[Music] [Music] n [Music] [Music] oh [Music] please take your seats the meeting is about to begin please stand by we are going on air in 5 4 3 2 1 hi everybody today is Wednesday April 17th uh my name is Laura Dominguez I'm vice mayor uh and I have my colleagues with me uh commissioner Joe magazine and commissioner uh Kristen Rosen Gonzalez and um also Tanya bot one of our commissioners and thank you Mark Taxas assistant city manager uh Alex Fernandez commissioner is also joining us soon as is David Suarez commissioner and um Rob Rosenwald uh our city attorney thank you so much uh Chief Deputy City attorney and Stephanie Ray Brooks thank you very much uh Stephanie do you have some announcements for us hi yes we have a couple of announcements this meeting will be a hybrid meeting so you could join using Zoom or you can dial in at 1312 626 6799 and we will have one item that will be deferred and that is item number 10 facilities and Fleet Management and the item is discussion regarding Beach concessions regulations and layout to ensure that sufficient areas remain available at all times for public enjoyment of beaches and that is the only item that I have that's differred so we could do thank you so much so the first item that we're going to call is item number 17 I just have a point of order uh yeah okay thank you good morning um at the January meeting of the of the Miami Beach City commission mayor Miner had his comprehensive item his item item on comprehensive plans for for spring break measures at the time uh that that item was heard a motion was made to refer to this committee a review of those measures and to send recommendations back to the city commission the motion was for it to be heard at the April meeting of the public safety and neighborhood quality of life committee this is the April meeting of the public safety neighborhood quality of life committee and that motion was adopted unanimously by the Miami Beach City commission so I need an explanation I need an explanation why in the April agenda the directive of the unanimous body was not followed is not on the agenda because the purpose was for this committee you madam chair as the chair to take the lead to formulate recommendations that then could be accepted by the city Commission and so and so this is a matter that I take extremely seriously I find it highly offensive I find it inexcusable I find it wrong the the directive of the Miami Beach City commission to have this discussion here today was ignored and not followed by whom why under whose directive and under whose authority I need that answer and I need it now uh thank you commissioner yes thank you commissioner Fernandez um at the last commission meeting um commissioner Tanya bot had put a motion to have a special commission meeting about spring break and since that meeting is tomorrow uh to have it twice um I thought would be repetitive thank you madam chair and but the item was to have a special meeting but we did not resend the directive of the January City commission and the point was to make recommendations like with every item that the city commission has that we sent to committee we make recommendations and then the recommendations are sent to the city commission to be adopted or not adopted by the city commission um thank you commissioner Fernandez uh City attorney uh Rosen Wald um any comments uh on uh the directive that the committee took to have the special commission meeting tomorrow well it's certainly within the chair's discretion to set the agenda for this meeting whether uh something is referred for a specific time or not and uh of course the chair takes into consideration the will of the body and also scheduling matters and also uh perhaps the understanding that the special meeting was actually to per perhaps take the place of the neighborhood's discussion which was my understanding of of your understanding um thank you and duly noted commissioner Fernandez I appreciate your input always thank you okay let's begin the meeting um Stephanie number 17 all right we have item 17 discuss considering of revision to the city's current process for handling fines and penalties for signage and other small city code violations this item will be presented by code and it is sponsored by commissioner B uh commissioner would you like to te it up yeah just um a a quick introduction um it just seems that we have some limited capacity to enforce um fines and um penalties for things that are not being handled correctly by business owners or individuals in the city and um a lot of that is set by the state yet even within our small um purview of what we are permitted to do it is still pretty complicated um there's not a lot of teeth to the penalties um things can get referred to special magistrate to get appealed and it feels like you know it's something we've all campaigned on and our residents have been talking about for years um that we really need to have very consistent uh And Timely and effective enforcement on things that we can control and you know every day the state takes those away from us so the few that we have we want to make sure that we do um so this was an item to really discuss how to make that process better thank you um and we have code here hernand and Tom hi good morning uh hernand cardino Code Compliance department so yeah the ask was for um for us to identify those violations in Chapter 58 and our ldrs that do not have fins associated with them and some that do um what we would ask is as we go through some of these um codes of uh laws and ordinances is that maybe we have like our sanitation violation which um allows a time to cure before the fine actually sets in so that there's a reinspection for compliance and then thereafter we would have a fine kick in um same thing with our sign ordinance um as you know our sign ordinance does not have any fines attached and it does go to the special magistrate for adjudication and fines to run after there's a date of compliance that's not a Ed by The Violator um in the attachment you'll see some of the Chapter 58 of violations with Associated fines and then of course the escalation um and as we know U some of these fines do become the daily running fines become hard dollar leans against the folio owner you know I'm I'm all for um giving small businesses the opportunity to cure a violation but it seems like it goes on and on and on and then it gets referred to the special magistrate or if things get you know made into leans against the property I mean we've got the doville property that has millions of dollars and fines that we can't access that they're not paying they're they're very recalcitrant um in curing anything I mean that's an extreme example um but I'd like to hear from you guys what you think we could be doing you know small business owner didn't know that the sign they put in the window is not up to code they've got two weeks to fix it fine but we've got a lot of people who aren't like that and so then you know sending it to special magistrate for them to make their case and that takes months and months and months um and then you know up until now I mean we we just changed this but up until now it could be get um deferred at special magistrate for months each side going back and forth what can we do to make this more efficient and more concise and more responsive to what we are all all of us the staff and residents and all of us here on the days are looking for you know it's one thing if you don't know and you have an opportunity to fix it and you fix it but after that or if it's a repeat offense or if you just don't care there are consequences to the actions right I mean why are we letting the Bad actors get away with things that the good actors take pains to get right the first or second time and how do we how do we make that um just a little bit of a tighter process and that would be our recommendation is that we do merror just like we do with our sanitation violations where they have 24 hours to comply it gets us an immediate uh reinspection so that that isore of the sanitation just being there uh the garbage being there is picked up and if it's not picked up within those 24 hours then the fine violation kicks in and then the hard dollar costs for removal for of this garbage but then does it get sent on to the special magistrate to be appealed and like how how does that work well they'll always have an appeal period for the fine that's being instituted on the violation yes so if in 24 hours they haven't cured the issue the fine starts but still perhaps the issue hasn't been addressed so it could then go on for months because it doesn't get um heard by the special magistrate for a couple of months perhaps and there's a deferral at you know one per side maximum now but that's maybe four or five months and what enforcement mechanism do we have to insist upon um people adhering to the code I mean we're not making stuff up on the fly like oh we don't like you or you had to change the color of your sign from red to blue um these are the laws of our our of our city and it's one thing it's perfectly fine if you make a mistake or you didn't know or you know whatever that's fine but for those people who are not the good actors who are not trying to do the right thing who just skate by how do we keep this from dragging out for half a year or more so in some of our ordinances um it actually has a time limit for when there's no compliance that a second violation or third violation would apply and then it would be escalating on the fine schedule um we find that in our noise ordinances too if after 15 minutes you haven't cured that noise uh then you're subject to an escalating fine schedule and how do you collect the fines once they've escalated the people are scoff laws and they just don't care they're not curing they're not responding they just don't care uh maybe the city attorney's office can help us with that um usually we do file leans uh when we have recurring fines or daily running fines but those are adjudicated by the special magistrate but the leans aren't payable until the property changes hands right or it's uh refinance uh pledged mortgage sold that could that could be decades so there's there's like and I'm not this is not me coming at you guys at all but this is like there is in the system which is very well- intended there's a gap right so if we've got escalating fines that a crew as leans against your property but you own your property outright you're not refining financing and your derel owner they don't care they're never going to be held accountable and when they die and their their property passes on to somebody else um then it will be part of the purchase price negotiations and Meanwhile we're 20 years later living with a crappy uh you know store owner let's say doing nasty things in the neighborhood so how do we how do we fix that hole that unintended consequence is schol well just sort of you got a very good summary from code from the Le legal perspective there are a couple of things that we could do the first is like we're doing with our uh nuisance Party House lawsuits which we just initiated in the last year we've had a great success with three big cases uh with Scot ball businesses if we uh if they just refuse to uh bring themselves into compliance we can also in addition to going to special Master we can take them to court and have them declared a nuisance um as far as the fines that keep ACR until as a lean until the house is sold or the b or whatever till the property is sold we do that be well for a couple of reasons first because it's the easiest way for us to collect because we sort of automatically get it but we could if you wanted us to uh and and it would take resources and uh and and we would need to figure out the budgetary impact of that but we could bring lawsuits to foreclose on the property uh immediately if they didn't pay and if they had ongoing fines as soon as uh the amounts were set we could sue to collect or we could foreclose on our lean uh it would uh like I said that would be very labor intensive but it would be much more immediate and uh and I would note it's also some somewhat less financially good for the city because the interest rate that we get on a lean and the without having to pay for attorney fees to collect it and everything else is actually better than we might get in other cases so sort of just from a dollar and cents perspective it is sometimes better to just let it run as a lean because we're making a lot of money on that but but as I hear what you're saying and if you want enforcement quickly the option from legal is we we could go to court but that that takes resources and that's not something that we're doing on a widespread basis now do do you guys have information not necessarily here at your fingertips but do is there can you pull together information that um indicates how many egregious offenders we have I mean is it five people in the city who have just running lists of fines that they just don't care about or is it you know a hundred that like I I don't know the scope of how bad this is but I guess for me I understand that it's it's more um financially efficient and beneficial to do it you know with the leans and special magistrate and let it play out but we're all of us are up here and and those of us who aren't I think it maybe only the mayor who's not up here with us today but he is of the same mind that you know we have laws on the books we don't need to keep adding laws uh we have laws in the books they need to be adhered to um the good operators do a great job of that and the bad operators skate by so there's a balance here that has to happen between what is efficient and cost effective versus what sends a pretty strong message like you can't get away with this anymore and whether you're a tiny little smoke shop tucked away in a corner or the biggest nightclub it the law applies equally to you and you should be held responsible equally and so it would be useful I think to see for part of this discussion how many people would fall into this category of um being potential targets of Suits because they have a running list of violations that they don't have any interest in curing because at the end of the day I'm less interested in generating revenue for the city in 20 years than I am for in cleaning it up today for all of us so I think we need a little bit more information um you know a financial analysis and an analysis from you guys to determine you know there they're only four these guys and they're really terrible offenders let's go get them and everyone else we can we can adjust and go to the sanitation model and that you're mentioning and and we can tweak things but again if we send a strong message then people will stop hopefully stop doing this thank you commissioner why don't we move this item to the full commission with them bringing that analysis that you mentioned and then we can close it out with both the the legal okay perfect thank you thank you all item number 13 item number 13 is discuss the use of a centralized web portal for improving the city's permit process and Frank inano will be presenting good morning so this item was originally uh brought to the September 13th 2023 Commission meeting by mayor Miner who was then a commissioner and he requested for a referral to the public safety um and neighborhood quality of life committee to discuss a centralized web portal to bring in the different aspects of the permitting process to a single place on the website and make it easier for residents and business owners to to find elements of that uh our department uh worked on this page prior to that meeting and it's been live since August 29th of 2023 uh that was done as a collaborative effort with all of the other City departments that partake in the permitting process in some capacity and the website the page is located on the city's website at Miami beach.gov permits and since we went live in August it's received uh well over 24,000 views on average per month uh so it's been well received uh it has a lot of traffic it seems to have have uh helped a lot of the residents that had reached out to us about some of the transparency and centralized information great um colleagues on the committee any comments Madam chair I'm not on the committee but no you don't get to no uh commissioner Fernandez thank you uh I know uh we we sponsored and we adopted a study uh that that's been presented to us in in the past and it had a number of recommendations also as a related to online uh processes and trees uh to help um facilitate the flow of the process uh with the building department is are those recommendations from that study I think I had sponsored it um is are those being implemented as part of this uh portal so the the link to that will be available as part of that portal uh that is a product that we are working with a software provider who is Tyler Technologies it's a module that ties into the permitting process that we have added on that's something that we have a contract signed for and we are scheduled to begin in the next 60 days or so uh once their project resources are available so we're taking this as incremental improvements the portal was the first easy thing that we could address uh and that is absolutely something that we've worked on as part of the uh ad hoc committee that we're working on interde departmentally wonderful thank you so much thank you madam chair thank you all right let's close this item out next item is number 11 number 11 is discuss and protect uh discussion protecting Andor moving the historic North Beach Tower to a different location in North Beach commissioner Rosen Gonzalez good morning everyone I'm going to go directly to Debbie tacket our historic preservation expert for those of you who don't know it's the pylon it's that big white thing that's thank you commissioner um uh the commissioner is correct it is um it's attached to a building that's located on the corner of Harding Avenue in 71st Street um it was actually an addition to the bank building uh it was in addition about 10 years after the original building was constructed for the purpose of providing signage so right now I don't believe there's any real signage on it um but the idea was that uh the bank needed more visibility and in the 1950s and 60s signage you know those Sky signs were very popular uh technique for advertising businesses so that was added um there's also an almost identical one located um between 7th and 8th on Washington Avenue um that was done by the same architect in the same building that particular property is located within a local historic district so any modifications or removal of that would require a public hearing this particular property is not located within any historic district um so therefore it is not protected um we spoke last to the committee and I know we have a new committee now so welcome everyone um last year so it's been over a year or about a year since um this was last discussed at that meeting uh the direction was to provide a cost estimate for potentially relocating um the pylon and also to explore the potential reconstruction of a pylon somewhere within city property um so staff had reached out to our uh continuing Services Engineers um and we are not able to provide any significant or or detailed cost estimate at this point due to the fact that further study would need to be done in terms of how the uh the structure would be cut and what route it would take to be relocated there are certain elements such as um power lines um and other considerations that could significantly increase the the difficulty and cost of a relocation we also don't know um the existing structural conditions what what the strength of the concrete is um what the strength of any reinforcing steel within the structure is and if it could even be successfully Recon constructed in another site um once we have identified a site additional study would be need to be made regarding the introduction of Foundations to support the structure it is quite large it's about 55 ft tall um weighs well over 100,000s currently um further I mean the Administration has looked at this we have some concerns with regarding the appropriateness of removing such an iconic element elent that was really um part and parcel to its site right it was in a commercial Corridor as a signage element removing it from its context loses a lot of associative value that the existing pylon has um that in in with the unknown costs I mean we I think we can um surmise that it would be extremely costly um although I don't have a specific number for you a structure of that size and of that age um to to re relocate it and and Patch it back together um would be an extremely costly Endeavor thank you um Debbie well I appreciate the discussion committee members any comments I'm not sure what to do with this I mean the property owners are frustrated because they haven't been able to do anything and they can't really move it because this item is pending with HPP it's very difficult there is a matching pylon on Washington Avenue correct that is correct and that one is protected yeah I how do you guys feel about this because at this point I what what are you advising you want us to to conclude the item we do not think it's from a historic preservation standpoint um we do not think it's appropriate to remove it from its commercial Corridor context and put it as an i isolated structure especially given the fact that we do have the one in its original context on Washington Avenue um and the probably significant unknown costs are all of a concern and I did the the property recently sold commissioner um and uh I believe the planning director has spoken with the new owner and at this point they have no plans to remove the structure they they are going to keep it at this point they're looking at the velopment options for the site so then I'm just going to move to terminate this item in the interim I know there's a group of people that are going to be upset about this in North Beach because they really wanted to save it and I was trying to give them I think commissioner bot wants to well commissioner magazine wanted to speak first that's fine and I think I'm along the lines Debbie I know you can't specifically quantify but even if it's a broad very broad range are we talking $10,000 are we talking $250,000 or million say it's probably north of the 250 number yeah uh commissioner bot we're terminating this item do you have anything to add a question um Debbie are you able to keep us um you know I want to join commissioner Rosen Gonzalez and whatever might happen down the road so this was all predicated based on the fact that the building was being sold and that Tower was at risk if the building is being redeveloped in a way that keeps the tower then I think the need to protect it um goes away which would be the best situation for everybody um but if when the plans get submitted can you let us know where the tower stands and all of this because then I think if it is no longer part of the site then I think there may be a conversation about do we replicate something in the park or whatever because I know there's one in nor in in uh South Beach on Washington but this is a very visible and meaningful it sounds weird but it is a wonky meaningful signal of what North Beach is and we lost the log cabin and we're waiting for that and we've lost this and we lost that and the buyer in carile is going to be reimagined so it is not just concrete it's got a lot of other stuff and so spending half a million dollars to move the existing one may not be the best option but if it you know the best option is for it to stay where it is barring that if it is going to be lost to construction maybe there's an opportunity to commission a sculpture for alto Delmar park or something that replicates it and so any point being please just keep us posted so we can not let this you know wake up one day and say oops we blew another one absolutely commissioner and I just would like to point out that although I haven't personally seen any Redevelopment plans for this particular property this will any Redevelopment will require a public Hearing in front of the design review board which you all would be notified about and the members of the public would also be noticed thank you so we're concluding the item uh next one is 23 23 and is discuss protecting single family home development from new construction commissioner Rosen Gonzalez yes3 is this you too Debbie yes it is of planning go ahead you can uh te it up I put this on because what's happening with the new uh flood regulations and the fact that some homes are being built way higher 10 feet 12 feet higher than the homes next door some of them don't have the appropriate retaining walls and I wanted us to have a discussion about how we could protect the homes that are existing you know from these new constructions look I I understand that we're raising uh streets the building code has changed but what can we do further than than we're already doing and and if someone for example goes in builds a single family home the retaining wall isn't working and their property starts to flood do we have any do do do the residents have any recourse have we provided them with any recourse so commissioner if I could just um go through the current regulations um with regard to this issue um the prior to even the the adoption of the resiliency code there there the single family development regulations do include a requirement that where elevations are being modified um and the adjacent home is lower than the new modified uh elevation of the yard that all storm water be retained on site so that is already in the books um and has been for quite some time when we developed the resiliency code um we actually looked at this issue and included additional safeguards for single family homes including uh the requirement that a retaining wall or a uh very shallow slope a 5:1 slope be introduced on the property that is being elevated higher than its neighbor um or a combination of both we think this has been this is the best Safeguard um to require it we also have certain aesthetic uh requirements for that retaining wall um to protect the neighboring property from just you know some type of blank wall we require a high quality finish on it um we do believe that this is sufficient um the city is in a transition period in our single family neighborhood and we recognize that there are awkward moments when when a new home is built in accordance with required new elevation um that there does need to be some consideration which is why we had included this in our resiliency code turning well what about landscape protections that's the other thing that bothers me is you can come along build a new home next door and there's no requirements to kind of screen this huge cement structure from you know I I I think that we should include at least a landscape requirement that we don't currently have right I mean that's something that would require a change to the single family development regulations but that's something certainly that we could consider and the commission could direct us to take a look at that how would you guys feel about potentially requiring Landscaping to screen sure because it's not you know a property owner is you know they're living in their home and all of a sudden you know the home next door gets purchased they're losing their privacy and I think that these new homeowners who are selling their houses that they purchased for two or three million for like 10 and 12 million they could at least provide some sort of most of them are Speck houses by the way um I think that we should require them to landscape it so that this bonus doesn't fall on you know the property owner if what do you think of that I think it sound if I could through the chair I I think it sounds good in theory I'm just trying to think through some of the potential unintended consequences of having it as a steadfast requirement as opposed to maybe uh suggestion to the drb I'm not you know strong one way or another I'm just trying to think it sounds like a great idea and I I think it kind of helps in this transition period that Debbie pointed out I'm just trying to be sure if we put it as a uh black and white requirement that it doesn't provide any unintended consequences Madam chair I would guarantee you oh sorry push your magazine and I just I would guarantee you that homeowners across Miami Beach would be very grateful if we implement this requirement because you get this house so first of all you're losing all of your privacy right then you're required to go in and Landscape they don't really care because they're far high above you but you know all of a sudden you've got people like peeping into your pool you never asked for that the the setbacks are a little bit better now but if we had some sort of minimum screening requirements um from planning I think it would go a long way in softening the blow commissioner Fernandez thank you madam chair um so so so you're speaking specifically in part because the item I think it's looking at the retaining walls and the visual impact of the retaining walls right and let me let me just ask with the sign review board and their review criteria what what is considered uh by the drb uh what is it that they objectively have to consider in their review criteria when they're looking at an an application that may potentially have have a retaining wall where perhaps the true impact of that wall is not on the applicant that is being reviewed before the body but rather on a a budding property that is not really being reviewed but yet it's going to be subject of the of the of the impact so so so how does a review criteria take that into consideration um that's that's a great question so the design review re criteria um does take adjacent properties into consideration when an applicant goes before the design review board they're required to provide some basic information about their neighbors um the design review board does review compatibility of new construction to its adjacent neighbors and the surrounding context you know at large um the design review board also reviews in great detail landscape plants um there is a landscape architect on the design review board and they often uh impose conditions when single family homes are reviewed by the design review board they're also publicly noticed um typically staff will advise applicants before we even get to that point to reach out to their neighbors to discuss any potential concerns that their neighbors may have and integrate solutions to those concerns within the plans before they even get to the design review board it's important to point out however that um many new single family homes no longer require going through the design review board process um staff does have the ability to review new homes in accordance with the design review criteria um but not at that level of scrutiny and not with the public being noticed and can I Mo to it well I just have one more question with I'm Sor fernandz thank you um with the retaining walls are there setbacks on the retaining walls because to to to commissioner Rosen Gonzalez's point if they are let's say Landscaping uh that is placed on the uh to to to to to help uh insulate the neighboring property from the visual impact of it well is that now is that Landscaping now on the neighbor property or do we take into consideration a potential setback from the property line and the retaining wall to be able to incorporate I mean these are just you know thoughts that come into mind currently um there's required setbacks up to a certain height so in the front in any sort of rear facing a Waterway or a a golf course is if I foot limit from adjusted grade and the interior sides past your front yard you can go up 7 ft from adjusted grade so you know that that can still be pretty tall if it's taller than that there are additional setback requirements but you can go right up to the property line up to 7 feet above the adjusted grade thank you Debbie um a sponsor commissioner Rosen Gonzalez uh how about sending it back to commission with a recommendation uh to refer to land use for further discussion I'm fine with that I'll make that motion okay somebody second that yeah I'll second it okay all in favor all right uh so let's uh move with that recommendation um next item number 28 number 28 discuss upcoming Miami Dade County venation Causeway Bridge projects and that was a supplemental that I emailed to you all yesterday and you guys have a printed one on the days thank you Mr Gomez good morning Madam chair and and Commissioners um you asked us to go back and and there were three specific areas that you wanted us to to look at um the first one was higher tolling during construction and of course um the tolling structure on the Venetian Causeway is dictated by Miami day County as that it's used to pay for the operations and maintenance of the The venan Causeway Bridges and it'll also be used to pay The Debt Service once the the bridges are replaced so any increase in the tolls would have to would would require Miami date County uh approval for that the second uh area you wanted us to look at was limiting access to Residents during construction um this is obviously a significant effort because in order to do that we would have to have our PD uh be able to enforce this at both ends of of of the causeway and to do that that would be add a significant cost to the project and I would think that Miami day County uh because this is a county project would ask us to Beil the cost of that the third option which is one that I believe commissioner magazine pford was um um uh Transit options there is a current um bus that serves the Venetian Causeway which is Route 15 and it operates on on during the weekdays it operates uh 30 minute headways during the morning and the afternoon Peaks I think one option that we could certainly explore with Miami day County and and my colleagues Jose Gonzalez from Transportation can certainly weigh in but is to increase the frequency of the headways during um the morning Peak the midday Peak which is what we call the 12: to 2 the lunch and then the afternoon Peaks as well uh to increase the frequency of that Headway maybe from 15 from 30 minutes to 15 minutes uh during those times to provide more Transit options um committee members any comments here's what I will ask um if because it sounds like there's some missing answers uh go to the county about the tolls and find out if they're open to that and uh the PD calls if the county would help with those costs or if it would in fact be the city of Miami Beach and uh send us an LTC when you have that information very good we'll do so thank you and we'll close this item um next one is 27 number 27 is discuss resolution 2023-24 n directing the administration in the city attorney's office to evaluate whether the city could purchase the 63rd Street Bridge from the state of Florida or exploring entering into an agreement with the state for the city to operate the bridge on behalf of the state at the city's expense which would provide the city with the ability to better control the bridge schedule and mitigate the sever vehicular traffic congestion caused by the bridge opening okay commissioner Rosen Gonzalez it sounds like a crazy idea it does but right now we have zero jurisdiction over this bridge opening we've tried to ban the charters oh we just Bann the you know thank you to commissioner Suarez we finally banned the charters but we're still seeing those boats you guys were at Cafe Bernie the other night you saw a couple of of Charters go by so I would love us to even if we're not let's say that we're not purchasing the bridge and I do know that the Coast Guard is saying that they are always going to control the operations of the bridge but I would love for us to direct the administration to send some one to Tallahassee and negotiate explain to the governor what's happening with this bridge the impact on the tens of thousands of people the traffic blockages that it's costing and figure out some way for us to be able to control when this bridge is open and have specific times of the day right now the directive is whenever there's a vote there and I think it needs to be I think that voters or Charters need to know that there's only certain hours of the day that we're going to be opening that bridge they can plan their Charters around that that way we open maybe it only opens four times a day and and those boats are going to know that that's when they go but we're never going to know if we don't at least try I don't know how you feel about this it sounds crazy I'll make a comment um the way I feel is that even if we purchase it the Coast Guard still decides and there would be no added benefit than to purchasing it because then we would have to assume the maintenance of the bridge um and we would still have no control um my colleagues I think can I can I answer that yes I I'm I'm not even saying that we decide to purchase it let's say and our let's make it a legislative priority to have our lobbyists that we're going to be paying a bunch of money when we figure out whoever it's going to be that's representing Us in Tallahassee at least begin to have some sort of conversation to possibly take over the management of this bridge um maybe it's not a purchase but to not have a conversation with them or not at least have it on a list of legislative priorities I don't see the harm in adding it to our priorities commissioner Suarez I mean Vice chair Suarez okay uh Jose has what's the process of asking that the bridge be open uh during certain hours only um does the Coast Guard have I I remember vaguely that we used to have it on every hour the issue that caused was that there would be a lot of boat backup and there would play noise and it would be disruptive to the residents um but now that we've sort of of really curtail Charter activity uh it seems like the boats that are going through there are just Leisure boats uh and is there is there a way that we can ask the Coast Guard to open the bridge every 90 minutes good morning Madam chair committee members uh that is correct there is a process the US Coast Guard has a process for these types of requests we've gone through that process before in Prior years as you mentioned the the bridge was on different schedule and it actually had no lockdown period during the peak traffic times about I would say 8 years ago now uh we worked with the Coast Guard um commissioner Mickey Steinberg was instrumental uh and sponsored that legislation and we worked with the Coast Guard to establish restrictions whereby during the morning peak hours and the afternoon peak hours the bridge does not uh open except for and there's always the accept for that's federal law whereby emergency vessels and vessels in distress tugs and Toes must be allowed passage by the bridge tender and so we worked years ago with the Coast Guard to to get so in terms of the process it involves many times a traffic study which we're currently doing already we've collected data both vehicular data you know the impact that the bridge openings has on the roadway Network as well as vessel um volumes and and data not necessarily whether what type of vessel it is because unfortunately the bridge logs that dot um maintains don't get into that level of specificity whether it's a charter vessel or not but uh just you know in terms of volumes of vessels and when those vessels are crossing we have that data and we're using that data to model what uh different scenarios one scenario is if the bridge would because currently when it's not restricted during the nonrestricted times it opens every half hour and so there there have been a lot of of complaints and suggestions that perhaps if the Bridge opened once an hour versus once every 30 minutes it would be better on the traffic Network because it would at least allow the um the network to recover what happens is every 30 minutes you know yeah but is it so is it POS through the chair is it possible to ask them for every 90 minutes I mean is that out of the ordinary for them or is it you know maybe even every two hours I think it would be out of the ordinary um they're going to ask for data the Coast Guard's going to ask what does the data show what do the models show if we open every 30 minutes which is the current condition if we open every one hour which is what we're modeling and we can perhaps also Model A different scenario of 90 minutes or something along those lines and then I think the data is going to is is is what's going to be the indicator for the Coast Guard in terms of what they would be willing to authorize and who who who handles that I guess negotiation is it transportation from Miami beach with the Coast Guard correct that's and through the through the Florida Department of Transportation because 63rd Street is a state road it's State Road 9007 it's part of Alton Road so fot would need to be involved as well and they operate the bridge so do you think by purchasing this bridge bridge does it give us any more leverage in these negotiations uh well in in terms of purchasing the bridge and and I want to point out there's a separate but related discussion um that was the outcome of the February commission meeting whereby the administration was asked to look at taking over uh several state roads the primary arterials including 63rd Street so as part of that that larger process we are exploring you know the statutory process that we would need to go through through working with with fot to uh to see you know what what it would take and then I think the traffic study would give from a traffic perspective the advantages the disadvantages the pros and the cons of of uh of the different bridge openings but in terms of ownership I I want to reiterate what uh commissioner Christian Gonzalez said which is that regardless of who owns it the Coast Guard establishes and regulates those hourss and and just just last La last question how far along or how much longer do you need for that study to finish so the study is currently being reviewed by fot it's been completed it's in draft form and it's being reviewed by fot and we have we're pending their their comments on the study so I within the next few weeks okay but Jose have we ever gone to the federal government to remove that bridge have we ever put it on our federal lobbying uh short list to actually send somebody up to Tallahassee have a conversation State it's what the state the state now it's own well I mean yes but it's a federal guideline with the Coast Guard that's why it's so complicated it's a state management Federal I mean like maybe it's something simple that we can have we never made it a legislative priority but I think taking control of when this opens taking it away from the Coast Guard are you positive there's no way every single bridge in the safewire and every single Waterway is is managed by the Coast Guard are you sure Jose commission to me doesn't I guarantee you that there are other we'd have to see if there's a you know a bridge uh over navigable Waters that is not owned or I I'm not aware of one but we haven't done that that search then what I would suggest to all of you who are going to be here many more years is that you at Le put in the pipeline that maybe we get a new bridge that accommodates higher boats something uh some sort of flyover because this problem is not going to go away and it's it's you know and I I'm hoping that this traffic study that's been ongoing for years and years and years but I would like to I mean maybe you put this in process now 10 years from now it's not impossible to build a new bridge we built a new bridge with Philip LaVine it was difficult but we did it we got the funding um we built that bridge that really connected West Avenue and that was defined so you know it's not impossible to do it if we all you know make an effort and where there's a will so I just don't want this item to kind of get lost in the shuffle commissioner magazine yeah thank you madam chair Jose uh can I ask if you reach out to your uh counterparts at the city of Miami and see what uh successes and challenges they've had with the Bickle Bridge because I understand that there's uh similar issues probably even more um of a greater magnitude there given their increased traffic and it's a similar push back that they've received over the years um probably even more so for us because they actually have uh commercial shipping ports there that need to be accessed so the Coast Guard from my understanding is always pushed back but perhaps you can these with your counties there to get uh if there are some best practices that they have experienced success with I know they have limitations on hours um but some of the ideas my my colleagues have suggested just reach out to your your counterparts at the city of Miami to see where they stand in that process and then I would say to all of us um you know we've seen kind of firsthand that there are that there can be interests in our city that at times have more juice and pull in Tallahassee uh than perhaps even our entire city uh and we have some of the most well-connected uh business people in the entire State uh even in the entire country that are undertaking significant projects uh in that direct area and we should be putting it in front of them fra and Center that their ability to sell some of the most high pric condos in the entire world is going to be contingent on figuring out this traffic solution and we need to put all hands on deck and ask them to assist us in uh you know essentially officially or unofficially lobbying their counterparts in Tallahassee and at fot thank you commissioner where do you want to go with this um I just want to answer what what he it's interesting that you just said that because I was looking at new guidelines a lot of people ran and got their building permits in town center MH and but now they're going to go back and they're going to want bigger higher more more more over 20 feet they might come back and say we want what's the tallest building in the area they could come back and say they want way more I think that when they do they're they should probably pay into some sort of uh fund and I'm working on that right now so it's it's interesting that you say you know we have to work with the private sector so I'm in the process right now of creating guidelines if you want to come back and you want to re redo your building permit hopefully it'll be I have a referral on the meeting the the May 15th meeting hopefully uh you know they're going to have to if they want to go bigger higher F and completely circumvent us with these new laws well we're going to really make them pay into a fund in order to do so I don't know how you feel about this but I'm hoping that all of you would sponsor it mam sure commissioner Fernandez thank you um to the trans Transportation director so clearly uh Coast Guard the one that operates this is it the Coast Guard directly or do they subcontract an entity uh that uh that actually handles the operation the opening and the closure of the bridge the operations and the maintenance of the bridge are sub subcontracted by fdot by FD by fot as as the owners of the roadway which includes the bridge and who do they subcontract that too I don't know the name of the company of the contractor okay um because the the I mean part part of the issue is that it's from what I sense from what I've heard and from what we all experienced is that the bridge is opening more often than than than what it should a boat shows up and they don't wait till the half hour they don't wait till the hour and you know what remedies I mean if this is a subcontract contracts with governmental entities usually have Provisions for remedies when when the contract isn't followed to the to the standards of of of of what is prescribed in in the in in the agreement and so and and so I would I would I would wonder you know does the contract stipulate that the bridge uh you know should draw only you know on the hour and on the half hour does it say that in the contract and if it does say that on the contract and it can be proven that that is not happening well then what are the remedies that can be placed uh on on that State Contractor to to at least you know have them adhere to the appropriate schedule sure um very good points commissioner we have reached out to to f to to try to understand um their the the contract and the operations of of the bridge tenders and one thing we do is we periodically request the bridge logs from the dot and they share those logs with us and then we scrub those logs to see how many exceptions to the rule there there have been and there have been some it's it's not in abundance uh and so we approach fot when that happens we approach fot one of the things that that we learned interestingly enough is for example the afternoon restriction begins at 4:05 p.m. and it ends at 6:59 p.m. so between those hours the bridge does not go up however if the so the last the last scheduled opening in the afternoon for that bridge is at 4 o'clock if the bridge opens at 4 401 it takes minutes for it to go up the gates go down the bridge goes up the vessels have to pass it's usually it's usually since it's the last authorized Crossing there's usually high demand of vessels that are wanting to cross and so that that opening spills sometimes 20 minutes into the restricted hours and we've approached F do with that issue because I think that's when we're getting a lot of the complaints from residents drivers saying the bridge is up and it's 420 why is the bridge up and and so F's been thank you thank you uh commissioner Ren Gonzalez here here's what my motion would be I would like to make a motion to make it both estate and Federal one of our priorities to speak to both federal government and the state government and see how we can improve the current management situation and um and and what's happening right now and see what they can do in terms of either funding um I'll second that motion and I'd like to make my own motion I'd like to direct the administration to request that the bridge be opened every 90 minutes and if that's not possible every 60 minutes okay all in favor C can I ask one one question commissioner uh very quickly um the opening and operation of the bridge uh in that blackout period uh I think it allows for emergencies correct is that operation because you could really uh the term emergency seems to be very generous and ambiguous with the opening of that bridge during restricted times and the length that is open for would that be something under the purview of our Inspector General legal Maybe I'm sorry I was just writing the motion could you repeat that uh it's very generous for just observing firsthand for what can be deemed an emergency for vehicles passing vessels passing through during uh quote unquote restricted times um and that's actually been an issue that was abused uh in past years in our region is that operation of when the bridge opens during restricted times is that something that would be under the purview of our Inspector General well our Inspector General doesn't have any authority over the coast or contractors but our Inspector General can do an investigation and a study and put out a report on whatever you direct that impacts uh City interests it just wouldn't have any any any force behind it okay Vice chair um yeah yeah I've heard anecdotal stories of the the bridge tenders being paid off by these Charters and so that that's yeah it's it's not unwarranted to to have an investigation on this so but at any rate um if I make a motion to ask that can we do that at committee or does it have to go to commission first well what you would be your motions here are to refer something back to the commission for an ordinance or a resolution to do what you're asking them to do and currently I have two motions one uh from from commissioner Rosen Gonzalez to make a state and federal legislative priority of these items and and that was seconded by you uh commissioner SZ and then I after the after we discuss and vote on that one I have a separate motion from you commissioner SES to uh to suggest opening every 90 minutes or at a minimum every 60 Minutes that has not yet been second I'll second that okay so that was been seconded all in favor wait wait wait we're still on the first one uh so uh commissioner Rosen Gonzalez if you're done talking about that do you want to take a vote on that since it's been seconded sure which is which is to make uh a legislative priority federally and state to uh to make the bridge schedule more advantageous to us and I promise that if we do this I'll meet with our lobbyist and and go up there and really I think if we explain this and start the process because there has to be some sort of some sort of fix in the future future the capital Improvement style fix on the bridge commissioner bot did you have a comment it's mov now thanks Madam chair if I may just just one last comment uh once we receive the comments from fot on the traffic study we'd be happy to brief uh each each of you on the on the findings and the recommendations of send us an LTC okay okay thank you okay so did anyone uh want to vote no on the first motion and then turning to the second motion did anyone want to vote no on that okay so we'll send both back to the commission with those recommendations thank you item 14 item 14 is discussed uh wait discuss regarding the coaming of a Miami Beach Street in honor of women who have significantly impacted the city's history and culture uh commissioner bot yeah this um was was brought by um um the commission for women uh and it was has been pointed out that of all the honorary um or honorary names of streets um not a one has been made for a notable woman of Miami Beach not because there aren't any because there have been plenty and continue to be plenty but just because who knows so we'd like to rectify that um so I will turn it over to Jose to uh give a little more detail I'll make a quick comment before so last year I put forth an item to co-name um streets one is for Gloria Stefon and the other one is for Naomi Wilzig that's been in the works that had already gone to committee and it's at first reading in May for the full commission so I uh did spearhead because of commission for women um two items but Jose please say more thank you madam chair and I think I'm I'm going to defer to our our legal team uh because once the the first reading goes go to commission and you know that that gets approved then it just goes through the the process uh first reading second reading and then at the tail end we work with the county to um install fabricate and install the signs the coaming signs but in the in the in the middle of that process is legal really takes the lead um I don't after this item closes I just had one quick comment about the last so okay so so where we are in this process is the two specific women uh uh uh Naomi Wilzig and uh Gloria Stefon were discussed by this committee and favorably sent back to the commission to pass a an ordinance amendment that will allow a category to be temporarily added that uh will Encompass those two women so that and and also your discussion here approving that to be placed on the ordinance is considered sufficient to you don't need to discuss it again so once it is the the ordinance is passed uh the city commission then can pass a resolution to actually name the streets and then you go through the process with the county that we were talking about the only thing that is left for this commission to do is the uh commission for women's recommendation that a number of other women be considered uh for Street namings and they've made a list and that's on P 167 of your agenda uh they also say anybody in addition to the ones they specifically suggest they also say any other noteworthy women that you might want to discuss should be discussed and if you Cho if this committee chooses to recommend any of the list or any that you come up with on your own uh we could send that uh back to the commission with a uh recommendation to add those names into the OR orance that we're currently drafting for uh willig and um Gloria Stefon uh which will be sent for first reading at the May City commission meeting Madam yes commissioner B um I would like to add two names um for consideration one would be Barbara Barbara bear capitman and one would be um Maddie Bower who's our first female mayor and is Barbara already on a street I thought I saw her name on it is they already have Bara C she's on 10th Street I thought she just had the bus no no pun intend but I but I'll second the mty bower yeah I had previously requested legislation on that on mty Bower which street should we put her you know that street what's it is 14th Place that should be the street yeah we should put it on that street where she lives onth so I don't want to step on commissioner Fernandez's toes I didn't know you had previously on on for legislation to name the street after m b yeah I didn't know that I was fine you wouldn't know I I was just responding to the comment of you know speak now forever hold your peace um so I don't know if we can to double team the process on that to put it into this as well um and then uh and 14th Street is a great idea and then the other person I would um suggest would be Nancy leedman who has been instrumental in shaping our modern city so okay that's your motion I I'll second thank you mam chair if if I may um in order to move this process forward with the additional names I believe we're going to need to to know the streets that that uh are proposed to be co-named after these women okay can we move it to the commission for the streets to be decided uh at the commission uh because I think right now on the Fly we don't know the streets and do that that typically what happens during this process will will the administration will talk to the families and find out if there's a significant street to them that would be and then and then maybe work with the county to see if that's going to work with them and uh come up with a street name and yes you can send that back with the recommendation for the name and define the street uh for when it goes to the commission for the ordinance change and I know with mayor bow we um we we have been uh looking at uh 15th Street for May power okay um so so is there anybody opposed to those three names and are those the only three names that you want to talk about okay it's just MD bow and Nancy Le got it okay I would just through the chair uh just request if if if somehow I you know mayor bow is someone who I worked for uh who is uh very close to to me and my family um I just would like to maintain the sponsorship of Mayor Bowers Street uh uh dami happy to co-sponsor thank you I'll co-sponsor to but it's all yours okay and so the motion is just to add these two none of the names that were suggested by the commission on okay got it and is there anybody who does not it's been motion it's been seconded does anybody not I think we're all in favor okay yeah um and then Stephanie you'll let me know if there's ever any public comment correction we have no public comment at this time okay so uh move that on and then item number 16 item number 15 is discuss renaming Miami Beach Drive as the Miami Beach promino uh 16 item number 16 16 sorry discuss take action on outfront Media Group contract uh commissioner Rosen Gonzalez that's your item okay um I was actually wanting to uh defer this item while I spoke to the people and from out from media that I have not had the opportunity to do they haven't reached out to me I would say though that it has been years trying to get new bus stops and we have not been able to get them and I know that um commissioner Dominguez um you've said that you've heard complaints uh yeah thank you commissioner Rosen Gonzalez so the initial renderings that have come out about the bus stops um the residents have been underwhelmed they feel that our city is Iconic and these bus stop STS and bus shelters should be iconic the in a similar fashion that our uh lifeguard stands are and um some of them they felt that the bus stops uh people wait so long there and there wasn't the necessary protection from way rain and uh the sun um Jose did you have any other comments uh no thank you madam Sher for sh sharing those those concerns from from the community um we've been working with without front throughout the design process for some time um the concept design the conceptual design was approved by the design review board and by the historic preservation board um back in late uh 2022 at that point and based on those approved Concepts out front embarked on the design the final design they've since completed the final design they're actually in the process of manufacturing the the first shelter which is called the Proto type um and that will that prototype is in essence the mold for all the other um um shelters that that will be in will be installed uh so I was I was not aware of of yeah I'll send you specifics on what I've received from residents um but the uh sponsor would like it continued to the next meeting yeah I would just like to keep this on the agenda so that as the Prototype is developed we already have a place where we can see the Prototype look at it find out what the construction time timeline is going to be see if it um if if they are do they if they if we agree with the Prototype or not or not okay thank you so we'll continue this item and then as a point of order uh the last item the street name since commissioner bot is not on the committee she cannot make the motion uh C okay so the the person making the motion will be commissioner Rosen Gonzalez thank you item number 15 item number 15 discussion renaming Miami Beach Drive as Miami Beach prominade that commissioner Alex Fernandez has been working with the midbeach neighborhood association on this item do you have any comments before Transportation speaks on it um you know this is a request of the neighborhood association there uh and we do like to give deference to the to to the neighbors of the of the area this is something that the neighbors want I will support I do think that there is a certain level of History to Miami Beach Drive it was a street uh it was a street that and I and and I I don't know if was say if if you have some of the historical data or information on it uh but I do think that you know the name Miami Beach Drive is a nod to the history of of our city and the original planting of the city um and um and and you know now is different it's no longer a street used for vehicles and it is more of a prominade uh for for for for pedestrians so this is what the neighbors want I'll go with it I'll support it at at commission it's not my preference uh because I do feel that there is a historical context to the name of Miami Beach Drive and the original plating of the of the city but uh but I'll give deference to the uh neighbors of the area thank you commissioner Fernandez well no amendment to our ordinance is needed for this street is my understanding so let's send it back to commission I know that MBNA supports this item and then we'll have a full discussion at the next commission meeting and the and the only thing I'd suggest through the chair is that perhaps when it goes to commission if there is historical information as it as it relat to Miami Beach Drive uh and why it has that name now uh perhaps that' be good for us to have as we engage in our decision making great points okay are my colleagues committee members okay with that oh public comment on this please if we could please unmute Wayne Roberts Wayne Roberts you have two minutes I I just wanted to say that um I'm not hearing you well like I tried the phone and I tried just through the Wi-Fi but either one the uh sound volume is very low so I just wanted to alert uh whoever the audio visual guy is they got increased the volume somehow that's I'm sorry I didn't I wasn't speaking on the issue thank you we will let them know all right so we'll move that item I think commissioner Suarez had U one last comment about the 63rd Street Bridge item yeah yeah was that motion just for 6 can we also apply that for the Venetian bridge I I guess it just goes to commission anyways we can make a motion there but I just I I want to also apply to the venan bridge the 90 minutes or 60 minutes yeah it uh okay so you want to change your motion or you like to reconsider your motion is there a second for that it's just for the we we discussed only yeah we only discussed the 63r stre bridge but the Venetian also has oh okay the Venetian Bridge also has hear that thank you okay so is there any objection to that 90 minutes instead of every hour signature brid looks good in our portfolio yeah okay uh item 12 okay item 12 is discuss options for the potential relocation of the bus stop currently located on the west side of Indian Creek immediately north of 41st Street in order to urge Miami day County to implement the best available relocation options aditt miate the traffic congestion resulting from frequent stops at this location to significantly imped the flow of traffic at the southbound right turn lane of Indian Creek Drive M 41st Street okay Jose thank you madam chair so we've we've taken a deep look at this at this issue and this this bus stop and and where it's it's located and um a few interesting points it's it's actually one of the busiest bus stops that we have in our city City and it's it's extremely busy because it serves as a transfer Point um between various County bus routes about five different County bus routes and two trolley routes we then looked at the possibility of relocating that stop um whereby it's not situated you know and where where it is which requires the bus to stop on a the right turn lane on along southbound Indian Creek which we all know is a a very heavy movement so we we took a we took a look at that and unfortunately because of the geography of our city um how Collins Avenue dead ends at 44th Street and meets Indian Creek Drive and then 41th Street being such an important Transit Corridor that area between 44th Street and 41st is the only area where a a transfer Point could be situated and so even if we move it a little further north or a little further south it it would need to be between 44th and 41st which would still um place it in a very inconvenient uh location blocking a uh the right turn lane so um what you know we then we then looked at the area and if you're familiar with the area there's a Swale there's a a Swale area there which is actually privately owned and so one option could be to try to get this bus shelter or more so the buses out of the way of the travel Lane is to uh look into acquiring that parcel and then building uh a bus Bay alongside the the bus shelter the bus shelter would have to be relocated further east I'm sorry further west towards the canal the Indian Creek uh Canal um but if it's possible to do that and create a bus Bay the bus can then get out of the travel lanes and not be and not be in the way okay so can the city uh I read the item here and the conclusion was that more exploration was needed in order to give us um coordination uh and approval and now you're talking about the parcel as well can you provide us with an LTC of what those conclusions are absolutely do the committee members have any comments non-committee members not the non-committee member has a comment okay um there is an item that was referred to the finance committee um you're nodding your head I guess you are aware of that item yes you are aware you are the sponsor yes uh on on acquiring uh or seeing seeing the possibility of acquiring specifically what he just mentioned on acquiring those those out Lots um and so and so I'm not sure when we're hearing that at a finance but that referral was made yeah I I had spoken with MBNA about that I know MBNA had some concerns about removing uh green space with hard surface to accommodate uh a bus stop in those Outlaws but I do think still it is a discussion we need to have given the the severe impacts that the bus stop does have on traffic and backup traffic backup so just wanted to put that for record yeah thank you so that item uh part of it will be heard at finance and any other conclusions if you would send the committee members and LTC I'd appreciate that uh all in favor the committee and Rob did you have a comment no no you're close that out yeah close that out okay item number 20 item number 20 is to discuss best use for property property located at 7605 Collins Avenue uh commissioner uh Vice chair Suarez I'll let Elizabeth T this up okay good morning everyone um Madame chair Mr Vice chair and committee members Elizabeth Muro interim director for facilities and Fleet Management on March 13th the city did acquire the property located at 7605 Collins Avenue the property was purchased with building department fund so because of this it is restricted to a principal use just for the building department however we can use other secondary uses to the building um so long as those are rented out and one of the uses that we have contemplated is to have a community facility for the altto and Mar park for the for the what oh so what kind of community center through the chair what what kind of community center it would be like a park facility a small park facility if there's any other options that could be contemplated yeah um I know that that this particular item and sorry if you just said that I got a text that interrupted here um because the building the property was purchased using building department reserves 51% of it needs to be for Building Department uses um and then the other can be for other City uses and then if Parks wanted to use it they could pay rent uh in order to fund the building department reserves to ensure that we're complying with the law that's correct correct okay uh commissioner Rosen Gonzalez how can we remove the requirement of the 51% would we have to pay the building department back a certain amount of money and then we could take over because we're in the process right now of doing a national search for city manager many of us have said that we would like somebody who lived in the city what better to have a to have like a Gracie Mansion of sorts where as part of this process we offered that house hey you want to be a city manager you live that that is a hot bed of criminal activity too with homelessness and put them right there in the middle of the park and guess what I guarantee you Eric if you're living over there the problem will get solved um you know cuz you're not going to want to walk out of your you're not going to want to you know walk out of your back door and see all of this activity so I think that putting the city manager in that property is probably one of the smartest moves that we can make it stays residential um I don't know how you feel about it but we did want somebody who lived in the city many people might say it's just an option I'm throwing it out there I don't know how you feel about it commissioner magazine I actually love the idea um I don't know if that's the exact location for it but for all the money that we spend and we've all said not just this commission but uh going back to the last city manager resarch that we had a strong preference and that commission had even contemplate a requirement for the city manager to live in our city um for all the reasons that we've talked about maybe we do look at acquiring or converting a property we already have into some sort of uh home for a city manager to be able to live here I don't know if it's this Betsy Pros property but actually like the idea um perhaps somewhere close to the City Hall perhaps perhaps this property but in terms of uh the requirement of the building department to get 51% of the revenues we're just talking about like uh cost center accounting right Eric where essentially if we would say this is going to be uh a community center managed by parks and wreck parks and wreck could essentially pay the building department some sort of so it's just inter intergovernmental fund accounting so I would want to defer that to our CFO um but my understanding is that because the building department fund is an Enterprise fund that's set up by State Statute um there would be some requirements that we need to make sure that we follow yeah I I kind of like the idea also U commissioner Gonzalez that we have a we have a we have a place that um possibly that the next city manag can live in and I like the idea of that you put it really is a the neighborhood needs help and if you put the city manager there it's going to it's going to be completely different in six months um but yeah that being said I I I think we should keep our options open uh I'm not married to the idea but it's certainly very interesting and but I I think we should uh do whatever we can to open up the option for for and many uses of that building I I certainly don't want to just limit it to building department use um so what do we need to do to to change that so again I would I would defer that to our CFO to make sure that we're doing it properly but we would probably have to pay back the building department for the purchase of the property uh wait real quick uh commissioner bot had a comment um I think having a uh city manager residence is a very cool idea um I'm not sure that's the place for it um perhaps building a a condo or not a condo but a a cool apartment on the top of the southw community center like the amazing apartment on top of 11-11 which is Iconic could be pretty cool um be that as it may I think there are a couple things one of the things we talked about um on this property was having a sort of outpost of City Hall services for North Beach residents um and I still think that is a very useful um way to engage that that property um tangentially related I you know we have the Log Cabin I know commissioner Rosen Gonzalez you've an item uh talking about prioritizing want to put them in the Log Cabin commissioner no no no no build you a log cabin no but but there we need to get that built and and used again there's conversation you know I'm the only person on the commission who lives in North Beach and there's a lot of conversation about what's happening with the with that part of the neighborhood and um the facilities and what can be used what the use of the Betsy Perez house can be versus what the Log Cabin can be and what happens with the West Lots these are all interrelated conversations and so I don't want to lose the opportunity of having services available to North Beach in that house if we can create a community center based around or like an educational center based around the log cabin I don't want to divert one use when we have uh an opportunity to create that use with a different structure um and I also think that it's all well and good for us to talk about what is we think the best result would be for the use of that land of that property and the log cabin and the West Lots but if we don't have Community input we are just talking literally Talking to Ourselves so I would urge that we have a community conversation and tie these all together I know commissioner Fernandez had the West Lots conversation scheduled which um was moved because of conflicts of meetings so we want to make sure that all of us can be there not just a couple of us and that got you know people were eviscerated for having the tarity to not have that meeting um so I think we should do a comprehensive North Beach Community Access uh conversation about here are the three opportunities we have West slots and it doesn't necessarily have to be the whole one big meeting but West Lots Log Cabin um Altos delmare house what is the best use of these three things that can possibly be conjoined in some way to be a comprehensive holistic approach because as a city as a as an Administration for years we do things you know spots zoning this and spot appropriating that and spot spot spot spot spot and that doesn't serve us well but we now have three different things that tie in together to one contiguous stretch of a neighborhood that is wildly understood served and we can do lots of different things and so I would very strongly recommend that we look at them as a holistic grouping of opportunities to do lots of different things and get the community to thank you commissioner Rosen Gonzalez so I would make I would make a motion two different things number one to keep this item on and have Eric come back um at the next meeting and find out how we remove the building department requ requirement because when we purchased that house I don't think any of us said oh we we want 51% of that to be the building department um so and in the Inon also between meetings we would like to hold a North Beach community meeting and with all of those items on the agenda have a community discussion no harm in that but there I have a third thing too are you getting all of this yes I'm I'm writing also Jason Green and the third thing that I would propose is that we send to the commission the idea of purchasing seeing a city manager resident over the next six months um I don't I as much as I would love to build a penthouse on top of the Southshore Community Center you know it would be cool I it would we can't seem to get the Log Cabin done though so one thing at a time the Rotunda took like 10 years I was very happy about that but um I would Al you know with a specific budget how would you feel about and that's what we would have to decide right now it was send it to the commission and between now and then figure out a budget for the city managers for Miami Beach's Gracie Mansion we could call it madd's Mansion or whatever you know some place although I will say that you do have a single family home in an area that is blighted and uh it's not the worst thing in the world for this first few years of trying to figure it out of if you want to attract top you know what whatever Talent we're attracting and we have this requirement to live in the city to take a house that is not ADA Compliant and you're going to have to create that ad compliance in order to use it which is difficult I mean you have all sorts of you know you're going to have to it's going to take a while to accommodate that house but we do have something right here right now that could be used as a tool to attract a manager that lives in the city so what would should we send it to the commission and have a discussion there the whole item or just the idea of purchasing a city manager's property 76 discuss all the options okay all three items are going to commission CF mam m Madam chair uh commissioner Fernandez thank you um I I just want to go on record since I'm sitting here um listening to this conversation I fully support using this property for other uses that are that are not limited or exclusive to the building department even if that means having to pay rent to the building Enterprise fund for either Parks uses I know some of the neighbors have spoken about parks and police use potentially and I do agree with commissioner Tanya Abad on having some sort of community meeting to really solicit uh that that that feedback I do think we need to per perhaps proceed with a little bit of pause on on utilizing a property a city asset for The Residency of a charter officer we have many Charter officers not just city manager we have many Charter officers that in the past we've expressed a preference to to to to have as residents of the city and I think you know the more profession approach is to offer a housing stip uh as opposed to getting uh city property and making it into residency for a charter officer these are individuals with lives and unique circumstances you know with children or no children or elderly relatives and everyone's personal needs as to where they live are very different uh and that's perhaps something where the employer doesn't need to cross into to dictate specifically where within the city they live but perhaps might more appropriately handle that by offering a um a stipend as part of any contract that we consider in the future I just had to go and record on that since the discussion's been thank you commissioner Fernandez and I don't disagree with that but we'll we're sending this item then to the full commission to discuss and we can move on to the next item Jason Green here one of the questions how can we get rid of the 51% Jason thank you for giving me a minute to catch my breath uh so it was around I think it was around 6 and. half $6.6 million was the total acquisition costs so if you were to remove all restrictions to use it for more general fund purposes such as parks and rack as an example or Community Center uh they would have to be purchased uh basically by the general fund I would have to check with the city attorney's office to make sure at the very minimum would have to be at the full amount because we couldn't you know don't want a from a good faith perspective you know it wasn't a bridge Alan you know from our building department you know to meet the need there I know we had a full discussion at FK with the unanimous recommendation then to the commission uh the primary use would be a licensing permitting Center but I did have this some discussions with a few members you know the idea that you know obviously a full model it's a it's a one-bedroom house just as a note it's a large if those have been there it's a large one-bedroom on the top and a small uh office on the side but the idea uh there was ideas about the CRA which currently you know sublets space to have space there uh that could be easily uh segregate out there's a studio with its own separate entrance that could be used for that or or another department very easily I think without infringing on those abilities to make sure again we have to segregate out the square footage and the rent will be paid back I think another idea that I heard was to ensure that the building department perhaps had built a conference room that would be there which would obviously be used when uh Resident was coming in with plans and get S with building inspectors or officials and sit there and go through documents but that being a general um conference room might be available uh there was a request if you know elected officials wanted to meet with some area residents or something like that I think that could easily be accommodated with no you know Financial impact in there but if it was a a complete redo I think that would be a different situation quickly Jason if uh the building department would retain 51% ownership uh but only physically occupy 25% and actually lease out uh 26% the parks and wck they're still owning it they're receiving Revenue into their Enterprise fund that still maintains that they have that ownership they're just receiving rent payments I'd have to that would be a discussion with the city attorney and just as a note I know there were issues in the past about general fund usage of things that were paid for by the building department that involved an LG investigation that I don't think was very favorable so we'd have to really tread lightly in here and I think the idea should be that we you know Eyes Wide Open was and again remember there's a a commission approved capital project to acquire a property which was now fulfilled with this purchase to build a North Beach Licensing uh and permitting Center for people to go and do walk-in stuff and again whether there was a a small desk in the side for COD compliance complaints or pick up a parking certificate or a CRA I think that all those are easily accommodatable within that but if you're um going to go into basically making the whole thing a a parks and wreck facility to run daycare out of there something like that that's obviously a complete change in that so I mean of working on a Model where you're you know Equity things along that doesn't really work so much think in the governmental fund sector so I'd be wary of that okay uh Rob uh what is the motion on the table so we can move on uh I don't know that there is a motion uh so uh commissioner Rosen Gonzalez can you repeat it please we're sending this discussion 7605 to the full commission we're going to have a North Beach community meeting which we don't need to send to the full commission we can just set that up and Jason you're going to come back to this committee or the full commission with options as how we or the best way remove ter what the usage is it's easy you just have to buy it quite honestly so that $6.5 million would uh you know as we discussed and I think that's why I fir they were very concerned about as I would say quotequote blowing up the capital program for 25 and considering our pgo millage only generates $4 million if we did this this would mean I hope there' be no interest in any capital projects next year because this would take up uh probably 50% of the um kind of the payo uh cost because there was some rollover from prior years so um just just know that that would be impacted I know there are several Parks prog projects that Commissioners have reached up find that you can remember D CH Richardson you can shake that money tree Jason and figure it out I'm sure no I say it absolutely can be done it's just there would be less Capital dollars available to uh complete capital projects thank you well I mean maybe for next year we focus on these geob bomb projects that we haven't um completed which will you know free up some you know the CIP stuff I know these are smaller projects and budgeted okay so I have to make a motion and I need everybody I know we have the community meeting we have the potential repurchase of the 6 million creative ways to do that and to move this forward the conversation about 7605 to the full commission is this the motion all in favor everybody okay with this okay oh and cons well and we well we're going to discuss the city manager situation when we have the meeting and we discuss the search Pro process I think we'll bring it into the discussion then okay thank you um any comments who was the second on that I'll second it yeah uh okay so item number four item number four you know what before we do item number four for I'm going to jump to item number two so that the transportation department can um leave uh and and since commissioner Fernandez is here so item number two okay item number two is to dis discussion regarding access to Mount Sinai Medical Center for North Beach residents thank you madam chair so this is an item I placed on the agenda because as many of you might recall as a result of the uh better bus Network that was uh put into place uh by the county there was the elimination of Route 115 and that Route 115 is what provided connectivity for residents living north of 63rd Street uh to be able to access uh Mount Si uh using this midn North Beach connection uh it it went from as far north I believe as 8 8th Street Route 115 along uh Collins Avenue Southward up to Mount Si uh which is important an important hub for employment and and Health Services Route 115 also went further south actually uh all the way to Lincoln Road and Washington Avenue ever since it was taken away a large segment of our community was left without service I know a number of us have heard from them I think Madam chair uh you've also Tak leadership meeting with neighbors that have been impacted by that I placed a referral to um to the transportation parking and bicycle pedestrian facilities committee at the December 13th meeting to come up with recommendations uh as to how to replace this a possible expansion of the trolley service or some sort of expansion of freebie um right now I believe Jose correct me if I'm wrong there is a freebie Service uh that is offering a certain level of connectivity but in my opinion from the complaints I've received that freebie on demand service is not enough and it's not the same level of service essent as a permanent route a permanent route that can facilitate the the transportation of more of our residents um and so we've we've we've asked them to work with Miami day County on seeing what could be done to actually put in place a permanent route to replace the 115 uh and Jose I want to recognize you to present us with the Department's recommendation before he does I'm just going to make a few um little comments um uh thank you commissioner Fernandez and yes I've had several meetings with the uh North Beach residents that use the trolley service and the transportation department and they gave a great feedback to Transportation on adjusting the route so it better fits the residents needs in that area and so transportation is exploring that I also heard from the uh senior your building uh Stella marz and O Neil kindly had conversations and met with uh one of the leaders in that building and they're making the uh the TR the what's it the Vasa no the tree freeb the freeb sorry we don't want a Senor on the vesa so the um uh that available to them so uh that's going in the right direction and then I also received communication from the county that on April 29th new bus service are coming out to help address uh some of the challenges that we had so and I think there's a um uh Zoom meeting or something coming up very quickly uh about that but Jose if you would further elaborate sure thank you madam chair thank you commissioner Fernandez so as commissioner Fernandez pointed out at the February uh committee meeting of this this body we presented some some data that showed that the additional freebie vehicle that is uh being funded by the county to to certain extent mitigate the elimination of Route 115 uh the data shows that the demand is not being met particularly in the afternoon Peaks there are uh a lot of can cancellations that occur during the afternoon Peaks and there's just unsatisfied demand so uh at at the February committee meeting the Comm asked us to work with the county and explore other Solutions and we've been doing that over the past couple months and I'm pleased to report that the county has agreed to increase their funding contribution and uh such that um we can provide a 14 passenger van also operated by Tesla though not electric not an electric vehicle but uh not Tesla sorry freebie operated by freebie uh and but the 14 passenger uh van has much higher capacity than the Tesla X uh vehicle and we believe will more adequately satisfy the demand particularly in the morning and the PM Peaks so this this van would operate 13 hours a day 7 days a week from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. mirroring the same operational hours that Route 115 had and it would operate on a fixed route and fix the schedule like the um Route 115 did which means it would not be on demand people would not need to call call or or go on the app to request a ride they would just need to be at the at the bus stop that's great news thank you so much for that commissioner Fernandez thank you so much and so Jose um and and again thank you for for for your work with this um so this this van um would go up to Mount Si correct it would go from the northern uh limit where Route 115 would used to go which 8 87th or 88th uh let me pull the map uh 88th Street 88th Street from 88th Street to uh to to Mount Si okay and so let me ask you this because I I I believe that one of the important things is is is not just you know making sure that we get connectivity to Mount Si as important as that might be but also up to 41st Street I think at 41st Street is where we have Route 120 uh that uh that connects to to to the airport uh that also connects then to the orange line and that provides that greater network not just for our residents also for our Workforce and our and our tourism would it be possible to get this route and have have it uh connect up to 41st Street uh to make sure that that we're providing connectivity to The Wider Transportation Network to the residents in North Beach commissioner I do I do believe that would be a feasible you know feasible uh option if you will um we do just need to run it by the county to make sure it's okay because the route the alignment uh needs to be part of an agreed upon um U agreement but but u i I think establishing that connection to Route 150 which is the airport goes all the uh would be a prudent connection to make great thank you um and so what I will ask uh Jose is if you would provide us with an LTC with commissioner Fernandez request of uh the connection to 41st Street on that van and I would also like in that LTC information on whether that Amendment to the trolley routes is approved and when that can be implemented the Amendments that were recommended by the residents sure in one of our meetings yes commissioner magazine thank you Jose um my understanding the freebie it's on demand kind of ad hoc service picks you up where you request it's going to take you where you request uh has there ever been any thought or consideration given into utilizing uh a mobile similar to the freebie which is smaller more nimble quicker in some type of fixed route not uh not to replace the Trolley system but in supplement because the trolley are very bulky um I understand the need for them uh for Ada compliances and to move larger masses of people but as a supplement instead of adding more and more trolleys uh have we thought about something that would be more Nimble maybe doesn't uh impact traffic so greatly and are more accessible kind of quicker on quicker off because one of the problems that that I see with the trolleys is yes they are moving people but it comes at a great cost as well uh not just financially but they tie up traffic because it takes a while to board uh they are larger and bulkier so is there something smaller and more Nimble that we've ever explored as a supplement well one I thing that I'll mention before Jose answers is I believe that there's an RFP right now for a new uh Trolley system to replace the trolley something more modern and uh better for the city but Jose if you correct and micro Mobility which is the type of vehicle that a freebie Tesla would fall under is definitely part of the transportation portfolio if you will there's definitely a a niche for it in our city it it it provides it's a service that provides good first mile Last Mile connectivity to the trolley uh service and to the county regional Bus Service so and and which is why we're using it for the mid Beach um residential communities uh the the micromobility type of service is is is very fitting for a low demand area so you've got your higher Transit vehicle your higher capacity Transit Vehicles operating along the main arteries and then you've got smaller Vehicles operating in the you know in the pockets of of single family residential uh neighborhoods for example to provide that first mile Last Mile and provide some sort of public transit service Serv in those neighborhoods so people don't have to use their cars to get to public transit so absolutely okay well thank you I appreciate that okay so we'll move on to number four item number four is to discuss Unidad bathrooms open daily commissioner Rosen Gonzalez so I'm sure that I know that uh we received an email from the board saying you know please keep the bathrooms closed that's fine um I understand why why right now the city is not in charge of the bathrooms Unidad is in charge of maintaining those bathrooms correct that's correct we maintain those restrooms okay they do we do we do we do we do okay here's the problem if they're closed what are people using they're using the altto Amar restroom which has an open floor plan and it's only2 miles away okay then I'm done with the item we can just close it out okay so oh commissioner bot I I'd like to items closed well I'm I'm surprised because I've gotten a lot of calls about this as well so I know there is another bathroom facility 0 2 miles away but if we're managing the Unidad bathrooms you know the way was laid out to me um by one person in particular she she made an excellent point we the taxpayers of Miami Beach paid for them we maintain them and yet we only open the Unidad bathrooms on the weekends when and most of the beachers are people who are driving in from other parts which is great that's awesome but if we have residents who have paid with their tax dollars to make those facilities available why wouldn't they be available more than just when there are more people coming in from out of town commissioner Rosen Gonzalez when listen I had I've had a lot of people ask me to to be able to use those bathrooms and I was really disappointed when the administration came back and said we can't do it I would like to see you do it why can't you maintain the bathrooms put a security guard there clean them up make sure that they're in good State when you that is so afraid that we won't be able to do it that they don't want to allow us to do it but if Facilities Management maintains these bathrooms and makes sure that they're in good State and they're that they're secure then un would not have a problem their big problem is that we can't seem to get it done true the chair commissioner Fernandez he had raised his hand first perhaps uh thank you madam chair um perhaps a recommendation could be less test it let's not commit to it let's test it uh because I have received myself the complaint from individuals U and I also understand the other side you know uh so why don't we test it to see how how well it works out uh with us maintaining the bathroom see if there are any unintended consequences do we start to have people you know congregating there and showering there or not um and see if we can address the request from the community now the other thing I would say is is that I've received similar requests I mean similar complaints about other parts of of the city like for example at Pride park at private park we have a a bathroom and that bathroom was not was not open I don't know if that one got solved or not but you know if we have public facilities like parks and we're offering restrooms at at the parks it's it should be open to the public because it limits people ability to be able to use a a public space so I agree with what my colleagues are stating what I would suggest is before we marry ourselves to a permanent plan maybe let's try for three months and perhaps come back uh to the committee with an update and see if we should send a recommendation to continue it permanently Madam chair if I may okay very quickly I promise um you know the other thing and this is a bigger issue not not directly related to the item before us but that entrance point to altto delare park is at many times of the day intimidating there are people who congregate there who don't have kids going to the park they're not going to the beach um I've not witnessed drug deals but I hear they happen constantly there are folks who I wouldn't want to go to that Northern bathroom unless I had to and so for folks who might be walking to Unidad at their turnaround Point who may not be you know young and spry and feeling like they want to run the gauntlet of the folks who are a little more intimidating at the public bathrooms a little further up it's not the distance as much as it is sort of the character of what's going on around there so um I would I second that plan to do a pilot program okay so well you you can't vote no I know I'm just seconding the plan I'm not voting do anyone who do I need a okay you guys can do it right okay and BPD wants to make a comment yes just a quick comment good good morning everyone uh assistant chief Del pra with the PD so just as a reminder and I know that's in the analysis but the the reason why they were closed initially was because of the public safety issues that we were having there in terms of of congregating in terms of uh all kinds of activity that was occurring and the requests to close them came from Unidad unid that patrons and the surrounding neighborhoods so I just want to make sure that you understand that that's the history of this facility uh and I know that in in the uh presentation you know that it talks about what would be required from our perspective to maintain that Public Safety which is to ensure that there be the guards present park ranger assigned and a City Contractor which obviously has a cost associated with that um but this just as you know to remind you all that this was closed because of thank you a lot of Resident complaints thank you I did not receive any complaints from people wanting the bathroom open I did receive many emails from people wanting to re have it remained closed um commissioner Rosen Gonzalez so I would make a motion because I think we do have support here and there is a need for bathrooms um I would make a motion to open them pilot program for how long mon three months we're going to reopen them and it's going to if you have to put a park ranger or security guard it's very sad um and you know the maintenance because we don't we're going against the Unidad board here to serve the community so I mean any like we want those bathrooms maintained and safe all right that's your motion that that would be my motion commissioner magazine second okay I'm a no on this one and then we'll move the item on okay okay number 25 but wait point point of information if I may when there's with two votes then the item is not recommended what what is the um any the other Committee Member because it could be a fail uh commissioner Suarez you are a member of this committee can you come here because we need your vote on keeping the bathrooms uh open with the park ranger and security detail um for three months pilot will you vote for that please it's an Unidad pilot program for three months um keeping the bathrooms uh open with a park ranger security guard Facilities Management um working on it we've had a a lot of requests I didn't put this on here you know casually because people from the community have asked me to do this so we'll do a pilot for three months okay good no you know what I forget that there's four people on the board who is on the committee because we're all here I don't even know who Okay okay so magazine okay all right yeah DAV Gonzalez and you wanted to yell at me at the beginning okay item 25 okay item 25 to discuss the Motions made by the ad hoc iguana remend advisory committee at its March 14 2023 meeting good morning Madam chair um Commissioners Frank Garcia Facilities Management division director for the record um the first motion uh made at that March 14 2023 meeting of the ad hoc uh iguana remediation advisory committee was recommend that uh the city provide tangible responses to inquiries referencing iguana remediation on private property uh with regard to private property our city attorney's office has drafted a private property access agreement uh should the city assume the responsibility to remediate iguanas on private property uh at current the city Only addresses iguanas on city-owned properties however the city's primary iguana remediation vendor offers a discounted rate for uh Miami Beach residents and property managers the second motion uh made by by the at hoc iguana committee was recommend that the city provide 10 tangible results in terms of negotiating with and ensuring accountability of contractors so that they are paid per iguana um during the negotiation process our staff conferred with partner agencies uh such as a Florida Fish and Wildlife uh Council as well as the government of the Cayman Islands and they actually recommended against establishing a perk carcass award they instead um favored establishing a ward based on an established monthly rate per location to ensure accountability the awarded contractor uh will be required to provide us with monthly reports uh detailing manh hours uh funds expended and quantity of iguanas exterminated per location again uh the third motion was recommend that the city set up a hotline or a website that residents can access uh to have iguanas removed from private property uh at current residents can obtain information on iguana remediation through through a link on the city's website access through our uh resident Port portal on the city's main web page and with regard to that uh dedicated hotline uh Our IT department has recommended adding an option on the city's main helpline uh 604 City where they can be connected directly with the city's iguana remediation contractor I understand that measure would carry no fiscal impact and can be uh implemented with relative EAS thank you um so so this item was placed on uh the neighborhoods Committee in May of 2023 um the ad hoc uh iguana committee is set the sunset in a couple months uh I don't think that any additional appropriation should be made to the iguanas and I do agree with the city recommendation on adding that point to the hotline since there's no CA uh so that would be the motion uh my committee members in favor yeah I would through the chair just like to commend uh Madam chair for how swiftly over the past few months she's getting to these the fact that we're seeing items here uh that these committees dedicate their time and they made a recommendation over a year ago and haven't been heard I want to applaud you for you know recognizing these thank you thank you for that all right so all in favor hold on commissioner I mean Vice chair Suarez it's okay uh I uh actually just attended the Animal Welfare committee meeting yesterday and iguanas was one of the subjects um well who who made the recommendation to um not not um count by carcass was it was it the contractor the the recommendation came from conversations had with uh different partner agencies including Florida fishal Wildlife as well as um another um body we spoke to was a government of the Cayman Islands and the um they see foul play um when it's a perk carcus award is what historically they've seen Foul Play how um either breeding operations um where folks come with iguanas that were not originally where okay I would congratulate you guys because since we we increased our funding to how much are we spending right now 250,000 400 uh 435,000 435,000 I've stopped receiving the complaints about the Iguana so it does seem like whatever that we are doing is working so uh congratulations cuz this was a constant it was a few years ago so bad it was just emails every single day and the problem was out of control so um congratulations and so is the you know chair thank you uh one of the one of the members at the animal Ware committee said if if we could have a website also dedicated for iguanas on our website I think we have it for mosquito so if you have like a mosquito problem they'll come and they'll they'll fumigate your your your place for free but do we have a website now if we have an iguana problem in someone's backyard that they can they can go at at current there's a link on our web page um that's accessed through the resident portal and then there's like an animal um control Animal Control um and then you get redirected to information about iguana remediation services so if I was to go on my Med website type in iguana would I would I access that yes the query would probably yield you and so basically the idea is for because we only serve uh the public properties the city's own properties residents do also have the access um through the city's contractor where they can get discounted rate to address the Iguana problems in their own private properties so um I don't know how the rest of my colleagues feel but I'd i' like to make a motion for uh commun for commun communications to send out an email or possibly a text message to all residents if you're experiencing an invasive iguana problem you can call this number or visit this website to learn more I second that item great all in favor I I okay any discussion uh from the public Stephanie okay let's uh then move on to item number nine item number nine is update on the discussion regarding boat charter activity at the Miami Beach Marina and the recurring quality of life concerns occurring at or near the marina parking areas Andor surrounding areas so this item was initially put on the agenda in 2022 uh so I think a lot has been has changed already in the boat charter activities and quality of life so we can uh close this one out okay all in favor all right so next one is item number 22 item number 22 is discussed 10 40 Collins Senior Center amenities commissioner Rosen Gonzalez so I'm sure during your uh political campaign you had the opportunity to either you know stop by at fifth in Collins or 10th in Collins um their laundry rooms were closed can you imagine caer were CL their cafeteria has been closed there's no senior lunchroom open and I just want to know like you know the pandemic happened it's done can't we open their lunchroom I want their laundry rooms working again when when a senior told me literally a 90-year-old person told me that in a city building they have to go to the laundromat because they have no laundry room to me it was unacceptable and I reached out to the administration several times and I asked for help with this and um especially with Eric you remember I called you desperately a few years years ago and asked and I we can't seem to get it solved so um I would ask number one I would like a senior lunchroom reopened at either fifth in Collins or 10th in Collins and we have to do it now because now is when they put out now is when the funds the the the community blockr funds are being spent for the next year to fund these senior lunchrooms and I'd like an update if possible on the laundry room situation cuz I know they were under construction and maybe it's and before Oh and the AC wasn't working right at one point so I'll make a comment on that so those two buildings the senior buildings 53 Collins and 1040 Collins Council north and south are privately owned and they have been under construction concrete restoration redoing the balconies redoing the elevators and the cafeterias were closed in both centers because uh they needed a place to store construction items the only one that had a lunch being served was South uh the fifth one um that was through the little Nutrition Center the um seniors are still getting their lunches but it's divid in sent to them individually uh but that breaks up not them not having camaraderie and having lunch with other people they're now dining by themselves so I share your concern and I do want it open and I'd love to hear from Alba what she knows about those private buildings good afternoon everyone about office of Housing and Community Services uh the administration maintains ongoing communication with Ed hoc which is the elderly housing development and operations corporations which owns and manages the properties uh to monitor the $26 million rehabilitations and its project advancements since the memo submission of the item Ed hoc has reported they have received a temporary certificate of completion of occupancy which is a TCO for the two towers comprising of the 250 units that have been rehabilitated um in reference to the amenities for the meals uh you are correct um Madam chair the Little Havana Activity Center continues to provide delivered meals to participants while the community room is not available in regards to the laundry services the North Tower is 90% complete and appliances were said to be delivered on April 15th and that they they have advised that they are awaiting electrical and mechanical inspections from the city they expect the facility to be fully operational by May 7th the South Tower laundry renovation will begin once the North Tower is complete um in reference to the A see the air conditioning units are working in the hallways units and offices for the South Tower the new vrf HVAC is operable in 170 107 units the remaining 18 units were we were advised were activated on April 10th for the corridors in floors 3 to 12 the HVAC is operable the lobby area in Corridor 2 is scheduled to be operable by April 30th in reference to the North Tower which is located at 1040 Collins the agac for 60 units is currently in progress and scheduled to be completed by April 30th So currently those units have portable AC units the hbac is operable for corridors in floors 3 to 12 and the corridor in floor 2 and the lobby are scheduled to be completed by May 7th we have been advised um by Ed hoc that the contractor has advised them that they expect final completion of the project on or before July 11th then resume in the cafeteria of council South honor before uh the termination of the completion of the project on July 11th so that's going to be reopen that was one of the reasons why I was pushing so hard to reopen the lunchroom at Southshore you used to have a 100 seniors that would have lunch at Southshore 100 that would have lunch at Collins and Fifth and those people really have no place to go now some of them do make it over to Rebecca Towers so so the lunchroom at Fifth and colins is for sure going to open and I I did want to say uh we don't own the buildings but we own the land correct it's a land lease that they have so we do have a little bit of influence over um I don't know what the maintenance agreement I we don't obviously have a do we have a maintenance agreement with them um we have a 99 year lease with them okay so it's our land it's there um you know they're they're leasing it but they've been pretty good cooperating with us um I would say that this has been terrible and that I would I would ask the building department if they're waiting on inspections mechanical and El electric to possibly expedite those inspections so that we can get the HVAC up and running uh as soon as possible so maybe we can reach out to well we have um Eric here so we can you know make sure that that happens um expeditiously and I guess we don't have to do anything else on this item want keep I would like no I don't want to keep it on but I do want to get an LTC after each of the deadlines that you mentioned so April 30th if that was done a the other the July date please send us uh information to the full commission and we'll close this one out it can I just ask one question commissioner thank you both Commissioners for your support in this um and I'm going to deviate a little bit from here and this isn't uh anything that we'll have sorted out here today but maybe just asking my colleagues to think very strategically in high level if we ever considered almost uh implementing a senior village right where we have all these peac meal buildings one on Third Street one on Fifth Street one on 10th Street some up in North Beach how much better would it be for the community for the senior community to have all of these buildings essentially together and then we'd be able to capitalize on economies of scale we wouldn't have to have all these different uh senior lunchrooms because we would be able to have these events together we'd be able to have grander amenities for all of them instead of having these all peacemeal and sporadic throughout the city uh it would almost be like our own mini Villages within Miami Beach so just a a point of consideration no action item but I I think that would really be beneficial to to the quality of life and the well-being for our senior community excellent to think about thank you for bringing it up commissioner magazine so now we're going to move on um I would like to have item one and item 26 called together item one is from 2020 um and then uh item 26 is from 2024 but I think they can be combined hi Sergeant how you doing good afternoon everyone okay so if Stephanie will read both items item number one is discussion regarding possible ways to improve the homeless issue in Miami Beach and item number 26 is an update on enforcement of the city's amended camping ordinance city code section 70-45 um sergeant and ala whoever wants to speak first thank you um good afternoon everyone Al office of Housing and Community Services again since the last homeless update in October we have further augmented our services for our homeless population we've expanded our V availability at Camilla's house with six additional beds and with the County's $125,000 that we allocate to Miami Dade County homeless trust through the budget process we have acquired 15 beds at a new provider at Riverside house we also continue our partnership for specialized Outreach with New Hope Camila's house for the Lazarus program and Camila's Health concern for medical Outreach in our in addition to our daily Outreach efforts we also conduct our weekly unified Outreach with police sanitation Park Rangers and code wonderful that's great news on the increase um I hadn't heard about that so thank you for the information Sergeant Baran so as you all know I am the well good afternoon Madam chair members of the day uh I am the sergeant of the homeless resource unit starting Jim Ron Baran most people call me bear um my unit consists of me myself two dayshift officers and three afternoon officers along with a civilian bohall uh essentially we we address homeless issues uh that take extra resources so we don't we don't respond to just a homeless guy that may go into the store the homeless guy that's sleeping Patrol will handle that operations will handle that they'll respond to that and if that homeless person needs some resources or is requesting additional resources then my team will go out so our our goal is long-term help not just uh just a regular call for service um we periodically conduct roll call trainings to update officers on you know best practices new laws we most recently did it with the new ordinance or the revised ordinance of uh camping that we attended every roll call uh answered questions provided additional information for additional resources that we may use or utilize to handle our and I'm just going to um stop you for one moment so the uh first part that Alba and then the first part that you just mentioned satisfies item number one from 2020 so we're going to close that out now you're going to to get into the information on the enforcement on the city's amended camping ordinance and I'd like to recognize Vice chair Suarez and commissioner magazine because they were the sponsors for that item or if you prefer to comment after he speaks with the campaign upate thank you madam chair I actually uh wasn't going to bring this up but uh I commend our entire team for the efforts that they make uh on the homeless Outreach uh actually I think I just read an article where maybe some members of your team uh were physically assaulted down on second or third in Washington uh just in the past week so I understand uh what you're dealing with and putting yourselves on the line we're a compassionate City and of course we're going to provide every resource available for uh people that need it and people that are truly seeking it but we also have another problem in the city and that is people that want to live on our streets uh not because they're down on their luck but because they are here to pray on us uh I wasn't going to bring this up at uh a week ago I came down to My Condo building and I found myself held a gunpoint by a homeless individual that broke into my house broke into my car to steal things and held me a gunpoint and the brave men and women of the Miami Beach Police Department where there every step of the way apprehended this suspect who had a fully loaded weapon with a round in his chamber in his waistband this person wasn't looking for help he wasn't looking for resources he was in our city depressed on our residents no more no less he's been implicated in over 10 crimes just in the past two months and he wouldn't have stopped if it weren't for the brave efforts of the men and women of the Miami Beach Police Department so we really need to bifurcate our efforts we need to dedicate resources to those people that need it and are seeking it but we need to really go in eyes wide open and realize that is not the totality of the homeless population that is living here that there it's an unfortunate reality that there are people here for no other purpose than to pray on our residents and our tourists and I commend and applaud my colleagues that have taken legislative initiatives over the past couple of years to address this because we cannot solely put this at the feet of the Miami Beach Police Department we need to take legislative reactions and think what it is about our city that is so great but is also providing a safe haven for these people to pray upon our residents and our tourists alike because my goal in running and I know many of my colleagues is to make Miami Beach the greatest place in the world to live to work to visit and to raise a family and we can't have in incidents like this if we want that all to be true so I I really really thank our homeless Outreach because we saw just last week you're putting yourselves on the line you're putting put yourselves in danger and again I'll address it you know some other point but truly thank you for the men and women for the Miami Beach Police Department for the incident uh of the person the homeless individual that's praying Upon Our Community thank you uh Vice chair sorry thank you madam chair um last time we spoke about this I think there was only 20 or 25 arrests made for the the new camping ordinance has that has that changed at all I believe the number that we have today is 28 as of 413 28 yes um is since the first of the year so that number comes in from October 1st to 4:13 so it's essentially from the first of the year because the the ordinance I believe was implemented October 18th we did our training we got people out around sometime in December the end of December beginning of January so from essentially beginning of the year till April 13th 28 arrest which is generally the same number I think at the last commission meeting when this item came came up that was the same um number and if I remember correctly I think there was a willingness from every or most members on the commission you know to see that ordinance really be enforced um and it certainly doesn't seem like it has has changed it's still in the 20s you know I I live on Meridian and 17th I mean I see homeless people sleeping every day on Lincoln Road um and it seems it's the same people over and over um and you know Jane I mean she messages she she says that there's the same person in front of her her building for 20 years um sleep we do know that that guy hasn't been there for 20 years do know that right um so I I understand that the 28 uh that was that the arrests were made was was s was part of an operation correct uh um are there any plans for more operations so we actually continue Patrol actually does operations nightly during their overlap period they out they're out on the beach side and they're that's where the majority of those uh those arrests are being made during that operation or they're in the Parks um so from a from a homeless resource perspective and maybe Services the the goal is to address homelessness we utilize this new revised Camp revised ordinance as a tool just like we use other ordinances and other means as tools to address homelessness um the notion that we don't make arrests is not not accurate um and particularly homeless arrests so from the same time period that we're using from October 1st to April 13th we've got a total of 2351 arrests 869 of those arrests are homeless so we're looking at about 37 38% of our arrest being homeless arrest that's unheard of in any other place and I can tell you that um because we've my team has traveled we we speak at other agencies we go to other organizations we've traveled the nation uh just looking at Best Practices sometimes we take the things that we do here that work best and teach other agencies and while I'm there I learn from them um as we go back and forth I understand I understand the argument that you know it's a tool um and that we are making significant arrests of homeless people um but as you just saw with commissioner magazine you know I I don't think we should I don't think we should uh have an environment in our city where we we allow um certain things to go unpunished or unenforced uh where ultimately then you're getting held up at gunpoint um and so what I'm saying is if if we were really Vigilant on enforcing this no camping rule you know Miami Beach will be known across the world as we are taking matters headon with the Homeless Problem um um and really discouraging uh these transients that come I mean this gentleman came from Texas or Alabama with intent to to to either Rob or kill you know I if if Miami Beach had really strict laws on on camping maybe that individual wouldn't want to come here because he knows that you know at eventually if I'm going to be sleeping on the street which is the only place he was going to be sleeping people are going to you know people uh the police are going to wake me up um and ask for my ID and I'm not going to have an ID and then you know I'm going to have a gun on me and there's going to be an altercation and so I'd rather just avoid Miami Beach because they're really tough on their ordinances and so um you know I it's really the small winds that matter in situations like these because if you if you kind of turn a blind eye to it then you're inviting more I guess greater problems to to occur and you know when I see that there's only 28 arrests for sleeping uh or the no I'm sorry the no camping ordinance you that's a problem I mean it's it's been it's been since October um I think I think we really need to take this seriously and based on the last commission meeting I thought we were very clear that this needs to be enforced more um I understand you you think that this this is a tool but from from up here the electeds we fully expect this this law to be enforced I don't think it was intended to be a tool in a toolbox to just be used whenever it's certain officers think that they can use it I think it's it it's it's needed and it's needed now um so you know again I we want our laws enforced okay we we know we we spend precious time up here debating uh ordinances and legislation not to just have it being considered uh by whoever is supposed to be enforcing it I think I think you know the the expectation is that we we want to see this fully enforced okay commissioner uh magazine y thank you madam chair um bear thank you for that thatat and I hope that causes all of us to sit up if we have let's call it roughly 150 homeless people just of our residential population it's 176% right of our total population committing 37% of the arrests we have a a public safety budget that accounts for 61% of our budget think about all the taxpayer money that is going to policing 150 people then if you extrapolate that even further to you know our our residents and our tourists c a quarter of a million people right that the same 150 are accounting for 37% of our arrests it's less than 0 6% of our entire resident and tourist population there're taking so many resources impacting so many quality of life so I'd like to refer this back to the full commission but urge all of us to remain steadfast in truly truly addressing this problem because it's not just you know this homeless count it is the resources that is draining from our city that is money that could go to schools to parks to our senior services to our police to free them up for other opportunities so this isn't just addressing the homeless this is truly a drain on our entire budget thank you um and I'll second your item um to send it to the full commission I know that I've had um many discussions with uh the current chief and previous Chiefs and part of the reason why the homeless find it so attractive um to come to our city is because we have things that facilitate it like package liquor stores uh also uh places like pizza by the slice and tourists which um give them money and that's why they hang out in the tourist spots um commissioner bot you have a comment I do um just coincidentally um earlier this week a resident called in about a uh literally a tent camping on the beach around 63rd and um and well on the beach around 63rd or so and uh the response was and through no fault of of the officer but the response was um Beach enforcement at night requires three officers two on ATV and a transport wagon for any arrest it's man Tower heavy we only have five at night in all of North Beach each and um you know we're short I think it's 28 officers overall so you know we're talking about um homeless enforcement um in more con concentrated areas on Lincoln Road where there's a big concentration and on you know the parks in South Beach but this is a problem that is going all the way up along the ocean as you guys well know anybody who's done one of the Walk alongs and you know pre- Dawn knows so as we look at this and as we try to find Solutions um let's not not forget that there are other areas impacted where there's there's no no possibility of enforcement because of the geography and the Manpower issue and Staffing of only five police officers in all of North Beach overnight limits what you're able to do so I just want to make sure that is captured in the conversation going forward thank you commissioner commissioner Fernandez thank you uh Madam chair um it's such a great discussion because we do create these the these ordinances to be used uh as as uh as as a way of solving a significant quality of life issue for our residents uh their quality of life are deteriorated on a daily basis by individuals who are urinating defecating in public sharing naked in public and and it goes to the very dignity the human dignity uh of our own residents who are exposed to to this and our commitment has to continue being being compassionate towards the homeless but being firm as well and our desire to uphold the dignity and the quality of life of our of our residents now the fact that we've had 28 arrests um let's let me just walk this through because the ordinance the ordinance requires you to identify First uh whether the person is sleeping or not uh that's that's required to be done uh on the recording is that correct Sergeant that's correct okay so the person needs to identify themselves as home homeless yes and they need to identify whether they're sleeping or not well we we'll see that as we approach the individual we'll see whether they're sleeping or not now what what the 28 doesn't quantify is the amount of placements because the whole point of the of of the the ordinance is that if they reject placement then they get arrested so we we it's we don't enforce that as an if or or or so if you refuse then you're going to be arrested we we don't we don't do that we've the one the 28 that we've done we' followed the letter of how the how the ordinances has been crafted what can you explain the a little bit better because I'm I'm Len I thought I thought I thought it was that if if and Rob perhaps we could chime in and explain this a little bit better because I might be I may have been un misunderstood I thought if the individual is sleeping in public and identifies themselves as as as homeless and is offered uh placement in a facility that has a shelter bed available and they refuse that shelter bed then they're arrested they can be but the way that we the way that oh they can be they can be so the way that we're doing but they're not so so you're telling me that we're using discretion then we're always going to use discretion when it comes to ordinances or or misdemeanors that that's that's completely up to the officer and you you you've got to understand that when we deal with homelessness we're not going to arrest our way out of homelessness and I know you all have heard me say this before you've heard it from other people you're not going to arrest your way out of any situation here on on Miami Beach or any other agency whether it's drugs whether it's homelessness it doesn't matter you're not going to arrest your way out of it the way that the philosophy shows how to deal with homelessness is through a multi approach we have arrest we have service Sergeant understood but I I actually then have to Echo the words of my colleague commissioner Suarez the city commission has been so steadfast why wiass ordinances that then we're going to be politically criticized for and they're not gonna I I know for use a tool But please understand for us these tools that we pass legislatively they're liability for us as well and if we are passing these pieces of legislation is because we expect for you to thank you commissioner for you to enforce it to use it and we are well clearly not from clearly not from what I'm being from what I'm hearing here well your discre that is very that that is very frustrating because guess what the resident that walks out of their apart their apartment their house whose quality of life is being impacted by what they're seeing doesn't have the discretion to unsee what they saw commissioner magazine doesn't have the discretion to go back in time and not have a gun pointed at him it's the reason why we've created these these pieces of of legislation we and I believe 100% an officer discretion but what you're telling me is that the message of the city commission has not resonated and has not been you know I understand I understand the whole point of discretion but to me it's it sounds like the discretion is outweighing the will and the direction that the city commission wants to go in and that to me is concerning that to me is concerning I 100% Support Officer discretion when there is the opportunity to turn someone's someone else's life around where there is the opportunity to get someone into shelter placement into job training into into into into a drug remediation progr program 100% support you and your fellow officers in using discretion in situations like that but the discretion can't be what we revert to I in my in my opinion if we've created this law is for is for it to be enforced as the standard not for the discretion to be the standard and if someone is rejecting placement into into a facility and I got to tell you for me it was very difficult to sponsor that legislation because I began my public service 22 years ago with Camila's house assisting mothers who had formerly homeless children in transitional housing that's where I started my public service and so for me to to come in years later now as an elected official and to pass legislation saying if you reject Services we're going to arrest you was not an easy decision was not a decision I made lightly but we've come to a point in our society where you need firmness in in addressing this this issue and we can't just revert to officer discretion outweighing the will of the city commission that has passed this this legislation and assistant chief I see you there I don't know if you want to chime in on this but for me you know I find it frustrating because it sounds to me that what was the will the direction that this city wants to go in is not being implemented Vice chair before um before our assistant chief speaks I I I also want to reiterate that you know I think there was a number of 150 homeless people that's that's not true um you know I met with aler team and last year there was I wanted to know how many unique um Encounters of homeless individuals in the city of my and there was about 1300 correct so it's not we're not there's not a 150 that's just that 150 is some snapshot of of us going out in the day and trying to count as many own but if you really want to know the numbers we had 1300 unique encounters last year and it it hovers around 13 anywhere from 1,00 to 1300 from from the data that I got but I think we're losing sight of the fact of what is the intent of this ordinance the intent of this ordinance is to en is to encourage the people that really need help help exactly and the people who don't want help we want to discourage them from being here because ultimately what ends up happening is what happening to to one of my colleagues and you know we are being very clear that we fully expect this ordinance to be to be enforced okay um the 28 homeless arrests that was part of a single sting operation and that's just reported by the Miami Herald we're telling you we're telling you right now it was not and I just told you that it was not yeah go on it's a cmin Interruption it's a culmination Okay so okay was there ever an operation where there was a bus um where the myami beach police and and housing it came out and and they did an operation to to look for camping individuals we do that every Wednesday we do a we do a detail every Wednesday where we're we work with homeless Outreach we work with code we work with sanitation and we go out and then we we address those issues so just this morning your fellow commissioner went out with the team and and there was a person that accepted services so they they typically have a van with them we go out we police are there for safety for their safety and we engage folks we do it along the beachwalk we do it along Lincoln Road in different areas of the city where we've identified homeless encampments people that are gathering and and my and my last Point uh is was it the majority or or almost majority of all the crimes committed in May beach are by homeless people a lot of crimes that it's the majority correct so if the stats show that the majority of crimes are committed by homeless people why would we not why would the why would the police department not really focus in on on on homeless individuals in Miami Beach and really throwing everything that they can to address this problem you know I think that the camp no camping ordinance is so unique because a lot of these homeless people think that whenever they pitch a tent or they sleep on a certain Corner they own that corner it's theirs no one can touch it uh but when but when the city comes and we say look this isn't owned by you this is this is public right away you're not allowed to sleep here that in the back in the back of a mind when you when someone's basically telling you that this isn't your property you can't sleep here they're going to go somewhere else they're going to they're going to go somewhere else that will um I guess be more accommodating like like Broward County we do I do have a question um Sergeant so the camping ordinance has had 28 people since October 1st get arrested how many accepted services so since the beginning of the year 28 28 since the beginning of the year how many have accepted Services because um if they accepted Services we should know that number as well since um they weren't arrested because they accepted Services which is um part of the approach so I believe ala has so um we have 49 after hours placements that have taken place since the beginning of the fiscal year so add to the 28 we we really should hear both numbers because they weren't arrested because they accepted Services which which meant that we got them off the streets commissioner Rosen Gonzalez yeah um I was walking Lincoln Road the other morning and I was at uclid circuit Circle and there were no less than four people sleeping right out in the open passed out across uid Circle and I felt at that moment that nobody's going to UK you know we're not there because if we would have been there they would have been in shelters you know so I don't understand how they're sleeping there if somebody walking the beat on Lincoln Road um you know and they were sleeping there on the circle and I said to myself even if we had like a spring system to make it unattractive or like what because it it ruins the whole vibe of of of it looks awful well commissioner from um magazine had made a motion to bring this to the full commission and um I second that motion and we need to close this out from the commit apprciate thank you the next item is I just want to just please discretion is important but just keep in mind that the the intent of this ordinance is to be able to get people into into services and and if someone is rejecting services that arrest mechanism is meant is there with compassion in mind to get them to encourage them as using that extra tool to get them ultimately into into the services they need and I believe we've even had a certain level of times when when when people in court have agreed to to to to enter services so please let's not just Reverb to this question thank you okay number 19 we're moving on commission we're moving on number 19 number 19 discussion regarding the efforts of police department to combat illegal drug deal City good afternoon everybody okay so this item has been on since uh 2022 and I know that in 2023 there was a an operation with the state attorney's office um on drug dealing specifically I also know from conversations with the the chief that uh discussing things in detail are not something that we want to do because um then the bad guys are going to hear about it I know that high level you can tell us a little bit about this and then we can close this out well this is Lieutenant o he's in charge of our street street crimes unit of which as you all are aware there's a large undercover uh component and yes Madam chair like like you stated we were I plan to just stay at the 30,000 foot level and and really just say that yes there are operations that uh that occur uh we we're not going to discuss in in a public for you know what we do when we do it how we do it obviously that is individually an open invitation if anybody wanted to know a little bit further but that would have to be done privately but Lieutenant oose is just going to take you through operation Lucid air that we did conduct in conjunction with the state attorney's office which netted quite a few success um and it's something that these are the kind of operations that we like to do they're long-term they're uh resource intensive uh but I think they um they they are successful and before he starts I'm just going to say I I was just recently in Portugal a couple weeks ago and they have a a street that's very similar to our Lincoln Road so I can as a tourist being in Portugal I kind of understood how when tourists come here how they could feel because I was Sol solicited in every corner for some kind of Narcotics uh so we take it very seriously and we know that that that it's occurring and we definitely want to do all that we can to to to mitigate that thank you assistant chief Lieutenant good afternoon everyone nice to see most of you again and uh hello greetings to the ones I don't know operation Lucid air was conducted September of 2023 it was in partnership with the state attorney's office and it was conducted in the uh adcd the art uh Art Deco um Cal District it was uh conducted between the hours of 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 a.m. which were the prime drug dealing hours it was conducted over uh the 4-we period of September and it uh netted a total of 49 felony arrests for misdemeanor arrest 11 of those individuals were uh with warrants uh we also recovered a total of 1176 G of cocaine 13565 G of cannabis gram of oxycotton 6 gram of MDMA or ecstasy 46 gram of psychedelic mushrooms uh 8,484 in cash and also we netted two convicted felons in possession of firearms uh Lieutenant there any plans to do an operation similar to operation Lucid air uh this year in conjunction with the State Attorney's office we're working on it okay great any comments from the committee just a question wait this is my item and I would just like to speak on it it's okay um I was going to pull the item yesterday because I thought oh we've done this sting operation but then I called a couple Property Owners on Ocean Drive it said very much so that there are still drug dealers on nearly every corner so this sweep can't just be a one-time thing because as soon as they see that you're not there they just go right back out there so I'm really happy that we were able to do this operation but we're still we still have that problem and um and I spoke to two different um Property Owners on Ocean Drive that confirmed that so you know I I I know you want to close out items but uh and I haven't walked Ocean Drive you know I would love to I'm going to walk it myself actually today I'm going to go undercover okay I'll go with you if you like okay GCO did give me a commissioner badge take my commissioner badge well thank you commissioner Rosen Gonzalez and actually this item was minor not yours oh it was yes are you sure I thought that this was my ey no uh commissioner bot has a oh wait can I finish my item I not my item comment finish my comment um you know in like in a few days I'm going to go out there I'm going to walk it and you know and listen I'm really glad that we finally figured out a way to finally get the drug dealers off but this I I just want everybody to know that the problem is not solved it is something that is ongoing um and you know and yeah and it's it's I don't know how you guys are going to fix it if they keep coming back that once you clean it up you got to keep the officers out there and right now um I've been there a few times it seemed like it had improved to me um I don't live in South South Beach if I did you know I'd probably be walking Ocean Drive more often but um I I I think it should be some sort of recurring uh update that we get well they can't give us an update uh on these operations I would prefer that either as an LTC or individual Commissioners get it but in a public forum we're not going to get information until way after the fact so um I don't want to keep this item on here uh but before we close it out commissioner bot so um you know there are obviously other hotspots that could use the sort of attention um so as you're planning whatever your next steps would be um the alto delar area near the public restrooms in the playground um The Alley behind that runs parallel to Normandy behind Bob's your unle um uh some of those par pocket little Parks up in North Beach along um uh along a Bay Drive those little pocket Parks so I I know you guys know all this but I just want to remind you like Ocean Drive is great because it's concentrated and it's it's operationally easier because resources can do more in a you know in a more efficient way but there are there are these hotpots that just need the same kind of um laser focus so throw that into your operational Hopper if you will and uh I would be most appreciative understood commissioner every city resident is just as important as every other one I show you commissioner magazine uh thank you all and like I said uh last time you all are PD is the eyes and ears on the ground and that makes you the in inherent experts on this and this cannot be an item placed solely at your feet I appreciate the good work that you're doing but I would urge whether it be the Command Staff or your everyday beup reach out to us if you have ideas what you need from us especially from a legislative idea right this isn't just a one-way Street as you're all going out here I I think you've especially since this new commission has been elected uh we haven't been shy about the type of city that we would like to see you're the ones that are out there doing that we can't put it all at your feet so if you sit there and say you know what we we see what you want this is what we need these are the legislative things that would help we're not the experts you all are so so I implore you to come to us and say these are the tools and resources that we need because at the end of the day we're all in this together thank you so now we'll move on to number three sorry item number three discussion regarding police cause and services associated with public safety concerns at H H sorry hotels and hostels located neighborhoods that are predominantly residential such as south of fifth neighborhood or West Avenue neighborhood including code enforcement issues relating to the city hosts and hotels located in those neighborhoods thank you this is an item from uh 2022 um major Robinson uh good after afternoon uh major Ian Robinson I'm in charge of uniform Operations Division so uh yes uh from what I see here was um first heard in uh June of 2022 and since then Land Development regulations have amended been amended to prohibit uh certain types of transient uses in both neighborhoods um so I can tell you um that I do have some figures here they would included as part of the documents um um anecdotally from what I heard calls for or what I've heard in on the radio listen to the radio every day calls for service have gone down in these areas especially the Bikini Hostel um you know had a lot of issues way back when I haven't heard anything significant happening is the hostel south of fifth still open um I believe uh 15 south of date 8 of 15 53% are in the adcd one on West and one in Sophie has closed I thought I had closed right okay so um Debbie uh uh good morning Madam chair um I was I think uh at the last meeting in 2022 you asked for a planning update and um we've also in addition to prohibiting the apartment hotels and the hostels um south of Fifth and on West Avenue we have also passed uh incentives to convert existing uses um even existing uses that wouldn't be permitted today but they have the legal right to continue to operate um we've been passed incentives for f and height um two F questions actually went to the voters and were approved for South the fifth um to convert transient uses to purely residential uses so thank you so I think with the closure of the hostel South the 5th with the ldr Amendments that have been made since 2022 when this item first came up there have been measures to improve and the numbers have gone down with the Bikini Hostel with that I'd like to move to close the item out are my colleagues in okay so we'll move on from that one um and Stephanie you'll keep me informed if there's any public comment uh we're going on to number five okay item number five discussion item concerning the manner mechanism in which the city residents can obtain updated information regarding the pending status of criminal offenses prosecuted by the state attorney's office and this is an item from 2021 um hi how are you good afternoon Commissioners Eric Garcia uh major of tech services uh yes back in 2021 there was a lot of conversation about getting some data going um this particular item if I remember correctly was addressed at that time I remember being at this meeting or this might have been a virtual meeting uh was addressed by the city attorney's office uh in conjunction with PD and uh at the time I think what we agreed to was to include it on our City's on our department website links to the clerk of court uh website where they can where you can find the most current information on uh is that separate from be.gov so what we did was we put it on uh Miami beachfl dog you if you click on the P I'm going to open it up right now yeah on the on the police department and under uh Services okay so would that I guess it would be under a city hall uh and then under police under police when you get to the when you get to the home screen of of police you'll there's a section called Services let's see I don't see it so can you try and bck oh at the top yep I see it right on the top y right at the top okay y okay go on and then if you scroll down from here if you scroll down from there criminal court hearings okay so click on that so this section this section will uh has a bunch of links to the Clerk of Court's office now since uh this item came up I've uh I've checked all these links and I'm going to be updating some of them because some of them have been uh some of them are outdated so the these will be updated in the next few days or or week or week um to have the most current links to the uh Clerk of Court okay but in this situation in order to um find out you would have to have the name of the person that did the crime um mayor Miner was the sponsor of this item so I'm going to recommend that this go to the full commission so that he could tell us that the full commission if that was the intent for somebody to know or if he wanted actual reports um that the police would give not something that we would need to look up so are you guys in favor of sending this to the full commission and then my mayor Miner can address if he wanted this if this is what he envisioned or if it was something different okay and who's the second one is there a second second okay yeah uh Chris uh commissioner Rosen gonzale okay so uh we'll move that one off and then uh to the full commission item 24 item number 24 to discuss new strategies and more efficient allocation of police resources for Traffic Control during Peak traffic periods okay and this was uh mayor Miner commissioner Fernandez and commissioner magazine since uh commissioner magazine is on the committee I'll ask you to te this up yeah thank you for all you know one of the things that we've all heard as one of the most PR quality of life issues is uh traffic and traffic control it's also a public safety uh element you know where our city becomes so jam-packed especially one of the causeways uh if there's an accident it's essentially diverse traffic elsewhere in the city um how I'm envisioning things uh coming from New York City popular block the Box programs understand that we are somewhat circumvented from uh quote unquote red light cameras but until we get more techn uh technology specific resources um having traffic control especially in some of our hotpots like 17th and West Avenue and Alon Road entering the Venetian along 41st Street uh just as a way to really help uh uh facilitate traffic flow and one of the most crucial ways of doing that is making sure that um commuters especially from the four to seven uh PM periods are not blocking intersections that uh essentially circumvent the free flow of traffic so I'll hand it over to the police to uh give us an update on their efforts kind of where we were where we're at now and where we'd like to go major Robinson uh thank you major Ian Robinson again Operations Division so uh 100% agree with you um when there is a backup by 995 because of a crash or some big event happening out there eventually it will move on to the Julia Tuttle onto the MacArthur that eventually transitions over to 41st Street or Fifth Street what have you um I will tell you that um current ly and I think you were provided the maps as to where we put Personnel from 4: to 6:30 at night we have 16 posts within our city that are currently being uhu manned by police officers Monday through Friday their exact purpose out there is to try to keep the Box clear um to allow traffic if they if it's totally blocked up westbound to continue North and southbound traffic um little update on our psss um there are nine hired um that's coming along I think we have to hire one more there's a little bit of a training U theod that they have to go through and then eventually they will be deployed to those locations out on 41st Street as part of their regular schedule as well as out on Bell Isle because we control traffic out there as well on 17th and West and and things like that um I want to let you know that I had a discussion uh based on this item with um Lieutenant Carpenter from the city of Miami a while back and before Co they had something similar um that you just mentioned like you saw in New York um it was basically traffic control Specialists who were standing on the corner in downtown Miami um who would sure that the box was always clear um that was going along well although there were some problems with it they were part-time people they were having a problem finding people uh there were some pay issues going on there uh it worked for some time then they were having a problem with hiring um these people um when I say these people these Public Safety Specialists that were hiring on board here it's not going to look like that these are full-time employees who are going to be doing other things during the day within the different areas non priority calls for service until it's time for the afternoon rush I'm thinking of this almost like a through the chair uh almost like a park rangers program for traffic where they are not full-fledged police officers but they're the eyes and ears and Specialists on the ground instead of being dedicated to monitoring Parks uh in these specific parts of the day they will be solely focused on monitoring traffic but it doesn't come with the same uh maybe costs or full background in training as a a full-fledged police officer does correct yeah it's it's a lot less than a than a police officer is um they're they're called Public Safety Specialists they have uh enforcement capabilities when they arrive on the scene of an accident they can write a parking ticket things like that they can't stop a motorist for blocking the box or whatever now could they say hey you got to go straight or you got to make a left or whatever it's going to be they'll have authority to do that but the answer to your question is yes co-sponsor Fernandez did you have anything on this item okay uh commissioner B I just had a question about the map that you included um there's nothing north of 41st Street and I want to make sure that that stays top of Mind we've already addressed the bridge issues at 63rd Street but we have 3,000 residential units coming on board in North Bay Village over the next few years and uh 13 new buildings in the 71st Street 8x6 Square block um circumference in North Vach toown Center it is already an unmitigated disaster up there any anyhow and as each of those projects comes online I I I like I don't even know how to fix that other than building hovercrafts or buying hovercrafts for everybody but if it's not in here for purposes of this discussion today but you have those I'd love to see it but if they're not in here and they're not planned for we need to have a conversation about that because um that 71st Street Indian Creek Dickens um corner is a disaster absolutely absolutely disastrous so maybe we can have an offline conversation to be prepared and not get caught um behind the gun on that the other thing is Eddie will laugh at me but that's okay I'm used to it in Japan they and it's a very different culture where people are orderly and follow rules but they have these lovely um police folks who stand on little stools or whatever you know they're better than stools but little kiosks and they um literally have their little white gloves and they direct traffic and I know it's a different here this would be a prime target for for drivers like how many of these people could we knock off in one day but my understanding is that a lot of the officers who are here now are to help with the signalization and stand by the the Box itself to help change the lights will needed and I know I don't want to put anybody at risk by standing in the middle of the intersection but sometimes I mean talking about being in New York we've all had the gruff police officer like you know what am I made of wood you going to hit me like you know doing their best New York tough guy thing like literally confronting drivers who are acting like jerks so again don't want to put anybody In Harm's Way but sometimes it is going to require people getting away from uh the box or not just leaning on the car to show a presence but to actually engage with the drivers thank you uh Vice chair and then we'll move this item to the full commission just curious how does the the new Traffic Control Center uh at the on the mainland coordinate with the um the new new officers that we're going to or not officers but the Personnel uh yeah that's uh sir is um transportation I'm not sure if they're still here or not um but we will we would ultimately work in conjunction with them and our Arctic when that's fully on board and good afternoon so the the traffic Management Center that is collocated at the fdot district 6 facility what currently the way that it operates is there's constant communication between the monitors the traffic monitors which are contract Personnel our Police Department our um Communications Department fot and the county to identify issues and then see what could be done to mitigate any traffic impacts so first and foremost what's important is to identify what's going on if there are cameras we have cameras if there are cameras at the location we can see what's going on our traffic monitors can see if there are no cameras there then uh that's where a lot of the communication happens our traffic monitors contact uh police fire Communications division they ask for any intel on what's going on um police sometimes goes out there uh it it depends on the nature of the issue but there's a lot of back back office communication that's occurring between our traffic monitors police Communications Fon and the county has the program started yes okay yes all right so let's bring this item to the full commission and um I'd like to move to add uh streets north of um 21st as uh commissioner bot mentioned uh because I agree with her there's a lot of scary things that are coming down the pike with these enormous projects um and Indian Creek and 71st Street and some of those are problems so when you bring it to the full commission include those is there a second this okay should I add the white gloves no I'm just any color you like yes ma'am all right so uh item number seven item number seven is to discuss a resolution of the mayor and City Commission of the city of Miami Beach Florida directing the city Administration to publish monthly reports on the official City of Miami Beach Police Department's web page setting forth the statistical data pertaining to crimes reported an arrest effectuated in the prior month sorted by area of the city in which the offense was committed for any felony misdemeanor and or City County ordinance violations and further directing the city Administration to publish such monthly crimes and arrest data reports on each PSN qlc agenda in conjunction with presenting such data at each meeting commissioner Fernandez thank you madam chair uh this is an item uh that I had uh placed last year on the agenda to enhance the transparency of of of crime in our city and the work that our Police Department is doing for the benefit of our of of our residents and one of the frustrating uh things for me is when our residents uh don't have an actual source to get this type of data as to the safety uh or or or or the activity that's going on in their in in their neighborhoods and then they go into other websites that might have unofficial information that does not relay the true accurate data that our residents deserve when they're looking into into you know the statistical in information as to crime or arrests uh happening in their in their neighborhoods the police department um got this resolution uh and uh and put uh and put themselves to work uh with our it department and if you allow me Madam chair I'd like to recognize officer Rodriguez who's here today to present the product of their work thank you hi hi good afternoon I had to look at my uh my clock good afternoon Madam chair members of the commission uh assistant city manager and all so as the uh as the commissioner mentioned you know this has been a a long time coming I believe when I was looking at the research uh since about 2023 I think some items there was multiple iterations of what we wanted and and what we wanted to see uh at the direct direction of our of our current chief you know we kind of fast-tracked uh the result and what you're going to get a preview of today it's been a very collaborative process it's all of us here at PD um specifically our technical operations unit uh major Eric Garcia who oversees that unit and his team uh were an integral part of it um I'd be remissed if I did not mention Frank kintana and his team who were again an instrumental part of of this uh information I'm I'm I'm pleased with the product um commissioner Fernandez got A Sneak Peek uh of it yesterday commissioner Schwarz you almost got to see it but we wanted to save it for you uh for today since we know you love data um and easel and easel yes as you said uh so uh I don't know if we can uh if PJ can show the screen um there's there's going to be two dashboards and by the end of the week we should have a letter to commission which will have uh links to to these dashboards these will be on our Police website as well and it's it really is an effort to promote transparency and what we're um pushing out I don't know that there is any agency or at least any agency nearby that's pushing this type of information out as quickly as we are so we had the the direction of course from the city commission to to compile this information we took it a step further this is an interactive uh uh interface uh it's Microsoft product powerbi the first that you're looking at is it's called a daily arrest dashboard which is automatically populated uh with the arrest from the previous day so I'll give you in the interest of time unless we want to go into deep detail and you know um this is reminding me of the item that we just heard that I sent to the full commission um that uh Garcia was uh talking about and I was like I don't think that's what mayor Miner wanted I think this is what he wanted well it's exactly there and since there are two sites it kind of it's taking the best of what everyone wanted and again we took it a step further because it's not just a daily arrest people are going to if you as you'll see when I'll I'll quickly Show you people are going to be able to drill down certain dates get the information by the patrol areas which you see here on the leftand side you know we we broke it down in plain English South Beach mid Beach North Beach the Entertainment District and then you have a other category uh because if an individual is arrested for example at the jail facility there's there's always uh issues as to why the address won't populate um automatically when a person uh opens up this dashboard it's going to it'll populate to yesterday which uh I don't know if you see my cursor here so the information the person sees which in this case is a total of uh 16 arrests it's all for the previous day and again it gives you the analytics the that you could see arrest by Patrol areas it even tells you by hour and uh the arrest by the primary charge that's important to note uh because I I I certainly don't want anyone to think we're misleading this information is given to us by the county it's a thinkstream arrest interface so it's the primary charge that's on the arrest document there are other charges uh very likely that are associated with that individual person as well and you also have the uh the heat map that shows where it's ey uh Vice chair through the chair thank you madam chair is there any traffic data on there um citations for speeding reckless driving on these dashboards yeah now on these dashboards they are this one is the Miami Beach Police Department daily arrest dashboard and I know you're very excited but once I get to this next one it'll be the monthly crime incident uh dashboard and that'll have those incident uh perhaps your your suggestion would be a a new uh type of dashboard that we can publish and our our police chief is very very big on transparency promoting that type of stuff so it's right I I think because once you have sort of the infrastructure for this um software I think it's easy as you plug in you know you maybe have another dashboard for speeding or you have a drop down that says not speeding but traffic citations um utc's right um would that be possible to also integrate into this I it would be possible to in I don't think integrate into this what we have access to a lot of information I know we've spoken at length about you know previous information we've shared and those Excel sheets that we've shared with you have been because of this type of data that uh as I refer to very verifiable data that uh that Frank collaboratively collaboratively has worked with us so I think the answer is yes but good morning franking Tana CIO uh so we Warehouse all of our Public Safety information in our data architecture so to your point of having that information available as long as it's something that we're actively tracking or that it comes out from our Dispatch Center or our arrest records uh we would be able to build something specific to that um a lot of these dashboards are specific views into a particular need uh it it would be impractical to have one dashboard with everything just by volume right so if there's something that we want to do that's more specific towards speeding or a subset of that information that is something we can absolutely work towards perhaps like DUI speeding uh reckless driving yeah we'd be happy to work uh with you if you would like to to get some of those requirements of some of those areas as long it is as it is something that is specifically identified as DUI speeding in the system we can pull that up and the and the big picture as well the overall traffic um enforcement you know our works our cops work work diligently throughout the year throughout the day throughout you know every day seven days a week and although there may not be a particular set of citations the enforcement is is certainly there is there room for improvement in any uh situation absolutely and that's as a modern police uh Department that that's what we always strive to do and and again transparency that's the most important thing and context when we're sharing this information that's what we what we strive to do and we'll continue to do thank you commission Fernandez again I just I want to know if we can just simply Implement some you know key points of of traffic data speeding DUI refence driving and and and if we can just Implement that and it's not a big deal it'd be great commissioner thank you madam chair grade points uh by the Vice chair so let me just follow up on that um because as it relates to to for example crime the crime portal the dashboard that we have there criminal versus non-criminal traffic matters I would imagine DUI being a criminal matter would that appear under the dashboard on this dashboard you're saying an an arrest M if the individual is physically taken to jail for the criminal offense yes it would it would appear here if the individ but that would have to be the primary offense the the arrest record the way that it comes to us from the county will only show the primary offense on the record so to uh the point that was made earlier if there is a list of offenses it'll only report on the first one and that is a function of the way that the information is delivered to us through the integration we built with the county from their system they will list a primary one regardless of what whether there were multiple ones or not so there's times when DUI perhaps might be the primary and other instances in which it won't be the primary in which case it won't be reflected on the dashboard and perhaps in a situation like that perhaps what devis chair is referencing perhaps as something to separate as for the metrics of traffic matters might be something fruitful for the future to consider yeah and and I just want to clarify though that arrest itself would be captured now would it be necessarily right here as DUI I can't say 100% that it will be the first one because it depends on how the officer is going to uh write the report you know they may write the report list the uh the charges in sequential order they it really is up to that officer but the arrest itself would be there and as we had uh you know touched on yesterday you know this is an effort to you know share information with the community um but I think a a key component is of this also is to not lose that connection with you know the residents with each of you and the individual area captains um your AIDS and the area captains with the Command Staff of the department so we could really drill down get you more information because again information is limited but we want to be able to provide that bigger that bigger picture and and you know give you full context and thank you for that because certainly this can certainly be a tool as you well mentioned to facilitate conversation conversation between area captains the neighborhood resource officers neighborhood associations together to better understand um not that I myself I'm going to go in and see data here and say okay you know there was there was uh you know an incident in here in my neighborhood um you know what do you guys why why don't I see more police present it really is to understand okay what does this mean in in the bigger picture uh how do I work with with with my nro with my captain to you know to understand were there more officers you know sent to an area what is the plan to mitigate a specific Trend that might be identified now through this data which is the great thing about having this type of visual and I do want to commend uh both the department and the IT department the police department and the IT department uh Frank and officer Rodriguez because it truly is so much more than what any other City provides you see what other cities provide number one it doesn't have the level of update and it's almost some of the state is almost real time if not by a few hours uh delayed other cities will just give you a monthly chart and this is so much more than a chart the breakdown by the type of crime by the area by the time and giving you that visual of the of the heat map and being able to zoom into it it really is uh something so much more sophisticated than what I have seen any other City provide and so I truly just commend you guys for listening to this request that we place on the agenda on behalf of our residents and thinking about the transparency that our residents were asking for in its implementation it really is much much appreciated and uh what I'd like to see for the future start thinking how can we overlap this data is there that possibility to get okay there was crime but overlap the the crime data with the arrest data to then have the more complete picture of crime and arrest uh and let's see let's start studying that and see if there's that uh possibility for the future thank you this is great stuff um so really appreciate that we'll move on to close this out and move on to number eight good job item eight discussion regarding services offered to inmates at the time of release from the TGK Correctional Center and public transit bus passes provided by Miami Dade County Commissioner Fernandez thank you uh Madam chair this is an item placed on the agenda uh back in 2022 um by the way there was a misprint on the item and I think it got it got corrected on the on on the sponsor of the of the item but this is an item I place on the agenda 2022 because we often talk talk about the revolving doors of Justice our police officers are on the streets they are encountering dangerous individuals on a daily basis and then these individuals get arrested they get booked into a place like TGK sometimes they get released very quickly and they're given a bus pass and it's not that they don't deserve that bus pass but the problem that I have is that the bus the buses go in front of TGK mainly go east and one of those bus lines is a straight line you look at the round 36 bus runs right in front of TGK it actually almost ends almost ends right at TGK and it's a straight line up 36th Street over the Tuttle up 44th Street looping up Collins Avenue and right around here around 17th Street and Lincoln Road and the Washington Avenue area the areas of our city where you walk Lincoln Road East of Washington Avenue where this bus goes it's some of the areas of our city when you see the highest concentration on the amount for example of homelessness and it's not to say that these individuals don't deserve a bus pass but is a bus pass back to our community or any other community the right thing or would it be more appropriate to be speaking with Miami day County and other agencies to determine is there a way that when an individuals released from jail that we offer them a bus pass to get some to to facilities within the Continuum of Care so that they don't have a place to go they don't end up back in our streets back in our neighborhoods they go somewhere that where they can get services and by the way the frustrating thing about this is that there's a direct line connection between TGK back to Miami beach but people coming out of that jail motion might be people who may have been arrested in Homestead may have been people arrested in Kendall may have been people arrested in Miami Gardens may have been people arrested in petto Bay or cuddler Bay or other parts of Miami day County May but the lines running in front of TGK isn't taking individuals back to those communities the line is back to Miami Beach and we need to fix this and we need to fix it yesterday and so I asked the support of this committee to explore what options we could do how we could better work with Miami day County in fixing this and and not just saying okay get rid of the line we'll know what are the Alternatives that we can offer to sofus okay Vice chair Suarez bus pass to New York City uh I I really want to thank commissioner Fernandez thank you um and it's crazy that this has been on since 2022 um and and we're finally getting and thank you madam chair for finally putting this on because well yeah I I mean it just makes total sense that why are we allowing this to happen or or at least not having some sort of discussion with the county on this um the the fact that there's a a a fast track from TGK to Miami Beach is ridiculous I mean they should have a fast track to the nearest community center where they can get services and help like Camila's house and so um what can we do all right so major Robinson and albara if you wanted to address these items uh the young lady can go before me if she'd like um so I did Al office of Housing and Community Services I can't speak to the bus line but I can speak to what is currently occurring at TGK the Miami Dade County homeless trust has dedicated discharge planners and anou with Miami Dade County Corrections if a person identifies as needing housing assistance so this is on the homeless front so if a person self-identifies and says you know I am homeless I don't have where to go there's someone there available to them to help get them to that Community Center and get them tied into services so that's what is currently happening today that's just for the homeless through the correct okay but what about just your people who who committed serious crime criminals yeah criminals I'm sorry what's the question sir so like let's let's say they're not homeless and they're just criminals and the the standard protocol is to give them a bus pass and then they get on the bus and they come right to Miami Beach um I believe that TGK is um she might have mentioned it before um goes through some sort of process under their roof hey do you have a means of transportation do you have Anu do you have money to pick you up to take you somewhere else if not they give a bus pass um I think the answer to your question is yes technically they can get on a bus wherever it might be in the county whatever bus line they're going on whether it's the 36 that comes into Miami Beach or whether it's the 125 that goes to Kendall whatever I think the answer to your question is yes if they get out and they don't have any means of transportation and they get this bus pass they can go wherever they want and one of those locations is Miami Beach okay so Vice chair um would you like to bring an item to the full commission um with a resolution urging uh the city I mean urging not to offer this well that's I know but you can't make the motion yeah yeah he can move my own if he wants right but yeah yeah I I'll move commissioner fernand's it uh all in favor coor I'd like to co-sponsor that uh yeah I I'll co-sponsor this as well uh commissioner through the chair if I can fantastic item I had no idea that this was occurring and um I think we should also have an alternative uh rather than just urging TGK not to do this uh I'd expect to get push back on that um so let's all kind of brainstorm on other possible solutions people respond to incentives perhaps we have our own program that uh provides an incentive for them to take the bus to Broward or wherever it is it's not Miami Beach um their legislators can do what's best for their city um yeah um but I I don't think we're going to have much luck with TGK perhaps we can work with the homeless trust or things like that it it's a fantastic uh thing that you've highlighted and probably is a a huge source of some of the issues um but we have to have a kind of multi-pronged approach and a number of different uh Solutions if this isn't accepted by TGK okay so we're going to move on to item number six in the interest of time just may make one quick suggestion quick can we not if there criminals don't which is different from a homeless person do they not have an address of record and why couldn't we just require TGK to send them back to wherever their home address of record is so if they were arrested in Miami Beach then they can and the residents here then they obviously can come home here but if they are residents of somewhere Dural or Haler or wherever then they have to go back to those places why couldn't that be a recommendation uh let's bring this up again when it's at the full commission we've now moved on to number six but thank you commissioner so we're doing is that what we're doing it's going to the full commission with an urging to do an urging to with an urging and alternatives to provide Alternatives okay number six okay number six discuss weapons detection system at alcoholic beverage establishment commissioner Fernandez uh thank you uh Madam chair and I'm gonna defer to the uh City attorneys on this item all well this item we previously discussed and the city commission authorized the mayor to send a letter to uh to establishments on Miami Beach urg urging them if they're an alcoholic beverage establishment to have a metal detector and to use it uh and we cited all the reasons they should do it and all the safety standards that uh sort of suggest that they should and uh and so that letter was sent out by mayor gilber I want to say about I don't know about a year or two ago um we don't recommend uh doing more than that at this time because of the various preemptions involved including uh preemption on uh regulation of firearms which has very Draconian penalties if you do uh legislate in that area but uh we are doing uh we we are constantly looking at everything that we can do both to make our uh alcoholic beverage establishments safer and other places where metal detectors might be useful such as City Hall and such as the facilities here so um so so I I would I guess urge you at this time just not to take any further action on that front and to uh uh to continue or to close the the matter uh commissioner Fernandez okay to close this out I just want to understand better what did the city of Orlando do because the city of I my understanding was that the city of Orlando had successfully the city of Orlando created an incentive program uh whereby they rolled back alcohol hours uh to I believe midnight and and then issued a late night permit to 3:00 a.m. if I'm not mistaken if you uh and you got that incentive if you met various requirements one of which was if the bar had a metal detector uh and so it was an incentive rather than a regulation and that was how they sort of skirted around the preemption uh I will say that that has never been uh challenged in courts we don't know how a court would rule on it but assuming that what they did was legal which we which we do we give them that benefit uh you can always offer in incentives to do things that are preempted and so uh at the time I believe the direction was that we didn't want to open up a an alcohol hours discussion but uh but if there is any thought from members of the commission about an incentive that could be offered to uh to to incentivize bars to have metal detectors uh that would be something that you could clearly discuss and and I think you would be your within your rights to offer commissioner we can close it out okay so we're closing this out thank you for the explanation and now we're moving on to uh our second to last item you guys item 21 item number 21 discuss take action and authorize Administration to implement new Florida law for double fines and toying within special event zones during spring break to the foolest extent permitted by law Madam chair this had three co-sponsors yet I'm sorry um commissioner magazine you were one of the co-sponsors yes uh I think and we'll discuss this more at length uh tomorrow for the spring break meeting um not getting in the middle of that discussion uh I think this was a great tool in our toolbox again a multipronged approach between our great uh participation from law enforcement legislative issues one of the things was just the messaging the that we sent it was helped by a viral campaign uh but part of that was yes come here if you're doing things the right way but it's not going to be easy to come here and kind of Park in our garages and use that as a your kind of base camp to sit there and drink out of your cars and cause trouble and not uh contribute to our economy and things like that so these are just Tools in a multi-prong tool belt that I think uh provided us um in part a great and successful campaign uh spring break campaign that we're going to look to build on we're so you know I think when we doubled the towing finds uh maybe Eric can come up we we it was no added value to the city I mean meaning the city never got any of the extra funds because we doubled the fines correct um is that because of State Statute yeah yeah yes okay um yeah look I think like commissioner magazine said I think this is a great tool um but I think what we've and not to not to get ahead of ourselves for tomorrow's meeting I think one thing that we've really realized is messaging is key right I mean messaging really set the stage for for this past spring break and you know for for you know and just just an idea if if you know maybe maybe next spring break we're we say we're going to Triple the the towing rate and that message gets spread far and wide on social media saying oh man if you come to May beach you're going to get you're going to be paying close to $750 for for for a toe um that's really going to discourage a lot of people from from doing what we don't want them to do so I think again it's a this is a great tool and we we'll disc discuss it more tomorrow commissioner commissioner Fernandez you were one of the co-sponsors did you have a comment yes thank you uh and I want to thank commissioner magazine and and commissioner Suarez for joining me as a as as a co-sponsor of this item um when I sponsored the creation of the special event zones um it was in respond to uh Florida statute uh sponsored by our one of our state senators uh Elana Garcia um who who who who designated uh this this piece of legislation to specifically address those those individuals who are who are committing non-criminal traffic infractions um yet they're dangerous they take over our our streets and they impact the quality of life of of our of our residents my understanding was that the double Towing fees was as a result of the of the state law it may also be related to our high impact ordinance so so that's something that we should look into but earlier I was just going to suggest you know let's just defer this item um as part of the discussion that's going to happen at our special meeting just for the sake of time so what I would like to do is close out the item since we will be talking about it so uh let's do that and then um the final item number 18 item number 18 is to discuss potentially extending Beach hours for the monthly North Beach full moon drum circle and and uh commissioner ma magazine um you were one of the co-sponsors that you want to Tee It Up yeah I I've seen both online and uh getting feedback from residents this is a great great Community event um and the best way to ensure that it remains uh not only positive activation but uh continues to grow uh from the feedback that I've seen is extending the hours for that there seem to be uh will and desire of the community to do so haven't received any negative complaints um we'll keep our eye closely on this because we don't want it you know uh conflicting with residential quality of life but this seems to be uh an event that's uh embraced by the community so um this is really just adhering to our uh our con constituent's wishes great and commissioner Fernandez just pointed out that he was the Prime sponsor uh would you like to share anything on that no I think uh commissioner magazine covered it well uh it's just uh creating um an environment where we are wel welcoming to activities that that our residents enjoy um and identifying the schedule let's identify the schedule of times uh when um when it would be appropriate to extend these speech hours uh to um to to accommodate uh this this activity and one last and I I'm just wondering have you has the department identified those dates yeah so from now through the end of the year if we're only talking about week Friday night Saturday night uh we're just talking about four more instances uh where it would be extended so the cost incurred in the overtime would be the Min the Minimus and I'd like to uh allow commissioner bot who's one of the co-sponsors to also speak on the item shockingly I have nothing to add on this Vice chair um I just I'm sorry to be sorry to be the bear of bad news but you know we have sea turtle season now nesting season um I think we should be very mindful of of what we're going to allow on the beach when you know these nesting sea turtles are going to be coming back and I mean I the full moon drum circles is a pretty cool event but I also know that there's music there's lights um and I don't I really don't want to see a situation where a nest is hatching and there could be two 300 hatchlings that come out and they just get trampled on by by drum circle um so commissioner I can I can say that uh we've been we've been Staffing this event I want to say 15 year I mean it's been a long time uh I think the first time I was a captain up there we were Staffing this and I can tell you the entire time I've I've never heard of an issue of one of these nests being uh Disturbed now what I was going to bring up was just first of all we don't bonfires are prohibited on the beach uh unless there's a special event so if there was any special event permit um mechanism that was going to be used for this that I was going to remind people that we are currently in in in Turtle season and that's not allowed my my only issue is I mean I've seen some of the drum circles they they do bring their own lights right and you know I'm going through great pains almost on a weekend basis to address the the lighting concerns along in Miami Beach and if you have if we finally have a dark Beach where sea turtles are not going to be disoriented you know you're going to have a situation where you have bright lights on the beach for public safety reasons for example and a nest hatches it could be it could be seen almost I don't know half a mile away so you know a half a mile either North or South there's a situation where sea turtle hatchlings can start walking toward there and they're very small it's you you it's really it's it's easy to miss and you know when people are you know inebriated they're having a good time on the beach uh I I don't know if that sets up the right precedent for our natural habitat and so what I'd like to do is I'd like to I'm okay with extending the hours but not during Turtle season Turtle season ends October 31st how many of these are within Turtle season two June and July are weekends and then and then November and December are the other two weekend days the recommendation um may we give them an extra during outs uh are okay with this is to move this to the full commission with extending the hours except during Turtle season so that would impact two weekends so but let me just ask sure because what we're doing is we are extending the beach out right we're saying okay uh instead of closing at 10: we're going to close at 11: before the beaches used to be open till midnight and then our colleague uh brought brought an ordinance and and amended it to uh 10 p.m. um so we're saying that we're prohibiting the activity before 10 p.m. because it's already dark by 10: p.m. it's already dark you know 8:00 9:00 you know heading into the 10 p.m. hour you know it's it's it's already been dark so I don't you know understand the difference between you know allowing it to 10 10 p.m. as opposed to not allowing it to continue to 11 p.m. and so I just wondering about that so you were mentioning with a special event permits in the rest of the city uh how how does it happen with the special event permits in the rest of the city well know what I what I just was pointing out that uh with a special event permit you could apply for a bombfire as long as fire is involved improves what I was saying was that during Turtle season even with a special event permit you're not allowed to do the bonfires the bonfire correct but like for example there are events that occur on the beach MH um you know some sometimes special events uh people come with the tents they set up certain lightings do we allow those on the beach during um during Turtle season I don't know the answer that and I see Francis U from our tourism and we already commissioner we've already I've addressed this with tourism that we will not be allowing any bonfires or or special lighting during Turtle season for their permits okay during Turtle season okay and because perhaps that's that's one of the things that we can adopt with this is making sure that there is enforcement during Turtle season of you know the issue of the of the lighting and and and the fire because you know okay fine we don't have to extend it to 11 p.m. during uh during Turtle season but you have all the time before 11:00 p.m. um and you know you still want to make sure you're enforcing the issue of the fire and of the lights that could disorient and commissioner if I may through the chair Francis Vice uh tourism and culture we do have special events during Turtle season and all the events are vetted through our environmental and sustainability department and events do get restrictions on all things on Lighting on what they can see set up so they do get vetted during to Turtle season for the extra regulations okay so I mean perhaps what we should do is and my suggestion and I'm not a voting member of of of the committee is instead of saying during Turtle season we're not going to continue it to 11: p.m. you know perhaps allow it to continue towards 11: p.m. but just you know we need to have this enforcement the enforcement of of the light and the enforcement of the yeah and through the chair I and you can speak to code I mean I've been going out almost every other weekend and addressing lighting concerns for for uh Turtle season I started it back in January because I wanted to get a head start on this um and and and I'm not going to stop there I'm going to want to put I'm going to want to talk to tourism and and and really prohib really curtail all events during sea turtle season that have anything to do with lighting or noise uh on the beach uh or that may affect the beach and so um you know this is a very I'm a very passionate guy when it comes to sea turtles and you know I'm I'm going to be the sea turtle guy if you will but uh like I said you know uh with the with the drum circle it's you're going to you know you're going to possibly set up a situation where you have a group of people dancing drumming uh bringing lights and that's going to be very disruptive for sea turtles um with I would say a half mile or maybe even a mile radius north and south on the beach and so um you know in the summertime it gets dark it gets it starts to get dark around maybe 9 right I mean like not start but it gets pretty dark around 9 in the summer and you know 10:00 uh um when the beach is closed it's perfect um extending a little bit more it's it's really it's an issue because sea turtles usually hatch uh right after um Dusk and so you know I I I want to just give our natural habitat the best chances of survival you know considering there are so many other challenges that they face uh in Miami Beach and so um I I would I would I'm I will second uh our chair's motion to um exclude the the two weekends during the turtle season and while at the same time having other enforcement measures for um lighting and sea turtle conservation do we need to B that and if I may through the record as mentioned earlier these activations have been going on for years they do not go through the permitting process process the special event permitting process as far as the bonfires goes they don't it doesn't get approved through us the only thing that does get approv through us is like fire pits and open fire pits but we don't um accept any permits we actually had one put in and we denied it through Turtle season so Turtle season yeah it's through May but we acknowledge it here in April great do we need to vote so you're moving that great all in favor hi uh did you have a question Rob no no I just said you need to vote okay uh I think that was the last item thank you everybody we uh got a lot done yay uh and without the meeting is adjourned well before 2 o'