Town Council - Special Meeting

Okay. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the official agenda for the June 9th, 2026 regular town council meeting. Want to welcome everybody. Meeting officially called to order. Town clerk, roll call, please.

Mayor Singer. Excuse me. Mayor Singer.

Here.

Vice Mayor Mindell. Councilwoman Luskin. Here. Councilman Bernstein. Here. And Councilman Einstein. Here.

Just want to correct myself. That's Assistant Town Manager Linda Epperson. Welcome and thank you very much. You're welcome. If we could all please rise. And Chief Rudy Herbelo, if you could lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, it would be appreciated.

Appreciate it. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay, fantastic.

Mayor, real quick, just for the record, Sir, Town Clerk Lissa Perez is currently at a clerk conference on the West Coast, but she is available via Zoom for any questions the council may have for her.

Okay, thank you for that. First, this evening, we have some presentations today. We're going to have two presentations. One is called Curative Health Insurance Presentation, and the other one is Sidecar Health Insurance Presentations. And we appreciate you coming this evening. I do want to point out we have a long council meeting, so We try to limit the presentation to 10 minutes. And then if the council has any questions or anyone from the public has any questions, we will go from there. But who's going to speak first? If you could come up to the podium and introduce yourself.

Mayor, we'll have Curative go first. And they're on Zoom. And just real quick for the public and for what we're doing. So as you know, typically during the summer months, we start to go out and go out to seek brokers to help us create. health insurance options and insurance options for the employees and the members of the plan through the years as we've revisited health insurance options each year there are these new insurance models that present to us you know a cost savings or a new approach to health insurance and every year we've somewhat been dismissive because we haven't really understood whether there's any tolerance or level of acceptance from the council to explore alternatives. So rather than spin our wheels this summer, as the healthcare market has become smaller, with the number of providers becoming smaller, what I wanted to do, and thank you, Mayor, for allowing us to do this tonight, is have Curative and Sidecar present their models to you. There's no decision to be made. I just want them to present to you. Then during the summer break, individually, I will meet with you to see if there's any bite at the apple so that we're not spending our time or their time exploring it. If there's no bite at the apple, then we're going to go the traditional route, get a broker and then shop insurance and bring something to you at your September meeting. but today's purpose is a 10 minute presentation from two new approaches to health insurance offering in South Florida. With that, I'm gonna let Curative go first since they're on Zoom and then we'll let Sidecar since they're in person. So Curative, take it away.

Thank you so much. Good evening, everyone. My name is Stacey Granger. I'm the VP of sales down here in South Florida. And it really is an honor to be able to spend a little time with you and share what Curative is all about. Hopefully I'll give you some really good thought and just want to make sure everyone can see my screen. Unless you say no, I'm going to keep going.

We can see it.

Perfect. Very good. Curative. We are a newer health insurance carrier. You may have heard of Curative from back in the dark days of the pandemic, and you may have had a COVID test from Curative. But in 2022, our founders launched the health plan in Austin, Texas, and we have about 180,000 members. We've primarily been selling in Florida, Texas, and Georgia. We just launched our health plan in Maryland and D.C., and we're also now selling in Indiana. We have members in all 50 states. And the company is A-rated by AMBEST. And when you look at some of the information on the slide here, there's some things we're very proud of. And one of them is something I'm going to probably say about six times in my presentation, which is that we ask our members to do one thing called the baseline visit. And it's very near and dear to our hearts at Curative. And I'll go into a deep dive on that in just a few moments. When Curative founded the health plan, what we were really looking to solve for is that the root of all evil in healthcare is that the costs have become so prohibitive when people are going for services that it leads to the deferral of care and that people are not managing their health to the best possible outcome due to financial barriers. So in designing the health plan, we were very intentional. We wanted our members to have access to care at a zero copayment, zero deductible, even to be able to access preferred prescriptions at a zero copayment. A lot of times when I get to this point when I'm presenting, folks will say to me, Stacy, there's got to be a catch here. And there is not a catch, but we do ask for our members to engage in their health care. And the way that we do that is something called, again, that baseline visit. And just to give you a quick overview of how our benefits would work, everybody who comes on curative, they're seeking in-network care from day one through 120, everyone has access to a zero-copayment, zero-deductible plan. No questions asked. You've got a free look, and you stay in-network, and you really do have those tremendous benefits. During that 120-day period, you're asked to do that one thing, which is scheduling your baseline visit. which is a Zoom call similar to what we're having today. And it really is your onboarding call with Curative and an opportunity to speak with a clinician to get engaged in your care. If you complete your baseline visit during that first 120-day period, your benefits for the entire plan year will be at that zero copay, zero deductible level. And if you do not, sadly, whether you call it a carrot or a stick, the folks that do not do their baseline visit will have their plan benefits actually reduced to a $5,000 deductible. They'll have 80% coverage, still good coverage, but by all means, we really want 100% of our members to enjoy the zero deductible benefits. So everyone who starts out at that zero copayment situation, only those that procrastinated and did not do their baseline visit, that Zoom call that we're talking about, would have that reduction in benefits. The example that I have up on the screen is a PPO example where there's out of network benefits as well. And we do offer three different plan design. We've got an EPO plan. Everybody stays in-network, and you've got tremendous benefits. Similar to the PPO plan that I have on the screen, same identical in-network benefits, a PPO. And then we've got a plan that's very, very rich called the PPO Max option. And like the name, it maximizes the flexibility for our members to stay in-network. in or out of network and access care either way, whether they stay in network or go out of network. They're actually going to have a zero copayment, zero deductible if they have completed their baseline visit. And that baseline visit is really our way to get members engaged in their healthcare. So, first and foremost, we ask folks to schedule that time. It could be nights and weekends. It could be during the business day. And we are able to do it in English and Spanish or multiple other languages using a language line. We want to connect with our members and have an opportunity to welcome them to Curative. Oftentimes, the only time people engage with our healthcare plan is when they've had something go wrong. So we're doing this proactive approach to onboarding our members. And then during that conversation, they meet with a care navigator who's there to answer their questions and make sure each person has that opportunity to have an overview personalized to them. And then everyone has an opportunity to speak with a clinician. And the goal of the conversation with the clinician is really about, are there any gaps in care that we can help you with? We want to make sure people are aware of all the preventative, proactive services that are available to them.

under the curative plan at a zero co-payments or deductible.

And quite frankly, we meet members where they are. You have folks that do their baseline visit, and they're doing great. They've got things on track, and there might not be a lot of recommendations that come out of that visit. Then you've got folks that need a little bit more guidance. A member says, I haven't been to the doctor in quite a long time, but I feel fine. Well, that's really a great opportunity for us to try and help them find a primary care doctor within the network or get them reengaged in their care. And then you've got folks that have a complex condition and really could use some clinical support. And we're there to meet the member where they are if that is the case. And we really do look forward to having our members engaged in their health care and really proactively managing things from the onset. So we're looking to provide them with care navigation if that's what they need. If someone does need case management, instead of waiting like most health insurance plans till something's happened and the member's been in the hospital or been diagnosed with something very serious, we're trying to get on the front end of that. through this baseline visit. So it's really a very big commitment from Curative. It all goes back to the adage of, you know, prevention really does lead to savings. And it's very important to provide that early engagement and guided care for our members to lead to savings for the employer group, as well as for the member to have that healthier lifestyle and better outcome. We've got support for our members for mental health. We really believe that we've got the best mental health network out there in addition to brick and mortar providers that we have that are supporting our members. We also have some really great online tools for our members. We've got support for our members for substance use management. Of course, we know type two diabetes and hypertension are very prevalent. We've got support built into our plans for our members that need any assistance. And then we have one thing that we cover that's very unique called the gallery test. And that's a cancer screening test that any member that's age 50 or over can opt to take. And it's able to diagnose up to 50 different types of cancer with a single blood test. And we cover that in full for our members that are 50 plus if they are interested in doing the test, not required. A lot of folks say to me, Stacey, how can you make this work? You're giving up that cost share that's just become the norm on health plans. And really what we're seeing is by giving up that cost share and getting people to engage in their health as an outpatient on an ongoing basis and not put off and defer care, we're seeing that curative is actually running with average length of stay for our inpatients and the bed days per thousand are far exceeding the for a well-managed health plan. As you can imagine, Curative is this blue line. And you'll see that we do trend below the Milliman benchmarking for a well-managed health plan. So we would definitely believe, are believers in that. The only hospital stay that is as good as the one that does not happen. So we really are trying to proactively manage claims on an outpatient basis as much as possible. And we tend to have more claims in that under $10,000 space and less in that 100,000, because we are taking a very proactive approach to making sure people are adhering to their medication, seeing their doctors on a regular basis, and not deferring something that can be handled at stage one until it becomes stage three or stage four. Curative has a unique approach to network. Our in-network providers are a combination of a couple things. We have providers that we've directly contracted with. We have providers that we call Curative cash card eligible providers, and our members access those providers also at a zero co-payment. And of course, we offer virtual care for our members through Curative telehealth. Our networks are national. We have one of two options that we will be quoting for you. If we are lucky to get the opportunity to quote for the town, we would be able to quote an option where we use a company called HealthSmart Preferred to provide national access, or we tap into oftentimes the Cigna PPO network as another option. But we want all of our members to have a national platform where they can access providers in every state. And then I mentioned the curative cash card being an important component of how we deliver in network care for our members. Over the last two or three years that we've been doing business here in Florida, we launched this program where we give all of our members a visa card if you're over age 18, and our members can access care at a network of providers within our network that are deemed curative cash card eligible providers. The cash card can be used to pay the cash rate for those providers. Member pays and phone member responsibility is zero as long as they're either in that first 120-day window or they completed their baseline visit. They're using their cash card to pay for any services with the curative cash card providers. The card does not impact the member's credit whatsoever. Our members are authorized users of Curative's credit card, so my absolute favorite credit card that I have in my wallet because I will never see a bill for those services. And it does expand the network. We even allow our members to nominate providers for use with the Curative Cash Card if there is a provider that's not within our network that's important to the member. The member can submit a nomination. We do a quick review, five to 10 business days, sometimes quicker. And then if the provider is approved, we add them to our provider search as a Curative cash card provider. So members with Curative will have two cards. They'll have a traditional insurance card. They'd use their traditional insurance card for all the providers that we have directly contracted with us, for lab work with LabCorp request. When they get their prescriptions filled, they use their traditional card. But on our provider search, there are providers and hospitals that are also listed as curative cash card providers. Members access those providers as well. But the conversation is just a little bit different because the member is going to be paying the cash rate for the services during that visit. And member responsibility will be zero. Another really important, hopefully I'm good on time. Another really important- You're at the 10 minute mark. Okay, I will just briefly mention prescription drugs. Just give her a few more minutes to finish.

Go on.

Go on, okay. Zero copayment for 98% of the medications that our members will be taking.

Can I stop you for a second? You're talking too close to your mic or your phone. You're hard to understand. Can you just try to slow down and just go through it?

Sure. Better? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, great. So prescription drugs, folks taking their medications as prescribed is one very proactive way to keep people out of the hospital and have better outcomes and better manage a condition. So we're very proud that because we have intentionally designed our formulary so that our tier one or preferred drugs will be a zero copayment for our members, the adherence to medications exceeds what is normally out there for most pharmacy benefit managers. And then I'm just going to mention to you all, with Curative, we believe it's very important that our employer groups have transparency and all of our groups, regardless of what size the group is or whether you go fully insured or level funded with us, you will have access to analytics to show the utilization trends amongst your population, including premium versus claims information. And I know I'm at time, but just to mention that what has really been near and dear to our members' hearts has been access to curative on a 24-7, 365 basis, and that each member will be assigned a care navigator as their own personal concierge to help them if they need any help with navigating the health care system in general. That's it for me. Thank you so much.

Before you go, I'm going to ask if my fellow council people have some questions. I have a few questions, but I'll let them go first. Councilwoman Luskin? No? Councilman Bernstein?

Can you go back to the first slide showing if you participated in your baseline? There were three different columns that you had. Can you go back to that first slide?

He'd like you to go back to the first slide.

Absolutely.

Wait a minute.

Sorry. Okay. The first first.

The one that had the three comparisons that said if you were out of network. That one. So with the out of network, potentially you could be $10,000 a person. Is that what I'm seeing is the exposure that somebody has $10,000 for each family member?

if you were to select a PPO plan and choose to go out-of-network, correct. But really, this way, most of our members will, you know, out-of-network is very small utilization in general. So, if you have your in-network benefits, that will be the same on your EPO, PPO, and PPO Max, where your in-network benefits will be at a zero copayment. But yes, if you do elect the PPO plan and you chose to go out of network, completely out of network, you would have a $10,000 deductible first.

And is it like I've seen issues where we're getting somebody in network might take several months or much longer than is normal. Is there something like if it takes somebody five months or four months to schedule something where you give them a break on the out of network where they If they can't find somebody in network, I've seen that happen often. I'm just concerned about that.

Yeah. If there's a provider that is, let's say, a specialist and someone needs a specific treatment, we have something called... It's a continuity of care or a single-case agreement that we can make an arrangement with a provider that's not contracted with us. Our members also have something else very unique. Because we have that cash card, it gives us additional flexibility for members to nominate providers that are out of network. And we can typically deem a provider to be cash card eligible for use and member using that in-network set of benefits with a zero copayment. through that nomination process. So we find a lot of times that members who do have a provider that's out of network that they would like to use, they go through that nomination process, which again is like a five to 10 day turnaround. If we approve it, then the members using the pass card for that provider and not having, like in this scenario on the PPO plan, they'd be avoiding their $10,000 deductible. It would hit their in-network benefits.

When you say out of network, how big is your network in South Florida?

Sure. So we have probably close to, I can probably speak, overall it's like over a million providers. I'm not sure exactly how many in South Florida.

Because you're pretty new to South Florida, correct?

We are, but you'll have access with Curative to some of our directly contracted providers. For example, University of Miami, Nicholas Children's, Jackson Memorial. You'll have access to Cleveland Clinic, Holy Cross, and Broward Health. And then you also have access to our Curative Cash Card Network, which includes Baptist Health, Mount Sinai HCA providers so virtually every provider members have access to either through the curative cash card for through the direct contracting situation. So we've really got to pass and It's really allowed us to have flexibility, unlike some issues with a health insurance carrier. When they don't have a contract, they tell their members you can't go there. But we have that two networks side by side, that curative cash card network, as well as the directly contracted network.

What pharmacies are you associated with?

For retail pharmacy here in Florida, we use Publix. We also use Walmart. And then we have curative mail order. On the PPO Max plan, we add CVS and Walgreens to the mix as well. And we will have pharmacies throughout the United States if a member is traveling or you've got kids that go to school outside of Florida.

Okay. Can you explain one more time the cash card? I don't understand the difference between the cash card and the PPO. I'm just trying to understand it.

Sure, of course.

But give me a short, abbreviated version and talk slowly.

You got it. Okay. So you go on our provider search and you're looking for a provider. If the provider is listed on our provider search, even if they are listed as being cash card eligible, you will pay zero and it will hit your in-network benefit for those services. Provider is completely not on our search. You do not nominate them and you go on your own to that provider. They have no contract and they also are not approved by us as a cash card provider. Then the member would be responsible for their deductible in the PPO plan. It would be $10,000 and then they'd have 50% coinsurance. Was that clear?

Yes, thank you. Councilman Einstein, you have a few questions? Yeah. Ken, were you done?

I'm skeptical of medical insurance in general, so I'm going to take this from your first thing about being screened for the benefit to get the max benefit. What if you screen somebody and say, oh, we don't like this particular individual? He's got too many pre-existings. What do you do with that individual?

So really the purpose of the baseline visit, the conversation that we have with our members is, you know, we're going to see the claims. We're going to find out what's going on with folks anyways. And we're really looking to be proactive. So let's say a member has been newly diagnosed with cancer and they could use some support from an RN with helping coordinate some of their care We do have a team of clinical care navigators that are available to help our members that might need that extra resource. So we're not mining those conversations for making exclusions to folks. We're really looking for how can someone be more proactively engaged in their health.

What if they don't follow your proactive recommendations?

Unfortunately, all we can do is lead the horse to water. We're really not able to force him.

We can't understand you. We can't understand you.

Sorry, we cannot force anyone to do anything. We can only lead the horse to water, so to speak, and get people engaged. So we can make suggestions and recommendations, let them know that there's not a cost associated with many of the recommendations that come out of a baseline visit. But we cannot penalize anyone financially. But we can definitely help people with ideas, food for thought, and getting them engaged in their own care. It's their own health journey.

I'm going to use a situation where somebody was diagnosed with a blood disorder 15 years ago, and they received a certain treatment for the past 15 years. with the medical provider out of Memorial Hospital and have been given certain modalities for those past 15 years. They come into your network and you say to them, you know, we don't like what you're doing because it's going to cost us too much money. And this person says, yeah, but I've been doing for 15 years and it's kept me alive. What happens in that situation?

If someone is under treatment for something, we usually look to make sure that there's continuity of care so that the member is, you know, continues on the same proactive course that they've been on before if it's been working for them.

What if that doctor is out of your network?

If the doctor's out of our network, we may need to work with them to see if we can come to a single case agreement. We may want to see if we can nominate that provider to contract with us, or we may want to make them cash card eligible so that we can bring them in scope.

And what if they don't agree to both of those terms? Maybe I don't know what your cash card is, and I don't know what your contracts look like, but let's say that doctor says, I don't want to work for that amount of money.

I think we'd go back and forth. If the provider was not willing to work with us at all, we would need to find another alternative that might be suitable. But I think that really would be the last resort. We would really try and keep the members. It's something very specialized. And it's not just, I don't know how you want to say, maybe personal preference. But at all times, we're really trying to keep the continuity of care for our members.

Thanks for the presentation. provide a list of the providers that you have in the South Florida area or in this region.

We'll send y'all the link and you'll have access to our provider network.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Noah. It's a pleasure to meet everyone and thank you. Good questions. I really appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you, Ms. Granger. Appreciate it. Okay. I didn't know, but did staff have any questions for them? Go on.

She mentioned all the hospitals, but not Memorial.

What was that? Is Memorial a... She didn't mention Memorial, Hollywood Memorial. And I think she left. Did she leave?

Yes, she left. We can always ask her. Okay, we can ask her.

Where was she located, by the way, on the Zoom? Oh, we don't know.

Okay.

Sidecar.

Alex, thank you for the overview as far as the goal. My name is Vanessa Collazo, Regional Sales Manager for Sidecar Health. On the line with me is Jeff Weiners, VP of Sales as well. If you have any high-level general questions about the company overall, he'll be chiming in, I'm sure. Thank you to Christine for the invitation and for thinking about innovative solutions for multiple years now as AOR on the account. Ultimately, at Sidecar, we have been seeing many of the challenges that you're seeing in today's industry. There is an exponential amount of rising costs year over year. Once we saw 20% as a high increase, and unfortunately, I have seen increases normalized at 80% and even 189%. Sidecar essentially found that there had to be a better solution, and I'm happy to share what we have to offer to you guys today. Ultimately, you guys have three paths forward. You can stick to the traditional network model that you're used to today, as I mentioned earlier. Ultimately, this may end up passing on additional higher premiums to you as a company that you could spend in other areas of your constituents and departments, employees, benefits and otherwise. You might be looking at narrow network solutions, where you have to continue to narrow down your options, your network solutions, as we've heard. But ultimately, you also have an option where you can drive engagement, empower employees to be healthcare consumers, and improve not just their access to care, but to also reduce their costs while enhancing benefits. At Sidecar, our solution, whether you're benchmarking us against national actuarial firms, carrier filings, jumbo employers, or even our own clients, we have shown that we are reducing medical costs by 23% all the way up to 37%. By us reducing costs we are essentially reducing your medical loss ratio, which is what ultimately impacts your renewal year after year. Sidecar is fairly new to the market as well. We entered it in 2018 in the individual space. In 2021, we launched our employer product for large groups after learning what worked and what didn't work in the market. We started out in Ohio. We then expanded to Georgia, Florida, and this year, Texas. And by this time next year, I expect we'll be in about at least 19 other states. That does not mean we do not provide national coverage. It just means you have to be headquartered in one of those states for us to write business. All members will have access to national coverage. Our product is different. The approach delivers savings without restricting care. We've heard a lot about in-network versus out-of-network. With Sidecar, there is no network. You can go wherever you want. When we buy insurance, we buy it to protect the most valuable commodities we have, whether that's our home, our car, or healthcare. What we want is for you to have the ability to have your doctor, your providers, make the decision as to what is best for your care. If you do not have prior authorizations, there's no mother may I situation. If your doctor says you need to take a particular drug, you get that drug. We do not have step therapy. We do not have fixed formularies. Our goal is to provide total transparency so that members better understand the true cost of health care and then ultimately make the best decision for their specific family's needs. One of the things that we're proud of is that at Sidecar, there is no high denial rates that you're often experiencing with network based solutions. Typically with network based solutions, you'll see something like an average of 19% denial rate after following the typical authorization protocols. With Sidecar, you see less than a 1% denial rate. When you are seeing denials, it's for things such as GLP-1s for weight loss. That is not an FDA approved reason to take GLP-1s. You can take GLP-1s for things like diabetic needs. Additional things that might be excluded of coverage or in the denial bracket might be things like advanced infertility or other lifestyle drugs, which are currently excluded in your plan anyway. So that's not a difference from what you have today. In this slide, what we'll see is an experience of somebody who gets diagnosed with a need for a surgery such as a rotator cuff injury. Today's world, in a traditional network-based model, you'll have to go see your doctor when this happens, and often you'll be recommended to get an MRI, possibly some physical therapy, You'll have to jump through different authorization protocols and processes. And by the time you get your surgery, we're looking at three months down the road. With Sidecar, since there is no authorization protocols and processes, you can more than likely get that surgery within four weeks' time. This is what we're doing. We're empowering, again, your provider and members. Our products are very similar to what you see today. We do have high deductible health plans. It's my understanding today you do not have those, so I will not focus on that. What I will share is that our plans typically tend to not only be richer in benefits, but they also reduce cost. To the far left, you'll see an example of the last base plan option I'm aware of that you have. And what you'll see is that in addition to a deductible, you have a coinsurance, you have co-pays, and you have other things that members have to come out of pocket for in a limited narrow network. With Sidecar, again, you would not be limited to that network. you would have a deductible and nothing more. There's no fixed co-pays. There's no fixed co-insurance. If you want it, I can offer it, but it's not our go-to. What this means is that members will be able to obtain a lot of the key services that they need, such as office visits, specialty drugs, urgent care facilities at no cost. In addition, It also means that the only things that apply to deductible would be things like hospital-based services, inpatient, outpatient services, labs, or imaging. So again, it either does or it doesn't apply to the deductible. And in most cases, the key services that members use will bypass that deductible. I also took a look back at previous opportunities that I've had to look at your group. And while I am comfortable saying that we on average save 10 to 20%, I will also share that in the last two years that we have looked at your account, we have presented a position of 19.8% in 2024 below your renewal, as well as 20% below your renewal last year. I look forward to showing something similar this year as well. So again, these are your baseline services that often members need. Sometimes members are afraid of going for a specialty office visit because they have to come out of pocket. I believe today on your base plan option where a majority of your employees are currently enrolled, you have $100 copay to see a specialist. With us, you would not have that. You would have the opportunity to pay that at no cost. Now, if your particular doctor charges more than our benefit amount, then you can still go to them. We will not limit you from going to them. But if they charge more than the benefit amount that we give, you would pay the difference. Can you repeat what you just said? Sure. We provide everybody a benefit amount for key services across the board. So, for example, let's give an actual example because I have a visual. Let's say for example you wanted to go for an office visit and during that office visit you wanted to see a particular doctor who charged in this scenario and I can zoom in just so that you see the numbers a little bit more clearly. Let's say that they charged $113. We might provide you a benefit amount of $153. If that doctor provides a savings, our members get to keep 50% of that. So we would actually pay the member $20 in this scenario. If your doctor charged more than the 153 that we provide, you would pay that difference above the benefit amount. So going back to my presentation and based on this question, a majority of our members do pay less than the benefit amount. In fact, 94% of our members, when they utilize benefits through us, end up paying less than a $50 copay. So again, today, you're paying $100 copay to see a specialist. 60. 60?

Yes.

So it might have changed last year. Thank you for the correction. So that being said, Even if you pay a $50 copay, you'd still be paying less than the $60 copay you're paying today. 78% of our members actually pay nothing or earn money. On average, $44 are earned per claim. And at the end of the year, a family of four still has about $989 of cash back that's unused that's returned to them. And when they do get cash back, the 78% of people that get cash back, they're not going to just some random doctor, low quality. A majority of them, 86% to be exact, are actually seeing four and five star rated doctors, according to the John Hopkins University tool called GAM, Global Appropriation Measures. So you're seeing high-quality doctors, and not only are you not paying the copay you're paying today, but you're getting cash back.

Yes. Let me see if anyone has questions because you're over the 10-minute time. Sure. So I'll start with Councilman Einstein. Do you have any questions?

Yeah. Tell me the negatives of your programs.

The one key difference is that with our members, they have to submit an invoice under certain circumstances. So our product will give members the opportunity to shop for healthcare as seen in this screen, like they shop for anything else in their lives or even their Christmas list on Amazon. They'll have all of the pricing available to them through the member portal or the app. They will be given a card by Sidecar Health to pay their providers in full at the time of service. but they need to provide us an itemized invoice that tells us what took place during that visit. That is the difference, that is the nuance in comparison to more network-based options. You do not always need to provide an invoice. In an emergency room situation, the hospital bills us. If you have to get lab work and you go to Quest, they are a no-swipe provider, they will bill us. If your bill is less than $500, you can give a description to us through our member portal and say something like, I went for an annual checkup, I got a flu shot, and that's it. So there's not a always have to submit an itemized invoice, but there are scenarios where you might have to submit an itemized invoice.

I'd be surprised. I heard your John Hopkins thing, but if I was a... Doctor, and I was at the top of my field, I would find it very difficult for me to discount my services when I knew I could get a higher dollar. I mean, they're forced to maybe take Medicare a lot. The higher end doctors drop Medicare. I would find it difficult to imagine that some of these doctors are agreeing to take this discounted plan for a refund to the customer.

I think that if providers were being paid immediately, that would probably be a true statement. But the reality is many providers, right, have to wait more than 90 days to get paid. On top of that, right, they may not get paid the co-pays or the deductibles or whatever else that is the member's responsibility. As a result, not only did our own CEO go through this experience where all of a sudden he had to pay less than a fraction of the costs, 25% on average savings when you pay cash pay. But yes, all of our members on our plan typically do get the benefit of a discount, better discount than even a network option because providers are getting paid immediately. Whatever they charge, they're getting paid by us with one swipe. So yes, they do give a discount.

And again, if we could get a list of those.

Well, I actually will give you a test drive account where you can go in and search your doctors like I have on screen here today. And if you wanted to, all you would do is say, look for a particular doctor. Like let's say I'm looking up my children's pediatrician, Ashley Bayer. And in this scenario, I would look up the doctor, find them. I'll see that they're five-star rated. And in this particular example, it'll say I earn $1. And the reason for that is because, again, my benefit amount is 153, and this doctor charges 151. Because my savings is just $2, I only get $1 back. I actually looked up a provider just this morning with Christine, and it was also a five-star rated doctor, and she got $20 back.

Can I ask a... I'm going to interrupt the last question, but so let's go... Interesting business model. So let's say I go in and see Ashley, right? Yeah. And she decides that she needs to do an in-office procedure.

Yeah.

And now there's another fee for that. I mean, my doctor doesn't list the prices for the services.

Yeah.

So... Typically, when we get the bill after the fact, you'll see what the negotiated rate with the insurance companies were. But I've never been into a doctor's office and say, here's the... You want to get your nails clipped, here's the price, right?

Right, it's not like a nail salon, right.

So you're taking it at face value that they're going to bill some rate that they're going to assume they're going to build... It's a hard connect for me.

I understand, right.

Because you're saying, well, you're just going to pay the list price, but there is no list price because they're not required to advertise their rates.

Well, we did not just come up with these numbers out of the blue.

The member side. Yeah, because it's a lot of work on your members. Correct me if I'm mistaken. So there's work to be done for the member. You have to submit stuff.

This right here, what you have on your screen, addresses Alex's point. We're not gonna make you responsible for something that you couldn't shop for. You know you can look up your doctor, but you may not know if they decide to do an EKG, a flu shot, remove a skin tag, whatever it may be. You don't have to worry about that. This is all inclusive of anything that happens Me earning $1 is my worst case scenario. I could earn $20 at the same doctor.

Well, I don't care about the earnings. What I'm afraid of is what you said earlier, which is what Councilman Einstein's position was. What if the services cost more than the benefit? I have to eat that. And what if that additional cost, like I wrote in for a skin tag and the skin tag removes $500.

I know it's not.

And your coverage is 153. I'm on the hook for the additional 350.

You're not. So right here, lower on the screen, you'll see that it says that it's inclusive of anything else that takes place during that office visit. So this is your worst case scenario inclusive of anything happening during that visit. Even if your doctor, all of a sudden, instead of charging the 151, charges $300 for that visit tomorrow, that's the peace of mind we're giving you. When you buy a traditional network model, you might find your doctor in network today. But that has no guarantee, as you know, right? You've changed from AVMED to Florida Blue to United. And what happened? Even in Florida Blue not long ago, all of a sudden, people bought Florida Blue, They went with that model and then found out two out of five major hospital systems were out of their network unexpectedly. You won't have that issue with us. Whether you end up raising your price or have additional services, by you clicking, searching your doctor, being comfortable with the number that's in front of you and saying, guarantee costs, that is your maximum liability for the full plan year. Didn't get a chance to do this before your office visit? No problem. You can actually lock in this service 30 days post your service.

But you have to do it.

Ideally, but if you don't, all it says is that you still are reflective based on the benefit amount. But it gives you that peace of mind that if the doctor raises the price, you won't have to worry. So our account managers, our field service reps are going to help out on a one on one basis during open enrollment to make sure every single employee has an opportunity to discuss their options.

Gotcha. We have a long council meeting. Yes. And I'm sorry, Ken, you have a question?

A couple questions. Sure. Following the onus of putting the onus on the patient to get in all the bills, which I find daunting sometimes just looking at where I've been, much less go through and say, okay, I went to this doctor and he did this, this, and this, and if I miss something, I'm not sure that's handled, but is it possible or... When you go to the doctor's office, you can say that I'm in sidecar. Can you put in the paperwork for you? Or that's not a possibility?

There are some providers that have decided to contract with us directly. So for example, just two weeks ago, we had Florida Cancer Center say, hey, we don't want anybody that comes to us to have to submit the invoice, we'll do that for you. And there are no swipe contracted providers that are on our website. But as far as the doctor willing to do that, It doesn't have to be an itemized invoice, as I said before. They can actually provide doctor's notes. They can provide discharge paperwork. When they go for prescriptions, 99.9% of the time you pick up a prescription, there's a piece of paper stapled to your prescription. That's what we need, and we just need an image of that. And again, you have 90 days to submit that. So it's not something like I went for my visit and I don't have it today, but they'll make it available to me three days, you know, next week, next month. You have up to 90 days to submit the documentation. And you, again, can give a description as well as an alternative to the itemized invoice. You don't have to provide the itemized invoice.

Second question with regards to you showed a flat rate. Does that flat rate kind of change with the different type of doctors? that maybe a dermatologist might be $150, a cardiologist might be...

Yes, specialty might vary how much we provide you as a benefit amount. Every CPT code, we have over 170,000 CPT codes that based on Milliman data, Medicare data, member claims data, helps us come up with a benefit amount, and there could be different benefit amounts based on specialty as well as service.

The example you gave of seeing a hip replacement, It cut it off before the physical therapy. Is physical therapy something that's also included with you? Correct.

This is a total replacement to your major medical plan. So it's going to meet all ACA requirements, preventive services, meet Medicare Part D. It's going to have every coverage that you have today in a major medical plan. will be continued through our major medical plan.

So if a doctor says you need 20 or you need 10 visits to a PT and then you go back to him and he says you need another 10, is that automatically approved?

Again, right, because there is no authorization. All insurance carriers may have some limits as far as office visits covered in their plan and product. We do have ours as well. If you go to dashboard and you look into plan details, You'll be able to see what the limitations are. And again, I do plan on giving you access to our portal. But when you scroll here below, it'll give you the amount of office limitations for specific types of services.

And one last question. Sure. Just with preventive medicine going forward, and I think a lot of people with Outlive and these different books that are out there that everyone is looking for wellness, is something like the... Like the cancer one that was just suggested in the last scenario, are those type of, like if you just want to go get a cancer screening, is that something that you could just say, hey, I want to do this? Or is this something you would need to go to a doctor?

Yeah, if your doctor says that you need a cancer screening, you get a cancer screening.

Okay.

Yeah. Same. And, you know, the reality is there's a lot of new things that we're seeing today. So, for example... As a woman in my over 40s, we're looking at perimenopause, hormone replacement therapy. We've got new different solutions coming up, such as Midi Health, these new applications that are going out. For us, just remember, we're not tied to a network. So as long as you are going to a licensed doctor, you can go to that doctor for your services, whether it be for cancer screening or HRT therapy or whatever else it is.

Gotcha. And my last question. You were kind of saying what wasn't covered at a certain point like in terms of you were saying some exclusions, right? So things like so like things that like were path it was something a Few years ago that I never heard out. That's kind of an alternative to statins But just two three years ago. I was hearing that that's really far out Is that something is those type of medications come out or those always included or is that something?

What did you say homeopathic?

No, we're patha It's for cholesterol

Okay.

It's injectable.

Okay, so yeah, we can, we have, again, we don't have a particular formulary, but I can look it up. Do you know the spelling of that drug?

I just mean, they're just, they're just, they're kind of cutting edge stuff, like rapamycin type of. R-E-P what?

Repatha, R-E-P-A-T-H-A. Okay, so syringe, Repatha syringe.

But these are more like cutting-edge medicines that are just coming out.

So again, so here on the screen, you see that you can look up a prescription. It'll say that the benefit amount is $633. And again, if you get this drug at Los Olos Chemistry, you'll earn $34.59 with us. If you go to other locations, you might earn less. And if you go to other places, like even CVS, you'll still earn. But again, it's $4. But if you go to Walgreens, you'll pay $3.95.

So you don't pay anything?

You will not pay. In fact, you'll earn $34.59 if you go to Las Olas Chemist. OK.

Thank you.

Just very quickly. Sure.

You said no network.

Whenever we want. There's no circumstance at all where a doctor's office is going to say, we don't know what sidecar is. We don't take it. You can't have an appointment.

One area that does come immediately to mind, for example, is in California, certain HMO type facilities where you need to have their insurance and you can only see their own providers. They are exclusive to their own members, and they will not take cash pay or any other network for that matter, whether it be the Blues, United, right, Cigna's, Aetna's, et cetera. You need Kaiser for them. So those would be some circumstances that come to mind.

Okay. I want to thank you very much. We're over our time limit. Go on.

Sure. I had a dermatology situation with my nose, and I opted to get radiation on it versus Mohs surgery. Mohs surgery would have been a lot less money. The radiation was point of treatment, and the gross billing for that was $30,000. I was a little surprised, but our insurance carrier, they approved it ahead of time. It might have been billed $30,000, but it might have gotten reduced. Radiation is a big number for most treatments of anything, cancers, whatever. It's a moneymaker for hospitals. How would you treat that? How would your company treat that situation? I'd first have to get an approval on that.

Again, so there is no formal authorization, but what we do is you would end up getting supported by our complex care team or our care partner navigators. But ultimately, you would contact member services and say you needed a particular surgery, like you just mentioned. You might even have a place that you prefer to have it or that was recommended to you. In the screen, what we have is an example where somebody said, I needed a particular service, and ideally, I'd like to go to Dr. Jacob Miner. And what we said to the member is, well, if you go to Dr. Jacob Minor at an outpatient facility, you'll pay nothing. If you go to Dr. Jacob Minor at the hospital, you'll pay $3,000. But you also can go to Dr. Evan Longfield, who's five-star rated, who charges a fraction of the price, and earn $2,000. So in your particular scenario, you would have the ability to either use our benefit amount to offset what your cost is, or potentially go to another location with the same doctor and nothing.

If I want to go Sloan Kettering, what happens?

because you can have an open access. You can go to New York. You know, I'm originally from New York myself. If you wanted to go to Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York, if you wanted to go Mayo Clinic, you know, whatever, you could do that.

Okay, thank you. I want to thank you very much. Absolutely. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mayor, just for the record, I just want to recognize that Christine Nunzio, who's the insurance broker, is currently in the audience, and she helped put this together. So thank you, Christine. Thank you, Christine.

Thank you. Okay, moving on to the agenda. Uh, we have motion to set agenda additions deletions removal of items from the consent agenda or changes to the agenda I have none fellow council Town staff.

Yeah mayor just wanted to let you know resolution 30 78.26 has been updated the there was a scribbler's error on the uh supporting documents And also at the previous meeting ordinance 616.26 had a scribbler's error that was corrected before the mayor signed the ordinance So those are the two changes

I'm sorry, sir. Mr. Manager, it's actually Resolution 3079.26 that had the Scribner's error.

Who said that?

It's me, sir.

I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Welcome.

79. And without objection, those two Scribner's errors will be corrected.

Okay. All in favor, say aye. Aye. No one opposes? Okay. Those changes were noted. Moving on to good and welfare. We have anyone here for good and welfare?

Yes, we have one person for good and welfare.

Speak at the mic, please.

Welcome. Good evening. I'm Francine on 571 Golden Beach Drive. I spoke to a couple of you about... the July 4th celebration. I think the Memorial Day was nice, but Memorial Day is considered, you know, sad. We're mourning all the people who've died for our country. July 4th is the 250th anniversary of our country, and I think we should have a celebration. I know we usually just do hot dogs on the beach. I know no fireworks because we've never had fireworks, but I do think we should have a celebration. I walk a lot. I talk to a lot of people, and most people feel that way. It would be a disgrace not to celebrate the 250th birthday.

Mr. Mayor, if I may. So, Ms. Allen, thank you so much for bringing that to the forefront today. So we are planning to have an alternative 4th of July at the beach this year. In fact, some of the goodies that we've already ordered are on the day edge for the council. So that day, throughout the day, there's going to be tons of games and activities for the community to participate together. We ordered tons of Americana brand wear for our residents to enjoy. There will be a hot dog vendor like we've done every year. And there'll be music also played throughout the day at the beach. So it's not your typical, you know, just hot dog stand, nothing else. We have games activities that are being programmed. And also for any residents of Golden Beach that wishes to see fireworks in working with Bow Harbor and Surfside, they're doing a joint barrier island community fireworks show. And our residents are always welcome to attend those fireworks display. Best location to see that is from Hollover Park. So if you go to Hollover, you'll see the 4th of July fireworks from Bow Harbor and Surfside will be bringing their activities to 96th Street, and we're welcome there as well. So if you're looking for nighttime programming, join the Barrier Islands for the joint celebration. But at our beach during the day, there'll be tons of games, fanfare, light music, and refreshments.

Will there be the food trucks?

No. There's a food vendor.

There is a food vendor?

There's a food vendor, yes.

What kind of food?

Hot dogs.

Oh, anything else besides hot dogs?

Hot dogs.

Like that you always have.

Hot dogs.

But I think we should have a cake. I mean, I think there should be, you know, patriotic music. I mean, it should be just more. Come on.

What would the council like for me to take their staff away from their homes to be at our beach to do what? So I could do that for our staff. Well, I mean, that's what you're asking us. So I have no problem doing it. What would you like? Because we are doing games. We're doing giveaways. We're doing music. We're doing hot dogs. We can have a cake. Can we have a cake? We can put cupcakes, sure.

Yeah, we'd like to do a nice cake.

Who would you like to officiate? We'll have cupcakes, because who would you like to officiate a cake cutting with celebration?

Well, I think maybe we could pay the beach personnel who are there.

Yeah, we could do cupcakes, but do you want somebody to do an official cutting? Is that what you're asking us to do? No, not to do official cutting.

Do a pull-up America. We'll pull it from now. But just, I think the point being just a little bit nicer than what we normally do, just 250th anniversary. You bring up a good point.

And I think we should play patriotic music, lean green. I mean, it should be that kind of atmosphere. It should be a celebration, you know, because this is a lifetime. None of us are going to be here for the 300, unless you're, you know.

We might be. I will be. They're doing real big things in longevity medicine. We'll spruce it up a little bit more.

What's the population? I just think we should do more.

It's Saturday this year, so it's going to be a good day. It's a Saturday this year, so it'll be a good turnout. Thank you. We'll make it work.

Could I just add one, Jim Allen, 5'7", Francine's husband. I just had a couple other ideas. You see the nice banners that Sunny Isles Beach has along the street here celebrating the 250th. If we can have some kind of street decorations, maybe extra flags going up. I know there's usually you put up flags for the 4th of July, maybe even give the residents a flag to put on their yard to kind of decorate the town a little bit more. And Judy, your youth group did a great job on Memorial Day. A lot of times people during the celebration of the Fourth will do a reading of the preamble of the Declaration of Independence. That might be something to just throw in there just to offer. I know it's a kind of a come as you are, come when you go, come as you go type of a thing. But I'm just tossing out ideas that you can really make it a little special.

We'll talk it over with the manager. We'll see what we can add. Thank you for your suggestion.

We'll make sure we add some stuff.

Moving right along. Anyone else from Good and Welfare? Thank you. Thank you. Moving right along. Mayor comments. I got a quick few. Great news. This will be the fifth time since I've been mayor that we'll be lowering the proposed millage rate. It's the first time since I believe 2016. The new millage rate we're budgeting for, we're shooting for 7.99%, which saves the residents of Golden Beach will save a total of approximately almost a million dollars, $900,000, okay? The average resident should save approximately around $2,500, and that's even before the new homestead exemption raise, which is going from $50,000 to first year $150,000, next year $250,000. So, you know, we're excited about that. We're shooting for that. And I think the residents will really appreciate that.

What's that? Is that 150, 250 already? No. No, it's not signed by the governor.

But I said proposed. It's not voted on by the governor.

Voted on November, right. And I do not know if it's going to be implemented this year. Because we vote on November and the tax bill goes out prior to that, so I don't know how they're going to implement that. But with that said being, the Wellness Center is moving along based on the projection today. The Wellness Center should be ready to operate in December of this year, and that's what we're shooting for. That's what we're excited about. The parks are closed except for Pickleball and tennis and pickleball will be closed probably within the next week tennis. We're gonna try to prolong as long as possible A few more quick other notes hurricane season is here. I know a lot of people are leaving town I can't urge you enough to prepare your home prior to leaving and if you are leaving, please notify Town Hall and the police department so they can put an extra watch on your house and as before we know it, we'll be in the middle of hurricane season. Hurricane season started June 1st. So again, I can't tell you enough to prepare. Also in August, there are the primaries. If you're around I urge you to vote if you're not around you could do your mail-in Voting but August is the primaries. There's several obviously positions that are open and I suggest you do your research and Do definitely voice your opinion and vote and again welcome I want hope all the residents have a great summer. We're excited that the summer is here at the same time. That means we're halfway through the year. So we've got a lot of projects to complete before the end of the year. We've accomplished a lot of projects. I can't thank the town manager and the staff for what they've accomplished so far this year. And by the end of the year, we're really going to make tremendous progress. And once again, I hope everyone has a great summer. So with that, I'll turn it to council comments. Councilwoman Luskin.

The town grounds and the common areas have been really looking very good. Especially I see main guy working on the, I call it the buffer on the west side of Golden Beach Drive. It's never looked so good. I don't know if they're fertilizing or what, but the streets look beautiful. The hedges along the scene. We just keep cutting them down shorter and shorter. Can't we let them grow to kind of conceal? I think they just don't realize that we don't want to trim. I want to also thank Eric, Michael, and Lisette for all the help they give me for Veterans Day and Memorial Day. It's really very much appreciated. I don't always thank Lisette, but she also helps me put together my remarks for the day, so I want to thank them, and in general, I want to say that I always hear you, Alex, thank the staff. But the staff, without exception, public works, the office staff, the police department, they're all so cordial all the time. And I think that's directly coming from your leadership because if they're not cordial, they don't seem to stay very long. So you really put together a very, very good group. I'd also like to say that I'd like to thank Alex and Fabian for the program they put together with the Golden Knights. It was so well received by the community. It was just something that people go to air shows and travel all over the place to see the Golden Knights. And there they are landing right on a dime in front of the pavilion. So it really was a very, very well-organized, enjoyable program. And I apologize to Fabian because when I thanked him, I thanked Fabian wasabi, which I think is a spice. And I meant wasabi, but they had a little levity. To everybody else, happy Fourth of July.

And hats off to both Councilman Bernstein and Councilman Luskin, who took the plunge and did the jump, which is very, very impressive. I never thought you guys would do it.

We're tied together for life now.

Councilman Bernstein?

Wasabi probably would be OK with that. He's a little caliente. Spicy. Sure. I want to say first thank the town and Fabian. What an amazing, amazing event. for the Golden Knights, a thrill of my lifetime. And being there with Judy after all these years, I can't believe something could bring us so much closer in just a few hours. But it was really an incredible thing. It was surprising to me to see how many people in the town were down there cheering us on, greeting us, and really marveled at the Golden Knights and their precision of how well they landed and how orchestrated was and especially coming on the heels of the air, the air and sea show that as opposed to having to go all the way down to the beach, everyone got to see something here. And I just thought it was a remarkable way to start off Memorial Day event going to Memorial Day. Judy, amazing job and staff. Amazing job. I really I feel like it's such a community event and everyone it's you know, it's one of these things where we get away from just celebrating and being together and being a community and just gets everyone more familiar with each other. And I never really think of July 4th, but I remember in 1976, the 200th anniversary seemed like such a big deal to me. I don't know if it's because I was in school, but this is the 250th. And I don't know why, maybe just because I'm older, but it doesn't seem like it has that pizzazz. I do like the idea of us spending a little more money. And I know not as many people are here at that time of year, but I just think it would be nice if we did something. And maybe, to your point, Alex, maybe we could get some residents to take some of the responsibility on if we can come up with a small budget and just make something kind of nice. And I love the idea of doing something, saying 250th anniversary somewhere that might stay out for the rest of the year. I just don't think we see it enough and it'd be nice to be showing. And thank you for arranging the, to Alex and staff, thank you for arranging that health insurance ahead of time because I like that we're hearing a bunch of different options and have a little time to digest it. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilman Einstein?

Yeah, first of all, you know, I'm going to go back with that statement. There is no place like Golden Beach. There really isn't. And Judy Memorial Day, Ken and Judy coming down on that parachutes, the community coming together. And that's it. Golden Beach is community. You know, it's a very affluent community, but people still want people and they want to be part of a group. And when they come together in an event like that and you see everybody interacting and, you know, there may be in a squabble about something that but that was such a good feeling with everybody happening. The Golden Knights also. them sitting down and eating with us and exchanging their experiences. I think the golden, I forgot which one, maybe the one with Ken that came down, I said, have you ever had any accidents? And the guy sighed, he was full of pins. You know, he broke every rib, his leg was shattered. You know, it was a different type of, landing i'm glad i didn't know that it was a different type of it was when they forgot that was jake they had a small shoot they had to land within a certain battle zone type of thing and you know and he came in like one side wasn't right and whatever but anyway those guys were great they shared their experiences um Really made me proud. I think what the mayor said earlier in blanket terms and what we have been trying to work towards and what the town manager has trying to advocate and the mayor's been trying to advocate, this council has been trying to advocate for the town is we are lowering taxes. The millage is going to be lower, but what it really means is that taxes from the Golden Beach end because the tax is the county has, you know, a big portion of it. We have 28% Alex of that bill so that we are in that has been our motivation so that the people in the public should know that this is what we've been trying to do. We're trying to bring down taxes and I think feather in everybody's cap who has made that happen. And the other thing is, town looks great. The projects that are going on, the wellness center, this town is unbelievable.

If we had a public, we'd never have to leave.

I know. Okay, moving right along. Town manager report.

Mayor, let me just pick up where Councilman Einstein just left off. So it's important to recognize that this year, and there's an action item, and I'll speak in greater detail there, but we will be putting together a budget that lowers the town's millage rate for the first time in 10 years to 7.99, and it's the first time in almost 25 years below 7, to 7.99. It's a way for us to acknowledge the times that we're living in, The cost of living in South Florida has gone up 12.8%. Fuel cost is through the roof. And we're gonna do so in a very responsible way by honoring our employees and meeting all the expectations. Let me tell you, we are a premier community to live in. And whether you like the administration or the manager or not, we are also leader amongst our peers. So this past, just two weeks ago, the manager led a panel at the statewide conference on issues that are dealing with the state. And our Golden Beach Police Honor Guard was selected from all of the Honor Guards in the state of Florida to open the general session for the City Manager's Conference in Orlando. So not only do we see what's going on here and the great things that we bring to the table, But the state of Florida and my leaders and my colleagues from throughout the state acknowledge that. Mayor, we had a wonderful wellness fair here for our employees. The first time that we've had a wellness fair in over, God, probably 10 years. I want to thank Elena Chung and Lissa Perez for putting that together. We had over 13 vendors that were here talking about wellness and the great things that we do. For our employees this morning. We had a little bit of an incident in town We we don't know what what we don't know until something happens. We lost power to all of the access controls And so we were locked out of the building for over From 3 a.m. To about 8 a.m. And so we've we've had to come up with alternative ways to access the buildings of of Residents were asking why was all the staff outside the building this morning. That's what happened this morning. We did start a major code enforcement suite. Over 40 homes have been cited with warnings. There's one more that I need to hand deliver tonight. But we are starting to do a code enforcement suite. We want our residents to know that before you go on vacation, we want you to make sure that your properties are well maintained so that those of us who are staying behind Can't appreciate what's going on tomorrow at 6 o'clock. Sorry tomorrow at 4 o'clock. We have doggie days on the beach So bring your four-legged hairy friends not the manager to doggie days at the beach starting at 4 o'clock Phenomenal Memorial Day event. I missed it. But the video that was made by our by our event planner was phenomenal I want to thank Eric Garcia and all of the staff who worked at that event the jump and The jump was organic. It just came together. I do want to thank Representative Fabian Basabe for putting that together. Yesterday, he did launch his kickoff campaign for his reelection. And just know that Representative Basabe has been a friend of Golden Beach, and we support all of his efforts and thank him for that. Mayor, I just want to remind everyone state law has changed. So if you are a voter, be cognizant of the waterways. You're seeing more boating activity, and now we have our hands tied as it becomes enforcement. We no longer can do safety inspections and safety stops of boats in the waterway. We need to have a... criminal reason with probable cause to stop a vessel on the water now. So it's not like the old days where we were able to just, you know, do a safety check. So just be very mindful. As you know, boating safety takes personal responsibility. Also, on Monday, FIFA comes to South Florida. And I say this for if you do not need to be in areas where there are FIFA-sponsored events or in vicinities of FIFA-sponsored events, don't go. I will tell you that from a public safety perspective, we as managers and our police departments have been put on notice that FIFA-related events and FIFA stanchion events bring with them a lot of people and a lot of people who are looking to create problems. So stay away from the FIFA area if you don't need to be there. Traffic is going to be a nightmare wherever FIFA is, especially in the waterways. And if you're going to FIFA, please be safe and send me pictures. So FIFA. And FIFA will be in town from the kickoff starts tomorrow and it goes through July 18. So it's FIFA season. So it's going to be a good month. I want to also just quickly, just two other quick things. I wrote them down somewhere.

Where did I write them down?

Oh, here. I'll talk about the budget during the item, and I'll talk about building. And that's it. That's the manager. Oh, and as always, I'd like to thank all of our staff, whether it's our public works staff, our police department, our office staff, for all of the hard work that they do to make me look great as the manager. We're going to have a very busy summer, but we're looking forward to the break. Thank you.

Okay, moving right along, town attorney report. Steve, you have anything?

Nothing.

Okay, ordinances first reading, there are none. Ordinances second reading, there are none. Quadratus resolution, there are none. Major project update, town manager.

Mr. Mayor, let me start off first with a clarion. As you know, the town council approved that we migrate from Cougar Mountain to a clarion financial software. Had a big meeting with the clarion team just yesterday and our team. Know that we think that we have a good target date to go live with a clarion and we're looking forward to getting a clearing up and running. Once a clearing is up and running, there'll be a lot more transparency in the world of our financial reporting, and it'll be more information available to all of our residents. Mayor, also know that our website was hacked, and so we had to migrate to a new platform for our website. So as you're going through the town's website, there may be some links that aren't working, and we're working to get them fixed. We're also exploring, thanks to the mayor's suggestion, to bring AI and to help maximize and optimize our website. Mayor, our A1A projects, we're going to kickstart the guardhouse and the beach pavilion and the strand through our July and August recess to look at those projects. But let me focus a little bit about Wellness Center. So all of our Wellness Center contracts after tonight's approvals will have been approved. And we are basically now on autopilot and strong oversight on delivering the project. Right now, if we have a quiet summer as it relates to rain, we're looking at a soft opening, very soft opening of the Wellness Center building and hopefully the surrounding sites by the second week in December. That's what we're looking at. So we're weather dependent, but if everything goes as planned, we will have access to the building before the end of the year. I will tell you that I will not sacrifice anything to meet that deadline. We want to make sure that everything gets delivered in a proper manner. But all of your contracts after tonight's meeting will have been approved. Mayor, I also just want to give a quick update as it relates to the budget for the project. Know that the project has been coming together with a variety of funding sources. We're currently at $11,913,000 for the project. Know that that project encumbers all of Reimagined Turtle Park, the wellness center facilities, the furniture, the equipment, the planning, and all of the landscaping. There is an item tonight that we're voting on, and we'll talk about funding for that item when we get to the item. But your projects are moving forward, and your police staff continues to do an excellent job. We'll be bringing to the council, as part of the budgeting process, the list of future CIP projects, and I'll highlight those when we get to the item on the military. But that is our major project, Stephanie.

Okay, moving right along. Consent agenda, item number O. Following two items on the consent agenda, official minutes of the May 19th, 2026 regular town council meeting. Item number two, a resolution of the town council and the mayor and the town manager to take any and all corrective measures to rectify stormwater system energizing capabilities in the town during emergency services. Those two items on the consent agenda. Excuse me, all in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone oppose? Consent agenda, two items pass. Item number P3, town resolution, resolution of town council. Accepting the general purpose financial statements for the fiscal year 2024-2025. Linda, can you read it into record, please?

A resolution of the Town Council of the Town of Golden Beach, Florida, accepting the manager's report on the general purpose financial statements for fiscal year 2024-2025, ending September 30th, 2025, prepared by Caballero, Firmin, Yarena, and Garcia, LLP, and providing for an effective date. Caballero.

I think you need a motion to approve need a second Mr. Mayor there's a scribbler's error on the face sheet of the agenda on item p3 the resolution should read a resolution of town council accepting the town manager's report on the general purpose financial statement so that needs to be stated correctly on the record for the agenda uh Mr. Mayor so this is a manager's report on the on the state of our state of our financials uh a couple great great things one Our fiscal health has never been better. With this financial reporting, we will have a fund balance of over $8.5 million for our financials. It's the highest it has ever been. If you look at page 13, we then outline to you where those dollars are allocated. Here's the important number. $2.8 million are sitting in reserves, not allocated, not promised, and not due to us from anyone. That's available for us to spend now.

Do you want to be showing us?

No, it's in your book, and this is a quick report. Know that what we're gonna be asking the council in the next item is that of that 2.8, we be allowed to do a one-time loan, not a one-time loan, a one-time withdrawal of $500,000 to help us balance next year's proposed budget. But our budget, our financials have never been stronger. There were no criticisms found to date. And it is our expectation to deliver to our bondholders our financials on time by June 30th. So, Mr. Mayor, that's our report.

Okay. Any questions? Council? Okay. Any public comments? Closer to the public. Roll call, please. Mayor Singer. To the amended just want to make just the face sheet would needs to be crushed fine.

Oh, yes Vice Mayor Mandel Councilwoman Luskin. Yes Councilmember Bernstein, I'm sorry.

I'm just so used to having whatever we're proving up on I'm sorry This is the clerk's not here today. So we don't have that. This is the face sheet of this is your financial statement Okay approved

And Councilman Einstein. Yes.

Thank you. Okay. Moving right along. Item number four, resolution of town council, adopting a proposed millage rate for the fiscal year 2026-2027.

A resolution of the town council of the town of Golden Beach, Florida, providing policy direction to the town manager for the preparation of the fiscal year 2026-2027. 2027 proposed budget directing the town manager prepare a proposed budget utilizing a combined millage rate of seven point nine nine Mills For trim planning purposes providing for the continuation of municipal services employee cost of living adjustments and staffing of the Wellness Center providing for implementation and providing for an effective date any motion to approve Any a second second?

Mr. Mayor, we've never done this item, but let me tell you why it's important for us to spend a few minutes on this item. We're gonna be going into our summer recess and we won't be meeting again, and I need everyone to look at their calendars. Right now, our tentative first budget hearing is September 1st. So it's the earliest we've ever met in September. And then the second final budget hearing will be September 15th. But I wanted to work a little bit backwards. So when we got the June 1st valuation report for our values, One of the first things that the mayor and Councilman Bernstein and Councilman Einstein said to me was, Mr. Manager, you've been here 19 years. This is your 20th budget. Can we lower the military? And we want to give our residents some tax relief, given that inflation is 12, 20 percent, gas is through the roof. And the governor has made it clear that he wants to do property tax reduction. And I said, well, let's talk about budget backwards. What do we want to see in the budget and how can I finance it? And so one of the things that you've known about me is that every year as we get more revenue, I try to put some aside in our budget. So in this year's budget, in the fiscal year 25-26 budget, we have close to $1.2 million that we have allocated for capital projects and in anticipation of the wellness center needing funded, we set aside $700,000 in this year's budget. So knowing that we had those resources available to us, I said, OK, let's talk about what are the must haves. And here are the must haves that we need to fund and how I'm able to get to a 7.9 million. We must have staffing in the Wellness Center. And the way that we contemplate staffing for the Wellness Center based on three of the council members wanting staffing. Nothing has been voted on, so we could change that later on, but in terms of three of you have asked that we have staffing in there. So I can have the building staffed using beach attendants and park rangers and a staff member during peak hours an allocation of three staff members in the budget for the wellness center. And we'll open the building using public work staff, using beach staff, and closing the building using police and park rangers. And then having a staff member who does the programming, who manages the building. That's number one, the must haves. The second must have is that we must keep- Talk in the mic. The second thing that we need to do is we must keep the marine patrol activities that we've added this year. We now have seven days a week marine patrol. It would be silly of us to go backwards. So the chief has been tasked to make sure that we have marine patrol seven days a week. We must keep the park ranger program that does the patrols on Ocean Boulevard. Our Ocean Boulevard residents have come to expect that. So we will add a second park ranger and using both park rangers, we will be utilizing going up and down the streets. We will factor a 12% increase for our health insurance, and we will budget our pension at the required 37% pension contribution. And we will honor the commitment that I've made to our employees of giving them a modest 3% cost of living adjustment, even though cost of living in South Florida is greater than that. So then I worked backwards, knowing those numbers. And again, most of this you haven't voted on, and you'll be voting on these items in September. But what I wanted to do is put placeholders in the budget to see if we could propose a millage reduction. And here's why I feel confident that we can budget to 7.99. As we have done in six of the last 10 budgets, we have taken reserve dollars to plug the hole. So I'm asking you to allow me to take $500,000 of that $2.8 million to plug that hole. Why do I feel comfortable that that's a solid number? If our revenues continue to be as expected, and there are some challenges with revenue, we'll talk about that on the next item, we will see a budget savings. One, to fund the landscaping for the Wellness Center. and enough to pay back about $200,000 or $500,000 that we're looking to pull. I feel comfortable with that number. Here's where I feel comfortable in the subsequent years. So there's enough money in the current budget that were kind of set aside for projects and set aside for the wellness center that goes away the following year. And the following year in the 27, 28 budget year, I am required one more step for a police contract, which we are financially obligated to meet. We have enough properties that did not join or did not get added to our tax rolls this year, 255, 215, 212, that I believe that the values of those coming onto our tax rolls will meet our recurring obligations in fiscal year 27, 28, without us having to go back and ask for a rate increase. By the way, Should the voters approve a property tax deduction increase to $250,000, 42% of our homes will see a savings of $2,500 and the impact to my budget would be 400 additional thousand dollars. At a $200 million increase to our ad valorem based on those three houses alone, I cover that gap and I feel comfortable with not having to worry about where we stand for the 27, 28 fiscal year. Now, this does not contemplate a single dollar for capital projects, and let me tell you why. I will spend the next 90 days working with you to identify the capital projects that you feel are a priority. And here's where we know where some of them are. We know that we need to replace the roof at the beach pavilion, modernize the bathrooms, and add additional amenities at the beach. We know that we want to deliver on the gatehouse modernization project at the Strand. We know that the lighting projects on, the lighting of our modules on A1A are over 20 years, almost 19 years old. And we know that the landscaping on A1A needs a little bit of a refresh. We know that our sidewalks need to be replaced and we know that the $76 million worth of projects that we've put into the ground need to be maintained. But we also know that we have a settlement fund with close to a million dollars inside of it. And we also know that in this year's state's budget, we have $900,000 allocated for a pump station project in South Island. So do we have dollars set aside? Yes, in the settlement fund. But we also have $2.3 million of cash that have not been allocated in reserves that if you wanted to tap to allocate for capital projects, we can. And more importantly, If things go as planned, we will have operating savings this year that we could plug into that fact. So the mayor has always said, Alex, I like to always have about $3 million cash on hand. That's always been his stated number to me. We're there, and we'll continue to be there. Unrestricted cash on hand. Unrestricted. Unrestricted. And so we're getting there. And so... although I've never been the one to say, let's do this, let's reduce the military, because I always say, don't reduce it, let's just put it into reserves. I think that the economic climate and the political climate at the state has made it a perfect storm for us to tell our residents, we hear you, and we're going to give you tax relief. And on average, it's about 2,500. Here's where I can't guarantee you'll see a savings. There are 12 other taxing districts on your tax bill. So if those other 12 taxing districts don't make a move, you may see a tax increase, but it won't be from Golden Beach this year. And Mr. Mayor, I'm asking that you support this plan because this is the plan based on these parameters that I will deliver to you by August 1st, your 26-27 fiscal year budget.

Right. The only question, Alex, that I still have is the tax collector said 40 percent of our homes are homes.

Forty two percent of our homes are homes that I find so low. I we don't have that data that.

So out of all the homes, they're telling us that only 42 percent. of our residents have homestead exemption. It's funny because since I got that number, I've asked like five different people their homestead and everyone told me yes. So maybe I'm asking the wrong people or they're not telling me the truth. What?

A lot of foreign people who can't get homestead.

Yeah.

A lot of foreign residents. If you're a foreign resident. You can't get homestead. Can't get homestead? Okay. You cannot get homestead. And we have a lot of foreign residents.

OK, so I mean, they can't they can't vote in the election either. Right. But I don't think 60 percent of our and again, I'm not questioning. It's just it's a no, Mr. Mayor.

It is a fair question. But I have to trust the source.

No, I understand.

So when the State Department of Revenue and the property appraiser tells me 42% of your homes, and when the State Department of Revenue tells me, Alex, the loss to you on average is $2,500 per home,

Right. So it's $250,000 we calculated, even if it's double that.

$399,000.

By the way, isn't this very objective, easy to get information? I mean, I know it's each individual house.

Yeah, we have our tax rolls. So we look at the tax rolls, and it looks right. That's what it looks like.

It should be able to say each one of them says what's homesteaded. It says homesteaded right there.

Yeah. It doesn't say homesteaded. It doesn't say homesteaded.

It doesn't say if it's homesteaded. If you go to the Dade County...

Property appraiser it will say it's right there Yeah, if you go page by page for all of our but we get the tax so we get the tax rolls and what the tax Roll shows is an exemption. So there's an exemption. We assume that it's home.

So I'll go bring it on the website All right.

No, I I think So does anyone have any Comments on the proposed millage rate and funding strategy and funding strategy well

I do, and Alex, if you already kind of said it, then I'm sorry. No, you have very valid points. But one of the kinds of, well, I'm very excited to see this, and we've always been trying to push it down. We just have a lot of things going on, just a lot of different projects, and we haven't sat down to see what CIP projects we want to push. And I would like to just caveat this with the abilities is we're going to be meeting in the next few months to go over that Alex basically gets the new projects that we want to do and that we look at that and make sure we have enough money for those and that there's enough for if it's landscaping or whatever it is. I just want to make sure

We can caveat that. The problem is that your tax bill goes out.

I was just going to say that. So this is important for everyone to understand. You can't change it. Once I set the millage, if you approve this today, once we set the millage, we can bring it down, but you can't bring it up.

Right. I mean, just a lot of potential.

But to your point, and yes, I would love to get an additional $900,000 in funding, and we need it. There's tons of projects. But like I said earlier, we have $3,800,000 in unrestricted cash right now sitting in our coffers. And so it becomes a what is a fun today priority and what becomes part of our five-year planning horizon. Because of the five projects I enumerated just earlier, not all of them need to be done in the next two years.

And they're not going to be done. Even if we started, for example, take one project at a time, if we started the guardhouse after the fiscal year. Time we go and decide what we're gonna do as a council, go out to bid, proposals, whatever. You probably look into the following fiscal year. And the beach improvements, some of the improvements we could do quickly, it's not gonna cost that much money. And, you know, if you and the lighting on A1A, a lot of these projects, if you look when we started the wellness center to the time we actually had to do expenditures, it was over a year and a half later.

I will ask this. So at six years, I will ask. And this is more and this is important. And this is important because of sunshine and because of our travel schedules. I've met with most of you and you've given me what your ideal projects are. If you have not provided me, please email me a list of, by the way, and I'm sure you've seen it in our budget. So in our budget, we put together in our capital plan, we have the immediate projects, the projects for the following year, and then we have our wish list. It's actually labeled wish list. So we add to that, were these projects, born from they come from the wish list we just move them up so if there is a project that you would like to see added to that wish list then that's at it and then what will happen during your September 1st I would say those dates again September 1st and September 15 budget hearings those wish list priorities can be moved up by the way also that goes into that algorithm is in my discussions with Alex

And I don't like to think on the come, but in the next three years, the other properties that are going to come on board and the controls are going to be pretty simple.

I believe we have, Linda, correct me if I'm mistaken, 42 homes under construction? 32 homes? How many do we have under construction?

We have large projects on ocean coming forward.

Inside, too, we have homes.

A lot of them have come off at the time.

But they haven't hit our tax roll yet. No, they haven't. We're a couple years out on some of the mega-megas, you know, where they paid a million dollars just for the land. Not a million. They paid $100 million for the land.

Like I said earlier, we know 215, 255, and 364 will be added to the tax rolls next year. So those are sure. In November.

Next year. No, for the 27-28.

The tax roll for this budget has grown. So the tax roll for this budget, the one that I'll be working on over the summer and get to you by October 1st, that tax roll has closed, right? So there were a bunch of homes that didn't make it to the rolls this year, which is why I feel comfortable that in the subsequent year, 27, 28, whatever cut we did, I'll make up because our values were brought by just those homes. And to Councilman Einstein's point, There are bigger projects, 299 right here, 165, 421, 401, 495, 699 that still aren't on the rolls that we feel comfortable with.

Can I ask this then? If we have the ability over the next few months to reduce it, We have the ability to reduce it. What is the urgency to do it right now versus to wait till we have the numbers?

Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Correct. Correct.

They'll get their tax bill in the next month. What they see the first time, that's all they're going to remember. No one remembers what you change or what you correct.

Right. Because then what happens is Dade County adds their tax. They get their tax bill and they're going, they didn't save me any money. That's why you have to do it now.

And again... I'm going to say this again, and this is where I don't want to be combative, but we're not delaying anything. I could tell you that with the five projects that I just listed, I could only bite off two of these. They're that great that I don't have the capacity nor does the staff have the capacity to take on more than two. And for at least two of these, we have more than enough money in our reserves to fund. And so there's nothing being put up. And if we... Here's what's gonna happen.

That includes the hurricane.

Here's what's going to happen tomorrow morning. So tomorrow morning, Michael Glidden is going to finalize the newsletter that all of our residents are going to get before they come home in August. And in that newsletter, there's going to be a big ad that says, Golden Beach will lower its military to 7.99. And that's where they're going to start the summer off, knowing that your council and your manager worked around the clock to lower the military and offer them a tax savings. So think about how... Great. That feeling is going to be if we set it high and then lower it. It's just part of the message that they're going to get with all the other mail.

And we've gone through the budget. Alex and I have gone through the budget several times where we feel very comfortable that we can make it work.

I again, I wouldn't turn away free money, but I don't need it right now.

And in our policy of keeping three million dollars, there's not a policy. It's my policy. Yes. I'm saying your policy of keeping three million dollars. Does that are you OK to move that down a little?

Well, a couple of things. So let me let me let me let's back up a little bit. So one, we've never had that money. OK, we've never had more than about nine hundred seven that more than nine hundred thousand dollars. Last year, we got to a million seven million seven last year. Last year, we got to a million seven.

And I don't have the numbers in front of me, but it's if the general restricted the unrestricted was like 2.8 So right now an unrestricted general fund balance cash on hand.

We have 2.8 million dollars at the end of this financials the mayor always wanting to keep me on my toes, has tried to get that number to be 3 million. I will tell you that for me, the number that I need to have is the 300,000 that FEMA's not gonna reimburse me for and my deductibles for my insurance, right? And the rest of it is our unfunded liabilities. And your financial statement shows that we don't have that many unfunded liabilities. So we're good there. And again, that doesn't include the million dollars that we haven't added or any savings that this year's budget will have. Now, in the interest of full and fair disclosure, The next item puts a wrinkle into all of this, because the next item talks about what we're now legally obligated to do as it relates to our building fees and my projected losses to our building fees.

Let me ask you, in the event of a hurricane,

$300,000 we're responsible for.

It's estimated by FEMA that we won't be reimbursed for the first $300,000 of our losses, but we're fully insured for everything else. So every light pole, every bench, every trash can, every police car, every window, we are fully... We haven't waited for that money.

We would put it out first.

No, but now what the government's saying is the first $300,000 of cleanup, the town is responsible.

And we have more than enough for that.

Yes.

And after that, then we don't have to. FEMA writes the checks or what? Don't we have to wait for FEMA approval?

There has to be a there has to be a federal declaration. We have to be part of the federal operation. This is not take away by $3 million. This does not take away from our. But don't forget, and we're fully insured for everything. Right. So this does not take away for us to be able to provide the response in a similar manner than what we provided for the Irma event. For the Irma event, after a week, our streets were clean, we provided food and everything was hunky dory. We're fully insured for any of our losses. What I need to do is have enough cash on hand to spend the money that we spend to meet the Golden Beach expectations. Most cities have debris on their streets for months, years. We try to get it off our streets within the first two weeks.

And that's my concern.

We'll meet those goals.

I think the elevated, after being a resident of Coconut Grove after Andrew and seeing how long it took for streets to get cleaned up.

We'll provide...

We'll provide hurricanes. That's just one of my biggest. Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor, our millage rate.

Let me also just briefly and I know it's getting late and I apologize for this. So let me also just talk about what's going to happen organizationally wise. So we will we will be restructuring the the the city. I don't think it's a secret that we're going to be hiring. We're in the process of hiring a new police chief. Chief Rebello is in the drop and will be out in January. Mr. McCoy will be leaving the city. Lisette Rivera will be taking over all public works services and capital projects. So we're going to be meeting what our ordinance says. Our ordinance says that we have five departments. So our police chief. our public works, which will be Lissette Rivera, our finance department, which is Maria Camacho. I am currently interviewing for a new building department director, and then recreational resident life. Michael Glidden will be promoted to director and executive team member over resident life and recreation. And then, of course, general government, which is myself, Lizette Perez, and the town attorney. So we're going to be getting away from the silos that we had. And so we'll have the five directors overseeing their prospective departments. And that will be the way that the city will be organized on a moving forward basis.

But back to Councilman Bernstein's question, we do have sufficient cash. Yes. But God forbid a hurricane hits us, you know, to handle it and not affect the financial statements. Okay.

We feel comfortable.

Any other comments?

No.

Any public comments? Okay. Roll call item number four.

Mr. Singer?

Approve.

Vice Mayor Mendel. Council Member Luskin. Yes. Council Member Bernstein.

Yes.

Council Member Einstein.

Yes. Approve. Congratulations. I think it's very exciting that we're lowering the millage rate below eight bids.

Trust me, we're going to go on a major campaign. Michael's going to start putting it on the website, on the TV, on every newsletter.

Below which the millage rate has ever been.

At the 4th of July celebration, we'll fly a banner saying we lowered the millage rate.

Right.

And happy birthday, Michael.

Hats off to town manager and the finance director. Thank you very much. And I know I've been on there, but yes, you we try to get to this number. So very, very exciting.

So we were proud that we were able to stay on a combined 8.4 for all those years.

We haven't lowered it since 10 years.

And look at what we've accomplished.

Right. And we didn't we didn't mention this. And this has no effect on any of our any of our debt. We have all the debt requirements that we need.

Right. And this doesn't impact our ratings at all.

No, if anything. If anything, it actually makes it stronger.

It makes it stronger.

It makes it very stronger.

Okay, item number five, a resolution of the town council amending the town's schedule of building permit fees and other fees.

A resolution of the town council of the town of Golden Beach, Florida, amending the town's fiscal year 2025-2026 schedule of building permit fees and other fees, providing for implementation and providing for an effective date.

I need a motion to approve. I need a second.

Mr. Mayor, this item is, again, big brother telling us what to do. So the state of Florida has changed. And let me tell you, there's some radical things that are happening. And I want the council to be very well aware of this. So starting July 1, any developer or any builder in town can say, we're not going to use the building department at all. We're going to come in and do private providers and we as a city can no longer charge them a single permit fee. Except for zoning review. And a certificate of occupancy fee. So if a homeowner says, I don't want to deal with the city, I'm going private provider, no permit fees to us. That's new. And we have no objection. There's no workaround. They can come to us and say, You guys are too big, you take too long, we don't want to deal with you, we're going private provider. And we lose all of those permit fees. So remember earlier I said, except for concerns that may have. I don't know how many of our homes will do that. I will tell you that one of our homes has already decided to do that. So one of our major developments on Ocean Boulevard luckily paid the fees ahead of time during this year's budget, but they have decided to go private provider. So they're doing all of their inspections, they're doing all their plans review, they're doing all of their work. I don't know how many more of our projects will go that route. That's number one. Number two, we are no longer allowed to use the value of work being done as a basis for determining what our permit fees or fees should be. Now, I'm not going to get into the mechanics of how this works, unless you ask me to, and we'll be here till midnight. But here's what we've been able to do. So as you know, in Golden Beach, we have two, our building permit fees are comprised of two fees structures. One, what we call your upfront fee, which is your process fee. Your process fee has always been 1% of the value of your work. We're no longer legally allowed to do that. And then your permit fees has always been a percentage of the square footage of your work. And then the sub-permit fees are based on square footage as well. Based on values, sorry, based on values. So in our revised fee structure, here's what we've done. Your process fee is a multiplier of your square footage depending on what zone you're in and depending on whether it's a new construction or an ad remodel. And your sub-permit fees are a flat fee depending on what kind of sub-permit fee it is and how many inspections you want. Here's where it gets a lot more complicated. Our building permit fees legally throughout the last 20 years have only been able to cover the cost of operating our building department. And we are not supposed to make any money profits off our building fees. And we're not supposed to charge any of our general government costs to the building department. Because permit fees were based on values, in some years we collected and put into reserve the excess fee. and some of that excess fee help pay for building the building department a home in this building, providing administrative oversight of the building department and the like. That strategy goes away. So we will no longer, as part of our budgeting process, Expect any revenues absent the cost of providing building services the building department cost is the city 1.4 million dollars a year and so we have structured these fees based on the potential square footage that each lot can attain and Work backwards and I got to tell you Everyone knows that we fight the most and I make her cry more than anyone else But if it was not for Linda Epperson still being on our team, I don't think we would have found the solution Linda worked around the clock by herself Trying to come up with the most responsible approach to doing this I can tell you I'm not qualified and I would have never gotten to where it's here and Linda and I fight a lot and And Linda's like my third mother and my work wife. But she is such a true asset to this town. And I know that a lot of people are like, is Linda gonna retire? Linda's not leaving me until I leave. We've made that deal. She may go part-time like Marie, But if it wasn't for Linda, and I don't want to get her teary-eyed, but we owe, the town owes so much to Linda Epperson in keeping the glue together and keeping the house together. So Linda, just tonight, thank you for helping us come up with this approach.

And thank you for all your years of service.

But this is the right approach. Now, please. Don't ask us to get into the details of it.

Yes.

It works. It works. We will meet with you privately to show you how it works. But here's again, I want to be very clear. It will generate just enough to cover our costs and nothing else.

Just I'm sorry.

Yeah, that's it.

So when you say it'll generate enough to cover the cost, I guess we're always subject to whatever building is going on. Right now, we've been going through a building boom over the last four or five years. What happens when that slows down?

Do we just start looking to have... Yeah, so excellent question. So in your financials that you just approved, we do have rainy day funds in our reserves. There's currently $700,000 to cover those rainy day funds. And when you start to see that slowdown of the market in the building construction market, then you talk about... how much more you outsource, how you scale down instead of scaling up. And one of the things that the mayor and I have already talked about, since we think that private providers will be coming on board, no more growth to the building department. Maybe we go back to the old days where we scaled down the staff members. We go more with the consulting and the private providers. with like safe build and Calvin Jared Donald So it just means that we have to adapt to those trends It's no different than another and I will tell this so the staff don't get afraid So if we do see an area where we need to downsize the building department There's enough vacancies throughout the city that we can transition them into another position But that but the onus is on us to do that.

There was something I noticed I'm sorry. Just I didn't I thought be on the computer

And I apologize for that. It's just that's not here. So we don't know how to really get that done.

I remember that there was like you had the ability to come forward three times. And then after that, it was charged the same fee again. Yes. The re-inspection fees. For inspection fees, I guess you had three inspections. And then on a re-inspection fee beyond that, it was the same amount. The re-inspection fee, if you did four times.

$75 and... No, every every inspection fee is a flat flat fee $75 with it Maybe I'm talking about a different one.

There was there was a fee that showed When you come in there that you come in there three times and on the fourth time I don't know what you're talking on the fourth time that it was gonna be the same rate I'm not sure we're not following you Alex while he's looking for that just to move the meeting along I

When we had the parameter that your fees could not be greater than what the cost of your building department was, and I hope I framed that the right way, is there a parameter now in place under the new law?

Yeah.

What's the new parameter?

Your fees can only cover the cost of providing the building services.

It's the same. It's the same, but what are we doing? Is there a difference now?

So what would happen in the past, because we couldn't anticipate value, right? We would always budget below what was coming in. And in those years, we would allocate those additional dollars to cover reserves and building spaces for that department and paying back the general fund for building those spaces. So when we built the building department, we needed to charge the building department for rent.

So just for the person who uses outside resources for their permitting and things like that on the ocean, What is our control over?

The state of Florida says that it's none of our business, that the private providers are responsible because through their licensing. To inspect and accept what they build and should there should that house catch on fire or fall apart? Your claim would be through the private provider and not the municipal government.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, Alex. Our building official goes and checks to make sure that they're signing off on the right?

No. So the way it works is, if we can. So the way it works is, so the private provider at the end of their services will bring to the building official a log. Log, right. So here's the way it works. So they bring to the, at the end, everything's been closed and painted and that the keys have been delivered they bring to the building official log it says we have assured that our design and our inspections have met the minimums of the Florida building code and our seal on this log says that we are responsible for all of the compliance testing They're sealed. And what the building official is allowed to do is open that log and make sure the log meets the minimum log requirements for the Florida building code. And then say, pay me $300 and here's your certificate of occupancy. Have a nice day. They are not allowed to, it becomes very, the law is very gray right now. They can't reject somebody's credentials. So the persons are credentialed and licensed. We have to accept that they're credentialed and licensed. If they challenge something in the log, They have to spell out why the challenge is happening to begin with and the basis of the challenge. The onus now goes completely to the private side and says, you're responsible. And we as a city become a custodian of record. for a lack of another description.

But that's if the homeowner selects that. Ben, they're paying for that. It's not like it's free. So they're going to pay the architect or someone a few hundred thousand dollars to be, because their license is on the line if it's screwed up. So it's not like the wah-wah-wah.

We still have jurisdiction over zoning. So thank God that two meetings ago we changed our requirements for zoning. So we still have jurisdiction over zoning and we still have jurisdiction over floodplain. So I, as your floodplain administrator, will take on a more active role in making sure that we are adhering to all of our floodplain requirements. We still have jurisdiction over all zoning, so height, side setbacks, driveways, pool locations. So everything zoning related, first floor, permissible uses. We still have jurisdiction and we cannot be exempt from those two roles.

So you went through this whole thing. We don't set forth on the premises. Two years later, Glenn singers invited mayors invited to a party at the house. He sees they built this whole first floor Situation ever on the plan that's zoning.

So we still have zoning so we know about that, right? So we could still go on site unannounced and make zoning inspections throughout the period.

Okay Any other comments? No. Any public comments with that? Did you guys figure that out?

I defer to our building code. Okay. I just want to make sure we satisfy you. Yes.

Roll call, please. Mayor Singer. Item number five, yes.

Vice Mayor Mendel, Council Member Luskin, Council Member Bernstein, Council Member Einstein.

Yes. Okay, item number six, the resolution of Town Council approving proposals for the purchase and installation of landscaping and irrigation improvements of the Civic Center site.

A resolution of the Town Council of the Town of Golden Beach, Florida, entering into a contract with RC Landscaping through John Bell Construction Inc. for the installation of landscaping improvements at the Civic Center site and awarding a contract to an eligible firm for the installation of an irrigation system, providing for a waiver of competitive bidding procedures, providing for implementation, providing for authorization, and providing for an effective date.

Do you have a motion to approve?

Motion to approve.

Do you second? Second.

Mr. Mayor, let me just, I'm going to try to be quick, but here's what we did. So you and I worked with our town's landscape architect, which is Carlos, I can't pronounce, Samosa. He's Kathy O'Leary Richard's replacement. He worked for Kathy. He branched off. We retained him. He put together a million dollar landscape plan for the Civic Center site saying, if I could give you the world, this is what it would look like. And then I said, I don't have the money for that. And so we redesigned and he delivered a $700,000,000 landscape plan. And I said to him, I don't have the money for that. And so we then met with the mayor in the office and we said, OK, where are the must haves? And we talked about the must haves needs to be along the street. We need to have trees in the shade in the park. And we need to have nice ground cover around the building. And then let's create areas that we could add later. And so we signed off on a design. And then we sent that design to John Bell, who's Brightview, who does Aventura. Adabrasco Brothers, who did the new Porsche building on Biscayne Boulevard, which came out phenomenal, and Main Guy, the current landscaper. And then we said, Carl, send it to all his email lists. Four companies responded. Main Guy said, we're out. We really don't have the capacity right now, and the market isn't working in our favor. Brightview came in and said, here's the price. our Nebraska brothers, and I'm saying that name wrong, but they gave us a price, and then RC gave us a price, but with a caveat. They said, we could do this work for you, but we need to do it as a pass-through to John Bell for a variety of reasons. The landscape plan has to be delivered as designed and as priced, with one exception. We're still debating on which of the trees in the tot lot we're going to remove or keep. There's three trees in particular that call to be relocated that may not be relocated. And there's a value for that. There's $8,000 worth of value for that. So if we decide to only relocate one tree, there's a credit due to us. And so Carlos and Sean compel reviewed all the proposals, top soil requirements, relocating of trees, tree calipers, and the like. RC gave us a bulk contract price. as the lowest number. The challenge that I had with agreeing to use RC is I wanted to know if we did not remove trees and transplant them, what was I getting back in terms of a credit? And so the deal that we made with RC is should we not move trees, we would get in-kind trees purchased to then add to the dog park and to the planting beds that we have allocated for future plantings. So there is a, and it will be as part of the final contract language, there's a gentleman's handshake for a credit, but that credit isn't money, the credit is in goods and services, more plant material. And so we feel comfortable Now, you're saying, Alex, where have they done work? So I visited and the mayor saw the video. So they did the plant. They did a specimen tree planting at the Coconut Grove Playhouse. They did the landscaping for the Venetian Pool and the West Miami Recreation Center. All three projects look acceptable to me. And the price is right. Now, as I mentioned earlier, this project you're approving tonight, but it's not budgeted. It is my hope. that we will have enough excess revenue in the current year budget to fund this project. But this project is currently unfunded, even though I'm asking you to approve it tonight. Mr. Einstein, Councillor Einstein.

Yeah, just real quick. When you said that 8,000, because 8,000 has overhead and profit and things, insurance all built into that. We get an $8,000 a raw plant, or are they going to say, well, you know, it's really 6,000 because we got, you know, 10% budgeted for insurance, overhead and profit is another 10%. So, you know, 8,000 real dollars.

Yeah.

Look, it's a handshake.

Well, it's a little bit more than that. I think it's funny because we've been adding a lot to the John Bell contract. And I will tell you, here's why. And we didn't know them when they came here, right? They were anonymity. I'd rather work with the contractor who has to deliver the entire site, who's going to put his name on this project. And I don't think that Oscar Motorhome or Jazz Martin or the third partner, I always forget his name. I don't think they're going to want to look bad. They want to showcase Golden Beach as a success story. And Oscar, in fact, he's texted me during the meeting, you know, they will give us what we need and more material. I will tell you that they've already had some errors out in the field and without even asking us, they're like, we're buying this new, we're buying this new because this looks bad. So I don't think they're going to be nickel and diming us to death on these type of things. And so I'll make sure that we get $9,000, not $8,000 worth of material.

In terms of Alex, the town manager delivered me some of these. Am I to understand that all of these products are going to be there?

No. Based on the design that you saw downstairs, because you asked me downstairs, what does this tree look like?

I brought this up for you to see what the tree looks like.

We're going to get... was in the plans, in the bid set plans that are attached to this document. And if you open the bid set that's in this document, it specifies which species and the caliper that we need per species.

There are a couple of things. Just while we're here, and I'd like Council to kind of get on board or listen to this because I think Councilman Luskin and Mayor Singer was probably on when we did the first Strand project and a guy came in he had the feather in the cap.

Do you remember? Okay, so is that expensive?

He brought us in Alex Very it was beautiful plan, but he brought in very exotic items He did not know Golden Beach. And that's why I just mentioned main guy for a second. I you get used to what will live here and what won't because there's salt tolerance. Even on A1A, the firecracker things we had, a guy came in, oh, we want color, we want this, we want that.

I don't disagree.

And again, I saw the plan. I'm not sure.

I don't disagree. I'm sorry for interrupting, but let me tell you why we feel comfortable. So remember what I said earlier. So Kathy O'Leary Richards, who ended up being the best thing we've ever done, and that's why the town looks so beautiful. Carlos has worked for her for the last 19 years. Kathy has retired. Carlos has bought the business and is in charge. I think he's a little bit pickier than Kathy, if you ask me, and more meticulous. Kathy, don't get mad at me. But I will tell you the other thing, and I'm not knocking this. We didn't want to see more of the same. And if you remember, we started to change up the landscaping. And remember what we did at the police annex, that the plant material looks different and wow? You're going to see some of that. And the best way to say, will this work? When you leave here tonight, before you go to your cars, just walk the alleyway behind the tennis court and how beautiful that alleyway is. That's what we're going to see in the rest of the park.

The only thing, I just circled a couple of items here. Because there's a couple of trees here. They sold us. They told us that the sable palm, for example, is the native Everglades tree. To me, it's kind of this tree here. We kind of all know it. They try to put it in and they say it's native, but it's kind of ugly. Just...

take a look you know the things with the bark that come down out they kind of look good for a minute and then they fall down and yeah I don't think we have I don't remember seeing that many sables in the landscape plan okay I can look now and give you a count but okay but but but I will say this some plants are there because you get the height right away yeah And so there are some plants that you're like, eh, why did we get that? Well, we got it because it was cheap to get the filling and the height.

I hear you. I just sent you one tree that exists in Golden Beach.

So to that point, we are looking. So forget what gets approved tonight. We are looking because the dog park has been somewhat... We are looking to go out and find two specimen trees similar to the one that you sent to be added to the project once we find the money for the specimen trees.

And the tree I'm talking about, if you guys.

It's the one at Michael Klinger's old house.

It's Michael Klinger's old house on North Island. It's beautiful. There's two of them. Maybe we could buy it. Or eminent domain. I don't think they were that expensive.

Yeah, when they were younger.

20 years ago.

With the little swing set.

Tree with a canopy.

Got to be 20 feet high. No, 30 feet high. What I've said often here and to Alex many times is

that when I look at the park, the idea of having these type of trees long-term. Who was that, I doubt. Over the kids park would be beautiful.

Councilman Bernstein, to your benefit and to your accomplishment, If you look at the plants around North Park today, remember when we put them in, they were twigs? I mean, North Park has a beautiful tree canopy throughout the perimeter of the park. Same thing with South Park. So we are going to be providing, and in fact, I sent a text to one of you this weekend, some trees that we are looking. But this item is...

I didn't realize Kathy's completely gone.

She's still here. She flies in once a month to do our inspections because that's the deal that we have until I leave. She's still on the hook for one one one visit a month. So she flies in on Southwest to Fort Lauderdale, takes the train in, does our inspection and goes back home.

I know that's such a great job. I know we're reluctant on the donation thing. I know it's complicated, but like. Donate a tree type?

Oh, listen, I'm not afraid to beg anymore. I just don't want to put somebody's name on it. And I won't spend a lot of time on this. Here's the hard time. Here's the challenge that I have. So someone's like, oh, we're going to give you $20,000 for a tree, but we want to put our name everywhere. And it's like, I'm not sure I want to start putting names everywhere if it's not a substantial consideration.

Okay, roll call. Any other comments? Any public comments? Close to the public, close to the council. Alex, you must be extremely exhausted. Roll call, please.

Mayor Singer. Yes. Vice Mayor Mendel. Council Member Luskin. Council Member Bernstein.

Mr. Mayor, before you adjourn the meeting.

I know. We've got to go. Council Member.

Mr. Mayor, before you adjourn the meeting, I just want to remind everyone that we are in summer recess. So we will go into an official summer recess starting tonight, and we won't reconvene the council until September 1st and September 15th. So peace check your schedule. September what? September 1st. september 15th those are your budget hearing dates so please make sure you're available to us the other thing is mr mayor i have extensive travel this summer i'll set out my notices but i'll be gone starting on friday for two weeks and then i'm back for three days and then i'm gone for two more weeks miss linda epperson will be our acting town manager mr mayor i know that you're leaving but any other council members i knew you're leaving later in the month but any other council member who plans to leave please let us know what your travel schedules are Hold on. 7th and what? 15th? The 1st and the 15th. 1st and 15th. September 1 and September 1-5.

Put in your calendars.

Those are your budget hearings for your budget this year. It's the earliest we've ever done it. And Mr. Mayor, I know this is important to announce. So for any resident, and we have had a few call, for any resident who is interested in running in Golden Beach, we do not have our elections during the August primaries or the November elections. Our qualifying period this year will be the last week of December. election packets are available to all of our residents starting the first of November for your election packets and your elections are held February, the third Tuesday of February.

Okay. First day of November?

So packets will be available in November this year.

With that, I'm just letting you guys know there's a 90% chance I am out of town September 1st.

I don't need you for the first budget. No, we're rolling back, so you're fine.

Okay.

But please, if you can, by Zoom.

No, he's in Burning Man.

Oh, can I go?

Yeah, you can go. We could do it at Burning Man. That would be great. I'm not sure. I'll give money to everybody. With that, I'll make a motion to adjourn. All in favor, say aye.

Aye. Mayor, everyone, please enjoy your summer break.