Remarks by Tanya K. Bhatt
109 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 2 of 5
- Play at 5:56:22
“Wait, wait. I'm sorry. Earlier, before lunch, when we had the same question asked, we were told that without doing the calculations, it was unknown at this point if there would be cost savings. Like, yes, if you're borrowing less money, you're borrowing less money. Even I can understand that. However, given all the machinations, et cetera, it was unclear if there, that's what I heard coming from you guys. It's unclear at this moment without doing all the calculations if there would be a cost savings or how great that cost savings would be. Did I misunderstand that? It's entirely possible. Mr.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 5:57:34
“No, I understand that. I got that part. I was asking about the, I guess because you're right-sizing it, you would only be able to fit in as many projects as would fit into the allotted rate increase. But there wouldn't be cost savings for the projects, et cetera. Thank you.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 6:10:34
“Okay. That is literally what we are elected to do, to make hard decisions about public safety of which critical infrastructure needs is one of the most important things. I mean, are we going to punt all of our decisions to the voter? Then we'll have a direct democracy like they did in ancient Greece. Let's go.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 6:12:15
“We are back to square zero. We have no rate increases. We have no mandate from the voters to increase.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 6:12:27
“To me, it's a complete non-starter because then either we say, fine, we're not going to fix our infrastructure and we're going to turn into Fort Lauderdale, God forbid, or we're going to just be back here in six months going through this entire drama again. But am I misunderstanding that?”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 6:26:07
“Commissioner Salinas- Thank you, Mayor. You know, we have a very robust budget process, and this year it has been all the more so through the collective desire of this body to get into the weeds, have a line-by-line item document that we can review, have many lengthy conversations about how to find efficiencies and how to cut things that might be a little bit painful. I think it is premature to put in a false cap until we have completed the budget process. I share my colleagues' sentiments in that I think we are all here trying to find the best way forward. We don't have all the answers yet,…”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 7:48:38
“$200,000 per year? No, the one-time fee.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 7:59:10
“This was something we heard some months ago when we were still in furlough with the federal government. We made some modifications based on data analysis, and it's pretty self-explanatory. With five co-sponsors, I'll call the vote.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 8:06:32
“Can I ask some questions? Amy, if you have somebody who has a seawall that overtops and the water stays and sort of it becomes fetid water in their yard. So it doesn't literally go into the neighbor's yards, but it becomes effectively a swamp. Where would that fall? That's this item. That would be rectified by this.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 8:07:01
“Right. So the reason I'm asking is that I know of cases. I've been approached by residents who have neighbors who are not attentive homeowners and don't live in the properties but have their seawalls over top. The yards become a disaster. All kinds of bad things happen there, and the property is on either side. then have to deal with the consequences and have no recourse because it's not literally on their property, but it still affects some swamps of mosquitoes and whatever other issues.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 8:07:39
“Right. So my concern is that the people... It's one thing if it only affects your property, but if it's also affecting the neighbor's properties, is there a happy medium? so that there's like a two-year, a three-year, and a five-year. If it doesn't affect anybody else at all, then it's five-year. If it affects the public right away, then it's two-year. If it affects your neighbor, any one of your adjacent neighbors, then there's a three-year.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 8:16:13
“Thank you. So this is a second reading. This has been a couple of years in the making. We've had a lot of input from our Transportation Committee, e-bike and micromobility device users, bicyclists, pedestrians, the police department, park rangers, code, Marketing, I think almost every department has been touched with this. What we are trying to do is start setting a framework that we can all live with so that we can encourage micro mobility and set parameters for safe usage. We have seen devastating fatal accidents where usually the pedestrian suffers more injuries than the micro mobility…”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 8:19:03
“I will add that literally this morning, Axios put out an article where the headline is South Florida sees a surge in e-bike injuries among kids. Yesterday, the county had a very lengthy discussion about banning e-micromobility devices outright on some of their county roads, not all at this moment, but there has been discussion about opportunities for other cities to adopt portions of their ordinance that was discussed yesterday and unincorporated Dade having that same ability. That is not the goal that we are trying to effectuate here. We are trying to effectuate a way for us to coexist, and…”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 8:24:34
“So Matthew, to your point with, you know, it's just, it's getting late and we have a lot to go through still. So we did have that conversation and I do hear the concern. You're not the only one to have raised it. And in discussing this with Mark, correct me if I'm wrong or if you see a different path through now and our police department, what, the consensus was is that you might be asked to stop if you are riding an e-bike but with your battery removed but you won't be penalized because your battery will be removed the problem as we saw it um with codifying this is that it then makes things…”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 8:27:40
“And I think, remember, this also is taking effect in some time from now, if I remember correctly. It's in August of next year.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 8:27:49
“And so... Give us time to, let's do this in incremental steps. I mean, if I had my druthers, I'd spend a whole bunch of money to build protected bike lanes and do all kinds of things and build a second beach walk. And those things are not in my purview. So before we make draconian changes, I mean, it's taken two years to get to this point. So let us figure this out. Let us put this into action. Let's see how it goes. By the time this law goes into effect, we're going to have speed feedback monitors on the beach walk. And we might find all kinds of new information between now and when this…”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 8:28:55
“He would not be in violation if the battery is gone, which is what we're saying.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 8:29:25
“The goal is not to be punitive to people. The goal is to encourage better behavior. If you're doing something egregiously unsafe or stupid or racist or homophobic, there's not a lot of discretion there. If you're doing something that, hey, that's not OK to do, please don't do it again, move it along kind of thing, they have the option to be mindful about the person, the knowledge base, the intent, how it's being handled, and proceed that way. you know, our police chief will tell you that officers have discretion, and that is why we spend as much time and effort hiring intelligent, astute,…”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 8:31:25
“Let us try it the way we think is the best way to try it before we decide that's not the best way to do it.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 8:33:03
“I'm pretty certain that the gentleman in question would not have gone to TGK for riding an e-bike in South Point Park. I mean, I don't...”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 8:33:13
“Or on the beach walk. And also, I forgot the other point that I was going to make. Never mind.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 8:33:35
“Yes, and I just remembered the other point, which is that this does not apply to ADA devices, lest anybody be concerned. Since there was a mention of a special needs person, I wanted to make sure that everybody understands this does not apply to electric ADA devices.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 8:38:12
“I also would like to hear from Frank, but I would not be comfortable in the slightest turning something over without a proper vetting of a high-level vetting.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 8:38:27
“Because look at what has happened on a national basis, where high-level, supposedly secure, purest motivation companies, and at every state level.”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026
- Play at 8:42:45
“Frank, could you advise how we would safeguard sensitive information, employees' home addresses, date of birth, Social Security, that kind of information? We've seen it time and time again when AI is allowed into systems that things go wrong. I just read an article today about how AI broke out of its proscribed definitions and I don't even remember what happened because it was like a bad headline of a B-rated movie, but it basically said no to the guidelines that were governing it and went off and did its own thing. So I'm not... objecting in principle to the idea of finding ways to find…”
City Commission · Jul 22, 2026