Town Commission - Regular Meeting

All right. Ladies and gentlemen, if we can have a seat, please. We'll start today's meeting. Today is Tuesday, September 7th, 5.04 p.m., calling today's meeting into order. Madam Clerk, will you take the roll, please? Call the roll.

Yes, Mayor. Mayor Gensinger?

Present.

Vice-President Mergen is absent. Commissioner Travani?

Here.

Commissioner Wendoski?

Here.

Commissioner Weingart is absent. May I have a quorum? No, I'm here. Oh, he's present. My apologies. May I have a quorum?

Thank you. All right, Chief, if you'll lead us, please, on the Pledge of Allegiance. All right, thank you is moving on time to discussion regarding the military proposal.

Thank you mayor. This is I just a final minute trade adoption resolution for FY 2027. The first item is the proposed ministry adoption. If you have any questions we have our budget officer here ready to answer any questions. You could entertain a motion.

All right, where's the millage rate? 3.8743, I guess, is this final or this still gets changed?

Yeah, that's the one you changed to that.

Same, but it doesn't get finalized until after?

Correct, final. But you could ask, Andrew.

All right, let's get a motion on the table. We got a motion to approve.

Yeah, I'll move to approve the resolution.

All right. Let's just do public.

My apologies. Who seconded the motion? I heard two voices.

Commissioner Valdestegui made the motion.

Yeah, he made the motion. Who seconded the motion? I think we both seconded it.

Yes. Okay, so you can have it.

Commissioner Travani, thank you.

Just let you take the blame. There you go. Guys, your taxes are raised because of you. All right. No, I'm kidding. All right. Let's do public comment, and then we'll, if you have a presentation, or I mean, we've done this already. What? Sure. Sure.

Okay, good evening, mayor, commissioners. Tonight is our first budget hearing. The purpose of the meeting tonight is to vote on a proposed millage rate that will be advertised in the newspaper for the final hearing. And at the final hearing on September 22nd, you will be voting on the final adoption of a millage rate. So I'm gonna quickly go through some of the slides. We had a proposed millage rate on July 28th, we held a meeting for that, and that was the rate that was advertised on the trim notice, which was 3.8743. Tonight's meeting is based on the millage rate that was proposed on the trim rate, on the trim notice. So I'm gonna go through the property values and the millage values. The property appraiser provides the property values on July 1st. So the July 1st assessment rule is used to develop our proposed millage rate and our budget. For the fiscal year 2027 budget, the property value was $5.7 million. it was an increase of approximately 337 million, I'm sorry, 5.7 billion. The increase in value was $337 million, which represents a 6.2% percentage increase over the prior year values. Most of the increase is attributable to an increase in existing property values. This slide represents where the taxable value comes from, as you'll see. Most of the taxable value comes from condominium units. After that, we have single family homes. The value that the taxable value, that the property appraiser computes is after exemption, so after homestead exemption. So you'll see on the left the just value, which is basically the market value of properties. and then the taxable value, which is the value based on exemptions that were taken. So as you can see, there's a slight shift in the taxable value to the condominiums and a slight reduction to single family. That's really because a lot of our condominiums are not primary residences. This is a 10 year, 10 year values of the properties and the millage rates, as you can see, as our property values have been going up, our millage rate has been going down. So the budget is based on 3.8743 mills. The 3.8743 mills would be advertised as an approximately 10% tax increase. The rollback rate, and that would require two-thirds majority of the town commission's vote. The rollback rate is 3.5221, and that would be based on a simple majority of the town commission's vote. And if you see here, when we are 3.8743 mills for a property, most of your property, Surfside represents 21 cents per dollar. And then you have the school board, the county, and then other state, and other states, the state and other government companies. that are funded through property taxes. So we're 21% of the ad valorem bill. When we built our budget, our budget is a financial document to project future revenues and expenses. Our fiscal year begins on October 1st. 2026 and ends on September 30th, 2027. Our revenues are based on the property appraiser's values and then other state and local estimates that we receive and then other estimates that we make. Our expenditures are based on specific needs and services and reserves and funding for our capital program. When we prepare our budget, we ensure compliance with policies, statutes, and contractual obligations. Our budget supports building and maintaining infrastructure to improve the community in the long term. The budget establishes spending authorization, and it safeguards reserves to stay financially sound. And we've built a budget that's transparent, affordable, and sustainable. Our budget components are various funds that the town has, which is our main operating fund, which is the general fund. And we have special revenue funds, which are the building services fund, the resort tax fund, the transportation fund, and a police forfeiture fund. We have a capital projects fund where we budget for our major capital improvement projects. And then we have our enterprise funds which are funded through user fees. And those are the water and sewer fund, the solid waste fund, the storm water fund and parking fund. We have an internal service fund that represents servicing the vehicles for the town. So I'm gonna go through the general fund which funds our general government, public safety, physical environment, recreation, and streets. In preparing the budget for the general fund, we based the millage rate on 3.8743 mills. That would be the two-thirds majority vote, which requires four votes for that millage. The reason being that the two-thirds majority rate would continue to support and supports policy guidance from the town commission, provides strong financial management, it continues the commitment of maintaining high-level service, and it provides for capital improvement project funding. When you compare the proposed budget of $27.2 million to last year's budget of 29.3 million, the budget is a decrease of $2.1 million. Our projected revenues are 27.1 million, 27.2 million, projected expenditures are 26.9, and the budget would return $241,000 to reserves. As you can see in this slide, the general fund revenues are mainly made up of ad valorem, which are property taxes at 78%, and then we have our other revenues from franchise and utility fees, transfers, and interest. That's a good one. So it's just in dollar values. So the ad valorem would generate $21.1 million, which is the majority of our budget. Our expenditures are estimated at $26.9 million. There'll be a return to reserves of, this is 245, I think it's 241, not 245. mainly to provide for our operating expenditures of 21.5 million. We transfer $2.3 million to the Capital Improvement Projects Fund for, I believe it's four projects. And we have a 3.1 transfer to enterprise funds. Our components of our expenditures are public safety, which is 9.7 million, the general government, which is the offices here, the town clerk, the town attorney, town manager's office, code compliance, communications, the town commission, and then various other expenditures that are sort of lumped together, it's none. non-departmental, so most of our budget is public safety, 9.7, general government, 8.5, physical environment, which is basically public works, that 1.7 million, our parks and recreation, 1.4 million, our streets at 200,000, We transfer out $5,365,000, which are the transfers to the capital improvement fund of 2.3 million and the remaining 3 million that would be going to the enterprise funds. General fund reserves, based on the budget that we've proposed, we would be increasing our operations and maintenance reserve fund balance policy by $635,000, our hurricane and disaster by 500,000, our budget stabilization funding policy at 254, and our capital policy at 127,000. we would have reserves at the end of fiscal 27 of 29.997, almost $30 million at the end of the year with the unassigned and committed reserves. So I said the two-thirds majority vote Millage rate is 3.8743 mils. That's what the budget has been prepared on. And then we have the rollback rate, which is 3.5221. So the tentative millage rate, which we've proposed, would produce revenue of 21.1 million. The rollback rate of 3.5221 would generate 19.2 million. So if you went to rollback, we would have $1.9 million less than at the 3.8743 mills. So it's just a millage of how much each mill represents. So each mill at 95%, which we budget at, is worth $5.451 million. So tonight, for voting purposes, for the two-thirds voting rate, we would need four votes, and that's the 3.743. Mills, a majority vote would be 3.5221. You'll be setting a millage rate, the proposed millage rate, at one of the rates, and then you cannot lower the millage rate, cannot increase the millage rate. So if you go down in the millage rate at the final hearing, you cannot increase it. At the final hearing, if you decide, if you have one military and you wanna go down, you can go down from whatever we propose tonight. We will advertise it in the newspaper, and then at the final hearing, we'll have the final military determined. So at that point, you still can go down if you determine you wanna go down. So the millage rate that would be levied based on the proposed budget is 3.8743. The rollback rate is 3.5221. And this millage rate that's proposed would be a 10% increase over the rollback rate.

I have a quick question that I think I know the answer to, but I want to confirm it. But I think it's mainly for the benefit of the public. And I'm glad this is the slide that you ended on. Am I correct that if we went with 3.8743, When you say that represents a 10% increase over the rollback rate, that's only for the portion of the taxes that come to Surfside, right? Residents may be wondering, is this a 10% increase in my total bill? And isn't this 10% only relevant to the 21% of the taxes that come to Surfside?

That's correct.

Right. So just so that people know that, if we did go with 3.8743, it doesn't mean that your total tax bill is going to be 10% greater than it was. It's actually much smaller than that. I think it ends up being like 2%. Yeah. So that's really what's at stake here. There's been a lot of discussion on Nextdoor and social media. And I just wanted to clarify that the stakes are actually quite a bit lower than some of the commentary has made it out to be.

Mayor, can we just read the title of the resolution, which is item 3A?

Yeah, please.

Item 3A, a resolution that's on the commission that's also in Florida, and it's not a proposed manage rate of 3.8743 mills for the fiscal year 2027, which is greater than the rollback rate of 3.5221 mills, computed pursuant to state law by 10%, confirming the date of the second budget public hearing for unaffected date. Item 3A.

Thank you. So for now, we're just gonna move on to the public comments and then we'll open it up and see if we can vote on this. There was a speaker that gave six cards. I want to be very clear. There isn't six items on this agenda. There's two. So we're going to go through two different public comments. No, no, no. There's actually a different speaker that gave six cards. Bruno Lopez, of all people.

Oh, okay. That's better than that.

And name and address for the record, please. Thank you.

Yes, again. So it's Bruno Lopez, Emerson 8-866. I wanted to address some of the spending priorities outlined in the draft two of the budget, which I have discussed with some of my neighbors. It does introduce some tax increase over the rollback rate, as we've seen, by 10%, collecting a total of $21 million from the homeowners. While the administration cites financial constraints to justify this increase, town ledgers reflect $1.8 million in interest yields and a $32.7 million unallocated reserve and a $3.6 million transfer from the general fund to cover utility deficits. At the same time, this budget reduces safety funding by close to $900,000, eliminating five street patrol officer positions, even as official records show local incident reports increased by 54% this past year. Meanwhile, allocations include a new $260,000 police major position, a 143,000 chief of staff role, and a 300,000 allocation for private marketing contract. Additionally, the budget allocates $57,000 for pool deck saunas, while funding for beach lifeguard positions remains flat, and frontline street maintenance payroll is reduced by nearly 30%. I ask this commission to review some of these expenses, these new expenses, which are clearly not deemed necessary, and instead allocate the funds to those things that are truly needed in our community. We ask all of you to realign municipal funds to prioritize public safety, frontline staffing, and essential infrastructure. Thank you.

Thank you. We got a sounder.

Eliana Salzhauer, 9317 Bay Drive. So on the agenda, there's multiple things that say public comment, public comment. So I filled out a card for each one, so you can't say that I didn't fill out a card. I have basically two messages tonight. One is the problem with taking more money from residents And while I know it's very hard, you don't want to have to raise rates later. There's fluff in this budget that is making residents really uncomfortable and sort of violating the trust that we had hoped we could put in our leadership. There was a lot of campaigning, a lot of postcards showed up at my house that said fiscal responsibility, all things like that. And then we look in the budget and see things, we see pork stuffed in there, you know, $450,000. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. $1 million over three years. There's too much pork in here. And if you have to sort of cut the millage so that you squeeze the... the fat out of it, you squeeze the pork out of it, then do it if you have to. That's the only way. Because my fear is that while we can say, well, we want to have a cushion, we want to be prepared, the problem is we have people on the dais who think of that money as monopoly money. And then they go, well, we got extra cash. And it's like someone who wins the lottery, and they spend it all, and they're broke a couple years later, or worse than before they started. So I think that in order to regain the trust of residents, You really have to, when we see these things about the budget components, what the general fund is for, it's for government, physical environment, streets, public safety, recreation. It's not for a PR firm for yourself. It's not for a personal assistant. That shouldn't be in there at all. If we could trust that our money was being handled properly, we wouldn't have to be at the meeting at all. It sucks that we have to feel like we have to babysit here. And I don't know why two of the commissioners have decided not to show up today again. this is a responsibility great so they're on they're on zoom they can walk down here right and be at the meeting this is the most important meeting of the year to be in the room and to see the residents that took the time out of their schedule to come here and talk about how concerned they are thank you thank you George Christmas

George Kouselis, 9225 Collins Avenue. Commissioner Valdostegui, thank you for injecting some calm into it with your earlier comment about what the 10% really means. I've got all the budgets here, the summaries since 2021, and I wanted to kind of highlight a few things. The two most important numbers, I think, well, the most important one is the general fund number, because that's what we really spend money on. The other colored boxes to the side are kind of like play money. If the money comes into the resort fund, it goes out, right? It's somebody else's. The enterprise fund comes from other sources. The total operating budget can always be a kind of an eye-popping number, but it's comprised of all of them. So I look at the total operating because, well, it's the total and the general fund because it's the real number to worry about. This budget actually goes down in both numbers this year, by a bit, a smidge, let's say it that. But it goes from 60 down to 57, and let's say 29 down to 27 in raw numbers. So it's going down this year for the first time in a long time. The other thing is to keep in mind, when anybody looks at these numbers, that this odd number is actually, in every case, it's the first budget of that commission that comes in. So the 25 number and the 26 numbers actually pertain to the previous commission, and there the total operating number grew by 20 million in two years. And now you guys are kind of... holding it steady, even slightly lower. We can quibble about where the priorities are in a budget, just like we quibble about where the priorities are in the federal budget. I'd rather spend it on parks, you'd rather spend it on airplanes, whatever. There's always that to go on. But the real numbers here are actually quite encouraging. They aren't growing, they're actually going down a bit. And I'll leave it to others to figure out exactly what they would prefer to spend it on, It's good that the number is where it is and it's it's all in these colored documents for the studio audience to see the boxes are right there and It's the general fund number. That's the important one.

Thank you Thank You George Michael Kerrigan

Michael Carrick in 9365, but I just want to make sure we're talking about just the millage rate for this, and we'll still be able to comment on specific budget items on the next one, right? Yep. Okay. That's all I need for now.

Thank you for that. All right. Anybody else in the crowd who wanted to speak that didn't submit a card on the proposed millage rate? All right. At this point, I'll shut public comment and also just add a little bit to what Commissioner Valdestegui said. So I'm going to open up my tax bill. It's all public. There's nothing secret about any of this, right? I bought my house for $450,000 quite a little while ago, so got lucky compared to some of the new people. But let's look at my tax. Last year, $8,930 total, including the water, the garbage and everything, not ad valorem. So that's your trash, your solid waste, essentially, that's added from the town. With the proposed increase, it's $9,154. So you're talking a little like $200 as the current increase. Now, Surfside's current portion of this tax bill, out of a $9,154 proposed rate that I received in the mail, $1,788 is Surfside. That's 19.53% of my current bill is going to be going towards Surfside. The rest is allocated to Miami-Dade County, a large portion of that. The public schools, water management, independent district, voter, whatever, it goes to the state. It spreads out all over. Less than 20% of your tax bill is going to the town of Surfside. So even if they're saying it's an increase, I wanna give you the line item in Surfside. Last year, at a millage rate of 3.883, I paid $1,743.03 to the town of Surfside. With the current proposal, I'm paying $1,788. That's an increase of $45, just to give you the perspective. So it's not a 10% increase of your tax bill. This is what the current rate and how it affects me and probably the majority, if not less than the majority of the town. because most people here have purchased their home way before me at a rate much lower. So that's what you're looking at. So hopefully that keeps people a little calm and gives you a little bit of perspective at your bill. I recommend you guys look at your trim notice, take a look, run the numbers for yourself, see where you stand and what that proposal is. And that's where we are today.

Yeah, I just wanted to say one thing that I think about a lot with the millage, I really look at, sorry, this was, but I have this ready. There's a page here in the presentation that shows what the millage rate has been over the years. It's page 27. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Five. Five? Yeah. Page five. Thank you. Yeah, page five. You know, there's been a steady downward trend lately. the millage rate stayed stable from 2020 to 2025. But I like to be able to lower it a little bit every year. And I think it's, you know, I never want a future commission to have to raise it. So I like this number in the resolution because we are lowering it over last year. and leaving room for further decreases in the future to keep that trend going. So I think that's valuable. I'll leave it at that.

Yeah, well, real quick. I also wanted to say that it is, I appreciate what Commissioner Vladovsky just said. I think this is important because the minute that you start raising the millage rate, that'll be... THAT WOULD FLAG THAT THERE'S A DEFINITE INCREASE IN OUR TAXES, SO IT'S NEVER A GOOD THING. AND THE OTHER THING IS THAT WITH THIS COMMISSION WE'RE DISCUSSING A FEW INITIATIVES IN TERMS OF INFRASTRUCTURE. MR. LOPEZ MENTIONED INFRASTRUCTURE. THAT'S SOMETHING THAT IN THIS FISCAL YEAR, 2027, IT'S GOING TO BE MOSTLY AT PLANNING STAGE, SO WE'RE NOT GOING TO BE SPENDING A LOT OF MONEY BECAUSE IT'S WITH CONSULTANTS, IT'S DESIGN AND ALL THAT. IT WILL TRANSLATE INTO CONSTRUCTION DOLLARS PRETTY SOON AT LEAST FOR SOME OF THESE INITIATIVES. And yeah, and we don't want to be in a situation where then we have to, or at least try to avoid as much as possible bonds or raising millage rates for this. So I think we have to look at things with perspective as well when we look at these numbers.

All right, thank you.

If I may chime in, Mr. Mayor, Chairman. Yes, sir. I appreciate the words of my colleague, you know, Mr. Valdesagui, because it's important to put it in context of what it actually means and what it translates to. We hear an increase that it could be scary. It's something I'm very mindful of. So thank you for that. bring that out and explaining that. Also appreciate the speaker who broke it down and said, you know, the numbers are actually looking very good and there is no need for alarm. I think we worked really well as a commission in our workshops and in the retreat going through each of our priorities and the vision that we each had. And it was a great format for us to be able to do that. And I think there was actually a lot of respect for one another's initiatives. And there's some really good ideas out there. So I think things are very positive. I think it's very important. that the town know that and not be alarmed by selective numbers that are being amplified or multiplied times three to look bigger. And when you take three years of a budget item, it does look very large. I am here. I am present. So to whoever had that concern, I'm here from Alabama. I do work, and I made time to be here and involved and put a great deal of my time to this. So, again, thank you to my colleagues for working together on this. I think we're in a very good place with the budget.

Thank you, Commissioner. All right. Madam Clerk, please call the roll, please.

Yes, Mayor. Commissioner .

Yes.

Commissioner . Yes.

Yeah.

The toxin authority to tunnel suicide, the robot great is 3.5 to 2, 1 meals that percentage increase over the rollback rate is 10% in the military to be levied is 3.8 7, 4, 3.

Commissioner when got. So the money is absent. We're dancing or yes, we're in the motion carries.

Thank you moving on to item, I guess it's 5 a this whole agenda is all over the place on the fiscal 2027 year tentative budget adoption resolution and clerk if you read the title of the resolution to the record, please.

Yes, Mayor. Item 5A, a resolution of the Town Commission of Tunnel Service at Florida, adopting a tentative budget for the fiscal year commencing October 1, 2026, and ending September 30, 2027, confirming the date of the second public hearing, providing for incorporation of recitals, and providing for an effective date. Item 5A.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. If I could get a motion to approve.

So moved. Second.

I'll second it. All right. Let's open up public comment. I'm sure we'll hear a repeat of the previous comments, but let's go through it. Ms. Salazar, two minutes, please.

Sorry, I should have three minutes.

I had to bring it down. We have another commission meeting in 20 minutes.

Okay. So there are two items in here that need to be taken out of the budget for this year. you just took the higher millage rate, right? You didn't give residents a break, whether it's $50 or $200 or whatever it is, and you wanna spend $450,000, that's just for this year, Commissioner Weingart, that's not three years, that's one year. 300 on a PR contract. And it's going to be more than that, because if you read the contract, there's a whole lot of services not included. Your crisis management's only for 10 days. Day 11, it's a lot more money, if there's actually a crisis. Because a real crisis doesn't resolve itself in 10 days, right? Think about Champlain. Think about real crisis. We don't have any. If there's a real crisis, then you engage a crisis management firm. You don't spend this money, which is our money, taxpayer money, on a PR firm at the price tag of Aventura, a town that is 40,000 residents, seven times this size. And I would bet the farm that the idea for this That item came at the Aventura Marketing Mayor's Breakfast that the mayor went to. And this is the danger of going and using taxpayer dollars to go to every single opening of an envelope all across the state. People are going to get your ear. They're going to try to sell you on things. This is our money. That should be a no. And the $140,000 for an assistant is insane. No one I've spoken to, they can't even wrap their head around it. I did an analysis of every town that has assistance. No town that has a strong manager form of government has an assistant for the mayor. If it's a strong mayor form of government, the mayor has an assistant. And even at that point, they're making $50,000. Even at the state level, assistants in Tallahassee are making $50,000, okay? And for a mayor that made less than $60,000 on his last financial report that he filed, to pay an assistant almost more than twice that much is insane. That's an absolute no. Look at the numbers and compare it. It is fiscally irresponsible to pay that kind of money. Professionals don't make $140,000 in Florida, let alone an assistant. You have AI and you have interns.

Thank you.

The thing is, I jumped, I was too eager.

And what I have to say, I said it on the prior session.

Thank you. MARIUSZ GASIEWSKI. Michael Karakin.

Michael Carrick in 93-65. By the way, the blue cards specifically say three minutes. I know you know why I'm here, but I want to, because I sent everybody emails, so hopefully you received it. Again, I don't really get confirmation of receipt, but I want to talk about two items, specific items on the budget. General comment, yes, I agree that the budget's heading in a good direction. The first is the new legislative aid, costing taxpayers approximately $144,000 a year. The second is $300,000 for outside communication services, a PR firm. Together, that's approximately $450,000 a year, and as you know, that's not a one-time expense. They're recurring expenses that add up to well over a million dollars over the next few years, and I apologize for talking fast. So my question to you is this. Do we really need these two items more than the other high priority items, like maybe some of the items identified at the July budget retreat? In this budget, the legislative department, your department, increases 220%. Communications department increases by 50%. I know you've tried to justify why Surfside suddenly needs 220% more legislative spending and 50% more communication spending. I know that even though we're a small town, 6,000 people one square mile, we do have real needs. Drainage, infrastructure, resiliency, public safety, pedestrian safety, traffic, parking, and other services and amenities residents actually use. You don't have to agree with me about where every dollar should go. But are these two expenditures really that much more important than the other things you can do with $450,000 every year, millions over time? I mean, look at the 48 items you came up with at the July retreat. Only about 12 or 13 of those items are funded in the proposed budget. There are better ways to spend tax-dated dollars than these two items. I'm asking you to veto these two specific items. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Crooker.

FYI, if you read the blue card, it says good and welfare. That's a specific portion of our charter, by the way. And again, you were on the commission for eight years. You'd think you would know these nuances. Back when only Eliana showed up, I know. The town has evolved since the last 10 years. And I'm glad you're here and you made these comments because I want to respond to a couple of items. In 2017, you, Mr. Karukan, I don't have a card from you. Are you on there? Great. I would assume so, but I don't have a card for you. But Mr. Zomper, two minutes, please.

You guys have a card, Genesis?

If you don't mind filling one out, I guess, with them. I don't know what happened to it.

If it's not there, it should be there. Jeff Zomper, 8827 Emerson. I've already expressed my opinion on some of these items at previous meetings. So I won't bother you with that. Again, the opinion has not changed. I do have a question through the mayor to Andrea as to what is driving that decrease from 29 million to 27 million in the operating amount. That would be interesting to know. There are certain things, I've asked numerous times for you to throw in 25 or $50,000 to get educated on pension costs. All of these other items that you're speaking about, if the shit hits the fan, you can reduce staff, you can change health insurance plans, subject to bargaining, et cetera. The one thing that you cannot change is your pension liability. I think you really need to understand how that increases over time. I believe that the number between 26 and 27 on the pension liability increased by somewhere around 400 to $450,000. That is not a once off. That is something that will only increase over time. That's what I'd like to see you do. Thank you.

It's before I open up again, I just want to respond and I'm so glad that. Again, Mr crew, can you keep bringing up PR and we've made that your issue? So let's go through some a little bit of history in 2017. You and your commission approved 37,000 dollars for pinser, right? For PR public relation out of the 12 and a half 1Million dollars of your operating budget from your general fund. That was about 0.29%. The following year, you upped that to 90,000. That's a 143% jump. Fast forward now to, what, 10 years later, eight years later, where social media has become prevalent, where our town just spent $80,000 on one video campaign, and the 300,000 is a 1.39%. And that's a 98% from 2018. So the discrepancy of where you've gone when you were in, right? You understood the importance of it, you grew, you invested in it. Here we are 10 years later with social media being more prevalent and communication being more prevalent, and you seem to have an issue with it. So again, the hypocrisy is there. Now, for everyone else, I just want to say when we got the proposed agenda, when we got the proposed budget. All right. And that budget was basically put together before this commission came in. The proposed budget that we looked at was $21.7 million, all right? We've gone through it, and even with all these spending that you hate, we're at 21.5. So we brought this down over $200,000 from what it was before, and we still got everything we wanted. And that was before $400,000 on a Charette, right? That was so important. We have just spent recently $300,000 roughly allocated towards a living seawall, which doesn't help this community at all. And I didn't hear a word from anybody in this commission or in this crowd, except for you. It's just, you know, you don't like what you don't like, and you don't care about everything else. You got Mrs. Salzauer who's standing here screaming and yelling about the budget, who's currently suing the town for millions of dollars. And that's not coming. Her son, I apologize.

Excuse me, that is a false statement that you just made. No.

Mrs. Salazar is suing this town for millions of dollars, and that is not coming from our insurance. That's coming from our general fund if she's successful, just FYI. So for somebody to get up here and complain about 20,000, 30,000, Eliana Salazar and her son are suing this town for millions of dollars. Mrs. Salazar, I need you to sit down, please. I need you to sit down. I need you to sit down, please. Okay, thank you so much. Anyways, so again, it hurts and I understand you're getting very upset because I've called out your hypocrisy and that's what it is. All right, thank you so much. And again, if you're going to continue to scream and you're going to yell and you're going to get up, I'm going to have to ask you to leave because you're showing I'm sitting here trying to let everyone speak on every item. I'm not stopping them when they go off. I'm trying to be pleasant. And you get up here. You think you own this room. You're going to come here, excuse me, Mrs. Salazar, and you're going to yell at us. And you're going to get up whenever you want. I'm going to have to ask you to leave because you're not acting the way you need to be in this room. And I appreciate that you're showing the whole community what we deal with. So thank you so much. Anyways, that's my comment on the budget. You guys can feel free to keep asking. We work with you. We funded the items that were important to you. This is what's important to this town. Do what you want. And that's it.

Well, so, um, I mean my two concerns, but this is something that we discussed also at the, uh, at the workshop and I guess, um, I don't, it would translate into a question, I guess. If we have a disagreement over the amounts, specific items, how would this work? We approve the budget, we say yes, but we have some disagreements over some specific items.

Well, pretty much every item that we budget for still has to come back in a resolution. So if everybody wants to complain again on the item, it still has to, you know, for example, the PR, we approved via resolution last month with the assumption that the budget goes through. So that would, if it goes through today, not come back. Some of the other expenditures, you know, the assistant requires a resolution. We've got to iron that out. That still comes back as well. So depending on what the item, every expenditure requires a commission resolution. So whether it's budget or not, that's the process. Does that answer?

Yeah, yeah, and I was just thinking, but what happens if we don't approve the budget, then what would be the next step?

We'd have to have another meeting. We have to approve the first reading in this budget, so we're gonna keep working until it happens. We need to work until we issue that, all right.

So I'd like to ask a question, sort of not using my time yet. This is not my comment, but through the mayor, One question for the budget officer, and then I also have a separate question for the manager, just to get some information. I'll go first for Ms. Meary. Mr. Zopper had a good question that I think I'd like to hear the public answer to, is where indeed are the, the reductions in spending coming from then primarily from 29 to 27 million or whatever the number was there. What do you think are the main drivers of that decrease?

One of the main drivers would be we're not funding this if there was funding for the water and sewer main that project is temporarily on hold it's put out to another year, so that would be about a that's I think six and a half million dollars this year, so that will not be in next year's budget and. that nets out because then we're funding 2.3 million for capital projects. So we have a decrease of 6.6 and a half million, but we're increasing for the four projects, I think it was four projects that were added at the last budget workshop for the street lighting and signage. There were two other projects there. So you have a reduction of 6.5 and then you have an increase of 2.3 for the new projects. so that nets out to about four million dollars thank you that's that's helpful i don't know if others have any questions and there are other savings in there i think the program modifications actually only increase the budget about a hundred thousand dollars in the latest version right in the proposed budget that you're voting on tonight um off the top of your head i know this is like uh

This is going to be my question for the manager, so it's a good segue maybe. I want to hear more about the five police officer positions that are eliminated here. Do you think those make up a significant portion of the reduced spending?

That's part of the reduced spending. Those positions were added about two years ago. They remain vacant for just about two years. We can't fill them, and I... They don't apparently need to fill them so they'll be removed.

All right. Then that leads to my question then to the town manager, if I may, through the mayor. So, yeah, I was looking at that new program modification on page 124 about the vacant police officer positions. And, you know, for anyone in the public, I mean, my understanding has been it's just very difficult right now to hire good officers. We were very lucky to get Officer Beaubien in recent months, but filling positions is not easy. And just simply having the position doesn't mean you get a good person in it. Even so, it looks like this is cutting about $800,000, a little more, in spending. And I get asked a lot by residents, like, oh, can't we have an officer to deal with double parking? Can't we have an officer just do this? And I don't think residents always realize that there's only two officers on staff much of the time. So that was part of the rationale for creating these. I just wanted to ask the manager through the mayor, what do you think is the rationale for eliminating the post? Is it that we can't fill it? You say something in the memo here, justification, five vacant police officer positions are being eliminated to align the department staffing structure with the town's long-term public safety objectives. And I have to say that sounds really like That sounds like gobbledygook to me. What is the positive reason for getting rid of you?

Historically, the department has had a total of 31 sworn parties officers. I believe the five officers that were added in the last two years were actually added when the commission was looking or the administration was looking to go to an eight-hour shift. In the police department, that did not happen. We have actually currently three vacancies that are still vacant that we have not been able to fill besides these five positions. So in preparation and savings, we decided to just go back to what we always were funded, which was 31 sworn police officers, still remaining the three vacancies we currently have.

I had those questions. I don't know, Mr. Mayor, how you want to proceed. If anybody else has questions before we comment, or am I happy to comment?

Part of the discussion is questions, and I haven't started the timer, but we do have a meeting scheduled for five minutes from now.

I understand. I'm sorry.

I know you understand, but you don't care, but we need to move it along.

I do care, but I also need to get information so that I can know what my views are.

No, I know you're going to vote no, so let's move the process on.

Come on. Again, we're supposed to be talking about this together. Actually, this meeting had a nice moment earlier, and I appreciated Commissioner Weingart's reference to the retreat in July, because I think I liked the very positive vibe that we had there. I am on topic. Excuse me. I am on topic. Because what came out of there were a lot of good ideas for funding. And that's kind of the frame for my remark. Again, you don't really know where my remarks are going, so you can't say what's on topic or not. I'm just going to ask you, Commissioner. My remarks are not limited by the scope of your mind. They are my own. And what I'm saying is that we had a lot of good ideas for things that we could spend money on. And when I voice my opposition now to... the communications firm and the legislative aid, which I'm about to do, it's because I want to get back to that positive vibe of the retreat when we had lots of nice ideas on the whiteboard and we want to create space for that. I think Mr. Kerrikan had exactly that approach in mind that framing his comments that we have a lot of good ideas and they're being kind of shunted aside for these other things and $450,000 goes a long way. On the PR communications budget item, I just want to say I don't really understand the need. That's never really been communicated to me and I know to many members of the public as well. When I look at page 146, the new program modification, it says that we're doing this for crisis communications capability, enhanced resident engagement, marketing and advertising. The crisis part, I don't understand. Sure, you can have a terrible event like Champlain. God forbid we should ever have that level of crisis again. But when you look at the paperwork for this firm, the crises that they have in mind are like an elected official gets accused of a crime. And then what they're bragging about is that they made the press coverage go away. I don't think that's a legitimate public interest to make press coverage of a crime go away. The other example that's come up in our conversations is this Aventura fireworks mishap, where the barge, I don't know, they lost a bunch of their fireworks and the show was ruined. And then the elected officials created a video spinning that somehow. Again, I don't think that's important. If these are the crises that we're talking about, like a crime or a fireworks mishap, I don't think that's certainly something our current communications department can manage. So I don't really understand at all what the crisis management portion is supposed to be. Resident engagement, great. But I'm sure we can find ways to do that. And then, you know, marketing and advertising. We do that already. So again, with our current budget, I don't know that we need more of it. On the other big topic, the legislative aid, I just want to point out, when you look at that new program modification, page 78, it says a legislative aid to support the town commission. When I spoke with Mario Diaz about this, and he's the one I think who put this in, he made it clear to me that the idea was for the aid to serve the entire commission. That's currently what's in here. I know that where this is going, because of the comments we've had, is that it's going to be an aid just to serve the mayor. I mean, I don't think we need the position at all, but I certainly don't think we need it just to serve the mayor. That's a problem. And I do want to just point out that that's the current form of the item is to serve the commission. When we talked about this at the budget workshop a while back, um the mayor said something like oh we can't have somebody helping the whole commission because of sunshine issues but sunshine law applies to all the employees here i mean you know we have one town manager not five and she understands that she can't be a go-between because of the sunshine law we have one town attorney not five every employee is subject to the sunshine law and they behave accordingly so i don't see why a legislative aid in theory couldn't do the same thing There's no inherent reason why it has to be just for the mayor. I do think the entire position, however, is wasteful. I don't think, I haven't heard the case for this either. The mayor has mentioned difficulty of returning emails, and I know, I have always a backlog of emails to return. But I don't think it's enough for a full-time job either. And I do think that Ms. Salzhauer is right that the salary is inflated beyond what the job description would be. We haven't seen a job description. I have a lot of questions about this job, like how is the person going to be hired consistent with section 14 of the charter that leaves the commission out of hiring decisions? I hope that's going to be respected if this position goes through, but I haven't heard. I'm afraid that it's going to be the job is going to go to a friend of somebody on the commission. I'd like to know who's really going to oversee the position because there's a lot of danger that the work the aide does might bleed into political support, especially during election season. We don't even have a job description. What we have on page 78 is just a legislative aide position to support the commission and nothing else. And I think that is going to be a deal breaker for me with this budget. I just don't see the need for it, and I have a lot of worries about what this could actually turn into.

All right. Thank you, Commissioner, for repeating the same thing you've said at every meeting.

Well, I mean, that's what these meetings are for.

You know what I mean? You know what I mean? Okay, Commissioner Trevani, do you have anything to add?

So, question again. So, can we, IN THE INTEREST OF TRYING TO FIND WAYS TO REDUCE, I MEAN, I'VE ALREADY EXPLAINED MY POSITION ON THE COMMUNICATIONS CONTRACT. I THINK THAT IT'S SOMETHING THAT THE TOWN COULD POTENTIALLY NEED IN THIS ERA, BUT I WOULD FAVOR A SOFT START WITH THE LOWER TIER OF THE CONTRACT. THAT WOULD REQUIRE GOING BACK TO THE RESOLUTION, I GUESS, TO THE, YEAH.

I WANT TO BE CLEAR. WHEN YOU BUDGET FOR SOMETHING, RIGHT, IT'S A MAXIMUM OF WHAT'S ALLOWED BEFORE YOU NEED A BUDGET AMENDMENT. SO IN THEORY, IF YOU REALLY WANTED TO BRING BACK THE SAME ITEM THAT WE VOTED ON, WHICH YOU VOTED NO, BY THE WAY, SO YOU COULDN'T ANYWAYS, AT LEAST FOR THREE MONTHS. and said, for example, hey, let's start soft. We can go back to the contractor and say, look, we're going to sign $200,000 for the next couple of months until we see it. You don't have to spend it. Whatever's not spent is returned back to your reserves. That's the way the budget works. So this item where there's, I don't know what it is, $140,000 for a legislative aid, I think it's $85,000. There's benefits that were added to it, like they calculate for every employee. We don't know how we're structuring that. It may not be allocated for that, but THE SALARY IF YOU LOOK AT THE ITEM IS 85. IF YOU LISTEN TO EVERYONE, YEAH, EVERYTHING IS DIRE AND IT'S AN EMERGENCY AND IT'S SCARY. THIS ITEM, AGAIN, WAS DISCUSSED. WHEN I SAY WE'RE BEATING A DEAD HORSE IT'S BECAUSE THE COMMISSION VOTED ON IT. WE HAD THE RESOLUTION. YOU GUYS MADE YOUR POINT THAT YOU DIDN'T WANT IT OR THAT YOU WANTED TO REDUCE IT. three commissioners voted for it it moved forward provided the budget is is passed so your options to be honest today are to say well we don't agree to the budget with that item and then either it gets reduced or we have a stalemate and then we have to come back in a few days and pass it again so that's what's going to happen here today which is why i don't want to waste 25 minutes talking about the same thing over and over again all right i guess my question is

Is there any appetite to reduce these two numbers?

We've had this discussion, right? That was the last meeting. We tried to reduce it. You said your piece. I heard you. We went back and forth. We explained what it was for. The public spoke. We're just having the same conversation again. What do they say? The definition of insanity, right? Repeat the same thing, expect a different result. We've had this conversation at least three or four times. This is where three of the commissioners have voted on. If you want to hold up the budget today on it, that's your choice. If we want to move forward with it and you've voiced your opposition very loudly, then that's the choice also. But to sit and go in circles on it, it's not coming back down.

I mean, Yes, we repeat ourselves because we want to be heard. And there's room for compromise here. So it is worth repeating oneself to say that, you know, just because three commissioners voted for this last time, that it's therefore off the table. I mean, I think it's a wasteful expense. I plan to vote no on the budget.

It's off the table for you because you voted no on the item. So that discussion item is dead for you for the next three months because we've had this discussion.

No, the budget is still up for vote.

Okay, so Commissioner Weingart has a chance to speak. I'm going to open up the floor.

I'm going to step in. Coming from my background and understanding of organizations, effective communication is critical. I voice that, so I'm not going to repeat myself and why I support that. I also... uh was the one that brought about the fact that we just spent you know 80 80 grand on on a video segment um you know which is uh just there you see what these what communications cost so i appreciate the mayor putting everything in perspective as far as the percentage of the budget as you know as far as where it was 10 years ago and the years following where we're still in line um crisis communication is a standard in organizations especially for an organization or municipality that's running a 57 million dollar budget so it again i understand and appreciate it i hear where some are coming from to slim the budget a little bit but we're not gonna we're not gonna get what we need out of it and we're i do not want to get involved in a situation where now we have to do a budget amendment to increase it so i think 300 and you know is uh is fear for what it is. And I want to also reiterate that or mention that I personally haven't gone back to a $400,000 budget item that my colleague put on the table because I respect the project he wants to do. And may it cost less? Yeah. I'm sure we could find a firm less. I'm not going to get nitpicking on that. It's an area of expertise that I know Commissioner Trevani has, and I respect that, and I'm supporting it. And that's $400,000. I haven't heard from anyone, problems about that, right? That's not going to be something that anyone's going to see an immediate effect, a six-month effect. This is going to take time, but I respect it. And I understand that big change takes that type of study and that type of involvement. So I've been supporting that. So we may not appreciate every last detail of each of our ideas. Some are more excited about the water taxi initiative that I pushed. Others are less. You know, I get that. I don't expect everyone to love every idea I have. So, you know, we work through it, and that's what I was referencing before as far as a productive retreat and where we, you know, talk through these things. I didn't get every one of my ideas down in this budget, but, you know, I hope something gets done in this year, and we're going to work towards that. And God willing, you know, for next year's budget as well, we'll get there. So that's just my piece as far as, you know, I get it. Some want to trim it down a little bit. I respect that. I respect that. watching the budget very closely. But I'm also looking at it as a global perspective here where overall we're in a very good place and we are getting in projects of each of the commissioners, I believe. I think everyone has a project they've mentioned that we're getting in here. So I'm happy with where we're at.

All right. Thanks question again I am you know we're all passionate about this, I just giving you essentially you asked a question I want to just give you with the past that we're doing I don't mean anything by it. Obviously, you know you've been open we've worked together on a bunch of things we've been able to compromise and some of the stuff. And to question one gets point there's things that you know we've supported for each other, I get it. You know it is what it is we voted on it you're entitled to an opinion you express that opinion. I just, the purpose of the commission and what my job is to do is to make sure we're not repeating the same conversation eight times, especially if it's behind us at this point. Today is the budget. I get it. You're upset. The commission voted on this item. If your hesitancy to pass the budget is for this single item, what do you expect is going to happen in three days when you have this meeting again and maybe all five of us are here? That's all I'm saying. You know, again, you can say you don't like it. You can say to the public you were against it. That's fine. You know, like. You've tried to preserve it, but I was against spending $300,000 on a living seawall. I expressed that, but I'm not going to keep bringing it back and bringing it back to discussion. It is what it is, right? The commission votes, we move on. That should be the way we operate on this. Thank you.

I was at the Florida League of Cities last month. The city of Longboat Key got a big award and recognition for the Living Seawall project they put up. It's a hugely beneficial thing that brings positive, among other things, positive PR to the town. And Longboat Key got a big award at the Florida League of Cities conference for exactly this kind of project. I think it does have many benefits. I think you're selling them short. And I think it's, you know... I don't want it to turn into this example of pork spending because it's actually a beautiful thing that has advantages.

My point of it wasn't that it's poor spending, but it may have been a priority for you, but it definitely wasn't for me. It was important for you. It definitely wasn't for me. I was very clear about that. In my opinion, it wasn't a very good use of $300,000 that could have gone for anything else in this town that benefits directly the residents. Now, again, I didn't hear anything from anybody in this crowd when that thing came up, except for the two over there, who watch every penny equally. But where was the outcry on Nextdoor when we were putting up a living seawall in the bay for $300,000?

I think the point here, and I know I do think there's value to our dialogue, even if we in the end disagree. I think what people are saying is, you know, you may not like the living seawall, but at the end of the day, there's going to be a living seawall. You may not be excited about the urban plan, but it's going to create a a blueprint for construction, as Commissioner Weingart said. PR is just going to create social media posts that disappear into the internet. I'm not sure that that produces a tangible benefit. There's no thing there at the end of the day. There's just spin. Can I chime in real quick there? Of course.

We heard previously from town manager that in explaining the five posts that we're not funding for law enforcement, that we still have a vacancy. We have three vacancies still, and that's been for quite some time. Um, what I know from business marketing and organizational marketing is that we have to create a draw. And by our outbound marketing that creates more attention to our town. Um, it does everything. It could be positive. There's also some stuff that will probably be amplified that perhaps others would receive. You know, differently, but now people know about us, um, and. I believe that proper communications and proper marketing will help with filling vacancies, will create the draw and show the beauty of the town that it is. So I think there are benefits throughout, aside from just increased tourism, which will also bring us some additional tax dollars, tourism tax dollars that will be beneficial as well. But that's all part of marketing. So that's where I see value.

Listen, I appreciate that. Again, this town has gone through probably more managers in 15 years than I can count on six hands. OK, we have a negative connotation out there. We have a name and a reputation for instability and well-deserved. And it's very difficult to go out and attract talent when you're going to have six bosses in one year. And positive PR plays a huge role in that. And if you just want the negative stories getting out there, you're going to have a hard time filling. We've had open positions. These five positions that were cut in PD, by the way, were open for, what, a year or so, if not longer? And they couldn't be filled. You know why? Because nobody wants to work in this town. Because nobody wants to work here. So that, going out there, and I appreciate you bringing that point up, Commissioner. It's extremely important. Forget about everything else. And I'm sorry you couldn't see the value in it, and that's fine. And again, you're entitled to that opinion. That item was discussed ad nauseum and eventually voted on. So your options today essentially are you want to hold up the budget, great. You'll hold it up for three days and then it'll pass. That's where we're holding now. So I don't want to sit and waste a whole day on this. We've got another meeting we're already 15 minutes late for that was already notified that we have to move on. So unless there's something new to the discussion rather than going back in circles,

I do think it's interesting that you're so sure you know how the vice mayor is going to vote on this.

Because we've already talked about, like I said, three times, and we voted on it.

New points have been raised tonight.

No, it's actually the same points over and over. It's possible she could change her mind.

I mean, I think the value of a no vote tonight is to say that I want to negotiate these things. And if you want to pass a budget today, then maybe reduce the amount of spending on PR. Maybe get rid of the legislative aid position. I mean... My no vote is what I have to negotiate. So I'm not just holding things up for fun. And I believe in the idea that if we have a debate together, maybe the vice mayor will listen to reason.

No, what you're saying is listen to me or I'm going to hold up the budget. So Madam Clerk, let's call the roll. Because you've just said where you're going. There's no point going now in circles.

And we should negotiate it further.

I'm not here to negotiate with you.

Okay.

Madam Clerk.

Yes, Mayor. No. Yes. So I'm.

So I know we discussed the communications item before and therefore that's pretty much what it is. So the other item on the legislative aid That's something that we still have to discuss on, if it's gonna go through a resolution. I mean, because it is gonna go through a resolution, so another discussion up here on the dais.

I DON'T THINK IT DOES. I THINK IT COULD JUST BE I DON'T THINK IT DOES. I THINK IT COULD JUST BE HIRED. HIRED. THIS IS NOT DISCUSSION. THIS IS NOT DISCUSSION. YOU CAN MAKE YOUR COMMENTS. YOU CAN MAKE YOUR COMMENTS. THIS IS A FACT. THIS IS A FACT. COMMISSIONER, I'M GOING TO ASK COMMISSIONER, I'M GOING TO ASK YOU AGAIN, LEARN THE PROCESS. YOU'VE BEEN UP HERE BEFORE. YOU'VE BEEN UP HERE BEFORE. THERE ARE RULES AND LAWS YOU'RE THERE ARE RULES AND LAWS YOU'RE ALWAYS CONCERNED ABOUT. ALWAYS CONCERNED ABOUT. LET'S FOLLOW THOSE, PLEASE. LET'S FOLLOW THOSE, PLEASE. YOU CAN MAKE YOUR COMMENTS BUT YOU CAN MAKE YOUR COMMENTS BUT

Well, I got to ask the town attorney then. Is there going to be a resolution on legislative aid, or is it just going to be hired?

If you budget for it, the hiring of someone is within the manager's discretion.

Oh. The position doesn't exist yet, so we would need a resolution to add the position. No? The...

This is actually allocating the funds for the position. She could create that position within the administration based upon this budget item and hire somebody for that position. That's why we have attorneys. Oh, I will say this. I understand that this is a, it seems to be a go or no-go, but this is just the tentative budget. The final budget comes back for another vote. So what you do today can be changed at the next meeting.

Right, right. No, I understand that. I'm just trying to see if... I could propose to amend the motion to say that I wanna vote yes, provided that this item on the legislative aid is gonna be subject to a conversation that we're gonna have up here on the dais as opposed to going automatically to the town manager. Otherwise, I wouldn't be ready to vote yes.

Okay, the answer is no. You can't pass a contingent budget on having the position then come back for approval. You're setting aside the funds for it. It doesn't mean they will be spent, but you're allocating those funds within the budget for that purpose. So the only item that comes back is this same budget with the same item at the next meeting. So you're not, this is not a final vote. This is a interim vote on the budget. So you may have this discussion again at the next meeting.

Okay, so let's say this then. At the next meeting, can we have a I don't know how to put it down, meaning I'd like to have a conversation on this specific item because it's going to raise a bunch of issues with the Sunshine Law and all that. I don't know how to make that happen. I guess that's my question. Can I vote yes and then I have to bring it up as a motion later?

No. At the next meeting on adopting the final budget, you can have the same conversation or further conversation about this particular item. You're not limited in your conversations about the line items within the budget at the next meeting. In fact, this is just the tentative Okay, the final hearing is actually the adoption hearing. So that's where you're going to be taking action. This is just frankly, this is sort of a first reading, you're moving this on to the next item. So if you want to keep the process going, then you would vote to approve it. And it would it would then come back for further discussion at the second reading.

Okay, so I'm gonna vote yes, and I'd like to have, I mean, as a comment, I'm gonna bring it up again at the next meeting. Yeah, but we'll have to try to find, I don't know, some common ground there, because I don't understand what the position is for.

Mayor Downsinger?

Yes.

Mayor, the motion carries.

All right, let's take a five-minute break and then we're moving into the next meeting.

They got to reset the links and everything so Oh Sorry, let's go we got let's adjourn adjourn the and just the date of the second meeting just The final budget here will be September 22nd at 5 o 1 p.m. Great Thank you for by the way jumping in