Town Council - Regular Meeting

As thing, are we good to go with that? Can manage you ready everybody ready? If I could grab a seat, appreciate it. Want to welcome everyone to the January 20th, 2026 regular town council meeting called for 6 PM. It's 605 meeting officially called to order roll call town clerk. If you call roll, you appreciate it.

Yes. Mayor singer. Uh, here vice mayor here council member here. Council member Einstein council member here.

We could all please rise and chief Rudy. You could lead us in the pledge of leaving.

Would be greatly appreciate it. Please.

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

It was the moment of silence that he was... Want to welcome everyone again. Thank you for coming. I can't believe we're in 2026. Seems like yesterday we were in 2020. First on the agenda is some presentations, and I want to welcome and invite up here Detective Pete Villa from the Drug Enforcement Agency. If, Pete, you could come up. I have something to present, and I know the DEA has something to present. That's good. In December 2025, Pete Viola, acting as the capacity of the task force officer of the United States Postal Inspection Service, received information from the DEA Group 41 in reference to parcels that were being shipped from the Postal Service office in Homestead, Florida. Pete immediately responded and took possession of the parcels. Pete subsequently wrote search warrants and discovered multiple amounts of narcotics secretly within the packages. Several months later, working in conjunction with the DEA, Pete's effort produced the following results. Seizures of 13 kilograms of protozine, 516 grams of meth, 3.3 kilograms of protezine powder, 13.5 kilograms of mushrooms, 544 grams of benzene, 338 grams of cocaine, 45 grams of MDMA, 42 grams of ketamine, two firearms, two pill presses, a boat, two vehicles, three arrests. The case uncovered the source of supply in China and will continue to make further arrests in Colorado, Las Vegas, Dallas and elsewhere. For his efforts in this case, the members received the prestigious award of the executive office of the president in August 2025. And Pete, it's a pleasure to honor you with this award the certificate and we appreciate

I believe someone for the DA is here to present. Peter, an additional award?

Good evening, everyone. My name is Keith Barker. I'm an assistant special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration. And to my right is Group Supervisor Carlos Serrato.

If you could speak into the mic, it'd be great. Sorry.

Sorry about that. Can everybody hear me now?

Yeah, we can.

Should I repeat myself or did you guys get it?

Repeat yourself, please.

Okay. My name is Keith Barker. I'm an assistant special agent in charge with the Drug Enforcement Administration. Right behind me is Group Supervisor Carlos Serrato. And we are here to present Task Force Officer Pete Villa with an award to tell you a little bit about what he has meant to the Drug Enforcement Administration. Pete is a very hardworking individual. A lot of times, you know, I work late and Pete is still in the office. And rarely do we see that with a Task Force Officer with the drive and determination of Pete, a lot of times when we were working this investigation, Pete came to my office and he really engaged with the feedback. He definitely accepted different ways of doing the case. So to go a little bit about the case, the case started in October, 2025. Pete, as well as his co-case agent, they were investigating a Mexican cartel And also they work in the case jointly with our office and the DA office in Phoenix. And to make a long story short, it was a Mexican cartel that were involved in our traffic in carfentanil. And as you have heard on the street, you know, fentanyl, we know that's a very potent synthetic opioid. Carfentanil is approximately about 80 to 100 times more potent So definitely wanted to get that off the street. But with Pete's hard work, as well as his co-case agents and our group supervisor, he was able to seize 80,000 pills of our carfentanil Also, we were able to make two arrests and the case is ongoing. So that is a great hit for DEA. And again, we cannot do it alone. And our relationship with the task force officers is greatly benefited. So I will get out of my way and I'll let Carlos say some words as well.

Good evening. How are you? Good evening. Um, again, I'm Pete's immediate supervisor, um, since June of, uh, last year, he came to the group and it just made a huge change to the dynamic of the group. Like, uh, Keith said, he's the, one of the hardest workers in the office and with him and his co-case agent here, Isabel, um, these two went hard at it and, and they got great results. And just to keep in mind, Carfentanil, 80,000 pills, that's 80,000 lethal doses. So he saved literally 80,000 lives. So this is why this is so great to have such a great case. And this is ongoing. So this is just the tip of the iceberg. We're going to be arresting a whole lot of people and extraditing a bunch of others. So I'm going to present this to Pete. This is from Dave Kuntz, The de for else in the contribution to the federal service.

Dave Kuntz, Come on.

Dave Kuntz, guys come up and.

Congratulations.

Thank you guys for coming. Mayor, real quick. Mayor, real quick.

1, let me just to our to our federal partners. 1, thank you for allowing a city like this, like, golden beach with only 380 homes. We have 34 time officers allow us to be a part of your task force mayor members of the council as a reminder. We started detaching task force officers back in 2008. Late 2007, early 2008, and Pete has been detached for the majority of his career with Golden Beach with different task force this partnership that we have with the federal agencies and the different task force. We believe that we're part of a regional system. We're not just a small isolated city. And so it has always been our commitment, like, getting the seizures are great for the city, but knowing that we're being able to save something like 80,000 lives, a small city lake, golden beach, because 1 of our officers, it's detached is a great honor for someone like me as a city manager. And so we should be proud of. We currently have to detach and so we should be proud of all of our details officers and all the officers are serving golden beach. But thank you for letting us be a part of this group and we hope to have a long last.

Thank you guys.

Wait, before you leave on a personal note, I will say this, you know, as, you know, Pete was has served as the union president for some time now under peace presidency, the union received 2 of the largest contracts in the history of golden beach. P is no longer going to be president of the union, but I just wanted to say publicly to Pete. One, I've never faced someone who's so passionate And such a strong advocate for the members of their of the union, Pete came to every meeting prepared with comparisons and got probably the 2 best contracts that our officers have ever received. I could tell you that sometimes it was very confrontational, but it was always very respectful. And so I know that I will miss those interactions and I hope that you will instill on the new board part of your leadership and part of your wisdom. And so thank you for those great years as president.

You want to say anything?

Basically, I never expected to be where I'm at. It's been 18 years detached, saved a lot of lives, made a lot of arrests. The name Golden Beach is known around. It's respected. The detached guys represent us, represent the city as a forefront for drugs and narcotics. It's just been a great 18 years. Thank you to the mayor and the manager and everybody that gives us the opportunity to make a change. This is one of my best hits ever because carfentanil, One pill can take down an elephant. And having a DA trusting in us to do our jobs, not micromanaging us, letting us do our stuff, it does save lives. So possibly directly in Golden Beach, but somewhere we save somebody's kid. somebody's parents. So I was fortunate to go to a conference, fentanyl deaths, and I was amazed. I wasn't expecting officers, military people, nurses that lost their kids and very impactful when you see them die before you die. And just being part of this, it feels good. And I would never have the opportunity if it wasn't for Golden Beach. And the team I'm in right now is great. So thank you again.

Thank you.

How's the pup, Pete? Very good. Can't forget the pup. Can't forget the pup.

So a few months ago, doing law enforcement for 28 years, I saw a need for us to get back to the cops. So I went to the city manager and I asked them if we can start a therapy program. One of the first appointments was unfortunately for one of our officers. Since then, I've been to officers that they've had family members commit suicide, tragic incidents. hopefully sooner than later, I'm going to be part of the Miami Dade peer support, uh, task force where it's, it's for us members of the community law enforcement where they need support. So it's like a peer support, mental health type of thing. And again, uh, the town manager was didn't, wasn't hesitant says if it's something for us, just go ahead and do it. And, uh, I got certified, I got a certified canine, and I go to autistic schools with autistic kids, mental health, nursing homes, and it doesn't impact. It sees that we're here, but we care for everyone. So we're all human, we all need help. And that's very gratifying as well, because I'll get called at whatever time and weekends, whatever, but Just by being here, I can be there and help somebody. I do volunteer work on the weekends and representing Golden Beach just because I can have that concern or just they let us do it because they know we're law enforcement and we care.

Thank you.

That's it.

Hopefully that's it. We'll come back. Good to hear. Thank you. One more presentation this evening. This is from the ICMA, the International City County Management Association. I have a plaque here honoring 25 years of service to local government. Our town manager, Alexander Diaz, in recognition for significant contributions and achievement in the advancement of local government administration. this is awarded to 2025 icm annual conference october 27 2025 and congratulations town manager the check's in the box congratulations 25 years 25 years Thank you. Okay, moving right along motion to set agenda additions, deletions, removal of items from the consent agenda and changes to the agenda. I have none fellow council members.

Town administration yes, Mr mayor members of the council on this afternoon. You were emailed a revised. A revised quasi judicial item. So, under L, 1 is the revision that was emailed and put on the days. That's number 1 number 2, the attachments for the have been updated to eliminate the drawings of specialized equipment or playground. So. now the the site plans are just empty so that's a substitute as well and also councilman einstein would like to add to um discussions and directions to the town manager scooters under the direction and oh sorry bernstein bernstein wants to add that to the direction and sorry i you both look so alike yeah so uh so scooter so we're gonna add that to the direction discussion to the manager That's all I have.

Thank you. Uh, all approved say, aye aye anyone oppose. Those items were added to the, uh, agenda, uh, good and welfare.

Mr mayor real quick to the members of the audience we would love for you this day, but do not feel obligated this day. Our meetings can be somewhat mundane. So, if you'd like to excuse yourselves, you're more than welcome to don't be embarrassed. We will not be insulted.

Go well, they can go, Pete. You need to stay. Thank you gentlemen ladies. Thank you.

Congratulations. Thank you.

Moving right along good and welfare town clerk. Do we have anyone for good and welfare?

No, sir.

Anyone here public good and welfare. Nope. Okay. Moving right along mayor's report. I'm going to keep it brief. I want to welcome everyone to Happy New Year. I know the New Year's party was a huge success. It was beautiful. We had a record turnout. I have to congratulate Michael Glidden and his team for a phenomenal job. Well done. I mean, all we've received is compliments on the event and hats off to you guys. It was phenomenal on a sour note. Everyone probably knows by now there was a car stolen on the South Parkway. uh about a week ago uh again the keys were left in the car i can't urge everyone uh to do not leave your keys in the car and lock your car the chief's going to give a little summary in a second but uh good news is they we covered the car the bad news is that the car was stolen from golden beach and we are making extreme preventive measurements Uh, additional securities, and I'm going to give it to the chief in a 2nd, he's going to go over that what we're doing. We always try to be proactive and not reactive, especially when it comes to residents safety and crime. And, you know, last year, I think the department did a phenomenal job, uh, keeping the town safe and secure. As everyone could see, the Wellness Center is moving along nicely. Town managers can give us an updated report, but the frames are in already for the windows and it's looking great. This is gonna be a busy year, 2026. We have several projects going on. We have the Padel courts going to be done. The basketball court is going to be done. The dog park is going to be done. The top lot is going to be done and the Wellness Center will be done this year. So it's going to be an excellent year. It's going to be a busy year and I can't tell you how excited we are for Golden Beach to go to the next level. So, with that, I'm going to turn it over to before I go council comments, I'd like to chief to say a few words.

Mayor and council members, um, as you're aware, um. Uh, I would like to, I would like to take a minute real quick to go over that incident that you talked about. Uh, it happened in January 13, about 250 AM. the individual in question came inside the town and he went to South Park where he stole the car. He took advantage that the car was left unlocked and the keys were inside what we call a crime of opportunity. The last time that we had an incident similar to that was early 2024. Of course that we take this very seriously. And we have proceeded to increase our, uh, staffing during the midnight hours from 3 officers per day to 4 and from 1 PSA per night. To 2 also, we are using the, uh, detached personnel to come to town and, uh, work, um, on patrol. Um, the staffing will remain. for the remaining of the month, then we're going to revaluate, and if we need to extend it, we will. Now, when it comes to crime of opportunity, this happens when a situation makes it easy for someone to commit a crime. In many cases, these incidents are preventable. Nevertheless, uh, we, uh, have added extra layers. Of security on the beach, which I'm sure the manager is going to talk about that on his presentation. On a 1 a, and also in the interior of the town. As well, I would like to take this opportunity to talk to the residents about, uh. Uh, working with us in securing third, uh, properties. And I'm talking about the cars, bring the kids in, the garage door before you go to bed, close your garage, your front door. And that will help us a lot. Because otherwise, what we're doing is pretty much inviting people to come down. And I mean, we're going to be there. We're going to be proactive. Uh, in enforcing the law, and the individual that came into town got arrested. Uh, by Miramar partway, the guy that brought him in got arrested by. So, if you guys can do us a favor and just make sure your properties are secure. Thank you.

Thank you chief. Sure.

Yeah, just a little. And what I'm hearing now, you know, that we're getting more people, it sounds like, you know, we've got these cameras and on that particular night, what happened? You know, are we blaming the resident before because he had keys in the car? Is that the reason?

No.

Parts to this that we're not talking about right now.

So, so, so a couple of things. The system that we have in place. worked in terms of the cameras so the way we were alerted that this individual had come into our community they they were dropped off by a very high-end vehicle on ocean boulevard around 2 30 something in the morning they jumped our fence and our cameras alerted as soon as our camera alerted our psa officer dispatched officers to north island which is where the individual was seen As you know, because of our privacy rules, our cameras only go to the right-of-way line. This individual was hopping fences, going well within the right-of-way. When he tried to make entry into a vehicle on North Island and couldn't find the FOB, decided to leave the island, sees that our officers are coming, hides behind a station on North Island. And when the officers start to conduct these house by house search, we have to free up that space. The gentleman starts walking across the bridge. I don't wanna get into too much details, but we have one guard who's handling where the officer's going, who's in which house, what house do I need to call to let them know the police are in their backyard. While that's happening, he's not looking at the cameras, right? So our camera sees the guy going, keeps on walking, but the dispatcher is dispatching. And so, I take full responsibility for not having staffed the guardhouse with a second officer, right? Just so we're clear, to add a second officer who's in the second body, we need three bodies because when that person's off, we need to be able to cover that second vacation. So because we haven't had issues, we haven't been staffing the guardhouse with two because we haven't had issues. And the cameras do alert. And most of the time, the alert is Judy Luskin walking her dog. It's Bernard Einstein walking with Kathy. And so we're dismissing them. So the one time that it... That we've had the since we have the cameras, the cameras worked, but our staffing 2 things. We need to do better with making sure that we hold our perimeter points and that we don't and that we have the staffing. So we are going to staff up for this month. To see if that helps our operational capacity. But we can't keep those staffing levels up forever because those staffing levels cost money, right? And so, and so when we get to my report, I'm going to talk about the other things that we're doing. We want to make sure that people understand that 2 things happen. You don't come to our community to create havoc. And if you do, we're going to hunt you down and we're going to capture you, which is what we did. We were able to capture the two individuals, a guy who dropped them off and the guy within 48 hours of the incident. No other city has that type of a quick turnaround. So within 48 hours, we captured them and then we stopped up. We stopped up to make sure that people understand that this is not going to be like we had in 2022, where there was just cars after cars after cars. We mentioned to you at the November meeting, we're seeing an increase in waterway activity and crime. GPS are missing from almost 20% of the boats in Aventura have been hit. We've been lucky, thanks to the mayor's efforts and this council's direction to add a second Marine Patrol boat. And we're expanding our police dock to make sure that we have enough coverage and our ability to respond. So we do have training issues that we need to help. We have a lot of young officers. We don't have this is not Miami, right? So if you don't practice perimeters, if you don't practice searches, you know, you stumble a little bit. And so there is a little bit of training issues that we're that we're reinforcing. Um. We have a very young force who've never had this type of activity. And so we're ramping up. That's why we made Captain Perez in charge of the training bureau. In fact, right now, as we speak, we have seven agencies, seven other police departments are here training how to do Marine patrol, Activities and how the managing marine patrol fleet they're learning from us. And so we're going to continue to train and do better. But the camera system work, the camera system is what alerted us. The camera systems were allowed us attracted a gentleman going and you see him checking cars, which ones are unlocked. So it takes both right? You can't leave your car, your key father, the car and expect understood.

And also the. Egress. I mean, I know the guy followed another person.

Yeah. So, so, so, but yeah. So, so what also happens is, you know, at night. We let you out, we have, we blocked the street. So we try to check every car. And so here. That night, this individual decided to. To take advantage of our weaknesses and I won't share what they are because I don't want others to do the same thing. And they saw an opportunity and they drove out and there was no reason for us to stop that vehicle. We probably would have stopped every vehicle, but we have 3 guys are looking for someone and the officer, like, just go. Because they were following another resident out and so we will do better.

Okay.

As part of our guardhouse updates, remember part of the things that we want to do there is put electronic ballards. And so the electronic ballards will solve that situation as well. So we're going to be talking about that throughout this year as we talk about guardhouse improvements.

Okay. Any other council questions to the chief I would just like to comment here.

You know, for 3 years or so we've talked about, um. that the police officers can only do so much that we need to have the residents responsible. We can't be leaving keys in. So, you know, whereas it's very unfortunate, but we, I think also getting out that message again, I definitely think we got it out. You did say to the council and we've like, I've definitely tell people when I see him, but we did such an excellent job of that in the past. And I just want to kind of commend on some of the things that have gone on over the past three years. Because I do notice whenever people are coming in after one o'clock or so the police officers are where you going what's going on, and so. This might have been a temporary or you know burp or whatever you want to call it, where we messed up, but I just I feel like. The procedures have gotten so good over the past few years, and now that they can't get better and not that we can't, but I just. wanted to take time to notice that this hasn't really occurred in two or three years.

By the way, we are, because we're investing in our officers, we are, we are doing, yeah, we are doing, we are doing corrective action reports. We have extended people's probation, which we haven't done in the past. So we've now extended, we've said, look, there was an issue. We're going to extend your probation. So it allows us to get rid of them if they're not. So we're changing the way we manage our staff because we need to do better and we will do better.

With that move on, I'll start with council comments, uh, council. Vice mayor now, right?

March March Mandel.

I wanted to again, thank Michael and the entire team for an amazing New Year's Eve party. I have gotten rave reviews. Not only was it wonderful, but it was so well organized. It was, um, just a pleasure. I think everybody just had a wonderful time. So, thank you. Um, that's about it.

Perfect, uh, switch over vice mayor Einstein still vice man. No, I think. Judy, Judy, Judy. Oh, Judy's vice mayor. Yep.

Okay.

Vice Mayor.

It's happened now.

Anyway, switch. Hold on. Vice Mayor, let's confer. Go ahead.

Last time to go second.

No, no, your your February meeting. Also, February, right at the March meeting. January, right?

Anyway, my sentiments exactly about the New Year's Eve party. But I just want to mention that, as a whole, last year, We outdid ourselves. Halloween was unbelievable. New Year's was outstanding. The gifts that we gave out were incredible. I mean, I think a resident would be hard pressed To really say anything negative about what we try to do for our community. It's just absolutely incredible. And the staff, I want to thank the staff. And, of course, it all comes in steps stems down from the top Alex. But it is just incredible and the proof is in the chat. Pretty simple a note about the golden beach youth leadership group. We'll be very active again this half of the winter. Everybody was very gung ho and ready to go to Tallahassee, which is in a couple of weeks. We couldn't figure out why at the last minute everything fell through. But it's actually time. Got it. So that's why that fell apart. But even with that Alex Alexander. You were so thrilled about it. You were getting them backpacks and scarves and hotel rooms. It's like golden beach really is top shelf and 1st class and thank you for that. I've received a few phone calls and personally, I, I understand it. With some North Miami beach water issues, people complaining that the chlorine smell is so strong that their sediment. I don't know why that it seems to be more this almost since. North Miami Beach sold it to a private company.

They bought it back.

Oh, they did?

Yeah. They're operating.

All right. Well, Michael, I don't know if you get any phone calls about it, but it's strong. And also, as far as the Golden Beach Youth Leadership Group, I cannot thank Michael enough. He really goes the extra mile and I can depend on him for anything that needs to be done. So thank you, Michael. Um, as far as the police go, the 1 thing I can say is things happen. That's true, but we are proactive. We've always been accountable for anything that happens and goes on. And that in itself is something to be proud of. We'll make it work. And, uh, last thing is. As best we can parking on both sides of our streets is really sometimes out of hand. And it's very hard to get through, especially with the landscapers there and instructions beyond. What we can deal with, so, uh. If we can just do try to do a little bit better tweak that and that's it for me.

Perfect Thank you. Councilman Bernstein.

I kind of want to echo everyone's sentiments about the New Year's Eve party. I've been going for the most part for eight or nine years, missed last year, but the parties keep getting better and better. Unfortunately, because of the University of Miami game, I showed up late for the dinner, but everyone told me how fantastic it was. And I know that it was a big increase. I think we had 900 people. Is that right? But just everyone I probably talked to 20, 30 people who said that having the party, I wasn't here for the last one, but having the party on the beach was so much nicer than the other year. So everyone said, please keep that. And one of the other constructive criticisms is I think it was because it was a real proper party and a beach party. Um, it was so fun, but if we could in the future, have a dance floor. Because I think in years past, I feel like we had a tremendous amount of people staying till 2 o'clock. And this year, I think it was just hard. So many people just couldn't dance on there. But I think in all, I would say most people said it was the best party and great job to you and everybody involved in the whole town. I agree with Judy. I feel like we keep upping the activities and the gifts and everything. And I think as a resident here, I've just enjoyed getting those packages and heard from so many people that have to and the amenities that we continue to build. Um, it's really. Great to be a resident here and I think the, uh. Programs are fantastic. Um, the reason I added on this agenda at the end is. I've seen just I don't know why, but in the past 3 or 4 months. a tremendous amount of people coming by on scooters, on bikes, and not necessarily following rules. Sometimes I'll see sidewalks. The other day I was parked at the red light, ready to take a left at the Strand. I see, I'm not sure if it was a scooter or an e-bike, but he just runs the red light and doesn't even really slow down. And if there had been pedestrians walking, someone would have been hit. And I'm seeing it more and more as an issue within Aventura and some of the centers that we have over there where Kids are riding around without helmets on, riding around on these fast scooters. I think they're more scooters, like just without pedals. Dressed in black at night. They're on the street. They don't have lights. And it's just, I think we should be discussing that and figuring out how we want our streets to operate and how to try to, for not only our residents, but people coming through here, how we want to make it safer. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilman Einstein.

Okay. I, as well as the rest of the council love the police. There's no question about it. We support you. We love you. I think we give you the tools that you need to operate a. A safe town, but I think we have to do better. And I'll tell you why my wife walks on the streets. No, less than 4 times a week. 7 miles throughout the town. the visibility of the police in terms of that time of day when she's going from six o'clock to 7 30 is pretty not there they may be on patrol they may be doing something but I'm just telling you that the visibility is not there I've been walking the streets from 10 o'clock to 12 o'clock And I've been going around I don't do 7 miles. I do about 3 and a half 4. But as I do them again, I don't see the police. I saw 1 police car on center island. I called. The town manager up and. I don't I know on a 1 a, I know at night when we come in, I see the cars there. I know when my garage was open 2 nights ago, I got a phone call at 1030 saying, Mr. Einstein. You know, we got a call from police officer, you get, you know. You're there, you're vigilant I think, you know, everybody in the community supports you. But I wonder if we should have a little bit more visibility. you know, on the roads, you know, should it be every hour cars running through town? Maybe they do. Maybe it's a divine intersection that my wife just happened to miss that crossing, you know, each time. I mean, we got bicycles, we got these things, you know, we got various items that we have facilitated. Um, Just something to think about. Absolutely. Know that we, we are here. We support you. It's not a criticism. It's, it's something that I think we should need to work constructive criticism. Yeah. Um, the New Year's party spectacular. It was amazing. Um, I was there. It was a beautiful event. I mean, it was, you know, I asked Alex, I said, I want to throw a party like that for myself. But, you know, very beautiful for those people who attended. I thought it was, there were a lot of help that was there serving. And you had it well, all those people involved, all staff who put it together. It was a well-organized party. The town looks great. I've been walking it. I've been looking around the wellness center. I think we're doing a bit who's ever in charge right now. There's a bang up job going up. We got a good team building that thing. And I'm looking forward to that getting done. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Thank you.

What is coming northbound on Ocean Boulevard?

Not important, but there's a sign that says you're on Jimmy Buffett Highway.

The state legislature re-designated. They co-designated A1A Ocean Boulevard. It's a brown and gold sign. They do the designations all the time. We have no jurisdiction over that.

Okay. I just thought it was kind of odd.

Yeah. We tried taking it down. Got in trouble. Okay, moving right along town managers report mayor members to the council. I'll try to be brief, but it is our 1st meeting since the new year. We didn't meet in December. So I just want to wish everyone a happy New Year's and congratulate all of our talent staff for phenomenal New Year's Eve event as a reminder to the council. Because this question came up in private sessions, our, our recreation budget allows us to move money. Up and down the recreation budget and recreation is the only thing that we don't go out and have counsel award those contracts. We do procure 3 contracts or 3 beds with different vendors for food, liquor and entertainment. And then the manager just assigns those costs. So, for the Halloween event, the New Year's event, I have the authority to move money up and down in the recreation budget. All of our. Recreation budget as well within it's allotted numbers. We did have some concerns this year when it came to New Year's Eve. We typically cut our list off about 600 or 900 invitees and 720 something did show up. We need to change our policy as it relates to how many guests you could bring and I'm going to be working with the council this year. 1, so long as I'm your manager will never charge. Right? So you need to hire a new manager to charge our residents because I won't do it, but we do need to put better controls to make sure that people are treated fairly. And the other thing is. If you RSVP, we need to figure out a way that we don't lose out because we do up our food costs and our liquor costs. And we had over 200 people who did not show up and so that does affect our budget. And so that's not fair for us to be wasteful. So we'll be working with you this year on how to do that to better our services to our residents. So I want to announce that starting. Next month will be providing towel service at the beach. It's been 18 years in the making and thanks and. And so there's enough that was councilwoman Jesse man that was I, I was, I've been on Alex for, I will, I will let me if I can finish sure they'll be yellow. No, no, if I, if I can finish, so councilman Dell, her 1st request to me was towels. So was councilman Bernstein's 1st request to me towels. However, I didn't have the votes.

We finally have the 3 votes needed to provide towel services.

Um, at the beach, it is, it is, it is another cost to the city, but we're going to be having a chase lounges chairs that are white towels that are white with golden beach on it and then yellow and white stripe towels to dry yourself off. So that we're looking to offer that also the fruits are back. So we, we now have fruit at the beach on Saturday, Sunday and on the holidays. So fruit is back.

We found a new provider for monitored after not pilfered.

The towels, you'll probably have to leave an ID or something. We're going to figure that out. But, but there'll be some kind of check in check out, but tell service and fruit is back.

I want to clarify something. We did not do it because she didn't have the 3 votes. I didn't want to do it. Just clarify that for the residents. Okay. Well, we did not do it because we had a manager so belligerent not doing it. I didn't. But thanks we finally have effort. We finally have the votes.

Uh, and my contract was up, so I'm not kidding. All right. Um, where was when he throws the book? Hey, like, um, I'm embarrassed by the way, but you, you both, but counselor Mandel finally got it done. So congratulations real quick. Um, a couple of very important things. So the police issues as Rudy has mentioned, look, we're not immune to crime. I will tell you this. This is important for everyone to understand. Crimes of opportunity are becoming more and more. Um. a concern for the town. As you know, we were in the paper in December because a person who was extremely out of his mind high went into a home that had open doors that weren't locked. So the crimes that we're seeing are people who are homeless. We had a prostitute the other day. So these are what we call crimes of opportunity. But people are not coming here with masks and guns and hammers yet. And we're going to knock on wood. So, we are concerned about crimes of opportunity, and we're not trying to blame our residents, but it is always helpful when our residents help us not provide these opportunities. Lock your doors, close your garage, keep your key fobs inside your house. And speaking to you guys, I was thinking to everyone to help us prevent crimes of opportunity. To make sure that we don't become a haven for. Criminals, we are doing some things that are outside the box. We now have marine patrol in the water 7 days a week. Okay, and we're paying extra for that close to 100,000 dollars to provide that service. We are also now providing 8 hours of day patrol on the sand. So we now are using our civilian officer, our civilian staff members as security guards. By the way. I say this because it's a win win, right? So we're incentivizing our employees to sign up for those beach checks. And so we're able to help our employees and help the beach residents. So we now 8 hours a day have beach. ATV coverage by civilians that act like guards and they see something they call the guards in. So we are spending another 100,000 dollars to do that activity to help provide better coverage on our on our sands. And we're going to keep those activities going. We've deployed our drone. We have marine patrol. We have 2 police boats. We have a 2nd canine dog coming to us. What's the name? I can't remember the name.

Yeah.

All right, well, we have a 2nd canine dog, so we're going to continue to expand our services, but we do need our officers. We do need our residents to help us. Michael and the chief will be working on a big spread for this next newsletter talking about crime prevention. Do your part and we'll make sure that we communicate. There will also be a public safety meeting at the end of the month. For public safety committee members to meet with the chief to express their concerns. Also, it's important and this is and I'm not throwing this resident under the bus or anything, but it's important that when something happens at your house. That you 1st, call us before you put it in the WhatsApp chat. I was notified of an incident through the WhatsApp group, not because they called 911 or the substation. So whenever something happens at your house, if your car seems to be ransacked. Don't let us learn, by the way, we're no town employee is on that group chat. We will never be a part of that group chat. So when you put stuff on there, we don't know what's being said. It's residents that call us and said, hey, this is going on in the group chat. So it's important that you let us know what's going on in that chat. Mayor, I'm going to speed it up real quick. Public notice. I'd like to inform the town that the mayor and members of the town council will be traveling with me to Tallahassee, Florida between monday february 9th through wednesday february 11th to attend miami-dade days uh so this is the official public notice for sunshine purposes the mayor and council will be able to talk about any town related instant business that may occur uh the public is more than welcome to join us in tallahassee they want to be a part of those discussions but that's on their own expense So that's Monday, February 9th through Wednesday, February 11th. Also today, as I mentioned earlier, we have seven agencies that are joining our police officers will be here all week learning how to drive police boat. I want to congratulate the code enforcement division of our town last year. They opened 426 cases and close 482 cases and collected 148,625 dollars in code enforcement violations. Also, I'd like to inform you that is required by your ordinance. your film report is attached for your pleasure and your reading. Mayor, I'm going to hold the rest of my remarks to the master projects. Perfect.

With that, I believe the town attorney's on Steve. Do you have anything?

Yes, no, nothing.

Nothing Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it ordinances. 1st reading. We have none ordinance. The 2nd reading L, 1, we have 1 ordinance to the town council and the town of golden beach amending the town's code and ordinance chapter 24 article 2 retirement amending the definition of the town's pension plan.

An ordinance of the town council of the town of golden beach, Florida, amending chapter 24 personnel article to retirement division 1 general employees by amending the town of golden beach employees pension plan at section 24 dash 31 definitions section 24 dash 41 deferred retirement option plan providing for conflicts providing for severability providing for codification and providing an effective date.

The emotion to approve and his 2nd.

Mayor has approved in 1st reading the only difference between 1st reading and 2nd reading because October 2025 has passed. We moved the selection date to October of September 30th of 2026. so that everyone has until September to elect and what this does it grants any employee who would like to enter the drop that their pensionable earnings will be set on what their salary is not what they have earned because this incentivizes them to leave the town or enter the drop sooner.

Okay, open to the council. Close to the council, open to the public. Close to the public, roll call please. Yes.

Vice Mayor Laskin? Yes. Council Member Mendel? Yes. Council Member Bernstein?

Yes.

Council Member Einstein?

Yes.

Motion passes.

Moving to item number M, Quasar Reducer Resolution. Number 2, a resolution of Town Council approving a variance request for the property located on 334 South Parkway, seeking relief from encroachment of the dock and moored vehicle into the side setbacks and outside the DU5 triangle.

A resolution of the Town of Golden Beach, Florida authorizing and approving a variance request for the property located at 334 South Parkway, Golden Beach, Florida 33160 to permit the dock to be constructed 9 feet 6 inches from the south property line and 9 feet 2 inches from the north property line where a minimum 10 foot setback is required and to permit the dock to extend outside the town's D5 triangle where the code requires that the dock remain within the D5 triangle.

Yeah, I need a motion to approve any a 2nd. Anyone that's going to speak on this variance. Please raise your hand if you could. If you're not going to speak, that's fine, but the people are raising their hands will be able to speak if you can swear them in town clerk. That'd be great.

Yes, sir. Do you swear to tell the truth? The whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Yes, I do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mayor, so, let me, let me just real quick, because Kirk probably doesn't. Well, maybe he does. So we're this item has been completely modified and so. The original item allowed for the morning of the vessel within we're not allowing that. That's not a hardship. So what what this what we're allowing the council to well, if the council would allow me to ask you to only support. There was a doc. And I see you all that needs to be replaced. We're putting the dock back where it is the corners of the doc, because the pilaster that holds the dock in place. The triangle of the 2 corners on the on both sides. fall within the E5 triangle. You've approved nine of these since I've been your manager because it just allows you to have the proper rectangular dock. Originally, there was a request to allow a moored boat to go Our, our policy is very clear. You can buy a boat that fits within our setbacks. If it doesn't fit within our setbacks, then it can't be more there. Period on the story. Wanting a bigger boat does not grant you a hardship. So I administratively took that off your agenda. You're only hearing whether or not. The dock itself can encroach within the triangle because of the way the pilasters are in the water. If I strongly recommend that you keep it limited to that. By the way, this property is changing hands. So, um, we're hoping that the new buyer will carry through with this. Um, but we, under no circumstances would we ever want to set the tone that you could buy as big a boat as you want. You have to respect our setbacks period of the story.

Okay. Just for the record, uh, due to the fact they are required to follow the current building code, the building regulatory, uh, board voted unanimously, uh, not approving this. But, uh, if the council doesn't have any comments, you have any comment. No, perfect any, uh, public comments. Okay, roll call please.

Mayor singer. Yes. Yes. Council member Mandel. Yes. Council member Bernstein. Yes. Council member Einstein. Yes. Motion passes mayor.

I can't thank you. It has nothing to do with this item. But it has to do with this property. I want to put I want to be very clear to our residents. And to buyers in golden beach. The town has a very comprehensive replacement at transfer of ownership that needs to start being respected. And needs to be started started to be followed. This property will be changing hands for the 3rd time. And none of those transfers of the sea walls been solved as required by your code. So we did find this property. A very significant fine for doing so, and I just want the community to know that we will continue to issue significant fines for homeowners who believe that you're going to flip your property and not put in the sea wall as required barcode. I've also been working with the town's attorney and the towns. Assistant attorney there are 63 there are 63 properties that were currently demanding action on seawall know that we no longer. It doesn't matter whether you're an existing home homeowner or not, if you have a damaged wall that has water coming into our town we're going to be asking that you fix the wall and if you're going to transfer ownership of the seawall your seawall needs to come into compliance. Okay.

Uh, motion passed a, moving on to major projects, update town managing, give us an update on the wellness center, other projects and town wide curbs and gutters. So, you can. It's what oh, there was charity donation.

You had an open permit project, major project updates. The manager needs to pay a little bit more attention tonight. Mayor real quick. I'm going to run through them as fast as I can, but I just wanted to let, you know, kind of where we are with each of our projects, the wellness center. Let me give an example. We are taking delivery. Of all the glazing for the building on Thursday, so glazing will start to go up as early as the following week. For those of you who don't know the term glazing glazing is all the windows. So all the glass and all the windows are going to start to go in. Things will start to move really fast after that, because unlike a house. This building doesn't have a lot to it, right? There's only a back wall with bathrooms and a 1st floor bathroom, but the rest of it is all open. Right? So, once and it's an open ceiling plan, so it's just a bunch of lighting. So we're, we're very ahead of schedule tonight. You'll be approving a bunch of change orders that I've been approving. Um, but. There are a couple of things that come next and and we're going to have a very tough year this year. We're going to have to start setting up rules. Who gets to use it? How do they get to use it? Whether trainers, 16 year olds, 15 year olds, all of that good stuff comes next. Right? So, over the course of the next couple of months, this board sorry, the wellness center advisory committee, and this council will have to start setting up the rules. And so we're super excited about it. I'm pleased to announce. All of our cameras are up, even the ones on A1A. We're still working with FDLT to get finalized permits, but all of our cameras are up. There are six that are currently not working because we're working on the boat dock and the one on Ocean Boulevard fell into the water when the tides hit us. But all of our cameras on Ocean Boulevard and the rest of the town are up. So this is my last CCTV update for you. I will say this, the Wellness Center, I'm not gonna say all right project is up also other projects as, you know, we have extended under the manager's authority. Council does not need to vote on it. It's under my spending authority. We extended the marine patrol boat doc. I do want you to know that I did. We believe that under U. S. section code. Something and for the statute for 80, something we could handle the boat doc extension under a maintenance contract. Well, within our property line, well, within our footprint, 1 of our neighbors called Durham on us. Durham came out Durham assets to apply for class 1 permit. We've applied for it. We paid for it. And it seems like Durham has no problem with the extension of our boat doc. So we will now have, as, you know, the boat doc to accommodate both of our police boats. Those 2 will be on a lift and then the South side of the boat doc is for worry more. Not all actions that I take require council action. You hire a full time city administrator to administer the town's needs. And so the mayor and I work together on a lot of our projects. In addition to that, we've done landscaping on Ocean Boulevard that looks really good. We're going to continue to do additional landscaping improvements on Ocean Boulevard. the mayor um has asked and we've we've gone out and gotten three bids two bids so far to re-roof the annex which is now called the police station so the police station roof needs to be re-roofed the turtle park park pavilion roof The big one, the big one is the, the, the big one is the pavilion. So we are looking to replace the roof at the beach pavilion and both the men and women's bathroom. We're going to be looking to bring those to you for award at your February council meeting. So we'll continue to add projects to our list. The guardhouse project is still moving forward. We're going to take a pause right now. We did a lot on ocean Boulevard and the traffic is pretty heavy. So we want to make sure the design is perfect. So, we're going to we also want to make sure that the beach pavilion ties well with the guardhouse. So we're going to be slowing that down just a little bit. Water and sewer has sent us an email confirming that they will start the force main project sometime in the 2nd quarter of the year. And so it's going to be a lot of traffic on the on ocean Boulevard. So we're trying sorry. I'm going to be strive trying to get in and out of town. So we're going to be looking on how to manage that. Um, they're not digging it up. They're going to do indirect boring. Some of it is actual trench. So, yeah, and and whether they did get up or not once they bore, we will mill and resurface after them. Um. We, as in my report, there's, uh, we're doing carbon gutter replacement work throughout town. I just put that in there. I typically don't need to take it to the council because under my spending authority, but we are doing carbon gutter work throughout town. Uh, also, um. We are going to pause fixing the pickleball court. We're rolling that into the paddle ball installation. So we have 1 vendor doing all the work in town. So you can still play on it. It's not that unsafe. It's kind of out of the play area where the biggest structural deficiencies are. So, those are our project reports and I'll go into more detail on other projects later.

Do you have any insurance coverage for the.

No, no, no, you would have that would be covered any insurance and it wasn't.

No, because now you pay a fee, so you pay a curb and go to replacement fee when you build a house now.

Okay, moving right along. Thank you. Town manager consent agenda 2 items. The official minutes of the November. Uh, 18, 2025, regular town council meeting, a resolution of town council, approving the purchase and equipment of 2 vehicles on the public works department. Uh, those 2 items on the consent agenda before you leave council and Bernstein all in favor say, aye. Anyone oppose a consent agenda passes. You can go item, uh, P, town resolution resolution, town council approving. The issuance of a request for proposal for the design and procurement. An installation of playground equipment to re, uh, reimagine Twitter park.

A resolution of the town of Beech, Florida, approving the issuance of a request for proposals, RFP for the design procurement and installation of playground equipment for the reimagine tweet apart, providing for implementation and an effective date.

Any emotion to approve I need a 2nd. Okay, uh, Tom, you want to give a quick summary of what we're doing?

Yeah, this is more for the residents. So the way that and this is the same explanation for the gym. So I'll do it once. So, the way we're going to be outfitting the tot lot areas, there's 2 areas designated within the reimagine total park for playground equipment. We are issuing an RFP letting the playground manufacturer community of the world. Same thing with the gym. So gym equipment manufacturers of the world, letting them know that we have these spaces available. We want them to submit to us their best design. Their best selection of equipment, site, furniture and shade structure, how they would shade their park areas. Those those. The will go out later this week, those individuals will have a period of 30 to 45 days to respond to us. Then a selection committee made up of residents will evaluate which design, which price. which installation they think would work best for Golden Beach. That recommendation will then come to the town council for council to decide whether they accept the recommendation, award it to one, and then from there, then we could fine tune what the design is. Like if somebody put a dolphin and we want a bumblebee, we can fine tune it then. But the idea is instead of us trying to design it and say what we like, because getting the five of us to, five council members and the residents to think The same will be very difficult, but we'll select a design and move forward with it. Same thing for the gym. Right? So the gym people will tell us this is the best equipment. This is what we think you should do. This is how we think you should purchase it or release it. And so both RFPs will be issued and then we'll bring something back for award at your March meeting. That's the goal.

Okay, I didn't do a motion to approve on that. I didn't do that motion approve. I need a 2nd. Okay, uh, item number 7, any council discussion. No, uh, excuse me item number 5, uh, any public comments. Nope. Roll call please.

Mayor singer.

Yes.

Vice mayor. Yes. Council member Mandel. Yes. Council member Einstein.

Yes.

Council member.

I remember 6, the resolution town council approving the issuance of a request.

For the proposal RFP for design equipment procurement installation and ongoing maintenance of Jim equipment and the town's wellness center, the resolution of the town of Golden Beach, Florida, approving the issuance of a request for proposals RFP for the design equipment, procurement installation and ongoing maintenance of Jim equipment for the town's wellness center, providing for implementation and providing for an effective date.

I need a motion to approve most into any a 2nd. As the town manager said, this is pretty much the same as the prior.

Uh, joining dad town manager, I just want to say, thank you to for helping me put this together.

Perfect any council comments. Any public comments item number 6 roll call please.

Mayor singer. Yes. Yes. Council member Mandel. Yes. Council member Bernstein.

Yes.

Council member Einstein.

Yes. Item number 7 resolution town council authorizing the approving of a rolling change order for the contract to the John bell construction Inc for the town wellness center project.

A resolution of the town council of the town of golden beach, Florida, approving rolling change orders to the wellness center construction agreement with John bell construction, Inc for the town wellness center project, providing for conditions, providing for implementation and an effective date.

I need a motion to approve. I need a 2nd. A town manager, you want to elaborate a little on item number 7?

Yeah, so number 7. so, as you know, once we approve a contract, there are things that happen throughout the course of construction. Some of them are owner driven and some of them are just errors of the construction plans. Most of these are under my spending authority, but I'd like to get into the practice whenever we are in a contract and we bring them to you. So, the bulk of this, as we talked. Privately individually are to implement the town council's vision for that space. So so today we're bringing 200,000 dollars in additional changes to the site. There will be more coming to you, especially as we start to amend the contract and we add civil and paddle and the like. But I want to get into the habit of bringing to you as frequently as I can. The changes that I've been approving, by the way, all of these changes are always with the consent of the mayor. I don't have the authority to do it without the consent of the mayor.

Blame it on the mail. No, any public comments. No, and just so everyone knows, we're very cognizant of our costs on this project. We're within our budget and I think it's going. Well, I don't want to jinx it and I don't have to tell you the timeframe. They're really killing it. So we're very excited. We hope to deliver this project by the end of this year. So that'd be very, very exciting. So, with that do roll call please.

Mayor singer yes. Yes. Council member Mandel. Yes. Council member. Yes. Council member Einstein. Yes. Okay.

Moving right along. Thank you very much. We have a councilman Bernstein wants to talk about safety concerns on the strand Avenue and the ocean Boulevard. You have 30 seconds.

No kidding me or that's me. That was Councilman Einstein.

Yeah, but you said burns because she was looking at me counter and Einstein.

So, you know, I might let Alex elaborate on this a little more than than I'm going to do. But as, you know, when you're going north to south. On a, when a, but you're crossing the road on at the strand at the strand, we have a little sidewalk there. We have gates. Scared to death every time I approached that lane comes blindside, the gate goes up and even though you're peeking there, this guy's run across trying to make it or whatever. And I don't know what we can do. If anything, there is a sign. understood but i think everybody's run across it when you leave town notes and the people just come out of nowhere they walk across and you got oh my god you know i'm glad i didn't hit somebody the scooters the bikers the walkers the joggers you know the joggers they didn't want to lose face so they're not gonna stop i know the signs are there but you know like dead wrong dead right and alex i'm just gonna let you

Go with it before I talk touch this issue. I just because I'm not sure where we are with the grant. For the previous item, so I just want to put into the record that the technical, the beach has received the grant from the state of Florida for civil work for the wellness center project. And the John bell construction has been given. the opportunity to go out and procure civil work for us we have to notice it twice so this is our official notice that we're working with civil and it's grant funded by the state of florida uh to to to your to your concern council einstein and this is a concern that has been coming up almost every single year since we installed sidewalks on ocean boulevard um i will tell you that the only way to solve this is no turn on red right and i think that your residents will vote you out of office if you put a no turn on right because the traffic is bad enough at 8 00 a.m leaving and so i will tell you that so we have put up signs we have a mirror um the you have to yield to pedestrians in the state of florida so when there's a pedestrian on a on a crossing area that doesn't have a designated hand which it doesn't there we do have it crossing the other street you We don't have it there on the other street. They have a red light, so you can't cross on red, right? You cannot... There's nothing else that we can do. There's this discussion. Can we put some flashing lights? Right flashing lights become very distracting to the to the drivers. It's going to look bad in town too. I think the other thing that's flashing I won't solve is. The scooters, right? So the scooters are on the roadway right now. The scooters must yield to traffic devices, right? So we, we, they're supposed to yield to traffic devices. We do have in the state of Florida a share of the road. statute right so bicyclists and and believe it or not rollerbladers and scooters get to share the road with you, and so they are required to follow. The traffic control signals they don't we know that cyclists don't some of your cyclists you don't follow it, so the flashing lights won't solve the scooter issue.

The thing you could do if you're scared and you're hesitant, do what grandmother Diaz does. I know he doesn't turn right on red.

So, and people wait for the green light.

He waits for the green light, but the hot quick question.

Quick question. You know, the, um, I hate you.

okay you know the thing that says walk yeah this that we have going east-west you know it turns and then it'll tell you you have ten seconds to cross the street I don't know if hours do we have those don't we have a crosswalk like oh no we are sign no going east-west no no there's no there's no the light turns green yeah and that's all yeah east-west yes east-west not north to south east to us we have we have the button

Yes, crosswalk button and there isn't a little, uh, no, no box.

I don't think it says Walker and then you have on both sides. There's a button that you're right.

But there's no, there's no sign that says walk or don't walk. No, it just, you know, it just turns right here. Sure.

I know, but you have a monitor that says, yeah, there is a monitor. There's something like a picture that shows you can cross on the crosswalk.

You should see how often I pay attention there. Hold on.

I don't you sure 100% the question is, it says walking on whether we have 1 or not. Nobody is it even practical to have 1 going or South like that?

No, because no, 1's going to follow it when a runner you just said yourself when a runner's running or 1, but again, that cyclist is riding.

He's going to keep, but again, that wouldn't solve that. That wouldn't solve the issue on the people who are on the road. Right? So, so the cyclist, the, the, the scooters and the like, you know, 1, you know, I just got an idea of something that might work.

I feel like a lot of times people are at that light and it's so fast that people rush like you rush out you don't want to get stuck at the right light like you just like if you're trying to turn left or you're trying to turn right the light happens so quick, what if we went to dot and asked for. That like to stay open a little bit longer. Then exiting exiting out.

Oh, well, that's an issue. So entering golden beach. Yeah. 8 o'clock. If you look all the people are entering golden beach, the traffic is is backed up on the South side of town, making the left in the town. Yeah, that doesn't do any justice.

So I'm just saying, if you add, if you add, like, an extra 5 or 10 seconds. It's for a certain it's like the morning on people to solve the problem.

All right. Hold on.

I just saw the problem in the sense that you have people rushing to to. You have people often rushing because they don't they want to it's not going to solve it.

So, so, so 2 things.

Yeah, what do we have?

So, so 2 things? Yes, we do. And I. I'm getting old, so we do have the little, so we see it every week. It does have the hand to cross East to West. We do have a resource now. Now this is important. Now, this is important. North the South, we have signs that tell the pedestrians to stop. And yield to the vehicles on both sides understood and I will tell you that adding more time to the exits and do nothing. A couple of things took a couple of things. I don't think it will solve the issue. I don't think people are like, because everyone kind of pauses to turn. Right? So, I don't, I've never seen anyone just kind of just turn. Yes.

We do the, we've been doing the bikes often for years. And when we're coming out of there, so we're, we're sitting there. waiting to cross to the beach and you see people looking at the lights and just because it's so fast, they're looking at the lights and they're not necessarily looking. They don't feel like that. Like, I feel like people are accustomed to how quickly those lights are and they're not necessarily looking to the right to see if people are crossing. And so, I mean, I'm very, I'm very conscious of it and making sure that people see me. When I go, but I'm always concerned that people are going to just in a hurry to take that light and they turn without looking at who's in the crosswalk extending the light is going to be an issue for the people coming North and South.

Okay, because the traffic is backed up.

I want I want to be clear. We have no control over that. So we can make a request. They have standards based on traffic flows. So, the only thing that we can do is control the pickle. Which is what we've been, we used to do in the mornings at 9 0 AM, but then we didn't have people for trolling. So we stopped that.

But remember for a while we were controlling the pickle deep, but can take a look and say correct that in the mornings.

Yeah.

People are like, there's a lot more people coming out of golden beach than any other time of the day. Yeah. And I'm just saying can take a look at it and especially given that we've now closed the other side, we have more cars going through there. It might just be worth.

Asking we can ask him, but I think more card coming in golden beach, especially in the morning, all the workers, but often they're stuck at the lights.

Anyway, they're stuck at the light waiting for that right? But now you're making them wait longer. Why don't you just have it?

Why don't why don't I do this? Why don't I draft a letter to the secretary of letting them know our concerns as it relates to, but that's what they say.

And the, and asking them to provide somebody that's fine, but the issue, but I agree with your statement. We do not want to have. A no turn on red, right?

Because I hated that be their solution. No, I will put in my letter. I've sent a no turn on. Right?

Okay. Uh, that's what you want to talk about scooters.

Yeah, so, you know, when we put in these 1 of the year. when we just put in the sidewalks, there were two people, two kids that were run over in the street with the bikes. And part of why we did this was safe. And I'm just concerned now that I see kids on these scooters and they're going on the bikes. I mean, but they're going on the, on the sidewalks and people are pulling out and not necessarily able to see what the hatch is like. They're not able to go like the scooters are just coming so fast. And I just think, um, I'm not sure what other measures people are taking. I know Key Biscayne, Steve was very active with it. There were some deaths or people injured in Key Biscayne on these scooters. I just think, well, whatever other cities are doing, we should be looking at it. And the one that struck me recently, I think, I'm not sure if I said earlier, was just being parked, waiting to take a left at a red light and just seeing someone And maybe they were a bike just go through the middle lane.

And if there are pedestrian, are you saying on golden beach driver on a, 1, a, 1, a, 1, a sunny aisles. Pass something, uh, town manager last year and, uh, they did a few things 1, they made you register your scooter. Okay. That didn't go over too well. And, uh, 2, they were pulling people over with scooter and I don't think that went over well with the police department. So, uh.

I don't know what to say. You know where Cardone's office is in the back of Publix? Right. So I'm coming from Williams Island a lot of times. Kids. And there's nothing you can do about it. But again, I'm scared to death. I'm going to hit somebody because they're dressed in black. It's 7 o'clock at night. No helmets. 13, 14 year old with a seven year old hanging on behind them. And they're weaving in and out of the lanes, you know, going into Aventura behind the police station and they're laughing. There were like nine of them going through that. And I said, kids get a helmet on, you know, ride, wear something white, you know, get a light on your bike or something, you know, you can't see you. uh uh golden beach drive uh no i mean a1a same thing at night people on bikes a lot of uber drivers i mean not uber uh ubereats the food delivery people they're wearing they're in bicycles and you're wearing all black with no lights on and you're driving in the middle of the road to your point that you just said that about registering

I don't know if we need to have everyone registered, but it sure would be nice because I see kids at town center. All the time riding and I'll stop them and say, hey, there's people with babies walking around. Maybe just. Something to like an educational program or educational license that someone gets. And they have a scooter so that they're informed. Hey, if you're going to be on the sidewalk and you're going. 15 miles an hour, you got to be careful to look out for these cars coming out.

Absolutely. We can do that for our residents. You know, it'd be hard for us to create some kind of like registration enforcement for people who come through our town because I, we will put together a plan. Let me look into this.

I think an educational movie just showing what the emergency room looks like and what happens to 1 of these scooter kids when they go down.

Well, I could tell you being on the board of the hospital. I asked the, you are like, 3 months ago. What's the number 1? I, and it used to be 2 years ago gunshots and now it's scooter accidents. Yeah, that's the number 1. E. R. admittance and Aventura hospital. So, you know, you have a valid point. The problem is, and even the hospital said that, you know, how does cities control. Yeah, there's really no, because a lot of people don't even live in town and they're going, you know, you can't pull them over. The police not going to pull them over again.

You're right. And they call the operation of what's happening. It is just it is just multiply. I think you can buy 1 now is what is it? Right? Yeah. And they're not wearing 130 bucks.

We'll definitely put together educate. You know, it's like, no, we could do.

Yeah, we could do something in the newsletter, Michael, on the safety of scooters and, like, uh, I said, helmets educate your kids. Right? Yeah. All right next town council meeting is going to be February, February 17th. At 6 PM, everyone good with that.

That's our regular, right?

Regular town council meeting. Mayor members of the council. It escaped me during my report. I just also want to thank the members of our executive team. They did a phenomenal job at the end of the year. I was out of town on my vacation. And so Linda, Rudy, Maria, and Lissette did a phenomenal job in keeping the town safe and to all of our town staff. Thank you for what you continue to do to make our year our town the most desired place to live.

Wait, we all in agreement with the town council meeting for February, February 17. Perfect. With that, I'll make a motion to adjourn. All in favor, say aye. Aye. How'd I do, Jess? You did great. 7.30, got an hour to spare.

Good night, everybody.

Great. Thanks.