City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to a regular council meeting. Today is September 17, 2026. We're going to call to order at 6.35 p.m. Can we please rise for the invocation led by Councilwoman Celina Martinez and the Pledge of Allegiance.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for all the blessings in all of our lives. We ask that you guide us this evening as we set about to do village business, keeping us ever mindful of those that we represent. We also ask, again, that you will watch over our service men and women as they toil around the world and keep them safe as possible for their loved ones at home. We know that the police and the firefighters and the ESP keep us safe here at home, but we ask that you do more. to watch over them and have your angels keep them safe as well. And I think that's about it. And if there's anything else, we'll add it at the end. We thank you, Lord, and in the name of your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, we pray, amen.

Amen. 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. Madam Cook, can we take a roll call please? All right, meeting notices are the same. Presentation, I see there's nothing to report or show. Do we have any citizens' comments in the crowd?

We do have a new citizen in the crowd out there. There we go. Come on up.

Or not. Or not. Let me introduce a new resident that just moved in to the Village of Virginia Gardens on 62nd Court and 38th Terrace.

Oh, you're here. You're here.

This is our mayor.

Nice to meet you all.

See you again.

Well, by the time you move in, you should have a nice new paved road, so within a month or so. There's a lot of construction going on over there right now in that area, and for any project we're currently working on, but eventually we'll come back and repave it.

Hopefully I bring the house into your standard.

Looking forward to it.

Little by little, little by little. Little by little, I know. Welcome again. All right, on to announcements, amendments, corrections to the agenda. Final budget hearing scheduled for September 28th, 2026 at 5.30 p.m. On to approval of the minutes. Do we have, you know what, do you want to go ahead and bench up A, B, C, D, or E? Any all together? You can do all together. All right. Do we have a motion to approve the minutes for 9A, 9B, 9C, 9D, and 9E?

You got it. Oh, okay.

All right, I have a motion by Council Member Terry Martinez and a second by Councilman Arcee. Any other discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. On to Mayor's report. Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Council President. So I do have a proclamation declaring September as Council Cancer Awareness. I won't read it because it's pretty long and I didn't bring my glasses. We are declaring it. Do you want to read it, Debbie?

Do you want to read it?

Yes, please.

Whereas September has been designated National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month to honor those children whose lives have been lost and those irrevocably impacted by this terrible illness and to strengthen the nation's resolve to search for a cure, and whereas cancer is the leading cause of death by disease among U.S. children, between infancy and 15 years of age, and whereas one in every 260 children in the U.S. will be diagnosed with cancer before the age of 20, whereas childhood cancers cross all racial, ethnic, geographic, and socioeconomic backgrounds, and each year tens of thousands of children face the battle of cancer with incredible bravery and inspiring hope. And whereas while progress against some childhood cancers has been made, cure rates for many forms of childhood cancer remain less than 50%, with the incidence of the childhood cancers increasing at a more rapid rate than any other age group. And whereas this disease not only affects the child diagnosed with cancer, but also their entire support network of devoted parents, grandparents, loved ones, friends, and whereas the city recognizes the devastating impact that this disease has on members of our community and the importance of increased research on childhood cancer. And whereas this month we recognize that these burdens are shared by counselors, dedicated healthcare professionals, organizations, charities, and parent advocacy groups which support patients and families by offering advice, encouragement, hope, financial assistance and work tirelessly to lift the spirits of children suffering from cancer. Now therefore, be it resolved that Fred Testino, the fourth as Mayor and on behalf of the Village Council of the Village of Virginia Gardens, hereby proclaim September 2023 as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

sounds like a teacher man you did really well the go back go over to one are updated for our foam water project but since we have our public works director in the room i'll let him give us an update on that um what else do we have I told the council the last budget hearing, I think you're already off, about the FP&L. They're coming in to finish up 65th Street, 67th Avenue. They already submitted their permit for the underground work. And they proved their project kind of fell behind. So they actually can come in after the afternoon. So hopefully by the end of the year, the whole entire building will be underground.

We'll let LAS cover what they're doing now.

They're moving along.

They got some restoration still. So yeah, we'll let LAS kind of stay on that.

We do have a resolution coming up regarding our project for next year with the restoration portion for FPOT, the $350,000. We had to do a resolution with all the paperwork for FPOT. I don't know. That's all I got from the council. Thank you, Mayor.

What happened with the grant?

We have the grant. It's still there. Yeah? Yeah?

All right, on item 11A, nothing to report. 11B, Mr. Edgar Martinez, would you like to join us?

Certification? Excuse me, Mayor, you got July minutes in front of you?

Any questions? Anything that stands out?

We are going around trimming some of the trees. There was a list. I know Hector made a list and Laz also made a list. So we did get some compliments from some of the residents recently. Which is a good thing. Normally you don't hear nothing good, but we actually have some positive comments.

He's done a lot of work, because I thought we were in special trash or something, because of all the branches and everything.

I know, right? There is special trash picked up, you know, but he said he should have dropped everything first. Yeah, right.

He always does a great job.

Yeah, it's definitely a big improvement. We have a lot of suckers out there, a lot of recent needs. Any questions for us? Nothing else? August? No, sir. Thank you very much. You want to put the August one on it? I didn't put it on the board, but we received this. When you have your tree list still going, we do have the grant. So we will be eventually pushing the tree. How many do we have on the list?

Ballpark.

At least 30, something, 30? 50? No, no, no, no, no. I would say it's got to be at least 15 to 25 that I could just off the top of my head. I think it's more than 20 plus right now. That's good.

You know when we're going to start ordering?

Not yet. We've got a construction going on and an SPL project. We're trying to let them slow down a little bit.

Do we have a max time to use that?

We just signed it maybe a month ago. It's a month or two months ago. We have over a year. We have a year and a half.

Okay.

Once the order is free, we're talking about one month. Order them, get them delivered, pay them, September. Next one, September, minutes.

I just received this email.

Someone's asking for a rule. How many black olives have we removed this year? So one thing we talked about years ago, it's taken out every year. So I would recommend when we go to Thank you very much. Planning and zoning, no meeting for the month of September.

Mayor Council? No, sir. Thank you for doing such a great job. Thank you.

Do you have any additional water?

No extra water for everybody?

No. I don't like PG. I like the M4 Reno myself.

20 days by career, right?

I haven't provided for you as for other members. Alright, just want to press that for the record.

Thank you, Chief.

Public Works, update on the roadway project. The man of the hour. Good evening, Mayor, Council. Good evening, sir. Scandering project, it's moving along pretty good. We already completed re-piping 63rd Court between 38th service and 39th. We installed two brand new test stations with French train on 63rd Ave, off 38th Terrace. One on the east side, one on the west. We also jumped over to 40th Terrace. We installed two more boxes there with French train. And now we jumped actually this week to the east side, west side. West side to 39th Street. We installed a box there, a little challenging. Water is like two feet below the Water table's super high there. But they managed it. Took like three days, but they were able to do it. And now we jumped today to 41st Street, Lafayette, which two boxes are going to go in there. So storm drain-wise, we got like three, besides the two in Lafayette, we got three more to install. And then we also got them doing some sidewalk restoration at the same time. And pretty soon we'll be milling and paving. Great news. Moving along, residents are liking what they're seeing. No complaints so far. How much, what's the time of completion, more or less? Completion date. For building and paving and everything? I'll say a couple months. Okay, yeah.

Debbie? I would just like to talk to him because every day when I came home from work he was standing there with his hands on his hips overlooking that hole and what the guys were doing and this and that and I took pictures of you not because of that but because we posted on our social media showing how the things that our city does and how wonderful you are overseeing that project and you were there every your workers were concerned as to why you took pictures of them but but it was great every day. He marked the time that I came home, and I came home on different times, different days.

He was there watching us.

I think I know that.

I think I know that. When they're digging and putting pipes and stuff on there, then when they're backfitting and stuff, but usually they run late. FPL. Before you go into that,

One thing that came up during this project, when we were at the last League of Cities dinner, and it was Faith's birthday, we had that heavy rain that came in. So roughly 38 terrace was pretty good. It went down really fast, no issues there. But we did have an issue on 40th Street. So it went from sidewalk to sidewalk. I'm not sure if you can see it over there. Is that on 40th Street? On 40th Street, in between 62 and 64. And if you look closely down the road, That's where we are working on, that's one of the areas that we're replacing one of the drains in the front pipe. And so since the last, since the 10, there are catch basins there. There's a manhole in the street. So what they came up with is, Rich and Ken talked about replacing the manholes there, I mean, the catch basins. But Mads and I talked and what they did is they removed the front drainage. They just extended the front drainage down.

Yeah, there's two boxes, one on the north, one on the south, with a French train on the north side. I guess it can't handle all that, so what we did on the south side, since there was just a box there, the Corps drilled it, and we ran a 60-foot French train, a brand new one there. So now we got French train on the north side and on the south side. Because the box on the south pushes to the north end, and then goes on the French train. So now each box has their own French train.

And they're connected together so you know. I don't know the canal, I just came through Okeechobee and that canal.

Okeechobee is, I don't know what they're waiting for but they know, they know, they know. Yeah.

Well I'll put a message in the amount of Villalobos, Villalobos tomorrow.

I know some of the messages.

So with FPL, the restoration is a little on the slow side.

The players that were at the beginning are no longer with the company. A lot of them have moved on. So now we got new players coming in, picking up where they left off. They had a guy today going door to door, looking at the backyard to see what needed to be done. If they needed concrete, if they needed sod, or if it was complete. And he's going, he started today, so it'll be a bit, but he's going from door to door. Super slow sign, unfortunately. But they'll get there. i just wanted to ask say yesterday there was a young lady going around from one of their trucks and she was in my area but she didn't come to my house she's with the crew that's doing the connection uh the underground connection already so um so going door to door they're on this area down there where you live by um like an hour they need an hour to shut the power down and do the fossil

I know they hooked up my neighbor next door. Anyway, they did his and took down the wire and everything all in one fell through. Yeah, they did a wire.

Yeah, the guy, everything is manual. They put a ladder up, he goes up there, he cuts it. Another guy picks it all up and they winch the transformer down with a pulley and a rope.

They just submitted plans about a week ago, I believe. 6-5 to 6-7. They already had it ready to go. Plans were already ready. They didn't release them yet because of other projects they had before. But since other two projects got held up, they asked to come in here. We said, absolutely.

They're looking to start pretty quick, within a few weeks.

Honestly, it helps us out because if there's any cracked sidewalks we're already working at, we're going to repair them and replace them.

Because my neighbor, the one on the corner, hit us when they were doing something.

I don't know if it was that or it was the trash. No.

So what is it involved? The streets being ripped up or the yards where they're putting the boxes?

They're not even working the roads. I mean, the machine may be in the road. Or in the yards where they're putting the boxes. It's not just where they're putting the boxes.

Wherever there's a hole in the back, they have to get to it. They have to get to it. They're going to get to that hole.

They're going to get to it. They're going to go through your yard from the front to the back. Yeah. They're going to dig up holes in your yard.

Listen, I got a phone back at my house, too. And they didn't have, mine was already underground. So they just tied it into where my underground warbler was. They got it down to a tee now.

If you're underground already, they'll run up the pipe from the from the road directional board to close to where that one's at, then they'll dig a hole there to tie it in. So.

All the underground that goes to the bag, are they all done or are they still doing it? Are they all in place?

No, all the underground from 5-7 place to 6-4 is already, yeah.

Okay, so there's new.

Okay. So there's the section between 5-7 and 5-6. No, between 5-9 and 6-2, those are the ones that they're connecting now. Are you connecting now?

The day that they did the final, the final day, they were telling us it was going to be like, what, four hours? It was going to be four and five minutes, and we were hooked up. And they said, okay, but the wire's going to stay there until later when we take them off. But it was immediate. Now, next door to me was, okay, Southline. They, he called to tell me, oh, my power's out, you know, it's happening. And it was them, they were there, they did everything. It was such a remote thing. Oops, that thing. And they did it, they worked around it, and in less than an hour, he had his power. And they don't have to come back to take it away.

Well, they knock on your door multiple times.

Yeah, and they leave a folder.

I've actually got a text message saying my power's going to be out from this time to this time. So I've got someone there, you know,

Can I answer her? I want to answer her out loud so you can answer what I'm telling her. She asked me about testing tanks switching over now to water meters. Spencer explained to me that they're not going to the back to the water meter. They're going to cut it off and then they're going to find the closest water source to the front of the house and hook it up there.

That's the game. Yeah. So that's usually the... No, that's usually the way it is. It's a different project now. Once they do the main in the front, the major's going to go to the sidewalk and then they'll find the closest picket and they'll tie into that.

Mine's on this side of the house.

Some are going to be easy, some are going to be difficult. My neighbor's house to my north in the corner there for electric, they have the hurdles go over on the pole. because her meter can is inside of her covered hard core area, so they had no way to get to it. So this went from the transformer to the pole and hooked up that way, so she saw us overhead going from the pole to the house, ignoring things underground.

That's the only one I know. Unfortunately, there's very minimal scenarios like that, but there's no other way to go around it. Thank you very much. A lot of projects going on. Messy, a little ugly, a little dirty, a little dusty. But at the end, we'll have new roads, new water lines, new FPL on the ground. Wow, we're just going to be a brand new village. Thank you.

Resolutions, Mr. Attorney. Thank you, Mr. President.

We have item 11-P-1, a resolution of the Village of Virginia Gardens, Florida, approving a state-funded grant agreement with the state of Florida Department of Transportation for the Village of Virginia Gardens Broadway Improvement Project, financial project number 451684-2-54-01, authorizing the mayor to execute the agreement and all related documents, accepting the maintenance obligations set forth in the agreement, authorizing implementing action, and providing for an effective date. We have a motion.

I make a motion.

We have a motion by Councilman Tito Martinez. Second.

We have a second by Councilman Narcy. Any other discussion? This is a roadway project that we received state funding for $350,000. That will be the restoration portion of the upcoming project.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed?

Resolution G1 passes. Item 11G2, Resolution of the Village Council of the Virginia Gardens, Florida, approving and authorizing the execution of the First Amendment for the Urban Qualification Cooperation Agreement between Miami-Dade County and the Village of Virginia Gardens in order to continue the Village's participation in Miami-Dade County's Urban County Entitlement Jurisdiction for the Community Development Program, CDBG, Home Investment Partnership Home, and Emergency Solutions Grant, ESG, programs for federal fiscal years 2027, 2028, and 2029, authorizing the mayor to execute the amendment and all related documents. and certifications required by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, ratifying the prior transmittal of the Villagers' Notice of Intent to Participate, providing for implementation, and providing for an effective date.

Do we have a motion on the floor?

I'll make a motion.

We have a motion by Councilwoman Tera Martinez.

Second.

We have a second by Councilwoman Conover. Any other discussion?

Yeah. I'll put together a song on page. I don't know why we have that big. Any other discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed?

Resolution G2 passes.

On to attorney's report. Mr. Attorney, once again.

Item 12A, Mr. President, it's an order for first reading, an ordinance of the Council of the Village of Virginia Gardens, Florida, amending the code of the Village of Virginia Gardens by creating Chapter 12.5, Parks and Recreation, and creating Article 1, thereof, entitled Smoke-Free and Vape-Free Parks, to prohibit smoking and vaping in village parks and recreational facilities, subject to applicable state law limitations, provided for definitions, prohibited conduct, waste disposal, silence, and enforcement, provided for conflict, provided for severability, provided for inclusion in the code, and provided for .

Do we have a motion on the floor? We have a motion by Councilman Cedar-Martinez and a second by Councilwoman Conover. For discussion, just curious, this is not just a field park. It's all the way up to there, no? It's an entire village park. It's a ground, a village ground.

It's quail.

Yeah?

Oh, no, not quail. For me.

No, this is Parks and Recreation. This is our, this is here. So didn't we do this a long time ago? Department of Health requested it. But I thought we've done this in the past.

I remember Richard Block was...

Okay, well, we've passed something similar in the past. I thought it was the same exact one, but... Department of Health will send us a couple of emails on it now and get it out of the way. But it makes sense. We don't want people smoking or vaping out to our kids.

Any other questions?

No, we don't. Because I remember Richard was here. He was complaining that we need an area for smokers. Yeah.

spearheading this, but it wasn't an individual accounting proposal.

Any other discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Item 12A passes. First reading. First reading, yes. All right. Number 13, old business, nothing to report. New business, nothing to report. Good and welfare. Does anybody have any good and welfare?

Two to three weeks.

you have to have anything done or no no two or three weeks recovery and back to normal if you do mlm i asked them they said oh you need to do an mri and i'm like okay worst case scenario we do the mri and there's something what are you going to do is a surgery or no just rest okay so how about we just rest it anyways but thank you for asking everyone do we have a motion to adjourn we have a motion by councilwoman martinez we have a second second we have a second by councilman turk Any other discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye.

All those opposed? We adjourn at 7-0-4.