Village Council - Regular Meeting

back there there's a lot of times i don't hear all right we're we're starting good evening welcome everybody in case you're wondering why there's a strange person sitting in the mayor's seat the mayor is uh is out of town this evening so um i am taking over his responsibilities so excuse me for any uh mishaps for my running my first meeting so i appreciate everyone's patience and uh Just to my luck, we have three different meetings, and we're going to juggle everything around. So we will call the meeting to order. The regular village council meeting first. We'll have a presentation. We'll close that and go to two other meetings. So are there any requests for additions, withdrawals, or deferrals? First, let's do a roll call. Sorry, roll call. Thank you. Yes, there we go.

First, we'll do it. Yes, roll call. Mayor Selver is not here. Vice Mayor Wolf? Yes, here. Councilman Fremark? Yes. Councilman Levy? Here. Councilman Sklar? Yes.

No. The pledge. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, so now requests for additions, withdrawals, or deferrals?

Yeah, I'd like to add something to our discussion item, discussion of our plastics ordinance, please.

That's on already. We do have that. R9A. Perfect, thank you. You're on. Anything else? No. Okay, so we have a presentation, as usual, from the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Chief, Ray Jadalia. And so we want to welcome you up to give your presentation. Nice to see you.

All right. Good evening. My name is Ray Jadalla, Fire Chief of Miami-Dade Fire Rescue. And thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor, members of the council, Mr. Manager, and of course, to all the residents here of Bell Harbor Village. Today's service delivery report is for the fiscal year 24-25. We always bring from last year's report. And we do have a little presentation here. It should be just a couple of minutes. We're going to start off with a little video. So we do have a little sound here.

Mm-hmm.

All right, so just a little overview of Miami-Dade Fire Rescue. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue was formed in 1935. We celebrated our 90th anniversary last year. We've been serving the village since 1971. We are the sixth largest fire department in the United States with 72 fire stations, over 175 frontline units, and well over 3,100 MDFR employees. And on any given day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, we have well over 500 firefighters that are on duty to protect all of Miami-Dade County, including Bell Harbor Village. Last year, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue just ran under 300,000 calls, and as you can see here, 734 incidents occurred in Bell Harbor. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue is an accredited agency and is an ISO Class 1 department. So just resources along the Bell Harbor Village. So within five miles of Bell Harbor, we have eight stations and various units from rescues, suppressions that do respond. You know, Bell Harbor Village is not just a single family residence, you know, type community. It's high-rises, mid-rises. And for those types of structures, it doesn't take just one or two fire trucks to respond to an emergency, especially when it's a fire. You know, we are governed by NFPA, and on any given day, there's anywhere from 13 to 30 fire trucks that do tend to respond to any type of fire that's located in a mid-rise or high-rise or commercial occupancy. And as you can see here, we also have supervisors, the fire boat. And you have the full extent of all of Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, as you may have seen during Surfside. You saw in the video, Air Rescue, there's all kinds of resources that are available from TRT, Hazmat, and as such. So last year, our response times to the village was 7 minutes and 27 seconds. This is a one-second increase from last year, which I'll touch up on a little later. A little finicky. Okay. So planning for a safe and sustainable, resilient future. So since 2020, the number of calls has increased by just by 26% in the village. The implementation, we placed a ladder 18 in North Miami. And why is that important? Since it's not necessarily in the village, it becomes a trickle effect. As I had mentioned, at any given time when there's a reported structure fire at one of the residences, high rises, commercial, there's a typical response of 12 trucks, eight suppression companies, three rescue companies, and of course an array of supervisors. So those are one of the trucks that tend to respond also here to the village. We also have our high water vehicles that we've implemented and our BTU, which is actually an important addition. Our BTU is a basic transport unit. It's a BLS unit. It is running off of Biscayne and 151, the fire station there. But why is it important? So whenever there's a BLS patient, if a fire truck responds to a BLS patient that needs to be transported to the hospital, so instead of calling out a rescue, we'll call out a BLS unit. If AMR, which is the company that we tend to work with, has an extended response time, this here actually can shorten the response times, getting the fire truck that is multiversable, meaning that it's suppression and has ALS capabilities, to the next call. You know, we've inspected last year, we inspected 143 businesses within the village to ensure life safety codes are met. So engaging with Bell Harbor Village residents, and as you saw in the video, one of the courses that we provide that we started providing to the community at no cost is our health program. Our health emergency life safety protection program. It's a hands-on CPR, stroke awareness, stop the bleed, two-hour course. It is provided to the residents of our community for free. All we ask is that we establish a place that we can provide the service. And last year, we had 40 residents that actually received that certification here at Bell Harbor Village. And then, you know, we always strive to do better. And, you know, patient feedback is extremely important to us. And last year, we did receive, you know, two of all the calls that we responded, medical calls that is, we did have two village residents that did submit their responses. And they gave us a five out of five satisfaction rate, which gave us 100% rate. And just before I close, I just wanted to touch up. I know that, you know, last year and the year before, there's always discussions about response times and, you know, from time to time. So last year, as you saw this year, last year's response times were at 7 minutes and 27 seconds. The year before that, it was at 7 minutes and 26 seconds. And the year before that, it was at 7 minutes and 20 seconds. So as everyone's probably well aware with the community, the growth of Miami-Dade County just in general, high rises, mid rises that are going up, construction. Just myself coming here, there was some roads that are limited to one lanes. So those impact MDFR, no different than anything else that's out there, from police to fire to the average resident that's trying to commute to various areas. And we continue to tackle those by placing units. We're looking at a long-term plan to build more stations to offset some of those response times. But we continue to tackle those, and I know that's one of the many things that come up in regards to response times. But, you know, we continue to strive. We continue to chip away at our response times. But there are just certain factors that we tend to have a very difficult time of controlling. And traffic and road closures are the biggest things. So with that, I want to say thank you for allowing me to present the 2024-2025 service delivery report. And I open up the floor for any questions.

Any questions?

Chief, thank you for being here. Absolutely. I just want to acknowledge in front of everybody the amazing job that you do. Your staff is top of the range. I don't think there's anybody better than you guys. I personally have the opportunity to be in Station 2 as a student paramedic. And what I learned one day is beyond any school can teach me. So thank you for everything you do for all the residents, for us. for the community. Thank you.

Thank you. And it's definitely, you know, all 3,100 of us. And, of course, it also includes this council. Thank you for entrusting us for being your fire rescue service. It speaks volumes. And we really do appreciate, you know, providing services to our residents here at the village.

The only question I have is if you guys have plans for a drone to start, the new people moving drones to beat all the traffic because the traffic doesn't seem to get better.

I know there was a joke that was said several years before I was made by one of the commissioners at the county about putting large magnets on our helicopters to remove the vehicles that are involved in car accidents to open up the roads. Unfortunately, we're not transformers. We're not there yet. Maybe one day. Exactly. Yes, cut back.

Anyway, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate your service to the community. Thank you. It's very well worth it, and we thank you for it. Appreciate it. Thank you, folks. Okay, so we are going to close the council meeting. Dwight, you ready?

Yes, we're ready.

Okay, we'll start with presentations and words. We're going to just modify a little bit the order, and we will start with our presentation of government affairs update by our wonderful and esteemed previous mayor, Gabe Roisman.

Hey, good evening, everybody.

You also, remember, you have Representative Sabi. Yes, yeah. I'm going to invite him. And then also, we do want to hear R7A as part of this. Yes, correct.

Good evening. I just wanted to say quickly, I don't want to forget the Raja Dara was here, the fire chief, who's really a hero of our community. Everyone saw him during the Surfside, the Champlain tragedy. He was in charge of the families and communications every day. The guy's an incredible person. He then led a trip to Israel, by the way, with the fire department. His family comes from Ramallah. Believe it or not. And he led this trip to Israel to work with Israeli firefighters. He's become a friend over the years. He's really a tremendous asset to our community. I don't want to say, I know it's many minutes after he left or hours, but still wanted to make sure to say it on the record. I wanted to introduce you all to David De La Rosa, my new associate who's going to be helping out. hearing from him, especially George and Ramiro. So just two quick things I wanted to address. To be quick, I've met with each of you individually. There's two things we're going to do. One is give a quick update of what's happening in Tallahassee, and two, to talk about what our priorities are with the county as a result of meetings we've had with each of you and with George and Ramiro as well. So we'll start with that, which I think is more pressing, and I'm sorry because I'm looking at the Do the legislative update real quick.

There will be some discussion on that.

Got it. I'm going to start with the end. The end is the budget process is still ongoing. They have until May 29th. They've had the budget. If you speak to any member in the House or in the Senate, the word you're going to hear is slash, slash, slash. They're slashing the budget as much as possible. There's two sides of the Senate in the House. They're now on round three. There's been two rounds back and forth. If the first round you can't match, then the second round it goes to the chairs of the committees. If they can't see eye to eye, which they don't on most issues, it's going to go to the speaker and to the leader together to decide. They have to decide by May 29th. It's a big negotiation happening behind the scenes. There are some highlights, big things that I can share with you just quickly, but I'll start with our issues here in Bell Harbor first. All water issues are negotiated last. Those are the biggest ticket items. The way it's worked, it's negotiated last, which means we haven't gotten to it yet. I've spoken to Fabian. I've spoken to many members up in Tallahassee, the governor's office, et cetera, the speaker's office. They haven't gotten to it yet. They're not getting to it yet. They have to first negotiate through everything else before they get there. Now, we also know there's other political issues that may or may not affect that funding related to the state of Florida, but that's with the executive branch, not with the legislative branch. We still have our two projects, for those who don't know, the Camden Drive Sanitary Sewer Replacement Project and the Ball Harbor Waterfront Ocean Overlook Platform project. which is funded at 350 in the Senate, zero in the House. It means it's still alive. They can still negotiate it. And the first project, the Camden Drive sanitary sewer, many people in the gated community that know about it are waiting for that. That's funded on both sides, which is very good news. 374 and change in the House and a little bit over 598 in the Senate. It means they're going to have to negotiate. It can go anywhere. Good chances that we don't get zeroed out on those. Lots of big things are being slashed, just so you get a quick idea. Like the Florida State Guard is funding, the Senate is funding it to increase 32 more positions, training, et cetera. The House has it at zero. So big things, research in the preeminent state research university program, which is a huge program up in Tallahassee. The Senate had initially proposed 100. It's down at 50 now in the negotiations. So real big things. Another thing that's of interest of our community that I thought I would mention on the positive side, it looks like it's on both sides. Nothing's finalized yet, but the higher education budget includes $15 million in recurring revenue. for the University of Florida, for the study of anti-Semitism policies in Florida, moving forward to make sure that that issue is addressed and driven by the University of Florida. So we're following it closely. There are not a lot of real updates in the sense of it's all still up in the air. But if someone has a question on that before I go to anything else. A lot of fun in Tallahassee on this last year. And Mr. Vice Mayor, would you like me to address the county thing? Just quickly? Sure. So I'll just give you a summary of it, and I know you guys have a vote on it later, just to solidify it.

Are we grouping them together now or no?

The legislative priority? We will vote on it. He's going to present the priorities, and we'll vote on it, yeah.

Yeah, it's all in the package and it's all pretty straightforward. Everybody agreed on the same things that need to be focused on in the county. One is a sargassum issue, which I can speak to a little bit more now for a moment if you give me the opportunity. The other is traffic mitigation, which has a state element of that, a county element, and then also our neighboring municipalities. Lots of different discussions already happening there. The mayor has met with the other mayors. They're trying to start getting that moving. And the third is quality of life issues is what we're calling them for activities on the Holliver Cut or in the Sandbar, in the Sandbar in particular. Just quickly, if I can, about the sarcasm, which everybody cares about. I had meetings with Roy Coley and with Mickey Steinberg in the county both to try to get an understanding of what the status is now. Our timing is actually very good in the sense that the funding, they just refunded Beach Raker. They awarded the contract to them. There was some drama around if they were going to get it or not. They did get it at the end. But it was funded at the same level as last year, much to the dismay of some members. They decided to pass it, and then they're going to bring it back to see if there's going to be an increase in the budget on it because they know there needs to be more service, not less service. Just to level set quickly, this comes from Roy Coley. I know the manager and assistant manager know this well, but Miami-Dade, there's 17 miles of beachfront. When we're talking about sargassum and sargassum removal, it's only in four hot spots in the county. That's it. If everyone's familiar with them, I don't have to go through them, but it's South Point Park. It's about 600 feet there. Then between 22nd and 32nd Street on Miami Beach, the Ball Harbor Jetty and 800 feet of that, south of that, and then 600 feet in the Hull River Jetty. The rest of the sargassum gets grinded up and mixed into the sand every single day. The problem is about three hours later it'll come, new sargassum comes and the same thing happens when you pick it up or don't pick it back. So we're going to pick it back up. So the idea is to address it head on. I can tell you the county's happy that we're going to get involved in the process to try to push this forward and be more aggressive for this end of the beach. There's lots of potential solutions isn't the right word because it's still a natural phenomenon that's, if you guys saw the Herald article in the videos, like it's coming. Just like it came a few years ago, it's coming again. But there are things that we can try to do. For example, we can try to expand the hotspot and get an FDP designation for a bigger portion of the beach if we want more of it removed. We can talk to Beach Raker and try to coordinate through the county. I'm doing more and more removal if that's more necessary. There's lots of things that can be done to try to make things better, but the idea is to have a focused effort as the village, like we haven't in the past. We'll go to commission meetings, go meet with all the commissioners, the mayors, leadership there to try to be the squeaky wheel, because we all know what the squeaky wheel gets. Thank you.

Questions? Okay, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. What I'd like to suggest is put a true plan in place, sort of what Gabe was talking about, and I think that plan starts with getting Chip from Beach Raker back in here for our next meeting and see what else we can do beyond what we're already doing. I mean, he's definitely the expert. He's the guy that's out there, and... He really knows what he's doing when it comes to the Sargasso pickup. So I would suggest getting Chip back out here and see what kind of plan he wants to come up to because it's getting bad out there to what Gabe was saying. We just don't want it to get so high again where it gets unmanageable. And before it gets to that point, I think we need the expert to speak on it for us.

Mr. Mayor, Mr. Vice Mayor, may I? Just quickly, so first of all, the county is very much for that. I did not reach out this afternoon, although I was recommended doing that by the county to try to coordinate with them. I can tell you that the reporting from the county, at least, and we could talk about this more offline, is that Beach Rakers upped their game as far as equipment and deliverables. and there is more capacity. So the question is how to get there, who pays for it, et cetera, and we want to move fast. We've also learned, the county has learned, and all the communities have learned, that piling up the sarcasm like we did a few years ago, that's what was the standard, the SOP back then, is not a good idea because the beach might look better, but the smells amplify to a way that it becomes unmanageable. And not healthy. And unhealthy as well.

I don't disagree with the ask, Councilman, but a plan is best developed and then brought to you, so if you want to designate a liaison or whatever to be involved, but I think it's the county, it's Chip, it's us, and if somebody wants to be engaged in it, that's fine, but to bring him here, I think I'd want to bring it here when the plan's kind of been hashed out.

So we have a month to basically have him come up with a plan based on Current circumstance.

Right, yeah. And future circumstances. Exactly. It's him. It's the county. There's a lot of players involved. I want to make sure everybody's at the table and everybody owns their piece of the pie.

I mean, I will throw my hat in the ring if you want to be the lead. Yeah. Okay.

You really want to be with me? Okay. Okay.

I'd just like to have a coffee with you, Gabe. I don't accept sake.

Not for breakfast, anyway. That's right. Mr. Manager, do we want to have the other legislative update or go to R7A?

Well, is there anything else on R7A, Gabe, to cover? I mean, are you comfortable with this as our latest approach? You can take the vote and then invite Representative Bihavi's representative afterwards. Okay, so R7A, Mr. Clerk?

R7A, a resolution of the Village Council of Bell Harbor Village, Florida, approving the village's 2026 Miami-Dade County legislative priorities, providing for implementation, providing for an effective date.

Mr.

Manager?

Okay, Mr. Vice Mayor, as I mentioned, as you know, we have every year legislative priorities for the state. Recently, we've engaged with Groisman to represent us as well at state level, but also local at the county and at the federal level. We haven't finalized our federal agenda, but from a local county perspective, there are some key issues that keep coming up routinely that we feel a presence at the county on a more routine and regular basis makes sense. You just heard about the sargassum control and the beach raking and that kind of stuff. Obviously, traffic. optimizing efforts to try to make sure that there's a coordinated 3-3-1-5-4 kind of approach and not just squeaky wheel from each neighborhood. And then, of course, the sandbar and the stuff that happens on the bay that's noise and has been a nuisance to our residents as well. So what we've proposed here is that this is our priority list. This is what gives Gabe the authority and the direction to go ahead and work with us and Mickey Steinberg, Commissioner Steinberg, and the county on all of these matters. There'll be other things that come up, and those will adjourn, but at least for now, these are the key things that we want to make sure we get reported on.

Perfect. Public comment.

Hi, Patricia Cohen, 102.75 Collins. So I happen to live just like Wazir directly in front of the famous spot, hot spot. So I watch in the morning around six-ish. They're out there very vigorously. Two big, they make noise when I open the door, and they're really cleaning up well. But it's just a question, first of all, the water still has a lot of it. I have videos I can show you. And then, like, just like two or three hours later, it's all back. So realistically, I don't mean to come here and be a Debbie Downer, but there's just not that much we can do. You know, we have to attack the source, which is somewhere in, from what I understand, in the other side of Africa. So just, you know, let's not get our hopes up too high, because truthfully, it's not really manageable by us. So I just wanted to say that.

Thank you.

Hi, Reese Stopa. There's a reason I can't give you my address, but that I've already discussed with Susan. I think there's a really big issue that the community has to be involved in, and that's the bridge crossing over to Miami. It's short of falling down into the bay. The legislature has refused, the Department of Transportation has refused to give money to rebuild it. And I am very worried, in case of a hurricane, that there is going to be a disaster. And I would ask for the community to get involved in trying to do something about the condition of that bridge. It's very important to all of us. I remember the hurricanes when we tried to get over the bridge and they sent us all the way down to 79th Street. I think it is utmost importance to be a community and fight for the safety of the people that live here in a time of an emergency. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other public comment?

Rob? It's been said it's a sticky and smelly issue that we deal with. I noticed before a lot of times when they take things, they bury it under the sand. I think That's not true. I mean, they're going to lift it, lift it up. Because you see it, sometimes they just roll over it. You know, it goes under the sand. If they're going to lift it, clean it up, and maybe it's, you know, we need the government's help more of this because it's a big issue. But we can't beat it. The best way to do it is pick it up as much as you can, as quick as you can, because that's part of, like, our income, so to speak, when visitors come, because it's not sightly, it's not, smells nice, and it looks ugly, and it just puts us in a sort of a, like, and because, especially in EJ, it just gathers over there, and I think that's the worst part that we have to concentrate on. Thanks.

We don't churn in Bell Harbor. They actually take it, they pile it, and then trucks come and remove it. And I'm going to compare this to Michael Jordan. Like they used to say about Michael Jordan, you know, you can't guard him, you can only hope to contain him. And that's really what the sargassum issue is. You know, George always compares it to shaving. You shave and the next day it grows back. But we can't let it build up because then it becomes very unmanageable to what Patricia was saying. There has to be a point where we could just do the best we could do to remove as much as possible before it gets to a point where it just becomes a wall of seaweed out there. So that's why I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of plan can be presented to us by Chip. Any other council discussion? Is there a motion? I'll make a motion.

Second? Okay. This is a voice vote. So all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Okay, I think also now we will have another legislative update. We're lucky to have the legislative aide to Fabian Basabi here, Mayor Wolfson. Yep, okay, so come on up.

Thank you very much. Good evening, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, Village staff, and residents. My name is Mayor Wolfson, and I'm here on behalf of State Representative Fabian Basabi. I also want to say personally that becoming more involved in public affairs and public policy has been eye-opening. And one thing that quickly stood out to me about Representative Basabi is how accessible and engaged she truly is. Whatever people's personal politics may be, one thing becomes very clear very quickly. He is willing to answer questions, have real conversations, and engage directly with residents on complicated issues affecting our communities. Left him or debate him, there is no questioning how deeply he cares about the people he represents or how committed he is to being accessible and present in the community. Too often people today only see politics through headlines, social media clips, or partisan narratives and miss the actual work happening behind the scenes. Watching Representative Basabi's work directly with residents, local officials, agencies, and community leaders has made a real impression on me because accessibility and dialogue still matter. Representative Asabi asked me to provide a brief legislative update on some work being done in Tallahassee that directly impacts Bell Harbor and communities through District 106. This legislative session focused heavily on affordability, infrastructure, resiliency, public safety, healthcare, education, cybersecurity, flooding, mitigation, environmental protection, and quality of life issues affecting coastal communities like ours. As many residents know, issues surrounding live local continue to generate serious discussion throughout South Florida, particularly in established coastal communities like Bell Harbor, that already balance significant investment, infrastructure demands, quality of life, and long-term resiliency planning. Representative Asabi has asked me very clearly that Florida must continue addressing affordability and housing challenges while also recognizing that communities like Val Harbor have successfully demonstrated how thoughtful redevelopment and responsible investment and economic growth can coexist with strong community identity and high quality standards. At the same time, there are growing concerns that parts of the current live local framework are creating confusion, inconsistent application, and increasing litigation pressure on local governments without enough clarity regarding infrastructure capacity, resiliency protections, utility systems, traffic impacts, and community capability. Representative Asabi believes in growth and that growth must pay for growth and that not successfully built our communities should not lose the ability to responsibly plan for infrastructure, drainage, safety, and quality of life simply because the law is being applied too broadly or without sufficient guardrails. He has also made it clear that the areas are in need of a framework. He intends to revisit the next legislative session to reinforce infrastructure accountability, reduce ambiguity, fueling litigation, and ensure the law functions as originally intended, while still respecting the realities facing established coastal communities like Bell Harbor. This session also included continued work on insurance reform, tax relief efforts, infrastructure modernization, water quality protections, utility accountability, and long-term resiliency planning because communities like Bell Harbor understand how important smart infrastructure planning truly is. As Vice Chair of the Human Services Subcommittee, Representative Wasabi also remained heavily focused on health care oversight. Mental health, elder care, disability services, homelessness, and accountability in taxpayer-funded systems to ensure programs are producing measurable results and properly serving residents. Representative Basabi also continued supporting Florida's economy, tourism, arts, and creative industries, including legislation creating the Florida Film Legacy Specialty License Plate Initiative to support Florida's film and entertainment industry. On specific Bell Harbor's budget items, both the Bell Harbor Camden Drive sanitary sewer replacement project as well as the Bell Harbor waterfront overlook platforms and beach access improvement project currently remain in strong positions as resiliency and infrastructure funding will continue in budget conference negotiations over the coming days. He also asked me to thank the mayor, commission, village staff, and residents for their continued partnership and communication collaboration throughout the legislative process. Strong coordination between local and state leadership is critical for communities like Bell Harbor, and those relationships matter. Representative Basabi looks forward to providing a more detailed budget update once he returns from Tallahassee. I'll conclude with the following sentiment. Most people may know Representative Basabi and some may only know of him. I know, encourage residents to continue reaching out directly, asking questions, staying engaged and participating in conversation because government works best when communication remains open and accessible. I can personally attest, Representative Basabi answers his own phone and looks forward to hearing from anyone willing to have a conversation. Representative Asabi's direct number is 305-907-2653. Thank you all very much for your time and have a wonderful evening. Great.

Thank you very much, Mr. Wolfson. Great, great report. We appreciate it. Thank you.

Okay, we are going to move on to our last presentation of the evening, which is our freebie on-demand presentation.

Who's here? Claudia's here as she comes up. Mr. Vice Mayor, as you know, a few years ago we launched our freebie in lieu of the shuttle, that service that was provided before, and you asked that we continue on a routine basis to report back and give you some status update, and I think Claudia's here to tell you we are one of the top performers, so... I'll let her say that.

Absolutely. Is this the clicker here? Let's see. I was trying not to wear my glasses, but let's see. Okay, great. Wonderful. Thank you. Good evening, Vice Mayor, Commissioners. Thank you so much for having us here. Claudia Miro, Vice President at Freebee with offices at 371 Northeast 61st Street in Miami. I'm happy to give the update here. So it's a seven-month update. We were here last year, and so every six or seven months, yearly at least, we come and try and give you an update so you know how the program is operating. And just like the manager said, it is one of the top performers. So to kind of give you a high-level synopsis, the service operates Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., and then Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. This has been a clear success over the last seven months with completed rise up 21% year over year. So again, what we want to see with our programs is to see that they continue to increase ridership and that's what we're seeing here with the 21% increase over last year. Considering that this is only a one car area, again, it continues to rank highly among one of the top performing areas. Privy now has 53 cities that we serve here in the state of Florida. So, you know, that is something to be said about Val Harbor and their performance. As far as community impact. Everyone continues to benefit from having the freebie. It's an improvement on quality of life. Residents, workers, visitors continue to enjoy it. And our freebie service is very well loved. 98.6 is the user satisfaction rating. So that, again, is something to be celebrated. Now, as far as data is concerned, we have completed about 6,500 rides. Unique riders is close to 1,900. Passengers, almost close to 8,300. Again, the user satisfaction rate is all the way up there at 98.6%. We do pool rides. This is a pool ride service. So, of course, if Freebie's on the way to pick you up and somebody on the way requests a ride, you're going to be pooled with that other person, and 23% of those rides are there. Right now our wait time is average at 13.22 minutes, and we do have done 2588 rides. Of course, the ridership continues to be majority female riders. One of the things I like to brag about with Freebie is that across the all of our service areas, it's an average of 70% of our riders are women because they feel so safe and secure in taking, using the service. And if you look at the chart there on your right, that'll tell you that the age range that is using this the most, I mean, you know, it's pretty close with all of them, but right now, 21 to 35, followed closely by your 35 to 50, and then 51 to 65, I mean, you're You're pretty close on all of them, so you're getting a good mix of usage of the service throughout the village. And then just to give you some of the comparisons over last year to this year, when you look at the average per month total completed rides last year, you were looking at 768. That went up to 932. Rides per day also went up from 25 rides per day to 31 rides per day. Total average passengers in a month from just a little over 1,000 to now over almost 1,200 rides, 1,200 passengers. And then your average per day went from 34 passengers per day to 40 passengers per day. Again, so we continue to see that upward flow, which is what we want to see. Now, the wait times did go up a little bit from 1169 minutes to 1322, again, because more people are using it. And the pool rides also went up, so from 19 to 23%. I'm happy to take any questions that you have about the service or anything that you want to see moving forward.

What is the sweet spot before potential consideration of a second vehicle?

Well, you're there right now. I would say that you are already there. You know, the sweet spot for when you're talking about such a small village, you'd want to, I think you guys would be good like at 10 minutes. You're at 13 and that's, numbers are going to be keep climbing towards 15. I would say that if you have the opportunity to add a second vehicle, That would make a difference. It would also make a difference when you're talking about the lunchtime. So when you have lunchtime, obviously we have to accommodate for lunch for our drivers as well. So that ridership can – that wait time can start to build up. Those people are waiting to be picked up. So when he comes back from lunch, you have already a long pool of people who want those rides. So having a second vehicle kind of helps offset your peak times, your lunchtime, your rush hour times. you know, mix it there. So I would recommend definitely looking into a second vehicle. Um, although your program is working very well and it's well used and well loved by the residents.

Yeah. Just to compound on what Jeffrey said, what are our peak times? Because we might not need a 12-hour second car. We might just need a five-hour second car that will just take care of the peak times. Do we have those statistics?

I don't have those numbers here, but I can happily get those to you. That would be great. And we have had other cities that have done that. Hey, let's add a second car where it makes sense. So you're not coming in with a second car at the same amount of hours that you're doing the one car, just plugging it in. We're happy to do that. I'd love to see that analysis. Thank you.

Did you have anything? The other only question I would ask is how do we know in other cities, how do you get data for the hours that we're not operating, like let's say the earlier morning hours? Is there any, I mean, where there's no car running? I mean, how do we know or get data that people, maybe there's a lot of riders that would use it earlier in the day, but we're not servicing those times?

So the data is during the time that you're, I can't,

collect data on people that are not using it. To that point, we cut it back. We had hourly data, and it used to start at 8 o'clock, and we were getting no rides from 8 to 10. So we used that data to move the hours from 10. So we did skew the hours based on that.

Right, and that's what I was going to say. You can always play with it. Because we have the data, if you wanted to say, oh, you know what, you're getting a lot of calls or a lot of emails that somebody needs an hour earlier, you can try that for a month and then look at the data and say, nah, it's not worth it. Listen, it's not working out. We have that experience. Yeah.

Now, if someone called or requested it on the app, wouldn't it register, even if it's not being serviced?

No, because they wouldn't be allowed to. They would get a message if they tried to, because that would say, you know, you're outside of the service hours, outside of the zone, et cetera.

One question, if you could go back to the unique riders, one question that did come up that maybe you can go back and look at is, you have to sign up for the app, of course, right, to be able to do that. Yeah. In signing up for the app, do you ask for their zip code or any information? Right.

So we don't ask for the address. It's just by the zip code, and that's how we know that they live here. And to your point about unique riders, this doesn't capture a flag down. So if somebody wants to flag down a ride, it's a freebie. That's not going to capture that.

Well, I'm trying to... see if we can tease out is of those 1,800 unique riders, how many are residents of Bow Harbor? We can do that. Versus a visitor or someone who lives elsewhere. You're not precluding them from riding it. So if a guest at the St. Regis chooses to ride, they can do that, but they might live in Canada or some other state. So if there's a way that we can get a sense of what the 1,800 number is, resident versus non-resident at least, That would be helpful from a resort tax perspective. Are we penetrating the tourist market or is it strictly a local satisfier?

Great. So for some action items, we'll go ahead and take a look at who the riders are and then also look at what the peak times are for that second vehicle that you're considering.

Great. Thank you, Claudia. All right.

Thank you so much.

Good job. And I guess, Mr. Manager, if we can look at them potentially what the options are for another partial car based on peak hours.

We'll do that through the budget process and kind of bring back to you recommendations if it's warranted. Great. Thank you.

Okay. Moving on. Consent agenda.

Make a motion.

I'll second.

Okay.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Passes unanimously. Resolutions R7B. Mr. Clerk. No, no, no.

You go to R5A.

Oh, sorry, sorry. We just did them all. I figured we did them all.

We grouped them all together.

Here's where you get deja vu. All right. This R5A, an ordinance of the Village Council of Bell Harbor Village, Florida, amending Chapter 21 zoning to regulate lot splits by establishing minimum lot size and with standards in the R1 and R2 single-family residential districts and providing consistent density limits, providing for severability conflicts, inclusion in the code, and for an effective date. This is the second reading ordinance.

Mr. Manager, do you have this?

Yeah, I'm going to do this. If I may, I'm going to incorporate the comments from last month, since this is a second reading, as well as the record from our local planning agency and your local planning agency just met and recommended its approval. So we can incorporate the discussion from the LPA in the minutes.

Great. Any public comment? R5A, which we just discussed before. Okay. No public comment? Is there a motion?

I'll make a motion.

R5A. I'll make a motion.

I'll second it.

Second. Okay. Roll call voice, Mr. Clerk.

Yes, this is roll call. R5A. Councilman Levy. Yes. Vice Mayor Wolf. Yes. Councilman Sklar.

Yes.

Councilman Fremark. Yes. The ordinance passes on second reading 4-0.

Okay, thank you. R5B, Mr. Clerk.

Okay, that's R5B, an ordinance of Bell Harbor Village, Florida, amending Chapter 21 zoning of the Code of Ordinances to modify regulations applicable to municipal buildings and uses in the RM5 multiple family residential district, providing for severability and inclusion in the code conflicts and for effective date. This is also a second reading ordinance.

Mr. Manager. Mr. Vice Mayor, again, I wish to incorporate last month's comments as well as your LPA minutes. We just discussed that the LPA recommended that you approve this on second reading. And again, just to be clear, this applies only to municipal buildings in the RM district only.

Great, thank you. Any public comment? Okay, is there a motion? I'll take a motion. I'll second.

Okay. Roll call vote. Roll call. Councilman Fremark. Yes. Councilman Sklar. Yes. Vice Mayor Wolf. Yes. Councilman Levy. Yes. Passes on second reading 4-0. Thank you again. R5C, Mr. Quirk. Yes, R5C, an ordinance of the Bell Harbor Village, Florida, amending Chapter 2, administration of the code of ordinances to modify procedures and regulations applicable to the architectural review board providing for severability, inclusion in the code, conflicts, and for effective date. This is the first reading ordinance.

Mr. Mayor, this is a first-year ordinance, but again, earlier today as the LPA, you met and discussed and recommended the approval of this amendment, which limits the number of items that will go to the Architectural Review Board. I want to incorporate the notes as well in the minutes, but I do want to say something that I failed to say in the LPA, which is kind of the impact of this. ordinance. In your memo, one of the analysis that we did is so what would the impact have been? So we looked back for three years at ARB activity and we had over the last three years 31 unique instances at the ARB. There are some returns because they either didn't get approved or were amending previous approval. But there are 31 unique instances. If this restriction were in place or this criteria were in place, that would have been reduced by nine. So the overwhelming majority are the new homes, right? So it's a third of that impact that our residents won't have to deal with, which is, I think, a good place to start and see how that goes. You're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You're still retaining the aesthetic quality of your community.

Great. Thank you. Any public comment?

Yes. Yes. I want to make something clear and understanding. It does not go to the ARB if it's 30 percent of a structure that you have, correct? Now, let's say you have a 30 percent, you upgrade it, now you have 30 percent more. If you try to make addition after completing this one, do you still have to go to ARB? Or again, the thing is within the 30 percent? For example, if you have a 3,000 square foot home, you add 1,000 square foot, you don't need to go to ARB. Now you have a 4,000 square foot home. Can you go 30% and you don't have to go to ARB?

Based on the original. That's a very good question. Very good question. Is it going to be based on the original square footage or the updated square footage is the question?

It's a great question. It's a fair question. This would be based on the application, the size of the building at the time of the application. So it will be 4,000 the next time around.

So basically, to what he's saying, that allows me to basically cut out the ARB process. Yes, every time. I personally think it should be based on the original square footage.

It's a policy conversation you guys can have. That's a great, great point.

So just to think about it. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

One more thing before I go. You talk about these things that he says about the Pacific Association input. Let me put it this way just in case some people don't know. I live in the district, and I'm not a member of the Ball Harbor Civic Association. You do not have to be a member to own a home at Ball Harbor Civic Association. So just to take the words that's what the Ball Harbor Civic Association has to say, it's basically insulting to me because I'm not a member, but I want my voice to be heard. Thank you.

I mean, it's a good point. I think it's one that, you know, who's going to start building a house? First of all, today we have more of an issue. It's just everybody knocking down houses and building new. I think it's far-fetched that someone's going to build 1,000 feet, 1,000 feet, 1,000 feet.

It's our job to stop future loopholes. As a council. I think that's a big part of what we're elected to do is to get rid of gray areas and this could be a gray area of someone subordinating ARB by continually building 29% of what their existing home is. I think personally it should be off of original square footage. Just based on that.

Again, I just want to make sure there's no gray areas down the road. Any other thoughts or comments?

My initial comment is with you, that I'm hard pressed to do 29% and then another 29%. But I also respect the fact that we've been critical of things not being foreseen in the past.

I'll comment on that because you have a similar situation, perhaps a more likely situation, is the 50% rule. If you build up to 49% and then a year later, two years later, build up another 40. Again, the likelihood is not that great, but right now, right now because the 50% rule has been in place just from a building permit perspective. Is it one year work that was done in the previous year per project? And so that's how you govern the 50% rule today, which is you get a project within 12 months. So you can, essentially, if someone wanted to, extend it over a three or five year period and do more than what is otherwise a substantial improvement.

And George, if I could jump in there with a point of information. That kind of look back, that kind of cumulative calculation, we were prohibited from having that on the 50% calculation by SB 180, which was enacted by the legislature last year. So we don't have a similar prohibition on this ordinance. It's a policy choice whether to do at the moment of application or to look back, as you all have discussed.

So continuing my comment, I would also support going back to the original square footage prior to the first project.

Okay.

Now what do we do? I don't know.

Have you done public comment yet? Yes, we did public comment. Oh, you did public comment. Oh, okay. But did you close it? Did anybody get a chance to talk? No. Go ahead. Okay. So let the others and then bring it up to you for your discussion.

So Nick Logan, 64 Camden Drive. I think the thing that as the council you want to look at is we currently have very good building officials. That has not always been the case and historically we will go through those ebbs and flows. And so we want the ordinances to be clear to prevent.

I agree.

that from happening. And exactly what you're saying, you don't want somebody to do 10 little projects because they don't want to go to ARB. And so it's a mishmash. And there are homes that have been done that way, and they're problematic. And I think that's one of the reasons that the trend now is to knock a house down.

Okay, thank you. Any other public comment? Nope.

Mr. Vice Mayor, one thing. First of all, thank you very much for taking public comment before we make a motion. This is one of the instances where it's been brought up in public comment that could really sort of sway our decision. So thank you very much for allowing public comment first.

I would say that... I think George kind of directed me what to do, so I won't take the credit for that. You're welcome. Okay, so do we want to amend this?

So you have a recommendation. You don't have a motion yet. You have your LPA's recommendation, which is as presented. You've now got a consideration that I hear some sentiment around. And so whoever makes the motion can determine whether they want to do it as presented or amend it to.

I'd like to make a motion.

Second reading, can we not? Yes, you can. First reading. Yes. We can.

I just want to make a motion to amend to original square footage.

Just to be clear, what that means is that that 30% threshold is cumulative. Cumulative based on the original square footage of the home. Yes. Okay.

I will second the amendment.

And for the record, that's section 2-75, subsection C3C, in which the change is being made.

Okay. Is there a motion on the amended? I'll make the motion. Okay. Is there a second? I just want to make something.

I don't think it changes it, but I just, for the record, to be clear, since this is new, we don't want to go back and try to look at all houses and what was the original square footage. So can we use today as the start point at the effective date of this ordinance, whatever's in place is in place, and it's 30% of whatever's there today? Yes. Okay. Okay.

Okay, so there was a motion and a second, and so there's a roll call vote, Mr. Clerk.

Okay, so roll call.

Roll call. Councilman Levy. Yes. Vice Mayor Wolf. Yes. Councilman Fremark. Yes. Councilman Sklar. Yes. The ordinance passes on first reading as amended 4-0.

Okay, great. R5D, Mr. Clerk. We have you very busy today.

R5D. This is an ordinance of Bell Harbor Village, Florida, amending Chapter 21 zoning of Code of Ordinances to remove garage entry requirements to amend requirements for parking and impervious service in the single-family residential districts, providing for severability, inclusion in the code conflicts, and for an effective date. Thank you. Restricting ordinance. Mr. Manager?

Mr. Vice Mayor, again, I want to incorporate the discussion in the LPA notes to this one. In this instance, the LPA recommended an amended version of what's in your package, deleting the last two sentences of Section 21-384. striking out from the words dwelling to the word garage at the end, but keeping the removal of the carport option. Otherwise, it's ready for your approval and your discussion.

Any public comment? Seeing none, is there a motion on, so do we have to amend it again? Yeah, a motion as amended. A motion as amended.

I'll make a motion as amended by the LPA.

Okay, is there a second? I'll second it.

Okay. I can't wait to see the minutes.

We're going to wonder if all 100 are here in the next meeting. There's been a motion and a second. Roll call vote, Mr. Clerk.

Roll call. Councilman Sklar.

Yes.

Councilman Fremark. Yes. Councilman Levy. Yes. Councilman Wolff.

Yes.

The motion to pass the ordinance on first reading as amended passes 4-0.

Excellent. Okay. R5E. Mr. Clerk. Mr. Clerk.

R5E, an ordinance of Bell Harbor Village, Florida, amending Chapter 21 zoning of the Code of Ordinances to revise standards for hedges, walls, fences, and projections into the setbacks and to increase the maximum height and revise the measurement of height of walls and fences in the single-family, multiple-family, residential, and private club districts, providing for severability, inclusion in the code, conflicts, and for an effective date. This is also a first reading ordinance. Mr. Manager.

Mr. Vice Mayor, this is the last of your ordinances. Again, same concept. You heard it in LPA just earlier in the day, so I want to incorporate the conversation in the minutes for that. In this instance, the LPA recommended its approval after some conversation, but accepted what's being proposed.

Thank you. Thank you. Any public comment on this? Yes. Nika.

Nika Logan, 64 Camden Drive. I just had a question. I understand that the height of the wall is going to be based upon some level on the property?

The fence.

The fence. The fence or the wall. What is that height? Is it the base floor of the building or is it the physical property?

When you finish, I'll get back to you and answer that. Any other public comment? No.

Okay, seeing none, Mr. Manager, you want to?

Correct me if I'm wrong, Elliot, but it would be from the grade of the site, not necessarily the building. Pardon me? Come up.

Good evening. Elliot Palacios, the building official. Basically, it's the average of that site. So the land. So if the house is higher up, it's not that. It's where the ground is. Up to the ground.

Actually, it's not written as average. It's written as adjacent. Adjacent, sorry. To the wall or fence.

But basically that lot.

The lot on which it's being located.

Right, but the question that came up is it's the lot, not necessarily the building structure. So to be clear, it's the lot, the ground.

The ground level. What it's called in FEMA, in the elevation certificate, it says lowest adjacent grade and highest adjacent grade is basically the average of those two. It will be given by the surveyor when they go for the final.

And so what it says now, and we can certainly change it if desired, highest adjacent grade was what we came up with.

Not an average. It's your highest adjacent grade. Worst case scenario would be the highest. But usually they do it at the average. The ordinance doesn't say that.

So what do you want it to be?

Should it say average? We can change it. That's up to the wish that they want.

I'm not clear on what the difference is. I mean, if you're going to, if, where are they measuring from and where are they putting in it? Is it sites in different places?

A site could slope. Could slope. Could slope. But not majorly because basically it's from the street and then it comes gradually towards the lot and then it has swales. and or has berms to be able to retain the water within their lot or if not it has drainage, underground drainage. So then they have an average, basically an average grade for when they want to come out. Most likely with this change they don't have to make that many steps to be able to go into the house by the side or by the rear. They don't have that many steps because the grade has elevated with the retaining wall or the fence that they've been able to place. Before, the fence was lower, so they had to raise up those steps higher than normal. So you had a big difference between your finished floor of the house and to where you were walking on the grade.

So in your expertise, expert opinion, how should it read? I think it should be the highest. I think it's the highest grade.

Because that's where the fence, remember what you're doing is you're trying to get the six foot height or the ten foot if it's a court from that point, not from somewhere else that would have been higher or lower. It's from where you're putting the fence. And so it's the space right there is what I think is usually.

Basically the surveyor before gives you the final elevation certificate, he'll go through the whole entire site and he'll give you that highest grade. And so that would be the grade that will – that would be the number that we go by. It's not a number that we pick. It's the number at the – when they finish the site, that's the number that they give us.

So just as we talk about it, it's the highest, not the average.

Correct. It would be the highest. That's what's in your ordinance. Okay. Mr. Vice Mayor, I failed to mention in the LPA something that we discussed at a – at a gender review that I think we can correct for second reading. Susan, you were going to perhaps amend the term vacant lot to be a little bit more inclusive so that it's an adjacent lot or accessory use lot or a lot that is connected by unity of title so that we don't get into a situation where, so when we're talking about allowing hedges to cover that, it's going to be more than just a vacant lot. It's going to be all of those unused accessory lots. We'll fix that for a second reading.

Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Okay. Is there a motion?

I'll make a motion.

Is there a second?

I'll second.

Okay. It's been motion and second and roll call vote.

Let's roll call. Vice Mayor Wolf?

Yes.

Councilman Fremark? Yes. Councilman Sklar? Yes. Councilman Levy?

Yes.

The ordinance passes on first reading. This was amended too, right? As amended?

No, this was not amended.

Not amended? R5A? Oh, yes, it was.

It was?

It was.

Yeah.

What did we amend? Yeah. Oh, rear versus waterfront. My bad.

Yeah.

The term rear versus waterfront was amended to clarify the projection.

So can we go back and get a motion as amended? Motion as amended. The maker? Motion as amended. Second. Okay, roll call vote.

Roll call vote again. Vice Mayor Wolf? Yes. Councilman Fremont? Yes. Councilman Sklar? Yes. Councilman Levy? Yes. The ordinance passes as amended 4-0 on first reading.

Excellent. Okay. It's been a night of ordinances. So we will now move on to resolutions R7B. Mr. Clerk?

R7B, a resolution of the Village Council of Bell Harbor Village, Florida, approving an expenditure in the amount not to exceed $100,000 for FIFA World Cup 2026 themed activation in Bell Harbor Village, authorizing the village manager to take all action necessary to implement the purposes of this resolution, providing for implementation and providing for an effective date.

Thank you, Mr. Manager. Mr. Vice Mayor, I've got Ramiro Guanzo, who's our acting tourism director as well as our assistant manager, to present the item. Do you have visuals that we can put up?

We can.

I think it would be useful to show that as well as he presents. And there's a slight amendment given some recent new information that we've received. So we want to kind of go to that.

Thank you, Mr. Manager, Mr. Vice Mayor, members of the council. Let me just take a quick minute since this is a resort tax funded item to share some good news with you. I know that you all got the most recent results from our resort tax collections for the month of March and very happy to report that We had not only a record March, but a record month in resort tax collections in the village. That was significant, right, because we know we have a challenge going forward for the remainder of the fiscal year. As you all know, the Ritz-Carlton, one of our premier hotels, closed on April 6th for a major renovation. So they'll be closed, you know, for the rest of the fiscal year for sure and through the end of the calendar year. And that, of course, creates a big challenge for us going forward.

Question, did they only have 40 or 30 out of their 100 rooms open anyway for the past year?

I don't think it was that low. I think they had some that were out of stock, but they were, from an occupancy perspective, they were doing pretty well.

In fact... No, no, from an occupancy perspective, they were doing great. But I know that they had, they were down to like 40% of the rooms that they were using. So I don't think it's going to move the needle as much because we also got new restaurants and Bal Harbour shops that came online.

Well, you're stealing my thunder, Congressman Sklar, so let me get in there. I will say this about the Ritz-Carlton. They had a record January. January was the top month that we ever had in collections. So I don't know the data specifically about how many rooms they had available, but nonetheless, maybe it was the rates they were charging, but they certainly brought in a significant amount of revenue from that perspective. And to your point, Councilman Sklar, our record month of March was even including the fact that last March we had two restaurants that were now closed this March, right? So that was a really significant result of the March 26 collections. But you're right. We do have two. Well, we've got one brand new restaurant that is already open that opens in late March. And then we've got a new restaurant that's about to open. My understanding from a conversation today with their GM is that they're slated to open on June 1st. And that's China Grill. Which leads us to this item. We all are familiar with World Cup and the significance it has around the world. North America has the privilege of hosting the World Cup this year. It's really the first time that World Cup is divided throughout such a broad geographic area. The World Cup is being hosted by three countries, the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Games are being played as far west as Los Angeles and Seattle and as far east as New York and New Jersey, as far north as Toronto, and as far south as Mexico City. Miami, of course, is one of the host cities. When the games are played here, they'll be played at the Hard Rock Stadium during the World Cup. It'll be known as Miami Stadium. So a lot of activity going on around the World Cup that begins in the middle of June and goes almost through the end of July. The host countries that we know for sure will be in Miami because they're playing the matches that are set throughout the month of June. There's four dates that will take place are Brazil, Portugal, Colombia, Uruguay, Scotland, Saudi Arabia. A lot of those are key markets for us, particularly Brazil. But some of the others are key markets as well. Uruguay is one that we've been investing in the last year. So we're glad that we'll get to host them as a country. So in looking for opportunities to create an activation, we had talked about this throughout the budgeting process. We knew that this would be a significant summer for us. A lot of things are taking place. And the World Cup was certainly an opportunity for us to maximize, you know, and create opportunities to promote tourism here to Bow Harbor. So we explored all kinds of ideas. As you know, we contracted with a PR firm earlier this year. One of their jobs was to help us really kind of think through what kind of activation might be appropriate to take place here in Bow Harbor. To your point, Councilman Sklar, at the same time, we were exploring how to maximize foot traffic to our restaurants, the majority of them, of course, being in the Bow Harbor shops. And with the opportunity of the two new restaurants, how we could really partner with those restaurants to really promote them so that we can maximize the revenue in the summer months, which tends to be slower. Anyway, of course, it's our down season. So we explored all kinds of opportunities. We thought about perhaps some activations out on the beach or even in our park. Our budget was somewhat limited, right? It was limited to 100,000. That's what we had budgeted through the resort tax resort or fund balance. So we were presented with an idea, an artist who was engaged with FIFA, John Paul. was engaged in the 22 World Cup. He did some designs for FIFA. We had an opportunity to connect with him and the work that he's doing. We like this opportunity because it blends art with sport, right? And we feel that this is an appropriate type of activation to take place here in Bow Harbor. So the activation includes a couple of different components, right? The key component, of course, is this beautiful, very large, nine-foot-tall soccer ball that can be placed in Val Harbor Village. The manager mentioned that we have a slight amendment to our proposal. We had initially proposed two soccer balls, one that would be placed in the shops and then moved to another location. And then one that would be permanently placed somewhere else in the village. Ideally, we thought about Founders Circle, of course, because that's such a perfect place to put something like this. But as you know, Founders Circle is currently under construction, and we're not really exactly sure when that construction is going to be completed. So we thought about the beach area as well. We did run into a little snag in working with the artist and the production company that's going to develop this ball. There's one person that actually designs it and creates it. It takes about three weeks to design, so of course they have not begun that project until this item is approved. So at the very earliest, they'll begin production tomorrow. It'll take them three weeks to do it, which takes us pretty much into June 10th, which is when we plan this activation. That means that the second soccer ball, he can't start on it pretty much until mid-June, which means it won't be ready until closer to the beginning of July. So in speaking to the manager, we felt that perhaps it's best not to create two soccer balls, but really just to create one. This proposal in the Bow Harbor shops would have this soccer ball in place for basically the month of June, from June 10th through the 28th, with a couple of other activations that I'll talk about briefly. But then it gives us a chance to relocate it at the end of June to someplace else in the village. Ideally, Founders Circle, if that's available and it looks good to place it there. But if not, we feel that on the beach path, It would really create a really nice presence, particularly during the month of July. We're proposing to place it here on the 96th Street entrance because we've talked to the St. Regis, and they've got a couple of activations that are taking place on their property, and this will complement some of the things that they're doing, so it'll create a nice balance to what the St. Regis is doing. So going back to the first part of the activation, the Bow Harbor shops. And I'm sure some of you are asking why would we do this in the Bow Harbor shops, right? But here's why it makes sense. Because in trying to come up with a campaign to really promote the restaurants during the months of June and July. This really gives our PR company and our influencers that we contract with some content to really push and promote and encourage people to come to Bow Harbor, primarily to our restaurants. really five restaurants, including China Grill that I mentioned is about to open in a couple weeks. We're creating partnerships with them, cross-promotional opportunities so that the restaurants and their PR companies are engaged with this so that we can really promote it collectively to really with the goal of certainly bringing people to bow harbor but remember these are resort tax dollars that are being used for this activation so the real purpose is how do we use these dollars to really reinvest them to get people to come primarily to our restaurants right and we feel that this is a really great campaign and activation that creates and allows us to create opportunities with our restaurants and their PR companies to promote this. It gives them content and we think that it could really work and kind of create that traffic that will come and for people to enjoy our restaurants. I've talked to China Grow and the management team. They're really excited about this because coincidentally it would be in place right around the time that they're opening. So it really creates some opportunities for them at that level as well while the World Cup is taking place here. In addition to the sculpture here, which would be located in the central courtyard, so first floor, just as you walk into the shops, the central courtyard, the ball would be in place, as you can see in these proposed renderings, branded, of course, with the Bow Harbor Village logo. There's also an interactive component, two components actually. One is a monitor that is placed near the sculpture with John Paul, the artist, who will talk about the process he goes in designing balls and the craftsmanship involved in the design of the balls as well. And then another interactive component that would be placed on the third floor in the terrace just adjacent to Makoto that gives guests an opportunity to draw their own soccer balls that are submitted to the artist as part of his large-scale art activation that he has currently running through the FIFA World Cup games. And it will give guests the opportunity to be able to submit those and they would become part of John Paul's ongoing art activation. And then, of course, there's a retail component, too, for the artist. He actually sells kits on how to make soccer balls. That would be a component of this as well. So this activation in the shops would be in place from June 10th through June 28th, right? That's the period of time that the four matches are taking place here in Miami. And then our proposal is that we relocate.

Yeah, that's the three matches after that.

Yeah, there's group matches, and then there's quarterfinals and knockout rounds. Knockout stage. Right.

Yeah, so just so you know, so the four group matches are June 15th, June 21st, June 24th, and June 27th, right? And then the ones you just referenced, Councilman Sklar, the round of 32, which is July 3rd, the quarterfinal, which is July 11th, and the bronze third place is July 18th, the day before the championship on July 19th up in New York. Anyway, so we will then at the end of June relocate the ball. Again, Founder Circle would be an ideal location if we can make it happen. That's certainly something we'd like to see. If not, the beach path we think makes sense as well, creates a beautiful visual also adjacent to the St. Regis, which gives them an opportunity to create some engagement and activations around some of the things that they're doing during the month of July as some of these other matches are taking place. That's the presentation. I'll be happy to answer any questions anybody may have.

Questions from council? No, sorry.

Thank you. So you addressed several of them during the presentation, which was very well done. Can I assume that with the change to one ball from two that there's a change in the budget?

Yes, of course. So each of these sculptures are approximately, they're detailed in the item, about $25,000. So if we go to one, then we're subtracting $25,000. There's still an additional cost because if you notice for the activation outside of the shops, there's a special base because it's outside. So it's a weatherproof base, so there's an additional cost for a base. So we would still incur that cost, right, that's not incurred in the ball that's going into the shops because that's a different base that they would use. but it would be approximately a $25,000 savings from what was proposed originally.

So clearly, and you anticipated this as well in your presentation, clearly I feel conflicted about the placement of the art in the shops being sponsored by the village. But I do recognize that it is resort tax funds that does come – largely or not largely, but to an extent from the restaurants and it's a support mechanism. So I think that that is fine. I find that argument compelling, but I'd want to be sure that Bell Harbor Village gets the credit and that that's crystal clear there as well. I'd be concerned about Founder Circle, even if it was finished, because it will definitely have an impact on traffic. And people can't really get there safely right now. And they're going to have to go park somewhere if they're going to want to see it in the bank or the shops or wherever they park. So I'd be concerned about that location. But I clearly agree that the optic of seeing that coming down Collins Avenue will be dramatic. But if we think we have a traffic problem now, it will only get worse. It will not help the traffic problem. And now I understand why not the Jetty area. I didn't realize that the Ritz was closed, essentially, at this point in time. And I think that that looks rather neat over there. So you've got – but I want to be sure that Bell Harbor gets the credit for it, the village gets the credit. Yeah.

I – if I may, Councilman Fremont, I'll respond. I agree 100 percent. And, you know – There is a little bit of a challenge with that, given the presence. But I will tell you this, we've been working very closely with the restaurants. They've had a rough summer start. You probably, you and I had this conversation a lot because we talk about the foot traffic and I've noticed it. I don't know if you have. I absolutely have. In the last couple of weeks. So in the conversations with the existing restaurants, They're worried. There's a lot of stuff happening at the shops. You know, Carpaccio and our two newer restaurants, both Slim's and China Grill. You know, there's a lot of construction happening in their front yard.

I accept that. There's no doubt about the fact they can't be happy about the construction. And they're looking at this dispute regarding Live Local and everything else and wondering what their future might be with all of this construction around them as well. Yeah.

It could be years and years of construction.

So let me just add this to, you know, we feel from a resort tax perspective that there's a real opportunity here to help the restaurants, especially during the slump. And we think that this is a really good opportunity. It gives us some content to really kind of help drive some traffic in.

Ramir, I find your argument compelling.

All right. Councilman Sklar?

Thank you so much. A couple of quick questions. I know we're going to bring influencers down and it's going to be a big content moment. It doesn't say Bell Harbor anywhere except on the floor and no one takes a picture of the floor. So how can we sort of brand this a little bit the way a regular soccer ball is branded and So when someone does take a picture, we do get a bit of branding behind it. I'm not going to tell the artist to make it from red to, you know, Bell Harbor light blue. But, you know, that would be kind of cool, you know, to really incorporate more Bell Harbor into it as opposed to just a giant soccer ball in the middle of Bell Harbor shops. I mean, if we're going to do this as a marketing moment and a content moment, we need to get the content out of it. And the way it sits right now, we're not getting any content out of it. You don't even know it's in Bell Harbor shops. You're just taking a picture of a nine-foot soccer ball.

How can we tweak it without disrupting the artist's creativity? Well, it's funny you talk about color, right? Because we had that conversation with the artist. There's basically three colors he does. He does the black-white, he does a blue-white, and he does the red-white. So we had a lot of conversations at the resort tax level and with the PR firm about what the right color would be. And I can tell you, I was pushing for the blue-white just because I can kind of connect it more to us, right? Every other resort tax and the PR firm really felt that red was the right color because it's such a contrast to us and it really creates a very... different impact, right?

I appreciate that, but how do we know this is Bell Harbor? How do we know it's Bell Harbor? If we're going for a branding content moment, for people to take this picture and go, wow, that's Bell Harbor, it's just going to be a picture of a nine-foot red soccer ball.

Let me explore that. This image here, the base here, does have...

I'm talking when it's in the shops. And why would we move it, considering we have things going on until the end of July... 18th is the third game. Are we compelled to move it out of the shops? We are. That's the reason for moving it.

Yeah.

So if they're not playing ball with us, no pun intended, from the beginning, why are we even, you know?

A couple of things on that comment. So there is a conflict with the shops, but there's also, because we had this conversation with the PR company, there's also something about fatigue of something, and if you limit it.

There's going to be different people coming in all the time for this.

There could be, right, because we don't know even who's coming in for July. We know who's going to be here for the month of June, right, because we know the seven countries that will be here. For July, we have no clue because that determines based on when it gets eliminated. That's about the months of June. But the PR company felt like there is some sort of fatigue that happens with an activation. And sometimes when you do it on a more limited basis, it really creates more of a... interest in it.

Sorry, if I could just comment based on what you said, because I was right there with you in terms of why do that, but I don't think, I think we have to be bigger than them and not allow the dispute with whatever you want to characterize the ownership as being to get in the way of the relationships with the restaurants and those other areas. I would move the thing if that's

Again, you know I'm a huge supporter of the restaurants there. We see each other. Again, I just want to see what kind of branding we can truly get out of it. That's fair. So that it becomes a true moment. Like I said, the branding on the floor, no instinct.

We need to get the artist to figure out another way to get the name out. Moving it also gives an opportunity for those who maybe aren't going to the shops to see it in a different way. I think that's okay, but we need to address it.

I won't spoil it, and I'll figure out a way that... Do we know, because I know a lot of times when teams come in, they stay at the St. Regis. Have we spoken to the St. Regis to see any pre-bookings of what teams are staying here?

We have. So the St. Regis was actively working. My understanding is that they were working with the Saudi Arabia team. Saudi Arabia again? Makes sense, right? But... As of today, I'm not sure that that was booked or not. That's not been confirmed. And I'll be honest with you, when they have these kind of teams that stay in place, sometimes they'll work with our police department because of security issues and stuff. But sometimes for confidentiality, they don't share. So I don't know if there's anyone saying I can't tell you. You know, because we've been checking with the three hotels that we have at this point, right, and what their occupancy and bookings are for the months of June and July. The St. Regis, actually, if you look at all the hotels, we've done a comparison, they had the highest average room rate for the last two weeks of June. Their average for a room is about $3,500. Okay. And I'll tell you what's significant about that is that to book a room there, you have to prepay. And if you cancel, you don't get your money back. And the minimum stays? How many days? I believe it's three. Three days. So you look at Four Seasons, it's completely booked, right? It's a smaller unit. But Faina, the average room rate is $1,000. Aqualina, just up the street from us, the average room rate is $1,000. So the St. Regis early on commanded a pretty high price point. And their occupancy is pretty strong for the month of June anyway. What's challenging for the hotels is you don't know in July who's necessarily going to be here. So that's a little bit of a challenge, right, is that we'll have that information a little bit later on.

Unless there's other, we could talk about this interesting stuff. Unless there's other specific questions, I would like to move to public comment. Yeah, you want to do public comment. Alejandro, do you have anything specific?

I just cannot get my head around that we're going to put this, such a huge advertising on the Bal Harbour shop. I just cannot get myself around it. I'm all in support of the restaurants and all in support of the people who come and work here. But to make such a statement to them? Okay. All right, let's move to public comment.

I know this gentleman. Let's come back to council. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

It's not branded with us. Okay.

Mike Manzi, 10160 Collins Avenue, the Admiralty. Getting Bell Harbor's name on it is a simple solution. How do you spell Bell Harbor? Put the soccer ball in the signage, the A on both Bell and Harbor, or an O in Harbor. It ties in that soccer ball into our name. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Go ahead. as once only citizen that was in the actual the Resort Tax Committee meeting and they discussed the colors and so forth. My major problem that I have and I've talked to people Inbound hardware shop is a ghost town right now the past couple of weeks. The stores are complaining. The restaurants are complaining. And what they don't see and their complaint, biggest complaint is why doesn't inbound hardware shop do more? And I have no problem supporting the restaurant because that's where the tax resort continues. I just want to know, is this the best way to spend the money on it? Specifically, when Bal Harbour Shops is not putting a dime, it limits us on how long we could put it there so we can get the full benefit. I just want you guys to think with the relationship that we have, unfortunately, with the Bala Harbor shops, when they don't care about their tenants who are actually paying them thousands of dollars. And I talked to one of the investors, which is a friend of mine for the China Grill, and he told me today that people are complaining that the Bala Harbor shop is a ghost town the past two weeks. Nobody's coming in. And they are going to the things, do something about it. I have no problem of spending money to promote the restaurants and get them. I'm just asking, is this the best way to spend it? I think there could be a better way to spend it. Specifically, we could do something else to support them because the hotel is going to be packed. The hotel is going to be coming. Can we give a program directly to the restaurants to gather people in instead of promoting the Bal Harbor shops? And that's my only thing about it. Now, if you guys think that's the best way to spend it, but I just disagree. And the point is we're doing something for Bal Harbor shops where they're not willing to do for themselves. Thank you very much.

After driving down many days...

Your name and no address again.

Annemarie Kelly Stopa. I find it a little... annoying that we would pick the Bell Harbor shops and what they have put us through to put the soccer ball there. I think the amount of money we're spending on legal fees, the amount of money we're spending on losing people coming to Bell Harbor because of the traffic pattern, I just think it's a wrong time to to reward them with the benefit of something that Miami was so lucky to get. I don't think it's the time to benefit the Bell Harbor shops when they have caused so much chaos, and not just in our community, Bell Harbor. They've caused it in Bay Harbor with the traffic. They've caused it in Surfside, again, with the traffic, with the construction. And there isn't a finality to when this is going to be resolved, whether it's going to go one way or it's going to go the other way. I think the benefit of not being there way outweighs the benefit to be there.

All right, thank you. Any other public comment? No, I asked for any other public comment.

I just have one more question, one last question. So we're paying for this guy's kiosk for him to sell products out of? Yeah.

Well, the kiosk will be there provided.

So basically we're providing this guy a kiosk, building it for him. He's selling the products, and we're getting nothing for it.

Yeah. I mean, we're not building a kiosk.

It says here, kiosk rental, installation, materials, and we're paying for the products. And he keeps the money for it?

Yeah. Yeah, it's an amenity that might be a draw for people. It's, you know, they come, they see the artist. No, I understand.

We're basically paying for this guy to make money off the kiosk.

Yeah.

Okay. I just wanted to ask.

Romero, another question. I'm sorry. I should have asked. I'm sorry.

Not at all. Go ahead.

Romero, another question. If the decision were made just to put it on 96th Street, is that an option?

It is an option. But let me let me say this because, listen, I know this is a tough conversation for us to have. Right. But I'm putting my tourism hat on. I'm putting my resort tax hat on. All of our efforts, we, from a tourism perspective, cannot negate the importance that the Bow Harbor shops plays in tourism. You know, people do come to Bow Harbor for the shops. And when they come to the shops, they eat in the restaurants. So I know and I recognize it's a very, very difficult conversation for our community. But my job is to make sure that the resort tax revenue increases. And the Val Harbor shops is a really important partner for us to be able to do that. They have five restaurants, right? So we collect our resort tax from our hotels and our restaurants. So we cannot negate the fact that these restaurants are located in the Val Harbor shops. So for us to get people to come to these restaurants, they have to come to the shops.

What you're saying is there's a difference between the landlord and the tenant.

Mr. Mayor, I mean Mr. Vice Mayor. I remember when we had our meeting at the Seaview and people were saying, boycott the shops. At the end of the day, that doesn't hurt the landlord. It hurts the shopkeepers. It hurts the restaurateurs. So I think it's our job also to try and separate the two. You know, we're all in favor of the restaurants doing well because it makes us do well. Unfortunately, they're probably on a percent rent, which at the end of the day also benefits the landlord. But we really have to try and separate the two. These restaurants have been very good to a lot of us here. They're great restaurants to eat at. They do draw a lot. They make the village a lot of money. I'd be fully in favor of this if we could somehow brand it. If not, I think it's a waste of money.

Or the question of locating it outside the shops in the beginning.

To that point, should we be entertaining this in one motion or should we be splitting it between cost and location?

I'm not sure what you mean. My suggestion is consensus about the location. And have that discussion. And then, you know, I don't think I'm hearing anybody saying we should not do something. It's a question of... I'm not sure.

Oh, well. Yeah, so my perspective is I hear everyone's thoughts, but I think we all agree, and just from Councilman Sklar and Councilman Freeman, what you just said, obviously we have to separate from the owners and landlords versus the shops. I think that... We spent a lot of time at the resort committee with consultants identifying and seeing how we can best get benefit from the dollars we are going to spend around the FIFA and how it will benefit the response to generate more resort tax dollars for ourselves. So, I mean, my inclination is I agree 100% with yours. It just has to be branded. That's all. There has to be a brand in front that someone takes a picture and sees it's Bell Harbor. And for me, that's the only caveat I have to moving forward with this. I believe we should move it there. I think it's also nice to be out on the beach, so we move it. It'll be a nice thing as well to be on the beach. I like the whole plan, but I agree with the addition. We've got to have it branded. Thank you.

It says Village of Bell Harbor, not just Bell Harbor. Bell Harbor Village.

Bell Harbor Village. I'm going to add one more thing that is a great potential opportunity for us. You may know that – I'm sure you know who Victoria Beckham is. She is opening her very first store anywhere in the Bell Harbor shops. There is a pop-up that's going up right in the center courtyard. So there is an opportunity that we've been pursuing with the Beckhams, with the soccer ball, and I'm sure you know there's a connection with soccer and her husband, right? So from a cross promotional opportunity, that really is, from what our PR perspective is doing, There's a great potential there. And I can't really talk too much about it because there's still discussions that are taking place. But there is that opportunity. And I will say this about Victoria Beckham. She and her husband frequent the shops and are at Makoto very often. And she quite frequently will take pictures and she's got millions of followers and will snap the pictures. She always says Miami. So we're working with her people. And now that she's going to be located in the Bow Harbor shops, working with her people to get her to understand that, yes, she is in Miami, but she's also in Bow Harbor. which would be good for her store as well. So there's a really great promotional PR opportunity that exists that we're really trying to leverage, and this is just kind of like the perfect opportunity to bring a soccer ball into a place where, you know, a couple that is so connected to soccer and now to Bow Harbor can really leverage.

Okay, but even more so to Councilman Sklar's point of branding, so I think you're all... Yeah, you want to make a motion?

So I think that the motion would be to support the presentation subject to the inclusion of appropriate branding for Bal Harbor Village. And remove the second ball. And remove the second ball. That would be the motion. Is there a second?

I would second that motion. Okay.

A voice vote? A voice vote. All in favor of that motion? Aye. Aye. Any against? Any abstentions? Well, you've got to say something. You've got to say something.

Say no. I don't know. It's okay. Okay. You can say no.

I want support.

Say what you want.

It's your call. You don't have to. Yeah. Provided that we do branding, provided that we look at another location, provided that we support the restaurants and trying to advertise the restaurants, yes.

Okay. Well, this incorporates moving it midway.

Correct.

So moving it to whether it's Founder Circle or probably more 96th Street, frankly, just because that's not going to work.

Absolutely.

So you have to vote on the motion. Yes or no?

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

Vice Mayor, can I make one other comment? I want to compliment you because you stood your ground with us. You laid out your arguments cogently, and you were quite articulate in terms of how you put the arguments together to us because you convinced me I was a no. Okay.

coming into this um but you did a really good job and you stood your ground so i complimented for that can you present to us in an ltc what the pr plan around this is because having a great thing there without a plan behind it really doesn't matter like you'd like to say 100 yes sir thank you thank you very much thank you excellent

Okay, new business, R9A.

I'm going to keep this very, very short. I asked our legal over a month ago to get me information. I still have not received that information over a month later, so I'm going to roll this over to the next meeting until I get the required information that I asked for.

Okay.

Thank you.

Very good. Is there any public comment? Yes. Okay. Patricia? You can make any public comment you want at this point. You can make any public comment you want.

It's about the freebie, okay? Just a couple of ideas on the freebie. Excuse me, I don't know her name. The lady mentioned something about flag down. You can flag it down. I was unaware that you could do that, and I don't know anybody who... You cannot. She said that.

Like a cab.

Well, she said cab. Okay. If you're a guy...

You need better legs, right? Maybe. Okay, okay, okay. Are you getting a little slap happy at the late hour?

If you have nice tattoos. Patricia, what's yours? No, seriously, this is important. No, no, I'm saying that's just a question you're asking. No, I wanted to bring it up, the point, because it's important whether we are able to. It's fantastic if it's empty. It's fabulous, okay? So we should address that and encourage it. And do you flag it? How do you flag it? Where? Where do they stop? Okay, second, how are they going to know what, oh, she said she would give you, or she would provide a breakdown on the usage or who's using it. How are they going to do that? Like the person in the St. Regis, in other words, the point was to determine whether it's locals or could perhaps be some tourists.

You have to sign up on an app and put all your information on an app to use it.

So you think that somebody from the St. Regis that's staying for three days is doing that?

If they want to use it. They have to.

Or they flag it down.

Unless they flag it down. Unless they flag it down, they didn't call the Phoebe's to enter into the app.

The $3,500 a night clients. So it's, yes, you know? Okay. and then the other thing I thought was just a thought for the future that if we're going to increase hours I was thinking who could really benefit from this and we could all benefit as a result of a few less cars on the road so maybe like you know the four or five kids from buildings in the gated community could go to Bay Harbor Elementary and want four. How many fit in a car? Four. And so if we started earlier, imagine how many parents would be thrilled to know that their child could be driven to Bay Harbor by the freebie, safe, perfectly, you know, valid mode of transportation. So maybe we could keep that in mind. I can see a lot of parents signing up for that. Okay? Okay?

Great. Thank you very much. We'll have just one second. This gentleman in the back. You had your hand up? Yeah. You had your hand up? Okay. Whoever would like to go. Yeah. You're right.

This is more of an awareness. Whatever you want me to call. I don't care. The... Issue is a security issue. I was burglarized at the Seaview. Many, many family heirlooms were taken. I had a card that was reversed in my purse, changed, and they took the card and they went in. I have an almost positive ID on who did this. I went to the police. I gave them what they've asked for every time. And now I've asked for the card. Because the card is the ID because I went downstairs in the Seaview and said, I can't get in my room. And they said, well, that's not your card. Okay, so that gave me the link as to who really stole extremely emotional possessions of mine. I think that I brought this to your attention because I find it a lack of interest. I have hired an attorney because At 77 years old, I want to be treated with a little bit more respect than, well, we can't find the card. So where does that leave me? The loss of very important items to me. My family is all deceased. The jewelry was part of their estates. And I just would like a little more care and a little less thought about money than, you know, well, it's the Seaview. I knew the Andreases. They're from Decatur, Illinois. My whole family knew them. I know the whole group. And I have yet to go over there because I was going to take the card again over there and say, this is how this happened. This is who did it. And as of this morning at 10 o'clock, I heard from the police department, we're not doing anything more. That makes me questioning, who do they take care of? Thank you.

Dave Sanchez, 10894th Street, Bay Harbor Islands. In the recent Bay Harbor Islands meeting last week, there was a discussion by council members, very quick kind of council remarks in the beginning of the meeting, about the idea of unifying the July 4th, maybe the New Year's fireworks events all together, the three municipalities, Surfside, Valhalla, Bay Harbor. It was like an idea that was brought up and discussed. Most of the council kind of agree, yeah, we'll look into it and such. I remember when I was young, because I lived here all my life, I'm 21, when I lived here, I remember we usually kind of walked to, we usually took 96th Street to walk all the way to the beach, and that's where everyone saw the fireworks and stuff like that. Maybe I might be getting it wrong as a kid. my young memory that I had. But just giving an update because Bay Harbor might be asking. I already kind of told Surfside about it. So I know it's already too late. It was kind of last moment and stuff like that. I know that Battle Harbor and Surfside were going to agree either way to certain July 4th celebration events. But maybe for next year or New Year's Eve, there could be kind of unification of the municipalities. Thank you.

Thank you. rahab won't wait about for drive um a couple of comments i wish we could set this thing up and we used to have it and maybe the vice mayor new york because you guys go through this really fast before when we have a constant agenda you could be able to say take this thing out you're going too fast over it we don't get an opportunity to say i want this pulled out so i wish you could set up a time or a way when before it used to be any objection in the consent agenda in public, and then we could do it. Because right now, it's just passed and I had objection, but it's already done. That's number one. Number two, about the freebie. Most municipalities, with the exception of Bal Harbor, the freebies that they take, they also bring you back. Here, in Bal Harbor, if you even go to Surferside, drop you off at Publix, and the person wants to come back, they won't pick you up. It just drops you there. So to me, what's the point? I mean, we only have a little half a mile area just to go around. If somebody wants to go to Surferside or Bay Harbor, they take you there, but you can't come back. So I think that has to be looked into it, whether we could expand to maybe Sunny Isles or whatever. That's number two. And the other thing is sometimes... Just like that freebie discussion that you had when the person gave presentation, I wish even though it's not an agenda, you give the opportunity to people to voice it, because I would have liked to ask that lady your questions or think, well, we don't get the opportunity and we have to ask you here, and they're not here to ask. Because, for example... My wife tried to use that freebie twice. Over an hour, nobody showed up. And he complained and stuff, and that was done, so we never used it anymore. So I wanted to ask, so if sometimes things you have, I like to ask the person who's making a presentation, ask questions, and I don't get to do it. Especially like when they were doing the... The financial thing, the guy was talking about the war and so forth and stuff. I would have liked to ask him how his position is if there is a recession. I would have liked to ask him what he would have wanted done if the inflation goes up next month, which it will go over 4.1. What effect will have? Even if the war stops today, the price of the gas is not going to come down. And what's the possibility? So, you know, I wish there was a way that we could ask them questions and we don't get to do it. Thank you. Nika.

Nika Logan, 64 Camden Drive. My question or comment is the traffic on 96th Street. No one is respecting the box. And the Bell Harbor shop light is stalling everybody coming west. I mean, the bridge in Bay Harbor, that's a problem. But we need to get the municipalities, the PDs to work together so that if people are coming from Byron, across the light that people have to stop and not be in the in the cross in the box so that you could proceed otherwise the whole intersection is stopped dead and the afternoons I find that it's the worst and it's probably bad at other hours as well but you know that light right here at the shops is the worst thing ever because it stops constantly the flow of traffic

Okay. Thank you, Nika. So to the chief, do you have anything you want to share?

Chief, why don't you come up and can I update you? Because I know that there's work ending on the signal.

Yeah, so while he's coming up, Alejandro, you got something?

Yes, I just wanted to remind you. But I hear what you're saying regarding the questions and opening and have an opportunity. But generally speaking, we have five council members here. Since it's an email, call us. You have our members. We are online. I understand. We can always go back. We can always go to the manager.

Let's appreciate your point. Chief, thank you.

With regards to the traffic issue, Nick is correct. I know that we've been talking about that light at the shops for quite some time. I can share with you today they have until the 28th of this month to install it. The part has been there. It requires that it has to be completed by the 28th, meaning that the sensor on top of the traffic light, will register when there's a vehicle there, and then the light will cycle. If there's no vehicle there, then the light will continue to flow. Now, what we have to take into consideration is, and I understand that sometimes, especially during peak hours, that we see a huge amount of traffic flow. We also have a huge amount of pedestrian traffic, so we have to consider the people activating the crosswalks at the 500 block of 96th Street, especially when the kids are getting out of school, those crosswalks are activated. In addition to that, the one that was added at 916 Harding also contributes to the delays. So if you're coming out of Byron and the traffic backed up, The light switches, changes, and you can only go so far to Harding Avenue. So that causes the delays. Now, typically what we do is with our Collins Corridor Unit, we'll pull him during the afternoon hours and station him at that intersection. Because what we found was vehicles have difficulties coming out of the intersection. out of the shops because of the backup of the it's got the blocking of the box at 96th street so we're aware of it um lieutenant omago has assigned a collins corridor unit there to assist it and then hopefully by the 28th this with that pieces installed it should resolve the issue great great thank you very much okay there was no more public comment village manager reports

No report, sir. Okay. Village clerk report. Your package. And village attorney report.

I have a request to schedule executive sessions in the following litigation matters at a time to be determined pursuant to Section 286011-8, Florida Statutes, for the purpose of discussing settlement negotiations and strategy related to litigation expenditures. Each of these is entitled Bal Harbor Shops LLC versus Bal Harbor Village. And the cases, I'll give the case numbers to the clerk, but they are the Live Local Act case, the Noise case, the Supermajority Voting Requirement case, and the Takings case. Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much. And thank you, everybody, for your patience in this long meeting. Meeting is adjourned. Have a good night.

Thank you. She is going to do it then.