Sustainability and Resiliency Task Force - Regular Meeting

Yeah, she's on. I see the B, but not unmuted yet.

How are you all doing? Good evening.

Yes, now she's unmuted. Hey, Brent.

Let me change it to Brenda. I don't know why it's just B here.

Just a B.

That's right.

All righty. I think that is everyone that will be attending tonight. I call the meeting order at 630. Roll call. Neil.

Neil Krasner from Treasure Island.

Brenda.

Brenda Krebs from Harbor Island.

Oliver.

Oliver, normally from North Bay Island, but today zooming in from Milwaukee.

How is it up there?

It's nice so far. It's supposed to get hot, but so far it's been really nice.

I think it's hot everywhere. Moving forward, approval of meeting minutes. Does anybody have any comments or changes?

Nope.

No, I don't. If we have no changes, I would call for the approval of the June meeting.

And I second that motion to approve the minutes.

All righty. All in favor, aye.

Aye. Aye.

Awesome. Meeting minutes approved. Moving on. We don't have any new business, so we're going to do old business only. Neil, I believe this is yours. Update on the stormwater master plan. Oh, wait. By Roger Hogg. My mistake. But Neil, you have been working along with Mr. Hogg as well. Is Roger Hogg present?

Let's see.

I don't see him on the list here.

I don't see Roger either.

Okay. I guess we'll give him a couple of minutes, or does anybody know on staff if he will be joining in or if he's late?

No. We can't.

Does anybody on staff in the meeting have Roger's contact information and could reach out to him?

I do not.

I actually have one question for Frank. Can you hear me, Frank?

Multiple choice or what?

I'm sorry. Just because sometimes you hear stories and you don't know to confirm or maybe this isn't open for discussion yet. In a discussion, I meet the guys from Public Works a lot in the morning at Speedway. And in the discussion, I had asked, you know, where do we keep all the equipment? And the garage is down and they explained to me they have a storage area. And I made the statement that, well, it's a shame that we couldn't find a place for our municipal garbage trucks and unnamed employees said, oh, but we have. Is that any rumor or is that any truth to it?

I like unnamed employee.

No, first of all, there's no secrets and they're allowed to talk. They're not, they have a cone of silence around them. Okay. Sometimes they don't have the up-to-date information, but, you know, that's, I don't, I'm glad you talked to them, and I'm glad they talked to you.

Yeah, it wasn't Roger. It was just an unnamed employee. But it sounded really good, because I think it alleviates a lot of David's concerns and everybody else's. But I guess we have to wait until we hear the true story.

Well, right now, the garbage trucks are over at Grove by the Isle, Grove by the Bay.

Yeah, that I know.

Andy's lot. OK. We're trying to buy a warehouse. We've had several opportunities and they have not, they've fallen apart.

Okay.

But Andy is letting us stay on his lot right now. We have a trailer for them to eat and get the air conditioning and that type of thing and an office air for Timmy. And then we have a shower trailer next to that because we have, you know, a sewer operation, and OSHA requires them to have a shower in case they get, you know, spewed on, they can get in there and shower off.

Yeah.

So we're staying over there. Andy's not charging us to be there. The only thing I'm paying for is my electric. We put in our own water line for the shower. Oh, okay. So we're on the hunt. We're on the hunt for a place.

Okay. I'll just wait. You know, when I heard that, I said I'd take it. for what it is, but I'll wait for the official word.

We had a good place and we thought it was going to close. Okay. The guy backed out at the end.

Okay. Thanks for the update.

The real problem is trying to find a place close to us.

Yes.

Because the stuff that's close to us is exploding in value. You know, you look over there in Little River, those warehouses that were, you know, not worth anything. That whole area is exploding and businesses are coming in and restaurants are coming in.

Yeah.

And that property is worth a lot of money.

Yeah.

And I can find places in Hialeah and Opelika, but the guys can't get to work. It takes them an hour to get to work.

Yeah.

So we're working on it. But, you know, I got to find a place because eventually Indy's going to tear down that building and he's going to be building his building.

All right. No, no. I just rather hear from the horse's mouth. Thanks for the update.

Frank, the horse. That's, yeah.

All right.

Brenda, we go back too far, Dawn.

We do. I still don't see Roger, so I'm not sure about that.

I think some people were under the impression this meeting wasn't going to take place.

Yeah, I think maybe.

And I think that may be what happened. I didn't get a cancellation, but I heard that they weren't going to meet, and they are going to meet, and the mayor said, well, go ahead and meet, but I can't be there because she's not on tonight either.

Yeah, but I had gone back and forth with that, so I didn't mean to stir the pot, but You know, and Alicia finally, she did confirm that she was going to be here. And that was in a global email. And Oliver's away, but said he would Zoom. I said I would be here. So we kind of knew that the meeting was on at that point. And Alicia sent an update like two days ago saying it's important for us to meet. So, you know, it kind of went to where we knew the meeting was happening tonight. But yes, there could be some confusion as to who was going to attend or if it was on or not. And I think, Alicia, I think we really have that light agenda for tonight anyway, correct?

Yeah, we have a very light agenda because we're missing, you know, Mayor, two other members. So let's – we can postpone it. I guess the only thing I think that would be good for us to discuss since we have you, Frank – Can we get an update on any city staff that might no longer be working for the city or any new hires? I was working with Gabby on the Native Plant presentation.

Right.

And I found out at one of the city events through Commissioner Treboni that she is no longer with us. So... If we could just get an update on that, I think that would be good for us to know.

Sure, sure. I'll bring you up to speed. Gabby left her on her own accord. She's going to go to law school. Very happy for her. That's great. So she came to me and said, you know, if I don't do it now, I'll be 27 by the time I get out of law school. And I said, hey, do it. It's, you know, these jobs... like she had, or not career jobs by a long shot. So I said, you know, if you're going to do it, do it. So she left. How nice for her. That's right. She's a very sharp little girl, and I'm very happy for her. And then Leo left because Leo was the chief of staff for Ralph Rosado before Ralph left. And then he stayed with me. And then Ralph got elected as a city commissioner in Miami, and he left to be Ralph's chief of staff. So he left on his own to go do that. So neither one of them have been replaced at this time. I know the commission's on a hunt for legislative aid. They've had several interviews, and that's their choice, and I don't think they've made a decision. And I'm sort of, looking around, I haven't made any decisions yet myself exactly what I'm looking for. So that's that part. Now those are the only two departures. We still have Steve in Public Works and Roger in Capital Improvements. Not to let the cat out of a bag, but to let you know something since you're the resilience group. is that we've hired a chief resilience officer.

That's right.

Yay. And she's coming on board. I think she may be coming. You know, Janice is off today. Had stuff she had to do with her daughter from the end of school or the beginning of school or whatever it was. But I know we've hired a lady who has a terrific background in – resilience and sustainability. And she's also an engineer, which is a hard combination to find. And so she will be working with Roger. She'll report to Roger. And her primary duty will be to oversee the stormwater projects through the program. In other words, she'll be dedicated to that because that is the main really infrastructure project that we have going right now. So I think she may come to work on Friday. It seemed like a weird time she was coming. But I know when we hire people now, we're not bringing them in in the middle of a pay period. It just is tough to get things balanced out. So whenever that pay period's starting, she's coming. So it should be any day if, you know, I don't think it's like a Monday. It's weird how they run. It may be Friday. Anyway, she's coming, and Christine is her name. Do you know her last name? No, I do, but I don't know her offhand. And she's coming from, where was she employed? in Broward somewhere. Anyway, so that's good. And then on the project side, we are about ready to award the North Bay Island stormwater project to a company. It's still under the cone of silence, so I can't tell you who it is because it hadn't gone to the commission yet. But in September, it's going to the commission to award that contract. If you remember, we went out to bid on that a while back, and we only got one bid at about $14 million. We went out, we adjusted the bids with the bid specs, and we got six bids. The lowest bid was about $8 million, and we checked out that person, that company. And that's it, Paula Christina. She doesn't go by Paula, she goes by Christina.

Okay.

We interviewed that company that was a low bidder and found them to be really non-responsive. They hadn't answered all the questions in the bid. And then when we were interviewed, they really didn't have the background for doing this project. So we went to the next bidder, which was the next low bid was 11 million and change. And that company has got, you know, they can handle it. So that will be going before the commission in September. Now, there's a caveat with that. They sort of put the cart before the horse with this program, as I'm finding with a lot of these things as I go through. And that it requires... So the pumps go underground and the deep water injection wells, of course, are underground. And they're along the roadway on Bay Terrace and Beachview Drive. But there's above ground equipment, the Florida Power and Light installation, the control panel and all that. And they didn't have any land to put that on. So I'm working with Mr. Singh. who owns that vacant lot that's right across the street from his house on Bay Terrace to get a piece of that property to be able to put the electronic stuff. And he's out of town a lot. I have a meeting with him next week towards the end of the week. He's coming back in town. So I'm going to meet with him to hopefully square away something where I can get a piece of that property. And what else is happening? that I have on stormwater. The wastewater pump station, the new one that's on Galleon Street, is ready to go online. And we just need to have Durham approve the final paperwork submitted by Kinley Horne, the engineers of record. and then that will go online and then we can continue with the demolition of the old building because they're already starting the building of the community center. The piles are going into the ground now and they'll be ready to start their foundation for that building. That program is slated to be completed by May of next year, the building built and operational by May of next year, because they want it up and running for the World Cup. So that project is ongoing right now also. And then the City Hall project, to fill you in on that, we're scheduled to break ground in March or April of next year for City Hall. And so things are happening and good things. I hope it's good for everybody.

That's great, Frank.

On a side note, Frank, thank you. A small private project is underway. I met with Tim Smith and Howard this morning, and we're going to pour our little foundation on Thursday morning.

Great.

And we'll put up a little bit. We're going to do rope fencing and posts, and then we'll do the big shebang and announce to everyone. So thank you for your participation.

No, it's great. It'll be a nice little addition to the park.

Yeah. So that's all.

All right.

Thank you so much, Frank. That covers, I would say, staff and commission liaison updates. Does anybody want to contribute anything else to the meeting? If not, I'm going to move forward with public comments and then adjourn the meeting.

I have no comment personally.

Okay. Next month, we have recess. So we will be seeing each other on September 23rd, 2025. Okay. If there's nothing else, I would motion to adjourn meeting.

Okay, everyone, stay cool.

I second the motion.

Sorry, what was that?

I was just saying I second the motion.

Thank you.

All right, everyone. All in favor, aye.

6.49 p.m. Thank you, everyone.

Stay cool. See you all in September.

Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Thank you.