Remarks by Allan Branch
83 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 4
- Play at 2:53
“Awesome. Welcome to, I guess this would be considered a workshop? Correct. About housing and all the things. And it was a great idea that Robbie had the last, was it?”
Public · Jul 20, 2026
- Play at 3:10
“And you said let's have these conversations in person because they're very personal and important, and we deserve that you all do it here in person. So I appreciate everyone coming and showing up on kind of a drizzly day to discuss all these things. We're going to open up. City Manager Hayes is going to give us a background of where we're at, and then Commissioner Lucas is going to also welcome you as well.”
Public · Jul 20, 2026
- Play at 22:45
“So we're just going to write into discussion. Okay.”
Public · Jul 20, 2026
- Play at 22:53
“If the commission, well, they might want to, they might want to discuss what we had to say. So I thought we'd open that up to, I want to start by just saying that, um, no one up here is anti kids or anti helping. And I've personally been a donor of gift cards and I've been to all the funky food vests as well. And, um, I'm very supportive of the program, and I was even today speaking with juvenile delinquent center children there. And so I'm not anti-kids. No one up here is. No one comes up here in this scene, I believe, with a heart of hate and hardened. You come up here, you actually become…”
Public · Jul 20, 2026
- Play at 25:42
“Oh, I've never suggested that another nonprofit take over.”
Public · Jul 20, 2026
- Play at 30:01
“brandy can you walk us through just setting setting the sort of story of the past five years of costs and the funding mechanisms where the money comes from just to bring everyone into the story of the past few years and i would add to what mr clements said there's been three incidents in covent as well we've mentioned that yeah covet was a big thing as well”
Public · Jul 20, 2026
- Play at 30:36
“Well, I went through the allocations as well, just total cost to the best of your ability and access, just the whole thing.”
Public · Jul 20, 2026
- Play at 38:35
“No, I'd say that right now this board is tied to that board, and your board can move faster if you're not worried about the mayor, the future mayors meddling in what you guys are doing. And they can be less reactionary and plan more. When I met with them, I said, hey, we have NSP houses, neighborhood stabilization. Maybe you come up with a way to create a foundation and take some houses and you use that as a funding mechanism long term. Maybe we hold on to the ASAP building by MLK and lease it to you for 100 years for a dollar. I'm up for any idea. What we want to avoid, what Josh is pointing…”
Public · Jul 20, 2026
- Play at 42:30
“Give it time to restore those grants. I would ask, why couldn't the organization go after their own grants? Imagine if you controlled your own destiny as a board and you were able to go after your own grants and be able to shape the organization the way you see fit, not the way this board sees fit. They were doing that, and he was stealing it. That's why the city is doing it now. Complexity hides fraud. I think everyone here is wonderful, but this is a very confusing funding organization because it's all HUD and CBGB money.”
Public · Jul 20, 2026
- Play at 43:02
“And it has. I'm saying that we continue down this path. We're going to run out of money. It's not for me, in my opinion, to go into this organization and tell them how to run your organization and say, Terry, this is how you should spend your money. This is for you guys to figure out. This is your organization that you should be spearheading. You should be crafting. You should be going after grants, not local government. We can't even run a marina. And we're supposed to run after-school programs? I mean, we can't.”
Public · Jul 20, 2026
- Play at 45:13
“So when I have my first meetings with Terry and Sheila, I never hid behind any of my words. I said this in the very beginning. I think they should be their own nonprofit, that they control their own destiny. And we help them stand up. When I met with everyone there, this is the first time we get to talk about all this stuff together. And I said the same thing. I said a failure to me is this program does stand itself up and then doesn't sustain. I want to see a sustainable program. But is it on me and this board for us to go figure out how you create your own funding mechanism? We have houses.…”
Public · Jul 20, 2026
- Play at 53:28
“And adding on that, I think it's easy to get in this job being successful at business and say, I can figure this out for you guys. And I'll tell you exactly how to do it.”
Public · Jul 20, 2026
- Play at 53:37
“No, no, I'm saying I can't do that for you, and I don't trust that I can do that better than you can.”
Public · Jul 20, 2026
- Play at 59:37
“I think it's just a philosophical belief we all have of is government the most efficient creative organization or is sort of people holding their own destiny is really what it boils down to. And I think, you know, I think honestly it's a disservice to the money you've raised for us to take over a facility where they're going, the paint's faded and the carpet's replaced and we're going, budgetary issues. And we're creating, you should be in control of the building that you funded to take care of it, to ensure it's beautiful in 20 and 30 years. and i think you know when we when we talked you…”
Public · Jul 20, 2026
- Play at 1:06:42
“Yeah, I think that's probably the direction I'd like to see. Because if we want to keep this, absorb it, and keep this nonprofit, what other nonprofits should we absorb? Should we start absorbing all the nonprofits? I think at what end do we stop doing it? So I would say setting up a nonprofit, having us set a board up of people who can look at budgets, ensure that we're going after grants, have a real focus on the kids is what I'm asking for, and a financial plan of how the thing's funded,”
Public · Jul 20, 2026
- Play at 1:15:20
“so i i know once you start volunteering you become on every board you're volunteering for everything it's exhausting and so one of the harder parts of these organizations is bringing new people into the fold that are excited and passionate about their topic and i totally understand that you was a capital project to raise for a facility But you might consider finding other people who are also passionate about this, bringing them into the fold and seeing what their ideas are. Because when I met with you, I said, I have no idea. These are just ideas of what we could do for any sort of…”
Public · Jul 20, 2026
- Play at 1:16:17
“I feel like we're talking to the community right now.”
Public · Jul 20, 2026
- Play at 1:28:24
“Your hearts are in the right place. You're doing good work. We totally see that. I think Commissioner Granger just arrived. Did you have something to say?”
Public · Jul 20, 2026
- Play at 1:30:57
“Sounds good. Awesome. Thank you so much for attending. Meeting adjourned.”
Public · Jul 20, 2026
- Play at 7:57
“You ready to get started? Okay, I can't see anyone in the audience. This is an unusual experience, but I'm calling to order the... budgetary workshop number five for july 16th at 4 30 p.m we're going to start with an opening prayer led by city attorney nevin zerman elder of first presbyterian church and the pledge of allegiance led by commissioner brian granger please rise there we go now i can see everybody i have no idea if you've heard me or not”
Public · Jul 16, 2026
- Play at 9:26
“Awesome. I'm going to pass it over to City Manager Hayes.”
Public · Jul 16, 2026
- Play at 1:03:49
“Yeah, sorry. Does the memo that you have, Jared, you can make me larger on the screen. Does the memo also include the cost analysis between the two different products, the one that you can replace the battery pack out of?”
Public · Jul 16, 2026
- Play at 1:20:40
“I have like three or four at this point. I'd really like to see us... I spent months of my life researching grease traps because of the city a few years ago. Very thankful for that. I want to see our grease trap fog ordinance move into recommending... and incentivizing hydro mechanical grease traps they're smaller they're more efficient they don't have to store as much because they're just better at processing the liquids and you know the and I have not I'm not aware of how we currently handle inspections but oftentimes municipalities will do the grease police and they just show up and they…”
Public · Jul 16, 2026
- Play at 1:21:58
“Correct. The storage capacity should be on the owner, not the city. The city's created a term called drain capacity. just drain function unit where they how many plates of food do you serve and how many hours you're open and try to predict your capacity it's on the business owner if we stop by and it's full you get a fine period so and we would be on the more of a hey here's a recommendation but you can do what you want yeah i mean i agree i put in grease traps as well and it's weird that traffic counts are involved in our grease trap calculations”
Public · Jul 16, 2026
- Play at 1:23:43
“Yeah, I believe Miami-Dade has some of the highest standards for grease traps, and they're all HGIs for various reasons.”
Public · Jul 16, 2026