City Commission - Regular Meeting

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Let's go ahead and call this PPA Beach City Commission meeting to order on February 24th, 2026 at 6 p.m. If I could ask everyone here to please check your cell phones, put them on vibrate or silence. That way we don't get disturbed during the meeting by somebody getting a phone call. So, please put your cell phones on vibrate or silence. That would be great. Thank you. Um, let's go ahead and call the roll. Commissioner Fezic here. Commissioner Perkins here. Commissioner Seagerson Eden here. Commissioner Smith here. Vice Mayor Fornier here. Mayor Harton

here. Thank you. Our invocation this this evening is going to be given by the pastor Miguel Cruz um instead of Brandon Jones who is listed in the agenda. So Pastor Miguel Cruz will be giving our invocation. If we can please rise for the invocation followed by the pledge of allegiance. Pastor,

good evening everybody. I want to give honor unto God who is the head of my life and mayor, commissioners, uh it's a pleasure to see you all. Let us pray. Most gracious and wonderful father, we come to you tonight, Father God, first and foremost, giving you thanks for your love, your mercy, and your kindness for every single one of us today. Father God, we just ask you, Father, to give us wisdom, knowledge, and understanding to deal with the business at hand, Father God. So, we thank you, Father. We thank you for every person that came here tonight. And we give you all the honor and all the praise in Jesus mighty name. Amen.

Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for its one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Can I get a motion approving the regular city commission meeting minutes of January 27th, 2026? So moved. Second. Dan seconded. And all in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. Motion carries unanimous. Thank you. Can I get a motion approving the regular city commission meeting meeting minutes of February 10th, 2026? So moved. Second. Moved and seconded. All in favor say I.

I. Opposed. Motion carries unanimous. Again, thank you. Okay, that takes us up to approval of our agenda. We've got several items, but first I want to recognize Mr. Burman. Mr. Burman, you got an update on a particular item on our agenda?

Yes, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. I'm recommending that we postpone to a date certain item number eight dealing with animals. Uh for several reasons I'll make clear. Um number one, uh we received I received today uh some suggested changes from uh Miss Lazero, Commissioner Lazero from Helenale. Uh she has sent some interesting potential changes. We have prepared based on commission direction an alternative version uh which is not in line with that. Uh this will uh give us time to meet with her. We want to take the time to meet with the store owner and her counsel if they would like us if she would like us to meet with her counsel to see if we can come up with a version that meets everyone's needs. Uh and pushing this through tonight I don't think is going to do that. It it we may never be able to accomplish that, but it's worth a try. And uh these changes were given to us. I guess they came in last night. Miss Lions has been in deposition all day and I've been in meetings all day. So, we we really haven't had a chance to incorporate them, bring them before the commission. We'd like to meet with Miss Lazero and deal with her concerns. We'd like to meet with the store owner and her attorney if they'd like. We want to meet with all commissioners on potential final versions rather than sit here and hash it out back and forth, which is not, I don't think, respectfully, going to get us anywhere tonight. Uh, I think we can hopefully reach a consensus. But there's also some other uh uh other developments. Interestingly, um Senate Bill 104 has passed the Senate that deals with um animals, domestic animals, and how they're to be treated by pet stores. Just today, this afternoon, House Bill 1521 is in the House Commerce Committee, it's been amended to conform to the Senate bill, and per my sources in Tallahassee, it is positioned to pass. So, we want to see how that's going to affect. what we

need to do is see what protections it provides uh animals, animal owners um and see if we what we need what holes there may be or gaps that we might need to fill. So I think if we take a quick step back, meet with everyone, listen to your concerns, including the the pet store owner that we do have here in the city. Uh I think it's important that we try and get something together. Then we'll meet with commissioners, see if it's um if it meets your uh is acceptable to you as a group so we don't sit here and just waste a lot of time back and forth. My recommendation is we postpone it. We'll have the month of March to do this. And if you want it on in a night meeting, that would be I guess April 27th. Okay. Thank you, mayor.

Very good. Commissioner Fess. Yes. Uh thank you. Thank you for that. Um and welcome back, Mr. Bman. Um, I would love I think it would be a great idea to postpone it. One of the big concerns that came across was finding ourselves in the situation where we had additional stores potentially opening or not opening. So, I'm fine with postponing it. I just want to make sure we don't have more stores pop up in the interim. I don't know if there's something that we can do on our end um or not. So, that's up to you. Well, I believe development services will treat it as a legislation in progress basically. Um we're it's another month delay, but

uh basically we're trying to make it as acceptable. We may not make everybody happy, but we're sure going to try and I think it's a better process to be able to sit down face to face, talk to other parties involved and the affected people with this. And so did you say and do we want to do what's right and what's fair? You say April 24th. April 27th. 27th. 28th. 28th. All right. April 2. So I'll make a motion to uh postpone.

That's it's it's all under agenda. Um any further discussion on that particular issue? Okay. And just for the public's the item number eight is the discussion of of um the animals in the city of Pmp Beach, animals for sale. So that's number eight. So then we'll go ahead and we're also going to postpone item number 11 until March 24th. So that's item number 11. We'll postpone item number eight until April 28th. and we're going to move item number five directly be before the consent agenda. So that is the presentation of our police services study will be right before we head into consent. Mr. Harrison, any further changes to our agenda?

Very good. So we got 11 and eight postponed and five is moved directly before consent. Can I get a motion approving the agenda as amended? So moved. Second. Moved and second. All in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. Motion carries unanimous. Thank you for that.

All right. Um and just uh also for the record on the um police services study which is being moved um directly before our consent there there will be no public input on that particular item. This is a presentation item. Our consultant is going to give a presentation what they uh what they've gotten to us and so it'll be a presentation only which commission can ask questions if they like to but um it will not be taking public input on that particular item but we do have a couple of workshops which I will get to that during directly after the presentation workshops scheduled for that particular topic. All right, that takes us up to consent agenda discussion. Items number three and four are being pulled for individual discussion. So items one and two are eligible for discussion during audience to be heard. So three and four will be pulled for individual discussion. All right, that takes us up to audience to be heard. Do we have any audience to be heard at this time, Mr. Alfred?

Yes, we do, Mayor. We have 17 speakers. 17. Okay. Well, we'll see how far we go. Okay. One moment. First speaker, Tamara Taylor, followed by Vicky Clinton, followed by Terry Taylor. Just name and address Andrew for the record and and keep your comments to three minutes, please. Thank you. Welcome.

Good afternoon. My name is Tamara Taylor. I stand before you today as a hurt mother. On January 13th, I witnessed something that will stay with me for the rest of my life. I watched my son, my child, get kicked not once, not twice, but five times while he was already on the ground. He was down. He wasn't standing. He was not fighting. And the kicks continue. Then when a bystander, a woman who posed no threat, spoke just words. You didn't have to beat him like that. A gun was drawn. A gun drawn over words. Let that sit with you. If I kick my child, it would be called child abuse. I would be arrested. I would be charged. I will lose everything. But when a police officer does it, it becomes under investigation. What does that really mean to a mother? For 42 days, 1,08 hours, I have replayed that moment in my mind. I close my eyes and I still see it. Kick after kick after kick. Would you claim? Would you be calm for 42 days if that was your son? Would you be patient for 1,08 hours watching that image in your head? Because I have tried I have tried to be respectful. I have tried to be patient. I have tried to be believe the system would do what is right. Then on February 10th, the major spoke about my son and instead of accountability, I heard judgment. My son was described by what he was wearing. All black with a hoodie. Two things can be true. Yes, my son is 22 years old. Yes, he was wearing all black. But clothing does not justify violence. A hoodie does not explain kicks. Wearing all black does not make someone less human. I wanted to believe

we have grown past that. I wanted to believe we no longer are judged. We no longer judge our young men's by what they wear or the color of their skin. But that day, I felt we was taking 10 steps back. And that pain cut me deeply. The PMPO Beach Police Department failed me. They felt my son. What I see is brotherhood over accountability. Every officer involved still wear a badge, still collect a paycheck. Justice is not silenced. Justice is not delayed. Justice is not protecting officers because of brotherhood. My family carried this pain quietly. We have tried to grieve with dignity. Excuse me. The Bible say, "Touch not my anointed and do my profit no harm." I hold and I stand on that because while man may judge one way, I know God sees everything. God saw January 13th and God heard February 10th. And I trust that justice and I trust that the justice God bring is greater than any badge and any title. So I asked the mayor and I asked the commissioners, "Why are these officers still working? Why are they lives still normal? Why have no one been held accountable for what eyes have seen and ills have heard? What would justice look like if that was your child? Because my son matters. He is not just a report. He is not just closing. He wasn't just a hoodie. He was my child. He is not just a headline. And I stand here today begging and pleading cuz for 42 days and 108 hours, I've been humble and all I have gotten was is up under investigation. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, ma'am. Next speaker. I am the grandmother of this same young man. On January the 13th, I arrived in Pompo Beach, got called from work, and to see a film, a video of an officer beating a 22 year old child that probably weighs 125 pounds with three layers of clothes on, soaking wet. They had apprehended him, had him on the car. They decided to take him and throw him down to the ground and to go a step further. The officer walked around from behind him to the front of his head and kicked like my daughter said, not once, not twice, not three times, not four times, but five times in his head. How would you like your children to be done in that matter? He's not the greatest child, but he's our child. Understand that. We love him like they love theirs. I am his hardest critic. Cuz when he do wrong, I'm all up in his stuff. It's changes he have to go through. I grew up in a city low income projects. The officers came around the kids. They were someone that the children admired. What do you want to be when I when you grow up? Oh, I want to be a police officer. I don't get that nowadays. I just say this to you and this is my opinion. Change the tagline. We serve, we don't protect, and we lie about it.

Ma'am, ma'am, ma'am, could I ma'am? Ma'am, could could I just get your name for the record? I'm Vicki Glinton. Very good. Thank you. Next speaker. Good evening. Thank you all for this aotted time. Just name and address of the record, sir. Name and address, please. Terry Taylor, tried, tested, trusted, and true. Uh, PMPO Beach, Florida.

Thank you, sir. I stand to uh say that uh I have the police department on speed dial because I've called them when I had trouble and needed them. I'm still going to call you. And I just uh hope that when they do come, there's a creed. There's a code for their conduct. But behind the creed and the code of their conduct, there must be a light of conscience. So the creed and the conduct comes up

empty when there's no conscious. Now as for this incident the hurt is there. The harm has been done. Now I hope there could be healing. That starts with accountability. And we have these sheriffs that says uh it must be accountability. Now the major spoke I heard one of your videos. I saw it. I saw the video of this uh excessive force and this abuse. I saw it with my own eyes that I heard the major speak. And right after that, because I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, I went and scheduled a cataract surgery because clearly the math wasn't math and what I saw is not what I heard from him. So, and I would like to say this, there is a sad reality. It's sad, but it's true. There's a sad reality of police brutality. There is no excuse for police abuse. You just don't kick a man when he's down. So, let us keep these things in mind. There must be accountability. And and as I said before, uh it was one officer that make this whole force lose respect. And I heard the major say how the community and I don't know which part of the community or which community he spoke of but it's not the community I know of. Thank you for your time.

Thank you sir. Next speaker

Tiara Taylor followed by George Berlin followed by Ed Phillips and followed by David Hall. Good evening everyone. Thank you for allowing me to be here today. I am Tiara Taylor from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I am here to represent Jeremiah Terrell Taylor as his aunt. Jeremiah is my firstborn nephew, a proud cousin to my boys and a newly distinguished and determined father. Jeremiah comes from a family of nurturers, scholars, and mentors. He always displayed leadership among his peers and gratitude towards the ones he loved. The night I received a call about Jeremiah on January 13th, the feeling The feeling was equivalent to physically swallowing my tongue because the thought of it I would never imagine my family my family witnessing such an incident in this nature. Ever since then I've been more vigilant when it comes to the saying oh it would never happen to me. Seeing the video of my nephew, my nephew go viral, bombarded by several officers, and one him being pushed to the ground, kicked without any remorse, left me helpless in sorrow, took over as I thought of how my sister worked countless hours to gain a productive livelihood for her boys who made honors and engaged in football from childhood years up until high school. Prior years, oppression has seemed to

silence and weaken our youth. Our youth are thinkers. They are truth tellers. And they believe enough, they are brave enough to question the system that older generations sometimes accept as that's just the way things are. And the courage and boldness is exactly what our society needs. But here's the truth. Our youth is burdened with oppression, often carried by burdens they did not create. the opportunities in the justice system and the opportunities in school. They are told to shrink themselves, to wait their turn, to be quiet, and yet they still rise. The importance of our youth in this society dealing with oppression cannot be overstated. They see the cracks in the systems clearly because they are living in them. They are not asking for permission to image something better. They are already building it. But it is not enough to praise the youth. We must protect them. We must invest in them. We must listen to them. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Speaker, mayor. Yes, Commissioner Perkins. Um, they are talking about the incident that took place on January, I think it was 13th over on Northwest 8th Avenue. Mhm.

And I just wanted to the family to know that I've met with the um our chief Elwood regarding this incident. Um and I've requested some things of the chief and I'm expecting uh to hear back and I know he sent some of the information to the internal the inspector general get back with me. Um but hopefully I can get with the chief between now and Friday so that I can possibly get an update or maybe he can contact the family to let them know a little bit of what's going on. Thank you. Very good. Thank you. Next speaker.

Evening, mayor. Good evening, esteemed members of the commission. My name is George Berlingi, 41 Havenwood Drive, PMPO Beach, Florida 33064. Thank you for allowing me to speak. I'm pleased to hear that the study was concluded and determined viability of moving to standalone police services. I've heard discussions about this in previous commission meetings and have enjoyed seeing unity on the deis. I applaud the way you're responsibly researching the feasibility instead of following any political agendas. I I appeal to you to please continue this. Mayor, uh, I apologize to the family who's been speaking because my next part is a whole different view of BSO and I don't mean to disregard what they have said. I had no idea they were going to speak like that. While I'm up here, I want to express my sincere gratitude to Major Elworth and his team. I wish the average citizen could see them in them what those of us in the crisis arena see in them. Being a participant in community court and in our homeless ministry, I see their helpful and supportive side. The homeless outreach team is always there to help those in crisis. I wish the general public knew how many people just in Pompo Beach that this team of people has helped to get off the streets through their resource agencies. They also have been instrumental in helping people prevent homelessness. The hot team because of their success has become quite busy and lately I have not always been able to reach them directly when dealing with the crisis at my office. So I'm starting to have more initial contact with the regular police officers. Though they do not have the specialized training of the hot team, they bring their kindness and willingness to help.

Those of us in the crisis arena could not do a lot of what we do without the knowledge and help of our BSO deputies. My sincere thanks to Sheriff Tony, Major Elworth, and our BSO deputies for all that they do to make our communities a safer place. Please stay safe out there. I know that there are people out there who say BSO doesn't do their jobs well, specifically in the crimesolving areas. We hear that up here a lot. It can be seen that way. I have come up with a plan to increase their efficiency. Get the people in the area of the crime to work with the officers and report what they have seen instead of withholding this information and blaming the officers for not doing their jobs. Thank you for listening.

Very good. Thank you, sir. Next speaker. Next speaker, Ed Phillips. Ed Phillips, followed by David Hall, followed by Ara Thomas Bush. Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, please.

Mayor, commissioners, my name is Ed Phillips. I currently res4 Northwest 19th Street. And I'm going to take a little different spin on some of this. Um, Ula Foster, Mr. Mitchell, Mr. Cheetah Moore, Norbert Williams, Reverend Matthysse, Reverend Williams, Wiggins, Mr. Mahomes, coach Bob Williams, Mr. Samuel Swan, Mr. Canas Ro, Mr. Morland, Dorothy Jones, Ernstein Price, EPAD Lens, Carl Weaver, Johnny McCrae, Senior, Willie Lawson, Michael Borkins, Mrs. Elely, Dr. Harvey, Mrs. Cow, Samuel Jackson, Jimmy Lane, Reverend Hill, Frank Mills, Jimmy Glenn, Hazel Ambister, Reverend Wilson, Reverend Grover Johnson, Mr. Cooper, Harold Ael, uh, Mr. Miller, who is the contractor, Mr. Reard Stevenson, Mr. Sap, Mr. David McMillan, Mr. Holloway, Mr. OC Phillips, Dolores Bullet, the entire Mason family back in the day, uh, Mr. Wooten, Mr. Ms. Ellton, Ira Blue, Jimmy Glenn, Woody Porter, Mayor, I mentioned these names during Black History Month and it was ironical the young lady said um and I heard her loudly that the kids or some folks feel that's just the way things are. I must tell you that this group of names that I just mentioned to you fought hard to say that yes, it was the way things were, but that does not have to be the way things have to be and they should stay. And so to this family, you know, I think a lot of us hear you. We look for justice. Miss Perkins, I do appreciate you reaching out and following through. I need to do one additional thing in behalf of Tiger Trailer Festival. Emily, Mayor Emily Wilson, Mayor Randy Caster, uh, Mayor Bill Griffin, Mayor John Rayson, Mayor Ead Lkins, Mayor Lamar Fiser, Mayor Rex Harden. These have been mayors over the years, for the last 30

years, who have reached out to the Tiger Trail Festival and endeavored to ensure that Black History Month was recognized through action and deeds and not just talk. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Lad, ladies and gentlemen, please refrain from clap claps. Thank you. Um, next speaker.

Good evening. David Hall, PMPO Beach. Uh, as this commission meeting gets underway, I'm hoping that the spirit I keep hearing of a new year cooperation that will extend to city staff, not the senior management that they're in the big seats and they can handle the turrets aimed their way, but the rank and file staff that are under siege with the attacks that come from this deis at times. I had a conversation with a couple of people that work for the city. Nobody's sitting up on this deis with you or the folks that are typically sitting in the gallery over there, the actual rank and file. They told me, "We are all part of the process. We are all participate in the process. We manage the process. We do the work, the heavy lifting, and report up our findings to senior management who ultimately give it to the commission. When they decry and deride the process, they're attacking the people that do the work for the citizens of Pmpo Beach." These two told me that rank and file employees are the process. They also told me that many of the employees go on social media when they see certain pages on various platforms. People are lashing out from emotion versus fact and aren't supported by certain commissioners that are on social media and they find it disheartening. For example, recently the there was a call for the airport manager to be fired and all they saw was a commissioner give it a thumbs up. It impacted them. when they go on social media and they see citizens lashing out emotionally without any shred of evidence, investigations, or charges to state there is corruption, kickbacks, and payoffs by developers to the city. And they see certain commissioners give it a thumbs up, they know they're talking about them because they are part of the city that does the real work to analyze and review and ultimately approve the things that keep moving up the chain where it ultimately lands many times on this deis. I do feel there is something wrong with the procurement process but not because of staff but because there does seem to be an appearance of impropriety that certain commissioners on this day are being lobbied by contractors who do not get

bids or associates of those contractors who are subs or residents who indirectly communicate with commissioners during the cone of silence. So think about what you say because all of these things are true. have the testicular fortitude to turn to your left and right and state on the record, "These people are on the take getting kickbacks versus cowardly giving a thumbs up on social media." Look over at the city employees sitting in the gallery here for hours and tell them they're corrupt, they're getting kickbacks, and the process that they they are ingrained in daily and work hard for us is deficient and fosters bullying of people trying to work to do work with the city. look into the camera and say to the city staff that's home watching this, tell them to their face versus just giving thumbs up on social media. Very good. Thank you, sir. Next speaker,

Ara Thomas Bush, followed by David Miller, followed by

All right. Thank you. I'm Thomas Bush the fourth and I'm I'm from Florida. Um I just want to say um I came here last time and I spoke and the main thing is is like um I had an issue about two years ago. Broward County School Board um I was having an issue with the board. I feel like it was an issue with the board members, the principles, the senior teachers, you know, not having u real authority and being able, you know, not setting boundaries for certain rules. And this specific rule is policy 1000. Before I get to my statement about policy 1000, I would like to know, do any of y'all know what policy 1000 and Brower County School Board is? It doesn't matter who speaks and answers, but I would like to know if y'all know that answer. That's the problem. Okay. The policy 1000, a quick summary for me is there's eight key terms for the policy rule development and rule making. That's what policy 1000 is about. Um, I have an issue with, you know, I could speak on things in details, but I've reached out to you guys this summer and I did not get I want to know if y'all got the email that I sent or the Do y'all have the records of me calling one of you guys um to speak about this issue? Did y'all have any of that information available? Because I came here last meeting and I asked y'all to be ready and prepared and I would like to know if y'all are prepared already. M Mr. Mr. Bush, we I mean we don't

I know you don't have time. You don't you don't do your job. Okay, let's go on to the next one. Have you found the email? Okay, I'll ask that question. Um actually, I'm going to go right into it. I have an issue with the Ku Klux Clan and your good old boys and white supremacist members that are part of this board members. You guys sit up here, you prowl around, y'all don't do your job. Y'all don't take time to the youth. So, that was the main issue when I came in here. Obviously, you guys don't review the tape. you don't have I don't know what you your issue is but you need to start doing your job a little bit better because I don't I don't I don't think I have to pay for school if I already pay my taxes which you guys also you know allow you know people to go run around y'all don't do your job in that properly neither so you know I just would like to say this um it's going to be a time where you're not going to be in that position and you people here that don't do y'all job y'all won't be in this position anymore um there's a new new age I guarant guarantee with my child that got treated like an adult and you know being a student, she will be in a position of power and y'all will not be in these positions anymore. Y'all could do your terrible job and I hope the best for y'all. I don't wish bad on anyone, but I know y'all not going to attack my child. Y'all not going to allow these fake authority people over here to guide my child when she's supposed to be getting educated. And that's all I got to say.

Okay, next speaker. David Miller.

Good evening, David Miller of District 5. I wanted to say thank you for anyone who attended any events in the Northwest this month. As we wrap up the month of February, um you may or may not know that I'm the president of a library, the Jamaran Kaio City Learning Library. So, we did an event for Black History Month where we focused on the Tuskegee Airmen, had a guest speaker from Miami and uh it was a pilot that knew of the Tuskegee Airmen and um he talked about aviation and whatnot. That led into a conversation of us talking about Bington Iran. As you all know, his school is here. Black man went around the whole world on a single um jet uh single propelled airplane. And um Oh, wait.

Yeah. This is the event. This the function that we had yesterday. Well attended. 17 people attended. Turned into a book sale for the library. So libraries still exist and they're still good. Um, I also wanted to bring your attention to this poster. This poster I passed out during the Tiger Trail Festival. This poster is actually made by a man named um Bos Cecil Holloway. It says African-American seal. So, appropriate for this month. This seal was made, I don't know how high up it goes, if it's national, but it was created by someone here and it's uh our black icons as well as our local icons. um same person did this better and I personally like this one because of who it is. This is the who um Mr. Phillips mentioned uh Dr. Reverend Daniel Miller. He's developer of Pine Tree Park. He um he actually put the um elevator in Antioch Missionary Baptist Church. He um did a lot of blueprints for the Kaya City area. Um that's my father. You probably never seen him before. You never heard of him or seen him. That's what he looks like. Looks like me. Um so I just wanted to make that presentation um and and say thank you if you intended any of those things. As ambassador, I take uh Black History Month seriously and I like it. Um this Saturday we have ordinary people doing extraordinary things that'll be out on MLK along with a screenplay I believe at the Ally Building Saturday. So, um, yeah, once again, thank you for your time and, uh, happy February.

Very good. Thank you. Next speaker, David Garcia.

Good evening, commissioners. I'll make this short. Uh, my name is David Garcia. I'm here on behalf of the pet advocacy network. I was here to speak on behalf of the retail pet sale ban, which I know is getting moved to April. Um, briefly, I just want to say our organization thinks that retail pet sale bans are not the way to regulate animal welfare and we think that retail pet stores are an important part of uh the animal bond between humans and their pets. Um, on that note, uh we are happy to be involved with drafting the next version of the ordinance and yes, I'll give you a card. Thank you. Very good. Thank you, sir. Mayor, do you want me to continue? We've reached the first 10 speakers.

Uh, we can we can take Oh, that's first 10. Okay, we'll put the rest of them finish the rest of them at the end of the meeting. That's very good. So, the rest of the speakers will have to wait until the end of the meeting. Thank you. Okay. All right. That takes us up to, let's see, that takes us up to item number five is a st standalone police department strategic assessment presentation. Before that happens, I'd like to uh to recognize our sheriff of Broward County, Sheriff Gregory Tony. M Sheriff, please step forward. Uh yeah, absolutely. Yes. The sheriff wanted to come here and just have a few words. Go ahead, Sheriff.

Yes, sir. Good evening, mayor, commissioners, city manager, and attorney. Thank you always for giving me an opportunity to speak to you all today. And if I can just pivot for just 30 seconds um and make sure I address the people that I represent here. Apparently the Taylor family without a shadow of a doubt has suffered. And Mrs. Taylor, if appropriate, I'd like to address you directly. I have spent the last seven years as a sheriff of this county focusing on making sure I provide true justice for everyone regardless of race, color, creed, financial status. None of that matters to me. And unfortunately, the timing the timing of how things work within investigations draws you more pain, your entire family. But in order to get this right and make sure that I have all the sound facts to make an informed decision that is right, not only for you, but also right for this officer and the officers in this organization, it has to be done right. before I came here and it is still up on my computer screen are all the videos of this incident related to your son. I knew you were going to be here and this was more important than talking about this study. This community needs to understand I have been in office for seven years now and I have terminated over 200 plus employees during my tenure. I have never shadowed away from the accountability that I have and that I owe everyone in this room. My or of order of priority is the people of this community, then the agency and then my employees. That can be a devastating comment to make and you could lose morale of the men and women that are under your command. But that is the oath. The oath is the people first. And if we are

wrong, I own it first. My major represents us in this region. It is not his accountability. It's mine. He is responsible but he is not accountable and so therefore he will not make any decisions. I will make the last decision. So I ask for your patience. Give me time. Let me look. Let me assess. Let us go through our process and you will have justice. Okay. Please. Very good.

To Commissioner Perkins where this impacts you is from the regional responsibility aspect. The major has been approved to have these conversations with you. provide information that doesn't compromise the investigation and you will have that. Now, on to the purpose for why I arrived here today. Oh, excuse me. Can you repeat that again? Yes. You want some more information from Major Elwood related to this investigation? Yes. Yes.

You will be able to speak to you on matters that don't compromise this investigation. And when it is closed, you will have every single element that we have. That is a standard practice that we have done since the seven years I've been here. No pivot point will change. We are in a time right now in this country where confidence in law enforcement has been degraded at the national level and we're seeing a lot of things take place that is a stain on everything that we do and I will not participate in any of that and I will not allow that to happen here in Broward County. Okay. Sheriff, I only ask for what I felt should be public information. Mhm. I'm not asking to dig into any type of investigation or interfere with it. Thank you. Perfect.

I only wanted information to give to the community because BSO failed to address the community about this incident. So, I received a lot of calls and I brought it to the attention here at the commissioner meeting and that's when I start to inquire about the incident. Understood, ma'am. Thank you. Understood. Fair enough. I in no way wanted to interfere with that investigation. I just want to make that clear. Thank you.

Nope. wouldn't even assert that. I understand it. Thank you. Um, really briefly, mayor, back to the the point of interest in terms of looking at what's occurring here. And I came here to say thank you to this commission. There has been a lot of contention with some of our partners to the north about the imperative nature of making sure if this commission is going to make a decision that impacts over 100,000 people that you do your due diligence. that you invest in a thorough and comprehensive report, which I've read twice already, and they've done an impeccable job in being professionals and giving you the data that you need to make an informed decision. And whatever that decision may be, we will stand and support this city until our last day of service here. There will be no compromise. There will be no form of reduction in services. And we will die fighting for this city. So thank every single one of you for setting example for how this is supposed to be done. Thank you.

Very good. Thank you Sheriff. Appreciate that. All right. Now we'll move on to our presentation. Um presentation actually is given by a gentleman named Jonathan Ingram. Jonathan is a vice president at Rafelis where he leads the local government organiza organizational assessment practice working with cities, counties, and public safety agencies nationwide to enhance performance, accountability, and strategic alignment. Jonathan brings more than 23 years of experience in local government and management consulting dedicated to strengthening public se sector organizations and improving service delivery to residents. He is serving as project director for PMPO Beach's strategic assessment of law enforcement services and will lead us through Rafelis's findings. Jonathan, thank you very much for being here and thank you for your service. Go ahead. I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you very much, Mayor and Commission. and I appreciate the opportunity to be with you this evening and and share the findings from this uh much awaited an analytical process. Um to set the tone just to give you all a sense of what we want to focus on today. Um we will u just reorient folks both on the commission as well as in the room uh as to what we were tasked with. What was our project approach? What were we tasked with completing uh on behalf of the city of PMPO Beach and how did we go about that work? Um we will then give you an overview of the current law enforcement services that are provided by BSO. These include key contractual elements and a highle overview of service. We promise we we'll um we'll stick to the high level, but if there are of course detailed questions we can we can dive in. Uh we also spent some time early in this process engaging with community members through a number of public engagement sessions. Um and we gathered some initial feedback and I want to share with you all the highle themes from those conversations um which occurred in October. Uh and then we'll walk through our staffing model. So, as we've gone about our analytical process over the past several months, um we've built out a staffing model for what it would take um to create a city of PMPO Beach Police Department. I'll walk through the key assumptions, uh the approach, and give you a sense of what a department might look like. Um we'll then review uh the operating budget, uh capital budget, and one-time cost assumptions, as well as a review of the potential taxpayer impact associated with standing up a department. Um and then we'll talk about implementation pathway. So, how do you actually get this done? So, it's it's one thing to conceptualize or what does it take? How do we actually turn the concept um into a into a workable solution um delivering day-to-day service to the community. Um and then we'll close with just a high level summary of what your alternatives are um going forward and the key policy choices that you all as a board um will have to start to wrestle with um over the next several months as you deliberate. So, in terms of project overview and approach, I I first want to highlight a few of our key team members. Um the mayor has has introduced me so I won't be redundant. Um we have a number of

folks who have been working on this project with us but there are um myself uh my role on the project as project director is really um to drive um the overall implementation planning and pulling together the overall model. Um in other words I manage the client relationship and the ultimate deliverable. Um we also have a couple of subject matter folks um who are on our team that provided a really important practical lens for law enforcement. That includes Cassandra Deck Brown. Um, Cassandra works for Raph Telus as a law enforcement subject matter expert. She spent about 40 years in policing. Um, all of which with the city of Raleigh, North Carolina, the last eight years of which as the police chief, because Sandra's job is to really apply that practical lens. So, as we start to develop a model and articulate um what the implications might look like, she gives it the old smell test, right? So, um to make sure that, you know, as we start to frame out options, it passes muster. And Paul O'Connell, a very similar background. Paul is local. Um Paul is a law enforcement subject matter expert as well. Served in BSO um as well as with the PMPO Beach Department. Paul also provided that very important practical lens to this process. So I just want to highlight a few team members and the specific expertise that we've leveraged um as we've gone about this work. So what were we asked to to what was the question that we were asked to answer for the city? So fundamentally what we were asked to answer is what would it take operationally, financially, and organizationally to stand up a city of PMPO Beach Police Department? Um what would it take um to maintain the service levels that you're currently receiving with BSO? Okay, that's our fundamental question. Our job is not to make a judgment as to whether or not you're receiving quality service from BSO. Ultimately, that's the city's determination. It's your residents and it's you all as a governing body to to start to wrestle with that question. Um we wanted to give you a very clear idea of the implications of your various approaches. Um what it takes operationally, what it takes financially um to really inform that policy discussion and deliberation and give you the facts um as best as they can be articulated um to help you all with that

decision. So what is the foundation of our analysis? Sort of high level what our approach is. Um early on in the process um we really focus on learning uh before we draw any conclusions. We requested, you know, extensive data from from BSO, um, which they provided. We also had a number of one-on-one interviews with members of command staff as well as individual program managers within your direct district in in PMPO Beach. The goal to be, let's make sure that we have a really clear understanding of the current approach to service to set the baseline. We also, as I mentioned, spent some time engaging with your community members. In addition to one-on-one interviews and focus groups um with key representatives from the community, we also held four public engagement sessions, two in person and two virtual to gather general feedback on what's important to your community to consider and what are the perspectives and there's lots of competing perspectives. I think you heard some competing perspectives here tonight, right? Um those those came out in the conversation and I'll and I'll share some details. We also completed extensive benchmarking analysis. So looking at other cities of comparable size um who have their own police departments who have similar operating environments to you all. How do they run their departments? How are they staffed? How are they structured? What is their budget formulations right to use um to start to inform some of the analysis? And then of course there's extensive engagement with some vendors um and unit cost research to identify what are some of the costs that we need um to account for as you start to stand up a department. And then of course that project um team expertise is really important. um my role just as a financial manager for for municipalities that longer term general fund financial modeling um as well as general city management background um and our law enforcement experts as well. Okay, so that's the general approach in terms of our our our our exercise, our key deliverables just so folks have a good sense. Um really it's a project report um apart from all the work that we've done up to this point really outlining all of our analysis, all of our key assumptions, the conclusions and your

implementation plan. Um so um we have essentially um worked through most of that work at this point. Of course there's some public engagement that will happen as you all deliberate. Um but um that's really uh the primary deliverable. There's a kind of caveat or important clarification that I want to set here. Um we are essentially creating a model to give you a good strong basis of comparison um based on reasonable assumptions which we've articulated. Um but it doesn't necessarily mean that this becomes what your model looks like. If you all choose to create a police department, one of your first decisions is to hire a chief, right? Um that chief is going to make decisions in conjun in consultation with you all as a governing body, in consultation with your community, um and in consultation with your city's leadership team to define what a department really looks like. Uh but this gives you a really strong baseline of understanding to make an informed policy decision. So in terms of a high level overview of the services that you are currently receiving from BSO, um there's really four categories that are outlined in the contract. The first is direct services and there are about 282 full-time equivalent folks um who are specifically dedicated at your district. In other words, direct services are those things like patrol, your core team, your property crimes investigators, your command staff that's focused here in PMPO Beach. In other words, those positions that are specifically accounted for. Okay, that's not all that the sheriff provides. There are also indirect services and countywide services that are provided from we'll call it downtown BSO. So there's a larger pool of personnel who provide services countywide um to all contracted agencies as well as BSO at large. um and their job they provide things like human resources, IT, um those key those critical indirect sort of what sometimes is called overhead services that are that are really important to operate a department regardless of what the department might be. The fourth category is special detail services. So the

contract includes a number of um dedicated hours and dedicated time for some special events, but there are lots of special details. you all have a lot of events in this community. Um special details um to where offduty officers essentially work those events um for an additional fee. So that's a highle overview um just of the four categories of service and these are just some specific examples of what falls under not fully comprehensive but it gives you an example. So the direct services patrol, your traffic management, crime suppression, you know, some of the property crimes investigation, special events, your community outreach, your school resource deputies are included uh within within that figure. Um and your real-time crime center. Okay. So, just examples of of direct services, indirect services examples again, financial management. So, your budget and finance folks, evidence and records management, this is a central service. Um, legal, your fleet management, uh, you know, patrol, police, police departments have uh, and sheriff's offices have a lot of vehicles. So, there's a fleet manage management component that's included there. Um, victim services. Um, so the support that's provided to victims um, after the occurrence of a crime. uh it that's a critical indirect service, human resources and your your citizen observer patrol. So again, examples of what falls under that category within the contract, countywide services, these are things that are provided um countywide uh to uh you know, regardless of whether you're a contracted agency, they're available. Uh major crimes investigations, there's a number of specialty skill sets and investigations. This is really regional investigations, large narcotics, violent crimes, your strategic intelligence units, those kinds of services. Uh regional 911, that's another countywide services. Uh case filing, the the work associated with the court system, your SWAT team, SWAT deployment, prisoner, jail services, uh helicopter, marine dive, your regional marine patrol, although you all do pay for marine patrol as well. So it's indirect services and it's a regional service. Um and then evidence collection and your

and your your crime lab. um a really specialized you know piece of work. So that's just a high level summary of what what falls under those categories. So what does it cost you'all over the past several years? Um so looking back historically um in 2016 your cost was about 39.1 million. This is actual cost contract plus adjusted for actual expenditures. Um and it's increased at a generally steady clip. You've seen larger increases some years lower increases at other years. Um your 2025 expense was about 57.3 million. um your 2026 contract is about 64 million um for for services for BSO. So that's really the baseline contract number um that we're working with in 2026. Okay, so contract termination. So one of the one of the big questions that has been asked of us is all right, if we choose um to go down a path of creating our department, what are the implications? Um and there's quite a bit that's spelled out within the contract. Um, under the contract, should you terminate, um, either party can party can terminate within 90 days notice. Um, but the contract is automatically extended if the municipality does not take over those services after a 12 12-month period. Okay? You all currently own the facility that the PMPO Beach District is housed out of. That's a city property. Okay? So, BSO would return that property to you all in broom swept condition. Um and then um the city has the ability to negotiate the purchase of vehicles and equipment that are currently deployed within the PMPO Beach District. Okay, that's important as we as we move through the process or as we move through the the conclusions here. So that's high level overview of the general contract approach. So community and stakeholder engagement, what do we learn? Um, as I mentioned, we held two in-person and two virtual sessions um, in the middle of October. Um, those were open to all residents and stakeholders. Um, so we really allowed anyone to to come in and we provided an overview of

current services. Um, we allowed folks to ask questions about the current BSO agreement and then we just asked several questions and allowed really just open feedback and dialogue uh, with the folks who were in the room. Okay. Um, we tried to make sure that these were at different locations and different times. We had a Thursday night and a Saturday morning um to make sure and give folks who work kind of the opportunity to have some options. We chose a couple virtual sessions. Some people like to just log on and listen, right? Again, trying to provide a couple avenues to be as inclusive as possible and give folks the opportunity to attend. We had about 96 folks attend um and they they gave us some really interesting feedback. I would say um important caveat about this. Um this is this represents multiple perspectives. Um I think there were a lot of voices in the room in in each of the sessions. um a lot of competing perspectives in the room. There wasn't a single dominating theme, but there were a lot of themes that came out that are important from those different voices. And I want to highlight what some of those all are for you all because it's important as you start to think about, you know, what your path forward might look like. So the first question that we asked was about sense of safety. We asked how folks feel in the community and a few key themes. Uh many folks felt generally safe. So we heard a you know from a number of folks um feeling safe in the community and a number highlighted BSO as a primary reason for their sense of safety. Um so we heard a lot of complimentary you know comments from folks in the community. We also heard however um there's some concern about crime and quality of life issues in the community. So some participants mentioned um you know specific conditions impacting their sense of safety include you know homelessness challenges, violent crimes uh and drug use in the community. We heard uh from a number of vantage points, number of voices about patrol vis visibility and response time concerns. So you know number of folks felt did not feel safe because they don't really see a visible police presence sometimes in their community. Uh and there is some some concern and some perspective that BSO can be slow to

respond. Okay. Um we also heard some some comments around um BSO deputy conduct concerns. So, a number of residents indicated, you know, feeling unsafe due to deputy conduct or perceptions of poor deputy conduct, including perceptions that they may show force unnecessarily uh and uh that they may harass members of the community. So, again, multiple perspectives um throughout the throughout these sessions. We also asked about BSO strengths. Um what did those folks who participated think about those BSO strengths? Um, a lot of a lot of folks highlighted the resources available to Pompo Beach through a much larger agency at BSO of about 5,500 plus employees. Um, including, you know, access to additional staff during larger incidents that was cited by many folks. Um, lot of appreciation for the real-time crime center, um, and the 24-hour nature of that um, and the specialty services and units that are provided from that much larger agency. So, I think there was a lot of, you know, comments around appreciating that. Uh we also heard a lot of folks praising BSO's involvement in community associations and events. Um and a lot of folks did feel that the office was transparent and accessible. So you know depending on the perspective in the room, a lot of folks highlighted that as well. Um BSO staff, there was a lot of appreciation for the folks that interact with people dayto-day. So participants highlighted BSO deputies training and experience. Um it's a very well well organized training program. Praised the Pompo Beach district's diversity especially among the command staff. Um so we heard that from a number of vantage points as well. So again high level themes um from BSO. Now gaps and concerns. What did folks um think about you know gaps and concerns relevant to BSO service? Um again uh many participants expressed some concern with response time visibility of patrol and lack of progress on on addressing some of these really complicated challenges associated with homelessness and mental illness and co-occurring substance abuse issues. Um deputy

conduct again that elevated as a as a gap in concern. Um you know there were a number of of anecdotal examples of interactions with deputies um that left uh that that folks felt were rude or potentially represented an unnecessary display of force. Uh transparency, accountability, and accessibility. And that was a key theme that came up from multiple vantage points. um several concerns, sever several discussed concerns about lack of involvement in the community uh and a lack of transparency of so BSA activities and how how how resources are allocated throughout the city and what drives those decisions. Um and then there was some comments about politics and leadership um that came out really throughout and you know several folks expressed concern that the that the sheriff is not necessarily concerned enough with community issues. Um so that came out in in a number of the areas of discussion uh and uh wanted some additional focus on the community rather than the politics sort of dominating the discussion today. So overall choice um what are the most important considerations to folks as you start to think about your process and your path forward. A lot of folks concerned about cost and fiscal responsibility. Um, so we heard, you know, a lot of folks concerned about the cost of a potential department, but but many folks also see the department um as an opportunity to gain some control over how taxpayer dollars are spent. So there's a real balance um interested in cost, but also interested in potentially the value of bringing back in some control. Okay. Um community involvement. I think folks um really want to see a department that's really responsive and involved in the community, right? We heard a lot of comments around the officers know my name, right? and and a desire for that kind of an experience. Uh transparency, accountability, and culture was was critical. Um a lot of folks highlighted that that'll be really important as you think about, you know, what a department looks like. Um and many see the creating a city department is an opportunity to enhance that safety. Um of course, many folks stress

the importance that the city should keep safety in mind as the core responsibility above all else. Uh that really resonated in many of the conversations. And then of course staffing. There was some concern around whether a city department would be able to have the same level of specialization, the same access to resources that a much larger agency would be able to provide and some concern about the ability to retain skilled officers in a smaller department. So if there's not a promotional pathway for example, um they want to make sure you can keep the best. Okay, so high level that's an overview of kind of key themes that we heard from the community. Now we move on to the staffing model. All right. So, um, in most city departments, in most police departments, regardless of what city, um, your staffing costs are the most significant cost that drive, um, you know, your yearly expenses. And that would be the case here. As a result, one of the most important considerations whenever we estimate what it would take to build a police department for the city of PMPO Beach is what does the law enforcement staffing model need to look like? Okay. And remember our core question is what do we need to do to replicate the quality of service and the type of services that are being currently provided by BSO. How do you replicate that in a reasonable way with reasonable adjustments based on size and scape scale um to be able to provide those services here today? So I want to talk about the methodology and how we developed our staffing estimates. All right. So first is direct staffing. So um obviously your contract currently defines the number of folks who are dedicated um to direct services within PMPO Beach. In other words, those folks who are staffed in your district. Okay, it's relatively straightforward to say, okay, what does it take to replicate those numbers of positions? So district staffing from a from a building a staffing model perspective is relatively straightforward. Okay, the the challenging sort of complicated piece is how do you estimate the indirect services and then the regional services?

So in other words, how do you take a broad pool of staff that are dedicated to training, for example, at BSO and determine how many folks do you need in a BSO department to be able to staff a training operation or I'm sorry, a city department to be able to staff a training operation. Okay, so we looked at a number of different discrete data points to build an estimate on what staffing needs are in addition to that direct staffing. So the first is workload. So we looked where it was available at the overall workload for each individual unit in those indirect and regional services. Okay. How much how many cases for example in major crimes are being investigated countywide and how many of those cases come from PMPO Beach. All right. That gives us a basis a ratio to say okay 25% of the cases are coming from PMPO Beach. That's a hypothetical. That's not the number. Um giving you an example. Um 25%. So let's assume 25% of the full-time equivalent positions would need to come over to be coming over to the city in order to staff that function. Okay. So that's one data point that we looked at where it was available. We also looked at population. So looking at the total population served by BSO. All right. Um what percentage of that population um proportionally of those staff would be dedicated to the city. So looking at that data, we also looked at benchmark departments. All right. So, um, there's a lot of publicly available information with benchmark departments. We had the opportunity to speak, um, uh, to have conversations with the command staff in some of those departments and review their org charts and have conversations with them. All right, how do you staff training? How do you staff recruitment? How do you staff those key internal services? Where do you specialize versus where do you generalize? Right? These are really important questions that you have to articulate. So, we passed that benchmarking filter through um, the analysis as well. And then the final piece, well, third, next to last piece, um, is applying our law enforcement expertise. So, those two folks that I mentioned who have experience running departments, um, let's pass it through

their expertise and make sure that there's any adjustments. We made some adjustments here and there for supervisory respands of control, for example. Here's the best practice. Um, what's the best practice in this particular area? That informed our recommendations on staffing as well. And then finally, what about all the services that the city will have to take on if you all create a department? So, human resources, IT, financial management, fleet management, those are all things that the city staff would have to take on. So, we engage with the leaders in those particular departments to have conversations about the potential impact and built a staffing model that reflected their feedback as well. Okay. So, the point I'm trying to illustrate here um is we took a number of different vantage points, number of different analytical approaches um to articulate what we think a staffing level ought to look like going forward. Excuse me. Now, here's a here's a key consideration. These are planning level estimates. All right? This gives you a good baseline that you can draw from. Now, again, what's going to happen is if you create a department, one of your first moves is going to going to be to hire a chief. That chief is going to make decisions around all right, where do where do I want to adjust staffing levels based on the model and based on how I want this department to show up in the community. Right? So the number that I'm giving you again as a starting point um that would then be um managed and adjusted with you all with your feedback with community's feedback going forward. Okay. So when I apply that methodology we come up with a need a baseline need of 424 full-time equivalent positions to staff a PMPO Beach police department. Okay. That includes about 24 folks that would be city staff. In other words, those indirect services. Um, and about 400 folks roughly who would be police department employees, both sworn and civilian. Okay. This does not include several core regional services. So, communications

and 911, your crime lab, helicopter patrol and air rescue, mounted patrol, prisoner and general services, bomb squad, dive team, regional marine patrol. In other words, those specialty services that require um incredible investments. Um if you wanted to create a dispatch center, for example, it would uh this cost estimate would pale in comparison. Right? So um those are those are services that are available to the county that the county sheriff is required to provide. We've assumed that the sheriff will continue to provide those should you create a department. Okay. So how does this compare? So when we developed the the the estimated staffing model, our final check was to compare it against your benchmark communities. So as you can see, um PMPO Beach, your contract, your BSO contract estimate our estimated FTE impact for what you're currently paying. And then uh which is 35.7 FTE per 10 or I'm sorry, FTE per 10,000 residents. And then PPO Beach as a city department, 37 FTE full-time equivalents per 10,000 residents. So as you can see looking at some of the peer benchmarks that we compared against um you really fall right in the middle. So this gives us a sense that the number that we are targeting um with respect to your recommended or estimated staffing model is generally in line with your peers um to provide a little bit more security that it's a reasonable approach.

I'm sorry to interrupt just a moment. Excuse me. In the corner, can we please take conversations out in the lobby? Please do so. Thank you. Go ahead, sir. Thank you. I'll thank him for letting me get take a drink of water. That was nice. Absolutely.

So, what are the costs? Right. So, ultimately, your staffing model is going to drive what your costs are, the number of positions that you need. As you make adjustments, as your chief makes adjustments, that could increase the cost or it could decrease the cost. But based on that 424 staffing number that we've articulated, there's a number of very important considerations um from a cost perspective. First is operating. So what does it take year in year out to pay your personnel and non-personnel expenses? Okay. And there's capital. So what are the big ticket items, the investments that you have to make um to start up a department? Because you all have been out of this business since 1999. Uh it takes some investment um to be able to stand up a department. Facilities, equipment, technology, all those kinds of things. We built estimates on that. Um and we want to articulate um what this means to the taxpayer, right? and what the potential revenue alternatives look like as well. So on the operating cost side, I want to highlight a few uh critical considerations. So you cannot separate the decision to uh the potential decision to create your own department from the implementation risks and implementation challenges associated with doing so. So, as a result, as we've built out the staffing estimates and our particular approach, we're actively trying to take into account what we believe are really real practical implementation challenges. Should you choose to stand up a department, your most significant risk and challenges is associated with staffing the department in a short period of time. You have to be able to do this with lateral recruitment. So, what does lateral recruitment mean? It essentially means you have to be able to entice enough BSO employees um to come over to this organization through your hiring process to be able to staff a department. That means we need to make sure that there's market based comp compensation um and that we've appropriately incentivized a move forward. Okay. Um if you're going to pull folks either from BSO or from other departments um if you're relying on um academy classes, right, it's going to take a lot longer to implement. All

right. We've also assumed that you all would enter in. You're not currently part of the Florida Retirement System, but everyone at BSO, for example, um has access to FRS, the Florida retirement system. No one is going to come over to this department from BSO, uh unless they're able to take their pension credits with them, uh which means entering into the Florida retirement system. Uh we have also assumed a $15,000 signing bonus as a onetime cost and our expenses. Okay. Um, when we look at um, some of the recruitment challenges with law enforcement, it's an extremely difficult recruitment environment. We looked at what some of your peers are offering from an incentive based program. Miami Beach, for example, offers a $20,000 signing bonus, right? Um, so we budgeted that $15,000. Um, but it would be under a two-year clawback. In other words, you don't get it and then get to leave without paying it back, right? So, there's a there's a sequence that you would build in. Um, and then we fully loaded the personnel cost. So, we're not just estimating salary expense. Um although we have built a competitive uh package that is not top tier but it will it will allow you to recruit folks. Um but we've also assumed the city's benefit structure. So your health care costs um all your other ancillary benefits are baked in. So in other words, what you all use for your city employees. Okay. So there's just key assumptions to take into account as we look at personnel cost. Non-personnel costs. So what are those things? Um those are really core categories like utilities, your facility operations, insurance, fuel, um you know, fleet maintenance, you know, your IT, you know, expenses, those kinds of things are all rolled in under non-personnel. To develop your budget, um estimate for non-personnel expenses, we looked at BSO's budget. So what what is your current department spending on some of these core categories? Uh and we looked at operational modeling. So where was where it was available? We looked at unit costs. In other words, we have data on how many miles the patrol vehicles in your particular community drive in a year. That gives us the ability to estimate what your fuel cost might look

like going forward, right? So, where it was possible and we had that data, we use that information. Um, and then we also use benchmark budget data as well, looking at their budget workbooks to develop reasonable ratios um to come up with um your non-personnel budget estimate. Okay, so key approaches on the assumptions there. capital and startup. Um this is uh obviously a critical area and there are several really important elements to discuss. The first is the facility. So as I mentioned early uh you all currently own the facility that BSO operates out of that the BSO district operates out of. Um it was built in 1985 um which is a you know I'm a little bit older than that and if the facility is in the same condition as my niece is is what the way I would articulate it. Um it's significantly outside of its useful life. So regardless of whether you stay with BSO or whether you can or whether you create a department, there's going to be a need to invest in that facility in some meaningful way. Creating a stand. Now it doesn't necessarily have to be next year. Um but down the road there'll be some investment or some some adjustment that will be required. If you create a department, it essentially fasttracks that decision. So as you're increasing the size of your department, the current facility would not be able to house that number of full-time equivalent positions. Okay. So we have looked at um the possibility of what it would take to fully build a new facility. That is um full estimate kind of soup to nuts from design to build. Okay. There is some variation in approach and this is one of those areas where there's some caveats. Um you all could choose to remodel your facility and lease other space. um you all are going to have a you know be able to really explore a lot of options as you consider it. Um but but in terms of building out your your highle estimate of what it will cost to create a facility um we bake that in. So other uh kind of key considerations in terms of what we've included um so standup facility requirements again this is based on the staffing model

functional unit requirements as well as industry standards. Um, we phased some implementation. Again, we've assumed some costs for temporary space as you start to build out a department because it's a it's a long-term implementation plan. Um, and again, that site development and some of those conservative planning assumptions around contingency, soft costs, you know, your design, engineering, those are those are baked into those assumptions as well. Other capital costs. So, you build a new station or you house a station, you got to buy furniture, right? Uh but here's a here's a really important distinction. So the other capital area that's really one time are things like your fleet um your equipment you know those key things that um it could be technology laptops vests um rebranding everything that you you currently per that you may purchase from BSO would need to be rebranded to reflect PMPO Beach right there are a lot of costs like that that would need to be built in there's really a couple of approaches that we took in terms of estimated what those costs are um the first is looking at fleet fleet is a large option you all have the ability to negotiate with BSO um to purchase the current fleet and the current equipment that's assigned at BSO at market value. The contract does not define a formula for how you get to market value. Um for the fleet, we looked at your the age of the current fleet that's assigned to the district. We looked at its useful life and we estimated value based on straight line depreciation. Okay? So just where we could do that kind of thing, you know, we backed into it for all those other smaller pieces of equipment, everything from vests to technology investments, those kinds of things. Um, we looked at unit cost. So we looked at benchmarking unit costs, what have your peers pay for those specific items. We looked at vendor quotes where they were available for key pieces of technology um to be able to articulate what that initial onetime investment is. But it's not just about one-time investment. It's also about um replacement, right? You have to be able to plan for that replacement over the years. So it it's it translates into an ongoing operating cost um as well.

All right. So what is the cost summary? Okay. Um what I want to do is really hit at a high level the overall total cost values estimates for each of those key categories and then I'll give you a summary um just to just to tie it all together. So on the personnel side, um, applying the assumptions that we've identified, uh, we assume, uh, a year one cost of about, uh, $89.1 million. I'm sorry, a 2029 cost after implementation period, about 89.1 on personnel costs alone. So again, that's your sworn and civilian salaries. We've assumed midpoint of the salary range. In some cases, you'll hire lower. In some cases, you'll hire at a higher rate. Right? Again, what implementation looks like, what your actual hiring plan looks like will have a fundamental impact on what your actual expense is. But in terms of our assumption, we've assumed midpoint. We built in overtime assumptions, uh, workers compensation, all those kind of key elements that you have to consider for a fully burdened cost. But we've also included a nutrition buffer. So, one of the realities of moving from BSO, um, you have BSO has 5,500 folks roughly um, in the budget. you're able to draw from those folks when you have vacancies and pull them in. You won't be able to you won't have the same number, the same size of a department to be able to pull that off. So, you have to build in a buffer in terms of your staffing levels and your cost um to be able to backfill for those vacancies. Operating costs, we've assumed 10.7 million. Again, each of those elements, utilities, facility operating cost, insurance, fuels, um etc., etc. So, those core technology licensings, licensing, you know, body camera programs, those kinds of things. Okay. Your facility is a different animal. So, um the total cost to construct a facility, assuming you would pay onetime costs, which I doubt you would, uh is about $107 million to build a new police police station. Okay. Um we have assumed that this would be amvertised, it' be financed through a GLO bond, uh which

would translate into an interest rate assumption of about 4.42% over 30 years. um which reflects about $8.1 million in annual debt service to be able to stand up an apartment. A key thing to consider, okay, um you don't nec there are lots of options short of buy building a brand new station, public safety complex, looking at remodel plus lease space, having multiple facilities based on a facil, you know, facilities that are available in the community. This is an area where I think there's a lot of variability in terms of what your actual cost would be based on the specific options that are available to you. But again, this gives you a sense as if you were going to build one. Um, this is the impact. You would also have to pay for the BSO contract during transition. So, um, I'll talk about this in a moment when we get to the implementation section, but we've assumed a very tight roughly two and a half year implementation period. During that implementation period, the contract states that as you all start to stand up particular units, in other words, it was you flip a switch on for patrol or you flip a switch on for core or for other units and direct services, BSO will flip that switch off, right? Um when they and they and then they determine what the amount that they charge for the remaining services that BSO will provide. In practice, as you're going through that process, it'll be a very complicated process of determining what's what. Uh that's one of the most difficult portions of of of of the implementation process. Um as you all stand up and train, how do you know it's time to turn over services, right? Um it's not really specified in the contract what that looks like and what the cost share looks like. So we have assumed um that you would pay the lion share of the BSO contract cost in year one. Um but in year two that would significantly reduce, right? As you start to stand up your department in year two, you're able to peel back off on your BSO cost. We have assumed really frankly as a baseline number um about $750,000 in consulting support. Um

you're going to need help writing ordinances, writing policies, um helping you with purchasing processes, all those critical elements that you'll need to execute a department. Okay. So that contract transition and onetime cost about 81.9 million over two years with respect to the technology, the investments that we've articulated, furniture, fleet, equipment, etc. um what it takes to really stand those up. We have not assumed that these costs will be amvertised. In other words, although there may be options to issue debt for some of these items. In some cases, some of these larger purchases, you have to purchase a lot of them, but the individual items might not be super expensive from a unit cost perspective or from a life cycle perspective. So, they don't necessarily lend themselves to financing, right? So, you'll have to make some decisions about what you can finance and what you pay one time. We've assumed um a lump sum contribution early on of about 38.8 million. Um, and then looking out over over the years, you'll have a replacement cycle. It averages out to about 4.6 million a year, but in in reality, it hits at different times, right? Based on the replacement cycle of the items that you buy and when you'd have to replace them. Okay, so what does this all translate to? Um, I've tried to summarize this in a table even though it's very complicated. So, I'll start with onetime costs at the top. So, I mentioned, you know, facilities, fleet, equipment, and technology. those onetime costs if you paid for them all at once are about 145.6 million. Okay. Um under the BSO contract, those aren't necessarily investments that you would need to make. You would also need to pay that share of contract during the transition about 81.2 million uh over that 2-year period. Now, if you if I estimated, again, it's an estimate what the BSO contract would look like over that same period, it'd be about 139.5 million over that two years. So um you'd reduce your total expense on the BSO contract side by about 58 million during that implementation period. But again fundamentally dependent on how effective the

implementation process works and I'll and I'll touch on that in a moment. Um the consulting support which we've highlighted. The real apples to apples comparison apart from the onetime cost and the transition costs is on your your ongoing annual operating cost. So your personnel and non-personnel expenses. Um we've assumed about 99.8 8 million uh in 2029 full after full implementation uh for a total cost of operating the department annually. Uh BSO contract estimate based on you know a projected estimate over that 2-year period is about 75 million which translates into a difference of about 24.8 million um at the at the outset. And then there's the capital financing piece. So if you choose to finance the facility, if you choose to fully rebuild it, that 8.3 million would be added on. But again, it depends what you do with your current facility. There's investment that's already needed. So, in reality, 8.3 million isn't really a fully new expense because you got to do it one way or the other. It just it just depends on the size and scale of what you tackle. But again, this gives you a good sense of what the overall impact might look like. Okay. And here's the caveats. Okay. Um, so there are a number of factors. You know, one of the things that I think we've heard and I think folks are interested in knowing is all right, if we take on this expense and if we if we if we have this onetime le this onetime investment um to get back in the business of providing policing services um what's the impact? Okay. Um and can we potentially achieve savings in the long term? And there's several concerns there. One is 20 the 2026 baseline. So it all depends on what your starting point is. We don't know what your 2026 expenses will actually be. We know what your contract is but not your expenses. We don't know what your 2027 BSO uh contract cost will look like. That hasn't been submitted or or negotiated yet. Right? So, there are kind of factors that that influence all right. What's our what's our long-term savings um and what that sort of negotiated cost

trajectory might look like with BSO. If you are going to save money long term, it would require quite a bit of discipline in terms of controlling the city's policing costs um to the tune of um in other words, you all would need to commit to capping expenses at 4% 5% you know below 5% going forward uh in order to be able to ultimately close the path over 10 to 15 years and be able to generate savings on an operating to operating basis. Okay. So um so that's an important consideration going forward. um transition cost variability. Um I'll talk about the implementation plan in a minute. There are a lot of things in the contract and a lot of costs that are subject to negotiation between the city and BSO, right? So we've built estimates on what some of those costs would look like where it actually lands is is is a subject to negotiation because those formulas and how you go about it aren't defined. What defines for example market rate value um for a piece of fleet um app for your fleet is not articulated in the agreement. Um there's also sort of timeline risk. Um we have articulated about a two and a half year implementation period. Um that could extend if you have a hard time hiring folks. If you have delays in the acquisition of technology, we have communities that are waiting 18 months to get a patrol vehicle right now because of supply chain issues, right? So when you bump into those issues, it can extend um the implementation timeline and then start to compound the cost because you're as you extend that implementation timeline, you're still paying for BSO services, right? So there is some real risk there. There's also some long-term pension exposure. Um and I think this is one of the things that I would uh that I I would be concerned about. And as I mentioned, in order to be able to entice folks to come over from BSO to staff this department, you'll need to enter into FRS. Okay. Now, over time, once you've staffed your department, you're going to start start hiring folks off the street. And the folks that you hire may not have a

relationship with FRS. And when they do, they're going to look at FRS and its benefits. And then they're going to look at the city's police and fire pension system, the city's pension system, and they're going to say that those benefits look a lot better than FRS. I want that. And you will inevitably have a collective bargaining negotiation process. And I think you run the risk of eventually having to turn on that pension in the long term. and our initial calculations indicate that it's about a 34% cost increase in pension cost um when we look at that. Right? So that's a long-term consideration. So as you think about the potential for long-term cost savings, it's important to think about those risks uh as well. So those are the caveats, but how does it compare? So um again as we look at um you know PMPO Beach both your BSO contract and the city department estimate u we did a calculation compared to your benchmarks of the cost per 10,000 residents. Um our estimate is about 6.9 million for the for the department on the operating cost level that compares you again right in the right in the middle really with with most of your benchmarks. Your current contract is is toward the bottom near Clear Water. So what is a taxpayer impact? Um obviously this is a really important consideration. So as we look at the potential operating cost um we estimated the the potential impact on property value or on property tax rates per year property tax payments per year based on u property value. So at about a $200,000 property value it's about $226 a year on operating cost. Um your median home price is $321,000. That translates into about $48. uh and your a $500,000 home translates into about $675 $77 to be specific um going out for but again this will change over time. Okay. So the implementation pathway and risks um we spend a lot of energy in our analysis articulating what a path forward might look like and there's really three primary categories in terms

of how we framed implementation. So the first is your pre-implementation period which is you know whenever the point you make a decision to the point your current contract expires your current extension expires which is in September. All right the primary focus during that pre-implementation period is to build your implementation team um and to build that infrastructure and I'll kind of talk about what that means. Year one would be heavily focused on building your direct services. So in other words replicating those services that are housed out of the PMPO Beach district. All right. Uh year two would be primarily focused on building or negotiating some of those specialty services um that you may continue to receive from the county or building your own. Okay. So this is a snapshot of the implementation plan that we've outlined. Um I want to highlight really just the key elements and how they sequence. You know the first thing that you all would need to do is immediately start negotiating with BSO on some of these unknown cost factors. So you know day one it's negotiation time. you know, what are we going to pay? What how do we value these assets? What's our ultimate cost? What's the transition plan look like? That kind of thing. Concurrently, you need to set up an implementation team. What I would recommend is that you hire an interim chief, not a full-time chief. Um, you hire an interim chief who is a really, really good project manager. Um, and you don't necessarily hire your full-time chief immediately. Chiefs tend to build kingdoms. Um, and we want an interim chief um who's doing who's building a project who's treating this as a project and staffing your department. It gives you the ability to then do a recruitment for the chief as you start to staff up your department and and and get folks in the seats. You also need to build out all of the very specific um internal support services. You got to have HR people, finance people, IT people, purchasing folks. How are we going to build the systems? How are we going to start and manage these recruitment processes? Right? Um so that building that core implementation team um is really important early on and then starting to make some decisions around your facilities, facilities, technology,

fleet, those things take a long time to implement. All right, you got to get moving really quickly on those things to be able to to be able to position where you can hit a two two and a half year implementation period. Okay. Um the other piece there is you need some expedited decision-making processes. What we can't be we what what what will not work is spending six months in a purchasing process uh for a piece of technology that's going to take 18 months to implement right so figuring out how you can create some expedited processes will be important um fleet acquisition technology all those things are important recruitment and workforce you know we've built out a specific plan and sequence for who to start with you know start with your sergeants um have your sergeants help you hire officers um you know for example just laid out a very kind of thoughtful approach there um as well as having a new recruit pipeline So, in addition to lateral recruitment, we need to start all right, how do we bring in new folks um to augment that um building out your training programs um and then paying attention to some of those longer term um implementation challenges associated with potentially negotiating for other services from BSO or from partners um which I'll highlight in a moment. You know, I've mentioned the I mentioned the pension cost pressure just in terms of long-term risk. um you know the cost discipline that's required if you all if the goal is to achieve long-term savings. This commission and future commissions would need to commit to some significant cost constraints and cost controls. Um which is very challenging in the labor market right now for for law enforcement. Um that's just an extremely difficult environment for recruitment. Um vacancy rates in every department that we work in save one uh are are in bad shape and and that's just that's just the reality of what we're dealing with. Um, and then I think that, you know, the revenue and legislative uncertainty, the conversations that are happening in Tallahassee right now regarding property taxes, um, certainly, um, uh, uh, create a little bit of unpredictability in terms of what your ultimate outcome are would be. So, what are the alternatives and policy choices that are in front of you? There's really four options um, as we

see them. Um, the first is to create a standalone department. Now this is the option that is best suited for maximum local control and accountability. Okay. So when we hear we really want to have control over the future of our department, we want to influence deployment, we want to influence and control our costs, this is the option that best gets you there. Uh this gives you the highest control, but it's also the highest cost. Um and it's the most complex to implement and manage uh from a liability perspective as well. Your capital need is also the highest for this particular option. We've also articulated a hybrid approach and that could be that you all stand up some or all of the direct services while you continue to contract with BSO or another partner agency to provide those specialty services um or uh to be able to still take advantage of some of those economies of scale. So again, this gives you the ability to take some control over those direct services that your folks exper your folks in the community experience most frequently um but still benefit from some of the the economies of scale that may be offered with other agencies or are or partnerships. Um you know again best suited for for kind of balanced control um but kind of thoughtful approach to gaining efficiencies. Option three is more of a regional or peer partnership model. Um, you know, this is best suited if you're looking for a longer term regional innovation. Okay? Are we trying to fundamentally change the service model? Um, you don't necessarily pull back control if you have a regional department. Typically, folks are appointed to a board in a regional department. A regional department um has a board, that board manages the chief, etc. So, it's not necessarily the best option to generate control. Okay. Um cost exposure moderately high as well. Um again those benefits of economies of scale potential benefits of shared costs for purchasing technology for example there are some I think some cost advantages to those partnerships um complexity it's extremely complex uh and it's there is still the capital investment need having multiple governing bodies involved um in the

future of a department um having helped communities create regional departments and then helped communities get out of regional departments I've done both um you know it can a really challenging environment. Okay. The fourth option is a renegotiated agreement with BSO. Um this is this is best suited for kind of cost containment and stability. Um but it gives you the lowest control. So if the ultimate objective is we want to be able to control our expenses, we want to be able to carry forward. Um this doesn't get you there. Um cost exposure is lowest. Um complexity is the least and the capital investment need is minimal as well. Um there are some some things that we've highlighted uh with respect to areas of the contract that you can potentially strengthen um that uh to be able to generate more predictability uh for for the department. Um from a cost, you know, instituting some cost caps in terms of what the what the annual growth and expense could look like. Um that's a pathway that you can move toward with in our negotiation process. Um looking for greater transparency into the cost, the underlying costs associated with some of those indirect services. um getting really specific about the formulas that you all will use to calculate market rate should you choose to exit and create your own department in the future. In other words, how do we define market value? What's our process? How do we define um what our costs are during the transition period? What we pay what the what we pay the sheriff and and and how we wean ourselves off that during an implementation period. Right? Right. So there's areas in the contract where you can make some adjustments to create a little bit more predictability um on the part of the city as you start to try to manage your expenses going forward. Okay. So what's the core policy choice? So you know you you may have noticed I have not made a recommendation. Our job is not to recommend a path for you. There is no right answer. There are multiple options that have multiple implications. Right? Um and this is really a policy choice that you all as a governing body and you all as a committee community are going to have to wrestle with. So you know what is the degree of local control required right

um what do you are desired what what are you looking for um what's your toler tolerance for some of the financial exposure capital investment and taking on the risk right associated with creating a department. Can you all do you have the capacity to take on the implementation complexity? Um because it's a very heavy lift that's going to require a lot of focus from a lot of folks uh over a couple years. Um what's the importance of cost predictability versus operational autonomy? Right? You all are going to have to balance that and then that that self-directed policing identity uh of course is is is is critical. So those high level are as an overview of the findings that we've articulated um in our analysis. Um, at this point I'll I'll pause and take a drink of water.

Very good. Thank you. Appreciate the presentation. Um, lots of interesting there. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Um, lots of interesting information there for us all to to consider and deliberate on. At this time, we'll go ahead and open it up for commission questions. Um it's like this is a presentation so we'll have ample opportunities just so everybody's clear. Um this is commission questions only. Um no no cap on how long you guys can you guys want to go but uh we'll have ample opportunities. We'll go into one-on- ones with with staff on these matters. Uh have more meetings with staff and the public. Also there's a couple of public meetings coming up. one at the Lens Center on the 26th, one at the cultural center on on March 12th, um where you will be presenting again and also the public will then have opportunities for questions um at that point in time and and we will have a workshop session of course amongst the commission with the public where we will once again address this issue and we will continue that process until we reach a conclusion and um and make a decision what we what we want to do as a community. So, this is just the beginning steps, but uh any any questions, concerns? Commissioner Smith, you can start off.

Jonathan, the um 89.1 million per personnel cost, does that include the signing bonuses? Uh yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. Okay. For the commissions, further questions, Commissioner Seagerson Eaton.

Thank you. And I just wanted to say it it is very complex. Um and it's a very good and thorough report. Um uh I'm glad we we we did this. Um we've been it's been talked about here and there on and off now and then and uh you know getting the getting the numbers or a reasonable estimate of what it would cost and it's not a cost. It's a cost to the city, but ultimately it's a cost to the taxpayers. Um so, um do you have um a chart that shows different sort of that you probably don't have it in the one that shows the the graph

uh in terms of projecting what the what the costs look like over time? Not in the not in the PowerPoint, you know. So, so one of the things that we've tried to do is give you a sense of all right what would happen long term right and the reality is there are so many unknowns uh with respect to what your actual implementation cost would be your baseline year um is going to be year one year two all right what do we actually pay to the sheriff what's the actual cost how long did implementation actually take right

the key thing to take to to consider going forward is you know if we if we looked at all right if we set caps for example in the BSO contract. Historically, it's not in there now, but historically, there was a 5% cost growth cap, baseline cap in the contract. So, if you looked out 5% in order to and said, okay, that's the that's the number that we'll use to project BSO costs, right? Then you would have to keep the city's costs below 5% going forward. If we look back historically at the city's personnel costs, um you're at about 6.7% over the same over about the past 10-year period. Your non-personnel costs are about 2%. So again, you haven't historically kept your cost um down below that that 5% level. You're growing, you're adding, you have to really tease out one times. You have to tease out all the grants that came over and you know came through um you know during COVID, right? There's all sorts of things that sort of flow into that. Um the key thing to think about is you have to maintain really controlled cost discipline um going forward in order to even come close to achieving um a long-term savings. Okay. Um so yes and very might might have might be a reduction in services personnel uh capital improvements or what have you uh as the costs are higher than what we're paying now and public safety

is um our number one priority and and and you made a very good point when you talked about property taxes. you know, anyone in the, you know, who's paying attention knows that at the legislative level, uh, they're considering reducing, eliminating any number of of non, uh, nonhomestead or homesteaded non-school taxes. So right now we're at a it's everything is uncertain as far as I'm concerned in paying for the additional because if we don't have a millage rate for that we're going to be depending on commercial uh businesses um etc. And every single one of those tax proposals, whichever one does, if any, uh, gets on the ballot in November, every single one of them says you cannot, you shall not, you will not, you must not, you shall not reduce the amount of money that you pay for

police and fire. And they're all there. You just going to look them up and read them. All of them have that that command. When you say shall not, that means you cannot. So we'll be paying what we're paying now for police and fire no matter what if any of those um tax proposals does go through. So I mean going forward it's it's a huge consideration and it's not the city that's paying. It's again the taxpayers people are going to be paying for that because that's how governments work. We get the money from the taxpayers and then we provide the services. So this is a uh really an astronomical uh number and um seems very complicated. Um but I really want to thank you for your report and your very thorough uh consideration and I look forward to uh getting some more questions as I go through more more of it. Thank you, Mayor.

Good for the vice mayor.

Thank you, mayor. Um I talk a lot about making good deals and for me this is a great opportunity for us to really do this the right way. So we have started by doing this very important study that has given us the information on one option what it cost stand up our own department and yes it is an awful lot. I've always said that that um there's a lot of nostalgia about Pompo PD, but it was 1999 and the entire world has changed so dramatically since 1999. It was pre school shootings and 911 and all and all these incidents that have really changed law enforcement. So, um right now this is the first step which is to get an idea of what it would actually take. So when I get that question, which we get all the time, we can now help answer that and talk people through that. And so I think this I appreciate your work on this. It is very thorough. Um, and I know I for one am committed to to taking the time and getting this right. So the next piece of that obviously of this process is figuring out what the alternative costs, right? So we we know what BSO has cost. We don't know what a future contract would look like. And I think a lot of your work uh unearthed some issues that maybe we weren't really aware of about the contract and other costs. So I know I went back and looked at the the amount that we pay BSO through the county also. So um about 50% of your county taxes um go to from the general fund there go to BSO also. So, as a PMPO taxpayer, we are paying our contracted amount, but we are also paying another $65 million to the sheriff for all these shared services. And I think we need to get really granular and specific about what we're actually getting because, you know, there's marine patrol here, there's marine patrol here. There's a lot of different categories that show up in both uh in both contracts. So, this has

been, I think, a really good starting point for us. Um, but there is so much more work to do to figure out what the decision is. So, we have half of it maybe at this point, but we still need to figure out what the other options are, including, I think, getting a little more quantitative about what a regional approach would look like. Um, I know your conclusion was you have to stand up your own department first and then try to find a regional approach. And I still have some questions about if there is a different way to do that. Um, one thing I'm hoping to get um, from the city or I don't know if you have it is kind of a sidebyside of the conclusion that was reached in Deerfield versus here because we're getting we get a lot of questions about that also because it was a very different conclusion. So, I've looked at both reports and you can see the differences and analysis, but I'd like us to kind of try to bridge some of that also to to understand um, you know, if there are potential opportunities that they saw that that you know, we're not looking at. So, um, there are some other really interesting ideas and so I I just I I I thank you for your work on this. Um, and um, we have a lot of work to do as a commission now.

Thank you. Thank you. Very good, Commissioner Fess. Thank you. Uh, yes, I wanted to say thank you again for the work and this presentation. It's very detailed and I kn know that you shared only a small piece of it with us so far. Um, one one question I did have because we have a a good amount of people in the audience. So, just by a show of hands, silently was, how many people are here to hear about this or to to wanted to find out about this or learn more about this?

Okay, that's substantial. So, the reason for that is because when things are on the agenda item, I mean, obviously this is a presentation, but when things are on the agenda, that's when you come out to see these things, we obviously want to hear what you have to say as well. So, um although I'm happy that there is a presentation that is happening in two days, um which we found out about somewhat recently, I I I would really like to hear from the people who have taken the time out of their day if at all possible because I think you're right, we have a lot to do here. But if these folks have come and sat through this and and sat through everything else with us, I feel like we should at least try to give them the opportunity to have their voice be heard in a public forum as part of our meeting. Very good.

Yes, Commissioner Per Perkins.

Um, thank you. I wanted to um apologize to some of the people um who came and they were uh depending on speaking and that won't happen until Thursday I think at the Pat Lens the city scheduled. Okay. So um I wanted to thank you also for the study. However, I have a different angle from I guess everybody else, but just need you to correct me if I'm wrong. We uh 2025 we're paying 63 or $64 million to BSO,25

your 2020 your current your current contract amounts about 64.9 million. Okay. So is it incorrect because I was told that BSO contract was extended September of this year 2026. That's the value I'm referring to. Yes. The amount of 72.8 million. Is that correct? Yes. No. Correct. Oh, okay. All right. And that includes 28 new positions along with that. No. I So I think you're thinking about a requested budget amount. The so this does not include the 28 requested positions. Those are not baked into our figures. No. Okay. So the 72.8 million comes in where?

I have 60 64.9 million your current contract cost. That's now but but I'm told that for 2026 September the request is 72.8 million. I'm I'm not sure what the request is for the next year. Okay. At this point. All right. So I know either way it goes we have to have community police well we have to have policing in in the city of PMPO

whether it be BSO or the standalone um department but my take on it is I would really like to see a a third party study. Um, when I spoke with you today, um, at city hall, I was wondering, did you work for BSO? No, ma'am. I've never I've not had a single relationship with anyone from BSO in the entirety of my life. Okay. So,

um, but in my opinion, you know, we have a lot of work to do. This is a big a big move. Um, and I would love an independent third party um, study just to get a different take on things as as to what's going on. Um, I I know that it will be very expensive first two or three years if we are standalone. I'm sure that and then after that we should somewhat level out to some degree. So there are a lot of questions um that I have uh based on your your your study and I didn't get the the time to mention that to you today. Um but that that is my my request. Um that we have another study done. So a lot of you don't know and I will go ahead and say it that 1989 um there were 12 of us trying to block BSO from coming in. However, BSO came into Pompo. Ken Jennings at the time was the um sheriff and of course he came in and did everything he said he was going to do and that's how he gained my respect. Um but times have changed, things are different, cost is much much higher. Um, I've always thought that there should be a level of connectivity and communication with law enforcement and the community

and and that's where I am. But there's a lot to be discussed with this as far as you know numbers are concerned because of course we don't want this to be a burden on the the taxpayers because we have enough taxes going on right now here in Pompo. So um with that I just like to hear what the um what the mayor has to say in his take and we will go from there. Very good. Go ahead. May I? Yeah, sure.

So, I I want to just respond to a couple of items. So, what we were asked to do as a as a third party, as an independent party, we have no relationship um with the city. We have no relationship with BSO. Our task and we don't have a dog in the hunt, but I am not concerned with which direction you all choose to go. Your perspective on who you all are, what your identity is as a community, it's a really important decision. um you know because h how you police and what your police sort of how they reflect in the community is critical to that and that's your all's decision and nothing in this analysis takes away from that. Um our job um is to dispassionately uh give you an estimate of what it takes to get this done so you have a really good basis of comparison. We have no relationship with BSO um you know and we stake our reputation on the quality of the work. Okay.

Okay. Commission Commission. Yes, I'm done. Thank you. Very good. Commissioner Fessk, you still have questions? Thank you. Yeah, I I was um so I I want to say that that again, like I said, I started with I thank you for this. I would really like to have the opportunity to go over things more in detail with and the information you provided in our report was was well laid out. I want to say thank you for that too because it was helpful. There are still some things that I think while you shared with us that BSO was very helpful in giving you data.

Um I would love to see how some of that crossed over. Um in some of the research I had done before we got to this point with you some of the things that I noticed that in previous contract negotiations. We it was advised by BSO that we should have more staff including up until last year to cover to cover our population growth. Um and so what was most interesting to me was when you got to the 424 officers and I understand that some of those were internal staffing but how that compares with our was it 282 I believe direct staffing

direct direct staffing now. So, that's a significant increase as well. Um, and that's something I'd like to revisit when we have those conversations.

Really looking at what those apples to apples comparisons are by who who's staffing what. Um, do we have the coverage based on not just square footage or by population itself, by actual activity or where we need to pay more attention. Um, where we're anticipating future growth with additional residents that are coming in and trying to project that forward as well. Um, one thing that that that again I go back to conversations with with the public and while I appreciate the the I know that you and I had a good conversation about my concerns being quality of service long term and not having any of that hiccup

and actually improving service if possible. My concern is that there were only 96 participants in the two two in the two meetings and I understand sure by the way that I that it's very difficult to get with everybody's schedules. I mean it's very rare that we have this many people in the audience as well. Um so 96 participants you know I know I was one of them for the virtual one of the virtuals. So so 95 right? Um and that's a very very very small percentage.

Yes. for a for some feedback. So I would really like to see also more community feedback and if while this these meetings are are is great this meeting is great in terms of EPAT lens I would really like to see that be a more open dialogue before we start getting into some of the nitty and nitty-gritty because I think there's a lot more people here and maybe it's something Mr. comparison that we were able to do through a survey that we put out there or you know maybe we sh reshare your survey maybe we kind of understand what some people's feedback is as well as potentially give them the opportunity to speak at one of these workshops or meetings um and I truly feel and this is not not to you but more to our our staff think it's really important that we make sure that people feel the ability they have the ability to come here and speak and not at a a community branch um here is part of our meetings that are on record. They're they're they're here so you can be heard in a public forum and you can go back and listen and go back and look and your name is on record. Um that will be the same in workshops but I really think it's important to televise this and make sure that we truly do this from the very ground up having the difficult conversations face to face eye to eye and making sure we're hearing everybody that needs to be heard. So we have a lot of great a lot of work to do. So, I'm I'm looking forward to digging into it. I know that I also like a good deal, but I want to make sure that the quality of service we retain stays the same or or improves. And I think sometimes um takes it takes guts to look at it, right? And a few people asked me when we first started this, aren't you afraid of what's going to be shown? And I said, no, absolutely not. Because this is the part where we get to make the decisions. when we know what the options are, we can then make sure that they're working for the best of the community, not just short term, but long term. So again, thank you very much.

Very good. Thank you. Thank you, ladies. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Um, so just um just I'm not sure who's the best one to address this question. Um, and it's it's probably Mr. Harrison, but really um what kind of a willingness have we seen in the past from BSO as far as negotiating terms of contracts. It's because that's one of the options going forward is to negotiate and try and okay, you know, let's work this out together. Um, so Mr. Yes. What what kind of stance have they had? Mr. Burman has been involved as well as uh myself and staff and uh we find them to be very open and considerate

cooperative with change with sure input for for negotiation. Another that's another adverb that could be added. Yes, sir. Okay. So we we possibly could modify things. Sure. Okay. We can try. Okay. Always possible.

Very good. Um well now here here's the thing because we we do we've got two scheduled um community meetings out there where you're going to be giving these this presentation. You're going to be taking questions and comments at at those uh those meetings. and we will follow it up with a city commission workshop where everybody's welcome to give question get questions and comments made. Um we like I said we will have one-on- ones with staff. We can ask all the questions dig into details as deep as we want to. Um we've got the 143 page book that uh was presented to us just a few days ago. So, we've got a lot of homework to do before we really come together and and make any kind of decisions. And in my mind, there's no reason to delay things. So, that's that's why we've got these, you know, February 26th and March 12th, and then we'll have one-on- ones coming up. So, let's try and really engage in this process and figure things out. you do want to do want to make sure that uh you understand the numbers and understand the ramifications going forward whatever we do. Um, different people have different ideas about what they want to do, I'm sure. But the way to way to do that is really look at the details and listen to the people and that's what it's about. But that's not what tonight is. Tonight was to get the initial presentation out there so that we can uh we can start this this conversation and it's an important conversation because the city of Pompo Beach, it's we're a big city and we've got some real questions going forward with our contracts. That's one of the reasons why we only have a one-year contract. Correct, Mr. Harrison.

Yes, sir. Yes. I I want to add that uh this 143 page report is on our website. Yes. Yes, it is. It's it is. Yeah. In fact, it's it's under the resident tab and then it's under resident information on on the residents page. So, yeah, the entire 143 page document is there which is the the report from the raft teles folks. And are we also going to get this uh slideshow? Yes, sir. Okay. So, we can link that at the same place. Very good. F. Any further questions from the commission? Yes, I have one. Yes, Commissioner Perkins.

Um, doing your your study, did you ever or have you ever talked with any of the other chiefs in Broward County that transferred from BSO to their own city? Did we engage with those folks? No, we did not. Okay. Thank you. That's it.

Very good. All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate the presentation. Thank you, sir. Yes. All right, let's go ahead and take a 10-minute break. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Heat. N.

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Heat.

Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Heat. Are you good to go?

Yeah. All right, let's go ahead and call this meeting back to order. PMPO Beach City Commission. All right, that takes us up to we've gotten all the way up to our consent agenda. Can I get a motion appro Can I get a motion approving items one and two? So moved. Second. Moved and second. All in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. Motion carries unanimous. Thank you. Item number three is a resolution resolution of the city commission of the city of PMPO Beach, Florida, appointing Dodie Keith Lazwick to the Pompa Beach Economic Development Council of the City of PMPO Beach as appointee of commissioner Rhonda Seagerson Eaton for a term of three years said term to expire on February 23rd, 2029 providing an effective date.

So moved. Second. Moved and second. This item was pulled by Commissioner Perkins. Commissioner Perkins. Yes. I pulled this for resident and President, please come forward. His name and address for the record.

Uh Mike Scverki, 1630 Southwest 5th Avenue in PMPO Beach. Um there's a few problems here. I am 100% against putting people on boards whose businesses profit off the city. Now, if we had Joe's Florals shop that makes a few thousand dollars here, a few thousand dollars there off the city, that's nothing. But when we have a business that has probably profited millions of dollars off the taxpayers, that I don't know how people like this are getting put on boards at all. I don't I don't know why anybody would vote for this. And I can guarantee you everybody behind me, even though they're not in there here any longer, would agree with me. You want to put people on boards, let them be civilians. Let them be somebody that owns small businesses that do make maybe something off the city, but not buu dollars. I don't agree with that whatsoever. Also, on the sheet, I'd have to go back and look at it. You have to put your name. you know that it's not printed correctly. For instance, if you want to use your middle, if you want to use a nickname as Mickey, you can put Mike Mickey in parentheses, quotation marks, then your last name. She doesn't have her name. This her name is not on here properly. Am I correct, Mark?

What? Dodie. As far as I know, this is her correct legal name. Dodie. nothing to believe. It's not. That's not her proper name. That is not her proper name. That's how she what she calls herself and that's what she's I haven't I haven't seen her driver's license respectfully, so I can't answer your question. That is not her proper name. Continue. When you when you don't put your proper name down,

that's you cannot you have to tell the truth on what you're doing. Now, I know you're going to come back and say, "Well, she does this and that for the city and does these charities." Guess what? We got lots of people that get back to the city. You just don't know what the heck they're doing because we keep our mouths shut. Her name isn't on there properly. You need to check into that. You look at the voting records. This is not elected office, sir. This is this is an appointment to a board. If that's the name she's known by and wants to be known by, that would be adequate.

If you fill out the forms, okay, let's put it this way. If I if I was up for something like this and I didn't put my name down properly, there ain't no way I get voted on. No way. I need you need to look and see what her proper name is and then you'll see that who was correct. This is not the thing that's going to keep me awake tonight. There are many other things. The thing is you got to follow the rules. That's the thing. You have to follow the rules. Plain and simple. Take a look. You have to follow the rules. Plus, like I stated, I don't think there's a person that would disagree with me to put people on these boards that are making so much money off the city. Thank you, Mr. I don't think so.

Very good. Um, this is a public hearing. Any further input from the public? Seeing none, public input closed. Commission discussion. Oh, I'm sorry, Commissioner Fess.

Oh, thank you. I I was originally going to pull both of these items, number three and four, together. um not because of a name um but more so because I just wanted to make a governance point um I would like to bring back at a later time uh for a broader discussion um to be to be clear it's not personal criticism I actually have a of any appointee I have a lot of respect for the appointees and the people stepping up to serve so I want to make sure that that is well known um and I'm and I'm intentionally trying to bridge the gap here between both both agenda items to make sure that it's it's applied equally towards both. Um, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the economic development council, it's a joint economic development body and its members and leadership are often involved in discussions about economic development priorities, redevelopment issues, um, project planning with the city and the CRA. And so many times that work happens at the strategy level. So way before we see it propos before every proposal ever comes to the commission um or even sometimes planning and zoning um for any formal review. So because of that when we have members to to Mr. Spy's point um we have members or appointees officers directors or firms have and are well well known to have relationships with business relationships with the city or CRA. we need to kind of have those clear guard rails in place. Now, to be fair, this is a a joint board. It is a joint board between the Chamber of Commerce and the city. So, it is not one, it's not a standalone city board. Um, but I'd like to see some conversations related to some guardrails around what that looks like and how conflicts might be potentially disclosed in the future and how directors or board of directors or any sort of leadership roles within those boards um are would be limited

under those circumstances. Um, I don't think I have I don't have any, like I said again, I don't have any problem with the appointees. I respect them very much in the community. But um this is basically more about because these are three-year terms, this outlasts quite a bit of time and a lot of big decisions that are being made within the city. So this is more about creating that policy framework, making sure that we are applying that same framework to everyone the same way and um so that future future economic development council appointments are evaluated under clear standards and the public can see those standards moving forward. So, um, I would just really like to to ask the city attorney and city manager to bring back within 30 days and not and I don't want to defer this or I want I want to move this along, but I'd like to to move that to um ask the city attorney and city manager to bring back within 30 days a written public recommendation on on the economic development council governance standards including conflict disclosures, recusals, officer eligibility, and sunshine related practices for appointees or firms doing business with the city or CRA. Okay, that's a motion.

There's a That's a motion. I don't know if I need a motion. I feel like if this should be pretty, but if I need a motion, I'll I'm happy to get a motion. Mr. Burman, do you Well, I don't have the U documents with me that create the board. My recollection, it's a private entity and uh created the city helped create that and has appointments to it, but they set their own rules, regulations, requirements. It's not a city board. So, I don't know what purpose that would serve, but I'm happy to do whatever the commission directs me to do.

I was under the impression that it was a a joint board. Um, and that's why we have So, for for example, the economic development council has several web pages on our on our city website. We host events with with, you know, in conjunction with different um things with the chamber because it is a joint board. I mean, we the interaction there and the overlap is pretty significant. I mean we do appoint people but there's also you know when we go to planning and zoning meetings or we come to city commission meetings there's letters recommendation from the economic development council these are people on this board who are shaping the decisions that we make and that we vote on and so I just that's the reason why I feel that it's really important and again not to discount the people I want I want to pull that aside but I really would like to see that we have certain benchmarks in place to make sure that we are doing things appropriately and I for one I know poor Kervin I've asked him for economics and he's given them to me that but I've had to ask him to find the minutes or find what was going on at some point in time just so I could kind of follow along and I feel like if it is a joint board with the city and we are appointing people to be on it and it's shaping so much of what we're doing within the city that we should also have that readily available for the residents who may want to go look and see why they recommended that for approval right they want maybe they want to dig a little bit deeper on their own that's not just staff or the EDC letter. Um, so if it is a joint board, I'd like to see us I'd like to see us make sure that we're applying the things and just double check it. Written, like I said, written opinion, make sure that we're we're applying things across the board the right way. And I didn't know I didn't know if it needed a motion, but I mean, if it does, I'm happy to make one.

I I'm just trying I'm not I'm not sure what it is you're I mean, it's Are you trying to see their bylaws? Is that it? No, I have a copy of their bylaws. Well, I mean, it's if it's an independent organization, there's there's not though. I believe it is. I believe. So that's the reason why see the confusion up here shouldn't be. So it should be very easy. If if that's the case, we could just allow the city manager and city attorney to bring us something back within 30 days and just explain to us exactly what those frame that framework and parameters look like. So then that way we have no questions and maybe a recommendation if there's anything that they think needs to be looked into. That's all.

The only recommend I'm sorry, mayor. No, I was I was just going to I mean it's about the only thing that that the city attorney or or the city manager could bring back I believe is the bylaws of the organization and and the original original articles that formed it which um it's a private board so that that we are allowed to make some appointments to and that's that's kind of the beall and endall of it. Um and if I mean there it's not a city board and and if the fact that they send letters of recommendation on various things I mean a lot of people do that but Mr. Burman.

Yeah. I mean the city uh commission could set um requirements or standards for its own appointment to that board. But my understanding was that it was always uh each commissioner who had an appointment uh their desire to appoint someone in the local business community who knew the business uh community and could benefit the board through their experience whether it's a large business owner or small business owner. And it was up to each commissioner to find someone with experience in that area to help benefit the local business community. If there are other standards that the commission would want put in place, I don't know what they would be. But honestly,

I'm happy to do what again I'm not arguing and I'm not um criticizing at all. I'm just saying I don't know from the direction. I'm happy to you know if perhaps a discussion or conversation um we haven't talked about this prior to the meeting. I remember the last time I did look at the bylaws, there was a a request to for an additional member and they have control over the organization. We only control is who we appoint. So

So I'm Yeah. So So that's and that's you're right. We we have the commission only has who they can appoint, but it's built as a joint it's built as a joint venture with the city. And so, um, all I'm asking for is is s for for you to just to give us give us a written written recommendation to make sure that we're just crossing all our tees and dotting our eyes just like we're doing with BSR. Thank you very much. That's it. I I don't I mean I that's fine. I mean, whatever you want to do, Commissioner, I don't understand what the recommendations are. Wait, Commissioner. So, so Commissioner Fess, you're

right. So, the re So, I'll just answer that. So I would just like to know um with written recommendation within 30 days ideally um what the economic development council governance standards would be because it is a joint board including conflict disclosures, recusals, officer eligibility and sunshine related practices for appointees or firms doing business with the city or CRA and just your determination and explanation if you will on those bylaws. Thank you. Okay. Very good. All right. Um, further commission discussion. Seeing none, let's go ahead and call the role. Commissioner Pez, yes. Commissioner Perkins, yes. Commissioner Seerson, yes. Commissioner Smith,

yes. Vice Mayor Forier, yes. Mayor Hart, yes. Item four is a resolution. Resolution of the city commission of the city of Palm Beach, Florida, appointing Jay Ganam to the PMPO Beach Economic Development Council of the City of Pmpo Beach as appointee of commissioner Beverly Perkins for a term of three years. said turn to expire on February 23rd, 2029, providing an effective date. So moved. Second. Moved and second for discussion. This item was pulled by Commissioner Fess. Commissioner, I said my piece, so I'm good. Thank you. Very good. This is a public hearing. Is there any input from the public on this item? Please come forward. Just name and address for the record.

Michael Scverki again, 1630 Southwest 5th Avenue. This is the type of person you want on a board. somebody good, honorable, honest, trustworthy, and not profiting off the city. That's who you want. Very good. Further input from the public? Seeing none, public input closed. Thank you. Um, commission discussion. Seeing none, let's go ahead and call the role. Commissioner Fezic, yes. Commissioner Perkins, yes. Commissioner Seigerson Eden, yes. Commissioner Smith, yes. Vice Mayor Forier, yes. Mayor Hart, yes. That takes us up to our regular agenda. Item six and is an approval

approving and authorizing the award of ITB 202625 for Southeast 6 Terrace new bridge replacement to the lowest responsive responsible bidder general asphalt company LLC in the amount of 8,530,6520 and authorizing the proper city officials to execute the contract as provided in ITB26-025. So moved. Second. moved and second for discussion. Mr. Seropoulos, good evening.

Good evening, Mayor Commission. John Soplosis, city engineer. Uh, late last year, we bid this project and only received one bid at 14 million, and we rejected that bid with the intent of rebidding, believing we would receive more competition and reasonable prices by not mandating an accelerated construction schedule, which was triggered by the timing of the McNab Bridge project. So, we excluded that condition. Uh we rebid in January of this year. Bid opening was February 9th and we received three bids. General Asphalt at 8.53 million, HA contracting at 14.03 million and QIT at 14.17 million. General Asphalt was the lowest qualified and responsive bidder and we verified their references and experience. their bid price align with our engineering consultants construction estimate and also aligns with staff's evaluation of recently completed bridges within the tri county area. In addition to this, I'm pleased to announce that if commission approves this item tonight and we enter into a contract prior to March 14th, the Army Corps permit will not expire. Uh considering this, we are recommending this project to general asphalt in the amount of 8.53 million with a construction schedule of 19 months. And we would be happy to answer any questions.

Excellent. Thank you so much. This is a public hearing. Is there any input from the public on this item? Please come forward. Just name and address for the record. Paul Peterson, 301 Southeast Third Court. So, thank you very much. Uh, you know, I was here a couple months ago at the public hearing and I'm I'm glad to see we're moving forward with the project. Uh, you know, just a couple questions. One, regarding the qualifications of General Asphalt, I did a quick, uh, quick research. I didn't see anything on their website that specifies bridge construction. uh they seem to be a very you know big in the asphalt and a lot of big paving projects been in business for a long time seem like a very you know trustworthy company but I don't see anything where they've completed any bridge projects to Quest a bridge maybe but no real details uh and then also too I know you mentioned Kiwit who's a major general construction contractor came in at 14 million which was above the price of our 12 million that we had from the original contractor uh even on a slower schedule and then $14 million from another larger contractor on a longer time frame. So just wondering how we came up that the 8.5 million is not a lowball bid and they're qualified. That's it. And I I don't know that they're not qualified. I'm just asking the question. That's

staff went through that. Absolutely correct, Mr. Sopoulos. Okay. So, I can see how that looks from the outside, but from our perspective, those two $14 million bids are are uh exorbitant. This bid is actually reasonable and fair compared to um recently completed bridges and compared to the engineers cost estimate. So, we feel that it's fair and reasonable and it's in line and that's what we actually were expecting. And as far as the qualifications of the company, you've checked that out.

Correct. We checked their references. They've done several bridges. For instance, one bridge they did, actually it was six bridges. It's Tamiami Trail. It's a 10mi stretch of roadway where they completed six bridges. That was just one of the references. And I personally called and spoke with all the FDOT representatives. Very good. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Very good. Further input from the public, please come forward. Thank you Skverki 1630 Southwest 5th Avenue. I checked also. You're good. Thanks, Mike.

Very good. Further further input from the public. Seeing none, public input closed. Commission discussion, questions, cons? Vice Mayor,

thank you. I also checked. Um, so I before we get into issues around the recommendation, uh, I want to be clear. We know this bridge is very important to the district, the city. It's been promised for decades or, you know, at least a decade to and residents who've lived there long term have been waiting for this. So, I want to move this project forward as much as anybody. Um, we worked hard on the permits. We had all the engineering challenges with the design of the bridge. And so, getting to this point has not been easy. So, this is not easy for me to do or say here right now. But uh especially with the clock ticking, but the residents do do deserve this project to be done and they deserve it to be done, right? So let's do what was discussed at the audience to be heard when someone came up and said talk about the processes here. Uh and let's do that. So there are two mandatory steps in a procurement process. Uh responsiveness and responsibility. Responsiveness says did the bidder comply with the submission requirements at the time of the bid opening? And responsibility says does the bidder have the demonstrated experience to do the project? There's a memo in the backup that says that engineering deemed all deemed all three to be responsive and two to be responsible. Um I also as I said looked into this and I would need to get some answers very clear on the record here and I since we have this arbitrary time limit from the chair I'm going to ask you to be really quick. Uh was there any formal checklist when the bids were opened um for for responsiveness that you that was that you you went through to determine if it was they were responsive?

We don't check for responsiveness. Procurement checks for responses. We check for responsibility.

Understand? But the memo from engineering says engineering staff evaluated all the biders references, qualifications, and prior work history in accordance with the ITB. Um, these three met all requirements of the solicitation and was determined to be both responsive and responsible and qualified to perform the work. So, the engineering memo says that engineering took the lead on both of those. So, I'm going to ask a bunch of questions here. If if someone else if Earl or someone needs to speak, so be it. But, we're going to go backwards through the qualifications of of the biders uh on for for General Asphalt. And yes, they do appear to be an amazing airport runway road paving company, but not a bridge company. So, uh the question uh 11, what equipment do you own that is available for the proposed work? What did they put in the their in that qualification?

I don't know. The answer is nothing. They put absolutely nothing. So, they don't they didn't put they own any equipment. The other biders did. Okay. Item 10. Who's going to do the work? Manh hours. uh the contractors to have direct hire subcontractors. They put self-performing. So with the exception of pavement marking and striping, which they have a sub for that's listed in the I see that. But they put they didn't respond to question 10 on this. So we don't know who's actually building this bridge. We don't know what equipment is being used. So are they do they have any other uh bridge companies they work with that have built a bridge? My understanding is they're self-performing.

Okay. self-performing with a subsidiary, a partner. Okay. Um, we can get into that. So, I item eight. Have you personally inspected the proposed work and have you a complete plan for its performance? It's blank. No answer on that one either. Okay. Item six. List three uh similar projects you've completed in the last 10 years um that you were the prime contractor on. It's blank. Also, they didn't list any in here. They have one project they said refer to the list and then they attached uh an FDOT list of of various projects on there.

And I see that and those are all paving projects. There's there's maybe one bridge in there. I saw C view, right? And then what we did was there was some followup to get clarification on that. So, but is followup allowed per the statute? I mean, for me, followup. So, this is responsive means you provided everything when the bid was opened. No, they were responsive. All of them were responsive responsibility.

Okay, we're gonna keep going because there's a lot here. Okay. Um, so I they did not fill that out. There are no list of three projects with the owner's names. The other biders all did this this blank from this from this bidder. Okay. Item three. What was the last project of this nature that you've completed? C View Bridge in Duck Key. When did they finish that bridge? Um, I don't know if I've got that on the list here, but they were all supposed to We don't have a lot of time. So, I'll tell you it's actually not done. It's not completed. And we're going to talk way more about CU Bridge because here it says last bridge completed. They didn't complete that project yet. So, that's not even that is not accurate. Vice Vice Mayor.

No, I'm notice Vice May Vice Mayor, just one moment, please. I'm going to ask you to allow that. It's only because Vice Mayor Vice Vice Mayor Please, I'm going to ask you to allow staff to answer your questions. Are you going to You can have you can have all night to ask questions. Okay? But but once you run past your 10 minutes, then it'll be time for somebody else to have an opportunity. Then you can have another 10 minutes. And if you don't have all Vice Mayor, Vice Mayor, Vice Mayor, just one moment. Obviously, I I need to explain the situation to you,

which that's what I'm doing. So that after your 10 final 10 minutes is up, then you can ask as many questions as you want and just questions, not comments and and and illustrations. So feel free, but give them a chance to answer it. Thank you. And I'll give you an extra minute on your 10 minutes now. Mary, you don't have to raise your voice. That's very That is really kind. Okay, I'm gonna pass out. It's very abusive the way you raising your voice at her. We're used to it. Here you go. Um, okay. I'm going to hand out to my colleagues some loud. It's abusive on this. Okay, vice mayor, let's get regarding Duck Key that

the representative that I spoke with, they said that it was substantially completed. The other two references that they provided, they were 100% complete. That one was substantially complete. The question says last project completed, it is not completed. So their form for qualifications to be responsive to the bid is lacking in in every material way and actually has a lie on it. Okay. So let's talk about responsibility then um who determined responsibility. That's engineering. I called three references that they provided.

Okay. So in the ITB item 3.2 C says license requirements. Biders must properly be registered. You have to provide GC licenses and an ATSSA traffic control supervisor. They did not pro and then in bold it says failure to demonstrate such lensure will result in disqualification of the bid. They did not include one of those items in their bid. So what is the point of a line that says if you don't do this you will be disqualified if there's no teeth to it. Who who overruled that line? Legal mark.

Who overruled the line? They didn't include a traffic control supervisor that says is a license requirement and it in bold underline says failure to include this will result in disqualification of the bid. Commissioner, I don't participate in the procurement process. I didn't rule out anything. I don't cross out anything. And this was in backup. So is there is there a written opinion that some gives someone authority to override this? How was that overridden?

There's uh Dr. Tammy Good, CIP manager. There's actually language in the ITP that allows the procurement director to ask additional for additional information from all of the biders in which she did. So there is uh some language in the ITB that allows her that authority. So when they open it and you don't and they didn't include half of the documents, didn't answer half the questions, we can go back and say you didn't you didn't fill this out.

The procurement director can do so and she did. Not only did she ask for additional information from General Asphalt, but she also asked for additional information from the other two biders. Okay. Uh that's not how I read this, but let's go to the most important thing, which is evidence of being the prime contractor on three similar and completed completed projects. They didn't include that. And and perhaps um who called who called the references for cuitt? I did not. Who called because they're determined to be responsible also. So to determine responsibility, you have to call the references. Who called Huittz? Huittz, sorry. No one. I did not. But they're respon but they are responsible.

But there there was no reason to call its because our responsibility is with the low. This was not you deem them responsible. Okay. So So we didn't call them, but they're responsible. We didn't verify the references, which is required per the ITB to determine responsibility, but we didn't call it. Did we call HAS? No, we did not call HJ because we deemed them nonresponsible. Why were they deemed non-responsible? Because they did not meet the qualifications that we required. We required three bridges that have been completed within 10 years where they were also the prime. They were not the prime and the work that they submitted showed repairs, not replacements.

Okay. So, they listed three bridges, Coral Ridge Drive, Riverside Drive. The descriptions the descriptions are repairs. Wait, so at least they listed three bridges. General Asphalt, that's why we listed them as responsive. They were responsive, but they were not responsible. But how is General Asphalt when they didn't list anything? They didn't list three bridges. We followed up with General Asphalt Procurement, reached out to all three of them and requested additional information. And then we verified those three projects with General Asphalt. Let's talk about CV. Are you familiar with a company called AEB?

AEB. EB American Empire Builders. Has did that come up in any of your conversations about General Asphalt? American Empire Builders. A Oh, yes. Their partner on the C view bridge. Yes. So, are they are their bridge building partner? I'm I'm assuming so from the email that I saw from from uh from procurement because they reached out and followed up with them and that's who but they acquired them. So, it's they're they're self-performing.

Okay. No problem. Let's talk about what I just gave out to the rest of the commissioners here. Let's talk about the C view bridge, which is actually not complete. So, in November 2022, Monroe County awarded the contract to AEB for the C view bridge for $5.2 million. It was supposed to be completed in September of 2024. By January of 2024, Monroe County began diverting payments to their shy bond. In August of 2024, the county notified AE, the company that they are partner with to build our bridge, that they would begin assessing liquidated damages to AE. In September of 2024, Monroe County declares AE and default and terminates AE expected liquidated damages of over $500,000. Here's the letter from Monroe County. On September 16th, 2024, a conference with representatives of AEB and their shity bond was held in accordance with the payment performance bond in order to address consideration of declaring the contractor in default. At that conference, AEB president stated AEB is unable to complete the work under the contract and is further unable unable to make up for extensive delays associated with the work. As such, the contractors declared in default 722 hours after this, the their contract will terminate. Monroe County fired AE. I've got to cut you off now. turned around. I know you're not going to cut me off. I I will keep talking. They turned around and hire and hired General Asphalt for $5 million.

Vice Mayorpha turn went back and hired AEB right back. Sub Vice Mayor Vice Mayor, Vice Mayor, Vice Mayor, please, we need to conduct order here. Vice Mayor County, I'm ruling you out of order. Okay, this meeting is recess for 10 minutes.

All right, let's go ahead and call this meeting back to order now. Next, I've got Commissioner Seerson Eden, followed by Commissioner Fessic.

Thank you, Mayor. Okay. Um I'm you know I mean I know the residents have desired to have this bridge raised for a very very long time. However um I'm really glad in one respect that we came in $6 million lower um and say are saving maybe saving the taxpayer $6 million. I was not in favor of the $14 million because uh that was the cost for an accelerated schedule uh there. And um so I recently read a report news blurb online that this affects 4,000 residents in Garden Isles. However, that is not accurate. ally affects about 3,000 residents who are upstream of the bridge um there. Uh also I've asked for and received a report on the um condition of the bridge. It's in good to fair condition. It is not in poor or in in desperate need of repair. May not be perfect, but it's not yet in need of replacement. Um, and I have to say that like I said pri on the on the standup police department issue as well, we have so much uncertainty certainty facing this city with property taxes coming out of the legislature. We don't know when it's coming. We don't know what's coming. The House passed their bill and that says they're

eliminating all homesteaded non-school property taxes. Period. They're eliminating all. And everybody says, "Great." So, so I'm thinking of it a little more fiscally responsibly. A bridge that doesn't need to be uh removed. It's still in usable, workable condition. and it's not a safety hazard one. And we may take a 3540 million haircut to our general fund that we're currently paying $65 million out of to pay BSO. And there is no plan. No one up there at the legislature said, "Oh, well, we're going to make it up this way." One proposal that's been floated around is, "Oh, we're going to raise sales tax." Well, sales tax is the most regressive tax there is. to support people who are pinching pennies who have to pay more money for everything. I don't think it's as a city I don't think it's fiscally responsible right now to spend and I know Vice Mayor Fornier I know it's a very important issue for your district very important for you but I don't think it's fiscally responsible to vote for eight even eight million dollars no matter who the bidder is on a bridge that doesn't need to replace be replaced because we are facing such fiscal uncertainty budgetary constraint I think we should use the money uh maybe to pave some roads. Every post I see from Commissioner Fess, Commissioner Fornier. Oh, we need when are our roads going to get paid, Mayor? When are our roads going to get paved?

Oh, Riverside Drive. Wow. Well, let's see. Let's pave Riverside Drive and then let's rip it up to do a major drainage project. That's another good one. We need a major drainage project on Riverside Drive and we're trying to get grant money and I am just not gonna vote in favor of spending8 half million or anything on a bridge that does not need to be repaired for 300 residents in their million-doll houses who are going to get their half million $250,000 boat out or have a bigger boat. That is not a fiscally sound way to run a city. Ladies, thank you.

Ladies, ladies and gentlemen, please. Um, very good. Commissioner uh Commissioner Fess,

right? There's a I actually have some items to discuss about this particular topic. Before I do, I would like to say two things. I am so grateful that this is now twice colleague has mentioned being fiscally responsible and has brought up the situation that is happening at the state level as we have mentioned so many times before and I am grateful for that because I hope that moving forward in every single thing that is considered on this dasis that we will continue to have that fiscally responsible decision making and consideration to what we're spending and how we're spending. ing taxpayer dollars. That's just one thank you for that. Um, secondly, I I I would actually I I did do some background and I Vice Mayor, I I want to say thank you for for providing this and through the couple minutes that we had um as a break. Um, I know that this was a topic that was important to your community and it was one that you fought for pretty hard to make sure that things were done not just in a timely fashion but also um that it went back through the procurement process in light of how in light of just the brand new information that you're starting to provide. And I apologize. Um, I don't think it was appropriate that while you were asking essentially leading questions or leadin commentary to explain your questions, I don't think it was appropriate you were you were cut off. Um, because it's not debate. It's asking clarifying questions which is needed. Um, I apologize that you were interrupted. So anyway, so I do have a question because I did look up the same information and I did a quick Google search. I I figured and I was right. you would probably go full force on this one. And but I did my quick little Google search and my quick little Google search turned up that there were massive

problems with the seaside C view drive bridge um project and that there's basically there there's there's potentially lawsuits. There's potentially I mean there's just stuff going on here that is is a mess. As as of early 2025, this is the AI overview. Like I said, a very quick thing. The early 2025 litigation is ongoing regarding the C view drive bridge on Duck Key. So, and Monroe County is involved in a legal dispute with the SH company having so there's there's there's delays. There's problems here. I would like to um I would like to make a motion before we continue this and and because I have lots of questions for staff as well and I feel like this is important. This is a 14 million or eight million or whatever million dollar project. What did we say? 8.5 to 14 depending on where we go with this. with a timeline that needs to be addressed. And when we're talking about this amount of money, I'm not okay with just telling the vice mayor that she can't have her questions answered or and her or her concerns put to rest. That's this is how we move this process forward. So, I would like to make a motion to extend the limits of debate on this agenda item for the vice mayor specifically.

Seconded. Okay, Mr. Burman. the arbit. It's a proper motion to extend the limits of debate for the vice mayor only. Well, you be for anybody on this item, please. Sure. Any any discussion on the motion? Let's call the role. Commissioner Fez, yes. Commissioner Perkins, yes. Commissioner Seagerson Eaton, no. Commissioner Smith, no. Vice Mayor Fornier, yes. Mayor Harden. No. Okay.

So, now we're back. Now we're back to So, now we're back to the item and

now we're back to the item and I would like to once again point out some very simple common things, common sense things. We are discussing an $ 8.5 million bridge project that has known legal issues with the contractor that's the lowest bidder. We are looking at a timeline that we need to meet so that we do not lose all the work that has already been done. We have only according to the answers that were provided if I'm just correct me if I'm wrong only some of the people who were followed up with related to because there was just the lowest bidder came in and seems as though the other people were not that no references were checked. That true

that is true with H&A because they were deemed non-responsible. So, no need to check the references and I did not check the references on QIT because uh General Asphalt was the low bid and they satisfied our qualification requirements. There's no need to check the ref, you know, for instance, what if we had 20 bids? Are we going to check the references of all 20 bids? We don't do that. We check of the low bid. It's a low bid project. This is not an RFP solicitation where we compare all the proposals and rank them. This is a low bid project.

Correct. And I wouldn't expect you to contact everybody's all their recommendations, but when you bring three to this board, knowing that we all have questions, well, at least some of us have questions regarding spending money and on on roadways and and safety and bridges that affect our neighborhoods in our community and the people we love driving over them, then yeah, I would expect that you did at least the due diligence to make just basic calls for three three companies. I'm sorry. I have to disagree with you on that. My expectation. I'm sorry. General Asphalt was the low bid. They met the qualifications. I checked their references and the bid amount aligns with what we believe it should be. It's fair and reasonable. There's no need to to review the other bids.

I I have I I want to I want since I'm pretty much sure I'm going to hit that 10-minute limit as well. Um I would like to make sure that I ask can we have so you as as you're from engineering department you're the ones who took over this and was not procurement that does these things. So there's, like I stated earlier, there's the responsive portion. When we get those proposals from procurement, we're under the assumption that the responsiveness have been checked. So now it's in our court and we collaborate with them on the responsible portion. So I took that and called all the three references that were provided and spoke directly with the FDOT reps managing those projects. I can only go by what I was given. I don't have that report in front of me that you have and I don't know the specifics on that.

I understand that. I I'm my concern is I

when when we've looked at other projects similar to this, okay, this is just a question. I remember there being I think it was the last meeting, was it like 14 or something people that were disqualified automatically because they didn't fill out a complete form. I mean I could be wrong with the numbers but there were a number of people who didn't provide at the very beginning the complete information and they were then disqualified from the process. Is that that is on the responsive portion if if they do not meet the responsive portion. Yes, they can be disqualified. They were all deemed responsive. We still had clarifications on the responsible portion. That's what we see after the fact from all three by the way.

Okay. I I I think this is more of a process and procurement question because are you saying that then it would fall on our procurement department or are you trying to blame I'm not blaming any I'm just saying I'm just I'm just curious if this is the if if it comes with your name on it I would I just want to answer your questions anyway so um I look I understand that this is a low a low bid number right but in many instances you get what you pay for and when there are so many glaring obviously wrong things by a simple Google search without even digging or going into the the legislature or going into anything else. That raises some serious red flags for me about them being the lowest when they don't have any bridge experience that they do.

Well, they don't have any building the bridge experience. They only have bridge experience. Well, when the one that they have is not completed and having problems, let me be clear. Um that's a concern to me. I just I just mentioned the Tamiami Trail six bridges on one project that I reviewed. Okay. I would Do we have that as a review? somewhere. Do you have it? Is it in backup? I have it with me here. Okay. I I would be interested to So, I'd like to see the qualifications based on that says Miami Praise Bid defaults on five local projects. That's concerning to me. I I And when somebody comes in so far under under bid, then then $12 million was what?

It's not under bid, Commissioner. This is where the the number should be. It's not under bid. It's lower than the other two, but it's not under It's

Excuse me. I I I am you don't have a time limit but I do and so I I I would love to hear you but at the same time I need to make sure that my questions are getting answered and I want to make sure that I completely understand this process and and okay so it is your opinion from an from a from this standpoint that if you were If you were a betting person that you would bet people's lives on that this is not going to come back to us with change orders or with problems or they're not going to leave us high and dry. Okay. Is that just saying if you're a betting person?

First of all, that's that's a silly hypothetical. But let me just reassure you on this. Ladies and ladies and gentlemen, please are silly hypotheticals. No, no, no. the the the other the other ladies and gentlemen please stop screaming out otherwise I will have you removed from the chambers once again second warning I have to remove you from chambers I will third warning please ask that gentleman to move out out of the chambers right now yep thank you BSO

this is a prime example I'm not I'm sorry I wasn't done so This is a prime example of Commissioner Fess just just a moment. Just a moment. Let's get things quiet in here. Sorry about that. I'll I'll I'll extend your time by two minutes. Thank you. Very good. Go ahead, Commissioner Fess coming. I'm I apologize. Um just just so we're clear. Um, Commission Commissioner Singerstein and I know that you just called this a clown show and it is not a clown show. It is people asking for basic respect and the ability to be heard and serious questions related to multi serious questions related to a multi-million dollar.

Commissioner Secret, we we can't have two people talking. Sorry. I'm sorry, Commissioner Fessic. I apologize. Um, so we continue to have a lot of these questions related to a multi-million dollar project and every single time it seems we continue to get silenced for asking some basic questions that people want to know. So, okay. Um, I want to go back towards Sorry, there's some disturbance outside. Commissioner, would you like me to respond to that change order? Is she now or after? You change order would be great. Thank you. Okay.

So, with respect to change orders, the city authorizes the change order under three conditions. Whether or not it's uh design errors or it's unforeseen conditions or the owner has requested additional uh work to take place. Those are the three conditions. regardless of the bid, whether it's a $14 million award or an $8 million award, if a change order exists and it's legitimate, we will authorize it. So, for instance, let's just hypothetically say that there was an unforeseen condition and it warrants a change order. That unforeseen condition will exist whether or not it's an $8 million award or a $14 million award. Okay.

Are Mr. Are you aware of any So, we we understand that they have problems. Is is it generally our city's best practice to actively engage with contractors that are in litigation for not completing projects? Burman, I'm sorry. I didn't know that question was directed to me and I can't hear you. Can you

Okay. Sorry. Is it our city's is it our city's practice to engage in contracts or agreements or bids or whatever it might be um with companies that are active in litigation for projects similar projects um and active in litigation or is that a disqualifying event?

That's a procurement issue. It's not a legal issue. I I don't discuss practice or the city's practice. I can discuss is something lawful or answer legal questions. Uh I assume that is part of the bid process or the procurement process where these matters are questions would be asked. I think that is asked there. They have to disclose litigation as part of the uh application. But again that's a procurement issue. I think that that's taken care of in the procurement process.

Thank you. Was litigation disclosed as part of this process? Tammy good CIP manager because this was an ITB we did not request for litigation. Okay. So I think what you're referring to is uh AEB not general asphalt. So general asphalt's qualifications and their history of performance checked out with exceptional results. Okay. Um I from my Google search and from this packet I I disagree that it's exceptional. Um okay I you know what I'm I'm I'm going to come back at this when I have additional questions but thank you.

Very good. Further commission discussion mayor.

Thank you. Okay. Uh where was I at? So we were talking about C view bridge. So C view is the one that they listed on their qualification of biders as the last project they completed. Uh so uh AEB was found in default, was fired, General Asphalt got a contract for five million. So there was one $5 million contract that was paid. Another $5 million contract. It was supposed to be completed in January of 2026, so a month a month and a half ago. Um but that General Asphalt got this bid and they turned around and they immediately or they didn't disclose that they had partnered with AEB. So these residents are so frustrated that they've spent years on a bridge that has is not complete at all and they turn around and and outsource it to the same company that was in default and was owed liquidated damages to to to build it. It's still not complete. It wasn't complete January 6 when it was supposed to. It is still not complete. So uh in terms of the qualification of biders, that's just inaccurate. And also question four, have ever failed to complete work awarded to you? um if AE is their partner, the answer to that is is yes, not no. So um uh let's talk about the this is C view. This is the the project in the Keys that that uh was listed here. But now let's talk about their their bridge building partner AEB and what what other damage they've done around the state. Um so they didn't uh they were hired to build five bridges in Penllis County. They didn't perform on any of them and Penllis County Commissioners unanimously agreed to terminate it its contracts and also suspended AE from bidding on county contracts for years. They left unsafe conditions, piles of debris. Residents were beyond frustrated. Huge litigation is issues wasted millions of taxpayer dollars. So Miami based bridge builder defaults on five local bridges. Uh that the county couldn't even talk about it because of the potential litigation issues with this company. Rest assured, we've heard your complaints and the board is in absolute agree with me

agreement that the performance and contact conduct of this contractor has been and continues to be unacceptable. Commissioners urged them to terminate it. There are clear uh dangerous piles of debris. Uh if you terminate the bridge, what happens to their liability uh policy? That was one of their questions because there's rusty rebar and debris everywhere. uh and uh the that and two years not even able to perform work in that county. So this company has been fired from project in Monroe County. It's been fired from Five Bridges in in Penllis County where they've told them you're not even allowed to do work in our county anymore. So, uh, for me, this felt very much like at our last meeting when we want when there was a $12 million option on the table to get this done and we were told, "No, no, no. There's there's another option. There's it's got to be possible for less. We know it's less." And it feels like like the this this is less. It had to be the one, right? And we ma we like we made this h happen, this recommendation happen without doing the proper work to vet the company. And this makes me really really upset because this is an important project and we've all worked really hard on this and to come to a recommendation that the bridge building partner of General Asphalt has been fired from almost every bridge they've built recently and is and has cost taxpayers millions of dollars with litigation. They haven't paid liquidated damages. They've had to rehire contractors to start the work over. I mean there's here's another article. Work resumes on Longstall Bridge in St. Pete. According to St. Pete, American Empire Builders, who was awarded the bid to replace the aging bridge, defaulted, stopped working on the bridge where it was just 40% after going through a legal process. They had to hire a new company at $3 million. So, neighbors are happy because the new crews began making swift progress on the project. So, we end up paying twice when you hire this company

and you end up in litigation, it seems. I don't think that that is the right thing to do to the taxpayers of and the residents who have been promised this bridge for a decade. So to me this is not about anything except doing the right thing for the residents. It clearly seems that there is only one responsive and responsible bidder and it's QIT. They happen to also be the company that built the Fifth Avenue bridge. So, I'm going to think it's a pretty credible bridge builder and a pretty credible bid because they built the closest and nearest comp to the 6th Avenue Bridge. So, I I would recommend that we go forward with that company. But I have one more question before I make a motion. Um I guess Earl procurement's under you. So given what I went through here since since engineering says that you are responsible for responsiveness um when I look at general asphalt's qualification of biders and we go through it and item three says the last project you completed was duck key which isn't complete have you ever failed to complete work awarded to you I mean you know who knows the ownership structure but certainly their bridge building partner AE has failed to complete work they didn't actually list any projects in here they list no no no answers to any of this equipment list, please see attached. It was not attached. Have you even done a Have you looked at the site? Blank. Everything on this form they filled out is blank. So, Earl, can you please tell me how you deem them responsive? while they're debating, if I may. Uh, I

actually I'm sorry, but but no, I have the floor. Well, while they're debating, I I will go on with So, I at this point don't know how to trust a recommendation. We also heard, oh, no, change orders aren't going to impact this. If it would, it impact every bidder. when when we talked about the parking garage, the low bid was going to have so many change orders that we're going to get to the high price. So, um to me, this is honestly like a little unprecedented that that Google search turned this up and just start you start talking to people and the and the counties and it's it's pretty incredible that that this is the company that was recommended to do this really important project for our taxpayers. So, it is I'm going to make a motion that we

come back in two that that we come back in two weeks and get a written memo from legal mark. And I know you say you don't have anything to do with this, but I I want a legal opinion of whether this qualifies as a responsive bid and responsible and I want a recommendation on that agenda for the next for whatever bidder is actually responsive and responsible. So my motion is to come back with a new suggestion and I want a complete memo from legal and procurement on all the on all of this. I want to second moved and seconded for um

you can read it back. Kervin did you catch that? I want a legal a memo from legal and procurement detailing this entire process and I want a bid I want a bid to be recommended from someone that's actually responsive and responsible. Well, that's I want it reevaluated based on whatever comes up from a legal review. Okay. because I mean staff has already determined that it's it's responsible and and and I want a legal review of of that process because

Okay. But but you're saying you want a legal review and and a recommendation for a responsive and responsible bid to come back. Yes. Well, we've already got a responsible respon. Well, maybe it comes back that legal says, "Okay, no, that wasn't responsive. So then we go to the next bidder." I I want based on based on what legal decides. Okay. But I'm I'm saying we've got a responsive responsible bid already and I'm saying I don't agree. I I understand that. But but you're saying and bring one back. Well, we've got one. So if you want to have legal review it I I get it. And if they deem them non-responsive, then then we need a new bid. Come back with a new recommendation.

Mr. Uh my only question is if uh the commission desires that I prepare that and I'll certainly do so. Uh will the vice mayor share the material she has that she's quoting from so I don't have to go online and I gave you a packet. You should have one. But yes, all in here. Yes. It's in this packet here. Yes. Thank you very much. No problem. Okay. Including the letter from Monroe County where they were fired. This discussion on the motion. I've got Commissioner Smith. While while we've been up here, um I Googled American Empire Builders. They are not owned by General Asphalt and they're their own company and they're active on Sunbiz as current as 2026. We don't know the ownership structure.

They could actually own them as a subsidiary and that's what it sounded like. But it's not what what you're quoting on is the bad stuff online. And there is a lot of bad stuff online on American Empire Builders, but there's not bad stuff online with General Asphalt. This general um Empire Builders is a subcontractor that I guess a lot of people use for roads, bridges, and such. That's not who we would be going into contract with. Be going into contract with General Asphalt. We don't know that that's who they're going to subcontract to.

That is correct. So AEB, we have no we, all we know is General Asphalt is going to self-perform this bridge. I appreciate all the energy and effort that you did looking into AEB. We looked into General Asphalt. They listed AEB, but to what level that they're going to provide scope, we have no idea. We know that General Asphalt, who is a billion-dollar asphalt company that does bridges as an incillary incillary scope to these multi-million dollar projects, is going to self-perform and build this bridge. They are highly qualified, more qualified than the other two collectively. And it, you're right, this is unprecedented that we're arguing for the day to to pay to pay less and for a company that is completely qualified to do the work. We're the subject matter experts. We performed the experience uh the uh research to checking out the qualifications as I did the research and checking out the comparable pricing for other bridges that were recently uh completed and awarded. So the price is good, the qualifications are great and there's no need to delay. If we delay, we are at risk of the permit expiring with the Army Corps.

Thank you. Okay. Further commission further discussion on the motion. I got Commissioner Seager Eaten followed by Commissioner Fessic. Yeah, I had one question. Uh the Fifth Avenue Bridge was mentioned as a comparison. What did that cost? Uh Fifth Avenue Bridge. The cost I think it was three and a half million if I'm not mistaken. Two and a half, but that was like five, four years ago. Okay, that's that's Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. It's Please. Once you let it go, they just continue on and on. That's it. Okay, Commissioner Fess.

Okay, so while I appreciate that the project for Southeast Fifth Avenue Bridge may not have been the same as as this bridge project, um the good news is is that one of the companies has done work successfully in our city. Um I I'm just going back to the same so I just keep going back to the same thing where it says procurement and contracts department and this is the this is the ITB recommendation tabulation page and so we've talked about there's terminology here right so responsiveness review is it says that the the ITB procurement and contracts evaluated the responsiveness of the three bids and were were deemed responsive then this responsibility review saying that the engineering department evaluated the responsibility of the three bids received. What does responsibility in this terminology mean?

We checked the references, the qualifications, their experience which which I did with the supplementary information that had been provided. Right. But you just told me earlier that you did not check the references of two of them, only the lowest bid. That's correct. It says here that you evaluate the responsibility of the three bids provided received. Just we didn't for HA because they were nonresponsible. So there was no need to and like I've stated earlier we didn't feel the need to check the references on QIT because General Asphalt is the low bid and they met the qualifications. So we were moving forward with recommending with them but

I think so anyway. So I think on the motion I will not be interrupted on the motion. No, no, no. I just want to make sure that we were on the motion.

I'm on the motion. Well, but these are these are clarifying questions related to the motion. So, I I I this is why I think that it's really imperative that we do move this, get a legal opinion to make sure things are being done right because this is not the first time we've had conversations circling around this process where it should ideally probably go straight through procurement and not through multiple departments aside from the the the initial review process or whatever. There I there. I think we're messing up our silos here a little bit. Um I would really like to I would be very interested in learning more about a legal I would be really interested in learning more about what you find as a legal opinion, Mr. Burman, because this is not first time we've been in this situation. Um I I did have one question for procurement Earl that you So I I asked I asked the engineering department and I just want to make sure before I before I and I'm be done. Did who I guess who ultimately decided was it who was it ultimately that that signed off on this? Is there an email saying hey they all they all were deemed responsive? Where where did that approval come from exactly?

Commissioner let's No, no. Um, this is a very simple question. If it's I I get it. It's a very simple. We're trying to get this motion done first. I mean, and I'm being interrupted again. That's for an a simple question. Who who's Okay. Who Thank you. It's collaborative, but we engineering made the recommendation via that letter. And now I recall actually procurement uh calling the references or that was the direction to him from the procurement director for Lewis to call the references for um QIT because I wasn't going to do it.

Mr. Bosworth, procurement department. Sorry. Would you maybe fill us in on that? What happened with the procurement department? Oh, Miss Rivero is here. Okay. I I just want for clarification because I don't want this to be one of those things where we circle around and if somebody points a finger and said, "Oh, they were going to do it or they were going to do it." I just want clarif clarity and that's it. Thank you. Mro,

good evening. Mayor Rivero. So, normally the responsiveness and the responsibility always is from the procurement department. Here at the city, it's different. So engineering checks for the references and calls because they are the subject matter expert with in this case the bridge maker. Um so we check for responsiveness and they checked for their responsibility. There is an email where yes indeed despite the memo that says that they they did check all three. They did not but we did check the third one because we asked him to do it and they said that there was no need because the first the the lowest bidder was um general asphalt but we did check Lewis did check for the third one Q it and they met the the requirements for the references though they didn't do it but we did as a city so it was done.

Okay. Thank you very much. So your your department did find that Huitt to be responsible and reactive. Yes. Further further on on the motion what the motion is please. It's to direct legal to review um this entire matter I guess and come back with a a responsive responsible bid. Would that be it? Sorry. Go ahead vice. Yes. That's yes. Okay. and at by March 10th because the clock is ticking by March 10th. Our meeting on our meeting on March 10th. Okay. It's to come back with a determination whether this was a responsive and responsible bidder. Is that correct? Correct. And if it's not to evaluate this bid. Yes.

Not and I'm not doing anything else with the bid process in terms of evaluating others. No. Okay.

Just making sure. Mayor, can I just point out one thing too? As far as Florida statutes are concerned, 255201 subsection D makes it really clear that um that the um if the project's to be awarded based on price, which this is, the contract must be awarded to the lowest qualified and responsive bidder in accordance with the applicable county or municipal ordinance. Now, that doesn't mean that they are responsive or responsible. That's a determination to be made, but it's the reason that you don't go look at the other two or other three or four, however many other biders there are and investigate them. So, I want to make that clear because they're following the procedure set out in Florida statute as far but as far as whether it is responsive, I'll take a look if that's what you want.

Very good. Thank you. Further discussion on the motion. Mayor, I've got Commissioner Seerson eaten and then Mr. Harrison. Go ahead, Commissioner. So, you're saying I'm just going to say that unless you're I I'm really not understanding. Are you saying, Vice Mayor, that you think that our staff didn't follow our rules and the Florida statutes and did something wrong in this process? Is that what you're implying? That's what you're alleging? Is that what you're saying? Excuse me. Don't ever put words in my mouth again. No, I'm asking you. Is that what you're saying?

I asked for a legal opinion of whether this bid was responsive. Okay. Okay. Okay. Distinction without a difference. But okay. Further discussion. Mr. Harrison. Mayor. Yes. Um, I'm afraid if we wait until the March 10th regularly scheduled meeting that we're going to be cutting it too short by getting all of the documents in order, the contract signed and submitted to the Army Corps because the permit expires on March 14th. So, we should probably, if we're gonna uh de labor this, we should probably have a special meeting. Good idea.

Before that date, a good idea on this. A special meeting before the 10th. Yes, ma'am. How question? Yeah. So, that's your recommendation, Mr. Harrison. Okay. Yes. So, I've got a question down here. Commissioner Fess, how how long do you think it would take you to make a determination, Mr. Burman? I need a week. Okay. Okay. Well, I I am not available the 4th through the 9th. Um, so I'm happy to do it Thursday or Friday, which is two days from now, but if we can get things done that we can move things along or Monday. Monday, first thing on Monday.

I I just saying I I would like to try to get this project done, but I feel like we can just make sure that at the last at the last time we had this discussion, it was said that I needed to make sure that everybody knew what my my life schedule was like. So, um, I'm just making sure that I'm letting everybody know I am I am happy to meet Thursday, Friday, Monday. Let's get this done. Mr. Burman, you can't get it done for a week. I can do it sooner if you want. I'll do whatever you tell me to do. I'll have it done. If I have to be here till 2 a.m., I'll get it done. Well, not tonight, but not tonight. Monday. Okay. Okay. So, uh, Wednesday next week. Wednesday is I'm not a good day for me.

Tuesday. Um I'm only available in after two on Thursday unless we have a uh CRA. No, we wouldn't have a CRA meeting on Thursday. Didn't you say Monday or Tuesday? I said Monday or Tuesday. So the March 2nd or third are looks like the days that second is actually better. Second. Oh, sorry. The third is better. The second is not. I'm booked fully on on the first. Second is better. It's No, the third is birthday. The third is what? Okay. Um,

let's get a consens when who can be here on March the Okay. Second or third? Those are the two two choices we got. So, second or third? Just the third. Now, we're just down to the third. The third is the only one that works. Okay. I guess I'll have an answer by the 3. Well, it's if we can't have four people here on the third, then you won't need to for the 26th. We still have to vote. Yes. Well, we'll still have to vote on the motion. That's correct. But we won't have the extra. We won't have the special meeting. Um, so can who can be here on the third? What time? I'm sorry. Can I'll be here whenever. Okay. Commissioner Smith. Yes. Commissioner Smith can be here on the third. Commissioner Fess, you can be here on the third. Uh, Commissioner Secret and Eaten, you can be here on the third.

Just ask what time. Uh, that's yet to be determined. First, we're going for the day. Okay. Let's step one is the day. Can you make the third? No, you can't make the third. No way. Okay. So, we're down to five. Okay. Can Can anytime you call in if we make an exception? Can you call in if we make an exception? No, I was just being smart because the mayor was smart. S smart. I'm available any day. I need to be available. Thank you. Thank you. I wasn't. Yes, I am available. Thank you. And commissioner, I'm I'm sorry. ABC with me. I'm sorry, Commissioner. I wasn't trying to be smart. Okay. All right. Just just just letting you know.

I'm just letting you know. Thank you. Okay. So, we got March the 3 special meeting. We're not sure what time yet. Um Okay. So, we can all be here. So, now let's go ahead and address the motion. Uh the motion is to direct Mark to go ahead give us a legal opinion um on the process that was taken in in this regard and come back with a responsive responsible bidder if one if one exists um by our meeting on March the 3 at some point in time. That is the motion. Okay. Further let's call let's call RO. The date is now part of the motion.

Yeah. March the 3rd. Well, no, no, no, no. That's it should be part of the motion. We we'll have we'll we can organize a special meeting after the motion passes, but yeah. No, we we we'll do the special meeting. Sure. But let's get the motion. Commissioner Fez, yes. Commissioner Perkins, yes. Commissioner Seers and Eaton, no. Commissioner um Commissioner Smith, yes. Vice Mayor Pier, yes. Hard. Yes. Okay. So that's that's uh the direct that we're still I guess so that takes care of the item itself, but let's go ahead and take care of the special meeting. Um so I would make a motion that we have hold a special meeting to consider this this matter that we that we just uh dealt with on March the 3.

Seconded. Okay. Now, what time what time works for the for the general folks here for March the 3 for a special meeting? It'll make any time work. 1 p.m. would be ideal. 1 p.m. 1 pm. Any any objections to 1 PM, Mr. Harrison? No sir. Anybody else? No objections to 1 pm. Room available. Irvin, are you available? Yes, I will be available. Okay, good. I figured you would be need you. Okay, then let's go ahead and schedule a special meeting on March 3rd at 100 p.m. for this um to deal with this particular matter. Okay, great.

That takes care of item six. All right. Item seven is an approval approval of the members of the auditor selection committee to evaluate proposals for independent auditing services for an audit of the city of PMPO Beach financial statements. So moved. Second. Moved and seconded for discussion. We got Miss Ferta.

Good evening Mayor, vice mayor, members of the commission. Allison Fetardo, finance director. After providing additional guidance for the commissioners in the agenda backup, I'm requesting approval of the audit committee members as originally recommended at the February 10th, 2026 commission meeting to ensure full compliance with Florida statute 218.391, which requires the governing body to establish a committee of at least three members, including a governing body member. serving as chair to oversee and evaluate the auditor selection process. Timely approval will allow the city to proceed lawfully with the procurement process and avoid delays that could jeopardize the audit timeline and expose the city to financial and compliance risk. Therefore, staff recommends approval of the audit committee members and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Very good. Thank you for that. This is a public hearing. Is there any input from the public on this item? Please come forward. Just name and address for the record. Can you explain what this is all about? The audience knows because this was 33 last time, wasn't it? Uh believe so. Mr. Fado, can you explain what this is about? Okay. It's the audit committee. Yeah. I mean and specifically this is not to do an audit.

No, this is not to do an audit. It's just to select the auditors that will um audit the city's financial statements for the fiscal year 2026 to 2031. So they they assist in um procuring the auditor for the city. So the person that we select will assist. Yes. Okay. All right. I watched this last thing. it. Okay.

Oh, Michael Skverki, 1630 Southwest Fifth Avenue. I saw people were saying things that were such baloney, I couldn't believe it. Let me just say a few things. If let's just say they needed somebody to deal with printing or supplies or something like that, we have to be fair up here. Who would I pick? You. She's very good with graphics and stuff like that also, but it doesn't matter. You have a lot of experience in printing. So, I heard people saying stories about her past. Okay, I know her fairly well, even though she doesn't know that or she thinks I don't. She likes to make up stories, but that's her. She went to Princeton. She went to Harvard. She went to University of Washington as an Allison. When she went to these schools, she got all A's and one B and that was in Harvard. Then what she did is she went to University of Washington. She got her degree in aerospace engineering, something like that. Oh, by the way, an MBA from Harvard. She was recruited at University of Washington to work at Boeing. She was actually paid to go work there. So my point is, I know this was a while ago. She went to Boeing. I think she worked briefly at Goldman Sachs. Then she went to EVR, which is basically a a mini Goldman Sachs company. They're a very big company though, finance company, and she did very well there. So, if we're going to pick somebody to be on this board or whatever you want to call this to oversee and look and study things, she's the one. That's just being fair. I'm only being honest. Are we dealing with the greatest person in the world that I like or anything? Not at all. No, Siri. And I don't want to have anything to do with her ever again. Okay. But what's fair is fair. She is She would do

the terrific job. She will be up at 2:00 in the morning studying. She will be studying at 5:00 in the morning texting or calling. She won't be calling me anymore. She'll call her boyfriend Eigor. But that's besides the point. She is by far the best pick out of this whole group. Hands down. Be fair. I don't understand what the problems are. I know you sit here and argue over stuff, which is fine. I can understand that. But use common sense. We have somebody that got all A's and one B at these highlevel schools. Okay, I wouldn't have been able to pass one. Well, I would have cheated off of her, so I would have done okay. But she's the kind of girl that would hide the answers, you know, like that. And by the way,

my father just passed away. Her father died and she graduated through school with all that stuff.

Sorry for your loss. Thank you. Further input from the public, please come forward. Just name and address for the record. Uh kudos to your outstanding education. It is amazing and it should be congratulated. My son is in college now and getting into college today is an unbelievable task and and stressful for the kids. So you deserve all the accolades for that. This auditing committee does no auditing at all. Right. They pick the person who will do the audit.

That is correct. However, the additional members that were re recommended um have experience their um experience in picking right auditors because that's what we do, right? So, they're qualified in selecting and understanding the RFP. What the controversy here is who would chair the committee and his historically the the mayor is the one that chairs it. He's just overseeing correct the committee. He's not, you know, he's just perfect.

We are some patty co. So you're going to have subject matter experts who know how to pick an audit. We did this five years ago with the mayor as the chair as prescribed by the state legislature for some reason. And we picked one of the best auditing firms you could possibly pick. And our audit went well. There were no issues. Maybe people don't like the fact that there were no issues in the audit results. That could be. But at the end of the day, you're going to have this committee chaired by someone ostensibly, our mayor, who chairs everything in the city, right, as far as elected officials, tally up check marks. Did you were you responsive and responsible, right, in what you sent back to us in the RFP, RFQ, whatever you want to call this? Yes. You did it. You did it. you did it. All they have to do is put tallies up and at the end they say you got 14, you got 12, and everyone else got less. You win the audit. There's no numbers to go over. There's no crunching. There's none of these things. Seems like there's a lot of firepower being requested to overlook people use tally marks to say this is the audit firm we have to go with because they have the most responsive questions or answers to the questions that we ask. in a matrix, right? Correct. I mean, that's what it is. It all falls into a matrix. You load it up, someone gets so many checks, they're the ones who end up getting to do the audit. A lot of firepower for someone who won't be doing any auditing at all, just chairing people who know what they're doing. And if history is any indication of the future, we did an outstanding job last time. We picked one of the best firms in the state of Florida that municipalities all around us use. You know, if we want to turn this into I said this once before, I said if we want to turn this into an audit where you're

really doing the audit, perhaps we should get David Copperfield to be the chair because you're making a magic show out of this because you're magically trying to make this an audit when it's not an audit. It's a joke to have that much firepower. Kudos. You have all the degrees, but someone's just tallying check marks on a matrix to say, "Let's hire the best firm like we did five years ago." It's all it is. It's tallying check marks.

Very good. Further further input from the public, please come forward. and Bosworth Palmare. Respectfully, if it was just tallying checkbook marks, then there wouldn't have been a reason to have an argument about it in the first place. If there was somebody recommended who has that kind of mindset and can look at things from a financial perspective and a business perspective, then there isn't really a reason to argue against it, right? So, we can call it check marks, but I would rather have I'm sorry, somebody with a financial background doing it rather than somebody who's a printer. I'm sure you're a very nice one. I'm just saying. Thank you.

Very good. Further further input from the public. Yep. Okay. Just name and address for the record.

Thomas Thomas Jerry Thibo Jr. uh owner of the plantation. Jesus took a seat to write me for his last day. We're in the thousand reign. Uh but also I wanted to make Kansas City, Missouri 3915 Tennessee, Kansas City, Missouri 6411. I wanted to mention point out uh your father passed and your father passed. He said, uh, energy can bypass time in your thought processes. Pure energy. Okay? You experience the times that you had with your with your your past ones. You experience those times. You know they were real. When you think about those times again, right now they're having that experience again. Absolute fact. You can get their life back.

Thank you, sir. Further input from the public. Seeing none, public input closed. All right. Commission. Well, I'm going to start off I'm going to start off by making a motion. I make a motion that we go ahead and appoint the entire city commission to this this uh this audit review committee. And um if if they so choose and we keep the subject matter experts on there as well. So that would be my motion to bring the entire commission on board as many as want to join. I'll second that.

Moved and seconded to to uh agree to put as many commissioners as wish to serve on this committee. Discussion on the motion. I've got Commissioner Seagerson eaten followed by you, Commissioner Fess. Is that Well, I have just a question for um um Allison. Um so, we put an RFP out, RFQ out, RFP. RFP um from across the country. So we're getting and the last auditing firm I don't remember their name now but very large national auditing firm. Yes. So we had so they changed names. So they were Keith McCall at the time. Now they're Citroen Coopermanman.

And where what what where where is their home base? So they're here in Fort Lauderdale. In Fort Lauderdale. Okay. But Citroen Coopermanman is n I mean I'm thinking they were from up north. So, how how many respondents did we get the last time from the RFP? Um, I can't remember, but we ballpark probably about five or so. Okay. So again, we're, you know, we're going to be reviewing the company between five and six um RFP responses and we're going to be part of a board and that's going to ultimately score each firm and whoever gets the most points uh will prevail in the audit.

Yes. Because it's not it doesn't have anything to do with pricing. Just to let you guys know, pricing is not a subject point of this theme. Qualifications is majority of it. Yes. Right. You know, no auditing. Thank you. I've got Commissioner Fez next, but before that, I've got Mr. Burman. He's got his hand up.

Just for clarification purposes, mayor, based on your motion, I I'd just like to clarify something. This is a process unlike other processes for selection committees. This is set out specifically by state statute and I have advised this commission before and your motion may bring up this question. So I wanted to address it up front uh that the city commissioners may not per the county ethics code participate in selection committees for procurement. However, there is an exemption in the county ethics code that says selection evaluation committees established pursuant to section 218391 which governs this process. That's an exemption. So, you may serve. So, if there's any question, I'm not suggesting anyone has to should, but if you wish to, you you can and not vi violate the county ethics code. Just wanted to make that clear based on your motion. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Commissioner Fess.

Thank you. So, yeah, I I saw the backup and Mr. Fado, I wanted to say I I thank you for providing in your um in the backup a secondary option. Um so, last time we were here, the it was just set up without the vice mayor and this time you have the alternative recommendation. Um, and so I'm getting to with adding adding in our vice mayor as a as an additional voting uh member. And while I appreciate Mayor Harden's invitation to join this selection committee, I'm not qualified in financials to do so and I would not be the best person for the job. So I shouldn't be doing that. So, uh, um, so given and given what we've seen here today on display today. of tonight regarding keeping order or finding, you know, the when somebody's just asking qualifying questions and and trying to do what's right to make sure that we make the best decisions for the city as a whole. I have even I feel even more strongly I think than I did even a couple weeks ago that I do don't have the faith in in having mayor chair this committee when qualifying questions were shut down as part of just an exploration process for previous attempt or previous um agenda items. Um, so that said, th this committee. So, um, look, I I I I'll make I mean, I know that not to make another motion, but I just want to make it really easy. Um, I I this audit committee is supposed to protect the integrity of the city's independent audit process. And the commission has to get this right. You have to get the qualifications and the governance

structure right. Though, state law does require a governing body member to chair the committee. But beyond that, we should structure it to maximize independence, minimize political influence, and preserve public confidence in the selection process. Vice mayor is clearly the most qualified person for this position. Um, state law requires a governing body member to chair the auditor selection committee, but it does not require the mayor. Vice Mayor Fornier is the most qualified governing body member for this role based on her engineering, finance, and investment banking background, and I do not support any alternative that keeps the same chair while downgrading a qualified voting member. I want to point out that in adding Vice Mayor to this list as an alternate, we downgraded Ms. Chong as a voting alternate. So, I'm not I'm not done. Um, so the only structure I'm going to support here is is supporting the vice mayor of Fornier as chair, a voting chair, qualified members as voting members, and any additional elected officials serving only in a non- voting role. And with that, I would um, you know, if I have to make a motion, I will come back at it, but that that is how I feel uh, very strongly. Thank you.

Very good. I just I just want to point out that I my motion was not to require anyone to serve. Those who wish not to serve do not have to serve. Mine was merely to offer the opportunity to all serve. Um further discussion on the motion. Seeing none, let's go ahead and call the role on the motion. The motion is for all to give the opt option for all of us to sit on the valuation with the subject matter experts that Miss Ferta already has listed. Not as not as optional, but as as serving on the committee. Let's just make this committee bigger. I know she's she's probably hating it right now, but it's we can find enough chairs. Don't worry. Question on sure on on on the motion. Commissioner Fessie,

I have a question. So if that is the if that is the case, would you be comfortable stepping down as chair and allowing vice mayor to chair this committee and you would still be able to be a part of the committee? Would you be Why don't we leave that up to the committee? Would you be willing to Well, would you be willing to amend your motion? Yeah. Well, we have to do this is how we have to do. Correct. No, we'll we'll leave it up to the committee. Committee can select the chair. But it's our job. Once the once the committee is constituted, the committee will select the chair. How's that?

I'm not I This is This is the recommendation. I'm I'm I'm making sure that I feel the most qualified position for the job as far as a voting chair for this committee should be the person that's most qualified for the job. So, if you would be willing to step down as chair and allow vice mayor to chair this, I would be more than happy to have you be on on on Can I mention something? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I would feel comfortable with that. I I've I've got Mr. Burman. Mr. Burman, you're holding your hand up the longest and then I'll

Hey, Mayor. I just want to clarify a statement that was made. It's not whoever is not the chair is not an alternate there. They there a voting member on the board. The chair traditionally has been the mayor. It's just an honor. It's part of her duties. But if if the committee is going to vote, he may not be the chair. But anyone who does not serve as the chair is not an alternate. They have the same voting power as the chair does. the chair merely runs the meeting, but he has no greater power or she has no greater power than any other voting member on that committee. I just wanted to make that clear because it sounded like you believe that was the case. I just want to make sure. Right. That's what it says in the backup.

Okay. Well, I just want to make sure. So, so you were I'm sorry, Mr. Burn. You were speaking with to Commissioner Fess. I was There was this comment made I think Commissioner Fess said that they're an alternate and they shouldn't be. It's not a question of alternate. It's a question of chair, but there everyone's a voting member. The chair just runs the meeting. It's more of an honorarium, I guess. And uh it's it doesn't control the vote anymore than any other member of the committee. Just wanted to make that clear. So when you're making your considerations, you're doing it for the, you know, the right information. Thank you. Sure. Mr. Fertana, you I mean, you wanted to chime in. Oh, no. I'm just like what? Um Mark,

Mr. Mr. Burman, that guy in the suit as you stated um all committee members, all voting, there is no one that has let one higher, you know, crunch with the the voting part of the RFP. Everybody has the same voting rights. It's just one vote. Um you're just overseeing the process. So um that's basically what the chair does. He's just like what you're doing here on the commissioner on the port on the dis that's basically what you're doing calling the meeting in order um having the discussions and call the meeting at end and then give the dates that we are supposed to be returning after that's all that's the job for

very good okay so the motion was to just open on the membership up to the entire city commission if they so choose to uh to serve as equal equal members of this committee. So that's the motion. Um and and not to knock anybody else off the committee because no it's I think it's important we keep we keep we can find more chairs. So that's the motion. Any further discussion? Seeing none, let's go ahead and call the role on a motion. Commissioner Fezic, no. Commissioner Perkins, no. Commissioner Seagen eaten. Yes. Commissioner Smith. Yes. Vice Mayor Forier. No. Mayor Harden.

Yes. Okay. All right. So, that one fails. Um Okay. How How's this? Um I make a motion that we draw names from a hat for who should be joining. So, yeah, just like the vice mayor, Miss Fatada, does that give you heartburn?

Okay, there's another option. typically with an RFP um excluding this process. This is another way. Apart from that, the mayor like I said he has chair the committee before he signs off on the AFR annually. So he has the responsibility to do the chair in a normal RFP excluding this one. All audit selection members typically would request, hey, do you want to chair the meeting? So that's something that is required in the the audit I mean not the audit selection the committee members for an RFP typically they would have to have a chair enemy. So one of the things that we could do in the commit the committee is the entire audit committee members can then pick from the whatever you want to call it to decide who wants to be the chair. I mean it's up to your commissions here. I really it doesn't matter to me to be honest with you. It doesn't matter to me who chairs it. All I know is that I need a governing board but member to chair this committee. That's my job.

Exactly. No, I I understand that the state statute says that the the person governing board has got board has to be will be act as chair. Um, so yeah, so like I said, my motion is that we we draw the the participant to to so all five all candidates here from from everybody up here on the deis. Okay, that would be my motion to draw draw names out of a hat. Second. Okay. Well, this is some of us don't want to be in the hat. Okay, then whosoever wants to be in the hat, I'll amend my motion to to put the names of those who wish to be on the committee in the hat. Thank you. Okay. So, Commissioner Commissioner Seagerson and Eaten, is it still seconded?

Yes. Okay. Moved and seconded. Discussion on the motion. Got Commissioner Fess, then I've got Vice Mayor.

I mean, I'm really trying here. This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard in my life. I am I I really feel like somebody is punking me. I swear this is Okay, so I have a question for Miss Ferta. State my alternate and we get it over with. She's still on the board as a voting member. Sorry. Sorry. Again, not being interrupted. I have a question for you, please. Um were any of these other um committee members that were list that were that are listed on your alternative recommendation or your original recommendation were any of them previously committee members in years prior? No, this is a new brand new committee. These are all brand new people.

Okay. And I did see that they had their everything attached. Thank you for that. Um, this is simply again the best person for the job. And I do not think drawing a name out of a hat when we're talking about an audit selection committee is the appropriate way to handle things. I think that again, like I said last time, part of managing effectively is to know when somebody is better equipped to be the person to chair or be the person in charge of something. And this is very, very simple. What I'm having trouble with is understanding why this decision that is seemingly so very obvious is so difficult. This, I think, is the problem that we're facing right now because this is so comically awful for the taxpayers of PMPO Beach that quite honestly, mayor, you can't put your ego aside to to to allow the right person for the right job. I mean, and I don't mean to be disrespectful. I want to make sure that that's what it comes down to. Please consider being a member, like I said, being a member of the of the the committee, but allowing the vice mayor to take the reigns here and make sure that the questions that she needs to ask are going to be answered so that everybody can work together and Miss FTO can finally get her approval. Thank you.

Very good. Further commission, further discussion on the motion. Commission. Oh, Vice Mayor, that's right. Sorry. Thank you. I'm going to put the personal part of this aside. Um but so so this motion I think completely defeats the purpose intent and the intent of the issue at hand. Um and it also clearly shows that you don't really care about whether you were on the committee or chair of the committee or any of it as long as I am not unless I'm randomly picked out of a hat. I mean, so this is

is actually I mean, I hope you don't play poker because like you just put all your cards out there and just literally said, "I don't care if I'm if I'm the chair of this as long as as you're I'm not going to to say that you can do that." And it obviously does not meet the intent of what I think Commissioner Fezic is trying to accomplish. Uh because a random person is is is not what she's going for. She was seemingly trying to get someone with experience on this committee. Now, um that's it. Very good. Commissioner Seager.

Well, um this is called a a democracy and I I it's obvious. I don't agree with you, Commissioner Fess, at all. Okay. It's just my right as a representative. I get a vote and I disagree with you. I completely and I think this is um another disrespectful attitude that you all have. If you weren't the vice mayor, if your name vice mayor wasn't picked out of a hat and you were just a commissioner, where do you get the audacity to take and and and traditionally the mayor has always shared that

where so where do you get off? All you're doing is making an assessment of different firms based on their resumeumés and track records.

It has nothing to do with accounting. So, okay, we can go ahead and have another another function, but I think it's in very bad form for you to take over the mayor's position on a board. He is the head of this city. He is the figure head of this city and he has been on this commission for over 20ome years and and I think it's very rude and petty of you to try to un try to take him off the board and I think you're the ones that are acting like children. Thank you. Very good. Further further commission discussion on the motion. Commissioner Fessk,

I would just like to point out that it's not childish when it comes to being fiscally responsible and having a fiduciary duty to choose the right person for the right job who's going to help select the company to run the audit for the city, which we obviously like to stand and scream from the rooftops that we do such a great job. I have no problem with that. I'd like to start from the beginning and no disrespect to the mayor, but he does not have to, per the state statute, be the person to chair this committee. He's welcome to be a voting member or he's welcome to be a non- voting member, but at this point, the right person for the right job and doing the fiscally responsible and fiduciary duty that we are charged with is putting the right person in the right position. And that is not a personal attack. That is not anything. The fact that the absolute fact if we're take Didn't you take everybody's personalities right on out of here?

Oh, don't and you excuse me, I'm still speaking. You take everybody's personalities right on out of here and you put the qualifications of person A or person B and you have to decide. I can tell you with certainty that 99.9% of people, at least the ones who would read it, would likely pick the vice mayor for the role. Thank you.

I'm just I'm sorry. I gota I just got to chime in here. I I'll take my spot here also. Um, you know, I'm I'm a little taken aback honestly. It's people talking about that, you know, I I've got to be there. I've got to chair it. I've got to do all basic. Look at if it's really the best person for the job and if half of this commission thinks that vice mayor is the best person for the job as far as evaluating the auditors, potential auditors. And that's that's what I I tried to do when I first made my motion. And yet, Commissioner Fess, Commissioner Perkins, and Vice Mayor turned my motion down. So, if the purpose was to try and get Vice Mayor Forier on this committee, why did you turn it down?

I'm happy to answer that. I'm super happy to answer that. Well, cuz your motion was that anyone could be on it and I have concerns about maybe other people sitting up here sitting on that, right? Oh, so um yeah. Okay. So, I would have concerns that Yeah. So, that that's my answer to that. Uh and I I want to Well, I mean, Very good. Okay. Well, I I appreciate that answer. Go ahead. Um, so

I think this actually is part of a bigger conversation that probably should happen here at some point. Maybe it's not now, but it is this idea of the right person for certain roles actually taking on certain responsibilities here. So, I've been to other city commission meetings and if there's a proclamation that is particularly relevant to one district or one commissioner, that commissioner reads it. And I I know at one point not long ago, Commissioner Perkins like brought this up at least having names like all of our names on these, but for me, every month when you read the proclamation for Black History Month and Beverly stands and Commissioner Perkins just stands there, it it kind of just doesn't sit well with me. And I've never said anything about it, but if we're talking about the right person for the right role or the right responsibility, I think we should look at this more often. And you know, I think Commissioner Perkins representing her district and Black History should be the person that reads the proclamation on Black History Month. I think there are probably many opportunities around here where we are not necessarily open-minded enough to end colleial enough to to step aside and say, "Hey, you're better at this than I am, or you know, this is more for suited for your community and your constituents. Why don't you step up and do this?" And I think that would be other cities do it and I think it'd be uh a good practice for us to get in here.

Thanks, Vice Mayor. Just to to clue you in though, just so and perhaps you didn't know. Um Commissioner Perkins does read proclamations from time to time when when out in the out in the community and and I've done them too, but I'm talking about here. Um you know, I think well if but the proclamation is normally from the mayor. So, I mean that's but I'm just that's Yeah, we added all of our names on them and and I've been to other commissions where it's done. Sure. Sure. I hear you. We added the names so small you can't read them. Anyway, anyway, on

I have a Okay, since we're talking about that, I I know that we have the um the the PMPO Beach um housing authority and based on the state or whatever, the mayor gets to choose the people that are represented, I guess, on that board and and I think sometime the mayor, it would be nice to take in consideration to say, well, okay, I would like for each commissioner to help me out and choose one person to be on that board, but of course he choose the people he wants on that board. No consideration of anyone else. Just, you know, even though you have the power to do it, you're not extending it to your colleagues. And that's something I'd like for you to consider in the future. That's it. Thank you.

Very good. Further discussion. Commissioner Smith, you have a motion on the table right now. Yeah. Yes, we do. What's the motion on the table right now? To pull names out of the hat. Oh, for those for those who would like to like to be on the committee. So arbitrary. So further commission discussion on the motion. Seeing none, let's go ahead and call the role. Commissioner Fezit, no. Commissioner Perkins, no. Commissioner Sigerson eaten. Yes. Vice I'm sorry. Commissioner Smith. No. Vice Mayor 28. No. That's a no. No. Okay. Hey, Mayor Hart. Sure.

I'd like to make a motion. Sure. Go ahead, commissioner.

Look, my mo I move to amend the committee composition. So, the vice mayor, Alison Fornier, serves as the voting chair. All qualified external finance professionals serve as voting members and city staff serve in non- voting advisory roles with any additional elected official participation limited to non- voting status which means if anybody wants to sit in they can but mayor vice mayor chairs it and if we want to have this is getting ridiculous so I I want to make sure that this is clear if we want to have public confidence in anything we do here for the rest of the year like or the audit selection process or anything just anything. Then we should choose qualifications over tradition and adopt a committee structure that maximizes independence and consideration of what's best for the city, not the way things have always been done. This is getting ridiculous and I would like it to stop. Thank you.

So that's the motion. That's the motion. Just very good. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Do something. Been moved and seconded to uh to appoint Vice Mayor Fornier to the selection evaluation committee. Discussion on the motion. Not a point. It's as chair of the vote of the committee. Well, that she's being appointed right as as serves as the voting chair and she is the only one who's being appointed from this committee from this board. Correct. And if any with any additional elected official participation limited to non- voting status. So you're welcome to participate, be there, sign off on whatever, but she is the chair as part of the motion. Yeah, state law states that,

right? Mr. Burman already told you. Sign it. No, you have to sign it. Just letting you know. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Discussion on a motion. Seeing none, let's call the role. Commissioner Fez, yes. Commissioner Perkins, yes. Commissioner Seigerson Eden, no. Commissioner Smith. No. Vice Mayor Fornier. Yes. Mayor Hart. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. I may to make a motion. Uh, Commissioner Commissioner Smith, I just Oh, sorry.

Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. I'd like to make a motion that um both you and Vice Mayor serve on the um audit commission collection committee. We we've already this we just we already just we just dispenseed with that. Vice mayor is going. I'm sorry. Vice Mayor is going. I don't think she heard your vote. Voted that. Oh yes. Yes. Yes. That that that is she's behind us. Vote yet. Let's move on to item nine is a sec. Item nine is a second reading of the ordinance. Almost 9:30.

An ordinance of the city commission of the city of PMPO Beach amending chapter 155 zoning code of the PMPO Beach code of ordinances by amending section 155.2432. 2432 reasonable accommodation and section 155.2434 community residence and recovery community certificate to comply with Florida chapter 2025-182 laws of Florida relating to certified recovery residences providing for servability providing an effective date so moved second moved and second for discussion Mr. real. I'm sorry. I I hoped you would get out of here earlier. Sorry about that. All right.

Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, and commissioners. U for the record, Scott Reali, principal planner with development services. This is an easy one, I promise. This is this is the second reading of an ordinance amending the zoning code to ensure compliance with state statutory requirements regarding review timelines and procedures for certified community residences. Uh there have been no changes since first reading. Very good. Thank you for that. This is a public hearing. Is there any input from the public on this item? Seeing none, public input closed. Commission discussion, questions, concerns. Let's go ahead and call the role. Commissioner Fezit, yes. Commissioner Perkins, yes. Commissioner Seagerson Eaton. Yes. Commissioner Smith. Yes. Vice Mayor Fornier. Yes. Hart.

Yes. Item 10 is a second read of an ordinance. Ordinance of the city commission of the city of Palm Beach, Florida, amending chapter 91, boats and water recreation of the Palm Beach code of ordinances by creating section 91.17 Palm Beach overnight anchoring limitation area to establish an anchoring limitation area within the city providing for severability providing an effective date. So moved. Second. Moved and second for discussion. Once again, Mr. Sopoulos, John Soplo, an engineer. No changes since first reading. Thank you. Very good. This is a public hearing. Is there any input from the public on this item? Seeing none, public input closed. Commission discussion. Seeing none, let's call the role. Commissioner Fezic, yes. Commissioner Perkins, yes. Commissioner Seagerson Eaton, yes. Uh, Commissioner Smith, yes. Vice Mayor Pier,

yes. May Harden, yes. Item 12 is a resolution. Resolution of the city commission, the city of Palm Beach, Florida, pointing blank to the public art committee of the city of Palm Beach as private citizen for a term of two years had turned to expire on February 26, 2028, providing an effective date. So moved. Second moved and second for discussion. I'll go ahead and nominate Donna Shore, Incumbent, District 1. Any further nominations for this item? Hearing none, nominations closed. All in favor say I. I. Opposed? Motion carries unanimous. Item 13 is a resolution. Resolution the city commission of the city of Palm Beach, Florida, pointing blank to the public art committee of the city of Palm Beach as architect for a term of two years said term to expire on February 26, 2028, providing an effective date. So moved. Second.

Moved and second for discussion. I'll go ahead and nominate Toby AOK, Incumbent, District Three. Any further nominations? There should not be. Nope. Hearing none. Nominations closed. All in favor say I. I. Opposed. Motion carries unanimous. Thank you. Item 14 is a resolution. A resolution of the city commission of the city of Palm Beach, Florida, appointing blank to the public art committee of the city of PMP beach as curator for a term of two years said to turn to expire on February 26, 2028, providing an effective date. So moved. Second. Moved and second for for discussion. I'll go ahead and nominate nominate Mary Lou Hamilton incumbent district 1. There are no other applicants here but any further nominations hearing none nominations closed. All in favor say I. I opposed. Motion carries unanimous. And item 15 is a resolution.

Resolution of the city commission of the city of Palm Beach, Florida appointing blank to the public art committee of the city of Palm Beach as art professor for a term of two years said turn to expire on February 26, 2028 providing an effective date. So moved. Second. Moved and seconded. I'll go ahead and nominate Mimi Botsheller, Incumbent, District 1. Any further nominations for this item? Hearing none, nominations closed. All in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. Carries unanimous. Thank you. That takes us up to additional audience to be heard. Apologize about the delay. Who would I have signed up? Mr. Mr. Alfred. Yes, I have seven remaining speakers. Very good.

Our first speaker on the list here is Michael Severki, followed by Roick Phillips, followed by Maria McLemore. We passed Mike's bedtime. Michael Severki, are you still in the building? Michael. Is apparently not here. Okay, next speaker. Rodri Phillips. Rodri Phillips. Rodri Phillips, are you in the building? Okay, moving on to the next speaker, Maria Mcleammore. Maria McLemore's She's gone.

Okay. Tanel Picket. Tanel Picket, are you still in the building? Tanell. Tanel. Nope. Next speaker. Uh, Xavier Condrron. Xavier. Xavier Condrron. Don't see anyone. Going twice. Next speaker. Mark Herbert. Mark Herbert, are you in the building? Are you in the building?

Mark. Mark. Audience to be heard. gone. All right. Next speaker, Thomas Surbo Jr. Thomas Serbo Jr. come forward, please. He's come forward. Just name and address for the record, sir.

Thank you very much, commissioners. My name is Thomas Jerry Thibo Jr., my birth name, uh, Ken City, Missouri, 6411. Uh, 3915 Tennessee, Kansas City, Missouri, where my address, but that's where I was born and raised most most of my life. Were born up there or raised up most of my life. But I wanted to point out um you guys need to critique mankind to think on system of life. The factors of the system of life. There simple absolute factors the system has and that's a perfect system. One of my sayings is how can you say you respect the creator if you're not respecting the factors of a perfect creation? Okay. People throw paper cups, plastic cups, trash down on the ground, candy wrappers, whatever. But then they'll throw a pla an orange peel, a banana peel, or an orange orange rind banana peel and and and the core of an apple and it seeds in a bag and they'll carry it for a half a mile and throw it in a trash can. That's completely backwards. Now I find this stuff in a plastic bag in a trash can. banana peels, oranges, apples, cores, and stuff. And and and they I see them throw so much trash on the ground. And I ask people when I see them throw trash on, you got trash all over your house, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, living room. No, no, no. What did you do at home? I throw in the trash at home. Ah, you must be a truly homeless person then. If they don't accept the plan as their home, I don't give a They got a mansion. I don't care what kind of car they drive. They don't plan as their home, that's a homeless person. You talk billions of planets out there. We ain't got billions of thousands on this planet. Billions of house planets out there and you can't find one of them that can support life. Not one.

And you got a house right next to you. You got a house next to you there and you don't throw trash on those houses and in your yard or in your yard. So why in the world you going to throw it all over the h all over the planet, you know? and and a recycling plan. We need to put recycling get it right. And the main reason things aren't recycled since recycling lots of business, lots lots of there'd be a lot of job opportunities. If you recycle everything, everything can be recycled. The main thing that's not recycled, the garbage food, the trash, marotting food inside of a trash can. And that food has all the nutrients in it. That's why the nutrients aren't getting on our food. We're having to put chemical fertiliz chemical nutrients in our food to to be able to get the nutrients up to where they're acceptable. You know, I read an article about that. All that food all all the nutrients from our food is going into garbage dump sites. If you separated all that food from the trash, send mixing stations, extract the methane, use it for fuel, no methane all extraction, the leftover super compost.

Very good. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Thank you for your patience. Next speaker includes audience to be heard. Real real quick. The life system wants to obliterate humanity from ever being a thought process and creation mind. Very good. Thank you, sir. All right. That takes us up to our next scheduled meetings. We have March 10th, 2026 at 1 PM regular city commission meeting. We have March 24th, 2026 at 6 PM, a regular city commission meeting. And let's not forget about our special meeting on March the 3 at 100 p.m. That'll be a special city commissioner meeting. Mayor,

yes. I'm actually researching that because there's a a uh architectural appearance committee meeting at 400 p.m. But we're having our meeting at 4, right? It's at 4. Sorry, I just forgot. So, it's at four. We're having Yeah, ours is at 1. Yeah, it's at 1:00, but they're meeting at 4. Yeah, it it won't take us three hours, right? Well, architectural appearance committee, maybe they'll they'll have to they'll have to wait. Okay, very good. takes us up to reports. Mr. Harrison, city manager.

Yes, sir. I just have one thing. George, would you come forward? I don't know if you all will recall, but we had a presentation from our fire department uh to Manta Ecuador for some used fire equipment. And George has something from Manta Ecuador. Mr. Burman volunteered to read this.

I was going to say Kervin will translate it.

Get the words out of my mouth. close to uh good evening, Mr. Mayor, vice mayor, commissioner, city manager, city attorney. Um, I'm delighted to share that back in December of 2024, the city of Pompo proudly donated 18 service uniforms from the uh fire department uh to our friend city in Manta, Ecuador and um where a dedicated commissioner was here to receive those those uniforms. So this past weekend um I had the pleasure of attending a wonderful event in Miami that was organized by the city of Manta. During this memorable occasion, our city was honored with a beautiful crafted um yellow tuna and a letter from the uh mayor of Manta to the DAS. So I really would like to read translate unless Mr. Burman would like to do that. Okay. Whereas it is the duty of public institutions to recognize and value the acts of solarity, cooperation and brotherhood that extends between the cities and contribute to the well-being of the the communities that on December 10, 2024 during an official session of the city of council of Pmpo Beach, the donation of suits uh were sent to the city of Manta Fire Department

that this gesture of solarity consolidate a bridge of cooperation between both municipalities, the administration, reaffirming the principles of mutual support, fraternity and social responsibilities. That is important management was possible thanks to the institutional articulation that allowed to channel the donation and guarantee and transfer from one official to another official that this act reflects the commitment to citizens welfare constitute an example of effective international cooperation between local governments. In recognition to that, please accept this letter to the mayor and the commissioners from the city of Manta mayor. Thank you.

Very nice. Thank you, George. Appreciate that. Yes, that concludes my report, Mayor. Very nice. Thank you, Mr. Burman, city attorney.

Thank you, mayor. Um, I know there was some discussion earlier about the incident uh with the sheriff's office and the young uh gentleman uh involved. I just wanted I I think I have a responsibility to let all of you know that today the city uh did receive my office received a notice of intent to sue. So, I think you need to be aware of that. I'm not trying to um silence anyone, but I think you need to be prior to making comments or saying anything, you need to be aware of the pending litigation now in this matter. So, Thank you for that. Um, one other item. I just want to thank everyone, um, officials and staff who have reached out to me within the past few days with messages of condolence. Um, they were much appreciated in this very difficult time. So, wanted to thank you. That's all I have, Mayor.

Very good. Thank you, Mr. Burman. Sorry for your loss. City clerk, Mr. Alfred, no report this evening. No report. Very good. Takes us up to city commission. Commissioner Fessick.

Thank you. Um, Mr. Burman, I am sorry for your loss. I did not I did not know you had lost somebody, so I'm sorry to hear that. Um, I have actually something fun. Um, first I want to say thank you very much to Fernand. I think he left maybe, but um, he came in and did a presentation at the request of some folks um, on A1A regarding the A1A and FOT project. they had some questions um as they were sort of new residents um along A1A and he was able to give me a very detailed and give them a very detailed explanation of kind of where we were um and so I want to thank him because I just recently he sent me the copy of the PowerPoint and um I would ask Mr. Harrison to please if at all possible make sure that you share that with the rest of the commission because it did give us some timelines that if anybody else in the district is asking or any anyone else in the city is asking that I think that information would be valuable. Um I know that I asked at a couple meetings ago to for that an update on the Riverside project and also update on my brain's gone now at this point but something else I'll I'll I'll email you and I would love that. So here's the fun stuff though. So after one of the meetings uh I guess probably we just think we discussed this like a year ago but after one of the meetings recently um I had been talking to some people about accessibility and beach accessibility and I remember it came up in like my memories um that we had these awesome like chairs that float in the water that you can take basically so somebody can take the if they're in wheelchair bound they can basically take this and they have the M they have this these big wheels and then they can go and float in the water. So that basically gives people the ability to be in the water and we do have them available. Um it was brought to my attention um through a couple of people

with mobility issues that we have these mats the they're called Moby mats. We have them at various um entrances at our beach but there aren't any that go into the water or to the water's edge. And there isn't any way that they can like come off, you know, like so that if they want to sit by the water rather than sit up by lucky fish, if they want to get closer to the water, they don't have the ability to do that unless they're in um a specific chair. So just some basic research these like 300 feet of you know and and talking to different um different residents about the options what would work for them how it would how they thought that they would use it and how other cities have used it. Um a 300 foot run of this Moby Mat would cost approximately like $10,000. And um so I I Kervin I I um I pulled up some Thank you. I brought I just I did some visuals. So this is there was two pictures. Um one was two pictures from Sarasota. So this presented a way for the folks who are wheelchair bound to have a direct run to the water's edge. So if they want to get in the water and use our amazing struct amazing floating wheelchair, then they can get in the water. But if they want to come down and sit by the water's edge and enjoy the beach themselves, this also gives them an opportunity. And so I did three things. I sent two pictures from Sarasota. Uh it's item under there is just says reports there and Moby Mat accessibility. Um and so I so the ideal placement is where I put it. So I just kind of kind of figured if the and this is up for discussion obviously if the wheelchairs are kept at the fire rescue ocean rescue station which I assume that they are um then that ideal placement for that uh sorry this is a this okay so this is this is

an explanation this is Siesta Key it's an aerial so this is just having this mat go all the way out and then there's a couple little wings where so if you don't have if you don't want to go all the way out to the water you have the ability to sit off to the side and enjoy enjoy yourself. Um, and you know, bring an umbrella, enjoy it with your friends, and then still leave the pathway open. It's it's they they attached. Yeah, they're attached. We actually have these mats currently at our beach. So, you might recognize them if you go to the like these um the wide walkways. So, this is just a this would just be a contin well continuation of what we already have. Um, so this was one of the other things and then just this little side mats again so that there's accessibility for anybody who wants to not block the walkway but not get their wheelchair in the sand. Um, under the the map aerial picture Kervin or the best placement I think is how I named it. Just double check. Ideal placement. There it is. No, the um the ideal placement

I think I know we were briefly on there before. So this is uh so I just so what you see here is on the side you can see it says length 258T. I just did the goo Google Earth map measure thing. So obviously don't count on that as being completely accurate. But if we were to go to basically the high tide water line it would be 258 feet roughly. And if we we would still you can actually cut these pieces up or whatever or use them to latch onto one another. So at most we would probably need 300 feet. We could score, you know, cheat it a little bit. So it's approximately a $10,000 investment um you know in terms of purchasing the things. I just I know that we've done such a great job of being accessible and we've made investments in that. Um, one of the other things that the residents mentioned to me was if we were to do something like this, there are maybe look at from a parking standpoint having a few more handicapped spots open there um near the fire rescue ocean rescue building as well. Um, just to make sure that if you're arriving in a wheelchair that you to use the mat, you would have access to the the the beach and the mat and have parking nearby. So, um, anyway, I just wanted to bring this to your attention because I think this is something that everybody could use. Um, I've heard it from people in different districts that are wheelchair bound and, um, or have families and loved ones that are and still want to get outside. So, um, I this is just part of the reports to see what what everybody else thought about it. And being that it was so low cost, I thought that it might be um, you know, something if we have at all possible to kind of get ordered. I think these take some time to order, but um Mr. Harrison, that you know, if that would be something that you would we would potentially direct you to to to do or to approve or look into further and bring it back to us. Um or just go ahead and approve it and get it installed and let

us know. Um anybody's thoughts on that? Just because I really think that I think it'd be something that would benefit all of us. And I've had a couple residents reach out to me about this in the past and sent it on to parks and wreck and it didn't really go anywhere, but there was definitely interest. It was actually I think some people in in Palmer, but they they've been other beaches in Florida that have it and said that it was it was useful. So, I don't know where that kind of got lost in the process when I sent it along, but I think it's a good idea. That's something that they they talked with Annne Bosworth and Carol Eisman talked to me about. Um and I was going to bring it to the budget committee.

Oh, good.

But if you're going to bring it to the budget committee, we can't both do it. So, I'm going to just I'm just going to hand it off to district one. That's fine. So, but I think it's this is the kind of project that should come to our the the commission budget. Well, I just for such a low cost that this is one of those things where I', you know, we I' I'd like to save those the $10,000 for something that really is is not a capital improvement project, right? So, that this is one of those things if we have discretionary spending that we spend, you know, x number of dollars for all sorts of different things. This this is a one where I feel like the value of the 10,000 even if it's in a discretionary fund from the city manager or somewhere else that I would this is this is a spend I know that I would support um and I would be really excited um to to see enact it. So, if we have to bring it to capital improvements or to a budget meetings, then we will. But, um, I think this is a great opportunity and yeah, I I I've heard from lots of residents and but Carol was one of them um and animals one of them and um and also uh some folks that are up on Riverside like that because they they like to be by the beach but they just can't get on it. So, um so anyway, that's just a just a Mr. Harrison, can can you please follow up with us on just checking in and finding out the appropriate ways to go get actual real

I think we already have uh the mat. Uh I don't think it goes all the way to the water, but uh we already have a mat with the uh with the chairs there at Ocean Rescue. So I'm not sure what what has happened. So we're going to check into it. We have the chairs and I just don't know that we have the mat that goes all the way to the water and more so I know it doesn't go all the way to the water but we have a mat that goes a long ways out but we'll we'll get it figured out.

Perfect. Thank you. Um so the second one um and like I said I'll keep it brief because I wanted to also um thank Mr. Donovan and and Mr. Harrison for um again talking about crosswalks. It's been a big issue. So, they're currently looking into the possibility of some um temporary solutions since our FDOT project is so delayed or backed up. And this may not be a an immediate solution, but I would ask Mr. Harrison for your um assistance on trying to speed the process to get these temporary traffic crosswalks um approved or pushed through the process through FDOT as as quickly as possible. And I would appreciate your um help on that. Um, I'll leave everything else because there's really not much. Uh, but I am just saying these are these are great things are happening. We're trying to find some solutions here and um, I wanted to say thank you to all of the people who I've spoken to lately and I'm actually really excited that there are more and more people here in the city who are paying attention to what's going on and who are not afraid to ask questions or not afraid to to um, say things. So in I actually Darlene I thought of you in your quotes because I was I was going through um I was going through I was going through I was going through Instagram whatever and I and so it just basically says um it was something that I think is more positive but um your interest or disinterest in politics is not neutrality. So if you are disinterested is a gift of power to those who are very very interested and so I want to make sure I thank you for being committed to being locally responsible and locally involved. Thank you.

Very good. Commissioner Perkins.

Thank you, Mayor. I would like to get an update on the Ultimate Sports Park um near Apollo Park and the Girls and Boys Club. I've been waiting on it since 2018. Still waiting. Um also, I wanted to get an update. Uh Mr. city manager on Northwest 6th Avenue. Um, we've completed the removing the roundabouts, but I wanted staff or someone to look into what we can do with the visibility of garbage cans, the bus benches, and the bus shelters on Northwest 6th Avenue as well. And lastly, I just wanted to invite everybody on Thursday at 1:30 to come and join us at the uh EP Larkin Center for Community Court. I think it would be a great experience to just see how the judge helped so many homeless people and people in need. Um so just come on out 1:30 on Thursday at the EPA Larkin Center and the judge will be there and all of the resources.

Resources, all the resources are there. So, she does allow walk-ins, too. At the end, we have walk-ins from the street that comes in. They need help with food or housing or whatever, she's there to help. So, if you can stop in, that would be great. And that's it for me. Thank you. Very good. Thank you, Commissioner Seagerson Eaton. No report. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Commissioner Smith. Well, the positive with tonight's meeting was something we didn't even talk about, and that's a public art plan. Ty, are you still there? Ty's back there. Ty and team have done a wonderful job of creating public art around our our entire city. Yay.

And what were especially beautiful to me this year was the rhythms of legacy at the hive, the artist um sound panels at the senior activity center, and the one fish two fish at Skolnick. So, thank you to you and your team for continuing to do public art in our community. Um in District 5, we'll be having the the safety meeting on March 4th from 6:00 to 9:00 at Skolnick. Everyone is welcome to attend. The fire department will be um teaching us how to stop the bleed, how to do hands-on CPR, how to work an AED, how to work a fire extinguisher, and what to do after a fire. So, there's flyers up here. Anyone that's slept that would like one. Something great about community. It was a wonderful celebration of Black History Month. Just wonderful. every event that I went to, all the volunteers that worked on it, the city parks and wrecks that worked on it, and BSO to make it safe for everyone. Thank you to to that wonderful commitment from our whole city and community to celebrate Black History Month. And my quote is from Jesse Jackson. Never look down on anybody unless you're helping them up. Thank you, mayor.

Very good. Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Thank you. Uh, a couple quick things. Uh, I wanted to share the email that I that we got from the city engineer last week about the flashing yellow at Northeast First Street and Northeast Second Avenue, the intersection with flashing yellow one way and flashing red the other way. Um, Broward County recently approved converting those flashing lights to at the intersection to an all-way stop with removal of the flashers. So, I think that is that is a strange intersection and I think that's um going to help safety and traffic flow and and people will have a better idea what to do there with that. So, that is good news. Uh my community meeting is tomorrow night at the American Legion at 700 p.m. and we will be talking about the BSO study. What else is on everyone's mind right now? Um so come out, you can definitely be heard, ask questions. It's always inter interactive. So 7 p.m. at the American Legion tomorrow night and um my quote is integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching.

Absolutely. Very good. Um just uh I want to re reiterate what uh vice what commissioner Smith said about Black History Month. I mean it was it was fantastic. Everybody did a great job. It truly was a group effort. um volunteers. I mean, Tiger Trail, those folks. I mean, everybody participated. Collier City, parks, wreck, BSO, fire, everybody. It was it was a great community event, um multi-event. So, thank you to everybody participating in that. I just want to remind everybody about our special meeting on March the 3 at 1:00. Um so, don't uh don't forget to put that on your calendars if you haven't already done it. And that's it. Thank you. This meeting is adjourned.