City Council - Regular Meeting

Yeah.

Good evening. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. The mayor has called the council meeting to order. Mayor Roscoe.

Present.

Council Member Bracken.

Here.

Council Member Catlin.

Here. Good enough. Bye-bye.

Council Member London.

Bye-bye.

Vice Mayor Sardinius. Present. Council Member Stoner. Here. Council Member Vazquez.

He's in the back.

Mr. Mayor, we do have a quorum. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Stay standing for the invitation.

Good evening, honorable mayor, vice mayor, esteemed members of our council. So in our society, leaders are appointed by their fellow citizens who entrust and empower them to represent us and to look out for the benefit of the community. On a deeper level, the Talmud teaches that every position of leadership is appointed from heaven. Meaning, when a person finds themselves in a position of responsibility, especially when it's a responsibility of service to others, they are not there by accident. We're taught that they've been placed there from heaven. And together with that responsibility comes the ability to fulfill it properly. God does not place us in a position where something is asked of us that we do not have the ability to accomplish. Our village is now preparing for a new fiscal year. And in the Jewish calendar, we're also preparing for a new year. In the weeks ahead, we will celebrate Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish new year, but the Hebrew words Rosh Hashanah translate more literally as the head of the year. Just as the head gives vision and direction to the entire body, these days give vision and direction to the year ahead. And actually in the Torah, the leaders of a community are also called heads for the same reason. because they are called upon to provide clarity, vision, and direction for the path ahead. If that is their responsibility, then surely they have been given the ability to fulfill it and to fulfill it with much success. With this in mind, please join me in prayer to the almighty God. May our council be blessed to carry the responsibility entrusted to them with confidence and with joy. May they guide us toward our shared vision leading by example as good citizens, kind neighbors, and as a part of a connected community. May God bless their minds with clarity and wisdom and bless their hearts with kindness and sensitivity to listen deeply and lead effectively. And may our village be blessed to become the community we all hope for, one where we live together in peace, harmony, and friendship. And may we all be blessed as we wish each other a year filled with goodness and sweetness, a year in which our community grows stronger and more connected.

And let us say amen.

The next item, Mr. Mayor, is brief comments by council.

Okay. Anybody here to my right?

I would just like to... Remind everyone that on August 15th, Saturday, we had our first ever sports fair at the Village Community Center. And it was fantastic. It was very well attended. It was super, super fun. And I would like to recognize David Carreño in particular, who put the entire... He coordinated everything, food, all the coaches. It was amazing, and I would like to thank David for all of his hard work. It was a wonderful event, and it will be one that we will repeat annually, I'm sure. Thanks, David.

Thank you. Oh, I see the young ladies back there. Let's do the young ladies who are celebrating KB girls soccer team U-13 state champions. So let's council go down.

Thank you, everyone, for being here. Thank you. Thank you, Marcelo. Thank you, Jimmy. Thank you, Sophia. And congratulations to my girls.

Good afternoon, everyone.

I'm very proud to be here today representing the Key Beach Cane Soccer Club girls program. Over the last few years, our girls program has grown tremendously. Our girls have won the Commissioner Cup, President Cup, and now the State Cup, something very special for our programs and for you as well. But for me, it's not only about the trophies. It's about the development of our girls, their hard work, commitment, dedication, discipline, and how much they have improved. This state cup trophy belongs to everyone, our players, our coaches, parents, the girls and the entire Key West County community. I'm very proud of you guys and everything we have accomplished together. We haven't finished yet. This is only the beginning. Thank you everyone and God bless you.

Good evening. My name is Sofia Cherka and I am so honored to be representing my team. Today I'm incredibly proud to say that the Key Biscayne 2013 girls are Florida State Champions. Our team is the first girls team in our club's history to win a Florida State Championship. So this is a historic moment for our team, our club, and Key Biscayne. Most of us have played together since we were little. We have grown up together, practiced together, won, lost, and become best friends. This was such a great season for us, and it was a season that I will always remember. We learned so much, not just about soccer, but also about working together, trusting each other, staying positive, and not giving up when things got difficult. Every practice gave us a chance to improve and learn something new. We practiced and practiced, sometimes repeating the same things until we got them right. We worked on our skills, our teamwork, and our communication and our confidence. There were definitely moments when things were hard. We kept showing up and working together. We pushed each other to get better and we learned from our mistakes instead of letting them bring us down. Every game and every practice helped us become a stronger team. Looking back, I think all of those little moments throughout the season prepared us for the biggest moments. Winning the state championship wasn't just about what happened on the final day. It was a result of everything we had done throughout the season, all the practices, all the games, all the things we learned, and all the time we spent together. When we finally won, it felt really special because we knew how much work we had put in into getting there. And even though winning was amazing, I think one of the best parts of the season was getting to experience it together. We had so many fun moments, laughed together, supported each other, and made memories that we will remember for a long time. I really enjoyed being with my teammates every week and getting to see how much we improved from the beginning of the season to the end. I truly believe that friendship and teamwork help us win. We fight for each other on the field because we care about each other off the field. We know each other's strengths, we trust each other, and we know what we can count on each other. That connection is something really special about our team. I want to thank our coaches, families, club, and community for supporting us. Our coaches believed us, taught us, challenged us, and helped us become better players and better teammates. Our families have supported us through all the practices, games, tournaments, and everything in between. And our community has given us a place to play, grow, and represent Key Biscayne. And most importantly, I want to thank my teammates. I'm so grateful for all the memories we have made together, for the way we always support each other, and for how much we have grown together over the years. I'm really proud to be part of this team. We have been through so much together, and getting to share this championship with the people I have grown up playing with makes it even more special. I know that none of this would have been the same without each and every one of them. But I also hope this championship can help create change. Girls are a smaller part of our soccer program, and historically we have not always had the same coaching, specialized training opportunities as the boys. And still, this group of girls became the first girls state championships in our club's history. That shows how much potential there is when girls are given the opportunity to work hard, develop and compete at a high level. Imagine what girls could accomplish if we continue investing in them and giving them more opportunities to grow. As we get older, many girls leave Key Biscayne to find higher level opportunities. But why should girls have to leave Key Biscayne to find those opportunities? Why can't we build a girls program so strong that talented girls from other communities want to come to Key Biscayne to play, develop and compete? We want to stay together, keep growing, and help make Key Biscayne a destination for girls' soccer. We want younger girls in our community to see that there is a place for them here, and that they can dream big and work toward their goal without having to leave their community. We were excited to represent Key Biscayne at Nationals, and I was sad that journey ended. But I know we have already accomplished something really special together, and I am proud of everything that we did this season. This season taught us that hard work, patience, teamwork, and enjoying the game can take you a long way. We didn't just win a championship. We learned, improved, and created memories together that will carry with us. I hope this championship can be a start of even more opportunities for girls soccer in Cuba's game. We are proud of what we have accomplished, grateful for everyone who helped us get here, and excited to keep working, growing, and representing Cuba's game. Thank you.

Winning the Florida State Championship with a 2013 Girls Elite team means so much to all of us. We've been playing together for so long, and through all these years, we've made so many memories that will carry with us forever. We've grown together, supported each other, laughed together, and pushed through all the hard moments together. This championship isn't just about winning a trophy. It's about everything we've been through as a team and how far we've come. We're so thankful for every opportunity, every game, every practice, and most importantly for each other. We're also super thankful for our coach for believing in us, pushing us, and helping us become the players and teams we are today. And to all of our families who have supported us throughout every game, practice, early mornings, and long drives. Thank you for always being there and believing in us. I'm so proud to be part of this team and couldn't imagine sharing this moment with anyone else. We started as teammates, but along the way we became families. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Valentina Gil and I play for the U 14 girls team. Winning the state cup final was one of the best moments of my life, but getting there was not easy. A few months before I had a huge knee surgery and I had to work hard to get back to soccer. Recovery was hard. I missed playing with my team and sometimes I felt frustrated because I just wanted to be back on the field. I had to be patient and keep working, even when it was difficult. On May 17, I got to play in the state cup final. We were losing 1-0 and there were only 10 minutes left in the game. We didn't give up. We kept fighting, scored, and came back to win the game. Winning after everything I had been through made the moment even more special. Going from having surgery and working to get back to the field to winning a state cup was something I will never forget. This experience taught me to never give up, even when things get hard. If you keep working and believe in yourself, you'll come back stronger. Thank you. Thank you, parents. Thank you, team. It's a great victory.

Are we going to do it again next year? No, no, no. Are we going to do it again next

He's gay, that's me, he's gay, that's me. One, two, three, he's gay, that's me. The next item.

The next item, Mr. Mayor, is public comments.

Okay, everyone, I've got a lot of public comments here tonight. So be brief and to the point. And try not to repeat what the other person has said already. So that would be great. I'm going to start with Linda Gericht.

Can I move them?

I think you can reach, yeah.

Can you hold this? Yeah? Okay. Good evening. My name is Linda Gurecht. I live at 101 Ocean Lane Drive. And I'm formerly from the UK, as you can probably hear. And now I'm a permanent resident of Paradise Island of Key Biscayne. Except it's not a paradise island if you are handicapped. Let me give you some examples. I understand that a rolling wheelchair was purchased by the village a while ago. But where is it? I also understand that there was a request made to purchase beach mats and a floating wheelchair. It would be great if there was a floating wheelchair available in the Key Biscayne Beach Park near the paddleboard site and beach mats that extended near to the sea. So frustrating not being able to get onto the beach. Finally, In connection with the beach access paths next to the Commodore Club or the Key Biscayne Beach Park, there is no way at all for disabled people to get onto the beach at these locations. I also understand that the mayor and the manager have details and photos of the poor state of the repair of the beach paths access issues. Please get them repaired. Please consider what I've mentioned. As a resident, I would love to be able to breathe in the fresh sea air, sargassum allowing, in a wheelchair. Thank you.

Thank you. Jackson Berlin.

Good evening, council members. My name is Jackson Berlin. I live in 1121 Crandon Boulevard, apartment F1203. I'm 17 years old. I'm a senior at Ransom Everglades. And I've lived on Key Biscayne ever since I was in kindergarten. Now, according to Chapter 8, Article 6, since 2009, this village has regulated lighting to protect sea turtles. However, the same cannot be said about birds. So let's examine why Key Biscayne is so necessary towards the migration of birds, then understand how unregulated lighting has its effect on these birds, before finally looking at some resolutions to this problem. First of all, Key Biscayne is uniquely situated in the lead Key Biscayne, specifically Bill Bagg Parks, is a critical stopover on the Atlantic fairway. The Cape Florida banding station has banded its 50,000th bird last year, representing 119 species. The Smithsonian and US Fish and Wildlife Studies estimates building collisions kill 599 million birds a year nationally. 56% of these deaths is caused by low-rise buildings. The reason for this is due to many municipal buildings keeping lights on past hours, such as 11 PM to dawn during migration season. And due to the fact that migration season started here August 15, just 10 days ago, these birds are currently at risk. Now, I have two resolutions to this problem. First of all, during the fall migration season, turning off village and municipal lighting past 11 PM to dawn during the migration season. This way, we can mitigate the deaths of birds during the migration season due to unregulated lighting. And second of all, outside the power of the village, there is the power of the residents, which leads to my second resolution, which is supporting lights-out programs in Key Biscayne. Over 30 different states in the US have adopted lights-out programs, such as New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, and every state-owned building in New York State. However, as far as I can find, there is not a single Florida municipality that has adopted this resolution. Key Biscayne could be the first. After turning off lights worked, a 20-year study in Chicago found that halving the lights in the area cut collisions 11-fold in spring. Supporting nonprofits such as Smart Bird, a group that I run with students, will support the fact that residents should turn off lights past 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Thank you, and support this resolution.

Thank you so much.

Edward Stone.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Edward Stone, longtime resident of the Key, 355 Harbor Lane. When we spoke last June, I raised concerns regarding the consistency, transparency, and accountability of the village's administrative process. I explained these concerns extend beyond my individual property dispute and provided an administrative summary packet with specific examples within it. I ended by asking how those concerns could be reviewed and addressed. I'm back tonight because the concerns remain unanswered. On June 29th, the village manager characterized the remaining concerns as internal village operations. Consider my prior requests fulfilled and close the matter. I asked which outstanding concerns were considered internal, operational, and the basis for the determination. I did not receive an answer. I continued through the administrative process. Since then, another significant inconsistency has emerged. I was repeatedly advised in writing that code violations remained active and fines continued to run. Yet at the August 7th special magistrates meeting, village staff presented May 13th as the compliance state. I asked the manager to review the underlying administrative record. I'm not challenging the special magistrate's independent decision. I'm asking for a review of the village's administrative actions and the records that preceded. I understand section 4.02 of the village charter prohibits individual council members from directing village employees. I'm not asking you to do that. But section 3.01 makes the manager responsible to the council for the village's administration. And section 4.02 expressively recognizes inquiries and investigations made in good faith. So I ask what charter complaint process exists for reviewing documented concerns about village administration when those concerns are characterized as internal operation and closed without substantial review. I'm asking that these administrative concerns be reviewed and addressed. At minimum, I ask that this matter be placed on a future council agenda and that the appropriate review and oversight process be reviewed. Truly, thank you for your time, your consideration, and your service to our island.

Thank you so much. Steve Powell.

Thank you, Council. Steve Powell, 441 Island Drive, Key Biscayne. Speaking tonight about 303 Galen Avenue, Coral Reef Apartments, initially on tonight's agenda as a first reading of a codification of RM 30 District. My understanding is the zoning action was pulled from the agenda in favor of a presentation of the proposed redevelopment. In short, I do not feel that this project should be pushed off for the following reasons. Zoning. The clarification change would not establish a precedence. There are only five properties, non-waterfront properties, in Key Biscayne that are zoned RM30. Four are in the district, and then the fifth is up on Ocean Lane. With the exception of 303, all are built to a maximum density already. They're not going to be redeveloped. All of the properties are individually owned condos with the exception of 303. So redevelopment of the other properties is virtually impossible, if not economically feasible. Pushing off 303 to allow for a larger study of the Garden District is not in the best interest of the community. Why? The district represents 30 parcels, plus or minus. All but two are individual condos. Without a significant increase in density, development is virtually impossible, and there's no way we're going to allow more density anywhere. In my opinion, stopping the study, something that will never happen, meaning the redevelopment of the Garden District, is academic at best, but in reality a waste of taxpayer money, and we don't need that. Finishing up. Tax revenue. 303 today is assessed at approximately $9 million, with about $26,000 contributed to your budget. Redevelopment would likely add $150 million in assessed value and approximately $500,000 to your budget. When the state is trying to limit our revenue, you would think an additional $500,000 would be welcomed. Infrastructure improvements redevelopment would involve on and off site water Stormwater improvements which the district would seriously benefit from and a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush You have a local developer which has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to study this site The developer has invested months of due diligence in meetings with the village staff seeking guidance and is not increasing the density of In fact, would be reducing the current use as a transient hotel. Not moving forward with the request to amend the zoning code will likely not allow the developer to proceed with the contract and the village would lose a unique opportunity to leverage this development for overall enhancement to the district. Thank you. Oh, by the way. I'm over time. This is the third time I've received this on the swales. I hope that the village will take that up. I have by far one of the largest swales, thank God. I spend a lot of money on it, but I keep getting notices about the compliance, and I hope we will re-review that.

Thank you. Okay. Next speaker, Luis de la Cruz.

Good afternoon, Council. Luis de la Cruz, 640 Allendale, Mr. Mayor, Mr. Vice Mayor. I come to speak to you about three items on your agenda. The first item is 9A, which is the roadway resurfacing. Please think about not paving over our brick pavers. We have a little bit of resilience in those brick pavers, and we can probably make them a lot more resilient if you follow the advice of some of the people that have come to talk to you before. But certainly, by putting paving or stamped concrete to replace the brick pavers. That's going backwards. Instead of helping resiliency, which is what we're trying to deal with here in Key Biscayne, you're making it less resilient. So please think about, approve the project, but stop them from paving over our brick paver roundabouts. Second item is 10C, which is the resolution to approve the site plan for a stormwater pump station and a backup generator. We don't need a backup generator. All we need is undergrounding our utilities, which we should have done 10 years ago, and which we still have not started, and which has to start as soon as possible. either with this council or for the next council for sure. So I can only tell you that this backup generators, once you underground the utilities, it's only going to be turned on whenever you're testing it. So you're spending all this money, and I don't want to hear that it comes from a grant and whatever, because grant is still tax money. People have to pay taxes in order for grants to become grants. Let's not waste our money. Let's use it wisely. We have a lot of things that we need to spend money on. Please don't approve a backup generator, because then that sets a precedent. And then I'm going to see the projects coming up for the GIT proposals with a backup generator at each particular well. That is not the way we should go about it. I think Ed London knows about it as much as anybody else. My last item is 10D. And that's probably the one that's dearest to my heart, because AECOM and Stantec, two companies that we have had in the past be our consultants and who have failed us in the past. And now we are proposing that they continue being our consultants. I just don't understand. what our management is doing with this, and I don't know who it was that proposed these as proper consultants, but for sure, Stantec, I was on the council when Stantec misdesigned our Village Green, and we had to tear it back up, and unfortunately, Mr. Kaplan and I had to do everything that we didn't want to do and approve an artificial turf, but They failed us before. AECOM failed us just recently. We spent $8.5 million that we're throwing down the drain because they misdesigned something. They didn't misdesign it. They just designed something that the village keepers came would never have approved. So thank you. Please look into that before you approve it. Thank you.

Mike Davey. Motion to adjourn. There you go.

See? Finally getting it. Second. Mike Davey, 50 Ocean Lane Drive. I'm sure this is going to be a quick meeting because we've got Judge Berlancek here, and he never lengthens meetings. Thank you all I just came here to remind everybody we're at first of all congratulations to all of you qualified to run for council and my condolences. You know we do appreciate it it's important that we continue to have good people stand up to run in this village because local government is the most important form of government and it's where you can have the biggest impact I'm really here to speak about that the property tax amendment. I think the village needs to take a position on it. I am strongly against it. I think it's a bad idea. If we want to investigate property taxes in the state of Florida, we have the opportunity this year. There's the tax commission or committee they're forming up in Tallahassee that can take a look at smart ways to address inequalities or inefficiencies in our property tax system. A political theater is not how you want to do things, although we do that often in the state of Florida. So I would advocate that we get out, we start educating people about what it means, and we do something. Because it's going to hurt us a little bit, but when it hurts other communities in the county, in the state, that's going to come back on us. And the fact is, this property tax amendment is not intended to help the taxpayers of Florida. It's intended to help the lobbyists of Florida. And so we have to stand up. for the taxpayers and get them educated so they understand what's coming at them in 70 days on November 3rd. Thank you all. I'm going to go home. Thank you. Thank you.

Brett Moss.

Good evening, Council. Brett Moss. 152 West Master Drive. I'm here to speak about it. I'm still looking at my stuff here. I'm speaking about two items similar to Luis de la Cruz's items. 10D, the CCNA that you guys are going to be talking about tonight. I know a lot of the firms that submitted the bids in there, and I looked over them. A lot of small, mid-sized local firms that are actually excellent firms that can do a lot of this work. It's not a surprise to me that many of them did not make it to the shortlist. What happens in these situations is that these national firms, which I'm not saying are bad, and it's okay to have them on there, but the national firms have a ton of money, lobbying power, marketing, they come in with big presentations, and they wow everybody. The smaller firms, the local firms, don't put their money into that as much. They put it into the workers and the results of what comes out. So it's not a surprise to me that that's what happened, but it's a bit bizarre to me that we have firms that have worked with us in the past, recently within the last few months, to others in the past with owners who actually live in Key Biscayne who have put their name in there and did not even make it to the short list of the top six. I think that Key Biscayne, well, first, I just want to make sure you guys have a deep discussion about this tonight. And I believe that Key Biscayne should be much more inclusive to local firms. It helps our community. And it also benefits Key Biscayne as well, if you guys do that. The second one is on 9A, the proposed stamped asphalt on Harbor. I am totally against this. I don't think this meets our expectations of quality. This is cheap. I can tell you right now that Brickell actually did this for every single one of their crosswalks on Brickell Avenue. And I watched all of them fail. They all broke. They got patched. They looked horrible. And three years ago, they ripped them all up. And what do you think they put in there? They put the pavers back. We've had those pavers there for 20 plus years. They don't even need to be removed. They just need to be taken out and reset with a correct base on them. And I agree as well with, I just want to add one other thing is that we don't have buses traveling out there every single hour, every day as we experienced before. So we will have less use on it. But I do agree with what Louise said as well. I think all the intersections should be reset I think we should take one of them, maybe Westwood Drive, and do a pervious test of a pervious pavers and see how it does over a couple of years. And maybe if it works, we put that in our future plan to reset the other ones like that. If it doesn't work, we just have to repair one. So again, I hope that you guys can meet our expectations of quality. I do not agree with going with a cheap stamped asphalt. Thank you. Thank you.

Enrique Lopez My name is Enrique Lopez 340 Glen Ridge Road very quickly I'm here to propose that we go ahead with the redevelopment of 303 Ellen Drive item 7e in the agenda I think will be a great addition to the village. It will bring much needed tax dollars is by a well-known local developer and and I think I don't see any issue with going ahead with it. Thank you. Thank you.

Martin Guyot.

Good evening. Good evening. Martin Guyot, 400 Palmwood Lane. I'm also here to support the redevelopment of Galen Drive. I believe that Walter as a developer is a great addition and he will push this in the right way. I think it will bring more taxes to the city and it will help also the local community here as well. Thank you. Thank you.

Horacio Bossi.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Horacio Bossi, 781 Grandon Boulevard. I have been a Key Biscayne resident for more than 25 years now. I'm here to speak about 7E, 303 Garden Drive. My professional experience has given me a strong understanding of development and urban planning. And this proposal in particular requires no additional density. Yet it would significantly increase the property's contribution to a tax base, replacing the existing units with higher quality residences, help alleviate flooding on the streets, and enhance surrounding property taxes, or property values, actually. The existing building holds no meaningful historical, architectural, or cultural significance for the community. It belongs to a different era, actually. And by replacing a short-term rental with permanent residences, the project will reduce traffic, noise, and bring more year-round residents to Key Biscayne and strengthening the sense of community of the village. Overall, the project represents a positive step for the community and deserves to be evaluated on its own merits. Thank you. Thank you.

It looks like Lucas or Luis Caporro.

Hi. Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. My name is Lucas Caporro, and I am the developer of Kikasa and Sunrise Drive. I believe the project will be the top.

And your address, please.

Sorry?

And your address, please.

202 Sunrise Drive.

Thank you.

I believe this project will be a positive addition to the village. It will improve the neighborhood, increase the value of surrounding properties, and strengthen the local tax base. Thank you. Thank you.

Bridget.

One name. I know. I can get a last name.

Everybody knows Bridget.

Thank you Mister mayor good evening Mister mayor vice mayor Council members first of all thank you so much for everything you do for your name and address on 9, 3, 1, harbor drive in your name. Thank you and I've been in keep a skin residents since 1982 I'm here to support the project for 3 or 3 Galen we can preserve what makes our community special we're still allowing it to evolve this project is an opportunity to build something safer, stronger, and better prepared for our future, all of us. We need to think about safety and hurricane protection. We need to think about flooding and resilience. And we have to look around Miami, because we're part of Miami, and see how this city is growing everywhere. We need to grow. I mean, we all want to keep our paradise island. I don't want to live anywhere in Miami, and I think all of you know. I'm a real estate agent. I've been doing it for 37 years. I think I've sold all over Miami, and I wouldn't live anywhere but this beautiful island. But it's part of life. There's construction everywhere. There's new houses everywhere going up. And there's no reason why this developer who wants to invest in our island and is going to do a great job wouldn't be allowed to do so. So thank you.

Thank you. Roberto de Leon.

Hello.

Robbie De Leon, 101 Wood Drive. I'm here in support for 303 Galen. I believe we should encourage new builders to knock down, develop these older buildings instead of remodeling non-conforming buildings. And that's it. Thank you. Thank you.

Alessandro Jimenez.

Good evening, Alejandro Jimenez from Spain, resident here in Key West County for the last 29 years, 25 Grand Bay Estates. I'm here to support 303 Gallon development. I agree that we need to embellish our community, our city. Miami is growing, like Brigitte said. I think we have to keep in power with it, and certainly it will bring a lot of value to annex properties. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.

Lucas Bocheampe. Close?

Very close. How are you? Good night. My name is Lucas Bocheampe. It's 151 Crandon Boulevard, unit 334. I'm here tonight to speak in favor of the development of 303 Galleon Drive. I live in the Sunrise Galleon area for many years, and I care deeply about what happens in that part of the island, and I care about the future of the island as a whole. I understand that change can be difficult here. Key Biscayne is special. We all have memory from 10, 20, 30, 40 years, and naturally we want to protect the things that made us fall in love with this island. But that nostalgia is human, and we tend to remember the past better, simpler, and more familiar. By representing the character of Key Biscayne, we cannot be preventing Key Biscayne from evolving. Many of the buildings in Sunrise and Galen are now decades old. They belonged from another era of construction, design, and planning. At some points, responsible development is not a threat to our community. It's an investment for our community and for our future. 303 Galleon represents an opportunity to improve this area. Modernize our housing stock, enhance streetscape, and demonstrate that Key Biscayne can move forward while still protecting the character that makes this village unique. Sometimes I feel that in the village we spend so much time trying to safeguard the past that we make it unnecessarily difficult to build the future. And I understand the instinct. We might also remember that when going to Blockbuster, it wasn't great on a Friday night, but now the world has changed and we use Netflix. It doesn't mean that the memories were bad, it simply means that the communities and technologies and the way of life have evolved. Key Biscayne has to evolve too. Our responsibility should not be to stop change, it should be to make sure change is thoughtful, responsible, and beneficial for the community. I believe 303 gallon drive is an opportunity for this council to demonstrate that we can respect the past without being trapped by it. We can preserve what makes Key Biscayne special while allowing the village to enter into the next chapter. So I encourage you to take a look to the project, not simply as another development proposal, but as an opportunity for improvement, modernization, and responsible evolution of our island. Thank you.

Thank you. Gonzalo Fernandez del Castillo.

Hello, everyone. Gonzalo Fernandez del Castillo. I've been a resident in Key Beach game for the last 15.

And your address, please, for the record.

345 Harbor Lane.

Thank you.

This is my second property that I buy in the key. I'm living my American dream. I'm putting all my money in this city, and I believe that all infrastructure should come to a renewal at one point. I'm in favor of 303 Garland Drive as the house that I'm buying right now, and I'm building, and I'm going to bring more taxes to the city. I believe that all the infrastructure in this city should be renewed at one point, and we should support these developers so we have new infrastructure in the city. These buildings, this new infrastructure will help us all, and hopefully my house in the future will bring in this new infrastructure to the city, will receive more taxpayers, and the value of my home in the future is going to be worth more. So we need to renew the infrastructure, and we need to support developers to do new infrastructure in this city. Thank you.

Thank you. Maurice Ferre.

Hello, Council and Mayor. Maurice Ferre, 151 Crandon Boulevard. I wanted to talk about agenda item 7E, the development on 303 Galen. A lot of people have already spoken about it and proponent of it. I wanted to give maybe a different angle from my point of view. I grew up on Key Biscayne, was fortunate enough to be here, met my wife here. We got married, ended up leaving Key Biscayne and lived out Outside of it, we always wanted to come back to Key Biscayne and live here, but it was extremely difficult. And one of the big reasons was because of optionality. And so I am for this development on 303 Galen, because if you look down on those streets, it's. pretty skewed in the sense of the type of apartment buildings of you get some high nice ones and then on the other side, not so nice. And so being given the optionality to move to Key Biscayne and have these choices would be greatly beneficial. And I'd love for other people that are going through the similar situation to be able to do the same. Thank you.

Thank you. Walter de Fortuna.

Yeah. Thank you.

You want to speak? All right, we can do that. I've got Cecile Sanchez.

Good evening. Cecile Sanchez, 260 Cypress Drive. I'm a real estate agent with Fortune International. It is. Wonderful, that developer is local. Hopefully, he's gonna do a good job like he's done in the others that he has built. My question, and I'm a kibbe skater first, is what happens? Zoning, code, variances, are we enough parking? Can we all understand that that building that is there is apparently, what I've heard and I saw, that it's time for it to go. It's wonderful that we could have a new building elevated. Maybe the developer, if there's an issue, maybe they can work. I think there's good people here that maybe they can go to terms if there's anything that needs to be tweaked. But we need to think about that it's true that most of those buildings, that's where my brother, my cousins, when they got married, that's where they started, living in those buildings. Maybe it's time, we're all getting old. The buildings do too. That's number one. Number two.

Are you talking about Ed? I told him to speak for himself.

No, talking about myself. So number two, I want you to please look at the wonderful work that St. Agnes did on the keystone pavers that they just replaced or reset. Think about it. Think about it for this eyesore that we have here in the middle where the Monaco fountain is. How long are we gonna keep on looking at those break, all broken up imitation keystone finish. Please, get the contractor that did it in St. Agnes, check it. I don't know, but I think it's worthwhile that. Please, do me a favor, save the trees. If you need to work on that little bumpy park, Marilyn Monroe Park, whatever you wanna call it, where you're gonna put all these contraptions, think of what or analyze what Luisela Cruz said. We don't need the equipment. Is it an emergency? There's so many things going on. We're all going crazy. Sea Aquarium, please, can we slow down? There's a new mayor coming, new council. Can you wait and just take it easy? Nothing is happening. Thank goodness there's no hurricanes coming. Save the trees, please.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Brett, where are you? You're supposed to take over already.

Diana Spitali.

Adriana Espitale, 1121 Crandon Boulevard, F205. Okay, we cannot stop the development and change of our island. Mr. De Fortuna has been a resident of our island for more than 30 years. I am sure that his project will be made with respect for our community and its future. I'm sure, let me see because I just wrote it on the telephone. I'm sure your project will be, his project will be better than any project from a developer who doesn't live in our island. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm having trouble with this one. Mark. I'm here.

I'm a resident. Thank you. I've been a resident for years.

I also work here in the island. I'm a real estate broker. And I'm here to support item 7E, the proposed redevelopment for 303 Galen Drive. I think it's a wonderful opportunity and a wonderful project. We work with buyers. all the time, and in today's environment, people, buyers are looking for quality construction and safety, and of course, long-term investment. We are advocating for the island to bring a lot of people to buy and live in this wonderful place, and sometimes we struggle. Sometimes we do. I also think that well-designed redevelopment elevates the overall quality and appearance of our village, like new homes and all these beautiful commercial spaces that are being fixed. It all helps. I also think that newer and resilient buildings help support the surrounding property values. I do believe that a new building will help the entire area. where the building is being redeveloped. I think this project respects the existing density while improving safety, resilience, and the quality of the neighborhood. It's a thoughtful investment in the future of Key Biscayne, and I respectfully encourage the council to support it. Thank you. Thank you.

That's all the public comments that I have at this time. Mr. Attorney, could we just jump to the presentation on 303 since we have so many people here and the council doesn't have a problem with that? Sure. Council, you're good with that? Okay. Jeremy, you're up first.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. My name is Mario Garcia-Serra with offices at 600 Brickell Avenue and my residence at 600 Grape Tree Drive here this evening representing Galen Drive MW LLC, the contract purchaser for the property located at 303 Galen Drive, commonly referred to as the Coral Reef Apartments. Mr. Mayor, I think the anticipation was that with just the applicant will be presenting this evening, but I'm sure staff is available for any questions or comments that you might have. We're bringing the presentation up on the screen now. While we're doing that, I'll introduce the rest of the project team that's here this evening. I'm joined this evening by Walter DeFortuna, the principal of Galen Drive MW LLC, who is a longtime resident of Key Biscayne. With a proven track record, as you've already heard this evening, in our real estate development and hospitality sections. Also joined by Bernardo Ford-Brescia of Architectonica, who is our project architect, as well as Mr. Judd Karlanczyk, our planning and zoning consultant. There is a land use and zoning code text amendment component of our request, which I will present on with Judd's assistance. And then Bernardo will present the project. Here to orient everybody is the project site, and we'll provide some background information on it. It's a little over one acre in size, located at the very east end of Galen Drive. The Rich Carlton Hotel is to its east and the Rich Carlton Tennis Center is to its immediate north. The Galen Breakers Condominium is to the south on the other side of Galen Drive. The existing building on the site, the Coral Reef Apartments, is a 51-unit, three-story apartment building originally constructed in 1967. with a combination of one bedroom and two bedroom apartments. It is one of the few properties in Key Biscayne, unfortunately, whose assessed value has actually gone down over the last few years. Its assessed value in 2023 was $9.5 million, and today it is $8,850,000. The units are presently rented out for both long-term and short-term rentals, and based on anecdotal evidence, its short-term rental units do not compare favorably to other short-term rental units available in Key Biscayne. The entire ground floor of units in this building is below base level elevation, and the property contributes a total of $26,000 in tax revenue to the village annually, which is about $500 in tax revenue per unit each year. As you are aware, we have single family homes in the village, which contribute more in tax revenue to the village. In short, this is a site crying out for and in need of redevelopment. The first thing we looked at, of course, is the property zoning. As you can see from this map, which is a village's zoning map, the property is zoned RM30, which is the village's high-rise multifamily zoning district. Of importance to note and noted on the plan there is that there are about four RM30 properties, including this one, which are located in the vicinity, which are not oceanfront, not beachfront. The failure of the drafters of the village's zoning code to acknowledge this distinction led to a mistake in the code, which we are asking you to correct. On the left side of this image, you'll see the height, floor area, and density allowed by the existing zoning. It is very important to note that the height permitted today is 150 feet. That height is already permitted. The floor area which is allowed is what is bizarre. As you can see, the FAR of 0.4 is ridiculously small for a 150 foot high building. When one applies that current zoning to the property, the amount of floor area which could potentially be constructed in new construction today on this property is 19,800 square feet. That is less than half of what exists today. Dividing that number by the 34 units permitted today and deducting a 20% for common area would leave you with an average unit size of 465 square feet that is barely a respectable studio apartment. Comparing the below summary on this slide with the upper summary makes clear why this property has never been a candidate for redevelopment despite its unfortunate current condition. What exists today, the 51 units and the 46,209 square feet and three stories, is considerably more than what is allowed under today's zoning. There is absolutely no incentive for redevelopment of this property, which makes absolutely no sense. When we look at the next lowest zoning district, which is RM16, Arm 30 is what we're zoned. Arm 16 is the next lowest zoning district. It's supposed to be the medium density, low rise zoning of the village. One realizes the internal inconsistency in this code. Arm 16 allows an FAR which is twice as high, 0.8, as what is allowed for a non-oceanfront Arm 30 property. How can the supposedly more intense zoning district have half the FAR of the lesser intense zoning district? The answer to what caused this mistake lies in the language right below that highlighted area. The higher FAR in ARM30 is only achievable if an oceanfront property dedicates easements for beach access. The drafters of the code just failed to acknowledge that there were non-oceanfront ARM30 properties, such as 303 Galen. We know that this happened by investigating a little bit of history. All of the village's properties which today are most, almost all of the village's properties today which are zoned RM30 were zoned either RU4 or RU4A under Miami-Dade County. FAR is regulated even until today in the county's RU4 and RU4A districts pursuant to the FAR table you see in front of you. This is the exact same FAR table that you see in the village's RM30 zoning districts, which were all built out and maxed out under the previous county zoning with the exception of 303 Galen. Simply speaking, when the new village code was adopted, they cut and paste this FAR table, added the language on beach access easements, and overlooked the fact that several of the RM30 properties are not beachfront. To sort of help support this argument, I'm bringing out somebody from our village history, which is Judd Kurlanczyk, Planning and Zoning Consultant, who many of you know previously served as Planning and Zoning Director for the village. Judd.

Thank you, Mario. Judd Kurlanczyk, 611 Ocean Drive, and a 25-year resident of the village. When the village incorporated, we used the county zoning code. And over a series of several zorts, which former mayor Kaplan participated in, we began to rezone the village. We started with a single family, and then we moved to a multiple family, and then we moved to the oceanfront. And what happened here, we looked at the garden district, which name came later in the time, and we said that there's something special about the garden district. But things have changed. It's time for new construction. And when we look at the RM30 buildings as shown on the map, there's four of them at the end of the block. that are RM30, while the rest of that zoning district is RM16. Very different in height, 150 feet. When I was building zoning and planning director, we did a study. Jeremy has also updated that study. Those buildings at the end of the blocks, the four of them, all approach or have an FAR of 2.0. They're all maximizing the density. They were built under the county code. And as Mario said, we simply cut and paste the county code into our code when it came time to do this. Unfortunately, I made a mistake. One of the very rare ones that I made. I'd like to think that others would differ with me on that, but I'd like to think that. Somehow, I put in oceanfront easement, and that's how you get to the 2.0. It's absolutely impossible for those four buildings, which are landlocked, to provide an oceanfront easement. It cannot happen. That was the mistake. It was recognized sometime after that. My good friend Jeremy has also recognized it also. And now we're getting around to fixing this mistake. I never thought I'd be part of this process to do that, but that's where I find myself right now. So we're asking you to correct that error of several years ago because it's impossible to provide an easement. We're entitled to get to the 2.0. That's the underlying zoning. We're entitled to the density. And we're asking you to do that for us and move forward with what will be a, and you're going to see it from architectonica, a magnificent transitional building. They really did a great job, and we'll get into it. how much better this building is going to be, being at BFE and above, taking care of all the resiliency problems. And when it comes down to negotiating with the village, I believe we're going to make a very generous proffer, which is going to improve the entire infrastructure in the Garden District.

Thank you very much, Mayor. Keep going. Thank you.

Thank you, Judd. Mr. Mayor, I'd say we probably have about another five or six minutes. OK. Let me now touch upon the issue of density, because we are requesting a code amendment to allow RM30 properties to keep their existing density. As I mentioned earlier, all of the RM30 properties were developed under Miami-Dade County zoning and are more dense than what is permitted today. The village code allows them to keep their greater density, existing density, when being rebuilt in the event of a natural catastrophe. Accordingly, those higher densities can be kept into perpetuity and are here to stay. It is highly unlikely that those buildings will ever be redeveloped at a lower density. We're asking you to acknowledge that reality and allow properties to keep their existing density upon redevelopment also so as to encourage new construction, which is resilient, of better quality, and contributes more to the community. With regards to FAR, we are asking you to correct the mistake. And with regards to density, we are asking you to allow us to keep what we have consistent with other policies in the village's comprehensive plan. But in both cases, we are proposing that this only be allowed in the form of bonuses where additional public benefit is provided. in the form of either land, easements, or monetary contributions. The previous slide was a proposed amendment to the comprehensive plan text. This slide is the amendment to the zoning code text. In this way, we can have an RM30 zoning district, which makes sense, treats non-oceanfront properties appropriately, and allows redevelopment, but a quality redevelopment which does not create increased density and creates significant public benefit. With that said, I'll ask Bernardo to come up and discuss the project, and then Walter will close us out.

Good afternoon. I'm Bernardo Forbrecha. I'm a principal of Architectonica, 2900 Oak Avenue, Miami. I'm going to take you through some of the images and plans of the project. It's here. Which one? Here? Just here.

Okay. Thank you.

Well, the location is where you see it marked, RM30. That rectangle is the subject property. To the north, you can see that there's a series of tennis courts and racket courts. There's no building to that side. But to the south is a building. that you'll see how we are being respectful of in the manner in which we straddle by moving our building to the west so that it keeps its views across the space. You can see here the massing that is permitted on the site and how we have actually minimized it for the purpose that I just described. You can see here the ground level. And it's important to point out that We're above the BFE as required. And we vetted all this plan that you see here with the civil engineers to make sure that the building is resilient and that it's protected from flooding, including all the spaces that you see here. You can see you rise to the level of the lobby. And even the MEP space is properly protected at that elevation. The intent is to provide a building that It's self-sufficient. It drains itself. It contains its waters within in that it's resilient to any event that may happen. You can see here the next level as we go up into the garage. You can see the garage spanning across. It's a very low slung horizontal volume that goes across the space. And immediately after that, we have an open space. You can see where the building is to the left, to the west. to help provide the open space for the building to the south. You see where the location of the swimming pool is, some terraces for lounging. The amenities open and indoors are happening on this level. Go to the next level, you see how that double height space provides natural light also in the afternoon into the pool deck and also opens up and gives air space to the south towards the street and towards the neighbors. And finally, the building rises above it and you can see the simple organization of the floor plan that is fully shifted to the position that I described. and eventually we are enclosing the mechanical space so it will not be evident. You can see here the building position and where it is located. You can see the companion buildings on the waterfront and to the south, to the north, to the east, and where the adjacent building is located and why we are shifted to the void space next to it. You can see here other views here in the context of the racket complex that occurs to the north and northwest of the property. And you can see here in the context of other buildings of similar height because similar scale wouldn't be appropriate to say because this is a far smaller building in terms of footprint, a fraction of any of the other buildings of its kind. And you can see how the ground level, you see the rise of the vehicles arriving to the lobby and how we have a very low slung garage that it's providing shade to the cover drop off on a rainy day and how it is fully landscaped along a berm and along the whole front edge of the street. This is a really green landscape. passage along the street, actually unusually green for that street that is of another era where greenery wasn't as dominant as what we're trying to create here. We also had greenery on that interstitial space on the pool deck that goes all the way across the frontage. You can see here the arrival. and its transparency and being friendly to the street. You can see the walkways that are going by the property and how green we're trying to make them. And you can see here the pool deck and what I meant by opening up the building on that level above the garage so that it would float and give openness to the next-door neighbors. Here you can see the view from the swimming pool and view in the other direction towards the waterfront complexes exist towards the east. But you can see here the amount of open space that we're creating on this level to open up the airspace towards the street. And I hope this gives you the general plan. You can see that we have resiliency and rain garden strategy for the building. We have a stormwater strategy. We have a resilient planting palette throughout. We have a native coastal landscape that is very much part of our landscape strategy. You can see here the many elements of that landscape strategy that we are using in every way in order to make this a really green, sustainable, and resilient building. We have studied all these elements. You can see that the native and Florida adapted species that are very much part of the Concept that we are bringing into the property including natural stone and mulch and textural ground covers So hopefully this gives you a general sense of what we're anticipating to create within the building and around it Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you

Mr. Mayor, council members, thank you very much for the opportunity to present this. Bernardo, maybe not that many people know your talent, but I want to thank you very much. I know that you have put a lot of effort and a lot of time and a very small period of time to create this beautiful building, so I really want to congratulate you on it. I live on 720 Harvard Drive. My name is Walter DeFortuna. I've been a resident of Key Beach County for over 40 years. Me and my family have lived in this island for the same time. I'm really happy and proud to live in this place. For me, I don't consider myself an extra developer to this island. I consider my family and my friends here. I had put a lot of time and effort in this project. I had to spend a lot of time hiring consultants, following the guidelines of the members of staff. And I was presented with this opportunity a while ago. I know this family that owned this building for more than 25 years. They owned this building for over 30 years. They bought it for $3.5 million. Now it's assessed at about nine. The development opportunity, you know, give us a, a chance to address the floodings in the street. I was the developer behind 285 and 201 Sunrise, both in the Garden District. I never came in front of you to ask you for anything. I think I did the right things with those buildings. I'm trying to do the same thing with this building. I was put in the agenda to talk about it. I was hoping we were going to vote on this. I spoke to the council members before. I spoke to staff deeply. I looked at every issue. I carefully analyzed these possibilities and I thought this is a great addition to the island. I'm one against more traffic, more density, more crowdedness in our city, but I'm not asking for any more density. My speech is the 30 units or the 51 units that are there, if I don't do this development, they're still gonna be there. They were there for 60 years. They'll probably be there for another 60 years. The building, we all know how it looks like. I'm not asking to give me another 60 units. I said, let me have what it is existing there so I can develop this project, because if that is not possible, this project is not doable. A few days ago, I thought this was going to be treated in front of you as an item in the agenda to be voted. They told me that they decided to take it, and all respectfully, I thought it was taken because the thing they told me is that it was going to look at a more comprehensive way to look at the whole Garden District. I'm against the rezoning of the whole garden district. I don't think it needs it. This is the only building in the whole island that is single owner. All the other buildings in the island are condominiums. I've been there around that, developed all over Miami. I can tell you, you can plan, you can change the zoning, but you're not going to see a lot of new buildings because buying individual units from condo owners is not an easy task. I did a 201 sunrise where a group of friends tried, it took me 10 years to buy 19 units. So that gives you a scope of how easy it is to see a new development on the island. All I'm asking, in a very respectful way, to be put back on the agenda and to be treated, and not with any preferential way. I don't want anything special. I just want to consider this project for his own merits. And basically, if you council members and mayors think that this is a project that should be approved, Based on the merits, approve it. And if it's not, deny it. So I really thank you very much for your time and effort and your consideration.

Should I conclude my comments, Mayor?

Yes, yes. We need to keep going here. Understood.

Going to be about two minutes, I want to show everyone that this is not spot zoning spot zoning is when you treat a particular property differently from the rest what we're looking to do here is correct. An error that there is in the arm 30 zoning designation tonight we're not asking you to agree with what we're proposing or to indicate whether you're going to prove this project or not. We just want a fair hearing on the applications we've requested. That's the right of every applicant. And we ask that you do not deprive us or defer that hearing of the application. And in particular, we would ask, and I know this is a unique ask, but we would ask that you schedule a special meeting of the council the second week of September. so that this council could be the one that reviews this project and provides their determination on this proposed zoning code tax amendment. This is a small town that has always prided itself as treating everyone fairly, and that is the only thing that we're asking for this evening. Thank you very much.

Thank you. So I would like Jeremy, our building director, and Chad, our village attorney, talk to the council about what challenges we have if we want to move forward with this.

So the applicant has proposed a comprehensive plan amendment, a zoning code text amendment, a site plan and potentially variances depending on the site plan. The comprehensive plan amendment requires review by the state of Florida and its agencies. So between first and second reading of an ordinance and amending the comprehensive plan, we have to allow the state and its agencies 30 days to review. So we need to back out those days in any review for a comprehensive plan before we can have second reading. We also have a site plan workshop requirement that you guys may recall was adopted, which also I believe requires 28 days prior to it being heard for that workshop to occur. So really. We need to have at least 30 days. Before between 1st and 2nd reading to allow the state process to occur. And the zoning workshop to occur.

That obviously something was put into the I mean judge accepted responsibility, even though he never made a mistake. He said, this is one he made. And that is that it's impossible to have a path or easement to the water when you're not on the water. Now, does that require change in the comprehensive plan, since what was an impossibility we put in there?

The language that Judd was referring to was in the zoning code and not the comprehensive plan. The amendment to the comprehensive plan is to allow for the redevelopment of this project at its existing densities and to allow for a higher FAR. So it doesn't have to deal with the provision that Judd was referring to. I also believe that that provision, have it in front of me right now, but I think it says if it's a waterfront property, the FAR is, you can have an FAR bonus. So I don't think that it was saying, it was not addressing non-waterfront properties. I think it was actually saying that if you are a waterfront property, you are entitled to this bonus.

Should we say Judd didn't make a mistake?

No, I'm not going to speak to Judd's, the veracity of Judd's statements, but I'm just going to say that if you put, it was on the screen, there was the word if at the beginning of that sentence that was neglected to be stated. It's okay. Judd hasn't been here in a while. Maybe he was nervous. So that's all I'm saying.

It's not just if you're waterfront. It's if you're waterfront and grant an easement. Correct.

A seven and a half foot easement. Then you're entitled to the FAR bonus to get you up to 2.0.

Have you ruled out, I mean, another possibility is that that lower FAR was actually intended. I don't know that.

The first goal in our master plan, where we lay out what we care about in the village, actually has a sentence that says, property should be redeveloped at the lowest possible density while respecting property rights. So there was definitely part of when the village was founded. That's why I think a reduction to 30 units per acre was intentional. The 0.4 FAR is rather extreme when the other properties that are in this district are currently, some of them are already at 2.0 FAR. So to say it's a mistake or not is in the past, frankly. We have it in front of us to potentially change it.

Jeremy, do we have minimum size units?

We do have a provision for minimum-sized units, yes.

What's our minimum?

I would have to check. I would have to check.

500 feet?

The... Square feet. Yeah, I think it's... I don't know if we set a minimum for studios, but I believe it's over 500 square feet.

If they develop this with the... 0.4 would give you a 465, I think they said. So whether 0.4 was intended or not, if it was intended, it was intended to make units which would not be conforming with our code?

To maximize it. There is no guarantee that you must maximize your density on the site, though.

Well, when you give somebody a zoning that says 30 units a day or 50, You have to assume that you don't want them to go above that, but you have to assume economically, if it makes sense, that's what they're going to do.

Typically, yes.

Typically, OK. Yeah.

I mean, we have cases of buildings, even the most recent site plan, getting built below their potential maximum density.

Can I ask just one question?

Can you come to this?

The doubt to me was I mean I'm not going to speak about what was intended or not, but what is clear to me that there are up our M 16 has a point a so if he was in 10 that the intention was to do. It's smaller buildings with the more intensive use is is that what I hear he makes and I'm just asking.

No I don't I don't think we need to get bogged down on on intent on the F.A.R. It is it stands out as being.

Well it stands out.

OK so. Council. What is the desire. We know that we have to jump through some hoops and there are some obstacles here.

Yes You have to between first and second hearing you would need to have at least 30 days because the comprehensive plan amendment The first

There's no item for vote today.

No, I know that. I'm saying, but can we schedule? They're requesting a meeting for the first week of September. And first, it boggles me that we had an item and then we pulled it. And that is a separate discussion. But I think we need to move forward with it. I think it would allow us an opportunity to talk about it more in detail, not consume tonight's agenda. But the requesting for this to have discussed on September They're, I think, I don't see, unless council has any objections to that.

Can we, Chad, can we give the developer the acknowledgement that we're going to work with him and move forward with the intention to move forward to try to come to a positive resolution so he can work on the project?

Sure, you can have a discussion tonight and you can give those remarks. And to answer your question, I think really the cutoff deadline It would be around September 10th to have a first reading just to give you an idea.

Okay, so the decision is I mean, I what is the I Would I would say either we could have it tonight or move it for the requesting for the first week of September isn't what you said September 10th is is the last date that's

that would make all those 30 days, all those hoops being jumped correctly.

But we also have to factor in that we have a 10-day advertising requirement before the first reading. So there's a window of opportunity, and it's really that September 10th is kind of the sweet spot, I would say, for us to work with the clerk and to work with Jeremy and the applicant to have the item ready.

Whatever the sense of the board is One at a time here Say again, I'm out of town, but I can zoom in and I'm happy to do okay.

I'm here

I'm available.

I just have a question. There's a workshop. I just want to know. I'm not giving an opinion. We have a big schedule coming up with a budget. We have a lot of workshops and different things going on. I have some idea of The layout of that, because we can't come every single night. I can't.

The 10th is a Zork workshop already. You don't have anything better to do?

I'm not coming every night. I love the council, but I'm not going every night.

But Nancy, just so you're aware, at 6 o'clock on the 10th, we already have a Zork workshop.

So are we proposing to do it that night earlier?

And maybe move that meeting to some further. Yeah, Mr. Mayor, we could move that. We could move that meeting. Okay.

Good. That would be good.

All right. It's already programmed to be here. I mean. I would make a motion we proceed to go forward. OK. Second. Second.

All right. I think there is a consensus of council. There's no guarantee that we're gonna approve anything. We're just providing for a path to make sure that we give everyone an opportunity to make their case. And so it'll be up to us to approve it or not approve it based on the evidence that you have in front of you. And it becomes a real zoning hearing at that point, right? Is that right, Mr. Attorney?

So I think in order to try to have second reading shortly after that, we would have to have first reading of the comprehensive plan amendment, first reading of the text amendment, and probably the zoning workshop at the same meeting. Okay. Okay.

So that's September after we have a budget hearing on September 8th, so we really have a very short window there between the 9th and the 10th, right? Mr. Manager?

Yes, so Mayor, obviously a tight timeline. The attorney has mentioned it, so what I would ask, and obviously we'll do that as well directly, but I want to make sure I ask you as well that we ask the developer to show up first thing tomorrow morning. We've got a tight line to turn this around. Okay. Okay. We have about a week.

Consensus of council.

Consensus of council.

Chad, the state planning agency no longer needs to approve comp plan amendment.

So the state land plan agency or the Department of Commerce is what they're called now. They will provide their commentary. However, they are limited. They cannot object to the amendment unless it affects an important state interest.

So we don't have that affecting any comment?

No, we will. So the way that it works in practices is that if this were to pass on first reading, The next day, Jeremy will transmit it to the state, and then the state has 30 days to give their comments. Presumably, if there's no important state interests impacted that the state identifies or their agencies, then we will proceed to second reading of the ordinance.

The only state interest I can think of is lights out for bird protection right at the

Okay, so we'll have staff work with the parties and see if we can get it to the proper place, which would be that September 1st hearing and then a potential second hearing.

September 1st? No. September 10th. No, no.

At the beginning of September. Okay. First week. First reading. Okay, is everybody clear?

Yeah. Okay.

Mr. Mayor, council members, I just want to say one more thing. I do have very clearly that you have not said that, of course, this was to approve the project. It was to treat it, and I'm very grateful of that. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

The next item, Mr. Mayor, is the agenda. Approval, deferrals.

And we're still not finished with presentation.

Okay.

All right, let's see if we can move out. We got more business here. Okay, let's take the conversations outside. We almost had to fire you again, Kerlanchik.

The next item, Mr. Mayor, is the agenda, approval deferrals, additions, deletions, substitutions, and withdrawals.

I have some deferrals. I would like to defer 11b1, 11b5. Wait, wait, 11b1. Yeah, just my discussion item.

That's a manager's report.

Yep. That's a manager's report item.

Yeah, but they're my discussion items, so I'm just saying I want to take them off the... Oh, okay, I'm sorry.

11b1. Any other item? 11b5. And then on 10d...

I would like to defer, and I also move that we direct the manager to put out for bids again, which is what we were supposed to do originally before today, to try and get some smaller local firms here.

I would second the motion on that.

Okay, I'm good with that too. I was gonna second as well.

Excuse me, you're pulling?

Pulling D. Yeah, we're giving instructions to the manager to go redo the various consultants pursuant to RFQ in doing them with small firms. We're gonna we're gonna push for the small firm.

There's one more thing you might want to suggest Why do we have to limit anybody anybody wants to work with us? Why do we have to limit them? They're qualified fine. Why do we have to have a list? We're ready to do a job. We have people already applied somebody else can apply What do we have to a pre-approved list? We have pre-approved fine Why can't we take anybody else when a new job comes up if somebody wants to apply any reason not to I?

I think the primary reason is to have people on board so that then you can move quickly.

I'm saying you have all the people on board. Anybody's applied now who meets the basic qualifications, okay, would be accepted. But now the job comes up. We're going to go build a boardwalk. I'm just making something up. And Joe Blow, engineering company, hears about it, and they want to do it, and they submit their thing. We like it, fine. Why are we going to limit ourselves?

Mr. Mayor, we don't limit ourselves. What this is is to get a pre-qualified pool. We put it out so that we have consultants that we work with on a regular basis. We don't have to use it. We can choose to go in a different direction, put out an RFQ, put out an RFP, and use another contractor consultant. But what this does do for us, and we've used them quite frequently, it creates a relationship with these firms so that when we need specific things, we can turn to them and actually do the work with just a work order versus going through an entire contracting procedure. So it simplifies our work.

Kind of what Ed is saying, I'm wondering why, of all the people, companies that apply, that our panel deems qualified, Why would we not accept them? Is there a reason to only have three?

So let me work with you on that. Let's say there are 100. It's okay to have 100?

Yeah, but we don't have 100.

No, no, but I'm just saying, if there's just a large number, is it workable with large numbers?

When you want to use them, you pick somebody. We can't. And they say, fine, work with them. You don't make an agreement with them, you try somebody else. You go down the list. Because you can't have them bid against each other. Correct, Chad? Yeah, this is under CCNA, right?

That's correct. You cannot... They're not allowed to bid against each other once they're part of the continuing services agreement pool, correct?

So it's who you award it to from your pool?

You award them the technical merits. The CCNA is a two-step process. You start and you qualify based upon qualifications.

You might want to tell the public what CCNA is.

CCNA is the acronym for the Consultants Competitive Negotiation Act. It's Section 287.055 of the Florida Statutes. And that process dictates for certain types of professionals, engineers being one of them, that you need to go through and first qualify those professionals. Price cannot be considered during that stage. It's prohibited by law. Once you qualify the professionals, then you can negotiate price. So it's a two-step process. And once they're selected and they're part of your pool, as Council Member London said, you're not allowed to say, oh, to one company, bid this job. and then go to another one, bid the same job, and have them bid against each other. You just have to just bid it and then move on.

But Chad, just what you said. So now we have a list of 10 people, for argument's sake. And we're going to build this big boardwalk we talked about. And all of a sudden, somebody wants to be qualified. So they submit. Why can they not submit their qualifications at that point in time when we're going to build something?

Well, so... The point of, they can, but the point of this process is that it's fast, right? You have these people almost on call, right? I understand that.

Yeah. All I'm saying is that we have this list, and let's say we selected everybody who applied this go-around.

Okay.

And then somebody else said, now we're going to do a job. And Joe Blow, engineer, says, hey, I'm really an expert at that. I heard about that. I want to bid on that thing. And he submits his qualifications. Why can't we get him at that point in time?

You can't do that. Why? Because that's the purpose of the request for qualifications, and you put it out on the street to qualify X amount of firms at that time. In your example, if we weren't happy with someone on our continuing services list to do the job, the boardwalk, we would have to bid it out. If it was a project that

you know, met the criteria for bidding under the... Basically, then we could say, anytime we do a job, anybody's interested because of their qualifications, right?

That would slow down the process tremendously. That's why you don't do that. That's why governments have these rules.

I understand, but what it does, it limits our choices, and all of a sudden, and excuse me, and it does limit the contractors or engineering firms that will apply

And we'll be so there's a give and take with split this with the speed.

And it'll be so slow I don't believe it makes much.

Well it yeah I mean you're talking months between in that process to be months. I don't you can how long did it take for this process I don't know.

I believe we started in May.

Didn't we have the same problem with GIT? We wanted to do it, they weren't on the list, and we had to resolve that issue.

Yeah, and we bid it, and it took time.

Which is why, I don't know if we have to resolve.

It didn't take six months, but it took. It was not necessary to waste six months like we did.

All right, so. We've got to move. Yeah.

Yeah, so everybody's good with. Deferring. No, no, we're not. No, we have a motion. We're giving direction. Yes. To come back.

More small firms.

Yeah, with an RFQ that would be. pushing for the smaller firm.

And also, maybe another, come back also with another method for selection committee, because what they did this time, to me, says we need something different. Okay. That's all.

All right.

You got it? I'm sorry, can you repeat the amendment?

Selection committee. Investigate. So, Mayor, so I understand is, so we want to cancel this current RFQ as we have. Throw this one out and start over. And then start a new process. Yes. Make small to medium-sized companies...

Anybody want to do it?

A benefit to it, give them benefit, and then come back with some recommendations. Okay.

Local presidents as well.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries.

Okay, on the agenda.

Are there any other amendments to the agenda?

You're still declaring 10D now that we've given an election? Yep.

Yes.

Is that agenda?

No, all those in favor of the agenda changes?

Aye. Aye.

Thank you. Opposed? Thank you. The next item is the consent agenda.

Hold on a minute. We have some presentations. Oh, I'm sorry.

I apologize.

Mr. DeSuglu, are you here? There's two DeSuglus there. There's two Mr. DeSuglus there. Oh, God. There's double trouble. Double trouble. All right.

I'll take you to the wall.

Mr. Mayor, just a quick privilege, please. I just want to say to Robert that a couple of months ago I ran into Derek and I asked him about the Academy. And he was telling me he was coming up in 30 years. And this for me is deeply personal. You may not know, but my daughter, it was a time when she was growing up. She was going through a hard time. And I brought her to the Academy. And your group really helped her bring her confidence back and really got her on her way. And I know you've done a lot for a lot of families at that in Key Biscayne. So to me, it was very special. And I want to thank you for everything that you do for our community. As a father, I want to thank you for what you've done for my daughter, even though after Yellow Bell, she went on to fashion. Still, but I want to thank you for that.

Thank you. All right, let me read a couple lines here. Whereas over the past 30 years, thousands of students have trained at the academy, hundreds have earned black belts, and generations of keepers game families have benefited from its emphasis on personal growth, self-control, humility, hard work, and community values. Whereas Sensei Robert Duzuglu, a martial arts hall of fame inductee, 10th degree black belt educator, author, entrepreneur, and community leader has dedicated his career to mentoring young people and adults alike and helping them develop the skills, the character necessary to succeed in life. And whereas today the Academy of Martial Arts remains a family legacy, and whereas the Key Biscayne has evolved over the last three decades, the Academy has remained a constant presence, helping shape the character of our community and providing a positive environment where children become leaders, adults, build confidence and lifelong friendships. Now, therefore, I, Joe I. Rasko, Mayor of the Village of Key Biscayne, do hereby issue this proclamation in recognition of the 30th anniversary of the Academy of Martial Arts.

Have a soccer speech. No. I just have to tell you, you know, I look for I'm going to be presenting tonight and Joe Rasko. We're going to make it work. And Ed and in our. Right. Our mayor, our past mayor, Kaplan and Brett, and everybody's been so supportive of the academy. It's been great having a business here. It's been great bringing my family here. My son's here. And I'm just very grateful for this village and how they have welcomed us and helped us build here. So thank you very much. I appreciate it.

All right. Get to work. EAB.

Mr. Mayor, just a quick thing. I need to say this for the record and make sure the clerk is aware that I recused myself from that discussion of the CCNA. I know it was brought up as a deferral and all of a sudden it became a vote quickly, but it needs to be registered. I already filled out the form back in June on that. It was just everything was packaged into one, so I just want to make sure I put that for the record. Thank you.

Okay. Am I driving this or? How does this work?

Thank you. So just press there. Okay, great.

Okay. So, hi, my name is Robert Dusoglu. I am the chair of the Educational Advisory Board. I'm glad to see that several of my board members are here, including our new candidate for council, our Principal Tarrafa. She's here. So thank you for... Everybody's here to support what we're going to be talking about. So if you notice, my first slide is the greatest asset. I'm here not just as behalf of the Educational Advisory Board, but we have done a tremendous amount of communication and working with the community. We did a village... full survey that many of the parents were involved in. We also had a teacher survey. We had a deep analysis of what the results for the survey were. We have a very, very engaged PTSA. We've been talking to the district. We've been talking to the leadership at the school. So this is not just several people that came up with a couple ideas. The whole community surged forward in order to for you to hear the words that I'm going to be saying, and that's what's behind this presentation. So I just wanted to clarify that. So first slide, I think I do this, right? Yes, you told me how to do it. Oh, here we go. Okay, so we have the tale of two schools. We have a very successful school in our school, with our elementary school. It is well attended. It covers about 80% of our population of that age. The grades, as you can see in the slides, the grades, the performance are great, and they're rising. It is an A school, but we want to do better. were ranked pretty high as far as the county is concerned. And typically, the results of that elementary education were getting great feedbacks from the kids that go to other programs. However, if you notice, our grades here for the middle school are really terrible. So something's wrong there, and we just have to figure out. It's very peculiar. That's the same school, the same teachers, the same administration. What happens? Why is this sudden drop in performance for our middle school? Next slide here. OK, good. And you can see what happens with our, this tells how many students are in each grade. And as soon as we get to sixth grade, The whole thing drops, the bottom drops out, and everybody exodus is off, mostly to mass. So the parents are not choosing to leave public education. They're just choosing to leave this particular school. So something's wrong here. So that's what concerned us. First, we agreed. The committee agreed to support the elementary school and push them to excel even further. But boy, we had a very dangerous situation because we're looking at the school as a, and I thought, I think we called it a spiral death thing that was happening. So let's see. Next slide. Okay. Why does this happen? Funding And this state follows population enrollment. This is really the end of it. So if you don't have the enrollment, the funding disappears. If the funding disappears, the programming, everything just starts to fall apart terribly. And so we have to look at that. We're very concerned about that. Next. Okay. So what we think, and it's not just us, but what we think is in order to look at this is to, Look at the pipeline. What happens to the students? They're all going to mass. Most of them are going to mass. So we have to look at the pipeline, and we have a decision to make. Because if we don't take action, the school's going to die. And I've heard of things that they would close it down within months. So the question was, do we want to lose our middle school? Is that what we want? Let's just close it. who can goes to mass and that's it and we'll just concentrate on the elementary school. And after a lot of great thought and involvement with the community, the goal is not to just let it die. Let's really make a colossal effort to see what we can do to save it. Okay, so that's what we're going to be discussing today. Our first ask is right down there on the bottom of the slide. And I'll come back to that real quick at the end, which is to work with the district to see about the pipeline. Because right now, all our students are leaving for mass, and we end up with a dying school. So if we slightly adjust that, we have an opportunity to get some population, to get some funding back, to really create the same exact excitement and success that we have at the elementary level. So that's what the goal is here. Next. OK, so the investment, it's going to cost money. I mean, nationally, we're ranked at the bottom regarding how much we invest in our teachers and our students. We're at the very, very bottom, or the top to bottom of how we invest in it. So it takes money. But a lot of the funding does come when you have enrollment, and that goes up. We have to help, though. All right, so next. We have had a tremendous amount of help from the council and also from the community and also from the PTSA. And we started, since we started just recently, we've been able to accomplish a lot of things. We have a new computer lab. We've taken all the old computers and updated them. We actually had a resident that came forth with a $12,000 check in order to help with the computers. The STEM lab is reviving. There's a brand new communications program that has been brought in by the district. There's new fields, new scoreboard, new branding. Our new principal, which she's incredible, she's getting an excitement going. In fact, just this week, she was in a tongue tank meeting while they were trying to raise money for the school. That night they raised $11,000. Most of it was because people wanted to dunk her. So she is popular. So, all right, next. All right, this is a plan that has come together, not just by a few people's opinion, This is after a great deal of work with the survey, with a deep analysis by a PhD, one of our members of the board, also by the PTSA, by the district, by the teachers and so on, to create a plan, how can we affect the growth and the improvement of the school. How do we go from A to A plus with the elementary? How do we get the middle school from the death spiral? You don't have to look at all the crazy numbers because it's going to take a while for you to understand this list, so I don't want to go item for item. What I do want you to take a look at is at the bottom that the whole plan – the first stage is that $635,000 that I'm going to ask you for all tonight. No, I'm kidding. Not all of it. I have some solutions for you. So don't, don't think I'm going to ask you for the whole entire math.

We're going to dunk Ed. Excuse me. We're going to dunk Ed.

Okay. So we got for the first stage of this plan, Listen, if you want a high quality school, it's not enough just to fund it with what the state and what the county brings you. You got to do more. And there's a couple of schools in our district that are raising a million dollars a year apart from the taxes. I know about 46% of our real estate taxes go into the school, but it's just not enough. It's just not enough. So how do we do it? So number one, this is what the PTSA has agreed to raise this year. They've almost tripled what they're fundraising. The community is very excited about this. They've almost tripled the amount of money that they're raising, and they're on their way to do that. And so out of that 600, already they've committed to raise $324,000, which is terrific. Number next. If you look at the... There's a bottom number there, playground replacement in outdoor spaces, $170,000. The district has committed to doing some of that, plus some of the programming, and that you see numbers up there. Everything that you see in yellow, the PTSA said, count me in. I want to help with that. So we're not alone looking at that huge number. And guys, the number, I think it's one of the number, when you want to move into a new community, the first thing you say, how are the schools? That's the first thing you look at. How are the schools? And then obviously here, how are the beaches? And how's the management? How's the taxes? But the number one thing is, how are the schools? So we really have to keep that in mind in how we invest and look at it and work towards it. Okay. So there's two asks. Number one, which we've already had three meetings with the district. We want the council to support our efforts to talk to the district to see if we can adjust the numbers so they don't take our whole population of our middle school. So there's some adjustments that they would leave. We work on building two schools very, very good middle schools, which one is masked, obviously, and then the other one would be K through eight. So we're asking the council to support our continued efforts to work with the districts to adjust those numbers.

The idea would be to increase the slots for high school, for Key Biscayne.

The high school numbers would stay the same. They're not going to be touched.

No, no. The question was increase the slots. The 1,100 totality stays the same. Yes. But yes, to answer your question, yes.

Because you still want slots to be available for kids coming out of the K-8.

Yes. So that's very delicate. That's got to be done just right.

Are the kids that are remaining in 6th grade, 7th and 8th grade, Is that because they can't get into math, there's no space available? Some. Is there an entry requirement for math?

Yes.

I'm just thinking, why all of a sudden we have all these low scores for reading, math, and science, unless the people who aren't getting in probably are the ones holding the numbers down for the fifth grade. Absolutely.

That's one of the reasons, yes.

Therefore by doing what you're doing is really I don't see how that's really going to boost those numbers. I think again either you're going to have more people going from sixth grade or seventh staying in the middle school our school or they don't. We're not going to be able to do that.

I mean these kids can't blame them for not doing well because maybe they just can't do right what the problem is because of our reduced population. We have reduced funding which we have a reduced offer.

I understand that, but the point was, would that make somebody score better in math or reading and science?

If the programming is good enough, they'll stay.

Okay, so you're saying ones that are going to mass will stay. Instead of going to mass, some will stay here. Well, not all of them will get in. I mean, isn't mass like, hey, this is the place to be, this is a great place? Yes, yes. Wouldn't everybody still really want, and the parents, wouldn't they really want to put their kids in mass?

Not always, not always. First of all, you have proximity. So I don't have to take my kid from A. B, I don't want my junior high school kid mixing with high school level thinking. Three, we're much better at special needs or special education aspects that they cannot be, there's none of that service at all at Mass. So we're strong in that. And I think the failure has been that the programming has not kept up many of these programs The good ones are that when you get through middle school by the time you're done You've already have several credits in your high school and so on with the high school when you get to college You've already finished your first year in college so we don't have that availability masters and if we create that and then we could, those parents that want the kids to stay, that want the proximity, that want the bike ride, that want the special, because there's some... Robert, are the special needs more focused in the middle school?

For the kids with special needs or dyslexia or whatever they happen to be, learning disabilities.

No, it's not special. No, it's across the board. I mean, you know, that's what we're trying to do some of that, and there is some of that. And if you look at some of the funding, like I said, I don't want to get into the weeds right now. Okay, so. All right, so. I didn't ask you a question, did I? No.

It seems like to me you're trying to keep the school going for people who really don't want to be there, really want to be in masks, but they can't get in masks at this point, so that's why they're there.

No.

No? That's not the case?

No. So I'm going to lean a little bit on you, Frank, so we can go through a little historical. We did a good thing. At a time where we signed the compact in the ILA to expand masks, we had overcrowding. MAST also was looking for expansion. We then partnered with them. We created middle school there. We created 1,100 seats that were effectively split almost in half, practically about 150 seats per grade. Those seats have stayed, remained static throughout the last 12 years, never been looked at again, depending on what the population was. At the same time, MAST was going through, let's call it a heyday of promoting itself as a rigorous school. And the perception was the only way to solidify your place in MAST in high school was to get in early, meaning leave this school early to get early and then be able to stay and remain. That created a mass exodus of which we've effectively never recovered from. So along with that exodus went funding. Along with that funding went support and went programming because the children took off thinking the only way to get into MAST high school which also offered proximity, a high school with proximity, which if you ask, most parents will tell you. Anecdotally speaking, of 30 parents that I've spoken to, many of them didn't apply anywhere else simply because they wanted their children to stay close, right? So this created this downward spiral, which we've never really recovered from. Sylvia, I think, was involved in the beginning of that change, and so It creates this chicken and egg. How do we get better programming to create a strong middle school if we don't get the enrollment? We can't get the enrollment without programming. We can't get programming without enrollment, then we don't get money.

Back to my original thing.

So when you talk about scores, you mentioned scores, you'll notice in the line items there is investment for intervention, early intervention, math and science, which both make a huge effect. And I think maybe Ms. Tarofa could speak a little bit more to that because she's more of an educator than I am. I think what's always lacked is this opportunity for everyone to row in the same direction. And so we have an incredible EAB that then took a survey, went to the parents and asked very detailed, what would they like to see? Number one, do they want to remain in the school? The answer emphatically is absolutely. I happen to be one. I have a fifth grader. I would love my child to stay here and walked up my child to school throughout middle school. My first child, I chose not to leave here. Why? Because there was a better option in Carver. better programming, more rigorous, more preparing them for success in some future. So since then, what we've been doing is just looking and studying, talking to the administration, the district, to understand, and the families, what do they want to see in their middle school? Number one, they want proximity, for sure. They want to keep their children here. But they want programming, too. Very specific programming, which is made up in this list that's been created out of a master plan that has been made in unison and collaboration with the EAB, with the survey, with the families, with the administration, and with the district, of which for the first time I've seen since I've been involved in the education, everybody's rowing in the same direction. Furthermore, there's a problem in Mass too, which we don't talk a lot about, where they have a wait list of almost 500 students. And so they're having an issue as well where they have students that want to get into the school, but because of the allocation, the way it's set up for us, they can't because those are our seats. So the ask here is twofold. We can't require a reallocation of seats to focus on high school and reduce middle school unless we give them, the families, a rigorous alternative of which they can still get great education, but still ensure that they can get in at its second entry point, which is ninth grade. So the ask is twofold. Number one, look at an ILA that nobody's ever looked at for the last 12 years. to see what does that rebalancing of that reallocation look like. And number two, that investment that will kickstart this ability to get some programming to get parents to actually want to stay because the programming is rigorous. So a couple of things have happened that have helped us. Number one, in order to secure success in high school, you want to career path the child to make sure that their next step from here is successful into a program like MAST. So we just received a new AP, assistant principal. Happens to be an AP that came from MAST. His own words were, one of the biggest reasons people come to MAST is because children in middle school can receive high school credits through our program. We've already initiated that same program and actually they can receive more high school credits in the program they're about to launch here at the middle school than even at the MAST middle school. The district has come forward and said, we are even looking at possible now adding some maybe dual enrollment opportunities, et cetera, et cetera. So the programming is starting. When we went to the district, we weren't sure what we were going to get as far as what are some of the ideas. But we went and told them that our families want to keep their middle school. Everybody wants to keep their middle school. That's all they really needed to hear to get the motivation to really want to help. We have a PTA, just anecdotally. that over the last three years has raised between $140,000 and $150,000 every year annually. This PTA is committed to $325,000. They just put together a first annual event, a community event that we've never done. It was probably the single largest event that's ever happened at the KBK, thousands of children. They were able to raise $11,000 just from a dunk tank and food. So they were offering hot dogs. And the idea was to introduce... In two hours. In two hours. So the idea was to introduce this community to what we have, what the school is. And so, you know, I came to this island and one thing I can say is that we're surrounded by exceptionalism. This is no different. This is something I've never seen before in the eight years that I've been working on education or trying to better it for my kids. For kids in general the momentum we have is incredible. Our chair is doing a great job. I think this is a real opportunity. Now it may be the last ditch effort to really turn this school much better than just good enough. This could be an exceptional school. The elementary is great and the funnel is growing every day. Five years ago we had one pre-K 4 class. We have three pre-K 4 classes. There's even conversation about creating a pre-K 3. So the funnel. healthy we actually have an opportunity here to turn this narrative that public schools are slowly dying maybe public schools but not our community school and everybody's getting on board and the energy is palpable and I think that what Roberts helped us do I think what Sylvia's on the EAB as well We have an incredible EAB. The administration is great. Our principal got into the dunk tank. I mean, they're all working together. Everybody's rowing in the same direction. So the ask is not money necessarily. It's just this council to make a stand and say, we want to stand for our middle school. We want to stand for our K-8. We don't want to lose our K-8, and we're going to support it in every way, any way we can.

My question is, Have you done a survey to find out if these people who have stayed here, who have not gone to Mass, if they could go to Mass, would they want to go to Mass?

Today, yes.

You've done that survey? Yes.

The answer is yes, because there's a wait list, and actually two children just left K-8 to go to Mass.

So in other words, the only reason they're here is because they can't get into Mass.

Today, yes. Yesterday, yes. Tomorrow, no.

That was not the case historically.

No.

You say that's not the case?

I don't think so. You've got to ask the people to find out. I think one thing that changed was MAST was an experiment that turned out to be more successful than it might have been envisioned 13 years ago. But the other was anxiety about getting into MAST. And if you didn't take advantage of that middle school slot, you weren't going to get into high school.

But no one's talking about the other issue, which we really can't debate tonight. But the stipend that you get for going to private school, going to St. Agnes, going to some of the other schools.

So the reduced enrollment across the district is something real.

It's causing a lot of brain drain. For sure.

But I will tell you, we use every single one of our 1,100 seats. So there's no lack of students to actually fill both programs. What there is is there's lack of programming and support yesterday, not today, not tomorrow as long as we have the chair and the AB working and continuing to do the work that they're doing with the council's help.

I think these asks are really a continuation of our commitments, plural, that have persisted for a long time. And I personally am invested in what you're trying to achieve. And I'll continue to support and work. Thank you. I think these are essential ideas, not good ideas. They're essential ideas.

All right, let's bring this to a landing.

Okay, so very simple. We're continuing to talk with the district. The first thing we would like is to have the council agree that we continue that work in order to adjust that pipeline so some of the students would stay on and we have an opportunity to possibly save the middle school. It'll be a pilot program, and that's to give us the okay to go ahead and continue to negotiate that.

Consensus of counsel?

Yeah, there's going to be a law of unintended consequences conversation about unintentionally depriving massed middle of its energy. Of course. We'll be careful about that. For sure.

Okay, you want to succinctly say what it is that my colleagues are going to agree to

Okay, maybe our vice mayor would be better at wording this.

In plain terms, it's the okay to look at the ILA for the first time in over 12 years and see what works.

Interlocal agreement. Interlocal agreement. It says there on the presentation. That makes sense.

It basically was an agreement whereby through our investment in MAST, we received 1,100 guaranteed seats from 6 to 12.

Right. That makes sense.

And the second ask is just your continued support. Get involved. You know, get on, go talk to the PTSA.

I'm sorry, Vice Mayor.

Go ahead.

Last year, the council supported 50,000, and we used it very well, as you can see in the list. This year, we need that support again. We're actually going up to 140,000 because we're actually raising 600 and so on, and you sort of have an idea what that's for. I would say you've got to look at this carefully. I mean, if you want to prove that, but I don't think it's during budget season and everything, that would be difficult. But I think the ask is about $140,000.

All right, well, we'll have to dissect that some more. I think so. I think so, yes. Discussions, yes. Money, perhaps. We'll take a look at it, yeah. We'll take a look at it and see where all our priorities are.

All right, so minimum to repeat the $50,000 that we did last year, and then see if we could increase it. Okay, thank you. All right. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Good job.

Congratulations.

Thank you, Robert. Consensus of council to support discussions. Yes. The next item is the Zork update.

Good evening, Jeremy Karas-Cogger, Building, Zoning and Planning Director. I will keep this relatively brief because we will come back with a more lengthy presentation to go through all of the extensive changes. But suffice to say that the committee did great work in attempting to resolve something that's quite difficult, which is how do we get more resilient and in particular go up with the finished floor levels of our homes to protect them from flooding, while at the same time preserving community character and attempting to make houses seem less massive and to sort of mitigate the potential negative effects of having that elevated ground level. There was a lot of rigor. It was 20-plus meetings. There was community tours, a lot of great experience on there. So we will be coming back with a very detailed presentation on the content and specifics.

The next item.

Let's do the Sustainability Advisory Board presentation.

Regarding the residential waste contract RFP.

Thank you, Mayor. Vice Mayor, yes. Yeah, I know. I don't have a presentation. They're coming out of the woodwork. Family affair. My son had to go home. If not, he'd be up here giving a little speech. So real quick, Council Member Vasquez, thank you very much again for that honor for my father. I very much appreciate that. And 30 years in the community has been a blessing. So we're very grateful. This, real quick, is just an overview of a letter that was submitted to you. We have been working diligently with the SAB and also with our council liaison, Council Member Bracken, and the staff has been absolutely fantastic in the assistance with prepping this request for proposal for The waste contract that's about to go out we do have a couple of main items that we want to ensure get included and have direction from Council. And they're very simple straightforward number one is flexibility number two is sustainability number three is accountability and number four is education and outreach so just to give you a quick overview. We already have flexibility baked in to the contract as is, where we have a no-penalty carve-out letting the village switch recycling vendors if a better option comes along. What we're looking to propose is that we have the same flexibility extended to yard waste and composting as new technologies and options become available. Obviously, diversion is a big part of sustainable practices, so the point that we can optimize that in the future, we want to be open to those opportunities. Locking into one vendor method for these streams for the life of the contract means we can adopt as better diversion options emerge. This just protects our optionality. Number two, sustainability. Obviously, coming from the SAB, we want to ensure that in the vendor criteria, we have a matrix that takes these items into consideration. Not just who's providing into what, but things like making sure that the score bidders on sustainability performance, we want diversion rates. data infrastructure, named diversion facilities, and fleet fuel type built into how we score for this winning bid. If sustainability is in the scoring, it's not really a selection criteria, it's a footnote. That puts us on equal footing with price and service in this decision. Number three is data accountability. Again, we've already had this discussion at length with the SAB. Staff has been great to include this. We just want to bring this to your attention. It is in our contract currently, but we want to be more adamant about the frequency about which we get this data and who's also analyzing it. Because if we get it and it's not looked at, it doesn't do us much good. So one of the things we're looking for is weekly KPI reports from the hauler, volumes, final destinations for Eastway Stream, delivery receipts, non-compliance tickets, which is a new one, and routes tied to destinations. We can't manage what we can't see. Right now we have limited visibility into where our waste actually ends up and we want to make sure we have that information to make informed decisions moving forward. We also want to hold ourselves accountable. A designated person, staff, volunteer, or consultant actually analyzing that data and turning into recommendations, not just filing the reports and having those numbers. And finally, education and outreach. We've put a big onus on the waste haulers within this RFP to provide educational components. As the SAB, we've also stepped forward and offered, to any extent that we can, if it's creating literature, If it's hosting workshops, if it's getting the information out to the community, we're ready, willing, and able to help. We've had these discussions at length. We already have a robust program in place ready to launch once that provider is chosen. And these are the recommendations moving forward. Again, we're asking council to direct staff to build these into the RFP now. before it's released, not to negotiate them after the fact. Happy to walk through any questions you have on the letters. This is just an overview. And again, I would like to point out just a big thanks to Dr. Michael Schmale, who is one of our board members, who introduced us to Melissa Doyle, who works for the City of Fort Lauderdale. And she has been instrumental in helping to piece this together. She has worked tirelessly with Benjamin and with Chris. And these two gentlemen have been absolutely fantastic. So I want to thank them also for their input and their time and their dedication. And I'll leave it at that.

All right. Council Member, liaison. Before you leave, discuss the opportunity of the additional brown bin. Oh, yes.

Please excuse me, I overlooked that. So one of the things that we're recommending in the flexibility and also the increase is to put a third bin because right now we have one for municipal solid waste, we have one for recycling. One of the things that we're proposing is a third brown bin. Currently waste, landscape and yard waste, when it reaches a tipping point is simply put into the waste bin. What we want to do is we want to provide a segmented bin in order to provide that service as an add-on to what is currently happening. And one of the things that we're looking, again, when you look at the sustainability matrix is, okay, this isn't only being taken to the landfill, but if there are vendors out there that can provide an alternative solution to this landscape and yard waste going to a more sustainably practiced facility, that would be ideal.

So just simply, if you think about what happens in the single-family home community, we get these bulk pickups, right? So every landscaping contractor and their mother throws all that landscaping material on those bulk pickups, right? so that's where all that debris ends up getting landfilled what the idea of the second the third bin is is to have a weekly pickup of landscaping material so that you don't get a much higher diversion rate that's the thought process here and that's a big part of the whole sustainability movement is to get no one wants to build another landfill right so that's the whole idea extend the life of the landfill and we don't have to build another one that's the whole purpose of recycling These guys are doing a great job, thank you very much.

Thank you. Okay, fantastic.

I just have a quick question, I'm sorry. The last time, and thank you for doing that, for looking into detail on this. The last time we spoke with the manager on this, I think they were going out with an RFQ, this was moving forward. Have you been able to incorporate these comments? Where are we at with the negotiations of that or with staff?

We're still stacking the RFP still in writing. In fact, we're coming to you tonight to extend the current contract. So we make sure that we work. We have been working very closely with the SAB just to get them one more time.

To extend the contract as it currently is.

Yeah, we need to extend the contract.

And allow for the six months to incorporate and to study these components. So that we can put out the RFP.

And this will not be a simple RFP. And particularly, we're going to do some alternatives on it so that we understand the cost of this additional requirement. Right. So that we clearly understand what we're stepping into. So that's something we're going to work together with you, and I know you and Chris have already been working, so we're good to go.

Just to point out, you gave us two months. We hit the two-month schedule. All right.

Thank you, everybody. Have a wonderful evening.

We've exceeded the Zulu quarter to nine. Thank you, everybody. All right. Consent agenda. Move. Second. I want a poll.

I'm sorry, there's a community center. No?

No. Skip that.

I'm sorry, who moved the consent agenda?

Me.

And second?

Second. Poll A, B.

Thank you. A, D. Oh, wait, I'm sorry.

You're a man.

Council Member London, you'd like to?

A, B, A, D, and A, E. E, E, E, E. Okay.

Okay.

So consensus of council to remove the three items from the consent agenda?

It has to be unanimous. We don't need to consent.

OK. Yes? OK.

If the man wants to poll them, he can poll them. It's just a quick question.

It usually happens in the agenda portion, that's all. And you all agree to it, so that's why I asked that. No, I don't.

So fine.

So all those in favor of the amended consent agenda?

Aye.

opposed motion carries okay item i'm going to read 8b a resolution of the village council of the village of key biscayne florida yeah yeah it's not deferred it's pulled you pulled it right i want to discuss it yes so it's got to read the title yes make it official A resolution of the Village Council of the Village of Key Biscayne, Florida, approving an interlocal agreement with Miami-Dade County to enforce Section 2-98.3 of the Miami-Dade County Code of Ordinances and additional regulations relating to the operation of micromobility devices, electric bicycles, and motorized scooters within the Village, providing for authorization and providing for an effective date.

So, Mayor, before the Chief tells you...

I need someone to... Second. Who moved it?

Second.

Thank you.

All right, Mayor, before we have the Chief kick off, I just want to make sure it's clear with the Council that this is just an extension of an existing interlocal agreement. Correct. Chief, if you'd take it from here.

Yeah, as our... Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council. What's your issue? My issue is this. Chief, if somebody's coming off the island and they want to go to Cape Florida State Park, and they're going on a motorized mobility device, whatever you want to call it, are you going to give them a ticket on the way to the park?

as long as they're not operating it in a class two or three fashion. And what? They're allowed to operate micro-mobility devices on Crandon Boulevard in the bike lane in a class one fashion.

No problem.

Correct.

Okay, so in other words, there's a way to get through. That's my first question. And number two is that, okay, Joe bought himself a new electric bike last week. He didn't tell you about it. So anyway... He now has walked up to Crandon Boulevard and he wants to go to Miami Will he get a ticket leaving Key Biscayne if he stays in the bike lane? No class one bike.

No, no objection All those in favor of eight be Opposed motion carries The next item is a resolution of the Village Council of the Village of Key Biscayne, Florida, selecting Maverick United Elevator LLC for elevator maintenance and repair services in an amount not to exceed $41,400 annually over a three-year term, pursuant to invitation to bid ITB number 2026-10, providing for authorization and providing for an effective date.

Move it. Second.

Where's the second? I'm sorry. Thank you.

What's the discussion? Issue. Issue.

I have a question.

Sure. Well, you pulled it. Yeah, I did, but you want to speak first?

Well, I thought we were deferring these.

No, no, we're deferring it.

Okay.

I have just questions about it. Okay, okay. My question is as follows.

Oh, pulling from the consent.

We started with the, I guess, the community center with the elevator, and they came before us. You weren't here at the time, but we came before us, and they said, hey, listen, we've got to get rid of, I think it was Schindler we had as a contractor who put it in. They're not doing the job, blah, blah, blah. We've got a new contractor, and they'll take care of everything. They'll warrant it. We have a guarantee, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Next thing I remember, we had another work order. You know what? They weren't doing it. We had to get somebody else to do it. I think they did it on an emergency basis. Didn't you, Steve, on the elevator in the And the community center, right?

Yeah, because that was an immediate emergency, yes.

So my question now is, now we're getting another contractor to do this, and what are they warranting, and what will they do, and what will they charge us? Is it a flat monthly fee, or is it just for time when they come to work?

They're charging us a flat monthly fee for the maintenance, operation, and inspection of those elevators.

So basically there's no parts and labor involved in repairs?

There's no parts and labor involved. There is a markup on the parts that they have to buy. It's a 9% markup.

And my question then is, can you get a service contract for parts and labor to be included That's not how the industry works. Really? Okay. So the ones I've gotten, they don't work that way. I have to tell them the contracts I've got are all wrong. You're screwing me up. You shouldn't do that for me. That's bullshit.

They have not bid with us that way, no.

They all wanted a percentage markup on the parts. I'm not saying the 1%. Listen, I'm talking about a contract that says for so much a month, they will take care of it. Service calls, either you wanted working hours, you wanted 24 hours, a different charge. You're saying that doesn't exist.

That's their inspection and maintenance of the elevators and they'll cover it under that But if there's additional parts required they will charge you for the parts the labor With a markup on the parts have you try to get a contract parts in labor? We did this contract went out and we had nine bidders come back and all nine bidders bid it the same way Yes, but good enough done Nancy.

Okay, two things one. I just want to bring to everyone's attention that a long time ago I asked counsel to include in all of our contracts that if any of the tariffs were found to be unlawful and they were going to be reimbursed, that we would have in our contract that they get reimbursed to us. Thank you very much for doing it. I saw that in there. That's fantastic. My other question here is, or issue is, with the extensions of the contract, shouldn't that, even if, Shouldn't that come before council? Shouldn't we at least know whether or not we're at the time where we're going to extend it or not? Because I think it's manager's discretion, unless I didn't read that properly.

And we've had this discussion in the past on this day. Our standard agreement for a lot of our professional services is a three-year agreement with two-year extensions that are permitted by the manager. That's how we typically do it. It's up to the council if you want to change that on any contract.

I don't think it comes to our attention.

Oh, come to your attention. Well, that's just if you would like the manager to notify the council once he exercises an extension, that's fine. I don't know how Steve would typically do it.

Before it's exercised, just in case any of us know of problems or have issues or something, I don't think that's unreasonable.

No? I don't think, well, I'm not sure it's necessary to have it in the agreement, but Steve, I don't know what your typical practice is.

Not 100%. I have noticed them on a number of them, but not 100% of them.

I just think it would be, we would like to know so that if anyone has an issue, they could bring it up. When you're in the middle of a three-year contract, you don't know that it's about to end and that it's necessary to do anything about it.

OK. Well, we could put it in the agreement if you want. Or we could just have it as a practice. Or you could have it as a practice with the manager. I think that's fine.

I think that's fine.

All right, Mr. Manager.

I'm sorry, can you repeat the direction? Can I do that as a motion? Do I need to do that?

That's okay.

No, it could be a consensus of council to direct the manager.

Yeah, I think it's the consensus of council. I think the manager understands that.

To notify council when prior to an extension of the two-year. Exercising any extensions of contracts.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, on 8D.

all those in favor aye opposed motion carries The next item is AE. A resolution of the Village Council of the Village of Key Biscayne, Florida, authorizing the village manager to enter an agreement with the Florida International University Board of Trustees on behalf of Florida International University for a coastal subsurface groundwater monitoring program on village property, providing for implementation and providing for an effective date.

Move. Second.

Thank you.

Ed. My only question on this is how will this affect us moving forward with the storm sewer installation, design installation? Is this going to delay things? If so, how long will it delay things?

It doesn't delay anything.

In other words, if we get GIT or somebody else to move forward, another engineer.

We're getting free agreement.

I'm all for the free. I'm not a problem with that.

I like free.

These two things are totally separate efforts. One doesn't affect the other. That's not going to stop anything. No. What's that? One doesn't affect the other.

Good. Okay. No question. No problem. That's it.

Did you, Steve, did you bring up with Chad my question, my legal question? We'll look into it. Okay.

And it's something, and obviously we want to keep it here. So, yes, no, you brought up a good question, and we will definitely look into it. That was it.

Thank you, sir. Madam Clerk.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries.

Okay, 9A.

The next item is the second reading of a capital project authorizing ordinance of the Village Council of the Village of Key Biscayne, Florida, selecting V&G Construction Solutions Corp. for the Harbor Drive Milling resurfacing and roadway reconstruction project in an amount not to exceed $2,384,688, providing for authorization, providing for implementation, and providing for an effective date.

Move. Second.

Thank you.

We've only been working on this for, what, three years, four years?

Approximately, sir.

It's coming. It's coming.

I would like to just amend this, if you call it amend or parse, take it apart. and say that the, as brought up tonight by Brett about the, what do you call it, the stamped asphalt, at this point in time, I see that's part of the contract, 200 and some thousand, go forward with everything else and we take a final decision on that. In other words, take that out of the contract today until we advise them that that's what we want.

I would caution against that, if I may, because once you enter into the contract, that would constitute a material change and the contractor can do After that, you have to pay premium price for any changes. Perhaps, it's really something to consider. I don't, I have done all of those, yeah. But I would, okay, so my thing quickly is that I would caution against that.

Before you go further, if we change this in any other material way, it's got to go back to the county?

No, because this portion of the road is on our dime. Yes, but it is in a single contract that is going to a single contractor.

So couldn't we have an amendment to the contract to take that out with an agreement that if we put it back in, this is going to be the price that they've already quoted us?

or to provide for this as an allowance. We would do the contract and have a change order if we decide we don't want to do this. Because this is the last thing that's going to happen, not the first thing, correct?

What's the square footage?

No, this is the first thing that's going to happen. Before the milling. The circles are the first thing they're going to start milling. Yes. You're going to put the stamped concrete down?

They're going to start removing the brick pavers and the concrete underneath the brick pavers and preparing that area with base and building it up to be able to get to an elevation level where they can do the asphalt and then come back and do the brick pavers. But they have to work on that and the concrete ribbons that are there.

So we have to make a decision quickly. Yes.

Right now.

And it's $1.9 million of somebody else's money.

Listen, I have no problem doing it. The question is, if what Brett is telling you, it all came up, why do we want to do something that's been unsuccessful somewhere else? Right.

But by the same token, we had that presentation. Was it Kimley Horn?

Yes.

It said that to do this, in a pervious way was going to cost $1.5 million. I'm not saying pervious.

We're not talking about impervious. I'm not saying pervious. I'm saying.

I'm just. No, I agree with you. I'm not disagreeing. Okay. I'm just saying that. I think it brought up that the bricks have been there for 20 years. They're not maintained. They're not maintained now. I don't know how many times I've talked to you. Anybody that drives down Harbor Drive, it's just horrible, okay? Well, we're also not going to have buses. Sorry? We're not going to have buses. No, but we haven't had buses for a while. It's still horrible.

We have concrete trucks.

What?

We have concrete trucks.

Whatever we have, the point being is it's not being maintained. No. So the question is, can we maintain bricks? with our maintenance department where we have to basically subcontract out maintenance. What's your issue with doing this?

I'm really, I'm not sure what you're proposing.

I'm proposing either we do the bricks and do them properly or do something else, that's all.

Can we discuss what we mean properly? So if these are sand set pavers, we're gonna continue having problems with them. So the question is, If we rebuild the structure underneath the street using concrete or some appropriate surface, we'll relay the pavers back down. Wouldn't it make more sense that we cement those in place versus sand set them? They are currently cement base underneath them. There is a cement base underneath them. I understand, but they're sand set after that fact.

Correct.

All right. So every time we have a rain, every time we have a water event, we – flush out and we undermine the pavers.

Not necessarily. They have a concrete ribbon around the edges so that sand doesn't necessarily flush out. But we are losing sand in them and they do settle. We have gone back and reset a lot of these pavers numerous times just in the two years that I've been here.

Yeah, but that's going to happen a lot. That is part of having brick pavers. Correct. And people need to understand that. And I've done it in Lasolas, places like that, where you have these brick pavers and they move, they shift. It's a maintenance issue. Correct. If you want brick pavers, you have to deal with that. If you want stamped asphalt, you have to deal with the tires. with the dirt and having to replace it. So either, you know, pick your poison, I guess. That's what I'm trying to say. But let me just, one quick, if I may, please. It says pattern pavement 246,693. Is that pattern pavement the portion that you're talking about being stamped?

That is correct.

Okay, and you're allowing a contingency for $24,000 added to it. Is that just... Let me ask you a question. If you ask the contractor, what price would he give you right now if you talk to them and get a general idea? Because I think this subject is, I don't think we should really cut corners just to move a contract. I think we should look at this, and I think this is a subject that is not something we want to, my opinion. I hear the concern. I've heard Brett speak about it. I have a particular concern with it. I think there's options out there that we could do I'm asking the question, can we ask the contractor to see what price that would be before we sign this contract?

A price to do what?

To do brick pavers. To do brick pavers. Yes. Okay. Let's forget about the maintenance issue because it's going to happen. The village has to make a commitment. If they want brick pavers, we're going to have to take care of them. We can look for options, but what I'm saying is that it requires a specific type of maintenance. Can you talk to the contractor on this? Certainly back with the price and let us know because right now we're voting kind of why?

Would you agree with that discount contract result in brick pavers at the end? Is that the final?

Patterned asphalt, correct.

So it you either live very different I Do want to say all of our prior conversations about this have been about the circles and and drainage and resiliency. We never talked about aesthetics that I recall.

It's always been pervious versus impervious.

Right. So we're ending up with something that is completely impervious. So if we can get something that looks better, set bricks, that's no less pervasive. No more impervious than the tar. I'm not sure what difference it makes other than the price and the maintenance. So part of it has to do with what we want the village to look like.

Let's do it before we sign the contract, not after. Because once we sign the contract, then we pay primo.

Mr. Mayor, we spent three years on this, and obviously this is the council's call. We've been talking for the last year that this would be stamped asphalt. We've had one reading on this. It's already been passed. This is $1.9 million of county money, but it is up to the council. But I do want to let the council know that the staff is getting frustrated as we keep changing these projects. But, of course, we'll do what the council wishes us to do.

Is there a potential... that we would have to go back to the county on any of this. That's my, no, no, but, but Chad, can you, is there any reason that this would have to go back? Cause if it does, I'm, I got a real problem with this.

I don't see that. It's just on the county years to get this. We're just talking about the stamp concrete component. Correct. To me, that's, That's a non-material change. I mean, that's an aesthetic change that...

They flat out said they would not pay or have any part of the brick pavers. So if we go brick pavers, that is completely out. Would it be a significant change? I don't know.

They said they weren't going to pay for the stamped asphalt either. So anything aesthetic they're not paying for. Right.

They're only providing the asphalt. The only providing the asphalt. And the concrete curbing.

And the concrete curbing. So it's irrelevant to the county. Correct.

They probably won't care. The timing of the project would be adjusted.

Walk me through the most expedited manner in which we could potentially change the stamped asphalt for now, the brick papers.

You approve this contract, and we would issue a change order to the contractor later on? Which is what Mr. London was saying. I'm saying there's potential. I'm discussing it.

I understand.

The question is what Mike is saying. Explore the idea of not having a loose set, but a hard set.

Yeah. I think everybody thinks of a change order.

That's an option that Chris can put in the potential change order, is go sand set or concrete set, whatever.

That would be in a change order that we would issue to the contractor, yes.

Option to do one or the other, or both.

Obviously, we would get a credit for what he's calculated for the... Do you have an opinion on those two different sets? No. I think the issue with brick pavers throughout the island, we just replaced a number of speed tables. that were done in brick pavers that were settling that we've had issues with. Not only the...

But your re-speed tables are a bit more complex than that.

A bit more complex, but they did have issues, different issues. Fernwood, the circles here on Fernwood and some of the speed tables here on Fernwood show deterioration of the brick pavers settlement. They all settle greatly here in the island. They're affected by the tidal, the groundwater moving up and down in our tidal effect.

We're talking about Harbor Drive.

We're talking about Harbor Drive, but I was asked about throughout the village pavers in my opinion on one versus the other. I think we receive much better stability with stamped asphalt. And the stamping is just the aesthetic side, but I think we receive much better stability with the asphalt and much better maintenance that can be done to them. If we find issues, we can repave them.

What do you attest to the failure that... former council member Brett Moss brought up with regards to Brickle.

I didn't hear his comments on Brickle. I'm sorry.

I wasn't in the room. Brett, you want to tell them what you saw as far as the failure is concerned?

They chipped.

Yeah, sure.

Just get a little description of the failure. My quick comment was that in Brickle, all the crosswalks were done with asphalt, stamped asphalt and pattern asphalt. And A little bit more than three years ago, you can tell that they were chipping, cracking, popping off. They were patching them. And then finally, three years ago, they came in, removed all of it. And what they put in, they put the brick pavers back, the concrete brick pavers. So that's what all Burkle has now, because I believe it failed.

The other part of the comment was that our brick pavers have lasted 20 plus years. Yes, with some deterioration, but harbor's different than

The tables correct the speed bumps right there it's more flat to to councilman Vasquez's point it requires heavy maintenance we have performed maintenance on the circles on the brick pavers but it is a constant maintenance and it is something that we contract out we do not do that in-house we don't have the failures that we were just that he just described do I have them sorry concern of the failures that you just. I don't believe that we would have the volume of traffic that they have on brickle On our road, we have significant traffic, but not to that extent. So then we're talking more about aesthetic, which is what we're talking about.

This is an aesthetic sport. You mentioned something else, Chris, about settlement, which makes me remember now, maybe you remember, we had an engineering firm which designed all the circles with all the pavers and everything else. And at the time, Gene Santiago was our the chief building official, and we had a requirement here of 5,000 PSI concrete for everything, and at that point in time, these guys used 2,500 pounds, I remember. So actually, they came for another job and we brought that up so we didn't start using them. Now I don't know if in fact, I don't know what kind of mesh or anything they did for reinforcing this thing. So I don't know what you're gonna do now for the base underneath the pavers. We're just gonna use the same base that's there, correctly?

If we're gonna restore and replace the pavers, we would use the same base if the integrity of that base is still good.

But you had settlement everywhere or just occasionally in different places?

All of the traffic circles have some form of settlement and needs significant restoration.

Again, I don't know if you, and I don't want to say move everything up, but same token, I know it wasn't done according to what our building official, the way he wanted it done, and I know we stopped using the engineering firm again.

5,000 PSI is significantly strong. Oh, yeah, it's overkill.

Yeah, but he also knew that as soon as you start pouring into cylinders, you add water to say, you know, Can I?