##VIDEO ID:xs9SZC75YG0## [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] for [Music] [Music] for [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] for for e e e Mr Clerk it's 501 ready yes sir how you doing recording in progress good afternoon to everyone thank you for being here uh welcome to the final and second budget hearing September 24th 2024 at 501 uh before we begin I'd like to first thank all of staff and everyone who played an intrical part in making sure that we could deliver this year's budget uh I'm always grateful for your assured commitment to the city beautiful your hard work your effort and the residents in the business Community thank you um before we begin Madam City attorney is is there any housekeeping issues that we need to address or can we go into the first item the presentation into the first item sir we can go into the first item perfect paa how are you I'm good how are you good good afternoon thank you mayor uh thank you mayor Commissioners um as always thank you to my staff our budget staff this is not my efforts but the efforts of many not only our budget staff but also our department directors and um Department staff who helped put this budget together each year as well as the support and uh input from uh the commission and obviously the city manager Office um so today we are here for the second budget hearing for the fiscal 2024 25 uh budget um and there will be three items that we will be doing today so um the first item is adopting the bill the the millage or tax levy for the uh fiscal year 2025 budget and so the fiscal year 2025 budget is based on a millage rate of 5559 which maintains that millage for um 10 years it is 88.4% over our roll back rate of 5.1 1281 and if it's uh the commission's pleasure the City attorney can read it into the record and we can hear that item first mam City attorney yes so we have an ordinance providing for the levy of taxes for the fiscal year beginning October 1st 2024 and ending September 30th 2025 fixing the rate of such Levy providing for the segregation and the application of the proceeds of such Levy providing for the separability of the provisions hereof and providing that this ordinance shall become effective October 1st 2024 be it ordained by the city by the commission of the City of Coral Gables that in compliance with the Constitution and laws of the State of Florida as now written taxation is hereby levied upon all real and personal property within the present corporate limits of the city of Cor Gables for tax year 2024 a tax of 5559 Ms which is an 8.4% increase over the roll back rate of 5128 one all proceeds is the collection of this Levy to be recorded into the general fund of the city and shall be reserved therein and dispersed transferred there from for the sole and express purpose of paying the necessary operating and capital expenditures to the City of Coral Gables its departments offices and properties for the fiscal year ending September 30th 2025 this ordinance requires a four vote for adoption before we um proceed on it mayor if I may yes of course before we address the militate I'd like to make a motion so that um the provisions that you know I should say that staff had suggested for uh 6 months from now you know the manager have the ability to bring in some additional positions the Debbie uh I'll make a motion for that to be done in an amended budget as opposed to uh adopted in this budget right now so I'll make that motion I'm so sorry I'm a little confused what what is the motion exactly the motion is for the additional positions that staff had suggested during our individual meetings which we all had to be done in an amended budget item 6 months from now as opposed to being addressed by uh this body at this time so so I think that what the vice mayor is referring to is after the first budget hearing we met with um at the request of the commission we met with each of the Commissioners to discuss the three areas where we were um so in the July 1 budget estimate just for the purpose of the public as well so it's clear to them in the July 1 budget estimate we had included um an increase of 23 full-time positions and two part-time positions U at the September 12th budget hearing we brought back to you a budget which is the same budget that we're bringing back to you today which reduced the new positions that were being added to the budget so I want to be very clear we were not eliminating existing positions we simply reduced the new positions that were in the original July 1st budget um estimate and so in our meeting with each of the Commissioners we discussed the potential of adding back a solid waste worker um add adding a second Solid Waste operator to um adding back an a new code enforcement officer and converting a second part-time U enforcement specialist to full-time um so if I understand the vice mayor correctly what uh what she's proposing is that um we just that we consider adding those positions back in but as an amendment to the budget uh Midway through the fiscal year not at at this time um if that's correct I I just want to make one point for um procedure the first item that has to be passed at this meeting has to be the millage so just so that we're no I understand but I I put a motion on the floor and the reason I did so is because I think it is a more orderly way to analyze uh you know position needs because we're going to reanalyze them anyway and at six months for now and I think each and every one of us should have some participation in understanding the needs and how we can better run our our city in the best interest of both the residents and the city itself um so that we remain a worldclass city I mean some of the uh the needs were based upon you know expected revenues from tickets being issued expected uh you know leveling out of positions uh or you know Revenue increase as well but there are many operational decisions that we need to make along the way I think the additional 6 months would be helpful for staff and for the manager's office to be able to analyze the these budgetary items so yes that's the motion you you had it correct I have a procedural question can we make a motion if the items not up yet because right now it's just the millage ordinance I think if it's going to be budget related I think the motion should be made when we actually have the budget item up so we so you have to adopt the the final millage um prior to adopting the the budget that's for sure yes okay so I guess I'll make a motion to approve the millage I'll second Mr clerk we have a motion on the floor that was uh made by the vice mayor just procedurally where does that stand we don't have a second for the vice mayor's motion Mr Mayor I'll second it but there was already a motion a second yeah there was already a motion a second on the millage ordinance but we didn't have a we didn't have a we didn't have an opportunity to at least produce a second I thought there was going to be more discussion I waited for everybody to finish there was another motion sir and there I was going to wait I was going to make a motion just wanted to give everybody the courtesy to be able to finish the discussion on that point we understand that's what you were going to do but you didn't and there's another Motion in a second I I'm not opposed to it I think there's a lot of discussion we can do and I think it's going to take a little time I think we need to adopt the Mage and then I think we'll all work together as a body to come into an agreement that we all feel comfortable with u um mayor I think uh we have to take our votes and uh move forward Mr cler you have a motion and a second in regards to the millage rate to adopt the millage U mayor also would do we have any public comment so typically we would take public comment for the entire meeting not just for the one vote is that how you want to proceed Mr Mayor that's perfectly fine right first Speaker today is David Rena good afternoon sir good afternoon everybody my name is David renchel business representative of Teamsters Local 769 uh proudly represents the general employees at city of key at City of Coral cables the city beautiful as we know of want to speak about two aspects aspect number one about the new proposed full-time slots at 72nd Avenue in public works uh yes we are in need of them yes they are in need of them uh they're full-time slops we do not need or inquire tempts or part-time employees um and some real time items that are going on to give you a real-time picture right due to the ongoing staffing issues at 72nd Avenue uh at no fault of their own we are now having an issue of having all of our bargaining committee members attend bargaining sessions uh so they can service the customers meaning the residents that's number one number two is why we need additional full-time slots as we previously mentioned with the ongoing heat uh as well you now towards the end of physical year you have long-term employees that have hard-earned acred vacation time time off that now may not be able to take and spend time with their family because there's insufficient Staffing regarding the suggestion of having some type of electronic cart or carts to assist sanitation um in my opinion that's not a solution uh that is something that the sanitation workers would now have to take extra responsibility for of that expensive equipment haul it fix it repair it uh I don't think the residents want to have a new machine with a lithium battery to catch on fire of hauling out the trash a good thought process but again this all weighs down to insufficient Staffing my second topic economics of the city budget right budget preparation budget authorization budget execution and lastly most important budget accountability remember that please budget accountability as I will be referencing that as you folks may or may not know representing the general employees we are still in ongoing contract negotiations there are approximately 400 and there is approximately 3177 General employees we shall say unfortunately we share the same budget with the executive the exempt and the excluded employees of of City of Coral Gables I say unfortunate because there is a vast difference in the percentage when you do a high salary to a lower-end Sal salary the executive and the executive make up 30% of the workforce of the joint budget which absorbs about 70% of the entire budget the 70% of the entire budget the 70% of the workforce is the General employees and if you do an example of what over 200,000 looks like at 4% break it down by an hourly rate that's $48 as compared to a general employee that's a $111 that's 114.4 five% difference from 408 to a11 the reason why I bring this to light is because again 70% of the workforce is only getting approximately 30 30% of the budget that in my strong opinion is not a fair Equity it is not a fair budget accountability this is the time to show your general employees the respect that they deserve that they earn and just previously stated just today we're worldclass city right we have worldclass General employees please this is the opportunistic moment to take care of them and this is the time as I referenced before it's been on record that there's money there's a significant amount of money we're not here to take away from any of the executive employees I'm not here for that but what I am here on behalf of the employees of the general employees is reconsider and take a look what we have reasonably proposed to get a resolution on half of the on behalf of the general empy employes thank you for the extra time thank you thank you Miss Mary Cruz this Maria Cruz 1447 Miller Road I am first going to thank David because he really really expressed what a lot of us feel in this city we take good care of the people on the top and we take very poor care of the people at the bottom I think it's insulting to see when we give races when we give benefits we give looking up and the people on the bottom get uh whatever is left something is wrong with that I've said it many times times the problem is that when you give percentages if you give somebody who's making almost 200,000 or 150,000 10% the increase is significant is very significant when you give 10% to the people that make pennies the increase is pennies and that is wrong we talk about being a world class uh class City most of our general employees cannot afford to come have dinner in our restaurants most of our general employees cannot afford to live in this city most of our regular placees cannot benefit from our world class City well if we're going to call ourselves worldclass City let's start by taking care of our all our employees not the ones on the top only all our employees let's take care of them in a fair Equitable way thank you Mr clerk Theodore Gibson Mr Gibson wor sir good afternoon hello my name is Sor Gibson my address is 250 M Mr Gibson will you do me a favor will you speak into the mic so we can hear you my name is s Gibson my address is 250 Madison Lane G was voted sir can you raise it up please turn yeah I'm I'm sorry I was just having a little trouble hearing him it's okay don't be shy we won't bite I swear my question for the council is how do the city acculate funds for the drainage project sideways road walk I mean roadway resurfacing and signage for the Golden Gates area and cables the reason I'm asking this question is because over the weekend and over several years now when it rains the entire neighborhood floods there are terrible roads are causing more damage and maintenance to vehicles for homeowners in the neighborhood signage is needed and marking markings on the roads for a traffic direction especially when visitor visitor visitors and are visiting for the neighborhood such as school drop offs and people oh and people cutting through the neighborhood could to try to get to us one or Le Jun Road by way thank you for being here um I know members of the commission I have gone myself and when I went to walk the neighborhood I took the manager with me and we addressed and we saw certain areas that meet the criteria that you discussed so I know that uh our Public Works director and the manager were looking into those issues from the parks to obviously the garbage cans the issues with the Pavements and the markings and the signage that we we saw multiple issues there so so uh it's not falling on deaf ears that's something that we're going to address uh it's an item by item issue that we'll be addressing and you know if You' like we can walk it again with staff we can walk it again with myself or anyone of the Commissioners we more than willing to attend but that's our we've had conversations in regards to that it was about a few months ago when we walked with several of the residents that live in that neighborhood okay thank you I may add it was in our legislative priorities last year um it didn't get funded by the state but it's still high on our priorities to get that area taken care of because I have walked the area too and I know there are definitely needs there so thank you for coming all right thank you you have a good day that that was an item that was actually vetoed at the end and it was kind of approved but then it was vetoed I believe there is granting if Fernando can can um yeah but now I know because it's a storm water we're going through a different process I think it's a grant right so the department of environment so we're going to have to look into the Department of Environmental Protection is expanding some of their Grant programs and we're going to have to see if it's something that falls under those grants as I've been advised by some of our lobbyists if it falls under the purview of any of those Grant programs they're unlikely to give us Appropriations money for it so we'll work with the lobbyist to see if this this project the golden gates project that we had falls under that and if so we can apply through the Grant and if not it's something that we can seek Appropriations for getting this year yeah I know we have a large budget but the dollars we we just can't produce enough of them to cover every project yeah yeah this is an area that's surrounded by two schools and I know it's a very high concern especially because of the children coming in and out so um I know if we don't get a grant we'll push as much as possible coming this year okay Carver Elementary Carver Middle School my girls went to Carver Elementary I'm pretty sure I'm pretty familiar with the area yeah thank you sir appreciate it very much for being here good to see residents participate in the budget process it's not very common thank Mr clerk that's it Mr Mayor all right we'll close uh public comment PA mam City attorney so we have a motion in a second y okay so uh vice mayor Anderson yes commissioner Castro yes commissioner Fernandez yes commissioner Mendez yes mayor logo no all right moving on let's move on to the presentation so as we discussed over the last few months um this is the last day of our budget process um sure we're all um excited to be at this date and so today is September 24th it is our second budget hearing um we've now passed the millage rate um I'm going to give a brief presentation on our budget and the next item that we have is to adopt the budget for fiscal year 20242 and we also have a resolution to adopt The Five-Year Capital plan so at our last um at the first budget hearing I brought to you the changes from the July 1 budget as we discussed at the first budget hearing this slide represents that there have been no changes to the budget that was presented to you on September 12th to the budget that's presented to you today so our Revenue estimate is 284 m746 n46 and our expenditures are at 284 m746 n46 and there was no changes between the budget presented on the 12th to the budget that's presented today I'll recap the rest of the presentation is essentially what we saw at the last meeting so unless you have any questions I'll kind of go quickly just for the purpose of the public sorry and I'm just seeing I can okay um so the budget includes revenues of 284,000 746,000 M 12th revenues include um the uh increases in Revenue are bro from September in the September 12th budget from the July 1st budget are broken down here so you can see the increases were 8,852 1929 and our operating increases from July 1st to September 12th um sorry I got thrown off a little bit um so our operating budget is $226,400 our capital budget is 41,5 63,360 16,90 transfers to reserve so these are expenditures our transfers to reserve are $87,500 revenues and the general fund Building Division Reserve transfer is 2,490 330 and our parking Reserve uh from capital is $3.1 million so that makes up the total budget of $84,000 m746 n46 the next few slides um list the positions that were initially proposed in the July one budget anything that is crossed out and highlighted in green if you could see that are the positions that are new positions that were in the July 1 budget that are not included in this budget and so you see here in the city manager's office we added a commission liaison that remained and development services we initially added a code enforcement field supervisor and a code enforcement officer in this budget we um reduced it by the code enforcement officer and the field supervisor remained in finance we converted two part-time procurement Specialists to one part-time procurement I'm sorry to one full-time procurement specialist this results in a savings and that remained in public works we initially added a maintenance worker for the sign shop a part-time maintenance worker um that position is not um in this proposal in solid waste on July 1st we had uh initially included one solid waste operator to and two Solid Waste workers this budget in includes the operator 2 and one solid waste worker um we also included a public works inspector for RightWay and solid waste a part-time position that position is revenue neutral and that is included in this budget this was a what I was referencing on that motion and U I'd ask the clerk you know to be able to call as soon as you finish going over this page that we take the vote on this item to defer you know looking at any addition positions uh beyond what you're presenting here until we have a separate Amendment to the budget six 6 months from now so that we can drill down uh and further analyze the needs continue if anybody making a motion again talking about the timing of the motion so wanted me to continue the slides okay so in it we added an IT customer support and GIS analyst in the July 1 budget um and so we eliminated in this budget a part-time position to offset the cost of that new position um in fire we added five fire fighters for the new Firehouse 4 and so that this is the third and final year of a three-year plan to um to add Staffing for firefighters in police we added a body warn camera analyst and we added five police officers also the last of three of a three-year plan plan to add five police officers each each year in Technical Services we originally on July 1 had converted two part-time police cic monitors to full-time and in this budget we convert one uh part-time to full-time maintaining one part-timer in parking we also had converted two part-time enforcement Specialists to two full-time this budget includes one time one part-timer being converted to full-time Main maintaining one part- timer that uh results in an increase of 19 full-time positions bringing the total head count for fiscal year 25 in this proposed budget to 921 Paula that includes fire police correct that includes fire and police yes you want me to continue the next slides are the capital plan and no no asking for clerk to call a vote on that item since we've just finished the explanation I think it's it's clear to um analyze at this Mo moment can you go back to the other page I guess before we we do that I do have some suggestions that I wanted to make which do factor in some positions starting later in the year um so you'd like to entertain those what I'm suggesting is this for all the positions to factor in later in a year let's have a separate meeting meet with staff and we can better analyze once we put on board the new positions that we're including here now how that's playing out and how we're you know the coverage that we have and where we need to do some additional tweaking may I uh for clarification for City staff there's two ways that I see this going one is that the commission approves the headcount but we don't fill it or we do a six-month uh budget adjustment to add the positions and the money for uh these positions so so do we add the head count today and then have the subsequent meeting 6 months from now to do an adjustment to see if we're going to fill those positions or not add the head count even though we'd leave it open till we had that meeting I would prefer we not add the head count so that we can you know study the issue and look at the needs later on because I I prefer not to rush this process uh I there's a lot happening we are adding new positions I'd like to see how they perform and we can better analyze it down the road thank you for the clarification yeah there there's certain positions and and I'm I really want to work with you but there's just certain positions for solid waste last week we were down I know there's overtime payment we weren't able to do a recycling on Thursday and we had to wait for Saturday because we were under staffed so this budget adds positions we will have those added positions we will see how that the results that we have okay and there may be some other adjustments that need to be made down the line on you know the the performance we can't forget that I understand they're having problems with Recycling and stuff but there might be some other issues out there that we need to adjust uh to help with the performance okay so we have a motion we have a second a question what what's the what are the drawbacks to I think you said create the position but not fill them or the manager did is there a drawback to just doing it that way just Crea but not filling at the moment so it's really the will of the commission they um the if we if we were to go the alternate and to add the add the head count now and only fund it for starting in the second half of the year um that would be equivalent to amending the budget Midway down the year the only drawback could be that if for some reason timing um for when we brought an amendment to to the commission would be maybe the starting the higher ing process um could could be a drawback to that so in doing analysis of how things are performing and whether we need to start a hiring process I think first we need to do the analysis you don't start the hiring process until you do the analysis we already have new positions to fill we have quite a few new positions to fill why don't we see how the engine runs with those new positions and you know we can start talking in four months to see how the performance is we can start talking in five months we don't have to wait till the last minute but to add the head count first assumes you know that we're we're solid on certain issues that haven't been determined yet and I prefer to be more thoughtful and and thorough on the analysis of needs okay if if we go back to the page that you were showing us page number seven okay so in 2020 three we had 880 and the difference from well let's start 2022 855 headcount count to 880 in one year that's 35 new positions then if we go ahead and we go down 880 to 902 then our previous city manager added 22 positions what's being requested right now is what is it 18 No 19 total of 19 19 possessions um I don't think the current current Administration right now is overfilling positions I think this is pretty accurate given to the previous years and I'm willing to work with the vice mayor but there's certain positions that I'm I I I can't I can negotiate with at this point like a qut enforcement officer I think it's very necessary we spoke about also um the parking enforcement right yes and I think I spoke with Monica as well and I think this is a position that the whatever the the position is costing we're making more by having that position so it would be a little irrational and not a really smart move not to fund that position so I'll we respond it is speculative we are adding a parking uh position let's see how it performs and we can come back to this so the conclusion that it's Revenue neutral is a speculative position we don't know until the performance is done 6 months from now we can add the position if the numbers bear out with the additional parking enforcement officer that's been put in place so let's take it a step at a time and keeping in mind that what we have to do is what's in the best interest of the residents in the city if you look at headcount back when patno was in and stuff we were at 829 we're now going to be at 921 the population of the city has if anything gone down a little bit and you know needs assessments you know can be looked at in many different ways I prefer to be thoughtful and careful and look at the needs I do think we are we have enough information in front of us I don't expect to change your mind I don't think you're going to change my mind I think it's time for a vote can I ask for that page that you had up there moment yes the one the one with uh number seven seven looking at that and I see how total number 2019 2000 2021 pretty much stayed pretty steady but if I'm not mistaken the nation and the locally were impacted by covid it was the shutdown so there was little activity I don't think anything was happening including construction of homes and since then we've been coming out and obviously just have to drive around C Gables you see people fixing up their homes Town Homes going up you see a bustling downtown we are you know and we all disagree with the count that was made in terms of number of res residents today versus a few years ago but nobody can deny that the city is more active today than it was clearly in 2019 2020 in fact I would say the level of activity in our city in our downtown residential is something that we've never really seen in many many years we need to take into account that we're no longer a sleepy little town we are a vibrant town a vibrant City and a vibrant part of the country and I think we need to take that into consideration as we discuss this I think duve tailing off of of that we just had a discussion earlier today about the need to maybe do um Mid decade um census of the city because we believe our census numbers that have shown that we've gone down are inaccurate and that our population is actually increased the other thing that we need to factor in is and Madame director here what is the number of people who come into our city on a daily basis to work probably triple the population 150,000 55,000 so we more than double our population during daytime hours and that number has increased as you said following covid we have the plaza that's coming online with all of its office spaces and numerous other development projects that have been completed in the city and that's continuing to tax our current um employees and the ability to provide services some of these positions um code enforcement uh we've got to the point where we've had to designate Code Enforcement Officers just to the central business district because of the issues that we're having in the CBD and for the most part we're not talking about Resident issues we're talking about issues that are being created from folks that are moving are coming to the city during the daytime um same with our police we've had the the bike Patrol in in in downtown which was added because there was a need in in the Downtown parking enforcement is specifically addressing this need what we're we're dealing with traffic enforcement a parking enforcement and I'm sure all of you met with director Beltran about this the schools in the morning are requiring four of our parking enforcement officers out there patrolling and making sure the people are not parking in areas they're not uh parking in that is relieving the stress that would be applied on the police department if we didn't have those enforc officers what's happening when you have those Enforcement Officers out by the schools you're reducing the revenue the city's generating from enforcement in the pay to park zones in downtown and in other parts of the city we've also had numerous requests from residents because there's people parking in no parking zones we have no parking zones almost in at least every three or four blocks throughout the city those enforcement officers are actively out there in the community driving sometimes 20 minutes to get to a place where a car is illegally parked and we're leaving the the central business district which is where we're generating the revenue I had the conversation with the director and I know that the the budget director didn't really want to give us a number of what each of these parking enforcement positions really represents but the fact is it would more than pay for itself in the revenue that it generates as far as code enforcement you can make the argument that those code enforcement positions when they're applying fines are also generating revenue for the city um but and they are positions that are needed now I met with the code enforcement um manager and with director uh Ramirez and I asked him I was like you know do you need the additional resources and both of them said yes it's something that is needed in the department and I I told uh Mr leor I was like we cannot sit on the de and say we have issues with code enforcement in this city if we're not providing the necessary number of personnel to address the code enforcement issues we have in the city I mean arguably as I said last time our best code enforcement officer is sitting here on the days and it shouldn't be his responsibility to be out there sending code enforcement issues to staff because we don't have enough Personnel to man all the zones we have two CT enforcement officers uh piggybacking off of each other on weekends to patrol the entire City of Coral Gables I know all of us have campaigned and have knocked on doors from the Flagler section all the way down to Kings Bay code enforcement in an entire city having one Officer Manning the entire city in a day makes it very difficult you're going to have things through the cracks I mean as I as I mentioned uh I think I mentioned it during the meeting we had construction taking place across from the builtmore hotel on a Sunday and the Code Enforcement Officers had not even been able to patrol that area and that's arguably Anastasia is is a main thoroughfare in the city so I I think the need is there for some of these positions not 6 months from now it was a need 6 months ago so I understand and do think that there are positions that we can hold back you know Solid Waste uh there is a need in solid waste however do we need to fill those positions today the proposal that I'm that I'm planning and presenting will fill two positions in April right before the summer which is when we have the most taxing uh season and it could be funded out of the money that we already have set aside for temporary workers which as I heard from staff sometimes they're not reliable they have other jobs that come up they have other responsibilities that come up and it's like you know do I go on a Friday to to to work in Coral Gables or do I take a construction job that's going to pay me twice as much this one day because I'm a temporary worker having those workers inhouse ensures that we have our fully manned teams and the numbers that were were discussed with me I mean you're talking about having a need to assess these positions I think staff has done a very thorough job at least they did with me during my my uh meeting where they explained what the needs are based on man-hours produced um leave time for each position uh the actual demand the actual on Street hours that are being put in and you can make the the the case that you need the two um Solid Waste operator two positions and you need three Solid Waste operators and that's based on the current numbers that we have today that's not changing anything that's just the the the current need that we have in the city today and even still I'm willing to put two of those positions towards an April funding creating the positions and funding those two positions uh in April so that there's enough time obviously we fund those positions today they're not going to be hired by October 1st it's going to take some time we do hire temp some of our temporary workers as our full-time workers but just saying we're going to freeze everything that we have decided to have a discussion about just Let's Kick the Can down the road to March and figure it out I don't think some of these positions and some of these departments can really wait and at the end of the day we do answer to Residents and when garbage is not picked up or recycling is not picked up residents don't care what the body count in the city is they care that their service was provided and I think that has to be our priority ensuring that our departments everybody in this room has the resources and the Manpower necessary to ensure that at the end of the day their Department gets a check mark saying you guys did a great job because you did the you provided the services to our residents so it's clear you misunderstood my motion well that's what I said I did I when you first made it I said I I don't understand what you're trying to do okay so a lot of assumptions have been made and I'm sorry you misunderstood there are positions that were put on hold here that staff during our individual meetings suggested if someone was going to make a motion that we add the positions and hire them 6 months from now I'm saying let's meet let's analyze it and as additional positions we'll meet with the manager and we'll meet with staff we can have realtime performance figure years on them you will have additional people in solid waste you will have additional code enforcement people out there and we can see how they're performing you will have the people on the ground doing the RightWay inspection you know you'll have the IT specialist you have the CIT Monitor and we'll have additional parking enforcement and we can see what the revenues are and rather than speculate now we'll have actual hard figures in hand so instead of voting on on those additional positions to be hired in 6 months today we can vote on them a few months from now let's look at some realtime production let's see how you know after we get them hired what the performance is and where there might be gaps we might need to shift it around a little bit but we'll have a more intelligent way to analyze something if we wait there's no rush what's the rush you're going to wait months anyway is is that even a possibility when it comes to your budget right so um I think for my clarity I'll make sure that I clarify the vice mayor's motion so the proposed budget includes n the U addition of 19 full-time positions in our discussions after the first hearing we went back and we discussed some specific uh positions and so we discussed the code enforcement officer which had been removed from the July 1 estimate we had discussed an additional Solid Waste Operator 2 we had discussed um putting back in the solid wa an additional Solid Waste worker hold on okay so let's all right so before we get to the positions right before I start writing you know so I understand this the proposal is to leave everything as is with the consideration of doing a midyear review in four months yes we can do a midyear review let's see what the performance is because we got to hire the positions we got to put them on the ground and then we got to look at the performance figures from there to in order to assess needs the needs might be different once we get people on the ground so okay so I guess in essence your motion is to approve the budget as is with these position being reconsidered in four months right to come back with a budget amendment in four months or four months or 6 months whatever it takes so now let's go to making the list of what those positions are so that I understand what the positions are so the positions that we discussed and so you'll tell me which ones or all of them right so the positions that we specifically discussed because there was concern um of us not including them in the budget was uh the code of enforcement officer which had originally been included in the July 1 estimate a solid waste Operator 2 so this would be a second Solid Waste operator too CU one is included in this estimate uh one solid waste worker which we had included in the July 1 estimate and had reduced and then converting a second part-time parking enforcement position to fulltime if those are the specific positions we had discussed correct so that's three positions four four code enforcement Operator 2 Solid Waste worker and converting a part-time to full-time in but you also you also had administrative in the for example the cic monitoring there's other positions beyond the so we had so we had did not we had not talked about those in our briefings but we had also reduce the parking cic monitor um so the second parking cic monitor no that's not parking cic I'm seeing uh Park it's still a p though it's in the P category and then uh we had also reduced the part-time maintenance worker in the sign shop I have a question regarding the sign shop and uh I mentioned before they had uh once um a situation where stop sign at night was disappeared actually and then recently a a stop sign was knocked over same stop sign just so happens I guess I'm the stop sign whisper and uh I called it in I just want to make sure that when we have situations like that that need a rapid response in terms of get signage up that we with the number of people we have currently we have the capability to respond to those types of situations because it's a safety issue uh imagine an intersection with no stop sign I don't know if someone can address if if I may yeah uh if if a stop sign is down that's a life safety issue the police department has temporary stop signs they will respond and set it up and then we will report it to the county most of the stop signs belong to the county just like the striping and and all the other signs other than 15 M an hour speed limit and the No Parking uh signs or uh but we'll report it right away do we have the temporary that are made of metal do we have those already created yes sir okay that's that's the key for me if they have to be created as a result of someone reporting it I just want to make sure I I think I don't know the numbers but I see them on the second floor of the garage yes sir we do we have uh we have two sets of different signs we have uh actually cones with a sign for residential areas where you're not having it now we have the larger metal signs that are taken out uh about 4 and 1/2 ft tall and they're ready to go in a trailer that we just acquired okay thank you Chief so I just I think your concern is regarding the the creation of that position what I was told by staff is with the current um I think there's another position that's being added we are creating a second team already so this position would have been auxiliary to that team but we're already creating a team so this position you know again could be reconsidered later on right so in the current budget the department was able to identify another part-time position within their Department that they reallocated to the sign shop that allowed them to create a second team they currently only have one there I I don't know if they've hired that second that new position yet um and so this would have allowed them to go to a third team um and so kind of to the vice mayor's Point while we evaluate um how the second team is working out we can determine whether we need to go to a third team in the future and that was our thought process uh in changing our recommendation perfect thank you I don't know how the rest of the commission feels but um I'm I'm I I I cannot accept I cannot accept delaying these positions for an analysis these are positions that we don't need to analyze if we need them we need them we needed them six months ago so once again and and and we shouldn't even be talking about the parking and the parking enforcement specialist after spot speaking to Monica this is going to like triple the revenue is coming to us so this would be a really bad move for us not to even hire this person so um yes there's not an exact number of the incoming Revenue but without there being an exact number there's a guarantee that this position creates more Revenue so that that would be a very so we can see what happens in six months because we're adding one okay so um I think does anybody else have any other questions or we ready to proceed with a vote again I have a proposal that I'd like to make but if you want to proceed with a vote on this and then consider it I'm okay with doing that I think let's get the meeting moving Mr clerk yes sir you have Castro yeah I want to want to reach a healthy medium but this is not the healthy medium for me no commissioner Fernandez there are a couple of positions that I think can wait there are a couple that I cannot so I'm going to say no but I think my proposal might address some of your concerns commissioner Mendez I'd like to hear what everyone has to say in terms of options that we have so I'll vote no now and hope that we can revisit it as the meeting progresses vice mayor Anderson yes mayor logo yes all right moving on okay so I guess well like let's let you finish your presentation you haven't even finished the presentation I was going to present mine but we can certainly finish my presentation and at some point the City attorney will have to be read the budget ordinance and anything that is changed in the budget will need to be an amendment to the that's what I'm that's what I'm trying to do trying to get there so I will continue am I still sharing my screen or did you kick me out you're showing okay um so the next couple of slides we've seen throughout the budget process this is the five-year priority Project funding plan for the um capital and so as you know in fiscal year 2023 when we received a significant increase in our property values um the um the city made the choice to put that fun funding towards funding capital projects at the time uh the projects that were identified were Firehouse 4 Phillips Park Pon Circle Park City Hall the gondola building the Venetian pool and the Alahambra Water Tower and so you see at the time in fiscal 23 anything that's highlighted in green was fully funded in fiscal year 23 the commitment was to put at least $5 million into this plan each year and so in fiscal 24 we once again funded that plan and so you'll see the um General recurring funding that was put towards that plan in fiscal year 24 was just over $6.5 million uh some of that money came in through Appropriations and so you see that we all we funded um Philips Park City Hall venician pool and the alah Hamra water tower um as well as uh some grant money that we received for fire house 4 fiscal year 25 our commitment was to fully fund Philips Park so we are funding 4.7 just under $4.8 million towards Philip Phillips Park and So based on our current estimates this will fully fund that project and we're putting $1.3 million to City Hall and so um on July 1 that estimate was just over 1 million so $1,400,000 um since then we added an additional 260 Mill to get to the $1.3 million the majority of that is going towards the windows and the difference is going towards the structural assessment needs and this plan would continue the idea is to continue this plan uh through 26 and 27 and all of the funding for this plan would go to City Hall in the future years um unless something changes and so that's the plan the plan was also to incrementally increase it to potentially 6.5 million um if revenues are available at that time and so uh this is our list of capital projects that we funded by category and so Capital Equipment we funded just under $3.2 million facility projects we funded just over $3.5 million historic facilities we funded just over $2.6 million anything highlighted in green changed from the July um budget estimate and so you see City Hall changed as we as I just mentioned motorpool funding 3.6 million in replacement of equipment and vehicles parking repairs $2.8 million Parks and Recreation and improvements um just over 9.6 million and you see here we discussed at the last hearing that an increase was made to purchase of land and the um mayor Dorothy Thompson park or also known as Toledo and alava um which required additional funding for to complete that project Public Safety improvements we're funding just under $3.5 million transportation and RightWay improvements just over $6 million utility repairs and improvements were funding just over $10 million and you see that there was some changes um in the allocation of funds between these uh particular projects that are highlighted and so the total new funding for our CIP including the vehicle Replacements is uh 45,1 n1,1 15 we already discussed that the millage rate is being maintained at 5.55 n this is a breakout this chart breaks out how our city residents tax dollars as alloc at and so City of Coral Gables receives 30 cents per tax dollar that the that the residents pay Dade County receives 32 cents per tax dollar of our resident tax bill the school board receives 36 cents per tax dollar and our regional is just about 2 cents and so that's all the presentation that I have today and so as we mentioned um we have the budget ordinance to adopt any amend M ments will be will need to be uh amended on the floor and then we'll also have a resolution for uh to accept our Capital uh projects plan thank you Paula I appreciate it Madam City attorney yes mayor so we have an ordinance adopting the annual budget of estimated revenues and expenditures for the fiscal year beginning October 1st 2024 and ending September 30th 2025 providing for the separability of the provisions hereof and providing that this ordinance shall become effective October 1st 2024 whereas the city manager prepared and on July 1st 2024 submitted to the commission a budget estimate of the revenues and expenditures of All City departments divisions offices and properties for the fiscal year commencing October 1st 2024 and copies of such estimate have been made available for public viewing at the cor GBL library and the office of the city clerk and whereas the budget estimate submitted to the commission on July 1st 2024 in the amount of $283,400 289 has been revised by the city manager to include revenue and expenditure increases in the amount of $1,266 657 bringing the total budget amount to 284 mil7 46,9 46 that the following summary of estimated revenues and expenditures for the fiscal year commencing October 1st 2024 and ending September 30th 2025 is hereby agreed upon and adopted along with the supporting data relating there to on file with the finance department of the City of Coral Gables as the official 2024 to 2025 budget of the City of Coral Gables total operating revenues 26 $65 m89 4,17 total transfers from reserves 8,852 1929 total revenues $284,700 Debt Service total operating expense $226,400 capital projects 4,563 $ 46 total debt service appropriation $1,690 total expenditures $284 m746 n46 thank you madam City attorney what is the will of the commission all right all right so these are I sat down with staff numerous times oh um I thought I had made another one oh there's an extra one here that think that's City attorneys okay sorry all right so I took and by the way you did you laid a lot of the groundwork for for this and I appreciate the work that you put in um trying to find places where we can make the budget leaner um one of the commitments that I made during the first budget hearing was not touching the money that we were moving towards City Hall uh because I think we all agreed City Hall Renovations was a priority so um I sat down with staff and I found a few ways that we can make some changes um so this is this is what I'm proposing we would remove the $65,000 from the 4th of July drone show which is one of the things you had proposed in your in your proposal um we'd be taking $100,000 from the city attorney's Office Professional Services uh budget which is outside Council um I spoke with the city attorney and she and I agreed that uh that was something that her office could definitely work with uh there was an error in the uh automobile allowance in her office as well of $6,000 we would um remove the part-time assistant commission liaison position the part-time part enforcement specialist uh position um the administrative assistant to the mayor and we would move $40,000 from the temporary Solid Waste worker uh fund which we use for solid waste to fill uh temporary positions that was a suggestion that came from staff for a total reduction of 335,000 position uh that staff believes is necessary we would add the two Solid Waste worker positions but we would not fund it until April 1st so it would give enough time for a proper hiring process and it would have them trained and operating by the summer uh which is when we have the largest need um we would create the uh parking enforcement specialist which is another position I am willing to fund beginning in uh April halfway through the year we would um create the uh code enforcement officer position that was necessary we would have two commission uh liaison so that every member of the commission would have uh one uh staff member assigned to them and any additional funding that is left from the 335 or the estimated 335,000 would also go towards City Hall Renovations um these numbers uh are estimated numbers as I went over with the director and she was not very happy that I was putting numbers on here because you know there's different implications to to the numbers but I kind of wanted to give you an idea that doing it this way it would work um and we would be able to create and fill the positions the other thing is the parking enforcement specialist That's a position that comes out of the parking budget does not come from the general fund um so it would not have an impact so arguably there would be more money uh going towards uh City Hall Renovations than the $31,000 estimate that is in here um again so we would be adding the two Solid Waste positions which staff believes are necessary already and they definitely will be necessary going into summer which is where we have the largest number of heat related injuries um and people having to stay home because of their they're being over taxed um because of the Heat and those would not be funded until uh April 1st so in six months so open for comments so I know you previously brought a matter to decrease the Staffing and the mayor's off office which I had opposed and increased Staffing for the Commissioners um again I think it's it's helpful to look at numbers and volume in order to analyze need for positions based upon you know and a clerk shared with me earlier today the number of emails that each one of us receive and send by far are the mayor Clips all of us and I don't think we should because it's not in the best interest of our city or the appearance of our city or for the residents to handicap the mayor's office no matter who's sitting in there to be able to perform so let's look at the numbers in the past three months the number of emails that were sent from the mayor's office over a 3-month period were 13, 851 okay the number of emails I sent which um you know weren't as much as the mayor's office were 4,697 or that were sent to me each one of the other Commissioners received less commissioner Castro 1,792 commissioner Fernandez 2,128 and commissioner Mendez 1 1559 compared to 13, 851 that were those um excuse me I got this inverted 13,000 compared to uh a much smaller number these were sorry um Mr clerk you had it inverted the the from mayor's office was 13,000 but on each one of us the the from was inverted to twos the ma the mayor's office received in a 3-month period of 49,1 187 emails that 16,39 a month that were sent to the mayor's office I received 4,697 commissioner you received 2,200 uh 2,128 with that volume no human being can be responsive to the residents and responsive to the City without having adequate Staffing if anybody needs a staffing if any office needs a staffing it's the mayor's office now I've been used to functioning as a lawyer with one assistant my my entire career okay and I don't think that I've pulled time away from the commission AIDs that has made it not possible for the rest of us to function because we have to work as a team and I hope that we can continue to try to strive to work as as a team but what I'm seeing here is not working as a team it's handicapping the mayor's office I don't think that's going to be what's in the best interest of our city going forward no one would want to run for that office with that degree of handicap after all everybody wants to email the mayor if there's an issue in the city they want to hear from the mayor's office because that is the mayor's office and we shouldn't deprive folks of that if we're going to I don't see the need for our offices to have additional commission AIDS I would much more justify the need for additional sanitation workers based upon the data that I've received but I don't see sufficient data here to Warrant adding two more commission Aids on top of the two that we already have so quantifying the work produced by an office just in emails I mean you can receive 49,000 emails and if you're subscribed to 100 different newsletters and they're sending one out a week we going to be getting a lot of emails I've gone through the emails a lot of them are not emails that need to be acted on there are also emails that are forwarded to other people or themselves personal email addresses so I I don't think that that number necessarily means work being produced I also looked at the phone call s it's a lot of internal phone calls it wasn't you know calls to Residents as as it was being portrayed to us um in fact most of the call logs link to City staff I am open to keeping that position but I do think that every member of this commission needs somebody working with them because of the amount of work and you said it the mayor's office produces a lot of work your office produces a lot of work we all do and we are strapped in our ability because there are not enough hours in the day to get things done to follow up with residence to follow up with staff to make sure that things are being done on time and I have gone to staff and I've been told we're working on a on a time sensitive project for the vice mayor so yes there are times where we're all consuming their time so much that they're not able to get projects done for the rest of us in a timely man I do see the need I do see the need because the commission is always we hear out there oh this is a part-time job I know each one of us is putting in over 40 hours a week because I see you here I see you here I see all of us here all the time whether it's here at City Hall whether it's events in the community we're putting in the time we all are and you're right I have no problem keeping the position I was trying to find a way to ensure that we all had the assistance that we had without affecting the budget so I'm willing to work with you if you if you want to keep that position we can find some other way to do it but to say that we don't need the the help I I don't know I I I just don't see it personally I've had onetime sensitive project it's happened three times well no one no one said anything to me about it and guess guess what I I I I am not at Liberty to ask for what what that project is iot because of the sunshine and I think that also creates an issue because you have people who are now working for more than one member of the commission this you know and we can work as a team we have a broad robust number of employees in this city that help each other and can pitch in when it comes around around the budgetary items we have a budget office when we have Finance questions we can go to finance if we have legal questions we go to the legal office um but I don't I frankly don't see the need for an individual commission aid for each and every one of us I'd rather put that money into other departments that need the money that need the positions more I like um I you know by the way I do all my own writing I don't need anybody else to do the writing for me other than the the legal the the legal department does that writing but if it's a letter it's a memo and stuff I get a little bit of you know they do the formatted stuff if it's a payment for for something that on postage or something going out fine the the the bricks and mortar of of the letters I write okay where where are you going to put all these people that's another office space available we do we do because we're not adding the number of positions we have a the the the office that's down at the end of the hall which is a larger office and it's has two desks in it you're talking about the mayor's office the mayor's assistant office correct okay so you're going to have the commission AIDS in the mayor's office or we move everybody to the the central office where the VES is and we can we can move maybe commissioner Caster to the other office which other office the one across from the mayor and all staff can be in one place I mean there's there's Solutions so I want to chime in on the assistance and uh from my own experience there have been things that I have that I need done or I want done and I lean heavily on Amazing team that we have of support they are fantastic and I hold back because I know they're serving not only the work that I'm doing as a commissioner but they're working for my colleagues and out of courtesy I'll say no no no we'll do a and C but we'll wait until a week after the commission meeting because I know everything builds up towards the commission meeting whatever memos need to be done whatever needs to be done so you we're looking at it backwards some of us are saying well we don't need it well I technically I think we do because our staff needs it they're juggling many plates at the same time we're in here talking about oh I do this and I do that but they're balancing all our responsibilities and all our needs and it's on them and I think if they have the ability to work more efficiently and they're doing an amazing job already we can work more efficiently it serves the community much better because instead of waiting we can move on real time on a lot of issues a lot of things that we want to do to support and enhance the service that we do to the community so from the perspective of adding relieving the burden on staff I'm all for it and I think talked about sanitation code enforcement they're employees they serve the community and they serve the city as well so I I'm for looking for solutions to relieve the burden we're talking about the mayor and the number of emails uh I'm open too to find a solution there we shouldn't be up here adding burden to staff we should be looking for ways to relieve some of the burden so that we can all do a better job yeah as as far as for me I throw so many things towards my commission AES that sometimes I ask is it too much can you handle it last night I believe Gabby Gabby was here um to late working on something for me and she was working on other things for the for my other colleagues and this morning I was like till like the last moment when I was talking about live like is a flyer ready they were working on the presentation for for for the vice mayor and they were working on on a thousand other things that I'm throwing at them the more things that I could throw at them the better I can serve the community and the more that each of us can do if I'm I'm not used to working as a oneman team usually in my private business have an assistant that goes with me to meetings that takes notes that does follow-ups I'm the brain I generate the money right I feel the same way here in the city I can function I know the petty little things are are commission AIDS can take care of but the real big thinking to improve the quality of life for the community that's what we got elected to do not to do little happy birthday cards and send this and send that the commission can do that and and and pictures and Instagram that's so time consuming I would really benefit and and thank you for bringing this up from for a commission a of my own um it's it's hard as it is and I am throwing a lot of things at them all right so I'm going to make a change can I just if I may can I just add one point if the will of the commission is to fund these positions so that each commissioner has a a leaz on that's that's fine but I do want to say that we would have to look at how we structure those positions and um the reporting structures and um to avoid any potential issues with you know the charter Sunshine Law Etc so we would have to figure out you know the selection process and so forth all of that would have to be worked out I just wanted to make sure that's clear all right so based on the numbers that I had we had $31,000 left over and I had talked about potentially making that parking enforcement specialist funding it in April which is $225,000 that gives us the funding to keep the administrative assistant to the mayor so I will make a motion to approve the budget with these changes so I just wanted for the purpose of the public to understand and and those sitting here we just added an additional commission aid about 30 days ago U roughly speaking you know and I I in order to do a proper analysis I think you need to allow that person to get up to speed and be able to produce um um and then I analyze it at that time okay so we have a motion and for the parking enforcement specialist I see what you're trying to do I just I'm thinking numbers and because remember we are adding a parking enforcement specialist already so this would just add the second one midy year gives time for for for proper hiring okay and it would be the two Solid Waste workers also mid year and staff was okay with that I don't know if if parking that's what I was just director Beltran says she's she's fine with that change as well I was going to actually through through the manager if maybe she can come up and see if we're talking about revenue and we're talking about money do you think it's in the best interest of the city to hold off that position or do you think we'll be making money or or you see where I'm coming from or no I I do um good afternoon Monica Beltran parking director so I do and I know that the more we enforce and I don't know if any of you have gotten comments from from residents and other and visitors but I certainly have about oh my God they're everywhere right because we're working very efficiently now one thing that we also need to remember is a lot of construction a lot of construction workers trying to park on streets impacting we're doing that too okay that doesn't generate as much money because when we enforce the meters then it motivates people to pay and so the effect is not on the citation but on the revenue as well that being said we're a team and if I get one remember we're we're we're converting part-time to full-time right and so if I get one now and we get the other one in April and that works we'll make it work work we'll make anything work it's just how efficient we are and how proactive we can be as opposed to being reactive I have no that you're going to make it work I don't think this is like I don't think this is a a a life changing change I'm just thinking MoneyWise and revenue will we make more money would more Revenue come in if we hire that one it's not going to be in October because we're going to have to go through an application process interview realistically we'll probably we end up hiring them 2 Months 8 10 weeks if we're lucky we we scheduled interviews and when you schedule five six people you get one or two to show up okay so we're competing you know we have Enforcement Officers throughout all myate County and Broward and and we're competing so you're correct we haven't been fully staffed in I don't know how long we're not fully staffed now and it's just an effort to hire right um we're covering some positions I must say w with overtime from the savings it's not the ideal way to do it but we make it work all right I I met with I I spoke with um U Paula a second my numbers actually aren't 100% accurate because parking enforcement does not come out of the general fund okay so we technically should have enough between the concy that there was here and the additional funds to keep the administrative assistance to the mayor and create the parking enforcement position so I will amend my motion and I guess let me read it into the record so that it's easier we would remove the $65,000 for the July 4th drone show we would remove $100,000 from the city attorney's Office Professional Services we would make the correction the city attorney's office uh automobile allowance which is approximately $6,000 um we would remove the part-time assistant commission liaison position we would remove the part-time parking enforcement specialist and switch it to a park a full-time parking enforcement specialist we would remove $40,000 from the temporary Solid Waste worker fund we would create this the Solid Waste operator position uh the add the two Solid Waste worker POS additional two Solid Waste worker positions funding them April 1st create the parking enforcement specialist position that we just discussed the code enforcement officer position that was also requested the two commissioned Liaisons and any additional uh funding that may be available from these changes would go towards City Hall Renovations so that's my motion a second Mr clerk commissioner Fernandez yes commissioner Mendez yes vice mayor Anderson for the reasons I explained no commissioner Castro and realistically with this proposal we're also going to be saving a little more because we're not going to actually hire on October 1st so there's going to be some saving in Revenue in in in positions right so as the day in hiring right so we will not the likelihood of hiring everybody on October 1st is very unlikely the the numbers that the commissioner mentioned are estimates so when I go back and adjust the budget they will slightly move but yes it will not be the full cost um for these positions because they will not start on October 1 and most of that money that we will be saving will go back to the general fund so they will so it will result in salary Savings in the department and it'll drop to the uh fund balance at the end of the year or be absorbed by overtime if it's used and it's placed okay yes mayor loo uh before I give my my vote I'd like to just give a brief speech for the record I cannot to support the 2024 2025 budget for several critical reasons that impact both the financial stability of our city and the trust placed in us as elected officials firstly I would like to note that this is a national election year and because of uncertainty of the state of our economy we should be conservative in our spending I will always continue to advocate for conservative spending not more aggressive now is not the time to expand our financial obligations especially in light of the uncertainty surrounding the broader economy lowering interest rates is done to avoid recession it's simple economics everyone here understands that currently outstanding principle on all debt in the city is 106 m793 th000 and out an outstanding in interest on our debt is 37 Milli 8,462 recently there was a discussion and letter of intent to study the acquisition of $40 million potentially of debt via legislation that was voted 3 to2 which I and the vice mayor voted against in early 2022 there was a discussion spearheaded by commissioner Mendez about going out to debt I voted against it to fund a Parks master plan in an estimated amount of 160 million of which 43 million was proposed for the you Center and 5 million was proposed for philis Park thank God this never passed we discussed this extensively because I do not believe that we should acquire bonds for beautification efforts only for essential services like Public Safety and infrastructure beautification while beneficial is not essential and using Deb for such purposes is reckless and could lead to the long-term Financial strain moreover I cannot support a budget that includes over 100% pay increases for my colleagues for a second year approved without sufficient transparency the process by which these raises were enacted lack the public input necessary for such significant decisions raises of this magnitude should not have been brought to the vote should have been brought to the voters as they affect not only our budget but also the Public's perception of Integrity as the representatives case in point the leader of the Union who's here and continues to says there's money that's we should be able to spend it if we're raising our salaries by 102% the least we can do is raise our employees salaries I also want to address the misinformation regarding job Cuts there have been unfounded claims that we are eliminating positions let me repeat that unfounded claims that we're eliminating positions which is simply not true we are proposing to reduce the number of new positions being added not existing ones it is important to correct the record ensure that this budget is understood accurately since blogs like poito and Gable's Insider have published inaccurate information to misguide readers I've received the phone calls asking me why are we cutting positions we're not not we're considering cutting proposed positions which as you can see was done in plain sight here and I asked Paula before our meeting to be very thoughtful and diligent and careful when mentioning that statement because it's important for the readers and finally you know being mayor is a privilege but it's a difficult task I've had when I took the office I had one permanent individual in my office and an assistant when I took my office that's the way it was confirmed by our staff who's here today I didn't add these positions these positions were here before do I believe that my colleagues on the commission deserve their own individuals I have no issues with that they deem it appropriate and they have the workload and it's in their conscience to ask for that I don't have a problem with it whatsoever but I have to correct the record on Ariel Fernandez's comments the commissioner is incorrect he talks about you know magazines and you know um some sort of you know weekly emails or monthly emails from different subscriptions in the hundreds I have stayed quiet in today's commission meeting and I stayed quiet here today I don't need to be derogatory the facts speak for themselves Mr clerk please put the item up on the on the screen second Mr Mayor not a problem take your time if C TV could share my screen if you see here today is a breakdown of every elected official we use emails because emails is a good way to track things if you want to look at legislation just pull up all the record and you'll see that I've written more legislation than anyone in this commission here is a very simple example of emails that are given that are sent and that are given my office has provided has either written or received 63,000 emails that's my office I'm not sending emails to myself these are emails that are being come coming in and a lot of emails that are going out yes there are spam emails that we don't respond to that's why you see 13851 emails but if you look at commissioner Fernandez and I like to use him as an example because he was so vocal in opposition he's written in 3 months 224 emails that's an average of two emails a day in comparison to 13851 emails that I've written with my staff I cannot answer all of the residents I cannot answer all the businesses we have to address ribbon cuttings we have to address other issues around miid day County and it is a truly a privilege to serve this community my comment is very simple what we're what what commissioner Fernandez commissioner Mendez and and commissioner Castro are doing is very simple they're hurting the office of Mayor in order to hurt me and that's reckless and shameful for all of these reasons fiscal responsibility transparency and a commitment to maintaining the essential functions of government without a necessary expansion or spending I cannot support this year's budget so my vote is no thank you very much so I think you did not understand what we just voted on because we kept the position in your office now if you'd like I do a motion to reconsider and remove it because if you're going to accuse your colleagues of doing something might as well have done it but in order to put the city first and at the vice mayor's request and your office's request we kept the position but it's all attack with you it's all attack with you by the way you do send emails to yourself and Mr clerk can you please put all the emails the mayor has sent sent to BDI co uh as and attach them to the uh to the item good thank you feel like I can respond that that whenever you're no uh I think we have Capital are you waiting you said you did not you said you did not send emails to yourself there's records what I said was and I will respond to you I said I don't I don't send emails to myself to inflate my email account it was ingest um sometimes what happens and it's very clear and everybody here who has obviously is understandable and educated what everybody here does is when I'm at my office at BDI and I can't read an email because it's on the screen I send it to myself from my phone so I can print that out in my office and review it especially long documents and things that I think are pertinent but at the end of the day think about this imagine walking to an office where you had two positions and he makes it seem as if he's doing me a favor by dangling the fact that I'm not going to take your position away you're only hurting the position in an effort to hurt me I've kept my mouth shut youve attacked me you you you constantly Scream the the card of attack attack attack but the only person that's attacking here and has started the attacks just in the last commission meeting and in this commission is you so let's get to business let's finish up and for I welcome I welcome and I welcome and I wcome let me just finish one last and I welcome you having as much need as much needed help as you need if you need to hire people to assist you in whatever is that you're the legislation that you're writing you know and stuff like that I welcome it I welcome it I would never want the residents to suffer because you can't do your job and that's what you're trying to do with me I have a question I have a question and I'm very curious because I'm pretty sure that if I was sending City emails to my personal business it would be a huge deal what is the legality behind sending a city email to your company that is also doing work within the city sending an email to an email another email I don't think there's any you know generally that question I don't think there's an issue with that and by the way let me correct the statement that's made again incorrectly which will be used by the blogs I don't have any active permits in the city since the last one which I did which was gracianos a restaurant I did over two years ago in the city I've avoided extensively to do any business with the city unlike yourself which has you're actually in many many permits in the city let me let me wait wait wait hold on hold on let let me this is thing thing thing big news let me let me inform you okay as of several months ago I have no business in the city okay anything that has to do with Coral Gables is not linked to me does not belong to me no name of it okay so stop trying to attack me same thing you just did when it comes you just you were the first one you said that I have business the city I don't when it comes to my business because you're attacking the livelihood of a single mother and you continue to do it over and over again through alias' name through Alias names and directly through yourself I don't I don't listen I I don't and I wish you the best of luck and it was heartfelt and I feel terrible about your daughter I only wish you the best and if I can help you at all with my contacts in in the medical world my father myself even financially I'm here to support you but please um at the end of the day the only person that brought up personal business was you before you brought it up you brought up my business and I said I haven't worked for two years in the city so I I I think we have a lot to talk about we have another item Madam Madam City attorney I'd like to move on with the item so I'd like to also ask you all to keep in mind in doing what we need to do that's in the best interest of the city we have to keep in mind that the number one thing that was reported to the Community conation Foundation was that the division divide on this commission is top of mine that was the first response so we have a motion we took a vote let's move forward but it's I think there's a bigger problem it's a bigger underlying problem when the mayor has spent $900,000 attacking his colleagues with false information through his pack you know it's easy to say oh everybody else is attacking me the minute we walk out of here today his pack will be sending out an email if you get an email from Coral Gables uh first today it's coming from him attack his colleagues and it's easy for you to say because he actually painted in these emails like you did not approve the mill rate in fact that's the ad that's continuing to run on social media with false information which by the way is against the civility code and we haven't brought it up there has been plenty of opportunities to rensure this individual and we haven't done it for the benefit of this city at least I haven't so you know the interesting about it I'm happy you bring that up and I'd love to see if my colleagues are willing to support me I'd like to censor my colleague to the left for talking openly about my medical history and baiting me talking about whether I should take my pills not once but twice on A Private Matter here in an effort to try to bait me here on the commission floor so I make a motion to centure Ariel Fernandez for him openly violating my personal my personal medical records not once but twice here on the commission floor let's see let's see if anybody's willing to second that you know I don't so it's okay for you to do that but at the minimum you could do is apologize to me and to my family for when we go to events and you're you're saying that I am fat and that I don't exercise this is something you do on a regular basis which is related to my diabetes which you know very well about but you know what it's easy to throw stones from that side those are your insecurities no it's I don't have any insecurities but you do okay if I may I'll make a motion to approve the the uh Capital uh perfect project before we move forward before we move forward according to his to the mayor's little speech 102% and I'm really really sick and tired of going through social media and it's every single day over and over and if you follow him you would see 102% salary raise do you know what that number of 102% is what is it I do we're moving on no we're not moving on cuz I'm you're not going to cross-examine me on the floor wor and I'm going to keep posting it as much as I need to post it because everybody should realize that you that you raise your salary and then you have to sit here in front of the in front of the employees and state you know that you're for the employees but you raise your salary 102% what you should have done is you should you I would appreciate you didn't interrupt me cuz I don't interrupt you what you should do what you should do I was answering you what you should do what you should do is you should have taken this to a vote to the residents because that's never happened here in the city and it's not a good look for the city I mean to the point that not it's just not in the best interest and I apologize that it bothers you a a lot of things a lot of things that the three of you do in an effort to to to raise suspicions to do everything you possibly can in an effort and over and over and over everything comes out unfounded everything comes out correct because at the end of the day at the end of the day my only interest is serving the residents of the city so you can take people away from me if you like at the end of the day but you're only hurting the residents you're not hurting me you're only hurting the residents so in an effort to move this meeting forward no no but I'm not even finish talking I want to put on the record and is extremely important 102 signifies we were getting $338,000 we're getting $68,000 that's $330,000 per commissioner okay plus the $8,000 that's a $38,000 raise when you say 102% salary that sounds like we're getting paid $150,000 that sounds like we're getting paid $100,000 that is not accurate okay and you need to really stop being so misleading and trying to put I'm I'm I take it personally at this point okay so do I so commissioner C Madam vice mayor since you want to beat the strong M I'll clarify it for you the reason I opposed it and I still oppose it is the way you've done it you did it without transparency you hid it in the budget and you didn't put it in the budget in a manner that it would happen if you got reelected like most elected leaders do you knew what this position paid when you accepted it it would be like the sanitation workers taking a job you know for a certain salary and then wanting 101 and I did the calculation point2 increase so in an effort to move this meeting forward and stop going down into the gutter of things that don't matter to the residents or the city or the employees that are sitting here spending their time here patiently waiting for us to move forward a move to adopt the budget I already Mo I already moved it we have a motion yeah but I I'm the only one who hasn't had a chance to say anything so it's my turn um the two of you have been beating the same drum so much I swear I think your Buddy Rich playing the drums because you've used everything and anything you both can to politically try to destroy us when we voted the first time on the millage rate what the mayor's pack sent out to everybody was that it was a 32 vote to raise everybody's taxes but in fact it was a 41 vote but the mayor decided he wanted to protect the vice mayor and quite honestly we're not raising the millage rate is the same the way it's been for about 10 years and if your taxes do go up it's because the county assessed all our properties at a higher rate but unfortunately not everybody has the opportunity to watch the commission meetings attend the commission meetings and what they base their decisions or their judgment on what we're doing our job or even us as people is what certain packs send out 7 days a week 365 days a year attacking attacking the um the three of us and and there are social media posts out there saying some horrible personal things about not only myself but my colleagues that's all pack related so please I know that only a few people are going to hear this but you've been bombarded for a year with misinformation with the intention of destroying three people and why because some people don't get their way I know and guess what they you know somebody somebody says well you have a 32 vote and the manager you work well with a manager well guess what there there's certain people up here on the dis that had the 3-2 vote for a long time and had the a manager with a very good working relationship it's you know you can't start now complaining when there wasn't a complaint all those years prior so it's unfortunate and you know it's not the Coral Gables I grew up in but we're in a new age where people find it at Liberty to destroy other people's look one thing is policy but to destroy them as human beings destroy them their character when a lot of us has spent our entire life serving the community and it's unfortunate and I understand why people sometimes don't want to run because you have to face and deal with a non ense that's out to destroy people and that's not the Coral Gables I grew up in so I want to I want to respond really quick and I'll be very simple it sounds beautiful you know this theory about packs and everything like that but let us not forget tomorrow morning we will all wake up and there will be an article in not one blog but two blogs here pounding me and saying that I own property and little Gables and that I'm a lobbyist and my brothers associated with the city and all the insane things that I attacked assaulted the manager obviously that didn't come to fruition all the crazy things that these that these that these uh blogs say you know all these ridiculous unfounded statements but they're happy with those things but to disseminate the information and appropriate information using a pack makes him upset I'm sorry I have to make sure that the residents are aware of everything that's happening here in the city they use blogs I use a pack that puts out information that is appropriate at least I don't hide behind it Gable's Insider was owned by ARA Fernandez and by the way and the funny part about Maria G laugh and Giggles the entire meeting all of you used to talk to me about how upset you were about what was being said in the gables Insider about you and the horrific things that were said about the employees here in the city before he gave it up to jav BOS and they say constantly misleading things and they never retract you think there was a retraction in regards to the assault on the manager you think there was a retraction on the he owns proper little Gables I think there was a retraction about all the insane things they said about me doing a business transaction with somebody and stealing $34 million all that stuff that happened it wasn't just I did the recall the recall failed and that's under investigation CU I know people have been called here so at the end of the day please I don't want to hear the S story because tomorrow morning there will be a two two two vogs that are paid by these individuals to hit me or by another entity that doesn't want to say anything like the firefighters we're constantly involved in the effort to try to smear me in one form or another but at the end of the day it's okay we move forward we move forward but please don't come and tell me you're doing me a favor by letting me keep the employees that are serving this community it these employees were there before I even got this position where I'm honored to serve in this position so they were there before so we move forward and we can end the meeting the the information that you're putting out in their and you you're you're saying that it's true it's lies about the Inspector General that we didn't want inspector General's lies again and you should be ashamed of yourself and actually embarrassed to put out there that that's the truth cuz they're all lies and I hate to call you liar because that's disrespectful but there's no other word but to call you a liar okay and the things that were in the Gin Insider and I don't want to get involved CU I really don't know much but let me just clarify and put this on the record weren't you paying him to put them on there and now you're saying he's talking about employees how do you think he knew about the employees I'm not cross you don't even have to answer that was already after there you're misleading again as always the the whole the the benefit the benefit of the benefit of using of using Gable was to disate positive information not to disseminate destructive information as was done I would never in my life ever do that it's very it's nice to conflate the issue because it benefits you but at the end of the day that's not the truth and you know it's not it's not no I I I don't know what the trth moving the moving on Madam City attorney yes ma'am so the next item is a resolution of the city commission adopting the capital Improvement program for the five fiscal years from 2025 to 2029 I'll move it no I it was already moved yep it was moved in second Mr clerk commissioner Mendez yes vice mayor Anderson yes commissioner Castro yes commissioner Fernandez yes mayor logo yes moving on item five that is five that was five we're done done all right perfect thank you very much as always to staff I apologize to the circus your efforts are incredibly appreciated as always as always I we cannot thank you enough for your efforts and your continuing to support of the residents and the business Community God bless all of you thank you and have a wonderful evening thank you the ring leader calls it a circus e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e for --------- ##VIDEO ID:_sY1SmJ1Lts## [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] for for for [Music] e e [Music] [Music] for for e [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] e [Music] for e e e e Mr cler you ready yes sir all right perfect well good morning I'd like to welcome everybody to the September 24th commission it's always a pleasure to have you there are multiple opportunities to speak you can either speak on Zoom you can either speak in person or you can call us by phone any of these opportunities are always welcome I'd like to call the meeting to order and I'd like to welcome Yoli who's here with us today who will be providing us with the invocation good morning Yoli as always thank you for being here good morning honorable mayor and City commission City attorney city clerk residents and employees of the city beautiful thank you for the privilege and honor to give the opening prayer today and I'm humbled to do so father we acknowledge that we need your wisdom and insight and we welcome your presence among us today during our city commission meeting father we pray for World Peace remember the suffering and the less fortunate help us to love and forgive one another as you love us we thank you for your provision in our lives in meeting our daily needs and even our wants and help us to trust you especially in these trying times regarding those things we do not understand father bless our elected officials today give them wisdom and guidance your wisdom and your guidance as the they as they deliberate on the items before them may every decision be righteous in your sight and a benefit for our residents and employees remember their family who also serve and support them in their vocation as a public servant and we give you all the praise all the honor and glory in Jesus name I pray amen am amen y thank you for answering the call as always it's a beautiful thank you thank you our pledge Mr clerk please lead us in the pledge absolutely uh please stand right place your right hand of your heart with me of the United States America to the stand one nation under God indivisible with liy [Music] moving on to presentation of protocol documents item A1 good morning good to see both of you as always thank you for being here good morning mayor uh members of the commission city manager Salon SCH Lopez marketing manager with the economic development department and Matt Anderson assistant director for mobility and sustainability uh today we are here to present present uh one of two of this year's commercial beautification Award winners uh the commercial beautification Awards served to recognize businesses that have gone above and beyond with the beautification and maintenance of their storefronts and surrounding areas this is an award that we started three years ago so this will be the third annual award cycle and it is a collaboration between um Economic Development sustainability um our keep Coral Gable's beautiful program and code enforcement uh we receive nominations dur from April to from March to April for businesses that have shown these attributes from the public the chamber Code Enforcement Officers since they're the ones out there um seeing these businesses every day and internally from staff as well as other businesses in the community today we are here to um honor and present this award to Beauty And The Butcher over in South Gables um we have some pictures being shown of their locations now and we have the uh co-founder and CEO of Grove Bay Hospitality Group that owns this restaurant uh Franchesco Bali here as well as their marketing director Rachel faing and their general manager Luis montejo um Matt you want to talk yeah I just wanted to take an opportunity to thank the city's uh sustainability Advisory Board you all have members appointed to that board and they're the ones who vote on this um when we when the nominees are brought to the bo Ward so just wanted to take an opportunity and thank them and their continued support in overseeing our keep cor's beautiful program and all the programs we have under it so good morning welcome to the city beautiful thank you for being here with us thank you guys no really appreciate it uh we've been in Coral Gables that was our first restaurant for Grove Bay Hospitality Group so it's near and dear to our heart we opened the schules 347 Grill 14 years ago and then uh rebranded it to Beauty And The Butcher and so we're very happy being in City beautiful and uh hope to be there very long so thank you again for this award really touching uh great thank you congratulations thank you so we we have a plaque uh and a decal to present to them that'll show their guests when they uh walk into the restaurant that they are commercial beautification Award winners for this year we'll also be recognizing them um through en and our uh LinkedIn profile to get the word out of the great work that they've been doing perfect let's take a photo thank you anything got to be your [Music] Mr clerk B1 uh you have the approval of the minutes for the regular City commission meeting of August 27th if there's no amendments to the minutes may I please have a motion I'll move it second all in favor I thank you public comment first Speaker this morning Mr Mayor is Mrs Maria Cruz good morning good morning it's a beautiful day in the city in the beautiful city uh Maria Mrs Maria Cruz 1447 Miller Road this is the day the Lord has made let us rejoice and be glad in it have a wonderful meeting let's hope that uh at the end we'll still be celebrating the wonderful day the Lord has made thank you next speaker is Roland Rodriguez good morning sir thank you for being here with us good morning good morning um I understand this not on the agenda but we we thought we wanted to on behalf of the neighbors wanted to speak on the item uh good morning mayor vice mayor and Commissioners my name is Roland Rodriguez uh I reside at 3310 o Hammer Circle I'm here to express my concerns on how the commission has handled the issue of the proposed pedestrian sidewalks along Hammer Circle I understand that this issue has been a topic of discussion for some time now with uh special interest groups led by single resident heavily involved at last commission meeting H1 was discussed this was to be a presentation of the results of our July battle ballots where four directly impacted residents unanimously voted in favor of sidewalks using option one our ballots were completely ignored and it quickly turned into a discussion of options on the premise of safety however it is clear that the decision was heavily influenced and opposed by one single resident Robert ruano a well-known resident to the city through his special interest group one single resident and his own special interest group opposing a unanimous vote of four directly impacted residents ruano who was not an engineer stood here last commission and quoted the Florida green book without discussing context or engineering judgment I'm not part of an special engineering uh special interest group I'm not a politician and I'm not an attorney and won't pretend to be neither I am however a licensed professional engineer and I'm familiar with the Florida green book out of the 553 page document he picked one page to fit his narrative without taking context or engineering judgment into account you have Professional Engineers on staff that have gone on record to say that a curban sidewalk is a safe and commonly used design as seen throughout our city and specifically long s aato ruano causes new residents and is obsessed with saying we only want a bigger front yards without regard to safety uh of the community however we have never made any mention or argument regarding the size of our yard if we wanted bigger yards we would have Ved no to sidewalks as residents we love our homes and neighborhood and pay taxes to our city just as he does as we have clearly voted we are not opposed to sidewalks but we want to maintain our beautiful trees lining our Hammer Circle and our vote implemented Rano indicated the ballot ing um or seeking engagement from residents is an unprecedented move for my research ran is offer resident ballots when it fits his narrative however he is opposed when they don't in a letter from Rano attached to the January 2020 Gable's Insider article and quote the fact that the city's providing a vote at the end of the month we where affected residents and our Hamra and citri can vote on the project is indicative of the transparency with which the city is working both Vision zero and oh Hamra Circle Lane resolutions mention community outreach commun Community engagement and Resident support seeking Community engagement and even balloting is not an unprecedented move our votes have been completely ignored on the premise of safety with no justification or statistical facts as to how that concern was reached the only safety concerns are this commission continually delaying the process for over four years and having my neighbors and I continue to walk on the street in front of our homes our ballots were clear in their intention the city will proceed with the sidewalk up option that receives the most votes I'm almost oh please please move forward why were our ballots ignored was it not a clear direction from the May 21st commitment commission why were no safety concerns from the commission discussed prior to sending out the ballots Commissioners cro fernandz and Menendez rejected our ballots but what are your specific and verifiable concerns I have requested public rec records for safety studies and crash reports that validates our concerns or concurs any possible safety concerns alhamra between the bridge and BD Road Still Remains without sidewalk and will present bigger challenges as RightWay is lessened and beautiful mature Oaks are in Conflict are we going to allow Rano and his interest group to bully our community in attempt to make all pedestrian decisions in our community or we going to make this Democratic process whereby directly impacted residents have a say and a vote we are extremely disappointed at the undemocratic decision made during last commission meeting regarding this matter and urges this matter move forward as represented by our ballots our vote has been made clear and we want option one implemented thank you for your time sir thank thank you for being here with us Mr clerk that's it Mr Mayor thank you so we'll close the public comment moving on to consent agenda before the vote adopted that consent agenda is taken is there anyone who wishes additional discussion or review of any item on the consent agenda I do have questions regarding D5 okay uh I also have a request from a member of the public to pull the item may I please have a motion on the amenda consent agenda I'll move it I'll second all in favor I I thank you Mr Mayor agenda item D5 um my question is regarding the uh requirements to sit on this board this is one of the few boards in this city that has additional requirements was Mr clerk were you able to check if this individual meets all the requirements no sir okay because it the person does not um here are copies of the requirements to sit on this board there's a residency requirement each member of the board shall be a resident citizen uh domiciliary of the City of Coral Gables and an owner of real property or spouse of the owner of the city Coral Gables during the term of appointment and also for at least 5 years prior to the appointment uh I was not able to find any records of um this individual uh owning real property in the City of Coral Gables president ly or or before so I think it would require further looking into Mr go ahead Madam City attorney so membership is not you do not have to be a property owner of of being a citizen is sufficient citizen Andor and an owner of real property or spouse of owner in the City of Coral Gables so this is the um um let me see where it says this on here the zoning code which is what I'm looking at the zoning code commissioner and it's says Andor and let me see here this one this is from no this is the actual requirements of the board of adjustment okay so and in fact this is the reason I didn't appoint somebody else to this board because they were short by 3 months so this is the summary that I believe is posted by the on on the boards and committees page but the zoning code so this there there seems to be an error on this summary but the zoning code says Andor citizen Andor I had asked the clerk's office for this information when I was originally appointing and I was told there was a 5-year uh ownership requirement Mr clerk I don't recall providing that information Mr clerk if I may do you have an email with that where that request was made it was done in a meeting with the clerk when we were discussing board appointments commissioner Fernandez Stephanie throckmort and Deputy City attorney we looked at this recently at commissioner manetta's request we looked at a bunch of different boards and my understanding of this requirement and the Andor is that you could be an owner of real property located with the city but not a citizen as in you don't live in the City of Coral Gables but you own property in the city that's why it's an Andor to account for those who may own a commercial property in the city or be the spouse of an owner of a commercial property but not be a citizen so the Andor is to account for that situation where you may be not be a citizen you may live in the city of Miami but you're an owner of real property say on Miracle Mile for at least 5 years so you make qualify for the board in that way so it would be like a non-citizen board member is the Andor is my understanding when we looked at this so I think the confusion stems from the fact that this this sheet which is not this is not the the copy of the zoning code but this sheet seems to have a scribers air um and so that seems to be where the confusion stemming from but the Z zoning code is what controls right but if I'm understanding you the Andor is regarding the actual ownership of the property versus living outside the city no so so the board member can either be a citizen of the City of Coral Gables which we have defined to be as somebody who lives within the city it doesn't mean that you have to own property you are a citizen and or so you could also be a citizen and own a property in the city or you can be a citizen or have owned property in the city for 5 years the only situation where you would be not a citizen but owned property is when it's not your home for instance all right so can we get that fixed on the on the city's website yes sir okay all right I'll move it second I have a member of the public requesting to speak on the item Mr Mayor Mrs Maria Cruz Mrs Maria Cruz 1447 Miller Road um I object strongly on this appointment because of uh obvious reasons um let's see um public attacks um internet attacks blogs Etc that this person has done to several members of this commission and several members and residents of this city um civility is not one of his uh strong U qualities and uh because of that I object anything else just quickly uh answer to to Miss Cruz I understand your concerns uh but the reason I'm moving this is the mayor has brought up similar concerns on one of my appointees before and I did move forward with that appointment I think the mayor has the right to choose who he wants sitting on this board so um if if this is the individual he chooses and I will support that and I'll add to that I've had um you know concerns about certain individuals that I've appointed to boards and um I have not you know based upon very identical comments that were made about those members I have not removed them from the board Mr clerk vice mayor Anderson yes commissioner Castro no commissioner Fernandez yes commissioner Menendez yes mayor logo yes all right moving on moving on to item E1 E1 is an ordinance of the city commission amending the code of the City of Coral Gables Florida Chapter 2 entitled Administration article 3 boards commissions committees division one generally by amending section 2- 52 qualification appointment of members in order to expand the benefits offered to members of City boards providing for repeated provision severability clause codification and providing for an effective date um as you recall this was deferred from the last meeting and so this um the ordinance as proposed has no no changes from the last meeting it's the same version thank you madam City attorney as a sponsor uh the the sole intent of of this uh legislation is very simple um you know we're not bringing I'm not I personally I'm not bringing anything very complex before the commission I'm just trying to bring simple things that again benefit the residents and people who serve on this board um do we have anybody from staff that can provide further further details in in regards to information that was that was requested Mr director thank you for being here uh there was several questions in regards to you usage by by members uh on different boards can you give a little bit more clarity so people understand the depth and breadth of the concerns and the why there is no concerns sure um we looked at based on the request um when we were last year um we looked at the usage of both Venetian pool and the tenis centers as discussed um by board members uh what we found is um was actually less than I had um estimated um over the past year Venetian pool we had seven different board members that came and used it um so it's only seven in a year pretty pretty small um tennis we had four board members that used it um three of the four range from uh using it four times in a year to using it eight times and we had one board member that used it regularly equaled about one and a half times per week so not an super extensive use um you know if we're looking at Value like we said um if someone's coming and bringing their their family um if you're looking at the pool or tennis it's between a few dollars $6 to $9 depending on what you're playing whether it's tennis or pool and um for a family of four the board memb is already free so you'd be paying like about $18 family of five you paying up to $24 depending on whether it's tennis or pool tennis if you're playing in prime time it's a little more expensive than what the admission is to the pool so that's on a given day um what you are doing in terms of worth is is right now get what's equal to a single person membership and you're giving all the board members a family membership now the dollar cost of that um it's a few hundred of per person but that's if they will all use it at the same time and as our use has shown you're not getting that so if I may and I don't want to put words in your mouth um this is a nominal impact yes and my opinion is minuscule impact okay obiously this is something that I can add on person to my own ordinance and say review it after one year yes see the impact after one year come back to the commission and say this is the impact the uptick of cost associated with it and I think that's a greata I continue moving forward W with the legislation as is or you can just repeal it if it has a significant impact on the bottom line I'm in agreement I um just want to comment um Ive supported this item from the GetGo um if I'm not mistaken I think I mentioned last meeting years ago board members had more benefits than they have today access to different things I think econ uh because of the some Financial hardships that the city experienced over the years there was a cut back cut back on what board members were allowed to participate in I think we are in a position now to where we should uh like the mayor is doing in my legislation in terms of going back and looking at the folks that serve our city and find a way to reward them for the service that they do so I think this is exceptional um we should do more of this I I would concur uh through the mayor uh with those comments and uh it's a a small benefit but you know for those of us who don't golf you know this is at least recognition I mean not everybody can has the time to go out there and golf all day long so I don't but uh but the board even as a board member I never got had an opportunity to really take advantage of any of the benefits of being a board member I we did it for a special reason but the recognition is I think warranted and necessary so um with that mayor I'd like to move it if you have no further comments no problem I'll second um I I have no objection to this the only concern I have is that we're not capping the household at least till four and I feel that I I have full trust in in our in our um board members but I feel there should be some limitation to at least four as a household cap are you open to amending it I'm not because if you have a third child and you have five people so you have to leave one at home so at the end of the day it's a like you said it's a nominal nominal impact on the on the board so I think that personally the the the legislation this is as easy as going to get like I said before I'm not bringing anything complex to to the to the commission at all I'm bringing a simple things as possible that are bread and butter items that should get full approval from the commission if you want to if you want to disagree with it it's perfectly fine but based on the merits this is just a simple like the director said there's a nominal impact I'm even giving you an opportunity at the one-ear Mark to be able to to say it's working or it has a very significant financial impact all 300 board members are using it let's let's scrap my legislation I've even given you that safety valve to address it so I think that everybody should be able to attend um Venetian pool as a family not have to leave somebody home or have to pay for one of their additional members my opinion I'd like to add to that comment I think it also creates an undo burden on staff having account head do head counts on families it's just uh can't say that tennis by virtue of if you're playing doubles it's four on a court it's very hard to bring five to play tennis so you usually so tennis is is an easier one I mean with the pool you know it's um yeah I mean if you have three children yeah makes no sense I I understand your concern I think the one-ear Mark will have a better understanding if it if it did have a large impact if we did have families showing up with you know all their friends uh their kids friends that's something that we would need to to keep track of um but I think the mayor's uh addition of a one-year uh revision on this I think that at least calms my concern on that we will discuss with staff to make sure that um once we've enacted this that um we look at that and we're going to mark down if they're bringing parties of six parties of seven and and you know we'll we'll take a look at that um you know as you said it's our hope we trust that they you know they don't take advantage of the process but we'll be able to see it and the one year mark would be great because if if turns out as mayor States you know people are bringing parties of seven parties eight all 300 280 board members are using it then yeah then we might have to relook at it okay perfect ready we have a motion in a second Mr Mayor I have a member of the public requesting to speak on the item Mrs Maria Cruz Mrs Maria Cruz 1447 Miller Road I have an issue because when we talk about members of the household uh if you look at the board members Comm uh committee members that we have we have a great number that are my age or old older and uh most of us do not have um children living with us so this would not apply to those of us that take care of our grandkids but they do not live with us they're not members of our household by definition I think that to me is a big issue because not everybody has children living with them and I'm not talking adult children I'm talking about minors that we take care of because parents work or whatever the case and those will be excluded I if I may yes um I'm in favor of passing this as as is and we can look into the grandchildren you know at another Point give staff some time to digest that cuz I think that's a an analysis they'll need need some more time with I would be in the same your same shoes CU my grandkids you know are not members of my household either so Mr clerk commissioner Castro yes commissioner Fernandez yes commissioner Menendez yes vice mayor Anderson yes mayor logo yes following item mayor E2 is a norance of the city commission providing for text amendments to the City of Coral Gable's official zoning code article 12 on Beyond standards section 12-100 Lighting in article 16 definitions to provide for illumination standards and definitions providing for repar provision severability clause codification and providing for an effective date thank you very much good morning how are you morning how are you good to have you here I'm good to be here um can I have PowerPoint please thank you and I'll add that uh you no I'm just going to say she's done a lot of work on this and a lot of research well thanks to many interested residents yes okay and I'm happy I'm happy you brought that up because we you know we've been getting especially from one resident that that lives a few blocks away from here I had a conversation and a few emails with them and they've been very engaged on this and it seems it seems like there's no there's no answer to resolve it and I I commend the vice mayor for working on this and uh because this is this is a big issue that certain people in this community are fighting with and I think that this will bring a lot of relief so I'll tell that I'll tell that story real quick yeah that's why that's why I didn't I didn't want to I didn't want to touch the story cuz oh no i' I've had calls for months and we went through the process it doesn't meet the code and went out and measured um the light candles okay so I I don't quite understand what a light candle is you have to have an instrument to read it you can't go to Home Depot and buy a ball based upon light candles so um they went out and measured it it met the code but things have changed since and we now have LED lights uh we have Kelvin ratings on lights that are much more stream than we ever did as when we were growing up so um and this poor resident is is suffering from sleep deprivation and that can have you know impacts on your health uh Etc in many different aspects so uh this is an effort to provide some relief as quickly as possible um I know our ordinary course is the Senate to planning zoning first but looking at the timing and we need to provide some relief um Jennifer's worked very hard on this I want to bring this forward and let's get it moving uh we can always tweak before between first and second whether it's a different Lumen rating I'm feel very comfortable with 3,000k on Kelvin because there's a lot of data behind that and uh Planning and Zoning can you know put their touch on it as as well as we uh drill down on that but the goal here is I think we can get this back for second reading late October Maybe hope a Christmas present for for the resident go ahead and proceed with a technical explanation of all this stuff so as discussed the last meeting um we have two areas in our zoning code that deal with lighting the first one is in each zoning District um gives with uh to conform with the standards of Dark Skies um and the second one is actually article 12 our ambient standards um which is very minimal right now it provides some protections for adjacent residential um properties but um not not a lot to work with so this amendment today is going to be expanding in that article and then also uh chapter A6 which is a Mii Miami day county code um that deals with parking lot lighting um rooftop lighting um the safety standards with lighting so today's um Amendment deals with the four aspects of um encouraging Dark Skies right so shielding as far as um controlling the amount of light that's going to be exposed to the sky uh the color temperature making sure it's um more warm tone for evening experience um the lumens or the brightness of those light bulbs um and the timing um allowing some uh dimension of Lights um after hours it's not needed so um the provisions are divided in three areas the general requirements for both non-residential and Residential Properties um and then Residential Properties and then non-residential properties the general propert General requirements apply to all um and that would require um appropriate spaced bulb so you don't have too much brightness that might um um overpower an architectural feature or make it uncomfortable for a pedestrian for example um also eliminating the Redundant light that you might have on a street street lights obviously are already there existing um taking into account of existing Street lighting when you're um providing for light on private property um and also requiring the board of Architects approval for elimination of any building tops of multif family and mixed use buildings so you won't have too much uh lighting um that way Board of Architects can can review that ahead of time and then also to limit the color the light color temperature to 3,000 Kelvin um both within residential areas and also um adjacent or budding residential areas and the residential requirements are um much more lengthy right so um limiting the heights of light poles and the setbacks according to how high they are um in Residential Properties and as well as providing Lumen maximums now this is what we're going to tweak I think probably between first second reading right now what's in the proposed amendment um before you today is based on that uh document the dark sky standard um uh example ordinance that the Dark Skies Association has so we baseed off of that but there's still some more tweaking more um um finessing of those lumens um basically um the diagram below you um unshielded um light fixtures would have lower Li lumens so would um not allow as much light and as you become partly shielded then you can have more lumens and then when you're fully shielded and you're basically reducing the amount of light you would be um both um exting both into the sky and also to the adjacent properties that would allow you to have higher lumens and then the non-residential requirements would limit the um non-residential buildings to have Lighting on the ground floor for The Pedestrian experience as well as a building top and a good example of that is the builtmore and the builtmore has that um very top tow is lit very nicely and also the ground floor to um to add to The Pedestrian experience and then also uh light reduction after work hours so not to for parking lots and for rooftop parking um so not to have excess lighting to the Dark Skies but also to to um allow that reduction and that's kind of based off of the section AC3 and our mighte county code that does allow for that but they don't require that so that will be based off of whatever they allow per uh building use some building uses you can't obviously um reduce the parking lot lighting hospitals for example you want to have that Lit all night long um but there are some office use there something that that they see that would be okay to reduce that lighting so we're here for any questions thank you so um couple things I've learned while drilling down with Jennifer and and a uh Dr bernau on on lighting and some Architects uh regarding lighting because right now the top of the buildings are not reviewed on lighting for uh by the board of Architects and we can see an example of that mistake at the plaza the bulbs are too closely together you really cannot appreciate the quality of the architectural featur fees of the building as a result of that so this that's one of the the changes in here that I um and going to require those types of you know building tops to uh be reviewed by the board of Architects um I Googled architectural lighting and you can see some really magnificent architecture highlighted and accented with lighting um and it really does take an architect I think to do that analysis and how to emphasize uh the the beauty of the building so that is no longer going to be a staff uh decision on the building tops and um yeah the some people call the plaza the ring of fire so we want to avoid the ring of fire again you can't you know I I just don't think it's the look we want for our city so it's like Billboards you know so um the other um I talked to you about spacing and Architectural lighting um here we just have the Kelvin rating 3,000 Kelvin is the most available bulb out there um as Dr Bernal summarized for us the last time there were um studies that were done on other communities where they put out the the lighting ranges between 2700 and 3,000 3,000 was about where most people um landed and then you have the availability of the fixtures as well that leans on that the lumens I'm not an expert on so uh I've deferred to sta um here to to uh you know give us some input I think the planning Planning and Zoning Board can weigh in on it as well and if there needs to be some additional tweaks we can do before second reading so uh any comments from any of us here I'm uh I'm glad you brought it up because uh I went out with some friends on the bay um and we were coming back on at night and the only building that you can see from the bay at night is the plaza and it's basically just a bunch of lights um prior commissions when that project came up figure factored in parking traffic many other components that have not had a large detrimental impact on the neighboring communities but the biggest concern in that area is the lighting on the Plaza because it's shining into people's homes so as written this draft would apply without exception you know good so the the lighting is going to have to be adjusted maybe just bring out you know take out a bulb every other one that's up to staff to to add address but when we have residents unable to sleep at night because they have an apartment building across the street from them with a 5,000 Kelvin light just going through their bedroom window and no matter how much you try to block it with your blinds I mean it shouldn't be the burden of the resident we need to take action and this is the action I I think it's going to move it in the right direction and I commend you both for for the work that you've put into this I'll be happy to Second it um I'm supportive of the legislation I have a couple questions just to get clarity so um in a sense it'll be retroactive it's not for new construction but it'll apply to current buildings well I think that's one of the issues that we will work on between first and second reading um since there was you know some um urgency in getting this on the agenda we there's some issues that we want to tweak and we also want to get the input of Planning and Zoning Board and so that's something that that we'll be you know looking at okay um another just real quick um another thought would be that just like you can't play in our Central business district music after certain hours another thought would be also to say after whatever the time is for people to have in our CBD um the restaurants open that lights on tops of buildings at that point need to come off you know the decorative lights just a thought instead of it might be a good way to manage it perhaps that's why I didn't see other other cities they do have a curfew that they allow the dimensioning of the lights the building that was mentioned I think those lights are on if I'm not mistaken all night but maybe we have a curfew as to when lights can be on I mean most you know if it's all those lights are on at 3:00 and 4: in the morning do they need to be on at 3:00 or 4: in the morning for example just just a thought the other thing is um I understand that to distinguish between lighting that's decorative and lighting that's perhaps for pedestrian safety um do we distinguish on the kind of lighting or what the purpose is uh because perhaps some lighting is NE necessary to light up an area that otherwise would be dark for pedestrians to walk you know if you walk in Coral Gables without good lighting it's treacherous at night sometimes uh that's something I just for you all to look at or consider um the other part is um for second reading could I mean not now but secondary could you let me know or let us know what the I guess it's Kelvin is for the street lights on the June and ponts yes because if we have street lights that are of a certain strength of light and that's something to consider because I have a feeling that those lights we probably can't do anything about it but there's a certain level of intensity as well I'd love to get a bigger picture as to what all the lighting is the impact and then finally let me let me help you out there a little bit because I I I understand your problem color is Kelvin intensity is lumens okay you know lumens 100 wat bulb or a 60 watt Ball but if you have all different colors going down the street yeah then it's going to look like U as Dr Bernell called it a carnival yeah so so the vice mayor is right so could you let me know about Kelvin and lumens yes okay and then fin if if for instance on the top of the plaza it's the number of bulbs because the more bulbs you have the more lumens are up there do you need all those bulbs in there and are they dimable you know they might be dimable just put a dimmer switch in could be that simple and then finally what's the impact on the built more oh no impact I was just showing that example of the top of the building and the ground floor of the building the people really I think love the way the builtmore is lit up at night the different colors for different themes like we do with City Hall but it's sort of an iconic image and I just wanted to ask if there was any impact to the buildmore No No we heard the same thing that that's a very example of how to light a building okay perfect I'm supportive of the legislation thank you so I don't know if I moved it I already had a second so I'll move it a second sorry who seconded I did thank you sir commissioner Fernandez yes commissioner Mendez yes vice mayor Anderson yes commissioner Castro yes mayor logo yes moving on to it thank you very much item F1 F1 is a resolution of the city commission establishing a veterans with disabilities relief Grant fund for fiscal year 2023 to 2024 and directing City staff to identify a source of funding um so I had a resident um reach out to me last year and said you know the city should do a little bit more for our veterans and um in discussions with staff uh we realized the county has a uh um exemption program for disabled veterans uh which we would be able to create a uh Grant fund similar to our senior relief Grant fund for our disabled veterans um disabled veterans in many cases do not qualify for social security benefits and they're basically living on their um pension um I know one res one resident who qualifies under this category and he lives an $100 a year a month check um which makes it very difficult um to live with our our growing expenses um so I had discussed with staff about uh obtaining the list from the county and we started working uh backwards to see if there was something we would be able to create um so um bringing this forward uh prior to the end of the fiscal year just like we did with the senior relief grant program uh last year this would um benefit 97 individuals uh I believe was 9686 86 86 um 86 uh individuals in the city and they would be receiving uh a $100 check um we also have the senior relief grant program which is we also is item F2 which we'll be bringing up to approve both programs today if I may Diana Gomez Finance director so the listing that I have as of a date in a in August which still has to be updated had 86 of the veterans and 235 seniors so but I do have to obtain an updated list from the county so it may change plus or minus a few so I'd like to um share with you from my last uh green Corridor meeting a copy of a program called Catalyst okay and I'd like you to entertain a a friendly amendment to include in the mailing a copy of this flyer to each and every one of the both the veterans and the seniors Catalyst provides free installation to um homeowners that meet a certain um Financial requirement and reportedly you know it reduces electric bills uh this insulation program by 25% to 50% it's worth $900 to $1,000 actual cost cost cost the program a little more because they track also the the savings uh on the electricity afterwards um this is money that is uh paid by the p y green PACE program and uh I'd like to co-sponsor with you uh this item because I think this would be um a great benefit uh the the program is being funded now the program will be restarted within two weeks so if this goes out in the mail then to um you know the seniors as well as the veterans they will be able to be first in line I mean because it's a waiting list to get on there so uh if they can go ahead and get the installation work done it'll be tremendous savings for them it'll be like nine checks nine or 10 checks in the mail as opposed to just $100 I'll accept that friendly Amendment and make the motion I think this is phenomenal I think we should also maybe for next year start looking into other potential programs that that help our benefits and our our um veterans uh and include them in a formal package that maybe we can include and send to to our veterans so that they know where the resources are um and I'll be happy to work on that and put it together right there's uh working on the W green Pace to expand what can be done okay Latin Builders Association is um you know the entity that's working on those additional things I've talked about air conditioning units and stuff like that um insulation is wonderful but if you don't have air conditioning to bring the temperatures down from you know 94 95° and you know you're you have health issues ETC I mean that kind of heat can kill so I've I've worked on some of that um that's going to be a short um program because that was something as a result of commissioner Cabrera's efforts uh on the County Commission to bring that forward for the um PACE program to to do that for individuals with financial needs so we'll have to work with our County Commissioners uh because they have to nominate the individuals that would uh be eligible to receive so this these listings could be uh again provided to our County Commissioners and say please you know these folks are in your District please put them on your list to uh receive the benefits of this additional program that the Y green Pace Corridor is providing so can I get a motion I moved it I have a motion by commissioner Fernandez but I don't have a second second thank you ma'am Mr uh Mr Mayor I have a member of the public requesting to speak on the item Mrs Maria Cruz yeah I I am suppor I am supportive of this legislation hearing about this brings up to reminds me of um and we need to start thinking about what we're going to do with our retirees and um maybe next Commission meeting we can have a discussion to see if there's a game plan or I mean I hate for them to come up and fill this commission room again and us not have a plan beforehand so but I'm very very supportive of this just commissioner on that point remember we have to those considerations have to be made during that hearing because it's only part of that process process so just keep that in mind and we can talk about it more as we get um closer to that all right Mr clerk commissioner Mendez yes vice mayor Anderson yes commissioner Castro yes commissioner Fernandez yes mayor logo yes moving on to F2 F2 is a resolution of the city commission establishing a senior relief Grant fund for fiscal year 2324 and directing City staff to identify a source of funding so this is is the senior relief grant program that we approved last year once again it uh it's a list based off of the County's um uh senior um exemption and um 235 uh is the number for this year I think last year we had 263 um so um it's a it's a smaller group this year but again it's a group that uh definitely could use the the assistance and it's part of this year's uh budget I'll make a motion I'll second second just a quick question just for the record what's the What's the total amount of assistance so if it's $100 per person um so uh 20 23,500 for the seniors once a year once a year correct yes thank you Mr Mayor I have a member of the public requesting to speak on the item Mrs M Cruz um again I'd like to have this flyer included just I wanted so amend yeah no I just you know co-sponsored for that reason because I want to continue to bring in to you know to the seniors what's available through the Y green PACE program vice mayor can we can do you have this in a PDF that we can provide to staff or I already did right it's actually in a JPEG but we can convert it that's what I meant it's some kind of electronic version yeah yeah the clerk has it and um you know our commission AIDS have it perfect vice mayor Anderson yes commissioner Castro yes Commission commissioner Fernandez yes commissioner mandez yes Vice May I'm sorry mayor L yes M on to F3 okay let's see um we need a commission a here to assist with this the presentation good morning mayor vice mayor Commissioners good morning um my name is Nores assistant commission Le on I would like to thank the vice mayor for giving me the opportunity to present on such an important topic as dog waste I believe it is very important to inform our community on the importance of scooping the poop so um here we have a short presentation um so what's the big deal so dog waste can negatively impact our health and it can negatively impact our environment with many factors environmental we have water pollution nutrient overload and air quality concerns pet waste contains harmful pathogens like bacteria and parasites including eoli which can contaminate the water watties which ultimately leads to the biscane Bay which is one of the local Bays um that we have here the nutrients in pet Wass particularly nitrogen and phosphorus contribute to the over fertilization of water bodies leading to algal blooms these blooms deplete oxygen in water harming fish and other aquatic organisms or or yes organisms um this also impacts our air quality because decomposing pet waste releases ammonia and other harmful gases which contribute to poor air quality and can EXA respiratory conditions as despite um having an environmental concern it also adds to our public health concerns there's many different disease Transmissions um from humans and dogs with a humans pet waste Harbors various pathogens that are harmful to humans such as round worms and hookworms and then with the dogs it contains K9 pero virus which is a highly contagious and potentially deadly viral disease that can be transmitted through the dog feces um it also gets infested because pet waste attracts rats which are drawn to the food particles and nutrients and contains it's can increase the um risk of rat infestation in yards and urban areas so not only does it impact our public health and our environment but it's also um impacting our social and our community impact um it can cause neighborhood conflicts you know pet waste left in somebody else's uh yard um can truly anger a resident um leaving it in shared spes like a park or a sidewalk or a sidewalk um and complaints and stuff like that and then it can also damage our grass a lot of people believe that dog ways is a fertilizer it is not a fertilizer it can ultimately um contaminate your grass and so there are many um efforts that municipalities and states have been doing in order to help with this um ongoing situation and I know that the city of cor Gables has been um doing a really good job at trying to reduce um the dog waste in the areas such as campaigns uh I know Martha and her team have been working on creating some signs that the residents can request to the city that so that they can place on their um on their dog on their trash pit I'm sorry sorry and I believe that if we hold public educational campaigns like maybe for adventure day you know set up a booth with those um with those signs providing them to the residents can be very impactful I believe not a lot of residents know about the negative impact that dog waste has on the trash pits and as well as all of this information has also been um added to the city website as as well as the regulation and fines you know we there's a Civic penalty of $500 for depositing trash per chapter 54 of the city code so I believe making this aware to the residents that this is an ongoing issue I believe this would um help reduce the amount of dog waste that we have around the trash pits Gabby and I we went 30 minutes around you know this area we found about 15 trash pits with many dog waste within about 30 minutes so I believe holding public educational campaigns adding more waste dispens which I believe that um not too long ago we got some donated so I believe maintaining them and you know keeping them pretty and clean will um allow residents to continue scooping the poop and so yeah the most responsible thing pet owners can do for the family for the community and for our city beautiful is to pick up after their dog waste thank you so I'm going to add to this explanation as to um the wise and because you you do have the leeching down into the soil you're going to be um having pathogens go down to the Waterway uh when our trash Crews pick up they the bags will fall to the ground you know on the street uh so I've had staff work on some different designs for the signs that have a QR code on them that'll lead to information including the F so I'm going to talk to you all about the fine uh I was expecting um when staff came back with with the find is something that was a little more gradual like uh riding your bike on the the mile a stepped program you get a warning you get a one step of a fine the next step of a fine Etc but when it led back to a $500 fine I said well that's a sludgehammer and plus it only really applies to um people that that dump in other people's trash bits not your own so it doesn't really solve the problem so I have asked staff um who was you know you know under the impression originally that we had this type of stepped ordinance to come back with that for the next commission meeting so we can do these signs I've also asked staff to uh confer with the station employees about the signs because typically what you have is a a homeowner that's annoyed by the dog uh waste put a cardboard sign or some homemade sign near the trash pit and saying you know please put it down the way so we'll make something Coral Gables branded it's not going to be ugly but ask staff do you want it on a on a post and where would you like it placed so it doesn't interfere with trash pickup so we'll get feedback from from staff on that and then I'll work on you know what's it going to cost how are we going to pay for it you know I I'll I'll deal with that headache in the next step this is unfortunately going to be a a process and for those who don't like Signs we can make it pretty we already have signs we have the dog waist bins with signs on them this is just a reminder to folks it's uh against our code and here's here's the health risks of continuing to do that because that once upon a time I didn't realize the risks either okay and then once I realized the risks I started putting the dog waste in a pot and then I would throw when I take out my garbage bag I then would dump it into the you know regular garbage bag that would would go um and now we have dog waist bins so I put it there you have any comments just very good presentation you did a great job she did she did it's first time for everything yeah that was very very good you guys can challenge her on future presentations yeah we're going to get her polished and experience very soothing voice too captured my attention thank you thank you very much excuse me thank you all right thank you very much we on to F4 um I uh following my last commission recap I had quite a few questions about Burger bombs and when's an opening and actually it's now Bird's beastro was the final name so I think a lot of people are not aware that the name was already selected so just wanted an update on what uh where we are what to expect and uh when we could start eating good morning mayor commissioner s sardinia's asset manager um okay I have a quick presentation that I put together just to show you um if we can bring that up awesome it's okay there we go so on July 9th um the city commission approved the lease um and the lease was executed by both parties by July 25th the tenant paid the SEC security deposit on September 6th um the city is assisting the tenant um in their efforts to obtain Florida Department of Professional Regulation in Miami date County licensing and operating permits which is an ongoing process um the dbpr food establishment license has been approved with conditions pending inspections as of September 18th the tenant also has applied for the certificate of use and the Derm uh the Miami day County certificate of use and the Derm fog grease trap operating permit um the tenant is also in the process of obtaining insurance for the premises as required by the lease um the general contractor has passed all final inspections um I had put in here that they had requested certificate of occupancy which should be granted this week along with final completion certification but I was just informed by Sher Shang that this morning development services issued the certificate of occupancy for the for the diner so um we will um we definitely uh happy we should have final completion certification this week which it just requires some additional paperwork per the contract with the with the general contractor um pursuant to the contract the city will turn the keys of the premises over to the tenant and five days from today and um they will have 30 days from final from that from today until they're required to start paying rent um community recreation in the process of coordinating ribbon cutting I believe you all got a um an email yesterday and your commission AIDS um to do a Granada Golf Course Pro Shop and restaurant building um ribbon cutting uh for early November and that will include the tenants participation the participants will be able to walk through the restaurant um and we are hoping that that will also coincide with her being able to have our her licensing and uh being able to open I didn't receive an invite if maybe they can for that to me I think they katalina Wester the deputy community recreation she circulated it to the commission AIDS in order to check your calendars in order to be able and gave some dates out yesterday beautiful to see what works best I just a question is that it might be a typo it's not boogie Grill like we're going to boogie on down to for lunch well that's bogey right yes it is sorry I mistake I'm sure once it's open we'll all be boogie on down to was with the in one place it has two OES well but the name is Bird's beastro so don't have to worry about it no no it's all right I couldn't help myself okay I have some some pictures here for you guys to look at nice very soothing very nice well very pretty mhm this is the kitchen or the back across the counter this is the coffee area and then the back of the house and the difference I mean it's a full operating kitchen with a walk-in freezer things that weren't there before absolutely and I think the grease trap was also an issue that that got resolved so basically somebody told me that some uh long-term Coral GES resident that that facility originally wasn't meant to have a restaurant they sort of retrofitted a meeting room into uh a place to dine now we're actually the city has taken and made steps forward to make it what everybody wants it to be but fully operational which is great and and observing things like ADA compliance and all of that which is definitely important for us I as I ask the city managers once it's open since we get lunch uh once they're open and fully operating if perhaps we could have uh our commission lunch from bird's beastro SS fantastic idea thank you all right thank you so much F5 all right F5 um I've been hearing more and more about this issue over the last um probably month uh I know staff has as well when construction is taking place there is a bond that's taken out uh with the city in order to address any potential damages to City uh infrastructure uh during construction the issue that has uh come about about from some residents is they were expecting the city to reimburse them this Bond but apparently in some cases the contractor has been the one who has made the payment on their behalf and the residents are not getting the money back obviously that's an issue between the uh contractor and the resident the reason I put this on the agenda I wanted to see how we can I don't know if it's maybe changing the process to require that it be submitted by the resident so that the resident gets the money back um whether it's uh engaging in a PSA campaign so that people are aware that this construction bond is reimbursable and that it goes back to whoever submits the uh the initial Bond money um I just want to make sure that residents aren't caught in this process where you know now they're expecting the city to reimburse in the money but the money is actually going back to their contractor because it was a loophole in a contract they had with their contractor and it wasn't really outlined for them um so really wanted to have a discussion um we can maybe throw some ideas around or come back and and uh and bring it back on another date as we as we kind of think it through um the City attorney uh and the the city um manager brought up in some cases it it's an added burden to Residents if we're asking asking for the B the the resident to make the payment um some people don't have checks so they're not going to give their contractor a check for uh to to turn into the city so I just I kind of wanted to have that discussion see how we can have some sort of awareness or protection for our residents commissioner if I may uh one of the things we've asked developmental Service uh to do because of this issue is to number one add language in all our permit applications concerning the bond that there is a Bond and depending on who pays the bond is the one that will receive the reimbursement in addition to that I've asked them to post uh in the lobby of uh developmental Services building uh that information and we're going to add that to the uh our ews and our our website so we can educate the folks uh some of these issues are contractor owner issues uh but the key is that the city will refund the the bond dep depos it to the person that paid so they would have to come up with proof of payment so let me step in here one second I think we're talking about something that works pretty well but if you want to go down this Rabbit Hole you might as well go down it Madam City attorney in a job when a permit is paid and a bond is paid to the city when the job is completed and there's a CO that's the only time a bond is released correct correct that's when there can be a request for a refund of the bond who gets the bond back whoever paid the bond so the pay of the bond we return it to whoever paid it so if anybody has if anybody has a problem with the way the bond was returned that's between the client and the construction company if the client receives a bond and the contractor is upset about that there shouldn't be anyone upset the client paid for the bond if the client ask the contractor to pay for the bonds and the co happens the contractors re refunded the bond it goes back to the person who paid for it no one and I want to correct me if I'm wrong no one can walk in and procure a bond that was paid for a year ago by somebody else correct not not paid by somebody else that's correct but let me just just finish I I do this all the time so my point is that you can I'm all for I'm all for providing as much notice and statements on permits and all kinds of things I think it's great but when you're going to go get a when you're going to go get a permit paid for and you're going to get your plans approved and you're going to pull that permit if a bond is required depending on the work and scope of the project someone's got to pay for it either the owner or the contractor so it's pretty simple it goes back to the person who who stroked the check or put the credit card down and again I don't think that that was the question that was asked and for those residents who are watching this is not a rabbit hole that we're going down this is a problem that we have and of course a contractor is going to defend contractors I'm here to represent you and I want to make sure that you don't have these issues going forward so going back no no no I am I am talking no no let me finish talking you may not you may not I may not the issue is not the current issue we cannot solve the problem for residents who are having it right now but we can find ways and that's what we were elected to do to prevent the issue from happening again for our residents obviously contractors are not going to want to change the process because what's happening is there's no outlined item in a contract with a contractor that stipulates that the bond is going to be returned to the resident the resident is giving the contractor the money with the expectation that they will be getting that money back when they ask for the money back from the contractor what most contractors are doing is saying go talk to the City of Coral Gables when they know that they have already received that check so you know calling it a rabbit hole I'm sorry Mr Mayor this is a real problem that real residents are having and it is not a rabbit hole for us to have a conversation and find a way to ensure that our residents the ones we represent are not having this problem so you invoked my name so I just want to respond very quickly first off in regards to when I mentioned Rabbit Hole was the figure of speech you have to you can't think everybody's talking about you okay or insulting you when you pay for a permit and you make a and you make that permit the contractor can never go and pick up that Bond it has to be that of the client it's not about whether you side with the contractor or the client in most instances that I've been involved in in municipalities I'm pretty sure going to go 90 plus per the contractor does not want to carry a bond they don't want to pay for something for a year or two years and have that money outlaid just sitting out there for two years not making any interest because you don't get paid interest on this Bond correct Madam City attorney correct no there's no interest to put on the record okay I know the answer to that question but I want to put on the record so what they always do at least in my cases is they say literally the contractor will say Madame client Mr client pay for the bond they will go and they pay for the bond Bond and they have to wait 2 years till the work is over and then they get reimbursed that Bond it's not whether you side with the with with the resident or you side with the contractor in most cases and if you ask our individuals over there next door and the per Department they'll tell you the majority the majority of the times it's a contractor excuse me the the the resident or the business owner that pays the bond that I've seen that I've seen and that I've been involved in in my opinion cuz I I don't want to have to pay this money myself I want to have the resident pay for it so what I'm trying to figure out I was was trying to say is what what is the confusion that we're trying to fix here because when I've spoken to people they've told me hey I I don't remember if I paid that Bond oh then you got to go and speak to development services is find out if you paid for that Bond or if somebody else paid for that Bond but at the end of the day that Bond will not be released it will be only provided to The Entity that paid for the bond in the beginning and nobody wants a float a bond and have 10,000 $5,000 $20,000 sitting in escrow and not making any interest at the end of the day Madam vice mayor you were saying so I'm going to throw in a couple of of suggestions here there's many different stages of of a project you know you have your final inspection uh we have the beginning part we have notice to owner there's opportunities to inform residents of um the fact that you know a bond is posted you can request an offset on your final payment you know before no lean affidavit is is issued um there's opportunities for res resents to you know enforce their rights with the contractor because if the contractor included in the price of the job the bond $11,000 $500 whatever it is okay at the end of the day if the contractor is going to get the money back then you offset it on the final payment so there's couple points that we can remind and you know I I know that in if you look at the notice requirements the Y green PACE program is supposed to provide people and does provide people there's several touch points in which you remind people because people forget you sign up the beginning you forget the day comes that you have to pay for that loan you know if the project takes longer the interest rate changes um so we can have a touch point at the beginning when you're when you're applying for the um permit for the job the application process and then at a point I think for the uh final inspection because those are the two most important points who's going to pay for the bond and who's going to get the money back and how are you going to get the money back and an offset on your final payment is the easiest way I think for most homeowners and most contractors to address this issue if if I may vice mayor uh the developmental Services assistant director wants to make a state go ahead clarify the issue of how we are notifying the folks good morning Doug Ramirez deputy director Services currently uh we are working on adding some verbiage to the permit application the very first page of the permit application where typically the owner or the owner's representative signs authorizing for the work to be done we've gotten the verbage approved by our legal department it's just a matter now working with our it Department to add it to the application we hope to have it done very shortly at least there's a touch point at the beginning at the end what we can do is we do have have automated emails that the S system sends out when your permit's about to expire or when your permit is we can add verbiage in there as well and and now we have the owner's information in our system so when the permit is applied for at the beginning at some point before we issue the permit we have the owner's email information or the owner's representative some person that is responsible so the owner will be notified and we can also tweak the verbiage of the email that goes out at the end and if if if desired I mean we could even add it every single email along the way so that they see it again and again and again they might get tired of seeing it but I'd rather they see it more than less where we can inform them hey your the bond will be returned to the the pay of the bond not necessarily the owner of the property that way there's there's knowledge throughout the process they can't forget and Mr Mr director yes this is not the first time we do this I remember a few years ago we put in the past certain items on the on the permit I can't remember what it was but it was certain things that we recommended in regards to cleanliness or fencing or oh no you know what it was that residential work can happen on Saturdays I think we put certain things on on the permit so that people when they pull their permit they were reminded Hey listen there's a list of things that you can and can't do just add it to the list but at the end of the day at the end of the day it's clear whoever pays for the permit has to has to come come back for that permit you can't give it to somebody else that's not their that they paid for it so at the end of day no contractor no resident you just can't pick up somebody else's Bond now what you could do if you want to which I would welcome it which goes against everything my colleagu to my left has said I would welcome it 110% see if we can work with our work with our with our attorney and see if we can only allow residents to pay for the bonds so that they are assured that the bond goes to them I don't want to pay for a bond I don't want to outlay money for 2 years a year and a half you know that kind of time whatever money that is in certain projects are pretty significant I'd rather have the resident pay for it just like what happens when you sign a Permit card you know you you have two options either the resident pays for it or the contractor pays for it but why would you want to have the resident the contractor pay for it when you can benefit from paying for it yourself in one form or another so I don't know if that's even allowed if there's no if there's maybe a state statute that preempts us from doing that I don't know but I if it's a concern here at the end of the day just make the resident pay for it perfectly fine they just have to hold it for two years I received a phone call last week regarding the same matter and it seems to be very important um this person this resident in specific was Raising concerns also about that there's no procedures in automatically refunding a bond so if the resident completely forgets that they paid for a bond it's just going to sit here and it kind of it it's it's interesting to me because I'm like how is that even possible because at the end of the year we need to reconcile our our our our our monies how are we not noticing that there's bonds that are not being returned we need to work on a procedure that and we'll brainstorm together but so that bonds are automatically refunded or at least they're contacted whoever's whoever's paying for the bond I would feel more comfortable with the resident paying for the bond because with the same resident that I spoke with the the the the contractor asked them for the money to pay for the bond and when he came to ask for the bond they said they couldn't return it to the resident they had to return it to the contractor that raises major concerns to me so let's see how we could um improve this process quick question how many how many bonds do you currently have waiting to be picked up or claimed I I don't have that exact number can we maybe get that info we can get the number through the manager's office I'd love to see how many I'd love to see how much unclaimed money there is just like there's unclaimed money in the federal government in the state you know billions of dollars that are un claim Madam vice mayor so I'm going to you might want to look at what the mmy day County Clerk is doing Mr bar Quinn has started an unclaimed assets um piece because in some litigation there's money on hand it's being held by the court registry and and it hasn't been dispersed when the case is over well this is similar you have some you know a matter that's closed and the monies haven't been released so there's a notification procedure for folks to make that claim on the money you know reminding them it's out there we all forget you know and I've had to do unclaimed money requests on behalf of my in-laws on my on my father Etc because some check that was mailed to mailed to the correct address but never received was an unclaimed asset so for that reason you know the money had to be claimed through the state process this uh this year earlier this year we began an Outreach when we realized that there was a backlog I don't have the number but we knew that there was one there we started reaching out to the contacts in the permits we started with the newest ones going backwards and we started with the oldest ones going forwards we've made a dent into it we this year we've refunded over 500 responds uh but a lot of the older permits nobody's responding we obviously some of the contractors might have folded up or left the state who knows but nobody's responding so we we did start an Outreach to try and go back to the people hey by the way we have your money we would like to give it back uh we're we're working at that list um we also um we began a now we we're getting a reminder we we set up this our energov system to send us a reminder when a permit is closed so that we can proactively start working on the refund now now that it got closed now we just started doing that now I I don't have the numbers uh that you asked for at this moment but I'm overall I can tell you that we are making the effort to get this money back to the to the people that it belongs to um and we will continue to work on this with legal and per your direction so if we work like an on automated me mechanism that automatically refunds I I don't know what that would look like probably like an ingov sends a reminder send an alert as you're saying when the permit is closed and then um maybe have it trigger a notice or have it trigger mail I you tell me we we did look into also like some way of automating the payback unfortunately we don't keep the financial information so if you paid with a credit card we don't keep that because obviously as great as our it department is we can be liable for that information and then somebody could hack it or whatever so we don't keep it it would be really easy if if if there was a way for us to just return it to the credit card that paid it whenever it was but unfortunately that we don't have a way of doing that so it requires reaching out getting a hold of somebody having them show us proof of how it was paid and then once we have some demonstration TR proof then we know who to pay back so then can we regulate the way of payment if we cannot Trace back we cannot refund the credit card that paid with it well can we only accept checks that that would be a legal question I I think we can the concern is I think that would perhaps you know cause a it's not a legal issue but it perhaps cause an inconvenience for for residents who in some cases maybe want their contractor to hire or or permit expediter someone to handle the entire process for them and so if you require only checks or if you require that only from the residents I can see that being just a practical concern yeah and if and if I may just another point I think was important cuz we were talking about residents versus contractors when a contractor pulls a bond or even considers pulling a bond we have no interest I don't have an interest in pulling a bond zero because by our formula by the formula the way that we break down the construction of a project is by divisions and when you look at your insurance as Joe is shaking his head because he knows very well and and so does so does our other DCM know you don't include a bond or insurance and you can't make profit on that that's below the Line That's Not Top Line That's below the line so what ends up happening that lags in the bottom you can't make put profit on your insurance and you can't put profit on your bond so that just sits there it's it's an expense for the contractor the bigger question you have here is if the contractor asks the resident to pay for the bonds you know to give me the money for the bonds I've never done this and then they keep that money after the problem is how do you how do you stop that got how do you stop the contractors to tell the resident hey give me the money for the bond they go to the city they order the bond and then the bond sits there for two years and then when it's over the resident's forgotten the business owner forgotten and then they get the bond the the project is Seal they get the bond and they keep the $500 the $1,000 the $10,000 whatever the bond amount may be does that happen maybe yeah but it never happened to me and I don't know if somebody would do that I mean that's that would be stealing from your client um but I've never had an issue and I've been here 12 years what I what I have seen what I have seen is people tell me you know Vince I didn't know that I I had gotten a bonds I had forgotten that I got in a bonds and it just sat there for two or three years then my response is go see Doug sit down with Doug have a conversation he can research it for you and you can find that if you have an existing bond in your project that's the cleanest way of doing things M vice mayor so I have a couple questions for legal but on as a lawyer what I would do is I would require a discount on my contract for the bond because I know that the Bond's going back to you on the back end here we have this problem with unclaimed assets and there are similar procedures in state government as far as how unclaimed assets are dealt with and I'd ask that you know we consider that if it's not claimed by the contractor can we by default then reimburse the homeowner give it a you know a certain period of time you you don't claim it okay and then what do we do if still the homeowner doesn't claim it you know what do we do with those unclaimed funds so vice mayor we have a code provision that addresses these bonds and it currently states that um if it's not claimed within a certain period of time after the close out of the permit and final inspection um that essentially it basically is forfeited to the city okay so we can look at that if there's there's any changes that need to be made there but that's what it currently states that it is forfeited to the city for the administrative you know costs and and services of the city all right so I mean if you wouldn't mind circulating that to all of us so we can you know read it and be familiar I'd appreciate it so the the issue that has arisen with the residents that have approached me is exactly what the mayor was stating where the contractor has asked for the money they've put the money in the bond and then they've kept the money so as far as investment to 100% return for that contractor and that's where I think we need to have some sort of protection uh Mr clerk what I would like to do is put this on the agenda maybe the 2 October meeting so that everybody has time to really talk to staff and maybe we can have a little more fruitful conversation as to potential options that we can have and that gives staff uh and the city attorney's office enough time to to properly vet you know what the process is maybe in other municipalities and how we can tweak ours to uh add some protections for for residents have a member of the public requesting to speak on the item okay Mrs Maria Cruz Mrs Maria Cruz 1447 Miller Road I'm so glad that this came up um bonds are not necessarily for big buildings for thousand of dollars um when I moved my septic tank to the front I had no idea that I had a BN and all of a sudden I got a check in the mail from the septic tank people and I called him and said what is this money about oh when you signed there was a bond and we just got it back okay we have to remember that we have a large population of people that are not in the building business that are not attorneys that rely on the uh person that's going to be doing their work for them they come in and they say how much money do I need to give you and they give them the money okay they don't sit down and say okay this is for this this is for that this is okay I have an idea and I've discussed it before I'm going to bring it up again we have issues with uh permits that are not closed my idea is that perhaps we should start thanking the owner for closing the permit you know something to the effect that you know uh thank you very much for making sure your permit is closed if there is a bond it is reimbursable whoever paid for it needs to come and claim it do not force the owners to pull the permits and to uh bring the money for the bond because you have a whole bunch of people that are not going to do that they rely on the person or the contractor or the whoever is doing it to do for doing that process and there's nothing wrong with doing that but if you thank him for making sure the permit is closed and you relay the message that you know if there's a bond you know the bond is reimbursable now whoever paid should come and claim it and that would make it easy for them that's it Mr Mayor if you if you would be so kind next time when you bring when you bring this back there was a comment made about that we have a lot of existing permits that are open will you would you provide the commission with the exact number of permits that are open as per the system of course we'll be happy to understanding was that you along with other members uh previously had addressed a lot of the existing open permits that was attack we have and we continue to I believe there's 60 something left 60 something but that was in the old system in the old system so I remember that tsunami had had to address a lot of that there was like 7,000 8,000 permits and you guys went and attacked that for a long time there's been a Monumental effort in the old system we're down to very few numbers in the current system of course new permits there's quite a few more yes so I congratulate you on that effort okay all right uh um if excuse me mayor if maybe the commission would indulge me with an approval for a pocket item it'll be really quick I'm I'm open yeah go ahead okay um it depends on how big the pocket is I know it's pretty short don't don't pick her pocket I am I am um I I want to go ahead and talk about the Childhood Cancer Awareness Month La a couple meetings ago we spoke about live like Bella the fire department and the union got together there was a presentation here for um child cancer awareness the shirts are for sale they're $15 there we go there the ways there's different ways of purchasing them you could zel the union there's a phone number if you get your phone out you could just scan the barcode that is venmo and if you just want to do a donation without a shirt you could just donate direct directly to live like Bella all proceeds the city is not staying with anything go to live like Bella that's what the shirt looks like and if you go ahead and take that off for a second Billy please take it off okay there we go cable TV take it off okay I myself I am woring a live like Bella shirt okay so you could dress it up dress it down I'll show you what the back looks like yes the hair they they hair there you go beautiful support them as much as we can we know that um this is a very unfortunate disease and I'm pretty pretty sure this whole population that's affected by this disease would appreciate it if the the one last thing is if you do make a donation you could go and pick up the shirt in the city Commission office and um thank you to De Rosa and David if you want to come up and say a few words good morning Mr Mayor Commissioners Mr manager uh thank you commissioner for bringing this up before the commission you know during your August meeting the city decided to unanimously support childhood Childhood Cancer Awareness Month um so thank you all of you for supporting that um as part of this awareness effort we the union have been going around all month long um asking the individuals in the public and our local hospitals to participate in the effort so I wanted to take this opportunity to thank our local hospitals Coral Gable's Hospital uh South Miami uh doctor's hospital for really uh supporting the effort we've been at this for a month they've bought a lot of t-shirts and I'm happy to be able to do this on behalf of the city and also on behalf of the organization so thank you again for bringing this up we appreciate the help thank you Del Rosa would you like to say a few words sure thank you very much so I'd like to Echo our thanks to support in our community and from this commission as uh you've seen on our uh social media accounts and we discussed it up here this is a uh struggle and a tragedy that hits home with one of our fire lieutenants uh child suffering from from cancer and having to move his family to St Jude's hospital for several months so this one definitely hits home as does all uh cancers in our family and every I don't think there's anyone that hasn't been struck by one form of cancer or another one but certainly this one does so our firefighters have been wearing the yellow for the whole month um and we're probably going to culminate the month with a fir truck parade to all the children's hospitals in Miami dat County and Broward um and uh just stand outside the building and and let them know that that they're recognized and that you know we're we're looking out for them so thank you again for pointing that out and for our community support towards this Valiant effort as we enter October and we start with uh breast cancer and chief uh thank you very much uh for for uh allowing for the the department to particip at in this uh I also think since you're here it's important to recognize your team uh for their efforts yesterday with that individual uh who crashed through the uh the barricade in the parking garage landed on the tree um the incredible work done by our team Miami D and Miami working together um showed uh how great we can work together in this community uh and um what a great level of service uh our First Responders offer our community so thank you I want I want to share a very private story and I and I think it really merits it um my daughter several months ago was diagnosed with MS and I have to say that that has been a very big struggle for me and I cannot only imagine a younger child of mine or or anybody else's being diagnosed with cancer so I I sincerely and I I I kind of beg everyone please support this organization it's it's and and I invite all my colleagues to to to buy a shirt please and it'll be here in in the city commission so I I probably won't buy a shirt but I'll donate so beautiful thank you commissioner if I can please if I can just add this wasn't something that just Coral Gables did I I I want to mention that other departments also jumped on this community effort Miami D Fire H Alia fire and their respective unions also joined in the awareness effort on the issue so I want to thank you all again for officially participating we appreciate all the help thank you so much so I I do have an ask for you on October 18th and 19th at the builtmore we do have the Ronald McDonald fundraiser occurring MH coming out wearing your shirts okay because I think the two projects complement each other because Ronald McDonald House provides his housing for the families undergoing you know these very tragic situations with their children needing surgeries and so forth and I know the mayor's been a staunch supporter of that and every other cause that comes in to help children um on health reasons I'd like to see you know see if we can all collaborate and do what we can for our community uh support both causes at the same time because this is a wonderful cause and and both will help each other thank you thank you so much thank you so I'd just like to if through the mayor if uh like to indulge me uh on commissioner Fernandez's comments I'd like to personally recognize our firefighters yesterday um yes City of Miami was there and um they added their support um Miami Dade was instrumental in providing um their technical support on how we were going to safely remove that car from that parking garage not Let It Slam onto the street cause more damage there wasn't a life safety issue at that time so uh their expertise having a unique resource like having a a uh a record of that size they were instrumental to our command structure to make sure that whatever the private company was doing was safe and effective was not going to risk anyone's life and it wasn't going to further destroy property uh but I really like to recognize how efficient how effective our firefighters secured that vehicle to make sure that lady was safe then uh devised the Rope rescue that we did to safely remove her from the car um and it just as a testament to the investment that we have whether it's through through our city funds or grant funding towards the training and development and equipping of our folks and they did a phenomenal job for a lot of us that's a once- in a-lifetime rescue for that lady I'm sure I hope it's one in a lifetime for her but um you know every everything came into effect that day including you know uh vice mayor Anderson you're you're a true advocate for green spaces and trees and I I think that tree played the most intricate role in that rescue we have strong trees in Coral Gables that if you look at it that's it's not exactly a a oak that you see on Coral Way But it managed to just buy us enough time to render that rescue so um I really like to recognize our folks our neighboring Partners were great assets to us but the heavy lifting was done by our firefighters and I couldn't have been any prouder of them and the folks that have trained and developed them it was uh certainly a significant return on our investment you thank you very much the first the first thing that went through my mind was thank God for that tree right and then the second one was she could have gotten out through the trunk no maybe no no that that car was a delicate balance where uh for me at least I was kind of shocked that when uh fire paramedic Feldman harnessed her basically married her to his harness and when he removed her out of the car just the this if you look at it in comparison to how much that car weighs her weight is really insignificant and just the removal of the car you saw the car shift and you know it kind of gave you that tense moment there so uh definitely she did the right thing by staying put and listening to our directions and being calm and patient enough to let us secure the vehicle to the building and then conduct the Rope rescue that that was conducted and commissioner I'm I'm sorry Mr Mayer if I could add um the way that car was perched we thought I asked the same question can't she just get out of the trunk and the way it was perched the trunk couldn't open because the garage ceiling wouldn't let that trunk pop open so that's that's why you know to the to the fire chief's comment so thank you very much Mr clerk Mr Mayor Mrs Maria Cruz would like to make a comment on the item Mrs Maria Cruz 1447 Miller Road um I'm so happy that um by Vice major brought up Ronald McDonald's house for years our Kiana clubs have been saving the flipped uh Tops on the cans and it all it takes is for somebody to save them we put them in containers and we drop them off and they get money out of it I don't know how the process goes but I know that we get letters you know our members go deliver I have several containers in my kitchen as we speak and they get a letter saying thank you because of your donation will help our Ronald McDonald's house so that I'm so glad that you brought it up moving on to item H1 H1 is a resolution of the city commission accepting a recommendation to wave the competitive process of the procurement code and purchase an additional six life pack 15 systems for 28500 31812 as a sole source procurement pursuant to section 2689 of the city's procurement code I'll entertain a motion move it second commissioner Castro yes commissioner Fernandez yes commissioner Menendez yes vice mayor Anderson yes mayor logo yes moving on to H2 H2 is a resolution of the city commission accepting the recommendation of the chief procurement officer to award RFP 20242 group medical insurance services to Signal health and life insurance company the highest ranked responsive and responsible proposal proposer pursuant to section 2- 763 of the procurement code entitled contract award and request of proposal 202 2420 second questions there was a mo motion second got the motion in a second I'm just waiting to see if celest is going to oh you want to speak no pretty clear while you're ahead pretty clear commissioner Fernandez yes commissioner Menendez yes vice mayor Anderson yes commissioner Castro yes mayor logo yes item H3 H3 is a resolution of the city commission accepting the recommendation of the chief procurement officer to award RFP 2024 21 group life insurance with ad and to Standard Insurance Company the highest ranked responsive and responsible proposer pursuant to section 2763 of the procurement code entitled contract award and requested proposal 20242 move it second second Comm Kirk commissioner Mendez yes vice mayor Anderson yes commissioner Castro yes commissioner Fernandez yes mayor logo yes H4 H4 is a resolution of the city commission accepting the recommendation of the chief procurement officer to award RFP 20249 group vision insurance to human insurance company the highest ranked responsive and responsible proposer pursuant to section 2763 of the procurement code entitled contract award and requested proposal 20249 Mo second Mr clerk vice mayor Anderson yes commissioner Castro yes commissioner Fernandez yes commissioner Mendez yes mayor log yes moving on to H5 H5 is resolution of the city commission accepting the recommendation of the chief procurement officer to award RFP 202 2422 group dental insurance the human insurance company the highest ranked responsive and responsible proposer pursuant to section 2- 763 of the procurement code entitled contract award and request for proposal 202 2422 a motion h it Mr cler commissioner Castro yes commissioner Fernandez yes commissioner Mendez yes vice mayor Anderson yes mayor L yes thank you very much thank you appreciate your hard work uh item 86 H6 is a resolution of the city commission adopting the city's 2025 legislative priorities Fernando I think everybody's pretty familiar with it I've got an item to add I think our intergovernmental affairs will be here too there he is there he is sorry about that I ran out quickly uh good morning mayor vice mayor Commissioners Fernando weer government Affairs manager for the city um if you allow me I'd like to talk through our priorities I'll be as brief as I can but I think it's worth discussing so we give some context as to why we chose these priorities for the city so uh before we begin I just want to make two quick comments uh usually there are Appropriations projects that we include with this priorities list list uh and that will be forthcoming we were a little faster this year in preparing our priorities because a couple of the Commissioners commissioner Fernandez commissioner Castro and vice mayor Anderson as well as some staff members Chelsea grenell from the mayor's office and I will be participating in the FLC committees that are upcoming next week on October 4th so we just wanted to set our priorities before we headed out and then also we have more time this year to uh uh prepare our projects because the legislative uh session doesn't begin until March and last year began in January so we have some time okay so the second thing is the the categories that you can break these priorities down into the first being a very general things like uh home rule you know we're looking out for General preemptions that deal with home rule as well as protection of the environment Transportation things of that sort and then you'll see specific statutory changes that we want to make and has to do with something uh like uh tree removal statutes that we want to look at and make statutory changes that will get to specific legislatures to try and change okay so we'll begin with home rule home rule I think will probably be on here every single time we have this conversation uh home rule is uh something that should Grant broad powers to municipalities and we want to protect the welfare safety and quality of life of our communities and should have a say in all of those categories um chapter one 166 bless you of Florida Statutes gives a very broad power to municipalities that should be preserved and uh Florida Statutes state that it should be something that is only expressly preempted by the state so we want to look out for any time there's some kind of implied preemption um and that deals in both substantive and procedural forms so uh a procedural example of this is s SP 170 from last year the 2023 session it is a uh statute that permits uh somebody to sue a city or a local government could be a county or city if they believe that there is an ordinance that is either arbitrary or unreasonable and in that suit if they ask for that ordinance to uh ceased from being um enforced it is it is uh required that that municipality no longer enforce it until those proceedings are complete so those kinds of procedural hurdles that we have to overcome sometimes are something that we should watch out for and resist because that is not what the intention of the broad home rule powers that were given to the municipalities by the Florida Statutes the second item on here is protection of the environment um this is going to focus primarily with biscan Bay um and uh mayor logo you made a good point in your mayor oral address last week where you were saying there's a lot of issue with outpour and and whatever we're we're doing to prevent those outpour is something that we should focus on um and that has a lot to do with uh you know converting our septics our septic systems to our sewer facilities and also our aging sewer facilities finding funding for them whether it's something from the federal government or the state government or dealing with the county um and it is something that we're doing at all of those levels from the federal government we're seeking Appropriations fundings to the tune of a million dollars for the C robino Force M um which is one of our Southern neighborhoods next to the coastline um that Force M's about 50 years old and for a long time has been needing to be renovated from the state there are some Grant programs that we'll likely try to seek funding from um and and grants are difficult because it's uh it's all competition you know it's all need-based um and obviously we want those that need facilities to receive the funding but as a city we need to seek funding when we can uh so so we'll look to programs within the Department of Environmental Protection within the state and and two of the things that we'll look out for are the biscane Bay water quality improvement program and then the resilient floor a uh program that mitigates flood and sea level rise and then also we'll find some projects when we come up with our Appropriations projects uh that that you know deal with those issues that have to do with more um sewer you know septic to sewer conversions or or anything to do with storm water uh but but we'll keep looking towards those things the next item on here is transportation the first bullet being probably the most important protection uh for all our road users and that's something again that we're dealing with at the federal state and local level um at the federal level there are a couple of funding options that we've been looking at as a city and have applied for funding from two of those programs are the active Transportation infrastructure program and that's a program that we sent in Grant applications to plan out some sidewalks and uh bike paths as well as a program called The Safe Streets for all program that's meant to help us install plan out or install uh any kind of sa counter measures that we can include into our roadways whether those are speed bumps or traffic circles or medians whatever we need to include into our infrastructure so that road users are safe um at the state level we get funds distributed down to the county and then those funds are distributed down to the city based on our population now we have a bit of an issue with that are the 2020 census put our population under 50,000 people so I'm in conversations with the government Affairs person at the TPO to see if can do some sort of interical census um it's something that we'll have to fund as a city on our own and uh and hopefully get that number above 50,000 so we get a representative on the TPO and increase the funds that were distributed the next item on here is Home Improvements and property insurance rates for this we have a bunch of different programs that our residents can participate in with the rising value of homes the issues with insurance that United's the only real player in Florida and and insurance rates are spiking and and their taxes are incredibly High there are options for programs that we can uh provide and help guide our residents through one of them being the mys safe home Florida program that's a grant program available to Residents they can either have inspections done or once those inspections are complete they can have a grant of up to $10,000 and the way the state will match it is they'll provide two to one funding up to $10,000 so every dollar that the resident puts into the project the state will match at $2 and then there's a similar program that was launched this year called the my saave condominium pilot program and that's for all condominium owners that have property within 15 miles of the coastline um and it very much works like the other program as well it's the inspections and then a grant program to give you options for funding um now last year something that Governor D santis implemented was a tax uh exemption for some property owners that were un resident iial properties and flood insurance premiums that's something that I think we should seek out as well this year to to provide some kind of financial break for our residents for on their properties um and then also there are some hardening programs that we've discussed that that I think a vicee positioned last uh it was a couple of commissions ago but the PACE program to give people alternative methods for making their homes more resilient just just finding other ways to to uh Harden their homes and give them some break on on these costs may I interrupt you there since section I I'll go back to the others before but while we're talking about that and there is support for this among our state representatives to enhance the Florida building code itself to require the Windstorm ratings of South Florida building code there is support for this uh I've been in you know contact with various state representatives all the way from K the keys on on North that if we want to bring down insurance rates for everybody in Florida we got to build better homes and if you're just dealing with the Windstorm rating so the roof ston go flying off and the homes uh are built stronger like they are here we will uh be able to get better insurance rates overall for all residents in in the state so um that was one we spoke about but uh was omitted um and since I've already interrupted you no problem man' and what's been nice is every year with this program they've expanded the kinds of projects that you can have done on your home so maybe that's something we push for as well is you know with the PACE program is what you can do within the program I think previously you weren't able to do like septic to sewer conversions and they're roping in more projects that are this this is different this is the actual Florida building code itself so if you're going to build a new home or you meet that threshold that you have to bring it up to code um you know and I'm going to let the the experts in the room determine if that's applicable but we need to build better if we want you know after Andrew um you know and I was here during Andrew and some of us were much younger during Andrew and maybe don't remember the details there was an opportunity to do this but the building industry complained because it was going to increase cost of building so much well pay me now or pay me a hell of a lot more later uh and and that's what we're doing now we're paying for the mistakes of the past uh there is support for this in the state legislature it's a simple um one sentence uh addition to this it says enhance Florida building code to require the Windstorm ratings of the South Florida building code okay and you know I've already been working with the U State reps on it it's it's pretty clear what needs to be done and you know it's every everything from the strapping on the roof down to the foundation so we have something that's resilient in the future to the wind issues that we're going to be dealing with throughout the state um you know that's why the West Coast was not prepared in the past I I'll go back to the other stuff later okay proceed and I think you you hit the nail in the head um this week um the Panhandle could be hit with a major hurricane uh the latest estimates show that it could be as high as a Category 5 when it makes impact uh so that's going to have an effect and that area definitely does not have uh a building code anywhere near what ours is so it will impact us so I think that's um Nob brainer and I'll add that to the list okay I I have it redlined perfect um next we have vacation rentals on here this issue comes before the Florida legislature every single year um based on conversation I've had with our lobbying teams and and articles left and right companies like vbo and Airbnb are increasing their lobbying efforts in Florida uh so so it's something that's not going to go away last year this bill that had to do with vacation rentals passed the Florida legislature but then when it got to the governor's desk he vetoed it because he he said that one- siiz fits all policy is not something that he wanted to see in Florida uh regardless it will likely come back and uh what is nice is that we have a a uh EX in our single family residential code we say that there are not vacation rentals that are permitted because we list out what uses are permitted and say only those expressly stated are permitted um so there is a grandfather clause in the statute currently as it is so hopefully when this bill comes before the Florida legislature that Clause will remain and our focus in the single family residential area will not change that does not allow vacation rentals um this the next thing on here is soning Authority and building elements uh you know this is a preemption issue that when it comes to uh building design elments for one and two family residential homes um that that if you have an Architectural Review Board that you have some say at the local level this is something we're hoping stays the same and and I'll Point our lobbyists to to maintain this uh car V out the next thing here very similar type of issue demolition of historic Foams there are flood zones within uh Coral Gables so it not that we don't want people to have unsafe homes and be able to demolish them if necessary but we should have a say as a city and not have a system where administratively these uh these demolitions can go through the system without some kind of input from local government the next item on here is live local live local same kind of thing s sp102 passed and will be amended year after year after year to try to perfect of course we want to find affordable housing for for everybody that we can for workforces so so that people aren't you know priced out of neighborhoods indefinitely um but one thing that we should look to do and and was discussed here at the local level it was an item that the vice mayor brought forth before the commission last commission meeting about having a conversation with other governments whether it's the city surrounding us or the county as to when these projects are coming up so something that that we could push to do is have a conversation and get it written into the statute that when there are live local projects upcoming in your area within a certain radius that your city and your county should be notified of the the process whether it's the beginning the any kind of amendment to that project or denial of those projects Fernando if you I'm sorry to interrupt uh since you mentioned live local I think because of the local a lot of our residents in the past year have become more aware of preemptions and how preemptions have perhaps 10 years ago one would pass out of 10 or 20 uh but now there seems to be a great many more and I think residents are now aware that something that we all need to focus on if you don't mind I think it would be good for everybody if perhaps starting in January February when bills start being filed if perhaps every commission meeting you could make the time to talk to us and the residents of the preemption bills that have been filed and what the status of them are so that we can engage the community on the front end instead of the back end perhaps with the news that we don't want to deliver okay yeah I'll have a sitting item on the agenda for preemption Bill update M okay next Condominiums significant issue that we're seeing with this new bill that was passed as to required inspections um and increased reserves uh now there's a you know a bit of a political struggle at the Florida legislature um as to you know the the Senate President pasido said that they're not going to hold a special session to consider this bill uh but then the governor wants to have a special session held by either the house or the Senate to discuss this uh so we'll see where this heads But ultimately we want to find a workaround you know you want buildings to be up to par you want them to be up to code and have the Reserves NE necessary to deal with their issues but putting all this on the condo owners immediately is going to break them financially so so we want to find a happy medium between those two the next thing now we're getting into the the uh priorities that are specific statutory changes beginning with the tree uh removal statute so this this uh this tree removal statute has been amended a couple of times uh initially when it was put out it was uh very Broad and general saying that a resident could remove their trees if they thought that it was a risk basically which was very loose legal terminology then they changed it and they created a matrix as to when those trees can be removed still with no input from local government um just if there's a moderate to high risk to person or property uh and what we would like to do I think best case scenario is potentially repeal that uh get rid of that completely and say that local government should play a role in deciding what trees are being removed moved and which ones aren't uh but in the alternative having a a statute that has several checks and balances in there that isn't just hey do whatever you want no problem that requires uh as is written here a more robust assessment where you have Landscape Architects and you have arborists that both have to say and swear to the fact that this tree should be removed because it actually poses the risk that they state it does and if not there are penalties that follow for perjuring themselves um also in the case of emergencies you know if there is an emergency that they have the opportunity to remove that tree without getting prior approval by their local government um and then adding in an element of mitigation where a government can come in a local government can come in and say yes you do need to mitigate this tree this is something this is a tree that's local it's not invasive it's a tree that we care about and you need to do something about replacing what you've removed so yeah um Fernando and I spent I think starting in June working on a red line version of this the statute and I turned out the first iteration of it and we then polished it some more so I'm going to asked for you to share the redline version and I'll share with you some of the conversations I've had with State reps because I you know I don't propose something without first testing the waters uh to see if there's some reception for this right now U all you need is a arborous certification you know certified Arbiters to sign off on the letter there's no repercussions for lies there's no repercussions for fraud and there's no loss of a license because you don't have a license to lose so uh in my discussions you know with uh state representative I said we we got to stop the fraud and that's where the the edits to that statute began to provide some some teeth and require somebody that has a license to sign off and you sign under penalty of perjury and if you lie there's a there's a penalty attached to it sir anything else uh just just last three I'll go through them quickly uh voting regulations um I'm sure we all remember the tragic accident that happened with the the teenage girl from Carolton we want specific changes that require um uh you know penalizing Reckless boating when when some Accident Happens that there's a if someone leaves the accident if there is injury to a person that is significant or unfortunate death occurs uh these are changes that we got from the state attorney's office and and we want to sign off on these and send these forward to the Florida legislature then school buses we'd like to throw in private school buses with the regulations that apply to public school buses similar thing a kid in our neighborhood was had his foot run over because a impatient driver went around the school bus the private school bus and didn't see him um and it's because there isn't good signage and and the road rules for drivers the non-school bus drivers when they see private school buses are not the same as to when they see the public school buses um and then last thing the stalking statute that when if someone is stalking somebody either through a third person or through a camera or through a drone uh that they aren't uh they aren't liable for it not in the way that it's written in the statute today so we want to make updates to that so on those last two items the stocking stat was something I actually worked on last year and it has the blessing of you know the state attorney's office the blessing of our police chief we have a sponsor for it Senator Garcia is the sponsor uh has agreed to carry this one um so you know that's gone through a lot of Ed it'ss the voting regulation as well uh I was in contact with State Attorney's office they needed somebody to move it forward and I said to City of cor Gables will definitely you know put it on our legislative agenda uh you know I have also talked to the Senators about that uh the the school bus item uh Fernando and I worked on editing that together I had done some of the preliminary research and realized that the root of the problem was the requirement was only on on public school buses and and times have changed since the 1970s you have a lot of private schools now with a lot of these little U extended vans that that go out around transporting children they have no signage on them and what happened on on Coral Way way was uh the van stopped let the child out okay there was no lights on there it didn't say transporting children a vehicle went around the child walked in front of the van and his foot was run over fortunately just the foot it could have been much worse so this changes the definition so that it encompasses these types of Transportation vehicles and I think we're also addressing the fact that you have to drive Dr the child off on the same side of the street that you pick them up on in these private school these private services so they're not Crossing coralway and we don't have a another uh near tragic a accident on that um you had I wanted to add under the protection of the environment something that dovetails in with some of the efforts that we're trying to make on um dealing with yard waste we can and it's an amendment to um Florida statute section 40373 703 uh paragraph 28 uh the definition of recovered materials would uh need some language added to it to allow food waste yard waste plant and tree materials and certified compostable materials so that's not included in the definition you know this particular definition includes other recyclable materials that are not considered waste so it doesn't have to be dumped uh down you know at the whatever the site is now so mayor if I have a if I can go back real quick to the school bus issue right since it is a Statewide issue sure every city every town has this because from my experience in Tallahassee back in the day some issues have great I don't use the word corporate but [Music] powerful they have a powerful presence in Tallahassee so we focus on Coral Gables and private buses but every private bus company around the around the state will unify because it'll impact them so if I think a good path to do to go down is to try through our lobbyists because they represent other cities throughout and other counties throughout Florida to see if they can reach out to those cities and counties throughout the State of Florida because I'm sure this issue will be something perhaps they would want to join forces on because I think in Tallahassee going at it by ourselves I think we need to uh like they said uh Avengers Assemble kind of situation that's that's why I wanted to be on the league of cities um legislation and policies to be able to push a lot of the stuff for it I've been putting a lot of time in I think we have five statutory amendments here now uh to put our time in yeah on so that I can it's easy for me to do because I'm used to being in a courtroom to be able to push these policies forward so and I can explain the legislation because I I helped co-drafted but yes no it's a state it's a Statewide issue children over yeah profits it's paint it's paint and lights in Florida League of cities is phenomenal and that's the right approach but I think if we let our lobbying team of know that because they can just pick up the phone and just call the key stakeholders and it it will just help move it along I think so I would expect that our entire legislative agenda is something that the lobbyists would be moving forward on so that's why we're having this discussion I no I agree I'm just saying this particular issue because bus industry like a lot of I dealt I dealt at City Miami with assisted living facilities and their presence was dominant in Tallahassee you thought well I'm just dealing with a portion of date County that has an issue then all of a sudden they all came out they unified and they it was a battle and I can only imagine this is one of those is issues that private buses throughout the State of Florida say it's going to cost us money uh so let's unify against Coral Gables pushing this but like the vice mayor said Florida leue of cities where she's going to be talking and communicating but let Ron book and the others know that on this one in particular I think we need them to bring in other cities to this effort so it's just not us fighting it it's others because it's it needs to happen no it it does yeah it does I'm I'm sharing with other cities as well I don't think it's going to be an arm wrestling match too much when you think about potential deaths of children yeah as opposed to the cost of some paint or labels on the back of a of a bus and a few couple lights that can be hooked into the brake light situation it's an easy fix yeah but they'll they'll fight everything too and nil because the the way they look at it is if we have them add a light they know in their minds well if it's a light today then it's so they'll fight it's just the industry standards in in that kind of world they'll fight for everything because they're concerned there'll be more but um we totally support this and we it needs to happen yeah sorry anything else for the the order yes so I I do have a couple questions and um assistant city manager Gomez before you sit down uh Le I caught you before you got completely down uh in the Appropriations section you and I had been talking about some of the preliminary work that needs to be done planning work that needs to be done uh whether it be the geotechnical and you you have the language at the tip of your tongue so that's why I I called you up design would we call it monies yes design monies would yeah CU geot technical is typically considered part of the design process okay so we need design money because we're not going to qualify for any of these grants until we get design done so I would ask that we include More Design money for our septic to sewer um conversion plan um we're working on on reviewing that plan now and I think before you know with a 30 what we we'll come back to you as to when it's ready for presentation before the commission but we do need the Appropriations for design because we'll never be able to get grants without it thank you thank you so I'll make a motion a second commissioner Fernandez yes commissioner Mendez yes vice mayor Anderson yes commissioner Castro yes mayor Doo yes mam vice mayor anything for the good of the order come out on October 18th with your live like Bell shirt on ready to play pickle ball and support the cause or or cheer people on I'll be in the cheering section because my knee will not be healed by then yes so on Saturday I am putting together game night for residents if Billy can there we go game night with commissioner Castro at 4:30 we're going to have trivia at 5:30 we're going to have Bingo karaoke at 6:30 which I hear is a very um Wanted and fun um event to do this is free entry please do register because capacity is limited yeah did I say that right I guess um it's free entry it's an in the dog activity center there's also going to be different stations with different types of games if you're if you don't want to participate in trivia Bingo or karaoke and there's going to be light bites as well expect everybody to be there but if you can't make it you're going to miss out and I believe earlier that day there's going to be a movie night with commissioner Menendez so if you want to go ahead and just call it a day with going to the movies and then having a little lunch and then going to game night I think that would be the perfect Saturday thank you Mr clerk uh I forgot to that we have a we have one individual that we' missed on public comment I apologize um Mr Mayor yes uh Mr Gonzalo SRI has requests please speak Mr sria thank you for being with us good morning whoops good morning my papers are spr good morning sir but I have a message a message directed to three of you commissioner Fernandez commissioner Castro and commissioner man you done it the service of the city and you know it he did an ambush hire of an unqualified city manager who I understand is a Charming gentleman has an open door policy hounds Roundtable meetings he's popular with staff but Mr manager you're not cut out to be a city manager you just don't have it in you and I apologize for saying this in public and I'm going to continue to harp on this publicly not just at this public meeting but everywhere that the citizens of cor Gables congregate until it's very well known that you have made a mistake a mistake that cost a city $1,000 a day $1,000 a day let me explain to you why put this on the camera please this is city manager Swanson based salary $225,000 facts this is city manager Salerno's staring salary $190,000 fact this is city manager elesia starting salary $235,000 is a fact so what do we have now we have an unqualified city manager voted in in an ambush situation by commissioner Fernandez commissioner castle and you commissioner Mendez $282,000 but that's not the end the end is that there an additional $71,500 that city manager has opted to be paid into his paycheck in lie of pension then when you add it all up it's well over $365,000 it's $1,000 a day that you're taking from the city's coffers in an unqualified person and I'm going to ask restitution from the three of you you should pay back to the city restitution of 1,000 a day since you've been wasting this money on unqualified candidate that's the end of my presentation it's not going to stop I hope you realize that you have to come to your census and make the right decision thank you sir M commissioner mandz yes um showing a movie about uh two drifters that are trying to bamboozle others and it's called The Sting with Robert Redford and Paul Newman it's an academy award-winning movie uh very entertaining perhaps not as entertaining as the ending of this commission meeting but entertaining nonetheless it's free free popcorn and free beverage for everyone and and um you can't go wrong with Paul Newman Robert Redford thank you commissioner Fernandez Mr clerk you have the pictures I sent you yes sir I do could you please pull those up yes sir uh I was alerted by a resident about concerns about the clock on Miracle Mile uh the clock is starting to rust onto um the uh pavers um had a brief meeting this morning with the city manager and the ACM um believe it may be issues with the materials used to install it um I know that that was a private contract the city did not contract for the installation so uh just wanted to ask for the mayor to help put staff in contact with the uh uh installers to make sure we address it uh you can see it there in the bottom of the base the next picture is clear that was just uh to show where the Clock Was give me one second sir trusting on the south and on the east side scroll to the bottom to the base there just want to make sure we address it before it becomes a a larger issue it's only been installed for a couple weeks so uh other than that once again wanted to thank our firefighters for the incredible work uh yesterday and remind residents at 5:00 today we have our U second budget hearing can I say one more thing um I I want to apologize on behalf of of the resident to the city manager you've worked really really great with me and I and I really like to at least stand up for our city employees and you are one of them and I I appreciate the work that you've put in I'm I'm not 100% sure that all those numbers are accurate we could look into that a little later it would wouldn't make a difference but I would like to move um to give the city manager a vote of confidence I'll second Mr clerk commissioner Mendez yes vice mayor Anderson yes commissioner Castro yes commissioner Fernandez yes mayor logo no all right I'm going to speak about two well actually hold on because that brings a question public comment was closed did you invite this gentleman to come here and speak on your behalf very briefly we're going to we're going to I'm going to speak about two things I need to speak about no it's a question because public comment was closed in order to reopen public comment we need to taking a vote if you let me finish first off I did not invite this gentleman to be here okay number two you're not going to cross-examine me okay number three we're moving on two things I'm very proud as a multi-decade member of Leal cancer I've sat on that board for several decades very proud of what that organization is doing uh we raised $4 million this weekend to continue to treat people in this community who do not um have the insurance or or the wherewithal to receive treatment in this community um we were able this year to give the gala for La Liga over $50,000 U at this past weekend's tele Marathon which is incredibly successful thousands of people donated 51 $15 it was a beautiful beautiful opportunity the 49th year that this organiz organization continues to exist and continues to serve this community next year is the 50th Anniversary I ask people in this community uh to get involved uh to find a way uh to help this community because at the end of the day it is the true safety that in this community which treats anybody that comes to them they don't ask you whether you're a citizen they don't ask you if you can if you can prove that you can pay for it they'll take care of you by some of the best physicians all board certified uh here in South Florida one of them being my father who's been working there for 40 years and he's the one that got me involved in this great organization so I welcome everybody to get involved that was a great success this weekend I'm inviting everybody on November 15th I don't have the invitation because it's not done on November 15th for my fourth year as chair of the colal G Community Foundation wine auction which is the Veno at the plaza we started we started three years ago we raised 50,000 the second year we raised 100 and last year we raised 150,000 I would love nothing more than to give the community Foundation that evening $200,000 for all the all the scholarships that they give to kids throughout South Florida uh who in one form or another are connected to the city beautiful uh it's an opportunity uh to really showcase what this community is all about the event continues to grow it's a great time to have great great wine great food be with great people and it benefits all these students who are associated with the foundation and who go to public school and some private schools here throughout the community and I think it's something that bears fruit year after year after year because you see the success of these children as they go off onto college and you know that you played a role in that by being able to raise money so ask you peace people to come uh tickets are $100 um if you're involved with the cor Community Foundation just go to their website and you can and you can enjoy a beautiful night and be amongst family and friends so with that being said we have a 5:00 we have a 5:00 budget meeting I look forward to everybody joining us thank you and have a wonderful day for e e