right right no no yeah beauti it's a great experience for any sometimes experi a lot of I know few they really really good but they got train good back I have low blood pressure I have low blood pressure so I'm good you're good well you know where it is is it's down there that they freeze yeah everything yeah everything in in Anatomy head District I'm commissioner I'm commissioner fin as easy as that where is oh I'm sorry you wanted me to print that I'm sorry I might have it um I might be able to pull it up maybe I'm not oh yes this no no she wants me to can you make a video um to have people log in and I think I just sent you one more paper can you bring me other paper send them to me I'll separate them I'm not I'm not support support it's pass PTO Ric and Thomas who's running the who's running the show I really hope for the sess City that this go just a print out of something I already emailed all of you good morning everyone good morning turn yeah good morning does everybody have their mic on check okay all right see I ask Madam City attorney to recording in progress good morning vice mayor yes um as a preliminary matter we do need a a motion and approval of the commission for the mayor to participate and vote via Zoom um it's my understanding the mayor had travel that could not be rearranged and this meeting couldn't be rescheduled so we do have a quorum in the room that's important for the record um but we just need a motion to determine the mayor can participate via Zoom due to extraordinary circumstances and I'll second all in favor I I I thank you okay so um good morning everybody I appreciate the time and effort that you all have taken to get prepared for today's meeting on some very important topics that will impact our um city for um you know the future and for the current year so um Madam City attorney I'd ask you to outline the the protocol here for voting requirements um on a a budg item on a millage rate um maintenance or reduction so I will defer to the um budget director with respect to the exact um numbers on the millage rates but but generally in order to um give me one moment I'll I'll just outline the required votes um so the what can be approved by a majority vote is the roll back rate adjusted by the percentage change in the per capita P Florida personal income that's that's the maximum rate that can be adopted by a majority vote a rate up to 110% of the maximum rate which was the r back rate adjusted by the percentage change in per capita Florida personal income would require um the forfeits vote and then a rate that exceeds 100 10% of that which is not being discussed would require a unanimous vote I have a quick question um the decision we make today isn't necessarily to agree on a military but it's basically create the ceiling on the because the millage rate will be decided in September correct correct okay yes so it will uh create a ceiling and uh with that being said um um Madame budget uh director I'd ask you to outline what the four fif vote requirements are what the majority vote requirements are for um the middle r setting one second um so I will um just refer to my screen for a moment um so I guess I'll start with saying that the resolution that's presented to you today is to set the millage rate maintaining the current millage rate of 5559 that's the resolution um that was presented last meeting and that's the resolution that was included in the agenda for this meeting and so the current millage rate of 5559 5559 requires a Four f vote um as the City attorney said um the ma the majority maximum millage and that's the second to last one that's listed on this slide of five . 4199 is the maximum millage that could be set with a 35ths vote um anything between 54199 and 5559 or greater requires a 4S vote so um I'll go to this section of the um slide which shows the current mill rate of 5559 that requires a four fist vote uh 05% reduction to that millage rate would require 4 fths vote 1% reduction to that millage rate would require 4 fth vote a 2% reduction to the mill rate would require a 4 F vote and once again the majority maximum rate of 54199 is the highest millage rate that can be set with a three-fifth vote and then the roll back rate of course of 5.1 281 um would be that could be adopted by this Commission but that would be the uh rate that would be imposed on us if we don't make a decision here today right so if we had a split vote to two or you know we just didn't reach a conclusion that's the only time that the roll back rate would be imposed correct yes and so just for to be clear the roll back rate would be a $10 million reduction to the current budget estimate that was presented to this commission um and so just for a point of clarity when we um when we came to you in June uh prior to June on the estimates for capital on the budget estimates that we had at the time we typically in preparing our budget anticipate anywhere from a 3 to 5% increase in values so um we count on an increase in property values between 3 to 5% in any given year uh to cover our normal increases for um for the increases that the city incurs right health insurance increases increases for merits and colas increases for contracts that we have um and so at that time we were um estimating a 5% increase to property values and so we were estimating um not that we would get a $10 million increase in Revenue but that we would get about a $6 million increase in revenue and when we prepared our budget estimate which we then brought and said we think we're going to have this much for Capital let's prioritize capital projects we were anticipating a 6 m million increase um so I'm going to ask you just to pause since absolutely I want to make sure that we have the mayor um available on Zoom is he on mayor is on Zoom yes okay can we uh mayor can you hear all of us uh yes madame vice mayor thank you for allowing me the opportunity to be on zoom and for my colleagues supporting that I can hear you yes and how long do you have to be with us on Zoom this morning so I have about 45 minutes and then I'm catching my flight and then I'll be able to Lo be able to log in after if it's required I have a brief statement and I also wanted to make sure that that my that the individuals who are present the residents the business owners uh are also aware staff and my colleagues on the commission um I'm providing staff I'm providing my colleagues with a copy of the speech that I'll be giving this morning I'm also providing a copy of the letter that was provided to all of us from the Miami day County property apprais with bedro Garcia on June 30th 2023 where he advocates for a rate reduction a significant rate reduction and I also I'm also providing an email exchange between myself and the clerk and my staff which details that this is the first meeting in 11 and a half years that I will not be present at that I will be missing but I'll still be on Zoom but I wanted to put that for the record because I've heard several people say that you know how can I be how could I miss such an important meeting um I did my best to be at the meeting I offered multiple different times multiple different days but we weren't able to coordinate a time so I'm still present and I appreciate my colleagues for allowing me the privilege to join them today via Zoom okay I'm not hearing you now are you still trying to speak to us no I'm not I'm not I just I just stopped okay can you hear me yes yes yes um so since you only have a few minutes I'm gonna ask that you go ahead and uh speak now in case you start getting boarding calls to get on the plane perfect well vice mayor thank you and I appreciate you uh you chairing the meeting you're doing a wonderful job and thank you to staff thank you to staff for all your hard work thank you to the residents to the business Community uh to all the associations to the chamber to everyone that I met with uh so we could have a real discussion in regards to the possibility of cutting the military like I've said before Coral gave is a home to a diverse array of restaurants and businesses always contribute to our tax base our Central business district our CBD combined accounts for over 40% of our tax regue by lowering taxes we can help further stimulate economic growth encouraging more businesses to set up their shop and contribute to our vibrant local economy while continuing to maintain worldclass Services throughout the past decade this is an important fact poal Gable has benefited from a dramatic increase in Revenue last year alone our city collected an additional almost $24 million in regards to property tax revenue over the past year over the prior year that's a year-over-year increase of more than 400% furthermore even with a TW with a 2% Mage rate reduction our city can expect to receive more than $7 million in additional property tax revenue therefore there is no doubt that we can maintain our high high quality services and infrastructure this economic Good Fortune presents us with a wonderful opportunity to give back to our residents by reducing their tax burden fisal responsibility includes recognizing when to turn Surplus revenues to the community fostering trust and Good Will among our citizens lowering the millage rate can directly improve the quality of life for our residents making home ownership and living in coros more affordable this is particularly beneficial for elderly residents on picked income for young families this reduction per me the difference between renting and owning their first home in City beautiful I would like to address a crucial matter that has been the topic of much debate within our community vice mayor Anderson and my proposal to lower the millage rate for Coral GES residents by 2% this initiative is designed to provide long overdue Financial relief without compromising exceptional city services that we all cherish and rely lowering the millage rate is a step toward offering much needed economic relief to our residents at a time when the cost of living continues to rise by easing the tax burden we would join neighboring municipalities like KC Miami West Miami and others including Miami day County last year showing a regional commitment to support our communities by lowering the military last year on June 30th like I mentioned in a formal news release by the county by Miami day County property appra B J Garcia he urged local governments to cut the property tax rates to compensate for a 3% increase in taxable values awaiting homeowners in their 2023 bills he stated this year's unprecedented record growths of almost 48 billion of taxal value has provided our local taxing Authority with a windfall however I am concerned with the for with the average homeowner and small business that may struggle with increased property taxes the county and many cities saw their saw significant growth therefore I'm asking our local governments to consider a reduction in their tax rates this is coming directly directly from Pedro Garcia I've included that letter it's part of the public record various municipalities in South Florida are considering lowering taxes and are lowering taxes due to the rise of inflation cost of groceries gas skyrocketing insurance premiums and their overall cost of living the regional Trend underscores the feasibility and benefits of such measures ensuring that cor Gables remains competitive and supportive to our residents property values and Coral Gables have been sub have seen substantial growth over the past three years outpacing many neighboring municipalities as of June 1st 2024 the estimated property taxable values for the City stand at 24.5 billion marking an impressive 88.2% increase from the previous year 22.6 billion this total is this total is compromising 22.25 four billion from existing properties and 246 million from new construction contrary to claims that our population is increasing and this is important because I heard that many people stated oh our population is increasing we're increasing we need more services our l census data has revealed that the city has experienced a drop in population for this reason we are no longer members of the TPO which is a shame and I enjoyed serving on that board which requires a minimum of 50,000 residents to receive representation this leads one to ask why is our budget increasing so dramatically if our population is not so let's set the record straight it's unfortunate that some continue to to resort to disingenuous Scare Tactics misleading residents by falsely claiming that city services are at stake and that the services we provide will suffer let me be clear this is patently false the goal of lowering the militer rate is to provide relief for all residents and we are committed to maintaining our world-class services without compromise if a municipal government with a quarter billion dollar budget quarter billion doll budget cannot Implement a modest $2.6 million reduction without compromising essential Services it raised a serious question about our fiscal management and and structural stability I for one do not believe we are structurally unstable I believe we simply lack the will to make difficult choices I also believe we can do much better it is important to note that Florida law mandates that tax reductions be applied uniformly across all property taxes ples suggesting that this tax cut is designated to favor a selected are inaccurate and misleading state state law makes it impossible to tailor tax cuts to benefit any particular seg segment of of property owners every property in Coral Gables from small business owners to large businesses will see the same percentage reduction in their property tax I encourage all residents to familiarize themselves with all these facts our goal is to Foster an inform dialogue about the proposal based on based on accurate information and a clear understanding of how property tax Productions work under Florida law lowering the milit rate is a strategic and compassionate move that reflects our City's commitment to the financial well-being of our residence our responsibility to use increased Revenue wisely and our desire to continue fostering a thriving Dynamic Community by leveraging alternative funds funding mechanisms we also achieve this goal without compromising our capital projects or quality of service provided to our residents so I have a compromise for you in the spirit of collaboration and responsive governance I carefully consider the concerns raised by my colleagues on the commission last year I proposed a 5% reduction in the minut rate which three members of the commission opposed this year after thorough analysis and in recognition of the needs for a balance approach I initially suggested a 2% reduction which 3% which three members of the commission opposed however I understand that governance is about finding common ground and moving forward with this in mind I would like to propose a compromise a 1% reduction in the military while this reduction is far far more modest than what I would prefer it nonetheless represents a middle path that acknowledges both the need for fiscal prudence and tax Rel for the residents half a loaf is better than no bread at all what's more if you reflect our share commitment to the well-being of the of poal Gables and its citizens while it may not be what I think it it needs to be it would it would be an important step in the right direction it would demonstrate our ability as a commission to work together and to find a constructive solution this compromise proposal balances our residents desire for tax relief with our fiscal responsibilities by adopting this measured approach we demonstrate our unity and commitment to serving all Gable citizens I urge my fellow Commissioners to join me in supporting this inue together we can Implement a policy that provides meaningful relief serves our City's best interest interest and demonstrates our ability to govern collaborative and responsibly with that being said Madam chair if I may I'd like to make a motion to lower our minut rate by 1% um I'll second that motion there has any discussion I'm sure there can be discussion absolutely there can be discussion I didn't say there couldn't be discussion so we we can uh proceed to discussion um and um Senator Garcia thank you so much for being here today um I appreciate you being present and um just so the the public can also see that that you're here in the room would you mind just coming up to the podium because I'd like to thank you personally for all the work that you do for our state the monies that you have brought back to our community over the past you know several years while you've been in office um 2022 we brought back $2.5 million um in 2023 there was $3.48 million and you know that's a total of almost $6 million $5.98 million and I'm rounding these numbers obviously but it wasn't without tireless efforts uh by yourself and other colleagues in Tallahassee that these funds were were brought back so thank you for being here I've I've listened carefully to not only your requests but the requests of other state reps that you know the Cor G's needs to lower its millage rate and I'm glad you're here today um you know if you'd like to participate um please do thank you and I'd like to appreciate all of you for working together um it's difficult times that we're going through and um this is a uh such a worthy city of collaborating and making sure that we're all on the same page in order to make sure that the people that have lived here for a very very long time by the way we also welcome the new ones um continues to um to sust sust sustantiva the lifestyle that they've always had but considering the current you know uh economic situation that we're living in um there are two subjects that overwhelm the my Senate Office recently it's the issues with insurance it's the issues with condo associations and wherever it is that we can cut corners and help our constituents um um would be um would be very much welcomed so I appreciate all of you thank you thank you and thank you for being here so um with that being said um i' like to start in order of senority U commissioner Menendez if you'd like to add some comments to the to the record I uh on this very important discussion no I I think um finding a common ground at I think is important I think also it's important to recognize that U at least the feedback I've gotten from the members of the community or residents is overwhelmingly not to cut the millage rate or at least not lower the ceiling on the millit rate obviously we come back in September for the final number um you know I'm all for working together uh finding common ground but um what that common ground is is um there's an opportunity to discuss and debate and find the right path forward but I'm I appreciate the mayor um understanding that we need to work together and in fact you know I mentioned it before we've we've agreed unanimously on over 90% of our votes so hopefully this is a day that we can come together unanimously and um help move the city forward those are my initial comments he um she sworn first I don't know what Senor well you know you you're older well you you got a I'm older there you go well you didn't have to go to a runoff so you get to go first um first off uh thank you Madame vice mayor uh thank you senator for for being here um I Echo some of commissioner mendez's comments the overwhelming response that we've had over the last 3 weeks from residents against a lowering of the millage rate um is something that having been in politics for over 25 years I have never seen before um but we have a very educated um group of residents in this city who understand the financial situation our city faces I can understand um Pedro Garcia's uh memo to all municipalities throughout Miami day County Coral Gables is a little bit different we have an unfunded liability that is really an elephant on our backs whenever we're making financial decisions every time that we hear and and even former uh city manager El glacis would always tell me once we pay off our unfunded liability debt we will have an additional $27 million to address capital projects that we have unlike you know West Miami kisc other municipalities who have cut the militate of the last few years we also have a large number of Aging infrastructure that need needs to be repaired we have the AL Hamber water tower we have City Hall which we've been trying to get and Senator you you've tried to get us funding in tasse we haven't been able to secure that funding these are projects that are important for us going forward because as we continue to Kick the Can down the road all these projects become way more expensive to address and I think staff in this room has seen how a lot of these projects have ballooned the the the fixing of burger Bobs we started with estimates of $400 $600,000 and today were paying almost $2 million in a period of 4 years to do the exact same work there was a gentleman who was at the Town Hall on on Tuesday and he said he had been in the city for many years but he said don't lower the millage rate use the funding that we have today to address the projects that we currently need we have over $9 million of sidewalks that need to be repaired and Senator You've Been instrumental in getting us some some uh funding in Talahassee this year senator kud and yourself and and Demi busat cabera were able to get us line items for $1.85 million unfortunately the governor vetoed that but thanks to your work your efforts and uh Senator kalat and representative busat Caba we were able to try to secure $1.85 million we didn't get that this year the governor vetoed those that those projects so we now need to supplement some of that funding and figure out a way to get those projects moving forward you know it we're talking about $2.6 million I I commend the mayor for uh making a compromise offer of 1% but it's also a decision that does not need to be made today why do I say that we have a Teamsters contract which represents 360 employees in our city which is currently being negotiated we don't know what the cost of that contract is going to be we have a lot of question marks in the air that should be answered by September I think in September we will be able to make an educated decision a financially Sound Decision on where we should be and how much we can cut because we're talking about 1% today maybe come September we realize hey we can cut the 2% but today I don't think we're in a position to say let's lower the ceiling and put ourselves in a situation where we're going to hurt the city financially because this is not just a oneyear decision this milit rate cut is going forward and as I said here last budget hearing I am not in favor of raising the millage rate so if the plan is to lower the millage rate this year so that future commissions have to raise the millage rate I'm a no just because I don't believe we need to continue to raise millage rates and increase the tax burden on our residents the responses that we've gotten via email have been over 65% against cutting the military people want to keep it the same people don't want their services affected and Mr mayor I'll have to disagree with you on the on on the the facts you were stating that this will not affect Services we had every single director at the town hall meeting address what the impacts would be on each one of their departments and we still have a ton of new needs that were not funded in this year's uh budget and thank you commissioner Castro for organizing that it was a great presentation it was an eye openening presentation for uh not just residents but some of us on the de who maybe had hadn't crunched uh those numbers in depth thank you but I think we need to be responsible today we need to be responsible in September but we don't have all the cards on the table today in September we will and we don't have to affect the millage rate until September that's when we have to make the final decision and we'll have the ability to make that decision hopefully with all the facts I'm hoping Teamsters contract is is completed but we've had numerous things that have changed over the last year which have also impacted our budget we hear about well you know it's got going up $10 million our costs have gone up just the same way that the residents costs have gone up our insurance has gone up our expenses have gone up um construction costs have gone up we have numerous projects that the city's undertaking we have traffic combing that we're trying to do we have our sidewalk repairs we have our street repairs our drainage projects all these are things that that are expensive to to take on and and as we move forward the question we always get from residents is when is my project going to get completed we cannot continue to Kick the Can down the road on our projects I think today let's let's work on a compromise for September on where we can be today let's vote on a ceiling that we can sustain in September once we have all of the cards on the table let's figure out what the number should be thank you commissioner Castro the mayor yeah the mayor stated that Services were not going to be compromised and that those were Scare Tactics is he insinuating that every director that was in my town hall was lying or that they're making up stuff if he's still there I would love that response yeah I can give you that response can you hear me I hear you perfect okay uh exact that's exactly what I said uh I've been involved in the city for almost 12 years uh when I got here and I'm happy that uh commissioner F mentioned it about dedication to fiscal stewardship when I got here our our pension was funded to 2 51% and we're getting to 80% and as a finance director I tell you you know we we have grown our 13 check to a huge amount almost I think it's $7 million a year and we've also socked away into our raining day funds and our reserves over 50 million which is something that was not even half that when I got here so I've been dedicated trust me to to fiscal stewardship and you know how you address projects very simply like you do it in the private sector you budget you budget for years and years and years the residents here like you said are very smart they're very aute they understand schedule they understand funding they understand but again the issue is simple we have to live within our means you know how you address it this year the manager is requesting to hire 24 25 people I would hire like I said before and the chief set before this community and I like your budget you stated very clearly that the commissioner said we will not cut police we will not cut fire we will not cut Public Safety we will hire the five police officers we will hire the five firefighters and we will hire potentially I think there's one that needs to be for it and then there's another one that achieve needs in regards to the body War cameras I'm flexible but we don't need to hire an additional 10 people we can live within our means that would be the largest amount of people hired in the city and since I've been here that's unnecessary every single hire has a massive tail and a responsibility that we have to pay in P later so yes we can we can live within our means we can lower cost and just think about it if you lower the budget by 1% we telling me in a 260 270 $280 million budget you can't find 1% everybody has to find 1% in the private seor everybody has to find 1% in their own personal so I think that we as a city should live responsibly within our means and find the additional monies and give your tax relief to the rec who haven't had who haven't had a tax reduction in over a decade while other cities are capable of doing it so I think we can do it I think it's a good opportunity to do it I think it's a good opportunity for us to come together again I'll be boarding the play now in a few moments but it's been a pleasure and I know that I know this commission can do it and come together and get it done there's multiple different opportunities and I think that a true possibility so so I'm I'm sorry I'm not done yeah he's gonna you have another question the May I'm I'm sorry he still an answer my question as do you feel that the directors are lying so let me let me I I can answer that question well the problem with the pro the problem with government the fin government is a very simple one the more the more money you give to government government will never turn money what we need to do is we need take a step back and do real budget analysis but Department by Department by department and I think the vice mayor can explain to you a little bit about about how about how it's done every single year in the rear and how when more money comes in and department will always ask for something because they always have needs just like we all do in our own personal Liv but we have to live with so the presentation and I'll answer the question directly for you now the directors didn't lie but the presentation assumed a two and a 3% cut this is under a 1% scenar scenario so that's why during the presentation I brought up to the fact to you that you did not present to the residents so that they had complete information to make a decision upon that all of us every single member of this Das has received a variety of different options dealing with the budget my motion to to cut this uh millage rate to 2% was time for us to roll up our sleeves and go do a good stress test on our budget if we don't stress test our budget when the economy goes down if the economy goes down or if things happen we can't be building up our staff to a level that we're going to have to be giving people pink slips and lay them off these are not one-time expenditures that were added to the budget these were obligations that we're going to increase the taxx burden on our residents forever more unless you give people pink slips there are ways to spend money that deal with the current situation and there's ways to spend money that will impact the future budgets of the city when you get overstaffed on permanent positions and we don't have to cut police we don't have to cut firefighters we don't have to eliminate the body camera um or the cic monitor areas we can still provide full service no cuts no cuts and service no reduction in head count of current headcount and all the other departments that we're looking for and no I don't need my own special um commission L on to serve I'd rather see additional uh Personnel in other areas where we need it as opposed to areas is where we really don't need it my definition of needs are probably a little different than some others but I can can this city functioning can it provide the essential services to folks you know it's it's we're not trying to provide a Disney World Experience where every and I know the mayor is is very particular on how the city looks and runs but yes there are going to be times you know we only clean up the city you know streets two or three times a week as opposed to every day so there's a balance that we're going to have to strike here and if we can't lower our budget by 1% because we've added this much Personnel to our budget then we've indeed painted a dangerous path forward for our residents in the future because you're going to have to go do those pink slips I was so proud of our city during Co because we didn't lay off a single individual we didn't use single you know once time monies that you know we have gotten into fortunately some very robust years of tax revenues from from properties you know we had a five time increase you know in 2024 you know our average increase over the years between 2016 and 2021 was 4.7 million and prior years it was lower we went five times higher than the average in those years and we did put a lot of it into Capital Gondola building is fully funded the water tower that you spoke about commissioner Fernandez is fully funded these projects are fully funded because we did some hard work in belt tightening instead of increasing headcount to the point where it becomes a forever more expense because these are one-time monies I understand that so we have to you know do I do I buy a new car can I can I run with the current one that I have these are decisions that you have to make our revenues this past year are two times the amount that we had uh in 2021 and we're increasing headcount when additional monies come in in areas that don't provide those critical Services you know we've already budgeted for the teams we have a very good Finance director so we're not going to have to find the money for that in the future because we have budgeted for that we have reserves for those expenditures and I want our commission to be a prudent commission you know you know I'm not going to say the word well yeah well Frugal we need to be frugal we be careful how we spend our money because it's not ours it's the taxpayers money so when you start spending money on items that are not required by the city okay instead of focusing on taking care of the Ada remediation that's needed for but that is our responsibility that to me is not the Frugal spending that we need to be doing we got to take care of the taxpayers responsibilities which is our city streets our city sidewalks our parking garages things of that nature we need to make sure that access ibility is required and if it's the contract responsibility of the tenant to to pay for something unless there is some extra ordinary circumstance that would warrant us to take care of it such as you know financial difficulty for that tenant we can always arrange something where we get reimbursed in the future we can take that on a Case by case basis but just because we have the power to do something doesn't mean that it is The Prudent thing to do by prudent I mean responsible to the taxpayers of the city to maintain the same level of services and in here this budget actually expands the service even with a 1% cut because we can provide five additional firefighters we are going to open up Firehouse number four we are going to have five add additional police officers cic monitors and the body worn camera Specialists and we can debate the rest of this later on so I think I answered your question direct the answer is no the directors didn't lie at a 2% and 3% cut now the sky is not going to fall at a 1% cut every I I wasn't I wasn't even done with I just asked question you had a question I thought I'd give you a direct answer okay so what you're trying to say is that we're going to practically the numbers that I gave in my town hall was a 2% and now you're proposing a 1% % so we're going to cut half of the services the director said that were going to be cut or jeopardized or compromised um for what for a 30 a $30 savings to the medium household homesteaded a resident I mean I think that if somebody was in the town hall and you read the room and the responses that they were giving it was very clear people live in coral gate for their services and they should not be compromised for $30 some people even stood up and some residents even stood up and said no I'm saving $18 well that $18 with a 1% is going to be $9 so congratulations um if the mayor has been working here for 12 years he should know that we run a very tight budget okay and I remember always him saying when I first got elected find me the money what happened to that what happened to find me the money because you're trying to jeopardize I would say the city at this point how are you not going to compromise city services how is that a scare tactic when I brought up numbers in specific with the services that were going to be reduced as backup I brought director to explain explicitly what was going to be reduced those are not scare taacs those are facts if you if you want to if you all want to vote 32 for that type of reduction then that's your choice I'm not willing to do that okay um okay another thing I printed out the emails that I got these emails are 20 emails that say low the mage this package right here is 65 emails saying do not lower the Mage for a community to come together and say don't lower my Mage that is very strong and if you cannot read through the lines there's really something wrong here um listen to the people listen to what they want you're here to represent the people you're here to represent the residents it's clear the same emails that I got all of you got okay and I have a compromise we need to be strategic I know the mayor the the vice mayor was saying that condos didn't get any relief right now the senator was also saying that condos need some relief and I agree 100% I myself live in a condo so I was thinking that maybe we could be creative and think of a way to maybe give the condos that did not get a garbage uh reduction some relief by creating a rebate program for condo owners Madam City attorney is that legal so in terms of a in a a reduction in the millage rate for those um particular Property Owners or some kind of program that is connected to the property taxes we couldn't do that but there could be a a program a grant program as we've done in other instances um where there's perhaps some certain criteria and if you qualify under that criteria um of course we can come up with something that is defensible well if if we gave every homeowner a discount for their garbage I think it would be fair that we gave every condo owner a discount for their not directly for their garbage we can go ahead and Adorn it however you want but if we gave the regular resident $200 they should be able to apply for that discount or for that Grant or for that relief to the city and we should be able to compensate them that way it's an even balance and through the whole city is there any specific amount you're considering how you going to handle other commercial property owners how is this Fair yeah if you're otherwise done with your comments I'll I'll proceed yes I I the the discount that we gave Property Owners was what $200 what was the discount that we gave Paula for for um for the garbage for solid waste yes so the early payment which 72% of our um single family residents take advantage of it was a $250 reduction okay so then we should give a $250 reduction to condo owners and I think that one that satisfies what the senator was saying and two at some point Rhonda was being very honest and truthful with yes condos were not getting any relief I just couldn't figure out how to clear that Gap with this with this idea I think um will be providing relief to everyone so um so the condo owners so the condo owners pay their um garbage collection through their Association and that is provided through our franchise agreement with our Solid Waste provider um and so I I'm thinking through the the conversation as we talk but I don't know that I 200 I don't know what $250 rebate to their garbage was would look like because they would pay as a building and then the cost of that gets distributed through their association fees so I don't know how much each owner participates in their um in their collection fee since it's a building um collection so it's something that we would definitely have to work out and see if 250 is the right number and how that works out we would not right waste manag would not reduce their fee to the association um to accomplish that it would have to be something that the city provided as a one-time relief um to offset their cost um so I'm struggling a little bit with saying that that direct 250 reduction to a household is a direct reduction to the a similar reduction to the condo owner and the uh types of properties that are commercial properties are more than just Condominiums we have apartment buildings we have business businesses as well um we have a separate Waste Management contract uh that we can work on here in the future to bring that type of relief but the message was loud and clear from Tallahassee that they wanted to see mill rate reduction um you know we we have reap large amounts in in the past and where I see the spending increasing here Will increas increase uh expenses forever more in the city these are not one-time expenditures there are many ways to take care of services and there's absolutely zero uh requirement to have any reduction in services at all with a one 1% uh reduction in the millage rate so we can choose to ignore the message from Tallahassee and face the same type of of know reception that we got this past year when we didn't move forward with the milit rate reduction and the only reason why I didn't do it the year before okay was because it was brought up in September this why I pushed for it in July because we need to have a thoughtful discussion and Analysis of our budget as to what positions are really needed to be added and which positions are can be accomplished as they are being accomplished right now without the millit rate reduction so um Mr y I'd like to um ask you to bring up the um presentation that I had uh for you were you done yeah I'm done uh so just for context uh 20 there's approximately 5,600 Condominiums as per the property appr appr I'm sorry um just for context there's approximately 5,600 um Condominiums according to the property uh report that I pulled up quickly and so 254 would be um more than the 1% it would be about $1.4 million um yeah but that would be a one time yes my worry here is that a millage reduction is year after year after year we could find the money it's going to be hard it's going to be hard to find the money and and and how the mayor says and and how how the vice mayor says you know tight tighten up even more which I find hard to do but this is a onetime expense and I think it's a very good compromise how do my colleagues feel about that well it didn't address apartment buildings vice mayor didn't address Town Homes mayor yes I just want to clarify a couple things uh uh Paula don't sit down uh when the discussion about the teamsters and Teamsters contract uh that whatever the teamsters is negotiated also applies to the general employees correct so we're looking at 811 employees that would be affected by that contract yes the um the teamsters contract generally dictates the general employees and also our part-time employees okay the other uh question I have is uh currently today how many municipalities in Dade County have reduced their millage rate um so we have not had an opportunity to survey all of the municipalities but we did Sur um survey um the ones that we generally look at kisc Dural Miami um West Miami Miami Beach um and several others so I want to say about 10 or so hiia um and only one of those reduced the millage um in their proposed millage right what will go on the property tax notice um it was a city of Miami and two of those increased their millage um Miami Beach and Miami Springs and then my last question is when we talk about the reduction the 2% reduction in millage rate we're actually looking at a 2.9% reduction in the budget correct right and so one of the slides that I have that I won't show now but um the direction that we were so property tax revenue funds two areas it funds our general fund operating budget and it funds um and we put funding towards capital right so we U contribute towards Capital each year and so when we look at the general fund operating budget is actually only 192 million well not only but it's 192 million of our $277 million budget when we remove police and fire from that equation we also have to remove building because building has its own revenue and it's restricted as well as the city clerk's passport office so when we re re move those four areas we're actually looking at 88 million of our B of our budget that we would look to that reduction so the 2.6 million is approximately 3% 2.9% of that 88 million um and obviously a 1% would be about 1 and a half% so so the reduction the 2.9% doesn't come out of the $277 million City budget it only comes out of our general operating fund of 88 million exactly unless we were to look at Capital and then and any any surplus if any at the end of the year we roll it back to for the following year to Capital Improvement yes so yes to the you know to to uh to some of what the vice mayor said right so we've been prudent in many years and putting those increases in Revenue to Capital and we've also been prudent in taking any surpluses at the end of the year and setting them aside to make sure that we continue funding Capital well I want to thank you and Diana and your staff and actually all the uh directors and city employees uh for two for two reasons number one it's a very difficult uh job that you all do uh these are tough decisions that the commission has to to make uh we appreciate the work that you all do uh and uh and I thank you for your service if I if I may oh sorry I uh I thank you as well Revenue wise though uh we don't just have property tax correct yes we also have uh revenues for fees and other revenues that we get from the state I will say that this year one of the things that we wait on in the summer is our state revenue increases and um so far we've only gotten two of them and they have been modest increases of about $200,000 um just between uh um Revenue sharing from the state and the half and so um the they've also that increase that we've been seeing the last couple of years has also been going down so and then we also have our parking fees correct we right we also have our parking fees which covers the parking operations um and also covers parking Capital um and um and assists with our trolley uh division which handles uh Transportation as well yes right and we also have pending Grant applications into the state and federal government to cover some of the capital needs that we have we do have applications in we're not guaranteed to receive those applications and we're um and those are actually for not not necessarily for projects that we have contemplated but projects that we would construct if we receive those funds right they're in our Capital Improvement plan and uh if the uh grants are awarded that would help fill some of the capital needs in the future so specific specifically the projects that we have grants out for are projects that will likely not be completed if we don't receive the grant funds because we haven't budgeted for those projects yes but if they're awarded just like if you know we had the TDR sale and because of the TR TDR sale we were able to take care of the needs of our historical buildings um in ways that we weren't able to before and that was a substantial amount of money how much was that 2.6 the tdrs 2.6 what was the question the TDR just over $2 million uh that we received in tdrs we we can we can review that we received 2.6 just we've received over $2 million and we yes and so yes um when we and so that is what the city works very hard for is to find those one-time monies but those are one-time monies that do allow us to do things that we may not um be able to do in our current budget so all of those things were able to supplement um not replace in many in many cases um funding that we did not already have allocated right right and just as an example the museum itself we put it in you know currently for Capital needs about a half a million dollars and we've also budgeted out the remainder of those TDR funds uh to cover some future building needs yes so the T the TDR funds given to the museum will allow for work to be done that otherwise we did not have a funding for okay all right if I may um since you're there and first off I want to thank all the department directors and assistant and Deputy directors for um letting the commission and the residents know not only how you all serve our community but the behind the scenes look as to the needs of each of your departments so that you can better serve our community um earlier was a mention well first off what in the dollar amount is the garbage fee cut going to how is that going to impact in terms of dollar amount the city because that's I think a couple million dollars if I'm not mistaken the cut that we provided or the cut that we're TR okay um so the uh reduction in the solid waste fee um essentially and you can see it very clearly in capital actually um reduced the available funds that we had uh for this budget process by $3.6 million and so that cut um was prior to knowing our property values and so prior to that we were not able to fund many things in our capital and we were not able to fund it new need items and so um just for context right new needs are not necessarily um things that the Departments would like they're in response to community input like additional cleaning services and the restrooms of many facilities uh that Community Recreations um manages and so um the reduction of that $3.6 million did not allow us to fund some of those items and did not allow us to fund to fully fund if you recall the matrices in the capital budget which are like the it uh Network replacement uh the police equipment replacement some of the fire uh equipment replacement community recreation uh equipment replacement and then the increased values the the revenue that we that we now anticipate for the property values allowed us then to fully fund those matrices so so we're here today already with a $3.6 million depletion if I'm not mistaken right yes then the other thing that was mentioned was that we should budget for years going forward but that's what you already do you budget you forecast for multiple years I know we have projects that are multiphase so could you explain to those folks listening that what was suggested we do we already do we budget and we plan for future years it's not just here and now because we have projects that projects that need to take multiple years and you budget for that could you talk a little about that yes certainly and so as you know in our budget process we do look at each department and look through the spending the you know the actuals for prior years and the budget requests that each department puts in and so as we're evaluating what we can add to the budget right so our department directors are instructed to come in with the same budget they don't come in with an in increase budget from the offset um they come in with the base budget they're supposed to find deficiencies within the department to be able to cover um any needs that they have and then the uh subsequently they ask for new needs so new funding requests um in two manners one manner is through their operating budget request and through their Capital request and so as we consider those each year um and how much we fund um we consider what we anticipate our Revenue will be in future years and as I started to explain earlier um in the presentation we typically have relied on a 3 to 5% and more like a 3 to 4% increase in property values and other revenues depending on Trend that we're seeing when we start forecasting not until we get our preliminary property values and um any one-time revenues do we start to then decide what we can add to that budget obviously recurring revenue is reliable right so we know that if if we now have an 8% increase in in Revenue that that increase doesn't go away we may not see another increase in the future so we are very prudent about what we add to the operating budget and anything else we give to Capital because Capital can very easily be um taken back because they're most of them are one-time projects while um while there is the desire for us to meet the needs of the community and and finished projects um we also try to maintain our budget something that's sustainable and so that's been the practice so far I speaking to a couple Department directors I know for a fact that some departments because in 2010 it was basically a I hate to use the word but a blood bath layoffs um departments were depleted uh decisions were made that I guess were needed under the circumstances and some of those departments still haven't recovered from their prior year numbers in terms of Staffing so they're not living the High Life they're still recovering trying to play catchup I want the community to know that the other thing also um talk about the town hall meeting that commissioner Castro hosted my opinion the reason why we discussed a 2% cut and no cut for example was because the last time we got together as a commission there were two motions 2% cut it failed 23 and maintaining it as is and that was a 3-2 it failed because that's what the community heard that's what we voted on so I have no issue with that scenario being 2% the other thing is comment was made that hires aren't needed who are we sitting up here on Mount Olympus to say to the department directors and the folks that are picking up the garbage the folks that are with the kids and seniors police and fire that hires are not needed these are the folks on the ground 24/7 they're the ones who respond to the community to the residents they're the ones who do their best and their team they bust their butts trying to make sure we have the best city and the best services is who are we to say hires are not needed they're the ones who tell us because they're there in the trenches we're not in the trenches and one final thing I keep on hearing Tallahassee the Mandate Tallahassee mandate well I went to Tallahassee two or three times this last um session and quite honestly I didn't hear that and it based on what I heard from other cities maybe one heard it but the rest of the the cities didn't get the memo and according to what I understand neither did the county so and you know I respect Senator I respect everyone Tallahassee they do a great job they work hard but quite honestly we also you know the mandates coming from our residents and they're closest to the the epicenter of our community so I really really you know I understand folks want to cut taxes it's it's the thing to do it's all over the country it's a you know it's part of our political landscape but our residents have made it loud and clear protect our services protect our services and I think they said don't touch the millage rate and again September is when we're actually going to vote on the millage rate this is just setting the ceiling so the fact that we've gotten to this point um I don't know why it had to be rushed we have till September to look at things appropriately and make the right decisions and uh I want to make sure I'm sorry vice mayor so I want to I want to make sure that the record is very very clear here making a motion for a 2% reduction so that we can go back and do the hard work of looking at what the impact of various levels of reduction will so we can make an intelligent decision is not a mandate that there be a 2% reduction I've done many cases involving crunching the numbers and I don't prefer to wait till the Midnight Hour to require our staff to do the type of detailed work that they've done over the past several weeks to provide us accurate information on what those cuts would have an impact perhaps 2% would not require um not filling any particular positions maybe the right number is higher maybe the right number is lower but 1% does not require us to remove any positions 1% does not require us to reduce any services but the current list of needs and unfortunately we use the word needs in our budgeting and it's misleading there's wants and there's needs and there's that's what's necessary and there's things that we can do more economically if we do so in a prudent manner if we're going to add a permanent position you are increasing the taxes plain and simple you are increasing the taxes for residents forever more when you add positions and when additional money showed up after June 1st we didn't choose to reduce taxes we decided to spend more and we didn't spend more in a way that was going to reduce expenses we spent in a way that was going to Forever More be a requirement if unless you're going to start laying off employees to make sure that our budget makes the same mistake that occurred back when employees had to be laid off I think it was 2010 when the Staffing grew too large you must be careful in growing staff too large I understand there was even a proposal by someone here to add more departments which would add more headcount which would increase the demands on our budget even more and decrease the services that were available for people because instead of adding more Indians we'd be adding more Chiefs so I'm going to continue uh now with my presentation uh Commission mandez because you've had a couple of opportunities at least to speak and I'll ask the city clerk to bring up uh my presentation so that we can have more cohesive discussion on actually what the numbers are so um Mr when you're ready up enlarge that a little bit because some of us don't have the young eyes that we used to so so our and you can scroll up a little bit to get rid of that white space at the top so our Appropriations that we got return larger than a 1% reduction in our milit there were twice as much in 2023 three times as much in TW uh 2022 2023 so I if you think that Tallahassee is not listening you need to check again because if we continue to not do prudent Financial um decisions in our city they will look at that and say why are you coming up here and asking for money when you could have done better with the budget that you had I'm sorry vice mayor that's a Mis uh representation of what happened South Miami had four projects and all four got uh vetoed by the governor and they're moving a lot of the water projects into a grant program and that was the message from Tallahassee that's why a great many of the projects that we had just like South Miami were vetoed by the governor though they passed the legislation they didn't look they didn't look say oh you did this you did that it was as a whole certain types of projects are now they're creating a grant program to fund those types of projects that's what happened I mean there were additional messages that were received from other electeds tasse you weren't apparently with an earshot of those just as you weren't with an earshot of the person that walked by my house as I got home on Wednesday night and made a comment that I will not repeat regarding the quality of the presentation on Wednesday if you want to have a comprehensive discussion on a budget then you need to have a comprehensive discussion on a budget and not put in the worst case scenario if there is a a reduction in your millage all this will stop all these employees will have will not be able to be maintained and if we're going to maintain Services we got to look at what it costs to maintain those services and we have room for enhancements as well and in this budget with a 1% reduction so 5.98 million in 2020 2 2 and 2023 is far in excess of this 1% reduction which we uh would approximate at somewhere at 1.97 or we'll just round it up to 1.3 that's what we have a motion on the table for now and uh City Mr ask you to go to page two VI mayor if I may I'm about to leave I was on my vacation I wanted to put something on the record um number one with regards to that grant program you're absolutely right they took all of those water water projects and they put them in a grant and the governor is in charge all right and um with regards to what we confront as representatives in Miami Dade it's difficult I just came in four years ago and um I will tell you that it is difficult at times to try to justify the spending as a whole in Miami Dade County which really pardon my language pisses me off because we are the economic engine of Florida but when I tell you that kalatu Avila and Senator Anam Maria you know Senator pizo at the time Chevron Jones we have to fight to nickel and dime and pull money out of Tallahasse because as many as most of you know not the public a lot of the funds get pulled North so when I tell you that we've been doing a lot of work with regards to how we can um bring money to the water projects I mean I think that at a given moment more funds would could couldn't be pulled down because of the because of the there was some issue with the B wraps and just water well just just the logistics on that as a whole but when I tell you that we have to fight for funds from Miami dat we do we came into a great moment when when when I came into the Senate uh right after covid with all of the federal funding that came down and everyone moving to Florida we're now 23 million here in Florida that helps a lot but that's also difficult at times um the funds were there but um it is drying up and um and and and I say you know commissioner Mendes with all due respect when I tell you that um we do have to fight for the we do have to fight for the funds because there is a stigma with regards to how the money is spent in Miami Dade and Senator if I may and thank you for coming up here and clarifying even further a lot of the statements and I when I was with the city of Miami I did intergovernmental Affairs I know how difficult it is and sometimes it's at the last minute and sometimes at the last minute the money is there and it's not there so I know the battle that you all do and and not only in in legislation but other aspects of our community I've been very involved in sports in high school sports for years Tallahassee was the the power of of I mean we provide all the revenue and yet all the power is in Tallahasse goes north no and no matter how hard the day delegation for decades has been a Powerhouse but sometimes you're going against the 600 lb gorilla and no matter how hard you all work and how hard you try sometimes it doesn't happen so and I want to I respect the work that you all do because I know how difficult it is but the thing is we work together as a team and do our best not only for our city but I believe that all cities should work together and with all of you because it's a South Florida thing it's a Miami dat thing We're In It Together agreed anyway with that said I appreciate what all of you are trying to do here today you know they are difficult times but once again the city beautiful is the city beautiful for reason and and I and I and I get what you're trying to do um I speak for Senator K you and myself we are here for you and for the representative Demi bucar Cabrera which helps us make those heavy lifts on the house side um I am here to help and um looking forward to Great outcomes on this thank you thank you thank you no no I appreciate how hard you you fight for it and you know i' been up there and heard the discussions when you know you have to justify why are you asking for this for these folks when they spend money like that yeah you know and that's some of the discussion we'll continue on and thank you so much for commissioner cro loves to see with regards to the condo situation there's a there's an huge problem with that and and we need to work through it anyway my pleasure thank thank youor so I'm going to ask um city clerk to go to page three now the presentation and continue to scroll up so we can see the article and i' aild to P pass out copies here for you all you can pass them down the line October 2nd 2022 a period of time when our our city was considering a budget um much smaller than the one that we have today without the the types of increases that we had in the past we only had a $3.6 million increase in property tax revenues that year over 2022 and uh now commissioner um Fernandez wrote an a Very pointed article which uh commentary on that as well agreed that it was time for this city to trim its milit rate um and it was very correct other municipalities offer tax relief to Residents taxes continue to go up because our property values continue to go up so the revenues continue to go up because of the increase in um property values um creation of new positions was one of those as well that was brought up as as as for an additional reason um there was a discussion about perennial vacancies you know we we do create positions some sometimes you know and and the adage could be um summarized as this if we have positions that we haven't filled for 10 years 5 years perhaps we really don't need them because we're functioning just fine without them and then there was more discussion about money movement without commissioner resident knowledge oversight and meeting details um that was a position back in 2022 I don't think the facts have changed at all here in fact it's improved it's more compelling that with property values now uh where they're at and with the save our homes are going to continue to go up that minimum amount and as well as for commercial properties which have a um 10% increase at least every single year in values because of that you know they not going to go over 10% but there is going to be a 10% increase that we have opportunities to continue to have growth but when we're reaching levels of that are far in excess far far in excess of the levels that we're at in 20202 and 2023 it's it's telling that if the opinion then was that we should decrease the millage rate it screams now that we should when our revenues are more than five times or more than two times if you look at 2024 and 2020 um five uh projected revenues um than we had back at that time it was much easier for folks to buy home at the time um my taxes will continue to go up despite the fact that my assessed value is is is lower because save our homes guarantees that I'll have those those increases uh in the in the future because I've enjoyed not having a higher assessed value so on let's get to to the last page page six this uh page corresponds with many of the the details um that really weren't examined uh during the the presentation on Wednesday we had a a spreadsheet that was provided to us that had um about 12 lines of position positions to be added to our city budget um again I don't want to go back to 2010 when we grew Staffing so high that someone had to come in and say listen you know this this position is really not necessary that position is not necessary so City manager's office wants to add a fourth as commissioner Fernandez said a fourth position so that each one of the commission members has their very own layers on uh to uh assist with with functions within within the city um I know how I use lons for scheduling social media I draft my own stuff um they proof read it if necessary if I ask them to uh as far as that concerned and I know commissioner Fernandez you have immense social media skills that I could only dream of having so you don't have the same needs that I do uh in that regard you can pump out social media uh in in your sleep I think probably where it takes me days to even you know put it together so reminds we haven't taken a commission selfie in a while huh we haven't taken a commission selfie in a while when the May com we we hadn't we hadn't and people might think that with all of us in Gray yes it was this was a sunshine violation but so you need a little levity there sometimes so I played with the numbers okay to see if we could arrive closer to the 1% number and this is by no means a a uh directive to staff but it's an analysis to see the difference between what we need and what can be outsourced and what can be dealt with in another way the fourth position lay is on I put the money back in because we don't need it code enforcement officer I put in hire a field supervisor which would you know put that cost at 78,2 you'll correct me if I'm wrong you know I'm not a CPA I've taken a few accounting classes Etc and dealt with numbers but um I will respectfully be corrected the converting two part-time uh procurement Specialists to one um already was noted as a savings I just put it in there no I'm not saying that that is not a good idea I just wanted to make sure that that was noted um the sign shop um my my time with staff I asked the qu simple question that did we compare outsourced costs as opposed to putting on a fulltime employee because or even a part-time employee and that wasn't done because they're just just wasn't enough time and those are exercises that need need to be done that was a position that decades ago that uh prior commissions were uh had addressed and a determination was made then and I think that still holds now that having somebody in there to address those things on a uh ongoing basis as an employee as opposed to U looking at other ways to address it like we are right now is is the prudent thing to do no we're not going to have Disney World you know and I know that a um a certain member of our commission who's not here today uh would prefer that we had more of a Disney World aspect but that comes at a tremendous cost to our residents and I don't think they expect that every sticker to be off every sign you know within 24 hours or in a certain period of time I I don't think that they want to pay an additional 1.2 or $1.3 million to have that high level of service um Public Works let's see that that actually was three lines there that I did RightWay inspector we really need to examine you know is that really necessary we haven't had the position before these all these positions you know popped to bubbled to the top when the additional money came in to our budget parking enforcement uh Specialists um two part-time to two fulltime time comes with a tremendous cost because when you have a full-time employee in with that comes additional expenses is it really that much benefit uh to us to have them full-time versus part-time um you know I I would have loathed for some of these little part-time jobs when I was in in college um you know especially law school because it's a lot lot less stressful than having to deal with you know the type of work that I did do because I was clerking at three different law firms at the same time in order to pay my bills additional contractor for Street Monument painting um I haven't gotten a lot of emails about those it's you know you're talking of smothering maybe one or two a year downtown holiday decorations you know that used to be taken care of by the bid you know we can be creative and finding funding from a uh you know the business owners for that now is it is is it a mission critical need like police and fire is it necessary like we have for it that supports everybody else are they the auto and and truck mechanics that we need that those high level positions that can't be filled in by part- Tim um these are some of the things you need to think about when we're dealing with the taxpayers funds the Holiday Park decorations been a while have had little kids my glancing at these Park decorations are that they're not in horrible shape I think we can you know we can live with them for a few more years we can take a you know repair paint them um I wish they were around when my kids were growing up the in a condition that these are right now because they were horrible back then but I do think we can take a long hard look at that just like you know other things that can wait a a year or two and we can fit them in our budget on a more uh fiscally sound basis the Fourth of July laser uh light and drone show I'd love to have it okay I would is it Mission critical no is there some vendor that might want to donate some money and fund this possibly possibly I'll ask I'll ask people but do I want to raise people's tax to essentially have a laser light drone show no I don't want to do that cultural program increase that's a painful one but I do think looking at the community uh foundation and how they were able to uh multiply dollars this past time I do think we can work with the community and get a lot more for our cultural starts by working with the Community Foundation um I know the Rotary Club put in money and there was a matching dollar to it so they got twice the bang for their Buck on those dollars so there's a lot of um people that are very you know passionate about Cultural Arts in our community and I think that they will help step up to the plate um in this event maybe we can put we can shave the numbers around and and still increase the funding for Cultural Arts it's a real important section but you know working over working yesterday and the day before on these numbers is the best I could work with I didn't go through every line of our budget um so Public Works vice mayor if I have a question on one of the lines the holiday par could you go over that part again I'm sorry that's the Christmas that's that's children's right it's uh take 50,000 from there that was the additional funding that was being put in there because I remember at the town hall meeting uh Fred explained that I think their contract was expired and they were going to you know they could extend for one more year if necessary but it won't give more than one year yeah um we have um we have a contract with them and um the first part of it has has um uh been uh expired but gone back with them and working on keeping the exact same park um with a couple of small additions and keeping the same price um and so we did that for this upcoming year we can continue to do that as I stated in the past um my only concern is based on the past eventually the park deteriorates um and sometimes a drop off is dramatic from one year to the next um as the vice mayor said yes we we got through it last year and I I think this year will be okay I just think this is something we have to look at year to year as we go from budget to budget um because um from a historical perspective when it happened last time it was the the commission that came to me and said you need to you need to do something new which we did um and that was six seven years ago no and I and I realize and I appreciate you you know I I do think because when I walked around the park and I walk quite often because I'm only three blocks away from here I didn't see anything falling apart I didn't see anything you know visibly deteriorated no I didn't I didn't walk in there with my dogs so I I I wasn't you know I know commissioner mandez wrode the slide or something like that but uh done that a few times that night yeah I know the zip line you did but I go to the park often with my my son and I have to say it has deteriorated a lot so again I I did receive complaints from residents this year about the park which I hadn't received before um just because they thought this is Coral Gables we can do better than this and same with with the decorations on Miracle Mile I received a ton of complaints on the decoration am Mile and and I even had to apologize to our Economic Development staff because you know they had to come up with a last minute solution um but residents have a certain expectation I I and I understand that and the businesses used to contribute to a fund and that's how it was funded before so you know we need to have that conversation ation with the businesses that the reality is they used to pay for it before and you know it's time that they step up the plate we we have supplemented that budget in significant ways and you know for us to us the taxpayers all taxpayers to have to pay for something that the businesses used to pay for before but unfortunately the bid dissolved for the reasons we all know and uh we in an emergency basis stepped into the plate it's time for them to step up and say Hey listen this this is really good for our businesses this this is our street here this is not the sidewalk in front of everybody's resident but something that they need to um put in there if they want to continue to attract individuals to shop in front of their stores and that's typically how you know businesses work together to enhance you know foot traffic on on the city so I'll continue down with um some of the other items the um one half janitorial and um for that references the dollar amount that you had asked for for additional cleaning instead of me taking uh the entire amount out I uh for hypothetical purposes here put in half the the janitorial services in there uh the manora event you know again it's wonderful I'd love to do it but you know I think some folks uh will help enhance it it was to make it more of an event it's not going to decrease services that we previously provided but to do something more and I think the community can come together and make it more of an enhanced event for folks to to enjoy um then I I I reached a subtotal I was I was up to one million um 27,39 and throughout uh through are some other proposals that staff can can think about um and I'm going to ask for us to take a break so staff can have an opportunity to digest these numbers can I do a correction with your numbers the the first one that's 64,000 that one was not funded in our budget it's not it's not one of the positions if you see I I'm sure staff can respond to this this is this is a spreadsheet that staff provided to me okay okay I worked off that okay well then staff can do the explanation I I I didn't mean to offend you in any way or disrespect but but no I mean the reality is that $64,000 that wasn't originally funded okay so I was given a sheet for positions added for the 24 and 25 budget estimate 23 full-time and two parttime positions these figures came from staff not from me okay staff ahead and correct when we take a break staff will have a time to digest this entire list and we will have opportunities to have individual discussions with staff before we move on so um I didn't hear the specific question okay so we're going to take a break okay when I finish okay what break so we need to move this meeting I don't think we need to take a break are you in a rush no we need to we we have staff here we have residents that are watching I know but I I want to make an intelligent decision not a rush decision you're making this a rush decision but doing this today instead of in September no I'm not yes no I'm not no I'm not what I what I did in July was make sure that we could have an intelligent discussion by being able to have a drilled down analysis of this if you I wait if I had waited till September like you suggested we wouldn't be able to have gone through these positions in the manner that we did to be able to determine whether or not Outsourcing is better on a position as opposed to putting in a full-time position with the health insurance with the additional burden on our pension plan and all the costs that go into full-time positions this will limit our ability to be able to negotiate with the teamsters this will limit our ability to be able to do things in the future because you're now put in a permanent position forever more it's very very hard to peel those permanent positions down down so commissioner Castro when you're ready to proceed let me know and I'll finish the section and then we'll take our break is this something that the bid could uh help fund there is no bid oh that's right we got rid of the bid okay right no we no we'll take a break and we can have some comprehensive discussions so that we can make Intelligent Decisions before we take a vote before we take a break I have something to say that Paul is some clarification here the $ 64,9 18 position is already filled are you trying to tell me that we should fire her we will take a break and we'll have a comprehensive discussion on positions Beyond this this is a sheet that staff provided me you know this is the problem when you make decisions to hire before the budget before the milit rate is set before the budget is determined so I would respectfully request the city manager to keep that in mind for the future okay so I ought to bottom hey I I'm sorry vice mayor to interrupt you any decisions that I make to hire someone I always check with our budget folks the folks that are the experts to make sure that we have the funds to absorb that position we since I've been here I've hired maybe two three people the the new assistant City manager I I I'm not one of going and hiring a whole bunch of people I just want to correct the record no no no I'm I'm just talking about positions being you know added to well and this was this is on the spreadsheet of positions added okay for the 2425 budget understand so uh I know that we have a number of positions that we we hold money so that when we fill that position we have the money to pay them with this is just dealing with with added positions so you can understand that when I receive a spreadsheet that talks about added positions for the 2425 budget estimate we're talking about the budget that begins after October 1st not now okay so at this time and I can email this to you I'll give you this and let's have our individual discussions with staff and I give staff an opportunity to digest uh this proposal and see if we can bridge the gap here so I have a few comments uh I would like to make um just a few corrections I think the senator phrased it perfectly Coral Gables is the city beautiful and the city beautiful has to remain the city beautiful um you talk about how the mayor wants this to be Disney World I agree with the mayor and I think the emails that we have been receiving from residents and the comments that we received I went to a restaurant last night I had three people come up to the table last night saying you'd be crazy to lower the military because we don't want any changes to the services we're getting and if you do have any surplus money apply it to the uh unfunded liability those are the comments that I've been getting I agree 100% with the mayor We Are The Shining City in Miami Dade County we are the city everybody wants to move to where do they move to from New York from Virginia from California they moved to Coral Gables that's why Coral Gables was the highest valued zip code this past year it's not because we're offering a mill rate cut just to say we gave a mill rate cut which is going to go to yes the out of town developers who own Lifetime Building and who own the plaza that's where most of the money is going to go and the resident who most need it we have targeted those and you sat there you and I had a lengthy conversation here in this days about the garbage fees and we worked together and at the time you said that was the way we could send Tallahassee a message that we are serious about providing relief to our residents I think commissioner Castro's idea of the uh cuts to um Waste Management fees uh or a way to provide a ebate to those folks it's actually something I talked to Hermes about on Tuesday night about finding a way to maybe reduce our franchise fees or or find a way that we can provide that relief to the condo owners who are the ones that have not been uh affected um you talked about Miracle Mile um holiday decorations you say the businesses are not paying for it but technically by reducing the garbage fee the businesses are now subsidizing the garbage for our residents so this is a way to balance out the playing field for those businesses who benefit from our Holiday Park from our manora lighting from our uh decorations on Miracle Mile this is what attracts people to Coral Gables we have always been the city where people want to come to enjoy the outdoors to enjoy our restaurants to enjoy our Museum our theater we have plenty of activities going on right across the street we have sanctuary of the ARs which has become one of the most successful cultural uh venues in all of South Florida and where are those people going they're going to Miracle Mile they're frequenting our businesses here in Coral Gables but we can't start reducing on our services you know we talk about lowering the millage rate Nam County's millage rate reduction last year was minimal and they're still getting a larger percentage of the taxes that we pay as residents than the city does yet the city is providing the services for residents so what's Miami date County doing in order to counter their reduction from last year well they're raising their garbage fee because now they've realized their millage rate cut from last year is not sustainable this year they're going to have changes to theou with with Police Department throughout Miami D County where any Services provided by Miami Dade County Police Department to municipalities now they're going to start billing for them so this is going to be an extra cost to the municipalities and this is the way that they can say hey we cut the millage rate but now they have to find a way to subsidize the money and as far as Tallahassee I think Senator um Garcia said it best it is a battle but lowering the millage rate isn't going to change the governor's mind on the changes he made to the grant programs that was a decision he made cultural grants our city was one of the cities that suffered the most in our cultural grants sanctuary of the Arts Coral Gable's Museum actor's Playhouse and numerous other production places in our city Gable Cinema all lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding and they're all trying to figure out how to find a path forward the Coral Gables Museum could very well be before us on August 27th trying to find a way for the city to give them money because because they can't stay afloat they can't pay their monthly bills these are serious problems that we have and again they're big question marks that we have our Teamsters contract president of the teamsters is here today and you know what I heard you say is we know what that's going to cost us that's impossible because that contract is still in negotiations so we don't know what that contract is going to cost us and as staff told us 811 employees are impacted by that contract so we don't know the dollar amount I think you've presented a great option I'm not ready to say what that option is going to be until September you're basically tying your hands and saying I'm going to jump off the cliff and hope that you know some wind catches me and I'm going to land in the ocean that's not reality we can't be a kamakazi commission we have to make smart decisions and you you talked about the 2% that was presented at the uh Town Hall that was what you and mayor logo said here the instruction you gave to staff was come up with an option for 2% so that's what was presented to Residents because that's what I I just let me let me let me finish I gave I respected your time and I let you finish okay I I will correct the record 2% was what was asked of staff and Paul you're here wasn't that what was asked asked for a 2% there was not a definitive vote there was an impass we've asked the staff to go back and look at options for reducing the millage rate we all asked for various options from zero to 3% was the numbers that I saw the numbers that were presented to me individually and I know that the city manager dutifully had discussions with each and every one of us on all of those options if there was not a definitive vote on something there was no Direction specifically to do that cut we've added 12 positions 12 that were not in the budget before those 12 positions and I'm not talking about police I'm not talking about it I'm not talking about the mechanics I'm not talking about all the essential positions that we clearly need in this city and I mean need okay and I've I you know I did take the time to speak to each and every one of the directors I did speak take time to speak to the Chief and I still Chief feel that having somebody sit for eight hours in front of a monitor is not as effective of having somebody that doesn't have to sit there and stare at it for so many hours because you you you just can't maintain the same level of of alertness you know the part-time workers that we use for solid waste fill the gaps in between if we're having problems with heat exhaustion you know perhaps part-time is easier because it's not as stressful for someone to do but when you're ballooning the the budget when you're ballooning this budget by 12 additional positions over and above those that are needed to maintain the current level of service and enhance the level of service the problem lies within how you're spending the money that has driven this budget up to this level this is an effort to bring it back into into where it should be these were the decisions you made in the decisions that you gave to staff to increase positions they weren't mine okay we need to trim this back if we had put this money prudently away to pay down debt okay not spent money in ways that were not required to spend I wouldn't be so adamant about this right now but that's not the direction that this commission has taken not the majority on this commission the nor event will still happen the manora will still be lit the same level of services will still be maintained the Doom and Gloom that was presented was a false reality when I evaluate the opinion of anybody I have to look at the information that they based upon and if the information that they based it upon was not accurate because that is not what we're discussing here today I am not discussing a 2% reduction I'm not discussing a 3% reduction because it's pretty clear that it would require reductions in Services I won't entertain that vice mayor if I may uh respectfully the data that we provided to all the Commissioners is accurate information the numbers are accurate I have total confidence in my staff that they provided the folks to make the decision the correct information if if it's the will of the commission to not to direct me not to hire certain positions clearly we will follow those directions but my recollection of what was asked and please correct me if I'm wrong because at my age I'm starting to forget things uh that we were there was never a vote it was just a suggestion just like it was a suggestion not to touch police and fire but we respected that and we did that but so your point is it was a 2% to look at a 2% reduction that is my recollection but I could be wrong I have to refer to uh the city clerk to to remind me because again I so let me let me clarify because I think you misunderstood okay okay I was referring to the presentation that was done at commissioner Castro's Town Hall I was referring to the fact that the same information that was presented to each and every one of us to make an intelligent decision is not the same information that was presented at the Town Hall the information that was presented at the Town Hall was two to three times inac two to three times the amount of reduction we did not examine a 1% cut and I brought that up with you at the Town Hall what was presented in the town hall was the exact calculations of the two reduction and they're right here if you want to go ahead and zoom in exact that issue exact calculation yes of the my point exactly of a 2% reduction we are not discussing a 2% reduction not a psychic to know that you were going to come up here and say a 1% I'm not a psychic I'm sorry I did not foresee this coming I Ved and the mayor for 2% that was the recommendation you gave and the mayor sat here and said I want want to see numbers for a 2% cut right here he was sitting he said that and you agreed so if the 1% came to mind after the fact when residents started reaching out to you and saying this was a bad idea that's fine we can accept that so but going out and saying that your colleagues are basically putting out false information and calling each one of these directors liars I'm sorry that's unacceptable I said they were I think I misunderstood what the vice mayor was saying you are misrepresenting facts no you are clear clearly because I didn't say the directors were Liars I said they were accurate because they were asked questions on a 2% 3% uh reduction I asked staff for all scenarios not just a solitary scenario we've had weeks of discussions we've had opportunities in addition to that to meet with every single one of these directors and ask questions I've had follow-up calls with directors and the finance director discussing each and every one of these things to see where we can save taxpayers money okay that's incumbent upon us to examine all options if the only options that are laid out for the residents are not the same options that were presented for us that's when it becomes a distortion of information that's when residents don't know that there are other options other than two 2% and 3% well tell me where they are because I nevered this is what I received did you receive something different I have this is what I worked on tell me in detail what how the city worked on it they didn't this is what they provided us with these are the facts these are the numbers and this is what I worked with so please please don't try to discredit my work in the town hall anding recovering recovering my time I was I was speaking and you interrupted me let me finish my comments okay let's just that's all I'm going to ask for page three of the presentation has each and every single one of these options yes add your request can you hear me okay this was the options presented with the reductions that were going to be done to every Department in detail and if you go ahead and you look at the total reduction is 2595 you know what that means that means it's a 2% right okay it's very clear going back going back to my comments um you you brought up a Gable's Insider article from 2022 correct we were a different financial situation in 2022 we did not have a Teamsters contract that was pending insurance rates had not gone up yet because we hadn't had the the hurricane on the west coast of Florida we also thought the commission thought at the time there was $10 million in the bank for City Hall Renovations only to find out later it wasn't there because it had been used in the 427 building I mean there are a lot of facts that have changed since that article was written and today we're not in the same position um there was also a discussion about the 2020 census and how our population had had dropped since that 2020 census Lifetime Building opened up with all of its apartment buildings apartment units the plaza has opened up and started bringing people in there are numerous development projects that have been completed so our our population even though in the 2020 census was low probably has gone up by at least 3 or 4,000 people and as you go vertical these demands on City staff also go up how many Park spaces have we renovated and opened up over the last few years we opened up a new dog park which now requires maintenance we've opened up different facilities that over the years had not been used and now we're requiring additional Services as far as our garbage pickup you you mentioned removing the two positions for um crane operator incorrect I know it's here no those are the ones that are not crane operator the the solid waste assistant director regardless the solid waste so talking about solid waste we have had issues with we have had issues over the last few years with garbage pickup and anytime that there has been illnesses there have been people who have been out because of heat uh sicknesses um just regular employees haven't been able to take their time off because they've had to stay on board because we haven't had anybody to fill those positions and the part-time subcontracted work that we've had a lot of times they don't have somebody to come in at the last minute and we still have that void so what happens residents who had a garbage pickup on Thursday now it's being done on Saturday and we continue to try to piece whatever we have so look at the end of the day this is very simple we're having a conversation about the budget today this is not about the budget this is about setting a ceiling for the millit rate we will have two hearings in September where we can iron out what position are positions that can be outsourced what positions can be cut and we can figure out a permanent solution in September and staff will have ample time to figure out hey you know what we have 20 positions that can be outsourced they'll save the city money we'll be able to keep the services that we're offering residents and we'll be able to provide $1.3 million in tax relief that's the ideal solution going forward but we are not there today you know the discussion on the budget oh let's break out so that we can explore these options this is not what we're voting on we're voting on a ceiling for the military that's it we're not voting on the budget today so the the mayor apparently has has landed so let's give him an opportunity to uh join our meeting right now Mr Mayor can you hear us yes can you hear me yes all right perfect first off um commissioner commissioner fernande just conflates the issue by stting we're not voting on positions but we are we're voting today on set in the military I know you don't want to vote on that issue and you don't want to consider lowering it but you need four votes at the end of the day we have to make a decision and we have to come to the table and I brought you a compromise which will cut the military by 1% and it will address the issue you have two options which is a lot of the regs were confused they thought the you know they thought that if we did not come to consensus that the roll back rate and take effect it would be a $10 million hit there's also another option which is higher than 2% that the vice mayor myself proposed I still think it should be 2% I think it's an appropriate amount I think it's correct and I think that have full faith and confidence in our department in our city and we can address those issues so if you don't you can take a 32 vote and it'll be correct me if I'm wrong Madam City attorney it could be around $3.2 million versus a 2.6 million 2% or we can come to consensus today and vote unanimously and cut the milit rate by 1% it'll be around 1.2 1.23 1.25 cut we have positions that are being considered that I disagree with whole hardly we do not need to grow these many positions in one year you don't you don't we can find a few $100,000 in the budget to cut with opportunities to do that we can quicker back and forth all we want but at the end of the day you need four votes unless the vice mayor is willing to make the decision to go along with send the military as is then that's it then we move forward but I'm not willing to I stand by my 1% I made a motion there's a second on the floor we discussed it for over an hour and a half and I think that it's reasonable it's reasonable it's building consensus I know you're not getting your way I get it but we can move on there's no need to attack people there's no need to discuss things there's no need to you know talk about when you own Gable's Insider and and the things that you wrote on it and you were in favor of M cut then now you're not in favor of it theend day that's nonsensical it doesn't it doesn't have any basis today and we move on set the billage rate I offered you a 1% reduction we move on and we address the issu moving forward address the capital projects there's no need to spend the entire day it's going back and this issue I have a motion on the floor I'd like to hear a vote on it we can move forward you unless the vice mayor is willing to say right now she's will excuse me one second so unless the vice mayor is willing to say right now that she's willing to vote for a minut rate we have a motion on the floor we we do have a motion on the floor and it it appears to me that the commission wants to move forward so um regarding motion pardon regarding the motion can I say something you can say something okay I just find it very very interesting that the mayor moved for the 1% and to me and I don't want to offend anyone sounds and smells very strong like a sunshine violation why how is it that you support documentation to support his motion of exactly 1% what happened here I would have passed the gavel if he wasn't able to uh attend and that this was my position you know just like you all you know that was your position or what are you guys talking meeting what what's happening no he didn't know it was my position that is my position I telepathically are you telepathically talking with your colleagues that you don't want not well you know if you're going to make that accusation you have to wear it as well and you're wearing absolutely absolutely I mean this is Elementary you just propose the same motion as he did and you provided facts and calculations and actually not very accurate facts but let's let's give you the credit of facts of a 1% to support his motion come on everybody could see through that no no ma'am you're accur because I haven't reached a full 1% here yet I'm trying to help staff out in areas where I don't think that we need the level of full-time employees and building this budget to guarantees that we will have to maintain this mill rate forever more okay so if you're going to lay out these typ type of accusations I can point out a number of instances that smell M say something really quickly yeah he's nervous pardon he's nervous he's on an iPhone at an airport I'm on an iPhone hold hold on one second hold on let me let me let me let me let me respond to that please I'm on an iPhone with my daughters trying to get trying to get uh uh bags off of the overhead compartment while I'm while I'm letting people pass me I'm not nervous commissioner CASRO what I am is just I have my hands full trying to make everybody happy and to be considered to the people around me I would appreciate if you conduct yourself like a professional okay we talk about violating Sunshine Law everybody knows that the three of you Bu The Sunshine Law when you fire Peter gles and you did it in t because I've heard from State representative who told me that that was the conversation okay but let's move on from that let's stop wasting time you have you have you have a you have a 1% you have a 1% reduction in the military here take it if you don't take it you're gonna go you're gonna basically cause the the budget to suffer $3.2 million in reductions unless the vice mayor is willing to move because I came down from 2% I'm coming down to one you have to play ball you can't continue to just bully your way around and doing as you please the three of you you got to take a vote and if you don't do it you have two options roll back to the military which is going to you $10 million or you have a $3.2 million which is over 2% I'm telling you just vote on 1% the residents will be happy the business Community will be happy and everything will be perfectly fine that's my advice to you there's a mo in a second I would WR to Madam Tri attorney M have a vote on well I guess Mr Mayor maybe you're on vacation and you don't have access to your email but residents have been very clear in the emails they've been sending us they do not want us to cut the millage rate 65% 65 out of 85 emails that have been received have been against it and like I like I said earlier I don't think you were privy to that part of the conversation even at restaurants yesterday had three people come up to my table to ask that we keep the millage rate so I I I don't see this demand for a cut to the millage rate that's only going to benefit out of town developers the the regular residents are going to get as as they said during the town hall meeting um $25 $28 with this proposal they're going to be getting 12 and $12.50 they're going to get $9 we had people who are going to get two pennies but you have out of town developers that are going to get at least $18,000 those are the ones who are going to be benefiting while there has to be Cuts again I have no problem as I stated during the last meeting having a full conversation on this once we have the final details of the teamsters contract which is the biggest question marks that we have right now because we're not sure what that's going to cost the city and by September we will know and as I told the vice mayor she has presented some options here which I'm willing to consider but we are not in a position today to strap the city and as I told the vice mayor basically jump off a cliff praying that you'll land in the water that's just not something we can do today mad Madam chair Madam chair I'd like to respond to the gentleman since he since he basically stated doesn't matter where I am haveen missed the meeting in 11 and a half years I'm G to put it you on the record with the I'm sorry Mr Mayor we can't hear you you sound muffled maybe move your phone a little bit can you hear me we hear you but we can't we can't articul better now better bottom line is this it doesn't matter where I am your business where I am that's number one I haven't missed a meeting in 11 and a half years I served so I'm gonna I want to just quickly EXC excuse me I'm going to supplement the record because there's emails still coming in now 10:55 a.m. lower taxes stronger Community Firm support for the proposed reduction in the millage rate the email go goes on another one here 11 10:49 a.m. more money you H you the more money you have the more money you spend that stop the insanity and the email goes on and addresses some details 10:48 a.m. from another Resident support for reduction in the millage rate okay another one at 1040 yes cut the millage rate okay um you know and they they go on Tallahassee says reduce the millage so one at 1022 they support lowering the the current millage rate du to the windfall of increased property tax dollars in the city has benefited since 2021 you know the more these properties increase in value essentially if we don't cut the millage rate we've increased taxes that's what you've done so I think we have a motion on the floor and ready we're ready for a vote I just need to address something that was said a little while ago somebody used the phrase buling because three people here have one opinion and two people don't bullan and the person using the word bullan um you know hearing it from the mayor is like the PO calling the kettle black and and you said a little while ago about not doing personal I think just using the word bulling to describe your colleagues I think that's you know taking it personal so you know let's leave the the colorful language and let's focus on the task at hand and again this is we are not Madam City attorney is this the millage rate are we setting the millage rate or are we creating establishing a ceiling it's the proposed military and and but it could be it would be adopted um because we could agree to a 1% today and that doesn't stop our colleagues from wanting another 1% in September correct correct so yeah and and if you want more in September that's fine too I am not going to be moving for more now with respect to deorum you have to exercise it as well and what happens Mr Castro mhm if you start the ball rolling in that direction you're creating more lack of decorum on this commission so I prefer to set the example then go back and forth on this we have a motion on the floor city clerk I think we're ready for a vote Madame vice mayor before you move forward would you like to take public input I think we had plenty of public input on Wednesday I I think our colleagues are ready to move forward on this particular motion we have a number of emails that have been received and uh public comment is not normal at budget meetings we had a town hall meeting ahead of time and plenty of opportunity at that time so I'd like to proceed with a vote at this time I I will move to let public comment second how many um individuals do we have that want to speak publicly I have three in person I have not checked Zoom yet um let's get two minutes a piece all right we want to keep things moving here thank you first speaker is David Rena good morning good morning morning my name is David Rena I'm the business representative who proudly represents the general employee at City of Coral Gables uh again good morning mayor vice mayor Commissioners city manager Chiefs department heads and the lovely residents of City of Coral Gables the Teamsters Union that proudly represents the general employees that we all have heard the city beautiful how do we keep that City beautiful how did we get to the city beautiful we got there through the Blood Sweat and Tears years in the hard work of these General employees I'm here on behalf of them to publicly object to the proposed millage rate reduction whether it be 2% whether it be 1% as this shall have a negative impact to the general employees and more so this will have a a major complexity to the party's current ongoing negotiations yes you have heard multiple time referenced about an on going negotiations well on behalf of the general employees again that I proudly represent they asked me show them the money this is not showing them the money I have attended the previous commission meetings I have attended the previous budget hearings Town Hall meetings if not in person I have attended via virtual so I am well-versed and well involved of the current aspects of what's going on we have all respectively heard that the police and fire will not be impacted however that statement needs to be a point of clarification and meaning so the proposed reduction May and shall have a secondary impact to the police INF fire and the general public how so allow me to present that all General employees that I'm about to speak of would be impacted by this number one the communication Department this is the first point of communication that the police officers and the firefighters and the First Responders are the first point of contact second the mechanics without the mechanics this shall hander the turnaround time of the important PMI maintenance and ongoing issues with the vehicles that may occur currently those employees are underpaid with open vacancies and vacated positions police records a true secondary extension to the police department regarding the abundance of current job responsibilities reports records redactions with the body cam Etc after a recent comp study those individuals are underpaid the IT department without technology this City the beautiful comes to a stop without the IT department which would completely compromise this whole aspect is one Cyber attack away another department is the code Department year around this is an overtasked and oversaturated department and without the code department and without sufficient staff within the code Department this burden and extra burden will be placed on the men and women and the police officers of extra responsibilities that they now have to attend to let's not forget about our Public Works these folks strive and maintain to keep the city beautiful they provide an exclusive service to the residents and we call that a white glove service and you know what they're proud to do so but with this reposed reduction this shall also reduce the ability to perform as they currently are doing now not to mention currently they are understaffed underpaid and dealing with an unprecedent set of a high record of heat index the amount of heat related incidences have increased drastically this summer this is the season not the season for the holidays but the season for hurricanes it's not a matter of if it's when when a storm hits these Frontline workers at the public works are going to be the first ones that you call upon as you've done before in the past and as they have performed in the past the general employees are at a pivotal time right now this is the time that we still need to move forward and we're still clawing back from 2009 how much longer do these General employees have to wait by this proposed millage reduction it will only further delay the accomplishments that we're trying to do including impact retention and ongoing attraction in closing for the above reasons Teamsters Local 769 on behalf of the bargaining unit employees and general employees we we object to the proposed millage rate reduction whether it be 2% whether it be 1% again we're still at the bargaining table at the end the juice is not worth the squeeze thank you and thank you on behalf of the general employees that we proudly represent thank you Mr ransaw just a couple of quick notes Here There Are No reductions in mechanics in the 1% reduction First Responders record Keepers it department and as far as the sanitation workers the sheet that I provided included the crane oper at and we continue to work with the the part-time folks uh we've worked with part-time folks the city has not added or annexed any additional areas um I don't know where that vote's going to go in the future and we can address that when the time comes that's a totally different analysis that that may never happen so um thank you for taking time to provide comments do we have any other public speakers yes ma'am Tom Wells through the manager I asked permission for the solid waste after Tom Wells for the solid waste assistant director to go ahead and provide more insight with a 1% reduction to Solid Waste would mean any reduction that we have is going to affect Solid Waste workers um on the slide for vice mayor Anderson I don't have part-time workers I have temporary work that assist us during summer I I I understand and we understand that part-time versus temporary we had that discussion but for the purposes of our budget it's identified as a part-time worker so that's why I've called it consistently a part-time worker okay right now we're in a deficit I wrote an email when the city manager first got elected of the deficits that were happening in that department and that was not considering any reductions as it is right now that department is really really suffering right what I asked for was for two sanitation Solid Waste operators and sanitation workers not um a crane operator the propos was for us to freeze one of the crane operator positions so so that's what your s didn't have that so um I've had number of discussions with folks as well and I understand that it's difficult to hire a crane operator is not a part-time position or a temporary position it's easy to fill that is why my my playing around with the numbers was putting in the crane operator because that is a hard position to get on a temporary basis and we can we can talk about temporary workers that help fill some of these vacancies at a lot lower cost to the to the residents so you know that was that situation there so I you know I had suggested you know a break so we can discuss this but let's move on uh Mr Wells thank you for coming I'm sorry I don't know if I had one more thing to say um but temporary workers they're not CDL holders so the temporary workers are just sanitation workers in order to fulfill driver positions they have to be full-time CDL Drivers vice mayor please listen to your people I actually I I am and I'm I'm looking here and they're talking about solid Solid Waste worker okay if we need more time to discuss with department heads how we can try to accomplish the same level of service that we've been providing in the past okay then we we can have that discussion so no cuts no Cuts Mr Wells uh yes I was going to speak on um not reducing the millage rate however before I get there let's talk about this process um section um 2- 81 of the city code section five says if the chairperson wishes to put forth a motion the chairperson shall relinquish the gavel until the main motion on which the chairperson has spoken has been disposed of section 2- 77 A1 talks about how we'll follow Robert's Rules of Order the eth paragraph she did not make the motion the 1% motion was made by whom the mayor who's not acting as chair he he made it via Zoom oh sorry it's not never mind I'll move to the second part of my discussion perfect saved yourself some time but um you know uh rule um uh 58 u u 8th paragraph talks about how the person chairing the uh proceeding is not supposed to take an active part in the discussion so review 8 the 8th paragraph of rule 58 is to rules Robert rules of order because I think that's kind of perverting this whole process unfortunately um I think we should have chosen somebody else who doesn't take an active role in this process process to chair this meeting now as to um not lowering the Mills rate keeping the same Mills rate we've had since um since 2016 we're the we're the in the bomb third of cities in Miami Dade as far as taxation we're 12th out of 35 why do we need to get lower and the people we benefit from this is a plaza trusty LLC the one that own the plaza they're getting $41,000 tax cut from this HG Coral Gables LLC you can look at them up Miami property dat um they're the own they're the ones that own the Gable station they gain 30,000 from a 2% okay so those two numbers are 2.5% of the total number if you want to reduce the 1% they're still still gting 2.5% there's a difference between taxpayers and residents I'm here to support residents today not taxpayers please don't uh reduce the millage rate thank you thank you thank you for your time Miss Maria Cruz Here We Go Again Mrs Maria Cruz 1447 Miller Road cor G Florida it's hard to sit here and listen to let's work together we should all all work together let's do it and then begin the personal attacks and then the bullying starts well no it didn't start today last time we were here I heard the mayor say I am not going to bend it's going to be 2% because you need four F four votes I am not changing you're going to have to change that was said here in this chamber so now he has heard the heat he has gotten the heat now we're going to consider 1% but we haven't discussed it two people came up with the same idea and were prepared to discuss it but we haven't disgusted okay I'm sorry you know what I live in the dark I don't believe in the sunshine low anymore okay I am tired of the hypocrisy the major talks here about Disney World let's compare to Palm Beach you know we need a world class Burger boobs but Fred won't be able to pick up the poop packages but once a week because we won't have the money to do that so you know how it's going to be smelly better to remove the the stations because when you walk by them all you're going to smell is the poop and we won't have the spray to poop on it and you know what I mean by that when we talk about fully funded the tower is fully funded I guess uh the thing the the building that collapsed at at bmore is fully funded yeah burger Bob also we had the money but when we start building we don't have their money unless we said oh let's put away 10% more in case it goes up no that's not the truth let's start by saying Merck's Vision was not for Carl gaos to be a business Hub this is a new event we were supposed to be a Suburban bedroom community that's what we're here for the residents in the city moved to live peacefully to have the services that we want to have the fireworks at the 4th of July last time they tried to cut him we almost have a rebellion here we have an Insurrection over that last time somebody suggested not having the back uh pick up of the garbage my God I thought the world was coming to an end and we keep trying to compare to Miami haah West Miami the people that do not want to pay for those services are free to move we live in a free country we are here I've been here for 48 years because we like the services we like to be the city beautiful we like people to call last time we had the bicycle path event people would say oh we like to ride in your city because it's so beautiful no we're going to be like everybody else we're going to have the ugliest place in town and we're not going to be Palm Beach I'm sorry we talk about the major today talk about giving relief to the residents yes I am going to get if it's 2% $281 relief and if it's 1% It Be 145.5 cents wait a second uh I guess it'll be 145 because I can cut a penny in half let's stop with the hypocrisy we talk about property values have rised yeah so the expenses have Rising too you know what I'm tired most of the if you know we talk about budget I have the budget books at home because they mayor gave them to me and you know what there are many positions were not funded but the money was there the money was budgeted so now we're saying we need those positions yes I don't want that garbage not to be picked up from my backyard or from my side yard at this point and not less than two times a week I'm sorry that's what we're here for that's what we moved here we need to stop the shenanigans we do not want to be halah we do not want to be Miami I'm sorry those that want to live there are free to do so and the people that live in condominums bricko has plenty of condominum too they don't have to be here if they don't like the way we do things when I moved here in 19676 when I bought my house we didn't pay sanitation we did not have a fire fee all that was part of taxes taxes we added that later okay when we moved here things I didn't have to take care of my Swale now I do the city took care that many things we have lost through the years and now we're going to keep losing because we have to we promise we're going to cut taxes and we're going to cut taxes anyway because I the king says so I'm sorry we don't have a king we have a major that's the same as every commissioner and I resent the fact that you three allow people to interrupt you and cut you off and answer why you're talking you deserve to be respected we elected you you need to step up to the plate and don't allow people to interrupt and I'm sorry he's on the phone so we have to let him in he could have been here like everybody else I'm sorry I make plans to be here so could everybody else we knew few weeks ago that he be today no excuses I'm tired you need to step up to the place than thank you Miss Castro for for speaking of do not you don't have to be embarrassed you don't have to be demeaned you don't have to take disrespect and I'm sorry when she's looking at you like you're a little kid you need to stand up and say I am not a child I'm an adult and you need to respect me okay M Cruz I appreciate your comments a couple of Corrections here this meeting was originally set for July 31st I rearranged my schedule to be able to be here on July 31st okay how is that Mr the clerk is saying it was not it was always scheduled for this date no m' it was not no no at the time we were here at the last budget meeting the mayor said he wasn't available in August and it was set for July 31st I had Dental appointments scheduled for today I had to move because of that so because you didn't calendar it yet doesn't mean that that's not what was discussed now with regard sorry vice mayor I think the clerk has the opportunity to answer you ma'am I do know that at that meeting the mayor said he would he would see everyone back here at the end of July right but at no point was July 31st discussed okay he said he wasn't available in August he never said okay so I had a calendar May Madame vice mayor may I yes you may okay first off I I just want to put it for the record Mr Wells made multiple comments that are incorrect and I was happy he corrected himself in the beginning there because he's a sticker for the charter and for code and I found it out that he didn't catch that you're garbage number one you're garbage you hear your time can you hear me yeah talk a little more directly on the phone I found it out that Mr Wells did not catch the fact that uh you know you're the chair I was actually happy that he caught it and moved on from that let's be honest here Mr clerks is we're talking about actual facts here we had a previous meeting before that was scheduled where I had was out of town for business I had to change my plans and cancel you said in a meeting and I would like for you to clarify you said in a meeting that you had contacted all the commiss and they had said they would not change their schedule and I failed I failed to ask you a specific question and that was I said did you tell them that it was me and and and then everybody said no I didn't know it was you I didn't know it was you Mr Clerk did Mr Ariel Fernandez know that it was me that needed to reschedule the meeting yes or no tell me what you told me yes or no sir after I had already said I was not available correct stop after I had said I was not available corre I gave you the opportunity and I said be the first one making a motion to allow the mayor to to participate because there were numerous members of Staff who are not going to be available on that date so Mr Fernandez Mr Fernandez why are you interrupting me you're sticker for Interruption oh I'm sorry I learned from you don't do that well listen then then then teach yourself can I do it I haven't interrupted anybody's meeting I've be nice and patient and learn different you should learn a lot of other things from me you know but let me just tell you look Hey listen we all can't be perfect at the end of the day that's true you need to you knew very well that it was me you you all you all knew it was me and you intentionally did not want to change the meeting last three weeks ago so we had the meeting I had to cancel my business meeting it's okay not a problem I did it I could not change this I could not change this trip I was very clear as the clerk just said but you that I that I that I that I would see you at the end of July everybody knew it I was kind I said I can't be there the first week in August you knew it so every single person in the room had an option and said let's do it on Monday let's do it on Tuesday let's do it on Wednesday let's do it on Thursday how about we do it on Friday no we can't no we can't no times worked right or wrong Mr clerk did we didn't you and I and my staff not try with all the Commissioners to try to make it did we yes or no yes sir and they all said consistently no no no no no no no so look at one point or another different members of the commission had issues with the scheduling and rather than you know affect those since the date had already been said I didn't want to change it at that time yeah and now we were also coming to an end in regards to August 4th we had to vote we had to vote to set the millage but look commissioner Castro wanted a cooling off period of 24 hours in between her Town Hall which I think it was great that she had a town hall I love Town Halls I've been doing them for almost 12 years they're a great way to talk to the people and a great way to talk to the business Community but nobody needs a 24-hour cooling off period we could have had the meeting yesterday everybody was in town we were available and I told you that we could do it starting at 8 o'clock in the morning all the way to night time people here like to have meetings after five o'clock I would had the meeting at five o'clock those are things but no knowing that I was out of town' rather have me on Zoom my point is simple look okay like commission like like uh Maria Cruz said there's no Kings here we're here to serve we're giving you an offer but I'm also entitled I'm also entitled and you have a your memory forgets I'm also entitled to vote what I think is in the best interest of the city just like my three colleagues in the middle of a commission meeting ramm down everybody's throat a city manager candidate who was not vetted we did not see a resume and did not go through a process and we have to accept that that's it we have to accept it so why is that acceptable but the fact that I want to lower the Mage rate for residents and that's Mr weler I want to read it again even though you mention it you have to by state law lower the millage rate for everyone you can't be selective and you love to mention you love to mention the plaza and you love to mention the Gable station by the way just for the record two projects that I voted against who project said I voted against so if you're going to benefit the residents you're also going to benefit the business community and that's why I started by saying that 40% of our tax base comes from the business community so it's good if they if they see a little bit of money in their pocket because they're reinvested in the city they're already subsidizing our community by 40% so at the end of the day we're going back and forth why don't we just move forward you have a 1% just like you wanted the manager you got the manager you you own the manager the three you voted for it and we have to accept it why can't we move forward come together on a 1% reduction services are not going to be suffered and we're going to be fining so Madam vice mayor thank you for allowing me the speak so I just wanted to clarify uh some statements here so there's not any misconception by residents we'll still have fireworks we just won't enhance the fireworks to be instead of fireworks laser or drone shows that's something that you know maybe the business Community would want to support you know and make a donation towards um we'll still have poop bags we'll still have poop bag pickups this is a zero cut option that I had put in front of the commission so um uh next speaker uh Christopher challender Christopher Challenger corg president fernal order police 265 Silla hello uh I'm here to object the the millage Ray cut and I know we're part of the group that's not affected by it but the city like anything is a team we're a team we all it's a football team if you have an offensive line and you have a star quarterback and your Center out you're not going to do very well we depend on our dispatchers we depend on our records clerks we depend on the public work if they cannot do their job it falls back on us we end up having to do uh jobs that they do because they aren't able to do it at certain times so when it says it doesn't affect us it does affect us and so so I'm just going to briefly pause you there because none of the positions that I put up there have anything to do with impacting you all so um it still going to be there you know the call center there's no reductions there this is a zero reduction option well part part of that is the motor pool our office is our car if I can't get my car or it's not working properly that severely affects our ability to provide services to the residents again and I'm sorry you've got the misimpression on that there was no reductions every position for increasing the motorpool maintaining the motorpool getting those mechanics in there um is in this budget even with a 1% cut so rest assured I'm not trying to knock the wheels off of the current operation this is a maintaining current service and enhancing current service that we're going to be able to ACH achieve both with police and fire and and uh all the other services that we've routinely provided yes the risk here is growing the head count in areas where you know it's going to require give us less flexibility so well I can tell you my back the time I just took so and and my experience and we just finished a negotiation which we actually trimmed a year off the deal because we couldn't come to uh an agreement but when the garbage rate was lowered the first first thing that comes out so that's not supposed to affect us and I know when you cut taxes it's not supposed to affect us it's our budget but the first thing that comes up in negotiation is we have no money we just cut the rate we just cut this so no matter what happens it's not going to touch you we're 30 plus vacancies so if you have to give bigger raises that costs money if you do not have that money you cannot give bigger raises which leads to empty vacancies in departments yeah you can trim fat here but I was surprised when mayor logo read his uh his statement because he made it sound like we were flushed with money but we've been I mean since I've been president it's always we're tight with money we don't have this when Public Safety is a super priority and we're down 30 vacancies and we're lowering Mill I don't see how it does not affect us the only thing that I see this as is it's coming up to election time and whether it passes or it doesn't pass if I'm somebody I could say I'm the only one who tried to lower the taxes they didn't and if it passes I there's somebody here it's not here right now that uses that statement more than any body I I lowered the taxes and when you do that you don't say I lower the taxes $8 a month for a resident that that doesn't sound good but when you say I am the only one who lowered taxes it makes it sound like you're helping everybody now $8 is a savings but I don't think it's a savings the residents feel is worthy of C cutting services and and that that's why our Union is against it and I feel for my brothers and sisters for the other employees for the Department because it's it's tough on our salaries and when you have less money you don't raise salaries thank you I'm sorry what's going to happen when you come back to the negotiating table in March okay let's let's get a question answered first before we have some information on the on the floor that appears to um perhaps leave a misimpression for for residents well the 30 positions for the 30 vacancies is budgeted the money is there our finance team budges in potential increases in salaries that were are within a realm of Reason Okay so they are very forward looking in budgeting so no one's cutting any positions from police and and I'm not saying it's cutting any positions the only thing I do say is I and I commend the staff for their budget did they budget for 30 vacancies 30 plus vacancies when you there's a reason why we have that vacancy it's not because everybody's equal in day County or South Florida that's not budgeted for and if it increases it's puts a strain on everything so so let's let's let the finance director answer what is budgeted rather than us who are not handling the budget deal with that and there's police vacancies for two reasons number one it took a long time to get a vote on that budget on on that contract okay and perhaps we should have started negotiating earlier that's a decision the water's under the bridge I can't bring that back you you can't bring that back the same reason why I urge staff city manager officers to start negotiating with the teamsters in February so that we would be further along here but we're not there yet because it didn't start until the summer so Finance director uh if you could assist us yeah with the what is um budgeted as far as these uh 30 vacancies so all of the vacancies in police are budgeted for um at the at the um what is the expected position for them to come into so if they're expected to come in as officers they're budgeted for officers let me go ahead and clear the record yes they are budgeted for but the funds that we're using for those police officers are being used in overtime hours correct me if I'm wrong Chief Hudak yes so the money is being depleted little by little because we don't have sufficient police off officers to take care of the city now we're using those funds with the overtime that every officer right now in the city is obligated to do overtime overtime is one and a half may you uh address that because we you know it's we're looking forward are we able to fill the 30 vacancies assuming we had qualified applicants that are approved yes so um so both are true right so the positions that are budgeted for in our budget estimate and in the current budget are fully budgeted and so if we were to recruit all however number of vacancies we have we would have sufficient funds to cover each of those positions for the remainder of the year it is our practice that the um any salary savings are only used right so any savings from a vacancy are only used to fund um overtime Personnel cost or um or expenses for Recruitment and so as we approve any overspending we also allow for the ability to fill the position should a candidate come come available but let me add uh one thing vice mayor if you don't mind uh the Crux of the issue of vacancies within the police department and uh a lot of the city uh departments is the fact that the salary that we offer and pay is very low compared to our neighboring police departments public works department and so on so uh any cut in Revenue uh we would not be able to use it to attract and recruit and hire additional people uh and that's that's not only cor cables that's every city the people go to where they're being paid the most and uh and that's a factor that we we should consider as we do our budget planning so um in response because I was here a little longer than you are as well and went through the budget negotiations and the negotiations for the contract back in December when the contract was put on the table it was put forth as a high offer because it was competitive it is not a normal increase that was done for police because we were being competitive with the other cities in facts the excuse me the facts are that even in cities in California where much higher salaries were put in place didn't solve the problem the problem is not many people want to become police officers uh we have to to work everybody's working on recruitment I don't know if you remember there was people at you officers on Hollywood Beach to try to convince young folks that being a police officer was a wonderful career to move forward in and every opportunity I get to do an event engaging either our fire or police Cadets to to engage with the young people to show them that their job opportunities out there that they may have not thought about and look at the camaraderie that exists in these departments and you have amazing camaraderie you know within the departments in supporting each other because you have to because you like you said you're a team I cannot I cannot disagree with you and it was a competitive uh contract but just as we provided a competitive uh contract other departments are doing the same thing and raising the bar up so so we're all competing for the limited amount of folks that want to be police officer that was my only Point yeah Chief you you got a moment to give us your pearls of of wisdom here on this tell them Chief my job is to make sure that we have enough officers on the street every day at the rate of 4.2 per thousand which is double the national average it's what our residents expect it's what you all hold me accountable for doing whatever pot of money you decide side is I'm going to make sure that happens if I have to move people from specialized units that's what's going to happen right now the union and I and the HR Director are talking about the mandatory overtime from a history perspective this is not the first time your police department has mandated overtime to cover the zones the zones which we have 12 of are mandated by direction of this body not this current body that how many people I have to have on the street every time all the other services that that is our Focus right that is to make sure we have a presence all the time regardless of what it is my job is to make sure we have enough people there the competitive market now for policing Nationwide is an allout recruiting war and we have had an increase since the last contract that was ratified by the union and approved by you all has helped us retain people but also help us recruit people we are we are working overtime to get the processes through we are a victim of our own successes though because the standards to be a police officer in Coral Gables of which every resident enjoys is higher or or more demanding than any other department our backgrounds are the most thorough and as soon as we get close to the end we have to hire quickly because other departments can take our background and hire that person away and offer them more the monies that Finance has given us is absolutely yes the only Frozen position in the hierarchy of the police department which has been frozen for about oh I don't know nine or 10 years has been the assistant Chief's position that is the only position that is not funded all right do I need it yes can I work without it well Chief Handlin weren't doing double duties right now I don't think it's fair for Upward Mobility but hey that's a decision I have to make based on the numbers I'm giv at the end of the day Commissioners whatever you all decide this number is going to be the staff of the police department the fire department all the other departments are going to make it work we always have and I have been around long enough to see roll backs and everything else where we have had to Pivot and do things as far as the contracts are concerned in the future we are going to have to maintain a competitive process you all just offered and the union accepted the largest contract to the fop in my history of 38 years here and it's a start it is a start because right now in California the starting salaries are about $120,000 per officer and they're not getting people and we are we're we're starting to get people we're paying bonuses we're looking at people that have that can fill the void Faster by being certified it's it's a unique way to go about it and I am pretty confident that we're going to be able to really fill these vacancies quicker the other unintended consequences of that which we've had discussion before is the promotions which I'm moving forward on promotions this week only because I can now schedule what kind of overtime I'm going to need to cover everything that we do so so I get it I understand you know this process whatever that number is whether it's 3% 2% 1% flat whatever I have the confidence in my fellow directors that we're going to be able to make this work we always have because all of you get the phone calls from the constituents yes sir I have a question um and for actually everybody who's been standing there the last 20 minutes um we talk about team we're all A Team all the Departments fire police Sen ation Parks everything a team and you know it was mentioned at the town hall meeting mentioned earlier today what's happening now if we're not touching police we're not touching fire we're basically Shifting the burden onto every other department not only do they already have a burden because of proposed Cuts now they're taking on the burden of the other departments on top it's like putting on weights and then adding more weights onto them and earlier we was talk about the IT department impacting uh mechanics fixing the cars so even though obviously you can make do with what you've got the fact that we're Shifting the burden to other departments and by the way we talk about vacancies and obviously the vital is filling the vacancies of police and filling the vacancies and fire but we have vacancies in other departments that deal with our residents on a day-to-day basis so isn't it true I mean you mentioned I think at the town hall meeting the fact that we could arguably shift the burd on to other departments does eventually impact your department and impact fire you interact with the other you depend on them for a lot of things so so let me let me clarify here for you the proposal that I put together does not cut it does not cut the mechanics you know we the additional positions are still budgeted for in this proposal right but this isn't a Wendy's Buffet you can't go up there and pick you like radishes I don't want Tomatoes The fact the fact that some departments are going to be excluded then the the loss of funding will now be taken up by the other departments we're just pushing it down to whoever's left whoever's not mentioned they're going to be the cuts are going to come from them so I don't think anybody in the police department is going to be impacted by whether we Outsource sign shop or otherwise well we talked about it and the mechanics and they interact they interact with parks and Parks inter interacts with all we're hey we're a team we all interact and we all work together and we provide a Services a collect and by the way we are an expanding City I'm not saying geographically I'm saying we are activating parts of the city that we have never activated for decades so that's you know my area that I really you know focus a lot on community recreation years ago every activity was at the youth center now you have activities throughout the City of Coral gaples and the same thing with every other department we have we are trying to make sure that the South Gables gets the same quality service that the central Gables at the North Gables we are activating our city and we're trying to provide a uniform service across the board so if we start picking and choosing which department gets hit which department doesn't get hit the team gets hit and that's my concern okay commissioner Menendez just just to clarify here so we don't again have information that is going to be misinterpreted by by residents there is no reduction at all in Parks and Recreation there's no reduction in the mechanics there's no reduction there's actually enhancements enhancements of it here the additional position it wasn't in the June 1 budget is still in here so um but I'm sorry they said there were vacancies and we're freezing some position I believe the the the chief had mentioned that you were saying something about the sign shop that had nothing to do with police well I believe the the chief had mentioned during our meeting that if signage wasn't of today if you can elaborate so the again I can't can Outsource it cheaper than having a full-time position however again so the the Police Department relies on the sign shop if one of our traffic direction signs is down as far as the city's concerned and I think legal will back me up on this we have to put that up as quickly as possible Chief I called you I reached out to you in the middle of the night because that church of Little Flower a stop sign disappeared and and we put and in the middle of the night we put stop signs up that's the got done quickly because the next day rush hour in school would have been a disaster look as a department director and commissioner to your point vice mayor to your points we have one hell of an administrative team in this city and I've seen a lot of them all you all have to do is decide what you want and we will figure out with your at your direction what you want us to do as a department because you're right I'm going to absorb some things you know like I said the other night at 11:00 at night nobody answers the phones their work phones and if it's an emergency it comes to the police department the only two groups groups that work around the clock are some people in sanitation cleaning the streets the police officers and the firefighters so we have to handle it and they have to handle it till the end of the day we will follow your lead once this decision is made I really think it's going to be a hell of lot easier for us as an Administration through the manager to say if this is what it is this is this is where it's going to be affected and that is a collective group of my fellow department heads about okay this is what I can do can I do without this can I do without that give us the dollar amount we'll give you what you want and and and with the understanding that services are not going to be affected in sanitation code enforcement police fire I mean that's I think that's the bottom line we're worried about the wha ifs in the police department we Pro we we we put plans in place for what ifs but we deal with the realities of it are and and I'm confident in the men and women of my department that they're going to pick up whatever we need to pick up if we have to until we're at that com that comfortable level just let us know what the number is we're good to go and I I'm I'm speaking for the police department and I listen it's a little uncomfortable for us to stand up here I understand everybody's thing about Public Safety but you you by these discussions you're saying Okay police and fire you are the golden children nothing nothing's going to happen but that's not true so anyway it's not but if if one of our employees needs help on the street you want to cop there as quickly as possible you want us working together because people on trucks have helped us solve crimes have helped make people safe so it all it is very interdependent just give us the number and we we'll we'll come back to you and let us know to commissioner Fernandez's point if it's if it's 1% these are the numbers we'll come back we might be able to help out in the the police department to get to whatever that bottom line number is instead of hypotheticals that's my point but understand in the future we are going to have to negotiate with the employees again to continue to stay competitive because that is not going away that is not going away and that's going to happen in March so the less money we have right now the less possibilities we have to work on a strategic plan to retain our cops it's not only about vacancies and filling them it's about retaining them right now injuring ability to do our job correctly I I understand that that's why I advocated not she's still talking don't interrupt excuse me I'll I can handle this don't she's interrupting that's like a part of a movie right right right right that's why I advocated not adding heads in areas where we can consider doing things more efficiently Mary Did You Have a comment to make yeah I apologize I'm on delay I interrupt somebody excuse me um the words cuts and cuts and cuts keep being used we're not talking about Cuts please the city had a $10 million tax increase this year I just want to touch on a few things really quickly so we can move on to this V number one Mr Challenger mention I I wish I wish my colleagues would take the same route be proud of you're breaking up a mayor you're probably going to have to move to a different spot we don't hear you proud the project that you worked on for years and years and years different Legacy the parts that I've been able to get I'm super proud of that I'm super proud of that so I think that's okay we're we're losing you mayor we're losing you well I don't want to take up any more time but just in regards to budgeting uh yes our positions are budgeted for which is a good thing the only issue with that is Burger Bobs was budgeted for and then you see what happens the same thing happens all over the city when you budget sometimes you budget too much but typically you budget less than what it is but thank thank you for listening okay any other public comment commission mandz brought up a good point though um and actually I think you didn't even realize you were bringing it up expansion of the city our residents are currently considering annexation something that could at our current millage rate cost the city $4.3 million a year one that's going to go up if we lower the millage rate that's an extra 4.3 maybe $4.7 million that we may have to find in a year down the road because of a millage rate cut that we do today if we do move forward with annexation so that's something that again we will know by September where our residents stand on annexation we do not know where our residents stand on annexation today the um the vote on on the August ballot is a a straw ballot it still has to go through the county it still has to be voted on by The Gables residents and it may never ever happen but what we're doing here with the current budget that we have is we're creating more expense and more burden because we're creating more permanent positions that we've never had so do we have any other public comment uh Mr Clark yes ma'am uh next speaker is David Perez good afternoon uh Mr Mayor Commissioners Mr manager Mr clerk you know um three years ago I think it was about three years ago might have been two years ago I was up before this commission and I spoke about the need for additional uh Staffing of firefighters for highrises for high-rises you need to have 43 firefighters on duty because of the known risks yes the city has made some instride on that we've hired an additional 15 firefighters but that still leaves us 18 firefighters short to deal with highrises and I'm going to ask a question how many high-rises do we have in the city 10 20 30 I'll answer it for you 120 known fire um highrises in the city we still have another 30 projects that are coming on board in the city you can look down Salo you can see the codina project across from mercedesbenz you can see the Allen Morris project right off of ponts you can see that there's another project on the drawing blocks right across from the public safety building right on the corner there's another high-rise project that potentially can go in there and we have the crafts project right off of Salo just to give you an example you can look up and see the Cran in the City of Coral Gables for we have a total of 150 known highrises including those 30 projects right now we're the only city in Miami Dade County that does not meet the 43 firefighters on duty to deal with the high-rise outside of kisc there are a single station um Department with seven members on duty and they rely on automatic aid from the city of Miami what does that mean if there's a need for a additional firefighters due to a high-rise or anything beyond their capacity it automatically goes out from dispatch all those additional fir Fighters that they'll need we at this point still rely on Mutual Aid what does that mean that means we will call out to neighboring fire departments and ask for the additional bodies those 18 additional bodies that we'll need to deal with a highrise and we are dependent on their availability and their closest station so it could be one right across from Coral Way for the City of Miami it could be right down the street on US1 but if those units are out we don't know where those next fire units are coming from it's a matter of time right now we have a new station coming up out of the ground how is how are these Cuts these potential millage rate reduction how is that going to affect this new station to the point of this city continues to grow yes yes it does we have a new Jackson Care Urgent Center on the North End of the county since I spoke before this commission we have a new Alf Merrick Manor right across from Havana Harry's there's another Alf going up on Tenth and ponts and we still have the plaza and Riviera Home Health Care Center which are daily calls to the our department we send units numbers of times to those already existing units the plaza and Riviera and the more people want to come into the City of Coral Gables because it's a worldclass city we give White Glove service we are the best when it comes to Art design and everything else people want to come here why because of that white glove service that we provide as a fire department give me one second as I said we continue to grow vertically I mentioned all of those projects and right across Douglas and Coral Way were looking at that Sears development where they could put in an additional 1200 units yes that's outside of the City of Coral Gables technically but where do you think those people are going to come to dine where do you think those people are going to come to shop and spend their time in the City of Coral Gables they're going to cross Douglas they're going to go onto Miracle while and that's going to have an impact on our services you know when it comes to dealing with the fire department and the calls that are made we don't ask are you in favor of keeping the milit rate are you in favor of lowering the milit rate we don't ask are you Republican are you democrat are you this are you that we provide a top level of service and we're happy to do that there are 130 members that I represent in the department that dedicate their lives each and every day to the residents and I've heard in previous conversations that and it's enraging I'm going to tell you it's enraging well you guys really don't see the same things that other departments see because it's the City of Coral Gables because we provide a white glove service because we're the first in this and the first in that and I'm here to tell you that is absolutely not true we see the same calls that other departments see we deal with the same issues as Miami date fire as City of Miami as city of holia you know all I ask is that we continue to be the white gloves service City we ask that you do that moving forward for Public Safety we ask that you keep in mind not only the members that I represent but their families as well and you know I want to talk about a little bit that was discussed earlier on compens you know there was an evergreen study that the city paid for and what did that show that showed that employees in the city are woefully underpaid in each sector of their career beginning salaries midterm and seniority in the City of Coral Gables we also talked about part-time versus full-time employees and you know I've had discussions with some Commissioners where it was expressed to me that family memb enjoyed pensions enjoyed being part of a union and I would ask that you consider that moving forward because if we continue to replace full-time employees or part-time employees I'm going to tell you you're going to face an issue and it happens everywhere that part-time employee is not there every day eight hours a day so when a resident comes in you might get another person or when someone calls you're going to get somebody else and that whole situation needs to be explained once again and that gets frustrating from a customer perspective because now you're dealing with somebody else now you have to re-explain everything and as far as a manager you have someone who comes in for a few hours and then there's the next person and now you have to re explain everything you explained to the first person that was there yesterday and now this person needs to pick up from there it's an issue of continuity what ends up happening most of the work most of the responsibil goes back to the full-time employee that's there each and every day 8 hours a day 5 days a week and I can tell you it happened because that's exactly why I left Miami Dade County after 15 years of Public Service in the county because at the time the the stock market crashed the real estate market crashed people were being let go and more and more was being put on each individual's plate and it got to the point that it just was not a productive environment and that's exactly why I left and that's why I came to the City of Coral Gables so again I ask you please vote against the millage rate reduction we talked about annexation if if that goes through that's an additional impact on all of our service not just Public Safety and that certainly needs to be considered moving forward thank you very much thank you L of vice mayor we're going to zoom next uh first speaker is going to be suo wersi hello can you hear me yes yes okay thank you uh I'm Sue kerski I live at 6830 graci Street here in the city beautiful um and I want to make uh two observations first uh before I address the millit rate first of all mayor Lago is very fond of saying that he is for what's best best for the city I have never ever heard him say what's best for the residents I think there's quite a distinction in the way that he votes number two May vice mayor Anderson please you are bloviating throughout this entire discussion it is not helpful it is not it's hurtful to your image and truthfully we're we're just done with it so please stop bloviating and allow the other Commissioners to speak because they are actually speaking on behalf of residents uh today I'm representing the Coral Gables neighbors Association we have 16,000 residents who have opted into to be members of the Coral Gables neighbors Association yesterday we sent out uh an email to all 16,000 residents and usually after we send out these emails and by the way that email endorsed not raising the millage rate usually we get numbers dozens of emails from residents opining about uh issues and I can tell you that out of the 16,000 emails that we sent out there was one email that we received only one email that said that they wanted a reduction in the millage rate that's out of 16,000 residents and I want to make that very clear we speak for the residents I think three Commissioners on the Das speak for the residents it's about time everyone all five start voting on behalf of the residents wishes and therefore we are all for not keep not raising or lowering the military rate but keeping it the same please do what your residents want thank you next speaker is Carlos estral yes thank you my name is Carlos Estrada I live in 424 candy Avenue I'm sorry I was in between bites of lunch when you called thank you um no problem my question is I I have a hypothetical because personally what I've been hearing is almost like Loom and doom like the city's going to become like Maria Perez says Hi alyah um I have a hypothetical question if the revenue would have actually been 8 million instead of 10 million would we be considering raising the millage rate to keep all these cuts and all these cuts and POS and positions are you waiting for an answer or did we just lose you we can't hear you he was sandwich no I was muted by uh by someone no what I'm trying to say is if our revenues would have only been 8 million representing the one or two% cut instead of 10 million would we then be considering a raising the millit rate in order to need keep all these necessary positions and all these necessary uh line item budget that have been presented like the drones would we be considering a raise in the millage rate or would we just make do and operate with what we have is that a hypothetical question or are you done uh Mr Strada yes okay all right any other um public comment yes ma'am uh next speaker is CLA Mido hi good afternoon good afternoon can you hear me yes thank you Claudia Mido I reside at 343 Major Avenue um good afternoon to everyone I just wanted to express my support to not lower the millage rate and I wanted to also speak to some of the comments that I had heard earlier I keep hearing what we're not going to touch what we're not going to lower but we are lowering it we're looking at lowering it 1% so what I want to hear is what are the Departments then that are going to be effective it's not it if it's not Fir and police uh supposedly then what are those departments and then the other observation I wanted to make um I worked in the public sector for 25 years and I back up some of the comments that have been made here when you're looking as a public sector employee you're looking for a job you know not to go to the City of Coral Gables you want to go to the the the places that offer the better compensation and that would be Miami dat County city of Miami Miami Beach never City of Coral Gables which has always boggled me as the most affluent City south of Manhattan that we offer the the lowest amount of pay for our employees and I also think that um you know I I heard uh Chief hudak's comments who I admire and I respect um I heard his comments saying you know what we're gonna make it happen no matter what and that's the current that's the current Administration if somebody retires or decides that you know what what um like David Perez said he couldn't take the load of you know having to do two and three jobs because the budgets are cut and there's not enough money and you leave you take that instit knowledge with you and you kind of have to start from scratch and that affects the the level and the quality of the service that the residents are getting but not only that you know and then Chief Hudak said you know we're gonna make it happen and and and sure that could possibly be the case but here's the thing if you cut my budget personally if you cut my budget I'm still G to feed my family but we're not going to be eating steak and feeling we're GNA be feeding you know we're GNA be eating spaghetti I live in Coral Gables I want F Mong I don't want to have to have our servant suffer and say okay yeah we're making it happen we're going to meet the needs as best as possible I want to have the reason I moved to the city I love the services here I love the community I I love what you know commissioner Menendez said about having Equitable Services across you know uh the entire city for for a long time North Gables you know didn't see the same level of parks that South Gables or Central Gables saw and now you know it's on the table what's going to happen at Phillips Park in a few years all of those things are exciting changes and I don't want to see anything anywhere uh reduce in services so again um I urge all of you to please consider what the majority of the residents want and to do that in your voting and and on the other question I had is you know how when are we going to feel if if there was a reduction in the millage when are we the residents going to start to feel the pinch is that going to be immediate is that going to happen right away is that going to be in two or three months is that going to be in time for election so that when we go out at residence we remember what it is that is being done here today thank you very much okay next speaker is m m Haley hi I I'm not gonna go through good morning I'm not going to go through the message that I went through at the town hall meeting which was super informative very well-run and and I'm so grateful to commissioner Castro and to our staff for being there so late and giving us all that information and I I thank you for your dedication to your job and I I see from what shudak has said and others others who have come here today have said they want to serve our city but we've got to give them the right salaries the right compensations so that they can provide for themselves and for their families but today I I just really distressed that we have this level of I know better than you the resident I know better than you new Commissioners from a couple of our our current Commissioners it it's if 85 emails were received out of a city of 50,000 in favor of keeping our current millage rate and 10 in not favor those are the engaged people the people I've seen here speaking today are pretty much the same people that were there at the town Hall we are the engaged public the rest of the public doesn't say anything you've got to listen to the residents that are speaking up listen to the residents that is my message don't tell us we don't know what we're talking about don't tell us oh yeah let's let's let's go have some coffee so that I can talk to you some more no no no don't keep putting it off make the right decision for the residents today and keep the mill rate as is thank you sarine I'm asking them to unmute so can you hear me now yes hello yes oh yeah hi uh so I just wanted to mentioned that I I really appreciate the um effort to save uh the residents money um in this case however I uh would like to keep the millage rate as it is and the reason for that is that um these savings I don't think are all that material to uh the residents um even the large uh the large entities like the plaza the savings that they would have are are just not very material their operation and I so I don't think that the savings is is all that material so and and I do think that um you know our expenses at the city have increased because of inflation we want to offer reasonable salaries to get reasonable employees in the city and I I think that we can well afford that and so I'm in favor of keeping the millage rate as it is thank you thank you that's it ma'am okay so we have a motion on the floor let's get the vote done you like Ni Call on it yes okay can I I would like to say something um I want to emphasize that the majority of the residents the ones that called the ones that I have emailed the ones that were in the town hall are all against lowering the millage rate I also want to highlight the potential of negative impacts on the city services if the millage rate is reduced and um I want to address the VI I address the vice mayor's concerns about the condo owners by proposing a targeted solution um a stable finances and services attract more businesses and and investors fostering economic growth I also want to point out potential future challenges such as unexpected expenses such as hurricanes disasters and other things that could occur to the city maintaining the millage rate is an investment to the city's future and I really really hope that it's not about who's right or who's wrong or who's going to win or who's going to lose at the end of the day we're here to represent the best interests of our residents let's please move forward with this vote knowing that we're doing the right thing let's listen to our residents and I I I'm saying this to all of my colleagues it's clear it's loud listen to them these are the people that coming April are going to go ahead head and re-elect you these people that you're hearing are the people who are going to decide if you're going to be the here the next term or not are you going to please them are you going to listen to them that's what this vote depends on I just want to I'm sorry go ahead mayor vice mayor go ahead okay thank you uh along the lines of what commissioner Castro said the logic is in the world of politics you know if you're running for reelection or you're running for office you're PR making Cuts but sometimes you have to choose between the politics and the people and in this situation we will be impacting not only our Workforce that are dedicated to the city but we'll be impacting those services that our residents depend on I mentioned politics because every day now on social media you'll see post paid advertising on how two elected officials want to go one way and the other three don't care they're going to vote to keep it the same way it's politics it's not about the people I worked 13 almost 13 years at the city of Miami that's politics and I'm sad you know we were talking about Coral Gables going down and its quality if we keep on doing these types of political moves and we're no longer like Coral Gables well I have bad news for all of you politically we're the city of Miami we're playing politics sometimes I hear things and the first thing that pops into my mind is Alexa the chairman you know I would be worried about that folks they're coming after your services the city of Miami politics is already here I'm with the people not the politics so in closing I agree with you this is all about politics okay but it's politics in a different way I this is not about this election coming up I thought it was would have been prudent last year to have a milit rate cut when we had over five times the property tax revenue that we have ever had before even in our best years that is a tax increase that this commission imposed last year and I would hope that instead of expanding the number of employees and areas where we can more fruy get the work done same work I'm not talking with existing employees but more frugally done that we run a tight ship because we don't and I was very proud that we didn't lay off a single worker when Co hit unlike the other CI cities who when they're flush with money pile on additional positions so let's go ahead and uh and take the vote I think there's I think there's still somebody else waiting to speak Madame vice mayor I missed a member of the public requesting to speak okay I have your BOS okay Mr BOS uh good afternoon uh ma'am and and to everyone at the uh at the commission thank you all for all the time you dedicated to this and for all the efforts you've made just want to point out what Deb register said uh at the Town Hall you have a finance committee okay and a budget advisory committee which you were gracious enough ma'am to to appoint me in the prior uh prior two years and they voted unan ously to reject this idea it is the most aggressive tax cut that you will do as a city and it only works you can do everything you you plan to do you can work with your colleagues to try to reduce the expenses in a way that makes sense but this is you're forcing a situation for what respectfully seem like political issues let's work together let's try TR to get to a compromise on the actual expenditures you can you could give the relief you seek and you could give it directly to taxpayers as opposed to giving it to developers and to the commercial sector there are many other ways to do this this doing it this way forces an issue that doesn't need to be solved in this way I said that respectfully and I I appreciate your comments and also you know I appreciate the comments of our state legislators we do need to take a vote and then we can move forward so um Madam vice mayor if you give me the courtesy there's a few things that I have to State before you take your vote um and so I believe the motion um and I'll ask the City attorney and the clerk to correct me if I'm incorrect um is to uh to adopt a millage that is 1% less than the current millage and so that millage rate would be 5503 that millage rate is 7.3% over the roll back rate of 5 .1 1281 and so um just so that I know there's been a lot of discussion and back and forth right and so today what you are set what you are voting on is the millage rate that will go on our property tax notices so it is the proposed millage rate the millage rate will not be set until your first and second budget hearings in September at which time you will set the tenative and adopted millage and so um this is just the proposed millage this is as everybody refers to it as the ceiling whatever is adopted today um and we've always say that it cannot be changed at the first hearing it can be increased at the fir after the first hearing however it is a very exhaustive process and expensive because it requires so typically it will not happen because of the time that we have in between the first and second hearing I just want to make sure that we're clear and so uh today you would be setting what goes on the property tax notices that go out to our residents and it generally cannot be increased after that it will it can only be decreased and so the 1% millage represents a 1,297 million 97,98 reduction to the estimated revenues based on the current millage um and so just for all of the discussions here here um this is also not adopting the budget at this time so we would work out whatever budget would be needed based on whatever decision is made here today the 1% millage requires a 4 fths vote um if a 4 fths vote is not met then we would need another we would ask for another motion for some other options um and so um if that doesn't happen we can remind you what the other votes are okay we have we have have a pending motion can we move forward un unless you guys want a break and come back later um I think we can get moving forward and and conclude this here this meeting our budget Advisory Board advised us that they didn't want to slower the millage you advised this it wasn't in the best interest of the city budget director the finance director also advised that it wasn't in the best interest of the city to lower the the the millage the residents are asking us the majority of the residents are asking us do not lower the millage and then we're going to turn around and do it I mean that right there I is unheard of I I did hear your comments I'm still getting request in to lower it is it coming upon us to take a vote or or if you want to sit here for another hour and debate this we can do that too but we'll have to take a break I've asked the clerk to call the R so that we can take a vote commissioner Castro no commissioner Fernandez no commissioner Mendez no mayor logo yes vice mayor Anderson yes uh I'll pass the gavl I'll make a motion to maintain the current milit rate second I'm sorry who seconded I did thank you commissioner Fernandez yes commissioner Mendez yes vice mayor vice mayor Anderson am I supposed go commissioner Castro you passed the G yes I do mayor logo yes I did say yes by the way okay vice mayor Anderson yes thank you so just to for purposes of clarity so maintaining the current millage of 5559 Mills yes and that millage is 8.4% over the roll back rate which is 5128 one and the actual final millage rate will be determined in September yes and so we will the 5.55 9 will go on the property tax notices that are due in just a tomorrow um and then we will come back in September to set the tenative military and Madam vice mayor I just want to say thank you uh for making that motion it gives us additional time to get all the questions answered and my commitment Remains the Same to you on working towards a resolution for September so I also am going to ask uh to work on not making our head count more than what we need and my version of need is probably different than other versions of need because what we're going to do is we're going to handcuff ourselves on our ability to have raises for the existing employees that we need to provide or existing services that we need to continue to maintain so I want to be very very surgical about how we handle additional positions that we put in understood okay and I support that 100% I do too I agree thank you for making that decision you have no you have the joy that's inside my heart right now oh surgical yes I can I can be surgical as you could see from my spreadsheet I can be Sur meeting adjourned meeting's adjourned let's go yeah actually actually I failed to ask you to you're the next most senior no I I got time I got recording stopped e e e e e e