City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. The mayor has called the meeting to order. Mayor Roscoe? Present. Council Member Bracken? Council Member Kaplan?

Here.

Council Member Lunden is not with us at the moment. Vice Mayor Sardinius? Here. Council Member Stoner? Here. Council Member Vasquez?

Here.

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

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

We have an invocation this evening from Reverend Felipe Assis, Crossbridge Church, Key Biscayne, via Zoom.

Good evening, Mayor Roscoe and dear council members. I want to open this invocation by sharing with you a passage from the letter written by the Apostle Paul to his apprentice Timothy. This passage is found in 1 Timothy 2, verses 1, 2, and 3. These are the words of Scripture. I urge then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for all people, for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. For this is good and pleases our God and Savior. And it's because of this biblical commandment that I join you in prayer. So will you pray with me? Heavenly Father, we come before you today with gratitude for the opportunity to gather in the service of this community. We recognize that every good gift comes from you and that the privilege of self-government carries both responsibility and trust. So today we pray for the members of this council, for the city staff, for the first responders, educators, community leaders, and all those entrusted with serving the public. Grant them the wisdom to make sound decisions, courage to do what is right, and humility to listen well, and integrity to lead faithfully. Lord Jesus, help these leaders to seek the common good above their own personal interests. Give them clarity in moments of complexity, patience in times of disagreement, and compassion for the people whose lives are affected by their decision. May their work promote justice, safety, opportunity, and the flourishing of every resident in Key Biscayne. We also pray for the city of Key Biscayne. We pray that you would strengthen our neighborhoods, that you would bless our families, that you would protect our children, and that you would care for those who are struggling, lowly, or in need this very moment. Help us to be a people marked by mutual respect, civic responsibility, and a shared commitment to the well-being of one another. As this meeting begins, we pray that every discussion would be guided by wisdom and every decision be shaped by discernment and every action reflect a sincere desire to serve. We ask these things with gratitude and humility in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen.

Thank you, Reverend. That was Reverend Philippe Assis from Crossbridge Church in Key Biscayne.

Next item, Mr. Mayor, brief comments by council.

We can talk later.

I have some comments and announcements. Go ahead. I would first like to thank Paddle PADL, and in particular, their proprietors, Andres Avello, Kaleo Corey, and Felipe Jauregui, three born and bred key rats, who answered the call when the disability board and Todd requested their help. In true Key Biscayne fashion, they agreed to help our community by storing the new beach wheelchair at their paddle site at the beach park. And they're going one step further To facilitate the ease of access to the wheelchair. They are devising a locking system So that the people who would like to use the chair can just go there have a remote method to unlock it and get right out enjoy the beach and I just am so proud of these three young men who are products of our wonderful community I Also would like to thank Chief Joe Fernandez and Deputy Chief Dan Feeney, who were immediately supportive in response to the Disability Board's request to have a viewing space at the fire station for residents with special needs for the Fourth of July fireworks. There are a lot of events that we all enjoy that some others have a little more challenge to take up. And our fire department recognizes that and immediately said, yes, how can we help you? And they've done everything they could. So we really appreciate their empathy and their kindness. And lastly, I just want to let you know that on the 4th of July, guests with autism and sensory-related needs can enjoy fireworks at an event that the Disability Advisory Board will be hosting staffed by the STARS program, which runs the Beacon of Hope camps here. And there will be a float in the parade that the disability board will be on to raise awareness of their organization. So thank you everybody.

That's great news. Thank you. Councilwoman?

Next item is public comments.

Okay. I'm starting with Ed Stone.

Good evening. My name's Edward Stone, a longtime resident of Key Biscayne, 355 Harbor Lane. Good evening. I'm here to discuss a series of ongoing permitting, inspection, enforcement, and administrative process concerns associated with pre-construction near our home. Over the past nine months, I've worked in good faith with the village's permitting, inspection, enforcement, and public records process. in an effort to resolve ongoing administrative concerns. My concern at this point is not simply private disagreement between neighbors. My concern is consistency, transparency, and accountability of the administrative process itself. Over time, there have been shifting determinations, revised reviews, unresolved code enforcement questions, delayed public record responses, missing special magistrate postings, and conflicting explanations regarding enforcement and permitting activities. Approximately four weeks ago, I provided the mayor and council, along with the village manager, a summary packet outlining a number of administrative process concerns with specific examples. To date, even after a follow-up email, I have not received any acknowledgement providing whether those materials were reviewed or received. I no longer believe these concerns are limited to a single individual. Similar concerns regarding communication, consistency, responsiveness, and confidence in administrative decision making have been raised by residents, and it affects the public trust in the process. I'm also concerned about the broader governance and transparency questions that can arise when overlapping professional relationships or administrative involvement creates the appearance of inconsistency. Public confidence depends not only on fair outcomes, but also on the confidence in the process used to reach them. I'm not asking the council to resolve a private civil dispute. I'm asking for transparency, procedural consistency, accountability, and confidence that the village's permitting, inspection, enforcement, and public record process are administered fairly and consistently. I would welcome the opportunity to meet with the mayor or council to better understand how these administrative concerns can be reviewed and addressed. I truly thank you for your dedication, your service, and support to our island.

Thank you. Next speaker, Christine Biggers. CHRISTINE BIGGERS Hello.

My name is Christine Biggers, 526 Allendale Road, also Zone 1, better known as Zone 1. I have a couple of things I wanted to bring up tonight. The first is the issue with FPL. May 28, I got up to make coffee around 7.45, 7.50, put the pot in, flicker of electricity, so that had to reset everything, same process, no coffee. I'm not good without coffee, so I get in my golf cart, I drive down to the substation to see what the heck is going on, because someone told me that's where you go. And nobody was down there. So then coming back into the village, I noticed a lot of activity around Fernwood and Harbor. And lo and behold, three FPL trucks were sitting there, three guys outside, kind of raining, looking up at the pole. And I said, what's going on? Oh, a switch went out. I'm like, a switch? So what are we doing? Well, three hours later, I guess the switch got fixed. But my concern is that... I don't know. I mean, I don't know that they're necessarily picking on Keebus game, but it sure does feel like it. I have friends in Coral Gables, Pinecrest, Coconut Grove. No one seems to have these issues. So they also said to me that undergrounding isn't going to solve our problems, but I have to believe that it will to some extent. We won't have the trees hitting the lines. We won't have the rain pounding everything. So I just wanted to say that whatever we need to do to continue to move forward with this undergrounding, I know we have to involve Comcast and ATT, but the sooner we can do that, the better. So that's the first item. The second one is the council's approval of moving forward with the GIT company for our water resiliency project. As I mentioned, I'm in zone one, and I very often walk from the community center back to my house, and very often, like our school kids also, have to walk in six inches of water, and I think it's ridiculous. I think we need to move forward with this as quickly as we can. Okay, and then my last thing is, it's a little, it just happened, so I know our finance executive is probably working on this, But I'm very concerned about this amendment that will be up to the voters that DeSantis is pushing to increase our homestead exemptions. My main concern for this is because it will result in some sort of loss of funding for the village. I'm not so worried about saving $30 a month or whatever it's going to be to me, particularly. But I honestly believe that if we start nickel and diming people in the village for the services that we now so lovingly get, specifically around community center and also village maintenance. I mean, to me, you know, I'm retired and many of you know that I'm like a, Very often, is it my three minutes? Oh my God. Okay. Okay. So the only other thing I want to say, and this is the good news. I was walking. A lot of, you know, I walk a lot and I was, it had just rained a little bit. There was debris on the sidewalk. I almost fell on my butt. It was really dangerous. And I did a KB 311. The next day, our village maintenance guys were out there cleaning the sidewalk. So thank you. And I want to thank all of you people. You guys are great. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Karen Bieber-Futternich.

KAREN BIBER- Good evening. Karen Beaver, Feudernik, 798 Crandon Boulevard. Most of you know I'm on the Sustainability Advisory Board, but I'm here this evening speaking to you as a resident. I'm here to ask you to please direct the village manager to withhold the waste RFP until the Sustainability Advisory Board can discuss this, can make our recommendations to Council Member Bracken, and then he can discuss with you so that you can then carry forward any recommendations that you have to the manager and staff as you determine best. We received the RFP last week. It's 95 pages. It's a very big, very important contract and an even bigger, more important conversation that we really need to have about how this village approaches our waste management. And this contract is potentially 10 years. So it's really significant and really important. Even before receiving the RFP, we've been working very hard on what this conversation should look like. We have smart, resourceful, very dedicated people on our board. And we have a lot to say. And we have good things and important things to say. But we need the ability to discuss and then to present to Councilmember Bracken so that he can make the recommendation again to you and to the manager. The village manager's self-imposed date of July 1 to submit the RFP does not let us do our job, and it doesn't let you do yours. Not asking for an interminable delay, two months. You don't even meet again until the end of August. It's very common to go month to month. There are many municipalities that are doing it. It's not cost prohibitive, and it's very common. Anyway, this needs open discussion. We need to determine what's best for our island, and this can happen in the public space. with our board, with our liaison, and with you. So please direct the village manager to withhold that RFP until that can happen. Thank you.

Thank you for your input. Luis de la Cruz.

Luis de la Cruz, 640 Allendale Road, Key Biscayne, Florida. Mr. Mayor, Mr. Vice Mayor, Mr. Manager. So I'm here to talk about item 10A, which is your resolutions that this one has to do with a consent to use agreement with Ocean Club community. And it's not the actual agreement itself that I'm concerned about, but when you read in between the lines as to what's going on. Evidently, I mean, I've heard many times discussion either in the ad hoc committee or at different times that you all were thinking about not requiring generators for the pumps that are being installed. Well, here we go with this one. So if you look at this particular item, you'll see that The village is proposing an area of 11 feet wide, 19 feet long, and 14 feet high to install generators for something that will never be used in all sincerity. And if you read Exhibit B, It says, maintenance testing will comply with village code, which allows generators to run for maintenance between 12 PM and 3 PM on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. The generator will run no more than 40 minutes once a week for maintenance. I promise you. That's the only time these generators are going to run. The chances of you needing a generator at the same time that that the pumps need to run are so infinitesimal that we would need a mathematician from this village to come and tell us about it. It will never be used. And there will be horrendous structures. And if you do this one, then, of course, you're going to try to do the other ones throughout the GIT project. And that's just not necessary. It's a huge waste of money. And you're about to make another mistake, another preventable mistake. The last time I stood up here two years ago, I told you about the mistakes you were making with the ACOM. You kept going with it, spent a whole lot of money on it. And you finally came to your senses. And we went back to square one. You're going to make another mistake here. You're going to install something that is never going to be used except for maintenance. It's going to be used once a week. It's going to make all the loud noise. It's expensive, even if we get grants to build these up there. But at the end of the day, grants are also tax money. Whether it's our tax money from the village of Key Biscayne or tax money from the county or the state or from somewhere, it's money that belongs to the taxpayers. Let's not waste our money. Please don't waste our money. Please don't make this mistake again. Please don't install something that we never use. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

I'm sorry?

Thank you for your comment. Next speaker, Steve Olmore.

I'm a longtime resident of Key Biscayne, uh, at least 20, uh, 25 years in the same place. Okay.

So I've watched a lot of address or I'm sorry, my name and address and your address. Yes.

Uh, five, seven, five Crandon Boulevard, Key Biscayne.

Thank you.

Okay.

Phone number necessary. No, no. Okay.

All right. Um, the, um, Got me off track. But anyway, it doesn't make any difference. I've seen the alarming rate of sea level rise increasing lately more than I was shocked to see, frankly, in the areas of Bear Cut. And thinking of doing any project, civil project, on this island requires, I think, a little deeper look at the tectonic geologic. a water table, structures, everything going on at the same time. And if you're thinking of doing a project, I suggest you do it with a very strong feasibility study that covers all these details and puts a better perspective on what ought to be done with good engineering, okay? And maybe this company FSV is great. Maybe they've done that, but I can't find anybody either professionally on the key or off the key that seems to know what's going on with this island. I think, There are some significant things to be considered. That's all I want to say, and I hope you do consider them in this, before you start spending money, because you might have to spend a lot more. It's going to be very expensive, in my view. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, Marcelo Radice.

Good evening, everybody. Good evening, Mayor Roscoe and Village Council. My name is Marcelo Radice. I'm the executive director for the Key Biscayne Soccer Club. I live in 70 Bay Heights Drive, Miami, Florida. And I wanted to come tonight because I guess we're on the agenda this evening to discuss the First Amendment. So I thought it'd be a good time for us to just give you a quick synopsis of how our year went and highlight some of those milestones for you. First, I'm sorry that we couldn't be here tonight with our girls. Unfortunately, we were going to have our girls U-13 team, but unfortunately, vacation has hit, and 10 to 11 of the girls were not available. They couldn't make it tonight, so I'm glad Steve was able to move the date for August when we can celebrate with them a huge accomplishment. They were state champions, and they were the first team in 16 years to win the state championship for the club. So that's very exciting. So let me start by highlighting our season and talking a little bit first about our intramural program and what happened this year with the intramural program. We made history. This year, what we did was we implemented a nine-month program this year with nine cycles which focused really on training, a progressive training program where at the same time we rotated our coaches every month. So it allowed our coaches to meet with, play and teach different players throughout the season. It was something new and I think innovative for us so that we wouldn't have a parent get too attached to a particular coach throughout the whole season. And this was a great opportunity for family. to come together. We have 450 kids that participate in our program. And they come. We have their Friday night intramural games on Friday nights. And families come together. They enjoy those games. They celebrate. They make friends. The kids make friends. And we make an impact with the community. The intramural program is really a foundation. It's the key foundation for our club. It brings together, like I said, it's the first step in the pathway for competitive development. Each year, about 10% of our players move on. Those that excel in sport and get selected to move on, and they want to play at the competitive level. The remaining kids continue to play in recreational sports, so we give them that option to stay all the way until the age of 14 if they want to play in a more relaxed environment and they don't want to go over to the competitive side. So this is something that we offer within the intramural program. In addition, this year I wanted to highlight some of the things that we did that you maybe don't hear about. We organize friendly matches within ourselves with parents. We do friends, we do barbecues. We created a job opportunity program for kids ages 14 and over so that they could train and become certified as referees. And then finally, they also participated to get community hours with the Lighthouse Run, cleanup clothing drives, the island cleanups, and they worked together. We're working on a project to institute a thing called Top Soccer, where we'll be able to teach and coach kids with special needs. So what I wanted to wrap up, since that buzzer just went off, is that our Competitive program is excelling, and it's doing very well. We have competitive levels where kids can play according to their level. It's excelling. It's doing well, both on the girls' and the boys' side. A huge milestone this year was the being selected to be an MLS Academy team, and so we're excited about that. And then finally, I just wanted to reiterate, in terms of our corporate structure, although we are a C Corp, we operate as a nonprofit. almost in the sense that we operate at a break-even, zero-based budget. We don't mark up uniforms. We don't mark up equipment, technology. Everything we pass the same cost over to our members. So, and next year, you know, we will be able to generate probably close to $400,000 in revenue for the village of Key Biscayne so that that will go towards their reserves for field maintenance. And we're excited about that contribution that we'll make. We're incredibly excited about next year and the chapter that's ahead of us, and we look forward to collaborating with the village every step of the way, as we always do, so that we can improve our processes, improve our programs, make it affordable, create value, and more importantly, be an important part of the KB community.

Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, Ceci Sanchez.

Cecile Sanchez, 260 Cypress Drive. Good evening, council. I come to ask again regarding Bumpy Park, Marilyn Monroe Park, whatever you want to call it. That little sliver of park that really was untended until the landscaping committee started asking questions. Who does this belong to? Why is it in unkept condition? And with Todd's idea about the bumps and Mercedes Porcari's talent, we were able to create, I think, a jewel of a park there. I don't know the powers that be here decided that that's where they want to put this contraption that Luis talked about. You're gonna destroy the park. You're gonna put something that is 11 feet wide 14 feet high, there? First of all, you're killing any breeze in the summer that tries to come, you have this block. Why there? Why are you doing this? You already, we were told that we were having a park on Harbor Drive. Didn't happen. What happened? Supposed to be what? We still don't know. Who uses that park? Very unattractive. We have a little park that people use. Now you're gonna put this thing there, you're gonna start killing some more trees. That's how your little carts are able to go through there and then enter the beach park. This thing is going to be there. Why there? I tried to ask Jeremy, can you find another place? I started measuring places. He said, no, no, no, that's all set. Why is it all set? Why do you have to, first of all, why do we have to do this, like Luis says? Can we slow down, can we take care of what we have and maintain it before we start spending more money in something else? I don't understand it, but I am here for the trees and the park and the people that go there. People go there with their dogs, the kids like to, play in those hills, if you wanna call it, and now that is all gonna go under construction and who knows what's gonna happen afterwards. You have parking, two less parking spaces, three parking places that you can take, it's our parking, public parking, even though by our people and Galen Breakers, think they own it, but put the contraption there if you need to put it, but don't mess with our parks, please. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, Carla Ompiere.

Good evening. My name is Carla Unpierre Cantalapiedra. I live in 412 Warren Lane. I have been a parent of the Key Biscayne Soccer Club for the last 12 years. I'm here to talk about something that I don't even know why it's in discussion with the village, but with a proposed amendment of, I think, one or two parents have put a proposed amendment that is taken very seriously to monitor playing time and minutes per game of the teams. The points are this creates a very unnecessary administrative cost, tracking the playing times, the minutes. It also places the village in the position of regulating coaching decisions. Competitive soccer, we have many levels in the Key Biscayne Soccer Club. There's A, B, C, D, and also recreational. So this is a rule that you guys, that it's put forth that would include the most competitive level, which is the elite and the B team. is some kids put a lot of effort in attendance, they put effort, they practice to get better so that the teams can get better, and what this will do, some kids that don't show to practice, that don't take it seriously, would be considered and have the same playing times as everybody else. Also, I want to put forth why the Key Biscayne Soccer Club is signaled out to follow this rule when the other sports don't have to follow it, like basketball, softball. Last month, my kid was in the basketball league, and he didn't play the same time as everybody else. There were kids that played the whole game. And in the final, he played 10 minutes, which for me was perfectly fine, because you know what? The other kids were better at basketball, and he was super happy that his team won. And during the other games, he played more time. So we are teaching our kids, too, You are all equal, you can all, doesn't matter if you study for a test or you don't study for a test, you all get As and you all get the same importance. And that shouldn't be. That's why we have an A team, an elite team, and then we have a B, a C, and a more developmental levels. So, I mean, I'm very tired of this Key Biscayne attitude of, you know, let's just be happy. Let's just, everybody's happy, all the kids, you know. No, kids have to put effort. They have to do, they have to practice, they have to study, and they have to do well. That's my time, right?

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you. Let's be happy.

Okay.

Okay. David Rodriguez Freyley.

Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. David Rodriguez-Flaile, 220 Harbor Drive. My wife, Nuria de la Fuente, 220 Harbor Drive. I've been at the Key Biscayne Soccer Club for six years. I have never seen a kid not put effort into any practice, into any games. I will resist the urge to respond directly to the previous speaker, and I will just focus on something else that we wanted to discuss today. We wanted to make some comments regarding the amendment. But before we do so, we want to begin with a few simple principles that frame why this matters. Soccer is the largest youth program that we officially sponsor in our village. It operates on public fields, it carries our village's identity, and it depends on community resources. As such, it must be guided by community values, transparency, and age-appropriate development for our children. Youth sports serve as character infrastructure for our community because positive experiences lead to stronger academic outcomes, healthier life choices, and deeper community connections. Getting the early years right matters enormously, because childhood happens only once. Our children go through each stage of their life only one time. They don't get do-overs, and we have no higher responsibility than protecting that process. Youth soccer is not a mystery or an unsolved problem. It has been studied, perfected, and standardized globally for decades. Guidelines and best practices exist for a reason. The responsibility of any operator on our public fields is not to reinterpret or selectively apply those standards. It is to follow them. Now, with regards to the amendment, it addresses two major areas. First, it formally codifies player development guidelines. One important reminder as we use the word player, we are talking about children, not adults. Youth soccer mirrors our education system. We don't teach elementary students the same way we teach middle school, high school, or college students, because children's developmental needs are completely different at each stage. The approach, the methods, the environment, all of it is calibrated to a student's age. Soccer requires the exact same distinction. There are well established guidelines regarding how young children should be coached, managed, and communicated with at different ages. You cannot simply copy an approach designed for professional adults that play on TV for millions of dollars and then paste it onto teams of eight, nine, and 10-year-old children. Doing so is not supported by any research, any science, any credible soccer experts, any credible coach framework, or any global best practice anywhere. It simply does not exist. In fact, every credible framework points in exactly the opposite direction. Nobody is arguing against competitive match experiences. They are valuable and important. The question is what competition should look like at different ages, and what conditions must exist before, during, and after those matches to make them developmentally productive. That is why clear player development guidelines matter. The priorities, the approach, and the team management must fit the age, always. These basic principles were simply not being respected or followed in our own community. Second, the amendment strengthens processes. Having a defined process does two things. First, it creates the right environment for everybody involved. And second, having a process occupies space, space that would otherwise be a vacuum. And vacuums do not remain vacuums. They get filled. And what fills that vacuum are informal networks and informal dynamics that are inevitably inconsistent, uncertain, relationship-driven, and difficult for most families to navigate fairly. This program should exist to give as many community children as possible a meaningful and appropriate developmental experience. None of this is abstract. At the end of every governance decision, there is a child on our public fields. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Michelle Estevez.

Michelle Estevez, 425 Great Tree Drive, 204. I'm here publicly speaking and thank you Village Manager for the support of this past Friday barbecue. Recreation Department, Todd and his team, and of course the Key Biscayne Community Foundation and Andrew Brigham. It was a great success, especially with the change of those collection cars for the soccer but that is supposed to be for kids, I guess, but the ones that they enjoy the most and the one that they are more fanatic is the parents. That was very cute to see them, how they show up with the list and everything. The barbecue was extremely successful. It's the kickoff. That 250 and the illumination in Crandon, I don't know who is responsible for that piece of art, but it's beautiful to see it there. And also the Key Biscayne for the July parade will designate a tent right across from the review stand for disabled people, wheelchairs, and anybody that have needs. It will be marked with the handicap label around so they can have a special view there at the parade. And we are ready, we are getting ready. We have four bands this year, so it's gonna be very difficult to do the lineup because if everybody else bring music, I don't know how we're going to accommodate the bands. We have the T-shirts for sale. This year is a collection item. They are $50 each shirts. The kids, they are 25. and there are not many, so that's why it's a limited edition. They are for sale at the community center. We're gonna be there last Saturday at Winn-Dixie with whatever shirts are left, and probably we're gonna be one Saturday at the Farm and Market, and that's gonna be it. So we are getting ready. We are doing our last minutes preparation for the parade, and I hope to see everybody there.

Thank you. Absolutely. Can we see you for a second, because you pointed it that way. I love to see the shirt.

Oh, I'm sorry.

That's all right. We're looking that way. Then I'm good. Thank you.

Great job, as always. Thank you. Thank you, and to the whole committee, Michelle. All right, Madam Clerk.

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

I have an addition, a couple of additions. First, I'd like to have an addition, the item that was recently discussed about solid waste. I want to add a quick discussion item on that. I'd like to get from the administration the status and what the resident was concerned about specifically. I'd like to know, and also give an opportunity for Mike Bracken, who's the chair of that committee, to be in attendance as well and to hear him out. I also want to introduce an item for discussion, Key Biscayne and Miami regional growth impacts, especially specifically when it comes up to the massive, massive airport expansion that's happening right now, $9 billion. We anticipate millions of passengers and the expansion of the port as well. where I'm already starting to see ships, more ships than I actually care to see in the horizon. I know we're talking about the big dig, the small dig, but let's talk about the big hub, because that's what Miami's gonna be, and Key Biscayne is gonna have a problem if we don't really start having some representation out there. So those are my two items. Okay.

I have an addition item. I'd like to discuss a code of conduct for village activities, programs, and premises.

I'm sorry, Code of Conduct for Village Activities, Programs, and Premises.

Okay.

And as mentioned earlier, the special presentation for girls' soccer is moving to August.

Yes.

Due to attendance.

Mayor, I would also like to add under my report a discussion on the petition, which was certified on Friday in the next steps.

Okay, let's do it. Okay, Madam Clerk. Move as amended.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries. The next item is a special presentation, Grand Bay Club and Ritz Tennis Center build-out update.

Before we do that, Mr. Bracken. Yeah. I just wanted to commend your zeal in being with us from Germany, is it? Portugal. Portugal. Portugal. Okay. Thank you so much for being with us from far away.

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to introduce here Ignacy Puig. I think you recognize him from the work they did at the Ritz. He's from Gencom, and he's going to talk about the new project his team is working on here at the Grand Bank.

And a fellow Key Biscayner, by the way, 861 Harvard Drive. So very happy to be here. Thank you for the invitation. As you all probably know, we embarked on a major repositioning of the Ritz-Carlton Key Biscayne asset in May of last year. We shut the hotel down and we reopened it in December of last year. And it's been a resounding success. Hopefully, you've got a chance to go see the property. And we want to do a very similar repositioning effort for the Grand Bay Club, which we acquired in a structured transaction also in May of 2025. And we've been working diligently over the last X amount of months to bring this to fruition. Very similar to Ritz Key Biscayne. This was built in 1997, 96, I want to say. The Ritz opened in 2001. And it's overdue. It's some of the best real estate on Key Biscayne and probably in Florida. And unfortunately, it's been sort of neglected over the years. So I'll just flip through this real quick. And hopefully, you can see it. It's a little bit small from there. But let's see. So this is the updated site plan. And I can tell that you're not going to be able to see much from there. But maybe I'll follow up after this. Oh, perfect. Easy enough. So maybe I'll use the cursor to show you. This is sort of the existing Grand Bay Club. This is where the existing pool is. There's a restaurant and some offices as well as locker rooms and a kitchen. We are expanding the entire site area into what used to be the 54 existing cabanas. into a new fitness center right here. You can see my cursor. A new pool bar that's going to be overlooking the beach and the pool on the north end here. We're leaving this entire area in the middle as the tranquil lawn. The reason for it is because there's a condo building, as you probably know, right in front of it, and we want it to be respectful of any noise concerns. And then further south, there is going to be a new F&B food and beverage outlet overlooking the beach, very similar to what we have at the Ritz in Key Biscayne, Paralia, which used to be a cantina, a new family pool down right behind it, and then a new adult pool, which is on the property line with the Ritz here. This is roughly 600 linear feet of beach frontage, four, four and a half acres in total site, including the parking. And I'll flip through some of the renderings here of the new clubhouse. So this is the existing condition on the beach side, on the west side here. And this is the new envisioned. I think I have bigger pictures of here. This is driving onto the clubhouse, the new driveway. Portico share. Different angle looking at the clubhouse.

This is looking straight east onto towards the beach.

This is from the beach looking west with the new structures on both ends. This is the fitness center which has bathrooms on this side and then fitness on the other side. This is the clubhouse which is being extended with a new outdoor seating area. looking from that trellis structure onto the beach. And then moving down further south to the side, this is the new family pool. And then the new adult pool with some cabanas around it. This is the new FMB outlet, food and beverage outlet on the beach and some of the cabanas on the adult pool. And that's it. And happy to answer any questions. I think maybe I'll talk a little bit about timing. So we want to, very similar to what we did on the Ritz, we want to make sure that we're utilizing the lower season. Not a lot of people get as much usage from the beach during the summer months. So over the coming months, we will start a demo on the cabanas and then really take advantage on the latter half of the year, hopefully get this reopened in Q1 of 2027.

Okay, and you'll be also able to take care of all the sargassum, right?

All of that is coming included in the scope, yes. No, it is a concern of ours. And I know that you guys are doing a lot of beach restoration, which is also an important concern for us. We're right in the middle of Key Biscayne, and it's the thinnest part of the island, of the beach. So any additional restoration that we can do would be very much appreciated. And as you probably know, the Ritz already contributes to that restoration fund, and we're proud to do so.

What was the duration of the Ritz project, start to finish?

Somewhat of a miracle. We shut it down May 1st, reopened December 8th. So it was almost eight months.

That's fast work.

Yeah. Well, we had 400 people at any given point moving things around.

This is a little bit out of left field. The thought of preserving one or two of those cabanas, maybe for historical society?

Maybe they'll gain value.

We'll see about that.

Happy to talk about that, yeah.

Thank you. Any other questions? 95% of all this exists, so it's just moving things around, adding pools, and there's no, you're not asking for any variance, you're not asking for- No variances, everything is as of right, and there's a master consent with all of the tracks within the PUD, both towers,

the villas as well as obviously the ritz which we control and the beach club which we control uh around the exact same master plan that i presented okay well thank you thank you for coming and sharing your information with us the next item mr mayor is the consent agenda move second mayor before we vote i just want to could we just have a motion to allow councilmember bracken to join remotely

So moved. Second. Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Is he back with us?

Yet.

It's got to be midnight. Yes, I'm here, Nancy.

We miss you, Mike.

Tell everybody what time it is there. 1230. All right. Dedication. Dedication.

We'll have you in bed by 4.30.

Looking good, looking good. Thanks, guys, trying.

I'm sorry, they vote for the consent agenda. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. The next item is a second reading of an ordinance of the Village of Key Biscayne, Florida, amending ordinance number 2025-15, which adopted the budget for fiscal year 2025-2026 by revising the 2025-2026 fiscal year budget, budget amendment number three, providing for implementation and providing for an effective date.

Move.

Second. Thank you.

Public hearing is now open on Ordinance 9A. Seeing no one come forward, public hearing is now closed. Any questions on this one? I think we beat it up over the time, but... Madam Clerk.

Vice Mayor Sardinas?

Yes.

Council Member Stoner? Yes. Council Member Bosquez? Yes. Mayor Roscoe?

Yes.

Council Member Bracken?

Yes.

Council Member Kaplan?

Yes.

The ordinance is adopted on second reading. The next item is a second reading, a capital project authorizing ordinance of the Village of Key Biscayne, Florida, selecting FSV Construction Company for construction of the Key Biscayne Beach Park renovation project in an amount not to exceed $871,083, providing for authorization, providing for implementation, and providing for an effective date.

Move. Second.

Thank you.

Public hearing is now open on 9B. Yeah. Yes. Put your name and address for the record.

My name is Fernando Riojas, 249 East Enid Drive. Regarding that, I was just wondering if the renovation project is for the use of Kibiskin residents or for public use. Since there's a gate and you need a fob to go in, I'm assuming it's for residents. However, a lot of people, non-residents, are going to the park, using the facilities, not taking care of the park. And I was wondering if there's gonna be some enforcement of who can get in and not.

Yes, thank you. Thank you. We have been working on that and we'll have the manager address that. But yes, these renovations are for our beach park and yes, we do everything we can to maintain that. And this is part of what we've been talking about for the last, few years about maintaining what we have. So, Mr. Manager, you want to address that?

Sure. So the direct question is a gentleman asking, is that just for Key Biscayne residents? And yes, the area inside the gate is just for Key Biscayne residents. Each resident is given a fob to use. Sometimes some residents leave it open. Sometimes it does malfunction. During increased time, and we will, during the summer, be adding a part-time worker over the weekend so that that individual can be right there in the shed at the gate and control that gate. Also, part of this construction is to put time locks also on the bathrooms as well. So we'll be able to control those and shut that down at 10 o'clock when the park shuts down.

Okay. When we were talking about this I think a couple weeks ago a couple meetings ago the observation was that people are encroaching from the beach Not through the gate, but from the beach Beach Club has instituted a wristband trying to deal with that. I don't know where Conversation landed in trying to create better Protection on the beach side any any update any thoughts? No, we don't have any at this time

We are working on the...

Limiting the access to the beach.

We are working on the gate of the public access gate. I was going to ask later on for an update on that. We spoke about that briefly, where people are getting access... To the beach. By the sands, the public. So that wouldn't stop access during the day, but it would stop after hours access.

Correct.

which may not be good enough.

And also, the chief does patrols, especially in the evening, right?

Yeah, mainly. So the Parks Department will man it on the weekends during the day, and then the Police Department makes regular patrols during the evening, usually starting at about, I would imagine, 8 o'clock is when you start, Chief.

So can I ask a question about that?

Sure, Chief, why don't you come forward?

Well, at least for parks and rec, they're going to be there during the day. Are they going to be asking for ID for people to get in? I'm not sure really. If you don't have a fob, if you've left your fob at home or you never got one or whatever, how are we going to try and manage that? I guess that really is what you need to address.

That person's there to address what was discussed earlier about people propping the door open, holding the door open. making sure the doors closed, taking a quick look through the park to see what's what's happening. Um, but mainly just controlling that access point that, uh, for the access cards we do issue at the community center. We do monitor, we do maintain, um, I hear rich do it frequently. They're assigned to a property to a property. If somebody moves off, somebody moves in, he deactivates. the existing fobs, and then we'll get a phone call, my fob doesn't work, and then we look up the residents that don't live there anymore. So it is something that we actively manage to make sure that residents are the only ones that have those fobs.

Chief? Yeah, so we've instituted weekly, daily, nightly checks, and we actually instituted a plan a week ago that we're running because with school ending, we saw an increase in activity. So we assigned an operational plan where we have officers checking regularly, not only Beach Park, but along Ocean Lane Drive and our other access paths where some of the younger children like to visit from time to time. So we've definitely seen a decrease since that started. So we were proactive after we were reactive at first, but it's been a lot quieter.

It has been because I'm out there every night and I see the cars and I see the police and it's a lot quieter.

I'm glad you're seeing the police. That makes me happy. Anything else?

No, thank you. Thank you. All right. Madam Clark.

Vice Mayor Sardinius?

Yes.

Council Member Stoner? Yes. Council Member Vasquez? Yes. Mayor Roscoe?

Yes.

Council Member Bracken?

Yes.

Council Member Kaplan?

Yes.

The ordinance is adopted on second reading. The next item is a resolution of the Village Council of the Village of Key Biscayne, Florida, approving a consent to use agreement with the Ocean Club Community Association, Inc., to permit the installation of a pump station, backup generator, and electrical platform in a portion of the village's beach park in connection with the village's flood mitigation project, providing for authorization and providing for an effective date.

Move. Second.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Colleen.

Okay. The Garden District is experiencing flooding frequently, and we have a hazard mitigation grant to construct a drainage system, which includes a pump station and backup generator to alleviate that flooding, particularly on the east side. This consent to use is agreed upon by the HOA of the Ocean Club right next door, who originally deeded that property right outside of the gated part of Beach Park. and Beach Park itself to the village. One of the conditions of that dedication was to have it be used for park use. So this consent to use is exclusively allowing us to use this small portion of it for this sort of infrastructure for this project only. And they are totally okay with it. We've worked with them for like six months to get the agreement together. So this is just requesting council's approval and we'll take it to them for signature right after.

Right, and I want to preface, as much as we want to discuss everything about this, that tonight and what we have right in front of us is just really something that we've worked out with the Ocean Club, okay? And you will have a shot at looking at whether the generator goes there or doesn't go there, and everything else that goes with that, that's part of a FEMA grant that we're getting. So it's not today about all those details that will come before us.

As long as, I have no problem with that, as long as we have an opportunity to have a decision whether we want to have generators or not. And what I want to preface it with is the fact that, I mean, generators can work both ways. Obviously, they can help move the water out. The question is their futility in the sense that I think there's some very good points being brought up whether it's really necessary to have them there and have these artifacts all throughout our village. I strongly have an issue with that because in the past, we tried to do it as well on the beach. It was difficult. They're just massive structures, and I already see one every day when I walk out. So let's look at that very carefully, very cautiously, and understand whether they're really that valuable as we believe they are, or are they giving us a false sense of security. Let's really invest in that.

To paraphrase, take the liberty of paraphrasing. what the mayor said. It is my understanding that all this agreement does is give us the authority to build this if we choose to do that. Absolutely. It's not obligating us. I'm just saying it for the public to understand what's happening tonight because we do get calls after the fact, what happened, what happened, and why did you agree to doing something.

And that's a very important point that you're saying because sometimes things do get confused when we talk up here.

So this is just giving us a right to do that if we choose to go that path.

Understood.

which remains to be determined.

But I want to use this opportunity to talk about Generator City village wide. Here, there, anywhere. Let's understand because we're not an industrial facility here.

Okay. One question just to anticipate. The actual location for the above ground structure that this consent addresses is within the area and what council member tainter used to call Dolly Parton Park to the very to the right hand side looking at the beach hugging up against the line with the Beach Club yes I'm trying to see if I can find I'm gonna zoom in here and see if we can just kind of outline it so it's a little bit off the page oh am I

Are we not presenting?

Council member, if you would imagine if you're driving into the beach club. Yeah. Parallel to the road as you're going down there would be the injection well pump system. And then perpendicular to the road, but parallel to the wall. So you're creating an L. Yeah. Okay, she's got it up there.

Yeah, thank you.

Would be where the generator would go.

So the driveway to beach club's right here, basically. The generator is running along this wall. about six feet off the wall so we can try to keep as much of the planting that's along that wall as possible. It acts as a really good buffer.

And the mounds would be to the left of the arrow.

We're gonna not touch the grape tree right here. We're gonna try to avoid touching the mounds as much as possible. We're gonna maintain the vehicle access, the maintenance vehicle access through here. So even the space off the wall plus the width of the generator and then you're gonna have some space for that maintenance access path. So there's gonna be quite a width there that you're gonna have to move around. Okay.

Do we have the well there or no?

No, the wells are further west.

I think exhibit A will show you a little bit better picture. Yeah, I don't know if we have that. It's page 11 of tab three, I think it is.

Thank you, Council Member.

That gives a very nice... to look at what we're talking about. No, not tab three. Tab, sorry. Tab five. Tab five, yeah. Page 11 of tab five. That's it. Yeah. You're looking at it there. Okay.

Does that answer your question?

Yeah, got it.

Yeah? Perfect.

Thank you.

Okay. Madam Clark.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries. The next item is a resolution of the Village Council of the Village of Key Biscayne, Florida, approving a voluntary beach renourishment contribution and escrow agreement with the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, LLC, providing for authorization and providing for an effective date.

Move it. Second. Move it. Second. Mr. Myers, do you want to tell everyone what we're doing here?

Sure. Why don't I bring Benjamin forward? I'll just do a quick introduction. You heard before, I think the GENCOM folks mentioned how important it is to them to make sure that the beach will be re-nourished. And so what we've done is we've set up an agreement with the RITS, and I'll let Benjamin talk you through what that is and how it'll work.

Great. I just want to clarify first it is a voluntary agreement. This is not a resort tax. So separate the two. So this is many years in the making of the manager working with the Ritz-Carlton. And some of the timing was developing the right amount and obviously what we could legally do and also because of their construction and reopening. But the idea is they voluntarily, this is a $2 a night on the resort fee, resort fee, not a tax. That will be set aside and restricted use to do the beach nourishments and non cycle season, so we anticipate based on occupancy this could be anywhere between 250,000 to $400,000. annually, and this is part of our broader revenue diversification strategy where we're looking for outside funds or we don't have either the ability to tax or. desire to tax our residents, we are always looking for other ways to make up the difference to. Do beach nourishments which obviously we know are rated high in terms of importance based on our satisfaction survey so happy to answer any questions about.

The components of the agreement or the terms I if I could just add the the agreement provides that we were going to have an escrow agent. After working with. The hotel. they would prefer not to have an escrow agent but have the funds held in a bank account with certain parameters put into place. So your adopting isn't substantially the form attached, but the escrow agent concept will not be in the final form.

So what does that mean, Chad?

So the hotel anticipates that they're going to hold the money in a separate fund and that they're going to provide the village, I believe in talking with Steve, a monthly reporting of the funds in that account, as opposed to having a separate escrow agent who would hold the funds and then distribute the funds based upon a request.

And then how do we draw upon those?

So we'll be drawing upon those funds by putting them on notice that we're going to be doing a project or we're intending to design a project. They are to then to provide the funds to us to fund for the project.

Does it get determined by how much we draw determined by how much they're going to benefit?

Is there some kind of pro-rata thing? No, it's a project that the administration is going to develop and identify where we're going to make improvements within their area.

Within their area?

Within the area of the beach, within their area.

Let me clarify that a little bit. So you're going back, so yes, they did agree to giving us a monthly report, and they're going to hold it as a liability on their accounts. The way the system works is we will identify through our analysis of the beach. These are, to make clear, these are for off-season, off-cycle events. It will not be for regular three-year re-nourishment. So if we identify something that there's an issue with, it's jointly recognized between us and the hotel. The focus is not solely on the hotel, because you can imagine as we build the beach and for it to be done properly, it has to be tied into the adjacent areas. So it has to be done based on a survey, based on the requirement, based on the configuration of the beach. So yes, is it intended to be in support of that area? Yes, but it may not only be in front of the Ritz, because it all depends on how you need to build the beach.

And then if we, once we have an agreement about a project and we undertake a financial commitment They can't renege on that money. Once that money is there, that is ours.

And it specifically says in the agreement that once it is put in the capital plan and we've agreed to the project, that they cannot pull the money back.

Correct.

Great. Okay. So whether there's an escrow agent or not, they're restricted funds for a special purpose.

Yes. I mean, this is really, truly a problem. great public-private partnership. It really is. Great.

All right. Good job, Mr. Manager. All right.

All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. The next item is a resolution of the Village Council of the Village of Key Biscayne, Florida, providing for ratification of the 2026-2029 collective bargaining agreement between the Village and the International Union of Police Associations, AFL-CIO, for the bargaining unit consisting of the Village's general employees, authorizing the Village Manager to sign... the collective bargaining agreement on behalf of the village and take all actions necessary to implement the agreement and providing for an effective date.

Move. Second.

Thank you.

CFO.

Sure, so this is the ratification. This is for the civilian bargaining unit. We had briefed you at our shade session. We kind of went over some long-term, short-term goals and obligations, and there was clear instruction about the obligations that the village did not want to commit to. I think we reached a favorable agreement with our union. We listened to their Concerns and we met them where we could without obviously adding on to those long-term obligations to the village I think this is a agreement where both parties will feel is adequate and fair and most importantly will be for the next three years Three years of time and as we always say our employees are our biggest asset. They're also the biggest expenditure line item in our Village budget, so we're happy to get one of the four units Ratified and and set the tone for the other three that remain I

On this one, any questions? One down, three to go. All right.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carried.

Real quick, before you walk away on the last item, do I remember not all counties are able to impose a resort fee?

Is that correct? It's not just all counties. It's local governments, and they're correct. There's only a couple that have been authorized around the state. And in Miami-Dade County, you have, besides Miami-Dade County, you do have a couple cities, Bell Harbor and Surfside are two of them. In Miami Beach. In Miami Beach. And we're not one of them. We're not.

No, this is the fee, not...

Correct. And I know it's been a discussion, and I know the manager has attempted to try to open that door, but there wasn't an appetite for that up in Tallahassee. That's all I wanted to know.

Thank you.

The next item is a resolution of the Village Council of the Village of Key Biscayne, Florida, selecting CSR Heavy Construction Inc. for the Village Green Park Curbs Surfacing Project in an amount not to exceed $89,194, pursuant to invitation to bid ITB number 2026-07, providing for authorization and providing for an effective date.

Move. Second.

Thank you.

This project is to improve the safety of our athletic fields on the village green It was brought to our attention by one of our residents that their son received a significant injury at the park and the manager directed that we begin to research how to rectify that condition at the field and So we went out to bid for a rubber topping that will go around the concrete border of the field. We got two bids back. We selected CSR Heavy Construction, if you recall. They're the firm that did the project at St. Agnes. They were responsive. They completed the project on time and within budget. So we are confident that they are the right firm to complete this work.

Questions? Mike, you got a question? You're on mute. You're on mute.

No, you're still mute.

I don't read hand signals. No, I think he's calling in.

Yes, we can hear you.

I just wanted to ask Todd real quick if there's a means and methods to address the UV light from eating this plastic or rubber. How is that going to be addressed long term?

Our plan is to not have to have this at the field long term in our capital improvement program. This field is to be replaced in two years. Hopefully we can continue that and then address the surface in a more permanent way when we reconstruct the field. I'm sorry, three years.

That's good enough, Todd. Thank you.

Okay. Any other questions on this? This safety issue, we've got to take care of it. Is it... There are some other pieces that separate the playground from one area to the other. Those are... Those are not included in this.

No, they're not. And those are... The curb is not within the standard distance of the end line here. And that's what we need to fix. All the curbs on the playground meet the playground safety standard for distance. Like a swing has, obviously, you can imagine a much more significant distance that an object cannot be within than, you know, a slide. But everything in our playground meets those standards. So, like I said, we'll rectify this when we rebuild the field.

Madam Clerk?

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries. The next item is a resolution of the Village Council of the Village of Key Biscayne, Florida, approving a second amendment to the joint use agreement with the School Board of Miami-Dade County for repairs, replacements, and upgrades to the recreational fields at the Maritime and Science Technology Academy Mast in an amount not to exceed $2,482,896 with the school board reimbursing the village for 50% of such costs, providing for authorization and providing for an effective date.

Move. Second.

Thank you.

Mr. Director. Sure.

This amendment the second amendment to our joint use agreement establishes the framework for a shared capital project as a mention it's a 50 50% cost share where we get reimbursed on the back end when the projects completed earlier this year you approve budget amendment to which approved. which funded the design criteria package and the surveying required to complete this project. We are looking to maintain the same schedule we did with St. Agnes, which is to get all this, first get the school board to pass this amendment and then conduct the design criteria package and the surveying so we can go out to bid.

I have a quick question. Sure. For my edification, the original, maybe, The original contract that we had with the school board, any extensions or expansions in Mast Academy, does that fall under a specific contract? Is this something new? Are we in an agreement with them?

Yeah, this is all in accordance with our joint use agreement that we originally entered into. It has a section regarding capital improvements. Exactly. That's what I was asking.

So the question is, did that agreement say anything that we do is 50-50?

It said it would be reimbursed and negotiated.

Was there a split defined?

Yeah, a split would be negotiated, and this is what we negotiated.

Like the basketball court, was that 50-50 also, or was it reimbursed?

No, that was 100% the village. But it allows to be negotiated. There are some things, like if we needed to replace our storage facility, they don't use that, that would probably be 100% us. If we were going to do some other facility that's primarily used by us, there might be a different rate. They agreed that the field is 50% used by them, 50% by us. We started this negotiation quite a long time ago.

No, no, and I'm not, I mean, we're done with it, right? But, but, but, I'm just trying to understand what the framework is of negotiation with the school board when we have incorporated additional facilities or we expand or we don't. Do we always have to pitch in? Is it just based on the usage? What drove the 50-50s?

It's based on the usage. Like, for example, the lights, right? Yeah, we paid 100% of the lights because the school district doesn't use lights. So it's the programmatic activities of the improvement that are evaluated and the staff negotiates.

Okay. Well, I really appreciate this, and I think it's great. It's a great opportunity. I don't know if council gets, you know, if we get involved in understanding what these negotiations are because what I see today, is an agreement right here, 50-50. And I'm not saying we wouldn't agree to that, but I think that we should allow an opportunity. If there was there, my apologies, I may have missed it, but I don't remember. And I think that for something of this degree, we should be part of that, we should have that understanding. I think we should. Okay.

Frank, did you have something to do with the negotiating the joint use agreement? Slightly.

The field was 50-50. That was our agreement.

Fair enough. And that was, I'm sorry, that was in what, 2012? 2011. 2014.

So it was already pre-set.

Well, there was a negotiation on multiple fronts. For example, the K-8 was part of the negotiation. That was, I think that was 100% district, but we front end loaned some of the costs and they reimbursed 100%. There were other elements that were village only because they were for the village only. The field was 50-50.

Like Chad said, the lights, because we requested... Because they don't use them. They don't use them. We paid 100% of that.

Then it's something that has already been prearranged.

The original, yes. This was negotiated over the last year. I think the question is that it is within the framework of the existing agreements.

So what we've done in the past, we're continuing to go forward with that same framework.

My question is, and again, this is set, it's good, but let's have, you know, this is something that I feel that we get it here and we have to agree on it or not. It's kind of a binary decision. I understand. Give us an opportunity.

Right, but we don't have to put the money in. It's not, they're not forcing us to put the money in. I know, I'm sure. But if you've seen the condition of that field, you say, right?

I understand, I understand. That's not my point, but I get it, I get it.

And, you know, over the years, we've realized one thing. We need that field.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I mean, that field... came along at the most perfect time. We got that field and then we lost Crandon. So it ended up being a net neutral for our field capacity. But without that, we would have been devastated.

And just to add, I think what the mayor said is right. This is just the agreement with the school district. The construction contract and all that's going to come back before this council and you'll make the decision then if you're gonna really proceed with the cost and the construction.

If we are going to, okay.

Yeah, this is just setting up the framework between the two regulatory bodies and then, yeah.

I understand, but it's a 50-50. The fact that we need to feel, I'm not questioning that. I'm not questioning anything of the needs that we have and that this thing has been discussed and all that. All that I'm questioning is that I'm sitting here today and all of a sudden I get a contract here where I have to agree to 50-50 and that's all I'm asking. Educate us beforehand. That's all I'm asking.

Council member, it's been in the capital plan for four years.

And was it 50-50 there? Always. Okay. Did everybody know about it? I knew about it. You knew about it. Okay. I wasn't here four years ago.

Okay. This is a little bit off, but I did notice, and we did discuss this, but I just want to confirm that there was mention in here of a problem. Possible increase in cost which as you said is going to come up actually later Because the rock surface might be determined to be insufficiently permeable and might need To be replaced for drainage, but that additional cost would be covered in this contingency, right?

I mean, I would hope so there's there's Imagine so at this point that that that's why there's a contingency, but there's I When there's unforeseen conditions, they can't always be... Who would manage... Sorry.

Apologies. I didn't mean to cut you off. I'm done, thank you. Who manages the construction?

We're going to ask to do it. We're going to do a design criteria package, and we're going to ask to do it. And it's in the past.

We've done it in the past, and I imagine we would continue to do it again this time. So we're not leaving it in the hands of the school board?

But obviously, they're going to have to permit it. They're going to have to go through their process. It is their land. So we'll have to go through all that approval process.

Which we've done previously, so.

Jocelyn?

Yes, go ahead.

Yeah. Todd, can you tell us just the life of the contract for the entire use agreement so that people can, other than just, you know, you guys are familiar with this, how long the actual contract use is for the field? Is it 20 more years, 30 years?

It was 30 years, if I remember correctly.

And we were where on the 30-year period?

We're probably 15 years into the... 30-year agreement Yes, it's definitely within the lifespan of the turf is shorter than the lifespan of our agreement We'll want to extend this agreement Usually when we've amended we've extended so we can see if we can get that done Excellent

I think the only other thing that's happened since inception on the field itself is the turf, is that right?

The turf, we extended the turf after we did.

Expanded in 16, right?

Yeah, after we removed the temporary buildings and created the parking lot. Then we, the first amendment was for the solar panels that were put on top of the PE structure. And this is the other, the next substantial change.

We're ready to do this.

Madam Clerk.

Yes. All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries. Next item is a resolution of the Village Council of the Village of Key Biscayne, Florida, approving the First Amendment to the Professional Services Agreement with KB Soccer, Inc., providing for authorization and providing for an effective date.

Move. Second.

Thank you.

Good evening and this amendment strengthens accountability transparency player development standards. It includes an annual program review. and also incorporates updated statutory requirements. This proposed revision reflects its extensive collaboration with the community, with the soccer club, with the athletics advisory board, and includes comments not only from the advisory board, not only from the soccer club, but from residents and people that were present at our advisory board meetings. It formalizes many of the improvements discussed at these meetings. and is here to ensure the continued success and accountability of our youth soccer program.

Questions?

Is this the issue where some of the parents were expressing some concerns about the hierarchies in playing?

Right. This agreement just adds to what's already existing. We probably will have a conversation at some other point in time.

Let's be fair for everybody.

Questions? If not, Madam Clerk.

I have a little bit of sympathy for the speaker earlier that talked about the word that's used is equal treatment as opposed to fair consistent uniform treatment. Not sure that's precisely correct in terms of youth athletics or any athletics.

What that what what the amendment does is they have recommended standards and now we're going to work on required standards. It doesn't the required standard It doesn't have to be exactly equal, but we don't want a kid driving to Weston or Naples and not playing in the game. So we will find what's equitable and just.

What is the DOC? What is that initial? Director of Coaching.

GAPS member has a question.

Go ahead.

Nancy, are you comfortable? Oh, wait. Hold on. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

Nancy, are you comfortable with the comments for this modification? Because I know you're the liaison.

Yes. There were extensive, as Todd said, there were extensive input from the Athletic Advisory Board. There were public comments at the Advisory Board meetings. There were... comments from the general public that came in that were taken into consideration. So this is, and these amendments and the different provisions in them are directly a result of what input we got, which is what makes this different from the other sports. So yes, the advisory board is comfortable and advises to proceed with this amendment.

How about the consultant? Did they participate in the negotiation? I'm sorry? The consultant? The service provider.

Yes, he was present. He was present, I believe, at every meeting and participated fully.

This reads a little heavy-handed to me, but I'd like to proceed and make this move forward. All right, Madam Clerk.

All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. The next item. is a capital project authorizing resolution of the Village Council of the Village of Key Biscayne, Florida, authorizing the village manager to issue a work order to the Stout Group LLC for village-wide roadway improvements, street resurfacing along Buttonwood Drive, Hampton Lane, Ridgewood Road, and West Mashta in an amount not to exceed $306,742 and providing for an effective date. Move. Second. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, Council. This resolution asks for authorization for the repaving of roads. As you guys know, we have been actively attending to the pavement condition index report for the village and improving our roadways throughout the past nine months. We wish to continue in this will allow us to do that we're looking to resurface button would drive Hampton Lane Ridgewood Rd and a section of Westました between the bridge and. And harbor drive it's that one little piece right there there is in the back of the packet a map that shows the roads that we will be resurfacing in green. The roads that are in blue are the ones that we have done, as I said, over the past nine months. And the ones in orange were repaved with the immediate flood control program a couple of years ago. These roads were identified, as I said, under the payment condition index report that was conducted back in 2024. And as soon as all of these roads are paved, I'm going to be commissioning another report to see where we're at. We anticipate that we will have raised our condition index by more than 10%.

So you're primarily maintaining the roads that we have? That is correct.

That is correct.

Secondly, did you take this out to bid?

This was bid. We're going to be using our on-call contractor, which we put out to bid last year. They're under contract for us for three years, so that is the contract that we'll be using, the Stout Group.

So the material pricing is from last year, which should be better than if we did it out today, right? Exactly. Okay.

There's a couple of questions. Are you guys looking at, have you had an opportunity to look at the subgrade of the sub-base in these roads?

Wherever we find that there is a significant drop or a dip in the road, the contractor, Winnie Mills, is going in and addressing that issue. We found two, three locations right now that had some issues, and we did resolve them.

Yes. Good. Thank you. And you're saying you're keeping it at grade?

We're keeping it at grade, but also wherever we find that we have maybe some ponding or some holding some water, we will address that issue with a corrective action in the asphalt. So there will be a little additional asphalt placed. We're also making sure that we have a crown in the road where the roads are flat and not crowning so that the water pitches to both sides.

So we're pitching the road, trying to get it to as best as we can to the catch basins, and we're also looking at the subgrade to see if we have any structural deficiencies. We'll fix them there. Correct.

That is correct. And basically field engineering the roadways. Excellent.

Thank you. And this was in our capital improvement program?

This was in addition. In our capital improvement program, there was additional funds. So we are using those funds within capital improvement to fund this project.

Okay.

Would you remind maybe just me, but maybe more, asphalt is the prescribed material still and again? That's it?

Yes. Yes, it is. It is the primary material used by all agencies, FDOT, municipality, Dade County, everywhere throughout the country as prescribed material for a road race, yes.

Parking lots too?

Parking lots too. Brave new world, right?

Mm-hmm. All right, Madam Clerk.

All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Aye. Motion carries. Thank you.

Okay. One of the most important things we need to talk a little bit about right now is the property tax issue. So if I can get our CFO to come up and bring us up to date.

I'm sorry.

Which, by the way, this would impact... in the future, our capital improvement budget, it would impact potentially our debt, it would potentially impact our future revenues, and more importantly, what we can and can't do. So it would be another super preemption. And so, Let's talk about it at a little high level right now. We don't have all the answers yet, but we have started looking in depth at this. Mr. CFO.

We have a little technical difficulty here, but if you want to talk big picture before your slides pop up.

Sure, so we've been obviously... Get the mic closer to you. We've been monitoring and updating this throughout the past

Twenty twenty five when the House was looking at this and kind of came up with. It was like eight or ten proposals and we briefed you on what the impact would be to the village of Key Biscayne. Later, obviously things moved quickly in the last couple of weeks and we saw the bill that the Senate. Pass and ultimately is going to be going in the November ballots for referendum. I just want to remind everybody that. For these items to pass, they do need a super majority, which is 60% above 60% approval. So we've obviously this just came out. We've been analyzing it very quickly. And obviously there's a lot to the bill and questions. And I know Chad's firm at Weissarota is looking into this as well and have questions on the impact. So we did a brief overview of what this H.J.R. 1F means for our village budget. So let me take you through some of the. proposed in the referendum. The first one is probably the one that got the most headlines. This has to do with the increased homestead exemption. What this does is for the first year, it raises the exemption to $150,000, and in the second year to $250,000. I do want to emphasize that this replaces the existing $50,000 we have now, so it's not additive. So it's $150,000 instead of the $50,000, so it's $100,000 more, and then it becomes $200,000 more for the next year. The other thing I want to keep in mind is we are heading into our budget season for fiscal year 27. This will not impact the fiscal year 27 budget, but obviously we're looking at this as a mid or long-term approach to say, how do we want to position ourselves heading into 27, knowing that this potentially, depending on the votes in November, could be affecting our fiscal year 28 and obviously fiscal year 29 budget. If we look at the impacts of that additional 150,000 and 250,000 homestead exemption, it's about 800,000. impact in revenue to the village, assuming we're keeping our millage rate steady of where it is today. And in the second year, it doubles to about $1.6 million. I did find interesting just looking at the folios specifically of our about 7,400 properties. There would be about 115 properties that, once this fully phases in, would not pay any taxes to the village of Key Biscayne. They would still have obligations. There's obviously other levying authorities on the tax bill. So for instance, this bill Specifically exempt school board so they would still be having a tax bill for other items, but wouldn't be paying into the village of Key Biscayne Tax system it would still also have to pay the county portion of Well, they'd probably be exempt from that portion. I mean, because this 150, 250 is all levying authorities except for school board. So it might eliminate county. It might fine district, library, et cetera, et cetera, of all the municipal districts on there.

How many did you say, properties?

115. That's kind of the max number because that's right. What now have a $250,000 or less obviously in two years time they could grow up they could increase in value? So maybe that number goes down to a hundred but I did There are some that would not pay in at all. I just wanted to emphasize that point On the next slide and not getting as much attention, but I wanted to bring this to light was for the non homestead the non homestead The cap on an increase in value right now the system is they're allowed a 10% increase in value every year that would be halved in and would go down to 5%. The reason that's so important for the village is that two thirds of our properties are non homesteaded so when we look at sort of the county averages and I look at the other 34 municipalities we kind of rank on the lower end of how many of our houses are homesteaded so I believe this will have a bigger long term impact on the village's ability. To raise revenue. So when we look at the non homestead, that's really condominiums, second homes, commercial areas, and also single family homes that are non owner occupied. So it's not just condos. It's not just commercial, but really that that bucket of all three and. Here I had to project whether if our real estate market stays high. And looking at the last 15 years to see what this non-homestead market has done, I have three scenarios here. I think the middle one is probably a fair analysis, which is that blue line in the middle to say, what would this impact have over 10 years? If these property values continue to increase by more than 5% in value, obviously this bill would suppress that value and take us longer to catch up to full value. The other part to keep in mind is we already have non-homestead properties in the books right now that are well below their market value. So even the existing properties we have now, before we talk about them increasing in value down the road, it'll take us longer to catch up to their true market value unless that property changes hands in new ownership. When I looked at that, it happens about 4% of our properties change over, have about 4% turnover per year. So I factored that into the calculations as well.

Can I ask you a question? Sure. When you say non-homesteaded, then you list condos, second homes, rentals, shops. I think what you mean is commercial properties, residential properties, whether they're homes or condos that are owned by companies and that are not owned by individuals who have claimed homestead. Is that correct?

Correct.

Okay. Because people who have homesteaded as a primary residence, they're condos, are homesteaded properties.

Yeah, the first slide would have affected them. This is second property. Here's another point of the bill which had changed over time. Originally, there were six categories that you'd be eligible to spend your ad valorem revenue on. We believe now with the new language that this wouldn't impact the village as much. And Chad, I don't know if you want to chime in on the restrictive language, but I believe we're okay now because they have a broad language that kind of covers anything the council approves unless general law bans it. So it does look like there is local control on what we actually spend the ad valorem revenues on.

Yeah, that's correct. There is a catch all now. But there's two caveats. The first one is that the constitutional amendment would allow for that catch-all to occur, except as otherwise permitted by law. So the legislature could start limiting in the future what the village could spend money on. And number two, that catch-all doesn't eliminate the fact that these homestead exemptions are also being kicked in, so you're going to have a smaller pot. but at least the categories for spending was expanded to include village or government administrative and management expenses.

Do you have an example of what this was targeting?

I think it was trying to deal with the arguments maybe for parks or for just general services that are not picked up in the other I think there's a lot of categories for very specific.

Yeah originally it was the flip side they were trying to focus on was essential services only. Public service, public works, infrastructure, debt and that's pretty much where they left it. And then they realized that there is a larger component to municipalities in just those four items.

So that would exclude libraries and parks and recreational programs.

Zoning and planning and administrative requirements all those sort of things. and it was really in the last couple hours where they added that in, correct?

It was the day before it was added in, yeah.

This is dismaying.

So obviously a concern at first, we had to rejigger the slides and fortunately it ended up being okay and I think in our favor that obviously offers a wider array of expenditures you can spend ad valorem on. Here's kind of the long-term projections looking at the estimated annual revenue impact. Once again for the assumption, we keep the millage rate steady. So if you look at the bottom half is the orange part, that's the homestead exemption. So you'll notice it doubles from FY28 to FY29 and then it slightly increases because That $250,000 then increases by inflation every year, so it grows a little bit as cost of living grows up. The blue part would be that long-term impact of the non-homestead exemption, assuming kind of the middle case scenario where our non-homestead properties continue to increase at a rate faster than 5%. I think we assumed about 7%. That's how it would look over time. So you look... In any given year, 10 years out the road, obviously the longer you go out on a projection, the harder it is to exactly narrow where it is. It could be $7 or $8 million a year in lost revenue to the village.

I think the largest impact on this is if you look at the orange or the area on the bottom, obviously we have to tighten our belt. And I think we can do it without having too much of an impact on service delivery. But the blue really represents what we do for future investment. And that's where it begins to cut into those things we need to look at in the future, whether it be storm weather. We talked a lot about fields today. We talked about the facilities. So that's when, and you can see the amount. I'm not sure if you add that up over time, but I'm looking at about five times 10. I'm almost talking 50 million there over a 10-year period. So that's quite a bit of money. So as Benjamin mentioned, that blue part will probably have a greater impact on Key Biscayne than just the non-homestead apportionment.

At a time when public investments are unprecedented and complex. And needed.

Isn't there some delay, though, that you can't start claiming some of this until you're in the property two years or four years or something?

That's for non-residents. He's got that on the next slide, too. Yeah, so the next slide is some of the other... On that chart, that's just assuming a steady millage, right? Correct.

Here we keep the steady millage rate at 2.88.

So one possible way to address this would be to increase millage, right?

So during the budget season, I think we're going to get into all the different mitigation strategies, expenditure side, revenue side, fee side, and look at these holistically because it's not as simple just increase the millage to address this. We think, obviously, there's a reason why property tax reform is a hot-button issue now, so I think kind of the direction was about expenditures. I will say, obviously what we've done in the village is we've decreased our millage steadily over the last five years and always had a keen eye on expenditures and obviously delivering services. So it'll be a balancing act. We're just going to analyze the bill now, but I think later in the budget season we'll come up with either expenditure cuts of areas or reprioritizations, or on the revenue side, how do we adapt here? So, like I said, the good news is it doesn't affect our fiscal year 27 budget, but we need to have the eye looking towards the future and how that'll look long term.

So, I don't know, tell me if this is an appropriate example. Chris was just up talking about the $300,000 for road improvement The one possibility would come out of that is that you'd have to extend the period of time that you do those road improvements instead of doing it over whatever five years you got to do them over 20 years and and you would be restricted from. From being able to get that done in a faster, more prudent manner.

Yeah, deferring capital projects, what you mentioned is one. But deferred maintenance, we always know, ends up costing longer in the long term. But that will be an option that we'll present as well.

How are we going to, I guess, I don't understand looking at this. The expenditure reductions or any fee adjustments or millage changes, are you going to bring kind of like a matrix or show us how this thing will work out? Because right now we're looking at this, but. and we understand in concept, philosophically, it's going to be impacts, but I don't think we really have an understanding of the hard numbers. I hear you. We're going to go through the budget season, and this is going to be discussed. Are we going to have an option to?

We're going to do, and I'll let him go into a little more detail, so we're going to do two things. One is understanding what that impact would be, which we pretty much understand here, but we've got to let this bill settle a little bit more and get more information. Yeah, yeah, I understand that. And then lay out the couple options of how we would address that. and I'll let him go into that. And then also, we need to talk about what we want to do in this year's budget, FY27, preparing us for 28. That's kind of a strategic question of what do we need to do in advance of that.

Because at the end of the day, I mean, what we do in 2027 will definitely affect 2028. So what I'm trying to understand, Mr. Manager, is really more of what the numbers are going to be, where, I mean, I hope staff comes back with an understanding of where the highest pressure points would be, the impacts to the budget or to the overall services. Right now, I see revenue impacts and all that. Important to know right now, but we have a pending bill that's about to be approved.

So there's a slide that we share every budget meeting that shows kind of categorization of expenses. So we have our personnel costs, which there's not really... ability to cut there. We have our contracted ones. We already have contracts which we're not going to reach. And there's really a smaller portion that's discretionary. And I think that's where we could come up with recommendations on the expenditure side of do we As the mayor mentioned, defer maintenance. Do we defer training? I mean, we'll come up with ideas there on the expenditure side, on the revenue side. We've been talking revenue diversification for about five years now, not knowing this was coming down the pipe, just as good governance to look at other sources besides ad valorem, not knowing this was coming. Now we might have to expedite. looking at charges for services or other fee-type structures if we're not able to increase taxes.

I know every municipality, every agency is thinking about this throughout the whole state. Are you guys maybe in discussions with other entities, other agencies, other municipalities to try to understand if somebody out there is developing a model that works or not? Any ideas? Are you talking about this with our

Your respective peers so Stephen I were at a city managers conference as this was coming out and I think there was based on the different demographics I'm looking at this chart here on the slide and this looks very different amongst different municipalities even in Dade County. This orange bar goes much higher for other communities that have much more homesteaded properties are going to be impacted. much more rapidly off the bat. So I think this just came out about a couple weeks ago. So I think we're all still going through this analysis. What the reality is, we're also waiting in November to see does this pass or not. So we're going to have scenarios of whether it does pass, whether it doesn't pass. And if it does, we're going to have expenditure side, revenue side, and look at this.

But we still have to approve the millage rate before it passes through referendum. So what structure are you proposing for that?

Well, we've got to pass the military for FY27, but this wouldn't take effect until FY28.

I understand, but that's why I said what we do in 2027 is what is going to end up affecting 2028. So I don't think we are – with this looming out there, this bill looming out there, I think we can't just go like this and say, no, nothing's going to happen, or if it happens, it'll be somebody else's problem. No, we're not, and this is exactly why we're presenting it to you.

We will bring it to you with the idea, and I think we have to, with the idea that it will happen.

Yeah, but will there be another opportunity, or will there be maybe two scenarios to talk about, maybe if it doesn't pass or if it does pass?

I think in preparing the Budget 27, we'll walk through those scenarios, whether it does or it doesn't, and get the appetite of how do we want to address it if it does, so that we can set the tone for next summer when we're talking about the fiscal year 28 budget, and we have the direction to say, do we want to look at this just as an expenditure side and what that looks like, so we're prepared.

Okay. But we can't adopt alternative millage.

Yeah, well, I know. I mean, there will be a first. Because this is a first. This whole thing is a first for everyone.

Is Mike trying to say something? Yes. Go ahead, Council Member.

Benjamin, what's the restriction as far as increasing millage rate? Is there a percentage that we're not allowed to increase over on the annualized basis?

So the statutory limit is 10 mills. Obviously, we're well below that amount. There are certain provisions in trim law about the amount of votes needed to raise the millage. So depending on how much you're increasing it, you might need a unanimous vote. If it's a little smaller increase, you might need a two-thirds vote or just a simple majority, depending on how much over the current you're willing to increase it. So I don't have all the exact numbers now, but we can provide them.

So you could run an analysis that said if we increase the millage rate to the cap, so whatever that value was, you said 10 mils, we could run analysis, financial analysis, by looking at the different ranges of how much we could increase millage if we chose.

But the issue with that is that you still have to have a balanced budget. So you would have a lot of revenue then and... Yeah, the statutory limit of 10 mills is quadrupling our current.

There's no scenario here where we would need that much, but yes, it would be more realistic in talking about millage increases and what the vote requirements would be for each one of those to replace just the lost revenue.

So we can run that, we can increase the millage rate to address the lost revenue if we chose to do that as a group. So is it fair to say that

Because we've been so careful to keep such a low millage rate that we really are in much more comfortable territory than some of the other municipalities?

I think so. We've done a very good scrub over the last five or six years on our expenditures, making sure we're being very careful with what we spend.

Yeah, I want to add something. Fernando was talking about who we contacted I'm talking to a lot of different mayors and I know cities like West Miami Biscayne Park Cutler Bay There's serious serious problems for those folks, I mean serious serious problems We're in much better shape than than a lot of other cities, but I We have to look at also from that point of view. The county is probably going to be in big trouble also.

Mayor, I think that's an important thing that you bring up. Remember, this isn't just our millage. This isn't just our property taxes. Excuse me, sorry. This is also the counties and the services that they provide for us. We're going to have a number of impacts. The libraries is also a millage-based system as well. It's not just municipal facilities. services, the county and others are also going to be impacted as well.

So then on the last slide, the bill keeps going on. There are other provisions in the bill, and one of them talks about eventually having full elimination of homestead, but there's no exact details as to when or how that would happen. I just wanted to throw that out there. That's kind of, I guess, the long-term goal of the governor. There was, as Councilmember Stoner mentioned, the four-year wait for new residents, so those establishing Florida residency. It would take four years for them to then get that $250,000 homestead exemption. However, there is starting in 2030, the council could vote to eliminate that waiting period for new residents if what's called critical local need, whether you guys need outside investment to help the municipality, you could vote to reduce that waiting period. Obviously, that would reduce the amount of taxable value to the village, but you might see it necessary for other reasons to bring in or to increase turnover and and move properties. And this also preserves the $500,000 portability cap, which means if your taxable value is less than $500,000 or more, less than your market value, you can port that with you if moving to a property. kind of more detailed equations, whether your property is more valuable or you're downsizing as to how much you can port over, but it does preserve the majority of it.

The four-year waiting period is only for non-Florida residents who are now moving to Florida. It's not for people within the state moving elsewhere within the state who have residency and who are moving.

Correct.

You probably see a flood of buyers at the end of the year if that were the case, right?

I think that was put in there to prevent exactly that from happening.

Mike, any other questions?

One moment. Go ahead, Councilmember.

No, Joe, I'm good. Thank you.

Okay. We are still Going through the bill and understanding it there there may be Entities that will want to challenge some of the language and that's something that's going on As we speak so But in any case we got a we got to be ready for it You know a little bit about that chat as to so there

There will be a challenge to the ballot. The ballot question is pretty misleading if you read it. So my firm will be bringing a challenge on behalf of certain plaintiffs pro bono, challenging the bill as being misleading. It's not a fair and accurate, really not fair and accurate to the voter, and that's really the basis. And it's... A lot of times, if you read the ballot question, it really seems like more of a political like rah-rah as opposed to being just neutral, fair, impartial ballot language allowing a voter to make a decision.

Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.

No, that's fine.

I mean, is the bill structure in a way that it doesn't clarify to the citizen itself that there are going to be impacts to basic services?

Yeah, I mean, it's... I mean, what's the misleading part? I mean, so you can start right with the title. The title of the ballot summary is Save Our Homes from Excessive Property Taxes.

Yeah, it sounds like a sales pitch.

Okay, and then the next sentence, this amendment benefits Florida taxpayers. So those two... Then if you go further... It talks about and ensures funding for core services. Well, it doesn't actually ensure any funding for core services. It actually limits your spending on core services. It says it protects small businesses, but businesses are not even referenced in the constitutional amendment. And ensures fairness for Florida residents, which is the non-resident that we were talking about before. But it doesn't do that. There's a litany of misleading statements in this to try to sell this. Not to mention that if you read the ballot question, it says that you're exempting homestead properties from taxation. The exemption exempts the first 250. Well, actually, the first year you don't get 250. you get $150,000. So that's misleading. It talks about a schedule of full elimination, which Benjamin highlighted. The amendment doesn't have a full elimination. It actually talks in terms of the legislature creating a process for governments to address future assessments. So we believe that it's really unconstitutional from a variety of different reasons.

Is there an outreach set? I mean, is there somebody from the county or who's on point to deliver the message to the public, as the village attorney well expressed here, all the issues that this bill has?

Well, that's a big slogan. That's an excellent question, because by the same token, our hands are tied as to whether we can advocate freely against this. So you want to address that?

So U.S. Council members have the ability to advocate, you know, freedom of speech. There is a section of Florida law, I think it's section 106.113, which limits expenditures of governments. Governments are limited in how they can spend money when there's an item that hits the ballot. So there are certain things that we will be able to do, but we will, we won't be able to do advocacy to try to advocate against it.

That sounds- Yeah, no, I wasn't talking so much advocacy, but more education. That's not really an objective approach to it. Nobody is- We want the residents to know.

Correct.

What they're voting for.

And we'll be able to address factual questions and provide factual information.

And that's what we intend to do after we have the budget workshop later this month. We'll talk through some of the options. We'll decide at that point if we want to, of course we want to educate our residents, but I think how we want to do it, and we'll be doing that probably over the summer as we go through our budget hearing. and that will be in September. We'll move towards the opportunity for them to have that vote in November.

But again, like Chad said, it's very clear. I mean, apart from hearing out there and hearing the different partisans positions, but aside from that, what is the real objective center of this? And how can people understand what they're, you know, what they're going on about?

I can tell you from at least the lawsuit that we'll be filing is really not to get into the substance, but really to just provide a fair and accurate ballot question. Because that's not where it is. And that's really what at least what we'll be doing. I'm sure that the Florida League of Cities is going to be doing a lot of work on this. I'm sure the Association of Counties also. So there will be a large movement to deal with this. But there will also be a movement on the other side too. So it's

So look, I think this law does a part of what people are looking for, which is to address property taxes. I think it's something that we have to take seriously, and I think our residents as well as other people across the state have a concern with that. So we have to balance that at the same time. As Chad mentioned, the Florida League of Cities is providing us a lot of information, and so once we are able to understand the impact on our budget, we can then talk about really what it does. We're not going to be talking in platitudes. We'll be able to say, this is the impact on the village. And I think that's really where it makes sense. That's about education. Instead of saying, this is what it could do, this is what it will do.

Okay. Very good. Let's deal this issue about, I got Michael there, and talk about the solid waste contract. Mike, if my memory serves me, you wrote a letter asking for it to be delayed? Didn't we go through this already?

We did. Unfortunately, Joe, I don't think the SAV committee got enough time to review it.

I agree with that. I had the opportunity to attend the sustainability committee and I sense that there is an opportunity for the residents in the committee specifically to take a look at this and us as well to understand what the framework of this contract is and what opportunities or what other alternatives are out there, if there are out there, but what other alternatives we have. we need more clarity, we need a little bit more of time. Because for all I know, we're gonna get into a contract and there's other stuff out there that could be more fair and equitable for our residents and other opportunities on how to handle waste from recycling to perhaps even composting. And I think that we have a great opportunity here take a look at this and do it with a little more detail and more conscience with our community. So.

I certainly agree with that.

So perhaps Mr. Manager, just want to ask you, what can we do?

Yes, so Mr. Mayor, Council, so what I'm trying to avoid Of course I can change the date. I gave them a date of 1 July. I did it on purpose because if you go back to the soccer contract that we just approved, that started nine months ago. So we can't wait for nine months. So I told them when we handed them the contract of June 1st that I want to put this out by July 1st. So they actually took it seriously, which was actually very good because they decided to get together on June 12th, and they're going to get together. Of course, as conversation goes forward, we can talk about extending that date. But I just don't want to go through another nine-month process where the board and the community goes through this and we don't get much feedback. So we're very interested in the feedback. I'm very interested in working with the board. And when the board chair comes to me and talks to me about it, I will work with him on that timeline. Great.

So, Steve, we got an agreement to extend it for a period of time.

Say that louder, sir.

So, Steve, we've got an agreement to extend this for another month?

Yes, and I'm not sure when you're back, Councilmember, but certainly if you would let me work with Derek, we can come up with a timeline. But again, what I don't want to do is I don't want this to go through another nine-month period.

I will assure you that we'll not go more than two months period. You got my word.

Okay, so I'll work. If you don't mind, I'll work with Derek. We'll set a timeline, and we can make that happen.

And I'll be back June 30.

Okay.

Okay.

You need to come to the podium because I'm sorry.

Thank you. It's summer break. Everybody takes a break. Council doesn't even convene again until August 25th. So I'd like for...

I wish that were true, but no.

Oh, I mean, if you do, great. Because this, you know, as I said, to extend it allows us to do our job and you to do your job. And we have a lot to say. And this is really a very important contract. And as Council Member Vasquez said, there are lots of opportunities that I think need

But what I what I heard Mike say and the manager say is yes, we will extend as needed okay we can solve it faster fine if we we need 2 months, which is what Mike said that would be the outside the right.

And the smear what I also said I said when when the board chair comes to me I'll work with the timeline with him as well okay.

So if it's not enough we will we'll work with the rest of what's going on okay, thank you very much okay. To go Mister mayor way way way. You want to announce a little bit about the soil situation.

Just a real quickie, and I think, Mr. Mayor, we've talked about a couple council members came to us as well, and we're going to adjust the timeline a little bit. So, Jeremy, why don't you talk to us a little bit about what we've done, make it real quick, and then why we think we need to extend this a little bit.

Sure. So, just so you all know, what the team has been doing so far has been when they see a property with an issue, They've actually been posting the flyer that we produce that goes through the regulations without any formal warnings, without anything that would lead to code compliance action so that people have ample time to understand what we're proposing and when the enforcement would be becoming more official. So we're going to push that. We're going to continue with that operation for another month before we then would move towards warnings. So it would still be just escalating into more formal warnings in, what did we decide, September? September is when we would escalate to formal warnings.

Formal violations.

Yeah, warnings that then become violations if they don't come into compliance. Even that first step before it flips to a violation is a warning. So we're trying to give people plenty of time to come into compliance. So far, there's been a focus on the three-foot setback from the asphalt to edge. The next thing we'll be looking at more is the site triangles for driveways, because we have looked at all the other site triangles for intersections already. Any questions?

Of my four, I only need to talk about one of my four.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks, Jerry. Let's see. Status report from manager regarding installation of timed access. Okay.

Yeah, I can put all those off because they were more in the idea of announcements. Number one, For me, number three for me, and number eight for me. The only one I'd like to discuss is my add-on.

I'm sorry, Council Member. You're removing items? I'm deferring them. Her discussion items. Deferring number one? Number one, number three, and number eight.

And number?

Nine.

Nine. So the only one I would like to discuss at some point is my add-on.

Okay.

There was the code of conduct.

Yes. We're going to mayor and council members.

Yes. We're jumping around a little bit, but yes. Go ahead. Okay. Go ahead.

We have a very bare bones code of conduct, which only applies to participants in community center. And I think we really need to have a code of conduct for that applies to participants, visitors, parents in not only the community center, but the Village Green and in all village properties and assets. And I think it needs to be broad enough that it includes having the proper respect for other people. It needs to be very, very broad. And it needs to say, among other things, that if you have a problem, You don't take matters into your own hands. You report it to staff or to the manager or to council to resolve your issue and that it should be published on any registration form, posted in the community center, posted on the website. Because we've had a couple of things happen where People have not behaved properly. And I think we should also have in this code of conduct a reservation to the village to prohibit someone from participating or attending or entering some of the facilities permanently, temporarily, or whatever if their conduct is unacceptable. And it's unfortunate. It doesn't happen a lot. But when it happens, it's egregious. And it's not good. So I would ask that I guess that I'm going to make a motion that the council direct the manager to ask Todd to beef up our code of conduct and make it more broad and inclusive and that we post it and have the ability to enforce it.

It sounds, Council Member, what you're asking for is not just community center or parks but it sounds like all facilities it is okay and of course we'd be happy to do that um fortunately unfortunately we just had to make a um significant decision in the community center just last week i think it's fortunate um um but yes we did use that code of conduct it did work appropriately um but if we want to brought it to the entire village we certainly can do that and it's i think it should not be limited to participants but to all everybody the the the the um

the caretakers, the visitors, everybody.

We'll do that, and we'll do that. I would imagine we'll have to do that in conjunction with police as well because some of them may go over into law, and so we will deal with policy and procedures, and then we'll have to leave to law what's law.

Thank you.

And we can bring something back in August.

Great. Thank you.

Consensus to the first amendment is the youth soccer code of ethics. It's pretty good.

No, we've got some very good frameworks that I think this is something we can definitely take care and bring back to council in August without a problem.

Thank you. Perfect. So consensus of council.

Yes. Yes.

Consensus of council. All right. So this one's done.

I go to.

Let's go to Pelotons, a favorite topic of the item.

To discuss bicycle and Peloton safety operations along Crandon Boulevard and the Rickenbacker Causeway Corridor, including an update on any current interlocal agreements, enforcement protocols, or operational coordination between the Village of Key Biscayne, Miami-Dade County, and other applicable agencies. Council Member Vasquez, your item.

I brought this item because I wanted to Well, obviously, speak about the obvious. But the other day we saw a video, thanks, I think it was Carlos Mendia who posted it, and thanks to his civic stewardship, we're getting to see what these Pelotons are doing early in the morning. And they're getting worse by, at least that's the perception we're getting. Now they're taking the whole road. So I know you guys are working hard at trying to manage it. I'm not here to question what you guys are doing, but there has to be a stop to that. We all want the bicyclists to be out there. We all want them to ride, but we want them to be safe, and we want the drivers to be safe as well. It's very early in the morning. The margin for human error increases or decreases, actually, and somebody can get hurt or somebody can go to jail, you know, and we don't want that. We don't want to ruin people's lives. So I just really think that we need to understand how we are managing this.

So good evening, Mayor, Council. You know, I appreciate your comments, and it is something that we do balance and continuously work on. As I've mentioned in several meetings in the past, we do have excellent relationships with not only the City of Miami, but Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office. And we have worked operations in collaboration with them throughout the last several months to include one that we recently did last week, which targets not only Pelotons, because it's not just focused on Pelotons, it's focused on driver safety also, because drivers have... blame also in the game. We all have to learn to share the road responsibly with one another. I do believe there has been an improvement. We were getting consistent videos several months ago, and we did some multi-jurisdictional operations with the county, Key West County Police, City of Miami, on several mornings out there. I participated in them. I issued tickets myself, and we saw a drop. Am I going to say that that's never going to happen, what we saw in that video? No, because it is going to happen from time to time. I do believe the activity has decreased. We did an operation last week, last Thursday, where we issued a number of citations and wrote a number of stops, but much less than when we did it the previous months. We do have another operation planned this week. It's something that we're going to continuously monitoring continuously do. Some additional steps that I want to make sure that the council's were of in collaboration with the city and the county. We did reach out to the Peloton groups, the Don Palm groups and the cycling groups that regularly traverse the causeway and notified them of our concerns and sharing the road equally with everyone. And as I said, there's always outliers, right? Because, uh, We do see the videos from time to time. I do encourage our citizens, if they are leaving the causeway, that they should not take action into their own hands, i.e. filming or driving on a median or yelling at a cyclist, because that only escalates the situation. I think everyone can agree with me. I would hope there is an increased visibility by Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office along the causeway. I see them every day when I come in, and they're very active in traffic enforcement, and the last two majors that have been assigned there...

I need complaints about that, too.

I understand. They are here for our safety, and when I say our safety, not only the Village of Key Biscayne, for all the residents and visitors of Miami-Dade County.

Chief, can I ask you a question? These operations, are they, when you say recurrent, When do they take place?

We vary them. When we initially started them, we started them to target the days that the large groups were riding, early morning hours, and that's when we did them. I can have a private conversation with you. I don't like to divulge to the public all of our operational plans and tactics on how we pick days and times.

My question was more, can we try to increase the frequency of it to kind of, shift the paradigm a little bit. Your presence there is going to make them behave, to make everybody behave.

Yeah, and we have. That's why we did an operation last week. We're doing another one this week. And we're going to continue doing these joint operations. I can't sit here and tell you that they're going to be every single day. I can't tell you. And I had this conversation earlier in the day with someone. There was a period after we did those joint operations, Miami-Dade Sheriff was running radar on a daily basis at Colusa, on a daily basis, without us asking to do it. Yes, this is our driveway. But we also need to remember Miami-Dade Sheriff operates that driveway. But we do have great relationships with them. I've explained to their major. I've explained to the undersheriff the importance of not only vehicle, but Peloton safety along the causeway. And I really do believe that they've taken and heard us seriously. Every time I call for any assistance, they're there. And we're going to continue doing this. And I understand it's a priority for you and everyone else on this council. It's a priority for us also. We don't want to see anyone get hurt, and we want to ensure that everyone shares the road responsibly.

And I agree, people should not be filming, but the problem is when you see something like that, you want everybody to be aware.

But they need to call us, because if they call us, we have to send someone. There is this misnomer that we don't go. If you call 911 or a non-emergency number, someone is going to get dispatched. Any police department. I think we also need to take into consideration the ability and the impact that officers have with these large groups. When you have 60 cyclists and one officer, there is an officer safety issue there, and how do you stop one of the 60? And we do it, because I've done it. Well, we've done the joint operations. There has to be a consideration to that also. I'm not saying all police officers are perfect. We can always improve. There is a human factor to what we do in law enforcement.

Right. And quick question on the cyclist side. Are there people out there that are sponsoring more safety? Do we have

champions there yeah the 305 ride bicycle group which has done events on the causeway for years they're they're big champions into bicycle safety and and they they preach responsible riding and sheer riding yeah there are groups out there that actually advocate for this and look you know even my experience with the cyclists that i've stopped you have you have the competitive nature of it and then you have the ones that do it recreationally and for exercise and and they understand the balance and the delicacy of what we're dealing with

All right, let's flank it from all ends. I mean, your end, their end, and let's really try to be safe out there. Yes, sir. It's a little crazy. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. Do you want to move to your items? Yes. Mr. Miranda, update on Harbor Drive. We're glad you asked.

We have some good news, Mr. Mayor.

Come on now. I've only been asking for three years.

We received our bids today. I don't have those numbers. I believe Darren has left already, but we did receive our bids today. Darren is reviewing them to make sure the packets are complete. Once he is done with that, we will have a recommendation to the manager for the award. So we are one step closer. Once we have...

And like the conversation we had about masks, this is something we control, even though the majority of the money comes from the county.

We do control it. The county does want to see who we awarded to and make sure that that it's in line with their guidelines. But we do control. OK, we control make our recommendation of award to the county.

And they're going to pay $1.9 million of it, and we're paying a couple hundred thousand?

The total project estimate was $2.6 million, and the county is paying $1.9, so there's a difference of about $700,000. We have to see what the bids came in at, but yes, there will be a portion that we pay for. But the county is fronting $1.9 million.

Okay, excellent. Mr. Mayor, we'll be bringing it to the council on June 30th for first reading. Yes.

All right. Mr. Attorney, other important matter that we had to discuss?

Sure. So I believe the clerk notified you that on Friday we received notification from the supervisor of elections that the petition was The initiative petition that was submitted by the petitioner's committee had received the necessary votes to be placed on the ballot. Today, the village received confirmation from the supervisor of elections that she consented to this item being placed on the November ballot. So pursuant to our charter, the council shall submit this amendment to the voters at the next regularly scheduled mayor or council member election, which is not a primary, or the next regularly scheduled countywide general election, which is not a primary. We're not going to be able to meet the August deadline, but the November deadline we could meet. So I would ask if the council would would call for a special call meeting at some point before July 24th for us to place this on the ballot. That's the date, the drop-dead date from the Elections Department. We will draft the question and present the question to the council. The council will then vote on the question to go to the voters. So that's it. I'm just requesting for you guys to call a special meeting so we could do that.

The question that will be on the ballot is precisely the question that was in the.

Correct correct, so the submittal was the language, the Charter language that they submitted stated any stormwater and or flood prevention projects. Whether separated into separate projects and their phases, which are estimated to collectively cost more than $50 million within a period of three fiscal years, requires approval by a majority vote of the qualified electors voting on the proposed projects. So the question will be addressing that charter language. So I don't really understand what we're voting on it to be voting on the actual ballot question which would say something to the extent of shall the village charter be amended to provide. That that.

We really don't have I mean we either you just have our stamp it or not right you just have to your discretion is in the ballot question.

And that's it. You don't have discretion in the actual charter language as that process has been went through the legal procedures to go on to the ballot.

Does that mean if a project was extended over 11 years and it cost more than 50 million dollars three years is subsumed within 11 years.

So if it's over three years it would not require voter approval. So if it extended 11 years. it would not require voter approval pursuant to this.

Or four years?

Three years and one day. 3.1 years. Yes.

I'm not sure any project can get done in three years.

So, now it includes the project. You can't break it up into phases, but it's, or if it's one project that's made up of multiple little projects, you can't do that either. But yes, I mean, it's... Anything over three years would not require a voter approval.

Okay, so we're meeting on June 30th for, hold on a second, hold on. It's the strategic workshop, no, the budget preview. OK so and then the next one is July 7th.

Either one. We should deal with this.

Yeah. I'm saying it so that all of you look at your calendars and make sure you're going to be there.

both of those dates are good but if we stretch out into July no no I you know yeah July 7 is fine just to drop deadline it drop deadlines July 24 24 get it to the elections to the supervisor so we would need it at least a day before that okay okay so Fernando you are you good too I'm good okay go ahead Mike

Would you clarify real quick if we have a project that is phased and it phases over a three-year period of one day, is that legit? Can we proceed in that fashion or not?

Yes, that's fine.

Okay, thank you.

I have a quick question on projects of, let's say, Black Swan event, hurricane. There's no exception in here.

There's no exception for emergencies in here.

All right. Well, that's something to consider, I guess. Well, we can't.

Well, that's something for the voters to consider.