City Commission - workshop

Yeah, I think so, yeah.

Thank you.

All right. Good afternoon, everyone. Is there an echo? It's new mics. Okay, it's very loud. It's good. Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. It is 1.33, calling the meeting to order. Mauricio?

Thank you. Commissioner Joseph? Present. Commissioner Lama? Here. Vice Mayor Vizcarra? Mayor Svecchin? Here. For the record, Commissioner Syveson is unable to attend today. So we have a quorum.

Okay, do we want to make changes then to the agenda right now?

Yes, we are making a few changes to the agenda. Item 3A is being deferred.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Is there an echo? What is that?

That was you. It was a delay. Okay, excuse me. So 3A is being deferred. as well as items 4A, 4B, 4C, 4D, and 4E, and 4F.

Okay. All right. Public comments?

Yes. So just to remind the commission and the members of the public and the audience that we now have public comments during workshops, whereas we normally didn't have it before. However, it is a little different from the public comment section that we have normally during the 6.30 meeting. The comments during the workshop are limited only to those items that are listed on the agenda today. And we are still following the same rules and procedures where each speaker is limited to three minutes per item. Please make sure that you fill out your public speaker cards, which are located in the back table If anyone desires to talk on any item that's listed on the agenda With that we can for the clarification.

It's three minutes total not per item three minutes total.

Excuse me.

Yes All right. Let's move on to 3b, please.

So 3b is a special presentation for promotional ceremony for police officers Okay, so we're also deferring 3B. Not deferred.

For 630.

Oh, moving to the end, excuse me. To the end? To the end of the meeting, yes.

Okay, why don't you go with the next item then?

Okay, so we're going to also skip 3C for now, and we're going to go with 3D, which is a presentation on the Art Contest Award winners.

All right, Commissioner Joseph. Okay, so this year, where we usually had had the students from Edelkopf K through 8 would paint on the RK wall across from the school. That was not available this year. And the students did their own paintings, which were displayed. And there were awards given by Mayor Edelkopf, as he regularly does each year, last month. And I had asked, and the commission agreed to have The painting's exhibited in our city hall lobby for a one month period for the month of July. And I would like to recognize Jenteri Buddha, Amelia Soretsev, Arianna. This is a tough one. You, I feel like President Trump. Yulim Zieva and Yaroslav Voitovich. Do they happen to be here today? Everyone? Four students? Are there four students here? One student. One student. Only one student out of the four?

All right. And you are?

What's your name? Yaroslav.

Yaroslav? I only have Yaroslav. I only have Yaroslav.

All right.

Yaroslav, we're going to give you this, but we're going to have to give you a new one because this has your name misspelt. Why don't you come up and we'll take a picture with you?

Yes. Thank you for showing up.

Okay.

Congratulations. Thank you, Commissioner Joseph. We recognize the students. OK, next item.

Next item, we are now going to enter into discussion items. We're going to skip down. Yes, we're going to move that to the end. So 4G is a discussion item regarding the cone of silence.

All right. And this item is discussion by Commissioner Joseph. Please go ahead.

Let me just get to it. Let's see. Which one is this?

The cone of silence? That's your item.

Oh, cone of silence. OK. Yes. So it's come to my attention that the city departments that are doing purchases, I believe that they're not No one can be up on every item regarding purchasing. And the city has a wide variety of items that we purchase. And I believe that having the closed bidding and all, and for commissioners or anyone else in city administration that knows about certain items should be able to see what the bidding is, what the numbers are prior to the bid going out and as the bids come in. Also, the idea that we're telling people how much we want to put towards a project and then asking them to come back with numbers is totally absurd. I don't think that works in any industry like that. And I've been hearing that the city is doing this on so many items and projects and we're just losing hundreds of thousands of dollars according to that process. And I would like to see it end and part of that is doing away with the code of silence to make it a more open process.

OK. So your suggestion is that the commission and anyone else that feels that they have expertise in a particular field should be conversing directly with the procurement department as they please.

Yes.

So anyone would start contacting Genesis and her team if they feel like they have an expertise? What do you mean anyone? You said the commission and anyone?

Anyone in city authority.

How are you defining city authority?

Well, commissioners, city manager, assistant city manager, if there happens to be another department such as public works that might be aware of the item that's being purchased and if they may have some input, I think that's a good procedure and much better than what we're doing now.

OK, so if I can get clarification, please, from the city attorney how this process is supposed to work and the report.

I mean, you as elected officials can always inquire regarding procurements that are coming before you through the manager, and if the manager sees fit through staff. The cone of silence really is directed for communications between you and vendors. Cones of silence have been sort of been born of necessity because of entanglements, interference, influence, and things of that sort, which is why All except, well, I think everybody in Miami-Dade County follows the cone of silence because we don't have our own cone of silence. We follow Miami-Dade County's. Back in 1998, you had passed your own code of ethics. And in 2002, you had opted out of the county's cone of silence. But in 2022, you were informed, I don't recall how, but that we were the only jurisdiction in Miami-Dade County that did not follow the cone of silence. So the city commission repealed the opt out, and you opt back in to the cone of silence in 2022.

And this had turned out to have been an error.

Well, again, this is the, and that's up for you to decide. But again, the cones of silence are born of necessity. It creates a very convoluted process if you are able to speak to vendors, because there's an inequality of exposure and information, which leads to bid protests. It leads to interference where you have procurement, possibly Public Works or another department negotiating with a vendor, and then you as elected officials step in.

I never said negotiate with the vendor.

That's what the cone of silence is.

Well, I understand. There's no cone of silence.

If you want to get information regarding a particular procurement, That is available through the city manager and staff.

So maybe it would be, hold on a second, Commissioner Joseph. If we can, so that we're all talking about the same thing, get the actual definition of what cone of silence means so that we are discussing the same thing. Because there might be a misunderstanding as to what it is Commissioner Joseph is looking to do. You're looking to provide what you consider your expertise to the procurement department, correct? Not directly to the vendor.

And not only me. I don't know everything about everything. I know about certain things, and I know how to investigate where maybe we have so many examples. We have examples of when we were getting boat lifts, and the person in procurement

No, no, no. What I mean for clarification, you're not looking to speak directly to vendors. You're asking to- No. OK. Absolutely not. That's what the cone of silence is. That's, I think, why we need that definition.

Apart from that, what you're talking about is you as a legislative person elected cannot negotiate and or interfere. No, but you- What you're suggesting is interacting through the process. So your procurement process is a closed process for a reason. And that's best practices throughout all governmental public procurement. The elected officials can't get involved in the procurement process, because ultimately, you're the final decision makers.

So to the extent that you have quick- I just want to be able to verify that the person in procurement is doing the best for the city.

That's the city manager's job. And the best for the residents. Well, OK. It's the city manager's job.

Well, there have been instances where someone is dropping the ball then, which, you know.

And just a clarification, again, you all can do what you want. But the cone of silence aspect is accounting directive through the ethics code 2-11.1, subsection T, I believe. which, and it's very long, and it's convoluted, but it's really to foreclose communications for vendors that are bidding or once a procurement is put out.

Commissioner Joseph, can you let the attorney finish, please?

Commissioner Joseph.

Commissioner Joseph, can we do one at a time, please?

They can switch off and say, oh, I'll take this one this time, and you take it next time. GARY GENSLER- No, no, no.

That's called collusion. And they have to swear to anti-collusion. If somebody does that, that's extremely against the law. There's bid rigging. There's all kinds of things. And that's why.

GARY GENSLER- Right. So let's be naive and say that that never happens.

GARY GENSLER- Well, to our knowledge, again, if somebody is out there committing a crime, we don't necessarily know about that.

And there's no way for us to foreclose that.

They have to sign affidavits, a slew of affidavits regarding anti-collusion and all these types of things. That's public procurement as it stands. I mean, if somebody is going to commit fraud on you, they're going to commit fraud on you, unfortunately. But the cone of silence itself deals with Prevention of vendors courting you to try to get an advantage in the bidding process where they're going to be selected versus another vendor. And that's what that pretty much forecloses. So it closes the system out of interference and influence to the extent that you want more information about procurements that may be going out. And once the city manager through staff can give you all the information that you can

Let me just clarify for the public and for myself so I understand that I understand it correctly. So for instance, way back when, when we were bidding out the Tony Roma site to various vendors and restaurateurs, I had throughout that process, because it was a lengthy process, had residents who were interested potentially in opening up a restaurant or had restaurants. say to me things like, well, why didn't you let me know? You know I'm interested. And can you tell me more about what it is you all are looking for? My response was, I'm not part of this process. You need to deal directly with the city manager. I cannot guide you, and I'm not going to meet with you to discuss that. Is that what we're talking about as far as a cone of silence?

No. So that deals with when you're issuing your procurement, whether it's on RFP, RFQ, whichever else, Every governmental entity has avenues to put that out. So we use DemandStar. There's a few other companies. And there's always word of mouth. We also blast out through social media and so on and so forth. And we put the RFQ, RFP, which are out in these huge databases with thousands of vendors. that can respond or show interest, ask questions, and so on and so forth.

Are those databases open to anyone or only registered vendors? Do you know?

Well, they have to register with those particular. And actually, procurement does a pretty good job a few times a year, I think, they put on a workshop or seminar for residents to teach them how to do business with the city. So there's ways to do that. And if anybody ever has any questions about that, they can contact procurement, and they'll be told exactly how to do it.

OK. All right, so walk me through it. So we put out a request for a proposal, and at some point, and I'm talking about after the fact, at some point that was closed down.

Once you put out the RFP, the cone of silence comes in. So the vendors can't start calling you and say, hey, I'm the best product. Don't worry about these other people. Right. So you want to avoid all of that. So that happens once you put the procurement out.

And any vendors that have submitted an RFP know that.

Yes, they're told. And it's in the documents.

And if they go to contact any of the commissioners, what happens?

They're disqualified. Automatically.

OK. So that may be the reason why people stopped calling me.

Yeah.

OK. All right.

And then prior to even the RFQ going out to Commissioner Joseph's point, We look at subject matter expertise. So for example, if we're going to put something else that deals with public works, we're dealing with engineers. We're dealing with architectures. We have consultants to the extent that we need additional information on just like you go to the subject matter experts. I don't want to single her out, but it's not Genesis or Anastasia making the sole call on that. It's the same thing with me as an attorney. I draft the contracts. I'm the scrivener. But I'm not coming up with the scopes of work on how to build a bridge. I don't know how to build a bridge. I don't know the first thing about it. So you rely on the subject matter expertise to provide you that information. That's the same information that's provided for the RFQs, the RFPs, depending on how they are, because at times you're going to put something out that's more general, expecting those vendors to come back with the specificity that you're looking for. So it really depends on the procurement. But the cone of silence really deals with The inability for communications between vendors, not just the elected officials, but also, I mean, there's certain individuals they can obviously speak with the procurement staff. There's a process where they can ask questions and so on. And those answers to those questions are actually published to all the bidders so that everybody's on equal footing.

All right. So from the city manager's point of view, can you please clarify as well? Because I think that it's pretty clear why we would not be involved in those kinds of conversations.

Yeah, if you allow your influence, then we would be choosing vendors that you like. That's not how it works in public purchasing. There's no issues here. I have full confidence in our procurement department. They've won awards for following policies and procedures when including any of our vendors at purchase. What happens is a lot of vendors want to participate, but they don't follow the rules. So they don't have insurance, background checks, all of that. We also require checking their financial ability to be able to do the work that they perform. So there's no issues here. There's no problems. In fact, we've saved money and ensured that everything that we're following FOLLOWS GOVERNMENTAL STANDARDS. SO WE HAVEN'T GONE OUTSIDE OF THAT PROCESS. OVER THESE PAST MANY YEARS YOU'VE SEEN A LOT OF OTHER CITIES THAT HAVE PROBLEMS WITH THEIR PROCUREMENT. WE DON'T HAVE ANY OF THAT HERE. OKAY.

ALL RIGHT. I'D LIKE TO HEAR FROM COMMISSIONER RAMALLA.

SO QUESTION. NOW GOING TO COMMISSIONER JOSEPH'S INQUIRY, CAN HE AS AN ELECTED OFFICIAL talk to the city manager, or talk to, maybe have a meeting with, let's say, the building department, if we're getting some sort of, we have a bid out there for Tony Romas, and inquire about what has been presented, what the conversations have been, can he do that?

You could make inquiries of staff through the manager, and if the manager decides to have his staff there as well to provide you, you can always make inquiries. You just cannot direct or suggest that they do something because it's kind of hard when you have an elected official come to you and say, hey, I think we should do this. Even though it's not a do this, you feel compelled to do that. So that's where, and it's in your charter, where you can always make inquiries, but you just have to be in the procurement process you just have to be careful with it because a lot of it it's not necessarily confidential but some aspects of it are until you get to a certain point so it's information that you get but you're certainly able to get that information from from staff and through the city manager yeah

So let's say in that process of inquiries, we realize that, let's say, some of the vendors that we had been analyzing perhaps don't are not good. What would happen in that situation? Wait, wait, wait.

I just want a clarification. Who's we?

No, no. Let's say Jerry's meeting with Stan and some other staff.

Let's talk about how it works now, not about what might be.

No, no, because I want to know how much you could ask questions, because you wanted to know Because, you know, I don't want, like, I want the public to understand the process, okay? And I also want to understand that I think that we, as elected officials, we could go walk into the city manager's office and say, I want to have a meeting. Let's talk about this bid process. I have some questions.

I think we're free to do that, correct? We can do that. And so, for example, back to one of the situations when we were dealing with the docks where the commissioner wanted to make sure that a certain type of stainless steel bolt was being used. You can certainly do that. You can ask for the scope of work. So when RFP goes out, you can look at the RFP or the RFQ, whatever it is. Look at the scope of work and say, you know what? I think we really need to make sure that they use these kinds of bolts. And that's something that can be updated. As long as the process isn't finished, it's something that you can communicate that all day long.

Is that what you're looking for? No.

Also, we have a problem where The city manager is coming to us to acknowledge and approve funding for something that then goes out for bid. So the vendors already know the amount that's been procured. So then we're asking them to give us their best bid on something that they know has already been procured, an amount that's already been offered to the commission. So in that regard, also, we're paying more than we should be on a lot of things.

I want to let the city manager answer that, please.

That's incorrect. It's impossible for us to not have something approved in terms of a budget amount for us to go and bid something out. If you want to leave it completely open-ended, then we could have, for example, holiday lights that cost $10 million. So exactly. It seems laughable, but that's what you're suggesting in the reverse. So we have to have a budget that establishes the amount. Certainly, anyone can look at our budget. It's a public process. It's approved by you. But that is the basis for us bidding. If I'm bidding holiday lights and I don't put some sort of a range in it, some people may bid, some people may not bid, or we could get some outlandish numbers. That's what keeps the process true. And it all gets approved by you from start to finish. To Commissioner Lama's question, yes, we're happy to answer any question that you have. But this has happened in the past where you've brought a vendor, not you specifically, you've brought a vendor to me and said, I want to use this person. What I then do is put them in contact with our procurement director. They have to be part of the process. We don't just use any vendor. We have to put it out to bid, as is our process. And then the best Responsible bidder is awarded the contract based on the process, which involves the subject matter experts from the city or outside council, plus our legal counsel, and committees that help weigh in and evaluate the process, all of which are documented, recorded, and open to the public to a certain extent.

If I may, may I also just, because I prepare the content and I review all the RFPs, OFQs for legal sufficiency. Providing a budget is really the exception. And I think the most recent one is the holiday lights. We sort of have to meter that in because, as the city manager says, you can get the gambit. You can go the millions and millions versus 10,000. But if we're procuring, let's say, when we did the showers at Samson Park, we put it out there. We need three showers put in. Give us your best shot, and then we get that back in.

You did not put, I'm sorry to interrupt, you did not put an amount?

No, we don't typically say, you know, for $50,000, what can you do for us? That's not typical. And I think the only example I can think of from recent, and I've been here three and a half years, is the Holiday Lights, because there we have a strict budget, and that can really go all over the place. But if you're procuring something or service, repairing, what they're doing to the garage now, We need pressure washing and sealing of our garage. You don't tell them I have $5 million for that. And they'll come back and they tell us. And sometimes there's great disparity between vendors. And that makes it easier. But you also have to look at qualifications and so on and so forth.

So I think the question was that we put an amount when we put a bid out. And you stated that the only exception or one of the few exceptions was the holiday lights.

In my memory, I mean, obviously, procurement and management may have other examples. But typically, we don't say, please do this for us for this amount or less.

We do have just a little point of clarification. But we have budgeted that amount. So that's what I was referring to when I said that.

They could see it if they want to go into the budget, yeah.

In the example that the city attorney gave for the showers, they can look at our individual budget line items and see that we've allocated a certain amount of funds to redo the bathrooms at Sampson in that example.

OK. Vice mayor is on the phone. I want to give her an opportunity if she wanted to ask any questions. Vice mayor? She's still there?

Jennifer? Hello?

Do you have any questions? Are you able to hear us?

Yeah, it's difficult, and I'm following actually as best I can with the subtitles, but it's a delay. Anyway, the cone of silence is, I remember when we opted out, and it was basically us joining everybody else like we we were behind the times on that and it serves a purpose uh i'm not interested in in changing anything um you know it's it prevents that it can't guarantee uh perfection but it prevents the uh you know shadiness and uh you know we don't want to go back to the Wild West where if you're somebody's friend, you have a better chance of getting a contract. This is meant to put everybody on equal footing, and that's the way it should be, on merit and neutrally. So removing the cone of silence, I think, is a step back. So I'm not in favor of touching it.

OK. All right. Commissioner Lama, are you in favor of changing the status quo?

I'd like to keep the cone of silence. I think that we could still obviously go to the city manager and have a meeting with the city manager to inquire about some of the companies that are bidding, look at the information. I do recall when we didn't have the cone of silence, We're about to vote for something, and vendors were calling me. And, yeah, I don't think that's the proper way to go about things. I think, Jerry, that you still have the ability to talk to Stan and to staff. You know, you request a meeting, you could talk to them, and you could give them, you know, your opinion. I think it's like the city attorney stated, it is for us not to be speaking to vendors. You know, we don't want...

I've never just, I've never taken those calls.

Yeah, because I think the cone of silence was implemented when, around the time you came in. And I did, yeah, they would call me. They would call me and I kind of... felt uncomfortable to be honest.

It was in my second year.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I, yeah, it's, it makes it an awkward and uncomfortable, uh, you know, moment when, when these vendors call you and you're about to vote for something. And yeah, I would refer him to, to, to staff. I'm like, listen, talk to staff, but still, you know, some of these vendors, uh, you know, or you don't want to be rude. But yeah, it's uncomfortable.

Well, look, I know we go to conventions sometimes and we have people from freebie and These other vendors they they come up to you and I mean we've had commissioners present freebie to us and I know I was approached it by freebie several times and You know and it's gonna happen you were Yeah Yeah, but I never really let them address me to the point where they think I might you know, present anything to have them be above anyone else.

But I get your point. If you say, listen, you know, vendor A has got this product that's faulty or I don't think it's the proper product, I think you can meet with city staff and ask them and, you know, have a conversation with them.

And just a caveat, Mayor, because it's the cone of silence is The ordinance is long, and it's got a lot of exceptions. So when we say talk to staff, I just want to be careful. And I can forge you the cone of silence. So for example, if they're going to be on the selection committee or the evaluation committee, you can't talk to them. There are certain staff you won't be able to talk to. You can always talk to procurement. You can always talk to the manager. If there's somebody else you need to talk to, we need to check to make sure they don't fall within, depending on what the procurement is. So I don't want to think that you can talk to anybody you want. But the point is that we could have a conversation with the manager and perhaps someone else from procurement or something. Right. So there's designated folks that can speak with you about it. All right.

Let me just give the manager the final word so we can move on.

mayor i just wanted to add one more thing whenever our purchasing director releases a solution a solicitation to bid we do a city-wide email and we also copy you on that so you that you're aware of it and anybody that wants to participate is welcome thank you okay i just have one other question sure so in the procurement process when there's a certain item that's looking to be purchased

Is there research done to be sure that the product that we're looking to purchase is the most up to date? I know when I've ever gone to buy a laptop, I'm always buying the best on the market that's going to last me, or the chip that's just coming out so that I have this laptop is going to be useful to me for several years, where if you go in and just buy any laptop from BJ's or any other vendor, Best Buy, they could have a model there that's two years old, and you would never know it, or a chip that's two years old. So I just want to be sure that there's some process with procurement that They're researching. We're not ever ending up with a product that is not the top of the line and that we're thinking ahead several years as to this product is going to be above and beyond even several years from now.

in dealing with the contracts and with procurement directly every day. To use your example, for computers, you know, we have Derek, who's our IT director, who's extremely knowledgeable in that area. So certainly if there's going to be a procurement for purchasing computers, Procurement staff, purchasing staff works with, again, the subject matter experts in the city. Or if we don't have subject matter experts in the city, we go to a consultant that we have. But certainly staff isn't just saying, oh, we need a computer, so let's just go to Best Buy and get the best deal. It's just not how it works.

OK. All right. But wait, just one more? One more, and we need to move on, because the discussion item is already done. So just we have actually on the agenda today. So I'm just, as an example, and I'm trying to have this not happen again in this city, where when it came to doing a contract regarding the undergrounding in Golden Shores, Whoever was around at that time was not forward thinking enough to think ahead as to what might be the internet product that was going underground at the time in 2026. But copper has been obsolete for many years now. And still, the contract, how it was written, was that whatever was on the poles was to go underground, which was a technical error in the contract at that time. And I've been yelling about it for months and months and months. And that's my main point, to be sure that we don't make that mistake again, ever.

But that's not a procurement issue. So there's two things there. It's not a procurement issue because that's not something the city's purchasing. So the product that's being put there, that's an undergrounding project where we are undergrounding the existing lines. We don't regulate the Public Services Commission.

It's about forward thinking.

It's not a procurement. We didn't purchase anything. So that has nothing to do with procurement. That's a completely separate issue that you can deal with the prior manager, potentially. But we don't really control, and we discussed it last meeting, exactly what Utilities can go under there because we don't have.

I'm not looking to get that tentacle regarding the utilities. I'm just, this is an example as to, the example is to, for our procurement department to be forward thinking. But procurement has nothing to do. Regarding any product that's purchased. That's what I would like to see.

We didn't purchase that product, so procurement had no involvement in that.

That's my point. All right. Let's move on. I just want to say for the record that our procurement department and our staff have done an excellent job. No one is doing anything illegal. I'm not saying they're not. I'm saying it for the record. Our IT department, I believe that Derek is a graduate of MIT. And no one can know everything about everything. But about computers, I feel confident that he knows. So let's move on to the next item, please.

I made my point.

Thank you.

COMMISSIONERS, WE'RE GOING TO GO BACK NOW TO SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS. 3C, PROCLAMATION PRESENTED FOR PARKS AND RECREATION MONTH. I'LL READ THE PROCLAMATION AND THEN IF THE COMMISSION CAN COME DOWNSTAIRS.

HOW MANY PEOPLE DO WE HAVE? A LOT? MAYBE WE'LL JUST STAY UP HERE.

YOU WANT ME TO READ IT FIRST OR DO YOU WANT TO DO YOUR INTRODUCTION?

YOU CAN READ IT FIRST BECAUSE THEN I'LL PUT THE VIDEO AFTER.

So the proclamation reads, whereas parks and recreation is an integral part of communities throughout this country, including the city of Sunny Isles Beach, and whereas parks and recreation promotes health and wellness, improving the physical and mental health for people who live near parks, Whereas parks and recreation promotes time spent in nature, which positively impacts mental health by increasing cognitive performance and well-being and alleviating illnesses such as depression, attention deficit disorders, and Alzheimer's. Whereas parks and recreation encourages physical activities by providing space for popular sports, hiking trails, swimming pools, and many other activities designed to promote active lifestyles. Whereas parks and recreation is a leading provider of healthy meals, nutrition services, and education. And whereas parks and recreation programming and education activities such as out of school time programming, youth sports, and environmental education, are critical to childhood development, whereas parks and recreation increases a community's economic prosperity through increased property values, expansion of local tax base, increased tourism, the attraction and retention of businesses, and crime reduction. Whereas parks and recreation is fundamental to the environmental well-being of our community, Whereas parks and recreation is essential and adaptable infrastructure that makes our communities resilient in the face of natural disasters and climate change. And whereas our parks and natural recreation areas ensure the ecological beauty of our community, and provide a place for children and adults to connect with nature and recreate outdoors. Whereas the U.S. House of Representatives has designated July as Parks and Recreation Month, whereas the city wishes to recognize the benefits derived from parks and recreation resources.

Thank you, Mauricio. Honorable Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, city staff, it's July, it's Park and Recreation Month. Each July, we celebrate park and recreation professionals and how they improve the lives of tens of millions of people, making a lasting impact to communities across the country. Park and recreation programs are essential to community health and well-being and help cultivate lifelong friendships, memories, and family bonds that people can hold dear decades later. This year's theme, The Power Of, celebrates how parks and recreation brings us together through the power of play, nature, belonging, and the people of our community. So if you would humor me for a moment, we have some highlights of our past year of the City of Sunny Isles Beach and Cultural and Community Services Department activities, programs, and the power of. And that's just a small piece of what we've done for you for the past year. So I'd like to thank my staff that's behind me, and then all of you for your continued support.

Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, man. It's amazing. Where do I sign up, man? If everyone could come up, we'll take a picture from this side.

Thank you, everyone. Appreciate your hard work.

We can't do those activities. We'll stay up here, because otherwise there's too many of them.

Yeah, it's a lot.

I mean, there's not too many of you. You know what I mean. There's just the right amount.

We appreciate your hard work. Thank you. Wait, wait.

All right, thank you. And I'm sure that that video could have probably been like an hour long and still would not have been enough. OK. I understand that one of the other students is here. So I'd like to be able to recognize her. Yaroslav left.

Yes, he left. OK. Amelia. Amelia, you have her there.

I have Ariana. Sorry. Ariana? You Arianna? Hi. OK. Do you want to come up? Are you alone or are you with your mom? OK. Do you want to come up? We'll take a picture. Congratulations, Arianna. All right. Now we are to PD or not yet?

No, we are going to move that off the agenda.

All right.

So now we're on item 4I. Mayor, if I may, that officer is working midnight shift. So he comes in at 6 o'clock. So we're going to have a little presentation with the commission in the fourth floor conference room at 6.

At 6. OK, perfect. That sounds great. Thank you. OK.

Okay, so now going back to discussion items, just a note for the record, again, 4H is being deferred. 4I is a discussion regarding the Golden Shores undergrounding project update.

Okay. I believe that's the city manager.

Honorable Mayor Commission. So at the June meeting, the item for IAM Electric did not move forward. It didn't get a second, so it didn't move forward. For that reason, the project is completely on hold.

Mm-hmm.

We can't do anything further, which means power lines will not come down. Within the last couple of weeks, they've had at least two outages. May or may not be related. But we need to come to a solution as to if we're going to, we need some direction. Do we want to go with our second bidder, which is twice as much cost hourly? Actually, a little bit more than twice. bring back IAM in some way or defer the Golden Shores Underground project for six months to a year.

OK, that sounds like a horrible idea. Deferring that project is a nightmare, especially during hurricane season. I know that specifically Commissioner Joseph and I live in that neighborhood. And I know I personally, I'm sure he did as well, experience the outage in the middle of the summer is probably one of the worst things that could happen when the AC and everything else is off. So I am in support of moving the item forward. But let's hear from the rest of the commission, Commissioner Joseph.

Yes. So is it back on the agenda for this evening?

It is not because we, since nothing happened, you have the three-month deferral. But when we looked at our second bidder, which is our next choice, the hourly rate for IAM is $43 an hour compared to $120 an hour for our second bidder. So I met with the city attorney to see if there was any way possible to bring it forward tonight.

And is it possible?

Yeah, so your option would be to agree to add it on, do an add-on tonight. And then you would have to, because you can suspend that rule for the three months, but you're going to need a super majority. You're going to need a super majority of those present. So for example, if it was here, I'd need all three of you.

Right, but we're not voting right now.

No, no, exactly, I'm talking tonight.

Tonight, okay, so I'm in favor of adding it back on, Commissioner Joseph.

I'm in favor as well.

Commissioner Lama.

I'm in favor, yes.

Vice Mayor. Me too. Okay, so it sounds like we probably will have our super majority, so please move it to tonight. Yes. All right, now we're to 4J.

Yes, 4J is a discussion regarding the internet service for Golden Shores neighborhood.

OK, this is Commissioner Joseph, this is your item?

No, this is the city manager's item, actually.

Oh, OK.

It's not my item.

It's on as you're at the last meeting commissioner Joseph you requested that we discuss at this meeting what the options were for golden shores so we invited both AT&T and breeze line to explain that AT&T unfortunately was not available, but we do have a representative here from breeze line. If you could please come up and describe what services you're providing to the community. Okay.

I just want to understand. AT&T was offered to be here and they rejected the offer?

They said they were not available.

Not available.

They did send some information, but it's marketing materials that were not.

Okay. So AT&T knowing that Breeze Line was going to be here? They didn't show up.

That is correct.

I just want to make that clear.

Understood.

OK. Thank you.

All right. Hi. How are you? If you could just give us your name and address for the record, that's our process. You can give the address of the business.

Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, council members. I'm Lars Lofus from BreezeLine. I'm the general manager for Florida for BreezeLine. We are very proud and very thankful to be able to serve Sunny Isles. And we have invested tremendous amounts of money to both we've completed all the underground work in Golden Shores as well as Sunny Isles, multi-phase projects. We've actually invested additional funds create some new technology that's never been deployed in southern Florida. in Golden Shores, actually. And it's basically bringing fiber across the street from your home, right? So we actually, today, we are able to offer multi-gig services, two gig or more, to many of the areas in Sunny Isles and in Golden Shores. We have gig symmetrical services as well as 2.5 gig services available. So this is very recent. In fact, it's so recent that I brought Our board of directors to demonstrate it last week in Golden Shores, a very proud moment for us in Florida as BreezeLine and very proud moment for our company. We're again very grateful to be able to serve this area.

Thank you. OK. Do you have any questions, Commissioner Joseph?

Well, I'd just like to say that I have, in Golden Shores, I've been through AT&T. I've been through AT&T Satellite. I've been through Breeze Line. I've had frustration with both services. And I actually was going to cancel my BreezeLine service the other day, and I took in T-Mobile Wi-Fi out of frustration because I had no dependable Wi-Fi at my house, which if you were to check my BreezeLine account. There's numerous months and months and months of calling with terrible service. Actually, I was put on the pilot program, which not out of my asking. I just happened to see on Saturday there was a service rep going door to door in Golden Shores. And he was across the street at my neighbor Sheila's house, who wasn't home. And I spoke with him. And he said he was going around to hopefully to connect a new type of hybrid service that they had to homes that did not have BreezeLine currently. So I said, well, that's funny, because I just took in T-Mobile Wi-Fi out of frustration, and I was calling on Monday to cancel my BreezeLine. And they said, oh, don't do that. But as a new customer, we can connect you to our hybrid service. I said, well, not to do anything for me specially, but if you're willing to try, and I'm willing to be out of frustration to have any better service than I have now, if you're willing to connect me, I'm going to say exactly what I notice and recognize as to the difference in my service. And they connected me yesterday. And I have to say, out in the street, which is not what I have in my house, but I saw that out in the street there was 2.5 gigs of service. In my house, I had 560. Because I have copper from the street to my house and inside my house.

We did look at that, Commissioner Joseph. You have Eero Wi-Fi in your house. We deliver the gig symmetrical to your modem. And it's just Wi-Fi by nature, whether it's AT&T or us or anybody else. It does degrade signal. But we absolutely wanted to provide you with the absolute best service.

So now I'm looking to somehow bring fiber from inside my house to outside, if that's possible. Is that possible?

We have fiber right outside your house, and that's how we deliver the service.

Right, but to bring the fiber into my house to my terminal, is that possible? The last few feet are copper.

Yeah.

No, but to replace the copper with fiber, is that possible for people?

Is it possible? It is possible. I don't think it's necessary, because we provide a service that is absolutely as good as fiber. Fiber to the home, I should say. We have fiber right outside your home.

If there's something I could do to have 2.6 gigs inside my house,

Again, you would need the equipment to do so. And we can deliver 2.5 gig inside your house. It's dependent on your Wi-Fi. It's dependent on your devices. iPhones, for instance, 400 megabits per second. They don't pass 2.5 gig. So it's just a matter of we will absolutely maximize What you need to do your business.

OK. But if I were to bring fiber to the street from my house, have a contractor bring fiber from my garage to the street, that would give me a higher amount of gigs or no?

Not necessarily.

So that's not worth the effort?

No. We, again, we stand by our service. We have multi-gig services throughout Sunny Isles. You get gig symmetrical or 2.5 gig to your home. We can deliver that now. We're very confident in that. And we appreciate the ability to deliver that now, having invested so much money to serve this area.

OK, let me see if there's any other questions. Commissioner Lama, do you have any questions?

Question for you. So how does it work with the high-rise buildings? I live in the Winston Towers. I don't know if you're familiar with 174th Street. You have seven towers there. How does it work? Is it the same setup where you have fiber and then copper going into the actual structure?

It depends, right? It absolutely depends. I can't speak to that building. You want to speak to that building? Okay. This is Danny Ortiz. He's our director of field operations. Hi, Danny.

So, hi. Pleasure meeting you. Windsor Tower is a little bit different. Windsor Tower is considered a bulk account, which means the actual building, the actual HOA, does a contract with the company to provide a specific service, okay, just for that building in particular. If I'm not mistaken, Windsor Tower is actually a PON network.

A what network?

A GPON network. Okay. Which means that it is FPT, fiber 2D.

Fiber to the unit, okay.

But to answer Commissioner Joseph's question, we can provide the same speed that we do in his network versus what we do in your network. What's going to make the difference is what you own in your home that allows you to reach that speed. For example, the Aero system that you have is a Wi-Fi 5 system, which can only go to a specific amount through the Wi-Fi.

So I can upgrade that system?

Yes. But if you will grab a computer and connect your computer straight to the modem, you will be able to get the speeds that we're talking about. OK. It all depends on the system that you're in.

Vice Mayor, do you have any questions? No, but please speak into the mic. They can't hear you in the back.

Oh, sorry. Thank you. Just a little, yeah. Thank you. Vice Mayor Biscard, one second.

She stepped away.

Oh, OK. All right.

So you offer your own extenders as well? We do.

And by the way, we're very proud to also carry this channel on our TV service. We had some pings like, hey, good luck tonight.

Actually, the city does not have the correct channel indicated. If you could just let them know what channel that is so they can have it on their website. Because currently they have the wrong channel.

All right, so this was a nice little commercial for BreezeLine. We do, correct? All right.

Honestly, we've invested to get this in a great place. This is a beautiful city, by the way. Thank you. I come from many other states. And I've been with BreezeLine for eight months as the general manager. I can tell you we have an amazing team. I love working here, and we're going to continue to get better and better and better every day.

Thank you. Thank you for taking the time to come. Thank you. OK.

I would just like to say one more thing. One more thing. Yes. I have been, for over two years, trying to get the best service in Golden Shores for internet. And two years ago, myself and Senator Pizzo contacted AT&T when we noticed that on their website, they had clearly stated that copper was obsolete for Internet service. We contacted them, and they promised us that they would be bringing fiber into Golden Shores, and to this date, they still have not. And I believe their not being here today is an indication that they're not looking to move forward in the best interests of Golden Shores residents.

Okay. I just want to clarify that's not the opinion of the city. It's one commissioner, so I want to be careful that we're not saying anything about someone that's not here.

But I know firsthand what they had promised. I get it.

And thank you for bringing this item. Thank you. All right. So with no other items, we're adjourning until 630. Thank you, everyone.

Thank you.