Financial Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

Samet Avalo. Here. Edhart Meta. Here.

Marco Poluniga. I just texted, he hasn't logged in yet.

Okay, not here yet. And Sandra.

No, Sandra is no longer on the board. She has resigned and we will get her back.

Next agenda item, approval of the January 13 meeting minutes. Motion to approve. Second that. Everyone in favor say aye. Aye. Let's approve. Old business, agenda item 3A, update on the villages community center, Treasure Island Elementary School project.

Okay, let me tell you where we're at. We have completed the third floor and all the framing of the three floors are framed up for the rooms. The electrical is roughed in. The plumbing is roughed in. And the next move on the building itself, I mean, windows are all in, except for the two windows on the second floor that face east, because they're still can load in the drywall and everything through those windows to be able to do the drywall work, not taking that up the stairs. The elevator will come in. And so the next move is to get them so they can start drywall. And then they will bring in AC auxiliary to keep it under air so we don't develop a mold problem when they do the drywall. And they're moving. I mean, it's moving. Now on the fields, all the stormwater infrastructure is in. The structures are in. The pipes connecting everything there is in. They are now leveling the main field, the main soccer field. There's quite a layer of soft, mucky material that they have to take out, and then they're bringing in the hard-packed stuff so that they can compact it. It'll be artificial turf. They will be bringing in the supports for the light so they can get that in place. They've started the walking path going all the way around the school. It's been graded for that. And their objective is by late May, early June, that the building will be completed. And the main soccer field will be usable. And the plan is that for the FIFA World Cup that the soccer players are going to be practicing on the field. So we know that there is a deadline. Oh, yeah. You get to go see them. You see that when you go by that building every day, there's

question to you, which is not related to this, but it's related to the building. Any more work on Sundays?

All right. So the only time I allow them to work on Sundays, we've got some conflicts there with the school. Problem is some of the work they need to do, they're dealing with the fields and the parking area, make it difficult for the parents to get in and out, dropping the kids off and picking them up. So when they have something that A Saturday and Sunday can get them past that to where by Sunday they've got all closed up, fenced off again, and they're out of the way for that week. I let them do that. So they came in this past Sunday and they needed to do a lot of the demucking. And so if they could come in Sunday, I wouldn't allow any trucks to come in and out, but If they worked on the field, they would be able to have the piles already for Monday to come in and start loading the trucks and getting them out. What I asked them to do, first of all, when they work on Saturday or Sunday, they can't start until after 9 o'clock. No noise until then. The other days, regular days, they make noise after 8 o'clock. They've got to stop making noise at 5 o'clock. But we've got a schedule that we're trying to make happen. What happened this past Sunday was that they didn't turn off the backup alarms on the heavy equipment. And so now you got Sunday morning. So I talked to the contractor and I said, look, I told you no backup alarm. And his answer to me was, you told me no backup alarms on the contractor. They're right. They did say concrete trucks. It was sort of like, you know, the backup alarms. So anyway, now they understand. But the only time they will be in there on a Sunday is when it's just, there's no real option without impacting the parking.

Just for those residents that complain, you can tell them their palm tree club is on Saturday, not Sunday. Yeah, yeah. This is during the daytime.

Leave us alone. Yeah.

We have a deadline to meet and we will meet the deadline. The only thing is the four adjacent fields will be done more than likely after the World Cup.

Yes.

And they will be, they are allowed to delay that till December. I mean, finish it. They have to finish by December 30th.

Yeah, but they think they'll be way, once the World Cup is done, they'll not get those two. So it's moving very well.

Are the courts going to be ready also? Are you World Cup or are they coming afterwards?

They are ready to start on the paddle ball courts and the pickleball now. Okay. So now what's got to happen is we got some of the stuff is underway. So from all of the construction of the concrete pours and all that and block work that went up and all the steel, That is now all being removed because there's still some of the soil that is contaminated has to be removed from the operation that was there before. So that is going to take place next. They've already got it cleared out where the pickleball courts and paddleball, but now that corner that's right by the parking lot is where they had all their supplies stacked for forms and all of that. And so we haven't been able to get the contaminated soil out of that. The other thing that they're just starting, I think this week, is they're starting to drill the wells. So there'll be four wells on the property, deep injection wells, for the stormwater. And so that was supposed to start this week. So I usually get out there on Saturday and walk the site with them and see exactly where they're at. But that's what's happening now to get the stormwater on the building side in.

And on the building itself, I listened in to the last commission meeting. I didn't get to finish watching it. But one of the items was that the, I think it was a developer or the association that wanted to make a change in the plan. that had a cost impact. Either it was an office or it was something like a change.

It makes you with an office thing there that PFL would be able to use when they're in town or so forth. And we worked out to where they're paying for that. So that build out they're paying for.

And then the other thing was the building was supposed to be two stories. And if we want to convert the second floor to children play area for calling and such, the children's trust fund will not allow adults to be in that floor. So once we added the third floor, we reached an agreement with them that their office can only be yay big. We didn't have that.

Less than 600 square feet.

On the third floor. On the third floor instead of the second to make the second floor totally children-proof. Okay. And the rest of the third floor would be... It's open space for us to divide whichever way we want.

So on the second floor, we're going to have three activity rooms that are on one side. And then on the rest of the second floor, minus this, minus, so it would also be that on the second floor, because you have, we have two bathrooms. You have to have a shower because they kill, you have to have a shower. And then we will have a little kitchenette and we'll have a, breakout room or whatever right there for the staff to be able to eat lunch and that type of thing. But we'll have a large open area on the west side of the second floor adjacent to that office or what was going to be the office is now the kitchenette and the breakout room. And then on the third floor, another requirement is you can't have the children in a room that somebody can't see what's going on from the outside. You can't have walls and shut a door. So the walls will go up a certain level, half, and then there'll be glass up the rest of the way. So it makes a bigger feeling in there and it meets that requirement. And then there will be partitions that open and shut so we can have the room open or we can open it all up or we close off the three rooms, that type of thing.

Mm-hmm.

And then on the third floor, it'll be ready to do that type of work. But the staff or lady that's going to be running it with Janice, we're really not sure how we want that third floor to be. And so we're leaving it with the office there and the rest will be all open. And then if we want to do maybe one more classroom or two classrooms or a bigger open area, We're not really sure what we want to do on that third floor. So it'll be finished, ceiling floors, AC and all that laying at a bigger open area up there. Because there's some things they're talking about having, you know, we want programs for seniors during the daytime. We're talking about programs where meals are brought in because for a lot of these people, that'll be the best meal they get during the day. And there are programs that will supply those meals to us. I mean, we just don't have the facility. And then we can have dominoes and we can have cards and, you know, things for the adults and Zumba classes and whatever. And then with the kids, we want to have after school programs for the children. We want to have an area where we can have a reading where the kids can come and they read books and they get, that type of stuff.

Now those are older kids and those who would be on the second floor, like teenagers. Yeah. Yeah.

Hey, Marco.

Marco, wake up. Hello, everyone. I'm here. Sorry, I'm late. No problem.

Okay, the building's coming right.

Good. And then I also, I think that was one of the other previous commission meetings The first floor.

Cafe. Right. And that's part of it. There's a space there for that. And that'll be by PFL. They will hire an outfit to come in, a concessionaire. And we have to approve it, but they make the selection of who they want to bring. And there's a split.

We get reservations later. We have a small percentage, but we have a percentage.

It's like 5% of the net.

And the elevator, I mean, if you want to, you can order from the elevator and go all the way to the rooftop. Order from the elevator? You order on the first floor. You get food. You get in the elevator. You can go to the rooftop. The rooftop is going to have, I'm going to say, a very big garden. There will be some plants up there. There will be some tables. There's a covered area. Yeah. Where you can have a fresco and fight.

Yeah. Yeah. The way they've got it laid out with tables, you could seat about 40 people. Or without the tables, you can open it up more and have some type of standing again or whatever.

And are they going to be open, like, What type of hours are they going to be open? Like, if I... Well, first it's going to run seven days a week. Yeah.

Because you can't have a community center close on Saturday and Sunday. And, no, it'll be staffed and we're going to be, you know, running. Now, what the hours will be and all that, I don't know, but...

They have permission in the original plan, if I'm not mistaken, because they were mainly considering the after school. because the field cannot be touched until after school is over, because it's their field. So it's from whenever after school is, an hour after, until 11 o'clock at night, I think they have permission.

Yeah.

That was kind of my question.

And then Saturday and Sunday is going to be from, I believe, 8 o'clock in the morning to 11 o'clock in the morning. So basically when there are activities, it's open. It's going to be open.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And if there are no activities like on a Monday morning, it's not going to be open.

Oh, no, the community center will be open because we're going to have adult activities.

Yeah, you can't close it down to separate places, you know. You know, you need to get running.

You know, you're saying about the cafe.

Yeah, it's not the cafe.

Go have a coffee in the morning. Cafecito.

Yeah, you can have a cafecito and have a coffee. And the first time, go upstairs. There you go.

Now, another thing that she made kind of contract on the pickleball and paddleball courts. is that any court that's not leased when it's under them running it, PFL, any court that's not leased for the first 10 minutes of the hour, then it's free to the public to use for the other 50 minutes. So I'm sure there will be people that will be standing by.

They have a court attendant. or somebody that'll be run by a permanent person they're provided by pfl they run the courts you know the court but there is also in the fields and i mean we will always have one of the small fields at least dedicated open at all times for on the fields are closed after school and saturdays and sundays there's one field dedicated at all times to the village for free nobody pays for it you just show that we live there and kids want to come and do a game they go into the field you know they ask which is the field that's going to be available the 11 by 11 field is going to be a little bit more restricted because it's this artificial turf and it has all the special mechanisms underneath to be able to put for people to come and play or practice whatever they need as well. You're not allowed there with cleats. You're not allowed to have bicycles there. You know, there's certain requirements for that field, which will be posted, of course. And there's a block time that we get it also, but I don't have those papers with me as far as... There's a block for the village and there's a, of course we get not the best hour. No, they're not, they're no dummies. They're using the best hours for themselves. Uh, the same thing with the courts, the cadet courts and the battle courts and the pickleball courts. Is there light? There will be lights. There will be lights. Now question from all the planning that we have done on this. Is there any way that we can put the contaminated soil that's in that corner underneath the cement of the palatable porch and the pickable porch?

We've already looked at that. We already looked at putting it in the pit because we filled that pit.

Well, that's what I'm asking. I remember discussing that. Because you can't put the contaminated soil if it's in case of cement for quality and such.

But because it could still reach underneath. In other words... the problem would have been worse. The way they had the courts, they were going to have a court, a space, and that space was just going to be like artificial turf to drain. And Durham said, no. You've got to seal that off. The way we have closed things in, we've gotten a break with Durham of how deep we've got to go to take the soil. And so now the paddle ball courts and everything will be one solid concrete slab, but there'll be like artificial turf in between them, but they're sitting on concrete. And the contamination was a big deal.

Do we have a lot of contamination?

Yeah. Well, over in the corner, all that east end has been cleared. But on the west, the northwest corner, where you come in by the gate, that's where all that equipment was stored. And now that has to be cleaned up. So that's, you know, they're moving because they want this thing done. So, you know, we'll see. Exciting. It is exciting. Have you seen it? Have you gone by? Yeah. I mean, you go by and it's like, oh, where did this thing come from? A lot of stuff happened.

And wait till you see the stones in the front of the building. They were more dramatic. It gives it the flavor of the actual.

Yeah. And they were stuccoing when I was there last Saturday. They started the stucco, but it's not a stucco finish. There's a metal finish going on in that whole building. And they're doing the stucco to, in fact, they were told by the guy doing the metal that it wasn't required to stucco. You could put it right on the block. But they didn't want to do that. They said that's not the best way to go. So they're stuccoing the building, and then they're putting the metal.

Like panels. Panels, yes. Yeah, yeah.

It's going to be fancy. Yeah. No, it's going to be a sharp-looking gold. Yeah.

And if Argentina happens to win the World Cup, we'll have to deface it.

And also, we put in a restroom accessible from the outside for the park. Because the park, when they had the old building there, there was a restroom there where it was accessible from the outside. So when the workers had the building closed up, as long as the park was open, the bathrooms kept open. So when I came here, there was not an access to a bathroom from the outside. And the thought was, well, they'll just go into the lobby and use the bathroom. I said, yeah, but the building may not be open and the park is open. So we did some rearranging with an electrical room. And now at the corner, when you go by on Gallon, you'll see like an open door area at the west end of the building. And that's where they'll be able to come up a ramp and go into that bathroom from the park. So that's good. It's exciting. It really is. Yeah.

By the way, it goes fast, too.

Listen, they got a goal in mind, not unintended.

These kids must use Schoenberger Park.

Schoenberger Park, there we go. Yeah. So on Schoenberger, the pavilion, you'll notice, And that's been cut in half because even with it outside in the work area, it was in the way of the machinery and everything. So they cut the pavilion in half. When it's done, the pavilion will go back where it belongs and they will rebuild it and they'll put a new roof on it and they'll have a brand new pavilion in the park. Yeah, and so more than a few birthday parties there.

Do I still have my ACPS in the middle? Mm-hmm.

Between the park and the... Yeah.

That's one of the two choices for the park.

Okay. No, no. That space is there. But they need it right now to move or to work on the building.

I need it for June 17, 2028. Yeah. I hear you.

Okay. Any more questions for Frank?

Regarding that one.

No. Thank you so much.

And if you want to, we have Mike Vahischi to tell you.

We are totally funded for it. Yes.

The community center. Yeah.

Sounds like they're paying for it. They are paying for what they are saying they would. Right? Yes.

They're even paying for a little bit more than what they said. But it's been a growing experience as we go through this. Yeah. It's like any construction job. Things come up that you haven't figured on. Yeah. Soil remediation was one that we didn't figure was going to be that bad, and that was on the village.

Is that because the waste was there, the waste management company?

Waste, and we had the sanitary sewer station. And now all that's been put underground. It's still there, but it's all underground. So that's what gave us a room for the paddle ball and the pickleball courts that's behind where that assembly is right there. So it's in there and it's functioning now, new pump station. You got a new pump station there. We got a new pump station on Hispaniola. Yeah. And the other pump stations, the one on South Treasure and the one on Village Hall pump station right there by the Shell station, which is there by the dog park. There's another pump station there.

Oh, yeah.

All the electrical in those have been completely redone. Now we do have some pumps we've got to replace, but it's all been upgraded. And all to the new flood standards, everything's up high where it's supposed to be. They're all set up. The main pump station is going to have to have a permanent generator. They'll be installed after all this work is done. And the other pump stations did not have access and couldn't bring a portable generator and run them. So we had Hurricane Irma. We had to bring in pump trucks and pump around the clock. The sewage. Now we'll be able to run the pump stations with portable generators, which we've already purchased, big trailer generators that we'll bring to those sites. We can plug them in and keep those pump stations running.

And was that also a... Future plan pump station on that, looking at the map here. North Bay Island. No, on North Pressure Drive, the west end of North Pressure Drive.

Now, that's a stormwater pump station, not a sewage pump station.

So, the first... Right next to the building, the house that is being deeded to the village and has to be demolished and... A passive part will be created there in a pump station.

Yeah. And on the south end of West Treasure, when I was here the first time, there was a pump station there where the flooding was taking place. So you go down West Treasure Drive, where you hit South Treasure. Yes. On the right-hand side, you'll see there's a big panel there. Yeah. That's it. stormwater pump station also. And when I came back, I was told it's not functional. So let's get it functional. So we have. So that was a big help because when we got that one, that area flooded so bad with the high tides and the rain that the pump station is online. So the first pump station that will be built is on North Bay Island and it's over in the southeast corner. By Coquina. Yeah, by Coquina and Bay Terrace.

On what road? North Bay Island, not the eastern most lane, but the second one where his finger is. That used to be a two-lot house that was demolished, the twins' house, and they filled the pool up and everything up. It's just a plain lot right now. We're talking with the owner to take over a little piece on the side there.

Transform the panel. The pumps will go in the ground, in the street. Then when you go up Bay Terrace and you hang a left, you get on Beachview Drive. There'll be six deep water injection wells in the middle of the street to go down, and that's where the water will be deposited. And some people say, well, you're going to put the water in and it's going to contaminate the bay. But there are two aquifers in the strata system. The one that we get our drinking water from that infiltrates into the bay too is the Biscayne aquifer, and that's drinking water. Then you go through another strata of material, and you go into the Florida aquifer, and that's where we discharge into the Florida aquifer. And it does not impact the drinking waters intersect with the bay.

Are we getting drinking water from the bay? Yes.

Which water? No, no. The drinking water doesn't come from the bay.

No, that's what I asked. Does it come from the bay? And you said yes.

The water comes from the bay, but it goes through a whole system of precipitation. In Miami, the water comes from the southwest.

I thought they took the water from the other place.

We're not taking salt water and making it into a drinker water. The water that we get comes from what's called the Biscayne Aquifer. And it is the first layer of water you hit as you start drilling down. If you put a well into your house, you go down, you get that Biscayne Aquifer water.

And where do we pump that from here? It comes from Miami.

The drinking water in our village comes from Miami to us. And where in Miami?

It comes from the Dade County water. We buy our water from the county. It comes across 79th Street Causeway in a pipe. And it comes from Miami Beach in a pipe. We have two places where the water comes in. And then we distribute the water through our system to all the facilities. That's potable water.

Yeah. Well, what I heard when I moved here was that breaking water comes way out westbound. and gets pulled out.

Well, listen.

We don't drill from here down.

We don't drill. The drinking water comes from the Everglades. Not from the Everglades, no.

Listen. There's a bisque green aquifer all over South Florida, all over Southeast Florida. It comes from Lake Okeechobee. That's where the water comes from.

The water goes from Lake Okeechobee. That's correct.

But there's also a river of water under the ground that's in the Biscayne Aquifer. The issue with the Biscayne Aquifer is...

It doesn't come from the bay. No, no, not from the bay. We don't drill in the bay.

It comes from the other gates. But now, if you go in the bay and you get to only the first aquifer... you are contaminating the drinking water.

Yeah, but we are not getting the drinking water from the bay.

No.

That's what I'm saying.

We're not. We're not. Are you drinking the drinking water? I mean, the water in the closet? No. Oh, okay. No. I am.

I know you can.

I'm still here.

I know you can, right? But I normally don't. No, it's... And that water is treated and it's... Yeah, yeah.

No, I mean, that's our water supply. Yeah. That's our water supply. But it's not from the bay. It is not from the bay.

It's not. It's not considered bay water.

No.

That's my point. It comes from the bay.

But with the sea level rise, we're getting the saltwater intrusion into the Biscayne Outback. And the saltwater floats on top of the freshwater. So people that have a well for sprinkling their house and they live in these lower areas, because I'm right across in Bellevue, those people that have shallow wells they're now starting to get brackish water and they're killing their grass. And so the well people have to come out, drop the well down deeper to get past the salt water.

Yeah.

To get into it.

Which you can see on South Pressure Drive, those people's lawns when there have been... Yeah, but that's because of the flooding from the Bay of Selma.

Yeah. High tides, the king tide.

Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, I don't know what we're talking about. You're thinking about that coffee in the cafe.

Yeah, I know. All right.

It'll come from that water, okay? Yeah, I'll come to bed.

That was the whole project. Yeah, all right. Freebie. Village Home Project. Another exciting.

Right, transportation. Talking about freebie. We're looking at several options to try to.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

to show that we are fiscally strong enough to meet the requirements of the contract so that they can sign off and be able to give their contributions towards the fire station. And that comes in stages. The first time when we break ground, they give me two more of them. They're going to give us a total of $7.5 million towards the fire station, $7,470,000, $7,470,000. And... They give me $2 million to start, and then we get it in tranches, one and a half, and we hurt some areas, and another one and a half, and then we get the final when it's TCOed on the fire station. We are just finishing up. All right, so we went out to bid for contractors to qualify to bid on the project. We had 10 applicants applied. We had a committee that was put together, and they selected or ranked them. Top five are the ones that are going to get the bid package to actually bid on them. There's some big outfits in there that are interested. Purtle is one of them. Cast is building condominium. They put in a bid to do Village Hall, or they will put in a bid. They're going to get the plans. Where we are to put the bid out is we've got the bid package roughed out now. We're waiting for one more set of drawings to come from the architect for the final to because we have to put the plans out when we put it out to bid. Now, what we've done is our current plans are about 90, 95%. We took those plans that are at that point and we gave them to those five contractors so they could start looking and start doing what they call takeoffs on plumbing or, you know, structural, that type of stuff. And so they've got those. And then when we get the final plans approved, we were all set to go about a month ago. And then FDOT came in and, you know, they're going to raise the bridges. The two flat bridges are going to be raised in 2029. And the elevation of the roadway to get to those bridges is having an impact on our city hall. because we're right there on that path coming up from the adventure. So we had a sidewalk that was designed to go through like a park area in the front, and you would come out onto the sidewalk on the causeway. And then FDOT said, no, we're not going to let you hook to our sidewalk. So that's an FDOT sidewalk. unless you have the grade or the steps to get to where you get to our sidewalk back so far in the big rigmarole that we had.

And that would be going up then to their sidewalk?

So now we've had to raise our building because of what they've done. So we've done that.

Get closer to their sidewalk?

We want to get above their sidewalk. We want to be above where the water runoff is not, we're not, the building's not open. So we've done that. Now we wanted to go with a sidewalk that went around the building and go to sidewalk. So there's like a retention area where you come down from us and you go low and then you come up to the causeway again, okay? Not like a hill, but it's definitely a different grade. And if we did it with just the ramping, we don't meet the ADA. And then we couldn't do steps because then you couldn't do a wheelchair. So we just took the sidewalk out. We tried every which way. So we took the sidewalk out and you'll come out of the front of a village hall, which you'll come out right out there onto the entrance into Harbor Island. And then you just hang a right and you're on the sidewalk there, the causeway in. So But you said, okay, so you took out a sidewalk. Well, that had an impact on the sprinkler system, had an impact on electrical, had an impact on lighting. It had an impact on the structural pieces from the building. So all of those disciplines had to now go in and rework their set of plans to adjust for us taking a sidewalk.

And you have to resubmit the contractors.

You have to resubmit. So we're at the final now, where once we We tried every which way to keep the sidewalk and it just didn't work. And I told Steve, just take the sidewalk out and we've got to get this thing going. So we did that. And FDOT owns, the sidewalk is theirs, but they also own further back than the sidewalk in case they want to expand the causeway. So they've got property that goes beyond the sidewalk. Whereas most places, back of sidewalk is And so those plans have been reworked and they'll be submitted and we hope it will be a fairly quick review because it does come to our building department so we can hit that. And then when we have the plans, we'll be ready to fill out the bid. We'll put it out to bid for about 60 days. They've had the plans where they can be taken takeoffs now for almost two months. So it's not gonna be like, And then we award, come to the commission, make, you know, there'll be a committee select. The other thing that's going on is art in public places. We have to do one and a half percent of the total project has to be art. So that means the cost for the architect, everything, whatever went in, not just the building, but one and a half percent of the total has to be in art in public places. So we've contracted with the county and their arts and public places department to run that for us because we really don't have the expertise on staff to do that. They've already gone out for a call for artists. They've got a list of artists that they have selected and they will put together their ideas of the art for this building, whether it be paintings or sculptures or whatever it is. And then they will curate that and decide which are the final ones that fit with our building. And then it will come to the commission to make a decision on the final selection of what the art would be.

What is the total cost of the project?

Right now, well, we've got several costs.

Well, the cost, that is the piece for the artwork.

Yeah, it would be just under 50 million.

So five million piece of artwork?

It's not an Andy Warhol that we're putting in there. Basically, you can put, like, decorative tile. You can put decorative floor. The structure itself. Decorative ceilings. There's little text. There's some things that you can add to it where... Like the entrance. Right.

Yeah, you notice.

The building looks gorgeous.

But what they have to do is they have to between the, they've already looked at the building and they've decided where different things can do. You can certainly do outdoor sculptures and that type of things. You can do stuff in the lobby. You can do stuff on the floor. So there's a lot of options and they give those options with elevations of the building to these artists to look at for them to submit what they want. The building will be covered with a screen. It's not going to be painted. It's very modern for a building. And the material is rated for about 15 years. So when you compare it with painting, because you've got the issues with painting, keeping it up, it was very comparable. And it gave a look to the building that's like a ship yeah pretty neat because it's a very odd shaped lot it's like an eggplant type of a shape the way the lot is it's not it's not a rectangle no you know it narrows down and all that and um it's going to be spectacular it's going to be spectacular and it's going to be visible from the possibility it's going to the audience i mean also without Yeah.

And I think also a couple of meetings ago, we talked about the funding of this. And there was still work going on to find funding. Correct. For during the next few years. Right. And that was basically.

The good thing is the project's not going to be built overnight where we need all the funds. No. In May, we're due approximately $2 million from TDRs that we sold. We got 10% upfront. About $240,000, I think it is. So we're getting another two point something for those. We're about to look at or approve the site plan for MG, which is a building right next to Continuum. And I was privy to meet already with the developers and they have included the extra three floors in height. which will give us an extra $3 million. I just met with another developer for another site and he's interested in adding the height. I mean, I'm trying to sell, I'm selling the city slowly. We have some TDRs that will be forthcoming from the Sunbeam deed. So those are going to be converted into TDRs also for future buildings that are going to be built. Any future building that comes here, we always ask for community contributions. So hopefully with all these pluses, we're getting closer to the final number. Do we have the money right now in hand? The answer is no. We're working very hard to reach that point. And worst comes to worst, we're going to need to do a bond or a loan. to finish the build-up.

What would you guys say that the risk is at this point, high, medium, or low, to do a loan without a loan or without a bond, based on future projects or future development?

For instance, right now, there's a rumor, has not come to commission, that Shoma wants to go higher and wants more density. They have a SAP. I don't know how much higher they want to come. And I don't know how much more density they want. But I'm going to hit him with a third hit as well. If you get more density and build more units, I need either workforce housing or in lieu of workforce housing, which is financing money. So he has come up with money, which I did not include in my calculations yet. I don't know how much I have to hit him with because I don't know what he is proposing. So I'm stuck in a vacuum right now. or I can't tell you. The max that I will see that we will have to borrow towards the building, I mean, a gross figure, gross calculation is going to be $10 million.

So it sounds like it's at least the medium risk that it will require the loan.

At this point, if you're forcing me to answer you, we will require a loan of some sort. I don't think that we can, I hate to say, finagle the money, you know, by hitting this one, that one, and that one. But I also have been able to obtain one of our developers to, if we need, to lend us the money against future FOM taxes. How much? I don't know. That discussion has not taken place, nor has it been approved by the commission, by the way. This is my work behind the scenes.

And the other thing that I push to the commission is that as the TV jobs become less available, the value goes up. So right now, what was 150?

Right now we have only eight. We're selling at 160,000, I think it is, for waterfront. 150. 150 for waterfront and everything is waterfront. And we only have eight left.

But we'll get the ones from this.

We have to get it from somebody.

Right. 40 something there. It's what I'm saying.

We're talking about actuals.

Yeah. But what I'm saying is those are going to be worth 200,000. Because there is no more. There's no more waterfront to be built anywhere.

So what they're doing now is they're buying lots. And basically they're knocking down buildings and building the lots. Recently, the two old buildings across from Mobile Park were closed. So I know that he'll be interested in getting a little bit more height and getting more TDRs. And, I mean, the way to get extra height is with TDRs. But I cannot count on it because, you know, he just closed. You know, he just closed. Yeah. But all this will be happening pretty much at the same time.

And you got to Colette a lot.

A lot, which I have a meeting with Jeffrey upcoming.

Yeah.

Yeah. Which, by the way, Elad, which is an empty parking lot next to 360. Mm-hmm. The gentleman that purchased that property has become the joint venture partner of Ranvita. The Ranvita is now actively pursuing their plans to move them forward, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, to build. So these are all individuals that will be heading up for a community contribution, et cetera. How much am I going to pay them? I don't know. Depends the size of the building. Depends how conversations go. I mean, I already have one. I'm on the hit list for Shoma. He doesn't like me anymore. What the hell? I'm not buying an apartment.

Then you have the lot we met with people the other day for the Roy Abrams.

Yeah. That he's interested on the three floors. Is that not coming? And Mariano Purchases, who lost, it goes from closed. I'm not sure where Seabay bent, but it was supposed to close at the end of January.

And the place next door, the North Face.

That goes together with Seabay. Yeah. So, listen, they're going up.

I don't want to stop happening. It's going to be a big change and it's going to be such a benefit for the village residents, especially in single family homes. The infrastructure has to be rebuilt. Our water, our sewer is just, we're hanging on by a thread. We just got out of a moratorium with the sewer. We only buy a little bit of timeline in those pipes. They're going to have to be replaced. And so who's going to pay for that? the taxes hopefully off of these buildings, not having to come to the people that are already here and say, hey, listen, we got to raise the millage. We want to lower the millage. We want to, from these taxes that are coming, the commission wants to start getting the benefit of this tax money coming in to the people that live here. Bring that millage down. I mean, when you look at some of these places, very affluent, they're at 2.5, under three mil. We're what, 5.7? Yeah.

One mistake we made as a commission, and I was on that commission, which was the prior one, was we passed the $16 million bond for stormwater. We should have increased the bond and made it infrastructure. You know, we're digging the hole for stormwaters. We might as well dig the hole for the water sewer

You only want to dig it once.

And now we have to figure out what it is that we need for infrastructure and go back to the voters and say, I need more money. You know, it's a hard one. Yeah.

Well, the first project that we're going to do in North Bay Island, we're going to taste of what we find when we get into that ground. Because when we go and do those deep water injection wells, we may have to move that sewer line. I would go around. Sewer lines have got to be always flowing downhill, always flowing downhill. So does that mean we're going to have to put in another pump station? You know, you just don't know what we're going to find when we get into the street. And, you know, it's going to be challenging. That's starting with 12, right? What? 12 million. Yeah. That one project is 12 million. water projects, small men and all.

Well, one island, or part of one island.

Part of one island. Part of one island. And that's why that other park that's up in the corner is where the other one's going.

It's not my part of the island. So I'm not benefiting from it.

Yeah. Yeah. And the sea walls are another issue coming. Mm-hmm.

Sea walls is a very difficult project because at least in North Bay Island, all the sea walls are owned by the property owners.

Yeah. But I'm assuming that the new development happening on North Bay Island, they will take care of the sea walls then at the start?

There is very little development taking place on the waterfront side of North Bay Island.

On Treasure Island. On Treasure Island, they're going to be required to raise the sea wall.

Treasure Island, yes, and Harbor Island as well. Yeah. But North Bay Island, which is a single family home below. This one, there's no... Oh, yeah, I saw that.

Yeah, so this one and this one, the developers are going to have to buy it.

Now, we have a lot of homeowners in North Bay Island that own waterfront properties that cannot afford a seawall. So we have to work out a deal where we will front them the money somehow after we do all our construction and spend all our money. We have to rebuild the kitty. You know, what are we going to work on? Because you can't wash them. You have to give them some enticement to re-globe or otherwise knock down and it's going to go under the water.

Yeah. It's an infrastructure project when you look at it because those seawalls, you know, some people argue that live not on the water. Well, that's And so, and the other thing is you don't want a haphazard seawall situation. So when we look at the place, it looks like this guy did this, this one did this, this one did, you know, we need to have, so it looks like it should look. You don't want to have different years because of longevity. One guy wants to do sheet piles, another one's going to do this. And we'd like to do, have a living seawall on all these seawalls so that

The good thing is the seawall that's being built right now in North Bahama, because there's one home or one lot that's getting a seawall built, is doing a living seawall. Yeah. Which is one of the homes that has built the house you're looking at.

Yeah. And we give a benefit, a tax benefit, a permit benefit on that for doing a living seawall. And what is that? There's a percentage, I don't remember what it is, but a percentage off of the planet. If you know what the living seawall is.

A living seawall, seawalls are normally smooth. This living seawall has grooves in it, which allows for grass to attach to it, living... organisms to hatch there. You can create the hives that they reform and bring the bay back to.

Or the ecosystem. We have in the, on Vogel Park where we did the police boat dock and all that, that uh the lady who's chair of the uh alicia alicia graham alicia graham has gone out and got a grant to do a living seagull on our seagull there by the police boat and uh when you look at uh whole end is going to be a living seawall around. Who else? Some people like this guy. Some people want a seawall, and so is Pagani is doing a living seawall behind there. They've already got the new seawall in, but they're going to put, so you do like the regular seawall, and then this is a facade that is installed over that that has all the materials and stuff for the organisms and things to grow. It's going to be exciting. The village is going to change. The next four or five years will be the beginning of the dramatic change. And then in 10 years, it'll be a different place.

With all the buildings that are going up and everything else, it's going to have a totally different look. Yeah. And the good thing also is since most buildings are taking place in Harbor Island, Harbor Island has been found to have the best consistency for the pilings. So we will not have the sinking problem that's out there in Sunny Isles.

Yeah. And I mean, even how things would look in the single family home sections, I see now most of the new ones that have been built on Treasure Island are even three stories. So that's also changing. The ugly boxes? Yeah. Everything in the box.

We thought in the McMansions.

Well, actually, there is one on West Treasure Drive. That one looks a bit different. The new, the very modern one?

The one with the archer? Yeah, that one.

That one will not be so boxy.

Yeah, it's got arches and it's got a bit of a design. Is that the one that has two lots? No, it's one lot. It's one lot. I haven't walked down that area in a little bit. All right.

Any more questions? You want to hear about freebie? Oh, yeah. It's open discussion, so we can do that.

Yeah, we'll do that on four. New business, open discussion.

All right, so we're talking about transportation. Yes. We have freebie just now. We're talking about getting a second freebie and extending that. We're going to extend the hours. We can do that on the money that we receive from the CITT. We have any transportation tax. But we're also looking at trying to get a circulator bus back. We had a circulator bus. Yeah, we did. It had frogs on it. It was called the Highland Hopper. You hopped on and hopped off. And it had a couple of frogs hopping or something like that.

It was like a 20 passenger bus. Okay.

Yeah. And it traveled a regular route through all of the islands. And then it would take people to Publix. And then on Wednesdays, we would take people either to Midtown, take them there at 10 o'clock, drop them off. And they stayed there at the shopping center. We'd pick them up at 2. You know, they got out. Especially for some of the elderly people, it was a nice venue. They used it in my building. And then we would take them up to Aventura. Drop them off there, 10 o'clock. Pick them up at 2 o'clock. And we did that on Wednesdays. And it was just a nice thing to have. And then went away. I don't know why it happened, but it did.

The mayor is looking to potentially extending the trolley services from the beach into the village as well. That would be awesome. Yeah, because the trolley doesn't start until... The trolley only comes here right now for special occasions.

I was going to say, because I've never seen the trolley on the island.

It does come here.

When they have the crawls, when they have something at the bandshell or a special event, they come over and they get it. But when we've met with the beach and to do it by their plan, we have to have two trolleys. And the cost would be to do that on a regular basis, $1.4 million a year. And all it does is run on the cost rate.

How about the little froggy bus?

Now, if we do the little froggy bus, we can travel throughout all the islands. So people, you know, it's pretty close. You can step out in a lot of places, maybe walk a half a block and you can get picked up. You can't take them to the trolley stop in Normandy Isle. That's right. And so that's what I say, rather than have the trolley come like that and people having to walk up to the causeway, if we have the bus, we can make that. And that's what we did. We would go over Normandy, drop them at that trolley stop right there. And now they ride the trolley throughout the beach for nothing.

It would be the same thing as Miami Beach extending the trolley to turn on one of our islands. It would be the same thing.

The problem is what they call the head end or something. The way they run their trolley system is they want the trolleys to be no more than 20 minutes apart. So to keep that going and for us to be a part of that, it takes another couple of trolleys to do it. And yet they're only going to come up the causeway, turn around and go back out the causeway. And I'm saying, you know what? Our circulator can drop them off there. They still get the advantage of pickup in 20 minutes. And that's the way we used to do it. And so anyway, the commission will decide. I had a meeting today with Vice Mayor Cook. and the Miami Beach people and we talked about a lot of different options and I offered to them instead of us having a 20-minute wait what if we just had the trolley come and it would be maybe twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon and we knew when that window was going to be and if people wanted to go up there and get it we wouldn't be part of that 20-minute thing But if you knew the trolley was going to come between 10 and 1030, you'd be up there and the trolley was going to come by. That was a thought, too, to try to bring that cost down. Because a million four a year, to have that thing come and turn around on the causeway and go back every 20 minutes, I just don't see where the ridership is going to be for the people to be up there all during the day.

And we're also, I mean, at least I have started a conversation with Commissioner Suarez of the beach. As soon as the taxi expands their service right now, they are only going from the beachy park on 21st Street, roughly. The water taxi. The water taxi. They're going back and forth. That's it. They talked about bringing it up to North Beach. I said, well, when you bring it up to North Beach and you start the conversation, please include us because we need

and he said that he want if we he he gave direction to staff to look at the phase two to include North Bay Village in the phase first it has to pass phase one yeah no you're right but they they're getting a huge ridership on it uh tourists right well the boat show we'll see what the boat show they'll have a large tourist uh

But once it's over, we'll see what happens. So we don't know if it's going to be successful. And last but not least, another project that we're working on is a vertiport.

That was discussed today, too. What's that? What did you discuss it today with? With the beach.

Beach doesn't have a vertiport? No.

But the point was when we were talking about getting the water vaccine, you said that would be another destination. Absolutely. To go to the vertiport.

The VertiPort is an electric vehicle, E.T. Vols, that carry four passengers plus a driver. They do vertical ascends and descends. They're very quiet. It's like a mini helicopter for those that are familiar with helicopter rides in New York. We had a meeting with, and I say we because we both went, Uh, with the Miami commissioner, uh, the County commissioner that handles the, the, uh, Marina where the fire station is. Once we move it to our site, that is empty space. We have room for four docks and a landing strip. There is no cables. There's no construction. There is no buildings to block the vehicle or the ones from the vehicle from coming down. So we're trying to build the Vertiport in a joint venture. Actually, it's a Triple P private partnership with somebody that's going to be paying for the actual building of the Vertiport. North Bay Village getting a piece of the action because we found the site and we've been working the site for the last two years very quietly. And Miami-Dade County because it's their property. So we're in that New era of the Jetsons. And I didn't want to be left out by the beach or Miami by them having it and us not having it. So that's been talked about and is being worked on as well. But that's a little bit of a long range.

Joe Robbie Stadium is looking to have one there. So people will come to the stadium on that. They're already planning on putting them at Miami International Airport.

Two at Miami International Airport, one at at Julia Tuttle at the Watson Island, where the blimp station used to be. We're looking to see how we can connect with Ken Griffith for his Brickell location. The executive airport, that's all in the county. And then moving it out to Fort Lauderdale. I mean, there's other sites in Fort Lauderdale working on this.

FDOT is becoming a big player with the vertiports because it Their transportation, everybody thinks just about the roads. But the governor has tasked them with now we want to get so we can get to Orlando from Miami. That's what they'd like to have, is to be able to travel that distance. And so it's going to be a new mode of transportation that's going to come.

It's a new mode of transportation, he says. When I was in Tallahassee talking about VertiForge, I met with Jay Collins, who's now our deputy governor there. And what he's talking about is using it from the shipping containers that want to transport into the city. They can transport into 79th Street. You can have trucks pick up this stuff and they'll go wherever it slows by or vice versa. From here, they get transported to the Port of Miami. So we have had some good traction. We had a meeting with Keon Hardeman. We're waiting a couple more weeks to touch him to see what he'd like to meet again or where we stand. But that will not happen until we have the fire station in its new location. But we have the financing already in place for the actual report. This is when we started to back up.

Yeah, well, I didn't know what it sounded like. It sounds exciting. It all sounds exciting.

I've seen this field already three times.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm just hoping and praying my property value goes up. Yeah, well, that I know.

That's why I'm waiting to sell the location. It all depends what the cost is. I mean, if they would hire, which I believe now they did, the Fort Lauderdale Water Factory people.

Mm-hmm.

The ones that take you for the tour of all those little islands. That's beautiful. That makes shitload of money. So that's profitable. It just depends what it is we have. We started talking with somebody about water taxis. We had several meetings with them. Electrical water taxis. That went nowhere. That fizzled out. The other problem we have is we have no actual marina. where a water vaccine can stop. The only one that's licensed for it right now is Continuum.

Which is good because they'll have restaurants there, they'll have shops.

But that's going to go under construction, so they weren't interested.

No, not now, but it'll come.

So we're looking at all the modes of transportation, basically. Yeah.

Well, we see where the, um, uh, trolley service and the broad bus ends up. I don't know. I mean, I think, I think we do need something. I mean, I have, when I have guests staying over from forever, they normally walk over to Normandy and they catch the free trolley.

Which actually, that free trolley brings you down to other free trolleys, which is nice. Yeah, one day I took it just to see where you go.

You can go to Mid-Beach.

You can go to Aventura. You take the Mid-Beach to South Beach. Then they have the loop one. They have the loop. They have the one that goes all the way south, north.

Yeah.

But Yeah, and it's free.

And I think one of the benefits, even though we talked about cost, I mean, when you know that there is a service every 20 minutes, you may be more likely to take it because you don't need to, you know, okay, I need to be there 10, 30, because it's only 20. No, you're right. It's kind of, in some people's minds, that is... of benefit to them, but for others that may have more time they can plan, then they may be able to just do the two or three or four.

How much money have we got? Exactly.

And how many would use the 20 minute service versus like, you don't know.

The studies that Beach has done is that if you go beyond the 20 minutes, get close to half an hour, the ridership drops off. People don't want to wait half an hour. No. 20 minutes, they can tolerate. Because generally, you don't get up there just when a bus left. So you get up there and now the most you're going to have to wait is 20 minutes. But it may be pendant.

You don't need the timing.

You can just go. You can just go. But like I say, that's 1.4 million.

We use the Island Hopper to transport in the morning to downtown Miami to where the Omni is. Yeah. For them to be able to take the

Yeah, the metro.

Metro. To go wherever they wanted to. I call it as it is. And pick them up at 5 o'clock in the afternoon and bring them back.

Yeah. But would a new frog hopper be able to match the 20-minute to just take people from here every 20 minutes and drop them off at the normal place?

Well, it's like It was just running the islands here. I mean, it came around pretty regularly because they had a route that they did. So when you talk about having to, you know, at the next meeting, I can bring the route that we had before, which we'd probably try to replicate again because it was pretty good. And, you know, you didn't have to walk very far to get it. I mean, it was pretty available and it came around. And we also had, parents that had, we picked up their kids from school. We brought them to their house from Treasure Island. They signed up for that. They had the program and the bus would come by and they'd get on and we'd take them right to their home.

With the new community? I think you're right.

You might need two hoppers then.

Or a bigger hopper. We had two. We did have two.

And were they sold or did they break down or did they just disappear? I went away. They disappeared? I went away first and then you went away. And then when you guys came back, they were gone?

Until my wife, I feel like Rip Van Winkle. I came back and it was like, it was just like it was when I left. I said, what the hell did they do? How long did you go for? I was going for what, five or six years? I left in 2018.

And I was gone for four.

And I came back and I said, oh, man, we're starting all over again. At least... We definitely would have been. Let me tell you that. But listen, it is what it is. And we got a good commission that works and is realistic and is... You know, I don't say that because he's here. But... But they're more future-oriented than what we had when I was here before. We had the opportunity to buy, grow by the bed. Right? Eight million. Think about that. When? In 2017. Okay.

Eight million.

Eight million.

And I said no.

No.

They sat on it. They didn't act on it. And then how many millions is it today?

How did you buy Sakura? I told you about Sakura. We found Sakura when Janice, who's now back with us, we were coming out of, well, we came out of, I know, but we came out of Harbor Island and the guy was putting up the sign that Sakura allowed. Denise, give them a call.

I was off the commission already. Better call them.

We captured that lot. And, you know, if we could, you know, if, you know.

I learned very quickly, any space that's available, you try to get.

Yeah.

We had no space. We had Schaumburg Park, and then luckily we had Vogel Park. That's it. And then City Hall, they converted it into a park.

That's where we had it. We had a city, when I left, we had a city hall design ready to go on where the dog park is. With the fire station right there coming out, just where it was before. And they made it a dog park. I said, put the dog park over on the Sakura lot. And now we got a rectangular lot that we can, and we had a seven story with parking garage, fire station down below, police station up above the fire station. That died. You got, you know, for people to be in his position, they need to have vision.

Yeah, but is that why there are traffic lights?

That's why traffic light was for a fire station, you know.

That's why. That's why, because I'm always wondering why all the time.

That's why it doesn't make sense. Fire station would be able to hit the button and change it and get out. Right. Live and learn.

Yes. All right.

Any more questions on transportation?

No. We're good. We see the future. See us unfolding by air now. Yes. All right. Thank you for that update. I do have one other open discussion item that I wanted to bring up. And since we have Mikey here. And we were talking about the audit, the 23-24 audit and the 24-25 audit. Right. Just super high level. What is kind of the outcome of an audit for a governmental audit? I have been...

Normally it starts, it ends by June. You start early March. And by June, you should have an audit finished.

And what do they give you? Is it like an opinion about your financial statement? They give you an opinion. Do they talk about risks? Do they talk about something you need to remediate? Or what's the output?

The financial book, it has history of the village. It has a letter from management, a letter from the auditors on their opinions on the numbers.

Yeah.

The opinion on if we're doing something wrong, it's a finding and it's trouble.

Basically, the document that you will get a copy of, I can't remember the new name. The old name is the CAFR. CAFR. The name is the annual financial report. Certified annual financial report. That's what they give you. By a CPA. Yeah. It's a book that you get. And basically, it has past history, has present history. It compares the year that you're auditing with past years. Ten years. You see all that in the book. I mean, you can go into the weeds as deep as you want. The important part for me is the findings. Findings is what errors or what improvements do they see that city has to do not finance this is not a judgment of finance it is making sure that finance has done their role of course but that the city is working correctly whether it's hr whether it's another department always implies finance because finance is the one that does the payments they audit every department yeah

They've been with every director.

But the findings, there's recommendations.

Of course, there's minor findings and major findings.

They have findings, and the other lower is observations. So an observation is not as critical, but a finding is something that you need to address and you need to correct, and they look for that finding to be clear.

And you have to respond what your plans are before the audit is finished on going forward with correcting.

Yeah. And those are only with the findings, right? Only the findings. The other ones are kind of like a warning.

Well, we're going to get out. Observation. Observed.

You did it wrong here. We're going to get a finding this year. We're late and then we're going to get 24. So that's going to be a finding.

That's already a finding.

But let's be realistic. by submitting it 23-24. You know, we did it. Or we're in the process of doing it.

We're 50% through it already. And the auditors are promising a draft by the end of February. We also requested an extension with JLAC through the 29th because that's when the conversation began with the new auditors. It began, okay, yeah, you'll have an audit by the 28th of February. Now they're new. This is their first year with us. So they're asking for the world. They want to see everything, which I don't mind, but it's a lot of work. And for them, too, to go through everything, everything, everything.

One of the rules about auditing is that we must change auditors every three years. A new set of eyes. By the third year of the audit, the auditor is already used to you, knows the tricks you do, knows the... Right, and then the fourth year you start like... You need a new set of eyes.

Some of them just change the manager and leave. It's still the same company, but a different auditor. This year, it's a new company completely. New set of eyes looking at Everything the way the other company did it, the way they do it. Some of the questions are the same on narratives that they want, but a lot of extra more detail that they're asking for.

Now in benefit of this new firm that we hired, I will say the manager of your auditor is the former chair with this board for two sessions.

Okay. Yeah.

So he knows the village well.

Yeah. He resigned from the board because.

He had to resign from the board. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Ventress. Yeah.

And the auditor that I have here, Elias, he used to be with the other firm, and he moved over to CBIS.

Oh, okay. So he said, you know. CBIS was Markham.

I'm on that one.

CBIS was Markham.

Markham LLP.

That's where Nick, our former chair, used to... Talking about me or another Marco? No, no Marcos.

Marcum. Oh, okay. Sorry, sorry. Do you like some pizza? Oh, I wish, I wish. Trust, trust me.

So now Markham was purchased by C-Viz. There is, I don't think there's a, yeah, there was one local firm that bid on, because we have five bids, I think, for the contract. One was a local firm and the other four are really national firms with local offices.

Yeah. Okay.

So they're, they're working. We're working. I mean, weekends it's, I've been on, if I'm not here, I'm on the phone at home, laptop, I went home Friday, forgot my charger. And I go, oh my God. And then I'm taking care of my granddaughter yesterday because I just had a new grandbaby. And she got an allergic reaction. So I had to, we had a meeting at two o'clock, at three o'clock with the auditors. And I'm trying to log in from my phone to be at the call. And in the hospital, they had no reception. So I said, oh, I called Janice, please keep me updated. But it was just an update call. We have a call every Monday to see what's missing, what's holding us up. And they've been here for three days, I think, three or four days.

Last week they were here and they came back Monday.

And they'll probably be back the rest of the week. And they're pushing it and we're pushing it, but they're claiming that a draft will be by the 28th of February. And we will be responding. Are we sending a letter to JLAC? They are going to create that.

I'm supposed to see that this coming Monday.

And they have connections with JLAC. They've been working with them for a while. So he says, I don't see a problem in having them hurt you because of that. We'll see with the veteran. Because they find us and they'll take their revenues away or

So I am on the financial oversight board for Opelika, appointed by Governor Rick Scott back in 2016. And I'm still on that. They're still under oversight from 2016. And I've had to go before JLAC several times with presentations. They ask us because I'm on the oversight board. So I review all of their invoices and all of their contracts come to me first. And then I've got a person in the governor's office that I send my stuff to. And then they go through, they have all their accounts and everything, so they see the cash flow, what they're doing. And then he approves them there, he sends them back to me. I approve them, I sign them, and they cannot pay any invoices that don't have my signature on them. So when they do their audits, there's a stipulation from the oversight board that the auditor has to go in and pull invoices like a single audit type thing to see if they've paid any invoices that the board hadn't approved. So it's interesting when you go before JLAC, it's no nonsense. And I was surprised how many municipalities throughout the state are under oversight. Quite a few, but not 10 years.

And even the cities that have not filed their taxes. They're audit. When we got the letter, there's a huge, the mayor was there and they mentioned, okay, the only person, the only city is North Bay Village that got an extension. And she said that in the commission meeting. Because they'll help you as long as you try to help yourself. Get them information.

Let me ask you a question, and we don't have an answer right now, obviously. Is there any way we can bring either Nick or somebody from the firm to give us an update at the next meeting? Sure.

By then, we would have the draft, I guess.

We should have it by the end of February.

The next meeting is in March. Not very detailed, whatever, just superficial, but at least let them know. But I mean, the whole board, the four members of the board and the new one that's coming in next week, none of them have ever seen a gaffer.

No, no, I'll bring them in. And Nick lives around here, so it shouldn't be that long. No, that's fine. Even Elias, I mean, he's a pretty cool guy. He's fine, too. But Brandon is fine, too.

Brandon is the boss. Yeah, he's the boss.

But he's the one that's going to be calling daylight. Well, he's the one that was the one.

Yes. That's the one he worked with in suicide. Yeah, I worked with him for years in suicide.

No, but we'll have it. And they'll give us an opinion. And one of them is yesterday. I've also talked to them about rolling right into 25 to see if we can try to make that one by June. I mean, that's what I'm asking for.

Well, they say they can do it at that Monday meeting.

Yeah.

We'll wrap this one up.

And start. We'll be able to come in and start right on.

Right. And that way, that'll be done by June. Hopefully. And that won't be late.

Great. Do you have any other questions? No, no, no. I'm hungry again. I'm going to have to start eating dinner again.

Well, thank you for that update, Mike. Any other questions for Mike on audits and food space? uh if no other open discussion items uh staff commission ladies and updates anything yeah any public comments anyone on the zoom meeting marco you have any comments

Are you still with us? Or did you run out to go get pizza?

I do not have any comments. I'm sorry that I was not able to make it in person, but thank you for everything.

No worries.

Marco, I want to see you at the next meeting.

I will. In person. I definitely will.

I do like it in person. Yeah. We did our board meeting starting on Zoom, and we used to always have it in the community room. I like, you know.

Yeah. It's a different touch. Yeah. All right, no public comments. Agenda items for next meeting, March 10. I think we've already talked about then to see how we could review the letter 4.3.4 with the auditor. Anything else that comes to mind?

We'll do another update, I guess, on the... We will not have anything to do with Village Hall, this commission meeting, except the approval of funds from the planning department. there's really no financial movement on us.

Yeah, in the village, how about the community center? Our community center is moving quite fast, so you may... Maybe next month it will be like... It's done.

Actually, I don't know how much time you folks have individually. We are trying to work. The mayor has already brought it up. She has created a new committee. It is not an advisory board. It is a committee. The groundbreaking activities, the groundbreaking and we will be discussing it at the next commission meeting yeah 17th choosing the people for it so if any of you are interested in it's the 17th of this month yeah next Tuesday you know but if you're interested please contact Alvin let her know to add your name to it yeah it's on it's on our website or whatever she puts it on all the social media yeah So, you know, if you're interested, if you're not interested or you're busy doing other stuff, you know, we understand. That's one of them. Personally, I'm not going to be involved in that one. Marco, you want to miss a couple of heat games? Sorry, you were saying something, Richard? We're creating a new committee, but you have to decide by next Tuesday. We're having a new committee? A new committee for the groundbreaking of the communities, not groundbreaking, ribbon cutting of the community center. Grand opening. The grand opening. They're planning the grand opening. If you're interested in participating in that committee, you need to let Alba know before Tuesday's meeting. Okay, perfect. Thank you.

Thank you.

If any other suggestions on agenda items, I guess we'll just email with Alba. Yes.

Yes, you can do it that way. Or we can also add them at the beginning of the meeting. I mean, I try to do the meetings as easy flowing. We've got some items tonight. It doesn't have to be so formal as a commission meeting.

Cool. I can make the motion to adjourn. Absolutely. Motion to adjourn. I second it. At 8.09. Thank you.

Thank you for coming.

Thank you for coming. The other item I will add to the agenda, since we're going to have a full committee meeting, because Marco's going to be the president, and we have the other gentleman or lady that's going to be joining the board, is the choosing of secretary. Nice. Yes, that would be nice. you're sharing your vice chair. But basically, it's something. I think it's transcribed, right?

Yes.

It's printing something. Yeah, I think that's AI. AI.

Which is actually pretty well.

This one's empty. This is a whole one here. There we go.

So next one will be the Zoom. Yes, Frank. And just for your knowledge.

Thank you, Johnny. In towards October, I believe it is.

We have a-