Village Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay.

Good evening, everybody. I'm Mayor Rachel Streifeld, and I'm going to call this meeting of the North Bay Village Commission to order. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? Commissioner Acosta.

Commissioner Cervone. Present. Commissioner Nadaro. Present. Vice Mayor Cook.

Present.

Mayor Streifeld.

I'm here as well. Let's all stand and do the Pledge of Allegiance. Okay, for the order of business, we are going to move the two zoning items to the very top of the agenda before we do anything, essentially, because our land use council, Mr. Ressio, has to brave traffic down south to get to another meeting. So that means that items, what are they, Tony? 14C and 14L. 14C and 14L.

14B, C. C is in Cat, L is in Larry.

Okay, so 14C and 14L are going to be heard at the top. folks who are members of the public just bear with us as we have this conversation about zoning. We just need to get our attorney out of here and on his way. And then we are going to come to our discussion about the village's solid waste services. That will be 14A. We're going to hear that after we hear 14L. And then I had one more request and this came from the public to move Commissioner Darrow's Island Walk Update 14F. We're gonna move that up as well. So at the very, very top, Before we do our reports, before we do consent, we're gonna take 14C, 14L, 14A, and then 14F. Does anyone have anything that they wanna pull from consent or is there any other change in the order of business that any member of the commission would like to speak up?

Madam Mayor, I found two items that are sponsored by you for discussion. Are they included in the agenda already? State Bill 1682 and December Vessel Noise Ordinance.

Yes, so these came in on Friday morning, the requests.

You want to add them to the agenda?

They are to be added to the agenda. Yes, we will be adding two new discussion items to the agenda. One is the vessel noise ordinance at the county commission. The other is a code enforcement empowerment bill that's going through the state legislature. So that would be 14 M and N.

And those are on the dais. There's copies of them.

If you are going to be discussing those, I'd like to add House Bill 1001 also to the agenda, which is the anti-DEA.

The anti-DEA?

Yes.

DEI.

DEI. It's called the anti-DEA, to be exact. I'll give you the exact name. Anti-DEA and local government by Representative Black, House Bill 1001, and Senator Yorba, Yorba Boros, State Bill 1662.

All right, if Council could pull up the legislation and be prepared to discuss new item 14-0, then we'll have it ready. Thank you, Commissioner.

Okay. Anyone else? I would like to pull out a consent, 11F, 11H.

One second, please.

in 11, F and H. I will also like if possible to move up 14D as the person who's going to be here for that. It's not able to attend, but can be here via Zoom. I guess whenever he logs in, if we can hear that part out. Do we know when the panel representative is logging in? I asked them that. I'm waiting for them.

I am already logged on.

I'm not sure if you can hear me. Hello. Okay. We're going to, it's going to be a little while. We've got some real meaty concerns that there are many members of the public are here to speak and the commission's got a lot of questions for staff. Absolutely.

Take your time and I'll be here.

Back in an hour. I explained to him his work. Okay. All right. And then I would like. But yeah, we can. I'm perfectly fine to move it up. I appreciate it. And also 14E, I would like to actually move that to next month's agenda. I think we have a lot to discuss today that can wait. Yeah.

Okay. 14E. 14E.

Are you fine to have that conversation in March? I am as well. Thank you.

Other than that, everything else is handy. Thank you so much.

Mayor? Yes. So items 14C and L will be after item four, open forum?

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

We're definitely going to do open forum at the beginning.

14A, there is a meeting after this meeting in March with the single family homeowner. Should we move that one to March also?

Absolutely not. There's members of the public here. I want staff to present their research. I want the commission to be able to engage with staff's research. We had a workshop on this, but it was not well attended. And I don't feel like the substantive conversation at the workshop was anywhere close to what it needs to be for us to make an informed decision about this. And certainly we wanna hear from our residents. So what I think the best thing to do is, and I'm just gonna propose this, for us to hear the presentation, engage with staff, listen to what our residents have to say tonight, and then we can take a vote in March. if we decide we're ready to vote in March. But I don't see the need for us to vote here tonight. I think we need to get more feedback, especially if there are other meetings that have been scheduled. And I certainly have reached out to some neighbors and said I was available to meet. So that's what we can do.

I mean, getting emails is just meeting a storm.

Yeah, no, of course. And that's good. That's good. I'm glad that people are engaging. Okay. Anything else to be pulled from consent? Okay. All right. So... We're gonna do open forum, and then we're gonna do 14C, 14L, 14A, 14F. We'll check back about paddle, and then we'll move on to the rest of the meeting. 11F and 11H will be heard after the consent agenda. Can someone move the revised order of business? Is there a second? Second? All right, Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Commissioner Acosta? Yes. Vice Mayor Cook?

Yes.

Commissioner Cervone. Yes. Commissioner Adaro. Yes. Mayor Streiffel. Yes. It's unanimous.

Okay. We don't have any presentations or proclamations, which is a little bit strange, but it's great for you all. Cause now we're going to get right to the business of why you're here. Okay. So for the open forum, I think I want to, if you have a public comment to make that is about anything other than the village's solid waste services, now is the time for public comment. But if you're here to tell us about public works, solid waste, trash pickup, hold your comments because i'm going to give you an opportunity to make public comment and ask questions after staff makes their presentation so does anyone have public comment about anything other than our trash pickup service yes sir please tell us your name and your address

I still remember the protocol. Mario Garcia, 360. You want the apartment also? All right, so just in order to clarification and thank you, Madam Mayor and respectable commissioners, the manager, the rest of the staff for the opportunity for me to hear me out. However, my comment is on the Baywalk number. So respectfully, if I can wait to make the comments until then, or make it now out of respect of the lawyer's time that he needs to go, would that be possible?

I think go ahead and make your comments now on that item.

Thank you. So I'm not against the Baywalk and the dream. I mean, I was around probably when this thing surface and I think it's a phenomenal idea. So in no way, shape or form, am I against that? However, there's a timing issue. there's a lot of accesses to places that lead to nowhere. I understand that on the east side, the west side of the east side, there's new buildings coming up and that would be easy to connect to the motor and giving our residents something to walk around and something to do. In the 360 is not that way at all. If we allow access now, with no other, how do you say, destination, it leads to nowhere. So it's not that we're against it. We want to see something done with how you're going to connect and when is this going to happen. Because I'm not against it. I think it's a beautiful dream. I was in favor of then, and I'm in favor of now. However, due to safety reasons, opening up access to our property is going to lead to a lot of other things where insurances, where crime, you know, even when we had that terrible accident, the guy who killed those three people ran into our building. So it's not that we're okay, nothing's going to happen. So we're afraid that if you force us to open up leading to nowhere is gonna create a whole bunch of problems for us. However, when the plan finally comes up, there's a lot of questions that we need to answer. Like how do you connect the Grand View to the Bridgewater? I have no idea. I mean, if you look at the overpass is very low. So you would have to extend into the ocean and who knows how far is gonna complicate things. Now, from the Palms to Channel 7, that's going to be beautiful. People are going to be able to walk around, go to a restaurant, go to stores and things like that. I can see that concept. However, I've studied our area and have no idea how you guys are going to pass by all the marinas. How are you going to connect one building to the other? And that's a dream that needs to be answered. And then we will give access to people to come through our property to go somewhere. Thank you.

Thank you for coming and thank you for your comments. Does anyone else want to make public comment? Come on up. Pilar, if you want to make a public comment, come on up.

No, let me know if I can do it now or if I have to wait. Is it about trash pickup? Part of it, yeah. But it's also about communication in general. So I could do it now or I could do it later.

If you want to make a comment about communication now, I'm happy to hear it.

The part of waste management and communication are together.

Why don't you hold off then? Okay. All right.

Hi, my name is Ashley Litwin-Diego. I live at 1431 Stillwater Drive in Miami Beach. I'm here today just to introduce myself. I'm running for State House 106, which includes North Bay Village. I have been a Miami Beach resident and a Surfside resident for the past... 20 years. I love North Bay Village. I love watching what you guys have done, seeing as you've done your development and all the wonderful things you've done for the environment. And I just wanted to introduce myself. I'm here to answer any questions. I will be around going to events, meeting different people. And that was it. I just wanted to say hello.

Welcome, neighbor. Thank you. Thank you. mayor uh we do have a request for mr gill would you like to speak now mr gill or do you want to speak about trash it's about trash okay so we'll we're going to wait and do the presentation and then hear resident comments okay Okay. All right. The reason that I think it's important to hold off on the comments until we hear the presentation is because again, there was a lot of information that was presented and we're all, you know, we were all hearing it for the first time at the workshop. I think it's important for you all to hear it as well. And then obviously we're more than welcome, more than looking forward to hearing what you have to say. So is there anyone else who wants to make a comment about anything else? Okay, I'm going to close the public forum then. And we're going to have Steve Buckland, our public works directors here. But Frank Wollison is going to introduce this discussion, I think, right? We're doing zoning first. I'm so sorry. I'm seeing all these people and how eager they are to do this. Okay, all right. Let's quickly get through the zoning items. 14C.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll be very quick. Just walk you through. And please feel free to cut me off if it gets too long. I'm going to share a quick PowerPoint. And by the way, Andy Dolkart, is on the line i see him in case you have any questions but this is regarding the community contribution fees this is the discussion item regarding that um so i just want to walk you through how how the proposal the proposed fee works and how it differs from what we have so uh we have two types of bonus in the village uh there's a height bonus in rm70 and there's a density bonus in t6 The height bonus in RM70, the base height allowed is 150 feet. You can increase up to 240, and then there's a further increase, but only when you buy TDRs. The density bonus in T6, you start at 70 units per acre. There are two levels of bonus available, one to get to 120, another one to get to 150. The height bonus, how we pay it is for every 10 feet of bonus building height approved by the village commission. The developer placed $750 per residential dwelling unit. That's a straight formula. Okay. The gave you an example of how this, this works for Pagani at 7940 West drive, applying this, this formula, uh, They have 70 units. They went up to the 312 foot maximum. So what they pay for is the 150 to 240 feet, which is 90 feet of increase. So the formula is real simple. 750 times their total number of units for every 10 feet of increase. So they had 70 units, 750 by nine. That's a total of $472,500. Okay. That's the way the bonus currently applies. Okay. With a density bonus, it's even similar formula. It's just $20,000 per additional unit. Okay. Yep.

Yep. Sorry. So as you talk through this, I just like want to distill it. So that's less than a half a million dollars for them to get all of the height they needed to get all of the density that they needed to make their project work. A half a million dollars is nothing. It's nothing. So as we talk about changing this fee structure, like that perspective is important. And, you know, it's my opinion, but I think, you know, the market would tell you half a million dollars to do the Pagani development is nothing.

Please continue. That's helpful context. So now the density bonus. Again, it was 70 units per acre. You can bonus up to 150. And the formula is $20,000 per unit. Okay? That $20,000 is to give you a formula of the continuum project. 547 dwelling units. Of those, there were 292 bonus units. Okay? They paid $20,000 per unit. that gives a total of $5.8 million, okay? But they're getting 292 units out of this. So now let's compare how that, The policy that Andy and Rob Curtis looked at for the commission was based on a policy of developers' rights being a function of land, the size of the land and the zoning and what it allows. And it starts from a position of that the air rights are a community asset. that belong to the village and are being shared, you know, are being given to the developer. That's the kind of the basis for this, okay? So what's the formula? Well, it's a bonus, in order to figure out the fee, it's bonus square footage whatever you're bonusing, times the land value divided by the base, by the base floor area that you would get. So it's basically you're establishing a price per square foot of what you can build and then multiplying that by whatever the bonus is. Okay, so now let's look real quick as to what that ends up mean. This is how you would establish the land value. We can get into those specifics later or go back to that. But we're gonna do an example, $25 million land value. Let's say you get 200,000 square feet. You can bonus 50,000. That's just to show you how the formula would work, okay? But we're gonna apply it to the two examples that we gave you, okay? So go back to Pagani. We're doing the height. The land value, okay, and this is just according to the property appraiser, right? $6.5 million. The average FLR, 6.65 base allowance that results in a square footage of 223 as a base. So you would divide 6.5 by 223 and then multiply that times the 107,000 of bonus square footage. That's all of the floors that they got. So what's the fee? $3 million as opposed to the 472 that we had before. That's the four, yeah, the 472,500. So that's how this would work in practice for that one. Let's look at it with the density. The continuum project, again, another example. Now they have a much higher purchase price because they bought it more recently, $95 million. Their max floor lot ratio is 13. That results in a base allowance of over 2 million square feet. The bonus that they were looking for was 292 units. We used an average of 2,000 square feet per unit. When you apply the fee, you get a $27 million number as opposed to the 5.8. So that's the formula that was proposed and wanted to walk you through those mechanics. And we can answer any questions that you have, but I want to do it quickly.

Okay. The reason that I wanted to have this discussion about the community contribution fee again is because I feel like we sort of rushed through it and didn't come to a decision the last time we talked about it. And it's also because we have this other item, 14L, about a deed restriction. And I know that there's going to be a conversation about density. when we have that conversation about a deed restriction. So the way that I see it, interest in North Bay Village is not going away. There are going to be developers who want to build here. I hear from unit owners at Treasures by the Bay that they're getting calls from developers making offers on their units every single day. If you live on Treasure Island in a single family home, you're probably getting calls every single day with offers on your home. The interest is not going away. We need to recoup more dollars to finish building or to start building our village hall and public safety complex. So in my mind, we should be demanding more money for the value of our air rights as opposed to creating more density, make the density cost more so we don't have to create more density. That is how I think about this. So this is up for discussion. Are people inclined to adopt this fee structure? Does it make you nervous? Are you confused?

Must be. I would love for someone to speak. It's not equitable to all participants and the cost can be prohibitive. If you would have hit continuum with a $27 million fee for just continuum West. So you have to find a formula. I'm not saying the formula we have right now is the perfect formula, but you have to find the formula that works for everybody and it's equitable for everybody. Because if a person has the funds to buy a certain property, they're willing to pay X for that property. Some properties are overinflated right now. So the formula is not going to be workable, but it's going to be prohibited.

I actually think by having a formula, it makes it more equitable than having one-off negotiations about what makes sense. A formula is applied equitably, equally, the same way across all properties. It's just math. It's up to the landowner or the developer to decide what their development program is going to be based on what those fees are. you know, if it was cost prohibitive to do $27 million in 292 units, maybe it's, you know, let's build fewer units. I mean, I don't know, but I think every developer is going to have their own math. They're going to have their own, you know, calculation of what they're building.

With this formula, you're going to see that we're going to revert back to the prior years. where all the properties were undeveloped and unsellable on the causeway.

Yeah. We're seeing high prices, but to sell these is very difficult for these developers, I think, as it is. I mean, we're not seeing any buildings yet. You know, there's a lot in the pipeline. I'm not against putting something out there that is in better interest of the village, but we also have, I mean, what is better interest of the village is making these things happening. And like, you know, The performers, I think, are very tight on these developments. And I wouldn't be, I mean, I'm okay at looking at something again, but what was presented to us right here, I would need a better look if you're saying to, if that was an ask to change our development right now. I mean, was that the discussion?

Yeah, we've been talking about whether or not we are pricing our entitlements the right way. And I tend to think that we're not.

Mm-hmm.

But those that we've approved have been approved under the old rules, not under the new rules.

So whatever has been approved till now is going... by the old rules, the old price. So it's whatever sells from this, whenever we make the decision to accept this formula from this point forward.

Yeah, I mean, that happens with everything. You know, if you got the site plan approved for your single family home on West Treasure Drive before 2021, you can build like a much, much, much bigger house than if you got your site plan approved last year, right? We changed the rules. Local governments do that all the time.

My position is that I do support a fee structure. I believe that a lot of the projects that have been approved, I think there was definitely more room for negotiation. I wanted to get more out of Continuum and several other developments. I think this is an opportunity to raise the bar, raise the amount that we're asking for, and it can be a starting point. But with every project, there's going to be an economic break-even point. As you mentioned, Commissioner Trevone, that if we would have said that to continuum, they would have walked away. But I want to get as close as possible to that economic break-even point. That's what I'd like to do. And I don't think we've done that with a lot of the projects that we've had here in the past. And I think this at least is a starting point. And we can use it to start an open negotiations. And of course, every project is going to be unique. There's some projects that offer unique amenities that residents like, whether it's grocery or more retail or more commercial projects. space, or maybe there's some projects that are in a place where it's not blocking views. So residents aren't as passionate about that project continuing or not. So these are all factors we have to take into consideration and accept the feedback we get from the community when we look at this project per project. But ultimately, I think it's a good way to start negotiations and a good way for us to close the gap on that breakeven point that developers have.

Well, there is the... Let me just start by saying, yes, restructuring is necessary. We have already approved enough as it is. Density is... top concern with the population here in Noza Village. I don't think we even have a clear picture yet given to us by the Village on the population growth and the forecast on units and total units and total buildings. We have a general idea, but I would like to actually see that in actual numbers. So for everything that we have approved to this date, What are we going to be seeing in the next five years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years? So we have a real picture of the growth of the village. The price structure today, better late than never. I do think that it's fair. It's based on appraised value, which is still a very fair value for a property and not based on the potential of the buildable land value. So that alone is breaking some type of you know, help for that developer coming to play in the future. There is, you know, as we talk about in Manameya, you mentioned we will have conversations about this later on. I will express even more on my opinion for the density growth and where is it going, but We have definitely discussed this. We had a presentation about it. This is not a foreign concept for us. And I do think we need to move forward for it and actually look really closely to the math done. I think this is a very great start point for our foundation for the formula. And like I said, I repeat again, this is based on appraised value, which is not the same as sometimes real value based on the construction that we're going to be having for whatever development comes along.

Commissioner, when you say to move forward with this, can you, I mean, I'm still confused about what changes were. So when you say appraised value, what's the changes that we're making?

The formula, for example, is mentioning appraised value, which our attorney mentioned too, that is something that we can still talk and decide exactly the terms of that appraised value. So when you look at the, for example, Pagani, I believe was the example that you used, the appraised value of the property is not necessarily appraised. what you as a realtor would value the property. It's based on the county appraised value, correct?

That was what we used in the example. There's other ways to do it.

That's what I'm saying. There's a formula base here that we're talking about. We're still having structure exactly what that base is going to be. In fact, whether it's going to be based on appraised value or it's going to be based on us doing an actual appraisal, third-party appraisal on that land and then value that math on that.

The proposal that came to you a couple months ago by Andy and Rob was based on a recent purchase price or an appraised value, a separate appraised. We did it based on the property appraiser for this.

So that's not something we still need to make that decision that we run an appraisal.

I mean, at this point, we would need to bring an item back. We don't have the backup of an item. We would have to bring an item back that was well thought out and actually drafted. Code amendments. What would you say, how can we, if we use this formula as the basis to create a starting point for negotiations, and that formula is in our code how do we create room for negotiations still use the formula and not get tagged with arbitrary capricious challenges on our you know challenges on our the way we negotiate development i think yeah i i think it would have to be something along the lines of um you have the formula this is what these these rates cost um but leave room

for the commission to negotiate through a development agreement other public benefits in lieu of a portion of the cost.

There's always room. When a property gets sold for X amount of dollars, let's say Continuum East, they paid $75 million for Shuckers. Does the appraised value goes up to the $75 million or are you going back to the original appraised value when they bought it?

So what was proposed would have been based on the recent sale. So it would have gone up, right? It would be a 75. Yeah.

But if you do the formula today, since they paid $75 million a year ago, it would show the appraised value for that property at $75 million.

We still have to decide that.

Yeah, that's the thing. When we initially heard this item, there was a proposal of how we could calculate the value of the land, but we didn't make a decision. So that's something that we could work through.

All right.

I'm going to move to direct staff to come back with a draft ordinance adopting the community contribution fee that reflects the questions and concerns that were raised tonight on the day. Does someone want to second the motion? I second.

Pardon me. Sorry, one clarification. We can do it by resolution because our fee structure is adopted by resolution. Would you prefer it as an ordinance? No, okay, because you just mentioned the ordinance. So I just want it to be.

We don't need to modify anything in T6. We don't need to do. We don't have to touch the LDR.

I'll double check. I'll look through it. If we do, we'll do it by ordinance. But if not, if we can do it by right, you want it the most efficient way possible. I'm assuming. Thank you.

Okay. So there's a motion in a second.

Any further discussion with that also include a report on the current. We have all of that.

As far as how many units we've approved, we have that information. The second part of your request, which was like knowing what's happening in five years, 10 years or 20 years. I don't know the answer to that. There's someone in this room who does know more than I do, but we don't have the ability. Right. there is there's obviously no we can't no well but anything can change right i mean land can sell entitled projects can sell so for right now yeah what's on the table absolutely staff can get that information within an hour probably within 10 minutes let's give them more time yeah no no i mean they have it prepared okay so there's there's a motion in a second mayor strife yes commissioner yes commissioner no

Commissioner Dorrell? No. Vice Mayor Cook?

Yes.

Motion carries, 3-2.

Thank you. All right, the next item, this is 14L, consideration of deed restrictions on 1601 North Treasure Drive, 1657 North Treasure Drive, and 7560 West Treasure Drive. Who's presenting this item?

happy to walk you through it, if that would be helpful.

I think we're in a public meeting. I was briefed on this. I know what it's about.

Yes. Sure, sure. So I'll explain. So as part of the development, the recent amended development agreement that was approved by the commission for the Sunbeam project, they are conveying several properties to the village. two of those properties are on north treasure drive uh just about a little little south uh would that be south southwest of us um for those properties specifically they are they the development agreement provided that there would be some deed restrictions on their uh committing it to government use or a park And if it's a park or it will be a park, a portion at least, and it will be named Anson Family Park. In preparing the deeds for this, Mr. Anson had proposed and his team had proposed one additional restriction that no building on the property exceed the maximum height as permitted pursuant to applicable zoning restrictions currently in place, which is 45 feet or four stories. So they are seeking to have that, to impose that deed restriction on this. We had received it. We told them we could not agree with it, that it's up to the commission to make that determination. So that's why it's before you.

If there is a need for Mr. Anson and his council to present or answer questions, I'll call you up at that time. Let me just tell you guys sort of what I see. I would like for us to capture the density units from that parcel, which is like 40-something. Once the property is ours, it's our land, the density is not going to be constructed because the park is going to be a park. those 40 whatever number units go into our pool of TDRs, right?

Yes.

What do we need to do as a body to ensure that those density units go into our pool? Do we have to just change the future land use map designation? As soon as it becomes our property.

It's in our kitty.

Okay. Yeah. So we're going to have those 40 something TDRs. The need for a deed restriction comes into play if that property is going to be developed, which it is not. I'm perfectly happy to put in a deed restriction just to give you more certainty, but I don't believe that there is a need for one. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, we're going to capture those density units and then the land is going to be rezoned. We're going to amend the future of Nandy's map. It's going to be public property and it's going to be a park. There's no possibility ever for it to be developed with anything other than a park and certainly not to be developed beyond 45 feet. And am I wrong about that? Is there a need for, if you feel given that, that we still need the deed restriction and I'm happy to do it, I just, I don't see it being necessary.

40 would restrict it to 45 feet anyways, but there was discussion, I think at some point to change this to an RM 70 that we were,

Right. I don't think fictitiously creating new density units is a great idea. I'm actually adamantly opposed to creating new density units just so we can then transfer to another property. From a planning standpoint and from a resident standpoint, I think it's a bad idea. So I would rather just... you know, take title and change the menus map and ensure that it's not going to be redeveloped.

How many TDRs would we obtain from what we call the field? The two addresses.

From the North Treasure Drive site.

So it's just over 40. I believe it's 42. I thought you said 24. No. You had told us 24 earlier. That's how many we had left.

Yeah. So when we did the, so it's 40 units per acre. And there are two properties that make up this.

Just over one acre?

It's just over one acre. It's 32,000 plus 12,800, just slightly over one acre. So it comes out to like 41, 42 units.

And we have eight left, so we would have a total of 48 units right now of TDRs once this property gets deeded to us. Eight left? Yes. Okay. I know we have eight. Okay. That'll be positive. Got it. Okay.

Well, and then there's the one, there's however many, I think it's one unit from 7560 West Treasure, so you're up to 49.

I mean, technically, we're going to count each. Yeah.

Yeah.

Now, if it becomes an RM70, how many TDRs would be obtained in that property?

Bear with me here. 72 units.

It goes from 42 to 72. 32 more units.

30, roughly.

Approximately 30. That's good. Close enough. Now, question. Right now, we're going to get 40 units from that property. We're selling the units at 150, 160, even if we increase it 200,000 each TDR. What are the benefits that he is obtaining in all his properties from And paying in lieu of, and I have asked this question, removing Grove by the Bay.

Removing Grove by the Bay?

According to the deed restriction, he was willing to pay in lieu of for Grove by the Bay. Right. So that's why I'm removing it from the map. You're saying what is the change? All his properties based on the height that we have approved them. There is a price for in lieu of, we have an idea of what can be built there.

He has a special area plan and the workforce housing requirement is in the special area plan. It's outside of the framework of the fees, I think that we calculated, right?

Yeah, it is outside. They are conveying these properties in lieu of those costs or those contributions.

I'd like to compare apples to apples. What's the price?

So what they had before? Well, I can't tell you that because, hang on, let me see if I can tell you that.

How about this, to just expedite this, because we can have a conversation about rezoning to, because I think that's what you are exploring, whether or not you want to rezone to RM70 to capture more density units before it all becomes a park.

not before it becomes a park. I mean, I am, if I need to accept the 40 units and keep it at RM 40, we're never going to build there. It's just going to be a park no matter what. So this deed restriction that's been added is unnecessary in my point of view as well, whether it becomes a 40 or a 70. Yeah, that's what I'm getting at. But I'd like the possibility, if it's not financially feasible for us at a 40, to discuss the RM70. We're short, at least $10 million.

And that's why I wanted to have a conversation about the fees because we are short and I would rather charge more money for density than create more density. To whom? Okay, so let's have this conversation another time and talk just about the deed restrictions tonight. Let's just talk about the deed restriction. I'm perfectly happy to restrict the site to 45 feet. If we need to do that to provide certainty and we can have the rezoning conversation in March.

Well, as long as the rezoning is permitted, once we have the deed restriction in place, I don't care.

They're not, they don't, one would not limit the other.

Okay.

It would limit the actual development on the site, but it wouldn't stop you from rezoning if you needed to rezone.

Okay. So this is a motion to direct staff to agree to the deed restriction that Sunbeam is requesting on the 1600 block of North Treasure Drive.

I thought you had asked to see if there was a must for them. Did they answer that one?

Do you want to please address whether or not it is a must for you, Mr. Anson or his counsel, Ms. Kozlowski?

if you if you know that it does not affect the park is it a must to have that feed restriction uh good evening i'm andy ensign with sunbeam um the question again if it does not affect the height of what's going to be built there we're not selling the property you're not selling the property it's going to be a park And we're going to be selling the TDRs. Therefore, once they're gone, they cannot build any higher than the park. Is this new deed restriction required? This new addition to the deed restriction?

I'm not an attorney, so I can't answer that. But what I can tell you is that by having the deed restriction, we have certainty that The height won't exceed four stories or 45 feet. If there's another commission that came in and changed things back or do whatever they might do, we have no problem with the city putting as many density units or TDRs on the property as you want. We're only concerned about the height.

So 20 years from now, somebody decides to rip up a park and sell it to a developer.

It's just going to be flat land.

Right.

But we saw the two yards away.

Yeah. In the interest of certainty over time and deeds running with the land and not an elected body, I can appreciate that. Do you want to comment on the land use restriction?

Leanna Kozlowski with Shubin Law Group, offices at 100 Southeast 2nd Street here on behalf of Sunbeam. Just the discussion that the council's having tonight about maybe changing the zoning at a certain point in time, that creates some doubt. I appreciate what everyone's saying tonight that there's no intent to build on the site. And so we're just looking for that extra bit of certainty, a few extra words in the deed, which has already been drafted. It's in your packet with that proposed language and we're ready to execute.

Yeah, I'm totally in favor of additional assurances that nothing is going to be built on North Treasure Drive. Well, you can still get your 30 additional density units, even if there's a height restriction. One has nothing to do with the other, I promise you.

Yeah.

I mean, there are three land use attorneys in the room.

My intention was always for this to be and remain a park. So I'm in favor of this deed of restriction.

Does someone want to make a motion? I'll make the motion. I made it. I'll second. You made a second. It's got a second. Thank you. All right. Will you call the roll, please?

Mayor Streiffel. Yes. Vice Mayor Cook.

Yes.

Commissioner Acosta. Yes. Commissioner Schiavone.

It's already three votes, so I might as well say yes. We call it.

Commissioner Dara.

Yes.

It's unanimous.

Thank you.

And Madam Mayor, you're saying the next month we're going to have a discussion about changing R40 to R70?

I think if we have energy at the end of the night, we should talk about it.

I think we should put this in a place where people know that we're going to have this type of discussion, not a last minute. That's a big item. So if we're going to put it on the March agenda, It's okay, but it would allow people to have plenty of notice for such a big discussion.

We'll make bets on whether or not people show up, but I'm happy to do it in March.

I appreciate that. March? I'm not a betting person. March?

Mayor and Commission, there's a series of land use related items that myself, Tony, and our village planners have been discussing. We actually intend to bring them to you in March, and it includes how we are going to rezone and designate on the future land use map this site as well as others.

And we can hear about the report on density and where we are with that.

I will ask Ms. Vargas to provide.

I requested via email a comparison study of what, if we were to build on this site versus what they're getting or what the site is worth versus what they're getting in lieu of. I need a comparison study because...

There is one complication. What they are giving up, I'm sorry, what they are getting in lieu of is... They do not have to build 6% of their units as workforce housing. While we do have a payment in lieu mechanism, that's not what their rules are. Their rules are you got to build it. So it's hard to quantify what that is.

And just on top of that. But it's hard to quantify whether we should keep it as RM40 at 40 units and what 40 units can bring. And we need to discuss how to get the price for TDRs up versus 70 units and what the price would be. It all has to do with the same thing.

Well, whether it's 40 TDRs or 70 TDRs, the price for the TDRs is going to be the price of the TDRs. And it's going to have nothing to do with what Andy paid for the property.

It's the benefit that he is getting by giving us the property versus what he would have normally paid for it.

That's not correct.

Yes, it is.

Tony, I would encourage you to have a one-on-one with Commissioner Cervone.

Happy to do that. Happy to do that. I'll call Commissioner Cervone.

All right. So in March, we'll discuss the zoning on the Treasure Drive site. I just, it's a bad idea. All right. 14A. Thank you, Tony. Have a great night. Good luck in South Miami. Mr. Manager, Steve.

Good evening, Madam Commission and members of the public in attendance and those that are on virtual. This item, to start off with, I want to make as clear as I can. The suggestion to explore this and the support for this is coming from the administration and not from members on this dais. Since I've been back, we have been evaluating where this village is headed. And I don't think it's a secret when we see what the development is coming and for the good. The tax base that will come from the development is going to certainly allay the cost to residents and single family homes for the future of what we're looking at with the infrastructure that has to be replaced, not repaired any longer, but has to be replaced in the village. We've just come out of the moratorium with the sewer. The work that has been done to get that done is not gonna last forever. And we did this once before, approximately 10 years ago, and now that work is coming apart. So we need to look at how we move forward collectively as a village and how we fund the things that we have to fund going forward. And one of the items that we're going to face as the administration is how we're going to supply the waste services that are needed for this village in the not too distant future. And the time to plan for that is now. And I say now because our expenses that we are facing now with our fleet, with our places to keep the fleet and maintain the fleet, And to invest that kind of money into these vehicles at this point in time, if we're looking at another alternative, it needs to be explored. And so I've directed staff to put together a study and a comparison of where we will be if we were to privatize as to if we keep providing the service in-house. The two major concerns that I have heard from the public loud and clear is that they still have side yard pickup and that our employees that we have that are delivering that service now will remain with the village. And both of those items have been, required of any direction we go, whether we keep it, we privatize it, those two elements remain. So Steve Buckland, who's our Director of Public Works, is going to now make a presentation for everybody. And then, you know, Madam Mayor, you'll open it up to whoever it is for the public. Okay, Steve.

Good evening.

Are the screens working? Can you ask? Yeah, they're working OK. OK. You can. I just want to make sure they can see what you're presenting too.

Yes, yes. Good evening Mayor Commissioners. Thank you for the introduction. Mr Manager Steve Buckland. Public Works director. If you just give me a minute, I just need to share my screen. So I prepared a PowerPoint to present to you guys this evening.

Go to on the top and click start PowerPoint. That way we don't see all of your slides on the left. We just see the main slide.

I don't see the button you're talking about. I'm sorry.

Quick slide show at the top. Harold is going to help you.

I was buried on my screen. That's why I couldn't see it. OK, thank you.

I'm here for you, Steve.

Thank you. Alright, so we're going. This is considerations for moving into a qualified private solid waste provider. The agenda for discussion is going to be introduction and background, current operations, the proposed changes that we are looking to make, and an implementation timeline. Current operations. North Bay Village currently operates two leased garbage trucks seven days per week. We formerly had two of our own. which we still own, but they become end of life and the expenses for maintaining them was becoming astronomical. Personnel consists of a mixture of village employees and workers provided by a staff leasing company. That staff leasing company is called People's Ready. Daily operations are managed by the Village Public Works Administration, namely myself and Tim, who is our superintendent. Trucks are stored on the property leased by the village behind Grove by the Bay, and all solid waste is hauled to a Miami-Dade County landfill down off of Caroline Road. The fleet. Our garbage trucks are currently stored on the leased land that will soon be redeveloped. The new facility purchased by the village is not suited for this purpose due to its size and Durham requirements. Modifications to the new site would be costly if Durham permitted us to do so. The trucks could be stored at the county landfill. However, this creates logistical challenges for personnel and would come in additional costs and a loss of work time due to travel distances. Currently, our guys come in in the mornings. They clock in here. They get in their garbage trucks, run their routes. When they're done at the end of the day, park the truck here, get in a personal vehicle and go home. If we were to park at the county landfill, our guys would have to go then clock in over there. and leave from there. So right now, if the guys get done early, they, uh, we assign them different duties. So we would lose manpower that way. Uh, the village own fleet has reached end of useful life and the trucks are current operation or at least at a cost of $16,200 per month. A third truck will need to be placed in operation for redundancy and to handle upcoming development with new developments such as continuum and related group. Our personnel, we have four village employees whose time is solely committed to the collection of solid waste. Other workers from a private agency are utilized to supplement them to achieve six and seven day per week service for commercial and multifamily, as well as backdoor service for single family homes. Additional personnel would need to be hired with the addition of a third truck. We would need to hire another CDL driver and one to two people to assist. As the community and services grow with the new development, additional administrative staff who are solely dedicated to solid waste would need to be employed. Key points to remember. Enhanced service quality. Private waste handling can provide the same or better service through dedicated management and customer support. The village will continue to closely manage the service to ensure quality and continued personalized service. Environmental impact. New more garbage trucks will be stored on our residential neighborhoods. The new facility acquired by Public Works would not be a subject to additional environmental contamination, such as what we've experienced at the old Public Works site. Ensuring job security for North Beach Village employees. All North Bay Village waste management employees will be retained within the village to ensure job security and will be able to dedicate more time to general beautification efforts throughout the village and litter management. Cost saving store community outsourcing waste management. We can save valuable dollars and allocate resources to other vital services needed in the village. The changes that we are proposing. Why privatize solid waste? 26 of the 31 cities in Miami-Dade utilize private solid waste service in all or some sectors. The city of Homestead will be making the transition to a private hauler this year, making it 27 of 31. It is particularly challenging for smaller municipalities such as North Bay Village to operate with the same efficiency as the private sector due to the volume and scope of resources that they have. Guarantees predictable rates to avoid wide swings in costs borne by village and residents. What we would be doing is going out to RFP for a contract or piggybacking a current contract with guaranteed rates. Avoids ongoing truck roll fees and large capital layouts for replacement of aged fleet. Offers a wider array of available services, more container sizes, roll-off containers, backsters, et cetera. Also reduces the liability for injuries, accidents, workers' compensation claims, unexpected repairs, et cetera, that the village has to bear now. Option one. How do I go back? Thank you.

One more time.

There we go. Sorry. There's something popped up on my screen. I tried to erase it. Option one, leverage Coral Gables waste management contract. Coral Gables has a competitively big contract for solid waste hauling. and is disposable with waste management. North Bay Village may piggyback this contract at rates that were pre-pandemic, covering residential, multifamily, and commercial services. Coral Gables rates were set pre-COVID prior to all the hyperinflation. So that provides favorable pricing to the village. Additionally, the village is a much smaller municipality, so there's additional benefit in North Bay Village using rates from the higher volume pricing of Coral Gables. Two-day-per-week backyard service residential homes will not be affected. That is currently in the contract with Coral Gables. Waste management offers recycling services and processes recyclables at their new $90 million facility in Pembroke Pines. The village could utilize this service as well, therefore limiting the number of different haulers in the village. Waste management uses compressed natural gas trucks for greater sustainability with fewer greenhouse gases than diesel. Compressed natural gas trucks also run quieter than diesel trucks. Waste management is installing a renewable natural gas system, RNG, at its landfills, which will capture the methane and send it back to the gas utility for reuse as a renewable energy source. I mentioned those last two items because this community is very much on sustainability. And that is a very good benefit of going with this company because they have those goals in mind as well. Option two is to issue a request for proposals. The cost. Solid waste is a highly competitive industry and usually results in several qualified bidders, and they would have competitive pricing. They offer specialized services. They can provide specialized services that cater to the unique needs of a community, such as recycling and hazardous waste disposal. Innovative waste diversion strategies. Private companies often implement innovative waste diversion strategies to reduce landfill waste and promote recycling, keeping in line with our efforts to promote a sustainable, green, and earth-conscious North Bay Village. Timeline. Solid waste RFPs are not normally smooth or quick, often resulting in protests which delay the process. I've experienced this in my past life, so I know how this goes. I did do a cost analysis that I had shared at our workshop. Here's just a brief overview of that. This analysis only addressed the in-house service versus piggybacking the Coral Gapes contract, because obviously we have no numbers from an RFP to compare those. So the annual operational costs that the city, uh, uh, has, uh, operating it with our personnel and our equipment is $1,430,061. The annual operational cost of contracted with waste management would be $1,343,380.24. This gives us an annual savings of $86,680.76. So on the community engagement side, the Village Commission hosted an in-person town hall meeting to effectively inform residents about the proposed changes to our waste management system. Few community members intended in person or on Zoom. Hence the reason why we're having this presentation again tonight. During the meeting, the following topics were covered. Our current waste management system, the reasons for the proposed changes, the two options available for new waste management contract. We encourage open dialogue. The goal of the workshop at this meeting was to foster an environment for open dialogue and feedback from community members. We aim to ensure that the proposed changes align with current needs of the village as well as the future needs. Resident involvement. Encouraging resident involvement is essential for a successful transition. We will maintain an open line of communication at the village to facilitate a smooth transition and address feedback from the community. Implementation timeline. We expect to have this taken care of in 2026 if the commission so decides. During this phase, North Bay Village staff will either issue an RFP or leverage the existing Coral Gables contract based on the Village Commission's decision to either retain services in-house or privatize the waste management service. Commission decision. Should the commission choose the Coral Gables contract piggyback option, the transition will begin in the spring. If we choose to issue an RFP, we're looking at late summer or fall at the earliest. Engagement and negotiations. If the decision is to change to a private hauler, North Bay Village staff would begin negotiations with the selected private hauler or go out with a competitive bid to ensure that our surface expectations are met. Finalizing contracts. The process will culminate in finalizing contracts that ensure the quality and reliability of waste management services. If the decision is to retain in-house services, budgetary impacts would require addressing. Ensuring a smooth transition and continued efficient operations. North Bay Village will ensure the following for smooth implementation. Detailed operational plan. A comprehensive operational plan is crucial for facilitating a smooth transition and ensuring operational efficiency. Community communication. Regular communication with the community is vital to address concerns and foster collaboration during the transition process. Collaboration with waste handlers. Maintaining open lines of communication with the private waste handlers will ensure that expectations are clear and operations run smoothly. In conclusion, in summary, if North Bay Village were to transition to a private waste management provider, the objective would be to reduce overall costs and enhance environmental sustainability, all while assuring that the quality of service remains the same or better. The proposed options include leveraging the existing Coral Gables contract or initiating a competitive bidding process for a new contract. A proposed private contract will be implemented in 2026 and staff will ensure a smooth transition and operational efficiency with the same level of service. Community involvement and feedback will remain essential throughout this process to ensure any proposed changes align with residents' needs and expectations. And that's the end of my presentation.

Okay, Steve, thank you so much. I'm going to ask you to hang out next to the clerk. We're going to take public comment. And then after public comment, we're going to do commission discussion. So who wants to go first? You already spoke on the other issue. You can speak again, but not first. Miss, Miss, please.

7510 Miami View Drive. The reason I said I was going to speak about communications in general is about waste management is basically because how I find out that the city was actually considering privatizing waste management and communications. I've been here for 25 years. I have attended these meetings broadly. for eight years, I don't know, six to eight years. And what I have noticed is that every time there is less and less individuals attending the meetings. And unless you want to blame the public, there has to be a reason. I don't know what your theories are, why the community is not engaging, why the community is not interested in coming to the meetings. And maybe that's an important conversation to have. So about a month ago, I got an email from a resident who told me, that the city was considering privatizing the waste management. I didn't know about it. I think that's a very important item. I would imagine that I was going to have a flyer, that I was going to have some kind of mail, that I was going to have a knock on the door. I don't know, some kind of information. But I mean, expecting individuals to go to the website and find out what's happening, I think it's a little bit... is responsible. I think the government has to do a better job in engaging and making sure that the citizens find out what's going on. So I went out and I started talking to people and I saw a lot of emails, text messages, conversations. And except for one person, everybody that I spoke to Only one person knew that the city was proposing that. So you guys had a presentation, had a lot happening, nobody attended, and nobody knew what was going on. So how is that community engagement? So what do I hear from the residents? Well, the main... sentiment was why are we changing? We have a very reliable program. We love the people that come and pick up the garbage. And most importantly, this is one thing that this government is doing that is great. Every single person think that you guys are doing a great job with the waste management. So why change it? Obviously, there's going to be individuals who are going to be sarcastic and are going to say, well, somebody's getting something out of it. That's not the point. The point is that people are very happy. They're questioning why the change. The city is saying, well, we're going to save money. But nobody's buying that because, first of all, people want the same garbage workers that do the same waste management. I mean, it's not about them just staying for some kind of job they're going to have in the future that you guys don't even know where you're going to place them. But the point is, you're keeping the same salaries, the same payroll, half a million dollars. adding another service, and then you're telling us that you're saving money. What is it that private companies do? They give you a contract, they give you a great price the first year, and then they start increasing. I'm going to assume that I could continue. Please.

It's fine. I'll yield my time. Yeah. So... I'm yielding my time.

You don't have limited time. You can talk as long as you want, but please continue. So...

So many residents, and this is something that is really bothering people. They came through all the years and they said, you guys are giving away the land that is for public works. This is gonna have consequences in the future. And here we are, we're having the consequences of that land that belonged to all of us, the taxpayer that was given by the city, to somebody else, that's where our trucks or where workers had for public service. And now they're saying, oh no, we need to save money. That doesn't work like that. And I get that if the management, the one that is proposing this, but guess what? You guys are the one voting. So it's going to be you, you, you, and you, and you who's going to say yes or no to the residents, whether you're going to go for this or you're not going to go for this, no matter who proposes.

Thank you.

Just one line. There's a resident that is 94 years old who said, Pilar, please, this 94-year-old site-impaired friend of yours needs your help. Would you please let the North Bay Village commissioners know that Marlene Brody, longtime resident 1301 Bay Terrace, North Bay Village, firmly opposed privatizing our trash disposal. Sorry to put you up for this trouble, Pilar.

Tell Marlene we thank her for emailing you. Okay. Thank you for that. Before we continue public comment, I want to address two points. One, on the communication, I appreciate the feedback. We talk about how to get you guys to come here, all the time i would say it is the number one thing that this commission and this administration are trying to figure out i have no no no no let me please i no no no i i have people don't call me please public comment i i typically we we just hear the public comment but we're doing this a little bit workshop style We put up the notices on our social media. The notices about the workshop went out in weekly village emails for weeks. Every Friday, the village sends out an email, 52 weeks, 52 wins. And in that email was a flyer about our solid base workshop, probably for four weeks straight, maybe a little bit longer. So that this is not appropriate for you to respond to me. I know I'm your neighbor, but we're a body. We're having a meeting. So emails and social media. And then on top of that, we did print a flyer and we put that flyer in your water bills. And we very deliberately put the flyer in the water bills because the water bills go to the single family homeowners. It was a very deliberate attempt at outreach. So if you did not get a flyer in your water bill, I apologize, but I spoke to many, many, many, many, many neighbors who did get the flyer in their water bill. And we will continue doing the best that we can to communicate. My theory is that People have lives and things are overwhelming and you got to take care of your work and your kids and your health care and your bills and all of that stuff. And you're not going to show up to City Hall unless something really big is happening. And so I'm glad that everyone is here tonight. We're not going to rush a decision. We don't rush decisions. We hold town halls after town halls after town halls. And then we talk about it here and then we vote. We're not going to rush a decision. I also wanna make one comment about the land because it was suggested that we gave away the land to someone else. The property on Galleon Street that was the home of our public works facility was environmentally horrible. It would have been shut down by Miami-Dade County Derm if we had not shut it down ourselves. It was a million dollar or more environmental cleanup of that site. We removed feet of contaminated soil and we had to replace it with compacted fill and earth so that we could build the community center. For 80 years, we had been polluting Biscayne Bay in the middle of Biscayne Bay. That was what they call a legal non-conforming solid waste site. It didn't meet any of today's environmental requirements and it was completely toxic. So we have cleaned it up and it is still ours. That property on Galleon Street is very much still ours. It belongs to you. And we are turning it into a community center. And if you want to swing by Galleon Street, you can see that community center is three stories with a rooftop. And it will be for North Bay Village. No one else owns that building. We own that building. We own the land. And we're going to have all kinds of activities for the residents of this community. And that is a fact. So the land was not taken.

not given away so i just wanted to make those two points public comment who's next ernesto hill 7508 good evening is to avoid any confusion about my assing i play the i write okay

Commissioners, the facts and data are irrefutable. The city has unjustifiably handed over 28,000 square feet to the Argentine Football Association, AFA, under a contract that is a financial insult to the taxpayers. Critical services used to operate on those galleon street grounds, the police department, public works, code enforcement, the sewage pumping station, and the water and sewer department. By giving away this strategic infrastructure to a private entity, the city voluntarily stripped itself of the operational space needed to serve its residents. As we warned, this deal was a logistical disaster that is now costing us. But what is truly outrageous is that, on top of giving away the land, the city has already allocated millions of dollars for the development of the AFA project. It is a perverse cycle. The city gives up.

Sorry.

Commissioners, the facts and data are irrefutable. The city has unjustifiably handed over 28,000 square feet to the Argentine Football Association, AFA, under a contract that is a financial insult to the taxpayers. Critical services used to operate on those galleon street grounds, the police department, public works, code enforcement, the sewage pumping station, and the water and sewer department. By giving away this strategic infrastructure to a private entity, the city voluntarily stripped itself of the operational space needed to serve its residents. As we warned, this deal was a logistical disaster that is now costing us. But what is truly outrageous is that, on top of giving away the land, the city has already allocated millions of dollars for the development of the AFA project. It is a perverse cycle. The city gives away millions in public assets and then tells us there is no budget to relocate our essential departments, using that as an excuse to privatize garbage collection. We do not accept that lack of funds excuse. With the growth of property taxes and the real estate boom, the city has the highest revenue in its history. There is money for the AFA, but there is total waste and neglect of what truly matters. Cleanliness, safety, and basic services. Who are we giving these millions to? The AFA doesn't just have a history with the FBI for money laundering. It is currently under active investigation by the Department of Justice, DOJ, FBI, and the IRS for corruption and financial crimes. Even in Argentina, their headquarters have been raided in similar judicial cases. How does this administration explain displacing our infrastructure and handing over millions of dollars to an entity under the criminal microscope of this country's federal agencies? The giveaway of Galleon Street and our money is already a done deal. What we demand today is an immediate halt to the plan to privatize garbage collection. Essential services are not bargaining chips to cover up this administration's failures. Thank you.

Now, the AFA Association is investigating to the DOJ, the Department of Justice, SBI, and IRS for corruption and laundering. And in that time, it's the same. Your business with Asociación Mafiosa. You take the land to this association and now create the problem to ours. To solve the problem, you create.

Hi, Oliver. Come on up.

I have a fear of public speaking, so I like to do that too. No, I'm just kidding. That was kind of cool. Good evening, mayor, commissioners, fellow citizens, and neighbors. My name is Oliver Pfeffer, 7610 Miami View Drive. I'm here today because... The decision to privatize trash collection is not just a budget question. It's a question about how we want our city to function, who we want to be accountable to, and how we protect the health and quality of the life of our residents, in my opinion. Trash collection is one of the most visible and essential services a city provides when it works People don't even notice it. But when it fails, the consequences are immediate. Overflowing bins, rodents, odors, loss of confidence in local government. It's a real thing. Privatization may sound efficient, but the reality, as we hopefully won't learn, is far more complicated. When a city hands over trash collection to a private company, it also hands over control. If a route is missed, if a street gets overlooked, or if service declines, the city can't simply send a crew to fix it. You're bound by contract. You can negotiate. You may be able to issue penalties. You're going to wait, though. Meanwhile, the trash could sit at our lots and our curbs. A friend of mine in Massachusetts said his city and several others nearby him were forced to sue their private trash hauler with public services last year after a dispute left trash uncollected for weeks. He and his neighbors dealt with rodents and health concerns. His city public works department had to pay for emergency cleanup and ended up paying like twice as much for the same service. And this is not an isolated incident. If you look online, contract disputes, missed pickups, and service lapses are common enough that many cities have chosen not to privatize after they actually spend time studying the risks, which include hidden or excessive fees, inconsistent pickups, and punitive clauses, which are in there. Once the city privatizes, reversing course is difficult, if not impossible. Contracts often last years, as you know. Rates... Where do they go? They're going to go up. And the city loses, what's most important is the city loses internal capacity and expertise needed to bring those back in-house. At the end of the day, residents won't call the private company when their trash isn't collected or they're having an issue. We'll call the city. We'll expect you to fix it. And you guys should never put yourself in a position where you have to say, oops, we can't. Keeping trash collection public means keeping control. It means protecting service quality. It means ensuring that when something goes wrong, we can respond immediately, not after two weeks of talking to a city attorney and talking about the contract and then coming back for discussion at city commission meetings. privatization is asking for a headache. And in my analysis, it provides zero cost savings to the city. If you're really planning on keeping the existing staff and not just moving them to another department, that's just shifting costs around. It's not saving. So for these reasons, I urge the commission to keep this essential service where it belongs in the hands of the public, with our staff, our elected officials, our city manager accountable to the people. Sanitation was over 10% of our entire city budget last year. Why would we funnel that money out of our sitting into the hands of private company when it doesn't save us anything and only creates potential problems? It's beyond me. And if I could just from Mary and Bud Ferry at 1315 Bay Terrace, they said, our thoughts are simple. We have excellent trash service pickup now, and you can't do better than excellent. Thank you.

Who's next? Go ahead.

Mario Garcia, 360. One of the things that makes Notre Dame Village unique is that we have our own private police and we have our own private sanitation. Before you make this decision, yes, if you listen to the presentation, it's probably a no-brainer if you believe every single thing that is there. At the saving of whatever it was, $68,000, I would wonder, throughout the years, at the races that private companies are going to impose on you, after five years, are we still going to be in the same positions that we are today? And I guarantee you, no. No, we're not. So I think if we wanna invest in our future, I would like to hear more in the commission and in general about quality of life. What makes this city better city to live than any other city? I want to hear more about that because we keep talking about density. We keep talking and we keep selling ourselves. I thought that when the Sunbeam project that we're going to put a cap on how tall buildings can be. And apparently I must have missed something because now they want to build even higher. So we need to pay attention to quality of life in Norway Village to keep our sanitation private, to keep our police private, and to stop sinking the village. You are going to sink the village with so many buildings, so many things, and we just keep looking at money, money, money, money, and where is this money going? We keep spending more and more and more and more, and we need to balance our budgets in a way that looks at the future. not just now, not just the money that we need now. So I urge you to save the sanitation department, whatever it takes, even if you have to store it away, you know, you can put a bus to take them and bring them back, whatever you need to do. But what makes this city great is private sanitation and private police. Sanitation goes the next time you How are you? So the next time you're going to give away the police department as well. You know what I'm saying? Think about this. Those are the only two things that we always fought for. Sanitation and police. Thank you.

George Gonzalez, 7900 Harbor Island. I'm not here to talk. I wasn't here to talk originally about this point, but I just had a thought. And I'm not in favor either way. Really, I think the sanitation department today is doing a great job. They do good work, at least where I reside at 360, there are no complaints. But there's something that the manager mentioned at the beginning when he was introducing this point. I don't see it's been addressed yet. And it's that I think the sanitation picture is, today it's not going to be the same sanitation picture in five years from now. When all this development comes up, there's going to be more demand and more need for sanitation. I think that whichever way you go with this issue, you need to forecast. You need to say, today we have a sanitation department which is capable of handling this size of a village five years from now or might be 30 percent, 40 percent bigger. And we might need more trucks. We might need more employees. We might need more space in order to accommodate the growing need. And I think that's important. I don't know if a study is going to be done or anything that's going to be done to make sure that we're capable of handling the growth that's coming. Today, they're doing a great job. No complaints. But what's going to happen five, six years from now when all these buildings start to go up and they start to get filled and sanitation needs growth? I think that needs to be something that you need to consider when you're making a decision.

Thank you, Mr. Gonzalez. Who would like to speak next? Welcome.

Hi. Eileen Mano-Caballero, 7420 Miami View Drive. Good evening, commissioners and mayor. I think that the people that we have now are wonderful that are providing us with this service. They're reliable. They're the face that we see all the time in our neighborhoods. I don't see a need to change it. And the financial need that I've been hearing, I mean, if we're laying their payroll on top of the service, I don't see how we're saving money. I see how we're spending actually more money. Um, and nobody's asking for this. And when I've spoken to the neighbors, they're not asking for any change in the service. They're happy with the service. So I guess if it ain't broke, why fix it? Thank you.

Thank you, Eileen. Who else would like to speak? No one else?

All right.

Hi, Jose.

Hi, how are you guys? 7610 Coquina Drive. I was sitting right there a few years ago. And one of my proposal was, hi, Frank, how are you? We found a piece of land on Norway Drive, Miami, city of Miami, to move polar works there. And I don't know what happens. Drop the ball. And well, we are now 2026, 2026. Let's keep the trash. We have the best we can offer here. Our city can offer is the police and the trash. Please don't do it. Don't screw up. Let's leave it. Leave it like that. We don't need that. It's just not going to work. It's just not going to work. We're going to save, yeah, we're going to save this year, next year, maybe. In a few years, it's not going to work because the price is going to go up. And we're going to have control of that, and we're not going to have anybody. So let's keep it.

Thank you. Anyone else in the room? Is that the chair of our planning and zoning board?

I just want to make some comments because it sounded so much fun to come up here. Good evening, everyone. Ryan Shaw, 8000 West Drive. I think you guys have done a great job. I know there's been a lot of complaining up tonight, but to get something that's toxic off the island i think is phenomenal so if anybody thinks that that should stay here is crazy and in my opinion maybe to keep it maybe just charge three four times the amount for trash and let the people get what they want charge enough to where you guys are actually making money and it won't be a problem i mean most of the people are on north bay island they should be able to afford it and there's enough people coming in buying these homes that you That's not gonna be a problem going forward. So just charge everybody more money and keep what's here. And thank you for getting the trash off the island.

Would anyone else like to make public comment? Is there anyone on Zoom who'd like to make public comment? Okay, let's open it up to the dais. Yes, please.

Interesting conversations I've heard tonight. Some of the residents that wrote me emails are here tonight. I'm glad to see you here. Personally, I've received seven emails from North Bay Island and one from Treasure Island. I don't know who they're talking to, but they're not talking to the commission. Other than eight emails from single family homeowners. Come on, guys. Communication We try as hard as we can. We put it out there. By the way, Mr. Pfeffer, thank you for sitting for the two hours of the town hall and showing up again tonight. Finally, we get to meet face to face. I've heard two suggestions I want to throw out. One is, if we privatize, can we do a two-year period for discussion? And the other one is, let's put it in the November ballot. The only problem I see with that is not all residents that are involved in trash pickup vote or are eligible to vote. We have approximately 50% of our population that are eligible voters, not that they go out and vote, but they're eligible to vote. So I don't know if that is a viable solution, but it's something that we can discuss as well here. Those are the two solutions that I heard. that are semi-viable and I'd like to discuss them. Thank you.

I'll go next. Go ahead. So first, I'd like to address some of the comments around communication that we heard tonight. I second all the comments that Mayor Streitfeld has made and Commissioner Trevoni as well. We are doing everything we can. We are emailing residents. We're posting all over social media. We're blasting notices everywhere we can. I know I'm very active on all of our Facebook community groups. Commissioner Acosta hosts monthly agenda reviews and briefings and every month less than a handful of people show up and I give Commissioner Acosta a lot of credit for trying to come up with a new angle, trying to find a new way of engaging with all of you. But we are we're doing our best. And I heard, you know, perhaps some of you would like to see more door knocking and and I've knocked on a lot of your doors many times over the years. And I love I love doing that. And I love calling residents and speaking to all of you one on one. I just don't think it's reasonable expectation to ask us to knock on doors every time there's a pertinent item on the agenda. Although I would love to do that, every month we have important pertinent items on the agenda. It's not scalable for us to knock on 8,000 doors every month. and talk to residents. So we want to reach you as much as we can. I know most of us have given away our personal cells, our personal emails. We're always open for calls and in-person meetings anytime. But I'll say all that to close by stating that I'm open to more feedback, to more constructive feedback on how we can better engage because that is what we all want. We want to see this room full of people and commenting on every item that we have every month because you are the voice that helps us lead and helps us choose which direction we go on different items. And we're here to represent you. We're your voice. So anything we can do to improve engagement even further, I'm absolutely open to it. And I hope we can connect after the meeting or tomorrow. so I can hear more thoughts on that. Also wanted to address a couple of comments that I heard around AFA. That project is, this is a very positive financial impact that we're going to see with this project. We don't have the funds today that we need to build our own village hall and public safety complex, to build our infrastructure projects we need to support our police and staff and do so much more, a lot more things that we want to do. We need that private investment. We're not giving away the land. It is a 30-year operating agreement, and we are going to have that permanently for the village after that. This project, the AFA project, was not ever about moving waste services. It's about using the highest and best possible use of the value of that land, which we are now getting. Our land area here in North Bay Village is less than half a square mile. That's all we have. And it is very, very high value, premium waterfront land. We are not in unincorporated homestead where we have acres and acres of land and we can build and put waste services here and do all kinds of creative things. We were very, very limited by the land that we have to work with. And when we were going through the AFA project, I made a point to meet with Treasure Island residents. I spoke to all the residents on Mutiny, all the residents. that are directly impacted or close to the AFRA project that I talked to them. And all of them have stated that they'd like to see that the use of that land for the greatest possible public good, which is paddle courts, multipurpose fields, a community center, over garbage truck parking and waste retention. And that's the direction that we're going. And we're able to use that land now for all of those public amenities, which we want. And I prefer to see that land maximized towards the use of the greatest possible public good. In terms of our waste services that we discussed, I actually, Commissioner Trevoni, I like your suggestion about putting this on the ballot. I would like to hear about the process of going through with that. I'd also be interested to learn if there is a potential to maybe try out a pilot project and try this out for three months, continue to gather feedback from the community during that time. But, you know, I'm trying to find a compromise here that works where we can continue to act on the voice of the residents that are here tonight. We're also balancing the financial obligations that we have as a village and make sure we're maximizing the efficiency and use of our services while retaining employees and providing the best possible services we can.

Yeah, I'll keep it brief right on the waste management topic. It's good to hear a lot of the concerns of the residents who want to keep it in-house. We received a lot of emails as well from residents who didn't show up. So definitely hearing the concern to keep it in-house. you know, we'll match it against what the city has expressed as concerns for just operations and the cost savings, I think, needs to be looked at closer as we express that, you know, if we are keeping all of our employees, you know, is that factored into the savings of the $86,000 that we're still saying, you know, we're counting those salaries still on our budget when we're still saving money. You know, I think that needs to be looked at closer too, and we'll continue to take a look at it and you know, we'll continue to listen to the concerns that people have that want to keep it in-house.

Go ahead. Sorry. Thank you. First of all, thank you to all of you who came to the meeting tonight. I want to address a couple of the points mentioned, starting with communication. I'm wondering how many of the residents right here tonight are single-family homeowners. May I see that? Single family homeowners, people that own a home. Casa, dueño de casa, no condominio. How many of you received the notice via mail? So there was a mail. I just want to confirm because it just seemed to me like it was a lapse on that. And that was my next point. And that was my next point. A lot of people opt for paperless billing when it comes to the water bill. So that is something I want to know now, because this is not going to be the only item we're ever going to have important issue for you to be participant on. The other aspect of this, we've had years of code changes for the village. And I think people have been very disappointed on whether their opinion has been heard or not in the past. And I think that is a direct reflection of what we see today when it comes to participating in community boards or even community activities when it comes to planning and the future for the village or participating in city meetings. I think that a lot of it has to do with disappointment on the vast, majority of changes in the last 10 years. And I also think the changes in the family life structure in Northwood Village are a huge reason why we don't see people participating. When I moved here in 2005, there was a large group of families that were active with their children. And we don't have that life right now in Northwood Village. There's a lot of single people, non-families with kids. So I think all of that is something that we need to keep into consideration as the dream of Village Hall becomes a reality. and announcements to be placed on the causeway as it used to be for a little while there with the signs that we used to have would tell us something's happening. Again, these are just things to note for improvement because it really is something we're lacking that does not take away the efforts made. And I understand that I'm very old fashioned myself. If it's not in my work calendar, it doesn't I don't see it sometimes. But the reality is that we live in a community that we're trying with very small budgets and staff that is overworked to communicate as much as possible. I hold monthly meetings. We are all here pretty much available. Nobody here hides when it comes to being reached out. And I have heard from over a dozen people, if not more now, when I walk down the neighborhood, their concerns about the trash pickup or not knowing about it. I want to say that we are going to continue this discussion. This is not a voting item tonight, and I don't think it should be an avoiding item in March. I think we should continue to have talks about it because it is the number one service besides our police here in North Village. We don't have the direct point of contact that a single family homeowner has when it comes to trash pickup. These are people that you see twice a week on your property. Then you have recycling people. There's another three points. Then you have the public works work throughout the week. So there's multiple points of contact with our staff, with the single family homeowners. And also, I can tell you that it's really hard to sell homes right now. So the removal of another thing that makes us unique is not going to add on to the property values to us. I think that another thing to consider is the actual cost comparison on savings and what it would take, whether it's a cost that the village wants to take or not. I do agree with the idea, and it was something I was going to propose also, is to bring it to the ballot. I think that, but it has to be a very clear apples to apples comparison, long-term comparison. I will go over a couple of questions in reference to the presentation, but besides that, I also wanted to touch on the point about AFA. The reality is that AFA has cost us a lot more money. This relationship has cost us a lot more money than I perceived originally when I heard about our partnership. And it will be even more costly as we continue construction. There's a lot of things that the village is paying. So it's not a free for an exchange for a community center or an exchange of a paddle pickable cords. It really is costing us a lot of money. When this was planned, which was years back, there was the understanding of what that land was gonna be used. It's not a surprise to us. It was never a surprise. But I also don't think that based on the questions that I've been asking, it hasn't been something that really was ignored the way sometimes it's perceived as if it was a surprise, therefore we're jumping now as a commission or as a city to say, let's make a change of service. It has been part of the conversation for years. The reality was it was not sustainable for us to have the public works department the way it was and the police department the way it was. It just wasn't. Was it handled the right way? I don't necessarily think so, but here we are today. And that's more critical than ever is that we have the support of the community in whatever decision we make, especially when it affects the number one service that our village has that we're very proud of. I really encourage everyone to not continue the despair, but do what you're doing today. Be here. Be part of it. We want to hear from you. And I do have questions about the presentation. I don't know if that's something you want to address now, Madam Mayor. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, Steve gave a presentation. Please engage. In reference to the garbage trucks, Obviously, we will have to find an outside location. Has this cost been compared? How much would it cost us to have an outside location if we were to do this service, continue the service that we have right now? I understand there's a talk about it, but is there an actual cost?

Has the location been... Well, we have an estimated cost of what the county would charge us to park the trucks at their facility is about $25,000 a year.

$25,000 a year would it be to park our trucks there? And we're talking about two to three trucks, correct?

This is at the county facility. Correct. So the $25,000 a year doesn't include the loss of labor, the loss of work time, the gas for the trucks, the cost to lease the trucks and the cost to lease another truck when we need another truck.

What would that be more or less?

Right now we're paying $16,200 a month for two trucks. So another $8,000 a month for additional truck.

Plus $8,000. And what about the other costs?

We would have to also hire another driver. We would have to hire two to three more employees.

Okay. What would that cost be?

I don't have that number right off the top of my head, but we're paying one of our drivers, we're looking for a CDL driver between $25 and $35 an hour.

What would the cost be for gas estimation if we were to go to the county?

I have not done that.

What would the cost be for losses, as we were just hearing now?

Losses?

Yeah, did you mention something about losses?

Loss of productivity, because what we would have is the workers now, when they're done with their daily tasks, lots of times before they're done with an eight-hour shift. And then we put them, assign them other duties during that day. And so they'll finish out their time during that day. If we have to go park at the county landfill, they're not going to be able to be doing those additional duties.

Do you have an estimate on that cost? No.

No. No.

for the temporary parking can the new facility that we have right now for public works be able to sustain temporary parking during the day meaning that you're doing the two two two times per week pickup the trucks will come in and out to the landfills it's seven days a week correct but it's seven days a week correct the pickup uh the trash pickup with the schedule it will be a one-time drive there and drive back or will they be able to do they need to park temporarily in places like the public works area that we just got a lease for How does that work? Walk me through the process of that. What do we mean for us to have our own trucks driving daily coming into the village?

So what we mean for us to park our own trucks at the county landfill, the drivers of those trucks would report to work at the county landfill. We would have to get a mobile app that they could clock in and out of so that when they got there, they could clock in and out with that mobile app that they've received, that they've gotten there. Then they would get in their truck and they would drive that truck to the village, at which point they would go to stop at the public works and pick up any other workers that may work with them for that day. Then they would run their routes. And the routes are going, whether it be the homes, whether it be the multifamily or commercial, depending on the day. then they would have to still have usually about half. They usually dump each truck twice a day at the landfill, sometimes once a day, depending on the amount of volume that they're doing for that particular day. So at the end of the day, when they're done, now they have to take that truck back to the landfill to park it for the night. So by the time they get done with that task and they clock out, they were to take their personal vehicle then drive back to the village and do the do to do by the time they got here they wouldn't have time to do any other work because they'd turn around and leave so it would technically be an exclusive department at that point because it wouldn't be feasible to have them do any dual purpose work correct okay

When we talk about the cost, and again, I'm touching on questions that people are raised so that we can have Apple to Apple comparisons here. One of the things that I heard was, well, people are paying, if we're going to be paying for the staff, continue to keep the staff that we have right now. But then we are adding on the cost of a vendor to take over the college pickup. That's the savings part, correct? Or no? That is the part we're going to be saving money on because it's a vendor that we're paying rather than our own people adding, basically adding more of a service to have this, to make it possible for us to have a truck.

The savings come in a number of different forms as I understand it. One, we don't have to buy new trucks or lease new trucks or repair trucks that we own. Huge savings there. Huge. Additionally, we're saving in terms of the future growth of the village. Every year we get to budget season and every department has their wishlist of additional staff that they need to support their work, right? Code enforcement needs another code enforcement officer. The police department needs another Marine patrol officer. The public works department needs this, needs that. As we grow, and we just talked a little bit earlier tonight about how the village is gaining two new parks this year, in addition to the new community center that is going to be open and is going to need maintenance and is going to need landscaping and is going to need staffing. the kayak launch is another one and we're about to have major infrastructure pit repairs on all three islands not to mention all of the manual labor that goes into all of our storm water drainage maintenance and operations so all of that is work that is done by the public works department And that is work that our current sanitation employees will be able to step into. So instead of us needing to hire new people next year, the year after that, the year after that, to staff the new park, the community center, to do all of the public works related stuff that I just mentioned, we have those people already and they're gonna be moved from waste management to general public works or the streets team, or I don't know how Steve has it broken down, but there's a lot of work to do. So instead of hiring more people, we are absorbing our current staff and reassigning them to things that we know are going to need to be done. Again, the park at 7560 West Treasure Drive, the park at 1600 North Treasure Drive. Eventually we're gonna build out Civic Park on Harbor Island. We're gonna have a pump station on North Bay Island. There's all kinds of things that are happening all over the village where those staffers who do trash pickup now are going to be reallocated so that we don't have to hire new people to take on those additional tasks. I mean, those are just a handful of the savings in my mind. And the other is... the actual site. So you asked him to break down the costs if we were to park the trucks at the county's landfill. We have a public works facility in Little River. Correct. To retrofit that facility to make it a legal, permitted site where you can park garbage trucks, A, may not be feasible because of the size of the site. And doing anything to the building that currently exists on the site is risking losing the footprint. We would have to move the building. If we did work on that building, like if we knocked it down and tried to rebuild it, it would be a nightmare with the city of Miami, I promise you. And then dealing with it for clients. literally, I mean, not right now because I'm in this meeting, but tomorrow morning I'll be dealing with it, right? And then getting the environmental permitting for a site where you have garbage trucks parked there is incredibly difficult from a permitting standpoint and very expensive and time consuming. So could it be done? Potentially, but is it worth it to do it? I don't know, we'll see. I mean, and I can't emphasize enough the magnitude of the environmental cleanup that was done on that site. I mean, we were parking garbage trucks on an island for 80 years, and the environmental cleanup was significant, so much so that we've been required by DERM, instead of having drainage, like in a French drain or a great drain, we're not allowed to have any of the groundwater on that site. make contact with the water in Biscayne Bay because the residual toxin, the residual pollution, the residual phosphorus and nitrogen from all of that trash over 80 years is still captured in the ground. So if stormwater percolates down through the ground, it brings all of that pollution with it and ends up in the bay. I mean, if we had not built the community center. And if the site on Galleon Street were still an active solid waste facility, it would have been shut down by the Miami-Dade County Division of Environmental and Resource Management. It would have. It was completely noncompliant with any environmental regulations in the modern time. And that's just the reality. But like, I... I'm an emotional person, but I'm also an attorney. And I'm looking at this from a purely data-driven, long-term outlook perspective. That's the only way that I'm looking at this.

Mayor Streiffel, you bring up a good point about the land remediation. And I want to bring that up also as a response to one of Commissioner Acosta's comments that the village has had to pay for this AFRA project. We have had to pay for certain aspects of it, but those are costs that we would have had to pay either way. We would have had to pay either way for a land remediation for the hazardous use of the land for parking garbage trucks and waste there for 80 years and there's other components of it that we would have had to pay we would have had to pay for the community center and many other things to interrupt you but it was also mentioned that it was our our wastewater our lift station for for our wastewater and our sanitary sewer we we've

removed an outdated, leaky, polluting environmental nuisance, which was our existing sanitary sewer lift station. And we put in a brand new state of the art infrastructure for our sanitary sewer lift station that's there. And we took a giant building with a pump underground and we replaced it with brand new modern sanitary sewer technologies. We didn't lose critical infrastructure, we invested in it, we modernized it, we upgraded it so that it, A, meets current environmental standards, but B, it pumps our sewage through the village in a much more efficient way that we now have more capacity and the sewer system operates more efficiently. I mean...

Yeah, no, no, it's a good point. That was, that was it. I just wanted to state that those were, those were improvements and remediations that we would have had to do, regardless of whether we entered into a partnership with AF or not. The benefit of entering into a partnership with AF is that it saved us over $10 million. We're getting a community center, many other amenities that are now we're able to pass on those cost savings over to other projects, to residents and to other things. And lastly, I'll just, I'll state that Commissioner Acosta, you supported moving forward with the AFRA project as early as last month.

Last month, a project that has been five years in the making.

You voted, you actually seconded the motion to move forward with PFL and completing the second and third floors. You wanted the extra floor.

That we lost from the original boat that you took. I don't think this is a productive year. Let's get back to trash. Let's get back to trash. If I can continue what I was saying, because I didn't want to interrupt our mayor when she was explaining something that is definitely valuable to hear, the detail that we just heard on what it's been spent, the money was spent on, what benefits we've received from the cleanup. And that is something nobody can really... How can I say? Deny. You cannot deny. You cannot put a price on it. Let me just add on. My questions about the presentation all go into that comparison of costs so that we have a clear understanding on the benefits. And then we can move on into how the decision is made and who handles that part of the decision making. The question I have about the Coral Gables contract. I understand in your presentation, you mentioned these are pre-COVID prices, correct?

Yes.

Is this already a contract that was already resigned, or are we still talking about the original contract waste management half?

The original contract was for a five-year contract, which comes up in April of this year. And then it has three one-year renewals. So we would have three years left on this contract that we could piggyback off.

How long would our contract be again?

it would be for the remaining three years.

So this is a three-year contract, pre-COVID prices, and then we will renegotiate again.

Yes.

Correct. And I just want to understand a little bit on the Coral Gables renegotiations to their new contract. You say they were extending it?

They do. It's up for a rule in April, and there's no negotiations on it. It's only subject to a CPI increase.

You think it's going to remain the same as the original contract?

With the CPI increase.

Which is, it's good for us to hear, because it also extends into that conversation that I've had with many of the neighbors, is how would the next... contract will go and take into place how would they treat us versus how they've been treating coral gables so it shows some kind of relation there to what their old prices are and the new prices coming up correct the other question i have for you is in case of a catastrophe uh weather related catastrophe being that it's a vendor versus our own staff how would the contract protect us in that

Were you talking about like a hurricane?

Yeah, you know, like I'm thinking that, and excuse my ignorance on this, but I'm just thinking that if we have our own staff, you know, something happens to the city, it seems like our response level is different than if we were to hire an outside vendor, or you think we will have the same type of assistance?

I believe that we will have the same type of assistance. In my past experience with the former city I was at, we went through, what was it, Hurricane Irma. And it was a different private hauler, but they shut down services when winds were over 30 miles an hour. And as soon as winds got back to normal, they resumed service.

That's the expectation we should have, correct?

Yes.

Okay. And now, you know, I think that we can... Well, you know, I appreciate everything that you've answered and the presentation was very thorough. I just think that as we get closer to having this more and more discussion into, I think it's just an understanding of what we're getting and what we're losing. You know, it's really hard when one of the services that we have here in North Village, it makes us very unique to many other cities in the whole United States to have the kind of service we have. I think that our city manager touched on that at the beginning, and that was the priority should be to maintain that type of level of service and that our public work staff, it's also remains. But then, you know, people touched on the staff that they see with, let's say, a vendor. Is there expectation of, you know, who they hire and how, like, I would imagine people have questions about that. You know, like, who are these people? Are they going to be changing? Are they not going to be changing? What kind of, you know, Because now we're having that basically, it's like if we hire new people to add on, that will be the same situation almost. If we were to hire new people to work in public works, correct? You still have to deal with new faces.

Yeah, you have to deal with new people as new hires come in, yes.

All right. Well, I think that's it. Thank you so much.

If I can, for just a moment, we talk about keeping these people and like what's happening in some other kind of jobs or whatever. And I'll give you a good for instance. We've just bought a half a million dollar vector truck for our stormwater system. It has to be operated by somebody that's a responsible individual. And we've had two of our people go through the extensive training already to be able to get that vector truck on a regular system of vacuuming these stormwater drains. So when we get these floods, we don't have the backups and types of things that we have. The question is not the training and the question is not the truck. The question is how do we schedule these people to be driving a garbage truck and be out with the vector truck? So what takes backseat, you think? The vector truck, because the garbage has got to be picked up. So when we look at the services that we're looking to provide. The extra buildings, the community center is going to be open this year. This year. It's got to have custodial service. We haven't talked about staffing for the programs that are going to take place.

Yeah, all those costs that we're going to have.

So all those costs that are going to come. And so when we look at the county fire department has approached us just recently and saying, hey, we need to find out what your schedule is on flushing these fire hydrants. Now, I know we did it when I was here before, but I don't think it's been done in a long time. There's a regular schedule where those hydrants have to be flushed, and that's our responsibility. Those hydrants are ours. Those hydrants are part of our system, and we're required to maintain them. Who's going to do that? Public works. And I told Steve, I said, you know, Get the guys together. We'll get out there. I'll give them the training again, how to do it. So you do it properly and you don't flush the water to a level that the people start getting sediment in their houses and all that.

You're personally going to conduct this training. That's correct.

That's going to be the best day of your year. Well, it's something that I can do. So I'm just saying that it's not like the people will come and, oh, what are we going to do? There's things that are lacking right now that we're not doing that we should be doing. And that's, we look at the whole picture and say, how do we augment what's missing? How do we keep the services at the level that we want to do? And there's no easy answer. If you don't, if we keep this, we're going to have to hire people to do these other things anyway.

It's definitely going to, it's a money problem.

Well, it's more than a money problem. I mean, it was a site problem. And I appreciate how it, how the narrative that we voluntarily gave up our public works site and gave it to the Argentinians. I get that that narrative is out there. It's just, it could not be farther from the truth. That is just not the facts that we're dealing with here. I want to get to another set of questions. We have a lot of landscape debris, especially on North Bay Island, but there has also been a pile of landscape debris in the middle of the median at North Treasure Drive and West Treasure Drive for like five days. Somebody must have done a bunch of landscaping work. They didn't call Public Works. They dumped it in the median instead and it's been there for like four days. I wanted to flag that for you if somebody could go by and pick it up from the median. But landscape debris is a big thing and also bulk pickup. How would landscaping and bulk pickup change or remain unchanged?

if we were to privatize. That would remain unchanged this time. We have our own grapple truck and we intend to keep that number one because it's a very valuable tool to have if a hurricane were to hit us and we have a natural disaster. So we want to keep that in operation and boat pickup. We would just it's a one man job and we've got a guy that can do that. We would keep that in house.

Okay. And as far as scheduling bulk pickup, I live in a condo. How do I do that? Do I have to coordinate with my property manager to schedule a bulk?

If you need to do, let's say you had a house full of furniture you need to get rid of, you could call Public Works and schedule a special pickup.

Okay. All right. And that's how single family homeowners do that. Yeah, and there is a cost. That's fine. There should be. Okay. Okay. So that wouldn't change?

No.

Those services remain the same. Okay. And I think it's really important to be prepared for shit really hitting the fan if we privatize. I mean, that's a technical term. I'm sorry. How would we respond if there were some disruption in service? What resources would we retain at the village to ensure a transition that upheld the quality of life that people so appreciate?

We're talking specifically garbage or that health type thing. We would not have the capability with our own house people. We wouldn't have the vehicles any longer to do that. But I would go to the county, as an emergency type operation, much like we had to do with Irma. We had a contract, and you can do this, and we're going to do it again. We're going to get a contractor, two contractors online for a hurricane. The one is to pick up the debris, and the other is to monitor. You can't have the same, you can't have the fox watching the hen house. So you have to have those two contracts. We had that in Hurricane Irma here. And what happened? The hurricane in Texas took place and our contractor went to Texas. And he said, I'm not coming back. We went to the county. They had the capacity to help us in a situation like that. We entered into an emergency in our local agreement with them. And we had the service from the county coming in with their contractors coming in to clean up the streets for Hurricane Irma. And the county is a monster that has that kind of capabilities. And it wouldn't be anything for them. We pay for it, but it wouldn't be anything for them to come in and make sure our garbage is picked up. And that's who I would go to right away.

And just to add to that, Waste Management is a very large company. Yeah.

They don't have a competition when it comes to negotiating.

I just don't ever see the fact that they would just say, okay, we're going to quit picking up your garbage. The chances that are...

I understand that. I would like... There has been, but it's been also explained and said.

I can attest to the fact that they can regularly... Any company can mess a pickup.

We've messed pickups.

Frank, if it's possible, I would like to see a side-by-side comparison. I think people need to see that. Steve prepared that. Well, we don't have. We have estimates of cost.

Steve prepared the side-by-side comparison for five years from now as well as this year. I asked him to do that. He prepared it. It was presented and walked through, detailed at the workshop. We have those spreadsheets. The spreadsheet is still available.

A shorter version tonight, yeah.

Yeah, I think having a summarized version of that spreadsheet, I mean, less summarized than the summary that you put on the slide.

A very easy to understand, side-by-side comparison.

Yeah. Is that what, you guys are gonna make a decision based on money, because that's what I'm hearing.

Well, I think we're going to make decisions not just based on money. We're going to make decisions based on fact. And I can only speak for myself. I don't know how Commissioner Acosta is going to make her decision. Maybe she's going to make her decision based on what she wants to do next in her political career. I doubt it. I think she's going to make her decision based on what she wants best and what she thinks is best for the residents, right?

The decision should be for the residents to make.

Right. Not for me or my political career. Yeah, right. We should look at every service the same way.

Yeah. We should be looking at every service.

Why are you picking on me? I have to. I appreciate that. Ladies, I appreciate that you haven't been to one of our meetings in quite some time. But No, I don't. Respectfully. Respectfully.

Yeah. People can hear.

Yeah. The point is, is that this commission has been evaluating every dollar that we spend in a more rigorous way than we ever have done before. every single dollar. We went through incredibly brutal budget workshops. We had additional budget workshops so that we could be better, more scrutinizing arbiters of how your money is spent. Respectfully, we're going to close this discussion. I want to know when the public meetings are.

Yes, I am going to have a public meeting about this again on March 15th. which is a Sunday to make it hopefully more amicable for people to participate at North Bay Island and at Treasure Island. I believe it's two o'clock.

Two o'clock on North Bay Island down by 79th Street Parkway.

and uh 3 30 at uh park at the tot lot schaumburger park at uh 3 30 on the same afternoon now i can do this i'm not out for re-election this year so my decision is definitely not political at this point at least i was just saying i was i was only giving an example she asked how we're going to make decisions we all make decisions i'm just clarifying for the public to know i am not out for re-election this year My decision will always be made to the best of this community. My thought continues to be in agreement with Dr. Shirani the same way. It should be up for a ballot. But even that, I think that it's this conversation just continues to happen. And I completely appreciate that everyone here, without exception, has been very open on the conversation. No one is hiding. That's one thing I can say. No one here is hiding. We are, we're facing every meeting. We're here, at least most of us, we're here for the workshop. We're here to meet with people. We're here to answer questions. And this, also this narrative that this is like a secondary interest behind any of this, really, it's coming from having the right city manager who's looking into so many different aspects of the community and what's going to happen in the community whether i like it or not decisions in the past were made i can testify that in the year and so that i have been here there's been nothing but openness on that type of conversation, okay? And I come from the person who was elected against the majority, okay? So I can tell you that I have only experienced people really dedicating themselves to answer these questions. And there's no shame in anybody's decisions because I can honestly say it hasn't been done in any other way than in an open arena. And that's the only thing I like to hear that we continue to do. There is no, I don't want to have a rush in this decision-making. I wanted to leave it up to the community. And what I'm understanding is that we're not having a real clear picture, maybe a flyer that is a one-page flyer that gives you side-by-side. This is how much it's costing us. This is how much it will cost us. This is what we know. What do you guys think? And then continue that conversation. because it is a big service, and it is a very personal item too. The most personal item in most cities is .

Just one thing on the transparency side. We had the workshop. We're talking about it tonight before we're voting on it. We're not voting on it tonight. But the Sustainability and Resilience Task Force, they meet once a month. They meet the last Tuesday of the month. We talk about recycling and waste diversion and composting and solid waste. We talk about it every single month. And for the last 12 months, the subject of what are we going to do about trash pickup and solid waste has been discussed in the sunshine broadcast on facebook live on zoom for the last 12 months at the sustainability and resilience task force without any decision being made, just a free flowing conversation, questions of staff. We've had folks from a couple of companies come talk. I mean, the board is interested in these issues. And so this conversation has been happening there Really for about a year. So we're not trying to hide anything from anybody. And we certainly we want to have a full floated community conversation about it before anything happens.

Oh, God. Since 2018, before any of us were on this commission, because both the mayor and I are here the longest. There has been talk in this commission about privatization. It has not happened to date because we have not been at the critical point where our leases are coming up. We now have a new facility for public works. So maybe in the last year or so, we have prepared ourselves more for the potential of privatization. We have never spoken about, at least on the dais or amongst ourselves, we never spoke about waste management versus another company, whether we put an RFP. I like the idea that there would be better representation of putting in the ballot in November, but our ballots are very poor in number. We have not even 3000 votes. It's not a presidential year, so it's not going to draw the crowds out. I believe the governor is up for reelection in 26. Maybe that'll increase a little bit. But of 8,000 residents, 3,000 residents are the ones that are going to be making the decision. Please come to the, I don't mind you coming back to the microphone. People at home can hear you. They're not hearing you.

I'm so glad that you're here, but you cannot have this casual back and forth with the dais. It's disrespectful to people who are listening on Zoom and public comment is closed. Please. Go ahead, Richard.

In answer to your question, yes, it's going to be five people who make that final decision. Actually, yes, but we listen to what the public says. We listen to what the public says. We may decide to put it on the ballot. And then it's the ballot who chooses. But then there's 3,000 people who are going to decide. 2,000 maybe.

Go ahead.

No, no, you're right. And I agree with you. And I, again, I applaud Commissioner Acosta for recognizing the fact that the spirit of transparency has been going on here for years. And I'm happy to see it continue. And I have a question for legal or for Frank. What is the process to get it put on the ballot for November? Because I, as I said, from the beginning, I'm in favor of that option. I know- You're going to the clerk. Madam Clerk.

We would have to ask the question to the supervisor of election to get authorization to get it on the ballot.

Okay.

The deadline, I think it's approximately sometime in July. I don't have the exact date in front of me, but it's sometime in July.

Yeah, well, look, I mean, even if we were to make a decision to move forward one way or the other, and if we had decided to move forward with waste management, it would take probably a little bit of time, a couple months to implement anyway. So I understand we're maybe missing out on a couple months of potential cost savings, but for me, it's worth giving this opportunity for the residents to decide on this service.

You know, I want to point out another point that we really have kind of glossed over when we talk about cost, okay? We can give you what's going to happen right now and what's going to happen with this contract. But if the decision is made to keep it, the costs that are going to come are going to be passed on to the residents. There's no way to absorb these costs in the general fund with the... with the money that we get from the taxes, okay? It's just not. So when we start talking about buying these trucks, we start talking about making these improvements, we start talking about hiring these people, the cost of the garbage pickup in this village is going to go up exponentially. And we can calculate that and we can come up with a number. We want to put it side by side. It's just not looking today. It's looking about... what we're going to have to invest in now, what we're going to have to invest in now to maintain this. It's not like we just keep going like we are. I hear you. What I'm saying is that when we do that and we say, okay, this is the cost to keep it in-house compared to what it costs to go outside, The issue's gonna be, how are you gonna pay for keeping it in house? Because you're not gonna keep it at the rate that the residents are paying now. Not gonna happen. So if they think that there's a 3% or a cost of living increase that are in these contracts, The issue is we have not been passing on to the residents the costs that we're absorbing right now to the detriment of your police department, of the staff that you're talking about, because these things have to be paid. So you can't continue to run this city with the staff that you have, with people that do not even have a second person in place if something happens to them. That's what we're down to. We've been through, like the mayor said, with the budget ruling. So the public has to realize that the costs of running this city is up and up and up. It's just the way it is. And it's not because everybody's making some huge salary. That's not what's happening. Just ask your unions. That's not what's happening. So when that happens, if the decision is, and listen, we're the administration. We're going to do what you decide or the public decides. But the public needs to be informed what the impact is. If they decide to go to a ballot and say, you know what, we want to keep it in-house. This is what it's going to cost you. And it's going to cost because what we're doing and robbing Peter to pay Paul and taking this money from here to there and keep these trucks on the road and so forth. It can't continue.

There's also one more factor. Within a month, legislature will be over and we will know what's happening tomorrow. with our taxes. Are we gonna be taxed or not? 50%, 4%, 65 and over? I'm not sure. This Thursday it's coming for a hearing. So we're gonna be getting a better idea as to what is coming up as far as Tallahassee pushing down our throats where if we don't have the money coming in from the average law on taxes, it has to come from someplace.

The proposal that's coming, the proposal that's moving is a 10-year phased-out removal of non-school board homestead exemptions. So your homestead exemption is going to increase by $100,000 every year. And within 10 years, there will be no more property taxes for homesteaded properties, except for the school board portion. And that has to make it through the legislature and then the residents and voters in the state of Florida have to make that decision for themselves. We're monitoring what's happening in Tallahassee on property taxes very closely. We have talked to our state representative and our state Senator. We've spoken to other leaders in the legislature on property taxes. There's a real conversation about how we fund services. And it's something that we're all really aware of. We're also hyper-conscious of the fact that there could be a bubble in our real estate market and that all of the excitement that we've seen in North Bay Village Real Estate over the last couple of years is going to slow down and we're not going to have the ad valorem revenue that we've had the last couple of years. I think that that's something that our police department is really stressed out about because our ad valorem revenue is largely funding our public safety operations in our police department. These are all topics that we take very, very seriously. I think you have a more professionalized city commission that is looking at all of these issues closely and thinking about how to be the best stewards of your money and how to make your money go farther. And we're also trying to deliver more services to the community. Several people tonight mentioned that police and trash are the best things about this village. Okay. You know, I'll take it. I'll take the compliment, but we're also doing so much more. We have a youth soccer program that is changing the lives of families and kids in our community that we didn't have six years ago. We have community events for spring and winter and Halloween and 4th of July that are attended by hundreds of people. And we never used to have this before. We're building this community center that is going to be a space for yoga and Zumba and chess club and all of the art classes. We've never had this before. North Bay Village has never had these things. So we're trying to balance doing more than we could ever imagine with virtually the same, if not a tiny bit more money. And we're taking it all very seriously. And we want to continue to hear your feedback. And it is considered. There's no question. So I guess there are these two public meetings on March 8th. Who is staffing the meeting? Are they sunshine? Can any of us come to this meeting or is this just a commissioner Acosta?

You're more than welcome to.

I think the more the merrier. Do you have staff backing you up?

I was hoping to just have Frank, but Frank is not going to be able to make it.

I'm out of town. Steve is going to be there and-

I tend to do most of the stuff I do, bring my own stuff. And you guys are welcome to come. I did the flyer. I'm just waiting for it to be revised. So very little staff has been, as far as services.

I mean, it's an informational back and forth with the questions, much like we had here tonight.

It's very interesting. We need to have that meeting. Absolutely. That's only 394 homes that are being represented. We have, say, three people per home. You're talking about 1,000 residents out of 8,000. We still have to have meetings in the multifamily homes. Continue to. So they can understand what's happening, at least with the managers of the multifamily buildings and the businesses.

Because they're all going to be affected. Yeah, they are going to be affected. But it's interesting to hear you say that because you actually participated in the workshop. Yes. And we talked about the low turnout at the workshop. At the day off. And I said... I said, I don't know if we should try to host small group meetings in people's homes or locations around the village, or if we should host another workshop, or should we just put it on the agenda and tell people we're going to vote on it so they freak out and come to the meeting? And that's what we ended up doing. But now we're going to host more meetings. I think it's fine. I just think when you're conveying information on a topic as sort of in the weeds as this. I think it's important to make sure that staff is there. Oh, I definitely want to do very little talking.

It's going to be more listening and asking actual questions to the people who can propose an answer better than, I'm not planning to be an informational contact point. It's more of a listening and providing access to the community to Steve to have those direct questions to him.

Well, I did a little research here in the background, and it looks like the deadline to post something for a recommendation on a ballot is July 27th. So, yeah, so I think we should definitely have more meetings in the meantime. I would love to keep having the discussion with the community, keep hearing the feedback. having hopefully more residents attend and engage. One other question that I had from probably for you, Steve, is I also mentioned that I'd be open to seeing since we had there's a little bit of time. Is there an opportunity to engage in a pilot program with them to test out the service for a couple for a period, a couple of a couple of months?

I would have to have that discussion with them before I could give you an honest answer, but I don't see whether that could really work too well.

Okay. Now, regarding your July deadline, you're saying July 27th. July 27th is when the written final question has to be at the county election so they can print it and have the ballot. Before that, we have to decide what we want in the question. Legal has to frame it in the proper number of words and explanations, submit it to elections, have them approve it. If they deny it, it comes back to us. So we're going to need at least two months before that to get the process done. So April. And there's a cost to this too. I'm cutting it short, I know.

There is a process and then obviously I would have to ask her for permission and then obviously Heidi would have to draft a resolution with the actual As far as the cost, there is a cost associated because that will be considered a special election. So I don't have an exact.

Since it's tied to our municipal election.

Right.

The cost will be. It's smaller. It's not that much. It's smaller than if it was taken off.

It's about $10,000. It's about $10,000 to add a question.

Okay. Not when you have a municipal election.

It's less. It's like that. It's still an additional cost. Alina's bringing it up. That's been the cost in the past. Having just gone through this, the standalone election costs are higher. They're requiring upfront payment as opposed to how it was in the past. So from a budgeting perspective, it's also changing.

Okay. I used to be continued in March. Yes. Thank you. All right. 14 F is the Island walk discussion item. Um, We opened and closed public comment at the beginning of the meeting, but if there are individuals here who would like to speak specifically about the Island Walk discussion, I would invite you now to make public comment. 14F, Island Walk. If anyone would like to make public comment, please step up to the podium.

Renee Martinez 7910 harbor island drive so just a few points on this opening it up, so you know, the reason that we moved my daughter, there was for more safety purposes, we obviously have to pay an HOA for the security. Opening that up would mean that we would not have that same security that we have now. She did live somewhere else on North Bay Village before and she had a break in. So we moved her there so that she would be safe. Having these people be able to come through anytime they want to, I think would be a problem because of safety. You do have the residents walking back and forth. It's not just one building like, you know, Moda is one building. You walk inside. to one location, there's somebody sitting in there. This is several buildings, 7910, 7900, and then you have all the buildings in the middle. Anyone can break into any of those. So allowing that access could be a problem. We also had something a couple of weeks ago where there were people outside fighting in the street. The police came and they ran in different directions. Luckily, they weren't able to run into 360 because that's closed off. So, you know, there's several reasons with security that I would personally have an issue with when I have, and my daughter's not that young, she's 25, but having her be in a secure spot is very important. I think it's important to all the residents in 360.

Thank you.

Thanks, Mayor.

Commissioner Frank. Okay, I think you've heard a little bit of what the concerns are. I'm just going to give a little more historical perspective to this because this is an issue that's been, you know, surfacing and resurfacing for, I think, over 10 years. I know Commissioner Schiavone is very familiar with that because that was part of the dais at the time when the issue came up. Frank was also here. And I think the big problem that we have with this issue is that there is no clear vision as to what we mean by now it's island walk. I remember back then it was boardwalk. Then it was Baywalk. And then it was something down, had to do with the Grandview Palace under the bridge. Then when the development at the north end of the causeway was going to take place, they called it the Promenade. And it's taken so many different shapes and descriptions that I don't think people really understand what what we mean today by island walk. Commissioner Darrow say that everybody you've spoken to is in favor of the island walk. Again, if you go out there and you transmit a picture of, hey, you're going to be able to walk all around the island, and the water and you know nobody's going to be against that I'm not against that I mean I'm here representing 360 and full disclosure I'm the president of the board a and president of the marina and I don't know if this has any bearing but I also sit in the planning and zoning board so I just want to make sure I disclose that but but if you really give them an understanding of what it is that we're talking about what we have today we don't really have a boardwalk and i remember back when i think 2014 2012 when when we uh when we uh tabled this item because it came up and i think the uh the motion was made i think it was actually made by me at the time and the day is that we table this item until we can find a way to have a contiguous which is was the issue something that you can actually really have a boardwalk And I don't know if that could somehow be dug up to see what the arguments were back then that could maybe help us understand this issue a little bit better. But I think that the issue we're having, as you heard, is one of security. Who's going to monitor that back there? We have a marina with very expensive boats, some yachts there. How are we going to make sure that we secure that? What are we going to deal with sanitation? I was listening to some of the comments that were made at the last commission meeting, and the mayor even said, hey, we're strapped. How are we going to deal with even the doggy bags or the who's gonna make sure that place is clean? What's gonna happen when there is a lawsuit as to somebody fell and hurt himself in the water? Who's gonna be responsible for that? Is that gonna be the village or is that now, is the community association responsible for that? The other issue that was brought up was, well, these were all part of the development agreement and yes, okay. But I've been looking at that. Can I continue a little bit further? Yeah. The development agreements that were approved were ad hoc. I can continue.

Motion to adjourn.

Are you going to do that to me?

I'm really doing it to him. Please continue.

Oh, okay. Thank you. You can adjourn. If you look at the way this was proposed, it was done in a very ad hoc manner. Every building got different language. I'm actually looking at the one that I received from the attorney as part of the letter that we received as a condo association. It only talks to about, hey, it should be six feet wide. That's basically, you know, I mean, it doesn't say that it has to be open from what time to what time. It doesn't show anything in terms of a contiguous, where do you come in, where do you go out. In fact, I brought, can I pass this to you, Darius? This is what's included in the docs, in the condo docs, as to what the owners get. when they purchase. If you look at that, they call it a promenade. That was approved by the commission as part of the bylaws, the condo docs, the governing documents that were approved for the condo. And that's what we're giving to the people that bought there. If you look at that shaded area, it's called a promenade. That's what we're calling the bay walk. That's what we're calling the island walk. If you notice, that goes nowhere. It just goes to the end of the other property.

There's no in and out on what was actually- George, did you really submit like evidence on the record that reinforces the village's position? No, I did not. Page 10, waterfront promenade shall mean that certain promenade open to the general public in the approximate location showed on exhibit six attached here too.

No, no, but that's my point.

Open to the general public.

Yeah, but that's my point. It's not a contiguous walk. It's not a promenade. It's not a baywalk. It's basically the beer of our property. It's that right now it's being asked from us. And again, this is not just us. We had a meeting back in July 2024 with all major associations in Harbor Island. Cielo was there. Eloquence was there. Bay... Blue Bay was there. We were there. Even the Grandview Palace was there. And all the all the different boards agreed that this is really not something that their membership would approve. OK, because it's really a you're putting us in a situation in which you're opening the railroad building. You're putting us at risk in terms of everything that we talked about. In other words, in order for you to get back there, you have to open up a pedestrian gate that's on the east drive, on the west side of east drive. You walk through the property. through our marina, through the rear of property, and you exit back on the sidewalk, not even West Drive. It's like in the corner of West Drive and the exit of Harbor Island. And you don't see the water once you leave the property. You don't walk on the water anymore. You go back on the street. You get back on the sidewalk if you want it. go back to one and you got to walk all the way at the end and go to Moda. That's basically the way it is right now. So the point being is that it's not a bay walk. It's not an island walk. It's just basically going behind the property. It's about 100, 150 yards. that you're going to be walking. It's nothing that you're going to enjoy a long, nice stroll. There's a seawall. Right after the seawall, you have gated piers. Then you have yachts, you have boats. So it's not something that you're gonna be able to sit there. You can't sit on the seawall.

It's not- There's a gated separation between the waterfront promenade and the actual vessel dockage.

There is a, well, each pier has a gate.

Okay.

Yeah, it has a gate. It's not a security gate by any means. You can easily bridge it or walk around it. It's not meant to be. Sometimes they even leave it open. People go in and out. So it's not really something that we feel that it's going to protect the property in terms of opening it to the public. Okay, so those are mostly our concerns. I want to make sure that, you know, I echo the comments that you made in the last meeting. I think that, you know, proceeding legally against the associations, I don't think that's a good idea. I think mostly engaging the associations and finding some common ground and understanding what we can do to find some middle ground here to open up where it makes sense. and other properties that don't make sense, then there's a different story. That's why when I saw these two points, I think the boardwalk makes sense in the north end of the causeway. For two reasons. First, it's property that hasn't been developed yet, so it's property that could definitely be designed in a way that it would... benefit from a boardwalk and also my understanding of the property is going to be mixed use in which you're going to have retail and retail obviously benefits from there's no retail in the in harbor island there's no reason 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 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

It's not my drawing, that's what.

In the joint.

Lot 88 and 89 are, I believe, are the ones that are on Elad's property. You have the walkway also. You have extended your baywalk or your waterfront property to the property contiguous to yours, which is the old Coletta lot. Well, yeah. You have that whole waterfront area. Yeah.

Yeah, but that belonged to, that was the way it was assigned.

That belonged to 360.

Correct. That's my point. I'm saying we didn't extend it. That was part of the original segment.

It's not shown here on this drawing. It extends further out. Elad is building on the property now. Yes. The two old buildings that follow it have recently been purchased and they will be rebuilt. So now we're talking about From the end of Ogle Park, calling it such, all the way around. Heading on East Drive on your side, Gran Vida owns that property as well. He's willing to continue the boardwalk as well. And he's about to build. He just announced his joint venture partner, which is Elad. You know, so there is activity going on for waterfront. I mean, I understand the issues of security. I understand that your gate is covered by a bougainvillea and a chain lock on the East Drive.

Come on, it's 20 years. Okay, but my point is, I think you just made my point, Commissioner Schiavone. You're saying that these slots are going to be developed. And at some point... They might have a contiguous boardwalk. They have to have it. Okay, but that's not what we have now. That's not the reality of the situation today.

Moda doesn't have anybody that they want to have.

Exactly, but Moda, and it was alluded to earlier by someone else, Moda is a property in and of itself. It's a big property. You have one end that closes. They have a gate that closes at sunset. Yes, they do. And yes, they have certain time limits for that. And it was designed that way. It was properly enforced and it was designed. And the commission at that time made sure, because I remember I was sitting up there, made sure that it was done correctly. If you look at some of the properties around, there's a pool that abuts up to the seawall in some of these properties. How are you going to do a boardwalk there? In fact, at the time that this was brought up many years ago, the discussion came to maybe we should do something over the water. You remember that?

Correct.

Okay. Because it made no sense to try to do it behind the properties because there's no way you could have a continuous boardwalk. I don't know what happened to the over the water solution. That didn't go anywhere. But this is what I think that we need to communicate to the community. to the owners and to the, particularly in Harbor Island. I mean, I'm not so much concerned about the North end of the causeway and Treasure Island, because that could still be developed and designed in a way that would make sense. But for many of the properties in Harbor Island today, including 360, right now to, somehow forces to open up the back of our properties is going to create a lot of issues that are detrimental to the residents.

Where were the benefits that you, not you, the property obtained for giving us the right to the boardwalk?

I'm sorry, I didn't understand.

There were benefits that were derived by the developer of 360. The whole green front that was our street was given to 360 as their right for us to have the right to the boardwalk. I mean, I'm going back 20 years.

Well, look, I can understand that would be the fallback argument, but I don't think it's practical. It's not practical for several reasons. First, it happened, like you said, 20 years ago. These developers are long gone. You know how developers, they come in, they promise the world, they get their permits, they get their plants approved. And then they're gone and they leave it up to the, okay. So the other thing is that it makes no sense, in my opinion, to the way that the language in a lot of these different site plans and what was said to one building and to another, there's no uniformity. There's nothing that you can say, this is a strong argument. For example, the 360 doesn't really have a strong argument when you look at the language of the of what was proposed and the way it was approved, the site plan, to say you have to do exactly this. So if we're going to go down that route, which I don't think it's a practical way to do it, then all we're probably going to do is get into a lot of legal back and forth. And I don't think that's a good idea. I don't think you're going to benefit from suing your voters. You're not going to benefit from suing your residents. Nobody wants that. I understand that you know, developers and this and this coincidentally or not happens every time we have development. I mean, back when, you know, we had the the the shuckers, we had Barbara Gaio, we had trio that wanted to be developed and a lot of and then there was a lot of lobbying that was done to the commission at that time to the boardwalk. And then they brought up some commissioners were more susceptible to that lobbying than others. And then it kind of cooled off because there was no development for several years. I think that issue never came up. Now we see development coming back up again, and the issue is coming back up. But there is no resolution to the concerns of the residents. The security concern, the sanitation concern is not there. How are we going to protect those residents from all these things that they're concerned about? Has the village come up with an answer? Has the village given us a vision of what a boardwalk or a baywalk or an island walk really looks like? I haven't seen one. So I think that's where the concerns are. I think you will probably get more people on board if you would provide that kind of communication and that kind of concept, a more clear picture, a vision of what the village wants to see in terms of an island walk. We don't have that right now.

Thank you for coming to make public comment.

I was going to respond as well. Go ahead, and I'll go. All right. George, thank you for coming, and everybody.

George, I'm going to ask you to sit, please, while these two respond to your comments, because I think you have neighbors who also would like to make comments.

Okay, yeah. So, George and all residents, I hope you guys can understand, you know, the position that we're in and we're trying to find the right balance here and no one here is wanting to get into a legal battle with our residents with one of the condo associations that we have here. um we we all want to find a a compromise here that works and commissioner travoni made made some great points uh i've had a lot of residents reach out to me too asking why isn't why isn't that boardwalk open we know we have it open at moda we we want access to this one this is what was agreed upon the other thing is is that as we are negotiating with developers we We don't want to set a dangerous kind of precedent here that we make agreements, even this, which you brought here, that's very clear. It says that we have access to a waterfront promenade and then we don't enforce it. It opens the door for continuum or others to say, well, it's not continuous, so we're just going to close it off to our residents and we'll open it up in five, 10, 20 years, whenever it's all fully continuous. That's what we're trying to balance here. And Commissioner Cervone also made a good point that This was negotiated as part of a broader deal with the developer. This could have been negotiated to be fully 360s, but that would have probably come at the expense of additional community contribution fees or some other give or take that would have come with that negotiation. So those are all the points that we're trying to find the balance with. I'm a big favor of compromises. I'd like for us to sit with 360. Again, that's my take. I don't want us to go after 360 to go to court, to sue, do all this stuff. I'd like to find a compromise, but this is something we negotiated with the expectation that we would have this for this public benefit in exchange for whatever was the negotiation at that time for 360. And maybe a workaround could be One thing I brought up in the past around the Island Walk was maybe we could look at charging conduit associations per linear square foot that is not accessible right now to the public. And we charge associations a certain amount annually, and that goes up every year until it is continuous. That's something I would support. Maybe that's a middle ground to help to help with the funding gap, to help with doing something to enforce the agreements that we have. Because right now the status quo isn't working. There are other residents that know that we have this closed off. They see the paperwork, they want it open. They're coming to us, we're getting a lot of emails and calls. from residents that want to see it open. And then also, you know, you have concerns around safety and other things, which we can address the same way we've had Moda open and accessible to the public, which has been safe and clean and orderly. And we can definitely work with 360 to do that as well. But I'm open to negotiations, to compromises and solutions that work for everybody.

My turn. All right. Thank you. First of all, at some point I said everybody wants to see the Island Walk. I take that back because I understand that it's not everybody. I do think there is a majority, but if it's not everybody, and of course, I think it's obvious at this point, I've been a big advocate for the Island Walk, so I am passionate about it. That is something... that I've always thought could set North Bay Village apart. You know, I believe in the grander vision, the clear vision that you said. I think, yeah, I mean, that needs to be better communicated by us and to everyone and what that clearer vision is, which we can touch on in a minute. But I also just want you to know that when I come from this position of really wanting to see the island walk, I'm not a hypocrite in it. I mean, I live in the Islander Condo on West Drive. It's one of the only buildings on West Drive that actually has this grandfathered. I've advocated publicly for my building to open, you know, we don't have to have that. I'm like, this makes our community better. You know, this brings property value. You know, I see it as raising property values. I see it as, you know, improving the quality of life. So, I mean, it's really just a point of view. You know, this is our building who doesn't have it. You know, I've been advocating for our building to open it up. So I'm not, you know, this isn't something that I'm saying, you know, I just really think that, you know, that just to add value. you know, what I think the island walk would mean to our community if we did have a continuous walk on the bay. And to get to your point again, yeah, the continuous, I think, is probably the strong, even though, you know, development in sight agreements were made that I believe this is clear is supposed to be open in public. I think the continuous is probably the strongest argument that people would have for not opening, but to what Commissioner Schiavone said is true. I mean, it's coming. I think, you know, if it's not today or tomorrow, you know, by 2030, you're going to have a lot here. You're going to have the properties that connect to it on the East Drive as well. You know, I think all this, a lot of these buildings, you know, in North Bay Village, we will work very close to continuous development through you know reconstruction of properties um in time the safety definitely a concern uh but at the same time you know I think Moda has operated you know I've heard since 2014 without a single incident on the island walk you know reported is that reported I mean yeah yeah literally

It's okay.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, we use the, yeah, I just, from what I understand, it hasn't been, you know, North Bay Valley generally, thanks to our police department, a big part of it. I mean, we're generally a very safe place to live, you know, people, you know, the other thing just to be thinking of, you know, if your boardwalk was open, I nine out of 10 days. I don't think you're going to see any difference than what you're seeing there. I mean, if we're getting to this thought that residents are coming from Brickell or Aventura or Miami beach to come to North Bay village, to use our Island wall. I mean, we made it, you know, like that's kind of like, you know, then we're the destination. You know, that's kind of like what I see. Maybe the Island Walk does have that potential with Full Connected, you know, that we become more of a destination of people want to come because we have something that is truly amazing. I mean, we have a, you know, two mile walk on the water that you can enjoy some of the most beautiful views in the world. You know, and I think Commissioner, you know, Goran just touched on my last concern at the precedent, you know, if, you know, the continuum opens, you know, once they build and they'll start building this year, if they decide to close their island walk, what, you know, why do we have to enforce them if it hasn't been done before? I mean, the properties next to them, whether it be MG or Prosper, you know, that's not going to be done yet. So they're not going to have continuous when they're done either, you know, same with

But they tried when the Shuckers and Best Western, before the Shuckers Best Western was bought by Continuum, it was another hospitality developer. They were based out of Canada and they hired Colby Carp. And they came here for a site plan approval to build a condo tower and a hotel. Maybe I think there was a little bit of office in that site plan also. And that was exactly the argument that they made to us when we were approving their site plan. They didn't want to open the island walk until their neighbors opened their island walk. And their neighbor to the east side was Kennedy House. So that wasn't going to happen. And the neighbor to the west was the Continuum. And so they were like, we'll open our island walk when everybody else connects. And we said no. No to that. So just to add a little bit more color to what Andy said.

My last thought on that and the safety is that if this was to happen, it wouldn't, you know, in my opinion, be a 24 hour open, you know, I think that similar to how motor was constructed with gates and how you have gate, you know, there was the ability to lock it after dark or something like this. If there was a concern, you know, I don't know, you know, it's been determined that this is supposed to be 24 hour access. So that it's, you know, daylights and that, you know, people have the ability to, use the bay as intended i mean yeah i mean i'm you know i'm i'm definitely very passionate you know the the island walk it's been no secret you know even before i was up here that was one of the things that i i wanted to try to see um to see happen but uh you know we we don't we would like to do it on some collaboration as i think it's been expressed with everybody you know

I want to, there are more people who wanted to give public comment, so I don't know.

I just wanted to do a comment before that.

But wait, I want to hear more from the residents who came to speak. George, you're going to have to just, please. Yeah.

For now.

Yeah. Yes, please. Please come. Tell us your name and address.

Yes. Hello. Good evening.

Hi.

Marisol de Colza. I live at the 360, 1402. So I will be very quick. because I want to go home and have dinner. I haven't had dinner. Anyway, so when I bought a 360, one of the appeals was that it's a gated community. So this thing about the walkable island is completely came as a shock to me, right? What are we talking about, first of all, because I have never heard about this so-called project, right? And walkable where? Because as George explained, what is workable there other than our marina and moda right now right so the east part yes as they develop maybe they will open up right but i think that until we don't have a vision of what that would look like there shouldn't be you know the city shouldn't be asking us to comply to something that is not even concrete right of what it looks and i will have also a lot of concerns about security because there has been incidents before you know that people jumping over the fence you know that we caught in the camera right remember yours there has been some incidents there so i cannot imagine without gates right and anybody walking there so i just don't like it okay that's in summary are you posted we got it okay thank you thank you

Hi.

Good evening. I'll also be brief. Hermann Dubois, 360 resident. I lived at Moda when it first opened. It sold the dream. And I had one of the garden units and thought that I had reached paradise. And the first year was... The lesson learned, you know, it's all the kinks or everything that could go wrong happens in the first year. And one of the major concerns, especially for those of us in the guarding unit, was the lack of enforcement of security. Mota does not have security. So and you move along. We're many years away from. police walking the beat. On occasion, I'll see officers now, maybe two years ago, it was great. When we talk about security, when we talk about safety, I think North Bay Village is a small enough community that it would be encouraged if we had police officers on foot. And as we talk about the challenges with our other utility departments, that's something to be projected. Once you create that space for public access It's not just people walking. We keep talking about it as if they're going to be cruising and just, wow, look at the sunset and wow, look at the water. People will congregate. People will sit. There's benches. That's why they don't have benches at Moda because they don't really want people to have one bench on facing west and it's a retreat bench. They may have added more since then. But the idea was, you think people are going to walk through there or not. They're going to hang out. It's a beautiful spot. I would hang out. That's why I moved to 360. But there's another factor that no one's talking about, the aesthetics. The gate that's being mentioned that we have... I don't know if at one point that was open. I don't know if at one point how often that was accessed and used, if it was just a lock, a fob, or what have you. But there's a significant amount of aesthetics that I think would need to happen, at least on our east drive, because we have a pool right there. Privacy is a matter. You know, you don't want... Random strangers being able to cruise by and just appreciate the human aesthetic of our residents who are residing by the pool with children and what have you. How does that affect property value? Do we take on the expenses of having to put in proper privacy walls or privacy gates? You talked about access to sunrise and sunset. Who enforces that? if there are public, if there's public in the North Bay Village area at a time that they're not supposed to be, does our security have to step to that? Is it North Bay Village police that has to tell them, hey, you guys got to pack out. You guys got to pack up and go. It's sundown. And so these are all logistical concerns that I think to the point that's been made, a greater strategy or plan that can get bought in, not just for 360, but with all the properties that are affected by this. And I think you'll have some momentum gained if you can get some of those questions answered. And although this is completely off the subject from a topic earlier that I think would help you guys with getting the word out, I think the North Bay Village app that you have is completely underutilized. I think, I remember when you guys first launched it, when it was launched, there was a little bit of a campaign. I think you may want to consider a resurgence of a public campaign because let's face it, as much as I like getting stuff in the mail, That's not what people are doing. People are getting text alerts. People are getting notifications. If you can speak to your app designer and revisit and folks with a phone number can get a message saying, hey, commission meeting or whatever. Weather alert or use the app. It's there. It could use some updating, but it's a platform that I think is underutilized and I think it would help you guys from the communication perspective get the word out a little bit more effectively about anything and everything. And last thing I wanted to say, the comparison that was made by the gentleman with the services in Coral Gables is interesting because their census is about 50,000 people. Okay, have we spoken to our neighboring communities, Normandy Islands, 9,000, Miami Shores, 12,000, El Portal, 2,000, in terms of how they're dealing with, I don't know if they're managed by the city raised or private, but is there a bit of discussion to consider a collective impact approach where if we had shared resources, could there be a fleet of trucks that are shared within these immediate communities and employees that would allow us to save some costs, but also avoid from going private. Just a thought for consideration. I'd love to come to your March meeting and talk more about that. Thank you. Yes, sir.

We need to speak also. Your artwork needs a little freshen up.

Oh, we need a lot of freshening up. We got some more walls. I wanted something at the elementary school with your permission. So I look forward to that. Thank you guys. All right.

We did explore Miami Shores. We explored Miami Shores. We also explored Bell Harbor and Bay Harbor. Bay Harbor is now looking for an alternative site themselves, but they're looking up in Keystone, which I don't think makes sense. And Miami Beach is just not something that we want to get involved in for trash. We're getting involved in a lot of other things with Miami Beach, but for trash, no. So yes, we did explore those creative options. Thank you. Does anyone else want to make public comment about trash pickup? If you want to really quickly address something, come to the podium.

Microphone.

You do need my permission. Do it from the microphone.

Thank you. Well, I just want to reiterate a couple of things. And I think this is from feedback that I've got, not only from residents of 360, but the folks at the other boards that we've met in Harbor Island. And that is... What Commissioner Darrow was saying about, hey, there isn't going to be a lot of walk. There isn't going to be a lot of traffic there. Nobody's going to come from far away. That's true, and I agree with that. But the flip side of that is that we have to balance that. How much benefit and to how many people are we providing this benefit to versus... the concerns of the people that live there. If we put that in a balance, which is something that I think needs to be considered, what are we providing in terms of access to the water, to how many people? These people are going to be North Bay Village residents. Are they going to come? Well, yeah, those people, some are. But the other thing that we need to think about is how many of those people are just going to come there because they see an opportunity to do some nefarious activity. They see big boats, they see properties that are easily accessible. So if we weigh the concerns that we're putting people in, based on security, safety, sanitation, legal, versus the benefit that we're going to be providing a very few a number of people that are residents that might want to go out and take that 150-yard walk, enter on one sidewalk, exit on the other sidewalk. I don't see really the benefit there. I don't see the compelling argument why we should open it based on Again, we don't have a contiguous boardwalk. We're just coming in one end, going out the other end. So I think that's something also that needs to be considered. That's one point I wanted to address from your comments. And the other is, and I'm not disputing at all that back when the site plans were approved, the developers at that time agreed to all this. And I know that's a fallback argument, the legal argument. But in terms of practical, as a practical approach, I wouldn't focus on that. I would try to focus more on what's in the best interest of the Harbor Island residents and try to come to an agreement, whether it be a negotiation, whether it be some sort of project of which we can demonstrate the benefit of opening up a true island walk. And I just say, hey, 20 years ago, before you even thought about moving here, some developer that wanted to get their site plan approved, signed off on this. He's long gone. He's made his money. He's gone. But now you are responsible for complying with that. I don't think that's the right approach.

We'll have that conversation privately.

Okay, we can. And much less is... Because that's my personal opinion, not the opinion of the rest of the day. Okay, that's fine. That's why I'm looking at you. But again, and then the last thing is, again, I would strongly discourage any sort of legal action against without first trying a more amicable approach against the different associations because the feedback that we're getting is that this is important enough for them that they will fight it. I mean, the associations will fight it.

It's funny you say that because I had that conversation with one of your board members via Facebook. And the first thing he did was threaten us with, A lawsuit? He's going to meet me in court? He doesn't even want to meet with me outside of court. He wants to meet me in court. That's number one. Number two, remember, elections are coming up. We're going to get all the people to vote against you. Who's the bully? Me with that letter or him with that statement?

It's a wrong approach. I don't condone that. I don't know who the board member is, but that's why I'm here expressing myself. I don't know who it was, but I don't agree with that either. I think this should be a conversation, not threats.

And that's what the letter intends to do, have the conversation.

Can we bring this in for a landing?

i do believe that putting the residents first is definitely the priority there has been promises that were made by developers but nevertheless the building was built with certain standards based on those promises I do stand by every building is different. We need to approach each individual building condominium association separately. I also agree that there is no, well, there is and there isn't. There is an understanding of what to expect when we talk about Island Walk, because it's not that... it's not easily understandable what the expectation is. You're gonna be walking in front of the water, right? But when we talk about security, fencing, monitoring, there are things that the village is doing. For example, today in the agenda, we have the conversation of a police vehicle that will access those specific areas of the island walk so that people can have that one-on-one with our police process.

There's also an ongoing conversation about bicycles.

Yes. Some of us feel really strongly about bicycles. Absolutely. We had them. So this is not, there's no illusion here that the commission is not aware of this means. My compromise would be to have a more clear understanding on the rules and regulations of what the island walk would mean for every resident. It's also a conversation on feasibility of space, meaning if we can obtain 1,000 feet of linear access point, maybe that would trigger a building to open the access. we do have the next buildings coming up around 360 or Eloquence or many other ones. Like I said, every building is different. So it's just opening up the conversation to see exactly what it means to open up a certain minimum space, you know, for a building. So if you're the only building and there's nothing happening around you, and we're talking about just a few feet compared to, you know, Moda, for example, that we keep referring to. Moda is also an apartment building. It's not a condominium. So it's a very, you're dealing with one owner making a decision rather than every individual unit. We also have to talk about fencing because just as the boat walk on the ocean, on Ocean Drive and all along the ocean was a big issue with a lot of the residents that lived there, accommodations were made with fencing, landscaping, more patrolling, more access for the police to be there. There could be maybe a compromise with us when we talk about cost of fencing, landscaping for private, you know, keep things private. There's definitely more room for communication and conversation about that, but there's also needs to be an understanding that every building gains something by agreeing to have an open space. So there should be some kind of compensation and conversation about that, whether it keeps that value of your apartment because of the private, you know, aspect of it, or Is it not worth it at that point? And you decide to open it with the flexibility that we talk about fencing and monitoring. So there's a lot still to have those conversations. I do think that we should have a one-on-one with 360, maybe meet at 360 directly and have more of a conversation.

Just like a point of information, when the site plan for 360 was approved, the incorporation of the public promenade as part of this site plan, not only did it afford other development benefits to the 360 at that time, But it also afforded the 360 the benefit of not having to pay Miami-Dade County for their shoreline requirements. Miami-Dade County has jurisdiction over all of the shoreline of Biscayne Bay. for something called shoreline review. Miami-Dade County requires public access along the shoreline of Biscayne Bay. You're required to create pedestrian access from the public right of way to the bay. You're required to put trash receptacles and benches and to dedicate it to the public. And if you decline, you're not going to provide public access to Biscayne Bay You owe Miami-Dade County $1,000 per linear foot. So if 360 was approved by Miami-Dade County Shoreline Review with this public promenade, but never made it open to the public, how many linear feet are we talking about here? You probably owe Miami-Dade County $350,000. Just saying. yeah no of course i i i bring it up no i know for a fact you didn't pay into the fund because you showed a site plan that provided public access but then you closed it off not you personally okay but look i i appreciate all of the concerns, sanitation, security, all of the things. And my colleagues who have been here, you know, debating this with me will tell you that I have been the one trying to slow roll the champions of the iron walk to say, we're not gonna litigate against our residents on this particular issue. But I, Knowing that your condo docs provide knowledge, information to prospective buyers, that the promenade is open to the general public and that the promenade is a shared walkway that's open to the general public, I think that's relevant. I think it's relevant. It's in your condo docs. It's been there from the beginning. I'm hearing all of the arguments that everyone is making, and I have been the person on this dais making those arguments as well. But, you know.

There's a lot of, and that's why I brought that, there's a lot of confusion in the different documents that was submitted. The site plan and what was put in the governing documents, the point of showing you that is that the verbiage, what's written there, contradicts what the drawing is showing. Because you're seeing a promenade, which they're calling it a promenade. It's just basically a walkway that leads to nowhere. It just leads to the other property.

Or just walkway back there.

Yeah, of course. You have a gorgeous walkway behind you. I've been invited. I know. I'm not disagreeing with that. I've never been there. I invite all of you.

I enjoy walking around Moda with my dog. It would be nice to have somewhere else to go.

I think there's a big difference between what we're talking about here, between Moda and 360 in terms of the design and the in and the out and everything else, how wide it is. It's completely different, one owner versus condo owners. That all needs to be taken into account when we're looking at, you know, comparing the two places and open up the boardwalk. Point being is that I think that it was also made, these comments were also made by the attorney at the last meeting is this was done a very ad hoc manner. Each building was approached differently, was told to do things differently. And as a result of that, and I think that's the problem we're having right now, there was nothing contiguous. There was no unified vision as to what the island walk or the bay walk or whatever it was at the time.

But George, can I be honest with you? And I'm interrupting now because we're no longer in a formal public common setting. All development is site specific.

Correct.

And when you have a master plan for a contiguous island walk or the Kennedy Causeway District or the NBV 100, anytime you change your land development regulations, you do so understanding that those changes are gonna manifest in the real world slowly, incrementally over time as redevelopment happens. And that is why the boardwalk, baywalk, island walk obligations are unique to each specific site plan approval. And so all lawyers at the direction of the commission have reviewed all of those site plans and approvals. And we know where we have meaningful leverage and where we don't have meaningful leverage.

Let's even go further to say that there are two gates that will be open each day to allow access to the public.

Down until dusk. You brought this from your own docs.

And again, I'm not saying that back then, that's what the comments I'd make to Commissioner Schiavone, the site plan or whatever it was approved, called for a walk or a board walk or something that was never developed. It was never enforced. It's been brought up on several locations over the last 10 years. And I understand what you're saying that development takes time. But in the meantime, you know, we've got all these concerns are not being addressed. And if we would have been dealing with the situation since it first originally came up back in 2014, 2015, you know, when I was at the desk, we're still in the same situation. Nothing has changed. And we're talking about 10 years ago. Now we're bringing it up now. When do we know when the next property, next to 360 is going to be developed and a baywalk is going to be contiguous there? What do we do if it takes another 10 or 15 years? How do we protect the residents? How do we make sure we don't get sued? How do we keep that place clean? Those are concerns that I need to deal with now as part of the board and residents are coming to me and they're asking me for that. That's what I'm trying to transmit to you. I'm not trying to get into a legal fight with you saying, no, that's not what it says. I'm saying this is something that hasn't been enforced. It wasn't properly thought. There was no vision. It wasn't implemented correctly. It wasn't built right with the exception of Moda. I think Moda was done right. But none of the other properties, whether it be Cielo or Blue Bay or Eloquence, they weren't built correctly. And I don't know what happened. I wasn't here back then. I'm just having to deal with it now. And those are the concerns that I'm bringing to the commission because they're real concerns. You heard residents here bring them up.

Yeah, no, your points are very well taken. Okay. Let me just ask you to speak at the microphone and then we're going to move on.

In the spirit of compromise, is there a way with all of the new development that's coming, knowing that they're going to take into account the design factor, the protection, the safety, all the things that we've mentioned, does it have to be this continuous walk to the whole island? Because let's face it, that strip where Shuckers was, that's going to be a lovely, I mean, that's going to be huge. And with all the retailers going to be there, you're going to have... Foot traffic galore, whether from locals and folks from not from North Bay Village. In other words, is there a hard line that this all of North Bay Village, which we know is never going to be all a walk, because you have too many private homes that I'm assuming don't have that.

It wouldn't go into the single family.

Right, exactly. So if we already know it's not... literally going to be continuous. And we know we've got huge property developments that are coming that will offer an extensive amount of boardwalk space, family gathering space.

I mean, there's too late to step back and say, hey, let's reassess, look at the whole island.

Let me answer you this way. There is a developer that has said publicly here at a commission meeting that he is willing to pay for a boardwalk ocean boardwalk for those properties between his property and civic park just in order to have a contiguous walkway through the water yeah so yes the answer is yes well just because he's willing to pay for it doesn't mean we have to agree to it he doesn't have well he is requesting for the village who has the riparian rights to the water on the bay correct to allow him to build to build it They do see this as a good thing. I get what they see, but they probably won't be living there.

My point is that if you look at all the buildings that were affected by, that are resisting this, the number of residents that are resisting the boardwalk, there's not that many. The buildings that were just identified, the buildings that were just identified alone in comparison to, even let's just keep it within North Bay Village, those who are residents who would want to walk in that area, I think the numbers are greater for those residents that would not want it. Because nobody, everybody wants to boardwalk who doesn't live where the boardwalk is going to be mandated, if that makes sense.

I think this has been a very healthy back and forth. I'm grateful to all of you for coming. Thank you. And, you know, being here and letting us know how you feel about it. Really, I can't emphasize enough. Thank you for showing up here tonight. It's really, really important.

We should have the formal invite for you to come to the promenade.

Please host us at your private waterfront promenade.

I'm going to try to come in through that gate that's supposed to be open.

Andy, do you want to close out this item? Is there anything that you want to do?

There's no action item to be taken tonight, so we can move on.

Music to my ears. All right, Commissioner, thank you, guys. We're going to move on. 14F was on the list for the paddle discussion. Commissioner Acosta, let us know what you want to do with that. Well, okay, let's move on. We have consent 14F and 14F. No, we did 14F. We did 14A. We did 14C. And we did 14L.

No, we didn't do 14B.

We didn't do 14B. I didn't say we did 14B. I said we did 14C. Let's get back into the regular order of things.

Can we bring up Andres? Is he here? Yeah, he's on Zoom.

He's been on Zoom the whole time?

Yeah, the whole time.

Wow. All right. Commissioner, it's your item.

Thank you so much. Andres, you're still online, right?

I'm still here.

Wow. Hero.

Yeah.

I'm a yes just for your dedication.

That's it.

Well, I just want to start with... clarifying a little bit why we did not start a paddleboard club in january as promised and it was because there's been some transitioning happening in pelican harbor where the location for ipad of miami is and we have andres who's the owner of the new company taking over the county contract and um he came into the village and produced a um uh what do you call that um not an offer, what is the word? Un-solicited proposal, thank you. Un-solicited proposal. For us to review tonight, he did, I hope you had a chance to review that. It is still going to be able to provide our residents access to the bay through the part of boarding club, but it's now gonna be even, I would say even better, it's gonna be expanded now for kayaking and all ages. So it's going to be less limitations even for residents to use it. And because of that, we brought it back to the commission so that we can all review it and hopefully move forward with it. It's still going to be a little bit less than the budgeted item for the year because obviously we're not starting January to December. There is a change next year, which I'm hoping to negotiate again with Andres, but that's neither here or there.

um i would like andres to i don't know if you can introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your services yes absolutely so my name is andres i'm the co-founder and ceo of paddle we we operate over 50 locations around florida and and we're happy to be starting services on march 15th at pelican harbor so um i had previously seen the um the item that was being proposed by ipaddle and thought it was interesting and what we wanted to do was continue the relationship that was previously developed from a city to operator standpoint with the exception of removing a lot of the barriers that were previously imposed at the end of the day what we are looking to provide is a weekly outing that will allow beginners advanced riders and really just anyone in the community of all ages complimentary access on a week-to-week basis. So versus having a limited 30-week structure over the course of the year, we're going to be doing it for 52 weeks and in a format where guests will be able to bring any visitors that they have with them. It's not going to be limited just to the person uh just to north bay village of course residents of north bay village would be the only ones receiving uh the complimentary access i don't know if anybody has a question how does this affect our contract with amy oh good question so amy is actually going to be working with us

That's great news. Yes, that was the first thing I asked. So this is going to save us money?

It's going to be pretty much the same budgeted item. A little bit less this year only because we're starting in March rather than January.

But the annual contract is effectively the same.

No, it's a little bit bigger for next year. Andres, can you remind me exactly what the difference is between this year and next year?

I can't recall exactly. what the exact amount was but for a full year operating it for 52 weeks it's about 400 more but you're gaining 22 weeks of activity

Okay. Are you guys still talking about putting one of your, you know, the rentable paddles at the kayak launch? Is that up for discussion as part of this?

It's not as part of this, but we can definitely have that discussion.

Did you meet with Ralph a couple of years ago to talk about bringing powder?

Yes, I did. We've been having back and forth conversations for a very long time. Of course, the biggest thing was being able to have a proper kayak launch. I know we were about to go at one point, but the kayak launch that was installed was one that our insurance company would not even approve.

I also asked him about other programs that he will be bringing as a larger company to the island, and that is summer programming, spring break programming.

Yeah, I'm still back on the conversations that were had several years ago. Did you just say that your insurance provider looked at the kayak launch and said that they wouldn't insure it?

They wouldn't insure it for a commercial activity. There was too much risk on people actually getting stuck in the water. And maybe I'm mixing up timelines and cities, forgive me if that's the case, but it was a kayak launch that had a manual crank system to lower it down.

yeah no you're right that tracks it's us and it makes even more furious that staff ignored that feedback at that time okay all right so we can still ex once we have a new kayak launch we can explore the possibility of having the rentable kayak station okay all right so what do you need from us commissioner

I would like to make a motion to go ahead and approve this. Go ahead.

First of all, our year is from October 1st to September 30th. At this point, I'm not ready to negotiate for the following year when we haven't had the experience for this year. So we have to time it. as many weeks as we need to between four arguments. He said March 15th. I had looked at March 1st, so it was 31 weeks, so we're talking about 29 weeks. Also, the proposal that I read says it's $15 per resident for 15 residents. After that, you start charging the regular fee.

Well, no, after that, we start charging a discounted fee for this event. um but we would not charge it to the city each person would pay their own so the cost of the city actually doesn't change it's more so if you have a resident that has family in town and they want to bring seven people that day well the resident will have complimentary access as part of that 15 person but the additional guests would pay the uh the rate for that group outing

How many residents, same residents, are going to be benefiting on a weekly basis?

Are we going to rotate? We can rotate it. We can make it. We have very advanced reservation systems. We can structure it just about any way you want.

Because if we have 30 residents who want to do this on a weekly basis, and it's just the first 15 that show up are the ones that are going to get the benefit, we're just benefiting 15 people in the village.

I can tell you how we run the pilot program the first year. There were occasions where we did have, for example, when we did the first start of the season event, we had maybe 40 puddlers that day. I would say from those 40 people... Easily 70% of them had their own paddle boards because these are people who are attracted because of the sport. So there's also a combination of people who already have equipment versus people who don't have equipment. Like, for example, I have my own equipment. A lot of the residents who participate have their own equipment. So the rental is really supplemental to those who don't have the equipment. Many people... Once they practiced, they liked it and they bought their own equipment. The goal, and Andres correct me if I'm wrong, as we have an event, because these are going to be weekly events and we get, for example, like you're saying, let's say 30 people show up and there's going to be a sign up pre-registration like we did last year too. We had a pre-registration sign up and it was very specific. Who are you? Where do you live? ID, the whole thing, waiver, the whole thing. Andres will also be able to hopefully then, and again, correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm also, I have the same question too, is people who are residents, after those 15 people who are coming with no equipment, they say, I want to rent, but then number 16, 17 to the 30th shows up with no equipment. Will they get a discount as a city or north of village resident?

Yes. So we, I'm pulling this up right now just to make sure I have the exact numbers correct. Here we go.

Normally 65.

For a tour, we're normally charging $80 up to $120 per person. We're discounting that to $20 per person when it's over that 15-person limit. Correct.

And that's really where the pre-registration comes into play.

But even let's say it's for a rental. So someone just wants to go and pay for a rental. That's $25 per hour. These outings are two hours each. So instead of paying $50 per person, they're still getting a discount to $20 per person if they're joining that group outing.

And with support from staff on the water. So we're not alone.

So we'll always have one of our tour guides joining that. It won't be necessarily as restrictive as it was in the past in that Kids are welcome. Elderly are welcome. We eventually will probably split this out into two groups where it will be a beginner's outing and an advanced outing. So it's just a program that evolves with people's skill levels as well as welcomes all ages.

I mean, I'm all for the program as long as it's prorated to September 30th. because October 1st starts a new fiscal year for us. And then we can discuss at budget season, do we want to- That's a good touch.

That's a good touch.

And the other thing is, I want to make sure that it's not the same 15 people on a weekly basis to get the freebie.

Well, it is going to be a lot of the same people because it is a club, just like the walking club and the yoga club and all of these.

Sorry, but I'm not willing to spend $15 on 15 residents every week. It's a pre-registration. It's not feasible for me.

Well, we did this for a year. We never had an issue.

We didn't. If all you're going to get is 15 people, it's not feasible for me. I have to say no.

I just said, again, being that we ran a pilot program, it gave me at least enough experience to tell you that the only restriction we ever saw about people not getting in the water was the restrictions imposed by I Paddle Miami rules and not the lack of availability or too many people coming in and not being able to get in.

We did not have the financial situation we find ourselves in at this time. And to say I'm going to spend $15 a week on 15 people for only 15 people, it's not worth it to me. Sorry.

So zero people rather than 15 people.

I think what he's saying is we're financing a privatized club, basically. That's the concern. Whereas some of our other classes, anybody can come at any time at any point throughout the year. Whereas this is, sure, it's a preregistration, but then...

Yeah, it is the same 15 people.

So I share Commissioner Trevone's concern on this. Is there any way to adjust the registration process or schedule or anything like that to make it accessible for new people, new people and new residents?

We absolutely can. I mean, there's really no limitations. We can set up the actual reservation links to allow that $15 credit for an individual. through a discount code process. And everyone can use it one in X amount of time. So let's say we want, everyone gets that benefit of a free, a free outing for their first time. Cap it at 15. The following week, it's 15 new people that get that. And if people want to keep doing it, they can, they can pay $20, which is still a heavily discounted rate, which eventually you'll see the people that go every single week may end up owning their own equipment.

Yeah, I think that's better. I think that's a good compromise. Yeah.

Yeah. I agree. That I can live with. I like that.

Yeah.

And I think overall it is a good initiative. I like the idea of a paddle club for North Bay Village. So, you know, we can support it with that.

When is the launch going to be ready?

That's the dream. Steven.

We're talking about ours? Yeah. Well, that's a good question.

So is Pada going to run this club out of Pelican Harbor until ours is ready? Is that what's happening?

Ideally. For me, I mean, I want it to be a North Village initiative.

Right.

Yeah.

Okay. But what you've talked about is running it out of Pelican Harbor until ours is ready.

Correct.

Okay.

And again, there's going to be summer programs, spring tours, snorkeling, a lot more access to the bay and activities.

One thing if I could just recommend based on everything I've heard so far. Again, the proposal I said is just a proposal. When it comes to the contract, we have no problem if you want to schedule the payments monthly. that way that way it's not just one lump sum and you're locking in 12 months just if it's a month a month thing we don't have an issue with that at all thank you so that allows for the proration and then we can we can work through the booking process in order to make sure that that we can include more than just the same 15 residents on a week-to-week basis

Andres, another thing, you mentioned something about the different locations would also be available for us to use if one day we want to change the outing location for special reasons.