City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone, and welcome. I'd like to call the Tuesday, February 3rd, City of Homestead special call meeting to order. It is now 5.34 p.m. Madam Clerk, could you please call the roll?

Councilwoman Konski? Here. Councilman Cannibal? Here. Councilman Fletcher? Here. Councilwoman Avila? Here. Councilman Roth? Here. Vice Mayor Bailey? Here. Mayor Lawson?

Here. All right, our first item tonight is the request for a motion to place card number 4914 on the council agenda, public hearing 2026-07, the Greater Miami Youth for Christ mural consideration. Mr. Pearl.

Yes, addendum one is a resolution of the city of Homestead, Florida, granting approval of a public art mural as requested by Greater Miami Youth for Christ for property located at 1088 West Mallory Drive as legally described in exhibit A and providing for an effective date. Thank you.

Over and up to any council questions or comments. Vice Mayor, I'm sure you'd like to lead the charge.

If anyone wants to speak first.

Anyone? Okay. You're it.

Thank you, Mayor. So there is a brief 45-minute presentation to talk about all the suffering we've done over the last seven years. No, just kidding. I wanted to thank you all for helping to make this vision a realization. we have in the audience three of the parties that are hopefully going to be making this mural a reality um youth for kicks we have derek with elevate foundation we've leaned on him a lot he does work in winwood just to make sure that we were crossing all of our t's and dotting our i's Thank you to Development Services for the permit process and permits. So here we are. This has kind of come together. It kind of took a while. I went quickly at the same time. So if you could use your imagination just a little bit, you can see the first page in your book has a picture of the wall, but the more realistic mural that will be the piece you see in the world. That's a Dr. Martin Luther King quote. That is something that Kix did for our art walk, our virtual art walk during COVID. So this is obviously something incredibly meaningful to Kix, as well as to myself, as well as to the Southwest, the Southwest neighborhood. So we wanted to find a way to have something where the kids from the program could have something interactive so if you see the piece towards the right the top says be the eye in kind and that will provide an opportunity for you to stand and be the eye in kind so one of those opportunities for not only the community but for visitors to stop and take a picture And then we wanted to tie the two messages in together. So that stained glass, you know, a little kick to kicks being a Christian organization. Those cranes will carry some of those stained glass. So that very nice long 148 foot wall will have two beautiful messages and it'll all tie in nicely. And that's it in a nutshell.

Thank you. And I'll ask this, Mr. Manager, through staff, to staff, whoever can answer. In terms of scale, how does 148 feet in length compare to the Greetings from Homestead mural? Just general. Half, three quarters?

The length, I think it's like, two times and a half, probably.

Okay.

But the height is a little bit shorter. But at that side, it will fit very well because it's a very long, blank wall, so I think it's good for that.

All right, so this was just to put it on the agenda. Let me open the public hearing. Is there anyone from the public who would like to speak on this matter? If not, I'll close the public hearing, and I'll entertain a motion for approval.

I will move it and one final thing just to keep in mind. So Derek started the murals at Homestead Middle School. And they have been using the term Homestead Walls. So we thought that this could be Homestead Walls, Maui murals and then there could be Homestead Walls Midtown murals. So just an opportunity to give us an additional piece of branding. So thank you.

So it's been moved and seconded, and my little cheat sheet here calls for a roll call vote.

Councilwoman Evelyn Councilwoman Karnski Councilman cannibal Councilman Fletcher. Yes, Councilman Roth. Yes, Vice Mayor Bailey. Yes, Mayor Lawson. Yes motion carries Mr. Pearl tab one, please

Yes, Mr. Mayor tab one is a resolution of the city council of the city of Homestead, Florida, authorizing the city manager to execute an amendment to three of the federally funded community development block grant mitigation program, subrecipient agreements and related documents, increasing grant funding for the city's wastewater treatment plant backup generator project, providing for implementation, providing for an effective date.

Thank you. Three key words, increasing grant funding, anything to add, Mr. Director.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. No, only that we were very successful. We were very persistent with the granting agency. We tried on multiple occasions and we have a very good relationship with them. And thanks to that relationship, they were able to give us the increase that we required.

We have questions, comments from council. Is there anyone who would like to speak on this matter?

So, Mr. Mayor, additionally, it's not just a question of increase in grant money to the tune of $2 million. It's also an extension of time. Right. So, they're giving us an additional one year.

Very critical extension of time, too. Yes. To expand the original plus the increase, and that's always been the Achilles heel of some of these grants that take a lot of engineering and design. Okay, so do we have a motion to approve this item? Moved by Councilman Canabal, seconded by Councilwoman Avila, and let's have a roll call vote.

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

Thank you. Mr. Pearl, Item 6, Tap 2.

Add 2 is the second reading of an ordinance of the City of Homestead, Florida, amending the budget for the Water and Sewer Utility Fund for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2025, ending September 30, 2026, by increasing the total budgeted revenues and expenditures by $12 million, providing for severability and providing for an effective date.

Thank you. Any questions from council? This is one of those, I think, ministerial budget items just to account for... loan proceeds that have not yet been expended, nor have we specifically addressed that expenditure at this point. So if there are no questions, let's open the public hearing. Anyone who would like to speak on this matter? So I'll close the public hearing and ask for a motion on this item. Yes, moved by Councilman Canabal. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Councilwoman Avila. And off to a roll call vote.

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

If there is no further business for this special call, Mr. Manager, Council, any further business for a special call? None, Mr. Mayor. All right. Do we have a motion to adjourn? Moved and seconded. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? We'll take a very, very short break here and move into our Committee of the Whole agenda in just a moment. More papers.

Thank you, thank you.

Oh, OK, very good.

That's just ridiculous. In all these years, it's the first time I've heard that. I think it's ridiculous. Thank you.

Thank you. What are you doing? Yes. Perfect memory.

Thank you.

All right, let's move the Committee of the Whole meeting along if we could, if everyone's ready. I'd like to call the City of Homestead Committee of the Whole meeting to order. Today is Tuesday, February 3rd, and it is now 5.48 p.m. Madam Clerk, if you could call the roll, please.

Councilman Fletcher?

Here.

Councilman Ross?

Here.

Councilwoman Konski? Here. Councilwoman Avila? Here. Councilman Cannavale? Here. Vice Mayor Bailey? Here. Mayor Lawson?

Here. Mr. Manager, are there any additions, deletions, or deferrals this evening?

Yes, Mayor and Council, tab number three, card number 4906 is going to be deferred to the next Council meeting, February 18th.

All right, can we have a motion to defer that item until the Council meeting three, the HVAC? The HVAC. It's been moved and seconded. Any public comment? Okay. All in favor of the deferral? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Tab 1 is the approval of the January 6th Committee of the Whole Minutes. We have a motion to approve. Moved. It's moved by the Vice Mayor. Seconded by Councilman Canabal. All in favor? Any opposed? All right, our next item is tab two. This is a motion to place car number 4899 on the council agenda, the 2026 Homestead Stone Crab and Seafood Festival. And I believe we have a presentation on behalf of the foundation by former Vice Mayor Guzman. Welcome back. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor. Good evening, Vice Mayor. Good evening, Council Members. It's a pleasure and honor to be with you tonight. So we're going to talk a little bit about the Seafood Festival, and we want to request the continued support and in-kind sponsorship from the city. We had a little bit of a scare earlier this year, given the leasehold agreement that you have with the Sports Performance Hub. But I think through talking through the challenges with the city and staff, along with the Sports Hub, we found a way for that venue to be used once again. So I want to thank city manager. I want to thank city council. I want to thank staff. I want to thank Pedro as well for being an integral part of that process. I don't know if you guys have been to the Seafood Festival, but if you haven't, it is a really great family event. This is what we call the signature event in the city of Homestead. It brings about 20,000 people, and I think this year it might reach 30,000 people. Every year it gets a little bit better. And the funds that are raised through this event are used to give those students who are looking to pursue higher education That's where these funds go. And this year, what we're going to do is we're going to open that up to those who are interested in vocational-type schooling. So if you want to be an electrician, you want to be an AC tech, you can now also apply for this scholarship, and it'll open it up to those students as well. So this event also has raised over... A million dollars, Rory has given over a million dollars in scholarships. Last year we gave 60 scholarships. Now people ask, where are the students from? in the general Homestead area. You can be from 216 down through Florida City, and these scholarships are available to all of those students. Rotary has two big fundraising events in a year. This one is our major event, and the Prime Rib Dinner, which I'm sure all of you may have participated, is our other big event. So tonight, we would like your support to continue the sponsorship in kind with the generators with the lights with the employees for the trash we would like councilman roth to be up at the front collecting money for the people coming through the gates so we would hope that you guys can continue to support this so that we can make this even bigger and better for the city of formstead thank you mr guzman any questions or comments from council thank you thank you thank you thank you then make a motion move to approve

It's been moved by Councilman Canabal, seconded by Councilwoman Avila to approve this item, place it on the agenda as an in-kind sponsorship. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Thank you so much. On behalf of the Rotarians, we truly appreciate your support and time.

Thank you. All right, tab three. Okay, we've deferred tab three. We're going on to tab four, and this is a motion to place card number 4908 on the council agenda, the Miami-Dade Zero Drownings Program. Councilwoman Avila?

Thank you, Mayor. We do have Jim with Miami-Dade County to give us a presentation.

Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council Members. I'm here to ask the City of Homestead to join the Zero Drowning Initiative. My name is Jim O'Connor and I'm the Chief of the Office of Drowning Prevention for Miami-Dade County Parks and Recreation. and we oversee the logistic and the implementation of the Zero Drownings program. The bad news is the leading cause of death, accidental death for children ages one through 14 in Miami-Dade County is drowning. The good news is we can do something about it. Drownings are preventable. Essentially what this initiative does, we brought together community partners, municipalities, to eliminate drowning in Miami-Dade County. We have a three-prong approach. The first approach is teaching as many children as possible in swim lessons. Our main emphasis is working with Miami-Dade County Public Schools, other youth organizations such as Head Start, charter schools, private schools, and preschools throughout the county. And what we do is we consider this a field trip during the school year. So we identify a pool. And then we identify a school or preschool within 15 minutes travel time. And then this program takes out two key components why parents don't sign up their children for swim lessons. One of those is cost. It's completely free. The second is we provide transportation. So we pay for the school buses to support the children and transport them to the schools. and the first thing and the third thing is it's done during the school day so we pick up a group of kindergarten children at 9 30 say 24 children we drop them off at robbie george we teach a 30-minute class with those kindergarten children the bus leaves goes back to the school picks up another group of kindergarten children picks up the group that has got done with the lesson, takes them back to the school, and we typically do three to four shuttles a day for a two-week period of time. So we provide lessons for children, 10 lessons, Monday through Friday for two weeks, and then we take another group of children after that. The second component of our initiative is really educating the parents and caregivers. Everything, registration is done online. We work with America Red Cross, who's one of our partners, along with the Children's Trust and United Way. We provide online training for parents on water safety. We have a national course in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole. We actually developed a course in Haitian Creole, and that's not only being used here in Dade County, but throughout the United States. So everything has to be in three languages. We provide that online course to parents. We get surveys. We provide them with a child certificate, participation certificate that enforces water safety, not only for their child, but for them to be safer in, on, and around the water. And the final component is A water safety component for the community as a whole. Brand new web page. Hopefully you've seen some of our new PSAs. We just had a major media give by ABC for our 30 minute PSA that's now showing on Channel 7 and Channel 18. And then our web page itself. The neat thing about our web page is it also promotes lessons that you may have at your parks department. So once you join our initiative, we put your parks logo and city logo on our web page and then you just click on that and it goes straight to the parks department to find out about other classes. That's really how Zero Drowning works. We reached over, which you're going to see the report on your desk that I had to provide to our county commissioners. We provided lessons for roughly 2,200 children. This year we're shooting for 5,000, and when we're fully implemented, we're trying to reach 20,000 children annually. So please join.

great thank you chief for that presentation i first want to say thank you to dr zary for encouraging me to attend the miami-dade county league of cities event that was held recently because if i had not gone i would not have run into your table and that's where i came into contact with the zero drownings program and you know i mentioned to zary i really wanted to see what we could do about getting this program into our city and he jumped right in excuse the pun to to see how we can make that work and our parks department was very familiar with the program as well so it wasn't easy easy uh... delivery The reality is that this program is not going to compete with any of our swimming programs. It's a great complement to our swimming program, and it's data-driven, which is really important to me as well. So being funded through the Children's Trust, it's a very low cost to our fiscal impact, but that is reimbursable. Can you talk more about that, please?

Thank you.

Could you expand on the reimbursable portion?

Just it is, as you mentioned, it is evidence-based. We do pre and post testing. We have a brand new management information system that we've worked with Microsoft to develop for our registration invoicing component where we reimburse the different municipalities and swim providers through our fiscal agent, which is the Miami Foundation. So you're able to get paid a lot faster than if you went through the county for the services. So that was working out very well with our other municipalities. And then, you know, basically the partners are listed in the report that I gave you, some of our key partners that are out there.

Thank you. And I would love to hear your experiences and your thoughts. Personally, as a mom of three, I received similar training from my son when he was two years old, when the YMCA was here. And the skills that they teach, this is not learning how to swim. It's learning how to, in the event that you are in a body of water, how to get to a ledge safely and get out. And just with a few sessions of this type of training, my son learned how to swim and he swims like a fish and I was able to continue that training to my other children. So fantastic programming and information and the fact that it's going to be at one of our local pools in our southwest, I think it's a great way to activate that park. And one thing I did ask was whether or not we could take some graduating pictures, like graduation class pictures of the groups that come. So hopefully we can do that and showcase the progress of our participants. And I see that there's mascots in the podcast.

Yeah, you can see some of the different things. We have six different mascots. Can we make our own? The instructors will wear the badges and all kinds of stuff. No, those are kind of for each station. So we have like different teaching stations. We'll divide them up by mascots. But those are some of the branding information that we have. And we would also like you to be part of our communications committees that we have that we meet biweekly for social media. Typically, the municipalities, the Children's Trust, as I mentioned, the Red Cross, those are all some of our really key anchor partners.

Thank you very much and I look forward to the support of my colleagues on this item.

Thank you. Thank you. I see this, pardon the pun, as a pool of participants in our future full-scale swimming lessons that I championed to do out of CDBG funds for the last several years and even mentioned to staff maybe let's kind of do a play on on this year's events and strive for having those swimming lessons for 250 kids at least 250 by the 4th of July for our 250 right here in

in town so you know i think it kind of it creates that that mindset among the kids and the parents who continue that training councilman roth just real quick um i think you covered it but i remember i was taught how to swim old school way my parents threw me in the pool and if i didn't come back up they just grabbed my head and pulled me back out but i i was impressed with the fact that The question I was going to have is how many lessons does it actually take them to teach? And I think you said they go for 10 days. So they'll be in the pool 10 times during the two-week period. Yeah, that's it.

And then water safety is a major component of it, too. We teach water safety. You'll see some of the things called long-fellow whale tails where we educate the... the child, and also the parents, you know, on certain topics, like reach or throw, don't go. You know, just wear your jacket, or for life jackets, those type of things. So we do stress that. It is evidence-based, and as you mentioned, this program is a program where we basically, we don't like to say the word learn to swim. We talk about swim competency and swim lessons. And what our goal is, and is... for a child to be able, if they fall into deep water, be able to turn around, make it back to the side to a position of safety and call for help. And that's our pre and post-test, essentially. And what we found out in year one, a majority of our children couldn't do that in the pre-test, and 78% of the children that attended at least seven out of those 10 classes at the completion were able to pass the post-test. You know, we don't care how pretty it is, whether the arms are high or that type of thing. It's just a matter of really striving at this level, making it from point A to point B.

It is a great feeder program for your other learn-to-swim programs.

It also, you know, lets the parent know. A lot of our problems are the parent may not know where your pool is, okay? So this kind of educates the community where your pools are and also where other children who are younger or older can take lessons. So it's a great feeder program, too.

Do you do anything for adults as well?

For adults right now, no. Okay, we're kind of limited to young children. In the future, we do on the website, though you could promote your adult classes, and we do that.

Yeah, because there's a lot of parents of children that don't know how to swim that don't know how to swim as well. In fact, I think a couple years ago, maybe three years ago, during race weekend, we had a family, one of the kids fell into the canal, And he didn't know how to swim. His father jumped in after him, and he didn't know how to swim. And we had two homestead officers right down the street that pulled them out of the water. So, I mean, the swimming is very important, especially South Florida, all the canals and all the things we have down here. So maybe we need to focus on getting some adult swimming lessons for some folks, too. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you.

Is that it? All right. So I'll make the motion. I think you're good, right? Go ahead.

The only thing I wanted to say is incredibly happy, obviously, to see this happening here.

people to see where our pools were but unfortunately it's only pool where our one pool is because that's all we have for now but i was wondering if you guys were the ones that did the water watcher we do as part of our initiative we have water watcher cards you can see in the information and what we're talking you're not familiar with water watcher cards is if you have say a pool party or to the beach you need to assign one person as a water watcher And what that means is they have one job and one job only and that's to watch the kids. They can't be flipping burgers. They can't be on their cell phone. They really just have one job and that's to watch the kids in, on, and around the water.

I borrowed from that wonderful idea because we were hosting some different things out at Robey George and invited the families to go to the pools. And that's often when there's more people, it's actually more dangerous than if it's just one or two people watching. So it's a bright colored lanyard that says water watcher. And whoever's wearing that is the one who is off their phone and watching the pools. So as these other swimming things come up, I would be happy to sponsor some lanyards that we can also encourage the adults to make sure that they're being responsible.

Yeah.

Thank you.

And I apologize. I should have let you all water watch your cards today. Badges.

Thank you. Motion by Councilwoman Avila. Yes, Mayor, thank you. Second by Vice Mayor Bailey. Okay. All in favor?

Thank you. Thank you very much, sir.

All in favor? Yes. Any opposed? All right, our next item is tab five, and this is a motion to place car number 4901 on the council agenda, the wetland mitigation preserve area. Anyone opposed to waiving the staff report on this? Mr. Manager, anything to add? Mr. Carver? You're here, go ahead and go to work. It's still early.

No, actually it's very, very interesting. This is the mitigation that we have under the rock pit that we have to maintain in perpetuity. So we have to get it to looking like a wetland, a natural wetland, and keep it as such basically forever.

So this is how we do this on an annual basis. That's just a contractual obligation that we've lived under for many years.

Yeah.

Right. Any further questions? Moved by Councilman Alvarez, seconded by Councilman Canabal. There's no public comment. Didn't think so. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Mr. Manager, anything further for this meeting?

Yes, Mr. Mayor and Council. This past weekend was a great weekend. Thank you, everyone, for participating in the 77th rodeo. Very, very impressive event. I was there for two nights, Friday and Sunday. And of course, I saw Councilman Roth and Kunski fully involved in terms of playing some key roles. Thank you for your service and for your leadership as well. The mayor was there. Councilman, yes, yes. And you all came with your families. And of course, Councilman Fletcher was as well there on Friday nights. This coming weekend is going to be the premier rollout of the city's karaoke night. It's going to be a monthly event. The goal is to continue to activate downtown Homestead. It's going to be on the first Friday of every month. Karaoke night is going to be at Lozner Park. We hope to see council members kick off the events with their sonorous voices singing their best tunes. Our herbal and fantastic parks department is going to be rolling out father and daughter dance. The first one ever is going to be on the 13th on Friday at Dickinson Community Park. There is also thank you to the Vice Mayor for your leadership in kicking off this month's Black History Month. It's going to be the month of February. There will be a series of highlights demonstrating and highlighting Black history and heritage all month long. And there will be we're partnering with Seminole Theater for a series of events on the 26th, 27th, and 28th. There are a lot of events to celebrate the Black history. I'm actually reminding council, mayor, and staff that the State of South Dade event is going to be on Thursday. It's going to be at the Miami Dade College. I believe it's at 8 o'clock in the morning. We were just informed late this afternoon by the county that there was a small brush fire at the base that has been actively contained. So just watch out for those with respiratory challenges. Don't be outdoors. That's all I have.

Thank you, Mr. Manager. Mr. Attorney, any business? Last minute from counsel. All right, then I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. Moved and seconded. All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. Thank you all. Good night.