Financial Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress

Marco says he's joining us, so let's give him a couple of minutes for him to join us. Don't mind. Lawrence, if you want to go ahead and start the meeting and Marco will join us in the middle of it. Don't know why you're muted, Lawrence, but I can't hear you.

Hello, everyone.

Richard. Hey, Marco. How are you doing?

Hey, Marco.

Lars, I see your lips moving, but I still can't hear you.

Yeah, we can see you, but we can't hear you. On the bottom, there's usually a tab that says audio. That's where your mute button is.

You removed the microphone from being red, but I still can't hear you.

Better now? Yeah.

Oh, there you go. There you go.

Many microphone options on this laptop. All right. Good. All right. So I'm calling to order the North Bay Village Financial Advisory Board meeting to order. It's Tuesday, July 14 at 6.34 p.m. We'll do a roll call. Marco Zuniga.

Present.

Thank you. Elizabeth Avalo.

Here.

Thank you. Siddharth Rishimekta.

I'm here.

Thank you. William Prendergast. Here. Remind me, Commissioner, the liations, are they supposed to be part of the roll call?

No, just the five members of you.

Okay. All right. So we do have a quorum and I see that we have our liaison commissioner Richard Cervone on. We have our CFO Sandra Zivken on and city manager Frank Rollison. Okay.

If you give me one second now before we continue, I want to introduce all of you to our new CFO, our old CFO and our in-between CFO, Sandra Zivken, who just joined the village back as CFO. And there she is.

Thank you. Welcome, Sandra. Well, welcome back. Welcome, welcome.

Thank you. Thank you. So happy to be back in the role. Looking forward to working with all of you and with everybody at North Bay Village. Same. Happy to be back. Great.

Happy to have you. Thank you. And good luck in your new role with the city. Thank you. All right, so next point on our agenda, approval of meeting minutes from June 9th, 2026. I'll make a motion to approve these minutes.

Anyone? Second it.

Liz, did you second? Yes. Thank you. Everyone in favor, say aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye.

say no or pose motion passes meeting minutes are approved 3a old business status update on the community center project I know it's up and running are we keeping this agenda item question mark I'm happy to hear any updates but just

Well, the community center per se is built. It is not open yet, officially. Officially, we had the grand opening, but it really hasn't been open. We're in the process of approving in the budget the employees that we need to run the actual facility. Our partners have gone ahead and have presented us a contract with a company that's going to be running the cafe that we need to approve on the 28th at our meeting. So they had a function there. I don't know how many of you went to it, whereby there was a Padel tournament. And the first day was just an... An introduction of the cafe. The second day was the youngsters playing Fidel. The third day are the, as they call them, the Legionnaires, which is the former Alpha players playing Fidel. And the last day was just a little private luncheon that was held. And a bus picked them up and took them to the Argentina game at Hard Rock, which, thank God, Argentina won. Honestly, I did not go to any of the four days. But they had full range of the facility. They were playing what I call foosball or whatever. Some people call it table hockey. There was some ping pong being played. The courts were being used. The cafe was being used. Since then, basically, we're just putting all our furniture in place. We're looking forward to opening it up to the public as soon as we have been everything ready and ready to go. But basically, there's still some supplies that are missing that are forthcoming. Lily, Christina, and Shanika are three employees that are right now running the place. They have to hire the part-time employees that are going to be running it. I believe that the after-school, not the after-school program, the summer program, actually, is going to take place or is taking place at TISE instead of our facility, because we don't have it. We're in the process of certifying it for them to be able to use it, and we don't have it equipped for them. The next function that we're hoping that will take place there, I believe it's on the 22nd of July, it's on Facebook, is the book back giveaway to the students of TISE. We have gotten Books for You Miami and the PAL to join forces. They have donated 500 book bags and supplies to go inside the book bags. So I will say most students, because there's approximately 600 students at TIES right now, will be getting new book bags and supplies to start the year off right. That takes place tomorrow. I believe it's the 22nd of July from 5 to 8 at the community center. You must register, and there's a registration link on the website for them to be able to get the book bags. I don't know if Frank has anything else to add to the... No, I think that's a pretty good summary.

When we talk about the cafe area, the cafe proper is not installed yet. As the commissioner was saying, the commission needs to approve the operator that PFL has selected, which I don't think there'll be any issue. They have a pretty good resume. And then they have to go through the process of the installation of all their equipment and so forth and their licensing and permitting. And we also have to had the lease agreement arranged and approved by the commission, which I'm hopeful we can get that done at the September meeting since we don't have a meeting in August. And that'll still be in time for them to be, you know, getting the kitchen area set up. But it's moving along pretty good and it looks very nice.

Do we have or is there kind of a understanding or target for when the staff would be hired and regular programming to start and the cafes up and running? Is that like looking at September, October or something like that?

No, no, no. I think that hopefully sometime by mid August, we're going to be up and going. We've got a temporary certificate of occupancy now. There are a few issues with the fire department that still have to be resolved. They're minor in nature, but it requires some adjustments that the contractor has to do. And that is the only real issue that's holding up the permanent certificate of occupancy. And what we're trying to avoid is to go in there on a temporary CO and then have to close because the fire department won't extend it. So we're in that right now, and it looks like everything is going to fall into place. So that's where we're at.

Okay. Good. So that's going to be pretty soon then. Perfect. Thank you. Tim, any other questions for Commissioner or Frank on this? No.

Nope.

All right. Let's move. on to the status of the Village Hall project.

The Village Hall project. Bids have gone out, the five finalists. Hopefully they're on the way back into us. There is a meeting, I believe it's for August. I mean for, yeah, for August or July. For August 4th to open up the bids and for them to be reviewed. I believe, Lars, you were offered a position on that, and you cannot take it because you're going to be traveling, and Bill has gracefully accepted, so I thank you for that, Bill. Of course. It's a long and tedious task of looking out at the five proposals and grading them. There is a group of individuals, I'm not sure if it's going to be three or five, I think it's going to be five, that are going to be doing this job. They're going to be rating... all five candidates, one through five. And then they will come to the September meeting in front of the commission where we will hear, I don't know if it's the top three, the top five. That's for a call for administration to make. They haven't, I don't think they've made it yet. I think they're going to make it after that meeting of August 4th. And we will then choose the We, meaning the commission, will choose the final person for whom we're hoping the manager will be able to sign a contract with based on cost, project experience, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Any one of the five that have been chosen to be the finalists can do the job and are good at doing the job. That's why they're the top five finalists. Other than that, we are breaking ground before the month of August is over. Chen is coming in and using their little tractor to move some dirt around. Because if we don't break ground by the end of August, we do not have the seven and a half million dollars of the fire department. So we're going to be breaking ground by August, even though that's not the official groundbreaking or maybe the official groundbreaking. I still haven't heard when we're doing it. But you will all be notified of when the groundbreaking is in case you want to join us for the official groundbreaking of City Hall. Great. Frank, you want to fill in any more information?

Oh, I think that sums it up pretty well.

And we haven't met in two weeks.

No, that's true. That's true. But it's coming up. We'll be there. The one pending issue that is kind of the sticky wicket that we're working on is we need to get the Bayshore Yacht and Tennis Club moving their cars off the parking lot. And that is being pursued. And we're trying to expedite their permit. for the work on the tennis court converting it to a parking lot. They seem to have run into a glitch with the county on access onto the public roads from their parking lot. And I don't know where that is headed at the moment, but there's some kind of a problem there, or an issue anyway. I won't say it's a problem. But we're trying to expedite at our end so they can get their permits so they can get going. But regardless of how that falls, they have been put on notice and know the cars have to be out of there no later than August 31st. So we'll see how that goes. But other than that, it's going pretty smoothly. We think we're on a good track to get this thing off the ground.

Frank, I know that a few meetings ago, you were discussing that part or parts of the funding for this project. You were still looking into some of those details, but you were optimistic that all that would be resolved.

Good on that note, I can tell you that we are off the top of my head and Sandra has not gotten to that portion yet. So I'll excuse her from this one. We're about $10 million short still. Okay. I'm not going to say now, but there is somebody that wants to meet with us or potentially 7909-7911. East Harbor Drive. They're looking at buying TDRs and potential height. There is also something that came out on Instagram recently about the two older buildings across from Vogel Park. I don't know the exact number on West Drive. They have been purchased. They closed. they're looking at also getting TDRs and getting some high bonuses. The average in TDRs for that size lots is approximately two and a half million dollars for TDRs. So between the two of them, I imagine it's gonna be about $5 million. And then we have the high bonus which the commission is now discussing a potential well we're talking about increasing it but we have reached a stumbling block as to how high we're going to reach the high bonus i think we're good i think we will get our 10 million dollars from those two projects if not there's a and a couple other potential projects that are being talked about that I'm looking at and discussing with developers, except I've been muted in the sense that I don't know prices yet. We have advised the people that want to meet with us from 7909 and 7911 that TDRs more than likely, and I say more than likely because I cannot discuss this with my board yet, are going to go up from the $150,000 more than likely to the $200,000 level. Reason being, once we sell off these 48, 47 that we have left, that's it, we have no more TDRs. So since they're becoming scarce, they have to go up in value. And we need money, so they have to go up in value. There is one proposal that I have made for the Bonus Heights. which will bring in a good amount of money. And the mayor has requested, and I believe legal and planning are presenting something to the commission. I will not get that till the 21st when the agenda is put out as to what they are proposing. But it's supposed to be someplace in the middle between what I'm requesting and what the study showed, which is 10 times as much. I have a private entity that has also gone to the Perez Foundation at FIU and has requested their studies as to what is height bonuses really worth. And they have promised to have it for me before the commission meeting. So I need to study that one and see what the variations are. But I honestly feel comfortable that by the time we need these funds, because we don't need them the first day that we break ground. we will have the funds available.

Okay. Sounds good. I can add that we met today. I met with Heidi and Tony and Sylvia and Craig.

That's legal and planning.

Right. And to discuss the exact topic you're talking about, Tony's working on some figures. We had a pretty good discussion looking at various ways to The idea being is that to develop a process or a formula that we can accelerate as the values of the properties go up without having to come back every time to make a change. So we had a good discussion. It probably lasted about an hour, hour and a half or so, about different ideas. And so that is being discussed. I can tell you that, and they are looking to bring something to the commission on the 28th, because we want to, even if we have to bifurcate, is nail down the cost of those TDRs so we can go out with an RFP or get an unsolicited proposal and get something done on that. So that was good. And I can tell you on the money side that we've already have placed in a restricted account for the Village Hall project a little in excess of $30 million. So that money we're, you know, we definitely are beyond breaking ground stage with able to get the project going. So we have money funding in place, cash in place, and enough so that the $7.5 million that the county has to contribute. When we break ground, they have to forward to us another $2 million to get started for the fire station portion. And I've just got a few more documents I need to send to the county that they have requested. And at the last commission meeting, there was a resolution passed that the county wanted, even though I've moved the money and they see it in the bank account, they wanted to see authorization or direction from the commission to me to actually place that money in the account. So even though it's there, they wanted to see the elected officials directed me to put that money there. So that was done at the last commission meeting. And now I'm just putting the documents together to send to the lady in the county. And she said, once she gets that, she will give the authorization for us to be able to enter into a contract with whoever is selected by the committee. Because one of the stipulations in the development agreement with the county is we could not enter into an agreement until we satisfied the county that we had the funds in place to build the facility at the original estimated price of $45 million. And we've shown that we have that. And so once she gets that packet I sent her, we'll be free and clear to start actually building something. So it's looking good.

Great. Thank you. Any other questions for Frank or Commissioner Richard Schiavone on this topic?

And I want to thank Bill for... volunteering, man. You'll be a great addition to the group and it'll be interesting, I'm sure.

Yeah, I know. I appreciate it. I'm looking forward to it. That's stuff I do at work too. So hopefully I can add something.

It'll be great. And I like having a resident on the board and I like having somebody from the financial advisory board. I mean, that's a good credential to There will be a representative from fire, one of their high-level chiefs from the fire department, and then somebody is there. Of course, Steve will be there from building and a representative from the architect.

Thank you. Thank you.

You'll do good, Bill, there. You'll make us proud.

You said it first.

No, but it sounds like a good representation of different disciplines for that committee, for sure. Great. All right. If nothing else here, then we'll move ahead and look at the budget for Okay. Is that something we're going to put up on screen?

I'll try to tackle this one, and I will ask Frank and Sandra to cue in every once in a while.

Okay.

Basically, you were all presented with the first budget that we did. First budget that we did had a millage left at the 5.7062, which is the original millage from last year. Unfortunately, on June 26th, we received a communication, which I sent to all you guys, that was approved on June 24th by the Poverty Tax Oversight Informational Bulletin of the Congress, that they had rolled back the rates. So we had to pretty much go back and recalculate our rates. We have gone from a 5.7 starting point of 5.7062. So if I'm not mistaken, it's a 5.325 millage rate. That's our rollback rate for last year. That's the rate that we have to start with. And if we could keep the budget at that level, we only need three out of the five commissioners to vote for it. Unfortunately, we will not be able to keep it at that level. That's a very stripped down level to run the village. I believe that once it goes to 110% of that value, you can get it approved by four commissioners. And if it goes anything over that, you need unanimous vote of the commissioner.

Then came out the second book.

The second book basically shows an update and you have what we call the slides that were presented at the last meeting at the budget workshop. It goes department by department and the changes that were made. I don't know if you want to go page by page at this meeting or whatever. but basically we brought our millage rate close to a 5.9 with all the asks and wants. Then Sandra doing her work that she does extremely well, unfortunately, found that we have a variation in our utility funding. So we had to remove some of the funds that we were crediting to utilities out of all these sections. And we're being presented with a brand new budget on the 28th. She is still actually working on the actual budget per se. That's why we do not have a physical budget presentable to you today. Recently, we also received, or I received, I don't know how many of you received the Miami New Times, which showed a distribution of taxis levied by the taxing authority. It's a one-pagers diagram, very pretty. Making a parenthesis, when we had the groundbreaking for PFL, that they had the groundbreaking, I was invited to it. Frank was invited to it. And Tomas Regalado Sr., our property appraiser, was there as well. He clued us in then that he is already calculating that the ballot question will pass. So he is calculating the $150,000 homestead exemption, except for schools. That's why our values have decreased from a 5.4, whatever it was, to a 5.3.5. In this document, it shows that North Bay Village has property tax levied at $10.4 million. So we're going to lose 19.5% of our ad valorem taxes that we were expecting. That's 20%.

That's a big chunk.

That's about a million plus dollars. It sounds bad for us, but it sounds even worse for other cities. For instance, Biscayne Park, which has a millage of 9.7, is losing 49% of their ad valorem. They have no multifamily and they have no businesses. So it's ugly for everybody. This just came out this week. Unfortunately, we don't have the exact figures and conversations that we've been having. And for whatever reason, I've been having most of them, even though the mayor has been very involved with the budget this year. we are looking approximately of raising the millage to a six point something. Not a high six point something, but a six point something. Don't be scared when at the next meeting I propose a primary Avalor millage of 7.0. The reason I'm going to propose a 7.0 is Once proposed and once the figures go out to all homeowners, we cannot increase it. We can decrease it. So once we have an accurate budget figured out and we can see what we can carve out and what we must leave in it and we have an accurate number of millage, we will have two, not workshops, we will have two budget meetings. At those budget meetings, we can bring down the actual millage. And it will come down from the 7 point something. So don't be scared when I say 7.0, it's going down to 6 point something. Mind you, our millage has been at 5.7 area for the last eight years. We have rarely increased our millage and it's something that we have tried very hard to maintain the millage low. We just can't do it. It's impossible. Thinking of just the community center, hiring the staff to work the community center and being able to keep it open during What we consider normal hours is approximately $600,000. So how do we do all this stuff? We need to increase our millage. It's definitely going to be increased. I wish I could give you a better answer. At this point, I can try answering your questions. Sandra's here and frankly are here to help me answer your questions. If you want to go through page by page of the actual budget slide presentation by each department, what was added, what's been removed, you know, it's as mean and lean as we can. Can we cut a couple spots? Yeah, we can cut a couple spots. Is it worth it? No.

No, from my side, but I'll leave it for the other members to chime in here. I don't need to go through the slides one by one. And I guess that the one that was attached to the agenda is out of date because, Sandra, you're still working on a new version. So we really don't have an updated version that we would then be able to look at. but I do have one question. So I'm looking at the outdated version of the budget on page 23 that has the millage rate calculation. So if I understand it correctly, is that this calculation in this version was done prior to the, you know, notification of the impact on Homestead Levite tax. So when we look here at the potential increase in funds from a 6.3 millage rate, which would have given somewhere around 1.4 million, that was then based on the situation prior to any impact on homestead tax reduction. Do I understand it correctly?

There is two numbers there that have varied since. One is the property value of final property value appraisal that came out on July 1st was much lower than we expected because of the 150 calculation. Then we have tried to pare down the total expense of the village that would be paid from the ad valorem portion. So those two figures will change when she presents the new she. But Sandra, would you like to speak about them in the meantime?

Unmute yourself, please. Yes, I was trying to download the presentation. Yes. Unfortunately, we do have to increase the millage rate, and because of some allocation that was overstated in the utilities, we're going to have to reduce the allocation from the utilities department, and that is going to affect the general fund by about a million dollars. That's going to increase the millage a little bit more. And once we have, uh, those in those, that's just to keep the mail, the budget as this. Right now, like, without adding any, um. Any callers, any marriage, any new, we, we also had to. freeze a couple positions. That's the situation that we have right now. The sources of revenue are very low compared to our operating expenditures. The expenditures are growing, but our revenues are not growing in the same way. With all this new law with the extension, we're going to lose another million dollars, so next year it's going to be Also, we're facing a very hard year with the budget.

So next version of the budget, will that try and compensate for that one million loss because of the reduction of tax? Is that the plan?

Well, the extension is not going to affect us. The extension is going to be for next fiscal year. It's not going to affect us this year.

Okay.

So what affects us this year is the new law with the millage rate. The law is that they've removed the per capita right now. So the maximum millage rate, we had to start with a rollback rate this year. So in order for us, before you could adopt a millage rate of 5.7, which is our current millage rate with three votes, but now in order to be able to pass a three vote, you got to start with a rollback rate. So they are making it a lot more difficult for us to adopt a lower millage rate, basically. But if we lower our millage rate to what the rollback rate, we would be losing like a million dollars. And at this point, it's bare bones, the operating budget. So it would be it would be bodies. And right now, City Hall, you will go to City Hall and as it is, we are short staffed. So it'll be like from six to seven more positions that we would have to cut if we were to adopt a rollback rate or more.

Okay, understood. Thank you. Bill, I saw you, I think you had a question too.

No, no, actually she already answered it, but thank you.

Basically, also, the commission, I believe, is going to be discussing the question that's coming in the ballot in November. We held off any discussion until our governor – I love calling him our governator – decided to veto our $750,000 from City Hall. Well, basically until he signed the budget. We were trying to appease him by not saying we're pro or we're against your motion. But he has even come out against the actual ballot question because that's not the ballot question that he asked for or he wanted. He has said he will not campaign for it, but he has not said that he's going to oppose it either. The sentiments that I feel, because we have not discussed this, but by seeing the reactions or the actions of my fellow commission members, is that we're going to oppose this ballot question very strongly. And we are not allowed to advertise against it. We're not allowed to lobby against it. There's a lot of not alloweds. that they prohibit us from doing, but we can talk. We can speak to residents, like I'm speaking to you right now to the board. If I get all five of you to agree with me in saying we will oppose it, and I will give you grounds for it once the commission has spoken, and you agree with it, if I tell five and those five tell five, that's already 25. There's only 2,500, 3,000 voters in North Bay Village. There's not that many. Each board is going to be spoken to. And we hope that we'll be able to do enough word of mouth campaigning to help us defeat this 150. I mean, I'd love the $150,000. Me personally would love it. But I have to be fair that it would really hurt the village. And that's not the reason why this job is to benefit myself, but to benefit the village.

So when is the next budget workshop for the Commission?

At the meeting of the 28th. Okay.

So that's when we can then see the revised budget?

Yes. That's when we must come up also with the millage amounts that will come out on the trim notice that you receive at home. But it says these may vary. I guarantee you they will vary by the time the real millage passes because I'm going with a high millage to cover the city's butt. but we don't know exactly where we stand. But at time of the public meetings, I'm going to be shooting to bring it down as low as we can. And my only intention, by the way, and I'm being as transparent as I can be, the only one of the options that I'm looking at is the 3% COLA. across the board to all employees. They did not get any merit. They did not get any merit or COLA last year. Most employees, those who were under utility did, or those that were under contract did. We have frozen all those expenses for this year. For everybody, there's no longevity, there's no merits. Only a 3% COLA across the board. which in accordance to a figure that our new CFO gave us roughly is on one of your pages, comes out to $294,000, which is an impact of 0.1728 mils, I believe. The figures she had last calculated, she has to figure all this out based on the new millage rates and all this good stuff. The only other thing that I am asking for are the four holiday, it's not really holidays, the four programs that we do, which is a winter holiday, a spring fling, a 4th of July, and a Halloween. We have funded at zero. I believe that I funded it as a mass group of $20,000. I propose a mass funding of $20,000 and allow the person that programs this to split it up however they see fit. There's some programs that we can cheapen and some programs that we need to go up a little bit more on so they don't want to save $5,000 for each project. We were giving them $9,000 this year.

basically i cut that one in half that's the only thing i'm proposing okay so i know there is a immediate or short-term impact now on the budget and also for next fiscal year if i understand it correctly correctly Sandra this reduction in tax on the homestead portion that that would impact next fiscal year and I also see that as you said Richard that the portion that North Bay Village has on homestead is 19 percent or something so and i know there's no exact answer to this it's just me throwing it out throwing it out there for discussion and your thoughts knowing that we will have more residents coming into the city with the new developments over the next few years do you think that that ratio will remain around 19%, or would it actually go down because there might be a lot of snowbirds buying properties here that are not home? So have you thought about that?

My personal view. This is my personal view now, not commission or anything else. This is Richard Trevone speaking. Twofold. Number one, if, and there's an if, we must approve our budget October 1st. The ballot question is going in November 3rd. So I don't have a crystal ball to tell you, yes, it will pass. Hopefully it doesn't pass. That's the end of it. We can take a deep breath. That's number one. Number two, if the new bill goes into effect, it's for properties that are worth less than $500,000 that I know of. I have not seen one property going up that's less than $500,000, so they're all going to have to pay taxes. Number two, they must be residents of North Bay, actually the state of Florida, and that's in court right now, by the way. They must be residents of the state of Florida for five years. if they're buying into these apartments as their second, third or fourth home, if they don't have homestead, they have to wait five years before they can apply for their reduction. So at least for a couple of years, yes, we will benefit from the sales of all these units. Once the buildings are built, right now we have

Shoma and Continuum.

Tula is having their topping off party this week, Friday. So they're also going to finish their building. That's three buildings that will be finished. While Tula supposedly will be finished early next year, the other two will take about another year, year and a half to be finished. Then residents have to move in and you wait a whole year, unfortunately, before they're taxed. So you're not looking to tax these new buildings for at least three to four years. I don't want to misguide you by saying, hey, we're getting all these buildings and we're going to... in about 10 years worth of time, yes, all these buildings will be built. You will be getting taxes on all these buildings and we will be doing very, very well as far as our taxes and the monies that are going in because they're not going to primary residences. They're going to second or third homes. This is why I'm not that worried when people say, well, everything is going into Harbor Island. There's going to be, haphazard traffic. There's a one way in, one way out. Yes, it's true. But these are snowbirds or summer birds or whatever you want to call them because they're from the other side of the equator. They're in opposite zones. So they're not coming here necessarily in the winter. They're coming here in the summer. You know, so it all varies a lot. Pagani is mainly being sold to Latin America. Shoma is being sold to basically to, I hate to use the word Arabs, but Dubai, Qatar, whatever, those are the main buyers. I mean, there's locals as well, don't get me wrong. And Continuum is mainly Turkish. I can tell you Urbanica is an Argentine developer. The new one in West Drive is also an Argentine developer. They're all trying to see how Argentina happens to be a very rich country. And they have a new law where they cannot take the dollars out of the country. That's if those dollars are in an Argentine bank. But if those dollars are in an international bank, as a J.P. Morgan or whatever, whatever, whatever, monies can fall out of the country. And that's how money's coming out. They're doing pre-sales. So short term, I don't see a solution only defeating the homestead. Long term, absolutely we will be flourishing. I don't know if Frank or Sandra wanted to jump on that question.

Yeah, I think you have pretty well summarized the longer term. When we talk about the cash flow, you know, a lot depends what's happening three or four years from now. A lot of stuff going on now internationally, as you all are, I'm sure, are attuned to. is certainly not a good sign for the immediate future. These things can deteriorate rapidly on an international stage if it's not somehow brought under control, hopefully quicker than is happening now. And that'll trickle down certainly to all of us. But if things go well, and these projects continue, and we have every indication they are, and others are coming online, we should be able to generate the money to number one, lower the millage, and number two, attack the couple of elephants in the room, one being the infrastructure in the village has to be redone. It's shot. So we're continually patching leaks, We're continually just staying ahead of Durham with going into another moratorium with the amount of sewage that leaks out of the pipes. And we attack those as we are alerted to the problems and we're lining pipes and replacing minimal amounts because the danger of really digging into that stuff is you might not be able to stop. So we're repairing this on an as-need basis. But we all recognize it's going to have to be replaced. And a huge infrastructure project over many years for the village will have to be funded. And these buildings providing the tax base that they will, will certainly help us make that happen. As these buildings come online, the services that the village has to provide is only going to increase. We talk about police or code enforcement or public works. The discussion of privatizing the solid waste is that I can tell you as a manager, there's no way we're going to be able to keep up with the demand that's going to be with our small force of a couple of garbage trucks and very few employees and some part-time employees that come in. The whole seen is going to change with servicing these large high rise buildings. So we have a lot to address going forward long term, but we need to start planning for that now. And we're doing that. I mean, we're looking years ahead. Next year, I think, is going to be another tough year, especially if this item passes and another $100,000 comes off the accessible property tax, you know, accessible property amount is going to be another hit. And then whatever other expenses, because everything is only going up. Right now, we're going to open up the community center with a modicum of programs and very limited with what we can do money-wise. But we anticipate the demand for Programs and activities at the community center are only going to increase. The public is going to demand that. They have a community center and they want activities taking place there. So that's another area that the elected officials especially are going to have to address because the pressure is going to come to them that they want things happening on the weekends and later hours in the evening at the community center. So a lot of challenges ahead of us, but I think long term, the village has a very bright future ahead of it. And like I say, it's challenging, but there's definitely a good forward picture facing us, but it's a few years to come.

Frank, I had a quick question, or it really is open to anybody. With all the improvements that we're going to need with all the new buildings, you guys said you're working on a plan. I'm just wondering, has there ever been a study done on exactly what we will need as infrastructure, specifically for like domestic water and sewer, and then also what the county specifically is going to require from us?

Well, it's interesting you ask that because the commissioner approved just a couple of meetings ago An intense evaluation is underway now by Ardura, which is a big engineering firm, and they are evaluating our water sewer. We've already had a stormwater study, and we've got programs going with that. But the water and sewer is critical because as we start to break ground in these other projects, we don't want to have to be breaking ground twice and do a stormwater project and then come back along and say, now we're going to dig it up again and we're going to do a sewer or water project. So we are doing that hand in hand so that we have a program or at least the knowledge of where are the worst spots, where are the places that we have to address first. And so we are looking at that.

Yeah.

I was going to say, because I know the county won't be able to issue permits for a lot of these big buildings if we don't have capacity. I don't know if we do.

We do have the capacity right now. Right. This is something that gets presented to the county immediately once a building permits, a building submits their plans to us. They must have capacity for stormwater, I mean, for water, sewer, and school. All those three. So those are covered.

Get an allocation letter from us for the water and an allocation letter for the sewer.

We have spoken, and by we, I mean Frank and I have spoken about this 2012, 2014, 2016, when we were together in the past. There was one developer. that was willing to create a new sewer line underwater, outside of the perimeter of the actual village, that would capture the sewer going out into Miami-Dade County at his cost, and whoever tapped into it, the new buildings that were tapping into it, would be paying a portion of the cost. More than likely, that's going to be the route that we need to go for sewer. Water, thankfully, the route coming in was funded by the office of then our state representative, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. We have a new line coming into the Village of Water, a main line, not the laterals. We're going to have to replace some of those laterals. Basically, it's... lobbying, strong lobbying, trying to get somebody else to help us pay. But the good news is all these new buildings have to replace their piping underneath their buildings. It's not the city's responsibility. It's their responsibility. So it's whether they connect to us or responsibility of the public roads.

Yeah, I was just wondering, this is kind of what I touched on last time too, but is this leading up to what I had mentioned was if we had some sort of a development fund in place now where we could start capturing that from any of the new buildings. Like I said, in my business, they hit us with that all the time. Anytime we're trying to develop something, you just have no other option. The city makes you do it, and then that's how they fund all their infrastructure.

We have chosen, instead of doing that type of development fund, we have chosen to do community contribution fees. They must pay, of course, a portion towards the police and a portion towards the sewer and a portion towards the stormwater. A very small portion. I'm not talking about big bucks. The big bucks have gone towards the community center and to the city hall.

Right. Which I had forgotten about that, to be honest. I forgot you guys did. You put most of the money towards that. I'm just thinking long term, too, with some of the newer buildings who haven't pulled permits and some of the ones that we know are coming. I don't know if it's too late for or sorry. I don't know if that would be too late for some of the immediate projects. But I'm always pushing for the, sitting on the other side of the table for once, I'm always pushing for how do we stick it to the developers to put the bill? Because like you said, they'll usually do it.

Well, it's true. And as we take care of the balance of the funding necessary for Village Hall, with the newer projects coming on and with the development agreements, we can push some of that money more towards infrastructure and impact fees on water and sewer. And we've had some of that already come in for lines that have to be done, but it has not been the major emphasis.

But also, in, again, the years 12, 14, and 16, I mean, both Frank and I are the old timers that have been here with prior administrations. What we did was we scared away the developers. Yeah. When you try to tax them too much, and this is the problem I'm having with the bonus height, if I increase those bonus heights to levels like they wanted to with a lot of 10 times as much as what they were paying, he falls. He goes home. He'll flip it. He'll flip the property. Yeah. And that's what I don't want. I don't want these empty lots. First of all, they don't belong to the village. They're empty lots. I don't want them staying empty. I want them built. So we have to work with developers. We have to give some bonuses. We have to give some perks at first. For the first year, they started early. That's over. So now they're paying the full price and we're looking at to raise it to a decent level. Actually, I'd love to have a discussion with you, Bill, since you have some experience on this, as to hype bonuses. What is a realistic hype bonus charge?

That would be, unfortunately, a little outside of my norm because the development that I do are shopping centers. So they're almost never more than one story. But I can certainly know I work with people that do. If you guys have more pointed questions, I've got a lot of resources. I could certainly find out some of the information.

Another thing that is an important element, as Commissioner Schiavone hit on it, the people that are looking at 09 and 11 on West Drive, the attorney that contacted me and discussed bringing these people into town to meet with me and Commissioner Schiavone, one of their primary questions was, what does a village do to assist the developers in actually the construction of their properties. Are we a partner? Are we a stumbling block? What's our position? And our position is that we're here to help and it's a partnership. So whereas before I came back, the properties were allowed to build and they could started 8 in the morning, had to stop at 5. So they couldn't open the gates to get in until 8 o'clock, and they had to shut down at 5 o'clock. So, and they couldn't work on Saturdays, and they couldn't have early pours, and there were a lot of rules that really slowed things down. And we have changed that with the support of the commission. And I now have set up what we've done in the development agreements. They have access to the properties from dawn to dusk. They can start actually making noise during the week at 8 o'clock and stop making noise at 5. But they can stay on those properties and prepare for the next day and start up, which saves them a tremendous amount of time.

That's great.

Then to have a six-day week instead of a five-day week is a tremendous advantage, especially when they're talking about doing these multiple slab pours. To have that extra day in a six-day cycle than a five-day cycle makes a big difference. We're showing them, listen, when you need the help, we're here to help the way to... Get these things going.

And I'm sure you've seen on Facebook the complaints from the residents that were, of course, taking place at 5 o'clock in the morning.

Yeah.

It's realistic. If you're doing one of these massive buildings and you need to pour a floor in one day, you need to start early.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's always a very delicate balancing act. I totally appreciate that.

It is. But those slab pourers cannot have a cold joint. They have to be all in one piece. And so like a continuum, they have worked theirs out where they start at 7 in the morning now that they're going on the upper floors. Whereas when they were doing the mats and some of the foundations, they were staging at 3 o'clock in the morning. with the trucks and having to pour all day long. You know, 100-yard pours. I mean, you know, it's just a huge amount. And they've had one day over here was they poured like 3,000 yards. 3,000 yards. How many hundreds of trucks that is just circling and circling and circling and dropping that concrete. So we partner with them and it is annoying to the people. There's no doubt about it. But the quicker we get them in and get them out, the quicker it's going to be better. And another hour or two of being aggravated is really, you know, especially now they can look and see out their windows now. Actual buildings are going up. And so they're excited about it, too.

Yeah, I agree. That's great. That's definitely the best response is, look, we want to get this done as quick as possible. So let us get in there, bang it out and keep moving.

All right. So I think we discussed Everything we wanted to discuss around the budget then, unless there's any other questions from the team. And we'll just see the next round of the budget presentation coming out then prior to the commission meeting or at the commission meeting. I see here, we have new business for a to talk about the three tiered recycling program with David.

David Dobler, I don't see him on. I don't know if he was invited to this meeting. Now, if I would have seen this, I would make sure that he was here. David Dobler is the vice chair of the sustainability and resiliency force. David Dobler is a water warrior. He and his spouse, all they do is go in the water to pick up trash. He came up with an idea that he presented to the commission, and obviously he wanted to present it here, I guess, which has to do with pay as you go for calling it such. We don't know how it's gonna be incorporated into buildings. He was gonna have to look into it and come back to the commission and discuss it further, which means if you don't produce that much trash and you only have a smaller container picking up one day a week instead of two days a week, you pay less. If you have the full size and you create that much trash, you're a large family, you're stuck paying the full bill. But it's like electric. You use more electric, you pay a higher bill. You use less electric, you pay a smaller bill. But he was also including the three tiers is recycling, same thing for recycling, and composting. He lost me at composting. I know nothing about composting. So I would have to start by learning about composting to see if that's something I'd be interested in. But it's a combination of the three, lowering or having a fee for the amount of trash you throw out, the amount of recycling you throw out, and composting. That's the three-tier approach. That's in a very brief, generic way. I would rather have him. If you want to hear him, I'll invite him at the next meeting to come and make his spiel. But I believe that he wanted action from the commission at this time, and the commission was not willing to take action. We're willing to take action on privatizing things, or garbage that we need to do, but not so much as to right now. It's an idea to look into, but that means the village would have to have three or four different contracts depending on the amount of trash you want to create and the amount of recycling you want to create. and the person that's picking it up has to know, no, I'll skip this house, only pick up there on Tuesdays once a week. Now I'm only allowed to pick up three bags. It becomes a little bit confusing for a city our size. That's where I saw the downfall of this one, but it's something to be looked into. I don't want to say it's not worth it. It is worth it, but it has to be studied a little bit better, I think.

I think I saw it. I don't know if there was an email coming out on it or if it was amongst the commission.

It was at the commission meeting.

Okay, yeah, that's where I saw it. I think it's very interesting. Personally, I think that we are around 10 to 15 years behind other countries. For example, in Sweden, where I come from, we've had three or four bins for over 10 years. One for recycling, one for landfill, one for compost, one for glasses, one for... So yeah, I'm just throwing it out there. We're way behind. So I think this is really interesting. That's my opinion. Richard, you look surprised.

But the question is, do you want me to invite him for the next meeting?

Yeah, I would really like to talk about this.

Okay, I will make an appointment.

Yeah, I agree too. I'm certainly not from Sweden or from Europe, but anyone who's ever been to Europe, even just once, you go and you see all those circular little silo bins and the ones out in front. Obviously, they're doing something that is working for them. There's no reason why we shouldn't be looking at it too.

It's possible. It's just… support system behind it that is the issue i think the front side of it is easy but the support system and that we don't have that and that that's the tricky part with these programs i will make sure he's here at the next meeting then awesome the only thing is i will ask he will ask for a time certain you know begin at such time so we may break up the meeting to acquiesce to his time certain because he has other activities we can accommodate that to put it in the beginning or whatever whatever works for him good thank you uh last one we have is discussion on the state's proposal for property tax but i think we've kind of beat that one to death already i hope we beat it to death oh yeah it got beat it got beat all right Okay, any other updates from either Richard, Frank, or Sandra? That's our last point here.

I think we pretty well covered it all. At the next meeting, I would like to hear from Sandra. No, I was going to say Bill, because he's going to be on the But I'm trying to see when our meeting is next month. Before the commission meeting, I may not be able to do it.

Is it the meeting of the 4th?

Oh, no. Actually, your meeting is on the 4th of August. My meeting is on the 15th of September. We have no meetings in August.

I'm the only commissioner that's here present. There's no sunshine law violation.

If you speak to us about your experience or why you chose who you chose, whatever you want to speak about your voting. I don't think that would be a violation.

If I wanted to, next meeting?

Is that what you said? Yeah, the next meeting.

Yeah, that's fine. I have to admit, I replied all at one point, like a month ago with this, and then I realized that my wife, who's a lawyer, said, are you allowed to do that exactly? And I was like, she goes, do you know about the Sunshine Law? And I went, nope. So I realized I had to do a little bit of learning on exactly what I am and I'm not allowed to do.

Well, aside from the Sunshine Law, we're under a cone of silence while this bit is out. So I'm not sure exactly.

But the bid will have been open. I need to speak with legal.

It's up to when the bid is awarded.

I need to speak with legal to see if I'm allowed to do it.

Yeah.

So I may not let you do it at the next meeting. Just be forewarned. The legal says I can't do it. But basically, Sunshine was very simple. You as members are not allowed to speak amongst yourselves about any subject that you're going to vote on. That's the biggest violation there is. You conversing with one another. I don't foresee it happening.

I don't think we speak to each other at all. Except in these meetings.

Well, I'd love to have an in-person meeting at some point. Just wanted to throw that one out there too. Be nice to see everybody in person instead of just like this all the time.

Along those lines, in September... The Sustainability Board wants to meet its new community center. And we could do the same thing in September, if you all would like, is have a meeting at the community center. We should, by that time, have our regular CO, knock on wood. And we can have a virtual and a hybrid where it's virtual for people to tune in. And you all can be there together and be in the facility and have a meeting together. That'd be great. I'd love it. That'd be great.

Yeah. So we're having another pizza party in September? Let's do it. I'm down.

Me too. All right. So, Commissioner, if you put that on your report that goes to ALBA, and I'll mention it to her too, but I think it'd be a good idea for all the boards to have a chance of having a together meeting at that facility and go through it and and use the facility. That's what we have it there for, for community activities. And this is certainly a legitimate use of that facility.

So that would be for the September 8th meeting.

So there's nothing in August?

Well, the commission is up in August. If you'd like to have a meeting, we can have a meeting. I'm

No, because I mean, I'm doing, you know, we're kind of new, so we didn't know.

The only thing that I would suggest discussing in August is we will have discussed on June 28th a budget proposal. And it's, I'm not sure exactly what the dates are for the September budget meetings.

Well, the budget hearing, the first one is at the actual commission meeting, which I'm thinking is around the 15th.

September 15th, yeah.

So the first hearing will be at the 15th, and Sandra, have we set the second one yet?

We are proposing the second hearing to be on September 28th.

And we have to skirt around, you know, the county and the school board.

It's fine. No, no, no, it's clear.

So basically, we can either have a meeting in August and discuss a little bit more at length what the proposed budget is. That's true. Or you can wait until the September 8th meeting, but that's right before the first hearing. That's up to you guys. If you want to take the month of August off.

I'm fine taking a month off.

I could go either way, to be honest. So, whatever the group decides. I'm easy with both.

I'm also okay with a recess for August. So, we can...

Both work for me as well. So you're taking August off?

Yep.

August off for the FAB. Pizza party September 8th at the Community Center. And make sure Dave Dobler, if he wants to be at that meeting, he can show up at the meeting. That'd be great, too.

All right. Great. Anything else? No? Okay. Thank you, everyone. Motion to adjourn.

Seconded.

Thank you. Meeting adjourned. Thank you, everyone. Thanks, everybody.

Take care.