City Commission - Special Meeting

What about that?

Commissioner Fortuna Smuckler. Commissioner Lynn Sue.

Here.

Vice Mayor Mackenzie Florman. Here. Mayor Michael Joseph.

I'm here.

Pledge of allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Next up is presentations, the city attorney. Open up for public comment, Madam Clerk. Sorry, I thought I was going to print. Go ahead.

The Mayor and Commissioners of the City of North Miami Beach has opened the meeting for public comment at this time. There is a three minute time limit for each speaker for public comment or during testimony for public hearing. Speakers will be called to the podium. Please state your name and or the name and address of the organization in which you are representing. During public hearing items, please speak only on the subject matter that is before the commission. The mayor and commissioners of the City of North Miami Beach recognize the importance of civility. The City of North Miami Beach requests that all in attendance to exercise civility towards each other. The first speaker is Whitney Padote.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Whitney Perdoe. I reside in the zoo residence. Thank you for this wonderful day and a special meeting, Mayor and Commission, on the discussion on the charter review. My colleagues and I have spent many nights with the city manager office and the city attorney office and the city clerk office. major good discussions about how we want to rule the city and charter the city into a new way. One recommendation that commissions to take very seriously is the one thing on the ballot is the charter committee review discussing on NMB water utility director as a charter officer. Based upon the budget, based upon the general fund, the water and sewer enterprise is larger than the actual general fund. I really consider that you guys take the time to look into it, especially since Governor Ron DeSantis have passed some new laws pertaining to our utility. And on top of that, property taxes are on the ballot this year. So I also recommend, even though our committee hasn't discussed over the past couple weeks is to also make the CFO a charter officer. In the past, City of North Miami Beach has dealt with a lot of financial tendencies or some mishaps, and I believe that the City of North Miami Beach should move forward to make sure that we're on the right track to consider a CFO as a charter officer, and as well as NMB Water Utility Director as a charter officer, they can report directly to main commission. Especially since if that property tax do pass, physical responsibility is gonna be the main concern and the main responsibility of everybody on that dais. That being said, thank you for your time and take our recommendation kindly and review and have great discussion.

Next speaker, Jerry Lazar.

Good evening, Commission. My name is Jerry Lazar. I reside at 1265 Northeast 155th Street, Miami, Florida, 33162. I was part of the Charter Review Committee. Really was an honor to work with my colleagues to bring forth the information to you. There's one thing that I did want to highlight. I think the majority of us agreed to change the date from the election from being from November to May. I wanted to speak on an item because I actually disagree. I was the one person that opposed it. I don't believe we should change the election date from November to May. I think it's not cost effective. I think when we were reviewing the total of what it may take to move the election from November to May, it's like an additional $60,000. Also too, the other issue that I had as a concern was the fact that the majority of the voters actually come out in November versus May. So that was another reason why I didn't think it made sense for us to change it from November to May. However, my colleagues disagreed, but I thought that that was an important topic that I wanted to bring up to the dais. So thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your session.

We have Ruth Ogin.

Good evening, Mayor, commissioners, and city staff. My name is Ruth Ogin. and I am here to support the charter amendment to create a charter officer for the North Miami Beach Water Plant. This is not about creating more government, it's about protecting one of the city's most important assets. The water plant has more assets and brings in more money than the city's general fund. It's a very large operation, yet it does not have a director who reports directly to the mayor and commissioners. Our CRA has its own executive director who reports directly to you, even though it is much smaller. If the CRA deserves the level of oversight, then our water plant certainly does too. The North Miami Beach Water Plant is one of the largest municipal water systems in Florida and serves thousands of customers every day. It needs a qualified professional whose only job is to manage the water system, protect this valuable asset, and be directly accountable to this commission. State law has also placed greater importance on protecting public water systems for future generations. Having a charter officer will help meet that goal. Most importantly, this change helps keep the water plant focused on serving the public instead of politics. It provides accountability, stability, and independent leadership for one of the most important services our city provides. Please vote in favor of this charter amendment. Thank you.

Janice Coakley. I'll put on my glasses.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, Commissioner, and resident. Janice Coakley, city employee. I'm speaking on the civil service. Civil service was created, was an ordinance 7920. It was created September 4th, 1979. It was revised December 19, 2017. And then it was took to the voters to get rid of civil service in 93, and the residents voted it down to keep. But we had a city manager at that time rewrap the city service rules, and we have civil service, but there was never anyone appointed to the boards. The civil service rules was made weak. The civil service rules was there to protect also the employees. I do not know why it's so important that you want to get rid of civil service and why the residents voted in the past election to keep civil service. City of Miami, City of Hollandale, City of Miami Beach, City of Hialeah have civil service board. If you think the civil service rules is so bad, then make it where it's better for the employees here. Because one day there won't be a union and there'll be one person or a couple of people making the decision. Um, if you don't know, the governor is trying to, and I know you all sitting on the desk, what is going on with the union and we need more protection to protect all the employees and civil service is for bargaining and non bargaining employees. So this is a great place to work for, but I don't know why again that civil service is being brought back up here to be put on the ballot when the residents voted the last time to keep civil service. Thank you.

former Commissioner Barbara Kramer.

Good evening. I wasn't going to speak, Barbara Kramer, but I just wanted to tell all of you that I commend you in your choices of appointments of the citizens that took part in this Charter Review Committee. I really, really enjoyed working with everybody. One of the members was someone I had just met. This was a very thoughtful group, very dedicated, just really took this very seriously. I'm sorry it's taken so long for this meeting to happen, but it's here, so I don't want to speak much longer. We really want you guys to work on this and push through whatever it is that you all see fit for our residents and try to get this going so we could see it on the ballot in November. Thank you.

Public comment closed. No, no, no.

Okay.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Mubarak Azan. I'm the chair of the Charter Review Board. I hope that you would give us time to make a presentation. I would ask one of my colleagues, David Templer, to make that presentation for us. In the meanwhile, I would be speaking as a resident now. And if the mayor does not want that to happen, the majority of commissioners can recommend that presentation be allowed. There's a couple things there I pretty much disagree with that we had agreed on. The Civil Service Board should not be troubled, should be left in the Charter, and the elected officials swearing in. It was proposed by our city attorney representative that when the Dade County Canvas board says, well, this person wins, immediately that person now is the elected official, and that should not be. We have the President of the United States of America being voted in the first Tuesday in November, and he or she has to wait until the 19th of January to be sworn in. I have not come across yet where a city, a county, or a normal country, normal city, normal county our normal country that as soon as a person is declared that they are the winner, immediately they are sworn. And we are going to be bringing a lot of chaos with that proposal that he made and the majority agreed with. So that you need to be careful with. A lot of you could be affected as well, too. And I want to say this. We were given two months. We had nine meetings in those two months to do the charter review. And most of us came all the time. And we really put out three, four hours every meeting. The city took maybe almost like a month and a half to come back with our recommendations. I think that could have done a little better. But however, again, I ask that Mr. David Templer represent us in making a presentation on what we had done. Thank you very much for having me.

Public comment closed.

Mr. Mayor, I would like to take this opportunity to ask all the participants to rise because they did do a lot of work and I want to thank them. I believe we all want to thank them. So if people, if you can all rise so we can acknowledge who you are. Absolutely, there's a...

So Bruce Cousins and David Templer did not come up to make public comment, but they were also hardworking on this one. I appreciate all of you. Thank you so much.

And I'm game to hearing a presentation if the other commissioners are as well.

All right. Section 4.1. Is that the city attorney or the city manager? 4.1. Yeah, that's the first one, 4.41.

There are changes at one point for me.

I'm just looking at the agenda form. Oh, I'm sorry. No, it says next legislation 4.1. There's only one item. That's all.

Excuse me. I'm sorry, Mayor. I saw what you meant of referring to the charter. No. 4.1 is the presentation of the final report and review of the proposed recommendations. And it is recommended, Mayor, that... as a presentation of the report that you have the committee make a presentation. The commission can set the time limit so they can be guided accordingly, but it does call for the next item of business to be. I apologize, Commissioner. The next item, 4.1 of the agenda, excuse me, I was looking at the charter, calls for the presentation of the report. So while it's the pleasure of the Commission, it's recommended that you have the committee present its report to the commission, and the commission may wish to set what appropriate time period it allots for that, because you have a great deal of business to do in front of you. So it would be in order to proceed to that, if that's your pleasure, but you should consider at least giving guidance to the presenters as to how long they'll have for the presentation. How much time do they need? Mr. Kazan, as chair, do you have a request?

Could I... May I interject, please?

So, I don't think they've made a presentation. No, they... The request is being made is...

Okay, so as chairman of the committee.

You're allowed to make a presentation by a member that I guess the chair recommended. That's what the request was being made.

Right, as chairman of the committee, I would ask that Mr. Templer make the presentation on behalf of us, and whatever questions he cannot answer, one of us will answer as well, if you have questions to any of the items that we had suggested.

Chair Kazan, the question was how long, and maybe it should go to Mr. Tempore. I was asking the time.

How long, Mr. Tempore, do you think he will present? He will tell you now. Thank you. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, Mr. City Attorney, I wasn't aware that a presentation was going to be asked of me. And I don't really believe that it's necessary. I think the commission should really get to the meat of the matter. And to the extent there are questions about any particular issue, I'm here to answer any questions that I can and assist the city attorney in presenting it to you. But I don't think that my wasting your time by going over what you're going to consider is very effective and useful.

Thank you. I appreciate that, Mr. Templer. I would like to add, just for the benefit of the commission, that Mr. Templer principally undertook to take the suggestions brought by the members of the committee and furnished everyone with a sort of a running red line that assisted the committee greatly in reaching its final decisions at the last two meetings. I want to just publicly thank Mr. Templar for all the work that he did in doing that. With that said, Mayor, at the suggestion, if that's the presentation, is that the commission is prepared, the members of the committee, excuse me, are prepared to answer any questions. My suggestion would be that we simply go through. Well, there's two ways you can do it. Let me say, first of all, you could start just by going through line by line. You could also start, because at some point we need to make a decision as to how this is going to, you know, what, if anything, is going to go on the ballot. You can do all of it. You can do none of it. You can do parts of it. But how you're going to put it on and what's going to be presented is a decision. But whether you want to try to address that first or whether you simply want to first look at the individual suggestions and talk about those and then be guided by that, that's up to you. But you should decide when you want to get to how and whether you want to do the walkthrough first. Commissioner Chernoff.

Yeah, thank you for the committee members. You did a wonderful job. I really appreciate it. We just got the full document completely redlined and everything, so in order for going one page by one page, there's a lot of Scribner's errors, there's a lot of language corrections, and I wouldn't want to go over all those, just the meat ones. That's my preference.

What I can do if you let me let me back up. So is it your your view that go through this everything first and then decide how and what you'll put on and how you proceed at the end of going through it? Or do you want to get to that right away?

No, not to go through it all, because like when it changes and to or or something like that.

Whatever you're going to go through. I can streamline that. But if you want to do that first, and then how you're going to go about treating it, or you want to put that at the end?

At the end, I would guess.

OK. Then.

No. Okay. Is that how you want? I'm fine. All right, Commissioner Smith.

Thank you. Through the mayor, I want to thank the committee so much. I know I've heard from A lot of people that went to the meetings, how much former Commissioner David Templer helped and Bruce Cousins. We had attorneys actually on the committee, so I'm very grateful for all of them, very knowledgeable. I'm not, I've been on a charter review committee prior to this, and what we were given before were a list of 10 items. It could have been nine, it could have been 11, and we were told not to pick too many, because when people get to the ballot and they start to vote, they're not gonna read through 10. Pick what you think. Now, reviewing this yesterday, the way it's written, I don't know, I can point out what maybe six or seven of them are thoughts that we wanna change, and some were brought up for us just tonight by the audience speaking, by the residents giving their opinions on some of what we're gonna vote on. But is there a list of just sentences, what it entails, because reading the changes of the powers and et cetera. And I made some notes that if they go through, some of them needed corrections. I thought like 2.4 needs the word or, but, um, and 3.11 needed to add the negotiations in with the manager's role, but I'm not quite sure what are the, are there 10, and what are the 10 that we're voting on? I know civil service, I know to have a charter officer for the water plant, because I hear people speak and I read, but am I missing some?

That's my question. Through the mayor, if I might. Well, a couple of things there, Commissioner. There's not a list. There is a red line. There are a lot of changes, but as Commissioner Chernoff points out, some of them are grammatical, some of them are merely clarifying, some of them are very significant, but neither the committee nor the staff chose to be the ones to characterize what is significant as opposed to what is not, there is no requirement that each change or each significant change or each change that you want the voters to consider be presented in a separate question. Actually, often, things can be presented in one single question. ballot question that says, there's a draft available on file, and do all of these changes, do you vote them up or vote them down? That's one way to do it. And that's almost always done when you're presenting an entirely new charter. But depending on how significant the changes are There's always usually at least one that's like an omnibus that covers all the minor with our characterized as minor suggestions and grammatical changes you can choose to break particular items out for other questions, but a 75 word summary of what it provides is typically enough to describe at least briefly the substance of the changes that are being sought. If you want to do it as one up or down item, the supervisor's office has certainly discouraged us from presenting a lot. And to say that we don't have an upper limit would not be correct. There's only so many they're willing to put on. But the clerk's been in good contact with them. They didn't give us a number. They didn't say you can have six. They didn't say you could have 12. But they just didn't say. But they encouraged the fewer. the better, and as I said, one option is to simply do one. But as far as a list, what I would say is we can just walk through change by change. Some will require no comment. Some are pretty obvious. Some may require some comment. There may be some comment by me as staff on some of them. The manager may choose to weigh in on something as well, but We'll go through them then, is what I understand has been suggested, and then the commission can decide how you want to treat them and what gets put on the ballot. Again, you don't have to, these are recommendations. Nothing goes on that you don't say.

My personal preference would be we discuss each one as a Commission, whether it's the civil, whether it's a new charter officer, whether it's the date of the voting, we discuss it and then at the end of each discussion come to conclusion whether we're putting that on or not putting that on or at the end of all of them. I would like to discuss each one amongst us. That would be my preference.

That's the suggestion that's been made. And basically, as I said, we walk through change by change. If one requires no comment, then, you know, if it's a minor grammatical change, everyone can say next item. But if there is some reason to discuss it, then the Commission discusses that item as long as you want to discuss that item. And then we move on in the list to the next one. No, it's not a list. On in the red line to the next item. Commissioner Hsu.

Thank you. First of all, I want to mention by name. So Mubarak Kazan, Bruce Cousins, David Templer, Barbara Kramer, Geraldine Lazar, Whitney Padote. I want to commend them for the hard work. It was nine meetings in two months. That's a lot of meetings, and each meeting sometimes lasted till nine or ten or later. We bought lunches, we ate together. I had the privilege of attending some of them and I know how much effort they put into this. I also want to commend my colleagues here that appointed such a good team to be on the Charter Review Board as this is an important issue that we are addressing. So with that said, I know that there's limitations on how many referendums we put on the ballot and whatnot. I believe that when the board was discussing this, they themselves had a ton of things, a lot more than whatever it is that they're bringing forward to us. I want to respect their time and their effort. These are all intelligent people who really care about our city. And if it is on there and they're proposing it, I am suggesting that these mean that they are important to them. And out of respect for their effort, I would love for all of us to consider these issues and see if we would like to have them on the ballot. So with that said, I believe, I just want to clarify this with the mayor. We are actually going to go each item by each item, discuss it, and vote on it, and then move on to the next item. Is that correct? Have you decided or we're still discussing it?

No, he gave a suggestion. We're just going to go through it.

If we go through the whole thing, then what is it? We're going to vote yes across the board?

I was going by the... Well, I like that idea.

You like the one that I'm proposing?

Going, yeah.

One by one and then just voting on each one?

Yeah.

Which is what Phyllis did, right? Right. I think so. Okay. No, I just wanted to clarify because it seems like the attorney said something else, so I just wanted to make sure.

Mr. Attorney, through the mayor, do you know how many issues there were? Do you know a number?

that's very difficult to answer because that depends on if you count every little grammatical change, but sometimes those little grammatical changes are important.

I'm talking about the major issues. Do you have an idea?

Even to define which are considered major is not for staff to do. So I can't tell you how many changes are in the red line. They're there. You can see them. I mean, we could look at every place there's a red line, but, you know, certainly some of them that change the same article it's not necessarily that you need to consider each word separately as opposed to the change in a particular article or a particular section. So I mean, what's there is what's there. And you're privileged to talk about them. We've suggested talking about them one at a time. And how and when you vote on things is up to you.

Mr. Mayor, if I could ask Mr. Templer if he has an idea of how many. And the reason, the purpose of me trying to find out a number is if there's 12, maybe we want to pay attention to which ones in particular, because we're going to vote one at a time. that we're gonna try to eliminate, not to have 12 on the ballot, to have maybe eight on the ballot.

And that's a reason why you might not vote on them until you see which other ones are coming up, but let me say again, not every question, let me put it this way, not every change has to be a separate ballot question. That's not required.

No, I know, I was asking major changes. Did you know Mr. Templer made these changes?

I don't remember how many changes were made, but addressing Commissioner Chernoff, there were only... No, well, no, no.

Well, look, just to clarify, here's where I can simplify a lot of it. Depending on how you set it up, You can have a million questions or whatever, right? However, if it's like the way the, I guess the city attorney was pointing, the most comprehensive way is like an ominous type of thing. It has everything. And then from that one thing, you can take off from what you want. Now, you can separate it and do it that way, but it will create situations later on down the road. I'm just seeing it that way, but it is what it is. Oh, go ahead. Thank you. Can we get the answer from Mr. Tempore?

Just responding to Commissioner Chernoff, there was only two or three really grammatical ministerial changes. The vast majority of this is substantive change to the charter. I think there was one place where it still said council versus commission. There was one place where it said as provided for in this charter versus it should have said as provided for by general law. But those ministerial issues were relatively small compared to the substantive issues that were raised.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So there are not a vast number of changes in the charter. I think it's a lot of work. uh... that went into this first of all i want to thank you guys for all of your efforts uh... but but the changes are not vast to the point where we can't go through uh... the vision of the charter committee the charter review committee i think we should go through one by one And then once we go through one by one, we have a synopsis of, OK, this is where they started. This is where they ended. And then we can come back and then start taking up items individually and deciding what we're going to do about each particular item. But I want to see a synopsis of what took place in that review. And I think the only way we do that is by literally going through. Section 1.4, here's what happened, here's where they redlined, here's what they came up with, here's what their suggestion, and then we move on to the next section until we're complete.

Well, I would like to vote on it after each item so that we don't kind of forget.

No, well, I think the synopsis is important as a whole. because perhaps one section may affect the other. And I think that's important as well, because some sections may affect the other. And I would hate to vote on a particular section only to find out that here's how it would affect another section of the charter. So that's the reason behind, and it's not a lot. That's what I'm saying. I think we can just read through it and then come back and vote second.

Well, I'm ready to start.

Can you go through it, city attorney?

Yes, sir. And I'm going to issue, I'm going to go, you know, change by change.

Thank you, Mr. Templer.

I'm sorry?

I said thank you, Mr. Templer.

I was going to say to Mr. Templer, that was the point of my comment that I was starting, Commissioner, was that let me just issue, since he's speaking for the committee and was also very much one of the principal draftsmen of the red line that you're looking at, if we get to something And there is not, if it's not readily apparent, I want to issue a standing invitation to Mr. Templar on behalf of the committee to please, without being necessarily invited, if you feel it's necessary, just come back to the microphone and please help by explaining why it says what it says. So with that said.

Why don't you let him sit next to you?

I'm sorry?

Why don't you let him sit next to you?

He's always welcome to sit next to me. That's his choice. If you'd like to do that, Mr. Templer, that's up to you. You're more than welcome. Happy to have you. See, that was my concern, Commissioner. I'm not sure we want to...

Isn't that what we're being charged anyway nowadays? He has volunteered many, many, many, many of his hours for the city.

He's put in a lot of work on this in particular.

If I may, I mean, it's not just the seven of you up here that are taking your time. It's everybody else in the room. And I want to be very respectful of everybody's time because nobody likes a long meeting, and I certainly don't. So... Mr. Geller can go through these. If I have a comment or you have a question, I'm happy to stand here and answer them, but I really think that your time is more valuable than just to get to the substance and the meat of the matter than listen to me drone on.

So we'll invite you to sit wherever you want to sit. I'll wait right here. Okay. Well, I'd hate to keep you on your feet. This could be a while. If it was me, I'd be sitting down someplace. Wherever you want to sit is fine. I believe the first changes are on page 10. Is that right, Madam Clerk? By the way, as you know, the clerk is away on bereavement leave, but I do want to especially call out the assistant clerk because, quite frankly, we wouldn't have this without Elizabeth. I mean, it's just a fact. And she came in on holidays, and she came in on weekends to help get this done. The clerk worked at it very hard, too, but I do want to recognize the assistant clerk specifically. Page 10, what Madam Clerk did, Madam Assistant Clerk, Madam Clerk for today's purposes, she printed out this separate document called Charter Recommendations and she's highlighted and attached pages where there are particular red line changes to look at and it's in a little bit larger font. So you may want to try and work from that document and then go back to the main red line if you find the need to do so. Know that there are pages and pages of the geographical limits of the city like I've never seen in any other government entity because the city's borders and donut holes are so irregular, I've never seen anything like it. But it goes on and on. Page 10 of 27, and again, if you want to look at this, it begins with 1.4, powers. And in this case, I just want to note that in the second paragraph where there are some changes. The final language is in blue, but I don't want you to conclude that what is redlined was the original language. What is redlined in this case was an initial proposal to the Charter Review Committee for changing what was there. The entire second paragraph is added but there is some language that is redlined, struck through, and it's not language, none of that paragraph is language that's in the existing charter. So the entire second paragraph is a proposal, and as you can see, it, well, frankly, it was the result of some substantial negotiation. whether you think that this second paragraph is exactly necessary is up to you. It is new language. It is charter committee language. And perhaps this is one where Mr. Templar might want to offer some reason for the change because i mean frankly i don't think there's anything in that paragraph that is not already mandated by existing organic law of the state of florida if i may mr mayor that paragraph was added by the committee uh at the suggestion of uh

Committee member Bruce Cousins. It was primarily intended to codify language in the charter as to the city's responsibilities, and it primarily stemmed from some of the development agreements that were made and approved through the commission, whether by this one or prior ones, with our commercial interests throughout the city. There was some concern about whether or not the materials that were being submitted in support of those development plans were accurate or were up to date, and that the Commission, when those things were considered, not necessarily you all, were basically being hoodwinked by these developers. And so this language was inserted, if I'm correct, and Bruce is here, to put the responsibility on the city of assuring that the materials and information that it's provided pursuant to things such as these development agreements is accurate and up to date.

Is that right, Bruce?

Yeah, that's exactly right.

Mr. Cousins, could you come to the microphone, please? You're welcome to, sir, with the chair's permission, but it needs to be into the microphone.

If I summarize to correct, you can let him know. He did summarize it absolutely.

And please introduce yourself.

This is Bruce. My name is Bruce Cousins, and I'm learning how this works here. I noticed in the development agreements and the materials they submitted for approval that they were based on 15-, 20-year-old flood maps, flood zones. How your predecessors could possibly not demand current information that deals with life safety things and evacuations is just beyond me, so I did take the liberty of adding that you will make decisions based upon current and reliable data. The operative word is current. Even when the developer was challenged about why did you use a 20-year-old flood map when there were others much more recent available, Well, we couldn't find them. I had no problem finding them. Anybody that can play with Google would have no problem finding them. So I don't want to lobby about that, but I don't think it's unreasonable to say that you'll make decisions based on current and reliable data. That's what I added, and I'll shut up. Thank you.

And just by way of further quick comment on it, because I don't want to beat a dead horse, it's a... I'm speaking into the microphone. I don't know what to say. I mean, I'll put it right here. Is this better? Because I was speaking right into it. We had some negotiation about the language of this and Mr. Cousins was accommodating and agreeing to language that would not be legally improper. So let me say that you know for instance the last sentence Says all governmental actions and agreements shall remain subject to this Charter well The Charter governs the actions of the city whether that sentence is there or not having said that We have no objection legally to what this says it's whether it's Required and whether you want to have a separate ballot question relating to this language or if you want to have an omnibus or if you want to combine everything into one, whatever, but if you think it's significant to add this, there's no objection on the part of the city attorney's office.

If I may add that because there was a statement earlier that some may be impacted by others, some changes. So when you look at 2.2, the second paragraph of 2.2 on page 11 was also added and that backs up the statement that was added, the paragraph that was added in 1.4. So you can see it says the commission shall make written findings, and by the way, I'm reading off my red line, not what the clerk wrote, but the commission shall make written findings when considering major development actions addressing public safety, infrastructure, capacity evacuation, et cetera. That goes hand in hand with what was in 1.4, which was suggested as added by Mr. Cousins. So those two sort of go hand in hand.

with unless there's a further question about 1.4 i'll move on to the next change and um you know quickly we're going to get to the 2.2 that are we are we going to discuss whether we're in agreement of that or not yet we're just going to go through it because there's a lot there's a lot of them somebody has an objection to speak up yeah but i'd rather it's a lot of them Yeah, and Mr. Templer pointed out that there is, it is accurate to say that sometimes one of the things that's in front of you is related to or impacted by, yeah, 2.2, you know, you do wanna hear 2.2. So anyway, let me continue to go through.

Make a note if it's a yes or no, yeah.

And if there's, you know, of course, if any commissioner has any comment, I mean, if there is a comment by any of the commissioners on 1.4 before we move on, however, since we would like to finish today, don't feel obligated to make a comment if none is required. I'll move on to 2.1.

This is mayor and vice mayor.

The beginning, there's the second paragraph on the document in 2.1 is mostly struck through. That was the original language. The beginning, the mayor shall preside. There is a new paragraph in red redlined ahead of that that replaces all but the last sentence in the old paragraph and that sentence is the sentence about vice mayor there's a change there as well but the new paragraph is there and It says what it says. I mean, I'm not gonna waste our time reading it to you. I am absolutely certain that every single member of the commission can read that paragraph. I know that to be a fact. So I'll invite you to read it, and if there's any comment or any request for explanation or why it's different, the original language is right underneath it. It's struck through, but you should be able to read it.

Mr. Mayor, may I ask Mr. Templer a question?

Mr. Templer?

I'm sorry? Mr. Templer, so now you're requiring...

Through the mayor?

Yeah, I already did. I asked him. Thank you. Okay. It looks like it's there's I mean like requiring them to do a state of the city address and I mean what came about how this come about.

That's a great question because I don't remember this change so I can't comment on it. I just don't remember that change that may have been in the like the very first meeting and it's even in my red line it's not even present but

Does anybody on the board remember? What is the question? Why 2.1 came into place?

The revised language of 2.1 compared to the previous language, I think.

And why does it say the mayor shall annually present a State of the City message? Like, why are we forcing that? Why are we requiring that, yeah.

And I would like to know why the words telular head was removed when he is the face of the city to be the cheerleader for people to come to North Rhine Beach?

Okay, what I remembered is they followed what Aventura, the city of Aventura has for the mayor. That is what they followed. And whomever suggested it, I think we collectively voted for this.

You did vote or did not? I didn't hear you.

Yeah, we did vote for it. I think it was Mr. Padot, who suggested that we follow the Aventura style. It probably benefits more of the current mayor what he has. The duties that he has is going to boost him a little bit more.

I think.

And we voted for it and it passed unanimously. Thank you, sir.

Through the mayor, I think there's a few things in here. We're not Aventura. Aventura mayor is everywhere, everywhere, 12 times a day, 20 days a week. He's everywhere, and he's on social media. If we want that to be part of North Miami Beach, then the requirements of the mayor should be a little more specific, and I just want to understand, because I'm very basic at trying to understand what the paper says, The mayor's gonna have the service of process, execution of duly authorized contracts, deeds, and other documents. Does not that have to say upon commission approval of those things? I mean, that seems to me to be very open-ended for the mayor's duties.

Through the mayor. I can't tell you again that there are a few items that came before the committee where I offered a legal opinion because I thought something might not be consistent with general law. But as a rule, if there was a desire to make a change, I didn't find it necessary to weigh in or comment extensively on every change that the committee wanted to adopt because it's not the staff recommendation, it's the committee that was appointed by you and so in many cases, as I think Mr. Templer would confirm, Just said, it's up to you committee, whatever you want to recommend. If the commission wants to adopt it, they will. There are quite a number of, I don't think your particular concern about saying voted on by the commission is a problem because the word is duly authorized. contract deeds and other documents and that's what do authorization means is where necessary for a commission vote but the chief executive officer of the city administration is the manager there are some documents that call for a mayor's signature but most of these are actually executed by the manager and inserting this language again i didn't have a legal objection i don't have a legal objection but whether the substitute language that i guess i vaguely remember came from aventura whether it's necessary to use and change the language whether you have to state that there shall be a state of the city i mean typically i think that's done frequently but it's not a charter requirement and it's not a, shouldn't necessarily be a violation of charter if that for whatever reason doesn't occur, it could be for nothing more than budgetary reasons or it could be because there's a COVID crisis. So it's up to you, but perhaps You don't need to make the change if the change is not something you're comfortable with. I don't think it has any grave legal implications. I do think that the change to the previous last sentence that's redlined in paragraph two about vice mayor is more significant, but you're free to adopt this redline language if you want to. It's not legally impermissible. but it is not, in my opinion, necessary.

Okay, well we're here to decide what we want to change in the charter. So, I would like to make it very clear, I missed the dually, I missed that class of dually authorized contracts, because I think I had the flu in my law class that day. But I appreciate you explaining it to me because I don't, unfortunately, the charters only change, or maybe fortunately, it's such an obvious undertaking, only every 10 years. And what we change in the charter is gonna stick. I would like this paragraph to make sure that the mayor performs the duties because unfortunately, what I've seen is our mayor very rarely shows up. And I wanna make this clear that the mayor will perform the duties as a telular head, not this mayor. Any mayor in the future won't just say, I'm the mayor. I'm handling the commission meetings. I'm also gonna go out there and represent the city because that's what the mayors I've seen in cities near us do. So I would like this clearly, and I would ask Mr. Templer, to help me decide what kind of a line to make that very clear in this.

I'm going to interrupt for one moment before we get to Mr. Templer, with deference to Mr. Templer. If you wanted to say, if the language about being the titular head is significant to you, and I have no reason to disagree, I mean, again, it's up to the pleasure of the commission, but just stick with the language that you have there. There's nothing that's being added that's a huge, big deal, and I mean, whether any individual mayor does what that mayor deems appropriate or otherwise is not something that you can dictate by charter.

I don't think you quite understood what I had as a goal then.

Well, you said you wanted the language about titular head. That was there.

No, but we can, I want to add whatever word that maybe Mr. Templer will help me or maybe Mr. Cousins will help me to make sure whoever is the mayor in this city will be the mayor representing us when and where necessary.

That's my point, Commissioner.

And not that the mayor.

You cannot dictate that in a charter. Why not?

We're changing the charter.

You cannot dictate individual conduct in a charter. Excuse me. The voters.

Mr. Attorney. Yes, ma'am. The charter clearly is dictating right now as we read it what the mayor's duties are once a year. He will have a state. We're clearly looking.

No, ma'am. That's the proposed language. That is not what your charter says now.

Well, that's what I'm trying to do, have proposed language. Maybe you're understanding a little better now because you repeated it. I would like to have proposed language

thank you mr if i may and and i appreciate i appreciate the passion with which you are addressing this but i'll make this very brief because i don't want this meeting to last until 11 o'clock the substantive changes here are not significant it's a change in the language that is not necessarily substantive it was as i recall now suggested by member whitney padot who framed it on the language by aventura but it doesn't really change much other than the language. For example, you mentioned for service of process. Well, by state law, the mayor is the person upon whom service of process is made already. So that's as an example. The only substantive change that I'm seeing here is for the state of the city address, which would technically require, but as City Attorney Geller suggested, if you begin to discuss delineate exactly what any given person must do you're going to run into a problem because Then if they don't follow to the letter of the Charter, what is the remedy? The remedy is they're subject to being voted out of office it's not as though they're going to be removed for violation of the Charter by the governor and So it becomes an issue of how this commission wants to collectively and collegiately have the mayor represent the city in these events that you would like. But I don't know that this language being any more delineated or strict is going to change anything other than what it already has changed, which again is more language change than substantive change.

I heard you, that makes a lot of sense. I heard you loud and clear. I personally, from my seat and my years of experience, would love to figure out a way that the charter does require whoever is the telular head to act like the till your head, to be at meetings, to be out there singing the praises of our city. So if there's some way to incorporate that without, we can think about it, we don't have to have the word this second, but those that go to these meetings, events or those that go to the, whatever it is, a grand opening and do not see our mayor. I mean, even simple events like Juneteenth and you don't see the mayor, it's very heart-sickening for the public. I just want, I would like that to be somehow part of this.

But Commissioner, Mr. Templer.

I heard.

Hits the nail on the head when he says there's no remedy.

I heard what he said.

There's really no way to enforce that except collegiately amongst yourselves. To say he's got to be at this event or that event or any event doesn't really add anything because it's like a statute that says there's a violation, but there's no remedy for it. It's just a continuing violation for purposes of something down the road. If you wanted to bring it up at an election and say, well, the mayor abdicated his responsibility, he wasn't here, he wasn't there, But I would tend to believe, and this is just my opinion, there's gonna be more substantive issues than that if there's a challenge to somebody's seat, whether it's the mayor or anybody else. I really respect the gumption and focus you have on this, but again, I think that this is more of a language change than a substantive change, and you know, if it were me.

I agree with that, but because that's the way it's written, we're here to discuss what else could be added or deleted, and I don't know would, in your, in your thoughts of being on the commission, would the words added, the telular head, then there comes a time when you can say the telular head is not performing the duties. I'm just asking.

You could certainly add that language, but Mr. City Attorney, when does this have to go to the county?

They need it by the 24th. So that's 10 days. Yeah.

So there's not really time to amend language and bring it back.

No, but we could add it now. We could add a tillular head as a sentence.

But it's in the previous language, Commissioner. That's in the previous language. If you make no change, then the language you're asking for is there already.

Through the mayor. Or you could simply add that word before the word head and you're done. Yeah. Yes, commissioner.

Okay, I feel like we're deviating from the original. Yes, and instruction so if we can go through Mister city attorney. Mister vice mayor of the we did say with all that I understand that I'm with that the question and I value her question and I'm I'm not trying to dismiss it, but what I'm saying is we it's been a while so we have to kind of move on and then we'll come back.

right well i do have a question through the mayor if i may oh sorry um so i just want to know where it says the mayor shall annual pres annually present a state of the city message so what happens if they don't nothing so what's the point of even having it that's correct you're correct commissioner

That was Mr. Templer's point.

This exactly was part of the debate in the committee meeting is that this is a language change. The substance change is not significant and it doesn't have a lot of bite to it. It's not as though somebody who doesn't present a state of the city address, whether it's Mayor Joseph or anybody else in the future, doesn't mean you're subject to any kind of a disciplinary action or removal from office.

Also through the mayor, if I may, you know, we have ordinances and resolutions. And so I think we have to be mindful of what those accomplish as well. If there are certain things that we want to see done or that we want to make a statement on. So, you know, the charter itself, you know, serves one purpose, but then the ordinances and resolutions we can deal with at another time to address certain issues. So just wanted to make that point.

You can decide whether you want the new language whether you want to amend the new language or whether you want to stick with existing language once we've finished walking through. I think that was the vice mayor's point also. So I'll move on to the next one. Unless there are further questions or comments, I'll move to the next change which is more substantive. And again, you can make your decision when we've finished walking through and you decide what you think is important and what you don't. but the next one is to the last sentence of the existing paragraph 2-1, and currently it just says the commission shall elect from its membership a vice mayor. It doesn't say when that takes place or what. We understand that the, I'll use the word tradition, in the city of North Miami Beach, at least as I've seen it over the last number of years, is that it's rotated. My understanding is it's rotated a little oddly every four months, not quarterly, which is what you think instinctively, but that's not the case. Every four months, there are three vice mayors per year. In a two-year term, could cover everyone, assuming, but it still has to be done by a vote. I mean, if there was someone that you, as a commission, just wanted to break with tradition and say it's not gonna be that person, I think you have the right to do that. But just the every four months is no stronger than that's how you've been doing it. So whether you need to do that by charter is a question that hovers over a lot of this. There's a lot of these things that this committee report seeks to mandate in the charter where it's, to use a word, frozen. You can't change it without going back to the voters.

Mr. City Attorney, if I may, just to cut to the chase. That addition and that sentence was merely intended to codify custom. That's it. You guys have already and other commissions have already replaced with a vice mayor every four months, but it wasn't there. And so it was merely added to codify custom. That's it, it's as simple as that. It's a 30 second explanation.

That's correct. I just want to point out though You could still do that But you could do it per the vice mayor's point. You could pass an ordinance that says you'll elect a new vice mayor Every four months it doesn't contradict the existing charter language but if at some point you felt it wasn't working and The commission itself could change it after two readings and public hearing and everything. Putting it in the charter may be unduly restrictive. You may like the change, but not think it has to be a charter change. But anyway, unless there's a question, we can move on to the next section. Are there any, vice mayor, through the vice mayor, any questions or comments?

Any questions or comments? All right, we can move on.

Okay? The next thing we come to is what Mr. Templer referred to earlier, 2.2, the city commission. The city commission is described as seven members, one of whom's the mayor, legislative body. And it talks about what its powers are. You know, to set public policy. That's the role of a commission, in a commission manager form of government. And that's provided for in the existing section 2.2. There's a paragraph added in red line. There's one further correction for final language that's in blue, but basically this says that ordinances and development agreements must be consistent with the charter. I have to tell you as a matter of law, you don't need to say that because ordinances can't contradict your charter. And development agreements are entered into subject to law and that's why you have staff you have a specifically a community development department and sub departments that review those things and run them through a city manager who presents them to you so whether you need to state that in your charter This also requires written findings when considering major development actions. I mean, what is a major development action? That's not really defined, but it does talk about public safety, infrastructure capacity, and evacuation. I mean, there are other things. And then it says, shall constitute noncompliance... with the charter, if you amend the charter to say you have to, then yes, not doing it would be noncompliance. Whether you need these things as opposed to them being required under general law is questionable, but again, THE CITY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE DOESN'T HAVE AN OBJECTION TO THE LANGUAGE. IT'S UP TO YOU TO DECIDE WHETHER YOU NEED IT. NOW LET ME TURN TO MR. TEMPLER TO ADD SOMETHING.

YES, MR. VICE MAYOR, WITH YOUR PERMISSION. AGAIN, THIS LANGUAGE IS ADDED TO COINCIDE WITH 1.4 WHICH WE TALKED ABOUT EARLIER. I agree with the city attorney that the first sentence is sort of redundant because it's already understood that your actions must comply with ordinances and development agreements consistent with the charter or consistent with the ordinances anyway. So the second sentence is what is tied into 1.4, which we discussed earlier about people submitting development agreements with outdated support. And it does ask for written findings. That can be a little curious because you all don't issue written findings. You have a meeting, you state orally, there's minutes of the meetings, and that's it. There's not a written report that's signed off on. But to the extent that you were doing a written report and you didn't do one, that last sentence says, failure to make such finding constitutes noncompliance. Again, it's a bark without a bite. There's really nothing other than aspirationally that is being said here that you should do this. And if you don't, that's the way it goes. I don't really see that it's got a lot of bite to it. It's an aspirational goal.

What you might also end up doing is inadvertently frustrating the will of the city commission because while there's no penalty on the commission for not doing it, you might be opening a door to litigation on something that the commission votes 7-0 to do, and someone says, well, I don't think you made the right written findings or sufficient written findings, and then going back to, I mean, you have staff, you have a manager, but you yourselves get this information. I know that at least some of you, maybe all, look at that stuff very carefully, read every word, ask an awful lot of questions about it, and if you think something is not current, you have the ability to speak up and say, I'm not going to support this or vote for it when you have final authority, unless we get something more current. But some things don't change. If it's a map and it's showing where the waterways are, it could be 10 or 20 years old. Presumably, it hasn't changed much. Now, some things do. Traffic may change more, and what is, quote, current? I mean, I'm just concerned the language could invite litigation.

Mr. Attorney. Yes, sir. Let's go to Commissioner Smith. She has a question, and if anyone else has a question. Okay, so there'll be no more questions after Commissioner Smith.

okay so commissioner smith commissioner jean and then we'll move on from this particular point but thank you for your um comments on that my question was it's the way it's worded the commission shall make written findings okay how is the seven of us going to prepare a written document that's exactly what a commissioner was saying um and and then in the end when Mr. Templer said something about having teeth in it. It says, failure to make. this written document. It says such findings, but this written document. So constitute noncompliance with the charter. So I mean, it doesn't say you'll have staff, you'll have the minutes. It doesn't say that. It says the commission shall make written findings. I just, I find that to be something that may have to be removed.

Thank you, Commissioner Smith. Commissioner Jean.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Good evening. I wanted to also take a moment to thank the committee for their time. I think this is the first time I'm actually making a comment. I have a suggestion. I see that on the revision page, we were given 10 to 14, 16 through 19, and then 21... through 23. Can we take those in chunks? Because I think if we go through this entire document and go back, I think most of the commissioners mentioned if we were to review each and then make a vote, because if we go through everything and then come back, we're going to be here double the time. So my suggestion is that if we can go from page 10 to 14 after the review is done, can we just take a vote on that subsection? Right, but you would still have to take each item individually, obviously, but we need to, we can't just go through this whole thing.

So what are you saying exactly? You want to vote? You want to vote in sections?

In sections, but if you have objections for each item, we would still go each item. Once we take your notes, and then we go and take those votes individually so that we can at least get through one section. I second that. Through the vice mayor, I may.

Okay, so is that a motion? Motion, yeah. Okay, you have a second. Second. Okay, Commissioner Smith. I second. No, Commissioner Smucker did.

I just would like to go through them all so I know how many before I vote yes or no on three or four, because we could vote yes on all four and turn up that there's 12 more coming down the pike.

And I think to Commissioner Smith's point, we didn't want for something that affected another piece to be ignored. So that was the reason we were going through all of them and taking notes. But since we have a motion on the table in a second, do you want to keep your motion?

Well, here's what I'll say to that. We need to go faster, that's one thing. The second thing is, if there are any provisions that contradict another, you can highlight those. Hopefully there's some pairing that can be done so that we're not, oh wait, this 99-1 conflicts with this fifth one.

So, how would we know that? I mean, we would have to rely on the board, I mean, on the attorney and the- Commissioner Johns, through the Vice Mayor, can we finish 10 through 14 first and then talk about whether you wanna vote then on 10 through four? But let's at least get through 10 through 14.

The motion is if we can go through 10 through 14, then go back individually and make those changes individually.

I'm just asking if you might defer the motion until we finish 10 through 14.

Well, my ask of you as well, through the Vice Mayor, is that we speed it up as well, Mr. Attorney?

Okay, so we'll try to talk less. I'll try to offer less comment.

Madam Commissioner, are you withdrawing your motion? I'm not. So what are we doing with your motion? Because we have to address it.

It stands.

Okay, so the motion is that we vote in sections. Is that, that's your motion?

Yes, and we still are individually going through each section, each item, but voting in that group and making our corrections as we go.

Okay, so just as a point of order, you are not, required to vote on every proposed change. You could simply have a motion, I want this to go to the ballot, and anything that doesn't get a motion, you're not required to vote on.

That's fine. OK, so with that being said, what we're going to be voting on is considering moving things per section for consideration to go on the ballot versus voting on each individual item to go on the ballot. Is that your motion?

That's not the motion. To his point, right, to the attorney's point, not everything is going to be added to the ballot. Now, as we review, we are making our corrections. Not all those corrections will be on the ballot because not every item will be quantified to be on the ballot, right? Does that make sense?

All right, well, let's see how this goes. Okay, your motion, your second.

Do you understand what we're trying to accomplish?

We're just going to vote. There's 10 to 14. We're going to vote 10 to 14 individually. Then when we finish 16 to 19, we'll vote on those individually. And when we finish 21 to 23, we'll vote on those individually.

Right. I understand. Then there's a motion on any items. All right. Okay. So we have a motion and then we have a second. So all in favor.

Aye. Aye. Opposed? No.

No. All right, so.

Motion passes.

All right, seems to carry. So we'll move forward. Mr. Vice Mayor, if I may, just for expediency purposes, I didn't really want to do a presentation and then have you guys go back and deal with everything, but because we're going through this in summary format, I may be able to move this along a little bit quicker, and then if any member of the commission has a question to address to the city attorney, you're certainly welcome to do it, but I think I can go through it more quickly than is being done.

Great. If that's okay with the commission. Basically, Mr. Temple is going to go item by item, and if you have questions, you can ask me or him or make a comment or whatever you want to do, but on behalf of the committee, he's offering to just go.

I concur with that. I'm respecting your time, but I'm respecting mine as well. I don't really want to be here all night.

Okay, so we're currently... Section 2.3.

We're just looking at 2-2, and again, to close on that, you have to decide whether you even think it's necessary, not whether you like it, but whether you think it's necessary.

I made a note to remove the word written, so when you get back to that, I don't know how you're getting back and how we're voting. But when you get back to it, then we have to vote on whether or not that word's gonna be removed.

I don't know. We'll move to 2-3, Mr. Stemper. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. 2.3 was brought up by the committee in an effort to provide more transparency to the citizenry and the electorate of the city of North Miami Beach. providing for any remuneration or compensation to the commission to be approved by referendum rather than be voted on by the commission at least since before 2005 when i was sitting up there with commissioner turnoff the issue has always been that the city commission decides how much it is going to be paid and what is going to be paid and it has gone up over the years quite substantially there's no attempt to reduce the current compensation and remuneration rate so it's all locked in as it is currently unless approved at a referendum by the electorate that is 2.3 and just there was some concern on our part about that that's something that the Commission could also do by ordinance it would

still leave you the opportunity to amend an ordinance that you adopted, but that does provide greater flexibility when you put it in the charter. That's the reason why Dade County commissioners are paid an annual salary of $6,000 because that was put into the county charter back in the 50s when they adopted it and 14 consecutive attempts to change it. no matter what it was coupled with, have all been defeated by voters. So you may wish to consider having that control done by ordinance instead of being put in the charter where it may never, ever, ever, ever be changed.

So to the attorney's point, which I don't think we're even following, to be honest with you, the ordinance that currently is on the books actually has a consideration of cost of living increases. So I think it's, if I remember correctly, maybe, I don't know, it was like 1% or 2%, something to that effect. So it does address cost of living. So if it were to be, this is just my understanding, if it were to be in the charter to go to the voters, it wouldn't necessarily mean that there wouldn't be a cost of living increase. The cost of living increase would still remain because we're... No.

If you put it in the charter... the existing cost of living adjustment would be eliminated because it would be contrary to the charter so you would not still have any adjustment for cost of living if you adopted at least this language in the charter. Mr. Vice Mayor.

Because it's specific to fiscal year 26 is what you're saying. The charter would control over any inconsistent ordinance. Correct.

Through the Vice Mayor. I'd like to ask the attorney, if we're changing the charter to read this, why couldn't the charter also have, however, there will be a cost of living adjustment of a certain percentage?

You could certainly do that. I just said the existing proposed language would overrule. No, I understand. You'd have to add that. But yes, the answer to your question is absolutely.

You'd have to add that because there's a yin and a yang to this. The yin that's so good about this is it does control how much the majority could give themselves. The yang is it only comes up every 10 years. And who the heck knows what 10 years will be like from now, you have no idea.

If I may address that Madam Commissioner, the current charter review committee process says that the charter review committee must be assembled for reviewing the charter at least every 10 years. So it does not prevent the Commission from establishing a Charter Review Committee every one year or every two years or every four years, but it cannot go longer than 10 years. The language specifically that was provided for in 2.3 was the subject of quite a bit of debate in the committee meetings, and there was quite a bit of discussion about whether or not there should be language in there providing for increases due to the increased cost of insurance, for example. as an example, not just cost of living, because that's part of, I think, your salary, but the insurance is something else, or what they call executive allowance now, I'm not sure what it's called. And the committee suggested, no, If it's going to be increased, it's got to be by referendum for purposes of transparency, and the electorate's got to approve it. That's the reason it was written that way. But the Charter Review Committee can be done as frequently as you like.

Right. That's a correct statement, but again, this language, even if you said just cost of living, you'd need to define either how much the cost, without knowing, or you could... cite to some index, but that would not address specific changes in the cost of the insurance premiums to cover existing members, which increase much more rapidly than the general cost of living. Correct.

I'm recognizing that 10 years is a maximum is not easy to get a charter review committee going and it is very time consuming from the residents. So yes, I'm going to go with that latter commissioners my time in my head rather than the shorter. Are you thank you.

Yeah, thank you commission smuggler.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. On the last paragraph where it talks about insurance benefits, the second sentence that says after their term of service, commissioners may be offered the opportunity to remain, shouldn't it be shall be offered?

That would be an appropriate change. That's existing language. The committee did not recommend a change, but you can... You're not bound by what the committee has said, so that's an appropriate change to say that they should be offered, or really better would be shall.

Shall. All right, so do I have to make a motion for that?

Well, when we get to the voting part, which we're going to do by section, yes.

Okay.

Madam Commissioner.

OK, I just want to bring this to our attention. The salary, quote unquote, is like this is not a job for us. Right. We are volunteering our time and being compensated and for our time. So I mean, I think that being on being having this in the charter Amendment is a good idea, even though Mr. Attorney did say something. But I think that adding a CPI index would be fair because eventually the $500 a month that the county commissioners are getting paid from how many years ago was it?

About 60.

about 60 years ago and it hasn't been able to be voted back in. I think this way we kind of safeguard any expenses that we incur from doing our job as volunteers in the city for eight years maximum, I think is a fair thing. But I definitely think that we should codify that, lock it in, and not have I mean, we have seen cities that have given themselves salaries of like $80,000, $100,000, $120,000. And I don't want to see North Miami Beach do that. So that's my take. Thank you.

Any other comments? All right, so if we can move forward to section 2.4.

Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. I just addressed Commissioner Hsu. You can add that language when you discuss it amongst yourselves. I would caution you as the city attorney that you have to pretty much understand what you're giving the CPI for. Because your remuneration, and I'm calling it remuneration versus salary, is comprised of several different things, including executive allowance, executive expenses, which turns out being health insurance, and salary, which is tied to, I understand, the qualifying fee. And so if you're going to consider that down the road or even later in the evening, you must keep in mind that you need to define what it is in terms of amount, how that's determined, and to what it applies. Okay, that's part of the reason that the committee did not recommend it.

Through the Vice Mayor?

No, the CPI.

Through the Vice Mayor?

Yes, ma'am.

Our salary is $3,000 a year. Which is what former Commissioner Temple was saying.

Right.

The salary itself is 3,000. Okay, thank you.

Right. We were talking about a remuneration package as the committee, and the salary, and I don't know what the salary is. I didn't know what it was when I was up there. That was the clerk that gave us the numbers about how the numbers break down.

Well, there's, respectfully, Madam Commissioner, there's an ordinance that deals with all of this, and it talks about ACPI, right? And so if we can get that, perhaps if we have time to get it, if not, as Commissioner Templer mentioned, you know, we should determine if we're going to have a CPI, what specifically that's going to entail, because 2% on 3,000 versus 2% on the entire... On your package.

That's exactly my... And don't forget the insurance. I mean, insurance is not going up 1% or 2%. If you want to continue to get health insurance and not have your compensation otherwise reduced...

But the charter does not... That change, Mr. Attorney, does not affect... of the the health insurance i think it dot i think this change does i thought you're not you're saying that the second proportion is also i don't see anything crossed out Yeah, what it's...

It says at their own expense, so it's not being changed. The second paragraph says you may be...

Even if you change it to shall, to remain in the city at their own expense... No, it says here insurance benefits provided to members of the city commission shall only be paid for by the city during their actual term.

Yes, but if you limit total compensation as per the first paragraph, that... Correct. Probably affects the second paragraph and limits what that says. So just understand that if you adopt it as written, it's your privilege.

You can adopt it any way you want to. Well, okay. I just want to make sure, as we're reading this entire document, areas that are crossed out are being removed. Correct. Areas that have not been crossed out are not being removed. Correct.

But they may be affected directly.

Well, it would be nice to have whatever is going to be affected. And areas that are underlined are added. Right. So what I'm saying is if you don't tell us that something is going to be changed or removed as a result. You understand what I'm saying?

And that's why I'm raising it. That's exactly the reason I'm raising it. The language is not being changed. But if you change the preceding paragraph... I mean, every change may impact something else in here in 20 different places. That's exactly why I'm pointing out to you that if you adopt that language from the first paragraph, it does limit the second paragraph. The language is not changed, but the effect is that especially when you look at the second sentence, as it applies after your service is concluded, it doesn't say, even if that first sentence was interpreted as saying the city shall pay the entire amount, the way the first paragraph is written, that would reduce the other compensation to you.

I've never heard, with all due respect, I've never heard it this way. It's been two separate conversations, but if that's something that has to be clear, then we need to make it clear. I'll invite Mr. Temple.

The committee's recommendation was to limit total remuneration regardless of how it's calculated. That is salary, executive allowances, discretionary funds, or otherwise. That means that you're getting, for example, the mayor on top of page 12 saying, I believe is getting $56,014.96. That includes executive allowance, and it includes discretionary funds, and that's it, unless it's approved by a referendum. And if health insurance goes up, as a city attorney has pointed out, the difference will be made up by the individual commissioners if, in fact, that happens.

If the health insurance premium for an individual jumped $10,000.

It doesn't say that here.

Sorry?

It does not say that here.

It does. I'm a commissioner with deference. That's statutory construction. That's what we go to law school to learn. And if the health insurance for an individual in a given year goes up by $10,000, but the total you know that's what words like other or otherwise mean if that went up ten thousand dollars that ten thousand has to be accounted for from the other sources to keep the number the same even if there's a 1% or a 2% increase.

I'm sorry. Here's what we'll do.

It doesn't say that. To address your, I'm sorry, Madam Commissioner, go ahead.

No, we're both in agreement, and it doesn't say that here. And if we don't see it, then can you please tell us where you see it?

Because we're not seeing it. To both of your points, I think what's important here is that... Do you see how we're having this conversation back and forth? It should be clear. There should be no ambiguity to a layman that reads this, right? Because laymen are in fact people who are serving in elected office. But we didn't draft this.

This was the language of the committee. Commissioner Smucker, the first word is it says including without limitation costs. Costs includes health insurance. The very beginning of 2.3, back on page 11.

The end of the first sentence, the beginning of the second sentence on page 11, including without limitation. And respectfully, Mr. Vice Mayor, the word costs, it's a cost. I agree with the city attorney that the way this is written is really not subject to interpretation. And any attorney or judge reading this is going to know exactly what it means. Now, if you're asking me... Can we accept out health insurance costs? That's up to you. But the committee has recommended for purposes of transparency to the electorate that everything be capped from here on out, but not reduced.

So we'll we'll we'll address that conversation later. And I agree with Commissioner Smuckler. I think the way we do it now is the way that it should remain. But when you're talking about capping specific to whatever that number is that you added for the mayor and for the commission, that was addressed with a COLA maybe about six years ago. And I think we need to also have that reflect in this document as well.

And Vice Mayor, your point was correct. I understand it's not readily apparent, but this is the language of the committee recommended. That's exactly the reason why I'm sticking my nose in here to point out to you that if health insurance premiums go up as they tend to do substantially above THE REGULAR COLA, THAT THEY WOULD NOT BE COVERED, AND I WANT THE COMMISSION TO UNDERSTAND THAT BEFORE YOU VOTE ON IT, AND I AGREE WITH MR. TEMPOR COMPLETELY THAT WHEN THIS IS IN THE HANDS OF A JUDGE OR A LAWYER ARGUING IT, WE KNOW WHAT THAT LANGUAGE MEANS. I UNDERSTAND IT'S NOT, THIS IS THE LANGUAGE THE COMMITTEE ADOPTED, SO WE PRESENT IT TO YOU, BUT I WANT YOU TO UNDERSTAND IT DOES NOT It leaves the burden of increased health insurance costs on the people serving on the dais, and that can be a substantial burden. You have the privilege of saying we don't care, we're gonna impose that burden. But you also may want the opportunity, as was pointed out, to add language, even if you're going to go with the rest of it, specifically exempting health insurance, or you can leave the issue to be dealt with by ordinance. That's another option.

Okay, I appreciate the clarification from you guys. Let's move on.

Section 2.4 in meetings was amended because there was an interest by the committee to assure that matters that were not reached were not indefinitely postponed for too long because of the costs involved to the applicants that may come before the commission as well as residents who may come out for a public comment. And so there was a procedure implemented in 2.4 as amended to provide for meetings to reach items not reached on the actual agenda for regularly scheduled meetings with other meetings. And that's what that talks about. The next paragraph was intended to make it slightly easier for members of the commission to call for special meetings requiring four members rather than five.

Note that that does not change the quorum. Correct. Quorum is still the same. That's just to get a meeting called and also to simplify if the mayor needs the call meeting.

Okay, any questions from the dais?

So why did we take the manager out of this equation here? So before the manager had to give written requests like an email to us, now you're saying emergency matters upon the affirmation request of the four members of the commission other than the mayor. So who's going to give notice? The clerk? Why did we take the manager out?

because you're the commission and between your elected mayor and your elected commissioners it should be up to you to decide no we decided but who but he he's no longer He doesn't have a veto.

I understand, Madam Commissioner. You're asking why the language regarding the manager being able to call the special meeting was removed. Right. And the reason that the committee did that was because the manager would essentially go to the commission and say, I think we need a special meeting. And then the commission members have to decide whether, in fact, that special meeting is warranted. So the manager is still going to be able to make the recommendation for the special meeting, but he can't call the meeting without getting the approval of at least four members of the commission.

So is it understood that the special meeting will be notified to the commissioners by the clerk?

That's pursuant to the duties of the clerk. That's not being affected. It's just to say that the commission is the judge of whether and when a meeting is necessary. And as Mr. Templer says, the manager can...

No, the thing is, because it's 24-hour notice, I don't want to come up here and there's no quorum, not me, but whoever the next few years.

Four members calling a meeting when five is required for quorum is a little bit more of a risk. But I want them to know what day and what time, and I want to make sure that there will still be the same obligation for the clerk to comply with the 24 hours.

To be notified by the clerk.

It's already covered.

Because many people come up here and say they didn't know.

It's already covered. Whether people open their emails is another issue, but the court does give notice and will continue to give notice.

Unfortunately, we've come here without a quorum because people just didn't know there was a meeting. Okay.

Any other questions?

All right. Next item, 2.6. Section 2.5, Quorum and Attendance to City Meetings. Some years ago, we had a couple of issues. And in fact, I think there was another issue with this commission about being out for 120 days. And there was some... some concerns shown by some committee members that the counting of those days became a problem and how to count days starting on what date, ending on what date, et cetera. So that language was added You'll see the underlying language added in intent to clarify it but note that with the city attorney's Suggestion the last sentence attendance shall be in person or virtually as permitted by general law because one of the suggestions during the committee was to require in-person attendance which the city attorney points out, and I tend to agree with him, that that's not necessarily legal, because if the state law provides that you may participate by phone or virtually, and that is active participation in the meeting, then that should qualify. And so that's the reason for that last sentence being added beyond the specification of when the 120 days would start and end.

The other issue on this item briefly that the committee considered, this was the language they adopted, but the particular thing is what after, at the very beginning of the blue in the fourth line, the word continued is added above. That's a grammatical change. But where it says beginning with the day, Following the last attended meeting The alternative to that would have been and was discussed as beginning with the day that a meeting is Missed the question was if for instance for some reason there was a 60 or maybe because of a cancellation, a 90 day gap in commission meetings, did you want to reduce this effectively to 30 or 60 days after someone missed a meeting the committee vote i don't think it was unanimous but i don't recall was to have it begin with the very next day after the last meeting attended so whatever you choose to do those are the two principal options

I should add also that that language in parentheses in the third from the last line following the last attended in parentheses regularly scheduled continued or special and that should close the parentheses meeting should be afterwards. But the reason that was in there was due to the city attorney's suggestion that you can't just base it on the fact that there was a regularly scheduled meeting and then any other meeting that's participated in is a nullity and it doesn't count. You can't do that. And quite frankly, I think as a city attorney has suggested to the committee, that would be challengeable. But the way it's written here is a little bit more specific.

Yes, Commissioner Hsu.

Thank you. I am imagining a scenario that actually happened when commissioners come, check in, and leave right after. There's that. Is there something that we can put in for that? I mean, can we say your attendance counts as a full day of the meeting? I mean, of course, there are people who do get sick, and I understand that. You know, they would just come check in and leave, and then the city business would not get complete, and that's my concern.

Commissioner Hsu, that was specifically discussed in the committee meetings about what is attendance, and again, the city attorney noted, and I tend to agree with him, If somebody shows up for purposes of quorum and then leaves the meeting and there's no longer a quorum on the day as the meeting continues, it's not like that person leaving after the commencement of the meeting breaks quorum. They were there at the beginning. And so that issue was specifically discussed, but there is not language requiring full attendance through the conclusion of the meeting. because that's not the way meetings are normally conducted, and Mr. Geller will correct me if I'm wrong, but showing up for quorum at the commencement of the meeting is the operative obligation, is that correct?

I agree 100% with that and I mean the ramifications of that would include so does that mean if you fail to attend 100% of the meeting you're not in attendance? What if you're in the restroom when a vote is taken? Does that mean you didn't attend the entire meeting? Does it mean if you attend an hour worth of a meeting? Does it mean if the meeting is extended past midnight and you don't stay till the very end that you didn't attend it? There's just a lot of Difficult ramifications, I think it's very subject to question in court So the decision of the committee was to just say if you attend the meeting and you are present for some Not even necessarily the first moment What if you're an hour late for the meeting and you attend the rest of it is that not full attendance? The decision was not to decide to define full attendance if you either It's binary. You're either present or not present. And if at some point you're present, then you're present for the meeting.

The idea was to eliminate the possibility of fluid challenges. Somebody's saying, well... You know, you had to be there the whole meeting or you only had to be there part of the meeting. We couldn't really get into that because to establish quorum, you have to be there at the commencement of the meeting. But there's no obligation for any of you or any other commissioner in any subsequent commission to stay for the entire meeting. There may be an illness. Somebody may have to leave because of an emergency. And so we had to leave that really just to what it was.

Okay, so we're going to move on to section 2.6.

2.9, maybe. There's no changes in 2.6.

Okay, no changes in 2.6, none in 2.7, 2.8, so 2.9.

Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. The next section is prohibitions of the city commission, and B was changed, and this is one of those ministerial acts and clerical acts that had to be corrected because it talks about somebody sitting on the dais being subject to recall, it originally said as provided for in this charter, but the charter does not govern recall elections. That's governed by general law. So that was merely a correction made to be consistent with state law.

To be clear, there is some split in authority as to whether that is governed by the state law about municipal recall elections or the Miami-Dade County Charter about recall because of the very unusual Dade County exclusion in the state constitution, which I think sometimes even our judges and our appellate judges don't completely understand. There's a lot of debate on it, and it's not in, I've seen both positions taken, and I think there is some split in authority, but we don't have to make that decision by referencing general law. Whatever the law is, the courts decide which one, and that's why that word is used there.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Attorney. And we're going to move on, if there are no questions, to 3.11.

Mr. Vice Mayor, 3.11 was amended and adding subparagraph K. Subparagraph K is sort of in line with what we talked earlier about 1.9 and I believe 2.2, giving the... administration rather than just the commission, the opportunity to really dig into proposed developmental projects and specifically provides for the manager to be able to commission independent engineering planning and other professional reviews. that the charges for those would be paid by whomever the applicant is and an invoice would be submitted to that applicant for those reviews and it should be paid. My understanding and Bruce Cousins is here and he was instrumental in forming the language is this again is more of a charter codification of something that is already part of an ordinance, but this would make it much more obligatory on the part of the manager to consider it, rather than an ordinance that he didn't necessarily have to pay strict attention to, it would still use the word may. Is that right, Bruce?

May we quote Mr. Cousins, Mr. Vice Mayor? Sure. Thank you. Mr. Cousins, if you choose to address it, I mean, you're not required to, obviously, but if you'd like to.

Yeah, don't crowd me up here. Yes, Commissioner Smith.

I just have a quick question because I like the word may thank you for bringing that up. Mr. Templer.

There is a ordinance. It's already in existence. It's been in existence for a long time.

Mr. Cousins.

One moment. Let Commissioner Smith finish and then we will hear from you. Okay, sir. I'm sorry. Commissioner Smith first, and then we'll hear from you.

I was just saying I like the word may, and now I'm interested in Mr. Cousins having a prior ordinance. The only question I have being up here long enough to see, when our fees were so low to do new construction, compared to the other municipalities and we raised the fees to be where they are and then they came down and we didn't get any business because we were so high. So I don't know if, again I'm gonna use my 10 year reasoning that if we say they shall and that does not become the custom around us, it may hurt the city. I like the word may instead of shall.

Just to correct you, Commissioner, these are not fees that are charged by the city for internal city expenses. Correct. This paragraph addresses the fees that are charged to the city by independent professionals who are reviewing things at the manager's request and that charge being passed on to the developer. Correct.

We do that now, number one, and number two, I use the word fee as an example because that was a fee. I just use that as an example. I understand it's a charge that the city would have to all still do the inspection, still get the results from a professional, and then we would have to eat it, and maybe they wouldn't even build here. So I understand it, but I just don't know if over the 10 years what the custom will be around us. So that's why...

i like the word may for for the record here commissioner i have to say there were a couple of things previously as mr templar pointed out that were somewhat related to this 1.4 and 2.1 right whatever it was and 2.2 um that i said i didn't object to uh this one I believe states what the law is. I think all of those things are things that the administration and the commission have the power to enforce. I think these in particular are overly specific to be in a city charter. This can be done by ordinance, it is covered by ordinance, it is covered by the powers of the city commission, it is covered by the ability of the manager to administer the affairs of the city, and although I understand why there is concern and I don't minimize that, and I understand there's a specific case or two that people have some unhappiness with, but I don't believe this is appropriate for a charter document because I think it's too detailed and it infringes on the powers of the city commission to set policy for the city and on the powers of the city manager to administer the business of the city.

If I may. Yes, Mr. Templer, I also want to add, I think it is an ordinance.

I want to point out here what part of this was intended to address, whether it's already enacted by ordinance or not. And I'll give you an example. For those of us that have lived here long enough, many of us here, We know that developers want to put their best foot forward when they come before the city. And most municipalities require those developers to do different impact studies and mitigation studies. I would challenge any of you to show me a developmental submission where a developer said, this is gonna have a negative impact on traffic. It's never happened. They will always come to you and say, it's not gonna have a negative impact on traffic or the roads are designed to handle this kind of traffic. And in my business, as Mr. Geller will verify, we hire experts and they say what we want them to say. Not because we want them to say them, because they think that's what we want. Because they want to get more business. And so what you have is... traffic firms for example that are being hired by developers who want to continue to get business and so they submit a traffic plan regardless of how factual the data is and suddenly they say it's not going to affect traffic and that's been happening for 20 years and i can ask any of you do you think we get development there has been no additional traffic i can tell you that I'm not alone in believing that this is a fallacy. Here we are. So in this paragraph, which I believe is codified in the ordinance, it's the manager who can say, you know what? Terrific. You have your expert that says this. We're going to hire an independent expert, and that cost is going to be paid by you. It's going to be Build to the city and then we're gonna turn around and invoice you but we cannot necessarily rely on your experts coming forward and being honest with us and telling us that the information they're using is accurate and Timely which was exactly what we addressed in 1.4 and 2.2. That's the reason for I agree with every word.

Mr. Templars said But as he says that's in your ordinance and let me just say that If you had a manager, I don't think that you'll think that's the case currently, but if you had a manager that didn't ask that to occur, that didn't say, well, I think we need to have an independent city study, it doesn't end there. Any commissioner on review of the documents can say, well, I'm not satisfied, Mr. Manager, that we have enough information here and I would like you as a matter of policy and the commission could vote to say we want, before we vote, we want an independent study conducted by an independent person loyal only to the city and That's a cost that ought to be borne by the developer if they want this application to be approved So I'm not saying that there's a word that I disagree with and what mr. Templer said about you know experts retained by developers but you have every right and every power to through the manager or directly from the dais to mandate that that occurs. It just does not need to be with this, in my opinion, with this degree of specificity in your charter that can tie your hands more than free you, in my thought.

As I said, we already have an ordinance. Mr. Cousins, could I hear what you have to say?

I guess it comes back to, a naive, perhaps fundamental belief about the purpose of the city. We are not a business. We do not have an exit plan. Our goal, as I've read in all of the materials that describe what the city is and what we should be trying to do, their safety, their health, that comes first. It comes first, second, third, and fourth. Other communities survive just fine, With those concepts, maybe I'm just way off base here, but that's what I think that's all of you are doing up here. And I don't want the city manager to ever have to be under pressure. Certainly our track record of doing this doesn't exist. As an ordinance, I haven't been able to find a single occurrence that a city manager actually had the courage to do this. Maybe I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, you let me know. But this is such a fundamental thing to deal with the safety and the quality of life of this community that I don't want any wiggle room in it. I want this to be absolutely rock solid, non-negotiable. This is what we're here for. This is the single most important thing there is. You know, other things I don't have those kinds of feelings about. This I happen to, and I don't think it's the least bit inconsistent with what I understand your mission to be. That's all I can say. I'm gonna go make a hospital visit now, so you'll be spared the rest of my comments. But that's how I feel, and I really wish that You know, I've done the best I can to try and communicate that. What can I say? Thank you. Since Mr. Cousins is not staying until the end of the meeting, I say we start at 120 o'clock. Thank you for introducing me to a fantastic team of people here. I loved it. I loved it. I think some of them should be running for office, you know.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Cousins. Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Turner.

I would like to make a motion. My motion gives these people so much credit for what they did and put together this document. Why don't we just pass it and let the citizens decide what they want?

Second. Second.

Yeah, I think if I may, discussion-wise through the mayor, I think part of validating the work that they've done is for us to put in our own work here on the dais, even if it does take a little while. We've already gone through the first portion of it, and we only have two more portions to go. So I feel like we should just... Hopefully we can get this done by 10 o'clock, but I doubt it. I know you, I know.

It's not about time. No, it's not.

But I think part of, well, okay, so I appreciate your explanation that it's not about time. And I'm not saying that it is, but I think part of us validating their efforts is to go through every single item, especially for the edification of the public as well. Thank you.

i would like to say something if i may mr mayor um you know we had seven pairs of eyes doing this now we'll have 14 pairs of eyes doing this and you know we like this silly little comment that i made of changing a word from made a shell like little things like that that we can catch as well and make it better um i i you know we we've tried so hard to get this meeting done in the first place that i'm not going to now Sam going home? Yes.

Mr. Hsu.

Okay, I think that if we had, I think we received this in our email last night at 8, 11 p.m. I don't know, maybe the attorney had it done prior, a week before.

It was distributed previously. It was? Yes, ma'am. It was distributed when it was voted, when it was the final report of the commission, of the committee was distributed at least a week ago.

Oh, okay, you mean the one that wasn't completely reviewed but was written by Ms. Elizabeth Pierre?

No, ma'am, it was not written by her. It was taken from the minutes, and it involved many hours of my meeting with the clerk's office and consulting with Mr. Templer, who put in a lot of time on it before it was sent out as the final report, and that was done prior to the final meeting of the committee. It was all sent out.

We're almost done. All we really have to do is consider the election dates,

civil service mr mayor and i think we'll be pretty much there just continue this and um let's we have to go back and vote on this now as for the motion women yeah you can but you don't have to if you want to hear the rest mr get it done on the table oh yeah there's a motion commissioner smith some of the big items are coming up that we have to discuss do we want a change

I don't think, I think the committee worked very hard, and I think that the appreciation can never be enough. But I think some of these big items, for instance, the civil service, or for instance, when are we changing the date? Those things need to be discussed because it's very effective of a lot of things. And I appreciate the fact that we appreciate what they did, but the purpose, again, this is not my first charter. And what they did is this is the way it's done next. Next is the next step is for us to review it.

Respectfully, you could just move on to the next section and defer voting on the first section if you want to get to the other stuff quickly.

That's another option. No, no. What I would suggest is that can we just go As part of the discussion for the accepting and what we're going to eventually put out to the voters, finish out the rest of the section, and then we can vote on what we keep and what we... Just finish the section. Yeah, and so just finish the last sections, please.

We finished this first section.

Can we just vote on the section that we voted on?

Can we just vote on it and continue?

Yeah, Mr. Mayor, there are several sections remaining on the summary. However, I do agree with Mr. Vice Mayor that the ones that are more contentious and sort of fluid have already been discussed. The ones upcoming, at least for purposes of the summary description, are pretty straightforward.

So if you want to go to those two, right, right.

At your pleasure, whatever you like. There's a motion and a second on the table. If you would take a vote so we can move forward. Okay.

There's two things, Mr. Mayor, because with respect to the mayor, there was a vote that was taken about doing it section by section. So I guess we can address your motion, Commissioner Chernoff, and then we can go back to what had been voted on.

I'm just going to tell you one thing. Just because they did all the hard work and they did great work. There's one item that I don't agree with them. And if you want to do blindly pass this, then my vote is going to be no, because there's one item that I don't want to approve.

And I don't want to see it on the civil service board. And amend that motion to take it off.

No, I want to continue this. And we just wasted like five minutes discussing this. So can we just.

If we're not going to discuss it, what are we doing here?

Yeah, why did we come in the first place?

Procedurally, you need to deal first with the motion that was just made by Commissioner Chernoff, and then you can address whether or not you want to go ahead with what was voted to previously, which is to do the first section by voting first, or whether you wanna just plow through till you're done. You can keep what you did, you can change what you did.

Can we just do as we said we were gonna do, now let's vote on this and continue?

You have the privilege of changing that. I'm just saying first you have to dispose of of Commissioner Chernoff's motion to just vote everything up. You have to address that first, and then you did pass something, you can stick with it or change it.

Okay, one question please. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Opposed. Opposed. That's a word. Okay. So now can we vote individually on the first chapter?

What are we doing on the 1st?

No, we made that motion and now we have to go individually. 1 by 1 and say yes or no to each item on pages 10 through 14. like we said, we were going to do.

I mean, let me say again, commissioner procedurally. If you're addressing the 1st, so we're going to do it if you're addressing the 1st section. You don't have to vote on each proposed change. You may also just vote on what changes you want to put on the ballot. Anything that doesn't get a motion doesn't advance to the ballot.

Could I, Mr. Mayor, could I just ask a question before we go over this? I know you got the majority vote. There was a vote when you were gone. You weren't here. There was a vote. I was the only negative voter. There were two. Okay. So I'm sorry. To take the first section and vote on it first. My question is, if you vote on, I think there were seven, six or seven. and then we do the rest and there's another six or seven, how are you gonna determine what to eliminate or are you gonna put 13 on the ballot? That's my question. How will you know? We haven't gone over the sections.

Since there was a vote, it would require some- There are seven changes. It was 4-2 in favor of that. If one of the people who voted in favor moves to reconsider, that's one thing. Otherwise, there is a motion.

No, I don't mind. Whatever they want to do, the majority won. I just want to know if you vote for these seven now and we haven't followed the rest and there's another eight, are we going to put 15 things on the ballot? That's what we have to do. That's what we have to do. Well, the thing is, Dade County itself City attorney in the past on my charter, city manager on my charter, recommended that you limit it to eight so that they will answer the questions. And if you've been in to vote, you know how lengthy those questions can be.

I don't think I said eight specifically. I just said limit.

The former attorney when I was on the charter, not you. Thank you.

Okay. Through the mayor, if I may. The agenda says presentation of charter review committee final report and review of proposed revision recommendations. So we can, Mr. Attorney, if you can opine on this, decide that whatever we vote on that we want to see on the charter, I mean that we want to see on November's ballot, can come as one question, can come in as two questions, can come in as three questions.

All of the above, yes.

Any of those is perfectly permissible.

I will be required, Mayor, to present to you the actual resolution, including the 15-word title and the 75-word summary for any individual question that you want to have on there. If you have eight of them, that would be eight 75-word summaries that you will all have to wade through. But that may be what you want. I don't know that eight is a magic number. It's not a little number, but it could be maybe a bigger number, but they're frowning on it. They don't tell us what to do at the supervisor's office, except if they refuse to do it. At some point they may, but You have to adopt an actual resolution, which I couldn't draft without knowing what questions you wanted and how many there would be. Okay. So, so you have to do that already at the next meeting. Yes.

So there's a, there's a motion to, there was, there was a process set up to vote on each section, right? So how many, they're going to vote on one section right now or is that?

Unless one of the four who voted for that wants to just plow ahead and move to reconsider. If there is no motion, then yes, you have to address, unless there's a motion to reconsider, you have to address that.

Mr. May, if I may, through the chair.

There's nine more. Four of them are completely eliminating things which we might wanna bring back, like the civil service, et cetera. But nine and seven, we're gonna have 16 on the ballot. If you vote now for these seven, how are you gonna know what's the priority? Or are you gonna not vote for them and then in the end you'll want them? I would hope somebody would withdraw and we could do it so that we could look at all of them.

Mr. Mayor, if I may. One moment, Commissioner. If I may, what we're reading here as charter language, right, is not specifically word for word what's going to be on the ballot. Can you either agree or disagree with that statement? I agree with that.

Okay. And I think the city attorney would agree with that. The referendum language is basically a summary which would direct people to the actual language. Direct everything? Correct. You do not have to put the actual language of every change in the referendum.

Correct. So can you agree with or disagree that if we do, for instance, in section one, decide that we want to see five things, that that can't be surmised within one ballot question. Correct. It can be, right? Yes.

Assuming that the things you've... Yeah, are reasonably related to each other, don't contradict each other. There is one potential contradiction that will come to that you have to deal with where you've got a ready to do two ballot questions because there are inconsistent positions that could result.

And in your seat, as well as Mr. Templer, can you opine on whether or not we, after voting, could allow the city attorney's office to determine whether we would need one question for, let's say, three areas or two questions? How does that work?

You can ask us. to provide something to you, but it is subject to your final approval when you approve the resolution language as to what they're going to be. So, yes, we can be instructed to do that if that's your pleasure, but the authority to approve it rests with the commission. Correct. Thank you.

Agree, the city attorney could be asked to phrase two or three questions, but it would still be subject to commission approval as to how it's presented on the referendum. Correct.

Thank you.

So what just happened in the last 10 minutes? Nothing? Okay, just, that's what I thought.

Can we, all right, well, there's a, just following the process that you guys set up, so. We have to vote on, it's...

So let me help out here. In my seat, if we're going to section, the first section, when it talks about 1.4 powers, I really, that section, I don't see the necessity. So in my seat.

Motion to approve section 1.4.

No, I'm not done.

Oh, you're not doing that?

So I'm saying I don't see the necessity of it.

He's agreeing with you.

Sorry?

He's agreeing with you.

She's saying motion to approve section.

She's saying that she agrees with your point that there is no need to add that one.

Is that what you're saying, Commissioner?

No, actually, no.

She's making a motion to approve it. I'm motioning to approve it. He's making a motion to not approve it.

Yeah, I'm saying I disagree with it. I'm just saying in my seat. So 1.4, I disagree with changing that. I think that what we have is broad enough.

Are we going to vote on each one?

No, I'm just telling you where I stand.

There would not be a vote unless there's a motion to put it on.

If no one moves to put a section on, there's no vote on it. All right, so real quick, I'm going to go to Section 2.1 as well, Mayor and Vice Mayor.

Didn't we make a motion to vote on each individual one?

No, ma'am, I explained at the time that there has to be. If no one moves.

On each individual item.

We made a motion. Commissioner Schmucker. Mr. Attorney, the commissioners want that. You're telling us not to. I am not.

That is a misinterpretation, Commissioner Hsu. Let me state again. If any member of the commission, after you have expressed your views on this first section, which that's what you voted to do, any motion to move a particular recommendation to the ballot.

I'm sorry, but we said each chapter individually, each item.

Commissioner. We did.

I'm sorry, but we did.

commissioner he's just saying that if nobody wants it we don't have to discuss it that's all i'm saying but so far right now one person wants it and one person doesn't so far commissioner commissioner i understand you but i did make a point of order to point out that you don't have to vote down anything It's up to you to vote anything up that you want to, whatever you want. Any commissioner can make the motion, but if no, as Commissioner Smith said, if no one does, right now, Commissioner, excuse me, Vice Mayor Fleurimond is expressing his view. He has the floor.

It's going to happen with every item, so can we just move on, please?

He was speaking, and he's entitled to finish his comment.

I bet. You're not letting him speak, so please.

I'm not the one stopping him from speaking. Yes, you are. All righty.

Thank you. So that's how I feel about 1.4. So since you, Commissioner Hsu, since you said you wanted to.

I would, I'd like to add that. So I motion to add this to the list of items that we want to put on the agenda. I mean, put on the referendum. Do I have a second? I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor.

Is there a second? Yes. All right. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any of those I say on those next okay.

So let's cross it out. Okay, I item 2.1 remember that 1.4 and 2.2 are connected to each other correct.

So that would in essence take out that as well.

So next item 2.2 are we saying that though that was one is next or you were coming on it. 2.1 already so item 2.2 we're already rotating every 4 months. I think that if we have it if we don't have it by ordinance that still 2.1 Sir.

Yeah, that's what we're at. 2.1.

Oh, I'm sorry. My apologies. Second paragraph. Section 2.2 is where we're at now.

The first paragraph. 2.2 or 2.1?

2.1. 2.1, first and then second paragraph.

Okay. I'd like to add to 2.1 that the mayor will be until you're ahead.

It's not what it says. You have to amend it to do that. She wants to amend it to do that.

I want to amend it. That's what we're here. Okay.

So I suppose that we leave it as it is without changing anything. No state of the union requirement or whatever.

I'm making a motion to amend it just to add that the mayor will be the tiller head.

Second. What are you seconding?

HER COMMISSIONER SMITH.

COMMISSIONER SMITH, WOULD YOU MIND IF IT STAYS AS IT IS WITH NO CHANGES WHATSOEVER? IT WOULD KEEP THE ONLY PART THAT WOULD NOT BE ADDED IS BASICALLY THE STATE OF THE MAYOR. STATE OF THE CITY. A CITY. RIGHT.

I DON'T THINK WE HAVE TO EVEN TALK ABOUT IT.

SO WE CAN JUST LEAVE IT AS IS. NOT CHANGING AT ALL.

On the original one, it said the tillier head.

Correct, if you make no change, then it continues to say that.

On the original that we now have as our charter, I believe it says he's a tillier head.

I'm agreeing with you, Commissioner Smith. If you make no change, that language about titular head remains, as was just pointed out by Commissioner Jeon, if you make no change the first paragraph of 2.1 it still says titular head the practical difference as mr templar said is just that it doesn't make a charter requirement for an annual state of the city that's the only real difference if you just keep the original language you don't have to amend this to add tissue or head because that's in the existing language and also it doesn't codify the four month rotation

I understand that completely, but reading what's written in red, which would be under 2.1, I do not see the word chileeler head at all.

You're 100% correct.

And I'd like to make an amendment to add that. I would like to make an amendment.

Yeah, but I think she actually likes the language that she just wants to add.

Okay, on Commissioner Smith's amendment, is there a second?

There was a second. Nope. I did second it.

All right. There's a motion to say all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Opposed. Opposed. All right, next, please.

No, sir, you still, I'm sorry, Mayor, but just to be clear, the amendment was not adopted. It wasn't adopted. But there is no motion to accept. No. It's 2.1. Right now, there is not a motion that 2.1 go, that any change be made. There can be a motion, but there is no motion now to have 2.1 go to referendum.

Yes, now Vice Mayor, continue on, please.

No, I was just saying, 2.1 doesn't need to be, we don't need to add this on to at all, so we can move on. All right, so section 2.2.

We have to vote on that.

No, we're not asking for it to be added, so there's no vote.

There'd have to be a motion to add it for you to vote on it. If no one moves to change it,

Oh, I make the motion to add it, so that every four months is part of the.

You can make that as a separate motion to add just that part of it. Otherwise, you're changing titular head, which you said you didn't want to.

All right, I make the motion to just add that every four months we change vice mayor.

Do we have a second? Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Opposed. Next item, next item, please.

All right, so 2.2, I think that's also something that we could remove because of Section 1.4. Right, because those two kind of go together, so we don't have to add this if the first Section 1.4 was not voted on. So that's just my thoughts.

I'll make the motion, I'll second your motion not to add it.

All right, all in favor say, wait, you don't need a motion. So we just keep, okay, so we keep just keep moving.

There was no motion to add it. So you can move to 2. Without a motion, you move to 2.3. Correct. Next.

Okay.

Do you have some- All right, so as it relates to- Mr. Kempner, the mayor, did you want to say something about 2.2?

As it relates to section 2.3, compensation.

Just watching the show. As it relates to compensation, I think there was a conversation about the health insurance, so maybe we put in language that there be a a cola for the cost of the health insurance while leaving the salary and everything else as is that I remember the cola the colon against the cap didn't mention that.

If there's the cola then the cap can't be in the same conversation is that what it was.

No, I think the attorney said that if we want to add something specific to insurance benefits, we can do that so that it can be delineated or be more clear.

Through the mayor, you have two issues here. One is adding a specific COLA so that it's not frozen at that number, and you could specify... that a 1%, you could specify a 2%, or you could just say shall be adjusted per the index that's maintained by the, I think it's the Bureau of Labor Standards, I'm not certain who, but there isn't a federal index. Separately, you may wish to say, however, increases in the cost of health insurance for commissioners shall not be capped by this provision, I would request, since he helped, was the main author of it, I would like to turn to Mr. Templer to assist in specific wording if that If those are the two things that you want to change, a reference to the index for cost of living and separately taking out whatever health insurance costs there are, then I would like to turn to our friend Mr. Templer to help word it up. I have a suggestion. I would think that perhaps what we could do, sir, is to, ahead of, unless and until changed or modified, we could say except that there shall be an annual cost of living adjustment based on the index maintained by, we'll have to see who that is, I think it's Bureau of Labor Statistics, and then add a separate sentence after that that says, however increases in the cost of health insurance for sitting members of the city commission shall not be subject to this cap. And that would be, what do you think?

mr mayor what my suggestion was is this presents the problem that i originally discussed with providing for cola adjustments you have to tie that to the particular aspects of the remuneration because otherwise what you're doing if you're giving yourself cola increase and you're not limiting health insurance as you're double dipping on the health insurance you're getting the additional money for the health insurance and you're getting the cola increase on that health insurance. So that's where the issue comes in. Can it be done? It can be done because I can add the language. I'm not gonna do it right here, right now. I'd have to give it thought, but I'm happy to do it however you suggest it should be done.

Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor.

Commissioner Templer, I think you mentioned that the index, there's specific areas of our salaries that would be affected and not affected. Do those have to be delineated in that? No. Areas that are going to be covered or affected and not?

no commissioner john the the language has proposed is a full limitation on all remuneration regardless of whether it's executive allowance cost recapture health insurance or otherwise that the way it is written is a full limit on the amount of remuneration paid to or for the benefit of commissioners. And I say for the benefit of because some commissioners have their health insurance paid by the city. Others who have health insurance get an executive allowance instead of the health insurance. And so that's the reason it was worded that way.

That's a good point.

Mayor, excuse me for the point of privilege. Mayor, I think you're going to be talking about this for another couple of minutes, and we have the benefit of the thoughts of Mr. Templer. I'm sorry, but I have to excuse myself for a couple of moments. I'll be right back.

I apologize. Can you say your thoughts, Commissioner?

I think we should leave it as it is, unless we can get more delineation on the cap. Because if there's a cap, then that means that we will be responsible for paying the additional increase, right?

Correct.

All right, so can we... And also, I wanted to add that word shall instead of may.

Where?

On the last paragraph, the second sentence, after the term... Shall be notified for the insurance. Shall be offered the opportunity to remain instead of may be offered the opportunity to remain.

Okay, but the... The question I had, because I didn't understand Commissioner Jean's point.

She was saying, and correct me if I'm wrong, Commissioner Jean, that there's an ordinance, and it should be left that way, or it should be amended for what have you, but the complexity of how this can be affected, depending on what your situation is, could be... substantial oh so you're saying don't add it to the ballot yeah that's what i'm saying don't add it to the ballot the the shall word i don't think no the shout the shout part she wants to change but in regards to the the other aspects of the the remuneration in the caps that's why she's like she just wants to add that i guess commissioner smuggler commissioner smuggler's shout so so you're saying only on the ballot it doesn't need to be about that's what she's saying

I'm not saying we leave it as it is.

Right, that's what I'm asking.

No, but Commissioner Smuckler wants that.

With the exception of Shell.

That's the one thing she wants to change.

Mr. Mayor, just to be clear, the second paragraph was not changed by the committee. So Commissioner Smuckler wanting to change may be offered to Shell, be offered certainly within the purview of the commission. It's not part of the committee's recommendation.

Right, to me it's more like of a correction.

Yeah, I'm just saying that that's not part of what we dealt with. We dealt with the first paragraph, not the second. And the first paragraph, as Commissioner Jean is pointing out, is a full limitation. And the reason you see those figures at the top of page 12 is because there had to be some clarity about what was actually being paid today, which is part of the full limited cap.

Mr. Templer, through the chair, if I may, through the mayor, would you know if we just change it from may to shall, if both of those paragraphs would be on just changing that word, would that be on the ballot for them to vote on?

It is a change to the charter language. If you did nothing with paragraph one, if the commission decided that there was not gonna be any limits beyond what you decided for yourselves and paragraph one was left as it is, and Commissioner Smuggler wanted to change paragraph two from may to shall, that would still require referendum because that would be a change to the language of the charter independent of what is in paragraph one.

Unless changed by ordinance.

So I think that when you are elected as a commissioner, I think when you're elected as a commissioner, you read the charter. And you know, that when you leave, you have the option to take the insurance with you by the word may. No, that's not what that says.

That's not what that says. But may could be like, it may offer to you, but it doesn't mean you will.

What I should say to you also is the language in paragraph two.

But you can change it by order.

Sorry, sorry. The language in paragraph two being permissive and what Commissioner Smuggler is suggesting is that you would change it to shall, which is more specific, you could leave it as may i defer to the city attorney and still provide by ordinance for something that allows shall right so long as you're not making it um more restrictive it'd be fine so i think you're i think you could do it by ordinance i defer to the city attorney right that's separate and apart from paragraph one but i think the idea is that you try to make that change without putting it on as a referendum

All right, yeah, if it could be done by ordinance, of course. I'd like to make a motion.

Can, okay, all right, what is your motion?

My motion is to approve the cap for the remuneration, add a CPI in the state of Florida, and add the shall for paragraph two.

Do you have a second?

Second.

All in favor say aye. Hold on. All in favor say aye. Aye. Discussion? Aye. Opposed? Opposed. Opposed. Opposed. Opposed. Next item.

Did you vote, Mr. Commissioner Chernow?

All right. The shall can be added by ordinance.

says so like this didn't pass know that we're going we're going to do we're going to do the show by or right but the rest of it didn't have no well, I mean I don't I didn't hear a commissioner Smith we can vote on the rest of we did what then pass was the change she made a motion to pack to prove it for us to prepare for the change.

No, no.

I added the CPI for Florida and to cap this amount and added the CPI index per the state of Florida because the federal is usually higher. So the state of Florida and then secondly add Commissioner Smuckler's request to change the language to shall.

Point of order, Commissioner Hsu. I am not aware of any separate index that's maintained by the state of Florida. It's a federal index.

There's two indexes. State of Florida and the federal.

What entity in the state of Florida provides?

You can search it for yourself.

I'm not aware that there is such a thing, but if you say there is, okay.

Well, respectfully, I think that if we're going to do something like a charter amendment, we need to know what CPI we're using and whether or not it exists. But to the motion that was on the table, What I would like to offer or proffer is that I don't have an issue with the CPI and I don't have an issue with even the cap. I just think that we need to be mindful and make that exception for the increases in the benefits. As a matter of fact, maybe we remove the CPI from the salary and then keep it for the benefits.

But it goes to the point of what?

No, no, no, that's what I just said. Remove the CPI specifically from the executive expense, the salary, and it was salary, executive expense, those were the two things that you can remove the CPI from that, but not specific to the cost of coverage. I don't know if you guys can opine on that.

So I think what Commissioner Hsu is referring to are two different things. When you say CPI, that's consumer price index, and that's adjusted by the federal. I'm sorry, COLA, cost of living or federal insurance. Federal government, and then there's COLA, which is cost of living adjustment, and I believe that's state.

That's why you can't mix and match.

Okay, so then I amend my motion to include COLA for the state of Florida.

All right, so... Now can we have the discussion?