City Commission - Regular Meeting

Good morning. I'd like to welcome everyone to the July 7th, 2026 Commission meeting. First and foremost, thank you for being here with us. There will be ample opportunity for everyone to engage in the process. You can send an email. Many of you are here in person. You can also get engaged through Zoom. But most importantly, we're incredibly grateful that you're here to enjoy and to partake in our democracy. So thank you so much for being here with us. Moving on, today we have a special invocation. We don't have a member of the clergy to join us, but we have somebody who's just as equally impor

Amen. Madam Deputy Director, thank you so much, as always. As we move on to the Pledge of Allegiance, I'd like to have the Vice Mayor read a dear friend and resident, Judge Snook's introduction and bio, which I think everyone here will be very proud to call him a resident here once you hear his bio and his engagement here in the city.

As we can continue this transition in our commission meetings, we are honored to recognize individuals whose service to our nation and community reflects the very best leadership, patriotism, and civic responsibility. This morning, we are proud to welcome Judge Thomas W. Snook, a distinguished veteran attorney and jurist, and a longtime civic leader in Coral Gables. Judge Snook graduated from the United States Coast Guard Academy in 1967. and began his military career as an icebreaker at USCGC, Estido out of Boston, participating in two Arctic missions to break ice and resupply fuel air force

Judge, you're not done yet. In addition, we have a token of thanks for your participation in today's Pledge of Allegiance. I want to thank you for the friendship that you've given to everyone in this community and leadership for the next leaders to be on this commission. So if you mind, I'll come meet you. I can come to you. We know you're very athletic, so. Let's take a photo. Judge Payne.

Now we move on to America's semi-quintennial moment. I'd like to invite Joanne to please join us. Again, for many of you who are not aware of what we're doing is over this 250-year anniversary of the greatest country in the world, we're celebrating important moments in our history. And we have individuals that join us at every commission meeting over this year to make sure that we have this moment memorialized and we get these experiences on record. Thank you for being with us this morning.

If I may. Yes. As we continue our semi-quintennial moments at Commission meetings, as I've said, it is especially fitting to welcome back a familiar face and a true friend of Coral Gables history, Joanne. Meagher. Many of you will remember Joanne for her tremendous work in helping bring us the Merrick moment during our city's centennial year. Through those presentations, Joanne and the volunteers of the Merrick House Governing Board helped us reflect on the people, places, and stories that shaped Coral Gables over the past century. Today, we're honored to welcome Joanne back as part of a semi-

Thank you, Joanne, as always. It's a pleasure to have you here, and we'll be ungrateful for your commitment to the city, beautiful, especially what you're doing with Merrick House. Two quick points before we give a nice little token of appreciation to Joanne. If you haven't visited the Merrick House, I had the pleasure of taking our pages who are here with us today. Please rise, pages, to be recognized. Or pages. So the PAGE program is a program that I started a few years ago here in the city of Coral Gables, and it's continued to grow. And these are tomorrow's future leaders. They're rising s

Thank you very much. First, I'd like to say a few words before we move on to the agenda about the devastating earthquake in Venezuela. The city of Coral Gables is collecting donations at all four Coral Gables fire stations to support relief efforts through Global Empowerment Mission. I've made a request and thank you to the manager and the DCM while the manager was away on the ACM for moving expeditiously. Thank you to Chief De La Rosa. I'm not sure if he's here. Oh, he's in the back. Thank you with your entire team, all the firefighters. Thank you for your hard work. We moved very, very quick

Olga, this is just a small resolution of condolences for your son. I had the pleasure of spending time with him. We broke bread. super smart, kind, even in some very difficult moments that he had in his life, he was always resilient. He always had a smile on his face. And I think that's a testament to the incredible person that you are. Thank you. I'm very sorry that I wasn't able to make the funeral. I apologize. I was out of town. But this is the simplest gesture that we as a city can give to honor his legacy and to honor the hard work. And he has a beautiful daughter that will continue that

So on behalf of the city, we extend our deepest condolences to your family. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Want to take a quick photo, please?

Item 82, a presentation or proclamation declaring July 2026 as Taste of the Gables Restaurant Month in the City Beautiful. Good morning, both of you.

Gloria, I want to welcome you to City Beautiful. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We've had the pleasure of having multiple conversations. And it's a real blessing to have you here in the city. Thank you so much. I am so honored to be here.

Also, by the way, don't be shy. By the way, I don't know if you've had this young lady's cakes. I had the opportunity to cut the ribbon at her establishment. It's located on Alhambra. And let me tell you, I've ordered from them before. Amazing, amazing cakes, delicious cakes. You're an architect. Thank you. You're an architect, correct? I remember that from about two years ago when we cut the ribbon. And she's more of an artisan than an architect. She is amazing, amazing at what she does. And if you haven't eaten at Aromas de Peru, one of the best restaurants here we have locally, delicious, and it's also very healthy food too also. I enjoy it. So please make sure you go out there and try these incredible restaurants. The floor is yours, please.

Yes, by the way, they have coffee there also. I feel like I'm part of, like, your team. I'm, like, selling it. They're not just selling cakes and cookies. You can stop by there and have a coffee. You can enjoy yourself. It's in a great location on Alhambra. Make sure you go there. I've stopped by there for coffee.

Through the mayor, so you don't get too singled out. You know, I've been there many times, and my wife is a huge fan as well. And you did come in with the save. As well, the pastries are excellent. I'm a big fan of the coffee. You've got that beautiful machine that's very well administered by your barista. So everyone should check it out on Alhambra right by the Globe, not too far from there. Yeah, I appreciate that.

Do you want to talk a little bit about your move your your oh? Yeah, so I just want to make sure I mean I visit your restaurants I just want people to know that you're no longer at the same location

By the way, if I may, thank you for giving us credit for the foot traffic. And I worked on the manager deserves all the credit for Hidalgo. He was there first day. I was with him at 10 o'clock at night as we were working. It was really Miracle Mile that first day when we were there. But it was the project Miracle Mile, Hidalgo were the same project, the streetscape project. But you deserve all the credit. Let me tell you why. So thank you for giving us credit on Hidalgo and all the programming that Belkis does and Martha and all our team does. That's a great thing. But your food is amazing. Th

Well, I do have the proclamation, but I do want to commend each one of you. you know, our economic development department, Belkis Perez, as well as the chamber, because we're blessed in our city that we have a chamber that works with our city and a city that works with the chamber. That doesn't always happen, where you have put the businesses on a pedestal, basically, and understand that this is critically important for the economic health of our city all the way around. And attracting great businesses like this Our economic development department's done a great job. Our mayor's done a fabulou

Moving on to item A3. Congratulations to Lieutenant Carlo Milito, recipient of the City of Coral Gables Firefighter of the Month Award for the month of July 2026. Chief, you have two items, item A3 and item A4. You want to take them both?

I just want to echo what you just said right now, but I want to make it very, very clear. The tax collector and myself had a conversation We immediately, Dariel Fernandez and I were talking back and forth about doing something here in the city. I immediately called the manager of the DCM that evening in the ACM, and we had a conversation. I said, what can we do? The next day, we had an on-site meeting with Laura and Martha Pantin. And the IT team, we put together a quick clip, we got it out there, and everything was rolling. So, you know, our staff moves incredibly quick, cohesive under the le

Thank you to both of you for your hard work. Thank you so much. Let's take a quick photo. Item A5, congratulations to Officer Christopher Challenger, recipient of the City of Coral Gables Officer of the Month for the month of April 2026. And we also are going to do Item A6, congratulations to Officer George Berenas, recipient of the City of Coral Gables Officer of the Month for the month of May 2026. Good morning, Chief.

To the mayor? Yes. Officer Challenger, thank you so much for your service. I don't think it's a surprise to anyone that the police holds a very special part in my heart. But you in specific have sacrificed and served this community with all your strength, and I want to thank you for that. I've saved these Centennial coins for very special moments and for very special people. And I have one for you today, not only a Centennial coin, but I'm also giving you the 250 coin. So if you would, I have a little note in here for you. Congratulations for being named Officer of the Month. Thank you for you

I'll give it to you when we're taking a picture.

Thank you to both gentlemen. Great work. Officer Challenger, Brennis, thank you so much for your hard work and making sure that we can sleep easy at night knowing that your team is working out there in pursuit of all these criminals and making sure that, again, this is the safest place to live, not only in South Florida, but in the country. So thank you for your hard work. Thank you. Moving on to item A7, congratulations to Javier Romero from the city manager slash communications department, recipient of the part-time employee of the second quarter for 2026.

Congratulations. Well deserved. Let's take a photo. Moving on to item A8, congrats to Robert Chang from the Parking Department, recipient of the Employee of the Month for April of 2026.

Thank you for going above and beyond. It's truly a pleasure. We've had the pleasure of meeting before along with all the employees behind you who do an amazing job on behalf of the city. So I want to thank you for your hard work. Who knows? The damage that could have been caused by leaving that child any longer inside that school bus at the end of the day could have been one of these brutally hot days. We got very lucky that you were there. And that luck comes with the pride that you take in being an employee here at the city of Coral Gables. So we are grateful for that. And this is just a sma

Mr. Villar, we wish you Godspeed, good luck in your next adventure, and hopefully, God willing, you'll join us soon again.

All right, moving on to the approval of minutes. B1, regular city commission meeting of May 19, 2026. May I have a motion?

Item B2, regular city commission meeting of June 2, 2026. May I have a motion?

All in favor? Aye. Moving on to public comment.

And also please, I'd like for everyone to be concise and also to be aware that if you speak on an item during public comment and it comes up later in the agenda, we won't give you a second bite of the apple, so. Thank you for respecting the city's time and your time.

Lane, good morning. Good to see you. Before Lane comes up here and speaks, Lane and I have been friends for a long time. I've had the pleasure of visiting Lane at his home. And Lane is the individual, along with his husband, who are responsible for the beautiful fountain that you see adjacent to the Granada Country Club, the one adjacent to the Country Club. One of the works that he's been working on is to make sure that fountain is up and running. He writes me emails and text messages. If there's ever a tree in the way or the fountain stops working or you see something that's not right in tha

Thank you, Doctor. Miles Davis. Mr. Davis, good morning.

Before we move on to the next person, Madam City Attorney, will you do me a favor, please? Will you schedule time with me next week to go over the MEI scorecard? And I want to review the preemption legislation. And I want to be very clear to our friends at Save the Aid and all the members of the community. A preemption is not something new, as you're aware. You're very aware of it. It handcuffs us on many different fronts. I'm just gonna throw a few out there and I know I'm gonna forget the most important ones For example, we're the city beautiful, correct? Now there's new state legislation th

not surprised at all that the manager's team is already on it because this is again we're addressing every single every single email that comes from the state of florida our director of government affairs is on it along with the manager not only looking at funding issues but also looking at preemption issues which again are extremely painful for the city because there is nobody And I want to be very clear, and I've told this to our leaders who I have the utmost respect at the state of Florida. There is nobody closer to the residents than the individuals that you see here in front of you and in

Well, I want to be involved too, because the type of litigation I've done under the ADA, it's very, very clear that federal law offers a preemption as well. So I'd like to explore that with the City Attorney's Office.

We've gone over a minute and 40 seconds. But they didn't go over a minute and 40 seconds. I asked you to please bring it in for a minute.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as DARPA, did its own analysis, and we obtained this internal memo that concludes there is, quote, no doubt that anomalous excess heat is produced in these experiments.

You have played it before, but no one's going to be able to see it from your phone. We have another meeting coming up in a month.

Your time is up, and we have how many people waiting to speak?

We need to move on and allow some other people to speak.

I understand. We spoke about it. The sun is free as well. It does cost money.

Okay. Next meeting, you can have the video.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for being here with us. All right, we'll close the public comment. Now we're moving on to the consent agenda.

All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Thank you. All right, moving on to time starting at 10.30 a.m., agenda item G1.

Thank you for your service to the city a great impact and we're grateful for the work that you do along with the director Ms.. Cathers Massey just a few questions very quickly My questions, one of them is a question and one is just reiterating it to bring it home. Number one, what is the percentage of the money that's spent, of this grant money that is spent in the City of Beautiful?

Can you repeat that again? 100%. That's number one. And number two, where does that money come from?

I want to be clear. So what we're doing here right now is, if you look at the numbers, over $20 million of economic impact here in the community. So when you have an event, for example, like a World Cup game, and everybody disperses after two hours, where do they go? They go have lunch. They go have dinner. They go have a drink. Maybe do some shopping. Maybe go see the Miracle Theater, the cinema. maybe they go to Books and Books, maybe they go have a coffee somewhere, but they spend their hard-earned dollars here in our community. So we are already respected as the cultural destination in Sou

A final report which basically says this is when the event happened, This is proof that the event happened. This is how much money was spent. This is a receipt so that people understand that the taxpayer dollars being used for the appropriate venue or event that we as a board and as a city dictated and approved. OK. Want to be clear on that? OK. Any further comments?

Just to the mayor, just thank you for the hard work that you do evaluating each and every one of these applications because it does take a lot of time and effort to go through them one at a time, and you bring so much back to our city, so much richness. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Vice Mayor. Mr. Clerk, do we have any public comment? All right, we'll close with a public comment. May I have a motion? I'll move it.

Yes. Mayor Lago? Yes. Let's go to G2. Let's take G2 right now since we're here. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Fluss. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Just really quickly, she said 210, it was 110 or 210? No, it's 110,000. Okay, I just wanted to make sure.

Thank you, Doctor, for being here with us.

No, Mr. Mayor. Close the public comment. Do I have a motion?

Yes. Mayor Lago? Yes. Again, thank you and send my best to the board. We're grateful for your work on the board. Thank you so much.

11 o'clock. We have a time certain. And for once, this is a world record. We're going to start on time. I'm certain 11 a.m. Agenda E7, E8, E9 and E11.

Madam City Attorney, how much time are we allotting for each side?

Mr. Clerk, if I may, because I've been accused before of not providing enough time, even though what I've been doing lately in all the meetings is basically taking both sides and making sure that I track the time very carefully. So I'd like to even put a timer on the applicant and also on Mr. Wanker, if possible, please. I want to make sure we provide as a public record how much time each individual was given.

Mr. Attorney, what I will do is what I've been doing lately is I will provide everyone with three minutes. I will ask you for you to be concise and respectful. And once you go over, I will just, at the end when you're finished speaking, I will say you went over a minute, you went over two minutes, and then at the end I will consolidate it and I will tell you what both sides spent in regards to the time. Because at the end of the day, that's the way that you can tell when someone comes to you and says, hey, you didn't give me enough time, but I want to do the same thing with the applicant and w

Before you end, just a quick question. What is the slide number on this page? Because I want to refer back to it later.

And through the mayor, I'm going to ask that between the presentations we take a five-minute restroom break.

Thank you very much. Mr. Clerk, I have 11.23 starting at 11.04. That's 19 minutes. Am I off?

Well, we'll give them 11.05. So what do we have? I want it to come from you so I can write this down. 11.23 is a total of 18 minutes. Okay. We will take a five-minute break at the request of the Vice Mayor, and then we'll hear from our dear friends now. See you in five minutes.

All right, I'd like to welcome everyone back. It is 1135. Ready? Perfect. Let me just wait to our . Madam Director.

Mr. Clerk, what time is it? 11.47, sir. Thank you very much.

So that's 13 minutes? Yes, sir. Would you like to speak a little further on anything else?

I want to make sure. All right, Mr. Clerk, do we have any public comment? Good. All right. If I could reiterate what I said in the beginning, let's try to be as concise as possible. very long meeting today we're willing to listen to all your issues and your concerns and we're very grateful that you're here let's keep it professional remember that we're here discussing this project we're not talking about anything else outside of the project scope and let's keep it to that project okay and when I ask you very kindly if you could bring it in for a landing please try to bring it in for a landing not a rough one but let's bring it in for a smooth landing thank you

68 seconds. Commissioner, Ralph Cabrera. If we could, first and foremost, let's eliminate the clapping if possible. Thank you. Commissioner, thank you for being here with us. It's always an honor and a privilege to have you here with us. It happens infrequently, and I hope it will happen more.

Thank you. Three minutes and four seconds over.

I ask everyone please, if you could please stay within the three-minute time. Thank you very much.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

Scott, before you leave the podium, do you mind if I use your information and reach out to you via the city?

Because I'd like to show you what this city has done in the last 14 years in regards to parks and green spaces. Just this year alone, this year, we're adding 30 acres of green space to the city, including the underlying. That's great news. And a six-acre, almost a six-acre parcel of land that I've been working on for 10 years that we're about to bring into the city, which will be the largest park in the city's history. Right. And when I was elected, when I was elected 14 years ago, we had one park in the downtown, which was Pond Circle Park. In the next two years, through the leadership of the

Again, I just want to make sure you're aware. Thank you very much. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you, sir.

Mr. Mooney, good afternoon. How many more speakers?

All right. Just for the record, I want to, again, something that I've been doing lately, especially during, I don't want to say contentious, but we have a lot of speakers. The nos went over by six minutes and 30 seconds, and the yeses went over by six minutes and 51 seconds. Would anybody else like to speak just to add an extra 21 seconds so we can make it equal? Anybody on the no side? Anybody? Go ahead. Go ahead, we're gonna give you another 21 seconds, but we gotta stick to 21, because then I gotta invite them over for another. So 21 seconds.

Cut it off. Okay. Thank you. Now we got to go to the yeses for one second. I'm just kidding. Very simple. I am looking for parks. If anybody would like to sell more parcels, we're always looking for parcels throughout the city. We just bought recently, the last parcel we bought was a $3 million parcel in Salvador Park that I have been chasing for since I got here. And we're fortunate enough to buy it so we can expand on Salvador Park. We haven't decided yet what we're going to do there. But we just spent, I think it was $10 million on Phyllis Park. And you're going to see a massive amount of i

I just want to note for the record that the assets of Phillips Park is on Galliano, the same street that borders the east side of this property, and it's on Menores, which is a few blocks east.

Further south and by the way, there is a there is a green space located on ponds one block away from this property Which is where the fountain is? It's I forgot the name. It's a green space located on ponds. I think it's probably about maybe about 25,000 square feet It's a pretty large piece of property again. Not the most appropriate is located on ponds, but there are green spaces within Less than 150 200 feet away. No, that's the one that's the one down ponds I'm talking about the one next to the Greek restaurant Oh. The one across from Tintin Cafe, right next to Tintin Cafe. So there are parks right adjacent to that. Okay, moving on. For the good of the order, Madam Vice Mayor, let's start with you.

Yeah, before that, let me, Madam State Attorney, should I have the applicant, if he has any responses or anything we'd like to go?

Do you have anything you'd like to rebuttal? Start the clock.

Thank you. Two minutes and 35 seconds for the record.

Through the mayor, I do have some questions for the applicant.

Can I just go through Mr. Winker? Absolutely. Would Mr. Winker like any additional time for rebuttal?

OK. Let's wait for Mr. Winker to have his moment. I want to make sure I'm fair. Because if not, I'll face the wrath of the blogs tomorrow. Mr. Winker, welcome back.

If I may, I don't want to interrupt you, but if I have a garden in my backyard and I lock the fence because I don't want anybody to come in, it's private property, right?

100%. It's private property. I don't choose to make my property private. My property belongs to me. It belongs to me. So, you know, let's use some reasonable arguments. I understand. Please, will you please sit down? Please. Let's sit down. We're not going to do this today. We've done this before. We're not going to have outbursts from the gallery. We're going to do this professionally. That's why I've given everybody all the time they need. Everybody's had the time. We're going to do this professionally. But I also want to make sure we put factual statements on the record. Crystal Academy did

Whether it's the developer, it's Crystal Academy, it's owned by someone. It's private property. They can do to protect their property, they can close the gate and they can say we want to protect the property to ensure the safety of not only the individuals that are inside the property, but those outside. Correct? So moving on, would you like to add anything else to the record? No, that's it. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much Thank you very much, sir. All right, madam vice mayor the floor is yours.

Yeah, and before I begin You know, it's been a journey. It's been five years spoken to a lot of residents that have passionately come in and expressed their views and it's it's evolved this project has evolved So I do have some questions for the applicant. I I see that some of it you've done, but I need some clarity. We talked about removing earlier today the arcade. Has it been completely removed from the drawings so that we can have additional green space and setbacks that is more consistent with an MF zoning setback?

Incorporate those changes and apply them to all the different drawings that we have so with the working with a city architect is the developer agreeable to providing that additional green space yes, we are okay, so The playground area I see that in one of the drawings you've already rotated it. I think there was also an ask for a Kitchen for teaching the children has that been incorporated as well?

Talking a little bit about that area, I'm going to call it the children's park, just for a shorthand on that. What are the hours of operation of Crystal and what hours would this be open for the general public afterwards?

Ms. Palacio, thank you for being here and being able to answer those questions. My pleasure.

Okay, so for the evening hours, after school hours, you know, kids that don't go to the school can access the park after hours, is that correct?

Okay. And I'm just going to note while we're talking about access to parks and access to gardens, there was, as I recall, a resident stepped forward and explained that when he was a young man and used to go there and try to feed goldfish that faced out of the the Garden of Our Lord area, where the koi were swimming. So I don't know of any other area that has a pond in there, unless you are.

There's only one pond. And it was before I arrived in Coral Gables, so I wouldn't have any personal knowledge of it either. The courtyard, okay, and this is not pertaining to the Crystal Academy. Mary, thank you for coming up. public access to the courtyard. Is it locked at any point in time during the day?

What hours, to your knowledge, Locked. After dark. Is that what you're talking about?

I would say 9 p.m. On the dusk is usually what we do.

Phoenicia, you have... the women's club in front of you. You're gonna be landscaping the south side of the street. Is the developer willing to also landscape consistently the north side of the street where the women's club is? Provide an amenity on both sides of the street?

There has been a lot of talk about one particular oak tree on the site and where it's going to be relocated. There's a second specimen oak on site. Is the developer willing to move that specimen oak as well over to the East Ponce corridor to create that vision? future planning for Coral Gables to have a green corridor through there.

Yes, that's what I'm talking about. To create, you know, the mature canopy appearance.

You mentioned that you're considering some other trees as well. Which trees would those have been?

Okay. Do you have details about which trees those are and what are the gumbo limbos on Phoenicia?

Okay. I Walked the property. So I know that some of the gumbos were unfortunately damaged considerably by FPNL

Well, thank you for those details. Of course, no problem.

Yes. We talked about landscaping both the north and south side of Phoenicia. I want to talk to you also about residential parking units. We do have historic buildings around, especially on the Antia side with apartment units in them that depend upon having some residential parking. Is this something that the developer is willing to work with the city in establishing a residential parking permit program for those buildings that are already existing? On the street.

That's very beneficial, especially in this neighborhood. where you have historic buildings that have zero parking available. Let's talk about traffic for a moment. In Galliano, notice that there's a couple of intersections where there's no crosswalks. And I've heard a number of complaints about speeding on Galliano. No high intensity markings for the pedestrian crosswalk, no stop signs, no speed tables, nothing to slow down traffic. Is this something that the developer is willing to have the traffic study done and follow staff's recommendations on the signs, et cetera?

Yeah, you have at least four blocks straight that people can go without any stop signs and there have been complaints.

Can you also look at the traffic flow westward in the traffic study? Because there was one comment on, based upon that, is the traffic is coming out on both Phoenicia and Antia. Is there any recommendations that can be made to improve the conditions in that area?

And the size of the trees that you're gonna be installing, You meaning the developer? Have you committed to put in trees that are at least how tall?

Mayor, I do have additional comments before we take a vote, but I wanted to get some of these questions answered before we move forward.

Thank you, Madam Vice Mayor. Commissioner Castro?

Yeah. First, I want to thank every resident that was here and spoke pro and con this development. And the other thing is that this is a quasi-judicial case, so I would want to put on the record that there has been communication via emails and in person regarding this development. I also want to put on the record that I lived in this area for nearly 10 years, so I know this area very well. And I also want to be very sensitive to Crystal Academy. I spent nearly 12 years practicing in this field, treating children and young adults with developmental disabilities or unique abilities. So this is ve

Mr.. Mr.. Navarro, it's a brief question Piggyback off for Commissioner friends. I think just starting a little bit more clarity How large is the garden of our Lord how many square feet is it?

where the actual garden is. How many square feet is it? Probably less than 3,000 square feet. OK. All right. I want to give more context to Commissioner Frans. Is the issue having to do with the fact of the way that the residential is stacked on top of the area that the PSAB may be requested and that all those residential units would be lost? if that park was installed. Is that, I mean, we're having a frank conversation here. We're trying to get to a, trying to bring this in for a landing. Yeah, I mean. And I'm trying to give more context because if you put a, let's say a 5,000 square foot par

And that's my next point. I mean, again, you're going to make a significant investment. And I have my asks that I'm going to ask you, which are not as complicated as this one, even though after reading the PZAB minutes, I kind of agree with PZAB. But let me ask you a question. Commissioners, finish what you're saying. Well, I guess I never got an answer.

COMMISSIONER LOVELL. I WANT TO THANK EVERYONE FOR EXPRESSING THEIR VIEWS. THAT'S WHY WE'RE HERE AS COMMISSIONERS TO REPRESENT THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE. to the best of our ability, but not all people share the same thoughts, views, or opinions at the same time. So we're not here to make the easy decision, we're here to make the difficult decisions. I happen to respect very much all the sides that were represented here today, but for me, one of the most important things to consider, and it's not, as many have said so far, it's not about Crystal Academy, That's not the main focus here, even though

Right, that's important because, I mean, A linchpin of this, right, is that this space be provided for the 99-year period, but there must be a crystal academy to take occupancy.

SO I'VE SAID THIS BEFORE ON SO I'VE SAID THIS BEFORE ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS FROM THE DIAS, SEVERAL OCCASIONS FROM THE DIAS, THAT AN INFIRMITY THAT WE HAVE THAT AN INFIRMITY THAT WE HAVE BEEN DEALING WITH ON THE PNZ BEEN DEALING WITH ON THE PNZ WAS DELAY, DELAY, AND DELAY. WAS DELAY, DELAY, AND DELAY. AND I THINK THAT SOMETIMES IT AND I THINK THAT SOMETIMES IT TAKES ON THE APPEARANCE IF NOT THE TAKES ON THE APPEARANCE IF NOT THE ACTUAL FORM OF WEAPONIZING IN ACTUAL FORM OF WEAPONIZING IN ORDER TO KILL NOT IRRESPONSIBLE ORDER TO KILL NOT IRRESPONSIBLE DEVELOPMENT So I am not in favor of that. I th

Thank you, Commissioner. My comments will be brief, but I want to touch on something that Commissioner Arlotto brought up, and I thought he spoke very eloquent, and I agree with most of his comments. The mark is a perfect example. It was an item that went before the PZAB, was stricken down unreasonably, and was later taken up by the county using the RTZ, and we ended up with a building, I want to be correct on the record, I think two floors taller than what was being proposed on the planning and zoning board. I know nobody wants to face that, but members of the Planning and Zoning Board, inste

I know that it's going to cost money. I know it's going to cost money on the bottom line. I know it will. But I want you to think about it between first and second reading. And the second thing I'm going to ask you, being in construction, while we wait that up, it's beautiful that you give Crystal the opportunity to stay here in the city, 99 years rent-free. I think it was the area, can you open it up a little bit more?

one adjacent to the park up there what's that what's that next to the park my eyesight is nothing that's the go to the left no no no the ramp but no but underneath that next to the park no no go here i just can't see my eyesight it's terrible right there that is is that the road is that

Yeah. Okay, let's go down. That's going to stay that way. All right, what about here?

And that's a pretty big significant area.

If you would assist me between first and second reading, if you would allow, maybe provide the Commission with, Conceptual drawing of what that would expansion would look like and what you feel comfortable with absolutely expanding there That's one. That's one thing the second thing is Obviously there's there's no build-out that I see what are you mr. Mr. Navarro? What are you providing? Are you providing with a build-out?

Currently, that's the way the covenant is drafted. Can you do me a favor? Can you include that in the deal? I know, obviously, we're talking about, it was $5,000, now it's going to be about $6,000 because, not $6,000, but it's going to go up now. Let's say it's $150 a foot. You know, I think it's important that, where is the school going to get the money to pay for that? They'd have to raise the funds, and I'd rather have them raise the funds For an endowment.

And the third item that I have a request. Because the vice mayor already took care of traffic calming. She took care of the setbacks on Galeano. Which, by the way, that's where my grandfather lived. He lived on Galeano in a small little apartment. Abuelo Ying. I didn't know that. That's where he lived his whole life when he came to this great country. The final point is Excuse me. I apologize Okay crazy idea Just give it some thought.

Maybe we can find somebody generous in the community. Maybe the city can pitch in There's a photo that I saw that somebody put up that showed a two-story building across the street. It had a little sign on it. I pray it's a for sale sign and not a rent sign and that the building's not historic because then I'll have my dear friend Mariquit coming to me and tell me, we can't tear it down. Of course not because it's historic. And I agree. But that little building, can we find out if that building's for sale? I believe it may have been recently sold and we find out it was it was we were looking a

It was sold before somebody used that photo before, and I saw a little for sale sign. The building looked obviously over 50 years old. So I was wondering if potentially that building was...

I'd like to see through the manager if possible that we look for something similar to that in that vicinity. If you could have your team... and see what we could find. I think that could be something that potentially we could work on as a relocation for some of the Garden of Our Lord artifacts. Again, maybe it's a possibility. Maybe it's not. But in closing, before I know the Vice Mayor had some further comments, I'm ready to vote. I think after five years, The community has spoken. I think we've had a lot of individuals who have partaken in this beautiful democratic process that we're blessed

If you'd be so kind. Obviously, let's not wait until the day of the hearing. That's... Send the memo through the manager and his team and copy the commission. We'll start looking at it right away. So we can be on the same page. Madam Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you all for being present and providing your comments. Great cities require great schools. And that's something that George Merrick strongly believed in. We got the University of Miami. The land was donated there. It's a big sacrifice that Merrick made. Coral Gables Elementary School was built, and so was Ponce de Leon, which was then both the high school and the junior high, and still serves our community to this day in a junior high capacity and a direct route for Coral Gables residents or anybody to go to Coral Gables High. This school provides a missing gap. Whe

Because that happened down on US 1. And as you heard, we ended up with RTZ zone, five foot sidewalks, minimal step backs. I'm just going to call them ugly buildings because the county is not going to do what our Board of Architects does, the quality is not going to be there. Live Local has been amended every single year and is now allowed to be on test-type properties or church-type properties. And we already have one on South Swatheye Street. There's no park or green space. There's no community benefit. There's no pad. And my last comment is people focus on stories as opposed to height. When

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Vice Mayor. May I have a motion?

Thank you. Commissioner Lara. So my vote is for responsible intelligent development or helping to drive the economic engine. in the Ponce area and it's for Crystal Academy. So I'm a yes.

For all my reasons previously stated, yes.

I want to put something into perspective and it's that this body is going to approve this development, which is double the size of what our zoning code permits. So my question here is, Why do we have a zoning code? Is a zoning code only for residents, or is it to make exceptions for developers? I think we need to keep that into consideration a little bit. The other thing is, the question today is very simple. Do we protect the neighborhoods we represent, or do we rewrite their protections just for one project? My vote's going to be no.

Mr. Manager, one of the items that I forgot to touch upon was the map, the 1926 map that was discussed and that was shown that there was a change in zoning and then it was down zoned to religious. Can we have that prepared for staff to really kind of send us a memo in preparation for the second reading of this project because i think that's something that my colleagues in the commission i was i wasn't aware of and i'll be honest with you that the 1926 zoning was the current zoning that's being requested today correct well it's kind of vague i understand but i need a little more clarity on that

You know, I know it's politics season and elections are in November, thank God. They're not in April. But I understand we can disagree on projects. We can disagree on style, use, height, units. But I think we can hopefully agree on one thing, and that is we're a better city with Crystal Academy here. So my vote is a yes. On F8?

He ate Mister may or just to be able to excuse me thank you can I have to start where my glasses.

The majority might have the votes to go ahead and approve this, but I would not vote to remove neighborhood protections to try to fit a 9 story building into a low rise residential area. Absolutely not.

And before we take the vote, I just want to note that if you look at the height, a lot of people talk about stories. We're actually talking about less height than what the adjacent properties have, both on the east and west side. So before my colleague left distorts the facts, that is the basis for my moving this forward.

So my vote is in furtherance of the clear will of the people who live in that area So my vote's a yes.

We will take a 45-minute break for lunch.

And we're back. Let's, Mr. Clerk, if we can, let's start with our F1, which was time starting for 2 o'clock, but we'll take it now.

Thank you for being here. I'm the sponsor of this item. I'm very proud to be a sponsor. Thank you for joining us, our friends from the Junior Orange Bowl. Take it away, the floor is yours.

No, thank you. Do my colleagues have anything they'd like to add? Is there any public comment?

That's it, Mr. Mayor. Perfect. Madam Vice Mayor?

JUST A QUICK SUMMARY. I'M VERY PROUD TO HELP FOR OUR CITY TO HELP SUPPORT THE ORANGE, JUNIOR ORANGE BOWL AND MS. BALIN HAS DONE AN EXCELLENT JOB DURING HER LEADERSHIP ON THIS ROLE. SO I'M A YES VOTE ON THIS.

ANYTHING ELSE? THROUGH THE MAYOR. YES, SIR. SO WHAT CAN BE SAID ABOUT THE JUNIOR ORANGE BOWL THAT HASN'T ALREADY BEEN SAID AND WELL DESERVED? Other than to say, I want to direct my comments to you, Mimi Balaam. As the executive director, I want to thank you on behalf of myself, my colleagues on the dais in the city, for your tireless leadership, your vision, and your dedication to this worthwhile and longstanding organization. Thank you, your force, and we're very, very, very lucky to have you at the helm. Thank you.

Through the mayor? Yes. It is my understanding after speaking to the city attorney and to the city manager that really what this legislation is doing is cutting the three-year contract to a one-year contract. This has been a tradition since 1948. And I think Coral Gables prides itself on history and tradition. I think right now, with what's happening in Tallahassee, we are in a difficult predicament. And I understand why this is coming through. But I also understand that we do need to preserve this, that this is important, that this is a tradition. And instead of cutting the contract to one ye

As the sponsor of the item, I fully support what the Executive Director and the Orange Bull is doing. Amazing work, especially under your leadership. Let me tell you why my colleague is not aware of, speaks without knowing. Everyone across the board, every city is slashing contracts in preparation to the massive, massive tax implications that are forthcoming if in 2028, the referendum that is set forth by the state legislature passes. This is just making us more agile and more nimble. I will continue to support this organization, especially with the executive director at the helm, because like

For the reasons that we're actually slashing the three-year contract and only approving one, my vote is no.

Right. I guess you can look at it in a strained way using a weird set of filtered glasses. I choose to see it as we're once again supporting you, the Junior Orange Bowl, and its leadership for one more year. And I look forward to one year from now, seeing you as well up there, accepting another year from us. So I choose to see things a little bit more positively. So I'm an enthusiastic yes.

Mayor Lago. Just like we support, you saw a few moments ago, the grants that we supported for dozens of wonderful organizations every single year. They go up before the board, they present before the board, they tell us what they want to do, and we grant them the opportunity to win scholarships and win these grants. That happens every single year. It's not a two- to three-year basis. You can count on me. If you perform like you performed last year, which was amazing, I can only expect it's going to only get better, especially with you at the helm. I have full faith and confidence. I'm looking

I know you didn't. That was the whole point. And I'm happy that you didn't prepare.

I am. Oh, my God. That's amazing. That's amazing. I guess nobody likes my jokes, but it's fine. It's okay. Take it away, the show's yours.

Our next team is- Through the mayor, if I can, real quick. We had a lot of presentations, so you know. I'll be real quick. Dominic and Isabella, you guys did an amazing job. Isabella, I want to say that you really knocked it out of the park, and you're making Coral Gables Senior High School very, very proud.

He's biased. He went there. Now we have Cecile Sleznik. I think everyone knows that last name. And Camila Izquierdo, regarding the city manager's office. Ladies, please join us. The floor is yours.

Congratulations, ladies, well done. Amazing, amazing presentation. I hope this experience was as worthwhile for you as it was for me. I'm so happy you guys are here. And I'm happy that your grandfather, Mayor Slesnick, was able to catch your presentation. I can see where the leadership runs. Good to see you. Thank you, ladies. Now next up is Audrey Prabhakar and Jayden Lee. So I'm familiar with Mr. Jaden Lee, and if you're keeping tabs over the years, this is the second time that we have Mr. Lee here. So obviously we're doing something right if he's coming back for a second bite of the apple.

I thought you were perfect. Of course, real quick.

Thank you. So, Mr. Lee, first and foremost, you look very professional. Thank you. Very well put together. So do you, young lady. My question to you is, to both of you, especially to you, between your first and second year, what is the difference?

Young lady, what is your opinion after being involved in this program?

Thank you for joining us. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Are they gonna be consulting for the?

We'll figure it out. We'll do a one year contract. We'll figure it out. Great work. Daniela Osorio and Martina Hoyos, Office of the Mayor. Ladies, show them what you got.

So I want to commend both of you because for the simple reason you could have taken a much easier task. You took one of the most difficult tasks I could possibly think. When Laura told me what you were going to embark on, I said it's going to be very difficult to... kind of establish those metrics so you can deliver on a presentation, but I think you did an amazing job. And this is incredibly important to us. And I think that sense of place is coming to the city. We're gonna have five to six new green spaces already in the downtown. I think that's gonna be a game changer, significant game chan

Yassine Alain from the Office of Mayors. Sir?

Well. Just very briefly, I think that the concept and idea of garbage management and- There it is.

That's it? Yeah. All right, well, first I want to congratulate you. Thank you for embarking on this process over the summer. I think that this is something that, again, I'm very interested in also, and so is the commission. The manager, we brought forth a plan of action to address litter. Even though I think we're pretty clean compared to other cities, we can always be better. The manager right now is working with an outside consultant that he's in the process of, I think, signing a procurement agreement with. where we're gonna find ways to clean the sidewalks more efficiently instead of havin

Thank you, that was a lot of information to understand.

Very well done. One last point to add is we have reduced the permitting fee for living seawalls in order to try to incentivize residents to utilize them.

I want to congratulate both of you. Again, you did an incredible job on all three presentations. And I want to just give you kudos and a little bit of testament and congratulations. Because if you noticed, the manager, when you were giving your final presentation, he was taking notes on the Apple Pay. And it's something that, again, maybe it's in the works, maybe it's not. But having all these young individuals in the room gives you a completely different perspective. Like my 15-year-old daughter pays with Apple Pay. I don't have Apple Pay on my phone. I never even thought about it. So, you kn

Through the mayor. I want to thank you very much for working on this last presentation for me. You guys did an exceptional job. I pay with Apple Pay everywhere. Sometimes I don't take my purse. I don't only pay with my phone, but I am also able to pay with my watch. I was stuck in the Cocoa Walk garage with my grandfather that's very impatient, and I forgot my credit cards and cash. So I was stuck with a lot of people behind me not being able to pay, pressing the little button for somebody to come and help me. So I think we're working on renewing our garages. I think Menorca is going to be the

Great job, gentlemen. Robert Mirena, Jacob Deza, and Charlotte Rutkins, Lucas Manzano, Community Recreation. How are you? Happy to have you guys. All right, gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen, go ahead.

Well done, well done. Thank you very much. Welcome to the city. Gabby Vides, and then we have one more. Development Services. Gabby, welcome.

Thank you for joining us this summer, and it really excites me to know that this opportunity only strengthened your opinion in regards to what do you want to chase professionally. So we're excited that you're here, and hopefully one day you'll become part of the team. Thank you. Have a wonderful summer. Thank you for being here with us. And the last one is Maria Benitez, and she had the honor of working with the finance department. Last but not least, we saved the best for last.

Are you going to be joining us tomorrow for the meeting?

Where? There's a clicker. Oh, oops. Okay.

You're not gonna be late tomorrow, right? You're not gonna be late tomorrow, right? You know what time it starts tomorrow?

Be here at 845. Be here at 845. Yes, okay. Congratulations. Thank you. Let me tell you, what you just talked about right now is incredibly complicated. And you have an amazing handle on that and we should use that cheat sheet across the board to explain to people because. Sometimes people don't understand. Sometimes people don't understand and they ask you and it's okay. You don't expect people to understand a millage rate. You know, people ask you, what are my taxes? What are my taxes? So what you explained right there, you did it with grace. You did it, you know, you simplified it. And I want to tell you that I'm very proud of you for getting up there and doing a great job.

No, please. In closing, I'd like to thank Laura. for her hard work. She's amazing and we're blessed to have her in the commission office. She is an amazing, an amazing individual who always makes me look good. I want to also thank Nora, Gabby, and Gabriel, Gabriel who's here, the rest of the staff members in the commission who have done also a great job. And I'd like to take a picture with the pages if I possibly can. Can we get you guys up here really quick for a picture? Awesome.

All right. Moving on, we have our mayor here. So time to serve on item F8 and G3.

Mayor Selesnyk, I apologize for running a little late, but thank you for your patience.

I think you enjoyed watching the presentations, especially since, was your granddaughter there?

Mayor, we've been doing this, I think it's been like five or six years that we've been doing the page program, and steadily it's growing and growing and growing. And one of the interesting things that you heard was one of the individuals mentioned very clearly, she said that, I think it was a young lady that said, my counselor told me to join this program. And I think that to me, That to me verifies that what we're doing here as a city and bringing this program together makes sense. You know, it's not too long and it's not too short. Three weeks, four weeks is right about the right time and you culminate it with having them come before the commission. I think it just builds, it's character building and I think it's just huge.

Mayor, if I may, first and foremost, thank you for always saying yes. When I called you, you have a million things going on. You're running your law career. You're engaged in a lot of philanthropy. Throughout the state, you're traveling for a lot of gator causes, a lot of philanthropy causes, philanthropic causes, excuse me. But you said, if you need me, if the city needs me, I'd be honored to serve. You've served for two years with incredible distinction. You've been through the roller coaster over the last two years, and you came out the other side, and we've accomplished a lot. The referend

Mayor, why don't you tell us what it is that they're showing tonight?

We're right there, right? We're in the procurement process So it's taken a lot of heavy lifting, and I want to thank you for that. I thank everybody in the Senate. I will see you in the movies. And at the polls. Yes, at the polls. Can I have a motion to accept F8?

I'll second with a correction of a typo on Menendez's last name. There's an extra M. We'll fix that.

Yes. Mayor, thank you so much. We're eternally grateful as always. God bless you. We're going to take items E12. and E13, which I think are related? Yes. I'll take it after the timeshare.

I was just going to comment on that. I see you're out of the boot.

I will close up on the comment. Any comments from the Commission?

It's a beautiful project, and I take it that the comment we had earlier today that Alan Morris was contributing an additional $11 million was... It's not $11 million. I didn't want to bring it up.

Make that clear for the record, no. I can't believe the Vice Mayor brought that up. $11 million. Wow, we're feeling generous.

I know you couldn't. Perfect. Listen, again, thank you. I want residents to understand what's about to happen here. The manager and your team have worked on delivering probably one of the most beautiful parks you're going to see in Florida. It's gonna be reminiscent of what you see in Washington, where it has real stone. It's not faux coquina, it's not just concrete, it's real stone. It's gonna have world-class art, and it's gonna be a beautiful, beautiful location that's gonna be the envy of every community here in South Florida.

I just want people, because it's a little bit difficult, and we've been working on this for years. It's a little bit difficult. to really encapsulate it and really explain it because until you see the materials and you understand and you touch it and you really get to see the banisters and you get to see the actual structures that are built out of marble, this is not your typical concrete structure. This is something incredibly tasteful. It's beautiful and it's very well done and it'll stand the test of time. I also want to thank you. Because you worked incredibly hard not only with a project

Incredible. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Manager, for leading the way. Thank you for that. We have a, yes, Madam Vice Mayor.

So just on a more serious note, I'm sorry, I couldn't resist the early one. What your client and you did best to was listen to the comments that we received, really enhancing this part to the next level. And the architecture that was put in, really stepped it up to excellence. And that's what we're looking for in this park. And we'll get it done right. And I think that it will be the showcase for our city. The band show is going to answer a lot of questions or a lot of problems in our city for making it a spectacular area for people to gather.

All right, we have a motion and a second.

Yes. Mayor, thank you very much. Thank you all. Thank you very much. Let's do item E6 and E10.

so This is where it all started. Mm-hmm. Oh, it's your manager Thank you very much as we worked through this process. This is one of the six or seven parks that we're gonna have now forthcoming in the downtown and I don't know how, but it slipped through the cracks in regards to making sure that this became, that we own the park. And we are here. And after we made that misstep, every park moving forward, the manager and I made sure as we negotiated that it belonged to the city of Coral Gables. This is a pilot program. Yes. Which is going to have, which is a pilot program, which we learned a lo

It's a beautiful park, and it serves its purpose, and it's a block away from Palm Circle Park. It is. So again, the whole point is to put as many of these parks in the downtown, which again, will pay huge dividends across the board for our property values, quality of life, and this is just an example of great art, We they know the vice mayor was able to save three trees that again which look beautiful which are huge huge going over the right away It's right away a massive oak tree And now with the art with the trees with the public public open space and now as that building becomes more and mo

I just want to thank you and your client once again for being willing to save The trees that were healthy. I mean it wasn't easy And if any of you have doubts about how much effort was put in Paul Gables magazine did cover this and the sausage tree came from one side of Lejeune To the other side of Lejeune, and I'm still amazed we got it over there But the crane lifted it over the bill It was spectacular. But it also shows the level of commitment that your client and you worked on to make it happen. So thank you. And thank you on behalf of the community.

Mr. Grover, do we have any public comment?

Mayor Lago? Yes. Thank you all so much. Thank you very much. Good to see you. Take care. All right, we're going to have F-13, which is our final time certain item of the day. Please come up, sir. So let me introduce you all to a young man that I've had the privilege of knowing for some time. He's going to introduce himself and give a little background in regards to who he is. He's here with his lovely mother, who is his biggest fan, and I can see why. He's worked at my office for some time. I think we've known each other for how long now?

And we've kept in touch from last summer, and we've had the opportunity to work together. And he took a semester off from high school, and he went to Washington to work. And I wanted to talk a little bit about why he's here, what he's doing, how he went in Washington, what are his – his objectives, what is he seeing for the near future. And the reason why I asked him to be here is because I could have presented this idea. But he brought me the idea. And at the end of the day, another piece of legislation under my belt is not going to make or break me. But the ability to give this gentleman the

So what I requested from this young man was to put forth a presentation that encompasses his desire to have this program started here in the city of Coral Gables, which is a little bit of a spinoff from what we have at the youth center, which I was very clear with him that we have something similar to this. to put together something that's all-encompassing in regards to Coral Gables and having, as we saw how effective these young pages were today with the ideas that they came forward, I don't think it's anything, again, that wouldn't help the city at the end of the day. You get a completely di

Thank you, Diego. What I'm going to request is, I'm going to talk about two things. First and foremost, one of the things that we, after doing some research, we noticed that the current council, which is with the youth center, hasn't met in many months, correct? They've been having some quorum issues, right? Do we have currently any openings on that board?

Did we have any openings from last time?

How many openings did we have? Two. How long were those openings there for?

So at the end of the day, we've had openings on that board. That's why that board hasn't met for months and months and months. We weren't able to have quorum. So I think it's again critically it's incumbent of the elected officials number one to put people on these boards You're not if you're not putting people on the boards When there's an immediate opening again at the end a we can't do can't do the business at hand because we depend on those ports So that's number one number two. I like for my colleagues to review this and I'm gonna put this item on the next agenda And I like for their inpu

So I'd like for my, I'd like for this to be on the next agenda. Yes, sir. For my colleagues to review these comments and see how we can, see how we can adopt this. I'd like for this board to have more teeth and to engage young professionals across the board, you know, who are willing to come here like the page. We have these great young men and women who are here who have given up a month of their summer to be here with the city. And I worked on these presentations. I'd like for them to engage in this board. You know, maybe we don't have one person per commissioner. Maybe we name two people pe

Yes. I want to make sure that we bring it back. A direction to bring it back and obviously for my colleagues to review this and give input to the manager so that we can put together a board that again is reflective of all the hard work that this young man has put together.

Just to the mayor, if the clerk would maybe mind sending, I know you do this periodically, but just before the next meeting, as soon as practical, to send each and every one of the commissioners I WOULD LIKE TO SEE AN E-MAIL IDENTIFYING ANY OPEN I WOULD LIKE TO SEE AN E-MAIL IDENTIFYING ANY OPEN POSITIONS. POSITIONS. I HAVE BEEN ASKED BY PEOPLE, I HAVE BEEN ASKED BY PEOPLE, DO YOU HAVE AN OPENING IN THIS? DO YOU HAVE AN OPENING IN THIS? THIS IS AN EXTRA STEP. THIS IS AN EXTRA STEP. MAYBE SEND ONE OF THOSE BEFORE MAYBE SEND ONE OF THOSE BEFORE THE NEXT ONE SO WE CAN KEEP THEM THE NEXT ONE SO WE

VICE MAYOR ANDERSON? VICE MAYOR ANDERSON? YES. YES. COMMISSIONER CASTRO?

All right, we're going to take a two-minute break, bathroom break, and then we're going to do E1 and E2, correct? Well, E1, yes.

Change of plans. Let's start with E2 really quick because that takes a moment. Recording in progress.

Congratulations. Thank you. Well done. Moving on to item E2, and then we'll do E1.

May I have a motion? May I have a second? Second. Mr. Clerk?

Yes. Mayor Lago? Yes. Thank you, Mr. City Attorney. Item E1.

Thank you very much. There are multiple speakers one of them has a yes, okay, let's hear the public speakers first speaker is Jackson Holmes Yes, sir

Ms. Pardo, will you do me the pleasure? You've gone over by over two minutes.

Not a problem. I'm just making you aware you've gone over by two minutes. Thank you very much.

If I may, you've gone over by two minutes and 15 seconds.

Before we move on, Madam City Attorney, will you please clarify what the purpose of E1 is?

I just want to clarify because I've heard the same over and over.

Thank you very much. Anything else to the good of the order? Commission? If not, may I have a motion?

I'll move it, and I'll just reiterate that this talks about property not being, you know, used for off-street parking. It shall not be paved, which will be consistent with maintaining the property for Byrds and Ibis. All this particular ordinance does. So I'll move it.

Do we have a second? Second. Anyone? Mr. Clerk, we have a motion and a second.

Mayor Lago? Yes. Madam City Attorney, will you also go over today's court proceedings?

I just want to make sure you put on the record.

The emergency motion for injunctive relief. What is the next steps moving forward?

I just want to make sure you put it on the record because the media asks. I want to make sure that we have the appropriate information on the record from the city attorney. All right, moving on. Thank you very much. Yes.

I have a question for the city manager. We received today an alternative location. which staff has not had an opportunity to look at. I'd like for staff to look at this and provide feedback.

Thank you. Thank you. All right, moving on to Item E3.

Thank you. I'm happy you brought this up because I've been meaning to speak with the manager about potentially just embarking on a study. If you go through the city of Miami, for example, adjacent to Merrick Park, where all the warehouses are. That's the city of Miami. I go to the gym there. When I'm running through that area, used to have a major issue with the roll-off dumpsters in the alleys. Used to be, it was an epic nightmare. You had illegal dumping. You had the roll-offs all through the alleys. Something interesting that I noticed last month that was implemented, I don't know if it was

Yeah, because that way you'll know where those dumpsters have to be, and they have to be placed back in there, and those fences have to be maintained. I'll take some pictures of it in the morning when I go to the gym. And I'll send you some pictures, but if you get a chance just right by the Douglas station in that area Those warehouses are you'll see all all those warehouses now No longer have their dumpsters basically free and clear in the alley roaming the alley being rolled out and sometimes you'll see them in different areas Because you know when they clean them out. They don't put them a

But it's an interesting way. It's an interesting way. I'll take some pictures of the...

Okay. Mayor, I do have a question for you. Are those locked? Okay, because like St. Mary's is having a problem with that. A lot of illegal dumping. I mean, if waste management can work with businesses to have them locked, unlocked, that'd be a great solution for them.

I'm going to take some pictures tomorrow so you can see them. Some of them are, some of them, if they have to be in the alley because, for example, it's a small warehouse and you have no choice, they don't have parking spaces, they have it all the way against the back of the warehouse with, you know, probably about this much sticking out of the wall and it's one of those smaller containers. The bigger the container obviously the bigger the enclosure. But at my gym what they did was it's a bigger container so what they have, they took one entire spot. They required them to put it there. Again,

I'll share some pictures of that. And if you have a chance, just drive by, literally, next to Merrick Park, in that warehouse district.

On the back of Countach. Right there, around that area. Okay. Thank you, by the way. I appreciate that. Sorry I took over. You brought something up to my mind that I've been meaning to talk to the manager about.

Through the mayor's those are those are my items tomorrow We have an early early budget hearing and I think this meeting is gonna go to like midnight right now. So if anybody else wants to Refer any items.

Thank you very much. Good job. Mr manager. I want to thank you 1st and foremost. We've been chasing this property for a long time again. It's another testament to your hard work here in the city. I brought this property with the previous city manager who was here and we didn't purchase it, which I thought was a shame at that point. We made some other great purchases. but we didn't purchase this property. But this, again, finishes closing off the loop in the entire block. We control our destiny at the end of the day. And again, this is an asset that is in the best place in the state of Florida,

Yes. Mayor Lago? Yes. Thank you. Moving on to item F2.

Thank you very much. I am the sponsor of this item. The reason we put it back up here is to still we still need a little more time since there's this ongoing Tallahassee homestead exemption. I think the fiscal impact as it is right now is minimal. However, I think it would be fiscally responsible to keep on evaluating the fiscal impact. Monica?

Thank you, Monica. I'll move it. I have some questions.

Before you move it, do we have any public comment?

Madam Vice Mayor, you had a question or a statement or something?

I do have some questions. And while the director's up there, it's an appropriate time. Because we do have the mobility hub coming, and we're breaking ground on a particular date. And I wanted to hear your evaluation of the impact on availability of parking and recommendations.

So I think the first part of the question needs to ask, when is the actual day we're going to be closing down garage one for available parking?

Let me see if I can put my concerns in a nutshell. This proposal runs the pilot program, which we're evaluating numbers through January. And hypothetically, let's say we break ground in October. So it's going to skew the results. So really the analysis gets altered. And from what I'm hearing, you're still working on trying to figure out where to put people. I'm sorry, what did you say? You're trying to figure out where to put people. You're 150 cars short. Right, at certain times. So my suggestion, at least to keep this moving for right now, is to instead of pick picking January, pick a date b

So going back to my question, that's January 27. Okay. And we're going to aesthetically break ground in October. I'd like to get a clean set of numbers to be able to show this is how many people are participating. This is how many more people were drawing that in. So really, the discount is resulting in additional revenue as opposed to being impacted by the fact that we've broken ground on a parking garage. And then we can reset the study after that to have a clean set of numbers.

That's that's my concern through the mayor yes Um if you go ahead and second my motion, I'll accept your amendment Yeah, no, I'll second.

I'll second a motion, but you understand your amendment. I mean so is It correct to say hypothetically that we're gonna break ground on October some sometime this year.

So I'm going to second the motion. I think it's real important for this to run, especially during the hot summer months, get more people downtown. And it'll just sit extended until the month before you're ready to break ground, whether that's the end of September, October. The language would cover it just by saying the month before you're ready to break ground. We'll stop the program there, and then we can discuss what to do with it after.

All right. So basically, the program will be frozen and stopped in three months, right?

July, August, September. Unless there's another month.

All right, so we have a motion and a second.

Yes. Mayor Lago? Yes. Thank you very much, Madam Director. All right, moving on to item F4.

Pretty self-explanatory. Mr. Clerk, do you have any public comment? No, Mr. Mayor. All right, we'll take a motion.

Thank you. Any public comment? No, Mr. Mayor. May I have a motion?

Thank you for clarifying. May I have a motion? I have a... One second. I'll second. Mr. Clerk?

May I have a motion? We have a motion and a second. Mr. Clerk?

I disagree with changing it to four years, but I do agree with putting it out on a referendum for having the people vote, so yes.

Commissioner Fernandez? Yes. Mayor Lago? Yes. Moving on to item F7.

So thank you very much. This is a message to my colleagues and one person in particular who's here. What we have done here, and I'm happy the Herald is listening to this, what we've done here is we've weaponized social media. Community, but we have blogs here and what we do turn people on the Commission and certain people in this room is they leak false information To these blogs. Let me give you an example and then they run with it They run with it and before you know, it's snowballs. You're knocking on someone's door and they're saying this and I can't support you because I hear that you're

George Merrick. I'm fine being second to George Merrick from Commissioner Fernandez.

Just this year alone, it's 30 acres. How many acres have we brought to the downtown? How many acres have we brought to the residential communities through legislation that I've written? And it's the constant... You know, BS, lies, innuendos, scare tactics that are used to get people, oh, they're going to scare. The reason why they want to do the things in the Granada Golf Course is because they want to sell it. So you know what I did? Let's take it to an extreme. Let's take it to an extreme. And here's your extreme. The voters will decide now, by the way, green space, golf courses, and youth c

So this, I don't want to put this forward. I don't want to tie the hands because at the end of the day, what's the point of me having an elected official? And I talked to the manager. The manager asked me, Vince, what's the point of being an elected official? Well, you have no choice. You have to do this. Because people will implicate you in things. Like, for example... Raising your salary. I think it's absolutely insane that an elected official would raise their own salary. We did it here. We did it here in the middle of a budget hearing. So what do I do now? Residents are the ones that will

So that's why I'm putting it forward and I ask for every one of my colleagues on this commission to support it because it's the right thing to do. Madam Vice Mayor.

I fully support it and it gives me peace to know that when I finish my time here that the hard work that's been done by this commission to secure these properties is not going to be unraveled by a future commission. Okay? Or by a board with a reverter clause that decides to have a litigation case and spend a lot of taxpayer money in court and WITH WHETHER OR NOT PARTICULAR ACTIONS DO OR DO NOT VIOLATE THE REVERTER. SO I'LL MOVE IT.

Mayor, I did cover that with the city attorney and about transfers and land swaps and all that, and no, it's covered. It's covered perfectly. I did that also.

I did that also. Look, my point is that we can go back and forth about simple words here, but this has nothing to do, nothing to do with the commission. This has to do with stopping the abuse on individuals' reputations in this town. And it's enough, because I'm tired of hearing the assault that happens on people's reputations here on blogs and anonymous people. I don't read any of that stuff. They send me screenshots. They stop sending me this stuff. I don't care what any of these people say. Put your name front and center. Don't be anonymous. Front and center. So my point is that I read it.

The project that was split because Venetory redeveloped the, not redeveloped, he beautified this exceptional historic home and he split the lot. He's going to sell it. We bought it. We bought that lot. We bought the one on 37th Avenue in Alhambra. We bought the one on Granada adjacent to the Coral Gables Country Club. We bought the big piece on Salvador. We bought Dorothy Thompson Park.

We bought the North Ponce. I mean, and then it goes on and on and on and on. This right here should never, you should have faith and trust in your elected officials. But when people start with that rhetoric and they start using that in campaign material that we're going to sell Granada Golf Course and we're going to sell the Coral Gables Youth Center, I mean, it's ridiculous. It's insulting to a person's commitment to come and run for public office and you're going to start selling public assets. I mean, again, in how many weeks, Mr. Manager? Through your effort and my effort that we've been d

I mean, outside of, you know, I don't know what else we could do. You know, the Mayor Selesing was here. He was like, listen, he wasn't saying it, but he was kind of saying, hey, you can do a four-fifths vote. No, no, we're taking it even further. We're taking it even further. I don't think it gets, I don't know what else. We could do. So our intent, and I think we're pretty clear, for the youth center, for the Granada golf course, and for all our green spaces, for the youth center, for Granada, for the golf courses, and for all our green spaces, is to never allow them to be developed. Never.

Salvador, and he was always advocating on behalf, and he was the one that basically asked me to change my legislation from 100% going to acquisition to 65, 35, where 35% of it went into renovation of existing parks, and 65 went to acquiring new parks. So I just want to give him a little shout out.

Okay, you said you wanted to take this to an extreme. And I have an idea. I think the reason you really brought this up is to protect your reputation regarding the golf course and the youth center. The reverter clause is here to protect the youth center exclusively for the youth. And I understand where you're coming from. But I think there's something that we need to keep into consideration. And not only the sale of a property, is gonna protect these properties because we can lease it, for example, 99 year lease, right? Also, we can change the land use of these properties as we have done in th

Let me correct you. Okay, number one. I already talked to this with the city attorney. 99-year leases, we don't 99-year lease parks. And we don't have any parks that are leased here in the city. So let's be very careful with the things that we say because, again, they're misleading and people believe them, just like we're going to redevelop the youth center and we're going to redevelop the golf course. So this is as extreme as it gets. There's nothing. There's no sales. There's no leases. There's no rents. There's no nothing. You cannot sell a city-owned piece of property that is a green space

Go ahead. So... What else would you like?

Supermajority. Let's go. Let's add it. Let's add it. Supermajority. How about that? Anything else you'd like to add? Thank you. Okay. So my point is this. Whether it's a sale, lease, rent, no green space in the city of Coral Gables will be sold. Now it will be a golf course or a youth center. That's what I'm proposing.

Through the mayor, the language on this legislation specifically states city-owned properties. It doesn't only state parks or golf courses.

Madam City Attorney, will you please correct Commissioner?

It's as clear as day. Clear as day. Let's stop playing around with semantics here. May I have a motion?

You have a motion. Okay. I have a second.

Do you have any public comment? Yes, sir, we do. Okay. Public comment. Thank you.

And to the record, shall the city charter be amended to require the sale of city-owned park, recreational facility, golf course, or open park space be approved by the city electors, which means our voters, with the requirement to be further outlined in an ordinance adopted by the city commission? The word sale. means actual transaction or transfer of a piece of property. This is something I discussed with the city attorney ahead of time, so no land swaps, no other types of means of sale could occur.

Right, and we're limited to 75 words on ballot language.

Correct. But that's something that we can work on over the next few weeks.

So this particular question fits within the box, covers this particular issue. If there's additional issues that other people want to put another item on the ballot for, we can have that discussion at the next meeting.

Again, I would hope that members of the commission, all members of the commission, or here or the community would be ecstatic about this, would not be finding ways to take shots at it. That just goes to prove my point, that it's not about the legislation or actually stopping the constant attacks. It's about, you know what?

Let's continue it so that we can continue to proliferate the lies and all the accusations that are ridiculous in nature about the youth center and about the golf courses. So we have a motion and a second, Mr. Clerk. Let's put this on for the voters.

Can you go ahead and clarify the motion? Because I believe the mayor said the fourth, fifth vote. So what is the motion exactly at this point?

I never said the fourth, fifth vote. The motion was clarified by the vice mayor. Let's stop wasting time. Let's vote already.

I know, but the mayor next to me after I spoke.

Again, remember, to my colleagues, remember, please, for those of you that oppose the IG, for those that oppose sending the raises to the residents, for those of you that oppose November, to my left and to my right, Again, join in on this. Stop trying to nip at the heels of things. Join in and let's do something good together. I have the votes anyways because this is common sense legislation. Again, don't be on the record opposing this. All right, so I think we're clear now, right? Supermajority, 60 plus 1, the Vice Mayor has accepted the amendment. Okay?

In any way that I, whatever way I vote, this has nothing to do with me accepting the reverted clause for the youth center. Once again, that reverted clause there is to protect the youth center strictly for the youth. And the other thing I want to go ahead and put on the record, once again, this could still be leased to somebody else. and you can still change the land use. So this is all smoke and mirrors. But I'm gonna go ahead and vote yes. Yes to no selling parks or recreations as it's stated in the resolution.

Commissioner Lara. Right, so if this was anything other than taking it to the voters, if it had to do with just the disposition of any property, I would vote no. But since this is strictly limited to, well, what it calls for, right, parks, green space, golf courses, yeah, it's as close to a no-brainer as I can imagine, right? We kill ourselves to try and add to the green space, to add to parks, to add what's so precious and so limited. So I would have assumed an hour ago we all would have just been unanimous. So my vote's yes.

Madam City Attorney, we need to clarify a few things. Again, in an effort to cloud the waters here and, you know, I guess make comments for the blogs. We just heard right now, can we change the land use of a park in an effort to avoid this type of situation? Tell me, I'd like to know.

It's prohibited. Add it to it. I want to prohibit it.

So let me ask you a question because I asked both of you in a conversation about this. What's the point of finding an end around of having this piece of legislation go to the voters and then finding an end around on land use?

I'll clarify for you. Let's use the Blue Road open space, for example, right next to my house. So this legislation has been enacted for years. We want to sell that property. park, designated park. We want to sell it. So I would put it on the agenda to do a land use change on that property, change the land use in two readings, and then it wouldn't have to go to the voters for approval, correct?

Reconsidered in both ways right change the zoning of a park of an existing park you change the zoning And you sell it you're not gonna have to face the 60 plus one voters correct as written That's that's what it says so I asked you what I wanted something ironclad That's what I'm taking into the voters very simple I Want on the next agenda? Obviously the problem is that we have a deadline

No, but I want it, I want it, but we can do it. We can do it. We'll call a special meeting.

I'll call a special meeting, which I know that hopefully my colleagues will support. If you want to protect green space, it will take, it will be 15 minutes.

rezoning Reuse I'm just want to get some clear direction the use again My intention is to make sure that there can never be a discussion ever again about a park a Golf course or the youth center being used for anything else than what it's intended for Understood, which is a park the youth center or a golf course Very simple

We would like to make it even more difficult. Maybe that's trying to see what ironclad really could look like. So before it could, I'm just talking out loud, before it could be proposed on a ballot, if you wanted to sell a green space, then you would need a four-fifths vote before it could be even considered for being put on the ballot. Would that make it even more strict?

Guys, this is a friendly suggestion there.

I accept anything that, again, makes it even harder. Yes, Commissioner.

Again, I left a safety valve when we talked about our reserves, which was at the manager's discretion for emergencies, right? You have an emergency, you can't wait for the next election. I want to make this ironclad. But I want to make this election.

So, I'm going to make a suggestion. Pass this now. If we can find that we can add more to it within 75 words, fine. But it might be clear if we break it down into more than one question.

And it would be less confusing for the voters. And think about whether we should call voters electors or voters.

And I want to make it clear I want to take the commissioner commissioner. Or 5th supermajority potentially if we can add it into the mix of all fit favor that and also the vice mayor's comments about. Before this but in the next week if we need to come up with second question or question. to make it ironclad, I have no issues with that. I will call a special meeting, it will take 15 minutes, and we can pass it. But I, is that fine? It's fine. So something, we should be able to get it done, and I think it's something simple.

Because, if I may, just one more last thing, because we can say all the ridiculously insane, you know, assumptions, leases and property and transfers, since I've been here and I've lived in the city almost my entire life, um, I don't think we've ever leased a park. I know we've leased a parking lot. Leased a parking lot. And by the way, the funny part about it is when we sold that parking lot, I'm the one on the record that, what did I tell Mr. Manager? When we sold it, what did we do with the proceeds? Buy park land. We had to buy park land. So I made it on the record. You're going to sell th

Plus the drainage. So my point is that... I don't know how to make this any more ironclad. I leave it up to the attorneys. I'm more than willing to work with the manager, work with my colleagues. And if we need another meeting, we'll have another meeting to do it. Commissioner Fernandez, you have something to say?

We don't have enough time to formally notice it.

But out of respect, I don't have a problem doing that. But out of respect to your staff, do you have enough time?

Again, my intent when I brought this up, My intent when I brought this up is I don't want any transfers, leases, 99-year leases, sales. I don't want any of that. Zero. Zero. When it comes to parks, youth center, and golf courses. I don't want any sales. Zero. Leases. Zero. Any trading, you know how you trade baseball cards? No trading of baseball cards. No like, you know.

Leases is different. They're not leasing the whole facility.

But we don't lease a facility as a whole for X amount of time. The youth center has different leases. For example, we have a lease with a gymnastics organization.

But it doesn't have green space. How about green space?

Again, but the Adult Activity Center is part of a building that has a 99-year lease with, that we own the land. So it gets a little more complicated. That's why I said green spaces. That's why I wanted to make sure it was pinning green spaces, which is a youth center. Okay?

Any property that has green space, I don't want to lose it. Understood. Any property, just think about it. It's simple. Anything that has green space.

Through the mayor. I mean, we have a country called Prado. We have lots of green space that makes this city special. And no, I don't want to have to worry about what happens after I leave.

So, Madam City Attorney, do I vote on this issue or no? Do I vote on this issue?

Okay. Whatever you'd like to do, it's fine with me. As long as it goes before, as long as it goes before. Again, again, because what happens when you bring it, it gets more and more complicated the more lawyers that get involved, okay? So.

I understand that, but it's also, that's why you guys make so much money, because you drag the process on. Trust me, I have a lot of you on payroll. So, my point is this. I want to make sure, very clear, okay? I haven't voted yet. I want to make sure No green space in the city, parks, plazas, country club, Prado, the youth center and our historic golf course and not be sold. When you sell something, There's multiple different types of sales, a 99-year lease, trade, a transfer, you know? My daughters are trading those FIFA cards now everywhere they can. No trading, no trading any green space fo

I know, but in two weeks they'll be not valuable. So my point is that I don't care, no trading, no bullying, no transfers, no Bitcoin.

I withdraw the motion. We'll enjoy budget tomorrow morning bright and early at 9 o'clock.

But we can get through it. We move. We move quick.

Yes. Sorry to be the contrarian, but I think the better course would be that we vote, right? Can't we take care of the details in the ordinance?

I would prefer today, or tonight, or just bring a cot. Just before bedtime.

Commissioner, I wholeheartedly agree with you, but that was the reason why I made the comments that I made. No matter what you vote on, they'll say, ah, you know what? One of the comments was made up here. You know what? It'll be somehow, someway, they'll paper, rock, scissor, and they'll sell the facility. It's something insane. They come up with ridiculous ideas to basically undermine the commission. We've got to stop that.

Your record is clear. I don't know if the city has ever sold a park to anyone. I don't even know the answer to that question. There's no basis if what you believe is that people are making accusations that have any sort of basis to them. There is no basis to it. And all the effort you've just spent, and this commission has spent, debating how we're going to make this as ironclad as practical, right, is more than enough proof against anyone. And I just, personally, I don't give power to people.

I don't give power, but may I give you, just with all due respect, may I give you an example, multiple examples? Did you ever believe that somebody would vote against an IG? Did you ever believe that somebody would raise their own salary and vote against giving residents the ability to control salaries? Did you believe that people would vote against a November election? Did you believe that? No, I didn't believe that. I didn't think in my lifetime I would see, after being up here 13 years, see somebody raise their salary the way that I saw it happen here, 101%. I don't believe that would happe

Your point is very well taken. I would suggest that our attorneys craft away while we can finish out the agenda as much as we can right now. I'm all in favor of that.

Yeah, I think we have, what, two other items left?

No, we're good. We're almost there. The city manager items will be quick. He told me. All right. We'll, we'll, we'll like the vice mayor. Thank you. Thank you. City of team, city attorney team. Um, F nine.

So as the sponsor of this item, I think that this is one of those that I don't think is particularly complicated. It's one that I experienced when I knocked on doors during the campaign last year that came up often of how we could, take meaningful steps to try and simplify the permitting for those items that are simpler than a complicated structural renovation or improvement to one's home. So what I'd like to do is ask the city staff to evaluate and bring back recommendations for a same-day or an expedited permitting program for eligible programs here in Coral Gables, because this is the type

That's great to hear. I mean, I can almost hear the peals of hallelujah from the hills of Coral Gables, you know, if we can get this thing through.

Man, it's something, Commissioner, a lot of firsts. I love the idea. Thank you. And Mr. Manager, thank you for being so quick on the draw there. I'm all in, but let me ask you a question. What do you do about projects, like for a simple project, for example, a re-roofing, 3090, 3090 with a tile. All these tiles have to be approved by the BOA or the city architect Maybe we can streamline the process and say, if you pick from this board and you just say, listen, this is what I'm doing on the permit, it can be part of the process. Through the mayor? Yeah.

Perfect. It's a big deal, especially during the rainy months. That's a simple one. If we can get those out of the way, it opens up the system.

Mayor yes, I agree. It's a no-brainer. You want a second? Let's go. Okay.

I so move Do we have any public comment?

Yes Do we have f11 next or was that was that moved? F11

Yes, I'm the sponsor of this item. I went ahead and I wrote a memo to the Commission. This came about because Commissioner Levy reached out to me actually through social media. He spoke to his administration, this is from the town of Ball Harbor, and they would love to partner with us, not spending any taxpayer funds and using the actual resources that we have. I think it would be a great opportunity, especially in the summer months, to go ahead and have their constituents come to our city and our constituents go to their city. July 14th Town of Bay Harbor will be presenting this in their City

Commission, does anybody like to say anything before I speak?

I was wondering if we had any staff input.

Yeah, so two things. Number one, has our staff reviewed it, Mr. Manager? No, Mayor, we have not. Okay, so number one, is that number two, I don't know, maybe I'm sounding selfish, but our resources are our resources. I want... our staff working to market our restaurants, to market our businesses, to market our stores, why would I want our resources to market Bar Harbor? Bar Harbor, how big is Bar Harbor? Does anybody know? Is it a city?

It's 12 to 13 miles away. It's not like...

But how big is the city, though? How many people live in Bar Harbor? Does anybody know? You want me to look it up?

So we have a city that we're going to do an agreement with to market their city and their shopping center with 3,000 people, but they're going to benefit of the fact that the city of Coral Gables has 51,000 residents, that we're going to tell them to go to Bar Harbor instead of come to the city of Coral Gables? I'm kind of wondering whether people are just figuring out where Bar Harbor is and where the Bar Harbor shops are. So at the end of the day, I can't support this because our resources should be spent here in the city promoting restaurants. We just saw kids that came up here and that sho

I don't this doesn't make sense to me It's 12 or 13 miles away It's not adjacent. There's a lot of people from South Miami that come in here every single day, which is why, with staff, we've been working on developing a plan to have trolley services eventually that'll facilitate people moving to and from South Miami to decrease traffic and make it much easier for UM students to come here and downtown and patronize our stores.

Anyone else? Yeah, I got to say that I'm not supportive of this, and it's kind of bewildering to me. Why in particular, Commissioner Kessler, why are you selecting Val Harbor? Do you have any particular connection to Val Harbor or have any particular insight into Val Harbor? Perhaps in your permitting days, when you used to be a permit expediter, is there any connection to Val Harbor that we should be aware of?

Of course, full disclosure, maybe three years ago or more, shops at Ball Harbor were my clients. They're not my clients anymore. That was before I was commissioner. So there's no ties to actually, there's no benefiting to it. I thought that question was going to come up. And what the mayor said, that how do we benefit? We're mutually going to benefit because staff is going to get together with their staff. And there's no taxpayer funds really being used for this. This is a benefit to our city at the same level. We're not giving more to them than they are giving to us. And the other thing is, t

If I can finish answering or providing my comments then, Mayor. I agree with you, and that's exactly why I was running, is to do everything I can and take all available time, resources, and support that the city has and direct it to the promotion of the city only. I mean, this is almost akin to wanting to find a way to increase affordable housing outside of the city of Coral Gables. I wouldn't spend one minute doing that as a commissioner, maybe in my private life, you know, but not as an elected official with finite time on this dais. and charged with the singular responsibility to promote th

Through the mayor? One of the things that they discussed was maybe like one day the constituents of Bell Harbor can visit Coral Gables and we can, give them a discount or something like that. I said that our restaurants are privately owned and that I would find that to be difficult, but that I would leave it up to staff to decide what is the best way that we can partner with each other.

If I can give you a bit of advice, if you'd like to do something else. I thought you had finished, but let me just add something to that. If you'd like, why don't you work with a chamber so you can connect the Mount Harbor Chamber with the Coral Gables Chamber and connect the business community, and hopefully that will drive some synergies between the business community. I understand what you're trying to do and to promote our businesses and our community, but if there's just such a finite amount of resources here in the city, I think we have to concentrate on the city of Coral Gables first and foremost, not another community.

Okay, if I can go ahead and finish my comments. Go ahead. One of the reasons here was to go ahead and bring constituents or visitors of Ball Harbor. They have a lot of visitors that normally do not visit Coral Gables. That was one of the points, to bring different people into Coral Gables. And maybe we can use the same strategy to do the same, but at the same level. It's not that they're going to benefit more than us or we're going to benefit more than them. It's a mutual agreement to benefit both. And I wasn't proposing nothing crazy, maybe putting it on our calendar or our social media. That

You move it? Do we have a second? Through the mayor.

Again, if I may, I'm not disagreeing with you, but my job as the mayor and the person who runs the meeting, I got to call a vote when it's a resolution. I hear you. So at the end of the day. Commissioner.

Do you have any further comment? Perfect, we'll close the closing comment. So we have a motion and a second.

My comment was going through the chambers I think is the appropriate route.

Thank you for that. I also vote no. Moving on to the next item, F-14, I'm going to defer. It's a longer conversation. It deals with code enforcement, and it's a simple one. I just want my colleagues, you know what, I'm not going to defer it. I'm just going to tell you really quickly. I'm just going to tell you, just get out of the way. Just get out of the way. It's very simple. I would love my colleagues, don't worry, I would love my colleagues just to, not that they're not paying attention, they have their eyes and ears on everything, but just to pay special attention to the waterfront. I'm g

And also, maybe we can have someone from green space, vegetation, look at the overgrowth in certain areas, because you have certain areas, for example, on Blue Road that I've seen some very large invasive species that are on people's properties that, you know, we can figure out a way hopefully to remove them, like those pines, those large pines, Australian pines and stuff like that.

Right talk about the next Commission meeting. Yes, maybe a little bit more smart after you've talked to to your staff Yes, mr. Clerk will will defer this item to the next commissioning F-15 Mr. Clerk this is an item discusses the cost of April referendums. I'd like for you to briefly give us an overview and Absolutely there's been again a lot of misinformation a lot of misinformation and

And we have a slide. There's a slide here. Yes, there is, sir. And by the way, I'd like to give credit to somebody who's watching a resident by the name of Tom Wells. I did all this work just to showcase the actual savings because he came to multiple meetings and refuted the actual savings over the long run. So this is especially for that resident so that he can see very clearly what the numbers are. that he, that we did the right thing.

Yep. But look at those numbers. Look at those numbers. So that's what we said for a long time, for about a year when I was harping about moving elections in November. And I remember I got pummeled, pummeled for this. But here it is. The proof is in the pudding.

No, thank you, sir. Thank you. And I'm very, very proud to put that up there. So I hope everybody sees the facts of the facts. All right, moving on. F-16, this one I'm very proud of. As the sponsor, of the FIFA soccer watch party with the amazing work of staff. Staff deserves all the credit. ACM, DCM, manager, the directors, all our public works team, our police, our firefighters in the back, all our IT, public works, parks, Mr. Director, you guys deserve all the credit. Can you give us a quick recap with some photos to show how successful that is and tell us what are the next watch events tha

They didn't fare so well today, right? They lost against Switzerland.

Penalty kicks. No, it was penalty kicks. Four to three. Yeah, four to three penalty kicks.

You know what was awesome about this? We took this early. This place was The night photos. Yes. You know what was amazing about this, Mr. Director? The amount of families, kids that were out there. Yes. And everybody, you know, they were in full force. Look at this.

I want to take a quick moment, and I forgot to mention the plaza, the plaza who helped to sponsor this event, along with everyone in the city. Look at this at night. Look how this was. It was packed. There was an energy there. People were enjoying the game. People were going to the plaza. They were buying food. They were having drinks at the plaza. They were coming back. So these are the type of events that, again, in my opinion, are when we've done these events in the downtown, they energize the downtown. These people leave here, 8 o'clock, 9.30, they go have dinner. People are walking all ov

So, Mr. Director. Yes. I want to talk to the manager and through the manager. I'd like to see if we can promote it again as heavily as possible. Start now. Yes. Put it on our newsletter. Martha does a great job. Start putting it on email. Start getting people out there. I mean, we did this on such short notice. The ACM crushed it. Yep. The DCM crushed it. I mean, it was incredible work that you guys did along with your team. All the public works. The Public Works team was out there in full force. Those guys were amazing. They were great. Amazing. Firefighters, police, there was a huge presence

It was a very fast turnaround. How much social media time did we do?

Yes. It seems to me from looking at this that, and like you said, this night it was super explosive with the turnout, that far more families, visitors, and seems like a far more inclusive event was held at Ponce Circle than one would imagine would be held in one single private establishment, you know?

But you know what's incredible? The people who wanted to go have an alcoholic beverage, they walked over, and they had it at the plaza, and they walked back. They had multiple different bars open at the Lowe's. They had the Sallosa Bar open. They were able to have drinks there. If you didn't want to eat, for example, the food that was in Ponsonville Park, you walked over to Sandwich. Or you walked over to Joe and the Juice. Or you walked over to, you know, Follow the Child.

So it was more inclusive for anyone of... People want alcohol. Somebody who have kids. Everybody had something for, and then it benefited a far larger group of businesses as well.

And by the way, the parking was amazing. I didn't hear one complaint about parking. People got there. Everybody was, it was a controlled crowd. People were excited. This is the type of event that is only going to grow exponentially once we deliver on Pond Circle Park. This is what I foresee Ponce Circle Park being at least once a month. It could be something really special. Really special.

Because maybe it's not the bounce houses, but look at the turnout that we had. We didn't have any time to really promote this. If we're going to start promoting now for the 18th, And we're talking about 11 days away. People that experience this Whether you're Colombian or you're American or whatever it is that you are, you want to enjoy the World Cup. And they're going to say, we're coming back here. Look at the experience that we had. The weather's going to be better. The atmosphere is going to be livelier. It's going to be the World Cup final. It's going to be the third place game. So maybe

It'll allow people to walk around. From the plaza on one side easier and we could put vendors on the other side or both sides or regions are regions on the region's back side and we just close it off and we push people towards Lejeune and we push people towards 37th Avenue and we put up those signs. I'm just giving ideas that because I have a feeling that it was so successful. And people are going to be here just like 4th of July. And I'm going to give you an example right now when we talk about 4th of July. I heard 4th of July was packed. All I received was phone calls of people telling me, I've never seen so many people here. So if that was successful, imagine after we had this event. what people are going to be coming to.

So we'll get started. Amazing job. Amazing job. Moving on to item F17, the recap for the July festivities. All I got was phone calls and photos from people talking about the drones. I'd like to give credit to the vice mayor. She came up with that idea a few years ago and she brought it to fruition. Amazing. I can show you text messages people writing me. They were making bets. They were making bets how many drones there were. And I said, 350 drones, because I wrote staff, and I said, how many drones do we have out there? And it was 350 drones is what they told me. The amount of people, how man

You know what? I had people. I had two owners on the golf course call me and say, next year, we need the drones to be higher. And the music to be louder. I said, you've lost your mind. Yeah, yeah. I told that to the manager. But they said, we want to hear the orchestra.

It was that and the heat. So, I mean, it turned out fantastic.