Council - Regular Meeting

Please bow our heads. Heavenly Father, we come before you with humble hearts, asking for wisdom, clarity, and unity as this council gathers to serve. Guide our minds to seek truth, our words to build up, and our actions to serve with integrity and grace. Help us listen well, to respect one another, and to pursue the common good. We ask these things in your name, amen.

Seconded by Councilman Sanchez for discussion, and we go to you to begin the discussion. Thank you. Ms. Soto, good to see you. For the Olympiad, it sounds more like a school fair where parents can come and see what potential schools their kids can be going to. An Olympiad, to me, is more of an event where schools compete against each other, like a spelling bee.

Do you have categories more or less of what they're gonna be competing against?

Would it be both mental challenges as well as physical challenges?

Okay, then I'm in favor of it, thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. I think most of you took the opportunity to read my item, and obviously this was written at a time where the statue of J.K. Duque was still missing. I did want, if it's okay with you, Mayor, to open the floor to the Duque family, who I believe wanted to make a statement. So at this time, I'd like to invite them to the podium.

Because what we said was to combine H and K. or yeah so number one i wanted to thank the duca family for coming out obviously this was important to them this is important to our town that's why there's a new business item for it but that's also why there was so much discussion online on the facebook groups uh on whatsapp chats uh i saw all sorts of community involvement on this um and i will say right on the one hand this this act of stealing the the statue shows potentially some of the worst that our society has to offer, right? Someone of that level of a depraved mind taking, stealing the st

I'm not sure if you can hear me a little clearer. No, no ma'am.

I think it's a good idea. First, we all got the emails, I agree with your recollection, the vast majority were in opposition, so I think you should just add the emails to the minutes. That's a public record anyway, and then it'll be clear on the record who opposed or didn't.

Sure. So I was here for the public workshop that GMX did about a month and a half ago. And I saw everything and I during public comments, I got up and spoke about the offering specifically in 67th Avenue. We all saw the traffic today on 67th Avenue going northbound. Today was a bit of an outlier just because it was an accident in front of our Lady of the Lakes. But even on a regular school day, we're outside of summer already. We're back in the normal routine. Everybody's back to school. Everybody's back to work. It's we're getting back into the flow of things north of Miami Lakes Drive toward

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Now, somebody brought up the idea of an exit on 87th Avenue. If you bring up over the bridge that crosses into Hialeah, if you lose an aerial view on that bridge 10 feet away from that underpass, you have an exit onto 138th Street. It's way too close. They won't, FDOT will not approve that exit, that entrance being so close to an on-ramp. 170th street one of the first things that we introduced when i came on this day was a resolution supporting on ramps onto i-75 at the bridge on 170th little did i know that was a project that was already in the works for quite some time

We are here to represent you, but you equals 35,000 residents of the town of Miami Lakes. 35,000 residents that when they leave their homes by Royal Oaks Park on 87th Avenue, takes them 45 minutes to reach the Palmetto. We are here to represent the residents in this town that when they try to go north on 67th Avenue to get on the A26 Highway to go either southbound or eastbound to get to I-95 or the Golden Glaze Interchange, takes them an extended amount of time. but doing it in a safe and proper way. There's no black and white. It's doing it in a safe and proper way. It's doing it in a way th

I've traveled the world. I've seen how bad the world can be. I've seen it on deployment, even on visiting port countries that you would assume were nice for vacation. And I've seen things there that I don't want to see here. Miami Lakes is a jewel. It will always be a jewel. It will continue to be a jewel. But the quality of life is also in the balance here. If it gets to the point where we go from 35,000 residents and Live Local affects it to get to 45, 50,000 residents, what then? It's going to take an hour, hour and a half to get to the Palmetto. So it's an all-encompassing, it's an ecosyst

Thank you, Mayor. First, thank you for coming. It's important that residents participate. It's nice to see people come and speak. I will tell you that right now, the way the project is, whether with or without off ramps, I was told that GMX would want to answer today, however, And I'm not going to vote for a project without the numbers, right? That's my problem. The numbers we have right now, I don't like the project. I don't think it provides enough mitigation. I don't think it solves the real problems like 154th and 826. one of the numbers is a 12 second and a 15 second a.m. and p.m. savings

I'm not gonna speak much. I'm a no-nonsense person. After listening on these two sessions to our residents, okay, I have traveled through the area. I live in the west side. I go pick up my pizza at Dominico. I have not seen any issues the need for it. So my philosophy is, if it ain't broken, we don't need to fix it. And that is the bottom line. And I will not support. I will listen to what the people want, and we'll need to figure something out, but it's a no for me.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to start off by thanking the residents for coming, for all the emails, the text messages. Ms. Colombo, I got all those text messages while I was on my cruise. It's important that you come out here because I don't want you to think that you're hearing what some of our colleagues are saying up here and that that doesn't mean you were heard. It simply means that We do have considerations beyond one particular area or one particular person's opinion, sometimes even contrary to our own. And I'll be one of those that puts their hands up and say, I live on the east side.

Oh no, not from anything today. It was actually during my meeting. Mr. Manager, can you address that?

Is there some sort of deadline on us saying yay or nay or one ramp, two ramp, three ramp to GMX?

So, just to make it, can you clarify or restate your motion real quick?

Thank you so so just to be crystal clear yes or no yours is right now as of right now if we were to vote yes, it's we we do oppose the any solution for now that includes the offer.

Okay, so that to me is the most important thing because I don't see a, during my meeting, I even started already discussing other options with them. If we were to proceed forward with the on-ramp only design, including doing something like what was done in 57 with the always go lanes, you know, the ones that are like the green arrows, with the protected left turn, for the people coming north that way it's because I'm trying to minimize the traffic light because the last thing I want to see this town council make the mistake of doing is what happened on one fifty four with forty seven intersect

So the email for Teddy Garcia is T Garcia. At GM X dash way W a Y dot com.

so to what the vice mayor's point earlier about if this is going to extend the timeline one of my questions during my one-on-one session with the gmx team was if the off-ramp component is removed what happens then they said they would go back to the drawing table it would take somewhere between the two to four month range for them to do the complete analysis to see the the toll gantry where it would be located things of that nature before they would come back and say yes it's feasible yes it's not feasible which is why i brought up the whole thing about this just this isn't a decision saying y

Thank you, Councilman Sanchez. I'll go ahead and come over to me. My question is actually, it seems like one of the biggest impediments towards feasibility of the removal of Ramp B seems to be the relocation of the toll gantry. However, I don't see how the removal of Ramp B at all affects the location of the toll gantry. Right now, your renderings and your plans show a new toll gantry on the entrance ramp, ramp A. It does not show one on ramp C, but it says here, a existing mainline tolling gantry to be relocated but it kind of seems like you guys are relocating it because you feel like it, be

Just to be clear, and I don't know how much this really, the location of the toll gantry goes into engineering, which I know is your forte, but again, just the way I see it, in this most recent version that I guess I'm looking at, the toll gantry is at the deceleration lane. I guess what you're saying is, i could see how maybe saying that the tog entry would need to be modified maybe but now it doesn't need to be relocated it would probably just need a minor modification to extend it make it a little wider so that it catches that deceleration lane so that if you're trying to get off sorry you'

Yes, I can answer that one for you. You definitely can save the TOGA entry as long as it's working today, which I'm pretty sure it charged me today, so it's working. All right, all you.

Thank you, Mayor. A few questions. You mentioned the vibration monitors and things like that. How is that done? Is that done on site? Do you provide vibration monitors to the homes nearby? What precautions are taken? Because that's something I know that's interesting.

Right, now I'll ask somebody else, but you just don't know if they install them only at the project and certain geographical location away from the project?

Okay. And again, this is a big concern of mine on what this motion is. I don't know if you have the answer to that. the direction I'm okay with giving is that you look at the project, determine, take rid of Rempe, because I think that's off the table for us, I believe it is, and come back to us, and then we can see the figures. Do you have any idea how long that would take to provide different traffic data on that?

And do you believe that, or is it common for projects of this scale to move forward with, for example, a 4% to 6% savings, or from an F to an E, or do projects typically proceed with those type of numbers?

All right. So to speak a little bit on the background of this, it has to do with the item that we just voted on. It's anticipated.

Oh, wait, before. What happened? We need a waiver of 7.2.

Thank you. So the proposed GMX interchange that we just discussed project is anticipated to result in an increase of vehicular volume and elevated vehicle speeds along Miami Lakeway north and south, Lake Patricia Drive, Lake Saranac Avenue, and Lake Candlewood Court. At present, no traffic calming infrastructure exists in these corridors, leaving police enforcement as the sole means of speed mitigation. It is recommended that the town council...

In anticipation and to get ahead of what could possibly be, it is recommended that the town council direct the public works department to coordinate with Miami-Dade County to evaluate the implementation of appropriate traffic calming measures including, but not limited to, speed humps, roundabouts, or other engineered solutions in the affected corridors in order to proactively mitigate anticipated increases in traffic volume and vehicle speed resulting from the possible GMX interchange project. Second.

Just to say, as far as Miami Lake way north and south, I definitely think that we've already seen an uptick in speed there. So I think that this is very beneficial for that. I do want to just point out, I also don't think that we need to... how do I say, answer a problem that doesn't yet exist as far as some of the other streets mentioned, Lake Patricia Drive, Lake Saranac Ave, and Lake Candlewood Court. Those were referenced by several members of the several residents that live in those areas as though those were going to be used as back alley speedways for people avoiding traffic on 67. And

and just to be clear if we were to say no because we don't want to overrule the residents on that uh that nothing stops that if somehow this project does get built and it does suddenly start creating back alley speedways they can come back and ask for it again we're not prohibiting that right okay councilman fernandez

So this item actually, I was waiting for something like this because I had a meeting with my brother. My brother lives on Lake Crescent Place. And these were the streets actually that he brought up. I mean, I spent two hours with him. so i was waiting for for this project to whether or not we were going to know if it was going to move forward or not but i i do think that even though we may not have gotten the some agreements from some of the the residents if it did move forward i think and i think that we could find some of them there may there may be some that opposed putting in speed bumps b

regarding uh speed humps speed bumps and also no left turns because that would actually deter people from using those cut through to be able to to move further north and south on 67th avenue a left turn off of lake patricia no left turn on lake patricia it was installed at one point my brother brought that up in my meeting with him but it somehow it fell down and it was removed and it was never reinstalled so i think that would be yeah and it could be something that's time sensitive right so

Just to get back, the reason why I put these items into those specific streets, Mr. Vice Mayor, is because of the experience with Royal Oaks being used, 79th Avenue, as a cut-through for those individuals that go down 82nd Avenue, cut into Royal Oaks, and they speed down 79th to get to Miami-Dade Drive. So the path that I see here is if individuals are trying to get to the Gratney Expressway, for example, from Eagle Nest, they wouldn't have to go all the way to 67th Avenue. They would cut through possibly Miami Lakeway South and into all those streets, Lake Candlewood, Lake Patricia, and use t

Thank you, Mayor. So one thing I wanna talk about just on this, and you'll hear about it from next month, is the timeline for implementation, ASAP. Two reasons why. One, I think we gotta make sure to give the manager an idea. And two, this is a good idea regardless, but obviously there's no guarantee that the Gratney project moves forward, whether GMX comes back to us or even we vote for it. I was really being really serious about that. It's difficult for me to vote for the project. That's why, I just wanna make sure that we're using resources correctly. Regardless, there's a speed issue on La

So the implementation is not the implementation of the actual, the physical barriers, is the implementation of them going out to get the ideas? Because I know it's not gonna take from one day to the next.

Agreed. You'll hear from me next month about, on that issue. Okay. Thank you, Councilman.

Councilman Cuadra-Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Mr. Chair. You guys took my word away, roundabouts. You get to see them in in in different parts of the county for gables need to look into these round about there. They're they're going to be they're the things that will help us with the with the issue of the speeding so that's that's the key right there round about it will be my next meetings. And the I put it in round about.

And I'll tell you, by the way, just as a last concluding point, and I'm sure Councilman Sanchez will echo my statement here, it's the same statement made to every single member of the of the vc which is you need something let me know and I'm sure he'll echo my sentiment on that with all of us really it's one of our are several we have a lot of little treasures but that one we we hold really close to us it's hard to your car yeah it's hard we hold it very close to our hearts so thank you for serving in both the military and in our committee thank you once again all righty with that we are on to

Councilman Sanchez, you're recognized. Well, as always, outstanding job and great job on the first day back to school. I know the street lights were a little bit of a nightmare there on 79th, but the whole department handled it the way that we know, the excellence, the gold standard. That is Miami-Dade County, and you're the crown jewel of Miami-Dade County. On Saturday, though, around 3 p.m., I was coming off the Palmetto, heading home, and I dialed 911 because of what I saw. There were a group of about 20 to 30 teenagers on dirt bikes doing wheelies, passing in front of the golf course, head

The worst thing we can do ourselves is take physical action. We cannot go after them, obviously. Absolutely not. That's law enforcement. We are not law enforcement. You are law enforcement. Yeah. Right. Okay.

uh just like golf carts there's no no different like golf cart safety you know these are the same exact uh same exact things you know and unfortunately they are part of traffic mitigation thank you major thank you any other comments or questions uh councilman guadalajara thank you mr major uh great work congratulations on the team effort of uh getting that uh I thought it wasn't going to be recuperated, but it was. Great job. I had an encounter with those gentlemen, actually not one time, but two times, with these gentlemen popping wheelies, going northbound on 79, and literally just popping t

Thank you, Vice Mayor. And you just said Main Street, so it reminded me, I got a phone call from a resident about Main Street. I think it might have been on Thursday, but it was during summertime. They said there's just a lot of teenagers out there past 8 p.m., 10 p.m. Obviously, that's a private property rule. I think the curfew is 11 p.m., right, on weekdays.

Well, private property is private property.

Okay, perfect. Just want to get some details on that. Thank you. You're welcome.

Any other comments? Just, you know, great job on getting the statue back. I know, like he said, I thought it was gone. And I think I saw some of our detectives were involved directly in figuring out where it was as well as accumulating all the tips and all stuff so thank you guys for everything you guys done and for the numbers which still do not lie thank you and shows that you guys are doing a phenomenal job thank you thank you so much all right have a good evening thank you all righty we are on to 8b public works monthly infrastructure report director Santos good evening council

Through the chair? Councilman Fernandez. It's, it's not a comment related to anything that you brought up. I just wanted to, to state this on the record that I got a phone call from a resident in Royal Oaks where he reported a sinkhole in front of his house or at least something that could be developing. I brought it up to Omar Santos as well. I, I copied the manager and I'm not, I'm not even not exaggerating but an hour maybe within an hour I drove happen to drive by I wanted to see it whether it was present from the 82nd Avenue and there was already a cone placed on where on where the suppos

I don't know if it's for public works, but I sent a pictures to our town manager this morning reference to how the area over at Advanced Auto Part area is starting to look. Mr. Mayor, Mr. Manager, did you see them? It started to look like a pig pen over there. Yes. Really bad.

Would you look into that, please? Yes. Thank you. But now that I've got the director here, where we at with my baby, the canal?

Okay, so basically let's say we approve the budget and all the good stuff what warranty what warranty are we going to get.

Okay now, but if we do decide to do the maintenance that you're stating that are we going to have a better warranty than the one that we have now.

So okay, so we're we're working we're working on.

Yes, thank you. Let me clear up so I make sure on the same page maintenance there usually isn't there isn't a warranty on the maintenance right we're just preparing or we're getting a contractor to make actual repairs that they would then warrant for a year.

So then we request for them to replace it was not if it's a truck fell on it that it's something that right so so the the actual areas of the canal bank that are repaired replaced repaired Those would be under a year warranty. And of course, it depends on how it's used. And the funding for the maintenance comes from stormwater, right? Okay, perfect. So you got a year to look at them, right? To make sure they're doing a good job. Got it. Thank you.

Give me one second to ask a question about that. And it's, I just don't recall us voting in favor of the repair part. I remember, yeah, the maintenance, yeah, obviously we maintain what's ours. But I don't remember voting for the piece by piece. I remember us, me moving the canal bank stabilization project and they're getting voted down by Councilman.

If I may so I the numbers were there I remember one numbers like 700,000 another one of hers about a 100,000 years of like that that was your estimate that those are all in approach the 700 was all in.

like priority. This is what needs to be prepared first and here's your 100,000 and for all I know you might run out of the money in the first 3 months could based off that they saw the can we do it in sections will say we only have enough to do the first 30 feet will do the first 30 feet so right now we don't even have this item budgeted we would be in this fiscal year right but in stormwater, yes, out of stormwater okay, I got there so.

What does it cost us every time we do I don't know if you call it flag or a piece of concrete. I think they some people call it a flag some call it a slab. So every time we do a slob because a route is lifting it up. What do we roughly pay whatever contractor.

No, it's not $2.00, $170.00, it looks like.

$170.00 per square foot. Per flag. Per 5x5. Per 5x5. These flags are not 5x5.

That's super cheap. Okay, all I can tell you is... Okay, so all I can tell you is that there's a lot of them that are being done, and they're not even... They're not even a year old and they're cracking their lifting up because the roots are doing that again. We're not putting root barriers. So we're going to be talking about those root barriers real soon again.

Something you said earlier about the options on Miami Lake Drive kind of just jogged my memory. That time that we met and discussed the whole AI timing thing with the synchronization of the lights, the last I heard about that was like a while ago, and we were still waiting to hear back on some permits from Miami-Dade County. What has happened since then? Has it finally gone active? What's going on?

Does that, when you say the hardware, does that mean essentially that whatever we paid for as a town, the whole AI thing, was basically just a waste or is not going to go active? Well, not 100%. That's the part I'm not understanding. Yeah, some of the things we did. I'm trying to understand what exactly we paid for and what's going to happen when it goes active and will it ever go active.

Coming from my house on 79th, going towards 154th Street, you've got the hotel there. I call it the motel. What's it called? The Quinta? I called it the Quinta Motel. Right there, when you get to the light, to make a left, it doesn't even give you a minute to be able to make a left. and it just backs up there what is going on is in a light supposed to give you at least a minute for cars to be able to turn.

I encourage J. C. you live. Councilman J. C. you live in my have you experienced the same issue make

It is rough, but I think that it's not really through the town that makes those moves on the timing. I think it has to do with the county. So if they're having an issue, which sometimes I feel it, sometimes I don't. It depends on the time of day. But I think we've got to take that up with the county.

It's early in the morning. I've had the residents tell me.

So, I mean, the specific time is always because when I'm driving at 9, 10 o'clock at night, it just makes no sense. Obviously... In the morning, we hear from residents a lot. I thankfully avoid that area in the morning. But I think last, on the Saturday at 10.30 at night, I get off, I get a red light, it goes to green, then it's red again. It makes zero sense. I mean, in my opinion, there's been absolutely, a monkey is deciding the timing change because nothing makes sense. And I feel like it's different every single day. I know it's not, but it just, it doesn't make any sense. And I would lov

is your just going back to the the both items the concerns specifically to the 79th avenue intersection or just that entire it's a whole thing in my opinion i'm going to ask this last question and then i think we really should just move this into uh sunshine honestly um because i think this is actually a very prudent discussion um and it's could something be done sort of like what was done with the speed bumps where maybe the town real sorry the county relinquishes that very tight grasp that they have over the signals and allows us to do it under certain criteria the way it is with the speed b

coverage or authority i think that it's a fruitful discussion to be able to make the ask right like if they say no they say no but but i think that that you're saying about the concern about how it affects hialeah or unincorporated data or whatever i think that that's where the criteria come in and obviously we cannot set all of our lights to permanent green so that we're just jamming up all of hialeah streets obviously um there has to be as great as that would be just kidding UM BUT BUT AT THE END OF THE DAY WE CAN ASK AND IF THEY SAY NO WE SAY NO AND AND WE MOVE ON ALL RIGHT THANK YOU UH DIR

I actually don't think the price is that crazy. I've seen IT costs before. They do seem that way, right, to the average person. In option one, for example, $14,464 out of the, they're charging 17,000 for the hardware plus the AV upgrades plus the accessories. What exactly are the AV upgrades and the accessories that we're talking about there?

So there are more ports? Correct. Okay. So my experience in my own purchasing for my law firm is Quality in these kinds of things matters. The last thing you want, and personally, I just have to say, I don't like the projector option. It is the most expensive option. And I just don't like the idea of having a projector hung 20 feet down from the ceiling. It's just going to look weird. um the the tv option is far superior but then now you have to wonder if for a considerable period of time it is going to literally show something that looks like that right kind of like a placeholder image correc

Thank you. I know you love this this this town. If we can't do better we can't shop and get a better deal. I'm going to agree with with the with the mayor. It's either a better deal or or nothing. So try if we're going to have it try to try to do the negotiation and try to get us a little better deal.

Councilman Herzberg. So I don't even like option one. I don't like the look of it. And I really don't think how much we're gonna use it. I'm all for option four. I think it is a little overpriced. I think we would get a decent quality TV, which should cost between $1,500 each, 18, maybe 2,000. Option four is a conservative number. I agree with you, it's definitely not what I would expect the town to spend on it. But I understand why sometimes you wanna put conservative numbers. But I honestly don't like having, I like having, in God we trust, a seal and nothing else. I don't want to put TVs be

Yeah, I'll amend. I would amend the motion to then go with, instead of option one, option four, I don't believe we need any dais visibility. We all have our own computers and iPads and then we go with the podium visibility. So option four for chamber display and option one for summary for podium display. I'll second that.

Yeah, out of all the options, that's not my least favorite because my least favorite is the projectors, but it's very close to being tied for my least favorite, primarily because, I don't know, it just gives me PTSD from school when they just rolled in the little TV cart. but also I think it's a gigantic waste of space in our council chambers whether you put it there they're also where are you gonna store it because we have a lot of special events in this chambers and that thing's gonna break if you just leave it out here so so you could try in there nothing fits in there yeah I'm into the ame

We already approved the concept that just the minimum standard for employee renewal reviews. The town manager's already implementing his own standard, which meets this ordinance once it's passed, so I move that we pass the ordinance.

Okay, here we go, fun. Everyone loves fees, right? Listen, I don't like bringing this up. I don't take pleasure in saying let's charge a fee, but it's the fiscal reality we may be in come November. I've had discussions with the town manager. I mean, there is an argument to just do this regardless. My position is we implement this if Amendment 3 passes because that is the consequence, and I've been telling people that. When people talk to me, I said, listen, there's positives and negatives of Amendment 3. It's up to the voters. They can decide. This is going to be one of the consequences of Ame

that sorry councilman Fernandez get him next time all right discussion beginning with the vice mayor yeah I definitely think that this is uh more likely than not something that it's regardless of what happens with the amendment I agree um and and the primary reason is You know, we see what's been happening with our police budget. It's just ballooning and it's not really a cost that we're able to control. So I do see this as, you know, a secondary source of funding to possibly fill some gaps. The only question I really had was whether we knew whether we know or have any estimates of what that w

No, honestly, the motion is for staff to come back with an ordinance. Regardless, we can decide. Well, I mean, we can decide. If the will of the council is to just push it through October, like we'll vote second reading October, then we don't know the results of the map. Hold on.

Right, but to clarity, that is my personal take is on Amendment 3. If the will of the council or someone can convince me that we're ready to just do it regardless, which honestly is not a terrible idea based off our budget, that's something we can discuss in second reading, honestly.

No, I was going to suggest that exactly, that we move it. And if we want to remove it or later on just pull it back, we could do that in first or second reading. But I do think that we should move it to ask staff to come back with, I think it's just tweaking of the current ordinance right now. Yeah.

If I mean they're absolutely going to the biggest question I have and I think staff should have is what's the percentage. What's the tax percentage of their will come back with first or maybe that can tell you what their position.

THE ACCOUNTS MEMBER FERNANDEZ SO I JUST IN THINKING ABOUT THIS WHO WHO IS GOING TO BE PAYING FOR IT I MEAN SOMEBODY ENDS UP PAYING FOR IT RIGHT COMMERCIAL OWNERS AND THE CONSUMERS WILL RIGHT CONSUMERS AND WHENEVER WE GO AND WE SHOP AND WE SPEND MONEY IN IN OUR IN THE RETAIL SPACES SO YOU KNOW WE WILL END UP PAYING FOR IT BUT IT'S NOT GOING TO BE ATTACHED TO OUR TAX BILL

So I love the spirit of this item. I really do. Councilman Garcia. I just I see this more fitting within the scope and the mission statement of the Public Safety Committee. They love to do publicity. They love to do those training types of videos where they can reach out to those other municipalities, especially with the success that we had last year with Cards for Heroes, where we had first responders from as far as Homestead come to our town. So I really do believe instead of doing a separate body in its own, is feeding this through the public safety committee and developing it through that

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Basically, I just want to, when we're talking- My apologies.

Aye. Can you, Mr. Mayor- All opposed, no.

I have second hand embarrassment. Is it Danny Angel's beautiful shirt? Ah, now I got it. I'm slow, but I got it. You guys, at least we're having some fun, right? Okay, basically, after getting several calls from residents in that jacaranda um street of having um guys please this is serious mr mayor this you know when when a resident calls me and tells me they're they're cats they're animals They're they're like part of our family. They've been killed due to light outage there. You know. Basically what I'm asking that when we are in the process of a budgeting that we can budget to get a couple

My motion is to request funding to get better lighting in that area.

So, Mr. Vice Mayor, go ahead. Just a friendly amendment to go along with it is just to have the staff analyze and check out that intersection, see if there are existing lights that may potentially be out and need repair or replacement. If not, what the cost would be to get power to that area and what exactly would be needed to properly illuminate that intersection. And then potentially presented to us in time for the budget season.

Yes. Councilman Angelo Cuadro Garcia. Before accidents, three of them were in the daytime. One of them was in the nighttime and it's been over in the span of four years. So adding lights for the it would really be for one accident in the span of four years. Now, if I may, Councilman Cuadra Garcia, there's also, you know, there's a few of us that live right along that street, and I drive it every single night. Yes, there are parts that are dimmer, but there's also the neighboring, the people that live in that neighborhood, like on Jacaranda and on Big Cypress, that enjoy a little bit of that da

We have 15 minutes. Yes, I agree with you 100% on that one, but it is extremely too dark over there. Let's consider looking on getting more light. Mr. Manager.

Vice Mayor, is there a second? Second. Second by Councilmember Garcia.

And Mr. Vice Mayor, you're recognized to proceed. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm going to try to make this as brief as possible and not completely long-winded like my NBI is. And I hope you all had a chance to kind of review it. This is basically a constitutional protection scheme, right? We have seen the proliferation of flock-style cameras throughout the country and the privacy concerns that

This is aimed at number one, ensuring that the concern originally arose in me, hey, we have these LPR cameras that we're incredibly proud of and they serve a very legitimate law enforcement function. However, my concern was, okay, well, what's being done with the information that is being collected from these cameras and can that information potentially be fed and turned into flock style surveillance? That definitely got a lot louder. My understanding from the response from the town staff is Under the current contract with the privacy policy that is in place, the answer is no. You guys know ve

My understanding is that as it stands, they cannot do that. They only really have live pings of the license plate readers.

Well, this all started because my concern was that the data from the LPRs could, in theory, be manipulated and turned into flock. So this is specifically aimed at preventing flock. It doesn't tie their hands at all.

No, yeah, I have a comment. Thank you, Mayor. First, I appreciate the Ben Franklin quote. That's nice. I'm more of a Madison guy, but Ben Franklin's a good one, too. I'm going, obviously, I'm going to approve this, but I would like to see this come back as an ordinance. resolution any we could say i don't care what they did 10 years ago so my recommendation i'm not making an amendment i would like you to bring this back as an ordinance as well if we really want to it still doesn't it still doesn't codify it still doesn't tie a council's hand but then they got to go through two readings uh all

No, I'm just going to ask him to bring back the ordinance.

So due to a personal family health-related issues, Gary Cardenas missed several meetings, which caused his removal from the Veterans Committee. Since then, his situation, his family situation has improved quite well. And it is my recommendation that Gary comes back to the committee with a waiver of Committee Rule 11H due to the 180-day requirement.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Again, this NBI speaks for itself as written. But I did just kind of want to give the quick background that I was approached by the Colonel at the last Miami-Dade Chamber of Commerce luncheon at which Mr. Brian Avila as well as Tom Fabricio and Alex Rizzo were present. And apparently he was able to actually get Senator Avila to to commit hey if you guys make the request we can probably get you the money right now veteran items are kind of hot and and not getting the veto pen so so uh if we amend our our uh budget our appropriations priorities to include this that there's

think we have uh the information totally confused it would take some time i want to clarify that but it ain't going to be right now so we need to prepare a sunshine meeting so i can explain everything so we can clarify it because i need to make it very clear and basically and i'll tell you this in front of whoever i am so i will bring the media if you want to that day so we can put it on tv

Oh, okay, great. That's good. Let's take it on. So let me make sure that I clear myself, okay? There's things going on stating, okay, that I have a vendetta with this funeral home. Let me tell you something real brief, okay? I do not. There are numerous, numerous, pay attention to me, because I'm gonna be very clear now. I hope so. You open that up, I'm going to close it. Good. Okay? This cemetery has hundreds of hundreds of violations, and they have hundreds of letters that I can bring them to whoever they want. They have numerous complaints. Whoever tells you that a building not having prope

I did use my shirt. And I never even intended to even use my shirt. I even told I'm probably not even going to wear that shirt anymore.

At a ground level in all this, this is the first time I've heard you say what happened with your brother and the incident with his body. And it's the first time I've heard it from you. I won't lie, though. I have no problem telling you. I had heard the story before from others. So I had an idea of what was going on in the background. But I also do want to point out that you're saying on the one hand that you don't have a vendetta. but you quite literally said the words, but what really upsets me is, and then you began saying the story about your brother. So it's quite literally a vendetta. It

Councilman Cuadra Garcia, I completely understand where you're coming from, okay? Because family means everything to all of us. It's not just you, it's to all of us. And I can understand the frustrations that you went through. But we also have to set aside something that I've said for a long time. The professional from the personal, okay? We are in a position of public trust. Even when I was working for the federal government, I had a security clearance. I got to a point of a top secret one, but the first one was a clearance of public trust. And that word means a lot. The people have trusted u

So I don't knock on that neighbor's door and tell them, hey, your paint is bad and your roof is dirty. I'm like, you know what, this seems a bit suspicious, so I reach out to the town manager and he filters it out to the proper departments. Or if I see a pothole or a lifted sidewalk or something that just doesn't look right. But for me to say, hey, or I'm gonna pull over a car because I see them speeding, we don't have the ability to do that, we don't. We're not law enforcement, we're not court enforcement. We set the guidelines for them to do their duties, but we do not carry out those duties

I just in general a central motion has to specifically mention the member that's being censured so okay, then to the center specifically a councilman while Garcia for the for that occurred doesn't happen again.

yeah thank you mayor uh so first obviously i was disappointed when i saw the letter um i believe even he's a council member of his own and that that attorney in in bay harbor i've met him a few times uh i believe you know you what you did you took it too far right what i ask you to do is remember that how many votes you got right you gotta every day no matter sure not sure here in publics you're representing those people all people but especially someone that that received so many votes and and got the trust of the voters like that right um on the censure i mean i i don't know if legal exactly

So I'll be for it just because I want to be clear of the high standard we expect of everybody here, right? And one thing I do ask from you, and we've had this discussion before, I and I'm sure many others are willing to schedule sunshine meetings and discuss the things you want to discuss before because I understand we're limited here, right? And I know you have a lot of good ideas that you want to get out. Let's schedule sunshine meetings so the public can attend if we want, so then we can have those free-flowing discussions. It could be about anything. So that's my ask for you, is that we do

Mr. Mayor. I Talk with with which with clarity and what you have stated of my Neighbor, I have asked my neighbor kindly if all his debris all of his trees fall over to my side I have the right to take a picture and I was told by the town manager take a picture and if all his stuff is over on the side you could trim it so I can't you know if you go over to his backyard it looks like the zoo okay you could keep your zoo however you he's got possums in there and everything but he can't be having all his trees hanging over to my side, so I have the right, and correct me, Mr. Manager, if I spoke to

Mr. Mayor, do you, let me make sure that I clear this with you. Do you have evidence that I did that? DO YOU HAVE THE PROOF THAT I DID?

YOU REPEATEDLY... MR. MAYOR, I'M IN MY PROPERTY. I'M IN MY PROPERTY, AND IF IT COMES OVER TO MY SIDE, I HAVE THE RIGHT TO TRIM IT. DO I HAVE THE RIGHT TO TRIM IT OR NOT? IT'S IN MY SIDE. MR. MAYOR, MR. MANAGER, IF THE TREE GOES INTO MY YARD, CAN I TRIM IT? THAT'S WHAT I DID.

Can we clarify that? Can we clarify that?

you're not going to embarrass me mr mayor i'm not you're not but it's called about telling the truth okay okay you're not going to embarrass me i'm i'm telling you that right now nobody here on this council respectfully nobody is trying to embarrass you but you are embarrassing yourself no i'm not sir okay through the chair i'm sorry i'm sorry mr vice mayor

so let me let me see if i can put a pin on this um first and foremost a censure is a slap on the wrist it is hey we don't like what you did it is not a removal from office because i think earlier it was kind of meant to seem that way we don't have that power nor are we trying to do that uh nor is there like a three censure rule then you're out Like that doesn't exist. This is simply just our formal way, our formal mechanisms of saying, we don't like what you did. It doesn't go with the standards of this body. Please don't do it again. That's all it is. So I just wanted to kind of put that out

Basically, like I said, nobody here is going to embarrass me because I'm an adult. And I'm here to, but I will tell you, if next week somebody decides to state something else about me, like the tree, then now there's something else. We have to take case by case. And I think that it was not fair what My colleague, the mayor, just stated that I went into the gentleman's property. That is not fair to say that, Mr. Mayor.

Are you sure that we've all committed a mistake?

Yeah, this will be quick. I've had discussions with the town manager. We've shared some contracts back and forth. The next step, I do want to have a contract presented for everybody for approval in September. I might have a few MBI's tied to that contract as well, so we're all on the same page moving forward. I do want to set a sunshine meeting so we can and I've asked the town manager not to attend so we can have a very good and fluid discussion and he's okay with that. He's actually asked me what my preference is so I appreciate that. About a few of the remaining items. I really do think we'