Facilities and Construction Committee - Regular Meeting

I call the facilities meeting to order. May I have a motion to approve the minutes?

So moved. Second.

Person second. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Entertain a motion to move the F items to the floor.

Move it.

Do I have a second?

Second, someone. Second.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Mr. Perez, F3.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Board. Item F3 is authorization to execute a public school concurrency proportionate share mitigation development agreement by and among San Sebastian Luxury Homes LLC, the school board, and Miami-Dade County in connection with a new residential unit development.

Thank you, Mr. President. I'd like to incorporate by reference Board Member Santos' comments from the last meeting into this meeting.

Yes, because you know they were coming. Yet another month, yet another proportionate share mitigation agreement. I will say we had a great meeting yesterday. I think the ball is moving forward, and we will be on track to provide an innovative option in South Dade.

Excellent. Any other comments? F4, please.

F4 is authorization to finalize negotiations and execute a master joint use agreement between the school board and the city of Miami to provide for joint use of city-owned and board-owned recreational and educational facilities located within the city.

Colleagues, any questions, comments, concerns? Board Member Santos.

Thank you. Thank you to your team, Mr. Perez. I know I don't represent the City of Miami, but I am always happy to see win-win situations where the public gets more access to the facilities that they own, both in our parks and our schools. They're all public assets. Mr. Perez, can you give us really quickly an overview of... other joint use agreements that we have where there is investment going in from our municipal partners into our facilities?

Sure, through the chair, Ms. Santos. So absolutely, these are synergies between municipalities or the county. We also have a joint use with the county and the school district where we share in the amenities and the recreational facilities that we have. some of the agreements that we have in place have provided for new new let's say play fields artificial play fields we've had we also have others that provide improvements to our current amenities such as hard courts or tennis courts and we also have Some where they also, we share revenue generation. So we have an arrangement with another municipality where they lease out these improvements during non-school hours and on weekends, and the revenue that that generates is shared with the district as well. So there are a number of different types of these arrangements, and this particular agreement will allow for that, as we can administratively add and delete facilities to this agreement.

Thank you so much, and through the chair, this makes so much sense. I know you're working on a couple within my district, and I look forward to landing those, because again, our public should not be paying for two playgrounds next to each other if we can find ways to share those facilities, and of course, after school, weekend hours, it makes a lot of sense for our general taxpayer. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Board Member Santos. We have one of these for the city of Doral, and it allows for parks to come online or schools to come online. From time to time, we'll bring in, we're still working on it, bring in an additional change that goes beyond the scope. And so, you know, there's a lot of opportunities for each of our board members to cooperate with the district and work within their district to improve green spaces, lend our green spaces to the city to improve green spaces that we can't otherwise modify. So that's important. Board Member Alonzo.

Just very briefly, just because you mentioned Doral and Board Member Santos mentioned, I know we had a couple pending ones, and Mr. Bueno was working with the city of Hialeah. There was a change in leadership with the new mayor now. I just want to remind us if we can please reach back out to them and update them on what the progress was because there was two pending facilities that they were working on and want to make sure that they're aware of the full process because it has been a while and they still haven't come back with finalized agreements.

Through the chair, we do have the master joint use with them as well. But, yeah, there are those two particular sites that we need to circle back on.

All right. Thank you so much. F5, please.

F-5 is authorization to finalize negotiations and execute a lease agreement with Above and Beyond Learning, Inc., for the operation of an early childhood education program at Spanish Lakes Elementary.

Board Member Alonso. So this is in my district. I want to congratulate staff, especially Dr. Cabrera and Raul and his team, for working on this initiative. It was a board initiative to go out and look for these early learning centers and partner with them. and have them come use underutilized spaces. Not only is it a service to our community, but it's also a pipeline to our schools in bringing those students on our campus early on and also providing relief to families, right? When they drop off their older siblings, they can now drop off the little ones too. So I think it's a great way of a collaborative co-location inside of our schools and I just wanted to congratulate staff on it and really look forward to this program really fine-tuning it and expanding it through our entire district. Thank you. Great work. Thank you. F6.

F6 is authorization to finalize negotiations and execute a lease agreement with Yeshiva Elementary, Inc. for use of the former Biscayne Gardens Elementary School facility.

Colleagues, any questions, comments, concerns? We talked about this earlier. Great job. Okay. Thank you. Excellent. F26. F26.

F26 is commissioning of Gurri Matute as the architect and engineer of record for the new classroom addition and renovations at Coconut Grove Elementary School.

Thank you so much. Anybody? F40.

F40 is a change order approval item.

Any comments on F40? F80, then.

F80 is authorization to approve the prequalification of contractors for educational facilities construction.

Anyone? Move the items. I entertain a motion to approve the F items. We have a motion. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed say nay. Aye. The Fs are approved. On to new business from the board members, anybody? Board Member Santos.

Thank you. Through the chair, I recently met with our Office of Efficiency and learned that we have some data from our first full year after completion of our guaranteed energy performance contracts, both at Robert Morgan and at Coral Park. And we are nearing a million dollars in savings at only two sites after implementing the some energy efficiency upgrades. This is tremendous news, and it's very exciting at a time where we need to find every dollar. Finding close to a million dollars is a big deal. And I really wanted to ask our staff, our facilities office, our office of efficiency, what our conversations are looking like about expanding these type of programs to other schools to realize more and more of these savings.

Through the Chair, Ms. Santos, so we are having conversations with a few firms. We've had conversations in the past. The biggest hurdle is the upfront investment that these types of projects require in order to achieve those savings. We don't have that kind of you know, revenue up front right now. So the conversations we're having is more sort of like an energy as a service approach. where these firms will basically finance the upfront improvements, capital improvements, and then the savings that are generated throughout the life of those improvements, which are like 20, 25 years, would go to pay for those particular improvements at those facilities. So we're close, and there could be maybe, I think, something... maybe like even an unsolicited proposal that might be presented to the school board in the not too near future. Follow up?

Yeah, thank you. Through the chair, basically, I would love to get a concrete timeline because now this is not a projection on paper. Now these are real significant realized savings from where we have invested. I understand we are strapped for initial investment, but through energy as a service, we have the opportunity to basically zero dollars up front realize these savings through these new contracts. So I would just really love for us to understand concretely when we will be able to sign on new sites and get these improvements going. And maybe you can follow up with those concrete dates or what timeline you're working with. Thank you.

Thank you, Board Member Alonso. Just to follow up on that, Just last week, I was at Hialeah Garden Senior High School for a presentation at auditorium. It was probably 54 degrees in that auditorium. Then this past Monday, I was at Hialeah High with Mr. Bueno and Ms. Diaz, and it was probably 59, 62 degrees in their auditorium. It's out of control. That is just bleeding cash away. And I'm going to turn him out of office and we're still having conversations. And Raul, I know you're trying the best you can, but we need you, Mr. Steiger, and the teams to come together and resolve this. now because we cannot continue to kick the can down the road. It's unbearable when you walk into these buildings. It's costing us a ton of money and running energy. And on top of that, all the windows are sweating on the outside, creating mold and debris on brand new painted buildings that we paid millions of dollars to pressure clean and paint. But because of the moisture that's coming out because those rooms are so cold inside, it's just Doesn't make any sense. And to Board Member Santos' point, the proof is there already. It's no longer when I first got into office, everybody was kind of questioning whether there was real return on investment and whether we wanted to finance it or not finance it. We just got to do it. I mean, we can't keep on waiting. And there's companies out there that can resolve this and have said that they can come and there can be zero upfront cost. I understand Mr. Steiger has been in some of those meetings with me, and he says that there could be some, you know, financial implications because of credit rating. But you know what? We might not have a credit rating pretty soon if we keep on spending electricity the way we're going. So we have to do something about this.

Thank you, Board Member Alonzo. Any other new business from the Board? Facilities and Maintenance Comprehensive Update, Mr. Perez.

The Facilities and Maintenance Comprehensive Update were included in the committee packets, Mr. Chair. I'll be here. I'll be happy to answer any questions you have.

Colleagues, any questions, comments, concerns? Office of Community Partnership Education and Business Access, Dr. Amica Roberts.

Through the Chair, the report was transmitted from the Office of Business Access to the Board. If there's any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

Madam Chair.

No question, just a comment. Ms. Linda Amaca has done a superb job in so many different initiatives, and I have to say it publicly. You are an absolute pleasure to work with. You're a professional at all times, you and your team, because again, you're as good as those that surround you as well. And every single one of the events where I have addressed the public, you've been behind the success of it all. So I just wanted to publicly thank you because sometimes, you know, you do the work and, you know, we're so busy and so much is happening that we forget to let people know how grateful we are for the hard work and their dedication and how valued they are by this board. So thank you. Thank you so much.

Colleagues seeing no further business, let's exhaust the agenda. A motion to adjourn?

Move it.

Do we have a second? Second. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Meeting adjourned.