Village Council - workshop

Here, let's make it official to go on the air.

We are.

Now we are. All right, there we go. All right, we're going to call to order this workshop of the Wellington Village Council for Thursday, July 16th on e-bikes and micromobility. Mr. Barnes.

All right, first order of business is since we have Mr. Levin unable to join us in person, for him to join us virtually, the council members who are here constituting a quorum need to decide if they want to allow that and vote on it.

Anyone opposed to him appearing virtually? No. All right, Steve, you're in. Thank you very much. Well, we can keep him on mute, right?

Mr. Lockhart can control any and all volume controls. That's all I wanted to know.

All right, it brings us to our workshop item, which is e-bikes and micromobility discussion. And this presentation will largely be led by both Ms. Bosch and Ms. Coates. So I'll turn it over to Ms. Bosch to get us started.

Sure. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm going to take you through a little summary of what's allowed under Florida law with respect to micromobility, specifically e-bikes and scooters, and then walk you through what we have in the draft ordinance. And then Ms. Coates is going to provide you with some statistics and other information. And we have several other people here to assist us with questions that you may have from PBSO, fire rescue, school district. okay so first i just wanted to address what is a micromobility device because there's a very specific definition in the florida statutes but what i want to point out is that it includes both human powered and non-human powered devices so in fact a bicycle is a micro mobility device in addition to an e-bike and a motorized scooter what we're focusing on for purposes of this discussion is specifically e-bikes and motorized scooters so in the statute we refer specifically to those things because micro mobility refers to the whole class of vehicles and we're not addressing bicycles at this time So the general rule in Florida with respect to e-bikes and motorized scooters is that they have the same rights and privileges and are subject to all of the same duties as a bicycle. So essentially, without doing anything, they can go wherever bicycles can go. And what this means is that the rules that apply to bicycles also apply to e-bikes and motorized scooters. So as an example, riders under the age of 16 have to wear a helmet. They have to ride in the bicycle lane or next to the curb. If there is no bicycle lane between sunset and sunrise, you have to have a front light and a rear reflector. That's already required under state law. So what we're looking at is what can we do as Wellington to make e-bike and motorized scooter use in our community more safe within the confines of what the Florida statutes allow us to do. And as you may already know, the legislature has preempted us in a lot of areas of traffic control, so we can only do what they expressly allow us to do. So under Chapter 316 of the Florida Statute, we can permit, control, or regulate the operation of motorized scooters and e-bikes on sidewalks or in sidewalk areas. But we do have to restrict the speed limit on sidewalks, which this would also include our pathways, and I'll get into that a little bit later, but to 15 miles per hour. We can impose one or more minimum age requirements for the operation of these devices. We can require the operator to possess a government-issued photo ID. And we can provide training on the safe operation in compliance with applicable traffic laws. Note that we can't require the training, but we can provide it and make it available to the community. That's under the general statute that has to do with municipal authority. And then there are two specific statutes, one as to e-bikes and one to motorized scooters, that contain some additional authority for municipalities. And they both generally say that we can adopt an ordinance governing the operation of e-bikes on streets, highways, sidewalks, and sidewalk areas within our jurisdiction. Under the e-bike statute, there's some additional language that talks about restricting or prohibiting the operation of e-bikes on bike paths, multi-use paths, and trail networks. And it's a little bit unclear whether all of this extends to all the devices. But in reading all of these statutes together, we believe that we generally have the ability to regulate the movement of e-bikes on streets and sidewalks, which would include our pathways. Oh. I skipped a... Oh, now I'm back to... There we go. So that's what we can do under Chapter 316. Separate from Chapter 316, which regulates traffic, we also can, pursuant to our police powers, adopt regulations governing the use of e-bikes and motorized scooters on our own property. So like in our parks, at our facilities, things like that. And that's why we've provided you with two different proposed draft ordinances. One of them amends Chapter 22, which addresses traffic and vehicles, and the other amends Chapter 14, which is parks. In Chapter 22, we're specifically addressing what we're allowed to do within the confines of Chapter 316 of the Florida statute. So this would be... predominantly e-bike and motorized scooter use on our pathways. And in Chapter 14, which addresses parks and has lots of different regulations related to parks, we're specifically addressing where e-bikes can and cannot be utilized within our parks and at our facilities. And also I think everybody knows this but I just want to say that with respect to chapter 22 You know, the idea is to provide safe operation in and around the community and with respect to chapter 14 We obviously want people to use e-bikes and motorized scooters safely in our parks It's also designed to address some recent property damage that we've experienced based on what we believe is misuse of some of these devices. And I'll get into the details of what's in Chapter 14, but the idea is to help prevent that kind of damage going forward. So I'm going to talk about Chapter 22 first. And this is the section that is pursuant to Chapter 316. You have before you, I believe you have a summary of Chapter 22 of the changes, and you also have the proposed ordinance itself. And what the ordinance does is it creates a new article titled Electric Bicycles, Motorized Scooters, and Other Micromobility Devices. It's really specific to electric bicycles and motorized scooters, but if down the road we wanted to somehow address micromobility devices, it would fit into this section. And then the purpose and intent of this this article is to create additional rules for e-bikes and motorized scooters beyond what state law already provides. So what we're not doing in this ordinance is addressing what state law already addresses, helmets for kids under the age of 16, having a front lamp and a rear reflector. Things like that can already be enforced under state law. I believe PBSO is already enforcing those things. And so we don't need to reiterate what already exists under state law. What we're doing in this ordinance are those additional things that the legislature has said that municipalities can do. So this is a short summary of what is in the ordinance. And these are kind of discussion items for all of you as to what you would like to see. But what this ordinance proposes is a minimum age of 15 for riders of e-bikes and motorized scooters. It requires operators to carry government-issued photo ID. And we specify that the photo ID

Well, if we put, you figure that's one on a bike, that's something on a school's intersection. Most of our problems off stuff like that, we know where they're going.

And we all know that you're very safe between the sheriff's criminal.

From fleeing, I wait at their house, do this, get the helicopter up because a lot of them won't stop. But there's a huge, and they'll go up to 60 miles an hour. So there's a 90 day difference between e-bike and motos. So when we make a moto arrest, you know it's a lot because we are literally tracking them almost like we do a stolen vehicle. And they go to jail. There's no tickets. We're taking them to jail. And you're impelling them. Now, if they don't run, it's a criminal citation for unregistered motor vehicle on the roadway, which it's like driving a car without registering it. Same charge. But it's a lot to go through. When we get them, most of them aren't stopping the kids and this, that, and the other. So we're in the process of doing a lot of identification. And then when we get them, it's a lot of work to work that through to actually get them.

Understood. And that's why our focus is on actual e-bikes and motorized scooters, because those are the things we can control, and they're not already banned by state law.

Talk about where they can be so as far as the multimodal pass within neighborhoods and things of that nature, but what about bridle path specifically and then there was a comment about we can regulate what we own as the village that's village property some of the battle pass from my understanding our village property so can we would limit or exclude these micro mobility devices on those battle pass.

so we actually included public bridal trails as one of the places where they're prohibited and that would be under the proposed chapter 22 regulations i i haven't gotten into the second ordinance yet which is chapter 14 and that will be more specific to our parks but so with the bridal paths that includes golf carts i'm assuming

This ordinance is. It does not include golf carts. It does not. This is strictly on micromobility and golf carts was a separate ordinance. And we didn't address golf carts on bridal paths within the golf cart ordinance back then. Because a large percentage of the use of the golf carts on the bridal paths are the equestrian.

I agree. There's also some little moped equestrians as well. That's correct.

And little emotos too.

They say they want it, but then when they want to get to the horse show, I don't know if they're going to want it as much as they say they want it.

Well, we talked about that, yes. It's either an all-or-nothing ban. You can either have them or not have them. You can't have it some. You can't regulate the drivers.

But as Ms. Bosch said, the proposed regulations do include prohibiting the use of e-bikes and other micromobility, not specific to bicycles, but e-bikes and e-scooters on the equestrian trails.

Right, which includes some canal right-of-ways also.

Right, and I think we can fix that with the definitions because most of our restaurant trails, public restaurant trails are within ACME right away.

Just for a clarification on the 15-mile-per-hour restriction, that's only on the sidewalks, being multimodal pathways, but on the street they can go faster than that? Is that allowable?

Yes. On the street they... I got a bike I guess it depends how fast the vehicle goes because I'm by definition a lot of these I think go up to 20 or 28 miles per hour but they have to file the traffic rules he has a traffic laws of its 25 to the post and he has to follow those laws when they're riding a bike on the road.

Helmets obviously we've discussed the helmets and The comment was under 16 have to wear a helmet, but over 16, they don't have to wear a helmet. But if we are able to make the restriction as far as the age limit of who can ride these things, Would it be a good idea just to make the age limit 16 so that everybody... Because how is PBSO going to know if somebody's 15 or 16 or 14 or 16? You know what I mean? Unless they're pulling them over.

They don't, but I think they could tell little kids from bigger kids for the most part.

There's some kids that are clearly not 16. If someone's borderline and they're following all the rules, we're probably not going to mess with them. Not going to mess with them, right. You know, if they look 15, 16 and they're following the rules and I got them, we're not going to...

I'm not a fan of the age limit. Just jumping ahead. I'm not a fan of putting an age limit on who can access and use these things. I mean, the genie's out of the bottle. Kids have these. They're using them all over town. And if they're using them responsibly, that's fine. If the kids are using them irresponsibly, that can be irrespective of age. You can be 17 and be totally reckless and 12-year-old and be perfectly safe. So I don't want to put an age limit as part of this, because one, it makes it an enforcement issue, and two, it takes away from, I don't know, hundreds of kids who this is their access around town to hang out with their friends. So I don't want to pretend these don't exist already. We're not starting from scratch. We're starting from an existing position. And I don't want to wind back the clock and say, okay, everyone, if you're over 15, if you're under 15, they're all getting locked up for a couple years. I think that's foolish. I mean, we can go that route if we have to down the road, but I don't want to start there with an age limit.

Yeah, I'm not recommending anybody get locked up or anything like that. I'm just thinking that's the simplicity of it, of 16, if that's the helmet cutoff, making it 16 versus trying to litigate or figure out who's 15, who's 16, who's 14, whatever. The assumption is if they're riding without a helmet, they're over the age of 16. If they get pulled over for doing something silly, then that's when you're able to.

That's the law right now. Regardless of what we do, the law says you have to be under 16, you have to have a helmet on.

Sure.

My point is I don't want to restrict the use of micro mobility based upon age. I don't want to put an age cap on it. Sure.

Got it. Is there a thought about requiring I know there's a requirement for government-issued ID. And to that point, who's issuing the ID? Is the village able to issue these IDs? I don't think that the Department of Traffic or whatever, the DMV is not going to give a 14-year-old a

I think they can actually, correct me if I'm wrong, I think they can actually get like a Florida ID card. I don't know how many kids actually have that.

It used to be as low as three years old. Yeah. Oh, you can.

But depending on, first of all, whether you set an age limit or not, let's say the age is 15, possibly they have a learner's permit. They don't have to, and that's not something that we can require for purposes of this. But if the age was set at 15 or 16, they would possibly have a learner's permit or a driver's license. But they can get a Florida ID card as well.

At any age? It used to be as low as three years old. They used to do it really young.

School IDs would not qualify.

Gotcha, because there's not going to be a birthday song.

Sergeant Bennett, did you have a comment on the age?

This is not the Sheriff's Office's opinion. We're clear on that. This is my opinion. We have a problem with motos, e-bikes. And if we compound so many things on here, you're going to, it's almost like what I kind of agree, like you're punishing a 14-year-old for a 16-year-old that's an idiot. If you put so many rules in effect, you're going to make it almost impossible to govern and to control and to do it. So you might as well abolish it. I mean, if you pick the problems and set a couple of rules that we're going to enforce to control to make it safe, just my opinion, in police work for 30 years, that's way more effective than just overloading with so many things that you have to keep looking up and is this or that. And we want to make it safe. We want to control it. We want a community overwhelmed with these. And I think a small structured set of rules to make that happen would be a lot more effective in governing your community than overloading and just, that's just my opinion. I think we can realize it on our end a lot easier.

I didn't realize the speed limit was already a state law, 15 miles an hour.

I didn't realize that was already a state law. On the sidewalks.

Correct. You shouldn't be driving a scooter in the street. You'll be killed.

It's a terrible idea. i don't believe that the the state law is that it's 15 miles per hour if you're going to allow them on your sidewalks then it's 15 miles per hour so we have the 15 mile per hour signs already because we're allowing golf carts on our sidewalks and part of allowing golf carts are not on our sidewalks but on our multimodal pathways part of allowing golf carts on multimodal pathways we had to impose a 15 mile per hour speed limit It would be the same for.

Ms. Cohen.

He's getting very bad feedback. If we could just put our phones off the tables, please.

I think that's an ordinance. I'd have to look, but I don't think there's a state statute for 15 miles an hour on a sidewalk.

There isn't. I don't believe there is. But what it says is that if a municipality is going to regulate e-bikes and scooters, we have to impose a 15 mile per hour speed limit.

So if we have rules in place and if we have rules that it's a 15-mile-an-hour speed limit if we have no rules it's chaos.

If you adopt this ordinance or some version of this ordinance regulating e-bikes and e-scooters that on sidewalks the speed limit has to be 15 miles per hour.

Okay. Ours is anyways because we have that posted already.

We have it posted for golf carts.

So it's a speed limit only for golf carts.

The way the ordinance is currently written, yes, it only applies to golf carts.

So, yeah, I would say we definitely need to put that in, too. Yeah.

I mean, we need to at least put that in there.

That's a good one. I mean, you don't want someone doing 30 miles an hour. No. And they are. Safety stuff.

Jim can attest. We almost get run over by those things.

See, I am... definitely leaning more on your end, because the more that we add, the less effective this is all going to be. We need to pick our priorities of what we're going to. At the end of the day, half of them will do it and the other half are not going to do it. They're not going to listen to any of this. They're still going to do what they do every day. But if we can pick the priorities of what we need to add change or however we're going to look at this, I think it's very important. And I don't like the age. I'm with you there, Mayor. Because a lot of these kids use to go to work, whatever work it is that they do at that age. But this is the way they move around Wellington.

And some kids are responsible, and some kids are not. And some are not. That's what I'm saying. It doesn't depend on your age. And you've seen it all.

The problems they're causing and what we can do to stop it would probably be the most effective. I would like to see the priority of safety above anything. Speeding and reckless driving.

It would be beneficial for Ms. Bosch to get through the rest of her portion. I know. We cut her off. Ms. Goetz actually has a lot of data that will also help us go through the decision.

We'll take notes and be quiet.

But I think it would also be beneficial to hear from PBSO as to what their top concerns are.

For sure. We're here, so we can wait until you finish and go from there. Whatever you guys tell us to do, we'll do.

Okay. So you're not alone. So with respect to enforcement, again, we're a bit restricted by what the Florida statutes allow us to do. But enforcement under the proposed ordinance would be by PBSO. It's a non-criminal traffic infraction, and it's punishable as a pedestrian violation pursuant to Chapter 318. It's a pretty low fine amount. It's $15. If it's enforced as a UTC by PBSO, meaning that it's a violation of state law. There's certain fees that are associated with that and it's around like $64.

$64.50 after the clerk of the court gets their fees.

If it's enforced as a violation of our ordinance to be determined exactly what is going to be punished in our ordinance, it would still be the $15 and we're Still working on what the additional fees would be I have to get back to you on that because we need to confer with the clerk's office because that would be done separate from PBS oh And then lastly this this ordinance chapter the chapter 22 ordinance refers you to chapter 14 for prohibitions in our parks because as I said before that's going to be pursuant to our police powers and is done in a separate section and Before I transition to chapter 14, we're proposing another change to chapter 22 that does not have to do with e-bikes and motorized scooters. It actually has to do with the penalty for golf cart violations. It's all part of chapter 22, so it makes sense to bring them forward together. Currently, the golf cart ordinance provides for a graduated civil penalty where the first violation is a warning, the second is $50, the third and any violation thereafter is $100. And PBSO has expressed to us, and feel free to jump in if I misstate anything, that that graduated penalty is a challenge and that they would like to see it be a flat fee because of the way the track system works it's difficult to know if a warning has already been issued or not and truly they really have uh discretion to issue a warning anyway and so if we provide a flat fee it will be easier for the deputies to i'm good yeah it's so much easier who got a warning and who and i think it should be higher

That's not our concern. I'm just saying the warnings is hard to track.

And the number is going to be based on the statute as either a moving or a non-moving violation. It's actually a little bit lower. It's $30 for moving.

Non-moving.

Non-moving, I'm sorry. And moving is $60. Plus some additional fee, plus court costs, so it's actually more than that.

We want to set a flat fee of what, $100?

No, we would set a flat fee following the statute.

So we can't go more than $60.

Well, so the non-moving would be around $116 and the moving would be around $166 with the court costs.

$30 and $60 plus court costs.

What they would see on their citation, right, is a $116 or the $166. And that's what they would pay.

Their citation will say everything combined, one number, all inclusive.

If that's as high as you can go, sure.

Okay. OK, so now transitioning to the proposed ordinance on Chapter 14. this ordinance first of all introduces a definition of neighborhood park which is just helpful because we refer to neighborhood park all the time and also elsewhere in chapter 14 so it's helpful for people to know what that means but really what we're focusing on here is there is an existing section in chapter 14 that prohibits things like roller skating bicycling skateboarding in certain places like on turf on basketball courts on tennis courts and parking lots But some of the property damage that I was referencing before has been in places like boat docks, on playground equipment. Am I leaving anything out, Nicole? And just generally at neighborhood parks. And so what we do in this section is we clarify, number one, that the prohibition on bicycling and scootering would include e-bikes and motorized scooters. And two, that none of these activities, roller skating, are allowed in any of those places.

But in the parking lot, just not on the physical playground. They can pull up to the parking lot or put it over to the side.

Yes, but not like riding around.

Is there a designated spot for them to park their scooters now at all of the different parks?

Yeah, I think you go to the bike rack. The bike rack.

We have that at every park, a spot for them?

There's a bike rack. Probably not where they want to be, but there's a bike rack.

Will we have signage or something to let them know? Because this is a change with their kids.

I think we would look at the ordinances once, and if they're adopted, and we would adjust any of our signage at any of the park locations and even all our other public locations that need to reflect those.

I agree. I don't want them ruining our playgrounds, but they need a designated spot to put their scooters and bikes.

For sure. And bicycling actually is already prohibited. So we're really just clarifying that that also includes e-bikes and e-scooters.

They're just not part of the rules right now.

The current signs out there just say no scooters, bicycles, rollerblading, or skateboards. So those would be updated. Okay.

The other change to this section, there's a subsection in Chapter 14 that deals with use of vehicles in parks. And so we've added a section under there to specifically address e-bikes and e-scooters. And we've identified three places where they would be prohibited, specifically at Wellington Town Center, in the neighborhood parks, which... addressed in that other section as well but I think it's appropriate to address it here too and also on the Hart trail at Village Park and the rationale behind that is that these places are where there's higher amounts of pedestrian traffic and so having these motorized devices in those areas is a safety concern when you prohibit them within the neighborhood parks I get not on the Hart trail but what does it mean not at Wellington town center

would be like this whole area so you can drive here then park it on the outskirts you couldn't drive bike racks here as well so you'd have to park it there the issue we've had here is to fill mostly on the boardwalk it's been a problem and then it's also a problem on the turf at the amphitheater and then add to that all the pedestrian traffic that we have and we have a lot of different events having them weaving in and out throughout the parking lot is problematic so that's why we added town center to the equation

And then the only other changes to chapter 14 are just to clarify that the section can be enforced by law enforcement in addition to park staff and To clarify that the penalty for chapter 14 as a whole is consistent with with what in chapter 162 so a fine not to exceed $500, imprisonment not exceeding 60 days, or both. That's what Chapter 162 provides. What's in there now is similar to that, but the amounts are a little bit off. So we're just changing it to match what the statute provides. And that's it for me. I'm going to hand it off to Nicole.

Before we go to Nicole, I'm good with chapter 14, all the changes in 14 as far as where you want to prohibit and how you want to adjust the signage. I don't have any issues with those locations. You may want to think about revisiting places down the road. But I think as a starting point, that's a good step to see how that works. Anyone have thoughts on 14?

I'm fine with 14.

I'm just wondering if we're leaving anything out. We can always add. Right.

And on the 22, after Ms. Bosch and I spoke earlier today, and a lot of my concerns were already addressed by state statute. So I have a lot less changes than I thought I was going to have. But I do think the only thing I would take out is on page section 2248 is the age restriction. Because I think everything else still works and it doesn't make it overly complicated for PBSO to enforce because we're not adding a lot of new rules. We're adding definitions and we're taking away the age restriction. And a lot of the other stuff is covered by state statute and the speed limit would also be covered because we already have a, once we pass an ordinance, we then apply that speed limit to our pathways, right?

Yes.

And the only other thing I would suggest is, I don't know which one it is, proposes that e-bikes and motorized scooters are not allowed on sidewalks, which are the four foot versus the pathways, which are eight or 10 feet. I would allow them where bikes are allowed because that means you've taken Forest Hill off the table. commute and I think you should really use e-bikes and scooters on sidewalks as well and if people are not using them safely that's fine. I know you can't use golf carts there because golf carts are already four feet wide and they take up the whole sidewalk and you can't pass people but I think you should be able to use these vehicles where you can use bicycles which to me would be sidewalks as well as pathways.

question about the government-issued ID, which is in Section 22-48. Are you sure? MR.

I'm lukewarm on that. I mean, everyone's got to take their kid to get an ID, which is maybe not a terrible idea anyway. But I can go either way on that. If you drop the age limit down to there's no age limit, I don't know, but if PBSO wants them to have IDs, they can know who they are.

I'm fine with a school ID. I can identify them. We have a resource. If they have an ID, a school ID is an ID. I can get their age. I can call school board 24 hours a day. I can get a date of birth, whatever. They're not going to have their picture. I think, right?

Yeah, I like school. I have no problem. They've all got school IDs.

I have no problem with a school ID enforcing any of this.

They get in trouble for going to school without school IDs, so they got it on them.

All right. I got no problem with school IDs versus government IDs or any of the above as long as it's got a picture in the name. But I don't know. I'm stuck on the age restriction portion of it not having any age restriction. The reason being is that, yes, you can have a 48-year-old knucklehead on one of these things doing something stupid.

And we do hear about that from Nicole.

Right. But my thought is that You know, you have 7-year-olds and 8-year-olds that are potentially coming in contact with vehicles whipping through the parking lot off the sidewalk in front of Dunkin' Donuts almost getting hit. I've seen it happen a lot. So not to say that won't happen with a 15- or a 16-year-old, but I think that the maturity level and the awareness of somebody that's a little bit older versus a 6 or 7 year-old that that has to be taken into account because and I'm just saying this strictly for the safety of these these young kids. I think it's pretty it's somewhat reckless to not put some type of an age restriction on there. I'll defer to what pbso thanks on that if you don't that you don't think that it's a it's a wise plan on the parents shouldn't get your 7 year-old scooter.

I mean, I wouldn't love to see a seven-year-old riding a 25 mile an hour e-bike down the sidewalk either. But I don't know how much difference there is between a 15 and a 16 or a 14.

And if they are, you really need to go arrest the parents. Well, we are.

Listen, a lot of this is on the motos. We let them know if they're getting tickets and they're reckless or whatever. The parents can be arrested. That's not off the table when we see children that are. I've told parents, you will be arrested if I catch your child out with this bike again if you give it back to them, whatever, because they're breaking the law and you're contributing. And they're a minor. So they can be arrested for stuff like that.

And actually, that was a question I had for PBSO. You do notify the parents when they get a citation or no citation, whatever the case may be?

Depending on if a kid gets a helmet. It depends if it's a group. We call parents. I do most of the time. It's not a policy that we have to for a little citation. Anything more than that, any arrest or anything like that, a parent must come. We don't release the child. So that's where the kind of line is on that.

And if you do have to give any type of warning or sign, do the parents find out about that or the kid gets it?

They could easily. It depends on the warning. Most of the time if we write a ticket, that ticket's got to be paid and it's going to be accountable.

That was my question for Rachel. What happens if you get one of these and you don't pay it and you're like a kid? What happens?

So I'm gonna let PBS so help me But My understanding it's first of all, it depends if it's a UTC Like a uniform traffic citation or if it's issued under the ordinance I think we're still working on what what would be the case if it was under the ordinance if it's a UTC specifically for a kid

Yeah, because I'm assuming a 14-year-old does something, PBSL pulls them over and cites them for something. They can't get points on their license. What do you do with them?

I'm going to let Deputy Maniscalco answer, since he told me in an email, and I'd rather you just hear it straight from him.

Regardless of age, a violation of a bicycle, a state statute for a bicycle is a pedestrian violation, whether you're 13 or 30. And it won't go against your license whether you're 13 or 30 or you have a license or not. The difference is if you're 30 years old and you have a driver's license in Florida and you get a citation for a pedestrian violation, if you just straight out pay it, it doesn't affect your license. If you don't pay it, they will suspend your license. If you're 13 years old and you get it and you don't have a driver's license yet, the DHSMV will issue a state-assigned number and suspend that number so that whenever you go to try and get a license ever, that will be there and you will have to pay it at some point. But other than that, that's as far as it goes.

Okay. So there's a consequence at some point.

Yes. Okay. But again, that's if it's issued as a UTC under state law. We're still working through what will happen if it's under our ordinance.

Okay.

So right now, PBSO writes Wellington tickets only for parking violations. So we would have to take a look at whether they're going to write these tickets for these types of violations. And in those cases, those tickets are provided to, Liz Meredith in code and then I think she transmits those to the clerk of court. And the clerk, if it doesn't get paid, my understanding, and we'll verify this, is that the clerk sends it out for collection.

Because you need enforcement and consequences for sure letters will go to your house good even one of your ordinance I do believe once it runs through us.

They'll actually potentially my house like a parking citation will start coming Is there is there any thought about having a training course for these kids is that Not to jump I just so that

YOU'RE CONSIDERING EVERYTHING. YOU'RE CONSIDERING EVERYTHING. AND I AGREE. AND I AGREE. AND I AGREE. A PARENT SHOULD NOT PURCHASE ONE A PARENT SHOULD NOT PURCHASE ONE A PARENT SHOULD NOT PURCHASE ONE OR ALLOW A 7 OR 8-YEAR-OLD OR ALLOW A 7 OR 8-YEAR-OLD OR ALLOW A 7 OR 8-YEAR-OLD CHILD.

CHILD. CHILD. HOWEVER, THEY DO.

HOWEVER, THEY DO. HOWEVER, THEY DO. YEAH. YEAH. YEAH. THAT'S MY POINT. THAT'S MY POINT. THAT'S MY POINT. THE OTHER PART IS EVERYBODY THE OTHER PART IS EVERYBODY THE OTHER PART IS EVERYBODY IS FOCUSING ON THE MATURITY LEVEL IS FOCUSING ON THE MATURITY LEVEL IS FOCUS YOU'RE NOT CONSIDERING THE ANATOMY OF A 7-YEAR-OLD VERSUS A 15-YEAR-OLD AND WHERE IS THAT 7-YEAR-OLD GOING TO BE HIT BY THE BUMPER RUN OVER OR WHERE IS THAT MIRROR ON THE CAR HITTING THE CHILD VERSUS A BIGGER, MORE DEVELOPED KID. THE DIFFERENCES IN THE SEVERITY OF THE INJURIES IS VERY SIGNIFICANT. depending on the size of the individual being struck. So you have to consider that as well. And it's not just about restricting them. You're forcing them to be safer than what their parents or guardian or lack of is saying. considering because everybody thinks their kid is smart enough and wouldn't and my kid would never well they do and some people just don't have that direction so when you're considering all the facts you have to consider the size of the person that would potentially be being struck by a vehicle and they're unprotected and you have the age restriction for a golf cart when they are semi-enclosed they have more protection on a golf cart than they do on a scooter and the golf cart is restricted at 15 years old, I believe, and a learner's permit, which is completely reasonable because they have had now a traffic course and they've been exposed to traffic laws and they should have an understanding of right-of-way and who has the right-of-way and four-way stops and what these signs mean and stop signs exactly. So it's very important to consider all of that. I think that these e-scooters and e-bikes are much more dangerous than golf carts are and you have more stringent ordinance on the golf cart safety than you're considering for these e-scooters and e-bikes so that's all thank you for that

To the captain's point, not only is there a safety and physical size difference of the age, but there's an awareness issue. I'm on the bike the other day on Greenview Shores getting ready to turn onto Wellington Trace as a kid in a golf cart, young, I don't know how old, in a golf cart in the crosswalk. He feels like there's no cars coming. I'm signaling, I'm calling out, but he's got his music going or his headphones in or whatever. And he's in the crosswalk, so he felt like he was safe. And it's just an awareness issue as well. So there is some difference based on age, yes.

I have a little more data to provide as we continue this conversation and giving you all the best information we can provide. I did, before I get started, wanted to let you know that Assistant Chief Michael Waits is with the school district. We did talk to Chief Mooney about what are the schools doing. The overall jurisdiction lies within each principal to establish any rules that they would like to do on district property as it relates to these devices. And at this point, I don't think there's any schools that have come out with any rules aside from you must walk the device in once you get to the gate. So there's been no school that has said, no, they're not allowed on property. just kind of wanted to let you know on the school district front kind of where we are with that also i do have nathan george here he's the multimodal you might already know him and might not need an introduction but if you'd like to join us he's the multimodal planner for the metropolitan planning organization and he can provide us after i go through this data if you have any questions on the lay of the land on what's happening in palm beach county and possibly beyond Which to our knowledge, there's no ordinances, not many in Palm Beach County. There's one in town of Palm Beach that's completely prohibited. And Lake Worth came out saying they'll follow the county ordinance or something of that effect.

Can I interrupt you for one second? I just don't want to forget and we're kind of there right now. Crosswalks, right now they don't walk them across crosswalks. They drive them. Is there... an actual rule for that, or are they allowed? Because the crossing guard says search and walk. They don't say search and ride. They don't say run. So they're all riding their bike or riding their scooter. What is the actual rule, and how could that be enforced? The crossing guard can't do it.

Is that a rule on the crosswalk, that you must walk?

I don't think so.

I thought I know of it. If they're acting like a pedestrian or like they're on a sidewalk, they're acting like a pedestrian, they need to act like a pedestrian. They can't go from crosswalk to street and back and forth at will. They need to either follow pedestrian laws, crossing at a crosswalk, or they have to ride in the road and follow traffic signals.

So when they have their scooter and they're waiting for their crossing guard to say it's okay to cross, are they allowed to ride it across or do they need to walk it across?

They can ride it.

They can?

Because they're not stopping. They're getting stopped by the crosswalk, you know. So they're riding up. They were stopped for following the thing, and then they can ride. There's nothing saying they can't continue to ride.

And what about bicycles? Wasn't it always a rule that they were supposed to walk it across?

That's a safety rule, not a statutory mandate.

But I think that's something the schools would be able to regulate right because that's within the 1000 feet.

The crosswalk is a set of years. As far as the crossing of the municipality that has just.

It's just usually a gaggle of children. It's a little bit unsafe at times.

So I like to trace a big blue all of them.

I have a question for the school if I may are the

crossing guards trained.

But are they aware of all this.

Do they understand us there should also okay and they trained I mean do they know what's going on with the these the issues for having their train to cross the kids across the road to be on a base in charge of yeah, it's a separate unit. We can reach out to them and and coordinate with them. But I don't think either one of us can actually answer exactly what they're trained on.

I know they are trained, but their training mostly specifies on making sure they stop the cars properly. They don't get by cars. Not necessarily the kids hitting themselves, I guess.

We could follow up. We have actually meetings with the new sergeant there, Tucciaroni, who's taking over the school crossing guards. We can ask him that.

I just think that at least following Councilwoman Sylvester and her thought, that there should be some basic training for these crossing guards to understand at least the basic of all this.

Well, they're not going to be able to enforce. I'll be honest. No, no. They won't be able to. They can say walk or this, but they're not going to do helmets this, because if not, they're not getting kids across the crosswalk safely, which is their only priority.

No, but if they're doing something that crossing over or they shouldn't even start the crossover, can they say, you can't, you have to wait? They can say it. Yeah. They can't enforce it.

It would be harder for them to enforce it. OK. That's more where I'm leaning with the basic. Their job is to stop the cars. The kids don't know what to do. Yeah, they're not going to.

But I would think that they would if they saw danger, though. I would think that they would. Right. That's why I said I would think that they would.

Right. That would be honestly my opinion. I think that would be something that we'd have to coordinate with them if they're having trouble at an intersection or something to send a deputy over. But I think that their main responsibility with that, and if they're having issues at a certain intersection, they would contact, because we all are Sheriff's Office, to contact us to assist in something of that nature if they're having trouble at a certain spot.

Fair enough.

That's perfect.

Thank you.

Okay, so I'll go ahead on just some of the data that we received from the health care district of Palm Beach County. They collect data through the two trauma centers. So Delray Medical and St. Mary's and their registrars is how we got the trauma data that shows you trauma and the type of mechanism that caused their injury. So these are severe injuries. Palm Beach County, not Wellington. Palm Beach County, correct. We did ask for Wellington specific, but that was causing some issues with privacy issues and stuff that we could really drill down. So we accepted what we received. And so this data will display over the next few slides the trauma injuries for 2021 through 2026. And it's half a year's worth of data. So that data ends, I want to say, June 23 around there. So just keep that in mind when you see 2026. So you could see on this pie chart in 2021, the orange and blue, those are trauma injuries caused by bicycles, and bicycle versus vehicle is the orange. And then you could see in 2022, it's kind of consistent. Again, they predominantly take up most of the pie chart and cause of the trauma injuries. When you go to 2023, you could start to see appearing the electric bike and electric bike versus vehicle in the kind of olive green and light blue. And you could see in 2024, it's expanding. And then we get to 2025, and then 2026, we're kind of now dominating with electric bike and electric bike versus vehicle trauma injuries.

Which is because there's more of them. They've increased over years. Correct. Yeah.

That's only half the year again. Right.

And likely, just looking at the data, one could say, well, maybe more e-bikes are now being used versus traditional bicycle. This slide shows the total patients. You can see there's an increasing trend. This is for all ages. And we'll go down into pediatric versus adult. But you can see the increased trend. And here we are in 2026. And we're about more than halfway past. It looks like we're on trend to continue increasing in 2026. This, they drilled down the patients, adults versus pediatric. Pediatric is considered two, age two through, sorry, two through 17. Adult is 18 and above. And you could see the blue is the pediatric patients. But you could still see a predominant number of injuries are caused, are adults.

And Nicole, this is just e-motos or is this bicycles as well?

This is all the categories here.

Okay, okay.

All those categories. And that kind of broke down the colors. Sorry, it's just all. Yeah, it's not breaking it down here. But it's all mechanisms that we had in the categories in the other slides. Got it. So you could see, obviously, an increase in the pediatric, also increase in the adults. This kind of drilled down a little more to the pediatric patients, because we were considering age restrictions. And so you could see that orange line is really the ages 12 to 15. And you could see they're taking up more than half of the pediatric trauma age group. And then if you combined it with the six to 11, that's over 75% are six to 15. And when you look at transportation mode in 2021, if all are going to be ground transportation, then you could see that the trauma air transportation mode for these alerts are going up. We provided information, thank you, Chief Vemero, on what's occurring here in Wellington, because I think that really is the lens we want to look at. The data collection method for Palm Beach County Fire Rescue is still in process. So there's more ways of capturing this data. This is kind of the best we have at the moment. And this data does not determine if someone was wearing a helmet or not. So if they were violating a safety precaution, we don't know that. But that is being worked on. as a data point in the future. Looking at what we are doing, we are doing a lot of work. Of course, with PBSO, we held the first organized operation with Modo Madness back in 2025. Sergeant Benedict and team helped lead that charge. There was a lot of good results there. We have the dedicated PSAs and website. Also, if you have maybe known or didn't know that District 8 was out in the Landings Middle School during the lunch breaks talking to the kids, We also do the business walk-in talks and make sure the commercial and shopping plazas, if you've seen during holiday times, seen on Facebook, kids are out and about, maybe causing some problems with the plazas. We make sure we educate the plazas on who to call so we can get PBSO to enforce and help them and make sure everyone stays safe. If the ordinance does go through in some fashion, we do our public outreach plan as we would do with golf carts. We do the speed cameras. There's multiple ways that we get the information out. We want there to be more than one way you're getting your information. So we will be doing all those things and always open to suggestion. and then safety course. We've partnered with the Safety Council to do an e-bike safety course. We were able to get a sponsor to offer this program to 100 teens for free. And this consists of an online portion. It's about a three-hour online portion, which seems maybe a lot but you're teaching children the rules of the road and then we are going to offer a hands-on portion on the our range our motorcycle range which is located behind the hampton inn and it's flhsnb certified for e-bike as well so we will launching this in partnership with the Safety Council to help.

Let me ask you a question about this. Just pop it in my head. Because it's hard to get kids to sign up and do these things, right? Is there a possibility we could find someone that would want to sponsor these and that every kid that attended would get a gift card or something? That way they're encouraged to come because they're getting something in exchange? Because we can't force them to come. bribe them to come. So maybe there's someone that would want to sponsor this and give out, I don't know, gift cards, McDonald's or whatever.

That was going to be a question. You can't force them? There's not a, or something that we can impose that's a required course?

Do they get a ticket? Do they have to go?

There's been others, just kind of looking to what others are doing. BOCA offers through the BOCA PD free online, just the online portion, not the road portion. But Nathan and I have had some conversations. He's on the Micromobility Task Force, the Pedestrian Bike Coalition. And there's conversation that possibly with the task force at the state level, there would be a requirement for a safety course, just like like boater safety is optional. But motorcycle endorsement is required.

So there are safety courses. I know that with the MPO, they've been trying unsuccessfully to get them implemented in Palm Beach County schools. They simply said they don't have enough time. They have a walk safe program that's for elementary school kids. It's like 30 minutes. a year. It's not a lot. And there's a bike safe that's for middle school kids. If you could put it into the schools and the kids have to go to it, it's like 30 minutes to an hour over a course of a year. So it's not like a big time block. But that would get everyone to at least have one safety course. And the resistance has been the school has not wanted to give up an hour of instruction time a year for something to keep kids safer. And I'd like us to push the schools to try to implement that program. It costs nothing. It just costs a little bit of time. And I'd like us to push the schools, our schools, to implement those programs because it'll keep their kids safer.

So we've had some preliminary discussion on that. And could it be structured even to as maybe an after school program? I know you're talking because you're really going to get it required if it's part of the curriculum. But could it be an after school program as well, just like you sign up for the People are signing up for the art club or these other clubs. Could you sign up for this?

During school. Right, during school. I don't know after school.

I don't like the after school idea. I like during school. I'm still torn on the age. I was a big full yes to... changing the age because I think it solves the problem completely, but it does punish those who are responsible. I know kids that just want to go fishing. They just want to go to the park with their friends. I do struggle with the age because I want to see a solution. I want to see us really get somewhere with this, but I also struggle with punishing those who are doing nothing wrong for those who Some parents actually take their kids around and show them the ways of the road, but that's probably 10%. So I'm just circling back to my struggle with the age. I want us to do this and it be meaningful, but I do struggle with taking away from those who...

I'd like to start without the age, and if we realize it's not working without that, then maybe implement that down the road. But I don't want to start off by taking away these vehicles from every kid that has it that's under 15 years old.

Can you go back to that slide that shows the age breakdown of 12 through 15? I mean... I think I think we have responsibility to make sure that our kids are taken care of and our kids are safe. Regardless of whether parents want their kids to be safe or not there's a reason why you got to be 16 to drive a car or 15 and a half with permit there's restrictions are put in place on purpose because you do have parents that are going to make sure their kids are safe and we as elected officials have the opportunity to make sure that these kids are safe. And if we're just saying that, whatever, a three-year-old can get on an e-bike if he wants to, I think that's pretty dangerous is all I'll say. And this right here illustrates my point fully. So I am a full-on, let's make some type of age restriction. Not sure if it's 15, not sure if it's 13, 14, but I don't think that you can just allow... ANY KID TO GET ON THESE THINGS, ESPECIALLY WITH WHAT CHIEF JUST SAID ABOUT WHERE THESE KIDS ARE GETTING IMPACTED FROM VEHICLES. I MEAN...

I THINK NATHAN HAS SOME COMMENTS TOO AND JUST KIND OF A GLOBAL VIEW OF WHAT OTHERS ARE DOING AND KIND OF RELATES TO AGE.

Yes, I'll touch on age, but I'll first say thanks for inviting me to come along. So Nathan George, I'm with the Palm Beach MPO, principal multimodal planner there, and we have been working and tracking a lot of legislative interests that are occurring, both at the state level, Senate Bill 382, which was the proposed bill that was vetoed by the governor, and then local initiatives to address micromobility, and i'm currently in the process of reviewing everybody's ordinances right now so i'm finding that there are more communities that have taken action and adopted largely scooter-based regulations that they're trying to address scooter use i jotted down a question of how do we address other devices because the language that's being used here today is e-bikes and scooters, but there are a lot of additional devices, one wheels that are capable of exceeding 20 miles an hour and electric skateboards and things like that that if you're too prescriptive in your language, you kind of lose the ability to regulate that. uh so just a little bit on what we've seen across the gamut you know senate bill 382 provided some statutory changes that would have regulated things like lowering your speed when you're approaching a pedestrian so it basically had this sort of a conditional lower your speed so it would reduce the potential for a conflict in the event that a crash occurred it would be a low speed crash when anybody on an e-bike or micro mobility device would encounter a pedestrian That was probably the strongest statutory legislation they were proposing. And then they also were standing up a task force that would have considered much more broadly what do we need to do about micromobility and e-bikes. The governor vetoed that, so that task force unfortunately isn't going to be stood up. I am on Florida's Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Coalition. We're meeting next week, so I should hear more at that meeting about what happens next at a state level. And then the MPO, our staff have also been working with the county on their draft ordinance that Lake Worth referenced they would support. They're doing it as an opt-in sort of policy. So unlike what the village is planning to do, developing your own from scratch ordinance, they have this regulation that they're going to allow communities to opt into if they choose to take that action. So that's their approach. They were largely reciting state statute. So there was very little added on to state statute. I think their approach was more, how can we put something into an ordinance so we have the regulatory teeth to either sort site by ordinance or site by state statute and it gave more flexibility to officers and i don't know how that's going to fall out exactly yet still working its way through that process but largely they didn't go too much further they had a lot of draft language about things like we're going to repeat we're going to add additional requirements for helmets and that's preempted things like that that you know as they went through their process they've had to scale back some of the recommendations because they were trying to do things that have been preempted. And then other communities we have seen like Jupiter in response to high profile crashes that occurred there that involve fatalities. They've enacted an ordinance to try and address some things and they heavily focused on education. and community outreach. Before I came back to the MPO, I worked in the city of Boca Raton. I was working with our bike advocacy group to develop what was supposed to be an ordinance there. And we were talking about things like speed limit on sidewalks. That was one area. Additional training, which you see the training that they're offering right now. Everybody's, unfortunately, because of Senate Bill 382 being vetoed, it's sort of the Wild West. We don't know exactly what is the right approach. There are a lot of preemption issues. We have a lot of limitations what communities can do. And unfortunately, the governor feeling that surveillance being the biggest issue and why he chose to veto that bill it creates a lot of ambiguity and we don't really have clarity how we need to move forward so i think there are a lot of challenges i'll hear more next week from a state perspective what's happening and hopefully we can we can all move forward in a couple of years but i think for right now it's going to be very tricky to navigate the current legislative framework that we have to work within and i did say i'd speak about the age i'm also a wellington resident so i can appear before you and speak as a wellington resident and as a parent with two kids who are in wellington schools i would echo the mayor's remarks that i think an age limit is potentially challenging state of florida decided that parents should be responsible for getting their children to school So that puts a responsibility on parents to decide what is the appropriate way to get school. And kids can ride a conventional scooter, a bike that is not electrified. And that is something that the statutes allow anybody to ride a bike or to ride a conventional scooter by saying that because that device is electrified, they should not be allowed to ride it unless they have a license or unless they've met a certain age or whatever. other criteria is applied, potentially creates a challenge where you're saying a parent can't make a decision that their 14-year-old can ride a scooter or an e-bike. I personally see challenges with that. And I personally see eight, nine, and 10-year-olds riding scooters where they can barely see over the handlebars, which is a challenge that I see at my school. As a parent, I would not put my kids on a scooter like that. And I do have young kids. But it is a challenge that communities are going to have to face if they choose to regulate and say that we're going to set an age limit or a license requirement. They will encounter parents like me who would say, on what basis do you say that it's unsafe for my child to go to school using this vehicle that's not a motor vehicle? legally a micromobility device. So that gets a little bit tricky, and I would echo that I do see, I foresee potential legal challenges if that starts to become a mechanism just to target use. If it's targeted towards people who are abusing or being irresponsible, which I hear from the sheriff's office that you would do that. That would be fantastic. But if that was an overused tool to just say that kids can't ride those devices, that would be a problem. Our best resource is my school resource officer. He is the person who goes out and makes sure every kid dismounts. Every kid is wearing a helmet when they come to school, regardless of what they're riding. So I can tell you that even if the crossing guards are unable to get the kid to not ride, to dismount and walk in the crosswalk, they will be hearing from the student resource officer the next day and repeatedly. So they are one of our greatest sources. Not at every school, certainly.

Certainly is not.

Yeah, and I have a really good officer.

Could it be something that in the future was something that every school resource officer did?

I mean, I can sit here in an optimal world, say yes, I can guarantee that every officer will do that, but... Well, I'm just asking.

I'm not asking you to promise something. I'm asking you if it's something that could be part of their daily routine in the future.

Yeah, we can. I mean, like I said, we're partnering with Jupiter. We're starting some working on the education programs up there. We've started... Do more outreach on helmets and stuff like that, getting them in, brought into the schools where we've got officers handing them out to start a school. PBSO out here in the Wellington area, I cannot tell you the support we get the first three weeks of school in our school district around the schools for education, traffic enforcement, everything like that. So we're willing to do what we can because we don't want to see our students get hurt. We want to see them get to school safe, come what they're there for, and get home safe. So to work on that aspect, educational programs, what we might be able to find on the district side to see if we can introduce. We're not opposed to looking to it on the police side.

I think when I watch kids, I think there's a lot of problematic children that are just on a regular bike doing wheelies through. So we can't just ban things or change things and think we're going to solve a problem because they're going to find a new way. If they're a menace mentality, they're going to find a new way to be a menace. I think I'm leaning more towards taking the age out because I don't think that we're truly solving the problem. I do think that there's some education that we could really push for, I think, helmet and enforcement of walking because you know some of these schools they have such a small sidewalk once they get on campus and all these kids are walking and then you have these other kids that are swerving through them there should be more enforcement for that if we keep making rules and then we don't enforce them they're worthless so if if we want the children to walk from when they enter enter the school property we have to find a way to enforce that or it's worthless so These are things that if we're taking the age out, which I think we probably should, what we need to focus on now is enforcement and education or everything we're talking about means nothing. We could add every single one of these things in and then not enforce it and we're going nowhere. So what I'm asking you is very important. So if we are moving forward in this direction, we need to figure out how we enforce these things that actually keep the kids a little bit safer if we're keeping them allowed to ride them at any age because as a parent, I much respect parental rights. I don't want to be sitting here as an elected official and tell someone how to raise their child because I certainly didn't want that back in 2020 or I wouldn't be sitting here today. So I definitely don't want to go down that road. But we have to figure out a way to enforce and educate or we're doing nothing.

On the education component, if we can do a resolution to suggest to the schools that they implement the walk safe for elementary and bike safe for middle schools, at least add that as part of their curriculum, is that something we can bring? Would that have support if we brought that to the council? I can't vote on things now, but OK. I'll get Nathan. I'll get you guys to put together a resolution working with Valerie that we can propose to suggest to the schools. I'll take down the note. Okay. Because I think we should tell the schools that this is an easy, free program to implement. It takes like three PE classes a year to give up to make your kids safer. And they should find a way to work with the curriculum.

Yeah, and I know these principals don't love getting calls that one of the students won't be at school today because they're on the way in an ambulance to the hospital.

I think the next eight weeks because they have a massive head injury and they're intubated and they ICU somewhere, which is a reality. Some parents just can't tell their kids no. They don't want to be the bad guy. And sometimes laws and rules make it easier for the parents to be the bad guy and to say the answer is no because you can be cited for it or it's against the law or the rules of the ordinance or whatever it may be. And I... couldn't disagree more with the difference between a pedal bicycle with no motor on it and a push scooter versus a scooter with a motor on it. They're two entirely different animals. They're not even in the same ballpark because that child is not going to push 15 or 20 miles an hour on a push scooter. And maybe I'm a little bit more passionate about it because we're there to scrape the kids off the sidewalks and try to put them back together. So I understand you're just not trying to violate anybody's rights, but sometimes it's hard to set those standards and do what you know is right for families and for kids. It is.

It's behavioral. It is. I'm a grown man, but 12 to 15 or 16, I don't remember it. I was a lunatic. them they may walk their bike when they leave school but if they're a 14 year old boy forget about it so that's how i was so i'm just saying and maybe we have a different perspective because of the profession we're in and the things that we do see i'm kind of agreeing with you i'm saying no i know we have to start because they're not going to they may walk it here and then do a wheelie down the middle of forest hill here because we're idiots at 14 15 16 boys i agree again If we don't set that line and make it thick and set, then we're playing whack-a-mole. That's just weird.

Well, let's go ahead and say adults, too. I'm on paddock, and I tell you, don't even talk to me about golf carts. I've been almost killed three times trying to get my mail because they're lunatics.

Sure. Yeah, and I'd agree with that as well. Is there... a potential to require license plates on these e-scooters and e-bikes just for identification purposes that something that can be done now.

Maybe ordinance wise but we can't recreate Florida state statute.

I don't I don't believe that I don't believe that we can because they're exempted from any licensing and registration requirements under the Florida statute.

Got all carts golf carts from once a license plate, they're no longer considered a golf cart because it was supposed to be vehicle and restricted from the right to the pathways to check your poison the road of this sidewalk right gotcha become a car basically.

You're saying earlier about the fines for golf carts is whatever the number was for the violation and the nomination are we suggesting that the fines for the E the micro mobility. The devices be the same or because $15 to what is $15.

So the $15 is what's in the statute because they're treated as pedestrian violations. What I'm not sure about is what the additional fine from the clerk's office would be on top of that. That's what we have to look into. But the $15 is what we have to work with. Then moving and non-moving is specific to golf carts.

But we're limited in what we can do as far as that fine goes based on that state law. So we can't increase it past $15. Correct. And for repeat violations can increase it as well.

Correct. Gotcha. State law restricts a lot of stuff we'd like to do.

Yes.

Okay. Next. Do you have enough direction from us? Do you need anything else from us?

Nope. That concluded the update here.

So I do think there's been some discussion. There's been some expression that you want to not limit the age. There's been some discussion that you may want to put some age. What is the final direction?

Well, can we give you direction? Because we can't vote on anything now. You have to bring us an ordinance.

You can give direction.

I think you've got... Three to one or two on no age right now. OK. I just wanted to make sure. No age. We can add it back later. Right? I don't know where Steven was at. We're watching a ceiling fan, Steve. He went to sleep. He took a nap. There he is.

School together.

Hi. Welcome back. stay solid i understand the conversation our attorneys would like to know if there's consensus on whether or not we want the ordinance to come back with or without an age limit at this point i'm i would like it without an age limit at this point i think the ordinance needs to come back to us without an age limit okay um there was also some discussion about sidewalks versus

Sorry, but just to be clear, just to be clear, without an age limit, but they must have the photo ID or the student ID or some other kind of document with them. My kid puts it in the back of his phone when he's not at school, or it's on his neck on a lanyard. Right.

So one quick clarification on that. If there's an age... floor on getting a state ID, you have, in essence, put an age limit.

Student IDs.

We were going to go with student IDs.

Student IDs. They're going to be a fine for that?

It would be a violation of the ordinance. It would be a violation of the ordinance just like any other violation.

Is that the $15? It would be the $15.

But you wouldn't know that they don't have the ID unless you're stopping them for some other reason, I would think.

No helmet, no ID, and it starts to add up.

was some discussion about yes sidewalks versus the boulevard in particular and actually that opens up more than four so if you're going to open it up to the four foot sidewalks or smaller it's everywhere forest hill jonathan state road seven 441 yeah exactly every local roadway i think they should be allowed on sidewalks they're the same they're the same size every sidewalk and all those blue streets i'm not i can't figure that out put a sidewalks Yeah, but but that's basically the neighborhood side. It includes those as well. Yeah.

I'm a little torn on that. I mean I understand that there's an area where they they may not be able to go but I mean how they're not respecting pedestrians at all as it is on a on a large pathway and honestly a lot of what I want to do it's to protect the kids, but it's also to protect like a runner in the morning or a pedestrian or You know, kids that are still walking or riding a normal bicycle. So I'm a little torn on that because as of now, they don't know the rules of the road. They don't respect anyone around them. And now we're on a smaller area. I'm a little torn on that.

i'm a i'm a no on the sidewalk personally because exactly what amanda and amanda said you know these kids that are too young to understand um how to how to be responsible on these things they they pose a danger not only to themselves but also to the pedestrians and people that are walking their dogs and things of that nature so

what's wrong with pedaling if you want to go down forest hill well i was going to say that about whenever you said that kids want to go fishing i'm like you know before these e-bikes occurred or existed people pedaled and i wish they weren't around but they're here i don't get to make all the decisions i had a 13 year old i would say ride a bike i wouldn't stop driving around clear my kids have no electric anything they're not allowed to it's been a big in my position for a long time and the verbiage has to be because these have pedals

So if they're not utilizing, so it has to be some very specific, you're saying just the bike total?

Not electrified.

What if they're riding the bike? Because they have pedals. These e-bikes can be pedaled without utilizing any of the motors.

I think we can't split the hair. Right, that's what I'm saying. If it's an electric bike, it's an electric bike. If it's allowed or not allowed.

Agreed. Right, okay. Because then you're going to say, I wasn't, I was pedaling. And then it has to be black and white on those.

90% of the time it's going to be electric anyway. But then you're going to force them into the road.

because they can ride them in the road i wasn't speaking that's the problem because if they want to get to the places they can't get to and on the sidewalk they're going to ride in the road which is the worst place to be because they're allowed in the road we were just getting a definition of the e-bike that's all because we can't differentiate between whether well because sometimes they'll pedal but they're using the

The motor and whatever. We can't.

If I could, this is an issue that did come up in the county ordinance. They were talking about restricting micromobility use in highly pedestrianized areas, so downtowns. One of the major points of feedback that I had for them is if you force a user into the street, By posting a sign and saying you cannot ride past this point, similar to what you're saying, you can't ride on a sidewalk, you have to then assess what are the safety conditions when that user enters the roadway. At the point they enter the roadway, it becomes a major engineering consideration. It also has a lot of signing considerations, so it becomes potentially a large financial lift to make sure that everybody's aware of the restrictions. So it's something that requires a lot of consideration from a policy perspective to make sure that we understand the engineering, police understand how to enforce, and that the users aren't put into an unsafe condition where we've now used policy to restrict them to go into a place where it's not safe and they have to choose am I going to break the law and violate the ordinance or am I going to ride in the street, which may not be safe.

We're not restricting them. It's not required of us to allow it now. Is that correct? Okay, so we're not restricting them. We would be allowing them if we, that would be us giving something. And then we're actually not, we're deciding to prioritize an e-bike user, an e-scooter user over a pedestrian or a different type of resident. But we're not necessarily restricting. We are, we would be giving them

Sort of, except that it's not that they're not allowed right now. They're allowed where bicycles are allowed. So this is the additional regulatory authority that we have. We would be restricting.

And you'll put them in the street.

There's a lot of kids riding to the mall, and I don't think you can get to the mall from everywhere on a multimodal pathway.

So when you brought this, because we've talked about so much today, you brought this to us with the ordinance to remove that and have them not allowed on sidewalks?

I think the discussion that we had, and Jonathan, feel free to jump in. The discussion that we had is that... that it would make sense for them to be allowed in the same places that golf carts are allowed because those pathways are wider and shared by pedestrians, bicyclists, golf carts.

So we talked about Forest Hill Boulevard and 441, both of which have four to five foot sidewalks, right? And since the e-bikes and the scooters are allowed in the same place as a regular bicycle, bicycles are allowed on the sidewalk and they're also allowed in the bike lanes on 441 and Forest Hill Boulevard. so we'd essentially be saying if we restricted into the sidewalks we'd be pushing them onto the bike lanes on 441 and forest hill boulevard which you know i i would rather than be on the sidewalks

Because they're going to want to get from A to B. They're going to get there. So then we're removing the restriction on the sidewalks. You're either going to be on the sidewalk illegally or they're going to be in the street dangerously. Correct.

Exactly. So then we would just remove that section that talks about multimodal pathways because they basically would just be allowed wherever bicycles are allowed. Okay.

And may I ask one more follow-up question? Did you consider adopting similar language to what the state proposed in Senate Bill 382, requiring riders to reduce speed when they approach a pedestrian? I asked about that.

I was told we probably couldn't.

I don't believe that we can. I believe that the 15 miles per hour on sidewalks is what the state law requires. And since that legislation was...

Thank you.

Since that legislation did not pass, we wouldn't have authority to change the speed limit.

Can we make sure that we include in our definition the other types of vehicles Nathan mentioned, like one-wheelers and electric skateboards and things that we haven't captured with a specific definition? Because those are also motorized vehicles.

Maybe we're using the state definition.

Yeah, I have to think about that. So the definition of a micromobility device doesn't include every single kind of device. It just also includes a bicycle. So I guess... And I'm just thinking out loud, I'm going to have to give this some more thought after this meeting, but we may be able to say micromobility devices excluding bicycles or something like that.

Or any electrified.

Yeah, we're going to have to give that some thought because the idea was not to extend these regulations to bicycles. And if we refer to micromobility devices as a whole, it captures bicycles.

i think mr lane wants to speak he's over there i just will offer that that was the concern i was expressing by being overly emphatic with language that says eat bikes and scooters you're then not including all the micromobility the litany of micromobility it's just micromobility devices in state statute so right but a bicycle is included within that definition so you would have to accept that so we have to come up with something that excludes or electrified

Yeah, we just use our own language and say electrified vehicles. Electrified mobile devices in general. That covers all of them and not bikes, right?

Yeah, based on state statute, it's micromobility devices is inclusive of all these things that go 15 to 25 miles an hour. They have a very broad definition. It needs work. The state does need to make some changes to how they define things, but it is very inclusive of all the devices that you would need to enforce. Okay.

We have faith in you. You'll draft it.

Yes.

Anything else? One question on your IDs real quick. You're talking we'd accept the student ID, which has the information the sheriff can access, which is great Monday through Friday when school's in session. If you put in your ordinance and accept that with some sort of fine for not having it on them, is that going to create an issue for you during the summer? After school hours, weekends, spring break. They leave the house, they grab their ID.

I think you said picture ID with name and picture. And that includes student ID.

I'll make this very simple. If I pull over a child and they give me an ID and they give me the wrong date of birth, it's giving false information. And then I'm going to arrest them. So I'm not worried about, they have less trouble than the e-bike, or more trouble than the e-bike, or whatever they're on, if they give me false information. We will find out who they are, and they will be sorry they gave us the wrong information.

But what he's saying is, say, school year ends.

I understand what he's saying, but we will find out. We have ways.

Do they take the lanyards back into the school year? Some schools do. Oh, they do? Because the kids get issued new cards every year. I don't have so many in my house.

And then you've got high school kids that won't have an ID. Correct. Virtually. Right.

then they'd have to go to state if they're homeschool where are they taking their bikes do you think they don't have friends i don't think the picture id is such a barrier that parents can't have their kids get one of some sort we weren't changing it you were just including i think a school id you're just adding something to make it a little easier you didn't include anything or exclude anything okay you have enough information to

Yes, I think so.

Anything else we have to cover while we're here?

The plan on this is going to be that assuming Ms. Bosch can translate all the information she received this evening and Ms. Coates come up with the revisions, we'll bring this back to you for first reading in August, second reading in September. And that will give us time as we get through first reading to go and start the public information program with the schools and the community.

You don't want to do first reading in July?

I thought that was the purpose.

Well, we can do that. That's a week. I don't want to over- Two weeks. Not next week.

It's the week after.

Right. It's Thursday. It's the end of this week. We've got one week next week because we've got to be ready by Monday. There's time. And I don't want to look at Ms. Hall in the back there, but basically I think we've got to publish pretty quickly. So I'm thinking we're not going to make July. And normally I'm the optimist.

Well, let's shoot for July. And if we don't make it, then we don't make it. Let's try to get it on the July dot.

Only because school's starting. That's why we had this workshop now instead of next week.

I think the changes are not that significant. It can be done. Hey, I'm not writing the ordinance.

I'm good.

We're glad you already know.

I'm getting sent on the agenda, so usually everybody else has the problem making the date. That's good.

One question. You're not putting an age restriction now to see how it goes. What's your threshold, your benchmark? What is your... What are you going to reevaluate that would make you reconsider and put an age?

We're going to look at the stats you keep providing us over the next period of time and see what's going on. And we'll see what PBS is doing as far as enforcement, if they're making a difference by cracking down on people who are driving recklessly.

and nathan is it august time frame or september is the county's kid gets whack he's an attorney i'm not 100 sure where the county stands i don't think that they're on that timeline anymore i'm not sure what their timeline is i know that their ordinance is still very much in draft form um i don't they had originally told me maybe august but i'm not sure that if that's still the plan can i say one thing

When I brought up the overwhelming difference, I wasn't referring like age. Because I don't know of any 13-year-old that I would want driving a 25-mile-an-hour e-bike down the road. So I want to clarify what I was saying. When the sidewalks were confusing me, I was like an acid trip. So I was looking at where they were going and how they could ride. But when you see these young kids on the bikes, they're cutting through the park. They're cutting across. And I don't know of any of those kids you know that really if you want to say that they're safe then maybe we're fooling ourselves but i can't look at any of them say that when they're driving at those ages that they're safe on those bikes doing 25 miles an hour so i just want to make my point perfectly clear i just don't want to overwhelm with 900 things that we're going after them for i'd rather make it a handful to make it safe but i don't know of any of them coming from middle school or this at some point or another i guarantee they're not going to be safe i just want to clarify my point i agree

And with respect to the schools you were talking about, you know, having the schools adopt some requirements for when they're on school property, maybe that's something that the Education Committee could...

I just want to be clear, we don't have any jurisdiction telling the schools what to do. I think Ms. Coates can certainly talk to all the principals the way we did before every school year, and we have a pre-school year, start of school year meeting with all the principals. But ultimately, generally, what the school's approach has been has each principal operates that school as their individual fiefdom. And I mean that in a good way. Let me ask you this. Wasn't it a rule?

Isn't it a rule now that they have to walk? Where did we hear this to begin with? It's a rule of the...

I don't know if they all have that rule, but...

Now, the principals have the discretion. Once they hit the gate, walk them in, walk the bikes in and stuff like that. The majority of schools, when I see the arrivals and stuff, the principals have got them. Once you hit the gate, you walk everything in, especially now with the redesigned traffic, single points of entries and stuff like that. But it's not a district policy. It's not a board policy. The principals just have the discretion to do that on their campus. Okay.

And, Ms. Coates, are you meeting with the principals to ask if this is something that they – Yes, I will ask them.

We actually are starting our meetings on Monday.

And then once we have our answers, is this something that the resource officers are going to implement as part of their, I guess that's a follow-up. Because if we make the rule and then we're not enforcing it, again, we're doing nothing.

Just to be clear, it's not going to be our rule. Each principal is going to have to implement it.

Right, but we're working together to come up with solutions.

Right, but they're going to have to coordinate it. And generally speaking, I think, except for board policy or individual district policy, the school resource officer works with the principal at each of the school locations. Correct. Works with me.

If middle schools would just not allow them, we would have no problems. Well, now you're talking about industry. What? What?

Now that's age-restricting, right?

I know. Then we wouldn't have to do it. They'd be doing it.

Here we go. The safety committee that we have, maybe this is something also that they could be a part of as far as teaching kids during the safety committee boards meetings and things of that nature.

Last year we had the bicycle rodeo at the safety fair. We could do that again.

These guys are all ex-cops and ex-firefighters and stuff like that, so...

We could look into that. I'm also thinking we have a great relationship with Chief Mooney and the school district PD and partnering with PBSO as well and District 8. If we can do some more of that outreach, the helmets, how can, if the kids are coming to school with no helmet or leaving school with no helmet, they probably didn't come to school with a helmet, could there be some connection there that we can enforce more safety items? Because I know Polo Park, there's... Yeah, helmets are not necessarily worn, as they should be, per the state law. So we can work on coordinating that as well.

And just to revisit the age issue, you're bringing it back without it. But if we all have a change of heart, it can be changed. You can add it. Yes. So we can just leave it out for now. And you have two readings.

OK. We have nothing further.

Anything else up here? Steve?

Just remember, we do have a shade session after the agenda review on Monday. No, no, not today.

Good night, Steve.

Good night, Steve.

Have a great night. Thank you very much. I have nothing further. Thank you.

Thank you.

That's on the 27th.