City Commission - Regular Meeting

If you would, Ms. Bravo, please call the roll. Mayor Ryan. Present.

We also have the Deputy Mayor by phone. Is that correct? Okay. Deputy Mayor, you go ahead and you can state your presence. We'll deal with the motion in a moment on that.

Thank you. I hope you're feeling better. And I believe Commissioner Scudo is listening as well. Is that fair? Correct. All right. Just let the record note that. All right. If you would, please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Good afternoon. This meeting has been noticed both as an in-person meeting and a virtual meeting. The public may attend in person or participate in the meeting by calling 954-395-2401 and entering the code 368262. Procedures for public participation and comments will be explained in a moment. Information for each item on the agenda has been and is currently available a

All right. I'll close open discussion. All right. We're going to proceed as follows. I'm going to ask for a motion to move up. First, let's make a motion on Deputy Mayor to waive the 24-hour notice in light of her illness. Can we have a motion? Motion by Commissioner Kirsch, seconded by Assistant Deputy Mayor. All in favor say aye. Aye. All right. Mr. Moss, that allows the Deputy Mayor to be a voting member this evening, correct?

Correct, as noted in the motion. Thank you, sir. All right, could I have a motion to move 5B, 5C, and 5D? We'll handle those individually, but could I have a motion to move those up? Motion by Commissioner Kirsch, seconded by Assistant Deputy Mayor. 5B. Resolution of the City of Sunrise, Florida relating to the provision of fire rescue services facilities and programs in the City of Sunrise, Florida reimposing the fire rescue assessments against assessed property located within the City of Sunrise for fiscal year beginning October 1, 2026. Approving the rate of assessment, approving the assess

All right. We'll close public discussion. Any discussion from my colleagues on this? Go ahead and call the question.

Yes. Item passed is 4-0. C, a resolution of the City of Sunrise, Florida relating to the parking garage assessment area and adopting the annual rate resolution for fiscal year 2026-2027. Approving the assessment role, providing for severability, providing for an effective date. City Manager Mark Lebelski, Susan Nabors, Director of Finance and Administrative Services. Can I have a motion? Motion by Commissioner Kirch, seconded by Assistant Deputy Mayor. This is a public hearing. Anyone wishing to be heard on this matter, please come forward or press five star on your phone. I see no one come fo I'll close the public discussion. Any discussion from my colleagues? Call the question.

Yes, item passes 4-0. D, a resolution of the City of Sunrise, Florida, relating to the transportation assessment and adopting the annual rate resolution for fiscal year 26-2027, approving the assessment role, providing for severability, providing for a defective day sitting manager, Mark Lebelski, Susan Nabors, Director of Finance and Administrative Services. Do you have a motion? Motion by Commissioner Kirsch, seconded by Assistant Deputy Mayor. This is a public hearing. Anyone wishing to be heard on this matter, please come forward or press 5-star on your phone. I see no one come forward. Ca

All right, I'll close public discussion. Mr. Lebelski, we had an extended discussion about this when it was a proposal. I know that there are a number of issues relating to how this gets assessed and against which businesses and how much. I've obviously raised, I have some questions and concerns, particularly in light of some things that are going on within the legislature and within what we have to face in the coming year. If we move this forward this year and it turns out that it needs to be adjusted or changed or even terminated, is that something that we're able to do in the coming year? Y

All right. So once it's assessed, we're committed for the year, essentially, because we will have charged everybody for it.

Okay. And, you know, I've talked about a number of the metrics and whether or not this has value or worth to some of the individual businesses. I understand for the overall district, but I have some concerns about that. moving from that previously this service there have been suggestions about trying to duplicate the service around the city in different areas previously when we did this it was based on an FDOT grant and we had all sorts of funds that were focused on the business district and we weren't able to replicate this what's your recommendation with the ability to replicate this in any

Um, it just became a real challenge and really put some guardrails on it where, where the district is great. Let's just call it central sunrise for lack of a better term for a car. Basically those businesses are paying for a car or cars in that district. Not to be transported elsewhere, whether it's, you know, other cities or anywhere else, it's that district. So there's a structural limitation of being able to maneuver or move people from one district to the other.

In addition, because it's district-based, it's the businesses in wherever that district is located that are footing the bill for those cars, correct?

So you looked at it, realized the cost for these individual businesses as well as the structural problems. Make it near impossible, certainly not the recommendation of staff.

All right. This is two readings, Mr. Moss? Or is this one reading tonight?

I have concerns about doing this. I'm going to probably agree to do it this time, but I'm going to look really carefully at the performance and the burdens. To me, this is much more like a pilot project being funded by the individual businesses, and then we'll have to get feedback from the Chamber and otherwise. I know that these are wildly popular in other cities. There's not any doubt about it. We know that it was wildly popular when the businesses weren't funding it, but there's a difference between it being popular to go to certain locations and where we're funding it and FDOT's funding it

So I think it's two levels. If it's not successful or it turns out it seems too burdensome. Correct, yes. All right, that's the only comments I have. Anyone else have any comments? Call the question.

Yes. Item passes 4-0. All right. At this time, we're going to move to 5A and 5E. 5A, a resolution of the City of Sunrise, Florida, adopting a tentative millage rate authorizing a levy of a 6.0543 mills ad valorem tax at $6.0543 per 1,000 of assessed value on all taxable real and personal property within the city, authorizing the levy of .2865 mills ad valorem. That's... 20.2865 per $1,000 of assessed value. An all-taxable real and personal property within the city for funds for the annual debt service of the City of Sunrise, Florida General Obligation Bond for fiscal year 2026-2027, providing

Right, this time I'm going to open up for public discussion. Anyone who wishes to be heard on any matters related to the budget, unrelated to charitable, this is the time to come forward. Please raise your hand or press five star on the phone. No hands raised. Can you confirm no hands raised online?

OK, thank you. I've been up here a long time, not as long as Commissioner Scudo. And I was here in 2010. when the post 2008 financial collapse presented as an existential threat to the budget, where there were concerns about having to raise taxes and cut services, cut employees. And even in that moment, it wasn't as solemn as what we're facing here. I think there's a recognition that this is different. This is not a storm that we can, simply work our way through or an economic crisis where we know we'll come back as we always have. COVID hit, deeply concerned about our ability to deliver servi

And in order for that to be revenue neutral, it would mean raising $2 million out of the families of those who play soccer and basketball and other sports, correct?

We look at the summer camp program. It is short in time in terms of the overall year. Those of us up here and staff and those that stay in line for six, seven hours in order to get their spot in summer camp understand that it is a lifeline for working families. You don't have to change it. I don't know who's changing it, but you don't need to do that. It is a lifeline because the alternative of paying $5.50 for a child, if you have to go out and do it privately, is probably triple for the summer. That's real money. That's $1,000. That's per child difference. That makes the difference between j

Still a significant reduction from where we are now.

But we could go to the rec centers and leave at the front desk so people can get them, that kind of way.

to make sure that they're getting the programs out because we need them participating as well. And other maybe major businesses where we could over time evaluate.

Are there other decision points in here, Mr. Lebowski? You want the commission before their comments on the individual? There weren't really any significant program modifications at all. This has been the, you know, typically I know, I'm sure my colleagues the same way, I have pages and pages of notes and questions about modifications and justifications. There are very few of those, but are there any decision points?

All right. I'll just go down the line. Deputy Mayor, just out of courtesy, I don't know if you have any questions that you want to raise, and then I'll go to Assistant Deputy Mayor.

I would like to thank the staff for their detail outline of this presentation for tonight and the thoughtfulness that is put into each program that we offer and the ability of whether or not the cost outweigh the justification. So I want to thank you for that detailed information. It gives us tangible evidence as to what cost is put into each program and how the responsibility of each resident is to the contribution of it all. So I hope that suffice with everyone as they're seeing the numbers and knowing what the cost is and that the value of your money that you're returning is going to a grea

I'm in agreement with Commissioner Clark and you, Mayor, that I don't think we should be mailing these out. I think if they want to be picked up, And I'm talking about the Rise magazine. If they want to be picked up, I'm fine with that, just to see.

I do have a couple questions before staff, before I have some comments. The $5 million that this staff has accounted for for the coming utility surcharge revenue loss in this budget. Actually, that policy takes effect in July of 2027, correct? So you're just being proactive to account for that in this budget as well?

So next year we'll be taking the full brunt of that. And you said this budget is structurally balanced. That means we're not using any revenues or savings to fund General fund. Savings to fund the general revenue?

And we're not touching the revenue stabilization reserve at $10 million? And the contingency reserve at $25 million?

And I didn't see any new positions or major new services in this budget, correct?

Now, I saw that 75.9% of the general fund budget comes from personnel costs. Would protecting public safety become more difficult in the future if the city experiences substantial revenue losses?

Okay. I hear a lot of comments on, oh, this is just fear-mongering by the cities if this passes. Has anybody come up and said, hey, you guys identified some wasteful spending in this budget? Has anybody in the public come up and identified anything as wasteful spending? What about pet projects? Are there any pet projects up here that the commission has that's being included in this budget?

In fact, I think you have about 28 capital fund projects, mostly all through utility, stormwater, gas, and fuel tax. Those are all justifiable projects that need to be done? If we don't do those, the consequences would be pretty catastrophic if we don't deal with the stormwater pumps?

I also have Oscar Wynn Phase II Park that's in the capital project. But that's part of the 2014 general obligation bond project. All right.

In fact, we promised them that they would get their park right. That's correct. So we wouldn't be doing a disservice to our residents if we were going to say, hey, we're going to cut it now that we're facing this amendment. That's just we do that, but I'm just pointing it out to the public. The amphitheater improvements, that's because of accessibility and safety issues, correct?

Has staff evaluated whether postponing any of these essential infrastructure work could increase future cost or service risk?

We delayed the maintenance or infrastructure. We'd probably be looking at a greater cost later on, correct?

It's been closed down for quite a bit, right?

And then staff is proposing $123,960 as the ceiling for charitable contributions, staff.

Is that a decision point we need to make?

When we get to that point, I'll hold off on that. Since we're going there, I see some of these organizations have a matching funding component. Can you explain that to the public on what that does in expanding services for our residents?

I don't think we did it last year. I might be wrong, but I know in years past we had some ARPA dollars to supplement some of these programs. Is there any remaining ARPA dollars in the budget that can be used to fund that? I don't think we had it last year, but just to make sure.

Let me ask a question on charitable donations. If we choose to fund some of these Can we wait on disbursement to see if Amendment 3 actually passes or we have to commit to them tonight and they get the money? It's kind of like I'm flying blind and I don't like to fly blind. Yeah, that's an excellent.

So the proposal I had made to staff to have them consider was whatever we decide to fund, we budget. But we do not agree to fund all of it. until we come back together post Amendment 3. So as staff has pointed out in one of the slides, that if Amendment 3 passes, we're going to have to have workshops.

If it doesn't, it would be at that time where the commission can make those decisions based on whether we continue to have this. To your point, this isn't going away. Some of the politicians at the state level are saying, if it doesn't pass, we're going to try to do it another way. We're going to do it just as radical. going to put it through the next Constitutional Commission so we cannot just feel relieved we'll know more from the numbers but to answer your question at least what I asked staff mine's on I won't move my face anymore that that we agree to whatever we think we would do if Amend

that skin in the game on how this on this goes forward so i think it's an idea that you're saying it's a great idea yeah and like i said a lot of these questions i know the answers to it's more of an educational component they say a lawyer never ask a question that you don't know the answer to but uh i i thank staff for your incredible work and that's all the departments all the department heads typically i and my questions with each charter officer saying, is this a budget you can live with and maintain your mission? And I'm not going to do that this year because you guys have all come togeth

Thank you, Commissioner Kirch. Thoughtful as always. Before we move on to charitable, I want to finish with what I expect will be a foreseeable response from some in the community. Why not just cut people? Start cutting programs and cut people. I don't really care if seniors have a free minibus. You don't need that. They can find their way. Why not just cut some staff in buildings? We can take longer delays on our permits. We don't need them. That scream is going to start coming louder and louder. And yet, we don't, I don't hear it. I don't think my colleagues hear it. We don't hear the storie

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. I'll offer to Commissioner Skudo, I don't know if he's able to, where he's at, to be able to speak, but if just as a courtesy. If so, I don't know if it's possible. We need a motion for that. No, he can speak. It's public. I'm going to treat it as public comment.

I'm opening it up for public comment, so I'm taking the risk.

In the meantime, if anyone else wishes to speak, they can come forward as well. I'll reopen public comment. Or they can press five-star as well. I see he's unmuted, but I don't hear anything. He may be muted on his end. Okay. All right. Seeing no one come forward, no hands raised, and Commissioner Skudo having challenges coming on, I'll go ahead and close. Reclose public comment to make Tom feel more comfortable. We used to have a cardiac monitor he would wear that we could watch on the screen every time we did something. All right. So on the charitable. All right. So to put in some context, t

It's not on my page. They didn't have it on this one.

All right. So as a first step, I want to also reflect upon this commission has on occasion not fully funded. We did that last year. We dialed back understanding that we had some tough economic issues. At the outset, you know, I can't get I personally can't agree to. These increases that have been sought by some of these organizations. We have a couple of new ones, but we also have FarmShare wanted 60,000. We just can't do it. Mr. Hrabowski, you had some comment about the chamber?

All right. And where would you find the funding for that?

The chamber is $97.50. Correct. All right. To those who received funding last year for the first time we required quarterly reports And I'm happy to report that everybody provided their quarterly reports Part of that transparency that we sought And that's very helpful I think we need to make sure that's institutionalized moving forward allows us to make sure that we're not only what service are we being provided but also helps us to validate what hasn't been spent and uh... and the process as i understand it from staff yes if someone is awarded and it's funded they don't spend it it's kept wit

If that was the will of the commission. And if we kept all of the others, I know that early learning also went up $6,598. We kept it flat at that. Goodman Jewish Family Services, if we kept that flat, I'll talk about the new ones in a second. Special Olympics, we were at 13.9 last year. If we kept that flat, and if we kept Voices for Children of Broward and Youth Empowerment both flat at their last year funding levels, we haven't gotten to the new requests, what would that leave us at?

We're talking about the gross. We're going to talk about 123. 123 is a policy decision. It's not staff. So we'll come off that. We start with what we're allowed to do, and then if we roll back, we'll do that. So I appreciate you showing that, but let's talk a little bit more about whether we get there. The new ones, as I see it here, are Family Central at $5,000, FarmShare at $60,000. You guys are here tonight, right? So FarmShare? FarmShare? Yes, sir. OK. $5,000 from Hope United or United International. So those are the only new ones, correct?

OK. So the smaller ones are $10,000, and then they have farm share at 60, correct? And let's start with the concept of if, I'm not saying the commission would do this, but if we went to the 172, which is funding everybody flat, excluding chamber and chest, because that's moved into the general fund budget, into the departmental budgets. If the commission said, all right, we're gonna approve that as a budget, we're not either there's two choices we're not funding it we're not letting staff fund a penny yet until we get to november 3rd right because that's one option another option say we're onl

Is it possible to fund the amount and then make this decision post-November?

Yeah, I think that that's option one, where we would budget.

We'll fund up to $150 or whatever, and then we'll do the allocation.

But we're not, we're budgeting, we're not funding. We're budgeting because that's staff funding, right? We're budgeting, but we're not approving disbursement of any funds until post-November 3rd when the commission gets it. That is an option.

Do we have to pick out how, assign the dollar amounts tonight? Or can we wait until after?

I think it would be healthy to do it to make it clear to each of the organizations. Certainly we could do that. And maybe some withdraw and they decide not to. That is a third option for sure. I don't want to kill a good idea. That's an excellent idea as well. But I think even if it passes November 3rd, we have the money in the budget to at least provide half funding. say all right we're giving you a lifeline for this year but you know you're not getting it next year because it's just not going to we won't have it there or you have to adjust and i think commissioner kirk's really you know touc

And this is an example that the state is crushing us with an unfunded mandate. They want us to address affordability. One issue is people being able to eat, right? Food deserts, food insecurity. Who's making up that? Cities that have been contributing, working with great donors, vendors and corporate, and we know that we want to provide that service.

No, I understand. It's not, again, to Commissioner Kirch's point, right? Whatever numbers to the right in the column that we approve is not a reflection of the value. I understand. It's the challenge.

I know. I agree. All right. Thank you very much. No, thank you, sir. Other questions? So if we funded at the same level or budget at the same level, did the two new ones, which generally what we've done in the past for new ones is only 5,000. Hope United International is an entirely new. We've not funded in the past. Is that correct?

I just want to go through a couple more things. Family Central has been here before. It's not really a new one. And I know FarmShare has also been asking in the past as well.

Okay. Even if we and post removal if we were to just so people can visualize we were to do half on on farm share at 30 on the Two new ones which was actually Youth empowerment wants to go to 10, but if we kept them at the same level that they're not new so Hope United International is new at five. Family Central is technically five. That would only be ten of the new, right? So that would be essentially 212,900. Is that the number you got?

All right. That's a generalized concept. Assistant Deputy Mayor, we want to make that motion, by the way? Assistant Deputy Mayor? Mayor. Yes. Okay. Yes, I will in a second. Did you want to make that motion on the two? Sure. And we can. Okay. Motion to remove chamber and CHES program and move it to departmental. I have a motion and a second. I'll open it up. Deputy Mayor. Yeah, I'm opening it to you. Hang on one second. Floor is yours, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you. Mr. Lebelski, in terms of staff demands, I assume what you would be doing is continuing to contract with them. Staff provides all the services already. There's not any new programs out of this. There's no new additional staff requirements or strain, is there?

No additional time that they'd have to do what they're doing? Correct. For instance, we're going to have huge press attention this weekend on the mayor's chess challenge, one of the regional 20-something chess challenges around the region. Staff was already doing that anyway, right?

In terms of the other programs the weekly open play staff already opens up the building and does that now correct you just don't provide the teachers and Folks that are teaching and supporting it whether it's the chess Queens the young women in chess or any of the others That's what's relied on for NSCF through the Sun Center for excellence. Yes, that is correct mayor Yeah, I hesitate to I mean whatever the will the Commission is obviously there's other Requests in this charitable that are not providing food or housing. They're providing other things, so. Go ahead.

So my comment to that is that this CHESS program is a program that is run throughout different cities. Most of them, we do it, but it's a competition. well and there's a lot of functionality with it and I do think that in the event that we have to scale back this program will naturally scale back as well because it would already be a program that we would be running as a city and so it would be something that we would naturally conceive as a program that would be scaling back without any influence or any

Okay any further discussion on that motion Yes Commissioner Kurtz, yes Assistant deputy mayor Clark.

Yes, the motion is to move the chamber contribution, the CHESS program, into departmental activities, one to leisure and one to within city departmental.

All right, that passes through to one. All right, so... Yes. So here's the issue then we have remaining and it's up again, we can go through each one of these. You know, there are certain programs here, youth empowerment, you know, village. You know, it's about etiquette. You know, it's not the same as feeding, but it provides a really important skill, right? Motivational training. I think we can't put everything right now in this concept of we can only focus on the specific needs of housing or food. We got to make sure we're also doing those voices. They've asked for an additional thousand. W

Additionally, the commission would have to move towards a discussion as to whether we're actually approving the funding or we're just budgeting. Whether we're not going to do it, we'll just send a message. That's an option after. So let's go through the options. One, fund it fully at the 212-900. Two, don't fund any of it, just budget it and address it in... post-November 3, agree to fund half or $106,450 and readdress it after November 3 as to whether we'll fund the second part of it. There was a fourth option.

I just have a question. So for the ones that are seeking matching, do they need, like, commitments to say that they're going to have this commitment before they can go seek?

Okay, maybe area aging. That's a great question. The question is, if we say we're budgeting but clearly not funding either any or only half, does that impair your ability to get matching funds? No, because we have time. Okay. Okay, the answer for those who couldn't hear at home was no, we would have time after November 3rd to be able to address that issue with both the commission and your matching funders. Okay.

And they know it's in January we're going to be readdressing this.

I'm giving you the 100%, but we're going to, whatever the amount to fall in, whatever number we want, maybe it's 62% of your ask, or 62% of the budget, and we just apply it equally down the, understand what I'm saying?

Yeah. You mean, like, not come back and revisit it?

I think, for me, I'm more fine with, I like the half part, because we're coming below the 123.

That's good right now, and then we'll see what happens. Because if we come back in January and we're cut, I'm not going to be saying, hey, I can give you the rest of the money. I'm leaning more towards let's do the half because it's below the 120. It's even lower than what staff is asking.

Correct. See, Mr. Lebelski, you were giving money away. Typical city manager, giving money away.

And then if Amendment 3 passes or doesn't pass, then we can readdress it.

So that would mean would be given half of the 124 which would be actually it'd be 106 450 So here's how the numbers work it was 212 212 900 which represents everybody flat But everybody flat plus 30 to farm share, plus the 10 to the new ones, that equals 212,900. If we say we're only going to fund half of that before November 3rd, that's all we're committing to fund, that's 106,450. So all the organizations will, you know, Double Dutch will do an email tonight saying, the city only gave us half, why did they do that? Amendment 3. Everybody's got to make a decision, right? Just like youth empow

So we're given half of the ask for everybody?

That's the numbers that we were from last year.

Again, taking the two 2025-2026 numbers, keeping them where they were funded last year. So there's some that asked for more. We're not giving them more.

So I think last year, the ask was the 2027 amount, and we only funded.

We gave five, but their original ask was 10.

All right, so that's kind of proposal deputy mayor I'm If the money is there I would say to make a motion to just fund it, but I'm at the will the Commission I

It's a fair point, and I think we're still going to have to look at this anyway, even if Amendment 3 doesn't pass, because we've got the impact, not this coming year as badly, because staff is taking care of the utility. But personally, I would say that we approve the budget of 212,900, which is still $35,000 less than what our ordinance provides. But we will not fund it without further direction from the commission more than half so that only what we're approving to be funded is $106,450. Anything else more than that has got to be approved by the commission when we come back whenever, Decembe

Correct. They have to report just like they're doing. Of course. But that to me is the incentive and I know everybody would be, you know, engaged in that.

I like that idea. Like I said, it comes in below what staff was recommending. I don't want to put us in a position to where we're really cutting core services for charitable giving.

So I'm comfortable with funding half the request now and then revisiting it post-November 3rd.

All right. Do I have a motion then? Can we get a motion? I'd make a motion. Motion by Commissioner Kirch. Seconded. Seconded by Deputy Mayor. Everybody understands the motion, correct? I just want to make sure. All right, call the question.

Yes. That passes 4-0. Mr. Lebowski, do you need any further guidance on the budget or charitable? No, Mayor. All right. Is there any necessity to amend the tentative budget at all?

So let's go ahead and there's no amendments that are being voted on. And is there any need for staff to recompute the millage necessary to fund the budget as it has been approved here tonight? All right. And I call the first question on the millage resolution.

Yes. That passes 4-0. I'll call the question on the budget ordinance.

Yes. Passes 4-0. All right. Thank you to staff. As has been said over and over by my colleagues, this has been a very long and difficult process for staff, every department, Every deputy director every assistant deputy director everybody down the line all the way to rank-and-file who know that this has been going on and to mr. Lebowski who every year no doubt says the Sky is falling but this year had the tools with which to say that was accurate and to the credit of staff to be able to come back and Bring us a budget that has been flattened as much as possible in this first pass. I thank you f

Assistant Deputy Mayor, all in favor say aye. Aye. We are adjourned.