Village Council - Regular Meeting

That was a close call. Oh, I forgot to rearrange the seats. I wanted to sit in your old seat. That's really good. Like last night I was asleep Make good choices.

Hold on. Here's the people.

I'm going to take a little bit of credit, and I'm going to hand this to you. Can we get to see? Yeah. Okay. This is a whole bunch of them. What is this?

They're the villagers. What is this? Presidents. I don't know. Presidents here?

It's on all the time.

Good afternoon, everybody. It's Tuesday, May 5th. It's exactly 6 p.m., and this is our meeting. that we don't get through the 16 issues. All right, so what we'll do is I've called the meeting to order. I will have the clerk call a roll of the members.

Council Member Greenberg.

Present.

Council Member McDonald.

Here.

Council Member Meyer.

Here.

Vice Mayor Furman.

Here.

Mayor Corradino.

I'm here.

Mayor McCormick. Present.

Let's do a pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Mr. Del Prado is in the audience. Let us know if we screw up or do anything crazy from the other side.

Yeah, well, I'd like to know from your perspective.

Minutes, and I'm sorry, consent agenda.

That's easy, it's only three items.

All right, does anybody wanna pull anything on the consent agenda? Hearing none.

I'd like to pull tab 3. Sorry, Mr. All right, tab 3.

Does anybody want to speak? Does anybody else want to pull anything on the consent rejection? Hearing none. I'll ask if anybody wants to speak on anything else on the consent agenda, tabs one or two. We'll open up the public comment for tabs one or two on the consent agenda. Seeing none, we will close the public comment on that, and we will take a motion on tabs one and two. I'll move. Oh, by the way, I want to introduce everybody. I forgot. This is a blast from the past. Council Member Jim McDonald is back after how many years?

I last served, I finished my second term in 2020.

2020, so you were first put on in 2012, and you were honorably discharged in 2012. That is true. Right?

And then I got recruited to come back for six months only, though, folks.

That's okay. It's a limited engagement for six months. It's residency like in Las Vegas. There you go. Welcome back. Good to be here. All right, don't mess it up. I'll coach you through it. There you go. Okay, we have a motion on tabs. We have a second?

I'll second.

All right, we motion a second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All right, Mr. Fairman, tab three.

OK, so tab 3, we deferred from last meeting. This is the raised crosswalks. And we had a meeting on site and looked at that. I think for right now, and Madam Manager, just to confirm, we are changing the styling and the construction a little bit as far as materials. we're gonna approve the contract and you'll be renegotiating the contract for any change orders which shouldn't make the whole set of crosswalks less expensive.

Correct.

And you're gonna consider two, I know we have a drawing basically that's similar to whether it's gonna be stamped concrete or brick pavers for the ramp portions of it.

Correct, we're gonna ask them to just give us a sample before we make a decision. the stamped concrete would be the cheaper alternative, but not sure how it'll look. We just wanna take a look at what the sample looks like. If it looks good, then that's the way we'll go. Otherwise, we'll price it out with the pavers in concrete.

Okay. Thank you, that's all I wanted to bring up, Mr. Mayor.

Okay, great. Anybody wanna make any other comments on this item? All right, seeing none, we'll open the public hearing. Does anybody want to speak on this item? We'll close the public hearing. We'll take a motion. Okay, motion and second? All second. Okay, motion and second. All in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? Number three passes. So we'll go to the agenda and order of business. Does anybody mind if we pull out a special request to take tab 16 and do it after the proclamation presentations? Does anybody hate that idea?

Tab 16?

Yeah, tab 16.

Mr. Mayor, tab 16... Oh, okay, yeah, you can take it out of order. I thought I had to wait till seven, but not anymore. Can't be done after seven.

Right, okay. Perfect, we'll do that. Okay, so with that, we have our special presentations. Back after a year's absence, we have the Teacher of the Year and the Rookie Teacher of the Year recognitions, and Councilmember Greenberg is gonna do the honors tonight because you're so involved with the teaching stuff.

All right, so...

We have the names. They're all pronounceable. Thank you.

Yeah, it does. It looks pretty good. I can still screw up some of these, though. I don't know who's here. If you're here, then you can come. Let's read them all. I'll ask you all to come up, and we'll give you your proclamations. If not, we will get them to people otherwise.

If they're not here, ask them to raise their hand.

Raise your hand if you're not here. That's why I did not make it as a teacher or rookie teacher of the year. Starting with Howard Drive Elementary, our teacher of the year is Linda Holcomb. He's here in spirit. Our Rookie Teacher of the Year is Jordan Butler-Putt. All right, excellent, excellent. Welcome here. We'll see who's, are we doing them one at a time? Yes, come on up, come on up. She's coming up already. How do you wanna do this? Do you wanna have everybody? Let me see who else is here. From Palmetto Elementary, Brittany Batten-Jones is not here. She has little kids, I'm sure. Pinecrest Elementary, Maria Carranza-Gutierrez. Yes, come on up. And you're the Teacher of the Year, which I think you knew, so congratulations on that. And the Rookie Teacher of the Year, Nancy Padron. OK, excellent, excellent. Palmetto Middle, the Nazi Teacher of the Year is Monica Alvarez. And the Rookie Teacher of the Year is Veronica Borrego. And from the high school, the Teacher of the Year is Sandra Tilton. And the Rookie Teacher of the Year is Ernesto Farris. So welcome, the four of you.

And we have Brittany.

We'll take pictures now so that you get nice pictures.

Yes. Maria is here. Drone is here. And still. High school.

All right.

Oh. Who didn't get one? Wait, they put yours in a weird order. Are you sure you got one? I don't care. Did the kids vote on this? Is this how it works?

Absolutely. We're going to invade your pictures here. We're crashing.

I know, what a great. Really good seeing you. It's so good to see you here. Is anyone from the school? We'll get the other one. For some?

Do we just send them? We'll send them all. Very sensitive.

Okay, our next item of business is a, Priscilla, it's a proclamation, correct? Yes. Okay, we have a proclamation here, and this is for the Miami Villagers, and Alana, you will be receiving the proclamation?

Yes, Mr. President.

can make you wait. We probably won't get done until midnight, 1 o'clock.

You take your pick. I'm happy to accept.

Okay, you can take it now or you can take it behind what's door number three.

So let me... Ladies.

You're there? All the villagers are here. Well, I want to read the proclamation first. I want to read the for the Miami villagers on the occasion of its 60th anniversary. So it says here that whereas 2026 marks the 60th anniversary of the villagers, Miami's oldest historic preservation organization, obviously founded in 1966 with a mission to protect, preserve, and promote the rich architectural and cultural heritage of our community. For six decades, they've played a vital role in safeguarding historic landmarks throughout Miami-Dade County, ensuring that future generations may experience and appreciate the region's unique history and character. They have demonstrated an enduring commitment to preservation through advocacy, education, and awarding of grants supporting the restoration of historically significant sites, including contributions to the village of Pinecrest for the preservation and enhancement of Pinecrest Gardens. with historic preservation strengths and community identity, fosters civic pride, supports economic vitality, and connects residents to the stories and places that define our shared heritage. So now for, therefore, I, Joseph M. Corradino, the mayor of the village of Pinecrest, on behalf of the village council and its citizens, do hereby recognize and congratulate the Miami villagers today on its 60th anniversary. We would like a speech.

Who's doing it? No, go on. On behalf of the villagers, thank you for this honor. Truly, thank you for this honor. Mayor Garzino, council members, Madam Manager, we're very excited about it. Yes, we are. I don't even remember. I know. Thank you. Congratulations. It's good to see you back. Thank you.

It's an encore performance. All right, is the applicant for tab 16 in the building? Let's do it. They wanted me to do it now. There's an issue with doing it. Let's do tab 16. Let's see what happens.

This is Evelyn, she's not here. For tab 16?

Yeah, should we wait on Mayor Greer? She wanted to be done early. Did she say she was coming in person? It sounded like it.

Does someone need to make a presentation?

Is tab 15 here? 16. Well, if it's 15 here, we can do both of those.

You know, I think they're probably anticipating more close to seven. If the mayor walks in the door, we'll do her. Let's go to tab four and just start knocking these babies out. Tab four. These are all second reading.

We're going to second reading. Okay, so this is a second reading for an ordinance of the Village of Pinecrest, Florida, creating section 36-5, establishing regulations for the operation of micromobility devices within the village, providing for solvability, providing for conflicts, providing for codification, and providing for an effective date.

Last time, a number of people have asked for an ordinance that would address the issue of where and when micromobility devices can be used. And we've drafted around the preemptions that are contained in the Florida statutes in order to provide the maximum amount of protection for pedestrians. Encourage responsible operation, require underage users to comply, and hopefully their parents to help control it. And we're doing, I think, as much as we can do to encourage the safe use of electric micromobility devices within the preemptions that have been set by floor law.

Anybody want to comment on that?

I'd like to hear from the police chief just real quick, partly on the training and how we're thinking about doing that, whether we're going to offer classes a couple times a year due on demand. And you told me a story before the meeting about somebody getting killed by an unauthorized vehicle, and I think that's an interesting story as well.

Good evening. I'll start with the education. So we haven't actually developed a course yet, but what we plan to do is develop an educational course for the parent as well as the child who wants to ride the specific type of micromobility device, specifically the e-bikes is what we're really looking at. Depending on how popular, we can offer it monthly, we could offer it every six months, we're just gonna have to wait and see how much demand there is for it, but we'll be prepared to offer it probably as often as every month if we need to. Oh, and so I was mentioning to Council Member Fairman, or Vice Mayor Fairman, I'm sorry, earlier today there was a case out of California that specifically dealt with the e-motorcycle. So just for clarity's sake, our ordinance deals with micro, I can't say that word, micro-mobility devices. The e-bikes, the Class 1, 2, and 3, the e-scooters, stuff like that. that are street legal. We're putting some kind of regulations on them. The e-motorcycles are not street legal. They are illegal under Florida law to be on public streets and public roads. sidewalks there was a case out of california where a mother was actually charged criminally because she not only bought the e-motorcycle for her kid who ended up hitting a pedestrian and killing them but she actually encouraged the bad behavior that the kid was exhibiting so it was just an interesting um that I saw, we do see around the village some of these e-motorcycles that these kids have. We will intervene when we see them. But I think for anyone who may be watching, it's very important to realize that the e-motorcycles are not legal on the streets. They are only legal on private property. So if you did get one of those e-motorcycles for your child, please do not let them ride on the streets, the sidewalks, anywhere in the public area.

I have a question. Yes, sir. Chief, so you catch someone with an e-motorcycle on the street. You intervene, but what does that mean?

We will take the motorcycle. We will call their parent. We can seize the motorcycle. We will probably end up giving it back to the parents. But if it is a juvenile on the e-motorcycle, we will keep them there until a responsible adult parent, somebody can come and get them and then educate them on what the law is.

But there's no civil penalty for it?

Yeah, I believe there is. First offense, we will just kind of do the education unless we see them acting reckless. A lot of times the kids are not necessarily being reckless. They're just using them as transportation, sometimes not even realizing that what they have is not legal.

How fast do they go?

I don't know, but faster than the 28 mile an hour limit that an e-bike can go.

Can an adult ride an e-motorcycle?

Well, they can ride a motorcycle as long as it is a street legal motorcycle with a driver's license and everything that comes along with those little e-motorcycles. They're not street legal, so you can't even get them registered.

Got it. And you can tell the difference, obviously.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Some of the e-motorcycles look a lot like an e-bike. And unless you actually have it there in front of you inspecting it, you can't always tell the difference.

But the major difference is the speed, the ultimate speed of it.

And the way it moves. You don't have to pedal an e-motorcycle.

It doesn't have a pedal. It's a motorcycle. faster than 20 miles per hour. And if it's faster than 20 miles per hour, it doesn't fit any of our e-bike classifications. And therefore, by default, it's not an approved e-bike.

But they're classified at different levels, right?

Yeah.

An e-bike classified as they are classified in our ordinance is considered a bicycle under Florida law and may operate anywhere that a bicycle may operate. However, Florida law recently changed and created some speed limits for operation of e-bikes on sidewalks. They have to slow down to a reasonable speed when they're within a certain distance of a pedestrian. But they are legal on, under Florida law, they are legal to the same extent largely as an unpowered bicycle. Got it. And then there are e-motorcycles, which are motorcycles, just like a Harley, but it's electric. And those are street legal, but one would need to have a motorcycle license to operate that. Anyone else?

Thank you.

All right. Anybody from the public want to speak on this? All right. We'll close the public hearing. We'll take a motion. Do we have a second? Second. We have a motion and a second. Ms. Clark?

Council Member Greenberg? Yes. Council Member McDonald? Yes. Council Member Meyer? Yes. Vice Mayor Furman? Yes. Mayor Cordino? Yes. Motion is approved.

All right. We'll go with tab 5.

TAP 5 is an ordinance of the Village of Pinecrest, Florida amending section 36-4 of the Village Code of Ordinances to clarify and confirm either authorization to place, install, and operate speed detection systems and roadways maintained as school zones to traffic enforcement procedures when speed detection systems are utilized to enforce school zone speed limit violations, and three hearing procedures relating to school zone speed limit violations, providing for implementation, providing for severability, providing for conflicts, providing for codification, and providing for an effective fee.

All right, who's got this one? We'll take this. This is the second reading. We had extensive discussion last time. The purpose of this ordinance is to clarify and confirm the speed zones primarily around Palmetto Junior and Palmetto Elementary School. As we discussed last time, those speed zones are continuous, meaning that it's an overlapping speed zone that applies at all relevant times. to the entire area that covers the frontages of both schools. The original traffic study that was provided that the vendor commissioned referred to the two schools separately and it should be referred to as a single speed zone so that was corrected and updated and this ordinance clarifies that for the benefit of the public. And we had some discussion last time about the action that the village took since discovering the slight discrepancy and had held off on enforcing the tickets that were issued within the relevant areas during the pendency of this. And once this becomes effective, we'll resume the enforcement within those periods.

Okay, anybody have any comments on this one?

Seeing none, we'll open the public hearing. Would you like to comment?

And I also have my boss, Roger Poe, who drafted the ordinance and can clarify it further. Perfect, sir.

Good to see you. My name is David Arnold, 13621. First of all, let me tell you, I am not your adversary. I'm trying to present this just as an interested citizen to put you on notice of what's happening. I'm not opposed to school zones. I'm not opposed to speed detection devices. But there's a problem, one, with this second ordinance. is that it's attempting to go back, it's clearly ex post facto, it's never gonna stand up anywhere, because it's attempting to make criminal, these fines, backdated, retroactive to January 9th of 2024 when the ordinance was in place. This ordinance by itself is kind of an admission against interest that it wasn't correct. retroactive, put it way back and make these people that were not guilty, guilty. You can't do that. But this is the small problem. The big problem is that the Florida has been trying to make the traffic laws uniform since 1971 when they passed 316, Florida Statute 316, the Florida Uniform Traffic Control Law. And ever since then, they've been trying to The provisions in the statutes in 316, there's no local authority shall enact or enforce any ordinance on a matter covered by this chapter unless expressly authorized. The Board of Statute 316-0745 is another one that required that the Board of Department of Transportation compile a manual of uniform traffic control. When 316 of school speed zones, it required that the Florida Department of Transportation compile and publish and transmit a manual on all school zones. It required to put in all the requirements for the speed zones. And these were applicable to the entire state, the state roads, the municipal roads, and county roads. And pursuant to that, the Department of Transportation did an amendment to their manual in 2018. In 2018, they came up with the specifications for school zones. And that manual provided that it was to be effective, but everybody should comply with it by July 1 of 2023. So it requires compliance, so you have four and a half years, municipalities have four and a half years to comply with the Florida Department of Transportation guidelines. This manual was then adopted If you think about, I use Pinecrest Palmetto Elementary as a good example, but they defined in the manual a school area. A school area is only the streets adjacent to the school. Only the streets adjacent to the school. A school zone is also defined and can only be in the school area. The disordinates that you have, you've got the school zones all hundreds of feet in every direction. It covers everything, every roadway around the schools, which is outside of the zone area. It then identifies a reduced post-speed limit and defines that. And it can only be used when the students are arriving and departing. And it has to be identified. through an engineering study of a specific site. And the village has never conducted such a, I asked for public records, they have never conducted an engineering study to place these in. And the ordnance you have extends the school zones far outside the bounds of the school area. The... Another provision is the school zones are not to be applied in a blank manner for all streets within a school area. This ordinance goes hundreds of feet on each side of the school area on 124th Street, hundreds of feet on each side on 128th Street and south. So it is totally blank and it's prohibited by code. The other thing is the school zones are only permitted, the only schools that are eligible for speed zones are elementary schools and middle schools. High schools are not permitted school zones unless they have an engineering study that identifies a special need. Other than that, Palmetto High School and Gulliver, they're not entitled to school speed zones. The other thing, the school zones are supposed to be kept as short as possible. And the ordinance you have now spreads them all over the place. The entire area is a posted school zone. The other thing here is if you have a 35 mile per hour posted speed zone, and you have that in every one of your school zones that are listed, the minimum speed is 20 miles per hour, not 15. So that if they've been using and issuing these violations based upon a 15 mile per hour speed limit since it was enacted in 2024, they've got the wrong speed limit. One of the things then what came up with it was that the Florida Statute 316-08, in parentheses, nine, came out. And what the state did is there was no real enforcement, there was no penalties for not complying with the Florida Department of Transportation guidelines. So what the state did say is if you comply with the guidelines, you can have speed detection devices. That's a condition. And if you look in, as an attorney, you know that the courts look at the intention of the legislature when they interpret. And if you look at Senate Bill 588, it analyzes this particular act, which allowed for the speed detection devices. And it said the... The state is authorizing governments to place or install an automated speed detection system on a street or highway under a strict restriction if they were permitted, placed, and installed in accordance with the regulations. Here, the village hasn't even, they haven't done anything to comply with the regulations. This should have never been in place in the first place.

You typically give two minutes for public comment. I think you've emailed everybody this.

One last thing. The consequences of this, it's already been heard by the Florida Supreme Court when the Department of Revenue tried to impose a tax which was not authorized by law. If you have a speeding violation, it's not authorized by law. The Florida Supreme Court said the charges imposed without legal authority are void from inception. The government has a right to retain They have no right to retain this. They have to give it all back. And my point to this council is if you're proactive, you can do things today that reduce your potential liability for class action. But you've got to be proactive. I can go into more detail with the attorney, but there's more things you can do today that would Try to protect you from the class action because I think class action attorneys look for numbers and they look for money. And this has all the elements of a class action suit. But you're not the only one. Every single community here is involved.

Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Is there anybody else that wants to comment on this ordinance?

It would be great if you could. One quick comment. The folks from Red Speed who conducted the traffic study and provided the supplemental are here if you guys have any questions on the study. Thank you.

OK. Mr. Greenberg?

I just have a couple of questions, and it may be for Mr. Poe or Mr. Bierman or whoever wants to answer them. And first of all, thank you for the presentation. I mean, I think there's interesting issues here.

A number of questions.

I mean, first of all, the zones are set by the boundaries. What's defined is the schools. I'm talking about primarily around the Palmetto Middle slash elementary rectangle, for lack of a better word. Who set that? I mean, how was that set? Was that by the village? Was that by the school board? And when and how long has it been? It was their determination that those two, the middle school and the elementary school, are treated as one?

That zone was there when the village was established.

And obviously, the high school, too. They established that, right? OK. And just one other question right now is the concern about ex post facto. I may play a lawyer on TV, but not right here. I mean, is that a concern here? I mean, is this a criminal? violation that we're dealing with or are we dealing when it comes to these I mean I understand the traffic violations most certainly can be but in this context are these criminal violations?

These are not criminal traffic violations. And if when the camera enforced violations are paid there's no impact to the driver's license. There's no points or anything.

I guess my issue is that it seems that what we're talking about here, the questions that Mr. Arnold is raising, and again, that's a really interesting issue, but are really about the way that the school zones are set up. It's less a question of our cameras and our enforcement and more that. I mean, to me, it comes back to that core issue. And that's not our issue. And I think based on that and based on the legal advice that we've been given, That's why I don't share the concern. I do if it's OK. I mean, Mr. Oro, I would like hearing the response to that. If I can just briefly, I don't want to, it's not my job to call people here, but I did see you shaking your head.

I wouldn't do it, but we'll take them out of order. We'll take them out of order.

The thing is that it's not responsible for setting up the school zone. What kicked us off was when the city enacted the ordinance. The responsibilities on the city to make sure they comply with the Board Administrative Code. Because the city's the one that did the ordinance.

If the city had not done the ordinance, we wouldn't be here today.

But the city did the ordinance, and that kicked in this, because that was the carrot the state offered to say, if you comply, you can now get the speed detection devices. And that was pretty specific. When they go in and says that it's conditioned If they're permitted to place and installed in accordance with the regulations developed, then you can have speed detection devices. It's condition preceded. And the city has never fulfilled that condition preceded. So that's the key.

Thank you. I met with Mr. Arnold, and I think I understand his argument. But I, like you, see it in the sense that the city doesn't do those things. We made a public records request for the city's engineering study for school zones. The city has given them everything we have because we don't do school zones. The schools do that. that every school has complied with the law in setting up a school zone and a speed limit and all those types of things. It's 100% Miami-Dade County's responsibility. We can't put striping on the road without their permission. We can't put a sign on the road without their permission. We can't put a school, particularly the school zones, we can't tinker with the schools. If we were to go out and try to change the light bulb on their flashing lights, they would stop us. So this has nothing to do with Pinecrest. There's no evidence. um that says that the that a traffic study a school zone study wasn't done miami-dade county surely has done the traffic studies to put the school zones and that's how school zones are put in there does that include the private schools as well miami-dade county does look at the private schools and and all those types of things and they or at least the um charter schools anyway, as far as I know, as they're public schools, and make sure that those types of things are done when the schools get started. This was started in 1957. So while I think I understand the argument, nobody's presented any evidence to me that we haven't complied with the law. I think our attorneys believe we have complied with the law. And I think I would take their advice. Anybody else? Anybody else want to comment on this from the public? Seeing none, we'll close the public hearing. Anybody else on the council want to comment?

I mean, just I think the mayor just said it, but am I correct? Is it correct the attorneys believe that this complies with the law?

Yes, we believe this complies with the law. Thank you.

I'll move the question. All right, we have a motion. Second. Do we have a second? I'll second. OK, motion is second. Ms. Clark?

Council Member Greenberg? Yes. Council Member McDonald? Yes. Council Member Meyer? Yes. Vice Mayor Furman? Yes. Mayor Corradino?

Yes. Motion is approved. Tab 6.

That's an ordinance of the Village of Pinecrest, Florida, amending the Pinecrest Court of Ordinances, Chapter 2, Administration, including Article 5, Code Compliance, Division 2, Special Magistrate Procedure, and Division 3, Civil Citation... Procedures, providing for amendment and adoption, providing for inclusion in the Village of Pinecrest Code of Ordinances, providing for conflict, providing for severability, and providing for an effective date.

I just have a question for the attorney or staff, because there's a bunch of ordinances that are related to the code. And I have one specific comment as it relates to accessory units as a building for temporary guests. Don't know which tab exactly that would be covered under, but I wanna make sure that we don't cover whatever tab that is without having had a chance to talk specifically about that topic. That's 11?

Yeah, that's being deferred for June.

All right, when we get to 11, I'll still, however, make my little comment, because it might just help since we're deferring, it helps us prepare for that when we're ready. That's okay. All right. I'll relate to six then.

That item has not been formally deferred yet. Mr. Chair, would you like to entertain a motion to defer that item?

Which item is it? 11. Tom, 11. Well, let's defer it. Well, if you want to do that right now, we can do that. Might as well in case somebody's here. Anybody want a motion to defer 11? I'll move.

Well, hold on, because if we defer it, we don't get to talk about it. And I did want to, however, make a comment that serves as input. So we'll at your meeting.

When will be the appropriate time to do that? With respect to tab 11, we are working with the manager to just ensure that everything that we put in there We don't have anything in there that would conflict with SB 180 or any of the other new legislation that's been passed this cycle. So we believe we'll have it for the next meeting, but we're not certain. In the meantime, you can share any input you have with us and we can...

So it doesn't have to be in this venue at the moment, but prior to... WHILE YOU'RE PREPARING FOR SECOND WEEK. OKAY.

I DO HAVE A QUESTION ON SOMETHING IN 11, THOUGH, WHILE WE'RE BEFORE THAT I THINK IS IMPORTANT TO RAISE. AND I SPOKE TO MANAGER BRIEFLY ABOUT THIS, BUT ON PAGE 76 IN THAT TAB, THERE'S A SERIES, THERE'S SOME ADDITIONS IN BLUE RELATING TO BICYCLE RACKS AND OTHER MEANS OF STORAGE THAT IS JUST, THEY'RE SUBSTANTIAL. We didn't discuss them in the workshop on this or anything. And I just, I know the manager had to explain where they sort of come from, but I do think, I want to make sure we.

They may not be in the final version of the ordinance.

That we get for next month?

Correct.

Okay. All right. I just want to, I want to just flag that I would have some concerns if they were, but if they're not, then my concerns are.

I'm not sure because the issue with SB 180 is that we cannot. to anything that's more restrictive than what's existing in our code presently. So as we go through it, there were a lot of things that are just clarifications of things we already do and have had. But if this is something completely new, then we may be preempted by the state, in which case it would be pulled out by the time you get the final version. And we won't know that until we have a chance to review the whole thing.

OK, so I'll just flag that if it is in there, I think we're going to have to have some discussion. But if it's not, then we won't.

That's fair. We should have a discussion. Yeah, absolutely. However, it was mentioned in the workshop as a topic, as a request by me, where he specifically talked about the possibility of having bike racks installed. along US 1, shopping malls that today don't have any, et cetera, et cetera. So that topic was raised at the workshop. However, we did not cover it to the extent that it's documented here with this level of detail. So I think that would be new. To your point, might be worth a conversation if we can have this included. Great.

It may be totally fine. I think that's all I just wanted to point out. Let's see if the state lets us.

Yeah, I'm not sure that they will.

All right, but we're on tab six, so what do you guys want?

There was a motion to defer and a second.

Who did the second? I'm sorry.

No second yet. I'm sorry. I'm happy to second it.

OK. Is this tab 11? To defer tab 11. All in favor? Aye. Anybody opposed? All right, tab 11 is deferred. Back to tab six. What? No, we haven't. Did we vote on tab six yet? No. We just kind of dropped it and went to 11. All right. Can anybody do a presentation on tab six? Does anybody want to do a presentation on Tab 6?

No. Staff? Unless you want us to do a presentation.

Call Steve up on the phone.

You can call Mr. Olmstead. We can do it. He's still here. All right. So does anybody on the public want to speak on Tab 6? We'll open the public hearing. Seeing none, we'll close the public hearing. Do we have a motion to approve or not approve Tab 6?

I'll move to approve.

We have a motion to approve. Second. We have a second. Ms. Clark?

Council Member Greenberg.

Yes.

Council Member McDonald. Yes. Council Member Meyer. Yes. Vice Mayor Furman.

Yes.

Mayor Cordino.

Yes. Motion is approved. Tab six is approved. Okay, let's go to tab 16. That is the planning item.

Okay, tab 16 is for hearing number 2026-0505-2. That's for Mango Grove Land Trust, the owner, and Bruce W. Greer, trustee, the applicant. They're requesting approval of a final subdivision flat, Felber Estates Re-Plat, to re-plat and combine a portion of Lot 32 Felix Park Home Acre subdivision with Lot 2A of Felber Estates subdivision for the purpose of providing vehicular access to the subject property. The property is located in the north side of Southwest 98 Terrace and east of 9755 Southwest 60th Avenue in the village of Pancras, Florida, within the EU1 residential estate and EUM residential modified estate zoning districts, new lot 4. Block 1 is proposed to be 40,564.55 square feet, 0.93 acres in that area. All right, food's up. Welcome. Prior to that, I'm sorry. Planning hearings are quasi-judicial proceedings requiring all persons addressing the Village Council to be sworn in prior to giving testimony. At this time, if you will be providing testimony or commenting during the hearing, please stand if you're able to and raise your right hand. Any of the presenters, applicants? Okay. Do you swear the testimony you're about to give is the truth? Yes. Thank you.

Question is?

Just keep it short and sweet. That's the way we like it. That's right. The recommendation by staff is to approve the final subdivisions subject to the conditions listed as per the report.

Excellent. Thank you so much.

Any questions?

Any questions for the staff? OK. Would the applicant like to present or?

Thank you so much. 5900 Southwest 97th Street. I will be the only applicant who ever comes before you to convert a residential house into a subtropical grove to grow fruit trees. We have converted the premises, which were non-habitable, torn them down, and planted 80 trees that will grow all kinds of tropical fruits. So thank you for the plat. Thank you for doing that.

Any questions for the applicant?

I was going to cross-examine the applicant. Please do. No, I think I'm good. What type of trees are they all talking about? Are they Nate?

Yeah. All right. Is there anybody that would like to speak on this item for or against? We'll open the public hearing. Seeing none, we'll close the public hearing. Ms. Clark, there's nobody online that wants to comment on this, right? No one registered, Mayor. Do we have any debate on the council? Do we have a motion to approve? I'll move. We have a motion. I'll second. We have a motion to second. You call this one, Ms. Clark, or are we?

Yes, Council Member Greenberg.

Yes.

Council Member McDonald. Yes. Council Member Meyer. Yes. Vice Mayor Furman. Yes. Mayor Cordino.

Yes.

Motion is approved.

Thank you very much. Thank you. All right, moving right along. Tab seven.

Okay, that's for an ordinance of the Village of Pancras, Florida, amending the Pancras Code of Ordinances, Chapter 15, nuisances including Article 1 in general and Article 2, noises unnecessary and excessive prohibited, providing for amendment and adoption, providing for inclusion in the Village of Pancras Code of Ordinances, providing for conflict, providing for solubility, and providing for an effective date.

There is one change to the original printed agenda that I'd like to bring to your attention on this item. There is a handout that was distributed with the change. The change appears on page 10 of 16 at the bottom, item 13 in parentheses there. So that would be section... That's from the first section of Chapter 15. So it's 15-1, Item 13, on page 10 of 16. But if you look at your printed handout rather than the original agenda, you'll find the change. It has to do with the time and placement and removal of receptacles and requires residential trash and garbage receptacles to be taken in on the same day as they are placed outside. And that has been relocated from chapter 30 of the code to better fit with the subject matter of nuisances. Substantively, though, this is the same that we agreed on. Substantively, it is the same of what you agreed in the workshop to add in the land development regulations, but we felt it was not appropriate to characterize it as a land development regulation, and so we moved it to nuisances.

What's the penalty for failing to remove the garbage receptacles?

Civil penalty is a code enforcement issue. I think it's 250. If they don't correct it.

They're repeat offenders. So we're going to have some notice to everybody in the village about this.

Any violators will be educated. So the first go around with us is always a courtesy, friendly reminder. And then if they continue to do it, then you would escalate the enforcement.

But why not just have some notice to everybody that this is changing?

Oh, OK. We could put it in our son. Yeah. In the son.

Yeah.

We worried at all since we're on that topic about residents that are elderly living by themselves and then rely on the help of a relative to maybe Take the trash out and bring it back in and if that's the case wouldn't this pose a limit or a friend or a neighbor being able to help them with that task? Is that a scenario that we may come against? And if so, are we concerned that we're actually doing something that potentially just generates another source of stress for them?

We thought about it. When we talked about this in the workshop, I think it's a fair concern. And that was part of why I think there was at least some talk of making it even earlier.

which I think we did, but then the pickup we kept as it is.

Right, right. So it could be the theory being, and your point's still good, that taking it down is when it's going to be heavier. It's typically more of an issue for people. And the people have, I mean, it happens in my street. I'm not the elderly one in this relationship, but there are people who help others bring it up. And usually it works. I suspect if somebody has a problem, my sense is that if there is that problem, code enforcement would talk to them and figure something out. You could probably even help find neighbors to do it. My concern is not having anything means people just leave it there. I think your concern is an excellent one.

As long as we have a way around it, like we

But my understanding is this for chronic abusers and that we're going to be customer friendly when it comes to the individual circumstances. Like I can't imagine the person that goes out of town for one day, one incident where they kind of put the trash out early or take it in late is going to get fined.

And so we're gonna we're gonna yeah, we would hear that and I think that council member Myers point I mean to the extent there is a resident who has that sort of issue It's precisely the sort of thing It's good for the village to know so that we can help and neighbors can help and and as typically as happened before so there's We send a notice out letting them this is the rule and then we also include

accommodations all right does anybody want to from the public want to speak on tab 7 so I'd like to appeal to my fellow representatives on two issues page 5 of 16

I'm sorry, this is still that same tab. Where are we, six? Seven. Top seven. Top seven?

OK, got it.

And at the bottom, it'll say five and 16. So this is the issue with writing citations or violations for algae and mildew on roofs. Even though I'm a parking lot person, I've been looking at a lot of roofs lately because of this topic. There are so many brown tile roofs. black metal roofs, different color roofs. I don't know why Pinecrest needs to weigh in on whether somebody's roof is the right color or mildewed or not mildewed, unless, of course, it's having a deuterious effect about the house. Maybe mildew and stuff is running down the walls and the whole property is a mess. But there are a lot of nice looking houses, well-kept houses, that happen to have dirty or mildewed roofs. And unless, again, that's affecting the outward appearance of the house, the walls of the house itself, I would prefer that we take that out of the code. We may want to put in ponding water as something that you shouldn't have on a roof, because there was a reference to algae. And if you have algae, you probably have ponding water. So I have no problem adding that in. But I would like to take that out. I know when we incorporated, and I was living here at the time, besides the police, one of the concerns people had is, and no offense to Coral Gables, love people at Coral Gables, we don't wanna be Coral Gables telling everybody what to do. And I just think this is something that we should lay off, especially in light that we're gonna allow them to keep their holiday decorations up 365 days a year. I don't know why picking on the roofs is essential for the village to do.

I happen to agree with you. I'm being told that it's a chronic problem, right? It's one of the things we get complaints about a lot.

Esther Cabrera, co-compliance supervisor. We do get complaints, and we also do this proactively. It's one of the violations that we do to maintain aesthetics, and also we have situations where a homeowner might also have mildewed other conditions such as their home and their fence. So they all usually will coincide with each other. So if someone has a mildew fence plus a mildewed sidewalk and a mildewed roof, we would write those up, you know, uniformly as well. Um, I think the concern here with vice mayor, um, Fairman is that it's when it's just the house has a mildewed roof by itself, nothing else. Maybe there's no other indication of overgrown condition or another violation. We've been doing this code since I've been here. It's been over 15 years and we don't get pushback on it. Residents seem to comply. Like again, we work with everybody on making sure those conditions are taken care of. It's very rare we have to take them to the special magistrate. I would recommend that it would stay in. We use it appropriately, it's already in now. It's being used appropriately by code staff, but that decision will need to be made up to you guys.

See, I share your concern, but the fact that it's in and it seems to be working

I just don't know if it's working. And nothing about our code compliance people. They handle whatever the issue is brilliantly. We're very fortunate for that. I think we all received a list and some pictures. Since 2021, there's roughly 330 violations that involve mildewed roofs. 70 of those involve other parts of their structures and their property. Those I understand, but when it's just the roof, I think it gets a little bit arbitrary that it has to be a neighbor complaining or a code officer sees it. If you look around, there are hundreds and hundreds of mildewed roofs. many on spectacular looking houses that are well kept. There's a cost of cleaning a roof, there's inherent dangers in cleaning a roof, there's possible damage to different tiles and structures on the roof. I just don't see it as an issue that we should be pushing our residents on, even though they've, for the most part, accepted it without a problem. I just think it's, the enforcement's limited and I'd rather, unless it's causing a bigger problem with the property, I'd rather leave it out.

Mr. McDonald? Yeah, initially I thought the same when I'm reading it, and then I hear Esther say it's been in the code for as long as, probably for as long as Pinecrest has been a village, and you're not encountering pushback, and what I think I heard you say was A mildew roof sometimes indicates other things on the property, sort of like a warning sign. But you see that it might lead to other violations. But I'm hearing you say you've never had any pushback. And when you go to say to somebody, hey, you've got a mildew roof or a mildew fence, what's normally the response you get?

So most people just ask for additional time and we give them up to depending, we can give up to six months to actually take care of it depending on if it's the rainy season or if there's other circumstances, maybe something's going on. I don't know, whatever personal circumstances. We work with people to make sure it gets done.

I guess what I'm hearing is if it's not broken, it's been around for 30 years, we don't need to fix it now. Or if it needs to be fixed, we ought to take more time to get more input. I mean, it seems to me like, as I said, I agree with you. When I read it, I said, what are we doing this for? We're not Coral Gables. But if we've been doing it and it's not causing problems and there's no pushback from the residents, then I would say leave it in for now. And if we want to study it more.

So my sense on this is, It's possible that we're not getting pushback from residents because most residents are law-abiding residents. And if we tell them that the roof has mildew and it's against our code, most people will say, OK, give me some time and I'll fix it. They won't push back because I think they want to be compliant with our rules. Maybe you have a case every now and then of someone pushing back, but it's not the norm, right? Most people want to be law-abiding citizens. That doesn't necessarily mean, however, that therefore it's working, right? And I think, I'm with Council Member Fuhrman on this one in that I think, you know, this is just getting a little bit too deep into telling people how they need to keep up their property. However, if there is more than one thing that we notice on a property, maybe it's a sign of the property's not being kept up and it leads to other problems, I would understand in those cases you would want to do some enforcement, but if it's just the roof, Everything else looks pristine and clean and nice. I think it's overreach, to be honest, and that I would support removing that as a requirement if other people were supporting that as well.

My only concern is if you use this as a secondary violation for us to write up mildew. you have to keep in mind that maybe you have one house that's on that block that might have multiple factors going on, including the mildew roof, and then you have that house that's next door, and they only have the mildew roof, and you get into why aren't they cleaning the roof? So I think it either just needs to be enforced just like we're doing it, uniformly, or... Well, I don't look at it as a secondary thing.

I mean, if your side of your house is all mildewed because the mildew's running off the roof, if you clean off the side of your house, Fine, if you're not savvy enough to understand it's coming from the roof and you don't clean that too, well, keep cleaning the side of your house. So I'm not considering it like a secondary violation.

Again, my point, we're just adding algae to this thing that we've been enforcing since the beginning of time. And we get, and I agree with you, but we get complaints about the silliest things. This is never, I swear I've never gotten a complaint about this. How about algae? Or this whole thing. This whole thing about roofs. So I mean, I frankly didn't even know it was in the code. And I thought I would have known it. I mean, I wouldn't put it in the code today. If somebody said, hey, you want to make sure people clean their roofs? I'd be like, no, I think that's kind of overkill. But it's been in the code, and nobody's ever complained to me in 20 years about it.

Well, the old saying, if it's not broke, you don't have to fix it. And I would say, if we want to take a more Thorough look at this that's fine could be done at a workshop or whatever, but I don't think Removing something that's been in the code for 30 years.

We should be doing it just like we're doing here my limited time on council and Different issues that people bring up and complain about the idea that nobody ever complains about getting a notice to clean the roof and I find that hard to believe. I'm not calling anybody a liar. But to say we get no pushback, that nobody ever gets upset about it? I mean, I got pushback from 71st Avenue a couple of people after their whole drainage debacle started getting violations for mildewed roofs, which kind of just added this because brown roof, brown roof, black roof, mildewed roof, mildewed roof. You've got to go spend money and clean it up. I can't tell whether the black roofs mildewed, so you'll never get a violation. I don't know. I just think it's too arbitrary. That's my issue.

I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just saying it's one of those things that I rarely get complaints about. Until recently, I can't recall a complaint about it. I didn't even know it was in the code. So that's a good thing. So you must be doing a good job, because I get complaints about a lot of things. All right.

If we don't have three on that, I do have one other issue. I just, you know, if we had three or more people. The last issue, and I'm going to make it one last plea on this one. For all those people that work at home or in Pinecrest day in and day out, page 15 of 16, for all those people that work at home and have to put up with the lawn crews day in and day out, those people that want to Enjoy a quiet, peaceful weekend. I would ask again for your consideration to prohibit commercial lawn maintenance on Saturdays. If you wanted to add the length of time Monday through Friday, I could see where maybe a 7.30 to six would help out, but I would, I'm just asking this on behalf of people that would like quiet weekends and they'll have to dodge landscape trailers and trucks in the middle of the road while they're having a leisurely weekend.

Mr. Greenberg, you seem to have something.

No, I mean, I guess if there's, I mean, given the amount of time we spend on this, I don't need to belabor it if there's not. I don't know if people want to revisit it. I mean, to me, we spent time on this.

I'm just asking to be reconsidered time.

I mean, again, as we talked about, There's plenty of quiet time. There's Sunday. We are the only, there is no muted, we have already the most restrictive Saturday maintenance rules in the county. including Carl Gables, including everybody. Ours, as it stands now, is the most restrictive. All that we did, based on the concern you raised about early morning, we did push it back an hour. So it's 10 to 3. Frankly, that puts maintenance people working in the heat of the day. But to allow the sleeping in, OK. There's no reason for us to be any further restrictive than we already are. This only refers to commercial. So you're still going to get noise. You can still get people out there doing their own landscaping. You do still get construction crews. You do still get birthday parties. You do still get music, boat maintenance, So there's all these things that still happen. The concern here is there are people who don't work at home during the week. That is the day they're home. That is the day they want to be there having maintenance. It is the time that the crews can come and do it. So we're going to be forcing many people to get different lawn crews if we were to change this. We're going to be telling people you have to take a day off or something if you want to be there when your land crew is there. We're talking about 10 to 3. So I think there is still plenty of time in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, all day Sunday for people to have their yard service done. So I think allowing it for this five-hour window is appropriate. I will also note it's a luxury that this is the issue we can get all heated and passionate about compared to other places in the world. So I do realize what we're talking about here. I appreciate where you're coming from, but I think For the reasons we decided not to change it before, other than this one hour, I wouldn't change it now.

And I agree with you. Ken, I was sitting out in my yard the other day, and more leaf blowers and more leaf blowers. It seems constant on the weekends. It's frustrating. But again, I think we did limit this, and then we did run over this cap a lot of times in previous meetings.

And I empathize with you as well, because I obviously hate that noise any time of the week, not just the weekends to begin with. And, you know, I think the problem is the type of equipment that people use makes a lot of noise. Our ordinances have limits on noise. It's hard to enforce, but, I mean, we already have some of that stuff in there. And so, you know, the way I solved for this, because I hated it as well, is I talked to all of my neighbors that were doing their service on Saturdays. except for one that would refuse but at least that helped manage the noise in the weekends maybe yeah I'm not saying that you may have maybe you're not as lucky as I am as far as the neighbors that you have or other people have so you give a break in their taxes

Just send them to my street.

I wish we could have an incentive to do the work on weekdays instead of weekends. Maybe that's the way to address it. Maybe that's just the way it goes. Well, I want to run it by you guys, see if we can admire the adherent takers.

The perseverance there.

Tenacity.

Tenacity.

Would anybody from the public like to speak on this now? Seeing none, we'll close the public hearing. Do we have a motion? Does anybody want to amend it? Or are we good with it as is? We'll take a motion.

I think we should test to see if we have three votes to eliminate the roof mildew. I'll make a motion with the amended rule that we remove the mildew roof requirement and algae and the other elements that we're looking for when it comes to aesthetics on a roof. Leave everything else as is.

With the amendment of item 113 regarding the trash receptacles that we discussed. I don't think there was any objection to that amendment.

No, there wasn't.

Okay. So the motion would be, Mr. Meyer's motion is to approve it with the amendment of item 113 and the removal of the algae and mildew from the roof maintenance requirement.

I'll second that.

OK, so what do we do? We vote on that. You're voting on the trash amendment, or are we voting on the algae?

It's a combination. It's a combination. If you don't agree with either of the two amendments, you can vote no on this and then move it without the amendment. Correct.

Yeah. Well, I would vote, I would agree with the trash, but not agree with the roof. So you would vote no. I vote no. Okay, no.

Mr. Mayor, you can do a straw poll on the amendment.

Who's a no on this one?

Just raise your hand. A no on the roof amendment.

Roof amendment.

No.

Three no's on the roof. Okay, that's it. All right, that doesn't work.

So Mr. Meyer's motion to amend to include the algae and mildew on the roof is, that fails. So a motion to approve the ordinance on second reading with the amendment of item 113 on the trash receptacles is in order at this time. I'll move. I'll second.

All right.

Council Member Greenberg. Yes. Council Member McDonald. Yes. Council Member Meyer. Yes. Vice Mayor Furman.

Yes.

Mayor Cordino. Yes. Motion is approved.

All right, Chapter 15, Planning Item at 7, no later than 7.

No, no, we got to do the planning item because it has to be done as close to 7.

This is for hearing number 2026-0505-1 for Crimson Ibis, LLC, Mr. Mavs Corner, LLC, and Keys Barefoot Beach, LLC, the owners and Leslie Sointz, manager, Crimson Ibis, LLC. They're requesting approval of a final subdivision plat, Crimson Egret for the platting, combination and division of property for three. single family residential lots on property located at 9300 Southwest 60 Court, 9315 Southwest 61 Court and 9401 Southwest 61 Court, Pancras, Florida, within the EU1 residential estate zoning district. Lot one is proposed to be 1.5 acres in that area. Lot two is proposed to be 2.17 acres in area. And lot three is proposed to be 1.05 acres in that area. Again, anyone addressing the village council is to be sworn in prior to giving testimony. At this time, if you will be providing testimony or commenting during the hearing, please stand if you're able to and raise your right hand. Is the applicant here? On the survey. Will you be speaking on this item? Sure. Okay, if you could please stand and raise your right hand. Do you swear the testimony you're about to give is the truth?

I do. And Pat? I do.

Okay, thank you.

The staff recommends approval of the final subdivision plot, conditioning upon three items as listed in the...

All right, excellent. The question is that these three lots, the resulting are not smaller than the minimum lot size in that zoning district, is that correct? Okay, so there would be no reason really to deny it, because that's the primary rule. Okay, any other questions for staff? All right, can we hear from the applicant? Don't lie. What do you got?

Anything to say? We got one piece of property we're making into three lots. I only know the analytical side of it, and we've been working on it for quite a while now.

All right. But they all are above the minimum lot size on this one?

Oh, yeah. OK. Yeah. All right. Well, we wouldn't even have got this far without that.

Probably not. We would have stopped you way earlier than today. All right.

Anything else? Not on my end.

I'm here for any questions you got, though.

OK, we'll see.

Anybody got questions? They look like three different properties right now on the maps. So are they rearranging them a little bit, or? I guess. That's right.

You're rearranging the properties. See, there was initial plot. that had one configuration and one of those lots is remaining in its current configuration and then the remaining properties surrounding it are being reconfigured into these three lots. Until recently there was a house on what will be each lot and one was demolished recently by There was one house? There was one house on each lot.

There's going to be one house on each lot in the future, right?

Oh, sure. Yeah, I'm sure. That's what the plan is. All right.

All right. Any other questions? Okay. Anybody from the public want to speak on this? Seeing none, we'll close the public hearing. Anybody, any discussion, any motions, any amendments? Yes, sir. We got a motion.

Second. Second. Second.

Second.

Second. Second. Second. Second.

Second. Second. Second.

Second. Second. Second.

Second.

Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second. Second.

Take care. Not my service. Appreciate it. See you later. Bye. Tab 8.

That's for an ordinance of the Village of Pancras, Florida, amending the Pancras Court of Ordinances, Chapter 16, offenses and miscellaneous provisions, including Article 9, special events, providing for amendment and adoption, providing for inclusion in the Village of Pancras Court of Ordinances, providing for conflict, providing for salvability, and providing for an effective date.

All right. All right, who owns this? Who belongs to this? This is 8th. All right, any discussion from the council? Tab eight. All right, anybody from the public want to speak on tab eight? Second reading, we went over this ad nauseum on the last meeting. Seeing nobody wants to speak on this. Dare I ask if anybody is on the internet that wants to speak on?

No one registered, Mayor.

All right, so with that, we'll close the public hearing. Do we have a motion to approve? We have a motion and a second. Ms. Clerk?

Council Member Greenberg? Yes. Council Member McDonald? Yes. Council Member Meyer? Yes. Vice Mayor Furman? Yes. Mayor Cordino?

Yes.

Motion is approved, Mayor.

All right, tab nine.

An ordinance of the Village of Pancras, Florida, amending the Pancras Court of Ordinances, Chapter 26, Street, Sidewalks, and Other Public Places, including Article 4, Vacation of Public Easements or Rights of Way, and Article 5, Articles in the Public Right of Way and Other Public Places, providing for amendment and adoption, providing for inclusion in the Village of Pancras Court of Ordinances, providing for conflict, providing for suburbality, and providing for an effective date.

All right. Questions, comments? Second reading. Seeing none, I just have one.

It's really a completely, on 20, let's see, what is this? Page three of six, under definitions. One, I mean, this is really just being a lawyer. Vehicle shall mean the functioning, everything is plural. It should be singular, that's all. Which one? It just says vehicle shall mean functioning automobiles, trucks, buses, trailers. It really should be just vehicle shall mean functioning automobile, truck, bus, trailer. In other words, vehicle, singular, it's all minor.

So strike the S after the plural, after automobile, trucks, buses, and trailer. So it'll be singular.

We should say vehicles shall.

Well, vehicle shall mean functioning automobile, Okay, so we got that. Anybody from the public want to speak? We'll close the public hearing.

We've got that out of the way. Do we have a motion? I'll move. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. Got a second. Ms. Clerk?

Council Member Greenberg. Yes. Council Member McDonald. Yes. Council Member Meyer.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Furman.

Yes.

Mayor Cordino.

Yes.

A motion is approved, Mayor.

All right. Down the stretch we come. Tab 10.

An ordinance of the Village of Pancras, Florida, amending the Pancras Court of Ordinances, Chapter 28, Taxation, including Article 3, Local Business Tax, providing for amendment and adoption, providing for inclusion in the Village of Pancras Court of Ordinances, providing for conflict, providing for severability, and providing for an effective date.

Okie dokie. Anybody on this one?

I just had a question, and maybe this was explained to us already. The Blues, at some point, the 500 and the first one is crossed out and made 250. And at least it appears to me on the second page Yeah, but on the second page, is the 500 supposed to be crossed out? Because it looks like it's, maybe it is, it's just a blue. Yes, it's crossed out. Okay, what is the reason for that?

It's a state, state provides a certain limit, and we had it at a different, it was not in compliance with the state law. Okay.

All right. Anybody from the public want to speak on this? Seeing none. Why are you all here, by the way? They're either in the YAC or they're running for council. That's right. One of the two. One of the two. Maybe some of both. On each or staff. OK.

There are generally people. Everyone cares. Everyone cares about village members. I can tell.

By the blank stares that I'm getting, everybody's enthralled with this meeting. OK. Well, they left. All right. We bored them. Okay. We'll close the public hearing. And does anybody want to dispense with this one? Motion. I'll move. We have a motion. Second. We have a second. We have a clerk.

Council Member Greenberg. Yep. Council Member McDonald. Yes. Council Member Meyer.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Furman.

Yes.

Mayor Corradino. Yes. Motion is approved.

All right. Let's mix it up a little bit with the reports and recommendations. I see. All right, let's fire it up with the I'd see one see one coming Village Council number one a one.

Mr. Meyer There's three items I'm gonna start with probably the easiest one first which will be the agenda procedure this actually stems from Or not the last meeting, but the meeting prior to last meeting where we sat here until 1 a.m. I remember.

I think that was the last meeting.

No, that was the one prior. I think the March meeting. Anyway, but it comes from there and the fact that we had a 1,000-page packet that we received on the Thursday prior to the council meeting on Tuesday. and that we needed to review thoroughly. There were a lot of changes, comprehensive development master plan, the new land development regulations, and a pretty hefty agenda of regular items to cover. And then on top of that, I believe in marketing communications to the village. sent the email about the agenda a day before the council meeting. And so that sparked the thought, shouldn't we maybe just have, or allow, first of all, the council allow ourselves a little more time to review an agenda prior to a council meeting than I think the five or six days are a requirement as of now. That's number one. Since I would expect our residents expect us to do the diligence prior to a council meeting, Receiving a 1000 page packet and then having 4 days to review it. We can include it and that assumes nobody has anything else to do on a weekend, but review the agenda packet. It was a little bit of just maybe just a little bit too much. And bring this up with the suggestion. Shouldn't we have. 10 days, two weeks, maybe prior to a meeting, should we be receiving the materials by then closing the agenda two weeks prior to the meeting, and then announcing to the public, at least through marketing, I know we have to post on the site, but also sending out the marketing comps no later than a week before a council meeting so that the residents have time to review it, prepare, and decide if they want to come to a council meeting or not. That's what I wanted to bring up and see if there's any appetite to reconsider our timelines. in preparation for council meetings and the materials related to it. That's item number one. Any thoughts?

Does anybody want me to say anything?

I think it's important for the staff to speak on this. My understanding of this is that we get complaints about government being slow all the time. Maybe not necessarily here, but everywhere you go with the government. A lot of times it's because the things that get to council tend to spend a lot of time in administrative review, right? I mean, the work by staff typically, staff report typically gets done relatively quickly. And then, you know, we get it, what, the Thursday before Tuesday meeting, and then it's got to be to the manager probably days before that. And it's got to, you know, so if you back it up two weeks, you know, these guys may be in the process for months to get this stuff out. And so what I'm saying is I know the applicants and whomever that has to get on an agenda, that may be burdensome to them. And I hated that meeting as much as anybody else. And I never want to see another one like that again. But it's so rare here that, you know, and what I would do tonight is if we got really bogged down, just defer this stuff to the next meeting and just dispense with it that way. Comp plans are particularly complicated. So there you go.

So yes, the hindsight is 2020 and in a perfect world. we would have had those documents with at least a month in advance to give council a chance to review the draft because it was extensive and it is the comprehensive master plan amendments. Unfortunately, I mean, and it's, it's contributed to some of the reasons why we've had to defer even the, the land use regulation ordinance. It's because we literally were getting it right at the, at the cutoff point for, the agenda and for you know the notices that we have to put out that were previously have been noticed because we noticed these things at least 30 days in advance because of the type of items that those in particular items work other than that council has always had a long-standing uh procedure that sometimes we do deviate from but we try not to, which is that we don't put anything on the agenda if it hasn't been previously discussed, been discussed by council. So typically things that are being brought before council that haven't been, workshopped in a separate workshop where either discussed a strategic planning or a budget fairly extensively before it's put on an agenda. We normally don't wanna put things, at least this is how council, past councils have acted, normally things don't get put on the agenda if it hasn't been discussed in the past at some point, at least in a workshop setting. Now, we don't have workshops like we used to before. There used to be a Committee of the Whole meeting Every month in addition to the council meetings and we've gotten away from that over the years and it's worked out for us We normally have pretty fast meetings and we can get through the business because we workshop a lot during strategic planning So it's up to council as far as the agenda preparation I can tell you It's a month in advance we have multiple staff meetings you know bi-monthly staff meetings and we start putting the list and getting it prepped, and it doesn't come to me. It comes initially to me, then it comes to the mayor two Fridays before the agenda, the Tuesday. He reviews preliminary agenda, then we start working on all the documents that come into it, and I get only like two days to review all those documents before we go live. But that's the way we've been doing it for 30 years.

And that may be my fault. I mean, in retrospect, I would have likely, if I had known we were going to go to 1 o'clock in the morning, I would have requested that we take half of that stuff off.

The issue was really that because Steve was retiring.

We had to kind of like deliver. But listen, if it was a one-off and it's never been a source of frustration for other fellow members of the council that you believe you have enough. have enough time to review and prepare for council meetings, then it's a one-off. And it doesn't really require a change of how we do things. But if it's not a one-off, then this is your time to voice your frustrations.

I think you raise a really important point. My thought on it, look, I do think the last month, that thing last month that we talked about, it was a one-off. And some of this may be the difference between having been on the council for, what is it, 18 years and a year, a year and a half. So I understand it takes time. I think there are things that, and this may be, something for whoever the next mayor may be to address. But I think, just speaking generally, but I think that how they want to space it out. But I think there's certain things that perhaps Like when there's a quasi-judicial matter, a quasi-judicial thing, maybe if the council could get those slightly earlier to the extent the packets are in. Because the things I found the hardest are some of those. And obviously, I'm thinking about True North, but there have been others where that's a lot to digest in a real short time. So maybe informally, we can get some of those things earlier if we know something is coming in. Because I do share the concern. Obviously, we start at the same time. So maybe it's that. I don't think it's anyone's fault. And I don't think we should change the whole process by which you do it. But I think the suggestion overall, there are certain items when we know they're going to be tricky, if we can get them a little early, I think it will help. And the quasi-judicials are typically noticed and in a lot earlier than some of the other matters.

We notice them 30 days in advance. The issue is that typically it's down to the wire. By the time that we get everything in, Steve at least would be able to go through everything and get his staff reports ready. But point taken, let me see what we can do when we hire the new planning director and see if we can tweak that. In quasi-judicial hearings, because it is quasi-judicial, staff tries to not influence too much and give you too much background information outside of what's in the report so that you guys come in fairly neutral into it. Obviously, we're here to answer questions. You know, I do believe when we're changing law and it's more extensive that we definitely should give you guys more time. And I mean, no question that I would have preferred that you all have that at least 30 days in advance. It just didn't work out that way.

We did workshop all that stuff, though, right?

Well, you guys were workshopping it, but it wasn't...

I didn't see the final form, I don't get it.

You didn't see the final form of the committee? There was a lot of discussions with the consultants. Each one of you were giving your personal input, but you all didn't get to see the bigger picture of what the final draft comp plan policies were until last minute. But we were under the wire. Honestly, it was just, it played out not in an optimal way because of Steve's retirement and the deadline with the state.

I remember going until 3 in the morning on the Gulliver thing, so that was a marathon. I would just say, from my experience, staff, we have limited staff, and they work very hard. Sometimes, I mean, 1,000 pages, certainly that's a lot of reading. Whether we're going to read each 1,000 page, I'm not sure. Some of that stuff, thick agendas, is stuff that is not necessary to read every, it's not necessary, but I think staff does the best

we should change procedure um because you had one meeting that went and apparently you had a lot of information that was late in coming and whatever if it's a one-off and that's how the council receives the matter then i agree we wouldn't change procedure for that other than just noting let's try to avoid a situation like that because we're all trying to do our very best including ourselves representing

That's going to be corrected as soon as we have our full-time communications manager back on. She's going through the hiring process as we speak. It's a function of having a PR firm that I'm sure has other clients, and so we maybe never missed a deadline here and there.

Mr. Mayor, one comment? Yes, sir. So I'm glad this came up, but is there any way to get maybe a basic outline a little bit earlier, just so we know exactly what the subject matter. Because sometimes, if we're working and it's tough to get to come by and meet you or meet somebody else's staff, it would be nice If there's any further advance warning we could get about, these are the items coming up. So if we have questions.

We can, the draft agenda is done the Friday that the mayor gets it. We can forward council that draft agenda, which is when we produce it for the mayor. Earlier than that.

Well, any days earlier just gives us more time to.

You all get it. on the Wednesday. So you would be getting it four days prior to what you're normally getting it if we do it that way. And you just get it through all the council members.

You know, the basic, these are the topics that are coming up.

But just know that when you do get that draft, some things may drop because as we get closer to the date, sometimes we pull things or the mayor pulls it. So he ultimately is, you know, himself or myself are the ones that pull things last minute. What? Never pulled anything?

I don't interfere with you. Take all that on your own.

So it's on me. Okay, so we'll get it to everybody on Friday.

I got six months to go, so I might start pulling stuff.

That's fine.

Or adding.

Or adding.

Or adding things. Yeah. Random stuff.

And I'm always available 24-7. You can call me in the middle of the night when you can't sleep, and I'm happy to go over the agenda.

I get up at 2 and lay there for like four hours just rolling around.

I've been known to text council members back and forth at 3 in the morning, if you can believe it. Please do.

All right. So that's on that then. We'll fix the marketing when we have a director of marketing. And in the meantime, if the PR firm can do maybe just slightly better sending the agenda out a week before so that our residents, unless that out a little bit more in advance of the meeting. All right, so the other topic is the sidewalk design standards. We had recently an opportunity, I think many of us do, to provide an opinion with regards to a very innovative form of sidewalk design on 112th Street and 69th Avenue. road almost, and I think it was designed with good intention. It was designed so that there could be more trees planted on the right of public right of way in that section right in front of the corner property. And I don't know if you have the pictures. I asked Priscilla to be ready to share some pictures. I think she's going to project it on the screen. There. So that's a sample of the new sidewalk that was put up there. And again, I think the curves are there with the intention of planting trees where you see of the opportunity.

They are or are not?

No, it was the intention to plant trees. So those are all the right intentions. The problem is that that is not an ADA-friendly sidewalk. That's not a friendly sidewalk to anyone that wants to ride a bike on a sidewalk or that wants to maybe use a scooter on a sidewalk. And now you have to pay attention to the turns while you're on that sidewalk instead of being able to look out for cars driving in and out of the driveway, etc. So it doesn't really follow a standard. And so that to me is what sparked the thought of bringing this up to the agenda and encouraging us maybe as a village to introduce standards for sidewalk design. Then there's a few other examples of here, a sharp turn of a sidewalk. I think the intention, again, the right one, it's moving the sidewalks closer to the property away from the road as there's new construction. The problem is that these sharp turns are not friendly to anyone that wants to ride, a kid that wants to ride a bike on that sidewalk, or someone, an elderly person, et cetera. It's okay if you're walking on that sidewalk, but not okay if you're using the sidewalk for any other means of transportation. Here's another example of a sharp turn that doesn't really work. Do you have another one? There's a few other ones. Sometimes those are a necessity, right? Yeah. Well, it depends.

I think some of these we can soften. And we've had the conversation. I have gone out to look at the newer sidewalk and agree that it's a little extreme, the amount of curves. I think a more... you know, less tight, like zigzag. It could still meander. I think it is nice when you have a meandering sidewalk, but a little just less severe curvature overall. So I think going back, we're going to fix that, the new one that we just put in. And then on these that have been over time just built, like Council Member Meyer mentioned, some of these are new development, and then we're tying it to existing sidewalks. And so making that connection just be less severe or just less curved, I think, would be the way to go about it.

I brought the picture that was just up. No, the previous one. Sorry. The reason why I brought that up, yes, there's a sharp curve further up in the picture. But also, this is a new sidewalk. This is a sidewalk on Red Road, on the west side of Red Road. allowing for the driveway to stay as it was. The problem is that, again, that just puts, you know, creates complexity for people that may be riding on a sidewalk because it adds other elements of friction. And if you can show the other one, the last one, sorry, I won't bug you. I think you get the picture. I think we've seen that one before. But anyway, so there's a few other examples, but yeah, there's another one. That's try to maneuver, try to make that one work for you. What do you do there? It is not that we need to go back and fix all of these. That's not what I'm arguing for. What I'm saying is I think we should have standards sidewalk design that follow best practices, even that are written by North America or US-based transportation officials. There's one called National Association of City Transportation Officials. They have an entire book that they've written about standards for sidewalks, bike lanes, bike paths, whatever you can imagine, to help make villages or cities more livable. and friendly to other forms of transportation other than cars. It's a very robust standard. I'm not saying that we should adopt that one, but I am saying that we clearly don't have the guidelines. And so therefore, it's left up to the goodwill of our staff and people with good intentions to solve for some of these issues. But we should follow standards because there's a lot of stuff that's been learned about how to make sidewalks work for the people that don't just want to walk on them. And that's what I would like to suggest that we, you know, research this and then adopt the standard.

I think what Council Member Meyers, he makes a good point. You know, some of those, Sidewalks we just saw are not compatible with riding a bike. So I think he makes a good point. And I tell you, the one in there I saw with the driveway going through it, with the artificial turf in the middle, that's an accident if a bicycle is coming. And I don't know how much you would sink, but that's a great way of flipping your bike if you're riding. But I think it's a good point, that we should keep it, whether we adopt standards or not, when we design sidewalks, to keep in mind that people will be using bicycles and walking. of a big tree, there's not much you can do about it. But I think the point is well made.

I guess a couple of thoughts. I mean, one is, you know, I actually have to say, before this was an issue, I had emailed Public Works. I liked the one-on-one.

Some of the council members did.

And I was told, you know, the first one they showed. And I liked it even before I knew the reason, which was for trees. Now, granted, I'm biased toward the running or walking, so I get it. I just want to make sure we have some flexibility. Because when we talk about whether it's a shared use path or a sidewalk, whether it's 60 seconds, 60th, 111, 132nd, whatever, one of the biggest concerns and one of the biggest oppositions is, well, there's trees, or there's something that's been there, or there's this quirk in the road. And the only way to get these projects done or I think maybe the best way, I should say, to get these projects done in the face of potential opposition is to work around these things. So I would want to make sure that in whatever's happened, and I know you're not saying this, but that we're not so rigid that we end up making the perfect the enemy of the good or making the ideal the enemy of getting it done in the first place. We want to make sure that we have the flexibility to work around longstanding trees, to make sure we have room to plant trees. I think whatever we do, whatever the staff does, should keep that in mind too. And I think everyone agrees. If there's things, I mean, I think we all agree that one is not good. But I guess my question is, don't, you know, my overall thesis in this is we've got the public works team, let them, you know, do it. But don't they, that's the question of the manager, don't they, I mean, what do they follow in terms of, I don't need precise codes.

They do follow standards. It's just, You know, the standard that they're following in this case is it was really pushing back the sidewalk at least 10 feet from the edge of pavement, which is the best standard for sidewalks. We have traditionally done the opposite of that and put sidewalks really up close to the vehicular travel lane. And so as we've gone back, we've been trying to push them back. There's different ways that cities do it traditionally. You just go right along the property line and it demarcates where the private property ends and public swales start. We've taken the position of meandering. I think moving forward in our public works manual, we'll just make sure that we're designing to allow for a bicycle going at 10 miles, 15 miles per hour. and that will require that we avoid as much as we can those really sharp turns. Um, some of those sidewalks just, you know, for the record, we're not installed by the village. Some of those were on county roads and just happened to, you know, there are the function of things being done over time and just, you know, mix and match. But, um, I do think that where we have allowed developers to do it, that we could do a better job. I do agree that we shouldn't have private driveways. What ends up happening is that people want their decorative driveways, and then sometimes we'll come in and add the sidewalk afterward, and it's an issue when you come in and saw cut their things. But I do agree that from a liability perspective, that one in particular, I think we could definitely have to change it and fix that issue. But it's okay to have to go back and tweak some of these things. It's fine. You know, over time, we'll just improve it.

It's over time. I'm not advocating for going back and fixing all of these sidewalks that were designed in the 50s.

But as we come up with these, we should be able to make them better. Right.

But moving forward, especially since I saw that one on 112th, I'm like, oops. What function we wanted to perform.

The smoother transitions as opposed to the angular, I think is, and we'll add all that to our public works manual.

I think our public works director is right in line with this. There's just some, it takes some time. There's a lot of stuff that's been done before. Right. I like what they did with the curves. It should have been stretched out a little bit more.

Correct, yes.

Because actually the picture makes it look pretty cool, but it is a pretty tight slalom course there.

Your house, the vice mayor's house, the vice mayor's mansion has a nice.

Has a serpentine sidewalk running through it. So now I would like us to entertain the idea of going back and fixing some of these really egregious sharp corners. Some of it's because they built a new house. They ripped up the old sidewalk. We told them to move it. So they moved it. And when they got to the property line, they jagged it real quick to go back to the existing. And it could have been worked out If, I don't know, that's our staff looking at the plans, making them do it nicer. But I'd like to go back and fix some of these. When I rode my bike up to the Kendall ribbon cutting,

There were like half a dozen I got almost stopped my bike feel free to forward those to me We'll put them on a list and we'll go out and fix it.

I mean we have sidewalk funds That's what they're even because we have a new public works guy even for him to see okay Here's how we could change this to make a little smooth still really pretty looking but much more navigable. I think that'd be great Yeah, okay

JUST LET ME KNOW IF YOU SEE ANYTHING THAT YOU WOULD LIKE US TO ADD TO THE LIST OF THINGS TO GET TO AND EVENTUALLY WE'LL FIX IT. THANK YOU.

ALL RIGHT. ALL RIGHT. SO FINALLY, AND I JUST WANTED US TO THINK ABOUT THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE PROJECT WHEN IT COMES TO THE, YOU KNOW, WHAT what they imply in terms of impact to our financials as a village. So at the last meeting, we approved, I believe it was somewhere, you know, a budget, the, assigning a contract to one of the, to the contractor for somewhere close to, I think it was seven million, right?

Seven point five, I think. Seven million, seven point five.

Which is not enough to execute the full scope of the Aleda Maas build up as we saw from, from what was presented to us many, many months back by the design firm. I believe that if we wanted to execute that entire scope, that would be a $13.7 million project. So instead of the 7.5 that we approved. So there's a gap. And the manager said she has a little bit of time to work that out. that it will probably be a topic for our budget conversations to see if we wanted to cover from our next year's budget some of that balance or a portion of that balance. However, the reason why I bring this up is I believe or I would advocate for providing the manager guidance also on, yes, there is a way by seven years or how many years, right? From phase one to phase two. It ended up costing substantially more than if we had done it all at once when it was originally presented. So that's a tough one, doing it in parts. The alternative is to say, okay, maybe we should rethink entirely our vision for that park, and maybe it's not rebuilding the entire house as it is with the current footprint, and it's something smaller that, however, allows us to produce a beautiful park with a full scope, however, a smaller scope, a different design for the property for $7.5 million. And this year's budget covers for it. We don't have to seek funding in future years. The alternative is, no, we keep it as is. And as we go into budget conversations, we consider raising the millage rate by a very substantial amount to be able to fund it. That's going to be in the budget meeting conversations.

But when you say that, I'm sorry, because when you say that, you're putting out there that we're going to raise taxes for this when that hasn't even been discussed. No, no, no.

I'm not saying.

I don't even know that I'm going to have to.

I'm not saying that we will. I think it will have to be a consideration. But what we're not discussing is a consideration of rethinking the scope of the project. That if we wanted to keep it at $7.5 million, and delivered at the entire scope, then the scope needs to be adjusted. And that's another scenario that I don't believe we're contemplating. We're going for the scenario that we will do the full vision, as was originally discussed, for $13.7 million.

MR. Mr. McDonald? MR. Yep. Ariel, with all due respect, what you're talking about is not We're not at a budget session. We're not at a workshop. What has happened in the past when I wasn't here, I have no idea. I just know the park is there. We shouldn't be having, you're speculating, you're throwing out numbers we're gonna raise millage rates. We have no idea what the budget's gonna look like until the manager presents us with a proposed budget when we start working on it in August. and at that time we can evaluate elita moss see where we're going where we've been and how we're going forward we shouldn't be talking right now about raising millage rates with because it's mere talk we i think what you're saying is we when it comes to budget session or the budget workshops of course we're going to be looking at elita moss how much we've already got i understand we've got a bid for construction that has to be accepted or rejected within the next 30 days or so, Ms. Manager? Correct. Okay. And if we somehow decide not to do it, because for whatever reason, and we don't accept that bid, then at some point in the future when this Council decides maybe to move forward and get another bid and it'll be a lot more expensive. I don't think it's appropriate that we need to be chatting about this right now until we get into budget workshop.

I disagree and let me explain why. I'm not advocating for a military decrease. I'm saying that it's a possible implication, a possible implication, not a direct implication.

Those are the words that I used.

However, what I'm advocating for is that we're only considering the scenario of the scope as it was presented to us a year ago for the design of the park. Now we know that scope implies a $13.7 million investment for the buildup of the park. And what I'm saying is we're not considering a different scope for the park. We're not considering the scope that fits within our means, within the budget that we have available for us this year, the funds that we've set aside for the park. And that's what I'm advocating for. I'm saying, should we not be considering a different scope or a different design for the park that allows us to live within the existing budget that we've set aside for the park. That's what I'm advocating for because if we were to consider it, the manager's gonna need time to prepare it in time for the budget conversations. Not at the time that we have the budget conversations. The budget conversations, I believe, will be directed at executing the project as it has been designed 12 months ago, and then it will cost us $13.7 million to do. Ms.

Manager?

Okay. You'll recall that the process after we purchased Aleda Moss involved doing, first, a master plan for the park that involved extensive public engagement getting people to say what it is that they wanted to see out there you know and that that took months to do the master planning then they took that master plan and developed conceptual designs those conceptual designs came before council council picked whatever option it was, I forget what it was. They tweaked some options, had a pool, some didn't. We took from some and changed some things up. That is the premise for the construction documents that have been presented and prepared. Those construction documents cost $850,000 to prepare. These are massive construction documents, extensive construction documents. I can tell you that we spent $7.8 million in the upper garden project, which involved the Inspiration Center, which is a multi-purpose room, a couple little huts, the big barn in the back, and all the stuff, you know, the sensory garden and the playground. So you can put a limit to what it is that we're willing to spend on something. And from a financial perspective, When we get into the budget process, if the impacts to the budget don't allow for what the original concepts were that council ultimately approved unanimously with public input and literally over a year or two of process, then I would suggest that we go back and try to value engineer things to get it cheaper and remove certain elements. Now, I am of the thought that if you can build what we originally intended and afford it within our means and make it work for us financially, that we should all do it at one time because time and again when we haven't done that, I can tell you that the Coral Pine Park building cost us three times more than what it would have cost had we done it when we originally put it out to bid in phases and we decided to break up the project. Um, preliminarily, I went in and looked at, you know, the, the value schedule values for the, this project. And I can tell you that, you know, if we remove the amphitheater on the outside, if you remove the, the art pieces that are like the, you know, arches that go over, if you remove the. the little bridge on the outdoor pond. If you remove certain elements, if you don't build the second building, you just do a shell and don't build the inside. I was able to shave off about a million dollars. So short of If we don't want to spend more than the 7.8, which was in the original bid, I can tell you right now, we're not going to be able to build the house. We're not going to open the house. I can tell you right now, I would basically put a fence up there, try to fix everything else, and at least open the green part of the park to users. And then the house can be dealt with later on. But I can also tell you that this bid, we had four valid bids, especially, and they were submitted by people who have done work for us before. So the gentlemen, like LunaCon and stuff like that, they weren't the low bidder. But the second lowest bidder to this company, Waypoint, which is the same company that happened to build Coral Pine Park, came in $3 million more. I independently, prior to the bids coming out, had the project estimates done through an independent job construction estimator. And we're within a quarter million dollars of what that estimator suggested this project was going to cost. So if we want to, if I start doing the finances and this doesn't work, there's a couple scenarios. One, I can say, let's put a pause, let's sit on the property, let's wait, and let's revisit this when whatever finances come to fruition. Number two, I can try to solve it for today. I have two bonds that are coming up due in 2029 and 2030. We may want to retire those bonds. We know that We have been told that we can issue as much as $15 million more in bonds without affecting our AAA rating. Our finances can handle it. I don't know what that means from a taxing perspective. And I will not know what that means until I've had a chance to see what our taxable values look like for the year, what they've grown. We've done multiple capital projects simultaneously and not had to raise taxes. So I'd like to think that the stars will align and that things will work out. I will not know the answers to these questions until I get the estimates from the state, which don't come out till the first of June. We do have to make decisions on whether to award the rest, that second phase, by the June meeting, because there's a deadline. Those bid prices are only good for 90 days, and the clock started ticking in mid-March. So by mid-June, I have to know what we're gonna do with this vendor. I haven't even issued the notice to proceed, even though council already approved the part that was in the first bond. But assuming that we still, move forward and award this to this contractor. We can still, even after you do that, you can still do change orders. You can pare down the project. But I would definitely not recommend starting from scratch. I would use the plans we have already. We spent a lot of money in those plans. and try to either value engineer things to drop the price or drop some of the things that are more wants as opposed to needs. But you have, like I said, just looking through it easily just on the schedule values, we cut out the pergolas, the fancy entrance, But for a million dollar savings when you're bonding it out over 20 years, is it really worth not building what we dreamt of when you're going to have this facility for the next 75 to 100 years? I built too many parks in this city and in other cities. And I can tell you if we can make the finances work, I'm going to be pushing for that. That's going to be my recommendation and build what we dreamed. If I can't make it work, then I'm going to have to come up with a different solution and give you my recommendations. But again, I will not have this before June. It's just I can't.

Mr. Donald? Well, yeah, I thank you. Thank you, Madam Manager, for that. And I thank you, Council Member Meyer, for bringing it up. but this council's already made decisions to move forward, but I totally understand what the manager is saying, and at some point between now and I'm not sure when, first decision's gotta be made, are we going forward with this contractor, and then secondly, during budget workshops, we're gonna have to address the whole thing, whether we're gonna build it out completely or pare it back, depending on revenue, et cetera. I get that, we're not gonna make that decision tonight, that's for sure in the next, whatever it is, so I think it's good, The air is news, but that's about as far as we can go. When are we going to make the decision on the contract?

It has to happen at the June meeting. Okay, so it has to be done. It has to be done in the June meeting.

But that doesn't mean that we're stuck to any budget, does it?

It means that we sign the contracts for the full amount with them. By that time, I'm going to know whether I can solve the finances or not. By June?

By June.

By June, because by June 1st, I get the estimates from the revenues, from most of the revenues from the state. And I can pretty much get a sense of how much we've grown in taxable value and the revenues, whether or not we can absorb this with the existing millage rate, which is what I always try to do. I try to obviously keep the same millage rate.

But you're not saying that you'll know if we can do that park for that money in June?

I can tell you in June. whether or not we can build it as it was bid out.

So this discussion is probably better had in June.

Right. In the meantime, I do have...

Hold on. I mean, it's still dependent on the budget discussions because even if the manager comes back and says, yes, we can afford it, at what cost? And what is it that we won't be able to afford for the next four years as a result of this? And we have a long list of things on the strategic plan that the council has identified our priorities for our community. But it could be an implication. I'm not saying with certainty. I'm saying it could be an implication of the fact that we could make this work within our financials as the manager comes back to us in June. And yes, we can afford the park at the existing scope for that cost that's been estimated. What is the opportunity cost? What are the things that we won't be able to do for the next four years as a result? That will come from the budget discussion. So will we be in a position in June to commit to this with

You can always pare back there.

Every contract that we enter into has a clause where we can terminate within 30 days notice. Every contract that we enter into from construction allows for change orders to the positive or to the negative. So in those, we usually do our budget workshops in August. So that's two months worth of construction. At most, they're going to do prep work, some demo. They're not going to be in the finishing touches of anything. And if we have to pare it down at that point, we'll have that discussion. But yes, I believe, I want to say that the two bonds that... Well, I don't want to go too soon until I get to see the numbers. Let me work out the numbers, and then I'll give you what we can afford as far as Bondi capacity. And if there's other projects, obviously there's still discussion on whether we're gonna go forward with the Loveland Shared Use Path or not. We have a million dollar grant from the FDOT. If we're gonna go and do that, how much is that gonna cost, and where am I gonna get the money for that? There's all these questions, but that's all for budget discussion, and I get it. Yes, there's always gonna be a finite amount of money, and it's which one is coming first. In what order are we doing these things? And what's the priority? And that's for council to discuss. And if at one point you guys think that Aleda Mas, building Aleda Mas is not priority number one, and you want to shift that priority to something else, or shift some of that money and pare down, then those are my marching orders. But we can always do change orders after the fact. And that would be how I would handle this. I would have approved the entire amount of the contract a month ago. But we broke it up because I know that there was some heartburn on some folks not feeling comfortable that you hadn't had a chance to look at the finances. So we broke it up the way we did to just cover the bond amount that was already approved previously in the previous bond. But like I said.

OK, so what I'm hearing is it's hard to execute this project at a lower cost than 13.7 unless there's a substantial change in scope and design because the manager has done extensive diligence on on this, right? And we've received multiple bids and she's also gone above and beyond and done her own research to see if this could have possibly been anything lower. And maybe it's $1 million less. But other than that, then you're sacrificing scope. So those are the marching orders that she's getting from us. It's like, continue executing this project with the original scope and try to work out how it fits within our financials, right? And if we can afford this or not, and at what cost, and if we're comfortable moving forward with it or not. She's not currently evaluating a completely different scope for the park. that would make it a passive park and certainly may not be able to afford having a building. I don't know what the implications would be, but it would mean we build it with a budget that's been approved for this year for which we have the funds available. That's not a scenario that the manager is considering because that would mean a completely designable park. And so what I want, and the reason why I brought this on the agenda now is I wanted to validate that everybody's aware of this and that you're okay with this. That the scenario that we're considering is the existing scope and that we will try to make it work within our financials. And if not, what's the opportunity cost? What are the things that we won't be able to afford as a result, et cetera, within the strategic plan, and that we should be comfortable with it? So that's what's at stake here. If we don't change the marching orders, then the marching orders are implied that the manager will continue to make this work within the scope that's been agreed upon already.

It's been given to her by this council.

By anonymous vote. That's what happens. Yeah, I don't get all this. Right, so we're not in a position to change it yet.

Mr. Fairman, go ahead. If I may put an opinion on this, I look at this, if I'm building a new house or remodeling a house, and I think it's going to cost, it's got everything I want, and it's going to cost x amount of dollars, and then I find it costs x times 2, I'm going to think, OK, what can I build that I can afford? Or how do I get somewhere in between?

Or how do I make more money to get what I want ultimately? Do I work another job to get what I want?

Yeah, we could do that too. Try to solve problems. It's probably going to be a combination of all of the above, right? Fair enough. And the fact that you're looking through the plans My intention is to get with you and look through the plan as well and give you my two cents, because I am a representative of the public. And the public wants a lot of things, but they also want us to watch the dollars and cents too. And the things that you might really like in a park, because I love our parks, but our parks are fairly clean, simple, easy to maintain, nice properties.

All built by who?

All designed by who? Right. Right, me. Right, there's nothing. There's not a lot of archways, fancy stuff, all kinds of things. Not a coy pond when you have another pond.

This part in particular, when it was, and that's why those are the elements that I first looked at to remove. Because those are the wants, not the needs. And those are the low-hanging fruit.

So I'm agreeing with you on that. I think it's, for me, I feel responsible to look to see, okay, we know it's going to cost a lot more. Is there something we can live without that will help bring that down? Can we find a place in the middle B? And I know that's a possibility where we're going and it's all moving parts and I appreciate it.

Yeah, at some point, like, when it gets down to the nitty gritty, just so you understand when we get into construction, like, even when it comes down to fixtures, when we're picking lights. If there's a comparable light that looks just as nice but costs half the price as this one, if we find it, we automatically take that out. We try to always look for those kinds of value engineering. But yeah, to start from scratch and completely throw out, first of all, that building, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that council would ever want to demolish that building. I think it would be more likely that people would just hold on to it until we can't afford to do it if indeed we get to a point where we can't do it right now. But to tear down that building, I mean, that building is pretty spectacular and it would make for a great center. I just can't imagine that you guys would be demolishing. We just put a brand new $800,000 roof on that building. So that would be a huge loss.

So just like when you would make any decision on any project the financial implications of a project are a variable that you consider and when the time comes to move forward or not, or whether you need to readjust the code. Now we have a lot more information about this than we had two years ago. So I think it is doing the right, I said, you know what, let's still move forward with what we want because that's what our residents told us they wanted. That was the original vision. It's more expensive, but we learned that delaying is even worse, and so on. So I think it is a conversation at some point you need to have once you know the numbers that you didn't know two years ago when the council considered this goal.

I'm not disagreeing at all. I think I'm just saying with the time we're going to have that discussion, it's going to be soon. Yeah, it's coming up. Yeah.

And just and we all know every year that since COVID, everything just keeps getting more and more expensive. It doesn't seem to be an end to the amount of like explosion of expense across everything. So budget is...

stay tuned mr mayor while we're on village council i have a couple of announcements if i could make that i don't see any plants here tonight no plants here tonight but wait for june this coming monday 1 30 in the afternoon at st louis catholic church the school is having the freedom 250 mobile museum come in the town And it's after it leaves here, it's going to FIU. What is it? It's the Freedom 250 Mobile Museum, U.S. History Museum that's coming to St. Louis Catholic.

What day is that? We should put that out on social media.

That'll be Monday the 11th. They're inviting any council members to come. There'll be a little ceremony then. Also, this Friday at 430 at the Inspiration Center at the Gardens is the end of year party. So we would love to have council members show up for that and talk with the students. share our wisdom and everything with them, and they can talk to us. It'd be great to have you all show up.

Thank you.

I have a quick announcement if I may.

She's going to kill me, but our deputy clerk, Nicole Tobias, on Monday is going to be getting her master's, who has earned already, but we have bestowed upon her her master's in public administration.

But we can't let you leave. Congratulations. That's great.

Mr. Mayor, I have Christina Blanco here to address council on the avian project for Pinecrest Gardens. If you'd like to hear a quick presentation, the vice mayor had asked that we do something for the benefit of the entire council. And since we had a light agenda, I asked you to come in. No such thing as a light agenda.

I was hoping to do that at the gardens. It should take about 10 minutes.

It should take about 10 minutes, and we can then have a follow-up meeting. Is that OK with council?

I hate surprises.

All right.

So she's here, so we're going to do it. But can you fill me in in the future?

Sorry. I'm trying. I literally remembered this morning that we had talked about this. Can you do five?

I don't, but somebody might. Go ahead.

What she's going to hand out is basically the deck that we use to educate people on what's happening with the Avian Project. So at least with this information, you'll have the same information that's being disseminated to people that we're meeting with. But she'll go through the process.

If we get asked, we kind of know exactly how it's being presented.

Right.

I'm just going to do the high level.

This is Cliff Notes. We've been hosting different stakeholder meetings. Basically, people who may be for the project or not for the project to share the facts around what the project is and what it isn't. because there's a lot of noise and discussion around it, because it was released last year with the feasibility study that had a particular scope of work. The scope of work has changed dramatically. Essentially, if you flip to the executive summary, I'm going to read just the highlights, because I think that's sufficient for five minutes. We're exploring and evaluating whether we can rehome 20 to 30 birds to Pinecrest Gardens. The vision for the project right now has been scoped to take advantage of the existing historic enclosures that are along the lower gardens, which are adjacent to 57th Avenue, our parking lot, and that's it. and there would be a medium aviary that would be placed also in the lower gardens in an area where there are no legacy or historic trees or structures to allow for some free flying birds within the scope of the work. The only other element which is also described here is a perch that would be along the middle path where the original perch was located for the macaw birds and other birds that were there. Inside the deck, if you notice, it just gives you a quick little overview of saying what we looked into in terms of the feasibility of rehoming the birds. We took a look at everything from the capital needs, which is refurbishing and or building one new enclosure, as well as the medium aviary and the perch. We also took a look at the operational piece, which was shared also with council last year. What would it take once we build the structures, rehome the birds, which is an outright donation from Jungle Island, and operationally how we would handle that as well. I think I'm going to stop right there because I only have five minutes to go much deeper. It really requires an onsite like demonstration walking to where the enclosures are located as well as the medium aviary. And I'm welcomed. You're welcome to come and visit me at the gardens for that.

The gist of everything is that if you recall at the last, this, the current budget, we've set aside $200,000 as a matching fund. towards this project, and the rest of it is going to be fundraised. So this first phase that we're in right now is really trying to reach out to names of people who are more likely to give larger type donations. We've been meeting independently with folks going over this deck in great detail, walking them through the site, but obviously looking for you know, the potential for naming rights, for example, of the medium-sized aviary. If we get lucky, we find somebody who wants to donate, you know, $200,000, who knows, you know, for that.

I want to name the birds.

We can. So the full naming... Package will include naming opportunities for structures as well as birds, similar to other zoo entities. We're also building, we've built this deck so that we are sharing the same information with everyone like you have in front of you. We also take them to see the site. We will have a donation envelope. There are names that are being surfaced as well as potential interested donors who are already bird lovers and champions that would like to give donations. In addition to that, we're looking at foundations. and other granting sources to help supplement the total goal of $750,000 minus the matching funds, which puts us at $550,000 of fundraising to do.

So I know Mayor Lerner, Council Member Ross, they're involved in this group, and I just happened to have a couple random conversations with people that had gone to this presentation and were completely wowed by it, and in part a lot because Christina was speaking very frankly, honestly about it, and then they could tell, and then it got me thinking, The public's gonna be hearing more and more about this and we have a group that's out there working on it that the council should be on the same page so we're not misspeaking or misrepresenting anything that's going on. So thank you for being here. And do take the opportunity to take the little tour and see where some of these things might go. It's really cool.

We've met with a company that's out of West Palm Beach that does geodesic domes. And we're looking at the possibility of that medium-sized aviary being in the shape of a geodesic dome to match the bird bowl, I mean the banyan bowl. We can maybe call this the bird bowl because it would be the name of the parrot bowl, actually.

And it's right next to the location.

And it's right next to the original, right, where we're looking at it. So if it works, we'll see. But that particular structure was a lot cheaper because it's prefab. So if we can make it work, that's another way that we can save because then all we're really having to do is that netting that's the more expensive part of the aviary.

And I think it's something I'm eager to hear more about. In addition to the cost, I'm interested in the impact on, and we've talked about some of this, the impact on neighbors. Because I know there's some concern about that. And also the well-being of the birds. And if not wanting to have birds, it could otherwise be free, be confined. And I know this is all stuff that's looked into. Those are all just topics I want to explore with you and with the folks pursuing this.

So I look forward to that. I have one question. And that is, how many donations have you received so far? It's been the progress.

And number two is... We've been friend-raising, not fund-raising. What's that? We've been friend-raising and not fund-raising. Okay, okay, gotcha. But we do have a $10,000 donation to answer your question.

And the other thing is, fund-raising and building this up, I get this. What's going to be the cost to run this every year?

We have that as well.

And what are the impacts to the operating budget?

I'm happy to redo it with the council. I shared it last summer, actually. You have the full feasibility report that actually breaks out everything from staffing, food, animal care. I'm happy to go over it in the tour.

Because I think that is in large part maybe the largest portion of the commitment that the village will make if unless there's other ways There's another way to fund it.

I'll be happy to cover it with you on site There's a very specific plan in place for that as well.

Okay.

Thank you Yeah, just make your appointments to go check it out with her so you can get the full tour Thank You Christina

I have a request for a village council meeting. Oh, no, no, no.

We got to go for the village clerk. Anything, Ms. Clerk?

Nothing further other than the proclamations and committee minutes that were submitted, Mayor. All right.

Mr. Attorney? Nothing from me. Mr. McDonald, would you like to do the honors of adjournment?

Not yet. Sorry. I wanted to request if we could have a different date for the July meeting. Oh, wait. July? Yes.

What do you want to do?

Maybe not. Right now we have it set for the 14th of July. I'm out of the country. I could do the 7th of July if that's an option for everybody else. If not, then I might have to just join virtually or not join at all. It could be otherwise the 28th of July.

No, I'm out of town as well. No, 28th is bad. I knew the 21st.

It's still the same. I'm out of the country. But it's okay. or pre-meeting, but only absences can we have.

Well, you wouldn't be absent.

That's tough, because I'm going to be on a very different time zone. But it's OK. So it doesn't work. July 6 doesn't work. Or 7, I'm sorry. That was the option. But that doesn't seem to work.

No, I think I'll be out of town for the holiday.

And I'm out. You're out, too. I can make it where we've scheduled it. I've sandwiched it, being here between.

OK, we'll leave it as is, and I'll try to join if not be an absence.

Mr. McDonald. It was a motion. Can I second my motion? What, the second leading? Motion to adjourn. Second. All right.

I thought it comes with a seat, right? It's the seat that's to adjourn the meeting.

No, it's the market.

I'm having surgery tomorrow, so I will be in the hospital Thursday and out by Friday. All right.