City Commission - workshop

Hey, Vanessa, you should stay up here to tell everyone as they arrive.

Mauricio? OK. All right. Good afternoon, everyone. It is 1.31, calling the meeting to order.

Commissioner Joseph? Present. Commissioner Stuyvesant?

Here.

Commissioner Lama? Here. Vice Mayor Vizcarra?

Here.

Mayor Svecin?

Here.

All members present, ma'am.

All right. I just wanted to make a few announcements before we begin. The first is the acoustics in this room are phenomenal, which means that we hear your conversations. So if you're going to have a conversation, please take it outside. We literally hear everything, sometimes to the very detail. So it's very distracting, but also I don't think you want us to hear your conversations. And we now have public speaking. If you can explain it, Mauricio, and then we'll give people time to sign up if they wanted to.

Yes. So we have public speakers or public comments allowed during workshops where normally it wasn't allowed. However, it is a little bit different than what we normally allow during the 630 meeting. The public comments are only limited to the items that are listed on the agenda. You still have three minutes to make your comments. However, please do keep to the three minutes. And there are public speaker cards that you need to fill out if you wish to speak on anything listed on the agenda in the back. And maybe give them a minute to see if there's anybody else that wishes to speak or submit one.

All right. So the agenda's in the back. If anyone wanted to speak, here's your opportunity to sign up. Okay. All right, Mauricio, go ahead. I know there's a change, and then...

Yes, so there's one item that we will be adding on in the special presentations. It'll be heard to be 438. It'll be the first one, and it'll be by the city manager.

All right. And we have a very full agenda, a lot of items. So I just want to remind my colleagues that we want to try to get through it. And we have a rule that we end at 4.30. So given the amount of items we have, do I have consensus from the very beginning that we'll go to 5.30? Does anyone have any objection to it?

No.

No? All right. OK. Perfect. So I'll remind you that each item is 30 minutes. Go ahead.

So the first item is the presentation by the city managers.

I'd like to invite up Derek Arias, our CIO.

Thank you, Honorable Mayor and Commission. I have the privilege of sharing something with the community today that most of the people in this room don't know about yet. Before I get into it, I want to recognize a few people, City Manager Stan Morris and Deputy City Manager Susan Simpson. Thank you both for the support you've given this team and for backing the kind of innovation that doesn't always make headlines but makes a real difference for our residents. I also want to recognize our chief of police, Chief Santiago, who couldn't be with us today, but whose support for this program from day one made this possible. Earlier this year, a team from across three of our departments came together to solve a real operational challenge, how to get our drone as first responder program dispatched to an active incident faster and more reliably directly out of our police dispatch system. What they built is a custom integration that lets a drone be launched to any active CAD incident with far less manual work, putting eyes in the sky faster when seconds matter. This is exactly the kind of work I love racking about because it isn't one department's win. It took our police department, our innovation and technology department, and our media department working side by side to pull it off, which is honestly how the best things happen at the city and how they get built. So first, I would like to invite that team to join me up front. These are people that usually don't like to be up front. but from our innovation and technology department, my assistant CIO, Humberto Martinez, who led the technical integration work. From our police department, Assistant Chief Luke Paliza and Sergeant Jonathan Konitz, who runs our Drone as First Responder program. So they run our drone as first responder program day to day and made sure that this integration actually worked the way our officers and dispatchers needed it to in the field. And from our media department, Leah Einwalter, our media manager, and Michael Rojas, our communications and media specialist. So on top of everything else, they recognized this work deserved recognition and put together the story that got us here tonight. So I'm going to let a special guest today explain exactly why that matters. But first, let me introduce him. So I'm glad to welcome Ron McKenzie. Ron is the Chief Information Officer for the City of Fort Lauderdale, and he serves as FLGISA's Southeast District Director.

Ron?

Thank you for being here. The floor is yours.

Good afternoon, Mayor, commissioners. Good afternoon. I'm actually the second vice president. I got elevated from the district director for FLEGISA. But to let you know a little bit about FLEGISA. One moment. The Florida Local Government Information Systems Association is the premier technology organization for Florida local governments. You're a source for leadership, innovation, collaboration, and technology. We're an organization of CIOs, IT managers, and technology decision makers from state and local government agencies. There are 367 members of agencies that are in our organization. This particular project and program that Derek's talking about wind up being submitted for an award. The award, obviously, 367 organizations all around the state. And out of them, we have what we call our Technology and Excellence Awards. Excellence goes to the first place. Achievements go to the other ones. You guys were one and one, and you received the award for excellence for this particular innovation program that they've got. The award goes from the 2026 Fajisa Technology Excellence Award for the City of Sunny Isles Beach for innovative use of technology to serve the public. This is one of one in the state. Congratulations to all of you. You've done outstanding.

Can we get a picture before you all walk away?

We will, but let me wrap up real quick. So before we wrap up, I want to do one more thing. I want to follow in a police department tradition, and I'm going to give a challenge coin to each member of this team. These are 50th anniversary FLG ISA challenge coins. A challenge coin isn't given for finishing a job, it's a challenge. Every time you look at it, it's a reminder that we expect you to keep raising the bar, to keep pushing your department and this city toward the next problem worth solving. You've already shown you know how to do that, so consider this your challenge to keep doing it. So Humberto Martinez, you led the technical side of this from the start and figured out how to solve this problem. Keep pushing the innovation and technology department to find the next challenge. To Assistant Chief Pliza, you made room for your people to try something new and backed it. That's leadership. Keep challenging your department to find the next one. Sergeant Konitz, you're the one who has to make this work in real time on real calls. Thank you for pushing this program forward on the ground. Keep raising the bar for what DFR can do. Leah, you made sure this team's work didn't go unnoticed inside this building and out. Keep telling these stories. They're part of why the city takes innovation seriously. And Michael, you helped make sure this story reached people and reached them well. Keep raising the bar for how we tell it. So congratulations again to the whole team, Umberto, Assistant Chief Bliza, Sergeant Konitz, Leah, Michael. This is the kind of collaboration across our departments I want the city known for. Thank you all. Thank you.

So Leah, should we stay up here or go down? Because there's, for the picture.

How many people?

Pablo, stay up? Okay. So you guys get, yes, all right. All right, I think it is good. Are we centered? Are we centered? Much, yeah. Very nice. OK, Mauricio?

OK. The next item on the agenda is 3A, a proclamation presented for National Senior Citizens Day. And as Jonathan walks up, I'll read the proclamation. It reads, whereas on August 19th, 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed Proclamation Number 5847, declaring August 21st, 1988 as National Senior Citizens Day, whereas President Reagan proclaimed this day as such with the sentiment, for all they have achieved throughout life and for all they continue to accomplish, we owe older citizens our thanks and a heartfelt salute. And whereas the number of American ages 65 and older is projected to increase from 58 million in 2022 to 82 million by 2050, a 47% increase, and the group's share of the total population is projected to rise from 17% to 23%, whereas senior citizens have made invaluable contributions to our families, communities, workplaces, and nation throughout their experience, wisdom, service, and dedication. and whereas older adults continue to enrich the city of Sunny Isles Beach by sharing their knowledge, traditions, talents, and perspectives with younger generations and by reimagining actively engaged, remaining actively engaged in civic and community life. And whereas National Senior Citizens Aid provides an opportunity to recognize the accomplishments of our senior population and to express appreciation for the important role they play in strengthening our community. And whereas the city is committed to promoting the dignity, independence, health, safety, and well-being of our older adults and supporting opportunities that allow seniors to remain active and connected. And whereas on August 21st, 2026, residents are encouraged to honor their senior citizens in their lives and recognize the lasting impact they have made and continue to make in our community.

Great. Good afternoon, honorable mayor, vice mayor, commission, and city staff. I am beyond proud to stand before you today alongside a few of the incredible individuals who embody the heart and spirit of what we are here to celebrate, Senior Citizens Day. First established in 1988, Senior Citizens Day provides an opportunity to honor and celebrate the contributions, accomplishments, wisdom, and continued impact that our older adults have on communities. It is a day to recognize that seniors are not only simply a part of our community, they are an essential part of what makes Sunny Isles Beach truly what it is. Today, we are proud to celebrate the hundreds of seniors we serve each year through Gateway Center. Through a curated calendar featuring more than 100 fitness classes each month, health and wellness workshops, educational opportunities, and countless social activities, Gateway Center is about so much more than just programs and activities. It's about friendship, connection, staying active, but most importantly, creating memories. For many of our seniors, Gateway Center has become truly a home away from home. a place where they feel welcomed, seen, and most importantly, heard. And this is why today is so special. The seniors represented here today are just a small reflection of the incredible energy, strength, and spirit that exist throughout our programs. On behalf of myself, Rekhila Stanley, your program coordinator, Kimberly Brown, your program specialist, and the entire Cultural and Community Services Department, we want to thank you and let you know how much you are appreciated. We thank you for being part of this community. We value your wisdom and presence, and we are honored to serve you. Members of the Commission, at this time, I'd like to warmly invite you to take a photo with my family as we commemorate today's proclamation.

All right, so anyone over the age of...

So 55 and older.

Okay, so anyone over the age of 55 and older, please come up.

Don't be shy.

Please, it would be a nice picture. You guys know who you are. Anybody that would like to take a photo, come on up. Come on, come on, come on. And if you're part of the program but you're not 55, you can also come up.

So I'm up here again. Okay. Whatever. Thank you, everyone.

Thank you, everyone. I think this only represents maybe 10%, if not less, of the seniors that participate.

Yeah, exactly.

Maybe next year. Bingo. OK. You're welcome to stay for the rest of the agenda if you would like. Is it still there? Is the food still outside? OK. Thank you. All right. Our next item, Mauricio, for a?

This item is a discussion by Commissioner Stuyvesant regarding state and county lobbying priorities.

OK. Commissioner? Yes. I want to start with a question to the city manager. How do we usually set these priorities?

Usually for our lobbying, we have discussions back and forth with the commission and our lobbyist.

OK, well, so let's talk about the process a little bit. Last year, we set our legislative priorities. And really, what they were at the very beginning were the Florida legal cities platform, which are defend home rule, condominium reform, protect our local business tax, et cetera. So we supported all those positions, but they are really defensive. And we shared them with more than 400 other municipalities. So last year, we didn't ask for one single dollar to Tallahassee, nothing. So I want to be ahead of the curve, and I'm bringing this item so we can update our process. And we have real priorities for the city of Sunny Isles Beach. So I named three, and I wish everybody else can name their ones as well. The first one is the Lehman on the causeway parking track. to get funding for the feasibility study and the FDOT and Miami-Dade use agreement. Also the central island drainage to confirm the status of the $21 million that apparently we lost in grants for probably having no lobbies last year. And also for Pelican Community Park because we are planning apparently to do a big new construction so we can offset the payment of that. and I would like to make sure that what happened last year doesn't repeat itself. In September of last year, the city contract with our state lobbyists was terminated. The commission never voted on that, we were not asked, and we were not told in time to do anything about it. I learned from it from our state representative, and by the time that we did it, the appropriation window was closed. So again, we asked the state of Florida for $0 that session. In a year, our adopted capital plan ran to more than $61 million. We have seen rehire run book. which is good, so now we have representation. I just want to make sure we don't get a hold in the process again, and that this doesn't happen again. And I do have a question for the city attorney. Does the city manager have the authority to terminate a professional service contract that this commission approved by resolution without bringing that decision back to the commission for a vote?

It depends what's in the agreement. So if I... I'd have to go back to the previous agreement. Your current agreement now, just to preface that, it's a one-year agreement. But then you, the city commission, can renew it for four additional one-year terms. So any renewals come to you. Let me see if I have a copy of the old one. This one was a little different. This one was actually procured. The previous one wasn't procured. It was just renewed every year. but typically to answer generally. So if the resolution gives the authority to the city manager to do that, yes, and if it naturally expires and it's not brought forth again, then it would naturally expire. It would be conterminous with whatever term you all had set forth. So I have to, if you give me a minute, I might be able to.

No, no problem. We can have it maybe for later on. So that's the point, just to make sure that we are going to be requesting from Tallahassee money for what is our priorities, especially for the big contracts that we assume we're going to be having during the following year, and to make sure that that contract with the lobbies, either the one that we have now, or any other one that we're going to have does not expire or gets terminated without informing us. And we need to make sure that we have, like I said, representation. And we are asking for things specifically for the city of Sonny Hills Beach.

And one caveat, if the contract also, again, I haven't seen it, but if it was under 50, 50 or under, that would fall to the city manager. But I don't recall what the amounts were for round book before.

It was between 60 and 70, yeah. OK. Thank you. Anybody else have something?

Are you done, Commissioner? Yeah. All right. Did you want to say something, Mr. City Manager?

Yes, if I recall, I believe the contract was expiring. We were not getting the kind of service that I think we expected from our prior lobbyist. So we put it out to bid, and through a number of different, I guess, processes, we were able to negotiate a better rate with Mr. Book now, who's been very responsive since that time.

No, thank you. And that's great. But still, the point is that we didn't ask for the first time any money to Tallahassee. And I find out when our state representative called me, because he needed those projects to negotiate with other representatives. So when I find out, it was too late. The window was closed. And we were never made aware that we were not even making any appropriation requests. So that decision should be a decision of the commission and not a decision that the staff takes on its own, like it happened.

For the purposes of clarification, I know that we discussed this a lot before. But if we can just have a very, very short summary of what normally happens when the representative or a senator calls asking for our priorities and why we didn't request anything this year. If I can ask the deputy manager. This past year, sorry.

We had already had $400,000 for the design of the Central Island Drainage Project, which was being redesigned. And we had $400,000 for the Marine Patrol. I believe it's $400,000 for the seawall. They were still all outstanding at that time.

So if we have outstanding amounts, does that mean we can't ask for more money?

So we got word from the state that they were looking for very specific projects and that it was kind of don't ask unless if you've used what we've given you.

What I understand in speaking to the lobbyists and the office there is you have to be willing to fund something at least 50%, and it has to be in the works. It's always a match, yes.

And they're looking for shovel-ready.

Can you just explain what that means, please, to the public?

So shovel-ready is you already have a design. Well, unless if you're going for design money, which is the little money. Then once you have the design, you can go for a construction, which is the bigger money. So, for example, the Central Island Drainage Project, we had the money for that when we had the previous design. We had construction plans. We had gone out to bid.

That was for the injection wells?

Wait, wait, wait. Let the deputy manager finish. One second. It was for the pump stations. Since we withdrew that project and went back to redesign, we couldn't apply for a construction, a grant for the construction without a new design. OK. You had a question, Commissioner Joseph?

Last year, when we had this $400,000 possible grant for the Center Island project, at that time, you had in consideration for the injection wells, correct?

Correct, but those plans were not ready.

Right, they weren't ready, and they were failed plans to begin with.

Well, it's a plan and studies project, and the studies were still going at the time of application. So we were not confident that it was a viable project.

Anyone else in the commission?

So regarding priorities, I think capital expenditures for sure, specifically the Central Island drainage project and the community center. And aside from that, i wanted to see if we could perhaps be ready in case the new property tax bills the homestead bill passes in november because i don't know if the state's going to have any appropriations available for any activities and programs that right now are being funded by the city with taxpayer money because obviously with that new bill we're going to be restricted to seven let's say primary categories like law enforcement and different things, some of the senior programming and team programming that we are paying for is pretty much a question mark next year. So I wanted to see if perhaps, well, we'll see in November what happens, but I think we should be kind of like a step ahead and see if the state will be able to give us some funding to be able to spend on that. on activities and programs.

OK. Vice Mayor?

One of the things that I've tried to push forward is for us to be more engaged in the legislative process just as a commission. I think generally that was just not part of our culture. We just let the Florida League do it, or we would just let the lobbyists do it for us. And there really wasn't a lot of discussion. And little by little, that was changing. So we do now have, in terms of the legislative piece, that's largely up to us. And it's tricky because of the timing. And we only meet sometimes because we only meet once a month. And the session is only so long. Sometimes the timing is very odd. That's what happened this last round. We basically had like one meeting. And by the second meeting, it was pretty much over because of the timing of it.

But I- Then there's a submission deadline.

No, just in terms of the process, I think having better relationships with the legislative people in the Florida League. I don't have as much as that kind of communication with the county legal cities, but I think that's something else that we could, you know, nurture those relationships, or maybe they already exist. I just don't happen to have them. And I have been, you know, as you know, trying to present the, I bring it to you, then we talk about it. But, you know, going forward, I mean, I would imagine, I mean, that's going to be up to the commission for you guys to, like, be on top of it. And we have the webpage where we can track it, et cetera. So from the legislative end, I think we have improved significantly our legislative game. There's still work to be done. And we don't have to be limited to the Florida League platform, but it's designed for municipalities. So they're already doing a lot of the heavy lifting, but you don't have to be limited to that.

OK. Commissioner Stevenson, when does the session start? Do you have a timetable of when these priorities need to be decided?

They're going back after the elections. And that's apparently, they don't have the dates just yet.

OK, because I think we need the calendar in order to make sure that we don't miss anything. Absolutely. And to Commissioner Lama's point, that item is going to decide a lot of what the priorities may be. They may be very, very different. So OK, good.

And if we have any suggestions for bills, there is a definite date for submissions. So we need to be aware of those dates as well. OK.

May I add something, too? Also, we need to start thinking about lobbying at a federal level. We might not have many projects, but we do have a beach. It needs, obviously, beach erosion mitigation, which falls under the US Army Corps of Engineers. So I think that our next step would be at a federal level as well.

Good point. Yeah.

OK. Well, I actually have spoken with Susan's assistant, Susan Simpson's assistant. And we have something in the works regarding federal funding.

OK. All right. Thank you. Next item is yours, Commissioner Stuyvesant.

Do you need to read it?

Yes. The next item is a discussion by Commissioner Stuyvesant regarding the fiscal year 2026-2027 budget questions.

OK, so about this, we only have one workshop to discuss the actual budget. And the whole time, we were just talking about the SIP, because it was very large, all the projects in there. So we haven't had the time to actually discuss the budget after it was printed and given to us. So I'm going to request a special meeting, workshop, whatever you want to call it, so we can go through the budget. Like I said, we have not gone through it just yet. However, right now, I just want to have the time to request some more information about the debt. Because when we had that workshop, I was asking a few questions about it. And I thank the city attorney for being so candid when you told us that you haven't had the opportunity to see about the bonds, if we were going to be issuing bonds or not. But the proposed budget, unless anything has changed, is asking to issue debt this year, this fiscal year, for $175 million. And for the following fiscal year, another $150 million, meaning a total of $325 million plus service, interest, et cetera. So that is something that we had never discussed. And technically, the first time that we're going to be talking about it is to vote on it, which is on September 8th. So without even having had any discussion about it, I don't think it's appropriate for this body to be doing that. So I would like to know if... We always get jammed. Yeah. I would like to know if anything has changed from the budget that was presented to us until right now, because I know you guys have been working on it. about the bond, if the city attorney now has some information, if we're going to be needing a referendum, if anything, just more information because we don't have any before.

Okay, Mr. Sure, please, Mr. City Manager, and if you can just elaborate on the process as well. I know we talked about it before, but since we have people in the audience.

We started our budget discussions in February with a philosophical workshop. with the commission, gave us a basic framework for how we were going to build our budget. And then subsequent to that, we've had some one-on-one meetings with each of you regarding your specific budget request. And then recently, we had our budget workshop with you, where you gave us some of your priorities, questions, concerns. And we also set the tentative millage rate. So based on all of those things, we put together a framework for the budget. We went back to some of your points and made some additional cuts. And our budget has no proposed bond that we're going to bring to you. And it also incorporates the millage rate that you all agreed to, which is the rollback rate.

OK. Mr. City Attorney, if you can answer the other question, please.

Yeah, just generally on the bonding issue or the debt service. You always have the option to do private debt, but private debt is limited, and the repayment periods are typically smaller, five, 10 years. Generally, cities will go with general obligation bonds, which are public debt, that do go to referendum. That buys you more time, probably 20, 25 years. That's usually the favorable last, especially for the amounts of money that would be potentially contemplated, keeping in mind that it's always Comparative to the amount of money you have, your reserves, your budget, so on and so forth, it's not like if you go out and want to borrow $6 billion, you may not be able to do that on the general obligation bonds. So it has to be commensurate with sort of your financial picture. But typically, your general obligation bonds is the best route because it gives you more time for payment. And it's usually in favorable terms. But they do have to go to the voters.

OK. And just for clarification, Mr. City Manager, you said the bond is out of the budget?

Correct.

OK. Are there any discussion or comments from the commission?

Yeah. So basically, from the proposed budget, I can deduct $175 million.

We are not proposing any bond. And then we also had a discussion about PCP, where we had proposed doing some new construction. And instead, we're going back and we're going to propose some renovations.

OK.

So those two larger numbers are not incorporated into this proposed budget.

OK, so. Commissioner Stevenson, I just want to let someone else speak if they want to regarding, no?

I like what I heard. No, I like what I heard.

No, so basically I have a discussion item here that has to do with the bond and, you know, the lion's share of where that bond is going to be dedicated to, which is the community center. So I'll discuss afterwards when we get to my item, or I could discuss it now since it's related.

No, let's wait to your item so that Commissioner Stewart can finish what she was saying.

Okay.

It's connected to it, so I have no problem if he wants to jump his item in here because, like I said, my question continues to be the same. The proposed budget was $348 million, so I'm going to round it to $350 million. If we are not going to be issuing any bond and we don't have that debt issue that we had before, page 813, but nobody else has their book here. So right now, if we did that from 350, 175, that's what I say. We're slashing the proposed budget in half. And I'm very happy with that. So meaning, so right now, our proposed budget is going to be in the realm of $175 million, right?

We'd have to look at all of the numbers to tell you exactly what it is. But I can tell you there is no bond proposed. And our proposed PCP project, we've drawn back on that. Also, a number of the capital improvement projects, when you see our budget, have been reduced.

OK, so right now.

We've done away with one solar project.

I want a very simple answer. What is the amount of the budget right now as we see it, as you have it right now?

I have to ask Tiffany to come up and answer that question.

Thank you.

Hi, Tiffany. I don't have an exact number, but it is minus the $175 million. When I was looking at it today, we still have some amounts to just adjust and review, but I don't want to give you an exact number, but it's substantially lower than our tentative that you're seeing there. So around i would say the 175 to 200 million is where we're looking at right right now

OK. Thank you, Tiffany. Thank you very much. You're welcome. To my point that we do need a workshop or a meeting or a special meeting, which I'm going to formally ask for it, to have this discussion. A budget that is not even ready, how can we be the next time to have in front of us to vote yes or no? We can have both yes or no event. Right now, something that we don't have, it hasn't been built yet. So I see, I know that the process is very fluid, and that's a good thing. So by we're going to, if the number one of our TASK AS A COMMISSION IS TO APPROVE THE BUDGET, WE CANNOT JUST BLINDLY GO AND SIT DOWN TO APPROVE A BUDGET THAT WE HAVE NOT DISCUSSED. SO TO MAKE IT THAT DAY, THE MEETING, POSITIVE AND THAT WE DON'T HAVE TO GO BACK AND FORTH FROM THAT DAY SET OF SEPTEMBER 8TH, WE NEED A WORKSHOP to talk about the final budget that you guys are going to be presenting to us. We are almost three weeks away from the first hearing, which is September 8th. So I would like to know when is it that we can meet to discuss the ready-to-be proposed budget.

Mayor?

Please, go ahead.

I think it's appropriate for me to jump in at this point. Sure, go ahead. And so basically, the... that portion of the budget is composed, I mean, the general obligation bond, or let's backtrack. That amount is comprised of the Central Island Drainage Project, which is about give or take 30 million, plus the community center. When it comes to community center, and that's why I put it there as part of my discussion items, is that I think we need to take a step back take a look at some of the examples that staff had put in there. Because what I see from there is that you see, for instance, Doral. Doral's community center and their park, because they have a lot of acreage. is about $150 million. Then you take a look at NMB, what they're doing at Washington Park, it's $30, $36 million. So I think that all of us as a body need to kind of sit down, and there'll be a good time during that workshop that you want to do. to take a look and probably dive deeper into that, talk to staff, and then all of us work together and see perhaps if we could come up with another price tag or different options as well. I do not want to see this community center disappear. I think this is something that is needed. And I think there's a consensus here in the dais among the commissioners that we do need a community center. I just think that we need to work through it and take a deeper look at how we could get it done, what's the best way, what we want in that community center. Because at one point, I think we talked about simulation rooms, digital simulation rooms, and different things. So obviously, that price tag, if we put state of the art, it's going to go up. And I think the best approach is to take a look at, for instance, what NMB is doing, see something that is going to suffice the community here. Maybe we could upgrade a little bit. I don't know. But I think we need to have another discussion. you know, that is productive so this doesn't become a political point, and then we could best serve the community and see how we could get this done. Because I do feel, and I know from, you know, feedback that we receive from the residents of the community, we do need a community center. We have beautiful parks. But we don't have a central community center where we could host parties. We have a pool. We have soccer fields. We have whatever, squash, your favorite pickleball, Jerry. So whatever. So I think we need to reconvene. and have a productive conversation or conversations about this matter. And I don't think, I mean, it's a budget. So, you know, it's like when you budget for your family on a yearly basis, you don't spend at all. Hopefully, you know, you spend less. Sometimes you spend more. But, you know, it's a budget. So we, as a city, have always spent less. I'm not comfortable with us bonding out that much money either. So that's why I want to have a budget. productive conversation about it.

OK. Vice Mayor?

Well, my only comment is that whatever is decided, it goes through us. So if we wanted the bond, it would go through us. Even if it were presented and we don't want it, then we take it off. It's not the city manager's office that's trying to suck up all the money. They recommend, and we accept or reject. So it's on us. It's not the way it's been presented in certain chats that it's the office that's trying to push money in or out of the budget. It's up to us, and that's why the conversations are useful.

OK. Because we don't normally have so many people in the audience, and I really appreciate that you all stayed, I just want to clarify and add to what the vice mayor was saying. When we approve the budget, we approve the budget wholly. And then those items are throughout the year brought back to us. So if anything changes, we can vote things down or up, or we've amended the budget, added things, taken things away. So it's not, like Commissioner Stevenson said, it's fluid. I want to be very cognizant of the time, so I want to give Commissioner Joseph some time if you have some comments.

No, I'm fine.

Thank you.

All right.

Mr. City Manager, if I can please, and again, I know that we've talked about this before, but if I can get additional clarification on what normally happens and why we have the schedule that we do from now until the budget meeting and how are those dates determined?

The dates are determined by law and code and requirement in terms of our deadlines for the budget. So what we have done is started building everything back basically in February with what your philosophically, some of the things you're talking about now, what you wanted, what we could do, what we couldn't do to try to prioritize that. And then as we go throughout the year, we get little bits and pieces of information regarding our potential property tax assessment, which lets us know how much money we may or may not have to offset some of our expenses. So the budget is fluid. It's constantly moving. We're bringing people. We're adding, for example, police officers. That offsets our insurances. And all those costs, including especially construction, are constantly going up. So we're adjusting the budget until eventually we have our meetings with you, try to determine what your priorities are, then have a workshop with you. to really narrow the focus, which is what we've done. And that's how we ended up with eliminating the potential bond. But along with the elimination of the bond, also we're eliminating the work that was associated with the bond, which is the potential new construction at PCP. The last piece of that puzzle is the setting of our tentative millage rate, which you've set and we've lowered. So based on that, we're limited. Each one of you could have great ideas that you want to do for the community, but we also have to be mindful of two key things. One is the reduction in the millage, which we've essentially set, and then two, the potential for the loss of property tax revenue depending upon what happens in November. So based on that, we can work backwards from that and fill out the details of where we are in the budget. Because some of the costs are set. For example, our personnel cost, those different things, vehicles that we may or may not purchase, equipment for a police department, uniforms. Those are all things that we get built into the budget each year. So based upon those factors and all of our meetings, we now have a very good framework or the budget. So when we have the, if you direct that we have this workshop, some of the things that you may want to add, we're not going to be able to do that unless we take away from somewhere else in the budget. For example, if you want to cut services or special events, there's going to have to be an offset for us to add anything new. So I think based on that, our basic framework and ideology,

the budget is set okay thank you go ahead yes so I would like to say that last year I through negotiations got the millage rate down to 1.7 afterwards it was written in memos and agendas and wherever that I had caused a calamity within the city regarding the budget, which never came to fruition. And now we happen to be lowering the military even less. And no one is talking about what a disaster it is. So I just think that's quite ludicrous.

OK, thank you.

Commissioner Susan? Yeah, I'm going to bring the 4F, because it's part of the same discussion. It's the Office of the Inspector General. That was my number one priority for the budget.

Wait, wait, wait. I don't want to jump to the next item.

Do we finish this one?

No, if we finish, then we'll go to the next item, which is 4D.

I'll just chime in since Jerry is clearly talking about me. I still disagree. I think it was short-sighted to do it last year. I think it's short-sighted to do it this year, lowering the millage, given last year was the possibility, and this year is the real possible. It's even more possible because This amendment is going to be on the ballot. So lowering the millage when we're looking at possibly losing all this possible revenue if this amendment goes through, I frankly don't understand it. So it was a bad idea last year. It's a bad idea this year, in my humble opinion. Obviously, you guys disagree.

Didn't you vote for it twice?

Thank you. All right. No? All right. Next item, 4D.

Or D is a C, I'm sorry. C, sorry. OK. Or C is a discussion by Commissioner Syveson regarding Gateway Center rentals.

OK. OK. And this one is going to start also with a question. So what is it that it is? I heard rumors that something's going to be changing with the way we are managing the rentals for Gateway. So is anything that you guys can share with us right now?

Mr. City Manager, is there a change to the Gateway rental policy?

We don't have any proposed changes right now.

Okay. Okay. So I'll continue. So how we got to the system that we have right now? In 2022, there was a competitive bidding and only one person or one company was the bidder. And then we gave them a contract to basically manage the events in Gateway Park. Just as a... For reference, that part, overall, it costs around $40 million. And we give the control of the events to a private company. So that private company, we did a contract with them in 2022. We did a renewal, I'm sorry, an amendment, first amendment we signed in 2024. In 2024, the contract changed. And now, it was for two years. In August of this year, it's going to expire. But when we renewed the amendment in 2024, something changed. And now the city manager is the only one who decides if he's going to renew or not, meaning he's not coming to us for a vote. So knowing that the contract is going to be expiring this month, and that we don't have any plan to do or what to do with it. So now you guys know to do it. I heard very bad comments about the process. We use taxpayer money, over $40 million to build it. And then we gave it to a private contractor to make money out of it. So right now, if anybody wants to rent it, they set the price off. They have exclusive. use of giving the food, the flowers, entertainment, et cetera. If the person who wants to rent it doesn't want to do it with them, then they have to pay a fee for that. Right now, when this contract came to us, For the amendment, it was said that they have over 447 events in two years, and it had a revenue of over $115,000. So right now, I'm going to request that reconciliation, because I like to read the budgets. I studied the budgets. I was not able to put that $150,000 figure together. So I request that reconciliation for the next meeting. Also, a list of all the events that had happened since 2022 through the rental company, a confirmation if the city manager is going to be renewing that contract without coming to us for a vote, and which is a written policy governing Which is a written policy governing who may use this space for free and what criteria? Because we do have a criteria right now for donations and sponsorships. However, certain events have happened in there that have never come to us for a vote either. So either the criteria exists and we're not using it, or it doesn't exist. So I'm putting those four things as a request. I'm going to write them down. Mauricio, I'm going to send it to you to make it easier, even though it's being recorded. So that's about it.

All right. Either the deputy manager or the manager, if you can please clarify, just top line, how this scheme is set up. What portion do we get versus? the contractor?

So there is a rental, there's a line item in the invoice for the rental of the facility and we get 70% of that and they get 30% of that. It used to be $2,400. We did reduce it because we were hearing that it was too much from the public and there was discussion about trying to get more rentals. So we gave a 50% additional discount to any resident using it for a personal event, like a birthday party or a wedding or something like that.

So approximately, I know you don't have it in front of you, but off the top of your head, how much is the rental for a resident? So the room, it all depends. Well, the ballpark for the room.

So I have two examples from this year, the most recent and the first. One of them was only, oops. So one was a total of $5,938.34. All the way to someone else had a bigger, grander event that totaled $40,139.87. And that includes everything.

That's the total.

It includes everything.

And we got 70% of that, or we get 70% of the rental of the space?

We get 70% of the rental of the space.

OK. So the cost for the food, the third party gets 100%.

Right. So the third party manages the entire thing. So what color tablecloths you want, how you want the room set up. There's a lot of back and forth that they do. It's an event planner, essentially. Right. So it's not just a caterer. It's an event planner.

Right. And look, when I was first elected, I brought this up to you because I did not like this contract at all. very similar reasons as Commissioner Stevenson said, because I thought that we could probably do a better job. And it's sort of been something that I've also wanted to bring up. Again, ballpark. How much would it cost us if we have someone like that on staff?

I mean, you're talking about a position. So I put it in ballpark that right now because I'd have to see what the going rate is for an event planner. And then there's benefits and finding office space for them and everything else that goes with that.

OK. And do you know off the top of your head how much we make off of that space? Or have made? I do not. OK. All right, so I think we can get that information based on the request from Commissioner Stubison. Did you want to add something, Commissioner Joseph?

No.

Anyone else? Yeah.

Oh, anybody else? No. No? Go ahead. OK, so like I said, the contractor keeps 100% of the catering, the flowers, the decor, the entertainment of every event. So as an example, and probably it will be good if you guys can share those examples with us with detail. So the maximum that they can charge, if it's not a resident, if I'm not mistaken, is $4,800. I believe it's the maximum that they can. So of a $40,000 contract, if somebody pays $5,000, then the private company is getting over $35,000 from that simple contract. We have over 300 employees in the city, and we have continuously are making events, very large, some are smaller like the one that we just have outside. So we do have a lot of talent that it is able and capable of doing this. So if we need to hire, I think it's going to be more lucrative for the city to get somebody and keep it in-house. And then, of course, outsource whoever is making their party the flowers that they want to use and the food. And now having built a $40-something million public ballroom and park to then give somebody else to make money out of it.

If I can just clarify. For example, of that $25,300 is just the catering. It was for 115 people. That's food. It was open bar. It's wine service at the table. They're hard costs. Correct. We're never going to get anything close to $40,000. We will have an employee doing a whole lot of work for us still to get approximately the same thing because we still have to pay the flower person. You know, it's a pass-through. And then I don't even know. I'd have to talk to procurement about, you know, how do I even procure flowers? Do I have to go get three quotes because I'm using a city, you know, cutting a city check? So there's a lot of things we would have to put into this.

So I have a question. The $40,000, that's revenue. That's not profit, right?

No, that's the cost of the event.

That's the cost of the event, yeah. The price that, who paid? The person that threw the party that wanted to, okay. So what is the profit to the event planner? Okay, so don't say that they made $40,000. That is revenue. That is sales.

Yeah, we don't know what the net is.

That's what I'm trying to say. So they need to, that person that is the event planner will have to pay for the food. So I just want to clarify that point because the way you presented that, you said they made $40,000. They charged $40,000 and then they have to pay for expenses. So I just want that to be clear so people don't get...

confused yeah right and some of those expenses again for the purpose of the public is the there's a requirement to clean the the restroom so that's a salary there's a requirement to have uh off-duty police officers again those are not those are hard costs um that we would not necessarily or not necessarily we would definitely not make any money off of okay uh vice mayor did you wanna all right uh mr city manager

Yes, Mayor. In light of the discussion, is it the intention of the commission that you want it? We had competitively bid it before. That's how we ended up where we are with extensions. So right now we're in a time period where we could put it out to bid or look at other options. Other options of hiring staff would also affect our budget. So we need to be considerate.

Who is the company we have now? Who owns the bid right now?

The name of the company is Style Catering.

I don't know them. From what I've seen, I've been to one or two of the events. I look like they did a good job.

I'm not opposed to bidding it out. It's always a good idea. And it could end up being them again. But everyone else, what is your opinion?

Are we happy with the current provider?

Any complaints?

We are happy with them. We are. Yes.

I know that the complaints that I've heard were generally people felt that they should get it for free. They felt like, well, why do we even have to pay for the space? And that has been the biggest complaint. Because to Commissioner Lama's point, the food, those things are not profit. And I don't think we're in a position to allow anyone to use it for free. Because even at the heavily discounted resident cost, so any damage, meaning like the carpet or wear and tear, I mean, that's included in that cost, correct?

They have to leave a deposit. And if there's extensive damage, they don't get their deposit returned. Right.

But the cost is not just we like to charge people. No, no, no, no.

Running electricity, water, paper products in the restroom. Right. And the wear and tear on the property.

Okay. Yeah.

And also this provider has to carry liability insurance and all of that, right? Yes.

But whoever rents it, they have to get an insurance of a million on their name, in our name as well. So the insurance, anyway, whoever's going to rent it has to have paid for the insurance. So we had the same company since 2022. And this company was the only bidder. So we never had like a real competition, you know? You guys know it's very uncomfortable when we are not bidding and just giving the contracts to whoever we feel familiar with. So I would like to see options of doing it in-house and then put that revenue back to the people, especially how we're talking about property taxes. So we need revenue sources. So this could be a very good revenue source.

Or it could be a loser.

If it's managed correctly. And then also we can then discuss if that's the path we want to go or if we want to beat this and put it out there and see what other options we're going to have with somebody else.

All right. I need to know, because everyone's kind of saying different things. Are we at status quo? Are we looking at bidding it out?

What is your opinion? I think that if it's at the point where it can, because it did go out to bid, but they were the only ones. So if we're at that point where it can go out to bid, that's fine. As I understand it, this is a revenue source. where with a zero work. They're basically doing all the work and we get a percentage. So that's easy money and limited liability. So I think that's a good setup. And when you work on that percentage, If people are using it, great. Then we're making money. And if people are not using it, we're not losing money. But if you hire somebody for that purpose and suddenly nobody's having events, then you're stuck with this position. So I like the setup. We only had the one company really qualify the last time. So I think the way to go is to protect against possible loss by keeping the percentage situation. But seeing if we can get a competitive process.

Commissioner Lama?

Yeah, we could go out to bid. Regarding hiring someone, I mean, we'll have to run a P&L, but I'm not sure if that's the best way, to be honest with you. But then again, we'll have to run a P&L. We don't know what profit this current vendor is making from having you know, the management of that space. And we'll have to do some research to see if something viable or even worthwhile because we can make some profit. But I don't know if that's where some of our efforts should be focused on, especially now that November is coming up. We don't know what's going to happen with the property tax bill. So there's other things that we need to kind of prioritize, I think.

As a reference as well, to run Gateway, it costs us around $1.2 million a year, around. So we can call it like we are making actually profit or revenue out of it. We're not. We're losing. We're losing bad right now. So clearly, the way we are doing it right now, and when I say run it, run it overall for the numbers that I got from the budget. So overall, to run that building is around $1.2 million a year. Is that accurate, Mr. City Manager? That sounds a little high.

I'd have to check. I'm not sure.

Can we get clarification on that number, please? Yes.

So we need to make sure that we get closer to at least make some revenue out of the rooms that we have there. Not only the big room and other rooms. We run a lot of good senior programs there.

And those are subsidized. So you got to remember a lot of the majority of those programs are subsidized. We don't know what's going to happen in November. So that's my point.

It might as well. We need to be a little bit more creative using the resources that we have right now to try to make a little bit more money than the one we're making right now. And like I said, we have a very, very good talent pool of employees running events continuously. So to the point that next year we are apparently planning to spend around half a million dollars only for the city anniversary. So I do believe we can take care of it. It might not happen.

Exactly. We might not. Okay. But I'm actually, from this discussion, I'm leaning very much towards keeping a third party because you're right. It's definitely, we're not making any profit. It's revenue to go towards paying for the light and and the landscaping, everything else. So do we have consensus to bid this out?

Yes. Yes.

I'm in favor of bidding it out, but to keep it with a third party.

All right. All right. So city manager, if you have consensus to bid it out.

Yes, just if I could add one thing. Everything that you've discussed today is good deductive reasoning. And for that reason, I was planning on extending the contract because it does expire in the end of August. And then now we can also put it out to bid. If I don't extend it, the contract expires in August and there wouldn't be any rentals until it's bid out, which could take us a couple of months. There is a termination clause in the extension. So it could be flexible in terms of how long.

What is the termination clause?

Well, you're going to have to terminate for convenience. You don't really have full cause. So you can terminate for convenience. I'd have to look at the actual signed agreement, but my understanding is that the expiration was at the beginning of August, not the end of August.

So we have already expired. That was my first question, actually.

I just have my copy. I don't have the signed copy. So it's not always exactly the same. Sometimes things change after I've drafted it. So I'll have to see the actual signed contract.

I know that there is an event being planned in November. because someone contacted me regarding that. And they're already in conversations with the third party.

To the question, though, yes, you have a termination for convenience clause in building most of your contracts, including this one. And we just have to basically let them know at that point. And certainly, any money is their own. They're paid. Or in this case, not really. It would be us that would be owed money, potentially. And you can go out to bid.

What I'm saying is that whatever events they're already in the process of planning,

Correct, yes. So you need to be honored. Yes, you're going to have to look at that as well, because you don't want to get into situations where a third party, not them, but a third party that's actually engaged the facility as well. Let's say it's a wedding. You don't want to ruin somebody's wedding, right? So you have to be cognizant of that.

It's a doctor summit. Uh-huh. OK.

The timing is going to be an issue.

All right, so Mr. City Manager, or actually the attorney, if we wanted to extend the contract while we put it out to bid, Is that something that's possible?

It is if it takes two to tango.

Are we OK to keep going? We're at 30 minutes?

Another 10 minutes.

Oh, we have another 10 minutes. OK, go ahead.

It takes two to tango. So they would have to agree to. Right now, you have one-year renewals built into your contract. So if we go to them and say, listen, you can rebid on this if you want, and we'll just extend it for three months, four months, whatever, they would have to agree to that.

Right. Well, obviously they would have to agree to it, but there's nothing that prevents us from doing it or locks us into another year.

No, unless it's already been renewed for a year, but even then that could be negotiated. I just don't have the specifics on the contract.

If I may, I do. Please. Termination for convenience, it terminates immediately. And then anything that they already have a contract for, they get to continue with that, however far out in advance it is. So even if they have a contract for something in January, they would still have the ability to finish that one project.

So no one's left in the lurch.

But then they cannot hire anymore.

Okay, and so how long, and again, I wasn't prepared for this conversation, so I'm sure you weren't, but how long would it take to procure someone new? Let's say we wanted to go with someone new. It would be at least three months, correct?

Yes, at least three months, minimum.

All right, so do we have consensus to ask them?

Well, if you have people.

Well, assuming, yes.

We've had that before where no one steps up.

Correct. Yeah, but then you have them in place.

Unless they get perturbed and say, you know what, I'll finish my contracts and goodbye.

Well, they can't walk away.

Well, their contract is terminated.

Right. Well, if it's terminated. All right. So three months? Sure. Okay.

Just want to caution, three months puts you in a month that does not have a commission meeting. Four months. So it really might be January.

time we bring it to you for that's perfect four months all right let's see if that's possible if they agree to that okay all right next item the next item is 4d discussion by commissioner citizen regarding the elimination of a beach the beach event requirements okay

And we don't have no public speakers, right? We didn't have any, no. OK, perfect. So every resident of the city pays for the beach. But if you live west of Collins and you want to have a birthday on the sand or whatever other kind of party, the city published a document titled the Public Beach Park Events Permit Application. Under the word public, it says, and I'm quoting, all individuals seeking a special event permit must contract with an offland property owner, and special event permits are not issued directly to individuals. So we created a public speech application and told the public they cannot apply. And this is just a form. In our code, chapter 233 says you need a permit for an event, but section 2331 make an exception. It does not preclude a condominium association from hosting regular events for its unit owners. So the association on the east side is exempted, and the individual on the west side is required to find one to sponsor their party. So I have a question for our city attorney right now. What is an open land property owner defined? Because I could not find the definition in our code. It only live in the code compliance form. And we spoke about this in the past. Like something we cannot define, how can we enforce?

Well, I respond. You got my responses to your memo?

Yeah, but I wanted to.

OK. So not every term in a statute ordinance or anything else needs to be defined. if it's self-explanatory. So an upland property owner is obviously an owner that is up land from where a body of water is. Same thing with a submerged landowner. You own land that is submerged. So not every term has to be defined within a statute or ordinance. You couldn't write laws in that case because every term would have to be defined.

And in chapter What is it?

Chapter 162, they make reference to upland property. Oh, 161, I'm sorry. In Florida statutes, they refer to that term, and they don't define it as well. So it's one of those self-explanatory terms.

OK. OK, so this is something that we can easily fix. to allowing the public and anybody, any resident or whatever terms we want to use, owners or so, of the city of Sunny Isles Beach to be able to apply to have events on the beach. I did receive, and I believe everybody else received, an email from one of the, I'm looking for it, from the attorney from Aquilina requesting not to change the status quo because they consider the beach an extension of their home and they don't want to see, I'm paraphrasing because I cannot find the email right now. Like I said, this is something that, according to the staff, was decided by the previous commission. So that is something that we can change and make sure that anybody in Sunny Isles that wants to make an event on the beach can apply for it.

OK. So for clarification before I take comments from the commission, right now, if you want to go and have a birthday party and set up a table and a tent on the beach, do you have to get a permit for that?

It depends.

On the weekends, we see people come on the beach, and they have boom boxes, and they put out a whole spread. Are they getting permits for that?

So let me preface by the fact that in looking at all this, your ordinance is in dire need of help.

OK.

It's vague in certain circumstances. To the commissioner's point, I think If you're going to have, and it depends, it does depend on the event, right? So if you have an event where you're going to have 25 of your relatives and you're going to have an event on the beach, you don't need utilities, you don't need water, you don't need electricity.

You're just dragging it all up yourself.

The upland property owner has nothing to do with that. Because as I explained in my responses, and I don't know if you've read them, and this goes back to 1989 with the beachward nourishment, we can regulate the beach, but It's the beaches across the state of Florida that's been litigated for years. It's a balance of interests, right? You have the upland property owners that have In this case, more importantly, literal rights, L-I-T-T-O-R-A-L, which is basically their right to the shore to enjoy the beach. But that beach, because of the re-enrichment back in 1989, is really the state's held in trust for the people of Florida, that's constitutionally, up to the erosion control line, which is pretty high here in the Sunny Isles. So it's a balancing of interest. The public has a right to it, and the property owners also have a right to it. So they have to share. So certainly, if you're going to have an event that is going to require power, water, whatever else, and there's none there, they're going to have to cooperate with somebody up front. They're going to be able to tap in. So in a case like that, you would want to ensure, because you can't have generators on the beach and things But unless that's really a requirement, unless, again, you have a huge event like a Tutuga music festival where you're going to severely interfere with the literal rights of the upland property owners, you may still need some kind of agreement there. So if you have this huge monstrosity built temporary tent or stage set up before, in front of somebody's property, there may be issues there, too. But that doesn't really happen here.

So for clarification, because I've had residents ask me, how do I get a permit? And I want to make sure I gave them the right information. So people that wanted to bring chairs and wanted to have poetry readings or they wanted to have some yoga. I guess yoga, and no electricity. They told me, we want to put out candles that are on battery. And I asked them, I said, are you going to have music? And they said, yes. I said, well, as long as you're not putting up a stage and you're not putting anything up that is preventing people from around to enter that area, you probably don't need a permit. So outside of that.

Right. And that's the problem with your ordinance, is the way it's written, it's very vague.

Right. Because I have a question before you continue, please.

The Code Compliance Manager in the last few months has been working on revamping the entire ordinance. And I've helped him a little bit just in looking at it, but he's done the bulk of the work. And we're in the process of doing that because there needs to be more of a definition of when that, to your question, is triggered. When is it an event and when is it not an event? And there's no way you can define every scenario. It really is on a case-by-case basis, but we could do a better job in the ordinance. There's some events that you can't possibly list every potential trigger that could create it, but you can create enough of a general trigger, again, to at least give people notice as to when they would and when they would not. The whole, what we have on the website and all that with regards to you have to have the contract in all circumstances, I think is problematic to the commissioner's point. Not certainly for instances where those utilities are going to be used, because you have no, except for Sampson Park. We don't have utilities. Exactly, right. So there's no doubt that we can regulate that. It's just that we need to do a better job on our ordinance.

Okay, go ahead, Commissioner Sousa.

In about the 161 that you were referring to, it says the title seawater erosion control line invests in the state. like we know, held in trust for all the people. Condoms on upland to the ECL, to the erosion control line. The white re-nourished beach is sovereign public land. They hold riparian rights, access, view, bathing, not tidal to the sand, and not a veto over a permit. Right now, they are the ones deciding who even gets to apply, because you have to go to the building and beg them to be the ones to put in the application for you, because nobody can apply. Only the buildings can apply.

That's where some of the language needs to change.

Exactly. But that's what 161 says. So the municipalities are the ones who have to enforce. We are giving here the power to a private condominium deciding who can and cannot make an event. And then remember that we do have some kind of a precedent. Because right now, we charge $150 a year for these condos to apply to preset and put those chairs on the beach. I'm going to repeat in case that people don't get that number. $150 a year to allow them to get all the spaces that they get that is supposed to be in the website, because I continue getting people asking. We asked this long time ago to be able to put those maps in the city website. These condos pay $150 a year to preset their chairs, but nobody can even ask to make an event on the beach. Like I said, their upland property rights don't go other than their ocean control line. And we have flooding kind of here in the beach as well. So that ocean control line is basically at the end of their own buildings. I actually got really good lawyers reviewing this, and they gave me all these notes.

I will take that as an insult. No, no, no.

You're saying the same thing.

But the literal rights, though, they do have some rights past the erosion control line. With the riparian rights and the literal rights, not the riparian rights, but the literal rights, they do have right access to the shore that goes above and beyond the erosion control line. So it's not that they have no rights there.

No, no, no. That's not the reading of the 161. And I'm saying that you are in the same level that what they are saying. So to your point, and their point is the same.

The only thing they really control full out is what's on the survey of their property, which may include a little bit of sand, but typically you have to go survey by survey. They control that. But otherwise, it's that balancing. And again, our ordinance and our website, to the extent that it says you have to, in all circumstances, is problematic. So it's in the process of being fixed. It just would just not be.

OK, if it's going to be fixed, that's all I'm asking for. Because like I said, we cannot have a public application where the public cannot apply. That doesn't make any sense. So the people has to be able to go and request. And then we are the one who say yes or no. By giving that better power to a private entity, I don't think it's intentional of the law either.

So if somebody wants to have a party at Samson, who do they apply to?

That's in the park, you mean?

No, on the beach.

On the beach? It still would go through, Susan, I don't know, I guess it would go through.

Who does that go through?

Go through code, right?

We don't really, I've never had anybody ask.

But let's say, so to Commissioner Simpson's point, so she's saying that nobody can apply privately. But we have three, right, three places on the beach that technically those are, so we have Pier Park, we have Ellen Wynn, and we have Samson. So if somebody says, I don't want to work with whatever, whatever building, Sam's Point, I want to do it at Samson, where we do have electricity, we do have water, would they apply to us?

Yes.

They cannot apply. No, no, no. That's not true. Hold on a second. Please let one person at a time.

All applications have to come through. For a special event, private or public, all have to come through you.

What I meant is who is considered the upland owner?

We would be, but you're not set up to necessarily give away or you're not set up to just give away power or water or things of that sort. So there would have to be arrangements made. So if somebody needs power and they're getting it from Stanton Park,

you know we'd have to set up something where they'd be it would be a rental similar to other parks right okay if may i i asked this specific question in march and the answer was by our deputy city manager, that it was a decision made by a previous administration that we are not here, apparently, because I never get clarification of which administration, that Sansom Park was not part of the rental parks PROGRAM. SO RIGHT NOW I WANT REALLY SO RIGHT NOW I WANT REALLY CLARIFICATION BECAUSE WHAT IS CLARIFICATION BECAUSE WHAT IS BEING SAID RIGHT NOW IS NOT BEING SAID RIGHT NOW IS NOT THE SAME AS WHAT WAS SAID IN THE SAME AS WHAT WAS SAID IN MARCH. MARCH. IN MARCH THEY TOLD US PEOPLE IN MARCH THEY TOLD US PEOPLE CANNOT APPLY. CANNOT APPLY. I'M NOT THE PARK. I'M NOT THE PARK.

I'M TALKING ABOUT THE BEACH.

I'M TALKING ABOUT THE BEACH. THAT'S WHAT I'M SAYING. THAT'S WHAT I'M SAYING.

WHAT THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT WHAT THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT BEFORE AND CORRECT ME IF I'M

No, it was the beach. It was the same discussion that we had in March. One second.

So since we opened, if you wanted to have a birthday party in the park, like at the pavilion in a table, you can reach out. We do let you. And then we have certain criteria, no taping things so you don't damage the park. The beach, a past commission, which this commission has every right to change, had requested that we not put Sampson Oceanfront Park in the rental program for the reason of it was the only oceanfront park for all of Winston Towers, the majority of the people who walk across the street. That was their request, and we have followed that. This commission has every right to change that.

So let me just play a scenario. So if somebody wanted to have an event, let's say like yoga, every week, every month, and they rented it. And we could do rent Samson Park. And they rented it every last Friday of the month. Would that mean that that would prevent the people from Winston Towers from using that area of the beach?

Essentially, yes. We'd have to section off an area for them. And as I said, a past commission wanted it to be oceanfront property for anybody at any time without restriction. Which includes the pier. The peer?

I'm asking, was the peer included in that exemption? No, the peer was not.

But I will tell you this conversation was before we rebuilt the peer. It goes back that long. And Ellen Wynne? Ellen Wynne was never even a topic of discussion.

Okay, so, I mean, obviously there's a lot of questions here, and since you are revising the code, I think it's a good conversation to have.

Yeah, we'd have to look into the actual ability to rent the beach itself as a city. I mean, that just came up now, but yeah, no, we're trying to...

Look, I've seen many teenagers at the end of the school year set up parties on the beach. And they do what they do. And if they do it wrong, we kick them out. But people are using the electricity there to charge their phones or whatever it is. They listen to music. So it is a public service. It is a public park. It is being used. It's not being limited.

I think to your point, Commissioner Susan, you're talking specifically about the yoga events that were... No, I'm just talking about anybody, every resident of Sunny Isles to be able to apply to have an event on the beach. It's very simple. Right now, we don't have that. And whenever you're going to do an event, whenever you're going to do it, if you're going to rent Pelican Park on the first floor, guess what? So... somebody is not going to be able to use that space when we are renting. So the same thing applies for every single rental. So to the example that, oh, yeah, they're going to be taking a portion of the sand to do the yoga event or whatever event, Clearly, if you have an event, it's because you need the space to do it. So the point here is that the process is wrong. It was decided a long time ago. It doesn't apply anymore. And probably when that decision was made, it should have never been made that way either. And it's just so disingenuous to put public event application when you can even apply. So we don't even know the number of people wishing to apply. To say that nobody has applied, duh, They can't. It's impossible to apply. So I don't even know what kind of discussion are we having here right now. The process is wrong, and it needs to be fixed. And I don't want to repeat the things that have been told to me, but it's apparently that they don't want certain type of people making events on our beach, because it's an exclusive beach. So right now, the way it seems is that the beach is for the rich. So to make an event, you have to live on the beach. And I don't think that's the kind of commission that we want to be or the kind of city that we are.

I don't think anyone on this commission has said that. No, no, no. I didn't say anyone here on the commission.

I live on the west side, for the record.

And certainly we want everyone to be able to enjoy the beach. I think that the challenge is specifically for an organized event that requires water and electricity and the right of way to get to that area. So I think the solution is the three areas of the city that we have control over. Sampson is always going to be a challenge because unlike Pelican first floor, you know, That beach is used by Winston-Towers every single morning, from morning to way past when it's supposed to be closed. So it's not something that we can just say, OK, you'll just have to deal with it, unless you want to deal with the wrath of Winston-Towers.

But it's not like you have an event every day either.

Yes.

So if they don't need power, they don't need anything like that. They don't have to be at where the city designates. They could be anywhere.

Anywhere, right. No, no, no, right.

So it's only if they- Yoga people. The yoga people- move out when they're making their own yoga things. I receive those, even pictures all the time. They try to do their yoga, and then they tell them that they don't have a permit to be doing yoga.

There's different.

You'll go next.

After the attorney, you'll go next.

Years ago, I think this was three years ago that we dealt with it. There is a component with the yoga, though, to the extent, at least as it was back three years ago when it was first brought to my attention, but I don't know if that's changed. There's also a different component if somebody's conducting their business on the beach.

So charging. Right.

So it's a little different than just having an event. It's if you're charging also the public, you're now conducting business on the beach. So there's an added component there. I'm not saying that's the case here, but I do remember a few years ago that was one of the issues.

RIGHT. AND I HAVE ACTUALLY ALSO HAD PEOPLE ASK ME SAYING THAT THEY WANT TO HAVE AN EVENT AND THEY WANT TO CHARGE. AND I SAID DO NOT DO THAT. YOU NEED A PERMIT FOR SOMETHING LIKE THAT. BUT COMMISSIONER LAMA YOU WANTED TO SPEAK.

SO I THINK WHEN IT COMES TO SOMETHING LIKE THIS, THE CITY SHOULD BE THE MANAGING AND APPROVING ENTITY FOR THESE TYPES OF APPLICATIONS. I understand that the way it's set up right now, you know, the building that's on the sand would have to be involved in that process, right?

Only if you're going to use their resources. Otherwise, the beach isn't theirs.

Well, obviously, if you're going to use, exactly. So, but what I like to, basically what I want is for everybody to have the same access and be able to, you know, fill out the same application. Now, talking about the other side of the coin, I have received complaints from time to time where you have maybe 50 people in a yoga class, and they're basically taking up the entire beach. I'M NOT SAYING THAT IT SHOULDN'T HAPPEN, BUT IT WAS DONE WITHOUT THE CITY'S KNOWLEDGE. THEY DID NOT COME TO THE CITY FOR AN APPLICATION. SO GOING BACK TO MY POINT, THE CITY SHOULD BE THE ONLY ENTITY MANAGING AND APPROVING THIS. NOW, IF SOMEBODY WANTS TO HAVE SPEAKERS AND WANTS TO HAVE ELECTRICITY, YOU KNOW, THERE SHOULD BE A PROCESS IN PLACE OR PART OF THE SAME PROCESS WHERE THEY DO OBVIOUSLY WILL NEED TO TALK TO THAT BUILDING. BUT AT THE END OF THE DAY, IT

Yes, absolutely. I'm not approving this. That's the impetus behind. So every city I know of has a special event permit sort of process, especially coastal cities. And the crux of it is really to control. It really is intended to regulate and ensure the public health welfare, and safety when you're dealing with events that are going to impact a certain area or impact the public. So if you're going to have a massive event, where you're going to be inviting the public and things of that sort. Obviously, that has an impact not only on traffic. It has an impact on the location you're going to be at. There's all these things that the city. There's a public safety component, yeah. So as a regulatory body, you're ensuring that that is done correctly. Correct. So that it has the least impact on your constituents. And that's what really the intent is.

And that's what you try to balance.

And beaches are unique because there's a balancing of interests there. if you're strictly going to have a special event on private property or special event on public property.

all right um go ahead no go ahead no i just i i just wanted to clarify something um even a oceanside property owner if they're having an event on the beach they still need a permit through us as well yeah yeah and exactly so but but i just want the process to be modified so you know everybody can apply and it's not dependent on that building on the east side now that building be in the sovereign building, they could say, I don't want to give you my electricity. I mean, what happens in that instance?

They would have to find a location. If they need electric and water and restrooms, they'd have to find a location that was conducive to that.

Yeah. OK. Yeah.

So as you're revamping, the ordinance, I think there's two things that we need to think about. One of them is the intended length of the event. Because if it's a birthday party that's for an hour or two, and you show up with some pizza, and you go home. I don't think you need a permit for that. But if it's going to be longer where you're more likely to need a bathroom or other things, then you would need a permit. And then the other thing is the expectation of privacy. If I'm with a bunch of kids with pizza on the beach, I don't have an expectation of privacy. And if somebody comes and sets their towel there, then it is what it is, then I can move or I can just welcome them to the party. So where there is an expectation of privacy, then the a permit would be required even if they don't want, even if it's short because they want that exclusive use of whatever that is. But I also put myself in the shoes of somebody living on the beach. I would not want there to always be an event, you know, even if it's not speakers, but if you just have people can be loud even without speakers. And I think we have to also be cognizant of that, not being disruptive to a particular building, right? Maybe everybody wants to be in front of Aquilina because then you become disruptive to their quality of life and suddenly everybody's running in on the weekends using their bathrooms or whatever. So I would just, those are just my two cents to consider the length of the, how long they intend the event to be, and that expectation of privacy. If there's no expectation of privacy, I don't see why a permit would be needed, because then that's the exclusivity of it. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, there's really no expectation of privacy.

Well, I guess I'm thinking the exclusive use.

No, but there's no exclusive use on the beach.

But then what's the point of the permit?

No, it's not exclusive. So if you're having a special event on the beach, and you set up a little tent, and you have 50 of your family members, it's a big family reunion, whatever, a member of the public can walk right through there. I can't prevent you. You're not going to have police officers saying that you can't come on this square piece of sand. You're sharing the beach. You're going to be set up. Most people, I presume, are not going to want to crash your party. But you, as a city, can't come in and say, no, for the next five hours, yes, you can set up here and have your party with all the safeguards that we ensure are in place based on our ordinance. But you can't exclude the public, just like right now with the chairs. that are pre-staged, you can't prevent a member of the public to take their chair, pluck it right down there, and sit right next to those pre-set chairs. It's everyone's beach.

OK. So I want to be careful that we're not over-regulating something, because I do agree to Commissioner Stevenson's point that there was those yoga people that were being asked to move. And I think that was because there was not clarification on our ordinance but on the other hand I also don't want to be in a situation where we're gonna have a wedding on the beach every single you know weekend from outside the city because we can't just limit it to residents it has to be everyone it's it's in trust for the people right exactly so you know right now what would stop me and And I'm assuming it's because I would put up chairs and stack chairs or whatever. Or maybe I could. If I had a 50-person wedding, would I put 50 chairs out on the beach now without a permit?

Without a permit?

No.

No, because that's going to be, again, it's the level of, and it's hard to define in a perfect set of words that's going to apply to everything. But that's an impactful event. 50 seats on the, for a special event, you're going to put an archway. Presumably, you're going to have a speaker, possibly, so somebody can hear. You're going to have to, you know, you want to ensure there's garbage receptacles. You want to make sure that you know who they are, because if there is damage to the beach, if there is damage to anything, They litter or whatever else. That's part of the protection of the public.

Right now, regarding that, there's nothing in writing, correct? There's nothing in writing right now regarding what you're speaking of.

There is in your application. There's some of the things on the questions we ask to make sure that it is in the application.

Yeah, but it's variable. Unless you have something in writing, what you're discussing now, it's variable. And people, you know, it becomes prejudicial.

Variable in what sense? I'm sorry.

that if you don't have it in writing, exactly what you're allowing.

No, I understand the writing part. But what do you mean, what's variable? Are you talking about the criteria? Are you talking about the events?

The criteria, yeah. And then it becomes prejudicial. Because then you might one day exclude someone or tell them, you can't do this. But then the other day, you might say, yes, that's fine, and look away.

Well, right. So that's why the ordinance, we've been working on it to make that clearer so people know when it's triggered. Because some of the questions we get is, do I need one or don't I need one, right? So you don't know. That should be relatively clear for most events, whether you should or you shouldn't have one. There are going to be exceptions where you're going to be in the gray area. It's like, well, do I need one? Do I not need one? Then you contact us and we can work on that.

But I hope you're taking notes because we need to define something after today.

No, of course. And other cities have, you know, I've dealt with this in other cities as well with, you know, and it's varying degrees. You have bigger beaches, you have bigger events. Your beach luckily is large enough, but you don't have a lot of outside of jurisdiction events, which is helpful because that's easier to control than when you have an influx of people coming in trying to do concerts on your beach and things like that.

Right. Because we don't have parking, which is a good thing too.

Yeah, but that's a good point about the concerts.

They don't have a parking. They were to park.

So it doesn't matter. You could find ways.

One day we'll have parking.

You're also lucky because of the way you're set up, you don't have a huge spring break presence. So that helps you a lot too.

Right.

We can continue being in Florida.

Okay. We're at time anyways almost.

I'm sorry. Because we are rewriting the ordinance and one of the questions the code manager had was... special events, you know, your birthday party, your wedding that you've discussed is one issue. But yoga, where I'm charging a fee, is a business permit. Is it the consensus of this commission that you want to allow businesses to operate on the public sand?

I am not comfortable with that at all.

No, with a permit.

I'm not comfortable with that because...

Yeah, you have another portion of your code that deals with commercial activity, which You don't typically want to allow commercial activity because then you open up the door. So then you have the people walking up and down the beach, do you want to rent this condo? Do you want to buy this bikini? Do you want to buy this bottle of water? Right, exactly.

That's what I'm saying.

So you kind of open up the door to that if you allow commercial activity. And you already have something in your code that prevents that, that makes it unlawful to do that. So you just have to be careful. It gets very, and we have to look at it, and we'll look at it. So let's say you have a business that has a storefront on the west side.

We'll use yoga.

I don't know why they would have a storefront on the west side, but let's say yoga has a storefront on the west side, right? And they do the actual yoga on the beach. Technically, their business tax receipt that they need to get is for the business that's across the street, not necessarily where they're actually doing it. So it gets convoluted. So a lot of those are going to be on a case-by-case basis, depending on the dynamics of it. So it's a lot to work through. And again, it's not just here. It's every coastal community. Whether it's somebody giving surfing classes, There's a bunch of people, I'm sure, that are teaching things on the beach that you don't even know.

There was people that wanted to rent out the, what are they called, those boats that you stand on. I forgot what they're called. So I just think that this is a conversation that needs to include, certainly, whoever is affected by it.

Yeah, I have one more question. So if there is no commercial activity permitted, what about the just kids rental?

The county does those. So they have contracts.

So there is a law?

From the county standpoint, yeah.

But they can go to the county instead of coming to us?

Yeah, because they have, well, you can set it up however you want. You just can't be preempted or conflict with the county or the state. The county has franchise agreements with, I think, probably the Boucher Brothers or somebody. But they typically do the East Coast. But they have contracts with certain vendors for the beach. So those, I don't believe, are contracted through us at all.

OK. We're at time. So next item.

Next item is for a discussion by commission says and regarding the early adoption of I'll spill 1329.

You can go to the next one. We don't have the time for this one anymore.

You're pulling this one.

Yeah, okay, because it was before so this is all right Murray, yeah, so for F is a discussion by commissioners say this and regarding the establishment of an inspector general office.

OK, so I guess we all know what is an inspector general, but I'm going to read it. It's a single independent office investigators and auditors that review our contracts, our procurement, capital projects, cash fraud, waste, abuse, mismanagement before the money is gone. It reports to the residents, not to the officials they are watching. It is internal affairs for the whole of city government. So I had this also a long time ago. I brought it here. Many municipalities are right now either contracting with other bodies, the inspector general, or having their own inspector or, I don't know, combination. So this was my number one priority for the budget, and it was left out. So I want to include it. I think it's necessary. Like last month, we have an issue with one contract that started for $120,000 and is right now $1.2 million. That is unacceptable. So we do, I believe, the way I see it is like having a police department with our internal affairs. It has to be somebody who's watching. And this is not supposed to cost too much money to the city. Like I said, every municipality that has put a referendum for this, it has passed overwhelmingly. So this is to bring it back to the commission.

OK, comments?

Yeah, I'd like to research it more. I don't know enough about something like this. So, yeah.

Vice Mayor?

That's my comment.

Mr. Joseph?

I also, what are the aspects that the Inspector General would be looking into?

Whatever they are tasked to do. Like I said, the best example is like internal affairs for the police department. And like I read before, they are the ones that do. I'm going to repeat. They have auditors, investigators that review contracts, procurement, capital projects to catch fraud, waste, mismanagement, and abuse before the money is gone.

OK. So overall watchdog.

So it would be, go ahead. No, just you may also, because we were somewhat involved with the Doral OIG. They used to have a charter compliance officer, which they got rid of. And then they came with the OIG. And they've had some challenges there with regards to the amount of, and it depends what you, because a lot of what's described sounds a lot like a city auditor. where the city auditor is like a CPA, investigates whatever you all want him to investigate, him or her, and does rolling audits throughout the year of like every department, things like that. I mean, you can call it whatever you want. It's just, it's a setup of, if it's strictly investigations of potential wrongdoing from what we've observed in other jurisdictions, they tend to kind of sit around and not have as much to do, especially in a smaller jurisdiction. If you have one issue where it's like you want them to investigate, they'll do that. But they need to have, however you set up, if you set it up, they should have the ability more like a city auditor to just go through and act as a check and balance to management, legal, and so on. Because some cities use the city auditor form of charter office, and some do the OIG. OIG is more like investigatory, covers conflicts, ethics, things of that sort. The city auditor's office typically is on the fiscal side. But that's just for you all to consider.

Commissioner Stevenson, could you explain the analogy? Because you said it works like internal affairs for the police. So what does internal affairs for the police do? They investigate police officers. Based on what? Any wrongdoing. No, but how does the investigation start?

Oh, I don't know how they do it internally. I will not even ask. But it's like, it's the watchdog of the police. How is it triggered? I'm trying to see where they're triggered. Somebody has to make a request or so. But to the auditor part, OK? So right now, I am researching about and continue just still waiting for information, especially the reconciliation of the 533, about the building fund. Because the building fund used to be $8.5 million. And this year, it's going to be less than $100,000. Again, it went from $8.5 million to less than $100,000. It's supposed to be around $97,000. So in the answers that I got originally from the staff, they point out to the auditors, to the audit that we passed with flying colors, et cetera. Guess what? The audit never touched the building fund, the reconciliation, or the 533 statue.

Yeah, that's a different auditor. That's a different audit.

Well, precisely. And the audience was amazing. Guess what? They reviewed what they were asked to review, but they were never asked to review the building fund. So we passed, like I said, flying colors about something that we didn't even ask to check. So I'm going to repeat, they check investment, they check that what we say came in actually came in, that what we say came out actually came out. But one specific question, how we drain $8.5 million of the building fund was never answered. It was not a reconciliation. Why? Because it was not in the scope of the audit. So to point out that everything is OK because we passed the audit, how can they answer a question that they weren't even asked for? I just want for clarification. Are you suggesting that there was some wrongdoing?

On the building fall? Definitely. 100%. So you're saying that finance is hiding something?

I'm not pointing fingers to anyone. Because like I said, the amount of money in, it was the right money in. The amount of money out, somehow it was reconciliated. However, it's very specific how we can use the money of the building fund. And guess what? Building a restaurant is not how you use the money of the building fund. Pay salaries of The general staff of the city, no. The building fund is specifically for building enforcement. It is for inspector to read the reviews, plans, et cetera. That is what is money that is restricted. So to your question, do I believe it was misused, the money? 100%. Anyway, we have an inspector general office. I will be talking to them and requesting all this to your question. How will something start to be reviewed? Probably by somebody saying, oh, can you check at this? Because this smells bad.

Let me ask you a question. I know you want to ask something, but I just want to be able to finish this point. Because if there was, let's assume that there was an inspector general, which would be a charter position, which reports to the commission. Correct? Is that what you're asking? But it was actually to the residents, but yes, it will come to us and maybe give it to the commission.

They would have to report to the commission.

To the commission, not to the residents, to the commission. We're representing the residents. Yeah, yeah, OK. So you're saying you want to be able to individually, each person on this commission, request that person to audit certain portions that you feel there's wrongdoing?

I don't know about the details how we are going to be putting it. I think not only us, probably also employees of the city staff should be able to initiate or request something to be seen. So I think those are the details of how it's going to be built. And we will probably have to check best practices of other inspector generals in other municipalities. But that's why I'm giving actually two examples. A contract that started with $100 million and right now is at $1.2 million after amendment, after amendment. Building fund that is being used as basically a slush fund to use it for anything or everything. Another example about the building fund. Right now, they are charging for administrative services of the city $1.6 million. Next year, it was slashed to half, to $800,000. So how is it that now that we are going to have a record use of the building department because we have more permits than ever, we are slashing half of the administrative fee? You know what should be the answer? Because they don't have no more money to spend because they don't even have now $97,000. So it should be heavily investigated.

The mayor to you.

Let the attorney, and then just don't forget what you want to say.

Just because I'll forget. The answer to your question. So typically, with the OIG set up, like it is in Doral, Miami Beach, and some other smattering of other places, a formal sworn complaint has to be filed, similar to what your commission on ethics does in Miami-Dade, as well as Florida, and all that. So it's complaint initiated, typically, whether it be by one of you, or by a resident, or anyone else. It kind of opens up the door. That's the other dynamic, too. You have to decide the scope. With the city auditor aspect, the city commission can ask them to say, hey, let's look into the building fund. And they'll do that. In addition to that, you can have it set up where they are autonomous. They're a charter office as well. They're autonomous where they themselves keep a schedule, and they audit. Not a different, the state audit you're talking about looks at something completely different. These would be, you know, so for example, some cities I've dealt with had a P-card problem, right? A what? A P-card, a purchasing card problem.

Oh, OK.

So the city auditor went on his own because he was charged to do that and looked at it and things were discovered and so on and so forth so it's like a rolling audit throughout the year of various systems and programs and then you as a commission can always ask that auditor to say okay well we need to look into this we need to look into that again you can call it what you want the oig though for smaller jurisdictions is tough because It involves also, and you can set it up however you want, but the ones I've seen, and I think Doral is this way as well, where if you have a member of the public also alleging something, they get involved with that. And that usually broadens it a lot more, and it involves a bigger budget, and so on and so forth, because they're investigating all kinds of stuff at that point, potentially. So it depends how you want to set up. But under both scenarios, you're dealing with a charter amendment where you're creating a charter. It's typically autonomous, except to the extent that they do report to you, there has to be a removal provision. And it has to be funded by the manager. So there's not a complete separation because it always has to be paid.

I mean, I'm not inclined to add anything right now until we figure out what's happening with the taxes. But Commissioner Joseph, go ahead.

OK. So isn't there a department within the sheriff's department that does specifically this as well?

Are you asking me? Yes. I don't know the departments of the cherry department. No, I don't know. It might or might not.

All right. So your issue, basically, from what you've spoken about, is regarding the funds within the building department, correct?

And how they're used? That's not the issue. It's that we need oversight.

Right. OK. So then please explain to me what other issues within the city require the oversight of an inspector general.

Well, we'll be talking about that if we are naming them. First, we need to know if we're going to have the inspector general.

Well, no, before I would vote on an inspector general, I would like to know what other issues have come to your attention that might require an inspector general.

I usually don't answer with another question, but I'm going to ask you. So you don't have any, anything has never come to you of questions that we need some kind of investigation? Because you claim everybody in the city talks to you and ask you everything, and that you are the one for the people.

And that's why we have the next item on this agenda.

OK, so that has nothing to do. This is very specific. We're going to have the inspector general office, yes or no. If you don't want oversight, that's OK. That's your decision. So just like the mayor said, she doesn't want it. That's fine. So I said that we need it.

OK. Any other comments? No. All right. Let's go to the next item. 4G?

4G is a discussion by Commissioner Joseph regarding the city manager.

Commissioner Joseph?

OK.

So in 2022, when I became a commissioner, I was on the commission with Mayor Dana Goldman. She decided to call for a change in city managers and brought in Stan Morris. I took a wait-and-see approach to see what type of job he did.

I knew there were issues when he was Deputy deputy so the same position that Susan has now I

I believe so. I don't know the contract, but I wasn't on commission at that time.

I'd like to clarify that. So when Chris Russo was the city manager, what position did Stan have?

So who are you asking?

I'm asking anyone that can answer.

I wasn't on the commission at that time, so I don't know. Neither was I. She just answered you. Deputy city manager.

So Stan had Susan's position. And what position did Susan have at that time?

Assistant manager.

So Stan was the deputy, and Susan was the assistant city manager. So the deputy city manager was below Susan at that time or not? No. I'm trying to understand the hierarchy.

It was Chris, it was Stan, and it was Susan.

OK. Chris, Stan, and Susan. OK. So good. OK. So we had issues in the city that, while Chris Russo was the city manager, that

I just want to be careful, please, Jerry, that we're not defaming anyone. No, no, no, no. OK, I just want to be very, very careful. He's not here.

No. Please be careful. No, I'm talking about my feelings when I became a commissioner. I thought at that time we should have brought in an outside person as city manager rather than staying from within the city because I wasn't happy during COVID with what I saw on the commission. I didn't have at that time even to even think to run for commissioner. But watching during COVID all of the Zoom issues that occurred, caused me to want to run in order to try to help and alleviate some of these issues. But being that I was only one vote, and Dana Goldman, in her poor judgment, OK. I brought Stan in as the city manager. I thought I just had to take a wait and see approach. And as time went past, I just have become less enchanted with the job he's done. I don't know. I'm one vote, and I decided to bring this up now with elections happening in November and knowing we have two other commissioners. And at that time, I may have other votes in my favor. So I'm just actually bringing this up now as a courtesy to the city manager to let him know that his job might be in jeopardy.

OK. Any other comments from the commission?

I think the courtesy would have been to just tell him you don't need to make a public thing about it. And with regards to hiring within the city, we're a tiny city. That's a very limited pool of people. I think you may want to rethink that one. Yeah, no, I obviously... I just don't agree with you. I think having had the experience of more than one city manager, I think Stan has done a fantastic job. And I know that you're waiting for me to turn out, you know, to have that conversation, and I don't think that we should be polling the commission here. But, you know... you know that, you know what my position is. So I'm not revealing, I'm not surprising you with anything. But in your... Because you, not you directly, but you did put out a post on this in a chat, which I alluded to earlier. And that's my issue here. Listen, we went through it, right? I voted for the replacement of the previous city manager. I understand that. I understand that sometimes you feel that the change is needed. But what I am a little bit, not a little bit, I'm a lot tired of is the constant accusations of things like in that particular message like the bond, like he's trying to strap us with this bond. That's something that we would do. Whatever the condition of the city, it's on us. Like what gets done or doesn't get done is because it goes through us. Another constant accusation is lack of transparency. This is the most transparent we've ever been. Can things improve? Sure, there's always room for improvement. The improvement that we've seen in the years that this city manager has been here, you saw it at the opening of this meeting. Three departments working together for a cutting edge drone program.

Those are the departments.

But all of those things come through come through the manager. We can propose our initiatives, but a lot of the stuff of the day-to-day that gets done are things that are being proposed through the departments and through the manager. And the departments don't work independently of the manager. That is under his oversight. We have an accredited police department. We are one of a tiny, tiny percentage of cities that have an accredited building department. We have the autism training across, you know, for the ocean rescue and for the police department, hirings across the departments, cleaning level, you know, level by level, department by department, and good working relationships even outside of here, you know, which, so, I mean, I'm personally very satisfied. There's still work to be done, but I think that in the, you know, in the past couple of years, we've made great progress. Obviously, you disagree and you have the right to voice that, but if you wanted to do the courtesy, you can just walk to his office and let him know. You don't need to make a display of it. That's all I have to say.

Okay.

Commissioner Lama?

Yeah, so... Just wanted to point a couple things out. So with Stan and the current management setup, the police department was accredited. Our building department has been accredited. Communication has improved drastically. There's been transparency, in my opinion, more transparency than before, a lot more. and then when it comes to to some of your grievances i'm not trying to discount them but i'm just trying to understand because it's it's been ambiguous right now if you could just bring up some specific examples and situations i i would appreciate that because i i like to be informed no problem because you just said you you you're not happy period

It's not that I'm not happy. This is not personal. No, no, but you're disappointed.

That's what you said.

Not disappointed. Okay, can you give us some specifics? This is all budgetary. It's issues regarding the city that could have been moved forward, problems that could have been solved years ago. Now, several years ago, where... Things increase where we could have had Center Island flooding issues solved years ago, but they were not addressed by the city manager with no reason whatsoever. For a year, I fought him on the injection wells, and he knew it wouldn't work. And the previous city engineer said, I don't know what his reason was for leaving, but he absolutely knew that I was totally against the injection wells, that they wouldn't work. And when he left, he even wrote something that I was crazy, that absolutely he was all for it. And Stan, knowing that they wouldn't work, brought that issue to the commission. for $9 million. And no one on this commission, I don't know, because a lot of the issues that come to us were jammed with no time to review anything or to do any research, except I had been researching this for over a year. And I was the only no vote. But everyone else voted for $9 million for a project that the next month was scrapped. That's just one issue.

Mauricio, we have another 20... We still have time. Is that a time?

No, no, we still have time.

We still have time. Yeah, that's what I thought. Okay.

Would you like to ask me about anything else?

No, no, that's it. I just want some specifics. I think, well, the injection wells was put aside. Now we're looking at pumps.

Yeah, but you voted for $9 million.

Yeah, but I mean, we have a new engineer. So we have a new city engineer.

Why did you vote for $9 million?

Well, you know, we were basing our... You voted for things that have gone wrong, too.

Because the city manager gives an indication that he's for it, and there are some commissioners that vote yes, basically, on the city manager's recommendation most of the time.

Well, I was just asking for specifics.

Rather than thinking for yourself.

I do think for myself. Or doing your own research.

Yeah, I do my own research. But in a lot of events, like I said, to be fair, we don't have the time. We're not given the time to do the necessary research on high budget items.

Well, now we're looking, well, regardless. So I just wanted some specifics, but I think we all take pride in what we do and we're responsible. We do our own research that we disagree in certain decisions. That's another point. But I don't, you know, I don't think it's appropriate for you to say and assume that we don't do our research because sometimes you sit here and I'm just shaking my head like, This guy's coming from left field. Where is he coming from? So I'm just at that point. Commissioner Joseph, just one at a time, please. When I spoke of about the injection, I was coming from left field. Commissioner Joseph. Well, you know, sometimes I shake my head as well. So we all have that right. And sometimes I question your decisions like I question everybody else's. So it's fair point. I'm not right all the time. So... You are right? I'm not right all the time. Okay, yeah, all right. No one is. No one is, exactly. So that's my point. So... I just wanted to get some specifics. That's it. That's fine.

I have many others. I wasn't interested in going into it tonight. Like I said, this was basically a courtesy. It could be that I have three votes tonight. Who knows? Today? I don't know. I can't speak to anyone regarding that, but it could be. Why? Are you asking now for a consensus? No, I'm not. I'm just having a conversation with you. It could be there are three votes on the commission tonight to remove the city manager. I don't know.

Commissioner Joseph, to Commissioner Lama's point, did you go, or actually to Vice Mayor's point, did you speak to the manager about the items that you are concerned about and how you're unhappy with his work?

I didn't.

Okay. Okay.

We didn't have a discussion, but he knows there have been issues in the past that I've been absolutely against.

Well, for clarification, I think this is what Commissioner Lam was saying, that we don't always agree. So sometimes I get voted out. Sometimes you get voted out as far as what we are sponsoring. So it's not necessarily the manager. It's the commission that you may not agree with. So I just want to make sure we separate those things. Because have we ever given instruction to the manager that he went against?

It's not for me. It's the mayor, actually, is the one that speaks to the city manager regarding any change that you want to make. It's not for a commissioner.

No, everyone can speak to the city manager about his work. Any commissioner can speak to the manager.

But it's not for me to remove a city manager. It's the mayor's position.

It's a consensus. But OK. Is there any more comments? No. OK. Next item, please.

OK, so we've had this.

Sorry, let me just read it into the record. The next item is 4H, regarding a discussion by Commissioner Lama on lobbying the state regarding subsidence.

So we had this conversation before during one of our meetings, correct? And I was asking if the city itself can impose any sort of monitoring of the subsidence based on recent events, unfortunate recent events. And that is not up to us. We don't have the, let's say, the jurisdiction to do something like that. It would need to be state regulated. So my question is, and what I would like to see, is if we could lobby. And perhaps before lobbying, start the conversation with the entities in the know. about implementing some sort of program or the state adopting some sort of legislation where certain buildings that are on the coastal towns and certain buildings that are in barrier islands will need to monitor subsidence and settlement on a not continuous basis, but maybe in periodic basis. Just like right now, we have legislation where we have to do the 40 and the 50-year recertification for buildings that are older than whatever, a certain age. So I think that it is important. It's going to be a very complex subject, and I don't know... how we could start doing this. We could talk to our lobbies. We could talk to perhaps some of the experts in geology. I did speak to the head of geology at the DEP. And he told me that right now they do have a database. There's some monitoring in place. But it only has to do with sinkholes and settlement due to natural causes. And this database is only comprised of people calling in and reporting any issues. So right now, there's no active monitoring of subsidence. There's no active monitoring to see what construction or the development of certain buildings or cities is causing on coastal towns, barrier islands, et cetera. So I would like to see the city. Obviously, I won't be here in November. I'm going to continue doing this lobbying and trying to learn more about the issue so I could myself talk to some of my contacts. But I think it will be good if we as a city could talk to some of the coastal towns that share the same geography as us and start looking into some sort of legislation to this effect. And it might not be necessary for all of it, but for certain buildings, I'm not an expert in geology and what construction does to the soil, but I think it's something that needs to be looked into and implemented.

I have a question. Was this discussed prior to today with the manager and the attorney? Yes, yes. Okay, so what is the current code? Because it's based on Florida building code, so we can't just override that

No, our jurisdiction is essentially to enforce the building code. Those types of things would have to be done through the state. What happened after Hurricane Andrew, there were significant changes to the code based on that tragic event. So we're very limited in what we do. And beyond jurisdiction, we don't necessarily have the expertise either to evaluate any data or anything like that. So it's really, I think when we spoke, it's identifying the pathways of where we can really try to communicate, maybe our lobbyists would be the first volley of people that we speak with to say, OK, what are the pathways? Who do we need to talk to to get this conversation going?

And just because we kind of don't have that many left parcels, would this be something that would be retroactive?

It depends how the state, you know, I think there's only two county, and we spoke about this also, I think there's only two or three counties in Florida that at least previously had 40-year certification requirements.

It was Miami-Dade and Broward.

Right. So those things are progressing, I think, as people realize the need for them. So it could, depending on how the state wants to do it, it could be retroactive. Just like the floodplains now, the flood levels are, you're kind of grandfathered in, but the minute you do any sort of remediation after a certain percentage, you have to basically reach that floodplain level. So it would depend how the state would want to do it.

OK. Does anyone have any comments? Commissioner Joseph, you want to say something?

I think from what I've read and what the newspapers are writing, I don't know if it's absolutely true. Sometimes the newspapers put out things that are, yeah. So we have in the city a couple of buildings that are subsiding. We don't know this to be true. Yeah, we don't know if it's true. But they had mentioned a couple of names. I'm not going to mention them now. But they do require watching, like Alex said. And for the new structures, I just hope that, They're built on solid ground, and we don't have those issues. And that's all we can hope for.

Anyone else? No? Commissioner Sousa? No? Okay. Are you satisfied, Commissioner Lama? Yes. Okay. Next item.

And I will continue speaking to our staff. Please.

And nothing stops in November. You can continue.

Yeah. Sorry, my only comment is, like, we can put it in the priorities that we're going to be setting.

Yeah, yeah, that would be one of the priorities. And, you know... To be honest with you, I don't know how we would go about this. I mean, we'll have to talk to engineers. We'll have to talk to geologists. Would it be just certain areas? Would it be? So it's very complex. And just like what happened after Hurricane Andrew, the building codes changed. I think that eventually this is something maybe five years from now, 10 years from now, something that could be part of the state codes.

Well, just to say one more thing, we haven't had... recently a Cat 5 that has come on from the ocean. So we don't know what the effect would be on these buildings we have now. That too, yeah.

OK, next item.

Next item is 4i, discussion by Commissioner Lama regarding the award of capital improvement projects.

Yeah, so basically, this is simple. I like to understand our process because I know that we put out there invitation to bids, request for proposal, and request for qualification. So in an effort, I think, to make sure that we do award contracts to the to the best contractor. So we are not saddled with either change orders or having to replace an elevator that was not put in correctly, et cetera, et cetera. I just wanted to make sure and understand that process and direct staff to see where are there perhaps some weak points that we could reinforce. So us as a body, including the commission, we can make better decisions. And I know it's South Florida, and you have contractors that are Terrible and mediocre at best, and it happens a lot because I see it with other cities. I see it with the county. You see it everywhere. So I think because of the fact that, unfortunately, we're in South Florida, we have a lot of contractors out there that are at best mediocre. We need to see how we can reinforce our vetting process. Mm-hmm.

Did you discuss this with the manager?

I did.

All right. So can we just get a little summary or not? We can have a long discussion because we have time on what the process currently is. And I think you're speaking about the elevator or gateway, correct?

Yeah. Yeah. All right. But it's everything.

No, I understand. I understand. Just for clarification. Please go ahead.

For any of our capital improvement projects, how we bid that out is all governed by state law and requires very strict compliance. So we have to first select a design firm, and we select a qualified and licensed architect or engineering firm. Then this process follows Florida's Consultants Competitive Negotiation Act, or CCNA. Under CCNA, these firms are evaluated and based on their qualifications. So I'm getting to the point of what I just wanted to provide a little background of how we get to the contractor. So it's not just a random selection of the contractor. But the process is, you know, and I also want the public to understand it's very involved, us getting to the point of awarding a contract. So... Once the highest firm is identified, then the city negotiates a fair and reasonable time for those services. Then there's preparation of construction documents. So after that, those plans include projects, specs, drawings. bid documents, and the goal is to produce 100% complete plans that clearly define the scope of work. Because we know that the contractors like to do a lot of change orders based on the bids. Then we issue an invitation to bid, which is established by Florida Statute 287, where the scope of work is clearly defined. And by law, the contract must be awarded to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder. By law. By law. And we've learned that, as we all know, the lowest is not necessarily the best. So we try to vet, to your point in our discussions, a little more closely these different issues as they come up. if we don't follow those required procurement procedures, that can result in bid protest. We've experienced a couple of those. We've experienced that, yes. Yes, legal challenges and or also delays to the project.

So... Yeah, so from what I understand, so... As part of our discussions and what I learned is that an invitation to bid requires us to award the contract to the lowest and best, not best, but the bidder that obviously fills in all the parameters, right?

Yeah, so the initial phase of it, when you deal with Chapter 287, you deal with what's called the CCNA, right? So if you're dealing with architects, engineers, landscape architectures, surveyors, and mapping, it all has to be done through Chapter 287, which requires you to look solely at qualifications. You can't look at pricing. Only qualifications. So there you pick the best qualified person. You can only start talking about costs and fees and so on and so forth once you've awarded that bid. That deals with the design aspect, the engineering aspect. Then when you get into the actual GC that you're going to be using to actually construct your building, you're then dealing with an ITB. an invitation to bid, where the documents, the construction plans, all of that has been determined and done by your CCNA consultants, which is your architect, your engineers, and so on and so forth. And there you have to take costs into account with the ITB. So first, you don't look at costs at all, getting the whole project kind of designed. And then when you get to construction, you do have to take costs into consideration. Now, there's a lot of parameters you go through to look at to determine whether they're not only the low. It's not just the lowest bidder. They also have to be the lowest responsible and responsive. So if they're not responsive, they're out. If they're not responsible, they're out. So you have a lot of criteria you look at, whether it be financials. You're going to look at references from other public construction jobs that they've done. We reach out to those agencies to say, OK, GC, whatever, did this work for you? Were you happy with them? So there's a lot of steps that we take when reviewing those ITBs to determine, and then they go through the whole selection process and everything else in the committee. And unfortunately, and you look at the buildings just in the city, the Muse, Aurora, what's the other one that just, Park, Towers, they're all in post-construction litigation.

Yeah, and that's one of my points. So it's South Florida again. So basically, when we have the ITB, we get a pool of qualified contractors or vendors, correct? And then from that pool... after we're well into the process is when we start talking about pricing.

That's on the first phase. That's when you're dealing with your consultants, your architects, your engineers, those professional design folks. You only talk costs and fees and unit pricing and all that stuff after you've actually made a decision on the qualifications. When you get to your GC, it's a little different because then you take costs into, you have to also consider value that they're offering you the bids you know if somebody's five million dollars over everyone else you're not going to necessarily pick them so you balance out the most qualified that's also responsible responsive and the lowest bidder and what what is uh the difference between uh itb and uh request for proposal Well, there's a bunch of proposals repressed for qualifications. For your GC, you can't really use a request for proposal. You have to use an invitation to bid by state statute under 287. The procurement expert would be best at answering that, the nuances between the RFP. I believe with RFPs, you're typically looking at cost versus qualifications more. You can make a decision based only on cost, but I would need a procurement person to really dive into that.

How much control do we have over this process?

We have a lot of control. I mean, to the extent that we don't have a crystal ball. You can hire a contractor on paper that looks wonderful. You have great references. They've done good projects. And with your projects, for some reason, it doesn't go well. And fortunately, it happens more often than not, to your point, in South Florida. And speaking to some GCs and developers, It's tough to get skilled labor down in South Florida, so it's tough.

Have you discussed, are you proposing any sort of process changes?

No, no, I just want to do the... You just want to discuss it. I want to do the... research first, understand the process, and then see if perhaps we could make this process a little bit stronger if it needs to. I don't know. At this point, I'm just in an exploratory phase and trying to understand the process.

There's always room for improvement, obviously.

Yeah, and that's what I wanted to see if staff and perhaps we could understand the process a little bit better, identify perhaps some areas where we could make it stronger, and as much as possible try to avoid hiring contractor that sucks, basically.

Well said. Mr. City Manager.

Mayor, I just wanted to say in my discussions with the Commissioner what came out of that, we had meetings with the building official, the city attorney, and we're going to have a workshop for the public coming up where we're going to have the Department of Business and Professional Regulation along with

building official to answer a lot of these questions that the residents have brought to the commissioner yeah this is more like a residential if they're remodeling there or building a house or something but you know we're doing something like a town hall but but to your point and for our like procurement process in general

How we decide who is the more qualified, responsible, and responsible, there is a committee, correct me if I'm wrong, that the city manager decides which part of the staff appoint people to that committee. And that committee decides and gives a tabulation to which is the one that they're going to be So in order to actually be transparent, because I do believe that we have a lack of transparency heavily, that tabulation should be at, every time that there is a recommendation, we should know how many people bid, what was the tabulation, what were the prices. Because right now, we could just get the recommendation, and to your point, I had a, actually listen completely to certain deliberations of these committees, like, for example, for the Christmas lights one. And what we were told is not the same that what was said during those committee discussions. So that's why I cannot take things to face value anymore. And I'm sorry if I maybe come a little bit sometimes seem aggressive with my questions. But usually before I ask a question, it's for a reason. So like I said, the committee gets appointed by the city manager. We don't know who's in that committee unless we ask for. We get the recommendation without prices, tabulation, even not knowing who was or not the ones in there. And to your point, yeah, many times we don't get the lowest one because guess what? The committee decides now they're more qualified. And then it happened that a few years later, the lowest one, that one that we got, they doubled, tripled the time or triple, or in cases a lot more, what was originally given to them. So there is room for improvement is an understatement. There's a lot of things that we should be changing that are now happening. And clearly, the process, it might be so complicated at this point still, many of us, we don't get it. I have read a lot about it, and I feel comfortable with the knowledge that I have. And that's why I ask the question usually that I ask.

Well, you know what? This is something that I think it's not, you know, it happens to a lot of cities, to the county. I was just reading something about the county and, you know, the problems with the airport and everything. So I think it's something that perhaps even at a municipal level is something that we could discuss with other municipalities and even the county. I don't know, I'm just, you know, bringing up some ideas, but.

We do to a large extent, because a lot of what we do, government procurement, public procurement is, There's best practices, and every government has to go through it by law. So we didn't make up these committees. We didn't make up piggybacks. These are all things that all governments do. So you pretty much are following what other agencies do. If you have a larger agency like Broward County, you may have more in-house expertise that can sit on your committee potential, things of that sort. But the way it's set up, so for example, you certainly can be given more information, not a problem. You just can't be involved in the decision process until you are set to make a decision on the actual awarding of the bid. You can't be involved in the process before that. So there are certain parameters you have to stick with, but certainly more information you can have. Is there like a blacklist from all the counties? No, there is.

I asked, actually. I asked for that as well. But has there ever been a time, Commissioner Stevens, I just want to ask that that information was requested and you didn't get it?

I will have to search that. I'm not on top of my head.

OK. Commissioner Joseph, go ahead.

So if we're looking to build a civic center, there are cities that have built civic centers. We should check around, or the committee or whoever it is that's looking to get bids from contractors should look around and see what good experiences cities have had and try to approach those contractors for a bid. I'm not saying that every time they put something... Well, you have to put it out to bid, Jerry, remember?

Yeah, no, I understand.

But you can ask them to be a part of the bidding process.

I don't know if that's correct. You can't ask them. You've got to put it out to bid. Just put it out. You can't start calling people and...

So you... Okay.

You can let folks know that you've advertised for a bid.

So if you have six buildings that have been built that... went through without much of an issue. That got built. And other cities throughout the state are happy with them. I know it's difficult if you have a contractor from Orlando. They have their equipment there. They're not going to come here to do a construction. It's cost prohibitive. But if we have in the vicinity that it makes sense and other cities that have built a similar structure, why shouldn't we be able to get the names of those contractors and include them somehow into our bidding process?

Oh, you can't. It's an organic process that's kind of like bid rigging. You have to put it out to bid. You can advertise it until the You know, everywhere you want. And then you have to let the product, if they bid, great. If they don't bid, you know, that's, but you can't go pick them out and say, we want to use you.

You can't send them out.

Right. I mean, you have to send it out to everybody. And you hope that, you know, they're included in that. And you can make sure that they're included in that. But you can't.

So is that how we do it? We send out mailers?