Town Commission - Regular Meeting

You know, sunlight. Thank you. I know.

No, again, it's appreciated. It's just deeply appreciated.

Okay.

Okay. You met him right at the party. That's it? I'm good.

You know, let's see. I'm really happy you're here.

Don't feel you need to stay any longer than you can or comfortably.

All right.

Good to start. All right. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Today is Thursday, August 27, 1013 a.m., calling today's meeting into order. Madam Clerk, if you'll take the roll, please.

Yes, Mayor. Mayor Danziger?

Present.

Vice Mayor Epimerge? Present. Commissioner Travani?

Here.

Commissioner Valdostegui?

Here.

Commissioner Weingart?

Here.

Mayor, you have a quorum.

Thank you. Chief, if you'll lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, please.

The Pledge of Allegiance is a flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Moving on to Item 2A. Ordinance is received.

May we have an opening remark?

All right, go.

Yeah, again, I just briefly want to voice my concern about this legislative technique of having the special meetings during the morning. And I want to say a couple things. I raised this point on August 6th, but I think there's two new things I wanted to add to the story. A point that's often been made by the defenders of these special meetings And I want to just say for the record, I oppose doing major legislation at this hour on a weekday when residents have difficulty attending. A point that's been made is that, look, people do show up. And I want to say something about that. Yeah, people are here. But I've talked to residents, and people are here at great cost. I talked to one health care professional who had to move patients around in order to be here. I talked to one caregiver whose children work, who has to take care of grandchildren, and who is right now not taking care of a sick grandchild in order to be here. These are the costs that we're not seeing. So we see the faces in the crowd, but we don't see the great lengths to which people have to go. I myself work full time. I need to be working right now. But my commitment to the town is such that I'm going to be here. But this is costing me money. It's costing a lot of people here money. And the mere fact that people are here in the seats doesn't deny that this is the wrong thing to do. The second new point I want to make about these special meetings, because it's true that the previous commission also had some special meetings. Whenever we had them, we would ask the clerk to send out a doodle poll so we could find a time that worked for everybody. That's not the way this has happened. The August 6 meeting was just declared for whatever it was, 11 AM, two days following. I was on vacation in New York, and I had to come in on Zoom. I was never consulted about what was convenient for me. But again, this is important to me, so I'm going to make time to be there. But this is not done in a consultative spirit. It's not as important to the chair of the meeting who can attend. It's just declared. This meeting was also just declared. I'm here. But nobody asked me what time was convenient for me. I never got that courtesy. Also, the other thing to note is that when we've had special meetings in the past, it's been because things are time sensitive and sometimes it's for a formality, sometimes it's for a contract that needs to be executed. Nothing on this agenda is remotely urgent. These are legislative matters. This commission moved the regular September meeting to September 3rd so that we could all attend. So we're meeting in a week at night when is our normal meeting. We're all going to be there on September 3rd, so why can't we talk about the legislation on September 3rd? Why are we having this rush? The consequence that's also got to be taken into account is that the quality of our legislative deliberation is going down. We have met four times to legislate in the month of August. There simply isn't time to do outreach to the community in the proper way to inform people what's at stake. to think about it, it's being rushed with the absolute minimum of legislative process. And this remains a major concern. So please don't suppose from the fact that I'm sitting here that this is easy for any of us. And I don't suppose, and I know from the fact that we have a pretty full room today, that this is easy or right or good for you either.

Thank you, Commissioner. Anyone else?

Yeah, so I just want to echo the words of Commissioner Vildosta. It's not easy to be here in the morning. I appreciate that you found the time to come to show up and give us your opinions. We got emails, we got phone calls, and we like it that way. But I really hope that in the future we don't do this unless there is really a compelling reason. So.

I hear all of that, and I also recognize that evenings are, after we've all worked a full day and have families, but yet we devote the time to do it, and we each make time. I was on travel, and I joined one of these special meetings that were scheduled, you know, pretty short notice, but we were noticed, and I joined from Switzerland and participated, and so... You know, we make the time for things that are important to us to the best of our ability. It doesn't mean that we won't miss a meeting. You know, every so often we're human. This is a volunteer involvement. The $1 a year gets used up by our first coffee at Starbucks for a meeting. And so I hear everything at the same time. We're in budget season. We're in a crunched budget season due to some delayed numbers and catch up on finances from the previous commission. So here we are. And I commend everyone for being here. It's not always convenient, but we make it happen.

Good morning. And I completely agree with Commissioner Weingart. It's not always easy, but we make it happen. And once in a blue moon, it's OK to miss it. I mean, we're all humans. We have a tight schedule. We're here for the residents. We're trying to make our best. And actually, morning time, I see there's more people coming. And our minds are more fresh to work. Sometimes we do it morning, sometimes evening. But we're here for you guys. Thank you so much. And I really wanted to make a point to thank the commission members to change the date for the September meeting. Thank you so much for accommodating. This is what we should be doing, helping our commission members to accommodate and help so we can work for the residents. Thank you. Have a good day.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. I guess I do want to echo and expand on what you said. I think there's more people in this room this morning than there were at the 7 p.m. regular meeting last month. You know, today's schedule, just to give you guys a little information on at least what my day looks like, all right? I've been in here since 9 this morning. There's a special meeting in the morning. There's a budget workshop. And then I have the planning and zoning that I'm liaison to. So I'm not going to be leaving until 9 o'clock at night. This is the job we signed up for. It's, to Commissioner Weingart's point, we volunteered. It's time away from homework. It's time away from talking to your kids how their day was. This is the commitment we have to the city. And sometimes we have to find what is convenient for us versus there is no time that's going to work for everyone here. 7 p.m. is not good. 10 a.m. is not good. 5 p.m. is not good. People are coming home. What is good for the 6,000 people in this town? So we have to figure this out and balance our own lives. And I appreciate that this commission, I don't know how Commissioner Trevani does it, every other day is in another state and somehow he's still here. So You're going to have to give me your tips on how you're balancing this. But again, I appreciate those that came out. You know, community input is important, and that's why you're seeing these meetings happen, right? You guys want to talk on every item. You want to make sure you have input. Well, guess what happens? We don't finish our agenda. So then we have to have a special meeting to cover those items. And there are things that happen. We are now four and a half months into our legislative term, and there's a lot of things that need to start moving. We don't have two years to talk about anything. Residents want to start seeing results. We want to start seeing projects move forward. There is a budget that has to be approved this month. There's a lot of work that has to get done, and we've committed to that, and that's what we're trying to do here. But because you want input, it comes at a cost. There's going to be more meetings. There's going to be special meetings. The town business has to get done, and there are those that think that if they get up and talk on every item for three minutes, if there's 20, 30 items on an agenda, that's over an hour and a half of one person in this room talking. That's not even before the commission sits down and has a conversation out of a four-hour meeting. So now you start timing that by, you know, five people, six people that come to every meeting and talk on every item. Well, a commission meeting doesn't, you know, the business doesn't get done, and sometimes that's the point. So you are going to see special meetings as long as that keeps happening because it's a balance between public input and getting the work done, and we're trying to find that balance. So thank you all, and thank you all for coming. And with that, we will start today's agenda. Item 2A, rescission modification of ordinance 2024-1782, amending section 2-206, public participation. Madam Clerk, if you read the title of the ordinance.

If I could interrupt, I have one request. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. We would like to request an executive session with the commission. On pending litigation, that case is Town of Surfside versus Lunacon Engineering, pertains to 96th Street Park. This is pursuant to Florida Statute 286. And I'm hoping that the clerk can coordinate that meeting, that executive session, Sometime in early September and we can work with her to set a meeting so I just wanted to publicly announce and request that Executive session there you go another meeting.

Thank you so much madam attorney Madam clerk if you'll read the title of the ordinance to the record, please

Yes, Mayor. Item 2A, an ordinance of the Town Commission of Town of Sursa, Florida, amended the Town of Sursa Code of Ordinances, Chapter 2, Administration, Article 6, Rules of Procedure for Town Meeting, Section 2-206, Public Participation, Rule 7.02, Citizens Presentations, Public Hearings, Rule 7.04, Addressing Commission, Manner, Time, and rule 7.05, the quorum, provided for codification and inclusion in the code, provided for survivability, provided for conflicts, and provided for unaffected date, item 2A.

All right, thank you. Mr. Attorney, if you want to give a quick intro and then we'll get a motion and then move on to public comment and commission debate.

Sure, good morning. This, actually, I don't have, I'm sorry, I don't have the exact item in front of me, so I'm gonna let Lily go ahead and explain this one, and then to the extent that you need a follow-up, I will do that.

All right, so just very briefly, this item changes our code back to what it was prior to the changes that were made in the last commission. Correct. This doesn't really address or remove The public's right to speak. We've addressed some of these things and hopefully we can get some clarity up here by the town attorney. But for now, the consensus among the commission was to put the rules back to the way it was, to allow the chair to run the meeting as intended and as written by our charter. So if we can get, but at the same time, I think there's some ambiguity and I think residents deserve some clarity. So I think if I can get a motion to pass the ordinance as written and with the direction to the town attorney to come back with some ordinances to clarify public participation in the meeting.

I'll make a motion to pass 2A as written.

Second.

So we have a motion on the table. Let's go through public comment first. We have Salida Kranzer. I'm gonna keep this to two minutes because we have so many comments that this is an hour and a half of public comment as is.

One, two, three. So then fix the timer, please. OK. I object to the repeal of our rules and procedures under item 2A, altering rule 704 and altering 705, crates bureaucratic interrogation traps for neighborhood associations while weaponizing the quorum rules, giving the preceding officer unilateral power to bar a citizens for making what we consider impertinent remarks is a blatant violation of our First Amendment rights and open governance. Furthermore, this entire agenda packet is a procedural defective. Line 26 on item 2B and line 31 on item 2C both explicitly state that these public hearings are happening in September 2026, while line 31 of the items 2D is left completely blank. Today is August 27. You are attempting to pass final laws today using date and future date legislative records to escape public accountability. Mr. Wigert, families, they have to do so many things, but your schedule, it has to be aligned with your volunteer job. So if this is a volunteer job and you cannot handle it, you should resign. Mr. Vermewe, yes, this is a voluntary, but this is not the time to be adjusting for your own benefit, but not for the community. As you said, you are here for everybody, but no, you are here mainly for Mr. Dessinger. Mr. Dessinger, if here these people is not used to bugging you, it's because we care. And it is not true that in the afternoons there are less people, and during the summer where you hear your children because people were on vacation. So this is absolutely an abuse of power. So you, Mr. Wiggold, Dessinger, and Vermeer, you are not here for us. So sad.

Thank you, Mrs. Krenzer. Michael Kerouken.

Michael Kerouken, 9365 Abbott. Again, thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to speak for now might be short lived. But as I know that you have all heard from me, and I have not received any responses back. So I don't know if you received my emails about this particular issue and others. So I would appreciate some feedback, even just a confirming receipt if possible. But I'll read my notes into the record. As you have heard from me and others about concerns regarding the impact of ratification of amendments under agenda item 2A on accountability, transparency, and public participation at meetings. Now as confirmed by the town attorney, the changes to rule 702B do in fact take away the right to speak on certain items not deemed to be part of a quote unquote public hearing. The town attorney said, if this is eliminated, the commission can still allow for comment under these categories, but it would not be mandatory, meaning rights being taken away. Which means, for me anyway, I will not be able to speak on discussion items under Section 9 or first reading of ordinances under Section 4 unless the mayor says so. That means public speakers lose their right to speak on those items unless permission is granted by the mayor. And that decision can no longer be overruled by a majority of commissioners because of another provision that you changed. I think the efficiency argument is spurious, and if properly analyzed, would probably not be supported by data, but that's your supposition. You have every right to say that. Even if the meetings were prolonged, however, a limited number of people who want to speak on all the items let them. This is not the school board, not the city of Miami. This is Surfside. Other than the efficiency argument, what is the harm hearing from residents, even the disgruntled ones? It's kind of their right to express themselves. How would you feel taking away people's right? Anyway, my time is up. Please vote no, or at least be open to amendments if it comes up.

Thank you, Mr. Kerrikan. Ms. Salzauer, two minutes, please.

Liana Salazar, 9317 Bay Drive. I wonder, first of all, the word, Mr. Crookin just used a great word, it's called spurious. The word spurious means false, false. False is exactly the statement that the mayor put on face, on next door the other day. He wrote, the right to speak is not changing. That's a lie. I will be filing an ethics complaint. That's a truth in government violation. The right to speak at meetings is absolutely changing today. Residents need to be aware of that. I also want to make it clear to those watching at home that when the mayor says that people are here, look, there are 14 people in the room. Five on this side, nine on that side, one reporter, one husband, and six staff members, OK? In a town of 6,000 residents, 3,446 registered voters, and only a margin of 31 votes is why this man is sitting in this seat. Why are we having a special meeting at 10 a.m. on a Thursday in the middle of the day? So that no one can attend. This meeting is designed to exclude residents. The guy's not even making eye contact because he knows it's true. This meeting is a meeting about grifting. A political grifter is a figure who exploits public attention, political affiliation, and confirmation bias to secure personal or political gain rather than serving constituents. That's what this meeting is. The order of business, the emergency reason why we're having a 10 a.m. meeting is grifting. The guy wants a bigger office. The guy wants to travel to D.C. He wants to go on vacations on taxpayer dime. And this rule that we're changing here not only takes away residents' rights to speak on items on the agenda, but it also overrules, it takes away the power of the other commissioners to even disagree with the mayor and overrule him. So anyone who would vote for that is an absolute moron, quite frankly, that you would give away your own power. You may like the flavor of Kool-Aid sitting in the seat right now, but let's pretend it's someone you don't like. Let's pretend it's their worst case scenario. Let's pretend it's me. And I'm on a tear. Don't you want to be able to check me? Don't you want to be able to say, hey, she's nuts today. Let's overrule her. That's what you're risking here. That man has proven to us already what he's capable of a few years ago. He's removing our right to speak so he can unleash the hounds at the next meetings.

Thank you, Mrs. Salazar. Camilo Pino.

That was quick. My name is Camilo Pino. I live in 9157 Abbots Avenue. I don't know if you have gone there recently, but it feels like a war zone. It's been going for a couple of years, no? I know it's to our benefit, and I appreciate that, but something's going on there that's taking really long. Also, traffic is horrible. I don't know if you have driven recently. From Bay Harbor to my house can be half an hour, no? What I'm trying to say is that there are really real pressing business issues that affect us. And here we are voting on taking away our rights. I mean, when I first heard about this, I thought it was an exaggeration. I didn't want to come. I mean, it's difficult for me to come here. But apparently it wasn't. I mean, we're voting to limit residents to one formal citizen presentation per year. I understand a formal presentation is the way we can get items in your agenda. Is that right? Well, I mean, why do you want to limit that? It's weird, no? And then you also want to limit the topics we can talk about. And one of the topics is kind of funny. It's business. I mean, isn't that what you do, business? And I'm sorry if I sound patronizing. I really appreciate your work. I know you're doing this voluntarily indeed. I voted for you to have a salary. I think you should have a salary so there are no conflicts. But this is, I mean, it smells like the sargassum at the beach. It's fishy. Why the rush? Do you want to persuade us? There might be a point. Some of the things you say may make sense. Sell them. Don't rush them. Please. So if you can postpone this item, I would really appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. Louisa grassy.

Can we restart the timer?

Thank you. Louisa grace grassy 6 25 95th street. Um, the ordinance, it's my understanding that all these items on the agenda, this is the second reading. Today at 10 a.m. for a special meeting, I'm not sure what is special about that. I believe these should be saved for regular meetings and properly noticed, not at the bare minimum. And the point is on to a town government competency hinges on public participation because the public is the community. That's the community that you took, all of you, an oath to serve. I had the pleasure of being able to watch some of the meetings by video and it was very interesting on one of the, I don't know if it was the regular meeting or special meeting when the vice mayor and Mr. Weingart were unable to attend, I noticed a complete demeanor change in our mayor and I would like to see that type of demeanor on every meeting, not just when you don't have two people here to make your vision the majority. And each and every item on this agenda were put in place two years ago. And usually when somebody makes a rule about something, it's because the rules have been abused or broken or the modicum of respect and appropriate behavior have been violated. So that's pretty much why all these items were even put forward in the first place. And now all of a sudden there's an emergency Basically ask them all and I don't think that's correct and I think that any Elected officials should be happy to have the public participate because that's why you're here to serve the community, which is the public.

Thank you Thank you George business

George , 9225 Collins Avenue. I want to stick to probably what are four components to 2A and take them in order. So parentheses A basically limits citizens' participations to one per person per year. I think that's a reasonable restriction. The reason being that how often do these actually happen? Sometimes they don't even happen once in a commission's term. Sometimes they happen once, maybe twice, rarely by two individuals. But by putting in this, you basically remove the possibility of a commissioner in a minority inviting a citizen to come in month after month and use them as a proxy. But the safety valve of three commissioners voting to let that person speak is still there. Parentheses B, the language that it's reverting back to, it's language we've had for decades. It's served us well. The enumeration of agenda items below it doesn't add anything. And in fact, if you look above in our ordinances to, I think, 605, you will see that the agenda items are spelled out. So when it says the public can speak on agenda items, it's pretty clear what they can speak on. I think when it comes to a three commissioner override of the chair, you want to look at that carefully. I think there are certain instances where that might be worthwhile because, you know, speaking longer, if a person up here is saying, hey, can I have an extra minute, that sometimes happens and commissioners may say, yeah, we'd like to hear them. So look at that one carefully. The last one, I'd get rid of the word impertinent. If you kept that in there, impertinent is a low bar and you'd have to like eject people after two words up here. And that would be it, thank you. Thank you, George. Bruno Lopez.

Bruno Lopez, 8866 Emerson Avenue. I moved to the US in 98. Drug trafficker tried to kill me. I lived in Mexico. And this reminds me of what I saw growing up in Mexico when the ruling party called upon the deputies in the chamber to legislate really late at night, early in the morning, so the opposition party or other people could not show up, and they would just legislate and impose themselves. This reminds me a little bit of living in the Banana Republic I used to live. I think if you don't want to build the perception that there's a sham going on, I would keep this very critical debates in a time in which everybody can attend. I work now as a consultant. I gave up 400 bucks in the morning. It's hard for me to get my work by contracts. I gave that up because I read what was going on. I wanted to be here. I think a lot of people would like to be here. I have neighbors who emailed you and other people in the commission. I do ask you to go back to a normal process, one that doesn't give the image of a sham. And remember, you all do live here. We all see you. And we want to be able to appreciate you also. Thank you. Thank you.

Is there anybody else that wants to get it up before we close public comment on this item that didn't submit a card yet? All right. Seeing none, we'll close public comment and go to the commission discussion.

Look, so here's just a very big picture starting point. When people email me and I write them back, I always thank them for their comment. When I see residents at the meetings, I thank them for coming. The majority of this commission, I think, is not receptive to free speech. And the proof of that, I've seen it. It happened at the August 6th meeting. There was an item where Commissioner Trevani opted not to speak, and the mayor thanked him for not speaking. That happened to me once in his previous term, too, where I had put in a card to speak, and I opted not to, and he thanked me for not speaking. This ideal of efficiency that's being offered here is really spurious. It's equivalent to, please don't talk, right? That's the spirit of this commission. There were people, you know, when I was elected, I wrote a blog post, and I said there were a lot of people who voted for me and for Shlomo Danziger. And I saw the ballots because I was at the manual recount. And I think those people, what they must have had in mind is they want us to talk. They want us to debate and to change our minds and to bring our best. The minute I start talking, that timer goes off. I have only three minutes. And I'm given the bare minimum amount of time to talk, and I'm an elected official. After my colleagues speak, I'm very often not allowed even to respond to their points. Legislation here is being rammed through, and I get the bare minimum. At the August 6th meeting, I wasn't even allowed to speak on one of the resolutions that got voted on. I had fewer free speech rights than any of you. Make no mistake about it, we would not be having this conversation if the mayor and the majority of the commission weren't trying to restrict free speech. Why else are we rushing this? Why did we meet three times in August to talk about this if this is just a simple procedural return to what we did in the past? It's not. This is done with the intention of silencing people. When you hear the word efficiency, that means be quiet. In the previous term, the word was decorum. When you heard the word decorum, it meant be quiet. That's what we're being asked to do. I want to draw attention to two very specific points. There's not enough time in the three minutes for me as a legislator to talk about what's going on here. And that's a problem. That's indicative of the value system up here. I want to just talk about Rule 7.05. As Mr. Kusla said, the word impertinent is being put in as a standard for what's free speech. Impertinent is a ridiculously ambiguous word. It means both rude and not relevant. It has two distinct meanings and I'm not even sure which one is at play. Mr. Pino's comments started off being about the Abbott drainage project and somebody could have said that's impertinent because it's not having to do with free speech. But he had to make his point. He had to bring it back to a free speech issue. I've been in situations where in this very chamber somebody's been cut off for being impertinent because the chair of the meeting didn't have the patience to wait for 30 seconds to see where this was going. That's been used. Slanderous is also being reintroduced. Slander is a term that judges find. It's like you have a whole trial to determine what's slander. A chair of a meeting cannot, in the spur of the moment, make a determination of slanderousness. It's not possible. You have week-long trials to determine whether something is slander. Those are being reintroduced as the criteria. I changed those terms to incendiary and threatening, so it would be a really high bar to make somebody shut up at a meeting. Now it's being lowered again. And there you go. I may not get another chance to talk on this item. That shows you what the values are here.

Thank you, Commissioner. Again, if you're going to spend half your time cursing out the commission, that's on you. So we can either discuss the item. I haven't cursed anyone.

I haven't cursed anyone.

We can either discuss the item or you can make a political grandstanding up here, but that's your choice. And so we're going to go around. I curse no one.

So I just want to look at this from a practical standpoint. We've been meeting for maybe six months now, and this ordinance was in place. What's interesting is that usually you don't have a lot of people attending the meetings when it's ordinary business, and therefore the inefficiency that we get out of The ordinance, the way it stands now, I think is quite frankly minimal. We may have, I don't know, 20 more minutes or 30 more minutes that are going to be added or have been added to our meetings because people come up and speak. I don't know if it makes sense to get rid of that time because we want to get business done more efficiently. I think that, and I've made this point also in the past, even on the Gazette, There's something about democracy that is different from a business. A business usually is efficient. There's a clear hierarchy, decision making process, and the boss decides. Democracy is different. It's inherently different. There is a structure. There are powers given to us, and there's powers given to the residents to vote and all that. But it requires more participation to function properly. That's in the nature of democracy. It's sometimes frustrating also for me. I'm spending so much time now looking into what we want to do with the urban planning, the so-called charrette, this initiative that we spearhead in the street ends. I've started looking into the sargassum now to see what kind of solutions we get. And you run into this... issues with the fact that we meet only once a month, with the fact that there are certain checks and balances within the public administration. But that's part of the game. It's what it is. We can make it a bit more efficient. True, that's a good argument. We can work on that. I think that the way stands this ordinance, the way it stands now, it goes too far. So maybe we can have a chance to talk about it, see if we can modify it.

If I may. Thank you, Commissioner Trevani, for your very level-headed, thought-out points on it. I agree with you. It's frustrating at times that things take time. You want to effect change. That's why you're up here. You devote a tremendous amount of your time to it. And as we see it, we're simply reverting to what was here. So I don't see a need to COMPLICATE IT FURTHER WHEN IT ALREADY IS CHALLENGING. THERE ARE SO MANY CHECKS AND BALANCES IN PLACE. OUR TOWN CHARTER WAS IN LINE WITH BEST PRACTICES THERE. SO AS IT WAS, IT WAS DIFFICULT TO GET THINGS DONE, BUT THAT'S GOVERNMENT BECAUSE WE NEED CHECKS AND BALANCES AND WE NEED TO DO THINGS PROPERLY. SO TO FURTHER COMPLICATE THAT, When we have, as was mentioned earlier, about 6,000 residents, we each devote a tremendous amount of our time to talking to residents casually on the street, formally for a coffee, phone calls, emails. I wish I can get back to people quicker because there's a lot of communication that goes on. So there's a lot of communication also that goes on outside of here with the residents and engaging the residents. So I completely agree that The steps of government can be complicated at times when you really want to effect change, and I support the projects you're doing, and I hope we get to them in our term. But I just want to address another point also. The question was brought up about the urgency of these items. As discussed, and we don't have to dwell on it heavy, we walked into a mess. And everyone knows the finances were in complete disarray. Town staff was provided a lot of challenges to get their job done. And I've spent time talking to town staff to understand that and be able to be the best commissioner I could in decisions I make here with the commission. I'm for that and anything I could do to streamline to bring things back to an efficient manner and I'm gonna be doing and I spent a lot of time into this so the question was why the urgency for these items We also had a stack of legal matters we had to address and that called for a number of special meetings as well. So don't be fooled by the alarmists that are pulling this out saying you don't have the right to speak anymore. You have the right to speak. There's time to speak. There's time to engage your commissioners. There's time to have all that dialogue. This is simply reverting back to what was so we don't further complicate things so we could actually effect change in our term. Thank you, Commissioner.

All right. So again, I agree with everybody. They get up here and say this is not emergency. It's not urgent. And I agree with you. We've been in office five months, and we're addressing this now. This wasn't a first week item. It wasn't a first month item. So when is the opportune time, right? We're five months into our term, and now we're addressing it. So I agree with you. It's not an emergency. But at a certain point, we have to get things done. We have watched, and to Mr. Pino's point, there's a lot of important things to do. We have watched the same items cycle through every agenda for the last four months because we never get to it. The job up here is to be efficient and get things done. And I know one of my fellow commissioners put out an article in this Gazette that government is all about talking, but it's not. You elect us. Our job now is to get things done. The residents that supported us, that put us in office, want to see the parks get revamped. They want to see the roads get fixed. They want to see issues get addressed. They don't want to see us sit up here and pontificate and talk for hours and hours. That's not why we're here. So, you know, again, not an emergency, but we're seeing an inefficiency and we're trying to address that. You know, again, the traffic issue, to Mr. Pino's point, has been sitting on the agenda, rolling over, rolling over, rolling over, because we don't get to the item. And the objective here, we're working, we're taking a look back four months in, and we're not being efficient. So, yes, you can see more meetings. You will see us be more efficient up here. But at the same time, we're going to make sure that public input is part of the process. And if that means an additional meeting so we can split up our agenda, so we can focus more time on the public input, I'm willing to commit that time. But at the end of the day, I want to be very clear. The alarmists, as Commissioner Wine got mentioned, you know, Mr. Kerouken, who's writing emails and going on Nextdoor, this is the same law that existed when you were in office for eight years. And it didn't seem to be an issue back then. So I don't know why it's an issue today. So please don't yell out, sir. But, however, again, to George's point, and I did have a talk with him, what I like to do is make sure there's clarity. And I had this issue before where people would object to the Chair's decisions, and I think to Mr. To Mr. Coussas' point, impertinent doesn't have a clear definition to me. As the chair, I don't want to have to be making that decision. I need things to be clear. So if somebody makes a threat, I know what a threat sounds like. And I know what it means to be slanderous. When you're going to get up and make accusations about corruption without any evidence, that's slanderous. Everything else in Section 705 is pretty clear. If the motion maker would be amenable, I would take out the word impertinent and strike that out because I can't find a clear definition and I don't want to be accused of at any point making that decision myself. I'd like to be able to revert or point to a rule if it comes time to send someone out of this room.

Okay. I appreciate the feedback and I'm comfortable with that.

Can I ask one more question? I just need to make sure if it's accepted. Okay, yeah, yeah, sure. All right.

Yeah, so I was going to ask, can we at least keep the nines, maybe also the first ordinance in there? And I'm saying this because you've seen that. I mean, we've all seen that. When we go and we talk about... You said the nines? Yeah, on the agenda, you know, the items under the discussion items so that people have the residents have the right to speak on the discussion items. I'm saying this because when we talk about all these initiatives, I find it beneficial to hear from some of the residents who have a different perspective. And usually, at that time, there's maybe four people left. So it shouldn't add too much time. But at the same time, like I said, it would keep something that is really useful for the commission. So why don't we maybe consider that, and then

find a balance. So I want to address that because that seems to be a miscommunication either internally or at least the information that I've gotten when this thing came forward. 702c specifically says public discussion on agenda item, right? That's where this belongs. 702b is public hearings. A public hearing is defined as a quasi-judicial, It has to do with second reading ordinances, zoning. This language does not belong in 702 . 702 says, when a town commission considers an agenda item, input from the member of the public shall be limited to no more than three minutes. That's already giving me, at least as a chair, a template saying, hey, if there's something on the agenda, there's public input. Now, it should be limited to three minutes so you can get things done. But there's already something telling us and the whole town, and again, it's worked that way forever, that public input should be put in on every item, right? Now, whether the chair chooses to group it by the beginning, the end, or merge, you know, and we used to do that sometimes when the night was getting late. We would merge the item nine where everyone could get up, say their input on the item, and then we move forward and went through them one by one. But again, the chair has to be able to address that when he's looking at the clock and I'm looking at the speaker cards. When I have 30 speaker cards, I have to start adjusting the meeting accordingly because, again, some people's goal is to run out the clock up here. That's a fact, it's called a filibuster. Run out the clock at one o'clock, we have to finish this meeting, right? We're on this thing for an hour already. We have two hours left, that's one item. We still have three items left. If we're gonna spend an hour on each, we're not finishing before the budget workshop. And we need to finish in two and a half hours, because they have to set up the room. The goal of some people is to get up here, she's laughing, because she knows how it works, get up here and talk on every item to run out the clock so we can't finish this agenda. All this does is put this code, and I can't stress this enough, guys. who's ever watching out there, this puts the code back to the way it was before. Nobody's changing anything the way it didn't exist before. It worked for Deitch. It worked for Karukan. It worked for Kinzer. It worked for everyone. And I'm sorry that some people in this room have a problem with me, but voters put us in here, and we're going to get things done.

But right now, I think that, because I'm trying to reconcile the email that we got from Steve with what you're saying.

So I can answer because Steve was referring to state law. There's state, there's county, right? There's different requirements. The state requires mandates for hearings, for second reading ordinances. The county has another law about the right to be heard, which we address within our thing. And then there's the town law. So I mean, I'm scared if I ask Steve to explain it, we'll be here for the rest of the day as well. But that's it.

I guess my question is very specific. So when we get to the discussion items and So as a standard, they will need to be addressed during good and welfare.

No.

No. No. So every, right, because that's, I guess, what the town authority. Remember, good and welfare is for everything not on the agenda. Not on the agenda. Now, do I enforce that? No, but that's what our code says. All right. So then residents are still able to come and with every discussion item, speak their mind and give us their comments.

So what I'm trying to do, and I'll be bringing this forward, is to have a standing meeting, essentially move the nines off of the Tuesday meeting, right? Because we're never getting to it and we're getting to them at 11 o'clock at night. Move them off, have a separate standing meeting. So it's not a special meeting sporadically, but The residents know that, let's say Tuesday is the regular meeting, ordinances, resolutions, following Thursday is the 9th. We can start a little earlier, we can have a full discussion, make sure that public input is done, and this way the town staff has enough time for direction to come back by the next month with whatever action we're trying to do. That's the intent.

So when we set up that meeting, then we can go item by item and residents can give us their time. Yeah.

If I have 60 comments on one item, we may have to.

Well, usually we don't.

Right. Listen, it. But you need to be able to play it by ear. Right. That's the that's the job. And that's the role that I'm in.

Mr. Mayor, may I respond to one point you said? And I want to first say thank you for. the changed and eliminating impertinent. I think that's an important step forward. I think that word shouldn't be in there. I just wanna say though, you actually misstated the definition of slander. And I think that kind of makes my point. Slander in the law has a mens rea requirement, that is to say an intentionality requirement. So just accusing somebody of corruption without evidence, which is what you gave as a definition of slander, is not slander. It has to be either knowingly false or have a reckless disregard for truth. And my point is that that usually requires a trial. Judges determine slander. I would say just based on that, if you don't know the definition of slander, you shouldn't be enforcing it. I think we should take that word out as well, and I wonder if you'd be amenable to that. Because you can't make a mens rea requirement. You don't know whether the person knows the falsehood of what they're saying or is being reckless. And I think that's, in a way, you've proven my point there, that you're putting in a standard that it's not personal to you. No chair is able to enforce. So would you also please consider removing slanderous?

So I hear you, but this is not a court of law, right? If I find somebody slanderous, they don't get fined for millions of dollars. If you get up here and you're going to say time after time that I accepted money from Dubai, that's slander because you don't have any evidence of that. And if you're going to repeat that message over and over and everybody starts hearing that, that's problematic. So unless you're going to get up here, if you're going to get up here and make accusations against anyone sitting up here, you need to back that up. And that's pretty simple. I'm not penalizing you for that. I'm not going to throw you in prison. I'm not going to fine you millions of dollars to the plaintiff. So this is not a court of law. The chair can sit and look and say, you know what? If you don't have evidence when you stand up there, what you're doing is being slanderous against the commissioner.

I would consider asking the attorneys about this. There are First Amendment issues involved here, and people can make accusations in public fora without evidence. I think that is actually within the scope of First Amendment criticism of the government. And I think this is the danger, is that we're silencing people potentially for legitimate criticisms. I think that's what makes me concerned.

So again, I can have the attorneys address that. This forum over here is not a complete First Amendment. There is a limited right to speak. And the town attorney, we have gone through this before. You can't get up and scream fire in a thing. You can't get up. There are rules and regulations in this room. And for us to enforce that is not a First Amendment violation. I've had multiple ethics complaints of people complaining that I didn't like what they had to say. And all I had to do was point at our laws and say, here's the books. And okay, so Madam Clerk, let's call the roll, please.

Yes, Mayor. Commissioner Travani?

I'm sorry, one second.

One clarification. There was a motion, there's a friendly amendment by the Mayor to delete the word impertinent?

It was adopted by the motion maker in the second.

Okay, perfect, thank you.

Commissioner Travella.

Yeah, another clarification.

So did you just ask the town attorney to look also into the word slanders to see if there's any conflicts with the First Amendment or any of that? I'm not taking that.

Again, it's existed in our books. And for some reason, it was fine forever. What law school did you go to? It's a good thing we sit up here with a town attorney who can advise us as we go through these meetings.

Yeah, because this is kind of important. Can they give us an opinion on that? Let me ask you, if I take out the word slanderous, are you going to vote yes on this item? And provided that we have that conversation on that, like a separate meeting where people can speak on this. The motion has been made.

We're calling the roll. So I'm just asking you because I know you're trying to fit. Are you going to say yes if we take out slanderous?

Listen, I'm going to say yes if we also have the, which is not part of the motion, I understand that, but you said that, so I want to make sure that we do that at some point where we have a conversation, like a separate meeting on the 9th where people can have this ability to speak on every item. Can we do that?

Well, I mean, I proposed it. If you guys, there's no motion required, but if you guys are okay with that, we can, I'm thinking the Thursday after the Tuesday works. If that works for everyone, you guys want to take a look at your calendar quickly, but The point is to have something standing, right? I think it's to have something on the calendar that residents know is there every month.

Yeah, then I would vote yes. Yeah, yeah, I'm taking out slanders, and I would vote yes.

Again, I sat here for two years with two people getting up month after month saying that I went to Dubai and took money, and that became the truth. So that's not acceptable. Okay, so are you, you just asked me.

I was asking for information, yeah, I'm curious. All right, so can we take it out and then I will vote yes. We do that? I'll leave it up to the motion makers. Motion maker? So at least we have a little consensus we can.

I think it's important that the quorum be sustained there, and that the public recognized that, to the mayor's point, that if you say a false accusation enough times, that's what people know. And they have yet to produce any proof of these things. And there have been attempts on myself already. And you could scrub. licensing 14 states with the FBI for my security firm. So you could have fun doing that all day long because I keep a squeaky clean life there. But those that have made those attempts can know that I will handle them very, very seriously, and my attorneys will take that very seriously. So whether it's here or not... I personally, I can't speak for the others here, will take every attempt to try to slander myself extremely seriously. It was done. It was done on Nextdoor and that was taken down very quickly because Nextdoor corporate wasn't informed of the legal ramifications there. So I'm okay pulling this out. Note that there will be ramifications if people make attempts to create false, to create lies and to defame anyone sitting up here.

So are we taking that out or no? The worst line. Sorry, it's just to verify. Because that depends if I'm going to vote yes or no. Maybe we should ask the attorney's opinion before.

Yeah, I would like to know the attorney's opinion on this.

Okay. I'm not sure what the... I want to be brief, Mayor, but I'm not sure actually what the question is. I'm listening to everything here. And if the question is, can you remove the word slander from the list, of course you can. There's no legal requirement that that be in our ordinance. I'm not sure that's the question. Is somebody being slandered? And is that ultimately a decision that may be before a court? Yes, it could be. Every single item in this list is subject to debate. What does that word mean? Does it mean this? Does it mean that? If you're going to remove items because you believe that they can't be proven, or that they have to be a decision of a court, then all of them should come out, and there should be no standards. I can't, I'm not quite sure what the question is of me. The definition of slanderous, I think. If somebody could help me with the question.

Well, I think the question was, does it open us to liability if somebody determines up here that what the speaker is saying is slanderous, and they send them out, right?

It does not open liability to you if you all make a determination that somebody has violated the rules and you've asked them to move forward with the item or ultimately maybe if it gets serious that they be removed. But what I want to be clear on is that you There has to be some level of control over the meetings. If you all decide in your judgment that you are being slandered and that those comments should be stricken from the record or somebody should be precluded from doing that, You can do that. Now, ultimately, is somebody going to potentially say, well, you were denying me my free speech? That is possible. But this is not a public forum to just spew slander. untruths. We're talking about public participation and comments on the items that are before you. I think it's really important to distinguish between what this public input is about and what a general open public forum is, okay? This is not a general public forum. When the public comes forward to speak on items, they're speaking to those items. And that right is assured to them by Florida law, okay? And anything you want to grant to them. And the reason I wrote my memo the way I did is because the right to appear before a legislative body and speak on an item can be very limited. If you go to the Florida legislature, you don't see lines of people standing up demanding to be heard. Those rights to be heard are limited to those by law. Now, in Florida, you have an extensive right to be heard. You have a right to be heard on all those things we call public hearings. And you have a right to be heard on any proposition which is being brought forth by the government. A proposition. So what I'm going to suggest to you is that your rules are completely inadequate to handle public input, OK? The reason that you do have run-on meetings is because you really don't have any rules to control that. And I think that these items are problematic. They were introduced to have public comment on a proclamation where you're giving a little kid a school award and then to open up public comment to that or to have public comment after a report by the lawyer. I mean, to have public comment about, I don't know all the different words in here. I'm not sure why that was all done. Why the town attorney's report is subject to that public comment. Or it just doesn't... This doesn't address your problem. I think that you need to clean this up. I believe that removing those items is important to cleaning all this up, but this is only step one. You need a step two. Getting out the stuff here that creates this right to be heard on every single thing on your agenda virtually to stand up and speak after a proclamation, a key to the city. If you want to give a key to the city, you now have a right for somebody to stand up and give public comment on that. I don't think that's what you're trying to do here. or the majority is. So the answer is that on the issue of slander, it is one of those standards by which people have to follow when they are speaking. If they want to speak in a public forum and just spew stuff, they have a right to do that. There are public forums and places to do that. These rules are intended to allow people to address items that you are addressing. and to give input on items you are putting forth, propositions you are putting forth. It is not a forum just to come up and generally speak. Now, if you want that, you can have a good and welfare section of your agenda that allows people to speak to non-agenda items, non-business items, and just get up there and say whatever they want. You have that. That's at 815. Okay, so this is not limiting anybody's right to get up there and speak their mind to anything they want under good and welfare. We're talking about the other areas of non good and welfare participation by the public. And I think you are devoid of rules. And I think that for years you just go by practice. And so I think it's really important that this is followed by either us or somebody putting forth, and we're happy to do it, a set of rules that's customary. This is highly, highly, highly unusual what you have in your code. I've never seen it before. This is not the way public input is dealt with by just putting a bunch of items in the ordinance that come out of the list on the agenda. I've never seen that before. This is extremely unusual. I think you all should probably select a method of having public input that is customary, that's used by most governments, and allows people to speak on all the propositions that are before the commission. And that's what I think everybody wants.

All right, thank you for that clarity. With that, I see no reason why anyone should have an issue with there being a rule not to slander anyone up here. I think that's part of maintaining decorum and in the effort of finding balance and working together here, I listened to the request to strike impertinent and that will remain. However, I'm not gonna change my motion to remove slanders.

All right, so following up to what the town attorney was saying, I could vote yes if we can have this step two that is just described and maybe instruct the town attorney to work on that and clarify so that we also take a look at the discussion items and make sure that people have the right to speak on those. then I will vote yes.

All right. We forgot we're in the middle of calling the roll, yeah.

Yes, we're in the middle of calling the roll. So would that be yes to the current motion?

With the comment that I just made, which I don't know how, I mean, this instruction would be part of the... Well, after the motion, I'll quickly instruct them, yeah.

Is that a yes or a no?

Yeah, I said yes with that comment.

Those comments need to be addressed for the motion maker as well.

Okay, so we're amending the motion to have a discussion following the vote?

Not a discussion, I guess, to amend the motion to also just instruct the town attorneys to come back with some framework for our meetings.

Okay. Okay. As the mayor instructed.

As the vice mayor, as the second, do you agree to those changes to the motion?

Yeah, second.

All right.

We got to start again? All right.

Commissioner Trevani?

Yes.

Commissioner Vildostegui?

I just want to say, you know, I'm grateful to my fellow commissioners. I think we had some better dialogue on this than we've had on some other items, and I appreciate that. I appreciate the change with impertinent. Some of the other issues are still deal breakers for me, slanderous, and also the override mechanism that's being taken out at lines 131 and 32. So for those reasons, I vote no, but I think we got to something better.

Commissioner Weingart?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Bemerge? Yes. Mayor Danziger?

Yes.

Mayor, the motion carries.

Thank you. All right, moving on to item 2B, rescission modification of ordinance 2025-1795, replacing section 2-26, chapter 2, article 2, reserve of section 2-26, commissioner usage of offices in town hall. Madam Clerk, if we read the title of the ordinance into the record, please.

Yes, Mayor. Item 2B, an ordinance of the Town Commission of the Town of Sarasota, Florida, repealing ordinance number 2025-1795, and it's entirely relating to commissioners' usage of offices in Town Hall, provided for availability, provided for codification and inclusion in the code, provided for conflicts, provided for implementation, and provided for an effective date. Item 2B.

Thank you. Can we get a motion to adopt the ordinance? So moved. Is there a second?

Second.

All right. Let's open it up to public comment. Bruno Lopez. You're passing. All right. Well, there'll be a chance at the end. Don't worry. George Coussos to be.

George Kouselis, 9225 Collins Avenue. I'm actually going to take this time to kind of veer off course just for a bit. I rarely do this. But the last discussion, as Commissioner Vildostegui said, was really a valuable one and I think aired out a lot of things. But the thing I want to point out is what Commissioner Trevani was doing. And here's where I'll digress a bit. I frequently watch Larry Bird talk. reels on Instagram. Those of you who are old enough to remember him, he was a master at seeing the court around him and being able to pass the ball in places where you didn't know somebody existed.

Things like that.

And I think Mr. Trevani has seen openings on the dais at a couple meetings now, and I implore everybody up there to see these passes when they're coming toward them and score the basket when it's possible. This evening, there will be an item on the planning board, which came about because an item was going to begin. But Mr. Giovanni thought, is there a way that we can improve it? And the mayor took that pass. And so tonight there will be an item on the agenda looking at that. And I implore you to all look for these opportunities up there. And everyone comes into a meeting with a position on something. But the play is dictated by other things at times. And always be aware of where the ball is and where it's going and the opportunities that are in front of you to make something better. And so I just wanted to use this time for that because I thought the last item was very fruitful. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chrysalis.

Mrs. Krasner?

I object to the repeal of the ordinance 2025-1795 under item 2B. Look closely at the line 26 of your own ordinance packet. It states that this second public hearing is happening on September 2026.

Come on.

Today is August 27. You are attempting to take a final vote on a law that contains a completely defected future dated legislative record. Furthermore, look at exhibit A. By repealing this ordinance, you are striking down the rules that prevent commissioners from permanently occupied town hall offices, explicitly deleting the warning that doing so constitutes an act of inefficiency in office. You are removing the wall between legislative and administrative functions behind broken, improperly dated piece of paper. So just here, right in here, right? In this session. The mayor is attacking, attacking here residents, but he does not give us the chance to reply to his attacks, right? He does not give us, right? But when he is to close doors, right, it's gonna be even worse because there's not gonna be a record. Here we have a record, a public record. So to... To tell to Mr. Hurricane that, don't yell at me, but he is yelling? To tell a resident, oh, he's laughing? Of course. What he is saying and what he is doing, you know, does not comply. To talk about slandering, we are talking about a regime. Suicide has become a regime? Are we slandering? Are we talking? Are we have free speech? We are not. What do we have here? Mr. Wiggins, what you did to us is a threat. That is just to say. The viewer in the FBI, good, but what you have done to us is a threat.

Thank you, Mrs. President. Ms. Salazar, two minutes, please.

Eliana Salazar, 9317 Bay Drive. Let me explain something. This is not a job. This is a volunteer, $1 a year role in which you give direction to the people whose job it actually is to run the town. The people who have the education, the expertise, the certifications, the training to run this town. You all just give direction. Like, I like that wall green, or I like that wall pink. You don't tell them how to paint the wall. You don't sit there and hold their hand up and down with the paintbrush. That is not your job. Your job is to be in town hall for these meetings just so you can gather in a public place so we can broadcast this at home and the public can participate. It is not your job to be in this building all day from 7 a.m. to midnight or to sleep here. It is not your job to have conversations with town staff off the record where there's not a public record of it. We had serious problems the last time this mayor was in office. There were people that were thrown out of meetings. There were people arrested. And there were trips. There were trips taken overseas in which receipts were not produced. And at the end of the day, when we filed requests to get the records, to get the information, they didn't exist. Why? Because phones were wiped. Computers were wiped. Phones were lost. And when I spoke to other town staff, they said, oh, No, no, he told me, I think. And I said, okay, so when were you told? Is there an email? Is there a record? Because you said the mayor did this. Oh, I think it was a conversation. Oh, I think I ran into Jeff Rose. I think that's the problem here. Town business is meant to be done in the sunshine on the record. If you're not in this building, the only way you can communicate with the town manager, the town attorney, is through an email or a phone call that creates a public record. If you're sitting here in the building, you can schmooze right in, walk into the office and say, hey, here's what I need you to do, okay? And then there's no record of it, and there's no receipt, and so when residents request it, it doesn't exist, and that's the problem. Grifting is where you use your position to gift yourself rewards and things that you're not entitled to. The town, offices in Town Hall are valuable. Office space in Miami is very expensive. That is more than a dollar a year. You're not entitled to it. Taxpayers don't want to pay for it. So don't get it. And no one in Surfside's 90-year history has had one but for this mayor. I have two minutes.

It already beeped. This is Louisa Agressi.

Louisa Agresti, 625 95th Street. Again, I will go back to the point that I made on the first item. All these items were put forward the last term because there were issues around them. That's usually how laws and rules are made. When somebody breaks the modicum of good behavior, usually A rule will be put in place to prevent that. It is my understanding in 91 years, no elected official required an on-site office. That is for the town manager. The town manager requires an on-site office, not the elected officials. The elected officials are in a advisory capacity. They are not employed by the town. As you've all stated, it is a voluntary position. where you give guidance with the meetings that you have here for everyone to see what is going on. And we all know what happened in our term before when we had this mayor, many things went on that were not good. And when public records were trying to be, requested they just weren't available they simply uh the computer was wiped clean and the phone was lost so i don't think that's slander i don't think that's threatening in any way that is a fact um if the mayor who i guess is confusing his role with the town manager wants to have an office here i don't think that's correct um I think that I saw you guys get rid of a perfectly good town manager who was well credentialed. He was here trying to fix all the problems from the previous town manager as Mr. Weingart spoke about the budget and the finances of the town hall were in a mess because of the previous town manager. We had a great town manager here. I heard Mr. Danziger saying we were being charged to find a new one, but you guys chose that to spend more money to try to find someone else and waste more time without. proper leadership for our town. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Louisa. This is the last card I have, but Bruno, last chance on this item. Yes, I'm double checking. So there's no hard feelings. If there's anyone else that wanted to speak on this item. All right. Seeing none, we'll close public comment and go to commission discussion. Anybody want to start or should we just vote on it?

I'll just share what I shared in our first reading on this. And I've taken some time to speak to elected officials from other jurisdictions on the item. Surfside was a small town. If you look at the budget over the last decade, it's increased significantly for the right reasons. It's grown significantly. It's vibrant. There's a lot going on. There's a lot more tax dollars coming in. There's a lot more to be managed. And perhaps when it was just a small little village, there was less work to get done. But it's very happening. There's a lot going on. And when elected officials represent the town and are meeting with, whether it's residents or others, to improve and to do their part as part of our commitment to the town, It's a professional meeting to hold it at Town Hall. It's just that this is not for any personal benefit outside of it. I have my own office. I don't need it. I have my own space to work for my business. But if I'm representing the town, it's a professional meeting to carry that here. I still will meet at Starbucks. I'll still meet at some of the wonderful cafes, Gifted Crust. I just had a meeting nearby there last night. I'll still carry those on, but there are certain meetings that to carry and represent the town in a professional manner, it's the appropriate thing to do. This restriction wasn't in until last commission, again, like we saw a few other items that we're cleaning up here. And my position remains on it. There is more room for visibility. There are a lot of town staff. The public's allowed to come here. So I believe it actually creates a record. Every time you check in, you're passing by multiple cameras. I work in technology. I know how that goes. There's access control points. You can't even come upstairs without scanning a fob. So if you understand the technology behind that, there's a wonderful record created there. When you come for a public meeting now, it's open, but during any other hour, you actually have to scan or get scanned in so everyone sees that you came and left. So I looked into the technology component here as well. So it's important to look at all angles of it, and I will reiterate what I said the first time, is I commend and I thank the mayor for his devotion to this town, while a few will try to spin that. can appreciate it i'm i'm convinced that if he found the cure to cancer they would have a problem with it as well so um again thank you for your dedication to this town thank you vice mayor thank you to my fellow commissioners i hope if you had a meeting that you wanted to carry in a professional manner with a colleague with a elected official from a nearby town to discuss how we could better our town i mean there are ideas i want to bring here I've talked to Bay Harbor a lot. I talked to Bell Harbor. I talked to Miami Beach. I met with the mayor there about the water tax idea that I've talked about. I would love to invite him here, not at a Starbucks, a noisy Starbucks, at a proper professional meeting on behalf of our town.

Thank you, Commissioner.

So, yeah, I'd like to respond to that and also just to say what this law is about. I was one of the sponsors of it in the past commission, and I think I can clarify here and speak to Commissioner Weingart's concern. This isn't about having a meeting space in town hall. If you go back and you look at the minutes of the discussion that passed this, we had extensive conversation about how can we have space for meetings. And there was a discussion that you make a reservation with Ms. Gonzalez, you can have either the Manny Crawford room or the small room off the town manager's office. They're always available to us. And we specifically put in a provision so you could have a place to meet outside people. The vice mayor at the last meeting said that she had a moment when she wanted to have a meeting here and she couldn't. And I'd like to know more about that. I did request from the town manager and staff, was there any record of what happened that day? And nobody had information about it. Just putting that out there. But we do have the ability to meet people in town hall. What this is about is permanently occupying an office. And that's something that we've never had in this town. That's the problem. And a lot of people may not understand why that can be an issue. It's because of what Ms. Salzhauer said. Our council manager form of government is one where we are citizen legislators. We come, we give general direction, and then we're supposed to leave. I had a conversation not too long ago with the spouse of a former commissioner, and they were telling me that back in the days when you paid your water bill here, they were embarrassed to come to town hall outside of meeting times to pay the water bill because the norm was so strong that commissioners need to stay out of town hall day to day. That's a democratic anti-corruption norm. That norm got shattered. during a previous commission. This was an attempt to restore the council manager form of government. That's why we have this. The other issue is remuneration, which was mentioned as well. I have a job that is full time, but I work from home 95% of the time. And when I have meetings in town hall, I have to bring my bike. The staff have experienced this. and I have to race home to do a Zoom call. You know, that happened at the police award ceremony yesterday. I was here at 3 o'clock, but I had a Zoom call at 4, and I have to get on my bike and go home. Because if I had an office in Town Hall, it would be so easy to say, well, I'll just do my Zoom call in there. But I'm not going to do that. That's my private... financial gain. I'm not going to do that in town hall. So I'm constantly having to zip home on my bike, come back here. I do this all the time. I'm happy to do it, but I'm only in town hall when I need to be. And that can include meetings with outside people. The problem is for those of us, you know, and I think, you know, at least three of us have jobs that are flexible. Once you start having an office in town hall, it becomes really easy to start answering emails for your other job. It's really easy to start doing stuff like that. We have to not do that. And that's why we have this. And there is nobody on the staff who can police what you're doing. If I were to go into an office and shut the door and take a Zoom call with a student, nobody from the staff is going to know what I'm doing, and nobody on the staff is really honestly going to have the courage to call me out on it. So that's why we need to have this strict safeguard here so that people don't incidentally profit from the job. That's what this is about. There's plenty of... opportunities to reserve the conference room. That's not the issue.

Yes, I don't need to explain myself, but I will explain myself. The day that I came to meet, if I'm not wrong, at the beginning with Attorney Helfman, I was in Sandra's office. And I said, okay, I'll go to the conference. In the conference, there was the budget lady. In the other room, there was somebody else. And I said, there's nowhere to meet. I had to sit down in Sandra's office. She was on the phone, busy in her computer, but had to meet the attorney for, it was nothing, for three minutes. But in Sandra's office, why don't we have a designated office, a space? for the commission to meet. I don't have to meet outside a town hall in Starbucks. I went to Starbucks the other day to meet something personal. It's not even easy to meet there. It's so noisy. Now they put like a living room situation. It's not even chairs and tables. It's not doable. It's not respectful. It's noisy. There is nothing wrong. There is no corruption. There is no... There is nothing negative to have a designated room for the commission members to meet. I don't understand why everything has to be so negative and thinking of like corruption, corruption, corruption. We are here as volunteers for the benefit of the town. Why not to have just a room? The same as we have the conference room that sometimes is taken because it was taken when I wanted to meet. Another room. You want to call it conference room? Call it conference room. Office room. Whatever room is just a room available for us to meet. That's it. It's simple. I don't think it's simple. It's a place to meet, available. It's open for us to meet. That's it.

May I answer that? I know others want to speak. That was the whole point of my remarks. It's not about having a meeting space for meeting with other people. That is already provided for. It's about having an office where you can go in, shut the door, and work on emails and stuff like that. It's permanently occupying an office, which is something that happened in the recent past that had never happened before. So it's not about getting a conference room. We already have a procedure for that. It's true that if there is a moment of heavy, heavy use, Manny Crawford may be booked, and the small room may be booked. And that can happen. But that could still happen if we pass this law. It's not about having a conference room. It's about having a permanent, dedicated office where somebody could potentially interfere with the day-to-day administration of the town. That's the concern. So it's not really about meetings. With all due respect, we took great care when we passed this ordinance to make sure that commissioners had a place to meet outside people. Check the minutes of that. This is about being able to go in after a commission meeting, go into your office, have a whiskey. That's the kind of thing that I think can lead to problems. That's what this is meant to address, not the meeting space.

Yeah, but obviously there's no place to meet outside. I have to go into Sandra's office. The other day, I had to make a voice message for the video. I had nowhere to meet. I had nowhere to do it. I'm like, I'm going to go to the bathroom to do it. There is nowhere to do it because in every office, there's somebody. The conference is taken. I had to go into Genesis office. I said, I apologize, can you give me a minute so I can use your office? There is no office, there is no place to do town staff for us. Can we designate a room so we can do town staff for us?

please under the existing law we can i just want to say this is about something else this is about because there's going to be even less space if a commissioner takes a permanent office for themselves then there's less space for people to do extraordinary things like record a video and stuff like that repealing this and giving commissioners their own permanent offices reduces the amount of available space

All right, so I'm going to jump in, then we're going to finish this. First of all, there's four empty offices currently upstairs in Town Hall, just by the way. OK? There's one, two, three, four empty offices. So to pretend, and then the rest of the staff each have their own office. So pretend that there's some sort of crisis up here is, again, not, it's not being honest. For somebody, you keep saying the word permanent, and for somebody who's been hung up on the words like slanderous and impertinent, permanent is a very strong word. What is permanent? And it definitely doesn't mean what you're saying. So this all comes down to leadership style at the end of the day. If you have people in office that want to take the time to meet with constituents and with elected officials, and sometimes there's town business that has to get done and you need a designated area to do that, it's not a lot to ask for. Every city has it. Every other employee has it. And we are employees of the town for $1 a year. And there's things that we have to do here. So again, I get requests from residents to meet every day, whether it's residents, other elected officials that want to sit down, whether it's organizations that want to present their product that may turn into some sort of initiative for the commission. Should I be meeting them in my living room? Is that more transparent? Should I be doing that to my wife and kids and just bringing people into my own house every day? Should I meet them secretly in a Starbucks where there's no record? Does that sound like transparent government? When you come into office, as Commissioner Weingart says, you've got to punch in with your card. You're on camera. Every bit of staff sees what's going on. Your problem is potential. There's the potential that something might happen. So we're going to stop the commission from doing the job that they were elected to do because potentially somebody can do something. Well, there's ethic laws about that. You can't use this office for a permanent office for your own business. If I set up my computer and my printer here, I'm going to have Miami-Dade County on my desk. backside, and they're going to find me. There's laws for this. So to start changing and restricting, and that's all this was. You finally had a mayor two years ago that actually sat down and took the time to work. Now, I tried to set up all my meetings one day a month, one day a week, so I don't have to spend every day here. Today is one of those days. I think this whole week has been horrible. Today is one of those days where I walked in, like I said, in the morning. I'm not leaving till night. It is what it is, and that's the job I signed up for. I'm not complaining about it, but I need to be able to do it. Madam Clerk, let's call the roll, please. I didn't speak. Oh, you didn't, sorry. I ran out for a minute, I wasn't sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so a couple of thoughts here. On one side, I want to clarify that it's important that we separate the role that we have with the role that the town staff has. So in other words, it's like in a business, right? So the town manager is the CEO. We are the board. So it's important that we avoid... being in the way of the town business. What that means is that if I was the CEO of a company, I wouldn't want to have the board sit in my building or in my office that is that is something that uh is like you don't do but now i'm pragmatic by now you guys know that so i i wanna i wanna look what is the problem what is the problem that we're trying to solve so if the problem that we're trying to solve is we need to have a dedicated space Then I would suggest that we just dedicate one of the rooms to us, to all of us as a commission, that we figure out a way to reserve that room whenever it's needed, but we know that at all times there's a room available for us. I would that that that is something that I would that that would be that I'd be OK with instead of, you know, like you said, to your point that you go, you walk in and then you don't know. Maybe some some someone else in the time, some some other town employees using that room. So that room is available if if this is the need that we have. Yeah, sure. I'll be OK with that.

AGAIN, OUR CHARTER SPECIFICALLY SAYS THE TOWN COMMISSION IS NOT TO INTERFERE WITH THE TOWN ADMINISTRATION, WITH THE ADMINISTRATION OF THIS TOWN. WE HAVE LAWS. IF YOUR COMPLAINT IS, HEY, WE NEED TO ADD RULES BECAUSE WE THINK THAT THE ELECTED OFFICIALS ARE GOING TO BREAK THOSE LAWS, WELL, AGAIN, THERE'S STOPGAPS IN PLACE. THERE'S REGULATION. And those are enforceable. So I don't know what we're doing here. If you don't, you know, again, this is my leadership style. I should have that option. The next mayor that comes in should has his options. It shouldn't be defined by one person who already in his mind that there's a potential issue. And again, I will not work under the restraints put in by a commission that was put in at the end of their term to make sure that I can't do my job. It's that simple. Madam Clerk, before, Mrs. Cranster, I'm going to need you to stop laughing and commenting.

Your voice carries up here, and it's extremely distracting.

So I'm going to ask you to please refrain from making comments, refrain from laughing, refrain from yelling out. I know it doesn't get picked up on the mic at home, but we hear every time you scratch your nose, it's extremely distracting up here. So please just...

reserve your comments to public comment all right thank you i i would like to just make one quick point mr mayor the the restriction was not put in at the very end of the previous commission it was put in in the middle of it in 2025 and we lived with it too so it was um you know as i think with all the ethics laws that we passed including the one we're going to talk about in 2d we passed it and then we lived under it so it wasn't it wasn't meant to just to bind a future commission in some hypocritical way We lived under that, too. And I just want, for the record, that to be clear. I think that's how good government laws work. You limit yourself. And we did that. And I think it's for the good of the town. There are, as you say, there are other ethics laws out there. But ethics laws work as like a network. You... you have the anti-corruption laws at the state and county levels, and then you also implement norms and policies at the local level that reinforce that. So it's not redundant. It's how these laws work. And this one fits into that framework. It's part of it. But I do want to say for the record that those who voted for this law accepted the restriction on themselves. This is not another regarding thing.

All right, anything else? All right, Madam Clerk?

Yes, Mayor. Commissioner Bildosteke?

No.

Commissioner Weingart?

Yes.

Commissioner Travani?

No.

But we have a mighty yes, we're dancing. Yes, you're the motion carries.

Thank you. I am to see rescission modification ordinance 2025 1789 amending chapter 34 and creating section 34 dash one sand removal or taking on the dinner beach. I'm not a clerk. If you read the title of the ordinance into the record place.

Yes, Mayor. Item 2C, an ordinance of the Town Commission, the Town of Sorsa, Florida, repealing ordinance number 2025-1789, and it's entirely related to sand removal or digging on the Dunar Beach, providing for stability, providing for codification and inclusion in the code, providing for conflicts, providing for implementation, and providing for an effective date. Item 2C.

Thank you. Could we get a motion on the table to accept the ordinance?

So moved.

Seconded. All right, public comment. Mrs. Krenzner, two minutes, please. .

I object the repeal of ordinance number 2025-1789 under item 2C, just like the previous item, line 31, is packet explicitly states that the second public hearing is happening next month, September 2026. This means your legislative record this morning is completely invalid. Furthermore, look at exhibit A. By repealing this environmental safeguard, you are explicitly erasing the law that makes it a crime to take, remove, or excavate public beach sand and whipping out the safety rules that bans digging holes deeper than 18 inches without filling them back. filling them back. Calling our environmental protections onerous is a shameful excuse to open our public dunks to unregulated digging and private manipulation. On the remarks that the mayor did, because I have the right to reply to him, is how he can come to tell me what and how I should even breathe, right? Well, Ms. Bermeweg has been doing historically in those decisions. And Mr. Dassinger sometimes even walk away, so what, I cannot. Now, if he gets distracted, it's such a shameful thing, because we talk and he don't even look at us, right? To say that Mr. Berwicki, that she couldn't get an office when Mr. Dassinger said that there were four empty offices, then it's a contradiction. And to the mayor to try to conduct offices as well, and he cannot do it, it's also contradicting when there are four offices open. So what we are talking about here. And to Mr. Melvin, to say that when we were talking about the issue of the sand that it was to take care, the children should be taken care, we are not talking about not only that, we are talking about to still send balance and plane, okay?

Louisa Agresti, two minutes, please.

Louisa Agresti, 625 95th Street. I was at the meeting when this particular ordinance was put forward and it was in response to a tragedy that occurred to a child in a neighboring county. And I believe the child even died sinking in a hole that someone dug. So please help us understand what would be the point to remove an ordinance that prevents known tragedies. We would love to know. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Salazar.

Eliana Salzhauer, 9317 Bay Drive. I want to first make a point that town hall video is exempt from public records requests. So Commissioner Weingart, who's an expert in security, should already know that. When residents want to get video requests about who's coming in and out of the building, we cannot get it. It's exempt. So thank you for creating another loophole in us to be able to get a public record. I want to say also, as we know from the incident with Jeff Rose and the arrest of my son, the video in Town Hall, there is no sound. There's no sound on the cameras here. So good luck again finding out what people are meeting with and what's going on. So great for creating your own little loophole there, which I'm sure you knew what you were doing a minute ago. I want to talk about the sand digging ordinance here. The worst part, I have to tell you, and I hate to have to say this out loud, I have to tell you, I am yeshiva educated 12 years. My entire family is orthodox. I am conservative. I am not orthodox. I was raised in a yeshiva. Torah, all of that was a part of my upbringing. It's a part of my family. The things you're supposed to do to protect people are more important. It is so embarrassing to be Jewish in this town, to have to explain to my neighbors that all Jews are not like this. that Jews have always been on the forefront of fighting for civil rights, for fighting for the underdog, for fighting to speak out for transparency, for good government, for people's rights, to protect lives. This sand digging ordinance, what a joke that you're so petty. The man is so petty that he puts this up there like, oh, this is a problem. Let's go back to the way things were. Let's go back to the way things were when there weren't seatbelts, when there weren't vaccines, when Jews weren't allowed places, when black people weren't allowed places. Let's just roll back all the time when I couldn't even vote. I bet you'd love that. The reason why we have progress, the reason why we have laws, the reason why we have changes is because people cross the line. Why are there insider trading laws? There didn't used to be. Guess what? Because people cannot be trusted. And guess what else? I know last time at the meeting when Commissioner Wong got support of this, he said, I'm going to make everyone aware of it. So he sent out an email. I hope your two-year-olds can read. I hope your grandchildren can read. I hope the tourists get that email and go, oh, maybe we shouldn't dig more than 18 inches because we could die. That's not happening. This is a sensible law that's put in place to protect people. And guess what? If people want to do it anyway, you can't enforce it. You can't enforce anything. You can't enforce people. Thank you, Mrs. Salazar. You can't enforce seatbelts. We still have those laws. So shame on anyone who votes for this. And the blood of a child that dies is on your hands. And this creates liability for the town.

Mrs. Salazar, have a seat, please. Thank you. George Kuslis. George Kuslis, 9225 Collins Avenue. I'm one of those rare people that actually likes regulations, and actually more than less. This is the kind of regulation that gives regulations a bad name. It's the 18 inches that's the problem. And it's also the carting the way of the sand. I mean, who's really going to be filling up a sack of sand and taking it with them? Might a tourist take a thimble full, a Dixie cup full of our beautiful white sand to remind them of their vacation? Is that a big deal? No. The state already has laws about... taking sand away in reasonable quantities, like in a construction project, if you're east of the CCCL, which is roughly halfway under the condos. The 18 inches is the problem. 18 inches is as tall as your shin, your knee. That seems too much. And that's what makes this ordinance weird. You know, that's the 18 inches. It's like I can't hear it. All right. But you get the point. That just goes too far. What I think was a good intention just kind of becomes a little bit silly in its extremity. Thank you. Thank you, George.

All right.

If there's anybody that wants to speak on this item that hasn't submitted a card.

All right, seeing none, we'll close public comment and commission discussion or comments. All right. Does everybody want to take it?

I'll step in. I think it's very important to address because this should not be misunderstood as not caring about safety. It's simply not putting in place a rule or law that is not enforceable. I was actually going to do a search with our wonderful law enforcement to see how many citations have been issued since this was put in place. But I think the burden on law enforcement is quite heavy already. So for them to start looking through a sandcastle or anything like that to see if someone's in violation is probably... overbearing, overreaching enough. So just for public record, everyone listening out there, I ran on public safety. I live by public safety. I have four beautiful children that I think about every moment of the day. And in discussion with my daughter that's here present, she said, It's my responsibility to fill a hole after I leave. I wouldn't leave it. So to respond to the halacha, the Jewish law that was addressed earlier, of , is the term, that's abandoning a pit and leaving it. But the broader definition actually expands way beyond just digging a hole. It's spilling water in public where someone could slip and all that. But we don't have citations for each and every one of these. If you put a rock where someone could fall, you shouldn't do that. You absolutely shouldn't do that. I care about safety. I love our kids. I look out for other kids. If I see a kid running towards the beach, I don't see a parent nearby. That's my daughter. I get up, and my antennas are up, and I'm watching. I don't relax so much by the beach because of that. Unfortunately, there are many drowning incidents, as I shared in the first reading here. We have not yet began finding people for swimming. So my position remains, I appreciate those that are coming out sharing the public safety concern. I just don't think this is the way to

Look, on this topic, I think we all fundamentally want... On this topic, I think we all fundamentally want the same thing, especially where child safety is concerned. Commissioner Weingart raised a question just now about getting a records request of how many people have been fined. That is actually an important issue for just discussing what's at stake here. I'm quite confident that not a single person has ever been fined under this law. I was thinking about this when I read Commissioner Weingart's email in the summary of the special meeting a while back, and he said, however, fining people for digging a small hole while building a sandcastle or ticketing a child who takes a handful of sand off the beach for a school project is a ridiculous and unenforceable law. That has absolutely never happened. That's not what's going on here. But if somebody does start digging a two-foot, three-foot hole, I would want for the town to be empowered to say, hey, that's dangerous. Don't do that. That's, the law serves an expressive function. It's not really just about fining. It's about putting up a sign that says you're not supposed to build, you know, dig three-foot holes. If 18 inches is too small, let's go up to two or three feet. We can modify the law. But having an ordinance makes a kind of permanent statement that this is a serious public health issue. It happens to much more than one person in a billion, as someone said. It's actually far more common and insidious than that. And I greatly appreciate the safety email that Commissioner Wine got sent separately drawing attention to the issue. But emails come and go. The law serves a kind of permanent expressive function, and I think that's important. It's not about fining people. I want to make one other point. When I first started spending time in Surfside as an adult and taking care of my parents' house, in 2017, there were all these storm warnings and evacuations. You might remember that terrible summer of Irma and others. And I didn't have any sandbags at the time. And a friend who no longer lives in the town said to me, oh, whenever there's a storm, I just go fill my sandbags at the beach. That's a problem. No kid has ever been fined for taking a small jar of sand, and no tourist has ever been fined for taking a thimble full. But we need to make it very clear to people, like my friend, that that's not cool. You cannot go fill sandbags at the beach. And I want to enforce that. We need sandbags. The town gives them away. But that's not what the beach sand is for. This ordinance prevents people from doing that. I think that's actually important. So I don't know. It really did feel, I was surprised to see this on the agenda. Even if people think this isn't that important, I do think this is a regulation that serves the public good. I think having a permanent statute that communicates to kids especially, hey, digging a hole is dangerous. Teenage kids can get carried away, and they're strong, almost as strong as adults, and they can dig big holes. And then smaller siblings can be in danger, and people are just having fun until something terrible happens, and it happened in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. I don't know. I just don't see how this ordinance has harmed anyone, and I see potential to benefit.

I'm trying to focus on the problem. I happen to believe that having an ordinance for this might not be the best way to solve the issue. Just because there's an ordinance which nobody goes out to enforce doesn't really help. So I wanted to look at this from another angle. What if we can repeal this ordinance but replace it with instructing Parks and Rec to look into an educational program where we were really able to start the conversation with residents about the dangers of, you know, digging holes without filling them and the issues that caused the death of this child a couple of years ago and the risks associated with that. I think that This way we could have something that is more efficient as opposed to just having the ordinance there that is not implemented. And this could be something that we can – it's a program that could go out on – the Gazette and then at the events that we do, the public events that we do monthly on the beach and all that. And this way we could bring a bit more public awareness. So I don't know if we could include that in the motion.

I support. I support that idea.

I support the education. I think something I expressed, I think it's a good way to spread awareness to this.

So thank you. I also support educating the community is the way to do. But again, I don't see it here in Sorset as a danger, because every morning, as I go to the beach sometimes, I see the trucks flattening the sand. Every morning, we have a flat sand, meaning there are no holes happening, like staying for days. There are no holes. And as parents, we need to be self-aware and educate our kids. When you go to the beach, you dig a hole, then try to flatten it and don't leave a hole, 100%. But again, every single day, thank God, I feel very honored to live here. This is a very safe neighborhood. Every morning we have trucks flattening the sand.

Sorry, that wasn't for you. All right, just very briefly. What problem were we trying to solve with this? Right? Like, I think there were three deaths a year from collapsing on the beach, most of those being commercial. You know, there was a problem. There were kids that dug a seven-foot hole and got buried in it. Unfortunately, terrible things happen in this world. That is not one of the ones that we start making ordinances for. Ordinances are not statements, and they're not educational tools. They're laws. And these laws criminalized regular, everyday beach activity that people do. It criminalized children if they build a sandcastle and they leave it there. It criminalized children if they take sand home for a project. That's what this law did. And it, quite frankly, exceeds Surfside's authority. Surfside has very minimal authority on the beach when it comes to public health and safety. This is not a massive health and safety concern. The state, to George's point, already has laws about taking excessive amounts of sand on the beach. It already has laws about digging on the beach because it's their beach. It's not ours. Now, again, I'm all happy if the commission wants to come back and say, hey, we've got a problem. We need to start addressing it. We have the best attorneys with us here now. We can start figuring it out. Where can Surfside regulate over the state on state property? But this is the most ridiculous thing. The fact that we only have two of our usual 10 speakers speak on it kind of speaks to the point. This is not a problem in town. It doesn't solve for anything. And when you make laws that potentially criminalize children and criminalize beach activity that happens every day on this beach, it's a problem. All right, so let's call the roll, Madam Clerk.

Question, so that would be able to, are you okay with instructing Parks and Rec maybe to look into an educational?

Again, I don't see it as a big problem, but I think to your point, whether it's a 18-foot hole, a one-foot hole, if somebody trips on it, it's a problem. Hey, guys, when you come back, we've educated them on so much, why not throw that in there? It is our beach, we want it to be nice. Of course, I would support that.

All right, so can we amend the motion?

I'd like to amend the motion.

I'm sorry to interfere, but this is happening a couple times now and I just want to be careful. We can't start conditioning ordinances on other activities that are going to happen in the town. So I understand the intent, which is if you want to pass a separate motion or direction to the attorney or to the Parks Department. But if we start conditioning ordinances, then they don't become effective until something else happens that we don't. So you can't amend a motion to condition an ordinance on some administrative activity. If you want something to happen, then go ahead and follow up with a separate motion to direct staff to do something. But I'm getting a little concerned here with what's happening because this happens frequently where people are conditioning their vote On some other activity happening. We can't do that.

So question, can I make a, can we vote on this and then can I make a motion on, uh, on, on parks and rec or it would need to be an agenda item and, uh,

No, I, I, you could do that. There's no problem to give direction to either the manager to take certain action or to the attorneys, uh, by motion that follows. But I just, you know, we're always finding ourselves in these predicaments, which I'm trying to now avoid going back and looking a lot of your old legislation. I'm seeing these, you know, very unclear activities that occur when you pass a motion and it's, it's It's not good, so I just want to clarify, you can do exactly what you want, but you don't amend the motion. The motion is to pass the legislation. If you want to go forward and do something different in addition to that, do that as a follow up.

I would add to that is if you start making a motion for direction, I think it's clear we'll clarify to staff what we would like to see, but if we make a motion, we want an educational program. What's the timeline? What does the program look like? And by the way, if staff doesn't follow through, they could be written up. You're creating, again, if we're clear with staff, hey, this is an important issue, we'd like you to focus on some education, great, and we can follow up in a month or two, hey, why hasn't this happened yet? But if you start MAKING MOTIONS UP HERE IS A MAKING MOTIONS UP HERE IS A SERIOUS ITEM. SERIOUS ITEM. IT CARRIES CONSEQUENCES FOR THE IT CARRIES CONSEQUENCES FOR THE REST OF THE STAFF AS WELL. REST OF THE STAFF AS WELL. BECAUSE NOW THE COMMISSION HAS BECAUSE NOW THE COMMISSION HAS PUT ON THE BOOKS A REQUEST, PUT ON THE BOOKS A REQUEST, AN INITIATIVE, SOMETHING, AND AN INITIATIVE, SOMETHING, AND THERE SHOULD BE A TIMELINE, THERE THERE SHOULD BE A TIMELINE, THERE SHOULD BE A PROGRAM. SHOULD BE A PROGRAM. IS THERE MONEY INVOLVED OR NOT? IS THERE MONEY INVOLVED OR NOT? ARE WE GETTING INTO THAT NOW? ARE WE GETTING IN

Remains as original and they'll be separate. Yeah, okay.

But you have my support. All right, so let's call the roll, Madam Clerk.

Yes, Mayor. Commissioner Wyandotte?

Yes.

Commissioner Travani?

Yes.

Commissioner Buendostegui?

No.

Vice Mayor Bemergi? Yes. Mayor Danziger?

Yes.

Mayor, the motion carries.

Thank you. Moving on to item 2D, rescission modification ordinance 2024-1779, amending, wait, just to be clear, that was essentially the commission giving town staff direction to put a program together for safety, correct? Is it consensus? We don't need a, yeah, okay.

Sorry, I missed that one.

I just want to make sure that staff understood that there was direction to put a safety program in place. Yeah, that's, okay.

Sorry, that there was direction.

that there is that.

We didn't cover it again after the motion, but yeah, that's the consensus of the commission up here. All right. Okay, so amending Article 7 of the Town Code of Ethics. Madam Clerk, if you read the title of the resolution, ordinance, please.

Yes, mayor item to the an ordinance of the time commission of some of sorts of Florida repeating ordinance number 2024 dash one 7, 7, 9, and isn't are you reading to the town court of ethics for referring statement of the town court to its previous version provided for some ability provided for clarification and inclusion in the code provided for conflicts provided for implementation of provided for an effective day item to D. Thank you for your motion to approve the ordinance.

So moved.

Second.

Second.

Vice Mayor seconds. Opening up the public comment. Mrs. Kranzer, two minutes, please.

Soledad Kressner, 8840 Garland Avenue. And I have to start saying, Mr. Dessinger, before you go, I advise you get a job, please. I object. to the repeal of ordinance number 2024-1779 under the item 2D, line 31. Of this item is left completely blank and line 65 claims the second reading happens in September 26. I haven't been tired to say this, please, guys. You are voting on a undate legally defective piece of paper to gut our town. anti-corruption protection. Exhibit A shows the real objective here. You are explicitly striking through section 2-230, completely erasing the two-year ban of commissioners financially profiting from their own votes. You are striking. through section 233, deleting the semi-annual requirements to disclose local sources of income and no homestead real estate purchases. Reinstating a weaker absolutely standard gives a green light to unchecked self-dealing and hides your local clients from voters to elect you vote no. Mr. Vigod. Every time that you mention that you go to mayors and other people, you always go to Miami Beach, Bell Harbor, and Bay Harbor. Yeah, cities that they want to join. Maybe for getting privilege in our community center, but. Magical e-clock always, I have to say, works for Mr. Bill Dusty, but very rarely for Mr. Bigot, who always gets an extra 30 seconds that I have been checking. And the lightings, we are talking about the sun, but we are not talking about the lighting. And yesterday, just a mother and a child were struck and were killed. And you haven't even said anything about safety yet.

Thank you. Eliana Salzauer.

Eliana Salzauer, 9370 Bay Drive. I just think it is so, I want everyone at home to know that the mayor has left the room. It's a discussion about ethics and about repealing the current ethics regulation. And Mayor Danziger has left the room because while he's normally here not even making eye contact, he's not even in the room at all now. This is probably the most dangerous thing that this commission is about to do. And what's so funny is that some of you commissioners will sit up here, Commissioner Weingart said, I don't like the slander and being accused and all that kind of stuff. This ethics law is exactly the answer to that. This ethics law, keeping it in place, says I'm going to not just talk the talk, I'm going to walk the walk. I'm an open book. Here's what's going on. Here's my business in town. Here's my financials. Here's where I do business. There's absolutely no way you can sit here with a straight face and say that you have no intention to commit ethics fraud and then say, I don't want any ethics rules. Let's go back to the way things were. Do you know that there used to be no insider trading rules, right? What do we have this year? We have Secret Service betting on things. We have professional athletes betting on things. We have Cal State people making money. They have to change the law. The law and why I became a lawyer to begin with is it's a living, breathing thing that changes in response to the changing needs of our society. Things that used to be, that didn't exist, we have laws now for. No one ever says, let's go back to that. Again, let's go back to no speed limits, no seat belts, women can't vote, black people have separate entrances. I mean, we don't go backwards. This ethics rule was put in place, why? Because we had a commission where people who sat up there did not walk the walk. They didn't even talk the talk, to be honest. They disrespected both, okay? They ruled on things and then profited from those rulings later on. These ethics rules are in place, and I would encourage you to read the email that Commissioner Valsalga sent out to everybody. It enumerates, clearly spells out the differences between the bottom level of what the state requires and what Surfside's trying to do. We need to be a light to everybody. other towns, we need to show people that we're have nothing to hide here. Okay, let's break the stereotype of corrupt politicians, secret things going on. This is the solution. Keep this in place. You have nothing to hide, then this should not be a problem. Okay, do not be sold on anything to take this back, because then you're you are doing this to yourselves. Thank you.

Okay. Camilo Pino.

Do I have to give my address again? 9157 Abbots Avenue.

And your name?

Camilo Pino. The ethics ordinance. If I understand this well, and it took me a while to understand, you're removing a local rule or a series of local rules. There is one specifically that says that an elected official might not benefit financially from his or her vote. Right. I also understand that that was voted to correct a wrong that in the past, in the recent past, a commissioner voted for something that ended up benefiting him personally. So it kind of made sense. And the existing regulation in Florida, the state and council,

wasn't enough.

So I mean, you could say that you are in a way kind of almost legalizing the selling of votes. You could cause that impression. And if the item we discussed at the beginning had to do with processes and was all about accelerating businesses, this is really like the question of the urgency becomes more relevant than ever. Sounds like a big thing. And then the rationale that this is too restrictive, that there are already laws about conflict of interest and corruption in general. Well, I mean, local law is more restrictive almost by definition. So this one is hard to grasp. And it would be nice to have it reconsidered. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Luis Agresi.

Louisa Agresti, 625 95th Street. Again, I will reiterate that many of these items were brought forward to correct a wrong that was done to our town. I cannot even fathom how anybody thinks less ethics and less accountability and less transparency is a good thing. In fact, we all remember the previous term when our mayor was running. There were many egregious things that happened in this room. I cannot even understand how anybody thinks this is a good idea. Only four years ago did our town start with shady packs that were funded by developers. Never in the history of Surfside has that happened. We even saw once the funding for the elections came about that our very own mayor had almost $300,000 of developer funding backing his election. Never in the history of Surfside has that happened, and it just shows how much is at stake in our tiny little town and how much benefit there can be for certain people. So in no way, shape, or form, any rational person could think Less ethics, accountability, and transparency could be good for our town. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Negresi. I've got no more speaker cards if there's anyone that wanted to speak on this. All right, seeing none. Commission, who would like to take it?

I'll hop in and just reiterate some of what I shared the first time around. And I just want to address a key piece they brought forward is on the surface, if you're not looking at it or looking into it, you know, you could say, oh, how are you removing some piece of ethics restrictions here or requirements? And then the idea of us being a light onto other towns. Again, I speak to other towns. There is a stigma about how things have operated here and what has transpired here over the last two years. And what I keep getting is I hope you guys could clear it up and clean it up. And it looks like there's a really good crew in place to make that happen. And I'm excited to be a part of that. to add additional restrictions to people that are volunteering already everything's out there we've disclosed that we had to do that in our registrations and as far as how detailed it has to get the state and county you know have their requirements and and we've all met that and that's why we're up here and So to further burden volunteers and to have to get additional filings and all that, I think it just, again, it's excessive. It's going to really... It's not going in the direction of a paradigm shift as far as changing the reputation here. We all have to abide by the same rules and laws that elected officials in other townships have. So we're not removing anything that's going to make sure the checks and balances are in place. As far as the lightning safety thing, I just want to address that because I'm with you. I got a very serious complaint, and I brought it forward, about the community center being shut down. Someone was complaining to me that it's getting shut down too soon. And just the other day, a person reached out and said, why does my family have to leave? I don't see any lightning. And I forwarded the article that you just mentioned, actually, to them, and I said, listen, this is a lightning safety issue. It's real. And I'm not looking to make the town safe. They even asked, why do we have to be more restricted than some of the hotels nearby? And they mentioned their pools were still open. And I said, we have to abide by state law for this. And I looked further into that. And actually, our director of Parks and Recreation was extremely helpful and showed me the technology that's used here and the reporting system and the alerts they got. And he was extremely helpful there. And I relayed that to the, I had a talk with a resident. And, you know, so thank you. I'm with you on that, on the safety concern with the lightning. And I told him I'm not going to fight to lessen the safety standards for that.

Thank you, Commissioner. All right. If you guys want to speak, now's the time.

So I got a couple of emails from people after I sent an email out yesterday in a blog post. And they said, why are you so worked up about this? It doesn't really matter. The vice mayor recently asked a question, too. Why be so negative? Why assume that people are going to do bad things? What's the big deal with ethics laws? The reason why I'm doing this, this is really at the core of why I'm here on a commission. Corruption is the even the suspicion of corruption is the single worst thing that can happen to a government. I had a friend who used to work at the organization Transparency International, and I really learned like what what holds back countries like Nigeria and El Salvador is that they are shot through with corruption. And even in a town like Surfside, where things run pretty well, the basic trust that is created, and may I ask that, I made a slide and I wanted to have it projected. Please, town clerk and IT, if that could be put up. This shows the differences between Surfside law and state law. I'll come back to it. But I want to make the point that the basic thing that has to happen for government to work is that people trust us to do our jobs, that we're here for the public interest. Let me put it very simply. Right now, under the current law, if anybody from Surfside is putting money in any of our pockets, you will know about it regardless of amount every six months. If this repeal happens, some of that you won't know ever, and some of it you may not know for 21 months. And that's because we're relying on the bare minimum of state law. Right now, under the Surfside law, there is really strict disclosure requirements about who in the town is paying us, both primary sources of income and secondary sources of income. If we repeal that, there's a huge loophole where somebody who owns a business could have a major client in the town. And as long as the threshold falls below the reporting requirement, you never know who from Surfside is putting money in our pockets. Fundamentally, you all in this town have a right to know transparency is the basis of good government. It's what you build trust upon. And let's be honest, there's not a lot of trust right now in this town. We're a very closely divided town. I'm like the prophet of that because I got elected by six votes, and that actually is a blessing to me. I will never forget that I have to speak to the whole town because it was that close for me. The mayor also had a very close election. We need to speak to people across the aisle. And the way to win trust is by being totally transparent. Who's putting money in your pocket? If we get rid of this law, Somebody could go 21 months. You could start a job in January 2026. You don't have to report it on your Form 1 until July 27. And then there's a three-month grace period on top of that where you don't get fined. So it could be September 2027, and you don't know who's putting money in our pockets right now. Under the current law, it would be due in January, and it was due just a few weeks ago. Why would we give this up? There's a further issue I'd like to talk about here. I'm going to ask the mayor for a little bit more time because it's important. That is the restriction on commission profiting. Yes, this was motivated by something that happened in the previous commission. We had a situation where in a quasi-judicial hearing, a commissioner voted to grant a variance to a property. Then, a little over a year later, that same commissioner is on the permit for the demolition of the property and for the construction of a new house there. And now, that's perfectly legal under Florida law. I want to be clear. I'm not accusing anybody of any crime. Florida law allows that. As long as you can say that the connection between the special hearing and the variance and the actual permit was remote and speculative, then that's perfectly OK under Florida law. You know what, I think that was legal, but it should not be legal, right? That's why we changed the law, to put a two-year restriction on that. I hope that my colleagues who are here can answer a couple quick questions for me. Vice Mayor Ben Mergey sent out this flyer, spent thousands of dollars to send four words that said, and two of the words are honest leadership. How does repealing a financial disclosure requirement promote honest leadership? If that's one of the three main goals you had, how does that do that? Commissioner Weingart sent out an email and said, we're putting our laws in keeping with best practices. How? How is that the best practice to have less transparency and to let people profit from their decisions? We deserve better than the bare minimum that state law gives us. Right now, we have that. The ethics laws don't hold the town back. They create the trust, the openness that we deserve so that the town can move forward. That's why I care. And I'm speaking to the two people who emailed me yesterday. I hope you're watching. That's why I'm so worked up about this. That's why this is so important to me.

All right. Thank you.

So I think that one of the biggest issues that we have in Florida, well, in the whole world for that matter, is the citizens' distrust in the government in general, especially in local government. This is gonna be one of the major issues with the upcoming property tax ballot question, right? People look at the local government, and they see, for some reason, corruption. They see inefficiency. They see people that spend money left and right. And a lot of that is not true. However, it's something that people think. I would actually do the opposite thing. keep the law that we have now, the ordinance that we have now, and I would actually go out and advertise that to show everyone that we are even tougher than what the state requires or maybe the county requires. Why not? I mean, this is ethics. I mean, it doesn't bother me to fill out a form every six months instead of every year. It's not gonna take up much of my time. But going out and saying, hey, we're going above and beyond. I think that would serve the purpose of gaining some public trust, of strengthening our connection with the residents.

You spoke? I spoke.

I just want to address one thing I'm thinking because a colleague, Giovanni, had mentioned one prior, I think it was a meeting, that a component, and again, I'm going to be very clear, this is in support of you. This is, God forbid, nothing accusatory because I have nothing to accuse you of because you're an awesome, upstanding member of society. But you mentioned there's a component to your job that has a sales element. So I just want to enlighten you on what I like the transparency. I like being a model to other governments. And I'll address the best practices part. I don't want to take too much time here. But what this could perhaps do is you meet with someone at some point in time, inadvertently, that's a resident, there's 6,000 residents there, that somehow or another directs business to the firm that you work with, that could perhaps be perceived as a violation here. And I wouldn't want that to happen because you have to support your family, provide for your family, have zero ill intent in doing so. But that could perhaps put you in a situation, I think that's something that would have to be looked at very closely, because your job is to bring business to your firm. And you're really good at what you do. And I see you traveling a lot. I see you getting things done. if a meeting happened with someone or an introduction happened with someone through a resident of Surfside, I believe that could perhaps be a violation of this. So just something to be mindful of. Again, I'm sharing that because I'm a businessman. I know how this can go. I looked at this very closely. You know, I structure things so that it's very clean and clear, but I also want to be mindful of perception. That's extremely important. I'm not afraid to vote against this because I know we're still in compliance with county and state, but I just want to share in response to your very, you know, you shared a good thought, so I just want to plant that seed.

All right.

Ms. Mayer?

No comment.

No comment. All right, so I think because we're just repeating each other's talking points, this is not the first, this is, what, the third time we're having this conversation. You know, to address this and this trust, I know Mary Ann and George were at a condo event yesterday, and to quote the Congressman Moskowitz who got up, right, he's like, People distrust him as a congressman. People distrust politicians. They distrust their boards. It is, unfortunately, how it works. You have to work hard to gain that trust. But people are always questioning what the motive is. And I think until you sit in the seat and you work with the person and you have that ability to have a conversation, because dialogue is important, there's plenty of people that take the time to speak with me. We don't always agree at the end of the discussion. But they see the point of view, and it's okay to have different points of view, but there's always going to be that level of distrust. I can tell you, I was just looking right now at the county's laws when it comes to just conflict of interest. Just for conflict of interest, there are hundreds and hundreds of pages. There's volumes of ordinances and laws that the county has, that the state has when it comes to ethics. We are restricted. And a lot of the stuff that's being said here is, again, it's not true. If we take a gift over $100 and we don't report that, we can go to jail. If we take any sort of money or a gift from a lobbyist, we can go to jail. Whether you report it or not, there are so many restrictions and so many laws. And again, for Surfside to come in and create what? Going back to the volumes, it takes thousands of pages to articulate what a conflict is. The state and the county keep changing it. There was a case that came a couple years ago, some former elected official who was trying to lobby. They change things. They recognize and they change it. It evolves. What we are doing here is a couple of people got together, drafted something quickly, and now, in theory, you can be held in contempt of office if you forgot to file this form, which, by the way, we file every year. You're in contempt of office. That is a serious charge for this town to start putting on their elected officials. It is hard enough to find people that want to run, and you want to keep putting more and more burdens on them when the state and the county already have all those restrictions. We all know what this was created for. This was created for one person. That doesn't belong in our books. That doesn't belong on our laws. If you have a personal animosity, which is a lot of themes for these things here, whether it was me or the vice mayor, these things don't belong here. And again, we should be governed. You've got entire county ethics committees. You have entire state committees. There's entire departments dedicated to figuring out what laws work, what laws don't, what are the ramifications. And to have a couple of people, quite frankly, the guy who drafted this was held in contempt for an ethic issue himself when he was running for office. So to have that created by a couple of people in office because they didn't like Jeff Rose is unacceptable. That is not how we should be governing. We are already held to very high standards by the state, by the county. And that works for us. And for us to have that hubris where we're going to come in and change it, again, these laws continuously change and evolve, and we are not equipped to start making that choice and decision here.

May I say something, Mr. Mayor? I want to respond to that. Because actually, I feel in some ways I've been affected by the reporting requirement more than anyone. I work as a private tutor, and I have clients in town where the entire engagement is like $200, and I report it. And I've had to then recuse myself willfully. I've talked with the town attorney with Ms. Arango about it, about a really small tutoring engagement, but it affected a decision, and I'm withdrawing. And I want you to know that. And it's on public record. You can see it. I just want to make a promise to all of you. Even if this law gets repealed, I'm going to keep filing my Surfside source of income statement every six months so that you know where my money is coming from so you never have any doubt about my vote. I'm going to do that voluntarily, and I make a promise to you I would ask, actually, maybe all the commissioners could do the same. But because I have so many small clients, it's probably more onerous on me than to say who your big clients are. But I do it, and I'm going to keep doing it. That's how you build trust. That's what this is about. And at the previous meeting, the mayor made some comments, and I didn't have a chance to respond. He said the law as it's written is vague, and maybe it could keep a realtor from serving on the commission. I want to offer in good faith to the mayor and the commission, if you want to try to amend the law, I'm happy to discuss that. If you want to make it more clear, if you want to perhaps consider a carve out for realtors, I'm happy to say that that's not barred. But why would we repeal the entire structure of every six months reporting and this limitation? It doesn't seem, you know, if you think the law could be better drafted and you think it was too hasty, let's improve it. You know, that's what the legislative process is for. I'm happy to work with you on that. But repealing it is just, I don't know, raises questions about why we're repealing it.

All right. So noted. Madam Clerk, let's call the roll, please.

Yes, Mayor. Commissioner Travani?

No.

Commissioner Vildostegui?

No.

Commissioner Weingart?

Yes.

Mayor Danziger?

Yes.

Mayor, the motion carries.

Thank you. Meeting adjourned. Thank you all for coming. We'll see you back here in 55 minutes.

One o'clock. It's one o'clock, right? It's about 30. 30 minutes.

I'm seeing the second hand.