e e e e good evening everyone it is Thursday July 18th and we are ready for our commission meeting if we have members in the audience with a cell phone please silence them so that we are able to get through this let's call the r please Nikki yes Vice bonish here commission Le present commissioner Cory present commissioner Cay here mayor Fernandez is in building we have a quum thank you if we could stand for a moment of silence please commissioner Cory can you lead us in the pledge please absolutely I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you very much should we start the presentations without him I think we should wait for him no should we wait for him to start our presentations you want to do the approval the minutes okay let's then let's do that can we do the approval of the minutes please I need a motion I'll move a motion I'll second um commissioner K yes commissioner Cory yes commissioner Leman yes VI Bon yes minutes pass 4 Z perfect should we move on to the city manager report or do you want to do something else was that for both there was two on the agenda yes okay okay shall we move to the city manager's report I'm trying to think of what we could do while he's not here yeah he had said to move forward so we could do manager's report and then come back to presentations yeah because I figure it' be it'd be good for him to be here for that our Deputy manager uh present hello um South Mii Park New Field light improvements the construction has been completed on that project the final field inspection was conducted June 28th so um FPL released that job to the construction Crews and it's expected to be done by July 26 on the event side we have several upcoming events July 24th parks and recck is hold hosting a round robin pickle ball tournament at Marshall Willington Park um they'll be serving life bites and refreshments for participants on that Saturday July 27th is our back to school Splash Bash that's an end of the summer party that is a an only event that will be held at Murray Park we have a workshop that was coordinated by mayor Fernandez in collaboration with Transit Alliance that is going to be held at Miami senior Plaza at South Miami senior Plaza July 30th from 10: to 11: and at Metro South at 1 pm. and that's going to inform our active adults about upcoming changes that are related to the better bus project and Metro connect then we have an initiative that was championed by commissioner Kay um along with commissioner Regal Bank of America to be hosting a financial literacy challenge that's can happen at the mo building Tuesday July 23rd for 7 to 12th graders and registration is currently open for that it's the end of the manager's report thank you colleagues any questions uh no I I just wanted to compliment our Deputy City Manager on another successful second Saturday which was this past Saturday right yeah it was yes was yeah it was the team worked really hard on it so thank you colleagues for the questions or comments NOP do we go back to uh presentations we can Okay so let's um let's start with the presentations please if you could read the first one to the record Madam clerk thank you yes um E1 Dr tin Sky medical director of southy Children's Clinic Miami Foundation saltwater Fellowship award recipient great so uh Dr Scott why you come forward please I just want to take a quick moment to acknowledge uh you and this recent um this recent recognition by the Miami Foundation uh if you could would you mind sharing a bit about the fellowship and this was a this is an initiative on the part of the Miami Foundation to begin to address uh longstanding racial disparities across Miami I imagine that you were selected in part because of your work in uh the area of Health disparities and trying to rectify those so I just wanted to give you chance to one talk about your work uh which we all greatly appreciate to maybe share a bit about what you hope to accomplish to the fellowship and then we'll do a quick presentation where we'll honor you with a a certificate okay so thank you for inviting me uh this evening so to be honest I actually did not know anything about this fellowship and it sort of fell in my lap uh my neighbor from across the street um sits on a bunch of different boards and he heard about uh this particular fellowship and called me up and said this is Taylor Made for you and that's kind of how everything started so you had to be nominated in order to apply for it um um you know which I I obviously got the nomination from him and then completed the application um the application basically you know talked about the work that I've done over the last 17 years and it was really um a wonderful opportunity for me because the funds are unrestricted so it's $100,000 over the next two years fantastic and with the the Miami Foundation the reason why they started this inaugural Fellowship was basically to support leaders in the community um primarily leaders of color that are working in served um areas of Miami and um and really you know are struggling from a financial standpoint to continue the work that they're doing and so they wanted to um to support leaders that are that have a track record a proven track record of reducing racial inequities and uh so I made it through um the finalist round and there were 25 finalists and we had to interview in front of the panel and then from there they chose 10 fellow uh fellows from there and I I found out about a month ago that I was I was chosen as one of the uh the 10 fellows um in my application you know I talked about obviously the work that I've done in South Miami since 2017 um you know basically to provide high quality Health Care to that particular neighborhood and besides the healthcare um working to uh you know to to address the social determinance of health because one of the things that I noticed when I I first started at the clinic in 2007 is that it was really difficult for me to push forth my you know my my medical agenda when you had patients um or patient families that were dealing with all of these other issues in their lives whether it was um you know being unhealed or dealing with food insecurity or um you know uh abuse in in the home and if I did not address those issues then you know anything else that I that I was doing from a medical standpoint was you know was basically not you know not not going to be successful so that's kind of um you know what I've been focused on you know um is having resources to um you know help these families and the partnership that we have with FIU with their neighborhood health program has really been um a wonderful uh collaboration uh for the last 10 years because they Park their mobile van in front of my clinic uh every Wednesday and they see the families uh the parents and grandparents of the children that I see at the clinic and they also do home visits and they address all of those social determinants of health so you know that's that's been great um I think for me personally the reason why I really wanted to apply for this is to support the work that I'm already doing and to create additional avenues for Access um as we've seen all over Miami uh you know housing is a major major issue um you know so many of our you know our residents um are dealing with you know not being able to afford to afford rent and being unhoused and you know we've had residents that have had to leave the community but still want to stay in the medical home and they've been seeing me you know for the last you you know 10 15 years and I've had to do home visits on a limited basis just you know in my van and um and meeting them where they are uh so I would love to expand that a little bit you know so that they don't have to change providers and I can still you know be able to to give these kids uh the same medical care that they've been receiving you know since I started at the clinic so well amazing congratulations and thank you I you know I'll let my comments ask some questions or comments if they have any I but I would just like to put the put this question to you which is what can we do to support you in your practice and in and helping folks access those Digital Services I mean 25 years ago we we would we when I worked at city of Miami we worked very hard to use the earn income tax credit during the tax season as a vehicle for getting folks connected to Dollars and then other services and rolled in food stamps or any other services they qualified for uh if there's an opportunity to kind of use your clinic as a community center to kind of bring some resources to those families as you're doing with FIU in a way that we can help as well support that work I'd love to just learn more about it I I would actually love that and I I can tell you that um the the food insecurity I have not seen on this level um since I started at at the clinic and these are families that were pretty secure you know early on and you know I've thought about you know how how to help um in that respect you know even having like a little Pantry at the clinic you know where I if I identify a family in need that I would I would have you know some resources available you know for them I think the other thing that I would I would love to do and I did this actually um before the pandemic hit um I won an award where I won $10,000 um a healthcare Heroes award and it was actually to teach kids how to swim at the pool that opened up and then of course the pandemic hit and you know we couldn't do that and what I did is that I funneled the money into a variety of things so um you know I had funds for families that um didn't have rent money or they needed food and that sort of thing and I would I would kind of decide um on an individual basis who would get that money so I Ed the money for that um I also Ed the money for those kids during the pandemic that um were at home and could not go to school in person and then didn't have the computers to do online learning and the community center actually had you know like a I guess like a program there for those kids and I I gave money for that as well so I think you know having like an emergency fund um would would be something that I I would I would love to have you know moving forward yeah well I'm happy to put some time into raising some dollars to help you do that so please let me know commiss k i I did the mayor thank you so much for what you do in the community I I know we've been meeting the chat there's a lot of synergies that we're trying to do together you know we just get a little bit too busy but we need to make an emphasis to get together on that um there's a lot of things in the community that we're starting up uh from scratch financial literacy for kids a lot of different programs for the community um I'm trying to get it all together so i' would love to pick your brain same vice versa with the mayor and anybody else we would love to help you as much as we can you know my wife is also know you know fq fqac type of of facility so um we're always here for you and let's just make sure we get get together and I I'll say one last thing I I think you know probably which you know I mean I think it's you know it's across the board um adults and kids the the Mental Health crisis and that's been huge so I would say the majority of what I'm seeing now um is that I mean I'm seeing probably 80% mental health so the kids will come in with one thing but then when you delve a little bit deeper um it's you know it's actually anxiety or depression that's kind of triggering uh the physical symptoms so uh the resources are stretched really thin um you know here in Miami date County and the weights to see a therapist or psychiatrist are like months long so um that would be another yeah also to mention we just started a Special Needs Board as well yes um so we're getting a lot more input from the community to make sure how we can work together we're only as strong as a community so we're really trying to get engaged with that we have a lot of social marketing engagement from people resources that we set up in this building so we can do a much better job of communicating and getting together so it's a work in progress but you know we got to work together thank you so much thank you yes uh thank you so Dr Scott first uh thank you and and congratulations but I just want to tell you uh sincerely I remember when I first started how revered you were no one was reved as much as you are in the city of South Miami and uh that's the same case today you're you're a beacon in in the city and South Miami's lucky to have you and we really we love and appreciate you so it's it's been an honor and uh so yeah that's all I have to say but uh but thank you no and thank you guys for you know for your support too because I could not do any of what I'm doing you know without the support from the city so I'm I'm very very grateful for that and very blessed you know to be able to do the work that I'm doing so all right and I would just be remiss if I didn't also thank you and for everything that you've done and um and for bringing recognition and resources to the city absolutely um and I personally witnessed all the things that you did during the pandemic while we're up here as well and I really appreciate all of that can I add one one thing so obviously the was started um to uh you know to see patients that were uninsured and I've transitioned that where the majority of the patients are actually on Medicaid but obviously I had a previous life before this particular role and you know and I have patients you know that live in South Miami that have private insurance that want to come to the clinic and I think the beauty of what you know that we've been able to accomplish at the clinic is that we have um you know different income levels and these are you know patients on the higher end who have a choice and they could go to any pediatrician in here in Miami dat County and they choose to come there and you know and to me I mean it's you rarely see something like that and so you know you can have somebody like up here and then somebody coming in with like no shoes on on their feet and and it all works you know and so the patients that are in the higher end have um have actually been some of my biggest Advocates where they bring clothes and they bring shoes and you know all sorts of donations and and you know I think what you know what we've created is is something that's really special so well congratulations again thank you for again shining in a wonderful Spotlight in our city and if you come for we have a brief small certificate for you that point if a clothing drive would help because that's easy sure why why you go ahead and would it would a clothing Drive help yes absolutely because what what we do we have a table outside of the clinic and we just put free and anytime we get donations we put everything and it's gone within you know within 24 hours yeah I'll bring you all my skinny clothes oh my goodness M Vice may go ahead if you were to set up this Pantry do you have a space within so I can create the space and um you know obviously it would have to be non- perishables and you know but um but yes yeah okay could we could we do something targeted I mean you've got obviously a a tight cohort of people that you're working with yeah we could certainly reach out to farm share yeah that would great and and rather than do something that's open to the public open to those families focused on non- perishables and so happy to help you coordinate that and maybe we can get them absolutely if you can get we get together get a list of how many families we can certainly reach out to them and try to do something that's yeah and I screen almost every single family that comes in regardless of whether they're coming in for which which they which they will love because they want to make sure they're qualified so yeah fantastic no that would be awesome lots to work on Dr Scott also coordinate the city vaccinations yeah oh yeah yes yes with the pop-up vaccine uh clinics well thanks again amazing work congratulations let's come forward take a quick picture yeah lots to work on there so uh Madam Clerk you can read item two please yes police to Citizen Porter peace to see chief pfield chief you're recognized good evening good evening mayor vice mayor Commissioners uh just want to present a um an opportunity that we we capitalized on here um when I came I wanted to make sure that we were uh being as transparent as possible as also trying to be as efficient as possible uh so I had staff look into ways uh internally that we could become more efficient and transparent uh our Communications manager uh Lisa Corbin brought forth uh police to Citizen portal and uh it really connects citizens in our agency uh through convenient access to public information agency online services and just to give you some facts as you watch this video in 2023 officers wrote 352 non-criminal information reports for citizens in 2022 they wrote 283 the communications officers handled 220 or 212 security watch order requests and in 2023 109 I'm sorry in 2022 192 uh this user friendly uh reporting option will allow more time for us to focus our attention on traffic details citizen concerns Community engagement as well as uh concentrate on the crime the South Mi Police Department launched a new police to Citizen p2c site this site will allow the public to report certain types of offenses online without the need or assistance from a sworn or or civilian member the purpose of the site is to offer individuals a convenient way to file certain types of Reports online it will also reduce the amount of calls for service which will free up officers for more serious types of Investigations the following criteria is required to follow a report online the incident must have occurred in the city of South Miami the reporting person must be 18 years of age or older a valid email address is required the following types of reports will be accepted online thefts valued at less than $2,500 vandalism or damage to property valued at less than $2,500 and Lost Property reports police to Citizen connect citizens and agencies through convenient access to public information and agency online services with p2c citizens can search records download reports and submit non-emergency incident reports userfriendly features provide citizens with self-service options that reduce foot traffic in the agency and workload on agency Personnel some of the features include incident reporting citizens can submit non-emergency incident reports online anywhere any time without visiting or calling agency Personnel easy access to information browse and search incident recent arrest records as well as trespass warnings and CAD calls online submissions citizens can submit officer compliments or complaints security watch requests and file Reports online Daily Bulletin allows us to share our police blotter with our citizens in the public at large event mapping provide citizens with insight into what's Happ happening in their Area events are mapped to a block to avoid disclosing specific locations p2c is mobile friendly and runs on desktops tablets and phones enabling citizens engagement anytime anywhere any questions colleagues any questions commissioner leben well well now I know how to keep my picture on the website once I'm out of office but but actually what what I would like you to do I know it's not exactly Germaine but today in the budget committee where weren't as many people watching I was really excited to learn that we're going to add two motor cycle officers so maybe after this present if you would just announce that to the community because I think that's a great addition yes I know but I want the chief yeah so the idea is to uh add two motor units U and present that in the budget and for it be accepted in the budget uh in the coming year thank you commiss uh Corey uh Chief if we haven't already done it maybe Brandon can help it'd be great to have this on the app too just as a another way for people since it's also a place where they're obviously reporting to the city the so Connect app you're okay yes sir we'll we'll definitely look into that Brandon and uh Sam have been most helpful in putting not only the presentation together but to get this compiled and and on our web page as well and then we're also going to be adding our general policies and procedures on the website as well so that any citizen can go on there and understand exactly what our policies and procedures are for law enforcement as we are creating them Madam vice mayor I don't know if this is so much a question for you as it if is for our city manager and our Communications people is we're doing all of these really cool things how are we informing the public other than social media are we going to send out a flyer are we going to mail something to people because if you're not like hip to social media which a lot of our community may not be it' be nice to have a flyer or something to send them so that they can go and look yeah we also use the newsletter as a means to like update on things that are going on um because you're right not everybody's on there so we're trying to populate in as many places as possible yeah because it's great thank you yes commissioner leben what about a welcome uh pil when we have a new Resident move into the neighborhood yeah I was I was going to actually mention that if if you didn't add if you didn't add it uh I think I mentioned the manager in passing recently that it would be nice to put together like a welcome packet and at this point we should probably just send it out to every household you we don't have that many households so even at $10 a household it wouldn't be the it wouldn't say would bust the budget per se so we should talk about that further and see if we can figure that out for the next fysal year just to kind of have a quick list of services and um advise people some of the changes we've made I think it would be a and a magnet with a non-emergency number so forth yeah and we could add some promotional stuff for if if some of the vendors or restaurants wanted to add something you know downtown they could add a promotional piece as well wouldn't hurt to support our businesses that way as well not not from the the welcome standpoint but a little bit more to what commissioner Leman just said we did prepare a door hanger that has key components of how to connect with the city uh that we're going to be providing uh that we're going to be Distributing over time obviously it takes time uh but yeah you had mentioned the issue of a welcome packet that maybe we can put together great further questions thank you Chief appreciate you I just want to say thanks to miss Corbin for bringing this forward to us thank you thanks to her okay Madam Clark uh item three please park month Proclamation okay so Mr director you want to come forward there you go okay he's able standing so correct so apparently apparently July is Parks and Recreation month it is yes indeed you want to give us some of the background sure absolutely um I just want to say good evening mayor Madam vice mayor members of the city commission city manager um yes so July is National Parts of recreation month and on behalf of Quinn myself and the rest of the team who joined us here today we are extremely appreciative of this Proclamation so um this year's National Parks and Recreation theme is where you belong um which really highlights how this department Fosters a sense of community with the programs and amenities that we offer so uh we're just extremely appreciative and happy about that um some of the ways um I know some of them were mentioned earlier on but um some of the initiatives that we are driving are the uh pickle ball tournament which is on July 24th um we also have we had a tennis tournament on July 12th um we have a multitude of youth programs including volleyball clinics uh we had a baseball camp we had uh soccer clinics and then we also had a community set challenge so um like I said we're just really happy to kind of make this a declaration great colleagues any comments or questions mam vice mayor my neighborhood has gone pickle ball crazy everywhere has gone pick no no no they're everywhere I I tell you I live by Brewer Park I live right off of Miller in 67 and we did that conversion of one of the handball courts or whatever it is to pickleball and I have people that are always like hey when are we doing the other one when are we I'm like what more the No No and that the kids you see them all now riding bike with their pickle ball stuff so it's ex I mean you guys nailed it with that one absolutely that's my son by the way yeah I know I can it's everybody's son apparently it's it's insane it took me years it's awesome um you know we've we've seen a really good turnout um at a lot of these free programs that we're offering I mean we have a volleyball clinic today which filled to capacity so there's like 30 35 people individuals playing volleyball right now at the community center so fantastic yeah really about it and go ahead go ahead sir you're recognized go ahead I I've never said this before but I'm happy that Quinn's not here because we we got a chance and the community got a chance to hear from you and uh everyone in your department shines it's just an incredible Department Mr manager thank you mayor and uh certainly I um you know want to recognize you know our Parks and Recreation uh Team I mean the the amount of work that goes behind the scenes to make things happen is just incredible on a daily BAS spes throughout the city at all hours you know weekends nights and and so you know that's what makes a strong fabric of a community and that's the value added over community so you know they're champions of that and I want to thank them publicly and thank you for recognizing this month obviously we planned it the day that Quinn's not here um he's here he's here in spirit he was here earlier it's okay but thank you for recognizing the month but really what you're doing is recognizing our team and the hard work that they day in and day out so I want to thank them publicly well I'll just close by saying uh you know you your department is definitely one of the ones that makes our little city special and so we're grateful for all of you for your work uh you know from arts and culture to working with the elderly to working with children and adults I mean you touch the full range of the folks that in every every socio economic group every race right you touch every aspect everyone in our city and you also you also are ambassadors for our city with people who live outside South Miami and use our facil so we are indebted for all the work you do and the fact that you make us all shine and look good every single day so thank you and um I I will let's all if you all will come forward please we'll take a picture together up here and present the proclamation thank you scre can you guys squeeze squeeze like you like each other squeeze where's he going here you go guys everybody look over here one two three hold on I just want to say thank you again we we are extremely appreciative of all of this by the way excellent presentation on your part well done okay Madam clerk I think we have an add-on item agena if you can read to the record yes a resolution of the city Commission of the city of soping for the calling for a city of soping special election to be held on November 2024 for the purpose of submitting to the elector a proposed amendment to section 2A of Article 5 elections of the city Charter to increase the term of office for the office of city mayor to four years beginning with the 2026 South ly general election providing for a notice of election providing for a requisite valid language and Charter Amendment text for submission to the electorate providing for the city C to utilize the service as a Miami day County Supervisor of Elections for the special election thank you um is there any objection to this item being added on to tonight's agenda colleagues I'll move the motion mayor do we need a motion or we just need to add any motion to add okay we have a motion by commissioner K second sorry second by commissioner lean it's fine um Madam clerk if you can quickly call the role thank you yes commissioner C yes commissioner Corum yes commissioner lemman yes Vice May Bon yes mayor Fernandez yes has to be added to the J thank you is there a motion to approve the minutes of June 18 huh we did oh we did it sorry I missed it okay thank you and the man report so we still have the city attorney's report outstanding correct okay Mr City attorney you're recognized I got nothing for you mayor right it's great thank you uh we'll then move on to public remarks and I have two names on the list starting uh with Mr Ward sir you recognized good evening sir you know I Mr Ward before you start I I wanted to ask you if you could do us a favor I know again I offered you my condolences before on the passing of Miss Johnson who was obviously uh integral part of the Middle School Community here if you could we'll give you some extra time if you could just share a little bit of background and history on her uh thank you appreciate I sure will it'll give me great pleasure thank you sir this lady Ena Johnson and I work together for 21 years as assistant principal at South Miami Junior High and she was going to retire in 1990 and I didn't have my 30 years in so I begged her to stay another year and she did and then the next year it was time and I retired with her and there were several my wife particularly I guess she didn't want me to be at home she said uh why are you retiring and I told her I had promised Miss Johnson one more year and I'd go with her this lady has been active I mean we had such a good relationship with the city that you wouldn't believe the region office left us alone because they knew if they pushed too hard on something that we Obed to the community to be all over them and that's the type of person she was she she got involved in the community even though she lived over town and she was a tremendous person and it was I found it out this morning and it was on TV later today I hear now uh I read this special election thing and I tell you back in the 90s there were couple of us that got together and we pushed and pushed and pushed to get this done and I'm so happy to see I don't know why anybody would be punished for being mayor and having to run every two years the rest of you run every four years and that's the good thing and then you have I'll take a little comical attack here and you have old man leedman I mean when you look at it he's working with three people that have been up there less than two years and one person that's been up there less than four years now he's going to be lucky he'll he'll retire in November I think it is and he will then go back to beating Josh lean rather than Neil old man I think he's got 10 years in if I'm not mistaken is that right 13 yeah anyway he's the old man the other thing I wanted to address was the fact that uh the uh annexation issue that was put out for a vote I checked it the other day a couple of times and the last that I heard a couple of days ago we had a big turnout I think the yeses were 48 and the NOS were 39 or something like that and it's really sad but I don't understand why former city manager told me we didn't have to have a vote because we had over half of the people signed to put it on to to put it before you the first time we got 500 signatures somehow or other city manager Alexander said he sent them to the county and the county said they never got them so we had to do it over again and this time we got 390 signatures and uh I know as well as you do the ballots were sent out a long time ago and if they hadn't voted by now they're not going to vote and it's sad because if I'm not mistaken it's it's not going to meet Charter requirements and that's a shame because uh we put a lot of effort into that and we did the same thing about 10 years ago we couldn't even give the signatures in that time they were so upset with somebody put it out additional taxes well you know if you looked at the form you all sent out uh most of the people that live in a house like mine were we were Original House in 1974 and uh all of those houses didn't even get a tax increase and then at the top of the letter it says you can deduct 400 and something because your uh trash pickup is in the AG in the budget and the counties is not it's separate so we lost on that one but I I wish we would have been able to say and I wish mayor that you would research it and see if it was possible that we could go forward and join this nice city Mr Ward just by way of quick update if you'd like one we had a a sunshine meeting commissioner Kay and I with um the consultant and members of the administration and staff regarding the annexation and the status of it um I think by my recollection we had about 115 total votes that had come in I think it was that's more than 107 107 excuse me and it was just uh the NOS were slightly ahead of the S's uh we have not done a great job of marketing that uh we're going to bring a discussion item back uh I believe on the next agenda to see if we extend the time period and maybe match some more effs with some some positive communication I've gotten a lot of uh comments about what will my tax status be pre you know prein if you send out another ballot tell them if it tell them to wake up and market today because tomorrow will be too late that's correct sir so we we'll going to put some more information and probably Prov people an actual calculation as to what their cost would be under both scenarios so we're still working on it okay thank you you're welcome sir yeah please recognize sir thanks so mayor if I can say on Mr Ward independent of any vote you're you're still South Miami you're you're still part of our city so so thank you Mr Jacobs you're recognized next on the list Madam clerk are there any other names on the list anywhere else no okay thank you sir good evening everybody good evening um I'd like to talk about the City Hall vote is it up yeah if you can put your microphone a little bit closer your mou so we can hear you thank you sir um in the City Hall vote it was determined that you were going to sell it no matter what or lease it there was no question about what was going to happen it was gone sir yeah there's there's because you're unanimous so just to be clear with the with the with the ballot modification the charter modification allowed us is to have explore either option so I believe we are still awaiting returns of the proposals which are due tomorrow and so we'll see what if anything we get from the market uh and what people's preference the respondents preferences would be with respect to leasing versus purchasing the property okay well it was a very poor turnout 133% of the people came out and if it was uh a real vote then what I didn't like was that you did it expedient because you had to hurry up because you're all unanimous and that's my impression that you told me that I asked why are you hurrying it it's from December till March there's another vote in August it could be but you had to do it expedient because that's where the money was I assume money is time and all that so you got it done and you haven't told us anything though about what it's going to how long it's going to take and is there going to be a library somewhere else is the city hall going to be located somewhere else the that's a question that I have you didn't have to tell us anything people aren't paying attention 133% of the people voted why is that I mean you say of Outreach you're going to do Outreach you don't do Outreach for City H but you're going to do Outreach for these little things City Hall is pretty important but you were so determined to do it that you didn't need to do Outreach on it is that right I I I I'm I'm happy to answer I'm happy to address yeah so let me let me just address your comments and you can continue if you want to pause the time for him sir I I think number one um why did we do it the time we did it I think we all wanted to be able to run a process and try to see that process to conclusion a a March election there was a there was a presidential primary election so we had a ballot that wouldn't cost the city any additional money uh so it was an opportune time to leverage that to put the question to the voters uh I'll say that you know in it in past occasions this Commission in Prior incarnations decided to move forward with a solicitation or direct negotiations without without asking the public for any authorization on any count so yes we went through the trouble of soliciting feedback back about whether to give us to maximize our options not just have to sell it so I again I understand could we have done it on a November ballot yes but the thing is certainly this commission would not have had the chance to see the process through now in terms of what's going to come forward I I think honestly the answer is we don't know we may get some responses tomorrow we may get no responses tomorrow and the responses we get as we evaluate them may not be acceptable to any of us or all of us here so uh you know all I can say is continue to follow the conversation because it is a evolving process okay so you don't know what's going to happen to the yeah there there's no way to tell what's the the RFP expressed uh our preference to have the library on this site uh as well as City Hall we have to have it on the site we have to have it on the site Contra and contractions with the county we cannot locate the library any further than a quarter mile from its current location so that's under separate uh agreement which took us I would have liked to have gone to uh the ballot earlier but it took us a year to negotiate agreement with the county of the library so all these things take time sir unfortunately okay did you want to add anything by way of comments sure I was I was just going to say uh in the interest of fairness and numbers can be spun any way you want if we're being critical of 13% I assume that number is based on toal total number of registered voters yeah well for almost a hundred years what decided the city and who sits up here was less than twice that less than twice of what L less than twice less than twice the number of 133% less than a quarter of the registered voters would vote for 100 years to decide who sat up here so relative to that I really don't see it is that little turn out only white people could vote in all that right no I think what he's saying is that for you're talking about the prior again I think the I think what you're trying to say is correct the special election while it was a lower turnout than in a August or November ballot admittedly right still was a greater turnout than prior elections when we had in February which determined the composition of this body I think that's what commissioner lean is trying to say so but but any EV so in the city Charter until 2022 it said you had to have 15% for a vote to be valid and it was taken out in 2022 I know I I'm not aware of of that provision or that modification I don't remember voting on that provision in 2022 the lawyer told me that he he gave us the new copy and he showed it no I think that was a that I I remember this conversation we had with Mr Ward it was not a it's so Mr C can you clarify because I don't want this to be a continued source of confusion and and misinformation sure that section on the 15% is still in the charter but as I had explained uh actually Mr Ward and I had very spirited conversations about about that provision that refers to uh referendum elections that are initiated by voters so if you have a petition then you bring either an initiative or a referendum to and and you you file the petition and you get it there you only need I believe 10% of the of the electors they want to make sure sure that enough people are voting on this yeah that's important correct but it's it's limited to those situations where voters bring an initiative or referendum does not it does not apply to a city a city commission sponsored referendum or initiative that is correct I think that's the distinction okay I have one more sir go ahead about the ballot issues the you want to us to make it easier for you to borrow money and I heard you're talking about $65 million and I wonder why all of the development won't pay for it all this you know is Sunset Place not paying their taxes did you give them a lower rate no no sir I think I can because they're sinking I know do we have are you are you doing other comments or is that the last comment I just want to yeah that's the last comment okay if it's a question I think the the uh why are we I'm sorry what was the question again question is why do you want to change the Bing rate what you're you're going to float a loan on us and is it just I'll give you my just the residents are going to pay an increased tax I understand so let here's here's my the way I read the charter is the charter is self-defeating right uh I don't think there's any government in the world that should operate where the unanimous consent of the body is required to take any action and the most pernicious part about the current provision is If today you wanted to adopt an initiative to raise $65 million to do projects in the city and the voters approved it by a majority this board as I read the charter if we don't act unanimously won't be able to issue any debt pursuant to that authorization so in effect the voters could say we want this and this board could veto the will of the voters what's before everyone to consider in August 20th is a modification that says if we want to borrow as a city right this board by majority vote can approve any debt issuance if it's been approved by the voters number one if it has not been approved by the voters then it requires four out of five votes by this Council to issue or encumber the debt right still a very high threshold if it's not voter approved but if it's voter approved simple majority can enter into a debt instrument to basically effectuate the will of the voters that's what's on the ballot on August 20th yeah that's what's on the ballot okay so you're not asking us to borrow money we may there's change there is a that the first the yes the change on August 20th is about the rules to make it easier I think to make it logical I wouldn't say easier because I don't think four out of five is easy under any any any any any by any measure and again as you've seen I'm not shy about going to the public and asking uh the voters to consider a proposition we've done it twice in six months we may do it another time before the calendar year is out it's not easy to do that as you can imagine so thirdly there may there's an em on today's agenda later on to consider the possib possibility of presenting a question to the voters to authorize a a bond authorization up to $65 million we still have to discuss that I don't think it's by any means foregone conclusion that it's going to be approved but it is on it is on the item for discussion it may end up on a November ballot which this board agreed to limit ourselves to November ballots for such questions given that there are issues where we possibly are um encumbering the city with debt for a significant period of time okay well I hope you'll be real clear on what the money is for and not just say it's for 99 things and maybe this will get more and switch it around I think you got plenty of folks that share that concern Mr Jacobs on this board thank you sir you madam clerk is there anyone online in public remarks if there's anyone online please raise your virtual hand if you'd like to speak I don't see any one okay uh seeing no one else we will close public remarks at this time we have um some board and committee appointments Madam clerk If You Could Read quickly yes Joseph our cision has been appointed by commissioner C to the planning board for a ter for a two-year term ending July 18 2026 and he's replacing sa I forgot to put that on there s p has been appointed by commission C to the development review board for a two-year term ending July 18 2026 and he's replacing Lee erson Smith and Wendy green has been appointed by commissioner C to the unique ability board for a two-year term ining July 18 2026 thank you that requires no action correct or does it no okay thank you is there a motion on the consent agenda colleagues are there any items we want to pull for discussion I don't have any that I need to pull okay um let me read let before we read them any items we want to pull for discussion Comm lean okay Cory you're good yeah okay I think I'm good mayor thank you okay uh Madam clerk if you can read all four items and then I'll entertain a motion on items one through four please okay I res of the mayor City Commission of the city of South Florida relating to a fiscal year 2023 2024 budget authorizing a budget transfer $50,000 from line item 01-1 1770 519 d1210 Public Works office of director full-time salaries with a current balance of $176,600 $61 to account number 1-200 d512 d4910 the city clerk's legal advertising item two a res May City Commission of the city of South Florida relating to a fiscal year 2023 2024 budget authorizing a budget transfer of 43,000 from line item 001 d170 d519 d1210 Public Works office of director fulltime salaries to line item number 001 d340 51 6- 4634 Information Technology division subscriptions and licenses item three a resolution of the mayor City Commission of the city of South Florida approving the purchas of an applicant tracking system solution from ADP in amount not to receive 5,877 60 authorizing the city manager to negotiate and enter into an agreement for the applicant tracking system solution item four a resolution of the city Commission of the city of South Miami Florida approved an appointment of Justin points a to the Board of Trustees thank you is there a motion on items one through four I'll move them it's a motion by the vice mayor is there a second second we have a second by commissioner Corey uh Madam clerk if you can call the role on the consent agenda please commissioner cayen yes commission Cory yes commission Le yes b b yes mayor Fernandez yes pass by zero thank you so uh colleagues with your Indulgence uh I'd like to take up uh I think we have one applicant that's present this evening if we can take up item seven unless I'm missing someone else in the audience on any sort of other public hearing uh item don't think I see anyone else any other items so if we can take up item seven Madam clerk yes if you can read that record and I guess Mr C attorney if you can read the appropriate warnings I'd appreciate it okay item seven a resolution of mar City Commission of the city of South Florida approving denying a special use application pursuing to section 20- 8.9 of the city of South Land Development code for a large scale development project for a field nursing facility on approximately 0.8 Acres property located at 7040 Southway 61st Avenue and 7109 stopway 61st Court thank you is there um Mr City attorney if you can read the uh dis disclosures please thank you mayor uh item number seven on this evening City commission uh meeting agenda is quasa judicial in nature the uh clerk has read the title of the resolution uh prior to the public hearing the public hearing will include presentations uh by staff uh and the applicant and public comment the commission may ask any questions either before or after public comment is closed uh following public comment the commission can deliberate on the resolution the Quasi judicial procedures require this commission to consider the evidence presented to it and base your decision on the applicable law and primarily on the evidence presented whether by the applicant staff or members of the public the staff report in the resolution provide the applicable law and criteria for approval in this case primarily section 20- 8.9 for large scale approvals in the TSD district and site plan criteria uh in sections 20- 3.1 20- 3.3 20- 4.4 20- 4.5 and all of the tsdd regulations in article 8 of The Land Development code the evidence considered must be substantial competent evidence this means testimony or other evidence based on personal observation or relevant expert testimony that a reasonable mind would accept this adequate support conclusion it is not a popularity contest it cannot be based solely on non-expert opinions no matter how fervent those opinions might be anyone who wishes to speak on an item um should be given an opportunity to speak during the public comment portion of the hearing if you intend to provide testimony as to any of the applications considered tonight you will be sworn in before your testimony is taken uh please know if you speak you may be subject to cross- examination if you refuse either to be cross-examined or to be sworn your testimony will be considered in that context and given its due weight the general public will not be permitted to cross-examine Witnesses but the public May request the commission to direct questions on their behalf to either staff or the applicant uh at this time anyone who wishes to speak should be sworn in I'd ask that you please stand and raise your right hand you intend to speak do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth thank you uh Madam clerk can you confirm compliance with the advertising notice requirements for these hearings yes great thank you and uh mayor vice mayor Commissioners have any of you had any expar Communications with the applicant or any member of the public no no thank you thank you is there is there a staff H presentation yes sir please come for good evening good evening mayor Vice May mayor and Commissioners I'm Alex David with Calvin Jano and Associates and I was the consultant who which reviewed this project uh again it's for a Skilled Nursing Facility located at 7040 uh Southwest 61st Avenue and 7109 61st Court the applicant is 7040 Sunset asset um the recommendation is approval uh of the special exception for this large scale development um there are a number of conditions uh 24 um and they're very standard conditions except for uh number 12 uh which would require a restrictive covenant for the Perpetual maintenance of for the public Plaza uh on 61st Court um so that's basically the only uh condition that's different from the standard ones so just to give you a little history um this project was before the commission uh on December 7th 2021 um it was previously approved for the same number of beds 180 um but in in that case it was seven floors with one Underground Level of parking so um the applicant came back with some revisions and uh City staff deemed that they were um sufficient substantial enough to require uh going back through the process which is with the planning board and then to this uh board so uh for you today is now a six-story building again 180 uh beds uh 13 uh 1310 square feet of retail space and 114 parking spaces and including in this appli included in this application is 18 bikyle spaces so with this project they're asking for two uh bonus fors uh one is for developing a full Frontage with Street design as part of The Pedestrian walkway and the second uh bonus for request is for the cross through from joining streets from um 61st Court to 61st Avenue Mr David can you can you illustrate those elements on on their diagrams just because I'm want to make sure I'm clear which one the bonus elements so is the the colonade part of the bonus element whatever it's called okay sorry the front here and the design the front is here and then the pass through do we have a mobile microphone for him yeah I just want to give you the chance that it's in the record you don't have it here use my microphone here if you like so um thank you so it's a little okay um the design the street Frontage design so that's a that's part of the request or they have to um provide that for the one bonus floor and then the pass through from 6 uh 61st Avenue to 61st court so that that those are the two requests which would allow them to have the bonus for us so good question for you sorry mayor so there's a bonus for having a drivethru a so he's got so it's the it's a poo element here here that's on the on the northern part of the site I guess that's North on the south end okay this is east west yes so but the poo is on the Northern end of the block of the site correct yeah okay no on the southern side on the southern side thank you for M Mr F in the audience clarifying and the and the arcade is that's prescribed for our ldrs okay okay so I don't know I just want to thank you I appreciate that by way of an editorial mid presentation i i as we're talking about these ldr revisions that we're working on I'm not a huge fan of forcing the arcade to I like to see it makes the building feel bulkier to me on the street Frontage so that's something that we could with staff's help uh reevaluate as Caba um it's not my favorite architectural element in many of our buildings here in South Miami yes you can and it's not safe not safe sorry continue I didn't mean to no problem um okay so I basically described the project and the request for two the two um bonus floors um um the on on your future land use map um this property is designated Transit supportive land use so it meets it's consistent with that and the zoning is Transit supportive development District mu5 again this is an allowable use that um the code was changed in April of of 22 to allow skilled nursing facilities within this District so again this is a permitted use um basically um the this project also meets the requirements of uh for the special exception in your code and also um all other re requirements so they're good to go from a staff review uh standpoint and also just to to wrap this up on June June 11th of this year two plus months ago the planning board recommended six to zero in favor of this it thank you questions colleagues of the of Staff yes Madam vice mayor recognized I actually have a comment and a question comment this is not the first time we mentioned that we don't want the arcade by my number I think I we number three three times we've mentioned this now um because they're unsightly and unsafe not that it has anything to do with you guys I'm just citing what we have now I feel mentioned various times and number two the pass through is that between the building and the other building or between the building and the Masons it's it's Street to street it's so yeah but which side it's in the building it's it's it's part of the building's footprint so they see the site plan yes but the pass through that goes Street to Street which side of the building is it on is what I'm it's on the it's on the South Side so between them and Metro cell yes you may you're recognized Miss R good evening uh Mr Mayor members of the commission my name is in Maro I'm the attorney for the applicant offices at 701 Brickle Avenue I am joined this evening um wait S I had questions well so commissioner I'm commissioner I will I will bring Mr D back up I just wanted the vice mayor's question answer don't worry okay yes so the the crossr is east west it is it starts next to the lodge and then is parallel to the building on our along our property line to uh 61st okay perfect that I was trying to orient where that pass through would be commission leben sorry thank you just question this was formerly Cal Rosen bomb's prop one of his Cal Rosen bomb's properties yes okay so and sorry um I'm Head Start One regard because I voted for this the first time but I'm maybe a little more gray than the rest of the Commission in terms of my understanding so I just need a little fact sheet just to bottom line me what's changed from the original application till now okay and then tell me the benefit to the city so um the the change is it's it's uh one floor lower and so the the footprint has changed um the coverage has um inreased so you confused me by saying two bonus floors but it's actually one floor less the the the code requires you know the four so then they're asking for the two bonus floors to get them up to the set so one less than originally proposed correct but less open space less Green Space lot coverage by 00 feet uh bit less open space 1500 squ F feet of of of open space less um the parking is aot the code has changed so initially they had um I'm sorry the requirement was uh 239 and now it is 95 and actually they're I'm sorry they're providing a little bit more parking it was 106 previously and 114 now but the the big difference is they asked for three additional bonus fls previously and now it's two okay so it's more dense and yeah a bit more lot coverage on a percentage basis What's the total versus what was approved before I'm sorry on a percentage basis what was the original lot coverage and what is it proposed to be um plans I have the plans but I mean basically um I mean I have to look at the plans I have they did it Mr David while you're while you're while we're working on that answer uh I think there's there's I hear some Mings from my colleagues questions regarding why we've Incorporated a poo here are there are there can you can you just help us understand the options for achieving bonuses uh under the district back then so and the background maybe if you could elaborate on why this particular uh element was incorporated colleagues that I heard that question on both sides so fig yes so the um I don't know where to start I guess with u I'll start with through the chair through the Mr Mayor to commissioner Le's question why has has the green space been reduced is because the way that we achieved the third bonus floor with the previous project was that we needed to provide a bigger public area a plaza it's in the code that was one of the ways to achieve the bonus so the story of the project is that it got approved um under a previous code we didn't we have to come before this commission and obtain a parking variance the code was amended and when we went to do our design it turned out that we had some besides you know uh trying to to make the project more economically efficient and whatnot we ran into an issue of an encroachment with the lodge they're building the roof somewhat encroaches on our property we reached out to them and you know we have a cordial relationship with them and and had several Communications but they were not going to touch their buildings and all building they use it they meet there and they say you guys go solve it on your project so we had to go back to the drawing board redesign our project and by the time we came back to the city with our revisions your code does not provide a minor modification criteria we it does but we exceeded that so we had to file for a new approval so what is before you is now essentially the same building except now we have one floor one less floor and we don't need a parking variants it's the same number of beds same Arctic uh have your font would be font is here to to go through those um same intensity same traffic impacts arguably less because there's less cars the reason we have of those design criteria is because to achieve those two additional bonus floors we need to um number one is to develop a full Frontage with the street design as part of The Pedestrian walkway system so that 61st Avenue with the arcade we have to develop it have active Frontage so there's retail facing that Stree which will make it safer right ice on the street if you have active you know uh ground floor reach but also we have to put uses on that first floor and we have to provide um the arcade because it's also the a design requirement of your code the second requirement uh to achieve that second bonus floor was to include a cross through from an adjoining Street to a public open space as part of The Pedestrian walkway system on the owner's property and that is that you know path that connects 61st Court to 61st Avenue um and in fact you know in this area it this property while it's first of all very important this is going to be a for-profit operation owned by a for-profit company um and they will go and get their licenses whatnot not affiliated toin but it's going to be located next to two hospitals right and right now two Hospital facilities the staff instead of having to walk around the block they will be able to connect from the cancer center to the hospital through our property because it'll be an open area so it creates that pedestrian um par me and and seating that pedestrian connectivity and also from from the metro station um it's part of our project we want it to be safe we had the same conversation actually when the project was before the planning board and the commission and its first iteration um concerns about you know safety and it's it's a concern for us as the operator and it is our responsibility that it safe not only for the public but for our staff and our visitors um I don't know that is responsive to to your question so the the uses permit it um we are here because the project exceeds uh 40,000 square feet so your code requires that we get a large scale development approval and then we'll do a development agreement like we've done with all these other big projects that have come before you and we are um in agreement with all of the the uh conditions of the approval and you know there's other differences in the project that make it better for the community uh for example the massing of the building before was was very solid and some of the Interior rooms did not have Windows and so we've now created a ey shaped Corridor of the core where all the wind all the rooms will have Windows and so a lot of other benefits to to the actual programming in the facility to this design yes commission Le you recognized so thank you uh three quick things uh for the commission went from 88% based on um my colleague's math from 88% to lock coverage to 93% it's one item uh second actually Four item second I'm going to point I'm going to support it uh third I don't know I mean retail may not do well now but there's potentially a lot of residential coming down the pike at least it's approved and um other interesting projects in the immediate area um and the last thing is I just wanted to include a a condition if it's meable to you that the pass through is open to the public it yes I I believe it has to be it has to be okay under the code yes yes you AG to that okay make it a condition okay thank you further questions is it comment or question is a question you recognized please go ahead I I understand the pass through element I don't think it's quite safe but I understand but I wonder if there can be hours where that is closed that certainly cannot be safe late at night I that neighborhood has had issues with homeless people sleeping in the parking lots PE homeless people all over the place there and so I think that in the interest of them as owners of the building we may want to have hours where those gates are open and hours when they're closed just from a safety perspective if it was up to me I I would say don't have it because I I think we're we're inviting trouble I think we can limit it to during business hours you know or during daylight hours or during some some some limitation it's up to this board you know this commission the may you know what they'd like to do so we will have security and it's a 24hour facility remember there's there's staff 24 hours a day uh unlik an office that closes down and it's empty we have residents um not residents patients but there they're there 24 hours and the staff we have three shifts coming in and out um so we will ensure that it is safe I'm worried about your safety not safety of somebody else your safety in your bu safety of of everybody that Community including the the staff and the visitors and everybody in that area and activation improves safety once there's people there can can I ask a question about that specifically because I I'm looking at the facade maybe I'm not understanding it again admittedly have not studied this application with any real rigor but um looking at the elevation there seem to be on the west elevation rollup doors rollup garage doors which I'm assuming is more or less where your exit Drive is correct no can we have and just Mr so I'm trying I'm trying to understand I'm trying to understand I want I want to understand fact a couple things that was added because your code requires loading so we needed to incorporate a loading birth to service the facility and so the rolling door as I recall is for the loading birth okay the entrance is coming to the South um closer to okay so I just want to I'm trying to understand that so the loading door that's shown on the on the west elevation is for the and I guess I'm just turning around with the site plan I am that that explains it so the loading door is not collocated near the the drive aisle or the Poo correct so Lo the loading do is in the upper upper left corner okay got it okay the dve the drive o condition is open so it's uh hi have your font font part 45 33 p on Boulevard obviously AR for the so this would be our drive and we put our M lob fac so the idea is this is aular drive you got an ambulance and a couple hand parkes and then that sort of runs parall with our got a nice Lun so the idea is that this is all our pedan and Tra here and everybody comes in and access on the speed ramp to the garage is that is that gate secure or is that open or it'll probably be open okay Lo on the on the arcades um I'm seeing a dimension of it looks like 14t in height and roughly 9 ft in width or depth is that correct yeah 9t okay the level above it is it activated on both side with uses okay let me just let me ask you this question again I'm trying to understand the benefit to us of authorizing these arcades in the code I I'm going to speculate one of the benefits for the applicant to take advantage of that bonus is that it makes your in this case your parking footprint very rational right very efficient even with liner uses so of okay but the but the effect but the let's assume the effect of removing the arcade would narrow your parking would help want you get the microphone second yeah I apologies sorry you're either going to have an an arcade or a walk right so your ground floor is going to come in no matter what you want to have a pedestrian area there um you know we're not the biggest fans of arcad either but it is required by the code and and if we do it we get you know a bonus so obviously so but if it if it was not if it was not available I'm just kind of asking you jav what would be the what would be the effect on the design so we understand what the impact of that would be on a project like this so if we removed if there was no arcade AA no arcade bonus available to you correct and you had to rework the parking I'm assuming your parking footprint would get Nar narrower or you would move the usable square footage to an upper floor so on the ground floor we would probably leave some pedestrian area as I said correct second floor we would probably over that in order to get print as possible so the arcade does help you with that it pushes you through the property line right um it recesses you on the ground floor so it makes it a little more difficult on the ground floor but then when you build over it on the upper levels it makes it a little bit easier um you know the issue with the arcade is just that when you get these the code requires a continuous arcade which means my entire front property line right which we argued um on this project is two Street Front were giving you two full arcades give us two floors doing it twice but obviously the staff didn't agree with that but if you could do 50% of your Frontage as an arcade and 50% a little more open with canopies and maybe push the building back I think it would create a lot more diversity in your architecture I the problem that you you acquire 100% arcade is what kills a lot of build perception off the street thank you so much so can can you can you explain the the Poo condition is open it's not it's there's no there's no sheer wall what's the rationale for doing that uh as opposed to actually having a hard wall on the Southern Southern Property Line there but the idea is there's a building adjacent to us anyway so okay the idea is to landscape it as well as possible and to keep it as open as possible Right the more view we can have into that poo the better right we want to keep it you know eyes on the street and that's sort of why we've done the retail down here why we've done the offices right above that and we've done you know our lobby and our ground floor Offices here and then offices on the second floor on this side you know we want to make sure that a lot of people are watching who's coming who's going and um you know keeping keeping the place safe and just a staff can you explain to me the P how the Poo bonus Works in this case and the open open Plaza requirement and what the minimum requirements are for that Plaza we're we're no longer asking for the open Plaza requirement okay since we've brought the building down a floor um that requirement is not necessary got it okay so the Poo bonus how does that work it's just providing the connected path I'm going to read out of the code so maybe I'm hoping that helps it's in it's in the report so for for developing crosss from an adjoining Street to a public open space as part of the public pedestrian walk so can you repeat that one more time I'm sorry Mr I'm sorry can you repeat that one more time my apologies for developing cross throughs from an adjoining Street to a public open space as part of the public pedestrian walkway system on owner's property maintenance maintenance required in section 20- 8.15 that statements statement allows them to go and ask for the bonus one additional floor okay and to council what what is the term open public Plaza space defined or there's no separate definition for that space let's see uh oh sorry Plaza open to the public means a privately owned parcel of land but that's for a plaza uh as opposed to this cross through yeah but it's the cross through has a Connect the way I the way I heard that is it's got to connect from a a street to a publicly open Plaza correct correct but in this no no please repeat the standard one more time because there's a lot of sidebar conversations happening so for developing cross throughs from an adjoining Street to a public open space as part of the public pedestrian walk system in owners on owners property so pause right there if we had a condition that I was only connecting Street to Street it would not satisfy the bonus criteria well in this bonus request in in this statement there's no size request requirement there is another bonus uh bonus uh okay that allows if you know you can add another floor if you provide a public Plaza minimum of 5,000 square F feet that's another bonus you have four bonus allowances in your code um so they're requesting the cross through and the public open space which doesn't have a minimum requirement and are there any design standards for it and again I I'll get to why I'm asking all these questions here very quickly don't I don't want to make you guys nervous over there okay but anyhow are there any are there any design criteria associated with that with that public open space no okay so so again I I don't I'm not you know my intention is to vote for this project because it was approved once before but I think I I wanted to highlight those issues because I think this standard and these bonuses are wul deficient in terms of articulating the kind of public spaces that we want and should be getting for giving people this digal flooor area and so to staff what I would ask is that we kind of prioritize working on this and this arcade requirement I don't I don't know that we're necessarily creating the best Urban condition uh here again no offense the architect that you're doing rationally I think this works really well for the project I just wonder on the public side whether it works really well for the city uh and so I you know I just want to make sure that we put a focus on revisiting these standards a little bit more carefully again I I just looking at the site I'm not not enamored with the idea that the public open place or the public open Plaza you the feature element is you know the generator Andor a utility element really does not kind of really speak to me as a as a space of inspiration um nor doesn't necessarily want to invite me to walk through that expanse since it's going to look pretty much like a dead space um and again I don't mean that as a criticism of the architect who I'm a fan of you know so this is really our fault for not articulating a better standard and so for future projects I just want to make sure that we're a bit more robust in what we require right and I I have to agree with you I mean these standards have been in place for quite a while and I've heard as a consultant here um that there are issues with these and they could always be tweaked or whatever to you know get you to where you really want to be yeah and and and for staff if you can communicate I think this board's I might want to speak for all of us if you disagree please uh preferences to the planning board certainly you have a chance to speak to someone I mean it's surprising to me that our appointees on those boards aren't raising these same issues because I would expect that they would be highlighting some of these things to us as well uh but I think we just need to be a bit more rigorous in in in demanding a better a better um design execution uh in exchange for these benefits but again we're talking about a project that has been vetted now twice in a fairness to the applicant I don't think it's it's it's fair to hold them up on this any longer yeah Comm Mr K recognized thank you mayor sorry from a design requirements perspective uh from a landscape plan I know it's not really part of this particular process or is that pretty much ironed out on landscape plant we I could start from our side um the applican submitted a landscape plan as part of Calvin gano's review we have a landscape architect reviewing those um the plans and and I know there was some back and forth and then the the both AR Landscape Architects came to an agreement and and my uh Landscape Architect's comments were satisfied which were um I don't have I have in my computer which is my car do you have okay and also as part of this there were there were there's payment for tree mitigation too so there were some fees uh generated by the removal of trees um um so the applicant has to provide certain certain canopy while while you're looking that up can you talk about what you have currently on the plan from a landscape plan what what tree structures you have there on both both Avenues there so that that that site plan is not reflective with the treaser that's the other problem with the arcade that we have is that it removes the ability for us to have Landscaping you know I think again just to since we have a couple seconds here I think part of the feedback we've gotten from folks as they see buildings coming up is that they they're not very tall but they real appear very massive and I think that's one of the concerns I think probably commissioner leedman was alluding to with the increase in the lot coverage it leaves very little space for light and air to get to the ground I think you know generally having work with these folks now for the better part of a year and a half I think we'd like to see the building footprint shrink so to staff as we're looking at our standards through this rewrite you know if we can kind of cap the maximum loot coverage something well below 90% I think it's would be the preference of this board and you know frankly a little bit more height and opening lightning air on the ground here I think the we you know we appreciate taking the building down a story but I'd rather see the building not look quite as imposing on the street look a little Slimmer as opposed to what we we've been getting and it's not just this building it's just the type of architecture we're seeing uh across the city generally Fair comment yes I concur that's 100% I prefer higher with less density if and if I could be so bold maybe that's one of your bonuses right we're we're stuck with four bonuses here and your bonus are very strict and a lot of times they force us into a design that we would not want to do but if you know if you said okay the maximum F or maximum lock coverage is 90% but if you go to 85 we'll get you an extra floor that would definitely benefit benefit the architect and I think would benefit the city as well so we're happy to sit with staff and give them our opinion on we would appreciate that what other bonuses you might look at that just um since I'm a consultant in many cities um every code is different but um we could actually help the city look at some other codes possibly to get some ideas to get you where you want to be okay thank you further questions or comments yes Mr C attorney you had something you want to add sure just uh two two small things uh number one the tsdd regulations are being revised rehauled correct so I'm communicating all of your comments to to that to that effort um and the second one is a just a brief cleanup uh the third wear ass clause which describes the application requirements the 327 32,700 square foot Skilled Nursing Facility that's a that's an error uh that's actually the lot coverage it should actually State uh the overall that coverage which is I'm sorry the overall size is 177,00 so that that should be corrected okay thank you thank you further questions or comments colleagues uh just from a process perspective this if approved goes over to the Erb or the design review board or is this final already this is this is final this is this is the new the new process that you guys oh no you guys submitted before you guys submitted before so it already went it already went okay we'll have to it will have to go to the drb that's what I wasb after yeah yeah it still has to go through that yeah because it was submitted prior to the change okay yeah okay okay uh any further questions or comments seeing none is there a motion sorry I believe this was a public hearing it was a public hearing yes you're right it is a public hearing this is a public hearing if any member of the public would like to speak on item seven which is an application to approve or deny a special exception for a large scale development project for a Skilled Nursing Facility please come forward at this time isone online raise your appr your hand see no one coming forward in the chamber Madam clerk there's no one online no okay we'll consider the public hearing closed um is there a motion uh on the part of anyone on the board I move the item I'll second this have a motion by commissioner Leeman and a second by the vice mayor Madam clerk if you can call the role please yes commissioner k yes commissioner Cory yes commissioner Leeman yes Vice Bon yes mayor Fernandez yes item pass 5 thank you thank you okay uh can we quickly read item six into the record actually that's actually deferred until further notice my apologies just listed there uh if we can read item eight please item eight a r wish of the May City Commissioner the city of Soph for approving the purchase of traffic analytics software in Mount natis $24,000 per year $19,500 in the first year from Urban SDK utilizing the terms and conditions of the competitive bid Miami gens contract imitation to bid number 22-23 d023 authorizing the city manager to negotiate and execute a multi-year agreement with Urban SDK relating to the same uh Mr manager is anything you like to add for the record introduction thank you mayor um the chief hfield had identified this uh particular um resource uh as a means to assist the police department and Public Works um basically the the information garnered from uh this software which is becomes real time pretty much updated on a weekly basis uh draws down data from uh smart technology phones vehicles and and then that aggregate aggregation of that information is provided uh giving us the ability to take a look at real time as it relates to traffic traffic counts uh speed um so we saw it as a way uh uh to to to to operational ways one the department can use it as a tool to identify areas of hotspots to deploy uh Traffic Unit and and and do some details secondly from a public work standpoint identify problem areas uh and really lastly um and and and more the motivation uh we Embark upon traffic studies from time to time of which has a cost um and and we really move forward in an uninformed way because we don't really know what the outcome may be our intent would be that now we have this uh data that we can um overlay with the County's uh traffic standards and then do a pretty predetermination of what a traffic study would generate what it would tell us and and there will be cases and we tried it uh with u gentleman that spoke here regarding traffic in it in his neighborhood and we used it uh asked the consultant to take a look at that and our findings were that speed were not excessive but yes traffic counts were above average uh in the area so we feel that we may cost avoidance of traffic studies when we have this data ahead of time and therefore we go like we know what the outcome is going to be let's not spend the money I know the vice mayor you had asked me about hey traditionally what have we uh what do we spend on a traffic study um and and one particular year in uh in year 19 roughly $58,000 uh more recent history we don't have as many because the city embarked on a on a big undertaking 2021 to do a Citywide traffic study and that's resulted in these traffic circles so um we feel we're we're going to be able to avoid certain traffic uh study costs which will eventually pretty much pay itself for this software um we also got authorization from PTP to use PTP funds uh in this case the item before you shares a first year with some police funds and PTP funds is our intent to to be able to fully pay for it out of PTP funds uh given the authorization because it is uh analyzing traffic and traffic data okay any questions to the manager this item is a piggyback uh contract out of Miami Gardens questions of the manager okay seeing none uh open is there a motion oh public comment I'm sorry this is a public hearing on item a if anyone like to speak to um item a please come forward at this time anyone on zoone please your virtu so no my my apologies sir we had opened the public hearing I must have not articulated that clearly enough and no it's not a it's not a budding a residential neighborhood it's it's okay glad glad that uh it was resolved uh favorably exactly thank you well on item eight is there anyone who like to speak to item eight on tonight's agenda okay seeing no one in the audience uh and no one online Madam clerk will close the public hearing colleagues is there a motion on item eight please I move the item is there a second second okay motion by commissioner lean a second by commissioner Corey Madame clerk if you can call the role please yes commissioner lean yes Vice May Bon yes commissioner Cory yes commissioner C yes mayor Fernandez yes I don't pass 5 uh is there anyone in the audience who's here on a particular item we'd like to take up we have uh the millage item and we also have a number of ballot items uh that are on tonight's agenda Mr Ward or Mr Jacobs if you want to speak on any of those items I'm happily take those up first okay so let's just move in the regular order then uh if we can uh take up item five please item five a resolution of the city Commission of the city of South Florida declaring a require by section 200.0 65 for the statutes the city proposed millage rate rad back rate computed pursuing to section 200- 65 per one for the statutes and the date time and place of which the first and second public budget hearings will be held to consider the proposed millage rate and ATT tenative budget for fiscal year 2024 2025 directing the city manager and the clerk city clerk to transmit and file this resolution with the Miami day County property appraiser thank you m clerk thank you madam clerk uh before we actually uh ask the manager to give us uh his recommendation is there uh can you announce the dates that we are considering for the public hearings on the budget September 3rd and September 17th at 501 okay September 3rd and September 17th thank you Mr manager uh yes sir uh mayor the the item that's before you uh has a brings a recommendation forward to uh keep the current millage of FY fiscal year 24 uh in the proposed uh budget for fy2 at the 3.95 rate and that's a recommendation that's before you um we've shared some information there as it relates to rollback rate and and obviously we have to share that information uh but in this case we're we're Rec commending to keep the millage rate flat according to last year's or current Year's fiscal uh year colleagues questions comments okay uh and I'm sorry I'm doing this a lot lately but get just today in the um when I say do a lot just referring to my time on the day is but today we had the budget meeting at 10:00 and we saw a slide that uh that's saying much but made me proud to see uh um how many tax reductions we've had and I'm proud to say I've I championed all I believe there were four now today I'm also proud to say I'm very happy with where we are and it's in the best interest of the city and my opinion staff's opinion I believe this commission's opinion to leave uh the millage rate where we are um one thing I'll just mind commission is pass another ordinance the interest was I believe in the best C of the city but also to educate the commission at the time not an ordinance a resolution to lower tax taxes and a resolution is not binding and traditionally resolutions expire after a year anyway but that was after the completion of Sunset Place um we have the numbers to substantiate this we could lower taxes by 10% but um no I just wanted to share that I was very proud to see that uh that chart today and I think it's in the best interest of the city and I think we're in a good place to hold the millage uh the millage steady and again just so we're clear procedurally all we're doing is setting the maximum we're not we're not we can we still retain the flexibility to go below this number should we decide on September 3rd correct correct just wanted to clarify that for the record so any further comments or discussion seeing none is there a motion on item oh sorry this is a no it's not a public hearing item is there a motion on item five I'll move the motion I'll second there a motion by commissioner Kaya second by the vice mayor Madam clerk if you can call the role please yes commissioner Cay yes commissioner cor yes commission Le yes I just want to out that number is 3.95 3.95 that's correct that Vice Bon yes mayor Fernandez yes item passes 5 thank you we can read item nine please item nine a resolution of the mayor and City Commission of the city of South laming Florida relating to the 2024 general election for the mayor and City commissioners group 2 and three to be held on November 5th 2024 establishing qualifying dates for the city's general election on November 5th 202 4 providing for the city Kirk to utilize the services of Mii day County supervis of Elections for the general election including the issuance of the appropriate ballot and inherence to election procedures in accordance with Appo and state law thank you madam clerk uh Madam Clerk or City attorney do you want to explain what this resolution will effectuate yes good evening mayor our Charter requires in Article 5 Section 5 that we establish procedures for elections and so does our code in section 9.5 and particularly that we establish qualifying dates for the upcoming election on November 5th so this resolution essentially does that establishes the qualifying dates and follows the county and state procedures for the elections okay colleagues any questions I'm just curious about something why it's a little bit odd that we have so late in the calendar year would be establishing the qualifying date is that typical for most municipalities I don't know that there's any specific requirement that it be done within a certain amount of time it's it's an a a charter the certain amount of time that we have to um to the qualifying and again just for just for the public if we can just articulate those dates August 12th to the 22nd August 12th to the 22nd okay okay is there a motion that's a public hearing oh it's a public hearing item anyone online we please raise your approach hand no or if there's anyone in the chamber please come forward at this time on item item nine see no one uh online or in the chamber we will close the public hearing okay is there a motion I'll move the motion I'll second have a motion by commissioner Cay and a second by the vice mayor uh Madam clerk if you can call the role please yes commissioner cayen yes commissioner Coran yes commissioner lemman yes Vice Bon yes mayor Fernandez yes item passes 5 Z great if we can read item 10 please item 10 a resolution of the mayor City Commission of the city of South Florida calling a special election to be held on November 5th 2024 for the purpose of submitting to the electric a proposed amendment to subsection h of Section 5 powers and duties of article 3 city manager of the city Charter as presented in a ballot question to allow the commission to set purchasing limitations by ordinance for the city P purchases of goods and services providing for request requisite valid language and charart Amendment text for submission to the electric providing for the city clerk to utilize the service of Mi day County Supervisor of Elections for the special election thank you madam clerk uh colleagues this is an oldie but a goodie that keeps coming back uh it would re revise out of the charter the $5,000 procurement threshold and give us the discretion to set uh to give this commission or future commissions the ability to kind of set the threshold uh in our code as opposed to in the charter I think that fairly summarizes the effect of the ballot item are there any questions or comments colleagues I like support I think the manager yes for the record he and his skinny microphone support this uh this this possible change I know I just noticed um this is a public hearing item uh if there's anyone in the chamber online who'd like to address this commission with respect to item 10 and the proposed change please come forward seeing no one we will close the public hearing uh colleagues is there a motion on item where I I think that's my microphone cuz that's the unfiltered one oh gosh I'll move it second we have a motion by the vice mayor second by commissioner leben Madam clerk please call the role yes commissioner Cay yes commissioner Cory yes commissioner Leeman yes VI May Bon yes may Fernandez yes item pass is 5 thank you if you can read item 11 please item 11 ER res of the mayor City Commission of the city of South Miami fla calling for a special election for the city of South Miami to be held on November 5th 2024 concurrent with the general election for the purpose of submitting to the electure a bond referenda regarding the issuance of General obligation bonds by the city of South Miami and amount not to receive $65 million for the purchase purpose of acquiring constructing reconstructing improving and equipping various Capital Improvements real property and infrastructure for Parks and Recreation Public Works and Public Safety providing for publication of notice of such referendum providing requisite valid language for submission to the electric for Bing for city clerk to utilize the services of M day County to provise of Elections for the special election thank you madam clerk um Mr manager do you want to uh kind of to this up for us yes mayor um obviously what what's before you is um a a recommendation for voters to to weigh in on on the ability of a city to to pursue a bom program uh you're not necessarily approving projects necessarily today but but you're giving that opportunity to voters to to chime in um we did share uh given that we've had this discussion for a bit and I was asked to provide some recommendation based on the collective feedback so I shared a draft uh of some projects but again I want to make the distinction that the item itself is not approval of projects but I thought that it was germine to to share um things that would be considered these items uh in my opinion match and mirror the language of which the voters will see which is either acquiring constructing reconstructing improving or equipping um within within uh Recreation Public Works infrastructure Public Safety so I we feel that these uh would mirror that so in the event that at a later date um this conversation furthers as it relates to more specificity these could be some projects that this commission would consider again this is not would not be before the voters necessarily as a result of this item if it passes um but um the mayor had asked for this to be brought to some conclusion as it relates to what the what kind of projects we may uh and or purchases so we brought this forward uh for your consideration as well in your deliberations colleagues questions or comments the manager Yeah question Comm you recognize sorry right um so just for the public can we we speak about if this bond is actually approved and it goes through the the form of pay once we execute on a particular project on a list if we can speak to the repayment process uh of said Bond we take out the funds execute on the project and the repayment or the uh the loan uh payment that we might need to do worst case scenarios where does that come from best case scenarios where does that come come from so we can talk to the public about that when when you say where does that come from us what funding sources match to that to that debt yeah well this would be a general uh General governmental purpose and general fund uh issuance so it' be supported U by General funds um so that that would be the funding source and I know we also and we have our public I see serg's on on so if he's also ready to share our financial advisor is on uh Mr masal as well so in the event that you want some further technical questions he may be able to share U his uh his comments since he's been reviewing this for us as well put the summarize essentially General Revenue would be pledged to essentially pay back and Dees the bonds uh but let's speak about worst case scenario just so it's clear to the public worst case scenario general public General the general fund cannot fund something after we pay there's we can't repay I think I think let's yeah just to that point let's just I want to give the the conversation some context what what this does is authorize our ability to go to market doesn't do anything else right it just gives us the ability to to at some point issue the debt before if we issue it in you know again issue all $65 million if that's what we decide to approve it would be required 25% tax increase I don't think anybody on this board would be particularly inclined to want to vote for a millage increase of that of that scale um so I think as we if this is approved we there would have to be some conversation about how much we could issue at any point in time so that would not be an inordinate burden or burden at all on taxpayers beyond what they're carrying today so um that I mean that's again I want to be clear um my my ambition with this is to one give us the flexibility to attract other people's money right by showing this as possible available future match number two uh give us a chance to kind of manage our cash flow a little bit better and keep more cash on hand and and use borrowing strategically to kind of expand our Bel to exercise projects and so you know uh this is not in my in my expectation certainly I would not be expecting us to go to market If This Were approved in November in ear the early part of 20125 or any part of 2025 to draw down on on this authorization in any substantial way because it would require us to um substantially increase taxes um unless there's some unex expected windfall uh that should be that should befall us here um in the next fiscal year yeah so mayor if I could add you know normally programmatically here or any other community we would work with our financial advisor as to when some of these things may be needed and when realistically they may come online some would be a vertical type of project where require you know some design and permitting and so um you know it's a 30-year window usually of a bond program and the tranches of issuance doesn't have necessarily I mean we could but normally you don't you don't see that all at once you see that over the history and the life of based on the program and when things are needed right so a lot of work to do as to when these things would populate we would need some sort of critical path and timeline um and then financial adviser along with BN Council would work to to package this together uh in in the most advantageous way I think I think one other benefit of possibly doing this is that for projects that we are trying to work to to move into design implementation once this authorization is in place Mr maybe Mr vosol can speak to this uh I believe we could basically provide as it a teer notice or what's the term of art that would basically allow us to begin to uh items in our Capital plan that could be eligible for Bond funding begin to recoup some of those design costs uh after the date that that notice is is adopted by the commission so you know again we could begin to spend Capital money out of our uh our pay as you go model and then refund that money through the bond issuance so there's ability to kind of put more money to work uh that way as well so I don't know Mr M if you can kind of give us a sense of what happens procedurally should this be adopted uh and then if there is a a debt authorization at TR that's approved how much time we have to spend dollars so we can give this commission a sense of what the timing of a bond program could look like sure thank you Mr Mayor can you all hear me okay we all can great thank you had a trouble turning on my video there but it seems to be sorted out so thanks for having me again Sergio mfal pfm financial advisers uh to answer your question so Mr Mayor I think you were alluding to the intent resolution what's called a reimbursement resolution um soft costs you can always reimburse yourself for so engineering design costs those are reimbursable without any period of time or for any period of time really the reimbursement resolution would cover any hard cost that you might uh undergo before the bonds are actually issued so that's the that would be kind of one of the first steps well let's let's even back up from there the resolution before you you would put this in front of this is basically allowing you to put a referendum um in front of the voters if they approved the general obligation referendum then we would go to something called Bond validation uh validating that the bonds were um properly authorized and that you could legally issue those bonds that takes about three months after you know the the referendum is approved so you're really looking at a issuance of bonds at earliest I would say in Spring of 2025 that's more than likely the timing and again that's all assumes that you're ready to go is kind of shovel ready projects one of the IRS requirements on bond issuances is that projects must you must have a reasonable expectation that you will spend the bond proceeds within three years from issuance of the bonds so really the time that it takes us to ready the bonds we could be ready as early as spring 2025 if in that time you to prepare engineering design and have projects ready to go we could issue the bonds at that point now I think the manager mentioned you would not very likely that you would issue these Bonds in multiple tranches not a full amount in one tranch again to meet that spend down requirement so you're probably looking at bonds that are issued over call it two or three maybe even four separate series of issuances and um that's that's how the process would play out so each time that a bond was going to be issued you would have something called a supplemental resolution that would come back before this commission to approve the projects being funded with that specific series of bonds the amount that the bonds were would to be issued in and as well as a not to exceed interest cost um allowance I think there was one other question maybe that I'll address right now by commissioner Kai as far as the repayment stream so we're talking about General obligation bonds so it's really a full faith and credit of the city the can use any any source of Revenue you have available to you to repay these bonds so whether that's non avalor revenues or avalor revenues uh certainly in a worst case scenario I think you were alluding to you know a you would is implement the adorm or Lev a millage in order to pay the Deb servers now of course to the extent you receive grants for projects or grants you know Revenue grants those could offset either the amount of bonds that you issue or or the the amount of millage that you would have to Levy pause there and see if there's more questions or comments further questions colleagues okay advice may recognized Mr Rivero I think you're goingon to be on the hot seat here yes I recall when we had a conversation you actually put it up um during one of our meetings and gave us different levels of borrowing so I'm imagining that our mayor got 65 million from that chart that was discussed I'm wondering if you could give us an idea of what we could comfortably manage what's challenging and what's not doable which is if I'm not mistaken what you had on that chart at that point what's great about a go it's it's managed by the tax that we collect in ads in other words when they're voting the go and serge wyom me jump in here they're basically authorizing that expend or that loan amount and to tax themselves in essence to pay off that debt so it it doesn't put a strain if it was a revenue Bond or a loan that's a different because that debt service is covered with revenues that is non-ad that's a different threshold so there is no I don't know how to answer there's there's no real comfortable or uncomfortable when it comes to a general obligation Bond a $65 million we can handle but it's not because it's going to be able to be taxed okay and if you're looking at if we're playing the guessing game we're looking at things that are coming online between now and the next five years right I think it would be safe to say Sunset Place fiveyear project what go I want to be very clear we will not receive best case scenario best case not conservative the city will not receive that that Ador tax revenue in five years you're looking minimum seven eight years the truth is I I don't I haven't seen any plans on it I don't I'm assuming they're going to do this on stages it's not going to be developed this is an assumption on my part because I just haven't seen anything walk through a a five-year estimated completion won't receive taxes till the following year those taxes won't be due till the following year so it's plus two am I wrong right it the tax comes on the following year after you issue the SE and then you pay it the following year so it's plus two till the city receives it in November of that following year the tailor end of the tail end of that c Year yes VI May if I can I the the the exercise that that we're discussing now which is OB obviously on point is part and parcel having a conversation with you know our financial advisor and and and kind of forecasting capacity and when we need things and so that's part of the exercise because we want to understand you know when we have the ability to take on what and how much right so it's not sort of blind you know we we we take a look at that and and and understand what capacity for example we talked earlier today about Deb that's being retired so we may say well we know we're going to drop $700,000 in debt service payments uh that's an ability to to break even if you will if we if we fill that in with you know new new debt so it is informed by that dialogue and an advice and the fa will will do you know just just to build on that example right 2026 that first loan is paid off frees up $600,000 of capacity that's roughly $10 million I think we talked about during the break of uh of debt that we could then service with that money and to add to that may yes go ahead that will not U go back down further to the mill rate that we rate that would not impact that would not require us to increase in just want to make sure it's clear no exactly so again 2026 we have capacity that comes online we could take out the first $10 million without having to wait for future revenues right I think look the the reason I'm presenting this now we've you know had a chance to talk at various meetings about this is that I think you know we are either going to begin to set a direction about how future revenues are going to be spent or they're going to be spent like government typically operates which is whatever is the immediate issue of the day and I want to make sure that we are identifying projects that as as as revenues come online we are directing revenues to things that residents can touch feel and see right and that will actually benefit their quality of life directly um you know admittedly this is probably a year or two earlier uh in terms of our project history but again the author ation does not expire and I rather take advantage of the moment and go to market and say this is what we'd like to do looking 10 years down the line than just talking about the immediate opportunity yeah yeah go ahead yeah I I just want to finish my because where I'm where I was trying to get with alfredo is what is a point of comfort okay because if we're going out to the voter and I I I played this game at my house if I ask you for $20 you'll give me $20 if I ask you for $40 you'll give me $40 when I ask you for for 75 bucks you're going to start thinking about it right so when I see $65 million it giv it's a point of pain because somewhere in my mind and real or imagined and you know what there's a reason that they sell houses for $499,995 because it's not $500,000 right so you can play that game with yourself mentally um what number do we feel is a comfortable number because I don't want to go out to a voter with $65 million and then not have an answer and they will ask how'd you get to $65 million did you pull it out of a hat did you have a conversation did you play with friends and come up with the number I mean we we need to have like a real something we can like you said did touch see feel whatever of a reason why we're going for $65 million versus $34 million or $27 million yeah I think commissioner Cory did you want to add something to this conversation well yeah uh if I actually alred were you going to answer that question from her because I do I have a follow I have a follow for you that's connected I thinky let CH in a little bit on that because because it's obviously uh a proper concern but again it's a 30-year Bond program of which you know the needs don't necessarily all fall in year one or year two so you spread this over time and part of that exercise is understanding the influence so that debt service or adding The Debt Service and your capacity right and that's how we lean on the financial adviser to run these models for us so it'll be informed by uh our capacity based on some analysis right and and and so 65 million right now uh would would require some extraordinary effort on our part is it doable yes but it would trigger some things that probably we don't want to do from a millage standpoint but we know that that's not realistic and we know that that's not how we would approach it so the answer to your question would be that that will be informed as we design a program and take a look at at a long term as to what our capacity is with some assumptions right because we have to assume further out and our fa would give us some scenarios about what our growth rates may be um so not being evasive to to but the reality is that's how this exercise of a bond program that's over 30 years is executed so how did we get to 65 who was the magic number for 65 it no no this didn't this 65 came before this oh it was from a previous document that you saw that had the range of the the outside ability that's what I'm that's what I was talking about so what is let's just I think to get to your point because there was this exercise if you can refresh our recollection what was the ma maximum amount of debt we could borrow statutorily in the presentation you guys made five months ago sorry I you're going $87 million I think is what we Sergio I think no it was 87 million was not the statut maximum I think I think that's what we recommended based on our capacity but Sergio do you have I'll pull it up in a minute it was multiple hundreds of millions of dollars correct correct so I let me try to interject here maybe if I if I may just for a minute to answer the the commissioner's question so I think one one way we look at General obligation programs and we do this all over the country you know cities all over the country this is a a one of the primary ways to finance Capital programs um city of ay West just approved their program this morning actually I was on their call as well um one thing we look at you know working with all of you is just the basic project needs what are the project needs what are the infrastructure needs what investments do you want to make in the community over the next 5 10 20 years 30 years in this case um you know you don't want to exceed your project needs to the extent where normally you issue a geob bonds for actually less than you might need and then 10 years from now you may be asking for a new general obligation referendum for additional project needs at that time so that's one thing we look at I think the other thing just to make it a a very simple example and I think this is where you going commissioner is you know looking at you use the example of a $499,000 house you know that or a credit score one thing we look at and we've looked at this for the city is the credit metrics right what credit rating the city doesn't currently have a credit rating but looking at the different metrics that they use you know the major Credit Agencies like Moody's S&P um would 65 million in general obligation authorization would that cause the city's credit to deteriorate when we looked at that you have what you know in excess of capacity of 65 million to your credit score would not change at all so if you consider that from a personal you know making a personal analogy is if you were to take out a credit line of you know on your home or whatever for $100,000 would that change your credit score that's kind of one of the things we look at as well so in additional project needs we also look at would it impact the credit of the issuer and in this case you know 65 million we think certainly of a project that exceeds that um and as far as your credit metrics you have capacity you know significantly more capacity than the 65 million so we think your credit will be held harmless and that's where the 80 some million comes in where now you're getting into a credit where could possibly diminish our credity and and just to add one more just one thing just to it's about the equity also many of these items and capital projects and infrastructure rues that are going to be funded are going to last over the 30 years the duration and the people that are here living are the ones that are going to be paying for that Improvement for the benefit of using those improvements and uh but instead of just paying for it and having the burden on the person either buying it at the end or buying it in the beginning um it spreads it evenly and equitably across the board commissioner leben want sorry my comments but I have a question along these lines so um um Sergio Mass FLL just referred to the project list the total the project list uh dollar amount was1 122 million and change and mayor I remember you saying that at the time in that meeting that this do this doesn't even cover all of our interests so between the 122 million in change that didn't cover all the the city's or commission's interests based on that how did we get down to 65 I I mean I'll give you my rule of thumb right you know typically if you're buying a home right you could afford is a third of what you right or three times what you earn right so uh to simplify this exercise in terms of what I I thought you know if I'm going to go to the public and ask for authorization what can I sell I thought telling folks that we are going to borrow twice our uh average operating budget you know was not an amount that should scare anyone right uh but important enough to get started on a lot of deferred Capital needs and you know and begin to think about planning for how we direct future Revenue so that's how I got to it I you know I thought it was a number well within the statutory maximum probably below what we need but something that at least you could communicate and sell fairly easily to voters because it's not a number while it seems large relative to what we what our what our operating budget is annually it's you know it's only twice that twice that amount twice the operating budget including CIP includ yeah but but but again you know I would tell you you know the way yeah it's that is absolutely accurate and then go ahead so just in terms of my comments um and I'll just I'll leave it at this I I appreciate commissioner Kai bringing up worst case scenario mayor I know you you said that uh worst case scenario or following commissioner Kay's comments it could impact the millage by 25% know as approximate number um and speaking with the finance director worst case scenario to make on this $65 million Bond 30-year term uh 4 and a half 4 and a qu% interest would equate to a debt payment of 1.5 million annually which would equate to no no it be $4 million million Sorry 4 million annually so if we if we if we were if we were to borrow the full amount tomorrow at 4 and a half% it's just north of $4 million in terms of Deb service payment so so you said that would also equate to mil increase to 1.5 points 1.5 divided by 3.95 is 38% 38% increase in millage not 25% we need to be very clear about this on the record so worst case scenario based on numbers from our finance director a 38% increase again I want to I I want to I want to just let's put some guard rails on reality here okay and the guard rails are this commission right for that to happen we would have to all not only just get this approve this item have the public approve the total Deb issuance but then we'd have to go ahead and say that we are going to borrow the full amount tomorrow when we all know we can't afford it and we're going to raise taxes by 25 or 38% you can pick your percentage right I don't think that anyone in the right mind would say that that would ever happen so I I just don't want it I again because the public is possibly listening hopefully they are I don't want to give them the impression that certainly this mayor is going to go out and say tomorrow if they approve this I'm going to turn around and ask them for a 38% tax increase I'm certainly not going to do that I doubt that anybody here is going to do the same thing and the worst case scenario requires action where we would impose a hardship on oursel let's be clear about that right it doesn't mysteriously happen by virtue of the fact that the public decides to authorize the bond issuance right we have to actually go to market right and say that we're going to carry that Debt Service payment right so there's many many steps uh and the ultimate check is what we think our tax paric could stomach and so commissioner again I just I'm a little uncomfortable with the characterization that the tax increase is automatic that's the furthest thing from the truth well if I may that wasn't a cation those are the facts and that's in the interest of transparency and that's directly not a fact it's it's it's absolutely not a fact okay so what the fin director said to me is it is to be and let the public know about Sir with all due respect with all due respect you are mistaken because you are presuming that this body would vote who issued the debt all at once if I could finish my statement okay you're presuming that this body no I'm not you are I'm absolutely not so then how is it a fact because and I'm going to correct you twice what you said previously what you repeated now it is not this body Because by the time this comes this will be a different body and and two-thirds of this commission cannot assure that they'll be here by the whether whether we when at the time that we find out if this passes or fails so you said is is inaccurate it it there's a chance that 60% of this body won't be here there's also a chance there's also a chance that a successive commission will choose to not use the authorization right but we can't speak for them one way or the other well I mean so the public will weigh will weigh that risk but I think neither of those two things are facts they're possible outcomes but neither is a certain fact to to add that cor recognized sorry commission Le to add to that though whatever project we decide to go on there whether it's us or the future you're right most of us probably won't be here but at least the ability to do so go out to the public do legislation on it have feedback from the public to tell us if they want that or not that's available for us and that's the guard rail that the mayor hasn't talked about as well but it's also there for that am I making myself clear on that okay let me explain it again whatever we decide to do projects maybe it's us maybe it's the future commission they want to go ahead and do the 15 million to do City Hall for example whenever that comes there it still has to go to the public it still has to be legislation we're going to be have feedback on it there's still going to be communication so we would understand what the public wants when I say we future commissions so it there's guard rails in places to see what projects get approved to that the only way this is a worst case scenario and and I apologize for speaking like that before well if if we issue one bond for one specific project to B65 million for example the park in direct right that was a bond issu for that particular Park in dur which exceeded I don't know the number over $200 million that obviously they don't have the the way to to pay the debt so they issue the mill rate that's why you see the mill rate at D so high that's where you see that case scenario we won't see that here okay so may may ask the City attorney for clarification you may okay so um City attorneys if this item passes at this number 65 million and we'll use commissioner Kai's example there's a $15 million project that the city has an interest in does that have to go back out to referendum again no I think let's clarify I think his I think his comment was that it would have to be authorized by this board by a successive vote that's what I understood as comment to not that it would go to referendum I thought it was the voters right the commission which we can't we can't speak for the future commission which we can't speak for but once the 65 is approved there's no additional well let's but let's let's let's let's let me let me let me throw out this other scenario right it's assuming the the charter change on August 20th passes right theoretically uh this commission without pledging the full faith and credit of the city could buy a fourth his vote right encumber the city with as much as $65 million in debt or $20 million in debt right so again I I I'm not I I'm not I'm not sure what your what your concern is I'm trying and I'm I say this sincerely there are I think there are multiple steps here that require com this commission or a successive commission to take action for there to be the kind of a tax increase that you are concerned about and so you know I I so I think you know what we're talking about here is giving us another tool in the toolbx to accomplish many of the things that we've been talking about for a year and a half but have not had the ability to execute because we don't have this is a vehicle to plan around right um this would allow us to make in year let's assume Sunset Place was having success pre-selling Condominiums and we could estimate that we were expecting three years from now a few million dollars of uh of avalor revenues right we could anticipate that future revenue and under this authorization go to market and borrow in tranches to begin Street improvements in our downtown right something we all wanted to see do again I this just creates optionality which is something that frankly our Charter is designed for this government to do nothing and so my my my motivation with respect to the ballot initiative that I thank you all for supporting for August 20th is to create more optionality more flexibility so we can do things affirmatively as opposed to kind of Remain the in the posture the city has been in for the last 25 years um and no fault of anyone here where we've done very little all right and what we've seen I think commissioner lean you been you've been at the Forefront of calling us out on the need to change the face of our downtown but the reason we've been in this posture is because our rules around borrowing are very restrictive and this Empire commissions have not had the courage to frankly ask the voters to give us the opportunity to consider this as as a tool to finance much needed improvements I yeah I understand what you're saying I'm not agreeing with you but but as a commission as a government body in the interest of transparency I don't think it's responsible to ignore worst case scenario and the possibility of a future commission and as much as we're want to look at all the potential positives I think at the same time it's incumbent upon us to to sh be transparent about the worst case scenario and um we can't speak for future commissions so I'm not disagreeing with with any of the positives I absolutely support the August item because it's bad policy but I'm um yeah I'm I'm not in favor of this uh bonding threshold here at 65 million and I'm I'm voting to vote no on the item and I'm going to vote no in in November on the item you may of course is there a way for us to build something in here so that if a commission did go Rogue and wanted to like say we're going to borrow $65 million is there a way to put guard rails on that because what what he's saying has has a certain validity to it where we can't we don't we can't even pretend to know what other people are going to do it within the next 30 Years so is there a way to Madam Vice may I just I would just say this to you I mean the the charter as it's been designed for since 2004 with its king bar rules were the guard rails and the result of that right has been that we've been locked in stagnation for two decades right and so I would say to you philosophically you know I I I you know there's no guarantees in life right what we've got to Hope is that the good people of South Miami will continue to choose their City Council Members judiciously right and that given that ultimately the check on whatever we do is the fact that we have to meet the public in my case every two years in your case every four years that we're going to govern ourselves by what we think the public would want us to do responsibly right and and I I think to do more than that would puts us in the same situation we've been in for the last 25 years which basically rules that inhibit any action well I don't know that I agree with that I'm I'm trying to see if we can find something that might work for everyone I don't think that it would be out of bounds to say that we wouldn't be able to borrow more than 40% of that in one year without some kind of approval from another mechanism or something because if we put $65 million and it's sitting there there's nothing other than you know the fear of the resident or the fear of not being reelected and so instead of saying we get all or nothing could we try to find some kind are you making like a dead person um try to find something where at least it gives a level of comfort is there any interest on that at all I if you have some thoughts I'm certainly open to hearing them I just don't have we want to say that we couldn't so do more than 50% of that at any given time like we couldn't turn around and say all right we want 32.5 million this year I understand what you're saying through the mayor I'm sorry go ahead sir uh maybe this is a question for the city attorneys so for example is there anything that we can put uh in place that we can't borrow at one ask more than you know 33% of said value is that is that something that we I'm just just asking the question for a second so a couple things could we do something like that we could do something like that we could enact an ordinance that directs that but that ordinance would be subject to change by any commission just like any other ordinance so you know it it would have the force of law but it it could be changed in the future um with a three- fth vote Yes yes that would be a 3th just want to make sure it's clear that's correct yes yes now just to just to just kind of add a layer to this and I don't want to complicate it more but uh the statutes on the budget already create certain guard rails in terms of the increase of taxes there are vote requirements and there's a there's a there's a maximum cap on the millitary that you cannot exceed now a third 8% increase in the millage rate would not come anywhere near that maximum cap but it would require a five out of five vote to enact that in any year so guard rails might already be there can I ask the question about that because I yes I I I agree with the general operating millage limitations but is a Debt Service millage subject to the same limitation or or are we just statutorily required to carry the minimum amount uh Debt Service millage so we can actually continue to fees the bonds okay so I don't Mr mol has a has a Mr has some insight into that so Sergio are you know look I think I think the general posture when we've discussed this before of the board today is that we would want to borrow but not have the aggregate millage Debt Service and operating exceed whatever the our millage is today right so if we're 395 if we were to have uh growth in the future that we wanted to retire on the operating side we could then basically authorize debt to kind of bring keep us at 395 in total certainly that's how I have always conceptualized the program right if we were going to do this that's a good that's a good point I but so but in terms of in terms of Mr Mell in terms of the in terms of the um in terms of how this this debt gets serviced is it under this it's under a separate Debt Service mod that's sling correct that's that's right that's that's my understanding as well I mean I would certainly defer to the legal but the way I read the statutes if it's a voter authorized referendum for for a general obligation Bond you have unlimited authority to increase the millage to what is necessary to service that debt correct so and I believe I believe the debt service is capped at whatever the required Debt Service is for the for the for the for the amount for the debt that's outstanding so so for example if you if if if whatever $600,000 let's say is the equivalent of what Mr riverol 10 million 10 million no 10 million but in terms of millage it's a quar million dollars a a tenth of a mill a 10 of a mill is 250,000 so let's say it's two two and a half two and two and a half two and a half T of a mill right um let's assume we wanted to take that money out of our operating budget we could reduce the operating millage by that amount and have a Debt Service millage that would serve US $10 million in debt right so we're reducing we're reducing our ability to fund operations through the operating millage and the debt Ser millage is added on top of that so but the total taxing effort to to the resident is the same right the same as it is today now I don't know how we would put any further guard rails around that other than establishing a policy of this board uh which again as a City attorney has mentioned could be modified unless we want to change the charter again and and make that a a charter limitation which would not be my my preference personally further questions let's try to see if we can bring this one in for landing one way or the other so so then where did we land with all of that talk we landed in where if we got $65 million we wouldn't be able to borrow more whatever that guard rail was that the mayor just explained of the millage would we do it that way would we do it as percentage how would we do this or what do we Direct direct towards this so there's a clear understanding of what the parameters are no I I think I understood the the last bit of the discussion is that the theoretically the entire 65 million could you know you could issue uh Bonds in the amount of the $65 million as long and you would pay for it through the debt service millage so you could conceivably do it in in one shot that that doesn't mean you would that just means theoretically that's that's possible is that does that answer the question no no can can I can maybe maybe just to kind of op let's maybe with a real world example with the benefit of our financial adviser online Mr vasel let's say have the last 10 Gob offerings that you worked on how many cities have actually borrowed the full authorization in one full swoop zero can I ask something yes go ahead how many have borrowed it within three years maybe I yeah even within three years I mean I think just realistically what's happening in the municipalities we work with as I mentioned the IRS spend down requirements at the time you issue the bonds the finance director Alfredo sorry to put you on the spot will have to sign a certificate that gets submitted to the IRS the Internal Revenue Service that says he has the reasonable expectation that those monies will be spent with within 3 years so really we only typically when we issue these bonds we're issuing for projects that are shovel ready and we'll be ready to you know all the bond expenditures will be made within those three years so the the window we see normally kind of the cycle is probably every three years for a for a referendum program and again to address the worst case scenario concerns Mr bosel how many go authorizations have you seen where a city has uh issued debt and an aggregate raise the total taxing effort combination of operating millage and Debt Service is that the norm or is that the is that the is that yeah I mean it's hard for me to give you kind of a a very kind of numerical objective answer on that but I can I can certainly tell you that you know elected officials all over the the state the country just like yourselves are sensitive to their constituents sensitive to the overall millage rate and consider that when they're um making the determination to one issue bonds for certain projects and two to you know fund certain programs on the operating side so certainly they're looking at each time each October when you're sitting your budget you're looking at both sides of that equation commission K you recognize we did the millage uh study where we saw the different cities and what their mill rate was you did see a column of added millage due to obligation bonds there was maybe two or three most of them that were pretty big were major cities that are doing that for example D pull a major obligation bond for their Park Central Park right uh that's been told already and that's already on their mill rate but that's one of the few to my recollection uh Mr Ma I don't know if there's any other ones that you know off your recollection that you see I didn't see that many in Miami day County I'm I'm sorry commissioner what the question exactly is which I mean maybe what cities in Miami day County have have actually exceeded and have to pull millage from the OB to pay the obligation how many how many I think the question is how many have a dedicated Deb service millage thank you well there's roughly someone someone help me out here there's roughly what 35 municipalities within the county yes yeah I want to say you know probably 10 or 10 to 15 of those have a general ligation Bond program it's on the millage table on the middle table that we present there's a column like you mentioned for I think there were only two on today I think was Miami and Dural that were on the one cond in the in the comp set that we were looking at so okay thank you there's certainly more than that but yeah Miami and Dural are kind of two of the newer ones I mean we just sold a series of Miami bonds today um the first of their I guess to answer one of your questions commissioner Miami issued a large Capital program 500 300 million um and we issued 100 million of those today so that was four years after the authorization correct four years after the authorization and they you know as far as we can see is the forecast they've asked us to run they don't have plans to issue additional bonds for the next you know three to four years Mr manager and then Mr Le mayor I I just want to shed some light on on the actual question um that that would be you know go to the vote as if approved tonight and and really the focus of the question is the voter providing their approval to to to be taxed for this purpose and the only limitations that they're giving is you know not exceeding 65 million in one or more series additional guard rails or or the when and the how would still be part of this process and this this commission's deliberations uh Through Time right or any commission for that matter um so in in this case they're not telling you you have to do it within this time period other than within 30 years not later than 30 years from the issuant dates right so what I want to shed light on the question is can just just because I wanted we've said 30 years a few times is that is that accurate so that maximum life of the authorization is 30 years or is it no no my understanding I'm sorry if I can interject here go ahead yeah once you author once the referendum is authorized the your your authorization does not expire that I'm aware of I'm reading the ballot question I'm I'm reading the actual language it says in one or more series maturing not later than 30 years from their issuance date that's the maturity date so that's the maturity date of the bond understand okay there's a window of time that that I'm talking about the parameters correct so Mr manager I don't want to yeah just to be C I want to make sure I'm clear so that we're clear with the public I think what that language says Mr s correct me is that the maximum maturity the maximum uh term of the indebtedness for any series cannot be more than 30 years am I correct okay so the parameters are part of the questions are not to see 65 million the 30-year language and and interest you know not not above what's allowable by law right time frames the when you know how much and when it's still subject to commission this governing body's uh discussion and approval or and I when I say this body whomever is sitting in those chairs over time um so the issue of guard rails and and prudence and what capacity we really have and not exceeding will definitely be up to the commission that's sitting there to to make that determination in consultation with the advice from their financial adviser there are commissions that that maybe could take on more than necessary but that'll be you know that'll have to be demonstrated you know with the support of the financial advisor is what would it be required to do what you want to do right and and yes there could be a vote that's taken that people say well that's too much or too little but it would still be within the confines of what the voters have allowed to do so what I'm saying is that some of this is is conversation that could be taken at a later date if the voters say we like you to do this um these conversations can be had uh by any commission no different than right now as limited and as archaic as I in my opinion the the the our Charter language as it relates to boats needed for for off uh borrowing U it has no other rails as to the when so it's no different position than what the charter language currently has of four votes or five votes depending if it exceeds 5% so that exposure is currently there now and it's protected by those that are sitting on the commission that doesn't change this language would still put that burden on whoever's sitting in this commission uh to issue in a responsible manner based on on the city's capacity so as limiting as the current Charter is it doesn't provide those those protections and and and and so that doesn't change it's still the burden of this commission to issue that in a responsible Manner and that'll be determined you know whether it's responsible or not uh obviously but uh even in the current state that could still happen it would be those that are sitting uh in your seats whether it's you or somebody else could to make those decisions so I I think that that that concern of somebody acting irrationally is is there today and it could be there tomorrow the likelihood of that is is you know relative so I just share that because I want to bring context back to the question right and from a from an opinion standpoint professionally the inability of the city to go beyond a pay as you go model I can tell you that we exceeds our ability forget growth uh that growth as commissioner lean said some of these things won't come online for a certain time so a pay as you go is some of the things that we have uh that are we're facing today and we know are forthcoming exceeds our ability from a pay as a go so I I just say that because we need some alternative means uh to to take a look and solve some of our problems this would provide it and you still have the ability to provide some guard rails okay in the interest time I'm going to allow for one more round of comments so commissioner Le since you had a bite of the Apple before and I think commissioner Corey has not I'm going to recognize him and I'll come back to you that fair okay thank you and I just wanted to speak my piece before we do end up voting I uh uh I mentioned this earlier today but looking at our residential looking at our commercial and the rate at which they're developing and improving and then looking on the public side all of the demands that we have I believe this will give us the opportunity to keep up pace with them and even to commissioner lean's comments before even as commercial comes online there will be a delay before we see the benefit of that and I do think this is a good idea for us to be able to keep up pace with them and I think it's prudent to send it to the voters so I'll support it thank you sir commiss lean you recognized I was going to call the question after I speak but I'm gonna I think at least three people on the day will like what I'm going to have to say um I'll be rewarded for recognizing me May or though it does not include me voting for the item though I'm not opposed to the public weighing in I just don't want my vote to allow the public to weigh in to be misconstrued is me supporting the item but so what what I want to say is if I was going to present this and I was championing this I would start with this is what we need this is what we want the public and this is how it will benefit your life that's one then I would which surprised didn't it come up I would touch on all and this is significant and look see what anyone has said or probably will say but the anticipated revenue is could to be in the Millions of dollars from Sunset Place um got exact number I think it's sh quote me but on on The Fresh Market project maybe our city manager or Finance director has that number and all the other uh and all the other projects um police City Hall project will be very rewarding for the city as well as several other projects in in play which will which will produce a rich tax base for the city so that's number two and you could when you do that model you can be conservative and they're projected and then the third thing which everyone always overlooks when we discuss millage is even if we hypothetically the city raise the millage by um 100% that would only be a 20% increase in the overall tax bill no matter what we do to the millage we only control 20% of the homeowners tax bill the rest of it comes from the county and fire city manager and Li and library and uh and so forth you can just look at your tax bill and and there's debt obligations how it's um it's broken down for the county so whatever increase it is it's only relative to approximately 20% your overall tax property Bill and a lot of the residents confuse that that our millage is a represents 100% of their bill so those are the three angles i' I'd approach it from agreed further comments okay seeing none is there a motion on item 11 I'm sorry there's no one item 11 is a public hearing item there's any member of the public who'd like to address this Commission on the item please come forward at this time mam clerk is there anyone online no one's online okay mayor if I may there are two options for the title of the ballot question on page 412 of the agenda is there any preference for the title of of the ballot question two options are there what page page page 4 12 of the agenda or three of six of the resolution page three my computer where in the resolution page three of the resolution yeah give it which is highlighted and yellow there's two title options for the question through the mayor yes sir maybe we can just read them out to the public and and then we just certainly Madam Madam secary would you read them please yes the first option is Bond referendum for Parks and Recreation Public Works and Public Safety improvements and infrastructure the second option is Bond referendum for improvements infrastructure and property for parks recreation Public Works and Public Safety also keeping in mind that we are limitting to 15 words on that title yes ma'am you recognized the first one doesn't make any sense to me the second one reads properly to me but the first one's like choppy okay that's a good point um like infrastructure just hangs out there right and the point is to uh advise the public of the purpose of these responds right correct the question has to have the purpose and the title as well so is it is madam Madam Vice May you're in favor of the second title I would just because okay it just reads better it might not make more sense when you read it as a voter but it at least reads better and I'm assuming we did Parks SL Recreation because if we would add a 16th word is that that's correct mayor it's exactly 15 words why wouldn't we take out like Bond referendum for improvements infrastructure comma property for parks recreation comma Public Works and Public Safety I don't know that we need and and end there twice if you're trying to buy a word I I think we should move the second one honestly okay so let's um is there a motion to adopt item 11 with the alternate title as a preferred option I'll move the motion okay is there a second second okay we have a motion by commissioner Cay second by commissioner Cory with option b correct with the alternate title as it's listed on page three of six on the item four on item 11 okay mam clerk if you can call the role please yes commissioner C yes commissioner cor yes commissioner Leman W yes mayor Fernandez yes item password 5 Z thank you very much can we read item 12 please yes item 12 an ordinance of the mayor and City commiss I'm sorry no I vote no I thought we were voting on which item because we just chose the language no he no I I I basically asked for so definitely voting no okay so can we you can you reflect I'll change your vote to no okay okay thank you everyone else is fine with their vote okay thank you item 12 in ordinance of the mayor City Commission of the city of South Florida amending Article 2 definitions article 3 zoning regulations and article four other regulations to permit urgent care facilities and provide applicable regulations madam cler are we yeah we are good on the title thank you okay this number 12 right correct yes move the item you'll move the item is there a second well before we move the item we have to have a public hearing my apologies so is there anyone in the audience who like to address this Commission on item 12 which is a modification to our zoning regulations to permit urgent care facilities seeing No One in the Chamber is there anyone online seeing no one online either commissioner lean you recognized for a motion to move the item I move okay is there a second second so a motion by commissioner lean a second by commissioner Corey uh Madam clerk if you can call the role please yes commission Caya yes commissioner Cory yes Commission yes Bon yes mayor Fernandez yes item passes 5 thank you uh if you can read item 13 item 13 in ordinance of the mayor City Commission of the city of South Florida amending section 2-2 26.7 unique abilities Board of the city code of ordinances to revise the qualification requirements for board members thank you this is a first reading item um commissioner Kai I believe this is your item did you want to uh yeah so I think this is just the ab I thought we did this already the ability to to have either a resident or commercial yeah we dis we discussed it no no no this is the unique abilities yes to have residents or or commercial owners I thought we did that last commission we had disced and bring it back as an ordinance okay correct yeah I think nothing's changed since then okay okay well with that as the explanation is there a motion on item uh 13 I'll move it okay second a motion by Commission K second by commissioner Cory uh any comments questions seeing none Madam clerk please call the role yes commissioner Kay yes commissioner Cory yes commissioner Leeman yes Vice B yes mayor Fernandez yes item passes we have an add-on item before everyone packs up still to consider uh if you could read the add-on item one more time please Madam clerk yes add-on a a resolution of the city Commission of the city of South Florida calling for a city of South special election to be held on November mber 5th 2024 for the purpose of submitting to the electric a proposed amendment to section 2A of Article 5 elections of the city Charter to increase the term of office for the office of the city mayor to four years beginning with the 2026 South Miami general election providing for a notice of election providing for requisite valid language and Charter Amendment text for submission to the electric providing for the city C to utilize the services of miam day County Supervisor of Elections for the special election I move the item I'll I'll second it so what we have in front of us uh this body hasn't voted on but the well sorry commissioner Corey has the previous body uh voted on the it him to put on the November ballot um quoting the the mayor the uh there's no reflection on on our mayor but this was the only item um that that failed on the last ballot but I want to remind everyone took several attempts um kept sponsoring these items you only have to hear yes once several attempts to move the election November several attempts to reduce five out of five to four of five and um just like the other item we have in our our um on the August pallet this is just a matter of correcting bad policy so what this item speaks to even though the commission knows maybe the community doesn't the commissioner's terms are four years they're staggered uh the mayor's term was always is always two years because for a pro approximately 100 years um the city always had a special election in April in order to keep that special election relevant the mayor's term was two years to increase turnout um best turn we had a recent average numbers or um approximately 2,000 now in a non-presidential cycle turnouts at least 100% greater and a presidential cycle turnouts at least 200% greater so the turnouts already built in the turnouts implied we don't need the mayor's term the mayor to be up every two years to have uh to have turnout again the turnout's already built in November and you know I I could argue that the mayor should be the most mayor's position should be the most influential position and I could argue it's the least influential because it's the same vote the mayor Express authorities but actually not that many but it's the equal vote for half the time is the Commissioners also um personally I I don't want not ases a commission but as a resident I don't want the mayor to have to campaign every two years if you assume a campaign takes a year um that means that they're campaigning half the time and uh you traditionally want less transition especially if it's new mayor you want to give them a chance to get settled into the job so yeah for all those reasons I believe that the mayor's term should be four years uh just a note for the commission just like last time it would not take effect this election the earliest it could take effect with would be um 2026 so I don't know if there's any any questions I just think it's bad policy and I think the mayor's term should be and I think that sorry I don't know what the ballot language says but I'd like for it to say that the mayor's term should be consistent with the commissioner's terms of four years okay maybe changing the language will help the public better understand it because there's really no reason not to support this in terms of the you know the public Madam vice mayor yes it can can we just make the ballot language one of those like keep it simple stupid so that people understand what they're voting for I think last time there people were confused and so you know people skipped over it people when you don't know you vote no so if we say just like Josh said to make the mayor the same as everybody else the end mayor's term consistent yeah the end like let's not add extra words so we get to like 15 or whatever it is and honestly maybe I'm biased or just ignorant I I don't know any negative unless you have a bad mayor but just in terms of the policy that is negative but careful what you wish for that's all I'm going to say I just know what I'm going to do with all the extra time so there we go been a dead person do we have do we have language that we uh that we want to read in the record yeah we have we have the ballot question is this would read the city Charter currently provides for a two-year term for the city's mayor period shall the charter be amended to increase the term of office for the mayor to four years consistent with the term of office for City commissioners beginning with the 2026 South Miami general election now is that is that the same language that was used in the prior I don't believe so that's that's can we verify that we got to look that up let I don't think okay well let's table this for two minutes yeah and I I I want to raise a non-agenda item if I may sorry and I want to one thing I'm not I'm sorry interrup I'm not opposed if the commission wants to start this in 2028 okay just with your Indulgence our current mayor with your with your Indulgence I I don't have any objection to when it starts with your Indulgence while they're reviewing that item um we have a we have a art our first art and public places donation uh which has a bond that set to expire on August 4th um we met with related Urban this this week they've asked if we could if they could pay about a $21,000 differential between uh their required contribution the value of the art that they've already installed or purchased on behalf of the city um apparently the code does allow for us to accept the balance in cash uh it does require a waiver right there's not time to bring an item for that waiver before that Bond expires so what I'd like this Council if there's any objection to consider is to basically direct the manager to go ahead and accept the cash remittance and have the City attorney put on our next agenda uh a resolution to ratify the manager's acceptance of of that uh contribution and uh affirmatively adopting the waiver as required by the city code did I did I state that correctly U Mr City attorney yes you ratifying the manager's acceptance of the $21,000 differential um and it would be a post uh post acceptance waver of the requirement okay questions yes ma'am would we want to consider using those funds since it is the same neighborhood to help the clinic as the doctor had mentioned earlier in starting a pantry or something like that I'm just thinking about creative ways to keep that in the area that they are in since it is an exaction I think it's probably limited uh to the use that we collected it for but I to defer to Council on whether those dollars are treated as General Revenue or they're treated as restricted funds it's it would it's General Revenue but but it's targeted toward specific uh Pro there are limitations within the code as to what it can be uh spent for it could be spent for beautification um it can be spent for placemaking it can be spent for there's a there's a targeted list of okay so it's not it's not Revenue you can receive that we could redirect for any purpose so okay but it a nice sentiment yes mror just clarification so the amount is $2,955 so that's the difference of their total commitment uh uh of that's required of 49 93 260 so the check would be for 2,955 okay a as alternate uses I just also want to remind that there is a donation of a of a sculpture that we are in possession of that we still have to site and maybe build a base so there could be some cost in finishing that out so these funds could go towards that I would also say okay so um any op again Mad Madam C attorney is the direction sufficient or do we need to actually have a uh this body vote on on that direction I think it's sufficient okay thank you so unless there's any objection we'll consider you so directed okay thank you and whenever we're ready on the last item we'll close this out yes sir did you want to discuss commission date yes thank you for reminding me we apparently we have the option of cancelling one of our two meetings in August I think staff would prefer us to meet on August 20th as we do have a healthcare item that we need to take up timely um is there a preference on the part of the spies to when we would want to meet I've I've noted from before that I will not be present August 20th okay I'm dropping my kids at college and and won't be logging on yes sir I I prefer August 20th I'll be out of town the first week of August as well so it be the vice versa no I know it's vice versa from yeah yeah I can call in either way well we'll do that yeah we'll do that next so August August 6 to the 20th um I I I would say my preference is be August 20th because I I know that my kids are back in school and here so if it's not too much of an inconvenience I don't do we have a very do we anticipate having a very heavy agenda that day sir I would have to lean on the deputy city manager who kind of tracks and see we know for sure that getting everything ready for the healthcare item will be on August 20th so that's why we're saying okay so we will not be able to make uh have that item if we if we decided to meet August 6 not the 20th we would not we not be ready to have the August the healthcare item considered and again that author that I guess that uh transition happens in September so we would not have a chance to take it up at our regular September meeting timely okay so I think I think for that reason probably August 20th is the appropriate date and and I apologize Madam vice mayor that we're not going to be able to accommodate you okay so uh is there a motion to cancel the August six meeting of the commission I'll move it a second okay so a motion by the vice mayor and a second by uh commissioner Cay Madam clerk please call the RO commissioner cayen yes commission Cory yes commissioner lemman yes Vice May Bon yes mayor Fernandez yes passes Council okay um commissioner while they're checking I guess commissioner leing had asked about the schedule City Hall and as it was mentioned before tomorrow is a deadline for proposals so depending on what happens tomorrow um obviously the the work will begin in Earnest to to review and analyze and uh those those proposals okay but in terms of in terms of you'll be putting together selection and Review Committee when do you anticipate you'll be uh announcing the committee the committee composition we're we're in the process identifying you know who who those individuals would be obviously it be uh some staff internally um if there's any recommendations of somebody in the community that that that has a background that that would suit well for a committee like that certainly I'm open for those suggestions as I mentioned before um so we want to move quickly so we can stay on our timeline um so I I you know within within a week's time after tomorrow because I got to wait and see if we're get if we have work to do or not right um hopefully we will and we'll have uh some proposals through the mayor yes sir assuming proposals come in tomorrow are we able as a commission start seeing those or do we have to wait for a selection no a public record unless the City attorney U of the cone they have to wait they're not please in the microphone if we if we could speak into the microphone please yeah I I need to double check the the time but they're they're not made public yet they won't be made public until about when the manager um makes the initial recommendation but so two questions are not a public record but are they accessible to the members of the commission they want to review the Pres no because you guys are the you guys are the ones making the selection understood but but but I think until I'm not meeting with so let me let me just let me just again to clarify help help my colleague out here because I think I understand where he's going can we can we can I think we can review the solicitation materials that are received as long as we're not speaking to any of the respondent parties or staff correct I know question it's the difficulty we have two attorneys two different opinions okay I think the commission can receive the solicitations however you cannot disseminate them in any way correct to anyone else or share them with the public Etc as long as we're um you're recognized sir go ahead thanks problem as long as we're on pause if a commissioner or mayor wants to give up I mean wants to give up their seipt after two years how does that work maybe it's a question for the city clerk can you announce it and then you can can you s for example I'm sorry what are we I just want to because yeah okay don't worry okay I think we we we switched topics if I'm if I'm he correctly let's continue schedu to get you your first answer W continuing along the schedule no so we so I think we had a question about about number one can we review the materials your answer was yes so long as we do not speak to anyone who's a respondent or a member of staff and we do not disseminate the materials is that correct okay yes ma'am when we're talking about the the group that will be reviewing this do we think it would be helpful to have maybe somebody from budget and finance since now they're closed out having them be part of that group no about the committee yeah well obviously from a budget and finance we'll be leaning on our financial adviser and then we remember we have the financial advisors and then we have the outside counsel yeah so we have that technical expertise yeah I just wonder if we'd want their involvement so that they're seeing you know they've gone through the entire thing up to now I wonder if it would be beneficial to have one of them be on that Committee just because they have some institutional know knowled or even for them have I would if I could suggest I think um in terms of folks that I know on that committee that have a background in real estate real estate related development chant Rivera who's my appointee actually worked for Real Estate development time share company until recently may be a good person to put on the selection committee if we want to suggest someone to the manager obviously it's a suggestion or you know Jay possibly being a former lender might have some expertise they could offer there as well again there might be someone who's a good fit again I i' frankly prefer to delegate to the manager uh the selection I don't necessarily want to be nominating someone um I think between the fa and the appraiser who we'll be working with um and staff we probably will be fine with um with the composition of the committee but it's my opinion but there's some good candidates on the budget fin I just thought that they have very interesting levels of just in terms of timeline when when would you anticipate convening the uh uh to to get get to back to commissioner lean's question quickly when would you anticipate convening the committee if you if you established it within a week well I mean getting uh the calendars aligned for whoever is going to be on there would be key right so answering that would be difficult without knowing their availability but our goal is to get something you know have them uh be able to review documents and give them time to review so when they sit down so within 10 days of tomorrow I think would be something that that we can shoot for barring that the people that are you know that's a problem you know the bigger the group and the it's difficult to get especially now in the summer so I think within 10 days gives them the ability to review uh because these are going to be pretty comprehensive proposals we would anticipate that touches a lot of things from architecture to economic analysis and um so I would give you that as a guid line if we can do it sooner great uh but we we're mindful of an October date to have this Commission uh take action on on a recommendation okay was it o the first meeting in October to be faar okay yeah and I know it's correct because commissioner lean would have corrected me if I was wrong okay do we have a answer on the charter question no I can't when did it go to the um it went it went last November November 22 excuse me yeah as long as what you have it in the meantime I think we created three options oh Lord we like options I was I was I was hoping we' get out of here by 10 but I guess the that that okay we'll go that dream did not happen so so all right first alternate option the city Charter provides for a two-year term for the city's mayor shall the charter be amended to increase the term of office for the mayor to four years to be the same as the term of office for City commissioners beginning with the 2026 South Miami election can we write the city Charter provides that the mayor's term is half the duration of the commission's terms of the commissioner's term can I can I can I just suggest let's find the language that fail get the language and then let's talk about what we may want to change to it as opposed to kind of divining a whole new bunch of scenarios the I think I think you know we it may be I don't remember how it was Style I voted for the establishment of a four-year term of office for the city mayor and the question was shall City Charter Article 5 section two titled general elections paragraph a be amended to increase the term of office of the mayor from 2 years to four years okay so it doesn't mention yeah so mention okay so it's very it's very jargon heavy so um and doesn't even mention to be consistent correct so okay let's let's discard that we we use and let's move on Al before I used to get so excited that I have an item that passed I would just stop it's like I get so excited catch the ball I wouldn't run I I would tell you following commissioner lean's comment if you say sha the mayor's term currently set at you know should be which is you know what the Commissioners are age I mean that's you know you might be happy you want to use the same language again eight years honestly if I may yes you may I don't like the reference to the sections in the charter there's no need if there's no legal requirement for it I wouldn't add it yes and people don't care they don't know it's not like they're opening the book so let's let's talk to the Alternatives quickly the first the first one the city Charter provides for a two-year term for the city's mayor shall the charter be amended to increase the term of office for the mayor to four years to be the same as the term of office for City commissioners I would I would I would I would reverse that and say shall the shall the mayor's term be increased or be made consistent with the yes City commissioners first sentence with the four-year term of of City City commissioners yeah with a four-year term of City commissioners well do you need to do you need to reference from the current two-year term I don't know to close we we don't we did it as a as a counter but you could consider that yeah that could be the question shall the mayor's term be made consistent with be be made consistent with the four-year term of City commit or shall the mayor's term be increased to be consistent with the foure why even I would WR I would say shall the mayor's term be increased to four years consistent with the term of City commissioners do we have to rate increased or just be made consistent consistent with or set at the same as Commissioners when even rate increased I think you need to add shall amend the charter shall the charter be amended the charter be amended to guys microphones please you stay away from increase shall the charter be amended to set the mayor's term consistent consistent got perfect perfect consistent with the commission's term of four years with the commissioner's term of four years four years I mean but you your term twice in the same work in the same sentence one more time please shall the charter be amended to set the mayor's term consistent with the with the four-year term of City commissioners or with the City commissioners your ter prefer I prefer us to use a word word term one less time can you just put that of the City commissioners but term is a good term oh Jes final vote on it too okay what is the f one more time Mr City attorney shall the charter be amended to set the mayor's term consistent with the duration no no no no no talking about with with the commissions for your term that's I think that's that that's that's fine one more time Madam City can you read that into the record I always like to think that the word term and sentence are synonymous term and sentence term it's going to feel like a term four years W take four years okay okay shall the charter be amended to set the mayor's term consistent with the City Commissioner's term of four years perfect fine all right we have is there a motion on that language I'll move it okay also can we tweak the title to reflect that what is the current title that you were using current title is very simple it reads four-year term of office for city mayor I think that's fine perfect you could say four-year term of office for city mayor to be the same no no foure term yeah I think that's F less is more I think is the preference here okay is there we have a motion by the vice mayor with the amend language is presented by Mr Rango and the second by commissioner Leeman Madam clerk if you can call the role commissioner Leeman yes VI Bon yes commission Cory yes commission Cay yes mayor Fernandez oh this is yes I don't and it it doesn't need to say commences in 2026 commencing in which revised term shall commence in I just want to make sure we have our current mayor for four more for six more years and hopefully it's that's any violation I retract that no no I don't know if that's campaigning from the days do we need to revote or you got it okay got okay with that we s a journ thank you okay