Remarks by John C. Herbst
43 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 2
- Play at 5:12
“Mayor, can I just ask a question? So one of the things in the minutes where we're talking about the budget workshop is you may recall that we had requested that information be provided to us as it related to a study that had been done about cost savings. And I don't believe we've received that. Can we get an update on that, please?”
City Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 5:40
“It's in the minutes. So that's why I was saying, so if it's something that was, so that's why I wanted to refer to it. So it's in the minutes and we had asked for that. And so I thought good time to address it.”
City Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 6:15
“I've only got a few weeks left, so yeah, sooner rather than later.”
City Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 55:54
“So I've gotten lots of emails about the flooding that we had. And I'm going to sort of take a contrarian view. I happen to be down at a concert along the Hollywood Broadwalk on Friday night when they were doing that. On the Broadwalk? On the Broadwalk. And I watched the ocean work its way up along the sand and then across the Broadwalk and then down the street and then on to A1A and into the intercoastal. and took my boots off and rolled my pants up and walked through a foot and a half of water six blocks to get to the garage and then rolled my motorcycle through all that. So what I've been…”
City Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 57:24
“covering all with the sand. It was. I had pictures that day from Pompano to Fort Lauderdale on the beach to Hollywood Beach. And every single one of them, by the pier up in Pompano, every single one of them was completely underwater. Every street was completely underwater. So what I've been trying to explain to the residents that I talked to is, you know, essentially from Palm Beach down to Key West Beach, is experiencing the same flooding everywhere. A king tide, high tide. This was an especially bad one, as the paper pointed out. There's only so much we can do. And I hope people understand…”
City Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:09:47
“Actually, Mayor, before we get to that, if you don't mind, I just want to thank Ben Rogers. He did a tremendous amount of work in helping to move these forward, as did Sherry McCartney and her staff over in the attorney's office. So to everybody that was involved in getting all this done on behalf of the tenants up there at Shelter and everybody, I can tell you they really appreciate everything you've done for them. So to your staff and to you guys for getting these things across the finish line, I just want to say thank you very much. I appreciate the efforts.”
City Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:10:26
“Please tell them I really appreciate their efforts. Thank you.”
City Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:14:27
“A question for you before you go away. So you and I have talked in the past about some of the funds that you offered. You know, one of my criticisms historically going back in time And I understand it may no longer be the case today was the type of funds that were being offered. And you were explaining to me a little bit more that essentially you're white labeling existing funds as opposed to using proprietary funds. Talk a little bit more about that for me.”
City Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:15:34
“So, a question to staff then. And I don't know if this is a Glenn question or if this is a Linda question. I'm always about having more choices, not taking choices away from people. There may be people that are quite happy with Nationwide. I don't necessarily want to eliminate that option for them and push them into another provider. I was always unhappy with the fact that we had never competed these things in the first place, which is why Linda and I have this conversation probably once every six months about when we're going to put these things out to bid, and I'm glad that we've done that.…”
City Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:17:25
“So, Glenn, talk to me a little bit about the process.”
City Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:18:15
“So remind me again why that was, because I'm actually a participant in VALIC through the city of Jacksonville with my 401 and 457 plans that I had when I was an employee up there. So help me understand why VALIC scored so highly up there.”
City Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:18:47
“I guess none of them have been in the VALIC plan before then. because that was not my experience when I was at Jacksonville, all due respect. But having actually been a VALIC plan participant, I can tell you that was not necessarily my experience.”
City Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:19:33
“So I don't think this is a protest. I see this as sort of a different question. Yeah. You know, somebody's relationship with their investment advisor is sort of their relationship with their doctor. It's a personal relationship. And I'm always very hesitant when I force somebody to switch providers. It's one thing when they voluntarily choose to switch providers. And by the way, again, I was the one who's been pushing us to switch providers for the better part of 15 years now. So I'm not saying I've been a fan of Nationwide. I was not a fan of ICMA, not a fan of Valic. I've not been a fan of…”
City Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:22:12
“By the way, those were the same guys that threw out the evaluation we did in 2020, and it's taken us six years to do this all over again. So I was not particularly impressed with our evaluation committee either. So our process on this has not exactly been the poster child for doing things right. And our evaluation committee, I'm hoping we're picking better people on the evaluation committee than we did the last time.”
City Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:22:45
“Let me even back up, because the question is not, I don't care if you've got a cop and a firefighter on there. Do they know anything about finances? Last time I checked, I'm a finance guy, and I know nothing about putting out a fire.”
City Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:24:24
“Well, but we're not bound by the EC. Let's stop that conversation. The EC makes a recommendation. And then we, as the elected officials, make a decision. So it's simply advisory in nature. So we need to be very clear about what our evaluation committees are serving to do. They're serving to make a recommendation to us which we could either accept or reject. So I understand your point, but to your point, Commissioner, I don't believe that's the question she asked. The question she asked is what can we do, not what did the evaluation committee say.”
City Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:25:27
“Do we need to go back to the EC or can't we just decide tonight?”
City Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:26:47
“That's what I'm thinking. That's a good point. So thank you, Vice Mayor, for bringing that out. You're bringing up good points. That's a very good point, and I'm glad you brought that to the conversation.”
City Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:27:44
“Much better way of explaining it. Yeah, there you go. Every once in a while I add some value, so I appreciate it.”
City Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:32:02
“Like I said, I'll leave you with this. I rolled everything out into IRAs. Yep. Fair enough. So dissatisfaction drove that. I would have preferred to have left it there. So do a better job with my employees than was done with me. And we'll be really happy. Yes, sir. We will do that. Thank you. All right. Thank you, sir.”
City Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:33:37
“So I first brought this up four finance directors ago. Thank you, Linda. Yes.”
City Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:36:13
“Well, Commissioner Herbst, I'll defer to you if you wanted to start. So I didn't have the benefit of the afternoon discussion, but I know we've been working on the loop, obviously, for up in uptown for quite a while. That was a significant part of the initiative to develop the Cypress Creek area as another economic engine for the city of Fort Lauderdale. We think this is an important initiative to bring more housing into some of these areas and to align those residential areas with some of these commercial areas. So I'm not sure, again, what the discussion was for the afternoon. But barring…”
City Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:37:37
“I apologize, Mayor. I just jumped over to PH3. Yeah, I thought you were referring to that. The thing got stuck, and it rolled over to the next one. I apologize.”
City Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:37:48
“Yeah, no, no, no, no. You said PH2, and I turned the page to look at it, and it rolled into PH3. There was no discussion on PH3. No, no, no. I apologize. That's why I was talking about the loop, and I was wondering why I was getting blank looks from everybody.”
City Commission · Oct 6, 2026
- Play at 1:38:03
“No, actually I agree. I think actually postponing this makes a lot of sense. We had our initial presentation from Doty with their concept for what they wanted to do over there. I thought that made a lot of sense. But one of the things that I pointed out at the time is based on my history with the city, I know the restrictions on this that relate to the fact that it's a HUD finance property. And for those of you that don't know this, everybody thought this was a CRA property and it was not a CRA property because it had HUD funding into it. And we actually had to go back and repay a substantial…”
City Commission · Oct 6, 2026