City Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the City Commission Conference Meeting this April 2026. Thank you. I want to thank you all for being here today. We're going to jump right into the agenda. Normally, we have communications, but I don't see any communications today. So we're going to go right to the says mayor's report. I have nothing to report on just yet. I'll reserve my comments for later. We have the manager's report, city manager.

I think commission reports come before mine.

Oh, I forgot that one. Okay. City city commission's report. Commissioner Herbst. Thank you, mayor. So I just want to let everybody know that we're going to be doing our workshop for Lockhart Park tomorrow night. I hope everybody has an opportunity that wants to participate, comes on out. Can I come? Yes, please. I hope you do. It's we'll we'll we'll notice it. You can come on up and share your thoughts about the mediation and the redesign of the park. You know more about it than I do, so please.

Am I allowed to go city attorney?

Sunshine it.

If we notice it. Yes, mayor and just obviously you would be communicating with each other about the project or anything that would come before you.

Okay. Maybe I'll try to

do that. What time is it at? It's at 06:00 up at the Kaplan Building.

Where the police headquarters were?

Yes. Okay.

Great.

Let's notice it just to be sure. Yeah. Let's go ahead and notice it. It's so we're going to have city staff up there, rebroadcast, the city manager will be there. We'll have Joe Webb from AECOM to talk about it. So, we'll go to hopefully get some community input and talk about the redesign and see what the community has to say. So thank you.

Got it.

Just going to ask the clerk to assist with that notice. Thank you.

Commissioner Beasley Pittman.

Thank you, mayor. Good afternoon to everyone. I would like to bring notice to the city that mister Levi Henry, the founder and CEO of the Westside Gazette, he transitioned, we had a memorial service for him.

Oh, really?

Yes. We as a city, we did send an expression of sympathy.

Right.

But I'm asking at the beginning of our meeting tonight if we could also give a moment of silence in regards to him. We know that mister Henry, established the Westside Gazette in 1971, and his son, Bobby Henry, is now, the editor and chief of the newspaper. But, a tremendous loss to the city and to the state. So if we would do that, I would appreciate it. I'm also sharing some opportunities that I had over the last it seemed like this has been, like, one long month, but sharing some opportunities that we've had over the several past days.

On Thursday, April 9, I had a great opportunity alongside with Chris Cooper, Vanessa Martin with our c a CRA, Tiffany Vane. We had a joint, city meeting with the Plantation, CRA. On 441 South Of Broward to Davie Boulevard, the city of Fort Lauderdale and Plantation, we are abutting cities. And we've been having conversations to see, how we can be in harmony as we bring forth, projects on that that corridor there on the 441 area. So, we had the pleasure of sitting with, the mayor, Nick Sartol, and also the CRA, director for Plantation, which is Clinton Hall.

And that was a great, meeting, and we do look forward to having additional conversations with them. On Thursday, the fourteenth oh, yes. It was a good day on the fourteenth. Thursday, the fourteenth. I was honored, to host the, pump station pump station, ribbon cutting in historic in historic Dorsey Riverbend.

Excuse me. I'm a little tired this morning. But we did have the opportunity of hosting the post the pumps station ribbon cutting. A great event, that was celebrating the completion of the final storm work storm water infrastructure that was in the historic Dorsey River Bend and Doors community. That project has nearly 10 miles of new pipe and drainage structure being fed through the the new and modern pump station in that area.

So that project, as we know, the total investment was $67,800,000 for storm water improvement across the neighborhood. So thank you to our public works, also to Stratcom for their opportunity where they made it possible for us to have that ribbon cutting and bringing that awareness to our city and to everyone that we are looking forward and making progress with our infrastructure regarding our flooding and storm water improvement. Okay? Also, I would like to share that okay. Give me one moment here.

Alright. See, like, something else I wanted to share. You know I do this off, Amir. I'm gonna pause here, and then I'm gonna

ask if

you would allow me to come back. But

No problem.

With that being said, we've really had, an opportunity, to, bring that information about the pump station that was very exciting for the community. The community was there. And when I tell you that they are at a moment where they're feeling that we are truly ready for this hurricane season along with the flood and the rainy season, we are trusting that this pump station will be a great impact for the community. So with that being said, at this time, I'm gonna end my response here.

Okay. Commissioner Lastman?

Yes. Thank you, mayor. Good afternoon, everyone. April 9 had the pleasure of speaking, at the Birch Park Beach Finger Street Neighborhood Association. That was their annual meeting. Always a good meeting, very engaged group of folks. And, we again talked about that celebration they had a few months ago for their hundredth anniversary as a neighborhood, a great milestone. April 10, it was a lot of fun, doing the ribbon cutting for Smorgasburg, Fort Lauderdale. That's at 536 Northeast 2nd Street in Flagler Village.

What's it called?

Smorgasburg. Not Smorgasborg, Smorgasburg and I'll tell you why. Okay. The concept actually began in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York as a really fun fun outdoor market area, food, crafts, arts, you name it. It became very successful. Then they opened in, Miami in the Wynwood area. And now they're on the site of where the viceroy residences will go, right at Federal And 2nd.

Is it

as is it an assemblage of food trucks?

It's it's everything. It's it's booths. It's food trucks. It's a DJ. It's it's music. It's a bar. It's it's it's a real outdoor fun, market. I think it's already been very successful. It just opened. They operate Saturdays and Sundays from noon till 8PM. And they do this on sites that are vacant waiting for development. And then when the development comes, it's sort of like a long term pop up. But it's really a very cool spot. They did a good job. I wish them all the best.

But I think what I saw even just in the first couple of weekends, I think it will do very well. Upcoming, I'm looking forward tomorrow, guess is the twenty second, I'll be part of a panel discussion at Pier 66 hosted by One Sotheby's, including their CEO. We're going to talk about development in Broward County and specifically the influx of folks to the city of Fort Lauderdale and why. It should be a very good panel discussion. I'm looking forward to that tomorrow.

I will also be part of a panel discussion for the Realtors Association at the Tower Club on April 29. Much of that is going to be focused around neighborhoods. It will be focused about community character. And then they're going to get into a discussion of historic preservation and development and redevelopment and property value. So I'm looking forward to those two panel discussions.

Both of them have a large attendance of folks already signed up for that. We have in Holiday Park in District 2, we have a meeting with neighbors to talk about water billing information. That's also on April 29 at 06:00. April 29 through May 2, our city is hosting the Fort Lauderdale Open. That is a very large gathering of swimmers at our aquatics complex.

I think they're expecting more than 25 Olympians to be participating in the Fort Lauderdale Open. Again, that's April 29 through May 2. April 30, there's going to be a good discussion with the neighbors on the beach about moving forward with Sunrise Lane. As you know, we have in the budget for reimagining, really cleaning up, which could be a very, very special little corner at Sunrise and A1A. So we're going to have that discussion that will be over at the Beach Community Center for how we're moving forward now that the funds are in the budget.

And I look forward to seeing that project. It hopefully will not take too long. We also have an upcoming meeting for the Los Oles Isles Neighborhood Association that will be their annual meeting as well. May 2, over at Holiday Park for the YMCA, they're going to be hosting what's called a little builders fun fest. A lot of hands on experiences for young children and it should be a really nice event on May 2 for folks to see what's going to be coming with the YMCA in that spot.

Then May 6, we have the FOP Police Department Fallen Office Memorial Ceremony at Esplanade Park. Always a very moving ceremony. It's I I think the first time I ever attended and I I think I probably have made all of them. I was just really so impressed with the solemnity of that event and and just the the spirit and the dedication as we remember our officers who gave their lives in service to the city of Fort Lauderdale. And that's about it for me, mayor. Thank you.

Vice mayor? Thank you, mayor. Just a couple celebrations to start off. Riverwalk, named number eight riverwalk in the country. So congratulations to Genia and the whole team. So that's fantastic. I give them a hand. Great job.

Give her a brick, give her a brick, yeah or two. So

that's great news. Tortuga Festival, I thought we had a great Tortuga Festival this year. Chris will share a little more about how it went, but from my vantage point, I think fantastic and continue to be great partners with the community and working together and make sure that all works together. And I was excited to see Ice Cube mayor perform one of my favorite rappers of all time. It was a good day.

You know it. That's what he ended with commissioner Beasley Pittman ended with it was a good day. It was spot on. So just great great celebration, great folks that come there and and and just great led effort by by Chris and Jim. Couple other things, commissioner Beasley Pittman and I were just at Hattie Curley's hundredth birthday.

So Hattie turned 100, here in the city and just a wonderful celebration. So that was that was great. She was She was more interested in the cake than taking pictures, which I don't blame her. So it was great being with her for that and thanks commissioner for being there for that. Mayor and commissioners, went to the or participated virtually in the solid waste authority meeting this past Friday.

So voted electronically and the master plan was passed unanimously. And so I'll turn it over to City Manager to describe more about what are the next steps. But it's just the framework by passing it, it means that framework is now going to all the municipalities in Broward County for each municipality to decide is this a framework that they would like to participate in or not. So no obligation, but as a city that's something we'll evaluate. I think it's next month, city manager, maybe you can provide more details.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Staff intends to bring a presentation forward at the May 19 conference meeting to talk about the city's options. And ultimately, the Solid Waste Authority would need to know by August whether or not the city of Fort Lauderdale intends to participate. So we have a lot more to discuss and share with you going forward, and we're preparing those materials at this time.

Great. Thanks, City Manager. Next, Mayor, you've allowed me to participate on your behalf for the annual Mayor's Breakfast Panel. So I was a stand in for you. I don't think I embarrassed you too much, but it was Mayor Levy of Hollywood, Mayor Hardin Pompano Beach and crew Fort Lauderdale, which is focused on women in commercial real estate.

So good discussion, good talking about what we're doing in the city of Fort Lauderdale and exciting things and so that was I thought a positive conversation. So thanks for that opportunity. I also went to the Council for Lateral Civic Association meeting this past week. One of the topics that came up there and I mentioned this city manager is the idea of lean amnesty. So lean amnesty, so mayor and commissioners you all are probably very familiar.

We allow for a high percent of amnesty for penalties incurred as a result of not being in compliance code or otherwise. So one of those categories is up to like 85%. So in other words, if you have a $100 fine, you can seek amnesty reducing that payment from $100 to $15 right, 85% minus 100. And so the feedback that was just overwhelming from the Council for Lateral Civic Associations was basically this is too high. It takes out some of the teeth of the enforcement and the penalty.

And as a city, we always want people to comply and don't want to have to submit fines. But the council's argument was there's a middle ground there that we're probably way too far on the other side of too higher percentage of amnesty. So I just wondering if we could just evaluate that a little bit, ask the city manager to see if we could have a more a better model for this to enforce and possibly reduce amnesty, but also still have some components when there is a real hardship what might be available.

Is that an automatic 85%? Because I know other cities it's much less.

Yes, it's a good question. In

Fort Lauderdale, we do have somewhat of an ongoing amnesty period. And I know in other cities, amnesty is sometimes at a certain time of year or may not even occur every single year automatically. And so there is certainly a balance between encouraging compliance and penalizing those who are not in compliance. And so we're definitely open to having that discussion to see where we want to be as a city. And we could put that on as a conference item if that's what the commission would desire.

Well, it would be good to know what it is, what is the policy. And I agree with the Vice Mayor that the whole point of it is to encourage compliance. Once they do comply, then we can consider reduction. I know for like one of our neighboring cities like Wilson Manors, you can get a 50% reduction. And then if you want more, you have to come before their commission.

So I don't know how we want to implement a policy here, but I do think an automatic 85 makes no sense. I remembered when Lee Feldman was the city manager and I was the city commissioner, there were a number of code violations that were discounted 99%. And that was when during the recession, a lot of banks took back houses in foreclosure and they were not hooking up to the city services. The homes were still using septic tanks and they weren't using the city effluent system. And sometimes that would go two, three, four years and the fines would go $50,000 $60,000 $80,000 and the city manager would reduce that to a couple thousand dollars.

And I said, well, this is a complete disincentive. They need to be hooked up to city services, right? But my voice was not heard and that policy continued. So I don't think we should be bending over backwards to encourage people to violate the law if they think that ultimately they're going

to be

forgiven. Know it's easier to ask for forgiveness than it is for permission. And

I think that's how some might be gaming the system a little bit, mayor, on this is exactly what you're saying.

Mayor Portia Garcia is at the podium to provide any details that you may need. Go ahead, Portia.

Thank you, manager Williams. Portia, hello. Good afternoon, Good afternoon, vice mayor and commissioners. I wanted to share some changes that we made to our current program. Our current program does allow the 85 reduction. However, we made some modifications, around September so that there are reductions that only receive a 50% reduction. Those violation types are nuisance violations. We define that as anything that threatens the life, safety, or

welfare of the public.

Those are things such as overgrown lots, graffiti, derelict vehicles, anything that we cite under chapter 18 of our code. We also have repeat violations. That is anytime a property owner has the same violation within a five year period. It does not matter if it is at different properties that they own within the city. Those only receive 50%.

Noise violations only receive a 50% reduction, and vacation rental violations only receive a 50 per percent reduction under our current program. Our current program is set to expire on September 30. What we have done and built into our current resolution is a presentation in June that would give a recommendation on whether or not we should continue lean amnesty under the current guidelines, at which point we would also ask the city commission for direction if there is modifications to the program.

Thank you. That really helps Portia. And for the lean amnesty to take effect, how many citations do you have to have before it gets to that point?

So anyone with a complied violation can apply for lien amnesty. A criteria is that their property must be in full compliance, That is any property that they own within Fort Lauderdale. So it can be one violation or it can be multiple violations.

Mhmm. And they've accrued that penalty over time though. Right? I mean, it is it do we give that on a first violation in a So

We do give it on a first violation, considering that they meet the other program criteria. However, if it becomes a dynamic of a repeat violation, so they have the same violation multiple times, That is where the 50% reduction kicks in instead of the 85% reduction. Okay.

Thanks. So Mayor, I just I think that's still too high, but if we can talk about it in June, it City sounds Manager, that's great. Thank you. You're welcome. Portia, appreciate that. Next topic, city manager is a living seawall ordinance, is that coming before us next month? Is that, do I have that right

Good afternoon, Todd Hai Chi, deputy public works director. There is a budget amendment on the May 5 to fund the program.

Okay.

And then the resolution is coming on the second meeting.

Second meeting in May. Okay. Great. Thank you. That sounds great. This has come up in some neighborhoods in my district and I'm guessing it happens citywide is FP and L doing work, which is great to underground utilities. So FP and L through their analysis chooses neighborhoods to underground. Do we are we engaged with FP and L around that analysis, decision making, encouraging them to look at certain neighborhoods that may have greater needs or are we involved in that process or is that solely siloed from us?

FPL conducts that evaluation on its own and they have a program in place for hardening neighborhoods or areas that have not performed well during storm incidents. And so they do let us know that they're intending to do some undergrounding work, but we are not a part of the decision making process when it comes to their procedures for determining which neighborhoods, when and how, but we do coordinate with them. We have very good relationships with them, but we are not part of the decision making process.

So this is confusing because there are some neighborhoods that take it upon themselves to do undergrounding. So is FP and L just coming in on their own, paying for it on their own? When

FPL determines that an area needs to be hardened, it is essentially looking at their own business model and their operational needs, and they determine that it makes more sense for them financially to cover the cost of undergrounding for those areas. For those neighborhoods that are seeking to do it on their own or electing to do it, it may not be that there's a need. There may be more of an aesthetic desire to have those lines undergrounded. And so that's the distinction. FPL is largely doing it out of a need to upgrade their system or to ensure that their operations are consistent throughout a rain or storm event.

There's another distinction of the other distinction being that when the neighborhoods choose to do this themselves, it's not just FP and L. It's all utilities. It's AT and T, you name it. Anything that's on a power line is buried. So that's also a very big difference.

So FP and L, if they initiate a program, they don't remove the poles, they keep the poles up there for the other utilities for the cable

That's and so correct.

Got it.

So thank you, that all helps. And what I'm wondering is could we have a little bit more of an advocacy role role in that? In other words, just the communication of, okay, what are you what neighborhoods are you looking at in the city of Fort Lauderdale in the next year or two years? And can we provide some feedback in terms of where we're seeing challenges just from our vantage point?

I think we can step that up.

Okay, great. That'd be great. Thank you.

See.

This came up and this is maybe a Chris Cooper question manager is the scheduling of our inspectors. So our inspectors and inspectors that are issuing permits or evaluating is a renovation project, is an installation complete. So Chris, the question that I've had a couple of folks raise is, can we get to a more technologically advanced system of deploying code officers and inspectors? In other words, if I'm installing a new electrical box in my house, right, or the general contractor is or electrician. I think how it works right now as we call up that day of, right, and say, are they can they come out today?

There could we look at exploring to a more, where we can schedule appointments online, we can then track where that inspector is virtually through app based GIS like there's got to be a faster, more effective way for this. I don't know if we've explored that.

Good afternoon. Anthony Vaharta, Director of Development Services. So we are consistently looking at upgrades to our current systems. Right now we've been interviewing several companies who have offered expanded services. I will say recently we were talking about one of our options that you kind of mentioned which is a text version of that so that people can text in.

Exactly.

We're not having a big take rate on that. It's actually costing us a lot of money to have that service and no one's really using it. I think last time we checked, we had maybe for a year, like maybe 60 people utilize that service. And we tried marketing it and pushing it during phone calls and things like that. So a little bit of it is the industry itself and the willingness to accept new technologies. But we do look at those options. One of the things that you mentioned was the ability to track where somebody is. We are actively looking at that as well. So we want to upgrade the system and continue to refine it.

Okay. Yes, I mean, just think there's a technological solution to this that we can get there and maybe it's, hey, this is how it's going to be and so folks need to adapt to it to be more efficient for ourselves in terms of resources. All right. So thank you. You're welcome. That helps. Great. Thanks, Meyer. That's all I have. Thank you. Okay, great.

Just a few things. So a couple Saturdays ago, I welcomed the twenty twenty six Battle of the Paddles Pickleball Tournament at the Fort. Place was jam packed with people, great day. The cause, of course, was great because it was a fundraiser for mental illness. And I think that the message was well received and certainly was a great event for everybody who attended.

And the fort seems to continue to thrive in a very robust way. Many people from all over the city and throughout the South Florida continue to come and visit there. On April 15, I was a panelist that was sponsored by Bloomberg Philanthropies and others. It's called Smart City Expo, went up to West Palm Beach and sat with the Mayor of Ottawa, Canada and the Mayor of Tempe, Arizona. As we discussed projects, in particular, I was able to feature our Waterworks project I shouldn't say Waterworks, Fortify Lauderdale.

And the initiatives we've taken and accomplished so far. And I think people were pretty amazed at the amount that we've been able to accomplish in such a little amount of time. On April 19, I was at the Aquatic Center and I was there to watch the end of the four days of competition for the American Cup. The American Cup Diving Championship. It's been fourteen years, I heard them say, fourteen years, thirteen years since they've been back to Fort Lauderdale.

So they're very happy to be back and they're very pleased. I was able to present the medals to the winners. There was the men's diving team and the women's diving team. And these very enthusiastic young kids have much more energy than I will ever have. And it was a great event.

And all the families and friends who came to participate and witness, we're back. We're back on our game, and I'm very happy to see the Aquatic Center thriving the way it is. I also want to mention the Tortuga Festival. You have over 20,000 people a day attending this event, and to get 20,000 people in just a matter of an acre of land or whatever the amount of land is there, And to have it function so efficiently, one of our constituents who lives on Holiday Drive, who's a very vocal person on almost any subject, texted me one afternoon and she said, I cannot believe how beautiful the city is handling the traffic here. There's no problem people getting in and out.

It's just amazing and everyone's respectful. There's no fights happening. Everyone is having a good time. And she said it was just such a great thing for us to be able to host that. So, my hats off to our police department, our fire department, as well as the promoters of the event. Thank you so much for continuing to bring that to our city. But we'll talk about that later. Upcoming, on April 30, which is a week from Thursday, I'll be attending the Harvey Milk Honors Award. They are now having it here in our community. It's going to be held at the Hard Rock.

Over 800 people are attending, and the featured honoree is going to be Jacob Tierney. That name may not sound too familiar to you, but he was the creator and producer of Heated Rivalry, and so he'll be here that evening. Let's see. I'll be participating and speaking regarding Broward development at the Four Seasons in Miami that same day at the Bills and Somberg Annual Development Conference. Oh, boy. May 2, the mayor's annual student chess challenge.

Those eight year olds are very intimidating. If I were you, would send the vice mayor. Yeah. I'll send the vice mayor.

Well Can you go?

Can you go there?

I'll check my calendar. Check

your calendar.

Check your calendar.

I'll enter the pit and hopefully I survive.

That's like,

You can

do it.

Yeah. And

I believe the vice mayor mentioned the Tarpon Rivers party in the park at Lewis Landing. That's also May 2. And the Outshine Film Festival, May 3 at the Savour Cinema. That's the closing night event. Will be happening all that week, and, I hope to be attending, there at the evening's event. So, other than that, I have nothing further. Okay. City manager, do you have any report?

Thank you, mayor. I do wanna highlight Daphne St. Ville in the city manager's office, our intergovernmental affairs manager, who was recently awarded the Home Rule Hero Award from the Florida League of Cities. This is the second year in a row that Daphne has been identified for this award, so congratulations to her for all the work that she does on behalf of our city and the state in advocating for cities to maintain home rule. I also want to highlight Assistant Chief Lynette Falzone on her leadership role serving as President of the National Association of Law Enforcement Executives.

This is an extremely prestigious, opportunity for her to serve in this capacity and to be a positive reflection of our city and women in law enforcement. I do want to highlight for you a letter to the Commission twenty six-one hundred and nine related to school resource officers. We were provided with information from Broward County Public Schools as it relates to the current engagement that we have with them to provide protection services at schools in the city of Fort Lauderdale. On August 10, they have indicated that they will no longer utilize a school resource officer at the Seagull School, which will be closing. They've also indicated that on 01/31/2027, the remainder of our SRO team will no longer be required as they are going to be transitioning to their own independent police agency.

And so we are making plans as we go through the budget process. We want to ensure that we retain all of the sworn officers that we have, whether or not they're going to be serving in that capacity or not. And so we're going through process of identifying opportunities to fill vacancies or to augment resources. So stay tuned for more on that.

So to that issue, how many officers does that free up for us to be able to use in other capacities?

We have a total of 12 school resource officers. We currently have a budget of about $2,400,000 for the program, of which $1,200,000 is reimbursed by the school board. So we're looking at a shortfall of 1,200,000 in order to maintain those sworn personnel, but we're looking to identify opportunities whether to fill vacancies or to look for some augmented tasks or bureaus or teams that could help us in promoting public safety.

Right. So that gives us 12 more officers? Yes. Okay. And we're not at the full complement of officers, are we?

We currently have about 22, 23 vacancies for sworn positions.

Right, so those, so when we budget, we budget for a full complement of police officers, right?

That is correct.

So when you say that we're gonna, have a shortfall of 1,200,000, that's not really completely accurate because those officers that are coming from school resource officer positions to other full time roles, they in fact are just filling those empty slots that we've already budgeted for.

Well, what I've shared is that we can look at opportunities to fill vacancies. Of course, vacancies are being recruited for at this time. And so the impact that would happen in January 2027, we would need to determine how many vacancies we have at that time. So we wanna plan for that. But in addition, our police chief has shared with me some requests and opportunities to augment staffing for various purposes, And so we're considering that in the overall picture. So there could be a fiscal impact beyond that would be required for just filling those positions.

So wait a minute, you're saying that we're going to go ahead and try to fill the 35 positions above and apart the 12 positions that we already have that are coming off the school resource officer list?

What I'm sharing is that we currently have 23 vacancies for sworn personnel. 11 of the school resource officers will no longer be functioning in that capacity in January 2027.

Right.

Between now and then, we are working to fill the vacant positions that we have. It could be that when we get to January, we may have filled enough of those vacancies to then still have school resource officers no longer have the capacity of working as a school resource officer. And then we would need to identify as a city what we would like to do with those positions.

Well, I'm trying to understand this thinking now. If we know they're coming back to us, why are we spending the money to recruit and train people that we know that we already have 12 coming our way? What's the point of that?

Well, one of the things not currently contemplated by the commission is a request for additional staffing through the budget process by FLPD. That has not yet been fully vetted by me and has not been presented to the commission as And seeing we're

future.

Work work a we could still be looking at a request of for in additional officers.

I get that. But I mean, but the additional the vacancies that we have now anticipating that we're going to be getting 12 resource officers by the end of the year. I mean, I'm not understanding why you're continuing to recruit and train when you know that we're going to also have these folks available to us to do regular duty.

Understood, mayor. That is our initial approach. We do want to look at filling the vacancies with the school resource officers once their duties are no longer required by the school board. That that is the number one option in in my book. However, I just wanna share that I have been in discussions with our police chief about staffing beyond the vacancies that we have today.

Okay. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Does that complete your report?

That concludes my report.

Okay. And the city attorney stepped out. So, okay. So, let us move on to Business One, the International Swimming Hall of Fame project update. City Manager.

So at this time, I'd like to invite Ben Rogers, Assistant City Manager, as well as the project team for the International Swimming Hall of Fame to provide an update. In March, you were provided with a letter to the commission updating you on, the fact that I signed or executed closing documents related to phase two of this project. And since then, the team has been working together. And today, you'll see a presentation on the future plans as it relates to the aquarium and other improvements at the site. Thank you.

Thank you, manager Williams. Ben Rogers, Assistant City Manager. As the manager indicated, this is part of the Hall of Fame Partners project for the, International Swimming Hall of Fame. To remind the commission, this project was split up into four different phases. The first phase is, the complete the construction of the Ocean Rescue Building and the seawall. I'm happy to report that's moving forward. It's on time and we're looking to open that up later this summer. Phase two, is the West Building improvements. Phase three is the East Building improvements. Phase four is other improvements in the public dock.

And so today what you're going to hear in the recent you've recently you passed a first amendment that move forward with Phase two. As the manager indicated in March, they closed on financing. A lot of the focus has been on the construction, the size of the building. And so what we asked the developer to do today is to come back and reengage with the City Commission and share the vision of what the programming looks like. So the user experience and the amenities that will be offered as part of the Phase 2 West Building. And so on behalf of the development team, Mario Caprini and Rich Walter will be leading that conversation. Thank you, Ben.

Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, thank you

for this

opportunity. Did I lose weight? I did. Thank you for noticing.

I hope we didn't take away your appetite.

Okay. Thank you. So now I lost my train

of thought.

I was gonna say,

very much.

Maybe you two can have a drink after the meeting. Yeah.

That's it.

I wanna introduce Rich Walter, who really was is the CEO and president of the aquarium, who really was the instigator of this new idea. So I wanna thank him for that. Creator. Creator. Instigator.

Instigator. Instigator.

Who knows Rich.

The creative talent. Well, thank, thank you, Mario. I appreciate it. Mayor, vice mayor, commissioners, city manager, thank you so much. I appreciate your time and everyone here. The aquarium, it was a dream of mine, and it's actually finally come true. I really want to thank, Commissioner Herps for really helping me make this happen with the previous city manager, finding the site and getting it to where it is. And really want to, also extend my gratitude, to our District 1 commissioner, mister Glassman. District 2 commissioner, but I like commissioner also in District 1, but supporting this project. It's a great project.

We got a lot of great programming. We have an amazing gentleman, John Whitehead, who's going to explain what the programming is and all the different features that we're going to be able to apply to this great project for the community and all the tourists. John?

Are you going to follow the backup presentation? Is that what you're going do?

Are you going to

yes, okay. Yes. All 64 pages.

Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, thanks for the opportunity. Yeah. Ben Rogers told me I had ninety minutes for this, so you might want to just kind of settle in a little bit. Oh, okay.

And I told them they had fifteen.

Move the decimal Yes. Point over Yes. As Rich mentioned, is we're in the year three of this project. We were invited to build an aquarium at the International Swimming Hall of Fame site back in 2023. And at the time, there was a second design and operation with the International Swimming Hall of Fame itself.

After many months of conversations with the International Swimming Hall of Fame Board and just kind of understanding the realities of the difficulties of sporting hall of fames across the country, they all struggle financially. And the International Swimming Hall of Fame was kind of in the same boat. So they had 10,000 sorry, 5,000 visits for the last ten years of opening. So we discussed the need to kind of partner up with the aquarium to be able to create a joint attraction. So I think what we have today is a much more financially sustainable model to be able to support the International Swimming Hall of Fame and Every Child is a Swimmer, which is this program, Every Child is a Swimmer, their mandate is to kind of create swimming lessons for underprivileged kids and to promote state legislature for drowning prevention.

So a noble cause. And, I used to have a slide in my presentation which used to say no margin, no mission. So if they're not making any money, the mission kind of suffers because of that. So we feel like we've created a joint attraction with a financially sustainable model. We just finished meeting with Visit Lauderdale and discussed the fact that Fort Lauderdale is unique in the sense that it is a loyalty destination.

My father-in-law has been coming here for the past thirty years. He stays at the same hotel, goes to the same bars and restaurants, meets with the same people. So I'm quite sure that that's not dissimilar to a lot of visitors who come here. So there's a sense of ownership and home away from home for the people who come here. And so we wanted to feature local environments in the aquarium. So this aquarium is solely based on the Florida Reef. Now I'm sure everybody knows the Florida Reef is three fifty miles long from Fort Pierce to Dry Tortugas, 6,000 different species of animals. It creates recreational opportunities. It creates commercial opportunities. It's the centerpiece of the blue economy here in South Florida.

And so that's what we wanted to feature. So here is an overview of the attraction. You have eight different galleries. So you start off with being in Fort Lauderdale. So you're going to see references to the Elbow Room and the beachfront, but you're quickly going to transition into the shallow areas.

You're to go through what's called the coastal hammock, which is essentially the vegetative layer that existed here for millions of years that protected the intercoastal and the communities between the ocean and the intercoastal. So that's a representation. The entire experience is designed to be highly interactive. You pick up an RFID bracelet as you come through the door, which enables you to get your information in different languages, at different education levels, at different ages, things like that. So you're able to customize your whole experience.

It's a very hands on opportunity. Myself and my partner, James Paulin, over there, we spent many years in the entertainment business. We worked for Merlin Entertainment, who are the second largest visitor attraction company in the world. And through that process, we built six aquariums. I built another aquarium in Louisiana. So this will be aquarium number eight. So we are pretty familiar with how aquariums operate, how they appeal to the public and things like that. But we are by far the experts in South Florida, flora and fauna. So for that, we reached out to multiple agencies. So we currently have a memorandum of understanding with Nova Southeastern.

We have a memorandum of understanding with Florida International University. And we're in active talks with many, many other agencies to be able to support. The extra layer of this whole experience is the programming. The programming needs to reach out into the community and support efforts that are already going on in the community right now. So that's the whole kind of vision that we have for the aquarium.

Obviously, these are some of the marine species, but those will be refined and fine tuned when we understand from the folks at NSU and FIU, what species are we need to be looking at? Is it staghorn coral? Is it like something that's endangered? What are the things that we really should be focusing on? I think the second part of this as well is we're engaged

The county has a whole batch of that waiting for you when they start digging up the port.

Yes, yes, I heard about that. Yes. And also, obviously, there's a career pathway to this as well. So most people think that if you work in an aquarium, then you need a degree in marine biology, that's not actually the case. You need a degree in aquarium science. Within the business that we have, the business model, we have about 150 different employees. We have people who look after the animals. We have people who look after the staff and HR. We have accountants. We have financial people.

We have marketing people. So there's a lot of different roles that you can play within the business. I hear that living seawalls are on the agenda for the meeting next time around. So this is a representation of, we're working with KIND Designs who do living seawalls in the community to again represent something that's going on in the South Florida region. This will be an interactive seawall where you can build your own seawall and then you plug different animals that live in there, which will activate your RFID bracelet, which will give you information through a projector in your own language telling you about the animal on the screen.

Your entire experience is going to be narrated by our character, Finn, who is our turtle, enables us to kind of reach the younger crowd and provide a mascot for Shallow Reef is where we're kind of interacting with more of the animals. We've got touch tanks. We've got all of this is under the auspices of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association. So touch tanks are a very visceral way of getting information across to people. If I give you a sea star and put it in your hand, you can tell how it moves across the bottom of the ocean, whether you're deaf, blind, ageless.

It's a perfect transfer of information. So we find that delivering information through touch experiences and human interactions is the way to get your message across. Here's the main tank. So we have our ocean tank, which is going to be full of all the largest species that we have here in South Florida.

So you sort of walk through the tank?

Yes, you walk through the tunnel. Again, here's Finn kind of as he's getting a little bit older, you're following his whole life cycle through the entire experience. The mid reef, again, lots of different interactives. This is our coral nursery area, so we'll be working with NSU on how to represent all of that. And also, like I said, you're trying to roll in all of these different careers.

There's robotics, there's engineering, there's a lot of different things that we can overlay on the top of this. Play equipment, because our primary audience is families with kids. Kids get a little rambunctious, so they have a little play area with lots of different little discoveries within that to be able to let off a little steam. The deep reef is where we start to kind of get a little bit deeper. Obviously, we've got jellyfish, we've got bioluminescence, we've got migration, we've ocean currents, lots and lots of different stories to tell in there.

And then we finalize we finish in our research station, a lot of citizen science going on here. People looking at samples from the intercoastal of the ocean, underwater, cameras, things like that, lots of different ways to kind of engage with the public again. And then the iShof experience. So when we started meeting with the iShof board, we were introduced to Bruce Weiger, who was CEO for iShof for many years, and he's the resident historian, probably knows more about competitive swimming than just about anybody else on the planet. So he was a real mine of information, and it's really his inspiration that kind of drove what we wanted to do with the Aichhof experience.

Like I said, traditional halls of fame struggle financially. The Olympic Hall of Fame, which opened in 2021, tune of $100,000,000 gets roughly 25% to 30% of its anticipated volume. Does less than 100,000 people a year. It's a tough model to base everything on. So we decided that we wanted to kind of represent what the true Hall of Fame mission was, which was about man's experience in the water and not necessarily just about competitive aquatics.

To be able to get between floors, so you start off on the ocean, you're going to get the lift experience, which is going to take you from the depths all the way up to the surface, which is when you're going to start understanding what the human experience is as a swimmer. So we have 10 galleries in the Hall of Fame experience. The first gallery represents the earliest representations of swimmer, which is Neolithic Cave drawings from ten thousand years ago. The first time there's a representation of swimming being drawn out. And then you move forward, you have Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci created the first Aqualon, created the first mechanism for being able to breathe underwater, also created swim flippers. So this is this area is dedicated to man's kind of ingenuity and their how they harness water. The Peloponnesians use swimming for a war because they would swim across rivers instead of building bridges and kind of catch everybody flat footed. Then you're talking about swimming as leisure. You've got the baths, the Romans, the Greeks and then you're coming into the competitive side with the first Olympics.

The hall of fame starting to represent here. We've got wax figures and the memorabilia starts to come in. There's a tremendous amount of memorabilia, and we're trying to focus on like how much the most important pieces. This will be interchangeable as new people. Some of these guys are not in the Hall of Fame currently, but they will be. So there's former Hall of Fame people. We're able to change this gallery out continually.

Can I ask you a quick question? The slide before.

Oh, how do I go back? There we go.

Right there. Are those is that just wallpaper or are those projections?

So those are projections. So you're kind of in the crowd on the ticker tape and the ribbons and the whole thing. And they're

all moving? They're all moving?

Yes, everything is going to be moving. So all those people will be cheering. So this, you know, is a very, interactive, very dynamic space. It doesn't it's kind of difficult to see it through this right now. Right.

That's why I asked. I just Yeah. I figured it might be, but

I just No. Absolutely. You're gonna be standing on the pedestal getting your gold medal. You know, The Hall of Fame has 112 gold medals in its collection, maybe you actually get to wear a real one. Everybody starts in the same place. So one of the things that we talked about with the Hall of Fame is diversifying into what happens when you become a swimmer. Obviously, swimming is a life skill, but it can lead you in a lot of different directions, not just competitive swimming. But everybody starts in the same place. Everybody starts in a changing room with the smell of chlorine up your nostrils, and learning to swim in this environment. So here, we're going to represent a lot of different stories.

When I went to the induction ceremony several years ago, one of the things that really struck me was how much effort it takes to become a professional athlete or an athlete at that level. These guys are getting up at like 05:00 in the morning in the rain, in the snow, swimming before school in cold pools and then going to school and then doing it all over again. So the amount of sacrifice. So we wanted to tell some of those stories. And we wanted to bring it down. You'll see images of some of these athletes as kids.

She just moved to Florida. We have no ice. We have no cold.

I know, but 05:00 is 05:00 in anybody's language. That's something else. A tough part. So yes, obviously, we're trying to inspire people. We're trying to inspire kids to do to follow these different pathways. So showing people as kids and showing the challenges that they went through is very important. So you open the lockers, you're going to see interactives. There could be memorabilia in there. There could be different things that you kind of interface with. Turn the shower on, you have a swimmer, shows up, a video of a swimmer, a little strange, but we think it's kind of a fun.

So it's a fun area. And this is where you pick up. So the RFID that you picked up at the beginning now is activated on the 2nd Floor. And what we do is there are different activities where you can track your time and you can track your kind of input, compare it like I'm a faster swimmer than my brother and things like that. So this is where this kind of comes in and it's recorded through what we call these lap logs, so you're able to interface. First Splash is a very, very dynamic gallery. It's almost like you're at the bottom of the pool looking up. So you're going to see swimmers overhead. You're to see images of synchronized swimming. But really, it's the home of the swim vaults.

So the International Swimming Hall of Fame has got a tremendous amount of digitized archives that we're trying to get as much of that information as possible. So if you, for whatever reason, want to know who won the bronze medal for water polo in the nineteen twenty six Olympics, you're going to be able to find it here. And so it's a way of capturing all the information that we can get from that digital archive and having it available to the public. Endurance and Elements, this is where we start to kind of diversify a little bit away from like you learn to swim, what else can you do, not just in competitive swimmer. So this represents endurance and elements.

We're talking about Navy SEALs, you're talking about coast guards, you're talking about other things like they call them coast guard swimmers, right? They're swimmers. They're swimmers first. First. But it shows a different direction of what you can do when you learn to swim. You'll see the little kids kind of behind the screen, and that's confidence drill. So that's a water confidence drill that the Navy SEALs do. Essentially, they tie your hands behind your back and throw you in a pool and you bounce off the bottom until you pass out or ring the bell or whatever your next move is. But it just kind of showcases a different level of commitment and expertise and the places that swimming can take you if you want to. And here are the catch up drills.

So there are different activities throughout the whole place, hang bars, how long can you last and those are all recorded on the swim log. Precision and power, this is where we're talking about like coordination and wingspan. So Wings of a Champion is basically like an interactive screen that you put yourself against, but it also will show like Michael Phelps obviously is like a nine foot wingspan, which is a bit intimidating for a five year old. But when he was five year old, he probably had the same wingspan as the five year old standing next to him. So we're trying to like create that vision that somebody can look at and say like, wow, I can just be like this guy.

And obviously, lots of different interactives here. You have a Batek wall, which is kind of showing you testing your reflexes as a polo player or a volleyball player. This is my favorite gallery. So we about two years ago, whenever we did the groundbreaking, we approached Chief Gollin and Chief Bagwell about the idea of putting a gallery and featuring the work of the lifeguards. So again, what can you do when you learn to swim?

Be a lifeguard. And so we got with them and we said like, what are the like if we have fifty sixty million visitors who come to Fort Lauderdale every year, what are the three or four things that you would love them to know? Like what makes for a safer beach day? And they said, learn the flags for one. And they said, what's the most important thing? They said swim in front of a lifeguard tower. The lifeguard towers, I think, are 400 yards apart. And if you swim in the middle of them and you get caught in a rip current at seven miles an hour, you're 300 feet off the beach possibly before they can even see you. Swim in front of a lifeguard tower sounds a bit intuitive, obviously it is. So we've got raise the flag, which is everybody goes on the beach.

If you go to the beach today, if you go past the lifeguard towers, if you go to like Los Oles Beach, there's a red flag obviously because it's angry as anything right now, the ocean, to quote George Costanza. And also there's a purple flag, which is some kind of marine life. It doesn't actually tell you what kind of marine life it is, could be a shark, could be a Portuguese man of war. And I think that there's the opportunity to create more educational opportunities for swimming in a pool and then swimming in the ocean are two very different things. And rip currents here are not always as obvious as they are in other parts of the country.

Michael Phelps was at six miles an hour, and we have current rip currents that go to six to eight miles an hour. So you don't need to do the math to figure out you can't swim against them. And then obviously, all the different things that lifeguards do, they don't just do rescues, they do first aid, they do jellyfish things, they do a lot of different things. And they saw this as a great opportunity for promoting their junior lifeguard program and also for future recruitment of lifeguards. There's a huge lifeguard shortage.

I mean, two people drowned in Brevard County last week, and that was the main point of the whole newspaper article was there were 45 lifeguards short for that county. So there were lifeguards where they were swimming, the lifeguard tower was not manned. So it's pretty topical. Art and flow is when we're kind of getting into the more artistic things, synchronized swimming, how water behaves or how light behaves underwater, how sound behaves underwater, how people communicate underwater. So synchronized swimmers have a different system than divers have.

So there's again, lots of different interactives and lots of different ways of learning. In other blue kind of ties a knot around the whole thing. When we're born, we have something called the diver's reflex. If you put a three month old directly into the pool, they're not going to inhale the water because they have the diver's reflex. So the point is like you're almost born a swimmer. You're born a swimmer, then you forget to swim and then you kind of learn it all over again. So, this kind of ties ties a knot in it. Life begins in water. Everything in the aquarium, leads up to this moment, right? So you're looking at how water is represented in different cultures and how water and life are represented in different cultures.

And then you have the opportunity to leave your message or leave your handprint to kind of say like what is your role going to be in the future of everything. We have a four d theater as well. So that storyline is going to be two small babies learning to swim at the International Swimming Hall of Fame. Your first scene is underwater. Four d is just like it sounds.

You have a three d movie and then you have rain, fog, wind, rain, water, all that kind of stuff. I mean it will be a Pixar style movie like this, and it will track their journey from being small children all the way through to where they kind of branch off. One of them becomes an Olympic diver, the other one becomes a Navy SEAL and their stories kind of unfold. The final part of this whole attraction trio is Frameless. Frameless is an immersive art experience.

The main unit is in London on close to Oxford Street. They do about 450,000 visitors a year. It's the number one art experience in London. It's the number 12 thing to do in London, very, very highly regarded from the public and from other agencies. And essentially, they take modern art, they take classic art and then they animate it. So each painting becomes a two minute vignette or mini movie that appears on all six sides, ceiling, wall, six sided projection with interactivity as well.

So is going to be will the themes be changing over time because there are pop up experiences like the Galleria now, there's a pop up experience. Right. And I've been in New York and other places around the world where these they're like a pop up experience. But this is going to so it's going to be it's going to be stationary obviously, but you're going to

have changing themes? Correct. Yes, constantly evolving, constantly new content coming in and also the opportunity to even tie in like underwater photography. We have a gallery where we're able to do changing exhibits and feature local artists and feature local sculptures and things like that. So it's going to be constantly moving. But it's very interactive. Went and we had a little five, six year old with us. And as soon as we opened the door, he was off. And all he was doing was interacting with the actual movement on the ground. He didn't care about the, you know, klimt artwork or anything like that.

He was more interested in kicking leaves of the wall just like he is here. And so there's there's there's different ways of approaching it. I'm not an art guy. I tell people all the time, you put me in front of the Mona Lisa, I'm not even probably to get my phone out. It's not my thing. But like what was I really appreciated was like the technology and the fact that it's constantly engaging and it's constantly moving. And every two minutes, there's something new and you're like, what's next? What's next? But even the small kids, we watched the field trip of, I don't know, 100 different like kids and they all behave differently. Everybody takes a different approach to this, but it's really pretty spectacular. This is our main gallery. I mean, it's about 65 feet long. It's 25 feet tall. It's just hugely impressive. This is the Sea Of Galilee.

So this is just a classic Rembrandt painting that is now activated with water on the floor and clouds and sea and lightning and great sound system is really, really quite something.

I've been to the Sea

Of Galilee. It doesn't look like that.

It did look like that, right. Maybe in a stormy moment. And that's it. Appreciate it. Right.

Well, great. Well, thank you. That's amazing. Can't wait for it to happen. When does construction begin?

July.

And

just so you know that this is also a gallery that is in London, and that was the inspiration, and we're working with them. It's pretty amazing.

Hi, Mayor. Matt Kristalik with Hensel Phelps. So with Part A going through with Raquel and Ben's help, that means that's the deep foundation work. And we're set to June, July to start kicking off some of that deep foundation. It's all going through the permit process. So you know that takes a little bit of time, but we are on track. So the flip side of that, right, you're about to ask about Ocean Rescue, it's on time. So remember that deadline

was

July Yes.

Was there over the weekend. It looks pretty much finished except for the staircase.

Yeah. We're doing good. We, so it's getting the conditioning and everything else running and, they've gotten an opportunity a couple of times to come out, walk it and and go through it. So yeah, it's all coming together. The seawalls at the very last leg of it I know the adjacent residents will be excited to hear that that's just about done.

Okay. Any other questions? So what is the ribbon cutting on the aquarium?

We are

targeting the '28 because you'll still be in that seat, right?

I hope so. Yeah. All right. Great. Thank you so much. We appreciate it.

Thank you, Mayor.

All right, moving on to business two, Prospect Lake Clean Water Center progress update, Utility Services Department.

We have Albert Carbon, Utility Services Director.

Good afternoon. Mayor, City Commission, Albert Carbon, utility service director. I'm here to introduce Joy Petrone who leads our construction and operations team to give you an update on the Prospect Lake Clean Water Center. When are we going

to turn on the tap? That's the one I know.

Soon, Mayor. Soon. Thank you, Albert. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, City Manager. It's great to see you again. I was last year in October. Some great progress has happened since then. So looking forward to sharing that with you, in a very short presentation this afternoon. So this is a typical picture we've been showing you since the beginning of these updates, from a drone that we take about weekly.

The one milestone that we're very proud of is, if you notice in the center, there used to be a tower crane that was used to bring in all of the heavy equipment. That tower crane is gone, signaling construction has been winding down as we enter our commissioning phase of the project. I'll go through some pictures here, and then I'll update the commission and then I've got a video at the end. But this first picture is a flyover of our pretreatment filters and our ion exchange vessels to the right. The main purpose of the ion exchange is for that color removal that's so important, to the residents.

Here's a great picture of our nano filtration, skids. There's six skids in total. We've already begun to commission, them several weeks ago. We are on we've commissioned Skid one and Skid two, and we're beginning to commission Skid three. So we are well on our way to commercial operation on schedule. What a skid? They cannot operate independently. There's six of them. So we have redundancy. We can operate if one goes down. We typically need around four to five to operate and we have six.

But what is a skid?

It's the actual membrane inlet and outlet with all the membranes stacked in those plastic pipes that you see. So we open up those plastic pipes, insert the membranes one by one into them until they're filled. And so if you count nine blue squares, that's one skid, and there's six of those in that building. Got it. So they can operate independently of each other.

This is a great picture of the 54 inches pipe coming into the facility from the City Wellfield. This is where it all begins. It gets distributed from here to the Nano Filtration Building, through its pretreatment and onto the end also as well as the ion exchange portion of the plant. So this is where it all begins coming from the City Well Field. This is I wanted to show this picture. This is most of this equipment have been on-site since last year. But the bulk of the work since I came last year is really been tying all of this equipment together. And you can see all of the intricate piping work that's required to connect all of these vessels together. And that's kind of why I wanted to show this picture. All of that fiberglass piping there on the floor takes time to connect.

And really, that's been the bulk of our priorities. Since I last came in October, we've been connecting all of the equipment that's been on-site. So just a quick update overall on the project. Our plant manager and maintenance manager arrived on-site late last year. They've been busy getting ready for the arrival of the operations team, getting ready for their training as we prepare for commercial operation.

Some good news on the injection wells. We have been given authorization by FDEP to begin operational testing on Injection Well 2. And I believe earlier this week, we got authorization for Injection Well 1. So the picture that you see to the right is an aerial picture of that injection Wall Number 2. We also have the same exact authorization now on Injection Wall 1, which is going to be fantastic as we continue to commission the facility.

As we get into startup and commissioning, which is the real phase that we're in right now, construction is winding down. We continue to perform our start up activities, including the nano filtration and the IX portion of the plant. 10 city employees arrived in January. They've been integrating into the commissioning part to learn how the plant works. So they've been great to have on-site. They're getting acclimated to the site and how it works. It's been great having them the next set. And they're typically in the next set of May arrives or they're the operators that arrive. So really by then, we'll start beginning our operations training in May and continuing through the summer as we get ready for commercial operation. We're still on schedule for September 2026 for commercial operation.

The picture you see to the right below the injection well is a picture of our corrosion treatment pilot. That is fully operational and gathering data so we can understand fully how to protect that distribution system for the city. Of course, this a pilot that the city asked us to operate on their behalf. We'll give you the results so you can make the appropriate determinations for your distribution system. The pilot for the PFAS is also fully in operation and gathering data.

We're hoping to have some preliminary results this summer that we can share with the city. So just as a small surprise, I wanted to show a quick video while I answer any questions. There's a drone flyover of the site. They're going to put it up on the screen now. It's great view of the site as we go. But if there's any questions while you're looking at that, I'm glad to answer them.

Okay. Thank you so much. Anyone have any questions? Comments? Okay. Great. Keep up the good work. Thank you. Looking forward to when we finally get to open that. What are we talking about September? Yeah. May, June, July, August. We're in Five months.

Right? We're in the homestretch.

Alright. Great. Thank you so much. We appreciate it.

Thank you. Thanks for the good work.

Okay, moving on to business three. This is the water and wastewater consent orders update and inflow and infiltration program development utility services department. Al? Thank you, Mayor.

Again, mayor, city commissioner Albert Carb, utility service director. Yeah. That's an update on the the consent orders issued by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. And then, an update on the I and I program, which which is a pending consent order that we have going.

So why do we have to extend the timeframe on these? I noticed in the backup we are not keeping with the original timeframe. Why are we extending it?

I will get into that, but the extension, you're talking about the existing wastewater consent order. We have a wastewater consent order that's been amended once. The termination date of that is 03/27/2027. Inside that consent order, there's specific milestones for each project. Right.

And so what we've asked is one of the projects specifically the merchant generators at the George T. Lohmeyer wastewater treatment plant to be extended Its current date is for, I think, May 2026. We're asking that to be extended to December 2026 due to deliveries and some other construction related components. We've asked them to extend. We are not asking to extend the consent, the amendment consent order date of March 2027, just the internal schedule of one project.

Got it.

Okay.

So again, we have the two consent orders. We have a water consent order that was just approved by city commission in January 2026. And then we have a wastewater consent order that's been amended once, and we have a pending one. Second order we're negotiating with DEP right now. The water consent order has to do with some problems we had in September 2023 and April 2025.

And that consent, again, was approved in January, signed by DEP in February 5 and so we have some specific timelines associated with that now. The consent order, the first milestone as we're trying to we're getting some assistance from a consultant that RFQs out on the street and due to be submitted here in the next week or so. That would be just determining what the process we do to to comply with the consent order. The next milestones is implementing that that plan. The third is developing a strategic plan, a CIP program to implement and how to monitor that program.

So if we go through those dates, this is another summary of that conditional assessment July 2027. The certification assessment report which is be by done by a certified engineer in October 2027, and then the asset management, the tracking system, the CIP, and how we're gonna track our success of implementing those programs. And that's May 2028. The whole consent order is a three year window. Voice wire consent order, this is the the one that this is the original one and that was originally submitted in 2027 or 2017.

It was the amendment number one was issued in twenty twenty twenty twenty with the date extended to 03/22/2027. We are in the midst of that, and we are about, the second amendment is due. We've submitted the last set of comments to DEP in February. We have yet to hear from DEP about those comments, So we do expect that to come to commission sometime before their summer break. 72 of the 76 projects that were identified in in the amendment number one have been completed.

Four projects are ongoing. As the mayor pointed out, we're gonna go through a couple of those. The 38th Street, Forest Main project and 50th Court, which is the Northeast portion of the city, it's in the final startup phase. We expect that to be done sometime in June, July year. Same with the Southeast portion of the area.

The area just near GTL South of 17th Street, that's being done at 54 inch storm main, and that's in, again, the final stages of completion. The effluent forced main at the GTL wastewater treatment plant, the forced main is complete. We're going through the rehabilitation of the five injection wells. We're currently doing one inject well. Each injection well takes about a month, so we'd be done late summer, early fall of this year.

And as we talked about the one extension that we're asking for, the internal extension of the emergency generators at GTL, those are four full size backup generators for GTL that those will be installed. But we're looking to gain those installed in September, but we asked DEP to give an extension through December 2026, still making that March 2027 date.

Al, a question. Yes. Thanks for your work on this. The odor suppression efforts at GTL, how's that progressing? I don't have

a current update on that. Let me get back with you. That's not part of the consent or it's I an independent know we did give you Senate Commission update a couple month or month or so ago, I'm not quite sure. It's on schedule, but it's got a two year window. Okay. Great. Thanks. So pending the second amendment to the consent order, this has to do with I and I, and we are working our way through that. Talk about the what I and I is explained here, but really the I and I is saves cost, reduce flow. We don't wanna treat storm water.

We do not wanna treat ground water. We have to tighten up our systems to reduce the flows to GTO which in turn increases our capacity and saves us money.

Right, but so we've been hearing about this for a long time and what progress has been made especially on the infiltration portion to our system. Where are we on that?

We've a few slides and I'll get to the three projects that we have ongoing. We have three getting ready to bid right now. Okay. But at the end of the ongoing ones, do we have a percentage as to what amount of our infrastructure is now been addressed in order to prevent the continuation of the infiltration? I can't give you a percentage. Talking about some flows and how we measure that flows. That's part of the INI study that the consultants, how do you measure those flows because we always have increased development. So we have increased flows coming in.

I know about the flows,

I'm talking about the infiltration. Well, how do we measure infiltration? We have to measure how much flow we have coming out of each individual home and then we have to measure that. We have measured the flow going in, the water coming in and the wastewater going out.

I guess I'm not making let me try to explain myself. So infiltration is a product of deteriorated system, correct? The pipes are allowing seepage into the system and it goes to the treatment plant even if it's a heavy rainstorm that fresh water is being pushed into the treatment plant and overwhelming at sometimes and we're finding ourselves processing fresh water when it really is intended just for effluent discharge, correct? So what are we doing to tighten up pipe systems that so we no longer allowing infiltration into the system. Are we lining them?

What are we doing? Because we've been hearing about this for years, I never get a straight answer.

Yes, we have sorry.

Go ahead.

Yeah, we have several projects. Projects are specifically in some of the areas we'll talk about. It's aligning, there's several techniques. We have aligning project where you go from manhole to manhole, where you line that pipe to make it secure. And while doing that, you're taking in the laterals on the city side of the laterals from the city street to the private property. So you're tightening up our system. The second of all is point repair. So if we don't think if the we do some CV we do TV in other lines and we see a hot spot just so really a point repair, we can go down and seal that point point repair, which is cost effective way, nondestructive, it's so linear thing. So those are two ways to do it. And the third way is the manholes themselves.

The manholes are concrete structure with brick tops to meet the concrete, meet the paving surface. Those get leaking. So we look at lining the manholes. So the three techniques, lining the pipe, point repairs and then lining the manholes, which is the projects we're working on right now. Okay, so when all these projects are done, do we have some ideas to how much of

the city we've covered then in terms of trying to deal with the infiltration?

Two measuring points. One is geographic and one was the severity of the thing. So I don't have that information with me today, but we can definitely get you a map of where some of those projects have done and then also what we think the percentage of those that flow we've reduced. Okay.

At some point we'd like to see that. That's all.

Yeah. And that's part of what the DEP is gonna be looking at as part of the consent order too. So we're well beyond even though we haven't got the consent order signed, we're well beyond complying with that consent order.

Okay. Thank you. You're welcome.

How come my

there we go.

Cause of inflow, we kind of went over this. Cause of inflow, deterioration pipe. Now, is the water coming from the surface. That's rain water or ground or rain water or storm water or lakes or something coming from this anything coming to the surface or when somebody opens up a manhole or opens up the the any opening in the system or clean out, excuse me. And then infiltration is the stuff that comes, the groundwater coming in, whether it's rainwater coming in or in something that our pipes or gravity system is in groundwater, we have infiltration coming into those.

So the pending second consent order, reduce excessive flow, measure it, be compliance and show what we're doing to make our, to increase our system capacity. These are the different phases of those. We don't know what those specific dates are. We have evaluation plan. We have a development of the, we have the plan with the schedule and the compliance timeline. I'm going quickly over this because the next slide shows what we're already doing right now. We've had an early assessment. We've already started this. And so that's the the concern of our phase one. The readiness evaluation, we're doing that.

We're establishing a baseline flow, mayor, that's great. We're establishing our baseline flow so we can measure what successes we have. We've identified the basins and defects. We're already starting to repair those. We have rehabilitation underway again phase two and then we have data collecting our data so we can again show our successes with DEP and get into that final phase of DEP we get into our compliance situations.

Projects completed, projects completed today. Flagler Village, we did repairs. We've evaluated Beach, but also in construction. There's evaluation we completed. But in construction, we have some of those projects in construction of, again, additional some CCTV evaluations of that to know where we're gonna go next. And then in construction continued, smoke testing, the sewer repairs, again, in Tarpon Riven and the downtown, Fort Lauderdale Association. Actually, those repairs, mayor, we talked about the lining, the manholes, and the point repairs. Projects are pending for bid. We have the sewer repairs. We have the Coral Ridge and the Harbor Beach area.

Those are those are pending release for bidding and those will actually do that lining and manhole repairs. And then it gives some some then that point repair that we're talking about, we have some citywide contract for inflow and infiltration repairs. Those are those severe things when we do see CTV, we see a hotspot, we can get to those right away. That concludes my presentation. Should you have any questions?

Okay, great. Does anyone have any questions of Mr. Carbone?

Regard to the lining, is this the goal to every pipe or is it just the pipes that are identified?

We try to TV the line. We do. We run a camera down most of the line. Okay. You see it. If it needs it, we will we will line it. And we go from manhole to manhole. So we can only if we see it leaks in that that section, which is usually 203 200 to 300 feet, a block to block if you will, We will mine that. The other ones feel good, we won't mine that one.

Okay, all right. Thank you.

Okay, great. Thank you so much, Hal. Our last item is business four, which is an outdoor event ordinance presentation, Parks and Recreation.

Ms. Carl Williams, Director Okay. Of Parks and

Mr. Williams.

Proceed.

Okay. Good afternoon, commissioners. Carl Williams, Parks and Recreation Director. I'm here before you to present the information and feedback regarding our outdoor ordinance. Just as a historical perspective, in August, we came to you all before and shared a little bit of information.

We introduced the impact fee matrix and a couple of fee increases associated with that. And the direction at the time was then to reach out, do a little bit more outreach and come back to you all with some recommendations at that point. As such, we conducted several meetings with a stakeholder group, which some are in the audience today. And during that time, we met, we spoke, and had very pointed conversations regarding this, and I truly appreciate their assistance because they were very, very helpful in this process. And in addition to that, we also met with our promoters and event organizers as well to get their perspective on this potential change in our fees and structure.

As such, in part of that conversation, we introduced and came to a consensus with support for the impact fee matrix. And we also established two new designations that we are presenting to you all today, which is the signature event designation that has a maximum fee cap and also the legacy event designation which has a maximum cap fee for run walk events only. So as we kind of talk through our application fees here and structure, we're proposing going from $200 fee to $500 if the event is ninety days or more in advance. If the event is eighty nine days to sixty days, we are proposing a increase of $500 to $1,500 And if the event is less than sixty days, we are recommending a new fee, would be $2,000

Carl, before you move on, do you have a number for how many applications are at that less than sixty days in advance?

Not off hand. I know we have a few, but typically when we have them, we essentially just advise them that we don't we can't move forward with your event because it doesn't meet our our standard.

Okay. That was kind of the understanding I thought that we really didn't take something that was less than the sixty day window.

That's correct. Now there's circumstances that sometimes we we'd have to revisit that and and I would get with the city manager to to get her direction on how we will move forward.

Thank you.

Now as we include the impact fee matrix and you all have seen portions of this, we talk about how events and the different criteria where we want to essentially have a limited impact, moderate impact or major impact on events. And these fees right here would replace what we have now, which is our beach sand use fee. And so as part of the direction we receive, to not only increase fees, but also have something very direct as it pertains to the actual events impact. And also as I mentioned in my introduction here, we also included the signature and legacy event designations and those caps for a signature event would be at $25,000 if you are appointed that designation. And if you are a run walk event and you have the designation of a legacy event, you would have a maximum fee of $2,500 and these are per day.

Now to get as far as a definition, when we talk about signature events, we want something that's, of course, very unique, something that the general public has a brand recognition to. We also wanna have something that's consistent, that is something that the community and our residents look forward to on an annual basis or quarterly basis. And then of course we want to integrate within this a positive impact, whether that's a significant attendance, whether it's a cultural participational value and or an economic impact that is very positive for the city. And some of those examples I have noted here, is our Tortuga Music Festival, which we just concluded last week, and Lauderdale Air Show, which will be coming up here soon, and of course, Fort Lauderdale and National Boat Show. Procedural wise, we are looking at if a event organizer is requesting a designation of this sort from a signature perspective, they would advise my office.

And if that particular designation includes island. If it's taking place on the Barrier Island, we will share it with the beach business improvement district for their recommendation. If it is at a city park outside of the Barrier Island, we will share with our parks and recreation board. And sometimes there may be multiple that we'll have to bring to the parks board as well as the bid, but we would get their recommendation and then we would present to commission for final approval for that designation. Now as I kind of mentioned earlier, when we talk about Tortuga and the air show, this kind of illustrates kind of the the change in the fees that we've been established currently.

And so right now, when we talk about the event fees, Tortuga Music Festival would go from 13,500. Of course, this doesn't include city expenses and that we are reimbursed, but it would go from 13,500. And with the designation, they would be be paying 25,000. And as you see here with the air show, similar to the Tortuga, is that with this designation though, they would go up to 7,500. As we discussed the legacy event designation, this particular designation provides a priority of long standing events that we have in the city on dates.

And so if event is in good standing with the city, if they they they receive eligibility priority over any events, and as I mentioned a couple of times already, if it is a run or walk event, they would have a maximum fee cap. Any events that are outside of a run or walk, they would their fee would still increase. But for those specific run walk events as many of those are nonprofits and they don't really have that well to kind of dig in there, we thought that it made sense for them to have a maximum cap fee for run walks. Well, isn't isn't Tortuga considered a charity event? So when you talk about charity, do they do have a charity that they have, but in this particular case that they wouldn't receive this kind of level because there would be considered a signature event and so theirs would be solely for the 25,000 cal.

Right.

Okay. Alright. Thank you.

Now to kind of look a little bit more here as we look at some of our events that we do have here throughout the year, we produce somewhere between three forty to 400 events annually. And when we look at the rates here, I wanted to articulate kind of the changes that you would see based off of not only the event makeup, but also the application fee and how that's supported by the event. Now we've also had conversations as well to what can we do to limit events. I know that has been a topic of a desire to maybe cut down on the number of events that we have on an annual basis. And as part of that, we could establish having no more than one event per month that has a road closure on the Barrier Island.

We could implement a civic association acknowledgment form that each organizer would complete. We we kinda do this now for events on the Barrier Island, but we would now expand it citywide. And also, we could establish a quiet weekend where a weekend per month, there would be no event taking place on the Barrier Island. And then, of course, the last here as a recommendation, we could also place seasonal restrictions on events that we have that have whether it's a major holiday or spring break or similar to that effect that has some kind of city resource heavy there where we would put restrictions on specific road closures as well. Now as I begin to kind of close through this year's presentation, I've kind of identified a few options here for consideration.

We did provide the increased fee. We did share the impact fee matrix. And then we also introduced the signature and legacy event designations. And then I also shared the how we could also limit our events here going forward if that is your desire. As potential next steps here, we can bring this ordinance back based on the feedback that I received from you today, this spring. And then we can advise our event promoters going forward that there's a new fee and implementation going forward, and we can provide that this summer. And then we can move forward and implement this in the fall of this year as well.

Does that complete your presentation? Yes, sir. Does. Okay. Does anyone have any questions or comments for Carl?

I do, Carl. Just for clarity so I can have a visual, when we're talking about no more approvals in one event per month with road closures. What are we looking at now? How many events are happening monthly in our Bering Islands?

Very good. So that's actually a good question. We have roughly about 19 events that we have right now for a period of time. Actually, me kind of back up some more because I wanna make sure that I'm providing you with good detail here. So in, 2025, we've had a total of 183 events on the Barrier Island. Of those of those a 183 events, we had nine runs and walks and several of those have road closures associated with it.

Okay.

And if you look at page 12 of the backup in that first bubble, there's a little asterisk with a note that there are currently 19 of those events annually that result in a road closure on the Barrier Island. Right.

I was just trying to get it a little closer like per month since we're saying it suggested only one per month.

Yeah. And that's more of kind of like a way because when I did the previous presentation, we had a smorgasbord. I wanna say we probably had maybe six or eight different options of how we could potentially limit events. And so we kinda boiled those down to those four options that we believe are probably the most feasible that we could implement.

Thank you for the clarity. Thank you.

Any other questions? Ben, did you have any questions, Avcaro? Thanks, Mayor. Yes.

So Karl, thank you for your work on this. Really appreciate it. I guess I have some comments for Karl, Mayor is there is anyone signed up to speak? Want to defer that. No sign up to speak. Okay, great.

Go, yeah, so here, thanks.

I don't

have anything for you to speak.

Oh, sorry.

Ahead. Okay, anyway go ahead. She did want to sign No one has signed up to speak. Okay.

Okay, so from a guidance standpoint, Karl, walk us through again what you would like

us to get feedback on. So ultimately, I'd be looking for direction on if we want to move forward with the increase in fee, the application If we want to implement this, impact fee matrix, which really provides a great detail of assigning point value system to the implications or the impact if you would of a particular event. And then also to if there is a desire for the commission to move forward with the designations of signature and legacy, that does provide, some leeway to limit our maximum cap fee on those particular events that meet that designation requirement.

Exactly. And so thank you. And go back to the designation requirement, the kind of evaluation.

This slide or you refer

to the previous where was the yeah, so yeah. Thanks. So this is great. So this is signature definition, which one of

the things I like about this

is it just allows for a little bit of subjective kind of evaluation and analysis. So that signature and then go to legacy. Do we have a definition of legacy in this presentation? Yes, sir. Thanks. Yes, let me just check this again. Yes, great. Yes, so I think that makes sense as well where we're heading. So I like it all, and I like where we're heading there. Just wanted to

Okay.

Just view that. But yeah, I think that's great. Alright. Very good. Thank you for

you for

Sold that. Yes?

We're good.

Alright. Very good.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, sir. I have one question, caller. I'm sorry. Sorry, Mayor.

Did you sign

up? No. Didn't sign up. But thank you. I I'll fill out a card after. Okay. I I want us to have further conversation about the limiting event considerations because I'm still flushing out with a lot of the neighborhoods that are impacted the most by all of these events. But I like where we're headed and I like I like the capping of those amounts. And I have heard pretty much unanimous support for those as well. But I do want us to have a little bit more further conversation about the limiting of bank considerations.

Yes, sir. And I think too that moving forward with this, I think we'll be able to get a reduction because I believe that's the overall goal is to get a reduction in some of the events that we have, and this is definitely a vehicle to initiate that process.

Okay. Thank you. Thanks for the work. Yes, sir.

So what so sorry. So go back to eliminating so okay. So what's your suggestion, commissioner Yid?

Well, I'm not I'm not making a suggestion right now. I I just wanna be able to have a little bit more further conversation with folks about it and just flush them out a little bit more because I'm hearing a little bit of both on all of these. And I just want to be able to have that discussion a little bit more with all of you as well just to see what everyone thinks about this. Maybe if everyone can just take a look at this for future conversation and see what we think.

Okay. So when do you wanna bring this back?

What's your what's your timeline for wanting to come back?

So I believe we can probably have this back in front of you by the summer. And so if that's the case, then I can we can put this as an item and then Yeah. We can include this and then we can share which components so that you're comfortable with.

So the issue you're speaking of is the number of events?

Well, no. Actually, there's four items here. So it's the number of events per month that have

a

road closure associated with them. Also implementing a civic association acknowledgment form for each event to complete, which I like because that just also guarantees the communication. Right. And the quiet weekend is interesting that you would have one quiet weekend each month on the Barrier Island and then implement seasonal restrictions on road closures such as spring break or major holidays. There's some good points there, some that might need a little bit more, as I said, flushing out. But if so, if you're planning on coming back to us like before the July 2, I think, our last meeting, before the break, you're thinking, like, the June or maybe even July I don't

know can make a suggestion. So we were planning to come back to the commission with a draft of an ordinance amendment. So if we are intending to make additional changes based on feedback on limiting event considerations, I would suggest that staff comes back maybe at the May 19 meeting or at the latest the first meeting in June so that we can package the feedback into the first reading of the ordinance.

And feel free to be able to talk with our staff in between, as you confer with your neighbor, folks at during your meetings that you attend.

Yes. Okay. So that sounds like a good timeline. And I do have one other question. So when we look at a lot of these events, some of these events happen basically just for the benefit of of the event. We're not actually technically much of a partner. But so if I look at an event like the boat show, I mean, that has an incredible economic impact for the city and in many ways we do partner with them. Are we ever thinking of any kind of consideration for events like that that I would consider the city to be more of a partner than we are Well, our name our name is in it.

Excuse me? Our name is in it. Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show.

Well, that's what I'm saying here.

What do

mean well, how do you mean by a partner? What do mean

by partner? A lot of these events the the event is, as I said, specifically for the event Right. And whatever that event is. And we're not really that involved. We collect the fee, but we don't partner. We don't we don't get any kind of, you know, revenue. It's not like a to me, the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show is I mean, we're a big partner in that, actually. It's not that we're just it's not just an event that's coming to town. So, like, what would their fees be?

25,000. Yes. So they would I we need to run the numbers, but they'd essentially be capped out at 25,000 because they would qualify for the signature designation. Right.

Yeah. Again, I I just think that maybe we should have a conversation about events that are different in the way that we're much more heavily partnered with them than than any other, you know, than any of the other events. Just a thought.

Well, it's a it's the words are interesting, but I don't know I don't know what that means in in like implementing it. I mean, partner, you mean like sharing in the revenue?

Well, What

does that mean?

Well, mean, I just consider that event much more of a of a joint effort with the city and the and the event, the show, where we're just much more involved in that event.

Don't Well, to the extent that we provide police and fire protection, which they pay for

Well, we do that for a lot all the events. They they pay all the events pay for that. But I well, as you said even our name is in it. But again, I'm I'm just thinking out loud here about

When you know something when you can I think I think maybe you're on the right track, but just see if you can put in some sort of concrete terms?

I will.

Okay,

so one thing I do want to kind of chime in here on is so that we currently have a agreement with them that expires on 2029. So we certainly could if we want to and we have I believe four agreements, we can add in additional information in those agreements if you all deem appropriate.

Okay. I think it's worth a conversation.

Okay. In in synopsis here, wanna make sure we're that I'm clear here is that we're good to move forward with two through five and we can start drafting the ordinance accordingly. And then we're coming back, I believe, in May just to touch base on the limitation of those events. Very good.

One question. In regards to the legacy designation, how many events are considered that have been five years or more in existence now? Because I'm thinking if we have 19, how do we meet that quota of only having one per month or 19 events?

Yes. So there would be some movement. Some, events we probably wouldn't be able to have, and I think that's part of how we're trying to limit them. If we did move forward with the limiting limitation of some of those events, those events, if you have the legacy designation, you would have that priority over a newer event or the events that are less established in it. And so if we're talking about moving forward with some of those limitations, that would be a cause that would come from that.

Thank you.

Okay, great. Thank you, Carl. My pleasure. It on the agenda, but I do want to bring something up before we leave. During our budget workshop this morning, there was a press conference that was held by the NAACP in which I understand that there were some very serious allegations being made against our police department. And Raquel, were you aware of this conference going to take place today? And do you know anything about what was what was said? And what are we gonna do to respond to this?

Thank you, mayor. I got a call from police chief Bill Schultz this morning informing me of the press conference, which apparently was publicized on local radio station Hot one zero five. I subsequently shared with each member of the commission that this conference was scheduled to take place at 11AM. The allegations are concerning hostile work environment as it pertains to black and Hispanic officers. We have drafted a statement via strategic communications in conjunction with the police department and the city attorney's office in response to media inquiries. I do not know anything further at this time.

So so the NAACP has not approached you prior to this event today to talk to you about allegations? They just I mean, did this just come out of out of left left field here? I don't understand.

I've learned of the press conference this morning with the call

from the police chief. But the claims, is this the first time you're hearing about them?

Claims related to hostile work environment? Yes. I believe this stems from situation that has been ongoing for about a week now related to a sergeant's exam, which I was made aware of and have had discussions with human resources as well as the city attorney's office and FLPD command staff.

All right. So if should anything materialize, would you please report back to us?

I will certainly do so, Mary.

Okay. Great. Thank you. All right. Is there any further business at the conference meeting? There being none, we'll resume at six p. M.