Village Council - Regular Meeting

You want to say hello?

Let's see if it works.

Through the Zoom or the conference call?

No, through the conference call.

Good afternoon, Village Council.

Good afternoon.

Okay, I can hear you through the Zoom, but it seems like AB is having some arguments. They can't, or you guys can't hear me, but in the interim... We can move forward with roll call.

One second before you proceed, could I have a mic check on this? I don't think this mic is on. Is there a magical way to do this?

Yeah, there's another button that's on the other side.

Okay, one second.

No, no, she's got two buttons. Is that it? Isabel?

Do you want to say hi again? On the other side where it plugs into the desk, there might be a switch over there.

Over there, right there where the XLR is. See it? It was on. Okay.

It should be there. Maybe we should use that one. One second.

No, no, no, no. It should be. It's on. Do you want to say hi, visibility?

Hi, Village Council.

Good evening. Is that on?

No, it's not.

Oh, we don't hear it through the AV system. Oh, are we back?

Okay. Okay, go ahead. Do a thing.

Okay.

Here Here At this point in time it's order of business are there any additions deletions and deferrals I Have one I would like to run by since Parks Department has Is that okay with the rest of council we're just swapping the parks to go before the pension talk Okay, it's 11 a to just basically swap numbers. I mean 10 becomes 11 11 times 10, but I mean If you want to move it that we're fine with that too if you want to do that If we're drone for expediting I'll believe that all right yep, so then it would be a Item 11a, right after, right with the consent agenda. All those in favor, aye. Aye. Okay. Are there any more to the agenda?

Oh, I'm sorry. You're voting to move the item? Yes. Okay.

11a, behind.

We just want to move the parks framework and parks department up right after consent agenda. Okay. Is that okay? Yes. Okay. All right. Madam Clerk. Thank you. So it's item 5A. Thank you.

No, right?

It should be on.

My name is Jennifer Bauman. I'm the chair for the Recreation Advisory Board. I live at 1250 Northeast 91st Terrace. I came here to request an amendment for the board bylaws to reduce the size of our board, the Recreation Advisory Board, from nine members to seven members. Currently we are struggling to achieve a quorum month after month and it limits our ability to effectively and efficiently advise the recreational programming and all of our activities and the board's recommendation is to gradually reduce the number of seeds from nine to seven as the current members terms expire That's all. Thank you.

Thank you.

Do you have any questions?

No. Okay, great. Madam Clerk. The, out of the parks, the parks would like to change the amount of, members as they expire so that they could have quorum. So I think it's a nine-member board right now per the memo, and then the first step is to take it down to seven as they term out. It's a report. It was a report from the head of the Parks Department Advisory Board.

Understood, but usually the council will either discuss, direct staff, or take any.

Okay. Do you want us to do? It would be later, though.

It was just a report. Yeah. At this time, I think it was just a report or an update or a request. You don't have to take action.

No, it's not a requirement to take action, but when there is a recommendation report, if not, then it'll fall down by the wayside in the sense that if there's no direction – TO THE ATTORNEY TO DRAFT, IF THE COUNCIL IS IN AGREEMENT WITH THAT OR WOULD LIKE TO BRING THAT BACK LATER, THEN THERE WOULD NEED TO BE SOME SORT OF DISCUSSION SINCE THE RECOMMENDATION IS FOR COUNCIL TO CONSIDER AMENDING OR THEY CAN'T AMEND, BUT TO DIRECT STAFF OR TO NOT DO ANYTHING IF THAT'S THE DECISION BECAUSE THEY DON'T AGREE WITH THE RECOMMENDATION.

I didn't gather that you guys didn't agree or not. I just think it's up to your discretion. You can do that at this time. You can bring it back at a later time or no action at all.

When we were going over boards and committees, did the parks, have we touched the whole ordinance for parks? Yeah. I mean, there's so many. There's 13, I think, that we're trying to tackle here. I don't think we've done a part.

I do not recall. Isabelle can defer.

You did ask the staff liaison what they felt about the board composition. The staff liaison, Ms. Dorney, said that she didn't find any issues with the board member composition at the time. The question was not posed to the board. The staff liaison answered. So you've already reviewed that during the workshop. regarding that and not coming back with that alternative. I'm not saying that any action has to be taken. What I'm saying is if council is amenable to that, the only way it would come back on the agenda is if either a council member sponsored that later on or if you were to direct staff to consider drafting an ordinance amendment or not take any action at all as

No, on the record, it would be, in my opinion, is to give the attorney direction that we want to amend the ordinance, I guess, for how many members there are. That's my opinion. That's what's the recommendation. We're having problems in the village of getting volunteerism, and I think any time that we, if the sitting board that's been there for a while sees a problem and then brings it to us, I know that we ran across this, but then the reality of the situation is IT'S VERY DIFFICULT TO STAFF ALL THESE BOARDS.

YES. THROUGH THE CHAIR, WHEN IS THE NEXT TIME THAT WE'RE GOING TO HAVE SEATS OPENED UP ON THE BOARD?

THROUGH THE CHAIR, THAT IS AN EXCELLENT QUESTION, COUNCILMEMBER VERLINSKI, BECAUSE SHOULD COUNCIL DECIDE TO TAKE ANY FORM OF ACTION IN AMENDING THE ORDINANCE, IT WOULD BE NOW, BECAUSE WE'VE OPENED UP THE APPLICATION PROCESS. About three weeks ago, on the Recreation Advisory Committee, there were about four vacancies. So if there's an opportunity to postpone the recruitment and selection of that committee because there may be a potential that would be helpful that now, as opposed to when we start presenting those vacancies board appointments council next month and then now you would have to remove later on people from the board versus stacking to how you choose to see that board in the future.

How many of those four are expired terms and I know at least one of them is somebody who resigned right?

Right so none of them have four term They're not term limited, any of the ones that have that four-term expiration, those four individuals. Some of them have reapplied, not all. So they can choose to reapply or not. But either way, those applications would be presented to council in June.

When you say we have four seats that are coming up, are – Those are four seats that are currently all filled, or some of those are currently empty?

So according to your code of ordinance, the board will continue to serve until a successor or until they're reappointed or a successor has been appointed. So it's not completely vacant, but you have upcoming vacancies in June. So those four seats could potentially be vacant. They don't reapply, and council doesn't choose to reappoint them. Got you.

Okay. So, I mean, I would be in support of, you know, yeah, bringing it down to two seats that we have to fill instead of four. That would do. Yeah.

I would also.

Okay.

Me as well.

I think the council has consensus on that, Madam Clerk, and also Madam Attorney.

Okay. I think that may have fixed it. Duly noted. Next item, Mr. Mayor.

Manager's update.

I don't have one at this time. Okay.

This is a public hearing at this point in time in the meeting. The meeting is open for public comments. It's a three-minute time limit, and it's usually a general comment at this point in time, or if it's item-specific and then the item comes up, you just can't do the comment again during the item. Seeing as there's no public comment or hearing then, are there any e-comments from today?

No, sir.

No e-comments. Next item is the consent agenda.

Move to approve the consent agenda.

I have a motion. Second. There's a motion and a second. All in favor, signal by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Next item. We move.

You said you were moving up to right after consent, correct, Mr. Mayor? Correct.

Yes, that is correct.

A resolution of the Village Council of Miami Shores Village, Florida approving adopting the Miami Shores Village Parks and Recreation Master Plan as presented by Framework Planning and Design, Inc., providing for implementation, providing for an effective date. This item is brought forth by the Parks and Recreation Director through the Village Manager.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council. Angela Dorney, the Parks and Recreation Director. Tonight, before you to hopefully ask for the Parks and Recreation Master Plan to be approved, on April 21st, two months ago, last month, Framework provided a presentation to the Village Council regarding the Parks and Recreation Master Plan. It included findings, recommendations, and long-term planning strategies for the village's parks and recreation facilities. The Parks and Recreation Master Plan represents the first comprehensive master plan ever prepared specifically for the village's parks and recreation system and was developed to be unique and specifically tailored to the needs, characters, and designs for Miami Shores Village. Through extensive public outreach, along with the Recreation Advisory Board and other stakeholder groups, and community participation, the Parks and Recreation Department, along with FrameWork, identified the recreation needs, priorities, and desires of the village residents and stakeholders. The Parks and Recreation Master Plan will serve as the village's roadmap and policy for the next 10 to 15 years. It will provide recommendations, priorities, and goals for future facilities, program operations, and recreational opportunities. The master plan is intended to serve as a guiding document and strategically plans the long-term development of the village's parks and recreation system in order to ensure that the system meets the identified goals and objectives of the village and provides equitable, sufficient, sustainable, and efficient recreation services to our residents. It is the recommendation of myself, the parks and recreation director, and the village manager that the council adopt the 2026 Miami Shores Village Parks and Recreation Master Plan. It is in the best interest of the health, safety, and welfare and quality of life for our residents of the Shores.

Thank you.

I believe our Ryan Cambridge from Framework is on the line if we have any questions.

After adoption of this, just recommended next steps if we adopt the resolution. If Ryan can...

Ryan, do you want to weigh in on the next step?

No. Oh, great, same problem.

Okay. So maybe you want me to do an ad?

No, well, it just would have been nice. This is why we moved it up to not spend some time with him.

Mr. Mayor, respectfully, I think we have the same problem. All right. So maybe what I could do is to add him to this call so at least he'd have some mic time.

Okay, I'd appreciate that. Yeah, in the corner it says click to join audio.

It says click to join audio. Can we click to see Ryan in the corner? Do you see that?

No.

I can call him and we can do the same thing we did with Isabelle II I

That would be fine.

Isn't it telling us to click that? Why don't we click that? I don't think you did. Where's the good news?

We're getting this meeting for free.

Yeah, go for it. We're testing workplaces, what we're doing here, right? This is a Microsoft thing?

All right, they're checking one other thing. Is this Zoom or Workplace?

What is this?

Maybe you can click to join audio on the bottom left.

It's not working.

What you're seeing is the audio. Angie, just put up a speaker in front of that.

Okay.

Okay, Ryan, I'm going to put you on speaker.

Just next steps. No, I want to have a little discussion about it.

Can you hear?

Okay. I can, yes. Can you hear me okay?

Yes. Okay.

I'm going to scoot away from my own monitor here because I hear a little bit of a delay. The question that I heard So the question that I heard was, what are anticipated next steps? She's coming before you tonight, and she did such a good job of introducing is, you know, the purpose of the adoption is not to say, hey, we have all the answers. We have everything figured out. It's to say, yes, we agree with the needs. We agree with the vision and the direction. And now it's time to proceed. implementation. So upon adoption of the plan as presented, the next step would be then to figure out how do you start to, you know, in our favorite analogy, we'll say eat the elephant, right? Which we talked about in the action plan. So there's some things in the action plan that you can, some recommendations that you can move forward on immediately. They're well within sort of your means. They're more operational. than they are capital. And those are things you can begin or Angie can begin implementing immediately. There are other things, much larger things, for example, like the community center, which will require a bigger effort around design operations and funding in order to make that project real. And so the way we had talked about that in an implementation strategy was to package some of the community's highest priority needs together into a single bond and then ask residents via a referendum if that's something that they would support. And it really would be a sort of legacy setting investment in Miami Shores Village Parks and Recreation. So that I think is the next step is to start moving that process forward since that is really the main funding mechanism for the indoor community center, which was one of the greatest, or I'm sorry, the greatest need at the end of the day in the needs assessment.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Are there any other questions or comments for him?

I don't have a question or a comment for him, but I just want to, through the chair, just want to say we spent a good amount of money on this. We spent a lot of time working on this and waiting for this. And I think that we really got to decide what exactly... going to do with this now because, I mean, I'm sure we have all had our personal conversations with people in the community about the direction of this. We have talked oftentimes about being a bold council that's going to get us to the next steps of things. So I just would hate more than anything for us to have done all this awesome work and to have it lead nowhere. I'm not saying anyone's saying that at the end of the day, but I'm saying that I certainly don't want to let that happen. And I'm hoping that there's some consensus among my colleagues up here to figure out what is the next step, whether it's employing some advice from our advisory board as well into the process. But I think it's really important that we don't just Let it be say, hey, great, we did it for the first time ever, and now that's it. That's just my personal opinion. I feel like there's a lot of people in the community who, you know, obviously no one likes to pay more taxes or end up in that situation, obviously. But we do have a need. We do have a want. And I just kind of want to hear where everyone's mind is maybe before we just move on about achieving some of our goals here.

I'll take the time right now for doing it. It's 18 months that we've been working on this. Moving forward, realistically, I've asked residents had pushed and see, you know, how this works. And it's like, well, the earliest this could go for referendum would be November for the midterm election. But if you look at the village's timeline for that and even the requirements for Dade County for getting an item on a ballot, That would be pretty difficult to do and a little bit rushed in my opinion We do have the opportunity that we have elections a special election in April of 2027 and what we should do as a council for what you're saying is just back time from that date and even back timing from April then what is the minimum requirement for having the 74 words if it is a referendum that we could come up with and What does those 74 words look like? Framework said they would help us with that. But it's also community engagement for when we present that, what that's going to look like. So the thing that I did with the golf course with the infographic of doing the phases and the back timing, I think that would definitely go for this. And then it's also how this works is if we, as a council, whether it's 60 or 90 days within that, that we have guidelines for staff for what we would like, what we should talk about that. The hard date for the first one that we could do would be, in my opinion, and obviously you could rush it and try to get it in November of 26, but would be a good date to shoot for would be the, 27 because if you think about it if you missed that one then you're looking at 2028 so and and the residents for the 18 months that we did for all this building and input That's pretty far away 2028 from today So I would for me and my recommendation for our council is let's try the back time it from April of 2027

To the chair, my input would be, as you said, implement this in stages as we could. I think the most important thing to Angie is what she calls the triangle, which is where the community center, the playing fields, the tot lot. I just would caution against... putting something on the ballot that would include all of this parks master plan. We need to put or I think we should put something on there that the residents are going to be able to swallow. And That, I think, is the most strategic. So in addition to the other discussions, I would hope that we would discuss maybe a stage type of approach as opposed to trying to do every park we've mentioned and the seawall area and the community center, et cetera.

Through the chair, if I may? First, let me say I... Well, I didn't really know what to expect, but I was very pleasantly surprised with this. It included a lot of things that were discussed along the way that, you know, I felt were maybe like, you know, real aspirational like pipe dream kind of stuff and I was really thrilled to see them included in this plan. There was some things included that I wasn't really expecting this plan to tackle like the mobility and street access and all that kind of stuff. I think that work was phenomenal. I really have been looking forward to hearing from my colleagues. A lot of you guys know we have the Sunshine Law. We don't get to call each other up and discuss this stuff. And I'm thrilled to hear our mayor's already putting timelines together. Fantastic. And really, I was happy to hear. I think I'm really on the same page with my colleague, Mr. Cantor, down there. In the time since this has come out, I've had an opportunity to talk to some residents, particularly residents who I know are most passionate about this, that have been pushing for this for literally years. But I'm a little concerned with a lot of the response that I've gotten from those people, which is Basically, let's go. Let's pass it. Let's get it passed. Can we pass it tomorrow? What's the holdup here? Full steam ahead. No comment. Let's go. And I understand the impatience, but I really... This is the beginning. This is not the end. And I think... If you're involved in this, then you're probably talking to people who are involved in it and are talking to a lot of other people who this is a priority. But that's not the whole village. And the whole village is going to get to vote on this when the time comes. And if we're not trying to bring the whole village along, This is what is scaring me like a lot is this is not a sure thing. So if we want this, if we're serious about this, we cannot take this as like a foregone conclusion. We have to really, you know, start putting in more effort. Like this is not the end. This is the beginning. So if you like this, if you want to see this go forward, please don't just assume that it's going to happen. You need to start talking to your neighbors about it. If you're hearing concerns out there, like let's address them. I don't want to hear that everybody hates this on the day after, you know, we all vote on it at the ballot and then find out like, oh, we didn't get the numbers. And we went through all this work and all this effort and expense. to end up where we started. And by the way, whether we do this or not, the facilities that we're talking about replacing are at the end of life, if not reaching the end of life, and a lot of money is going to have to go into them regardless. And we're at a point where we need to decide, are we going to spend a bunch of money on old stuff, maintaining it, or is it time to, you know, Great job, guys. Thank you very much.

No, but I think it's made clear, that last one, the deferred maintenance on everything, the demand that the residents want, and it's been obviously the first crack at this in the past 50 years was 2016. We saw why that did not pass. that was just a project and one of the things we've learned from being on this council is that the village does have a plan and first step is adopting this resolution that we're adopting the plan the phase part of it is definitely I mean that was presented to us that it was in phases what I would also like to put out there is also how other communities are dealing with this and And we do it over at the golf course. It's Miami Shores' golf course, and we know that, and we're super proud of it. But they also have membership over there, and the memberships are to outside the village. Some of the stuff for funding or people are concerned of one of the things where I went to a meeting, it was like, well, how much is this going to cost me? Well, we're just adopting a resolution. Costing is what we choose to do. But when you work with the community and present or even hear from them, there's alternative solutions. Doral did this by also having P3s and you hear me up here and P3 is public-private partnership. There's ways of doing that. There's also, if you think about it, what is the rec center? There might be grant money out there if we adopt it. It's not only a rec center, but it's also a shelter. There's this discussion that we should all talk about of how other communities face with the same thing that we are for the wants that we want and only 11,000 of us. but then accommodate mainly Miami Shores residents, but there are alternative funding solutions that we should talk about instead of that this is the way it's always done or this is the way we always did it. And I think we could come to a solution for getting this done in a timely manner also.

like to do the chair piggyback a little bit off what both of you said i think that um you know normally and we all have different groups of residents some overlap some are our own groups that we talk to regularly but normally when something comes out that the village is not happy with or don't see a path forward for our residents are very responsive and i love that about our community and i'll tell you this time and now Maybe I just haven't had those conversations yet, but I didn't get a ton of pushback after this report came out. I think a lot of great things were addressed. I definitely want to congratulate Ryan and the team because they really did do, I think, an extraordinary job to really understand what our community specifically needs and wants, not to come up with just a cookie-cutter approach to where they did it somewhere else or whatever. And I do love... that aspect of it. I think that Mayor Charles makes a great point by saying that, you know, November is too soon. If we're really going to energize people, invigorate the community to get behind this, we need till the April election time. I think that goes obviously without saying. And the last thing I think is, you know, if we're going to really be serious about making this part of our own legacy, because at the end of the day, I think the five of us who sit up here, we serve the community. We serve what you guys want. And if you want it, we're going to go out and get it for you at the end of the day. So let's by next meeting have a very clearly established timeline about what dates we need to have. the referendum in by, et cetera, et cetera, so that the five of us clearly know what kind of timeline we're working against in order to get some of these goals accomplished. I know you briefly outlined that, but it's saying let's have a hard understanding, maybe moving forward into the next meeting, what that looks like. And then I obviously want to bring in our advisory board, our new, hopefully shrunken advisory board, and to give their feedback because it is going it will fail if we do not mobilize the entire village behind understanding why this is the time and why this needs to be done so um i think that if with your help ryan we can we can get to at least a definitive understanding next meeting for us about what it will look like and then we'll we must i think we have to continue to make real-time decisions about how we're going to go after what we want so That's my two cents. Patrick, you got anything for us?

Yeah, I'd like to make just a couple quick comments. When I talk to residents, there's significant demand for the overhaul of our parks and recreation. My only concern would be trying to tackle the funding and implementation of all the projects at once. So I concur with my colleague about perhaps a segmented approach of identifying the biggest wins that we can produce with a master plan and maybe building those and funding those first?

I'd like to, we're simply approving this report. The resolution. I'd like to move to approve the Parks and Recreation report.

It's a resolution. There's a motion to approve the resolution. Second. It is a public meeting. Is there a public comment? Hearing as there's none or seeing there's none. There's a motion on the table to approve the resolution.

Second.

There's a motion and a second. Do you want to read the resolution so that, or do you want me to read it? I'll read it.

You can read about, can we approve it with the caveat that one of the next steps will be establishing that timeline for the next meeting for us?

I think we give direction. I don't know if that's part of this actual resolution. I think that would be a separate.

Okay. All right.

I think that would be a separate, you know, to rewrite this. I think you're correct in that. I think this is the first step was, If you get over this hump, then the next one. Okay. And because of the timeline, there's a definitive timeline of it's less than a year. Yeah. And then we also take, and we take August off, so. It's going to come quick. Yes. So, just again, the same thing that I did with the infographic for the management company switching out. I did that previous July. So, I think we just do the same thing with that. And there are dates that have to be hit. that we haven't done as a group is bond council also with the help of staff. I think this council will have to do that so some realistic, it's not only, what can we tackle but just even see financing in the climate of and what we're able to do but yes I so I think let me just read the resolution which is 11a a resolution of the village um village council Miami Shores Village Florida approving and adopting Miami Shores Village parks and Recreation's master plan as presented by framework planning and design Inc providing for implementation providing for an effective dates for parking recreation I have a first and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion carries.

Mr. Mayor? Yes. May I just say something before Ryan leaves? Just to, just, I think, am I on? Hello? Am I on? Okay. Just a few words. First of all, I want to thank you. I can tell you that as your manager, I'm very proud of this vote. Two headlines were written, but we will choose the one tomorrow that says, Council approves the Park and Recreation Board. It will be the feature story in our newsletter, and as I just discussed with Ms. Keeley, Angie doesn't know this yet, but there will be an insert in the next newsletter that speaks to the parks master plan that someone will be able to pull out and see what exactly is in it. I also wanted to say that, you know, there's some processes in government that may be slow or may appear to be slow and they lumber along, but there's a reason. It's intentional. And so even when... There were folks who said, what can this team out of Indiana do for folks in South Florida? We stood the course with a selection committee. I want to say thanks to them because they chose this team and they stood by the process and made it work. I want to thank Framework for just their due diligence with the amount of workshops, the surveys, the charrettes that they had, all the different ways in which they engaged our community. I want to thank residents of Miami Shores Village who showed up at these things. I know some were held in the morning, very early morning, some in late afternoons and evenings, some in midday, but they showed up. And it's the things that were brought up are evident in this plan that we have. Of course, we could not have done this without our REC Advisory Board. And if we have not said that enough, I just want to say it again. Thank you so much for staying the course and for everything you have done. I also want to thank Angie and Jackie and Anne-Marie and Leslie and all of your staff for the way you've engaged with Ryan and just pushed him and pushed him and pushed him. Pushed them. I know that there were times when it just seemed like, no, you had to do, like... But you're just well done all over. But I think that's it. I just want to really, really say thanks to them. And even though we had the REC Advisory Board, we also had the Fine Arts Committee that chipped in and chimed in on some of these things. So just thanks overall. It was a great village effort. And that we have now passed the first of three master plans that we set out to do is indeed historic. As your manager, I'm just telling you, I'm quite proud and thank you very much.

Thank you.

And grant funding. Yes. Yes, that's correct.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Ryan. to establish and clarify two historic inventory lists, providing definitions distinguishing between properties formerly designated as historic landmarks and properties identified as right historic significance, providing procedures for maintaining and ending such an inventory list, providing first-ever validity conflicts, and the best update designed to draw forth by the interim planning zoning director.

Is that coming from? I think, is your computer on, Madam Clerk? That's what it is, I think. Well, come on. I know. I'm talking to your microphone. Maybe that's why. Because we're getting a feedback here. Probably your microphone. Yes. Because you're using the computer microphone as well as your phone microphone. So we were getting a feedback here. We're getting a lot of Jimmy.

I cannot hear from the phone clearly, like the motion. So I don't know if you can get the microphone next to your cell phone. Because the only way I can hear what's happening is if I listen to the actual sound.

Okay. We're hearing you well now without that squeak.

Yeah, I just muted my computer. Okay. I can't hear.

But she can't hear now. Maybe we should speak more into our speakers.

You think that would help?

I think as long as the microphone is close to yourself. Yeah.

All right. Mic check.

Just lower it down to the bottom part of the phone. Just lower it down to the bottom part of the phone. That's where the speaker is.

Thank you. Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council Members, Mr. Manager. Eddie Nunez with the Corradino Group serving as your Interim Planning Zoning Director. At the April 21st Village Council meeting at which an ordinance addressing demolition procedures for certain properties was under consideration, The council directed staff to work with the village attorney to prepare amendments to Chapter 11 of the Code of Ordinances to clarify the structure and application of the village's historic inventory lists. So essentially this ordinance is distinguishing two differing lists. One is the historically designated property inventory list and the second is the site of historic significance inventory list. This ordinance further clarifies that inclusion on the sites of historic significance inventory list is an administrative action based on adopted survey criteria. does not require formal nomination or Village Council approval and does not by itself constitute designation as a historic landmark or impose regulatory restrictions. With that, May 5th, the Village Council meeting voted to approve the draft ordinance at its first reading, and tonight this is second reading, and if you have any questions, I'm here to answer. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Nunez. This is a public hearing. Are there any public comments at this time?

Hi, Jeffrey Sade, 261 Northeast 102nd Street, Vice Chair of the Historic Preservation Board. First I want to apologize for nobody being here from the board at the last meeting. I was in Australia, two of them were in Europe, one was having a baby, so it was just not, the timing was off. But I have read through the ordinance that our village attorney has drafted, and I have to say that she did an outstanding job. It definitely clarifies the two different inventory lists that we have. or that we're proposing. One is for historically designated properties and everything that goes along with that. And the other one is strictly a list of architecturally significant properties without the protections that the historically designated ones have, but will serve to help us, to alert us if one of those is being, there's a request for demolishing. Tonight, we're just looking at the ordinance for those clarifications, and I urge you to approve those. Thank you. Thank you.

Are there any other public comments at this time? Council discussion? Second reading, no council discussion. Is there a motion?

Motion to accept 9A. Second. Second reading.

There's a motion and a second. All those in favor, signal by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Madam Clerk.

Item 10A, an ordinance of the Village Council of Miami-Froze Village, amending Chapter 18, Personnel, Article 2, General Employees Pension Plan, Section 18-48, Death Benefits. To establish a survivor monthly pension benefit for certain members with 25 or more years of service, providing for providing for severability, providing for codification, providing for an effective date. The next item is the pension attorney.

So trustees, let me give a little introduction. My name is Adam Levinson. Our firm works with, for many years, the pension board. And there are two pension boards in this city, the police board and the general employee pension board. TWO OF YOU ARE TRUSTEES AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER ON THE PENSION BOARD. SO SOME OF YOU HAVE A LOT MORE EXPERTISE AND FAMILIARITY WITH THE PENSIONS THAN SOME OF THE NEWER TRUSTEES. SO WHAT IS MY JOB TODAY? AND SOME OF YOU MAY REMEMBER THAT WE BROUGHT THIS BEFORE YOU. THIS IS OUR SECOND TRIP, IF YOU WILL. SO WE HAD, AND THIS IS ALL BACKGROUND. AND IF I DIDN'T GIVE MY NAME, ALTHOUGH IT WAS READ, MY NAME IS ADAM LEVINSON FROM THE LAW FIRM OF KLAUSNER, KOFFMAN, JINSON, LEVINSON. SO I'M ONE OF THE BOARD ATTORNEYS. So again, what is my job as the board attorney? So my first job is to answer your questions, because I want to make sure that everybody understands it. I always like to say that when it comes to pensions, there's no such thing as a dumb question, because often the person sitting next to you may have the same question, and there's a lot of pension terminology. So I'll talk about the legal aspect of it in some of the background, but we also have the board's actuary here, and actually he's filling in because our main actuary is on maternity leave. So we have An actuary, again, with any math questions or number questions, the actuary can give you a chapter and a verse. So my goal is to sort of lay the groundwork so that we understand what's on the table so that you understand the history of how we got here. And the history began in March of last year when one of our employees passed away. And with these defined benefit pension plans, there are certain dates that are important. And the dates have to do with when can we start paying someone their monthly benefits. And that's a monthly benefit that lasts their entire life. And depending upon who you choose as your joint annuitant, if you choose somebody, the benefit continues for your spouse or your joint annuitant. So the background is that this member IT WAS PRETTY CLOSE TO CROSSING OVER WHAT I CALL THE FINISH LINE, BUT DIED EARLIER THAN BEING AT THE FINISH LINE. IN OTHER WORDS, THAT RIGHT NOW, AND WE TALKED ABOUT THIS AT PRIOR COMMISSION MEETINGS, AND WE STUDIED THIS IN GREAT DETAIL WITH THE PENSION BOARD, AND I'LL EXPLAIN WHY WE CAME BACK A SECOND TIME, BUT WHAT IT BOILS DOWN TO IS HE DIDN'T MAKE IT ACROSS THE FINISH LINE. HE DIED A LITTLE BIT TOO EARLY. SO ALL THAT THE PLAN CURRENTLY ALLOWS US TO PAY IS A REFUND OF THE EMPLOYEES' CONTRIBUTIONS, And let me give a little bit more background for some of the newer council members. So the way that the pension works is that the village makes contributions, the member makes a contribution, which comes out of every paycheck. So the employees have real skin in the game. They are paying to purchase, to buy, to invest in the pension. And a lot of people don't realize, and this is certainly something taxpayers should understand, that the majority over the lifetime of an employee OF THE FUNDING TO THE PENSION IS REALLY COMING FROM INVESTMENT GAINS, AND THAT'S WHAT A LOT OF THE TIME OF THE PENSION BOARD MEETINGS IS SPENT, MAKING SURE THAT WE'RE INVESTING, AND WE DON'T HAVE TO TALK ABOUT IT IN TOO MUCH DETAIL TODAY, BUT IN STOCKS AND BONDS AND DIFFERENT ASSET CATEGORIES AND DIFFERENT KINDS OF SECURITIES, BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT FUNDS THE PENSION. SO, AGAIN, THREE SOURCES OF FUNDING, THE MEMBER CONTRIBUTIONS, THE VILLAGE CONTRIBUTIONS, and the investment earnings over time. And a lot of the academic literature tells you, you know, we can debate about the percentages, but three-quarters of the value of the pension over time or more is the investments, depending on how long someone is working. So we had an employee who didn't cross over the finish line, and all that we are allowed currently, the way it's organized, the way that the ordinance is written, is to pay a refund of the employee's contributions with interest, and I'm just going to give ballpark numbers, which is around $100,000. So the family has not asked for that money back because they're waiting to see and they're waiting patiently. And remember that this member passed away a year and two months ago, so March of 2025. So the employee would have been entitled to a monthly benefit, but he passed away. The spouse and the family is only entitled to right now about $100,000. That's their money back with a little bit of interest. I also want to point out to you because everyone wants the details. THAT THE VILLAGE ALSO HAS AN INSURANCE POLICY. THAT INSURANCE POLICY USED TO BE AROUND 50,000 AND THAT WAS INCREASED WITHIN THE LAST YEAR OR TWO TO THE CREDIT OF OUR HR DEPARTMENT. SO NOW WE HAVE A LITTLE BIT OF A HEALTHIER LIFE INSURANCE BENEFIT. I DON'T HAVE THE SPECIFIC NUMBER. THAT'S AROUND 100,000. $94,000. So the only money that currently, if you don't do anything, the only money that the family is entitled to is that $94,000 death benefit, which I will point out to you does not cover, you know, that can be, and I don't want to give too many of my personal opinions, but on your own, does $94,000 cover the cost of a spouse and whatever else the cost of a family might be? And then the other $94,000 is the life insurance, which is paid out, And then you have the refund of employees' money, which is the $100,000 in change. $132,000. So the exact number is $132,000, which we're waiting to either pay it or not pay it based upon what you decide to do today. So that's a little bit of the background. So what are we proposing? And the answer is we had previously come to you, so you may remember me being here at various times, with what the board wanted to do before. something very similar to what we have today but what we had before when it came before you was to apply if anyone else dies in this situation with 25 years of service to give a benefit to anybody who dies with at least 25 years of service so that would have been the line of demarcation if you hit 25 years you'll get something other than just your money with some interest so the board wanted to going forward anyone with 25 they'll be solved for and we'll address that issue and AS IT TURNS OUT, THE VILLAGE, FOR VARIOUS REASONS, AND YOU HAD DIFFERENT OPINIONS. AND WHAT YOU DIRECTED US TO DO, AND WE HAD THE VIDEO RECORDED, OBVIOUSLY, AND YOU WANTED THE PENSION BOARD TO GO BACK AND TO STUDY IT, TO LOOK AT VARIOUS OTHER OPTIONS, BECAUSE THERE IS NO RIGHT ANSWER. THERE ARE DIFFERENT WAYS THAT A PENSION BOARD COULD AMEND THE PLAN, AND OBVIOUSLY YOU'RE THE ONES THAT HAVE TO VOTE FOR IT. SO A COUPLE MONTHS AGO, THE PENSION BOARD LISTENED TO ALL THE TRUSTEES WERE GIVEN THE LINKS. They had a very detailed presentation by the various consultants who work with the pension board, looking at different kinds of approaches. And I always like to point out that there is no right answer. This is what we call planned design. And if you were to look at 50 different cities, you'd see SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENT KINDS OF APPROACHES BUT NO CITY IS THE SAME. DIFFERENT CITIES DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY. DIFFERENT PRIORITIES, DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES. SO THE BOARD LOOKED AT A VARIETY OF DIFFERENT OPTIONS AND WHAT THEY'RE BRINGING BACK TO YOU WHICH IS WHAT YOU HAVE IN FRONT OF YOU TODAY IS AN ORDINANCE WHICH I WOULD REFER TO AS A ONE-OFF. SO IT ONLY ADDRESSES THE DEATH BENEFIT FOR THIS EMPLOYEE. IT DOESN'T ATTEMPT TO DEAL WITH ANYONE IN THE FUTURE WHO DIES WITH 25 YEARS OF SERVICE BUT PRIOR TO NORMAL RETIREMENT. THIS IS JUST TO ADDRESS THIS where the family is waiting patiently and hoping that you'll see the value of providing this benefit. So that's some of the background, and I'm happy to answer more questions. But I do want the actuary to be standing next to me in the event you have any math questions. And I think the other thing I want to point out without going into too much detail Because when you look at cost, that's important. And the state of Florida requires that whenever you have a pension ordinance, you have to look at what's called the actuarial impact statement. And this is an actuary who does these actuarial impact statements. And when you look at that number, what I'm going to ask the actuary to explain to you real quickly is that when this member died about a year and two months ago, we recognized a gain to the pensions. What do I mean we recognize the gain? Because we couldn't pay out a benefit. And what the actuaries do every year from year to year is they recognize gains and losses. And it was an actuarial gain. So when you look at that cost, and he can do a better job describing it than I can, that cost is you also have to recognize that we previously recognized a gain. So I want you to understand the difference between the offsetting gains and losses. And I think that's a good segue for Pete. And a little bit of background about Pete, who can speak for himself, and this is for some of the newer council members. So what is an actuary? An actuary, and I like to say that attorneys are a dime a dozen. You've got more attorneys graduating every year at the Florida law schools, just the Florida law schools, than actuaries more or less in the entire country. So actuaries are a rare breed that specializes in figuring out liabilities and making sure that the plans, all of these, and they work with insurance companies, they work with various other PRODUCTS SIMILAR TO INSURANCE, LOOKING AT MAKING SURE YOU FUND GAINS AND PUT ASIDE MONEY AND PROJECTIONS. SO THEY'RE FANCY ECONOMISTS. SO, PETE, IF YOU COULD GIVE US A LITTLE BIT OF PERSPECTIVE ON HOW YOU PREVIOUSLY RECOGNIZED A GAIN, BUT IF YOU DO THE ORDINANCE, THEN, YOU KNOW, THEY HAVE TO FUND FOR IT. SO TO GIVE THAT PERSPECTIVE. THANK YOU.

YES. MY NAME IS PETE STRONG WITH GAVER ROTER SMITH AND COMPANY. AND I'M FILLING IN FOR DINA. LEARNER WHO GAVE BIRTH IN APRIL. SO SHE'S ON MATERNITY LEAVE UNTIL JULY. BUT I WORK WITH HER ON THIS PLAN. AND ADAM'S RIGHT. THERE ARE A LOT MORE ATTORNEYS OUT THERE THAN THERE ARE ACTUARIES. THERE'S PROBABLY ABOUT SOMEWHERE BETWEEN 5 AND 10,000 PENSION OR MEDICAL-RELATED ACTUARIES OUT THERE. SO PROBABLY MORE ATTORNEYS THAN THAT JUST IN FLORIDA ALONE OR EVEN IN SOUTH FLORIDA ALONE. But anyway, the impact statement we prepared for this and the proposal that's on the table that the board came up with to bring it back to you guys, the village council, was to just carve out something for this particular member alone, just for Eric Olson, and they defined it as someone who died during a specific time to only have it applied to Mr. Olson. And what it is, it's a remedy to allow him or his spouse to receive a death benefit based on the benefit he had earned through his date of death, but payable at what would have been his normal retirement date in 2029. So it basically undoes the gain that happened because when he died and was only entitled to a refund of contributions, there was a gain, as Adam alluded to. That gain went from what his liability was, and the liability for him prior to his death was north of $300,000. That came back down to only being $132,000 because that's then what he's entitled to as a refund of contributions. So if you go back to giving him what he had earned and giving the spouse the joint and survivor equivalent of what he had earned, That brings the liability back up over $300,000, and it basically undoes that gain that happened and gives him what he would have earned already. So yeah, what we were reflecting in the impact statement is the fact that he has already passed away and that the liability due to him is $132,000. This ordinance would bring him back up to what he had earned, and the increase in liability would be a little over $200,000. But it basically reverses the gain.

Before council discussion, it's a public meeting. Is there any public comment on this?

Elizabeth Keeley, grants manager, 31-year employee, former pension plan administrator. I AM HERE TONIGHT TO EXPRESS MY SERIOUS CONCERN REGARDING THE PROPOSED AMENDMENT TO THE GENERAL EMPLOYEE PENSION PLAN. OVER THE PAST YEAR, THERE HAS BEEN EXTENSIVE DISCUSSION SURROUNDING THE CURRENT DEATH BENEFIT PROVISION CONTAINED WITHIN THE CODE OF ORDINANCES FOR THE GENERAL EMPLOYEE PENSION PLAN. AT THE DECEMBER 2, 2025 VILLAGE COUNCIL MEETING, THE COUNCIL DIRECTED THE GENERAL EMPLOYEE PENSION BOARD TO EVALUATE A DEATH BENEFIT THAT WOULD APPLY FAIRLY AND EQUITABLY TO ALL EMPLOYEES, NOT ONE TAILORED TO A SPECIFIC INDIVIDUAL CASE. the council specifically instructed the pension board to review the council meeting discussion to fully understand the intent of the direction being given and what should ultimately be brought back for consideration however At the January 27, 2026 Pension Board meeting, the discussion focused not on a general benefit for all employees, but rather on crafting a benefit intended to address one pending individual case. I attended that meeting and expressed my concern that the Board was disregarding the Council's direction to develop a proposal that would apply broadly and equitably to all employees. I also pointed out that the proposed benefit exceeded what current employees participating in the plan are presently eligible to receive. It is also important to note that the motion to move forward with the proposal before you tonight passed by only a narrow 4-3 vote, reflecting the significant concerns and divisions surrounding the issue even among the pension board itself. Unfortunately, what is before you tonight is not materially different from what was presented in December. I reiterate now what I stated then. The proposed benefit provides a greater advantage than the benefits currently afforded to active members of the plan. Both the General Employee Pension Board and this council have a fiduciary responsibility to the members of this pension plan to evaluate the plan holistically and make decisions that serve the best interests of all participants, not a single individual. There is also a fiduciary responsibility to the residents of this village who will ultimately bear the financial burden of a substantial expense tied to a benefit designed for one person. At the September 3rd, 2024 and December 3rd, 2024 Village Council meetings, the committee that was formed to address immediate pension issues presented an option that would have allowed vested employees who separated from Village Council Prior to reaching 30 years of service, to begin collecting their accrued retirement benefit without reduction once they reached the point at which they would have attained 30 years of service had they remained employed. The actual estimated cost of that proposal was $212,725 with a first year cost of $23,364. What is before you tonight is, in principle, nearly identical, except that it applies to only one individual. In effect, this employee terminated employment with Miami Shores Village and would now receive this pension benefit upon reaching what would have been his 30th year of service. The estimated cost to the plan is approximately $221,000, with a first-year cost of $21,208. In December 2024, extending this type of benefit to all eligible employees was deemed too costly, yet now a nearly identical financial obligation is being considered for the benefit of only one individual. This is not only a disservice to the current members of the pension plan, but sends a deeply discouraging message to them. It also, in my view, is fiscally and fiduciarily irresponsible. I respectfully ask this council to uphold its fiduciary obligations, maintain consistency in the administration of the pension plan, and reject any amendment that provides a special benefit for a single individual by denying similar opportunities to the broader membership of the plan. If the Council wishes to revisit these types of retirement benefits, then it should do so comprehensively, transparently, and in a manner that applies equitably to all employees and protects the long-term financial stability of the pension system. I want you to know how difficult it has been for me to come forward and speak in opposition to this proposal. This is not something I take lightly, nor is it personal towards any individual involved. However, I feel compelled to speak because I believe the council and the pension board must uphold their fiduciary responsibility to all members of the plan and to the residents of this village. While I understand and empathize with individual circumstances, the needs of one person cannot outweigh the responsibility owed to many. And I'd also like to mention that the attorney just a moment ago said that Mr. Olsen was entitled to a benefit At the time of his passing, that's not true. The only thing that he was entitled to was a refund of his contributions plus 3%. He would be entitled to the benefit if he had reached 30 years of service or age 62. So I believe that was just a misrepresentation slightly because there is no benefit for Mr. Olson anymore. Thank you so much for listening.

Council discussion?

Through the chair. I have the same questions that actually we just heard. I kind of feel like, you know, I'm in the twilight zone here. This is, feels like a 180 of what we asked for. If I recall correctly, we asked for a solution That can be applied to everybody and not just a one-off for an individual. And we were also concerned that the previous proposal seemed to go beyond the, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like it's the same as it was before in the sense that we're giving Mrs. Olsen Mr. Olsen's benefits rather than the benefits of a beneficiary. Does that make sense? And is that what we're doing here?

So I'll try to answer it directly. And it is not incorrect to say that the way it currently stands under the current ordinance, all that the family is entitled to is a refund of his contributions with interest. That's always entitled to. If you adopt this ordinance, then you would be paying a benefit that was being funded had he lived longer. The benefit he would have been entitled to HAD HE CONTINUED LIVING. AND HE DIED BEFORE THE MAGIC FINISH LINE, BEFORE THE MAGIC DATE. SO I WOULD ALSO AGREE WITH YOU THAT THE PENSION BOARD VOTED FOUR TO THREE, AND THERE'S NO RIGHT ANSWER. IT'S A POLICY DECISION ABOUT WHAT YOU DECIDE TO DO.

THE QUESTION I'M ASKING IS NOT ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT THIS IS THE BENEFITS THAT MR. OLSON WOULD HAVE GOTTEN ON RETIREMENT. I'M ASKING IF THE BENEFITS WE'RE GIVING TO MRS. OLSON ARE THE BENEFITS THAT SHE WOULD HAVE RECEIVED as a beneficiary rather than just, it seems like these are the benefits that Mr. Olsen would have gotten on retirement. But that was not our intent. Our intent was to have her get what she would have gotten had Mr. Olsen, for example, let's say passed away the day after retirement.

So I'll let the actuary describe, and then I want to circle back. But sometimes it's easier if the actuary describes how things are calculated. But go ahead.

Yeah, the benefit calculation that we did was a higher initial benefit, but it was reduced to reflect one of the optional forms of payment, which is a joint and 100% survivor. Based on what? Based on how many years? Based on his 25 years that he had, the 25.8 years that he had.

So we calculated what his benefit earned through his date of death was, or through the day before he died. That's fine for what you calculated, but those aren't the same numbers that you have in front of us, though. Because you're pushing it up to the 30 years of service.

No, we're not giving him 30 years. We're giving him what he had earned up to his date of death, what is accrued benefit.

But that's him, again, to Council Member Walensky's point, is that's his benefit. And we don't – there's a bunch of unknowns, and what's presented before us is not what we asked for. I can tell you that right now because the thing is there's a lot of assumptions here.

Mm-hmm.

about what this is a death benefit. We had it for 50 years, A and B, and now there's a C, and you used the word carved out. I don't think we up here ever said the word carved out. And it's an ordinance that you're making it for, and like Ms. Keiley said, We gave direction if we're discussing this and this is what the pension board should have been discussing is how does the current employees that we have plus if we're looking at death benefit, we're looking at death benefit. This case should have been part of that but there's other solutions other than changing the ordinance. You were going with this. And then we brought up that last time about it. It was we're doing the math for what happened with him. It's like it doesn't cure. It does not cure what you're bringing in front of us, what we asked for, for somebody else that's in the same position.

And all options were on the table at the January board meeting. And the board decided to go this route for now because they didn't want to change everything for the entire plan. They wanted to fix the situation that was in front of them.

That isn't what they were directed to do. yeah I mean that was the board the board's discussion led to that what's before us again is something that we didn't ask for and I could tell you that right now and in the discussion is and should have been a year ago is if the village itself is going to look at all the employees and have a document or an ordinance on there And it's tragic what happened to this family. How do you fix that in the 21st century? And there's other municipalities that have something, so that's not. This was age per person, per RB was age, and then how many years of service. And you had to hit two. And he hit one of the two.

Yes, to be eligible for normal retirement at 62 or 30 years of service. And he had 25.8 years and he was...

is seeking out early retirement. And then what's before us is full retirement. So where did the miscommunication happen here? I hear that you say the pension board, but there's two different things here. If you're going to address, we have A, B, and then you come A, B, C, and C, what you're trying to change this over 50 years is just for one individual, and you're doing it by way of ordinance? It was not me or Adam that did that. Did they have direction?

So just to give some bigger global perspective, and I want to back up to the original question, and then I'll give more flavor to the mayor's question. So in terms of what's on the table in front of you now, absolutely this would only apply to one person. It would not apply to anybody else. And the board's thinking, and it's hard for me to characterize them as if they're a single entity in different trustees had different thoughts but they want you to take care of this first and then they want to come back and deal with the potential if someone else dies so they want to take baby steps do this and they want to then come back and deal with you know more systemic going forward and we could debate about is that the right way to do it or not but that was the vote of the board take care of this it's been a year was that board advised on other opportunities for and those discussions were there

so the board and then it's it's unusual for me that the last meeting there's no recording of it and the minutes haven't been approved until the next meeting so this is again before us the council doesn't have we have what's presented to us we don't have actually that discussion we have what you're telling me there's no representative other than mr bircher but i don't think he's speaking for the board he'd have to only speak as him he doesn't have board approval to speak tonight other than his opinion as a council member So, again, we ask for this, and yes, it's a year later, and then this is, again, I don't like saying the word again, again, but to my council member's point, this is not what we asked for.

Well, and through the chair, can I just say, if they're saying that there's like some kind of sense of urgency with this, like it's been over a year, but their solution is to start cutting checks three years from now. So... What's the urgency if that's the solution? We haven't even discussed that. The current situation is that she would get a check for $130,000. The alternative we're proposing is that in three years she's going to start getting checks.

Monthly checks.

Monthly checks. It's, by my calculation, is going to take probably another three years of those checks to get to this number. And that's not including if she got a bunch of interest over all those years of staying in the packet.

By the way, if you look in the packet, you'll know exactly how much you would receive per month because we have a benefit estimate there. So you can see we want lots of clarity.

So if, God forbid, something happens to Mrs. Olson in the next three years, they get $0.

Is that correct? So that's another good question. But in pensions, you still get back at least what you put in. So in other words, we don't want actuarial gains or a member doesn't and the family doesn't get anything.

No, but if this passes, don't go down that. If this passes as we pass it, then what? Then we wrote this for the one individual, then it reverts back to B?

So if, and I would want to do a little bit of homework on it, but I'm pretty confident that if, God forbid, something were to happen to the wife, we would at least pay out the employee contributions.

Through which part of the ordinance?

The employee contributions.

That's the state statute.

Right. Yeah, so that's not in the ordinance. That's the state law that you have to at least give people back their money.

This is the widow, though. You're creating then something for, I mean, to me, it's, what his point is, is what's with the son. You're taking three years for Miami Shores for the liability of this. What happens in between now and then?

I want to be as clear as I can, and I do want to circle back to the original question, but if anything were to happen to the wife before the date, which would have been his normal retirement, some crazy EVENT WHERE SOMETHING HAPPENS TO HER, THEN WE'RE AT THE VERY LEAST GOING TO PAY BACK THE VALUE OF WHAT HE PAID INTO THE PLAN, AND THAT WOULD GO TO WHOEVER THE BENEFICIARY IS. SO THAT WOULD PRESUMABLY KIDS. I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHO THE KIDS ARE. RIGHT.

BUT THE THING IS, THE POINT IS, WE'RE MAKING THIS DISCUSSION, YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THIS PERSON OR ANY PERSON IN THE FUTURE, WHO WAS THE BENEFICIARY. IF IT WAS, IF HE CHOSE TO DO THE then the actuarial is going to give this, your pension board, a different number monthly. If he chooses the wife, it's another number. So, again, before us, the making this, this is an important decision. And, again, I'll stop saying that word, but to Mr. Walensky's point, I'm with my council member here. This is not what we asked for.

So, two other points I want to make, and then I'm happy to take any other questions. And remember, this is what we call planned design. There is no right answer. Reasonable minds can disagree. So to go back to the first question, had he worked for 30 years, he would get a 30-year benefit. And Peter already talked about this. Because he only worked for 25, the benefit that's on the pay table is to pay the 25-year benefit at what would have been his 30th year. So he's not getting additional years, additional service. He's getting the benefit that he had earned had he lived, and not 30 years, but for 25. So I want to make that clear for everybody. And the other point.

But that's incorrect, because nobody, the plan doesn't allow anyone to get the benefit in 30 years.

Lisa. Lisa. My point to that one is, if you think about that, what the plan is, and it's audited, and it's a liability, but it's a trust asset, correct? Correct.

Correct. These are all pension trusts. That is accurate.

Right. And we're going to do – we're going to want to reward the 25 years of institutional longevity, right? That's what we're doing and discussing here, right?

The 25 years – That is one of the major objectives of having these retirement systems is to –

And retention and we're encouraging and why wasn't there a discussion then if there was a gap in what Miami Shores has Then why are the other employees not discussed in that meeting? This is why it went back to them and it was also one of those earlier meetings that these are not capable of doing pension discussions, but we certainly are and I don't understand as our legal team and also they've heard what this board did since December and board members did and just like it was pointed on public comment it was 4-3 it's not unanimous I don't see I mean for me and these discussions have to happen the Miami Shores has to look at Miami Shores and it's tragic what happened to this family But I don't think that this did not follow direction of what came from this dais. It's definitely a solution. But is it the right solution? That's debatable. But I can tell you as the mayor, this is not what we asked for.

To the chair, two questions. One, is it not true that assuming that Mrs. Olsen lived until 29, June of 29, and that if she was to die at that point, is there not a benefit to her children in the current plan?

The remainder of Mr. Olson's contributions, what he actually put in is a minimum payout.

But there is no monthly payment to them?

No, he would get the remainder.

right and when he died again you have more or there was more than one figure discussed the death benefit which you said was raised in January my understanding is that was 96,000 that was paid is that correct or not just so everybody can hear the insurance would have been 50 but the the village to its credit

enhance the insurance benefit, which is separate from the pension. So the amount that was paid out was $94,000 was paid out. That's insurance, not pension.

Yes, it's insurance, but that's already been paid to her. Now, the $136,000 that he paid in, she has not received. If she was to take that money now, then she would not be eligible for this pension in 29, is that correct? That is an option. Okay, I'm sorry, can I finish? And I realize this is a different discussion which you may or may not know the answer to. Is there also for people that work for 45 years, is there not a social security benefit for those people?

So members of the village, and correct me if I'm wrong, are separately entitled to Social Security. So this is separate and apart from Social Security?

I understand it has nothing to do with the village. I'm asking a question. Does not Social Security pay a benefit to individuals who have been paying into it for 45 years that are not retired if they are to die? Is there a death benefit or a monthly income from that? That is correct.

They're separate from the pension, but there are Social Security death benefits for spouses and for other family, et cetera. So that has nothing to do with the plan, but they're separate Social Security eligibility. That is correct.

I just would like to know, I mean, was there any discussion about a compassionate bridge payment? I mean, was there alternative discussion for like how the direction to go back to the pension board?

SO WHAT THE PENSION BOARD DID, AND YOU'RE RIGHT, YOU DON'T HAVE THE MINUTES BECAUSE THE MINUTES HAVE TO BE APPROVED, BUT THEY DID A FAIRLY DEEP DIVE, MEANING THAT THEIR ACTUARY AND THEIR ROOM LOOKED AT A CHART AND DIFFERENT OPTIONS. SO THEY DIDN'T WANT TO JUST LOOK AT PENSION BECAUSE YOU WANTED IT TO BE CLEAR TO THEM. LOOK AT THE ARRAY OF DIFFERENT WAYS OF PROVIDING FOR BENEFITS. SO THEY LOOKED AT INSURANCE OPTIONS. defined contribution, if you will, options, and defined benefit options. They looked at an array of different options, and at the end of the day, four of the members, because that's what we had of four to three, wanted to do the following. And what they wanted to do was give a benefit to the wife as if he had lived, which is all hypothetical, And several of you mentioned that. These are all hypothetical conversations. If he had lived, what his 25-year benefit would have been. And their thinking was, let's deal one step at a time. Let's deal with his situation. Let's get that taken care of. And then let's go back. Because sometimes pensions can get confusing or get complicated. And they said, let's come back and let's deal with other pension issues in the future. But let's take care of this first. And to directly answer your question, They were all tasked with, I didn't sit there and watch it with them, but they were given the link. I sent it to them, I think the clerk also sent it to them, so they could watch your video, your council member discussions, and it was a lengthy, robust conversation, so they were instructed to look at that, and we had this, I almost want to call it a workshop-level discussion, that these are different options and ways of looking at things, different approaches, and they chose something very similar to what they had brought you before, that just now what you have is only addressing

the Olson family not addressing future deaths but they want to bring that back in the future but right now they just have this before you the chair and I'm not speaking for the employee board I'm speaking as a council member but I did happen to be at that meeting and first of all what Mr. Levinson is saying is correct I think we asked at the previous council meeting how many other people had died with 25 years or even 20 years before this incident came up and the answer to that was zero. And so instead of rewriting the whole pension relative to this is going to take some time and again be intensive and our effort was to try and since this looks like it's a one-off situation at this point and I don't disagree with Mrs. Keeley if you know if we need to sit down and rewrite the pension rules as they are that's fine but this was a this was an effort to try and help this family and address uh this particular situation and if you don't want to do that and instead you want to rewrite the whole pension then we'll have to go back and do that so one other comment i want to make and i don't want to prolong the conversation but i do want to

I HAVE A LOT OF RESPECT FOR MS. KEELEY AND I WANT TO ADDRESS AN ITEM THAT SHE BROUGHT UP AND THIS IS THE FIDUCIARY WORD. SO I WANT TO MAKE SURE EVERYBODY UNDERSTANDS CLEARLY THAT WE WORK WITH PENSIONS NOT JUST IN FLORIDA BUT ALL OVER THE COUNTRY. AND I TAKE VERY SERIOUSLY FIDUCIARY RESPONSIBILITIES. AND THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT FLORIDA HAS VERY GOOD LAW COMPARED TO OTHER STATES. SO WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A FIDUCIARY AND WE COULD GET INTO A LONG LEGAL DISCUSSION HERE BUT AT THE END OF THE DAY THE PENSION BOARD. I WOULD NOT LET THEM DO SOMETHING THAT WAS OUTSIDE OF THEIR RESPONSIBILITIES. THEY VOTED TO MAKE THIS RECOMMENDATION TO BRING IT BACK TO YOU. THAT'S THEIR CHOICE. THERE WAS NOTHING ILLEGAL OR IMPROPER WITH WHAT THEY'RE PUTTING BEFORE YOU. IT WAS WITHIN THEIR RESPONSIBILITY TO MAKE THAT RECOMMENDATION. And why is that within their fiduciary responsibility? Because they're given discretion. And at the end of the day, it has to be paid for. This is why Florida has good law. That if you decide to do this, and the actuary can give you all kinds of details about how he does the math and all the training that goes into this, but it has to be funded. And that's the numbers that you'll see in your impact statement and all the details and footnotes. So that's why it's a fiduciary responsible decision. Because in Florida, unlike other states, it has to be funded. And I think the last point I want to make is that this is a well-funded plan. There are other cities, and I could give you lots of examples because some of them are our clients, where their funded ratio is a lot less and they have issues because they can't afford to fund the plan and they have to make hard choices. Here, from a fiduciary standpoint, and the actuary can describe to you how much the village pays every year, the actuary can describe how the board's been prudent over time. A lot of other cities will look at you and say they wish they were your plan because the percentage of pay that you contribute is relatively low to other cities because it's a well-funded plan, it's been firing on its cylinders, We don't have to go into too much detail there. But the point I want to make is you may disagree or agree with the decision of those four trustees, but they were acting within their fiduciary responsibility, and likewise for you. As long as you understand it, as long as you fund it, which you're required to do by law, if you vote for it, that's fine. If you vote against it, that's fine. But everybody is acting as a fiduciary by asking these questions, by grappling with these issues. Everyone in the room is doing their job as a fiduciary.

I do have one more question on that. Was the math done for the date of 54 years old and the wife's age?

Math questions or this guy?

The conversion to the 100% joint and survivor was based on his age when he has 30 years of service. Why was that done?

Because that's the age his benefit would start. Understood. But why was the math done from that? If we're doing hypotheticals and he filled out the paperwork for early retirement and day one right after it, what's the wife's benefit?

Well, if he had filled out for early retirement, the benefit would be completely different. It would be reduced for early commencement. And?

Was that discussed? I don't have that calculation in front of me. But again, this board asked for that.

To the chair, one other thing I'd like to point out.

Oh, that's an important point.

I need an answer for that.

Was that discussed? Do you remember if early retirement as an option was discussed in January?

So I don't remember specifics, but I can speak big picture. And big picture was they were given a whole bunch of – a range of options covering different scenarios.

Was – just yes or no was that discussed to your best recollection? Was it – on this last one where this is before us, was it discussed that it was early retirement, yes or no?

Honestly, I do not specifically remember.

Okay. But the case is an early retirement.

Right. Right.

I just want to make sure I understand what he's asking. The mark that he very nearly missed was the early retirement mark.

If he hadn't died, he would have been eligible for early retirement, but he died.

Were the numbers, again, I'll ask it again, were the numbers based on this for early retirement, yes or no? No.

So the only way I can answer that, and I don't know specifically if they looked at early retirement, because he died, once you die, you can no longer do early retirement.

But the whole discussion is that RB doesn't cover it. And what he would have been eligible for was early retirement. I don't know why the two-hour thing that we discussed this was not discussed in that meeting. You asked the people to watch it. I know that one person that did watch it on that board voted no.

Through the chair, it's not here, but previously we had the, when you are eligible for retirement, you get to select, there's options in terms of what happens when you die with your beneficiaries, correct?

Can you explain what those options are real quick? So very high level on the actuary. I can do more detail. When someone is eligible to retire, and remember, he was not yet eligible to retire, but when someone is eligible to retirement because they're age 62 or they have 30 years, so this is all hypothetical, but they have several different options. They can choose what's called a life annuity, which is just for you for your life. You could choose what's called the 10-year certain, which is your life with a guarantee of at least 10 years, or you could choose, and I think this is where you're heading, and this is a question that may have been asked earlier, what we refer to as joint and survivor options, where if you choose a joint and survivor option, and this really gets in the weeds, the actuary calculates an equivalence where you can get a 50% JNS benefit or a 100% JNS. And there are different actuarial equivalent benefits where someone else, after you die, continues to receive a benefit. But all of that is not applicable because he never crossed the finish line, so he didn't get to make any of those decisions.

And also on early retirement, because I know the mayor wants to understand about being fair, about doing something that was fair for everybody. When somebody passes away, and we're trying to make it right, and you go back and just, you can't just assume that they made the exact right choices to get the maximum amount. Nobody else is going to have the benefit of going back in time like that, which means that this is not fair. I'm sorry, my mic wasn't on. I don't see how that's fair.

I would like to point out that the person who presented this option to the board was a village employee, Jim McCoy. And that was what, after talking to various people that worked here, that he felt this was the best way to deal with this specific situation. Again, this is not, we discussed that several times, rewriting the pension code. And it isn't that there's not a desire to do that, but that's going to be a fairly lengthy, intensive process, and so we were trying to deal with this specific situation. And if you're not happy with that, then we'll have to rewrite the code. But the thing is, we're rewriting the code for a situation that basically doesn't occur. You know, this is, again, is a one-off right now.

There's discussion about alternatives, though, and the reason it went back there was those discussions instead of here. There are other alternatives other than changing the ordinance. and those need to be discussed. There's a one-time thing with the general fund where we just and other municipalities have done this. This is what we asked for. That's the board that does this. It was like it came here as an ordinance. We saw there was irregularities with it when it was brought to us the first time. We asked for it to go back there and have discussion. We did not ask for C. I could guarantee you that because that was crystal clear on it. was to come up with that might have been and that's what you decided to vote for but what I'm hearing right now there was no discussion about an alternative just let's take care of this by this means and it came back to us that's what I'm getting from all the information I have here and And that's what I'm even getting from the discussion tonight.

Well, to the chair again, Elizabeth is saying that whatever we write should be fair for all employees. It's not a problem, but that is in fact rewriting the pension ordinance. Understood.

But I'm saying for this instance, we were asking that particular board for alternatives than changing the code. And if the only thing you could do was change the code, then that's it.

The only thing we can do is change the code. What we're doing with it now.

That is not true.

Okay.

That is not true. This board right here can have a discussion about it. And that's what that board should have had the discussion about it. Oh, we discussed it for a couple, several hours. No, no, not, what was, was there a bridge talked about? Was there using the general fund talked about? Was there an annuity that was talked about?

So I want to take a step back, and by the way, I welcome these conversations because there's no right answer. This is planned design. But if I were to oversimplify the conversation, and I don't want to repeat myself too much, at the end of the day they decided let's take care of this, and then they want to come back in the future and look at addressing, if it ever happens again, the longer-term approach. So that's one observation. SECOND OBSERVATION IS THAT A PENSION BOARD, WHAT ARE THEY REALLY CHARGED WITH DOING? THEY'RE CHARGED WITH RECOMMENDATIONS AND RUNNING THE PENSION. ONCE THE PENSION HAS TO THINK OUTSIDE OF PENSION, SOMETIMES IT'S VERY HARD FOR THEM, AND I DON'T WANT TO BE CAREFUL WITH ADJECTIVES, BUT THEY DON'T CONTROL THE CITY BUDGET. THEY DON'T CONTROL OTHER VILLAGE LEVERS. THE LEVERS THAT THEY KNOW BEST DEAL WITH THE PENSION. SO IT DOESN'T SURPRISE ME THAT THEY WERE FOCUSED ON PENSION. And sometimes that's their area for them to think outside. And I know the manager has expertise about boxes and how you look at boxes. But they were focused on pension, solving what they thought was the immediate pension problem. By all means, they want to come back and look at other opportunities for future fixes. But they were focused on the here and now. And frankly, I don't know that they would agree on other ways of doing it. And maybe that's the reason why they were 4-3, because they couldn't come up with other solutions. And there's, again, no right answer. So I'm not trying to sell you anything. I'm not trying to convince you one way or another. I'm trying to explain. And my job is to answer questions and make you understand what the board's thinking. And when I repeat the board's thinking, it was four of the seven.

Through the chair, the reason the payments are starting in 2029 with this proposal is because we're basing it on the full retirement. If it was based on early retirement, the payments would have already started. Correct. I mean, that's just more reason why I don't understand why we didn't, you know.

It would have been a much smaller amount because it would have been reduced for early commencement from 62 to 55 rather than from 59 to 55.

But that's what he would have been entitled to if he died at 55 and it hit B. Correct or incorrect?

That's the mark that he just fell short of.

I understand that, but he is the closest to the finish line that we keep on talking about. The solution for this is what he was entitled to, the close to the finish line, to give the benefit. Where this discussion went, that it's the full, it was not from this dais.

It was the general employees board that decided that.

There was an employee on the board, like he said, that had this one, and then the board discussed that, correct?

But was there... That's my recollection. There were several ideas proposed, but there wasn't a consensus until that one was discussed.

But to my colleague, Mr. Walensky, when we... And we've heard this from staff and we've heard this from the administrative staff. We've heard it from the employees. It's fairness and this day is very fair. But what was given in front of us is a document that's unfair. So, and this goes back to December. I know that the direction then was to and everybody up here wants to be fair. I don't see as it written in front of us that we even like language changing it, that we could do that because we don't have the numbers.

I think the last comment I want to make, unless there is another question, is I want to talk about the concept of fairness. And let me just spend 30 seconds on the concept of fairness. Sometimes fairness, and I work with pensions all over Florida, all over the country, fairness is in the eyes of the beholder. So I focus on what's legal. And the quick answer is that what you have is totally legal. If you vote for it, that's totally legal. If you vote against it, that's totally legal. It's a policy decision. Do you think that you want to spend this money to do this for the family? Do you want to spend less? Do you want to spend more or not do anything? And I would argue that all of those are fair as long as you understand there are consequences and everything has pros and cons.

Since you're saying that in fair and you're doing the law, I'll do the thing with what's in front of us. Is it normal practice to backdate something?

So the quick answer is.

Or best practices instead of normal.

So what we're dealing with now is unusual. And the reason why it's unusual is usually you're not trying to correct something after the fact. So there's nothing illegal about it. In a perfect world, you wouldn't have to do it. So I don't know if I want to say best or not best practices, but there's nothing wrong with what's in front of you. And the question is, do you want to spend the money to do it? Do you want to spend less? Do you want to spend more? Or do you want to wait? And at the end of the day, these are why these are tough choices, why sometimes pensions You know, it creates friends. It creates enemies because people agree to disagree. And it's entirely up to you what you think is fair. And it's not my opinion. It's not the actuary's opinion. What the actuary cares about is that you properly fund it. What I care about is you follow the law. But it's the policymakers who get to decide what's the benefit going to be. And that's really what you're talking about. Do you want to do the benefit for this one person? And then in the future, what do you want the benefit to be?

Well, in your years of doing, how many laws have you passed that are just for one person?

I won't say it happens all the time, but it's not uncommon. And what the key is, and it was mentioned earlier by the actuary, you don't identify a person by name. You use a period of time. You say anybody who died during this period. So you create basically a box. So you're being equitable within that box. And here the box is anyone who had 25 years of service who died prior to normal retirement. So you're creating a box. And sometimes only one person falls in the box. And this gets into the legal standards of what's rational and irrational. And I will tell you, it is rational, it's defensible, it's legal. If you agree and people will, if you ask three trustees thought one, four thought something else. But these are the tough choices. And again, there's no right answer.

Those are my concerns. They're not discussion amongst board members. It's just that's, you know, this is when we pass it. It's a law. And those are, yeah, there are discussions about that. But it's not rock solid for what you're saying right now. and it can be challenged.

So let me back up on that. I want to be perfectly clear. We would not bring you an ordinance that was not legal, defensible, and that we as lawyers were not comfortable with. So if anyone were to challenge it, The quick answer is they would lose that lawsuit, and we would get attorney's fees. And I could talk about what the standards are. So again, you get to make the decision today what you're comfortable with, what you think is fair. Four of the trustees thought it was very fair. Three of them voted differently for various other reasons. And again, if you want them to go back and study more, that's fine. If you want to spend more, that's fine. If you want to spend less, that's fine. And maybe it makes sense to end with numbers. And I don't want to minimize costs, because everything has a cost. But when you're dealing with a healthy plan, and this is a very healthy plan, and I have to be very careful with adjectives, but if you could put in perspective, and this is a question for the actuary, and hopefully he won't confuse everybody, but if you could give us a big picture of what the ongoing cost of funding this benefit, when it was already funded for 25 years, what the ongoing impact is. Maybe talk to the actuarial impact big picture.

Not one of us has brought up the cost. So it's obviously not – that's not the main concern that we're having here is the cost. We're trying to be fair. Now, to me and my colleagues, it's obvious to us that the early retirement was – that was the obvious thing for whatever. But from your guys' perspective, this is your experts, your – it seems I'm getting the impression that the obvious thing from your perspective was to do the full retirement, and I'm curious why. Can you explain that?

So there's nothing obvious one way or another. I'll repeat it many times, and it's hard for people to have it sink in. But there is no right answer. It's a planned design. And you could ask 10 different trustees, you could get 10 different answers. And that's why from the legal perspective. This is the same answer I get from you every time, though.

is you saying that there's no right answer. I'm asking you a pretty clear question. I'm asking you why. Obviously, somebody thought that this was the way to go about it. And when I asked why it wasn't early retirement, it seems like you weren't expecting that question. So obviously, somebody assumed that this was the normal route. To me and the mayor, we're saying that it's obvious to us it doesn't make any sense why you wouldn't do the early retirement. Can you make a case for that? Can you justify that? Can you explain to me why the full retirement and not the early retirement was used to make the calculations here?

So all I remember, and I'm speaking, again, very high level, is early retirement was not applicable to him because he died before being able to do early retirements. So early retirement wasn't something that was in play. And they could look at, and I can exaggerate, but you could look at hundreds of different options. Early retirement gives you a dollar number. Regular retirement gives you a dollar number. If we split the baby and did 75, every different option is a different dollar number. The dollar number that you're looking at, which is the 3,600, that's at the end of the day what they thought was, four of them, thought was fair and equitable. And we could come up with different names, different labels, different terminology I could throw at you. But at the end of the day, they thought the – and I'm speaking for four of seven – they thought that amount, which is in your packet, was the amount that they were comfortable with.

What was the number for partial retirement?

I mean, I'm sorry, early retirement, not partial retirement.

We don't have it. We've never had it. So they didn't even see that number? They decided this was the better number without even seeing the other number?

I feel like that number was calculated. I just don't have that in front of me. I mean, Dina, I think, calculated that number. I'm covering for Dina right now. I think Dina did calculate that number. Can you give me like a ballpark? Is it half?

Is it a third? Is it two-thirds?

It's 7%. It's usually 7%, 5% to 7% per year for what you're short from 62%. And then it adds up. So do the math. That's like eight times seven on the high end. It would be – or six times. It's like if he was at 54, at 62, it's eight years. And then whatever the percentage is between five and seven percent, and that's the lower.

So it would be seven years, 42 percent reduction?

Yeah, it's 42 percent.

It would be a 42 percent reduction.

It's six percent per year from 62 to 55. So it would be – 42 percent reduction of this 32 – Yeah. $100 number? Basically. Yeah. But you would be getting those checks starting immediately?

You're talking about $1,700 or $1,800 a month instead of the $3,200.

And would you be getting those checks starting immediately rather than in three years from now?

If the ordinance was written that way, yes. We didn't have that presented to us.

So what I'm concluding with, and again, I don't have answers. I just have perspective and what's legal and what's not legal. So at the end of the day, the board thought that four of them, that the $3,600, which is in your packet, is what they were comfortable, what they thought was fair. If you want to do more or you want to do less or you don't want to do anything, that's entirely up to you. And we're just hopeful that if you do send it back to the board, be more specific in what you don't want them to do And that's why you're elected and you get to make these tough decisions.

There is another board member here. Mr. Manager, do you want to opine on this or do you want to on the subject? To what degree, Mr. Mayor? Just your perspective from.

Mine is simple, sir. Okay. We were there on March 23rd, 2025 when Eric's, when Eric did the Wall of Honor. It was very rough and tough for all of us. And there are things that yank at our emotions, and sometimes we react to those emotions in a manner that sometimes can be detrimental. where we don't think clearly. From my standpoint is that there is something on the books, now it's a state statute, that says if someone passes, then they get the extent of their contribution plus 3%. From my chair, since you're asking me, I think that is what should be afforded to Eric Olson's widow. In addition to that, because he's been so dear to us, I think we should do something to commemorate his being here or something in memoriam at the pool, whether it's naming a diving board after him or something to that nature. But since you asked me, my thing is 132,000 plus whatever percentage has accumulated over the last year since we've been discussing this plus whatever it is that we do to memorize this employee who has been awesome and an employee we miss a lot and an employee who personally, and you were there that Sunday afternoon, when he took his final breath. Yes. And I think, and thank you. You've asked me to say how I feel about it. I think anything else, I think we are prolonging. This has been over a year. I think we make a decision on this. We vote on this. And since you're asking me, that is my vote. And I think I've said that clearly over the last year. Initially, I thought otherwise, but I've been very resolute. I've not vacillated on that since I last told you. The paid contribution plus the 3%, and we consider doing something in here in his honor. Thank you so much for the mic. Thank you.

Councilmember Devaney, do you have?

Yes, through the chair, I'd like to ask the actuary. We have numbers here that the funded ratio would go down to 92.2, and the actuarial liability would be $221,000. Yes. Did the pension board happen to make those similar calculations if we gave this benefit to the beneficiary, but also extended the option to every employee?

Yes, there was a study done to extend a death benefit to everybody. And I did not bring battles to that study that was done last year with me. I only have the materials for what's being deliberated today in front of me. But yes. I remember the numbers being somewhat similar because it's a very low probability. If someone hasn't died yet and they're between 25 and 30 years, it's a very low probability of death. You're talking 0.3% per year probability of death for someone who is still in their 40s or 50s. The probabilities of death in the mortality tables don't really increase a lot until you get into your 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. That's when it starts to slope up. So the probability of death is so low that it didn't add a whole lot given that people are, those who are still alive. So yeah, the numbers were similar to give this death benefit universally as to give it to just someone who had already died retrospectively.

So necessarily... this would be a carve out whether we pass this ordinance as it is on first reading or if we rewrote the whole pension system to accommodate everybody and Mr. Olson's case right I believe the overall I'd have to go back and verify this but I believe the overall change did not take into account any deaths I think it was do you have the original one all right good

And I was not one of the signing actuaries on this, so give me a second to review.

Let me run interference while the actuary is reading probably 30 pages looking through it. So what are your options today? And now I'm looking at the city attorney, the village attorney. One option is to vote no and leave it. That's what I refer to as the status quo. And you heard that from the manager. Another option is to approve it. And there you would be agreeing with what the pension board, four of the trustees, was willing to do. which is address this issue and then we'll come back at a future time if they can agree on something. But you have other options. Other options are if you wanted to do something that'll generate 42% of this $3,600, you could decide today that let's amend it and then you'll do that on two readings. So you could always come forward with something that you wanna do and leave the pension board out of it, because at best they make recommendations and they've already demonstrated to you that they have different minds. So that's why there is no right answer. So you have flexibility. If you want them to go back and study it more and give them more specific directions, then I can do that as well. But at the end of the day...

If I may, here's my concern with that. If we were discussing, as we were last time this came up, a global change that was going to affect everybody, then the concern, which was our concern, the number one concern is, does this make sense for everybody? Is this fair? We decided that this... We were not comfortable applying this to everybody because it didn't, it seemed like it gave, you know, it went beyond, you know, what we were trying to accomplish, which was people that were falling just short of that finish line, you know, get something rather than nothing. And that's not what we have here now. Now we're dealing with a specific carve-out for a specific circumstance. And if that's the case, it becomes, like, I don't know... I don't know if this is even what Mrs. Olson wants, which is not something I was considering before because it had to be something that was good for everybody. But now if we're doing a special carve-out, and I mean my next thing would be to entertain, okay, maybe can we just match this to the early retirement. But is that early retirement number something that Mrs. Olson would prefer to just getting this $131,000 check? I don't know. So now I don't know if I'm – if I'm even doing any good by her for this particular carve out.

I don't... Yeah, the numbers are not much different between giving it to Mr. Olson and giving it to everybody because the probability of death between 25 and 30 years is so low and it doesn't apply to very many people.

But where we left off is that we didn't like it as a solution for everybody. So what we got was the same solution for everybody but just carved out for the Olson situation and... As the mayor said, it's really not what we asked for. And I'm not really sure where to go, how to proceed from here, actually. This is rough.

Well, I think one of the other discussions, since it is budget season coming up, the manager has instated what the law is right now. And also to honor him for 25 years Whether it's a you know Something definitely over at the Aquatic Center and we'll discuss that as a council But it's also like I said before there's a bridge that could be done. There's a hybrid there we could talk about Again in fairness for this one and also the other one does not table the discussion about the actual pension in the 21st century. Some of the stuff that was brought up to us, and it might have been too much for us, there was like eight options, and there's other things that need to be looked at it, and he's right. It is a healthy pension. It is at 93%. I think it was over 100, whatever, the last quarter. I'm a little bit also off on this that we ran into this one other time where We're deciding on something where the minutes haven't been approved by the people that and then this meeting wasn't recorded. So it's like a little bit on top of to make a decision that's where we talk about fairness also with this. It's and up here is residents and then the fiduciary of the titles that we have is listening to everybody. It's listening to staff. It's listening to the experts. And it's listening to our own selves. And then if you're in the situation, that's the fairness. And that fairness, I could write on a board and tell you what's fair. I just, I was disappointed when this came in front of me that it wasn't to what the direction was and that's just a disappointment. It doesn't mean that it's, it can't be remedied. It's just hard discussions has to be had about what we want to do as a community with the pension. And other communities have adapted to it. They have different mechanisms in the pension for death benefits to see if they can, They can do it. Otherwise, one of the other ones, and this is the discussion where we have to get to in the general fund, is the life insurance and other options for employees to have other life insurance options than what we offer as basic. And it's educating also the employees on what the pension is and what they have been giving 6% every year on. These are things that this day, as yes, can talk about. Again, even amending this for how the discussion went tonight, It's really important to have actual numbers and what it looks like in a grid. And I just don't see that here. And the other thing to this, and this is honest, I would like to add up how much extra money we've spent as a village and for both yours and the extra reports and the law firm that could have gone to the Erick's family that we're spending discussing about how we're doing this fair. You're not donating your time. You're not donating your time. So there's a part of me that doesn't want, as the manager said, first part of it is shock and grieving and understood with all of us and it was new to us and we didn't actually even understand, oh, well, we don't have something. But we've been trying for a year to do this correctly. Again, I don't, from my desk, I don't have what's correct in front of me.

To the chair. And so Esmond's position is basically that we should leave the pension as it is and give the accumulated money, the interest, and the insurance back. So $130,000 and $100,000, it's about $230,000. Option two that our mayor has suggested is that we go to the early retirement, and I think you gave a figure.

Probably going to be... Under 2001, probably in the 1700 to 1900.

All right. So it's $1,700. That's option two. And option three is to wait the three years and then get $3,600 a month. Or $3,200 a month. And that's based on her age, on his income, the highest three years, et cetera. That's in the pension rules which establish that. And so, as Esmond said, I think we all feel sorry for her. And it seemed like since this is a one-off type of situation, by doing it the way we have proposed, she gets the most money over the rest of her life. And that was the reason for proposing it in this direction. Now, does she get the money as early as Jesse said? No, but she's getting half the money. And it isn't that with Social Security, with the insurance, it isn't that she doesn't get any money now in between those two time frames. And then again, as Elizabeth said, do we need to rewrite this so it includes all village employees? We do, but that's going to take discussion and time. And so that's how we got to where we are, and you agree with that or you don't.

I just want to point out that if they started getting those $1,700 checks today, it's – in sixty while okay uh... okay about seven years to catch up now that she's young that will be added that's why you want to have it for a long time to see i'm trying to make it make sense like in terms of yes she is she is young so i'm trying to put myself in her shoes and see like does what what makes sense like what Are these options better than me just getting this $130,000 check today? Is getting a $1,700 check starting today every month better? Or is waiting three years and getting this $30,000? I don't know. Because nobody can predict the future. Nobody knows what anybody's health is going to be. Nobody knows what the market's going to be. I don't know what her finances are. I have no idea. But here we are. We're trying to do the right thing.

I do want to point out that I was at the April board meeting. I believe it was April 28th. Does that sound right? And the minutes from the January meeting were approved at that meeting. So the minutes of when the board discussed this in depth in January are available now. They may not have been published by the administrator yet, but they are out there and available.

So this was made from the January meeting?

Yes. The January meeting is when this option was put on the table.

Right, but then the document had to come back and they had to read it and then approve it. Those minutes aren't available. The April 28th minutes are not available. So that's the discussion. That was 4-3, correct or incorrect?

No, the 4-3 vote was in January. The 4-3 isn't. What was the vote in April? Just reviewing this and passing it forward.

It had to be voted on.

It wasn't because it was already voted on in January. The language? The option that went into this impact statement, and the ordinance was drafted in the end of March, early April, I believe, after the January meeting. Understood. And so this impact statement and the ordinance came before the board in April.

They didn't read it.

But if they read it, they didn't vote on it. They reviewed it and acknowledged that it matched what they agreed to in January.

And what was the vote on that?

I don't think there was one. Were you at the meeting in April? I don't believe there was a vote on that.

Again, I don't know why.

April was the last meeting. That was also 4-3. Yeah. Yeah, you were not there, Asmund. It wasn't for your right. Yes, you were. No.

No, yeah, he didn't make it. I think it was 4-2 then.

4-2. You were not there. Yeah. 4-2. Was Mr. Longman at the last meeting? Longman was there. Williams was there. Dorsett was there. Jim McCoy was there.

So the opposing were just Mr. Longman and Mr. Dorsett at the last meeting? And the other four voted yes.

Right. So here's my last bit of, I don't even want to call it wisdom, but just for your consideration. Pensions, by definition, is drawing lines. And people will disagree over where you want to draw the line or if you want to draw one at all. And that's why you get to make this decision today. Where do you want to draw the line? And sometimes people fall within it. Sometimes they fall after it. And there are consequences.

I mean, in my opinion with this, again, the closest thing to when using the word finish line would be the benefit for early retirement. But we don't even know what the, again, like I said before, sorry, is that that piece of paper wasn't filled out. So you're doing assumptions then.

I mean, I've just been crunching some basic numbers here. And as far as I could tell, six years from now, If she was getting $1,700 checks, that would be about $120,000. Okay. If she started collecting these $3,200 checks three years from now. $3,600. Okay.

$3,200 is the reduction.

If she started collecting $3,200 checks three years from now, then in six years from now, she would have $115,000.

That's $5,000 less. And if she started getting the $1,700 checks today.

But what happens when you go farther forward?

Of course, but we can't predict the future. I'm just trying to game this out because I don't know what the future is. I'm just trying to see what does this scenario look like? What does that scenario look like? And as far as I could tell, six years out – If we went with doing nothing, she would have even more money. She would have 130, and that's without collecting any interest between now and six years.

What is her expected life expectancy?

Well, what's her age? 57 at the time of commencement. For a, well, right now she's 54. So for a, roughly for a 54-year-old female, it's about 85. 85.

So run that test and see what you get for money.

I'm sorry, say that again? For a 54-year-old female right now, using the 2026 latest mortality tables, her life expectancy, given that she has survived to 54, is about 85. So 31 more years is about her approximate life expectancy.

Vice Mayor, do you have?

Yeah. This is obviously not an easy discussion in any way you dice it, but... I got to say, I've been listening to you all this whole time here, and I've been thinking a lot. And if we're talking about a reduced – first of all, Ms. Keeley is absolutely right. We do have to be fair to everybody. Using our emotional decision-making compass is not really, I think, necessarily a good preemptor to make a decision here. But I will say – From what I'm listening to, $1,700 in payments, it's going to take at least 72 months to accumulate $130,000 in benefit. If you take the $130,000 today and you invest that money smartly, you could have well over, I mean, I don't want to make it, I'm not going to throw a number out there, but I'm saying even just by fair assumptions, if you put it in a 4% money market or something like that, I just feel like That is the better option because the $3,200 option is not realistic in my opinion because it is the benefit that he would have gotten, not the benefit she would have gotten. It's not the benefit that he would have gotten at early retirement. It's the benefit that he would have gotten at the full retirement. So it's like there's a lot of what-ifs and a lot of hypotheticals, and it seems to me – just at least from where I'm sitting, to take $130,000 plus a year's additional interest from our time debating this, which I think was a good point on the village manager's point. And investing that money from here sounds like me to be the best and the fairest option to everyone involved, which is not just the Olsons. It's also the rest of our employees and where they sit. in the situation. Now, whether we decide on that or not is up to you guys, but I think that's... And obviously, another thing is doing something to commemorate this great employee and his great service to the village. in the appropriate manner. And I think that, you know, if there's an expense involved with that too, then we eat that in order to do what's right in that regard as well. So that's where I sit.

Mr. Chair, could you explain one thing to us? If he had not died at all, as opposed to his wife being a beneficiary, what is the difference in the income he would have been getting a month later? Well, it ultimately depends on what option he elected at retirement. Right, but it was discussed that most people go for the 100% option, correct? It's a common option to elect, yeah. Yes. So the difference at the 100%, he doesn't, I'm trying to show the difference. It's not the same whether he died or didn't die or what the wife gets. The wife is not getting, what she gets is based on her age, not on his age.

Well, the conversion from his regular pension accrued benefit to a joint 100% survivor depended on both their ages. Right. So, and then that conversion was, done in 2029 is $3,200 from $3,677. So you convert his total benefit down and then that's the benefit that would be paid as long as both of them live.

Say that last, but as long as both of them live?

As long as at least one of them lives. I'm sorry, for both of their lifetimes. I didn't word that correctly.

Mr. Mayor, thank you for acknowledging me. I don't want to prolong the discussion or to add another piece to this, but as I listen to everybody speaking here, I think what it comes down to is that When we think at the crux of all this is that time passes and time marches on. And tomorrow is not promised to anyone, as we know in terms of Eric Spasson. And so when you think of a benefit that we should accord here, I'm really thinking of the fact that tomorrow is not promised to anyone. And so when you think of tomorrow and three years up the road, 2029 is not promised to anyone. And so for that reason – and that's one of the reasons why I made my point. I think also there – I'll cut it at that. Thank you.

I mean I think there's three points here that have been discussed that the village itself should look at implementing a board forward-looking policy reform is number one because it wasn't I mean it says it's going to take time but we really should do that and look into that and then try to so that this isn't a single it removes the single case precedent risk number two I think we should utilize and we should discuss it is a non-pension municipal settlement also which wasn't we it's an honest discussion we could have amongst ourselves the dais and even in that if it's an item on the thing then the public can chime in also and so can the employees And I think for what happened here, and this is again in budget season, is that we could enhance the insurance portion of this for all employees. And that's the gap that we could discuss. And term life insurance isn't as impactful to a fund. And this fund, in the law that's been written on it, it was bifurcated, but this fund, this type of legislation for it has been running for like 50 years. But that's why I went to point one, that we should probably look at a broad thing. And I think Ms. Keeley, over a year and a half ago, presented. And it should be, we only, Mike Cherry picked, not to use a term, but we only picked a couple of those instead of, it was comprehensive. And it should be revisited. And again, I think tonight, we've discussed a lot of it. We don't have the answer, I think, that the staff wants, the administrative staff, or even ourselves want. Because the only thing that was given to us was one option. So with that said, is there any more discussion?

Through the chair, I cannot support what we have in front of us. I would entertain doing something that was based on early retirement. And I would like to see some, you know, changes here to address this going forward. I know it's a very rare circumstance or I just, I don't like doing specific carve outs. I think if the policy is good for one person, it should be good for everybody. Which, I mean, it is basically, I hate to say it, but it is exactly where we left off. The last time we addressed this is like we want a solution for everybody. And, you know, it has to make sense. This is a solution for one person that doesn't make sense. So I...

No, with that said, the three points that I brought up and the one where it cost the village money is if you're finding a solution, there's two different things. One is you saw that there's a gap, but then the other two things that I brought up here, It's probably for best for everybody if maybe the solution for this, the manager presented one which is the exact pension and that's what the benefit is. But then there's the in between, that one that I thought would be discussed amongst professionals in retirement. There's a non-pension, so we're not dealing with the actual code. We're not dealing with the lawyer for it. It then comes under general fund. I think that's very interesting. And also the third one to HR and everybody here, it is the life insurance policy because what this is is not really a pension issue. This is a life insurance issue.

So I would do the chair. I agree. I would agree 100% with you, Jerome. I think that if we had a much better, we were trying to help this lady and her family. That's what we were all interested in doing. Uh, and we still, um, by raising that now, unfortunately, if we were for the future, that's a great idea as far as a higher, um, death benefit that we could fund for every employee. I think that's a great idea and it would certainly help to address this, but this fellow is already dead. I liked all of your ideas, all three of them actually, and I think I like Esmond's idea because we don't have to rewrite the pension, which Who knows how long that will take. But that doesn't get us past, or is there a way insurance-wise to get past with this individual?

It wouldn't be insurance. I think what we have to do is the non, we'd have to work with staff on the non-pension municipal settlement is what it would be. And that's through the general fund. Good, good. Well, we have to, and then it's, I don't know if on the dais right now is give a direction or if it's consensus. I mean, I think that's a good idea. I think that might be the solution for this. And also that all three of these points that I brought up are addressed in a timely fashion. It's been a year, so. It's a hard discussion. I mean, I'll be frank with everybody. And, you know, we're all volunteers up here. And being presented a tragedy like that, a loss of life, and a long-term employee is not easy for anybody. There's nothing, you know, there's nothing that can bring him back. So what we're trying to do is just to make decisions so that somebody else isn't in the same situation that the Olson family is in.

Through the chair, if I may. Well, to your last point there, yes. I don't think I've ever had a conversation about pensions before getting elected here. So this is all, you know, me learning as we go. I think it's fantastic, the stuff that – the couple ideas you had there. I am interested, though – in some clarity on the life insurance part because I'm not sure I'm understanding that as filling the gap because that seems like something that's just that stacks, you know. So in other words, is there going to be a situation where.

The employee has choices. Yeah. That's what it is. I mean.

If I'm working past retirement, past the age that I qualify for retirement, I'm going to get the pension. If I pass away and I'm also going to get the life insurance.

Well, the life insurance, I mean, even at the place, everybody gets life insurance because that's what we have here as employees.

After retirement?

You still have it, yeah.

So the life insurance is... No, no, not no.

I mean, as an employee, it's the life insurance that's here. What it is is you're an employee, and what we have now, Mr. Olson was $94,000 for his salary. What we're discussing in that third one is... we only have one thing for an employee right now and we could look at this because when the employee is educated about what their benefits are they can look at you don't know how many children they have you don't know if they're single so it's just looking at the benefits package and that's what we should do and that's what should have been done for the last year but And it's actually the last year and a half I think Ms. Keeley was with the presentation had many options and that was feedback from employees that were working here that hey there's other municipalities that are doing this a different way. So the insurance part of that is, And then we would have to do, because the municipal is buying the insurance, is the person would have a different level. Maybe they want 2x their salary. Maybe they want 3x their salary. But they don't have an option of that right now. We, as a municipality, it's just 1x, I think. Is that correct? Or 1.5? Where are we at with...

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council Members. So to give a little background, we were only offering $50,000 of life insurance, regardless of anyone's salary. That was the status quo. Upon reviewing our benefits on my arrival a year and a half ago, that was one of the items that I immediately highlighted to the manager, and I said, we're not within the best practice or the standards. Cities nowadays usually give one times your annual salary or two times your annual salary or three times your annual salary. And here we are with a flat 50. So what we did is we actually change carriers. We were able to get a policy with a new carrier that saved us money. It was cheaper than what we were paying. And we were able to offer all of our employees a life insurance benefit of a minimum of $50,000 if you made less than $50,000. And one times their annual salary if they made over 50 with a cap of $200,000. That is what is in place today. However, staff have an option to purchase voluntary life insurance as we speak. So it's offered during their initial hire process. They can buy up to $300,000. There's a table contingent on their age. It's the price. And a lot of our employees do that. So right now, the only difference is we only offer it to our general employees. We don't offer it to the police. So just for distinction. Coincidentally, this evening, I told the manager that I was speaking with the brokers because we recently had one of our Public Works staff members who retired. And I said, under our current policies, it allows you to convert it to actually pay on your own when you separate. But when you do that conversion, you no longer get the benefit of a group rate, so it's very expensive. Right. And as you age, it becomes more expensive because there's a table. As you age, not only does it become expensive, there's caveats in the plan that says it reduces X percentage at whatever age and another at another age. So coincidentally, this evening around 6 p.m. or sooner, earlier, I was telling the manager that we were, we had just received a proposal to allow us to have at least, I actually jokingly said at least burial dollars, $50,000 for retirees to continue the coverage at $12.50 a month. It costs nothing to the village. It will be an option afforded to them. So if they wanted to at least have a life policy of $50,000, it will cost them $12.50 monthly, $150 a year. I said, Mr. Manager, that also comes with a caveat of the age reduction. It would reduce at 65% when they turn 65, and another cut at age 80. I don't remember right now the percentage, but eventually, even if it was 50%, you will get a benefit of $25,000 for 150 annualized, which is, as we age, that's very cheap. as far as cost, to the contrast of converting the plan as we have it. Manager gave me the blessing. He said, go for it. It costs nothing to the village. It's simply a benefit that will be offered to our retirees. And I do agree that as we're currently reviewing our renewal process with insurance, that this is an opportunity for us to enhance our insurance coverage, whether that would be two times the annual salary and change the 50 cap to $100,000 or whatever. But this is the time. If we don't do it now at renewal, it becomes more difficult because now we have to wait until our next renewal.

Will that come up before, like when we're in budget season?

I'm already working on renewal as we speak. So it would be presented at budget season. With the understanding, of course, that we will have different options. Okay.

Multipliers or whatever different cuts that ages, but yes, it's feasible And it's an option that I believe will enhance our benefits All right, and if there's anything more to that point three that I brought up for enhancing that that would be appreciated My enhanced municipal life insurance player and she just pointed out one that we didn't have before which is a retiree Say the three again my three are implement implement Abroad forward-looking policy reform for a pension fund okay, and then utilize a non pension municipal tool and then Well, we'd have to discuss with that. There's you can buy an annuity I mean, there's different things we could do for a one-time thing in the village. We just would have to have a discussion about it and Yeah, the third one was the life insurance

so here's an idea why don't can we possibly have staff look those three options up and defer this any further discussion to our next meeting this might be a way out for this particular individual and a way to go forward before we just throw this back to the to the pension board

I don't think it goes back to the pension board, though, I think. Well, if we have to rewrite the pension, it's going to happen. And you're saying forward-looking, so it's going to have to go back to the pension board. No, the number one will go to the board.

But we could resolve this problem for Erickson and for everybody with adjustments to your suggestions there. Anybody think that's a good idea, or what do you think?

Mr. Mayor?

Is that, what was the suggestion, is this defer this first reading or table?

I'm saying to just, I'm just trying to, as you said, not put it off. As someone said, we don't want it to disappear. Right. If we defer a further discussion to the next meeting and in the meantime, we could look up your three points and see if they can address this situation with Eric and also be fair with all the rest of the employees.

number two might be a little bit quick with just the next meeting just for looking at it and working with staff probably that's the one with non-pension using the municipal other options that other municipalities have done but I think that's too I mean next meeting would be too quick

Yes, it would be. It would be too quick. Because we start... Everything should be in place by this Friday. Right.

And then best practices defer... I mean, this ordinance has been written by the attorneys. I mean, is it best to table it or defer it? What's the... It was first reading.

So I think the issue is that... In tabling it or deferring it, you're going to be seeing this same exact item, but it sounds as if you all want to consider something else. I know we don't normally prefer discussion items, but I think... don't think you're at the point where you can improve something on first reading i don't think there's clear direction as to what exactly it is you want and so maybe the three options being presented in a form of a discussion that way you narrow down exactly what it is you want to direct outside counsel to do and then you bring an item at first reading because otherwise you're going to be seeing the same exact item and at that point I don't know how productive it would be to make these type of changes because it sounds pretty significant in terms of shifts, right? So I wouldn't necessarily recommend just bringing this back or deferring it. And so I'm sorry.

Sorry, I'm talking instead of voting it down.

If you are clear that this is not something you want to do, this version of it, then certainly you could vote it down tonight and then bring back a discussion item that would give you the options that was just mentioned just now, get that down, narrow it down to what you want, and then give clear direction as to what that draft should look like. I think that might be a better direction, considering that if at minimum tonight, maybe we got some clear understanding that there might not be an appetite to draft this as is. And I'm not sure what amendments would address the issues until you see those various options. or certainly you can defer it, not to a date certain, but just defer it, and it's not necessarily brought back to you per se.

Well, since the vote hasn't taken place, and I don't want to anticipate what votes are, if it does get a vote, it's voted down, this document, then legally, I mean, it can't be brought forth again, or?

I won't say this document can't. Our rules of procedure has some guardrails around what items can be brought, re-brought, and then Robert's rules kind of talk about what can be brought. This exact item, what you're doing, this language right here, yeah, if you vote it down, then we'd have to entertain a motion to rescind if you wanted this same exact language re-brought. represent it right after um right and so i think that if you still might think that you want something in this regard maybe just do a motion to defer it for right now um and that does not prevent you in the interim to bring forth that discussion item that would provide you the backup the information give some tweaks in direction and then this ordinance Can still be living, so to say, and then just revise based off of what it is that you give direction to during that discussion, possible action item that will come up.

So make that new business and this is first reading. Okay.

Right, and just kind of defer this. And then that way, when you get that direction, then the attorneys can take that information, update that item, and then we read... Well, we normally don't advertise for first reading anyways in this case. So it'll... As long as the... Title, it depends on what you want to do, right? Because if you do something that is drastically different from what it is that we've already advertised the title from, then we kind of run the risk of you can't do too much, you know, we'll just have to start afresh. so um for tonight's purposes i think the safest route might just be to defer it and then um with the instruction to staff to bring forth a discussion and possible action item so we can narrow down what it is you want this item to look like i'd like to to the chair i'd like to withdraw my motion then um because i think we are looking at something with jerome's suggestions they're radically different and i think they're good ones

We don't need this ordinance to start from or wonder if it fits in or et cetera. I'd just like to call the question, and the question is whether or not we're going to okay the ordinance that is written here or not. So he ended the discussion with a call to question, so we could go to a vote now. Yeah. Is that all right?

Yeah, that's fine with me.

What's the motion? The motion would be that we are going to vote on what's here in the book. As an option.

And we're either in favor of it or you're not. So you don't want to defer it then?

Well, no, but I thought that's what Sinead just said.

Madam Attorney gave us multiple options here. She did understand what we're trying to accomplish here. One is new business. One is that we have this ordinance as written. The question is if it goes to vote and voted down no, there's rules and procedures of how it would be brought back forth to the public.

But if you are completely certain that this version right here that before you tonight, you absolutely will not be voting for. If you want to vote this version down, you can. I'm not going to say that prevents you from bringing forth a new idea in regards to how this is formulated, but to bring this exact same draft with the same language and what it's doing no right we'll have to it's not impossible there'll be other rules you know procedural things that we'll have to do but if you are certain tonight that this is not what you want certainly you can and that'd be a motion that it would be a motion voting on it but also with direction or do you want the second motion to give direction

you can separate it you can do a motion to deny and then follow up with direction for staff to bring forth the options um and none of those options would include what's before you tonight okay through the chair if i may i i think uh the next time we discuss this i think it should just be a discussion item where I guess I'm trying to say, I don't know if we need all of the resources that we're expending tonight. for the next discussion that we need to have. I think there's a lot that just this council needs to decide in terms of like what direction we want to go that doesn't necessarily require lawyers and actuaries maybe. And maybe after that discussion we'll be ready to have.

Well, that will give direction and those numbers then.

My concern is if we defer this and then when it comes back, you know. Oh, I see what you're saying. We're going to have to do it with everybody, you know, whereas if. YOU KNOW, IF WE SAY WE'RE GOING TO DEFER THIS BUT HAVE A DISCUSSION BETWEEN NOW AND THE NEXT TIME WE BRING THIS BACK OR IF WE GET RID OF THIS AND SAY WE'RE GOING TO, I JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE, I GUESS WHAT I WOULD ADVOCATE FOR IS THAT WE HAVE A DISCUSSION, THIS COUNCIL NEEDS TO HAVE A DISCUSSION

You've had a discussion about this one, and to the attorney, I'm going to put words in, but my interpretation of the attorney's direction is as it's presented in front of us in its first reading, we can vote it down. And then we can also then make a motion to what we want. Okay.

And give clear, and I think the motion to what you want is that you want to have a discussion with these various options so then you can narrow down what it is you actually want and then give direction to staff from that point. But I think it's like a two-layered process here where this first step is that we're clear. If there's anything you agree on is that you don't want it as is tonight. So if you're comfortable with that, certainly just go ahead and say yes. you know motion to deny this ordinance right we're gonna deny that or you do a motion to defer and we'll tweak it but the cleaner route probably would just if you're clear on that this is not it then this is not it and the next step would be a discussion item that we go through to lay out other options that's not this option

sounds good to me through the chair I'd like to make one quick comment if we defer this is not really a situation where we would defer it and you bring it back to us with just small edits to the language I think what we're arriving at is that we need like a significant rework and to explore all the options and that leads me more so towards voting it down rather than deferring

He called a question, so is there a motion? Move to deny item 10A.

Second.

All those that want to deny item 10A, signal by saying aye. Aye. Motion carries. And now I need a motion for... Why don't you make a motion?

For just consensus. I think we can just entertain some consensus that to manager and staff that they'll bring forth the discussion item with those various options. Okay.

Based on the three options.

The three options, which is, yeah, and it's clear and direct. communication from this dais about that reform of it. And like it has lived for 50 years and going through this exercise, it should be an open discussion about it. And then, yeah, then two and then three. And we'll go from there. You have consensus from council? Yes. Okay. All right. Madam Clerk?

Manager's report?

Yes. Thank you so much. Thank you. Let me be quick. There's just something I wanted to bring to your attention. Thanks, guys. Because I know that ever so often you have gotten emails that have come to you with regard to master plans. Most recently, I think the stormwater master plan is something that has trended a lot. We have gotten emails to that effect. I just want to say for my chair that a stormwater master plan does not exist for Miami Shores Village. We're working on one. What exists is a draft. And it's been conflated that there is a parks master plan. There's even a situation where we're told that Shores Estate has been carved out of this. Well, I'll tell you what. Because we had had an approved, a design, not approved, a design for Shores Estate as it pertains to a stormwater master plan, Initially, it was just set to the side, and then there was a study based upon the other areas of the village. But I can tell you definitively tonight that Shore's estate will be in that stormwater master plan. It will be when the master plan is completed. But it is not completed. We do not yet. I look forward to the day when we'll all celebrate bringing that finished product to you for it to be adopted. At that time when it's adopted, we'll have a stormwater master plan. Thank you very much. Thank you. Yes.

Attorney's report?

None today.

Thank you. Madam Clerk, announcements?

I do have some brief comments. In observance of Memorial Day, Village Hall will be closed on May 25th. Solid waste schedules will be followed. In commemoration of Memorial Day, the Village will be hosting a Memorial Day event at 9 a.m. at Memorial Park, Northeast 94th Street. All are welcome to attend. And there are Village Board vacancies. If you're interested in serving on one of the Village Boards, please visit our village website under the government tab, click on boards and committees, and you'll find the application. If you have any questions regarding the specific boards and committees, please feel free to contact the clerk's office at 305-762-4870 or rodriguezy at msbfl.gov. Council comments.

Let me just start for thank you my colleagues for having this discussion tonight It's not an easy subject matter and it's it's been long overdue. I I spent a lot of time on thinking and it's been a year of this and Like I said earlier and in the meeting I was disappointed what was presented in front of us I understand the work that the pension board did and the attorneys saying they can only see it from a pension boards view but I appreciate that all of you joined in and it's not an easy subject matter for what we're dealing with over the past year. But it is, the importance of it is, shows you how important it is to discuss it and not defer it. So hopefully in a timely manner that we can have that on the agenda and then have, another discussion about it and then have solutions for the employees, for staff, and for all of us as residents. Again, I thank you.

to the chair I have some things I'll be bringing for the first meeting in June for council comments but I didn't get all the answers I wanted yet tonight one of those is the electric car thing as I talked to George about earlier we ran into each other so that's going to come back for discussion along with a couple other things but I'm not ready to speak on them tonight so we will do so at the next meeting appreciate it I appreciate what you said as well, Mr. Mayor.

Go ahead. Just to recognize, I know I can tell you pointedly that I was there when Vice Mayor Cantor and Councilmember Byrd spoke. I know Vice Mayor said when you discussed it, he did not discuss it. He just said to him that I would be bringing this. I would be making... Thank you. Thank you for that. Notes on this at the next meeting. That's all that was said. So if anybody's out there listening, there's no sunshine violated. I was there. Okay. Thank you.

Appreciate that clarification. Anybody else?

I look forward to seeing everybody out for Memorial Day. I think Wednesday we're going to be dedicating something at the pool also.

It's Wednesday, right? No, it's June. June. June 3rd.

The following week. Oh, okay. All right. Okay. Okay, so we got a couple weeks.

Are you going to – do you want to – has Ms. Dorney reached out to her? Are you going to speak on Memorial Day again? Do you want to do another speech?

I was going to ask you guys what your plans were.

I mean, I'll do a short one again as an intro, but I know that you like the holiday and your kids like it. Man, it stresses me out giving those speeches. Do you want to do it or not?

I mean – I – I will be there. I'm happy to speak. I don't know if I'm going to give as elaborate a speech as I've given in the past, but I'm happy to speak.

I think you could actually, to be honest with you, you could dust off the one from two years ago. You could dust off the one from two years ago, and it'll ring true on this Memorial Day because that was a really good, that was a very good speech.

I appreciate it. Thank you. And other than that, yeah, this is just another example of sometimes – well, not sometimes. A lot of times I'm on my way to these meetings and I'm really stressed out about how I'm going to approach something or – I – This group, as far as I know and I'm concerned, when it comes to that Sunshine stuff, we are brutally adherent to that, to the point. I wish that we could call each other up and discuss this stuff. I'm so anxious when I'm on my way over here just to hear, are they concerned about the same things I'm concerned about? I'm always... pleasantly surprised because not only is at least somebody else concerned about what I'm concerned about, but they're so concerned that they're telling me things I didn't even think about and coming at it from different angles. I'm just really happy to be doing this with you guys. It's a good crew.

Thank you. Been to a bike ride lately?

Yes. Oh, yeah.

The bike ride was a big... We had a very nice turnout. The weather was very, very hot. I forgot about that one. I think the chief says he might shorten it up a little bit next time. But, man, it was a nice tour around the whole village. The police were amazing. It was very impressive. We got to basically feel like we were the president getting a motorcade through the village. And, man, there's quite a lot of moving parts to do. to make that work, and it was very impressive to see.

Keep the helmet.

Oh, man, I got it. I didn't steal the helmet. Let me borrow a helmet. It had somebody's name on it, so that's actually somebody's helmet. I hope they're not mad at me. Motion to adjourn.

Second. Thank you.