##VIDEO ID:TH3VsmgpDOA## [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] he please take your seats the meeting is about to begin remember to speak into the microphone as this meeting is being recorded for public record please stand by we are going on air in 5 4 3 2 one okay are we live now I'm going to ask everybody to uh take their seats get ready uh welcome to the September Finance economic resiliency committee uh happy Friday we have some beautiful weather here excited for the weekend uh from a firk perspective we are approaching the end of our budget season so uh exciting times we've been incredibly busy appreciate everybody uh that has been part of this process um um so let's get today kicked off uh we're still waiting for another commissioner to come in so want to just take some things where they're more updating wise uh Mr CFO I'm going to hand it over to you on the City attorney to kick us off here and then we'll uh we'll talk about some things that we uh get out of the way first okay I think uh did we have some uh meeting notes or records that we read in the record first and then I have a couple Notes too sure good morning today's meeting of the finance and economic resiliency committee has been scheduled in a hybrid format with the Quorum of the committee physically present and the remaining members staff and members of the public appearing either in person or virtually via zoom in order to participate in today's meeting virtually members of the public may dial 1888 475 4499 toll-free and enter the webinar ID which is 863 6059 5462 pound or log into the Zoom app and enter the webinar ID which again is 863 6059 5462 any individual wishing to speak on an item must click the raise hand icon if they are using the Zoom app or dial star9 if you are participating by phone uh thank you uh two notes uh number nb1 13 is deferred n uh nb1 has a Time certain of 12: noon thank you chair that's the only notes I have actually why don't we get started can we have an update uh let's get to the one for an update on the Grant status of the grant programs uh chair that would be nb9 discuss steps that could be taken to enhance the identification of grant opportunities for the City of Miami Beach nb9 and we have uh Chris Dobbins our grants division director to provide uh an update this should be a discussion item thank you good morning Commissioners Crystal Dobbins grants management division director um today I'm here to discuss the recommendation from the city Administration regarding our approach to securing grant opportunities as referred uh to the finance and economic resiliency committee on July 4th at the request of the mayor and commissioner Laura Dominguez the commissioner referred this item to the committee our city Miami Beach actively seeks various grants from federal state and local sources to support our projects and initiatives we have established procedures for identifying these opportunities including a thorough review of available grants and an internal coordination process to match them with our needs our grants team plays a crucial role in this process staying updated on new funding sources reviewing Grant notices and preparing comprehensive applications um to ensure we are effective in securing these grants we engage in best practices including conducting A needs assessment at the start of each fiscal year and continuously evaluating our grant research and application methods we also make use of um Advanced tools and databases and participate in professional uh development opportunities um our efforts are supported by bi-weekly internal meetings with all Department directors where we review priority projects and funding opportunities we strive to maximize external funding to enhance Community projects and maintain Financial stabilities um you'll see attached we provided the listing that of all of the grants we've applied for this fiscal year totaling about $64 million um and today we've been awarded a little bit over $20 million excellent and those numbers tend to be pretty lumpy uh in terms of one year could be x amount of dollars the other could be increased by 200 uh% um how can we get better right we've done an excellent job excellent congrats to you and your team outline some steps where we can get better where's the lwh hanging fruit where we say okay not happy maintaining the status quo you know we all hear about these huge amount of dollars for uh the federal infrastructure uh bills and things like that is that more at the county level where they're applying for it and then we look for their allocation so there's two things there one of the things things that um Jason and I have done is increased our communication in terms of our federal and our state lobbyists um we've increased our communication with our congresswoman at the federal level in terms of when we are applying for projects we make sure to provide to them the applications we provide for so that they can provide us things like support letters so that they can also speak on our behalf in terms of the federal funding in terms of the um the state funding it kind of depends on uh what the priorities are um that year to be honest with you of those um in the legislative session um we're trying to make sure that we get the necessary guidance and the things and the projects that we do apply for so that they can increase our chances of getting the funding that is out there and available um sometimes there are uh Dynamics where the county is going to get things that honestly we just are not going to get because they represent the entire County whereas we're just um a city that we're representing so there are instances where where they will have a leg up in terms of getting those types of funding and Crystal do you work hand inand Now with uh um our new legislative Le on Peter okay perfect if uh I'll let my colleagues ask if they want to bring anything up but if uh I can have a request from you uh working hand inand with Peter uh outline essentially where we've been the past uh couple of years what our numbers have been where some of those key uh Grant allocations have come from and also what are essential goals for the next two years are um you know and how we're going to say all right we've gotten this this in the past we want to aim our sites on getting even better and here's where how how we plan to tackle that and here's where our priorities are I'll kick it over my colleagues if they have any questions yeah quick um first of all amazing job you I how much money you guys generate with a tiny little team is really impressive and so amazing job and now we want more um so go figure out how to clone yourselves and everything will be fine no um but seriously though it is a remarkable job of how much money you do secure for us my question is um as um you know Miami Beach is often on the Forefront of national issues so sea level change uh climate change and resiliency issues and Innovative building opportunities etc etc um one of the big things that we are wrestling with as a city as a community is um multimodal mobility and I know the state hasn't quite figured out what to do with it yet so there's not funding from them and um the county has different needs when it comes to that because it's much bigger we are like a perfect test case we're 7 miles of sand in the middle of the ocean and people want to use their bikes or ebikes or scooters in multiple different ways and there's only so much we can do but we could possibly reconfigure how to use what we you know what exists currently so I would you know if it's Federal money if it's um private grants if it's groups who are trying to do pilot test cases you know I would really encourage um I don't know how you I don't know if there's like a newsletter that goes out of hero grants that are open this week nationally at every possible level I don't know I'm sure you do but if there's if there are any additional trees to shake to start thinking outside the box if you're if you're not already outside the box which you probably are but to try to um get money for that kind of stuff so you know it's great to get grants to help def Fray the cost of Designing First Street project or building the wava phase 2 whatever ever but it's also these little bits and pieces that may not be so high on the radar but would be huge for us because they could be um um selling points and you know PR winds as well as improving um the quality of life for our residents like to say Miami Beach is leading the way on X once again is is great so I just wanted to put that onto your already long list to-do list so thank you for what you guys are already accomplishing and if I could just add to that um since I've been here and I think Crystal you know touched on that a bit is um because you know temporarily I've taken over and now it's transitioning off some of those legislative UH responsibilities and we now have set up monthly calls uh with our grants team with both our state and federal lobbyist which we hadn't been doing before where we're able to discuss you know which applications that we've submitted so they're able to keep their ears to the ground so they're able to push it from a lobbyist perspective and I think that that's going to be something that we we' started over the past couple of months and I think it's going to be helpful and bear even more fruits and you know we're just by having that open line of communication with our lobbyists they're also bringing not Crystal actually knows all the ones that they bring their attention but you know that they also try to bring attention and they're aware of all of our legislative priorities and things we're trying to get funded so through the cheriff I might just ask so federal and state lobbyists where how do we get information about the private grants the foundation grants I like Crystal so typically with those we have a data base that we um subscribe to and that's where we're able to see some of those opportunities and okay so they they get sent like anytime something new gets issued and then things like with the MV VCA you know we're constantly checking they'll also communicate with us you know when they're putting out their funding opportunities so we make sure to to try to stay on top of that great thank you commissioner magazine commissioner Dominguez is on the line commissioner Dominguez please unmute yourself oh thank you um I co-sponsored this item with mayor Miner and um for me the thing that was very important was to make sure that it we continue to find Federal funding for our resiliency projects um specifically sea walls that's something that uh is really important things monies that can help our uh private citizens we have the private property adaptation program but that's uh limited and only open twice a year and the funding is limited and the majority of our seaw walls in Miami Beach are private and um the other area that I really want to make sure that the city looks for federal funding for is arts and culture given that the state um cut the funding there if there is any opportunity at the federal level that would be great as well thank you thank you commissioner Dominguez commissioner Rosen Gonzalez good morning good morning I was warning Comm commer Fernandez vice mayor Fernandez how could I question I'm looking at the table that you provided us and I'm seeing the match amounts when they were submitted and how do we know which grants came through or not are these is this the list of we couldn't have gotten all of these no no no that was showing all of the grants that we've submitted for this fiscal year and how do we know which ones we've actually gotten I can provide to you if you want to also the ones that we received I can provide that in this separate yeah I think that's important to find out which ones we've gotten I see that you guys have been busy I mean you applied for since the beginning of this year 41 Grands okay right totaling how much over a little over $20 million $20 million is what we've been awarded this year 20 million have been awarded this year this fiscal year we we applied for about 65 and a lot of these grants are very long time so they may be on the we applied in 2024 we don't find out until 2025 some of them actually have especially when you're dealing with the federal government and the state government often times it's 6 months 12 months down the line from when application to when we what we know so that's what we track um what we apply for in a year and then what we want in a year and those are their mismatch yeah okay thank you Crystal um you know the one thing I'll highlight and then uh I'll let you get back to uh getting money for the city um I think it would be great to look to see if we can get uh some sort of water uh transportation service whether that be an electric furry or something like that you saw the issues that we had with the Poseidon furry I think the idea is great um but it's something that anywhere uh water furry needs to be subsidized we saw the uh difficulties in doing it a city it'd be fabulous to find out what we do from a federal level okay okay thank you so much thank you uh going to move on to some it items to uh get them out of here uh so where I'm envisioning we uh go to it 44 and then we have uh looks like a lot of people here for 18 so we would like to hear those thank you chair uh M nb4 referral to the finance and economic uh resiliency committee discuss opportunities for the city Administration to incorporate the use of artificial intelligence and City operations and further improve city services including without limitation City permitting process processes 3 uh 311 non-emergency reporting traffic management and and public transportation to discuss potential partnership with my mediate College on AI initiatives nb4 good morning Mr chair members of the board uh franking to CIO uh this was an item that was originally referred by mayor Miner uh to explore um the development of an AI program for the city and work with my imidate college and other educational um entities within the area um to establish a program for students and um uh and be able to bring them in to work on AI initiatives for for the city um so essentially uh AI is something we hear a lot about a lot of times it's around conversational AI like chat GPT Gemini co-pilot that sort of thing um AI is much more than that so the application that we're looking at for the city would be more than just being able to ask a simple question I know they just trained me on Microsoft co-pilot is that what you're looking at uh that that is one of the things that we're looking at um that is specific for productivity for internal staff uh the initiatives that we're looking for or that we're looking at with from an AI perspective are more about automating City processes being able to do the type of work that an individual cannot do currently today um we already have made progress on implementing AI machine learning in a number of systems throughout the city one is our uh 311 Center for non- emergency we've implemented uh Bots and things behind the scenes that allow our residents to be able to act quicker um with our uh customer service center or building uh call center and some other areas within the city um we also Implement a number of uh Ai and machine learning capabilities for a cyber security program uh to do proactive uh defenses of City systems we use uh an AI module to do our training and we've also been using machine learning um and Ai and our analytics initiatives for the city for a lot of our dashboards and a lot of our reporting so that's well in its way um I've had conversations with uh the CIO for Miami day College as well as the we have meetings scheduled with the dean of academics and the team that runs the technology program at Miami day College uh they have the first bachelor's degree in AI in the State uh so they've really been pushing the envelope from their end as well so we've had exploratory conversations that we're going to continue um to be able to look at how it is that we can potentially partner with them to bring students work on projects throughout the semesters and and develop you know our own kind of pen of uh interns and and students that we can work with in the future question um Frank why don't we just partner with them to do professional development so that you can train people on these different services that save so much time I mean they're actually encouraging us as faculty members to to use it to you know write our syllabi and and stuff it was pretty amazing I could say give me a syllabi for a three minutes demonstrative speech in a table format and within like a minute I have like the most amazing that would have taken me hours so it's kind of a a cool thing and I think our employees should have the same kind of training our training was like a couple of hours why don't you speak to them about well first you have to purchase it correct yeah so we have we have the capability to to add um AI tools like that uh some of that comes down to licensing as a government agency sometimes they are available to us a little later because they have to be vetted by the federal government and we all kind of fall within that bucket so um that is something that we have started to look at it's going to be available to us uh fourth quarter this year so October November December we expect to be able to get that and we will do uh training and we'll start seating that with staff throughout the city uh part of making this successful we have to work on a governance plan there there's some specific things that we need to do for our protection as well but that is very much something my team has been focused on for for the last several months um so we have every intention of of doing that okay great yeah thank you Frank uh we'll close this out but obviously there's an ongoing item right uh unofficially uh so be proactive with this if there's things that you see and we need to have an intermittent update I I ask you to please not wait for us to say what's going on here come to us because you are on the ground uh you're the foremost expert on it so please feel free to be proactive and engaged absolutely I have a question did uh chat jpt write your item no absolutely not kidding no got to put your money where your mouth is Frank um okay so uh let's close this item out and uh let's move on to item 14 vice mayor Fernandez believe this is your item and I'll just um recognize uh our CIO uh to to present us with his update on this item on Tyler okay thank you just s just read the title uh mb14 discussion regarding Tyler Technologies performance and strategy for the city of May beach and mb14 thank you okay so this is a old item that we've been uh carrying over for the past several years uh the intent of this initially was to just be able to speak to the state of some of our Technologies with Tyler which in the past have been a paino um this is specific today's update is specific to intergov which is the licensing permeating and inspection application that the city uses um two years ago or two and a half years ago at this point uh we had engaged in an RFI to test the market and see what other Solutions were available um in the market due to some of the issues that we were having um the results of that came back in very limited capacity so at the time uh Tyler was still the preeminent solution for the size organization and the type of functionality that we needed um so at this stage uh the city purchased intergov 10 years ago it's been in production for eight um this summer we experienced um significant performance and support issues from Tyler so we are at a point now where I think it would be best suited for the city to go into a a proper assessment of the entire technology as a whole do a market study um interview staff interview you know stakeholders and come back with a recommendation of whether or not this is still the best solution for our organization um if there are other options that are out there do an assessment of what the costs would be and then my intention would be to come back and bring that as a um as an update or a recommendation to move in One Direction or another if we were to move from Tyler there would be a financial impact to that we're not sure exactly what that would be yet uh there's a range that we're aware of for this type of product based on what what other agencies are doing but I'm not ready to uh to make that you know recommendation at this time um we have funding to do this so this is more of an update that it's our intent to move forward with that and find if there are any other Solutions in place you know in other agencies that would make us better Mr chair what I'd like to do if you allow me let's keep this item open I think it's good uh to have uh Frank come forward and keep us updated on this this is essential to the delivery of service to our residents so let's he what the recommendation is uh at a future meeting perfect and just for the record three items in a row we haven't spent a dollar we are on a roll I I I I love this um thank I'll just wait for it um I I know we said we do uh thank you Frank I know we said we do item 18 uh I want to get our friends from Sunset Harbor it looks like they have a big group here uh so want to give them fairness uh thank you commissioner Rosen Gonzalez for pointing out how many of our friends and neighbors were here so let's hear item number three um and see what we can do uh for our neighbors and friends here item ob3 discuss the possibility of the city assuming control and managing Sunset Harbor lift station ob3 good morning my name is Mark Halper Halper Rodriguez I represent uh what we will call for purposes of this hearing the Sunset Harbor community at re really consists of four communities Sunset Harbor South Sunset Harbor North Town Homes of Sunset Harbor and the Sunset Harbor Yacht Club um we are here as a collective um as you as you all may recall we were last in front of this committee on June 28th um at that time um uh during the last hearing we presented a variety of U arguments regarding uh why we felt uh from both a practical uh Public Safety and a variety of other reasons why Sunset Harbor South operating what is essentially a public utility is a bad idea uh and one that um ultimately uh creates like I said daily practical concerns as well as health and safety issues uh uh uh Environ potential environmental issues with backflow of uh sewage which we've experienced on several occasions um our system is uh tied in part to you know the sewer system which when when there are issues with the city there's no coordination um and we have essentially a property manager that is managing this incredibly um um complicated uh system and so the last time we were here uh we we we went over a spreadsheet that was presented presented to us by the city um of other examples of lift stations in the city of Miami Beach uh and what what we said then and what we say now is that none of them are similarly situated uh in other words not a single pump station in this city is operated by a private entity and servicing other private entities that by definition is a public utility um and so there are a lot of things wrong with this configuration and so I believe what the committee said to the city the last time we were here City we want you to do a couple of things and then come back the the things that you all requested of the city was number one please attempt to locate any documents in the city's possession that memorialize this concept that that a private entity like Sunset Harbor South would be maintaining a public utility and operating it and all of the things that go along with that and number two I personally challenge the city to show me a single property within the city limits that is operating a lift station that is for the benefit and use of their neighboring private entities I said and I repeat it now it doesn't exist so we got a list um again originally from the city of say 20 properties we've gone to every property we've researched that list their hotel hotels they are hospitals they are Coast Guard stations and other things like this that are servicing their own property that is the major distinction here we are servicing three private ENT three private properties we are acting as a public utility and so that's why we're here back today based on the finance committee's uh sort of thoughts and recommendations from our part I app let's hear from the city for uh for autle for lack of better word I guess how I'll phrase it tell us where the fallacy in that argument is because it sounded compelling good morning uh my name is Christina Ortega city engineer with public works and I'm here with Brian our interim director um we looked into and have provided the as builds for this system um we we have also provided that list of of existing private lift stations it's not uncommon for a private development to to essentially construct a private lift station to service a development or a facility where reconstructing or upgrading the entire gravity system Downstream of this point would be too costly uh to a point where the city doesn't have a project in place to do so and the developer prefers to go the route of building a private lift station that would then pump the flows from that development or a number of developments towards a point in the in our sanitary sewer system that will carry those flows all the way to the to ultimately the treatment facilities so this case again we have a number of existing pump stations um we've even there's been one more recently constructed for that development in 500 outon in a similar fashion so again that is the choice that we're fac with new development where the city system um perhaps again it would take significant uh level of investment to upsize the gravity pipes to yeah appreciate it thank you for that you put it in very Elementary terms even myself was able to follow along uh so that initial outlay and initial capex investment was borne by the development now we're talking about the ongoing Opex and it seems like the uh neighborhood association or this P actually the the private facility is saying we just don't have the capacity or the knowhow to continue operating this in a safe fashion um there would be nothing prohibiting the city and perhaps we're even better position from an expertise standpoint to uh assume responsibility of operation of this it just comes down to a financial aspect so I think that's where I'm getting at right where what I'd like to see happen um but tell me where I'm off here because I'd like to see the responsibility of ongoing operations move over to the city with some sort of financial collaboration between us and the develop team that you know has been uh bearing the responsibility to date and and it's it's absolutely a a question of financials right there's there's the point of financials there's also the Precedence of the city taking over these private LIF station systems that that are based on an agreement with a developer at a time when it comes to the financial aspect of this particular lift station um I know it's it's been said that there's a project there's an ongoing project to to construct some upgrades to this lift station um this is something that from from our perspective we haven't we haven't seen all the details um I do have concerns with the the pumps in place that have the correct rating to ensure that all that um I understand that there's been issues with those pumps but burning up and you know having a lot a lot of a lot of issues with but all the more reason isn't that more proof that the city should uh well again in that in that instance we have to hire a consultant run the analysis um to ensure that the design for the system is sound right that the pumps in place are those that that match the original operating point that was intended for this system and that was one of you know when we looked at it briefly um the recommendation at that point is make sure that you have the correct pumps installed in your lift station because if you don't your pump may be operating at a point in the curve that causes it to to have a lot of issues higher maintenance that you should so at that point again you need an engineering firm to assist you with evaluating and making a recommendation but I I guess isn't that just more amplification of the argument where it's like well if the city's the foremost expert here uh there's again it's a matter of the financials right there's a cost there will be a cost associated with purchasing new pumps uh looking at at the capacity of the pump station and to be clear I'm not saying that the city assume complete financial responsibility I think that's where this conversation goes next but I want to turn this over to my colleagues and then we'll we'll if I may whenever you all are done I I just wanted to rebut a few things there thank you Mr chair um so I'm very empathetic uh to to to the concerns of the Sunset Harbor neighborhood aset relates to operating the maintenance the permitting of this of this lift station it's it's a burden that usually residential buildings don't have um I do I do have a few questions perhaps City attorney or staff uh could answer these questions uh for me so it was reference that currently Sunset Harbor is providing this service uh for the North Tower the South Tower the town the town homes and the yacht club was that always the intent when this pump station was placed uh or perhaps uh our public work Department Christina or Brad could could answer this for me when when the buildings uh were built and the this pump was put there was it the intent for it only to be for for the two condo buildings and did the other uh properties come afterwards or was it always part of of the installation I believe we have as buils that show this configuration um I don't recall quite frankly I don't recall if this was the original or or a change condition I don't know Brad or Liz if you're aware I'm not I'm not sure that I've ever seen anything that would indicate it was anything other than that that there was never an intent for the city to have that responsibility my question but my question is um the buildings that are there they have the pump station and then and then I'm being told by by by the building that's there that they're providing this service to the club they're providing it to the town homes and other properties did those come afterwards or were those there from the beginning sir perhaps you might have the answer to so so to be clear uh a couple things there to be clear these this is not one community and and that's important to understand I I I I I understand Mike and this is this is not a court hearing so let me communicated with the developer who told us the intention was always for the city to take this over understood but my question is uh were the town homes the yach club there as part of the original development or did they come in afterwards this was a phase development so it was a phase development and so and and so Mr attorney correct me if I'm wrong then then the the people who are operating this now Sunset Harbor South had to agree to allow these other properties to use these pump stations no well it's sounds to me and I have not seen the documents that there was a developer who developed a number of phases right and that developer in the as builts showed four different projects using the same Pump Station so the developer should have in its agreements with the condo associations um made some provision for the operation of the pump stations is it in the condo dos no it was never the that's the point it was never the intention and and it's it's frankly it's illegal Sunset Harbor South is a Condominium Association that doesn't have the right legally to operate a public utility thank you sir thank you okay so it's not in the condo do no it's not in the condo dos so if it's not in the condo docks there at the the turnover from the developer to the homeowners there there's no legal instrument in which in which then the Sunset Harbor South accepted operation not only that not only that but what you would expect to find in a declaration or or or possibly a master declaration which there is no Master Association here meaning the four communities are not connected through a master that governs the common areas if there was you would likely see something like a percentage allocation for each Community when it comes to maintenance and operation nothing because again according to the bedos it was never intended to be maintained by the Association the problem is the problem for us and the problem for the city is there and and this was the challenge at the last hearing and I think we've heard very clearly that the city is unable to find any document within the city's records where anybody agreed to this configuration where Sunset Harbor South was going to maintain and operate this pump station for three other communities because it's nonsensical and what we also heard from the city we heard about the list of other private communities that have lift stations but what we didn't hear is that a single one of them are operating their lift station for their neighboring communities that's a big difference that is the difference well Mr attorney I see I see you have your mic on if I through the chair the fact that there are no documents with the city suggesting that the city was going to take this on I mean there are no documents in other words there is no documentation so we don't know what your agreement was with your developer um is there an existing agreement between the four buildings how have you how are you building them now so uh the first sort of answer to your original statement or question is there is absolutely there is never really an agreement between an association the developer because let's just from a timing standpoint when a community is developed it's the developer that records the Declaration of condominium builds the building Etc there are no homeowners and the association is simply run by the developer so it's a developer controlled Association they there are if there was an agreement per se it would have to be the condominium documents themselves silent nothing there so so so at the time of turnover when the residents assumed uh the property from the condominium from the developer the residents never had any formal Assumption of this so I have a question for for the can I answer the can I answer that second question and I'm sorry to interrupt I just wanted to give him a complete answer the second answer is in terms of how do we fund it and how do we determine the percentages we've created what the only thing we could do which was some sort of Equitable division based on the number of units in each building the marina so we're just winging it if I'm going to be honest we we don't have any and this has been going on for how long 20 for 20 years so I have a question for our staff um because these projects came in line afterwards the out club the town homes and others how did the city approved those projects um and contemplate their needs uh for for sewer services at at those times so as far as the documentation that we were able to find and we have as an attachment here on the memo our 1995 as built record drawings that show the lift station as a private lift station and it does show the connection from all the units in question here so that is from the four properties yes correct and and it does show again very clearly um demarcates the the boundaries of the public sanitary system versus thank you Christina and one last question do we have any other pump stations in the city that are managed by a residential building which one that that may not be true yeah please okay so so so which buildings do we have in the city that manage their own one that I'm most familiar with because uh This was um the the agreement was actually uted during my time here at the city and this is 500 Alton where a new uh private lift station was constructed okay um to service that condo uh building that monster say that again that monster the monster yes the monster okay the monster lift station for the monster and the and in a in a similar fashion the lift station will remain private where the Force main meaning the pipe after the lift station the city will own and maintain and and and Mr Mr Kaine uh our Public Works director are we aware of any other residential buildings in the city uh Christina is familiar with this one because it's from her tenure of service in the city government but are we aware of any other uh that may exist I know I have a list of about 20 uh pump stations uh but I don't know which one of these are residential or not the palao um what what is the configuration with the palao I have the we'll have to go back and check again we just pulled the list of private lift stations which I think I can help you with the pull out what is the palow is on the list it's um at uh 1201 20th Street but again uh what neighboring communities are any of these lift stations servicing that's that's the that's the question we we we freely admit that there are at least two or three other residential communities but what's unique about ours is we are actually servicing our neighbors okay and I would venture to guess 500 Alon could be unique given that part of the development agreement was actually a bilateral agreement with the city where they constructed a public park that could be part of that my biggest worry about this item is that our sanitation fund is already reeling and we know that it's going under well not under but it's underfunded and we know that there's going to be a large gap moving forward like how would we even constantly paying for this if I could just add to that it would be the water and sewer fund would take that on uh the water sewer fund does have um its obligated reserves for that but you know as we know we do have a a large very very large uh Capital program uh in play and actually uh Public Works has already engaged with and I think we were at f a number of months ago where we said we'd be coming back uh probably in the fall in a couple of months to be discussing uh rate adjustments for the next four years to afford this couple hundred million dollar Capital Water and Sewer Capital program so if this was something that would be taken on obviously Public Works would have to put this into the the financial model if I and something that I brought up the last time I just want to reiterate because I think it's very important to understand is that every time the city performs work on the sewer system our lift station goes down we find out usually after the fact because we have raw sewage back flow that comes up at the end of the line town homes that is on the water we have g a garage full of raw sewage it backs up into the building there is going to be at some point that is going to go from land to the Bay we can't control it and we know that when that happens there's going to be major environmental concerns so we're trying to get ahead of it as best we can we've been dealing with this I think we've been actually on a bypass since like years 2017 from Hurricane Irma we we have something on our hands that is way beyond our uh uh abilities thank you Mr chair I think it you know I don't like I don't like creating this precedent I really have a very I strong issue with us now saying you know that we're going to get this private Pump Station it was done by a developer so that he could do this development and a number of other developments in the in the area but the reality is we have an entire neighborhood there pretty much an entire neighborhood how many residents do we have over 2,000 in our buildings alone thank you um over over 2,000 residents uh there you know I don't like the idea of one building providing the service to multiple other buildings they're not a public utility gentl correct I'm sorry especially absent an official agreement especially absent an agreement especially absent any Covenant in their in their documents where where at the time of turn turnover that they would have accepted this responsibility I just there's something here that while I don't like the president there's something here wrong that I don't feel comfortable with the sunset uh Harbor south building having to provide this service to the other buildings and what concerns me about this is that this is an essential service Condominiums don't always you know today Sunset Harbor is doing very fiscally well I would imagine I don't have the impression that there's any Financial issues in Sunset Harbor that's not always the case in these in these buildings um you know and now we're placing on them the responsibility of you know responsibly managing and taking care of this pump even though the other buildings you know contribute to it but it's a responsibility that falls on the management of Sunset Harbor what if in the future you know and we let sit in the present thinking about the future what if in the future someday they have an issue with with mismanagement there's there's Financial issues involved really that basic uh sewer utility service is something that should be the responsibility of the government of the city government uh for for all these other residents I really don't like the president we're going to we we may potentially set here and it's something that I'm not willing to entertain again but given the uniqueness and the amount of other properties this one pump station serves I'm willing to support our our colleague in his item and make a motion to to recommend this with a positive recommendation to the city commission yeah I'd like to go to colleague commissioner Rosen Gonzalez then commissioner bot uh I'll make a comment and uh I want to get some more engagement from staff um would you be able to would you be willing to do some sort of Revenue share on this because I think that there are 2,000 people that you are servicing so I think I think we're open to absolutely discussing all so I mean commissioner Fernandez I think that the finance department has to meet my I think I would love you to change your motion to have everybody sit down and work out some sort of Revenue share okay that will work for everyone I don't think we should take on 100% unfortunately this developer you know took advantage of the system we want to help we're going to help um I think that the will is there to help let's figure out something that works for everybody so we all walk away with some sort of compromise without shouldering the we're totally on board with that give us one second sah let us just keep the comments up here and then we'll turn it over to you but stay there uh commissioner bot yeah I you know I I just had this conversation last night on a totally not related issue which is that we've we in Miami Beach have created so many precedents and been so derel as our in our UH responsibilities over the last mult multiple decades Going Back 40 50 years of letting developers um you know with a wink and a nod take advantage of the city maybe the laws didn't anticipate what the developer was proposing maybe it was just shoddy negotiating maybe it was well- intended and Records actually just got lost who knows but here we are with another situation the one yesterday was totally different um and we see it all the time of somebody doing something that was not in the best interest of their constituents in this case the developer and and the people who were buying into his project and the city for whatever reason did not at the time better manage the process and it's just it's exhausting because we're constantly in the the position of cleaning up no pun intended given the topic here um cleaning up somebody else's mess and it's got to stop and I know I I don't know anything I am presuming given the um my colle colleagues on this commission not just in this meeting but are are very um eager to have people get what they need but be responsible as business people right we don't want to keep people from doing business but do it in a legitimate Manner and this is just a really egregious case of of that so I I agree with what has been suggested the precedent is terrible but these circumstances are so wildly unique and exacerbated that these are buildings that are on the water the edge of the water it's not the middle you know where we can figure out some other motions so um one of the things that you said today and at the other the prior meeting was that you guys don't know about things happening in the city and when the city's pumps go down or whenever there's a problem you find out because you have to Scoop the Poop um so I don't know how these things work it's all magic to me so I would like your team to work with our team even before we figure out negotiations on this issue moving forward how do we fix that immediate right we're going in we're still in the middle of hurricane season we're high tide um situations going on we've got flooding all over the city for reasons that we literally can't control so how do we make sure that when you know that there's a problem that may or may not affect you guys that there's communication ahead of the fact so that anything that needs to happen in these buildings to Ward that off so we're not scraping poop into the bay if something goes wildly AR um we head that off of the past I'm hardpressed to believe that you didn't mean any of those puns okay that's just how my brain works what can I say so what I would like to see uh going forward I I think we'll keep this item here but what I would like to see is from the city's standpoint what this is going to uh cost from a financial perspective twofold one is that onetime upfront cost if there's any capex involved in essentially switching over uh longer term operations to the city and then what our annual Opex is going to be and then if I could have from the neighborhood association any typee of documentation of what your financial Opex costs have been uh you know historically because I want to take off the operational burden yeah but that doesn't mean we share the entire financial burden right I want to be sure that we do this because you are not best equipped to do this we are that burden shouldn't fall to you but that doesn't mean okay you've been spending uh a $200,000 a year operating and all of a sudden that's born by us I think it would be fair to say okay you continue you know contributing whatever the operating expenditures were we'll take over the uh leadership and expertise capabilities Mr chair should we ask uh our City attorney our Administration to perhaps engage in some conversations you know be you know drafting some sort of agreement that could come back to this committee that then we could potentially recommend to the city commission as part of this uh discussion I think that sounds like a good idea I see lot of pens raised in the air um I'll put my pencil down if if I can I think can try to to to facilitate because there's a couple of things here I think there's uh a request from staff that would have to engage with a third party consultant to do some design and help cost estimate some of the improvements and such that would be needed uh and the other is then to direct Administration then you know begin negotiating a control transfer on that so I'm going to take a shot I've been trying to take notes here I'm going to try and take a shot at a motion I think because I think it does have to go back to commission and retain here which would return to commission but be retained here also uh with a favorable recommendation direct Administration negotiated transfer of the sunet harbard lift station the city control with sharing with a with a sharing of cost between the parties after the city is engaged with a consultant to determine said costs and have that come back come back second I just wanted to be clear is there shared cost or my understanding is we don't know you we I think I left if I I left it as a generic share cost because first uh when it go back to the commission and that direction is given by commission then they would uh Public Works would expend some dollars to engage with that design consultant because there's a difference in the level of service and design when it comes to a private versus a public lift station so they would engage with that consultant figure out what those Improvement costs would be confirm what the operating expenses would can be there would be discussions on that thing and there would be a negotiated agreement it would come back to for for final recommendation for the final agreement then to go back to commission with the final numbers and layout yeah and in terms of sharing what I Envision very simplistically Sunset Harbor comes back with documentation says uh annually cost us a dollar to essentially operate this and the city comes back and says it's going to cost us a120 going forward I think you know it would be fair that Sunset Harbor maintains you know their historical Opex uh share and you know we would essentially take the share where we have to operate above and Beyond but that that's just very Elementary uh commissioner Rosen galz then Sarah yeah this is just for my colleagues and I wanted to point out that this type of work is what that legislation that I moveed forward that at the committee level we could request information we could request uh this type of contract work this is why we just did that simple legislative fix just so that you know I know there's a second reading on that isn't there Rick there is it will be in October okay just wanted to point that out the reason I was pointing out is because there's a Direction to expend funds on a design consultant so that's still would have required go uh I think going back see that's the kind of thing that we might that's why I think Rick had initially included that type of expense now we have to go bump it back to the commission come back to the committee um just to get that design work done where you know if we would have passed it the way that Rick and his team wrote it uh we'd be able to get that done right now so we would save several months um I want I don't know if the M mic is on um first you have the documentation of how much it's costing per year because I provided that spreadsheet second of all we do have an engineer engineering consulting firm to tell that did the whole new lift station because we had to upgrade it because of Derm and that all that information we have and the their Engineers can come and sit down with our engineers in terms of what they recommended and the rating of the pump and how we raised the electrical panel how we have to have the stairway way above 5et above the ceiling level we did all that and we promised originally when we came here that they were going to get a working lift station all done permitted by durm permitted by the city running including we're we're doing the pipe pipe test because there is a rock that is in the pipe that we're fixing and that's the outstanding item that we have to do I just want to make sure everybody's clear that this wasn't done just by our engineer we hire a company that does the lift station and this is then they told us so they can sit down with them and work out if it's correct or Not by your Consultants that that that's exactly what what we're saying is to bring in you know our consultant to assess the existing lift station to assess the improvements that are being executed and and verify because again the requirements for our public utility are a little bit more stringent than they are on a private lift station I agree and remember it's always four entities you don't have anything like is 500 was an agreement it's a single entity building if it was a single entity we wouldn't be in front of you it was s Harbor so this makes sense from the city's perspective as well uh again for us to to do an assessment of the existing lift station uh to get our consultant involved in executing the assessment and identifying the improvements required and coming up with a a detailed estimate of what the capital cost associated what that would be because again that's that's an area where we're talking about you know potentially greater capital investment from the do you need anything from this committee to facilitate that process um I guess the the funding just a motion to take those actions is there funding uh cost associated with this do we have the design for retainer any ballpark idea uh I'll have to go back and and look into it and okay yeah if I if I may the in in the water and sewer fund they usually have some funds set aside for studies and design work I I don't think it'll be significant it should be work within not requiring a budget amendment we would of course bring it if needed but I don't believe it would be needed well and we'll do everything within our power to keep the city's cost down including turning over every bit of information and documentation to show all the work we've done to satisfy hopefully the engineers to say there is no cap cause we just need to come in and maintain this thing cuz we've we've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to get this thing where it needs to be yeah and that would be great if uh if we'd be able to just do a sanity check on the studies that they've already done to essentially leverage some of the costs that they've already expended y okay all good so uh Mr CFO if you could uh nicely wrap that up I you read the motion the the the draft motion that I uh return to commission with a favorable recommendation direct Administration to uh negotiate transfer of the Sunset Harbor lift station to City control with a sharing of costs between the parties after the city has engaged with the consultant to Der determine said cost and the item to be retained at FK I would anyone want to make that moved good s second thank thank you was 18 thank you all very much for your time commission magazine there's a public speaker on the line yes please he just put his hand down okay okay thank you uh let's go uh item number 18 um on the let me read I I hope you don't have to read all that do you no I'm going to skip that for but if I may uh mb18 is a procurement item related to Engineering Services for seaw walls uh M mb18 perfect voice mayor Fernandez please introduce this amazing item thank you Mr chair this is an item that was on the consent agenda of our um last City commission meeting I think it was um and and the reason why um I pulled the item is because of of its importance we have five miles of city-owned seaw walls in our city and we are actively doing a lot uh to to make sure make sure that they're structurally sound that they're protecting our our public streets our infrastructure from rising Tides I mean we're seeing right now during this King tide period the the great necessity to have sound seaw walls actually uh yesterday we had a sunshine meeting over in the Palm View neighborhood where we were seeing the intrustion of this water into into our streets and how entire streets and neighborhoods just got taken over by the inter of this water so this contract uh for for Engineering Services for seaw walls and living Shoreline is so important for the future resiliency of our city um I was reviewing the uh documents and I saw that two companies uh were tied in the in the rankings uh Cummings and Mo and mofad and what ended up happening was that um Cummings was the one that ended up being recommended but when I went back and I look at the um at the scoring from from the different um participants and the Review Committee three of the participants had recommended mofet as their top selection to provide the services and cummings the one that the administration ended up going with only had two of the participants in the selection committee give give them the top ranking so all that I want to ask is for this to go back to the administration for the administration to review it to see it the administration feels comfortable with with a recommendation uh for me is just you know this is very important we're moving forward on very critically needed infrastructure to protect our city from flooding and when I see that there's a tie and the administration is going with the company that most of the me members of the selection committee didn't rank on the first place it gives me a little bit of concern so I just want them to give it you know a Second Glance and see what their what feedback uh the administration might give us on it how much will that cost nothing perfect yes uh thank you for your leadership on this vo mayor so so so so I'd like to make a motion to send this back to the city Administration to review and to uh and to and to give their their recommendations to the committee yeah it's exciting item uh very much needed so thank you thank you I'll second I'm sorry so the is to for administration to return to to FK with a final uh recommendation thank you and we'll we'll bring that back uh next month I guess all right thank you if we could call nbh uh the wolfsonian FIU uh uh nb8 uh nb1 oh sorry uh nb11 Guss sponsorship of the wolfsonian FIU audiovisual upgrade to support local Cinema programming nb1 um I know uh we have Casey here from the wolf sonan who has prepared a short presentation and I also know that we've recently just given funding to all of our cultural organizations but prior to knowing about the state uh cutting the funding and in preparation for our movie theaters closing what we've been trying to do around the city is upgrade um audio visual equipment so that it is it's DCP which I believe is digital what does that stand for casc is it DC something I don't know anyway it's the updated and the reason we want to do this is because um uh that way they can screen any movie comes out because the technology is accelerating so rapidly that if you have older AV Equipment you can't scan certain films so there's a few components in place number one I'd like to note that even the programming involved in this is not a recurring expense it would be a one-time expense um number two we could potentially um get some of this funding uh from the gmcvb because we are going to have to be able to uh host film festivals and we won't be able to if and when the Regal is finally closed and we know that that closing is imminent and number three the wolfsonian um would have some great programming I mean a films like you know Roman Holiday or breakfast at Tiffany and it would be in conjunction and we has a whole presentation and I don't want to take away your thunder but um I and I know that it's a large ask but as we do this across the city um when you see the public benefit that they're proposing right now and we start to have these independent movies screened all across the city including the colony theater with the Hispanic diaspora and the O Cinema with the indie films and then the wolf sonian with you know films that are you know iconic and historical and relevant um I think you're going to see a it's going to become a draw and I think we're going to get known for it because that we're competing with so many other areas now Winwood and the Design District and Bickle City Center what do we have well guess what you can come to Miami Beach nearly any night of the week and see some interesting film and I think that that's a very cool initiative and when you look at the overall impact and the public benefit that we're getting from this um I would just hope that you would somehow consider it on that I will give it to LTE and Casey good morning Mr chair committee members uh lisante director of Tourism and culture City of Miami Beach and so um as the commissioner just queued it up uh this is a program that's being proposed about 18 programs a year and uh Casey the director of the wolf soning is here to speak a little bit more about this proposal thank you commission I know we have a PowerPoint PJ thank you thank you very much thank you Vice go ahead and by the way PJ the new lights are fabulous just want to let you know that thank you vice mayor commissioner staff for having this opportunity to speak with you uh I'm sorry for the chair that make the distinction of making the first ask for funding for what has been a very good meeting for him I believe so my apologies for making that distinction for you today um I'm here to speak to you about um the wilsonian audiovisual upgrade and Cinema programming proposal that was provided in mb11 I'm the director of the woni and FIU and also a city of Miami Beach resident our staff over recent months has been looking at the possibility of incorporating Cinema programming into our core portfolio of programs the intention here is to make this available completely and uh at facility so that we can coordinate exhibition tours curatorial tours as well as the film experience we think that this has a number of benefits for the community one as has been mentioned we're talking about expanding the availability of cultural programming there'll be 18 programs a year 12 produced by the wonan six that we'll offer up for partners in the community such as film festivals and other uh entities we think by investing in this this technology we will be able to broaden and enhance the programs that we're already presenting in this Auditorium space uh for example we partner with mdpl for the art deco weekend lecture series we present these programs there we also host our family programs in this space we also have book talks and other items sometimes even new artists present works in the space film programming as a whole in museums has become a way for us to draw entry into museums everyone's been to a museum I'm sorry everyone's been to a movie I hope everyone's been to a museum um so they have an experience that's familiar to them and we hope to enhance that film experience by presenting the collections the exhibitions and the content of the museum for those that are Avid Museum goers the film is an added enhancement for their experiences also this is an ongoing commitment while our ask is onetime support for the operating cost this will be embedded in our annual programming ongoing we think it's critical to add this element to our programming uh for many many years to come we also have a capital investment under way as it relates to the expansion of the wilsonian what that's going to allow us to do is transform this space um it currently is a very structured formal Auditorium space um once we complete our expansion we Our intention is to create a more intimate flexible casual third space still presenting the same sort of content film screenings lectures and things of this nature but possibly in a more impromptu nature and a little bit more ad hoc opportunities no presentation to finance committee should not include uh needs should include numbers um or omit numbers we were looking at our year-on-year attendance numbers um and looking particularly in those areas where we think the city of M Beach residents benefit the most um we offer free Friday evenings State of Florida resident entry in the culture craw program year on year we've seen a 9% increase in the utilization and attendance for those and programming all of our programming is free for city of Mii Beach residents so if you look at every bit of the program the 15% increase every bit of that is available to the residents some programs of particular interest are noted and they have seen a 62% increase in attendance just to quickly review The Proposal we're asking for onetime Capital funding which would be 8 about $86,500 to support the installation of the new equipment to bring a 4K experience to the to the auditorium space there is a one-time request for annual support uh operating support to launch the program for its first year for the first 12 months that's a little that's a little um almost $334,500 and in the interest of the comfort of our visitors and patrons there is an element in here for requesting padded seating uh for 24,800 I would note we are soliciting and have asked for funding through a grant through FIU Tech fee funds um at the time when we requested that Grant we had not envisioned to bring in the cinema programming inh house um so the specifications for the projector there is not quite at the level of 4K that's $ 26,5 if we move forward with this proposal there is the flexibility those dollars can be applied to the upgraded equipment we would not forfeit that Grant um we should be learning about the award of that Grant within the next two to three weeks uh it's depending upon when the the period goes in finishing with some images this is sort of an ideal situation this idea of a third space space this would not be immediate this would be our future um as we talk about the expansion creating some intimate spaces casual spaces for people together currently we host curator talks and um experiences before our lectures this is some examples of the Gatherings and the galleries before the people mov down into programming into our Auditorium this past year we partnered with the city Miami Beach on stage program and hosted the Miami Beach Rock Ensemble for our Halloween family day very well attended event this is in the space you see projections of the existing equipment behind behind the band and the performers and the these are some examples of our past film programming where we make the connection between our exhibitions in this case an Italian design show for textiles and Italian screen uh screening for Italian style similarly a Russian constructivism um poster exhibition and an ex a program series of Cinema films for red and the black and that is my presentation I'm welcome any questions commissioner rosing is then commissioner but okay um what I would also like to add is that the wolfsonian is on Washington Avenue and we are trying to change the use on Washington Avenue and bring families there um I I feel like some sometimes the wolfsonian is a treasure that we have and it has the most stunning indoor Cafe people don't know about it um what I like the most about the benefit is that families get free memberships and and the people who have memberships will get free movies so in essence any Miami Beach resident can go and become a member and then there fore free movies and one of the reasons why I I I I I'm I would like to do this is because we are going to reach a situation where we have a bunch of tourists and we have rainy days and they're not going to have a movie theater to go to but potentially they will be able to go to the wolf sonian and I know that the examples that Casey showed were um every month but how many nights per week um Casey if we install this this one time recurring give you the operating expenses like how many nights per week will this be activated because it's important that I want to have at least you know a couple nights per week I I'm not sure what so generally because we are doing the lecture series or a talk or maybe bringing in speakers to enhance the movie and film experience it would be one evening a week or one one evening a month plus the six additional that our partners would do the opportunity to screen the film independent of the more enriched program experience we can certainly explore that that's just a question of the fees that we have to pay for the licensing of showing the films for me it would be important that um that we at least have one movie a week one a month I don't that's a lot of expense for you know one per month and I understand that we're going to be working with the partners but I would like to see a movie at least once a week because the idea is to have your doors open I know it's a big ask I know I know but you know what this is going to bring people to the wolfsonian you can then start to cross market with the City and invite people in potentially for like a happy hour your gorgeous Cafe prior to the movie I mean you really have a resource there that residents don't necessarily know about and I would love to activate that area of Washington Avenue so commission commissioner Rosen Gonzalez you stole my thunder I was going to say the same thing about Washington Avenue um but the thing that the fact that we're all thinking about this is is you emblematic of what the conversation is you know we are trying very hard to figure out how to um revive Washington Avenue without destroying its character but make it more of a live work play and oh by the way your blocks from fer from fineberg Fisher which is probably the most under underresourced School in the entire city I think there is a lot of um good that can be done with this not just for um the the reasons that you've mentioned but you know if you go to the Band Shell now up in North Beach which some people don't know where that is it's north of 63rd but the the Bandshell is is a premier destination for live music now um for many reasons but not least of which um is the enhanced audiovisual capabilities they have because not only do they now have amazing bands multiple times a week but they also have projection imagery so whether it's just the band stuff that they've done or they invite in uh projection mapping artists to project things so that if you you can enjoy the music even if you're just you know going for a walk with your kid and your dog after dinner you can plop down and not have to buy a ticket but hear and see this thing as well and so I know I know you are extremely thoughtful about spending money and I thank goodness because somebody has to be um I I feel like the seats thing could wait like you know we've all suffered through those seats but they're not terrible it's not like they're planks of wood with splinters um it I think that can wait would be amazing if we could get the FIU Grant and apply that so the total ask is lower but I I echo my colleagues um comments about let's think the programming the big programming the the lectures and all that stuff is great but let's find ways to maybe without straining your your um staff to stay until 11 o'clock I mean I know that's a whole different conversation but within the operating hours um or finding a way to to mitigate the cost of operating this but find ways to get Young Young Musicians United in there find ways to get the kids across the street who have very little um available to them in terms of of uh facilities um and it is among all the jewels of cultural institutions in our city and we are incredibly lucky to have so many probably the least well-known and the least understood and it is it's a magical little Jewel box and oh by the way the cafe is great and there are great gifts for people and affordable gifts for people when you can't figure out what to get them so I want people in there my mom is an art historian and an art educator and a dosent um and that's what she's done her entire life and the way you get people involved in culture is sneaking them in the back door they don't even know they're having culture thrown at them right so you go in because your friend's playing at a band and then you've got some time before the show starts and there's an exhibition about some cool poster that you saw you want to go see the poster or I want to have a snack at the at the cafe and I'm looking at the book and oh my gosh that's the thing about the you know it's all this like ecosystem that that thrives and as a city not just for Washington Avenue but as a city that is transitioning to an Arts and Cultural destination more than it has been in the past and more than it even is now and as we seek to change our brand to get different kinds of tourist populations like we might have a whole Beach Movie theme week right like so we have where the boys are whatever whatever movies we can dig up about and you know Cast Away or whatever um all beach themed movies that that could generate all kinds of Tourism and economic dollars and and this is a a quick presentation that was put together um without the benefit of weeks of brainstorming and reaching out to see hey what about screening um movies that would have come to the Regal but don't have a place to go anymore the week that they're no longer at that level so they're almost first run right there there are endless opportunities here and um so I would my my motion on this would be to take out the seats and we can revisit down the road and to to approve this with the caveat that if we get the funding from FIU our um supporting of this um gets reduced appropriate accordingly I'll second that motion commissioner Fernandez I love uh commissioner Rosen Gonzalez's idea her vision to bring uh to make Miami Beach a destination for films uh too many times as uh commissioner as our chair uh Joe magazine mentions we talk often about the city we don't want to be and we often don't talk about the city we want to be um and this is this is where it's so great to have someone uh like commission Rosen Gonzalez on the board of the woni and uh thank you for your service there commissioner for your vision because I do think you know this elevates us this this brings us something that that that we can all be uh proud of and it's a level of excitement that we need on Washington Avenue because the potential is there all that we need is the investment the dedication the vision uh into it so um proud to support your item commissioner so my thoughts yes Washington Avenue needs help I'll be up front not exactly my cup of tea it's not that I don't think there's a place for this right I just think about bang for your book in terms of I personally never talked to anybody that has moved across the bay or young people hanging out in the Design District they said well if only there's a movie once a month at at wolfsonian I wouldn't have moved um but I'm not so dogmatic to think that my way is the only way so I try and take into consideration a broad array of interests and not just mine so I appreciate that people spend their evenings differently than I mean spend mine and there's a place for art and culture it's just bang for the buck ways on me couple questions and we just funded the O cinema right how how what's the differentiating factor between the theater um that I think last night was the premiere right at oema versus what this will Encompass so in the past when we've done our film series programs because we did not have the adequate equipment in our facility we did a joint um program with o Cinema and even before that with Miami Miami Cinema Tech um there was some challenges with doing that programming of course o Cinema is going to reserve the premiere spots for showing the films that generate the income to support their organization and their mission so we had a bit of a challenge finding appropriate slotting in times the second item um was that we could never afford to completely buy out the theater so the the program was not completely free we may have an experience at the wolfsonian that was free the individuals walked across and would have to purchase a ticket for the movies we're talking about incorporating that all into one experience also generally you know EMA is doing very new art films it's a very different sort of idea of what we look at we're looking at content that's directly related to our exhibitions so generally that skews to much if it's um true film and not documentary it's generally skewing to the period before 1950 as it Associates with our collection and then if we are showing documentary materials it's generally tied to our Collections and tied to an experience there so the idea would be that we would be able to deliver all of this under our control uh in terms of being free after the wonan and I would speak to the idea of increasing the number of evenings that we can do film you are correct we can increase the number and we have been talking about ways that when we're not using our Friday evenings for other programming content how do we deliver content that will generate interest and bring individuals in from from the street and again in a way that's and we can figure out how we can make that for free so there's not a ticket associated with it so it is possible that we can increase the number of films I don't think that would be a difficulty it's a question of Licensing fee and we just have to make sure it manages through the budget quick synopsis because I have other questions very quickly um so at the O we purchased about $80,000 uh worth of equipment uh they did not require operating expenses because they already have you know funding and they're already a movie theater in essence here we're creating an experience what I would ask commissioner bot if possible to add to her motion is to have list set reach out to the gmcvb to see what they could contribute and if they could take care of the chairs well I I would say let's see if they have any money to contribute and um and let's leave it open and see what it is and I I still think I'd rather get this going now and figure out how to fund the chairs later I me it's not a lot of money in the grand scheme of our budget I and it's not going to make or break the program so I think asking the gmcvb to chip in is great um but let's do the chair separately okay um I fully support that um and this would be for this budget cycle we're putting it in now correct okay well H how does that work because we were just talking Mr CFO we didn't have $30,000 for lighting along Washington Avenue uh well these are a one-time uh expenditure uh we're still tabulating the outcome of uh the first budget hearing and we'll have our second budget hearing on Wednesday uh if I'm looking at some of the math correctly because I was trying to follow here along was that I'm trying to see here if we were going to hold off it was 145 and change uh was the total ask if we're going to deduct the the seating project for now at 248 you're at about 121 um and then if the the FIU Grant comes in I think it's around 26 26 right if if if okay- 261 you're down to around $95,000 um what I would say is we you know this could return to commission with a favorable recommendation uh to support a one-time uh Grant to support the AV upgrade excluding the chairs and to explore our partnership with gmcb to perhaps hopefully uh funding uh part of it but obviously to keep get this thing moving uh if there ends up not being enough one time dollars that are available there there's two ways really is we take them reserves but also we have a Sur you know we'll have a surplus that we'll be handling as the end of this fiscal year and we'll be bringing a budget amendment in November as we always do where those dollars are rolled over um for Capital expenditures and it could come from that rollover Surplus at the very least Casey just two more questions uh from the art and culture geobond did uh the FIU will sonan get uh money allocated there correct we how much we have $5 million and that's to support the development and the expansion to the north of our building and to add um 25,000 ft of new public space um because of that expansion we're able to talk about in the future transforming this space to a new and different space but it's not really included in those dollars because it's already public space and we're not creating new public space um we were really targeting those dollars to the opportunity to add and create new public space okay um where I'm at with this like I said I it's it's not my vision for what's going to draw people to Washington Avenue but uh I understand that we need to consider a A diversity of uh different types of thought and interest and things like that um so I'll be supportive here um going to sleep on it uh before the budget meeting uh you know to see kind of okay if we do this are we not going to be able to do something like uh Street lighting or things like that um but I'm going to uh be supportive and uh I know it's important to my colleagues here so I'm really going to consider that there's you know a very diverse array of uh interests and uh viewpoints even though you know it's not me so I appreciate my colleague bringing this I appreciate your role in the community I know you all do a lot and I'm proud to have you as a partner here thank you very much thank you commissioner if I may add chair I think this probably would not need to come up at the the the the uh second budget hearing I think what would be best if if the motion as I had had listen it for you for consider consideration because there's a couple things that are in flux here so this would if this goes back to the October 30th commission meeting which will be our next commission meeting I think that'll give time for the team here to deal with two things one is hopefully to find out what the final Grant amount would need to be because we'll know what hopefully the FI if the state Grant comes in and then also let set to work with gmcvb to hopefully partnership so it could be as high as 120,000 it could end up being as low as as$ 30 or $40,000 of gmcb so I think hopefully uh between now and October 30th that be determine it would go back to commission as a resolution and then if it gets approved whatever those dollars are I would handle that uh in the November budget amendment and that would also give us an opportunity to rine some of the programming suggestions that you've had and see how we can include those in that and we'll give you a more definitive sort of statement about what the opportunity for programming will be uh additional films things of that nature yeah yeah for my continued support I certainly need to see something more than one evening a month yeah for sure we can work on that um and Jason if I might um through the chair just a couple other things that popped into my head if there are grants out there for you know historical films or you know film workshops or whatever if there are grants out there that we're not pursuing because that's not what we're focused on but that you guys have access to or know about let's definitely reach out to them um and similarly if there are um movie distributors or I don't know how this whole industry works but there got to be people who are not psyched that they won't be a place to go see a first run movie in Miami Beach and so to say hey we're goingon to have top-of-the-line equipment let's do a partnership you know and have them own every SEC every Tuesday night you can see it just off a firstr run movie um you know you didn't see it open tonight but you saw it four weeks after it opened that that is a thing that would be a benefit to the community as well that's not your alley I know but let's find out whose alley it is and start those conversations because they might also defray some of the costs they might say you know what we do want really squishy comfy seats that don't give people splinters when they sit on them so um those my other two thoughts and um LTE please reach out to them and push for the comfy seats in addition to some funding towards the equipment please because I think it completes the whole experience right now you guys have the they're like plastic bucket seats I mean they're not awful but there's not a place where on a rainy day you're going to be comfortable so okay of course thanks thank you Casey for your organization does thank you thank you thank you very much so if if the motion that I read if the chair would you like me to read it again or uh no I think we're good uh just need a a a motion a second and a vote motion motion and second was okay okay yep thank you how about we move on to nb5 uh discuss while we're on Washington Avenue discuss beautifying Washington Avenue by enhancing lighting and streetscaping commissioner Rosen Gonzalez you have a broad support here but why don't you go ahead and uh introduce this item okay so you know I get complaints all the time the Aesthetics on Washington Avenue not just Washington but Ocean Drive too um we have lighting issues and I don't know how long it would take and um where we were going to find the funds I'm actually and I wanted to bring this up I want you guys to hear this because it's important to get your weighing in not just on Washington Avenue but I'm going to be bringing forward an item to to um to do the same on Ocean Drive hopefully before the tourists come using the geobond money because they don't have lighting we still have a crime problem here I had a a real estate client this weekend it was so funny he goes he's like he's kind of a nerdy guy he goes I felt so cool because I I got offered cocaine walking down the street now I'm laughing about that but it's really not funny it's not funny because it goes I've never been offer drugs like that so you come to Miami Beach and even if you look like somebody who's never going to do drugs you're getting offer drugs okay and that's what and that's part no but that's what's happening and so we need the lighting we need it on Washington we need it they might even offer you uh drugs Ray reslin you know and I don't but you look kind of like a hippie I don't know if you have puka beads on or something he might I don't know but the point the point behind this is that we need this lighting we need need it on Washington frankly we need new lighting and sidewalks on Washington and we need new lighting and sidewalks on Ocean I know that it's funded on Ocean I'm going to bring because we have the geobond money I'd like to bring that forward at the next meeting I don't know where we're going to find the lighting for Washington Avenue but I really think that this is a necessity it looks like crap sometimes you only have the police lights we could find it from the wolf zian budget that's not funny Brad Mr chair um Rodney or commissioner voice oh Rodney I'm sorry I mean up to the chair I'm to the to you guys you Rodney go ahead okay um good afternoon Rodney NES the assistant director for the public works department and the figure that you uh have before you in the memo is uh for the lighting of course for the East and West sides of Washington Avenue and the median uh there's currently Lighting in the median but that light is uh pretty dim it's at the end of its life cycle uh we have burnouts all the time and it's no longer under warranty uh the reason why the uh figure for the lighting is what it is is because we don't have the infrastructure in place on the east and west sides we need the 120 volt uh infrastructure in order to power the lighting so that's the biggest lift and the figure includes uh maintenance for a year uh regarding the landscape portion of uh the ask uh that's currently underway uh Green Space Management division of the public works department um has EX executed uh an enhancement from uh South Point Drive to Fifth Street already uh from Fifth Street also up to 11th is currently underway and should be finished soon and they anticipate starting phase four uh which is from 11th uh to 17th by the end of this calendar year Mr chair so we don't have the money for inground but we can wrap the trees and I think that will be nice I'd really prefer to do permanently um that is a totally different discussion but uh I would think that doing this prior to season to beautify the area will be such a gesture of Goodwill because as you walk down the street in addition it looks like we're not even if we clean it with our new gum machines and it is immaculate it's just in bad shape the other day uh some residents reached out to me and there was like the people were tripping in the median and I will say the city went out and you replace those pavers and you replace the landscaping and it looks so much better because that is right where the Lo's hotel is where all of our tourists are walking so um this is just one one simple thing I had one question as as we move forward with this stuff because I know this is lighting and I'm sorry I'll be very brief what would it look like to just make the side walks at least look uniform can't you just go and put some pink cement over all of them and make them look un unified and beautiful do we have to rip it up is there any way that you could just go over it with a cement to make it look nice because it's so Patchwork if we put in the lights and we and we fix that sidewalk prior to the season you're going to feel totally different we repaved the streets and it already looks so much better putting a layer of concrete fresh concrete cement over the existing sidewalk will work it will separate uh in order for it to be true you have to pour fresh concrete with the ad mixture for the color mixed into it so that it wears evenly over time so putting concrete on top of concrete won't exactly work it wanted here and it starts to crack I correct it will well let me hear how you feel about the lighting item and before I bring a sidewalk item prior to season I'd like to hear how you guys feel about that too just giving them some love for the first time in in decades I do think that it was a managed decline across our historic district and when you see that the city doesn't seem to care uh why would the shop owners care and why would people why would you know vagrants or people having parties care because they look around them and they think this is already a dump let me just dump on it some more you know so I I think this is high priority and um I would like to hear how you feel about it vice mayor Fernandez thank you Mr chair uh and thank you commissioner Wilson Gonzalez uh for for your vision with this regarding the sidewalks you know there's so much excitement uh about the potential of you know bringing full-time residents into this part of the city that perhaps you know something that we could consider is as part of the legislations that are floating out there you know as you go in and do new new housing you fix up some of these properties you're also responsible for redoing the sidewalk uh in front of the properties and that way you know as we improve private property we're also improving public property um and so that's something that perhaps you know we can we can achieve at a lesser cost to to the public I just need to know you know what is Washington Avenue doing to help itself it it's you know we have a number of businesses why do we need this there we need is there because there is a perception of safety and the perception of safety that we have there is in large part because of a certain caliber of businesses that are attracting nuisances to this part of our city and that is a contributing factor that we have there what is Washington Avenue committed to doing the bid and the businesses there what are are they committed to doing to help transition to help change to help improve the caliber of businesses that are there to help transition from the nightclubs that are you know having people executed outside of them that is driving the need for resources to be placed there and so and so I'm all for the city doing its part to improve areas but I really need to know what is the commitment from these private property owners to help themselves because it needs to be a partnership it needs to be a two-way street and right now I don't know where is that commitment right now to help see the transition of the area the Improvement the new Investments the full-time residents the transition of the problematic nightlife and let me be very clear there's problematic nightlife and then there's nightlife that's not problematic and they both exist there but we know very well that there are establishments that are within this part of of the city that is that are attracting crime that are attracting drug dealing that are attracting prostitution where where individuals have been killed at and I need to know where does Washington Avenue bid stand in this evolve a this transition that we need to see of Washington Avenue before I commit the use of public taxpayers dollars uh and especially when we're talking about millions of dollars uh voce mayor I could not agree more um perhaps one of the reasons I don't go to the wolf Z for movie night last night I actually ironically not even think of this item I went back and this is embarrassing but watched six hours of commission meeting from 2019 and in fact there were Washington Avenue ldr amendments and it made me in a way worried but also so proud of the vision that our commission is taking because five years ago they were talking about ldr incentives for Washington Avenue right the same thing we're talking about because it needs it so we've been talking about this for five years 10 years right but the vision that they had for Washington Avenue was incredibly different than the vision that our commission has right now so so the vision and the incentives that they were providing they were providing height incentives for office with no off street parking right when we talk about intensity think if you have an office building on Washington Avenue with no parking that's what was proposed and in 2019 they were putting forward co-living micro units with no parking and then also some uh um groups within the city came up and said no we don't even want that because we don't want any residential component on Washington Avenue because that'll get in the way of our Entertainment District so I commend the vision of this Commission of really pivoting away from the execution style entertainments and the seediness and gtin that we see on Washington Avenue and not settling for the status quo now it's just fine-tuning exactly what we want to see and I'm really excited about seeing what that Vision was 5 years ago but also all of us kind of seeing that the world has changed and especially Miami and South Florida and that we can Aspire for better um so Rodney how does this differentiate or this different than the item that was discussed and apologies for putting on the spot if you didn't watch but the budget item that was brought up at the end of the budget meeting this past Wednesday and maybe that's better answered by the CFO if you weren't hanging on every single word at 9:00 p.m. I believe you're uh addressing uh Troy the executive director of the bid where he had mentioned that there was a request for 30 or $40,000 to continue uh for the maintenance electricity of I guess some decorative lighting that they have I'm not familiar um I'm not sure which department would have that on what aspects but obviously there's decorative lighting that the bid does cover in in in that Washington Avenue Corridor but commissioner Rosen Gonzalez is exactly right not just for Washington Avenue but the rest of our city people are not going to take care of our city if it looks like we don't take care of ourselves right so I think at a bare minimum um maybe longer term ambition we talk about some of the sidewalk lighting and I love commissioner Fernandez's idea of public private Partnerships there not only with lighting but I saw in 20 19 they also discussed the AI component for Lincoln Road and also again just to reiterate the difference in our vision on Lincoln Road in 2019 they approved Hotel height increases with no cap limits on the amount of hotels they go okay this should spur the development of 500 hotels let's put a cap at 500 they go n Let's Have No Cap right but we're pivoting away from more and more hotels but one of the things that they added was was uh contribution to the AI fund and how cool would Washington Avenue be with our new reimagination if we have art along the public rights of way like they have in the Design District right to highlight this wolfian FIU Museum that we have art in public places out front but starting to light this street is an immediate low hanging fruit that we need right away so um thank you um again I it sounds like we're all patting ourselves on the back all the time but it's it's such a different vibe from where we've been o over the last 20 years since I've 21 years since I've been here and for the last decade in City Hall that we're all seeing the same problems but actually finding what we think are good directions to move forward to address them I think this initiative is an excellent one I think we're not there yet now let me tell you why um what I would like to see you know we're having conversations about how to revitalize Washington Road Washington Avenue with mixed use residential you know think of what Sunset Harbor was when my kids were going to ballet in a garage that was a makeshift ballet studio in a performance space at night um we could have that kind of really cool live work play along Washington Avenue so the good operators who you know twist and and some of the clubs that are there you know they should still be there and you can you know walk down to your favorite joint and and have a great time dancing your head off and then come home home um and we're also talking about how to do that and how to revitalize Lincoln Road in similar not exactly the same but not totally different ways and to me they're sort of a Continuum right like you walk up Washington and and then you you take a left on onto Lincoln Road and you know to me this shouldn't be done as a one-off to me this should be done as a a a part of a collective discussion of um um how to reimagine these parts of the city we're we're talking about doing that from a planning perspective and making sure that our incentives that we're talking about are the right ones to get what we want we're having a sort of an internal conversation that may also turn into a um an external conversation about that so I think this should be incorporated in that because I think it it is necessary but I also um to to the point I forget who made it but Washington Avenue is actually home to so many of our cultural institutions um and I have this Vision I've been talking at it for years even well before I was considering a run for a commission when I was actually being approached to be the director of the Washington Avenue bid in another life wow I know different story for a different time um but there so you have all these amazing Cultural Arts institutes that go all the way from South Point up to um the Filmore and then if you kind of fudge Washington Avenue turning into Collins you've got um fena and then you head up to um what used to be the historic Hotel district which hopefully will be revitalized with Performing Arts little you know jazz clubs and stuff up there and then you hit the Band Shell then take a hard left and you've got the Normandy Fountain and you've got two incredible fine art galleries that happened organically and we're going to have the Byron carile to me that this should be the cultural Corridor of Miami Beach and it is the backbone of who we are and and not just who we are but but how you how you make your way through through our city and so to me this is a bigger opportunity and I want the Washington Avenue bid to step up I think they haven't had a an increase in their dues in three or four years and there are significant changes that are a foot they need to be a part and partner in this effort and so to me this is I would almost I won't make the motion to refer because I know that triggers something but I would suggest we do um hold off on this until we can have comprehensive conversations about what the best way forward is to make sure these needs get addressed and then but Factor into the bigger conversation could I say something um I would have no problem deferring this I would like to actually take this item and defer it for a few months wherever September October November I'd like to hear it at the November FK and I'm going to tell you why I'm going to go I want to go out in addition to this lighting and find out um with the city what the cost of um repairing some of the concrete is and let me explain why while changing the zoning is wonderful and while Builders will come in and do it we're talking 5 years away and in the interim I want people to know that we care about the historic district because right now what we've really seen I believe it was it was a managed decline it was like zero investment across the historic district it by the way 10 years ago you still had Lively retail there okay but when you had no police presence and zero investment in any part of the city not the sidewalks not the lighting not of course retail moved out but you know I was driving up the the nicer part of Washington Avenue further south the other day and I saw that we got had like a a retail store open like Villa ban you know they're not going to go and even consider opening anything right now if the sidewalk looks like a pitch like patchy mishmash and these expenses to um at least change the concrete you know on Washington Collins and ocean and put in new lighting that is going to make a big difference and by the way the people that are coming there um are going to see a big difference I would tell you that we're also stuck because we approved all of this zoning at these luxury projects the chevo project um the richz Carlton you know what they told me they told me that people are not buying their units because they're walking to Washington and seeing the crap that we have down Washington and they don't want to invest in the city and that to me is very sad so saying I don't want to invest in Lighting on Washington we don't want to fix the sidewalks let's change the zoning and wait for developers to that's too long because we these other people who are willing to come here and they can't close their sales and that is scary so I want to help them in some way and um I could defer this to November do some work to find out a total package price for the sidewalks and see if we can find some of the Geo Bond money on both Ocean Drive to see how we could do this to finally invest some money in our historic districts which by the way it's what makes us famous iconic it's why people come here and by the way it will go a really long way I challenge you to walk down and look how awful it looks right now it looks like we don't care it looks like and I'm not saying that you know you're working with what you have it's not your fault that you have been given direction to to maintain it but now we know that we appreciate our historic district we are going to I guess you guys are moving forward want to build this live work and play but in the interim too I want it to look like south of fifth on the sidewalk I agree with that thank you uh I to say something Mr chair here we are you know Washington Avenue the the sidewalks might not be look the cleanest and there are ways of remediating that through sanitation and our colleague commissioner Suarez has endeavored in an in an effort and I know Public Works is is working on this our budget I believe Mr Mr CFO we have six positions in our budget to supplement with with pressure cleaning in addition to what we have now um but like for example here we are we're talking about possibly looking for more money to redo sidewalks in Washington Avenue when I get a flood of complaints about broken sidewalks in North Beach for example about North Beach not having received new sidewalks in years uh and and so and and so and so I got North Beach might not be as famous as Washington Avenue but there we have you know a segment of residents we have an area that we're trying to encourage you actually have businesses that actually contribute to people's quality of life and they're and and and people complain people are are complaining day in day out not about dirty sidewalks about broken sidewalks and not being able to get through safely through them and so you know if we if we want to talk about lighting you know I'm happy to today to you know support the lighting um and between today and this going to commission you know knowing what commitments really the business owners the bid on Washington Avenue is willing to make to transform the dangerous feeling that people get when they go there that here we're trying to remediate through decorative lighting that's not going to change the way people feel it is a caliber of the establishment that we have there that's going to truly change uh how how how people feel when they go to Washington Avenue and investing more money on on um on sidewalks I rather see that in North Beach where North Beach you know needs it and commissioner B you live up there you probably get more of the complaints of what I do and I know I get them daily about the broken sidewalks up there and thank you commissioner Rosen Gonzalez I know this is coming from a good place you really want to see this area improve but it really has to be both ends of the table coming together and collaborating and I mean I here here here I have Lincoln Road uh sitting in front of us and they and and and the Lincoln Road businesses they have been working so hard you know to improve they really put money on on the table to to try to see an improvement there and there's still much work to be done but they're like actively out there you know Aldo I got a text message no what is it how do you pronounce it hello okay I can't pronounce it like the chair does but um it might very well be Alo I don't know aloe coming coming coming into Lincoln Road we've seen we see new restaurants it's interesting um this summer I was in Europe and and and there's an Italian uh restaurant on Lincoln Road and um and I was in Rome um and in Rome um and I we were about to go to dinner and we were looking for restaurants and I see one of the restaurants that came out highly recommended in Rome uh was aaria de Fortuna and I go on their website and I'm looking at their website and I'm like gosh this thing sounds so familiar and I'm looking at their website and I see their locations and I see their locations uh something Lincoln Road I can't remember the exact address I was like oh my God this is aeria the Fortuna that's on on Lincoln Road and so and so like you see the commitment to bring in great caliber establishments in a place like Lincoln run is why I've never held back from making more Investments on Lincoln Road to help with that with that but I don't I need to see the same level of commitment from these Property Owners on Washington Avenue so are you voting for or against I I am voting for this today at committee but but between today and this going back to the city commission I'm making it very clear I need to understand what is the commitment what is the plan that Washington Avenue is committing to to see the transformation that we need on those businesses otherwise I'm making it very clear today do not count with my support at the city commission commissioner B so just for clarification I thought there was a motion to defer until November so yeah there is I don't know I was outside I was outside the chamber so I I have if if I might so I I don't disagree commissioner vice mayor Fernandez um I don't disagree with your comments um I don't think they're mutually exclusive and I do think that it's important to take the next two or three months to figure out what could be done when how much who's paying for what we do need to see the Washington Avenue bids step up and and do more in terms of um um funding things like this or or leading the charge I'm not sure what the mechanics are but I don't think it's a mutually exclusive conversation right we we know and we are more attentive to the the issues that are playing the city from north to south and there are parts of the city that are doing just fine um and and there are parts of the city that need some TLC this is a bigger the the Washington Avenue conversation is a bigger sort of U transformational economic impact affordable housing missing middle kind of conversation and I think this is one of the beginnings of it along with the stuff that we've talked hang on one second along with the stuff that we've talked about at commission that we're talking about incentivizing different kinds of development at the same time we know for a facts I trip over it myself all the time um that there are just eons blocks upon blocks of areas in North Beach where the lights are out and the you know it floods on you know there's a sprinkling it floods because there aren't the right drainage things set up for what exists now and you know there are like a million things going um that have gone unattended in North Beach and so I don't want to take away from how important this is but I share my colleagues um concern about how important it is to do the basic blocking and tackling um on maintenance of what we have in areas where it's not an economic driving you know game Cher investment they're both important they both need to be attended to C can I ask a question I know that I said that I would defer it to November but if commissioner Fernandez is willing to support it here's what I would profer if we pass this today wait yes today if we pass it today and in October you'll have that lighting for the season when our guests come and they're not going to walk it's going to go a long way to be do you support the median ligh median I mean I'd like the the what the tree lighting in the median how much is that in the whole that also okay I you know what let's start with that let's start with the 272 I'd like it all done but if we can't um if we can't do um if we if we can't do the the all of the tree lights so we're going to be where's the 272 in here I'm looking at it east and west40 okay the number like 145 no on page 140 it says fifth to 17th Street median trees the 272 let okay let's do the median trees and then here is a a few things that I would like to say commissioner Fernandez I hate the idea of any sidewalk in our city being busted and if it was up to me I has somebody just going around and only replacing pieces of sidewalk mean I report them constantly on the app like I see it well I think you need and maybe we hire a dedicated sidewalk person with a team no not Jo I'm not joking do nothing every single day would go around and replace sidewalks so that you don't have that Patchwork between now if we approve the 272 um today to move forward to the October meeting I would also like to see what we could do in terms of in terms of sidewalks I I I think it's so important can you can you give us the timeline because there is $10 million of geobond funding to do exactly all of this let's just do it no I do it today for the season how long would it take you Brian what time are you leaving today can you go Place Maria Hernandez um int ACM and uh still over the geobond so um we have a lot of money in the geobond to do everything that you guys are talking about um we have $10 million for Washington Avenue that is for a complete redo of Washington Avenue above ground only above ground not underground that includes sidewalks trees lighting all of that okay um the same for Ocean Drive we have $20 million and that is in design as we speak so that's going to come um in front of you very soon um in addition to that we have thanks to um the decisions of the commission remember that we also have these $19.8 million that we took from tranch 2 put them into tranch one for sidewalks streets trees uh seaw walls and all kinds of stuff so those funds the ones that are specific for sidewalks and streets um well let's talk sidewalks are to repair broken sidewalks sidewalks that um don't meet Ada that you know how sometimes they get a little bit higher it's to go around the entire city fixing all of that and we have a plan to do it for the next 5 years yes when when do we start it's it's in the works I mean we're doing it now and we're doing it in North Beach South Beach um I would be more than happy to show the maps we have it all mapped out follow up within a letter to Absolutely I'll let you know and um could I ask a question yeah course since we have this above ground money for Washington Avenue and by the way we had done all sorts of crazy designs for Washington which have never come to fruition how would you guys feel about just saying go for it take the 10 million and within the next six months just replace all the sidewalks put in new lighting it's going to encourage developers who want to build because right now they're going to come there and they're going to see what you what you got and uh by the way the homeless that are there in the and then the element that's there when you start to break all of that up they're going to go someplace else they are we're going to say Washington Avenue is no longer and by the way the police officers who don't want to walk that beat because it is so disgusting it's disgusting it's disgusting we have the money and we're just saying we're going to wait I'm just so sick of waiting cuz I've been sitting here for 10 years waiting why don't we just just do it let's all sponsor it all four of us sponsor it in October get it done Michael shevo is going to thank you because he's in deep with Buyers who are cancelling uh the owners of the Ritz Carlton who are have buyers who are cancelling are going to thank you the owners of the Shore Club and the Delano are going to thank you the owners of the Lowe's because they can't handle how disgusting it looks anymore and either can I and Ne can I may may I ask a couple of questions okay how did we go from $30 million from Troy last week to $273,000 today on on this median lighting thing like what's what's up with that and that's my first question I do want an answer for that but my second point is I agree that this needs to happen and and I'm very eager to see the followup because we're working on it today and we have a plan and in the next 5 years to me are not I know their turns are so I'm sure you do have a plan that you are working on now and it will be done within the next 5 years but it would be great to be able to turn around and say hey this part of North Beach you're like next march this whole area is going to be replaced so hang tight right but also that's a different thing from the spot fixes right it's one thing to go in and replace sidewalks which you do have to plan for takes a long time there's permitting whatever needs to happen but also it would be great to have um you know like do a sweep of the city and like any place that something's broken have somebody just come fix it because it won't it doesn't have to be a 20-year fix it needs to be you know two two month or twoe fix and that's better than than not but but I still want us to proceed with some forethought that we are reimagining entire stretches of our city and yes we have the money of $10 million to do a lot of change now which is great so maybe we can do this you know it's not the full $10 million and maybe this is the thing that is the Catalyst but I don't want to spend $10 million over the next year starting let's say in two weeks and you know for the next year um and then have to undo all that in three years when we decide to do something different so I'm not saying not to do it I'm just saying take the five minutes not you I'm looking at you but I'm not saying to you Kristen I'm I'm saying for us to take the take the month or two months or whatever it is going to be and maybe there's some things that we can do now to to get to your point about doing it before season but it before we spend millions and millions of dollars that may not be the best use of those millions of dollars if we just have two or three months to have a conversation um that's what I'm encouraging so if there's a quick you know the median trees and power washing the sidewalks between now and the start of season let's do that but not spend $10 million on something that's going to be maybe not the right thing okay so my motion on this will be to move forward the 272 today but between now wait sorry I'm so sorry to interrupt you I am interrupting you I wanted to get the answer about how it went from $30,000 to 2 72 before we it's different I it was the whole Washington Avenue he just wanted maintenance for one section that's what the difference is and by the way um we passed this in what 2018 yes 2018 here's what I would tell you I also had a conversation with Jonathan plk who's desperate for the lighting he said because here's the thing we have a very ambitious plan don't we have lighting onri no no there is no lighting it's police lighting no what he wants to do is the permanent lighting he would like to take and bring an item forward I'm working with him he's going to reach out and speak to you why uh because the re the complete redesign is not funded and we know that we got like 120 million we have 20 million here is what I would ask I mean the property owners are saying please give us the lighting like um let's move forward the 272 today to the full commission but between now and the next meeting Maria could you just get us a price and here's what I would like just like a price for just complete sidewalk replacement along Washington just replace what we have how what would that cost so between this would be my motion move forward the 272 but in the interim find out what the cost would be um four new sidewalks and also new polls let me just make one clarification because I want to make sure we're clear because Geo bonds are paid over 30 years uh through taxes we cannot use the money for anything that is temporary so temporary lighting string lights that sort of thing cannot be geobond funded however new polls new uh acorns that get you know updated Acorn lights of course the sidewalks the streets trees all of that can be included in the geobond way that the direction here is going thank you for that Maria where we're going to get some of the lwh hanging fruit right is quick wins we'll do the median lighting let's pushed that forward it's absolutely critical commissioner's right we're losing $15 million real estate sales I got a call say I sold a condo do uh person they came and took a walk down Washington Avenue and they canceled commissioner magazine you're an ambassador of the city can you just tell them how great Miami Beach is right and that's what I tried doing so let's do the lwh hanging fruit and then really let's think about how one thing this city just has historically not done a good job at is really going through the public private partnership collaboratively right so if we have multiple things happening in one area we don't work well in tandem we're just peac mailling things this is so incredibly exciting let's get the lwh hanging fruit let's get this median light in today so we have it for the season and then we're talking about this $10 million Geo Bond and the reimagination of Washington Avenue let's do this hand in hand for the medium and longer term future of our city and and part of my motion just to just to get a price just to get a price apart from moving forward the lighting could you come back next month with an estimate sidewalk replacement up and down new lighting poles yeah I I don't think that's very difficult that's a boiler plate kind of you do that you're going to see the criminal element is going to go away police are going to be out and feel pride in the area the shop owners are going to begin to take care of their stores retail outlets that currently don't want to be on Washington might reconsider it and let's finally begin to revitalize in addition to zoning incentives let's Revitalize the area as long as it's not let's all sponsor it can we all sponsor it is that okay with you guys can you make us all sponsors this if it's not an either or because and another thing about the bonds as well whatever we do should not be undone because again again it's about 30 years so if we put in lighting it shouldn't be undone later down the road that should be permanent well and hopefully it will be I mean if we put in new polls they're going to be permanent you need to do it anyway it needs an update you know it's just a lighting pole it's replacing something ugly with something beautiful it's a start commissioner magazine there's a collar in the line uh commissioner B then we go the call so just a quick question since we're talking about replacing lighting poles lighting capability and um Aesthetics and need and um sort of what we all collectively think is interesting as lighting has changed dramatically in The Last 5 Years alone 15 or 50 are there ways to upgrade the lighting as we go through not just Washington Avenue but Citywide where it's appropriate like not in a residential neighborhood necessarily but where we can control the temperature of the light so for sea turtle season you know that's one thing but also for you know art basle we could have Art Basel colors and we could you know so they still are functional but we can we can make them part of our branding and again not in residential neighborhoods I'm not I'm not that crazy but but um in you know on Ocean Drive and along Lincoln Road and Washington and Collins in certain areas like let's think proactively about how to use the infrastructure that we're going to be investing in so that you know it's not like oh we need to wrap more trees with lights that break every five minutes and you know it's a whole drama let's you know I for anybody who's out there I want to start a business and I need a good engineer to provide solar powerered lights that don't have to replace be replaced every year um and I'm sure municipalities around the the country would jump all over them so somebody get that business going um but anyhow I'm sure we can look into that yes let's let's be prospective SC the public Wayne please unmute yourself I did not hey uh I love you all and I'm really impressed I think her name is Maria she's very well spoken and understands the uh the Dynamics of the situation in Miami Beach uh there's a couple of thoughts that I have that I want to share with you one is uh the go Bond did not really fund effectively uh updating the streets and sidewalks and Lighting in Miami Beach especially the commercial districts effectively it it's a very small percentage of of the Goan and uh we need more uh the the sidewalks the streets that you know the cleaning the the the the the uh the the uh environmental paper and bottles they get picked up nicely by DPW but the streets are dirty the streets are cracked the they're old where it's paved it's beautiful and it looks it looks so much different uh where it's recently paved but too many of our streets aren't and too many of our sidewalks aren't new and we need to upgrade that uh uh uh part of our city and and you know our budget our $1 billion budget is not enough for for those kind of improvements we spend it on other things uh which I don't think dollar for dooll is as effective as spending it on those kind of things to improve the quality of life of of residents so I I think in a general sense you have to look at that and you know what percent of our budget should go to those things like streets and sidewalks and lighting and and and Ocean Drive and and uh and uh Lincoln Road and speaking of Lincoln Road what really disuss me and I I hope that you guys can fix this because it's only a few thousand dollar the ponds uh in in the center of of Lincoln Road haven't been cleaned in I would suspect 15 years they're disgusting uh I used to clean my pond in my backyard personally every year and you know put lily pads in and it was beautiful all right so where are we going to go with this I I believe that we're going to make a motion to move forward with uh uh the median tree lighting and then we will work collectively to come back with something more comprehensive yes for even as soon as next month polls and sidewalks I'll prepare and I'll I'm sorry and I'll prepare an LTC showing you the maps that it's going to show you every street in the geobond that we have paved in the past and the ones that were Paving in the future as well as all the sidewalks so both oh streets being paved Washington being paved was already a big maneuver you do the polls you do the sidewalks it's a whole new game all right I look forward to next month then okay thank you if I may chair you may uh so I have this item to return to firk uh just to check is is October Cu uh is that enough turnaround time because the item is actually due in like two weeks so would you have enough time to do that I just to make sure that um getting estimates on this the to return to FK on the Washington Avenue sidewalk replacement project and a street level Street lighting I think we need November November would is telling me I we need November so to return to FK in in November for an up update an LTC would be issued on Street Paving and sidewalk replacement program uh and then the item about returning the commission on the the median at 272 is obviously unfunded uh so we'll have to have a conversation about uh funding that that is not geobond eligible so if that went to Commission in October I think just like the prior wolfsonian item it would be funded through the November budget amendment uh which deals with the rollover which would be you know that those dollars were dedic ated to go to our capital projects they would just we would just reduce that amount going to our capital projects which is so perfect yeah you we can we can do that so we'll show it as as returning the commission a favorable recommendation for the median uh project so two items that I'm looking at going forward are going to be discussion on parking and commissioner Fernandez is around uh I would love to have him involved because I think this is going to be interest to all of us and that is uh NB 15 is that yes yep um and then also we have the Barkley uh is there anybody in the audience or online that had critical items because I'm not sure if we're going to get to much more than either of those two I think the the barlay I think the barlay team is here we're here let's get the parking and uh then yes but we'll need them for the barkle as well so I I will MB 15 there um L what was the one St is the composting item quick yes 17 yes yes I believe it's a quick update let's do that we'll do M uh so I'll read uh MB 17 referral to the finance and economic resiliency committee to discuss take action on favorable land use and sustainability committee recommendation for potential uh composting program and more specifically to expand the home composting for residents and at Youth and recreation centers with Associated funding requirements nb1 17 good morning Commissioners yes we are on hi good morning uh my name is honos I the sustainability and resilience manager um this item comes to us through um in February there was a discussion at City committee City commission sorry that was referred to land use um at land use there was a discussion which recommended staff to explore four options which we did um um brought it back to land use in June uh at which point two options were preferred and they um recommended bringing it to finance which is where we are now so uh our team was really creative and looking at different options for composting this is about kind of expanding access to composting for our community um we did have direction to explore curbside pickup which we did um look into it right now that's not really possible so what we're bringing forward to you now is really what's possible for um our community given the context that Miami Dade County does not have authorized composting facilities um they are working on a zero waste plan they are working on this so this is really about you know in the meantime what can we do as a community these options that we're presenting to you now supplement the larger Flagship Community composting hubs that we have with our partner the Miami Beach Botanical Garden so that is um our North Beach composting Hub the composting at the Botanical Gardens and right now we have in development um a location in mid Beach at 40th and Chase parking lot and so that is still in development so what is being recommended here are two options one are small scale countertop equipment for households the other one is large scale equipment for youth centers this gives us the opportunity to really test how this meets the community's needs it's really meant um as a pilot um this does help the reduction of food waste it increases Community interest in composting and reduces Greenhouse emissions through the creation of nutrient-rich soil amendment um so the two options that are presented here one is uh we can work with vendors to look at equipment that is small scale kind of countertop machines for um residents um we propose that we could um see if there could be a discount for homeowners and we offer a rebate of say like $100 we purchase maybe 20 to spark interest um and that would come with a cost of up to ,200 Fe and if we spoken with the mayor's office I know he's a sponsor or any Representatives here I I want to see what direction he wants I I don't feel strongly either way I don't know if uh Stafford Administration says he we're 90% in favor of this one 10% here uh or you're kind of just putting both of those out there with equal waiting we are putting both of these options out here with equal waiting for for your review um we have not spoken with the mayor's office on this we have spoken with parks and with facilities Department to make sure that the you know that the city staff is in alignment for this but we have not presented this directly to the mayor it has been just through commission and committees perhaps we defer this for a month we asked for direction from the mayor's office uh his item I I don't want to go in a direction that uh you he's not aligned with um yeah okay so the the item could return next month the administrational discuss with the the mayor what direction he has and just just if I can so as we're wrapping up 25 as we start having some of these expenditure items there's also that opportunity going forward is if there's things that are supportive that could wait um things could be recommended to become a budget priority for the 2026 budget process trying to leave that port on set but you know and just achieve that with a deferral but okay um so so we'll show this item deferred and until uh the administration gets uh with mayor's office or mayor's representative is here next month two perhaps weigh in okay thank you excellent thank you um I'm thinking we wrap up by 1:30 uh so let's try and get the parking quick um I'm actually going to defer uh no no no Jose hear me all out come up you heard me say defer but defer I want to get to I'm going to follow up with uh three or four questions I'm going to send you uh with some homework for um but I'm going to use this item that we had on the agenda as a placeholder to get to something that's a little more pertinent um the parking update that we've all uh seen front and center with the increase in rates so let's uh use this as a conversation as long as I don't get kicked under the table by legal for doing so um as a leeway into talking about some of of those parking rate increases uh as a bit of background we got a letter to commission uh from the city manager last Friday saying uh effective I believe October 1st we would be seeing parking rate increases uh I'll let you go through the details of what those are but let's not beat that to death you know there's a bifurcation between some parking increases for tourists parking increases for residents uh this was not any type of action or Vote or measure taken by anybody on this body uh I went back and researched the ordinance this was a result of a 2019 vote again a video I watched last night it was very eventful um and uh Museum and I I think there's a collective will here uh given inflationary pressures that have just hit residents from uh the well to do to our are most at need everybody is feeling the effects of inflationary pressures uh which hopefully are going to begin subsiding um but the timing of uh residential parking rate increase is just not ideal so uh without putting words into my colleagues mouths I'll let them all speak for themselves but I know me personally uh I think there's a collective will to essentially shove a residential parking increase at this moment um if if I may jump in for a moment um there will be an item on next Wednesday's um agenda uh commissioner Fernandez and commissioner Suarez are proposing to repeal basically the increase for residents um and most of you actually I think all of you have joined as co-sponsors I I think it might be preferable not to discuss the item at this committee um because it it really wasn't part of the titles or or the agenda so I would recommend that if that's okay with everyone and Mr chair if you want to join as a CO Prime I completely welcome you uh is because I think uh we have a resolution on the table I think Wednesday to stop the increase from taking effect October 1st or giving that directive to the city Administration then separately it's an amendment to repeal the 2019 uh legislation um which does these five you know year you know fakata you know increases I just hit people you know out of left field if you want to join us yeah I I spoke with our assistant city manager uh Williams our transportation director uh Jose yesterday about 4M um and uh invade that as well so yes Rick can can we do that can we add him as a Cod Prime yeah yeah of course yeah please I think I'm I'm already I'm already a CO do we want to have seven co- primes is that what we're looking at yes are you okay with that yeah I can't speak I can't speak for other Commissioners but I know it sounds commissioner magazine wants to be our co- Prime commissioner Rosen Gonzalez wants to be our co- Prime and and and and commissioner bod wants to be a everyone has said that they're very interested in this item so okay yeah so let's so so so let's let's do that then perfect and Jose I will follow up with I don't know what the reverse of an LTC is a letter from the commission to the parking director um but I have about three or four things that I'd like to see uh when this item continues that I'll ask you come back with okay okay by the way uh commissioner magazine your comments on the Miami Herald were unpointed you have the and you've advocated for for for for our residents and thank you for using your position as chair in this committee today to once again raised the alarm about about this uh very Troublesome inquiries it's as you mentioned it's it was a 2019 policy none of us voted on this is something that we've inherited and I'm grateful that today you've used your meeting to introduce this topic because we need to look out for people during these times when they're being financially burdened thank you uh vice mayor my first note to self is going to read what my comments in the Miami Herald are because I haven't seen it but thank you for alerting me um let's move on to an item that has uh been in this commission that uh long predates me and I believe anybody else here uh something I think we're all collectively very excited I see community members here we've all been involved in this uh de barkle let I'll read one person that does not predate our assistant city manager right you were there from the beginning well the city has on the property since 2015 so oh no uh mb1 update on negotiations with n uh 1940 barlay Partners LLC pursuant to request for proposal RFP number 2 223-1111 property located at 1940 Park Avenue the barklay for a development and ground lease agreement mb1 good afternoon honorable chair and Commissioners Raquel Williams assistant city manager the item before you provides a summary of the Salient terms negotiated with the developer for the Barkley pursuant to a solicitation process as directed by the city commission the item before you also provides a summary of the scope of the project and I just want to summarize by saying that we have taken the directives of this committee to heart and the project before you checks all four of the boxes that this Comm has referenced as being a priority that includes preservation that includes housing affordability that includes relevant zoning matters as well as the financial component of the project the project proposed would preserve the existing three-story building at 1940 Park Avenue the project would also Encompass a new building that would be 100 ft which is above the 75 ft permitted by the code the project also incorporates a increase to the existing allowable f for the site and that F that's being requested is 2.97 which is about 25% above uh what is permitted the project in includes 71% market rate units and 29% affordable and Workforce units the affordability level includes 30% area meeting income units as well as 120% area meiting income units the project would have market rate as the primary unit type the project would also have ground floor commercial about 6,000 square ft the project includes parking which has not yet been fully determined as to what would be required as we would need to go through further due diligence with with the planning department the developer has provided a proposal that includes a few design options the planning department has indicated that option one is the most preferred option as a starting point for further negotiations and due diligence in terms of the financial aspects of the project which is the most relevant to this committee uh the project would include a $6 million upfront payment as discussed by this committee and approved by the commission on April 3rd the project also includes guaranteed annual rent starting at 52,000 approximately per year it would increaseed by CPI with a minimum threshold of 2% and a maximum of 3% the project would also include 1% net operating income participation and 1% participation on any transfer or sale occurring after the first 10 years over the 99 years of the lease the annual guaranteed rent including The Upfront payment would be approximately $21 million the estimate of the net operating income for the 99 years is about $17 million the commission has supported that $6 million upfront payment and we were directed to work off of what we called option two at the time when this was first brought to the finance committee at this time we are seeking support from this committee to bring the terms uh as indicated in the memorandum to the city commission to authorize the negotiation of a development agreement and a ground lease note that any increase to F will require a 67 vote of the city commission the height increase being proposed also requires uh a 57 vote of the city commission so there are other uh steps along the path for this project to get to finalization we anticipate that we could bring the second reading of the development agreement and ground lease to the Commission in Spring of 2025 just to give you an idea of the time frame that it would take because the project would need to go to the land use committee the planning board there would have to be a community meeting as part of the F increase so that just gives you a a scope of uh when we could bring this in for a final Landing the developer would then have to go through the entitlement process and get their building permit the developer is here today it is also my understanding that the developer presented to the Collins Park neighborhood association and that the association is in support and I believe a representative of the association is also present today uh PJ has the design rendering available if you would like to see option one which is what the administration is supportive of as a starting point and I'll take any questions you may have yeah thank you so much assist city manager just uh fabulous years of work on this I really like uh incorporating basically the Fe back that was important to all of my colleagues especially this upfront payment two quick questions given the significant upfront payment I don't want to just have that Flo into purgatory we have some very pressing Capital needs here we have underfunded needs for the fire station that I know is incredibly important to some of my colleagues we just talked about uh unfunded needs for Washington Avenue and Lincoln Road both areas that this property somewhat AB buts is there a way to have a bifurcated fund to take that $6 million and say we're not just going to go put it into the abyss we're actually going to have a one for one usage that we're able to say here's that $6 million this is what it gets us for consideration for f and height increases so this committee could recommend and the city commission could dictate the way that the $6 million upfront payment would be allocated and that has been done in Prior projects so that's not something um that is outside of the scope of what the city has done before excellent and and my final question I'll push it over to my colleague uh two questions uh and then I'll put it over to my colleagues one um you talked about the benefits that the city is getting are we able to assign or assess a value and it's a shame Debbie's not here but we didn't ask her B um what we're essentially getting on a direct monetary basis that a third party is restoring this architectural and historic treasure that we have well based on our recent estimate and by recent I mean about a year ago now perhaps uh we anticipated that if the city were to redevelop the project as is and maintain the three-story building uh it would cost us anywhere between 22.5 million and and upwards of $25 million and so this would allow the city to not have that cost burden and place that directly on the developer excellent so I I think it's incumbent upon us to consider that for the benefit that we're receiving and let question I'll hand it over my colleagues I don't want there to be too many cooks in the kitchen so I'm going to be more hands off timing wise I think that's most critical because we've heard loud and clear from facilities from Debbie tacket from the development team and really from the neighborhood right like one our biggest one of our highest priorities is making sure that we can preserve this piece this building and every day that goes by from my elementary assessment that likelihood becomes less and less right the the more months we have to defer and the more boards where we need two months in between are there any ways that we can streamline some of these processes because timing is of the essence one for that element and two for the neighborhood this is just been we heard the police talk about how many police calls have been in this area this is not fair to the neighborhood that should have this activated have it part of their Community I know it it was like to live next to a dirt hole for eight years then we were just like give us anything you know as long as it's not this um so I want to be sure that we're being as fair and efficient to the uh neighboring Community as well that wants to see this site activated so uh even if it's not something you're ready to uh pounce yeah I I can chime in a little bit uh so this committee as well as the commission gave a policy recommendation that included a $6 million upfront payment and based the award on option two as presented to the finance committee and the commission and so that included an increased F increased height to allow for additional units there was an option that was presented at committee that included no upfront payment no annual payment no net operating income participation no transfer participation and a subsidy from the city of about 4 million that would allow for the develop to redevelop the project uh keep the three-story U structure renovated uh the 66 existing units would probably turn into 33 and they would likely all be affordable the committee and the commission did not decide to go forward I would say that that's probably not on the table right so in in essence any project that would include uh any Land Development regulation um waivers or amendments to the comprehensive plan increase to F will require those additional steps at those other bodies including the land use committee and the planning board okay okay I appreciate it I'll hand it over to my colleagues um a couple questions and a comment um in terms of the the additional steps I understand that they need to happen but um I think typically the steps are with two months in between is there a way that for to expedite this process um we can do one month in between instead of two I don't know if that impinges on the developers ability to prepare adequately but if there's no if that's not an undue burden I think that would be good so that we could catch up from the years that we've been vacillating on this and we could just move this forward um I would suggest that um I I have a question based on your comments about the parking requirements if those aren't set yet and we know that most of the a lot of the um units are going to be some some type of Workforce or affordable housing can we minimize the parking requirements from what they used to be and thereby make maybe the overall cost of this um project less expensive and maybe there's again I'm not negotiating from the days but if if we don't need to spend as you know collectively a bazillion dollars on you know a ton of parking spots there are parking lots all over the place around there and we were trying to disincentivize we don't it's not a warn cars but we know if our population is coming in in this develop I'm sorry I'm trying to be very precise with my words if we know the types of um residents we're going to be appealing to with this development right it's not sort of I don't know we're going to build it for right seniors or and and you know people who may not live here full-time for the more market rate affordable things they might not keep a car here I think we have an opportunity to minimize the parking impact um in a way that won't affect negatively the people who might need cars in other places on other projects that would make the overall cost better maybe there's an opportunity to sweeten the pot a little bit and you know put a little bit more money into maybe multimodal uh Transportation issues I'll let you guys figure that out but I wanted to really focus on that significantly I know um the city has said option one I I don't want the city to be in the business of Designing this um I I'll let obviously the people who are skilled at this with Debbie tacket and mdpl and all the people weigh in on this I I want to be cautious about that um I know also that this has been a very emotional topic for residents who live adjacent to it to um you know Public Safety proponents who know that it's been a big source of calls for service um you know having been a board member of mdpl for years and on the planning board in the historic preservation seat I'm very mindful how of how important it is to to protect the building and I know that some of um my colleagues on the commission have have really prioritized that as well I I'm happy that we have come to this place finally I think it is a good outcome you know is everybody getting everything they want of course not but you know that's the definition of compromise and I think this is a very good one and um I want to see this move forward as quickly and as thoughtfully as possible I want the the design of the the new building to really Elevate the original building I don't want it to overwhelm and overshadow literally and figuratively but I don't I want it to be a backdrop for the jewel that is this this building and the fact that we're getting more units out of it than we would if we just developed it ourselves we are getting the cost of the Redevelopment um being paid for by the developer and we are getting that's not the design no look look in their your handouts and also the designs that are in your handouts are also not the designs um so I I'm fully supportive I would make a motion to to approve this and if we can and if we can um expedite the time between committee meetings I would go forward the administration will certainly do everything possible to expedite all the approvals that will be required and we will work with the developer and their architect to make sure that we can try to hit those Milestones uh as to the parking uh there is some parking that is anticipated to be part of the project and we can certainly negotiate reductions to the parking requirement and those would be um brought forward to the the planning board and to the land use committee if a waiver is being required or a reduction to the parking requirement is being requested what what is the going rate for a parking to build a parking spot right now $60,000 the the last time I looked at this it was about $440,000 space number for like 15 years space consider not just a cost of construction but cost of yeah because building be lower well I love the fact that the developer is going to move forward and give us the $6 million that we spent on it I think that's a great idea I will let you know in advance that I'm not going to spot Zone and increase F across different buildings in Miami Beach without some sort of a plan one of the reasons why when I left city hall yesterday I couldn't even get to 41st Street and we're in September which is one of our really empty months so I'm not it's going to be a big challenge because they're going to have to get unanimous support for a spot zoning um f increase um that I'm not supporting so you know and the reason I'm not supporting it is because you have zero idea of the impact of all of the current developments that are currently going up and I live in a neighborhood and all of mid Beach lives in single family homes and we can't get anywhere and if there was a reliable mass transit I'd say to you fine and I'm going to bring up my real estate client only one more time because it was very interesting to see this weekend that his one comment to me and one of the reasons why he might not move to Miami Beach is because he couldn't get a bus he said that mass transit was so unreliable that uh that it was disturbing to him he doesn't want to have a car so we have you know an unreliable mass transit that's not working we don't have a comp comprehensive plan you got th thousands of units in the pipeline and I can't even get home at night um so I'm just not going to randomly up Zone the whole city building by building one building here one building there let's you know let's give some height over there to the Stanton we just gave them an F increase now let's give them a huge F increase I'm not doing it not without a comprehensive plan Mr chair and and and one reason one of the reasons why I'm not doing it is because I my constituents don't want it and I know that they don't want it I don't know how your constituents feel but I guarantee you that like 99 of my constituents 99% of my constituents have told me literally written and taken the time to tell me and and called they don't want it so I'm not going to do what they don't want and it's not me don't get mad at me you can get angry at my constituents my constituency or the residents um that have lived here their entire lives but I'm not doing it Mr chair yes thank you and uh and I know there's a motion and a second on on the table and I know that you want to end this meeting by by 1:30 the one thing that I also know and I agree with you our constituents are very concerned about about um about growth our constituents are also very concerned about traffic our constituents are also very concerned about housing and affordability and they're asking us to address these issues they our constituents are also concerned about criminal activity happening in this property and are asking us to do something with this property our constituents are also concerned with the preservation of historic buildings from from from Demolition from not being upkept properly these are things that that that that coexists concerns about development but also concerns about all these other issues how do how do we address the traffic issue uh of you're not being able to get to 41st Street at 400 p.m. or 5:00 p.m. well well if we are able to provide people the ability to live in our city and avoid them having to be clogging our outbound Lanes on 41st Street on the MacArthur on the Tuttle uh during peak hours we need to give them the ility to live here how do we address a housing affordability issue in our city by leveraging public assets like these that were acquired to provide public housing at an affordable rate to our residents and to our Workforce how do we achieve the preservation of publicly owned historic buildings by partnering up with entities that can actually put the capital to engage in these expensive Renovations this is how we address holistically a lot of the concerns that our constituents have and it all cannot be done by the government it we just can't afford to to to to do it all I want to thank uh our negotiating team including our assistant city manager Rick H Williams because one of the key things for me was number one to ensure the participation of the Miami Beach Housing Authority Who We Trust to be a partner in the provision of housing in our city and I believe that the Miami Beach Housing Authority Madam manager is participating is is and this is that correct that is the intent of the developer to have a equity partnership with the housing authority to the tune of 20% and so the Housing Authority would uh pay for their Equity stake and they would also participate in the income generated from the project so I would imagine their participation in part is almost an endorsement of this project by default I would imagine that is correct and the project will include uh 14 units at 30% Ami and the likelihood is that the Housing Authority will provide the housing vouchers that will um benefit those units okay and then the other thing that I wanted to make sure because of the long-term nature of this lease we're not selling the property but we're not going to have the property it's going to we're we're we're is transferring it to a private entity uh for for for 99 years though it's not a sale the perception is often create created that these transactions are a sale so I wanted to make sure that the city got as close to the property value as it could as an upfront payment what is the appraise and and I'm sorry colleagues when there's a side conversation going on my ADD is horrible and I get disted Ed and I can't concentrate apologize no it's fine I do it too so I'm sorry yeah um I just got distracted I'm sorry um what is the appraised value of the property so the last appraisal that we did was in December of 2022 and at that time the appraise value was 9.1 million Fe simple um we also uh I I do want to highlight that the RDA did contribute 5 6 million uh to acquiring the property so the 6 million upfront payment certainly covers the rda's investment in the property right and that's something I wanted to highlight because at the beginning of this negotiation how much upfront payment was being offered to the city 1.5 million 1.5 million so we've been able even though this is not a sale of the property we've been able to go up significantly in an upfront payment that the city will be receiving for a project that is going to deliver a public need not just in preservation of a publicly owned asset but in the delivery of much needed uh housing and and and set asides for affordable and Workforce and so the only thing I would ask is uh Madam manager we've had this this conversation I'm going to support this today uh I think we're moving in the right direction there's two things that I'm just going to say and you and I have had this conversation I think you've sh Ed is I think that the moment we move forward with this and we take this this property completely off the table from from uh and you know we're entering into an engagement uh with this team is that the city does get some sort of deposit a deposit with certain benchmarks in place because I do know that as part of The Proposal they're seeking to get uh other subsidies out there that could take time so I just want to make sure that we set certain benchmarks so that so the property doesn't sit empty so that we encourage them to uh move forward on a on on a timely manner the second thing that I would like us to Endeavor in is you know since we only have 30% of the property set aside for Workforce or affordable housing I want to make sure that the remaining 70% that remains at market rate has some sort of a cap uh in terms of Ami uh just because we don't know what the market could hold in the future um markets are unpredictable and it is a publicly owned property I'm all for a market rate but I also want to make sure that it's a market rate that does not get close to a luxury rate that that we're able to make ensure that this public property you know doesn't end up being another piece of luxury inventory and and may I yes of course without negotiating from the Podium I would recommend that potentially that Ami cap be for a portion of the workforce units potentially uh just so that we make sure that the numbers pencil for the for the deal but we will endeavor to negotiate that further and sure have that cap in place whether it's 160 Ami 180% Ami um whatever is the most feasible we can certainly work with the developer on that sure sure and so and so I'm just excited that uh we're finally most importantly we have neighbors to this property that for years have been coming to us begging us begging the city to take care of his an and and it's ironic to me because as a city government we often go out and we give violations and we go after other property owners who don't properly maintain their assets and here we have neighbors coming to us as Commissioners asking us to properly maintain our asset and we're finally moving in a direction that we're that we see see the light at the end of the tunnel to bring new life and restoring safety and proper conditions to this beautiful city assid thank you Mr chair thank you um so I know we have a motion in a second so I I won't believe with this but I will say that I there is a lot of concern I share my colleague Rosen Gonzalez uh commissioner Rosen Gonzalez concern about spot zoning um and vice mayor when you and I were on the planning board we' have this conversation all the time and we kept being told it's not spot zoning it's okay so I hear that and I and I understand and I've been advocating for a master plan or at least a conversation about how we're going to deal with Washington and Lincoln so I hear you loud and clear on this particular instance we've been kicking this around for so very long it is time to figure this out and to address some of the concerns about the height impact the better and faster we can sort out the parking issues the better it will be for the future of this Pro because if we can lower the required height to make this all work by two or three story I don't know what the magic numers I'm not an architect or an engineer but a story two stories um that then addresses some of the concerns about the height and um you know there are renderings in here that are starting points but it is not those are not designs that we are voting on today and so I will urge for the developer and his team to um to know that there is push back from a lot of folks um and so the more um the lower you can make it and the less overwhelming you can make it even in your preliminary masing study directional renderings I know they are not the final designs the better it will be for the conversation and I do and I also hear um you know I'm a huge proponent for keeping the city lower rather than higher and that we have traffic jams that are you know mindboggling but this building this product has nothing to do with our shameful lack of public transportation and I don't want to change the goalposts on this project by saying this that this can't go forward because we don't have sufficient public transportation it's not fair it's not an accurate reflection on the issues and you're not wrong we have shameful public transportation that is a whole separate issue that we need to be tackling in a more robust way and you know this is only our first year of this particular commission so give us until at least the first quarter of next year to get that going it's a legitimate discussion but it shouldn't be put on the shoulders of this and if we are building a project that is deprioritizing parking that means that those folks will not be contributing to the morass that is traffic congestion and with that I suggest we call a vote have right yes we do Wayne please unmute yourself the idea that housing will not create car s is orwellian United States has added uh tens of millions of cars over the last decade alone uh and Miami date county is no different um in fact it's increased 28% in the last decade the number of registered Vehicles so I I just want you to stay away from our wellan discussions about the lack of uh um cars being uh inundated in Miami Beach with new construction you know because that's not helpful uh what's more um the idea that you removing um I believe market rate is the right way to go it adds uh Revenue to the city um and uh you're not going to build affordable housing with a $500 rent in this city um we don't have enough tax dollars we don't have enough um and it it you're lying to the public when you discuss these things things without reality and uh the last point I want to make is that you keep moving the bar po the bar uh the post uh so that um what you're doing is incentivizing developers or or land owners not to update their property because each year you add F you have new discussions with higher Rising discussions of 200 ft 150 ft 400t 600t and so they they they have no no intent of updating their property because they think 5 years from now they're going to get even more money so the process and the discussion is against what your goals are um so please be honest with yourself be honest with the system and try to figure out the best way for Miami Beach thank you thank you Wayne for your comments inputs always welcome I I will say unfortunately in this case the property owner was the city and we were the ones that let this over the past 10 to 15 years fall into derli repair where we had to essentially go begging to the private sector because let's think about the reality let's say we vote this down and it says no what are we going to do where's $30 million come from we owe $30 million for a new fire station and the upkeep of the South Shores Community Center we need millions and millions of dollars for other capital projects if I don't think anybody once and to be in a position where we need to rely on a private sector partner but because the city essentially neglected this property for so long we forced our own thank God it's not demolition by neglect but restoration by neglect and Mr chair we used to have in our community before there was this massive gentrification before there was this massive gentrification we used to have a Workforce that lived in Miami Beach and ever since we've had this great gentrification I'm going to start calling it The Great gentrification ever since we had the great gentrification we've seen what was in Miami Beach what we didn't see before all these extra cars Miami Beach was didn't always have this problem and I've seen it over time over my years of of living here Miami beach every year it gets worse and worse and the and the constant is as it becomes more and more Una affordable to live in Miami Beach you have more people having to commute to Westchester to Sweetwater to haia to to to to Candle to other parts to other suburbs where it's more affordable for them to live because they've been priced out of our city because of a lack of inventory and and and to the last point about you know Property Owners not fixing up their properties because they think that you know years down the road there's going to be uh you know better policies I just want to make it clear whatever policies this commission has been discussing as a b as as a body they don't encourage Property Owners not to fix their their properties because they're tied to a sunset we're not giving properties F or any zoning rights we're giving them incentives to fix up their properties to get rid of nuisances and that's the only way that they can get anything that we're offering them and if they don't do it I think it's 3 years if they don't do it within 3 years or so the incentive disappears and and in essence we are encouraging the property owners to fix up their properties before these these laws that were putting into place disappear because they're all temporary in nature thank you Mr chair do you wait can I just say one thing you know what drives me crazy is that I firmly believe that the majority of our constituents who live here right now we need to serve them and not serve future constituents that don't live here I left city hall yesterday at 5 o'l and I didn't get home until 5:40 and it's September okay and they have not finished all of the ocean front hotels the Amon the bulgary the Rosewood the Shore Club wait the 800 room Convention Center Hotel I mean the 10 buildings in North Beach are you guys not this is crazy Bill and you know why because if I start adding up spot zoning spot zoning spot zoning spot zoning here let's give them a 7 F here let's give them this I you have no idea the impact of what we're doing zero and you know and and we have to start really discussing this for those of you who live in South Beach and you don't need a car that's fine you know is great that life is Rich uh for those of us uh who actually need a car and we have no reliable mass transit the idea of adding more density to what is now in September we cannot get across 41st Street we can't get home okay we're not going to be able to get to the hospital we're going to start having Ser there's going to be serious I would like us to serve and this is what mayor brette from Surfside said who's a property owner here he said you guys need to start serving the residents who live here and instead of building for those who might come and that's really where we are we're not serving our constituents with this we're serving we're serving a special and by the way when the surrounding neighbors who all got together to say yes yes we want to save Collins Park when they see how big that is and they're going to lose all of their privacy they're going to be cast into a shadow because you're increasing the height on this building they are not going to be such happy campers so I mean definitely definitely before you approve this there should be some notice because when I looked at the pictures and I saw the surrounding buildings I was like that's shocking by the way when you do that to somebody they can't even get cell phone service anymore in their house like when I had this concrete structure I just can't even get a phone call anybody who calls me at home knows that my calls drop because I had a cement wall you know built next to me so I don't know I mean i' would love to have a conversation with the building next door the residents not just the members of of Collins Park neighborhood association which are wonderful but um all the surrounding buildings and explain to them hey uh you know we're not just renovating the Barkley you're not getting you know like a three to four story structure you're getting how tall is it it's 100 feet and we have the support of the neighboring building it's 100 feet and um well know height as the convention center yeah that's great it's the same height as a Convention Center across the street and it's much lower than the Octagon which is that's great about a block away and we have the support of our neighboring building we didn't actually I didn't I don't did call on him because I was in the middle of myfield par well anyway I just don't believe in philosophically in this spot zoning actually it's kind of illegal to spot Zone and people aren't supposed to do it on purpose because it doesn't make sense so um that's why I'm you know I'm set now if you came back and said I'm not going to do an F increase maybe you give us a little bit of less money I would rather see something like that and I think commissioner bot said something like that too I know I I I know Ray you just want to build it bigger better build build build build build another tall building I could tell you that our residents don't want us to build build build build build you let Wayne talk can I please talk I I represent people that live in the city too okay and you know who I also represent single mothers they can't afford their rent anymore what have we done in the past 10 years in this city to help housing affordability we haven't done a single thing not one single thing we have built Hotel nightclub hotel hotel hotel the amount of children in my daughter's school whose families have had to move out of our city do you know how many little children my daughter has hugged because our friends can't live in our city anymore those people I represent too and those are the people that I care about as well right when we talk about Washington I don't know any of the developers are land owners there I want to give a dignified living to families that are working in this school my daughter's mother for the personal problems we had is the hardest working person I know the hardest working she works in 105 degrees from 10:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. at night serving drinks at a hotel to give her young daughter a dignified living as a single mother and she can't afford to live in our city she cannot afford to live in our city because we want to say no if you don't own if you're not a millionaire you don't belong here and that is wrong if she needs a realtor I can show her an affordable unit somewhere in South Beach it might not be the exact size she wants but we have a large stock of affordable apartment I can show you right now from 700t units for $3,000 seen from 1,800 Square ft but that's what a lot of these new buildings are are showing I mean that when you look at the units for $800,000 in North Beach that are being built 800,000 for like $550 square feet I'm sorry they are no bigger than the units in South Beach so that argument also doesn't hold a c because these units that we're building by the way the only affordable the only Workforce I I had the microphone and I do not like being interrupted because I have not been interrupting you okay the new units that are being built are not much larger than the older units that we currently have and by the way the only Workforce housing that we have been able to build the only reason that we were able to build the workforce housing in Collins Park is because not only did we give the but not only did we give them the land but we subsidized them with an additional $10 million okay and that was to have normaliz unit the actual property Market is not going to be M they're not the unit sizes are not going to be much bigger than what our Workforce housing currently is so we can complain about this but the newer construction is going to be smaller and more expensive and and by the way the older construction is probably more affordable because these newer constructions will be 2500 $3,000 they're going to be expensive and wait wait wait and don't let's not talk about single moms we're all in the same boat I'm again a single mom and here here is what I would tell you it is not easy Insurance costs are going up my homeowners insurance increased by 60% but you know what that also means it means that we're not getting insured on Miami Beach There's issues at the state level that are going to make it very difficult and drive rents up so even if they build this because the to ensure it will be so expensive to have any kind if it if it's a condo to have reserves will be expensive if it's a rental unit it is going to be so expensive for the property owner ERS to have some kind of insurance that this is somewhat of a pipe dream okay unless you give them so much density that then we won't even be able to get around the city so come on you have to be realistic about what we're going through it's not our fault it's not our fault that the condo laws changed it's not our fault that insurance is going to continue to rise to a to a point where it's not going to be affordable here well I will the but I'm not going to I'm not going to I'm not I'm not going to vote to overbuild you don't have to No One based on this argument I'm not that's what I'm saying I'm not you guys want to overb but then I don't want to hear one traffic complaint one because I'm going to aggregate every single little spot setting that happens and as soon as people in season start to complain about the traffic and I couldn't even get across 41st stre right now I'm going to be like look at this look I'm going to have a list and I'm just going to flash it for everyone to see then you can't complain about traffic and by the way we all know cuz we all went out to fot and what the lady at fot told us was we have no capacity and we have no Solutions so she did say to me keep your density in check so I've been commissioner for five months and haven't improved anything so our traffic apparently is very bad I don't know where all this new construction is that people say have stress or traffic I I I'd love a a map of all these new homes but I'm sorry I didn't interrupt you other I'll turn the floor over to Ray for public Dom okay thank you first off I'm going to go back to something that commissioner Rosen Gonzalez said the reason we have Workforce housing that is being built in cins park right now is that lot and the lot where the garage is was zoned for 50 feet the original garage that was done um by zaha Hadid was 50 feet tall when that job when that went away I said why can't we change the zoning to 75 ft that's right across the street and and built the garage so we built the garage and now all of a sudden you had a lot left over that you could build the workforce housing we raised the height there to do that now the only reason we're raising the height here and and we're up zoning is because you want $6 million up front $6 million when you have a an annual budget of almost a billion dollar you don't need that $6 million if you want to keep the height uh to the 75 ft and you want to keep the F the way it is be willing to accept money less money let them build what they want and the shovel goes in the ground faster right right now the way it's going right now I don't believe that they're going to get the 5 seven votes and the six seven votes they're going to need to increase the F and the height increase and you guys this is all bogus so why don't you break down as a commission and as a finance committee and and figure out what you really want what you're willing to agree to and do it thank you thank you right I believe that there's a motion on the table correct if I could just ask Raquel is the proper place is this to return to commission or is this to is the next place to come back here for funnel approval term sheet or that's what this is so we would request to bring a term sheet to the city commission based on the terms discussed today and found in the memorandum ultimately once there's a negotiated lease it would come back to the firk but that's after the commission gives authorization for that negot so so hey may I think it would sound like that the resolution be to return the commission with a favorable recommendation as the item is uh as presented uh with the final term sheet uh but to in include uh an initial deposit and explore an Ami cap come back us and to and for and for the item to return to return to fiss the request is for the terms discussed today as presented to be presented to the city commission for approval and authorization to go into negotiations of the lease agreement and the item to return to for at a later date at the appropriate time so that the item we don't need new referral right so it's an auto referral and it's already uh this item was already referred by the commission or this project was referred by the commission to the land use committee as well as to the planning board for any necessary waivers or amendments so you will likely see this project travel to other boards Yes actually yes there was a motion and a second yes all in favor yes all in favor commissioner bot no commissioner Rosa Gonzalez um if you're willing to do what Ray says I'm gonna I'm gonna a vote Yes but come back with lesser money and no F increase and then maybe we'll have a deal that's on motion motion then I have to vote this down then I have to vote it down and it's it's probably slated for failure because of the need for spot zoning so I agree with Ray and something realistic should be put on the table I'm a no for right now and maybe in the future I just want the record to reflect I want the record to reflect we asked for this upfront pavement commissioner Rosen Gonzalez M Vice chair we asked for this upfront pavement because at an earlier finance committee you were upset at the lack of payment that the city was receiving and you were saying that the city was not leasing you were saying that the city was selling a city asset for almost no money and we asked the administration to go back and to negotiate and to bring back a deal that actually gave us that gave us money and so I joined you and I supported you when you said that because there is a a public trust issue when you say okay we're leveraging now the public asset we're not getting any money off front it does create this optic that we're giving away public land at a very low rate this was because you requested it and I supported you and so I have an issue when now we go back and we say no you know so well I mean but look at the height and the F did you see it it's big it's really big it's too big for me it's just too big I'm not doing that it's out of scale if I may offer some ification you can't get the 6 million and we can't really we already voted I mean we we can't get the 6 million let the conversation continue the meeting yeah okay I me thank you don't don't get mad at me it was no there was no F increase e e e e for