Infrastructure, Innovation & Technology Committee - Regular Meeting

Bye. Thank you.

Thank you.

Bye. Thank you. so so you you

Good afternoon. The CLICS office received a notice that Commissioner Gonzalez and Commissioner Lopez will be absent from today's meeting. Commissioner Cohen-Higgins?

Good afternoon, President.

Vice Chairman Hardiman? Chairwoman Steinberg?

All right, I'm here.

Two members present. We do not have a quorum.

So we will wait a little bit more. Yes, we're going to go check. Thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioner Quinn Higgins?

Present.

Vice Chairman Hardiman? Present. Chairwoman Steinberg? I'm here. Three members present, we have a quorum.

Thank you. So we're going to begin. Thank you for joining us today. This is our Infrastructure, Innovation, and Technology Committee. We are going to start with a moment of silence and reflection. Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of 9-11. Horrific day that we will commemorate tomorrow, but we'll do a moment of reflection and silence, followed by the pledge led by the Commissioner Hardiman. Thank you. Thank you. All right, we're going to get started, but before we, we're going to open it up to reasonable opportunity to be heard. Anybody wishing to speak on any item that is not advertised as a public hearing item is welcome to approach. I have not received any speaking cards. Seeing no one approaching, reasonable opportunity is now closed. Any changes, edits, or additions to the agenda?

The items before you are the items that are in the official printed agenda as noted in the changes sheet, but there is one additional item that has been handed and distributed to the committee, which is not in the changes sheet, which is item 1G1 substitute. So in the setting of the agenda, you'll be approving the official printed agenda with the changes and the additions plus the addition of item 1G1 substitute.

All right, thank you so much. With that, before I open it up to the public hearing items, I wanted to know before we set the, do I have a motion to set the agenda? Thank you, by Commissioner Hardiman. Commissioner Cohen-Hagan seconded the setting of the agenda. All right, that passes. Anybody have any items before we get to the public hearing item that they wish to bifurcate? I do wish to bifurcate item 3C, as in cat. Anybody have any other items? Nope. Would someone like to pass the balance of the agenda?

Move the agenda with the exception of 3C, Madam Chair.

Do I have a second? And 1G1, obviously, is going to be taken separately. All right, seconded by Commissioner Hardiman. All in favor?

Aye.

Show that passed by acclamation. Why don't we get right into the ordinance, since we have Commissioner Regalado joining us for that. And I'm now going to open up the public hearing portion of the meeting for item 1G1. If anybody wishes to speak.

May I read the title?

That would be very helpful.

Item 1G1 substitute is an ordinance relating to environmental remediation utility service fee amending section 24-34 of the code establishing loan program for purposes of environmental remediation that meets existing requirements of section 24-34 without changing said requirements, creating requirements, parameters, and procedures for said loan program.

Thank you. Now, public hearing is officially open. Seeing no one approaching.

And probably several billion including the code and an effective date as well on the title.

Okay. Do we have any speaking cards? Nope. No speaker cards. With that, anybody? All right. Public hearing for this portion of the agenda for public hearing item is now closed. And with that, Commissioner Regalado, I'll give you a couple quick minutes to introduce the item so that we can, I know we have some questions. I know I have a couple questions. Sure.

Happy to do it. Thank you all. It's always a pleasure to be here with you. As you know, in the case of water and sewer, I've been working through the different funds and some of the issues that have been holding us back, specifically on remediation. You'll remember that I brought an item that established a pilot program called DRIP, which kind of swapped the way that water and sewer does infrastructure work. DRIP has been very successful, and we're actually going to be expanding it soon, and I'll be bringing an item with more data on DRIP This is something similar that creates a loan program. This is a pot of money that's been sitting there for a very, very long time. The county has not been using it. What this does is it takes a percentage of that and it allows us to provide loans at a 0% interest to actually do the remediation. The reason that it's important is because this utility fee is collected in order to do the environmental work. And although the county has a long list of properties that it wants to do the remediation, it has not done remediation. And the reason that the utility fee exists is because every day that these properties go without remediation, they are impacting our water source. We can get into the science of it, the October water line. This is a way to kind of kickstart that. It's a very small piece of the pot, and it all gets paid back. The idea is to do remediation on large county-owned parcels. The amendment that you have here changes it. It's no longer formally owned county parcels. It's county-owned parcels and fees simple. So it is exclusively for county-owned parcels. And I think that this allows us to do some of this work and provides a vehicle that the administration can use to actually do the remediation that we've been talking about for over five years. Happy to take your questions on it.

Thank you. I'll open it up to the commission. Would anybody like to be recognized first? Yes, Commissioner Conehiggins.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the sponsor for being here. I certainly have a number of questions on this item, and I'll start by asking, first of all, I understand the spirit of the item. I'm not in opposition to the item in its spirit, but there are a lot of details included within the item that I do want to go through. And ask some specific questions on, because I think the point is well taken that if our department hasn't previously used this money. We're going to, I think the spirit of this item is to release the money to be utilized for its intended purpose, which is environmental remediation. So I understand that being the spirit. But I do have questions for the administration. The item doesn't tell us how much is currently sitting in the USF. What is the aggregate value of the what is the bucket? How large is this fund as we sit here this morning?

madam chairman currently there's 181 million dollars in the fund of that approximately 125 million are programmed into projects to be done what is not included in that is the foreclosure cost of um north and south dave landfills and also any remediation needed at our former waste to energy site we're certain we're going to need money there but we've not got the full analysis to know how much And so that's the reason why the item brings some concern to the administration if we'll have enough money for all those things or not.

Okay, so out of the 180, you say 125 is programmed, but within the 125 that is programmed, that is not inclusive of the waste to energy facility that we may or may not build at some point in the future. Of the 125, no dollars are programmed to the environmental remediation that we know that we'll have to do at some point in the future, at some location, assuming this board decides to build that campus.

Even if we don't build the campus, the waste energy facility that burned down, we own, and eventually we will have to remediate and clean that site, and that's not included here, and we do not have an estimate for what that will cost at this time.

Okay, well, if that were to be included, would that program the entirety of the $180 million?

i would have to ask the department director if she has any preliminary estimates because uh... i know they've been studying that but i've not seen any numbers so if you allow the department or do you have any s

You are recognized. Thank you. Thank you. Anisha Daniel, Director of Solid Waste through the Chair. So we do have estimates for whatever costs for closure as well as long-term care. For FDEP, you have to actually provide regulatory requirements require 30 years of long-term care. And the DEP is sometimes requiring even longer than 30 years. There's about $18 million for the long-term care, and I think there's somewhere around 10 million or so, 13 million. So I don't have those numbers particularly, but it was about $23 million total.

Okay, so 125 plus 23 takes us to $150 million. The reason I'm asking is because the way that the item is written, it speaks to allowing for money that is unencumbered and available. So even though the pot is at $180 million, $150, is that considered what's encumbered? So then only the balance would be available for lending? No.

Depends on how you want to define encumbered. Technically encumbered would be a purchase order would be issued on it. How it's defined that we're saying is it's programmed. We have estimates. We intend to spend X amount of dollars on a project. But whether you would technically call it encumbered or not is an accounting determination that I think you would say is not encumbered. So if you make that money available, then it would not be available when the projects are ready to encumber.

Yeah. And so this is why I'm asking, because if I'm a developer and I want to take out a loan and I make an application, assuming that this passes and I find out there's $180 million, environmental remediation in Miami-Dade County is extremely expensive, especially in parcels that are in excess of 10 acres or more, which is what this item speaks to. So the loan amounts are going to be for high dollar amounts, I'm assuming, in the millions of dollars per application. So my question is, do we not even know what the dollar amount is as we sit here today that we would actually make available to the private community of developers applying for this number? Is it $180 million or is it the 180 minus the 125 minus the 25 for the Dura location and the balance?

It would be our opinion that you would make available what we don't need. We would take all of those off the 180. But if you strictly use the term unencumbered, anything that doesn't have a purchase order would be available. And a lot of this does not have purchase orders.

Okay. And so then that leads to my next question. So how long has this money been aggregating? How long has it been collecting to reach the 180?

A number of years. The fund goes up and down in balance. The county collects a total today of 6% of all water and sewer bills for utility service fee. 4% goes to RER and DERM and 2% goes to the solid waste. The RER and DERM has been spending their money about as fast as it comes in. The Department of Solid Waste has not. They have been allowing it to accumulate with the plan to spend it on these things. So it's over a number of years.

Yeah, and so it's always interesting to me when there is a status quo that has been maintained for an extended period of time, and then some disruption to that status quo gets introduced. And then all of a sudden, you know, there is we need to use the money. And that's what it feels like right now. But I don't understand because I would like to have seen that money utilized for environmental remediation. I'll give you an example. One of my municipalities had to, you know, remediate a parcel of They spent $16 million doing what Durham required them to do just to prep the land in order. And that's just one example. So I'm aware and I'm sure every commissioner in all of our districts are aware of the exorbitant expense that Durham requires in order to remediate land. And we have a pot of money of $180 million sitting that hasn't been deployed yet. what sounds like for a very long time. So I am, so question number one, I am, I would like a firm understanding on what unencumbered means because I think that's important because I know that every application should this pass is going to likely have somewhat of a large amount. And then that leads me to my next question. Is there no cap written in this ordinance on what a borrower can borrow, assuming that this advances? Like, can an applicant ask for a $100 million loan?

I don't see a cap.

Yes, to the maker?

Yeah, let me explain a few things. So I'm glad that you asked about the programming because this has been part of my frustration. They've had a programming list for years, but they're not putting out the RFP, they're not doing the work, they're not remediating. So yes, part of this is, please, for the love of God, let's remediate, right? I take issue with the numbers for Doral because as many of you know, this board passed an ordinance saying that the city of Doral had to participate in the elimination of that site. And that participation was supposed to pay in part the remediation. So now we haven't had that conversation. We haven't asked Doral for money. The mayor was recently on the radio saying that we're not going to build an incinerator and nothing's going to happen to that site. That site could be a lot of different things. And we should not carry the burden of that site because there was a determination taken by this board on that site. So I don't agree with that. I understand that they want to scroll away as much money as possible. I get it. But I don't agree with that narrative because that eliminates responsibility from the decisions that this board has already taken specifically on that site. This is just for county-owned sites. Yes, someone could apply that has leased a county-owned site and that is doing something on there, but it has to be approved by the administration. And it details specifically what needs to be approved by the administration. So it's not like it's going to, I didn't even bring it back to the board. I really want two things. Number one, I want the administration to finally do the work that they've quote unquote programmed. And that's why it's specific to the 20%. When they're done with their programming, it's not that much. But at least it gets us moving in a direction where we're actually remediating sites. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. And this fund has been sitting there for years and years and years. And every director says the same thing. I have a long list and I'm waiting because maybe there's more. And meanwhile, we have a standard for, as you mentioned, municipalities. and private industry that they must remediate immediately. And we are the ones that take the longest to remediate. So yes, this is a kick, you know, in that direction. And I'm happy to put another cap on it. But at the end of the day, I think that 20% of what is encumbered, and they just need to go and encumber, right? They're the ones that are going to be looking at the applications, determining the applications. It's not a grant. It is a loan. It will be paid back. The fund, as was mentioned, is a fund that is constantly replenishing itself. I think this allows us to push forward this issue of remediation and actually get them to use the money to remediate. But if you have, I mean, look, if you have suggestions on how to amend it, I'm happy to, you know, I'm happy to consider them. I've worked a lot on this and kept the administration abreast of it. I've been asking to remediate these sites for several years. It's not a new thing. And there's always a reason not to do it, whether it's the incinerator or it's, by the way, even the landfills, with all due respect. This board, the same administration that's telling us that this remediation is to close the North Dade landfill is the same administration that brought us an item to expand the North Dade landfill, which Oliver Gilbert took and did not allow to come to the full board. So which is it? Are we expanding landfills or are we closing them and remediating them? Because the board is not taking a position on that. Same thing with South Dade. So it's very interesting, right, that you use it as a sword and as a shield because we're talking about, oh, we're going to close and remediate landfills, but there is no movement to close or remediate. In fact, there is a movement to expand. So let's call a spade a spade.

Thank you. Commissioner Cohen-Higgins. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for answering that question. To the administration, regarding the $25 million for the Doral site, is there a plan to have Doral pay for that? And so would that lower the programming allocation or the unencumbered allocation?

I'm not aware of a commitment from Doral right now. The department has, um, experts looking to dismantle all of the equipment and remaining building out there and begin cleaning the site and then start doing their environmental evaluation. I'm not aware of any agreement with Doral. I'm not saying they're not willing, but I don't have a commitment from them.

Okay. Um, who normally pays absent this loan program advancing this environmental remediation is required. It's been required for years. Who would norm who pays, for these fees absent this loan program existing?

Did you say these fees or you mean who pays for remediation?

That's a great question. Who pays for the environmental remediation should this loan?

The developer of a project. Whoever develops a project would pay for the remediation.

Okay. And so we're using, the way that this is proposed, we're using developer paid fees. Who pays into this program? Where's this money coming from?

Now, this money comes from all retail customers in Miami-Dade County.

So rate payers of the water and sewer department?

Yes. Every water and sewer bill in Miami-Dade County has this 6% added to it for these purposes.

Okay. So we are collecting this money from rate payers and residents of Miami-Dade County to then give it to developers at no interest for them to pay for something that they already have to pay for? I mean, is that what this is essentially doing?

I would defer to the maker.

Okay, so that's what I have a question on because, again, whether I refer to the municipality in my district or the many conversations we've had with the developer community on Durham environmental remediation and the cost, I'm just not understanding. These developers pay for this through loans that they get on projects, but one thing I can assure you is that those loans are not at a 0% interest rate. So I need help understanding why we would have our rate payers of Miami-Dade County pay a 6% fee that they are paying by mandate or by policy of this board to then give that money to developers at a 0% interest when they have to pay for this anyway. Happy to explain.

You are recognized. Thank you. These are county-owned properties that have been leased for a particular development. Since they are county owned and remain county owned, the county has the obligation to remediate them. The county has not remediated them. The county has entered into an agreement with someone else to develop it. And that remediation is a requirement. So does that remediation come out of the community benefit? Does it come out of the deal? Where does it come from? Instead of it being paid and we lower the price of the lease or we lower the price of the deal, this allows for a loan program where this money gets paid in the end. And look, I think that the key here is The rate payers are paying this because we need to remediate land, because the land is contaminated and it's contaminating our water. So sitting on this money and not remediating it, that's the problem, because we're collecting it. It's sitting in an account. It's been sitting in an account for years. We're not remediating our parcels. We're not remediating the parcels that developers have. We're not remediating anything. We're just pushing every year this list as the money grows. And I think that is the true issue. The issue is that the rate payers, which include commercial rate players also, not just residents, everybody pays a 6%, have been paying 6% for us to clean up this land so it doesn't contaminate our water, and we're not doing it, full stop. So this is a way to incentivize that happening sooner rather than later and also incentivize the county to get with the program and do it. I will say this on the Doral front, this board directed the administration to negotiate with Doral the fact that they have not proffered anything and there's nothing on the table is something that we should definitely take up because a lot of time has passed and like I said there's a lot of statements being made out in the press about how this is not going to happen in Doral and that was not what this board said. We said that Doral was going to have a tremendous financial benefit They have a stake. Their property values are going to go through the roof. And we wanted to make sure that there was equity because whatever we do, it's going to be at the cost to everyone else, you know, and there is a benefit to derail. So I guess we'll take that up next time we take that up. But the fact that they haven't proffered anything doesn't mean that they're not responsible in part for this remediation when we decide what we're doing with that property. Through our chair, Madam Chair.

I agree on the Doral issue, and if you want to take that up, I couldn't agree more because I remember those conversations in intimate detail. But whether that Doral site gets remediated and we pay for it entirely and whether it costs $25 million, I am – what I'm trying to understand is the financial – um why this is beneficial to miami-dade county i have and i'm very clear on this like i don't like us making deals that are not that i don't think are in the best interest of the taxpayers and i know you're going to say of course this is in the best interest of the taxpayers but the fact remains that if this doesn't pass if this goes nowhere or if this was never created if you want to build on miami-dade county land and you are a developer you have to remediate. It's happening. You're going to do it. You're going to get a loan, and it's going to be done. So I don't understand why we would loan money at 0% interest when it's our rate payers and our taxpayers moving this money that they have to pay. Why would we extend it at no money? Banks don't do that. So if we're going to act like a bank, why not at the very least make money off of our taxpayers' money. That to me seems like a more financially prudent thing to do because they have to remediate anyway. And why would we give them free money?

So yeah, what I'm gonna do is I know I want you to finish your thoughts and then I'm gonna let Commissioner Hardiman Speak I have some comments and then Commissioner Regalado what I think we should do is then after you hear everybody then kind of okay Yeah, okay and so I'm asking the questions because I really want to have a conversation because like I said at the outset I understand the spirit of this and I understand that

the maker's frustration in saying let's deploy these dollars. I'm not entirely convinced, however, at this juncture that deploying the dollars in this fashion, i.e. giving the money to developers at a zero-interest 35-year term loan is the best way to move taxpayer dollars. I need to be convinced of that. I would feel more comfortable if there was an interest rate attached to it, if there was a cap placed on the amount that they could borrow. Because what's going to happen also if we pass this, and let's say the unencumbered dollar amount is agreed upon at $50 million. Let's say that. I guarantee that every developer in Miami-Dade County is going to submit an application for this zero interest 35-year term loan. And they are going to ask for 10, 20, whatever the dollar amount is. And how do we decide, because the application pool I think is going to be very, very large, without a cap, how are we going to decide from an equity standpoint which developer gets how much or is it just going to be first come, first serve? If I want to apply and I want a $50 million application and the administration and the board agrees, How are we going to administer this in the spirit of equity is also a concern to me. So I look forward to hearing from my colleagues and the conversation. I'm just not entirely sold again that it's in the financial best interest of the rate payers of Miami-Dade County to structure a program in this manner. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for your comments and questions. Really great conversation I think we're going to be having. Commissioner Hardin.

Thank you for recognizing me. You know, in circumstances like this, you know, I think to myself, what are we doing here? And the goal of this fund is to provide potable drinking water to everyone. If that's not in the benefit of the people of Miami-Dade County, I don't know what is. And so when you start there, that is our responsibility. We should be spending that money, but we're not. And the question is, why? Why are we spending this money to remediate sites that we own? Many of you might not live in areas where you have things considered to be brownfields or contaminated water, soil. But like for instance in the city of Miami where this dear commissioner resides, there were areas where contamination made people sick for decades. where children played in contaminated spaces and when smoke filled the air, they played in this smoke that was toxic as if it was Christmas. There was no official that came and said, hey, people in this community, maybe you shouldn't play in the ash that's going to cause your children cancer. And it took somebody outside of government to sue the government and say, this isn't the right thing. You should be ashamed of yourself. And all we do out of that is a nickname called Old Smokey and I'm sorry. Because I don't recall millions of dollars being given to the residents who lived in those areas and who suffered and the children suffered. I don't recall that. And so as somebody who represents areas where we have these contaminated waters, like on parks that I grew up in, we're in Cherry Park. I don't even need my district anymore, by the way. But I dare you to go in the water near Green Cherry Park. Go see why they don't let you use certain fields. Go look at what's being constructed around it. Private property. Private property. But the public property next to it is contaminated. And Mountain Day County owns it. And Miami-Dade County has not remediated it. And now Miami-Dade County is running to other people so they can remediate it. So what's the problem with allowing someone to use a fund that has dollars when available that the mayor can decide if she approves or not approves and then it can come to the commission if we want to make a decision about any disapprovals. What's the problem with that? Do we need a 1% interest gain, 2%, 3%? And how much money do you want to make on the backs of the people who are part of the water? What's fair? What's fair to get you going right now? The fact of the matter is that the private sector doesn't have to do a damn thing for us. They can just move on with whatever they want to move on with. The fact of the matter is your land. Deal with it. And we can talk about the mayor, we can talk about each commissioner, we can talk about everyone we want to who's in the public sector whose responsibility it is to win these loans and is not doing it. And we'll let you make the excuse. I'm sorry, I don't have enough money. We need to raise your rates in order to take care of the public water in that area. So, you know, maybe if you live in the wetlands or in pines or in some nice area, you don't have to worry about this. So, you know, it's not an issue for you. I mean, these are hard things to do. Everything is not about a dollar. And so what's the problem? It's not an infinite amount of land. It's a finite amount of land. You're going to identify the parcels. You're going to make a decision about each one individually. It's not a free-for-all. And I hate to tell you this, but sometimes projects are not financeable because of the winning that they have to do. I can think of the land that's right down next to Booker T. Washington Senior High School. The land that's on 7th Avenue, directly adjacent to it, Brownfield. Vacant. Has been vacant for at least, just in my time that I know of, at least 25 years. And you see in Miami, we try to create a way in which that developer can develop their land and it's still not developed. You know why? Because it's hard. It's hard. Because no one really wants to give you the money, tens of millions of dollars to spend, before you actually develop the thing that's supposed to bring in revenue to pay them back. So what do we do? We just leave it? We just leave it like it is? We talk about all the vacancies, all the vacant land we have within the UDB, but they don't want to move it because we have vacant land. This is like vacant land in the UDB. So why not move it? Why not make it developable? I struggle with this because it always becomes an argument between the haves and the have-nots. I don't understand that. I don't understand our basic disregard for what needs to be done in our community the right way. Why does everything have to come back to, oh, a developer is going to get a benefit? A developer brings things into fruition. If it were not for developers, we wouldn't have houses to live in. I hate to tell you that, but that's what they do. They develop lots. In fact, Mamonee County wants to become a developer as well. They're trying to develop a land that we have in our possession. They say they can do it, and we gave them a shot to do it. Now, if that land had some remediation to be done, I guarantee they wouldn't want to do it. I guarantee that we'll move it on to somebody else and say, well, you do it. We'll give you the land. And we allow you to make the development because I know this is what you do for a living. But it seems that we don't do remediation for a living the same way we don't develop. We also don't maintain housing very well. Apparently we don't maintain the streets well either because we can't fill potholes. If I told you there's a pothole right now on 58th Street and 7th Avenue, you wouldn't feel it. This is a big boy industry that we're in, and I feel like we heard this like children, because there's no way that we should be having these major arguments about what we call unencumbered funds. And then just the discussion about what does encumbered mean. What it sounds like is that what's encumbered is whatever they say it is. It's not that we have to do it as a commission. It's not that we say we approve these projects and spend $100 in this way, and that should make an encumbrancy when something passes along this agenda. The conversation is when they say, oh, we have $10 million, we're going to put a million here, a million there, a million there, until we get up to 10. And then in the future sometime, maybe we put it on the agenda. But until then, that gap between when we say it's for this and it's for that, the time in which it has not been on the agenda, we want to consider it in comfort. And that's just not the way that it works. Not the last time I checked. So in this circumstance, we're talking about, we're a committee of three right now. And this is the type of proposal that deserves to move forward to the full board. And people have an opportunity to discuss it. And everyone have an opportunity to say what they like, what they don't like about it. But I just don't see this in the fund that it is in. It doesn't seem overburdensome. It doesn't seem like something we're taking power away from anyone. It seems like we're making funds available to people to remedy issues in our neighborhoods. I want issues in my neighborhood remedied. This is a great way of getting it done if we're not going to do it ourselves because you could just spend the money to do it. That's a novel idea. So you know what, Mr. Developer, before you move on in developing this land, we're going to remediate it for you. We're going to pay the money that it takes to get it to where it needs to be because our rate payers deserve that. This is what they put this money into the pot for, and so we'll take care of it for you at no cost to you. We can do that. But no, you don't want to do that. No, no, no. We can't spend $20 million to remediate lands in an unincorporated Dade County. You know, the people who live there, they get two minutes to come speak to you in committee. And most of them can't make it to the committee meeting. So what are we going to do about it? Protest? When they protest, we can just kick them out of the building because they're out of order. Yeah, maybe they sue us, maybe they won't, but we won't. We got some money. I'm going to approve this in denial.

Okay. Thank you for that. If I may. So I just have a few questions. So first of all, I want to thank you for bringing this forward because remediation obviously is an important factor in what we need to be doing. I just want some clarification because I didn't have a chance. Obviously, the original item differs from the substitute that you provided. But when you get last minute substitutions, we kind of like to take a moment to go through it. So I haven't had that chance. Literally, your staff sent it to us as we were sitting down on the dais. And so some of the particulars I'd like to understand, first of all, one of my comments, You did take care of that, so I can cross that off the list in terms of this is only for county-owned properties at this time, not formally owned at some point in the past, like currently owned. That's the big change, right. Yeah, so that is, you know, in my mind, a move in the right direction. I have some questions for the administration on this, because I think a lot of really great points were made. In terms of the remediation... Typically, well, I guess let's back up. How many properties do we know fall into this? How many properties are covered by this particular piece of legislation? Do we know?

We don't, Madam Chair. The legislation that created the utility service fee was designed all about protecting the well-filled protection area. Any property within that protection area is what the purpose of the fee was for. We don't have a geographic idea of what all properties may be qualified under this loan program.

If I can add, Madam Chair. So I limited it to 10 acres or more. So there isn't going to be a lot of developers. There's only a handful of county properties that are over 10 acres. And the reason that that was done is because Those are the ones that are difficult to Commissioner Hardiman's point. They are so large that the remediation makes the projects impossible. So this isn't a one acre, two acre, an infill. These are large, large county-owned properties, which is where I think we need to move the needle in terms of getting them done because it just doesn't make financial sense when they're this large. So it's limited to that. You know, the administration can give you a list. There's only a handful of county-owned properties that are over 10 acres that need remediation. It's a small group of properties.

And of those, is that thunder?

Yeah, it is.

Great timing. No, of those properties that have been identified as potential to the few properties, are all of them run and leased by outside entities or does the county run any of them?

The county does own many of them. So, for example, it has to be all of them at this point. No, but but but they could be in different departments. So one of the issues that we have is what departments are these properties in? So you could have a 10 acre property in parks that needs remediation. You could have a 10 acre property, you know, in P.I.O.D. Right. So it's not it's not just.

So my question is to that. Could a department apply for this loan? Because are they charged with the same? I'm sorry? Okay. Yes. So I could hear you, but I couldn't hear you. I'm sorry.

I thought you, nothing. Don't worry about it.

So that's why it was zero interest. And we did zero interest because that's also what the county has done in all the other loans that we have done. So, for example, the item that you brought for condo associations was at zero interest. All of the loans that we have throughout all of our programming is at zero interest.

Right. So the condo loan program had a cap, right? They could only apply for up to a certain amount of money. It wasn't even paid to that individual applicant. It's paid to the association. So how would this work? And by the way, they've had to tweak that program. And then they had to eventually really focus it on the really necessary, you know, that group that fell short and also seniors. And they had other parameters that they were trying to give preference to. And that program is currently closed right now, as we know. And like we did for the private adaptation for the septic to sewer conversion, creating a loan program. But those were to avail so that we can, again, it goes into the remediation. We want people to get off septic. And that was to help individual homeowners as well. And again, it wasn't giving the money to the homeowner. So how does this work? How do you see this working? i think we do need to have some sort of cap put in there because if the county is going to say okay we're going to give you this loan to remediate this environmentally you know it's a very important environmental challenge that we need to be facing and doing um then we should have some sort of cap because right now what the loan terms for this are actually really, really generous. And while it not always is about dollars and cents, and I appreciate that argument, I do think we need to be prudent because there are things that we need to, as a county, to also make sure that we are able to remediate, should we need to, our own properties, our own things. Because like Commissioner Hardiman said, we require this of everybody else. We also need to be doing it ourselves, right? We can't ask them to do it and not do it ourselves. So I just want to make sure we're not setting ourselves up where now all of a sudden we don't have the funds to do what we need to be doing. So that's the kind of understanding.

So a few things. The item is written with a 20% of what is not encumbered, in part because I want the county to already go ahead and encumber and do this work. Because like I said earlier, for years and years they haven't done it. So enough with the squirreling the money away. Let's actually remediate. And to Commissioner Hardiman's point, bring us the RFPs and let's get started on the remediation, right, instead of just talking about the remediation. So that's the first thing. And the application goes to the administration. The administration... looks at the application determines if there's money available and then it comes to the board of county commissioners it does have a process we are going to be looking at every single one of those and we can reject it right if we can for whatever reason we can say you know that that we don't want to do this so there there are plenty of safeguards in the item. I'm happy to add more, but again...

So let me tell you. So I do think we need, and when you say 20% of what's not encumbered or what's not programmed or whatever terminology we want to use, but within that 20%, what is that cap, right? So let's say you're talking about, you know, you have $100. That's our money. And 20% of that, $20, right? So within that $20, how much is everybody eligible for? Are they eligible for $2, for $10, for $15, or is one person eligible for the full $20? How did you work it out? Because we did have caps on these other loan programs.

We didn't put a cap on it because there's a handful of properties, but I'm happy to put a cap on it if you want to put a cap on it. Again, and they can give you the number of properties.

Maybe there's a hybrid here that we could come forward with where we give relief for the remediation, but we're not doing it at the detriment of draining this fund or that portion of the fund. And honestly, I guess, let me back up a second. These properties that the county owns that has, I'm assuming, some sort of tenancy, right, long-term tenancy. For those properties, what do the lease agreements actually dictate the terms of who's responsible? Who's responsible for remediation? Are we, as the landlord, responsible anyway and they're taking it upon themselves and they're asking us for the reprieve? Or are they charged knowingly entering these properties that they're going to have to pay?

Madam Commissioner, in most cases that I've negotiated, the price of the land considers whether there's contamination or not, and it's a factor in what they pay. So those considerations are taken in every negotiated deal, and then the developer is responsible for the final remediation.

There is an issue with that, though, in that they don't know what that price is because they don't have ownership of the land. So once they do the due diligence, you know, to your point, the remediation numbers are very, very large, especially on 10 acres or more. So that's where they start becoming deal killers.

Okay. I need a moment to think on this. Commissioner, yeah, we'll go back around.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to my colleagues for the discussion. I am Here's what I would like to see on this item and to the maker and to the administration if they're agreeable. I do think that the universe of the properties that this would actually apply to, I think would help because that would eliminate some confusion. I also think it would be, is this retroactive? So can those who have already paid to environmentally remediate with Miami-Dade County, are they able to get access to these funds?

No, it's not retroactive. You apply to do the remediation. You don't get reimbursed for it. It is a loan to allow you to do the remediation.

So if you've already remediated with Miami-Dade County and paid millions of dollars, you're not able to try and recoup those costs through this fund?

No, because the purpose of this is to get people to remediate. If you've already remediated, then there is no issue with the water quality. It's about incentivizing remediation.

But I'm glad that you said that, because this is the part that I need clarity on. The idea that this is spirited in incentivizing remediation, I really need clarification on this, because it's my understanding, and Commissioner Hardiman made this point, that our developers, they don't have to do a damn thing. That's not exactly true, though. It's my understanding. If you are in a lease with county-owned property to develop on it, Durham requires you to environmentally remediate. If there's contamination, is that correct? And that's the universe of properties that we're talking about here. Do they have to environmentally remediate?

Absolutely. And in almost all cases, it's also identified in their lease or sales agreements of any known contamination that they would have to remediate as part of the deal.

Yeah. And so they already have to do this. And then there was discussion about what's the price that we're going to pay on the backs of accessing or being able to access potable water. Well, it's already 6%. I mean, our rate payers are paying 6% of their water bills for this environmental remediation. I'm not sure... Why our developers can't pay a premium that they would have already had to pay anyway When they negotiate these deals, so I'm not sure that I understand That way of framing this and I think that this is an issue that affects all of us in Miami-Dade County. I don't think that this is a geographically or a demographically specific issue And again, my understanding the way that this is written, it's not for our individual residents to access this money, or is it? Can an individual resident access this money? I know it's for 10 acres, but for example, in the district that I represent, there may be homeowners or there may be landowners that have 10 acres or... Would an individual resident be able to access this?

Only county-owned. Only county-owned.

And that clarification I think is helpful because it's really only geared and targeted towards those that have long-term leases on county-owned land that need to develop and that need to do this environmental remediation um or the county or ourselves the county which we should be doing i think everybody agrees that we should be doing that this this why has there been any and i know that this has been worked on for months have you all received a directive by way of an item or a floor motion by us to say, deploy these funds, go do this work. Like everybody agrees that we want this money deployed for environmental remediation. Has anybody brought an item or given a directive to the administration to pull the trigger and deploy the $150 million?

I'm not aware of any direction, Commissioner. What I can tell you is historically the money's been spent 4% for RER and DERM and 2% for solid waste. We certainly have opportunities to spend money with other departments. Every parks project, zoo project that's out there has remediation. Water and sewer projects has remediation. And they've never spent any of this money. If they were made available to spend this money, it'd be spent quickly.

Yeah. And so again, if our goal is to have this money spent by us or by developers to remediate the land, we could and we should direct the administration to do exactly that. And I do think that having a conversation, especially with a pot of money as large as this $181 million that's being paid by our residents and our rate payers, I think we should have a conversation about how we handle that money and what's in the best interest of the rate payers of Miami-Dade County. If the maker is amenable to changing the terms from a zero percent, it's not a grant because they have to pay it back. But 35 years is a very long, it's a long period of time at zero interest when they already have to do this and they already have to take out loans to do it. For me, the financial terms have to be amended and I'm open because I see the spirit. I want to work with you on this. I'm not trying to be a challenge, but I think that we are obligated to manage these dollars in a way that is a little bit more fair to the maker?

Listen, again, I worked with the attorneys and we mimicked what the county has already done, right? So we didn't set an interest rate for that reason. If you want to add an interest rate, that's fine. I will say this on, you know, asking the county to deploy this money. I've been asking for a long time and the excuse has been the Doral site. It's been the Doral site. We don't know how much it's going to cost. We're still waiting to know. We don't know what we're going to do. What happens if we this? What happens if we that? So, I mean, how many times have we said it until we're blue in the face? Until they bring an RFP, right? Because we can say it, but then they can sit on an RFP for another, you know, eight years, you know? So, you know, to Commissioner Hardiman's point, like how many times do you have to say it before they bring you the items and we actually do the remediation? But if you want to add an interest, I mean, I'm happy to do it. It's only county-owned properties. I think they can get you a list of the ones that apply. It's a small universe.

You know, I just want to get it done is really the key. Yeah, I don't disagree. And, again, I will hear from my colleagues. I think our previous loan programs, as our chairwoman – adequately highlighted were intended to help residents through difficult financial times. This is different. These are developers that are already very, very successful businesses having access to money being paid by our residents at 0% interest. That's a totally different, those are two different pots of human beings and different interests entirely. And so the struggle for me, like I mentioned, I understand zero interest for condo associations to help our residents after, obviously, the tragedy at Surfside. But it's difficult for me to understand why we wouldn't do things differently with a group that are…

99.9% of them are being developed for affordable housing. Yes, I understand that. So whatever that is, it will be passed on to that affordable housing project. So that's the only thing that I think we should be clear on. When we're talking about 10-acre lots, we're talking about very large properties that are being developed in part because of our affordable housing mandate. So that's the majority of them, and that's why Commissioner Hardiman was talking about where these properties are and what's happening there. If they're being developed to do other things, again, there's usually a contract and there's a business plan associated with that. But if you all don't feel comfortable with the 0% and you want to add a percentage, I'm happy to do that.

Yeah. And so how would we to either our chairwoman or to the administration or to the maker? I do think a cap, I think an interest rate is appropriate. And I think, as we've said many, many times before, that committee is where we should do that work. And so I would look to the direction of the maker or the administration to give us some proposals to consider. I certainly don't want to make that proposal, but I do think that those are some amendments to be considered. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Commissioner Hardiman.

You know, if we want to give the rate payers some dignity, how about we just remove the fee? Since we're not spending the way that we intend to spend it. I mean, if we remove the fee, then rate payers wouldn't have to worry about that. They just pay whatever their water bill is plus whatever other fees that we have and call it a day. You know, so it's like... If we want to couch it in sort of the idea that this is about dignifying the person who's actually paying the fee, then remove the fee. Because clearly the fee is not going the way that we expect it to have been going. It's not being used the way that it needed to be used. And secondly, what I meant and what I think is clearly understood when I said the developers don't have to develop on these lands because they don't own the land. That means that developers are taking a risk when they contract with the government in order to do something on the behalf of the government. right so we're providing for they provide affordable housing on our property we give them incentives to do that so the the more difficult that we make it for them to develop the more that they can just say you know what maybe this isn't the best idea no thank you so in fact they do not have to do this they choose to get involved with the government it's the government who has a responsibility of remediating these parcels of land And no matter if you have this fee or not, the governor is totally responsible for when we're getting this parcel of land. And they could very well do it with general fund dollars. That's why I say remove the fee. So you create a new tax to increase the amount of money people are paying to say you're going to do something and still don't do it. And then we're arguing about it when we know for a fact, as Commissioner Regalado put it, that these portions of land are heavily in areas where there's a great need and the need has been filled. You know, I'll say this, right? Take these large portions of land out of the scenario. When I think about the lack of development that I have within my district, Partly the reason, just to impure the marketability of the areas. I always tell people this. I said, the reason why I'm as passionate about my district and I fight the fight and I ask for what I ask for and I try to make things very creative in how we go about doing things because I'm probably one of the only districts in Miami-Dade County where there were two riots. Two complete riots in that area. Burned everything to the ground. And I will tell you that in those spaces, there has not been redevelopment. Whatever you had after the riots, that's what you got. No confidence was built in any resident or any developer or any private person to create any new habitable major parcels of land in an area. If you see a development that is for housing that is, you know, significant, and when I say significant, I don't even mean eight stories. Eight stories is not significant by any sort of standard. But we haven't even had that. If you go into the Northwest Miami-Dade area, if you add eight stories, it is affordable housing. How do I know? Because when I came back from college, I was looking for housing in my district, and that's where I went to all those places. And they told me that I made too much money. I need to make $22,000 a year to live there. And so all the new products that were being built were all extremely low-income housing. If that ain't where Atlanta really is. And so you're talking about spaces where we have no incentive for people to develop anything. No one's coming. The last ride was in the 80s. Tell me a major thing that's been built on 17th Avenue since. 22nd Avenue. 62nd Street. nothing you can't stop and have a meal you can't sit down you know if you think that this is a coincidence it's not it's about policies like this it's where you say okay look we're going to we're going to change something we're going to have development this development may have some commercial aspects to it this development may have some residential aspects to it we're going to have very income levels go into these spaces. So not just a low income, we're going to have workforce and we're going to have other things that attract people to the space. How novel of an idea is it that people want to come live in the area where there's new development? And so part of the reason that we have this issue with affordable housing is because you all don't really consider our areas to be worthy of investment for people to come and live in, to build new housing. And so you're just now seeing, even on small plots of land, 5,000 square feet, single family homes, for 30 years you could buy a house in Liberty City for $110,000, 30 years straight. On the beach, where some of us represent, over 30 years, you would have had a 1,000% increase in home value. Right now, in Liberty City, you can buy a house that is that same house for $100,000, and the house is going to cost you $400,000, $500,000. And when they renovated it, it cost you $750,000. Right. And so that in and of itself, the reason why people are making or actually buying these houses at $400,000 is because they can make a profit. So the point I'm making to you is that if you take away the ability for people to make a profit, they're not going to develop. That's why they didn't develop in the past. That's why we have all those vacant parcels in those areas, because there's no profit to be made. But now that we finally have the ability to make a profit, guess what you're seeing? You're seeing renovation of housing. You're seeing new housing coming. You're seeing literally the change in the community. the positive thing that maybe invites people to come live in the area you're seeing more responsible homeowners people take care in their spaces you'll see when you start to change the income levels in certain areas you're seeing the reduction of violence we're investing in our communities in ways that we haven't before it's not because of the police entirely that we that we have uh positive input or positive results out of these neighborhoods but i'll tell you if you want If you want to continue moving forward the way that we've been continuing moving forward, then you're just not going to have any progress in these areas. And you have to wear that. You have to accept it. And so, you know, adding a percentage to this, that's what you want to do. That's what we have to do in order to move this to the next agenda. But at the end of the day, the people who are paying will always be the rate payers. And what we just saw was a switcheroo. You're seeing the switch go from, oh, we all rate payers pay 6%, right? And so how about this? Instead of the developer getting the benefit of paying a zero interest loan, we make them pay a percentage point. And whenever that percentage point is, we know AS WITH ALL DEVELOPMENT, IT'S PASSED ON TO THE END USER. AND THE END USER IN MOST OF THESE HOUSING DEVELOPMENTS WILL BE THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN NORTHWEST MIAMI-DADE ON THESE VACANT SITES. SO, ONCE AGAIN, THE POOR GET POOR, RIGHT? MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, OUR COMPANIES GET LARGER. And we don't fill the holes that we're supposed to be filling, even though we're making a lot more money than what we used to.

Thank you. Okay, so bringing it back to this item with the, you know, listen, a lot of really great points are made. Problem is this actual item doesn't address those issues because we're talking about really large 10-acre plus homes. areas. I guess I know the administration has concerns with this item. What I don't appreciate is not understanding what those dollars are programmed towards and what the timeline the realistic timeline for everything is. I think we need that. I think you make a really great point, Commissioner Regalado, on that. In terms of the fee or no fee, I do think there needs to be a a certain cap of what that ceiling would be for any sort of loan. Any sort of loan program that we do in the county, no matter for what it is, we should understand going in, this is the amount, whether it's a percentage or, and not of the 20%. Whether it's a percentage or an actual dollar figure, because I think that helps also with future planning. I don't think we should leave it open ended. In terms of the benefits, what's interesting is we just had a budget meeting and part of that was also discussing the fees. which are so important. So what I don't want to see happen is that maybe for the perspective, because I know there's an increase, I would like for that as part of this not to go towards this remediation bucket of the loan program. Do you understand what I'm saying? So that, I don't want that tied into all this because I think there, there.

I think there's some confusion. So this is a utility fee that is paid by everyone. The board does not set it. The board set it once upon a time and it is paid annually. The fact that it is a 6% and that the board approved the 6%, It's just a coincidence, but the two are not related. The two are completely unrelated. You know, we, what the board approved, I did a vote for it, but what the board approved was a 6% increase for water and sewer. This is a 6% fee on your water bill that has been established for over a decade. So two separate things. It just happens to be that the two are six.

Right. So every year, right, this is what gets collected by Miami-Dade County. I'm saying prospectively. There's a pot of money right now in there. And there's an accumulation from all these years and to this USAP, what's the acronym? USAP? Right. Okay. So of the dollars in the USAP, prospectively speaking, next year there's going to, you know, if it's a utility that everybody has to pay, fine. That utility, that percentage that would normally go into USAP, Perspectively, I don't want part of the discussion of the... You want to freeze it. You want to freeze the 20%... Well, I want to keep the... Well, what I was explaining just now, because the administration didn't reach out to me on this issue, but I heard through every... The administration has concerns. The administration has concerns. And so I had to dig in because I had some questions. Obviously, we always have. You answered some of them with the substitute, but I didn't have a chance to fully digest. The 181 million that is currently in that fund, which accumulated over many years, of that, 125, according to what we heard today, is programmed, meaning set in their program plan. It's a wish. It's their CIP. It's their, it's their, it's their, everybody has a capital improvements plan. Everybody has, you know, we have to plan. We have to have prioritization. We have to look at it and they have to sequence those dollars. Right. So that's what the administration has. So that leaves us with 55 million. But then we heard of that 55 million that's left in there, if I did the math correctly around. Some of that now is no longer as available. So now we're looking maybe at 30, right? 30. I don't know how many properties you said a handful fall into this because of the size, nature, et cetera. It doesn't help the smaller units, the smaller acres. Maybe that's something we want to look at. Maybe we want to not just have it for the big guys and have everybody be able to avail. Maybe that's a policy discussion we should be having based on everything you just brought up. But prospectively speaking, I'm saying freeze it at that amount because we know at least today on record, 30 million is not touched. 30 million has not been programmed, whatever, programmed, encumbered, whatever terminology you want to use. We don't know yet what the impacts are going to be, who's going to be availing themselves of this. We want to obviously see remediation, but they also did say that part of the negotiation for for leasing land for whatever project. Hopefully it's affordable housing. Hopefully that's what we're helping, right? And maybe that's what we want to make a caveat to also, making sure it truly is helping those environments. Because we have that flexibility. It's our loan program to do as we want so we can help all of these things. And they said they give that negotiate. That's part of the negotiation, right? So if you know there's a lot of remediation on the land, That's part of the negotiation. So the county probably didn't get the same amount of monthly commitment from whatever entity because of that issue. So all I'm saying is all of this is good. Like I agree with all of you, right? So what I think what we need to do is, you know, take all of this information. I don't want to kill this item. I think there's some things that we could probably do that would benefit a greater good, right? And so those are some of my ideas. I would love to hear your thoughts on them and see where we go. Our options are to defer it and bring back an item for next meeting and then have it on the October 20th commission agenda in October. Still, it would be heard or, you know, give you this direction. I would do because obviously we know one person is supportive. One person has a lot of concerns. I wouldn't mind sending it without a recommendation, but that would have to be unanimous. pending our final vote on what the changes that we see are. So those are all my thoughts. I'd love to hear it from you. And then we'll wrap it up.

Thank you. And listen, I appreciate the discourse. I think I'm happy to work with the administration and provide more information. You know, I think that that's, I was hoping that their member would provide more information. They could have provided more information, right? And I was changing it. The changes that I made adhere to the benefit of the county. So it's not like the changes that I've made, you know, open this up more. In fact, it actually tightened it and made it more restrictive, which is one of the requests that the administration made. I would prefer to move it without a recommendation and then I could work with them on the details of it and everyone can be briefed. But if you want to keep it here, again, I'm not a voting member of this committee, right? You all have to decide. I will say that The administration needs to move this money forward. I mean, a wish is a wish, right? So, I mean, I don't know how many more times I'm going to say that. But I think we can definitely from here to the next, you know, BCC, even if you want to push that out further, you know, so they can give more information. I'm happy to do that. But I would prefer to do that rather than wait like another committee cycle.

So I know we have a motion to just approve it as is. I don't know that that has a second. So I would defer to, you know, and I think this is great. I think, look, it's tough because we're only three members. And so you're... But I think it's a great discussion that we are having. And really, this is where it's supposed to happen in committee so that we can really work on making this, at least from a policy standpoint from ours, it could change again, BCC, and it might very well. So I'll leave it to Commissioner Hardiman and Commissioner Cohen-Higgins. Please let me know how you prefer to move forward, and then we'll get this going.

If I may be recognized, Madam Chair, I think that the item needs to be amended in committee. It is always repeated at the final board that this work needs to be done in committee. And I don't think that the requested amendments, which I think generally have been accepted by the maker, I think it needs to be amended. and I appreciate the openness by the maker to have this looked at, but I would feel more comfortable having an item that is fully vetted in committee because, again, that's the message that's always being sent at the final board. And to agree with something Commissioner Hardiman said, I think and I hope the administration is, you know, obviously you always pay attention, but from my perspective, I feel like we really need to figure out if we're going to spend this money and remediate this land. Otherwise, I'm not sure that we should continue charging the 6%. If we have collected this money over the last 10, 15 years, what the heck are we collecting it for? At some point, We need to deploy the funds for their intended use or stop charging our residents. And so we talk about these things. The spirit of the item is rooted in that every board member here agrees with that. But I am telling you right now through a legislative hold or whatever legal term you want to utilize, if those monies are not deployed. in short order, i.e. in the next three to six months, I will move to remove that fee because there is zero justification for our ratepayers to continue paying into a fund that is simply sitting in a bank account and growing over time. I mean, I just don't understand how we justify that. And I think everybody is in agreement, hopefully, with that sort of initiative. So those are my thoughts at this time. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Okay, and so we know moving it without a recommendation requires unanimous vote or it dies, and we don't want to kill it because there's a lot of really good in here. So what we'll do, Commissioner Hardiman, maybe if you want to make the motion to defer to the next committee, but I definitely want this on the October 20th. BCC. I think it needs to happen next month because I think we do need to discuss it, especially before the end of the year. At that point, we'll be past the fiscal. We don't have BCC in September, right? When's our next BCC, please? October 6th. Okay. So then October 20th would be where it would be heard.

Madam Chairwoman, as I understood, Commissioner Cornhiggins was making a motion with those amendments. Is that what happened?

Through the chair? Yeah, I said that those were the amendments that I'd like to see, but I said that I'd look to the administration or the maker to actually make a proffer, right? So I said that I wanted to see an interest rate and a cap, but I haven't heard an interest rate and I haven't heard a cap. So we could do this here now, or we can amend the item and bring it back. I'm certainly not going to propose it. I'm not the maker of the item. Those were just the concerns that I had expressed on the record. Thank you.

Commissioner Regalado, I will give you, you know, what would you like to see? Do you want to work it out now, or do you want to bring it up? I want to leave it to you and your discretion.

Again, I'm the maker of the item, but you guys have the concern with the cap and the interest rate, so what's the cap and the interest rate that would make you feel better? I don't, like, I... No, I understand that.

The interest rate wasn't the issue for me. It was more the cap, so I'll defer to Commissioner Cohen-Higgins.

And I'll tell you, I was trying to understand, Madam Chairwoman, what you were saying about the freezing or the, like, basically the capture of whatever funds were left unavailable. Because I'll tell you, by the end of the day, that that amount of encumbered dollars is going to grow. Because there's no, we're playing fast and loose when it comes with what is encumbered. I would think that it being encumbered happens after a budget cycle where we've approved a budget to do certain things. That's when generally things are encumbered. Well, there's some specific legislation that does that, but who am I? So that's first. And second, I'll tell you, when you said captured or frozen or whatever terminology you use, it made me think about Are we talking about using future funds that come into the pot? And if you're talking about using future funds, then you've delayed the remediation of these lands even further because it takes time to generate the funds to be able to lend if that's what you intend on doing. Or we can say, hey, how about let's take a list of the encumbered projects that you have. Maybe I think it's better to use it for this than for, you know, whatever thing that you had planned based on the relationship that you've made in the county. I mean, because it's our job to set what the policy is and how we go about doing things in the county. It's not. It's not the mayor's job. So. You know, I mean, we can, we can, we can, I think that we can discuss that here. So I'm not necessarily big on the cap. You know, the cap is us. We decide the cap. The administration decides the cap. The administration gets an application by this resolution. They get an application asking for funds. The mayor's office says, yay or nay. That means they control how those funds are distributed. And if there is a disapproval from the mayor's office, we have an opportunity to hear the concern. Right? I mean, it's not as if it's an automatic thing.

No, I agree, which is why I think we've all said we need to see that list as to what the dollars are programmed for. I agree completely. What I meant was not freezing it from remediation. This loan program right now is very, very, like she said, she narrowed it. It's really just for county-owned property that is being leased long-term of 10 acres or more? Owned by the county. Or owned and run by the county. Correct. Thank you. I'm saying we don't know who falls into that bucket. What I'm saying is right now we know there's at least 30 to 55 million that is, quote, not programmed, which, by the way, we may see their program list and say, wait a second, this should all go in there, right? We don't know that because we haven't seen the list. We don't know exactly all the specifics. We have generalities. I'm saying every year there's a utility fee. Of that utility fee, 2% goes into this USAP program. which can be used for a number of things, including remediation. Right? Charged with that. Right now, there's money in the bucket. I don't want to see us open-ended with this loan program. I just meant for the money for the loan program. Remediation, absolutely, for the loan program. Keeping a set amount of dollars, like we did for every other loan program in the county. You have X amount of dollars that can be used for this loan program. These are the terms of the loan. You can fill out an application should you be eligible, should it be approved. This is the amount that you could be eligible up to. And these are the variables in order to be eligible for up to that amount, right? And that's it. And then you have it. So now right now, yes, I'm sorry.

You could just set it for a period of time. You can say for a year or for two years. I mean, that's an option.

And by the way, I don't know that it should be an open-ended program. We should also have a chance to revisit what does that look like? What is it doing? And I know you would agree with that. And so that's why I think this has been great conversation and great discourse of really trying to fine-tune something and bake it a little bit, right? And I appreciate you taking the time because one thing you do is you dive in and you look for these creative ways to try to solve an issue. So I actually really appreciate you doing that. So thank you for that. Okay, so what are the open-ended things that you want to see, Commissioner Cohen-Higgins, so that we have, we've been all over the place.

Thank you, Madam Chair. To the maker, I mean, are you in a position to propose these now? Yeah.

For example, Commissioner Steinberg just said that she's concerned with this going into perpetuity. So if you want to amend it so that it's a two-year program, I'm happy to amend it so that it exists for two years and then you can come back and extend it. I don't think that's a big deal. I think that allows us to see how it works and who uses it. In terms of an interest rate, I'm not going to set the interest rate because I don't have a problem with it being at zero. That's what I drafted. If you have an interest rate that you feel comfortable with and you want to tell me what that is, I'm happy to do that. I'm not going to set it because I don't think that it should have an interest rate. I'm happy to amend it to do that, but my whole point is to incentivize it getting done. A cap, I don't think we need a cap because the whole thing says that the administration is going to either reject or not an application and bring it to the board. So I think by its very nature, that's the cap. I don't want to set an arbitrary cap if you're because I don't know how much they're going to encumber. Right. So to Commissioner Hardeman's point, right, we set a cap and then they encumber like beyond that cap because they're the ones that are determining what is or what is not encumbered. So if you want to set a dollar amount, that would probably make more sense than a cap. But then we have to change it, you know, which is fine. But the way that I drafted it, the administration is going to look at the application and say if they agree with it or not. And then it's going to come to the board. So that was the checks and balances of the thing.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So I misunderstood then. I thought when these amendments were proposed earlier, you were amenable to them. I'm hearing something very different now, and I will vote accordingly. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm in a twilight zone because what I hear is, no, no, no, seriously, I'm in a twilight zone. I heard the commissioner say, I'm open to what you all want to put in there. I don't think these things make sense the way that you necessarily want them. For instance, I want 0%. I don't want a percentage point. But if you want a percentage point, propose a percentage point. I'm okay with that. What it sounds like is that You want her to propose a percentage point when she has proposed a percentage point. That's zero. So if you want a percentage point, you should say it's one. Two, I would happily second it. Because I didn't ask for a percentage point. You asked for a percentage point. So why won't you tell us the percentage point? And so that's first. And second, if you think that there's, because remember, this is a step in this process. So if you think it deserves a cap, she said, well, and I said, I don't think that the cap is necessary. She described reasons why she doesn't think it's necessary. But if you want to propose a cap, then you propose it. That takes us out of this. If you want her to just if you want her to make you want her to change it in ways that she doesn't necessarily want to change it. But like the body, she's saying to you, the body is here to make changes. If you want to make changes, I'm OK with you making those changes. That's the decision that we make. So it's like we need to make the changes that she's okay with. She won't have to fight that battle another day. Or you keep it as it is, but it's our decision. And so I've already said that I'm OK with it the way it is. Commissioner Cohen says that you're not OK with it. You want percentage point. State the percentage point in the motion. If you want to cap Madam Chairwoman, because she mentioned the cap, state the cap and will vote accordingly and we can move on. Because you, you know, effectively did not my motion. So what's your motion?

Madam Chair, if I may, thank you for that. I'm sorry that you feel like you're in the twilight zone, Commissioner Hardiman. Typically, when I raise a concern and a sponsor of an item is amenable to whatever the proposed change is, mind you, this literally was handed out to us as we walked in today, the amended item. I'm not, whatever our precedent is on setting interest rates, I'd want to hear from the administration. I'm not currently prepared as someone who hasn't worked on this item to throw out an interest rate. Everybody has said that this is a small universe of parcels. I, as the sponsor, would probably consult or have a conversation with the administration, figure out what an amenable alternative is. I'm not the maker of the item. And I don't set interest rates. I didn't work on this item. You don't work on it now. I didn't speak with the business community. You work on it now. And again, I appreciate it. I think I have the floor at the moment. I'm not sure what the energy is that's being channeled currently. I think I'm not sure where it's coming from. But I'm simply sharing what... I witnessed and have witnessed for the last six years here on the dais, right? And so I've made my concerns noted for the record. The maker said she was amenable to amendment. I'm happy to hear what the industry standard is. Again, I didn't work on this item. I'm not going to throw out a random number without having had the benefit of learning from the business community, from the administration, and everything that it takes to prepare an ordinance like this. I don't work in a vacuum like that, which is why I lobbed it to the maker and to the administration so if that seems twilight zone to you I'm not sure where to go from there but I feel like we're not moving in the right direction with the conversation that we're having currently I don't know if the administration can propose something I'm not moving off my concerns however nor am I going to be bullied into doing anything that I don't you know what I'm saying so I appreciate it but it's not going in that direction I'm not the maker of the item this is not my area thank you

Yes. Okay. I'll let you, I'll let you speak and I'm going to turn it to the maker.

This isn't about bullying. This is about wasting everyone's time. The energy is about wasting time. You don't want to make a motion because you don't want to be in support. You don't want to be the person that made the recommendation for what it is that we're going to be deciding. This body, we make changes to things. The last cycle we were on, we just made an administrative change to our entire procurement process. And people asked for more time. We didn't give it to them. We moved forward when people had general concerns about how every single person was going to apply in a process that Miami-Dade County has had for a very long time. And we well-rooted our way through that. Colleagues didn't see any committee. And there were changes on the days at the time. So we pick and choose when we want to say, oh, you know, I didn't have much time. This document is a lot thinner than the document that we have for those procurement changes that we just made. And so when I think about this, it's bothersome because it's like, when are we going to stop trying to make internet news and actually just do the work that it takes to go through these problems because a motion was made no one seconded it now if this is a legislative body and we have the item she doesn't have the item right now she has no control of the item right now only we do even if she said to you look make the change you're going to say where's the change she can't make the change because she's not on the board we have the item we must make the change So what you're saying is, OK, well, let's not decide it today, even though we've discussed it. You make the change. Bring it back so that it comes through. I don't have to make a decision on it. Let me just vote. That's the Twilight Zone about this. That's the irony in all of this. You know, Madam Chairwoman, it's very simple, I believe. If you have the concerns, like responsible legislators, make a motion with those changes. If you don't, just vote it down. You don't like it. You don't want to see changes made to it, even though you're saying the numbers. You don't have the proposal interest rate. You can say in your motion, we want to add an interest rate to be determined at a later time. It could be attached to whatever the market is doing at the time. We're not We want to be experts in interest rates, but we're not idiots when it comes to all of these things. So it's like if we want to move forward, there's certainly a way to move forward. It's not my responsibility to design a program for the administration. We can tell the administration to come back and tell us what the program looks like and propose an actual cap and tell us what the numbers will be. We just gave them the general parameters. That's what they're paid to do. So Madam Chair, I want to see a motion so we can act.

I hear you. Yes.

Listen, and just to clarify, I've given options to deal with your concerns. I'm open to an amendment, but you have to tell me what you would feel comfortable with. So if you want the administration to set the interest rate, then we can amend it to say that the administration sets the interest rate. If you want to amend the item to get it out of committee to say that an interest rate will be determined, we can determine it at the full since you don't want to move it without a recommendation. If you want to establish a cap, I'm happy to put in a cap. I mean, the only thing I said about the cap is that I didn't add it before because it's kind of a slippery slope since they're the ones that hold. The determination on how much money is available. So I thought that a monetary amount might be easier given your particular concerns. I'm just responding to your particular concerns. Um, so I'm open to it, but again, I'm not, I'm not going to throw out terms because.

I'm trying to appease your concerns. Okay, so this is what we're going to do, because typically we don't, you know, we can proffer suggestions, and, you know, I never want to, if someone has a piece of legislation, we make our recommendations, we all do it to each other, but a lot of times, you know, you're the maker, so we're trying to respect that as well, because you're the one who's been living, breathing, working on this. So for purposes of today... And I would see if Commissioner Cohen Higgins would be comfortable with this if we sent it without it, because there are concerns. And like I said, our goal is not to kill it. Our goal is to try to make it so that we can digest and see how, you know, if in truth, this is going to be something that is beneficial. Right. And so we all have the best of intentions. It's just how does it translate in reality? And so it would have to be for me to be comfortable today. We could do it where the administration as an amendment sets the interest rate. Let the administration, since they're the ones who have to approve this anyway, and they're the ones who have some of the concerns. Charge them with setting what they feel is the appropriate interest rate. Of course, you are the maker of it. I know for purposes of today, and that could be a conversation. They may come back with some crazy number and that we may not all agree with, or they may come back with something and say, you know what, 2%, 3%. And so I would do that in terms of the cap. And I think we articulated why we felt there was a cap because without a cap, I don't even know how we would determine an applicant comes in on the application form. if they are eligible and they, so how do you envision it? The county administration just looks at it, whatever department, and says, okay, yes, they've checked this box, checked this box, checked this box, and now they're eligible for 20 million, 100 million, 10 million. How does that work? That's why I was suggesting some sort of understanding as to, so also, by the way, those applying understand, because if we leave it open-ended, That becomes, I'm concerned, a whole other issue with property owners fighting, well, why did they get this amount? Why did they, like, what's that formula? And that's, you know, I'm trying to save us also some headache down the future. I don't know what that looks like because I haven't really dived into this. So any suggestions?

You can also push it on the administration to provide a formula. That's fine. I mean, look, I think that it should be a dollar amount cap. I think that's the easiest thing. Because, again, what's encumbered, how much are they encumbering, right? I think they can provide that recommendation. I'm happy to do that also, and then we'll take it up, see what they recommend.

And I'm going to defer real quick before we wrap this up to the administration. Can you please let us know if there are any other changes that you would like to see? Again, we might be passing this without a recommendation anyway, just so that we have it at least to the full body and you all have the opportunity to work with the commissioner. And also, I would appreciate you reaching out to my office. I think we all need to know the list of properties that this would impact, the list of programmed properties. I guess those that have been promised for programming, what does that look like? What's your prioritization?

Our staff hasn't reviewed the substitute item and of course we're happy to do that and come up with any thoughts that we might have that it brings on. We've also been working on an additional list of projects that this money would be eligible for outside of solid waste that we're nearing completion of that was mentioned in our memo to you that we're going to be providing very soon so you can see all of the things it's currently programmed for and all of the things that the legislation that established it would be legal to be used for, for you to determine the best use of the money. If you want to defer the item to next meeting, we're more than happy to work with the maker to try to come up with that. If you want to go forward, we'll do the best we can too.

Okay. That would be interesting to see because then we need to understand the prioritization. Do we want this to be the prioritization or what they're going to be presenting? So maybe what we do is we move it out of committee to make the changes that were made today on the record. And also maybe put a caveat that we move it, but it also has to run parallel to a recommendation from the administration as to the work program that they want to put forward. So we have that to make the full determination, because if you all don't support this, we may have a different conversation at BCC.

If I can make a recommendation, we can amend it to have the work program included as an exhibit to the item.

Okay.

Easiest way to do it.

I mean, do you have any comments or thoughts on that? I'm just, yeah. That could work as an exhibit. Commissioner Hardiman. Do you have a motion? Yep. We've been...

I hear the discussion, but is there a motion?

Yes.

What's the motion?

So the motion is to move it without a recommendation out of committee so we have this full discussion, including the amendments as it relates to having the administration set the rate. Having them set the cap and putting on the exhibit of the work And providing an exhibit of the work list for this particular item. And also, I would like it to run, you know, I would like to hear from the administration as a part of this as a condition to better understand what are the. So we go in eyes wide open. What are the you know, if we fund this, what are we not funding? What else is there right now happening at the county that we need to focus on? so that we're eyes wide open, because I have not received any of that information.

Second.

Madam Chair? Yes. May I just clarify the amendments? What I have here is that one of the amendments is to revise the provision that provides for a 0% interest rate so that it would provide that it would be an interest rate to be set by the mayor or mayor's designee. I also have that there would be a new provision that would provide a cap on particular loans. This is where I may, I'm not sure if I have the amendment correctly, that loans under this program shall not exceed a certain dollar amount per particular eligible property, but should that be left blank for the moment and to be set later, or do you

That would be set by the administration. Okay.

So it would say loans under this program shall not exceed a certain dollar amount to be set by the administration. Okay. And then that there will be a work program to be provided at the same time to the Board of County Commissioners. And I was not sure if it was part of the amendment about the two years. I just wrote down two years.

As you said that, I wrote down two years that we would revisit in two years.

Is it?

I guess it would sunset in two years and then we would, yeah, we would sunset in two years.

Okay, so it could provide that it would sunset in two years. So those are the amendments that I had down, but I just wanted to confirm that I had those correctly.

I'm okay with all those.

I believe that's correct. Thank you, Madam Chair. And the amendments... Are they going to be determined by the administration before the final hearing or just to be determined by the administration at some future time? So the way that you worded it made it sound extraordinarily open-ended, meaning that the item that's going to come to the board that would advance out of this committee would be exactly this item with the caveats that you just mentioned and that you just read. That is not my intention at all. It is my intention to have an interest rate that is not zero. determined by this body and a cap on the dollar amount that any developer can apply for under this loan program, like any loan program. There's no bank that you go to and you can apply for a dollar amount that has no end in sight. There has to be some parameters on the amount that can be captured in this program. And so I want to be clear that the way that you just read it means that those will be determined by the administration between now and and the final hearing, that's the entire reason that we are having a discussion about advancing it absent a recommendation in addition to the two-year sunsetting of the loan program to the attorneys. Is that your understanding?

Commissioner, no. The language that I read would give the administration the discretion after the ordinance would be adopted to set those.

Thank you. So, Commissioner Regalado, the reason I think we want to see that, I think you would want to see it, too, so you know what they would be putting forward as the administration. Because you may say, as the maker of this item, you know what? No. And then you can make your argument as to why you don't think that would work. Do you agree with that?

Look, I think it would probably be best if the administration provided a range and we gave them, you know, authority within that range.

But they need to provide it prior to second reading. Right. With the item. Right. Okay. Yes. Okay. So can we amend your amendment that what you read? No. So that it is part of the final hearing of this item at second reading.

If I could jump in, I think the best way to draft the amendment would be to say that the administration will provide – first of all, you need to do the two years separate. So we need to amend it and say that the program is only viable for two years. It sunsets after two years. then the amendment would be that the administration is going to provide the Board of County Commissioners with two things. Number one, a rate card, which will delineate the interest that the administration is recommending for this two-year period, and a cap that the administration is recommending for this two-year period, and that the administration would also provide the work program. That's the easiest way to do it.

Okay.

That way, because you can't amend an ordinance. No, that's fine. Yeah, I think that's it. They're providing the rate card that's going to be included in the item when it comes to the full board.

Okay. I'm fine with that. Roy, do you understand? Do you all think you have enough time? And now I'm being realistic. We have our second budget hearing. We have a lot going on in September. October 6th is right around the corner. We can't get sometimes things from the administration within three months, let alone two weeks. I think this probably should be October 20th. I'm fine with that. I'm fine with that. To give you time.

Madam Chairman, there's a lot to work out here. There's too much to do to do quickly. And quite frankly, it should come back to this board. I can't imagine how we're going to go through this at the main board meeting. If that's what you want to do, that's fine. But we think it should come back here.

We were trying to respect the maker of the motion. It proffered either without a recommendation, barring all of these things, or I think Commissioner did offer to bring it back. We were trying to be respectful of the maker at this point.

Madam Chair, if I may, is there any time sensitivities on this?

I mean, I want to start the remediation as soon as possible. I agree with you.

That $150 million, that needs to be deployed ASAP. But regarding this particular loan program, are there any time sensitivities to make the board aware of?

No, no, other than we want to get it done.

I mean, OK, then, you know, we'll do then. Look, I'm trying to get out of out of committee for you. But at the same time, if they feel that they're not going to be able to bring it to us, if it can guarantee on the October 20th, then there's no harm done because it's going to be a committee before the October 20th meeting.

And that's what you want to do. That's fine. But respectfully to Roy. regardless of what we do at this committee when it goes to the full bcc everyone's going to have an opinion so we are going to do it again so this idea that we're not going to do this again we're going to do it again i mean if we want to do it three times that's fine with me but we are going to do it again um yeah commissioner

I completely agree. That's what the board is for. If you think that we're going to do all the work in the committee, then we're sadly mistaken. That's how this thing works. I fully expect to continue to talk about it. If they come back with recommendations, then we're going to talk about those recommendations. And even if we adopt those recommendations, we just have to understand that it doesn't appear to the administration that they don't like what we have being presented to us. And so that may never change, right? So it's just best that if we want to remediate the properties that we own that are being leased by other people who currently right now can start their remediation, then we should move forward.

Okay. Listen, there's an argument to be made for deferring it, and there's an argument to be made, you know, sending it out of committee without a recommendation is a strong statement, too, that we may not be supporting it at committee, at commission, that we have a lot of concerns and issues. And so perhaps, so deferring it to work it out, we might all unanimously approve it. or we may end up relitigating the same thing. But I'm going to move that we pass it out of the committee without a recommendation, which I do think sends a really strong message that we're not in agreement here on what is in front of us. to the October 20th BCC, provided that we get all of the things from the administration, including the sunset, including the rates, including the cap, including the – I'm sure I'm missing something that we discussed because it's – Interest. The interest. And we need the list, and we need the work program. I mean, there's a lot here, and – My whole thing is to help make this better. I don't know that in that form it's going to pass BCC, but that's the motion at this time.

Aye. I'm cool with that.

We already have a motion on the floor. It was already previously moved and seconded. Can we stop to clarify with the motion? Okay.

Yeah, Madam Chair, it was moved and it was seconded, and then I asked the attorneys for clarification, and they confirmed that my understanding was not the way that the amendments were worded. So I need clarification from the attorneys on what was moved as amended and some sort of an articulation on the record that what we are advancing is going to provide that information before October 20th.

Commissioner, my understanding of the motion is to move the substitute with certain amendments. The amendments that I read previously, one relating to this sunsetting within two years. That a work program would be provided by the administration concurrently with this item. That there would be an interest rate to be set by the mayor or mayor's designee instead of the language that sets it at zero. And that their loans under this program shall not exceed a certain dollar number for any particular eligible property with the dollar number to be determined or set by the administration. I think your question to me before was with this, at least these amendments as read, set those numbers before the Board of County Commissioners adopts the ordinance, or would it kind of delegate it to the administration for later? And I think it would delegate the administration for later. It sounds like the chairwoman wants to add something that would direct the administration to come up with recommendations as to those numbers. before it goes to the full bcc and i'm not sure if the intention is that there could be um possibly amendments on the floor to substitute those in but i i i wanted to madam chair abby so what i said was that

it would be separated into two pieces, the two years and the work program, and then that from now to when it goes to the BCC on the 20-something, that the administration would provide a rate card with a range for the interest and for the cap, and that the board would be able to see that in the final item and determine if they agree with those terms.

Yeah, I don't listen. I know Commissioner Cohen Higgins has to leave and I don't know that that's exactly what she was inferring. So again, you need to be unanimous to pass it out. I don't think I feel that right now. So I think I will then withdraw, move to defer and to the October 15th. Is that the next committee?

Yes, it is.

Okay, to the October 15th committee. Provided we still need that information by then, please, and then hopefully we get it out for the 20th. Second. And with that, item 3C that I pulled is being deferred by the administration. Any other questions or comments before we adjourn? Madam Chair. Yes.

I just need to note for the record that the administration may update the fiscal and social impact statements for 1G1 substitute to account for the substitute.

That's correct. They need to do that. All right. Thank you with that.

We need a vote. Did we get a vote? All those in favor?

Aye. Okay. Show it done by acclamation. Wishing all those who celebrate a happy Rosh Hashanah.

Madam Chair, may I request item 3F be advanced to the next meeting, please?

Yes. Show it done. Thank you. Meeting adjourned.

Thank you.