Village Council - Regular Meeting

All right. Full moon, how are we looking? We're good? Thumbs up from full moon. The regular council meeting for Tuesday, May 26, 2026 is called to order at 7 o'clock p.m. We're going to have a moment inside of meditation followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Clerk Jacoby's not here today. I'll do the roll call. Roll call, Member Winters.

Member Lightfoot-Ward. member or council person Irvine president vice mayor Martin present and mayor Omar is here we also have for the record the village manager David Roseman is here attorney gellers on his way says he's running late and clerk Jacoby would not be here with us tonight we also have police officers in the back and we have some of the staff All right, so let's move down. So we're going to move to the approval of the agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the agenda?

We have a motion. We have a second. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. Hearing none. All right, we're going to go down to good and welfare. All right, before we get into good and welfare, we are going to work the clock today. Let me just say this very, very quickly. It's been a good run, people. It's been a good run for a very, very long time. I've allowed a lot of lenience when it came to good and welfare, a lot of overtime, a lot of multiple occasions of individuals coming up after one time, but we are going to bring it back to the rules and regulations. I've noticed that ev

Good evening on deserve on 460 Northeast 89th Street and I'm also on the council. I just want to remind the residents of El Portal that as we discuss things like a you know a what we're discussing tonight with the resolution as we discuss what we want to see happen with large parcels like little farm or the sanctuary. Um, as we discuss, uh, what we're going to do with the short-term rental, uh, ordinance that is yet to be, uh, ratified because of, uh, legal technicalities. Uh, there is a through line through all of these, which is how much home rule is El portal going to be allowed by Tallahas

The part that's tied to the agenda, the historic preservation part, we're gonna go over that part. Okay. Can that part wait till we get to that? You want me to wait? Well, the part about the historic preservation part, is that tied into the first part you're gonna be talking about or is it all tied together?

Oh, if you can wait till we get to that agenda item.

Oh, just, just for the record, just say your full name.

I'm Erin Mara. Thank you very much. Yeah.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Who's next? Mr. Pace, I can't. Mr. Pace. I know, but I can't do it. I know, I apologize. I can't do it. Because the rule is, is one time up per, that's what it is.

Anyone else good in welfare? Good and welfare going once. Good and welfare going twice. Okay, we're gonna close for good and, okay, we're gonna close for good and welfare. I'm gonna bring it back to the council. All right, before we move on, I just wanna say a couple of things. I'll get to that part and then you can, we'll join in on that, Councilperson Dreher. All right, so as far as the school not being on the agenda, The school's not on the agenda. The school understand, I said it a few times, but the school has to go through two readings, almost three readings, before it even gets to the c

I think that'd be a wonderful idea. Part of the reason why, last month, you all who were here, we finally officially named that park the Little Peacock Park that's behind us, right? Because the Tot Lot was never the official name of the park, it was just a name that our predecessors were calling that area. So now we have the official name, and part of the reason why I named it the Little Peacock Park is because, you know, in my vision, one day we will have a large El Portal Central Park, and hopefully that park will be the Peacock Park, right? And so this is the little Peacock Park. I also stu

But on that, do we have any information on SB 180 as far as any other municipalities that would be...

So... don't have it in front but i know just from you know just from the stuff that i do as mayor and president of the cities i know that there are numerous um municipalities that are in lawsuit against for sb 180 because they're fighting back on that you know tooth and nail because to not be allowed to update your code or amend your code in any type of way is a problem for every municipality

That is the one we should probably, that is the one we should be joining something to that effect on.

Absolutely, I agree with you. Absolutely. The next thing is, okay, so I did put a watch order twice on 87th Street between Northeast 2nd and North Miami Avenue. It's difficult because, yes, it doesn't have any sidewalks. That's a larger project, and that's not something that we're not looking into. Trust me, as a matter of fact, I think it was my second year as mayor, I brought in, it was $837,000. to put sidewalks west of Northeast 2nd Avenue. And what ended up happening was that for some reason, I don't know what it was, but for some reason in not only the 11th hour, like we were actually, T

just one point on traffic studies so one thing that was surprising to me of the traffic studies that we've done over the years for different things for example trying to lower the speed limits was there's no recommendations in a traffic study it's just raw data so for example what we learned on 87th Street when we were making the effort to try and lower the speed limits was that we really did not have a speeding problem on 87th. It sounds insane because we all know there's a speeding problem. It was a speed limit problem. So it showed us very clearly that with the speed limits where they were,

Thank you very much, Councilperson Erbaum. As far as, oh, I wanna thank Mr. Rojas for the Marine Health Summit that you attended, Mr. Rojas, he was there, I appreciate that. You know, you attended Wednesday, on Tuesday is the municipal day, and on Tuesday, I pass by in the morning, and then who was left there on Tuesday to represent for El Portal, even though she doesn't live here anymore, but she's always wanted to be involved, is Elizabeth Plata-Carpenter, the executive director for the Everglades Law Center. So she stayed there when I had to leave and go to another meeting on Tuesday, which

Even at that time, I mean, it's going to require a town hall at some point because the proposed tree ordinance is already at a it's pretty aggressive. So what is working its way towards being considered is really quite aggressive, honestly. And so there's going to need to be something on the level of a town hall as it does get close to finality because it is comprehensive. It is technical and it is detailed. And so it is going to need a fair amount of outreach and interaction with the community because if it were to go into place in its present state right now, it would be quite shocking. It w

Thank you very much. Any other questions or comments from the council? What do you wanna talk about? What do you wanna talk about? I mean, you can talk, do it now.

And I just want to say a shout out to Mr. Tom Pulliam. He was up on that also, that that was coming down the pipe.

I'm just having a, for some reason. Do you want to speak about doing your attorney report?

Or do you want to, if you have it right in front of you, we can go ahead and knock it out.

Oh, they're open to answer any questions that were asked.

well let me let me let me take a minute i one One second, we're answering. I do think that every single time we have this exchange, I at least can speak for myself. I think I go through painstaking efforts to let you guys know what it is that I think. Whatever those thoughts were that were expressed in former council meetings, they remain. And I'm still listening to what you guys are saying. The May 11th mention baffled me as well because I haven't received any new submissions to review. So I guess if you want a better exposition of what it is I think on the topic, I think you can look at some

Please, we're trying to keep the quorum here. Please. Please. We can't have the cross conversation.

I think that is the problem, right? I think there are certain actors who want the conversation to devolve into a back and forth. And I think that that is what deteriorates the fabric of these relationships that we're hearing about on the mic, where neighbors aren't talking to neighbors because of something that is occurring in this room. And I think to preserve the sanctity of what it is this is that we're doing, which is not just off-handed conversations and back and forths and rumors and all of these things. We are really taking this information and trying to make a serious decision. So I th

Thank you very much, Madam Vice Mayor. Attorney Geller, if you want to jump back in. Yes, sir.

Thank you very much, Council President Urbaugh.

Let's see if I can regain my train of thought here. I just wanted to say that I definitely think that the Village of Belle Portelle should join whatever effort there is among other municipalities regarding SB 180. This sounds like the first thing I think of is Lennar Home Builders, for example, if there's a cutout for prefab homes and things like this. I mean, in addition to that, it seems like there's a lot of open-ended questions on, okay, so if it's under $7,500, I don't have to get a permit. However, does that mean I can build something that goes against the code? So if someone could put a

Thank you very much. Any last questions or comments from the counsel before we move on?

Just one last question. Go ahead. Attorney Geller, I appreciate your guidance and your counsel about joining in to the lawsuit. I want us to kind of just take a look at this moment and kind of breathe it in. It is important for us to get information from the experts. And in this situation, our lawyer is giving us legal advice that is based on his extensive years of knowledge. on the city's real financial position. And these types of decisions or guidance based on facts and intimate knowledge with the municipality, I find very persuasive. And I would love for our residents to really take heed t

Definitely, I think this is a good segue into the second portion, is whether or not the city manager could come back with a couple of proposals as to if and how we could possibly come up with that amount. And we can, as a body, look at it and see what that looks like.

Thank you very much, Madam Vice Mayor, appreciate that. Before we move on, you guys, just for clarification on my side, I'm not sure about Councilperson Winters, you know, I appreciate what he was saying about the submission. This doesn't change that, you know, as we have it, the last thing that we have is the May 4th from the staffing and then the May 5th to us about them putting it on hold or putting it, putting it on hold and tabling the site plan. but i just want to be clear um because we are on the record the last submission that i see i received for the site plan was november 2nd 2025 at

All right, you guys, let's move on. I had a meeting today.

you very much i appreciate it um moving on to f we're gonna have to table that again i'm not sure what we're gonna do i had lunch earlier today um with a couple of uh county commissioners and uh commissioner regalado was there and she was like i apologize mayor but i had this thing i have to do tonight so um so she couldn't be here again consent agenda do i have a motion to approve consent agenda Move by Councilperson Lightfoot-Ward. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Vice Mayor Martin. All in favor say aye. Aye. Moving right along. The next is the resolution. Attorney Geller, I just handed

Thank you very much. I appreciate that. All right, you all. Ms. Lucio, you can come on up now if you want to. So this right here, you guys, is a resolution. So this board has to be officially created through an ordinance, all right? What this resolution is saying is, it's saying that the Village of El Portal, that we have full intention on creating a historic preservation board. So what this resolution right here does is, with that intention, it begins to open us up to funding and things like that that we could start to work on to be brought in for that. The details of this, if you look at you

Thank you very much, appreciate it. So this is what we're going to do. I'm going to get comments and questions from you all, and then I'm going to open it up to you all as residents, and then we'll close it there. We'll come back over here, and Ms. Lucio might come back if she has anything she would want to add before we vote. All right, so up here, you guys, I don't know who wants to jump in. You guys go ahead and jump in.

Before I go out to the residents, anyone else? You good? Okay, all right, so we're gonna open it up to the residents. You guys come up, say your name and address for the record, and the floor is yours to speak about the Historic Preservation Board. All right. Okay, we got one.

Thank you very much, Ms. McKenzie. Appreciate it. Who's behind?

Thank you Ms. Pervin. Thank you. Mr. Rojas.

Thank you very much, Mr. Alvarez. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Stone. Anyone else good in welfare or a public comment? No, hearing none, seeing none, let's go back to the council. Do I have any final comments or questions about the resolution? Go ahead.

All right, so I read this before, but in whereas number seven, it says, the village council further acknowledges that a forthcoming ordinance, this is the resolution, a forthcoming ordinance of the village of El Patel will formally establish the historic preservation board and shall comprehensively define, I read this before, its official wording and language as well as its processes, policies, procedures, systems, protocols, guidelines, rules, and regulations. So all those questions, will be in what? The ordinance that it says right here. The forthcoming ordinance. All of those questions will

I do, I just have a question for you. First of all, love the idea, but I also understand the devil is in the details. So I understand your trepidation, Councilman Winters. I wanted some more guidance on the process from getting us to kind of this really great idea to the final ordinance. What type of engagement and from whom are you anticipating?

So it's not only with Ms. Lucio, but also we're gonna be bringing in residents who want to kind of like overlook it and go through it and things like that. Also understand that when it comes to whatever's created, so any ordinance that's created, when it comes before us, we can look at it and we can say I don't like this, I don't like that, I think this should be changed, that should be changed. And we can even table it on the first reading before it goes to a second reading. But even in between a first reading and a second reading, things can be adjusted and changed in ordinances. So there's

I love that. I just know that we have a very involved citizenry. And there definitely should be some input before we kind of have even that first blush at it. just to really get everyone's opinion on what their sticking point may be or the parts that they're particularly interested in. But yeah, I love the idea and also am keenly locked in on how it's executed because it can go a lot of ways, but I think it'll go good.

absolutely madam vice mayor I appreciate you any other questions or comments yes I was I wanted to make the clarifying point as well that this resolution gets us to the process of forming the board under an ordinance and then additionally So I grew up in an exceptionally strict environment as a youth. I think I have a kind of natural tendency towards a bit of a rebellious nature, and that certainly was exacerbated by growing up in such an incredibly strict environment. Having said that, at 15 I started working in food service. By 19, I was very involved in food production, working in a restaur

Thank you very much. Just for point of clarification, Ms. White back there, for the good and welfare thing, it's in our charter, the process, which our charter's like our constitution, right? We have our code and we have our charter. The process is in the charter, which follows Robert rules, so we can't change that, but what we can change is the three minutes. We can do that by resolution. So the three minutes, we can change to five or whatever, we can do that, but as far as the process, you know, you guys, we close it, you guys speak, then it comes back to us and things like that, that proces

Second by Vice Mayor Martin. Attorney Geller, if you would please do the roll call.

By the way, Clerk Jacoby just texted me and said hello to everybody. She just texted me. She's at her event. Well, she's at her event. She had a lot to do today, you know, personally, something very important to do. But she's, like, kind of tuning in on the Zoom, the virtual meeting. So she said.

Thank you, I appreciate that, you guys. Congratulations, Ms. Lewis. Congratulations to Alfred Tile and Ms. Lucia. I really appreciate you, Madam Chair. Next is the Village Manager Report. Madam Manager, Mr. Manager, do you have any reports?

Manager Rosemond, this is much more phenomenal, I think, than people realize. This is three years in the making. We started with a different organization in negotiations, and then landed with the FOP, and then accomplishing this gives our police force confidence and a boost of morale to know what they can expect. day after day coming in here. What they were asking for was not unreasonable and I'm exceptionally satisfied that we were able to get to a conclusion on that because it was really a sticking point for us being able to just feel confident and stable about what we have going forward and

No, I can go back and look at the minutes.

Yeah. Again, again, which we can, but again, always remember, you all, that El Portal, our budget being small, if we start too early, what you see there in June is not going to be what you see in August or September. because our budget's so small, things fluctuate that much. So if you look at something in May or June, and you say, okay, this is this, this is this. Remember, the fiscal year doesn't end until the end of September. October 1st starts the new fiscal year. So up until the last day of September, we're in the current budget year. So if you start to say, I'm gonna budget for the next

after all that I do just want to echo council person winners concern on this because of the way that the budget for this fiscal year was passed was passed in a way that this year's budget was going to be redressed around the mid-year which was already a couple months ago and so uh and so for that reason it was established that the council needed to be ahead on the next budget review as opposed to behind and so to council person winter's point october is going to be here unbelievably uh rapidly and this council should be now regardless of how things will shake out we should be turning our focus

but that kicks in October 1st coming up or that has kicked in already retroactively?

That's my perfect example. Things come up in our budget that we really need to keep an eye on. You see what I mean? Things like that come up in our budget. We still have, and like I said, just because it's keeping me up at night, We have to try to find a way to set aside some stuff for flooding, for hurricane disaster relief, or even hard storm disaster relief. You guys, we don't need a hurricane. If we have hard rains, The residents that are, you know, Shorewood Forest is a little bit higher. The residents, once you go west of Northeast 2nd and then west of North Miami Avenue, especially the

But the thing about it is, for the police budget and for that to be retroactive, until you guys decided and agreed on the percentage, How do we know what the percentage is going to be? So those type of things are just things you have to kind of just keep in mind as we move forward. I had a motion to adjourn by Councilperson Lightfoot Ward. Do I have a second? We have a second by Councilperson Urban. I'm going to say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. Hearing none, the regular council meeting for Tuesday, May 26, 2026 is adjourned at, what is this? It is 9.46 PM. Thank you, everybody. Good job, everyone.