Town Commission - Regular Meeting

Mrs. Salzauer, please have a seat. I think we're going to put that on repeat. All right. Today is Tuesday, September 8th, 6.30 p.m. I'm calling today's meeting in order. Madam Clerk, could you take the roll, please?

Yes, Mayor. Mayor Danziger?

Present.

Representative Bermudez absent. Commissioner Travani?

Here.

Commissioner Valdosta?

Here.

Commissioner Weingart?

Here.

May you have a quorum?

Thank you. I don't know if there's a pledge of allegiance. I can't see the agenda. We could dispense with that. I think we can dispense with that. All right, we already did it today.

We've got a roll call.

Let's move to the resolution, if that's okay with you guys. All right, so I don't have, where is the 530 meeting?

It's the blue, yeah, that's it.

So the approval and a settlement agreement with Lunacon Engineering Group Core, and this is in reference to the shade session that we had today. Yes. Madam Clerk, if you'll read the title of the resolution to the record, please.

Yes, Mayor. Item 2A. A resolution of the Town Commission of the Son of Teresa, Florida, approving a settlement agreement with Lunacon Engineering Group Corp., a Florida corporation, DBA, Lunacon Construction Group Corp., oh, my apologies, DBA, Lunacon Construction Group Inc., provided for authorization and provided for effective date. Item 2A.

Thank you. Can we get a motion to approve? So moved. All right, we got public comment. Mr. Kouselis. Who's seconded? I'm sorry, yeah, do we have a second?

I'll second that.

There you go, all right.

George Christmas 92 25 Collins Avenue. I'm just kind of curious about how this shook out the way it did. So if you look at the whereas clauses it basically says the first one whereas the contractor hired a surveyor second one whereas the surveyor surveyed and placed the building in the wrong location and whereas the town and the contractor agreed to accept the building in the wrong location, blah, blah, blah, and we will pay them 350, 350,000 or something for that. How did it get that far? If you could imagine if Fort Partners had built the Hillcrest five feet in the wrong direction, it would not be a hiccup. It would be a massive I don't know what. And this is five feet in the wrong direction and it really hurts the town as, you know, the basketball court getting pinched and if you are overzealous in your layup and you go crashing into the fence. So how did it get here? Because it seems like there are about four or five whereas clauses missing in the middle. When did the town first hear that the building was in the wrong place? That usually happens early on, not at the end. So I'd just like more information on that. Obviously, it's a settlement that you've agreed to settle on, but I think we need to know more. Thank you.

Thank you, George. Ms. Salazar?

Eliana Salshauer, 9317 Bay Drive. This is really important for residents to understand what this is. When 96th Street Park, which was decades in the making, it was the culmination of so many commissions and managers' efforts, was finally built with millions and millions of dollars, there was such a rush by the prior Danziger Commission to get their name on the park that they didn't do the due diligence of making sure that everything was in the right place. and our building was built five feet in the wrong direction, which is why the basketball court is in the wrong place and you eat the fence whenever you try for a layout, okay? That is how there are real consequences to rushed processes. This is why it's important to not rush public processes. Going back to the meeting we just had where you got rid of PNZ being able to have to look at every public project, again, because we want to be faster and we don't want to be held up by PNZ. If this had been held up more, this lawsuit could have been avoided. This mistake could have been avoided. And for the rest of the next 100 years, the building would have been in the right place. Rushing is never the answer. And as a lawyer, litigation is the solution here. And when there's a problem, when people cross lines, when people do things that aren't OK, that's what the law is for, to hold people accountable to make sure it doesn't happen again. And that's why lawsuits are filed. Because unfortunately, people don't understand. Shame on you. They have to be taught lessons. And the only lesson they seem to understand is money. That's the only language that people speak around here. So this lawsuit should have never had to have happened had this mayor done due diligence, had this mayor not put a town manager in that had no business being a town manager, if he hadn't rushed it through. The same thing he's trying to do with every other project. And furthermore, I want to point out that this mayor sued the town. He was a named party in a lawsuit against the town and our residents. And I am not.

Thank you. All right. Anybody else want to speak on this item? Nope. All right. Public comment. Try to comment on a few of these things. Just, again, this all happened outside of when I was here. We came in to settle this. George, your point, Hillcrest versus the 96th Street Park. I think if the Hillcrest screwed up, there'd be tens of millions in damages that they can assign to a value, right? Whether they lost property value at I think it's very difficult, and I'll let the attorney speak to it, but I think it's very difficult to assign a value to a basketball court that's a couple of feet shorter, other than the layups. But what is the assessed value of that damage? And I know that the attorneys, we've spent quite a bit of money over the last year or so fighting this. At this point, it's almost a wash with this thing. So we can keep fighting it, which is what the last commission did, and end up costing the town residents a lot of money. Or we can walk away and say, this is not the fight that we want to take on. Again, to the point, you know, and I hear this a lot that, you know, it was written in the Gazette that this was my fault and, you know, Marianne's fault and Jeff's fault because the park got written wrong. I mean, this commission, we just approved the memorial. I'm curious how many of us went through the engineering and double checked the square footage and the process. That's not my forte, except for one engineer, who I guess we could blame if it goes wrong, but I'm kidding. None of us know any of this. That's not our job. We rely on the staff. We rely on the projects. The commission that we sit on approved the expenditures of the 96th Street Park. A certain speaker has sat on the Parks and Rec for 10 years, and every two years wanted to go for another charrette for the park. EVERY TWO YEARS, I SAT ON THAT COMMITTEE FOR ALSO QUITE A WHILE, AND THAT PART NEVER GOT DONE. MY COMMISSION CAME IN, WE FUNDED IT, IT WENT FROM A $2.5 MILLION JOB TO A $10.5 MILLION JOB, AND THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU KICK THE CAN DOWN THE ROAD YEAR AFTER YEAR AFTER YEAR. WE APPROVED IT. PARK WAS DESIGNED BEFORE WE GOT INTO THE OFFICE. WE APPROVED THE EXPENDITURE JUST LIKE WE DID A FEW WEEKS AGO WITH THE MEMORIAL. WE WALKED INTO A PROJECT THAT WAS VALUE ENGINEERED BEFORE WE WERE IN OFFICE AND WE APPROVED THE EXPENDITURE AND THE CONTRACT. WE DIDN'T APPROVE ANY DESIGNS. IT'S NOT FOR US TO GO THROUGH THE ENGINEERING AND THE PLANS. THAT'S WHY WE HAVE STAFF. AND AGAIN, THE PARK WAS DESIGNED AND ENGINEERED BEFORE WE GOT IN JUST LIKE THE MEMORIAL WAS VALUE ENGINEERED BEFORE THIS COMMISSION GOT IN. I hope that answers the question to the public that keeps hearing that we're the ones responsible. We had a bit of an executive session. Again, when it comes to the value, you're going to sue, you're going to sue. At a certain point, we're going to start losing money as residents. This is kind of a wash. I'll turn it over to you, Mr. Attorney, if you want to address it.

Yeah. So... This is not a design issue. This is not anything that the commission approved in a rush or no rush. The project was designed properly. It was approved properly. The contractor hired a surveyor who locates the points where the building is to be located. That surveyor located it in the wrong location, having nothing to do with the commission or the administration or anything. There's no fault in this body, okay? So we could get into more details of how that happened and go into the depositions and what mistake he made, but the surveyor that was hired, and it wasn't the general surveyor who did the boundary surveys. It was the guy who was hired to actually put the points on the ground where the building and foundation were going to be constructed. And he made an error. So at the end of the day, we can fight for principle. I hear you have to teach them a lesson, and that's the only way you're going to learn. So we could keep fighting for principle, and we win and we'll lose money. Because at the end of the day, it's going to cost us probably far more than we're having to fund at this point. We're getting pretty close to a point where even the money that we're saving through this settlement, we're spending in legal fees. So I have to give my recommendation based upon what I think is the most prudent thing to do at this stage where we're not throwing money, good money after bad, okay? So my recommendation was to try to settle this. We're saving $150,000 over what the final invoices were. Is that something? Yeah. Is it a lot? No. In the big picture, you feel like there was a wrong here, and there was. But also to try to prove what the damage is and what the cost of that damage is and how is extremely difficult. So... maybe to spank somebody, you may not be able to spank them because that financial gain that you won after going through a trial may be marginal. Um, so in any event, that's where we are. Our recommendation is, is we're trying, you, this is, we're trying to go through these suits. This is a suit that the town filed probably should not have filed, probably should have sat down with the contractor and with the surveyor and tried to work this out at the beginning would have saved a lot of time and a lot of money and special counsel and everything else. But it is what it is. So we're moving these things along. My recommendation is to be done with this. We saved one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I understand that that doesn't move the tennis court or the excuse me, the basketball court. But I don't want to see you all just keep you know, we've got a lot of lawyers fees that we need to spend. That's not one of them.

Through the mayor, just a couple questions for the attorney. Am I right, this settlement does not include any attorney's fees, so we're not on the hook for any attorney's fees? Correct. Did you mention that there had been depositions in the case already?

I don't think there were. I think there was initial investigation, and everybody has acknowledged what happened. I mean, the surveyor has acknowledged his mistake.

Yeah, and are there... Are there documents of the investigation that I can see? I would like to... Okay, so just responding to a couple of the points. I mean, I've been inclined to vote yes on this, but I think the concerns that Mr. Kouselis and Commissioner Salzhauer raised are important ones. I want to thank mr. Kuslas because my memory too was at the building the the error was a matter of something like five feet and Respectfully through the mayor to the attorney at the at the executive session today. You said something like it was a matter of inches. I Think it was closer to five feet and I think that is a very big mistake I tried for the record at the executive session to inquire about the damages for the basketball court specifically and you know I'm not a torts lawyer so I rely on the town attorney's advice here that the prospect of actually recovering damages didn't seem worth the effort of the litigation. And I will defer to the attorney's advice on that, even though I remain upset about what happened. I do think, though, as long as we're talking about the history of the project, there is an important factual question, which is, when did the town become aware that the building was in the wrong place? I know when I became aware of it, because it was when I was already serving as a commissioner in a public meeting, and I think Mr. Kousalis was there, and I think Commissioner Maishide was there as well, and it was kind of a shock to learn that this had been built in the wrong place. I don't know. That information was not given to me by the outgoing town manager, Hector Gomez. I don't know if the former commissioner or any members of it knew that the building was in the wrong place when we had the handover of power in 2024. That is an interesting question because we were surprised to find out. It was in public at a commission meeting. That is a question I would like to know. When did anyone in the town learn of the mistake? But ultimately, if I'm voting yes on this, it's because the attorney's advice suggests that it's just not worth the extra litigation. So I want you to know my rationale. And I also want you to know that in the executive session, I was trying to figure out what damages, if any, could be chalked up to the basketball court issue. And I was satisfied with the answer the attorney gave.

Yeah, just real quick, just to echo what the town attorney just said. Usually, it is true. Usually, you negotiate with a contractor before going to the lawyers. That's how you settle change orders. That's how you settle claims. Because the minute that you go to lawyers, it's going to be for big money. Because otherwise, you just eat it all up in lawyers' fees. And you don't know how it's going to end. Because you don't know. Then you've got to wait for the judge, and it takes years. So, yeah. That's why I'm in favor of this settlement. I can totally see the logic. And hopefully in the future, if we have... other projects that we're building. We're going to negotiate change orders and settlements before going to the lawyers, unless it's really necessary.

Commissioner Weinberg.

While it's unfortunate what has happened and the outcome and the impact to the basketball court, I got the response that I needed to hear from the attorneys earlier in regards to liquidated damages and how the settlement was reached. And I'm prepared to move forward and close this chapter. But as Commissioner Trevani said, it's a lesson to be learned for how some capital improvement projects are handled moving forward and checks and balances to confirm we are receiving the product that we are contracted to receive.

So I guess two points. Number one, I'm going to answer the question, which is when did the previous administration learn about this? Well, I learned about it when Charlie Burkett wrote a whole thing in the Gazette. That's when I learned about the issue. Then I watched the meeting where the developer came here and blamed the entire thing on me, which is what they asked him to do, even though I had nothing personally to do with any of the building in the park. So trust me, if anybody has a personal reason to want to keep This lawsuit going and make sure that they pay for it, it's me, but that's not the point this is going to cost the residents money. The objective here is to get us out of this and the best way possible so with that I'm clerk was called.

Yes, mayor. Commissioner Tony, yes. Commission does take it, yes. Commissioner one guy. Yes, right and singer, yes, we're in the mission carries.

Thank you. OK adjourn. Motion to adjourn.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Aye.