Remarks by Douglas Lawson
171 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 7
- Play at 30:30
“Thank you. And while the applicant's coming forward, I did have some questions on staff that addressed the concerns that I had with the traffic, the drive-through, and the location with going through the community, which were seen feasible actually toward the site and the potential site as well. So they answered my questions as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mayor.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 44:37
“Thank you. Gentlemen, thank you for the investment into Revere Beach and for bringing this type of product. We want to make sure that it's the right product for our residents. So I just had a few quick questions. What percentage of local contractors will actually be able to participate in construction and development of the site?”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 45:35
“Thank you. We follow up to that. So thank you. So the local subcontractors and the outreach, do you have a schedule of when you would be doing and how you'll be doing the outreach for local contractors to participate and to see this project come about? Because with the large vendor that's coming in, there's a lot of subs here that we've built, established. This facility we're standing in was built with over 50% of local minority women businesses in our community. that benefited from contracting and city dollars to build the facility so if we're building a facility of this caliber i'd love for…”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 47:16
“And you said that the prime has not been selected as yet?”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 47:20
“And what process are you going to select the prime?”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 47:55
“So it's not a full RFP process, so you can essentially select your contractor, and that's something that you could possibly bake into the contract where local participation is something that could be held for that contractor, correct?”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 48:11
“And that's why those subsidies from the county come in and I do know that this approval, but when we're building this caliber of facility next to single family properties in the main corridor of our city, we need to make sure that the city benefits and always possible. Because, as my colleague said that these are projects that a lot of communities may not be jumping for joy at. We do need housing in our community, but we also need to benefit every aspect of the community when it comes to construction development facilities and infrastructure. So we have needs in the community that need to be…”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 49:55
“I'd love to see any legally permissible options of allowing for SBEs to benefit when you're procuring your prime contractor. So if we can draft it into the contract, I know that the margins are very tight for you, but that would definitely benefit the entire investment for the city and for the residents that are going to capitalize on this great opportunity. Thank you.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 52:58
“What would the process be for applicants for residency at your facility? Once complete.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 53:33
“Welcome, Joe, and thank you. So to answer that question, more in regards to opportunities for residents, I understand that we cannot limit or restrict Riviera Beach residents from benefiting from these facilities, but coming up with an idea and a strategy of how we can market and advertise and work with some of our local, some of our adult facilities, heritage states, local communities, work with our parks and recs department who has a great senior program to see if we can provide those housing opportunities for current residents.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 55:25
“Well, I think we're going to get through building facilities and come to that piece, but we want to make sure that we have a roadmap of how to get there. So thank you for that. At the time, we will address that concern. So thank you. All right.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 1:03:18
“Mayor Lawson. Thank you. And to the applicant, I think there were some concerns of making sure the residents are benefiting from the entire project. So the options of housing and residency, of giving them first right of refusal, we can't limit that, but finding the best way to market to them. I think we asked that question. You guys addressed it clearly and articulated it. In regards to protection of the community and the access points, we addressed those too. So I think we addressed a lot of those concerns so that the residents can clearly know that we're looking into the project. We're…”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 1:28:05
“THIS QUESTION, I DID HAVE SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT HOUSING AS WELL. SO I KNOW THAT WE HAD SOME PROGRAMMING, AND CHIEF IS GOING TO FIND US SOME MONEY. FORFEITURE FUNDS WOULD BE A GREAT WAY TO ADD SOME ADDITIONAL OPPORTUNITIES AND FUNDING, BUT WE GOT TO GET THEM SOME MORE FORFEITURE.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 1:32:27
“Thank you. Did you still have the floor? They can go ahead. It's in reference to housing. Thank you, Mr. Chair.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 1:35:00
“Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, do we have, I know we talked about housing. Did we ever get a report on the MHOP spending? I know we'd asked for it in a previous meeting.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 1:35:17
“No, the new ordinance was just approved. I'm talking about the ordinance has been implemented since 83. So what have we done with MHOP spending? Because I really want to identify where we use those funds, where those money, and then what are we going to do moving forward? Because I heard a recommendation to move some of the MHOP funds, but we haven't collected any of the new ordinance. And part of the discussion I also want to have is housing. Right. So...”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 1:36:33
“Okay, so with the new ordinance and the program running a deficit and that being closed out at the time, when was that closed out and moved into general fund?”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 1:36:50
“And we haven't collected any funds since 2014? Correct. Okay, there's been no projects that have qualified using MeHOP since 2014. Right. Understood. The MEEHOP that we assign now, I know that we want to do a housing department division. Do we have any money allocated in this budget to go directly towards housing, whether it's programming, whether it's down payment assistance, whether it's acquiring property?”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 1:37:48
“So in this budget and moving forward, we have no money allocated for that. And we're planning on waiting on some funds to come in? correct on both points, yeah. Okay, so Board, that is one of my concerns. We definitely need to address some of the housing as Madam, I'm sorry, Councilman Lanier stated that we wanna have some funds available for programming, whether it's through working with the CRA, the Renaissance and Reclaim Program, or it's acquiring property. through with a bond and trying to stabilize some housing options. We had a developer that came in here that's looking at affordable…”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 1:41:13
“I really want us to allocate some funds in the meantime and repay what we possibly spend. We've talked about housing, and I think we have to be more intentional about allocating some funds and being clear to pull some funds from somewhere to put into housing programming.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 1:41:39
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 1:42:38
“So that is the point. I'd prefer that since those funds are waiting to come in, we can't just sit around and wait on funds to create the program. We need to budget and allocate the funds now. And when those funds come in, we can repay them to wherever else we pull them from. But we need to move forward with some housing options. And we've been waiting on that. We did just approve a project. So hopefully those will come in, but we need to budget now with our budget.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 2:19:29
“Mr. Chair? Yes. In addition to the Mount administration of the program, We've had previous conversations about who's going to administer the funds, and we don't really have a housing department or division on the city side. We talked previously about creating one, but how are we going to get those funds disseminated into the community once we have them allocated, and who's going to be accountable for them?”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 2:20:12
“this project. I bring that up, Mr. Chair, because the reason I don't want to wait for it to be appointed at staff level is we did this in previous years. I approved this at the board with some of my colleagues in past years, and it was never actually implemented. So, I want to make sure that we're clear with, if we're putting this budget together, who from staff is taking accountability to making sure it gets to the residents. Because we also talk about possibly partnering and working with the to have them work the program using the Renaissance and reclaim. And I think they have capable staff…”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 2:21:00
“C. R. A. C. R. A. would be excellent to handle it. Um, I believe also working with the CDC, we have those options as well. Um, our, our former. housing neighborhood director i believe she works with the cdc as the director as well so we need to make sure that we have those funds allocate them and put them into the community and make sure they're appointed to the community um the housing authority we have three uh entities we can work with right now okay sure um yes and then we have to wrap this up i have two things so uh with reference to uh the housing and uh the housing department i guess…”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026