City Council - Regular Meeting

Through the mayor, I don't believe I have to provide a reason for the deferment.

Carmen Jimenez. I believe she's answering.

Thank you, Mayor. First of all, the reason why I decided to bring this forward is because, as we all know as residents, the road work performed by Miami-Dade County on municipal roads within Doral frequently leads to traffic disruptions and resident inconvenience. I mean, it's not a secret that sometimes you're driving around and suddenly you see a lane closure and you don't know what's going on and we don't even know what's going on. And unfortunately, this is something that the county passed back in 2021, where pretty much take all that power from municipalities or actually communication, wh

Thank you. Mr. Arroyo. Okay, anybody has any questions?

Thank you, Mayor. This is another issue that has been certainly, you know, caught my attention, especially in the last year. Sometimes you're You know, you're driving around and you see a new cell tower being put outside a community or or in the right away section without anyone knowing. So the most recent is well. A complaint that I received was from the Grand Bay area where a cell tower was installed just right outside the community. So now you have residents inside their community facing a cell tower on the other side of the backyard. So this is, for me, it's something that... I will ask, i

Thank you, Mayor. Well, my item is very simple. Over the last couple of months, we've seen the amount of work and events and meetings that the mayor has attended on behalf of the city. And I believe the best course of action for the Sergeant at Arms position is to be exclusive for the mayor, as she is the full-time council member representing the city.

Point of personal privilege? Yes. Thank you so much. I believe in order to have skin in the game to really opine to this item, you needed to be involved with the before of this item. In other words, attend community events, attend community engagement, in order to really see the need of a sergeant at arms, none of which you do. That's my comment.

This is a motion to call a question or for the item? Motion to call a question. Yes, yes.

I know Mr. Valdez is here. Can you come to the podium to answer questions?

So did you read the position description and requirements for this job?

Are you aware that the Inspector General needs to be independent, impartial, and objective to effectively fulfill their role? Do you think you're going to be impartial and objective?

Can you remind us why you resigned as city manager?

Did you accuse us of violating the charter, retaliation, among other things?

Okay. And are you aware that as a private citizen, you can actually file a complaint with the appropriate agencies, You can actually present your grievances to a court if you felt that there was a violation. Are you aware of that? You're not aware that there is an ethics commission.

Yes. And going back to that meeting, you clearly displayed a very strong disfavor, dislike, however you want to put it, and a strong propensity, I feel, to discriminate against two sitting council members, including me, Councilman Cabral. If you are going to be presented, let's say, with an investigation against one of us, are you going to recuse yourself?

Okay. So do you still believe that we violated the charter? You can answer truthfully.

Right. As city manager, how many employees did you oversee?

And as inspector general, as you know, your job would be to investigate waste, mismanagement, contracts, including some of the work that some of the departments are doing. You know that, right? So do you think there may be a conflict of interest if you're asked to investigate some of the staff that you once oversaw?

Perhaps you also disfavor or you favor, let's say, a department director, an employee, that could potentially contribute to a bias, whether good or bad.

And do you think that your appointment could, sorry, I don't know. Okay. Do you think that your appointment could result in the city being sued for having potential conflicts of interest?

Okay. Just some now. Thank you. Thank you so much. If you want to say you can, if not, just some questions for the attorney. So I know that we talked about this when you were drafting the position for the inspector general. And I don't know if you recall that I mentioned that the city of Miami beach has a prohibition of hiring past employees as inspector general for the very reasons I just mentioned. You oversaw everyone here. Obviously, we're adding now that you've publicly come out against two sitting council members. And so my question to you is, have you assessed the risk and liabilities t

police officer with a decade of service would meet the minimum qualifications. What my question is, is do you, Mr. Attorney, do you find any bit of conflict of interest or potential problems with impartiality? With Mr. Valdez?

So I'm referring to... Find the rules that we have before us. All right. I'm referring to the charter and the city ordinance that states that the inspector general has to be independent and impartial. So I'm referring to those two things, but I think I got your answer, thank you. So for me, Mr. Valdez, it's clear that you do not meet the required standards. You may meet the minimum standards for the job, but I do think that you lack the independence and impartiality as required by the charter and city ordinance. And like I said, You've accused sitting council members, including myself, of viol

Thank you for clarifying. And I'm glad that we actually clarified that on the record because I still believe that the ordinance is not clear on that. And also one of our. Committee members also raised that during the meeting, who's also an attorney. But I'm glad that we're putting it on the record. Again, the ordinance is not that clear. But just to respond to you, think of it this way. You are a judge, essentially. Judges do not initiate their own cases. They receive cases.

And so when a judge receives a case, where they have a conflict of interest, they have to recuse themselves. So it doesn't matter who initiated it. You are the independent person that's going to be deciding how an investigation happens, where it goes, so it still applies. But thank you for clarifying that.

Correct. Yeah, thank you. And I just want to say one last thing. I appreciate you coming up and responding to questions.

Councilwoman Reynoso? Thank you, through the mayor. Mr. Aldez? Great to see you here. Just points of clarification for me. When you were the city manager, were you not selected by the council members, excluding myself, present today?

Okay. Okay. And you did have the prior position of being the city manager for this city, and upon your resignation, you had valid points to why you no longer wanted to serve as our city manager. Case closed with your resignation letter and leaving the city as our city manager, correct?

And again, just to clarify the definition of propensity, when you have a propensity to do something, there's a history, there's a natural inclination of a pattern of behavior, one that you do not have. I believe that the comments made by our Councilwoman, I'm sorry, our Vice Mayor, Maureen Porras, isn't really related to the situation because that was your prior employment, what you were doing before. And based on your professionalism and what the committee decided, I think you are perfect for this position. I think you're going to serve this community with integrity. And based on your years o

Thank you. Well, first of all, I want to say welcome to Mr. Valdez and Mrs. Valdez. Thank you for being here. Morning. Good morning, sir. It's good to see you back. To be honest with you. Likewise. As Councilwoman Ray also mentioned, I certainly. And it's a conversation that we had after the hiring last year when you were selected a city manager. I think that you have shown where your character is made of, and I respect that. And I think that you have earned the respect not only from the majority of this council, but also from the majority of the residents of the city of Doral. And I wanna say

I just want to, again, point out that Mr. Valdez did state during the questioning of the vice mayor that he is going to be impartial. So his purpose of resignation should be not considered at this point because this is turning the page. You're here to do a different job. This is what you're going to be doing. You answered the questions. You're going to be able to perform the duties of this position impartially.

It is in the manual. Point of clarification? Yes, Councilwoman Marino, so you're recognized. Thank you. Is the Councilwoman then deferring her own item for a later date now? I'm confused.

Okay. I have a quick question, just for clarification. Thank you. So is this in addition, so just to understand, now that it's been brought up, is this a request for funding in addition to the one that we already made for the third floor? Construction.

Okay. And I ask because, you know, I'm fine with the reconfiguration. Will there be other, like, additional requests for funding changes? as it pertains to the reconfiguration? Because I thought that the first one was like it. Or do you expect or anticipate more?

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.

All right. Any questions on this item? I have some. Vice Mayor? Yes. Just very quickly, I spoke to the attorney about it. The Well, there's two items. This one and the other one, I think my comments are relevant, but I'll make this one quick because this one's only essentially assigning the duties of a code compliance officer to an inspector general. But the last sentence of section 2-1857, which is being added to this, says that citations issued by the inspector general may be appealed to the 11th Judicial Circuit in and for Miami-Dade County, Florida, And that sentence is incomplete and make

I have comments on this. Okay, Ms. Mayor Porras. Okay, so just to reiterate the same, this one actually goes into the actual procedure for issuing a citation as well as withdrawing or, let me see, deducting the the fine from the council stipend. So, I think that, and I agree with adding the citations should be addressed or handled pursuant to section 162.21. My issue is that the way it's written here is not consistent with that. So if we could say that again, like reiterate the same thing, I think it would meet the requirement because, I mean, I can point out exactly what's not consistent with

That one and also right after C, any fine due by a member shall be deducted from his or her stipend by the finance director at the direction of the city manager. I think adding language again that it needs to go through.

Okay, just wanted to clarify. And just to clarify, whatever the process under section 162.21 is, is what's going to be followed. And yeah, it does not include the special magistrate. It includes the courts, but it's still a section that provides for a procedure. So just clarifying, we're using that section.

I have a quick question. So when would the advisory boards be meeting or start meeting?