Town Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the Town of Cutler Bay's Town Council meeting. Today is Wednesday, April 15th, 2026. Mr. Cook, if you could please take the role. Council Member Duncan?

Mayor Mirabon? Present. We have a quorum. All right, if you could all please rise and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, All right, welcome everybody. Mr. Clerk, if you could please read the directions for calling in.

All right, thank you very much. So I'm now opening the floor for public comments. Anybody wishing to speak, please come forward. There's nobody in the auditorium. Anybody in the queue?

All right, public comments is now closed. That takes us to our town council announcements. Board and committee reports have all submitted and many additions. As there are now, we'll move on. It takes us to the town manager's report.

That's another example of them making us look good. So thank you very much.

kind of gives a clear picture of what options we would have, especially I appreciate the work on looking for alternatives, because even the best case scenario from based on your timeline, we need to find alternatives now. So that's the most important part. So, but I'm going to open up to the council for questions and comments right now. I know a couple of you have done extensive work in looking at this. So if you have any questions or comments, we'd like to go. All right, Councilman Lord, you're recognized.

Thank you, Mayor. First, I want to thank the staff and our town manager. You clearly listened to us and the 50 plus residents who were in front of Parks and Rec. We were asking for alternatives. And I think that the fact that you guys have worked so hard at getting so many alternatives for us is really wonderful. And I thank you very much for that. I'm having a hard time. $50,000 on a plan if our legacy park pool is going to be open four months after any supposed repairs to the Cutleridge Park pool. $50,000 is a lot of money. I don't spend that easily. I will say I think it is a better use of

It does. Thank you. And the same with Emma's timeline, then I presume that has been vetted through the construction group.

All right, so I have one more ask, but before I have that, I want to reiterate that when we started realizing we were going to have to close the pool because we were spending close to $40,000 a month just in water leaking out of it, I did meet with 27 of our residents. I went to homes. I had numerous phone calls. And my position initially was let's try and save this pool. But after my tour with Terry Glenn, to me, it doesn't make sense for us to save a pool that we're going to have a shiny new toy four months later. In these meetings, though, I sensed a great deal of distrust from our resident

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I do want to thank Councilmember Lord for making a great point on the transparency and having that as an opportunity for us to share with our residents, not just the total construction and the total process, but specifically with the pool as it relates to the Legacy Park pool. I think that's a great point, a great opportunity. I think it's a great idea. I think going through the motions with town staff, with town manager and being briefed and seeing what we kind of have before us, I do want to just reiterate to the residents that we've, we've emphasized bumping up the, th

I, too, would like to thank town manager and staff for all the hard work. And the information gathering, I'm sure, wasn't done overnight. So, I mean, it takes a lot of work to do that. I also want to thank the vice mayor, who has kind of kept us up on construction facts over the last several meetings, which gives us a little bit more insight on why it would take longer and everything like that. So I appreciate that. We are the keeper of the funds, all right? We are responsible to make sure that every dollar in this town is spent the way it's supposed to be. And to me, it just doesn't make sens

All right. Thank you, Councilman Ramirez. I think there seems to be some consensus. It's bad money going after it. a project which won't last very long. And really the focus, which we've already shifted to, is finding an alternative in between, which you've already found three or four alternatives as you continue to look for more. And hopefully we can solidify those and get those moving as quickly as possible. So I don't think we have any further action on that item right now.

All right. Councilman, I mean, Vice Mayor Callahan.

Councilman Dunham. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I do have one quick question. We have these beautiful light poles that months ago we were told FPL was working to connect. It's April. I think the first time I asked about it was November. I was told in January they were working on it. Do we know when they will be on?

Thank you very much. That takes us to the town attorney report. Mitch, sir.

Town clerk's report? The report this evening. All right. Thank you very much. That takes us to the consent agenda. The additions are cool. So if not, looking for a motion for approval. No move. We have a motion by Vice Mayor Calley. I second. Second by Councilman Lord. All in favor say aye. Aye. And it is approved. It exists to require judicial hearing. Yes, sir.

All right. Thank you very much. The applicant does need to go ahead and present that again. We did see the zoning workshop, but I do want to, you know, we have Jimmy Flanagan in the office. He is with us today as well. But I do want to open it up to see if there's any questions from the council going forward if they need to see your presentation. So if not. All right, we have no questions. Have you guys been here? So we're looking for a motion. Did you? I'm sorry. Oh, I got to open up. You're right. I'm sorry. I have to open this item up for public comments. This item is now open for public comments. Did you want to speak? You can.

We'll see if they haven't yet. OK. Are there any public comments? Is there anybody in the queue? All right. Looking for a motion for approval. So we have a motion by Councilman Ramirez. I second. Second by Councilman Lord. Roll call vote, please.

I guess an absolute is better than a yes. Absolutely. Okay. Yes. Yes. Motion passes. All right. Congratulations. Five minutes. Five minutes. All right, that brings us to the next item, 6B, please.

Thank you very much. And the beauty of the zoning workshops is that we really get to go through it with a fine-tuned comb. Are there any additional questions? I see Councilman Duncan has a comment or a question.

Comment, comment. And I just want the public to know that the applicant has also proffered to allow our senior citizens, our active adults, use of the community room in this development 12 times a year. 12 times a year, so thank you for that.

Any other comments or questions? No, no. Then I'm looking for a motion. Oh, public comments again. I'm now opening the floor for public comment. Public hearing. Public hearing. Anybody who wants to speak, come forward. There's nobody in the auditorium. Anybody in the queue? No one in the queue. All right. Public hearing is now closed. Looking for a motion. So moved. We have a motion by Councilman Duncan. Looking for a second. I second. Second by Councilwoman Lord. A roll call vote, please.

Yes. Motion passes. All right. Thank you very much. All right. Now opening the floor again for general public comments. Any public comments at this time? As there are none, public comments. Anybody in the queue? No one in the queue. Public comments is now closed. Takes us to item 11A, please.

All right. Council, do we have questions on this? No? It certainly makes sense to me. I'm looking for a motion. Motion. We have a motion by Councilman Ramirez. Looking for a second. Second. Second by Vice Mayor Callahan. All in favor say aye.

Motion passes. All right, that takes us to just one last thing I'd like to do before we adjourn. On February 5th, 2026, Ralph and I attended the Economic Development Council State of South Dade, and we watched a presentation by Dr. Ned Murray from FIU highlighting the potential for growth in South Dade. We've all talked about we can't fix traffic going north, so we need to bring the jobs down south. And he said that there's... The opportunity in the South to have an advanced industry sector for architectural engineering, computer systems designs, management of scientific and technical consulti

And we have a Flanagan's. So absolutely, as Councilman Lord says. So with your permission, could we report the objections? No. All right. So it'll be it.