City Council - Regular Meeting

Well, good evening, everyone, and welcome. I'd like to call the City of Homestead Council presentation meeting to order. We have just one presentation this evening initiated by Councilwoman Avila. Floor is yours, Councilwoman.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. It is my honor and privilege to recognize one of our officers of the Homestead Police Department, Officer George Valdez, which you can come up to the front with me now with your family if you'd like. And Chief Knapp, if you can come up. So George Valdez, he was recognized as Rookie of the Year Officer at the recent PBA Gala, which we attended and supported. And it was one of the most recent recognitions in a while, right? My understanding is we haven't had a PBA recognition for, do we have a number? Years. So I said we have to make sure we do this here in the chambers of our city hall. So I have this beautiful plaque and it says City of Homestead Councilwoman Erica G. Avila proudly honors Rookie of the Year Officer George Valdez presented the second day of June 2026. I will be presenting that. And we wanted to share the video that was played at the PBA so you all can enjoy that. And I also wanted to give our amazing chief of police an opportunity to speak on behalf of the department as well as our rookie. Thank you.

Rookie Police Officer of the Year, Homestead Police Department Officer, George Valdez.

I've always wanted to become a police officer. It's always been one of my dreams. In this profession, you could do one thing, and it could lead to a completely different situation in the blink of an eye. And it led from a simple traffic stop for not having a light on their bike. He began acting very nervous with me and started looking around, which you kind of get that gut feeling that something's not really right. What was weird is that he gave me a wallet, and inside that wallet was a child of a little Hispanic man, but he was a black man. He also had all the documentation of other females, Hispanic females and Hispanic males. Throughout my investigation, I asked other officers to respond to her location to see maybe if they knew this individual, which in turn had led to a burglary to a motorized vehicle. Not just one, but multiple of them. Throughout the investigation, we were able to obtain CCTV footage or surveillance footage, which actually depicted the male going into several vehicles, regularizing them, taking items. And the whole goal of this job is to try to prevent these crimes from happening and making our city a better place to live in. Just from that one victim, there was about four or five other victims, which were her family members also. So that was a really good stop. I thank my command staff for nominating me for this or thinking about all the hard work that I put in for the department and for the community. I love this job. I wish I would have started this earlier in my career. I would do this job for free.

Thank you and all of the police officers of our wonderful police department. Thank you for all that you do, all the hard work, all the sacrifice. Thank you to the families and obviously our children. So thank you for your support.

So I won't talk about the incident because that was the incident that started everything, at least this snowball effect. But the reality is that George was hired in February of 2024. He graduated the academy in August of 24. And this November 21st, subject check, that's when that happened. That's just one snapshot of the job that he's been doing since he's been here. I mean, there was that burglary. He uncovered two different burglaries that same night. But he's taken 326 traffic stops. He's taken 245 subject checks, 97 arrests that year. And what's important about this recognition is, yes, we proposed him for this, but this went through a board through the PBA of 34 municipalities, including the sheriff's office. And they chose you as the rookie of the year among from the Broward County line to the Monroe County line. So I want to congratulate you.

And I'd like to invite Mayor and Council to join us for a group picture. Thank you. And command staff, please come up and join us.

That concludes the presentation ceremonies for this evening. Wait just a few moments, we will shift the record keeping and move into the Community Redevelopment Agency meeting. Again, congratulations to our officer and his family and everyone who supports him and what he does for us each and every day. Ready? Okay. All right. I'll give these guys a couple of seconds to get out. Okay, good evening, everyone. I'd like to call to order the City of Homestead Community Redevelopment Agency meeting. Today is June 2nd, 2026, and it is now 5.15 p.m. Madam Clerk, if you could call the roll, please.

Board Member Fletcher. Board Member Hannibal.

Here.

Board Member Konski. Here. Board Member Avila. Here. Board Member Roth. Here. Vice Chairwoman Bailey. Here. Chairman Lawson.

here uh mr beck do you have any deletions or deferrals this evening no chair i do not well let's move into tab one the car number 5014 presentation of proposal for homestead live yes and board as you know the homestead live concept has been contemplated at a vacant property that the cra owns at 212 southwest third court for some time as a place of community activation and gathering You all have had the overview for me. I know you've met with the proposer. What I would like to do at this time is invite the proposer to come up and give a brief presentation on essentially the proposal they have made to us to enter into a license agreement to do the development, overall management operation of the Homestead Live component, fairly similar to what we have contemplated from the last couple of years. So with that, I would like to invite the proposers to come up and to state your name, your organization, and we could go straight into the presentation.

Is the mic on?

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm Arthur Sorey.

Adrian Lozaga.

We're both with Homestead Live and name of the company is Foodie Town Homestead Live. That's our name. So this is the ultimate public-private partnership which we're here to speak about today on a site that this board already and staff are already considering to move forward with the activation. 213 Southwest 3rd Court, and our vision is pretty much the same as what the board had in the past, is to create this pop-up entertainment venue where people come out, hang out. We have food trucks, outdoor seating, very family-friendly atmosphere. And at the same time, we're creating economic impact. We're creating something in the area that's not going on right now. We tend to have people come in and visit an area someplace that people aren't going right now or congregating. We're looking at that and feeling that is the best location for this project right now. It's not a big area, but it is there. We have plans to get street frontage and also some of the surrounding areas as well. Project Vision, again, curated food trucks, trailers, local cuisine, you know, other cuisine as well that we'll talk about, I think, but mainly live entertainment, cultural festivals and community events, partnering with the city to put these things on, but it's being done on a private level that, you know, you don't have to worry about time, staff, anything. We'll take care of everything. Operation and oversight, we'll operate the site. Right now it's just a blank site. We'll come in, bring our stuff, we're operating the site, we'll have security on the site. Site readiness, there's utilities that are around, but utilities we plan to tie into as well. And definitely we go to the curated vendor selection. And that's bringing different food trucks in, different flavors, different things to Homestead, while still having opportunities for your local vendors to join us and be a part of it as well. Again, this is low risk, professionally managed activation with full responsibility on us as the private operators. So this isn't a thing that we're just coming, making up. This has actually been tried and tested and we've been doing it in a couple places. One of the ones right now that's going on is Foodie Town in Coconut Grove. You go, smaller footprint than what we have here in Homestead, but a nice home feeling. You go hang out, have a couple drinks, there's live music. And this is going, this isn't a, oh, it's going to be open three, four times a month, every six months. No, we're going to be open every week. This is a 52-week operation. So we'll be open. That one is going good. Edge in St. Petersburg was another one that Adrian Lazaga put together and actually was featured in Forbes. They're right now on that site has turned into a hotel. So this is community activation. Let people know people will go to this area of your community and they will spend money. So this is, you know, a kickoff. You know, will it be there forever? No, it won't be. But it's tend to be an economic stimulus to have people start moving in the area. The third one, Nomi Village. Nomi Village is in North Miami. Adrian and myself worked on that one back prior to COVID. It's still going. Just recently, the city invested another $1.2 million in Nomi Village. Shade, structures, everything, because it was going so well, the community appreciated. They invested additional money, and hopefully that redevelopment starts. There are a couple of buildings that have been torn down in that area now. So it's a proven track record. You know, you can look these up. You can go on Friday if you want to go to Foodie Town and Coconut Grove. It's going to be open. You can go to the Nomi Village over the weekend. It's going to be open. So these things aren't, you know, just, you know, things we're making up. They're open and moving right now. Right now, I'll turn it over to Adrian to speak on the vendor curation and everything.

So these vendors that you see, the vendors that you see up there have been with us for a little while now. We have a German food truck, the only one in Miami. I feel really proud to say that all the time because they will be coming with us, which is a Venezuelan food truck that we have already worked with them in the past and we know their quality is great. So we also have unoccupied trailers that belong to us so that we can stimulate local businesses to come in and try it out and see what they can do and maybe in the future move to a brick and mortar. We're ready to go on day one. We have everything set to move in and start immediately. That's about it. We've done it for a while now, and we feel really proud of our product.

So again, I just want to go again with what Adrian said is, day one, we're ready. That list of food trucks, is it food trucks that we're going to go recruit? We already have them. Once we get our temporary use permit, we set up immediately and we're operating. You're not looking recruiting vendors. We're going to be there. And then as Adrian said, we do have a couple of trailers that are available for people to move into and we try to teach them the food truck business as well. So that's it. This is our initial hours of operation. What we come up with will be Friday, Saturday, Sunday to start out. It'll go how the community demands it to go. If people are coming out and people are asking for more, then we will definitely give more. But starting initially on Fridays about 5 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays, we have 12 p.m., but we anticipate farmers markets, things like that, maybe be an open 9, 10 o'clock in the morning and doing programming that out. But it's definitely designed to drive constant traffic. This is more of what the proposed actual site layout will look like, almost to scale. You see the food trucks, and definitely on the right-hand side, you see the kids' play area. We take into account the families coming out on Sunday, hanging out with their kids as well. Saturdays during the day, your kids come out and hang out while you sit at the bar and maybe have a beer. So we've taken all of that into consideration for this project. Potential economic impact. We've seen these things where economic impact grows over the years. So at full scale, we figured by year three, we should be at 20 to 60,000, 40 to 60,000 residents, not residents, but visitors annually, 25 to 35 local vendors participating with us. $2 million in the area. You know, we feel that this is gonna bring people to the area and other business owners are gonna invest in the area and start doing things. You know, these outcomes will be from us doing this pop-up thing, definitely. True public partnership. What we're asking for is $175,000 from the CRA. And the one important thing with that ask is, we don't want you to give us a check for $175,000. We don't want the money. We will work with the CRA director and these investments will be made in the infrastructure on the ground at the Homestead Live site. It will be for the barrier, it'll be connect to electricity, it'll be for restrooms, that type of stuff. But again, everything stays on the ground. Your check's written directly to the vendor to pay for this stuff. It's on the ground, they're long-time investments for your community. We're asking for site access from the CRA to give us a site agreement with it. And then again, we come in with all of our own stuff immediately, ready to set up day one, over $100,000 worth of private investment that we have ready. We'll do the program and marketing. And this even comes with revenue sharing. The revenue sharing, let me go back. Revenue sharing starts year two, 10%, year three, 20%, or 25,000, whichever the greater. That starts, like I said, year two and year three. We're not coming asking for anything for free. We're coming and we wanna pay our dues and work with you to build this up. Our goal is we're figuring by year three, we're back here sitting at the table with you guys negotiating a long-term deal to make a bigger place. Our ask is a five-year contract with two five-year renewals. And again, like we say, by year three we look at probably coming back and maybe expansion or doing another Our ask tonight is that you, the board, approve a $175,000 activation grant, that you give us an authorization or a license agreement to use the site, and you approve this pilot program for Homestead Live. Our immediate steps upon approval is we'll negotiate with the Homestead C.R.A. staff, secure vendors, which we have already, but go and lock everybody in that we know we're moving forward. and begin site preparation and everything. We'll be in your planning department tomorrow. We have here 60 to 90 days. Our goal is to hopefully be able to get open by the finals of the World Cup, and that'd be our kickoff event. Thank you, and we're prepared to answer any questions.

Thank you, appreciate the presentation. Anything to add, Mr. Beck, before I go to the board for comment?

No, I think that they have covered everything very well. A couple points that I would reiterate that was included within the presentation is that the activation grant that has been requested, I think we probably should call it less of an activation grant and more of an investment. We have talked about everything that would go into the site, whether it be the portable restrooms or other aspects of it, the CRA would pay directly for. So we would own those assets. They would be ours on our site, our property. It wouldn't be to them. And that we have talked about the opportunity that this may evolve or grow over time. And that is a part of the reason for the semi-permanent aspect of it. One other note that I would make, or really two other notes, is that from the CRA side, we do appreciate that this exists elsewhere. And there's been that sort of proven model from it. And given that this is a project that has been Mayor Mrakas, discussed with the Southwest neighborhood for some time we've known that it's out there. Mayor Mrakas, I do appreciate that the cost investment for this is is really less than a 10th of what we had discussed a year ago in looking at what the overall build out of that permanent site was so. Mayor Mrakas, Something we see very favorably with that I will turn it back to the board for questions or any discussions with me or the proposers.

Very good. So vice chair, this is your district. I'll afford you the opportunity for first and last questions and comments.

Thank you, chairman. So I have been a big fan of this idea since day one. Just sometimes you can envision something. And I really think that you guys were onto something great when that idea came up. As far as the ask, those are items that stay within the city. There's been talk that the stage and the restrooms could be used for bigger events at different parks for us. So that of course is a win-win. Two weeks ago, two or three weeks ago, I attended something that the Seminole Theatre did, kind of like those going around scavenger hunt type things, and they had an amazing turnout. And that is the direction that we're going in. It is finally picking up and getting to that... you know what we've we've always tried to work on that people will come visit and stay and buy and enjoy um of course not to mention opportunities for our residents so i think that shade is one of the biggest things that we really need to make sure we do a great job with shade or fans to make it as comfortable as possible but I looked into the other projects and that is pretty much what we are looking for. So thank you for coming out and for your presentation. And that's all for now.

Okay, thank you, Vice Chair. Who would like to go next? Board Member Avila.

Thank you, Mayor. I did have an opportunity to sit with the proposers and review the concept and I was, you know, very excited to see what could come of activating that site and i am excited to kind of see finally something come to fruition we've been talking about homestead live for a while so thank you to our director cra director and staff um i one of my main concerns prior to even meeting with them is trying to make sure i had a grasp as to who are we going into business with and You know what are some of the proven concepts, and so we did talk about that as well, one of the. The. characteristics of your other and other engagements with municipalities is to have a six month renewal on your. temporary use permit, which I would like for us to be able to enjoy so that would allow. Staff to make sure we just have a benchmark to look at how is the operation of the site going and do we want to tweak here make improvements and also I would really caution for our agreement to have a. A termination clause that would allow us to pull out of the agreement if necessary, and so I do have a question for for staff with regards to the grant so this hundred and $75,000 is going to build out the concept. And if there is a termination for any reason, whether it's on your sides or ours, what would be the recourse I mean is there going to is there potentially a demand for. Having to repay for work performed to build out or are we taking on full responsibility so that if there is a sever and ties and we want to switch operators, which is how i'm kind of understanding this is that we're hiring them to execute and operate and there will be a revenue share eventually. But but we are funding the build out and and the and maintaining and keeping the improvement of the property. So I need some more clarity as to.

The discussion intent that we have at this point is that, again, they would be the operators and we would have an agreement with them. Any of the improvement that we make within the property as a CRA, those are our improvements. Everything that we invest in is ours to hold on to and keep. We've talked, for example, and I think the reference was used with the portable restrooms. The Homestead CRA will own that. Those items will stay with us and that all we invest will stay with the property. And so if, for whatever reason, the board chose not to renew or continue to extend, or they decided at some point that this was not the project for them, the site as it is developed would stay with us and the food trucks.

Thank you. And this isn't so much specifically towards this operator, but I would assume that this is kind of setting a precedence for other parcels around the city that we may want to activate in a similar fashion. And so it's really important to me that we have that the city has those protections in place to be able to, you know, switch hands and switch operators. City Council Chambers, seamlessly and with as minimal exposure as possible, but overall great presentation and I appreciate the opportunity to. City Council Chambers, To enjoy homestead live soon, thank you.

City Council Chambers, board member goski.

Thank you, I do not believe in coincidences. Last Wednesday, I was invited to coconut grove what was entitled to me as food truck park, which now I have learned is foodie town, so I have experienced. The sensitivity and the setup and I have to say it was simply stated very comfortable Javier you were very hospitable the concept was. Genius, in my opinion. If I could elaborate on my experience and how the setup was, there was food trucks of various different flavors of food, internationals. So there were no two that were competing together, which I valued that. There were two kiosks you could order from every single food truck and every vendor there from one kiosk. and then go pick up your food at different trucks, which I thought, again, was ingenious. It was clean. And Javier, you made your way around to introduce yourself to everyone. It was a beautiful setup. The layout was impeccable. You were hosting an event. It was the reggaeton, the gentleman who had created the style of music, and there was music and entertainment. the information that came forward as well and him giving his story which was very impressive so it was a beautiful experience so again you know the fact that i've already tasted what you are offering and then here you come to homestead and it was such a beautiful experience and and a very well organized facility so i just wanted to add that that i had experience with their offering and i was quite impressed thank you

Anyone else? Member Roth? Member Fletcher?

Thank you. I'm sorry for my delay in getting here this evening. It is still my understanding that we're just here to provide direction to the CRA director to enter into negotiations, basically. We're not signing a deal for sure tonight. To bring back an agreement. To bring back agreement to us.

Which by necessity would include our commitment to provide that capital funding. Yes. Well, capital improvements not to exceed $175,000 that we would do. We would procure and we would do. Not handing money to anyone.

Correct.

Yeah. So I had the opportunity to speak with both of these gentlemen the other night. It was very informative. And I may have some more questions as we move forward. And I appreciate Councilman Alba's questions. Thank you.

Yeah, yeah. Robert Roth, you good?

The only thing I would say is we don't have another meeting until July, so that delays their process. So is there anything we can do to speed that up?

I would think it would take that long to bat an agreement back and forth. Unfortunately, that's just the world we live in, but our target can be the meeting for July 7th. Does that work? Okay. And the question was potentially not any World Cup activities, and while the proposers indicated to me that would have been really nice, it's not crucial to this.

And I don't know that we could, even with another meeting this month, anyway.

All right, so do we have a motion to support? Yes, Councilman? Okay. All right, so moved by Board Member Canabal, seconded by Board Member Konski. Let me ask if there's any public comment on this item.

Good evening, Brandy Ramirez, 2231 Southeast First Street. Boldness in City of Homestead today. So, I would like for mayor and council to get clarification from deputy city manager Kamar Brown. If Mr. Soray is the same city manager that she was working with for a few years that was terminated from North Miami, that clarification is important to mayor and council before you vote. I think it's very important that mayor and council do bring great things for the city of Homestead. Nothing against this personal gentleman here to my left, however, It's a lot of boldness going on in your city right in front of you tonight. And I think you guys need to take very serious action about that. Maybe even defer the item till you can get some more clarification. It's not about the concept. It's not about things that you want to bring for your residents here in City of Homestead. But an RFP should go to local businesses, to your City of Homestead residents that can also do the same thing. But to come from North Miami through your deputy city manager, it's a it's a major issue, a major problem. So if we can get that clarification from Deputy Kumar, that would be great. Is this the same person, Mr. Soren, that you work with and was terminated?

Ms. Ramirez, I don't think you are really in a position to directly query any of our staff. Okay, no problem. And if it's something that we need to know prior to the meeting where we approve the agreement, we'll have those individual conversations privately with our esteemed staff member.

Okay, but is there anybody on council that would like that answer tonight that wouldn't mind asking? i think you got your answer okay have you concluded your okay because on this item yes yes but on the record it is the same person city manager surrey that worked with your deputy direct director of city manager and is now here in homestead from north miami here if i may sure thank you i didn't want to cut into your your time clock but um

I will ask additional questions the item will come back for us for for confirmation of the contract, but I did ask during present during our briefing about this having gone out to 163 if you can just clarifying the history on that and the results we got Thank you.

Sure, it's my understanding that this had not ever gone out to a 163 prior. If it did, it was prior to my time coming here. I know at one point that had been drafted, a more formal proposal, but that had not ever gone out. That's based on what we found in our office and our findings. i do want to also add too that this would not be the disposition of a property this is as the homestead live a project that the cra had contemplated on this site and so just for clarification this would be moving into some type of an operating agreement but more specifically board member we did not find a release on that thank you and is it customary for us not to go out for

an RFP as suggested here for operating agreements?

It would be an option to go out to an RFP. Again, this being one that it was a project already established and this came to us, we are bringing it forward to you all.

And when you say it came to us, it was unsolicited?

Correct, yes, ma'am.

Understood, okay, thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Ed.

If I may further clarify, Mr. Beck, it came to you. It did not come through the manager's office. yes it came to the cra directly this wasn't i guess what i'm getting at is to your knowledge this was not filtered through the manager or the deputy prior to it coming to your attention no i do your knowledge okay thank you and just for the record there's cameras and there was a meeting that everything was held so just for the record Okay, so we do have a, does that conclude the public comment? So I'll close the public hearing. If there's nothing further from council, I'll ask for a roll call vote on the motion to move forward.

Board Member Cannibal? Yes. Board Member Konski? Yes. Board Member Roth? Yes. Board Member Avila?

Yes, but with reservation to continue discussing at the next meeting, thank you.

For Member Fletcher? Yes. Vice Chairwoman Bailey? Yes. Chairman Lozner? Yes. Motion carries.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you. Mr. Beck, does that conclude any business you have for the CRA agenda this evening?

That does. That is all that we have.

Okay.

Very good, thank you. Council, any further CRA business that you would like, or board, any CRA business that you would like to touch on this evening? Board Member Avila?

Thank you, Chair. I wanted to get an update regarding the negotiations or the, at least, information fact finding and hopefully a timeline for when we could receive... items for discussion on the property in the Southwest that we visited? Sure.

So we have I have discussed with the property owner or not the property owner, but rather the broker representing the property owner. They have provided us with their appraisal. We have our value on that. We've had some general discussion on it. I'll be talking with the city manager in terms of where that may go in next steps. But we have had those discussions with the entity.

So do you think that July's meeting will have a theory item on the agenda?

I will confer with the executive director, but that would be the next meeting that we could bring it to the board.

And that item would be for direction to negotiate, or would there be an actual negotiation already conducted for our executive director's area? Is that the plan?

I have not seen the information that he has. I cannot be able in a position to opine on which direction to go until I've seen what he has.

All right. I will wait. Thank you.

Thank you. So, Board Member Avila, in that regard, is this the DeForest Street and Chrome Avenue area, Parcel, you're referring to?

The one that we'd held the Sunshine Building.

Right, well, I think I consider that the northwest, it's not the southwest, but either here or there, that's what threw me. So let me ask, Mr. Beck, has there been, given that there is this insistence that we provide a third-party property owner with some sort of access relief, Has there been any preliminary analysis about how access through that vacant lot were the city to acquire it? How that would impact the construction of a parking lot?

So I'll offer two sort of responses and comments specific to the question in terms of the design of a parking lot. We have not laid out or detailed or studied any aspect of it. The potential acquisition of that parcel has been evaluated on the basis of a potential acquisition of the parcel. We have, on the other capacity, looked at the alternatives for accessing the dumpster matter, and there are three different alternatives that have been identified and also reviewed with Development Services. I think we previously discussed on the on-site meeting the opportunity to relocate that dumpster i'm sorry northwest fifth street for direct access in reviewing with the development services director there's the ability to add a drive on either the west or the east side of the building between it and the property line which would allow a drive in for access and the potential turnaround based on discussion with the solid waste director that may not be the ideal as as Turning radio could be challenging or there's an opportunity to do the drive on both the west and the east side for a full loop that could also be provided by the the provide access for the residents. We have not looked at these together, though, as one project. We've been looking at these individually.

That answers the question. There seems to be this drive toward giving this third-party property owner access across city property with no basis in law or fact. I want to be real clear that if we go down the road of acquiring that parcel for parking or whatever it may be, that implicit in that, I would certainly not support any grant of access or right of way that would infringe upon the ability to maximize the use of that parcel by the CRA for public use.

Okay. Understood. Thank you.

All right. Anything further for the CRA? All right. Hearing none, I'll ask for a motion to adjourn the Community Redevelopment Agency meeting. Okay. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Okay.

So as soon as the clerk signals that their office is ready to go with the recording of this meeting, we will open the regular council meeting. Very good. All right. Again, good evening and welcome everyone. I'd like to call the city of Homestead regular city council meeting to order. Today is Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026, and it is now 546 p.m. The invocation this evening will be given by Pastor Alfonso O'Brien of St. John Missionary Baptist Church of Howard, with a Pledge of Allegiance led by Vice Mayor Bailey and the Homestead Police Explorers. Could you all rise, please?

Welcome.

Shall we pray? Kind Father, in Jesus' name, God, how we love you, how we place no one above you. God, I pray now, God, that you will give us clarity and our thoughts on tonight as we discuss business. God, I ask right now, God, that you will bless this, our city of Homestead, the cabinet of God, the mayor. God, I pray now, God, that you would have your way into our city. God, help us to be a blessing to our city and our community. God, I ask right now, God, that you will bless each one that is represented here on tonight. It is in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Pledge of Allegiance.

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Order arms. Love face.

Forward march. Love, love, love, love, love, love, love. Thank you. Pleasure to see you.

Councilwoman Avila? Here. Councilman Hannibal? Here. Councilman Roth? Here. Councilwoman Ponsky? Here. Councilman Fletcher? Here. Vice Mayor Bailey? Here. Mayor Lawson? Here.

Okay. We're now at the portion of the agenda where we entertain public comments on any and all subjects, including those on the agenda. I'll first take those who have pre-registered, followed by those who are present who wish to speak but are not registered, and then we'll go to anyone online. Okay, the first registrants are, this is a duo of, is it Arthur Sori and Adrian Lazarga? Oh, okay, okay, okay, very good, I'm sorry. All right, so the last registrant is Brandi Ramirez.

Thank you, Mayor. Randy Ramirez, 2231 Southeast First Street. I just wanted some clarification on the one item. It was a code item in regards to two properties that were, I guess, some money was gonna be like a reduction. I thought when an item goes to a hearing in front of the magistrate, that's like the final decision, and then they take any more actions if they need to. SO I JUST WANTED A CLARIFICATION ON THAT ONE ITEM. AND ALSO WANTED TO SUPPORT THE INTERFAITH ADVISORY BOARD. I'M NOT SURE WHICH COUNCILPERSON BROUGHT THAT UP, BUT IF IT WAS MS. AVILA, THANK YOU. WE NEED THAT BACK. LIKE THE SIGN UP HERE SAYS, IN GOD WE TRUST, AND IT'S GREAT TO HAVE THIS INTERFAITH ADVISORY BOARD BACK IN HOMESTEAD. And I just want to tell the mayor and council, thank you for the community events that are going on for Homestead. However, we need more advanced dates and information put out there. A lot of public community is mentioning that, that they would love to have attended, they weren't aware. So if we can get some of that information just pushed out a little bit faster, it would be greatly appreciated to the community.

they're great events that you guys are putting on but it's got to get more information that's all thank you okay a couple of things to your inquiry the code reduction i understand has requested a deferral for tonight that will not be going forward tonight but you did have a bigger picture question and maybe you've been attend in attendance or watching online over the last several months where other property owners have come in and asked for additional reductions. We do, the council does have that discretion. It does not end with the special magistrate or special master here. Thank you. That's solely in council discretion. that's good news because that's what we we want is to have that availability for all so that was just only my clarification question that it just wasn't for one individual that it would be offered to all so thank you and finally as to events and i don't know which ones you're specifically you know referring to i've received a lot of comments on some of my posts lately where i have been to privately organized events where we are just the invitees the city is is is just there as a guest and I've received comments, oh, I wish I had known, you know, understand that many times, you know, Every time you see one of us or hear about one of us somewhere, it's not necessarily a city sponsored event. And there have been several private ground bakings, ribbon cuttings, openings recently where we were there at the request of the parties putting it on. I have received those comments as well.

Oh, I didn't know. Thank you so much for clearing that, Mayor. And I just want to say that, you know, Dr. Zuri, the city manager, yourself and council are doing an amazing job in this community when it comes to supporting the small businesses and going to the community for supporting our residents. So thank you and keep up that great work there. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Is there anyone here in the audience who would like to make a public comment this evening? Come on down. Are you here for the street naming? Well, we're going to bring that to the head of the agenda. So if you just want to wait a few minutes.

Yes.

Anyone else? Yes. Good evening. Good evening.

Oh, my Lord. Okay, there we go. My name is Robert hazard, and I own quasar computers located at 2012 southeast 27 drive just three blocks that way actually and i've i've operated the business for about 16 years, all the way from internship to owner the past 15 years my morning routine was relatively the same. I woke up, went to work, turned on the lights when I got inside, grabbed an Arizona sweet tea, and took my sign to the side of the street so that way people would know where my parking lot was. About a year ago, roughly February, I was unfortunately stopped in that long tradition of mine. When I came to my shop one day after an on-site appointment, I was given a citation for my sign being on a right-of-way with a threat of up to $1,000 a day for not fixing it. I went ahead and spoke with the started resolving the issue, and moved the sign over to my private property, and I was assured that that would not be a problem from this point forward. About six months later, I was again cited for the same sign, now located on my private property. I was unfortunately then given a citation of the same size, $1,000, every day, in which my business did not comply, and when I tried speaking to code enforcement, they cited Chapter 23 in Miami-Dade County Codes. I was then visited by an assistant city manager and that assistant city manager promised me that my sign could stay out until October of last year. I could keep it out and I could do all of my Halloween events with no issue. That was on a Sunday. That following Monday I was then for $1,000 every day that my sign was out. Immediately afterwards, I began closing my business for the day and began going ahead and perusing the sign code, just to later then be told by my landlord that he was given a similar citation for $5,000 a day, unfortunately putting an indelible mark on my 10-year relationship with my landlord. Small businesses like mine have helped Homestead grow to what it is today. We are the people who have helped build this city. And frankly, I feel as though sometimes the city may not treat us as well as other large businesses. I hope that my business would be able to get the same benefits of a company like Flanagan's, Chick-fil-A, or even one of the large high rises that comes up in this city ever so often and ever so present. Unfortunately, I don't get those benefits. I don't get the benefits of Miami Dade City College right next door, who is allowed to put their signs for their company and for their students to not park in these parking lots for the city. I don't get to put a sign here for my business, but the college across the street is allowed to do that for them. Unfortunately, the vote for Chapter 23 that will be going on later tonight, I do not believe that a one-year delay is enough. I believe that a more permanent solution and an indefinite delay is requested and best for the community until an actual solution is proposed. Unfortunately, I do not believe that kicking the can down the road is a good solution. to finish your thought okay and that i apologize i lost my my thought um and at this point i i don't know what else to do i i'm just a small business owner trying to do my part i've been here since before best buy was here just fixing computers and doing everything i can for everyone in the community and that's just my piece i apologize so help us get a couple of facts and we're not going to litigate and negotiate your issue tonight but just to understand

Was your offense having a sandwich type sign? What was the A-frame sign? Yes, A-frame. And that provides a lot of clarification. Secondly, what we are addressing tonight is a small segment of the sign code that deals with window signage. This does not address your issue. I hope that before I leave here at the end of next year, we will have overhauled the sign code to be more with it. I'm not saying that an A-frame sign, you know, We're constrained by county rules. May not be in our code, but we are constrained to a certain extent by county rules. And what I would like, the assistant city manager who oversees code enforcement to do is sometime in the next few days, if you could give us each individually a breakdown of your individual situation so that we all understand what the issues are there.

Okay, can I ask another question there? Sure. So, okay. Then, outside of giving you guys that information, what is the plan of action that I can take for my business to still be able to utilize my signs? And the only reason I ask that is because of the location of my business. I am right off of US 1, three blocks down the road on the line of Florida City. My competitor is right there. And Florida City allows them to put their A-frames, allows them to put their banners, allows them to put everything. So I have competitors three blocks from me that can do things in their city that I can't in mine.

Allowing and overlooking are two entirely different things. Let me ask real quick, and not to get too far out in the weeds. I know clearly no signage is allowed on the right of way.

Yes, it's on private property.

So let's jump to the claim of the second citation. Are A-frame type signs a prohibited sign when placed on private property, let's say during business hours?

If I recall the type of sign, it was affixed to the ground and it was less than 10 feet away. Oh, close to the property line, so it wasn't there was no allowance that could be provided, we require 10 foot setback right as far as for if they had a temporary while you open you put it by your door things like that it was the sidewalk was here the property line is here the sign was right there. I did go to the business I confirmed with development services, because they did have a poll sign. You know, a nonconforming pole sign, if anything could be done with that. And also, I know that the property owner is a recipient of a grant. So I suggested that the tenant speak with the property owner for proper window advertising that after the new windows are installed, they could probably have something there, but they would need to apply for a permit.

Okay.

Council any any other questions, yes, Council woman, thank you, this gentleman has brought this item to us for discussion, a few times it's nothing new. Unfortunately, we've have not found a solution to this, and I know that there are some opinions that we should not have a frame signs for the businesses in the city and it really isn't. fitting of the mold in terms of what is traditionally allowed in plenty of areas around Miami-Dade County, and specifically like for restaurants or downtown type areas, we have to come up with a solution. And I do appreciate that there is something later on in the agenda for us to talk about that speaks to a piece of the bigger puzzle. But I think similar to the discussions we've had with our city attorneys, we can't Just pause enforcement. If that was an option, we could have done that for the boats and the trailer storage item discussion. We have to come up with a solution. And so maybe we should include that as part of the workshop discussion items that I'm going to bring back sometime early July so we can talk about signage, the A-frame signage. And I have been working with James White to try to find some type of legislation that we could pass as a code amendment But he is having an issue with the county code. But he has found caveats where other municipalities have codified the usage of these types of A-frame signs. How they get away with doing it is stuff that he's researching.

But never in the right of way and never violating the setback.

But we don't have an option for either of those, for any kind of A-frame signage. So what the setbacks are in those examples, we'll discuss. But I'm still committed to trying to find a solution for our business owners, because this is affecting their ability to pay their rent. It is costing money for someone who's been in that spot. How many years?

The business has been there for 16.

I've been working there are the business been there for 19 I've been working there for 16 for him to be spending his time sitting here when he obviously has business to attend to to Repeatedly bring this problem forward. It's not because he's got nothing else to do This is a real situation for a lot of businesses in our downtown and we should be making it a priority so you have my commitment to try to maybe pass a resolution urging the county to change the rules to make it allowable so that it then trickles down and we don't have the excuse anymore and But for right now, there's no answer we can give you tonight. But for my colleagues, I'd like for us to continue working on it. Thank you.

Your benefit here tonight is we've all heard the same thing at the same time. And that's important. That's very helpful for us.

And may I ask one final, I apologize, may I ask one final, the back and forth, one final question? What is the actual fine or punishment that the city has gotten from not implementing or enforcing the sign codes from the county?

From the county.

What punishment or fines has the county put on the city for not following their sign codes? Okay, just double-checking that. Thank you so much.

So you're just encouraging us to ignore county code.

I'm simply stating that at the end of the day, my business is being heard.

I'm good at reading between the lines.

Thank you. That's fine. You can go ahead with your eraser, all you would like, sir. Thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else in person? Okay, is there anyone online? Oh, I'm sorry.

Hello, good evening. Thank you for having us here today, Mr. Mayor, City Council, and members of the audience. I'm Savannah Scone, and I live at 2823 Southwest 36th Place, and I'm also joined tonight by Mackenzie, Tori, Ayanna, and Amber.

We are members of Air Base K-8 Girl Scout Troop 2311.

We are currently working to complete our bronze award, which is the highest award that fourth and fifth graders can earn. We chose to help stray animals as our service project, and we are currently working with This is the Dog. Now Mackenzie is going to share some additional information on how we are trying to help stray animals in our community that need homes.

Thank you, Savannah. First, it's an honor to be here. Thank you. We are asking for your support in making our goal possible for This is the Dog. Stray animals are a big problem in our community. They get abandoned or surrendered. That's why we are fundraising to help get as much food as we can for dogs and cats so they don't go hungry. We are politely asking the city of Homestead if they would allow us to place a pet food donation box at the city community center. The food we will collect will be given to families who need it so pets can stay with their owners. We hope our goal will be surpassed because no one likes seeing stray animals on the road. Thank you for letting us be here tonight and I'm passing it to Tori.

Hello. As a dedicated member of our community, I want where we call home to be a home. And believe it or not, it starts with the small things like our pets. That is why I firmly support adding a donation box for the lucky animals that were rescued and taken in by This is the Dog nonprofit organization. Because it is nonprofit, everything for the dogs is paid for out of pocket. Something like dog food is highly appreciated. Let's make Never Stop Improving start with our pets.

Thank you, Tori. As a Girl Scout, giving back to animals is important because they need our help to stay safe, healthy, and happy. We need help them giving back food to eat, clean water to drink, and shelter to stay safe, and a lot of care to make them happy. Please for them. And that is why we are doing this for these animals. Thank you.

We want to help This Is The Dog because dogs and cats can provide companionship, comfort, and emotional support to people in need. We believe every pet deserves a loving home, and we want to support an organization that helps animals while making a positive difference in the community.

So in case any of you on the council have any questions, we can be certainly available to answer those questions. Ultimately, what the girls are asking is that maybe, whether it's the Dickinson Senior Center or another location that you all would be amenable to, it might be a high traffic location, to have a box, we would come and on a regular basis pick up anything that was donated so that it doesn't become an imposition for city staff or people at that location. And if we have the luxury of being able to potentially have the city's public information officer or social media team maybe amplify that message and create some traffic for people to actually come and make those donations. So that's pretty much what Troop 2311 is asking for, and we appreciate your time.

Thank you. While you're here, Mr. Manager, let me ask you, is there any process or procedure in place? Because while everybody can support this cause, that's just going to throw open the door to anything and anybody to want to do some kind of drop off, you know, at any number of locations throughout the city. And is this the first you've heard of this request?

Yeah, actually, this is the first time hearing of this. However, it appears to have a public purpose component to it. Just for the record, we've done something similar for the hurricane victims in other places. We've placed the donation boxes here at City Hall, as well as the community centers and other places. So if it's the will of Mayor and Council, I'm going to ask my Parks and Recreation Director to explore opportunities for whether this is a suitable place if the Council and Mayor wants us to proceed in that regards.

I would think that you wouldn't find anyone here tonight in opposition to enabling that. Certainly, Councilman.

You're going to have them. I'll put you in touch.

And Councilwoman Avila has a comment.

Thank you. As a fellow Girl Scout leader, thank you for everything that you're doing to lead these girls into service. And I'm curious, this is so that you can earn your which award is it? Your bronze award. So as juniors, you have to strive to solve a problem, right? So it's very good of you to do that. And whose idea was it to get food for the animals? was it a collective idea okay well i love the team effort i absolutely support the box being placed at the community at the dickinson center there's plenty of space in the lobby it would be one of those rectangular boxes i assume similar to like when you're collecting toys or school supplies Definitely a high traffic area that I think would bring a lot of pleasure for the attendees that visit there to be able to bring those kinds of donations and impact and give back and participate with a Girl Scout initiative like this. So thank you for bringing it to us.

And just for the record, also any of the food that was collected, it is for the South Dade community. So the organizers from This is a Dog would make announcements and promote when they have enough, like at the end of the summer, you know, if we're going to be, you know, super successful, which I know the partnership with City of Homestead, I know we will be. um they will have announcements and they will pick a location whether maybe it's at um at the park on on campbell or what have you and they would promote it so that community members from home said that are in need of this dog food or cat food would come and get it first come first serve to help their their situation to keep their pets in their home thank you and i i hope that you young ladies are getting some kind of points or credit for sitting in a public government meeting this evening too We're gonna actually have this go towards our democracy match.

Very good. Thank you for being here.

Thank you. Have a good evening.

Is there anyone else in the house that would like to make a public comment? Seeing none, is there anyone online? No one online. So, I will close the public hearing. Mr. Manager, are there any additions, deletions, or deferrals?

Mayor and council, the administration would like to defer the first item on the agenda tonight, tab number one, car number 5051 on the lien mitigation based on the request of the representative attorney for the applicants. So that item will be deferred to the meeting in July.

Right. So do we have a motion to defer to July 7th? MOVED BY VICE MAYOR BAILEY, SECONDED BY COUNCILMAN CANNABAL. ALL IN FAVOR? ANY OPPOSED? ALL RIGHT. SO NEXT WE HAVE I BELIEVE THERE ARE ANY CLOSET JUDICIAL HEARINGS. THAT TAKES US TO TAB 2.

Yes, Mr. Mayor, tab two is the first reading of an ordinance of the city of Homestead, Florida, amending chapter 19, article two of the city code entitled noise to establish objective decibel based standards, provide standardized measurement procedures and define exemptions for certain activities, providing for inclusion in the code, providing for severability, providing for conflicts and providing for an effective date.

Thank you. Um,

everyone comfortable waving the the staff report moving right into uh questions or comments who would like to open the discussion councilwoman thank you mayor this item um i did have a briefing on it um and while on the surface it seems like it's you know providing um you know clarity and giving uh some tools to our code and pd to you know conduct and solve noise complaint issues. I do think that this is, and I'll use the mayor's example, a solution in search of a problem. We don't have an issue with our officers being able to handle noise complaint calls, and by passing this ordinance, you're going to require our police officers to have this This sensing tool you're going to the decibel reader rather you're going to be requiring. Additional standards and steps for them to be responsible to ensure that they took before resolving the issue and it just it eliminates the. The reason ability that currently exists that currently is on the county level so we're just adding extra layers of of challenges in my, in my opinion, so I would not be supporting this item tonight, but I am interested in hearing you know if you're in favor for it, why.

Council, any response or commentary regarding that? Any input from the police department one way or the other? That's what I was going to ask.

so we we have already ordered decibel readers we're doing that for the uh the drag racing that that we had gotten complaints of um we've obviously uh enforced several uh noise ordinance and and decibel related traffic infractions but that's the extent of it okay yeah thank you vice mayor thank you mayor i think that would oh sorry go ahead

And I just wanted to add that the Code Department is ready to procure decibel readers as well as the calibrators for the decibel readers to ensure they were compliant with ANSI standards as well. Very good.

Thank you. Go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor. I was just going to add the way that I understood it was I can imagine PD getting called out for a noise complaint and not having anything to base it on. So sometimes it could be right. And that this would maybe provide a little more standard across the board that it had to be at a certain number to qualify as a violation. That's how I saw it. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you. Yes, Councilman.

Who's going to do the calibration of the decimal readers?

So the calibration is done with a device that goes over the was going to do it.

Are we going to do it? We're going to have a company is going to do it.

It's a certified device that you put on top and you would calibrate it on the spot before taking the measurement in house. Okay. Thank you.

Okay.

Further.

I'd like to also add sorry, Mayor. Thank you. This request. Did it come through Homestead Police Department?

So this was something that we discussed in one of our executive meetings on the director level where we were discussing the concerns that were coming in through the loud vehicles as well as the noise complaints that were coming in.

So that's no, this was not a request made by the Homestead Police Department for us to add these tools to their toolkit. This was a code enforcement driven initiative, correct?

So no, just for clarification, the director of code compliance is mentioning an executive management meetings, which comprises of PD, code, and every director in the city, where we look at process improvements. The subjectivity of what we were doing before is open to challenge. where people were using their subjective personal experience as what constitutes noise and what does not constitute noise. So you don't have any parameter or any metric that is reproducible or that is defensive if you were to be challenged. So this is one of the tools in the toolbox, like the chief had said, that they've already gone ahead to procure the noise mirrors and the code compliance is in a position to do the same. So I highly recommend that we proceed with this item.

Mayor Mrakas, hey Thank you, Mr manager. Mayor Mrakas, And I didn't forget we're going to go the street naming next I got ahead of myself. Mayor Mrakas, i'm going to support this, I think it's necessary as someone who doesn't have the protection of a gated community, I think this. objective means of measuring noise, whatever it is, loud mufflers, loud car stereos, or music playing three blocks away that sounds like it's in my backyard, I think it's a much needed tool in the toolkit. And it's interesting. that on the one hand, general noise isn't a concern, but I was inadvertently in the loops of emails of residents who were, to some of my colleagues, and somebody hit the reply all, and I find it very hypocritical that the one who's not supportive of this is the one that was just insistent that the police department go out and start chasing kids with and detecting kids with with loud mufflers and that is you know no more or no less of a concern to me than than any other noise violation so if that ends the discussion from council do we have a motion to approve this item moved by councilman cannibal we have a second by vice mayor bailey let's have a roll call vote

Councilwoman Avila? No. Councilwoman Konski? Yes. Councilman Roth? Yes. Councilman Fletcher? Yes. Councilman Cannavale? Yes. Vice Mayor Bailey? Yes. Mayor Lozner? Yes. Motion carries.

All right. So if there's no objection, let's move to tab 10 regarding the street naming. Mr. Pearl.

tab 10 is a resolution of the city council of the city of homestead florida co-designating northeast second road northeast first road between northeast sixth avenue and northeast fifth drive as marine lance corporal on isagara road directing the city manager to take all action necessary to effectuate the co-designation waiving formal procedures providing for implementation providing for transmittal and providing for an effective date

Thank you. I know that we've all been briefed and we have the letter from the Aaronsmith Post of the VFW making the request to honor a hometown kid, hometown young man who lost his life in 2004.

That's correct.

Please introduce yourself.

My name is Matthew Omansky. I'm the commander of the VFW 4127 here in Homestead, 601 Northeast 2nd Road. Marine Lance Corporal Juan E. Suguera was a homestead native, born and raised, felt the drive to raise his right hand and swear to uphold the Constitution. And he was sent to California for Camp Pendleton with the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. He was in Fallujah where he took several rounds and he succumbed to his wounds right before he got home for Christmas. November 9th, 2004. It's been on the VFW's radar. It's been on Friends' radar for the last 11 years. Unfortunately, the family went into basically hiding, you would say, as a Gold Star family. It is hard to lose friends and family, and they don't want to keep remembering. It took five years to find the family and speak with them. This was spearheaded by Ozzie Perez, which is now our district commander. He has been pushing. I finally got told about it as commander, and I've pushed it through. And I would love for this resolution to pass. it will show that we don't forget our veterans. As some of you were at our Memorial Day ceremony, he is laid to rest in that cemetery, Palms Woodland South. This gentleman gave his life so we could stand here and have the democracy and the republic that we have now. And this would be an honor to him and his family.

i want to thank you and commend all of you who who picked up the mantle and brought that forward i think it was just a few well enough days ago but barely that you contacted both myself and vice mayor bailey and asked for this and it's something that we jumped through our backsides to uh to get on the agenda and get done i understand that you know the family will be in the area in january around the time of uh Lance Corporal Segura's birthday, January 17th, that will help you coordinate a formal unveiling and ceremony. And so we do have plenty of time to get the signage. The county controls that and manufactures it and coordinating it, getting it done.

Yes, Mayor. And I received a email from Ozzie Perez, our district commander, Eddie Segura, his brother, said, my brother died in Fallujah nearly 22 years ago and is being honored with the street named after him. Marines never forget one another. He is so grateful. And he thanks the city council for this. If it goes through. Thank you.

Any questions, comments? Have a motion? Move by the vice mayor, seconded by Councilman Roth. Let's have a roll call vote on the street naming.

Councilwoman Avila? Yes. Councilman Roth? Yes. Councilwoman Konski? Yes. Councilman Cannavale?

Yes.

Councilman Fletcher? Yes. Vice Mayor Bailey? Yes. Mayor Loster? Absolutely, yes.

Motion carried. Thank you. Thank you. And we'll keep coordinating. Okay, so I think that takes us to tab three, Mr. Perl.

tab three is the first reading of an ordinance of the city of homestead florida establishing a temporary extended compliance program for certain existing window sign violations of section 23-85d of the city code providing for continued enforcement through the issuance of notices of violation providing for a one-year compliance period before referral to the special magistrate for qualifying existing violations providing for exemptions, providing for administration, providing that underlying code requirements remain in full force and effect, providing for conflicts, providing for severability, providing for non-codification, and providing for an effective date.

Thank you, Mr. Pearl. Is there any objection to waiving the staff report? I know we've all been briefed. Any questions or comments from council on this item? Yes, Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. Just as we were speaking earlier, that You know, I hear the 25% of the window, and it brings me back to the murals. That's not a mural if it's on 25% of your wall. And I know the look we are trying to get away from, but at the same time, I think there are a lot of tasteful ways for businesses to be able to advertise. and 25% of your window isn't the best for advertising. So for me, I'm just curious what other areas are doing and if there is maybe a want to look at different areas within our city to see if we do wanna section out, carve out some areas that would allow for more space being utilized for advertising.

Okay, Mr. Manager, I think Mr. Rios did some research on... Actually, it is the Assistant City Manager, Crystal.

She compiled a list of regulations in other municipalities in the county. I believe it's in the package. You want to brief us some more, Crystal? Sure, let's just put it on the record.

Code provided several cities...

Pull your mic down so we...

I'm sorry. Code compliance provided several cities and examples of what they do. 25%, if you remember years past, it used to be 10% in the city. And then with one advent code change, it was raised to 25%. So it goes from the range between 10% to ours is on the more generous side to have 25%. Do you want me to read off the individual cities or?

I'm fine, I think, if it's in our package, unless anyone wants it. Also, I know in past years, and maybe this time too, there's always been discussion about safety of law enforcement officers where the big issue is today, as I understand it, window decals, for lack of better expression.

Right, the wraps.

the wraps wrap type for for windows where perhaps the bad guys inside can see out but officers can't see in just as we don't permit dark window glazing um you know that that higher percentage could put some of our officers at risk is there any anything further you'd like to add chief knapp uh no sir i i uh it's actually something i've never really considered um

But it does prevent or present an officer safety issue but it's not something that I really seriously have considered.

Thank you on vice mayor to your point what this does is that provides an amortization period or an end date for folks to come into compliance. helps them, you know, not have to take down something they've recently installed. And again, my, you know, my comment to Mr. Hazard earlier is that whatever it was, you know, not enforcing is really no excuse on on our side and that one year period gives this council the opportunity to address some of your concerns but we need to go ahead and and you know we folks are now on notice but anything more right now anything more than 25 window coverage is in violation i'm assuming we're going to continue to give those warning notices providing information about this ordinance and that a year from the final effective date they've got to be in compliance that's not to say that we can't you know create micro areas so to speak no i appreciate that i think my my argument because that came up before was safety of officers obviously not all businesses have windows so um

Yeah, just something for thinking. If we are trying to keep those A-frames off the road, would we not then prefer a tasteful full window coverage if it's helping our small businesses thrive? I appreciate having the year for people to comply, but as we're having these discussions, just food for thought.

And I appreciate your use of the word tasteful, and I agree with that, but we don't get to legislate what's tasteful or not. Kind of like art's, you know, beauty's in the eye of the beholder, right? And I know some pretty bad examples were circulated over the last few weeks from... from other folks, Council Fletcher.

And I just want to point out as well, we have some city owned sites that also have full window coverings. So we need to make sure we're policing ourselves first before we're set the standard for everyone else.

Absolutely. So to my right, Councilwoman.

Thank you, Mayor, I would be more in favor of of committing to having the workshops to start working on a sign code revision and putting a moratorium on sign enforcement or something soft that allows us to. Prioritize this as soon as possible. Since I've been on here in 2020, we've been talking about rewriting the code. The sign code was not enforced for probably 20 years. We have a robust code enforcement department that is enforcing everything, which that's their job. It's in our code. They have to enforce it. We have to respond to these issues and these challenges and act on actually making the code improvements that are required, that fit the community, the business needs, and the reality 25 window signage is it's it's ridiculous uh no a-frames anywhere that's ridiculous i'd like for us to sit down and do an actual workshop and work on the sign code and maybe we'll add it to the same conversation with the boats and parking so can i make a motion to defer this item because as long as you're continuing to cite people and even if you're giving them a year you're pushing them to have to make financial investments into fixing their sign issue and they could actually be throwing away hundreds if not thousands of dollars in investments they've already made on their businesses so

But without enacting this, you must give them a shorter window of compliance. In effect, the adoption of this ordinance creates a one-year moratorium.

Or we could put in abeyance all existing violations. That's an option too.

You mean just ignore them?

Putting it in abeyance until we...

But what's the difference? We need to put people on notice that they're not in compliance. I'll say it before and I've said it again, desirable affluent communities don't allow the stuff that we have been ignoring for two or three decades and we need to decide if we're gonna be the future homestead or we're gonna be Hialeah and Florida City, you choose. That's not cultural revolution, that's just basic community aesthetics.

preferring to actually resolve the problem with coming up with a code we all agree with because the rhetoric has been that we don't agree with our sign code and it may be one of us does you know that's obvious but I don't think the majority is in favor of the sign code that exists and the people that actually live here work here the majority of them probably need to have this relief sooner than later

You know what? Signs aren't on buildings. Signs are right here in your iPhone. End of story. And look, a lot of things these people are calling signs are window decor, and we have to treat it as a sign. I think it's trashy. Drive up and down Chrome Avenue. from 15th street all the way south down to the southern city limits go out to to audubon plaza and you tell me if you think that's an acceptable look for the community i think we need to adopt this so that we can continue to let violators know that there is an issue and that there is a year to comply, which I happen to believe is a fair amortization period. And again, my comments and conversation with the vice mayor was, that doesn't preclude us from providing some other kind of relief in that one year interim. And if you look at the package, the majority of cities are at 25% or below. So you can make all the motions you want. Yes, Councilor Roth.

Thank you. So you bring up Audubon Plaza, and I agree with you, it's a little overkill there. But during my briefing, I started questioning different scenarios, the life safety issues with police officers and holdups and burglaries in progress and not being able to see inside. And as we debated some of the information, there's nothing in our code that keeps anybody from hanging curtains on the inside of their windows, taking out and blocking visualization inside of a property. And I went to the extreme, is what if they bought curtains or blinds and had advertisement placed on those, they're no longer in violation of the code because they're not affixed to a window. So we kind of have to figure out what is it we're trying to actually do, and are we being business friendly when we take away some of their ability to market at their property or not? I went into one of the businesses at Audubon with one of the people that were sighted and we were standing at the counter and it happened to be the, I think the driver's license or the school there. And I turned around and looked outside And it was perfect visual of the parking lot. But from the parking lot, you had no visual of what was going on inside. So if there was a holdup, burglary, or whatever in progress, whoever was in there could see all the activities that police may be doing on the outside without seeing what was going on on the inside. And that's what triggered some of those questions about, well, can they hang curtains or blinds to provide privacy? There's also a daycare center in that center where you have children that are in there from whatever time to whatever time. And if they don't protect the windows, then you could have people sitting in the parking lot watching what's going on with the children inside that business. So I think we have to... But that can be dealt with with window treatments. That could in that specific situation could be dealt with with curtains or blinds. And I think that's the other part of this exercise is that we have to allow or let them know what they're capable of doing to protect certain things. Buildings that have no windows as the vice mayor brought up, that elect to put murals on their walls are allowed to cover those walls 100%, but there's no life safety issue there, because you can't see through the wall. what's going on inside there so and a mural is not a sign and a mural it could be it could advertise something you know like you said we can't control what they put on it for the most part so i think doing this ex doing this and extending it for the year is good gives us time to come up with a new code of some sort or evaluate our code and if we can't solve it within the year we could always extend it if we needed to But I agree that some of the signage is a little too aggressive. And I think I mentioned that early in my council career with the properties that are on Chrome Avenue just to the south of 15th Street as well, where that whole strip center is basically an advertising space. You know billboard basically so, but I think we need to have some more discussion and actually sit down and interpret the code, I think you know 25% maybe too little, although other cities have less than what we have. If it's not a life safety issue thing, and I think the chief mentioned he doesn't really think about it very often when it comes to that. then maybe we need to sit with the police department as well and find out what what are they happy with as well you know because i just think uh and i thought we talked about this several years ago and put a time frame in place that was supposed to be enacted and i don't remember we've had those discussions yeah i thought we did and here we are again five years later and we're in the same situation so or or more five years or more so i'll make the motion to move this forward okay Go ahead. Yeah, I just think we need to sit down and have a meeting or workshop to come up with what we can do to eventually come to a happy medium with everybody. Thank you, Mayor.

I think she had a qualification for her second.

It was just a second with direction to schedule the workshop on the sign code.

Yes, Vice Mayor.

And just one last thing to think about. You mentioned the blinds inside, and I've been trying to find the right way to describe it. You think of department stores, and you think of their window setups, their window displays. This is, in essence, the same thing. I think you were referring our downtown business, our building, right? We put that on there because that's what we want to see when we look into the window, right?

One of them where we have the mannequins talking to each other.

Right, at the bar.

Can we go?

I thought it would be so funny if they put little Easter eggs of us in there. But anyway, that is how I envision it. I see it as a modern way to dress up your windows and advertise what you have. And like I said, it does have to be in a tasteful, just like our signage can't just be neon on Chrome Avenue, right? There's still a color. thing that we need to follow so if there is a way to have these window treatments fall within the requirements of the actual signage no bright lights right no neon and that it still was tasteful and fit the downtown i think that we can definitely come up with and let's recognize there is tasteful neon a little bit of retro would not be bad i'm not the one to ask about how color uh things but no i think we need to sit down soon okay

All right, so we have a motion and a second with the implicit request, I think, from all of us to let's have some further off-the-dias discussion in a less formal setting. So does that conclude comments? All right, so let's have a roll call vote.

Councilwoman Konski? Yes. Councilman Cannavale? Yes. Councilwoman Avila? Yes. Councilman Roth? Yes. Councilman Fletcher? Yes. Vice Mayor Bailey? Yes. Mayor Lozner? Yes. Motion carries.

All right, that takes us to tab four.

tab four is a resolution of the city council of the city of homestead florida authorizing the city manager or designee to execute governmental roadway lighting agreements with miami-dade county and other government entities for street lighting facilities and services provided by homestead energy services within its electric service area providing for implementation and providing for an effective date any objection to waiving the staff report

Questions or comments from council?

Do we have a motion to approve?

Move it. Moved by Councilman Fletcher. Second by Councilman Canabal. Let's have a roll call vote.

Councilman Roth. Yes. Councilwoman Konski. Yes. Councilwoman Avila. Yes. Councilman Fletcher.

Yes.

Councilman Canabal. Yes. Vice Mayor Bailey. Yes. Mayor Lossner. Yes. Motion carries.

Thank you. Moving on to tab five. Mr. Perl.

and five is a resolution of the city council of the city of homestead florida authorizing the utilization of competitively bid contracts such as florida department of management services national cooperative purchasing alliance gsa contracts governmental contract or other properly procured contracts for the purchase of the city's information technology hardware software and maintenance and related services in an amount not to exceed three million six hundred $41,050 authorizing the city manager or designee to do all things necessary to effectuate this resolution subject to budget appropriation and availability of funds providing for conflicts, providing for severability, providing for implementation, and providing for an effective date.

Thank you, Mr. Pearl. Any objection to waiving the staff report? And do we have any questions or comments from council on this item? Anything to add, Mr. Manager? nothing new okay moved by councilman cannibal we have a second second by councilman fletcher any final comment or question from council let's have a roll call vote on tab five councilwoman avila councilman fletcher

Councilwoman Konski? Yes. Councilman Cannavale? Yes. Councilman Roth? Yes. Vice Mayor Bailey? Yes. Mayor Lossner? Yes. Motion carries.

And tab 6. 6. Mr. Perl? Yes.

Tab 6 is a resolution of the City Council of the City of Homestead, Florida, declaring certain personal property owned by the City of Homestead to be surplus property and authorizing the City Manager to provide for the sale or disposition of such property in accordance with Section 2-440 of the City Code, providing for an effective date.

Thank you. Any objection to waiving the staff report? Moved by Vice Mayor Bailey. Second. Seconded by Councilman Canabal. Anything further from Council? None appearing. Let's have a roll call vote on tab six.

Councilwoman Evelyn? Yes. Councilwoman Konski? Yes. Councilman Roth? Yes. Councilman Fletcher? Yes. Councilman Cannavale? Yes. Vice Mayor Bailey? Yes. Mayor Lossner? Yes. Motion carried.

And for our packed house tonight, there's a lot of neat stuff we're going to auction off. Cars, trucks, generators, telephones, all kinds of neat things. Check out the list. Okay. TAB 7, Mr. Perl.

Yes, Mr. Mayor, TAB 7 is the first reading of an ordinance of the City of Homestead, Florida, amending the City of Homestead Code of Ordinances by creating Division 3, Interfaith Advisory Board of Article 3, Boards and Committees, Commissions of Chapter 2 Administration, providing for purpose and intent, establishing powers and duties, providing for codification, severability, and an effective date.

Thank you. Councilwoman, this is your item.

Thank you, it's my honor to bring back for consideration the interfaith advisory board and this ordinance would provide for a seven member voting board with each member of city council appointeen one members would be should be active within the faith based community and reflect the cross section of faiths within the community. The board would serve strictly as an advisory capacity to the City Council with responsibilities including advising Mayor and Council City Manager on relevant community matters, serving as a liaison with faith-based and spiritual communities, recommending cooperative service programming initiatives, and providing at least one written or annual report to the City Council. So with that I'll rest and provide an invitation to the past advisory boards members that are present to come up and share about your experience when we had it previously. Talk about your success and your goals for the future.

Good evening and welcome.

Good evening. How's everyone doing? Good evening, Mayor, Council, Vice Mayor. My name is Luni Sell. I served as pastor and vice chair for the Faith Advisory Board. And during my tenure for the year, it was an amazing experience. We were able to gap a bridge between council and other churches and pastors from different denominations that are within the city of Homestead. We were able to host an event, which was the Good Neighbor Day Homestead event, which we did at the sports complex. We had an outpour of 200 people show up, where we did full distributions. We had non-profits attend the event and give out resources that are here in the city of Homestead. And we had the presence of our board liaison, which is Councilman Cannonball. and which I would like to thank you for the service that you did. You did an amazing job, not only coming to every meeting, but also helping us direct the meetings and be able to have pastors come in through our monthly meetings and give out their suggestions advice speak on things they were going through um in addition to the uh good neighbor day event that we hosted we also had uh an event where we actually invited over 30 pastors from different denominations that are within the city of homestead we had a dinner for them and we had a moment where they were able to speak to us as an advisory board on things that they were going through through their churches um and just giving us uh advice or given us different notes or just different things that were going on in the city that they wanted to see an improvement on or that they wanted to congratulate, saying that it was being improved. Obviously, we do a great job in being part of the faith. National Day of Prayer, which it was something amazing the year that we had the board because we had a diverse group of pastors, not only praying, but also come and be part of the National Day of Prayer with us. And that's a bit of what we were able to accomplish by being a board that was only there for a year. Again, I was vice chair, which I served with Chairman Pastor Benji. And it was something that every time we go out in the community, we get asked by pastors who are in the community saying, when are we going to have a faith board again? When are we going to be able to go to the monthly meetings and be able to speak to you guys about what we're going through in the community, things that are happening, and just, you know, being able to have a space where they can speak as pastors and be able to be heard. So that's a bit of what we were able to accomplish, a bit of what's going on now. The biggest event was now May 16. We actually hosted a Good Neighbor Day America event through an organization called Love Has No Limits, And it was a bit tough this year because we actually had to call every pastor individually to let them know that, hey, there's over $1.2 million of grant funding just for your church so you can leave the church walls and be able to serve your community. When we had the faith board, we were just able to just have one meeting where they actually all came and we were able to give them the details. So by us having the faith board reactivated again, we're able to disseminate information easier and be able to gather the pastors frequently so we can gather as pastors and be able to just speak to one another on things that are going on. So thank you, and I hope you guys consider reestablishing the board.

Who's next? Sure, go ahead.

Howard harden pastor first Baptist church of homestead I was blessed to be able to serve on this committee, thank you for that privilege. I feel that the biggest benefit for me was being able to help those congregations that are trying to get on their feet that sometimes run into issues and I realized you can't use every building for every purpose. But I believe Homestead is stronger when we have vibrant houses of worship, communities of faith, and sometimes they need a liaison. They need someone that they can go to that can help them with those issues and finding a good location where they can meet. There's not hardly a week that goes by that I don't get a phone call from someone trying to navigate these issues, trying to find a place where they can meet. We have at times lent our own facility to other churches, helping them get on the ground. There's one church that's doing pretty well in Florida City that started off for three years in our church. We were able to help them, but that's hard to come by. We have five services at our church, so we have very limited availability. And so I picked up on the words strictly advisory. I would say that is absolutely what a committee like this should be. Advisory, not necessarily operational. The good news about what I have described is I don't think it would cost anything. I don't think there's any budget that would be needed for that. But it would be very beneficial for congregations that are trying to get on their feet to have someone that they can go to when they're dealing with issues with the city to help them get established. So that was the main benefit to me, and I think that that's something that is worthwhile. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to let Vice Mayor interject very quickly, and then we'll go to you. No, no, no.

It's really quick. I didn't know more than one pastor was getting up. All I wanted to say was thank all of you pastors. I know most of you personally. Thank you for all that you do in the community. And you had mentioned the National Day of Prayer. I just wanted to ask and throw it out there that as you're considering your board to just make sure, as I know you always do, that you do include all of our denominations. The last two years, we failed to have any Haitian pastors be part of the National Day of Prayer. I know when your board was there, you did do that. So I just wanted to put it out there to please be mindful of that. Sometimes it just falls through the cracks, but that we make sure that we're open to all. Absolutely.

Thank you. Well, thank you, Mayor Lossner, Vice Mayor Bailey, and the council for this opportunity. I've served as a former chair for the past year when the Interfaith Advisory Board was established. And like Looney Cell and Pastor Howard had mentioned, it created a great relationship, not only that point of contact, but it created more of a bridge between the interfaith and the faith community. One thing that I just want to clarify, it's that by no reason this interfaith advisory board, it's to pursue or implement a doctrine. Okay, so we are amongst different faith believers here, and I can assure you that between a Baptist And at Pentecostal, we have a lot of things that we can discuss for a long time, and we don't talk about doctrine. So our goal is to serve as you all serve our beautiful city of Homestead. So there's many ways that we can do this, right? One of them is creating that bridge between the city and the faith-based organization, creating a reliable channel for sharing information. All right? I am very grateful to Chief Knapp because when all this commotion of immigration happened, remember that in Homestead, he gave us a call. And we showed up at the at his meeting and he asked he asked me if he we could deliver a message, not to be feared to call 911 if there was an emergency, not to be, you know, not to be threatened that the city of Ontario was here to serve. I immediately took those words and guess what we did. We deliver the message. So this interfaith board, it's more of a messenger of you guys. We could serve as the thermostat of how the city is going, what message would you love for us to deliver to our congregants. Second, it will be the collaboration. Guess what? We are in hurricane season. right the churches of homestead might not have the resources but we have the volunteers that will do will volunteer and help out if a disaster comes into place we've done it many times in the past and we're willing to do it we have thousands of members of our churches that are willing to collaborate with the city as volunteers in case of an event that could happen, we're here for that. And third, our community services. Whether through food distribution, youth mentoring, support for families, assistance during emergencies, or outreach to vulnerable populations, the faith-based organizations have a long history of serving our community. And I'm so happy to see new faces like Councilwoman Kimberly that is part of it. But the church is going nowhere. We've been here for more than 100 years. And we will continue to serve along you guys, or along a new mayor that will come, or along a new council member that will be here. Or maybe it's not us that are going to be here, but the church will continue to be here. And we love this city as much as you guys love the city. And we want to partner and serve along the sides with you guys. So with this, I'll close, say thank you. there's other cities that they don't even consider us to come up to the podium and speak about considering having an interfaith advisory board. So that's for us, it's already a winning here. So thank you so much all and thank you for the opportunity.

Anyone else? Oh, I'm looking out in the audience first. Anyone else? Okay, Council Fletcher.

just a quick question as to i know we created this board a couple years ago and how did it fall through the cracks that we have to recreate and and do it again it's unsetted we we put a date on it at the time are we going to do that for this are we going to leave it open open ended not built in perfect that way it doesn't fall through the cracks again thank you okay

Yes, Councilwoman. Thank you. Great question. The original board was set up as an ad hoc, so it comes with a sunset. This is codified like our other committees now, and we're not discussing budgets or anything at this time. That'll come during budget planning and whatnot, but... certainly to be a thermostat or being able to have meetings and and promote attendance etc you know there would be costs i mean the national day of prayer has been put on without us financially um you know covering those expenses and through volunteerism and whatnot, and I would expect that those services would continue, but we have to be realistic and those would come for consideration in the future, okay? But we also have another another committee for consideration. So same situation. It would not be an ad hoc. It would be an actual formal committee form. But I appreciate everyone here in attendance and for your service to the community, whether a committee exists or not. What you do is very valuable and being an extension of us and helping to bridge, as you mentioned, information and relieve stress and anxiety within

the the groups that you serve is essential in my opinion so i appreciate the support on this item thank you okay thank you so i come to this tonight very reluctantly because i'll be very candid with you when this was brought by one of our former colleagues i viewed it as a political stunt and the fact that it kind of, and that's why I asked for a sunset to be put on it, because who's gonna be perceived as the one who votes against God, right Clemente? Yeah. No, it is. This is as well. I view this as a campaign stunt, but I wanna be real clear It's, I understand that the, other than the way it's formed ad hoc versus permanent this time, there's no real difference in the commission that's given to you. And your first speaker talked about all of the events you put on. I need some clarification or for everybody to be really clear that you are advisory, you're a liaison, receive the inputs of the needs of the community, recommend activities or programming, not take it on and go out as an independent committee and do that. Those efforts would have to come back to council for approval to be spearheaded by the IAB. You just can't on your own, as I read this, the commissioning document, You do not have the ability to go out and do these, you know, to initiate these food drives. You can participate, but I don't see that you are ordained, so to speak, to take on those kinds of events. the can of worms about the budget has kind of been opened a little bit. And I understand out there, you know, word on the street's pretty loud, that you all have already been promised a $10,000 budget. Well, if you're a recommending body, why do you need a blanket budget up front? And we'll have that discussion later. I would envision that you bring back a proposal and affix dollars to that, and we'll consider it at that time. but there is no guarantee and certainly no promise from me for blanket funding for you all to go off and do as you see fit without council or approval or delegation to the manager or his staff for approval and I just want you all to understand that that I think In the last iteration, things kind of went far afield and you got beyond what you were commissioned to do. And before I vote on this tonight, I just wanted to say my piece that we need to be really clear what the confines of this committee are if this goes forward and is passed. Councilwoman?

Thank you, Mary. The intentions was to create the confines of this committee as we have with all the other committees, which are all advisory in nature. And there is a liaison assigned from council to work with them. And any events, especially starting back up again, would be put together as a proposal, as was intended for us to come back for approval and discussion on. There's no budget in this document.

And I want to be clear on that.

There's no budget in this document. No, that's correct. But there was.

But you raised the issue.

Well, no, it was mentioned. by one of the speakers in support of the item, making a clarification, and I'm making a further clarification, that there could be and should be a budget assigned to this committee so that they can serve in the capacities that this body sees fit. How they propose their work and what items in their plan and all that is yet to be seen, and not to be debated tonight. But the goal is to form the committee for it to be a branch of the city, just like the agricultural committee will be, just like CRB and SWAC and several other committees that we have. So I'm not asking for any different treatment, Mayor. Thank you.

Well, but we just need to be clear that as a recommendory committee, There is no authority in this document to initiate any event or spend any money without council approval for the specific official event of the IAB. I want you all to be clear on that. Again, as I said a few minutes ago, kind of went far afield last time and I think we need to stay within those rails. And what happened today in Tallahassee changes everything. There is the great unknown out there as to what we will be able to continue to do to even provide some basic services as a city. There's just, it's chaos and real uncertainty and real risk for every city in this state. So, I was going to say, do we have a motion by Councilman Ross, second by Councilwoman Avila? Let's have a roll call vote. We took all that up front, then we went out. Well, we took public comment up front on all items. Well, I'm going to give you leeway this time. But understand that in the future, and we've been announcing this, Other than certain very limited issues, you got to make your comments up front.

Yes, sir. Thank you. Appreciate the moment. Brandy Ramirez, 2231 Southeast First Street. I did go at the very beginning of the city to support this item at the beginning of the CRA meeting. I just wanted to come up and say that the community does support the respected pastors that are in the room today. And I believe some of these churches also have funding that they would put towards helping the community. They've been doing it for many years. So I would also ask that the committee, the council take that into consideration that they have been pouring funds into city of Homestead. And as the city moves forward and these terrible times that are going on, like you've just mentioned, we do need this faith-based committee in Homestead. And I know a lot of our council go to local churches. So please tonight support our local churches so they can continue to support our community. Thank you.

Okay, is there any other public comment? Is there anyone online, as long as we've opened the gate? Okay, so we'll close the public hearing and we'll have a roll call vote on this item.

Councilman Fletcher? Yes. Councilwoman Konski? Yes. Councilwoman Avila? Yes. Councilman Cannibal? Yes. Councilman Roth? Yes. Vice Mayor Bailey? Yes. Mayor Lozner?

Reluctantly, yes.

Motion carries.

Okay. Something I should have done earlier, I'd like to jump to tab 12 very quickly on the Sports Hub item. Mr. Ferrell?

Tab 12 is a resolution of the City Council of the City of Homestead, Florida, authorizing the city manager to pay or reimburse 50% of eligible building permit fees incurred in connection with construction of sports field and recreational improvements on the fields parcel to which the city has access pursuant to a ground lease and development agreement with VSGS facilities LLC, authorizing the city manager to execute any necessary documents, take all actions necessary to implement the payment authorization, providing for implementation, providing for an effective date,

Thank you, Mr. Pearl. Okay, I know we've all been briefed. Are there any questions or comments with respect to this item? Councilwoman? No?

Thank you, Mayor. I see that proposed. This item was proposed by a council member, but I just wanted to get clarification. They're requesting these funds? Because I thought this was negotiated part of the contract. It feels like a slippery slope of changes being made. And there was proffering of the scholarships. My understanding is that's not happening. Now we're being proposed a residential community. So it's like now I'm seeing they want us to pay for development. fees when it was all part of the agreement to or did did our attorney make a mistake and now we negotiated the contract like this is foreseeable for there to be development and for us to have for them to have to pay development fees why would we have to why would we foot this bill

Mr. Mayor. Mr. Fletcher. Yeah, you know, based on just different conversations I've had since we initially performed this contract, yes, this was something that I had discussed with SPH folks that, you know, I think it's only natural for us to look at offsetting some of these costs for somebody who's is basically placing 250 million dollars worth of infrastructure in our in our city and we're going to have public use of that facility it's part of being a public private partnership you know instead we're going to ask them to spend the 250 million dollars and also pay the the 28 or 30 or $50,000 worth of impact fees for permits that if we were doing the work ourselves, we wouldn't charge ourselves for that. And they're giving us a facility that's going to be public use and available. That's the reason I brought it. I would actually suggest that we give 100% because of the size of the investment, but know based off of discussion i believe 50 is more than adequate and uh i strongly support this and i think the community would as well thank you thank you councilman fletcher and to that end let's be really clear let's not be misled

This has to do solely with the greenfield portion of the project. This has nothing to do with the arena, it has nothing to do with the academic village, or some ambiguous other project that may or may not ever come to bear. Now, you ask about the negotiation. I was there in the room most, if not all, of the time, as was our team of attorneys and the city manager and their ABLE team of attorneys, and it's something that was just overlooked on both sides. But again, to Councilman Fletcher's point, if we were doing it ourselves, we wouldn't pay permit fees. They, you know, and now they're coming in, they're giving us the greens fields far in excess of $100 million just for the development of the fields and have offered to, you know, that we're going to use more than 50% of the time. If you look at the schedule, the public uses the greens fields at least, and I believe more than 50% of the time, and they're coming in and agreeing to pay

half of the permit fees and cost recovery again limited solely to the green fields thank you mayor i i appreciate the explanation i i don't think it was something that was overlooked i i recall the briefings and if they were going to pay 100 for the build i will support this item tonight only and purely out of support for you councilman fletcher We need the money it's already been expressed, we are we don't know what's coming and we could use the dollars in our account, but.

i'll rest there, and I will support this item for you tonight, or they could go away and we'll have to find 120 million dollars to do the greens fields is that what you suggest, are you suggesting they're not committed to complete the project. If they don't not not not at all not not not in the the least. but supporting Councilman Fletcher, because he brought it, implicitly says you don't support the project.

I don't support the developer.

I think we're overreaching with these comments. No, not at all. We are, we are. Not at all. I think everybody is very well aware how excited we've been about this project. But I'll tell you, I was also surprised by it because it does seem like such a small percentage of such a huge project. And it's alarming. So I understand your concerns. I appreciate your explanation. But let's not kid ourselves that it does feel like it is, no pun intended, coming out of left field. and my other concern was when asking staff what does that mean dollar amount wise for us and we have absolutely no no idea so there there are valid concerns and there were questions that were asked that i i just also feel um you know now that we don't have the cow that we have an opportunity to hear something and get a little more information We can't come up with any is there, maybe. Someone in the audience that could give us an idea, having done similar projects.

As at this time, we don't really have any measures of Miro from the developing team. The only project request for reviews and approval and permits that we have to date is simply an early start request, which doesn't have any permit fee. The demolition permit is very minute. It's about $1,600, so it's not really a major cost. I believe where they're going to see significant cost impact would be in terms of the cost recovery items, which obviously this item doesn't address. This is strictly about permit fees, which is very minute. so i think what they are asking for the city to do is to put their skin in the game and for the commitment of collaboration by the way by the way the agreement calls for collaboration between the city and the developer so it wasn't totally silent he said that the city is committed to collaboration with them to me this is not really a big big amount in them if you compare to the total development cost when that deal was negotiated we're talking about 275 million dollar investment and i think it's way beyond that as we speak and it's going to continue to grow because of time and because of custom construction materials things are changing so to that extent i fully endorse the submittal by councilman fletcher to move forward with this thank you mr manager i appreciate that i think um

If you look at it in a way that we're really waiving fees and not footing bills, it also makes it easier. But yeah, we are equally committed. We want to see this happen. So thank you for the clarifications.

Councilman Fletcher, if you'll move it, I'll second it. Second. Co-second, co-second. Okay. Any further from council? Seeing none, let's have a roll call vote on this item.

Councilwoman Avila? Yes. Councilman Fletcher? Yes. Councilman Roth? Yes. Councilwoman Konski? Yes. Councilman Cannavale? Yes. Vice Mayor Bailey? Yes. Mayor Lossner? Yes. Motion carries.

That takes us back to tab eight.

Yes. Mr. Perl. Tab eight is the first reading of an ordinance of the city council of the city of Homestead, Florida amending chapter two administration, article three boards, committees, commissions of the city code by creating division 1.5 agricultural committee to establish agricultural committee as a standing advisory committee of the city providing for conflicts, severability, codification, and an effective date.

Thank you, councilwoman.

Thank you, Mayor. This is about getting serious about our commitment to preserving the agricultural roots of the city of homestead. We're going to have a field and a tractor in our logo. We might as well have an agricultural committee. And all the comments made prior to this item with relation to the other committee all stand. So I do hope that there are plenty of events and plenty of engagement forums and. and i do hope for us to be able to assign a budgetary allocation for it to be able to function efficiently in the future but for right now those are not up for debate this is just to pass the committee creation thank you thank you councilwoman mr pearl this seems to have additional language other than the last one is there really any any difference or does this give this

committee any different stature or standing in terms of of budgeting or or authority no no standing committee will ever in an ordinance will ever have money allocated that's a budgetary decision

if the ad hoc ones will occasionally because it's the only time you see it and sometimes you'll want to limit that so but the ordinances that establish these uh these committees do not have a budget associated with it when you discuss the budget if you choose to appropriate money for anything that this they recommend that's at your discretion okay so and again since you know like mr pearl i i wordsmith for a living let's look at the third whereas

The last line where it says to preserve and promote the city's agricultural identity. I think it would be more accurate to say, and again starting at the beginning of the last line, initiatives intended to recognize the city's agricultural heritage. We're not preserving and promoting any agriculture by the establishment of this committee. Let's get real about that. That's out of our control. And I don't want this to be used in the future to springboard into something more than it was ever intended to be.

I don't, I don't understand the challenge because of preserving and promoting the city's are you you referencing that the city currently does not have an agricultural identity?

That's your people all know where homestead begins and ends and the theory of homestead still being agriculture is misplaced because of a general public knowledge or misunderstanding of where the the boundary lines of homestead are we have a heritage of which means in the past. We have a past agricultural heritage. And we're going to recognize that, and we're going to promote that. But the word preserve to me has a whole different meaning.

Okay, well there are existing community gardens that exist within the City of Homestead right here off of, I think it's Flagler. We just talked about the other day of a site that we are conveying to a developer to include programming for community garden experiences within the City of Homestead. That's well within our borders of what this is meant to preserve and promote. So while I appreciate that there is that perception that the city of Homestead is not the Redlands and the city of Homestead is no longer or is eliminating farming communities, I don't agree with that. I want to try to reverse that as much as possible. I want to actively preserve and promote the city's agricultural identity. So I appreciate the recommendation, but I am going to stick to the verbiage in the resolution on that item as is. Where's the other?

We're going to spend the next year and a half spitting at each other anyway. But as Ms. Konski, I think, if she were honest about it, would tell you that a backyard garden and a community garden is not agriculture. Agriculture is putting millions of dollars at risk, buying millions of dollars in equipment, being subject to markets and weather and, you know, the... The the wrath of God or the the the blessing of God on on your crop backyard gardens do not create an agricultural community neither do Community gardens which I understand, please point me to that garden i've never seen it.

Maybe not maybe it's I don't want codes being stuck stuck on them, so the challenge that I hear you saying is that. I don't think anyone has any less respect for the true, true farmers that were here or that still exist within the greater Homestead area. And I think the state has expanded the definition of agriculture to also include agritourism. I think you're nitpicking here, but you did mention there was some other verbiage that was not consistent with the creation of the committee. Is this the only example?

No, different in terms of the thoroughness of the language, which, you know, the attorneys represented that, you know, no difference. You know, two different sides of the same quarter.

Okay.

I appreciate it. No, it's just that, you know, We're really kidding ourselves if we think we're going to preserve agriculture by any action we take here.

I can understand that lack of faith, Mayor, and I appreciate Councilman Konski's support and her participation in the sunshine meetings that we've had leading up to this and for her commitment to do what she can with her passion, her experience, and her connections within this community to revive what little agricultural flame may exist that you perceive. I think that agriculture was still a big part of our identity and I'd like to preserve it. I'll leave that. Thank you.

So would you like to make a motion on the item?

Yes.

Okay. We have a motion. We have a second. Seconded by the farmer's daughter.

That's right, the farmer's daughter. May I?

Wear it proudly.

May I speak? Sure. Though farming is not done in the city limits of Homestead, you're absolutely correct, not on the scale that we are known for and depicted in our logo. I would say that many of the farmers are homestead residents, though the farming is done in the redlands. As an as a farmer, there are many resources that they contribute financially out of their need for the resources to the city of homestead so they're drivers for employment and out of necessity for provisions and services resources so yes, can we. revitalize agriculture we don't know you know probably not to be honest with what's happening however bringing more awareness the fact that many people know that homestead to be an agricultural community and stop that's it they don't know anything more than that so if we can bring more awareness education to the found the founders of homestead through agriculture and other means currently to what we have in agriculture as well, it may, who knows, it could revitalize or spark a young farmer's son or daughter to maybe take on the torch when they wanted to sell the farm. don't know maybe it could maybe it couldn't so but to bring awareness uh yes i'm very excited about that and other opportunities that it could bring to the community um so i'm i'm excited we don't know what the future may hold and what it could or could not do but i am more i am very excited about this committee and what it could do in the community thank you good thank you mayor yes council roth real quick um just some historical heritage things and

all of the east side, Waterstone, Malibu Bay, Oasis, Vineyards.

Even the villages.

And the villages, before 1980, whatever it was, they were built, was all farmland. And I shared a little story with, in my meeting, that when I had the restaurants, the Royal Palm and Larry's All American, They used to come to my back door with sacks of potatoes for $5 for a 50 pound bag of potatoes. And that kind of went away. And so there is a lot of heritage to what Homestead was. And I'm thinking as you guys are talking, the fact that we asked the developer to put fruit trees in people's backyards is a testament to heritage, right? We may not get the groves that we had in the past, but we can still remember where we came from. And I think that's the legacy that this board can potentially promote is what we were and what we still in some ways stand for. There is still a farm here in the city It happens to be outside the UDB, but it's inside the city limits, which is 137 Avenue and Campbell Drive. The old, I forget the guy's name, Diaz Farms, with all those palm trees and stuff like that, which I hope will never be developed. And it's outside the UDB, so there's not going to be a lot of interest in doing anything with that. So I think heritage is important. is crucial in just remembering where we came from as a city. That's all. Thanks, Mayor.

Thank you. Any further? We have a motion and a second, so let's have a roll call vote.

Councilman Ross? Yes. Councilwoman Konski? Yes. Councilman Cannavale? Yes. Councilwoman Avila? Yes. Councilman Fletcher? Vice Mayor Bailey? Mayo-Losner? Yes. The motion carries.

Did you vote, Councilman?

I WASN'T SURE WHAT TAB WE WERE ON. WE'RE ON THE AG COMMITTEE. IT'S A YES.

SO WE'LL RECORD COUNCILMAN FLESHER AS A YES. OKAY. MOVING ON TO TAB NINE.

tab nine is a resolution of the city council of the city of homestead florida directing the city manager to take the actions necessary to prepare a formal request to miami-dade county for a municipal boundary change pursuant to chapter 20 of the code of miami-dade county florida for the annexation of certain unincorporated properties providing for transmittal providing for implementation providing for an effective date

Thank you, Mr. Pearl. So this item is subscribed to me. I'll give you some quick background. Recently, well, within the last couple of years, we've had two approvals. that abutted the boundary lines of the city of Homestead, where subdivision essentially was in the city and just outside the city. The one was Aspen West, probably three years ago, and then the more recent Lennar project also contained a few homes outside the city limits. So it occurred to me it really makes no sense neighbors backing up to each other. One calls Homestead Police Department, the other calls Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office. They're all on Homestead water. They're all on City of Homestead utilities. Their driver's licenses all say Homestead. It kind of squares things off. within the limitations that now exist at the county for annexing property. There are other commercial properties and agricultural zone properties adjacent to those, but we're not permitted to bring those in under the current moratorium. This also includes another parcel that pretty much rounds out a block in Northwest Homestead. to bring that in to kind of square off the block. And I understand that just generally in the briefings there was some suggestion that maybe there are three other parcels that adjoin that that we should consider bringing in. And I certainly don't oppose that. But this is just giving the manager authority to begin the process. As an aside, both D.R. Horton and Lenar have signaled their consent to this going forward. There's no one there in a home. who you know irregardless of today's action of tallahassee no one there is no potential owner or pending owner who doesn't expect to pay or has an expectation that they would not pay city of homestead at taxes to the extent they're they're not applicable so the ask is here for the manager to go forward at at least on on those three parcels and certainly um if anyone has you know a few little proposed additions to finish out that one block in the northwest love to hear it councilman ron you look like you needed to talk okay councilwoman

Mayor, thank you, I see that says it says exhibit one exhibit to exhibit three and during briefing just trying to get through it all. I did not notice there were not actual exhibits like so i'm familiar with them penco West property that's the linear project we'd approved and the. D.R. Horton and Aspen Estates, but the Miami-Dade County property area there, that little piece of that carve-out, I'm not familiar with that one. So is there an exhibit that's supposed to be part of this packet that showcases what it is? And then with regards to the taxes, I mean, this is, Councilman Konski is in your district. I'm really interested to hearing if you, if Councilman Konski thinks that this is good for

for her district but do we really want to add more potential non-taxpayers to our list of people we have to service potentially they may not pay the taxes but now we're adding them to us that's my question yeah in reality these these houses let's let's say because irrespective of the height that's out there there's only something definite that exempts the first 250. any 250 000 Anything beyond that has not really been jailed. It is not in this. And Mr. Pearl, last I saw it seems to kind of leave it to municipalities.

The actual mechanism is unclear today.

Okay. We have to see. But what we know is there's a phasing in of up to 250. So to answer your immediate question, those homes and those subdivisions are going to be selling at a lot more than 500 or 600 thousand dollars so if they're exempted for their first 250 of value they're still taxable value there and we're talking about i think 24 houses that in those two subdivisions um the other the other parcel further to the east uh constitutes one home on a very large piece of property if you're familiar with the home of former mayor fred rhodes on 21st street the big house with the with the high uh pointy blue tile roof um they can object and and the county may or may not uh may or may not accept it there's no requirement for voter approval for less than 250 units or 250 voters i'm sorry 250 voters in in the area so right now while while the westerly ones are under construction there are no voters there is there any any thought of any addition councilwoman

thank you mr mayor um i question a few things one why one parcel and as exhibit three versus you know we've talked about how irregular our district is if this is an asset the way if there are no changes to the property taxes and it would be an asset and there will be but um why not square it out because these are all residential properties

And you're speaking of the four immediately to the north of that parcel?

There's four. There's even one property to the east of Fred Rhodes' house that's on the corner.

But that's a whole block of homes.

Well, there's only one to the north, sorry, to the north of Fred Rhodes' house.

That's in the city?

That's it. The one to the north?

The one to the north of Fred Rhodes' former home is in the city, absolutely. So those four would bring in 296 frontage?

Correct, correct. So if we were to square it up, if this was an asset to the city, why not take the whole block of 296, square it all the way down?

Well, you know, we could, I think we probably need to, you know, in terms of, and it makes sense on one hand to square it up. They already use our electricity. They use our water. I don't know if they're on sewer there. I don't think they are. So we're already deriving income from those properties. Probably going to be a policy decision I don't know what each one of those are assessed at. Some may continue to produce tax revenue, some may not.

And then I question on the other side, the flip side, will it become a liability? You know, depending on what happens with property taxes. So are we assuming a liability?

Well, again, the new houses are going to be beyond that cap. They would still produce revenue. right and the valuation of the of the one on 21st street its taxable value is in excess of a million dollars now so again if you bring that in and the tax exemption is even a half a million dollars you're still deriving revenue on the difference between a half a million and a million plus okay

All right, thank you.

I don't really see what we're proposing. I don't really see as a drain given the math right now. Yes, Councilwoman.

Thank you, Mayor. I would not want to subject city secondary levels of regulation on top of any existing property owner. So exhibit three, unless you're seeing it as a potential sale to a developer in the future and it gives us the ability to then curate the property development,

i believe that based on that very same thing that city of homestead could do it better than what may be permitted under the county rules right now and it faces and abuts a lot of city properties from that perspective i can understand the benefit of having at least a regular regulatory developmental control um but as long as i think that's important all right thank you thank you Okay, so do we have a motion and perhaps include those four residences to the north?

I just wanted clarity on whether we were including those additional lots as we move forward.

Oh, that's, that's, I'm asking for the motion. Councilwoman Lekoski, would you like to make the motion and also, you know, amend this item to include those four residences north of the smaller parcel?

Yes, thank you, Mayor. I guess I would make that motion to include those four properties. Right.

There's four single-family residences that would round out that block.

Yes, sir.

Square out the block. Okay, so we have a motion and a second. Is there anything further? Yes, Councilwoman.

Sorry, one more question for clarification. Would this have a second reading where it gives those property owners an opportunity to come and object and vocalize?

Well, there's a huge annexation process.

They would be notified and everything, right?

Yes, and at some point it's out of our hands and is in the hands of the county.

before we would proceed to move forward is there a secondary hearing to this yes well we'll have this there's information that needs to be compiled in order to submit a complete application to the county among those things is a resolution that requires a written notice to anyone within 600 feet of the boundary of what we're doing and then we'll come back and you'll adopt that resolution with a complete package and that will ultimately be the application that's transmitted to the county for the annexation

Thank you.

Sure.

The answer is yes. We're not sneaking it in on anyone. And again, Lennar and DR have already signaled their concerns. There's nothing there yet.

So, Mr. Mayor? Yes. Just a point of clarification. This afternoon, I received a letter from Ms. Melissa Tapanis on behalf of DR Hutton, which is for, I think, is the property on the west side, the SB2? Aspen West. Aspen West, stating that... they already do have a full entitlement and permits by Miami-Dade County. They simply want to make sure that their rights are preserved going forward as we move forward. I don't see any challenge to that or any inhibition. For example, if you're doing development within the RTZ, you go through the county, you don't go through the local city. So I don't think this is going to impact their process in terms of inspections once they get to the construction phase. And also the annexation will have a positive impact on the city of Homestead. Currently we're still battling with the challenge of processing additional 25% fees for water and sewer services outside the city limits. That issue is still unresolved. So the state statute allows us to charge additional 25% for services we rent outside the city limits. By bringing some of these homes inside the city, that preserves our rights to move forward. So that's additional positive. Thanks.

And in reality, to the concerns expressed by the representative of D.R. Horton, The reality is that annexation is such a protracted process, they will very likely be completed, nearly completed, inspected with COs before the annexation is ever finished, and whatever the final plat would be. Yes, Councilwoman.

Sorry, one more question. How much is this going to cost us, this process? It's a whole, we have to go through a whole bunch of hoops.

Well, again, that's part of our final approval of the package. that we're gonna send to the county.

The cost that we're paying?

The cost of the submission would be included in our next vote when the whole package is brought to us for approval.

So the preparation is minimal. Of the things that you'll need to do, there's a mailing of a notice, which shouldn't be terribly expensive. And we'll need an accurate legal description of the land that we're seeking to encompass. And that's the front end piece. So it shouldn't be a large piece.

Not very intensive info. Okay. All right, so we do have a motion and a second subject with the amended issue of bringing in those additional four existing residences. So let's have a roll call vote on taking the first step for annexation.

Councilwoman Konski? Yes. Councilwoman Avila? Yes. Councilman Roth? Yes. Councilman Fletcher? Yes. Councilman Cannavale? Yes. Vice Mayor Bailey? Yes. Mayor Lossner? Yes. Motion carries.

So that takes us to 11. Okay. Mr. Pearl.

Tab 11 is a resolution of the City Council of the City of Homestead, Florida, providing for the submission to the city electors on proposed amendments to the city charter in accordance with Section 6.03 of the Miami-Dade Code Charter, providing requisite ballot language for submission to the electorate, calling an election on the proposed amendments to the city charter to be held on November 3, 2026, providing notice of election, providing for balloting, providing for inclusion in the charter, providing for severability, and providing for an effective date.

Thank you, Councilwoman.

Thank you, Mayor. There is a revised verbiage for the question for number one, the mayoral term limit that's been distributed. This more accurately reflects the intent and gives clarity as to why this is being proposed. And I did not get any updates during our briefings with regards to any research or paperwork. and costs involved with the boundaries related to the single member voting district item. So I was curious if we could get an update on that. Staff was supposed to do some research and talk about it between last council meeting and now.

Do we have any of that?

I don't have any information on that. Okay.

Okay, so while that was very much a significant item of interest from voters that I had engaged with during the last election, I do recognize the importance of needing to have that data and for us to be able to continue the conversation in a responsible manner. I have also had time to consider the Charter Review Committee, and I would suspect that this would be an item of discussion for them as well. But, you know, I am going to voice my disappointment that there really hasn't been any update with regards to even costs of what a consultant would be or do we have any maps that we can look at or what have you. So, you know, we can discuss that further in future briefings. But I do respectfully request that we approve to put on the ballot and let the voters decide with regards to the appointed service time and the mayoral term limit. So I'll read into the record this revision for the question. It says the city charter currently provides that the mayor is elected to a four-year term. Consequently, council members representing three of the city's six residential areas must resign their office to run for mayor. Shall the charter be amended to reduce the mayor's term from four years to two years, allowing council members representing all residential areas to run for mayor without forfeiting a portion of their council term? So that is the suggested verbiage that I am presenting to you all for that question. Thank you.

thank you so let me jump out there first and you know we we had some discussion last time you brought this up and you know i'm i'm certainly not at this point one one four year term in i i think we need to let it play out but the language that you propose is very misleading probably unintentionally so but it's very misleading because Any time the mayor has to run, whether it be a four year term or a two year term as mayor. There are three council members who are not up for election, therefore, if any one of those three who were not up for election wished to run for mayor, they would have to resign so. you know you're you're you're stating something and and you're this language is is engineered to to to engender support for reducing the mayor's term when you are representing a situation that already exists i guess what i'm saying is reducing the mayor's term from four to two does does not solve that problem it solves the problem for a different three seats but it doesn't solve the problem that if one or more of the three who are not up for election want to to give up their seat and run for mayor that that's that still exists i can see that but they would still have the opportunity to run for mayor without having to vacate their seat on the next cycle Okay, but that's not really what this says.

Well, I mean, the challenge we have is that we have to fit it all within 73 words. And so with trying to, you know, being tasked with trying to be as transparent as possible and stay within 70 or 73, whatever the cop is, This is the best way that I could express that we are fixing a problem. There is a permanent disparate treatment that exists under the current election. Three council members will, in perpetuity, would always have to forfeit their term time in order to be able to run for any mayor election.

that they do anyway, even under a two-year term.

No. They would run two years after. Correct. They have the opportunity. This balances and creates the same opportunity across the board. So this is not misleading. What you're trying to say is misleading. You're saying that what we have now is balanced and this would unbalance it.

No, I didn't say balanced. That's a hold it and look, I know what's going on here. But let's cut through this.

Do you have a suggestion to adding the word balance? No.

I think if you're going to do this, and I don't support this, and I hope three of you will join me and see it for what it is and allow at least one more cycle of the mayor having a four-year term. Okay, so. know how about the the city charter per currently provides the mayor's elected to a four-year term shall the mayor oral term be reduced for two years period this shall not reduce the mayor's overall term limit of eight years that's transparent that's to the point all of the rest of this stuff is And look, we have brilliant and well-paid attorneys, and I'm assuming that this is something you drafted without the benefit of legal counsel.

This is a combination of multiple draftings, and this was reviewed. Thank you.

Well, it may have been reviewed, but it's not well-written.

This would not be. Any verbiage can be challenged, but this is fact-based. This is fact-based.

It's misleading. It absolutely is misleading. Council members representing three of the city's six residential seats must resign their office to run for mayor. That is misleading because the four-year term does not create that issue. The staggered terms of council members create that issue.

The four-year term intersects with the other staggered terms. We didn't have this problem before. We have it now only because of the change of the four-year term limit or term.

Are you kidding me? So when I had a two year term, or when any mayor had a two year term, there were always three members who were not up for election. And if one of those members wanted to run for mayor, they would have to resign

to run that's correct that has always existed i'm not saying that doesn't exist what i'm saying is now those other three members are perpetually now having to forfeit to run and cannot wait to a mayor a cycle where the mayor is on their ballot to run okay i get what you're saying but that's not what it says here this make it makes it seem nefarious and unfair and we can go back and get the

the records and see who voted to put the four-year mayoral term on on the ballot and if y'all hadn't been so never mind vice mayor thank you mayor i also thought about that

to recall my notes and words um obviously these charter decisions they're huge I remember our very lengthy conversations I you know I feel pressure obviously on all of our decisions but these are just even more and not because I don't trust our residents to vote for what they want, but the truth is that there are many times, especially this upcoming ballot, which is supposed to have a lot of items on it, how many people I have personally heard just say that they do a little picture or do a, I'll do this here and this there without really understanding what's happening. I am sure that there are things that came into play after changing it to the four years. The pros at the time were, it is difficult to run. It is difficult to have two years in and have to run. I would really like us to have a lengthy conversation about what it would look like with all all of the seats running at the same time for four years. conversation came up today the the idea that we had for Vice Mayor is potentially not able to happen, because those candidates are not on the ballot so we'll take that committee and kind of work through that. But I every time we have another discussion I just can't help but think it is going to take some time, we need to figure out how it happens. But don't you think that is that every seat being on the same schedule would really alleviate so many of our issues. I can't help but think so.

There have been crazier ideas.

It would probably create as many as it would alleviate.

So out of curiosity, what are some issues? That comes to mind first. Figuring out how to get to that point where someone's not losing a couple years or gaining a couple years.

I don't think there's any way to do that transition. Either you're going to have to add to somebody or take away from someone to get to the point in the future where everyone is up for election. That is not to say it can't be done.

vice mayor if i may on that yeah your suggestion i i i find a lot of value in the staggered because where would i be without you having been here for me to learn from when i came in um so if you if you do the full and maybe i'm misunderstanding but if you did the full ballot election with everyone on it you could have a total wipeout and then zero experience on the days and

Florida City is experiencing that now, where they only have one veteran member, and I came to realize this weekend at the League of Cities gala that due to term limits in Palmetto Bay, only two of the five will be returning and one is a brand new member and the other one is very controversial so you know those will be the only two with any level of experience and you'll have a lot of new new folks now look i think right now if you threw that out there to the public and said should we throw them all out they'd probably say yes

I would like for that item to be discussed with the charter review, along with the single member voting district, because that could be a fresh start for the whole city in that kind of scenario.

So, okay. We'll table that. I agree. I agree completely. I was trying to come up with some really bad reasons for it, and that in itself was enough. Yeah. I feel the same if I didn't have somebody on there before. So for the mayoral term, the reason that I believe I was a yes in the first time off, and again, it was trying to balance pros and cons. There's not a very clear black and white for me on this one. I can see how both of you, when I first read this, I thought, no, someone is always gonna have to resign to run, but that's if they're deciding to do it that year. Right. But it is a very big inconvenience. Whoever is in these three seats would always have to resign to run. So how do we fix that? I am not sure. That would be my biggest... pro to going back to two years. But again, I really hope that we could have that charter committee and be able to discuss it a little more. Because for this one, I'm still very torn pros and cons on either side.

I'd like to hear from, we live in a bubble. As much as we like to deny it, we to a certain extent live in a political bubble. and i know that probably more so than a lot of prior councils we're out and we're we're conversing with with people but i i would tend to agree that you know i don't know what the hurry is here on this one we could put it on the the ballot next year but you know you you've brought this and i think and it deserves a vote to go a vote to go forward

Well, I can clarify that. By voting to add this on this November's ballot, the people would have the opportunity to shape the future of the leadership of the city four years into the future. So they would vote on this year's ballot to make the change. If they do want the change, then next year, 2027, the mayoral candidates would be running for a two-year term, not a four-year term. So it is very, very impactful on the future of the city, and the voters, in my opinion, should have the choice after, you know, we've already gone through it through a couple election cycles. We just had the mayor's election for four more years. We had this other election without the mayor on it. We've had a taste of it both ways now, and we have our history and our knowledge of what it would be like with two years' terms. So that's why I'm pushing for it to be on this November's ballot so that the people can choose how they want the mayors to represent the city going forward.

You know, it's interesting. And I'm sure you could go find some minutes or somebody's probably given you some minutes where many years ago in charter committee when the city was much smaller and had much less going on, I was a proponent of two years for mayor. with the ability of hindsight now as we have more than doubled in size since the first time I left office and the things we have going on like sports hub and these industrial projects um you know the distraction of the perpetual you know and that was a big I think a big part of our discussion when the you know and that was a big I think a big part of our discussion when the four-year term for mayor was put on the ballot and finally passed, that you're equalizing the face and voice of the city with everyone else. You're asking the mayor to run citywide every two years. Now think about this, and let's still make the comparison to the county. If at some time, if the mayoral two-year term was passed, And if single-member districts were passed, in the future, you're asking a mayor to run a citywide election every two years while council members only have to run in a very limited area. I think there's some real imbalance and unfairness there.

Mayor, that would be in the scenario of a single member voting district. So that would be for charter review committee to fully consider and make any extra changes. But, you know, it is hypocritical for you to sit there and say that the burden of running an election is so burdensome. But yet you you and your example, you ran three campaigns. And you were not on the ballot, so you know, while the intention absolutely was there for that to be a relief to a sitting mayor that's not the case, all the time okay obviously in practice, but it but aside from that. This is correcting this change is correcting a problem it proposes to correct a problem and it puts the voters in the.

in the driver's seat as to what they want to see do they want to reaffirm their choice or do they not and that's what i'm asking and that's fine but this language and look i'm not going to vote for putting this on the ballot but if you all do you need some better language some legally drawn language but councilwoman you just hold on yourself this is punitive to me a mayor who is in the last 16, 18 months of a term, and you're saying it's not fair that I ran campaigns that you didn't agree with when I wasn't on the ballot. So what you're really after is you're trying to handcuff a mayor from building his or her team in the future. That's what this is all about. This is punitive. It's retribution. Your motives aren't pure. This is not brought forward in good faith.

Mayor, everything I said now, I said it the last time we discussed this. This does not affect you in any way. This change, you're termed out. So that is an example of... I know what your math is. This is an example... You aspire to sit here.

That's what this is all about.

Mayor, this is an example based on the comments you made. So while this is a strong council leadership... And that is what I seek to preserve is for our city to have strong council member leadership. Okay? This has nothing to do with you or punitive damage, retribution or anything like that. This is fixing a problem.

What's this strong council stuff? I've never heard of that form of government. So you want to diminish the mayor. You're going to make the mayor work twice as hard and twice as long You're diminishing the position of the mayor.

The mayor should be working collaboratively with every single council member. And if that's being done, then you wouldn't have, you know, people wouldn't be voting you out.

Agreeing all the time is not democracy either, is it?

And a lot of people were against what you were campaigning for.

First four years you were here, you weren't very collaborative, were you? So it's pot calling the kettle black. Okay, so we've got the other issue of... that you brought before asking the voters to give you a free ride for the first 20 months of your service on council. Because that amendment, if passed, would apply to no one else ever in the history of the world.

Mayor, if anybody comes in to serve in a vacancy for six months, they would lose their term completely based on the retroactivity benefits you rather than going forward. And you asked for four more years without any retroactive carve out. Yeah, I already said this would allow me to serve a full fourth, a full third term. Okay, this is I volunteered to serve in a vacancy. I didn't run an election.

And that's just it. You got a free ride and you haven't provided for people who get elected to a partial term to get the benefit that you're going to get.

The people will vote to decide whether the person should continue to serve a third term or not. That's what this will do. It will allow them to vote whether or not someone with an appointed time should count or not count.

Well, we've got to give her her time. Okay. So.

We're not changing the charter here, guys. We're just asking to put it on the ballot. well and i think people will be reading the ballot this november i think that is one of the the the the specialties of this election with the whole tax thing people will be reading the ballot and paying very close attention and coming out to vote well let's so we have your you're withdrawing the single member district question i have no documentation to discuss on it all right now so

If either one of these two questions, either exempting appointed service from the calculation of term limits and changing the mayor's term back to two years, affirmative action on either or both tonight is merely a direction to the attorney to bring back final ballot language at our July 7th meeting for approval for placement on the ballot. So we're not necessarily approving

this this language what i would like tonight because we have a deadline to submit in by the third week of july right so if i could tonight get a motion on the individual issues and questions i will come back to you with if if i have four votes to move forward on any of them then at the july 7th meeting you'll have a final resolution to vote on for adoption

if there's concerns about the ballot language you can address them and i will try you can let me know and i will try to incorporate anything that you're looking for for placement on the july 7th july 7th agenda agenda okay and then after we dispense with these two i'd like to talk about a third concept that i believe needs to go on the ballot and and we can dispense with with that so The first item would be the concept of reducing the mayor's term, not term limit, but term from four years to two years, commencing with the 2027 election, correct?

Yes, the first question dealt with the reduction of the mayor's term, not term limit. Reducing it from four years to two years, commencing with the 2027 election. So 2027, the mayor would be running for a two-year term. Two-year term. Yes.

Mr. Mayor, if I may. Yes, Councilman Fletcher.

Yeah, so I mean, tonight this sounds pretty two-sided. It seems like it's you against the councilwoman or vice versa. And in my view, let's talk about the mayoral term. This was approved an election and a half ago to increase to four years based on the information that basically if you're a mayor of a city and having to run every year and a half, you don't have time to build any momentum and work towards the same items that we each have that ability to during that four year time. I think if we're going to move forward with something like this, it's important for the community to provide input. And I think that's where the Charter Review Committee comes into place. I received a call today from an individual who I was planning on appointing anyway because he's been involved in four different charter review committees. So he has a lot more detail available to him than even us, we have up here. I happen to be on a charter review committee about 15 years ago. And all I can tell you is that our charter is still kind of archaic and we all need to read it every once in a while to understand what our positions are. But I think all of these questions need to go to the charter review committee to let them have the discussions by each of our appointees and frame the language that's gonna work right to move forward. So I will not be supporting any of these items tonight. Thank you, council.

Yes, just just as a response. It's a coincidence. You mentioned that, but and maybe not because we have the charter review resolution on here. We've been making calls to discuss appointees and whatnot, and I too also spoke with somebody who had served previously on charter review and this specific question, the mayoral term limit. They had voiced that they were in favor of the item back then when it passed and that they really are encouraging me to push forward because they did not foresee the consequences of it so. They'll remain nameless for the purposes of this conversation, but I do agree that public input is necessary, and the ballot box is the best form of public input, and the charter review is advisory in nature. We have the responsibility, the right, the benefit of being able to see and make policy decisions. And we are able to put items on any election any year without having to establish the otherwise we'd have to wait every five years to put anything on a ballot because well, according to the charter, the only time it's mandated is every five years. That's why we didn't have a charter review last year, the year before, the year before that. So we can put items on the election any year. Me proposing these items is not outside of protocol or outside of process. We did it the last election. There were items brought forward by council members to put on the election. So I really don't want to be villainized for coming up with ideas to put on the ballot. This is part of our job as policymakers. know yes there will be several items that the the the charter review committee can really take a long time discussing and i think the single member district will exhaust a lot of their time in discussing and reviewing and even the all of us being on one ballot all together as well having these items go forward will reduce the work that they will have to be burdened with for for discussion and will allow the people to vote soon sooner than later thank you

Okay, so let's get a motion on the floor with respect to the concept of the mayoral term of it. Vice Mayor Bailey? Did you?

May I?

Yes. I didn't know if you said may I or do we? Oh, well. Okay.

The single member district, definitely for the committee. And again, every you just you think through these things, and you think of different different scenarios, I have no interest in becoming mayor. But the way that it is stated right now, anyone on the west side, anyone on the northwest or the southwest would always have to resign their seats. I know, but I'm thinking of the west side. You guys still have other chairs, other seats in the in the east. that was just the look of the draw when that was passed right and that's very unlucky for us um it is a completely different setting the east and the west um so another another idea another piece that came out i'm going towards um pros and cons i just wanted to voice that as far as the appointments you're volunteering for less than a year. That shouldn't take away a four-year term. I don't think we should have an issue with that one.

I agree going forward, but it's retroactive to also include the councilwoman's free 20 months.

During our sunshine meeting, I made it clear, and I would expect the same from all of you, is we're voting on something for the good of the city. Whether it serves one of us right now, we need to consciously be making that call for the city. And if it happens to affect us, so be it, knowing that the intention is there.

Well, but we can do it for the good of the city by adopting it prospectively rather than retroactively also. But let's get a motion on the table to have the city attorney bring back ballot language reducing the mayor's term from four to two, not the term limit. Moved. Moved by Councilman Roth. Second. Second by Councilman Canabal. If there's nothing further, let's have a roll call vote on that concept coming back.

Councilman Fletcher?

No.

Councilwoman Avila?

Yes.

Councilman Cannavale?

No.

Councilman Roth?

Yes.

Councilwoman Konski?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Bailey?

Yes.

Mayor Lozner?

No.

Motion carries. Okay.

And then the next one would be the exemption of the period of appointment. Moved by Councilman Roth. Second. Second by Councilwoman Bailey. Roll call, please, Madam Clerk.

Councilwoman Konski? Yes. Councilwoman Roth? Yes. Councilwoman Avila? Yes. Councilman Cannavale? No. Councilman Fletcher? No. Vice Mayor Bailey? Yes. Mayor Lozner?

No.

Motion carries.

Now, if I might, the other concept, and I think this is very... this is time sensitive and appropriate to go on the ballot, my opinion, is that, and this would not apply to anyone who is in office now, but for those who are elected to a fresh term for the first time, commencing in 27, as to council members, they are limited to an eight-year term rather than 12 on council. There's a little nuance. This does not change the 12 consecutive year limit that we have now that would not prevent a council member from jumping from council to mayor so long as they're within that 12-year limit consecutive limit nor would it permit a mayor from jumping from mayor to a council race. Recall, we now have a 12-year consecutive limit, whatever the mix is between mayor and council. I'm simply stating my opinion that 12 consecutive year potential for council member is too long and that we enact legislation that equalizes council members' overall terms of eight years

the mayor's eight-year term limit councilwoman before you say anything because i think it was your idea um i see so much value in having tenure in councilman roth's position council councilwoman or vice mayor bailey's position um i think uh Councilman Fletcher has been in and out of office for a while as well. But you're on your second term, Councilman? I can't imagine not having you up here for your third term with us. I'm assuming you're running. I hope you run. Of course. But the amount of historical knowledge that you have and that you bring, and this will be a sound bite, I'm assuming, in your campaign, I don't see value in restricting and forcing council members to then have to compete with each other at that eight-year mark, which I guess you do get an itch after your eight years to want to run for mayor, right?

You could at any time.

You could at any time, right. But I wouldn't support that item. I see the intention and the desire to, I don't know, I guess get fresh blood into the mix. But the way we stagger accomplishes that. So I appreciate it.

Appreciate it.

Councilman? Yeah, the only scenario that you brought up for the 12-year continual. Which exists now. Right. If we don't change the two-year term for the mayor, that penalizes somebody in their sixth year. Because if they don't get elected, can they run for mayor after their eighth year? yeah because you can do one you can do two twos or one four and to get to a total 12 years of service but if it the way it is now the way it is now you could leave people that that can't run for mayor right now that have to leave their seat would have to sit out the two years and then wait for that mayor's race to come back the way it is now So they couldn't run 12 consecutive the way.

Well, they get to reset their clock too.

Well, then they could do another 12 years as mayor as well. So, I mean, that's just one of the things when you look down the road, what did we do? And we restricted somebody from being able to actually do 12 consecutive as they can today. I'm okay for the eight year term. but I think we have to think about a lifetime limit as well of time served. I think 12 is a long time. Some of them are younger than we are and I know I'm not coming back. So, because in the current situation, if I even wanted to and come back as councilor mayor, that'd be four years. No, but there wouldn't be an election for my seat in the villages for four years. True, but there would be. And the mayor's, same thing, would be four years, unless I moved to the southwest section. And Bailey's termed out, so I could do that.

That's right, take her seat when she's termed out. But it ain't happening.

So just some stuff to think about, right? I'm all with you on that, but the other thing.

Your partner says no way, right?

Yeah, yeah. Just like mine.

There's no chance.

But as a side note to that, As we conclude this one, I'd like to talk about the vice mayor spot as well. Cause I think I spoke to somebody in my briefing about it, how other cities do it. And most of them do it from the dais, right? We vote for who we want us to represent us on the dais as the vice mayor as well. So we'll have that conversation, I think after this one, because I think we can figure that out too. I think it's confusing to be on the ballot in two spots. And I think we can figure that part out. So we'll talk about the eight years now, and we'll go on to that.

Well, if you want, you'll need to bring that up. And that may be something that we need to work through the committee to implement in 29, because we're bumping up against an election this year to be effective in 27.

Well, would that be an actual charter change?

Yeah.

The charter controls how the vice mayor title is bestowed. Yes.

Yeah, we can do it, but as long as we get a plan in place. Oh, yeah. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yes, Councilor Fletcher. So I appreciate the comments from all the colleagues up here. And I've always been a proponent of less time submitting. And I look at our national elections to see that people are in these positions for way too long. But again, the voters chose to put them there. But I think by limiting that, I still think, council member or a former council member it's our duty to provide insights to the new council who might be here and provide that perspective whether or not we're elected or not that's just something we need to do and I haven't seen that in the past with previous councils a lot but I have seen it of course with with councilman Roth you know 12 12 years is a long time to serve and vice mayor Bailey as well thank you again You want to do it again in four years? It's a big task that we all do. But I think limiting and trying to get new people involved and engaged in our city. At the beginning of our meeting, this council chamber was packed. Now it's not. And I venture to say there's not a whole lot of people watching online. I'm sorry? So again, I think all of this is good information that needs to be looked at by the Charter Review Committee. I think they provide us with an in-depth look that we may not have done previously. There are things that were mentioned here tonight that I had not thought of previously. So I think having that opportunity to run that through that organization and then have those advisory opinions brought to us that we can deliberate at that time i think is the best way of doing this so i will not be supporting this item either tonight thank you not supporting the reduction not tonight i think it has to go through the charter review committee to get all the information and and just to be clear though if it goes to the committee the earliest it will be effective is 29. because i see you know ella

Not casting curses on anybody who's up for election next year, but I see the potential in an election blowout, there will probably be, there will be a new mayor and potentially four new council members. Because if the mayor's two-year term change doesn't pass, I think we're going to see a resign to run. So we're going to have four, potentially, you have to run like you're always losing. In 27, there could be as many as four new members. Those four new members would enjoy the benefit of 12 years if we don't go forward for this cycle, reducing it to eight. It would be those who were first elected in 29 would be limited to the eight years of council service.

It's your point. Okay. Again, I understand. It's up to the community.

All right. So if there's anything else on that concept, if we could have a motion on the concept of Eight-year council terms commencing for new folks coming to council in 27. Do we have a motion for that? Okay, moved by Councilman Canabal. Yes, Vice Mayor.

my head so i wish that this would have passed last year and that i didn't i wouldn't but that's easy to say now listen it would have been one of those bittersweet things um i'm watching you guys on the video tonight i would have said this is one of the sweet ones to miss um I see the benefit, but now, in case the mayor's term is changing to two, I feel like I need to wrap my head around this piece and plan out some scenarios in my head also. What is coming back to us in July is to approve

it as a second reading or just it's one reading for a resolution but july is our last opportunity to have that to adopt what will go on the ballot because we have a deadline for submission to the supervisor of elections and it's like the day after our last meeting and i just wanted to clarify that this was a vote to put it on the ballot with the pending not tonight no it's not look at it one more time i will bring back The final resolution what i'm looking for tonight is the direction on which items, you would like to see on that final resolution.

So is there an opportunity to say that this one goes on, but then we have another chance, yes, well well.

let me be clear you will vote what i the vote that you're taking tonight is to have me prepare one by one each of the items so you thus far you've approved the four year and the counting of the appointment term if you elect to vote yes tonight on the reduction of the term limit what will come back to you for final approval on july 7th or placement on the ballot in November will include each thing that you approved tonight, inclusive of this last one, if there are four votes for it, for the reduction of the term limit for council members from 12 years to eight years, commencing with those elected in 2027. Mayor, did I have that?

Correct. Not applicable to, in this case, Cannonball and Fletcher. Their grandfather with the 12.

It would be prospective not to touch anybody on the dais today.

But again, I think to your question, we will see this one more time. If it dies tonight, you won't. If it lives to fight another day, as the first two have, We'll see it again. We'll see these first two again.

So after thinking this one specifically through, at the next time, if the verbiage comes back and we do not agree with it, we would vote that down and it would... You can make a motion on the floor to amend the resolution to remove that particular item if that's something that you wanted to do. Okay.

Tonight's not a final disposition.

I feel like I need to wrap my head around that one a little more. Thank you. Okay.

So yes, I just want to say Vice Mayor, I'm so happy that you can be here serving a third term. I really am. And I think the only people I've ever heard and the all the time I've served and throughout the campaign that anyone has ever complained about the 12 years is us because we feel burdened and obligated to continue serving if we have the ability to serve. And those are the servant hearts that we have, you know, but I think there's so much value in us being at 12. Thank you.

You never heard the phrase burden of service come out of my mouth. Okay, so Councilman cannibal moved to direct the attorneys to draft language reducing future Council terms limits from 12 years to eight years we don't have a second yet nobody else wants to second it, I will. Okay, so second by the Vice Mayor any final comments before we vote on the reduction of Council term limits. Okay, let's have a roll call, Madam Clerk.

Councilwoman Karnski?

No.

Councilman Roth? Yes. Councilwoman Avila? No. Councilman Cannibal?

Yes.

Councilman Fletcher?

No.

Vice Mayor Bailey?

Yes.

Mayor Lozner?

Yes.

Motion carries.

Does it carry? It carries. It carries, okay.

So I have my direction for July to bring it back. For three items. For those three questions. Correct. Okay, thank you.

All right. So we have dealt with tab 12. Okay, it takes us to 13. All right, Mr. Pearl.

Tab 13 is a resolution of the City Council of the City of Homestead, Florida, authorizing the city manager to develop a scope of services and obtain quotes, proposals, or other procurement responses for preparation of a citywide transit needs and mobility survey, providing for implementation, providing for an effective date.

Thank you. Background. This came out of my angst, and I'm sure the angst that all of you share with the BRT chaos. It occurred to me again that the straight line linear mass transit, whether it be BRT, whether it be elevated rail, does not really serve the majority of our community. I think it's fair to say folks who live on the east side, who represent the majority of our population, who have to get on the turnpike every morning to go to their place of employment even if elevated rail came all the way to homestead would probably not that make that drive back across town so in thinking that without putting the cart before the horse and and just saying we need to advocate for transit up speedway boulevard or on the median of the turnpike with gondolas or elevated rail, whatever it may be, we don't know where our folks go to work when they get on the turnpike. And in order to do, and my ultimate goal is to take this to the TPO. And we have a very long meeting scheduled, the manager and I do, for later this week with the TPO director. My thinking concept is that we make the case for wiping out all thinking that exists and recognizing that the location of the current line, whether it be BRT or rail, does not serve tens if not scores and hundreds of thousands of folks who now live in homestead and points northward east of us one or east of of the turnpike and in order to lay that groundwork we need to know where our people are going and that doesn't change my philosophy that over a long period of time we need to create more job centers here and i think this week we took a big step toward that with the ribbon cutting out in uh the Park of Commerce, but this is solely to authorize the manager to go get proposals and price tags for doing this. Some of you may remember we did the online survey for the Parks Master Plan. I kind of envisioned something like that. Not talking about sending people canvassing door to door or even calling. There are far more economical ways of doing this, but this is just that first step of 1,000 miles, authorizing the manager to see what the thought process is out there and what it would cost. Quite frankly, we have to take the lead. The TPO is not. The TPO is controlled by the members of the Board of County Commissioners. They meet once a month at best. Many times meetings are canceled. The only way this is gonna happen in our lifetimes is that if we take the initiative to take those steps. And again, this is not committing to spend any money or conduct a survey. It's an authorization to find out what it would cost and how long it would take. Council? Thank you. I'll second the motion. And so moved by Vice Mayor, seconded by Councilwoman Alvarez with a comment.

Yeah, I was surprised that this, I thought we had a study, and I learned we didn't have a study. And I was like, but we have all these transportation planning meetings, but this is transit, right? It's different, so.

Rethinking mass transit.

Yeah, with regards to the TPO, Waterstone Boulevard and 137th Avenue still does not have a clear answer with regards to the traffic light. So I would like for you to ask, I thought you had already put it on there, but I guess that was a different list. There's like two lists, one's a TPO list, one's a county list, but... I'm told by our public works department that funding is approved and I asked the county and they're saying no. So departments are not speaking to each other, department directors are getting conflicting information and the reality is that there is no traffic light in sight for Waterstone Boulevard and 137th Avenue and this is This is a very, very, very important improvement that needs to be done. The other day, I saw an email where it was confirmed about the light at, is it North Canal?

Mm-hmm.

In Kingman, that we had been advocating for, and so that's now approved by the TPO. So if it's a matter of just making the ask, please make the ask.

We will. And I know there are a lot of different clarifications of which agency has its hands in the pot.

Yeah, but the people need a straight answer. I don't have one. I mean, if there's one today.

Candidly, it's hard to get one.

Okay. I mean, if staff can give me an answer now, if there's been any further information, updates, what is the status with the line? If not, I will rest and hope to see it approved soon.

Thank you. We have a meeting with the director later this week, and certainly that will be on the list. Councilman Roth?

This is just to figure out where people are going, right? Correct. Because we also have a large contingent of people that go south to Monroe County for work, too.

Which is, where do you go?

Yeah, it's where do you go and how can we better get you somewhere else? yeah because I when they mentioned it to me in my briefing I was like well, we have so many modes of transportation and take people. Around the city, we have freebie we've got trolley we've got Miami dade county buses somebody mentioned sts which is all over the place too, but that's a little bit more challenging. Even Uber, but it's not a free service.

But our folks are on the turnpike going somewhere at 530 in the morning.

Yeah, so I'd be curious to see if people would actually respond and tell us where they go for work and stuff like that.

To see where the employment hot spots are. I think it would be very enlightening.

All right, thanks.

Yeah, and we ask specific questions like 10 to 20 miles, 20 to, you know, to try and dive into what those details are.

Well, you know, if they, if we ask them, for example, give us the closest intersection to your job. Wherever that is, kind of that, that hot spot map. Yeah, how do you get there? Yeah, where do you live? Do you live east of US 1 or east of the Turnpike? Or west, or west of US 1? Where do you go and how do you get there?

Mayor, sorry, I mean, have we, this would also include staff working with Economic Development Council, the EDC, Chamber of Commerce, they might have studies.

I don't know that they do, but maybe they could help fund it. maybe i mean we give them funding but the point is is let's let's ask what already exists it may be supplementary in nature but let's not ignore the data that may be out there thank you let's be collaborative with the effort you know and i i i filled in the mayor's coalition last week with you know where we were going and what my thought process were and the edc was there and and you know there was no mention that they had that data either You know, for me, it's kind of like one of those, wow, I could have had a V8 moments. We're wringing our hands kind of over the BRT, but the BRT is not the silver bullet for solving our mass transit problems. No, I'm sorry. That corridor is no longer the silver bullet. So I think we have a motion and a second. Let's do a roll call.

Yes. Councilman Fletcher. Yes. Councilwoman Konski. Yes. Councilman Cannavale. Yes. Councilman Roth. Yes. Vice Mayor Bailey. Yes. Mayor Lossner. Yes. Motion carries.

All right. So we're almost at the end, but let's tidy things up and have a motion to extend to 9 o'clock.

Oh, man. 9 o'clock.

We're going to be out of here before then. That's 21 minutes. Okay. It's been moved and seconded to 9 o'clock. All in favor? All right. Councilman Cannonball, you're first on my list. You going to save us time? Got anything tonight? No. Okay. Councilwoman Alva. Okay. See, I'm in such a hurry. Mr. Manager.

Thank you, Mayor and Council.

You're a shocker over here.

Just for information of Mayor and Council. Since I've not taken any vacation in the last one year and a few months, I will graciously request your understanding that I take this coming Thursday, Friday, and Monday, June 4th, 5th, and 8th to go on a well-deserved rest with my wife just to celebrate our 30 years of marriage. Yes.

You had it right the first time with your life, you know, take your life, yes.

exactly so be married to the lady for i thought i've been married to her three times just to demonstrate fidelity and on june on june 14th is juneteenth celebration it's going to be at miami-dade college here at six o'clock juneteenth celebration june 14th at six o'clock no The June 13th, I mistake. I think I missed it by one day, June 13th.