Remarks by Richard Chervony
409 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 3 of 17
- Play at 2:55:00
“Because of you. And if you go ahead and lower it, trust me, tomorrow morning I'll be calling the other three, advising them also, hey, this is the price that we have. There is a bargain going on. You better jump on it or else you lose it. Of course. You were going to jump in.”
Village Commission · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 2:58:35
“Okay. All right. Or they can be 201,000. I mean...”
Village Commission · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 2:59:00
“And Vita gave us a boat tour of the island anytime we wanted, once a year.”
Village Commission · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 3:01:24
“Yeah. Oh, but it's just two items. Okay. Not a lot of test reviews here, right? Okay. Feel better yes.”
Village Commission · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 3:31:07
“The month that Sandra has been here, she has found about the $8 million that we were always hoping there were in reserves and that disappeared. They were in the wrong accounts. Now you have a telling of what is in the proper accounts, who owes who money. proper recalculations. Grants are going out on a timely basis. Thank you to Lakeisha, who was by Ralph, Ralph and Angela and company. And I'll say it straight to their face, they did not do their job properly. And this is why we are in the mess we're in. My answer is until I see this $5.9 million, In our hands, I'm not claiming victory.”
Village Commission · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 3:32:05
“That is wise. We have to do a budget without that 5.9. Correct. Once we get the 5.9, we can discuss how to spend it, misspend it.”
Village Commission · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 3:37:42
“There's no new salaries you can put in September, though. There's no new salaries you're going to be able to put in September unless you take from one pot and switch the pots around. We're going to vote on a millage today.”
Village Commission · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 3:37:57
“A maximum millage, for instance. And if we remove Ron Book's $50,000, And we lower the millage to a 6.5. For argument's sake. I'm using easy numbers. You cannot come back in September and say, I want to hire this individual that's going to lobby on our behalf for $50,000.”
Village Commission · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 3:39:58
“And I said this last year. Unfortunately, I was voted down. This is an election year. This is not the year where you play with the budget, where you increase the budget now to later be the heroes and cut it down. That's next year's budget that's an off-election year. In regards to what you said about Tallahassee, totally disagree with you. We have a new governor. We're going to have a new president. senators and representatives. We don't know where they stand. We need to meet them. We need to greet them and we need to start molding them as to our needs and our requests for future generations.…”
Village Commission · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 3:41:58
“So there's ways of working this budget whereby... I'm not saying to bring it to the minimum level of what, you know, the bare bones minimum to say now that we are going to bring it up to an eight and 8.5. And then at the next meeting, we're coming down to a seven. It's a portion to me. It's a portion. We don't need in my calculations. I don't need seven. I still have a 0.21 margin. In my personal calculations, I even have a little bit more than 0.21. And I asked Frank to add coffee and tea back for the employees, which is a minimal amount, but at least, hey, you've got to give them coffee and…”
Village Commission · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 3:42:54
“I will vote against anything above seven.”
Village Commission · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 3:43:09
“But when we're talking about the seven, and we choose the items that we're going to include in the seven, I'm going to be talking not only about this year's budget. I'm talking about next year's budget as well, where we will all be involved in because we are not only losing $150,000 in homestead exemption this year. I got to think that we're losing 250 the following year. That's right. Which is going to bring us down to over a million and a half in our budget. It brings us down 700,000 this year. It's going to be a million and a half next year. They were short. So I got to look at not only…”
Village Commission · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 3:46:11
“Let me go one step further. I'm going to give you some other information that you people might be aware of, might not be aware of. Our charter requires us to have a 20% general fund slash utility emergency fund. It comes out to $2.9 million. This year, 2025, 26, it's in there, in paper. That fund does not exist. So if we would have had the emergency, a hurricane hit us, we would be shit out of luck. in conversations with Frank. He says, what do we do in case of emergency? I said, we have $30 million for City Hall. So if we need $2 million to cover the emergency, you borrow it from City Hall,…”
Village Commission · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 3:48:18
“That's how sad it is. And we have upped our debt millage to 3.49. Which increased our taxes, God knows what. It's spelled out here. So Sandra provided us with this case study of a home worth $526,000.”
Village Commission · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 3:50:45
“Add to that for the single family homeowners, an extra $125 a year more. that utilities are going up on a monthly basis, which is another tax that we pay.”
Village Commission · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 3:53:04
“Also, mind you, and I want people to realize this, within my 7% millage increase, there is an even 3% COLA increase for all employees Because let's be realistic. When I said some employees earn bupkis, utilities are the ones that have the lowest pay scale. They're all getting a 3% recognition. I can't offer them more because we don't have it. If we get the 5.9, I'm willing to sit down and see how we spread the wealth across all borders. But That 5.9 is not guaranteed. And I'm not making that promise. If we get it, yes, I will sit down and figure out a plan for everybody to be happy.”
Village Commission · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 3:54:37
“I keep talking about Village Hall. I still have another vision, which I've discussed with you, and I'll make it public today. There's another property that I would like to purchase. for an aquatic park for North Bay Village with what funds? You know, I don't have funds. So I'm not using the 5.9 for that. I'm using the 5.9 to reimburse the 20% that my charter has to be there, 10 and 10 of whatever figure comes out to be. I don't know the 2.9 is accurate or not because you have to add whatever. And if we pass hurricane season and we can only put in 2.1, we only put in 2.1. Sure. There's no real…”
Village Commission · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 4:00:42
“And when you're doing that Doris, I'm going to ask you to ask what is, The estimated cost. Correct. That move.”
Village Commission · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 4:01:23
“What is it going to cost next year if you decide to give a 3% COLA at a new rate? Correct.”
Village Commission · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 4:01:33
“Pay scale goes differently. Do you have that estimate?”
Village Commission · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 4:02:17
“You have to figure out what the police salary is for this year.”
Village Commission · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 4:21:03
“This side of the dais. I'll be the big mouth again. I want each one of us So look at the book and compare the increases of each individual position. Thankfully, they're not by names, they're by positions. You will notice that there is a compression issue, but some people are up to make $30,000 more. Some people are not going to make the $30,000. They're not going to make $2,000. Not even $5,000 because they're coming in now and they're coming in at the level that they have to come in. There is a real compression issue, but this is not the time that we can solve it. If we get the monies that…”
Village Commission · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 4:22:45
“And for the record, I had a conversation with Cesar for four hours one night, and we discussed all this quite open, and he knows exactly where I stand.”
Village Commission · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 4:23:58
“I will not go higher. That's the whole thing.”
Village Commission · Jul 28, 2026
- Play at 4:24:24
“Correct. Then you're removing from me the other items that I want to say.”
Village Commission · Jul 28, 2026