City Council - Regular Meeting

Well, good evening, everyone, and welcome. I could ask everyone to find a seat. We have some very special presentations this evening, and many of our folks in uniform have things to do other than, but this is not to diminish the acknowledgments and the presentations we're going to do tonight. So I'd like to ask our Chief Mario Knapp to join me.

So we're here to recognize some officers and a special agent from the FBI, but I wouldn't do the case service and I wouldn't do this entire recognition service if I didn't bring up in the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI for this regional office.

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is David Clancy. I'm the Assistant Special Agent in Charge. And before we get into the case brief, I'd just like to thank the Mayor, Chief, as well as members of the Council for giving us this opportunity. We very much appreciate it. We very much appreciate the partnership that we have with the Homestead Police Department. Special Agent Carlos Gibbard is going to provide an overview of the investigation to give you a feel for why this case was so significant that we have awards to present on behalf of the FBI Director.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you, Dave, for that presentation. My name is Carlos Gibbert. I'm with the FBI. I work out of the Homestead Resident Agencies just down the road. And I want to appreciate, first of all, everyone coming together. I know it's late in the afternoon, but this is a good time. We also wanted to, at the FBI, we wanted to recognize the task force officers for their work. And it kind of all started in mid to late 2024, encompassing two major investigations out of the Homestead Resident Agency. Both David Mata and TFO Howard Diener assisted heavily in those investigations and participated and contributed to their success. The first case that ended in late twenty four was late twenty four was a kidnapping resulting in death of two individuals, a major drug trafficking organization and their murder. And both of those individuals received life sentences and a third received twenty five years. both of their contributions involved investigative activities surveillances uh interviews debriefings proffers i mean they were shoulder to shoulder with us working together and then later around mid mid 24 into just recently february 26 was another kidnapping investigation no deaths luckily but uh six subjects uh had um brought over individuals from cuba smuggled them in When they didn't pay the fee, they held them. They tortured them. They sent videos back to their families for inducement to pay. And when they didn't pay, they kept them further, and they were going to use them to work in another state until they could pay their fees. Needless to say, the victims were horrified. You know, they were just super scared. And ultimately, we were able to interdict the victims the other victims and save four of them from who knows what would have happened to them up in Louisiana. But during that case, both TFO David Mata and TFO Howard Diener, again, shoulder to shoulder with us, participated in interviews, surveillance. I might add that Howard Diener did recover a stolen car in the investigation. So that was pretty good stat for us. Thank you, Howard. David Mata assisted with interviews of the victims, interviews of the subjects. Five of those subjects pled guilty. A sixth one went to trial. He is now facing life in prison. In February, he was found guilty on 11 out of 17 charges. So again, another success that would not have occurred without the participation and contribution of both of these TFOs, as well as the department, because other folks helped in that case, in both cases. So with our gratitude and thanks, we want to present these FBI certificates from our director.

First off, we have Task Force Officer David Mata, Homestead Police Department. In appreciation of your outstanding partnership supporting a joint task force investigation, your collaborative nature and investigative skills ensured a successful outcome. You can take pride in the role you played to protect the American people. On behalf of the FBI, thank you. Signed, Director Kash Patel. Task Force Officer Howard Diener, Homestead Police Department, in appreciation for your outstanding partnership supporting a joint task force investigation, your collaborative nature and investigative skills ensured a successful outcome. You can take pride in the role you played to protect the American people. On behalf of the FBI, thank you. Signed, Director Kash Patel.

we'll do those and then yeah then we'll we'll do the that's not the one

What does that say about the caliber and the qualifications of the men and women of the Homestead Police Department? Incredible. Our members are receiving recognition signed by the director of the FBI for work done here over a couple-year period. So we have three proclamations tonight, and I think it's important. They're shorter, so I'm going to take the liberty of reading them all in their entirety. The first one is, whereas Special Agent Carlos Gibber entered federal service with the FBI in 2002, has dedicated 35 years to federal service, including 24 years as an FBI special agent, four years as a special agent with the United States Air Force Office of Special Investigation, and seven years as an FBI support employee. And throughout his distinguished FBI career, Special Agent Gibbert has served in the Atlanta and Miami Division, working on matters involving national security, counterintelligence, violent crime, crimes against children, public corruption, fraud, kidnapping, alien smuggling, and narcotics trafficking. Special Agent Gilbert has also served as a field supervisor and later returned to investigative duties at the homestead resident agency in 2017. Where his leadership expertise and professionalism have continued to strengthen federal investigative efforts in South Florida and whereas. as the lead case agent in a complex multi-agency investigation targeting a violent human smuggling organization operating in South Florida, Special Agent Gibbert played an instrumental role in advancing an investigation that resulted in the successful prosecution of multiple defendants. Whereas the investigation addressed a criminal enterprise responsible for kidnapping, extortion, and the exploitation of vulnerable migrants and its successful outcome reflected the importance of coordinated action among local, state, and federal law enforcement partners. And whereas Special Agent Gibbert's longstanding partnership with the Homestead Police Department and its task force officers, including Detective David Mata and Detective Howard Diener, has strengthened collaboration between local and federal law enforcement agencies and enhance public safety throughout the region. So by virtue of the authority vested in me as Mayor of the City of Homestead, I do hereby proclaim today, July 7th, 2026, as Special Agent Carlos Gibbert Day in Homestead. Thank you.

Just thank you very much. I appreciate it. And thank you again.

So in no particular order, I think these are similar proclamations. So we'll say, whereas Detective David Mata has served the Homestead Police Department with distinction since beginning his law enforcement career as a reserve officer in September 2008, 2003 and becoming a full-time police officer in March 2005. Whereas throughout his more than 21 years of service to the city of Homestead, Detective Mata has demonstrated professionalism, dedication, and steadfast commitment to public safety, including eight years in uniform patrol and service as a member of the DUI squad, field training officer program, and crisis intervention team. and whereas Detective Mata has served in the General Investigations Unit investigating complex and high-profile criminal cases requiring diligence, judgment, and investigative expertise. He provided critical investigative assistance in a complex multi-agency investigation targeting a violent human smuggling organization operating in South Florida. His criminal activity included kidnapping, extortion, and the exploitation of vulnerable migrants. Whereas through the efforts of Detective Motta and Detective Howard Diener, the federal law enforcement partners contributed to the disruption of a dangerous criminal enterprise and helped secure federal convictions against multiple defendants. Whereas Detective Howard Diener has dedicated nearly 30, there's no way, 30 years of his life to the law enforcement profession, beginning his career with the North Miami Police Department in 1997, before serving with the Florida City Police Department from 2002 to 2003. And Detective Diener joined the Homestead Police Department in November 2003, and has served the city of Homestead with honor, integrity, professionalism for more than two decades. And whereas during his tenure, he has served six years in uniform patrol, also served as a field training officer helping guide and develop federal officers through his vast experience and leadership. And for the past 16 years, Detective Diener has served as a detective in the Special Investigations Unit, where he has investigated serious and complex criminal matters requiring persistent skill and sound judgment. And as the prior two proclamations explained, Detective Diener provided critical investigative assistance to the violent smuggling operations By the virtue of the authority vested in me as mayor of the city of Homestead, I do hereby proclaim today, July 7th, 2026, as Detective Howard Diener Day and Detective David Mata Day.

Thank you.

Got everybody? And thank you to the families of all of the officers involved. I know you've sacrificed a lot of time for their activities. And our final proclamation tonight is typed in way too small a font, by the way. So as Parks and Recreation is an integral part of communities throughout this country, including the city of Homestead, And parks and recreation promotes health and wellness, improving the physical and mental health of people who live near parks and use our parks. And whereas parks and recreation promotes time spent in nature, which positively impacts mental health by increasing cognitive performance and well-being, alleviating illnesses including depression, attention deficit disorders, and Alzheimer's. Whereas Parks and Rec is a leading provider of healthy meals, nutrition services, and education, and programming, such as out-of-school time programming, youth sports, and environmental education, which are all critical to childhood development. So Parks and Recreation also increases the community's economic prosperity through increased property values, expansion of the tax base, tourism, and the attraction and retention of businesses, and most importantly, reduction in crime. The parks and recreation programs are fundamental to the environmental well-being of our community. The City of Homestead Parks and Recreation Department is committed to enhancing the lives of residents and visitors by providing safe, accessible, and inclusive recreational opportunities, facilities, and programmings that serve individuals, families, seniors, and youth throughout our community. and the U.S. House of Representatives has designated July as Parks and Recreation Month. So by virtue of the authority vested in me as the Mayor of City of Homestead, I hereby proclaim the month of July, 2026, as Parks and Recreation Month in Homestead. And Pedro, I can have you and your team come forward.

I guess my team's being shy right now, but here we have Leroy, our foreman, who takes care of all of our sports fields. We have Alondra, who does all of our summer camp after school care, recreation programs. Here's some of the field crews, Sandro and Lago. We got Junior, who oversees all the city's landscaping. We have Eric, one of our park managers. And we have Alex, our operations manager. um i want to go ahead and just announce a few events that we still have for the remainder of the month the full calendar is available at homesteadfl.gov and posted on the city's instagram and facebook page but our next one will be tomorrow at mayor roscoe warren park we're having a free throw competition at 4 pm so come out bring your kids it'll be fun and go ahead and visit the website to see the full calendar for the remainder of the month if not i will be here for like an hour reading these but thank you all

Well, thank you, Pedro. And that concludes our presentation agenda for this evening. Again, thank you and congratulations to all who have been recognized. We cannot put into words our thanks and appreciation. So with that, I will adjourn this agenda, and we will convene the Community Redevelopment Agency meeting in about five minutes. Thank you all.

See?

Hi, if we could all take our seats so we can continue tonight's agenda items. So good evening, everyone, and welcome. I'd like to call the City of Homestead Community Redevelopment Agency meeting to order. Today is Tuesday, July 7, 2026, and it is now 535 PM. Madam Clerk, can we have a roll call, please?

Board Member Canabal. Here. Board Member Kahn. Here. Board Member Avila. Here. Board Member Roth. Here. Board Member Fletcher. Here. Vice Chairwoman Bailey. Here. Chairman Lozner.

Here. All right, so to deviate a little bit, what I would like to do is have a motion to place this meeting in recess, to move forward to open the council meeting for the sole purpose of having the legislative update, and then we'll come back to the CRA rather than having our senators and representative endure the CRA meeting because they're on the second. So it's been moved and seconded. All in favor? Aye. All right. So now, good evening, everyone. I'd like to call the City of Homestead City Council meeting to order. Are you ready, Madam Clerk? Okay. Call the regular Homestead City Council meeting to order. Today is July 7th, and it is now 536 p.m. Can we have a roll call, please, Madam Clerk?

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

I'm here, and we're going to deviate slightly from the agenda. First, for the sole purpose of receiving our legislative update, understand we are graced with the presence this evening of our very own Senator Ana Maria Rodriguez. Representative Kevin Chambliss is here, as well as Senator Alexis Calatayud. together with a whole roomful of, well, we don't call them lobbyists anymore, our government relations folks, Jose Fuentes, Jose Diaz, and who did I miss? So come on down and let's have that update. Thank you all for being here tonight.

Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council, thank you for having us. I'm going to be very brief because we have three elected officials, and three very important elected officials for the city of Homestead. As you know, we had a good year in the state, the budget of $117 billion with almost million slashed, but yet Homestead benefited in this legislative session like no other city in Miami-Dade County. I'm going to let Jose Diaz from Levy & Associates say a few words and then he'll introduce the members.

Thank you members of the Council, I think the first thing I want to do is is thank the city manager and his staff because. They make our jobs so much easy because when the when the appropriation staff and the House and the Senate call and say hey, can you explain this project or we have a question about this. We can get the answers from them immediately and get it to staff and that that just makes things so much easier for us. And in addition, I'd love to say it was me and Jose Fuentes, the two Jose's, but the reality is, is that we have such a strong delegation from the area of Homestead with Senator Ana Maria Rodriguez, who has served four years already, six years, so yeah. Yeah. Senator Callity you and representative Kevin chambliss they work together they're constantly you know a lot of this stuff is done. Is done you know with private meetings that are going on when they're negotiating and we're in conference. And our senators and representatives are there knocking on the doors, making sure that the homestead is represented and that we're on those final lists that come out when the budget's put together. So I'll let them say a few words. Thank you.

Thank you, Jose.

Thank you, Jose and Jose. Good evening, esteemed mayor, vice mayor, and council members. It is truly an honor to represent the city of Homestead in Tallahassee. It is obviously a labor of love and something that we do as a team. Obviously, having a great government affairs team up there around the clock is very helpful, but having you all come up during day days or during other times, you know, throughout the session and committee meetings, as many of makes a big impact. As Jose just said, you know, having this great delegation of myself, Senator Kalariud, Representative Jim Mooney, who wasn't able to be here this evening, but he also does a great job representing the city, and of course our delegation Vice Chairman Kevin Chambliss. We really do a lot of the work. It's not in front of the scenes, but a lot of these deals that get cut and things that get into the budget happen in the wee hours of the evenings at the very last moments of session. And as you all saw, as far as appropriations are concerned, we got over $7 million in the over nine, I'm sorry, nine million, of which some of that got vetoed. So today we are here to do a check presentation for what didn't get vetoed, which thankfully were two projects. And even with the vetoes, this is still more money than we've ever gotten from Tallahassee during a legislative session. So I think that in and of itself is a tremendous accomplishment. And so we got projects, the Northeast 18th Avenue bridge improvements, as well as the potable water and storage. for a grand total of $3 million. So with that, we will take a photograph if you all would like.

We'll all come down and join you. Anything from either Senator Calatute or Representative Chambliss?

I'll pass it to them if they want to say a few words. We'll come down.

Greetings, everyone. I ask Senator Kalani to join me because there were a couple of things that we did want to mention from the legislative end because we saw how hard this community was fighting to protect our UDB boundaries. It was a bipartisan effort joined by Mayor Lozner and others to say that This not only represents protection of agriculture, but it represents the identification of our culture here in South Dade, and we stand together firm on that. And so while in the House, on my end, I stood up, spoke against, and voted against that particular legislation, on the Senate end, they actually went a step further, and they're the ones who dealt the killing blow by taking that language out of the piece of legislation so that Tallahassee cannot come down here to the city of Homestead and South Dade and tell us how our communities are supposed to look. Senator, if you want to expound on that.

Thank you, Representative. Thank you, Vice Chair. In the Senate, We worked diligently, Senator Garcia, Chair Rodriguez and I, going to the Senate President early and communicating Miami-Dade's position on the movement of the vote threshold for the urban development boundary. We asked for 100% commitment of the Florida Senate to maintain Miami-Dade's position of local control on the urban development boundary. We received that. And when one of the last days of session came and we received the bill from the House with the lowering of the voting threshold for the urban development boundary, I filed an amendment and we received 100% unanimous support of the Florida Senate to amend out the language of removing the voting threshold or reducing the local power for that issue. and sent it back and made sure, once again, we protected the urban development boundary. It only can happen in true partnership and like-mindedness. Without the representative, without the senator, without our collective advocacy, these things are not possible. And so we're so proud to represent the city of Homestead and to make sure your voice is heard.

Thank you. Thank you. Let's go down, council. Okay, so I need a motion to recess the council meeting. It's been moved. Second. Second. All in favor? Aye. All right. Matt, we need a motion to reopen the CRA. Motion to reopen the CRA meeting. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor?

Aye.

Okay, so we have had the... Roll call. Mr. Beck, do you have any deletions or deferrals for this agenda?

No, Chairman, I do not.

Well, let's take it to tab one then, and if you have an abbreviated presentation.

All right, very abbreviated. As the board directed in May, we have worked to negotiate potential terms on the redevelopment of the Crow Marketplace project. The terms that we are bringing back to you today as submitted by the proposer includes a couple of different elements. It begins with a three-year initial period of a lease rate at $1 per year that will serve as the redevelopment and stabilization period. After that time, beginning on year four, as we continue a lease, the development partner will pay the CRA an annual lease rate of $355,000. That lease rate will be credited towards the fixed for-sale purchase amount that would be executed at some point between that initial year of completion and five years, not to exceed $4 million, which would be the sale amount. And then in addition to the investment in the property and the sale, this includes the $2.5 million ask that we had contemplated at the Prior presentation of a CRA investment over those three years, roughly $833,000 per year to be invested into permanent improvements to the building that will always stay with that. Examples that we've discussed in the past have been the grease traps and the utility lines, water lines, things like that. as we look at this from the financial aspect we currently owe four million dollars four million sixty five thousand dollars on the property if you were to sell this today the purchase price would effectively retire that debt we are not looking at a sale today as we look to kind of reconcile the overall investment of this We will always consider with these larger projects the future tax increment that will generate based on the projections from our economic development consultant. We can estimate conservatively at least 1.5 to 1.6 million dollars over the life of the CRA. We also know this being a lease We have the benefit of drawing down the overall principle on the balance we owe on this loan. As you all may recall, we have also the benefit specific to this loan on this project, the ability to effectively write off the debt service payments from our tax rebate to Miami-Dade County. So when we get out to that potentially five to eight years window of selling the property, that delta between the principal payment of what we owe and what we would be paid for the sale of the building along with the projected tax increment would equal or surpass the $2.5 million investment. So that is the high level of where we're at in terms of the terms that have been proposed.

the development partners here uh so we can certainly answer questions and and uh go into further discussion but that is the introduction and overview okay i'd like to give you know the principal of the proposer the opportunity to come up and and you know uh add to fill in uh give their perspective on on the proposal that's before us and then we'll open it up for questions good evening and welcome good evening mayor and vice mayor and council

I'd rather open the floor up for a discussion and answer questions technically. On a high level, I was surprised by a lot of the numbers that came to about prior to my initial submission. Most of it was fact-finding for me. So the structure represented today is based on the economics that was absorbed by the city over the last four years, that there's a confluence of events between improvements, changes, debt service over the long term. So that offer is based on the economic factors that most

then with that let me uh open the floor to to questions from our board members who would like to kick it off remember roth thank you mayor a couple things

You say we have debt service of about $4 million. What do we have in total expense in that building right now?

The total amount related to the overall what we have called the Crow Marketplace project is roughly $1.25 million in improvement beyond our debt service payments. Now, a couple of things to point out for that is that, as we have called it the crow marketplace improvement, there are elements of that that have nothing to do with the building. For example, we paid or spent, I believe it was roughly $350,000 for the undergrounding of the utility lines from Washington the construction signage, so on and so forth that don't count towards that. The actual amount that has been invested specifically to the building that we look at since the CRA has acquired the property is between about $750,000 and $800,000.

So we can say we got $5 million in the building?

Yes.

Okay, so we got $5 million in the building. We're talking about selling the building for $4 million. That's a million-dollar loss on our end, plus if we if we do a lease to them we're giving them credit for the lease payments towards the principal amount of the loan that they will have right so correct so to me this is not a good situation this is not a lease option for the city to enter into i don't believe in selling the property for a million dollars less than what we've got into the property although it's not an investment it's a more of a quality of life purchase or investment that we made years ago i think that we need to really look into the future of that location and i'll leave it for that to for now and then i'll hear more comments and then i'll have more thank you thank you board member roth

Can I answer that? Sure. My perspective, and I think this is the same observation that happened in the last five submissions. So I'm the fifth submission to the city for the same property for the same reason. The reality of the situation is the city paid $1.5 million more than you should then you made capital improvements, approved $1 million, more than you should have. The roof is built at 16 feet for a hospitality structure, when any hospitality in the country, AAA rated, would tell you immediately no. Because by the time you account for HVAC that has to be stripped out of the property, and then you can drop ceilings within the your ceiling itself needs to be restructured. So the cost of the $4 million, if you look at the building itself, all I see on a usable structure basis is just the dirt and the four shelves of the concrete. The interior of the building is completely empty. There's no electrical, no plumbing, electrical panels, no subterranean infrastructure, and even the historical HVAC system that should be there, it is gone. That building, for all intents and purposes, is just concrete. So the assessment on the property itself is nothing more than the shell of a concrete space and nothing more, and maybe some glass windows. But as you guys have seen in our proposal, glass windows, we're knocking everything out and we're revitalizing the entire front face of the But from an investment standpoint, from a cost appraisal standpoint, the city paid more than you should have for the property because the entire infrastructure, when you paid for the capital improvements to replace the roof, you stripped it all away because during your inspections you found yourselves that it was unusable. So those inspections should have occurred prior to the capital investment, prior to the purchase, and prior to overvaluation for the property. Now, I agree that regardless of the city's loss, and this is the difference between me and everyone else, I've spent the capital and investments upfront to understand the true mechanisms of what's going on in the city and what's going on within that property. What the other four submissions prior to me did not do was take the time and really assess the cost long-term. Your cost difference here is you're coming into a partner that understands what the city wants and essentially needs. we've overspent because we have surrounding developments in the market. And what we're willing to invest into that property is by far what you won't ever receive from anyone else.

Chair Stroud. Board Member Roth. Thank you. Are we also being asked to invest more money into the building?

We are being asked in addition to the sale to invest $2.5 million to physical improvements within the property, so yes.

So how do we recoup

Well, I'll make a few different comments on this. And going back to your earlier remarks in terms of selling a property below the value, as I understand it, the largest of the three buildings had been vacant for many years. The other two buildings had been underutilized for many years. As a CRA, we exist to take on those projects that the private market doesn't want to do. If the private market saw that there was an opportunity to pay $4.2 million for those properties, rehabilitate them, and put them into active use, they would have done it. Our investment in that was what CRAs do in these cases, right? We're taking blighted property that is in the core of our historic downtown and willing to make a further investment in a deduction of that to have a meaningful use that returns them to active investment, active use. The $2.5 million that's being asked of the CRA to further invest in that, that would be done over these first three years in which three years at least, that it would be under the city CRA's ownership. So we have control of that. If at some point in that term the development partner says this is not a good deal and we want to walk away, that is something that we retain along with all of the investment that he's made in that property. So I think we have to look at it more from the aspect, or at least I look at it from the aspect of not just in terms of the dollars that we're investing in it, but this is a part of what we do as an agency and we have a broader goal of rehabilitating those blighted properties as such a key part of our historic downtown and Chrome Avenue.

Great. As this is written, what is their cash investment?

Their cash investment is approximately $9.9 million.

Over what period of time?

Our construction and TCO, which needs to be done in 24 months. We already have LOIs for six tenants of the eight that were promised into the city, so we have a short one, which really is within 12 months. The first 12 months, separate from our 24-month runway, I'm assuming there's going to be engagement with the city of Homestead and the procurement process that is special.

It just seems like, you know, you're talking about $11 million to improve 18,000 square feet. Mm-hmm. Seems like an awful lot of It just doesn't, to me, justify the whole thing. So I'm going to rest for now and let everybody else talk, but I just think the numbers just don't add up.

And let me share that perspective for you. The counter would be, what would be the cost of a single restaurant going across the street? the true cost of a grease trap in today's market, the true cost of an HVAC system, the true cost to run a health department for one individual restaurant. Your range for a single restaurant would be half a million, a million dollars for a brand new shelf space on a single This is eight restaurants, a coffee shop, and a full-fledged bar with outdoor seating. So you're running eight parallel grease traps, a centralized tank, HVAC systems, and cost magnifies based on population. So it looks like a large number, but when you refine it to a single space, a single-use tenant, you're well below the margins of cost per square foot basis on a single tenant. Across the street, for example, you guys go out to market, I've got the name of the restaurant that came to market, their capital expenditure for that one restaurant was just under $2 million by themselves. So for us, we streamline the process. Now, their cost as a landlord, they're right around $65 a square foot. By centralizing all of this on a single basis, what you're doing is instead of all the tenants spreading the cost to find $2 million or $1 million to build out that infrastructure, we're able to bring to market something between the $25 to $30 range per square foot. the build-out costs for individual restaurants can go to market much faster, and really an absorption rate for your urban core, which is your central activation, you're essentially bringing eight businesses in a time span that, pragmatically speaking, the urban core of Cormier Avenue hasn't done in five or ten years. So we're solving, and my perspective is we're bringing eight businesses plus two, a bar and a restaurant, a bar and a coffee shop in a two-year span to which the city hasn't been able to attract two or three businesses in that same five or ten-year span.

Chair Stroud.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the updates, for the analysis, for the proposal. To my colleague, I see everything that you're pointing out, and the numbers are quite astonishing when it comes to the overall investment. I don't want to lose this opportunity tonight, but I don't think that this is a slam dunk win in terms of a negotiation. I did ask what was the process and the procedure for how we negotiated these terms. And I can sense our director's confidence in the structure, but I really would like to have our legal team go back at this and give it a real thorough review and renegotiation to see where we can crunch as much as possible, where another set of eyes could look at this. Because while I know Matt reviewed this with the team, I don't think that the... the perspective of negotiating the terms was tasked to him. And similar to how we went in with SPH and larger contracts, I would like for this to be taken a look at in that same way. So if there's an appetite to continue negotiations, that would be my supportive vote for tonight would be to continue to negotiate with that direction. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Vice Chair?

Thank you, Cheney. So obviously real estate leases, not my wheelhouse, but I do have a vision for what the CRA wants to do. And we can't look at it in the same way that we look at investments for the city. It's obviously been a building that we have wanted to do something for so long. For me, my biggest concern as of the last meeting was how do we protect the further investment that we're putting in there? And as far as I could understand from the lease and the questions that I was asking, having that three-year lease and the client also putting their investment in, it seems like a win-win for us as long as within those three years we have the right to pull out however we deem necessary if something is not being followed. So that would be the piece that I would want to understand is Where is it dangerous for us to go into this, these negotiations if the proposer is willing to put even more money into it? I don't see how we are not protected. Do you have any clarification? Mr. I can share a caller for this. Ms. Okay, please.

Mr. At your current land basis, this is what we call it, development space, at the land basis you paid for, which is a million your carrying costs on your debt service is roughly, I mean your bank note is roughly 4% but realistically it's 6% with their origination. The city's paying roughly $375 a year, so the original, what you should have paid, the original $3 million has become $5 today. In the next 12 months, you're looking at $7 million because that number is just the pure cost of the land of the project, right? What I've found, and I'm looking at all the other CRA properties, all the other city properties, the true cost of maintaining a site or location over a one- or two-year lifespan plus a bank service, all your city employee staff are not calculating those numbers. You're spending more holding onto that property than a private developer would to just build it out and give it out for free. The city employee costs are not factored in there. The utility infrastructure costs aren't there. And every time a building department has to go in to offset to verify and maintain it in the CRA time or the city's attorney's time factor, you're looking at realistically half a million to a million dollars more on top of separate what's being illustrated. You can illustrate what is the interest for a land that you, for building your purchase. But all of your, even for this tonight, we're spending 30 minutes here, the city attorney and then CRA director and all their staff, their engagement for the last nine months of me, but prior to that, your four prior submissions, there's at least $2 million of costs that are really allocated into this. You're spending more money keeping the property than you are to develop it. And the tax revenue that can be generated from those eight businesses that are coming in, they're long-term loss So it's a matter of perspective, in my opinion.

Since day one, I have envisioned this food hall. And honestly, this is the proposal that I have felt is the most promising. It has always seemed like you've got a clear vision of what you want to see there. Those opportunities for smaller restaurants to be able to grow and go get their own space if they would like. For me personally, I wish I had a crystal ball and know if something better was going to come along. But I just feel like we've been doing this for a while. And if there are questions as far as how the city can protect themselves, definitely we need to look into all of that. But I exhausted the questions that I could ask that felt like we were getting what we needed to make this vision happen. So that's what I have so far. Thank you.

Anyone else to my left? Board Member Fletcher. Yes, thank you. And I'm sorry I didn't ask this question earlier in my briefing, but when did we actually purchase the building, the actual date?

I don't have the exact closing date. It was in 2023.

It was in 2023, so we expended $4 million at that point in time to purchase the facility. I'll tell you from the beginning, I haven't been a fan of the project. It's, you know, hearing Councilman Roth, and I'm going to listen to his expertise in the rental market, I think, you know, short term, this is a, it's a money loser for us. But if we don't do anything, it's a money loser for us. CRAs are built to help to try and reinvigorate. I'm kind of open to what everyone else has to say, but I've not been a fan of this project from the beginning. However, if we continue to let it sit there, I think the value goes down even more. So we have to We have to move something rather quickly in order to create some type of movement downtown. I don't know if this is that or not. I would be more interested to see if the terms could be changed a little bit. Specifically, the lease purchase portion, I think, needs a little more detail to it for me. So I'm holding on to my vote right now, trying to Just noodle it around a little bit, but it's a tough decision. In the letter from Kevin Crowder, it also talks about a piece of property in Delray Beach that they had an opportunity to sell for, it was appraised at $15 million and they were gonna sell it for $2 million. It didn't go through and now the land value is zero, because nobody wants it. So there's time for action, and there's time for waiting, and we need to do something. I don't know what it is yet.

Thank you. Thank you, Board Member Fletcher.

Thank you. Just a few more points for consideration. I agree with Vice Chairwoman's comments. I do think that the contract having some phasing and some real clear control measures on how we have matching with investments I think would be prudent for the council to have for the for the board to have. And as well as, you know, looking at this from a perspective of, you know, that two and a half million dollars at the end of the day, with regards to the gap from what we've invested into what the purchase prices and the overall re contribution from the CRA for building out. That's an investment that the CRA would be making into the success of this venture. And that's essentially what the CRA does is we invest in these types of projects to make sure that they're successful. I want to make sure that we have looked at every nook and cranny of the negotiations. And I think Matt's a big hitter with that. So I would have more confidence knowing that there was that extra shot.

at refining the negotiations so i mean if we can just give direction to continue the negotiations and try to bring it back at the july second council meeting of july i think that doesn't hurt thank you so let me let me weigh in then and then you can address board member avala and my comments first i want to say to staff and i know that you are not the cra director who who proposed this acquisition, nor was this the city manager who had oversight. There's a really serious allegation here tonight that our appraiser missed the mark three years ago by a million dollars. And there may not be probably no remedy there, other than we need to be sure that if our current professional staff believes that to be the case, that we no longer utilize that appraiser. many of the comments that were made tonight, I agree, this is a money loser. And not to justify it, but isn't that kind of what CRAs are meant to do? They're meant to spend public money to promote the elimination of slum and blight and economic development and revitalize our, in this case, our downtown. So I don't want to be quoted out of context in this, But that portion of this proposal doesn't bother me near as much as what I'm going to talk about next. So in my council briefing, I came away with the understanding that at least from Bear Atlantic's perspective, this was it. No further negotiation on the price, the stabilization period, the timeframe within which to exercise that right of purchase, no escalators on the rent, and further, no restrictions on the use of the property, which when I say the property, that includes the non-contiguous parking lot, that no restrictions to maintain this property parcel of property within this arena of use would not be acceptable. So what really, you know, and that concerns me because let's not forget first and foremost, Bear Atlantic is a developer of subsidized and workforce housing. They're not a commercial, true commercial developer. it's always been my fear that if this food hall concept fails there may be a way to do some assemblage to utilize the separate parking lot and this to do something that we really never envisioned downtown so the resistance to any use restrictions are very problematic to me equally problematic is that your right to purchase at $4 million today, tomorrow, next year, or 12 years from now, when the lease payments have pretty much consumed that $4 million, the city gets no benefit in a potential increase of the value of the dirt or that shell that surrounds the effort and the capital that that you're putting into those four walls and and that roof we we don't share in that uh certainly we wouldn't ask to share in that if you would buy it today with some use restrictions give us a mortgage certainly a payoff period earlier than 12 years from now. So those are the real concerns of mine that, not to be greedy, but you can pay us $355,000 a year, 12 years, retire that $4 million purchase price, and then assign the right to purchase to another party for several million dollars in excess of that four million dollars. So in that regard, the city has not really gotten the benefit of its investment. So that's, you know, if we're at the point where you have gone as far as you are willing to go for this project, I can't support it. But let me say this. If what you propose in terms of use and build out and look and vibrancy comes to pass, you've really hit a home run. And I think that's what we would all like to see. But we've got to balance that with our responsibility to the taxpaying public to be good fiduciaries of of land deals let's say and these these types of projects and again that kind of comes back to let's say we're going to you know in the words of i guess board member roth we're going to lose a million million and a half dollars okay we for that investment we got this gym downtown but there's no guarantee and there's no protections in place with that option to purchase, that we are going to have that or be protected in other financial matters. So if you are at the end of your talking points as to what's here, I can't support this.

Let me address your points or questions in a few segments. The first one was part of my conversation with Matt and understanding your, the city's requirements for use My only opposition was to both financially and legally justify the basis of what we're requesting. Because for all intents and purposes, as we said, we're talking about 19,000 square feet. We have single-family homes with bigger lots than the product. The restrictions of, hey, we're going to put a high-rise on 19,000 square feet is, for all intents and purposes, is not rational, it's not financially feasible. Why would someone logically spend $4 million to buy an existing structure to save time in construction just to renegotiate and demolish it and then have a covenant of restrictions for a grant money that is tied to hard infrastructure? So the basis of why I said this was a sort of absurdity is because both financially it would bankrupt both me and the project the next morning I even thought of the idea. And secondly, from a legal basis, your own zoning, your own land use prevents such from ever happening at all. And it's not a merger between the parking lot and the building itself, because we're talking 19,000 square feet, which is smaller than I'm sure your office is here. And the parking lot is across the street. It is not contiguous. There is no way I can do a sky bridge to connect a high-rise building on a corner lot that is smaller than a gas station's interior footprint. So the only thing that restricted would go to serve is when we, when I spend the next 10 years building out the facilities, running out the infrastructure, operating tenants and paying my staff to run those entities, that time and effort, that step up in value, we created because we stepped in to which five other vendors could not, right? So that value proposition for us makes the most sense because we're taking the time and commitment for the next 10, 20 years, because we're not going anywhere, into a property. So it's unf, so let me rephrase And from a, and I understand your challenge is you as a city councillor and what you actually are facing. Part of what you have to do is fight as a constituent for your residence, right? But for all intents and purposes, the business decisions around that property and the five others that are unrelated to If you were in a private sector, a bank would have foreclosed on your assets. The only thing that's saving the city is because it's public municipality. The bad business, you make bad business decisions and you're asking two, three, and four other developers to step in to fund the mistakes of the past, that is what's being asked of me. And not even in an unfair biased way, I understand that if you look at your charrettes going back 10 years, your feasibility studies, economic impact studies, your traffic studies, the road changes, or even on Chrome Avenue, the city on multiple occasions have proposed like a blanket land use conversion to entertainment. Those are great ideas and it should have been implemented, but you're facing not a challenge of finance, because the city can always find money. You're facing a challenge of stagnation. You're not making, like in my opinion, the city's not making cohesive choices and it's not, I mean CRA was not here when that decision was made. But those decisions, going back two years, are compounding. And what most residents will never understand is, fast forward in five years, if you maintain, let's say, the main old CDL site, the shotgun site, this old building, and then the Homestead Flat site, the six others that the city owns privately, Your interests on the on are gonna supersede and you're gonna bankrupt. The only way to fund any of those projects move forward is to raise the taxes in the city. So on a regular perspective, hey, I would be a private development. I would I would not share this right? Um, meet and this is what the other developers, the other four developers not do. they're not willing to risk and, like, articulate the truth of the matter. Truth of the matter is that urban core down Chrome Avenue needs to be revitalized. It's not a right way or a wrong way. Someone has to make the choice and to say, listen, good, bad, or whatever, we need to take the initiative of the feasibility studies that were created, the CDP-4, four different firms The same four firms over the last five or ten years have said the same thing that the city has not implemented. Ultimately, this same property and this same activation, if you look at the last three charrettes, everyone has said the same thing in the last four feasibility studies, economic impact studies. They're saying the city needs to activate Lawson Park, then moving forward, going down on Crum Avenue, you need to activate it in order to justify the expenditure across the entire corridor. There's also statements about, hey, the city is not ready to, for security purposes or traffic studies or road improvements, we want to wait for it. You want to make road improvements without taxable income or just our businesses that was going to utilize or benefit from those road improvements. How does that make sense? So my position is very simple. So that corridor needs to be redeveloped, whether it's me or 50 other people that have been here presenting the same case. In the same case, the other observation for the City Council is everyone south of Coconut Grove and South Dade, Miami-Dade County, has the exact same problem. It's traffic, it's parking, and it's quality of life. We all know that, most of the Council would know that the reason why we can never do a second-lane expansion or a second corridor is because FEC, State of Florida, and Miami-Dade County have said, you need a minimum population. You need a, that you're 250 They're not willing to spend $10 billion to open a secondary Activision corridor until you make that investment. The other Activision is we want to bring, you know, 100,000 square feet of commercial space of offices. The pragmatic reason is, yes, that makes logical sense. But on the other side of that is, if tomorrow morning I decide to build a high-rise and it's solely offices, You don't have the quality of life of, even if I give my rent free to Amazon to say, of all companies, here's 100,000 square feet of offices, bring your employees here. You don't have the housing for it, you don't have the roads for it, you don't have the parking for it, and you don't even have the restaurants and bars for it. So in my opinion, I'm solving a small issue to which you can leverage and transition. So that investment is multiple fold. The parking situation? It's 18 parking spaces across the street, but ultimately it's the same problem. You can't build, the same reason why, let's say a developer, unrelated to me, won't invest and build a parking garage as part of development is because anything on the second floor and above, the cost of a parking garage is $18,000 to $26,000 per parking space. You go to your third storey, that is the cost. The urban core needs four parking garages, and the entire core map needs to be redeveloped, and the road. The city has to pick when and where. This is the small piece of the puzzle that has to happen, and that's my perspective. Councillor Neill.

Any further? Councilman, or Board Member Roth first, followed by Board Member Avila.

Thank you. Question. The $9.5 million or whatever they're going to be investing into this Have they showed you any proof of finance? Have they showed they have money in the bank? Have they showed any note structures or anything from lenders that are going to help them achieve that goal?

No, I have not asked to see the documentation. I think Kevin has that available for us, but we have not gone into that.

I think that's a critical point because if we're going to invest another $2.5 million into a $5 million project, that's $7.5 million on our part where we're going to maybe four million dollars of the seven and a half million dollars that we have invested so i think i don't think we're close enough yet to make an educated decision on this project when it comes to the finances i think the terms of the agreement um at four million dollars is is truly not fair to the city or to the cra and i think we need to look at at those aspects But I'd really like to know if the developer has the wherewithal to do what he says he can do. He made a comment that you're being asked to do something. We never asked you to do anything. You came to us. So I think the burden is on you to show that you can actually do what you say you're going to do for us. For us to agree to invest another $2.5 million into a $5 million project already is a very, very long reach, I think, in my opinion. So I'd like to get that information, the finances, who's actually going to be funding their part of it. Obviously, you think we have this endless tank of money, which we do not. But you're making references to that based on your assumptions. But I think we need to know if this developer has the ability to actually perform if we enter into an agreement with them. Thank you. Chairman.

So.

Thank you, I just wanted to make mention for the further negotiations that one of the first things that I had mentioned when we had the unsolicited unsolicited proposal come in was my desire to see a D restriction with regards to residential. so just keep that in mind as you continue um you know seeing phasing vetting of the of the proposer the restrictions you know fine-tuning the terms and and final investment um if if if we're not potentially seeing the fruit of our investment until year eight the latest according to this um Councillor Stroud.

Let me correct myself at that point. Ms. Sure. My original offer was a straight cash purchase for that amount. During the negotiations, and this is the sticking point which is challenging, I didn't find out the true financials of this until maybe two months ago. I didn't know the property had debt service on the property. I didn't know any of this. So I'm six months in, then I'm finding out the true cost and So from your perspective, you have the advantage of having the historical financials, having staff to provide you with information. I have to pull the information that I did not have. So the original offer was a cash purchase and then unfortunately because of your structure of your debt service, even if I paid you, paid the entire cash tomorrow you have balloon payments that will kick into effect. You have fees associated with your bank note. You didn't finance it traditionally through like a tax incentive financing. So through negotiations with the CRA and the city attorney's office, it was the one that most economically made sense and financially allowed both the CRA and the city to keep their cash fees not being paid to the bank. So I restructured the deal instead of a cash purchase tomorrow morning to a phase-based lease because of your existing debt service. You have a 30-year mortgage on the property that if you pay off tomorrow morning, you have a massive fee balloon that's being paid.

Thank you. Yeah, I'd like to continue to think that this is a potential catalyst for our downtown and that our investment into this project would would trigger those other things that we can be a little bit more intentional or more controlling on but I do think that there is opportunity to fine tune this more. Okay, I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. So let me ask you this. You've heard our concerns and our questions on a lot of different levels and from different angles. Are you interested in continuing to sit down with our attorneys and the CRA staff to attempt to address those concerns, or have we come to the end of the road?

I'm amenable to having those conversations because I know staff is, I mean both myself, I know what the city can be and will be. We just have to have a brash reality of what is the true economic like situation of that project. I think that's going to be the middle ground. Like we can lay it all out in Excel and then row by row show the true cost and true comparison of even if you just hold it for the next 12 months, you would have spent more money on a project sitting on it than anything else.

okay just for my a moment ago when you mentioned that you had made a cash offer but at that time you did not know some facts until you learned a couple of months ago that you didn't learn until a couple of months ago and i didn't catch what you were referring to so my original submission my unsolicited came in and

August, September of last year.

My question is, what did you find out recently that you didn't know then?

Your capital investments to the property that occurred between, let's say, March and now, right? Capital investments to the property, the ongoing carrying costs, the mortgage on the property, I didn't find out until maybe a week before the last CR meeting, which was maybe a month and a half ago. And this is kind of like the same stopgap. Me, as a developer, I understand that I'm coming to you and you're taking the perspective that I have all this information. But from a programmatic standpoint, and this is, I think this is the same hurdle that every other developer is facing when they come here because it takes six months just to understand the true financial mechanism of this. In this specific case, I think I'm going to use the four prior submissions just on this one property. Very few, like, because of the economics of this deal and how it's structured, unless you have surrounding assets to which it justifies the expenditure, I believe that's why the four walked away because they're not based on here, they don't have other assets here, they don't have other And then when you see, hey, it's just a shell space with no hard infrastructure, and then you have to expand on the hard infrastructure and then be tied to a city, those are things that most developers just didn't learn, or these last four didn't learn until six or nine months into negotiations. And it's not speaking bad of anyone, it's just the process of government, unfortunately. That is just how it is.

Mr. Beck, let me ask you or Mr. Pearl, whoever. I know philosophically we, well, in actuality we have incurred debt to buy this building. Is it actual mortgage debt or general revenue in the CRA secured by CRA revenue debt?

is the what is that called uh we pay it out of our we pay it through the tax increment it is a loan that has expired in 2043 and i think it is a bond and no but is the the property actually encumbered yes it is it is subtle search shows that it is encumbered by the bank okay

Because a little different from Old City Hall, for example. Right. Psychologically, we have debt with respect to that property, but it doesn't have to be retired when we receive money with respect to the sale of a portion or portions of that parcel. Okay. I wasn't sure whether it was an actual mortgage. Yeah.

So if I can add just a couple of other comments on this. You know, I think we've had in our briefings this discussion at times that this is in some ways as a project a problem for us, right? We've already heard in terms of the amount that was spent on acquiring the property, the amount that's been spent in improving or investing the property of the surrounding You know, part of our goal, my goal, purpose of being here as a CRA is to try to help us get out of that in a way that has a positive impact in the overall role of downtown as well as affects our redevelopment plan. You know, the ROI that we have from a project like this, at least from my seat, is much less about the dollars and the cents and what are we getting back. It is about activating these blighted properties within downtown. It is about the pedestrian foot traffic. It is about the visitor spending. The proving our market, which is something that we get asked constantly on every potential project, and there's also the ability to market and promote our downtown. There's a whole lot in terms of what that ROI is for us that's not really about the dollars and cents. I can always appreciate and respect the board's desire to want to get a little bit better deal. I also want to remind the board that the last deal that got to this place was two years ago, right? And that's a deal that walked away in trying to get a little bit better of a deal. So I want to be very sensitive as we have this conversation with both the as well as our legal counsel that helped facilitate the purchase of this property that we are doing this in a way, if we are going to pause and come back, that it is in a very good faith effort to find something that is both workable for the CRA as well as for the developer as we bring this forward. I also want to add one other point to this in that, and I think, Chair, you and I had this discussion during our briefing, you know, I have always been challenged in terms of the amount that was expended on the purchase of this property private market was never willing to pay that, and no food entity or entertainment venue would ever do that. That is a purchase we made, an investment the board was willing to make of those funds to put this into a more, you know, meaningful use. That said, while it may be you know, I want to say hypothetical dollars for the proposer, they're real dollars to us. What I would have liked to have seen as I've become familiar with this project is a much more detailed package that would have been presented to this board so you were able to make a truly educated vote on buying this, not only in terms of a potential future investment in the property, a write-down in the resale of it, but what it actually costs to turn this into productive use. This summer we had an evaluation or a study done to start to understand just at a rough level to get this property into even that, you know, what we would call the shell that we could be using with the general structure of the building, we're looking at least $3.5 million, if not more. And that's not including the factoring in the time to get to that place, then trying to find a potential development partner, restaurant partner, then factoring in tenant improvements, and then we find ourselves in a landlord situation, which is the last thing a CRA should be doing. So even if we look at it from that perspective, and I think there's been some different discussion of do we do this ourselves, Well, we're already going to be $8.5 million, $9 million into it. And so as we've had these conversations with the proposer in terms of his $9 million investment and how does that break down, from my seat, I'm really not necessarily concerned with that. I'm concerned with the end product and how we get this in a way that is meaningful. And in using a scenario like this, this is an approach that actually comes at potentially a cost savings versus us saying, well, do we want to do it ourselves? I realize that was a long, long comment, but if we are going down the path of wanting to re-look at this with our legal counsel, I do want it to be very mindful of where we're at, the years that have gone into this, and the things that, at least from our seat, we really see as the most important aspects of a project like this happening.

May I? I want to share some color for the history of the project because it's like our firm really took the time to, one, not just read the prior proposals, we made phone calls and called every single submission to understand the real obstacles here. But rather than me to go down that route, what I'm going to share with you is a comparable with another city. And a good analysis comparison would be, let's say, the Omni CRA or the Overtown CRA and how over the last 20 years they've revitalized that urban core. Most of it for their disadvantage was extremely light poverty, drug stricken areas, and things that are unusable. To your benefit, you at least have a corridor that is maintained clean and safe all around. So your burden of revitalizing that corridor is really just taking the opportunity and risk investment on really ten properties on that corridor, and then from that the existing landlords will be incentivized to revitalize their own projects. The stopgap today is every other current building on the street, they've had their property for 10 or 15 years and you have not seen any cosmetic beautification on that And it's very simple, it's a math equation. The tenants on that corridor cannot afford to pay more than roughly $25 to $40 a foot. A capital improvement to a landlord, let's say the school that just shut down, it went up for market to sell, across the street from Cormier Avenue, it went up for sale for the same building footprint for roughly, original offer was $1.6, it sold for roughly $2.5 million. And that was across the street. But they're building another school there or a clinic there. The activation in terms of utilization for the remaining street, if it's restaurants or anything of that sort, the landlords won't make an investment on a corridor to which they don't see the city investing themselves. So they're going to keep the same tenants that you guys wrote legislation to force a conversion to an activation and But they're never going to make the investment to justify the expenditures because they can't afford the cost improvements. Separate from that, back to the Omni CRA, and I'm going to use their base case example and I'm not trying to badmouth anyone there. They've done a magnificent job because they'll do both TIF financing, grant financing, and then the debt service on this $85 million development project, the city absorbs and benefits from the interest against that service. So they have one that just completed construction, Moonwood Works. They gave UD $8 million of grant money. The project was roughly $110 million. The CRA funded it with both the city and the CRA. 2% of that goes back to CRA. So 2% annualized for the next 30 years on $100 million, that is how the CRA makes money. I think the perspective needs to change in understanding the financial mechanics of how these projects benefit the city on the long term. And then separate from that, I'm going to give you one more example. One mistake that Dominique CRA did was you'll look up and find a building called the Citizens Bank. The city and the CRA had the belief that they could internalize and make an investment and revitalize a historical building and keep it under books. They thought, and they spent more than $20 million on improvements, and today that property still sits empty after $20 million. That deficit's never going to change because as a city and CRA, your mandate is to accelerate development. The challenge is that I don't ever see a city, and I've never seen one in the past ever do, is understand the mechanics of how to run a business, how to run employees, how to order food, and then cultivate culture, hospitality in order to be successful. So the city just lost $20 million because they thought they could develop a property that is actually 25,000 square feet, roughly the same size as this building. Because on the long run, that building today, you can drive there tonight, right now, it is still empty, it looks beautiful, it looks like a brand-new historical bank, but it's never going to move because every developer, every tenant refuses to pay that $80 a square foot that the city wants for that building.

So again, you've heard our concerns, and I think you've indicated that you'd be willing to go back and take one more stab at it and bring it back. Mr. Beck? Your mic's on.

No, it is on. I don't believe I have anything else to add at this point.

Okay. Vice Chair, did you?

Just in closing, I mean, I think it's the same. For me, the questions that I knew to ask was how do we protect ourselves from the additional money that's going in there? So if maybe we can see a little more of a clear picture and there can be a promise where your two and a half is going in at the same time as our two and a half and that is protected by the years of the lease, that is the furthest that I can come as far. It's always a gamble. As I mentioned, I think that you have a very clear vision of what you see there. Those open windows and just picturing that being there and it being activated is just so exciting. So I understand it's scary and it's a gamble, but we've put this much into it so far. And help us with those few things. Hopefully we can get back on the 22nd and get this rolling. But thank you for your patience and continuing.

Oh, oh, I'm sorry. We're gonna work on ski.

Thank you. I think most of what I will say will just reiterate what we've all agreed to. Are we at a loss? We're at a loss. If we continue carrying it and don't move forward, we're still at a loss. But to reiterate what your point is, the director here, the priority is to revitalize downtown. And I think that's where the focus needs to be. We're looking at quality of life. and bringing restaurant generating business, generating movement, and quality of life to downtown homestead that's the priority here. Do I think that there is a way that we can confidently come to an agreement that is advantageous for both you and us, I think so, and I think that's that's kind of where we're landing here. Very positive that we can make this what we've all intended it to be you're offering not one but. Nine. 10. Eight restaurants, a bar, and a coffee shop.

I believe I submitted the LOIs to all the actual restaurants. Half of the restaurants already have three, is three, minimum three locations in Miami-Dade County. That was my requirement for them. So, mostly you'll know firsthand.

that's a lot to offer in one location and a lot to offer to downtown and serving the purpose of why we're here at this meeting is to revitalize downtown that's a priority so again i just you know everything we all agree to just wanted to to nail it home and tell you that yeah i agree that that's our purpose and to stay focused for what we're here is it a loss it's a loss but at the end of the day the purpose is to bring that business downtown and i think that's what we need to stay focused to thank you

brought first and then yeah i'm not against the project what i'm against is not knowing the financial uh ability of them uh the previous group that made an offer to the city had experience in food hall business i don't believe you do Do you?

So let me paint color here. I'm sorry? No, I am a traditional investor. My firm is built on government contracting. So the nuances of this is my...

Okay, well, you don't have any experience in a food hall business. No. And this is what we're trying to open here. Correct. So that's another concern. I get it. It's a loss. What I'm trying to protect is additional losses. So if we can get the financial information that they have the ability to do this financially, it will taste a little bit better. No pun intended to the food thing. That's all, thank you, Mayor.

And finally, Board Member Avila.

Thank you, Chair. So my colleague, Board Member Roth here does have extensive experience in the food industry many years ago, but his advice on this, his experience, his wisdom, It's very valuable, at least to me. I would love for this to be a unanimous approval when it comes back, but do your best to really meet all the issues and the challenges here. Director Jarrett has my full vote of confidence on this item. But I think Matt will seal the deal for us. And I do think Bear Atlantic could do it best in this situation. Your renderings, your design, your concept, your plan, it really is impressive. And in all the years that I've served up here, it has been one of the best presentations and overall concepts. So I really would love to see this be a deal done at the end of this month. So I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, I don't think there's anything further for us to direct or discuss on this item. I think you all have your clear picture. Okay, moving on to tab two regarding the installation for a placemaking feature at the Paseo Park on Mowry.

I thought the first one was going to be the fast one. Kidding. Kidding.

There you go thinking again.

As you all know, and I'm also going to ask, you know, to pull something up. As you all know, we have, I think you know, we have finished construction with what we've just internally been referring to as the Paseo Park, and that is the connection between the parking garage at Homestead Station, Lozner Park. You all had approved this last fall. We continue to try to find opportunities to create memorable moments within our downtown and those things that make people say, oh, isn't that great? This is such a cool place. And so you all have in your package what we had contemplated that was actually inspired by the lettering that I think came from senator rodriguez's office which was the big homestead letters what we have contemplated here is some type of lettering that would face into the paseo park and this would be installed on the rear side of the city-owned specific tagline and then of course the the question is we need to make sure folks know where so we have modified the versions that you had in your book and we have brought three which you all have in front of you and the audience can see on the screen that really shows the ways in which we can add in the future lives here. I see on the screen the colors are slightly distorted. We have followed, in general, the CRA brand colors that follow the city's brand colors. You may have seen some of the downtown logo, which follows Homestead logo. So we're working to really integrate this into what we're doing with everything else. The letters are, in terms of the future lives here, Approximately thirty six inches at height. When you look at the homestead from the top of the palm tree to the bottom of the age, that's about thirty six inches as well. So this is something that we'd like to proceed with and we were bringing it forward to you all to give any input on a preference in terms of the color placement, so on and so forth. So what we've given you is three different concepts. I think we had one that had the white homestead with the blue in the back. or the blue for the body lettering, a green for the future lives here, and a second option with a homestead at the bottom in one of the blue colors, and then we had an orange with the homestead at the bottom in the blue. I think from the conversations we've had, the preference leans more towards At least having homestead at the top from what everyone has said down to the bottom, we would have the future lives here. So if the board has a preference in terms of colors, you know, we'd certainly like to hear what that is. And then this is something we would proceed with in terms of the finalization of the sale park.

board member roth has weighed in with the first one board member thank you chair yeah the first one with the homestead just the way you read it homestead the future lives here and i think it's very appropriate that it's in the park where the kids are where the future of the city of homestead will be and you know the future lives here it's our tagline and i do want to be careful on how we maybe outplay it a little bit and you know, the other renderings that were in the packet, I think are nice too to maybe consider in other areas. So here in this spot as an entranceway to the park where our future will play, I think is great. What I would like to maybe consider if there's an opportunity maybe to add some, maybe some mural or anything to that back, the backwash of the with the building, maybe you have some silhouettes of children playing, something like that. If there's an ability to add that splash of, I don't know, extra picture, that'd be nice to see.

We'll get the sign up first.

I like the way it is.

You like the first one? Yeah. As do I. My preference is the Homestead lettering at the top in white with our branded blue, the future lives here.

Okay, go ahead.

Not to delay with a lot more discussion but i've got a crazy idea, so this is a high traffic area right or potentially soon to be very high traffic area. it's the it's about the photo OPS right so just picture homestead at the bottom larger than the future lives here that palm tree being a spot where somebody can stand in front of. And then, like in the middle of the palm tree maybe that palm tree comes up a little bit and it's somewhat of a sculpture coming over the fence. The person is standing at the trunk of the tree and then the future lives here is a little smaller along the same lines of we don't want to overuse or maybe use it bigger than homestead just an idea throwing it out there. To have a photo up there, I think, is something that we should consider and to stand there, where would you where would you be able to stand. So just something for consideration. Homestead larger underneath. You could stand in front of the palm tree and then the future lives here coming off the middle of the palm tree. I have a sketch here if anybody's interested. Why are you not surprised? Thank you.

Board Member Fletcher.

Yes, thank you. leaning towards option one but i also have a question in regards to we've spent a lot of time and money rebranding the city over the last couple of years and and coming up with a standard homestead and now this is different than some of the other ones that we've done

I think this script of Homestead is used in the downtown through CRA, and it's on the banners.

If you go on our website, it's different. On our letterhead, it's different. No, I agree. Just look for some standardization is all. Other than that, again, option one with the vice mayor's comments. That's all. Thank you.

And I would just echo the mayor's comments. So this is, I think, a part of what the city manager's office has looked at in terms of that broader future phase. And this is the similar or is the same font that's been used in the banners. And we're doing it more of the public facing, not internal working items. But very well heard. And if the deputy wants to add anything, I would certainly open that.

Good afternoon, Council Board. The homestead as reflected here is consistent with our Discover Homestead branding. So that is where that is, I guess, the genesis of it. It's the Discover Homestead branding palette that is referenced here. So there is consistency in that regard.

Thank you, Deputy Manager. Vice Chair, I think later tonight you may have the opportunity to encourage another proposer to use your artistic design and maybe an entrance feature for the revitalized football stadium and practice fields.

Board if I may?

Just saying. Did you have something?

Yes, thank you, Chair. I mean, the reason why I was asking for a little bit more oomph was because I did kind of see the opportunity to make it a little bit more picturesque and not so blocky and plain. So out of the options that I had, if I had to pick one, it would be option number one. But if there's appetite to do something a little bit more Instagrammable and more engaging, I would like to see that option. So I am interested in seeing your sketch see your sketch and put a price tag to it compared to what this would be and maybe bring it for the the next uh meeting if we're going to do a cr meeting no two weeks so i will tell you this is has taken some work in that this is a different uh

Some of the detailing that we have included, for example, the homestead script and the palm tree that is not standard with the manufacturer. So we've had to work to make sure that some of these things can can be done. Given the timeliness in terms of bringing these things back on an agenda, it may not be.

on our meeting for the 22nd but we could bring this back to the next meeting and with those couple options or yeah let's just see what we can do beyond that if these are our options it seems that option one wins put it in this perspective we've owned the shotgun property for 21 years what's another two weeks with a sign

we we will see what we can bring back even if just an update to distribute but then uh certainly work on more of a formal package then for a final decision good thank you thank you and then i will take that sketch because i'm not sure that my notes covered okay

all right so next we have before us the meeting the minutes from our meeting our last meeting we've been moved and seconded all in favor any opposed moving on to tab four and this is the potential acquisition of some real estate

Right, as I've shared with you all in our briefing, shortly after my starting with the CRA, the realtor for the property at 31 Northwest 4th Street had contacted me about potentially any interest the CRA may have in acquiring it. Given that this was at the time in which the CRA was underway with construction of the Crow Marketplace parking lot, this logically seemed to be another option for a potential for an additional public parking lot. The asking price at that time was more than $500,000 and it was not a range that we were comfortable with at the CRA proceeding with. So fast forward to now, that price has been reduced to $390,000. The property owner has had an appraisal done that came in at 390. The CRA had an appraisal done that came in at 375. We made a midpoint offer of 382.5 to potentially purchase this, and they countered this at $386,000. It is a vacant 13,000 square feet lot. The $386,000 counter is about $4,000 less than what the property appraiser establishes as a value of the property. And so this is an acquisition that the CRA would like to proceed with to, number one, secure this property, and then anticipate moving forward with the construction of another public parking lot similar to Crow Marketplace. We have funding within our land acquisition fund, so there's no having to look for that or identify that funding. And again, I think this aligns well with the appraisals and the overall goal we have with downtown. So this is requesting an approval from the board to proceed with the acquisition. And this ask is specifically to just the acquisition, acquiring the property, nothing more. Once we have that, then we can certainly look at what comes next in terms of construction.

All right, thank you.

yeah i'm okay with this the my only concern matt would be if uh are there any non-competes with the parking garage to build a parking garage for the city not a non-compete but we're also not building we're not contemplating a garage of this space at this time but if we wanted to if you want to

I will double check, but I don't believe this will be part of our due diligence.

I'm not aware of it. Because I mean, if we're going to buy it, I'd rather scrape it and build go up a few stories. So we have more space and just ground parking that would double triple the amount on the north side of Chrome Avenue. Yeah, so just look into that for us. Thank you. That's all.

Thank you. Remember, being further to my right. But moved and seconded. My only input would be is that I'd like the resolution, if it's not clearly stated now that someone would offer an amendment, it's clearly stated that this purpose is for the purpose of creating a public parking facility. So did you move it? yes and although that is the thought that i think we all have do we want to hold ourselves to that just in case something else comes up well i do given what's been discussed about granting easements that have no basis in fact i think we need to lock it into being a parking facility or walk away from it we're not buying land for somebody else's driveway

You know, the only other add-on to this, we've had the conversation with the representative of the property owner who also owns the corner property. Is there a potential for us to acquire all of that and look at this as potentially some future redevelopment site? There is zero willingness to even enter into any conversation on selling that corner lot. So at this point in time, from the CRA's perspective, this is for a parking lot. And there's really no other need or use for it at this time.

My final comment would be, as we go forward and do our due diligence, for you newcomers, that property is either adjacent or in close proximity to a former dry cleaners and two gas stations. So there will need to be...

And we do have working underway with having a phase one executed on that. So that is a part of the condition that we do have the ability to review this. Fortunately, doing a parking lot will essentially cap anything that's there for our use. So we don't really have a lot of concern in terms of the liability for the CRA.

But anything beyond that, if there's not going to be a restriction to a parking facility, which, by the way, I am not going to support this if it is not locked into being a parking facility.

Just FYI. Okay.

right so we've got a motion in a second is there anything further i don't think we need to take public comments did we have a vote on did i have an emotion to amend there was no motion to amend so this is the motion to uh to execute the agreement to to purchase as is with no restrictions so that's the case amount of court

Board Member Roth? Yes. Board Member Konski? Yes. Board Member Canabal? Yes. Board Member Avila? Yes. Board Member Fletcher? Yes. Vice Chairwoman Bailey? Yes. Chairman Lozano?

Nope.

The motion carries.

And our final item for the CRA agenda is tab five. Mr. Beck?

Tab 5 is a commercial enhancement grant application by CB Investments of Homestead, which we all know as Casita Tejas. The property owner, I think you all know this is directly across from Seminole Theater, has a parking lot on the south side of the building. Part of it is paved, part of it is not. This is an effort by the property owner to... pave the existing parking area that is not formerly paved, resurface the balance of the parking lot, new striping and wheel stops as a part of an ask for funds from the CRA. We would require, want to see improved landscape around the perimeter of this, lighting as it would be required, any appropriate signage or other improvements. The grant request was for the not to exceed the grant maximum amount of $25,000. The submitted cost estimates by the property owner range between $25,000 and $35,000. As a reminder, we do not reimburse 100%. This being in the core area means that we would never go more than 90% of the overall project cost based on reimbursable eligible expenses for this. I think that realistically, this will be a much more costly project than what they've anticipated in this. You know, particularly as we look towards lighting and landscape and whatnot. But this is a request for an approval to not exceed that amount. I believe that the property owner is and if she would like to speak, I'd certainly invite her to do so, but that is a summary of what this is, or the request is, rather. Okay.

Board, questions, comments? Do we have a motion?

I'll second the motion. Was there a motion? Yeah.

Moved by Fletcher, seconded by Avila.

Thank you. I do support this item. I just out of curiosity, if the property owner wanted to ever expand or do any additional redevelopment on the property, what's our term with regards to any repayment due to redevelopment? Is anything?

We do have a repayment. And I'm trying to remember. Let me ask the assistant director. We have a payment. I don't remember what the years are on this. chair is saying five years but you know i just wanted to make sure that there was some kind of window that you know if they wanted to redevelop sooner than later that that wasn't a restriction on them i know we have it as many years and for some reason i thought one of our grant uh stipulations was 10 years but it is a multiple number of years yeah we can look back and confirm that and i think um five hearing it is five being confirmed

Okay, so Kathy thought they has, I think, is a very local favorite. And that's a great, you know, a great venue to have in our core downtown. And I, you know, I look forward to, you know, improving the condition of the parking lot, which is right across from our seminal theater. So it's very quite visible. If there's any additional curb appeal that we can do to maybe enhance it as well, that would be ideal, but not a condition of the approval. But that's just my comments. Thank you.

Very good. Okay, so we have a motion and a second. If there's nothing further, let's have a roll call.

Councilwoman Avila? Yes. Board Member Roth? Yes. Board Member Canterbury?

Yes.

Board Member Fletcher? Yes. Board Member Kosky? Yes. Vice Chairwoman Bailey? Yes. Chairman Lassner? Yes. The motion carries.

All right. Any additional items, Mr. Beck? No. Does that conclude the agenda?

No, sir. That concludes our agenda for the evening.

All right, so we need a motion to adjourn. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor? And let's take five and we'll convene the council meeting.

We lost our pastor and the kids. The pal and the pastor.

Oh my goodness, okay. Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you, Maria. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, let's take our seats and see if we can get this agenda moving on. Okay, I need a motion to take the council meeting out of recess. It's been moved by Avila, seconded by Fletcher. All in favor? All right. We are now going, if I could have everyone rise, we'll have the invocation by Councilwoman Konski, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance, led by Councilman Canabal.

Councilwoman Konski?

Please join me in prayer. Most gracious and merciful Father, thank you for your goodness, for your faithfulness, for your love, and for your Son. We thank you for the opportunity to gather together, for the freedom and privilege to publicly offer up our prayers. We invite your presence into this place, Father. We ask your Holy Spirit would guide and direct each and every person here. Give wisdom, discernment, judgment, and integrity to all those who lead, great or small. May we be like-minded in spirit and purpose, giving praise, honor, and glory to you. We pray a special blessing over our great city of Homestead. May you show favor accordingly. We ask your blessing over all the items of business today, tomorrow, and in the days to come. May we always humbly approach your throne seeking your will and guidance. In the holy and precious name of Jesus, your son, we ask these things. Amen.

Amen. Councilman Campbell.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,

indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Please be seated. OK. It is now that time where we entertain general public comments. I will first go to those who have pre-registered. And first up is Brandi Ramirez. I know, Ms. Ramirez, you're still here. If you'd please come forward and make your comment. Good evening and welcome.

Good evening.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Brandi Ramirez, 2231 Southeast First Street. I'm trying to remember what I signed up for. Sorry. I'll try to make it fast. Oh, one of the questions I did have, I think I heard that customer service is now accepting utilities payments, making it more accessible for the residents, but I didn't see anything advertised. So if we can please advertise that so the residents are aware. and also tonight there's an agenda item for lee jardine i just want to make sure that our council and mayor are aware that our community is very supportive of lee jardine who educate the young the smallest it's very important for head start so i'm hoping that you will continue to support them and also the sports hub is going to be discussed tonight again all i ask that they continue to support our local ayso children continue to be including them and so that we can move forward and work together to bring that um and the other item oh business signage if we can please to make sure that we are working with our business owners to make sure we're not making it harder, making it easier, as you said today, physical responsibility for money that's being done through budgets and stuff like that. I just wanted to make sure I keep hearing that word unsolicited. Don't like it, I've expressed that the last meeting. On certain items, kind of leaves leeway to a lot of things. I do want to say though that the CRA director and the CRA team are doing great. I think that was a great proposal, great questions that you all had, especially Mr. Roth. I appreciate all of you guys for the hard work that you guys do and the questions that you take the time to look into. But again, that unsolicited word is coming up a lot and it never came up before. I know that you guys do your part in looking into certain things, but unsolicited needs to just go away. It was never here before. Thank you. Have a good evening.

Thank you. That is the only preregistration I had. If that's not correct, let me know. All right, is there anyone else in the audience who would like to make a general public comment? Is there any, okay. Come on down. No one online, okay. If you'll give us your name and address for the record.

Hi, my name is Jessica. My family's business is at 10 East Mallory Drive, downtown Homestead. I'm here. My mom had a job here, so I took advantage to be here. I'm here to talk about how slow downtown Homestead is. And I have personally, for the past two weeks, put on our personal Chefs on the Runs page and on my personal page, the seven different places that people can eat in downtown homestead right now as i'm waiting here i got the unfortunate news that the white lion is closing it is something that is really hard to see and i'm also here to talk about our specials and to please tell people publicly to support downtown homestead Um, a lot of people only see us on that side and I do the old school door to door. I go to all the medical buildings. I go in there with my son with my mom. We all give out flyers. We talk about downtown homestead. We need more done down here and I don't know what else to ask from you all except for. How can we do that? And if you need to talk to the businesses altogether, I took advantage for the Casita Tejas to be here. I exchanged numbers with her. We need the help. We need a pulse. I was here last year saying the same thing, and I'm gonna talk about our daily specials because I know that this is here. So at Chefs on the Run, we turn 15 in August, and we are very proud to be there. As always, we go to South Beach Food and Wine Festival. We talk about Homestead consistently, and unfortunately we get, oh, you're all the way down there. But we keep going, right? We pushed a lot for the trolleys. We pushed a lot for artists. We are trying to have, Jennifer and I are trying to have a meeting to have art walks included in our awning in the back. We also have table games now. We have dominoes. We have Jenga out there. The people can come and not only have great fresh food, but also experience their their table and their hospitality without their phones, right? That's a big thing that we're doing. I'll give this to you guys. I don't know where the camera is, but basically here.

Give it to the clerk and she'll circulate it.

Chefs on the Run right now is running a $50 special, right? It is all three entrees and a dessert for $50. We run it every summer for local only. We also have daily specials at the restaurant where on Thursdays, we have things that are buy one, get one. On Fridays, we have your favorite Mr. Roth there. Your chicken sandwiches on Fridays, it's $2 off. We have a lot of specials. Please help give Chefs on the Run and other businesses, Sac Passé and Yardie Spice, all of these businesses need the help. If we can please get that and if we can please come to an agreement of how we can get that. I don't know if we can put something in power bills to encourage people to go down here, but that is basically what I'm here for. Thank you.

Appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, is there anyone else in the audience? Has anyone joined us online? Okay. Going once, going twice. I will close the public comment section of the agenda. Mr. Manager, do we have any additions, deletions, or deferrals? None, Mr. Mayor. Okay, thank you. All right, our first item tonight is for discussion, tab two, car number 5103, Harris Field Park, public-private partnership proposal discussion. Is the podium mic on?

Testing.

You're on.

So before you start, Mr. Vasquez, about two Fridays ago, the administration received a non-solicited proposal from the team of SPH, VSGS, and the city ordinance requires the city manager to place it on the nest as early as possible, which actually prompted this item being heard today as a discussion item. The requirement is that the administration is asking for direction from mayor and council on the direction to proceed with this item. With that, I invite the team to make their presentation. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and council members. My name is Javi Vasquez. I'm with the Gunster Law Firm. Our offices are at 600 Brickell Avenue in Miami, and I'm honored to be here tonight on behalf of VSGS Facilities, better known as Sports Performance Hub. Before I continue, I'd like to introduce the team that's here with us tonight. Mr. Nick Zakiewicz, who you're gonna hear from in a minute, our CEO and co-founder of SPH. Ms. Gabby Landa, in charge of design and construction. Mr. Don Lockerbie, our construction person that is also our owner rep. Terry Bross, our chief of business development. Diana Arteaga, SPH's Chief of Staff. And shadowing me tonight from George Mason University is a 3L student, third year law student, Mr. Franco Lewis. If you could please stand up, I'd love for you to be recognized. And I'm very, very happy that Franco made time to be here tonight as he continues to decide what he wants to do. Sounds like he wants to be a land use attorney. As you know, Sports Performance Hub has submitted an unsolicited proposal for a concession operator agreement calling for the renovation, activation, operation, maintenance, and the programming of Harris Field Park. This matter, as the manager just mentioned, is before you for discussion, and our hope is that you will authorize the administration to continue discussing this item with us. As you will hear from Mr. Sikiewicz, SPH intends to invest approximately $5.4 million in privately funded improvements, including stadium upgrades and many, many other improvements, which Mr. Sikiewicz will show you in detail. And without further ado, I'd like to introduce Mr. Nick Sikiewicz.

Thank you, Javier. Good evening, Mayor, City Council. Nice to see you again. Yeah. So before I get started, actually, I want to submit, um, five letters of support from, uh, for our proposal from our friends over at the homestead, uh, rodeo association, the Dick Connolly Steelers football program. the Homestead AYSO program, the Southern Homestead Soccer program, who, by the way, we're doing a clinic on the 17th of July here in Homestead. We're over 200 kids signed up already and families. We're looking forward to that. Working with those two programs. We'll have actually two World Cup players from that team who played for Curacao here. they were here for the fourth of july celebration too that was pretty cool and we got um we got a letter from the city's consulting firm that was hired for the reimagine reimagining of harris park leskovich thanks it's on the 17th yeah Right. Great. So how this came about and why? We always want to know the why we do something. So it was always within our plans on phase 1A to build a modular stadium and move Miami FC here to Homestead as soon as possible. we just finished up the baseball field we're moving into construction of the seven soccer fields and football fields and the tennis center which will commence in the next couple of months so it was always part of our plan to get the homestead as soon as we could because we want to become members of this community as soon as possible currently and for the last 10 years the team has played at fiu stadium it's 15 000 seats it sits on a campus and in the summer it's pretty desolate there it's not a great place for miami fc to play not least of which we have virtually no rights there so as great partners we want to bring miami fc to town so we always had a plan to build a modular stadium in phase 1a of the field construction at the regional park We heard months ago that the city was contemplating a reimagination of Harris Park. You were already on your way to hiring a consultant. And we started to ideate about Harris Field. So we went down there, spent a lot of time looking at that tired stadium. And internally, we asked ourselves, what if? Down the line, we're going to need more fields. We're going to do more programming. So why not? Go to the city and talk about renovating this tired stadium it's very tired stadium as a bad field it's actually dangerous that field. it's very, very worn so we said what what if we invested private dollars into helping the city kickstart the reimagining of Harris field and renovate that stadium and also the five. It's actually $5.5 million is the budget. It doesn't include the renovation of the two fields next to it. I'll show you some slides. So that's where the whole idea of this proposal came about. And really it's as a partner of the city, we are partners and we take that really seriously. We said, all right, well, maybe we can help in the city's effort to reimagine and kickstart the renovation of Harris Field. so we we spent a little money we we did some um analysis of the site uh of the stadium itself there's an overhead view of the the stadium as the renovations being proposed i have our construction team here so if you have any questions on the specifics of what we're doing we're essentially going in We're proposing to completely renovate the field that needs to be widened. We propose to put a state-of-the-art artificial surface down that's playable for soccer, widen the field so it's more accommodating for soccer. fix the current stands that are there. They're in pretty good shape, but they need to be disassembled and reassembled. In the north end, we're proposing like a suite, not a suites area, but like an open gathering area for a premium experience a little bit later on in the presentation and all. share with you some of the food upgrades to the stadium and some of the food and beverage areas within the stadium this includes brand new lighting state-of-the-art new led lighting a relocated grandstand in the south end behind the south goal there A renovation of that current building, which is. bathrooms and also renovation of the food concession and bathroom area, which is mark number one on this slide and then just basically some. polish and paint of the existing buildings to get the stadium at 5,000 seats. It's currently a little over that, but we, with the upgrades and really renovating it properly, because there's a lot of, like, really old bench seating in there that actually looks quasi-unsafe, to be honest. We would remove that. Whatever's salvageable, we'll move over to the grass fields. Whatever is not usable, we'll dispose of. But this is a new field, new lighting, widening the field, complete renovation. There's an overhead shot from the north with that premium area in the south end. This is a little bit of an overview. You can see the two fields in the far side. The budget does not contemplate redoing those fields, although we're proposing that we would continue to maintain them as well as the stadium. Those fields also will not renovate them in the short term. In the long term, I think we would propose to renovate them and convert one to artificial surface and re-sog the other natural grass field. So here's just some different overhead shots of the facility that we're proposing, fully enclosed, create a great environment. Miami FC would play at a minimum 20 home games here. If the team makes the playoffs, there'd be playoffs and potentially a championship game here. We would also endeavor to start a women's soccer team, professional soccer team. If we could get this done, perhaps launch in year two of this. Here's a few other pictures. This is a long presentation. We took a lot of different angles. Here in the foreground is the main entrance, which we're proposing like a food court in there with food trucks and food and beverage concessions. This is another entrance on the other side, which we're proposing like a picnic area for the men's soccer games. It could be like a beer garden or kind of a party area for youth events and youth tournaments. It could be a picnic area and a place to sit and eat and enjoy the game from a table. Here's another picture of that food court entrance, really upgrading and creating a sense of place for Harris Park Field. Here's the entrance to the picnic benches and the beer garden area. Another shot of the food area. This is all in your package. Here's a shot of that picnic area and beer garden sense of place. This proposal also includes replacing the scoreboards with LED, so not just digital scoreboard, but full LED, which would really enhance the experience here. Here's another view of that picnic area and beer garden. There's another overview shot from the west side. So to orientate yourself here, the Homestead Rodeo Stadium would be right behind this grandstand. There's another shot. A little bit closer to field level from behind a goal in the south end. that's actually the it's a giant sweet basically for a premium viewing experience with food and beverage served in the sweet. And that's the presentation of it so we're planning on building this at homestead regional park regardless, we thought, as a good partner we'd come in. and help kick start it and actually this variation is a little bit more expensive because there's a lot of demolition of the existing field in this piece of it so it's more expensive to do but that's okay um and that's the presentation the other thing that this benefits the city i think we would it would continue to be a public park we've talked with the rodeo the two soccer organizations um we would continue to program there we actually worked with them on a relocation plan so like in january we need to start commencement in october to be done and ready in march to have this fully capable of hosting miami fc soccer matches in march when that season starts and we've been working with the rodeo on a operational plan so that not to disrupt the rodeo in january so we already have plan to move heavy equipment around and create their staging area so they could properly execute the rodeo the other thing that this would benefit the city too we felt by us taking over the OPEX of the project there's a we would invest about a million and a half dollars a year million one to a million and a half dollars a year in operating the building and maintaining the grass fields. That would not reside on the city's P&L. That would be our responsibility. And we would operate it at a very high level. That would include marketing people to go out and secure tournament business to bring other events we think there's a market and a need in the city for music live music events live concerts in the park and that type of thing the stadium would be ideal to host those types of events on a friday night or saturday night or weekend long music festival type of event because the city doesn't have any facilities yet until we build our permanent stadium in the hotel at the regional park but this would be a great place we would plan to have miami fc here immediately in less than a year playing being members of the community our players in town our players working here Our staff working here for two seasons, so we would play there next season and the following season. And then when the stadium's ready in 2008, we would move Miami FC from the Harris Park Field to the new stadium. And we would desire to continue to operate and maintain Harris Field because it would be a great annex to what we're building in the bigger development at Homestead Regional Park. I think I covered everything. My attorney will remind me if I didn't. So Javi, did I miss anything? So thanks.

So let me open it up to questions or comments from my colleagues. Who would like to kick it off?

Councilman Fletcher? Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you, Mr. Sekulowicz and the team for giving us this opportunity. There are a few questions I have in your outlined term sheet here that basically you're just looking for us to give you direction on to move forward or make changes. So I'm in support of this with a couple of questions in regards to the term length. I think we have to nail down some of those. in this negotiation period. But I heard a couple of things in your presentation that caused me a little pause, not on your behalf, but I heard the word the surface is dangerous as it currently sits. So I want to make sure that we are looking into that from our side to ensure that we're not allowing people to play on a field that is unsafe. I don't need an answer right now. Just we need to make sure that we're following that. looks that uh let me just go down my bulleted items that i went went down through one of the things i'm going to ask is what's our annual cost to the city to operate the three fields now we're gonna have to figure that out because those man hours and monies can be relocated to another park project potentially if we move forward questions concerning the impacts to current programs and access know we do have teams that utilize those fields as well as community members that go out there on saturdays and sundays to utilize those with their families so we have to work through those logistics i understand that the current field is due for replacement here in the very near future and i know that cost roughly is based off of your estimates is about a million dollars that's our budget your budget i know for us it's a little more because we got to go through the public process and get bids and all that um but currently it's named the orange bowl field and i got to make sure our contract with them is i know it's a 10-year process but We got to make sure there's no encumbrances there with the Orange Bowl folks to ensure that we're able to do this or any restrictions. I know we talked about you potentially contacting them directly and seeing that as well. So just want to make sure we're on good solid ground if we do move forward with this. So we'll need that information. What are the impacts or benefits to the Harris reimagination project they're going? You know, this is a $5 million kickstart to that process. So I think that's a benefit for all of us. Summertime and weekend access during operations, we're going to need to kind of understand that. We talked briefly today when you presented this to me in regards to the naming rights of the facility. I know that's specific in your contract. And I know some of us have been contacted by members of the community in regards to one of our legendary coaches of south dade recently passing away and looking at maybe renaming that they were all on board and potentially supporting that unless we do it beforehand so one of those things we got to look at but ultimately i think this is a win-win we just need to figure out a few of the details sure so i'll rest and happy to have discussions on all of that council yeah so i'll rest there sure thank you councilman as well the novela

Thank you, Mayor. Definitely heeding a lot of Councilman Fletcher's concerns and questions, which, of course, I'd like to learn the answers of as well. My question for staff is, where are we at with the reimagination process with our consultants? Is that the same consultant that was referenced as providing the letter of support on this?

That's correct. That's Ziscovich, an architect.

What's our current status with their...

So I think they've scheduled coordination meetings with members of the council to get an input. I don't know if they've met with you yet.

I've met with Parks and one of the consultants, so I don't know if there's a secondary step. And I know that I held a walkthrough of the Doral City Park to get a lot of ideas and vision for continued workshops. Where I'm at with timeline is I'm not sure where we're at with the timeline of our plan. So while I think that this is a great opportunity, how does this fall in terms of our public input, our drawings, our vision? With the sports complex, I feel like we were very experienced at that point. We had multiple visioning sessions, several opportunities to identify our amenities, our goals, and then here we're kind of I think it was like less than two months ago we started having the meetings. So where are we at with the timeline? Thank you.

So the consultant is Ziscovich, and they've actually reached out to all the council members to meet with them individually. If you go through the presentation by the consultant, we gave them a timeline of six months to nine months to finalize the entire reimagining plan. Before they actually started public input solicitation and sessions and outreach, They need to meet individually with mayor and council members. I understand they've met with quite a number of council members. Pedro, where are they in terms of completion?

So today we've met with two of the council members. We are pending dates for the remaining five. So as soon as we get that done, we can get everything else rolling. The first thing would be the first public workshop meeting to get the the general public input and then we'll start the survey process.

Sorry, and it's not to identify like who's holding up the or identify where any barriers are with the consultants currently, it's just but where are we in terms of the logistics? So we haven't done any public input yet, right? That's coming subsequent to some meetings.

So the public input would happen after we've completed meeting with council. The meeting with council is simply to define scope.

And when is, according to the original timeline, when was the scheduling of public input engagement?

Do you have the schedule?

I don't have the schedule on me right now, but it's going to be immediately after drafting the survey questions, which would come out of the one-on-one meetings.

Okay. I want to make sure that we have all of our reimagination process done and completed so that we are coming to the table with a full vision that we can then entertain. with VSGS or any other competitive bidder to execute the development of Harris Field. I don't see why we would trump our current imagination process or re-envisioning process to jump into spending their money to negotiate. We implemented a process, right, for unsolicited proposals. We collected $25,000 from you at this point. I think we need to be very fair and transparent that before we spend your money into investigating and and working out negotiations that we know where we stand with what our vision is for this park and you know hopefully the i think we challenged our consultants to expedite that that process for engaging with the community and coming up with a plan so i don't foresee this being really dragged out but i think in terms of process I WOULD HATE TO PUT STAFF AND, YOU KNOW, THE COMPANY THAT WE HIGHLY RESPECT IN A POSITION WHERE WE'RE NEGOTIATING PREMATURELY ON SOMETHING THAT WE DON'T REALLY HAVE A VISION FOR YET. SO I'M GOING TO REST THERE FOR NOW. I'D LIKE TO HEAR THE REST OF COUNCIL, BUT I DON'T SEE WHY WE CAN'T PUT A PIN IN THIS AND BRING IT BACK WHEN WE'RE FURTHER ALONG IN OUR VISION.

THANK YOU. VICE MAYOR?

Thank you, Mayor. So I was one of the two that has had my meetings, and I was just beginning to wrap my head around the very beginnings of re-envisioning this. I can imagine not even having those meetings yet. This came really quickly. The one thing I can say is that one piece that I was very confident in those long discussions were that we were not going to give up any of the current fields. um if the future lives here and we're holding on to i for me such an important piece of land that has the ymca that has housed so many of these sports leagues that have practiced and coaches who used to be players and um i didn't want to see any of the fields go away um It's always wonderful to have somebody come in and be able to offer us something that we would have to fight really hard to try and figure out dollar wise on our own. Honestly, I'm very happy to see these letters of support because I was very, very worried. That was my biggest concern. I didn't want to give up any. I understand the east side is a whole other beast. There are not enough parks there. We weren't able to do that on our own as quick as we wanted to. But as far as the west side here, sports is huge. My kids played in those fields. I want to see that piece of Homestead continue. So during the briefings, I asked questions about what does this next step look like? because that's going to be the big piece for me is the access. I understand 20 home games are part of the deal, but does that not have an issue on some, you know, South Dade, Homestead High, all of their big games, that's the only field that they have to play. So that would be the piece that I would want to see is to make sure that their schedules are completely not interrupted. And the only other question is, I don't know if we can go back to the presentation or if it even matters, but the development that's coming, that's showing those buildings incredibly close to the line, is that not going to be an issue with noise disturbances? Do we know if that was to scale, showing those buildings? Right behind there?

I know so are there no noise issues do we did we look into that it just looks very close the bleachers on the side already exists it appears that they are adding some small seating down to the south we're downsizing actually the total capacity so the capacity of that stadium currently is more than what we would build okay and to your point earlier about um This is not displacing anybody or any fields. This is actually the staff that we're investing in to program and manage the schedule so that South Dade can play there. And we're going to be reaching out to try to get more events to come here, which is economic impact to the city, heads and beds. eating in restaurants that type of thing so we are highly motivated because we have a lot of skin in this game we have five and a half million dollars of renovation and then a million one in annual expense to maintain and operate it so we're going to be encouraging high schools to come and do football games and soccer games and graduations and anything that we can you know ideally schedule every day in the calendar to have sweat the building as we say in the business

no i appreciate that and i am i've said before the forever optimist and this just sounds too good to be true um so like i said to see these letters of support and make sure that that you do understand that peace is is incredibly important especially here on the west side where these groups have been practicing for so long So for the next if staff can just explain a little bit there's basically two paths that we can take from here if we decide.

Yeah. So I'm sorry. Thank you. So on the staff, only two directions tonight. The first is that you would like to proceed with this, which will commence the due diligence piece. And, you know, the staff, you know, doing its analysis and starting the negotiations. the the piece of this the second piece is under the p3 statute there's parallel tracks well not parallel you pick one or the other you can either do a competitive solicitation process or you can find that the proposal with certain public notice requirements which we will work through is in the best interest of the city and not open enough to the competitive process my understanding is that based on the timelines that They require to get the field up and running. There are not enough calendar days, if the city wanted to proceed with this, to open it up for a solicitation because of the notice requirements that exist in the statute. So if you want to proceed on the direction to proceed, I mean, I'll let Nick speak to his own capabilities in terms of his timeline. whether you would like to do a competitive process, and Nick can speak to his timelines, or what would expedite it would be the non-competitive process where we'll come back, you'll have two meetings, one for public input and the second for you to make a public interest determination in accordance with the statute, and then we can execute whatever agreement is negotiated with SPH and the city.

So if we went the non-competitive route, when would that first of the two meetings be held?

I'll work with the clerk to expedite it for the public hearing, for the public comments piece. I have to see when we can get the notice in the paper. But I would aim for the 22nd for the first meeting if we could do it. If not, I know that the council had discussed, you know, there was some flexibility in the August schedule in terms of when you were meeting. We may need a meeting in August in order to hit our timelines, but I'll need direction, then we can map that out based on everybody's availability as well as next. But we could get to a point where we could have a final product for you to approve in September, which would allow, I believe, that meets your timeline. I'll let you speak to the need for your timeline.

Yeah, I mean, the timeline's tight for us because our goal is to get Miami FC to play in the next season start, which is March. So if you go backwards, our construction team has told us that they... they can because they've done this multiple times i don't know don maybe a hundred stadiums like this or even bigger in that time frame so we have to have heavy equipment no later than october 1st on the site beginning the demolition and renovation to be done by the end of February. That gives us a couple weeks to flesh out the building, do maybe a soft opening, which I think what we would do is open the building to the community and host a celebration, maybe break a bottle like you do on a ship on the new building and invite the community to see it. um and that would give us two weeks to dry run for the season opening in the middle of march so that's why you know don't mean to rush respect the process totally don't want to violate any process like i said we were planning to do this at the regional park But we thought that this would be a really cool way to create a dynamic live event venue in the middle of the city. You know, I heard earlier we need to get more activity downtown. This will be an asset to generate more activity downtown because when people leave a Miami FC event or a concert, they usually need a place to eat. Those restaurants are right around the corner. So we thought good idea if we could pull it off in that timeline. If we can't pull it off in that timeline, totally understand.

Last question for you, Matt. That analysis, that would happen during the second meeting or that could happen during the first public meeting? And what does that analysis look like?

There you'll you look at several factors that are outlined in the statute is to make your determination as to why, and it is in the public interest that conclusion is then published in the Florida administrative register for I believe seven days. and then you can move forward with the execution. So, I mean, you look at the same things that you look at every time you're looking at a deal, there's nothing that unique here. It's going to be the financial benefits to the city, you know, the- I'm not so concerned about that.

I guess what I'm trying to get to is where do we really look at the schedules and making sure that our groups have the days and the times that are needed. That's the piece that, that's not that type of analysis.

no what what i'll in terms of that that'll be part of the negotiations with as staff and the parks department will will speak to our local agencies and i know nick you provided letters from a couple of these people um to make sure that you know the schedule that's adopted as we had a lot of back and forth with the other um sites on the availability to the public, the hours of operation, when those fields were dedicated for a private purpose, when they were, all of those things can be flushed out in the intervening time. So that would be an ongoing discussion. If you choose the non-competitive path, then we'll start having that conversation now.

And if I might, that's exactly what occurred as we negotiated for the development of Homestead Regional Park. Have you dealt with AYSO? Have you dealt with Rodeo? And any number of other, Keys Gate School, whatever little league and other leagues played at the park, I kind of would envision this negotiation process as to have that piece that can assure us that all of those interested parties have been accommodated as they were with the regional park development.

that's why i would feel most comfortable not going out for another for another bit if this is someone that we're comfortable with and so far has done what they've said um my concern is it's it's a much bigger investment over on the east side and i understand that those have some more um strings tied to it but my concerns for this one would just being you know taking summers into account taking the breaks into account just making sure that that remains an open public park for when our kids are out of school that's it yeah

Thank you. No, 100% aligned on that. We would encourage it. And actually, the conversations with the rodeo and the two soccer organizations have been in the football program, by the way, who's kind of not. allowed or not using the stadium because soccer uses it so much we it's a matter of programming that's all it is you got 365 days in a year and now you've got x number of events and it's just about creating a calendar we we have kind of a template right at the homestead regional park how we did it there i think we would apply that template here

And as far as the naming rights I think there's there's enough things to name there, I think that we could come to an agreement to just make sure that some of the people that we want to make sure their name stays in homestead that we can we can make that deal.

we're not going to make our p&l budget by selling a naming rights.

Thank you, thank you.

Govola after Roth.

Thank you, Mayor. So in my briefings with Nick, they assured me that the construction phase of the stadium, they would be working directly with the organizations that are already scheduled, especially our high school football teams and things like that, to relocate them to other facilities during the construction period. Because if they break ground in October, football season starts basically in September. So that means that field's not going to be available to them to play there. And also, I think they're only taking over the stadium aspect and I think the two fields to the east. Is that right?

yeah um i hate saying that we're taking over anything here so we're not we're running we're renovating it operating operate it right right so so um yes that's correct but we would maintain all three fields correct and we would upgrade the grass fields and initially minor upgrade the lights are going to stay longer term we would look to renovate both those fields and upgrade the lights too

Right. So there's still a tremendous amount of opportunity for reimagining the rest of what Harris Field will be. I think I remember during the talks we had about that, adding pickleball courts and adding other amenities to the park, which won't even come even close to being in this area. So I think the opportunity is tremendous. it's gonna save us a million dollars in renovations from taxpayer dollars, because we've got to do it anyways. And I think if we can get them started like today, they can get the field ready for football season, but I don't think that's gonna happen, so.

I don't know, that's a little tight, Don. But I will say, remember, the Homestead Rodeo moves to the stadium in two years, so you've got a lot of land.

That opens up five acres.

For pickleball courts. And reimagining Harris Park.

Right, which gives us more reimagining of Harris Field. So I think it's cool. I think, yeah, we need to give them an opportunity to negotiate a contract to see what comes out of that. But, yeah, I think it's a great idea. And I was kind of... when you were talking about the sponsor side on the north side and making i was kind of like are they going to put people on top of there because that would really be cool too i mean it's like a rooftop i don't know how many letters in the gentleman's name that passed away oh that's he's got a big last name i think yeah yeah so whatever i mean that's just the placeholder our architects do that as a matter of habits yeah i mean it to me it's very exciting i just i'm i'm looking forward to it okay thank you uh councilwoman

Thank you, Mayor. I just want to reiterate that I'm not saying I'm against the opportunity or the overall partnership at the Harris Field location. I just want to bring to the attention of my colleagues, for example, Vice Mayor, when you brought up this particular field, during my one-on-one with the consultant, it did not come to consideration how close this one was to the residential But in just this last week, there was a huge event at the field, and so I did receive a number of complaints on the noise issues that were pouring over into that residential community. And so there's more to learn during the the reimagination of Harris Field and learning about what the needs are of the community as a whole. And I don't think VSJS is going anywhere and that whether we proceed with negotiations now or we proceed with negotiations later, I think that there's a deal to be had. I just don't want to foreclose on the opportunity to make sure we do our due diligence in completing our homework and what we started with regards to our consultants and getting to a final point of vision. And if we isolate these specific fields and do it their way, it's no longer the residents' way. And I appreciate the letters of support. These are the entities that are currently You know, working with you now. And so I respect their their support on the items. But this is a totally different project, and I want to make sure that we are not, you know, just looking, looking at this with the veil of of what our hopes are for the outcome of the deal we just closed and we're just barely breaking ground. We don't really have proof in the pudding. We don't have, you know, how have the relationships worked out? How has the overall plan executed? And I'm just saying it feels rushed. So if it's rushed, it's not right. Very knowledgeable, wise councilwoman had said that many times in the past. I'm just saying let's hold and hold it and slow down. So I will be OK with looking at what additional options for maybe bringing this back later. But also, they're asking for a 30-year commitment, right? So you want to use it temporarily until they move over, but then you want to operate it and have the control over it for 30 years. And at what return?

To to get a return on the five and a half million capex investment and the million and a half we're spending annually to operate it and maintain it at the highest level.

And then also you want to have the dedicated programming time when there's already a draw for for dates and time and the demand is high for those fields and now we're going to add in another 20 games. I think we need to finish what we started.

Again, from our perspective, no problem. Fine. We have 92 acres that we're building, and we're happy to build this there. We thought this would be a great solution to kickstart Harris Park. That's all. We'll stop.

So my perspective is that we should move forward and authorize negotiations we know there are a lot of issues just as we addressed as i said earlier on the the prior uh transaction out at the future homestead regional park and we'll all have those punch lists and and address those issues throughout the negotiation um i'm I am confident that from day one when we retained the consultant that the sports hub folks have been in contact and close working relationship with them so that the two visions meshed, that there was no competing visions or plans for Harris Field. So we're faced with that if there is any delay here, that in effect forecloses this opportunity. And under the new world we live in, with tax reform coming, I received a letter today from the tax collector's office tax collector's office advising me that our share of certain revenue by state statute has now been reduced from 50 percent to 28 percent. So money is drawing up everywhere. You know, had money been available, we would have been up and running for our own reimagination of of homestead regional park so while i appreciate your concerns any delay here will foreclose this opportunity and i'm confident that this will come to fruition and it will have a downtown spillover and i'm even thinking about that we're going to have three different levels of event venues loisner park for those small intimate things the medium range events here at Harris Field, and finally the big ticket, the large population events out at the Sports Hub Arena. I think that if we can come to terms and address everyone's concerns, this is a no-brainer. So I would support, and the letter in the package from Zyskovich, however you pronounce it, is pretty clear that this does not conflict with where they see this going. So I would like us to at least authorize, A, continued negotiation, and the attorneys, the manager, and everyone, the proposers all understand what's on everyone's punch list, and B, that it be done on a non-competitive basis would be my ask for someone to make that motion so that we can go forward. Okay, it's been moved.

I will second. So that was my main question, is we are going to be able to see line items of what, you know, another question is the beer garden which looks amazing, is that an opportunity for the other organizations using the fields to use to sell concessions? Like what do those other open areas or even the enclosed space look like for our parks department to use? in that reimagining of Harris Field because that played a huge piece in it, making it a more welcoming thing for families to come and enjoy.

100%. This is additive, accretive to the facility, not isolating in isolation. So we would invite all of them to use all of them. And that's part of our cost of maintaining it and cleaning it and upgrading it over time. So we're inviting, we wanna throw a party every weekend, whether it's a Miami FC game or a high school football game or a girls soccer game, we wanna throw a party there every weekend. Folks in Homestead need stuff to do, and this is gonna be a great place to do it at.

Well, and I also think about, Vice Mayor, the parents of the spectators and players for the other dozen or so high schools who play in Homestead they're gonna walk into maybe not world-class but pretty close that was another question with TV lighting with the OLED screen and with real concessions and real food would we as the city be able to rent it out to other high schools 100% that's built into the negotiation I wanted to add

One other thing, we're working very closely with the two AYSO soccer programs in town to upgrade, bring more coaching to it, bring more expertise. And what we're prepared to do, whether we do this at Harris Field or at the regional park, every one of those kids will get a season ticket to a Miami FC game, and the parents of those kids will get a discounted ticket to come to the game. So that's a built-in fan base straight out of the gate for those kids.

I'm just thinking of this, but to kind of protect your investment as well, would you have security there? Oh, yeah, we have full time security, regardless of if you're hosting games or the city.

100 Yeah, it will have full time security. Of course, we want to work closely with the police chief and the city's to augment security. But remember, we're building a high school for up to 800 students someday. So we're going to have a head of security. We're going to have a lot of detail behind that and Harris field out of the gate will have a full time security as part of the budget there.

Thank you. Vice Mayor. Mayor. Yes, sir. With regards to the security is the is the answer that you're going to provide the security for all the activities regardless of whose game it is. I think that was my understanding of the point.

Usually when we do live events, whether they're soccer games or music concerts, because we're responsible and have a liability of the operation of the stadium, we'll have a head of security there. And we'll have our own paid security, but we'll also oftentimes depending on the size of the event partner with the local police force and either hire off-duty police to work the event or hire on-duty city police we'll have to work that out i don't have an answer to that we haven't sat down we have to sit down and talk about that who's available but it will be our responsibility to secure the event because remember when we operate event we're responsible for everything from slip and fall to theft to everything so we have to we have to manage the security so i think i think to your point councilwoman with respect to that and it's funny i mentioned that very issue to the chief today about

placement of the metal detectors and designing that and maybe separate entrances for the home team and the visitors team when it comes to high school football. But it's my understanding is each school has to pay for security, whether they're paying City of Homestead, whether they're paying Miami-Dade School Board, Police Department, So they're already bearing that cost. So now, potentially, that payment may not be made to Homestead or the school board police. It may be made to the sports hub organization to provide it, or some combination. We're not adding a new level of payment for security.

I was looking for the, you know, I was looking for, you know, hopefully the confidence that this would be an add-on and an incentive, you know, that this would be a less of a cost to our end user, which at the end of the day supports our kids and the programming. So I would like to see some benefits.

It depends who the end user is. It's an event by event negotiation. I mean, if there's a promoter in Miami that wants to do a Colombia, Ecuador, US and Mexico under 17 game in Harris Park, they're going to pay for security. We will then in turn pay the police, pay the city, rent the building to that promoter. Makes sense, but that's a different that's different than homestead high school correct.

Right and, in my mind i'm referring to our schools and nonprofits mayor, is it your vision that for the rest of the fields, the rest of the park itself that that would go out to competitive bidding or an opportunity for.

This proposal addresses solely the existing football stadium and the adjacent fields.

Right. So is the negotiation or the contract going to have a non-compete or a first right of refusal? I think they'll bid on whatever we do in the future.

Well, that's part of the negotiation, but I don't know that at this point they're interested in...

I'd like for that to be something that we're making a point of now, that we're not foreclosing the opportunity to get the job done with multiple options. Not at all. And I'll support the negotiations moving forward.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Let me, Mr. Manager.

Yes. I just want to place on the record that we are receipt of your $25,000 application fee. It has not been spent. We are waiting for this meeting to happen to know which direction council wants to take. Just was that. Okay. So depending on what council decides tonight, then we'll reach out to you guys and see how we can schedule meetings with the city attorney.

Okay. So if there's no other council comment, let me open the floor to any public comment very quickly. Is there anyone online? No one online. No one. Ms. Ramirez?

Randy Ramirez, 2231 Southeast First Street. I like everyone's questions. Again, Homestead is Homestead. We're not Miami. We try to hold on to our Homestead town field. I just want to make sure, again, when we do unsolicited, none of our residents get the opportunity to put input. They don't even know what's going on, and things get rushed and get passed. It's nothing against this project at all. And it's nothing against this respectful gentleman that is bringing some great things. But I do want to remind our council today and our mayor, you guys are voted by the residents. You answer to the residents. You need to get resident input. And it's great that the letters that they have AYSO is supporting it. We support those families. I'm glad to hear that part. But Homestead Senior and South Dade Senior, I don't see letters. I don't see certain support. So I would hope that you guys would not rush into this because the gentleman is making it clear. He's willing to work at the time that you are ready to do that because he's got another project going on. We know that there's a lot of negativity going on. We cannot be blind to that in regards to what's happening in traffic and things like that. So I hope you guys take that into consideration. I appreciate Councilwoman Avila putting her foot down today, making sure things are being said. There's no rush for it. He's going to work with you at the time that you're ready for it. and i think he's got something great that he's going to want to put i'm not taking that away from that but the sun solicited thing you guys are making it a regular basis and the residents are being left out and you guys always do bids you always take in local We gotta, come on, this is Homestead. This is not Miami. Nothing against the company at all.

I think he's making great efforts. We gotta stop playing small ball. And I wanna be very clear. Unsolicited does not mean rushed and it does not mean sneaky. It means we simply did not advertise that this came to us at the proposer's initiative. You go find me somebody in Homestead that's got $5.5 million and we'll be glad to talk to them.

So let me make an example. Today you just said the unsolicited important part and you said that you guys are responsible for the city of Homestead funds. Paying a person that knows your deputy city manager $175,000 to coordinate food trucks when you have a city staff member that does that already. Look at your hosted social media. Your social media, you guys say, we want food trucks to sign up. If they sign up, you don't need to pay $175,000 to someone from Miami that was terminated that knows your deputy director. That's what I mean by unsolicited. We want to trust. And I know that you guys want the trust of the residents. You guys are good individuals, and that's why you were voted to be here. Unfortunately, the mayor won't be here with us next year. You guys will be. And so I'm just doing a friendly reminder to not rush into it because you need to get the feedback of the community. And I strongly feel he's got a great report to share with the residents and allow the residents to support this for the future because the future belongs to homestead residents. they don't belong to the unsolicited and it's again no disrespect at all he's talking that he's going to work with the police department he's going to do a lot of good things and we even have families here we have residents that are in support of this i want to support it as well but you guys know that i work very closely with our residents of homestead and i know they would want the opportunity to have a say that's all i'm asking they will there'll be at least two more public meetings

There will be at least 2 more public meetings regarding this, but I do understand that Miss Avila mentioned that there was a consultant.

If we can get clarification of the name of the consultant for tonight. And also, like you mentioned, the consultant was going to make meetings for the residents, little town hall meetings that you guys usually do. and you include us and we we come out and then you move forward working together that's all i'm asking working together we we do want to support i don't want you to take my comments wrong so thank you thank you very much anyone else

Thank you for hanging in there tonight and your support.

No problem. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Omar Capusano here. Turn the mic up. There we go. Okay. Good evening. Thank you for having me here. Thank you for having us here. I just want to come up and say thank you to everyone here. The Performance Hub. First, let me say I speak on behalf of AYSO Homestead. We've been here for a long time. and we were worried about what was going on on the east side of Homestead, but we came to the meetings and we just gotta say that the interest that Miami FC, that Performance Hub has put into our community has been great. They've sat with us, they've listened to us. We've made it clear that what we want is a soccer program for all the kids that are here in Homestead. We understand that there's academies, there's this, there's that, but the recreational program that was developed here for the children of Homestead, we wanted something here. And they've heard us, they're listening to us, they take our input, they've been very responsive to what we've had to say, and we just want to appreciate because, yes, they're putting their foot forward, but it's also you guys here making sure that happens. And they've been great with us and working towards a program that's going to benefit

the kids here in homestead okay thank you thank you all right any further public comment all right so i'll close the public comment yes

Before we vote, I just wanted to ask, in heeding just the public comments, is there an opportunity to coordinate and expedite the public engagement with our consultants? Can we start that now? Plenty of opportunity has come and gone for the one-on-ones. One-on-ones can continue to happen over the next month or two while the negotiations are happening. That way, I feel like we're getting the best of both worlds.

The one-on-ones could conceivably happen in one day or the course of two days. Correct.

I feel like I've done mine. I met with them before breaks.

I had to. Early on, I met with them, you know, with our lag and a new council assistant. I don't know whether a new date has been requested or if we're talking about prior.

So, Mayor and Council, if we have confirmation from the desk that you're available this week, we'll schedule a few this week.

Can we while you're scheduling and finalizing those interviews or one on ones, can we proceed with calling for the public engagement pieces and schedule it.

Let's do that.

I think that is You know, a compromise and that would make me feel so much more comfortable with moving forward and supporting this project.

Okay. So we'll let staff coordinate that. All right. So, Madam Clerk, the motion is to commence with negotiations and to move forward on a non-competitive basis. Is that what you need, Mr. Pearl? So we'll call it, Madam Clerk.

Councilwoman Avila?

Yes.

Councilwoman Kansky? Yes. Councilman Roth? Yes. Councilman Fletcher? Yes. Councilman Canabal? Yes. Vice Mayor Bailey? Yes. Mayor Lawson? Yes. The motion carries.

Thank you all. Look forward to it.

Thank you. Thank you all.

Yeah. Well, I think we have. Yeah. Mr. Manager, your staff will undertake whatever we need tomorrow to get these one-on-one scheduled and And concurrently, go ahead and calendar public input.

Public outreach meeting, yes.

OK. All right. Now, before we go further, let's have a motion to extend the meeting from 8.30 to 9.15. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor? Any opposed?

OK. You're free to go.

All right, our next item is a consent agenda, item seven, which is considered tabs three, A, B, C, D, and E. Moved by Councilman Fletcher, seconded by Councilman Canabal. All in favor? Any opposed? Mr. Perl, you're doing double duty tonight.

Well, we don't have any quasi-judicial items, so we're just going to skip over to tab four.

Okay, so we're going to jump to tab four. Go ahead and read it by title, please.

Yes, this is the second reading of an ordinance of the City of Homestead, Florida, amending Chapter 19, Article 2 of the City Code, entitled Noise to Establish Objective Decibel-Based Standards, Provide Standardized Measurement Procedures, and Define Exemptions for Certain Activities, Providing for Inclusion in the Code, Providing for Severability, Providing for Conflicts, Providing for an Effective Date.

thank you this is second reading are there any final questions or comments from council on second reading please mayor i'll move it with the question of how does this apply to that stadium because that's what was in my head when i'm looking at the proximity how does that affect us now i understand we are putting this now out there so i'm just wondering How could someone from that development not come and

So I'll speak to, there's, the ordinance currently provides as written that there can be permits for special events that allow the decibel levels to exceed the standards. And so if they're holding events, an evening event at the stadium, then there's a mechanism for them to get a permit to exceed that threshold maximum. And that's the way it works. perhaps that would even be implicit in every high school football so to address the the underlying concern because as i was taking notes listening to the council during the last discussion you know one of the things that we can talk about is a sound buffering for the adjacent You know there are I did take notes in here the concerns and there are things that we can address as we have those conversations As I was making the list so I do think they're all in addition to this there's preventative measures that the developer can take to mitigate any impacts to the Discussions but that was gonna be one of the pieces that I wanted to just because even our Easter I

Our little Easter party was, it's a lot for some of those residents, so yeah. I took that note.

Mr. Mayor?

Councilman. Okay, go ahead, Mayor and Council.

Mayor and Council, just for clarification on what the city attorney just said, in Miami, you have the Bayfront Park that is very, very heavily activated year-round. You have all the residential high-rises around it. The way it has always been addressed is while you are approving the agreement, you have a clause that creates that exception for them. If you're asking them each event you come here and pull a permit, whether it's from high school or their own games, you're not going to be able to handle that because this activation is going to happen on a weekly basis. That means they have to be pulling permits every week. So the realistic practical way to address is to grant them some special exception when you approve the agreement.

And a very big buffer. If we're already widening the field, then widen the other way and create a bigger buffer.

The other option, if you wanted to take this approach, is there are exemptions that are carved out right now. And one of the exemptions is for instance, activities conducted at the Speedway. So if you wanted to add an additional exemption, that's another avenue to take. Take your direction, it's just, you know. We can take a multi-pronged approach, and we can always come back and create, you know, if we'd like.

Rather than a blanket exemption, I think we probably need some acoustical advice on what a reasonable next level would be.

And we don't have that. We're not going to be able to provide you with that information this evening. I think, you know, as we have the conversations with them and we get a better understanding is we can start talking about noise mitigation as something that should be incorporated. You know, they spoke about the lights and the scoreboard. I didn't hear much discussion on the speakers. And there are speakers now where you can aim them one way and if you're standing next to them and you're not in front of them, you don't. So there are a lot of things that we can do and we can negotiate to address that.

Mr. Mayor, yes. Let me get to Councilman Fletcher first, and then Councilwoman Alvarez.

And then Councilman Kongsky reminded me of this. And you may remember, as we were kids prior to Andrew, there used to be a huge Australian pine buffer on that south end. So maybe we make that part of the new reimagination on the whole buffer zone, that we plant some bigger trees that . Yes, sir. That's all.

OK. Plenty of opportunity, Councilwoman.

Thank you. And then between now and the future, we do need to also control the content of the music that's being played. A lot of the complaints I received was the profanities that were being heard in the music. So I know that that's sometimes difficult to catch in that moment. But if we can just have a little bit more control and monitoring of the type of music that's being played. Thank you.

And to the extent that we can navigate that censorship thing, I agree. Okay. So, roll call vote on a second reading of the noise ordinance.

Councilwoman Clonsky? Yeah. Councilman Campbell? Councilman Campbell? Yes. Councilwoman Avila? Yes. Councilman Roth? Yes. Councilman Fletcher? Yes. Vice Mayor Bailey? Yes. Mayor Lozano? Yes. The motion carries.

Spurl, tab five.

tab five is the second reading of an ordinance of the city of homestead florida establishing a temporary extended compliance program for certain existing window sign violations of section 23-85d of the city code providing for continued enforcement through the issuance of notices of violation providing for a one-year compliance period before referral to the special magistrate for qualifying existing violations Providing for exemptions, providing for administration, providing that the underlying code requirements remain in full force and effect, providing for conflicts, providing for severability, providing for non-codification, and providing for an effective date.

Council, questions or comments on this second reading?

Good.

We all understand this is a one-year compliance from the effective date. Yes. Mm-hmm. All right. All right, so it's been moved by Councilman Canabal, seconded by Councilman Fletcher. Any public comment? Okay, I'll close the public comment and ask for a roll call vote on tab five.

Councilman Rawls? Yes. Councilwoman Konski. Yes. Councilwoman Avila. Yes. Councilman Fletcher. Yes. Councilman Canabal. Vice Mayor Bailey. Mayor Lawson. Yes. The motion carries.

Thank you. Moving on to resolutions. Tab 6, please, Mr. Pearl.

Tab 6 is a resolution of the City Council of the City of Homestead, Florida, approving a substantial amendment to the fiscal year 25-26 annual action plan for the Home Investment Partnership Program. Revising the affordability period for the city's down payment assistance program from 20 years to 10 years, authorizing submission of the amendment to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, providing for implementation, providing for an effective date.

Thank you. Any objection to waiving the staff report? Do we have a motion? We have a motion by Councilman Avila, seconded by Councilman Canabal. Nothing further from Council? Roll call, please, Madam Clerk.

Councilwoman Avila? Yes. Councilman Fletcher? Yes. Councilwoman Konski? Yes. Councilman Canabal? Yes. Councilman Roth? Yes. Vice Mayor Bailey? Yes. Mayor Lozano? Yes. The motion carries.

And next item, tab seven.

Tab seven is a resolution of the City Council of the City of Homestead, Florida, adopting and authorizing the submission of amended action plans to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development for approval reallocating funds from the city cdbg annual action plans for fiscal years 22 23 and 23 24 to the fiscal year 25 26 annual action plan providing for implementation and providing for an effective date thank you wave staff report we have a motion to approve moved by councilwoman avila second by vice mayor bailey roll call please madam clerk that's the woman avenue yes

Councilwoman Konski? Yes. Councilman Roth? Yes. Councilman Fletcher? Yes. Councilman Canabal? Yes. Vice Mayor Bailey? Yes. Mayor Lozano? Yes. The motion carries.

Tab 8, please, Mr. Attorney.

Tab 8 is a resolution of the City Council of the City of Homestead, Florida, adopting and authorizing the submission of amended action plans to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development for approval, revising the swimming program project description for fiscal year 23, 24, 24, 25, and 25, 26, annual action plans providing for implementation, providing for an effective date.

Thank you. Weigh the staff report. Moved by Roth, seconded by Canabal. Roll call, please, Madam Clerk.

Councilman Ross? Yes. Councilman Minkowski? Yes. Councilman Cannavale? Yes. Councilwoman Avila?

Yes, with a comment. Can we make sure that we advertise this heavily with our community programs at the Dickinson and at Fico Williams? There's a lot of adults that need to learn how to swim.

Yes.

And maybe doing a flyer in the electrical, what do you call it, utility bill? Thank you. Sorry, it's late.

I know we're in the motions already, but I had a quick question too, Mayor, please. Some of our summer programs, can we get some information to see if groups can sign up at a time if we're looking to expend those funds? We've got five weeks left that we could invite some of the summer programs in the area to take advantage. Thank you.

So continuing the roll call vote.

Councilman Fletcher? Yes. Vice Mayor Bailey? Yes. Mayor Lozner? Yes. Motion carried.

Tab 9, Mr. Perl.

tab nine is a resolution of the city council of the city of homestead florida approving the florida department of corrections interagency public works agreement local agreement between the city of homestead and state of florida department of corrections for provision of an inmate work squad to support parks and recreation open spaces maintenance activities providing for implementation providing for an effective date the wave the staff court's been moved by councilman avala seconded by cannibal roll call please

Councilman Minkowski. Councilman Avila. Yes. Councilman Roth. Yes. Councilman Fletcher. Yes. Councilman Cannavale.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Bailey. Yes. Mayor Lozner.

Yes.

Motion carried.

And tab 10.

Tab 10 is a resolution of the City Council of the City of Homestead, Florida, approving the utilization piggyback of the agreement between Miami-Dade County and Universal Protection Service LLC DBA Allied Universal Security Services as extended through August 31st, 2030 for security guard services and approving an increase from one to two guards with an estimated annual expenditure of $171,566 exempting the procurement from competitive bidding in accordance with section 2-411.12a of the city code authorizing city manager or does the need to do all things necessary to effectuate this resolution subject to budget appropriation availability of funds providing for conflicts providing for severability providing for implementation providing for an effective date the way the staff report moved by avala

Seconded by Canabal. Roll call, please.

Councilman Avila. Yes. Councilman Roth. Yes. Councilman Konski. Yes. Councilman Cannavale. Yes. Councilman Fletcher. Yes. Vice Mayor Bailey. Yes. Mayor Lozner. Yes. Motion carried.

That takes us to tab 11. 11. Guess we have to slow down now.

Tab 11 is a resolution of the City Council of the City of Homestead, Florida, approving a lease agreement between the City of Homestead and Les Jardines Community Centers, Inc. for buildings 200 and 400 located at Harris Field, authorizing the City Manager to execute the lease agreement and take all actions necessary to implement the terms thereof, providing for implementation, providing for an effective date.

Thank you.

Mr. Manager, is there anything like that?

Okay. So I have a motion by Councilwoman Avila. I have a second by Councilman Canabal.

Second. Third.

Okay. All right, obviously no questions or comments from Council, so let's have a roll call vote.

Councilman Fletcher? Yes. Councilwoman Avila? Yes. Councilman Cannavale? Yes. Councilman Roth? Yes. Councilwoman Konski? Yes. Vice Mayor Bailey? Yes. Mayor Lawson? Yes. Motion carried.

Eddie's used to long meetings.

Correct, that remained.

Okay, let's go on to tab 12 then.

Tab 12 is a resolution of the City Council of the City of Homestead, Florida authorizing the city manager to permit Lonzo Construction Company to temporarily utilize certain city-owned property adjacent to City Hall commonly referred to as the iconic site for temporary storage of project-related construction materials in connection with the Chrome and Flagler Avenue water and sewer upgrade and transit accessibility improvements project, providing for conditions, providing for implementation, providing for an effective date.

I have a motion.

motion yes this property is fenced in can we put some decorative I'm fencing not just the ugly green fencing can they do that actually it's part of the resolution that's what's there now six foot okay we have motion a second roll call please

Councilwoman Avila? Yes. Councilman Fletcher?

Yes.

Councilman Roth? Yes. Councilwoman Konski? Yes. Councilman Cannavale? Yes. Vice Mayor Bailey? Yes. Mayor Lozner? Yes. Motion carried.

All right, we have tab 13, which is a second reading. Right. Moved by Ross, seconded by Avila. Roll call vote, please.

Councilman Minkowski. Councilman Roth. Yes. Councilman Avila. Yes. Councilman Cannavale. Yes. Councilman Fletcher. Yes. Vice Mayor Bailey. Yes. Mayor Lozner. Yes. Motion carried.

Moving on to tab 14, Mr. Pearl.

It's the second reading of an ordinance of the City of Homestead amending the City of Homestead Code of Ordinances by creating Division 3 Interfaith Advisory Board of Article 3, Boards, Committees, Commissions of Chapter 2 Administration, providing for purpose and intent, establishing powers and duties, providing for codification, severability, and an effective date.

Okay. Moved by Avila, seconded by Cannavale. All right. No comment. Roll call, please, on the renewal of the Interfaith Advisory Board.

Councilman Cannavale? Yes. Councilman Fletcher? Yes. Councilman Roth? Yes. Councilwoman Konski? Yes. Councilwoman Avila? Yes. Vice Mayor Bailey? Yes. Mayor Lozner? Nope.

motion carried okay tab 15 tab 15 is a resolution of the city council of the city of homestead florida authorizing the city manager to coordinate with fairchild tropical botanical garden regarding the million orchard project provide approving certain city locations for initial feasibility review providing for submission of a project proposal for final city council approval providing for implementation and providing for an effective date

And I think we have a presentation from a representative from Fairchild Tropical Garden. And as you're on your way up, I apologize for, yeah, apologize for keeping you so late. Please pull down the microphone so it fits your size. But, you know, a couple of meetings ago, we kind of skipped around to accommodate people and it turned into a real nightmare. So kind of the luck of the draw of where you were on the agenda tonight. But thank you for coming down.

Of course, of course. No, thank you. I don't have a whole presentation. I just wanted to talk a little bit about the program and the project with Fairchild Botanic. I'm sure all of you have hopefully visited the garden and seen some of the work that we've done. So the Million Orchid Project is really like our flagship project. It sits under a much larger umbrella, which is the City in a Garden Initiative. It basically started about 12 years ago when our director took a trip to Singapore and saw the beautiful city and how they were able to beautify it with green, with everything greening, and really not only bring plants as the main star of the show, but it brings a lot of things to it. You're talking about an ecosystem, pollinators, You're you're you're talking a much bigger scope here than just bringing beautiful orchids I mean everybody loves orchids you put an orchids into. The city and people usually take care of them, the million orchid project specifically is that project that not only touches the city, but it also really speaks to the educational programs that we have behind, which is our students. So it sees lots of different ages. We have currently right now, we're sitting at 728,000 orchids that we've been able to reintroduce back into our public landscapes, which is huge. The city of Homestead is one of those locations that we haven't been able to really tread into. And we're really, really excited about being here and being able to tell you about the program. And so one of the really important things is that a lot of the students that here that reside in Homestead do get to have some hands on work with this. And the reason why this is kind of this big, huge nonprofit rotating project is that the students actually do the micro propagation that's in the labs. Students are seeing these orchids from very, very small seedlings. They're reintroducing them into their public landscapes, like into their schools. And they're actually doing research. real work. It's not just kind of this lima bean that you're growing in this. I'm sure a lot of us did that, the lima bean and, you know, we're actually putting really, really important work into the hands of these students. And so with the municipal partnerships, you guys were able to buy the orchids and these orchids were grown by these students. So you're actually purchasing these orchids that were in the hands of students two years ago. uh which is which is really really important a lot of these students take these orchids home um and they you know put them in their own resident uh homes and you'll you have this amazing ability to really create an educational piece that these kids walk away with and feel really important uh that they've done this really really exceptional work um so we're excited to hopefully bring uh some orchids into uh the city of homestead well thank you and just you know i brought this forward um

and talk about the Ag Committee and other things, it gives our agricultural students, and particularly South Dade High School, the opportunity to take part. Several years ago, I know that the prior manager was contacted by one of the sponsors the uh a teacher at south dave and it never went anywhere but as we're moving forward with beautification throughout the city what other flower is more equated with homestead i mean in robert fuchs we have one of the world's foremost and most known and knowledgeable Orchid experts. So, you know, in short, this is, like some of our other items tonight, that this is an authorization to go forward with a feasibility study. We've identified several public corridors, some in each and every council district. to see what the feasibility of would be placing them. You know, it's in your package where those, you know, generally medians and public parks for high visibility and real high impact. This is just a vote to authorize the manager to allow them to do that feasibility study and then bring us back full details on location and cost, just to kickstart it. Councilman Roth.

I just want to say one thing. It took me a very, very long time to figure out that orchids are probably the most easiest flower to bloom. Just don't touch them. Just don't do anything to it. Put it outside and let nature take its course. I have many planted around the base of my palm trees and things like that. And every once in a while, I walk out, hey, look, another one bloomed. Hey, another one bloomed. And they don't do it at one time. They do it at different times. And they're different colors. And it's really cool to see. So I kind of like this. And I think we ought to put some out by that new sign you all were talking about too.

There you go. We can get you some great ground orchids for that.

Well, there's some really pretty orange ground orchids that bloom perpetually almost that we could incorporate. It's your microphone.

being involved in this, you create a sense of community and teach them from the beginning how to take care of the plants and everything. That's very important.

yeah that's that's a lot of it we do really large plantings for communities like this, and we do it all at once, we bring lots of volunteers, we of course ask the residents to be a part of it, you know they'll they get really excited about being able to put. Some more kids into the certain areas that they feel really connected with so that is a really big. Really big piece is involving the Community and making sure that they. they will take care of it. And so definitely identifying some public parks or locations, City Hall, you know, that you would like some orchids, and we can draw up an entire proposal and see if we could.

I love this project. Let's move it.

Move by Cannonball.

Yeah, I love the location. I love the locations that we picked, but we've got the whole city hall plaza here with palm trees that are nice and bare that could use a lot of color. Consider the palms here and the plaza as well, please.

From what I've heard, it doesn't seem to be egregiously expensive to do. We can do this in phases.

That's usually how we do it with municipal partners. We'll do it in several phases if that's what they want. We're very, very flexible with the budgeting. So we can even do it from year to year. We'll layer in and just kind of keep adding to build the layers of orchids that you guys have. Right.

And for example, I had inquired about out in the redo of Homestead Regional Park. Because that does not yet really exist,

they can't analyze it but at some point in the future another council may wish to to take that on as a phasing as you know showcasing to folks from all over the world orchids out at homestead regional park yes thank you no i some flowers orchids all the flowers let's be the city of flowers you know i think this is an excellent um addition to beautifying the city of homestead i love the partnership that we can have with fairchild tropical gardens um as a Longtime member of the Eastern Everglades Orchid Society. I highly support this item, and I look forward to the collaboration, the continued collaboration that this will have with our Ag Committee, with bringing the Redlands in, and maybe we'll have a future South Fairchild Garden. Homestead's Fairchild Tropical Garden.

thank you thank you guys again apologies for the lateness of the hour but we really appreciate you being here thank you okay so we have a motion and a second roll call councilwoman avila yes councilman cannibal yes councilman rob yes councilman fletcher yes councilwoman konski vice mayor bailey yes mayor lozner yes promotion all right moving on to tab 16 mr pearl

16 is a resolution of the city council the city of homestead florida allocating three of the city's annual city days under the management and operating agreement for the homestead miami speedway for use from august 3rd 2026 through august 5th 2026 in connection with the statewide police explorer competition authorizing the city manager to coordinate schedule and implement use of such city days providing for implementation providing for conflicts and providing for an effective date thank you councilman fletcher any background it's your item

background again it's a great opportunity for the police athletic league and the homestead explorers to to bring other municipalities into homestead and provide these different competitions uh you know all it no impact to the city so very good thank you moved and second moved by fletcher seconded by we'll give it to alva this time roll call out of court

Councilman Ross? Yes. Councilwoman Avila? Yes. Councilman Fletcher? Yes. Councilman Canabal? Yes. Councilwoman Tonski? Yes. Vice Mayor Bailey? Yes. Mayor Lassner? Yes. The motion carried.

All right, thank you. Okay, I switched agenda packages here. Tab 17.

Tab 17.

Tab 17. Okay, that's yours, Mr. Canabal. So let's, Mr. Pearl, read it into the record.

17 is a resolution of the city council of the city of homestead florida recognize the homestead police department for establishing and operating a full-time hoa and condominium fraud investigations unit directing the city managed remote public awareness of the availability of this resource providing for implementation and providing for an effective date okay

Well, this is giving some tools to the homeowners, again, some associations. This is being done already, and we have a pioneer of this law and this thing here with our chief of police that will help me explain to you how to do this.

Thank you and good evening, Mayor and Council. So we pretty much recognize that there is a well-documented regional problem in all of South Florida and not specifically in Homestead, but regionally. And first, let's start with this is not to attack HOAs that not every HOA is bad. And we know that there's a there's a real purpose for them. And and a lot of them help their community. But If you look at the headlines, you look at the news, you realize just how often this is happening. It's happening in Northeast, in the coastal cities, it's happening in Hammocks, if you remember that big case. So it's happening everywhere. So we formally established the HOA and Condo Fraud Unit in April 27th of 2025. So this has been in operation for over a year. It's a functioning full-time unit. They're fully dedicated to that, and I'll get into the way that works, but you gotta remember that so historically, HOA and condo fraud was considered a civil, police viewed it as civil. And so what I mean by that is, I'll give you an example. If somebody has an unreturned rental car, the mere fact that there is a contract it's not considered a criminal, the police will say, oh, that's civil. That's a civil matter. You got to go to the courts. And that's what was really going on in terms of HOA. But what was happening in the undercurrent was people were getting kickbacks. It's theft. It's fraud. It's flagrant. But police really didn't know how to investigate it. And so there is an organization called the DBPR. It's a state regulatory agency. but they handle the administrative part. Really what they look at is the board elections, they look at the board recalls, they look at the voting procedures. In other words, they're looking at rules, but they have no authority to take somebody to jail for fraud even if they see it. So the easy way to think about it is think of like the SEC, the Security and Exchange Commission, on how they monitor and how they regulate stocks, but insider trading, is not regulated by them it's not investigated by them they have to call the doj so the doj is the investigating agency the charging agency and that's what we become so basically what we've done is we've made it uh we're committed to the residents um fraud is fraud theft is theft it's just happening under a a civil umbrella that's really hard to to find so The issue with this with a lot of a lot of victims who are losing their houses they're left with a void. While state statutes for fraud for embezzlement for receiving kickbacks and everything else exists, but officers didn't really know how to do it, so we ended up basically committing to help these helpless. Residents, because when you don't have a real law enforcement arm, and it's they're looked at as the regulatory agency, they can give fines to the, but. The corrupt presidents and the corrupt boards don't care about the fines because they're, they're well within. Uh, their comfort level to pay those fines with the money that's being paid for by the residents anyway, and they continue to steal money and steal money and steal money while absorbing defines again. These are the dirty ones. So. People are losing their homes. It is fraud. We trained all of our personnel. In fact, they're here. I'm going to introduce them. But this is not something that we just go. We don't go after them. They come in. If there are criminal allegations that support an investigation through our intake process, we look at it, we vet it. In fact, when we've talked to residents, I've had some HOA presidents, some new HOA presidents that have come in and said, thank you so much for what we're doing. In fact, we want you to review the board that I just took over because of all the improprieties that we've seen before. So I do foresee a future where presidents actually want us to come and look at their books because it's all over the news and everything else. And it kind of presents a report that they are clean and healthy. But in the time that we've been in effect, we've handled 45 complaints. We've vetted and reviewed 20 complaints. We've opened four criminal investigations. Three of those remain active. We've issued 24 bank subpoenas. It's working. Uh, when we talk to the residents, you can, you can hear them. And when they walk up to us and say, thank you so much for doing that, it gives them peace of mind. And again, a lot of these people are being abused by, and some of them by homes that they own outright, but they're being held hostage by these corrupt HOAs. So I wanted to take a second to introduce them because here we have a captain Gabby Lowe. She was a sergeant when she started the unit. She was the sergeant that started the unit, part of the reason why she's a captain today, because she implemented the unit from the ground up. Then we have Sergeant Bert McComb, who took over. Bert has grabbed the flag and continued to run with it. He's doing an excellent job. We also have Detective Victor Correll. He's behind me and our investigative financial analyst, because we do subpoena reports and we do look at big, long spreadsheets. These are very long, protracted investigations, but our investigative financial analyst is Ronell Thomas. And if you have any more very specific questions to the way we operate, I'm going to open the floor to any of them to answer it for you.

Councilman are off. It's interesting. You said that the new boards that come in. are evaluating the past performance. So you can actually go after them even though they're not on the boards anymore?

Yes, because the crime is the crime. So a lot of people feel that this is something new. It's not new. If you steal money, whether you do it under the purview of an HOA or from a cash register, theft is theft, embezzlement is embezzlement, kickbacks is kickbacks, and generally speaking, a lot of those banking records, with the help of Ronell, he'll find a needle in a haystack.

Great. That's good stuff. Thank you for bringing this. Yes. Thank you, Mayor.

I actually made a recommendation to a new board that was installed to reach out to our police department specifically to take advantage of this unit's ability to give them closure and insight and confidence that they are taking over something valid, right? And as a longtime association member in my community, it only works to the benefit of the people who are doing it right. and to clear your name and your concerns. So I appreciate you bringing this up. Thank you. Okay.

So you want to move your resolution? Yeah. All right. It's moved and seconded. Roll call, please.

Councilwoman Minkowski? Yes. Councilman Cannavale? Yes. Councilman Roth? Yes. Councilman Fletcher? Yes. Councilwoman Avila? Yes. Vice Mayor Bailey? Yes. Mayor Lassner? Yes. The motion carries.

All right. Moving on to tab 18. Okay. Final agenda item.

So before I read this into the record, I just want to outline the procedure that we followed in the past. So I'll read the resolution into the record. And then that's when Bailey asked if last meeting was the last opportunity to address this any of the questions, it was not what i'll ask for is a motion on each question. And then, whatever questions are presented i'll ask for one final motion to adopt the amended resolution with the elimination of any questions that don't make that don't have the majority of the support of the Council okay. so tab 18 is a resolution of the city council of the city of homestead florida providing for the submission to the city electors of proposed amendments to the city charter in accordance with section 6.03 of the miami-dade county charter providing requisite valid language for submission to the electorate calling an election on the proposed amendments to the city charter to be held on november 3rd 2026 providing notice of election providing for balloting providing for inclusion in the charter providing for severability and providing for an effective date

Okay, so the first question is with respect to a reduction in the mayor's term of office from four years to two years.

We've had lengthy discussion. I don't know if you're free to have any further discussion, and then move it as you see fit.

Councilman Avila.

Thank you, Mayor. Just for my colleague's benefit, there was a change to the verbiage from the last time we saw this to now, which was heeded from our legal counsel's recommendations to avoid any challenges to the verbiage. But that was the main change, and for that reason.

Well, the change is with respect to the question as it will appear on the ballot. Right. Not the impact, but... a more neutrally framed question. Right. Council, any further questions or comments on this first item? Does somebody want to move it?

Move it.

Moved by Avala, Councilwoman Avala. We have a second on the reduction of the Mayor's term from four years to two years.

I'll second.

Okay, second by Councilman Roth. Anything further from Council? let's have a roll call vote on the ballot question calling for a reduction in the term of the mayor commencing in 2027 from four years to two years at a time but not limiting a total service of eight consecutive years councilman ron councilwoman aguilar yes councilman fletcher no

Councilwoman Karnski? Yes. Councilman Cannavale? No. Vice Mayor Bailey?

No.

Mayor Lawsner?

No.

The motion fails. All right.

So the next question, then, Mr. Attorney, is with respect to appointed time.

The calculation of appointed service, the inclusion of appointed service in the calculation of term limits. The question would clarify or clarify, it would make, it would set the charter precedent that

term years served as virtue by virtue of an appointment would not count towards the year of service so if someone steps in to fill that vacancy they run for they still have eligibility to run for the full term limit okay any questions or comments from council on this item moved by councilwoman vice mayor bailey second by councilwoman conski so let's have a roll call vote on the We've more public comment to all issues to the front of the meeting. Generally, I've been very liberal with this particular speaker this evening that I think that this has been talked and talked to death in prior meetings.

just you know for in the future anything you want to talk about needs to be talked about in public comment so thank you glad to see that the vote for the four-year stayed because that's what the residents have voted originally so happy to see that that stayed thank you council who did that also for this next item to my understanding this uh changing from an eight-year term Sorry, changing from a 12-year term to eight-year terms?

No, that's next.

Oh, it's not this one?

That's the next question.

Okay, do you want me to wait?

No, this would, if adopted and passed by the voters, anyone who's on council now who was appointed in the past or may be appointed in the future, that abbreviated term would not count against their term limit, whether it be eight or 12 years.

I'll wait for the next one.

This is the appointment part. This is the appointment exemption that we're dealing with now. Okay, so let's have a roll call vote on the calculation of time.

Councilwoman Abula? Yes. Councilman Roth? Yes. Councilman Canabal?

No.

Councilman Fletcher? No. Councilwoman Konski? Yes. Vice Mayor Bailey? Yes. Mayor Lossner? No. The motion carries.

And finally, the third and final question this evening. is a question as to whether, and it would not apply to anyone currently in office, anyone first elected for a term starting in 2027 and thereafter to counsel would be under a term limit of eight years versus the current 12 years. So, Mr. Ramirez.

Thank you for making that important point that you just mentioned. That is my concern. If the current 12 year term limit has been appropriate for every council member who has served under these rules, including the those serving today, why should future candidates be limited to only eight years? What problem is this amendment solving? This proposal creates two different standards, one for today's elected officials and another for tomorrow's, which almost happened with the mayor's one. The people of the homestead deserve the same opportunity to elect experienced leaders in the future as they have in the past. If voters want change, they already have the power at every election. I respectfully ask that you keep the rules fair that's what you guys were voted on each one of you guys served 12 years and tonight you just made it possible for erica councilwoman erica to go even further which is great i think that should have been been appointed positions however i ask you guys if it took you 12 years to be able to do the work you did why do you want to take that away from any future candidate So I hope and ask for your support for those future candidates to be able to be given the same opportunity that you are allowed to have done and do your work that you did to serve. Thank you, Kim, for confirming today that it was not going to affect you guys. I hope you would give that grace and that support to the future candidates. I look forward to seeing how Mr. Clemente Canabal is specifically going to vote on this matter. Again, It should be fair across the board. That's what the mayor had asked for other items. Glad to see that the mayor's seat is going to go for another four years and not two. Please do that same great job again right now with this one, thank you.

If I might take it to your point though, Mrs. Ramirez.

Yes, sir.

Some historical perspective. Yes, sir. In the election of 2002, there had not been term limits in Homestead prior to that. and there was a very vast committee, I think of 19 folks, who also recognized the political reality that given who sat on that council at the time and what their terms of office were, that 12 would be the least amount of term limit they would accept for council. Mr. Bronis was there. And while they knew that term limits needed to happen, they were kind of hedging their bets. I think my research today reflects that of all the cities who have term limits, only Homestead and two others are as generous with 12 years. It's typically eight across the board, in those cities that have term limits, for both mayor and council. So again, if eight's enough for mayor, why isn't it good enough for council? And that was my perspective. I'll take ownership of this item, win or lose. You know, 12 years is what was doable in 2002 to get it on the ballot. I've always felt that was too generous. As our community continues to grow, incumbents always have the edge.

I appreciate you giving us history.

And we need to enhance the opportunity of others to serve without being up against an 8, 10 year incumbent.

And I forgot to ask, can I get clarification just for the residents that will be knowing about this information? I just wanna make it clear, and I believe that this item that you're talking to, getting ready to vote on, this was motioned or recommended by Mayor Anne Clemente Canabal. This did not come from Councilwoman Erica Abla for this changing from 12 to eight, am I correct?

That's true, but what's your point?

Okay, I just wanted to make sure that that was true and that the taxpayers and the residents that are aware of it, that it did not come from Councilwoman Erika, that this thing that you're about to vote for, which each one of you had the opportunity to do 12, please vote the same that you just did for the four-year mayor, because that's what the residents voted for. Give them the opportunity. If they don't want someone to go to this 12, they're going to vote you out. so all i'm asking is for your support today to please vote to keep it at the 12 if the voters want to vote someone out after their first term they're going to do so and so i again i look forward to seeing how clemente canada specifically will be voting on this thank you very interesting

Yeah, that was my initiative approved for discussion tonight by at least three other colleagues. Two of us don't have the ability to place anything on this agenda. So we'll close the public hearing, and I believe there's been a motion and a second on this one? No? Okay. So this is a motion to reduce from 12 to 8. Do we have a motion? Moved by Councilman Fletcher. Do we have a second? for a term reduction. No second for a reduction in term from 12 to eight years. So let me hand the gavel to the vice mayor. I will be happy to second it. I think people need to stand up and be counted. So it's been moved and seconded for a reduction of the term from commencing in 27 for newcomers to council. that the overall term limit would be eight years as councilman. This does not impact the 12 consecutive years. Someone could serve as mayor and council member. This is just the 12 consecutive years for council. So Madam Clerk, let's have a roll call vote on the reduction of the overall council term limit.

Councilwoman Konski? No. Councilman Fletcher? Yes. Councilman Roth? No. Councilman Canabal?

No.

Councilwoman Avila? No. Vice Mayor Bailey? No. Mayor Lossner?

Yes.

The motion fails. Okay.

So we've got... Okay.

one item on charter review which uh so if i can have a motion to amend the resolution as it's presented on the agenda to eliminate the first and third questions and related transition provisions okay and to adopt it as amended placing only quest the second question um on on the ballot and i will make the necessary changes provided to the clerk so transmission moved by by councilman fletcher with pardon Just to put that one item on the ballot. To amend the resolution, I need a motion to amend the resolution to eliminate the first and third questions. and the related transition provisions. I will make those changes and it will be adopted with the sole question. I will transmit that to the clerk and she'll work with the supervisor of elections to have it placed on the ballot from there.

Very good, so it's been moved by Councilman Fletcher. I second. And seconded by Councilman Canabal to transmit the one question for placement on the November ballot. All right, so let's have a roll call vote.

Councilman Roth? Yes. Councilwoman Konski? Yes. Councilman Cannavale? Yes. Councilman Fletcher? Yes. Councilwoman Avila? Can I abstain? I have to vote? Okay, yes, thank you. Vice Mayor Bailey? Yes. Mayor Lassner?

Yes.

The motion carries.

Okay, so who's next? Is it Mr. Attorney or Mr. Manager? Mr. Manager of Business.

So, Mr. Mayor and Council, this past weekend, our nation marked a milestone unlike any other. We celebrated the 250th anniversary of America's independence. Homestead came out strong in the celebration of the historic event. Thanks to Mayor and Council for your leadership and support. in making the event a huge success and also to all our sponsors for your leadership your support and the funding special thanks to deputy city manager kim abram and the entire city planning team for the great effort put in place to make this a huge success thanks to the vice mayor for the leadership in identifying and supporting the design and production of a mural so i'm asking council a mayor for your for a recommendation from the administration to allow us to place the mural in the lobby of city hall okay and also we've been asking for dates shifting to a different item for council workshops that council had requested we are hoping to have all the workshops completed this month it's been it's been a while i think uh Thanks to the legislative delegation of the city as well as the lobby team for the great success in this year's legislative session in bringing us the much needed funding for two critical projects in Homestead. Venezuela at work relief efforts. We are lucky to roll out something that most cities hadn't even thought about. Earlier this afternoon, the city of Homestead delivered two truckloads of donated materials to the Global Empowerment Mission at the Doral, I believe it was at the Doral location where they are making all the collections countywide. Thanks to the leadership of the emergency manager, Isaiah, Thanks Jaime Hernandez for putting that all together under our leadership. And I believe that's what we have. More importantly, before the next council meeting, the final championship game for World Cup 26 would have come and gone. The city is putting together a special event for Fan Fest, which will be a watch party at the Lawson Park on the 19th of July. We're inviting Mayor and Council and all the residents of the city of Homestead to participate There'll be lots of celebration. We don't know yet who's going to be on the final game, but most of us have lost all our teams. So may I cancel? Thanks. Yeah, that's all I have.

Thank you, Mr. Manager. Okay, Mr. Attorney. Nothing for me this evening. Councilwoman Alvarez.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. Fabulous 4th of July. Congratulations to all the teams that put this together, all their hard work and effort. It really was beautiful. I'm interested in seeing the final accounting, but as far as I'm concerned, it was a success. Kudos to Parks and Rec. They would pick the hottest month of the year to make it Park Month, so congratulations to the recognition. keep doing all that hard work same to our homestead police department continue doing a great job and recognizing our officers i love to see our officers being recognized here every month so if we could have each member of council maybe sponsor that recognition each month i think that would be beautiful and keep it continuous With regards to, I was reached out to by some businesses that would like to sponsor art in public places and do some of the wraps on the electrical boxes. I don't know if that's an option. I don't recall if we've discussed it or not in the workshop with regards to generating revenue. maybe we can talk about it then but if there is an active program or an idea on what that would cost or what we would want to engage a business to do for example the recommendation was doing some kind of biscayne national park theme you know sea creatures whatever you know fish underwater but sponsored by the business so how they do their business logo to to promote the sponsorship i don't know that would be subject to review but if we could get that into consideration i would appreciate it And I did have a question with regards to, regarding public comments. I understand the need to make our meetings more efficient and having public comments are an opportunity for anyone who wants to be here early to make public comments at the beginning and leave after that. But I think it's very important that the public has the opportunity to speak on items after hearing the information and the positions that we might share before we call for a vote. So I think I don't recall, you know, I don't think I knew the impact of being in agreement to changing that procedurally. And I would like for us to maybe go back to that.

So let's let's look at that and all be up to speed on the exceptions to the upfront comments. You know, there are exceptions. to agenda items where we are not foreclosing the opportunity to make comments at the actual time the item is discussed.

Oh, I feel like that's what's been happening. So if we just want to make sure.

Well, there are limited exceptions. So let's all re-educate ourselves on that. If Mr. Attorney, you could recirculate that.

Yes. I'll send out a clarifying email. OK. Thank you. Sure.

And then what was the schedule for the big game in Lossner Park? July 19th. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilman Fletcher.

Yes, thank you. And again, great job this weekend. Saturday yeah the 4th of July was a it does it feels like it's forever but uh great job uh great turnout even though the weather kind of turned bad for us for a little bit um just a reminder to all the residents out there with the rain mosquitoes have increased in their capabilities so we need to all call 3-1-1 and request the county assist us with that and one thing and I'm i'm ashamed that i didn't think about this earlier and we kind of all dropped it over the past couple years but the jet on us-1 we need to we need to start looking at who we can who might be willing to sponsor and getting that thing repainted i think it would have been a great opportunity for us to do prior to the fourth with the new some of the logos we saw on some of the planes on the fourth but we still need to endeavor to try and find those people who might be willing to support so

For that, Councilman, I recently reached out to Larry Ventura at the base, because I had heard that wraps were now permitted, that we didn't have to go into an actual air-based paint shop and have it painted under the same standards as an active duty airplane. He clarified that for us. There are some approved wrap vendors. But we have that information from about a month ago. I'd be happy to share that, you know, because that's not off my radar either and we're going to need to have some conversation, I believe, about a relocation of that jet. That is not a sufficient location in this day and age. So, you know, if we can get the rehab underway and then really focus on a prominent and appropriate location. Thank you. Councilman Roth?

Yeah, just to piggyback on the jet thing. I know the MAC, the Military Affairs Council, had been working a couple years ago with the military base, and it was scheduled to be repainted. And then something happened.

COVID happened.

Was it COVID? Maybe it was COVID.

Was that far back?

That happened. And I thought we were also looking into maybe purchasing a second jet, retired jet, and placing it somewhere else in the city as well. So I think those are some cool projects. And I think if there's expense involved, We need to find out how much it's gonna cost us to do it. I'm sure we can find dollars to do that or even civic organizations to help us raise the money to re-wrap these jets. As Vice Mayor Bailey mentioned, earlier about the photo ops for the new signage. The jet would be a great idea for a photo op. That's why it needs to be moved. You can't do it there. You can't just stop on US 1 and do it. But that was just something there. Yeah, great job on the 4th of July. Kamara, I don't think I've ever seen you No pun intended, sweat so much because of everything that happened. I mean, I think the delay in the fireworks, the delay in the drone show was, you know, the delay with the weather and even getting us up on stage set back, you know, the event, you know, maybe 45 minutes, whatever it was. My only disappointment was the fact that I had waited all day to have a hot dog. and there was no hot dogs up in the VIP area. So I'm pleading that next year, and I'm not gonna have a hot dog all year until that event, that we have hot dogs. I mean, what is a Fourth of July party without hot dogs?

Kind of like it is without patriotic music, but that's another discussion.

Yeah, I didn't want to go there. But anyways, great job. We can work on next year, too. And I'm going to work on getting some flags. I passed out some flags in the audience. Just walked through there, and man, they were trying to mob me. So...

Konski's got a bunch of them left over.

Yeah. But no, I looked. I mean, they're very inexpensive. You can get by 500 flags for like 80 bucks. Right. The little three by five little handheld ones. And I think it'd be cool for everybody sitting in the stands and everybody, you know, that's standing up wherever they are, that have little flags and wave them as the fireworks and stuff shows goes on. So and I'd be I'd be even. uh happier to see the drone show come back too so i think that was actually better than the fireworks show so just my two cents thank you mayor so councilman with respect to the jet it's always and i remember you know in the early late 90s early 2000s

The original Military Affairs Committee, I guess it's called Council now, always took the lead, and they had a contractor who donated the crane and the flatbed truck to move it out there to the paint shop, and they also had a benefactor for the repainting. You may recall that when we first started talking about moving it, that organization, whether it was committee or council at the time, was resistant to the relocation. I took the opportunity at the time to look at the agreement. The agreement from the National Museum of the Air Force is between the city of Homestead and the National Museum of the Air Force. Other than if we want to have to go look for new benefactors, there is no legal standing for anyone other than this council. to make the relocation decision. And knowing who the two philanthropy sources were for the dismantling of the airplane and moving it, I think that still exists. But, you know, kind of the beauty of it is I'm wondering that if it can be rewrapped, at its location wherever that may be versus moving it to to a shop and again you know it's been less than a month ago i believe i i got several a lot of correspondence back and forth between myself and larry ventura about that that very issue okay councilman mcconiskey

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Kudos and a big round of applause to staff for Saturday and to Homestead and the residents that even through the downpour, they stayed. And I was told they were dancing in the rain and playing in the puddles and hiding out in the tunnel. So rain or shine, they stayed. So that says a lot about who they are and the event itself and their willingness to stick it out. It meant that much to them. So just for those of you who weren't aware, you know, I was really impressed with the residents of Homestead.

So thank you. So quickly, tell us about Havana Nights that you're involved in. What is that raising money for? What's the purpose?

Havana Nights is a benefit. It's the first annual. My very good friend, Miriam Cruz and Bernie Cruz, they started Closet of Living Hope where they started with taking in clothing for either the homeless or those who are in need. Domestic violence, many times they leave with just the clothes on their back. They have nothing. So it started out as just a closet for clothes, but now they have many other items, a lot of baby products and stuff like that. And then they have two other colleagues with them. One nonprofit is a feeding ministry primarily in Miami, but they also work with the Homestead Soup Kitchen. And then the other is... They work with high school and college students, most of them are homeless, who they assist with finding them jobs, college enrollment, and just helping them get started and get off of the streets and into employment. So this is their first annual. We're hoping for a great success so far. They have a lot to offer. It's going to be an exciting night. And I thank you, staff and Zeri, really, for really putting that out there. And we had some mutual contacts, much to our surprise. So these women do this out of their heart and out of their own pocket. And after many years, you can't sustain that any longer. So that's why they're here calling on us, the public, to help them. So many of us don't know how to do it, and we don't need to. They're doing it, but they need our help to make it happen. They need our finances. Thanks.

Whoa.

It will be at the Women's Club Saturday night. Cocktails start at 5, and I believe dinner's at 7.30. Yeah, cocktails.

Early cocktails. Early cocktails. 5 o'clock somewhere.

That's right. I was told that espresso martinis at 5 o'clock.

Well, thank you. Appreciate that.

yes sir havana knights no i do not believe they're available because there's limited seating remaining but you can uh social media they are on instagram i know havana knights okay councilman

Hello, yes. I want to congratulate everybody in the city of Homestead. That 4th of July event was a wonderful one, a magical one. So thank you for that and to the police for keeping it organized and safe. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Do we have any crowd estimates yet? Did we do any geofencing or anything? No? Okay. Just curious.

Not not yet. Mr. Mayor. We are we will get that as a part of the after-action report.

Very good.

Thank you vice mayor Yeah, kudos to staff. I thought it was a great event live 305 I mean it feels like every event that we do now just they step it up and step it up. They can do anything So let's keep reaching for the sky and asking for bigger and better things for homestead as far as the judge concerned while we're having these discussions I I can't really picture the scale right now, but with Harris Field and the reimagining of it, there could be potential in there as well. So that is all. Thank you.

Thank you, and given the lateness of the hour, there is nothing of mine that can't wait until a later date, so I'll entertain a motion to adjourn, and I heard that in the second. All in favor, aye. Thank you all, and good night. Meeting adjourned.