City Council - Regular Meeting

Hello, good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to our special council meeting. Today is Wednesday, July 6th, 2025.

with 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. Okay, agenda, order of business. I don't believe there's anything that needs to be added. Madam Manager?

Okay. All right, we'll move into public comments. The public comments portion of this meeting is now open. I will start with common cards. This is your opportunity for speaking on behalf to this council on behalf of anything on this agenda or germane to us. Please approach the podium. You have three minutes to speak in a respectful manner. Please state your name and address. And I'll start with the first common card and the only one I have, Ms. Dorothy Griggs.

Anyone else would like to speak, please approach the podium at this time. This is your reasonable opportunity. Sir?

Thank you very much. Anyone else who would like to speak, please approach the podium at this time. You can take a seat, Mr. Vasquez. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. Being none, public comments is now closed and we will move into our discussion items, which I believe we only have one, Madam Clerk.

Motion to approve. Okay, we have a motion to approve by Councilwoman Reynoso.

I have some questions. Is there any questions? Yes. To the CFO, thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for the presentation and for all the great work that you guys continue to do and also thank you to the City Manager's Office for the work that you're doing as well. What are we doing exactly today? Can you explain that to the residents?

Yes, and we're required to submit this proposed millage rate to the property appraiser's office by when's the deadline?

Yeah. And you will use this rate to create the budget, right? Because you have not created the budget since you don't have a rate.

Since you've been with the city, how many times has the millage rate changed since the original proposed millage rate?

Great, thank you. So just to put it on record, I do agree and I think most of you have seen the email that I sent out. I do agree with the recommendations of the property appraiser who has urged cities to lower millage rates to provide relief to homeowners. And we've also not just received several emails, messages, and I do want to thank those of you that took the time to voice your opinions and give us your reasons and also those that came today as well. We are seeing a lot of rise in the cost of being a homeowner. We're seeing rise in insurance. We're seeing assessments. We're seeing HOA fee

Vice Mayor Porras, I think it's prudent for us to look at the several options that we have that is being presented in the budget book that we're going to be receiving tomorrow. And I think the fiscally responsible thing to do is to look at what is being proposed, what has been analyzed now for several months, and to decide the current rate of what our millage rate is going to be in a responsible manner. And I think analyzing what the staff has worked on for several months is the most responsible thing to do based on the presentation that we received today.

So do you reject it or you accept my proposal? Can you give us an answer?

I think Council Member Reynoso has answered the question. I think we should move on to any other questions if that concludes your comments and then maybe it'll answer additional concerns. So it's a no. Thank you. Any other comments? Council Member Pinedo.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm just going to keep it short. Just for clarification, since I like numbers. So based on the presentation, I mean, we're looking at, first of all, just to be clear, I mean, we're just setting the ceiling for the military. We're not doing anything else today because of, obviously, we haven't seen the budget.

Right. And based on the presentation, and I believe this is important for residents to always understand because You know, every time that you're out there and every time that you get a phone call or email, there is this perception that the general comment, which sometimes I make as well, you know, we paid a lot in taxes. I mean, that's the general comment, which I agree. We do pay a lot. But sometimes people forget that most of the taxes, they actually go to the county. According to your presentation, and it has been always the same, It's only about $600 what Doral residents pay to the city o

Thank you, Councilman. I do have some comments as well, just very quickly. First of all, and I think the Councilman addressed it on the savings to residents on a rollback rate is really on a yearly basis, an average between $40 to $50 a year. It's not a month, that's a year. And while significant to many, I'm sure, My biggest concern is that when we did this, when we went to the rollback rate in 2022, and actually I wasn't here, 20 police positions were frozen. 20 police positions were frozen, which means a sacrifice to our public safety, a sacrifice to crime in our city, which we saw increase

I have follow-up comments. You took over five minutes. Councilman Pinedo took over five minutes. I think it's fair that I can do a follow-up.

Yes, Councilwoman Reynoso. There's a motion on the floor and we need to call a vote. Okay, so there's a motion to call a question.

All right. Thank you very much for being here today. We do have, before we adjourn the meeting, a special birthday that happened last week. It's Councilman Pinero's birthday, and so we have a little surprise for him. They were supposed to be ready. Oh, okay, go ahead and do that while we're waiting. We're waiting for Councilman Pinedo's surprise.

Okay, thank you very much. All right, here we go. Please join us in singing happy birthday to Councilman Pinedo. happy birthday to you happy birthday to you happy birthday dear councilman happy birthday to you and don't worry your tax dollars did not buy the cake we bought it happy birthday councilman thank you much all right i need a motion to adjourn Motion to adjourn by Councilwoman Reynoso. Second by Councilman Nader. All in favor say aye. Aye. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you very much. I will see you here at our budget workshop.