Facilities and Construction Committee - Regular Meeting

I'm going to call it afternoon because I'm not going to concede that it's evening yet. I'm your relief pitcher. May I have a motion to approve the minutes of March 4th? Do I have a second? All in favor? Entertain a motion to move the F items to the floor? All in favor? Aye. Mr. Perez, in the language of my people, you got us tired. So let's go to our final point.

Colleagues, comments, questions, concerns? No. Seeing none, F2, please.

Board Member Santos, these are all in your neck of the woods. Any comments?

Thank you. I was going to wait until the next one, but yes. It is yet another month where we have multiple, not just one, but multiple share mitigation agreements, failed concurrency of projects in Deep South Dade. I've been working very closely with staff and feel confident that we are taking the right steps to address this, but we continue to feel this sense of urgency. And it's such an outlier. Our entire district is going through a very different process, basically the exact opposite process. And in this case, we can't forget that where there's opportunity and growth, we have to capture it

Thank you, Board Member Santos. Any other questions, comments, concerns? F3, please.

Any other comments, questions, concerns? Okay. F4?

Thank you, Board Member Spino. I know, I don't know if it was a couple years or a couple months back, but there was some work done to ensure that we're enforcing hand-in-hand with the county the covenants that come along with these exceptions that we approve, which I'm in full support of. Mr. Perez, can you confirm that our process is ongoing in ensuring that these covenants are enforced in the long term through the chair?

Thank you, through the chair, and how often is that process done?

Thank you. And certainly the intent is not to over-enforce it, but to find a balance. And if something has changed, to make sure we address it. Thank you so much.

I'm going to, thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going to start, and in my briefing I had quite a few concerns with this. First and foremost, I want to state for the record that I'm always open, always open to conversations, exploratory negotiations, all of that. But, you know, especially when it comes to maximizing the district's assets and serving our students and community, always gonna be open to that. So I wanted to state that. However, again, process and procedure are imperative. It is my understanding that a representative of the district spoke before the City of Miami Commission in support of t

Through the chair from an appointed order, which was after this item was even released to the public, which was the first time that I saw it through the chair, and it is a property in my district through the chair.

Yes, but my question was someone from this district spoke at the city of Miami without informing me on behalf of the district without informing this board that in support in support in support those were the words of this resolution and my question is and to my colleagues as well and and you know what is going on here I'd like to like to chime in for a moment because I mean and I think I said this former Alonzo made a comment and I brought up the fact that I have proffered an item of how to how to do these things holistically

And at the time, the superintendent specifically told me that items dealing with property in a school board member's respective district is run through that member at the initiative. And without you knowing, your confirmation that you did not know that this was happening is essentially putting a property in your district, well, being responsive about a property in your district to a third-party government agency, which we have said we don't do.

Through the chair, that is correct. And I'm going to preface this by saying I did receive a call from Mr. Bueno. I didn't see the resolution. I didn't have any details about the resolution. I didn't know when it was coming. You called me and you said it was coming that evening. I don't even remember because it was so in passing. The point is that I should have been briefed on this with staff, with my chief of staff on all of this. I did have conversations with the commissioner about it, but I wasn't included with the district about the plan that this was. I'm talking about staff here. I'm not

thank you through the chair and and i just want to reiterate that is public record it's it's on the no no i'm just saying it's i have the footage and i've refrained from showing it today because i was appalled when i saw it that this individual spoke on behalf of miami-dade county public schools that we are in support of the resolution without even telling me And if you don't know about it, that's even more disturbing to me.

If I can interject, and I don't mean to step on you for any, but I mean, we like to say we're Miami-Dade County Public Schools and nobody tells us what to do. And this item seems to reward the behavior that we don't want to encourage, even from people that we know, because this is a small community of elected officials. But essentially what this item does is say, if a government takes an initiative to decide to develop on our property without consultation, we will entertain it. We will entertain it. And those conversations should be happening. The city of Miami, a commissioner should approach

Yes, and I'm sorry. The third page of the resolution, I'm gonna refer to it. It clearly states our property. It clearly states our property. $4.8 million to be used for the redevelopment of the property located at 7001 Southwest 4th Street, Miami, Florida and other eligible sites, other eligible sites for workforce housing provided that such redevelopment applies with all terms and conditions to be set forth in the HCD, HCLC approvals which shall be consistent with the city commission approval. And it is further subject to applicable procurement requirements, affordability restrictions, and co

So, Madam Vice Chair, what you're saying is this is a standalone resolution for that property?

To me, it talks about other, it refers to our property clearly on the last page. On the last page, it refers to our property through the chair. And my thing is, I have no problem discussing this. And I did speak with the commissioner months ago about this. But there was nothing brought to me from the district before we even went out to say we're in support of this. And that's a big, big problem. I don't even understand how else to say it. And I will say it like Dr. Gallin said. It's disrespect. It really is. It's disrespectful. Because I am the duly elected constitutional officer for that dist

Through the chair again, I'm sorry. We've said it several times today, perception becomes reality. Now we've given the perception to the city of Miami. that this board supports this, even though it was, no, I wasn't there, you weren't there, nor would I speak to something that I didn't have the details of before I had the information in my hands, which I never did through the chair.

I want to defer. I'm not going to support this as written. And it's going to put us in a position where we don't have parameters of what we're even looking at. It's very vague. And I need to sit down. I need to be fully briefed by staff what was discussed. And I need to know and have input on what's going on here. This is critical to me. And I'm going to put something else before this board. And we don't need to discuss it right now. But this is something that we have to look at. because we're getting into, yes, educational enterprise, we're getting into land, we're getting into workforce hous

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair. Board Member Alonzo has an opportunity to speak. No, thank you so much, Board Member Espino, for giving me the opportunity. And this can turn into... The Wild Wild West. And not everybody has the same intentions that this board has. And just this morning I was speaking with the superintendent about some properties in Hialeah. And in other areas that we're looking at. And you said it very precisely and Dr. Gallant said it as well too, Vice Chair Colucci. We're the deciding body. on school board property. And right now we're sitting, and I don't think we realize this

Thank you, Dr. Dautrich. Through the chair, this is for me, and we're going to have, obviously, an in-depth briefing on this. We have to just proceed with caution right now. We really do as a board. We have to be thoughtful because this piece of property is right by the Ludlam Trail. It is worth a lot of money. So how can we even go into negotiations without having... you know, for an inter-local agreement without even, I don't even know how much the property's worth. I don't know how much, I mean.

Yeah, I mean, this is, and so they, you know, I'm appreciative of.

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair. Madam Chair, you had a comment?

Thank you, Madam Chair. To wrap up, Board Member Gallin.

Thank you, Board Member Gallin. F26, please.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. I'm very excited to see this item before us. I know that I have a pending touch point with Mr. Perez after I review the documents you sent over to ensure that the full facilities list that has been discussed over the last year is fully captured in this before we vote on... Well, this is the architect one. I meant for F27, sorry. They're combined. So for both items, I will... make sure I follow up with you and ensure that before our vote next Wednesday that everything that we've been discussing is addressed so that we can, again, keep moving these innovative projec

Thank you. May I have a motion to recommend the F items except F7? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? All opposed? Any new business colleagues? I'm sorry.

Thank you so much, and I wanna thank Mr. Luis Diaz who kindly stayed because I couldn't ask in the previous committee, but this is new business related to food and nutrition. I was speaking to one of my appointees on the Wellness Advisory Committee, and they had a lot of discussion about an ongoing situation of highly processed foods being sold as an incentive during school hours. I understand many schools are having to get very creative in their fundraising, and I certainly, did a ton of fundraising when I was at Corey Senior High to make sure we had funding for all the activities my classmat

Thank you so much for that thorough explanation and for making sure that principals and schools have the information they need to follow our policy. I will be sure to reiterate that these are policies and how people can be reminded of how they need to implement them. Thank you so much.

You know, Mr. Diaz had that ready to go off the top of his head. He was just ready to spit that out. Madam Chair, you had a comment.

And just very briefly, and we've talked about this, we still have problems cropping up with the AC over at Nautilus. They've had some problems again. I know, you know, you're in touch with Mr. Niccolo. He's very good at keeping in touch with me. Bay Harbor, at least temporarily, seems to be doing. Ruth K. Broad, a little better. But I still want to be sure that we've got replacements on the way because this patchwork, We can't just continue to patch forever. So that's the issue. Thank you.

Facilities and maintenance comprehensive update.

Thank you, Mr. Perez. Can you walk us through why there's four less projects in the total project scope for this month versus last month?

Thank you so much. I'd like the record to reflect Mr. Nicholas with us, and he'll have to pick up the bar tab for not being here at the cross-examination. So, you're going to pay for it one way or another, man. Office of Community Partnerships, Education, and Business Access, Dr. Abner Roberts.

Seeing none, entertain a motion to adjourn. Second? All in favor? Aye. We're done, 6.05. Thank you, everybody.