City Commission - Regular Meeting

If the colleagues would please join us, we're going to begin. If my colleagues would please join us, we'll begin.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. All right. Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. We're about to start our commission meeting for Tuesday the 21st, right? At 21st. Madam Clerk, can you please do the roll?

Good evening, everyone. The time is now 629. We're about to do roll call. Commissioner Chernoff?

Here.

Commissioner Jean?

Here.

Commissioner Smith? Present. Commissioner Smuckler? Commissioner Hsu? Here. Vice Mayor Mackenzie Florimon?

Here.

Mayor Michael Joseph?

I'm here.

You have quorum, sir.

Next is an invocation by Pastor Toobin? Tobin. Sorry, Tobin. Apologies, Pastor.

I'm here. Yes.

Mayor, commissioners, good evening. It's good to see you. Let's bow our hearts in a way of prayer. divine source of all people, known by many names and worshiped in many ways, we bring before you this city. We bring before you those who live in here and want to speak to how the city is built and those who are entrusted to lead. We ask for wisdom and grace over the mayor, each commissioner, all those that are here to serve. We pray that that wisdom would outlast any seasons of headlines, of questions. Lord, we just pray that you would cover us. Give us courage to choose truth over convenience, humility over strong enough to bear correction. where trust has been broken, let it be mended, where records are sealed, where things have happened, where there is question, Lord, we ask that you would bring light. We remember those who serve the city daily. We remember those who rarely make the news, the staff, the department heads, the people answering the phones, those who fix the pipes, who keep the lights on, while the storm passes over, while things happen beyond our control, while the news seems to be out of control, while we can't hardly turn on our computers or our devices without seeing something that breaks our heart. Lord, we pray that you would grant this commission the strength to disagree without contempt, to investigate without vengeance, to govern without losing sight of the families in every corner of the city, Haitian, Cuban, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, longtime residents, the newest arrivals, those who need their government to work, those who need to feel safe in their homes. May this city care more for justice than image, honest in its dealings, faithful with what it has been entrusted to, humble enough to be corrected. Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Let it begin here in this place with each person, with each heart. So may it be. Amen. I pledge allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Madam Clerk, number four, any requests, withdrawals, and deferments?

Madam Clerk, one second. At the request of Commissioner Chernoff, item number 12.8, which is resolution number R2026-90, will be deferred to the next commission meeting. At the request of city manager Williams item 12.14 which is resolution number are 2026 that's 97 will be pulled from the consent agenda and move to legislation. At the request of commissioner smuggler and commissioners to item number 12.16 resolution number are 2026 that's 100 and item 1217 which is resolution number 2026 that's one on one will be pulled from the consent agenda and move to legislation. At the request of City Manager Williams, item number 14.2, which is ordinance number 2026-11, and item number 14.3, which is ordinance number 2026-12, will be deferred. At the request of City Manager Williams, item number 14.8, resolution R2026-104, will be deferred to the next commission meeting. at the request of Commissioner Smith. Item regarding events costs will be added to a discussion item which will now be item 18.6. There is an appointment to the library that is to be withdrawn as item 16.1. Also at the request of Commissioner Smith, item number 12.15, which is resolution number R2026-99, that item will be pulled from the consent agenda and to be heard during legislation. Those are the only items that were brought forward.

Madam Clerk? Yes. What happened to 12.14? 12.14. It was moved.

One second. Wait, who's clarifying what? I wanted to clarify 12.15 was full.

Okay. 1215 at the request of Commissioner Smith was requested to be pulled. 12.14 is the arm. Are you looking at the agenda? Yes.

No, I mean, what happened? Is it going to the legislation? Or is it pulled? Yes, under legislation now?

So 12? Well, first of all, if the record can reflect that I'm here, but 12.15 is going to legislation.

yes at the request of commissioner smith if it's voted on do i have a motion in a second so i i have a i also want to propose that we move the um discussion items from last time to be spoken first do i i have a second okay mr okay um okay I don't know I mean I'm moving the discussion items from last time that we didn't complete to the top of the agenda after the consent agenda and all the discussion items that we that we that we left from last time which was the figure contract the city attorney accountability and the proclamation procedure

And the player also had getting for giving tickets to events.

Okay. I just thought that was in last month as well. Right. Commissioner smuggler. Okay, so the for the 18.234 and five be moved up.

18.1 was also in the last one. That was the mayor's discussion. Okay.

And I'm all right, that one too.

rather we have a packed agenda can we just not rush can we just go through the legislation get to the discussion i'm i'm happy to move my discussion after everything else so you guys could go first but can we just go through the legislation please i don't know i have a mr mayor can you do the you call a question okay i have a motion a second all in favor say aye aye aye I'm opposed, so it passes as amended, okay?

Okay, thank you.

Do I have a motion to accept the agenda as proposed?

So moved. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor say aye.

Aye. All right.

I have a moment of personal privilege. What? I just want to put on the record, there's no way I can listen to what's going on at this meeting and read three things that I have to vote on that are put in front of me now. I want that on the record. so maybe i have to say a no vote because i have to know what i'm voting for and i have said this i think this is my 12th time for saying so it's an even dozen i i read this and i review with the manager and i'm appreciative of his con his comments and he teaches me and sometimes i teach him so i just wanted on the record that i cannot do the right job for the residents that voted for me Having three things brought to me now as I sit here, I'm supposed to read all this. I and I agree and listen to you because I don't want you to meet me to be the object of your next email that the commissioners don't pay attention when we come to speak. i pay attention i hear what you're saying and i don't want to miss a word so i wanted on the record again that there's no way i can do that we could take a break for 20 minutes and i could read all three i'm a slow reader i'm sorry commissioner smith your words i don't know and i look them up you're absolutely correct this this is not right i agree as well i mean can we move this toward a separate meeting or i mean i don't know I don't know what we're gonna do because this is all important. Yeah, we have the charter amendment here. I'm gonna use my personal minute to ask the manager, have you read these? These three, have you seen them, read them?

No, ma'am, I haven't.

Well, the whole agenda's supposed to go through the manager, and he hasn't even seen them.

Well, it's not his items, just to clarify, yeah.

Thank you.

Do you want to defer to those three items? No, we can't defer except for the ballot items. Except for the ballot items, can we defer the other two?

I would suggest we do it until we have the opportunity to review it.

Mayor, there are a couple of settlements that are very simple. If the commission, after hearing it, decides to defer them, it's fine, but I don't think they're going to be... My mic is on, sir. I'm talking right into it. I'm talking right into the mic. I don't know what else to do. The mic is an inch and a half from my mouth. I don't know what else to do. But I just would say the commission, after hearing them, decides you want to defer them, that's fine. But those two are very simple settlement issues. They're not complicated in any way. And why don't you at least get to them, and then if there's a motion to defer, you can defer them then.

What about the charter amendment? We want to just go through it when we haven't had time to read it?

It's in legislation, so we're going to get to it.

Well, we just got it just now, so that's why I'm bringing this up to you.

You mean the ballot question? Yeah, we're going to be discussing it in legislation. Oh, we can't delay because of exactly it's due on the 24th.

Yeah.

So we're going to discuss it today. Next item on agenda is consent.

Present public comment, public comment.

Oh, no, it was presentation, but it says public comment. Madam Clerk.

Presentation. It says presentation, but right.

We don't have no presentation. Okay. Public comment. Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. The Mayor and Commission of the City of North Miami Beach has opened a meeting for public comment at this time. There is a three-minute time limit for each speaker. Speaker, when you're called to the podium, please state your name or the name of the organization which you are representing. The Mayor and Commission of the City of North Miami Beach recognizes the importance of civility. The City of North Miami Beach requests that all in attendance exercise civility at all times.

And where's the sign issue?

Our first two signed speakers are Rudy Moise and Whitney Pedote.

Good evening, Mr. Council, Mr. Mayor, Council, ladies and gentlemen. Buenas tardes todos. Bonjour tout le monde. My name is Dr. Rudolph Moise and I'm a congressional candidate for District 24. The new district goes from Hollywood to Jackson Memorial Hospital and from Lejeune Road to Biscayne. Unfortunately, only part of North Miami Beach is included in it. They changed that. I came to this country 55 years ago with very little, but with a strong determination to build a better future. This country have given me a lot of opportunities, and I spend my life giving back. As a physician, I took care of patients. As a colonel in the Air Force, I serve our nation. As an attorney, I stood up for justice. And as an entrepreneur, I created jobs. This campaign is not about me. It's about the people. It's about building bridges. not building walls. It's about creating opportunities, not division. It's about bringing real life experience and common sense you know, problem solving to Washington, to lower cost. Number two, to strengthen the economy, to serve our veterans, to fight for Social Security and Medicare, and to help grow a small business, and to ensure that every child, every young adult, every senior has a voice and a future. I don't believe in shouting the loudest. I believe in listening first, understanding the problem, bringing people together, and getting results. That's how I practice medicine, and that's how I lead organizations, and this is how I'm going to serve in Congress. I would be honored to earn your trust, your vote, and your support. Together, we can make a stronger, a healthier, more affordable, and more united District 24. Thank you very much.

Next speaker.

Good evening, everybody. Good evening, mayor, commission, city managers, city attorney, city clerk's office. My name is Whitney Padope. I reside in the Azul residence in the city of North Miami Beach. Oh, man. I'm gonna discuss about item 14.7 as a charter committee review. I'm very disappointed that the ballot questions was not attached to the actual agenda. The agenda was posted regularly. I know the city clerk done their job, but however, from the record, seeing that the city manager and city commission have not reviewed it today, it is very disheartening because it wastes everybody's time. residents, the ones that volunteer, city staff, city commission. We had a special meeting about this. We had discussions about this. We had a lot of debates. To the fact that there's no transparency and everything is not being presented on the agenda in a timely fashion should really be investigated to figure out what is going on, especially this important item. Those who have not read this item, you should vote no, because there's no transparency. It was not posted accurately. The residents have not reviewed this item. And at the end of the day, if we don't follow the rules or the laws and do things the proper way, people's not gonna trust into the process. I know a lot of people put in a lot of work to follow the process the right way, and somebody basically made a mistake. They should own up, confess, and have a discussion, investigation on why this has happened. But if there's a pattern, then we have to look into it so this does not happen ever again. I know a lot of people here tonight. I want to be mindful of people's time. Thank you. And hopefully, everybody will have a wonderful evening. Thank you.

Next speaker. Bruce Cousins and then Irene Pellinger.

Good evening. And I want to spare all the individual introductions. Obviously, the mayor, the commission, the management, the staff. Bruce Cousins, could you go closer to the mic?

Go closer.

Is that better? All right, okay. I was going to talk about some stuff, but the people that preceded me, they really did a ten times better job than me. I see why you run for your office.

Sir, can you please state your name?

Oh, Bruce Cousins, I thought you did. Thank you. I'm Bruce Cousins, and I'm a resident of North Miami Beach for longer than I want to admit. We're talking decades. Okay, so the presentations that you did, the honors that you gave, I saw the smile, the happiness that you delivered to all those people. And you know what else I saw? I saw the effect it had on you. and I listened to your speeches and the proclamations about what you're going to do for this generation and for future generations, and all I was gonna try and do today was remind you that each one of you picked someone for the Charter Review Committee. They don't have a dog in the fight. They don't have to depend upon being reelected. They were asked to give their heart out and their brain, and you can see the quality of people that were on that committee, present company excluded. And it's just so important for you not to invest. They did a special meeting on steroids. They did it week after week after week with heavy discussions. And we got into it a lot of times. And what came out of it, absolutely once in 10 years when you're asked to review the charter and learn from the holes that were left in it the last time and make improvements and recognize that Things change and we have to change. All I want you to do is remember those times and to whatever's left of that committee, whatever hasn't been decided because it was given to them at the time of the meeting instead of what it should have been given to them, Just want you to remember that and to devote your conscience on what's best for this generation of the city and what the future is. And to me, that starts with safety. And from what I can see, that was absolutely ignored. That is your first priority. Again, this isn't a business. We don't have an exit strategy. We're not trying to sell to a stockholder a profit. We're here to continue to put smiles on people's faces and to develop good citizens generation after generation. in a climate that is conducive of that. So I just simply like to ask you to do the right thing and continue to put smiles on generations of people's faces and of course provide for safety. The committee recognized that immediately without a dog in the fight. They gave you some really good advice and I think it warrants your attention. Thanks much, have a great day. I'll shut up.

Irene Pillinger, I'm here on behalf of Friends of the Library. Libraries throughout the state have friends groups, nonprofit organizations, which are permitted to engage in charitable and educational activities, including fundraising and providing services to the public. In the past few months, back of the library workings have been questioned and made to seem sinister. Wine has been served at the library for many years, yet complaints triggered a police raid. What motivated these newfound concerns? What really irks me is that the staff was told to stop collecting money on the Friends' behalf, and our receipt book has been taken out of the library. Money collected for various programs go to Friends of the Library as donations. In return, we fund supplemental activities. Trusted employees collect the money and give receipts. We have never had any issues until now. Since its establishment in 2017, Library Friends has worked in concert with the library director and staff. Manager Anna Garcia helped kick off the library summer camp. Esmond Scott used the library for community events to take advantage of the funding provided by Friends. Arthur Suri, Mario Diaz, and Andrew Plotkin did not have an issue with us either. The summer program at the library emphasizes reading and learning with demonstrated reading score improvement at absolutely no cost to the city until now. The fees collected to pay for the reading teacher who measures reading levels, as well as subsidized field trips, magic shows, pizza parties, and so much more. This year, after the first field trip, we were told by the interim director of the library that grant money would cover all camp activities and declined additional funds from us. My email dated July 1st to all of you described the grant in detail and specified that none of the three activities described in the grant took place, how will grant usage be substantiated to the state if funds were used for something else? Since we aren't funding summer activities, Friends has no choice but to return the money to the families that made these donations. We've refunded all but five. When I asked that a note, a simple note, be given, to certain campers with my personal contact information, staff was told they could not distribute the note. The HR director informed friends that direct outreach to staff outside designated channel is not appropriate and should cease. If friends cannot work directly with the staff, how can we support the library? I have just two more sentences.

I'll give you 15 seconds. Go ahead.

Thank you. It could be that someone new questions how things are done. It could be that they don't like how we do things and want to make changes. There's nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is to imply that what friends and staffers did in the past was wrong or deceitful. It was right for the past nine years.

And this is the

That speaker, Mr. Mayor, I'd like to ask a question of the. OK, Mr. What was the purpose of giving out? May I ask what was the purpose of giving out your phone number?

Louise and I sat at the library two mornings to greet parents and contact them and tell them that we wanted to give, we had checks for them. There are still some parents who we have not been able to meet with. And the note was to go to those parents and it's asking them to text me so they could get a refund. That's all it is doing. You're welcome.

Susan Sandness and Trish Miller.

I do apologize, I'm getting slower every week. Thank you. My name is Susan Sandness. I think all of you at the podium know, and many other people here, and I'm with the Library Friends Group. I helped start that organization, and I'm very proud of what we've accomplished in giving the people of this community more service. I arrived at NMB in 1995, and I came from the West, and I came from an Air Force background, and I'd never been to Florida in my life. And I met some wonderful people, and I had, I guess I could say, a really good time working at the library and working with the people who came in there. I worked as head of reference, and I worked as head of adult services. And then eventually at one point for a few years, I was a city manager, or city manager, sure I was. I was the library manager, and I enjoyed that. But I wanted to go back to working with people. I was no good at just sitting at a desk and doing paperwork and playing politics. So that's how I ended up here. As a former director and working on the floor with the public also, I think I can offer you a unique perspective about what we are trying to do and why things are done the way they are. I've overseen grants from the state. and from ALA, I've attended ALA, American Library Association, pardon me, for financial training programs. I am aware that friends groups throughout Florida and indeed throughout the U.S. take direction from library staff, not from city government. Friends and library staff listen to the public. We are very aware of what people want us to have more of or don't care about by do they circulate. We look at our circulation numbers. We do surveys. We do anything we can to pull in information that tells us what the real people who need us most want and would bring them to the library. In order to work together to create programs, the staff create programs, build staff, and build collections for a multicultural community. This is the way it must be done. It can't start at the top and one person says yes, no, yes, no, or do this, do this, just like every other department. We are unique, and I think you know that. Many of you have been to many programs at the library. In fact, one of the things I should mention, when applying for grants, the state accepts applications from libraries and friends groups. It does not accept any city government applications for the funding. Each year, this city and all the others submit a report signed by their city manager or the mayor if there's no city manager, and it goes to the Florida Department of State confirming that the library is under the sole leadership of a professional library director. Librarians have to follow the guidelines for the Federal Institute of Museums and Libraries.

Time.

The American Library Association, the State of Florida Department of State, and standards set forth by the Florida Library Association all have things to say about how we should run, and they do not care what city government thinks about it. They're doing the best for the customers. I'm sorry my time is up. I wish I could say a little more. I have a paragraph left. No, go finish up. No matter the funding source, city government taking away library programs is an overreach since library programming is not within their scope as they are not professional librarians. By the way, item 2026-98 on tonight's agenda, and I don't know if it's one you discussed or doing something with, but it would give money to the Miami Dade schools for programs we already do. We do GED and ESOL classes, and you don't need to pay any extra money to anybody else. Then it may be done. The funding should stay in the city and continue to help meet the needs. Thank you, and thank you to all of you.

Thank you. Next speaker. Oh, Commissioner Turner to the city manager.

I want to thank all these friends of the library. We love them. Okay. They've been great to us over the years. Every event that they come to, could you please see what is the problem and look into this and make them happy again, please.

Absolutely. I do have an open door policy. Every resident gets 30 minutes. And for this team, I'd be more than happy to have a discussion, a group discussion. Please understand the process. So the city commission does not have the authority to hire, fire, promote or demote any employees. So any complaints that you have about employees are best suited through the office of the city manager. Now, to be clear, some of the things that I've heard, some of the very concerning things that I've heard tonight, this, in this forum, is my first time hearing them. I would love to hear some of the things, and allow me to give you some examples. There were some statements made about the current interim library director, and I have met with Ms. Pillinger, and I told her then what I shall tell you now. The interim director, unfortunately, unfortunately, Mrs. Adanya Harris, who has been an establishment in this community for quite some time, We, myself, my wife and I were introduced to the city of North Miami Beach, as many of you know, through Adina Harris and the library. My wife was a breast cancer survivor, was invited to the library with Commissioner Smuckler to provide talks and have an outreach on cancer survivors and for cancer survivors. It is that time that we were introduced appropriately or myself as a couple to the city of North Miami Beach. Now, I would invite each and every one of you to have direct conversations. You'll find that my office is open doors to your concerns and will work diligently and transparently to the best resolution that we possibly can. Thank you.

Anything else? You're welcome.

Trish Miller and Dianara Torres. I would like to add just something, Mr. Mayor. Commissioner Smith.

So I would like to resolve, Mr.

Manager, to make sure that the Friends of the Library are participating in our library.

I'd like you at the end of the resolve, and I hope I can get a consensus on that, an unanimous consensus, because when you see all these women gave up their evening, you're not seeing who they are. They give up their days, they give up their weekends. to help our community and they do it voluntarily. My favorite four letter F word, they do it for free. So I'd like to see and resolve that the meetings of the minds can be where it needs to be that they're back in our library. And I hope my fellow commissioners will agree.

Absolutely.

Ms. Hillinger.

Yeah, no, the issue we're discussing tonight is not about a city employee. It is about directives from the city manager's office. So who do we go to? You're the bosses of the city manager. So this has now gotten a little bit twisted. And we were told that we cannot We cannot work directly with the city staff, with the library staff. And we work very closely with them.

Mr. Mayor? So when the statement is made that there were directives coming from my office, I will stand firmly on every directive I provide and I usually provide them in writing as a executive order or policy or procedure. The notion that I have provided any directive to that the library does not even report directly to me. The library reports to Assistant City Manager Andrew Plotkin. So just as you said how particular the library is, there are 16 other departments that report to the city manager. So the notion that I am intimately involved or providing directives on the day-to-day operations of your library facilities, that is false. It is false.

I'm sorry, maybe I misspoke. I think that these directives, and I have an email, came directly from the HR director who reports to you. Yes. So we were told that we can no longer work directly with staff. And if we cannot work directly with staff, we cannot function and we cannot do anything to benefit the library. And if our receipt book was taken from the library, we cannot, we can no longer ask for donations. so we are we are stuck and i replied that we cannot we are on hiatus now we have canceled our meetings we cannot supply the end of the summer prizes because they've turned into a huge project and i will have to work intimately with the head librarian and with the public in fact so if we are being told that we cannot work, then that's it. We can't work.

Okay, so as you stated, the directive apparently that you are concerned about came from the HR director. And as you appropriately stated, the HR director does report to me. So I would be happy to review, discuss, resolve any concerns that you may have about directives that you receive are inappropriate or improper or impede you from doing your business. And as I will also state, even if you put some of this in an email, that I am copied on, that is not for me. I try to review all of the emails, but I have an open door policy. If you believe something is coming from my office and it's under my authority and my power and my command, please, you of all people have my own personal cell phone number. So I've always made myself available for conversations with you. And I will open that up to each and every one of you that are here tonight. rather than go through innuendos and assumptions, I will have the conversation directly. That doesn't mean we'll agree on everything. We may not, but you will hear directly from me what my position is on any of the concerns that you may have.

Thank you. That's the answer. The answer is a private meeting with you or your group or whoever and the manager to see what can be worked out.

And it's important for the manager's office to understand what Susan said, that according to the state statutes, it is the library director who is responsible for the library. And even though it keeps being called a department of the city, it is not like any other department of the city. A library is an institution. It comes under the national something of libraries and museums. It is not, it doesn't work the way other city departments work. It has different rules and obligations.

I believe the manager alluded to that. So I heard him say it clearly. So you'll meet with the manager and maybe you'll have a second meeting with the manager and the director of the library. And we'll get this taken care of because we have a commission meeting to go. Thank you.

I thank you all for your time. Commissioner, you had.

So I know that this is not typically how we do public comment with responses, but obviously this is something that's super important to the community, and so we're going this route with it. But I'm hearing there's a meeting that's going to take place. Honestly, I don't even have a synopsis of what's going on, a full understanding of what's going on. Well, no, there were emails that were sent, but these emails, if you have to piece these things together, you don't know the genesis of what's going on, and you don't... You see what I'm trying to say? I only see one side. So it's like you're trying to piece things together, but don't have the full story, especially in regards to... Edania, who's been here for so many years. And if she is going to leave. She left. No, what I'm saying is someone like that, if they leave the city of North Miami Beach, deserve, you know, to be recognized for all of the work that they've put into the library, you know, not under the cover of darkness, you know, so. I think whatever's happening, and with respect to the manager's office and his work and what he has to do, policies and procedures, et cetera, I think the commission should get a synopsis of what's going on at the library, what changes have been made, why they've been made, and where we are at this present time. Once we have that synopsis, then we can understand whether or not his meeting with you is actually fruitful. Right. So Mr. Manager, through the through the mayor, if we can get that synopsis as to what's going on, you know, with the library with the Friends of the Library relationship, at some point, you can send an email, you know, and let us know what's going on and how we're going to move forward that that would be good, because I don't have a full understanding of everything that's taken.

Before you start, because like I said, we don't do this back and forth, we can have further discussion in your report, if need be. So next speaker, thank you.

My name is Trish Miller. Wow. I don't understand why HR was involved to begin with. One of the things I did want to bring up is that I think we do need to recognize Adania. and her many years of service to the library. I don't know what our plan is, if there's a plan in play, but she served our library for many years and was recognized nationally as a stellar librarian. And when I asked someone what was going on, I was told they couldn't discuss it because it was all still under investigation. What does that mean? Everywhere we go I feel like there's gaslighting. Why would you get a report that you've never read? Our commissioner, I don't want our commissioner to vote on a report she's never read. She wouldn't be informed. You get these flyers in the mail talking about wanting to be having your community represented by one individual when really it's not about that at all. It's about extending the right to keep going even though you served out your two terms. You want to extend the term. That's what it's really about. It's gaslighting. And that we have people funding this who really aren't from the commission for safer schools or the commission for a better NMB. They're really about the commission for Desert Corporation. Let's talk about what really going on here. Who's really funding everything? And why do we have people sitting up here who represent us who work for lobbyists on the side. There's so much gaslighting going on. And then you tell us, don't vote against having your property taxes reduced. Us homeowners, retired homeowners, no, you don't want your property taxes reduced because we need your money. For what? All right, I'm tired of my money being wasted. I'm over it. And if I could think that everybody was spending our money responsibly, maybe I would feel differently. I'm very involved in the city. I love our city. I'm involved all over the place. And I'm in the swimming classes. I'm in the classes at the library. I take advantage of everything. But I still don't want people wasting my money. So I just want to know that everybody here is working for the good of NMB and not for the good of term limits or lack thereof. Time. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker.

Good evening.

Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioner, City Manager, Deputy City Attorney, I don't know what he is, but Assistant City Manager.

I was gonna speak on some other topic, but this is something that came up when I was sitting down, and thank you to Whitney and Bruce for bringing it up. Your name, please. When I was reading it. Zaynara Torres, 2241 Northeast 170th Street, North Miami Beach.

And I'm appalled, and I'll tell you why.

Commissioner Smith, in our safety meetings, you say we speak to our neighbors, correct? I do. And you know what our neighbors say? They don't want to come to council meetings because it seems all over the place all the time. And I see it tonight with resolution 14.7. What happened today, it reinforces the perception that we deserve leadership that is prepared, transparent, and accountable. We owe them thoughtful decision making. Proper review of agenda items and meetings that inspire confidence, not confusion. How is it that I go to other council meetings in other cities and you know what, they get briefed with the city manager and they sit down and they go over stuff that are on that agenda item. I know, I work for a city. And it comes down to it, city. Leadership, unfortunately, today, I saw what it's not. What it's not. And you know what? When I speak to neighbors, Commissioner Phyllis Smith, you know what they tell me? They say, we're losing confidence in our city. We're not being told. We don't want to go. Why? What for? And you know why? Because every time they come or they see it on TV, they see everybody going back and forth, and it goes to 12 at midnight, and we're still confused about what's going on sometimes. That's uncalled for. We should not be doing this. And tonight, I just tell you, our community deserves better. Residents deserve meetings. And I had to write this down because I want to make sure that I say it tonight, that we're prepared, respectful of the public's time and center and thoughtful decision-making. We owe them leadership that listens, plans, and acts with integrity. Okay? And I'm sorry how I was sounding. I'm sounding tonight, but I have to, because to have something on an agenda item, this is something on call for. I know because I get this all the time. Tomorrow I have a council meeting that I have to attend. And guess what? We're briefed. We know what is going on in here. And to have to sit here and not understand what's happening because you had a special meeting and still were confused about what was put on 14.7 resolution number what? R2026103? That's a shame. And that's all I want to say.

Thank you.

Carol Sacco and then Ariel Vasquez.

Good evening, members of the North Miami Beach community. My name is Carol Sacco. I'm the president of the period chapter at Berry University, and I am joined with.

My name is Jacob Gabriel Orozco. I am treasurer and financials manager.

Before we begin, I'd like to say thank you to Commissioner Smugler for inviting us to present on this topic. We truly appreciate the opportunity to share our perspective on an issue that affects the health, dignity, and wellbeing of so many in our community. Our chapter works to advance menstrual equity by expanding access to free menstrual products through advocacy, education, and community service. Over the past year, we've worked to increase access on campus, listen to student needs, and support our surrounding community. These experiences have reinforced one simple truth. Access to menstrual products is not a convenience, it's a necessity. And tonight we asked the city of North Miami Beach to join the growing movement to ensure these essential products are accessible to everyone who needs them. Period poverty is real and it affects people in every community. Nearly one in four students struggles to afford period products. Because menstrual products are not covered by SNAP or WIC, many individuals and families are left to cover this essential monthly expense entirely out of pocket. As a result, students have missed class, employees have missed work, and many people are unable to fully participate in schoolwork and community activities, not because they choose to, but because they're lacking that access to basic menstrual products. The reality is simple, period products are a necessity that's not a luxury. Multiple organizations across Miami are already joining the menstrual equity movement. The city of North Miami, under the leadership of Vice Mayor Cassandra Timothy, implemented free period care in 18 public restrooms. And to do so, the city partnered with Aunt Flo, a certified woman-owned business that supplies freely accessible period care in more than 70,000 restrooms nationwide. Aunt Flo has made implementing period care affordable for cities. North Miami invested approximately $8,500 in dispenser hardware, with annual costs for tampons and pads totaling roughly $5,000 to $10,000. Today, those products are available across 15 city locations, including city halls, parks, and gyms, ensuring community members have access whenever they need them. Tonight, we respectfully ask the City of North Miami Beach to allocate funding to provide free menstrual products in public facilities. The estimated cost for hardware and one-year supply, based on research from On Flow, would be around $20,000. North Miami Beach can consider various places to start, and this amount can adjust to meet budget. We encourage the city of North Miami to follow North Miami's example and join the growing movement to make menstrual products freely accessible in public spaces. Thank you again to Commissioner Smukly for opportunity to share perspectives.

Thank you. Thank you for coming to speak. And I'd like through the city manager to see if Maybe this is something that we may be able to implement in the parks. It's something that I feel is really important, actually, and as a woman, something very private. But I think that our parks, like in Highland Village and in Washington Park and Allen Park and Yolita, these would be very... essential for the girls that and you know and sometimes I remember my mother telling me when she had her menstrual cycle she didn't even know about it like she just went to the bathroom and she was never informed because it was something so wasn't talked about and it still happens in so many communities that the parents don't teach the children so I'm just hoping that we can educate and help the girls.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. So if someone can reach out to them, please. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Next speaker.

Ariel Vasquez.

Can you hear me? Okay, yes. I'm Ariel Vasquez representing Stronger NMB. I am the vice chairman and I reside in 1270 Northeast 178th Street. And I just wanted to come up and just last month meeting, they mentioned, one of the commission mentioned that they wanted to give me a tour of Eastern Shores. And I want to give you a little bit of background. I've been living here since 93. I went to Grenells Park, JFK, NMB. I worked in beautification for 11 years. I was in charge of the sprinkler system. And I know what priority is. And priority is Eastern Shores. Whenever there was anything broken, when there was anything wrong, I don't care if there was no money in the budget for it. That always had to be fixed. And no matter what time it was, if there was a sprinkler turned on at three in the morning on a Sunday, they will call to make sure that was turned off because the baby of our city is Eastern Shores. And I understand that they pay high taxes. But at the end of the day, who doesn't pay taxes? So I'm here. to let you know that we want fair opportunity. What's good for them should be good for others. It is not the same for when it came to Washington Park, for Yolita, for Oak Grove. If anything was broken, they would say wait for the budget, wait for October, wait for another time. I had another gentleman said that the east side, the west side has everything. We have the swimming pools, we have the parks. Correct, we do. But at the same time, Eastern Shores, they don't need a swimming pool. Majority of all their residents have their own pool. And they don't have a park. But They have and if they did have some square land you can imagine the investors that would be crazy to put their hands on it. So I'm not here to say that Eastern Shores is better than us or nothing like that because at the end of the day we're one city. But I do believe that we do need equal representation so that's why I'm here representing all NMB that should be what's good for them should be good for all of us. so um i don't need a tour of eastern shores i see what's going on they were the first city to have sewer and if they can have sewer why can't we have sewer so we do need to upgrade we cannot be living on the stone age we this city's been here for 100 years and when i go knocking on doors people are tired of these septic tanks so i believe that we should look forward for the future because this is what the city needs thank you for your time god bless next speaker

Wendy Mesidor and then Livins Jean.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioner, City Manager, City Attorney, City Clerk, and residents. My name is Wendy Mesidor. I am a proud 20-year resident of North Miami Beach, 20 years, two decades. I can't believe I'm saying that now. I remember when I first moved here. So first of all, I wanted to say thank you to Commissioner Jay Chernoff for recognizing me in the commission, for honoring me today. I truly appreciate this recognition and the opportunity to serve our community. I also want to encourage the city to continue investing in our North Miami Beach Library. I really do care about the library. So I want to see the library advance. I remember as a child, I used to come to the library, my father used to bring me to the library. I seen how they move around where the front desk used to be by the door, by the door, oh sorry. The front desk used to be by the door and now they do the renovation, the computer used to be, that side so they did the whole renovation so i want that so our library is a place where children develop a love for reading student success and family connect and residents access valuable resources as an educator i know that investing in our children and our library is investing in the future of north miami beach Like I said, I come to NMB, I go to NMB library a lot. Before we even had computer in the house, that's where we used to spend the whole day. After school, we used to go there. So seeing what's happening to the library, sometimes we don't have enough money. They got the summer program. I like to put on the record, I do have a child of my own as well. So I want to be able to bring her to that library so she could enjoy the wonderful thing I used to enjoy as a child. Please invest in the library, fight for the library, fight for the library, thank you.

Next speaker.

Good evening, good evening everybody. My name is . Before I start, I need to call the chief officer of police. My chief, come up front. I need to see you up front. Up front, everybody, my chief. You so good. Let him come in. You do a good job. Let him come in. You do a good job in my neighborhood. You do a good job for everybody in this neighborhood. First of all, I'd like to tell you thank you. You had a good, good, two good officers. You know his name? Fabian. And the second one, Bourbon. I don't know if everybody know Bourbon here, Fabian and Bourbon. They come over to East Drive, the way I stay in East Drive for 2001 and East Drive, I live on the corner. And I request to the street, East Drive very terrible. And the remodel, thank you for that, the remodel. Only one thing I'm going to request that, if Fabian and Bourbon, they come over to two hours stand at the corner, they know exactly people still are driving more speed in each drive. I request that the second, third time, we need the speed bump in this neighborhood because the street remodel, people going to Jackson, 530 in the morning to six, crazy driving, until to eight, crazy driving. I know something happened, so that's why I called the police officer, And thank you for that, my man. Keep doing a good job. So I really appreciate that. You can sit down. Through the mask. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you all. Keep doing a good job. So I don't want to come back here. I request for this. Only one thing. I don't need nothing else. The East Drive need a speed bump. Too many kids in this area. Bicycle, people walking in the street. We need a speed bump, please. Thank you and God bless.

Next speaker.

Eunice Flowers, Ruth Ogun, and then Bruce Lamberto.

I may go over a few seconds respectively. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, commissioners, city managers, city attorney, city clerk, members of the city staff, and my fellow residents. My name is Eunice Flowers and I live in city center. Tonight, I'd like to respectfully offer a thought that comes from my years in education. One of the first lessons based on the psychology of people we learn as teachers is that if we spend all of our time responding to those students who are disrupting the classroom, we unintentionally send a message to every other student who is doing the right thing. We teach them that their effort, their character, and their contributions are less visible than the disruption. Over time, that can diminish morale. It can reduce participation and create a culture where negative behavior receives the greatest reward, attention. I believe the same principle can apply to cities. Local government understandably spends a great deal of time addressing problems, crime, code, enforcement, infrastructure, budgeting, and conflict. Those responsibilities are essential. But if the only stories we tell about our city are the problems we're trying to solve, we risk overlooking the thousands of residents, businesses, educators, volunteers, first responders, nonprofit leaders, artists, and the young people who quietly make North Miami Beach stronger every single day. Public institutions do more than solve problems. They also shape culture. Research and organizational leadership constantly shows that recognition enforces the behaviors that we hope to see. Communities thrive when people believe their contributions are noticed and valued. Civic pride is not created by accident. It is cultivated through intentional acts of appreciation and shared celebration. Recognition has a multiplier effect. As we celebrate our city's centennial, I implore this city to consider hosting an annual city gala. I heard it was off the table. A well executed gala could honor and highlight amazing distinguished residents, volunteers, and city staff who have contributed positively to this community while also generating revenue, lowering ticket prices through strategic investment, and boosting morale. I would also like to suggest creating a commemorative centennial memorabilia, such as a limited edition NMB centennial coin, a dreidel, or a Christmas ornament. In doing so, we would demonstrate thoughtful stewardship of public resources by prioritizing meaningful community impact. Thank you for your time.

Good evening, my name is Ruth Ogun. I attended four or five charter review committee meetings as an observer, and I saw firsthand the time, effort, and dedication the committee members put in reviewing our city charter. Whether everyone agrees with every recommendation or not, these members took their responsibility seriously. They discussed the issues, explained their reasoning, and worked to recommend changes they believed were the best interest of our city and its residents. That is why I was extremely surprised to see that the supporting documents explaining these proposed charter changes are not included with tonight's agenda. These changes must be submitted to the county by this Friday. Yet here we are just days before the deadline and the residents and apparently the commission do not have all the necessary supporting documents readily available to review. How did this happen? Either these documents were intentionally left off the agenda or this represents a serious failure in preparing for tonight's meeting. Neither explanation is acceptable. Residents should not have to come to a commission meeting without being given the information necessary to understand changes that could affect how our city is governed. The charter belongs to the people of North Miami Beach. Any proposed changes should be presented openly, clearly, and with enough time for both the commission and the public to review them before decisions are made. With a Friday deadline, the fact that we are still missing these documents tonight is simply outrageous. The residents of North Miami Beach deserve transparency, proper preparation, and better than this.

Mubarak Kazan.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Mubarak Kazan. A few meetings ago, I came here, and I heard your city attorney says that he sent you some sort of email, and it shall or something, and he was speaking about some petition, stronger NMB, aka weaker NMB. That is sort of like a desert group that is pushing a nonsensical petition that we need to have the cities divided. And he's saying that even though you did not, he implied that even if you have not read that email, It shall move forward. So if you want to pass our legislation, you don't have to come to here. You just pass it to the city attorney. He's going to claim that he sent out the email, and no response. It passes. That petition that's stronger NMB, aka weaker NMB, have never came here before for a vote. I went through two petitions before, myself and Bruce Lamberto. And always, it had to go through not only the attorney, but the mayor and city council at that time to get an approval. Things don't work here party way because you're a Democrat and your Democrat friends coming here and you're gonna give them a help to pass a petition. I don't care if it's Democrat, I don't care if it's Republican or a NPA like myself, I don't care. It has to go through the normal channels and you seven people have to vote for it. I move on. Tonight, again, this city attorney, He's trying a thing like what he did with the Charter Review Committee, where things don't really get to come before us on time. And the questions, I mean, we pay like $50,000 a month for a standby attorney that comes just part-time and just spend a couple hours every weekend. Nothing can get done. You have to hire people who is dedicated to this city, who would come eight hours and probably work even in the night. And you have to get back the four attorneys. We're wasting time here. And the trick is that some people, which I've seen the voting pattern, don't want the charter review questions to move forward. They want it all squashed. And if you... A special meeting you can call within 24 hours. I think you may need to have a 24 hours call a special meeting and have this done properly. Thank you very much for having me.

Speaker. Good evening. Bruce Lamberto, Eastern Shores. I'm just backing up the Whitney, Bruce Cousins, Mubarak on this. I'm in agreement, full agreement with this. This is not a way to run a city. I mean, this charter review, I was on one 10 years ago. It worked like clockwork. It went before the city attorney approved it. It went before the commission. It was approved, and it got put on a ballot. And we're playing games here. And this is not good. We have these dedicated people doing this. Each one of you appointed these people. And this is not good. I don't know where your check valve is here, but it seems to be in this area here. Please. Do not operate like this. You heard it again here tonight about this, how the east side gets everything. You also heard Mr. Jean come up here with the police chief and tell him how great his police coverage is in Yulita area. I don't know what he's talking about that our light bulbs get changed instantly. I'm not even aware of that. I've been there over 40 years. I've never seen that happen. As far as our pools go, most of the people that live in Eastern Shores are in the over 55 buildings. That's where your population is. There's over 5,300 residents in Eastern Shores. And more than 3,000 of them are in the over 55 fixed income bracket. Most of those people don't have swimming pools or a rec facility or a little park to walk around in. And as far as us getting everything, I mean, it's just kind of the reverse of that. Washington Park's getting a $30 million facility. We have a postage stamp for a little tot lot. That's it. You got the park in Olita. You got the gym in Olita. You got a gym at Allen Park six or eight blocks away from Washington Park. So the concentration of facilities is on the west side. So this division that he's trying to create about the people on the east side is just a fallacy. They call it FOS, full of you know what. So please don't buy it. And then finally, Mr. Mayor, you've been getting a lot of trouble lately, and I blame it not on you, but on your aid. Your aid wasn't here to defend you or protect you, keep those lobbyists away from you and keep those no-bid contractors from bringing you pastelitos. I'm gonna apply for that job, so I just hope you'll consider me because I'll keep you out of trouble. I promise, I promise I'll keep you out of trouble. Maybe they'll even make you mayor of the year after I get done with you. So just keep it in mind, my application will be turned in tomorrow, so I hope you'll consider me. Thank you very much.

Next speaker. Ketley Joachim.

Good evening, mayor and commission. My name is Ketley Joachim. It seems I'm losing my voice. First, I would like to thank Commissioner Mackenzie Fleurimond for the proclamation and Commissioner Jay Chernoff for the city to my mom. And all of you had something to do with it. I would like to explain about East Drive. East Drive is a shortcut for everyone that's exiting the highway and going to Jackson North. So therefore, the road has not been paved in years and we were having problems over there. So the city decided to find some funds that were left over from work done at Eastern Shores to pave the road in East Drive. After it was done, we thought that they were going to put some speed bump, but because we could not get the speed bump, the police department had to send a couple of police officers to see exactly what was going on there. I think that's why Mr. Jean was thanking the police chief about it. One of the things I like to speak about is the resident of the city. We give up our times to make a difference in these boards. And you will find that a lot of people do not want to sign up to be on the boards anymore because of the interference that's happening. One case is your city attorney trying to do away with the code enforcement board. Years ago, They took half of the code enforcement items and give it to a magistrate. That means you all, we all the resident are paying a magistrate, a judge to come here and do the work while the rest of us are giving our time free, free. Now your city attorney that you all are responsible for, have a problem and want to bring a magistrate to do the residential portion of code that we, the residents who live here, are doing freely. If the city have so much money that they want to waste on a magistrate, why not do something about it for the resident? The residents, we are sick and tired of money being wasted paying people that don't live in our city. That really is no use to us. We are here, your neighbors, trying to do the right thing. A lot of you know Peter Rowland. He's tired of this, that's why he stopped coming. because of all this interference. Magistrate to the left, magistrate to the right. Please do something and stop really looking into it. You hired this charter officer. Make sure they do the right thing by the residents. Thank you, next speaker.

That was the last time, Speaker Mayer.

All right, next item is...

Announcements.

Say that again, Madam Clerk?

Announcements.

Announcements. Madam Clerk.

What is it?

Public comment is closed. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, Commission, City Manager, and staff. And staff. Okay. My name is Patrick Blanchard, and I represent the Communications Department, and these are your announcements.

Hello everyone, I'm Adrienne DeRozan, your AV and Communications Technician within the Communications, Events, and Production Division here in the great city of North Miami Beach. We got a lot happening around the city this summer, so go ahead, sit back, and take a look at what's coming up. We're back with another edition of your City Commission meeting announcements, bringing you the latest events, updates, and opportunities to stay connected. The summer season is in full swing, bringing opportunities to connect, celebrate, and stay involved. From community events to key city updates, here's what's coming up as we continue our centennial year and strengthen engagement across our community. We're rolling into an exciting new chapter for transportation in North Miami Beach. residents are invited to attend the official launch of the new NMB bus line service, as well as the addition of two on-demand vehicles at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday, July 23rd from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Marjory William McDonald Center. This special event is in collaboration with ProCal Mobility. another milestone in our centennial year, and another exciting step forward for North Miami Beach. Good company is always on the menu. Join us for the Senior Luncheon on Friday, July 24th, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Marjory and William McDonald Center. Advanced registration is required through the Parks and Recreation main office. Registered participants will enjoy an afternoon of delicious food, fellowship, and conversation while celebrating the wonderful seniors in our community, because some of the best memories are made around the table. The celebrations continue with our Centennial Block Party in Sky Lake. Residents and neighbors in the Skylake community will be hosting another fabulous Family Fun Centennial Block Party on Sunday, July 26 at the Roundabout at Northeast 188th Terrace and Northeast 20th Court from 5 to 8 p.m. The City of North Miami Beach invites everyone to enjoy an evening of music, games, and community connection. good neighbors, great music, great memories, and plenty of centennial spirit. The city welcomes all residents to connect with the Miami-Dade Tax Collector mobile unit on Tuesday, July 28th from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the North Miami Beach Library. The mobile unit will assist with driver's licenses, identification cards, vehicle registrations, disabled parking permits, and other tax collector-related services. A list of required documents is available on the NMB City website. Save yourself a trip to the tax collector's office and let the services come to you. Next on the calendar is the Condo Connect North Miami Beach Forum. NMB invites condominium board members, property managers, homeowners, residents, and industry professionals to attend Condo Connect North Miami Beach. Tuesday, July 28th at 6 to 8 p.m. at the Marjory William McDonald Center. The event is a free educational forum designed to help condominium communities understand recent legislative changes and local condominium ordinances. Admission is free, but registration is required. Helping our condominium community stay informed, one conversation at a time. The curtain is about to rise on another unforgettable summer. North Miami Beach Parks and Recreation proudly presents Legends Reloaded, One Last Encore, the annual summer camp show on Thursday, July 30th, the Julius Lippmann Performing Arts Theater. The performance gives campers the opportunity to showcase everything they've learned throughout the summer for their families and supporters. It's a fitting finale to a summer filled with creativity, friendship, and fun. Mark your calendars for the first joint National Night Out, School Supplies Giveaway, and Health Fair on Tuesday, August 4th from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Marjory and William McDonald Center. Come and enjoy the fun with your family for fruit trucks, demonstrations, displays, games, music, free haircuts, as well as arts and crafts. Pre-registration is required for NMB residents. Don't miss your chance to join Commissioner Phyllis Smith, City Manager Darvin Williams, and Police Chief Juan Penillos for another informative Safety First Town Hall. Thursday, August 6th from 6 to 8 p.m. at the new St. Mary's Missionary Baptist Church. located at 1550 NE 152nd Terrace. This is another opportunity for residents to share concerns, ask questions, and learn about important topics impacting our community, including public safety, traffic, sanitation, and hurricane preparedness. Your questions matter, and your voice helps shape our community. Another neighborhood, another reason to celebrate 100 years together. Residents and neighbors in the Allen Park community will be hosting a Family Fun Centennial Block Party on Saturday, August 8th from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Allen Park De Leonardis Youth Center. NMB invites everyone to enjoy an evening of family fun, music, entertainment, and neighborhood pride. Admission is free and open to the public. And before we turn the page to a brand new school year, summer may be winding down, but the fun isn't over yet. Join the North Miami Beach Discovery Library for the End of Summer Back to School Bash on Sunday, August 9th from 2 to 5 p.m. at the North Miami Beach Discovery Library. Families can enjoy live performances, summer reading prizes, a grand prize raffle, concessions, and family-friendly activities as we celebrate another successful summer reading program and get ready for the new school year. It's the perfect way to wrap up summer and welcome a brand new school year. And finally, We arrive at the grand finale of today's announcements, one of the signature celebrations of our centennial year, the Centennial Symphony Concert. Join us on Saturday, August 22nd, as we celebrate 100 years of North Miami Beach through an unforgettable evening of music, culture, and community. Rather than tell you about it, let's show you.

Thank you.

Happy birthday, North Miami Beach. This is Commissioner Daniella Jean, and we want to send a special invitation to all of our residents as we celebrate our centennial year for our official NMB 100 Centennial Concert happening August 22nd right here at the Lipman Theater. This concert is free for all of our residents, and if you are a community partner and would like to attend, your $100 donation will go towards the NMB Educational Fund. So see you there and remember it's a black tie event.

As we continue celebrating our centennial year, these events reflect what makes North Miami Beach such a vibrant place to live, work, and connect. For more information on these events and other city initiatives, visit the City of North Miami Beach website or follow at City NMB on social media. Stay connected, stay informed, and keep celebrating 100 years of North Miami Beach. And we'll see you around the city.

Good job. No, she, she's gonna call but I just Mayor, yes, go ahead. There's still one speaker left, right? Yes. Go ahead. Apologies. If you can reopen and close.

Yes. The floor is now reopened from public comment. We have star breed love coming forward. You have three minutes.

Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Hope all is doing well. My comment is a quick comment. I want to start off by saying my name is Starbree Love, a stakeholder in Washington Park in the city of North Miami Beach. I want to start off by saying thank you to the city clerk's office for helping us and facilitating the event for the community outreach and voter registration, having the elections office come out, and we look forward to what we're going to do before November. With that being said, just a quick note that Washington Park is not getting a $30 million pool and park. The city of North Main Beach is getting that facility. It happens to be located in Washington Park. And it wouldn't be $30 million if this was done many, many years ago. And with that being said, that's it.

All right. Madam Mayor, Madam Clerk. Commission report. Okay, I'm just public comment is closed. Thank you. If we can keep because we have a packed agenda, we can keep our public comments in two minutes if possible. So that's what I was asked for. Okay. Can you please go?

Commissioner Jay Chernoff.

Good evening, everybody. I'd like to announce my public engagement schedule, Yulita Thursday, July 30th, and Allen Park Wednesday, August 5th, and I'll announce others later. I have to clear up something, and first I want to say congratulations to Jemmy Jasmine on the North Miami Beach Alumni Picnic. What a great job he did. We gave a key to the city to him, and boy was it crowded, and everybody had a great time. they were all hot obviously it was from early in the morning till late till 7 o'clock at night but it was a great event by all I have to clear up something my opponent has brought out that I said that the voters in November weren't as informed as the voters in May. Well, that was misconstrued. I didn't mean that if that's what came out. All voters are wonderful. I really appreciate them. Voters are the same whenever they show up. The difference between November and the May is that the May, it's going to be truly a North Miami Beach agenda. Where we have only our stuff there, which is a better, as far as I'm concerned, but that's what your charter committee, which my opponent was on recommended that we move it to may. So again, I just want to clear that up. Thank you.

Thanks.

Commissioner Daniella Jean. Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. I wanted to start off by thanking all the residents who took the time to speak on the issues that pertain near to their hearts. Thank you for sharing. I wanted to also remind our city attorney about the liens update. I'm definitely looking forward to receiving an update on the commercial liens recovery. So hopefully you can present a report to us soon. and also Mr. Manager, are there dates confirmed for a budget hearing for us yet?

Yes, I could, I'd like to call up the budget administrator, Bob Anathan, to provide you those dates.

Thank you.

We could have it in the report. Good evening, good evening.

Bob Anathan, budget administrator. I think the dates were in the agenda cover memo for September 10th and the 24th.

Thank you so much. Can you speak up, please, one more time?

I'm sorry. The dates are going to be September 10th for the first hearing, and the second hearing will be September 24th.

Thank you. Thank you so much. And so Mr. Manager, I know usually we always get a workshop before the dates. So if there's any way that you can give us, send us some more information on some of the changes that would be there so that we can, is there a window for us to submit anything that we want to see? Obviously it's a shorter window. So if you can send us some dates that would kind of help us adjust our schedules to what we want to add to the budget. and i also want to remind residents about the we care program for those of you who have issues with your water bill we do have the we care program and i'm hoping that there's still funds in that program for residents to be able to partake as a lot of individuals have reached out about their increased water bill thank you and have a good night commissioner phyllis smith thank you very much um there's a few comments i'd like to make maybe i should say as usual

Number one, most important of all is when you talk about districting, what a joke. especially for me, in my seat, to hear somebody say that if you live in Eastern Shores, you get everything instantly. I've been living next door to a vacant house, the grass is up to my knees, the rats, the black pool, the mosquitoes, for four years, actually four and a half, who's counting? I've been on the phone with the attorney, send pictures, been on the phone with the manager, the previous manager, the previous everything, I am still with the rats. And guess what we have now? A little baby raccoon. You know what that means? We have a mother raccoon also over there. So it's a very interesting concept, districting. Talk about Washington Park being the neighborhood that the North Miami Beach pool will be going into in the pool complex. But would they have given that money to an area that has a complex, and it may be a mile and a half away, if we hadn't all voted for it, what about the splash pool that's gonna have a ribbon cutting hopefully the end of this month? How would they have got it with one person trying to get the money and pulling the money? Because everybody would want money. This whole concept of you being representative, strong and tough by one person, no, you're losing five other votes. The mayor gets a vote, but those five other votes that you could pick up and call and beg them and lobby them and tell them the need and call them and come over, you're going to lose those votes. So this whole concept is... really a lot of propaganda. I've been in sales for almost 50 years and I know a salesman when I see one. Friday is our luncheon for the seniors from 11 o'clock to 2 o'clock. It's always sold out with the best price ever, our favorite four-letter F word, free. Free, but you must call, you must register. You can't just show up because of the fire constraints. So you must call and register. The block party on 188th Street and 20th Court on Sunday, I believe it's from six o'clock, five o'clock, five to eight, they're gonna actually close off the street. So come and have fun. If you were at the block party that we had 4th of July, you would see. They have everything from stilts, face painting, magicians, water eating contests, which I might add, I didn't win, but I did come in ninth out of 10 people. So I'm a winner. I also want to state that, you know, what happened tonight with our giving, we ran over time because we had a lot of people we wanted to honor. But what happened with giving these honors, you saw so much public service, so much good in people. So I love it when you find something that needs to be repaired in North Miami Beach, a deficit that we have to fix. But just remember, we have a lot of good people in North Miami Beach that are doing a lot of good things. There's just so much out there. Open your eyes and always look at the cup as half full and not half empty. I also want to tell you that, you know, North Miami Beach has a long way to go. but we've come a long way as well. So it's going to be very interesting about the expense and how much it costs and what are we doing to curtail the costs so that we can improve the city. Very interesting because as all of you probably did, I got my water bill too. And my water bill didn't go up by much, myself and my husband, only about $250.

$250, my water bill went up.

I want you to know, do not blame North Miami Beach. Please don't blame North Miami Beach. It's the sewer that they raised from Dade County. Dade County raised their sewer costs, and they're going to do it again. 17%. Manager and I discussed it. They want to raise it another 12%. So the only thing I can tell you is watch what happens. Watch what we're voting on. Septic tank to sewer. What a sticker shock that will be for people that have a septic tank now. So with that, I want to close by saying good things. good things, North Miami Beach is going to have a wonderful celebration. I wish we could have a gala, but a gala is extremely expensive. You exclude people that can't afford the ticket, et cetera, et cetera. But we're having a wonderful centennial celebration. neighborhood by neighborhood, and please, you do not have to live in the neighborhood to come. Come to Sky Lake, enjoy it with all of us, meet new neighbors, have a good time, and have a safe summer, and remember the most important thing, if you don't know how to swim, you have to learn how to swim. And make sure everybody in your family knows how to swim, and be sure to vote. Don't forget to vote. Thank you.

Commissioner Fortuna Smuggler. um thank you so commissioner smith you may have won the watermelon eating contest but i won the hula hoop contest so i i wouldn't say you won but i did see you swirling your hips yes yes i did my hips don't lie and yes i won um Okay. So, um, on Tuesday, August 4th, um, the commission of status of women together with national night out, we'll be doing the back to school, uh, school supply giveaway health fair. We're, and the UMC free clinic as well as a lot of different health organizations going there to make sure that the children start school with school supplies and with a healthy start that starts at 5 PM and we're doing it together so that we can make it bigger, better. Also, I want to wish all the people that celebrate Tish B'Av that starts tomorrow night an easy fast. And Mr. Attorney, I wanted to ask you a question. So the mayor's aide, either through herself or through the mayor, filed an ethics complaint against me, which was thrown out, and that is costing the city money because I had to hire an attorney. Are we allowed to ask her for the money back?

I haven't seen the document that was entered by the Ethics Commission dismissing it, although it's not unexpected, but under some circumstances we are, and I will investigate that and report back to you depending on the specifics of how the dismissal occurred.

Insufficient.

Well, I understand, but I have to read what it says, but I will look into that, and if we can, then I'll pursue it.

All right, I would like you to proceed.

I'll report back to you on that, Commissioner.

It was, I believe it was like $250, but the point is it was baseless and a waste of time. So, all right, so actually, Mr. Lamberta, when you were speaking, you can't see the people behind you or to your side, but when you were mentioning that Eastern Shores has a small park, The previous speaker, the one who thinks that Eastern Shores has everything, thought that it was funny that we had a small park. He was actually laughing at that or smirking. Yeah, it's smaller than this right here. Oh, yep, true, but we're talking about the east side that supposedly has.

You can go to Greenland's Park, we can go to Alida.

Oh yes, and Alida charges a fee, by the way, and just to get into Alida, if you walk there, they still charge a fee, and if you drive there, sometimes you have to wait an hour in line just to get in, And to walk there is probably a few miles just to get to the actual A Pavilion. So no, we technically don't have a leader. Also, I wanted to say that on June 30th, we received a letter from JC planners, who is the attorney that's represent Mr. Attorney, I want to make sure you're listening to me, that we received a letter from JC planners who represents the the stronger NMB. And it said that on March 26 2026, that the commission refused to hear. Are you listening to me?

I received that letter. I replied to Mr. Planas that, well, we disagreed with his conclusions in writing. Commission never refused to do that.

Okay, that's what I want for the record, that we did not refuse.

And in fact, it was only presented to us two days prior to our meeting, which was a delayed meeting, was a week after when our meeting was supposed to be because people were away. He also said that the committee pushing that had deemed that the item was approved on a date of their choosing, and I told him that we didn't accept their ability to make that decision, and I disagreed with his conclusion and found that it was a different date than the one that he advanced. All right, so... Did you not get a copy of them?

I did not.

I'm sorry.

But I would love.

I'd be happy to circulate that letter. That letter was sent weeks ago, but I'll be happy to circulate it.

Okay, and I would love J.C. to apologize to us because we did not refuse and we did not do anything purposely, as stated in his letter.

I would be surprised if we got that apology, but we certainly pushed back and disagreed in writing with what his position was. I believe his position was not warranted by law.

All right, so also speaking of that petition, so there's like some discrepancy whether there's 17,000 voters in NB or 24,000 voters, but let's just say it's 17,000 voters for argument's sake only to make the petitioners have an easier job, right? So the Department of Elections came back with stating that only 978 signatures were certified? That's correct. Okay.

I'm going to defer to the clerk. That is my understanding that the city clerk is the one who's been directly in touch with the supervisors. So let me defer to her if she can answer that definitively.

She did. She just said it's correct. So of the 17,978 signatures, that's approximately 6%. So assuming the 17,000 was right, some people say it's 24. But again, I'm trying to make it easier just for argument's sake on the petitioners. so only six percent was reached and that was uh not our fault right that was not our doing that had nothing to do with us we gave them the two months we gave them time to come back with that circulator that they did wrong we didn't do wrong so um the unless they can get um another four percent signatures by Today? Today? Is it today?

I opined as to when their 90-day window started. I'm not a judge. I have an opinion. I rendered my opinion. I'm sorry you did not see. But it is what it is.

It doesn't even matter because it has to be, it would have to be in by the 24th regardless because that's when the elections department needs it.

So even if it's the 24th. Commissioner, I don't opine on that, but that's the circulator's issue. That's not our issue. They have counsel and what they do about it is up to them.

Okay, so anyways, regardless, even if it was the 24th, it would have to be by the 24th regardless. Even if we're, if it's not the 21st, it's not the 22nd, and it's not the 23rd, 24th would be the cutoff date because that's when they have to have it for it to be able to be on the ballot. Yeah.

Mr. Attorney, you clearly stated to the supervisor of elections office that you think that the petition starts on a certain day. It's not an opinion when you count 90 days, so I don't understand why you can't opine.

Well, I said I did opine. I opined as to when the start date was. There was some confusion about it. The supervisor's office said they would not begin reviewing the petitions without something from the city as to when that 90-day period started, and I rendered my opinion. Ultimately, these issues will end up perhaps in front of a judge who will make a decision, and what the group or its counsel chooses to do is up to them.

I believe you said it was April 21st, right?

Pardon me?

You said in your email, I think it said April 21st. Is that correct?

My opinion, and I did give an opinion, I was told, by the supervisor they required one or they would not process them my opinion was the most reasonable date to commence it was april 21 and i rendered that opinion now i don't know couple two two and a half weeks ago now whether you know if it goes to court some judge We'll make a decision on it, but that was my opinion as the most reasonable date to answer Commissioner Smuckler. I rendered my opinion, and I thought it was the best choice. It's a little bit of a complicated fact pattern. I laid out the facts. in the letter it disagreed with the position taken by the council for the group supporting the petition and that's my opinion and you know what what further proceedings might have or the deadline i those those are not my decision thank you i appreciate it so so anyways back to me so um

So I'm jumping around a little bit here. I'm going to go back. I'm sorry and not sorry, actually, that I'm talking so much. So the speaker previously was saying that districting is better because of Eastern Shores. I'm not sure why everything is about Eastern Shores when there's four commissioners that live on the west side. And basically what that speaker was saying is that Eastern Shores is not important. Well, guess what? When you run for office, every community is important. Everyone is equal. Every community is important. love all my communities and I take care of all my communities and I'm sure I have witnesses here that will say that that is true and I can say that for all seven of us here I think we treat everyone equally so for someone to come here and start saying that districting is important because one community gets something and the other community doesn't get something You know what? Phyllis Smith gets rats and raccoons. So, you know, and she's in Eastern Shore. And I don't have a swimming pool. She doesn't have a swimming pool. So, what? She...

My little dog comes and takes care of us.

You can have the rats. We have rats. You can have them. Anyways, so back to where I was. So, Mr. Attorney, let me look at my notes. I just wanted to tell you that I, are you listening to me? Okay. I like to be looked at.

making a note about the matter you asked me to follow up on and i promised you so i'm just noting it to my assistant that i need to get that follow-up done but okay go ahead please yes i am listening okay i just like i i want to express my concerns about this whole smarter nmb um

and your role in it i'm i i have concerns that um because i you know like okay so you have several clients right several cities that are your clients but the cities are your clients and and and i'm looking at the picture i'm looking in right now is nmb is your client you i don't

Absolutely.

I don't care right now about the other, not that I don't care about the other cities. I understand. I'm not talking about the other cities. I'm talking about NMB. And I just feel that your involvement in this, that petition, that because it's endorsed by the Democratic Party and because you're in the Democratic Party and because you have a relationship with Mr. Planes, who I have nothing against. I actually happen to think he's a super guy. I'm concerned that you're giving advice to them and you're not focusing on our city, that you're giving advice to the petitioners when you shouldn't be doing it. We're your client and not them. I just feel like you were helping, JC. I feel that by you talking to him, that you were giving him advice. I just need to say this. I've said it to you before and I still think it. And when I was talking to you last night about this petition, about how they don't have their, they didn't make the 10%. I felt like you were, well, they can do this and they can do that. I felt like you were being like, on their side when i didn't feel like your loyalty was with the city of north miami beach now your loyalty shouldn't be what whether the city of north miami beach um get does the petitioner doesn't do the petition right that your loyalty should be that you're just you're equal that you shouldn't um that you're non um you don't pick sides you're not supposed to be picking sides and i feel like you're picking sides on this issue may i respond yes of course

Don't take sides on that issue. I have no side on that issue as I've told you before as a 40 year member of the Democratic Executive Committee and a former chair of that body 25 years ago I mean 25 years since I was chair. I am active with the Democratic Party That's always been the case now This matter, endorsing that petition drive, came to the Democratic Executive Committee at a meeting that I attended by Zoom. I spoke at that meeting. I voted at that meeting on other things. I voted, for instance, to support a position that the party took opposing this property tax referendum that the legislature has put on. When they came to this item, because it involved my client, the city of North Miami Beach, to whom I have tremendous loyalty. And you personally have seen me be involved with this city long before I was city attorney under many former mayors. I made the decision that I would not speak on that item. And when they called for a vote, I did not vote on the item. I didn't even take a formal abstention. I was silent. There is a record that shows who voted. I was not a voter. And they have a record of the meeting. I did not speak on it because I thought it was a conflict. I make it a policy when attorneys who have business before the city call on me without exception, I speak to them. I listen to what they have to say. I frequently disagree with their positions, but I'm always willing to listen, and if there's something that can be resolved on 100 different matters that have come before us, some of them the commission never sees or hears about, but I always speak to attorneys because I don't represent a private client I represent a public entity. And we have some obligation to at least hear members of the public because they have a constitutional right to redress of their grievances before city government. And so I will hear them out, any attorney. Some members of the audience today will tell you, if you ask, as I have said to you personally, that I think the other side, so to speak, of this dispute, the wake-up group, Would be well advised to hire an attorney. It is an ethical consideration of every attorney in the Florida Bar to advise people who need legal help that they are well advised to seek legal assistance to present their matters legally. I recently spoke to an elderly couple in the city who had an issue with an alleyway and were very frustrated. And I said the same thing to them. They would be well advised to hire an attorney. Mr. Plummer, let me please finish. With all deference, Commissioner, I'm sorry, but I will not allow my integrity as an attorney to be questioned without responding to it. So please let me finish. You've said some things that I think are serious, and I have to respond to them. The fact of the matter is, Mr. Planas reached out to me. He wrote and called on a number of occasions. I speak to him. as I would to every attorney that reached out to us, ones I don't like, ones whose clients I don't like, because I think it is a public obligation. I disagreed in writing with the position he took in the letter that you referenced. That certainly is not acting on behalf of that group. and i don't give legal advice i do tell people when asked if i'm able what the city's position is regarding the matter they inquire about that's not giving legal advice that's stating where the city is and how i see what our obligation is i've not given them any legal advice I would not, but I do listen to what's said, as I do for every single attorney, and I tell them, if possible, what the city's position is, and what they do with it is up to them. I absolutely have not taken sides in that matter. Would not, have not, do not. I've just listened to what was asked, and when I could, responded, including vigorous disagreement with their position. I hope that clarifies it.

All right, is that meeting a public record? Is that a public meeting? Can one find out how people voted on that, on those items?

Yes, ma'am, that's available. They have those records. You could look that up with the Democratic Executive Committee. You can inquire directly.

Was the mayor there?

Because I know he's- I don't recall whether the mayor was present. I was virtual. Let me say again. Aren't you? i was virtual vice chair sorry commissioner smucker i was virtually attending the meeting so i don't know exactly who else was in attendance it's it might be a conflict for you to vote so i'm just asking But I did not vote.

No, no, not you. I'm talking about the mayor. I just changed it. Okay, I still think that you assisted the counsel of Mr. Planas. I feel like you assisted him, and I'm entitled to that opinion, so I'm just saying that that's how I feel. And thank you, North Miami Beach Police Department, for always taking care of all of us.

Please.

Commissioner Lin Tsu. Good evening, everyone. Okay, that was a pretty heavy conversation. So with the support of our city manager's office, I have the honor of representing North Miami Beach as a member of the National League of Cities for the Energy, Environment, and Natural Resource Board in Louisville, Kentucky. I successfully advocated for federal legislative priorities that expanded grant opportunities for smaller cities and streamlined the federal grant process for municipalities with limited resources such as our own. Those priorities were adopted by the EENR board and now will become part of the National League of Cities federal advocacy efforts in Washington. Every additional federal dollar we secure is one less dollar from our taxpayers in North Miami Beach. It's a big win for me. I'm super happy about this and I wanted to share it with you. I work closely with city manager Darvin Williams and public works, public utilities director Hamid Nikvan. Thank you for your advice, your support. And now we move on to the next step is to get those federal policies that we submitted through NLC to get them approved so that we can bring dollars to North Miami Beach. A lot of people asked me why I went to Kentucky, so I wanted to share that. Separately, I'd like to share something exciting about our financial education news. As you know, last week we had a $1,000 saving account initiative. I know that the minute some people hear who that account is by, how it was created, we all shy away from it. But I really want you to think you pay taxes to whichever president, whichever party it is. You deserve to capitalize on it. If your family, your grandchildren, you have family members who can access that thousand dollar free if you were born in 2025. So I suggest money is green. I don't care if you're red or blue. So please take advantage of it. It's very important, okay? And one thing that we need to do is we need to learn about how people create next generation wealth. So that's something that I want you all to look into. We have a recording of the video. I will ask IT and see if we could put it up on our YouTube. So if you missed the event, you can always go back and watch it. Now, the other good news is the IRS is coming back. So after this event happened, they said they offer X, Y, and Z services. One of the services that I thought was very interesting to our residents is free tax filing. So I'm bringing this early next year for anybody who doesn't want to pay H&R Block or, you know, Intuit QuickBooks or whatever it is that you file your turbo taxes. You don't need to pay for that. You can get your taxes done for free here in North Miami Beach. And they're going to offer that. I'm bringing this to the city. So that's good news for all of us as we continue celebrating our centennial. I want to thank everyone for attending the July 4th. We had a really great event. It was so much fun. I intended to go for a little bit because it was really hot, but then I ended up staying until almost the end. So I had so much fun. Thanks to the city manager and the procurement for selecting a very good vendor. They were very complete. There was games, activities, music, food all the time. It was always something happening. So our block parties are going to continue to be even better as we approach the centennial year, so I would love to make sure that you all keep attending these events. We host them for you, not for us, okay? We want you to be there. So July 28th, we have a Condo Connect event. Okay, so if you are a condo dweller or you are someone you know, a condo dweller or someone who is on the HOA board of a condo, please come here, ask your questions. The city had passed an ordinance that is a companion to the county's bill and the state statute. So with that, you will have all the resources there, whether you wanted to talk to an attorney there, you wanted to talk to the state legislators. Senator Ana Maria Rodriguez will be there. Our very own state representative Wallace Aristide will be there to answer any questions or anything you want to propose for the next legislative session. We also have experts. I mean, building experts, engineers, everything you can imagine. They're all going to be at the event for you to ask your questions. So this is super important. And of course, like I want to echo what Commissioner Smuckler was talking about, which is August 4th, our night back to school and our night out, as well as the UMC free clinic. So remember, the UMC free clinic is for people who don't have insurance, right? You can get your health checked out. You can get free medication. Everything is free. Commissioner Smith's favorite four-letter word. So... Okay. We're in the heart of summer right now. I know it's super hot. Please stay hydrated. This is very important. You know, remind yourself to drink water. Dehydration, like, deaths are real. So, I mean, like, you'd get a massive headache before that. But, you know, make sure you drink a lot of water. Make sure you have your hurricane preparedness plans. Your supply is ready as we go through hurricane season. And I look forward to a good meeting with my colleagues. Thank you.

Vice Mayor Mackenzie Floriamone.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Thank you to everyone who has joined us this evening for tonight's meeting and everyone who spoke during public comment. So I know that during public comment there was a conversation about the library and I just want to reiterate that the manager, to the manager that I would like an update on what's going on with that. I'm sure that my colleagues would probably request the same type of an update as well. You can choose how you do that because I'm not certain all of the details and the inner workings of the conversation of the library. So if it's best to do something face to face or if it's best to do something written, documented, that's your office to make that decision as to what is more appropriate. I think you should have that leeway because of whatever legalities and implications there may be. But I do want to know what's going on with the library. Aside from that, Mr. City Attorney, if you can also give us an update as well on the magistrate comment that was made in regards to code enforcement so we can be up to date as to what's going on in relation to that comment.

Do you want that now?

No, at your discretion. Right.

I'm just saying if you'd like.

No, no, no. I'm just making the comment. If it's something that you can put on the record tonight, great. If it's not, then you can. Okay. You don't have to do it during this minute. You can do it during your attorney's report. All right. Aside from that, pool safety, very, very important. We have classes here at the city of North Miami Beach. My understanding is since we voted before that those classes are free, still continuing to be free. All right, so I'm getting one nod and one, I know we voted maybe a year ago that we were doing classes at the pool for free or waiving the fees for either entry or the classes as well.

Entry.

Okay.

So it's free for residents for entry, but programming, like the classes, there is still a fee. It's a minimal fee, but it's a fee.

Okay, I feel like we voted on that, but.

We did vote on free classes. On the free to residents. Yeah. So free entrance to residents.

Correct. All right. Well, if we did, Madam Clerk, if you can find out whether we actually voted on the classes, I don't know why I think that was also, because I think the entrance, there were classes that we voted on because of some of the things that happened in our community. I feel like we had a conversation on that and Since I don't know exactly what the end result was, I'd like to find out.

Definitely. We definitely look and relook, but that's the direction that the city manager at the time gave us, and I'm assuming, I shouldn't assume, but assuming that was the direction from the commission.

Okay, so we'll get the exact, whatever the directive was exactly.

I'll look into it. Remember, there wasn't enough money, so it was like first-come, first-served, and we said, no, we wanted everybody to get free swimming lessons, so I appreciate you bringing that up. Yeah, and I'd like to... Can I chime in just real quick?

One moment, let me finish, please. Thank you. So, you know, whatever the result was, at least we know, so that way, if the classes aren't free, we can hopefully make that happen. And then moving on, I'm almost done. In addition to that, I think Commissioner Hsu mentioned the temperature, that it's very hot, it's summertime. And what we're noticing is that during summertime, there are a lot of accidents and a lot of tragedies that happen, especially to school-aged children who are at home during the summer. We just ask that people are vigilant and make sure that not only you stay hydrated, but that pool safety is very important. If you have a pool, make sure it's covered, make sure they're the appropriate measures so that if your children are going in and out of the home that you know, so that we can prevent tragedies as well as children in the vehicles to make sure that you're always looking in the rear seat to make sure that there are no children that are in the rear seat when you're exiting your vehicles. Those things are very important. So we urge you here from the commission to be very, very aware, especially during the summer months of safety of adults and children as well. That's it for my public comments. Thank you so much.

through the mayor, just swimming lessons. We had adopted a resolution that accepted Children's Trust. This was actually, there was a presentation from Miami-Dade League of Cities that we attended and the Children's Trust, is that?

Yes, Commissioner, that's through the school board and we do give free swim lessons, not through the school board, but through the schools. So we have elementary schools that come to us during school year and we provide swim lessons to them for free. The Children's Trust, you mean? No, through the county, paid for by the Children's Trust.

Oh, okay, okay.

Yes, so we have an agreement, and you guys voted on with the county, that they're getting funds for the Children's Trust, and we do provide free swim lessons through that program, but during our summer program, or not through that program, there is a fee for swim classes. Got it, thank you.

Mayor Michael Joseph.

Just want to have a, everyone just want to have a speedy meeting. Next item is manager of support.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm going to put myself on a timer here to adhere to your request to get this done as expeditiously as possible. I'd like to start off on a high note by acknowledging two new hires. I'd like to acknowledge our new HR director, Sean Havez. Very HR director, very capable, very competent, and like myself, has a law background. I'd also like to acknowledge our new budget administrator, Bob Anathan. A very educated young gentleman, both Harvard and Yale educated, and we are very, very ecstatic to have him on board. So as the commission may be aware, the initiative pushed forward by my office, the One City, One Team, we are moving that into a fiscal conservation plan. Phase one was strategic workforce optimization. We have moved forward with that phase. That is optimizing some jobs that are here to condense them and also eliminating some jobs where we have top heavy departments. That has resulted in over $3 million in annual savings to date. And we'll continue to move forward that during the budget season. Overall, we have not presented you to the budget, but to this date, we have eliminated almost $11 million in expenses in the budget that we will be presenting. Thank you. And very ecstatic to move that forward. We are next also going into phase two of our One City, One Team fiscal conservation plan, that is fleet optimization. That includes looking at our fleet and every department to see what vehicles can be eliminated, where we can purchase vehicles instead of leasing them, so that at one point in time, that monthly and annual expenses goes away. We are targeting hopefully three million dollars in savings by the end of that phase. Last but not least as far as the expense reduction, phase three will be event management. We have a new law that has been passed by the state which also targets certain types of events considered DEI. Those will not be in the budget moving forward. They will no longer be recurring expenses or anything that we are permitted to fund. So those events will be eliminated and we're also looking at how we can optimize or reduce the expense on some of our larger annual events. So we're targeting up to $500,000 in savings for that phase as well. Next we have revenue generation and optimization. So we're looking at several different ways we can optimize our revenues. As you all know, we have strategic plans being executed across multiple departments looking at our fees versus the market. We'll be bringing those to you at a later date, closer probably likely in the fourth quarter of this year. Just to update you on our ARPA findings, we have, as I have reported previously, the previous CFO reported to the US Treasury that we did not appropriately allocate $3.2 million in ARPA funds. After completing an internal audit, we actually found that number to be closer to $5 million. However, we do have a strategy that we are pushing forward on, and that is to reallocate those funds towards salaries, which is a permissible use. We haven't gotten a response back from the U.S. Treasury yet, which has demanded the return of $3.2 million in ARPA funds, but that is the position that we're taking as the City of North Miami Beach so that we don't have to return any of the ARPA funds. We are also preparing through our budget the impacts of HB 1451, which would be an annual loss of $9 million. So while we celebrate the savings that we have realized so far, we still have a lot of work to do. In addition, as you all know, and it's been much discussed, the property tax exemption increase is going to be on the ballot. If it hits 60%, we have to be prepared to absorb those losses as well. So we will continue to execute budgeting saving strategies and continue to share those with the commission as we find them. Next, I'd like to discuss the plan again for the building department. We have that is an enterprise fund. So those funds that are received by state law in the in the enterprise fund for building department cannot be intermingled with the general fund. And we are supposed to have, according to state law, for a city our size, no more than $4 million in our building department. We are more than double that, and we must find a way to reduce those in order to comply with state laws. We are looking at several different strategies, including establishing for the City of North Miami Beach a school, for permit clerks and building officials, which currently the state of Florida does not have, which would make the city of North Miami Beach a premier location for all city employees for building licensing and permitting services. We'll continue to keep you updated on that as that plan moves forward. I'd like to also acknowledge just very, very quickly the work of the communications division with our Centennial block parties. Please stay in tune for those. They have been greatly successful. Next, our finance department. We have two departments where we have significant challenges in finance department being one, uh community development being the other uh finance department i am very very excited to announce that we have an incoming cfo with the cpa that starts next monday We've already hired, as you've heard tonight, a new budget administrator, and he also has bringing forth with him a new assistant. So our budget team is complete. I'd also like to acknowledge the work of CFLG and CB's proclamations. As you all are aware, for the first time in three years, the city of North Miami Beach submitted its annual state required audit on time. Yes, which... which allows us to avoid state financial oversight which is just another scenario that as your city manager i was unwilling to go back to um so very very excited uh to um avoid that um there are chain there are challenges that we are still facing in the finance department um however we are addressing them as we as they come we did receive a rs tax bill for 9.2 million dollars However, before you get alarmed, we believe that that is a booking error and we're looking to get that addressed without paying a single additional penny. That's the stance that we have at this stage and we're going to continue to work on that. But since it's such a large number, I believe it prudent to not only let our residents know, but of course to inform the commission that we did receive this bill. Bank reconciliations which are supposed to be done on a 30-day basis are still significantly behind. However, we are making progress. We were nine months behind in doing our bank reconciliations and now we're six months. IN ADDITION, THE CITY HAS HIRED ADDITIONAL SUPPORT, WHICH IS ON THE AGENDA TONIGHT, FOR US TO ADDRESS OUR ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE DEPARTMENT AND OUR ACCOUNTS PAYABLE DEPARTMENT'S ESTABLISHED SOP PROCESSES AND PROCEDURES SO THAT THE FINANCE DEPARTMENT CAN MOVE MORE SMOOTHLY. Skipping to human resources, I'd like to announce that as of next month, for the first time in several years, all city employees, that's every single employee for the city of North Murray Beach will receive a performance evaluation, so.

Yeah.

And we see the employees are applauding that. That is also because what we will find in the budget, what you will find in the budget, which I'm praying for the support of the commission with, are opportunities for merit increases. We will intend to put in the budget merit increase for 3% for all employees that earn them. They're not going to be obligatory, but for those employees that are here that are providing exceptional service and their supervisors or management identify them, that should be an opportunity for them to increase their salaries. In addition, we find that having not had a pay plan for several seasons, that some of our salaries are sub-market. And for that reasons, we want to at least have a COLA included in the budget, which will have up to 3% cost of living increase for all employees. That will be in the budget. It will be covered. And I pray for the support of the commission with that. Next, I have a couple announcements with the library to address Commissioner Floriman, excuse me, Vice Mayor, and I have my money ready, Vice Mayor Floriman. I will meet with the Friends of the Library. Again, I have to state on the record, many of the things that they shared tonight were my first time hearing them. so i have to get a picture of what their concerns are and i have been copied on a few emails and that has been addressed to others i know there was some exchange back and forth with the hr director and i know that there's been some emails submitted to the commission but i just haven't been able to completely stay on top of those i do have an open door policy i had met with the chair of the friends of the library she has my personal cell phone number but i haven't um she hasn't reached out to me in some time so the depth of those concerns. I haven't had a chance to dive into them, but I certainly will. There are some other announcements that I was prepared to discuss with regard to the library, and that's the building repairs. So there are some items that Commissioner Smith had requested with regards to the repair of the door. There were some other items that I had observed that had been longstanding for several years. and we have the funding to get those repaired and we are executing those. In fact, some of them should be complete already. In addition, we will be placing in the budget bathroom repairs, as that is a request by Commissioner Smith and several of our residents and employees. And also, it's a safety concern and hazard, which is why it's gonna be a priority for us. In fact, in some of the bathrooms, you don't know if you're in the male or the female based on how the doors are positioned until you're actually in the room. And consider that we have what are considered at-risk populations, which means elderly and youth,

uh that is certainly unacceptable position which we're going to uh be addressing um next for parks and recreation uh yes absolutely thank you mr manager yes um i know that was brought up um the cylinder was brought up like some type of uh stuff going on over there in regards to library but i just wanted to clarify is there any investigation ongoing currently or just to clarify

So I'll bring the chief of police up to answer that question for you.

Okay.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners. Yes, there is currently an open investigation that we're looking into. And until we resolve that matter, we cannot release any information regarding to that.

Can you repeat it one more time?

Yes, there is an investigation. There is an investigation pertaining to the library.

To the library.

Okay.

Do you have anything additional, Mr. Mayor?

No, no, no. I just, like I said, I thought it was going to, I thought there was, there was not nothing ongoing, but if you're saying that it is, I just thought you were going to clarify it. I know the chief is going to come up.

Mr. Mayor, could I just... Oh, Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I just want to ask you, because I'm hearing two things here tonight. The friends of the library indicated that the library's not under the manager the library's under the library association So will you? When you bring back your report the next time will you clarify that for all of us? Absolutely would be my pleasure Thank you and then the thing about the library that we want to make sure when you bring back your report is What what going forward? What are can the public expect? Can they expect most of what they had? I just want I want to include that the report. That's all.

Absolutely. Her statement, Commissioner Smith's statement was she wanted understanding and outreach as for what the public can expect. And I would just like to succinctly say, now we can put that in a report and explain it by detail, but I'd just like to say very succinctly, we are fighting desperately for that library. There have been no cuts to the budget to the library at this stage. That doesn't mean that there won't be cuts forthcoming, But we've done everything we can to preserve two departments, and that is the police department and the library. So that having been said, some of the animosity that we are receiving from the Friends of the Library is somewhat of a shock to us, because the staff is actually quite ecstatic with some of the overview. Now obviously I'm not into the daily operations of the library, so I don't know some of the things that Mrs. Pillinger said, I'm unaware of and this pencil was told that you can't put this pencil here and we've always put this pencil here. Why are you moving my pencil? I may not be aware of those issues, but as far as as far as the structure and organizational oversight of the library. in my monthly meetings with, or quarterly meetings, I should say, with the library staff, they seem to express support. And rightly so, since we have, you know, gone overboard to preserve all of the services that are currently, and positions that are currently provided at our library. If they're hearing no further questions, yes.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The question I have, and thank you for the update, Mr. Manager. Yes. Can you give us, when you mentioned the $11 million savings and the $500,000 that you also mentioned for events reduction, can you also provide line items to us of what will be removed that would help us kind of get a better screenshot of what's happening? So if you can give us a comparison of what's being extracted from the current budget to the next one.

Absolutely, Commissioner. That's already been prepared and it will be in a presentation by the budget administrator. Absolutely. And I'd like to say Parks and Recreation, we will be announcing a date for the Highland Village Splash Pad. So we're very, very excited about that. It has been a long-term coming, and it will be within the next 30 days. I'd also like to acknowledge an occurrence. One of the things that administration has put together is an emergency plan. We have five parks that actually can house residents on a temporary basis. However, we do not have generators for them. So when the power goes out, they lose power, just like the residents in the neighborhood. So one of the plans we've put together and that you will see in the budget is a plan for during a power outage for there to be generators at every single of our five major parks so that residents, especially the vulnerable, such as the children and elderly, will have access to air conditioning. In addition, they could also go to the park for electricity to charge their phones or devices that they may need, health care devices and things like that. So we actually got to activate this plan recently, and I really want to acknowledge we had a list of employees from Public Works, from Public Utilities, from my office, from Parks and Recs. We had a recent power outage in Highland Village. Middle of the night, I get a text message from our resident mayor there, Tricia. that there was a power outage in Highland Village. So I said to the team, I said, now's the time for us to see if this plan works. And amazingly, it did. We were able to pull a generator from public utilities and water, take it over to Highland Village, implement an engagement with the boards to service that so that we could put power into that building. We got AC there and we got electricity there. And we sent text messages out through Ms. Tricia to let the residents know if they did not have AC and they needed AC, they could come to the Highland Village Parks and AC would be available there to them and also electricity. So we're very excited to- I have a question.

Thank you. So you said you got a text or a call in the middle of the night from- Highland Village, right? So it wasn't Eastern Shores, so you didn't come running to Eastern Shores, right? That's correct. Just to clarify that other communities get service in the middle of the night. Okay. The other thing, you said that this is a plan for the five parks. Can you tell me the five parks?

Yes, it is. Andy, can you provide the list of those parks? He can rattle them off easier than I can.

You have Yolita Community Center, Allen Park Community Center, Highland Village obviously Community Center, well, Washington Park when it comes online, and Allen Park.

All right, so when you build Washington Park, are you already gonna build it with a generator already?

My request will be to assess what the additional costs will be. But since we are building this time, I'm so glad you said that because that might be a change order that we will be bringing to the commission so that it will already be outfitted for the generator once it's constructed.

yes so wait so the eastern shores tiny tot lot is not getting a generator just asking so you just asking i'm i'm joking we don't have space to put anything on that tot lot i'm just trying to it doesn't even have a closed in building yeah you probably don't we don't have it mr mayor for the mayor yes

You know Highland Village, when we had no electricity, we brought an emergency vehicle to Highland Village just so people could come, elderly especially, and cool off for an hour. just so people could come and cool off for an hour. And I remember we brought ice at the time, Commissioner Hayman brought ice. So this is an excellent program. But the county does use North Miami Beach when there's a hurricane coming, North Miami Beach High School. so my question is does the liability insurance that we carry for the children after school would that cover this as well that everybody's coming in when there's no electricity and we have a generator going i'm just making sure the city's protected with the additional responsibility when there's so many elements that are not good for good circumstances.

Understood. Absolutely, we can do a review, but generally speaking, whenever that park is open and it's being housed by our staff, our insurance should cover it.

Okay? All the parks that you'll utilize as that kind of thing, just to make sure our insurance doesn't need to be upgraded.

Yes.

Okay.

And last but certainly not least, there's an update on our police department and the activities they're doing. The police department partnered with my office on an item that was sponsored by Commissioner Smith, has put out into each and every community a Safety First initiative where we are bringing the community policing service into the community to answer their questions, to educate them, to let them know about our programming. And it's been extremely, extremely successful. And so I'm excited to continue that. And so every community, every community is reached.

And take it into the schools. We want to take it into schools in the fall.

If I can keep up with you, Commissioner, absolutely. Next, not all news, as every time we're in the news for a bad reason, I get a call from Commissioner Smith saying, Mr. Manager, we're in the news again. But I'd also like to say, Commissioner, that not every time we're in the news, it's for a bad reason. And for that reason, I want to acknowledge our police department, which is going to be in the Miami Herald discussing their strategies of how they were able to bring our homicide rate down by 75%. I'll get you those dates. I don't know the exact dates it's gonna be out, but I'm gonna make sure that every member of the commission and the mayor get a copy. So, and with that, that concludes my manager's report.

City City attorney Thank you. Thank you mayor a couple of things first I just want to mention that Unfortunately, we drew another lawsuit last week. It's a public records matter. It was filed by the attorney for a former chief of staff Miss modest team, so we've assigned it to the outside counsel that's defending the modest in case and and there have been some proceedings on it. They're moving forward. The manager, the clerk, and the assistant clerk have responded aggressively with our outside counsel to try to put that matter to bed. I would like to address briefly the item that the vice mayor asked me to comment on. We have for a number of years, certainly long before I was in the attorney chair, we have a special magistrate that handles most of our code enforcement matters. We also still have a code enforcement board composed of citizens that handles certain matters, although frankly the delineation between which is which is not entirely clear to me. I've heard some representations from people about what the difference is. I'm not sure that's completely correct. It is true that I have expressed an opinion on a few occasions and talked to the code enforcement department about the utility of having both. i'm not aware i haven't done an exhaustive search but i'm not aware of any city that has both a code enforcement board and a code enforcement magistrate maybe there is one but typically cities have one or the other not both and the I guess modern trend has been away from citizens boards and towards professionalizing this with code enforcement magistrates. There is a cost to it. But it's not a great cost. They actually work very cheaply, all things considered. And we recover a great deal of the costs that we pay to the magistrates. Typically, when they issue any order, they add in costs. Now, if you're found not in violation, obviously, we don't collect costs from somebody who's found not to be in violation. But most of it, we do end up collecting back in costs. I have expressed that opinion.

Excuse me one second.

Yes.

In code enforcement, the... Yeah. In code enforcement, the thing that we're, as a city, want to do is we want compliance. So we don't want to fine and make the resident hurt more by ever coming before us. And that's the buffer that the code enforcement board is. They can hear that. They can hear the resident that they're in trouble or anything like that. It's a better sounding board than somebody just saying, boom, boom, you know.

and lower the gavel that's just my let me say that my own experience you know i sometimes my one of my partners handles code enforcement magistrate but i've certainly done plenty of them and my experience is that the magistrates are usually pretty lenient we encourage our magistrate not to strictly be by the book We frequently agree that whatever is actually owed should be mitigated. You're completely correct when you say that the philosophy is to get compliance. People often misunderstand that this is like a revenue source. It is not. We're not seeking to acquire revenue from our own residents in this fashion. We are seeking to make sure that the codes are applied so that their neighbors have good quality of life. But that said, I find the magistrates generally to be very lenient, and we often agree and ask the magistrate to mitigate even after the matter has been concluded. We just won't do that until compliance is achieved. But the point I was going to get at is, at this point, I haven't done anything about it. I've expressed an opinion a few times. The problem I won't say, I'm not trying to finger point at this board, although sometimes we have trouble getting a quorum for this board, which is a separate issue. You never have that with the magistrate because we have several in rotation and they really work very cheaply. But there is sometimes a tendency, and I've seen this over many years that I've been in practice, the people appointed to a code enforcement board may be wonderful, they may be fair-minded, they may be sympathetic, as you say, Commissioner, but sometimes they think it's their job to be code enforcement officers, and they bring matters to the code enforcement board themselves, and that's a bit unseemly, where, you know, you're the one bringing it and then judging the thing that you've brought. That's why many cities have moved away from them. I won't say they're every city. Some, particularly in long-standing cities, have maintained them, and our city's going to be 100. So at this point, it is an idea. It certainly would have to be discussed a lot more before we would even bring something to the commission to consider it. So we haven't moved ahead with it. We haven't brought it. Right now there's no concrete plan to do so, but it is something that may lead to greater efficiency and to better code enforcement. But again, that's not up to me in any way. That would be a matter, if we moved forward with it, we'd bring it to you, but we would first have conversations with the manager and with the code enforcement department underneath him and see whether the idea actually holds water. So I hope that answers your question as to where we are. Right now, it's just an idea, and we've done nothing about it. I do want to address a couple of things. I want to talk just for a moment about two items that were moved from consent to legislation. They are two settlements. I'll ask you that we get to them. We brought settlements to you before. There's a limit. on how much we can approve administratively, and that requires not just the manager, but there's a committee with a mayoral appointment as well. That number is $50,000. We don't come to the commission often because most things we resolve turn out to be often for nuisance value. So we get them resolved. But on a couple of occasions, we've been here before for things that exceed that. I understand what you say, Commissioner Smith, about needing time to absorb it. You know I respect that and that you absolutely, I know, you read everything. I know it because I get the questions from you when you read it if you have a question. But these are... Nothing special, but I did get some inquiries this time, a little surprisingly, because one of them is a big 62.5. It's just barely over the $50,000 threshold. The other's a little larger, but typically I have not had questions, so in this case, in response to those questions, I went ahead and put a little package together. My partner, Mr. Johnson, who, does most of our PI litigation, attended the mediations on these. He put together a memo. The memo about these items did go to the city manager back in, I don't know, several weeks ago. I forget the exact date. But These are very simple matters. One commissioner asked me if we had executive sessions about them, and the answer is no. I mean, we have, this city chooses to be self-insured. And I've raised questions about that in the past, but that's where we're at. And it's a budget issue. It might be going to the League of Cities Insurance, for instance, might be more expensive. So that's simply not an issue that we are able to determine. The manager is struggling with budget, and certainly we're not about to impose additional costs. But I mean, we've got like 30 of these going at any time. We've had dozens of these little cases. We just are in the process of settling one. for $5,000. You can't litigate a case for that little money. It would cost us considerably more money to litigate than paying somebody off $5,000. I don't think that the commission is interested in having five executive sessions a week on these very small matters where there's a $5,000 settlement. That's why we don't do it. Through the mayor, may I? If there's something substantive, excuse me, let me just... Yeah, you can complete it. If there's something, you know, of any real substance, then we can have one if that's desired, but the memo from my partner that's attached to each of these two is very simple. It's about two paragraphs long. It's very self-explanatory. And these are not in any way complicated matters. When we get to them in legislation, which I hope we will, then we can take a look at what's in the package. And if The commission is troubled by it. Well, certainly. And, you know, we'll respect whatever your decision is. But I honestly think if you look at those two, you will see they are extremely straightforward and not complicated. And they don't require a great deal of study to see what's going on with them.

Okay, I just see here now. I just open it. I'm not reading it, but trying to see what it was involved and tells me a payment of $52,091.03 to one party payment of 90,000 payable another a payment of a 111,883 due by October 3rd 2031. And then put you into for statue 626 $992.96. The total cost to the North Miami Beach. For the payments, I don't want to go into detail because I'm not sure what the number is when I try to read. That's why I need to digest it.

Understood, but Commissioner, let me say, if you look at the last page on that item, not the resolution, not the release, There's a memo from Amon Johnson, one of my partners at Greenspoon Martyr, and it's a very short memo and it explains very quickly and very succinctly what this is about.

I just feel, quite frankly, Mr. Attorney, I feel like we need this information. Without an executive session, it's not a question of is it not standard, it's not a question is it not a simple, easy to understand reason that we, it could have gone to court, it could have cost us another couple hundred thousand, we negotiated, it took you a couple months, but we got it down. It's a question if it's the city's money, And I want to understand how the city's money came to that conclusion when we're saying yes. We're just saying yes.

As the memo, have you located that, Commissioner? It's the last item. There's a similar one in the package for the one that's 625. And basically, if you want to talk about it now, I'm happy to. This involves an 11-year-old boy who was injured at a city camp. He was on a slide.

Well, I wasn't going to say that it was pediatric and all those things because I don't want to, it also says confidential.

We are not giving any names. The name is protected, but confidential. What happened is we had a camp counselor, as my partner recounts. We went to a mediation and impasse. We went to a second mediation. This boy sustained permanent injuries to his elbow. He was knocked off the slide by another boy. The reason, the amount for the city is 141. 142. Yeah, or 142,000 and change, and what it reflects is because he's not of age, We're paying a certain amount now to the attorney. The balance, I think it was 90 or whatever it was, is being paid basically into a fund like an annuity that will hold the money And when this boy turns 18, he'll receive the money and it'll be a slightly larger amount of 111 that's called a structured settlement. But we are paying the money. The cost to the city is 142. And again, this is a boy.

So we're not paying 142. We're going to pay 200 and 50. No, ma'am. Three.

No, ma'am. Please.

When he's 18 years old and he gets the second amount.

We are not gonna pay that second amount. We're paying like 50 now to his attorney and we're putting, I think it's 92 or something into a structured settlement fund. it will pay him 111 when he turns 18 but the amount we're paying into that fund which will accrue to his benefit till he becomes 18 is 92. so the cost to us is 142. is 92 part of the 142 yes ma'am okay 92 plus 50 to the lawyer now let me add As my partner points out, we did a pre-interview with the young camp counselor, I think he was 18 or something, and he said no, that there was nothing improper, that the young man was not his group, but he had an eye on him, and he was never out of the eye of our staff. And that made it very defensible. When he was actually deposed, the camp counselor changed his story from what he told our firm and said, yeah, actually, he wasn't watching this young man. He should have been. It was wrong. He was sorry. And that undermined our case. considerably and also there's a pretty good sympathy factor for this poor young 11 year old boy so we reached a settlement that's a little higher than we normally would because it's a young boy who has permanent elbow damage so that's the reason for it and you know i mean we could give you more information if you want to know. But that's the bottom line.

I understand what you're saying.

That's why we're doing it.

But you understand as a commissioner, and I understand it, and I'm kind of reading it and seeing it. I didn't even open up the second one. But I'm taking what you tell me is how I'm voting. and I would rather vote on what's written on the paper because that's what's gonna be the resolution or the law or however it is. That's what's gonna be. That's why I read it because when there's mistakes, it say on line 12, 50,000 and on line 14 for the same thing, it says 64,000. That goes into the record and in the end, you don't know if you voted for 50,000 or 64,000.

Well, there's not that confusion in this resolution, I don't believe. And it is all in writing. It is all... The release is not just a resolution. The release itself is attached. In this case, there's a separate agreement about putting the money into this annuity so it will grow and the young man won't have it spent up before he turns 18. And we have the memo from my partner explaining what happened and justifying it. That is all in writing. You don't have to take... My word for it, it's all in writing.

I just have to have time to read it.

I just, let me say again, we brought matters like this to the commission before and typically, you know, they're a little bit less. They're more like the 62-5 and I haven't ever had one that's had this much of an inquiry in the future. since there seems to be, I've had multiple commissioners ask about it, so we'll make sure in the future that as opposed to simply advising the manager by memo that we provide this kind of backup if we have to come to the commission. But like I said, I could point out multiple cases we've done this before and It has not resulted in this level of, well, I need to see that. I need the details. Typically, they've been approved. But if that's what the commission wants, we'll do that moving forward. Absolutely.

It was probably one of the 11 times I said I can't read it and pay attention to the public at the same time. Thank you.

Before we go is that no, thank you. No, no, I'm saying is that what you would like for future?

Yes. Oh, I got that loud and clear.

I just want to make sure that's the yes. All right.

So I want to see what I'm voting for prior to sitting in this chair.

Like this type of legislation that you'd want to have this beforehand. Yes, I do.

That's understood. I've had not just yours, Commissioner. I had two or three inquiries from members of the commission. That's a first. But moving forward, I respect that and that's what we'll do, period. Commissioner Hsu.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm kind of like, you know, I don't want to ask about this stuff because usually when we're paying a settlement of anything in this amount over the 50,000 threshold, we always get an executive session where we get to ask all the questions that we want to. Now, Mr. Attorney, when you say $5,000 doesn't need an executive session, I completely agree. But you saying that 142 and another settlement totaling over $200,000, I think we absolutely need an executive session. There was no conversation about that. I have a question, though. When did this case happen? Like, when did this accident where the kid broke his elbow or whatever it is, when did that happen?

I believe, again, I'm not the one who did the mediation. They went to mediations. We reflected the results. I believe it's well over a year old. well over a year old i believe that yes i may be wrong i don't think it's contained in the memo so it wasn't like a rush like all of a sudden we decided to have an agreement and then we decided like okay you know what let's settle it let me see if i can get you a specific answer hold on a moment i may have that info

I only see the email from July 21. I see Armand Johnson's memo July 8. Then there's an addendum to the agreement and a settlement agreement with a mutual release. in there i do not see dates of when the accident happened so if it was well over a year why are we hearing about it now this is what bothers me because it's not a small amount of money and you know if they could prove that it is absolutely true that there was negligence on our part of course like the kid has lost his elbow i mean i don't know which part of his arm but Just the fact that that happened to him, of course we do want to subsidize, and that money that they're going to get at the end when it is invested, yes, $111,000. What I'm concerned about is when was a case filed? How come we knew nothing about it? It's in the amount that is over your $50,000 threshold.

Well, let me say clearly, we did not initially agree to that. The matter was, as is reflected here, the matter was mediated on two different occasions. At the first occasion, there was an impasse at 190,000 demand, and we refused to pay that.

Got it.

So until the second mediation, which occurred... Not that long ago. I don't have the exact date in front of me because, again, I don't have the entire file here. But at the second mediation, it probably finally was we reached an agreement at that 142, 181, 86. There is an order. from Judge Beatrice Buchko, entered a few weeks ago, that requires this to be concluded by August 4th because of the proceedings in front of her. So again, we don't typically look for executive sessions unless there is some real, uncertainty, some question about the course to be taken. In this case, the employee of the city went into the deposition to our surprise because he told us differently in pre-deposition preparation and just basically confessed error on behalf of the city and said, yes, as it turns out, this boy was not being supervised. He was not being watched. At that point, that sufficiently undermines our defense that although our number was much lower, we went to a mediation. We reached an agreement, but that mediation is always subject to to the approval of the city.

What number is much lower? Can you clarify that?

I'm sorry?

You said our number is much lower. What number was that?

Commissioner, if I could call Mr. Johnson, I would. He happens to be out of the country tonight. But the fact is, I don't know if our initial number, but my understanding is it was below 100,000 initially because we thought that we had a pretty good defense based on the testimony of the witness. Once the witness recanted what he told us,

So it is actually below $100,000. The $52,000 was the attorney fees.

I don't understand what you just said.

Well, it just split up.

You see it. Jeffrey R. Davis, PA, is $52,000. The payment to MetLife Assignment Company that is going to grow in equity or grow in value when he's 18, that's the $90,000.

So either way, my point in saying this is... You are misunderstanding me completely. I said the city's position at the first mediation where they stuck at 190, my understanding is our total offer, I believe, was below 100. After the deposition of the witness was taken, we approximately split the difference between our... below 100,000 previous offer, and they're 190,000 demand, and we came to a number roughly halfway between those two, which is the 142, which is both the 50,000 to the attorney and the 92 that's going into the annuity. That's why it's 142, and that number was a significant increase from the city's previous position at the prior mediation, which I believe to be less than 100, and they stuck at 190. And I think what happened in mediation, as it often does, having mediated hundreds of cases, I think, is you try to find something in between. We are self-insured. we have a tremendous amount of these cases we probably have 30 pi cases going at any given time many of them have been resolved usually they're resolved below that 50 000 threshold sometimes far below it like i said for five or for ten my firm does not litigate these cases to run up attorney's fees to the city. That costs the city money. So instead of trying to make some amount of fees for the firm, we always try to resolve these economically. That is our mindset. which reduces not only how much we're paying out because we're aggressive in mediation, but because we're not charging significant fees to litigate something that we could buy out of more cheaply. This one is a little more expensive than usual.

Mr. Attorney, there was a confession from our side. There was no litigation involved, no needed litigation. Right. It was all a settlement. Well, you said one of our one of the staff members went in to testify and basically admitted fault. Now, I'm not right. So why would we litigate? We settled. That's the point. That's what I'm trying to say. You're telling me that you're saving the city money by not litigating. I'm like, what is there to litigate? There's nothing to litigate to begin with. I'm asking you about when this happened, when this, I mean, why is it that we can't bring this item into an executive session and then make a decision with more information when Mr. Armand Johnson gets back in town?

Because we have an order. In this particular case, Judge Buchko has entered an order.

When was that order given?

July 7th, the day before we wrote the email to the city manager. July 7th, and she gave us to August 4th. Now that's because the matter had been mediated and once it's mediated, we have to step forward. We cannot settle without the approval of the city. We have to have it. In cases above 50, it requires the city commission to approve it. And I brought matters to you before like this. And as I said, it hasn't been the subject of much inquiry. We have big cases like Mall Lake that we've had executive sessions on. We have big cases like our suit against Miami-Dade County that we have executive sessions on. These are difficult cases. problematic cases that require the input of the city these typically this is an unusually large one but there's a reason for it these other matters typically we don't have executive sessions because as i said you you'd have five of them a week There's dozens of them. There are lots of them. And they're mostly very small. You know, the ones above 50 are few and far between. But we brought those to you before, like the 62.5. Yes, this one's a little larger because it involves a child who will have this problem for a very long time. And because we had a witness change their testimony. And so because of that... We've made it, we reached an agreement that was way above what we had been offering previously when the witness testimony changed. And that's why we brought it to you.

Thank you. My point is telling you is we had to, we knew nothing about it until the judge already placed, put an order or made a decision, had a verdict out, decided or what's that?

Her decision.

Her decision, excuse me. after the judge had already made the decision, we were not informed at all about the whole situation. That is the problem that I have. Second of all, you bring this to us when it's already said and done. Like, this is like, here's the bill. Take care of it.

No, ma'am. You have the right to reject the settlement. It cannot be imposed on you. You have the right to do so. You would do so, frankly, against our legal advice because the cities, we wouldn't agree to this number if we didn't, excuse me, ma'am, I'm speaking.

No, because what you're saying to me is not the point that I'm trying to make.

The city's exposure. I am not saying that we are not going to take the settlement.

I am telling you that you should have done a better job to inform us and gotten us an executive session. I don't know what you don't understand about this. And then here we're going.

I would appreciate it if you would not raise your voice.

I was just too close to the microphone. So I was gonna say that I would demand a special session and if we have till August 4th, then we should all discuss this and find out where things went wrong so that we can avoid this happening in the future.

I don't know what you mean by things went wrong.

Where things went wrong was when- Went wrong with your duty of what you were supposed to do with us. You were supposed to come to us and ask us for an executive session. Hey, you know, there is a settlement being set at 190,000. We are going to negotiate it down. You did the same thing when we went through Duxory, when we went through all other cases that we had settled in an executive session before. That's all I'm asking. I'm asking that we should sit down, have Mr. Arman here. I don't know, is he going to be on vacation until August 4th? Can we have somebody else explain the situation? I want to know. The city is going to pay over $200,000.

Mr. Johnson, I'll be back. Well, first of all, don't conflate the two cases, please. One of them is at $62,500. It's $12,500 above $12,500.

no executive session there either mr attorney no executive session there either mr attorney the mayor gave me the floor to inject something if i may there's three things that are going to be involved here very important things number one i'll make the motion to stay an extra hour so we can really do the agenda number two my all my years all my years prior to this we had a preliminary meeting, they have it in Aventura, you wanna compare us to Aventura, you wanna compare us to Sunny Isles, you have a meeting with all the department heads to answer questions, and you go over the agenda a week before, and you sit down like men and women without arguing, without these delays, without this, you sit down like the people that they elected you to be, and you vote on what you reviewed. If there's something pertinent that the public certainly should be privy to, you can bring it up at the time and say, the question was asked to the police chief and the police chief responded so that we have the answer. This back and forth at every meeting Honestly, though, Mr. Attorney, this delay is aggravating. It's aggravating. You know I love you. I know you many, many years. But for us to vote on something, I looked. I had to look for two paragraphs while we're waiting for people to come up to speak. I looked at what you have here for us to vote on. There's no way we could vote on this that has four days before the deadline. There's no way. We don't even...

Commissioner, if I might.

I didn't say that. I'm talking about what is in front of me that I haven't read.

Commissioner, if I might.

No, you cannot right now, Mr. Geller. One minute. One minute, because I have a third thing. Of course, ma'am. One minute. I have a third thing. The third thing is, the public came to hear, here's what's on the agenda, how are you handling it? With all respect, Commissioner Hsu, I understand your aggravation, I have it too, but this isn't the place to, once you say what you want, to go back and forth and back and forth and back and forth the night of the commission meeting. This is an agenda, this is the reputation we have as a city because we don't control ourselves. And I just feel very strongly, I know it's not gonna happen because we can't even get a quorum to come when we have a meeting that's not on the day of the council. We came tonight with 15 or 12 or 10 people to honor and we started the meeting at five after with two people. With two people. The mayor who runs the meeting, with all respect, I don't know his emergency, I don't know, but if the meeting had started at six for the council meeting, he would have been here at 6.15. I'm not saying it's derogatory towards him. He had an emergency. It's not my business. The thing that I'm saying is how are we supposed to get us to an executive session? How are we supposed to get us to a free meeting for a meeting? We don't show up.

Hang on, hang on. Commissioner, if I might, let me say. That was my third appointment. Yeah, let me just say, Commissioner, if this commission decided to move to the pre-meeting structure that Aventura has, I assure you, I would be happy to be there. If that's what you want to do, It's not, to my knowledge, ever been done in North Miami Beach. It's never operated that way.

With all respect, it's always operated that way while I was here. A pre-meeting? A pre-meeting, always. We were on the fourth floor. We sat... It was a two-hour meeting. You had Mr. Kassan was always there. The public was on one side. The employees were on the other side, and we were on that circular table that was there for every meeting.

Before my time, and Commissioner, if that's what you want to do, I'll be there.

With respect, you'd have to get the majority vote to agree, and I think you or somebody from your firm would have to be there because we like you. Of course.

But I'm just saying this to you. That's not how the commission's been operating since I'm here. If you want to do that, then that's your choice, not mine. I'd be happy to participate. It would probably be me most of the time. But, you know, if we... Look, if you... If this commission... insists on an executive session, Mr. Johnson will be back next week. We could schedule one on this matter next week if that's what you want to do for this settlement. I've told you the reasons. I've explained to you why we're paying more than usual. But if you want to have an executive session on this matter next week, we'll be happy to call one. But keep in mind, that after the executive session, There has to be a special commission meeting too because matters are not approved at executive session.

They're discussed. You're answering me with all respect. That executive session wasn't my issue. I didn't need an executive session.

Look, even in regards to how we do our commission conference, it's gotten from doing a couple of recognitions to taking an hour and a half. We have to limit that. If we were to limit that, we could do a lot more pre-meeting.

Yeah, that's, wait, it's on here?

I think there's an item on the agenda about that. That speaks to that?

Discussion item.

Oh, it's a discussion item. So I think we can further hash this out. I think we should limit what we, like, how many, you know, depending on... I would say I'm fine with one per person. I'm fine with that.

I did zero.

But what I'm saying is that just, and unless it's an extraordinary event, I mean, we can make accommodations, but if it's just like, if it's one per person, I think we can hold to that and everything, and subsequent, the remainder of the time, we can focus on pre-meeting.

We recognize tonight each one was very deserving. I understand.

I have one last thing.

I just want to say, by the way, on that one, when we get to the item, I'm going to ask you to approve it. But your alternative is to say we want an executive session and a special commission meeting on that one item. item or on both of them and they could be scheduled next week mr johnson will be back i believe on sunday so we could schedule next week if you don't want to approve them but i'm going to ask that you do approve them and if it's not your pleasure then your pleasure could be an executive session and a special commission meeting lastly there has been a considerable amount of discussion tonight concerning the Charter Review Amendment. Let me simply say that considering that we're gonna get to that item on the agenda probably pretty soon, and that my report did not begin till May of this year, 9 p.m., three hours into when the meeting was supposed to start, it would be my preference to simply address the issues relating to the charter review amendment, which I also think is pretty simple, but I'd prefer, if it's okay with the commission, that we can discuss that when we get there on the agenda. Can we speak on that now?

Go ahead. Your pleasure. Part of the problem is we just spent a half hour, 45 minutes, no offense, on things that we're going to have to discuss again.

we don't we don't have to discuss it but okay but just so that's work no no i i understand what you're saying commissioner turnoff but let's discuss the chart please because just can we go on yeah i make a motion that we move up the charter item to now no we can do yeah second all right second all right all right okay go ahead speak on thank you okay let me let me try to do this quickly

I understand there's been some consternation about it, but there's nothing that's not transparent about it. Now, you recently passed an ordinance that says that we're supposed to receive items two weeks before a commission meeting and have at least a full week to prepare them to go on the agenda. And that's what you just passed, and that did not occur here. That just was impossible here. You know, I work on this stuff, and I know there have been all those meetings. I attended every one of those charter committee meetings that went late into the night. I was there for each and every one of them.

And how much did you affirm charge?

Pardon?

How much is your firm charge?

We haven't prepared a bill. It's just however many hours the committee met at the rate, the 2.75 an hour rate.

I'm trying to look back. I was on two charter things. I don't think the attorney charged us ever. I think they made that part of their.

I don't think so, but we can look. But this was something I had arranged back with a prior manager.

With who?

Mr. Diaz. But that said, let me just, because it's not, it happens every 10 years, Commissioner. It's not usual and customary as part of the regular job. That notwithstanding, I want to try and get to this issue and not be distracted if we could. We can talk about that any other time you want to, or at the end, but let me just get to the issue. We met last week Tuesday night for almost six hours going through the charter thing. I work on these. I'm part of a team, frankly, with the clerk, and I want to acknowledge the clerk and the deputy clerk for extraordinary efforts on it. It would have been great if we'd been able to present it sooner, but there's also the matter that we had to have the commission find a night when the commission could get a quorum and participation to go through it. We were ready sooner. And quite frankly, the committee did work very hard, meeting almost every week for quite a number of weeks, but with deference to my bosses here, You also could have appointed the Charter Review Committee a little sooner, so it wouldn't have been so last minute. That was not my office that made that choice. Now, from last Tuesday night, when we went through it and made a lot of progress, as you know, my colleague, the clerk, was away on bereavement leave for a week, a young woman died tragically in the family, and she was gone. I want to acknowledge her, because when she got back Monday, having been gone, she and I worked on the phone trying to bring this to conclusion. She was on past 11 p.m. last night with me, and after we concluded working together, I sat up a great deal of last night working to bring this to finality. I got the stuff from the assistant clerk who was working her head off with her boss gone. And she got it to me Thursday after we were practically into Wednesday morning with the meeting. And then a follow up on Friday and some follow up from one of the committee members as well who I've acknowledged before, Mr. Templer, who was very helpful. And that left us having to pull it together and also the clerk was here Monday. I did my best to get it done. I had hoped to get it done. yesterday as it turned out even working mostly through the night it went into today and then it needed some work and then it needed a little more it was later in the day than i had hoped and to the extent that that is a problem i will be happy to own that and i will certainly apologize that we couldn't get it sooner, but we worked at it. We had the meeting, the commission, wasn't able to meet the week prior, which would have eased that path considerably, and nobody anticipated that the clerk would be out all week, and she's worked her tail off on this, and so is Ms. Pierre, and I have to acknowledge them both. I wish I could have got to it sooner. I truly do. But let me say substantively, okay? There are only three major items that the commission chose to put forward. There are only three significant ones. They're very simple. One is the change of election date. There's a number of things that are ancillary to that if that passes and extending the terms and all that but that's only if related to it if it passes a second one is that there be mandated a second meeting anytime that the commission does not finish an entire agenda that there be a meeting within fifteen days to address it Very simple, it's not complicated in any way. And the third one was the one that I think the vice mayor offered that said that compensation could only be raised by a vote of six instead of five commissioners. Those three very simple things were discussed, debated, understood. There's no mystery about them. Everyone knows that those are the items, and that's what we wrote. Now, there are a few smaller matters that we made reference to. There is one that is clarifying that deals with- Let me clarify, please, one minute, Mr. Geller.

What he's saying is they repeated the same thing twice. Commissioner what they would they repeated the same thing twice and what he's saying is instead of giving us the Usual that I was accustomed to where he would give us the three or four that would actually be on the ballot He gave you one paragraph that the three or four things that go on the ballot is in reference to those things in that one paragraph.

Right, there's an attachment that's available in the clerk's office, which is the actual red line. We say that all these items are on the red line. Where? It's in the resolution, in the ballot document. the notice and then it's in the resolution itself. Now let me just say, there were a couple of other things we've made reference to. There's one that talks about the powers of the city manager to enforce if he has to get an outside expert. and make them pay for it. That's already the law in this city, but we made reference. There's one that Commissioner Smuckler had that's a clarifying language about the fact that somebody has to be not just a legal resident, but we added domicile. It's not really changing anything. It's clarifying. And then there was one about when the 120 days of absence is counted, and we made reference to those three. Everything else is just There's some little, like, grammatical corrections or something. There's one where it says, oh, it's by law instead of referring to... But there's three items, three items that everybody understands. Now, to be clear, if the commission wanted, if you said we don't want it all combined, I would... separate them tomorrow, we will not miss the deadline, whether it's a hard and fast deadline or not. We're not going to miss it. And if you preferred it in some other format, I asked... check the record before we adjourned last week i said i would like some instructions on how the commission would like to see this presented and i wasn't given any so i struggled with it did the best i could came up with something that i think works if you want to see it differently that's up to you but there's no Lack of transparency. Everybody heard the whole discussion last week. There's nothing new. I'm not adding anything. I'm taking those three things. Change the date. have another meeting within 15 days if you don't finish, and the raising compensation. They're each laid out. There's a backup in the clerk's office. There's no mystery. They're not new. They're not a surprise to anybody, either in the audience or here. They've been discussed and debated ad nauseum. So there's the reso. It makes reference to the clarifying ones and some others. There will be a red line. It's attached. It says that. It's maintained, notes in the clerk's office, the full text of each one that was looked at, and it seemed to me Because so much that the committee had suggested was not adopted by the commission, it made sense to me to try to put them into one item that people could look at and understand and decide if they want it. But if you want to change that, It's easy to do, and I assure you, if I have to reword it tomorrow into three or into four or whatever you wanna have, there's still gonna be nothing new. It's still gonna be the exact same items that we spent six hours on a week ago, nothing new.

Mr. Geller, can I speak for a few minutes? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. what i'm looking at here and the rest of my colleagues is that what you're expecting that one paragraph to be on the ballot the official ballot is going to have only that paragraph one question yes ma'am because we are limited to 75 words hold on per item hold on but we're only having one item

and it's less than 75 words. I made it work. Okay, hold on.

You don't have to go further. I wanna clarify what I'm doing. So I was at the meeting, because I'm a commissioner. So I know what this means about compensation. But the public's gonna vote yes or no. They have no idea what you're talking about. How do they know what they're voting for? How do they know that the compensation Or the changing of the election date. Changes to May. How did they know? Any of this? That if it changes to May, the Commissioners that are currently here not here the next time we'll get an extra. Whatever 56 months, six months. How did they know? that the commission compensation, which I had phone calls on from somebody that was in the public, that you're not only freezing the salary that cannot be raised without the public's vote, but you're also paying a COLA of 3%, which the COLA had objected to. But how would the public know this? Now again, excuse me, again, I've only done this my third time. But if I wasn't a commissioner, my husband, and this is what he reads, yes or no, he has no idea what it means, number one. Number two, somebody brought up a very pertinent point to me that I think should be on the ballot, a very pertinent point, because it affected something major in our city, and that is the fact that when we rely on information the question was to rely on the most updated information and that wanted to be part of the charter and i find that to be whether it's the sewers going from septic tank to sewers with the cost whether It was Washington Park's brand new complex for the city that happens to be located in Washington Park. The most updated information when you were voting. So I found that to be, all of a sudden that one word added to the charter, was very important because 20-year-old information was used for traffic studying and for Eastern Shores population, and that's not good. It happens to affect Eastern Shores, so the person that brought that up No gain, no loss of money had nothing to do with any improvements. It had to do with major, major decisions. So to me, I still can't vote on this. How can we vote on what that one thing you could have six, you could have eight.

supportive. I don't like to change the dates or anything, but what you're looking at, there's a summary and then in that it breaks everything down.

Where is it going to break it down? He's saying no. He's saying this is I asked specifically, was this all they're going to see? And his answer was yes.

Well, let me say, Commissioner, there are three answers to your specific question as to how people would know. The first one, frankly, after all the conversation that some members of the Commission have had saying that certain voters pay very close attention, whoever that is, the matter has been discussed extensively and people who follow the city, I think.

There's two to 400 people that follow the city.

And number two, the second way that people would know is because it makes reference, if anybody takes the time to look at a sample ballot, to look at the question in advance, it makes reference to the fact that all of these things are on file with the city clerk. and then for anyone to check, which is often the case, and third, Typically, when something like this happens, there is some group or somebody that goes ahead and runs a political campaign and urges people to vote one way or another, to vote in favor, to vote against, whichever side they're on, and they communicate to voters, and they say, vote yes, vote no, and those three ways are the things that are done. Keep in mind... If it's your preference that these be split, we can split them. But even then, let me just say this, even then, there's still a 75-word limitation, and a lot of these things really are never... able to be adequately described in 75 words, you're still making decisions, having shorthand. People still have to go through the process of finding out if they're interested in it, what it entails. But if you think it's better,

to do it that way we'll do it that way that's your choice not mine okay mr giller i come to this commission with common sense that's my that's my gift i'm giving the public my common sense and my 80 years experience and almost 50 years selling real estate if it's not written and not initialed it's not happening the only thing and that's why i'm so adamant This does not make sense. They're gonna look it up ahead of time and then they're gonna go to the clerk and get the details or they're gonna watch the video. No, if you find 100 people that would do that, let me know. Two, they're gonna go to a group that tells them, okay, maybe the group will tell them, Maybe they'll tell 50, 60 people in that group. What about the other 4,000 or 5,000 are voting? Number three of what you said, this is what's going on the ballot. This right here, it can't, it can't. Not only does it have to be broken up in three things, but I think the other thing is very important to be added because it did change the charter to demand that the most recent information And I think that that's an important one that should be added. And the city manager, after we decided what to vote on and what not to vote on, there was one charter amendment that I wanted the city manager to explain why he feels that that charter amendment should be included and perhaps added now we could eliminate as you say things that are redundant that are already part of our our comprehensive plan are already part of our ordinances or resolutions or whatever we don't have to do that but these three things were pertinent the thing about having the latest information was pertinent maybe something else and then it needs each one of them If you all voted in the last time that the charter was changed, even if you weren't a commissioner, you saw how it was done. It was done with six or seven things and that's the way you read them. Did you want to change this or you didn't?

There was 10 of them.

Yeah, and only one.

Yeah, so I personally, I think there's like five or six here. I would like them separated because there's some that as a voter, I'm not even talking about as commissioner right here. When I go vote, there's some that I may vote yes, and there's some that I vote no.

I second that.

And if it's this way, then I may just have to vote no, and so may many other people. So I would like to see these separated, please.

Absolutely, I'll make that motion. May I say one thing to Commissioner Smith? I'm looking at the exact language that was adopted in regard to 3.1.1 K. And I don't think that's the one that had the word updated in it. I'm not seeing it. Most recent.

The words were most recent.

Well, I'm not seeing. Maybe I'm missing it, Commissioner. I'll show it to you and bring it to you. I'm not seeing. There were some things that were similar that were not adopted. I just don't see.

I make a motion to split it.

I don't see that that was in the one that you passed.

It was not, and that's why I'm bringing it back that I think it's pertinent.

I think that's about the variances, right, Commissioner Smith?

I'd like to make a motion to split them up, please.

I second that.

All right. Okay.

If you split them all up, if you have two or three that are going to get approved. If you have two or three that are going to get approved, and two that are gonna lose, in this way, it either fails or it doesn't.

But let the people decide what they want. Not everybody wants it.

No, no, but the thing is this. Because like I said, I'm not supportive of it at all.

But what I will say is this, so you guys can understand.

Even when we had the 10 or the 20, only what was it, two?

It was 10.

Only two of them, so go ahead.

Two of them that went through. In 2016, there was, I believe it was 10, and only two went. Two goes. I'm like, yeah, it doesn't matter. No, two failed.

no no no it was a it was um there was a bunch of them but like it was a civil service they mostly failed they mostly failed right mostly failed so but i want to bring back two that didn't pass Okay, Mr. Kazan, with all due respect, go ahead, Commissioner Smith.

No, I think I made the motion, but it doesn't matter to me who makes the motion.

Can't we get public opinion on it, too?

No, this was not tied to that. This was tied to, this pretty much is a resolution. It's not tied to that. And we had six hours of this before. There's a motion to separate, right?

I made the motion. She made the motion. We all made the motion.

Give them the direction to separate them.

And let's move on. Mayor, I'm sorry, but I have to say, with all deference, I'll do it any way you want to, but The commission needs to be pleased. I asked last time, we wouldn't be having this discussion if you had just given me instructions.

Well, you know the truth, Mr. Geller.

Please, Commissioner, let me finish.

Well, that's the third time you said that. Let me just say to you, I didn't think you needed that instruction because I've seen it done that way twice. I thought that was standard.

There are multiple ways to do it. I'm happy to split them, but you can't just tell me.

I'm pretty sure we said that we wanted them individual.

You did not. But that said, I asked for instructions and I didn't get it. If you're going to give me instructions now, I'm happy to take them. But don't just say split it and leave it to me. Tell me if you're going to split them, tell me how many and which ones.

no but now i want to bring back and mr attorney can i bring back the two issues one i want the manager to just explain to me maybe be off the table still or something we we didn't understand and the other one is to add the fourth one because you can have six or eight and the fourth one that it has to be the most recent information

The answer is I'd have to locate where that was and see what it was part of, but you have a resolution in front of you that encompasses what you did last meeting, but you are the city commission, and you have the privilege of amending the resolution in front of you, and if you want to essentially reconsider something that was voted on last meeting, I think if you were on the prevailing side, which I believe you were, you have, unless you voted no on that item, you have the privilege of asking to reconsider whatever that was done last meeting. So yes, you may do that.

So here we have like six, is it five or six items? Let's just make five or six items.

Just tell me which ones make it part of your motion and I'll do exactly that.

Each one of them make it one. Okay. Mr. Mayor, could we please ask the manager to explain the one that we voted down?

There were many you voted down, but one in particular.

No, this was the second one that really involved, it really involved I don't know a power, I'm gonna listen to what he says, but it involved lawsuits and how the city is greatly affected. So I wanted the manager to tell us, because it could make a significant difference in the next 10 years.

Okay, and in 2009, I think it is, there were seven ballot amendments for the city of North Miami Beach. So we can have six. It's fine. Yeah, for sure.

Well, there are a few, like the one Scrivener's error change to general law. There are a few that absolutely, the extending terms, if you change the date of the election, extending terms by six months and the new procedure for voting, those people to, how they run, those absolutely do go together. So that's why I'm trying, those are not each a separate item. The one that makes a change that says by general law is grouped with some other scrivener's errors or corrections, and that's why I'm just asking, look, Commissioner, I'll do it any way you want to. So have one for the scrivener's errors.

So cover them all. Can you do up to five, please?

There may be more than five.

No, but she said it's up to five.

Well, it could be six. I think it's- Up to six. Up to six, okay.

If you determine that that's what you wanna do. I think it's seven, Mayor. I'm sorry. I think so. All right. There were seven last time. We can do seven again. Okay. I'll second that motion. I'm sorry, Commissioner Schmuck.

I said there were seven last time. We can do seven again.

I would say we can go up to seven. So I have a motion.

I'll second. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

okay wait could the mayor we want to hear from the manager no but could we hear could we hear what it is oh thank you mr mayor and thank you so much commissioner smith for bringing this back it is extreme extremely important and like the members of the commission members of the charter review board We're very much pro section 7.1 and 7.2. And then we delved into the issue and had a real discussion about it. So there is a perception that the civil service boards are there to protect the employees. And to the extent that is how they're perceived and what the intention is behind them. And there are, as the labor board leader had mentioned before at the last meeting, there are several cities that still have civil service board. So it begs the question, why are so many cities getting rid of their civil service board? And it's due to the liability that they create. If you look at every city that still has a civil service board, it is advisory only. advisory only to the city manager's office. And that is because of the serious charter issues that are posed by the old way by which civil service boards were created. In the past, civil service boards could hear complaints from employees and they could make decisions to overturn THE MANAGER'S CHARTER POWERS, WHICH IS TO HIRE, TO FIRE, TO PROMOTE OR DEMOTE, WHICH IS IN SECTION 3.1 OF OUR CHARTER. AND THAT IS WHERE THE LIABILITIES LIE UP. IN ADDITION, IT ALSO BECOMES A HOT BED OF CORRUPTION WHEN YOU HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY WHERE, AS WE HAD IN A PREVIOUS CITY. OH, YEAH. Very well documented where there are elected officials and residents will say to employees, hey, I'm on the civil service board or have influence on the civil service board. If you get in trouble, we'll get it reversed. and there's exchange of money or some type of consideration, and that moves forward. Civil service boards, and you have a separation of powers issue. Again, section 3.1 of the charter says the manager has the sole authority to hire, fire, promote, and demote. So I can delegate my powers to the assistant city manager. I can delegate my powers to the deputy city manager. I can delegate my powers to a board. But the commission does not have the authority to delegate powers you don't have. And when you select someone for a civil service board that is then going to be empowered to hire, fire, promote or demote, you're in violation of the charter and you open the city up to significant liabilities. So in Section 7.1, Mr. Mayor, through the mayor, please talk about 7.1 as well. Yes, and I know 7.1 is very important to Mr. Geller because of the lawsuits that you're begging to have by not, and we were in agreement with, and again, the charter review members, they were pro 7.1, and then we dove into the issues and went by one by one, and Mr. Geller was specific about how 7.1. For one example, and if I just give you one example only, according to 7.1, the manager can only terminate someone on their anniversary. So that means every time somebody is let go and is not the anniversary, they have a lawsuit based on their charter. So why would we leave that there? And that's what the charter review committee saw and that was why they changed course and recommended that it be put to the residents to have it removed.

So I really need everybody's input. Please, commissioners, help me with this one because you're a yin and a yang to give up the Civil Service Board.

Commissioner Smith, I just want to point out the discussion about the Civil Service Board that the manager has is important, but that's seven point, Two and three and four seven point one that says you can terminate Department heads does not require that you get rid of civil service board I'm not saying you shouldn't but seven point one is separate and it's designed to help us in litigation Okay, seven point one.

I wasn't discussing because I'm total agreement that that should go on the ballot and that 7.1 should go on, but 7.2, to eliminate the civil service, when you're not in the union, you won't have a voice. And yet, if that's the case, I didn't realize that the civil service may suggest that they shouldn't be fired, but that doesn't mean that that is the final word that they aren't fired. In other words, if the manager, forget the manager we had, Mr. Williams, let's say four years from now, a manager fires somebody and they go to the civil service board, if the civil service board reverses it, the commissioners get no say from what I just heard now. If the civil service, and if that's your buddy, because your buddy was in that department with you and you want to reverse this. So I mean, I need help. I need help.

The civil service board is five residents and one from the police union and one from the general employees union. And I served as a chair of the civil service board for years. And I was in the committee prior to being the chair for years. And I don't ever remember, I mean, there was only one time that there was a case about firing somebody that we actually reversed it. But that was one time in years. And that was with attorneys and attorneys for this side, attorneys for that side. That was like, that meeting took hours. but I will never get rid of the Civil Service Board. I don't have an issue with getting rid of that thing about the- 7.1. The one about the anniversary, just the anniversary. Yeah, 7.1.

If 7.1 is only about the anniversary, but- No, ma'am, there's one other thing that says, divides classified from unclassified. The old definition of...

I'm only doing the anniversary one.

The old definition said that only department heads are unclassified. Everyone else is classified service. When that was adopted, I may just explain, when that was adopted, There didn't exist deputy city manager, assistant city manager, chief of staff that department heads report to. So the revised definition would say if you're that high ranking that department heads report to you, then you're not classified service like someone that's in the engineering pool. You are in the same category as department heads because you're you rank above the department heads and that will help us to avoid lawsuits from every one of those people if terminated because they should not be classified instead of un because people who report to them are unclassified

All right, and then one more thing. The reason that there hasn't been a civil service board meeting in eight years, by the way, is because the prior meeting prior to me coming on did changes to the, no, it wasn't the charter. It was the civil service rule changes was done by the commission. It was done by the commission. Okay, actually, let me backtrack. The Civil Service Board did changes. Our changes were more to modernize it, to do, you know, instead of he, well, instead of saying he or she, it was, you know, correct terms. We added things that just were, you know, the civil service was done in the 50s. We just modernized it a little bit. And we passed it in. It came to the commission. And the then manager and the then mayor did not want the civil service for then. I'm not saying now. The then manager and the then mayor did not want the civil service board and they changed it completely from what the civil service board ruled and they changed it completely and that's why there hasn't been a meeting in eight years because there was no power to the civil service board. So the then commission eight years ago, eight or nine years ago, nine years ago did this. Why can't why can't we do the same thing ourselves? Why? Why are we even discussing about doing this on the charter? And I'm sorry, on a ballot.

If if no, no, but like, OK, so can we because like I said, I just want us to move on. Can we just can we see we can do this by another form of legislation through an ordinance, please, on the civil service?

Well, if we can, I think we I think we but I don't want the deadline of the 24th to pass and then find out we can't.

the ballot.

7.1. I'll accept the one about the anniversary.

I would like to add 7.1 and I'd like to add also the one that says the most current information.

With deference, is the chair, Mr. Kazan, still here?

He's left.

I'm not sure where that is. I'll look for it, Commissioner, the updated. But first, there's a motion, Mayor, to reconsider the decision on 7.1. If the motion to reconsider passes, Commissioner Smith could then move to add that item.

There's a motion and a second. All in favor say aye.

Aye. Aye.

Now we have to make the motion, Commissioner? Make the motion.

I make the motion that the ordinance regarding that if they need to hire engineers, if they need to develop.

No, sir, you need to do 7.1 first, Commissioner. You just reconsidered it. You have to vote on it.

No, we had a motion to reconsider the 7.1, the anniversary one.

Okay, now we have to vote on it. Yes. Okay, I make a motion we vote on 7.1. Is it most on the ballot? Second.

Second.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? All right. Okay, the one about the I'm opposed.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, let's do it.

Wait. Well, I want the anniversary part. That's it. Okay. Oh, okay. But I thought he said it was something else.

No, that's the other thing in it was that Deputy city manager, assistant, can't sue. No, no, no.

There's only two items. One, looking up to the most updated information.

That's right, under the engineer thing.

Okay, so I have to find the commissioner.

The anniversary. We just voted on the anniversary. All right. No. I'm a yes.

Okay, so that passes, okay? 7.14.

On anniversary. Next is the most recent information.

The most updated information on the engineers where they have to, if the city's requiring it, the developer has to pay, but it has to be the most updated information.

I have a motion and a second.

I have to find it, sir, I'm sorry.

If somebody, we had to hire it, they... The developer had to pay.

The developer had to pay.

Right.

So that's in there. Okay. So that's adopted already, but this thing about the update, I don't see where it is.

I guess you have to add the language when you draft it up. All right.

So we got a motion.

A motion.

A second. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed?

Aye. Aye. Yeah, it's just for that language.

All right. I oppose.

I oppose. Next item is, now we're going into the consent agenda, please.

Mayor, if I might, just one last housekeeping thing. You've just added two things. I need the motion that's passed by Commissioner Smucker identifying how many items to be increased by the number of items you just added. Yeah, we go up to seven.

No, that will be five now.

It was previously seven. And you just added two, which I think takes us to nine.

No, that's not what it is. No, we didn't.

Up to seven ballots. That's what I'm saying. To the best of your ability. We've already voted on it.

You put two of them, three of them together of the ones that we passed before. Continue to do that.

Continue to do that. Up to seven. We just want the three that are on here. Remember that if we added nine and each has to be five words, how is he going to condense them? Because some of them are.

So let's just make, let's just do nine. I mean, up to nine.

Up to nine. All right.

I make a motion to up to nine.

I have a motion and a second.

She has to resend the other motion first. I resend my updated.

Resend, update. Have we reached seven already? I think they were. If you really split them all up, I think yes.

I want to resend my previous motion and change it to up to nine.

Okay.

Excuse me.

Excuse me. What we're saying, what I think we're saying is when you said that we're already part of an ordinance in our city, we don't need that. We still don't need that one. Why do we have nine?

The one that you're pushing?

No, we should have...

The one that you said about current liable data. That was the one we said that that's...