City Council - Regular Meeting

Commissioner Scudo Good evening, I'm going to call to order the City Commission meeting of Tuesday June 9th at 5 p.m Felicia brava may please can you please call the roll mayor Ryan Oh Before actually, I'm so sorry Before we begin, the mayor, I believe, is on the call. Yes. So I'm just going to read this, and then we'll continue from there. Okay. Thank you. Mayor Ryan is on the call, and before I open up the roll call, per resolution number 08-85-20-C, section 2A, telephonic participation shall only be permitted when there is advance notice at said participation at Sunrise City Hall at least 24 hours prior to the date of the meeting, except that the 24-hour notice requirement may be waived because of personal illness by majority vote of the City Commission.

Do we have a motion?

Can I get a second?

Second.

Okay, motion by Assistant Deputy Mayor Latoya Clark and second by Commissioner Kirch. Thank you. Again, Felicia Bravo, may I please call the roll?

Can you vote on the motion?

I'd like to call the question to allow the mayor to participate via phone. Commissioner Kirch?

Commissioner Skudo assistant deputy mayor Clark.

Deputy Mayor Guzman. Yes. Thank you. This meeting has been noticed as both an in-person meeting and a virtual meeting. The public may attend in person or participate in the meeting by calling 954-395-2401 and entering the code 368262. Procedures for public participation and comments will be explained in a moment. Information for each item on the agenda has been and is currently available at City Hall and online 24 hours a day at www.sunrisefl.gov. The City has provided various options for members of the public to address the Commission. Prior to the start of the meeting, we asked if anyone wished to speak on any matters before us. We have maintained that list and will call upon any speakers at the appropriate time. I will open it up for public comment at the appropriate time and ask if anyone attending in person or by telephone wishes to speak. For those participating by telephone, you may press five star on your phone to request to be heard. I will attempt to take comments in the order they are requested by the five star feature on your phone. All comments will be included as part of the public record for this meeting and will be considered prior to any action taken. When addressing us, please state your name, address, and what you are speaking about. I would ask everyone on the call to please mute your phones until you wish to speak. Also, do not place this call on hold as it could cause unintended interruption to the meeting due to background music or the hold music. If you are experiencing technical difficulties, you may call 954-578-4792 at any time. Staff is available to assist you. As we do in each meeting, we take an opportunity to have a moment of silence and join together in the Pledge of Allegiance. The moment of silence is an opportunity to remember any lives lost recently. Would my colleagues like to remember anyone?

Yes. A personal friend that I grew up with in Brooklyn was a New York City police officer. After September 11th, he got cancer. He's been battling it over the last 25 years, and he just passed away two weeks ago. So if we could keep New York City Police Officer Al DiStefano in our prayers.

Thank you. Anyone else? Please stand as we do the Pledge of Allegiance.

Deputy Mayor, I'm sorry, we also need a roll call.

Oh, my apologies. Y'all can still stand. Can we please get a roll call?

Mayor Ryan. Deputy Mayor Guzman. Here. Assistant Deputy Mayor Clark. Here. Commissioner Kirch.

Here.

Commissioner Scuddo.

Present.

City Manager Mark Lebelski.

Present.

City Attorney Thomas Moss. Present. Administrative Services Manager Lourdes Lawrence. City Clerk Felicia Bravo here.

Now for a moment of silence.

Present.

Thank you. Before I continue, can we just check to see if the mayor's on the phone again?

We just heard him say present.

Okay. Thank you. We have our consent agenda 4A-4J. Do I have a motion?

Move it.

Line muted. Motion. Line muted. by Commissioner Kirch, second by Commissioner Scudo. Do any of my colleagues have any items they wish to have removed from the consent agenda? Yes.

What is it? Deputy Mayor, hold on. Pause for a second. We're having some technical difficulties on the phones. If you just give us a second to see if the mayor can join.

All right. Thank you. What letter did you say? I'm sorry. OK.

There's a delay and you can't hear you all on the phone.

Mayor, I'm actually glad you're on the phone to experience this because myself and others have had the same issue over the years. So maybe now that you are having this issue, we can have our IT and the rest of staff address this for the future for other residents that like to wish to hear over the phone.

There's a delay. I can't hear you all on the phone.

Madam Chair, can we recess the meeting while we're doing this?

Are we going to recess? Thank you.

You can talk.

No, all you have to do is reconvene.

Okay, we're going to get started. Thank you all for your patience. Yeah. Before, yeah, we were on consent items, excuse me, but I just want to make sure with the mayor if there's anything I missed, if I have to go back, or if we could just continue with the consent items.

Are you asking me?

Yeah, you or him.

Yeah, I would suggest just starting with consent agenda again since it was a little unclear.

Okay, consent agenda. We have our consent agenda 4A through 4J. Do I have a motion?

Move it.

Motion by Commissioner Kerch, second by Commissioner Scudo. Do any of my colleagues have items they wish to have removed from the consent agenda? F, thank you again. Any pulls from staff?

I have E, G, and I. E, G, and I.

Okay, this will be fun. Thank you. Okay, anyone in the public wish to pull an item and have it heard during the consent discussion portion of the meeting? If you're on the phone, please press five star to raise your hand. Lourdes, can you confirm if there are any hands raised?

No hands are raised, I confirm.

Thank you. Felicia Bravo, please call the roll to consent agenda items and give me a second. We're doing A, B, C, D, H and J.

Deputy Mayor Guzman?

Yes.

Commissioner Kirch?

Yes.

Commissioner Skudo? Yes. Assistant Deputy Mayor Clark? Yes. Mayor Ryan?

Yes.

Thank you. This item passed 5-0. And we're going to go right into our special items. I know we're on a time crunch here. So, Commissioner or Assistant Deputy Mayor Clark, if you can do the item for the property appraiser, Marty Kerr. Thank you.

Thank you. Can you all hear me? One second, Mark.

Oh, sure. Presentation by Broward County property appraiser, Marty Kerr, City...

Thank you all so much for having me today. I promise I won't talk for too long. I just very much appreciate the great work that you all do and for thinking enough of me to invite me today to talk about the property tax amendment that the legislature placed on the ballot that people are going to be voting for or against in November of this year. Before I do that, though, I just want to give you a quick update as to where the property values are here right now in Sunrise. Once again, they're going up, and I think it's very important to note because very soon you're going to have your budget hearings. You need to know the amount of money that you need to provide great services to the people of Sunrise. And as you know, you set your millage rate on that value. And so this year, just to give you an idea, the taxable value went up 5.69% to right about $12,132,000,000. And so what that just really means for everybody here, if you keep your millage rate the same at 6.0543, that's the operating millage rate, you'll get another right about $4 million more this year than last year. That's a good number. And that's really being driven by new construction and people still paying a little bit more for properties this year than they did the year before. So I just wanted to give you all a heads up on that. But with that, I know you did ask me to come and speak about the property tax amendment that the legislature put on the ballot. And before I just quickly get into the details, I just want any further residents just to let you know how we got here. As you know, about more than a year ago now, somebody from North Florida was not very happy with their property taxes. So they tweeted property taxes are terrible. We got to get rid of them. And when they did that, the governor actually saw the tweet and he retweeted it. And when the governor retweet something, it brings a big conversation to a very important issue. And that really is what has been driving the conversation since that occurred. And very recently, just last week, I believe, the Florida legislature, by a two-thirds vote in the House and the Senate, voted to put a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot that the people of Florida will vote for or against on November 3rd of 2026. And if more than 60% of the electorate vote for it, then it will become law. And so what I wanted to do was give the people of Broward County just information both as to their savings if it passes and to the fiscal impact on all local governments. Because at the end of the day, I believe this is going to be the most consequential vote anybody's ever going to take. Because when you change the Constitution, it's there for perpetuity, and you're going to have to live with whatever the consequences are. And as a result, I just believe that people deserve all the information so they can make the best vote possible. And so what I did was we looked at the language of the constitutional amendment, and we said, okay, if it was in effect for the 2025 tax year, and the reason we use that tax year is because that's the year that we have all the millage rates were set, we have all the values, 2026 we're still working on now, of course. And so because we had all that data, we basically said, okay, if it was in effect for the 2025 tax year, this would be the impact on the people of Broward County. A few things to note before I get into the numbers, before I hit the little slide thing. The legislature did pass it in a few specific ways. It basically took out school taxes, and that's very important to note because people will still have to pay taxes to the school board. So there's not going to be a full elimination of property taxes. You'll still have to have – that's still a taxing authority you're going to pay taxes to. The second thing that they basically said was that in order to qualify at the beginning, you had to be a resident of Florida by January 1st, 2027. If you move into Florida from another state after January 1st, 2027, then you have to wait five years so you can start qualifying for the new amendment. For those five years, if you file for a homestead, you'll be under our existing structure that we have now, which is the $50,000 homestead. And so to give you an idea, here's what we did. The first one that I wanted to show you was the impact for the first year on Broward County, and then I'm going to do for the city of Sunrise right afterwards. And what you'll notice is there are 424,899 homesteaded properties in Broward County. If this were in effect for the first year, and this is basically a $150,000 exemption, that's the first one, the average savings for property under countywide would be right about $1,325. The County Commission though, as you can see, it levied about $1.8 billion in property taxes last year that pays for services for our residents. And if this were in effect the first year, they would lose right about $194 million. So it'd be about a 10.8% decrease to their property tax collections that first year. In 2020, the next one I wanted to show you was how the first year would affect on Sunrise. So if this goes into effect on January 1st, 2027 in Sunrise, and there was $150,000 exemption applied, there are 23,330 homesteaded properties in the city of Sunrise. The average savings for a property owner that first year would be right about $1,386. As you can see, Sunrise is a pretty big city, and it actually levied about $73 million in property taxes. The first year if this was in effect, they would lose right about $10 million in property taxes, about a 13.9% decrease. So it kind of shows how this would be going. The next page I just want to quickly highlight is something I think is just kind of important. These are all the cities in Broward County and how it impacts every single city in Broward County. And as you can notice, cities that have more homesteaded properties are impacted greater than cities with less homesteaded properties. And I think the two that I highlighted there are kind of a big stark contrast to each other. Pembroke Park is barely impacted by this constitutional amendment. They have very little homesteaded properties. It's almost all mobile home communities. And as you'll notice, they would only lose less than 1% of what they collect in property taxes. It's basically a negligible amount. Tamarack, however, is really impacted. That's because it has a lot of homesteaded properties. And that first year alone, they would lose about 22.3% of the revenue that they collect. The next one I wanted to bring up was the $250,000 exemption. Now, this is kind of a big one. So after the first year, when you get the 150, starting beginning in 2028, if you are here, you'll get a $250,000 homestead exemption. And what that basically says right now is, again, there are 424,899 properties in Broward County. If this were in effect for the 2025 tax year, the average savings for property under countywide would be right about $2,661. Again, the Broward County Commission collected about $1.8 billion in property taxes. If this was in effect for the 2025 tax year, the Broward County Commission would lose right about $333 million. That's about 18.5% of the property taxes that it collects. The city of Sunrise is very similar to the county as a whole, but it's actually, we'll see a little bit bigger of a overall percentage hit. Sunrise, again, there are 23,330 parcels, homestead here in Sunrise. The average savings for a property owner would be right about $2,783 that first year. Again, Sunrise levied about $73 million in property taxes. If this were in effect, Sunrise would lose right about $16 million or 21.9% of what it collects in property taxes. Once again, I wanted to also highlight the differences in the cities. In this situation, when you go up to a $250,000 exemption, you notice once again Pembroke Park is barely impacted. They only lose about 1.2% of their property tax collections. That's because, again, they have very few homesteaded properties. But in this one, Cooper City gets hit harder because it's really a bedroom community. It doesn't have a whole lot of commercial. And so you'll notice they will lose about 34.5% of what they collect in property taxes with a $250,000 exemption. The next one I wanted to bring up is also very important because what the constitutional amendment says, it basically says that ultimately after you have your $250,000 exemption, the legislature is supposed to come up with the schedule. It's kind of broad and it's going to need to probably be interpreted by the courts, but it says that they have to come up with a full schedule to ultimately have the cities and the county eliminate all homestead property taxes. And what's important about this, so I wanted to run the numbers. If there were no property taxes paid to the cities and the counties, and just for the residents, once again, it doesn't apply to the schools. So even if all homestead property taxes are eliminated, you're still gonna pay your school taxes to the schools. But in this situation, as you'll note, there are 424,899 homesteaded properties all throughout Broward County. If this was in effect, the average savings for property owner would be right about $3,448. In this situation, if all homestead property taxes were not paid to the Broward County Commission, they will lose about $636 million, or about 35.3% of what they collect in property taxes. Sunrise fares a little bit better than the county as a whole. That's because Sunrise does have a lot of commercial properties that people do pay taxes on. You have, of course, Sawgrass Mills and so many others that really are a big driver of so much of the revenue that you collect. Here in Sunrise, again, there are 23,330 homesteaded properties. If this was in effect and there was a full elimination, the average property owner would save right about $1,960. And as you can see, uh... the city of sunrise would lose right about twenty eight point two percent of the property taxes that it collects right about almost twenty one million dollars and this situation uh... the two cities that are impacted once again uh... the least and the most that are stark contrast to each other are parkland and pembroke park Pembroke Park, again, barely impacted. They lose 1.4% of what they collect in property taxes because they have very little homesteaded properties. Parkland, however, is a pure bedroom community. It has some of the least amount of commercial properties throughout the county. It's almost all homesteaded properties, and much of the property taxes people pay are on the assessed value on their homesteaded properties. Parkland would lose right about 75.5% of what they collect in property taxes. That's a pretty significant number, and I think it's really important Just to kind of note that. There is one other slide that I want to bring up because it's also part of this constitutional amendment. And it does affect the city of Sunrise because you do have a lot of non-homestead property. The constitutional amendment, so right now under current Florida law, if you're a non-homesteaded property, the value you're taxed on can't go up more than 10% except for the school portion of the tax bill that has no cap. What this does, it actually lowers the cap from 10% to 5% to basically say that non-homestead property, the value you're taxing cannot go more than 5% except for the school portion of the tax bill. And so what I wanted to do was basically run this number for 2025. And what we did was we looked at what were the values in 24 when it came to the non-homestead properties. And we looked at what they were in 25 when we increased it by 10%. And then what we did was we actually just went backwards and increased it by 5% to kind of give you an idea of the difference in revenue if this was in effect. So again, the Broward County Commission has about 298,181 non-homestead properties throughout the county. That's commercial properties, residential properties that aren't homesteaded, and others. Again, they collected about $1.8 billion in taxes. If this was in effect, they would collect about $1.77 billion in taxes. They would see about a 1.5% decrease in their property taxes. And let me just show you what Sunrise would be. Sunrise, because it does have a good amount of commercial properties, has hit a little bit harder than the county as a whole. Sunrise has 15,179 non-homestead properties. If this was in effect, the City of Sunrise would lose about 1.9% of its property tax collections, which is right about $1,391,000. These are basically just the numbers that I wanted to provide to you all and to the residents of the City of Sunrise. The reason, again, I wanted to do that was because it is a very, very important vote. And it's now up to the people of the state of Florida to make this decision. And I just think that every single person, whether they vote for it or against it, deserves to have all the numbers, both the savings to the homeowner and the impact to local government, so they can make the best, most informed vote possible. With that said, I do have to apologize to you all. I have to go to the city of Dania and kind of do the same thing for them. But I was so excited to be here. I really wanted to compliment this beautiful city hall. It's really awesome. And thank you for the work that you all do. I think Sunrise is awesome. And just a quick little story. Many years ago, I was running for the County Commission. And I realized something very quickly that almost every other property was related to Joey Scudo. I kept walking to their door. There were so many Scudos. I'm like, Joey's going to be here forever. But I really appreciate y'all. Thank you guys so much for having me today. Does anybody have any questions?

I just want to say I appreciate everything that you did and your staff to dig into these numbers and everything.

But then what you just explained to the end when you try to compare the one that's going to have the least amount to the most amount. As you could see, all of us up here, we could have went a totally different way as we were developing the City of Sunrise.

Some people wanted to be a gated community, some people wanted to be exclusive with just residential, not knowing that something like this would ever happen.

So thank God that the mayor, commissioners, and staff, since I'm sitting so far away from my mic.

you know, I want to applaud our staff and the mayors before us and commissioners before us too that everything that we've done, we've tried to always have a balance in the city so that God forbid something ever did happen or we always saved money for a rainy day fund. I just say, you know, for a lot of those cities that use the EMS fee and needed it years ago and raised it all the way to the max, and now we're at a point, now they're very limited, where we're not. You explained to us, and just to say quick, that the values went up So that gave us an extra four million. So four million last year, could be five or six million this year, could be the same thing. So you're saying that we're gonna lose 16 million, but we're getting four million and five million. I'm just saying. So it's not like we're gonna get the hit because as the property values keep going up. Now it's just up to the city manager to become very creative about what we do, what other things, how to help raise. But think of DeSantis. You know, he's leaving in November. His ambition is to become president of the United States, so he wants to be. He needs to leave Florida saying that he did something unbelievable, that he could take and bring it around the United States. So now we're stuck here, left with something that full, like you said, two-thirds of the legislature left us. But our main problem is insurance. So... No one touched the insurance, and we're paying my taxes. I'm saying my insurance is $7,000 for my homeowner's insurance, but my taxes because I've been homesteaded is only $3,000. But they didn't do anything for that. So the only way to now make the residents vote for something is to put this on the ballot to say, I'm going to save you thousands. And it's really not fair that one private side is getting to keep jacking the money for health care, car insurance, and homeowners insurance, and nobody does anything. And now it's going to now affect how we operate as a city. So I just had to throw that out there. No disrespect to you, Ms. Borrowman, but before he runs out, I had to throw that out there.

And by the way, if I can add something. Because you were there at one point. Oh, yes. If I could add something real fast, Joey, and just from something at the beginning, you all do have an incredible staff. uh... you know every single week our staff works with your staff uh... to basically get uh... value on the tax real so we can make sure we don't miss anything and there i can definitely have all thirty one cities there's no easier city to work with please don't tell the other thirty cities i said that uh... but you have a fantastic staff and this commission I think has done such a great job for the people of this community. And I'm so glad Robin's here as well, because I can definitely tell you when it comes to working hard in the legislature, that is a person that really, really works so hard for all of us every single day. But with that said, thank you all so much for your service and what you do. Does anyone else have any other questions? Of course, Neil, absolutely.

Again, Marty, thank you for your informative presentation tonight regarding the potential impacts for the homestead exemption being raised to $250,000, not only in Broward County, but also in Sunrise. You know more than anyone. You started your career as an assistant town attorney in Davie, spent eight years in the Florida House of Representatives, eight years in Broward County on the commission, and now 10 years as our elected property appraiser. You are the expert in this issue. But I understand as an elected official, there's a law that prohibits us from advocating for or against and i don't want to put you uh in any particular problems so miss bartleman will have my questions that i was going to give to you but uh again thank you uh for your service to broward county your commitment and contributions uh are widely recognized and deeply appreciated, sir.

Thank you. Thank you so much. And once again, thank you all very, very much. Thank you to the city staff for inviting me. Jacqueline, it's good to see you. Latoya, I hope you're enjoying yourself. You're doing a great job. Thank you, everybody. And Mike, if you can hear me up in the air, thank you for having me as well. Thanks, everybody. Appreciate it.

Marty, you're going to Dania? Marty, you're going to Dania? You're going to Dania? Tell Mayor Davis I said hello. Okay.

Thank you.

Got it? Presentation legislative update by State Representative Robin Bartleman, City Manager Mark Lebowski.

Hi, everyone. Hello to everyone in the audience. I'm sorry my back is to you. You get to see my cowlick in my hair. Sorry about that. I'm Robin Bartleman. I'm your state representative. I only represent one precinct in Sunrise, but I do advocate for Sunrise all the time and I get out here and I'm gonna do a ride along. You're the only city I haven't done yet. I'm just gonna start off piggybacking on what Marty said. First of all, there's a lot of misinformation out there about what we passed and what it means. He clarified some of that. But your property taxes, they go for your police, your fire, your roads, your infrastructure. Some of them, it's your garbage pickup if you don't have a fee. Everything that's important to us. What it also goes to is the Children's Services Council. They provide all of the aftercare and summer programming for working families. They are the safety net for children in Florida. They provide the matching block grants for the entire state of Florida so that families who cannot afford early learning, that their children are able to attend our early learning programs. They provide healthy mothers, healthy babies, all the foster care support. The only way they collect money is ad valorem taxes, and they face $144 million cuts statewide. The other people it affects is the South Florida Water Management District. Now, this is very important because they are responsible for all inland and coastal flooding in all of South Florida. They're from Lake Okeechobee and down. They are also funded through property taxes. They will also be impacted by this. They're in charge of your drinking water. They're in charge of Everglades restoration. And they're the ones who open the gates, the C9 and the C11 canals, so when it rains here, our homes are not underwater. It also impacts your hospital districts. The North and South Broward Hospital Districts are funded by property taxes. So it's not just our cities, it's all of these services that are very important to our community. Also remember that one in three Floridians are actually renters. This does nothing to help renters. You will have the 5% cap, but Sunrise is kind of an anomaly because you are so diversified. But there are cities in my district that are going to lose a lot of revenue. And of the 407 cities in Florida, 211 of them have an assessed homestead value, medium home value of $250,000 or less. So those cities, a lot of the rural cities in Florida, they're just going to be gone. When the representatives who represented these cities spoke up, they said, well, what's going to happen to these cities? They're going to have to shut down, combine, go to the county to get their police and fire. So there are going to be a lot of cities that are going to have to make a lot of tough decisions. Now everyone is talking about the waste and the doge and And I think there's probably waste in everything from private to public sector. But I ask the community, if you had to shave 10% off your budget, would you be able to do it? You probably would, but it would hurt. You wouldn't get your new shoes. You wouldn't go out to dinner. You wouldn't have all those special things that you like. But if you have to cut upwards of 30% of your income, what does that look like for you? And that's what a lot of our cities are going to have to do. What does that look like? There is misinformation out there. The original bill protected fire and public safety. This bill has no provision to protect fire and public safety and hold them harmless. So that is not there. During the debate, we filed amendments, an amendment to carve out public safety. It failed. An amendment to protect Children's Services Council. It failed. An amendment to carve out South Florida Water Management District and all the other water management districts in the state. It failed. We tried to carve out senior services, and I know you have Sunrise Lakes. How many times is Meals for Wheels in Sunrise Lakes? Because it's in Century Village all the time. So that's funded by the county. You saw what the county was gonna have to cut. What's the low hanging fruit? So we carved out the senior services and then we carved out the veteran services. That's what makes us a community, right? So when you do go to vote, know that depending on your local government, you may also have some shifts in how you're charged. If all of a sudden we have a 2008 housing crash, like we did, and we all lived through that, right? I lived through it when I was on the school board.

Or property values decrease.

What's going to happen? So instead of paying with your front pocket for your property taxes, you're going to be paying from your back pocket. You're going to see a lot of cities increase fees. The bill sponsor talked about having food and beverage taxes, fuel taxes, because the first year it's a $4 billion cut to the state. The second year it's an $8 billion cut to the state. And when you go to full elimination, it's almost a $40 billion cut. So the way you fund the state of Florida is sales tax fees and property taxes. Those are the three legs of our stool. We don't have an income tax. So you're talking about eliminating one of the very important legs without a replacement. So I wanted to put this out there because I don't want people to wake up and go, oh my gosh, this isn't what I voted for. Like Commissioner Scudo said, I have never had once a person until this came up in the news call me about property taxes. Everyone calls me about property insurance. I have a homeowner whose insurance went up $17,000. So those are the calls I get. And we have not been able to fix that. And those are private companies making money off of all of us. And meanwhile, you're the government who is providing services to the community. So I need you all just to be cognizant of what it means. You're going to get more information. But there is a lot of misinformation out there. Even to this day, I still see people posting the $500,000. If you go to the cost calculator, it hasn't been adjusted to remove schools, or it wasn't as of Monday. So you really need to pay attention to the fine print. And that's the most important thing. You're going to be asked to vote on something without the fine print. You're not going to have the implementing bill until after you vote on it. And this is very important. You are voting on this to go in the state constitution. If it passes, the only way to get it out is for you to vote again to tax yourself. That's not going to happen. So that's very important to note. Every 20 years, there is a taxing commission that meets in the state of Florida to discuss the structure of the taxing system in Florida. And wouldn't you know, perfect timing, they are meeting next year. So this was kind of put together very fast. Literally, this bill was put together in 72 hours. It had to have amendments to fix it because they weren't funding the supervisor elections or the courts. They found out there were a lot of problems with it. So for me, it makes more sense to wait for that commission and have them run the numbers, score the bill. Florida Tax Watch, which is an incredibly conservative body, said this is going to have problems. But once you vote on it, it's cemented, and that's the scary part. So just educate yourselves. I'm hurting like everybody else. Gas is expensive. My daughter is a teacher. She has to live with me because you can't even afford rent in South Florida. So everyone is hurting, but just educate yourselves. Your city is in a different position than a lot of cities, but if you do have to go to fees or if the county has to generate revenue somewhere else, that's going to be regressive, right? That hurts the renters, that hurts everybody. So just pay attention. You're going to see a lot of groups coming out for or against. Read the fine print and make sure that you vote. Vote your heart. Vote what works for you and your family. But I want to make sure you know that I gave you the full story. And those little flyers are not giving you the full story. You didn't know about the Children's Services Council. How many people on Sunrise use Children's Services Council to take care of their kids? You didn't know about the South Broward Hospital District. How many people in your city use that? I mean, it's very comprehensive, so I wanted to put that out there. I'm going to answer questions for property taxes, and then I'm going to give you the quick legislative update. So did you have questions for me?

Yeah, I mean, part of the confusion that I see, and maybe you've clarified it, is what is core services? Does that include, is that included in this bill?

Yes, they've actually kind of, they tried to limit your local control as to what your core services could be. It's public safety, it's infrastructure, it's bonds. That's something we don't talk about. Those rural cities and counties, government bonds, some of your IRAs may have government bonds. When you go to touch the taxing structure, some municipalities and some counties, their bond rating is going to decrease. That's going to impact everything they do. So depending on what bonds you have. So when you have to cut, what was your final number? It was like 29% last year or something? OK. So when you're in that second year and you're cutting 29% of your budget, you're going to have to go bonds. And then you're going to have to determine what's the next most important thing. It's going to be really hard for a lot of you to do that. And what's really a shame is we passed a bill anyway that when you budget this session, you have to have a simulation of cutting 10% of your budget anyway. So I think that that'll really help people cut some of the fat. But you're not going to have a lot of fat when you lose that amount of money. You saw what happens to Parkland, to Weston, to Davey. So it just depends what your tax base is and how it impacts you. But you're going to have to define, but it's going to be, you know, you have to pay your bonds. So that's coming off the top. You know, you have to pick up their garbage, police and fire. uh... people are worried about fees to go to the libraries fees to go to parks how does that look the county's responsible for the jail and all of BSO how does that look because there is no provision for public safety are you going like they literally said that they're gonna have to dissolve some of the municipal the rural municipal fire and police are you gonna cut SROs what are the tough decisions you're gonna have to make And the problem is, like I said, once this is voted on, it is cemented. So if we have a crisis again, and I lived through 2008, where I had to lay off 700 people at the school board, and they were all in the room crying with their families because we lost all that money. I don't know, Joey, you were here in 2008. I don't know if you guys were. But it was, sorry, Commissioner Scudo. But it's, when you have a downturn, and everything is based on your property values, what are you going to do? So it's very, very scary. Do you have another question?

Yeah. If this was to go through and there was a shift in towards raising sales tax, Isn't there a cap on that that can only be like 1.5% a year?

No, this is what you have to wait for in the implementing bill. That's the problem. So you have no idea. I have a video. I went to a business chamber today, and I put the bill sponsor. Somebody asked, how are we going to recover the dollars? And he said, well, I'm looking at the list in the cities, what they can do. They can do fuel tax, sales tax, food and beverage tax. They can do fees. But I think that's just Miami-Dade. So I don't know if they're planning on, they're going to open that up so it could happen. I mean, with the total elimination, which this is going, with the total elimination period, they were saying to replace the value, the sales tax would have to go up to 14 to 15%. That's with the total elimination. And that's the other thing people aren't talking about. Like we have to come up with a plan and then implementing the bill for total elimination. And you saw the numbers. If I had my way, I would do it over like a hundred years, right? Because you have no idea what tomorrow brings. And it needs to be a comprehensive discussion. You know what else this doesn't help? It doesn't help the person who moved in next door to me in my same house and is paying like $15,000 in property taxes and I'm paying $6,000 in property taxes because I've been in my house for 30 years and I've been protected. There's so many other issues it's not addressing. that I feel more comfortable just putting something and throwing it on the ballot that may or may not work, then I would prefer to have this commission next year say, what can we really do to provide relief, but also help all the homeowners? Like we had a bill that did not pass that said you'd only raise your taxes every three years. We had a bill that people who were 65 and over were gonna be exempt from all the taxes. So there were different ideas out there and we didn't explore all of them. And I think there's probably gonna be a really good idea that comes out of this commission. But if we vote on this before the commission does its work, then we're stuck with this and we'll have to figure it out. So that's kind of like, but it's hard. People want relief. They want that money.

I mean, it sounds like a good idea, but I'm not seeing the plan to implement it.

and you will not no one knows the plan.

What is the plan that Tallahassee has for us to make up?

We have no plan. We have no plan. As a matter of fact, I respect one of the leaders in the Senate, Senator Aaron Graw, the governor's bill said we're going to have a grant program so people can apply for their lost money and she amended it out. She said, we're not going to have a grant program. She goes, we're about to have a budget deficit in the state of Florida in two years. We don't have a grant for this and money for this. You can't promise people that we're going to give them money when all these services are cut. And I really appreciated that because we're trying to do truth in advertising with this. It kind of was like forced down, the momentum was there, and the argument the other side gives is let the people decide. The problem is, is not everyone goes to a commission meeting. Not everyone, you have your social media with what you get is what you get, and you're not watching the news, and it's going to be kind of up to you to educate people, but you're going to have a very difficult time because you can't spend tax dollars, etc., But the PACs, the super PACs can spend all the money they want. I mean, the governor spent the money for the websites and the calculator that was in the bill that we hadn't even agreed to. So you're at a disadvantage as a municipality in trying to get your message out. So what I'm trying to do is I'm going to every group, if anyone in the community wants me to come out, to their church, to their HOA. I have a presentation with slides, what it's gonna mean for you, just so you can make an informed decision. Like if you still want this, then go ahead. But if something happens, and none of us know, no one of us can read into the future, I think the first year, people are going to tighten their belts and it's going to be like, okay, this is okay. We can maybe get through this. The second year, that's when it's going to hit the fan. Because the second year is when you see people losing 30%, 40%. And then when it's a complete elimination, you heard Parkland loses like 75% of their total budget. Weston lost 53% of its budget in full elimination. So the cities that you buy into, your most important asset is your house. You bought in Sunrise because you like the community, because you like the parks, because you like the services. You like when you dial 911, the police show up. You like that you have a hospital district. I would argue that it's people say, I'm paying sales tax for something I'm never going to own. You're paying for services. You're paying so that when someone in your family has a heart attack, the police are showing up and taking care of them. There was a huge accident on Sawgrass, and my police department, Weston, went out with like, and I think they were with Sunrise as well, they went out with like 12 different units and used Jaws of Life to rescue everybody, and we honored those first responders at a commission meeting. That's what your tax dollars are paying for. That's what you're paying for. So God forbid you are the one in that car and need to be cut out. You have all of those people running towards you. So you have to look at it like it's protecting the value of your house and protecting your public safety. So you have to make a very tough decision. Sunrise is not it because you are so diversified that you're going to have some tough decisions, but other cities are going to have it far worse than you.

My last question, I'll let my other colleagues ask. say this passes and we're at a budget shortfall and we need some money to to do a project who do we contact in tallahassee nobody do we go to the governor do we go to you i mean like if she had a problem in her city she could come talk to me and say hey i need to get this road fixed they're going if we don't have the money do i tell her hey call tallahassee get the Give the governor's number or do I give them your number? Who do I give them to when we experience those shortfalls and we can't go back?

Well, the governor will be gone, so you can't call him. You can call the people who voted for it, and they're going to say, we let you decide. You did this to yourselves. That's the argument. The argument, the people who voted for it, there were people who voted for it and against it. And it was different. We had two Republicans vote against it in the House. So it was like bipartisan. They said that you are educated. You get to vote for the commission. You get to vote for your legislators. So figure it out yourself, and you're going to vote. The problem is, is that there's a lot of propaganda like with everything else and you're not going to get all the information you need to make that vote. So for me, the implementing bill you spoke of, like what's the fine, it's like buying or signing a contract without reading the fine print. You are going to have to vote for it and then we're going to do an implementing bill and good luck to all of you. And if you don't like what this and then that implementing bill too bad, it's in the constitution. That's it. So of course, if this passes, I'm going to fight to make sure the implementing bill protects all of you as much as possible, but know that in two years, there's a budget deficit in the state of Florida. There are gonna be no grants. The other thing I would argue is that we already help, the whole state helps certain counties that are fiscally constrained. We actually help supplement their budgets. When I told you 211 cities are gonna be decimated in Florida, Are they going to become part of the fiscally constrained counties? Are we going to help? Are our tax dollars going to go up there to make a difference for them? Sales tax dollars. Yes, sales tax, everything, yeah. It's, well, and also required local effort for schools, but thank God they took out schools. So I hope that kind of gives you the, any other property tax questions? No, okay.

I mean, I thank you for the information. No, okay. I'm not. I don't know I understand it, but I want to make sure my residents who are listening in here tonight fully understand the implications. Understanding that I can't advocate for or against it, but...

But I can tell you the truth. I can tell you what I'm going to vote for. But you're going to see more people come out. In terms of the legislative session, I just want to let you know I did pass two bills, one to give parents a second opinion for child abuse, another bill to prevent human trafficking so that nurses can identify human trafficking victims their first day of work, a training. I got $5 million in projects, one that will matter to Sunrise a lot. is an independent living facility. We received $2 million. A lot of people we know, we all know someone who has a child with a developmental disability or an adult, and they need to be able to live independently once their parents are no longer there. And so we're going to need a lot of homes in the future because one in like 35 people are born with a developmental disability. And depending where they are on their spectrum, they may or may not be able to live independently as adults. So this is to build another independent living facility. The bills that are going to impact you the most, DEI. I'm sure your attorneys already read all the rules regarding DEI. DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion. That's what makes our community our community. And so there are going to be a lot of laws for you all. And he's going to brief you on how you're not even going to be able to go to an event in your official capacity unless it's a federal or state law. So that one I did not vote for because I love that South Florida is so diverse, and I hate to tie your hands to support communities and to support people. The water surcharges. So that did pass. That's going to impact you. Another $12 million. Yeah, because Davey and Weston get their water from you. You need to know that I did vote against it. I did get your attorney's letter. Your staff is amazing. So I knew to say no to this bill. It has not been signed by the governor yet, so hopefully that's going to happen soon. E-bikes are a real problem. So we tightened up the speed limit on e-bikes, but we also put together an e-bike task force that is charged with the next year to come up with new rules and laws because like where I live they're in gangs and they're little kids in gangs on their e-bikes like taking over the roads and I don't know if you're experiencing that here but it's a problem and I hate it when they're driving near me because I'm scared I'm like get your bikes away.

Let me ask who do you have in your task force like how did you come up with that those individuals?

uh... the for out that they're that's in the bill that governors probably appoint them and some legislators so that's a really good idea i told you about the property tax reform commission and uh... we did increase uh... for people who are sex offenders and harm children uh... future ones will not be able to live within one thousand feet of a public pool that includes apartments uh... increased penalties for child pornography So I think I spoke a lot on property taxes, so I'm not going to give you all this. I know you have a lot of business to take care of. For the residents, we help a lot of residents in Sunrise. Call my office if you need help with the DMV, securing an appointment, Medicaid, Medicare, any property insurance questions, I can get you to the OIR. Unfortunately, I have a lot of people calling my office who are unemployed now, and if you try to navigate the state's unemployment system, it's like impossible. Don't try to do it on your own. Call my office. We're gonna link you to resources. We're gonna do everything you need. My phone number is 954-668-3662. That is my personal cell. You can look up Robin Bartleman and get in touch with me. And I'm sorry I took so long. It's not a complete update, but at least it's enough.

Thank you.

And to get to the meat of it. So thank you.

I do wanna just give you some feedback. I wanna just talk to the residents and the young people in here. in reference to the programs the city of sunrise compared to a lot of other cities we provide so many programs at a minimal fee if not nothing at all and that will impact those particular programs we're talking about our senior programs youth programs at sports Tunes and Trucks are free concerts. We spend thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in these free community events, and all of that will be impacted if this does go through. So another one that's important to me is camp. you know, who knows where it's going to affect, but these are the conversations. So those of you that are listening, I know this was a long-winded, very informational topic, but please understand the importance of what this vote is going to affect for the future of your families and also your kids. Thank you.

Right, if any of your families are using any of the camp programming or any of the afterschool programming provided by the Children's Services Council or any of the early learning dollars to get your kids in preschool, You got to think about that, like, okay, how much am I really saving, and then how much is it going to cost me on the other side? So, and the other thing we don't talk about is prisons and jails, or jails, I should say, in the county, it's jails. Like, your tax dollars for those who are, like, tough on crime, police, fire, jails, 9-1-1. All of those things are coming out of your tax dollars. So I'm just happy to be here. Sorry my back was to most of you. Call me anytime. I know I knock every door in my little Sunrise, my three neighborhoods, but I am here for all of Sunrise, whatever you need. So thank you all so much. Thank you. Thank you.

We're going to jump around in the proclamations and presentation because I know people have to leave. So we're going to go to the youth athletes. So if someone can read G for me, please. Thank you.

Presentation of the Youth Athlete of the Month Award for June 2026 to Kalia Thompson and Kai Roberts from the Travel Basketball Program.

Okay, our first youth athlete, if you would bring them both. We'll do, yes, please come up. Let me see the names, I'm sorry. You have Kai Roberts and Kaylee Thompson. Before I actually turn it over to Ms. Little, I just want to share in reference to who we have in front of us, Kai. I actually have seen him grow up from the beginning of youth sports with my son, Jose. So it's so great to see how tall you've gotten and where you are, and congratulations on your recognition.

Kalia, go ahead and come up, too. Where's Kalia?

Kalia?

Come on. Both of you guys. Good evening. I'm Maria Little, Deputy Director for Leisure Services. On behalf of my department, our Leisure Services, and our director, Kevin Picard, I have the honor of speaking about you guys for your awards this month. So we're going to do ladies first, if you don't mind. Kalia, you want to come up?

Step right here for me.

All right, so this is Kalia Thompson, and I'm going to read some comments from her coach. Kalia is a 14-year-old student at Coral Springs High School and a participant in the Sunrise Travel Basketball Program. Some comments from her coach. Hoopster Basketball is proud to recognize Kalia Thompson as Athlete of the Month for her commitment, growth, and leadership within the program. She has been a dedicated part of our basketball skills program for the past two years and has now advanced to our travel basketball team through her hard work and determination. She consistently demonstrates what it means to be an excellent teammate by encouraging others, showing strong sportsmanship, and leading with a positive attitude. Off the court, she is a great student and is a wonderful role model to her three younger siblings. Congratulations, Kalia. All right, next up we have Kai Roberts. Kai Roberts is an 18-year-old student at Plantation High School and a participant in the Sunrise Travel Basketball Program. Some comments from his coach. Hoopster Basketball proudly recognizes Kai Roberts as Athlete of the Month for his dedication, character, and consistent excellence both on and off the court. A member of the program for the past year and a half, Kai has distinguished himself as an outstanding teammate who leads by example through hard work, sportsmanship, and a positive attitude. In addition to his athletic commitment, he is an excellent student who demonstrates discipline and responsibility in the classroom. Kai is also actively involved in his community, reflecting the values of leadership, service, and integrity that make him a strong role model for other young athletes. Congratulations, Kai.

Thank you. Can I have their coach or coaches come up? Yes, thank you. Congratulations. Of course, bring everyone up here. If you like to speak, I'd like to give you the mic. Thank you. Congratulations to both of you. So Hoopsters, if you can just share a little bit about the program at least and how long it's been around and how others can put their children in the program as well.

So Hoopster basketball itself has been around for almost 25 years. I don't have the exact date. We should probably get that. It started out as like a skills program. It was like five kids. My dad was running it. I was a participant myself. And from there, it's grown a lot. And now we have our travel basketball program. That's been around probably for like six years. Then COVID happened. So this is like one of our first teams since COVID, and they've done a lot, this high school group right here. And Kai himself, you know... He's done a lot of accomplishments since he started with us over a year ago. So, yeah. Oh, you could sign up at the front desk of the City of Sunrise where there are Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, all year round. So our programs are open.

Before we do our photo op, I'd also like to give recognition to your parents because I know with the amount of time and effort and sacrifice and the schedules of multitasking and driving here and there to practices, traveling, you know, so I do give you all credit as well. I know your parents are here, but where's your parents? I'm not sure. In the back? If you all want to come up for a group picture, you're welcome to join us. It's a family effort. Thank you. Somebody will take a picture with your phone. If you want to bring it up, we'll keep rolling.

Yes.

Again, congratulations. And to your team for being here, for the support. Great.

I haven't seen him.

Go ahead.

The mic. We can't hear you.

Proclamation proclaiming the month of June 2026 as Caribbean American Heritage Month in the City of Sunrise, Mayor Michael J. Ryan, Deputy Mayor Jacqueline A. Guzman, Assistant Deputy Mayor Latoya S. Clark, Commissioner Neal C. Kirch, and Commissioner Joseph A. Scudope.

Thank you so much. This is for Caribbean heritage, Caribbean American heritage month, excuse me. And we actually have four different entities here. Normally we have them all come up in one group, but I'd like to have a moment to each person's shine. So for the first recipients is Kensky, Principal and his daughters, Kamai and Kahlil. Did I say that right? Okay, come on up. Thank you so much. Yes. And if you can take a moment to share the wonderful things that you're doing here in our community.

Good evening, everyone. Unfortunately, my daughters couldn't be here tonight, so I'm here to represent them. I've been living in Sunrise since 2019. I'm a physical therapist assistant. I work in a clinic right here and right at the corner of Oakland Park and Nob Hill. But I also do home health a couple of days in the week. So I go see patients at the house providing physical therapy. I also have a small business on the side where I also provide massages and stretches for athletes and people that work out and stuff like this. So I'm always on the road. If you haven't seen me at your house, it's probably because you haven't met me, which is a good thing. So that's about it. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Do you have a small business here in Sunrise? So my question to you was, are you part of our Sunrise Chamber? You should be. And we have the president right here in the room, so maybe you can speak with him later. But thank you for choosing Sunrise to do business, and we appreciate you and your daughters for being a part of the community. If I can just have you sit before we do a photo. Please stay right there. Thank you.

We're going to get everyone out after.

Thank you. All right, our next recipient is Mr. Asa Sealy, Executive Director of Caribbean American Heritage Florida, Inc. If you can please join us. Thank you. Thank you for being here. And if you can also introduce yourself and share what you and your contributions have done for the community. Thank you.

Thank you. My name is Asa Sealy. It's an honor to be here to receive this proclamation. Caribbean American Heritage Florida was started back in 2006. That was the first year that June was actually recognized as Caribbean American Heritage Month. Back then, George Bush, President George Bush, was in office. We were part of the group that actually lobbied for June to be recognized as Caribbean Month. in Washington, DC through the Institute of Caribbean Studies. And since then, we have been very, very active in our community. Our mission, which we just revised, so allow me to read it off, is to empower and inspire youth through the celebration and preservation of Caribbean culture. by integrating cultural education, community engagement, and creative programs. We uplift underserved communities, foster leadership, and provide opportunities that promote cultural pride, growth, and social impact. And we are proud partners of the City of Sunrise on their um free community event that just took place last week's on saturday um i know residents were out having a great time and i was really proud to be and the organization was really proud to be part of that celebration so congratulations to the council and continued success on all of your endeavors

Thank you so much. Don't go anywhere just yet. I want to thank you for your advocacy and accomplishing that because that's pretty impressive. I also want to thank you for helping to activate City Park with the Caribbean events and thank staff for the collaboration of making it happen. I do want you to stay up here. We're also going to invite, if you all don't already know, the infamous reggae artist, Mr. Kevin Little is here with us. If you'd like to please come and join us.

Thank you.

Good evening, everybody.

It was my pleasure to perform for the Caribbean American Heritage Festival last Saturday. It was a lot of fun, and it was really good for the community. I saw all the different activities that was put together for the community, and it was very, very unique and interesting. Different way to do an event. along with what Mr. Seeley just said, it's really awesome to have Caribbean culture recognized in the United States of America in a special way because a lot of what happens in culture in general in the realm of America is based on a lot of what happened with the culture of the Caribbean as well. So our culture is very influential here. So it's really nice and it was really awesome to be a part of it.

So the love language, there's many of them, but music, food, culture is definitely one. And you have brought that to Sunrise this past weekend. So we want to thank you and everyone else who was a part of that. Next, I'd also like to bring up Mr. Tyson McKenzie, who is the Council General of Bahamas. Good afternoon. Thank you for being here. And if you could please introduce yourself to our community.

So, good evening. My name is Tyson McKenzie. I'm the Council General for the Bahamas. I'm stationed in Miami, Florida, and what we do is we're a government agency representing the government of the Bahamas in the state of Florida. And as you were speaking about the economic impacts of taxes and everything, I thought about how we're connected via culture, via heritage, being only 30 minutes away. And when Florida catches a cold, you know, we in the Bahamas, we're affected right away. So these are some of the important things that I would like for us to do as a government agency, sitting in meetings like this, understanding the economy of Florida, and also recognizing that the Caribbean and even the Bahamas Even so, some might say, but we annually, some persons say we inject about 1.5 to 2 billion in the economy of Florida, but that's Florida flying over, shopping for our grocery store, retail clothing, trade, import, export, the port of Florida. So many things, the economy of Bahamas is intrinsically tied to the state of Florida. So that is something that is very, very important for us. and being here to understanding what we can do as a country to instill our heritage and our culture in many persons who interact with us on a daily basis in Florida. Thank you.

Can you share with us what would be the ideal place to go to when visiting the Bahamas?

Where to go in the Bahamas? Now, I'm going to be biased, and I'm from the fourth largest island in the It's the largest island in the Bahamas and I think one of the top five largest in the Caribbean. It's called Andres. And if any of you like to bone fish, you can go to Andres if you like to fish. If you want to get away from the whole city life and texting and digiting and all that, you just go to the island of the Bahamas and you would try some of the best beaches in the Bahamas. So I would suggest if you're trying to get away from it all, if you're trying to get away from your... Well, I would suggest Andrus, but if you're still trying to get a city life, I would also suggest Nassau, Grand Bahama, Exhuming, and Lutheran. So we have about 14 to 17 inhabited islands that you could pick, choose. And you know, as every state in Florida has a different personality, every island of the Bahamas have a different personality, and every island of the Caribbean have a different personality, but yet we're all one people.

I have a question.

Thank you so much. I have a question for him. I hope he has a question for you.

Thank you for coming tonight and participating. What's the best place to eat? I'm just saying you and I got a connection there. What's the good food?

I would say the Bahamas is surrounded by ocean and we're surrounded by sea. So we're a heavy-based seafood country. Yes, we have our crawfish. I would suggest crawfish. I would suggest snapper. I would suggest conch. The fritters. Conch fritters.

Is that it?

Conch fritters, crock conch, conch salad, and many other things. We have a plethora of things you could do with conch. But as you, man-to-man, I would suggest conch.

All right, perfect.

Thank you.

Deputy Mayor. Yes. Deputy Mayor, we have Stuart Webster as well.

Oh, yes, please come. I didn't have it on my list. My apologies for not calling you up. Good afternoon. Please introduce yourself to Sunrise. Thank you.

Mayor, Deputy Mayor, the Assistant Deputy Mayor, all protocols observed. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Stuart Webster. I am the chair of the Caribbean American Democratic Club of Broward. I have been involved with Sunrise for very, very, very many years. and I'm really honored on behalf of the Caribbean American community to accept this award. Just want to make two, three quick points. The first is, In Sunrise, there are 100,000, the latest census says there's 100,128 residents in the community. 25,000 of them are from the Caribbean. That's one. Two, the Caribbean community in Sunrise, has made a number of incredible and memorable differences. One is our oxtail, the Jamaican patty, reggae, all the way up to the assistant deputy mayor, all from the Caribbean. And the third point, really? That's right, that's right, yes. There we go. And the third point is we have been stressing a lot of heritage, which is the historical perspective, but especially as what Robin says before, we also need to look at the future as well as the past. So we're really honored for this recognition and we thank everybody. Thank you again.

If I can have everyone come up for a picture, I'd like to give you the proclamations. Thank you.

Can you pass this out?

I'll give you one. Thank you. Thank you.

Here's one for you.

Thank you so much. Oh, I'm missing. We're missing a couple more. I'll give this to you once I read it. Okay. All right, bear with me. National Caribbean American Heritage Month, whereas the Caribbean is a beautiful tropical grouping of over 700 islands, islets, caves, and reefs full of clear blue waters and rich sea life. These islands have produced many famous actors, civil rights leaders, athletes, musicians, and so many others. And whereas since the founding of our nation, Caribbean Americans have shaped our government, culture, and heritage with the first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, hailing from the country of Nevis. I hope I said that right. Immigrants from the Caribbean to America have additionally contributed to businesses, the military, journalism, technology, the arts, food, religion, sports, and other fields which have greatly benefited our country. And whereas in June 2005, the House of Representatives unanimously adopted H. Conruss 71, sponsored by Congresswoman Barbara Lee, recognizing the significance of Caribbean people and their descendants in the history and culture of the United States. On February 14, 2006, the resolution passed the Senate, and the first proclamation was issued by President George W. Bush on June 6, 2006, recognizing Caribbean Heritage Month. And I'm almost done. And whereas during Caribbean American Heritage Month, we celebrate the achievements and dreams of the millions of people of Caribbean origin now living in the United States while honoring the shared history of joy and perseverance that has united and enriched life across our region for centuries. And whereas the peoples of the Caribbean who contribute to our great nation have ranged from those who have helped to build our country from the ground up to those who have only just arrived. They have all believed in the possibilities our country has to offer and strengthen the diverse fabric of our nation. I'm not done, but that entire sentence is so powerful right now. Above all, Caribbean Americans are leaders. They are beloved doctors, nurses, teachers, athletes, artists, community organizations, entrepreneurs, council, and our service members and first responders who put their lives on the line to keep the rest of us safe. And whereas we recognize and honor the enduring contributions of Caribbean Americans whose leadership, innovation, and cultural influence continue to shape our nation, including trailblazers such as General Colin Powell, former Vice President Kamala Harris, Lenny Kravitz, Zoe Zaldana, Malcolm X, Harry Belafonte, and Sidney Porter, among many others. And whereas the City of Sunrise has a large number of Caribbean Americans that call our city home and contribute to the richness and diversity of our city. This month, we proudly dedicate ourselves to working together with our Caribbean community to continue the prosperity and increase the sense of belonging of all Caribbean Americans in the City of Sunrise. And now, therefore, the Mayor and the Commission together do hereby proclaim the month of June 2026 as National Caribbean American Heritage in the City of Sunrise. Thank you all. We'll take a picture.

Go ahead.

Just before everybody go, I want to say one more thing. I'm from Haiti, and this year Haiti is the only country in the Caribbean and the small island that is going to do World Cup. So we... Yeah. So that is... Thank you so much. That is going to be our second time. And we are glad to be supported by every single island. Recently, Haiti played in Fort Lauderdale, and I've seen people from Jamaica, from everywhere in the Caribbean supporting Haiti. And we're not doing this just for us. We're doing it for every other island in the Caribbean. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

So proclamation, proclamation proclaiming June 13th, 2016, 2026 as National Outlet Shopping Day in the City of Sunrise, Mayor Michael J. Ryan, Deputy Mayor Jacqueline A. Guzman, Assistant Deputy Mayor Latoya S. Clark, Commissioner Neal C. Kirsch, and Commissioner Joseph A. Scudo.

Thank you. If I can have the entire Sawgrassinals team come up here. And there is a lot, yes. So before I read the proclamation and hand it over to you, I just want to thank you for Sawgrass Mills plays a significant part in our city and our county. Because of Sawgrass Mills, we are, I think, number two as tourism in the entire state of Florida versus Orlando. But I think that's a very important fact that how significant the mall plays in our community. And I'm honored that we're able to continue to do this every year. And I'd like to give it to my colleagues. But if you'd like to speak, David, on behalf of the mall or Ada, it's all yours.

My turn. Aidan Osiewicz with Snowgrass and Mills Mall. We're actually very honored to be recognized and receive the proclamation for national outlet shopping date. It is actually a holiday, like ice cream date and coffee date, and so there's actually a thing for national shopping date, national outlet shopping date. So on the second Saturday in June, this year is June 13th, there's additional discounts, additional perks at the stores. restaurants at Sawgrass Mills and most of the premium outlets and any Simon outlet around the country but we're here for Sawgrass so we're definitely highlighted because we'll have the better deals the bigger deals and we'll have some retailers doing some pop-ups in the common area with giveaways and things like that so we're looking forward to have the community to come and attend the the events and take advantage of the deals

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

If you haven't been to the mall on National Outlet Day, you definitely want to go. Even though you'll see the luggages all around, it is worth it because there are a lot of fun activities. You get lots of deals. And so for those who don't know, the mall is the world's largest outlet mall in the U.S. So that's really impressive. We're so glad to have you here in our city.

Anyone else? No? All right. I'm going to make sure. Thank you.

While he does it, I'll go ahead and read the proclamation. Proclamation, National Outlet Shopping Day. Whereas National Outlet Shopping Day, created by Simon Property Group, is recognized annually as a celebration of retail, tourism, and the economic vitality that outlet shopping centers bring to communities across the nation. And whereas Sawgrass Mills, one of the largest outlet and value retail shopping destinations in the United States, is a premier landmark within the City of Sunrise, attracting millions of visitors each year from across the region, the nation, and around the world with their legages. Whereas Sawgrass Mills plays a significant role in strengthening the local economy by generating employment opportunities, supporting local businesses, and contributing to the city's continued growth and prosperity. And whereas National Outlook Shopping Day highlights the importance of retail tourism, offering residents and visitors alike the opportunity to enjoy exceptional shopping experiences, dining, and entertainment, while supporting the economic well-being of our community. And whereas the city of Sunrise proudly recognizes the contributions of Sawgrass Mills, its retail's employers and partners who work diligently to provide a world-class shopping destination and enhance the quality of life of residents and visitors alike. Now therefore, be it resolved by the mayor, the commission, together we hereby proclaim June 13th, 2026 as National Outlet Shopping Day in Sunrise. Congratulations. Here, I have one here. Thank you. You got it?

D, Proclamation D, proclaiming the month of June, 2026 as LGBTQ Plus Pride Month in the City of Sunrise. Mayor Michael J. Ryan, Deputy Mayor Jacqueline A. Guzman, Assistant Deputy Mayor Latoya S. Clark, Commissioner Neal C. Kirsch, and Commissioner Joseph A. Scudo. Thank you.

So we have the Mara Picardo, Realtor and a Sunrise resident. If you're here, please, thank you. Welcome. Oh, nice. Where are you from? What's your background? Oh, yes. Please introduce your name and what you do here in our community.

Well, as a Florida resident for the last 33 years, been in Sunrise since 2018. Also, my sister lives here. My parents are moving to Sunrise soon. Yeah, we love the city. And I'm really happy to be here with you. Thank you for the recognition. That's a surprise for me. It's like Tamara showed up this afternoon. I was like, why? What I did? But no, I really enjoy being in the city because you have so much diversity of people. I work a lot with the seniors. Sunrise Lakes is one of my favorite places. It's hard because sometimes you have to see residents go, but there are more coming all the time. And also I help a lot of first time home buyers. I hope soon you're going to have funds for the help for the down payment assistance program. I was in the meeting this morning with them. For my communities, LGBTQ, I am proud lesbian since I think born. I didn't know because I didn't know at that age, but as soon as I was growing up, I knew it. And happy to be welcome here, not only in the state, but also in our city. All the activities, I really, really appreciate it. Also in my business, we have two of my agents, I'm the broker owner, live here in Sunrise. It's the city that we promote the most. even if the office are not here. I think I have to move it here soon. Thank you very much. Thank you. So you're my neighbor.

I live in that community. I live right next to where he was, like a few doors down. I'll come knock on your door and say hello. I'm going to give us, give me one second. Let me read this. proclamation whereas the city of sunrise upholds the inherent worth and dignity of every individual and affirms its commitment to the principles of equality freedom and mutual respect and whereas sunrise is a city where all individuals and families regardless of structure or identity are welcomed valued and supported in a safe inclusive environment And whereas the City of Sunrise denounces prejudice and unfair discriminations based on age, gender identity, gender expression, race, color, religion, marital status, national origin, sexual orientation, or physical attributes as an affront to our fundamental principles. And whereas LGBTQ plus Pride Month is celebrated each year in the month of June to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York City, a pivotal moment after LGBTQ BTQ plus and allied friends rose up and fought against the constant police harassment and discriminatory laws that have since been declared unconstitutional. And whereas the United States Supreme Court ruled in June 2015 that same-sex couples can marry nationwide, establishing a new civil right in our country. and whereas former President Barack Obama designated the first national monument to LGBTQ plus rights in June 2016, honoring the LGBTQ plus community's long-term presence and struggle for equality across our nation. Whereas all members of the City of Sunrise community, including those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning intersex and asexual, have the right to feel safe, not be discriminated against, and to live without the threat of harassment. And whereas the City of Sunrise appreciates the cultural, civic and economic contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, plus LGBTQ plus community, which strengthen our social welfare. And whereas it is imperative that our community, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression feel valued, safe, empowered, and supported by their peers and community leaders. And whereas the City of Sunrise is proud to stand with its LGBTQ plus residents, employees, and visitors in celebrating diversity and advancing a community where everyone belongs. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the mayor, the commission, do hereby proclaim June 2026 as LGBTQ Pride Month in the City of Sunrise. There you go. Who's next? She has it. Is it RLA? Yeah. Okay. Thank you all for your patience.

Aye. Presentation of the Outstanding Performance Award for June 2026 to Andrew Shea, Utility Mechanic I, Rodrigo de Castro director of utilities.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF.

Thank you. Good evening, Deputy Mayor, City Commission, and residents. I'm proud to be here to recognize Andrew for all the work that he does for us in Utilities Department. So I have a few words here from the nomination that I like to read. I usually read just the first paragraph and then I'll just go with the flow. So, Andrew is a Utility Mechanic 1 within the Utilities Department, Field Operations Division. He began his career here in Sunrise in Public Works on November 30, 2015, as a Maintenance Worker 1. He was then promoted to Maintenance Worker 2 in April of 2017, Utility Service Person on October of 2018, and Utility Mechanic 1 in December of 2019. So Andrew is part of the field operations team and the repair crew. So those guys get calls all throughout the day, throughout the night, on weekends. So sometimes they leave work at 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon, half an hour later they get home, they get a call. Then they go back home at 8 o'clock, then they get a call at 9. Then they go back home, then they get a call at 1 o'clock. So it's a work that is very important to keep the utility working. So we have so many pipes out there. We need to provide water. You need to provide the services and infrastructure for the residents and the businesses in Sunrise. And this group works very hard. So I wish that I could have all of them on employee of the month, but he was the one picked from the group to represent everything that they do because they work very hard. It takes a big toll on the body and they do a phenomenal work. That's why we keep the utility work. So I'm very proud to be here and to be able to recognize Andrew for all his work. Congratulations.

So I haven't had the pleasure of officially meeting you, but just seeing you standing here with such pride of being recognized, I just can feel that the hard work you've put in over the years and to be recognized, like I feel that for you. I also want to share that, you know, a lot of times our first responders get recognized because they're out there doing the hard work. But a lot of times behind the scenes, it's our general employees, it's our utilities, our building development. So I appreciate you and commend you and congratulations on your recognition.

Thank you.

We're all your clappers. I think HR brings their clappers.

Jay, presentation of the graduates of the Sunrise Residence Leadership Academy, cohort number 11, spring 2026. Robert Barnes, marketing and communications director.

Congratulations, everyone. I guess you can say we saved the best for last, right? I'll turn this over to you.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor, rest of the commission. Thank you for having us. My name is Robert Burns. I'm the Marketing and Communications Director for the City of Sunrise, and I am also joined by our Public Engagement Manager, Sadie Diaz, who I imagine all the graduates are kind of in this corner grouped together here. So you guys know her very well. A little history for anyone here who is not familiar with the RLA Residence Leadership Academy program. It began back in 2019, and it's really a four-week program, but condensed. You guys went through five courses together. Through all this and in that you really were able to satisfy your curiosity in how the city operated and what worked and learn about all the different departments and inner workings of how these programs that we've talked about and how some of these events work and. and how your water is filtered through to your homes. And so residents and business owners, you guys all signed up and you were able to kind of go through this program. And I hope that, you know, at the end, like the rest of the cohorts, the 10 before you, you came out of this and you were more understanding of what everything, of how everything worked through the city, how it worked for you as the residents. And, you know, we're just so happy for you to be the next city ambassador. So with that, I'd like to present really the coordinator of the RLA program, Sadi Diaz, to bring you on up for your certificates.

Thank you everyone, good evening. I wanna first thank the commission for championing the Residence Leadership Academy and all of the academies that we have here in the city and huge kudos to staff. They did such a phenomenal job just innovating the program a little bit more with all of the hands-on exercises and the various tours that we did throughout. So I don't wanna hold you too long, but I wanna go ahead and start. with the presentations. We're gonna do from alpha order down, first name. Aquila Coyo, please. Thank you, Aquila.

And Marie Buckley.

Barbara Brittenback. Bruce Strom. He's not here with us today because he's getting on another award in Tampa for Teacher of the Year. Dr. Jason Aiken. So we're still going to clap. Emily McGregor. Come on up. Come on up. Gabrielle Martinez-Aduante. Ingrid Sechetti. Come on down, Ingrid, come on down. Jasmine Gamble, Jasmine Gamble. Keep on clapping, keep on clapping for our friends. Joyce Hare. Keep clapping, keep clapping for our neighbors. Larissa Fiorelli. Mitchell Becker. Sibby Matthew. Suheydi Ramos. Vilma Orr. Yakira Cowsley. And last but not least, Yanilka Lupina Mora. Thank you, this is the graduating, the residence leadership academy class cohort 11 spring, 2026.

So I just wanna share with you, I'm gonna turn my back to you all. Excuse me, I'm so sorry. I'm not sure if she mentioned to you, I'm actually a graduate myself from 2019. So it's really great to see how the years have progressed and all the new graduates and all of the community engagement. And I appreciate the commitment that you have to your community, your neighbors, and learning and educating yourself on local government, specifically in Sunrise. Since I wasn't able to physically meet you individually during your class, I apologize. But for the first time in my years doing this, you all have a little envelope from me with a little message. So I hope you appreciate that. But again, thank you for being a part of the program. Congratulations. Usually the mayor has one of the speakers of the class. Is there a speaker of the class? Sadie, is there... I'd like to have one person speak about what they may have learned or something they'd take back or I guess the program itself, your expectations or if somebody... Okay, Akilah.

Here you go.

It was an honor. I've lived here in Sunrise since 2016 and I thought I knew everything I needed to know and clearly I did not. I'll start with the gentleman in the back. Seeing him slide down the pole was very exciting. Having the opportunity to tour the police station, that was amazing. The utilities, some of our representatives are here in the building. I don't know all your names, but just we appreciate you all coming. taking the time out of your busy schedules to just teach us and show us and let us know how amazing the City of Sunrise is. I'm looking right at you. I don't remember your name. But just letting us know how amazing the City of Sunrise is, everything that it has to offer. Even to my peers, just the questions that we asked and all the information that we received. So the leader of our group, thank you so much. Thank you for taking the time, making sure we showed up, making sure that... We were fed every single time. So thank you so much to the City of Sunrise for hosting this and having this for us. So thank you all. Nice meeting you all. Hope to see you all in the future and get together again.

Thank you all for your patience. We're gonna go to 7A. A resolution of the City of Sunrise, Florida appointing a member to the unsafe structures board and providing an effective date, City Manager Mark Lebowski, Felicia Bravo, City Clerk. Do I have a motion?

Second.

Motion by Commissioner Kerch, second by Commissioner Scudo. This is a public hearing. Anyone wishing to be heard on this matter, please come forward or press five on your phone. Five star on your phone. I see no one come forward and no hands are raised. Lourdes, can you confirm no hands are raised? I confirm no hands are raised. Thank you. I'm going to close public hearings. Ms. Bravo, do we have an application for the On Safe Structures Board? Ms. Phyllis Barbov? Yes. Thank you. Any discussion from my colleagues?

That's the only application, correct?

Yes, sir.

That's the only application. And I think we should put her on.

Okay.

Thank you very much. So if I can have the city clerk please call a roll.

Assistant Deputy Mayor Clark. Yes. Deputy Mayor Guzman. Yes. Commissioner Kirch. Yes. Commissioner Scudo.

Yes.

Mayor Ryan.

Yes.

That is five. Oh, thank you. And congratulations to Ms. Barba. Is she in here today? No? OK. Well, we'll congratulate her. Thank you. Open discussion. Felicia, has anyone signed up for open discussion? No, ma'am. Thank you. Anyone else in the public wish to speak under open discussion? If you're on the phone, please press five star to raise your hand. Doris, can you confirm if any hands are raised?

No hands are raised.

Thank you. Okay, we are gonna go to the items that were pulled. So bear with me. And those items were F, G, F, E, G, and I. If any items, sorry, bear with us, we're trying to read this. All right, 12A. Oh no, sorry. One second. I just wanna make sure I have the correct verbiage here. All right, so who would like to, is that me, to read E? All right, there we go. Thank you. One day I'll get all of this right.

There we go. All right, thank you.

A resolution of the City of Sunrise, Florida, approving amendment number one to the agreement to provide ride-sharing program assessment study, City of Sunrise, between the City of Sunrise and Raptilis Financial Consultants Incorporated, and providing an effective date, City Manager Mark Lebowski, Daniel Lima, Economic Development Director. Do I have a motion?

Move it.

motion by commissioner kurt second by assistant deputy mayor clark and to ever pulled that it's all yours right so i just wanted to in this study i mean this has been going on for a while now and it's saying what we're going to do is continue doing what we're doing tax people, the area. But I want to make sure that we're not going to pay for this anyway. I'm just saying, now that we're going forward, and it's been a great service, no one's saying it's not. But for the people that use it and the people that get the benefit, the people that are getting the benefit, the businesses, they should be paying for this. So it says all or part. I want to just make sure going forward, knowing what's coming forward, that we try not to make the rest of the residents for the rest of the city paying for this for a select. But in this, I don't see anything that says about expanding.

And I want to make sure that because I brought this up.

and this is probably like over a year ago, that I met the people at the National League of Cities, and they talked about how they're expanding this program. But as long as you go to the next district, or whatever how you want to call it, that they could go into the entertainment district, but they can't go into the district where they are. So I'm just saying, I don't see that as part of this. And this has cost us a good amount of money.

So it wasn't like a free thing that we're paying.

So I mean, I know this is the end, but so I just want to make sure.

Mark LaBelle, City Manager. So I'll answer both those questions. So just for a little background, so this is the freebie transportation in Western Sunrise. This was originally developed through a grant through DOT where DOT paid half of the program for three plus years. The remaining dollars are paid out of economic development. during the last budget cycle, the commission had requested us to look at ways that we could have this funded off the general fund and having funded by the district itself. So we did hire Ralph Telos to do an assessment analysis with the intention of having the cost for the freebie being funded by the businesses within the Western Sunrise area. During that assessment analysis that Raph Tal has been working on, we were also coordinating with city attorney's office and outside counsel. And some of the comments that came back were that we needed to provide an additional layer of analysis in terms of economic development, economic benefit, a special benefit to those businesses to really bootstrap the special assessment. So this is an amendment to that contract to finish that economic analysis. The costs associated with the Raftel's original special assessment and this amendment number one, although the city will be pre-funding it, if and when we move forward with this, that that would be reimbursed to the city, these costs. So these costs will not be borne by the city ultimately. in terms of what is the overall intention, and you're saying all or part. So the original analysis by Raftelis was 100% funded by the businesses, but they're also looking at some options that maybe certain riderships provide some funding to it. So you could maybe have a dollar ride if someone wanted to do it. So we're looking at several options, and we'll bring those back to the commission for consideration. But the intention is it to be 100% funded by the businesses. Now, your second question in terms of, yes, we've been working with Freebee to come forward with some potential expansion of the Freebee program. I have received that data from Freebee. I will be able to get that out to the commission probably early next week, and then we can have a future discussion in terms of with the commission of what that would look like if we were to expand the program.

All right, so my question is then now from that, where is considered the next district? I'm saying, is it going to go to hiatus? Is it going to go to Nob Hill? So is it from the arena up to Nob Hill and from Nob Hill to Sunset Strip and Sunset Strip to whatever? Or are you going to do the 84 South? I'm just saying because I say this because people ask me that live Nob Hill, Oakland Park, 44th Street, Sunset Strip, say, why can't I call up 3B? And why can't I go to the mall? Why can't I go to the arena? When you have a lot of apartment complexes out there, Nexus, Amly, Portico, all those people are renters and they're getting to use this. But the homeowners are not getting to use it. I'm not saying that homeowners don't use it out there, but there are a lot of apartment complexes, and I would love to know what the data is. How many of our apartment complexes are riding it? How many townhomes? You know what I'm saying? Is it Tao? Is it Artesia? I'm just saying, I mean...

We have all that data, so when I transmit the cost to expand the district, I will also send the commission the latest data on the existing freebie program, where the rides are to and from. We have some really good heat maps that show where you can see the heavy concentration of uses. So I'll send that out to the commission, and then we can have a future discussion once the commission has all that data and potentially look at an expansion if that is the desire of the commission.

Okay. Thank you. I mean, with expansion, I mean, I have a, you're going to go to hiatus. We need to go citywide.

I mean, well, that's what I'm saying, but it's not, it's not, but it's up to them, right? The way they do their program, they'll expand it. Right. But it's not fair for someone who lives... Two for one and not for all. Exactly. But it's just like we have the buses that go... I mean, I get out there... Sunrise Lakes Phase 1, 2, 3, and 4, but we don't have buses that go into every single residential neighborhood and take them to public. Right. These are all... I understand the business-generating concept of Sawgrass Mills Mall and the arena... Economic development and getting that going on But then nice that's why I say then you could make every shopping center that's West but then it's not the entertainment district. I don't know how the grant The thing was originally wrote Whereas now public shopping center, Walmart shopping center, door shop. I'm going to say we could hit all them and make that. But what are we doing it for? Just for people shopping? Or do we want to bring them to the mall? Do we want to bring them to the arena? It would have to be the limited spots. Right. I just when the mayor's here. This is a good discussion That's what I said if he's gonna get us the data of where everybody's going and who's going Then we can be included in that as well.

We have so many great parks I believe parks should be included as a destination spot as well.

Not just shopping plazas Follow that if not then it's open to or anything I Guess we can bring this back in the mayor's.

All right. Thank you. I

Five vehicles.

How many vehicles do we have?

Five.

So when we're talking about expanding to all these different areas, we need to, I mean, if we're going to do this, since we're bringing up all these general analysis, five vehicles can't really make it as efficient as its intended purpose to be.

No, there would need to be a significant expansion of the fleet to go citywide. And I'll share with the, we went to freebie, they provided us some options. So I'll send that to the commission for, and then we can have a future discussion.

Mayor Ryan, the floor is yours.

Thank you. I appreciate everything that each of my colleagues have raised. 100% agree, this cannot come out of our general fund anymore, particularly as what we're facing. To the comments that have been made, we've all raised repeatedly about the expansion of this program and the interest across the city. So we are facing those questions. However, the way this is going to be structured is that the district itself is going to be funding it. And so that's important for people to understand that expansion under this model would mean increased non-advalorum or some other method. But I look forward to staff bringing this back so that we can look at it critically. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. One more comment. If you can also include in that data our city buses that we have, like what is that transportation analysis as well so that we can have a full picture?

Certainly, yes.

Thank you. Does anyone in the public wish to speak on this item? If you're on the phone, please press five star to raise your hand. Lords, can you confirm no hands are raised?

I confirm no hands are raised.

Thank you. Felicia Bravo, please call the roll.

Commissioner Skudow? Yes. Assistant Deputy Mayor Clark? Yes. Deputy Mayor Guzman?

Yes.

Commissioner Kirch?

Yes.

Mayor Ryan?

Yes.

Thank you, that's 5-0. Next item, a resolution of the City of Sunrise, Florida, authorizing the Director of Utilities to submit a grant application for an intersection conversion project as part of the Broward County Metropolitan planning organizations roads for economic vitality program cycle one under the local agency program Expressing the city support for the project and application authorizing the city manager to execute a commitment letter and Providing an effective date city manager mark Lebowski Rodrigo de Castro director of utilities to have a motion. I

Move it. Move it.

Motion by Commissioner Kurt, second by Commissioner Scudo. And again, who pulled G?

So first of all, I really want to thank the MPO. I'm the city's representative for the MPO, and I just want to tell you how important it is sometimes when, just like what Marty Kerr said, he said, whether he goes to every city and says this to every city, but he said it's an unbelievable thing how he could work without staff. When the MPO comes up with some type of program or grant or application or pilot program, there's 31 cities. And everybody has a chance to put in for these programs. And it always seems that we're right on it. We're ready with the program that we have in mind or that we've been working on something in staff level to bring to us. And then boom, something like this pops up. I mean, this is almost $5 million that the MPO, because we're ready and on top of it, that we're going to be able to get close to $5 million to do two roundabouts. I mean, it's like put up or shut up. And Rodrigo, you know, to your team, We know how much the roundabouts have cost us, you know, on Sunset Strip and some others. And to get $5 million to do two on Springtree and 84th and then also at 42nd and 94th in the Willoughby area. So, I mean, we all experience the flow of traffic. So whether some people say they work or not work, I just think it's a great opportunity to, you know, thank your staff to be ready for this. because sometimes you don't get another shot, especially at this amount of money. I mean, we did the pilot program with Sunset Strip. When we did the bike path, we were on it, and that was a great pilot program that we got to have a bike lane to go up and down Sunset Strip. So I really want to thank staff for being on top of this and following through, because you don't really get a chance like this to get $5 million. If it goes over $5 million, then we will incur those costs. So this is where we got to be on it, which we are, and make sure that they're following this through and pushing forward. And not let someone get laxed and take their time and let this go where we're going to have to come out of pocket. But still, regardless, hope to God it doesn't go over budget. But if we can keep on it and let them pay the $5 billion, it would be unbelievable for us to have a great benefit like that. So I just wanted to bring that up as... you know, the representative for the MPO and to thank staff for being ready and to go on this project, two projects. That's it, thank you. Thank you.

Anyone in the public wish to speak on this item? If you're on the phone, please press five star to raise your hand. Lords, can you confirm no hands are raised?

I confirm no hands are raised.

Thank you. Felicia Bravo, please call the roll.

Commissioner Kirch? Yes. Commissioner Skudo? Yes. Assistant Deputy Mayor Clark? Yes. Deputy Mayor Guzman? Yes. Mayor Ryan?

Yes.

Thank you. Five to zero. F. Yeah, we're going to go to F. Oh, did I skip it? Yes. Apologies. All right, we're going to go back to F. A resolution of the City of Sunrise approving a first amendment to standard contract 22-57-08-WL between the City of Sunrise and Burmex Incorporated for meter reading services and providing an effective date. City Manager Mark Lebowski, Susan Neighbors, Director of Finance and Administrative Services. Do you have a motion? Thank you.

Second.

Motion by Commissioner Skudow, second by Commissioner Kirch.

So I know that we are going to the digital reading system, and I really just wanted to give an update to the entire city about where we are. Why is it that we need to go into another contract with the manual reading, and how many manual services do we still have left?

Again, Mark Lebowski, City of Sunrise. I'm the city manager. So we have been working diligently on the AMI project. We're probably 80% done of our meters within the City of Sunrise. And we then have also started in Weston. So we expect to wind down our program and the AMI between Sunrise and, well, Sunrise will probably be done in July timeframe, and then Weston will be shortly after that. So as we've wound down our contract with Burmex for the manual reading, it's become incredibly challenging to ensure that we are able to maintain the meter reading with the level of service that we need to deliver our bills on a monthly basis. Our current contract was on a per read and we were struggling because as we have still Sunrise and Weston to complete, And it wasn't a matter of just saying based upon zones, it really is based upon location, cycle times, and the reads. So the last few months as we wind this down, we've worked with Burmex and our staff on a collaborative effort So we based it on the number of staff levels. So there's a table within the contract that bases the funding for the remaining few months based upon the readers and the supervisors. Right now we're at six readers and one supervisor, and we intend to go down through there until we finish up all those reads over the next few months.

I have a follow-up. I see this on the dais tonight. Is this active? This is a new utilities portal providing easy usage tracking.

Is this online yet? It is, we are, I'll call it a soft rollout is what we're doing. So customers that are coming in and paying their bills, we are providing them this information to go online to be able to create their account that would allow them to track and monitor their usage. We're trying to do it in a more slow rollout because we anticipate that people will have questions and have phone calls and emails to make sure we do it in a more measured way. So, yeah, so we invite you, Commissioner, to try it out. We've tested it out at a staff level, and we think this will be a benefit that we've been talking about from day one. Once we finalize all the meters, we're going to roll this out across the whole city and all our service area.

Excellent. Thank you.

Thank you. Does anyone in the public wish to speak on this item? If you're on the phone, please press five star to raise your hand. Or just can you confirm no hands are raised?

I confirm no hands are raised.

Thank you. Felicia Bravo, please call a roll.

Deputy Mayor Guzman. Yes. Commissioner Kirch.

Yes.

Commissioner Skudo. Yes. Assistant Deputy Mayor Clark. Yes. Mayor Ryan.

Yes.

Thank you, 5-0. And the next one, I, a resolution of the City of Sunrise, Florida, approving a sixth amendment to standard project agreement number 18-011-KS between the City of Sunrise and KCI Technologies Incorporated for the West Sunrise Transit Oriented Design TOD Master Plan for the Sawgrass Mills Mall Area Project and providing an effective date. City Manager Mark Lebowski, Rodrigo DeCastro, Director of Utilities. Motion this Second motion by Commissioner skuto second by Commissioner Kirch.

I said this I just really wanted to ask About the arena is gonna develop Whatever they're gonna develop on this site. So what we I'm just asking we just paying for all this stuff and then they're gonna come back behind us and do their whole entire own thing or I'm just saying. I'm just trying to figure out.

That's a good question. So we started this study with KCI to really identify primarily improvements to the Sawgrass Mills Ring Road in terms of accessibility of pedestrian and vehicle and bicycle. We we we finished or did a draft of the plan we provided that to the Commission, I think, last year sometime and we provided it to the mall and we've identified a number of improvements there, such as sidewalks bicycle lanes. If you recall, we call them, for lack of a better term, the suicide lanes in the center where you have a continuous dual lefts all the way around the ring road. And that's not an ideal situation in terms of from a traffic safety standpoint. So we put together a list of improvements along this ring road and identifying it from a 30,000 view, almost like a master plan, So we provided that to them all. They have provided us some comments. We have made a few revisions, and we are still working to finalize any issues that they may have. The intention with the capital improvements that come out of this would be that we would also set up a a district in this area that would be funded, that would fund these improvements and would not be funded directly by the general fund. So that is the expectation and understanding. The mall, when we started this, has been supportive of this process, but we still have yet to get their full support to finalize the master plan. Then once we do that, then we can go ahead and move forward with the next phase. The improvements that we're identifying here should not have a direct impact in terms of what the arena's doing. Yes, there may be some interconnection there, but I don't believe the improvements we're talking on the ring road will have any impact to the redevelopment for the arena.

All right, so the only reason why I'm saying that is because when we first had the presentation from the arena way back, they were closing off 136th from one end of the arena to the other end of the arena. And that was going to be a park. I'm just saying. So now if that becomes a park and then it encompasses the whole 136th, I hear that Sawgrass is okay with this because they're not paying for any of this. But once you just told them that they need to put a sidewalk on the whole ring road. They don't want to come up with money. So unless you do, like you said, put them in a tax district where the money in that tax district can pay for the sidewalks because they're not going to pay for sidewalks. So I'm just want to make sure that. Whatever, because now we even said in the beginning. that they were asking us at one time to redo all the piping around the whole entire ring road. So I'm saying that could be a huge expense for us. Would that be considered into the tax district where they would have to pay for that or we would get stuck paying for that? And I'm just saying because all the infrastructure that's going to come in on the arena side Everything for water and wastewater is probably going to have to be upgraded tenfold. I mean, if you're talking about a 600-room hotel, 1.6 million square feet of office space, 5,000 apartments, 1,500 condos, a museum, a park, bars, restaurants. I mean, all of this is going to be connected to, obviously, the rig road. They're going to need a bridge. walkway or whatever they're going to build. I mean, they're building the transportation hub. Obviously all the people that are at the mall right now, they don't even have a bus shelter. They don't have a bus stand. They don't have anything. They're going to have to have something. We're going to give those people access from the mall to the new transportation. I'm just saying, so that's going to be a huge amount of infrastructure. So I'm saying to all this, This is like minimal to what's coming. So that's why I'm asking this. And the Sawgrass, you know, they're a good partner, but they never really put their money up to do any of these things. They'll put up their money for a parking garage. They're going to put up money, but they never really put up anything for anything outside of their actual property. And it's not fair that they're not going to pay. But now if you do it as a district, they're not going to have a choice. Or are they going to fight us?

Before we started this master plan, we sat down with them all and identified what we were looking to do, and at that time, they were supportive, and they've been supportive through this project, because during the development of the master plan, we had stakeholder meetings with the mall, Metropica, and other stakeholders in that area, and we received very positive feedback. Now we're at the point to try to finalize this master plan and we still have to work through some issues so it's important what's in front of you tonight is a time extension only just to give us more time to work with them all to get them comfortable, so that we can finalize it and the finalizing the master plan is not a design plan by any sense, it is only. a large-scale master plan, it would require us then to take the next steps and move forward. And obviously, we would need to really sit down also with the Panthers and making sure what we do here won't impact theirs. And I don't believe it would, but I think it's important that they are also a stakeholder and there is some coordination they would have to do also.

Well, I'm saying just for one major thing that is a cost to us, and that's having police and that's having the... you know, the other ones that direct the traffic across the street and all that. I mean, that's an course that we incur 200 days a year. A lot of that is overtime. So whether they build a bridge or fly over, whatever you want to call it, that's something that definitely has to be brought between the both of them. And especially if the county is building a transportation hub It would be better for the people that are going to use the transportation, whether it's the light rail 10 years from now or the bus that could be five years from now, that they have access to cross the street through a ramp accessing that building. So maybe whenever they do this, that the ramp actually goes to whatever, in between the transportation hub where if they come off, they go down, they go into that, or they go right and they go to the mall, or whatever it is. But that has to be part of the county. I mean, they shouldn't incur a cost for the ramp. It would save us money that we don't have to have police and, you know, you know who I'm saying, the others. Who are the others? Service aides. You know, I'm saying they're all the time because we have them everywhere. And then it's they walk across the street and they're constantly going up to the cops and the service and saying, hey, I'm already right here. Just let me cut through. You know what I'm saying? And they're like, no, you got to walk. I half a mile to the next opening and then go in. And I see it all the time. They're like, oh, come on, let me in. Am I right? I mean, so I'm just saying it ends up being like an inconvenience that people don't know. And I think it would just be a better benefit going forward. So this has got to be something when we talk to the arena side and the mall side and the county. That has to be something that is a definite. Like we can't not have that access with the walkway. Agreed. Yes. Okay.

That's it. Thank you. All right. Thank you.

Anyone in the public wish to speak? If you're on the phone, please press five star to raise your hand. Where's can you confirm no hands are raised?

No hands are raised.

Thank you. Felicia Bravo. Please call the roll Assistant deputy mayor Clark.

Yes deputy mayor Guzman. Yes, Commissioner Kurtz. Yes, Commissioner Skudo.

Yes.

Hey Ryan Yes Thank you passes 5-0 going on to public hearings 12 a I Commission a discussion and or action regarding first reading of an ordinance of the City of Sunrise, Florida, amending Chapter 14, Traffic and Motor Vehicles, Article 1 in general, by creating Section 14-3, entitled Electric Bicycles, Motorized Scooters, and Motorized Mobility Devices in Public Parks to prohibit the use of electric vehicles. bicycles, motorized scooters, and motorized mobility devices in public parks, except on the park roads and in designated parking areas, providing for definitions, providing for conflict, providing for sterability, providing for inclusion in the city code, and providing an effective date. City Manager Mark Lebowski, Thomas P. Moss, City Attorney. Motion by Commissioner Skuto, second by Assistant Deputy Mayor Clark. Felicia? Sorry, thank you. Anyone in the public wish to speak? If you're on the phone, please press five to raise your hand. Lords, can you confirm no hands are raised?

I confirm no hands are raised.

Felicia Bravo, please call a roll. I'm so sorry. Okay, I'm ready to get this adjourned. I'm just kidding. Okay, public discussion amongst my colleagues. Thank you.

I just wanted a question where it says except on park roads and designated parking area. So that means if they go into, like, say, Wellaby Park, they could ride around in the parking lot and then ride around where the dog park. I mean, I'm just wondering. And then if you go to Flamingo Park, you know, you could ride around in that parking lot. But then if you go into... 50th Street, if you go into Sportsplex. I mean...

The walking path is not a road. Right, I know the walking path, but I'm saying as far as Wellaby, the road that goes around the dog park... Correct, that's a road.

Well, I'm saying, so now they're going to have where they could go flying around there. So what I'm just saying is it state that you can't limit it into a parking lot because their thing is going to be like I rode my bike to the parking lot. So is that what it is?

We could regulate those devices on park roads and in parking lots. The idea was to keep those devices off of the playground, the athletic surfaces, areas where pedestrians are, you know, there's common pedestrian foot traffic. So that was the idea. uh... and there's actually a restriction a further restriction in parking lots that the you can only use parking lots for parking purposes so you're not supposed to be riding around in the parking lots uh... other than for parking but the idea was to allow you know traffic on the roads and parking lots for those purposes but not on the other parks then we also have them here in the parking garage where they you know they're used i'm just saying so i mean look

I don't want to be a stickler because when I grew up here when I was 12 years old, I came from Brooklyn. I didn't want to live in Florida. And my brothers bought me a dirt bike. And that dirt bike gave me the freedom to really go like wherever I wanted. But I will say I was respectful that every day the Sunrise Police took me home in a cop car. You know, Frankie Grillo, Nyloth, you know, Miss City, like every single one of them would be waiting for us. We'd come over from Hiatus Road. Well, it was Plantation where Fountain Spring Jacaranda was. And then we would come into Sunrise and we would have to pick up our bike, put it in the cop car and drive home. We weren't really doing anything bad. You know what I'm saying? The difference is our dirt bikes were loud. So that annoyed the residents. These bikes, you can't even hear them. So it's not really the noise. You know what I'm saying? We used to peel out. These don't really, I'm just saying. So I want the kids to have fun. I want them to enjoy them. It's just that, like, where do you designate and not designate? Like, we just happened to be at Tunes and Trucks, and the kid was a nice kid. He had a helmet on, right? But he was driving up the grass, driving down the, driving in front of the Civic Center, driving, you know? So, I mean, and they're kids. They're not doing it to, like, destroy, you know? So... We understand we don't want them to actually drive it through where the pavilions are and where the baseball fields are. So I'm not saying limit it, but then I don't want them to be doing laps around the dog park. And that's why, because people do that with their cars now. And I already talked to Sean and Mark about putting speed humps. along 44th Street inside the park. Then you go along the canal and then come out at the dog park. They get in their car and they just fly all the way around, everybody. So if we put some speed humps, then they can't go flying around. So, I mean, that's as far as the cause. But the same with these kids, you know. But then again, I don't want to put the speed humps and these kids are going to get and sue us. But I'm saying is, so I really don't want them in the park, but then they have nowhere to go. I mean, we got to limit it. And I just have to say that I'd rather not see them in the parks than in the parking lot. But then the kid's going to say, because his parents are just going to say, well, say you just drove there and you're parking your e-bike in the parking lot, and then you're going to the park. So I mean, like- So yesterday- I have a couple questions.

Yes, I'm just going to add to that. Yesterday was the first football game for the flag recreational sport. at the SAC park and it was fully activated. All the fields were being used. We had basketball courts, the people in the building, the entire parking was full. And I literally witnessed four individuals, a group of kids, I guess they all had like those scooter bikes, riding through the grass. At the same time, there is another individual with an actual dirt bike scooter, like the dirt bike ones. They're all different. And they're just riding along on the sidewalk in the middle of the fields, not to mention there were a few other kids that had, it's like a wheel where you just stand on the pedals and you're just rolling with your feet. All of that was happening. And then to icing on the cake, we're talking about parking and parking should be used for the actual parking spots. I saw four golf carts parked on the grass right next to the bathroom building of the SAC was on the grass by the sidewalk. close to the field. So I'm wondering at what point are we regulating? What are we actually doing to enforce our policy? There's already laws in place and I understand there's some things we can move forward, some things we can't do, but at what point in time are we actually going to do what was happening when SCUDA was younger and the Cops are putting him in the car and you know we're not going to do that, but there's got to be other ways. We just need to do something. We can't just keep turning a blind eye and I really at this point I'm tired of us having this conversation almost every Commission meeting and it's the same run around. Nothing's being done. I mean, not nothing because I know we have regulations, but I just feel like we should be doing a little bit more. And this is a perfect time for you, Chief, to come on up.

I have questions for Chief.

Thank you.

Well, the first thing is we definitely got to get signage in the parks at all the gates. That's my question. And they have to be readable. That's through Kevin and this little show line and Emily. Right, just to get signage out there.

But it has to be visible and readable, not small, not inside of the building. It needs to be right front and center.

Chief Ransom, Sunrise Police Department. First, I would like to thank... it's coming closer just in case i can't answer a question detective stotler with our traffic unit and legal for putting this together the ordinance as it reads and we've looked at other ordinances throughout the county it still allows these devices which are classified as bicycles to be used within the parking areas um What it doesn't allow for is the bikes to be used inside the parks, as described. Golf carts, separate issue, and Detective Stotler is going to be on that tomorrow. Now, some of these golf carts are properly registered. There are a handful in that area, the area you described, specifically this park and the surrounding community. I have seen some of those properly registered and some not. The where the park is at. If properly registered, they could park within the parking areas of these specific parks on the grass. And if they're entering the parking lot, going over curbs or using the pedestrian walkways to get closer to the field, clearly that's not allowed. And we can address that. Um, it would fall also within this ordinance. But the ordinance is a step in the right direction to, number one, allow us to put appropriate signage up, the ability to enforce and provide education, and to place some of these youth in, maybe not in cars, but at least call their parents and have the devices removed and hopefully prevent some of these issues as it relates to the pedestrians parking or walking within the parks and having to dodge some of these kids and devices.

My question to you is what... On enforcement, is this going to be an arrestable offense or?

So ordinances are noticed to appears enforced in that manner. Clearly are an arrest if necessary are, are. The purpose of this ordinance at least allows us the ability to make contact, have a legal ability to make contact with these individuals and then call parents and provide education. That's clearly going to be the step, the first step, and probably the second step. The goal is not to arrest 13, 14, 15 year olds for operating these devices within the parks. It's to change behavior.

I mean, look, a long time ago, and I'm not saying this agency, but Fort Lauderdale used to have a bicycle registration system. And that was just used to shake down people to go into constitutional searches and things like that. This isn't what we're doing. We're focusing on public safety in the parks. So those scooters going 40 miles an hour are hitting the mother and child who are taking their kid to the park to the swing, right?

That's correct, sir. Our goal is education.

Obviously, there's going to be an education component to this. Is there a plan now to once this gets implemented on what type of educate? How are you going to educate the public?

Yes, we're going to do it. We've already started as recently as today. We posted a quirky video on our social media. We're creating flyers and we've borrowed some from the Department of Transportation. Currently, we're creating our own to pass out at primarily elementary and middle schools. So the education campaign has already started and is ongoing.

How about the hats and helmets?

We're working on that. I've made contact with some of our local partners, and through leisure services, we are working to get helmets in every car, at every school, and to pass them out at every opportunity. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir.

The only thing I want to say about the golf carts are, My brother now lives, lived in Sunrise across from SAC, you know, originally one of the original houses. Now he lives in West Park. The whole neighborhood has 10 foot sidewalks. Every resident has a golf cart. The brand new Publix has golf cart parking. The clubhouse has golf cart parking. I'm just saying. Those are all the new developments. But, Since a lot of people who live in Wynwood Isle or live in Willoughby, live close to a couple of the parks, they have golf carts because to them, they just feel like it's a nice thing to do. So maybe, you know, to figure out how we could figure out how to get some parking spaces for golf carts, I mean... you know the same way they have parking for motorcycles so that you know you don't take away x amount of spaces and i understand what commissioner guzman saying about them driving up and parking right on the glass and that's not safe because sometimes there's kids driving them and you don't want a kid driving a golf cart that shouldn't be driving the golf cart going onto a ball field that may hit reverse or hit forward Not seeing a little kid or whatever. So to them, it's more for fun, not realizing it is a motor vehicle. So I don't, you know, this is, I'm not looking to spend money. I'm just saying, look at whatever for fun. maybe not asphalt in it, but if there's a little spot where they could park on the grass where it ain't going to cost us any money, you know what I'm saying? But it's, you know, a ramp up or whatever that they could go up where it's not going to be, you know, us creating a parking lot and striping or whatever to accommodate the few, I'm saying, until we get to a problem where there's, you know, 100 at a game. But right now, if there's like five, then let's see if we could... you know, without a cost, you know, to doing parking spaces. But, you know, these are things that you have to look at. You know, the bicycles, parking for them to take away an extra couple of parking spaces where they don't park in a parking space and take over X amount. If you did slot parking, maybe you could get three motorcycles instead of whatever. I mean, but I don't want to see the kids, you know, get a record. I don't want to see them go to court. You're going to get the few that are going to, you know, you're going to chase and you're going to do whatever. But then, you know, we don't want them to go at high speed.

I'm just saying.

So if there's anyone that owns an electric bicycle place or sells electric bicycles in Sunrise... Maybe we could get to the owner and come up with a flyer and say, hey, if anybody purchases one of these from Sunrise, if you could just give this to them. Or can we put this in your thing that says these are not allowed in Sunrise? I mean, just something, whatever.

If anybody that sells them... You bring up a good point on the Chase part. I don't want to see a kid running from the police thinking he's going to get arrested.

I get it, but back then there was... Goes out into traffic and gets hit.

Now we have a fatality as opposed to an education. So you're going to have to come up with some policy decisions.

I like the warning, like you said, the warning. But if we could get to the people who sell them, then they could post if there's any in Sunrise. And you got all the other chiefs, whoever owns a bicycle place that's selling these e-bikes or electrical bikes. If you all could come up with a standardized poster that goes in. These are not allowed in city parks. They're not allowed in county parks. Just to get them and give them a flyer when they buy it. It goes in a packet or whatever. I don't know.

Hand them out at Piper through your SRO.

right you understand yes we definitely don't have a cheese question for mister this apply to markham park uh... right that's a good question it it depends on whether leisure services has uh... any authority or i guess the well it's really designed it's really designed for the city sunrise it's it's designed for parks that leisure services has uh... authority over so I'm not sure to what extent leisure has authority over Markham, probably not.

If I could jump in, my expert behind me said that Broward County already limits the use of these devices in county parks.

Okay, so the signage has got to be the top priority. Get some nice big signs that say, and then the pot smoking. I mean, we all probably just got that in one of the residents. that the basketball courts and whatever. So, I mean, I guess we got to just do a couple of drive-bys, go in, you know what I'm saying, introduce themselves as, hey, how's everybody doing? Everybody good? I mean, same thing. It's more or less of a warning.

You can give them the warning and trespass them. You can't arrest them, but you can trespass them if they're smoking marijuana.

It's just we don't want to start getting letters from residents that, you know, the kids don't want to go to the park because they feel like there's an element there that's not making them comfortable.

Yes, sir. Tough decisions for the chief.

So we've had this conversation about the pot smoking in our parks again. We have this discussion maybe once a year, and it's still happening. So how are we going to stop these things? For instance, I won't say what city, but there's a known city that when you go through that city, everyone knows the police is going to get you for whatever, good or bad. So not that I want Sunrise to have that name for itself, but at least they know we are a safe city. We're listening to our residents. We have safe, clean parks. We like to talk about it, but we have to be about it. So not that I'm saying you aren't doing your part because we have a great police force, but I do feel like we do need to do a little more to enforce the law that's already existing. Not that I'm thinking people need to be arrested,

Well, Brower doesn't prosecute for that.

Well, I'm just saying we just need to do more. I don't want to take my kid to the park and keep smelling.

State attorney refuses to prosecute. They told them don't even bring them.

That's fine, but even if we're escorting them, we're not, let's say, trespassing.

You've got to come up with another mechanism.

We'll spend more time in those parks and specifically the one that's being discussed.

Thank you. Okay. Any more discussion? We're good. Felicia Bravo, please call the roll.

Commissioner Skidow? Yes. Assistant Deputy Mayor Clark? Yes. Deputy Mayor Guzman? Yes. Commissioner Kirch? Yes. Mayor Ryan?

Yes.

All right. Thank you. 5-0. And let's go down to city clerk's report. No report, ma'am. Thank you. City attorney's report?

Sorry, no report. Thank you.

Thank you. Did I skip anyone else? City Manager. City Manager report?

No report.

Thank you. And going to, I guess, Mayor, are you going to say something?

No, I'm good. No report. Thank you.

OK. Assistant Deputy Mayor Clark, it's all yours. So I want to congratulate. Commissioner Neal Kirchard being second for the Broward League. I got to witness it the other night. Such a good ceremony and just a great honor for you to be representing our city in such a reckless way and looking forward for you taking over next year as being the chair. So I want to congratulate you. Really good job and hard work for really taking another task on. So thank you so much for all your hard work for that. Then I just wanted to thank the Leisure Services for the event that we had on Saturday. It was well attended. There was a lot of different activities that went on, and it was really good to see the morale of everybody there. And so kudos to you all for all your hard work that you have done on day in and day out. And looking forward to July 4th, because I know there's another big event going on for you guys. So in advance, I just want to thank you for your hard work.

First of all, I just want to say to Elise, happy 18th birthday. And to her and Caitlin for both of them for graduating. One graduated from Piper High School and one just graduated from Weston High School. So good luck to both of you. That's all I just wanted to say, but Allison just texted me because she came here to get her car and left me her car because we're going out tonight for Elise's birthday, but she wanted me to say to the chief, Thank you so much for putting up the posted sign of the mileage on Hiatus Road. So now people know what the speed limit is over there. So she wanted me to make sure. She said, tell them thank you for the speed limit sign. So much better. Thank you. Sorry, I didn't get to go to the Caribbean, but I did see all the posts, very crowded. It was very well attended, and I know staff was out there in full force, so I know to Kevin and to his whole crew, that's like the little mock-up before you go to your July 4th full blast with your hundreds of peeps out there, so... To all the residents, for July 4th, make sure you come out for the parade. Make sure you come out for the fireworks and the drone show. And make sure you get there early because it will be packed this year. Okay, and Neil, I'm sorry. I was with you during the week. Yes. Where we got to entertain Maya Daly from Tallahassee. I didn't get a chance to come to your event because we had something Saturday. We had the graduations. But I know that you're going to do a great job with the league. They're in good hands right now.

And then to see...

Now you'll be like the second person, Mayor Theron was a previous, and now you'll be the second person that represents Sunrise to the Bravo League, so good luck. I know you'll do a good job.

Thank you. It was a great event to attend that night. I look forward to working with President Davis and advancing the agendas for the issues that we face in Broward County, so it was a great honor to be sworn in as vice president. Looking forward to being the 70th, it'll be the 70th year for the Broward League of Cities, so I'll be present on that year. The downfall of attending the event is during my mingling, I caught a virus for a respiratory infection and could not attend the cultural, I'm sorry, the Caribbean American Heritage Festival this weekend. Couldn't attend because I was sick, but it looked like a great event. It looked like staff always does a great job at those, so I got to see the post. Before I was sworn in, we did get a chance to go to the PBA Officer of the Year, and I want to take a moment to congratulate Detective Plunsky as a finalist for the PBA Officer of the Year, but also let our community know that our canine officer, Maxon, was actually named the 2026 PBA K-9 Officer of the Year. So great accomplishment there for our men and women in the police department. They always do a great job. This Sunday, as you all know or are probably aware, we did get an email from Ms. Kennedy of the Springtree Cove HOA. I just want to make sure staff follows up with her. There were some issues relating, construction-related issues about damage between their HOA property and Broward Health. And also for Ms. Bravo, in the email, there was some request for permits and records. So if you haven't seen that, make sure that... We received it, sir, and we're processing it. All right, so again, I gave them my standard response that someone would be out, someone would not be out, but someone would reach out to them to discuss the issues. What the answers are, that's for you to decide, but just make sure that we're in contact because this is not a

canal issue. Staff has already reached out to Ms. Kennedy and also coordinating a meeting with Broward Health and also the HOA. All right. Thank you. And that's my report.

Can I just add to that? When they did the wall on Hiatus Road, the county did, they went behind the wall and connected the people's fences to the wall this way.

Horizontal or whatever you want to say.

Why didn't we or whoever, when Broward Health just put up the wall, why did they leave? I know that their wall is on their property. But wouldn't it have been better, I'm saying, that they would have made all those people take their fences down the long way and just make the fences go to the cement? then there wouldn't be a cement wall and then their fence. It doesn't serve no purpose. I'm just saying. I mean, it just would have been a better way to have done that than to have them leave their fences up. So this is the difference. When all those residents came here and were against it, they should have been working with Broward Health to make them put up, and this is the townhouses. This is not, I'm not talking about Kennedy's property. I'm talking about the ones that go up against the property. Would have been a better solution and would have been better anesthetically pleasing for them since they have a dilapidated fence in their back. It would have been better that they would have said, let's work with you, let's take this down and not even, they don't need a fence. Because now what's gonna happen is their wall, How are you going to get behind the wall to maintain it? I mean, it's a small space. So now we're going to have a problem of grass growing in between the wall and the people's fence. So I don't know. If it's something that we could look at and remedy the 20 that are there.

There's only maybe not even 20.

I don't know what it is, I'm not saying we could do, if someone could do something, because that would be a better solution than, they're not going to knock down the cement wall, and then you see the fences, they're very old as it is. But I could understand, all they did was reassure up a fence, which, I'm just saying, now it's like, they got to put in old brand new fences, when why would you even want the fence?

I'm just saying.

if you could have staff to just look at it, I'm not saying do anything, but look at it and maybe someone could come up with a solution.

Understood.

For that part.

Yes.

The other part would be Kennedy's property. I mean, the issue of them asking the people to leave her property because they were doing something, whatever that issue is between utility and whoever, and the developer. I don't know what the issue is, but obviously if... If we needed access to their property to fix something or someone else needs access to that property, is that a right away? I mean, I don't know if it's through Rodrigo or through legal or through you. I'm just saying. But how could you not make somebody access your property? There has to be some type of easement.

There is. There is an easement for that, and there was some coordination between Broward Health and the HOA. I just think there's some misunderstanding on some of the information.

Right. That's all I'm saying. I mean, I don't want this to be an issue where no one can access their property, which I don't think that could be legal if there's rights away, especially if all pipes connect on that site.

How do we get in there?

So I don't want somebody to tell us that we've got to vacate the premise because they're asking us when they can't have a water leak and let the water leak for something else. Okay? Thank you.

Okay, I just want to say congratulations to Caitlin and Elise. Jose was actually graduating that night as well, so we got to see Elise push Caitlin through the stage, which was really nice. Sorry I missed the swearing in for you. I was also at the graduation. I do want to talk about the Caribbean American Heritage event. It was a great event. Lots of people were there more than I anticipated, which is great. I know that parking and traffic was pretty heavy. And there were a couple of things that I feel moving forward for the next year as it continues to grow and more people come, that there may need to be small adjustments, whether it's moving it to the amphitheater here, which again, I know in that area it's great because it's a lot of our Caribbean community, but I believe we may need more space. And if we don't, I do suggest some of the setup to be a little bit different to allow more people to sit directly in front of the stage without the tent kind of being in the way. So there's some small little, I guess you can say... minor adjustments but overall it was a great event considering we had competition with some other cities having their event at the same time i was pleasantly surprised to see everyone with their kids and enjoying the event and it was great to have cabin little here accepting the proclamation um so again thank you to our state rep lisa dunkley and her team and the city of sunrise commission and staff for allowing this to happen and hopefully It continues to grow. And lastly, I will share with you that our next meeting is going to be June 23rd. That morning, my son is actually being shipped to the Army. So I may or may not be here, depending on how I'm feeling emotionally. But I do ask that those of you who believe or have your religion and faith, please keep them in your prayers because... That's all I'll be doing every day for the next few years of his career. So thank you. And that's it. Can I get a motion to adjourn?

Move it. Second.

Motion by Commissioner Kirch, second by Commissioner Skito. Have a good night.

And this house was also to put a fence. They cannot connect to this. They have to make their own. So there's also two fences, one next to each other with a little bit in between with grass and stuff. You don't have to.

We don't have that.

Okay.

But I'm just saying, the wall, I'm saying they put up a wall.

Yeah.

So I'm just saying, you just connect your fence this way. Right now the fence is running... I'm with it.

Yeah, yeah, I think it's, what I mean is a similar kind of concept. I think it was because if this person, I'm sorry, excuse me, we have a resident speaking.

If you can just give us a couple more minutes for her to finish what she's saying.

I want to make a suggestion. I think the meeting was adjourned about one second before. Maybe she could talk to a staff member instead of the commission.

Let's do that because I just want to make sure that. I don't want to waste your time. Thank you so much.