City Commission - workshop

These projects, do we use in-house where the employees we have can put up the tile?

Yes. Yes, we do. We do have, underneath Eugene, we do have several employees that provide those types of services.

That would make a big difference also for the budget. Thank you very much.

Yes, ma'am. All right. All right, moving on to six. Now, we said on our last budget meeting that the number for the capital budget was $23 million. We've done some updates, and it's just slightly under $23 million at $22.7 million, and that is... $6.7 million in projects coming directly from the water utilities department, and $7.2 million being funded from the WIFIA proceeds that loan. The rest you'll see are de minimis compared to those large. Those two by themselves are about $13 million in expenditures. Then we follow up another $2.2 million we expect to expend in the new budget for Washington Park, 1.5 going towards gas taxes, 1.4 from our general fund for library projects and Highland Village projects and other building projects. All right. It was also the quest of the commission that we update you on building projects and their expected completion. So that's, you're gonna see those slides here for the next couple, I think it's two or three slides. Yes, the next two slides. So we have the ORA North Miami project, which we expect to be completed in 2028 at the latest, as they're already in receipt of their TCO. The building is, I believe, 75 to 80% occupied, and they should be coming in for their CO soon. All right. NEXO, we do expect them to be completed also in 2028. That's a new multifamily building comprised of 16 floors with amenities decks, 254 residential. The valuation of that project is about $95 million and they are in receipt of, we expect them to be, to come in for their TCO probably within the next four months. Celeste by the Bay, that's a $104 million project. We also expect that to be completed in 2028. Phase one is already open of that project, and I believe they're 80% occupied. They have requested a groundbreaking ceremony in January of next year. excuse me, a ribbon-cutting ceremony in January of next year. Toshiba Torah School, that's a $22 million project, and we expect that to be completed in 2028. I believe there is one more that's not here. Lennar, so I don't see Lennar School on here, but Lennar School is also just completed. Well, we expected them to be complete within the next 90 days, so maybe that's why it's not here. It actually might fall into completion in this current fiscal year, but they just received their TCO. Commissioner Smuckler and I were invited to and attended their first day of school by the rabbis there. They're very, very excited and moving forward with their CO. The valuation, I believe, on that project is also about $22 million. Yes, ma'am. Okay. All right. All right, moving forward to page eight, we have some additional projects, what I'm sure that most, if not all of you, are familiar with. The William, we expect to be completed in 2029, valuation of 143 million. The Canal Park office, we expect that to be completed in 2029, with a valuation of $20 million. And I believe this is a typo, I believe this should say Ciano, not Ciamo, I think. Ciano Condominiums is actually a brand new Eastern Shores project where we're taking a former dilapidated building that had something like 134 units and they're reducing it down to just 65 units to create more space and green opportunities in Eastern Shores. And that project is $25 million and it's expected to be completed in 2029. The long-standing ongoing project with the Citadel, we are hoping that to be completed with 2029. We are monitoring that. We're reaching out to them to see if they need progress or support. And that project valuation is $22.3 million. Palmyra, we've also been working directly with Palmyra to move that project forward through our community development department. We expect that to be completed in 2029 with a valuation of 136 million. And we have a new synagogue that we're expecting in 2029 with a valuation of 8.9 million. Any questions regarding those responses? Now, those are the responses that we provided you with slides, but there are also some additional updates that I just want to bring to your attention. We did have our HR department do an analysis of city clerk compensation. And we did, of the six surrounding cities, and it did reveal that North Miami Beach has the lowest compensation for city clerk. We'll be providing those numbers with you directly. We also, at the request of Commissioner Smith, we had a meeting with our communications department and we're looking at updating the Channel 77 and looking at additional programming that we can provide there. I don't recall who, I believe this was Commissioner Smith as well, requested that we put an additional notice in the water bills indicating that the rate increase is due to the rate increase for the county. And I met with the public utilities director and he's implementing that as well. Okay. Okay. All right, we had at the request of Commissioner Jean to do an increase of the PAL budget from, I believe she wanted from 75,000 to 100,000. I don't have the right number here. We were looking at some of the, where we're going to move the money from. So we were looking at perhaps having a discussion or having you have a discussion about moving monies from the police overtime budget and perhaps putting some of those monies in towards the police athletic league. So that would be a discussion that we would look for guidance on. Do, do, do, do, do. We are still giving some analysis. I just got a memo. I haven't had a chance to review it on the COPS grant from the Chief of Police to see how we could implement that and apply it. But it is not 100%. It is a step down. So what happens is, say, if they fund you at 75% the first year, it drops down to 50%. The second year drops down to 25%, the third year. And then after the fourth year, the city's on a hook for 100% of the cost. All right. So when I've had a chance to digest the memo from the chief of police, I will actually provide some one-on-one times to discuss those findings. And also, if warranted, I'll also share either my version of that memo or that memo with you directly. All right. I think there was... There were some concerns about the library staffing and I got with the library director and we went over all of her services. There's no diminishment of services. There's no diminishment of programs. We're just working things more efficiently and doing things better. The new library director has some very exciting ways about how to get things done, how to move things forward. But there's no diminishment in the services. There's no diminishment in the programs and the library. And, in fact, she has vacancies that she's waiting to fill. And I have provided the directive that once those vacancies are filled that we open the library up on the weekend. So, yes. So we can expect that to be coming. I also take the side note, I also provided the same directive to the parks director, Ian Fors, and I'm waiting for him to get back to me with a fiscal impact and budget analysis as he had not contemplated that before. So we may be making some amendments to increase the budget in the parks department so that he can fulfill that directive to have the parks open on the weekend. Okay, all right. So Commissioner Zana also wanted us to explore a cafe or vendor opportunity. So we are going to do just that with a feasibility study, with vendor requirements, potential revenue to the city, and any necessary agreements or approvals. So there will be a timeline and a process that we'll be looking at that at her request. So Commissioner John also asked about it.

You can add me to the list of people who made that request.

Oh, yes. My apologies, Vice Mayor. Absolutely. For sure. What can we say? What can we say? And Commissioner Johnson also asked about a $3,000 grant received last year for Book Mobile and whether the grant is renewable. So I have requested that we find out what this grant is and if that, and how we can respond to that request. Okay. Right, Commissioners Chernoff had requested information regarding the establishment of the building fund in coordination with the CFO. So yes, we do have, the CFO is looking at a building fund, but I'm also looking at efficiency contracts to fund some of our infrastructure needs. So those are the two ways that we're both looking at it. She and I have met and had conversations on that, and we'll continue to keep you updated.

When I asked that, that was in regards to the public works building, the roof.

Yes, yes, and that's the way that we intend to. We're either going to pull money from that fund once we have the monies there or look at an efficiency contract. Thank you, sir.

Okay.

I would like to get a little guidance on Housing and Economic Development Department. The statement was made that the Commission would like to see, I believe this was Commissioner Jeon, less money in staffing and more money in programs. This is, as you all know, this is a new program that you, excuse me, a new department that you pass by ordinance, and we're just following the ordinance, filling the positions as required. And it does cost money. I believe you did a million dollar set aside and once we're filled, I believe we're projected to have about $800,000 for the entire department program. And yes, since we're not an entitlement city, that money does come from the general fund. So right now, the department has a director a housing coordinator, a economic development coordinator, excuse me, a housing coordinator vacancy, as we're looking to fill, an economic development coordinator, and an executive assistant, which we're also looking to fill. So that's just four positions. And also the already pre-existing BTRs makes eight positions that were moved over from building.

If I may, through the mayor. I also believe that I was requested that whoever receives the benefit has some kind of vested amount.

Yes, I'm going to get to that next.

Okay, thank you. I know that I voted yes on this ordinance, but I really think it is too much money for one department, especially since it's the beginning of the department. Maybe once it's fully... that fully know what this department will really bring back to the city. So I would like to see that amount changed. I think it's more important to put that monies in some other department. So I'm not sure if we have to bring it back as an ordinance to change the amount or...

I think that that would be, that would remain under the city manager's executive authority. I just need some guidance. So just so you can have the structure, you have one director, and then you have one employee that reports to the director that is supposed to do all of the economic development programs, and then another employee that's not been hired yet that's gonna do all of the housing programs, which is a significant amount of work. under those programs and then an executive assistant to support them. The BTRs, we obviously couldn't reduce those because we need every single member of that team processing our business tax receipts.

But who did the BTRs before?

The BTRs were under the community development department.

So then we're going to give the community development, we're going to take money away from the community development department because now they don't have that salary?

Well, technically no, since all of the receipts are going into the general fund, but yes, to the point that these were employees of community development, excuse me, building, and now these are going to be employees, these are employees that are under this housing economic development department. And this was something that I did not have discretion. So I read the ordinance. I always read all the ordinances after they're passed to see what comes under my administrative authority and what I have to do exactly as it's written. Like for example, there was a TPS ordinance wanted to explore bringing in additional firms or bringing in additional partners. And at the request of one of the members of the commission, I reviewed the ordinance and it specifically tells, directs the city manager, you will hire this firm. So I had to report back that that's not something I have some executive discretionary under. I have to do it exactly as it's executed in that resolution. And I did the same thing with the housing economic development ordinance. I wanted to determine if it left me any wiggle room to determine where the BTR team exists. And there's a lot of different models. Some BTR teams are under community development, some BTR teams are under building license and permitting. Sometimes the The general consensus is community development. I've rarely seen them in a housing and economic development department because those are for larger cities and they're usually funded by grants and CDBG grants and entitlement grants. This is a new bottle and I'd want to see what wiggle room I had and there's just none there. Now, if the commission as a whole decides that they no longer want to see the VTRs under this Housing Economic Development Department, we would have to bring that ordinance back or an amendment to it.

Well, I'm just saying that we need to cut money. I'm going to talk about if that amendment 3 passes or not. I'm not even going there. But, you know, we're trying to cut monies in all the departments and here we're giving the economic development a million dollars. So I would like to see something cut there as well. If nobody agrees with me, then we'll suspend it.

Through the mayor. So I just, I checked on the history of BTR employees before. Is there, from my understanding, like we have, when the BTR was working like clockwork, which was a while back, it had two BTR employees. I am wondering if we can repurpose like the four and then have the two do other duties that are inside and perhaps like from the eight employees, you could reduce it down to six.

There are four BTR employees.

Correct. That's what I'm saying is you have four already, right? And then how many people in total do you have right now? I think Dr. Pierre is back there. You have six, right? Correct. So if we keep that and repurpose the BTR, the two BTR employees who would like to go into other things, is that possible? So that we don't have to hire, have two more spaces for BTR and accelerate the AI or the technology process of it.

Yes.

But I mean, I think that maybe that's one of the ways that we could bring that down without compromising on any of the other services, right? We're just bringing down the staff level.

I think that's a great idea, something that we can definitely explore. if it be the will of the commission.

As long as we save some money there, I'm game.

Okay, we'll get that done.

Through the chair, the economic development was totally rerouted. A million dollars will be nothing if the economic development performs what the intention was. I was at an affair last night, beautiful affair, and the mayor from Aventura was there, speaking to the developer that's in our city, making a deal for him to develop in Aventura, right before my eyes. That was the purpose, to bring economic development, to get out and knock on the doors, to meet the street. In fact, it's the contacts. If that happens, look at what you just showed us is coming in. If that economic development worked like that, look what would come in. But somehow it got deviated to... repairs and needs of residents, which should be a part of it. But I didn't anticipate the economic development to be that broad of that million dollars. The million dollars should be to bring in and guide people through the system and change our reputation from I don't want to build in North Miami Beach. It's too hard. Change that reputation to getting somebody holding their hand through each step and moving it forward quickly. So the difference that you're saying is a whole different economic development. Economic development in every city, if you see what's happening everywhere, I mean, just look what happened to Hallandale Beach. Look what's happening to North Miami. They have a team that goes out and makes it happen. We needed that team. And economic development was originally designed in that ordinance for that very reason. Somehow it got mistracked in a different direction. But I hope you don't take away money from that need, because that need is there. You won't build a city in a responsible way unless you have people that understand what it takes to build a city, like what happened at Doral. Within 10 years, it changed from one kind of city to a completely different one. And that could happen here in North Miami Beach because we have sat dormant for a long, long time. We could be the next city that goes from one city, keeping its base, keeping it homegrown, keeping what the people bought in here for, but expanding to give us revenue to do what we need to do to keep up the services. That's why economic development is very important. If you diminish it, you diminish your future.

I agree with that through the mayor. I agree with that. and um you know we have the p3 that's uh being worked on uh for the tennis center and then we have other other land that we're looking at doing partnerships and so um you know i agree wholeheartedly with commissioner smith on that point um is that that department and really every department is supposed to understand what role they play in bringing in development, bringing in economic development and also even bringing in new residents. because when you talk about Doral, when you talk about City Place, these are things that bring people to an area, and as they're in those areas, they're looking at condominiums or apartments or housing in that area, and things begin to happen as a result. The same thing with Homestead. If you go down there for their agriculture experience, you're gonna see something in that area that makes you perhaps think about, you know, becoming a resident. So I agree wholeheartedly. Thank you.

Yes. Ms. Pierre, by the way, I think you're wonderful. This is not anything against you. So, you know, I'd like to see what a million dollars is doing. I mean, that's a lot of money. I'd like to see some money go to the police, more to the police department, to the library, to code. I'd like to see, I just think a million dollars a year is a lot of money for that department. And if you guys can't see it, seriously, until we start seeing that it's happening, then I don't think we should be spending that million dollars a year. Once we see...

in full effect go ahead spend much more but in the meantime we need to cut and a million dollars is a lot of money for that for one department through the mayor um i think commissioner smith said something very important what she said just now was was mayor howard weinberg was the one who was discussing with the developer to bring him into aventura i was thinking about the things that i want to bring to our city um early in my career when i got elected we had like the ambassador from beijing bring in a cohort of chinese investors who open up restaurants because i'm very interested in creating an asiatown so i bring them over use a city facility to have a meeting like willing to host it for them So that's, I mean, I'm also bringing in some Michelin star franchise restaurants. I mean, I'm talking to people, and I think that that's what our duty is as commissioners. We're kind of like the ambassadors. We bring them in, and then we all talk about it. I don't think it's Ms. Pierre, per se. I think she's running the day-to-day operations. Once we trigger something, we start something, then she takes it and she runs with it, right, with the baton. So either we're looking at two things. One, we have a really great city manager right now who is, you know, he's magnanimous. I mean, he has a lot of connections, knows a lot of people, has done a lot of P3s and has done a lot of investments. I mean, Opelika has been turned around. with him with us and you know if we're out there at events i mean everywhere i go whether it's a national league florida league miami-dade county you know whatever is out there we need to be the ambassadors to bring these people in not necessarily staff i think they're making sure that operations is running so I STILL THINK I KIND OF AGREE WITH COMMISSIONER SMUCKLER ABOUT LIKE BRINGING DOWN THAT NUMBER A LITTLE BIT BUT OF COURSE LIKE ONCE OPERATION PICKS UP THEN WE ADD ON TO THE BUDGET AS IS NEEDED LET'S SAY WE HAVE SO MUCH BUSINESS COMING IN RIGHT WE NEED YOU KNOW NOW OSLIN NEEDS 10 EMPLOYEES AND YOU KNOW WHAT LET'S GO Right. But right now, it's still like setting up in the process of that. We need people who are highly expertise, like experts in that area, like housing and development. Right. All the the HUD stuff, you know, like all the things that have to how can we facilitate more residents to come in? I know like other cities that I mean, you guys know, I'm I you know, my personal day job. There are many cities that offer first time home buyer grants of up to like $80,000. But of course, this is like maybe and I'm just throwing that name out there. Please don't, you know, like maybe I think it was like Lotter Hill or somewhere. I don't remember exactly, but let's just say like it's kind of a far away in a remote area that is trying to facilitate and bring people in. So I don't think that right now in our budget that we are kind of underwater right now and we're trying to make sure we have enough reserves to stay strong so next year we can be more in the running speed, that we should be doing that right now. So whatever starts off the, that's why I was saying that if you can keep the six at six versus the six to eight, right? Perhaps we can like freeze that and make sure that our BTR people are doing their thing and then whoever wants to change their focus into housing or want to do more economic development, like let's do that for now. I think that would kind of keep the budget in place, if not like a little bit below last year, maybe.

Okay, we'll look at that for sure.

Yeah. But we do need to, we need to do something. And like, you know, like right now, I know they're hard at work with the whole NMB Bites for the centennial. And we really need to get that going so that, I mean, businesses are very happy to see that the city is supporting them. I mean, I think we should review a little bit of the new business initiatives. A lot of companies or a lot of businesses get their BTRs way ahead of six months before the ribbon cutting. And to limit it to six months is a little, you know, because they have to do certain things and go to Durham and go to, you know, all kinds of stuff, right? There's a long process to do with that. And to limit them at six months is a little unfair. But, you know, I mean, I also want to have it be that... My commission is also comfortable with whatever funding that we provide for their grand opening. So that needs to come out like in detail for us.

Understood. Understood.

I would like to add to that one quick thing. Staffing has to, there's a difference between us being ambassadors. I talk to developers all the time. I talked to a couple of them last night. But staff has to see the parcels. that are currently here because we don't have a lot of green space. And they're the ones that have to massage the owners to think about selling and putting a few parcels together so somebody can come in and make something where it's at the right place and not hindering the lifestyles of the residents. There's a yin and a yang. Is that economic development or is that community development? That's economic development because that comes under the program of bringing economics into North Miami Beach. It was voted on for a reason and it's a necessity. But let me just tell you, I would love to, as my commissioner has said, love to see it come off the ground. I'd love to see projects after projects come before us with thoughts. so that we can help to lift them or we can help to put them in the right direction.

And one final note, Commissioner Smith said a word that triggered a thought in my head. She said the word parcels. We have a few pieces of parcels that are empty, doing nothing, paying property taxes and landscaping bills. Why don't we sell this? I mean, why are we holding onto them? I'm not sure what you know, right, because you're just like new to the job.

Yes.

But we have some property that I think we should just, right, we're paying property taxes on them?

No.

No, we don't pay property taxes? No. We're paying landscaping, right?

Yeah, that's through our public works. It's not specific to the properties. It's through our general maintenance that staff does. So it's not specific to a property.

But still, we're paying staff to do it.

No, to your point, it would be like we're not getting any revenue or tax. Yes, as well. That's your staff. As well. All right.

Yes, so, I mean, I know, I think there's a rather large parcel on West Dixie that I've been approached to, not recently, but in the past, about, I don't understand why we just, why we're holding onto it.

So I can explain my perspective on that. And I hope that you're open to it because I feel very strongly about it, particularly for cities that are financially strapped. If we do not have enough cash on hand, we have to go out and borrow, which is a bond. In the bond process, they're going to look at our assets. Are the valuation of our assets significant enough for us to be able to achieve this bond along with our payment status and along with the review of our tax revenue? If we begin to sell property and our valuations go down and we need to go out and get a bond, we may not be able to get it. The alternative is, too, through long-term leases, we can achieve the exact same amount of tax revenue that you're stating. In fact, banks look at long-term leases the same as a sale of the property. But the beautiful thing is, at the end of the lease, long after all of us are long and gone, that asset returns back to the city and it actually significantly increases the valuation of the city. So that's one of the ways Doral has done it, where they can keep borrowing and borrowing and borrowing because their asset base is not going down. And their tax revenues are through the roof right now because you have all of these developments on their land that they still own.

Right, so if we lease the land and it gets developed, it actually goes up in value, and it helps?

Correct.

It helps us, okay, so let's.

Not necessarily, because it goes by the work and value moving forward, so if you lease a property, it's not like you're gaining your assets It's like you lease for a dollar or whatever. It's not like your valuation stays where it is or whatever. You've already reduced it. I guess you can do some future type of thing where it goes like we're getting the property back, but it doesn't do what you think it's going to do by leasing the property. You know what I'm saying? You offset that by the tax base that you get in return, but the valuation doesn't go any higher. It just stays at that nominal amount. Okay.

Well, I respectfully disagree. That hasn't been my observation or my experience, but I'm open to seeing that as a response. Through the Mayor.

At minimum, what that does is it provides you with some sort of revenue from whatever organization is building, right? At minimum. I don't know the other details about valuation, about land valuation. That's not my domain, but you're going to make money off of whatever project is on that land. However, through the mayor, Mr. Manager, you know, we need that internal infrastructure to even make these deals happen. You know what I mean?

So that's the beautiful thing of a P3 through the mayor to the vice mayor is that we can put that as part of the deal.

I know conceptually what we can do. What I'm saying is we need the infrastructure necessary to get these things done. And I'm talking about the people power, right? That's significantly important because we can imagine that, hey, you know what, we're gonna do this P3 here, we're gonna do it there, but there's a reason why We've been looking at that space for years. And by the way, if you drive by there now, it's actually pretty nice and plush. The grass has grown and it's green. It's gone from dirt to now green grass. Hopefully someday in the near future we can actually see something done. We're in conversations. You have that charge, so hopefully we can expedite that. But I've just seen, we've had these conversations for years.

Right, but...

And has ever been correct. And so, you know, that's why last I think last time we had our commission meeting, I said, you know, we need to get the buy in of the residents, you know, because if they better understand the goals of this kind of development, then you won't face any or not much hesitation and buy-in from the residents. So that's significantly... going to help you or delay the process.

And as you recall, Vice Mayor, I approached you in the beginning of my tenure here and discussed that with you, cranes in the sky, which you kind of redirected me on and I appreciate that, but that is the intention. And I'll say to the commission, I have expertise and background, as Commissioner Hsu said, in development, and our deputy city manager has significant expertise in development in this community, as he worked for nearly two decades with the SOFRs and helped build up Aventura, which is one of the reasons why I selected him. On our team in our previous city, we put forward $785 million in projects in a very, very short period of time. And that was the intention to do here. And I have to apologize to you, that was the blueprint, that was the plan, however, walking into a defunct community development department where we could not do a SB 102 adoption of the Live Local Act for affordable housing. We have not been able to remove, what's that term? the basket of rights here which allows developers just to purchase property and hold on to it without any retrieval back to the city or decrease in their valuation even though they have these unrealistic valuations. Our hands have been really, really tied by until we can get that community development department up and operating again. And we are working full steam ahead as fast as we can. You know, it was first the finance department. Now our full attention is on the community development department. And as soon as we have an operating, a fully operating community development department, we intend to be presenting some of these projects to you for you to give a thumbs up or thumbs down to. YES.

TO THE MAYOR, VICE MAYOR, WHICH PARCEL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? DID YOU ALL TALK ABOUT THIS PRIOR TO MY JOINING THE DEUS OR THE COMMISSION?

I THINK IT'S THE SAME ONE COMMISSIONER SMUCHLER WAS TALKING ABOUT. IT'S AN OLD PARK ON WEST DIXIE Yeah. I forget what street.

Is it Taylor Park?

It's beside the TECO property. Beside the TECO property.

The size or 158?

It's on the same side.

Ah, okay. 158. Yes. It had blinded brown. Have we talked about that? Like what we want to see on?

Well, I mean, we can't really talk about, well. No, no, we, no, we can't, we can't, we can't really. It's like there's parts that we're missing. There's certain parcels that are important for our overall comp plan that I don't think you guys are seeing because we still haven't gotten that approved. That green space over there is helping us. If we were to take that off for development, it affects us substantially because we don't have enough green space. space that we have to finish up our comp plan. That's something that needs to be, I think there needs to be some education. I know we have our consultant, Mr. Ning, he's right back there. I can see him. But I know that we are working on that comp plan to be submitted. And until that's done, I think we should really be cognizant of the fact what type of development can be done, especially with any open space that we currently have, because it's going to affect our comp plan.

I think we missed our comp plan deadline this

Yes, so we're saying he's restating.

We have to wait until next year, I think.

No, what I'm saying, that's part of the application.

Right, so maybe we should start thinking about setting some dates for us to have a workshop, just us discussion. I think we all have kind of like an idea of what we want to do. I mean, we're not going to talk about today, I hope. Today's budget, but what I'm saying is we should start planning out dates where we can all come to... We all have different ideas for different things, right? I mean, I hear it through the grapevine about different things, but we never talk to each other about it, and I'd love to have that conversation.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that we're gay and granular in... specific property, I just wanted to add that because of the comp plan, we're limited on what we can do. That's what I'm saying. Commissioner Charles.

That's correct. It's already calculated in our comp space, so we can't remove it without putting it somewhere else because we have to have that.

So that's why we should have a discussion. I just want to say the TECO property is privately owned.

No, no, the Taylor Park property. We're speaking about that. Sorry, Commissioner.

Somebody said the TECO. I just heard it. Next to the TECO. Next to the TECO, you're talking about, which is a much smaller piece, but it is vacant land that's owned by us as far as the TECO.

And that's why we're limited regarding the tennis center because we're keeping it. Yeah, that's why.

Oh, just for the record that Andres did send out an email about two months ago for a workshop for the comprehensive plan. She did, and instead we did the tennis courts, the paddle ball courts, but we did have that scheduled. Just saying.

All right, thank you. All right, so if we could get the screen back up. So I'm going to next whiz through our internal governance departments which will be finance, human resources and risk, information technology and procurement. We'll start off with finance, and I'm going to talk a little bit about finance because, as you know, it started off as our problem child and is now becoming one of our north stars. Our finance department had some staffing issues. We were overstaffed on some functions and understaffed in other functions. CPAs, especially government CPAs, are very, very, very difficult to find. I am super, super excited about our new hire, Avril Smith, CPA, as our new chief finance officer. The work that she's done in a very short period of time has been nothing short of phenomenal. Right before her arrival, we were able to turn in our annual financial report, which is required by the state, Our first time turning it in in three years, avoiding state financial oversight. Super, super excited about that. We're now facing some very serious financial challenges, as you know. Two of them are external, two of them are internal. but we are putting forward to present to you a plan of how the city of North Miami Beach could weather this storm, and not only weather this storm, but thrive through it. Begin with a $12 million deficit, and enter the next year with a $20 million surplus, meeting your requirements that you pass by law, by resolution, of what our reserve funds should look like, which is 20% of our fund balance. That having been said, finance department's responsibilities are annual budget check, annual audited statements check, collection of revenues check, disbursements check, financial controls. We're working on our financial controls. The CFO and I have discussed policies and implementations of policies, and we began, I know she's begun drafting those, and I've put in a little bit of an assist there, and also investment of city funds. We're looking at a new investment policy as well. Apparently, you have to be smarter than the equipment. All right. Okay. Accomplishments, as I stated, it was a timely completion of annual financial reporting with significant senior financial management turnover, a renewed focus on internal controls to ensure fiscal integrity, initiation of review and assessment of financial procedures to provide more efficient operations to include timely bank reconciliations. I know that our new CFO cringes every time I say this and she did not want me to list it. as an accomplishment, as she puts her head down, but it really is an accomplishment. Yes, we know bank reconciliations should be done on a monthly basis, but we started this year out doing nine months behind on our bank reconciliations. We've now reduced that to just six months, and we're going to continue to move forward until we get that within the standard of 30 days. All right. All right, our goals for the new fiscal year, move 25% to 50% of vendors to ACH. This is a very, very important benchmark for the new CFO. That will reduce our milling costs and reduce risk associated with checks, and also makes oversight and auditing a lot smoother process. Update the city's accounting and related policies. We've talked about that, cash policies, investment policies, and fund balance. And three, initiate quarterly budget reviews with department leaders. That'll happen internally, so the commission won't be observant of that, but we want you to know that that's happening so each department will understand intimately what is going on with their department financially. All right. And how does that look for the finance department? You're going to see a reduction in compensation of about $50,000 by some restructuring. But you're going to see a huge reduction operating expenses just by the reduction of $110,687. And that's due to eliminating some of the consulting contracts. So the overall savings will be $160,000. $61,553 for our new finance department. Any questions? Hearing none, we're gonna move on directly into our human resources department. The mission of human resources is to track, develop, and support a diverse, high-performing workforce through equitable practices, professional growth, and exceptional service to the city of North Myron Beach, yes.

I know we were headed to HR already, sorry, I was looking at finance. In the current, I know, I don't, how, what is the ideal staff number?

18.

Is that ideal?

Yes.

Okay. I don't know. I mean, I only know of like five individuals in the finance department. Yes, yes, yes. They're all hidden.

It is very much hidden, yes. Yeah.

Yeah. I just wanted to know, like, so you're going to hit your target of ideally 18?

That's our goal. We really, right now, we've been relying, you'll see, By knowing five, you probably know the team. As you all know, we're relying heavily on consultants that we got from the Brunson teams and that we got from CFLG that are really kind of, you know, stirring us up, providing us a foundation while we try to pull in the permanent staff right now. But those vacancies are there and we do want to fill them so that we have permanent in-house staff accountants.

Yeah. Okay. Can you do the positions for me roughly?

Like, oh, okay. Well, I have to call the finance department up to the finance director up to go through. She's a CFO. Yes, this is our new CFO. Okay.

You have that. Okay.

All right. Okay, so we have three vacancies. Are those all staff accountants? Yes. All staff accountants. We have a grants coordinator, a payroll coordinator. Don't we have two? Oh, yes. A payroll coordinator, payroll specialist, a budget analyst, and a budget administrator. One senior accountant. This says two here.

Two senior accountants.

Okay, okay, all right, I'll go with what you said. Two senior accountants, one, two, three, four staff accountants, three of those are vacancies, as I shared, a cashier, supervisor, and a cashier.

Okay, and currently how many are staffed?

We have three vacancies, so that means 15 are staffed, yes.

Okay.

Yep, yes.

All right. Oh, so, okay, so Grant has now moved in there to the finance department. Well, I think you mentioned that last time. Yes. Okay, thank you very much. Let's go for the questions.

All right, thank you. All right, we'll jump back into human resources. We've talked about what the mission of that department is. Their responsibilities are kind of into three buckets. Although people see them as one, they have three kind of distinct missions. Human resources, which is the traditional way that people think about it, but we also have risk management, which is looking at employee safety and education, insurance and liability management, loss prevention, risk assessments, and compliance, reserve fund management. And this portion of the department works close in hand with also the city attorney's office to help mitigate risk. In our third budget, excuse me, bucket, we also have workers' compensation, which if you've unfortunately had an injury on the job, you've engaged with this service. which is our claims administration, our return to work programs and cost containment, which is once an injury occurs, staff goes out there to see how can we mitigate this to make sure it doesn't happen again. Department goals are self-service portals. We started doing some of that, like at our library, where if an employee wants to engage or make an appointment or have some health assessments, they can do that there. Electronic onboarding, we're looking at doing that, which means the HR will send a link to a prospective new employee. They can fill out all their documents before they even complete their first day. Market benchmarking studies. I'm going to translate this into a pay plan, and that is making assessments of where the city of North Miami Beach is against the market according to where we are in compensation. Middle management training. We want to increase our middle management training. We want to increase all of our training, particularly for our supervisors and superintendents. active case management, standard operating procedures development, and policy modernizations. I've kind of introduced you to our SOP goal, and we are moving vigorously on that, and I think you're going to be very, very excited because we intend to present the commission with our SOPs once they're completed. Yes, Commissioner.

I wanna give a shout out to the HR department that when I did the hiring of my aide, I had never been through HR to do the hiring, and the way that they set it up with the pamphlets and everything and had it all set, it was beautiful, and they did a great job.

Thank you, thank you. We are streamlining the process and putting policies and procedures in place so that we can get the best talent and keep the best talent here in the city of North Miami Beach. All right, looking at their budget, keeping it into the same three buckets. Human Resources Fund comes in at $928,559, which is a 16.8 increase. Workers' Compensation Fund comes in at $800,900, at 15.1%. And Risk Management Fund comes in at three, and this is because we are self-funded here, 3.6 million, which is a 68.1% increase. Going on to our staffing levels, we started the last, we're ending this year with eight and moving into the new season with five. That is a reduction of three permanent staff members, which is a which results in from compensation to operating expenses of a savings of about $20,000 from last year's budget. Looking at our workers' compensation self-insurance fund, you'll see here that our, let's skip the funding, which is the transfers in and total funding, which comes from our general fund, by the way, to our operating expenses. We actually saw a reduction in operating expenses from $1 million to approximately $800,000. So the overall savings from that reduction is $275,000. When you take into account the increase in the proposed transfers in, you're looking at a slight increase of $70,235. And that's for workers' compensation self-insurance fund. Now, liability self-insurance fund. We actually had some significant savings here where we had, excuse me, transfers in last year, or this current year that we're in, of 5.6 million, and then we're reducing that for next year of 3.5. And for expenditures, for expenditures, we're on track to spend $5.6 million in our liability self-insurance fund. For next year, we intend to reduce that to $3.6 million. Any questions about HR before we move forward?

Yes, Commissioner. I'm not understanding how that cut is possible.

Which one?

All of them. I mean, like, you have HR. Well, HR is the only one that is increasing, right?

Okay.

Oh, no, it's actually decreased. Yeah, everything is decreased. So can you explain, like, where the cuts came from?

Just roughly. Well, if it's operating expenses, that means we're looking at contracts that are more efficient, that are less expensive. If it's the compensation line, that means it was a reduction in staff.

OK. And then, so what about the workers' compensation self-insurance fund?

OK.

Page 21.

Yes, I'm on page 21, and it shows operating expense reduction of $275,100. And we would, if you want the exact line by line what was cut.

Is that the big book?

Yes, it'll be in the big book. I'll be happy to walk you through that. I'd be happy to.

Okay, all right. Well, I mean, yeah, we'll definitely walk through that. And this one is, again, operating expenses went down by $1.5 million.

Which page are you on now?

22. Okay. I mean, I have no problems with reducing expenses. I just want to know, like, what is what, you know, there's always a catch, right? Like something's got to give.

Well, let's say this, and I've said this in our big picture, and I think you've heard it reinforced by some of the department heads such as police and also library. I provided a directive that if there was gonna be a reduction of any service, that had to be authorized through me. So every department had the authority to cut wherever they saw fit to make things more efficient. But if there was going to be a reduction of any type of service, that had to be authorized by the city manager's office. And I know that I have, and I believe the assistant city manager and the deputy city manager can attest, there has been no reduction in services. That was the beautiful thing about this budget. Yes, we're saving lots of money, but we're providing the exact amount of services that we did the previous year.

So what's the operating expense that went down by 1.5 million?

So I'll be happy to walk you through those contracts again. We can go through each contract line by line, but to have that.

No, I don't want to do that. I just want to know, like, was it, like, were we eliminating, combining contracts?

So yes, I would have to, that's probably about 17 line items, and we would have to look at those 17 line items and say this was a contract that we've got at a more efficient rate. This was a contract that was eliminated. Like, for example, let's talk about the police department. I think that's an easier example than this, but it's the exact same concept. The police department actually increased dramatically. If you look at the current year and the upcoming year, they're going to see an increase of 22 police officers. That's boots on the ground. And they were able to achieve that by reducing the overall cost. Let's talk about it.

But that's clear, though, because it's...

So let's talk about some examples, because which one is the example?

So like an example is... We're talking about operating expenses. We're not talking about compensation. So compensation is the, you know, I get the employee portion.

Okay, if I'm allowed to finish. Yes, please. A perfect example is, as I was trying to get you there, is the contract for Carollo. Is it Carollo? That contract was about $1.5 million, no, excuse me, $150,000 and no one had used it. So when that contract was eliminated, that was one of the savings that they were able to achieve. So I anticipate when you and I sit down and as you desire, go through each one of these items line by line so you can see exactly what's cut. Those are the type of things that you're gonna see.

Okay, thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Yes, sir. Mr. Manager, your example. Yes. Are you saying that no one used the contract, meaning that it wasn't activated, there were no payments made? No, no, that's not what I'm saying. Or there were payments made, but no one actually used the service?

No one actually used the service. So one of the things that we did in our department head meetings is we tasked the department heads to determine which subscription services can be cut. We have multiple, multiple digital services that are being utilized that are not being used. And the IT department has the capability to see, when was the last time somebody logged into this program? And there were several programs that we found that the city's spending $100,000 annually on. $50,000 annual loan, $25,000 annual loan that no one is using. And so we looked at those contracts, had the meetings with the department heads, identified them to them, said review these, and then allow them to cut them if we're not using them. I'll have to ask the police department to come up. Yes, that was a program that was specific to PD. So I don't have, is the HR department, well, even if the HR director is here, I don't anticipate that you'll have memorized all of the different contracts and their subscription services, but we can get that to you in a report if you like. I can get with you one-on-one and we could go through each item line by line. However, it's sufficient for the commission.

Sorry, that's a significant savings? Yes. And I just want to see where it's coming from, right? Absolutely.

We'll get that information to you.

Yeah. And I think that kind of lends itself to a, you know, there's a term for that position when they're looking for efficiencies and cost efficiency, et cetera, et cetera. I forgot. The term is not coming to my mind, but. Okay. No. Definitely not that. But there's a specific position that looks for these types of efficiencies and things of that sort. It's a type of analysis, and the word is escaping me as well. Right, right. But either way. if we're doing that consistently to kind of measure because there's a lot of times we vote on something here as a commission and either you know uh we finish voting on it and it and it's it's shelved nothing nothing ever happens right right and so um you know we just want to make sure that there are systems in place to follow up on things that we voted on and follow up on um like you said subscriptions etc etc that we have as a city yes sir absolutely

All right, if I could get the screen back up, please. Thank you. All right, information technology. All right. And I am excited to announce that we have hired a new IT director. His first commission, his Virgin Voyage with the City of North Miami Beach will be this Thursday. I'll be excited to introduce him. He goes by G, but he doesn't like for any of us to try to say his name. But I'm going to try to say it. It's Guilherme Andrade de Cardoso. All right, I'm close. I'm close. All right, so absolutely. Information technologies, internal service funds used for efficiency in providing shared services across departments which are charged for these services in proportion for their use. I'm going to stop there and just kind of give you some CM background on how we're approaching the IT department, just as we did with the communications department. As departments were working in silos, you have departments with their own IT staff that was not a part of the IT department. We are now centralizing our services so that the IT department, whoever's being serviced, whether it be the police department or the water utilities department or the public works department with IT support that is emanating and coming from the IT department. So you're going to see that in this presentation. So information technology is responsible for all aspects of the city's IT infrastructure, including cybersecurity, which is very, very important. Just giving everyone a heads up, our IT department now is sending out fake phishing emails to see who's going to click on them, meaning that you would compromise the city's infrastructure, digital infrastructure. I like to say and announce that your city manager passed. I received a suspect-looking email telling me to click on it because of whatever enticing thing it said, and I immediately forwarded it to the IT director, and I said, I think this is a phishing email. He goes, yeah, we sent it to see how many employees were going to click on it so you could get training. I was like, yes, I don't have to be trained. So I'm going to let my commission know, too, that that's out there so you don't get identified for training.

By the way, Ninjio, is that, okay, so, but is that a platform that we can, are there other platforms that we can use, or is that the only platform? I'll have to call him up to answer that one.

That's beyond my peak rate. All right. Excuse me. Yes, sir.

Yes, Ninjio, we have that for training, and then we also have the module to send out the fake emails.

Right, okay. Because the thing is, with all due respect, the Ninjio is a very interesting dynamic, or I don't know how to really phrase it, to get... Well, not really. You know, it's kind of the way to get the messaging across. I think that it's just using a very odd way of trying to train. But that's a whole other conversation. I'm just wondering if that's something that most corporations or organizations are going with now, or is that just something that we just happen to select? How does that work? Well, no. Other organizations use know-before.

Okay.

Yeah. All right. Thank you. Yes.

All right. And the IT department also implements and supports hardware and software, of course, maintains our telephone systems and services, our public access channel 77. Our departmental goals, AI and automation tools. First time funding, but super, super excited about that. Can't wait to have the commission experience that rollout. Cybersecurity threat detection and response, first time funding, but you're happy to report your city manager past. Portal software, intergov implementation, electronic plan review for building department, and comprehensive service metrics reporting to continually assess and improve service. Right?

Why is this not under IT and not under building department?

Because it's a digital service. So remember, all of the digital service, all of the information technology services, whether they're supporting the building department, supporting HR department, that's going to come from the IT department.

Yeah, I understand that, but it says it's here. Is it housed here and then HR and the building department gets it from here?

You mean the software program?

Like you say, okay, building department and permits. If the permits are automatic and on an electronic system now, is that in HR or that's in IT?

That's in IT.

Wow.

Yes. Yes, okay. And the expenditures, $6.1 million and where it goes. So as I said, we've actually had a reduction in our software licensing subscriptions, so if you can imagine, that number was dramatically higher than what it is. But the city spends about $3 million annually, or about 40% of the IT budget, on software licensing and subscriptions. Next, we have personnel services, which is our staffing at $1.5 million, and then miscellaneous other equipment and other expenses that total about $6.5 million annually. All right, and for our IT fund, We had a full-time staff of 14.5. We're reducing that to 13 positions, which is a reduction of 1.5 FTEs. Our transfers in and total funding comes in at 5.9 million. Remember, this is a... This is not an enterprise fund, so this is a general fund from internal services. So I propose we're going to increase that, and we need to increase that here. Yes, we're all about reducing the budget where we have to, but there are some places where we must actually increase, and IT is one. We are transferring and beefing up our cybersecurity. As you know, our sister city was just south of us. less than two years ago was held as a ransom and all operations ceased. We do not want that happening here on the city of North Miami Beach. All right.

I have a question. Yes. Through the vice mayor. Yes. So transfers in, can you say a little more about that for me?

Yes, transfer in is money from the general fund into this account.

Okay, and I think previously NMB Water was also like paying for IT stuff, right?

Yes, so all of the enterprise funds actually pay departments for the services that they receive. It's just like the CRA. The CRA actually sits outside of the, with its own bank account, that sits outside the city, but uses the city's HR department, uses the city's finance department, uses the city's budget, so they have to pay back to the city for those services. So all of our enterprise funds, stormwater, solid waste, and significant of public utilities, those are enterprise funds, so when they utilize the city services, they have to pay for those services back.

Do we know how much NMB Water is contributing to the funds?

Actually, we're having, so this number, interesting you asked that. Maybe that was intentional so that we could have this discussion in the sunshine. I'm seeing how you move. The history is that the city manager or CFO has arbitrarily decided what that number is. So to balance the budget out, say if we're missing some money out of the general fund, we'll say, okay, Water, you owe IT $1.6 million. But that is not actually how it's supposed to be done. There's supposed to be a study done to determine what that exact amount of usage is. And that number from that study is actually supposed to be what's in your budget. And that's the way we're moving forward now.

Oh, good, thank you.

Yes.

Mr. Manager, we actually were held for ransom a few years ago.

What year, McKenzie? Maybe 2020.

2020, more or less. It was the police department.

But we didn't have to pay.

We were able to, well, right? What happened is the records that were taken could be duplicated all but very few. So rather than pay, they let them go.

Right. Right? For a lot, they were asking a lot of money, but we didn't pay. Yes, they usually ask for $5 to $10 million. Under Esmond's, yeah, under Esmond's.

Wow. That institutional knowledge goes a long way. All right. Any other feedback on IT? No, sir. All right, fantastic. Moving on to procurement.

And also that's when I think the police department and the city merged.

Fantastic, that's a great idea. That's a wonderful thing.

What did you say again?

The IT.

I said when that ransomware happened, that's when our city went from having two different IT departments to one, I think.

Okay. The procurement division, the mission, to provide strategic, ethical, and transparent procurement solutions that deliver best value for city departments and residents by promoting competition, ensuring compliance with applicable laws and regulations, maximizing public resources, and supporting city departments with efficient procurement. Goals, identify opportunities for cost savings and process efficiencies, monitor expenditures monthly to ensure alignment with approved budget appropriations, utilize technology to reduce administrative burdens and operational costs, and promote competitive procurement practices that maximize value and minimize risk. The budget. So we currently have a staffing allocation to this division for eight staff. We're reducing that to six staff. Compensation is going to go down from $801,000 to $789,000 for a total savings in this department of $26,437 from last year. Mr. Manager. Go ahead, Commissioner Chernoff.

That doesn't make sense. If you go to compensation of 801, and you go down from eight with 801, and then you go from six to 789, 37,000, wait, that's not where I was. The difference between it is only 25,000. Correct. And it goes down.

Because some of the, there's been also increases in compensation to some of the positions that remained. Still doesn't make sense. So if we were paying an entry-level procurement officer $35,000 and we saw that that job kept having to refill it every 90 days to four months, and we do a market analysis and realize that actually all the other cities are paying $60,000 and we're only paying $45,000, that's why we can't keep them, we're going to go in and increase, even though we might have decreased two positions, The department, yes, sir.

These positions weren't filled positions, right? Correct. So they were budgeted for, but they weren't filled. That's correct. And you're saying that the department was functioning efficiently with the number of employees that it had? Yes. To the best?

Yes.

Okay. You know, I'm just looking at a department where, you know, Almost everything that we have is procured, right? That's correct. And so if you can just help me understand, you know, maybe I'm overthinking this. Well, is it a manpower? Is it manpower that allows the department to be as efficient as it possibly can? Or is it is what what is allowing this department to maximize its potential? Because. I'm looking at manpower and I'm looking at the ability to process as much procurement as possible efficiently in a timely manner. And I'm thinking that's manpower, right? So unless there's some AI that you guys are now using or something that I'm not seeing, can you help me get there? Absolutely.

So I like to start with the numbers, right? Let's look at what other departments is doing. And I have been very transparent with staff and the procurement staff from day one. The city of North Miami Beach for its size has one of the largest procurement divisions that I have ever seen. For example, comparatively, say usually cities that are less than 20,000 residents only have one procurement officer. And one procurement officer is able to achieve all of the points and goals of that department. So when you see a city the size of Aventura, a city the size of North Miami Beach, you start to get the range of three to four. Right now we had eight. where three to four is the market standard for a city this size. So I don't think that the city, this department should be less efficient, in fact I'm gonna require that it not be, I'm gonna require that it actually be more efficient, given that it's still two FTEs above the market.

And having said this, what departments are actively participating in their own procurement? Now, none. Okay.

Now, that was another thing that we centralized. We did have some police department contracts that were actually appear to have been procured through the police department, but we have intentionally, through this management team, are now requiring that all procurement goes through the procurement division.

But what about other departments, like parks, for instance? 100%, every single department. But have, if I may, Mr. Manager, at some point, was parks ever, or do you recall having to participate actively in the procurement of anything?

Good evening, Vice Mayor, Commissioners. So I would say departments play somewhat of a role doing some groundwork, right? So if you're doing procurement for things under $25,000, the departments are looking to provide and get their own quotes and provide a quote summary. Now all that stuff will go through procurement, but I would say that departments actively DO PROCUREMENT, BUT IT GOES THROUGH PROCUREMENT. SO SOME DEPARTMENTS DO A LOT OF LEG WORK IN ORDER TO MOVE THINGS FORWARD.

OKAY. SO THAT'S USUALLY THE BEGINNING OF THE PROCESS IS ON A DEPARTMENTAL LEVEL.

Correct, depending on the size of the procurement. So anything $25,000 or less, I believe requires three quotes. Anything $25,000 to 50 or higher requires a solicitation or an RFP or some type of procurement through procurement.

So now what you're saying, Mr. Manager, is that that process is no longer happening? No, that process is still happening. Yes. All right. Now, I am a bit a bit concerned because the police department is a very large department. Yes. And if this is something that we've been doing for some time, that they've been able to, you know, procure and to manage that side of of of of their operations. You know, that is a bit concerning. You know, I'd like more clarity on that. You don't have to do that right now. Okay. But, you know, I'd like I'd like more clarity on that because, you know, for the for the efficiency of process, I just want to make sure that that's something that, you know, is very clear to me as to why that move was made and whether or not the department can handle all of that additional work. I'll be happy to have because you know it's it's all about timing right it's all about you know because we've seen even because of time how costs can rise and things of that sort so I think being able to see a need recognize it procure and then implement um is is something that's very important I'll be excited to have that conversation with you and I think once we do we'll be on the same page all right thank you yes sir could I just ask piggybacking please vice mayor that um

When you say under $25,000, I'm assuming bulk things like paper just to run an office. That's bulk and you go and you make a bid on that.

If it's less than $25,000, all you need is three quarts. If it's more than $25,000.

But less than $25,000 each department doesn't go after that. It's done for the whole building, and then whatever department needs supplies, they go to one person. Let's just make that clear.

Yes, ma'am. Absolutely. All right. Next, we have our quality of life departments. There are three of those, which is building, or as some cities call it, building, licensing, and permitting. I'm kind of old school, so I still say that. Code enforcement, or the new term is code compliance, and community development. So we got a lot of nicknames here. So we'll start with building. Building services include supervision of construction activities, acceptance and issuance of permit applications, issuance of trade permits, verification of compliance and enforcement of codes by various regulatory agencies, and inspection of new and existing structures. Accomplishments, e-permitting stats. And I have to say that building is one of our better run departments here, so there'll be, we could list pages of successes here. E-permitting being one. Contractor registrations via the portal. Greater than 1,000 contracting licenses have been filed to date with over 500 validated and registered to pull permits. online permit application filing of all permit types, plus online payment capacity. As you all may know, or some of you may know, I have renamed our building department head to D. Money. And the reason why we call him D. Money is he never misses a penny. And you're going to see that on this list of accomplishments here. Digital plan review, over 4,000 permits and plans have been reviewed to date. Online inspection requests, digital inspection scheduling, over 8,000 inspections have been conducted to date. Again, a very efficiently run department. Ongoing projects and programs, projects and major construction jobs, I won't list them all since we went through most of them already in our capital improvement presentation. But as we stated before, Lennar Schools has received its TCO, our apartments received its TCO, Yeshiva Torah School has received its TCO, and Celeste on the Bay has received its TCO. Okay. Building budget department. And where other departments we're looking to get more money, this is a building department that we actually have more money. The problem is we actually have more money than we need. And sounds like a weird challenge here, but there is a state statute that limits or caps based on your size and revenue stream how many millions of dollars you can maintain in your building fund. For the city the size of North Miami Beach, state statutes allows us to have about $4 million. D-Money currently has about $9 million in his coffers. Part of that is a result from, well, there are several things that are resulting from, so we are coming up with strategy of how to get compliant with the state statute.

Yes. Vice Mayor. Mr. Manager.

Yes, sir.

Okay. Okay. I understand they're doing a great job. Yes. And I think they're doing a great job. But if you compare us to the county, which I don't ever want to compare us to the county, but if we're compared to the county, I want to be better than the county.

Yes.

Okay. And I get... conversations with contractors and homeowners who say that they have more trouble with ours than they do with the county. And the county is so much, they can order inspections, they can order everything from online, and we don't have that. And I know when I first came back in 2022, we started getting that up. Are we still working on that? Are we not where we're supposed to be?

That's a great question, Commissioner. So I have to say we're still working on that. We have seen, and Commissioner Smuckler has brought this to the forefront as well. What we have seen is we've seen a significant focus on our commercial development processes, and we still lag behind. We're lagging behind providing that same level of service to our residential customers. And yes, that is something that we're continuing to work on.

Yeah, well, we hear from the residential ones. We don't hear from the commercial ones usually, unless there's really a problem. Yes.

Through the chair, vice chair, I just want to piggyback on that. It's a crime when somebody calls you after eight months of waiting or six months of waiting. They should call the second month. But one thing I want to say is time is money. for these people that are doing additions or renovations or doing something new. And I agree, if the department's so efficient, there should be zero phone calls. And yet that is something we do get a lot of phone calls about.

Is that it, Commissioner? Okay. As far as that fund is concerned, what, can the building department do, or is the building department allowed to provide some type of relief to our residents and to our business community when it comes to fees,

etc yes so we're looking at three strategies and vice mayor you nailed one on right on the head one of the things that we're reviewing is uh having a season where we don't charge fees to our residents so if they need a a permit if they need a license then we would pull money out of this fund and to try to get it reduced that is one of the one of the strategies that we're looking to implement correct

And it and is the building department or is that fund also allowed to pay for improvements or or no?

That is not something we looked at but we would we would meet with legal to see if that's something we can move on for sure Yeah, I'd like to I'd like for you guys to take a look at that the reduction or elimination of fees.

Okay, and also the The Assistance with improvements to residential and commercial properties because that's a significant number yes right and if you're saying that we can't move that that that money to any other fund or any other line item correct has to stay within that department right so I want to I want to see what ways we can we can utilize that, at least some portion of it, right? Absolutely.

That is one of the strategies we're reviewing. We'll have some options for you soon.

Okay. Just when you bring back those options, make sure you don't reference another commissioner.

Make sure you credit the Vice Mayor. I'm just joking. Certainly, Vice Mayor. Vice Mayor, through you, wasn't that economic development that we are helping residential units to repair?

That was under the economic development million dollars.

Yes. So, I mean, if you're talking about commercial now, that's a different thing, but that's already in place.

So that's correct. I didn't go over that background because that was Commissioner Jeon and she's not here, but she did, and we wanted to have a conversation. She wanted some of the money transferred from salaries to the housing program. Currently there's $250,000, a quarter of a million dollars in the housing program. And according to Commissioner Jeon, that's only enough to fix up 10 houses. So she would like to see some of the salaries reduced and positions eliminated so that we can give more to the residents in that program.

Through the vice mayor, if I may. So I'm sort of going to change topic just a little bit. If this tax bill, the amendment three passes, I almost feel like we're wasting our time with what we're doing here. What is the effect to us in our city if this bill were to pass?

So yes, it would be about $2.3 million lost the first year and about $3.4 million lost the first year. And we have baked those numbers in so that the city of North Miami Beach will continue to thrive with a disciplined budget if this bill passes. Now, if the bill doesn't pass, the commission will have a lot more money to play with. But if that bill passes under this budget, we will still be able to meet all of our services to the residents. That was the goal.

That's the goal. Yes. Okay.

Yes. All right, community development. All right.

All right, community development. Mission, community development organizes and manages the development and improvement of the city's neighborhoods, engaging in planning to shape, preserve, and enhance the existing urban fabric of the community and its unique neighborhoods while protecting the public health, safety, and welfare of its residents and businesses through enactment of city codes, policies, and ordinances. Now, before we go on to accomplishments, I want to also state I entered as your city manager identifying two problem children, one of them being our finance department. And although we've kind of got that on the right footing, the other still remains as our community development department. And it has significant impact because you see what the mission of the community development department is. Yes.

I'm so sorry. I know I'm a little slow. Through the vice mayor. I'm going to go back to the building budget for a second. 37. So here it says you still maintain 21 full-time and then you have six part-time not available for 26, right? You look at compensation and we are going down by 884. Is that accurate? So you're maintaining the same number of employees, but the pay is going down by almost a million dollars?

So we'll have to look at that, but what we can't see is what the reduction is of part-time employees. So I suspect that that is the part-time employee budget. I recall, as I said at our last workshop, previously the city did not track part-time employees. We're gonna start doing that forward, but there's, As far as FTEs, as far as a numerical number, yes. So we can say this department has $100,000 to spend on part-time employees, but what that number resulted in, we don't know. Here we can say, hey, this department has for 2027, $2.7 million. That is a budget for 21 full-time employees and six part-time employees. When we look at fiscal year 2026, we have no idea how many part-time employees that's there.

But doesn't... Commissioner Hsu, doesn't the department head do the hiring? No. Well, I guess, I'm sorry, let me rephrase that. Yes. The department head participates in the hiring process? Absolutely, yes. Okay, and then HR then hires that employee for that specific department?

HR creates the process, yes.

Right, so there's record of what departments hired who and et cetera, et cetera, right? Correct. But you're saying just for the purposes of the budget. Just for the purposes of the budget. You weren't able to get the FTE.

Yes, because what we're doing is when we look at fiscal 2026, we're not looking at actual. If you look there, it's adopted. So when this was adopted, we have no idea to say was that, okay, right.

but if we were doing if we were doing actual then i probably you'd be able to get that yes okay i don't know if commissioner sue was done no i have another question okay also um where is the enterprise fund in this portion like about permits it's you want to see how much we got from permits right because all of this is the enterprise is the enterprise fund where is that

All of this is the enterprise, the whole thing.

Okay, my bad. So when we had 8 million last, I thought we had 8 million last year or nine. Nine, yes. Eight-ish nine.

Eight-ish nine, yes, correct.

And why is it, why do we see six here?

From what was adopted. Oh, okay. Not actual.

I know, the actual is not.

Yes, it's a little different.

A little different. Yeah. In your big book, does it have the actual?

Absolutely. The big book can answer the minutest question that you possibly have.

All right.

Like, how much did we spend on this pencil? How much did we spend on this stack of papers? Yes.

Like, you see, this stack is easier to digest than that big book.

Yes, I know.

I see the big book, and I'm like, I gave it to a CPA.

But it's in there. I have a feeling I know where she's going with this. I hope you don't call it the big beautiful book. Because I feel like that's where you're going with that.

It is a big beautiful book.

That was a good one, right? That was a good one.

That was good.

That was better than the Doge retort.

You know where he's going after.

She said no, so I already know. The conversion is on, Vice Mayor. Any more questions on building, Commissioner?

Okay, Commissioner Hsu says she's good. Anyone else? Okay.

Thank you for going back again. Absolutely, never a problem.

All right, so we'll move on to community development.

Yes, and I'm gonna jump right back in. And I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge someone whose dedication and commitment to this department has been instrumental in its success. He has been acting as our... In every time of need, previously before my tenure for the City of North Miami Beach, he has stepped in several times as our Interim Community Development Director, and so I'd like to, just for the Commission and the City to acknowledge Eddie Ayres. And I can firmly say, and I'm sure the city managers would agree with me, that without his support, we'd be in far worse shape than we are now. We actually can start to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Whereas the residents will likely call the commission first, the private developers know how to get to a city manager's office. And I can tell you the way our phones were blowing up from developers calling, demanding, and Wise Trad taking 18 months, it's just been, it was unbearable at one point. And since Eddie has come back, and provided us and supported us, we've seen, I know I've seen most of those calls just dissipate. So I think bringing him back is just one of the accomplishments that's not on this paper, but one I think that we as the City of North Miami Beach should acknowledge. Completed studies, 151 Street Transit-Oriented Development Master Plan, the TOD. Sustainability Master Plan, check. Planning fee study, December 2025, check. Rapid Transit Zone, RTZ, I haven't actually seen that one. Comprehensive plan, the amendment update was completed updates from 2024. So that leaves in progress our housing study, our visioning portion of the comprehensive plan and corrective actions for the ear report. And as Commissioner Smuckler stated, we are going to reach out to you again to see if we can get a workshop for that so that we can move that item forward since it's so important to so many of you. Moving forward to our urban tree canopy enhancement, 18,000 square feet of new tree canopy to be installed in 2026 via grant awards funding and other projects. Now, I want to take just a little moment to explain how important that is. And I don't think that it gets enough focus, but trees dramatically increase the valuation, the valuations of property, and it also increases the quality of life of residents. For example, there was a study done, and this is why it's something that really touches me. Miami Dade College did a study on tree canopies, and they took the city of Opelika, which is about four and a half square miles, and the exact same similar city, Coral Gables, which is also about four and a half miles and measures the air quality. The air quality with pollutants was dramatically lower in the city of Coral Gables than it was in the city of Opelika. Then they took at the average temperatures. Average temperatures in the city of Opelika were up to 70 degrees higher some month than they were in the city of Coral Gables. And finally, the increase, a percentage increase of valuations, not saying that this house is $3 million and this house is $300,000, but this house is $3 million and it went to $4 million, when this house is $300,000 and it only went to $315,000. So we're comparing apples to apples when we look at the percentage of increase. And the percentage of increase in valuations of homes in the city of Coral Gables was dramatically higher than it was in the city of Opelika. And at the conclusion of the studies, they narrowed it down to one reason for all of those three benchmarks. It was the tree canopy. If you go to the city of Coral Gables, tree canopies actually cover entire streets while you're driving down. You can actually, in the middle of August, walk down a street, down the sidewalk, without sweating, in Coral Gables because of that significant tree canopy. Yes, Commissioner.

The Beautification Committee had a study done last year on our tree canopy. We all think we have a huge canopy. We don't, because palm trees don't count. Correct. Correct. So that's why the Beautification Committee, the last two years, has been giving Florida native trees that create canopies. And we want people to plant them and put them, because we get credit for having a good canopy.

Yes.

Yes.

To just add to that, I think Sunray, maybe both Sunray East and West, but especially Sunray West, if you're driving down those streets, they're like individual palm trees that really don't do much. If you don't couple them together, they really don't do much for shade, and it really doesn't provide an aesthetic as you're driving up and down these streets. Correct. Correct. Yeah, they have a lot of those in Sunray.

Yes, a lot of those. And as Commissioner Chernoff said, they don't count. They do not count when including in studies for tree canopy. And they do not have the same impact. Another thing about the traditional trees that Commissioner Chernoff was detailing is that we find lower incidence of childhood asthma rates. when we have cities with greater canopy. So it's just a better health, air quality measure. So I definitely think this is a commission, something the commission should continue to look at and something commissioned to support. And I would even advocate giving away more trees or funding for the city to fund for more tree giveaways in moving forward.

Was that sign replaced, I think, on 19th Avenue, the Tree City USA sign? It, I thought it. I think there was a sign that. It was an Arbor City sign. Arbor City, okay. Yes. That was replaced? Okay, thank you. Yes, sir.

Great. And so we do a lot of this through grant awards. FDACS, Community Forestry Inflation Reduction Act, we got an award of 40,000. We've been very successful with this. I'd also like to identify Maria. Maria pays for her position. So how does she do this? She actually will go after insurance companies for, say, for instance, if a car hits one of our trees. Maria will actually contact that insurance company and have them replace our trees. She has been so successful at this that she brings in enough money to pay for her own programs. So this is just phenomenal support here and just incredible success. Yeah, she's the forester.

And a resident.

Oh, and a resident. So we've gotten two nice awards from FDOT, 826, medium beautification, both at $100,000 each, one over at the Golden Glades Interchange and one over at Biscayne Boulevard, that little strip to Sunny Isles down the drawbridge.

I have a question. Yes, ma'am. First place, I think there was also an award signed up on 163rd Street in the medium between Biscayne Boulevard and the bridge.

So if you could check on that. Yes, ma'am.

And by the way, Maria happens to be one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. The Golden Glades interchange to Northeast 8th Avenue, that's only on the north side, correct?

Correct.

Okay, because the south side, of course, is county.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Yes. All right, for our fiscal year 26-27 goals, at the top, and appropriately so, is the completion of the comprehensive plan. So many things that were just kind of frozen until we get that done. As we identified earlier, the Baskets of Rights rezoning, also the TOD zoning code update, and the 163rd Street corridor study. Next, then we can, we're off to the races once that gets done, and we can follow the Vice Mayor, the Mayor's, the Commission's direction to spur new development and encourage approved site plans to bend constructions. As I like to say, get some cranes up in the sky. Next, a CRS major review, which is to maintain community rating status. And then there's some other considerations at the bottom. Review and implementation process to seek grant monies for tree canopy. So that's something that Maria is looking at for us. One of the things that a member of your commission, Commissioner Smith, has brought forward is our public arts plan. That is something that we'll need to review and look at funding, because depending on how that's structured, that will require some funding support. Address potential state statutes, mandated requirements as always. Impact fees, we're doing an impact fee study now through a company called Raftelis. And finally, ROW vacation analysis and process.

Okay. Mr. Manager.

Yes, ma'am.

Through the vice mayor. TOD is, what does it stand for again?

Transportation something department.

Here he comes.

A little help.

Transit. Ah, there you go. Okay, because it's that little triangle for the 151st.

See, Eddie comes through again, you guys. You get to see it real time. He said transit-oriented department.

Yeah, that's what he was saying. Yeah, okay. No, I was just like, I know it's, you know. I'm sorry. I'm getting this transfer upon death thing. You know what I mean?

You just like giving us the trick questions, but that's fine. No, no.

So I also want us to, about, so there's a completion of this already, right?

Which one?

All three items, the last page, 42. Okay. So the top three, the.

Well, that's a goal.

Okay.

I would like to see us hit that goal by December, if that's possible.

completion of the comprehensive plan update we will prefer it um we did get comments yesterday afternoon from the state on the first round so i'm switching to sorry

All right.

We did receive comments yesterday, formally from the state, on the water supply plan and the air-based amendment, which is the phase one of the update, to get us back into compliance. Staff is working to put that for your October commission meeting, because while the air amendment items were real, the comments were extremely minor. The water supply YM1 were a little bit more substantive and we had to send that back to Hazen and Sawyer and that will take a little bit of time and we need to pass both. After the phase one to get the city into compliance, there is a phase two and that's more the visioning that we wanted to work with you as a commission because it's about how we plan with these neighborhoods, how do we drive investment, how we do a good economic development plan for city, all of the above. But there's two phases to it. Phase one, we want to be done in October. Phase two, we will work with the manager to push for December because that will set the stage for other items, but that's also contingent on our workshops. Understood.

So, Mr. Manager, I've been talking to you about several zones that I wanted to bring up and see, and we did say that we need to wait for the comprehensive plan, so I would like to see those items incorporated into this process as well.

Absolutely.

Okay, so I think there are two or three, I don't remember. I know there's 19th Avenue, there's, of course, 163rd.

I have to look at my my you know items that we talk about every week yes well we have those yeah we will incorporate them for sure thank you and I want to reiterate something that Eddie said based upon the Commission's availability for the workshops we got to get your feedback we got to hear your voice in order to finalize those plans by when in order to hit that December target date. So we'd like to get those commission, well, meetings with the commission completed those workshops by the end of October at the latest.

Okay.

Yes. Okay. All right. Oh, I got another page. And finishing up our goals page, MBM, North Miami Beach, urban tree canopy managed as a green asset using GIS for maintenance, accuracy, and spatial analysis. Basically that's saying taking our canopy, our tree canopy to the gold standard. That is one of the goals that we have. Creation of a flagship internship driven stewardship team to maintain and install the urban tree canopy. That's also a brainchild of Maria's and something that she'd like to see uh accomplished and we want to support her in that when we look at our budget for our community development team right now this is uh the reduction all comes from vacancies we have staffing position levels for 13. we're going to be reducing that in this new budget to eight but those are those seven positions were all vacant positions Now the challenge is finding the sweet spot, right? The City of North Miami Beach has relied heavily on outside contractors to perform a significant amount of its community development. So while we're hiring full staff, we may have to make some adjustments as we determine is this the right, have we hit our sweet spot yet? Is this the right number of staff that we can have in-house? in order to fulfill all of the goals and keep the trad moving, keep the development moving, and keep the community development on track so that it never goes defunct again.

Mr. Manager, so I don't know if this is the section to discuss this, but in Windward, well, I'm looking at the roundabouts that we have now, right? Yes. One right down the street here, I think, what is that, 20th Avenue? Right behind 168, right?

Oh, yes, that's 20th Avenue.

And then I'm looking at the one in Washington Park. So the good thing is it's helping with traffic. But, I mean, initially, it's also helping with beautification. But what I'm seeing is that over time, the maintenance is not there, right? And so... You know, I think we need to, whether it's our arborist or we need to talk about what plants go into these roundabouts that may need less maintenance so that they can continue to be, you know, beautification for our city and not an eyesore. Second, in Windward on 10th Avenue, that roundabout, needs a complete makeover. The roundabout itself is cracked in a lot of different spots. I'm going to say cobblestone because I'm not sure what's there. That's also, you know, Stamp concrete. OK, so that's also that also needs repair. And the the foliage, the signage. I'm not sure if they put new signs. You know, correct me if I'm wrong on that, but it just needs a total, total makeover. And in addition to that, with with the beauty of culture and. the melting pot that we have in our community. You know, one of the one of the main highlights is that corridor of 10th Avenue or that that that that 10th Avenue Road is really one of the highlights of our community. And it's really especially around that roundabout. It doesn't look good. And so, you know, when people are parking their cars during the during the weekend or throughout the week you know i could imagine that they're not too happy that they have to park uh around that and you know with the mud and things of that sort a lot of people are walking during shabbat um and and if it rains um you know you have a lot of mud that's collecting in that area i think we just need to really look at it and see what we can do this budget cycle um to uh to address it so hopefully by the time you you come back for our first hearing you have some um some ideas that we can that we can begin to work on

Yes, we actually still, thank you so much for that, Vice Mayor. We have some funding in this current fiscal year to address those type of concerns. So we can get on that right away. Yes.

Mr. Manager? Yes, sir. I think you need to do all the ones that we have. Because in Sky Lake, there's two that also need addressing. Okay.

Okay. Now we might jump into the next fiscal year for that, but yes, we'll get it done.

Yes, sir. Mr. Manager.

Yes, ma'am.

I don't know that it would come under this, but maybe the entrance ray, some of the real focal points should have some lighting in the trees because when you go down, Golden Beach or some of the others, or if you go down in Bell Harbor, just having some of that lighting in the trees makes such a significant difference in what the appearance of the city is. So maybe coming across the railroad track, 171st, I don't know where that comes under. I don't know how many blocks. I know they put some lighting in eastern shores. They didn't go the whole way up to 171st. They only went halfway. And I get a lot of calls. Why didn't they go the whole way up? They love it, love it, love it. So there's all kinds of lighting. It can be in the trees. It could be under the trees. But I think that that's something we ought to consider for a little money in the budget.

So you're going to move to code and then. communications, events, and production?

I'm gonna do code and then the rest of the departments will be presented by the department. Well, two department heads are gonna come up and do their department presentation.

Okay, now with all due respect, I see communications is like a whole 10 or 11 pages. And the dollar amount for that department is 1.3, right? Yes. So, you know, there's a lot of just, if we can really put this in capsule form.

We would love to. All right. The department had intentionally spent a little bit more time because he felt that the commission would want to drill down into the events. But we can go through that section. As you said, it's only a million dollar department and we're actually going to be decreasing it down from that moving forward so we could move through that department rather swiftly.

Thank you.

Yes, Mr. Vice Mayor, I just think when you get to communications, maybe they need another 10 million or $20 million just so we can get communications correct. That's my call because I hear more complaints that people didn't know they didn't know. And that's a shame with all the latest technology and all the AI would definitely have room for improvement in that department.

So you said, so what are you saying, 10 million or 20 million?

I'm thinking 40 million now, now that you put it like that. Thank you.

No, but listen, I agree, but I think it's a matter of really harnessing technology. Yes.

um and being facetious about the money i'm no i'm disagreeing about the money part uh i know it's not 10 million so if you were serious about that i know i'm being very facetious but but i am when you say it's a department that had very little money the way you were explaining it so let's not think it's going to be that is probably the most important besides the police department we have Because if people don't know, what good is it to have the services?

Well, Commissioner, I agree with you on that. But I guess what I'm saying is when I'm looking at what, right, when I'm looking at this presentation is specifically for budget, right? And so there's a lot of information as I just scrolled through as I just flipped through the pages that are not specific to the budget.

I made my complaint come under the headline of budget.

Right. So, no, no, I get it. And so, I just want us, if we can just focus, like for instance, and I don't want to spend just as much time asking about it as I'm trying to save, right? So, you know, there's areas that specifically talk about numbers, and I'm just asking if we can get the capsule form and speak about the numbers, that would be good.

Okay. We can do that.

All right.

Yes, sir. All right, can I get this slide presentation back up? Thank you. And now we'll move into Code Compliance, formerly Code Enforcement. The Code Compliance Division is the primary role is to educate residents and property owners on local ordinances and property maintenance standards to avoid violations and keep our community safe and beautiful. And I know I read through that fast, but this is significant because so, many people misunderstand the role of what code compliance is, is to educate. So one of the things that we require through this administration is that the first citation, unless it's something egregious, should be a warning. should be a warning ticket that does not have any financial penalties. That is going to be a standard operating procedure here for our code compliance division in the city of North Miami Beach. Because the purpose of code compliance is not to generate money for the city of North Miami Beach or any city for that instance. It's actually a beautification tool and a compliance tool. So we need to do the things that we must do to turn it back into that, which is to educate our residences and our codes and ordinances and our processes and to keep our city beautiful.

It's said, Mr. Manager, that it's coercive in nature to get people to force them to comply, and then you can, you know, address the fines issue.

Exactly. In agreement 100% with our city attorney on that. Code also enforces the city's ordinances, which helps to control blight, reduce criminal opportunities, a public safety benefit, and maintain property values. Here's a page, I won't go all through it, the print is pretty small, but it's most common violations and how to avoid them. This is just an example of how we want to start transforming our code compliance division into an education tool, which is actually its mission, right? And we have some real life examples of their impact here with some before and after photos that I think are pretty significant, right? and some of the initiatives and goals, expenses of reporting dashboards and performance metrics, community code compliance workshops, again, leaning into that education mission, commercial corridor beautification, illegal dumping enforcement initiatives. This is a personal recommendation requirement of mine because of the significant impact that illegal dumping has. So while the brunt of it falls on code compliance, what we will likely be doing from the city manager's office is creating a legal dumping task force. that will have IT component in there, have a police component in there, a code compliance component in there, and likely someone from my office. Because you really need all of those departments working together, IT with the cameras, police with the apprehension for criminal citations, code with the ticketing and the compliance to all work together to prevent illegal dumping. And if we don't do that, a legal dumping could cost the city a multi-million dollar expense. We've seen it happen in previous cities and it's something that we have to be mindful for. Right now we are leaning into Coastal to assist with that legal dumping, but at some point that chicken is going to come home to roost and that contract is going to come with some additional costs. So we want to get ahead of that now. Also what CODE does is look at short-term rental compliance. We do some of that through our outside contract and vendor, vacant property monitoring, abandoned property enforcement, and expanding hours. And one of our goals is to expand hours to include the weekends. So you'll see that in the budget. As I said, we're actually increasing our CODE compliance officers by two officers. So you'll see that in the next page. which our code compliance budget, we're current fiscal year of 10. We'd like to move that to 12 for the next year, increasing it by two, which is going to come at a cost, operating cost, excuse me, operating drop cost of 30, savings of 35,000, but our overall additional cost of about $227,000 annually. And I'll now open the floor up to questions for code compliance.

Thank you. Oh, sorry. In increasing the two, I have no problem with that. But can we start implementing the philosophy that the code enforcement, code compliant division, that we start being proactive instead of reactive. Okay, so it takes a little more on their part, but have relationships with all the owners of the zone that they're in and let them know when something's wrong and how to get, you know, before they have to cite them. And then it becomes a better, more people comply and it's a better, they're not looked at as a bad thing when the code enforcement person comes down the street.

Absolutely. That's how it should be, and that's a gold standard, and we're moving towards that direction. Thank you. Yep.

okay um well thank you for adding the weekend and evenings i think that's uh usually when they take you know i mean like we have law-abiding citizens who are being take advantage by people who don't want to follow the rules um but um so my question is like you know there's there needs to be a massive clean up in our commercial area I think it's just not... Hedges, landscaping, a lot of things have been let go for a long time. I would love to see our code go in and educate. our stakeholders that are in the city so that we could all work together as one city to make our city pleasant. I know we're very concerned about injecting money into economic development and all that. and I think that when we create a nice environment, if we expedite our permits, if we work faster than Durham, and we make our environment look nice, and we have a lot of people coming for foot traffic, there's a lot of attraction, There's less work to do inside of economic development. So that's something that I think we should start straightening out and making sure that our current stakeholders that are partners with us work closely so that we could make sure that our city is nice and tidy and all the landscaping is done and whatnot. And like I said, today I'm a little slow. I just, you know, I do better when I get this folder ahead of time. So I was speaking in the break room with Director Ozuna from Building.

D-Money.

Huh?

D money.

He said that he's not aware of the second kitchen ordinance. So I was like, wow, okay, we need to, you know, create a protocol for that. So people, yeah, I maybe like he missed, we passed the ordinance so quickly, you know.

It was a workshop and two readings, all of which he participated in.

anyway okay so yeah i think yeah he was like what i was like okay so i just wanted to get that present because we're talking about permits i just figured like that process should um also get created because if somebody wants to come in and create a second kitchen they can absolutely understood thank you yes thank you um vice mayor

So 163rd Street, right, which is supposed to be the gateway to North Miami Beach, and only half of it, I mean, one side is NMB, the other side is the county. You know, why can't we take some of that money from economic development and put it into code to fix up that area. We, you know, have code go and make sure that these businesses all look beautiful. We want people to come into North Miami Beach, right? So take money from economic development, do something with that. Okay, yeah, we want to bring in more businesses into North Miami Beach, but we have businesses in North Miami Beach. We should be helping them as well, right? They've been here for a long time, and they're mom-and-pop shops who, by the way, if Amendment 3 passes, their rent is going to go up astronomically high. Yes, it is.

Yes, it is, because. Commercial has reduced from 10% assessment down to five, so I don't think that's true.

Okay, so now, because it's not homesteaded, that's gonna go up, and yes, it is. Of course it is, because where is that money going to come from? You're not going to the classes, are you? You're not listening to this. I know that you want this.

Don't patronize me like that.

No, no, no. I'm not patronizing you.

No, what I'm saying to you is the assessed value of the property instead of 10 is now capped at 5. So that means that it's actually going to raise less than before. This is for commercial properties. Right. Yeah. And then the residentials are going to increase by three just the same. But the exemptions are raised up higher. they're gonna go up, Lynn.

Trust me, they're gonna go up, because nothing ever goes up in the property taxes ever, and they're always going up, all right? So if people wanna believe they're not gonna go up, they can believe they're not gonna go up, but it's gonna go up, and the rents of these businesses are going to go up tremendously. They're going up as it is. The property taxes are going up as it is, even without amendment number three. I know this. Okay, I know this for a fact because I'm in that business. Okay, thank you. Anyhow, so I would like to see maybe economic development. If you're all gonna insist on spending a million dollars on economic development, I would like to see economic development focusing on what's already in North Miami Beach and not what's not in North Miami Beach already to help these people. And I would love to see maybe, what is the budget for code?

CODE IS PROJECTED TO BE $963,579.

THE BUDGET FOR COMMUNICATIONS IS $1 MILLION?

YES.

BUT THAT INCLUDES ALL THE EVENTS?

YES.

TO ME CODE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN PARTIES. I would like to see maybe, and I did see that some things have gone down in the expenses and there's less events because of the DEI law, but I would like to see code getting a little bit more money than the parties getting. I mean, what's the point of having parties if our city's ugly? THAT'S IT.

QUICK QUESTION PRIOR TO GOING TO COMMISSIONER SMITH. ARE YOU REFERENCING THE SOUTH SIDE OF 163rd?

The county, I'm sorry, the city side. Only the city side. Right, it's the north side. But it would be great if the city and the county can get together.

Because we've always talked about that. How do we get that side, the county side to really.

We actually have an agreement. We have an agreement with the county on maintaining and code enforcement on the south side. The problem is we never enforced it.

Yes, we have an agreement that we do it. And where's that agreement?

Where's that agreement?

In the third drawer on the second floor.

Okay, so we need to, I'd like to see it, right?

But there is an agreement where we agreed. We solicited the county to be able to take care of that because they weren't doing it.

Right, so now has that agreement been shelved or what?

It's never been implemented since I'm here and I've mentioned it, I would say at least 10 times.

Is the county paying us for this? I mean, we're going to be doing their work and-

and i'll tell you something moratorium or no moratorium the control of that 163rd street should be in our hands i have gone down to where the man made the arch for golden beach and would be a wonderful people getting off the interchange to see a beautiful arch coming into North Miami Beach. The problem is we don't own the south side for control. The problem is you can't just annex 167th, that's 167th over there, you have to annex 166th, the north part of it as well, because the whole block is considered the block facing 167th and the block behind it that's facing 166th. But it can be done. Unfortunately, in government, you have to have pressure, not patience.

So, Mr. Manager, can we find that agreement and see what we've done in furthering that agreement? And if we haven't done anything, can we put a process in place to further that agreement? Because that conversation has been one for a while, as Commissioner Smith is saying. Absolutely. Can we... Okay. Right. So we, yeah.

Not if they don't know about it. It's been. They know about it. They both know.

Would a copy be in the clerk's office perhaps? Okay. Okay. So what we're going to do, Commissioner Smith, were you done or did you have?

No, I wanted to just ask a question. I'm thrilled that you're hiring for, when we're not hiring and it is a hiring freeze, that you are hiring for code compliance. Yes. Because if you don't have a beautiful city, who wants to spend time there?

Correct.

But looking at it, each new employee costs $125,000. That's what the difference was.

Yes, that's a, for code, yes, because we have to have, it's the salary, benefits, compensation, and also they may or may not need a

Well, we have to be mindful of that because like now the insurance is going up again, although we haven't discussed it, how we're going to handle that, who's paying. But we have to be mindful of it's not just the higher this year, it's what's going to be for the breadth projected as we go up with the budget. And that's an important thing. It really boils down to a lot of the departments to bringing in more revenue, to bringing in more businesses. It really does not just affect us for this year, but what's going to happen in years to come. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner. I'd like to see, have we taken a look at the compensation for, can you break down the positions that we have? In this department?

For code compliance. Correct. We have a manager, a supervisor, and 10 compliance officers.

Okay, so for... Non-compliance officers, and I believe an administrative assistant. So for the manager and the supervisor position, have we taken a look at the compensation as compared to other municipalities?

As by a pay plan, no, the city hasn't. That would be done under a pay plan, and the city hasn't done a pay plan in several years, but I would love to do one. Are we able to do something specific to this department in this budget?

Well, yes, we can, is the answer. I know we can. I guess what I'm asking... I was thinking about where to get the money from. Well, yeah, because the thing is, and I appreciate your... You're thinking about that because what I'm realizing with some of the requests that are happening to my colleagues, this is where we get it done. This is where we say we want this, we want that, or we don't want this and we don't want that. And then by budget hearing number two, all of that stuff should be line itemed, right? And so that we can vote on the budget that we desire, you know, with the with the manager's help. And in this department, I'd like to see you take a look at the manager's position and the supervisor position and as well as the entire department, but more specifically now to take a look at at the leadership here and what their compensation looks like compared to other municipalities. It's a department that a lot is being asked of them, right? Quite a bit is being asked of them and want to take a look at what's going on there. But also I want your insight as to the, the pay plan, you said? Yes.

Can you elaborate a little bit more on that? Absolutely. So I'm so glad that you're bringing this up. Generally, cities do not do department analysis due to some legal concerns, inequities. But we are doing that, for example, with our building department, right? Because that's an enterprise fund. So it's its own kind of piggy bank. It's its own bank account. So one of the things I have directed the director of building to do is to conduct a department pay plan just for his department. And what the pay plan does is that it provides direction for a city manager to execute pay raises where we find that we're below the market. So, for example, he's going to go out, he's working with the HR department, he's going to find a contractor, they're going to execute a play plan, he's going to come back with recommendations about the market is here, your compensation is here, so if this is a position or a person you want to look to maintain, we recommend that you provide this increase or here's the benefits package that the market is saying and other cities are doing, here's your benefits package. So we recommend that you make some tweaks and so forth and so on. And the beautiful thing about pay plans is it does it citywide. It looks at every department and then it goes in and says, hey, this is where the city of North Mine Beach is for this position versus the marketplace. And it tells you what the marketplace is, what are the other cities that are your comparable sizes, what are the other cities that are closer to you, what are they paying and what their benefits package looks like. So it can provide some direction to the city manager to make pay increases.

So with the other departments that you made adjustments to, how did you come to those conclusions? Were the pay ranges already established? Yes. Okay. Yes. So you went through each position and you looked at the pay ranges for those positions and made that accordingly? Correct. Okay. How long does it take to do a... A pay plan. For the entire organization?

I believe for a city this size, we should be able to get one done in 90 days. When were you planning on starting to move in that direction? I would love to, I was waiting to start the new fiscal year, but if I can get the buy-in from the, all right, I'd love to move forward with that as soon as possible because I think... Can I interject just real quick? I just want to say one thing and then just to finish my thought because I'm glad that this is something that we're discussing. While we're looking at positions that we're consolidating, that we are moving, it is so important that we appropriately compensate the people that remain. It's so important so that we can retain our talent, so that we can retain our institutional knowledge, so that we can contain our productivity and service levels. so the fact that we are having this discussion is of the utmost importance and i will certainly move forward expeditiously uh if it be the will of the commission but but that will of the commission is that by vote that you do you need to buy vote um i can discuss with you all individually and have an understanding of the commissioner if i could speak thank you um so last year we already budgeted two hundred thousand dollars for a classification what's it called

classification and compensation study in the HR department. So, yeah, we did. And I think, I don't know if procurement had done an RFP, RFQ, but I remember that this was a citywide thing that was actually, because I was also advocating for this, seeing that we had, at the time, we had three underpaid directors, like Cherise being one of them, So that's why we have that allocated, and we really do want to see how we are underpaying our staff.

Absolutely. We'll move that, particularly if there's a budget line item for it already, and I'm trying to find out as we speak. We can move forward on that immediately.

I'm vaguely recalling what you said, but I want to know if that's the same thing as the pay plan. Yes. Right? But we need to have that conversation, because we're talking about... specifically since we're on this particular department saying hey you know what let's why don't we take a look at what's happening on the miami-dade county side yes and i could only imagine they're saying oh my goodness you know more work right so it's either we give them more more manpower to handle that or we provide them with the resources necessary in order for them to be able to accomplish that and you know the the you know compensation is always uh a motivator right and so I think we just need to to address that but but I understand what you're saying and some of the complexities in that and I also understand the conversation of the pay ranges that were already available to you for the departments that you did increase yes so why don't we like you said expeditiously look at the pay plan so that we can have a resolve for some of these positions within 90 days. Absolutely, consider that done.

Yeah, I think it's called a compensation and classification study.

Yes. Yeah, that's in the- Could I just interject through the Vice Mayor? I've never voted on an increase in compensation without reaching out to the other 30 municipalities to find out, especially the ones that are the same size. I think that it needs to be done. But my question to you, Mr. Manager, I think it needs to be done. But my question to you is, then what? If you were going to vote for a budget now and we're going to reach out, where are we going to get the extra money? Because we don't compensate. like neighboring cities, we don't also have the income of the neighboring cities. So if we're gonna be, which we should, competitive, how are you gonna adjust that in this budget? Because I assure you, 80% probably is underpaid. Where are we gonna get the compensation to do it? And when you look at other cities, keep in mind, that a lot of things just are not what North Miami Beach is. We're a little bit different here. We sat dormant for a long time. The new revenue that's coming in isn't coming in for two years. So I just, I think the study's essential. I think, I have never, I always go, and we just email the clerk and we just ask for, Not only what is the salary, what's the benefits? Are they getting three weeks vacation versus one week vacation? Are they getting 100% of their insurance paid versus 50% of their insurance paid? So we know the whole compensation package. But when you reach out, I mean, there's some cities that pay their commissioners $100,000. And they're right next to us, Miami Gardens, North Miami. That doesn't mean that we should get $100,000. What we need to do is get the study done, and the sooner the better, because you're going to change the whole budget.

And I think Commissioner, thank you Commissioner Smith, I think Commissioner Smuckler wanted to say something, but prior to that, you wanted to speak? Oh, I saw your microphone.

Oh, I changed my mind.

Okay. I definitely understand where you're coming from, but like Commissioner Hsu said, we more than likely have allocated funds for this type of a study. And that was last year's budget, Commissioner Hsu? We have $65,000. But that was last year's budget, right? Correct. And it was for this current fiscal year, but none of that was used or was any of it used? None of it was used. So we have a whole fiscal year where one of the issues that we wanted to address, which was the equity in pay for our employees... was ignored, right? And so, and look, I understand, transition, a lot going on, right? Right, I get that, right? But at the end of the day, you know, these things happen in municipalities. So there has to be some continuity. And so that needs to be addressed. And I think if we address it now and we at least get the information back, then we can begin to understand how it can even be implemented. But until we do the first part, we can't move on to the next. Understood. Yes, sir. Was that it for code? Yes, sir. All right. So I said capsule form for communications. And then I see Hamid back there, nicely dressed with his tie and everything. Let me say this.

We're at two and a half hours, and we just completed seven departments. Right.

But Hamid has 60 plus pages.

So if you move at the same speed... You only have three departments left. So if you move at the same speed, we should be out of here by 930.

Right. So Greg already understands capsule form. Hamid has two departments, but that's about 60 plus pages. Yes, but my foot can reach his foot from under the table. OK. All right. All right. Because I'm looking at it and I look if I if I know Hamid. We all know him. He loves the numbers. So I'm looking forward to that presentation. Okay.

All right. Let me get you, cue you up here, Mr. Williams. All right. Could we get the slides back up? All right.

It's the final question. Okay, cool. Bon appetit.

Thank you.

I should enjoy this meal. Good evening, mayor and commissioners, guests, residents. It's a pleasure to be before you tonight. I'm Greg Williams, chief communication officer for the great city of North Miami Beach. I'm proud to be here. I'm excited to talk about something that's near and dear to my heart that I love and passionate about is communication. and events and production and i'm proud to be over this um this great um group of people um i know you you mentioned uh vice mayor about the meat and the potatoes um but i need to give you some i need to give you some uh some some uh prior information about communications uh as you know we started in 2000 26 in May. We've only been, we're still in the embryo stages, so we've been established for four months. We're pretty excited. I can just speak about the great team that we're launching in a new era. one team and we're looking to do better service and also under one location. We, as you know, we're over at the PSA and we're aligned together with a synergy and a mindset, events and production division, we were established. to bring in a brighter new communication than NMB. And we're proud about some of the things that we've done. We can brag about some of the different events. Perhaps there may have been some events that we didn't knock the ball out the park in terms of getting the crowds there, but recently we've had some great wins, and we've had some wins ever since we've been here. I'm proud of the fact that we've centralized our functions, marketing, messaging, branding, and special events. I'll talk more about those as I go through my presentation. The key responsibilities, it's basically community engagement. The entire team is infectious about touching and reaching the public. just my entire team, I think they have the same mindset that I have. We're all extroverted in terms of touching people's lives and talking to the public. Media relations and social media. When I think about social media, I'm excited about that our social media is up. Facebook is up 71% with nearly 775,000 people that we reached over last year, 310,000 people. Instagram is up 39% and we're excited about our web page is up nearly 30 or 40% and we're reaching over last year 66,000 new users on our web page. But we can continue to get better. Also, public relations, press releases. Many of you call for press releases, and we've gotten them to you on a turn of a dime. In-house audio and video production, we move quick. I think about... The Haitian in Brazil video that we did, we featured here, which we had record numbers. Our sister cities couldn't touch us. We did a phenomenal job. The crowds was there. It was a lot of excitement. And what I love about it most and what I love about the city of North Miami Beach the most, the diversity. I think about the event that we had, the 100, Symphony 100. Think about it. It blew my mind. I just loved it. I saw the crowd, the diversity. The diversity was there in the room. And in the city, when we think about the demographics, we have 40% Hispanic, 40% Afro-American slash Haitians, 15% Jewish, and our Asian population is growing expeditiously. It's amazing. So we're real proud of what's happening. We saw that at the event the other night. Whoever was not there, you missed a treat. We're the same people that promoted that event. Record numbers. People were blown away. They're still talking. Let's give them something to talk about. We're proud of the work that we do, folks. And I'm proud to lead a team that love what they do. And every day we're going to get better. Think about that. We did that in four months. We're new kids on the block, but we're going to make it happen. And guess what? We're going to get the numbers where you want them. We'll continue, and sometimes, guess what? Maybe at the town hall meetings, we may not get everybody that we desire, but we're gonna stay on the block, we're gonna keep it moving. So we're doing in-house audio video production on a term of dime. marketing, multi-language communication, as I talked about, the diversity that I love in this city. So our goal is to be able to touch everybody in all three languages, Creole, Spanish, and also in English. Citywide branding, that our branding, our messages will be consistent. Emergency communication, getting it to the public and getting it to them quick with a sense of urgency. Sorry, sorry, sorry about that. Thank you. Internal communication and department support. We work together collectively with all our sister departments and everybody in our, we're a service department. All of our sister departments from Parks and Recreation to Procurement to Finance, anybody needs anything from communication, flyers or anything, we're right there and we give it to them on the spot. And so strategic priority number one, increase community engagement, build more accessible, interactive social media culture, encourages residents to connect, engage, and participate. That's what we do. We connect with the residents, create an environment where city residents share important information. on event surveys and other feedbacks. We're putting together, we have a prototype of a survey that we're going to be rolling out shortly with the manager's approval. We talked about it the other day. This survey is somewhat of our report card. We want to know from the public, how do you feel about us? How can we do better? It'll be on our webpage with the QR code and feedback forms at every event to tell us how can we do better. What did you like? Did you enjoy the music? Did you like the band? How was the refreshments? How were the food trucks? Tell us. So how can we take it over the top? How can we do better? And we're happy to let you know that in the first of the year, we're gonna launch City Line newsletter featuring citywide updates, department accomplishments, major CIP projects, upcoming special events, and resident resources, putting the information out to the residents. Priority number two, advance transparency with full understanding of key, and I talked about demographic data, city communication, ensure that information released in accurate, consistent, and accessible English, Spanish, and Creole, which is something that we must do. Strengthen public trust by providing residents with timely information and city services, decisions, accomplishments, milestones, impact, and city services, putting it all out there. coordinate with in-house city departments to promote infrastructure project, construction, advisories, and NMB policy changes. Well, when we talk about events, When we talk about events, these are some of the events and the cost of the events that's coming in fiscal year 2027. We've shaved some of the cost on some of these events. And we will still be able to give you a platinum event. We'll still be able to give you an event that will be suitable and will speak volumes to who we are, NMB, now more better. So those are some of the costs that we have and we'll talk more about that as we get to this page here. You can compare. You can look at what we did in 2026 and what we paid, what we spent and what we spent, what we're proposing to spend in 2027. I think it's doable. I think we can make it happen. We can do it in a very conservative manner. At the same time, present a quality event to our residents who deserve the very best. I think the idea of this department consolidating all the best of the best, communicating people from the different departments allows us to be able to look at how we can make each one of these events efficient, effective, and successful. And so we've shaved the cost, because last year we spent $363,000. We propose a budget to you of $231,000 that we can do, we can make it happen, and still be able to reach each and every one of our residents the very best that we possibly can. That's the little boy coming down the slide. That's what we're doing. We're bringing costs down. And so that's the idea, to bring the percentage. We'll be down 37, nearly 37%. We're going to make it happen right before your eyes. And look at these beautiful people right here. Fiscal year 2026. Some of the remaining events that will happen that's on the horizons, you see them there from our Farm Share Centennial concert that's coming that we just recently had, the block party that's coming to Eastern Shores, our safety town hall meetings, you know, everything. It's all there for the remaining of the year, fiscal year. And on the horizon of 2027, starting October 1st, throughout the remaining, this is some of the events that's on the horizon. Keep in mind the Centennial Festival is still part of the fiscal year 2026. And let's get to the meat and potatoes of it all. As I said, you see the 700-something thousand for 3.5 people, eight people now who have now transferred out of other departments. Their money is carried over, and that's where we have the $963,000 in terms of salaries, operational expenses. Perhaps we can shave some of that down a little bit more, but that's what we have. If we're gonna compare apples to apples, it's more people who are very busy and very focused and very professional, and most importantly, very passionate about what they do to make it happen every day. For you, the residents, this community at large, the manager, commissioners, we're here to serve, and communication will be more than you can ever imagine if you just give us an opportunity to make it happen for you every day.

All right, Commissioner Smuckler.

Thank you, thank you. I just wanna go to the events dates on page 56. So I just wanna state that the menorah lighting, this will be the last year that it's done because of the DEI law. Just wanted everybody to know. And also for Valentine's Day, didn't we charge last year? This year, we did it for free.

Last year on Valentine's Day we did it. We spent $6,000 and this year we're proposing a budget of $4,000.

It was free for everybody or free for NMB residents?

I'm not sure. I would have to call staff, wasn't there? Parks was over at the time.

Free for everybody. Okay.

Okay. I'd like it to be free for our residents and charge for non-residents because it's a nice event. Yes. It's a very, very nice event, and I think it should, yes, for our residents, 100% for free, but for non-residents, I'm not in agreement that this should be for free.

Mm-hmm.

And also the small business expo, can we not take that money out of economic development, Mr. Manager? The small business expo, can't that be paid from economic development?

Absolutely, if it be the will of the commission, we certainly could make that adjustment.

I'd like to see that. I agree with that one. All right, thank you.

I'm not against that.

All right, so there you have more or less a consensus. Yes, okay, yes. All right, and then how about charging non-residents for Valentine's Day?

Okay. We can do that. All right. You want us to charge non-residents, correct?

Right. Okay, done. All right. And then I just want to, just for clarification purposes, for next year, the back to school, it's back to school slash national night out. Just for clarification. Sure. All right. Sure, Commissioner. That's it for right now.

And by the way, that was a huge success.

It was an amazing, an amazing. Same people. The national night out back to school.

Same people, same passion, making it happen all day.

Yeah.

Yes.

Thank you.

Commissioner Turnoff and then Commissioner Hsu.

Thank you.

Greg, you're doing a great job. You have all these employees from all the other departments. The best of the best. Would you please task someone to figure out how we can improve our communications. And I mean from answering the phone, to people getting a good experience, to all of us getting the same emails and having the same calendar and all those kinds of things.

Now we work in conjunction with Ms. Morris and um i don't know i don't want to know the particulars i just want it done we'll make it happen thank you miss morris is working together and we we we're working on that coordination promise you sir

So I am a little concerned about the DEI issue. I know Juneteenth is now a national holiday. Can you explore on that? Because I know Commissioner Smuckler just mentioned that the menorah lighting, this is going to be the last year due to the DEI bill. So I'm looking at Juneteenth as well.

I think because it's a federal holiday, it's a different story. Okay.

It's a federal holiday.

I just want to make sure. Through the vice mayor, we actually did review the law. I reviewed it personally myself, and we did as a team and staff as well, and there is an exception for federal holidays. Okay, great. Thank you.

All righty, Commissioner Smith.

Thank you. So back to school, I thought some of that funds came under the money that's allocated for the women's group. I didn't know that there was separate money.

And the other question. We don't have any money allocated in the commission.

I thought there was $10,000.

No, the commission says the woman has never had money allocated to them. This has always been the back to school, has been part of the commission of status of women, but it's allocated to the back to school national handout. We've never had any funds, ever.

There was always conversation that they got money and why wouldn't I?

That's North Miami. Their commission gets a lot of money.

Who?

The North Miami commission of status of women has money.

And there goes back the thing about comparing it from city to city, because some cities are flush with money, and they can afford. The Health Walk and the Bike Walk, the Bike 305, we've always said $15,000, but when you go there, you literally see the same vendors You see the walk, you see hot dogs and hamburgers, and you see the shirts. What is the $15,000? What's that money for?

Well, last year, you're talking about Bike 305, right, Commissioner?

I'm talking about the Heart Walk and the Bike 305. Last year on both events.

It's for the police, it's for those types of things.

Well, we have the police at everything. There's the snow fest, there's the manure lighting.

But those are on weekends, and so it's extra to have the police there.

If I may, let's direct the question to the staff. Within these figures, is staff included as far as parks and rec, police department, et cetera, or are these costs simply for vendors and items that may be needed for the event?

I believe these costs are just, and I got a $40,000 for the year for police. I believe, I don't think staff is involved with these budgeted events here. Staff.

Yeah, two years ago. The cost.

Two years ago. Okay, so last year they spent $25,000 on each one of these events.

$25,000, I was at both events. Where's the money from?

Well, I'm just gonna give you the numbers, because they're right there on your page.

Okay, so when you, oh, go ahead, I'm sorry.

Andy, did they put a Parks, because Parks was the one that ran it last year.

so okay how about we do this okay um the uh commissioner sue had a question so let's go to her you guys can figure that question out and if you get the answer by the time she's done you can come back or you have it now thank you do you have the answer now i would like to know how much the juneteenth breakfast cost also Let's, okay guys, so we're gonna allow the ACM to answer the first question about are these numbers all encompassing or is there a breakdown?

The answer is they should be all-encompassing.

Should be. OK. You don't have the details as of this moment?

I don't have details, but they should be all-encompassing. And you're talking about vendors, tents, tables, chairs, stage, rides, et cetera. Those things add up, and staffing costs as well. So that's where the money goes.

okay so i'm sorry commissioner smith to the best of my knowledge and all the events that i've ever been involved in in the commission status or multicultural i know we always don't spend it all because we leave money for staff and police department okay thank you for that insight commissioner sue

Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. I was wondering if maybe Commissioner Smuckler and Commissioner Chernoff would entertain an idea of combining Bike 305 and the Heart Health Walk?

I mean, I get what you're saying, and I think it's a great idea, except Heart Health Walk is February, because that's Heart Health Month, and Bike 305 is always in March, because that's Bike 305 month.

Yeah, it's a whole county initiative as well.

The Bike 305? Bike 305, yeah.

Yeah. Your idea is great, but it... No, because I love how you combine the backpack and the National Night Out, right? And I think we get more people to come and participate, and then it also costs the city less. I think I don't know...

Except that when you do the heart and the bike, there are a lot of the same people. Yeah, and plus you really can't have bikers... No, because you can't do both the same event. If we combine it, they can't...

ride the bike and they're not going to walk for three and a half miles and ride a bike like like my husband likes to bike and then he'll bring the bike to the the heart health walk and then everybody gives him the look because he's biking during the walk and you know you're you're kind of like biking in the middle of a walk and you can't you really can have it's not conducive to have bikers and walkers at the same well why don't we just do a triathlon so they start off walking and then they jump on the bike right okay we can swim in the canal it

Right, there we go.

And actually, the last two years, we've included in the walk, we've had racers, a 5K. Right. So we'll start off with the 5K, and they'll be running. And then a few minutes later, we'll do the walkers.

Right, which I do remember this year. And it's a great idea, Commissioner Hsu. I think that it's just the timing. Mm-hmm. with the county doing, with Heart Walk being very specific. And I know that we talked about raising funds specific to Heart Walk to help the organization get a higher contribution from the city. And I think the county and all the initiatives around 305 is for that specific time. I think how we maximize participation, like you're saying, is we really need to depend on our team to have partnerships to find people who are bikers and to, well, not bikers, because when I say bikers, you might be thinking about cyclists, but to find cyclists and to find people who are in those groups, right? The same way too with Heart Walk.

Yeah, we reached out to, right, so we reached out to runners and got them involved in the part of the 5K.

Right, and I think also when you go to Brickell, I think they have a run club that runs every week and it's a massive couple of hundred people that are running through downtown. And then I think every year there's a huge cycling event that goes through downtown and through the through the MacArthur Causeway. So we really need to kind of make those connections and leverage as well. And you're the right person for that.

Yeah. And also in the heart health walk, you know, we have speakers come on heart health. You know, we have Dr. Powell come every year and she speaks and so we focus on heart health and the Bike 305 focuses more on bike safety.

Okay. I wanted to mention about Juneteenth that the breakfast was beautiful. Beautifully done. They had people from different faiths come and give prayer. They had singers. They had poets. They had a magnificent breakfast. And I didn't know that that was around a $20,000 cost.

Thank you, Commissioner Smith. I think when it comes to the numbers, if we can just have an opportunity to hear the ACM, and then we're going to close it out and go to our next.

Yeah, I'd just like to go back to the Juneteenth event. It's budgeted for $20,000, but the breakfast that we did hold was about $6,000. Yeah, we didn't spend much on that. We didn't spend that full amount this year on Juneteenth.

And we did last minute promotion on that because there was a lot of things up in the air with it. So we did within two weeks, we had to promote it and get it out there and that's the crowd we got in a short period of time and we only spent 6,000 when it was on budget for 25.

I have one more question, Vice Mayor, before you move on. If it's budgeted for 15,000 and you only use 10, do you give extra gifts to use up your 15 or do you move that 5,000 to another event?

Just so, a budget is just a number, right? It's an expected number, right? So you wanna have the best event you can within your budget, and if you end up finding savings, then that's fantastic, and then those monies aren't used, then potentially roll back into the fund balance at the end of the year.

Thank you. Vice Mayor, I wasn't finished. You weren't? Yeah, no, I have one more thing just to update Director Williams here. September 10th, we're not having the state attorney workshop. I'm combining all of our partners in the county, whether it be the state attorney's office, the supervisor of elections. to join us in our Monster Mash Bash, to have tables in those events to serve and answer questions to the public. So there's not gonna be a separate, I don't want staff to have to work extra for that. So we're just going to combine them and have them have a table at all of our major events, including our Centennial.

fine we can do that so september 10th is not uh it's not happening yeah we'll make a note of that uh commissioner and then we're gonna we're gonna end with uh commissioner uh smuggler did you have something yeah i did want to say if if we were able to do i don't know why i put on my calendar the juneteenth breakfast on june 20th i don't know why i did that so i missed it but um if if we can maybe take since we can do the breakfast and as commissioner smith said that it was amazing maybe we can take some of that money and put it towards the the stars and splash um because that that was like amazing an amazing event the stars the the july 4th like that's like something people really enjoyed so um i'm a bit mindful about making those adjustments now um you know number one

the, the Juneteenth experience from what it, from what I've seen it, the potential of that, of that experience. Um, although we did get a, the breakfast was good. Right. I'm not denying that, but what I know the experience was and can be, um, I don't think we need, I don't think we should be using the breakfast as, as the new model, um, for how much money we should spend on Juneteenth.

Juneteenth. I have a lot of pride with Juneteenth with that. They were talking about it in January. I came on board in May and we were piecemealing it. Right. OK. Whoever did it during that time, the ball was dropped. I came on board. We salvaged what we could and we may do what we could do.

Right. So. So. So. So. And I appreciate your statement. Go ahead, ACM.

Vice Mayor, to your point, it's noted as a Juneteenth event, not a breakfast, and we will come up with the best Juneteenth event and work towards possibly the Juneteenth experience like you've seen in the past.

Thank you. And so you mentioned the Stars and Stripes. I agree with you. I'm just thinking it shouldn't come from Juneteenth. No, that's fine. That's fine. In addition to that, I just wanted to just... the charge for non-residents for certain events, I think the opportunity cost You guys can let us know what it is, but depending on the event, I don't think it's worth it, right? Depending on the event. If it's a large-scale event, maybe the opportunity cost is worth it. But if you were talking about Valentine's Day?

Yeah.

But something like Valentine's Day where a lot of seniors participate, you know, seniors are on fixed incomes, et cetera, that might not be an event where you want to charge non-residents because your numbers may drop as far as participation. So go ahead, ACM.

I WANT TO APOLOGIZE TO THE COMMISSION. THERE WAS A DIFFERENT CHARGE FOR RESIDENTS FOR THE VALENTINE'S DAY EVENT.

THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT. FOR NON-RESIDENTS.

HOW MUCH DID YOU CHARGE? RESIDENTS WERE 15 AND NON-RESIDENTS WERE 25.

BOTH CATEGORIES GOT CHARGED. AND WE HAD A FULL HOUSE?

YES.

OKAY. ALL RIGHT. I ASKED FOR THE NUMBERS. YOU GAVE ME THE NUMBERS. Pardon me?

I said not so much a full house as a straight floor.

Thank you, Mr. Attorney, for chiming in. All right, we're going to land a plane on it.

Thank you so much. Last thing. I remember back when I first moved here, we had newsletters. It's coming. Okay, so this is already included in this whole budget and the staffing?

Yes, city line. It's in the budget line item there, city line. We have the 10,000 there. Every quarter we produce city line newsletter.

We used to have every thing and then we could send them out to residents so they are aware.

IT'S COMING TO A THEATER NEAR YOU.

COMMISSIONER, PAGE 54, THE THIRD BULLET POINT IN OUR STRATEGIC GOALS WAS THE CITY LINE COMING BACK, SO WE'LL MAKE SURE THAT IT'S THERE.

ALL RIGHT. VICE MAYOR, PLEASE ALLOW ME JUST TO MENTION, I KNOW YOU HAD SOME CONCERNS AND THE MANAGER MENTIONED ABOUT We're meeting next week with IT. My entire team, we met about it. We wrote down some ways that we can do a better job programming it with a sense of urgency on all the different events that's going on with us moving in a little bit quicker. So that's happening next week. We meet with IT and everybody. We're going to put something together that I think you'll like.

OK, well, that's greatly appreciated. We also have a radio station, or a radio channel. And all you ever hear on that is what, the traffic? So there may be something that we can do there as well. We have an opportunity there, too. making a note we got you all right 77 needs to be updated if we can meet with each commissioner and just get get a get a a thought from them you know but when it comes to this department i've seen so many iterations of it right um and um i'm not sure if you were part of one iteration at a certain point earlier on but you know i i the the point i'm making it's a it's a continuum

Yes.

So you can grab some things from a previous communications director that did something right. Yeah. That you want to implement and you can add your own flair to it. So I think there's there's just so much that we've done over the years that you can look at and just perfect as well. Last thing, Instagram. should not, to me at least, be a place for flyers, right? So when you're looking at that grid on our Instagram page a couple of years ago, it was that. It was flyer after flyer after flyer after flyer. And if you're looking at other cities, they're showing the experience, right? So when I'm looking at Coral Gables, I'm seeing an experience. I'm seeing Miracle Mile. I'm seeing things that make me want to go there. It's not just flyers for events. So if we can take that into consideration. Thank you so much, Greg. Thank you.

During the...

The plane has already landed, but we're taxiing on the runway.

We're going to get to the gate. During the celebration on Saturday, it was beautiful. It was a great thing. But one thing that we knew to do at the auditorium and find out how much it would cost is we need screens on the stage so that our row can see.

We couldn't see... Oh, yeah, when you're in the center, when you're sitting in the center, it's hard to see the side...

No, you can't see in the first row.

When is Monster Mash?

It's October 24th. October 24th.

October 24th?

Yes, ma'am.

That's what, a Friday?

I think it's going to be on Saturday.

Okay, and also, Commissioner Smith, just so you'll know, the Heart Health Walk, The Heart Health Walk for next year is gonna be taken over by Parks and Rec, so communication. Communication. By communication. We do all events. Right, it's no longer gonna be part of the Commission of Status of Woman because of the DEI law that most likely the Commission of Status of Woman will be, that committee will be eliminated.

All right, thank you, communications. All right. So we're going to public works and water utility, right? Yes. Okay, so having said that, I want to just ask my colleagues, are we able to provide a time certain for the presentation? Are we good with 15 minutes for the full synopsis of both of those questions? Okay, so Commissioner Smith is good. Are you good with that, Commissioner Smuckler? Are you good, Commissioner Chernoff? No, we're going to give him 15 minutes. We're going to allow him to present. It's too much for 15 minutes.

It is? Yes, sir. Are you sure? I go full speed. Full speed? Yes. Which is what? The information. Well, as long as PD won't ticket me, then I'm okay with that. Okay. Well, full speed is not speeding.

It's at the speed limit. Right.

So what is... Nine miles an hour over the speed limit. You're good. Right, Chief?