City Commission - Regular Meeting

LET US BEGIN. THANK YOU SO MUCH. THIS IS THE CITY COMMISSION OF FORT LAUDERDALE CONFERENCE MEETING, JUNE 2, 2026. WE'RE ALMOST HALFWAY THROUGH THE YEAR. WHERE IS IT GOING, RIGHT? WE HAVE QUITE A BIT TO GET THROUGH TODAY, SO LET US BEGIN WITH OUR CONFERENCE AGENDA. And we start with our communications to the City Commission. We have one communication from the Central City CRA. It's a motion that was presented to the Commission regarding temporary signage concerning safety for lane mergers on 13th Street. This isn't something the Commission needs to deal with. This is just management issues.

Yes, we can handle that, Mayor.

Okay. But it's doable.

It is.

Okay, great. Thank you.

ALL RIGHTY. SO CITY COMMISSION REPORTS. SHOULD WE BEGIN WITH COMMISSIONER PAM BEASLEY-PITTMAN?

YES. GOOD AFTERNOON, EVERYONE. HAPPY TUESDAY. I'M NOT GOING TO REPORT ANYTHING TODAY, SO I'M GOING TO GIVE MY TIME TO MY FELLOW COMMISSIONERS HERE ON THE DAILY. OH, WOW. OKAY.

ALL RIGHT. WELL, COMMISSIONER GLASSMAN.

OKAY. THANK YOU, MAYOR. GOOD AFTERNOON, EVERYBODY. Good couple of weeks in District 2, May 20th. It was a pleasure to speak with and meet with the folks from the Flagler Village Civic Association. I do love that they always rotate into all the different buildings and everyone gets a chance to see all the different buildings that are in that district. It's always very interesting to me also because it's always a very young crowd. As you know, Flagler Village is just really, really getting populated with a lot of young families and It's a pleasure to see all of those folks and see them engaged when we have their civic association meetings. May 22nd, it was a pleasure. I know that I was joined by several of you at the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance, the mid-year event that they have at the Hard Rock. Always very positive information, not just for the entire county, but also for the city of Fort Lauderdale as well when it comes to business. May 23rd, we had a good time. Vice Mayor and I kicked it off at the Great American Beach Party, and we had the Walk of Fame ceremony, very well attended. A really nice day to celebrate the military, celebrate the United States, to celebrate Memorial Day and remember the true meaning of why we were all gathering. So that was a really nice event. Thank you to Parks and Rec and everyone who put that together. It's always such a well-attended event throughout the day. May 28th, it was a pleasure to honor four very well-deserving folks at the Riverwalk Tribute. The folks over at Riverwalk always do such a nice job with that event. And Mayor, it was a pleasure to join you at that event as well. May 29th, finally, we did kick off Phase 2 of the Holiday Park improvements for the Bond. A lot of folks have been waiting for that to happen. It's been a long time coming. And the folks were really pleased to be there and to see that phase two. Now that we've done phase one and the Jimmy Everett Tennis Center is open and looking really good, it was a pleasure to kick off the phase two. Can I say something about that?

You know, for those that read the local newspaper, there's an article in the paper today about THE FACT THAT MANY OF OUR PROJECTS HAVE BEEN DELAYED AND I THINK WE RECOGNIZED IT AND WE'RE TAKING OWNERSHIP OF THAT PROBLEM AND WE'RE TRYING TO MOVE FORWARD. CITY MANAGER HAS HIRED NEW STAFF AND TRYING TO ACCELERATE THE PROCESS. WE ALL UNDERSTAND THAT. BUT THE PROBLEM THAT I FOUND WITH THE ARTICLES, THEY DIDN'T TALK ABOUT THE THINGS WE DID ACCOMPLISH. IT ALMOST LOOKS AS IF THE MONEY WAS SITTING IN THE BANK AND WE'VE DONE NOTHING WITH IT THESE MANY YEARS LATER. And I think it's important that the community understand and recognize the money that has been spent, the open space that we have secured, the various activations that we have been able to undertake in our parks. And I think to the credit of staff over the last several years, I know that we've been dogged by many distractions, including COVID. And I think that a balanced report needs to somehow be put out there. And I was a little disappointed that the article failed to recognize those accomplishments.

Mayor, can I add to that, please? Yes, I completely agree. And city manager, this might be a Quentin question or Carl, but I was trying to add up, Mayor, the total acreage that the city has expanded in park space. through the parks bond program in terms of purchasing Landmare. And it's upwards almost eight acres of park space. And Quinn, I'll defer to you on specific numbers. But I think it's about eight acres of park space that we purchased to add to our park space in the city.

And there are pocket parks. It adds to the enhancement of that particular location. And we're not done yet.

Absolutely. And there's pocket parks. There's big parks. I know in District 4, amazing parks that have been added. I know in District 2 that have been added. And then the number in District 1, I mean, significant progress. And then I don't know also, and Quinn, this will be a question for you, is the number of parks that have been completed in terms of the upgrades that we wanted to make for Park Bond. I mean, there's a significant number of parks that have been completed as of right now or that are under construction. Is that correct? Sorry, Quentin, or if you want to give any numbers or additional info there.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Good afternoon. Quentin Pugh, Assistant City Manager. To your first question, roughly about eight acres have been acquired over the last seven to eight years or so. In District 1, we got Ball Harbor. In District 2, there was Little Lincoln Park.

I'm sorry, District 3. I'm two.

Yes. In District 3, Little Lincoln Park.

You keep telling us.

And in your district, District 4, you know, Abiyaka and, you know, what so forth. So, yeah, roughly about eight acres. And several parks have been completed through the Parks Bond Improvements. At the, I believe it was the May 5th meeting, I had highlighted roughly about at least six different park improvement projects in each district that have been completed. Now, some of those have been phased. OVER MAYBE TWO OR THREE DIFFERENT PHASES AT A CERTAIN SITE, BUT SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENTS HAVE BEEN MADE IN EACH ONE OF YOU ALL'S DISTRICTS THROUGH THE PARK SPAWN PROGRAM.

AND THAT'S A MINIMUM OF SIX IN EACH DISTRICT TIMES FOUR, SO WE'RE LOOKING AT LIKE 24. YES. LIKE, YOU KNOW, HEY, COULD WE BE DOING BETTER AND FASTER? ABSOLUTELY. I THINK WE'RE HEADING IN THAT DIRECTION, BUT THAT'S, MAYOR, I JUST WANTED TO EMPHASIZE WHAT THE NUMBERS SHOW.

AND A LOT OF THAT PARK SPACE HAS BEEN ACQUIRED, PROBABLY COULD HAVE DONE MORE, BUT THE AVAILABILITY OF SOME OF THESE SPACES IS NOT ALWAYS THERE. SO WE TRIED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF SITUATIONS AS THEY COME UP. AND SO ANYWAY, I JUST WANTED TO BRING THAT TO THE ATTENTION. I DIDN'T MEAN TO TAKE UP YOUR TIME, COMMISSIONER, BUT I THOUGHT IT WAS IMPORTANT TO RECOGNIZE THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS THAT WE HAVE MADE.

NO, THAT'S A GOOD POINT. AND I AGREE. I THINK WE SHOULD ALWAYS TRY TO FIND THE BALANCE WHEN WE'RE REPORTING OUT ON ISSUES. There's always good and there's always bad, so thank you for that. Anyway, it was a very good day, and the folks in Victoria Park were very, very happy to see. We also had some folks from Flagler Village across the street as well, so that was very good. That night, what a really up, up, up event when we actually show the neighborhood and the beach area the fact that the Las Olas Garage lighting was restored. I have received so many positive comments about that in the neighborhoods and in the district. People are really thrilled. They don't like when we leave things just hanging. and industry pair. And the images that we saw that night were really, really special. And I'm looking forward to seeing all of our holidays, all of our celebrations done on that garage. I did get an email though, city manager, someone was complaining that one night it wasn't lit on all four sides. Have we checked out all those little glitches or I can have the team verify that it's operable. No, I just want to make sure because we did get an email about that, that one night not all four sides were working. Again, that was a very up event, and people were really happy that we have restored that. Again, really, really nice event, and I wanted to thank everyone who put that together as well. What a beautiful setting there. You know, Mayor, and I know we've talked about this a lot, but when you stand in that spot and you realize that that was nothing but an asphalt parking lot where the kids would come from the bars and crash beer bottles all night and make a ton of noise, and now it's a mega yacht marina. really fine dining. We have that entire area for all of the captains to come and enjoy where we did the lighting ceremony and then the garage. It really has transformed that view and that experience when you come over the Las Olas Bridge to the Barrier Island and I think people really really appreciate it. I also wanted to congratulate and welcome, I did a ribbon cutting for Black Jack's Bar and Grill in Flagler Village and I wanted to say congratulations. It's a really nice establishment that was also that same day and they had a really nice crowd there and we cut the ribbon with the Chamber of Commerce. Again, so many businesses are opening in and around the Flagler Village area so congratulations to all of them. Coming up, we've got the Port Everglades Association Economic Engine Report on June 5th, which is always very fascinating when you see those numbers. You see that data and you realize the economic impact of what's happening in that port in our city. So very looking forward to hearing what that is. That evening, congratulations. The Dolphin Democratic Club is the oldest LGBTQ club in the state of Florida. They will be celebrating their 44th anniversary June 5th as well. So congratulations to them. Yes, congratulations to them. June 9th, we have the Marine Industries Annual Event and Luncheon, which is always, again, a really good, good data-driven event where we get all of the numbers and we see the impact that our marine industry has on our city. Again, looking forward to that as well. I just had one comment. I'll ask the city manager of this. So I was expecting to see because I've been following the agendas and we've had this issue between Motorola and CI in terms of what we were going to be doing with these communication systems. I know we've had some hiccups. I'd like to get just some final word of where we are with that. And I'll tell you why I am concerned. As you know, for months and months and months now, I've been bringing up the BDA issue and the communication possibilities within our buildings in the city, in particular in my district. I've been hearing, and I've said this a lot, so forgive me for saying it again, but this has been an issue for buildings that have never had a problem. NEVER HAD A PROBLEM WITH COMMUNICATIONS FOR PUBLIC SAFETY, AND NOW THEY ARE GETTING THESE REPORTS. OF COURSE, NO ONE WANTS TO SEE ANY KIND OF COMPROMISE WHEN IT COMES TO PUBLIC SAFETY AND SAFETY OF OUR FIRST RESPONDERS OR THE BUILDINGS THEMSELVES. BUT THIS HAS BECOME AN ISSUE, VERY TOUCHY, AND IT'S KIND OF HAPHAZARD AND KIND OF RANDOM IN TERMS OF WHAT WE'RE SEEING ON THE DATA. SO MY CONCERN ABOUT THE DELAY ON THIS COMMUNICATION SYSTEM BETWEEN MOTOROLA AND C.I. is that this will affect going forward that capability of our communication system. So I want to know where we are with this and I want to know what we can expect in terms of the future. Again, just to make sure that we're not compromising our communication systems and at the same time making sure that we're doing the right thing for the entire city when it comes to this particular issue. So if I could just get some clarity, city manager, city attorney, WHERE WE ARE AND FINDING OUT WHY THIS ITEM THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE COME TO US HAS NOT COME TO US AND SEEMS THAT IT'S BEING DEFERRED AGAIN. I WOULD GREATLY APPRECIATE THAT. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU, COMMISSIONER. YOU MAY RECALL THAT ON THE LAST AGENDA THERE WAS AN ITEM THAT WE INTENDED TO DISCUSS, THAT ITEM WAS DEFERRED OR PULLED FROM THE AGENDA. WE DID HAVE SEVERAL INTERNAL CONVERSATIONS AMONGST STAFF AND THE CITY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE. WE'VE HAD CONVERSATIONS WITH THE VENDORS THAT HAVE PROPOSED FOR THAT PARTICULAR PROCUREMENT. BASED ON MY OBSERVATIONS AND WHAT I'VE LEARNED ABOUT THE PROCESS, I INTEND TO BRING FORWARD A RECOMMENDATION TO REJECT ALL BIDS FOR THAT PROCUREMENT. EXPEDITIOUSLY GO BACK OUT AND COME BACK TO THE COMMISSION WITHIN A VERY SHORT WINDOW OF TIME. THAT'S THE RECOMMENDATION THAT I INTEND TO BRING FORWARD ON JUNE 16TH. I HAVE CONFERRED WITH THE CITY ATTORNEY AND I BELIEVE HER OFFICE IS SUPPORTIVE OF GOING IN THAT DIRECTION. BUT I WILL ASK EVETTE MATTHEWS TO PROVIDE ANY ADDITIONAL DETAILS.

Good afternoon, Commission. Yvette Matthews, Assistant City Manager. So everything that the City Manager shared was accurate. This is a very technical RFP, and there were so many components that upon review of the technical components, we did have some concerns. And so we are going to pivot. The good news is that the work that has been done thus far is not lost. And we've already engaged a lot with all the vendors that proposed. We had three proposers that submitted. We heard a lot about their technical elements of their proposal. With a negotiation, we're able to ensure that we're able to review all elements of their proposal. They already have their data together. And what we're hoping is there'll be really good partners in providing us with responses in a timely manner, beginning the negotiation process, And our procurement team is making this their highest priority over the next two months. So it will be one of those, it will take a few months before it comes back to you all, but we already have a process in place to make sure that we're bringing back the reject all and then moving forward with the invitation to negotiate.

Thank you for that. I appreciate that. So let me ask you a question. How is it work in terms of fairness? Because now, Everyone seems to know what the others are doing or proposing or they're able to get into the weeds because everything's become transparent now. Public records requests have happened. So how do we deal with that from a fairness situation?

Right. And, you know, fairness is, of course, very important to us. And it's something that was considered as this decision was made. And one of the things that's important to note is these vendors actually compete against each other on a regular basis. So they're very aware of each other's technical specifications. They're very aware of each other's routine proposals. And in this opportunity, they heard more about the city. This is our second time submitting solicitation for this item. And so So both proposers, all three, have already received a lot of information about the city's specifications and what we're looking for. So the fairness element, it has already been a very transparent process. They have already seen each other's data on a few occasions. MAKING SURE THAT WE GET IT RIGHT FROM A PROCUREMENT STANDPOINT WAS REALLY IMPORTANT, AND THAT'S THE REASON WE DECIDED TO GO IN THIS DIRECTION.

THAT MAKES SOME SENSE. SO CITY MANAGER, INDULGE ME, BECAUSE I KNOW THAT THIS AWARD WAS GIVEN TO MOTOROLA, AND I DO SEE THAT ELLEN BOGNOFF IS HERE. I'D LIKE TO JUST HEAR HER TAKE VERY BRIEFLY ON THIS BEFORE WE MOVE ON TO THE NEXT SUBJECT, BECAUSE THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT TO ME, AND AGAIN, BECAUSE OF THE ISSUES THAT I'VE BEEN talking about for a long time. I'd like to ask her to come up and just, I want to hear her take on this as brief as possible.

Her take on what? Well, her take on the fact that Motorola was awarded the... She represents one of the vendors. It would be unfair to start a debate. Is there anybody else that's here?

And just to clarify, they have not yet been awarded?

Well, the last item that I read was that they were going to be awarded, and then that was pulled, right?

Just to clarify, they were ranked the highest ranked proposer. So the actual awarding is done by the city commission. So they were ranked the highest ranked proposer, but they had not yet been officially awarded.

No, I understand. Poor choice of words on my part. If no one has an appetite for that, I'm sorry you don't have the patience for that. I just would like to hear a little bit more because I'm trying to gather as much information on this as possible. If anyone else is here from any of the other two vendors, I'm happy to listen to them too.

Well, the problem is you're giving the platform to one of the vendors and none of the other vendors are here to counter whatever statements are being made here. I mean, obviously she's going to, whatever Ellen says is going to be VERY FAVORABLE TOWARDS HER CLIENT AND IT'S GOING TO MAKE IT LOOK LIKE, YOU KNOW, SHE SHOULD HAVE, YOU KNOW, HER CLIENT SHOULD HAVE BEEN AWARDED THE CONTRACT. AND I JUST DON'T, HONESTLY, COMMISSIONER, I JUST DON'T THINK IT'S A FAIR PROCESS.

I'M FINE WITH THAT. THE REASON I REQUESTED THAT WAS BECAUSE I'VE HEARD WHAT STAFF HAS TOLD ME. I WOULD LIKE TO JUST HEAR THE NUMBER ONE RANKED FIRM, WHAT THEIR TAKE WAS. I'M FINE. WE'RE GOOD. LET'S MOVE ON. OKAY. I'M FINE. YOU CAN DO IT PRIVATELY, RIGHT? I GUESS I COULD, YES. THANK YOU. AND I WILL. My last comment I would like to find out from the city attorney. I've been reading a lot about a lot of the new applications in terms of the live local law. I think one of the most fascinating new pieces of information is the fact that now the live local law can apply to city-owned property, public land. DO WE HAVE ANY CONCERNS ABOUT THAT? ARE WE GOING TO BE OKAY? DO WE STILL HAVE AN ABILITY TO PROTECT THOSE PUBLIC LANDS? I'M THINKING IN TERMS OF, OH, WELL, CITY HALL SITE, IF WE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING THERE, WOULD SOMEONE BE ABLE TO COME IN WITH A LIVE LOCAL PROJECT FOR THE CITY HALL SITE? I JUST ALLAY MY FEARS, IF YOU CAN.

I'LL ALLAY YOUR FEARS, COMMISSIONER. THANK YOU. SO ON PUBLIC LAND, IT'S INTENDED THAT THE PUBLIC ENTITY WOULD BE A PARTICIPANT, IF NOT THE the one pursuing the development. So you might be familiar with what's happening in Hollywood, where it's on public land, but the city is involved in that development because it's on public land. And that's what the intention was, that it's not so that a private developer could swoop in and have the authority to take away the public land and develop on it, THE CITY WOULD HAVE TO BE INVOLVED IN IT.

THAT'S VERY GOOD. I WAS HOPING TO HEAR THAT. THANK YOU. I'M GOOD, MAYOR. THANK YOU.

VICE MAYOR. THANK YOU, MAYOR. APPRECIATE IT. SEVERAL ITEMS HERE. To start off, Mayor, here's a question. Just in terms of timing of our commission meeting, so traditionally our city conference meeting starts at 1.30 p.m. like it did today. And what at least recently we've been running into not being able to cover everything in the city conference meeting and then having to push some things to the city commission meeting, which starts at 6 o'clock. and not having much of a break between for executive session and other things. So I was wondering if there was any interest to maybe move the city commission conference meeting to maybe just like an hour earlier, like 1230, so that we could have more time to cover conference items I give it enough in the city. We want another hour of my life. Another hour of your life. I know your hours are very valuable. But, yes, just to give us a little bit more wiggle room when we need executive sessions so we don't delay the start of the 6 o'clock meeting. Anyway, just wondering if the commission is interested in something like that.

I mean, I personally would maybe not 1230, maybe just to one o'clock, one o'clock, give us an extra half hour. And maybe going forward, we should consider how we should tailor our comments so that they're done within a reasonable amount of time rather than dragging into an hour or two. Like it. I mean, it depends. Today is going to be a short one. Right. But you never know because there are issues. Honestly, Vice Mayor, there are real issues that come up that need to be fleshed out. Right. I completely agree. Many other city commissions do not have this format. They just do city meetings, and then they'll schedule a special workshop. But I think this is one of the best formats because we're able to talk about things without having to vote on anything, but just to be able to talk things through.

I agree, and that's why I love having commission comments, especially the substantive things we talk about like this right now, having time for that. All right, so let's sleep on that. Let us sleep on that. What do you think about that?

I'm thinking also more so 1 o'clock, not a whole hour. And I do believe that there's some areas that we can from here kind of scale back on. And, you know, I always talk about how excited we get with our opportunities with our commission reports, which is valid. There's times we have things we really need to share. But I think with management, time management, extra 30 minutes, I believe we can do what we need to do.

Great. Okay, fantastic. Commissioner Glassman, is that all right with you, 1 o'clock?

I think 1 o'clock sounds great. I'm fine with that. None of that's prescribed by the charter, is it, those times? No. We're all good? Okay.

We'll start at 1, see how it works. Start at 1 and see how it goes. Also, it will actually open up some time between the two meetings. Exactly. I'm thinking two, Mayor.

Okay. City Manager, is that good to start? Thank you. Next, Mayor, water quality testing. As you all know, we've been partnering with Miami Water Keepers, which has been a fantastic partnership. They're testing I think it's 11 sites across the city. And I think is really going well. Even at some of the sites, we're really seeing some improvements. We also just started with MST, which is source tracing to identify not just bacteria levels, but what is the origin of the bacteria levels? Is it human? Is it canine? Is it bird and so forth? So that's just started. So we've gotten some initial analysis of that. So I'd love to hear city manager just give JUST A BRIEF KIND OF SUMMARY ABOUT HOW THAT'S GOING, HOW THAT CAN BE HELPFUL MAYBE TO JUST START, IF THAT'S RIGHT?

THANK YOU. WITH THE SUPPORT OF THIS COMMISSION, WE'VE EXPANDED OUR TESTING THROUGH THE MIAMI WATER KEEPER. I'M GOING TO ASK OUR DEPUTY PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR TO COME FORWARD AND SHARE SOME DETAILS.

THANK YOU, MAYOR. I WISH I SPENT MORE TIME IN MICROBIOLOGY CLASS. But we're actually, our routine waterway sampling is at 15 sites.

So we're doing 15 sites regularly weekly for the enterococci bacteria.

So the one limiting factor for routine testing, like Vice Maria mentioned, doesn't contribute to source. So that's what MST does, or microbial source tracking. So what we've done is for the five sites, that's typically a fail 50% more of the time from the regular waterway sampling. we conduct MST there. So those sites are Middle River Dock, Sweeting Park, Annie Beck Park, Hemershey, and Tarpon. So we collected our first, or we got our first sample results back recently, and I'll just highlight what those kind of have alluded to. So the human marker was picked up at all five sites. The dog marker was picked up at Tarpon River. When you look closer and dive deeper into the human marker, THERE IS A THRESHOLD OF 525 GENE COPIES. THIS IS NOT A REGULATORY STANDARD. IT'S MORE OF A HEALTH-BASED GUIDANCE VALUE. SO WHEN YOU LOOK AT ANTIBEC AND TARPIN, ALTHOUGH DURING THAT SAMPLE EVENT THEY EXCEEDED THE ENTEROCOXIDE BACTERIA THRESHOLD FROM THE REGULAR SAMPLING, THEY WERE ACTUALLY HIGHER OR LOWER IN THE HEALTH HUMAN GENE MARKER. SO THE SAME THING WITH The other three sites, they had numbers that were above the healthy beach standard, but their human markers were less than the 5.5 number. So that's a threshold that we're comparing this to. So what does all this really mean? For STARS, it's challenging to draw systemic conclusions from one sampling event. So that's why we want to look at the data over this whole year to try to then determine applying these thresholds over a certain time period, how that INTERACTS WITH THE ENTIRE COXIZER WE'RE SEEING AND THAT WILL HELP US TO COME UP WITH BETTER DATA DRIVEN DECISIONS. SO THAT'S KIND OF WE'RE JUST STARTING THIS AND WE'LL CONTINUE THROUGH THE YEAR AND AT THE END OF THE YEAR We'll have more guidance and more data to make some decisions on.

Great, thanks. And so I think that's very helpful. Obviously, one of the things we can't determine, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, is that human waste, is that coming from, you know, could it be a possible sewer break or septic failure, or is someone, you know, doing something in the canal or in that waterway themselves without, yeah. And I guess we can't figure that out.

That's correct. So some source, the obvious source, it would be like sanitary sewer overflows. We can easily see. We can easily detect. We can easily control and manage and correct those issues. Other issues are a little bit more harder to investigate. If there's leaking sanitary sewer lines, homelessness, that could be a direct point source. Even a vessel discharge, if it just happens to list across connections or even failing sewer ladders coming from private property. So all those, like the underground infrastructure that may be leaking, those will require significant investigations to follow through on.

Got it. And that data will hopefully give us more of an indication WHAT IT MIGHT BE, RIGHT? THANK YOU, TODD. SO MAYOR AND COMMISSIONERS, MY NEXT QUESTION IS, SO WE'RE TESTING, WE'RE DOING MST SOURCE TRACING AT, TODD CORRECT ME IF I'M SAYING THIS WRONG, FIVE SITES THAT REGULARLY fail or present over 50% failure, right? Correct. Right. So my next question, Mayor and City Manager, Commissioners, is do we want to expand that testing at all to other sites in our districts? And it might be no, hey, let's just focus on the ones that are regularly failing, but I just wanted to have that conversation if we do want to expand that at all or there's interest.

Mayor, if I could... Yeah, please. And I would want us to focus on those five. As you know, or we should know, Sweden, that area, our numbers are extremely high when it comes to bacteria. We are a part of those five who normally fail, and I believe over the years that we've been doing it, we have basically a 94% failure for the bacterias. So if we're going to do anything, I see us as a commission giving directives to how we are going to clean it up. Don't add anyone else. They seem to be stable enough where they're meeting the opportunity where the bacteria levels are sustainable. They're not at a point where, for those, for the record, you know, I'm usually seeing for sweetening, 300, 400, 500. And the number is what, less than 70 is what's considered, is that correct?

70 for the Healthy Beach standard, 130 for the FDEP standard. Okay.

All right. So that's still a number that is out of control. I was very excited the last couple of times that I received a report. The numbers came at 94. I was a little like, wait a minute, was this a typo? Because I've never seen it at that level. I was really excited to see that. But at the same time, having paused, is that an accurate reading when for years we have seen three-digit numbers? And even when I went back some years I can't remember now what year, but it was really four digits. So the numbers are really high when it comes to Sweden area. And the next question is, what's next? Are we going to bring in those entities to help clean up that waterway? Because it's my understanding in Sweden, there's really three entities that are overseeing or have authority in that area. So my question would be, what can we do next, not including other neighborhoods?

Yeah, that sounds great. That makes sense to me. So city manager, is it and Todd, maybe six months from now, we could get have another check in to see, OK, what's the data showing us and then next steps or what?

Well, I think you're on the right track as far as testing, but to Commissioner Beasley-Pittman's point, testing is not an end in itself. What are we doing to stop the inflow? TO STOP THE INFILTRATION, WHAT ARE WE DOING TO, NOW THAT WE'VE IDENTIFIED HOT SPOTS, YOU KNOW, SOME OF THOSE AREAS THAT THE COMMISSIONER REFERS TO, WE'VE BEEN SEEING THE TEST RESULTS GOING ON FOR YEARS NOW, BUT WHAT ARE WE DOING TO CORRECT IT? SO THAT'S REALLY THE CHALLENGE, RIGHT, CITY MANAGER?

I agree. I think the testing just shows us what is, and I think we do need more strategies as to how to address it.

And I don't know the answer to that, because Hemersheet Canal, another one, that's an open sewer as far as I'm concerned. And it's all because of inflow. Where is it coming from? Over the decades, the city has been building layer upon layer, and I don't know... I mean, I don't really know what the source is. I don't think our staff knows what the source is. Someone's got to get in there and start feeling around where it's coming in.

I agree, Mayor.

I mean, testing I think is great. Expanding the testing zones is probably good too. But maybe moving away from some of the test sites where it comes in satisfactory so that we can continue to see where these hot spots are. But I think we need a more aggressive program on a cleanup.

I'm with you 100%. So city manager, would it be possible for those, you know, for these five sites, for example, where we're seeing the sites that we're seeing elevated levels to start putting together? Okay, here's a strategy to address or?

I THINK WE CAN WORK ON THAT. I'D LOVE TO SEE IF WE COULD GET WITH A PARTNER, MAYBE AN ACADEMIC PARTNER THAT MIGHT BE, MAY HAVE EXPERTISE IN THIS AREA. WE'RE ALSO GOING THROUGH THE BUDGETARY PROCESS RIGHT NOW, SO IF THERE'S SOMETHING THAT WE WANT TO EXPLORE FURTHER, I THINK WE NEED TO PLAN FOR THAT. IN SIX MONTHS TIME, WE'LL ALREADY BE AT OUR BUDGET, AT THE END OF THE BUDGET PROCESS.

And if I may ask, um, Todd, some of the, um, other entities that have, um, I'm gonna say authority on that waterway for Sweeting area. Um, could you identify them for me? I know.

So the primary partners for the North Fork New River would be Broward County, South Florida Water Management District, You have stateside submerged lands, which would be Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Those would be the main agencies.

Okay. So with Broward County, if I may, Broward County's authorization and maybe responsibility, if I'm not using the wrong word, what is their part in maintaining clean waterways in that area?

So Broward County, on the west side, mostly the west side of the Norfolk, So they would be responsible for the same things we're responsible for on the east side, maintaining their stormwater infrastructure, looking for sources of pollution, looking for things like that to correct.

Okay, so do we know it today? Do we know their participation in that responsibility?

They have participated in the past. They have gone through some exercise where we call Walk the Watershed. We've done that with them a few years ago. So that's something that can be revisited to engage them. City of Lauderdale is another partner because they're on the north side of the canal swap shop area. So they're another partner. So there are opportunities there to walk what we call walk the whip or walk the watershed with these agencies to kind of see if we can pick up any type of sources. The numbers we're seeing... just give us some context. When you're seeing like a sanitary sewer overflow, we'll get numbers of the enteric oxide bacteria in tens of thousands, 20s of thousands. So when we're seeing numbers in the hundreds, they're challenging because they're considered what we call low-level exceedance. So they're really kind of difficult to discern. Even sometimes you get into the thousands, the FDEP kind of categorizes those as HARD SOURCES TO TRACK DOWN. BUT THE BIGGEST OPPORTUNITY, I THINK, IS MAYBE ENGAGING THOSE AGENCIES IF WE CAN WALK THE WATERSHED ON BOTH SIDES AND COLLABORATE AND SEE WHAT POTENTIAL THERE IS TO LIMITING THESE SOURCES.

AND THAT'S THE SAME WITH THE SOUTH FLORIDA WATERWAYS?

THEY ULTIMATELY OWN THE C-12. THEY MANAGE THE CONVEYANCE. THEY TYPICALLY HAVE NOT PARTICIPATED IN THESE EVENTS, BUT WE CAN REACH OUT TO THEM AND SEE IF THEY WANT TO. Also in North Fork, right by Logger, you have that control structure, that flood control structure. So they really control the flow of water. That's one of the challenges there is the flow. There's some studies that show flow doesn't matter, but any time you get any tidal interaction flushing over the waterway, that does help. That does help with the improvement of it. By controlling that structure, South Florida Water Management District does control the flow into the North Fork.

City Manager, if we could do all that we can to get these entities at the table to have the conversation, because that area that we're talking about, of course, is part of the mileage of water that we advertise here in the city. 165 miles. 165 miles is included in that stretch. Also, we have families that live along the waterway. children that are playing along the waterway. And we want to have access as well to clean water, to be able to take our kayaks out and be out on our canoes as well. And then also, I'm not even sure if we're all aware that we have families of manatees that are living and having a space there, and the water is also... Yucky. Yuck. Okay? So these are things, it's not... It's something that we shouldn't just say, okay, it's something that's been going on for years. It's something that we need to correct.

That's also part of what this MST that we're doing, it's an interesting dynamic. It's like at Sweeting Park, the enteric oxide number, as you mentioned, are in the hundreds, you know, above the standards. But the human marker... is below that 525 number, which is kind of an interesting dynamic, which I think as we do this testing, MST testing over time this year, we'll hopefully be able to make some connections and come up with, you know, maybe terra coxae is not the right number to utilize for standard. That's one of the limiting factors in terra coxae and doing this type of data. You can fine-tune what you should actually be testing for and what works best for that type of environment.

Thank you, Todd. Thank you, Ben, for allowing me to. Thank you, Commissioner.

And just what happens in one part of our waterway affects all our waterways. So we need to take a holistic view. And I've been working with a couple universities on this. And so just with some parts of this. So I think that's city manager. They might be helpful for other districts that might be interested in engaging with those folks too. Okay. Thank you, Todd. That's really, really great. Mayor, this came up last night on my agenda review is having city communication in other languages other than just English. So which I thought was a good point. So they in my agenda review, they brought up Yiddish. Yiddish. Yes, exactly. That's right.

OK, I vote yes.

Very good. All right. We got one. Yes. Yeah, it should be great. In addition, Spanish and Creole came up on my. So I think so many more people speak Yiddish. Good. We'll prioritize. I thought that was a good comment. I don't know. You know, anyway, city manager, I thought if there's interest.

I thought Commissioner Beasley-Pittman wanted to say something. Just agreeing. Our demographics has really expanded so much and this language, Spanish and Creole, definitely an opportunity that we should offer to all of our residents because in our office we have started to stimulate in both Spanish and Creole. So there is a need for it, yes.

We've just been doing Yiddish in District 2. I apologize for that. Opportunity to improve. Maybe Commissioner Beasley-Pittman, you'll be able to help me with that. We'll expand our horizons. Thank you.

Commissioners, I'd like to work with our Strategic Communications Office to do a little homework on that and determine what types of communications we would want to have in multiple languages. We communicate in so many forms and fashions, and I want to make sure that we're hitting the mark on the expectations, so... WE CAN SHARE A LISTING OF WHAT WE'RE RECOMMENDING AND THEN GET THE FEEDBACK BEFORE WE MOVE FORWARD.

I'M SURPRISED WE HAVEN'T DONE IT BEFORE NOW. WE HAVE A LARGE HAITIAN POPULATION WITHIN OUR CITY. WE HAVE A GROWING HISPANIC POPULATION HAPPENING IN OUR CITY. IT'S A TURNOFF IF YOU DON'T KNOW THE LANGUAGE. I KNOW THE STATE IS TRYING TO BECOME MORE ENGLISH ONLY. I think they just changed the driver's license exams that they can only be in English. I mean, I don't want to be a city like that. I think that we need to be more inclusive. So I think it's a good point. Great. Thanks. Thanks, everyone. I'll tell Scott to convert our newsletters into three languages now.

Get him on Rosetta Stone.

He can learn some Creole. Come on.

If I'm not incorrect, I believe previously we did have an option where you could choose from a Dropbox what language was available. Oh, interesting. I haven't seen it in a while, but when I used to be on the site, more so now, but it was an option before.

Okay. Great. I think that would be great. Okay. Thank you. Next, and Mayor, maybe you were going to already talk about this, but what's happening in Tallahassee, property tax, possibilities.

Well, not possibility. The legislature just passed it.

Exactly. Yeah.

So it's coming on the ballot. So the free state of Florida has now become the free city of Fort Lauderdale. You can live here for free now, everybody.

I don't want to say put a statement from the city, but is there something that we can prepare that is unified across the board explaining?

We should have a conference agenda item, give the city attorney and the city manager's office The time to put together an analysis of the possible impact and what choices that we have as a commission going forward. You know, if this should happen, what we can do, if the other things should happen. What are our options? Can we raise taxes if necessary or should we? Do we cut departments? You know, I think that should take one entire conference meeting. because it may not even get voted on, right? It may lose, right? It's possible. But I just think be prepared for the possibilities, and we need to start discussing it. And it might help educate people in terms of making their decision on how they're going to vote in November.

But again, just having something that is represented from our community, our city, saying what this looks like for us going forward if it does pass. having a breakdown of what will be affected because narratives, I'm sure everyone is hearing what I'm hearing. You hear the part where certain items would not be affected. I should say certain services would not be affected, but we're hearing more and more of those services will be affected. And then this narrative where, to me, it's being pitched that people are going to get money back in their hands. For having, yeah, you know, it's like, oh, you're going to save all this money, but you don't, that money to me you don't naturally see because you're already in a process of paying through your property taxes. But again, just an opportunity to educate our residents.

If I may share, Mayor and Commissioners, we have developed an educational campaign. Now that it has passed and all the details are more solidified, we will finalize that collateral to be shared with the Commission and with the public. We did share with you over the weekend some information as it relates to what was proposed at the time. So we are fully prepared to engage in outreach and educational opportunities with the public. We can certainly have a conference item to go into details about an approach and how we navigate the shortfall should it pass. The timing of that I think is up to you. I don't know if you'd like it after the recess.

Well, may I just say this? Before we start educating the public, I think that the Commission should start coming up with options and let the public know what policy Fort Lauderdale will follow in response to the proposed constitutional amendment. So I think before we go out to the public, we need to have a robust discussion on exactly what the residents of Fort Lauderdale can look forward to. Because every city is going to be different. Every city is going to choose different options, right? So I know you've done a lot of work so far. I know Daphne has been watching this over for the last number of weeks. But to answer your question, do we want to do it in July or do we want to do it in August? Is August too late? Is July too soon? I don't know.

I think if we wait to share any information until there's policy direction, we probably miss a couple months of engagement. The only thought I had on the initial outreach was just by the numbers. You know, what does it mean? Not necessarily positions or functions, but we can certainly wait. I think August will still give us enough time to engage before the November election. Just wanting to know what we should do between now and then.

Do you have a problem doing it in July? It's our last meeting. Whatever you think, Mayor. I think we should have that discussion before we break.

Yeah. And city manager, I know you released some letters to the commission, I think this morning, but fiscal impact projected, I think you said $27 million. Is that?

That's what we did share over the weekend. I don't know if that's... Not sure exactly what passed today.

Right.

Right. That was the projection that we had going into it.

Is that okay? And so that's $27 million for... In the first year. In the first year, which would then increase, I think, Mayor, the following year. Right. You think 52, Commissioner? Yeah. I mean, so these are big numbers. Sorry, Yvette.

Hi. Just to clarify, year one at the $150,000 exemption would be $17 million. Okay. Year two at the $250,000 would be the $27.3 million. Okay. And year three? So year three would be dependent upon CPI because the exemption would now go up with CPI. So it would increase over the $27 million.

And what percent of our city of properties in the city of Fort Lauderdale are homestead? Do we have any sense of that?

I'm going to look at Laura Reese because we've looked at the numbers so many times. I want to say... It's about that amount. I figured it was about 40.

Well, you'll see more. Right, exactly. There'll be a rush because it's a five-year moratorium if you don't do it by November.

Yeah, there are some changes in the legislation. So really right now you can become homestead exempted as long as you use that home as your primary residence. This does change that so that you would have to be a resident of the state of Florida for five years before you would be able to receive that exemption. In the first five years, you would still receive the $50,000 that is currently in place.

Okay. And again, Yvette, just to go over those numbers again, if this passes, so this has to be passed by 60% of the voters in November of 2026. Correct. Right. If it passes that, which fiscal year are we having the first impact?

In fiscal year 2028, you would see a $17 million impact. That is about 7%. of our ad valorem revenue. In fiscal year 29, that number would go up to about 27.3%, which is about 11% of our ad valorem revenue. There are provisions within the bill that limit how the general fund or ad valorem revenue can be used. And those are pretty much aligned with how the city of Fort Lauderdale is already using our ad valorem revenue. So things like public safety, the provision of retirement.

Let's have that conversation. Let's not do it right now. There's a lot to digest. There's a lot there.

Commissioners, Mayor, I just want to have you keep in mind that on July 2nd, we're also planning to have some other robust conversations, so I... I WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT WE ALLOCATE ENOUGH TIME AND WE JUST PLAN TO BE VERY FOCUSED ON.

THAT'S WHY I SAID IT SHOULD BE THE ONLY ITEM ON THE CONFERENCE.

WE WILL BE DISCUSSING THE CITY HALL PROJECT ON JULY 2. ON THE CONFERENCE AGENDA? SO WE HAVE THE WE PLAN TO HAVE THE INFORMATION ON THE DUE DILIGENCE OF THE EXISTING PROPERTIES TO SHARE WITH THE COMMISSION THAT DAY. I THINK THAT'S MOST APPROPRIATE FOR A CONFERENCE DISCUSSION. BUT IF YOU WOULD PREFER IT IN THE EVENING, WE COULD DO THAT AS WELL.

I think we're going to make a decision. We may even make a decision today. Let's not think about that right now. Let's figure out what we're going to do just with regard to the property tax discussion, and I think why don't we just focus on the conference agenda for July. What day is it, July 6th? Second. What is it? Second. July 2nd, I'm sorry. I have a suggestion.

Hear me out. We have a joint meeting with the Budget Advisory Board on June 16th. Why don't we just dedicate that entire conversation because that, I think, will be very helpful. June 16th? Yeah.

I won't be here, as you know.

Oh, that's right.

But you can have the discussion. Can you be remote? Can you be remote? No. Okay. It's a 12-hour time.

Okay. Ahead of us or behind us? Well, we have moved the meeting up to 1 o'clock, haven't we? Yes. Okay, I thought so. So the reason I was suggesting that was because there are laws in place. We cannot advocate and do that, although there is a legislation now, I don't know if they're going to pass it, to allow the state to spend millions of dollars to push this property tax reform like they did with the last election, even though that was a mess. THERE IS THAT, SO I DON'T KNOW IF WE WOULD BE ABLE TO DO THAT, IF THE STATE IS ABLE TO DO THAT, TO TELL OUR STORY, BUT MAYBE THAT STORY, OUR STORY, CAN BE TOLD THROUGH THE BUDGET ADVISORY BOARD. MAYBE BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT ELECTED OFFICIALS. I DON'T KNOW. I'M JUST THROWING ALL THESE THINGS OUT THERE, THEIR IDEAS, BUT MAYBE IT'S A GOOD CONVERSATION TO HAVE WITH THE BUDGET ADVISORY BOARD. Can't avoid it. It's just a conversation. I'm just recommending it. I think it's a good idea.

I mean, maybe, Mayor, we just have a discussion with them, but don't take any action. Well, yeah, I can take any action. Right. It's just a discussion. Right. Just wait until you come back for direct. And so, City Manager, so can we move that joint workshop then to, because it would need to start at noon, I think, and then commission conference meeting at 1?

We can advise the members of the Budget Advisory Board, and hopefully they're all available to start a little earlier.

Okay. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you, Yvette. Thank you. Oh, there was a conflict.

Okay. What time are we supposed to start now with them? Budget advisory? 1230.

I think it was one of the committee members. Mayor and commission. So typically we start the budget advisory board joint meeting earlier and there was a conflict with someone that the clerk let us know. So we had to start that meeting later.

Okay.

We can, we can figure it out. And also while I'm up here, do you want to know about the residential properties? Oh, yeah. So 75.4% of the city's tax base comes from residential properties. And 75% of the residential properties, 45% are homesteaded.

45% of the residential properties are homesteaded. And 25% are non-residential?

Yes. So 25% of our tax base is not related to residential.

Wow. Yeah. Okay. Now, hold on, hold on. When you say non-residential, you mean people that own their property, not renters.

Commercial. So that means commercial, so businesses.

So that would be commercial. So a high-rise in downtown Fort Lauderdale is considered commercial, correct?

No, that's considered residential. But if it's rental, that would be non-homesteaded. So that would represent the 55% that are not homesteaded. So of residential properties. Oh, I see what you're saying.

I see what you're saying. It's a non-homes. Okay, I get it. I get it. Okay, great. Thank you, Laura.

Thank you, Mary. That's all I've got.

Okay. Just quickly run through a few things. I want to say that it was great getting together for the Hot Dog Appreciation Event. Thank you, City Manager, for reviving that event. And... I thought that the Memorial Day ceremony this year was stellar. I want to thank everyone who participated in that, Parks and Rec, of course, and many people came up to me afterwards and were very thankful that we continued that tradition and that that particular event was the best they'd ever attended. So very happy to get that feedback from our community. Let's see. We had our CFO in town last week, Blaise Ngoglia. He gave some pointers on how to prepare for hurricane season. And he had a whole staff there with him. He had the insurance commissioner. So it was an opportunity to get to meet these folks. The next day, I was on a panel with two other mayors, the mayor of Oakland Park and the mayor of Wilton Mayors, discussing economic opportunities in our cities. A BUNCH OF GRAND OPENINGS, SALUTES, IN PARTICULAR NOTE, RIVERWALK TRIBUTE. I'D LIKE TO SAY THAT WAS ANOTHER GREAT EVENT. I WANT TO AGAIN CONGRATULATE THOSE TO WHOM WE HAD GIVEN PROCLAMATIONS THAT DAY. THANK YOU, COMMISSIONER GLASSMAN, FOR BEING THERE, AND I THOUGHT IT WAS JUST ANOTHER WAY FOR US TO APPRECIATE PEOPLE THAT DO SO MANY GOOD THINGS IN OUR COMMUNITY. That same night, I participated in the Asian American Realtors Association. It was very, very well attended at the Tower Club, and we have a very robust Asian American community here in our city, so I was very happy to be able to participate in that as well. On May 30th, Saturday morning, we had a ceremony, the Fire Rescue Medals Ceremony. This was a day that we've been able to recognize people those men and women in our fire department who went above and beyond the call of duty to assist others in need. And many medals were handed out that day, and it was a great day for them, their families, their friends, and it was a very feel-good event. And thank you to all the first responders who participated in that day. The next day we attended an event at the Hard Rock Hotel. There was an event honoring many people, including our police chief, Chief Schultz. So thanks again, Chief, for all the great work you do, and it was a wonderful event. Over 900 people attended, and I'm sure it was because of you, but it was a great event, and I think it was wonderful that the community came out and recognized them. Yesterday, I did some welcoming remarks to FBI law enforcement executive conference here that was being held in our city. Over 600 participants from around the country came to Fort Lauderdale. It was great that Fort Lauderdale was chosen for such a conference because the FBI can go anywhere they want, and I'm happy that we're able to provide that home for them. This morning I gave welcoming remarks to the Florida Fire Chiefs Association. They had their annual convention. This is the first time it was held in Fort Lauderdale. Usually it's held at the casino. And they have now moved it to our city and will probably continue to be here in the years ahead. So I just have one thing I want to bring up. City Manager, you sent us a memo regarding the Riverwalk garages yesterday. Do you remember that?

Was it a letter to the commission?

Was it a letter to the commission? It was a memo. Let's see. It was. It's the 110 East Broward parking agreement.

Oh, okay. Last night I forwarded an email from staff to the commission. I know there had been some feedback about real estate opportunities, and so I want to make sure that while we're preparing a standard operating procedure that I inform the commission as soon as I'm aware of any activity or interest.

Well, all right, so I have some interest. TO DISCUSS A COUPLE OF ELEMENTS TO THE BACKUP TO YOUR E-MAIL. YOU HAVE, MY CONCERN IS THIS LEASE TERM TO RESET IT FOR 50 YEARS. NOW, IT'S NEVER BEEN 50 YEARS. AND SO I HAVE, I WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT WE'RE NOT GOING TO BE TIED INTO A 50-YEAR LEASE WITHOUT SIGNIFICANT PENALTIES SHOULD A DEVELOPER COME TO US. YOU KNOW, WE HAVE BEEN, I And I don't know if the vice mayor has also, but it's in his district. But we have been talking to partners in our city about redeveloping that site, as you know. And to be saddled with a parking agreement where we can't redevelop it, I don't think is the highest and best use of that real estate. I just caution you, whenever you come into negotiations and when you bring anything to the commission, please keep in mind that we want to keep the door open for something like that without having to pay an early withdrawal penalty so that we as a city can continue to move forward and redevelop our downtown. The thing that's important is the FAU connection, the Broward College connection. Both colleges have EXPRESS STRONG INTEREST IN A MUCH GREATER PRESENCE IN OUR DOWNTOWN, AND THIS IS A WONDERFUL OPPORTUNITY TO FINALLY BRING MORE COLLEGE-AGE STUDENTS IN OUR DOWNTOWN AND TO ENLIVEN THE DOWNTOWN WITH AN ACADEMIC COMPONENT. SO I JUST WANTED TO BRING THAT TO YOUR ATTENTION.

THANK YOU, MAYOR. I THINK THAT DOCUMENT WAS SENT TO STAFF, AND I JUST FORWARDED IT TO THE COMMISSION FOR AWARENESS.

Yeah, Mayor, I agree with you on being sensitive to that and being flexible.

I think something exciting is going to happen. The way I've been hearing it, there's a lot of people collaborating. I know this president of FAU, I met with him a number of months ago. I need to revisit those meetings and see where we are. I mean, there's talk about taking down the building they have now. AND BUILDING A TOWER TO INCORPORATE MORE ADMINISTRATIVE AND CLASSROOM OPTIONS THERE. AND ALSO, YOU KNOW, BRINGING A HIGHER RETAIL ELEMENT. SO IT'S VERY EXCITING. SO I JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE WE'RE NOT LOCKED IN. OKAY. THAT'S IT FOR ME. DO YOU HAVE A REPORT, CITY MANAGER?

It will be very brief today, just piggybacking off of your sentiments regarding our Fort Lauderdale Firefighters Medals Day. And I want to highlight our Deputy Chief, Jermaine Frazier, who was awarded the Firefighter of the Year. So please stand. Thank you. And I just want to thank Chief Golan and his team, our union president, Keith Costa. It was a wonderful event. And I'm very proud of all the honorees for their demonstrations of courage and bravery. And we also acknowledged all of the members of Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue who got promoted over the past year. So in various positions. And so I'm very proud of them. But in particular, our deputy chief. Thank you. That concludes my report.

Okay. City attorney.

Thank you, Mayor. At this time, I'd like to request a closed-door meeting on the City of Fort Lauderdale versus FDOT matters, specifically the 4th District Court of Appeal matter, the Florida Division of Administrative Hearing matter, and the Florida 4th District Court of Appeal other matter. I'm asking that we have this closed-door session between conference and regular meeting this evening. At that meeting will be yourself, Vice Mayor, Commissioners Herbs Glassman, Beasley Pittman, City Manager Williams, myself, Deputy City Attorney Mr. Spence, and attorneys, external attorneys, Howard Dubasar and Jeremy Rosner. And we're seeking your input to resolve the litigation.

Okay. That's this afternoon, correct? Okay. All right. So let's move on to our OUR NEW BUSINESS, BUSINESS ONE, STORM SEASON PREPAREDNESS, CITY MANAGER'S OFFICE AND FIRE RESCUE DEPARTMENT ARE HERE TO PRESENT.

THANK YOU, MAYOR. WE HAVE ASSISTANT CITY MANAGER BEN ROGERS, DEPUTY CHIEF GERMAINE FRASER, AND SERGEANT ERIC PECROLL.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, City Manager, residents, and stakeholders. I just want to start off by saying it's an honor to be standing before all of you. I would have never thought that as a young Marine in Iraq that I'd be standing here addressing the commission of the City of Fort Lauderdale, and I appreciate the opportunity. But on a lighter note, as a police diver, I've spent years swimming in these canals, and I think if there's a new strain of bacteria, there's a decent chance that I've discovered it. But on that, my name is Sergeant Eric Peckrell. And I serve as the Emergency Management Coordinator for the Fort Lauderdale Police Department. In that role, actually, let me back up. I'm accompanied by Chief Jermaine Frazier. He's been pivotal in showing me the way with emergency management. I'm grateful for everything that he's taught me up until this point. So thank you, Chief. But in that role, with my colleagues in the Fire Department, I oversee the city's emergency management program, including emergency preparedness, the training and exercises, emergency operations center, readiness, disaster response coordination, as well as the recovery planning that is entailed with that. Today, I'm providing an overview of the city's preparedness efforts for the 2026 storm season. This presentation highlights the proactive measures the city staff have taken to ensure that we are ready to respond to severe weather events and support our residents before, during, and after a storm. So preparation begins long before a storm appears on the forecast. OVER THE PAST YEAR, CITY DEPARTMENTS HAVE PARTICIPATED IN EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT TRAINING, EMERGENCY OPERATIONS CENTER SECTION TRAINING, FEMA COURSE WORK, CONTINUITY PLANNING, TABLE TOP EXERCISES AND REGIONAL COORDINATION EFFORTS. THESE ACTIVITIES ENSURE THAT STAFF ACROSS ALL DEPARTMENTS UNDERSTAND THEIR ROLES AND CAN QUICKLY TRANSITION INTO EMERGENCY OPERATIONS WHEN NEEDED.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Commissioner Ben Rogers, Assistant City Manager. So I'm going to talk a little bit about what our operations teams are doing, both on the public works and the parks and transportation mobility side. On the stormwater side, I think it's very important to note that We hold back our staff. We schedule our staff accordingly to the weather forecasts. And it's a double win for us because we use those staff to do additional inspections, additional maintenance work while they're waiting for the storm to arrive. Once the conditions reach that magnitude, they go out to calls. And if there's a need for additional resources, they make those calls in real time to provide additional resources.

Hang on one second.

I also want to note on the stormwater side, we actively deploy four pumps historically. This year we've procured five additional pumps. That action has already taken place, and we're waiting for those pumps to be delivered later this summer, hopefully before the peak season of the weather. The last item here is the routine inspections. In the last 12 months, we've done over 25,000 inspections on the stormwater system and over 1,000 cleanings based on the findings during those inspections. On the Fortify side, again, we just want to remind the Commission that we have a lot of major capital projects underway. For the DURS project, that was 30,000 feet of pipe that was installed into the ground. For Dorsey Riverbend, over 21,000. These projects also include pump stations that are doing over 10,000 gallons per minute. If you compare that to a small pool, that's almost a pool per minute that is pumping. We did have a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Dorsey Riverbend not too long ago. Again, you can see by the illustrations the heavy equipment, the major infrastructure that's being delivered. TWO ACTIVE PROJECTS, PROGRESSIVE VILLAGE IS EXPECTED TO BE COMPLETED BY THE END OF 2026. AND VICTORIA PARK STARTED EARLY THIS YEAR AND HAS AN ESTIMATED COMPLETION OF THE SUMMER OF 2027. I WILL NOTE THAT VICTORIA PARK WE'VE BEEN DOING SOME STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT, WE'VE DONE SOME WALKING TOURS WITH SOME NEIGHBORS, AND WE ARE LOOKING AT DOING SOME DESIGN MODIFICATIONS TO INCLUDE THAT FEEDBACK INTO THE ULTIMATE PROJECT DELIVERY. In addition, the City Commission created or approved a competition period for Melrose and for Riverland. Just as a reminder for the City Commission, that competition period closes later this week, and we'll be bringing back some items before the summer recess. Sandbag distribution, you know, we really enhanced the methodology. Last year we went with a pre-packed sandbag, so it expedited the process for the residents. You can see on this slide that we're doing it the third week of each month compared to the first weekend of each month that we did last year. Last month in May, we had our first event. which we did 450 sandbags were distributed. If you compare that to a year ago, it was under 300. So you can see there's more interest and more impact that the sandbag program has had. From a total aspect, there was over 4,000 sandbags that were distributed last year. I will note that, again, this is our pre-packaged and our distribution dates. We do have locations where there's self-service where we provide the sand and the residents would need to provide their shovel and their bags. and that's open during park hours. And in addition to those services, we would be doing storm, as the storm approaches, we would have special sessions to complete sandbag distribution efforts.

Ben, question on that. Where it's self-service, I think maybe you and I had been working on this a while ago, but I forget the terminology, but basically it's a sandbag kind of tool that helps you pack sandbags without having to do as much manual labor. Is that – it's called a friend. It's called a friend, yeah. It's called your – yeah, exactly. A lot of love. We looked into that, I thought.

We do have some assets. The staff feedback has been that it's challenging because the amount of, like you need a forklift to dump it into the machine. So as it comes down, you have to have additional resources. You have to have more space to clear. And by the time you add all of that kind of pre-work into it, it makes it just as cumbersome to deliver that. However, we did go up to the Governor's Hurricane Conference last month, myself and some staff. We looked at different products that are available. We talked to a lot of the vendors to understand how and ways that we could improve on our service delivery.

Okay.

And, I mean, did they have – There are products out there similar to what we have. There are services as well as pre-filled bags that they deliver in storm time. There were some equipment, not shovels, but like hand devices that we looked at. So staff's following up with those vendors to figure out if there's opportunity for us to proceed.

Okay, thanks.

On severe weather parking, the city does have two parking facilities that we open up for no charge parking during flash flood watches and warnings. These two locations are under complete control. We do have a couple other venues that we can work with partners to see based on the storm conditions and the availability of their assets, if they would be available or not. And we communicate this as we roll out any kind of storm response project.

Okay, with external partners and resources, our preparedness efforts extend beyond the city government. We maintain strong partnerships with the County Emergency Management Office over in Plantation, the Florida Division of Emergency Management at the state level, with Florida Power and Light, the National Weather Service, and the American Red Cross, as well as other organizations that play a really pivotal role in assisting us with operations. One thing to note with FPL, we're actually working on an agreement with them to assist them with pre-staging some of their assets ahead of time of a storm. And we've selected two locations that are both co-located at the Executive Airport. One is at the Lockhart Stadium, the old Lockhart Stadium South parking lot, in addition, the FAU parking lot. Again, both are co-located in pretty much the same location.

And just to add, those agreements are on tonight's agenda.

Excellent. So we're hoping to get that through that way. They can provide us a restoration of power first before anybody else. So that would be very beneficial. Um, let me go to the next one. Okay. So planning resources, communication is one of our most important tools. Residents are encouraged to register for alert FTL and that provides them with emergency notifications by phone texts, email and We also communicate through the city's website, through social media platforms, email distribution lists, and through community outreach programs to ensure that timely and accurate information reaches the public. Through the website, residents can expect to find emergency preparedness guides, king tide information, evacuation plans, and a lot of other information that they would be looking for just so they can be prepared ahead of time regarding a storm. Recently, over this past weekend, we concluded the Museum of Discovery and Science event. It's the Eye of the Storm event. It was a very well-attended event. Every year, we get a significant showing of families that come out to support the event and get a good idea of what's going on with hurricanes and things like that. We always encourage residents to visit the city's hurricane preparedness website and participate in those community events, such as the MODS event. And the resources that are provided will help them to better understand the storm risks and prepare their families before an emergency occurs. So with emergency communications, I'll say again with Alert FTL, the city utilizes that as a means for mass notification to provide the residents with that timely and accurate information before, during, and after any severe weather event. Alert FTL allows us to send target notifications by the text message, phone call, and email based on that resident's geographic location and the type of incident that is actually occurring. This ensures that those residents receive that information that is relevant to them and to their individual neighborhoods. In addition to the Alert FTL, we utilize the website and those social media platforms and all the other communications and outreach efforts just so we can keep them informed. And we always encourage them to register for Alert FTL ahead of time before there's actually a storm. That way they know the system in and out and can actually understand and navigate through that system. Our objective is very simple. It's to provide residents with accurate information quickly so that they can make informed decisions to protect themselves, their families, and their property. in closing city staff all the city staff has been actively preparing for the 2026 storm season through training we've done a lot of infrastructure improvements which we've just heard about community outreach which is ongoing and continuous throughout the entire year and regional coordination with our partners both with neighboring jurisdictions the county state level and federal level while no community can eliminate the storm impacts entirely we're committed to ensuring that fort lauderdale is as prepared and resilient as possible With that, I just wanted to say that we have trained, we have invested, we've coordinated, and we're ready for anything that may be thrown at us with any storm.

All right. I'll remind you of those words. We got this. Anything further? We're good? Okay. Anyone have any questions?

Yeah, Mayor, I've got a few questions. Maybe this is for Assistant Chief, but the... In our last major flooding, the high-water vehicles run by Fire Rescue were very important. Remind me, how many of those do we have in service right now?

I believe we have four total in service. Each one of our battalion vehicles are set up for high-water vehicles, and then we have one reserve, a few of our ambulances as well, but at least four.

At least four high-water vehicles. Okay, and is that, I guess, just my question is, is that sufficient? Is that the right number? And maybe, I don't know, but those were huge in rescuing folks from houses when nothing else could get into some of the really hard-hit areas.

No.

I defer to staff, but I don't believe I've received a request through the budget process for an additional high water vehicle, but I defer to the deputy chief.

Within public safety, we have additional vehicles in police as well.

Okay, that are high water capable. And how many is that?

Vice Mayor, we have dozens of vehicles that are capable now. Oh, good. We have a lot of SWAT assets, and we've been improving our fleet over the years. We've transitioned away from a lot of those lower sedans to SUVs and pickup trucks that have the ability to forward through some of that water. In addition, some of our pickup trucks are actually equipped with – higher suspension, better tires, excuse me. And they're more than capable of traversing through that water if needed. And we also have teams that are in place that are able to that are equipped properly with rescue equipment, life jackets and things of that nature, rescue lines that they can also assist. with rescuing anybody from a water event.

Okay, fantastic. That's great. Then city manager, this might be more for public works, but just want to get a sense of, again, in past flooding events, vac trucks, mobile generators were helpful as well. And just want to get a sense of how we're doing in that stock and ability to activate those resources.

I see our public works team coming forward. But I will share with you that through the budget process, the public works team was initially requesting some additional pumps. And instead of waiting for the completion of the budget process, I've asked that that be expedited, which is why we're going through that procurement right now.

Great. And those are mobile?

Yes.

Okay. Yes, Vice Mayor. Correct. So they're portable pumps. So we want five more to supplement the four. We have existing stock. In addition to the vacuum trucks we have, we also have capabilities through our stormwater contractors to utilize their assets through to utilize them and put them on notice to provide relief necessary with pumps and other laborers type of equipment. So we feel comfortable with the assets we have.

Great. And you said we have four portable pumps right now?

Four portable pumps right now that we have now that we're ordering five more.

Ordering five more, so that would bring it to nine. And what's the, I don't know if you know offhand, the gallons per minute that those clear, it's like 10,000, I mean something big.

I don't have the specs, but I know the ones we're ordering are, I want to call them the Cadillac of pumps.

Yep.

So they're the ones I think that. When we utilized contractors in the past, so we're purchasing the same type of homes that they've utilized. Okay, great. So they're going to be very fast, efficient.

Yeah, those are very important during our flood events. Okay, thank you, Todd. Thank you, City Manager. Thank you all.

Anything else? Nothing else. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, folks. Moving on to the next item, Business 2, Limiting Outdoor Events on the Barrier Island. City Manager?

We are hoping to conclude this item. We have Carl Williams, our Parks and Recreation Director.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Commissioners. Carl Williams, Parks and Recreation Director. I am here before you today to discuss limiting outdoor events on the barrier island. As noted on the previous conversation that we had in April, Commission did provide direction on moving forward with the impact fee matrix, the signature and legacy designations, and also the fee increases. And so for this particular conversation, we are focusing on just the limitations that we have as far as suggestions for the barrier island. So on this particular slide here provides a bit of an overview of how we segment the events that we have throughout the calendar year. And as you will see, and as I noted in previous conversations, the items or the events that we have the most road closures are your walk and runs associated with our permitted events. On the barrier island, I know that does tend to be a challenge, especially when trying to navigate throughout the barrier island depending on the event and the event road closures. From 2024, you'll notice here to 2025, we pretty much permit the same number of events that we have throughout the course of the year. As you'll see here in 2026, we're halfway through the year, so we're about on target to reach close to 200 events again here on the barrier island. As we discussed here as the limitations of the events, we've segmented four plausible and feasible outcomes or options to present to you today. And those are restricting the number of road closures that we can put forth as far as a permitted event. We can implement seasonal restrictions. Um, we also have a civic association acknowledgement form, which we've kind of already initiated. But if we were to kind of move forward with this, we would put that city wide and also require for throughout the entire barrier island. And then there's also the possibility of the establishment of a quiet weekend. Now to kind of dig in this a little bit more, you'll see on this particular graph here that, and you'll see this on a couple of slides, the number of road closures that we have itemized per month. The items in red kind of indicate the months where we have most of the road closures. And so when we talk about seasonal event restrictions, we are referring to whether that's the holidays of Christmas, Thanksgiving, or spring break. Those are the areas where we could have some level of impact or restrictions if you would want to impose that metrics here.

So, Carl, there are road closures and there are road closures. Yes, sir. Okay. So if there's a marathon that's taking place at 7 in the morning, it's over at 9. It's not the same road closure as Tortuga or some other event that might be taking place. So how do we differentiate? Because I think each one has different impacts.

You're absolutely correct. Not all road closures are the same. And in this particular case, and you mentioned Tortuga, so Tortuga's setup is kind of mainly off the road, so they don't have as much. Right. for your 13.1 marathon your half marathon those have significant road closures which would be a part of what is impactful to that area but they they're over early aren't they so they all take place early but for those events and activations there's a setup time and there's a breakdown time and so to some extent um we have received phone calls from time and again of concerns with navigating. Now, what we have done is work with our strategic communications department to share what those road closures are in advance. We also have implemented our special event. I'm going to say form online where it kind of itemizes kind of where the impacted road closures and to win so that we are better educating our residents on where these impacts are.

Okay. All right. Just, you know, lumping them all together, you know, may not be... No, it's a valid point.

They're not all the same.

Yeah. Okay.

Thank you. Yes, sir. So also, speaking of road closures, when we talk about the restriction of the number of road closures, you know, in this particular situation, you know, we recognize that there are times where our residents have challenges navigating throughout the barrier island if there is a road closure. And so we recognize that having a road closure does provide some congestion. So if we're able to identify or reduce or manage the number of road closures that we have, that may be a plausible outcome for our residents. Now, to that point, though, which is also a theme here, is that if there's ever a time that commission deems event to be worthy to move forward, considering that we've already had some limitations put on, those can be brought forth to you all for consideration. As I mentioned previously, we do have a civic acknowledgement form that we have put together and that we've somewhat already started. And as I mentioned before, as well as that, you know, if this is something that the commission has an appetite to include, we would expand it citywide. So this would require the vendors or our event promoters and organizers to work with the civic associations that have an impact where their event is held.

Carl, on this, which I think this is a great form, some neighbors brought it to me, the road closure field, could there be – so what should go in there, I guess, in the road closure line?

So the event promoters themselves would share what the road closure impacts would be. And now this is also included in the packet that we have for our outdoor events that shares each specific road closure that we have taking place in the city. And so for this particular form, the event promoter would then disclose where those road closures are. Now, this form isn't necessarily to approve or disprove an event. It's really just to raise awareness to those civic associations that this is something that an organizer is interested in providing.

Great. That sounds good. And this would... In terms of which neighborhood associations would the city expect that this be completed with or by or communicated to?

Yes. So for every event that we have, we do send out a mass email to our community. HOAs and civic associations that we have. And so in a particular area, we would then reach out or require the promoter to reach out to those specific ones that target that area.

Exactly. So in other words, all the HOAs in that area that would be impacted, the promoter would now have to complete this, indicate their engagement, communication with the association, return that back to the city.

Correct. And that would be included in the packet that you all have as well. Great. Thank you. And last but not least, of the four items here for suggestion is the quiet weekend designation. Now, the interesting portion about this one is that it could be confusing because we won't be able to provide the quiet weekend on a same week on a monthly basis. So, you know, one month it might be the first weekend, the next month it might be the third and so forth and so on. So there won't be consistency toward that. However, from our standpoint, since we administrate these, we would ensure that there would be one.

Would there be a schedule provided like in advance, say quarterly maybe?

So we will work on providing an outlay of events that we have. Now we're Because we have an idea of reoccurring events, we kind of can determine what events that we'll know and then we'll push out others if we were to move forward with this in that manner. But there would be a way for us to kind of look at what events are available and kind of determine if we do have a quiet weekend, what weekend that would be.

And quiet means zero activity as far as an event?

So quiet would mean no actual event now. That all being said, it doesn't account for an event setup. So, for example, Tortuga takes place about three, four weeks almost. And so for them, there wouldn't be that period, but their actual event would be characterized in that.

Carl, if you could go back two slides to the acknowledgement form really quick. I just want to highlight that not every civic association meets frequently or regularly. And so if there's an association that takes off for the summer, perhaps, there may not be an opportunity for them to meet to discuss a particular event application and provide the form. We will make every attempt to encourage the event producer to get this form filled out by the association, but that would be curtailed by their specific schedule for meetings and when we receive applications and the process for routing them for commission consideration.

Thank you, Manager Williams.

And City Manager, my thought is there is even if they're not meeting collectively, a representative of the association could engage, communicate, fill out and represent, you know, so they're still part of the process, but in a limited way.

Thank you.

Now, As we move forward with the presentation here, there are going to be impacts, good or bad, on both ends of the spectrum. And so if the appetite is to include one or multiple or all of these here limitations, there is an outlook as far as the generation of revenue that will decrease. Of course, which was the purpose is to limit the number of events that we have. On the flip side, you know, we will ease congestion. There will be some reduction in the noise, allowing for quieter neighborhoods. And of course, there's less wear and tear on our city inventory infrastructure. Now as I begin to close this presentation, I am seeking some direction from Commission if we want to adopt all of these here recommendations, if we want to adopt selected portions of our limitations that we are recommending, or if there's an appetite to continue as we have based on the previous direction given, and identify the progress of where we are there. And then if there is a need to come back to implement additional limitations that can be done at that time. And so the floor is essentially yours for discussion. And ultimately, we plan to come back at our next meeting to have a first reading and then a second reading shortly thereafter. Once we do receive direction, we will be reaching out to our event promoters and organizers, informing them of the changes that we are implementing. And we'll do a full implementation at that point on October 1.

SO FOR YOUR DISCUSSION. SO LET'S ASK THE DISTRICT COMMISSIONERS, START WITH COMMISSIONER GLASSMAN, WHAT ARE YOUR FEELINGS WITH REGARD TO THIS?

YES, THANK YOU. CAUL, I'M GETTING REALLY GOOD FEEDBACK ON ALL THE RECOMMENDATIONS. LET'S MOVE FORWARD AND JUST KEEP GOING. I WILL TELL YOU ONE THING THAT CAME UP LAST NIGHT AT MY DISTRICT PREAGENDA MEETING. THERE WAS CONCERN, AS YOU KNOW, RIGHT NOW FDOT IS DOING EXTENSIVE WORK ON THE LAS OLAS BRIDGE AND THE SUNRISE BRIDGE. So it was requested last night at my district meeting that we don't even entertain any new events until all of this work is completed on the Las Olas Bridge and the Sunrise Bridges.

Vice Mayor? Remind me, Commissioner, of the duration of those.

Well, the Las Olas is... couple of months but i believe the sunrise because it's so extensive it goes from birch road on the barrier island all the way through to the middle river right along sunrise and it's a 40 million dollar project i believe that's a year you see milo's coming forward i thought i thought yeah

Good afternoon, Milos Mistorovic, Transportation and Mobility Department Director. So each one of these will last about a year or more. So Las Olas is a little shorter, but it's still around a year, and Sunrise is more closer to 18 months.

18 months. Close to 18 months. That's a year and a half. Yes, 18 months equals a year and a half. I understand. Well, first he said a year. I was a little confused. Maybe that's Croatian time. Oh, I'm sorry. Just a little levity. Serbia. Serbia. Sorry. My apologies. My apologies. So, yes, that's good. But anyway, that is the recommendation from the neighborhood associations and from the district to really be very cognizant of all of that work on Los Olos and Sunrise and just don't even contemplate any additional events. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Mary. Just one other couple other comments, Mayor. Let's see. So, okay. So quiet weekend. I think that all makes sense for us. Sounds like. So that's good. Civic Association acknowledgement form. Okay, so those two are good. Civic Association acknowledgement form, quiet weekend designation. Now for the road closures, can we put a number on that? So especially deferring to you, Commissioner Glassman, is I think maybe two road closures a month is plenty. So could we aim for that?

Is there a definite number now? How are we averaging with road closures a month? Yes.

Yes. So typically on a normal year, we have roughly 19 road closures, 19 events with road closures. And so November is the high month with four and then March and May has three. And so, you know, if the thought was not to kind of lead that, but if you wanted to have one road closure per month or two max, that could be an option if you're.

I think it was really going to depend on these events. Some of these are significant events. And I will tell you, I would have considered that option a few years ago, but police has done such a really excellent job. We've been talking about people getting on and off the barrier island for a long time, and it's always been an issue. But I'm getting very few complaints now. The monitors that are out there on all of the key intersections, I just think that Staff has done a great job. Police has done a great job. Fire has done a great job. So I am not getting any complaints anymore about what road closures are doing in terms of egress and ingress onto the barrier island. So I'm not that much concerned right now as I probably would have been a couple of years ago because people are really listening and really stepping it up. Again, I would have to look at what those four in November were, what those three in May and March were, but the rest are all zero to two, so that's okay. I think we'd have to, Vice Mayor, look at the events that we're talking about in terms of road closures.

Yeah, and real quick, I also want to note that when we talk about the quiet weekend, or the quiet weekend option, is that it would be a bit of a lead time because we do have events that we've committed to, and so there will be a period where that will take time for us to implement. But that is something that we can do as well. Thank you.

Okay, yeah, I mean, I get a lot of feedback about the impact road closures have, at least on the southern part of the barrier island. So I'm really interested in limiting the number of road closures. So if it's not by month, I mean, can we look for total or how can we?

Again, I would have to have a really good list in front of me in terms of what events we're talking about and what months those are impacting. It's hard for me to do this right now without knowing exactly what we're looking at.

Okay. So I'd like to limit the number of road closures a year. I mean, I think this is just too many. And these other, I mean, these events are going to have to find other times to space it out. I mean, four in November is a significant impact on our residents in the Barrier Island. Do you know what those four are in November?

I know a couple of them offhand, but not the full number.

Does that include the Thanksgiving Day parade? No, I'm just kidding.

Then, as you said earlier, there are road closures and then there are road closures. So, again, I think it really depends on the magnitude of the road closures that we're discussing before we say we're going to just eliminate it.

Now, one thing that, and I hate to kind of complicate this, but we could also look at, Once we implement the impact fee matrix, there's also a portion on there that talks about number of road closures. What if we also contemplated a number? Since we associate numbers with our impact fee matrix, maybe there's if you have a point total of eight, I'm just throwing that out there, or more, then we won't allow that to take place or to that notion. But to Vice Mayor, to your point though, from an administrative standpoint, it would be easier for us to know the total amount per month as opposed to per year.

Right.

Exactly.

Yeah. That's where I think we need to cap it per month.

I think the next time we have this, when are we planning on having this discussion again or further in the discussion? Hopefully not. Yeah. I mean, we keep going.

We want to have first reading June 16th. So that would be the next time. First reading. First reading.

Well, again, it's hard for me to just know what those four. Yes, I can't just generalize now by saying, oh, no, let's roll.

So without knowing what we're talking about, when we have the first reading, we'll know more about. OK, so just we need to move this forward.

OK, so let's do your, you know, do you need to reach out to staff to get specifics on what these events are? You have time between now and the 16th.

I think Carl is gathering the events.

Okay, so for the November one, there is the Turkey Trot, there's the 13.1 Marathon, and I'm missing one other. They sound like running. Two others. Two others? No. But those four have historically been like long tenured runs that take place in the city.

So how would you reroute those runs?

We would then request that they would identify a new location off the barrier island. But they don't close the street down, first of all.

And not all day. And not all day.

Usually they're done by 11 in the morning.

And they just close half the street down. People are going to complain all the time, okay? But that doesn't mean that the majority of people don't like to see these things happening on their beach. A lot of people come to me and say, I'm so happy I moved to the beach. There's so much activity to watch, to participate in. Every so often you get someone that says, oh, I had to. Spend an extra three minutes at the light because I had to wait two light changes. I mean, come on. When we can see young people, old people, families getting together, using our beach in a way that really maximizes their experience in Fort Lauderdale, we should encourage that, not try to push them away.

And again, I'm going to repeat, I'm not getting the complaints that I did years ago. We're doing a much better job of mitigating any of the complaints because of the fact that we're just moving people a lot better. CARS A LOT BETTER. WE'RE LETTING PEOPLE KNOW EXACTLY HOW TO INGRESS AND EGRESS THE BARRIER ISLAND. AND PEOPLE ARE SO USED TO IT NOW, THEY DO FIND THEIR WAY AROUND. AND A LOT OF THESE RUNS, THEY START LIKE, WHAT, 6 IN THE MORNING, 5 IN THE MORNING? THEY'RE DONE BY 11, RIGHT?

AGAIN, I'M NOT FINDING AN ISSUE. WE NEED TO MOVE ON. SO WE'LL MOVE FORWARD WITH THE ASSOCIATION FORM. We'll move forward with a quiet designation. And then, so do you want more events that have lane closures? I mean, can you cap the number that have lane closures?

This is what they're proposing, leaving it at that for now, and then on a case-by-case basis, the commission can be asked to make any modifications. But right now, you want to just set this as the standard, correct? So 19 is the max? At this point, yes.

For a year, right?

For a year.

Yes. And one other thing I want to mention, which I couldn't think of the name, but we've implemented the event explorer that we use where it also informs our residents and also event promoters of events that we have in the city. So that's also an added level of kind of awareness that we're providing to our residents.

Okay. Great. Great. So 19 a year, can we cap it at four a month? Like there's no more than four a month?

Well, that's what we have.

Right, but we haven't indicated, articulated a max.

But, Vice Mayor, this is the number of road closures and activities that are taking place. To change that, we take an act of the commission to change it. So right now we are at four, just in November. Okay. And three in March and three in May. Right. There are caps for each one of those ones.

Those aren't caps. Those are just how many events are happening that month.

But we're solidifying it by when Carl brings it to the commission on the 16th, this is going to be what is allowed and nothing else.

Oh, these will be the max caps for each month.

Exactly.

Okay, great. I wasn't clear. Yes, because this is what we're doing right now. So this would be, we're not moving anything more above what we're doing here.

Great.

And you have to come to the commission for special permission to change that.

Perfect. Okay, great.

Thank you.

Thank you, Carl, for your work.

My pleasure.

Thank you. Business 3, Water and Waste Water Comprehensive Rate Study Presentation, Utility Services Department.

We have Director Albert Carbon, Utility Services, as well as Kyle Stevens from Stantec, our longtime consultant.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Commissioners. Kyle Stevens with Stantec Consulting. I'll be going through a presentation this afternoon to cover the recommendations and analysis being conducted, the rate study as we've worked with staff over the last year. Presentation's coming up here momentarily. There we go. So we have a number of items and I'll jump right in with the time we have today to cover them. There are seven items on the agenda. They will build on one another. A rate analysis or a rate study like this essentially is a number of steps we undertake, investigations to come to conclusions and ultimately present these recommendations today to you for consideration with regards to your water and wastewater rates. The financial plan, I'm only going to take a minute on this. You'll recognize this dashboard from the past. This is from our annual sustainability activities where we, on an annual basis, look at the revenues and expenditures of the water and sewer utility, forecast out five and ten years in order to ensure that the annual level of rate increases is adequate to provide fiscal sustainability. The only part I'm going to mention on this for today, all of the analysis from the slides from now on will include the commission adopted recommendation for fiscal year 2027, which is a 9% increase in water revenues and a 5% increase in sewer revenue. So those will be included in the numbers as I go forward. The first part of the analysis that's different this year is a cost of service analysis. And so with the cost of service analysis, I've just put a map up on the screen here to talk about what was conducted this year. And essentially the utility as it exists in Fort Lauderdale, the enterprise fund has both water and sewer within the same enterprise fund. So we need to go through an activity in meeting with staff and subject matter experts to split sewer from water. So some things are very clear, wastewater treatment, wastewater collection is wastewater, but there's going to be other items like administration where we need to come up with a relative factor between the two. What we're trying to do is ensure that the revenues related to sewer MATCH THE UNDERLYING EXPENDITURES AND THE SAME ON WATER. THE REVENUES MATCH EXPENDITURES. WATER, THERE'S ALSO ONE ADDITIONAL STEP. BECAUSE WE DO HAVE MASTER METERED, OUR WHOLESALE CUSTOMERS, WE NEED TO BREAK DOWN THE FUNCTIONS AND YOU'LL NOTICE DOWN THERE WE'RE LOOKING SPECIFICALLY AT SUPPLY AND TREATMENT AND TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION. THE DISTINCTION BEING WHEN YOU'RE A WHOLESALE CUSTOMER, YOU'RE NOT USING THE LOCAL DISTRIBUTION NETWORK. YOU'RE ONLY USING THE LARGER BACKBONE COMPONENTS OF THE WATER SYSTEM. So I've got some good news on the cost allocation front. This particular graphic shows the summary of the results. What you're seeing in blue is the required revenue by service line for both water and sewer. So 178 for water, for sewer it's 106. What you'll notice is the expected rate revenues in fiscal year 27, so the fiscal year that's upcoming, is expected on both of these service lines to be within $3 million of the expenditures. I would consider that, in our experience, to be essentially dead on. And so that's within the normal variation that you'll see in revenues. Things like weather and customer demands will potentially move those around. What we see is the costs are substantially aligned with revenues. That's based on the increases that are pending for each year, right? Correct, for next year. So we have the 9% in water and the 5% in sewer.

But even, well, according to your graph on the previous slide, with a 9% increase for water, it's still going to result in a $5 deficit.

in the cash flow. It is. Yes, it is. So we had a $5 million deficit in 2027. If you'll remember, in 2027, there are a number of new expenditures that come online. Most of them are related to prospect late, where they have the new availability payment and O&M costs. And so we've been expecting for a number of years as those expenditures come on, we won't have revenues balanced, but by the next year, they'll come back into balance. I see.

So even though the graph on page 7 says that we're pretty much revenue neutral... you anticipate that deficit in your analysis for 2027?

So I would think of these as two distinct analyses. So one is the long-term sustainability and the level of overall requirements. This is looking at the two service lines and saying we know we need an overall amount of revenue, but are we collecting that from the right sides of the system, the service, water, and wastewater? And what I'm saying is the breakdown there is very much in alignment with the underlying expenditures. Okay. SO WE DON'T SEE ANY ACTION THAT'S REQUIRED RIGHT NOW, AND WE WOULD EXPECT THIS OR RECOMMEND TO REVISIT THIS IN THE NEXT RATE STUDY. AS I MOVE TO THE THIRD COMPONENT, RATE DESIGN, WE HAVE A NUMBER OF RECOMMENDATION AS IT RELATES TO THE UNDERLYING RATES. SO AS WE MAKE THESE RECOMMENDATIONS, REALLY TWO COMPONENTS AS WE START THE ANALYSIS COME INTO PLAY. ONE IS THE QUANTITATIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SYSTEM, SO WE GET A LOT OF DATA RELATED TO how we're billing and how customers are utilizing the system, but also we're listening to our customers. And so we're taking that feedback that has been given to the city about how customers are perceiving the rates and how they are currently configured and any changes that particularly come to mind or come from that process. This first slide shows the current fixed rates, and so your rates are broken up into two components. The fixed rates are a rate that a customer pays monthly before any usage. Oftentimes we refer to this as readiness to service, the idea that there are a number of costs on the water and wastewater side that the city incurs regardless of usage. I'm going to highlight a couple items here. So one you'll notice as we go down in meter size, the fixed charge increases. That represents the increased potential demands that larger meters can place on the system. Additionally, one of the items that we noted with regards to fixed charges is if we look at the overall composition of revenue, that volume versus fixed, THESE CHARGES CURRENTLY REPRESENT ONLY 15% OF THE OVERALL REVENUE THAT WE RECEIVE FROM THE WATER SIDE OF THE EQUATION. WE'RE GOING TO RECOMMEND THAT THAT INCREASES ACROSS TIME. ADDITIONALLY, ON THE NEXT SLIDE, WE'LL TALK THROUGH MULTIFAMILY. SO ONE OF THE LARGER RECOMMENDATIONS WE HAVE IS ASSOCIATED WITH THAT CUSTOMER CLASS, PARTICULARLY RIGHT NOW MULTIFAMILY RECEIVES FIXED CHARGES BASED ON THE METER SIZE. WHAT WE'RE GOING TO RECOMMEND, AND THE CITY HAS DATA RELATED TO THIS, IS FIX CHARGES BASED ON THE NUMBER OF UNITS BEHIND THE METER. THAT IS THE BEST DETERMINANT OF POTENTIAL DEMAND ON THE WATER SYSTEM. And so here's that slide to just talk through an example real quickly about multifamily. I put up a simple example here. The first item on the top is how we charge fixed charges to a single-family residential customer with a one-inch meter. It would be $26.92 under the current fiscal year 26 charges, and that scales for each home. So if you think about another home with a one-inch meter, they would pay an additional $26.92. The current configuration for multifamily shown below that, in this example, there are eight units behind the meter. So I've calculated off the side that represents $3.37 behind the meter. What we're recommending is effectively a charge per unit, and it would be 55%. of the five-eighths meter charge for single family home. That 55%, as you'll remember, has been in the rate structure on the volumetric side since the rate study in fiscal year 2018. It essentially represents the volumetric demands from multifamily when units are fully occupied during the season compared to single family. So condo units, multifamily, you tend to use a little bit less water than single family homes. What this would do is put everybody on the same even playing field. Additionally, it would enhance fixed cost recovery, which goes into my next slide here. What on this graphic I want you to pay attention to is on the right is the current composition of revenue. And as I mentioned, right now we have 15% of our revenue coming from fixed charges, and the remainder is coming from volumetric charges. A couple key points there. So industry standard on the water side, what you typically want to see is somewhere between 20% and 30% of revenue coming from fixed charges. That does a couple things. So it protects you from declines in volumes. And so we can think about a particular year that's maybe very wet. Irrigation demands will be down. Overall revenue would likely be down for the utility. Higher fixed charges protect the utility from that. ADDITIONALLY, BOND ORGANIZATIONS, AGENCIES WILL LOOK FAVORABLY AMONG MORE FIXED COST RECOVERY. I HAVE COMPARED THIS ON THE LEFT SIDE, THE LEFT BAR CHART, TO THE CURRENT COMPOSITION OF EXPENDITURES FOR THE WATER UTILITY, AND I'M PARTICULARLY NOTING THE DEBT SERVICE OBLIGATIONS. SO THE PAYMENTS THAT WE NEED TO MAKE EACH YEAR FOR MONEY WE'VE BORROWED, THAT WOULD BE THE PRINCIPLE AND INTEREST. IN 2027, I'M FORECASTING THAT AT 36.7%. AND SO WE KNOW THOSE PAYMENTS HAVE TO BE MADE. THERE'S NO CHOICES ON THOSE. because they are a debt obligation. The idea here and the recommendation I'm making is to slowly increase fixed cost recovery. I would ideally like to see it in that 20% range or greater, but it's not something that we want to do overnight. It's something we want to do in a very measured approach over a number of years. So I'm recommending an increase of fixed cost recovery on the water side particularly, OF 1% A YEAR MOVING UP TO THAT 20% LEVEL. THE BALANCING ACT HERE IS CUSTOMER IMPACTS BECAUSE AS YOU INCREASE THAT, YOU'RE INCREASING PARTICULARLY THE IMPACT ON LOW VOLUME USERS. SO WE WANT TO DO THAT OVER A NUMBER OF YEARS TO MIGRATE OR MITIGATE THOSE CUSTOMER IMPACTS. This is just an example. I've put together a peer survey here of fixed cost recovery for five-eighths meters, that typical base meter for residential homes. This just shows a number of peer communities here and what they charge for that fixed cost recovery to put this into perspective. As I mentioned, Fort Lauderdale is currently on the left there in black at $1,352. The recommendation is to move to $1,432. You'll notice we're on the far left of this chart. So our fixed cost recovery is As you would expect at that 15% level is some of the lowest among the peer municipalities I'm showing on the screen here. The average for these municipalities is somewhere right around $21 a month to give you that perspective. And we're currently in the $13 range. On the other side of the equation, so leaving fixed charges and moving to volumetric, I know there's a lot going on on this chart. We're going to recommend one particular change in structure from the volumetric side of the equation. And that really is going to be concentrated on the purple segment down on the bottom. That's your irrigation customers. So they currently have... three tiers of consumption that have an inclining block price, which means as they use more water, they pay more for each unit of water. Right now it goes to 12,000 gallons, then 20,000, and then everything over 20,000. And that is linked fundamentally to the first set of tiers, which is your single-family residential. What we did is we looked at this data And we're recommending an additional tier be added for irrigation customers. The fundamental data point here that I looked at in the analysis is the idea that at current efficiency standards, so in Fort Lauderdale, we have roughly 2.4 persons per household. At 36 gallons per person, that's the efficient standard right now for a new build house. You can fit in all of your domestic requirements under 3,000 gallons, meaning in that household, there are some irrigation demands taking place in the second tier for single family. What this does is aligns that reality with the irrigation tiers that are charged separately. In the case of irrigation, remember, they have a standalone meter that's only meeting their irrigation demands. And so this just provides some synchronization with the latest data available. What this will fundamentally do is reduce the bills for those customers that are in an irrigation window that's relatively low, so up to 14,000 gallons of usage. Above 14,000, you'll see it go up, and I'll show you the bill impacts in a minute. So quick rate recommendation recaps. These rates are set for implementation for next fiscal year. That would be October 1st, 2026. They include the revenue adjustments that we've talked about for both water and wastewater, 9% and 5%. I'm recommending in this first step moving from 15% fixed cost recovery up to 16%. And then thereafter, the recommendation would move up 1% each year until we achieve at a minimum 20% fixed cost recovery on the water utility. Then apply fixed charges for multifamily based on the units behind the meter using the data that the city already has and already applies for volumetric rates. And then finally add one additional irrigation tier so there is good alignment between the current data and single family usage characteristics. So the quick slides here are just the calculated rates. These rates now are the calculated one with the recommendations that I've mentioned for the fixed charges, which would bring us up to 16% cost recovery. You'll not see a separate rate on here for multifamily. What the recommendation is, is it would be 55% of that 1432 that's in the first cell of the table in the top right or top left of the table in front of you. With regards to volumetric, what you'll see now is at the bottom of this table in purple, the fourth tier added for irrigation and pricing that tier importantly. So it would go from zero to 8,000 gallons. It would be at $11.64, which synchronizes with the single family tiers up above, the tier two rate up above. And then finally, customer impacts related to these changes in rate and structure. So what we would expect for single-family bill impacts, I'm showing right here the five-eighths-inch meter, which is the most common for your single-family customers. And then as this table goes down, we're increasing the level of monthly consumption shown in thousands of gallons on the left side of the table. WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT FOR SINGLE FAMILY IS RELATIVELY MODEST IMPACTS. THESE ARE MOSTLY DRIVEN BY THE OVERALL NEED FOR INCREASED REVENUE ON THE WATER AND SEWER SYSTEM. THE SAME CAN BE SAID FOR COMMERCIAL. SO I'VE CHOSEN A TWO-INCH METER HERE WHICH IS A VERY COMMON CONFIGURATION FOR YOUR COMMERCIAL CUSTOMERS. YOU WILL SEE THE BILL IMPACTS RANGE FROM 4.3% UP TO 5.4% IN THIS CASE. AGAIN, MAINLY DRIVEN BY THE REVENUE NEEDS OF THE UTILITY. Now, the next two, you're going to see some very different bill impacts. So on the irrigation, as I mentioned, if we extend a fourth tier from the three tiers we currently have, what you'll see is a dip in the bills for those irrigation users from 2,000 gallons a month all the way up to 14,000 gallons a month. And then once you get above 14,000, they would start to continue to increase. I know that's not shown here on the screen, but I just wanted to mention that's the tipping point where it goes back to positive increases. And so it's the effect of that additional 8,000 gallons at a lower monthly rate than it is currently. And then the next one here shows a sampling of multifamily bill impacts. And the reason it's a sampling is because each multifamily property has its own characteristics with relation to two items. One is the meter size, and one is the number of units behind the meter. Now, I've grouped using the colors here the different meter sizes on the left. and then the number of units right next to that. And I've given you examples of ones that have a lot of units behind the meter. So you can take your 4-inch there in the middle, one that has 400 units behind, and one that has 280 units behind. And what you'll see is larger increases when we use this particular rate structure change to pick up the greater demands that are potentially behind the meter when there are a lot more units, even at the same meter size. You will also notice on the bottom of this chart that at larger meter sizes with smaller meters, you'll even see some potential reductions here in bills because even though they have a very large meter, they don't have that many units behind the meter, and so they can't place the amount of demand that we would otherwise expect from an 8-inch meter given the way we currently charge it. It's scaling up by the meter size. And so, of course, each one is going to be a little bit unique here because each particular resident might have a different meter size or number of units behind the meter. So I'm just giving you an example of the relative trends that are in play when we talk about this change. Next, we'll talk about capital expansion fees. Capital expansion fees are going to be the one-time charge that we charge new customers on the water and wastewater system. It's a way for new development to pay its fair share of the investments that have been made over time by current customers in essentially reserving that capacity for growth. There are three ways that we calculate capital expansion fees. The buy-in method, where we have existing capacity available to serve growth. An incremental cost method, where we have not only some capacity, but we're also investing in new capacity in the near term. And then, well, that was the combined. The incremental is if we were using just looking at future costs. We have selected the buy-in method because Fort Lauderdale does have existing capacity on both sides, the water and the wastewater system, to meet new growth. And just a quick slide on how we calculate it. This equation up at the very top, it's very simple in the sense that you get the value of the system, you minus off credits, which would include donated assets, as well as any assets we've paid for for debt service, because that will be paid on the ongoing rates when the customer comes on, and then we divide by system capacity. And we do that for every single asset that the city owns for water and wastewater. This next graphic shows you the results of that analysis for your consideration. I'll start with sewer, which is on the right side of your screen. When we calculate the current capacity fee based on the best available data we have, the calculated fee is $1,896 for one ERU. That's the base configuration or base meter size. These do scale for larger meters. The current fee is $1,888. It's an $8 difference. My recommendation is leave the wastewater fee as it is currently. The data does not support increasing that fee by a margin that would matter long-term. It's a different story on the water capital expansion fee. So on the water side of the equation, when we calculate that fee, we're currently showing a calculated fee of $2,303. The current fee is $1,977. That's $326 or 16%. The recommendation, of course, on this side would be to move to full cost recovery on the water capacity fee in order to ensure that your new development covers that full cost of extending water capacity. Our sixth item is miscellaneous fees. And so miscellaneous fees are a little bit different than your ongoing rates for customers. This is when a customer picks up the phone and calls the city and needs a specific type of service. This might be turn on, turn off. What we have done as part of this analysis is gone through a number of fees that you charge and conducted interviews with staff to determine the current cost, labor, equipment, and time that's associated with providing these services so that we could recommend fees to you today that would recover the full cost of providing those services. And on this next table, while there are a lot of fees off to the left here, what we're showing is the current fee the full cost recovery fee as calculated in our analysis, the cost percentage currently recovered, and then the proposed fees, which in that column we've just rounded to the nearest 10th. A couple of trends stick out in my mind to highlight for you. So first of all, as the city has made a large investment in AMI meters or automated metering infrastructure, we don't currently have fees for those. And so we've updated fees to reflect the cost of those new meters. That's in the middle of this chart. And then at the bottom, we've got fire service tapping charges, WHAT WE FOUND THROUGH OUR ANALYSIS IS THE ACTUAL COSTS THAT ARE CHARGED RIGHT NOW ARE HIGHER THAN WHAT IT COSTS THE CITY TO PROVIDE THOSE SERVICES. SO WE RECOMMEND A REDUCTION IN THOSE CASES. IN ALL CASES IN THE FAR RIGHT COLUMN, THE PROPOSED IS WHAT WE RECOMMEND AS PART OF THE STUDY TO MOVE TO FULL COST RECOVERY ACROSS THE BOARD ON THE MISCELLANEOUS FEES.

AND THEN FINALLY, THE LAST TOPIC FOR TODAY IS LEAK CREDITS.

indeed so as part of the analysis we were asked to look at the city's current policies that relates to leaks and there are two different types of leaks so there's a leak and there's also unusual use and so leaks where you've got some verified a break in the system a leak The policy currently as it exists is for a leak customer, usage must exceed two times the 12-month average. So that's a threshold you need to meet in order for it to be considered a leak that would then potentially be credited under the program. And for unusual use, the distinction there is that it's a one-time lifetime credit for each customer account. They can be credited for up to a maximum of two months. And what happens here is for all usage above that 12-month average, when it's credited, all usage will then be charged at the Tier 1 rate for single-family usage. So it has an effect of reducing the overall bill down to that Tier 1 rate times the amount of volume. I'VE LOOKED AT 19 MONTHS OF HISTORICAL DATA THAT I'LL PROVIDE ANALYSIS IN THE NEXT SLIDE HERE WHERE WE'RE LOOKING AT TWO DIFFERENT POLICY OBJECTIVES. ONE WAS EXTENDING THE ELIGIBILITY OF THE CURRENT PROGRAM AND THEN EXPANDING THE CREDIT CAPACITY ESSENTIALLY BY CAPTING TO AVERAGE BILL. I've also included off to the right a pie chart to just give you an idea of the percentage over those 19 months of where the leak and unusual requests are coming from. As you'd expect, the vast majority are residential. However, you do have irrigation and commercial customers that do request these adjustments as well.

A question on that. Thanks. This was for what year? This is 2021.

So this is actually for current date and moving backward 19 months.

Okay.

What was the total number of requests? I don't have the total right off the top of my head, but I could get that in our data and follow up with it. Sounds like a bet.

So the total number of requests over the period, and you went back 19 months. So there were a total of 1,800 requests over that 19 month period for leak adjustments and 411 for unusual consumption credits.

Okay. And out of those, so we're looking at like a total of 2,200 or so.

Correct.

So out of those total, what number or percent were given a credit?

Those are the credits given.

Okay. Then how many sought a credit? Okay.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Commissioners.

Linda Short, Director of Finance. We do not track who applies for credits. Um, When they call about a high water bill, we will take a look at what their consumption is. And unless they meet the criteria of the 200%, we're not tracking just because they call. We track only if they meet the criteria. Okay. And they've submitted the application to receive the credit.

Okay. So how do you determine lifetime then? Lifetime of the house? Lifetime of the customer?

Lifetime of the owner. How long they've owned it. Right.

So if they move.

It starts over again.

It starts over again.

For the property, right. It's per property.

It's just for the property, right. Correct. So it's not lifetime. Right. Okay.

Lifetime for the property once they've owned it. So if you own the property and you apply for it, you get it. But if you move somewhere else in the city and you apply again, you can get it there. So it's not by customers, by property and who owns it at the time.

Got it. I think city manager, I think we wanted to change that. At a past commission meeting, we talked about changing that.

We talked about who's responsible for opening a new account, and the commission has already made that change.

Okay. Now, I thought we talked about changing the one-time lifetime credit because we said that that is pretty restrictive. I thought we had talked about that.

That's just for the unusual. So if you don't know what happened and we don't know what happened, then we get that only once a lifetime. But if you have a leak, you can get a leak credit as many times. If you have a leak and then two months later you have another leak, you can get another credit. So you can get a leak credit if it's established and you've shown that the repair has happened, we will give you a credit for it. So it's only the unknown ones that we only do once a lifetime. Okay.

Okay.

So we've never talked about that at the Commission meeting? I thought we had. Okay. I recall us talking about the average, two times the average, and wanting to bring that down. I think that was one of the concerns raised in the previous conversation.

Okay. Okay. So, well, one point. I think it'd be helpful, City Manager, if we tracked how many people are applying for credits. Like, how many people are saying, my water bill's off, something's wrong, I should be credited? I think that number matters. Because then we say to ourselves, okay, how many people are applying for credit or seeking credit? Is that more this month, last month? Why is that? Is it year over year, higher, lower? I think that number matters, not just who we're approving.

Understood. And I don't know that we have a challenge with collecting that data.

Well, we have a customer service center just for utility billing that's opened from 8 to 5 every day. We get calls, hundreds of calls, thousands of calls on a monthly basis, and everybody's questioning, hey, my bill is high this month, what's going on? So when we're answering those questions, it could be a manual log for my team to track down, well, this person called about a We triage what's going on. We walk through the process. Have you checked this? Have you checked that? Have you checked this? And then at that point in time, would they ask for credit? I mean, we can try and track it, but it creates a manual log for someone to write down who is asking for credit and who's not. But if that's the direction, we will move that way and we can try tracking it manually.

In our call center, I'm assuming we track what is the reason for the call. Do we do that?

We put notes on the customer accounts. So when someone calls in, we will log into their account as we're working with them and we create notes in the system when someone calls.

Okay.

But we're not logging it other than just tracking that the person called. We'll put the reason for the call and what we advise them, and we'll put notes on their accounts.

Okay. So I think it would be helpful, and maybe this is a software adjustment. We can work with our designer, whoever it is, to say, okay, when you get a call, check one of the 12 boxes in terms of what's the reason for the call, right? Is it... elevated bill? What is it? Because I think that data would be helpful.

I think so too. I don't know how manual we are with our system. So Linda, can you share? Very manual.

It sounds like we may need some tech support. 100%. Our system was put in back in 2009. We're currently implementing a new software system. So what I can do is much more robust We'll have a lot more information. And so I would really like to dedicate staff time to getting that up and running and including these enhancements in it versus working with an outdated system that doesn't really give us the right reporting. We've been having issues getting data out of it to try and enhance that. It will be a six-month project just for them to do it when in less than a year we'll be hopefully implemented with a new system.

Okay. No, that sounds great. I didn't know we were getting a new system. We are. I think we need it, so that's great. Yeah. Okay, good.

Yeah, you know you're going to get a new system. Yeah. A new meter system?

No, no, not a new meter system. I'm talking about a new intake system. It's a customer service-facing system.

It is.

And that's what you're talking about.

You guys approved that in January, the contract? So, yes, we are implementing a brand-new CIS system that will have a work order system, and it's tied to the AMI project. Great. Yes.

Okay. Which is going to be done within the year?

And hopefully it'll be done within the year. Yeah, by next year, not this year. We're just starting it. Summer, 12 months. Yeah, 2027, next year.

We'll hold you to that, yes.

We're working on it.

Now, let's just look at the leaked customers. Must exceed two times average 12-month usage levels and a credit maximum of two months. So that credit might not cover the overage, right?

So the way that our system works is that we cannot give away free water. So we will never reduce the consumption. We will always just bill the consumption at the lowest tier. But in order for us to do that calculation, you have to be at least two times your average bill for us to even consider doing that reduction.

Right. So let's say my average usage is $200 a month, and one month I got a $4,000 bill. So the max credit I can get is $400. Okay. Is that right?

No. So it's not based upon dollar value. It has to do with utilization, how much has gone through the system. So we look at thousands of gallons. So on a $200 bill, you're probably using about 4,000 gallons, 3,000 to 4,000 gallons of water. So if your bill is 4,000, then you're probably using about 30,000, 40,000 gallons of water. So what we would do is we would take the 40,000 gallons of water and... and calculate it at the lowest rate that we can on the tier system, which is $4.70 something cents per gallon instead of the $26 per thousand gallons. So we don't ever get rid of consumption. We just bill it at the lowest tier.

Okay, the bill at the lowest tier for what duration?

Anything above your normal range.

Okay, so what's the two-month maximum then? I'm not tracking that.

Meaning that in order to qualify for that credit, so if you normally did 4,000 gallons a month and your bill now is 10,000 gallons, you have to double your 4,000 gallons. 4,000. gallons per month. So it has to be over 8,000 gallons to even be considered for credit.

Right. But it says they're credited a maximum of two months.

What that means is that we can only go back two months on your bill. So if your bill is high and it's been six months and you finally realize you have a leak, I can't go back and do six months. I can only do two months.

Got you. Okay. So it only will credit. Great. So that makes sense. And then the amount of credit, it seems like there's not a financial limit on the amount of credit other than the lowest rate. The calculation of the rate. Okay, great. That's what I wanted to be clear on. It's not. Great.

Thank you. So you're still paying for the amount of usage just at a lower rate? At a lower rate.

That's correct.

Yep.

Great.

Is that enough, though?

Well, you know what? There are arguments to be made either way. Is it enough? THAT'S FOR YOU GUYS TO DECIDE.

IT IS FOR US TO DECIDE. THAT'S WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT. SO IF MY BILL COMES IN AT 40,000 GALLONS.

RIGHT. OH, THE NEXT SIDE HAS RECOMMENDATIONS. HERE WE GO.

SO IF MY BILL COMES IN AT, YOU KNOW, MAY CAME IN AT $200 AND IT WAS 4,000 GALLONS. AND APRIL WAS $200 AT 4,000 GALLONS. BUT IN JUNE, IT CAME IN AT 40,000 GALLONS. But you're saying that I don't get a credit for the average of the two months prior, which would be $200. The only credit I get is I'm still being charged for using 40,000 gallons, but at the lower rate.

Yes, that's correct.

That's the way the credit system works. In terms of actual dollars, I don't know what that number actually is right now.

It ends up probably being about a $2,000 credit. If your bill is $4,000, it would be more than 50% of your bill would be reduced.

So I'm still stuck with a $2,000 bill.

Yes. You're still probably 50%, a little less than 50% is what it would be as a credit. Okay.

Okay. Thank you. And so that's the question, Mayor, I think is... That's the question. Right. Should there be any grace for someone who all of a sudden... A lifetime grace, yeah. Right? For all of a sudden someone has a $10,000... Well, it happens. It happens all the time in my...

Your district, District 1, I remember when poor Heather Moraitis was first a commissioner, she was bombarded with complaints. Right. But all right, something we can think about. Would you have recommendations here?

I do. So on this slide, we have several policy recommendations we looked at. In blue is what we were just discussing, which is the current status quo. You must have that 200% of average bill. When I looked over the last 19 months, well, it has been mentioned each bill is a little bit unique and leaked. the average reduction in bill from the full bill that was issued versus the credited bill was 73%. So they're seeing a 73% reduction. What we looked at was two additional policy choices. So one would be expanding the current policy by reducing the eligibility requirements. So instead of 200% of the average bill, moving it down to 150% of the average bill, essentially opening the window For customers, it may have a leak that was less drastic than the ones that get above 200%. That would, in the data I analyzed, so it was not only the 19 months, but then looking at the full utility billing system, the reduction would be relatively the same. I would expect 73%.

But if you have a bill that spikes to 40,000 gallons, whether it's 150% or 200% is irrelevant. Agreed.

So this is more on the other side of the equation, smaller leaks, yes.

Well, those are absorbable, okay, but it's the major spikes that are chronically plaguing our community in very unpredictable and irrational ways. I mean, and the only hope we have is this new meter system that we want to get implemented. We've been talking about it for years. But anyway, all right. Please proceed.

Absolutely. One thing I forgot to mention about Tier 1 billing, the status quo, I'm estimating that currently costs the city in terms of the revenue differential about $3.5 million. The expanded Tier 1, so if you change the threshold down to 150%, the eligible pool of customers would expand up to $6.7 million annually. And then finally in yellow is the last consideration we looked at, which is to keep the same threshold, so a bill that's 200% or above, but change the mechanism to be capped at the annual bill. So no longer billing at just the Tier 1, but basically look over your 12-month history, and you would, for that leak period, just be billed at that average bill. What that will do is raise the level of the credit given, and I calculate with the data I have a roughly 82% reduction in the bill that was issued for the credited period, and that would also increase the cost slightly, though. So we'd move from $3.5 million up to $3.9 million in credited revenue for that option.

Describe that difference, if it's capped versus not capped.

Yeah, so what I mean by that is effectively when you have a leak, your bill will be charged when the leak's processed. It'll be charged now at the annual usage, right? So essentially there's a cap on the total dollars you will pay. As you were just mentioning a second ago, Vice Mayor, at the Tier 1, there's no cap on it because you still use those 40,000 gallons. It's just going to be billed at the Tier 1 rate.

Right.

Yeah, absolutely. So this now locks it in. The other thing that this does as well is it treats all customers the same. And the reason I mention that is You don't have inclining blocks on commercial, and irrigation is different inclining blocks. Their average usage profiles look a little bit different. And so this provides the exact same credit to all customer classes, regardless of what class they reside in.

Okay. And this, so your analysis on Tier 1 billing expanded. The estimated cost, that's the pool that would be available, the pool that would meet the criteria for this. It's not necessarily the... it's not an estimate of the people that would take advantage of this, right? So if any less than one person doesn't take it, that number comes down.

Is that right? You're exactly right, because you can imagine just under normal use conditions, seasonal use patterns, your usage may rise 150%. It's not a leak, and you would still pay it. I had to calculate, though, the whole universe, if you will, of customers that would have that criteria met. And if they potentially were to ask for a leak adjustment in a year, it would be roughly $7 million. You're exactly right, though. I wouldn't expect it to reach that full maximum because there's only going to be a portion of them that truly have a leak that are calling in to get a credit on it, and it's not normal use.

And if we combine these, if we combine the expanded Tier 1 billing plus the cap at the the bills capped and moved it down to 150%. Is that, would we guess around, you know, again, highest possible, like a $7 million estimated cost around there? Because you're adding the delta between 3.5 and 3.9 plus.

I think it might be slightly higher than that. I don't think it's quite additive like that. I think it would actually, I'd have to run the numbers, but I think it would be higher.

Okay. Okay. Great. Thanks.

Okay. Please proceed. Please conclude. No, absolutely. We've got to get going. Yeah, so study recommendations, you know, consider the adoption of the recommendations for fiscal year 27, which is October 1st of this year. I would strongly recommend the increase to the water capacity fee to full cost recovery so that development and growth pays for its fair share of capital extension costs. AND THEN CONSIDER ADOPTION OF THOSE MISCELLANEOUS FEES WE'VE TALKED ABOUT AT THE CURRENT COST OF PROVIDING THOSE SERVICES. AND THEN, OF COURSE, THE LEAD CREDITS THAT WE'VE JUST TALKED THROUGH. AND THAT'S THE FULL PRESENTATION, MAYOR.

OKAY. WONDERFUL. EXCELLENT. THANK YOU. A LOT TO CONSIDER AND DIGEST, BUT YOU OBVIOUSLY DID A VERY COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW OF EVERYTHING. WE APPRECIATE THAT. THANK YOU, LINDA. THANK YOU. AL, YOU DIDN'T GET TO SAY ANYTHING. JUST SITTING THERE LOOKING PRETTY. OKAY. EVENT, DID YOU WANT TO ADD ANYTHING?

Just one thing, as we prepare to bring forth any ordinance changes that you all are recommending, we just wanted to hear your feedback about moving towards full cost recovery on those fees that Kyle mentioned, as well as any changes that you all would like for the LEAP credit program. And the thing that Kyle was trying to drive home is that our leak credit program will likely change naturally as we bring on the AMI program because people won't see leaks a month and a month and a half after the leak has occurred. They're already starting to receive notifications for those AMI customers. If our utility billing team sees continuous usage, we're already providing some of those notifications. So we'll start seeing less people that have these really large leaks. Right. as AMI is rolled out.

Yvette, do you have, if you go back, if you go back to the lead credits, Yvette, do you have recommendations or suggestions?

I don't have a personal recommendation. I am recommending Al's team gets the AMI meters in very quickly. I think that's my biggest recommendation, which they are absolutely doing. But I know that the commission wanted to provide some additional relief. And so as we hear from our neighbors about the challenges they have, what we hear a lot is they thought the credit would be higher. And so if that's the direction that you're looking at, really capping the average bill provides that higher level credit that I think our neighbors were expecting. It's what we've heard at some of the utility billing workshops where people receive a credit and they were anticipating that it would be more aligned with their average bill. But right now, it could still be significantly higher than their average bill.

Right. In other words, the third option. Absolutely. Yeah. I think that makes sense, Mayor. I think that's the direction we should go. Is that fair? Yeah. Okay, so I think we have consensus there. Is that fair for the third option?

Yes, the third option.

Okay, great.

Thank you for the feedback.

Yvette, are we giving you everything else you need? Al, you're good?

That's it. We'll bring forth an ordinance that has all of those changes in them. So thank you for your feedback.

Okay, thank you for your work. We appreciate it. Thank you so much. Always a pleasure. MOVING ON TO BUSINESS FOUR, CITY MANAGER.

WE HAVE KATRINA JOHNSON, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF OUR COMMUNITY SERVICES DEPARTMENT.

WHERE IS SHE?

I THINK BEHIND THE CURTAIN.

BEHIND THE CURTAIN. AH! LIKE THE WIZARD OF OZ.

GOOD AFTERNOON. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, Katrina Johnson, Assistant Director for the Community Services Department. Today's presentation provides an overview of the city's current vacation rental enforcement program. Today, I will begin by discussing the city's current vacation rental enforcement framework and the realities under which we operate pursuant to state law. I will then highlight the city's enforcement strengths and challenges, review prior commission of actions and provide a comparison of neighboring municipalities. Finally, I will present several proposed ordinance refinements intended to strengthen enforcement effectiveness while remaining within the authority granted to local governments. To begin, it is important to understand the legal framework governing vacation rentals in Florida. Vacation rentals are permitted under Florida law and cannot be prohibited by the city of Fort Lauderdale. In response to state preemption limitations, the city adopted its vacation rental ordinance in 2015. While local governments cannot prohibit vacation rentals, we retain authority to regulate operational standards such as registration, occupancy, noise, parking, and safety requirements. Enforcement responsibilities are shared between Community Enhancement and Compliance Division, also known as Code Compliance, and the Police Department when criminal activity occurs or when the Code Compliance team is unavailable. Although state law limits local authority in certain areas, the city has developed a strong operational enforcement program. Fort Lauderdale maintains one of the most structured vacation rental enforcement programs in the region. The city currently provides code enforcement coverage seven days per week, including dedicated nighttime enforcement Thursday through Sunday. Our registration process is designed to support voluntary compliance through clear requirements and accessible processes. The city also utilizes the pneumo monitoring platform to proactively identify and track vacation rental activity. Residents have access to a 24 hour complaint hotline, allowing concerns to be reported and routed for appropriate response. Finally, enforcement efforts are strengthened through ongoing coordination between the code compliance division and the police department. While the city has developed a robust enforcement program, staff has identified several areas where additional clarification would improve enforcement effectiveness. Some of the recurring enforcement challenges include challenges involving operators attempting to avoid enforcement consequences through ownership changes or entity restructuring. Staff also identified the need for explicit ordinance language regarding daily penalties for unlawful operation. Additionally, staff has experienced limitations investigating certain safety-related complaints when access to the property is not voluntarily provided. Operationally, resource constraints currently limit nighttime coverage for earlier in the week. Staff has encountered situations where suspended operators utilize long-term lease agreements WHILE CONTINUING TO OPERATE AS SHORT-TERM RENTALS. MANY OF THOSE TOOLS CURRENTLY USED TO ADDRESS THESE ISSUES WERE IMPLEMENTED THROUGH PRIOR COMMISSION ACTION. THE CITY'S ORDINANCE HAS EVOLVED SIGNIFICANTLY SINCE ITS ADOPTION IN 2015. IN 2023, THE COMMISSION APPROVED SEVERAL IMPORTANT AMENDMENTS INCLUDING MANDATORY NOISE MONITORING DEVICES, INCREASED SUSPENSION PENALTIES AND ENHANCED FINE FOR SERIOUS VIOLATIONS. In 2025, the commission approved a registration fee increase following staff's cost recovery analysis to ensure the program remained financially sustainable. Those prior actions support the enforcement framework currently utilized by our staff. The city's framework begins with mandatory registration for all vacation rental properties and active monitoring. Staff utilizes a third party platform data, inspections, and complete investigations to identify violations. Code compliance performs inspections and follow-up activities while the police department addresses criminal activities and immediate disturbances when the code compliance team is unavailable. Violations, penalties, suspensions, and revocations are ultimately reviewed through the special magistrate process. and the effectiveness of that framework can be seen in the violations most commonly encountered during the fiscal year of 2025. The most common violations involved properties operating with either an expired certificate of compliance or without a valid certificate of compliance altogether. Staff also routinely addresses violations involving noise, parking, responsible party requirements, and advertising compliance. The data demonstrates that unlawful operations continues to represent a significant portion of enforcement activity. And these violations are addressed through the city's existing penalty structure. The city's framework utilizes both civil citations and the special magistrate process. Penalties escalate based upon the frequency and severity of violations. For serious nuisance activity, including large parties and criminal conduct, The ordinance authorizes fines of up to $15,000.

Katrina, can I just interrupt you for a second? These fines, are they attached to the person or to the property?

To the property.

They do attach to the property? Yes. All right. I just want to verify that. Okay. Thank you.

Sorry. This escalation structure promotes compliance while preserving due process protections. And to better evaluate our framework, staff reviewed how neighboring municipalities address similar issues. As reflected on this slide, Fort Lauderdale regulates significantly more vacation rental properties than any of the municipalities reviewed. This volume requires a more robust enforcement framework, dedicated staffing resources, proactive monitoring tools, and ongoing compliance oversight. In addition to comparing program size, staff also reviewed how neighboring municipalities structure fines and penalties for vacation rental violations. As previously shared, Fort Lauderdale's framework provides a structured escalation model that includes civil citations, suspension authority, and enhanced penalties. The comparison also highlights that several municipalities expressly codify daily penalties for unlawful operations within their ordinances, which informs staff's recommendation to clarify similar authority within Fort Lauderdale's ordinance. Beyond ordinance language and penalties, staff also reviewed operational resources dedicated to the vacation rental enforcement program.

Katrina, sorry, on the back, what, if you know, do you know what informs Hollywood's illegal vacation rental fine up to $5,000? What shapes that determination of what that amount is? I do not. Like how they can get up that high?

I do not know how it extends to $5,000 per day. That is the information that was given to us by Hollywood, but I can find that out for you.

Okay. That would be great. Thanks. I'd be interested to know what goes into that determination of how high they get.

That would be really, really bad.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Thanks.

Okay. Sorry. So as reflected on this slide, Fort Lauderdale utilizes daytime dedicated code officers. There's three code officers dedicated specifically to vacation rental enforcement, along with a dedicated nighttime enforcement team operating Thursday through Sunday. Fort Lauderdale also utilizes police reports, body camera footage, and officer testimony to support enforcement actions and special magistrate proceedings when appropriate. This operational structure allows Fort Lauderdale to maintain a more proactive and coordinated enforcement approach. Based on the regional comparison, staff concluded that Fort Lauderdale maintains a strong enforcement framework while identifying targeted opportunities for refinement. The proposed recommendations focus on clarifying authority, strengthening compliance, and preventing circumvention of enforcement. Staff recommends correcting a scriveness error relating to suspension periods. Staff also recommends prohibiting issuance or renewal of a certificate of compliance when unpaid fines exist. Additional recommendations include expressly authorizing daily penalties for unlawful operation, defining a rolling 12 month violation period, requiring access for safety related inspections and preventing operators from avoiding enforcement through ownership or entity restructuring. Collectively, these recommendations strengthen consistency, accountability, and enforceability. In addition to the ordinance recommendation, staff also identified an operational consideration for future evaluation.

The established penalty is $1,000 per day for operation without valid certificate of compliance. So will this start immediately as it did during spring break? It's fine.

So what we did during spring break was that we issued a $500 citation, which was an immediate fine, and then we scheduled them for a special magistrate to allow the special magistrate to impose the penalty of $1,000 per day.

Great. So can we do that same thing year-round? Yes. Great. And that's what this will do?

That's going to give us the $1,000 per day, and operationally we'll add the $500 citation as an immediate fine.

Fantastic. Thank you.

The city manager's office has requested the evaluation of expanded nighttime enforcement coverage. We are currently reviewing this request as a part of our fiscal year 2027 budget process.

And for... Yeah, sorry, thanks. Question, city manager. So until that's adopted... Thanks. This is important in District 4. So it's just, it may not be a big factor where you guys are.

I represent District 4.

Okay, good. So you're well aware of it. Maybe not in District 2, but it's a big challenge here. So sorry for the needed time here to talk through this. Appreciate it. Thanks.

We have all night.

Okay, thank you. See if we start at 9 a.m. in the morning, Mayor.

You can come in at 9. I'll come in at 9. Perfect. That sounds good.

Sounds good.

I can't – on the 16th when you take over, I'm curious to see how you're going to manage the debate. Yes. Go ahead.

I'll do my best. I'll be watching. Yeah, thank you. At midnight. Yes. I'm sure the last one will be absent. City Manager, until we have the permanent coverage Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, what can we do to fill that gap until that's permanent? In other words, could we have inspectors on call or what stopgaps could we have?

We could take a look at our existing budget to see if we have any overtime funding available to expand the coverage. It may not be for THE THREE DAYS WHERE WE HAVE A GAP RIGHT NOW, BUT MAYBE BASED ON DATA WE COULD LOOK AT ONE OF THOSE THREE DAYS TO DETERMINE IF WE COULD AUGMENT OUR SERVICES IN BETWEEN NOW AND BUDGET APPROVAL IF THE COMMISSION WERE TO GO IN THAT DIRECTION WITH EXPANSION OF OUR ENFORCEMENT OPERATION.

NEW SPEAKER Okay. THAT WOULD BE GREAT IF WE COULD TRY TO FIND SOME COVERAGE. Next question is maybe for Katrina. Have we discontinued the practice where Naomi would immediately call the responsible party, notify them of the complaint that had come in before our inspectors arrived?

So the answer to the question is yes.

Good.

It was discontinued to allow staff the opportunity to reach out to responsible parties to ensure that they appeared at the property as required by the ordinance. So when NUMO would contact them, they would make a phone call but not appear at the property. So the ordinance requires that when staff calls that they are to come to the property within one hour of being notified by the city.

Right. And then does that, can our inspectors immediately go out to site?

The inspector goes out and then calls the property owner.

Okay. So the inspector is on site and then calls? Yes. Okay, great. Because we want to, if there's illegal activity, we want to address that immediately, right? On the spot. On the spot, yes. Okay, great. Next question from a neighbor. When the special magistrate imposes 180 or 365-day suspension for three or more violations, why is the magistrate giving the vacation rental owner 45 to 60 days before the suspension starts? Does that make sense?

It does. That is at the special magistrate's discretion. The ordinance calls for them to do it at the end of the current rental that's inside of the property or at a time that the special magistrate decides. So typically there's a discussion between the special magistrate and the vacation rental owner or operator.

Okay. Because the feedback I'm getting from neighbors, which makes sense to me, which is they've waited months for this to get to the special magistrate process, and then there's more, during that time, there's more leeway where kind of anything can happen. So is there a way to...

So we're looking to tighten things up.

Yeah, is there a way to... Is that a special magistrate that we need to talk to the special... Yeah, I just don't know.

Good afternoon.

Hello. Good afternoon.

Don't you make me come out there? Exactly.

You want to upset Portia.

So what we could do is modify the ordinance to include language that limits the amount of time the magistrate can provide before a suspension is implemented. So we can provide a time frame not to exceed a certain amount of days at the commission's direction.

Yes. That'd be great. What do you think would be the narrowest allowance for that? Like how many days?

I would say the narrowest should be somewhere in between 14 and 30 days. And I'm thinking from a perspective of if a transient guest has booked the vacation rental, the notification by the operator would provide ample time for that guest to find other arrangements.

Yep. Good. So could we aim for 14? Okay. Okay. Is that good? Okay, great. Next one is during their suspension, owners are stating that they're renting property for 30 days or more, but many just continue to rent short term. What are we going to do to address this problem?

So typically any property that's under suspension, the code officer does a monitoring of that property. So they will check for different vehicles. They will try to make contact with property, the occupants, if they do find them to be operating during a suspension issue. what is deemed short term, of course, then a violation would be issued for that, which is also $1,000 per day.

Okay. So we're doing a good job, you think, monitoring that?

Okay.

Great. And then in terms of penalty, can we have an equal penalty for not having a permit and for an expired permit? In other words, if it's expired, you don't have a permit. You don't have a certificate.

I mean, if that is the recommendation of the commission, then yes, it would be a change. That will be a change to the ordinance as well.

Yeah, I think it should, because in effect, unexpired is operating without.

So I'd like to make this one comment. The expiration of our certificate of compliance for vacation rentals is consistent with the business tax expiration. So all vacation rental certificates would expire September 30th. I would just ask for us to implement some language to allow any administrative delay, like on the city's end, not to result in a violation of the expired license.

I think that's fair. Okay, great. THANK YOU. THANK YOU, KATRINA.

DOES THAT CONCLUDE YOUR COMMENTS?

YES, MAYOR. THANK YOU.

DOES THAT CONCLUDE YOUR PRESENTATION?

THAT CONCLUDES MY PRESENTATION.

WE HAVE A FEW PEOPLE TO SIGN UP TO SPEAK. I'LL CALL THEIR NAMES. VENESSA PERDUTO, LYDIA RUSSO, AND BRIAN DONALDSON. ARE YOU ALL STILL HERE? All right, no one wants to speak? Oh, okay. Vanessa, Lilia, and Brian. Vanessa and Lilia are both from Easy Breezy B&B.

Good morning, Commissioner. It's nice to see you again. Good morning, Commissioner. So before I get started, I did have a couple questions that I wanted to ask. So we're not calling the responsible party anymore as soon as we get a call. Because that's

Can I just say something? If you have questions, you're perfectly welcome to sit on the side of the room and talk to them because this is not a back and forth kind of question kind of thing. You're certainly welcome to do that. If there are comments you'd like to make that you're hoping that the commission can be guided in its decision making, that's a whole other thing.

Well, yeah, that's kind of where I was going because the intent of that hotline was to make sure that the responsible party gets contacted immediately in an effort to make sure that we eliminate the nuisance that is plaguing the neighborhood at the moment. So a good example of that is a few weeks ago, we had a complaint called in and we didn't get the call till two hours after the complaint got called in. We got there within 15 minutes, but this neighborhood had to suffer through this party. for two whole extra hours in the middle of the night when they didn't have to.

Was this one of your guests?

Correct.

Okay. So what was the cause of the delay? Do you know?

Well, I was confused about that because normally they're really good with that hotline. So when I reached out to the city, I got different answers. One staff member told me that calling was just a courtesy and policy is to arrive on site first, make sure the violation exists and then call the host. I've never seen that policy. I've been here for six years. I've never seen that policy play out like that. It's always been call the host immediately to try to get the situation under control. So another staff member told me, oh, that's a mistake. They are supposed to call you, and that person said they were going to reach out.

So why don't you have that conversation with them?

Right now?

Yeah. Not at the podium, but go sit there and talk with them.

Cool. All righty?

Okay, great. And, yeah, so go ahead. You can have that conversation with them.

Thank you, Saul.

To get clarity on it.

I appreciate that.

All right.

So my name is Vanessa. I've been hosting here for more than six years. As someone committed to hosting responsibly, I spend a lot of time networking with local hosts. I help them get registered. I share best practice safety tips with them, and I listen to struggles. And I have to ask one question that I think is fundamental to whether any of these proposed changes will actually work. At any point during this preparation, did the city solicit feedback from vacation rental operators? Slide three lists code compliance and police as the two enforcement mechanisms, but there's a third pillar the city is not acknowledging, hosts themselves. We're on the frontline of enforcement. We manage guests, respond to complaints, navigate the registration process, and deal directly with the situations this presentation is trying to address. And yet, to my knowledge, we were never consulted. Treating hosts purely as subjects of enforcement rather than partners in it is both deeply inaccurate and a missed opportunity. Effective enforcement doesn't happen despite hosts, it happens with us. Here's what we would have said had we been consulted. Slide four describes the registration process as streamlined. I'd ask the commission to look at the city's own vacation rental enforcement webpage, which currently states that operators caught without a license can simply deactivate, register, and immediately resume operation with no mention of penalty for the period they operated illegally. That message is not consistent with the strict enforcement framework being proposed here today. Numo is credited for identifying unregistered vacation rentals, but whether Numo is finding them is not the question. What's happening after? There are multiple properties reported by Numo from more than a year ago that have not been cited and are still actively listed on Airbnb. Identifying a violation and resolving it are two different things. I would also like to point out to the commission that while there are 1,500 and however many registered Airbnbs, our data, our data tools for the market show that there's actually over 5,000 unregistered Airbnb, there's 5,000 Airbnbs listed on Airbnb right now. So, that 1500 number only shows what is compliant. Um, it does not show the true problem that the city has and that number has jumped in significantly over the last two months. It started, it was three months at, yeah, two months ago it was 3000. I checked this morning cause I wanted to have my data accurate and it's at five, it's over 5,000 today. And these are all active listings that you can click directly on. Um, we talked about the hotline already. SO I WILL SKIP OVER THAT. ANOTHER THING IS THE REGISTERED VACATION RENTALS WERE ALREADY UNDERGOING AN INITIAL INSPECTION BEFORE WE CAN EVEN OPERATE. IN MY EXPERIENCE, CODE IS REALLY, REALLY GOOD ABOUT FLAGGING ANY UNPERMITTED WORK. And they will make you get it permitted prior to giving out that license. And then we have a renewal inspection every year. So I would like to ask if we could get an example, well, if I'm allowed. I was curious what safety situations are not able to be addressed during that annual inspection that's coming up. Because again, the city's really good about catching unlicensed stuff during my inspections. I've been there and I've seen it happen. I also wanted to make a comment about the data. The way the data is presented, it's showing each violation as one item, but it's really important if we wanna solve the problem that we look at those violations in clusters. Did operating without a license get caught on its own, or did it get caught with a party, parking, and a bunch of other stuff happening? That tells us, is NUMA working, or are we catching these people because they got caught during a party? All of that is really, really important, in my opinion, in us assessing what the city needs moving forward to really gain control of the situation. So I would just like to ask today if the commission would be willing to sitting down with Vacation Rental Host, Compliant Vacation Rental Host in Fort Lauderdale, and getting some feedback before moving forward with this ordinance.

So Katrina... WHAT METHODOLOGY HAS BEEN EMPLOYED BY YOU AND YOUR STAFF IN ORDER TO GARNER THE DATA THAT YOU ARE BASING YOUR RECOMMENDATIONS ON TODAY?

SO WE HAVE UTILIZED OUR PLATFORM HOST, WHICH IS NUMO, TO THE TUNE OF We have looked at each individual violation. We looked at the properties, the neighborhoods by HOA, by district, and we were listening to the community as well as the host, as we've had meetings with several vacation rental hosts. There was no, not, there was not a mass meeting, but we have met with vacation rental hosts when they've reached out. We've also been met with the community. And what we've heard is that the properties that are operating with audience such a big of compliance are the biggest issue. And so our enforcement right now is to focus on getting people registered. And then we can then monitor them and keep them compliant with the rest of the vacation rental ordinance.

Well, apparently there's a gap according to what we just heard. There's a big gap between the amount of people registered and the amount of people that aren't registered. So that's something that I know is hard to keep up with that. But what are your thoughts on that?

So when it comes to an actual just looking at data from a platform, Typically, when you put in Fort Lauderdale, it is greater Fort Lauderdale. So it includes Lauderdale Lakes, Pompano, Plantation, Lauderdale Hill, all of those different places. We have had meetings with up to 10 vacation rental host platforms. And when they give us this data, typically we have other municipalities initially added to our data. And also understanding that there are single properties that list multiple different ways. So one property can have five different listings on a platform. So that would count as five listings and not five properties. Okay.

I would like to be clear though, the data, the tools that I use that I got my $5,000 number from, I mean not $5,000, $5,000 listing, it is very specifically within the boundaries of Fort Lauderdale because I am familiar with what Ms. Katrina Johnson was saying. It is within those boundaries. I do believe that that significant jump happened because the World Cup and people are just trying to like, you know, catch some dollars. But that number is within the Fort Lauderdale boundaries and there is an active listing linked to each single property address that takes you to Airbnb with a calendar that you're able to click into and book. So it is 100%. Those numbers are within the city of Fort Lauderdale boundaries.

Okay. All right. Well, could I ask you to sit with them?

So I have sat with them, and because of some of the limitations that are in the ordinance language, it's been a little bit difficult to get things moving forward, and I think that that's why everybody is here today.

Okay. All right. All right. Well, thank you for coming, Vanessa. We appreciate it. Lily is with you. Did you want to add any additional comments?

The only additional comment I would like to add to that is how much money we're losing by not having, like if you were to fine those houses instead, and say we did it at $250,000, how many, I think I was right under a million, if we were able to fine all of those people.

The idea of having these rules is not to collect money for fines, it's to enforce compliance, making sure that they're operating properly.

I agree 100%, and I'm only bringing that up only because... BECAUSE WE ARE COMPLIANT, IT SOMETIMES FEELS LIKE, OH, THESE ARE THE PEOPLE THAT ARE COMPLIANT, SO LET'S GO AFTER THEM.

WE GET IN MORE TROUBLE THAN ANYBODY ELSE. NONE OF THESE THINGS ARE EVEN ADDRESSING WHAT THE ACTUAL PROBLEM IS WITH THE NUISANCES. These are all applying penalties to the host, but the reality is... Could you speak into the microphone so we can hear you? The reality is I've hosted over 4,000 stays in the last five years, and I talk to tons of hosts. Out of all of my stays and any time I've ever had a nuisance problem, the only... demographic i don't know if demographic is the right word but the only group of people that are causing these nuisance problems are the locals and it's like the locals book we tell them hey these are our house rules i make them sign multiple forms they give me a copy of their id i verify their phone number we check the history of their account they show up disregard the rules throw the party i'll show up and kick them out i'll call the cops do what i have to do but none of that matters I still get in trouble. I'll call the cops. I'll be the first one on site. I'll be the first call that went in. No other neighbor has called before I called. The cops are on site prior to the neighbors even calling. The party gets shut down and we still get in trouble. But meanwhile, the guest that signed all of these rules that acknowledged what's going on walks away scot-free. And it's common knowledge like at this point that you don't get in trouble for throwing a raging party at an Airbnb.

Good to know. No, I'm just kidding.

I mean, it's been really difficult because it's like we try so hard, but then we're held responsible for somebody else's entire behavior.

Okay, so what penalties should we put on the people who are in the beginning room?

So the city of Hollywood actually has a really progressive, and Wilton Mariners as well, they're both doing it, they have actually started penalizing the guests themselves. And Wilton Mariners specifically, they even took that a step further and the guests can get a repeat violation. Okay. Love it. It's as simple as the cop is on site, they collect the IDs, give them the tickets, and keep it pushing.

Okay. Yeah, I'm all in favor of penalizing guests that are misbehaving.

I would love that, and I honestly... And I think also another thing is if the city would be willing to do, like, a PSA to locals, a lot of times these locals... a lot of times they are trying to be not nice and throw parties, but a lot of times they're just genuinely confused. We'll get comments like, well, the neighbor has a car parked on the grass. Why can't I, or one time a Halloween party there, the neighbor was throwing a party and we're here trying to kick them out. And they were like, are you, They literally thought we were being racist, trying to kick them out. And I'm like, we're not. The thing is, you know, I just the neighbor, the neighbor does not have a vacation rental license. They don't operate by these same rules and they don't get in trouble like I do.

Mayor, maybe they can talk about this offline. I don't want to. Yeah, I think it's good. It's worth exploring. Is that fair?

I mean, I would love to talk more with you guys. Yeah, if you want.

Portia, you know, Portia and Katrina and looks like Rhonda has some feedback, too. So let's explore. Thank you. It's good feedback.

Yeah, they do. Yeah. Brian, do you want to talk? Where else are you going to have your rave party? You're not going to have it in your own house. I should.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commission. I think over the past 13 years I've been the poster child of vacation rentals and was very instrumental in the ordinance when it came out in 2015 and all of the revision since. And I'm here as the president of the neighborhood that probably has the highest concentration of vacation rentals in the city. At 30% of our single-family homes at the beach are vacation rentals. 30%? 30%. It's a swinging neighborhood. Pardon? It's a swinging neighborhood. It's an expensive neighborhood, so a lot of people utilize that. But I want to say that in looking at a couple of the things that are in the ordinance changes recommended, which I do support, it's also onus on other... I was a vacation rental owner as well, and as the president of the neighborhood, It's really up to the other owners, and I understand her frustration of the ones that are noncompliant. but we have to help monitor each other. So in our neighborhood, which I've worked with other neighborhood presidents, we take the city's website, and this is the example for my neighborhood that was just updated this month, we update monthly, and we put it onto our website, and it gives the address, the license number, if they're a member of the HOA, which most of the good operators were, 80% are members of the HOA. AND THEN WHO'S THE PERSON TO CALL, THE CALL AND THE E-MAIL. SO IN MY INSTRUCTIONS TO THE HOA, FIRST PERSON YOU CALL, HOTLINE. SECOND PERSON, YOU CALL THIS MANAGER WHICH WE PUT OUT THERE. AND THERE'S ONLY STAFF THIS WEEK WHEN I SENT THEM THE NEW LIST, THEY FOUND ONE NEW THAT I DIDN'T HAVE ON THE LIST THAT I KNEW WAS ADVERTISED AND THEY GAVE THEM VIOLATION AND THEY'LL BE ADDED. We call the person. Then they call me. But don't call me first at 3 in the morning. You call the person that's assigned. And we advertise this, and everyone knows it. So every one of my vacation rentals in my neighborhood is logged in. And when we find one, and if another, so they'll tattle-tale on each other, whatever, so we don't get the... So if you know that there's one that is next to you that isn't, tournament. So, you know, because the bad apples are making a bad apple for everyone. The one thing that I just wanted to mention, the biggest thing from their suggestions that is missing is we need some additional support on parking enforcement. The first thing that any neighbor is going to see are the cars starting to arrive. And part of the ordinance in 2015, if people don't know, No vacation rental are allowed to park on any street in Fort Lauderdale. None of their guests.

Well, aren't your streets restricted anyway?

Mine are.

Yeah.

So in addition, we should be able to call and then have them ticketed. Right. We don't get that reaction. So we've had instances where, and the 1-800 number for the vacation rental, I'll call and say there's 22 people, cars on the street, and I counted them. We can't get down to the end of the street, so I can't get an EMS. I need people out here to ticket. Police can't ticket, and code enforcement was somewhere else because they're dealing with, I'm not the only problem in the city at that moment. So what I wanted to recommend was versus code enforcement Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, which we really only need during the peak parts of the year. I DON'T NEED TO PUT FINANCIAL IMPACT ON THE BUDGET FOR JULY, AUGUST, SEPTEMBER, UNLESS IT'S FOURTH OF JULY WEEK, ET CETERA. BUT I THINK WE SHOULD EBB AND FLOW WITH THAT. BUT WE'RE HAVING A BIG DISCONNECT WITH, AND I KNOW FROM BEVERLY HEIGHTS, I KNOW FROM OTHER NEIGHBORHOODS TALKING TO OTHER PRESIDENTS WHO KNOW THAT OUR NEIGHBORHOOD IS QUITE ACTIVELY HELPING TO ENFORCE THIS THING. The biggest thing they are talking about is parking. So I know we've had some conversations Personally over that and I'll text anyone Including city manager and say here are the cars and they've been very responsive But when looking at the presentation and I happen to be in town today I wanted to come and say that's the one recommendation that I think there's a disconnect because police come and They know that we're a residential permit parking program. And so even if there was no party and it's just all the meter dodgers, they should be able to get those cars ticketed and their parking garage. So that's the one suggestion.

Let me ask a question with that because just looking at this, Ed, on the flip side of that. Someone's at an event. They're at this Airbnb. They're ticketed. They're not going to move their car. They're just going to ride out the ticket. They've already been ticketed. Can they be ticketed twice, three times?

No. Can't hear a word you're saying. We can't. However... All right, wait. I can't hear from back there. I'm at the podium. Thanks. So what... The procedure is that then they will come back through if you're in a residential permit parking program, which is my neighborhood, Coley-Homac, Beverly Heights, and some others. So those are part of the big issue. My other issue is that we have – so we've had 20 homes in my – historic neighborhood bulldozed in the past few years. So I have 11 empty lots right now. So we have a couple vacation rental owners that tell them, yeah, we have eight under construction, 11 still empty, because we lost 25 homes in the last five years. And so they're telling their guests to go ahead and park. So what I found out was when there was 22 cars on someone's private property, I had to get a hold of the private property owner to tell police to then file because police can't tell them to get off of somebody's yard. So we have some of those things that we need to work, but that's a separate thing. But really, we're having a disconnect with the police will come and they can't ticket the cars. AND WE CAN'T GET THE PARKING ENFORCEMENT. AND I THINK THAT WOULD REALLY HELP BECAUSE THERE ARE A COUPLE NEW OPERATORS, BUT WE'RE ACTIVELY COACHING THEM ON HOW THEY SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWING ONE NIGHT. IF THEY ALLOW ONE NIGHT, TWO NIGHT, THREE NIGHT, YOU'RE GETTING LOCAL PARTIES. IF YOU HAVE A FOUR NIGHT MINIMUM, IT HAS CLEANED UP MY NEIGHBORHOOD.

THANK YOU. VERY GOOD. THANK YOU. IS THERE ANYONE ELSE WHO WISHES TO SPEAK ON THIS ITEM? OKAY. THERE BEING NO ONE. SO I THINK YOU'VE GIVEN SOME DIRECTION, SO I APPRECIATE YOUR WORK ON THIS, AND WE'LL SEE HOW WE CAN MOVE THIS THING FORWARD. THANK YOU FOR YOUR WORK. BUSINESS 5, THIS IS REGARDING THE CITY OF FORT LAUDERDALE LEAN AMNESTY PROGRAM. PORCHA?

GOOD AFTERNOON, MAYOR, VICE MAYOR, COMMISSIONERS. PORCHA GARCIA, DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY SERVICES DEPARTMENT. WITH THIS PRESENTATION IS ORGANIZED INTO FOUR PRIMARY DISCUSSION AREAS. WE'RE GOING TO DISCUSS AN OVERVIEW OF THE CITY'S LEAN AMNESTY PROGRAM WHICH WE ADOPTED DURING FISCAL YEAR 23. WE'RE GOING TO ALSO DISCUSS THE PROGRAM'S OPERATIONAL FRAMEWORK. PERFORMANCE OUTCOMES WILL PROVIDE A MUNICIPAL COMPARISON AND ALSO SOME RECOMMENDATION FOR POLICY CONSIDERATIONS AS WE MOVE FORWARD WITH THE PROGRAM. As a background to this program, the lien amnesty program was established as an administrative tool to resolve outstanding code enforcement liens in a more efficient and structured manner. Prior to lien amnesty, the city handled its lien reductions through a special magistrate process, which often resulted in varying outcomes, as well as lengthy case resolution timelines. The amnesty program introduced a more predictable and standardized process for addressing code enforcement liens. In addition to providing a standardized lien resolution process, the program was designed around several operational compliance focused goals. At its core, lien amnesty reduces outstanding lien balances owed to the city. while promoting voluntary compliance and accelerating case resolution. When we initially began looking at lien amnesty, the city had around $63 million in outstanding liens. At the time, our budget advisory board as well as our audit advisory board had policy recommendations around how code enforcement could be more aggressive in its attempt to collect outstanding lien debt. And so as a result of that inquiry, the staff, we recommended adopting a lean amnesty program. The program supports administrative efficiencies by reducing the number of cases requiring prolonged litigation through the special magistrate process or repeated hearings as well as ongoing enforcement activity. This allows staff to focus our resources on active compliance efforts and higher priority nuisance concerns throughout the community. From an outreach perspective, staff recognizes that any type of lien collection efforts require staff to do considerable community outreach. Typically at our special magistrate hearings, we provide the public with information on how to apply for lien amnesty so that we could have higher collection. This slide provides an overview of our program's evolution since 2023. The initial framework was very straightforward for this program. Our goal was simply to encourage participation in amnesty, resolve long-standing cases, and create an administrative path for settlement. At the time that we initially adopted this program, we provided a 90% discount that was focused primarily on incentivizing compliance and payment because, as I mentioned, we had the $63 million in outstanding liens. As the program has matured, staff encountered circumstances where additional flexibility was necessary. In 2025, the city expanded the Lean Amnesty Program to allow Hardship-based review and consideration of cases where balances substantially exceeded property values. In those instances when applicants apply for lien amnesty, if they need additional relief, they explain why they require additional relief. Staff conducts an administrative review where we look at things such as the value of the property, the value of the liens. any financial documents provided by the applicant, and we provide the city manager with a staff recommendation that she can use in making a decision on whether or not to grant additional lien amnesty relief. Most recently, the fiscal year 2026 program framework increased or decreased the discount from 90% to 85%. This established greater emphasis on consistency, documentation, and eligibility. For the reduction to the 85% discount, staff wanted to further incentivize compliance by reducing how much of the lien would be waived. Overall, the progression of the program reflects the city's effort to balance compliance, fairness, operational efficiency, and responsible financial recovery. This slide provides an overview of our lien reduction efforts prior to lien amnesty. This includes the special magistrate's reduced amounts So between fiscal years 2025 and 2023, prior to amnesty, more than 1,021 properties applied for a lien reduction through the special magistrate process. That resulted in $106 million in total liens being reduced to about $5 million. That $5 million represented under the magistrate's process a 95% waiver of liens. So one of the things I really want to highlight with comparing lien reductions in the magistrate process to lien amnesty is we went from a model where the magistrate was reducing collectively around 95%, and this is over a period of seven fiscal years, to standardizing the amount that we are reducing, which is now at 85%. Since implementing the Lean Amnesty Program in fiscal year 24, we had 120 properties apply for amnesty. The city collected almost $800,000 in revenue. In fiscal year 25, we had 139 properties apply for amnesty. The city collected nearly $900,000 in revenue. In fiscal year 26 to date, we have had 87 properties apply for lien amnesty and to date we've collected a little over $600,000 in revenue. These figures demonstrate that the program has become an effective administrative tool for resolving outstanding liens and generating revenue as well as encouraging compliance through voluntary participation. One thing I would highlight is that amnesty provides the applicant with a determined discounted rate as opposed to lien reduction before the magistrate. There is no set standard on what the magistrate can decide. So applicants go through the lien reduction process with the magistrate and it's truly a gamble in terms of what amount the magistrate will decide to discount the lien. At the same time with the program's growth, there is continued utilization in highlighted areas where we as staff believe that there can be additional policy refinement. This slide provides a broader financial overview of the lien amnesty program by comparing total lien values assessed against the volume of waived through mitigation. A thing I would highlight is that the program's value is not solely measured by the percentage of liens recovered by the city, but also our ability to bring properties into compliance. So in order to receive lean amnesty, an applicant must be in full compliance, not just with the property that they're applying for amnesty for, but with any property that they own within the city of Fort Lauderdale. What I would also highlight is that when staff reviews photos of properties where they're applying for amnesty or other properties owned in Fort Lauderdale, staff reviews all violations. So even if a violation is not cited, staff will require the property owner applicant to comply that violation in order to be considered for amnesty. So when the commission hears me mentioning that this is a tool that allows staff in the city to receive greater compliance is compliance of things that have not been cited. So we are able to do that through this program. As a comparison, a municipal comparison, we have evaluated several cities throughout the county and compared them with Fort Lauderdale. This slide highlights that comparison. You'll notice that there are significant variations in the reduction thresholds used by varying municipalities as well as the eligibility requirements. The cost of the applications fluctuate and the level of administrative discretion also fluctuates throughout the county. Several municipalities impose stricter limitations for repeat or distinguish between residential and commercial properties when determining eligibility or reduction amounts. These analysis are used to demonstrate that Fort Lauderdale's current framework is among the more flexible and broadly accessible programs within our regional comparison. This also provides a benchmark for staff to provide a recommendation for the commission to exercise important operational insight and to make an informed decision on whether or not the program should continue or expire on September 30th, or if the program does continue, if there needs to be additional modifications to our current program. Based on the regional comparison and what we've determined through our current program, we have several operational recommendations and key policy updates. Our first is staff recommends to modify our current discount from 85% and reduce it to a 50% discount. During the most recent amnesty modification, which was FY2026, when we made the change to 85%, we also included a change where certain violation types, specifically nuisance violations, repeat violations, noise violations, and vacation rental violations would only be eligible for a 50% discount. instead of an 85% discount. We are at this time recommending that all violations be eligible for a 50% discount instead of an 85% discount. A reason for us making this recommendation is we've heard several concerns from the community regarding amnesty making enforcement invalid because if people recognize that they can violate the code, accrue fines or liens, and then have a majority of that fine or lien waived, It does not incentivize compliance, and so we're recommending a lesser discount. We also recommend the exclusion of certain violation types, which we've listed here, that these violation types not be eligible for a reduction at all. So the nuisance repeat noise and vacation rental violations as well as irreparable or irreversible violations, commercial, industrial, and income-producing properties. So income-producing property would look like a property that's held out to a tenant. We already have an exception built in for vacation rental, so this is more of our long-term lease. And then we would still recommend that if we continue this program to continue to allow for hardship considerations. So if an applicant believes that they have a hardship and they would like the city to look into further review, we recommend that we maintain that in our current program. Okay. At this time, our presentation has concluded and I'm open to any questions or direction from the commission.

Okay. Thank you very, very much. BEFORE I OPEN IT UP, I JUST WANT TO SAY I AGREE WITH YOUR 50% REDUCTION. I THINK THE 85% WAS MUCH TOO GENEROUS. IF THEY WANT MORE, I KNOW IN SOME CITIES THEY GIVE 50% AND IF THEY WANT MORE THEY CAN COME TO THE COMMISSION AND ASK FOR MORE. I ASSUME THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE DOING HERE. Why did you single out commercial properties? Why can't they be eligible for amnesty?

So that is some feedback that we heard from the public or from the community when we received feedback about amnesty, is that when there are commercial properties that accrue very large liens and are unresponsive to code enforcement, that allowing amnesty sometimes reduces the effectiveness of code enforcement.

And that same practice doesn't apply in residential homes?

I could say that it is. What I would say professionally is sometimes the financial means may differ between a residential property owner compared to a commercial property owner. And depending on the type of violation, the commercial property may have a greater impact on the residential neighborhood.

So can an owner of commercial or industrial property still apply for amnesty? It's just not automatically given?

So that's somewhat of the direction that we're seeking. We can have it where any of these that we are recommending exclusion for can apply and receive like a review to determine if they should be eligible. Administratively. Correct. Or we can make it where they are ineligible for amnesty through this program. Okay.

Mayor, to piggyback on what you're saying about commercial, not to name a business that's in my district that we had a large issue with, a name brand, nationally named company in the community that continued to violate code issues. And again, you know, you would think, you know you have the funds to take care of it, and it was more of a hands off, what are you going to do type of situation. So I can understand on one stance the reason for excluding commercial when you've had experience and repeat experience with some commercial businesses. So I can understand the reason why that is a part of it.

So you said a name, Bram, but, you know, some of these mom and pop businesses, you know, like I DON'T KNOW, PLUMBERS OR ELECTRICIANS OR, YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW, BUILDING CONTRACTORS, THERE'S SMALL OPERATIONS, SOMETIMES THEY'RE A PLACE OF BUSINESS. I THINK THAT WE SHOULD EXCLUDE THEM. I AGREE WITH YOU. BUT I THINK WE SHOULD ALSO GIVE THEM THE OPPORTUNITY TO STATE THEIR CASE IF THERE'S A PARTICULAR, IF THERE'S A VIABLE REASON FOR MAYBE MAKING SOME SORT OF JUSTIFICATION FOR A REDUCTION. BUT I DO AGREE WITH YOUR RECOMMENDATION THAT THEY SHOULD they should be a presumption that they not be given amnesty and that they should be able to at least state their case to allow for some opportunity there. That's my opinion. So, Vice Mayor.

Yeah, I agree with you. I like that opportunity for all commercial, residential, being able to appeal to the commission, which I think is what you're saying, right? Yeah.

Well, appeal to administratively first. And then they can come to us.

Yeah, I agree. So, Portia, I think this is great. I think we're heading in a very good direction. When we look at the municipal comparison, I mean, even at 50%, we're incredibly forgiving. I mean, look at Coral Springs, Miami Gardens, Sunrise. I mean, it's just up to 15% reduction. What about the possibility of going more aligned with them, 20%, 25% reduction? It's up to us. It's up to us. Yeah, yeah. I mean, is that...

Hollywood's the meaning. Hollywood gives it away.

Is that possible? Or is there a big downside? I guess what I'm asking is, is there a big downside that you see if we're more stringent than 50%?

So this is my experience. So I do recall a point in time where this program did not reside in amnesty. Whenever there is too little of a discount provided, we typically get a lot of applicants to petition to the city commission for additional relief. And so years ago when I initially started with the city, that was the case. A lot of the lien applicants were requesting amnesty or lien reductions before the city commission. So I won't say good or bad. It really is the discretion of the commission. But if there is not some mechanism to provide a substantial discount.

Some incentive for.

Absolutely. And things I would just mention is typically people are applying for amnesty when they may be trying to refinance a home or if they're doing a sale of a property. AND SO THERE ARE TIMES WHEN THEY'RE IN A CRUNCH FOR TIME, SO HAVING THE REVIEW GO BEFORE THE COMMISSION CAN EXTEND THE TIME THAT THEY'RE LOOKING TO REFINANCE OR SELL THE PROPERTY.

MAYOR?

YES.

I THINK YOU WANT TO BE CAREFUL ABOUT HAVING THE APPEAL COME BEYOND THE ADMINISTRATIVE REVIEW AND TO THE COMMISSION BECAUSE THAT COULD BE VOLUMINOUS, THAT COULD BE perceived to be too discretionary or arbitrary, I don't know that you'd want to do that.

I agree. Okay, I get it. But at least if they have some level of appeal, even if it's at the administrative level or the magistrate level, but at least there's some... But I do think there should be a presumption of no eligibility... in these categories, but that they be given an opportunity to plead their case. I agree. Yeah, I'm good with that.