Town Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the Town of Cutler Bay's Town Council meeting. Today is Wednesday, July 15th, 2026. Mr. Clark, can you please take the role? Council Member Ramirez? Here.

We have a quorum. If you please all rise and join me for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, thank you. I'm going to go ahead and open it up for public comments. Anybody wishing to make public comments, please come to the podium at this time. Lisa, do you recommend? Mrs. Greer? Just push it?

Thank you. All right, anybody else? All right, anybody in the queue?

All right, public comments is now closed. That takes us to our board and committee reports. Any additions, changes? None, all right. Takes us to Ralph. We have a presentation from the AARP.

Thank you so much. You get in the middle. You get in the middle. You're the plaque holder, okay? Get a better camera. One more. Two.

Thank you so much. I'm glad we were one of the first.

Rick, can you stay here? Yeah. And we have another, you know, this month is Parks and Recreation Month. So I got to ask ET and Hirana to come down and join me or up and join me wherever we are. and uh and mayor we have uh we have most of our our staff here from the parks and recreation all right there's a lot more staff than this but oh i didn't bring my glasses I'm a little older than I look. Don't say anything about that. Wow. I just opened that one up. Okay. All right. First, just a casual, as you all know, Cutler Bay is known for a couple things, but one of the things we're known for is ou

So, all right. I just said everything that's in here right now. I don't know if I need to read this proclamation for you guys. Do you want me to read it? Again, it's so many, many things that you do. I don't want to read this only because it's just like written words, but it's from the heart felt what you do for our community and how you bring it together. And if you ask anybody in anywhere, not outside of Cutler Bay, we're special because of you guys so thank you very much guys we owe you our debt and your honor thank you you have a great staff thank you a little photo here come over here et

All right, that takes us to the talent manager report. Ralph, the floor is yours, sir.

All right. Thank you very much. This is very exciting. This looks like a volleyball court right now.

Those lights turned on on there because those are beautiful lights. We met them in person and they were like, oh, we'll get on it. And we haven't heard anything.

All right. Thank you very much. And again, Ralph, Robert, just excellent reporting. It's been consistent through all the years. And we've been in a very positive financial state for a number of years now, which is great. It's nice to know that this audit kind of confirms what we know is going on. So, Robert, thank you very much. Ralph, thank you very much to your staff. Questions or comments from the council? No? Ralph, during our January 27th Legacy Park meeting, our Gap Financing Workshop, I proposed to help modify the town's existing fund balance policy. The state requires we have 70%. And

Um, so if we, we have more money in the bank and there's any money, any green space available, let's jump on it. Or we could also use it for capital improvement projects, whether it be building a bathroom, A bell park or bell air park, or maybe someday future building a parking garage at legacy park, something like that. Or at the very least for environmental remediation, improving our environment and then we kind of find. So, if you could with the council's support and agreement, if you could kind of work on that, whether it's an ordinance or resolution forward. So, we can discuss what that a

Can arrange that for me, that would be great. I'd like to have a better understanding of those 162 pages and he has a way of walking me through that. And I also wanted to point out, just take this moment to say, I remember clearly at I think it was our last open mic night that our town manager stood there on the microphone and said, as soon as we have money to build Legacy Park, as soon as we have the money to build the house, we are going to start investing the other money that we have. So I want to point out that transparency. You said we were going to do it, and here we are doing it. So I j

One, nobody likes to see our playgrounds get shut down. Right. But in this case, seeing those pictures and I had heard comments from a resident that they felt it was unsafe. It looked it looked unsafe for our little residents. And so smart, smart thing. We had to do it. I'm glad. I'm also I want to. I want to talk just for a brief moment. I have been championing the cause for an inclusivity playground for close to five years now working with a resident. I'm so excited that we're this close to having it. I had the luxury, the joy of watching Alan, Mr. Hughes here present perspective ideas at a

Questions? You know, when I was a kid, we had these big rocket ships with these big, long steel slides that seemed to last forever. Yeah, they only got to a hundred and forty degrees, but yeah. That much. Yeah. Yeah. But thank you for that presentation looks really exciting and mayor members, council for Bella Park.

All right, looking for a motion to approve the ratification with Miller and who was it? Meyers. Meyers.

I second. We have a second by Councilman Lord. All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion moved.

All right. Thank you very much, Ralph. All right. We have to go jump to our quasi-judicial hearing now. So, Mitchell, are you going to please read the quasi-statement?

Mr. Clark, if you could please, we'll take these two items up together. So if you could please read items...

Thank you very much. Can the applicant come forward for the presentation, please?

All right. Thank you very much. Council, questions?

I'm going to open a public hearing on this item. We shouldn't speak on the side and come forward. I'm closing the public hearing council questions. Councilman Susie Lord.

Hi, good evening. Thank you for coming before us with this. When was the pergola built?

Okay. And did you know that these setbacks were, so you didn't, I did not know the setbacks were required. And you had someone install this and they didn't check on the setbacks for you?

Right. I recognize that. And I appreciate that.

Who says that water runoff is in compliance? It runs into my property. Who says that? You or an engineer?

No. Right. All right. So here's my problem with this. And I'm not trying to beat you up on this, but I'm a military brat. We believe in rules. We believe in laws. Without them, we have anarchy. And I know that you feel like this pergola meets code, but it clearly doesn't, right? That's why I'm here to legalize it. I understand that, right? But... In the flood zone that you're in, one of our biggest concerns in Cutler Bay is flooding and water runoff and you're in a high flood zone area. We have a family in town that we have all dealt with on this council who feels like their neighbor's water i

final owner of this home. Correct. Yes. But that may not be the cause. And then, you know, we're establishing a precedent here by potentially ignoring the very rules that this town has established to protect neighbors like yours. So your ask really undermines the integrities of our rules. And I understand your need for it. And I really hope that you can come to some sort of um arrangement in your backyard so you can get fresh air without getting direct sun i am a survivor of skin cancer i understand that okay so i'm i'm just not agreeable to it so i have pictures and permits of different prope

Thanks for coming before us. There's several issues here that and the main 1 council member Lord said was was precedents setting a precedence because if if we were to prove this. We open up a floodgate of people doing whatever they want, whenever they want. And again, not blaming you. I highly blame your contractor and then whoever installed it and whoever gave you the information and told you that they got permits. Unfortunately, I'm going to use this word. They lied to you. Okay. That's something that you're going to have to deal with with them. My recommendation probably get them to move it

The issue is more than just you wanting to pay to get all these things taken care of. It really is. And it's going to set a standard that that is going to hurt our other residents down down the road residents that have realized in the same structure and the same size property. He's already explained to you that you can submit that that information to him and will our code compliance guys will go out and they'll, they'll reevaluate that too. You know, maybe, maybe they do or don't have permits or whatever the case may be. We, we don't know that yet. And he doesn't even know that yet because he

Go forward at this point. Is there any additional comments? No. All right. Thank you for your presentation. We do appreciate it. All right. With that.

Okay, I'm going to ask you to go ahead and submit those to Julian. We'd appreciate that. Any additional comments? With that, looking for a motion on this item, approve or disapprove?

Oh, that's quasi. Roll call vote, please.

We're voting on it right now. I'm voting over it. Voting on it right now and voting vote. You can speak with Julian or... to discuss what the next steps may be after this. Okay. After we vote.

Yes. Mayor Mayerbot? Yes. Motion passes. Motion passes tonight. All right. I suppose your item did not pass. You can talk to Julian about what the next steps are.

Is that? Yeah, I know. I'm going to do that.

Anybody else? All right, public comments is now closed. We're going to go back to Ralph. You completed your town manager.

That takes us to the town attorney's report. No report. That takes us to the town clerk's report.

Thank you very much. All right, if you could please read item 11a, please.

right and just a reminder this is the requirement that we set a ceiling doesn't mean we're going to be setting it at 2.913 um it's a requirement by the state that we set the maximum so any discussion on this item if not looking for a motion for approval so moved so we have motion by uh councilman ramirez looking for a second my second second my councilman lord all favor say aye all right it's just item 11b

Council questions. None. Looking for a motion on this item. So moved. We have a motion by councilwoman Lord for a second. Second by Council Member Ramirez. All in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes.

All right, just one real quick thing. We had our workshop last week, and after the, we had one item that was presented, and it was a very short item, and we had to wait until 6.30 to start our review because of our agenda just was very specific that our session would begin at 6.30. I'm just proposing, you know, I'd like to be efficient. We could have saved the 20 minutes. So, just want to make a proposal that we change the agenda for our workshops instead of saying that the review of the application will begin at 630. I'd like to change it to the review of the application will begin immediatel

The workshops. Looking for a motion to make that change. So moved. Are there any motions for a second? You have a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. All right. That's changed. All right. Great. All right. The only item we did not cover, consent agenda. Any additions, deletions? If not, looking for a motion to approve. Motion to approve the consent agenda. Looking for a second. Second. Second by Councilman Duncan. All in favor say aye.