City Commission - Regular Meeting

Hey Heat.

Heat. All right, if we can go ahead start taking our seats.

Taking our seats and also closing the back doors. If we could take care of that, that'd be great. All right, let's go ahead and call this PMPO Beach City Commission meeting to order. March 24th, 2026 six o'clock. Um, if I could ask everyone to please silence your cell phones or put them on vibrate during the meeting so we don't get disrupted with a telephone call, that would be great. So, please silence those cell phones. Thank you so much. Uh, Mr. Alfred, let's go ahead and call the role. Commissioner Fez here. Commissioner Perkins here. Commissioner Sigerson Eaton here. Commissioner Smith here. Vice Mayor Fornier here. Harton

here. Our invocation this evening is going to be given by Apostle John Mohorn from Word of Living God. Can we all please rise for the invocation followed by the pledge of allegiance? Good evening ma'am. Thank you Jesus. Our God, our father, again we come before thy present with thanksgiving for you have instructed us to pray for those that stand in leadership. But God, we always pray for you first. We honor your holy and your righteous name. We thank you for sustaining us. We thank you for blessing us. We thank you God for your pure agape love that you have smiled upon us. And now God, we pray for the great mayor, our great city commission, our great uh city God that you will continue of blessing us overruled with your divine peace, your divine joy, your divine protection. You said in Matthews 19 and 26, with men's is impossible, but with God all things are possible. So, Father, we look to you to work out our situation. We look to you for help. And God, we know it's in your name, Jesus. And you say, "Whosoever call on that name shall be saved." Help our community, God, as we pray over it. Help our great city. We pray for our great state. We pray for our great country. We all need you, Lord. And as David said it best, if it had not been for the Lord who has been on our side, and we know you've been there, God, but with you, we can decree and declare that the best is yet to come. So I pray unity upon our great city, upon every community, God, if you

would just breathe on us, if you would just touch us, God, whatever you do, it'll be sufficient. We can't make it without you. Surely you are the vine and we are the branch and the branch can't do nothing without the vine. So I pray divine unity upon this Dyson God that you will keep them in one spirit that you will keep them on one accord for the better of the peoples in this great city. We pray. Amen. Amen.

Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to theublic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Can I get a motion approving the regular city commission meeting minutes of March the 10th, 2026? So moved. Second. Moved and seconded. All in favor say I. I. Opposed? Motion carries unanimous. Thank you. On our agenda this evening, we will be adding a staff presentation directly after proclamations. So staff presentation directly after the proclamations. Mr. Harrison, any other changes to our agenda? No, sir.

Very good. Can I get a motion approving the agenda as amended? Mayor, can you What is the presentation? It's a Tai Tabing. It's he wants to present something concerning Jazz Fest, I believe. Thank you. So moved. Very good. Second. That second. All in favor say I. I.

Opposed. Motion carries unanimous. Thank you. On our consent agenda this evening, we're going to be pulling items one, two, and three for individual discussion. So, one, two, and three are getting pulled. So, item four will be eligible for discussion during audience to be heard. So, one, two, and three will be pulled. Thank you. All right, takes us up to proclamations. We got two this evening. One for World Landscape Architecture Month and one for Financial Literacy Month. So, I'll be right over there at the side. Let's see. Jordan Chang from Broward, chair of the American Society of Landscape Architects, Florida chapter, will be meeting me right over here. Okay, over here. Thanks for being here. Okay. All right. Here we go. All right. Whereas landscape architecture encompasses the analysis, planning, design, and stewardship of the natural and built environment, translating vision into action to shape places that are healthy, safe, and resilient. And whereas Wednesday, April f 1st, 2026 is recognized as professional landscape architecture day, celebrating the licensed professionals whose expertise in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, STEM, is essential to the infrastructure and quality of life in the city of PMPO Beach. And whereas as the United States approaches America 250, we recognize that landscape architects have historically shaped and continued to steward the American landscape, creating places that embodied democratic values and cultural heritage,

excuse me, and and advanced opportunities for future generations. And whereas the licensed practice of landscape architecture is a critical safeguard for public health, safety, and welfare, ensuring that outdoor environments from from therapeutic gardens and playgrounds to complex storm water and transportation systems are designed with technical rigor and ethical responsibility. And whereas landscape architects are uniquely qualified to address a changing climate through resilient and sustainable green infrastructure to design strategies that restore ecosystems, mitigate environmental hazards, and reduce the long-term financial burden of disaster recovery on state and local governments. And whereas the economy of the city of PMPO Beach is strengthened by the work of landscape of licensed landscape architects and the accredited programs at Florida International University and the University of Florida who together foster tourism, economic development and environmental protection. And that now therefore I Rex Harden, mayor, on behalf of the city commission and residents of the city of PMPO Beach, do hereby proclaim April 2026 as landscape architecture month. and Wednesday, April 4th, 2026 as Professional Landscape Architecture PLA Day, calling up all upon all citizens to celebrate landscape architecture and the essential role landscape architects play in shaping a resilient, safe, and enduring American landscape as we move toward America 250. done this 24th day of March 2026. Rex Harden mayor, thank you so much for all you you do and making our environment a more humble place and and habitable like here to say a few words.

Go ahead. Thank you for the proclamation. Uh my name is Jordan Chang. I Oh. Uh, I'm here representing the American Society of Landscape Architects and yeah, I'm very grateful for the proclamation and look forward to continuing to work in Broward County and Pompanu Beach.

Very good. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Yes. Thank you. See, let's see. Oh, she has. Okay. Here we go. Thank you so much. All right. Next, we have financial literacy month proclamation. Here we go, Miss Fittata. All right. Whereas financial literacy, understanding the basics of money management to help make better financial choices and effectively applying those financial skills in budgeting, spending responsibly, credit management, saving, investing, and retirement planning is essential for individuals and families to achieve financial stability and long-term economic security. And whereas national research continues to indicate points of concern for how many Americans lack basic essential skills and knowledge to be able to make informed and and effective decisions with their personal finances. And whereas financial stress can negatively affect individuals, families, and workplaces, contributing to health challenges, reduced productivity, and economic instability. And whereas financial literacy month observed nationally each April highlights the importance of financial education and encourages Americans of all ages to develop and maintain sound financial habits. And whereas financial education empowers residents to make informed decisions, reduce debt, build savings, avoid fraud and scams, and prepare for important milestones such as higher education, home ownership, entrepreneurship, and retirement.

And whereas improved financial literacy promotes economic mobility by helping individuals access workforce opportunities, build assets, and contribute to stronger and more resilient local economies. And whereas financial institutions, nonprofit organizations, and community partners observe financial literacy month by offering free workshops, educational resources, and outreach initiatives that promote lifelong financial capability. And whereas the city of Pompo Beach recognizes that expanding access to financial education strengthens household stability, supports career and business advancement, and enables residents to participate fully in the economic growth of the community. Now therefore, I, Rex Harden, mayor of the city of Pompo Beach, on behalf of the city commission and residents, do hereby proclaim April 2026 as financial literacy month to raise public awareness about the importance of financial literacy in the city of Pmpo Beach and to encourage residents, businesses, educators, financial institutions, and community organizations to recognize the importance of financial education and support programs that help individuals and families build financial security and expand economic opportunity. On this 24th day of March, 2026, Rex Harden, Mayor, Miss Fertado, thank you so much for what you do for our city, but would you care to say a few words about financial literacy month?

Yes. Thanks, Mayor Arden. I am honored to accept the proclamation and affirm the city's commitment to promoting financial literacy, empowering our community, and strengthening long-term economic well-being for all our residents. Thank you. Very good. Thank you.

Okay, now now it happened.

We got a picture of it. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right. All right. Now we move on to staff presentation. I'll turn it over to you, Mr. Tav. Okay. Uh, good evening. I'm Ty Tabing, cultural affairs director, and I am here tonight to raise awareness and hopefully generate some enthusiasm for the fifth anniversary of our Jazz Fest, which will be April 18th and 19th at the beach. Uh this will be our third year at the beach and one of the key messages is this is a free festival. 99.9% of the people who attend will be attending free of charge. Um, we have sold some VIP tickets, um, which I'll talk about a little bit, but um, like I said, more than anything, this is a free event sponsored by the city of PMPO Beach, um, with sponsors Champion Porsche, um, and also we have received a grant from the county cultural division, um, as a sign of this being a cultural happening in Broward County, and we're very proud of that. So, um, just a couple of brief slides to to get folks excited. Drop down.

So, you may have seen that commercial. It's been airing um on various uh TV channels the last uh few weeks. Um and there are some key messages that I just want to um bring to your attention. U this will be the first year that the Jazzfest has been in April. Uh the first four years we were doing it in January. We've experienced some cold weather the last couple years which prompted the move to April. And in years past we were doing the festival on a Friday and a Saturday. Uh we've moved the event to a Saturday and Sunday. Um hoping to attract um a larger audience and capture people when they have days off. Um but um the evenings really start at 5:00 p.m. Uh the great news is that the local stage will start at 1:00 on Saturday and at noon on Sunday. Um we really want to encourage people to kind of make a slow roll in. Uh be ready for the five o'clock start at the headline stages. Um but um kind of come at your leisure trying to avoid some of the congestion and parking issues that invariably surface um with events at the beach. Um the food and bar gets going at 3:00. All of the vendors are um local vendors. Uh they come from the fishing village um in nearby proximity to where our event will be taking place. And we really encourage people to bring chairs, coolers, blankets, um all the stuff that you need for a day at the beach. um because we're not providing much except for great music and a great time. We'll have artists, our artists and residents will be there um showing off their wares. But the key message is we encourage people to take ride share. Uh take Uber and Lift. Um parking challenges are expected. Um so please um take ride share. Um just a little bit of information about who's playing. As I mentioned, the local stage on Saturday gets going with with those acts. And then in the evening, Kim Scott, Richard Elliot, and Brian Colbertson. He's kind of the most uh well-known of all of our

performers. Um and we'll be closing things down Saturday evening. Sunday, the local stage, as I mentioned, will start at noon. Um and then we'll have the Purple Project, um which is um a reinterpretation of um Prince's um album, um with a jazz genre. So, we're excited about that. And then Walter Beasley gets going and Ghost Note closes it out Sunday evening. We wrap up Saturday at 11 p.m. and um Sunday at 1000 p.m. Um we have we have merch. Please check out our website. All of those items are for sale. Um that's our wonderful department head secretary, Michelle Owens, who's here tonight modeling the buckle the bucket hat. Michelle, can you wave out there? Okay. Um so take a look at those. And again, we just want people to come out. It's a great time, a great celebration of all that PMPO Beach has become. Um, this is our biggest event of the year and um hopefully we will see you there. We encourage you to follow us on PMPO Beach Arts um in the event of any kind of real-time information that needs to be shared during the event. Um so you can stay current. Um

Ham, Kim Scott, Walter Beasley, and so many other talented local artists as well. I don't know about nobody else, but we going to be there funking it up. All right. I would love to see everybody's area. Come on out, y'all. Peace. Yeah, if you follow us on PMPO Beach Arts, all of the performing artists have been have been doing shoutouts, which are pretty fun. Um, so again, I hope to see you on April 18th and 19th. Um, we're just south of the Fisher Pier and look forward to a great weekend. So, thanks so much. I appreciate it. Thank you, Ty. Appreciate that. Excellent, excellent, uh, weekend. Always is. Always a good time. Always good crowds. Thank you so much. Look forward to it. All right, that takes us up to let's see audience to be heard. Do we have anyone signed up for audience to be heard this evening, Mr. Alfred?

Yes, we do, Mayor. We have 11 speakers. Okay. First speaker, Christina V Reguts, followed by Ed Phillips, followed by Mary Phillips, followed by Pamela Simmons, Christina. Oh, the center over here. and just name and address for the record and please limit your comments to three minutes. Thank you.

Okay. Uh good evening. My name is Christine Vutz and I live at 1108 West Cypress Drive in Pompo Beach. It's in Par. I came to this meeting to express my dissatisfaction with the ongoing condition of the pavement following a hydraulic fluid leak from a garbage truck this past December. The spill spans from the entrance of Cypress Estates to West Cypress Drive and to a lesser degree East Cypress Drive. My neighbor at 11:09 initially reported this to the Environmental Department and to Coastal Waste Management. We have a claim number uh 2512-017. Yet the stains persist. Furthermore, an unpleasant odor continues to emanate from the pavement, particularly after rainfall. Despite multiple attempts by cleanup crews to treat the area, the results remain unacceptable. These lingering oil stains and odors are not only an eyesore but are also negatively impacting the aesthetic standards and property values of our community. I urge you to conduct a personal inspection of the site to see that the current environmentally friendly sprays have failed to fully remediate the damage. I would like to know what additional steps you plan to take to restore our streets to their original state. I look forward to your prompt response and a definitive solution. Thank you very much.

Very good. Thank you for that. Um I know that Mr. Ketchum has been dealing with this, I believe. Thank you, Mr. Ketchum. Thank you. Next speaker. Will all volunteers uh and representatives ad uh please come forward uh who have been actively involved with Tiger Trail. Uh we have about 30 to 40 volunteers. All of them aren't here for various reasons. Uh but you'll see that there's a significant number of folks. Um, we have a film to be played or we're going to do that now before I go into this at just 30 seconds. Mayor,

so you got a video that's going to play. It's already been reviewed by Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. They wouldn't have it any other way. May, while that's going, I'm going to say

history will judge us not during the moments of comfort and convenience, during the times of challenges and controversy, controversy where we stood. May I'd like to take this opportunity to thank this city uh for standing firm with Black History Month and all the activities that uh we have brought about. Contrary to folks opinion uh Tiger Trail Festival and its volunteers and it sponsors we actually raise money. All the money does not come from the city. Some folks seem to think that all the money that we raise comes from the city does not. Uh, I am happy to report to you, mayor, because of the sponsorship with the city and a number of other folks, um, we raised $92,000 for Tiger Trail Festival in my neighborhood. Mayor, that is extremely uh, successful feat, but I almost also have to tell you is extremely difficult feat. And so I'd like to take this time to thank the volunteers, uh, the people present for understanding the mission that black history is American history. But I have to also say thank you to, um, the commissioners. I have to say, Commissioner Eden has shown up to all of the gaylas. Allison has shown up to most of the gaylas. Darlene has shown up to a lot of the gaylas. The mayor has been to all of the gaylas. So, and I must say this that even though some of you have not attended the gaylas, you allowed us to put your names on the stationary. And I've always been told that if you do not actively work against us, you must be for us. And having said that, contrary to popular opinion, I have to say this. I need to say thank you to the city manager who has been an argent supporter. um Daryl

Daryl Stling, Earl Bosworth, Ty who has um stepped up to the t to the plate from cultural arts building and all the people who are affiliated with us and the city staff. The city manager once told me he says, "Ed," he said, "I don't show up uh personally, but if my staff shows up, I'm there." And guess what? It took a long time for that to sink, but thank you, city manager, for allowing the staff to show up. And I got to close by saying this. There's a lot of stuff that goes on up here, but be aware that what we try to do during Black History Month, and you've seen this, is to ensure the spirit of inclusion. Y'all can fight all you want to, but when it comes to the spirit of inclusion, we like seeing you. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you to all the volunteers uh for their participation. And thank you, Mr. Phillips, for for your uh your spearheading things for so many years. I know you didn't you didn't share everything this year. You're you're you're passing the baton which that's that's that's very good. Commissioner Fessic. Um Mr. Phillips, I just want to say congratulations to you and your team for raising so much money. I am sorry I could not attend this year but it fell on my birthday. So unfortunately I was able unable to go but I I I definitely support you in all of your endeavors. Thank you.

Very good. Thank you. Next speaker. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Deputies. Uh, ladies and gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen, if I could ask you to please um just m sir, please, if there's an issue, we've got deputies here, so they they will handle it. But please, please, please, sir. Thank you.

Next speaker, go ahead.

Hi, I'm Mary Phillips. I live at 384 Northwest 19th Street in Pompo Beach. And I would just like to make the community aware that we're going to have a South Florida grant writing workshop on 20 in for 2026. Um right here in PMPO Beach, I have two very very experienced individuals who will be presenting this workshop. That's Marie Emanuel. She actually has written uh grants for Broward County School Board. So she's very very knowledgeable. And Gregory Mitchell with a lot of people in this community is aware of him. He works with churches, nonprofits, and forprofits. This workshop is tailored for nonprofits, for-profits, and churches featuring these particular uh industry experts. And we encourage you if you want a grant because there are grants out there for businesses. There are even grants for churches. Some churches don't think that they could get money, but they can. And so they're going to be providing them with the information that they need to apply for grants effectively so that they could get funded. So it's all about getting your funding. All right. So um if you can just pass the word um they can go to my website smallbizinfo.net if they would like to participate in it. It is being um presented on Facebook. So, if if those of you who are my friends on Facebook, you can see the information there. And please, if you know somebody who needs money for their nonprofit or for their business, please send them suggest that they go to the workshop. They're going to get a lot of information. Thank you.

Thank you, speaker. Hello, my name is Pamela Simmons, 11:30 Northwest 5th Avenue, Papa Beach, Florida. I have a nonprofit, Women Walking with a Vision Network, Inc. This month is Women's History Month, and I'm inviting the ladies here on the DAS, including you men's. We're having a march um from Jesus Christ. We're having a march and it's it's kind of touching because, you know, this is women history month and we don't see too many women's um encouraging and motivating each other. So, this walks means a lot to me and the theme is speaking to the whole woman. And this March 28, 2026, 9:00 am to 3 pm. I'm asking you to come join us for a powerful day of empowerment, unity, and a purpose for all women's. It's going to be in inspirational speakers community walk where we will march from Mitchell Moore to Apollo Park. And my purpose is this to build powerful and supportive networking and walking boldly with a purpose.

Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Mayor Commissioner Perkins. Um I look forward to this uh every year speaking to the whole woman. It is a awesome event um which we start at Mitch Moore walking at 9 in the morning and we end at um Opalo Park. It's a very very good event especially for us women to hear uh some of the inspiring speakers that she have every year. So thank you so much uh Pam Simmons for putting this together and I look forward to it. I'll be there. There you go. All right. Next speaker,

Project Phillips, followed by Tamara Taylor, followed by Mary Joseph, followed by Michael Severki. Project Phillips Rodick Phillips 2620 Northwest 10th Street PMPO Beach Florida. Well, I'm here uh on behalf of the lost and the not found, the indigent, uh the homeless, the uh mentally ill, the uh dis disfranchised, the the people that no one wants to be dealing with, but we see them every day. I I last last uh week I I think I mentioned uh to Allison and uh Darlene that these people are in my community northwest section which is uh Beverly Perkins community. Uh she see them every day. She been seeing them every day for uh uh for the past 10 eight years and uh unfortunately uh nothing seems to be able to be done about it. They still they still homeless. They still walking around. Uh, we can we can we can send billions and trillions of dollars of of American money to another

country, but we can't send a $100 to help a person get off crack or get off cocaine. We we can send we can send money all over the world the the present administration and and and we could build gyms for for 900,000 or maybe a million dollars but we can't help the homeless or we can't house the homeless. however you want to put it, there's something uh there's a there's an atmosphere going on in this country where where where we uh have have lost sight on on life living in the pursuit of happiness. I'm not happy no more. I was happy. Gas is high. Imagine I'm catching hell. What you think the homeless doing? They catching more hell. Is anybody concerned about them? Of course not. We got We got the homeless advocate, Cassani R. She's uh out there doing what she can do. Uh BSO can't do too much, but they but they got time to kick people in the head and beat people down uh in in our out of our city that's from our city. And then we have uh the city of Pompino not doing anything about it are really not caring. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Phillips. Next speaker.

Good afternoon. My name is Tamara Taylor, 610 Northwest 35th Avenue, Pumpino Beach. I am here tonight speaking on the incident that took place at 920 Northwest 8th Avenue on January 13th where my son was kicked repeatedly by BSO, member of the BSO team. I'm here for accountability. Um since January 13th, I haven't heard anything besides Gregory Tony speaking out to my family on February 28th. On January 18th, also in the city of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, I it was a six-year-old boy stomping on a dunk head duck head and it was a $5,000 reward put put out. Yet, I'm still sitting here waiting on answers for my son being kicked repeatedly by members of the BSO team. Because of this matter being upon the investigation, I will be respectful as I have been for day one. Then on March 3rd in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Newkerk, Christopher Newkerk was also beat. You have two families sitting here hurting. One in Pmpo Beach, one in Fort Lauderdale. No officers have been held accountable. My son had charges placed on him that he wasn't even able to attend my aunt funeral because your officers are still working every day while my son is suffering. When would I get the justice and the answers that I need? I am tired of being humble. I am tired of hearing it's up on investigation. What do I do from here? These officers clock in every day. Their life have not stopped. My son have not been the same. To hear me tell him that my aunt died and the judge deny him because they feel he's an animal. But yet we have a felon representing our country. I want justice. I demand justice. I'm tired. When would the city of Pompeo Beach give me the justice that I need? because BSO is not giving it to me. Thank you.

Thank you. Um I mean Thank you. Okay. Well, I can take I was just going to ask Major L. Wood. Do you have any update to add or is it still under investigation on this matter?

Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners. You know, I can't speak any more eloquently than I think the sheriff spoke when he was here that evening. Um, it is an active investigation. It has gone to the use of force board. Use of force board sent it back to internal affairs for some additional information. They they've done that and it's now going to the professional standards committee. That is the process. They will make a decision on the outcome of the investigation and then the sheriff as he spoke here uh said that he'll make the final decision once he reviews that and that's where we're at with it. Very good. Thank you. Yes, sir. Next speaker.

Hello. I'm Mary Joseph and I'm also here to speak on the police brutality in in these communities. I'm sure um most of you have saw the videos um especially the be the brutal beating of um Christopher Newkerk. Um I couldn't even watch the video. It was so disturbing. All I saw was evil, hatred, racism. That's what I saw because that was brutal beating for someone that did nothing but get stopped for dark tents. That's what he got stopped for. Pulled over for dark tents and they and they kicked him and beat him like that. They kicked four of his teeth out of his mouth.

They broke and he right now he's in jail with all this broke. He did not see a doctor yet. They took him from the refinement the um floor ma'am. So my we can't hear you. So now he's not no medicine. His bones still broken. His um knees, eye socket, his head, his socket. They they kic through his tooth out his mouth. Four. Well, four tooth out his mouth. Um

and um one of the sergeants from um the city of North Lauderdale, he told me that um the officers did that to my father because they told me I don't see the size, how far how big my father is. But I feel like um size shouldn't matter. nothing and just not because he's my father. That shouldn't happen to anyone else. And you I just feel like with them doing their job, I just feel like it never have to lead until you guys like beating someone like especially like just beating like they shouldn't be officers.

I just feel like you guys have they have tasers. They have so many things to use instead of just putting their hands and personally just beating on someone and then kicking and then especially with someone who didn't resist or hit and do anything follow all protocols that is even crazy and every night I literally just I literally sometimes I I'm I'm fear of the police now that that thing happened to my dad. Like I don't I don't even feel safe like that happened to my father. Like I don't even know who I would call if I'm in trouble. I don't know I don't know what they would do. I don't go to police cuz I don't know what

and and my and my thing also is I feel like they are just shuffling these officers around. They do one thing in one community and they just move them to another community and then they do something in that community. So my thing if it was addressed in the in the first community, this wouldn't happen in somebody else's community. These officers would be gone out of the system. And the same officer that did it to Taylor is the same officer that happened incident with my father. And that wouldn't have happened if he would have got. And I just want to also input, we put our hand over our heart and we say justice for all, but what do justice really look like when we send the pledge because we're not getting the justice for all and nobody's saying anything. Understood. Uh ma'am, we are voters.

Ma'am, excuse me. And can we get your name for the record name? Michelle Newert. Okay. Thank you. Only daughter. Okay, very good. Commission Commissioner Perkins. Yes. Are they saying that the incident that happened on Northwest 8th Avenue where the young man killer was kicked was the same officer involved in the same officer? Okay, that was Thank you. That was my question. Very good. All right. Thank Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. Good. Major, anything to add?

That's not accurate, mayor. That that that deputy's on administrative leave. He's not was not working in North. Ladies, ladies and gentlemen, please let we got to maintain order here. Let let let the major speak. Thank you, Commissioner. I can assure you that that that's not the same deputy. The deputy was not working in North Lauderdale at all. He's been in Pompo and he's been on administrative leave. Okay. So, you're saying that the officer that was involved in the incident here on Northwest 8th Avenue is on administrative leave? Yes, ma'am. Okay. He was not He's not worked anywhere other than Pompo. He's not not in North Lauderdale. I can tell you that for sure. All right. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Good. Thank Thank you. Next speaker, Michael Severki, followed by Brandy Zabedo.

Mike Scverki, 1630 Southwest Fifth Avenue. I sent you guys some photos of the uh senior center. You got the one walkway in the very corner. I don't know who put this together, whose idea this was. And I've sent to you the information. You really need to measure it. You need to cut it into thirds. And you need one more walkway to the far left because like I've stated before, you have a lot of Well, first of all, these people are handicapped, a lot of them, and they're elderly. So, you must put a walkway to the left or to the south in a third. Let her measure it. I think I could trust her over any engineer we have. Let her do the measuring. I don't I don't trust any of these characters you have over here or an engineering. It's very easy to divide something into three and I'm not sure if they know how to do it. And that's all you need. Period. So, this way when they come in, they don't have to try to cut through the grass. I've already had to help somebody before and it's not fair to them. Now, the next thing I become aware of what's going on in the Northwest area. This is what we're paying Lotus Mindset across the street over here for this disaster. This new what you want to do over here. We're paying them $150,000 a year. I do not know what they're doing. Roa Point, we are actually paying them $9,617.82 a day. If somebody from Roa Point is here, I would like to know what they did today to get the $9,600. Then our favorite, the cream of the crop, RMA. We are paying them $133.90 or 66969 6669.51 a week. The total we are paying these three companies is almost $3 million in your

district. And what are they doing? What are they doing to make this $3 million? And I bet at least 95% of the people that work for these these companies are my color or actually the color of my butt. I can guarantee it. I can guarantee it. So what I would like to know because people tell me you're the only one that has true leadership. One of you say I want RMA to get up here in front of everybody and tell them what they did for today to earn $133.90 or Roa Point 9617.82 for the day. That's what they get paid on a daily basis. have them come in or if there is somebody from RMA here now, let them get the heck up here and explain the situation on how they're screwing us big time and they've been doing it for years.

Very well. Thank you. L ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, please please refrain from the the applause. Vice Mayor, so I did take a look at the senior center and at the pictures that were sent and I I agree with Miss Mr. Ski on this. There's not there's like grass and landscaping, but there's not a lot of like walkways or access from the parking. Are we Mr. Harrison, are we looking into that? I know there was a little issue with this at youth sports complex when it first was built and we had to everyone was using the facility one way and we had to modify some of the walkways. Are we are we doing the same thing at the senior center to see if there's uh additional walkways that can be added? Yes, ma'am.

When will we have an answer on whether we're going to do something there? I'm not sure at this second, but I will make sure that we get back to all of you. Okay. Thank you. Very good. Commissioner Perkins.

Um, as I have stated earlier or in several meetings, we have quite a few issues at the um senior center and it's only, I guess, about three years old um or less. And from the beginning, it was not built correctly because of course we had to add a new parking lot in the front of the um senior center to accommodate those seniors. And now we're talking about walkways. And these are some of the things that happen when it's built in the northwest. A lot of thought and putting it together is it's not done properly. So, um I've been talking about some of the issues as far as pressure cleaning the front of the um facility on a regular basis. It's not that old, but it looks very rund down and we need to give it more attention. I I do know that we have funds put away for 2027 or $3 million to extend the um facility. But I just want you to know that whenever we're building something, uh, Mr. City Manager, we would like for you to put your heart and soul in it like any other building because I'm sure we're doing that with the new city hall, putting all finetuning, everything that's needed there. We're doing that. So, we just need to consider that when we're building all over the city and not in just certain sections of the city. Thank you.

Very good. Next speaker. Oh, and mayor, before she comes up, Mr. Perkins. Yeah. I I'm getting uh I'm being told that whoever is listening online, uh the volume is very low. They could barely hear. So maybe someone in the sound room can turn the volume up for those that are listening online so they could better hear the uh the meeting. Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead.

Hello everybody. I'm Brandy Zabodol. I wear many hats, but today I present to you as president of the PMPO Beach Civic Association in the PMPO Beach Highlands, which is where I live. Um, I'm inviting you all personally, including city manager, attorney, everyone here in this room, to our neighborhood cleanup. It's our first ever. We're going to be working on the very busy roads that seem to collect most of the trash with within our community. This is very solutionoriented. our community members, Pompo Eagles, BSO, they will all and um also of course the Elks Lodge will be uh promoting this and um helping us clean up and beautify our neighborhood. And so in addition to that, I'd also like to thank Environmental Services for providing the pickers, the buckets, an extra trash uh trash pickup location, and I really hope to beautify our community. So, thank you. Oh, in addition, um, also happy early birthday, Mr. Ketchum.

Good. Thank you. Next speaker,

Delvin King, followed by Rain. Um, her first name is Rain. That's how I can pronounce the name. Okay. Delvin King, 2601 Northwest 12th Street. I guess the best y'all can do was send them fools after me. All right. So, today I decided to wear my red shirt because I'm coming in hot today. So, I tend to ask myself a lot, how can we move this city forward? There's so much division. The last few months, I sat back and I observed. And after careful observation, I came to my own conclusion. Um, Mr. city manager. See, the problem is you got one foot in, one foot out. You know you don't want to be here. You're just a figurehead for Kim Breedmeister. You only here because she asked you to stay here to make sure the diet is changed so we can renew that contract, the same contract that Mr. Scverki was talking about. See, Pompo could be much better if we just be honest. Talking about honesty, let's go ahead and address the elephant in the room, Miss Sarah Peterson.

How could you just sell out the black community for $150,000 contract in a house? Mr. King, excuse me. I'm I'm going to Okay, let me continue going. The scope of her contract works consists of community outreach. Yes. Hold on. Pause the time. Pause the time while you talk. Pause the time. I'm going to ask you to refrain from bringing personalities into this. If you got an issue with something in the city, talk about that. Okay. Give me a couple my Give give me your 15 seconds back. You You interrupted me. Go ahead.

You gonna give me the 15 seconds back. Okay. So, let's speak on the contract. Her contract consists of community outreach and engagement, education, workforce, financial literacy, small business development, real estate and home ownership education, uh small business support services, funding, research, and capital access. The honest question is, how can we have someone who has multiple evictions teach this community about financial literacy? 2018 eviction, 22 eviction, 2023 evs out there. Come on, let's keep it going. You let him put my eyes out there. Let's keep it going. I'm going I'm going to ask you to

Oh, you're not going to let me address her stuff. This is a contract. She She's a consultant with the city. Mr. King, I'm not going to let you stand here and you're not going to let me stand here and talk about her. No, you can talk. But she can go around. So she can but so she can go around and do whatever she want to do and beat up on whatever commissioner she want to beat up on. Mr. King, correct? Just to be clear, you could talk about her contract all want. So we're not going to talk about evictions. Mr. King, personalities. Okay, let's keep going. Give me some of my time back.

How can you teach me about personal finances when you can't keep a roof over your head? But this is what the city of Pompo does. They hire non-qualified people to work in areas they're unqualified for. If anybody should have the contract, it should be the girl that's on her team, Miss uh Witherspoon. She's nonbiased, professional, and stays out of politics and stay true to the contract. See, the honest job that Sarah was paid to do was to be nasty in this community and tear up other commissioners. I've been to meetings where I seen her come with the ugly face looking all crazy just so she can intimidate other commissioners. You ain't heard that she do that, Mr. King?

And she's doing all this for me. Focus on the I'm telling you. I'm I'm just speaking what it is now. You want to be fair. You want to be fair cuz that's your girl cuz that's your girl. You want to be fair. But you wasn't fair. It wasn't fair when he sent out that email when he sat up there and he read all my foolishness. It wasn't That wasn't fair. Was it? Was it fair? Was it? Just tell me if it was fair. Was it fair? Was it fair? He sat there and read all my stuff. Now I'm reading her stuff. You have nothing to You You want me to shut up? You want me to shut up? He sat there at the last commission meeting and just read it out loud. Thank you, Mr. King. But listen, just like they got supporters, I got supporters for me, too. There's people in this community that support me. I'm going to ask you to leave the microphone now. Your time your time is over.

Okay, that's fine. Thank you so much for your time. Very good. Next speaker. Mayor Commission. Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, please be quiet. Thank you, Commissioner Fessic.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, number one, I'm going to address some things later on about some of the things that I've experienced personally, but I want to make sure that we're clear about um, Mr. Burman, just again related to how the mayor has interrupted Mr. King and and anybody else. Uh in our on right here on page three, it says as set forth in 3007 of the city's code of ordinances, the city commission recognizes the importance of protecting the right of all citizens to express opinions on the operation of city government and encourage citizen participation in the local government process. The commission shall not prohibit public criticism of the policies, procedures, programs or services of the commission or the acts or emissions of the commission. Commission also recognizes this the necessity for conducting orderly and efficient meetings in order to complete city business in a timely manner and has set out policies to ensure the same which includes the following requirements. Mr. King was up here and he's welcome to his opinion and he did so respectfully and he was welcome to be upset or he's welcome to be emotional. He's welcome to his opinion as per his first amendment right. And given that he's criticizing one of the consultants on our payroll, he has every right to do so. And I would like to make sure that everybody feels welcome to do so. And I would request nicely, very, very pleasurably and and politely that the mayor make sure that audience does get to be heard. Thank you. Uh

mayor, commissioner, ladies, ladies and gentlemen, please. Commissioner Perkins. Yes, I agree with Commissioner Fess. Um, anybody that would like to come up and speak and share whatever issue of concern they might have, you'd be able to do so. And I think this is this is the second time that you have interfered and cut off Mr. King while he was speaking because you did not like what he was saying. Now we sit up here on this das and we have to take a lot of things um from people that say things about us standing there at that podium that we don't like. We take it. So as the mayor you got to do the same thing. I don't like a lot of things that's being said but people have a right to voice their opinion and you should never and you should stop interrupting a person when they're standing there at that podium and you know they have three minutes. Let them finish what they have to say whether you like it or not.

Thank you. Very good. Mayor, vice mayor. Thank you. And there's a quote that comes to mind. I think it's the mayor doth protest too much. Uh it is I've never seen you shut someone down for the content of what they were saying before. We've we've talked about how we cannot personally be called out here based on the rules, but not liking the content of what someone's saying is saying is not a reason to silence them. And I've actually I don't think I've ever witnessed that done before. So I Mr. Burman, is that is is that allowed?

Vice Mayor, the mayor runs the meeting. It's up to him to keep decorum in the meeting and he does as he sees fit. If you disagree with what he's doing, you do what you do now and you express. I'm not going to give a legal opinion. It's not a legal issue. He runs the meeting. If the commentary is getting off base where it's uh becoming more vulgar or uh disrespectful, he controls the meeting as he sees fit. If you're not happy with what he's doing, then what you're doing now is making that expression. Thank you. So, I have seen a ton and heard a ton of vulgar speeches, speakers up here before and I've I've never actually seen them shut down before like what we just witnessed. So, very disappointing. Very good.

Question. Sorry, Mayor. Commissioner Fess, Mr. Burman, I just for clarity, I have a question related to exactly this. At what point do we or what is the recourse if this continues for the rest of the commission? So, we've noticed that this has been a pattern. We've all called it out and I would like to know what our recourse is in terms of aside from just saying, "Hey, we don't like it." It'd be a censure. I I I actually have a little bit more tact than that. But anyway, so what is the recourse and when do we get a legal opinion and when should we seek a legal opinion related to certain things like this? Would would you recommend that we ask you for a legal opinion? I'll look into it and be happy to get back to you. Thank you.

Very good. All right, that uh concludes audience to be heard at this time. We did have one last speaker. However, she's here to speak on agenda item number one. So, um that concludes audience to be heard, mayor. Okay, very good. That takes us up to our consent agenda. Can I get an an motion approving item number four? So moved. Second. Moved and seconded. All in favor say I. I.

Opposed? Motion carries unanimous. That takes us up to item one is a resolution. Resolution of the city commission of the city of Pablo Beach, Florida, approving and authorizing the proper city officials to execute FDOT District 4 amendment number 36 to include landscape maintenance memorandum of agreement between the city of Pablo Beach and the state of Florida Department of Transportation for additional landscape improvements. And the rightway is State Road A1A, North Ocean Boulevard for mile post 11.280 and mile post 11.345 providing an effective date. So moved. Second. Moved and second for discussion. This item was pulled by Commissioner Fess. Commissioner,

thank you. Um, so I I was the one who asked for this to be postponed at the last meeting. Um, and I have since gotten more clarification. Um, so I want to thank staff for providing the site plans to me. I've also done my own research. Um, so this particular way that this was phrased in in the way that this is phrased in our agenda, it speaks to mile post the mile post that most people would have no clue what it is and I pointed that out last time. Um, so what it is is it's connected to a parcel that is it is slated for redevelopment. So the parcel and this redevelopment process were a sensitive issue long before I was ever elected or even thought about being elected. Um back in 2017 18 and through 19 there were over 1300 almost 1500 1395 notorized and 232 and more online petitions against this particular development being sorry that was loud u being uh being approved yet the body in in play at the time voted for this project to be changed the zoning to be changed. So, with that, I just have a couple qu questions because I asked before, but I'd like more clarification. Um, can staff confirm that um item number one covers the same general A1A frontage corridor as 1550 North Ocean Boulevard, also referred to in the development service, development re review committee files, as Ocean Park, which is related to the Mount Vernon property holdings.

Ron McCann, public works director. That's correct, Commissioner. Thank you. Um, second, can can staff confirm that this project site plan includes an F dot rightway dedication along A1A? The site plan lists an F dot uh rightway dedication of about 1500 square feet. So, I just want to make sure that I'm reading that correctly. It's I don't know if it's a dedication. It's still their rightway and there's landscape that's planted there. So, they have to have this amendment. Okay. Um, can staff confirmed that the project file required uh FOP permits for work in the A1A right ofway, including the driveway connection permit, driveway drainage permit, and utility construction permit before building permit issuance.

My understanding in the city FDOT does not pull permits in the city on their right of way. So, the rest of that property absolutely there's building permits required. Right. So, that the the the developer would have to pull those permits civily. Correct. And then um so can staff confirm that the applicant also proposed a right-of-way easement to allow public parking and public sidewalk on private property along that same frontage? That's more so to allow for additional parking for North Ocean Park and the property. Correct. And then last, um can staff confirm that the review file even identified um a water feature now an art piece uh in the future right away with the applicant stating it would be submitted to Florida Department of Transportation for review. I'm sorry, commissioner, I didn't follow.

Right. So F dot the basically F dot had to review the the either water feature now as an art piece of some kind. Correct.

So that so that's my point here. Um I look I there's not much I can change as one one vote, but there is some things I can and this is it's not part of this this item specifically is not part of the site plan itself. I know there was a lot of people who came in here very passionate um last meeting. Um, but I I am saying that it does relate to that same A1A corridor footage. Um, same square footage, that same area that was so people were so passionate about enough that we have this many notorized signatures. And um, that project, the plans are preliminary, so they're not fully permitted and of course they're subject to revisions during permitting. But so when this comes in as a technical maintenance item and consent agenda, so likely just sort of to be like, oh, it's just a housekeeping item, right? Residents have every right to ask what corridor we're actually talking about. Um I know that we have received um from Miss Manzone an a message um an email that's been entered into the record relating to concerns. We've heard I've gotten emails. I had other people come in for for questions. So, look, this might be one small vote and it might mean almost nothing to anybody, but it means a lot to the residents who I represent and um this is one of the few places left for me to stand up for my residents on this particular matter and um and I heard you loud and clear and so I'm going to do that and I cannot support this moving forward. Thank you.

All right, this is a public hearing. Is there any input from the public on this item? Please come forward. Just name and address of the record, please.

Um, I'm Karen Manzone, 3232 Northeast 16th Street, number 4, PMPO Beach, Florida 33062. Uh, good evening, commissioners. Uh, first I'd like to thank uh, Robert McCann for his quick response and clarification to an email I sent to him regarding the duet ocean residences. Um, with regards to landscaping, my husband and I have concerns with future storm water services and sanitary sewer connections after the construction of the duet. We already have flooding on Northeast 16th Street when there are heavy rains and high tides. We want to be sure that the sewer lines and storm drains are planned and implemented with the neighboring residents in mind, that proposed trees are not going to be planted right on top of a sewer mane or interfere with storm grates, and that the corner of Northeast 16th Street is protected. Are there drainage system plans to mitigate the possible extra water runoff from the heavy rains? Um, secondly, will there be a clear demarcation between the public park versus private development? It appears that there's a proposed sidewalk on the south side adjacent to Lacasta, which provides direct access from the duet to the beach through the park. We are also concerned with the dunescape and seag trees that are between the park and the beach. Are there plans to remove any seagape trees and the beautiful green buttonwood tree? Thirdly, it continues to concern us that the developers advertise this property as oceanfront. The advertisement on the fence says, "Your private oceanfront sanctuary." Let's be honest, this property is far from oceanfront and far from private. Yes, there will be spectacular ocean views, but it should never be oceanfront as long as the existence of North Ocean

Park is guaranteed. So, we would like your guarantee on that. There's there's no plans as as I've I've mentioned, this commission has has affirmed, no plans to get rid of our park. That's our park. Thank you. Very good. Everyone, thank you. Next speaker, just name and address for the record, please.

Hello, my name is Rain Honiblau. Um, I wanted to thank you for requesting additional plans and just listening to, you know, all all the things we've had to say about the park, the different concerns. People have different concerns for it. Um, I wanted to ask if there are plans by landscaping. Um, also just thank you for asking for clarification on what these things mean. um by a landscaping vote, does that mean that this beautiful, beautiful tree with these spiraling a spiraling trunk is going to be removed? Does that mean the sea oats are going to be removed? Um, I went to the Norton Museum this past weekend and I just noticed how the architects have incorporated the design of this massive tree into the roof. And it just it elevates the building to to include that and not to just tear down this beautiful tree the size of an entire property. Um, so I just wanted to know if there's any way we could incorporate the design of the trees into whatever is going to be proposed. Um, I've heard a lot of rumors as well that maybe there's going to be an exercise facility put in and, you know, improvements are welcome. I mean, it it it could use an upgrade, but just more clarification on what that means. Um, I think that a lot of people would be more supportive of this project if they could know what it was. So that's all we're asking for is just clarification, openness, and um is there any way I can give it photos badly printed of the trees and also the Norton Museum? Um so you could see how the rooftop, it's almost like these desks. They cut out the rooftop and this tree just

flourishes over it. It's really it's beautiful. It's an artistic um touch and it's just a nice synergy between nature that's currently there and you know a modern beautiful building. So is that okay? Can I I'm sure if your if your comments are finished that's that's fine. Um but Mr. McConn are there are there any existing trees in this rightway area? Thank you. Thank you. Um, mayor, I think she's referring to the I don't want to misname it. It's either the ficas tree or banyan tree or Okay, there's a very very large tree on the park property and

Okay, that's a Yeah, that that's kind of what I was getting at. This what we're dealing with is is out front. That's correct. But all of your questions and and concerns are good. Um, I would encourage you because that's park redesign. I'd encourage you to get with the parks department and also Mr. McConn to to deal with that. That's really not part of this at all. Um so but no valid questions. Absolutely. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Further input from the public. Mr.

Go ahead. I just want just to just to let her know um I just after reviewing the site plans, I want to make sure it's clear that that particular tree she's referring to is a part of the actual presentation for the the developer that they have tried to incorporate that as part of their new park design. So even though it's not related to this item, they are they are calling it the heart of the park essentially that tree. So, um, I want to make sure that I that I express that that the developers are trying to save that tree particularly. Very good. Thank you, Commissioner. Next speaker.

Good evening. Uh, Dominic Camposio, 3248 Northeast 16th Street and 3246 Northeast 16th Street, Pompo Beach 33062. Um, I haven't been here for a while. I've been out of the country, but uh, I'm back. And, uh, I just I'm looking at the park that you're all talking about. I'm on the other side of the A1A um right across from the Armani residence that I'm not sure is ever going to be built which is an issue we've had for several years as you know Mayor Harden um I would just like to know what they're doing with our properties in that area not just from the park ocean the ocean part and then the park then the Armani Kaza then there's me right across the street like what are we going to do and when is it all going to done. FPL continues to run up the tab. I don't know if it's taxpayer dollars that we're paying FPL to put this underground wiring in. It hasn't happened. They start they built they they put in I think they installed three real tall poles right in front of my home during

COVID,

July of 2020. And I spoke to the commissioner for district 1 who never showed up. So I put a call into Mayor Harden. He was kind enough to show up. And uh he also said, "Yeah, this is a little um out of touch for the PMPO Beach people. I mean, it's just crazy. Three poles, huge poles with all this wiring. Then they put all these different boxes in front of our home, including across the street." And I'm thinking, why is it all on our property? plus the flooding that happens at the end of our street, which is crazy. I'm happy to be at the highest part of that area. So, I don't get the flooding. I'm glad to see you here, uh, Commissioner uh, Physic. Uh, I think it's great that someone's going to maybe come to my property and take a look. People park on my property all the time that are workers of the city, or actually not the city, but FPNL, the subcontractors. I had a a truck with a trailer parked on my property the other day. I took some pictures of it. Be happy to forward them to you. I just don't like to complain. I just want the work done. I'm for getting the work done. I'm for this pompo now or pomp now which they called it. The previous commissioner from district 1 called it named it that. Um I'm for all that building. And then they built these poles on A1A that actually got lit up last week. the yellow lights, but they put the poles on my side on my sidewalk, which I'm probably, you know, going to be responsible for. Somebody breaks a leg right in the middle of the sidewalk. I don't understand this type of construction. I have a home in Italy. I talk to my wife. We walk the streets and I'm thinking, why do they put poles in the middle of the sidewalk when people are walking? And right in front of my home here in Pmpo Beach, they do the very same thing. It just doesn't make sense. The they've built a hole. They dug a hole 25 27 times that I've counted. and they keep digging it up. AT&T, the the Comcast

comes over, then it's the city comes over. How many times do you have to dig a hole? Why don't you just put it all together and save a ton of money for the whole city? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Thank you, mayor, for coming up, by the way. Thank you. Next speaker. I don't get any credit for starting all that. I never get credit. It's been going on for years. Never. Never. When I die, they'll say he did this, this, this, this, this, and I'll never know about it. Uh Mike Scarverki Pompei 1630 Southwest Fifth Avenue. Um this new property I think some of what they're talking about is there's trees also. They're nice trees next to where the bathrooms are at. Are they going to stay how they are?

The the parks I mean the parks and records working on the redo of that park. I know Mr. are working. I That's not That's where

everybody in district one is it or whatever. When they give an inch here, they take a foot. Once they take the foot, they take two feet. Pretty soon you're up to the mile. They're going to probably want to redo the bathrooms. You name it. Once all this stuff is is getting built because these this new complex, they're going to want to take everything over. And depending on who's up here elected, they will end up taking it. If it's still 33, generally they won't touch a thing. But as for the pavilions, they were just painted not long ago. The bathrooms were just painted not long ago. The grass is cut periodically. It's fairly neat. There really doesn't need much to be done because once you start, who knows what's next. You probably should just leave everything the heck how it is and leave the people over there alone.

Thank you, sir. Next speaker. Please come forward.

Just name and address for the record, please.

Good evening. I'm Bernie Manszone, husband of Karen. So, you got our address and everything. I've been to the last couple meetings and all this discussions. You know, English is my only language. I think the problem stems from the the property is advertising as ocean front. And no matter how many times you tell us they're not going to take over the park, they're not going to change the beach. I got a legal question. Shouldn't we as the community uh legal advisor, we have a legal advisor. Shouldn't we advise them? I don't know what language they're using, but it's not ocean front. And the community has been upset about this since what, 2017 or something. It's like ridiculous. We got over the height issues. We I mean they could ever just change their advertising. would make the community feel better because we really, you know, I hear what you guys are saying and our commissioners fighting for it, but you know, it's gonna boil down to they're going to get finally try to sell the units and somebody's going to say it's not Ocean Front and then they're going to twist everybody's arms and try to make it oceanfront. That's why we're all wound up. So, if maybe we could ask our legal counsel, shouldn't we be telling the developer it's not Oceanfront? That's all I have to say.

Very good. Thank you, sir. All right, Bernie. Further input from the public. Anyone seeing none public input closed? Commission discussion. Commissioner, how about Vice Mayor?

Thank you. Um, I took a trip down to the park today. It was a beautiful day and I did notice the ocean front on the signage on the fence and I it didn't sit well with me either, but um so I understand the angst that that has caused. Um I also noticed we were talking about drainage here and it was in your letter. The storm drain on the corner there is completely clogged. There's no So, the city needs to go clean that storm drain and m and maintain that I assume because um if and it's been raining more lately and it there's no way that anything is draining from there. So, it just looks and we see this with a lot of developments. I've talked about it at at the pump before like these developers get a hold of a property, they don't actually build it. It takes them years and they don't really maintain it. So we don't cite them or hold them to the same standard that we would hold a homeowner to if they didn't maintain their property for years. So I just think to the developers out there like while you're not building it, it's still part of our city and try to make it look better. Clean it up and maintain your properties uh even while they're not making you money yet. Um, but that storm drain is clogged. And my biggest issue with this item is the the agreements here and and it just seems to be something missing to me. So in the item, it basically is an agreement between the city and FDOT to maintain this new landscaping. So in the agreement, it talks all about how the agency, which is the city, is agreeable to maintaining these landscapes improvements. And there's a whole long list of how we have to maintain this. I mean, it's it's a page and a half of details on how this new landscaping will be maintained. Uh, and then in the backup, it says these enhancements will be maintained to FDOT standards by the developer, the development. So, where is that agreement? Because that's the piece that's missing for me. Because in all of

this backup, it basically sounds like we're taking on the maintenance of it. Where's the agreement between us and uh the ocean residences for them to pay to maintain that this right so amendment I didn't include the agreement from 2008 which is about 120 pages it defines all those standards the height the trees must be above the sidewalk laterally off the sidewalk all those things are defined in that agreement and the maintenance is on the developer on the property.

That doesn't nothing in our backup says that there's the agreement in here is between us and FDOT and it's very clear that the city of PMPO Beach is called the agency and the agency shall agree to maintain the additional landscape improvements as part uh according to this plan. Uh the agency is agreeable to maintaining these landscape improvements. So, this is I understand that they're going to improve this area, but I want to make sure they're paying for it. And it says they are, but I don't see anything when it looks like we're taking it on in the agreement.

Well, I guess throughout the city, everyone, including you, your home, your right away in front of your property, you're responsible to maintain it. There's no thing in there how much it cost. It's if you don't maintain it, code enforcement issues a citation. And if you fail to maintain it, they have a ways that the city will take care of it, maintain it, and charge the property owner. Right. But I don't have an agreement or there's no agreement about my property saying between the city and FDOT saying that the city will maintain it. Okay. Right. Throughout the city, we don't have individual agreements with all the properties. But but here in front of us is an agreement, right, to for us to maintain it. So you're saying there's a there's another there's something missing in here.

That's correct. Okay. Okay. Uh that that is that's my concern. Uh obviously the developer whatever they put in they should be responsible for maintaining and I assume they will be but when I when you read the amendment that's not how it reads. It reads as the the city is responsible for any new landscaping and maintaining it to these FDOT standards. So uh can you just provide that? Sure. Thank you. Absolutely. No provide it to each of the commissioners. Okay. So yeah that is my concern and uh the storm drain. Thank you for the commissioner's discussion. Commissioner Fessic.

Thank you. So, all right. So, two things to address a few of the comments and concerns. Um, I want to make sure that I'm clear that, you know, development is not a bad thing. It's not a bad word. A lot of times we get we hear it and we when people freak out, they're like, "If you're not for everything, then you're against everything." And that is not true. So, I want to make sure I take the time to say that that we all want to like a refresh or redo. We like a lot of the stuff that's been coming our way. this particular property um just tracing back to why people were sort of freaking out was less was about less than a third of an acre like 66 I think of an acre 67 somewhere in there and originally the way it was zoned was allowed for 105 feet and this so we've already given we've already we've un unhappily I would say by the by a lot of the neighbors we've already given a lot up by ch allowing them the additional zoning and density to move them to plan development infill. So now they have this as far as I'm concerned we are we have given as a city we have opened up our hearts and our wallets and our and and the and they've developer agreement that was linked to that zoning change. I don't I we can't go back and change the past but that that has been raising suspicion for quite some time. And by the way it was only allowed to be signed off by the city manager. So it is his sole discretion. he gets to tell you what you can have in your park or sign off on it. Um, moving forward from that, we all like nice things. It's better than an empty lot to have something there. We do need that park improvement. I So, there's there's positives to everything, right? There's negatives and positives in this particular situation in the backup um for vice mayor the um on agenda. So it says amend on that the one that says amend 36 A1A on page eight and see

on page let's see it starts on page eight or seven seven sorry seven so seven and then nine nine of 15 that that drawing there that you can see and I don't know if we can pull it up or not but that drawing there which is actually just a plan itself um is done by when you look at it it's done by the the architect for the property. So, it it it is is what I have an issue with with this coming pulling it back to this agenda item specifically is that this is something that during the development review commit review process or the site development process. This is something that falls on the responsibility of the developer to work with what they've already got, not depend on us to give them more. and and and some of the some of the landscaping stuff in there from my first few passes, some of the landscaping requirements, some of the rightway stuff, just there's there's things tied to this. I'm not saying that they can't build their property. I'm saying that they may have to modify certain things if they don't get this. And that's the that's we have we as a city and we have a as a district beachfront wise, I feel like we've given up enough and and I I want the storm drains fixed. I want them I want everything to look pretty, but I want to make sure that the residents who use that park, live near that park, around that park, we get everything we wanted for and we find a good neighbor. And so I'd really invite the developers to come to together with the neighbors and and find a way to try to rebuild a bridge that perhaps was lost a few years back. Thank you.

Very good. Commissioner Seager Eden.

Thanks, Mayor. Um Mr. Burman. It's my understanding that the area is a park. It's designated as one of our parks. And in being such, we have our charter. I want to put everyone's fears to rest. We cannot sell public parkland without going out to the voters for a referendum for their approval or denial. So we cannot will not sell any public park without the voters without the residents permission. I just wanted to

I'm waiting for the opportunity to say yes. Would would would that be correct Mr. Burman? Correct. Commissioner, thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Very good. Further commission discussion. Sorry, Commissioner Smith.

And I just This is just something that we do a lot with properties and new developments. It's not anything with the park. In fact, it's going to be attractive right next to 16th Terrace. But it's just normal procedure whether FDOT can change it or not. It's normal procedure for us to have these amendments when the property changes. It's just it's just maintaining the curbing area. That's FDOT's. Is that correct? Correct. It's um landscaping.

Correct. The landscaping is behind the curbing. Actually, it's probably behind the existing sidewalk, but it's still within the FDOT right away. And as you mentioned, those that have single family homes, we maintain that area. also correct

with mowing and watering and such. So it isn't anything to do with the development. It isn't anything to do with the park. It's just routine with FDOT to make sure that that area is maintained. It would be bad to not have it maintained for the park and for the development and for the city on the street. So just it's it's not a development thing. It's just an FDOT thing. whether they should still do it that way or do it a different way, but it is what it is right now.

Very good. Um, it's I've got a question, Mr. McCon. Um, what what impact would it have on the development of the adjacent property where the the duet, what impact would it have on that development if we turned this down? Um, well, if most of you are familiar with that property, if you could envision the way it looks now on between the existing fence that's advertising the property and the sidewalk, which is dead grass, that's what it would end up looking like. They would not approve. If the amendment's not there, they wouldn't allow this landscaping. That's the extreme. But if it's not approved, let's say you can't put something in the rightway.

So it it wouldn't impact the development. No, it just would be unsightly on the on the frontage of A1A. That's a So it's not going to change that development one iota. All it's going to do is take away beautifification from the city of Pmpa Beach. Correct. Okay. Thank you. I've got Commissioner Seagerson Eaton and then back.

Right. Uh Mr. Macan, you talked about very specific elements of the agreement of what type of landscape, how high the trees must be um from or and the distance from the sidewalks and and is that something that is because FOT the Florida Department of Transportation actually owns the land. So they have to be very particular about what is put on it, how it's managed because you have citizens, people traversing those sidewalks and and that area and you also have vehicles uh driving that area. reliabilities. Um that is would you say that is part of their very specific specifications for any planting or landscape improvements. You've got sight visibility triangles um you know that so you can see around the corner from a vehicle pedestrian safety are do those factors play a role?

Yes. You know it's not like we do this and it's done with. FDOT has a contractor that looks across all their districts and that's their job is they drive throughout all these FDOT roads and if there's somewhere they have their little PVC 8 foot tall pipe and they roll it down the sidewalk and if it doesn't meet the standard we we hear about it and it's on the city they notify us that it needs to be fixed and then commercial or residential if it's a safety issue and it's blocking a stop sign we will immediately take action. and we're not going to we're not going to, you know, mess around with it. Otherwise, we talk to the property owner and say, "You need to fix this." So, it's it's inspected on a regular basis.

Okay? And if there were nothing there, that would be a choice. We see it elsewhere in other cities and other places where just an open field or and there's nothing planted in the swale. So, okay. Thank you very much.

Very good. For the commission, I got the vice mayor. I just want to follow up on your comments, mayor. Um, the back and forth here made it sound like it's no big deal. They just won't plant the trees and everyone goes about their business, but they do have an approved site plan that has trees in it. So, uh, you can't just not comply with the site plan. So, I assume that there'd be another process where they either administratively got relief to put trees elsewhere or they had to go back through planning and zoning depending on the magnitude of the changes and get a new site plan approved if they aren't able to comply with their site plan. So, I I don't I'm I don't think anyone's trying to to to do that here, but I just I felt like that was an incomplete conversation. It just made it sound like, oh, we'll just keep dead grass there and they won't have to do anything about it. But um as homeowners, we also know that if we do something and it doesn't comply with the plans that you you know you you don't get it approved. So um there would be secondary implications to that depending on the magnitude of the and the amount of trees that didn't get planted um and whether those were required per their per their um development order and their site plan. So uh that's it. And then um like I said, I my only clarification here is in the backup there's a very clear amendment that says the city has to do this. So while I understand that we all maintain our own yards, we're not being asked to approve an agreement right now that says the city is going to maintain everyone's yards because that's basically what this says. So in this there was an amendment and that all that was presented to us was an amendment that said now the city is going to be responsible for maintaining everyone's swelles and your and all the right away. Then we'd be asking that same question. Is the city paying for that? And the answer is no. There's another follow-up agreement that's not in here that is more explicit about that. Thank you.

Well, so FDOT has, I don't know, eight districts across the state. They don't know what our code says. Our code requires all property owners will take care of their rightway. FDOT doesn't know that. All FDOT knows it's in the city of PMPO Beach. City, you're responsible. And in some cases, if that landscaping is in the center of the roadway, it's on the city. So all they know is city, it's in your jurisdiction, you're going to maintain it,

right? And I'm saying here it says it do it. Ocean residence is going to maintain it. And there's nothing in the backup that that provides that that link, right? That's that secondary connection because the backup just says the city is. And I understand there is another agreement that's not in here um that supersedes this or that is a companion to this and dictates that the owner maintains it, but that's not what's in here. So it has the impact of looking like if someone doesn't know that or is just looking at the backup resident, they would say based on this that it looks like the city is agreeing to do it. Thank you.

Well, I don't mean to mislead you. That agreement is not going to say anything about the property owner because again this that sets all the standards that that property has to be maintained to. I guess I should provide the reference to the code which says it's on the property that I'll include that because the agreement that we're approving says the agency is agreeable to maintaining those landscape improvements within the agency's limits and obviously there's some other limits or rules that dictate what what happens. Thank you,

Mr. McConn, so I'm going to ask it again just to be clear. Um, are there any impacts to the development if we turn down what's before us tonight? The there are landscaping requirements for the site plan.

So, like the vice mayor said, if you can't you got to have 15 trees, okay? You can't have them here across the frontage of the property. If you've seen some of these properties, they have trees up on the third deck of the swimming pool, wherever they It's a very small area of property, but they would have to meet the city's code for landscaping, they'd have to do it elsewhere. And I know we have requirements for street trees. But if FDOT says, "No, you you didn't approve the amendment." We we and that's why they want to do this before the project starts. As you know, just a month ago, we did uh Ritz Carlton, we did the Waldo Historia. They were a little behind the process, but realize landscaping typically comes in at the end of the project. So, it it's not impacting those, but you're right. It has to meet the city's code for landscaping. So, I guess it does impact it in that aspect. I'm sorry.

So, Mr. Burman, what what impact would uh would have on the developer if we turn this down? If you turn this down, the developer would have to meet with development services and come up with a different landscape plan that would meet the city's code and meet approval of the city's landscaping requirements. And if there were no way they could do that on the the existing property,

they might be able to do that on other property and meet that requirement. Um they might be able to uh instead do it on a different parcel. Uh they there's a city's tree canopy fund. There's a lot of different things uh that they might be able to do. But again, that would be something for development services is more uh and and the landscaping um people. But this was developed the plan now that's been approved and that again this is an agreement with FPL only. I mean with um I'm sorry with F DOT only and we're saying we are going to take care of this. That's why that's the only thing in the backup. We wouldn't be doing that, I assume, Mr. McConn, if there weren't other methodologies to make sure we weren't on the hook for the ultimate. Someone's going to be taking care of that, not the city.

Correct. But they would have to go back to the drawing board and come up with a different landscape plan. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Point made, Vice. Um, further in further input, further from the commission. Commissioner Fick for questions. Thank you. Um, so Mayor, uh, Mr. McCann, you you mentioned that there would be dead grass there. So whose responsibility if if we if we didn't approve this, whose responsibility would that right away fall on under? Would it fall under the city? No. Well, again, just like the grass and your swell in the front of your It's just grass, but you're still responsible for it because it's your right away. So it it would just be bare of all nice landscaping. Oh, yeah.

Okay. And then and then I I want to I want to clarify and just make sure that I'm correct on the or make sure that I'm I'm understanding this correctly. We've been we've been talking about landscaping as related to this this right away, but landscaping is not everything in the rightway. Can can staff confirm that the project file um as proposed the conditionally approved site plan? um confirmed that the project file required FOP permits for work in the A1A right ofway, including driveway connection, driveway drainage, and utility construction permits before building permit issuance. Yes. It's not just landscaping.

Correct. And and to that point about the agreement, it mentions um concrete pavers. If it's just regular concrete, not an issue, but if they have pavers, the concern is maintenance of pavers. So, those would be in there and that would be a requirement to include in the amendment. I don't I don't know that the entry to this property is off A1A. I think it's off northeast 16th Street, but um

the parking access is off the 16th, but that but that but that does have the corner. Um so, so understood just separate permits, same A1A frontage corridor. And that's my point I think. I just want to one other question here about this. Um I was looking through the the the DRC command response letter and it says uh 10.6 feet 10 and a half feet will be dedicated along North Ocean Boulevard and a rightaway easement is proposed to allow the public parking public sidewalk on private property. Also useful uh was we are pursuing approvals and permits through FDOT and will coordinate required in agreements with the city. Um I think so basically here look so basically I'm not saying that that that this item is is site plan itself. Um but I am saying that the site plan shows F. rightway dedication, FP permit requirements,

and yes, and I'm done. Done. Not done. And public sidewalk and parking easement language, and even features that have the future right away along the same A1A frontage corridor. So, is this one last time, if we do not approve this, will they have to go back to development services and make sure that they are finding ways to meet all of the requirements that we have as a city with a with a development plan and rework the plan to fit within the already extra zoning that they already have? Yes. Work it within the property. Thank you. That's all I need. All right. Further commission discussion? Seeing none, let's call the role. Commissioner Fez. No. Commissioner Perkins. No.

Commissioner Seagerson Eaton. Yes. Commissioner Smith. Yes. Vice Mayor Forier. No. Mayor Harden. Yes. Item two is a resolution city. Thank you. Endorsing the preferred alternative concept for the Northwest 15th Street and supporting the effort of Broward Metropolitan Planning Organization MO to design and recommend capital improvement projects to establish eligibility for federal funding, providing for conflicts, providing for servability, and providing for an effective date. So moved. Second. Moved and second for discussion. This item was pulled by Commissioner Perkins and Commissioner Fessick. Commissioner Perkins.

Yes. Uh thank you, Mayor. I just want to get an update on this agenda item.

Good evening, Mayor Commission. John Spra, city engineer. Um, just by way of background first, uh, in July of 24, commission approved a resolution of support of NO's 2050 transportation improvement plan that identified seven projects in the city for improvements. And the two highest ranked were Northwest 27th Avenue and Northwest 15th Street. Following commission's resolution of support, the MO hosted several public outreach meetings in March and June of last year to review both those corridors. So the design concepts that are in your backup are a result of those uh meetings. In order for the NPO to secure federal funding for design and construction, they are requesting commission's support of these concepts. And I'd like to uh close with the the intent is still to continue with public participation as the design progresses assuming commission approves tonight.

Okay. Um so yes, several meetings were held um regarding Northwest 15th Street. they were not very well attended. And I remember the last meeting it was stated um by the uh MO representatives that they would get back with the community or we would have um another meeting and we've never had that. So at this particular time, I'd like to make a motion that we postpone this particular item number two um to our next six o'clock meeting, which will be April 28th. Um, in the meantime, if you, John, can get with me or or we can meet and see if we can get together with the community again to get a little more input and maybe a little more involvement from the community so they'll know exactly what we're trying to do here or what you all trying to do here. So just just so you're aware, we we've had two public uh participation meetings and we solicited their input which has resulted in those concept plans that are are in the backup.

Right. I did see that. Okay. I I did see that. But both meetings it was not very well attended. I know the last meeting I think we had about six, seven people maybe. 40 is is the count. No, no, no, no. Not no. The last meeting I attended was held at the Northwest Library if I can remember and it was about eight, maybe eight of us there and that was it. I haven't missed any meetings. So, if we can just postpone this and and reach out to the community again so that we can do it differently, get more people involved so everybody will understand what's actually going on here. Second. Been moved and seconded to postpone this uh item until our 828 commission meeting. April 28th.

April 28th. April 28th, sorry. April April 28th. Um, so it's been moved and seconding. Discussion on the motion. I've I've got a question, Mr. Saropoulos. Yes, sir. Is this time sensitive at all? Is it going to hurt anything if we just postpone this? I don't think so, but I would like to get clarification from the NO who is here along with their engineer, Kimley Horn.

Okay. Well, why don't you do that? So, since I asked the question, I'd like to get an answer. Good afternoon, mayor, commissioners. I'm Andrew Riddle with the Broward Metropolitan Planning Organization and uh I have our consultant from Kimley Horn, uh Stuart Robertson to answer any technical questions. Um we do have a process in place where we do have public outreach meetings. The last one was well attended with over uh 40 people. We do have the signin sheets for your record. Uh what we're trying to do is get project lined up for federal funding. If if it's the commission's desire to not move forward with this concept um that has you know been over this past year of developing this concept. Um we will then take that action of skipping over keeping the pro the pro uh project location on the cost feasible list in the metropolitan transportation plan. However, we need to go to the next list on the priority for funding. We're getting ready for um the list of priority projects to be submitted to FDOT to prioritize projects. Um that is timesensitive. So, um I don't know what you are expecting at your next meeting, um what the outcome would be, but we would need to know whether or not to move forward with federal funding for these projects or not.

So, you need to know that tonight or you could wait until the April 28th meeting? The April 28th meeting. If we can get a yes or no vote, yes, that that should be fine. Should be fine. Okay, that's that's what I was looking for. I I know you you'd like to have it tonight, but April 28th will work. Okay. Yes, that's that's accurate. Correct. That is accurate. Okay, that's what I was looking for. Very good. Thank you. I appreciate it. Um I got Commissioner Vice Mayor.

Yeah. So, I I'm going to support postponing this for a couple reasons. Um one, I I'd like to see the sign-in sheets in because I have heard about these I've heard about these meetings uh absolute last minute. I'll get some kind of notification. And there's there's one of these meetings for this in 27th that and I haven't been able to attend them because I find out at the last minute it's happening but I have heard they are very poorly attended that they're just not a lot of people at them. So they're not if we're not getting the community's input then um then maybe these plans because there's a lot in this narrative about how this plan is based on community input and and if it's half a dozen people that's not community input. And I think the problem here in Pompo is there's a bit of mistrust with some bad plans of things that have been done to our roads that have really impacted residents in a negative way. And they, you know, want to make sure that whatever is being done here is not going to to impact them negatively. So, because we're told everything's oh, bike paths and and big sidewalks for people to walk on and all, but but the devil's in the details and maybe there's something happening here that's going to impact traffic flow or something else and with the surrounding neighborhood. So, I would like to understand more about what the community said uh at those meetings and perhaps there's an opportunity for one more meeting in the meantime in the in the interim. Thank you.

Very good. Further commission discussion on the MO. Commissioner Secret. Thank you, mayor. Can I get a ballpark of the estimate of the cost of these of this project? And some of the funding comes from no and some will come from federal grants. Is that accurate, gentlemen? Someone?

Yes, ma'am. So, the f the money is for um federal is federal funding. All righty. And what is the value of this project? So we have a rough order of magnitude cost because right now we're at the conceptual level. Then it will go to the design and once you get to 60% design, you'll have much better cost estimates that we'll use for bidding the construction. But I'll let Steuart Yeah, if you can just ballpark it.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, madame vice mayor, commissioners. My name is Stuart Robertson. I'm with Kimley Horn. I'm supporting the Broward MPO and the city of Pmpo Beach on this project. So, there are two projects actually. One on Northwest 27th Avenue and one on Northwest 15th Street. We've conducted a cost estimate for the planning level costs for each of those two separately. And those do include the design fund. So, it would take you all the way from the design all the way through permitting and then construction. So for Northwest 27th Avenue, it's about 5 million and for Northwest 15th Street, it's about 10 million. So those are the rough order of magnitude costs that we have at this stage of the game. Future stages of the project, including design, would then get into more specific details on these uh costs that would be incurred and as Andrew mentioned, it would come from federal funding.

Thank you. Um, another question. Um, you know, from Dixie Highway, and I don't know how how fresh in your mind this project is, but from Dixie going west on 15th Avenue, I see that there are sidewalks. It's largely residential. Um going all the way the further west there any sidewalks there currently.

So on Northwest 15th Street there are sidewalks but they're farther west. They're not immediately west of Dixie Highway. I think you have to go west of um 6th Avenue before there become sidewalks on What about west of 95? West of 95. Yes, there are sidewalks. Okay. So, this is going to be an expansion to do a shared I see a shared use um path. That's correct. In the areas where there are currently sidewalks today, those sidewalks would be expanded to include shared use. Would you mind ladies and gentle? I can't hear. Please. Thank you. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Would you repeat that last part?

Yeah. What I was saying was that in the areas where there are sidewalks today, they would be expanded to include shared use paths which would allow for bicyclists and pedestrians to share the space. Okay. And then and then the landscaping um that street trees um a mixture of palms, shrubs, trees, grass.

Yeah. Landscaping we consider to be part of the project. It's not only beautifification, but it's also um an enhancement for the way that people experience the corridor as well. It slows down people driving cars and it's also creates a better environment for people walking through shade and better separation from the roadway.

Right. Okay. So, as looking at the the the uh illustrations, you just sort of see this green swath and it doesn't really denote that there are trees, bushes, shrubs, etc. But there is. is not just straight plain old grass. Uh, okay. So, $10 million for the 15th Street. Yes. And you said 5 million for 27th. All right. Thank you. Thank you.

And that and that would be in jeopardy. I mean, we if if we can't make a timely decision, then we lose that. You guys move on to another project because many cities compete for these dollars. Thank you, Commissioner Fess. Thank you. So, just to clarify quickly, you mentioned that if we were not if if we didn't get to a decision, let's we're on the motion right now, so let's start stay there. You said we're fine with making a decision by the 28th, then then you have that time to play with. That's one. So, you said that that that would be Yes. Yeah, that was Mr. Riddle's response.

Okay. Um, secondly, I what also I remember hearing was that if if we didn't give give an approval on the 28th that would still stay on the list overall, but we would just be they would just skip on on us for the time being and then come back at us at a later date. True. For at least the next fiscal year. Okay. Just so the year.

The year. Okay. So, so I I actually heard from a couple residents on this item as well and and actually the next one um talking about the meetings how they were just not they were not well attended and and that's to be expected to be fair because at that same time last year we were bombarded if anybody remembers with a lot of the meetings related to the new downtown and there was a lot of things going on all at once. So I can understand how that would be confusing or be you know we wouldn't have ex we wouldn't have the attendance we would have hoped for these projects um or for for this feedback. Um so these both these items but this one particular it it's not it's not trivial. It ties into broader mobility. It ties into redevelopment future funding um decisions. And so I think we owe it to the community who has begged us and pleaded us even again before I was elected. Um, you know, somebody mentioned July 2024 that the commission approved moving forward with some of this stuff. Well, we're still stuck with dealing with a lot of the other things that a previous commission had approved. But the issue is that as part of that, all residents, specifically in the areas we're talking about, have asked for is to be very much involved in the decision-making process. So, I would really support making sure that we we have a very strong outreach and and doing that before the the April 28th meeting um so that we can truly get public input input and not just use it as a box checking exercise, which we have a tendency to do here sometimes in the city. Um and I just want to make sure that that I point out this is this is actually we have a lot up in the air. There's a lot of pieces moving, but this is one of those pieces again that we have. We don't have control over everything, but we have control over certain pieces. So, this is how we're are that community is going to be able to walk, bike, get around that get around that community. And I want their input on how they want to do that. Um, we it's not the new downtown project itself, but it's important for us to to truly take the

time and and get a solid solid understanding of what their requests are and so we can do it right. Thank you. Very good. Further commission discussion on the Commissioner Smith. I just want to clarify that we're talking about only 15th Street because on Northwest 27th Avenue, they were very well attended. The community was very involved with it and the community is pleased with the preliminary design that you've come up with. The Call Your City Homeowner Association is the last group that you spoke to and they're very very excited about the plans coming. So this is not Northwest 27th Avenue. We're only talking about 15th Street for postponing anything.

I'm not sure. Um, can we get clarification from them as far as can these items be split somehow? I I don't know. They're already split. They're two or three. Okay. Okay.

Two is 15. the the very first meeting that they the very first meeting that um Broward MO did was they were both together and um the 27th Avenue residents were really excited about the project and the opportunity to do traffic calming and it was combined with the 15th Street and there was a lot of um a lot of anger that came and I asked that night if you could split the two projects which going forward. They have split them. Um it's a much bigger project on 15th and it's very different than 27th. So I think it's proper to have them split because there's different issues and different types of residential and business. Um but I just want to make sure the commission understands this is just splitting off 15th Street, 27th Avenue. The residents in district 5 are already ready.

Excuse me. I don't I don't need you to explain it to me. No, I know. No, I just want to make sure they know that the 27th Avenue one is separate. It's item three on our agenda. It's item three. We're read the agenda. We all read the agenda. All right. But I want to make sure because we were talking about them both being together and I I want to make sure they're separate for the commission discussion. Uh yes. I I Mr. Perkins.

Thank you, Mayor. I I just want to make sure that when we schedule a meeting that you will allow the residents to speak and give their input. I think the last meeting that we had at the the Northwest Library, you had tables set up and everybody was moving from table to table. I think it's great if we could all sit down and and look at you have put together for us and everybody can give their input from that perspective rather than walk to a table and and you don't know what they said over there at that table and then you have another table set up over here. we don't know what they're saying at that table and then you compile all the information and we don't know what's what at the end of it. Okay.

So, I I would appreciate if we can do that, but I look forward to meeting with you before uh the 28th so that we can have enough time to inform the residents in a timely manner about the meeting. Thank you, Commissioner Fess.

Thank you. Um I would I would like to I want to sort of piggyback off off what Miss uh Commissioner Perkins said. One of the things that I think is really important is for that collaborative effort of coming together and and having I said having some of the things you so you can explain what you've worked on or what your initial feedback was. um but doing so in a public manner that we can actually have people come up it's recorded so if people can't make a meeting they perhaps have a window of time which they can then you know we can give them a feedback link or something so you can gain additional feedback post that one inerson meeting so they can go back and watch it again which is why I really I really try to push for our meetings some of the these workshops and collaborative efforts to be in a place where we are recording them and and making sure we we sort of allow for people to show up if they can make it, but also we give a window of time afterwards where people can add insight or add their own thoughts after they've maybe even seen it, slept on it at night and thought of, oh, hey, you know what else I was thinking about that I forgot to mention? There's there's a lot of that. There's a lot of that going on. Um, as for both of these, if you want to know from a resident standpoint, if you want to learn more about about how it plays into the whole new downtown project, I would I would I would advise you to go back through the economic development council meeting minutes from 2023, 2024, and 2025, and you can follow the MO progress. Also, you can kind of get a better a better idea of how it fits into the plan with the new downtown. um which is good homework if you will um before you come to the meeting so you can kind of get an idea of what you may think of there as well. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, may I clarify? Sure. The three meetings that we held were all three held as hybrid meetings with an in-person option and an online option. And we did have attendees online and we provided a survey that people could provide feedback online. Thank you. How many people did you have? I think the the attendee numbers include both the hybrid and the in-person attendance. How many? I think it was roughly 40 for the most recent meeting. And the first one I think was 30. Okay. But again, that includes the online attendees. Okay. Very good. A question. Mayor, I do too.

Okay. Commissioner Commissioner, let's do Vice Mayor. Vice Mayor, thank you. Yeah, this is a a big project and I have questions too, especially after what Commissioner Smith said about the meeting being combined for the first one and that there was some angst and anger about this specific project relative to 27th AB. Um, so how tied are we to this plan? if the funding if we get funding approval um from the federal government, how much flexibility is there to change a plan that we have presented to them?

Um I would like to invite Mr. Riddle to speak to that, but my sense having worked on many of these plans with federal funding is that there is quite a deal of flexibility in the design phase. We really are only in the planning concept phase at the moment. Andrew Riddle, Broward Mio. Of course, yes, there are opportunities for flexibility, but this is the overall type of concept, the type of, you know, we're trying to actually help with bicycle and pedestrian safety. We're trying to do some traffic calming. We're trying to deter truck tra uh parking within the right of way that's happening there. Those were the current concerns that we were hearing from your residents. And let me just uh kind of clarify that we did use the city's uh methods for the outreach. So one of the um ways we do these concept development plans is we want to fit in with the existing city's process. So however you reach out to your residents and that was communicated to us is through the the district commissioners. they kind of spread the word to make sure that their residents are a fully aware of the project and come to the meetings. So, we use you all through your normal way for you to get um project feedback uh methods. The MO is not um forcing this upon you at all. If you don't want the project, if you don't want these type of improvements in your neighborhood, we'll go to the next priority on the list. It's as simple as that.

Yeah. I'm sure the intention is good and I don't think any of us are saying we don't want improvements. I I think there's kind of a history of some bad projects being forced down people's throat and just because we're using someone else's money to pay for it doesn't make it a good plan for the residents. So we use penny sert money to take a lane out of Atlantic Boulevard and that has caused more frustration, grief, safety issues than we could ever quantify. So I I think it the the details matter. Um, obviously high level beautifification, improving mobility, it all sounds great, right? But we want to make sure that what we're what we're putting forth actually makes sense to those neighborhoods and there's not some other implications here. And yes, the truck parking is a problem there. So, we'd I'm sure that we want to look at this um with the residents also and make sure that the people who are experiencing that every day uh can look at it and say, "Okay, yeah, this is actually going to improve it instead of make, you know, somehow exacerbate the situation." So, I just think it sounds like this project maybe didn't have the same amount of and it's a big project, the same reach that uh the 27th Avenue one did and and perhaps we should just take a little pause here for a month and see what we can do to get the word out to the community, get have another meeting and actually have a better description of what's going on here because I know that I couldn't attend the meeting I found out at the last minute and I'd like to to be able to attend it also.

Vice Mayor, very good. Commissioner Perkins. Um, thank you, Mayor. I I was never informed that I needed to reach out to people in my district to attend the meetings. And that is something that I do very well as far as getting residents together to meet. That's no problem for me. I can pack the house if I need to. But I was not told that that's what I was supposed to do. Um do we have anybody serving with the Broward um Metropolitan Planning Organization from Pompo? Anybody serves on that organization? The mayor.

Well, the mayor should have gotten the information out. So, the mayor serves on the MO board or organization. He's a part of the organization. The board, our policy board, correct? Okay. Well, seem like the mayor, you should be giving us an update from time to time as to what's going on. You can bring information back and that'll help us out a lot to understand this process. So

well just to clarify that these projects um are in our cost feasible plan. So staff reaches out to the cities and tells them that your project is up for funding in this time band. We work with the city staff and say we would like to start engaging with your communities to start building that concept that we can get a good rough order of magnitude so that we have a budget to work with and ask the federal government for that dollar amount to be carved out for your project going forward. So that's exactly what we did. Usually the the board members are not into the weeds um all right

per se on on these type of matters. I found out about it through an email and and the email gave the location, whatever, and I just showed up there not knowing um who else was going to be there, but I just received the email that I was not given the instructions to inform my district or the people that live around that area, the project. So maybe we I'm I'm not saying this is a bad idea. I'm just saying that I wanted the the residents to be more informed and more aware what to expect and what's coming. That's all. Thank you. Good. All right. For let's see, Mr. Mayor. Hi.

Um I'm the project manager for the Pomino projects. Um I just wanted to say um I'm fairly new. I'm young as well.

Oh, my name is Kayla Razie, by the way. Um, but I just wanted to say that um, we went out to Northwest 15th Street and Northwest 27th Avenue and we personally went to um, the schools, Eli Blanche, we went to a couple of different schools like elementary schools. We actually handed out the flyers to um, the staff there to like let them know and let the people to give that to the parents as well. We just try to do everything we could to go out and give people the actual physical flyer cuz I did hear that um I heard that sometimes when people had like a little tech uh technical problems with like doing it on like social media. So we tried to do it like actual passing it out. We didn't have the capacity to actually go doortodoor but we did it that way. And I wanted to uh go back to your question. Um vice mayor was for 15th Street. Um I got this in one of the meetings. I attended all the meetings and um I wanted to say um that I talked to them I I talked to the ladies there too. Very nice. Um that for the future of Pompo and 15th Street with like the in regards of bike lanes. I was trying to let everyone know that we kind of look forward to the future rather than the now. We like to focus on the now, but we are trying to improve the future. So, I was trying to let them know because they were saying how like, oh, well, no one really bikes, but you never know in the future. We're trying to prepare everything with the roads that we're working on for the future as well. So, I just wanted to say that.

Thank you. Appreciate that.

Mayor, um, Commissioner Fess. Okay. Questions. Questions only. I just have a so since this since this project well actually both of them and I want to thank you first of all before I ask my question thank you for trying to do additional outreach with something that technically is our responsibility to reach out to presidents so I want to say thank you for the extra work you did first uh Mr. Harrison, is it possible since we are it's clear that we all want to have some input. We think it's a great idea. We just want to make sure more people have insight. Is it possible for us to have the meeting like a workshop or something publicly noticed and held here in commission chambers broadcast and recorded and really work in partnership with no to make sure we get the word out to you and maybe do newsletter. You know, we do a lot of things through the city with our strategic uh you know, social media director, all the things. So, Mr. Harrison, is that something that that you can commit to that you'll help us? Thank you very much.

You bet. That would make your job a little easier. Thank you. Further discussion on the motion. Seeing none, let's call the role. Commissioner Fezett. Yes. On the motion. On the motion. Motion to postpone. Correct. Yes. Commissioner Fezit. Yes. Commissioner Perkins. Yes. Commissioner Sigerson Eaton. Yes. Commissioner Smith. Yes. Vice Mayor Fier. Yes. May Harden. Yes. Item three is a resolution

resolution of the city commissioner of the city of Palm Beach, Florida, endorsing the preferred alternative concept for Northwest 27th Avenue and supporting efforts of the Broward Metropolitan Planning Organization, MO to design and recommend capital improvement projects, and to establish eligibility for federal funding, providing for conflicts, providing for severability, and providing an effective date. So moved. Second. Moved and second for discussion. This item was pulled by Commissioner Fessic. Commissioner,

thank you. I I pulled this for the same reason that I I also pulled item number two. I I heard that the feedback was something that was lacking and wanted to make sure that we did exa the same thing. So, um basically and and here's how I'll frame it. If if if we're looking at this as a thinking forward to the future, we have certain things that are sort of set in stone that we have to work with, then I really think it's important that we have community feedback from more than 70 people. So, and not just the not just the districts that that this affects in directly, but also we're one Pompino. We're one city. So, it should have if we're trying to connect all the dots and and and be one city with a new downtown, then I feel like we really need to make sure that we're taking the time to get it right from all aspects because let's face it, you know, if if we're talking about biking or whatever, well, I know I've heard many instances like, well, what about a golf cart lane? because there's a lot of people who might come east to west, but they don't want to take it down a major corridor, right? But they would come to visit the new downtown or connect the dots, go to the pump, whatever it may be, if they had another, you know, they might not get on a bike, but they'll get on a golf cart. So, um, I wanted to postpone this again. I I'll postpone to the same date or I'll make a motion to postpone it to April 28th. Um, as far as as long as it as long as that doesn't affect your date as well. Um second so we can move forward at the same time and and get the feedback at the same time.

Okay. There's been a motion um to postpone this item until April 28th. Moved by Commissioner Fess, seconded by Commissioner Perkins. Discussion on the motion. Commissioner Smith.

Again, you've got to look at the two projects. This is 27th Avenue and it's residential and it's traffic calming. Meetings were well attended. And I think the difference is all your city is so much smaller than 15th street and we have an active um civic association in call your city and they were involved with promoting this and getting people to attend. So I would not like to see this project postponed. I understand and I supported postponing the 15th street because it is extremely different types of projects. I would like to see us continue to move forward with the 27th Avenue. I think it can get done a lot quicker because it's much smaller and let's go ahead and do that traffic calming for the residents of Collier City. So, I'm not going to support postponing this agenda item.

Mayor, may I speak? Very good. Um, Mr. Sophos, u I would just like to Yeah. I would just like to read some uh some highlights that are are proposed here for uh 27th. We got pedestrian lighting, enhanced bus stop locations, raised intersections with hallway stops, high visibility crosswalks, landscaping, and so forth. All of this is meant to enhance the mobility and also improve safety at the cost of federal dollars. So, I just want to put that out there. I would also like to add that uh 27th Avenue is timesensitive.

Okay, that was going to be my question. Is is this time sensitive? So, if we delayed this until April 28th, it would impact Yes, it would. project moving forward. Yes, sir. Okay. Um are they different? Yeah. What is the what is the difference? Just out of curiosity. May I approve? Yes, please.

Again, Andrew Riddle for the record. Um Broward MO. So this project does have a U financial management number in the transportation improvement program which is our CIP. Um we do have funding in fiscal year 29 for engineering and design. Um and then construction will follow in about three years from um 2029. So if the direction is is to not move forward with the project, we do need to remove it from the tip immediately. Okay. Okay. All right. Very good. Thank you. Um further commission discussion, Commissioner Fessic.

Right. So So you said you have designed plan for the in the essentially capital improvement plan for for 2029, correct? Is it if we approve it on the 28th then would it still be okay? I mean what is the timeline that we're looking at? So we have to get prepared for putting our next So our tip is a five-year okay um plan. So we are coming up into fiscal year 27. So two years out, we have a design phase already in place for this project.

Okay. That's just in the design. So getting additional feedback likely wouldn't be a bad thing. We we So my my point is is um whenever we do have a schedule with FDOT on developing our TIP and that is imminent. I mean it we would really actually we asked for these um commission meetings um in February but we did give another extra you know time for you all to get this to your commission. Um so it it would affect us getting this project into the the new tip.

Okay. So, this seems to be a recurring problem, not for you, but for us, um, we have a city manager who likes to make us have situations where we don't have the opportunity sometimes to get additional feedback or questions answered, and now we're forced into a we're just got to approve it or we're going to lose it kind of thing. And I don't want that to be the case here. Is there any possibility of us being able to extend it to that the 28th? Would the 28th be too long? Or can we can we I'm gonna ask it a few more times, mayor uh commissioner, until I get an answer. Thank you. And sorry, he answered. No, no, no. I'm sorry. Commissioner Commissioner was asking how many time how many more times am I going to ask the question? Well, I'm trying to find a solution here. Thank you.

Yeah. So, the the 28th, so we're going to have a work. you're asking for a workshop and there's going to be changes potentially and then that could change the funding and then I'm already past the deadline that I would need to submit this to FDOT for you know incorporation or tip. So if the dollar amounts change, the scope of work changes, you know that is problematic. It is. Do do you um how many people attended the meeting for since it was said a few times that there was there was well attended. How many people attended the meeting for the this project?

I know that there were 20 people in person and then there were others that were virtual from my understanding and we I do have actually uh the screenshots of the attendance record. I have them here Andrew. Thank you. How many do you know how many how many attended for 20 for 27th? Yes. For 27th on June 25th, 2025

27. And how many of that was staff? How many of that was what? Staff. Ladies and gentlemen in the audience, can you please if you've got something to say, you can wait until audience participation. if we have it on this particular item. Otherwise, please don't interrupt. Go ahead, Commissioner Fess.

Seven staff, one elected official. So, that's 12 people then. 20, right? But minus Yeah. Minus staff and elected official. So, 12 people from the public. No, 27 total minus Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah, I I I mean I I'm I'm I'm interested to hear what everybody else has to think about this, but I I really think this needs to be part of our overall project and conversation needs to be made with residents. Very good. Further commission discussion on the motion. Mayor, Commissioner Perkins. Um

I agree with trying to get more people involved in the Caya City area of what's going on here. And if I can remember correctly, um, the meeting was June of this year. June of last year. There were two meetings last year. Commissioner, you really weren't involved in Caillou City at that point. You you you were I meant you were elected, but you just recently got involved in giving some attention to Caya City. I I've been involved with call your city since I was elected. No, darling. No, no, no, no, no, no. So, I think we should try to reach out to a few more people in in in the Kaia City area,

right? See, I guarantee you I can walk up and down 27th now and knock on doors and ask people, do they know about this? And I'm sure they're going to say no. So, I I would like for more people to be informed, involved with such a big project, $15 million. I think they should be more involved and have a little more input u with what's going on there. That's it. Okay. Very good. Commissioner Smith,

it's $5 million that there's a chance we're going to lose it. And it's a lot of safety. It's very different than 15th Street. This is lighting. This is sidewalks. This is pedestrian crossing. Don't want to lose this for District 5. And there's a chance we'll lose it if you postpone this till April 28th. I'm begging you commissioners to support district five in a safety project on 27th Avenue, our main road in the community. I really like commissioner Perkins. Yes, sir. Further further commission discussion. I'm good. I've got Commissioner Seagerson eaten. I

I would just like to say if I had a spot in my district for this type of of improvement, I would be all over it. This is awesome. And again, I'm going to say this money isn't out there forever. We compete with the other 31 cities in Broward County. And it's no, it's this is this is like um Christmas to be able to be ranked one for a project. And I know 27th Avenue as well. It's a racetrack. there is, you know, it has been a problem

and um excuse me, I don't need the comments from the audience. Ladies and gentlemen, please, please, let's keep it quiet out there. Thank you. There's so many people that walk in call your city.

And the neighborhood is just looking great. I too want to see this enhancements. I too do not want to lose this for call your city for any part of the city. This is a wonderful thing and and I just I cannot support postponing it and it would be a shame to lose this. This would be something great. And I also wonder whether Phyllis Smith and her improvement association I'm sure they do a newsletter. I'm sure this has been out to the public. All you have to do is take a look at this picture and go, "Oh, yeah, that would be great. It's a no-brainer." Thank you.

Very good. Further commission discussion on the postponing. Commissioner Fessick,

I agree. Money is great and especially when it comes to fally funded having the ability to have this project that that would be a blessing to the neighborhood. I agree. Um, but like Commissioner Sigen said, you know, it's like Christmas, but if we don't tell Santa what we want, then we're going to end up with a pink bunny suit. So, um, I mean, we have to we have to just get it right. And so, I I want to make sure that we give the community the opportunity to have their input before we just start throwing money at something or potentially starting a project uh, doing something. We just replaced roundabouts that didn't work. We, you know, and that was on us. I want to make sure we get something right for the community and that's most important is to make sure we get it right for the people who live there. Thank you.

Further commission discussion on the motion to postpone. Commissioner Perkins, I find it

I I don't know the words to say, but you're sitting on this particular board or this planning organization, and I've never heard you say anything about it on this DAS, and even now you have no input. Um, I I if we vote this down and if we miss the deadline by the 28th of of next month, is there a possibility or does it ever come back again or it's gone for good? We could never get this this funding. Who can address that?

I would have to get back to you on that. Um, it's really going to be up to the MO board. Um, but is this something that you apply for funding every year? No, it is not. It has been in in the Metropolitan Transformation Plan since uh 2020 whenever it was adopted like five years or so. Six. Six years ago. Yeah.

Okay. So, what is the your plan? What? What? Okay. We're going to spend 15 million in on 27th and we're going to spend 10 million on 15th Street. So what? 5 million. So what is the bigger plan after that? After that improvement has been done. What's next? I don't think I understand your question. So there's a a list of projects. Okay.

You these two projects were ranked high. Um some of them are in different funding bands as you as you saw with um 15th it's in a lower funding ban. Um and but 27th is actually in the five-year work program. So it's gearing up to getting close to a design phase. And to enter a design phase, it's really good to know what the cost estimates are going to be so that it e easily moves into the design phase. And we're asking for the right amount of money for the design phase. Then whenever you get into the design phase at 30% design, it'll go back to the community for input. And then the designer will incorporate what they heard from the community. And then they'll go to a 60% design and make sure that everything was incorporated with the community community's input. After 60% it goes to final design and then it goes out to bid for construction.

Okay. But what we're trying to do with this concept development process is to get a better cost estimate and a better scope of work so that whenever we get to design, we kind of know exactly what we're getting into because what's happening is a lot of projects and past projects have been underfunded and what happens is they either die or the cities have to come up with the funding gap and not you know being covered with the federal fund funds. Okay. So my my question again is once 27th is completed, the project is completed totally and the 15th Street project is completed. Is that the end of all of this for ML?

No, no, no. We have a list of priority projects um that are I I I don't know the number of them but there are uh at least in th this type of category I think there's probably 50 to 60 projects in the in the list. So if so in other words when you finish 27th Mhm. it's completed right you have other plans to do something else there else on 27. Yes. No. Okay. What about Northwest 15th Street? Once you're done with that and it's completed project. Is there anything outside of that you have for the future to be done there? No ma'am.

Okay. That's all I need to hear. Okay. Thank you.

Very good. Further commission discussion. Vice Mayor I think the way to think about this is is almost like our CIP or something like a long-term plan. Things go into it, but they don't happen right away and some things fall by the wayside and some things um get done over time, but these are long-term projects. Um so, Mr. Harrison, this has been in the pipeline for six years is what I heard. Um, there were community input meetings 10 months ago. The MO folks were ready to present this to us two or three months ago and but we're somehow sitting here today where we have to make this decision today or we risk losing the project. Is how how did that happen?

This is the first I've heard that uh they would have liked to have seen this in February. So, uh, I'm not exactly sure, uh, what all went on for it to come up tonight, but, uh, I believe the staff, uh, that has been working on this has been under the impression this is $5 million federal for Northwest 27th and $10 million federal for Northwest 15th Street. And I believe the staff had the impression that no one would be against it. Assuming what we're going to think seems a little risky with this board, especially when things are thrown at us out of complete surprise. I've never seen this plan until it showed up in the agenda. If there was a community input meeting 10 months ago and this plan was done back in December or January, why didn't we get that from you or from someone staff to say, "Hey, this is coming your way. This is what those community input sessions resulted in." To just have it thrown at us where we have to make a decision is very frustrating. I um I do see these projects as very different. So I actually agree with Commissioner Smith that this one is much simpler. It is lighting and sidewalks and raised intersections and a small se in a smaller segment of of roadway. Uh but so that that I I understand your point there, but the my problem is with the process that we end up here that something that's been in the pipeline for so long and it's been sitting around

completed we is a surprise to us uh the week before. So um I just I would expect better. Thank you. Further commission discussion on the motion to postpone? Seeing none, let's go. I'm going to just make one more plea. Mr. Smith, um whether it should have been here in February or not, please do not let call your city lose the opportunity for these improvements on 27th. Thank you. Very good. Let's let's call the role. Commissioner Fezit. This is on the motion. The motion postpone. Yes. Commissioner Perkins. Yes. Commissioner Seagerson eaten.

No. Commissioner Smith, no. Vice Mayor Forier, no. Mayor Harden, no. We're back on the original item. Commission discussion or that's Let's see. Commissioner Fess, you are the one who pulled it. Very good. Now, it's time to open it up to the public. This is a public hearing. Is there any input from the public on this item?

Please come forward. Just name and address for the record. Ski 1630 Southwest 5th Avenue. I actually have no problem with this. First of all, Barry Moss was commissioner at the time, and I highly doubt Barry ever traveled Northwest 27th Avenue unless he had a police escort. And I don't know you very well, but I have a feeling you also need a police escort also. Okay, first of all, none of you know this street. She may, but that's about it. There are sidewalks up and down that street. All you need to do is power wash the sidewalks. Now, we don't have the police chief here anymore, but I don't think he he can't get involved. Are you putting speed bumps down? Yes or no? You said traffic coming. What is that then?

I'm going to read to you the high level again. Cuz I don't read the backups anymore. I got back pedestrian lighting, enhanced bus stop locations, raised intersections, okay, high visibility crosswalks, and some landscaping.

And this is all going to cost $5 million. I would like to see the supplies and what just a list of how much each thing costs for each supply for five million because Okay, so I saw traffic coming on there. That really got to me because there really is no speeding on that street. The only speeding on that street and I'm there twice a week for several hours. Okay, I see what goes on up and down the street and I actually then feed some of the people that walk up and down the street. All right, you're not there. I've never seen you. In fact, I'm about the only white person that's ever there. So, don't tell me you are there. And we know Barry was never there. Okay. So, on that street, we have a new police station. We may as well call that the Berry Building Part Two cuz I haven't seen a cop car there yet. Just like the Berry Building is pretty much vacant. So, you want to fix this street as long I really don't have much of a problem with what you want to do. It's $5 million. It sounds like a awful lot of money for that street. And like I said, as long as you're not touching anything on that street, because the police speed up and down that street, you have fire trucks, the police speed down that street for one main reason, to get from Atlantic to Martin Luther King Boulevard. When there's a problem, that's when I see them. And when I was there the other day, two police cars went down that street. God knows how fast they were going. And there is no problem with speeding as far as I know because you've got a lot of kids that run around there and you got a lot of dope addicts that are walking across the street like zombies. So you got to drive 25 miles per hour. If not, you kill them.

And don't lie, you were never there. Very good. Next speaker.

Tandra King, 124 Northwest 15th Street. I'm I'm not against this project, but what I am against is we're always kind of just being left in the dark. My business is over there, so I frequent that area often. And I just think that we're always the last one to get the information or be invited to the party, but we're really hosting the party and I just don't think that that's fair to the residents. I could have gotten notified a lot of my parents. I found out about the meeting. Um the day of the meeting, someone came to 15th Street um to one of the residents and knocked on the door and said, "There's a very important meeting tonight about 15th Street and 27th Avenue." We're like, "What meeting?" And they said, "Oh, it's going to be $10 million. They're going to improve the streets." And we're like, "What?" So I called my four sisters and then they called some other people. So that's how I heard about the meeting. And then we showed up to um Commissioner Smith's meeting. Again, it's just everything is just hodgepodge like thrown together as if we're always an afterthought. And that just grinds my gears every time. Why can't six years we've known about this? Why didn't we know about it right after you knew about it? There should be something on our website. I know we have that things. I I see them sometime or P&Z about buildings and how much we're building, what we proposed to build. But we have to be realistic. Are the people that live there, are they going on the website to see, oh, pumping those proposing these following projects? We have to find another way. We miss it almost every time. I'm talking about the Northwest cuz that's where I live and work and play. We miss it every time, mayor. We miss it. We have to find another way to communicate to the people to get the information out. It's going to impact us the most. Yes, you might guys might come through there once a year for a ribbon cutting, but I go through there every day. And it's not fair to us. We need to know these things. We should have known it six years ago so that we really truly could have some input. And if we don't know about it, we can then research and ask people that know that feel, hey, is is it okay with the sidewalks? We have a lot of babies down there to the park. Um that we drop our kids off to the

afterare program down there. And again, I just wish we would be considered more and our input would really matter because right now it doesn't feel as though it matters about anything. Not the downtown project, not the 15th Street project, just always in the dark. And I don't think that's fair. But I think this is um a good project and I think it would be good to further enhance that street and hopefully that would curtail the crime and some of the other things that I'm concerned about in that area. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker.

Just name and address for the record, please.

Good evening. Jackie Morland. Where do I live? 1526 Northwest 7th Lane. Pompo. Hi. I'm back. I took a break cuz y'all were working my nerves really bad. But um anyway, you know what? What? What really is baffling to me, you sit on the board with these people and you're our mayor and you've never said anything to us about the 15th street project or the one on 27th. Our family business is in your district. I attend church. My pastor prayed today. Our church is in Kala City. There was no notice about this meeting. We found out just like my sister said and it was not 27 people in there. I've gone to both of the meetings and if you're counting 27, you're counting yourselves. And we did talk about some of the things that what that we did want and didn't didn't want in the project. But what also baffles me, Commissioner Eaten, how some of you all can tell us what's best for our neighborhood better than we can because it's all money and it's a big amount of money doesn't mean that that's what we want for our community. Just as my sister said, I don't pass through Kaya City. I go through there every day. I live there. My church is there. our businesses in the area. So, you can't speak for us and what's best for our community. It's always, as my sister said, an afterthought. We're we're intelligent. We care about where we live. You may not see this room with a lot of us, but that doesn't mean we don't care. And you're our mayor and you're a part of this and you knew these monies were coming and how they needed to be spent. And and just one of the things that we're talking about is about widen the sidewalks and what it looks like for the future. Okay, we you may want that for the future, but we're talking about right now. I'm 65 years old. I've lived in PMPO, the northwest section, college and back, and I'm still there and my neighborhood. I know it well. So, let us meet with you all. Tell us tell let us tell you what we need for our community and not you telling us what we got to have because it's a big

amount of money. I don't go on the beach and tell you what's best for the beach. I don't go in palm and say what's best for Palm. I know the northwest section. I live, breathe, eat, and sleep it. I work with the children there. My church is there. My family's there. And I love where I live. I know it better than you and anybody else. You know where you live. I know I live. I know what was going to make better in my community just as you do. So hear us when we come up here. It's very discouraging to come up here time after time, month after month to say the same thing and nothing is done. Hear us when we speak. Thank you. Next speaker. Just name and address for the record, please.

All right. Um, Delvin King, 2601 Northwest 12th Street. So, this is actually in the district that I live in. Um, I'm not opposed of the pro the project. It's just the process again that we're following. We in Pompo don't tend to follow the process. Now, one thing I do want to say because I heard it while I was in the lobby. Um, I think commissioner you said Phyllis Smith. Phyllis Smith. Every time when they come down to call your city, Phyllis Smith. Phyllis Smith. Well, Phyllis Smith ain't my mama. Phyis Smith don't pay the taxes at 2601. Phyis Smith house ain't bigger than my house. So, let me say she can't speak on behalf of Calla City. Now, you could what you need to change and say is the greater CIA city um the housing authority or housing whatever whatever the group is called. That's what they recommend. But I don't care what Phyis Smith want. Phyis Smith can't represent me. She She can't represent 2601. She can't represent Delvin King, Nesby King, and Alonzo King. She can't represent us. So stop saying that. That she stop. Just stop. So now, let's get back to it. Um, we got to we got to communicate more. Y'all want to pay all these consultants, you know, you want to pay Sarah all this money. She live in the Northwest. I mean, she live over there in district five over there in that little that little house on second. She live over there. Why she ain't communicating? She getting 150,000. Why Sarah didn't come tell us about this? She can tell us about everything else. She can run a mouth. Run a mouth on the podcast that she text you about. Y'all text about the podcast. Oh, that was nice. Yeah, you got on them. You remember that text message you sent you sent? Y'all can talk about that, but you couldn't talk about this meeting that we were supposed to have. You represent me. Well, you don't represent me. I I do my own thing. But you supposed to represent Ca City, but you do more palm air and more dirty

work for for Barry. You know the what the we love Barry signs. I'm I'm glad that's gone. Lord Jesus. But listen, communicate more with the with the with you going to be our commissioner for a little while longer. Communicate with us. Hopefully I can take your seat. But um communicate more with us. Let us know what's going on. Mr. mayor, if you if you know stuff that's going on, we should know. Let us know. Call your city is a part of Pumpino, too. Beverly Perkins shouldn't be the only person that's representing Collia City as well, cuz it is a lot of work that she do for us because nobody else won't do it. They they just don't care. And the only time y'all come over is when it's time to rim cutting. And you you're right. Um uh Commissioner Eaton, you did come walk maybe 10 ft from your car to the um what what that is? The new police station. That's as far as I seen you walk. But y'all ain't walk up and down 27. I'm born and raised 27. You ain't walk. You ain't do it. You ain't in the You ain't out there with us. Thank you, mayor.

Very good. Further input from the public. Please come forward. Just name and address for the record.

Hi, my name is Elizabeth the Bolt. I live at 2560 Northeast 22nd Street. And I can have some compassion for these people because when I moved in, I never was told my house flooded. A little while ago, maybe six months ago, maybe longer than that, they started a new new project in my area without telling me early early in the morning and I get up early. They dug out all my rock and they took it away. I have no place to park now. They just said, "Well, we needed a holding tank." So they put one in front of my house. So now I'm probably back to flooding again because the basin to basin won't even allow it to flow. It doesn't work that way. And they put basins in. They didn't even know what they were doing. And now I just everybody else got asphalt in their property except for me. I'm the basin and the guy across the street who floods terrible too. They didn't take and one little house with a little girl that

if I could ask you get back to the the item that we're on. Okay.

Well, the item that we're on is there is no communication in this town. None. And then things aren't done properly. And if you speed them, haste is of the devil. Okay? You need to take time and realize what you're doing before you're going to spend $15 million. Wow. 27 people, $15 million. Can I have $15 million? I'd love to have it to fix the drive that they screwed up in. And I can't even put a drive in now. I can't even get zoning to pass it. And I don't know why it's taken them forever. That's another things. Things take forever. They're not done properly. There's no communication. This city is messed up. You know, I was born in Miami. We never had these problems. You all got problems. I mean, it's not you. I don't know who it is. I don't know who's to blame, but somebody needs to start communicating and having patience. Patience is a virtue and finding out what the problems are exactly and nailing them and getting them taken care of though with quick response once you know what's going on, how to solve it because it takes forever. I'm a little person without this drive. I got I'm trying to put the money in. I'm trying. And it was going to be done illegally by the city and I don't even want to get into that. And I'm the one that said, "No, I will not do that." You know what happened? They shut me down. So now I'm still waiting. Well, I hope the next person has better than me. I hope you think take time think about this before you ruin somebody else's life.

Very good. Further input from the public. Mayor, Mr. Fessie, just want to address that. Um, if you wouldn't mind, um, Elizabeth, let's let's get together and and I'll get make sure after the meeting. Thank you. Very good. Further commission further input from the public on this item. Seeing none, public input closed. Commission discussion.

Commissioner Fessk Point. Well, I guess I'll start then. Um, thank you, Mayor. Look, I I agree. I I don't think that improvements are a bad thing. Don't uh but the Elizabeth asked mentioned that there was no communication in the city. Is right. Um Miss Morland mentioned there was lack of communication in the city. I think we've all mentioned there's lack of communication in the city. This is not enough to warrant if Miss Morland and Miss King and how many other sisters I'm not sure how you brought or that called that one night and there were 27 people and eight were st well seven staff one elected and then your sisters and a small group of people then we're talking about one family that got input and maybe like three or four others depending on how many I mean well and and I appreciate that but this is this is one of those situations where I'd have to agree that that that the responsibility as as Elizabeth asked, where does the responsibility lie? Well, Mayor Harden, if you knew about this for six years and you're part of this no planning, why didn't we know about this? Mr. Harrison, if you knew about this or any or staff, it's your job. We can't ask staff. It's your job to to tell us what's coming down the pike. And we have asked to be informed about things that are pending before we get blocked into these things where we could use it or lose it, right? And so now our hands are tied yet again because we want something nice for the community, but we don't want to necessarily make it something that they don't want. I'd actually have a question for um Mayor Major Elwood of all people um related to Northwest 27th Avenue.

Thank you. Um, so my question to you, because it was brought up as well that you often have to move quickly up and down Northwest 27th, um, for whatever reason, do you or are you aware of speeding instances, you know, or traffic infractions on that street? Is it a problem area for speeding at the moment? Specifically, Northwest 27th Avenue.

Yes, sir. We have I would say on on a lot of streets in Pmpo, we have traffic issues. It's it's a systemic issue across the country and we deal with it on 27th Avenue but a lot of places in PMPO.

Okay. The the reason I the reason I asked that is just because and do you find that if we did a traffic or a raised raised intersection for example which I agree would be traffic calming. Um, I remember somebody else mentioning would those traffic calming things be with raised intersections, would they be like speed humps or would they be just the raised intersections that sort of slowly to Kimley Horn, I guess. Would those be something that are going to prohibit a an ambulance or a firetruck or something from going quickly through those intersections? Well, or can we be part of that design project?

In response to the question regarding the raised intersections, they would not be like speed humps. they would be more gradual climbs. They would be designed to accommodate emergency response vehicles. That's a great answer because I think that's one of the things that has been an issue um for us before. Um okay, I I'll I'm with questions for now. Thank you. Very good, Commissioner Perkins.

Okay. So, we've um on 27 we've installed two um guess two or three. Two. We just installed two speed humps there so to slow the traffic and and I haven't been hearing a lot of complaints since the speed humps have been installed. However, with this project, do you plan to remove those speed humps because they were put there about maybe four months ago? I did not see that in the preliminary concepts removing them.

Oh, so they're going to remain there. Okay. All right. Further commission discussion. Commissioner Smith.

I just want to um respond to how I distributed information about the about the no over at the um call your city library is I received an email with a flyer attached and um I believe um Commissioner Perkins you received the same email. Um, I just happened to open it and see what it was and I was excited about it because I had read some NO stuff and I knew the project was coming. So, you did give me a flyer. You did email me a flyer. I had them printed and I distributed them around call your city at the library at McNair Center and I published um the announcement in my newsletter. So, that's how I was able to get to it. And I also let the Call Your City Civic Association through Phyllis Smith um communicate that to her membership. So, that's how I um communicated to call your city and that's probably why we had a little bit better um attendance. But, it's also it's it's just a small community. So, I think it's different. But again, I'm I'm asking you to um please not let us lose this $5 million project for um safety on 27th Avenue for the residents of Call Your City.

I understand that. Um Commissioner Perkins,

I understand that, Commissioner. I um I'm as just as passionate about Caillou City as you are. However, I don't think that the Kaya City Homeowners Association speak for the entire Kaya City and Esqua Lakes community. There are a lot of different levels of groups there that that you're probably not aware of. Um, I'm glad I connected you with the the Little League so you can kind of see what's going on there as well. However, um we just have to do more in in communicating and I'm sitting here feeling some kind of way like six years is a long time and maybe someone never brought it to my attention the importance of this and here we are at this deadline where this has been lingling for what six years and we're at this this point and I can see the the two gentlemen there somewhat frustrated because they want this to pass and go through, but just wish that we were really on top of this and I had this information much sooner and earlier because this would have been an easy whatever. But I just think that the community needs to be well informed um what's going on, what to expect because of course, you know, my phone is going to start ringing if they start construction. What are they doing? what you know it's it's just that um so I just it's needed 27th need a lot of improvements a lot of neat uh um issues we have in in Caya City as well as the um Teen Street but as I stated earlier I just like to see

the um the residents have a little bit more input and we do a little bit more outreach um in the in the uh area of Kaya City and include Esqualakes in that as well. Thank you, Commissioner Perkins. I'd like to respond to that. Go ahead. Um, just to reassure you, as Mr. Riddle said, there is flexibility. This is just the preliminary concepts right now. There will be more public outreach during the design. Okay. But what you have in place right now is what you're submitting with the with the uh the grant highle concepts. Correct. Okay. Thank you. I have a question. Very good.

Commissioner Fess,

just a question. So, so let's say because I think everybody's in agreement here, we don't want the Northwest, we don't want 27th to lose out on on an opportunity. Would it be possible, Mr. Harrison, for us to since the design concept is flexible with, like you said, 30% or whatever, there's there's still the ability. I'm assuming that you still have flexibility in discussing the project even if you move it forward financially to get that input at the same meeting we're already planning on having before the 20 before the 28th. Would it be possible for us to add a discussion item, Mr. Harrison, to that same meeting so that we can then if we want to move this forward, we can then at least be able to provide that same information. I mean, they're already going to be here holding the meeting, so why not kill two birds with one stone and get additional feedback for the Northwest 27th project. You're asking if you could have a discussion item at the workshop with regard to the Northwest 15th Street meeting to make a decision on moving that project forward, but you want to have a discussion item on Northwest 27th Avenue at the same meeting.

I'm just saying that the main everything that everybody said here is that they that we want they want public feedback. We want the community to have a chance to speak. Since we're going to be having a meeting anyway, if we were to move this forward, can we please my my request would be I'd like to do that, but make sure that we add that we add the conversation regarding Northwest 27th to that meeting we're having. Mainly just to give them the feedback that they would be needing from the residents that we're already going to be reaching out to and having a meeting anyway. It wouldn't affect anything. It would just be making sure that we have the communication. Commissioner, just so I I'm just um I believe that they were held in separate locations. Were they held in separate locations previously? Yes. Yeah. That's to

They were held in separate locations. But that's what I was saying. I asked for specifically if we could have the location here be publicly recorded, have people be able to come up to to, you know, and be able to communicate for that for our, you know, a workshop or a meeting here where it's recorded and people can go on and and check it out because obviously we have a big problem with the way that these meetings are set up. And it's not just this one, it's a lot of those meetings. They're poorly attended. And so if we can make it a better push to get the feedback from residents and they know where this is, they know what time is, we can publicly notice it, can have it recorded so that if and we can have the feedback link back for both projects. It just makes more sense for us to do something proactively when we have the opportunity to do so. So obviously the neighborhood meetings didn't necessarily work. So let's try to get people here. That's all. There's a question. I'm I'm trying to find solutions. Move this.

So, um, do you guys from MO see a problem with mixing the discussions uh on the one meeting where we're hedging our bet on the 28th, but going into the meeting with this project approved, but go ahead and discuss it anyway. Um, mayor, wait. Let's let's

we can take the information back. Um, but are you asking us to rework the plans and actually add add or delete scope um that could impact cost estimates because that's what we need. We need a scope and we needed cost estimate for the T for the transformation improvement program. to clarify since it was my since it was my question what you said was a 30% there's a design that goes back to the community for input then 60% at 60% it goes out to for final design so be because we're at the zero I mean you know are we at the 30% or 60% where are we in in in community feedback

so we we have design scheduled in fiscal year 29 okay so we're not in design yet. Okay. So, would would head it before you head into design in the front end, would it be helpful to you to have additional community feedback so that you don't waste any additional funding designing something that the community doesn't want? Well, the past year was that act that exercise. All right. Thank you.

But it's like John was saying a while ago. I don't know if you guys caught that, but John was saying that there will be additional meetings. So I think what you're concerned about is having a forum for the public to talk about more specifics with regard to the design. And yes, that will happen if if you uh accept the project. That's that's not

Yeah, that's not what I meant. I I meant I what I was trying to do is make sure that the residents that were that are that are saying they want to have more input, maybe we tie an approval. Maybe I make a motion to tie approval to the fact that we do have the we do add it as an agenda item, you know, so that so that we do give the community feedback and you can go and then that way you have something to take away and you walk away from it. So I I I want to I'm trying to find a solution here that that it's everybody. Commissioner, I think the the future design meetings will actually be more productive and have more participation because they'll have more substance with them when they're at 30%, at 60%. These are just concept plans at this point. I disagree. I disagree entirely because we've seen what we we seen how city hall concept worked out

when I we were given two choices. Hey, pick one. I mean that I disagree. I feel like before you start putting pen to paper, input is a value. Well, we had we we advertised on the city's website. We had neighborhood flyers. There was inperson and also virtual. We had two meetings per corridor. I don't know what more we could have done.

I'm just saying I'm trying to say let's if we were approve it now. All I'm saying is we add it to the meeting we're already planning on having, right? So that nothing actually happens. We've if we approve it and it move forward moves forward anyway, all it is is a chance since we're going to have a meeting regardless related to a separate neighborhood project, but we are one city and a lot of people who live in district 4, they live they they go to school in district 5. It's not like we, you know, it's not like we just stay in our own little bubbles all the time. We travel we one pompo beach. We we travel throughout the city. So I'm just saying that the feedback may be valuable to you to take with you moving forward. I that that is my only that is my only goal here is to actually provide value while not losing an opportunity.

Yeah. May I? Yeah. Go ahead. I think that is reasonable trust. as as long as we're not adding more scope and more funding that we can program the project with this resolution, that'd be acceptable and we can hear your additional comments at the April meeting that we can, you know, incorporate whenever we get to the final design. Will that be acceptable? That that's that's my request. I don't know what everybody else thinks, but that would be acceptable to me. Thank you. For sure. Because I mean it's if people want to give comments on this project, they can make comments on this project at at the at that meeting. That's that's

further commission discussion. Well, I I certainly support this. Um I want to see it move forward. And so that's that's it. Um mayor, it is Perkins for me. Commissioner, just to be fair, questions. Okay. Already spoken twice on this.

Thank you. I don't need to be reminded. Thank you. I know you're tired of it because you know all about it. But what I'm concerned about is you seem to be Well, let me put it as a question, so you better ex receive it. I seem to think because you sat on this organizational board,

there's got to be more to it because you never brought it to our attention. And that's what I'm trying to sit here and figure out. There's got to be more to this. I don't know what it is, but but I know how politics work, but there is a reason you never brought it up to this board or this commission. Is there a reason question? You just didn't inform. That's a question to you. Why didn't you inform us? Do questions like this. Commissioner, you got a question for staff?

Answer the question. You said I can ask a question. My question is, why didn't you inform commissioners or people sitting up here on this dis earlier? Commissioner, I'm not going to respond to your questions. You just said I could ask one. You can ask.

She's raising her hand over there. You've got the floor. She's raising her hand. You've got the floor. She's raising her hand. I got time. You want to sit here and look at me? I know. I look good. I look good. Jesus Christ. Got the floor, Commissioner. So do you. No, technically Commissioner, you have the floor. So go ahead. All right. Well, technically, Mary, you have the floor. You go ahead. Clock is ticking. Is there more you'd like to ask about? I just asked you a question. You refused to answer it. I'm not going to answer it.

Why? You're the mayor. Commissioner Perkins. You want to shut everybody down at the podium. You don't want to answer any questions. You want to control the meetings. I mean, come on. There was something up here. What's your question, Commissioner Perkins? Why didn't you inform the commissioners sitting on this dis about the MO and what was going on with it before today? Commissioner Perkins, I told you before when you asked this question. I'm not going to respond to your questions of me. Why? I don't want to. You don't know anything about what's going on with NO? I don't want to. You don't attend their meetings on a regular basis. What's your questions of the staff? Do you have any questions of staff? Commissioner Perkins, I

just ask you. Do you have any questions of staff? Ask the mayor. You're the only person sitting on this DIS that a part is a part of MO. That's correct. And the question is put to you. Commissioner Perkins, I'm not going to respond to your questions of me. Do you have any further questions of staff on this matter? I need you to answer that question. Commissioner, I'm going to rule you out of order now. Thank you. Good. It's not the first time you want to take a break. No, I'll move on. Further commission. Usually when you can't handle things, you want to take a break. Further commission disc uh vice mayor.

Commissioner Perkins, I'll take a stab at answering it for you. Go ahead. So, I think he either doesn't know he doesn't know either doesn't know about it, doesn't understand it, or more likely enjoys knowing more than the rest of us do. And that is always my frustration. There's asymmetric information. There is asymmetric Those are the options, right? I gave you some options. Okay, repeat them again, Mr. Perkins, please. He doesn't know. This mayor has a floor. He does. He doesn't understand. Doesn't understand or he likes knowing more than we do. He likes more. I think and I I I think it's it's option C. I I think um

I I think he's well aware of these projects um and could have used his report many we have reports at the end of all these meetings just to give an update on that. Right. couple minutes on that before we say merry Christmas. You know, we we use a lot of words in our reports that don't convey real things, just, you know, sentiments and and nice subtleties, but but the substance is sometimes missing, right? So, this is uh an opportunity to communicate the substance and it didn't happen. And I I tend to think based on history here that that asymmetric information serves a certain people better. Um, I feel that way often, you know, when I look at contracts that are signed, you know, and you're like, well, the city manager knew about it and the mayor knew about it. Their signature are on it, but none of the rest of us even knew about things,

right? So, that's my guess. Great. Thank you for answering that for me. I appreciate it. I actually have a question. Further commission, Commissioner Fess, will this or an MO update be part of our state of the city address or the script for that? Will you address it at the at the meeting that we have on Tuesday? Don't know. You very good. Further commission discussion on the item. Vice Mayor, sorry, quick question. You don't know about your state of the city presentation. Is that the answer? That's correct. You're not working on it. See, some people also have help from staff doing everything for them, unlike the rest of us who have to do everything ourselves in the face of staff fighting us.

Further commission discussion on the item? Seeing none, let's go ahead and call the role. Commissioner Fezet? No. What do we call a roll on the motion? Motion. Yeah. Motion. No. Commissioner Fez. The item. It's the item. What was the item? The motion to approve. Yeah. It's 27th Avenue. Motion to approve. It's on the floor. Motion to approve. Correct. Okay. The motion to approve item number four. Okay. Item number three. Commissioner Feez. No. Commissioner Perkins. No. Commissioner Seagerson eaten. Yes, Commissioner Smith. Yes, Vice Mayor Forier. Yes, Mayor Harden. Yes. Thank you.

Let's take a 10-minute recess. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Heat.

Heat. Heat.

Hey. Hey. Hey. Heat. Heat. Hey, hey, hey. Heat. Hey, Heat.

Right. All right.

All right. Let's go ahead and call call this meeting back to order Beach City Commission March 24th, 2026 after the break. Okay. That takes us up to our regular agenda. Item number five is a resolution. Resolution to city commissioner of the city of Palm Beach, Florida, approving and authorizing the proper city officials to execute a piggyback agreement between the city of Palm Beach and Alttech Industries, Inc. to purchase public utility equipment with related accessories and supplies in an amount not to exceed $288,738 as identified and approved in the FY2026 budget providing an effective date. So moved. Second.

Moved and seconded for discussion. Mr. Burman, you read 2026 budget, but it's printed 2025 budget in the agenda. I'm reading it. Let's see. On the uh computer, it's 2026, and I assumed it was the current one. The agenda may be a misprint. Okay. Just wanted to check with that. Thank you. No, no, no. Not that I would comment on anything. Excuse me. Allison Fert. No, it's not a misprint. 25. Yes. This particular item was on the 2025 capital outlay listing. Okay. Well, it's on the computer incorrectly, which is what I read. So, approved in the FY 2025 budget providing an effective date. Very good. Thank you.

George was going to correct that. It's been moved. Moved and second for discussion. Mr.

Good evening. Uh Mr. Mayor, vice mayor, commissioner, city manager, city attorney, George Barura, facilities operations director. Uh the item before you is a resolution my excuse me for the approval and authorizing execution of a piggyback agreement between the city and all tech industries uh to purchase an old tech model TA60 uh boom truck related with the uh with all the related a uh accessories to the facilities department. uh this amount is not to exceed 288,7338 and as identified and approved by the FY2025.

Very good. Thank you for that. Anything further, sir. That's it. Yes, sir. Very good. This is a public hearing. Is there any input from the public on this item? Seeing none, public input closed. Commission discussion. Vice Mayor, I just have a quick question. Uh, in the 2025 capital outlay, it says 350,000 was allocated to this line item. That was probably correct. Yes, ma'am. So, is it coming in under budget? The item It's coming in under budget. So, what are we going to do with the other $62,000? It goes back to the uh

um Allison Feta, finance director. Um that money is either we'll allocate to any other um capital outlay items that is over budget and if we are at the end of the term if there's excess funds that go back to principal payment principal and interest payments on the loan on the on the the loan the loan the okay thank you welcome very good further commission discussion seeing none let's call the role commissioner fee it Yes. Commissioner Perkins. Yes. Commissioner Sigerson Eaton. Yes. Commissioner Smith. Yes. Vice May Pornier. Yes. Mayheart.

Yes. Item number six is a second reading of an ordinance. An ordinance of the city commission of the city of Palm Beach, fly, Florida, amending article 2, section 6 to chapter 57-174, Laws of Florida, Special Acts of 1957 as subsequently amended and supplemented, otherwise known as the charter of the city of PMPO Beach, Florida, imposing limitations on the length of terms of the offices of the mayor and commissioners while expanding future terms of office of city commissioners, and staggering said terms, providing that if The amendment is approved by a majority of the voters at the general election of November 2026, then such amendment shall become part of the city's charter upon certification and acceptance of the election results, providing for conflicts, providing for severability, providing an effective date.

So moved. Second. Moved and second for discussion. Mr. Burman.

Thank you. Uh the simple no changes since first reading would be preferred I would think, but just to summarize because it's been a while since we talked about this. These are the changes that the commission at the time uh had requested that I make. Uh these three changes, they were put into one simplistic, one clear question and clear option for the voters. That was back in October of 25 when requested. I know we've revisited this several times, but I think the time at this point is respectfully growing near where the city clerk is going to have to notify the supervisor of elections as to whether we have this item on the ballot. I think you've got about another month or approximately.

Yes. So at again I whether you do this whether you wish me to change this or remove or add whatever I'm happy to do it. Uh, I'm happy to follow whatever direction the commission gives me, but at some point the clerk's going to need direction to move move this forward if that's the desire ultimately. Thank you, mayor. Very good. Thank you. This is a public hearing. Is there any input from the public on this item? Seeing none, public input closed. Commission discussion, questions, concerns. Commissioner Perkins, then Commissioner Sigen. Yes. I guess what I'm trying to find is where is the language where it's how it's actually going to be read on the ballot. That's weird. Ordinance.

Ordinance on page two. Page two. Got it. Hold on. Proposed amendment one. The question shall section six and it ends with in subsequent elections. Okay. Hold on. Okay. I see it. I see it. I see it. Okay.

Yeah. that that's very important how it's worded because it can be very confusing when a person is reading it especially when it's in all cap letters but yes I see it here does say the four year okay got it okay commissionerine

um yeah thanks mayor um I'm not I'm not really in favor of of putting this on the ballot in November um I've thought about it a a lot. And I I've gone kind of both ways on this issue. You know, I recognize that our state representatives have two-year terms and our congressional representatives two-year terms, and it seems to work well. And I think that a two-year period is time enough for the public the who I represent um to know whether or not I'm doing a good job. Um and I think with a two-year term, if I wasn't doing my job, they would not reelect me. Um and the same thing term limits. I mean, it really does take away power of the people to decide who their representatives are going to be. Um, and it gets rather complicated. We have tried this a number of times. Um, and they've never passed. And I really have to say that I believe more in the residents opportunity to be appropriately represented by a two-year term. It's not that long. I'm not afraid to run every two years. That's all I have for right now.

Very good. Further commission discussion. Commissioner Fess.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, I know I have had gone back and forth with this and I I I would have to agree that that I have no problem running every two years. I think that it's also something we need to to hear what people have said before and I mentioned that again at a previous meeting. But if we're gonna if we're going to look at opening um up the charter and and making changes to the charter, then I think we should be willing to discuss the part of the structure that continues to frustrate residents and and us uh the most, the repeated 33 tie votes where motion fails and nothing moves forward. Um residents actually don't care most about titles. I mean, we we have a our system. They care whether the government functions and um right now that's one of the most frustrating outcomes not just for the residents but for also for for us and the feedback we're getting. Um it's frustrating outcome when you watch these issues stale just completely stall out in a in a deadlock. Um, I believe there's a legitimate public policy question as to whether the city uh would be better served by having the presiding mayor selected from within the elected body. It was something we brought up during discussions and and Mayor Arden, you said, "Hey, yeah, sure. We'll add it if we, you know, I'm I'm up for it. We'll add it." So, um, so rather than continuing separate with a separately elected mayor at large position for four years. Um, if we did that, it would allow the district representatives to self-elect or self-appoint essentially a mayor and and and vice mayor. Um, and it would allow us to work together more as a team to do that. So, it would reduce obviously eliminate tie fail outcomes for the most part u as long as everybody voted and give residents more confidence that the people that they elected are consistently working together on their behalf. Um the other thing is given how slowly a

lot of these government programs or government moves very slowly. I think we've all been frustrated that it's very easy for us to have a 12 or 18month delay on projects, right? It just things move slowly where we there's discussion and then two months later down the line we're discussing it again. This this particular item, you know, we started it says first reading November 13th, but we were talking about it in September. Um, so I'm not opposed to a structure that has more continuity if the residents want it. Um, so a smoother decision- making would running office while I totally will do it every year essentially. You have one year in and then you're then you're running again and then it's sort of disruptive. It's expensive and disruptive. Um, I'm I'm fine with doing it if that's what voters want to do, but I feel like we should give them the opportunity because if we were going to go to a we were going to give them the option to have it be, hey, you elect somebody and then you have a four-year term. Um, then that's the case, then I think term limits should absolutely be a part of that. There's no reason why anybody should make this a lifelong career. I think you should always have room for new blood to come in because energy is important and at some point you're going to have to tap out. Um, but I really have concerns about everything being bundled in this one just this one proposed amendment. Um, term limits, four-year terms, staggering elections, they're they're they're all not the same question. And if we even add, you know, how we change, you know, we talked about adding a district or if we take about removing mayor at large, those are all things that the people should be able to answer, you know, yes, no, yes, no, and see where they decide if we're going to if we're going to put it to them. Um, so even beyond the whole, you know, the mayor structure issue, I just don't love that this is all lumped together. Confusing. M Comm Commissioner Perkins, you I would agree.

Um, so Mayor, so Mr. Burman, you mentioned that you would have ability to potentially remove or add something. I'd like before making a motion to do that, I to add um postpone the item and direct to return with a separate ballot question, I'd rather just wait for a second and see what my colleagues have to say on on the topic. Um, but but I want to make very very clear that a two-year fine. I I want to quickly just mention so we we go into this with information. The reason why I don't believe in staggered elections or staggering the the the commission is because I pulled stats from our from voting history voter turnout. So depending on how it staggers and I'm not sure how it would stagger. Don't really care. I mean it says in here it's snow. So it depends on how we move forward. But in 2020, in 2020, voter turnout for PMPO Beach, you make it across all five districts. In 2020, voter turnout was 73.5%. In 2022, a midyear election, all of PMPO Beach, it averaged out to 47.28%. And in 2024, voter turnout was 74.98%. So that's about a quarter less turnout of residents that are affected by decisions at midterm versus presidential election years. So if we're going to go to four years, then I think that it needs to be on the same sort of presidential election, not a mid midterm year. And if we're going to go if we're going to keep it at two years, that's fine. But I don't think staggering it is going to help anything because all that's going to happen is you're going to have certain number of, you know, odd numbers or even numbers, however it lays, only being represented

by, you know, a a lower voter turnout. That's that's troubling to me. So, there is a benefit if if we decide to move it to four years where I feel like we're going to actually get more of a percentage of people voting. Does it mean we have to work harder for it? Yeah, does. But it also means that we'll have some time to get things done before we have to run again. So, it's it's I I I'm no problem putting it to the people, but I want I want I want people to to understand that we in midterm years, we lose a quarter of our turnout. Maybe it's not even maybe it might be more than that, but that was just the past six years. So, or the past four years, sorry. Um that's all I have for now on it, but I I I'm I'm interested to to to kind of hear some feedback. Thank you,

Mr. Burman. Just a point of information. Um Commissioner Fess indicated that there was frustration due to the the tie ties that take place on the commission. Now, couldn't I mean, we don't need to delve into the charter to change that, do we? We could actually either increase or reduce the number of city commissioners by ordinance. Would that be correct? Correct. Okay. So, we don't need a charter change to to affect a change in the number of people. We can have up to a certain amount of districts that's already in the charter and then it's up that's fixed by ordinance. But to clarify, that's that was that was all just a question. Thank you. Okay. Question question for Mr. Burman. Sure. To clarify though, we couldn't if if the mayor since it's a so he's not a strong mayor,

we would have to we would have to remove the mayor at large position by a charter amendment but not by an ordinance. Well, I believe that would necessarily be done because that was changed by charter amendment I reckon, which gave the mayor the same powers. Thank you.

Further commission discussion, vice mayor. Uh it sounds like a lot of us have been going back and forth on this and parts of it as we've given it a lot of thought and had conversations with people. Um I'm not sure there's any right answer here which is obviously why we're putting it out there for the people to decide. Um I do believe in term limits. Um people always say oh an election is a term limit. Well, um there are distinct advantages that come with incumbency and we all know that range from name recognition to uh to money, right, to to funding campaigns. And that is an advantage of an incumbent that makes it much more difficult for a a newcomer to to take on someone who's who's been entrenched for a long time. So that is what term limits can help do. they can help create that turnover that becomes more difficult as the money flows to the same incumbent candidates over time. Um, you know, there's part of me that actually thinks three three years. I know that's a strange number. Uh, but terms makes more sense. Um, but and it would mean you'd be running in off cycle elections every other time. So, it would kind of naturally even out some of that. But, but this is what we have before us. I I agree that the where we're going to lose people on this and I don't think there's as much value to it as maybe others do is the staggering um in my view if if if an entire board gets wiped out in one election then they deserved it and yeah it'll be a learning curve for the next one but but so be it because they obviously were not listening to the people. So, while there's a risk to that happening, I think that is unlikely that an entire board gets gets uh you know cleaned out with with with new people. So, and I think it muddies the way you read this and it's still it's confusing. So, I

guess I would be willing to put the three four-year terms on the ballot um letting people decide if they want to give us longer terms in exchange for term limits. That's a question for them. Um, and a lot of cities have four-year terms. That is not it is more the norm. I know we all interact with other city officials and I tell them, "Oh, we only have two years." And and they're shocked. And I think that two years actually leads to some of the gridlock here because whether anyone up here wants to admit it or not, I think there's an underlying philosophy from certain people here that it just like I'm going to kick the can down the road till November and then get everything I want done. So, the gridlock is created by the two-year terms, whereas four-year terms, you you kind of have to, you know, roll your sleeves up and do the work with the people you're sitting next to because you can't put projects on hold for for three or four years. So, I think there's a benefit to the four years in that way. And I think the term limits is important, but I would get rid of the staggering part of this. Make it really clean and simple for people. That's my thought. Thank you.

Very good. Further commission discussion. Commissioner Smith, I would um I think four-year terms makes a lot of sense, but I think what makes just as much sense is adding another district to Pomp Beach. Um so we don't have the tie votes and keep the the mayor position as it is, but add an a district six. Um and you said that's an ordinance, um Mr. Burman, and it doesn't go to the ballot.

That's correct. It would have to be and meet a lot of different legal requirements in terms of uh geographical compactness and not diminishing uh certain voting rights of different groups and but but there are experts that deal with that and we'll look at the census and uh we can you know it takes a while to formulate. It's not that easily done but it can be done. Yes, the charter provides up to seven districts and uh right now there's only five. We could always add another district per the charter, but that is done by by ordinance.

So, I I would support the four-year terms. Um, stay green, there's benefits and and not benefits. So, it's kind of um either way and I'm not feel strong either way on that, but I do feel strong that we need to add another district and I would support um four-year terms. Thank you, Mayor.

Very good. Any discussion? Commissioner Fessic. given that I've heard um some feedback. Um I I actually disagree about adding another another district. Um but I but I would like to I do agree. Staggering is is to me out. It it doesn't make any sense. So um I'd like to make a motion to uh postpone this item and direct staff to return with a separate ballot question on whether to eliminate the separately elected mayor at large position. instead have the commission select a presiding mayor from among its members similar to how the vice mayor is selected. That will solve one problem. And secondly, come back with the four-year terms with a three-year term limit simply because and those would be two separate questions on the ballot. That way, one does not receive the other. So, so that way if the if one is voted and the explanation behind that, I'll wait for the I'll motion for now. I'll simplify or I'll clarify later.

Second. All right. So there's a motion to direct staff to come back with a garter change to eliminate the mayor at large and go back to and twistly the way the mayor used to be selected was just from amongst the commission members. Um and so that's that's your motion that plus plus plus you want to change so basically so that it comes back as two separate items. So, two two separate ballot question amendments. Two proposed amendments, right? One is that and the second one is a four-year term or four-year term with a three-term limit. Do you want it? No, I want them to come back as so there that's grouped. Okay. And and and forget the staggering. St. Okay. Forget the staggering.

Okay. Okay. That's is that clear direction, Mr. Burman? Yes. Okay. I I have a question here. So, I'm sorry. There was a second also. Commissioner. Yes. Okay. Okay. So, these will be Secret wasn't finished with I'm sorry. The second. Yeah, the second. But I said I'm explain it after. Um, so the the reason for and so the reason behind that, like I said, so now that the motion is clear,

the reason behind that is simply because that gives by breaking it up that makes it very clear for voters to understand. It's very easy, simple. There's no question there if and one does not you know the approval of one or the denial of one doesn't change so much. So basically if they say no to four years with a three you know four year term with a three-year limit then we're we still do the same thing with with with every two years. There's no term limits. If they say if they say no to that, if they say yes to that, but they say no to um you know, no to eliminate the mayor's position, then we're we're going to be doing, you know, let's we might have four-year terms with three-year limits, but we may have a 33. So, it gives all the power to the people in the community to make that decision and independently. That's for this that that was for ease of ease of the community being able to truly be able to vet what they want and what they don't want. Thank you,

Mayor. Mr. Burn, just a quick question. We're not eliminating the mayor position. We're eliminating we're going back to have the mayor selected in a different manner. Is that correct? Eliminating the mayor at large position and instead have the commission select a presiding mayor from among its members similar to how the vice mayor is selected. I've got to go back and take a look when we did have the mayor the question I have when we did have the mayor selected um commission selected the mayor or if there was a tie uh clerk got to pull a name out of a a box I guess. Uh, didn't the mayor have a vote on the commission though at the time? Yes. Yes. Okay. Yes.

I mean, the secondary option we could always add is if we could just make the mayor non- voting and preside, then we would eliminate also the 33. Just I mean, I'm I'm trying to find ways that we eliminate this 33 ridiculousness. So, that's all good. Commissioner Secret.

Thank you. Okay. So, I was here when we decided we need a mayor. We needed a mayor at large for the entire city who to represent the city as a whole. He runs throughout the entire city. So, he doesn't have a district to go back to like vice mayor does. She's the district three commissioner. Um, but my question would be these would be all be items that would be separated like one question, do we want to eliminate the mayor at large? Second question, do we want term limits? Third question, not necessarily in this order. Do we want to go from two-year terms to four-year terms? Is that how you're understanding it?

No, my understanding is four-year terms with term limits. You don't get one without the other. One is contingent upon the other because we we've done that with the voters before and it and without a limit, they didn't approve term limits. That was supposed to be the difference this time.

Now, I I would suggest my suggestion would be that it should be two-year terms or four-year terms, term limits or no term limits. regardless if you have a two-year term and you still get three terms or four terms, you know, that's eight eight years, nine years. And oh, by the way, in case anyone was um getting too happy, this is not retroactive. So, doesn't matter how many years you've served, it's not retroactive. It begins if it's passed. So, no, that's the way I that's the way I see it as working. the choice between term limits um two-year terms or four-year terms and the mayor at large position would was a charter amendment that passed by the residents. So to undo something like that, we have to have it on the charter as a single question. So I don't know if that gets us any closer to where to where we want to be. Uh, and as things like this often everything gets confused and muddles, uh, no time to think about Commissioner Fessics suggestions. I don't even I'm not even sure I quite understood them. So, I need more clarification

and a little time to think about. So, for you if you'd like. No, thank you, Mr. Burman. Okay. Further, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Well, if would you continue on as what you were saying? No, the question was do you understand the motion? The motion as it was made was as I described it. I'm not indicating that I will not do what you're telling me if that's what the will of the commission is. I'll I just need a consensus so I know what to prepare. That's all I'm saying at this time.

No. And again, I'm just I'm I'm really against changing it because it gets way too complicated. I agree with Commissioner with Vice Mayor uh Fornier that yeah, if if everybody gets voted out, there's good reason for it.

But to have someone sitting up here for four years with no accountability for four years, I'm not for that. I think it's in the hands of the people every two years. And again, I have no problem with running every two years. And I can't support the amendment. I can't support getting rid of mayor at large because that was a battle that was fought by a lot of residents and I was here at the time as I know you were as well mayor. Um um I I could support adding another district. I really could. Uh we have uh the beach has district one has more by a lot than any other district. Second to district five more.

Oh that that yes commissioner fess that is true. Yeah I'll I'll get someone to send me the numbers. Currently you have more residents than any other district. Your district has grown. Uh you have more residents. Yeah that's true. Voting not voting. Yeah.

Um so um no I mean I I would I would support that. I think we are growing city and um we should explore that option to get rid of the stalemate because if none of these uh charter amendments that I'm not for them uh passes then uh we still end up with a 66 I mean a 33 the six member commission. So that we can do by ordinance and I would I would make the motion that we explore. I know there's a motion on the floor so I'll wait.

Thank you. That's all I have right now. I'm I'm against it all. Leave the h leave the power in the hands of the people every two years. It works well enough for our representatives. It works well enough for our Congress uh representatives. Um and I think that's the way we should stay. Thank you. Very good. Further discussion on the motion. Vice Mayor,

thank you. I'm not sure Congress is working that well. Um, well, so I just want to like kind of refocus this because we can all have our personal opinions and if it's on a ballot then we vote that way. But what we are trying to do here, I think, is actually to get out of our own way and give the people some options. Right? These are charter amendments going on the ballot. So the goal is to give people some reasonable options and then they decide, right? So you can not like something and you can vote against it. But but the this is actually letting the people decide to make some changes and they can decide to do it or not do it, right? The the entire intent of this is actually to to try to put together a package of of reasonable modifications or reasonable ideas that could, you know, change how this is functioning and maybe, you know, in my view, I think elections are expensive. I think they're a waste of money. I I think they're a waste of signs and landfills. I I think it's so I I don't think four years is unreasonable. Um I can I can see both sides of it, right? I I also think two years is gives people a chance to change it out more often if it's not working. So, but the entire point is to let people decide. That's what we're doing. So, I do think that letting people pick stay with the two years we've got with no term limits or go to fouryear terms with three term with with three term limit um is a reasonable choice to give people. It's just different ways to govern and and let them decide. I also think that the the selecting a mayor um so yes, maybe we went that direction. I don't know what year it was exactly either, but but maybe it's not working great. So, we're giving the people the option. If they like it, they they vote it down. If they don't, then they we then we vote to to change how the mayor is is chosen. Like, these are just choices we're giving people. And we

could choose to give them no choices and just say you're stuck with what we have here. But I I'd like to give people some options so they can feel um like they're part of how this works and have and have a say in what's in in in how we're governing. Very good. Further commissioner Seagerson eaten I would like to say that people already have an option every two years always have the option as who they want to represent them and it's been working fine. Okay. Okay. Further commission discussion on the motion. Commissioner Fessic.

Thank you. Yes, people have the option. Um, if we were to put it on the ballot like this, if they vote no, the option stays the same. If they vote no to both, exactly what we have right here, stays exactly the same. All we're doing is asking the question and not being the ones controlling the the outcome. We're we are giving it to the people to make a decision. The tradeoff for like again I have no problem running every two years. That that's what the people want. I'll do it every two years. That's fine. I agree that it's expensive. I agree that signs are signs end up in landfills. It's it's it's craziness. I agree that there's a crazy time pushing. It's a time suck also. Um in terms of you know mentioned government runs slow. Well, think everybody else doesn't know that and they don't know that they can push off a project till after the election season or try to spin something a certain way. Gosh, we've seen some of that. So, this this setup, if people vote no, nothing changes. People vote yes, we have to one, we have a potential change to to both, we have a potential change. We don't we're not the ones controlling the narrative here. We're letting we're actually and truly putting it in the hands of the the residents who live here. And just just for clarifi clarifications, um clarification, I had recently requested from the Broward Supervisor of Elections a a voter count list. And so I just pulled it up and voter counts by district. Right now, District 1 has 15,28 registered voters. District 2 has 9,576 registered voters. District 3 has 10,725 registered voters. District 4, 8,34 registered voters. District 5, 14,43 registered voters. Rather than saying we

need to add another district, if we really want to make the numbers more balanced, you could look at potentially redistricting slightly like we've done in other cases and balance some of those numbers according to um, you know, according to population growth. doesn't necessarily mean that we need to do those things. But I'm just saying that's that's a better option than adding a whole another separate person and starting over from scratch. It's just there's this is a it's a balance it's a it's a manageable voter count at this point. So um that was just for clarification so that you were able to understand fully that things would not change if people voted no. Thank you mayor. Mr. See Eden,

as far as population goes, the beach is the heaviest heavily most heavily populated uh district in the city. Not registered voters particularly, but population. Um again, and and I I disagree with eliminating the mayor Lawrence position. So, okay, mayor. Um Mr. Perkins. Okay. I I think it was on the ballot what in 2018 or 20 for the four year much early 2004 five 18 18 I was elected at that time 18 was when you put staggered March and and

so yeah 2018 four years I totally voted against the four-year terms

because I wanted to see term limits attached to it so now I I agree with having four-year terms. As long as there are uh as long as we have um term limits, I'm okay with that. Uh the staggered the way it looks on the computer now reading it can be very confusing to the residents. Now, the mayor at large, um, the reason that people like Ep Lens was the mayor four or five times, maybe more, is because was voted upon on the DAS and anyone had that opportunity to become mayor or vice mayor, whatever. And it's how it was done when uh Mayor Nate Braveman was here, Lens and all of those people back in the day. It worked because the mayor then is doing the same thing the mayor does now. We've always had a ceremonial mayor, which the mayor only presides over the meetings, ribbon cutings and groundbreings. That's it. because we have a city manager that actually runs our city. So, I don't think we need a mayor at large. I know several people up here would like to to be a mayor and I would love to support him in in that uh position. And I think we should go ahead and start voting on the dis again for our mayor. Um because the duties are pretty much the same as they were back in the 80s and 90s. I don't see the difference. I mean, we're doing a lot more building now. Um, but it's, you know, I I don't have a problem with the the four years as long as we have term limits. Got to have term limits with that. Um, otherwise, um, I don't really care for the staggered because I think, like I said, that can

be very confusing when people are reading it. Um, but I'm wondering um, city attorney if you when you rewrite this, if you're using the number three tre, can you put three in the parenthesis as well? I don't know how you this making it easier for people to understand it. Three separate questions is what you're saying. No, no, no. Like you have the word here, three. Can't hear you. Please get near the microphone. Like you have the word three. T H R E. I'm trying to look at you and talk at the same time. Okay. Can you put in parenthesis on the side of that three in parenthesis? Sure. So that they could better understand it. Absolutely. Oh, okay. That that's my question. Thank you. You could.

Well, as long as I have enough digits left, I'm limited by law as to how many letters and figures I have. It was pretty close. But, uh, if we're removing staggering, then, you know, I can play around with it. I just need final direction so I know what to try and accomplish. But mayor, if I may,

there's this the effect also um there have been multiple multiple after this change was made initially changes to the code that would need to be made to bring the code back. The mayor has appointments to different boards, every board and everything. This this affects a lot of it's not just the person sitting here. Just and I'm you may have been cognizant of that. I'm not I'm not speaking down to anybody. I just want to make it clear that this has a lot of ramifications. Uh I don't know if if we get rid of people or appointments or if you want to consider uh consider keeping uh the appointments of whoever the mayor who is uh chosen by the commission. I mean there's a lot of different options here. So I would need clarification on that as well.

You get what I'm saying? Interpret. Yeah. I but I mean that can all be worked out. If there's agreement on the on the commission level to to do away with it or put put it before the voters, then okay, then you'll figure out how to how to make it work.

The language used at the time was the mayor with the same authority and powers as other members of the commission to appoint. And uh are we just changing how the mayor is selected? Are we just changing what the mayor, who is ultimately, if that's how it's called, selected by the commission, what powers he has? I mean, there's a there's a few, we might be able to deal with it differently, but it needs to be at least considered. So, a question for you. So, because if if we put this on the ballot this year, it would be a midterm. It would be a midterm election. Obviously, we would want to make sure that just like anything else, the mayor would continue to serve out his term as existing, right? I mean wouldn't it's not like you know because he was

it wouldn't change the next term because he was elected for four years as he should. So a lot of so basically a lot of his potential appointments would probably end when his term expired in 2028 anyway, right? It could, but the question needs to be would need to be answered because the voters gave the mayor the authority to make those appointments and not changing that uh and putting language in there that would need to be changed or his appointment authority would still be there to appoint members to boards. Maybe you could let us know what what would what there is that's different versus, you know, because if we if the mayor is then self- selected between the commission and the mayor would still have those rights, right?

That that's fine. Let's get past this portion tonight and then when I bring it back, we can discuss it further, but let's see where we are with this first. At this point, it's irrelevant, I would think.

Very good. Thank you for that, Mr. Burman. Appreciate that. Um, I I just got to say that, you know, I I really don't have a dog in a fight as far as the terms and term limits. Um, it's not going to impact me. I can guarantee you that. But, um, I've always thought a four-year term was better than a two-year term. Just from a government stand governance standpoint, I think it it just gives people a little more time to get things done. It's a little less disruptive because elections even though I mean people may not think so but elections are disruptive for a for a city as far as staff goes and everything else and the people to come out and also it's expensive but that's not that's not the fault of the people. Um, so yeah, as I I think it's better to have four-year terms. And if the only way to get four-year terms would be to couple that with some sort of term term limits, which I'm philosophically opposed to, but I would support it in this case because I believe the four-year terms serve a greater good than putting up with um 12-year term limits. As as far as the staggered terms, man, I I don't I don't care. I mean it's it's just it's here again it's disruptive for the whole city as a if we do it without staggered terms versus staggered terms disrupts half the city at a time but it's I really don't have much of a much of a thought on that but yeah two four-year terms I think is good and if we have to deal with the u the term limits to get that I think it's a viable compromise on that. Now, as far as doing away with the the mayor elect large, I mean, sure, we can talk about that, but I I disagree with it. I don't think that's uh I I'm not going to support it. Um, number one, because I am the the mayor elected at large. Number two, because the people did endorse it, and it is it's seen pretty much, if you look around um at other cities and and counties for

that matter, they they do have elected at large mayors. and that's somebody's in charge and that's just uh it's been a a preferred preferred way of doing things for a lot of communities. Now, that's not saying it's the only way to do it. Of course not. Pompo for many many years didn't have an elected mayor at large. It was just self selected amongst the commissioners. Um but I don't think you know I don't think that pointing back to the fact that Pat Lens was a mayor for for several terms is really a good argument for saying that we should do away with a mayor at large. That's not that was not an argument. That was a statement.

Thank Thank you. That that would be tantamount to saying that the United States would never elect a black president. That's not that's not what I said. I

I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, commissioner. I I'm I'm the one who's speaking. So anyway, I my my position is clear. I do not support doing away with the mayor at large. Um if and so far I haven't really heard an argument in favor of doing away with the mayor at large except the issue with tie votes and there's a simple way to solve the issue of tie votes which I've brought up in the past. Um Mr. Burman has affirmed it's it's a simple process to either create another commission district or to do away with one of the commission districts we currently have. That ends the problem with tie votes. So yeah, you could say, well, D, mayor, you just want to keep your job. Well, no, that's I I think we ought to solve the tie vote select problem some other way, and that's uh that would be my preferred way of going about it. So, um,

mayor doesn't have to vote. That's that's where I stand. So, further commission discussion. Question for Kervin. Commissioner, Commissioner Fess, Kervin, if I remember correctly, could do you could you pull up for us? I mean, we all take we all swear the same oath to represent both the residents from our district, but the city as a whole. Correct. Yes. The same oath.

Same oath. So So aside from a and and Mr. Burman, would it I mean I would have to agree with Commissioner Perkins. she mentioned um to eliminate rather than it having to add a district to eliminate the the mayor's voting power and still do all the things he wants to do and still be elected at large and only potentially vote in in case of breaking a tie. Let's say somebody didn't show up, right? Um and it would that be something we have to do via charter or would that be something we would have to do via ordinance?

Would have to be done via charter because in the charter change the mayor was given the same right to vote as everybody else. So that's a charter question. Either way, either way we look at it, what what I'm hearing is we can take away a district or we can add a district by ordinance, but we have our hands are tied related to the mayor position because it a and because then that way it would not we can't change it via ordinance. It has to go by charter,

right? But the point is rather than go to the voters, an ordinance is something you have under your control provided you can all agree on what that ordinance should say. uh but that is under your control to con to make the change and that can be done with meetings, workshops, discussions, etc. And that's something that that you can do and you're not worried about a political process. Um and that's the the benefit of that. That's all I can say at this point until I have direction.

Thank you for that. I appreciate that. So given that given that the mayor didn't answer some basic questions from this board, I think selecting a mayor from the elected districts makes more sense. And it actually lends itself to a spirit of working together and camaraderie because you are now actively working together to not just earn that, but to work together towards something that truly serves the city that you're serving. And we're all responsible for our districts, but we're also responsible for the for the city as a whole. Like, so decisions we make right now, we're one of six, right? So we direct, you know, the city manager we're one6th of the power, you know, each. So it does make sense to have the ability to make that make that where it is it is something where we truly represent and and truly foster that sense of camaraderie. That that is my biggest thing right now. we are so disjointed and I think it's pretty clear. Uh this is my first go but it's been pretty disjointed since November and I mean maybe there's some other reasons behind that. I don't know. I was just happy to I was happy to run, happy to win. I'm happy the residents gave me a shot. I'm happy to try to do it again, you know, and and see where it goes. But I have a big issue with the fact that the that the push back is there's not really a good reason why we have a mayor at large. like if if I could have some somebody wants to show me some reasoning then I then I'm I'm willing to I'm willing to entertain that but just because we did it a few years back when somebody else was leaving or I'm not sure what the heck the story was but don't see the benefit and I'm trying to find it if somebody can share with me the benefit I would appreciate that. Thank you.

Very good. for the commission. Commissioner Smith, the um the motion that um is before us is to do, let me just clarify this, um four-year terms with three term limit, but you also have bundled into that the mayor at large. And I like having a mayor at large. I don't want to change having a mayor at large. So were those bundled together? I can't. They were bundled together in the same motion. No, but in your motion, it's the same motion.

It's the same motion that has two questions directed to Mr. Burman. So I I can't support your motion as it is because of the two questions bundled together because they're I have a question. So because they're two as two separate amendments that we would put forth to the community, you wouldn't support it. Your your your motion has both of them together in one motion, right? No, my my motion has it. Mr. Burman again clear it has my them in the motion. Yes. But as as to the voters two separate questions. I understand that for your motion because I personally feel the mayor at large is good for our city.

Further commission discussion on the motion. Commissioner Seagerson Eden. Yes. I feel exactly the same way. It is two questions. I think the mayor is a very he he is the figurehead of our city. Um and I I cannot agree with the motion based on getting rid of the mayor at large. Thank you. Good. Further commission discussion. All right. U Mayor Mr. Perkins. So to the city attorney, when do you have to submit this to the supervisor of elections office for it to appear on the uh November ballot? I have to ask yield to the city clerk on that uh drop dead date. Need a decision before May.

Before May. Yes, I need a decision before May so that I can coordinate with the supervisor of elections and to ensure that they will have it on the on the ballot and so forth. So and there's other proceedings that I also need to coordinate. So, it would be very helpful to have a decision. April 28th. April 28th. Okay. And it would need two readings, I guess. Oh, okay. We've had one, but it's going to be amended and it wouldn't Yes, you're right. have to be two readings because it has amended. So, we would need to be able to have it in time for the first meeting in April and the second meeting in April. Okay. Just

a point of a point of information. If we just modified what's here and removed staggered terms, we're good. We would be good for that. We could we could delay that until April 28th because that would be the second reading. April 28th. We could do it. I could have it ready for you the first reading in April. It doesn't matter. That That's easy. We could take We can just do the four-year with term limits. That would work. And remove stagger. Mark, I'm sorry, mayor. Um this change of uh removing the staggered u it would change impact the title. The title hasn't been advertised yet. Yes, it yes it has. This is a second reading. Ah oh yeah. Yeah it is a second reading. Yeah.

Well it would make it easier for me to get it on in time for two readings in April. Okay. So first meeting in April. My bad. You're right. Second reading. Okay. All righty. Oh you interrupted me. there. You're out of order. I don't know. I There was point of information. Okay. So, she has a motion on the floor. So, we can go ahead with that motion because this is going to go on and on and on all night. And perhaps we could do a workshop or something. I don't know because everybody's really We don't have enough time for that, right? It'll be tight, but I'm happy to show up whenever you guys want me to show up.

Do I like to hear everybody's opinion. Do you think we need a emergency workshop on this or just what everybody has to say on the dice in a workshop than here? I don't think we'll find any more consensus at a workshop. Okay, it's okay. I feel like I mean I everybody's kind of I feel like they believe everyone's been really clear about what they believe and I I mean I think if we're going to just cut to the chase, I think the only thing that could pass here tonight is the one question which is three four-year terms, right? And we can we'll keep we can keep doing this, but I think that is the the way to thread the needle. Yeah. Okay.

All right. I I just want to say this real quick. I think something we need to be very mindful of. We're talking about um adding a seat or taking away a seat. And we know the pattern of the city bringing in a consultant and not working in some favor the other and some favor that one. And you know how that works. So we know how that's going to go. If a consultant is brought in, we know how that works. So, just keep that in mind. And that's it. Thank you. Very good. Let's go ahead and open it up to the public. Is there any input from the public on this item, this motion? Please come forward. Just name and address for the record.

Jackie Morland, 1526 Northwest 7th Lane. Sitting back there watching you all with this item is a clear picture of how divided this city is. This is sad. This is really, really sad. It shows we are so divided. You guys can't even come together on this. And the halves have and halves not keep not have not. And that's what it looks like. Mayor has all the power. We know how things are going to go. If if it's a split, we know you're going this way. You hardly ever come this way. And it's sad. I just wish we could all get along. We we we do the pledge liberty and justice for all. I don't even do the pledge in here anymore because you guys don't mean it. We have come people come here praying and we're faith-based and it doesn't show. You guys are so divided. Everybody wants you see what you want for yourself, but you doesn't you don't you don't consider the person next to you. You take all the power. You go whichever way you want. And it's not always for the good of everybody. This is sad.

Very good. Further input from the public. Good evening and Bob Bosworth, 4015 West Palm Air Drive. I just want to know how many of you have actually consulted your constituents on this issue because I haven't heard anybody ask me. Very good. Further input from the public, please come forward. name and address for the record.

Hi, my name is Elizabeth Deol. My address is 2560 Northeast 22nd Street. I would like to be able to decide. I haven't been asked either. Very well. Next speaker.

All right, it's getting late. Delvin King, 2601 Northwest 12th Street. Um, let's put it on the ballot. I know people are not looking looking the same on here, but this is something that we need to put it on the ballot and the atlarge seat needs to be uh regular at large seat, not the mayor seat. And then we go and as a dis you need to vote on who will be the figurehead. Now, I heard you speak about he he um Rex Harden. Rex Hartin, we're looking long term. You're looking you're you're thinking small. Like he said on there, think big. You're thinking small. So, you need to think long term. It's it's He's not going to always sit here. That's why we're making it where you're going to put it on the ballot to make it where you have term limits. So, let's think other because one day somebody's going to run and somebody's going to beat him. So, he's not always going to be the mayor. So, it's going to be somebody probably here that y'all the other people won't like. So, we need to think outside of the box. See, that's the problem. We're not getting nowhere because we're thinking short term that what we can do right now, what we can do for uh RMA, what we can do just to get the downtown projects to fill up our home boys pockets. We're thinking small, think big. That's why I like um Commissioner Fezic. I like Commissioner Perkins. I like Commissioner Forier. They think outside of the box. They think longterm. Y'all thinking about the downtown project. That's long term. Let's start making decisions. That's longterm decisions. Thank you.

Very good. Further input from the public. Being none, public input closed. Further commission discussion on the motion? Being none. Let's go ahead. I'm sorry, Commissioner Fessic.

Just one last thing. So, I appreciate and I agree with the vice mayor that we probably going to know how this is going to go. But I just want you to consider this one thing. If we don't give residents, voters the opportunity to decide for themselves, then we are not doing a service to the residents of the city. So you can have your opinion and you're welcome to your opinion just like everybody is welcome to their opinion. They can scream it from the rooftops. But if we do not give them the opportunity to make that decision, then all you have is your opinion and you're ru ruling with your opinion, not with what the residents may actually want. Thank you.

Very good. Further commissioner Smith, one more comment on that is we've already given the residents that option on the ballot. What year did we have it to make a mayor at large? Mhm. Um 2018 or what? No, mayor large was actually done in um 2000 and I believe it was in 200 I believe it five five yeah so we have already given residents um that vote right the same 21 years ago different population

mayor commissioner secret Yeah, it was 2005. And no one is going, "Oh my god, you should have a four-year term." That's our biggest issue. Make it so you have a four year. I I'm not hearing that from my residents. Thank you. All right. Anything for Oh my goodness. Okay. The last comment from I don't hear that as much, but I do hear a lot about getting rid of the mayor at large. That I hear all the time. I don't know. personal, but yes, that's talked about a lot in my district, too. Yes, I do. I hear that one. All right, let's go ahead and call the role on the motion.

Commissioner Fez, yes. Commissioner Perkins, yes. Commissioner Secret Eaton, no. Commissioner Smith, no. Vice Pier, yes. Mayor Harton, no. All right, we're back on the item. Mayor, Vice Mayor, I'd like to make a motion. Okay. Can I'd like to make a motion to um modify this to eliminate the the staggered districts part of it. So just simplify it as one question asking if the mayor and the commissioner should have three consecutive full four-year terms. I'll second that. Let's agree with that. Moved and seconded to do away with the staggering and keep everything else the same. Yes.

Um by Vice Mayor and seconded by Commissioner Smith. All right, Mr. Burman. Right. It should like it like it was. I mean that's Yeah. Just whatever it he's asking about retroactiveness. Yeah. I don't Yeah. Very good. Um so it's been moved and seconded. This is a public hearing. Is there any input for from the public on this item? Anybody seeing none public input closed? Commission discussion. Commissioner one question. Wait. Commissioner Fes before you go, Mr. Burman was he he had his hand up. Okay.

I just had a question. So is Commissioner Fess is it so is it retroactive or is it not retroactive as per Vice Mayor's motion? So I want to make I need clarity on that. It's not it goes from the uh it begins in the 2030 term. Perfect. Thank you. 2030 or 2028 or whenever the next I think it would be 2028 if you keep it two years. 2028. We've got to change all that as well. Perfect. Thank you. Any further discussion on the motion? Seeing none, let's go ahead and call the role. Commissioner Fez, yes. Commissioner Perkins, yes. Commissioner Seagerson Eaton. No. Commissioner Commissioner Smith. Yes. Vice Mayor Forier. Yes.

Yes. So, Mr. Bourbon, you will have you'll bring that back to us on a on a future agenda. The next one. The next one. Right. Okay. Okay, I got to get I got to get to work. Very good. All right, that takes care of it. All right, takes us up to additional audience to be heard. I don't think we have anyone, do we? No additional audience to be heard, mayor. Very good. Our next scheduled meetings, we have April 14th, 2026 at 9:00 a.m. That's a budget workshop. April 14th. on April 14th as well at 1 pm we've got a regular city commission meeting followed by April 28th at 6 pm regular city commission meeting takes us up to reports. Mr. Harrison.

Yes sir. Just a couple of things. Uh budget director Josh Waters gave me uh information wanted to share with you guys because there's a April 6 application period that opens for the community partnership program. Uh this is for the 501c3 uh individuals and organizations that uh have been applying to the city for financial assistance. So that application is open from April 6th to uh May 1st and there will be a virtual information uh session on April 15th uh via Zoom and uh everything detail-wise is going it will be on the city's website. Second item is um Scott Moore gave me this. This is announcing that uh the city of Pompo Beach has been chosen by the Sun Sentinel as a South Florida winner in the favorites for uh tourism recognition for being a beautiful destination, valued community asset, attracts both residents and visitors alike.

Very nice. Very nice indeed. That concludes my report, Mayor. Thank you. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Burman, city attorney.

Thank you, Mayor. I actually have a few items tonight. First of all, the settlement for the six remaining opioid defendants is being uh configured now. It's being finalized. The percentages uh we have been agreed to. Uh and I don't have dollar amounts yet of what that's going to translate to, but as soon as I do, I will bring those to your the commission's attention. The second item I had, we were participating in the Senate Bill 180 from last session litigation. U majority of counts were dismissed several weeks ago by Judge Dempsey. Uh the remaining count are unfunded mandate, which is an important count. Count four remains open. That is continuing to be litigated and we can't appeal her ruling at this time because it's not final. The order is not final. So I'll let you know how that's progressing. We were hoping that a lot of these matters were going to be corrected in what was called the glitch bill for Senate Bill 180, which was Senate Bill 840. That would have substantially approved Senate Bill 180, passed the Senate, died in the House, so it's dead. So, our hopes that the legislature would solve this problem has unfortunately dissipated. And that's my report on that litigation. Finally, pursuant to section 447605 Florida statutes governing public meetings, I as the attorney for the city of PMPO Beach, I'm announcing I desire advice concerning the city of PMPO Beach's professional firefighters local 1549 union contract. I'm requesting that we hold an executive session either on Wednesday and we'll have to announce whatever you guys you hopefully decide Wednesday, April 2nd at 1:00 or Thursday, April 30th at April 22nd, I'm sorry. Or Thursday, April 30th at 2:30 um uh p.m. Was that the second, Greg, or was that the 22nd? I'm trying to read.

22nd. The 22nd. Okay. I can't can't read my writing. That's a two. Yeah. April 22nd at 1 or Thursday, April 30th at 2:30. Uh the session will be held in the city manager's large conference room on the fourth floor, 100 West Atlantic Boulevard, 3306 at a time certain and date certain or soon thereafter. As soon as we figure out what date you want, we'll put that on the record. Why the city manager's large conference room? Normally we start here, we go into the city hall conference room. that conference room. Oh, actually we can do it now in the commission chamber. It's going to be available on that date. Is that right, Greg?

I'm not sure as to the scheduling of the room.

Okay. It'll be it'll be in the conference. It'll be in the uh city commission conference room. If if someone's in there, we'll get rid of them. In the meantime, uh for the original date, it was supposed to be the city manager lunch conference room. So, the session will be held in the city commission man uh meeting room uh on the first floor here in commission chambers 100 West Atlantic Boulevard. This session will be private. The following persons will be in attendance. The mayor and city commissioners, Greg Harrison, city manager. Mark Burman, city attorney. Tracy Lions, deputy city attorney who has been involved in the contract negotiations. and also Brian Dunovan, assistant city manager who is and Lisa Sinego, all of which have been involved. Lisa is the human resources director. Pete McInness, fire chief, also involved, Joshua Waters, budget director who has been involved, and Lindseay Ryder, city's labor council. So, I basically am requesting that you as a commission give me one of two dates. Wednesday, April 22nd at 1 PM or Thursday, April 30th at 2:30m if you could check your schedules and let me know and I'll make that announcement once you decide.

Repeat again. PM April 22nd. April 22nd or April 30th. That's a Thursday, Wednesday the 22nd. Thursday the 30th at 2:30 p.m. 100 p.m. on April 22nd. These are the dates and times I've been given for availability. So, do you want us to tell you now or we can get back with you? Yeah. Uh, I've got to announce this. I've got a meeting where I could announce it at the next meeting. So, uh, I I could make that, but we'd like to get things set if we could if you Okay. It would be helpful to staff, I believe, to get everyone that we need to get together if we could if you could give it a quick discussion. If that can't work, we can do it and have more time later. Very good. I I have a question.

Don't we have a shade meeting on the 15th of April? that was that's the one that needed to be in the city manager's conference room that was got cancelled because uh there was unavailability and I was given these two dates as available. So if you were given the 15th, please scratch that off and we're substituting one of these two days. Please let me know what works best for all of you. You said the 30th or the 22nd. 30th or the 22nd? 22. What time? 22nd at 1 or the 30th at 2:30 p.m. I'm fine with either one, but I'm fine. I'm fine with either one. Okay,

please keep going down the line. Let me know and I'll read it out loud. Yes. Okay, just one second. I can do either, I think. Okay, so we've got three eithers on this end. No, let's hope it's not split. split differently at least the 22nd at 2:30. No, 22nd's at 1. 22nd's a Wednesday. April 22nd is a Wednesday. That's at one o'clock, right? On the 22. One o'clock. The 22nd. Always change the time if we need to. Okay. I can do one. I might be a few minutes late, but I can do one. Okay. That's 22nd at one. So, we've got four so far. And so, just a few minutes. Commissioner Fess is good. So, Commissioner Seagerson Eden.

Yes, that works for me. That works for you. So, the 22nd at 1:00 is good for everybody. I've I've been informed that the 22nd that room is occupied Broward County Property Appraiser. Oh, come on. We can we can move them. We can we can move them uh out to the lobby and the public can can work out in the lobby, I think, and they can do it there. Work it out. So, we're good on the 22nd. So he said, "I am announcing the uh requesting we hold an executive session on Wednesday, April 2nd at 1 p.m." April 2nd or 22nd. 22nd. Okay. I just talked spoke too quickly. 22nd. Okay.

And at 1 p.m. And that's at a date and time certain that'll be held right here in the conference room. And as I indicated to the people who would attend, thank you for your direction on that. That concludes my report. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Alfred. City Clerk. No report. All right. Thank you, city commission. Commissioner Fess.

All right. Well, thank you for uh hanging in with with us. I know it's late. Um so I'm going to ask you to bear with me for a little bit. U Mr. Harrison, I'm happy that to see your face today. Um I just want to briefly just a few follow-ups. Um it was sort of a surprise on on on both meetings to not know that you were not going to be in attendance. So, if in the future if you're going to miss a meeting, I would just appreciate if you would send us a a courtesy email or just let us know in advance. I would appreciate that. Um, secondly, uh, I'm going to run I'm going to run through these ones really fast. Uh, PMPO Beach Cemetery, um, and 23rd Avenue grass was removed over there and torn up and it's been dirt. It's just dirt. And residents are asking whether there's going to be a replacement of sod or if it's or it'll be paved or sidewalkked. you can know an answer to that that was popped up today. Um, you can get back to me at any time or if you have an answer that'd be great. Um, three, I still need access to the to the air park for the ESL land where I was told from Steve Roco back in December or some I think last year that we could get some wildlife experts on there to make sure just to see if we actually have um wildlife. I do know that there have been people on there on the property related to biologics um and and try trying to save some property, save some plant material. So, I'd like to make sure that I before the next meeting I am able to schedule something with Mr. Roco and the wildlife experts so they can potentially relocate any animals there as well. um for A1A crosswalks. Um I know that we've been in discussions related to this. I just with the with the A1A project being sort of delayed to be finished. I think it was out like another 12 to 18 months. We have some serious issues because there are a lot

of walkers at north spec specifically at Northeast Fifth, but also further north as we've discussed before. Um there was recently on over the weekend a dog was hit. Um and and sadly it did not make it. Um but it just as easily could have been a person and I I I want us to really consider what we can do. I know I brought a u I brought a temporary solution that would be about $3,500 per sort of unit. I know that we're in working with FTOP, but to or for approvals. I'm just curious how long those temporary approvals may take and if we can try to do what we can do to kind of push that forward. Um because for $3,500 for the unit to me or you know, even if you say 5,000, let's just say chipping or installation or whatever, they just go on the same poles. If we can try and they can be there's solar powered there's no wiring. If we can try to offer a solution that we could then reuse later on somewhere else in the city when you know when we can take them off again. I would just really like to see us try to solve an immediate problem and try to potentially save pedestrian lives um for those for those crosswalks. So just an update on those would be great. Um and then the la the last thing uh for Mr. Harrison is I I missed a CRA meeting and I I have a question about McNab. Uh we have a reserve there. We had a reserve as of October 1st, the beginning there was a reserve that was set aside for McNab Park and there's been money spent and there's been things happening but we haven't gotten any sort of answer as to what. So I would just like to know where we started with that balance in McNab Park reserve allocation on October 1st of last year and where we are now. Since I can't get transpar transparency anywhere else, I will ask for those two numbers to see how I want to make sure we're not spending down the money we had saved um doing god knows what. I want to

make sure that that money is is is safe and and and budgeted appropriately. So those are those are those things for Mr. Harrison. Um, now I'm gonna just take a deep breath. I have a series of concerns and I'm going to and the reason why I'm going to take this a deep breath is because I would like to not have to bring this up at 10:30, but fortunately we are where we are. Um, I want to do it really carefully and clearly because there's some serious issues and they are not all the same issue. Some of them were brought up earlier tonight and audience to be heard. So, first let me say something plainly. I I fully support free speech. People have the right to their opinions. They can criticize elected officials. They have the right to speak publicly. Um and even when I disagree on what's being said, that is that is doesn't matter. You have the right to say what you want to say. That's not my issue tonight. So the issue that I have is what the issue I have is what happens when free when private speech, city paid work, city approved content, public facing outreach, redevelopment messaging and possible contract compliance issues and some public records stuff all sort of overlap. So, I'm going to try to break my concerns down into into five separate categories. Um, so this doesn't get dismissed as one blended overall personal dispute because it's not personal. I'll make sure I'm very clear. So, first um related to the contract itself, so the procurement process, approval authority, and management oversight. And so, with that, um, it was mentioned earlier that by I think Mr. that I've brought it up before that we have a service contract that was renewed um with Lotus Mindset on December 17th,

2025. And so I have a question um related to that particular contract because it was originally previously it was an $85,000 contract and one year later it is a $150,000 contract. So, Mr. Harrison, I'm I just got to ask you. Um, I I know that Miss Stibble is the management lead for both the original contract and the current contract. Correct. Correct.

Okay. And both contracts required that outreach materials, social media, videos, podcast, and other related content be reviewed and approved by the city before they were released. question. You talking about the material per her contract and her scope of services? Per scope of services. Yes. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. And so what exact approval process was used? Who reviewed that content? And where are those approval records? Do we have those?

I'm not sure what you mean by approval records. What What would you be referring to? Can you give me an example? Sure. So if if there's outreach materials or there's or there's social media or videos or podcasts that the content in those things would would be or at least the overall content was would be approved by contract administrator commissioner the scope of work her podcast doesn't have anything to do well you just said podcast right well doesn't have anything to do with the contract that uh we have with Lotus Mindset

we did pay for some some video content, podcast, call it, whatever you want to call it. But they were calling a video series maybe. I don't know. But those those that scope of work, was that approved? I I can't I can't answer that. I don't know.

We can you can get back to me on that one. Um the 2025 contract was advanced basically under your under your memo to you know, under under your authority as a one-year contract. And this may actually be a a dual question for Mr. Burman as well. So what procurement method was used? And so where is the written documentation showing whether competition occurred or if it was just waved in general? No RFP.

I'm sorry. Would you would you repeat what what your question is? So, so what was the procurement process or how was how was if the scope changed so material so materially that we went from an $85,000 contract annually to $150,000 contract annually. What procurement method was used? Um and where is that written documentation showing whether competition occurred or if it was waved? Well, uh the procurement method would would have gone through our procurement department uh and the scope would have been uh increased uh in the higher dollar value contract, but I don't know what that is off the top of my head.

Did this one go through the procurement process? As far as I know,

I would like to see where that I would like to see where that went through the procurement process this year or the 2025. Um, I know that. So, I I want to I want to preface this with I I I know I've mentioned to you that in our February 11th meeting that I had some very specific concerns about how things were being done and that I was giving you a sort of a a heads up. I would like for you to address them privately so that they didn't have to become the source of additional commentary or I didn't have to raise it publicly. But um are I would like to I'm actually trying to figure out the approval authority because I have some confusion related to I know we're supposed to have a procurement workshop, right? And so I have some questions about specifically about the contracts and what is the authority Mr. Burman for a service contract. And what what authority is that? Is that using the same contract? Is that using the same that ordinance that everybody likes to talk about?

Collection is 200. I'd have to look at it. I haven't looked at it in a while. Is this the one? Is this the one that that goes is this the one that we refer to all the time as it was like 32 something? I can find it in my files. But the reason why I'm asking this question is because it doesn't appear to me that this has anything to do with with construction. And I'm just curious if what we're using to figure out what that what that authority is. I'll be happy to get back to you on that.

Okay. I'll know. pretty strongly about this or else I wouldn't be doing it at skipping the Zoom one for today. Oh, okay. Sorry. Section 32.38. So I think is right 32.34 and

Mr. Burman, we will need you to talk into the microphone when you get to that point. I have that problem with everyone else here. Now I'm doing it. I think it's 32.889 8 89 32 3239 U 39 3239

subsection D3 you're talking about the amount is 200,000

okay so so it said but it says so se well so it says section 3239 must be evidence in writing by the general services director or designate either stating competitive proced procedures were followed or they were waved and why. Um so this in here it says profession in this contract it says professional ser purpose as prof professional consulting services just fine. So since this was treated as professional consulting services rather than construction um under what exactly what procurement method was it sourced and where is the written 32.39 39 compliance of waiver doc waiver document documentation required by section 32.38 I wasn't involved in this now.

Okay. No, I No, I know. I'm just I'm I'm trying to get clarify because we we have this problem a lot of times where we're given an answer and I understand you're not involved in this at all. I'm I'm trying to get clarification so I can fully understand and b say okay and that's how it is because there's a lot of these contracts that are coming through the the line here and and I feel like we need to have just some clarity on what is allowed and and and ensuring that those those boxes are ticked that we're doing the right thing. Um are there any according to you know so according to the our our ordinances Is there a limit? You said $200,000.

Yeah, this section is 32.39B subsection 2. It says in addition to the purchases described in subsection one, the general services director or designate has authority to approve all other purchases in an amount less than $200,000 with the concurrence of the city manager. That's the applicable section. That is something the city manager does with the general services director. Okay. And is there a timeline to those contracts? Is it like can it be one year? Can it be three years? Can it be one year? Can it If it's more than a year, it has to go to the commission. Okay. Thank you. And that goes for any contract, professional services. That's in the charter. It's in the charter.

Any contract more than a year has to be approved by the commission. Thank you. And that applies across the board because I I' I've had questions related to contracts with the CRA. So, anything that happens in the city is duplicated with the CRA. Correct.

Generally, yes. I believe they follow that procedure. Um, so the reason why the reason why I'm going through this and I so I I wanted to make sure I was very clear because like I said, what we do matters and how we do it matters, procedures, processes. So if the city was paying this contractor for this contract and and I'm this is you can you don't have to answer now, Mr. or but I I would like to ask this. If the city was paying this contractor for community outreach, redevelopment storytelling, public facing media, and coordinating messaging, then how exactly did management distinguish between city work product and a supposedly private podcast or media activity that also promoted the same business and discussed city issues? You know,

how do we def where do we find that? It's up to this person who supervises that contract to make sure the contractual terms are being followed and that all uh pay everything that was due under the contract, all services are being rendered under the contract. Perfect. Thank you. And it it's a contract that I assume that whether it's Miss Sibble or or Mr. Harrison are monitoring and making sure that they're getting their money's worth as with every service contract.

And so if if if management So all right. Well, if management knows that or knew or should have known that city paid outreach work and private platform activity were overlapping, what is the city's legal position on whether that overlap triggers a duty to review compliance with sections 19, 21, and 22? I can pull the numbers. I have absolutely no idea. If you if you really would like answers to this, if you want to meet with me, I can go through it with you or you can give them to me. Uh, call me. I'll write it down. You don't have to give them to me in writing. But right now, I'm happy to do that.

I'm not sure what overlap there is. I assume that these contracts are crafted in a manner that there is not overlap or there may be overlap if overlap is desired and is beneficial. I'm talking about overlap between personal opinion and city outreach. I don't know if I can legally answer that. You know, I know I'm not that's I I will have that meeting with you because I I I the judgment question.

The judgment question. Correct. And I did have this meeting with Mr. Harrison and I spent two and a half hours in his office explaining and showing some some some examples of things that I found concerning that I would like to have addressed. Ultimately, as Mr. Mr. Burman has pointed out that falls on management to rectify and to fix. So that's one I will I will follow up with that. But I I want to make sure that we are very clear that what it says in this contract so far um has been an issue and personally attacking and posting like I said your public opinion is your your private opinion is fine but when you're purposely promoting the same company that has this contract on the same private podcast all while badmouthing three sitting commissioners and promoting and promoting um new is it candidates andor badmouthing the decisions that are made here as a body while also hosting elected officials who they do support who support the narrative that this outreach is supposed to support and sharing that same message really walks the line which is exactly what I said to Mr. AR of crossing over into dangerous potential territory for this contract and for us as a city because it appears to be appears to be influencing or attempting to influence the public. So that's part one. Part two. Oh Lord. Okay. I support financial literacy. It's really important. Everybody is very smart or learns to be smarter

with their money. And listen, it doesn't matter if you're five or 85, you can always learn something new. Every day is a school day. issue that I have is uh we got a got an email all of us about these and and you may have seen on social media about some of these financial literacy courses that are also part of the scope of work in this contract. Now, as somebody else said that there's there's there's another person involved and I don't know her and if she is if she is qualified to teach this, I am I am all for her to teach this. I've asked Miss Cibil to provide a syllabus and a I've not yet received it. Also, I'd like to find out what due diligence did the city perform to ensure that the person that's going to be leading our financial advocac or financial um literacy program that we are promoting was what due diligence was done before we decided to public publicly sponsor and promote this series? Mr. Harrison, do you know what was done? I just know that the financial literacy has been part of the scope for that company.

Okay. Thank you. For some time.

Okay. Um when I looked up on social media, so on social media that the posts that have come out out and about are related to um company called Legacy Financial Firm. And when I looked up Legacy Financial Firm as a legal entity in Sunbiz, I couldn't find anything. I'm not sure if it's maybe named something differently. I don't know if it's is it registered, contracted, vetted, or otherwise documented anywhere in the city or CRA file. and if so, what the name is that this person is representing when we secondarily I I do have some friends of mine in insurance and in and in financial um advocacy and banking and mortgages and there's there's very specific rules about what you can and cannot do and so I'm just curious if the city verified the professional background, work history, quality qualifications to teach on credit, debt, estate planning, wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and legacy planning before putting the city and CRA name all over the program. We do that. Mr. Harrison, Commissioner Fess, I don't do every single thing that happens here every day in every department with every 1,000 city employees.

I understand that. So the if you want to really get answers to this, you should come into my office and go through this professionally one by one and I can bring in anybody that we might need to bring in and get answers to your questions. And I appreciate that because I did meet with you on fe Wednesday, February 11th, and I fel and I followed it up with a recap email. The emails date timed 12:50 p.m. It was related to parking and also this same thing. Yes, ma'am. I gave you a four or five page answer on all of that.

Right. And I and I've I told you already that about your answer related to parking garage was completely off base. But anyway, this this part is the same. This has not been addressed yet. So, I just want to make sure we're we're we're there. Um I if I'm sorry, am I am I keeping you up? Okay, I'm almost done. Are I I'll I'll ask I'll I'll please be quiet.

So I'll try to continue. So my concern is that when we're when we are running a program through this and and this is course topics here, I want to make sure that we are protecting ourselves as a city CRA by making sure we are doing our due diligence. So, I would like some um oversight on that. Um something that was concerning to me was again that um Mr. King brought up earlier today was that he was deni I remember he was denied some stuff of lease with the with the CRA and it wased that his evictions or um or other personal issues, lawsuits, etc. were the basis for him being denied. that was the CRA and maybe they operate differently. I'm not sure. But it a quick search through Broward County will also let you know that the same person the same company or the person who represents the same company related to the holding these financial literacy classes has a history of evictions. Quite a quite a colorful one. and another lawsuit based on the another company that she's doing business with the city that that was related to not paying people. So that's concerning to me that we did it due diligence on one side. So rules for the not for me kind of situation. So it's offkilter. Finally, I'm and since it is late and I obviously know that Commissioner Sein would like to go home, I can save the rest for later, but I will say that I have further comm further conversations and I have further concerns related to um I did of course of course I did a fight a public records request and so I have further concerns related to this same person, this same contract and the OUI process of how I've been learning

about the process. So I specifically looked at this particular case and I asked for the process of how the office of housing and urban devel urban improvement moves things forward in their process what those what those things are. So I would like to make sure these are also part of this same conversation. So, as per the agenda, um the cover item page from back in 2022, it has this really great memorandum. It tells you a step by step. It's the um memorandum 22-126 if anybody wants to look it up. And it has a whole one like one two three four five six a whole number of things. Intake information. Applications will be processed on a first come, first served basis. first ready from all applicants meeting program eligible eligibility criteria subject to funding availability with priority given to the elderly and disabled homeowners. Applicants not funded will remain on a waiting list and will receive priority in the next funding cycle. So my question is when was um when was Miss Peterson's name added to this list weight list? What date was her application initial application? And then house and what date was she notified in writing by a department director which is part of number nine. It says applicant is notified in writing by department director as to the results of eligibility termination. Moving beyond all that and listen I'm all for people getting affordable housing. Let me just make sure that's very clear. The very deserving people should be definitely getting a housing. Um, I would also like to point out that this particular house closing, um, and I think I've brought up before, but this particular house closing, we purchased as a city the land for $100,000. We had a bid out for $327,234 as a cost to build. And so the sale range, you know, using

all those things, but the property was sold uh on July 31st of 2025 for $372,000 as part of this program. So even though I asked for a bunch of information and I did get some of it, I did get a lot of redacted information, which is totally fine. I think personally identifying information should be redacted from from from obviously public records. Um, my question to Mr. Rman is what is generally traditionally redacted because it felt like there were a lot of black marks on what I received and I just want to find out what is the traditional method for what is redacted versus what is public.

There are tons of exemptions under the law but the main are social security numbers, sensitive information, dates of birth, uh, information about family members, etc. So, I don't know what was redacted. I didn't review it, but whatever. The clerk's very aware of what needs to be redacted. And uh that includes all sensitive information or information that can be used to commit financial crimes against somebody and things of that nature. Of course, like like whatever,

potentially somebody who is an applicant not living in the state of Florida. Um secondly, the last part and here we go. This is nice little nice little bow here is that in the same contract in 2025, one of the witnesses was none other than Peterson's brother who has been um is a known has some issues, I guess, let's just say in the community, right? And and there's and there's and was re and had some newer issues apparently also picked up at that same house. My mind is blown by this sort of like just mish mash of what we have going on here. And I that's the reason why I'm asking for clarity. It is not because it's a personal thing. It's because we have a contract for $85,000. Then we renew the contract pretty much the same for $150,000 the next year. There seems to be no sort of oversight by what's actually being put out there. There's personal attacks, which is again I've thought tiff skin. You want to come up here and yell at me? Go on. Come on. Let's go. Let's have it. You know, you want to say some stuff? Fine. But when you have a contract and you're being paid by the city to promote a project, promote stuff in the city. And in your contract, it has specifications of what you can and cannot do. I have a problem with a lot of this and I would like clarification and I'm happy to sit down with anybody for as long as it takes to get some real answers. Following that last thing, thank you Mr. Burman for telling me that the contract authority of the city manager is one year. Are we sure about that?

I'll get back to you on that. Okay. The contract for so the the length of the contract for that the city man under the city manager's authority is a one-year term. Otherwise, it has to come back to the city commission per the charter. Contracts greater than one year need to go should go before the commission for

correct. Well, I brought up at a CRA meeting and I've asked for clarification that in May of in I'm sorry, in April of last year despite um that our CRA attorney's contract was signed for a three-year term and it was not it did not come to city commission. It did not come to the CRA board um at least in 2025, but it did in 2022, 2019, and 2016. All for and I'm not even I'm not asking for we're not we're not doing this today. So, I would like a legal determination on that because can't be null and void, but obviously I have concerns with how the city manager is running things. If basic contracts can't be followed, basic follow-up can't be done, and we can't protect how we are positioning things within the city. our output. We I think it's been said a thousand times, we have an out an optics problem. We have an optics problem. And it's not just this vote. It's a lot of things. And I got some big problems. And everybody's been asking me, "Oh, you've done all this research. What now?" I have been asking for legal opinions left, right, and sideways here everywhere. I've asked for the city manager for clarification. I've done my own requests because I'm not trying to do anything. But this stuff, it just looks like a big heap of something. And I'm not sure. This is one example. If this is one example of things we're messing up, as you said, there's thousands of, you know, thousands of things going on that you can't see have oversight on everything. But I question if we are so glaringly looking at least something in here, question how you are managing bigger things because $150,000 contract, honestly, in the grand scheme of things is nothing. And I don't even fault the girl for trying to make her money. Go get your money, girl. They're going to sign the contract. Take it. Take it. do the work. My problem isn't with her. My problem is with management. I um I am going to be a grandma probably by the next time I al I see you guys. So, I figured I might as well get that

out of the way so I didn't have to think about it when I go hug my grandbaby. And um I am going to leave you with one quote. So, I am I am I am happy and I want to thank you for listening to my diet trap for a very long time. I'm sorry for the length, but I am is important to make sure that that information is conveyed. My quote is from Thomas Payne and it applies to a lot of things here. A long habit of of not thinking a thing wrong gives it the superficial appearance of being right. Thank you. Have a good night.

Very good. That takes us to 11 o'clock. At this point in time, we're going to have to uh adjourn unless uh somebody wants to make a motion that we extend the meeting to um one more hour if need be. Um and it needs to be a super majority. Is that correct, Mr. Burman? Yes. So um it does anyone wish to make a motion that we extend the meeting? Well, I'll make a motion if you guys have something to say. I I took up a lot of time and I I want to make sure you have the opportunity to speak. Commissioner Fess made a motion to extend the meeting till until 12 o'clock and it's it was extended a half an hour instead is as as much up to up to an hour um as is seconded by vice mayor. Yes.

Yes. Seconded by vice mayor to extend it um up to an extra hour. All right. Um any questions on the part of the commission? Seeing none, let's go ahead and call the role. Commissioner Fez. Yes. Commissioner Perkins. Yes. Commissioner Sigerson Eaton. No. Commissioner Smith. No. And I had a really good quote, too. Vice Mayor Forier. Uh, yes. Can I talk about Ker Park Funday real quick? Mayor Harton.

Uh, no. All right. Then that means we reconvene tomorrow at 1000 a.m. right here. This meeting is recessed. Recessed. Correct. Recessed. Hey.