City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. Now, now it's working. Bienvenidos a todos. Thank you all. Wow, we love seeing our auditorium all full. We're like little kids. Yeah, we're like little kids. First day at school, back from summer vacation. Thank you, everyone, for coming. I will now call the Hialeah City Council meeting for August 11 of 2026 to order at 5.39 p.m. Madam Clerk, can you please call the roll? Mr. Zoghbi? Present.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Mayor, invocation information?

Thank you all. Thank you, Pastor Barak. Please remain standing as we recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Face the flag, and it'll be led by Councilman William Marrero.

Thank you for your respect. You may be seated. Thank you, Councilman. Madam Clerk, can you please read the meeting guidelines for tonight?

Thank you, Madam Clerk. We have some really exciting presentations tonight. The first one being Mayor Calvo and this council will present a recognition to Hialeah's elite dance and cheer teams. Mayor, please take over.

Council, can we join them down there? Mr. Marrero, can we join them? Bring your trophy.

Thank you everyone for your respect and congratulations again to the best of the best of Hialeah. Thank you everybody, it was wonderful having them here. Okay, we're up to agenda item seven, comments and questions. Madam Clerk, do we have any registered speakers?

Please come on up. Jessica Artiles. We Hello. Your name and address for the record, and then you have up to three minutes, and thank you for coming. Thank you. Can you help her? That's a lot of material.

You can start if you like while she's distributing whatever you brought. Thank you. Oh, yeah. Name and address for the record. And you have up to three minutes. Thank you.

Ms. Hartila, it's a wonderful presentation. We need you to wrap it up. We've used up our three minutes. Is there anything you want to close with?

Thank you so much for everything you do. Thank you. Madam Clerk, next registered speaker. Barbara Canales. Ms. Canales. And as always, Ms. Canales, your full name and address, and then you have up to three minutes, my dear.

Thank you. Thank you for coming. Have a good night, my dear. Next registered speaker, Madam Clerk. Sofia Estrada and Xavier Valdez. Sofia Estrada, Xavier Valdez, come on up. Savior of Eldads. Okay. The first speaker, I guess, is Sofia Estrada. Can you give us your complete name and address? And then you have up to three minutes.

Yeah, man, I need your name and address as well. And then you go on. If you're going to share it, then you've got a minute and a half left. Go ahead.

Say it. I want to hear the website clearly so that everybody watching can go. Where can they contact us?

Very intelligent young person. man and woman. Thank you. Pleasure having you here. Any other registered speaker?

Welcome, sir. Full name and address for the record. And you have up to three minutes, sir.

You have up to three minutes. Go ahead. Oh, thank you, sir.

I need, when you are ready, your name and you have up to three minutes. Thank you.

Your name and your full address have to come from you and follow up later.

Es para avisarnos que evitemos esa calle nosotros. No se va a caer.

You want to speak? Yes. Come on up. All I need is your full name, your address, and you have up to three minutes.

That's your personal address? Yes. Yes, not the properties here. Go ahead.

Es un albergue para muchachos que están desamparados. Sí, conocemos el local. Sí, entonces esto es contante. Ya lo sabemos qué hacer.

Elite super dad. Cheer dad. Very good. Good evening. Give me your full name and address, please.

I think that about completes the comments and questions, Madam Clerk. Item 8, announcement of amendments and corrections to the agenda. There's none, sir. None. Okay. No board appointment. Yes, there is a board appointment. 9A. Can you read it into the record, Madam Clerk?

Motion. Motion by Councilman William Marrero. Second. Second by Councilman Louis Gonzalez. Please call the roll, Madam Clerk.

Yes, ma'am. I just wanted to make a request to City Clerk. Is there any way we can just get an active listing of any boards that are not active and what seats are open so we can make sure these boards are up and running? Thank you.

Thank you. Consent agenda, is there anyone of my colleagues up here in the dais who want to pull any of the items in consent agenda?

For Marrero, yes, sir. Okay, item N. Any others? Willie or anyone else? Through the chair? Yes, ma'am.

I just wanted to, before we vote on the consent agenda, I know there is several items on infrastructure and asset management and the selection committee. Is there anything we can kind of go over that? Who picked them? What is this project for?

Okay. Thank you. You good? You good? Yes. Thank you. Anyone from the audience interested in pulling any items from consent agenda? Otherwise, except for item M, pleasure of the council on the entire remaining consent agenda. Yes, ma'am. Double O. Double O for Vice President Melinda de la Vega.

Running out of pages. Okay. Any other? Second the motion. Who was the first motion? Lillian Marrero, first motion. And Luis Gonzalez, second. And Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Thank you. Madam Clerk, can you read consent agenda M into the record?

So thank you, we have a motion from Councilman modern a second from Councilman Lewis Gonzalez please call the roll on item and.

Thank you. Madam Clerk, can you read the consent item 00 into the record? Thank you.

Wow. Madam Vice President, read it again. Madam Vice President, you have the floor.

Yeah, so I just had some questions on this, specifically on kind of if somebody can walk me through the additional 275,000.

Motion from Council Vice President De La Vega. Second. Second from Councilman Willie Marrero. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Okay, we're moving on to item 11, administrative items. Item A is postponed until the second meeting of this month. Would you like to read it into the record anyway? No, I'm not serious. Item B, Madam Clerk, please.

Any questions or pleasure of the council on item B? Motion from Councilman William Marrero. Second. Second from Council Vice President De La Vega. Please call the roll on item B. Ms. De La Vega.

Thank you. Item C is on first reading. Pleasure of the council. Any questions? Motion to approve. Motion from Councilman Luis Gonzalez. Second. Second from Councilman William Marrero. Thank you. Please call the roll, Madam Clerk.

Thank you. Madam Clerk, administrative item D, please.

Thank you. Administrative item D is a first reading ordinance. Any questions or pleasure of the council?

On this board, Who will fill this board? What experience legislatively? Because this is a legislative board, so I want to... Sure.

And then those recommendations will be brought up to the council. Perfect. Thank you. I like that idea.

Motion. Motion from Council President De La Vega and second from Councilman Luis Gonzalez. Please call the roll.

Item E is on first reading. Questions or pleasure of the council?

Thank you, sir. Any more questions or any questions for item E? Motion. Motion from Councilman William Marrero. Second. Second from Councilman Luis Gonzalez. Please call the roll.

Thank you. Item 12, unfinished business. Should I call item 13 new business?

Thank you. I have a couple of items that I would like to discuss. First item will be, I would like for parks, construction, streets, and public works to give the city council a monthly capital project report. I think it's important for us to be informed because we get phone calls from our residents and sometimes they ask us, oh, which street is being... It's next. So, and we are really not in the loop. So I believe it's important that, uh, we get a monthly report here at the council from these departments. So we can be, you know, have a better understanding what's going on.

Second item. And I know you and I have discussed this, um, In the charter, this has to do with Zonius. Claudia, here. We have a downtown urban center. Now that we're going to be amending or expanding our charter and reviewing it, I believe that we need to look into the item that has to do with the downtown urban center is the only area that the zoning has the authority to over the exterior paint and colors of the buildings. I like us to look at expanding the authority, especially for commercial properties along our main corridors. So we have a better, you know, the city to look prettier and we

I think it's important we look into that. Because right now, my understanding is that it's only the downtown area that we have jurisdiction.

So now that we are going to look into the charter and amending, I think it's important that we look into that. And thirdly, and I will not take anybody's time, um, I think it's important that we put HR together with the departments, we put a process in place to make sure when someone leaves the city, it's documented. And let's say that person is in charge of a certain, I don't know, for instance, like the grants, they have to do with a specific grant in Miami-Dade County and they leave the city. It's important that HR and the department head are in communication to make sure that they informed

We tried when I was HR, we tried to do exit interview due to the, you know, that we didn't have the right staffing. It was a little challenging, but yes, I think it's an excellent idea that we do exit interviews.

Is that a motion? No, there's no motion required. I think we're losing the ladies in pink. La Dama Rosada. Gracias. Gracias por su paciencia. Thank you. Gracias. All right. Thank you, everybody, for your patience. We're done with the administrative portion. Yes. I apologize. We're not done.

It's okay. I had a question for Parks. During last year's budgeting meeting, I know we spoke about an outside inspector or surveyor. who was being brought in to kind of go through the parks and give us a list of projects in priority, in list of priority. I think it was like gonna be the top 10. I know we discussed this during budgeting and just, I never really got a list of that. And so lots of events have happened. Just curious, do we have that report from the outside surveyor?

I'm pretty sure that's what we had discussed last year. Somebody was going to come in, assess our pools, and kind of give us a list in priority what should be done first.

If we can share that... Obviously, I know it's public that we've closed the pools. What is it that needs to be done for these pools to open?

Yep. And so what, I'm assuming that's going to be a priority?

And do we think that that process will take a couple of weeks?

To echo on council member my riddles, keeping us in the loop, please going forward. Um, I would also appreciate if the council can be kept, uh, informed on any critical issues concerning the city. I know the last couple of days have been eventful, but I found out through all of them through social media.

Any other new business? We can move on to zoning. Madam Clerk, please take over. Thank you, everyone who is not here for zoning. You're welcome to stay. Otherwise, thank you for coming.

And you could stay too. All right. Zoning. Final decisions A and B are postponed till the second meeting of this month.

So we're going to move on to item 16, land use amendments and more good news. Item A, bad news for our second meeting. Good news for this meeting. Item A of land use amendments is also postponed. We'll move into zoning items. More surprises. zoning item 17 a 17 b 17 c are also postponed until the second meeting of august not more much more needs to be said about that right madam i mean unless the council has any questions can we move on to 17 d Yes, sir. All right. So, Madam Clerk, please read into the record.

Okay. Item D is on first reading. And do we have, yes, sir. You are here representing the property owner. Very good. Unless anybody has any questions or anything beforehand.

Thank you, sir. I want to remind anybody who may be here waiting, I know you're waiting, this is on first reading. We're not taking public comments on this one, please. We're going to make a decision here if we move it or not to the second reading. If it does move to second reading, then, of course, all public comments are welcome within the guidelines. But... Okay, now that we've gotten past that, Mr. Lucas, you said? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. You have identified yourself, and go ahead.

Yeah, I know this has been a hot topic. And just to be clear for my colleagues, this is strictly nothing to do with the business, something to do with the business. This is turning a vacant R1 single family home lot, which is vacant at this time. And this is limited to changing the zoning of R1. into a parking lot for the use of the restaurant. I've got the first question, which was important, which I asked you last time, and I think, what time will the parking lot be closed and secured that nobody from the neighborhood can park in it? Obviously, the restaurant closes at a certain time.

I mean, I know it's going to be gated and it'll be able to be closed and locked, right? Yes. The answer to that is yeah.

I think by the second reading, because that's important, because nobody wants to think that there could be any possibility of loitering in that parking lot at night when the business is closed and nobody's minding the store. So could you see if by the second reading you can have that information for us and maybe we can include that in the conditions of the covenant? I don't think it's that difficult. I mean, McDonald's across the street did it years ago because they were having loitering there and everything. And we recommended when I was in the police department to start closing, chaining off

Thank you, sir. Any other questions for this panel? change of zoning for Mr. Lucas?

Mr. Lucas and maybe Mr. Marrero will. Yeah, I was one of those that I did vote for it because I thought it was a solution they needed because a lot of the complaints, and rightfully so, where there wasn't enough parking, then they'd occupy the swale areas of the surrounding neighborhood. And the business was not a good neighbor for a while. They're good, hardworking people, but they were not good neighbors for a while. There was a lot of garbage thrown around. They didn't have somebody constantly monitoring that. But I've gone around. I haven't let the owner know or anybody, but I've gone arou

Mr. Lucas, please, no matter what the decision is today, convey to Mr. Largo, who's just he works 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I know sometimes he doesn't have the time to look back at what's going on. We're going to hold them. If we approve this in any way, we're going to hold them to all that. He's not hidden somewhere that's an industrial area that you can be a bad player and it doesn't really, it doesn't become a nuisance. He's in a residential neighborhood. We're going to hold them to this, whatever the conditions and the covenant is, right? We have to hold them to us. We'll all be

Thank you. Again, I apologize. I just want to remind anybody who's here for that. Any other questions from the dais on item zoning, item D? Or Whenever you're ready, pleasure of the council.

No rush. Yes, ma'am. I would put in a motion to deny.

We will take the motion at this point. We can't take it. What's the procedure? Okay, so we have a motion to deny. Should I ask for a second and then we call the roll? Is that proper at this juncture?

On the motion to deny. Is that what you're saying we need a second? Because what we have is a motion to deny.

And then if we get the second, then we've got to call the vote. Okay. Okay, we have a motion to deny from Council Vice President De La Vega. Do we have a second? Motion dies?

I can't say dies. Okay. Thank you, Madam Vice President. Otherwise, again, if anybody has any more questions or whenever anybody is ready, pleasure of the council.

What is it that, is there anything that we can clarify? That's okay. Motion to table, second to table. Now we're going to do, is there anything before we move to the vote? Is there anything that you'd like to ask Mr. Lucas to bring for the next meeting? Or would you like to go by there and see what's going on? Whatever. If there's anything, ask him now.

I just wanted to know. So, you know, so you can be ready, Mr. Lucas, that's fine. So you don't, you just want a full council. That's fine. Motion to table for August 25th. So this would be tabling. We do the first reading all over again. So, okay. And we have a second to table. From Councilman Luis Gonzalez, please call the roll.

I think it's best that way for today. Let's get a whole council. Thank you, sir. My pleasure. Thank you. Thank you all for coming. Gracias, señora. No se ha hecho nada por si acaso alguien no se hizo ninguna decisión. Este tema se va a tomar otra vez, discutir otra vez a las cinco y media, agosto 25. OK. Thank you. So item E of zoning.

Item E is on first reading, not open for public discussion. If everyone agrees, we'll allow the lobbyist and architect, Manny Rose, to explain it.

Is that adding a hydrant, or does it need a hydrant? It adds a hydrant as well. Thank you, sir. Go on.

Council, anyone have any questions for Mr. Rose?

Many. Yes, ma'am. Sorry, through the chair. The project obviously brings light, right? I think it's a nice project, especially that we already approved the one. Yes. However, eight parking spaces, anything we can do to make it 10. It's five units. I mean, we had... Can we change the design a little bit to add parking spots?

Yeah, I think what... Again, we continue to have parking issues, right, in the city. And so if we continue to approve projects where we are making variance changes to parking, we will continue to have parking issues and people parking in the swale. and people parking where they're not supposed to be parking. So although I love this project, I would love to see how we can make parking work.

What is the picture you took of the properties in here?

Are you talking about the parking in the front?

So there's a... Yeah, I do. I see the parking. I see the parking in the front.

I'm going to, I mean, again, this is just me, right? We have counsel, everybody can feel differently. It's just, I continue, my office continues to get complaints. about parking, and I think I've been very vocal for the last year about how I feel about parking. I see the street parking in the front. But if the units are across the street... Well, the project is across the street. You're saying that there's extra parking in the front, correct?

Okay. But there's still that hazard of... Children, if they're parked in the front, they have to cross the street. There's a lot of reasons. Sure. So there's anything we can do. And I know, Claudia, we've had this conversation. I mean, for me, parking is a big issue. Again, every little unit that we continue to approve with variances, it just it accumulates. It's like a snowball effect.

William Marrero and Manny, correct this if I understood them well. A two-bedroom, neither by code nor by, they could have 17 cars, but a two-bedroom would not require four spaces. Was that what you were saying? One two-bedroom unit?

But by code, what are we... No, no city has that, right? I know what you're saying, but no, right.

It seems I can't do a pre- Roll call. It seems like there's four of us left, right? It seems like if I push the motion, go ahead, please.

So we have a first to table from Councilman Marrero. We have a second from Councilwoman Perez. Please call the roll.

We're still, Madam Attorney, I think it's a silly question, but we're still within that scope that can individually, if any council member wanted to contact Mr. Rose before the second meeting, can we do that individually?

Okay. As long as it's disclosed, it's nothing that's going to...

What's the first, you wanted the first meeting in September.

So. The role, we haven't called the role on this.

No, no, but I mean, do we have to call it again and change the date? Okay, so do you still, we still have motion to reconsider. September 22nd at 7 p.m. Tabling it to September 22nd. Very good. And we have a second still. I'm sorry. Councilwoman Perez was the second to September 22nd. Go ahead and call the roll.

Thank you. Thank you for your time, Manny. And unless anyone has anything to add.

Thank you. Also, yeah, you all got invitations for this Saturday at my lander. the Colonia back to school giveaway. So we're all invited, my lander, 10 a.m. this Saturday. Thank you all. If no one has anything to add, we will adjourn the meeting, the City of Hialeah Council meeting of August 11, 2026 at 7.53 p.m.