that summer camp. uh uh but yeah we're here just to you know um to bring structure uh uh our structure program and kind of partner with the facility uh to kind of bring you know what we're doing already uh and bring it to homestead you know where you know i grew up at you know and and you know kind of have a full circle moment where i can be with do what my father did for for other kids that's pretty much it uh you know some of the things we do uh we we have uh two days out the week We train for about three hours. We break it out through age group and pretty much just teach the fundamentals of basketball. Not just that, but just discipline on the other side of it. And yeah, and we're just trying to bring that to Homestead Path.

What ages are you serving?

We go from ages, we're now actually accepting a little younger age, around age six, from six to age 17.

Okay. Well, please don't be a stranger. I've got two amazing committees also that I'm over that specifically want the best for the Southwest area. So any way that we can help you celebrate tournaments or uniform needs or children that might not be able to afford their fees.

Yes, ma'am. We do have scholarships as well that we offer. You know, a lot of our kids, you know, we give scholarships to provide them, you know, opportunity to play in our program.

Thank you. Thank you. Don't run off. We've got, I think, a question from Councilwoman Avila.

Thank you very much. I look forward to seeing the progress and the amazing impact you're going to have with the students that will be participating in your program. But I do have some questions with regards to how your program will work in conjunction with the PAL program. And that probably is more appropriate for Chief now to answer. But thank you for your presentation. Yes, ma'am.

Yeah, so what we're doing is we're renting spaces in DePaul, so it wouldn't be unheard of to even have a different program or different programming within DePaul even at the same time because we have different rooms for everything. So it's not going to conflict with that at all. As a matter of fact, I think it's going to – we've had conversations about possibly extending it to PAL and not so much legacy and running it in parallel.

I THINK I'M FOLLOWING THE WAY THAT IT WILL WORK OUT. BETWEEN NOW AND THE COUNCIL MEETING I'D LIKE TO HAVE A DEEPER BRIEFING ON PAL OVERALL AND I DO BELIEVE THAT OVER THE YEARS IT NEEDED MORE FUNDING IN GENERAL SO THIS WILL HELP I'M ASSUMING THE LEASE AGREEMENT WILL DIRECTLY FUND PAL, CORRECT?

it'll help yeah it'll help fund it and not only that but we're looking for programming that does support the same so we have that big building a lot of people are trying to do projects there and we're realizing that we can rent it okay thank you i'll rest there yeah it sounds like we're going on the path of being more self-supporting good did we have a motion yes we did okay by vice mayor bailey

Second by Councilwoman Avila to place this item on the council agenda. All in favor? Any opposed? Mr. Attorney, any further business? Okay, Mr. Manager, I'm not going to cut you off.

Yeah, Mayor and Council, the Deputy City Manager Kimabran is currently traveling to receive an award on behalf of the city. Tyler Technology is the software entity that is providing EPL, electronic plans review, out of the 130 cities and counties nationwide. Homestead is one of the few that has been declared a winner in terms of the speed, the accuracy, and the rollout mission of the EPL program. No, they're giving us a plaque. And another good news is, I may have shared this already with you, that Miami-Dade County Courthouse has indicated interest in reestablishing a location in Homestead. So this week, on Friday, the Chief Judge has informed me via email that she will be coming down here to visit. And I will probably be briefing counsel right after the briefing. She's going to be here at 11 o'clock. in the morning. And also on your calendar, we do have that the SACPACE is gonna open on Friday with limited presence of city officials and then to the public on Saturday, April the 11th. SACPACE is a restaurant by Lozner Park that council had also assisted with CRA funding. The annual hurricane distribution preparedness drive is being scheduled for June 6. This is with respect to giving out hurricane materials to city residents through global empowerment mission. It's going to be at the Harris Field. We did one last year as well. And if you step out of the building, out of City Hall, you might notice a different type of lighting. This is a pilot program being tested what works based on council directive to see if we can have different types of shades of light to kind of illuminate the walls of City Hall. So we have a vendor that is trying out some of the lighting and see what works and what doesn't work. This Saturday is Bonanza, which is the annual cleanup campaign for all the bay shores in the county. The one down south is gonna be at the Bayfront Park, and council and mayor are welcome to participate. And again, another piece of good news, an aerospace company is relocating to Homestead in the Park of Commerce. So we'll find that online, and we engage with them. So we're working with them to assist them to facilitate their relocation as well. Actually, in coming to Homestead, they are more than quadrupling their workforce. Currently, about 10 employees, but they're coming here to establish at least 100 employees down here. And of course, we are working based on council directive. We are working with Richard P. Hall Eagles Foundation on the Homestead STEM program. It's already been posted online on social media. We want to sustain the media presence to the events which comes up in December. I think that's all I have for now for council. If anything comes up, we'll let you know via email. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Manager. With that, I have a motion to adjourn. Moved? Seconded. Seconded. All in favor? Aye. Thank you all. Thanks for coming out. Good night.