e e e e e e e good evening everyone in the chambers welcome uh just want to ask if you could please silence your cell phones before we get started thank you we'll start here in one minute okay he's taking to long okay good evening everyone today is Tuesday May 7th the time is approximately 7:00 p.m. uh this is a the meeting of the South South Miami city Commission again if you could please silence your cell phones we would appreciate it Madam clerk could you please call the role yes mayor Fernandez present Vice May B here commissioner nman commissioner Cory pres commissioner Cay here you have a quum thank you madam cler if we could please all stand for a moment of silence please and I'd like to just take a a moment of personal privilege and ask you all to keep in your thoughts and your prayers uh the Weed family that operate here strictly tennis in our community uh Lauren weed has been hospitalized for a number of days uh in critical condition and we ask uh God's blessings upon her and her father Bob uh at this difficult moment thank you if you could please join us in the pledge of allegiance commiss to the flag of the United States of America and to the rep for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you please be seated okay we have a number of presentations today uh we're going to begin with a presentation in recognition of Amelia McKay a girl SK offer Community Miss po would you mind introducing her for us thank you good evening I am Elena Po and I am very honored to introduce to you a very special young lady Amelia McKay she is a resident of your city and she attends South Miami High and she is really very very special she has been a Girl Scout for I believe 12 years 13 and she has been awarded the Gold Award which is a huge deal in Girl Scouts and she can tell you a little bit more about her Amazing Project that is about the environment and plastic use in our environment and also she has been chosen for a very very um important program to go visit Talahassee and learn about her state government and she is here today being honored by you guys and I really do appreciate this and should I bring her up thank you m yes m m would you please come up and introduce yourself please good evening welcome we don't bite we promise hi I'm Amelia where do you go to high school tell us a little bit about yourself um I go to South Miami um I'm sorry I don't it's all right hey take your time it's okay High yeah and you are a um I'm a junior fantastic I'm a girl scout likea said what do you love about scouting um like like what I know about it what do you love about it most why you've been doing it for 13 years yeah I was about to say 13 years a long time it's a long time it's a big commitment um I really love the opportunities that it provides me with being able to go camping and connect with other people in the community fantastic and what was the project that you got a go start for oh um the project U it's called plastic smart it's an environmental education program for through 12 students and other youth organizations um it's run through Eco Adventures at cman Park um and it teaches um students about microplastics and Plastics in the ocean and what they can do to lower their carbon footprint and what can we do here as a city you think to reduce our plastic consumption any thoughts for us um well you know what we we'll give you a minute to think about it and maybe before the over you can share a couple of ideas and maybe we'll put you to work over a summer here as an intern for us if that's of Interest that's a good start that's a good start okay I'm sorry the the canal the canal I thought you were just being politically correct if you notice all the uh single used plastic on the water bottles I didn't think you wanted to offend anyone on the commission yeah it is and who are you ma'am if I you want to come forward come on up please you're good what's your name Lindsay Lindsay pleasure to have you congratulations well we just wanted to honor you we are as a commission excited about our partnership with the American Legion and the chance to sponsor kids you know kids young young men and women to go to boys and girls State and uh we've heard through friends that you're an exceptional example of what a Girl Scout is and can be and so we want to give you a a little certificate of appreciation to recognize you for uh being selected to go to girl State and your exeptional service and scouting and so we have a small certificate of appreciation from the city uh that says toia McKay for your unwavering commitment to the girl scouch which has led to being designated as the Delegate for unit 31 in district 14 of the American Legion auxiliary for girl State 2024 and for becoming a Gold Award Girl Scout so hopefully you can find a place on your wall to hang this and Beyond this we actually have a special surprise our County Commissioner has joined the fund and she apologize that she could not be here uh commissioner Raquel ragal has sent her own uh certificate as well so I'll read that to you as well this is much prettier and fancier so you can tell it's the county so it says congratulations the Miami County Office of the mayor and Board of Commissioners extends the congratulations to Amia McKay as a commissioner on behalf of the mayor the board of County Commissioners and the residents of miam County I take great pleasure in wishing you the very best on the special occasion of you being the delegate of the 2024 Florida girl state by the American Legion auxiliary it's dated the 7th of May 2024 and signed by the commissioner uh chairman Oliver Gilbert and the mayor and Daniel leava so if you'd like to join us here at the front we'd love to take a picture with you and present you these two certificates thank [Applause] you for congratulations Amilia you know you got you got a big challenge ahead of you because we had our last sponsor one of them was actually like the governor of boy State last year so hopefully we'll be hearing about you being elected governor in this year's competition okay you know no pressure no pressure no pressure at all but glad to have someone from South Miami High going in representing the city and thank you for being here as well through the activities director so thanks so much okay uh we've got a couple other presentations uh this is a lot drier stuff on uh Bond presentation by our financial advisor pfm Financial if you can come forward at this time actually Commissioners if you don't mind I may just take and if our guests don't mind I may just say public comment first that's okay so you don't keep the public waiting take a few minutes so is there anyone register for if we can if there's anyone register for public comments let's take them at this time and then we'll get to the presentation and other business items before us thank you okay register for public comments thus far we have John Edward Smith Mr John Edward Smith if you can come forward please if anyone else would like to speak uh you can please come up to John here in the front and give me your name so I can just make sure to call you if not we'll just have you stand up and queue behind the lean thank you so much Mr Smith you're recognized thank you m CH ganni Eduardo Smith good evening good evening uh I was to have been in Northern Italy this evening uh for the celebration of the patron saint of ATI Sako a mar that goes back to the 2 century and participate in the folkloric traditions of the region as a newly minted Cavalieri uh tomorrow is the FIA C excuse me Carolina a street market that takes over the city dating back to the 14th century as AI was the center of Commerce throughout Europe I've postponed the trip and plan to go next May so I can fully PR participate in the first second Sunday in somi My Hope Is that second Sunday will have such a pedigree for the years to come I would like to acknowledge the excellent work undertaken by the city manager's office in presenting this upcoming event it has marked from what was originally thought of last November this is the first event directly run out of the manager's office since manager Maria Davis instituted Sundays on Sunset a monthly concert jazz concert staged on Sunset Drive unfortunately when Miss Davis was replaced the event didn't continue second Saturdays on the calendar I think is really a prime time if you look at January it's after the New Year in February it comes around U uh Valentine wednes day uh March April May we have Mother's Day June we have Father's Day coming so throughout the throughout the year second Saturdays has a good positioning in a in a calendar businesses in town are very appreciative of the efforts the city has to engage our town center and the shop suomi campaign will continue to grow City marketing office has generated excellent social media following somi magazine issued an eblast yesterday and you got to check your inbox if you haven't looked at it already uh the performers names are listed on the eblast and they in turn will be sending us on to their followers I fully expect that we'll have a good turnout for this first go round and hopefully we'll see you your family and your friends for this first block party I do want to address item number one on the consent agenda for the past 26 years from the saddle on my bike I have a unique perspective of vehicular traffic pedestrian and bicycling safety concerns I see things at a different level visual level and move at a slower rate I get also to appre appreciate the sense in the sense of the morning when we're in bloom here in South Florida that being said I was somewhat dismayed when the stop for pedestrian signs were removed throughout Town several months ago there is curiously only one sign which remains that is on 73r Street adjacent to a six 6 excuse me 6 1 35qt business and that sign isn't even at a crosswalk in fact there is no crosswalk on that street which I hope will be remedied when the streetcape is finished with Avalon South Miami I've noticed in Crossing in front of City Hall that cars do not observe the elevated sta of pedestrian signs cars who were more forgiving with the street level stop for pedest ran signs were there I had spoken with former manager Steve Alexander about doing inground caution lighting similar to the airport this was thought to be put in place when the county redid the signage in front of sun in Sun of Sunset Place instead we have additional poles and flashing lights which I would venture are not functioning for more than half of the time uh as I'm there at least four times a week either on my bikee or on foot I would request that looking to redo Sunset Drive as we are moving forward that in Street caution lighting be included at the intersections on Sunset Drive and on Red Road at 73rd Street Mia thank you sir uh Mr Ward you're next sir tonight I uh don't find pleasure necessarily in what I'm going to report but several of you know that I had very strong feelings about the special election that was just completed a few days ago I when I got the result of 755 voters and 662 voted to approve I it just blew my mind that 662 voters would stand approved this item out of 8,460 registered voters now as a result of that I started fishing in the charter and the result of that election are invalid the charter requires that 15% of the registered voters must participate in a special election the vote was 114 votes short of 15% so therefore the special election really failed and if any action has been taken by the administration or if there's anything on an agenda tonight or there shouldn't be anything in the future then it should be pulled pulled back rapidly it basically just the charter said the election failed Mr Ward if I can ask you now I would say to you there is no reason for anybody to think that the action of the five of you plus these two attorneys over here were done with the knowledge of the statistics the City attorney is responsible for notifying the commission if something that is being considered as it by the commission that it is a violation of the charter now again just like you I don't think this two attorneys failed to carry out their job on purpose it was just the same thing no everybody thought it was a great idea and of course the thing that bothered me before anything was the fact that the resolution that was on the ballot didn't say anything about city hall or new library and I think had you done that you would have probably gotten 10 times the votes you got and I think that it probably would have passed although I don't think the library needs to be rebuilt one commissioner said I don't like just adequate I want the best I agree with that in the future I hope all of you the attorneys and commission anytime that something is on the agenda that relates to the Charter I hope that everybody will research the charter and make sure that the same mistake is never made again and I hope to hear you officially when you had a chance to think about it I hope you will officially uh declare due to Charter regulations this act this election was not in approved thank you Mr Ward for that if I could just ask um Mr C attorney during your report just confer with Mr Ward about what section he's referring to and sure provideed some clarification on that point I believe he's referring to the initiative and referendum sections okay well which are specific to let's just confirm with him that's what he's referring to and then we can you can go from there thank you for that um anyone else register for public comment at this time anyone on Zoom like please raise your virtual hand no there so Madam clerk I'm sorry I missed that with a distraction there's no one online okay is there anyone else in the chamber who' like to address this Commission on any topic if you'd like to please come forward at this time seeing No One in the Chamber we will close public remarks as there's no one else online no okay thank you very much okay let's let's turn back I I forgot to mention we do have one special presentation um not on the not on the agenda for good reason because it's a recognition of the good work that are city clerk does and we wanted to acknowledge her and her staff because it's uh today I believe is uh Municipal Clerk's week and so in celebration of the 55th anniversary of professional Municipal Clerk's week we have a small Proclamation that we've prepared in secret to recognize all of you that's why it's not on the agenda and to quickly read whereas the office of the professional municipal clerk a time honored and vital part of our local government exists throughout the world and whereas the office of the professional municipal clerk is the oldest among public public servant and whereas the office provides the professional link between the citizens local governing bodies and agencies of the government and because professional clerks continually strive to improve the administration of the Affairs of the office through participation in education programs seminars workshops and the annual meetings of their state provincial County and international professional organizations and whereas it's most appropriate that we recognize your accomplishments therefore myself Javier Fernandez as mayor along with my colleagues on the commission vice mayor bonich commissioner Cay core and lean do hereby recognize the week of May 5th through the 11th 2024 as professional Municipal Clerk's week so let's take a quick picture Nikki Jessica come forward [Applause] thank you [Applause] and thank you for our deput manager for preparing that item so okay okay back to presentations uh um is the team from pfm and Mr Riv are you ready let's bring up that presentation good evening mayor vice mayor Commissioners um we're here to present I have Pete Verona with me from pfm sergal unfortunately couldn't make it due to a family engagement um let me go back and there you go so we're going to provide you just a brief uh we did this presentation maybe about three meetings ago a regular commission meetings ago um we're here to update some of the information you've asked in reference to what's our capacity if it's not General obligation so we have some additional information to provide and any questions you may have during the presentation by all means um this was part of the first um presentation on the bonds related to our current Charter something that was addressed at the last meeting and a resolution was adopted to make some modifications just to show you if if we were to issue a bond or or debt anything that would require over 1.2 or 1.8 basically anything over $2 million would require a unanimous V toy that's something that's trying to be addressed and that the reason for the two references depending on how we want to read it more generously or more narrowly that's correct if you want to read it just on general fund or if you want to read it on all funds that's really the the distinction between the 5% um with that um I'm going to let Pete address good evening I wanted to give a brief overview and it sounds like you've heard of the general obligation presentations from the past so this is more a refresher for you all but the the Geo bonds as the refresher uh these are authorized by the will of Voters so these are by voter referendum and the Geo bond is secured by the sorry interrupt can we I'm sorry Mr can we possibly take that outside because it's we're having a hard time hearing because of the echo I yeah Mr W I'm sorry to make you move I apologize sir so I'll start thank you please continue I apologize no no worries so the goo is secured by the full faith and credit of the issue municipality usually that's ADV vorum taxes but it doesn't have to be you can repay Goos with any Reven of the city so that is one thing to note uh the Florida Statutes don't limit the debt millage for geo bonds so unlike the 10 mil cap for operating you can theorically be Unlimited in your debt millage it's really you have to Levy whatever it might be to repay the bonds now that is distinct from a special obligation bond which is a direct Revenue pledge now it can be one revenue or it can be a basket of revenues so what we reference here is a covenant to budget and appropriate non avalor revenues I.E everything except for advs so of course those non- adorm revenues are also used for operations so we didn't want to show all non-alarm revenues being available for debt so in if you see the chart at the bottom of the of the slide that chart shows the non avalor revenues from 2023 and then it shows the available revenues which are after the expenses are backed out the operating expenses so we did the calculation for what we believe your capacity would be for that non-al Revenue and we are calculating about $43 million in capacity and that is assuming a 30-year Bond and at a 5% interest rate which is slightly conservative for today's market but not overly so uh one more thing to not is that revenue bonds do have a coverage requirement so you have to have revenues over and above the debt service and you already have debt that has that requirement which is two times so revenues must be maintained at least two times over the debt service just just question on that side before you go I you can back up one second so essentially I mean you're saying the $2.8 million leverages $43 million that's right so if if you were to do the 2.8 million every year over 30 years that the capacity for that debt service is the is the 43 million that we're showing but we have existing obligations that require a debt service coverage of 2.0 so should we assume then that we can only use 50% of that capacity in terms of a you so the coverage requirements in your bond documents refer to the total non-ad revenues so they're referring to that 17 Million number that I'm showing not the two million okay thank you for that clarification so like presented at the last uh presentation this just gives gives you a picture of exactly our existing debt and currently our annual Debt Service which is principal plus interest plus any fees is roughly about every year about a million dollars a little just over that and that's what now one of our loans is about to be retired or in about a year retires which is the sunrust taxable and then we have one other loan that is the chase which was just refinance that continues to carry on until 2032 and has a very low interest rate at the current time um one item I just and again part of the last presentation just to recap um our current millage is 3.95 and every every tenth roughly is about 200 48,000 so if you reduce the millage say to 3.85 in essence what you're doing is reducing ad ofurum revenues by about $248,000 I'm going to let Pete talk about the anticipated debt capacity so for the city we wanted to run two scenarios which we ran a $30 million and $50 million Bond and we wanted to give you an idea of what that looks like in terms of debt service so what we calculated is for that $30 million Bond about 1.9 million per year in debt service and for $50 million about 3.2 million so one one of thing we wanted to point it out and Mr riveral just mentioned is that you do have debt that's coming off the books in the next couple years so that'll that'll add to your capacity as time goes on another point is that as the city continues to invest in projects and those projects grow they will add to the tax Ru and add to tax revenues I don't want to focus on that too much because with the increase in tax growth will also be an increase in expenses so it won't you won't capture that full growth but it it may provide a little bit of extra room so the the slide if you look at the bottom the graph there that we are showing The Debt Service over that 30e span for both the 30 and $50 million so what we did was one quick question for me I'm sorry so looking at the looking at the prior side on an arms you had $2.9 million leveraging $47 million here 3.2 leveraging 50 so it's that $300,000 provides provides another $3 million of capacity right okay that's right so what we did in this particular slide is we we forecasted the change in fund balance and to see and give you two different perspectives um and again this is forecasted making certain assumptions that may or may not be correct I think they were very conservative and I think we're on target taking into account some of the development some of the projects that are currently being constructed projects that we anticipate uh being uh constructed and coming on and then just taking a normal inflation rate um as you can see actuals in 2023 which is our base so we started with that and then we moved on and we went uh about 20 years out on on our calculations and just to to give you an example um in fiscal year and I'm looking from from the screen which is a little small but uh fiscal year 25 uh we we estimated a growth on adorm of 7% uh 3% on non adorm revenues and which gave us overall increase in revenue of about 4% and that's the same idea across the board but taking different assumptions and uh you know we expect in 2030 some big project coming online which is going to increase our Ador by 10% um now like Pete was mentioning not every increase com you absorb that because there are increases in expenses as we increase our population or we increase density certain additional expenses must come online so we took that into account as as best we could um and you can see and and then what we did was so we had a surplus and you can see in there says change in fund balance you'll see where we see growth taking our revenues minus our expenses our anticipated expenses and then you'll see there reduction in millage calculations if that if that Surplus was leveraged at just reducing ring millage it would show you how much we could reduce millage by by that change in fund balance and at the same time we gave you what Bond capacity what that change in fund balance would give you in what is debt capacity so we provided two different pictures there not they're not mutually exclusive they're not they're not correlated in any which way they just give you an idea and that's that's only the the purpose of that slide or these slides if I that's a complicated slide I have looked at it for a while with Mr riverol so are there any questions regarding the information there I just want to give you guys a chance to pause and ask questions here maybe only had a hard time with it then okay we'll continue then go ahead well so that's the intent I just that was the whole I just don't want to make it one doesn't correlate with the other just gives you a different different pictures on one slide so you can get a better idea of what possible reductions in millage can be um obtained or what bonding capacity would be given based on that and again I go out 20 years um and then we have some CIP projects for consideration and reference there's a lot of discussions on the issues of debt may it be a general obligation or a revenue Bond um these are projects that we we find to be crucial uh moving forward in the city's uh development and uh I don't know if you want me to go over each of the projects or if you want me to and we broke it down into three different categories Parks and Recreations Public Works and Public Safety and those are the three three categories that we're focusing on for uh to enhance and beautify and just continue to grow uh the great city of South M D through the mayor you recognize sir so you parks and Rex had $20 million of options in if you switch over a different slide so total we have 75 for public works and then for safety we have another 26 so accumulative over $125 million right as a wish list correct okay that's it's 100% correct it's not it's not here you know advocating for a bond of 120 something million dollars just to show you these are needs you know how we meet those needs okay question s colleagues Madam vice mayor for any of these Capital Improvements that we have that are on this wish list have we considered in putting them on here what other funds would be available or is this just this is the universe without taking anything else into account we're we're constantly either seeking grants um looking at our different funds like our Parks impact fund for all those our ptps we are constant but Mr R I think the question was is that that factored into these numbers I think the answer Madam vice mayor is no okay so this is the this is the gross cost some of this will P we could pay out of any number of cash or debt sources uh and then the balance will be paid by matching grants that we could procure Mr manager you want to add to that yeah I just certainly from the standpoint of you know each year obviously we would um have a wish list like now we're in budget season we'll be bringing something so but we have a certain capacity uh that that's capped right so if we were to take on a more ambitious program they would exceed our annual capacity as a pay as you go then then obviously we would have to use some whether go or or or revenue bonds so these are potential improvements or purchases that would be needed over a period of time uh that could be considered and and eligible for a bond program of which some of these we may tackle you know in the next CIP but there's going to be a cap to that that'll exceed our ability to take on more of these that will be needed over time obviously we don't need all the money year one necessarily a bond program is is scheduled and and do we know even kind of as a ballpark what if let's say it's like commissioner Ka said okay it's $125 million in in any given year we could cover a million dollars of $125 million like what is it that we feel we could realistically do of 125 million M you mean when you say cover you mean cover with cash yeah either cover cash or not with borrowing but like how we've managed so far with covering with cash or getting grants or that kind of stuff I'm just trying to get an idea of hey our universe is a like you know $125 million and in a three-year period we would imagine we'd be able to bite off of this apple $3 million because I think it gives us a more realistic picture of what we're really looking at so the the forecasting exercise is part and partial of that it's twofold is to understand you know how revenue and our expenditures are are meeting at some point and what does that allow from a a capital investment for that particular Year I'll call it pay as you go versus borrowing um so obviously that that gets assessed by taking a look in a forecast then but there's also a function of what happens to the millage right so if the millage is reduced or or not um so there's variables to that of which um uh may impact that particular fiscal year any chance that we get to to maybe offset this by a pay as you go we would leverage that but I think the message is the needs you know exceed that ability of pay as you go so to to be able to accommodate more of these things we would have to uh borrow to to tackle on the taker we're always going to be limited from as pay as you go approach yeah absolutely I I guess what I'm trying to get at at least in my brain is I if I look at $125 million of stuff I can never afford I'd be crying on the days right so I I'm like realistically what in a regular what in last year what in the last year did we afford yeah I I I think if I could just if I could add to that I think so if we can go back to the revenue slide if we can for a second the revenue projections so we we've had conversations I think we have a number of competing goals here and I thought this was a good way to present the information so as we go into the budget we understand how to reconcile those two and try to accomplish as much of both as we can so we've heard from all the members here that we want to make strides to kind of reduce the millage so that we're more competitive with our neighbor set so you know we are a Mill and change above Pine Crest Cutler Bay uh pal meow Bay that are similar service profile cities um and we and they have made substantial Capital Investments over time that we have not over the last couple decades right so I know we've had some discussion how do we accomplish both right how do we make those Investments while we are also pushing the millage to render ourselves more competitive so we can Annex or or do whatever number of other things we want to do or just become an attractive place for people to invest and live or more attractive place than where you are so I think this kind of allows us the information based on assumptions related to expenditures and perspective Revenue some of which may not hit so maybe want maybe want to maybe want to be more conservative we even have here and I think these are fairly conservative numbers but what this shows us is if we wanted to take all of the all the future growth next year and say we want to reduce the millage a Target could be a millage of 3.4 or if we said whatever wisdom we want to take on non-ad valorum or geod debt we have up to $22 million of new revenues in capacity to do that and keep the millage flat right and so that that gives us the range I think of policy choices year to year where we can try to accomplish both tasks so for me this is a positive sign that we can accomplish both goals simultaneously invest future revenues in part to get improvements that we want it may not be the Full Slate of improvements that we've identified but working towards a subset that we know we can comfortably underwrite whether it's through cash or combination of debt uh while we're still trying to meet our other benchmark which is trying to work down the tax rate so that we're you know more in line with our sister municipalities that you know that we compete for right compete with so that was my reason for working with you know Mr riveral and trying to present this this information to all of us so we could have a conversation around those two priorities I think we all want to invest but we also want to kind of render ourselves more competitive in our competitive set and this kind of illustrates what the path could look like in terms of striking a balance between two of those those two competing priorities from my perspective questions yes sir you recognized go ahead oh Cory sorry go ahead sir thank you and thank you for putting this together it looks like you had a lot of fun with Excel here uh but I I I was curious two questions on it on the on the um revenue and expenditure side on the revenue side your your estimates based on the new inventory that we potentially be able to create was there a specific formula that went into that and then on the expenditure side I see the reduction of expenditures is that because the assumption is the new inventory would all be commercial which would cost less to serve potentially is that I'm just trying to read those numbers right for first question would be formula wise how did we anticipate revenue for the city because I have seen sharper increases in uh neighboring cities when they've Incorporated commercial that is correct what we're doing is taking assumption on certain developments that we know are that are currently in in construction and ones that we know or anticipate will be coming soon enough um and as far as expenses because it is in a lot of cases at least we're anticipating apartments or multifamilies which would provides a totally different level service level than single family homes so we didn't we didn't expect the high exactly the same rate of expenses related to the increase in what was coming in in assess values so that's correct just to give an example in terms of our Solid Waste Service right multif family it'll be picked up by the buildings and a commercial operator so while we'll see growth we won't see a commensurate growth in related expenses and just to put a finer point on it what this model assumes is that the increases are really to advm revenue because that's what we'll see projects come online and provide the biggest jumps in terms of the non- adval orm revenues we've kind of just taken a flat growth number those revenues could grow but I think they're going to grow at their historical averages some of them exceed a 3% rate and you see here an expenditure I think line that reflects the need to kind of get to Market on salaries which is kind of we've done we've now done a salary analysis of our compensation suite for employees and we know we're under market so we got some catching up to do the next couple fiscal years and then something probably closer to a baseline would which be 5% in in the out years is that a fair summary and we find that to be conservative yeah that's that was that was the approach that we used thank you further questions uh yes first mayor a comment and I know you made the comparison for a different reason but when we compare ourselves to the other municipalities and I know your your point Shakur is to stay competitive first Pine Crest they don't have commercial but that shouldn't have been granted they have no low-income areas they carved out the most affluent area and the reason why pine Cris can afford to have a lower millage is because they have large State homes and then cutler bed P alike they're brand new relatively new municipalities without the 100-year history that we have and along with that the pension obligations so um you know though we do have commercial our our millage is and I've always Champion Lo the millage every year but uh you know it's as low as it as it can be and it's yeah and should aim to be as and I'm not I'm not for to to your point I'm not suggesting that we get to that was just for the public benefit a 2.3 millage I you know I I I would I think it's just a conversation about what's our goal going to be right Pine CR has areas and so forth um but thank you and um and I wasn't just agreeing with you may I just wanted to provide a little more context so sorry Mr uh riveral will you go back to the first screen please some simple number I want to highlight okay sorry the second screen um okay so so every reduction in uh every 10th of a basis point reduction equates to approximately was that number 285 5,000 where's that screen that's on that's that's on this slide okay I apologize no don't 248,000 okay sorry so about just say 250,000 okay and The Debt Service for let's go back to The Debt Service say for Debt Service is for where we for where's the 50 million no now we're currently paying if we were to assume a a $50 million Bond this one right here okay so that would be 3.2 million let's just call it let's just call a 3 million right so that means and um so 10 base so that would be um about y about 41 that means that the millage rate would go up about half a point right how how so how much would everyone millage rate would go up if if we uh if we let's say on a 50 on a $50 million Bond and we were to service that with millage alone how much more would we have to raise the millage so 250,000 right um with 3.2 million so 250,000 it'd be it'd be like a mil2 1.2 that that assumes we borrowed it all at one time an issue right I I I understand thank you but Daren May so be about one and a quarter raise okay which is very likely the the reality right so okay thank you I I have a question on one of the slides because I was taking back by a little bit of information on the non evor one if you can go back to it for a second this one the capacity the capacity one so I think when I looked at this the first time we had the 175 million in Revenue unadjusted leveraging $87 million is that correct right now we're showing 2.8 million leveraging 43 million seems like a big a big a big Delta I can't I can't do the math on the Fly that quickly so 17 but out of that 17 we also applied the coverage requirement of to so we took the 17 and a half and then I don't remember the previous slide but I there might have been some other reason we adjusted to make it so so my my reason for asking is twofold want to clarify really how do we get to this $43 Million number because again we were showing on the prior version that I think my colleague had seen 17 on 87 right so we'll we'll we'll I'll get some further clarification on that but the other the other question I had is when we discussed this before offline we weren't showing this available revenues of $2.8 million a year we thought our our so how do we come to this Surplus number is my question of $2.8 million the 2.8 is based on fiscal year 23 the ending of fiscal year the forecasted revenues or the revenues that were actually um received versus the expenses is about a surplus of 2. 2.8 million okay but does that show does that include projects that were slated to be funded that were not funded in that fiscal year correct okay so what is the what is the if assuming is is that a is that a really representative Surplus number or is it something you know my my sense of this conversation as we've been talking about it for the last couple weeks Alfredo is that we have very little Surplus let's just say it's a million dollars right in terms of true Surplus what's not encumbered by operating expenses that are funded with those revenues today right and so again I'm just concerned that we're representing capacity of $43 million in a line item where we may have had in one fiscal year a series of expenses that didn't get incurred because we decided to change the design of a project Etc um you know again to my colleagues I would just want to be clear I'm not sure that we have $43 million of capacity there so you know I think for the next discussion if we can kind of drill down and get a probably more accurate reflection of what the pro perspective Surplus would look like I I just again I'm glad to see we have capacity I'm just dubious about whether or not it's $43 million you the mayor yes sir so you're what you're saying is to be conservative just take the avilable revenue and take it off right so if we can predict it based on $17.5 million what would be the uh Bond capacity on that right so what I'm saying is that of the $17 million let's just say that $16 million is spoken for in regular expenses on a recurring basis for either capital or operating costs and that what we used in this presentation is a number in a fiscal year that has a surplus that was higher than what might be typical that was my understanding based on the conversation I've had with our CFO so I I just don't want to leave you all with the impression that we've got $2.8 million today on a recurring basis in future years of capacity so it's it's probably a I'd say let's say it's I would guess just to guess a half of the number that we're showing but instead of 43 million it's probably 21 A5 million or $22 million so we just back out the budgeted items and then we that's correct yeah yeah I okay we do not have a surplus of 2 eight every year okay okay and I'll I'll make your point as well mayor that that that number that you see the 43 million that assumes that 2.8 million holds every year for 30 years yeah so certainly if we have different uh levels throughout 30 years and your capacity will change thank you for that clarification further further questions mam vice mayor NOP go going back I will talk to you in depth it's like how about this you know me I need to be slow and precise questions yeah through the mayor sorry yes sir U I know commissioner Leman spoke about um using the consideration of mill rate to pay for the increases do we have other opportunities whether we sacrifice CIP anything in the operating budget to pay the mill rate I mean we have currently two Services two two loans that we're servicing one's going to come off the books we will use we can kind of use that for the same and then cover the rest through some type of budgeted non-budgeted items through the operating revenue is that is that is that available for us there's multiple Avenues to take I mean you could reduce the millage once that comes off the books you can reallocate that invest it in new projects I mean there's multiple ways there's not one way there's it could be reinvested other words comes off whatever that debt service is acquire new debt using that and which would offset with existing millage that exist today okay commissioner if I may to obviously the schedule I mean through a life of a bond program the tranches are issued you know over the life so you don't you don't have a a one-time hit yeah so that is smoothed out and spread out over time and a lot of things happen adver alarm increases you know and other opportunities so um yeah it wouldn't we wouldn't issue all Everything at Once sorry further clarify Comm you recognize thank you um if we did half that amount 25 million and we're at 3.95 it would be 65 basis points that would bring this to 4.6 and that's what we have to plan for today because when you when you take out a blonde or any type of debt you have to have a plan to service that debt and we don't have a we're just speaking about hypotheticals if this happens if that happens maybe this so if we were to do it today it would absolutely be by raising the millage that's how we would service the bond correct me if I'm wrong it it it would depend it would depend what projects are front and loaded like some things are a vertical project right that would take time to work on on a design and then bid it out and so so depending on how front and loaded is if you're doing all purchases of equipment and you're buying $20 million worth of it yeah sure I mean your frontend loading but if your projects are slated over a period of time two and a half 3 years you don't need all the money up front so that's what I'm saying it depends what kind of projects you borrow for and at what moment so commissioner I think the right but my point still if we if we went to market today and we borrowed 50100 million yes there's not there's not enough growth in the budget today year-over-year to service the debt without an increase the point the point of the exercise that shows the revenue model is to say we can as we grow what are we going to do in terms of a target for our village and what do we plan to do with the Revenue right we can return it all to the taxpayer through a tax reduction or we can strike a balance and reduce the millage rate and invest in the many things that people ask us for you know improve Parks facilities among others right and so I think there's there's a a balance that can't be struck there and there is based I think on relatively conservative modeling the ability to borrow and accomplish both ends so the two questions for the commission remain how much do you want take out the max amount how much is the commission looking to borrow and how is the commission plan to service to service that debt I think the plan is through and if it's not through millage tell me something else because I keep saying you're going to have to raise the millage to service the debt and if you're saying that you won't raise the millage then make that commitment and then you'll have to find another way to do that and the bank's not to lend the money either unless there's a plan in place to service that debt so if we're saying we will not raise the millage then we should say that and then with that you'll have to give me an alternative way to service the debt I think I think what the what the modeling shows very clearly is that even with modest growth we could have a pretty substantial borrowing program I'm not sure that's substantial enough to Sol to meet all of our desired wish list of items and frankly there's some items there that are missing but what it does what it does do what it does from my perspective certainly what it does do is you know and again there's a difference between getting the authorization to borrow and borrowing but with the authorization does allow us to do in my opinion is to go to Tallahassee and say we have the capacity right to match money which we don't have today because it's very difficult to go hat inand every year and B on our hands and knees to get the million 1.8 million and the three and a quarter million we're not showing any match this would give us if we took the next step and said we're going to authorize a bond issuance we'll decide whether we borrow it if we're fortunate to get another $3 million in subject to score money and we want to take down another $3.5 million we probably could comfortably service $3.5 million in debt right it's not not very challenging from what I can see in these numbers can we do $50 million without a substantial tax increase today no but could we do it in five years absolutely I think the numbers justify that I think that's the plan agre questions yes ma'am now being the queen of the spreadsheet in the conversations the one thing that stands out to me is number one we have a lot of things we want to do partly because as many of us have said we haven't done anything for a substantial amount of time that is a big enough chunk so I get that worst you know it's like running last and thinking you're first because there's nobody near you um but the flip side of that is we we don't want to become like I mentioned in another meeting the pickup truck with the money in the back and as we're driving around it's just flying out the back and nobody is paying attention because you're too busy looking through the windshield right while you're dropping everything as you go so I think that while this all sounds really good and I am 100% understanding that we need to do something I think we need to have a better plan of how we're going to pay that something because right now I have on one side of me someone saying hey you're going to rage the millage no matter what you do and on the other side hey we're planning on all of this growth so I think we need to really look at what the real expectation is before we can jump in any direction saying what we're going to do knowing that doing nothing is the equivalent of walking backwards further questions nope okay well I think that's the information we have thank you for the presentation we appreciate it thank you thank you guys thank you okay uh on the same top topic completely different approach I invited the folks from sustainability Partners here I know we've talked about looking at different ways to uh meet different priorities and so I was fortunate to be introduced to them and uh you know I know I missed a portion of the last meeting I know commissioner Leeman was Adam it in part about the fact that you know the sale of an asset could be a way to finance improvements I agree I'm loed to want to sell assets but I thought this was an interesting approach that might allow us in some opportunities not take a conventional debt approach but begin to address address improvements that are more critical from a timing perspective and meet the service needs that we all have U talked about so they have a short presentation uh if you could just introduce your name uh introduce yourself for the record and provide us your address we'd appreciate it for sure uh thank you Mr Mayor Commissioners my name is Jason huitt I'm the managing partner of infrastructure for sustainability partners and uh I appreciate the time your time today to talk about another option so U and we would certainly uh look forward to working with your financial advisers on on this option so who are we we're a public benefit company that has been set up to tackle the challenge in funding infrastructure for the United States for America so as a public benefit company it is in our Charter that everything that we do has got to be to the benefit of of the public we we have a a main product that we uh work with communities just like yours across the country called infrastructure as a service so it's an alternative to kind of traditional debt traditional finance and in infrastructure that as a service what we're going to do is provide the capital for whatever infrastructure project you need it may be a bridge it may be a ballpark and we do that um on a usage based model so you um you you said the terms pay as you go so we really follow a pay as you go kind of model in which we put the capital up uh we take the risk for the capital we take the risk for design we take the risk for construction and then once the infrastructure is is completed and and ready to go and in use 30 days later we start building for it so if you think about that we really take a capex expenditure and turn it into an Opex expenditure we do that and uh for a variety of things that could be everything from a HVAC system for this building to a park to a bridge to a building uh Transportation assets kind of across the board whatever municipalities need our process is very simple and I think the couple of things that I would like to point out is we really compress time all right so if you think about uh this last presentation that you got you talked about borrowing capacity what you can Bond basically what you can afford so some of the differences that that we have is is is that we don't have those same ratios but ratios are important for you folks to determine and decide upon what's good you know what's good government uh we don't have Bond covenants right so one of the things you heard is talking about covenants which would be um cash onand requirements maybe payment reserve requirements and things like that so we don't have those types of requirements of or restrictions I think it's a power oh there we go all right and so um our steps in our process are are are really fast right so we have a 10-page contract so very easy for City attorney to review um typically a governing body like this uh determines on a project that they want to do enter into the agreement agement uh with us and typically about 20 days later we're funding the project and breaking ground so comparative to traditional Finance it's incredibly compressed amount of time and I've got some projects I can highlight to demonstrate um you know uh that as well so you know I won't go through all of these but you heard some of the the benefits that I talked about um so we're on par with what treasury rates are um one of the things that comes with us is is that this ongoing relationship so I talked about the risk that we take on behalf of the community so I talked about the design risk so what we design will work talked about the construction risk so we take the risk there's no payments to US during those those phases and then ultimately we take the performance risk so let's say let's use a bridge for example all right so we we do a project together and and it's a bridge and that bridge is no longer able to be used used for whatever reason it was an accident uh an act of God whatever we actually stop the payment for that bridge we fixed repair replace that bridge and we start the payment back right so that is a mechanism to dramatically drisk projects now in our model in our infrastructure as a service model we own the infrastructure you use it and operate it until you want to you want to own it so at any any time you can acquire the bridge or anything else um and that payment is that's that's based on PR prata against the original uh cost of the project so some some real benefits as far as you know why did customers pick us well they like the drisking of projects they like the fact that we are on par with bonds and then the other thing is is that if you think about the kind of you know dangers in a in a debt transaction is is you can it's easy to look infrastructure as a one-time transaction and a one-time payment the reality is is you know that it's not right you know that once you put infrastructure in it requires ongoing maintenance and care right and that's that's that's the the key about infrastructure is it's not a single transaction and in that list of transactions that that was put up you know for 30-year money there's a number of items that aren't going to last for 30 years right so what happens in those situations well you know you you borrow 30e money you put LED lighting in and 10 years later you know it's got to be fixed repair to replace right but you've got 30-year money that you're doing that with right and that creates a scenario in which you've got conflict you've got to do a capex budget or you refinance and go further deeper in debt on a longer term and we've got a we've got a solution that keeps that from happening and that's our infrastructure as a service so we model in the the cost of Maintenance not a profit Center for us at all we model that in and we make sure that everything is kept maintained functioning safe and reliable um and you know I won't go again I I hit some of these topics here um just looking at uh US versus traditional ownership I'm going to skip over that so that you guys can ask me questions and then again kind of our step-by-step customer timeline really compressing the the the process so a couple of customers that I'm going to highlight uh Jackson Mississippi uh we we're doing a smart water meter project there we're actually doing more than just that there um if you you know if you paid attention to the headlines last year um you notice that they had a a catastrophe in the city of Jackson could not could not deliver water could not make water and ultimately the the EPA and the federal government came in were part of that project to help get Jackson back on feet we're doing smart water meters and other water related Pro projects there um the city of Crowley Louisiana so I'm from Louisiana um this is in my home state uh Crowley is about the same size as South Miami it's about 15,000 you know people there um big history of baseball in that community and they they had really a a park that needed love um and put together a plan to do turf fields right and their plan was to provide those turf fields for local use but also to provide those turf fields as an attractant for travel uh tourism so travel Sports tourism travel baseball uh as a result um 20% increase in sales tax revenue and for this small community no probably not a big deal here but for this small community they now have a Starbucks you know and that's a direct result you had restaurants running out of food and things like that so they're a great customer of ours um they they uh have exceeded their expectations in the project uh customer here in Florida sun and Lake uh District so very similar uh size so it's a community in in in the middle part of the state and the first project with them with smart water meters again kind of addressing their their water and sewer challenges and issues we're working our way up the the distribution line with them and also doing Street lighting and EV charging stations for that community as well um I I'll go through this quick east of rur uh School District so this is a very large school district outside of Chicago we did about 80 million in HVAC putting in HVAC into schools that didn't even have HVAC uh before this school system got an enormous amount of federal funding and actually bought all of the equipment from us with that Federal funding so essentially you know they drisk their transaction we you know you know we did all the engineering all the design all the installation funded the project and when federal funds came uh they were able to uh exit the agreement and no penalty on doing that we do lots of uh EV fleets and charging infrastructure for uh government and for for public uh public use most notably in the state of Hawaii uh we provide the EV charging uh charging infrastructure and the vehicle for state agency so over time uh they've got a green mandate to transition to uh EV Vehicles it's about 4,000 light duty vehicles that will that will change over in addition to that we do uh airport infrastructure for the transition to to to e as well so just a you know a handful of our our customers across the country um that were in the same situation as you guys are um I'll date myself you know you know you look at at it and the tough part of this job is is you don't have enough quarters to play the video game right so how do you prioritize the communities needs with your budget and I will tell you we are a worthwhile um tool to explore with your financial advisors so with that I'll stop and open the floor to any questions just one question to start off the conversation who who are your financial backers where do you get your money from sure sure great question um so our Capital comes from the same entities that are really buying your general obligation bonds and your special purpose bonds so that's going to be Insurance Limited Partnerships um and and mutual uh infrastructure investors so the same kind of traditional investors that are buying your you know your mun bonds that's who backs us if you think about from their perspective right so over half of of bonds issued never make it to turn meaning that they get refinanced about Midway through so if you're a a a Insurance limited partnership ah we got you know city of South Miami they're great customer they pay on time and then halfway through you refinance there's no direct relationship and they've got to find another place to put their money with us this is their Viewpoint with us all right you got a great customer in city of South Miami they've got infrastructure needs those needs are going to be need to be continually upgraded over over time over the next hundred years so there's an opportunity for for us to put more Capital to work in a faster easier way that's conducive and lowers transaction costs for everybody thank you for that questions colleagues and vice mayor so essentially you own the bridge yes until you want to right so we own you operate you do what with it whatever you want until you want to pull the trigger and and own it and a 30-day notice there's another thing that we have and I missed this that would be important to note so we have in our contract what's called a non-appropriation Clause right so if this governing body doesn't appropriate the money to pay for the the thing the infrastructure thing it's not a default and why that is important is in situations that we all just went through a Black Swan event Co is you know what I'm referring to so we had a customer in Mississippi um a water project customer Co hit and their revenues dropped right so that's a bad scenario their revenues Dro um but their outflow of payments remain the same right so people couldn't pay their their bill for whatever reason so with that uh non-appropriation Clause the city reached out to us and said hey we're we're in a revenue problem we need we need help right and we've got these anti- default Provisions in our contract that allow us to help without penalty or scenario default so we actually dropped the monthly payment that was owed to to us for about five months until revenues recovered and went back now no one had to hire an attorney there were not additional costs and that's one of the benefits that are in place but when that uh Insurance limited partnership you know they're looking for that long dated relationship for them that's a blip in the radar they would rather keep the relationship and be a good partner for your project and for your city moving forward F the questions Kaya yes so this sounds great um you know I think that you stated before that we the rates that are being applied to us are treasury rates roughly yes yes you guys would be on par with current treasury rates so can you explain the revenue model for the company like you know if we're borrowing you know a transaction cost $6 million to do our our soccer fields um we pay a treasury rate roughly I don't know what it is now like five and a half six% whatever it is um um what's your Revenue how do you guys make money as a business yeah so um we're actually paid by the Capital Partner so we make 80 basis points so less than 1% per year is what our fee is and you guys don't pay us we're we're paid by the investor that's it that's it yes commission Cory is there a minimum project requirement for you to work with a city uh cost wise so we work with so we work with lots of small small communities and cities right and a big challenge that small communities and cities have is is that injection of capital right so I personally the smallest project I've ever done was $53,000 for a small community in West Virginia but it was an important thing for that community and a lot of the projects that we do end up either generating more revenue or reducing operating costs right so if you think about it like we'll use an LED light if I put the LED light in I immediately have savings right it uses less power I get an immediate return on that well what happens if you didn't have to pay for the bul I provided it to you and you still made your return right that's what most of our projects you know look like obviously may be more difficult if it's a bridge or things like that but that's mostly what we do thank you further questions anyone so I I wanted to bring this forward thank you for the presentation Jason appreciate it uh I want to bring this forward because I you know this to me seemed like an interesting model that would allow us to meet particularly emergent situations all speaking of a bridge we all know we have a bridge that is uh at 50% capacity because it's structurally deficient you know I think for those kind of Crisis moments things that are not in our Capital plan that we find out we've got to step up and address potentially this is a good alternative to to look to the you know provide a solution immediately um I'm not sure it was clear from the presentation but they have the ability to not only finance the improvements but design and construct them which helps accelerate the delivery so the time aspect of this is is interesting I found their cost model to be equally curious commissioner K on the 80 80 basis points to the for the for the placement of the capital essentially um Madam vice mayor to your point you've had some concerns before you didn't share them today I was surprised about when we build this stuff can we afford to maintain it well you know they have a a solution for that as well it's add our option they can charge us an additional fee to make sure the asset is properly maintained in the future getting upgraded as it needs to be to extend the useful life um so I I I found this to be a really attractive alternative and I know that we've expressed some concerns before about the fact that we are on one project on the right side of the day is from my perspective that we've supported um a huge Capital out on you know this is also an opportunity if we wanted to revisit how we spend dollars down potentially they could Finance the installation of the fields and we don't have to take all that money out of cash today using this kind of a model so I I I was hopeful that after hearing the presentation if it made sense to all of you we could give a direction to staff maybe on two fronts just to kind of test it and see if we want to explore this option and I I'll give you let me just lay this out and we can get to questions number one on the bridge I I I cannot in good conscience let that condition continue for it could be another year year and a half until we finally finished design permit it and figure out how we're going to pay for it I thought this might be a good solution to give the manager direction to look at this as a model to get that Improvement done more quickly we've started the design they can pick up that process we can finish it on our existing contract and then try a turnkey the financing and construction of that Improvement so the Neighbors on 63rd Court can finally have a working Bridge that's structurally safe and again I would open up to the to the board if we want to look at the possibility of financing the turf installation and understand understand what that cost use model looks like it may be one way to keep $2.5 million doar in cash on hand and pay as you go using this uh on a basis that would be cost basis that would be consistent with what we would pay if we were borrowing with conventional debt that was my idea if there's a if there's a desire to give staff that direction that would be my preference just to kind of explore it get to a point where we can have an initial is a memorandum of uh I it's muso is the if you can clarify the Acron cuz I forget what it was called sure our our contract is called the um uh Musa so it it's uh that 10-page contract that I talked about we can get it to the City attorney for review and essentially what that does at no cost to us no cost recovery on your part that we would owe you allows us to start that conversation and then Define a scope and have the model a cost that we can then choose to executed an addendum on to either pursue those options or not right it would require further action but I just thought we might give staff Direction kick the tires on this and see if it was something that was viable yes ma'am of course I have questions um so hypothetically speaking if we were to open this door would we then be looking at I'll use two examples of what you just talked about so we say hey we're wild about the idea for the Culvert the CT cost is I'm making it up I don't know what it is I can't remember that's exactly what I was going to say $2 million so would we then look at hey we've got this much set aside for it right now I'm going to say a million dollars so we're going to borrow a million dollars to be able to do this now versus wait until we can figure it out would we first how would we vote on that is that a 3-2 vote a four I don't know I was going to give that so I think there's there are a series of issues one is what what does the design and process look like in terms of the execution of the actual Improvement the second is I have a whole set of questions around the legal part of this which is you know is this a circumvention of Florida procurement rules is there is there a you know in terms of the ownership right it's a new asset technically right let's just take the bridge for example right are we doing an easement to give them the rights to land their bridge on City rway that would then when we exercise if we wanted to buy it back any year because we had the cash on hand to pay off this obligation and full no penalty to us that would terminate by virtue of the fact that title was joined so there's a there's a ton of questions that I know have to be answered today is just informational but I thought it would be interesting at least to give staff the direction to start to try to wrestle with those questions so we know a few months down the line whether this is something that we can pull the trigger on or not my I actually I I think it's actually a clever idea my concerns are two one that we will start with I will use the traff the school cameras as the perfect example when we realized that 41 wasn't going to work we rewarded it so it could become 32 I you know what I mean no well if we change it from this to this then we don't need 41 we need 32 whatever it is that we don't we don't make this a moving Target it's not no I I understand and and this is not uh this is not I I mean I you know that's a I'm going to choose I'm going to choose not to be I think I think you're making a valid point the point here is not to move the goal post yeah the point is we have service needs today that we can't meet and I personally I don't want to look those folks in the face in another six months and say we haven't done anything to move the ball forward on getting your Bridge restored right that's the most that's the most system critical one right the fields was just way let's look at it's really a conversation I think from a timing perspective going to be able to do that but it would give us a sense of where can we find Opportunities to sit on cash well it's advantageous to hold the cash from a return perspective versus deploying our money so um no I I the intention here is let's give staff if we think this is an interesting concept to explore let's have staff execute just this initial agreement have conversations fig out the legal issues because I think there are some here that I don't understand certainly and that need the City attorney needs to wrap their head around as well and then come back and say is there an opportunity to finance I would say the bridge is the real example and the one that to me most motivated this conversation is there something we can do here that would be faster than if we did it the traditional way and and and are we gonna look at this as a more of an emergency kind of I see this as a as a bridge to Bridges right so for example here we have a situation where we have a bridge that's out we don't have it's it was not on our Raiders C that we owned it right yeah it was our responsibility but we have the problem nonetheless dropped on our on our doorstep so this gives us the ability to respond quickly and should we want to do it on P should we be sitting on an extra million dollars next year right we could choose to pay it back and reclaim full ownership and the ongoing maintenance as we would with any other asset right so I think the I thought the the flexibility of the model the timing and flexibility of it was something that to me was attractive for these kind of emergency situations yeah yeah I agree and Madam vice mayor if I if I can the path that the mayor's laid out we follow that path in communities across the country and I would say 99.9% end up in a unanimous vote to approve if the community wants and needs that piece of infrastructure so want to make sure that you guys are understand and are very comfortable in what we're doing to Mr Le you a question I I think you meant cover bridge mayor because you want to cover the bridge but my question that's very high percentage by the way 99% end up an unanimous vote um what's the tell me a pro the closest project you've done to the city of South Miami or any in the State of Florida it's probably the Sun and L L which is which is a variety of utility style infrastructure and then next to that would be Jacksonville University we're doing a number of water and Stu student related projects over in Jacksonville so we're we're relatively new to the state so a a public utility and then Jacksonville is is public jackonville university it's private it's not we treat schools the same right but the procurement process wouldn't be the same for a private university so if you if you guys don't mind we can talk about the procurement process and it's different everywhere so I'll just talk about my experience so my experience with a lot of our customers are is one they enter into agreement with us and then we do a joint public procurement for the goods and services that happens a lot so you look at it and go hey Jason's the capital we got the capital locked down let's do our public procurement others have procured us through uh Cooperative uh purchasing so they use you know Cooperative entities we've won some national uh Cooperative uh rfps for infrastructures of service and some other things as well they may uh procure us through a Cooperative uh you know purchasing Institute and then others say hey you know what we want to put an RFP out and get you know RFP out design fund build maintain right for for a bridge you put that out so it really depends on you know what your your legal code allows you to do and then also kind of the speed at which you want to you know undertake these by the way love the business model thank you thank you I didn't create it but and thank you mayor for no and I think you know the other model is we we do have the right to wave competitive bidding right and so I think I use the bridge example not something want to is a matter of practice but again because we do have a rather urgent need there you know this might be a circumstance that warrants it so I think if if my colleagues are amable what I'd love to do is give the manager Direction at least start conversations on those two projects just so we understand the model with some more detail and have the City attorney work alongside staff to address whatever legal legal and procurement issues that would flow from executing a contract like this through through the mayor real quick I just had one more question please go ahead so you you spoke about um quarters and the arcades sure how do you how do you identify what quarters you want to go spend like so why why why South Miami why Jacksonville University why sun and lakes like what because I mean the model work I mean if it's the model that we're thinking it it works pretty much anywhere so yes like why why this so I mean can I can I address that because it's kind of so really this comes out of the Bloomberg cities initiative and they've they're they're part of that Network my my mentor is on the board of the Bloomberg foundation and that's how I became aware of this as an option so full transparency to the board it's through that relationship that really I became aware of this as an opportunity and when I saw the possible application here I thought it made sense so I wanted to give you that by way of context he can answer the question as well yeah yeah so uh I appreciate that Mr Mayor um so for me person I can answer personally I can't answer for our Visionary CEO who said infrastructure is failing Across America but I can I can answer it Through My Lens so several years ago I had an opportunity to go to China had never been before right went there and what I saw was a country that is investing in its infrastructure correct and it's you know it's beating us right I mean they've passed us out and I come from my grandfather was a Marine in World War II and that generation came back to America and rebuilt the infrastructure and made us what we are today right but if you look at it you know you don't have to go very far you can see that all across America infrastructure is failing and why is that right the way to fund infrastructure forever has only been really two ways pay as you go and borrow that's it and it's not really worked that well but if you look at another sector that everybody has a LoveHate relationship with their utility company that sector has really performed right and they get higher rates regulated higher rates of return but if you think about it utility companies invest in infrastructure provide services on a month-to-month basis for their customers and deliver and reinvest and reinvest and reinvest invest and that's the model that we copy I understand the model why us like why the quarters so I you know I you know I live in Louisiana like I get this I get that question asked by small towns because no one goes and knocks on the door on small towns so why why are we here because we think we can help you guys make a difference in your community you've got needs every Community has needs and there's just not great solutions that are available thank you okay further questions sir yes thank you mayor for our city attorneys I I know that this is a lot to look into and we have an impending deadline very important deadline we've working on for many years with City Hall and we added another dimension to that this evening I just want to make sure that that remains the the priority or that you have time for both I mean yeah we'll we'll we'll make time for both but but yeah we we won't sacrifice that's the question okay thank you a city hall item thank you thank you um so yes commiss Cory yeah and then I just had one more question in choosing the priority item I don't know how well this mixes with a grant money that we might be asking for for any of these projects so I don't know if we should be considering projects that maybe we don't have as good of a chance of getting grant money or might not be planning to ask for grant money I was just curious if if so we do lots of projects in which we're providing the local m match as part of the project for both state and federal funds so I personally have a number of those projects especially in the water sector where we provided either 20% or up to 50% of the funds that matches the grant funds state of Hawaii uh we actually operate their Nei program which is the uh National Electric Vehicle infrastructure you know program so for state of Hawaii we provide the 20% uh Federal match to the 80% Federal fund okay great thank you thank you so so is there any objection to having staff potentially work on a preliminary agreement and explore these leg issues do we want them to explore the the turf or do we want to I just thought those two ideas if you have other ideas you'd want them I I thought the bridge would be the moster one brid is a noer okay to to look at the contract's the same so for for both just to matter what their scope would be the scope they'd be working on that's right and isn't the turf already in motion it is in motion it's ready to be installed month again I just I just want to highlight is like a potential future opportunity again I know you guys have had reservations about again the capital outlay trying to be responsive to you know all my colleagues here and uh but I think from a Time perspective probably less practical I think the bridge is probably the best example of the way this could be deployed to meet it to meet it shortterm and a great test yeah so let's limit it to the bridge then and we'll see if uh we get back any any no objections colleagues no objections mayor I think that I mean is it possible that we can change it I mean can we use this as an example to kind of go throughout the you know the legal part understand the contract and we can change if we feel I'll give you an example if we want to expand uh septic to sewer for example to go into a different avenue that we can expand on that or yeah just give you an example I just heard something that Peak my interest which is them being used as a match right alternative so why look I think I I I try not to be an ideologue about these things I think practically you know that is an attractive additional card to have in our pocket as we try to pursue dollars elsewhere so yeah I think I'm just seeing this as an opportunity let's find a project to test the model understand the legal issues and bring a conversation forward on it so thank you for walking before we run no problem we're trying look at me I'm like Jason thank you for the presentation thank you thank you okay can I can I just say one thing that having nothing to do with this I don't think we recognize often enough and I know I give you a hard time a lot we don't recognize all of the arrows you take for all of us in person and in email and so for that I want to say thank you for always having our thank you it's they're not arrows it's fun so I appreciate it your version of fun is very different I'm I'm a masochist apparently so but this is all good learning so and it's for the better for nor community so thank you guys for uh indulging me uh with all due respect to Mr riverol I want to take some of the business items first can we would you mind if we table your presentation to the end I know I I figured you would not be uh too displeased by that so yeah ve very quickly can I get a motion to approve the minutes of April 16th I'll move the motion second we have a motion by commissioner k and a second by commissioner Corey Madam clerk if you can call the role please yes commissioner K yes commissioner Cory yes commissioner Leman yes Vice May Bon yes mayor Fernandez yes minutes P 5 great Mr manager if you can give us briefly your report Madam manager welcome brief report um first is the monthly update on the Avalon Bay project you know we've been taking photos since October so I'm happy to report that their um last major po was completed on May 2nd um which was the roof so you can see quickly the photos I have the clicker today so that is the final May 2nd um they are topping out event is scheduled for next Friday um on the event side you already heard from John Edward Smith you're all aware this Saturday we invite everybody to shop SOI we thank all the businesses that have joined that initiative so many of them are offering 10% off all day after you shop somi head on to somi Second Saturdays we're going to have live music from 5: to 10 p.m. there are several vendors from food to clothing to jewelry to Art um and we look forward to having everybody it's been a labor of love for everybody involved from the manager's office to Communications Community Affairs events at parks everybody involved so we're really excited we hope to see you all there thank you and I just want to say to Sam and Brandon I mean I I had a chance to walk around with Sam and visit a couple of the participating business this weekend or this today excuse me for this weekend's event and uh I I I want to congratulate my colleagues and the manager for making this investment in stad um the reception the feedback from the business owners is incredibly positive they are grateful that we're taking the time to help kind of lift their profiles and uh give them opportunity to kind of bring people into the Town Center U very positive feedback on the work they both have been doing and so kudos to our manager Deputy manager and team for not only producing this event but the tremendous amount of Goodwill that you're generating on behalf of all of us uh in in the Town Center Mr lein yes thank you I wanted to piggyback that um want to further introduce uh Samantha Samantha one and two now and they work tandem together or in concert together um my chance while I was waiting to meet with our city manager yesterday because was a little early over the agenda a chance to get to know Samantha's the mayor pointed out who's titled as constituent Services director so I didn't I realize at the time I thought that was just for all of our constituents but in addition she's our business liaison which is so important we know that are is having to stay us for Dozen Years tends to be overlooked and at the same time they account for two-thirds of our tax base so by servicing them it helps us to keep our taxes low and city services rich and in addition she's also helping with uh events such as the one you you've heard mentioned tonight so um I wanted to thank you and then in addition I just I wanted to nominate someone if I can I know this isn't typical for our next employee and just speak about them uh quickly there's some works for uh Parks maintenance and I know I always say our our police and public works department are our best ambassadors and I always feel a little guilty when we've an employee the month because everyone our team's phenomenal but R morero is he's just incredible he's a pure professional he is just so thoughtful and um he always goes above and beyond and after I've been sharing this with staff I came to find out later he's also a purple heart um and uh he's just exceptional I've watched him deal with people who are upset when their dogs are you know going to the bathroom and parks and so forth so he's dealt with difficult situations very well and he's just a fantastic uh addition to our team so yeah I'd like to nominate him thank you you got it Madam Madam manager and thank you for those comments and it's we don't often recognize just what a great job Parks do and know we a lot of police Le being our ambassadors but the parks staff is really at the front line and in providing service so thanks to them mam manager just on the report there was mentioned about the permitting issues that stor remain open on the septic to sewer conversion project first phase I have neighbors that are very eagerly awaiting the start of that project just want to get a sense of where we are in the permitting and what we should expect uh in terms of a timeline yeah we put a uh a actually spoke to the engineer of record asking for where we are in the permit process we're still waiting he back but once that's completed then we can issue the notice to proceed and 270 days from the notice to proceed I just want to know where we're going to get started in part because you know we're going to start with requests for Appropriations for next session and again the more money that we're sitting on the more cash we have shown in state accounts the less likely we're going to get cash for future projects so I just want to make sure that you know that gets started sooner rather than later so so we started but like every project there's a there's a administrative phase and so the contractor is submitting some of the I understand the mobilization I just want to know in terms of are there are has the permit been finalized or there still no not yet but I I don't want to get the impression that the project hasn't started we're in the early uh paperwork stage for the contractor submit the required documents to U my media water Ure okay to then get issued the permit and then start the actual construction um we've had one initial meeting and we got another one scheduled to keep everybody on task um so yeah that work has begun it's just this is the initial phase that's required in any project okay if we could just get a future an update on when we expect that we'll actually be shovel on the ground i' appreciate that sir yes sir forgot to mention another thing about R he's also a city resident also lives in the Heart of the City so yeah excellent thank you we got it thank you madam manager thank you Mr City attorney nothing new to report mayor thank you for that sir uh colleagues any quick comments or reports you want to share okay see no we'll move on then um Madam clerk on M1 commission commissioner lean I want to apologize I I I I thought this was in that large appointment of the commission and so I know i' come to learn that in fact you had nominated the person I'm seeking to replace would you like me to take action on that on that item or not I just again want to be respectful of you I apologize I was not aware if if oh okay you're fine with proceeding so if we could read M1 into the Record Man yes EJ Martinez business owner has been recommended by mayor Fernandez to be appointed to serve on the Town Center Advisory Board as per Charter Article 2 Section 8A for a two-year term in May 7 2026 or successor is appointed whichever curs first he will be placing Raj Pandy okay need motion uh can I get a motion on that item I move the motion is there a second second a motion by commissioner c and a second by commissioner Corey Madam clerk call the rooll please yes commissioner Cay yes commissioner Cory yes commissioner Leeman yes Bon yes mayor Fernandez yes pass 5 Z commissioner lman thank you thank you uh we have by my count eight consent agend items are there any items that we'd like to pull for discussion yes sir your recog I thank you Mr Mayor I don't want to pull any I just want to make a comment on on one and two okay uh let's just a pull you can make the comments which which you want to pull quickly one and two one and two okay any other items that we want to pull for discussion or comment I'm and I'm not questioning them or opposing that's fine I I just it's fine it's for informational purposes not a problem um I just needed an update on number four from our city manager was I needed an update correct when we had discussed the buyback yes so let's get let's do the following if I can get a motion on items three five 6 7 and 8 and ask the clerk to read those titles into the record I'll move all the you move all all items three five six seven and eight is there a second second okay mam clerk please read those items and we will we will call a vote Yes item three a resolution approving a proposal and project agreement with Stant consulting services for safety action plan for City roadways in amount not to exceed $290,000 accepting their award and approving a safe streets and road for all ss4a Grant agreement and general terms and conditions with us department of transportation for the preparation of an ss4a action plan in amount of $238,400 authorized the expenditure of 20% matching funds by the city in amount of $ 59,6 item five a resolution approving and combined interlocal and mure Aid agreement between the city of South Miami the village of Pine Crest say city of West Miami and the City of cor Gables for the creation of the interdepartmental joint crisis management team item six a resolution approvement in authorizing the wa for certain event related fees and cost in amount of $2,510 pursing to section 15 b-6 of the city code for a special event known as the Jun celebration presented by the S Mamu Black Culture Affairs foundation in to be held on June 15 2024 at the Gibson Bea Community Center item seven a resolution ratifying the purchase of used furniture for the mobile building Bay one in amount of $8,888 and accepting donated furniture and in kind services from building up code LLC providing for authorization to expend funds item eight a resolution authorizing the city manager to designate a clerk to the local hearing officer for school zone speeding violations enforce utilizing speed detection systems in accordance with section 31618 896 for the statutes thank you madam clerk uh again we have a motion and a second if you can call the role please yes commissioner Cen yes commissioner Cory yes commissioner lemman yes Vice May Bon yes mayor Fernandez yes pass by thank you and we had a question commissioner Le in on item one we need to reconsider that sorry number four the city manager answered me in an email I just you did we'll just take that separately M Madam clerk if you can read item four into the record please item four a resolution the mayor standing Commission of the city of South Miami approving the approaches of new 9 mm Glock 47 Firearms Optics and accessories from lman and Sh Supply ink and amount not to see $8,200 subish a trade in of 7740 Cali Firearms thank you I think we have a motion by the vice mayor sorry yes I'd like to move item four is there a second second okay have a motion by the vice mayor a second by uh commissioner Corey Madam clerk if you can call the role on item four please yes commissioner cayen yes commissioner Cory yes commissioner liman yes v b yes mayor Fernandes yes it pass 5 Mr lebman you're recognized for your question on it yes so it's it's just a a comment number one deals with is um is crosswalk lights that are in the road that that flash so I I love this been wanting this for a long time uh because number one it's Public Safety but number two it's a tremendous aesthetic and I I believe it tremendously beautifies the area so I I know that um that side of of US1 is is two lanes and cars are certainly driving faster but we have majority of pedestrians the other city was one that's where we have the majority of eyes and there are I don't know if you've run into this Samantha feedback from pedestrians maybe people walking to work but I I get complaints all the time more more than once a week so even though it is only one lane on the other side of US1 and even though cars are driving slower um and if nothing else it improves the area aesthetically so and not just in the ground it t it reduces the sign pollution so I I discussed with city manager and he made a correct suggestion that we should wait for placemaking but if there's you know anything in the interm and when we do that I don't I want us to incorporate this and not forget about it because we're always we're trying to protect our tax base in that area okay so I think it's a that's one comment and then one to two yeah if I could just piggy back on this item Mr manager if you could I know Mr Smith mentioned the removal of The Pedestrian signs I don't know if you've got some information on that or whether that was done by the county or or some other agency no that that was uh done some sometime ago uh these were at first when when he spoke I I because he was speaking Italian I didn't really understand when um no I just I didn't connect but staff uh uh briefed me on that these were uh John Edward if I'm saying this incorrectly these signs that were in the middle of the lane if you will is that correct the ones that are these um plastic middle of the lane that says you know caution so those were getting hit repeatedly so apparently I was told that uh um previously administration had asked to remove them because they were always in bad shape getting knocked down so I think that's one the ones that you're referring to so that's why they were removed I I agree with their removal for that reason but but yes but I think this this would make for a good alternative so hopefully we'll enhance the condition that way okay thank you for the question ification get back on that again um there's other opportunities as well that we spoke to uh that we need to look to in the new CIP coming up the crosswalk at Brewer Park there's 62nd Avenue 64 Street there's a few of them that been get a lot of complaints that are quite frankly dangerous so we need to address that and we expect to have a petition from The Neighbors on that particular section here shortly after some constituent meetings today so um thank you for highlighting that as well these are the crosswalk lights you see at the airport which you'll now see on Sunset Drive in front of City Hall okay with that uh do we have a motion on item one let me read it first please go ahead item one a resolution approving a proposal and project agreement with kimy horn and Associates to provide design service for internally illuminated inground pavement Market Crossings at various intersections along Sunset Drive between Southwest 61st court and Southwest 58th Court in amount n to see $4,225 think there's a motion by commissioner lean put a second okay motion by commissioner lean and a second by commissioner K mam clerk please call the role yes commissioner Kay yes commissioner Cory yes commissioner lieman yes VI bonish yes mayor Fernandez yes item pass 5 thank you commissioner Leeman you're recognized for your question on item two thank you so item two deals with the cver it's a $2 million expenditure the context is for a long time a significant expense and there was some debate gray area is the responsibility of the city of South Miami or the uh County so um uh number two speaks to $315,000 for permits for the county so one thing I asked the manager which he asked me to bring to the commission get direction I I don't think it would be too much that's me personally to ask the county to wave these fees considering there was okay some legal debate of whose responsibility was we're picking up the two million and I think yeah it won't be too much ask to wave the the permit fees I I suspect the answer will be no but we should ask nonetheless okay absolutely thank you again this is might be another project relating back to the presentation we have we may want to consider that as an alternative but let's let's walk before we run okay uh is there a motion on item two commissioner Le have I move the item is there a second sorry she hasn't read item too yet come on M A res authoriz the city managed to expend funds to pay Miami day County permanent application and permanent fee costs relating to the Manor Lane cover design replacement project at Southwest 64th Court over the twin a canal in amount of $ 31,43 okay we had a motion from commissioner Lin and a second by commissioner Kaya so we're reaffirming those motions and the second Madame clerk if you can call the role please yes commissioner K yes commission Cory yes commissioner Leman commission leem you have to say yes VI May Bon yes mayor Fernandez yes IEM pass 5 thank you are there any members of the public here to speak on any item or anyone who's has an application before us I just like to we are on we are now through item eight on the agenda so if there's any item anyone would like to address or if anyone has an interest any of these items please raise your hand and Shout out the number I'm going to give you permission to shout in the chamber so I can take your item out of turn and hopefully get you out of here and all with the rest of your evening no yes sir Mr Proctor okay let's uh if you could read item 17 please item 17 ordinance first reading public hearing an ordinance of the May City Commission of the city of South Miami amending article 3 zoning regulations of the Land Development code to modify Provisions applicable to townhouse development including creating a new zoning District known as rt18 townhouse residential and providing for AAL regulations providing for Corrections stability conflicts implementation and effective dat thank you for that uh Mr Alvarez if you could please come forward with a presentation from staff on your name and add for the record please sir good evening Mark Alvarez the cordino group where this is part of the um overall planning resoning study and I have a presentation this is um for the townhouse zoning District called rt18 we lost it um and this would be the first reading before the commission it has already gone to the planning board and we'll be deal we'll be it's not work it's not going forward yeah thank you so I wanted to start quickly with um just go back in time a little bit to the summer when we discussed a lot of the overall concepts for the planning board and I took three slides out of the July presentation just to go over them because we really are doing what we said we we started to do so one of the main Concepts was have commercial and residential formance to some excuses the rt18 does allow a live work and we are doing that and the purposes of that were for more walkable communities to reduce traffic more viable options economically more Community scale business and more housing options and also even at the time we were talking about implementing and controlling the live local act requirements um we also talked at that time about a form-based code this is probably one of the most um detailed codes in terms of its its form and it's very very specific and exact massing of the buildings and how they fit into the Lots uh so we are doing that we're using this as a transition between main corridors or commercial areas into neighborhoods it's one of the the main premises of rt18 is to create that transition we are again staying away from specific vernaculars because South Miami has a very eclectic context and we're using we're using the controls of height building both masing parking um and the streetcape frontages in perious area and and we talked back then about the liveware concept it was very important again to introduce an economic aspect uh small business into the neighborhoods where they belong where they fit and to give people who live in a place uh way to in some ways subsidize themselves by having their office in home so rt18 in the um section 20- 3.1 which is in in uh exhibit B um goes through the the district purpose statements and it's a Rewritten statement um with that includes the words about transition it includes the fact that it is essentially a residential category and the import importance of this is that we will be using this category as we remap the zoning map for we will be taking some of the business office and converting that to townhouse we will be taking some of the things that are very low intensity but they are commercial and we are doing that partly to um create a better trans a better compatibility for the neighborhood but also we are looking for ways to control the some of the aspects of live local so that we don't have the the um state enforcement of controls into our city so by going to residential we know nobody's going to touch residential um right now those Acts affect Comm all almost any other use other than residential um so it is residential in its Essence it is providing a live workspace which is more than a home office it allows you to essentially take your home office and put it downstairs and have a front door so you can operate more like a business and people don't go through your living room um it also allows a accessory dwelling unit an Adu and to to cure any conversion confusions it is an accessory dwelling unit and thus the states uh chapter 163 3 177.1 or one um has the Adu included it the state promotes municipalities to have adus um that text is also silent on how they count for density many cities many municipalities have implemented them liter literally in single family where they don't increase the density so you can have it's it's like a granny flat but a little bit more so you can have it over the garage you can have it over in your house somehow we've included this in the text and we are promoting it optionally either on the ground floor you can have you can have the garage only and your storage spaces um or you could have a live work space if that's what you're so choose with a separate door to the street or you could have an accessory dwelling unit that you would rent out on your own with a door to the street all this the idea is to activate the street to create a sidewalk presence and to do something with the first floor and have a very very compact um type of a building that allows a townhouse that goes up this is basically like a duplex but a lot more regulations to make it look like an urban townhouse use on the bottom always a door on the bottom and a door to the top or a door above stairs at the top um it is um nominally 18 dwelling units per acre so it's a fairly dense uh for this city it's a fairly dense residential density the residential densities for mult for multif family in the city are 18 and 24 so even with the eight if we had um an 18 resident an 18 unit per acre multif family this still adds value even over that because we can allow the adus because we can allow the live work so we're trying to create more value without necessarily creating giant buildings at the moment um so this is going forward before our comprehensive plan text amendments so right now if this not tonight but on the night that it would be passed on second reading it would allow a rezoning in one of three districts one would be mixed mixed residential moderate density which is a fairly um limited District around town it's mostly around Madison Square um it would allow it in mu4 or mixed use commercial residential which is all of the hometown district and also a little bit around Madison Square um and then it would also allow the implementation in multif family residential only those three districts for now um but it would be an easy resoning for anyone who wants to do this before the comprehensive plan amendments after the comprehensive plan amendments it would be implemented able in the obvious category which is townhouse residential but right now we are we and will be going forward to the planning board in two weeks in one week I'm sorry the um the townhouse residential would be Rewritten to include the adus to include the live work and to include to be at 18 units an acre right now it's at eight about 8 and 3/4 units an acre so it can't accommodate this zoning category but it's intended to um so to look at the map um um the interpretation of that those circled the more or less boxed areas are the places where it's applicable upon second upon passing on second reading without the comprehensive plan it's a few properties along bro Road um it's all of the hometown area the res the multifam south of the hometown area some of the other multifamilies behind us one and some of the multif family along uh 62nd Avenue on both sides and also red Roat what we intended to be used for and this is and I emphasize this is not before you tonight I'm just trying to show the intent as we go forward and we do remap further down the road in the in the um complete resoning of the city but all the blue boxes would be the areas where we would intend to implement uh townhouse zoning mostly their transition areas they transition either to commercial such as in back of uh in back back of Bird Road South of it or along Red Road um again transitioning between the single family and Red Road um and also transitioning on the south side of the hometown district and there are areas that were actually circled before that are coming out we have some ideas where we're going to increase the um the T the transit supportive District uh which used to be called the Todd uh will increase that a little bit so we're creating a boundary around that townhouse as well so basically it's going to be used as a transitional area between single family neighborhoods Todd or U neighborhood mixed use or just more dense more intense areas we had brought this to the planning board on the um on the 9th of April and um the planning board we spent a lot of time this is a this is a district where the metrics are very important it's a very exact fit on the Lots because of the nature of of town houses there are duplexes in a sense they're stuck together their dimensions are very exact we're working on a 22 23 foot width which means we have to get everything pretty pretty tight um they had some requests as it was written when it went before them there was a lscape requirement for 35% they requested that be reduced um they we had a lot of discussion about the parking so the original concept was we would put the parking in back in as many places as possible and we would put the parking in a garage in as many places as possible it proves to be very difficult and very challenging to do that in every place in every location and expensive so the planning board had asked us to allow one of the parking spaces to be on the driveway and therefore increase the setback of that driveway to 20 ft so in other words now we have a car in the garage and a car on the driveway and then the sidewalk uh they we had a limitation to to limit the buildings uh the largest building to eight contiguous townhouse units they asked that that be removed um they asked us to reexamine this I can try interrupt you but we have a couple questions about the slide when you're when you're saying what the changes are can you tell us like reduce landscape requirement from 35% did they give an idea or use for me when you write use 20 foot build to line where garage is to allow for driveway I I understand the concept of what you're saying but what is it now like yeah what what is what is the recommendation I can just go to the next slide if you prefer save time because it's in the next slides um but they asked us to reexamine that whole relationship between when we can use parking in the back of the building they asked us to include signage regulations um for the live work use and finally they asked that we may consider an chitectural review because the metrics are so tight on this that will be up to the commission uh so these are the changes so the changes which you see on the left the the First Column is what was proposed on April 9th to the planning board and the changes that have been made since then um so we did reduce the landscaping and the we reduced we increased the building coverage to 72% from 60% actually yeah from 65% I'm sorry um we we decreased the landscape area we did recognize at the time that that was not actually feasible in some of the on the smallest of the sites um so it's now 18% with a 8% in front 10% in back again it's very important that we we are integrating into neighborhood areas so we want to have green space on both sides um the uh the eight contiguous units requirement was removed and so was the 200 ft limit on Total Building size um the we had a vertical variation so in other words the building can't be all one solid wall That's remained we've just changed a lot of the details of that and basically we're allowing the driveway variation to to be part of that vertical so in other words if you have a 22t townhouse it actually has two surfaces at the front one would be the surface or the we call layers we started using the Miami 21 language of a layer that would be the front door and a layer that would be the garage door um I am with tonight's presentation when I looked over this again I realize we required that garage door by the way we wrote the language to be in the back and we want to allow it both ways because there's two interpretations of the townhouse one is that the door to the townhouse unit be at the ground level here the other is really a more traditional way where you see the stairs going up and the door is kind of on the second floor um but still comes down to the street with the stairs and it just provides another way to interpret it we want to keep it pretty open so we'll probably make a little change there before the second reading to to allow that interpretation um as far as the setbacks we had again that I was addressing that already the front setback we changed to allow for the driveway to have 20 ft that was the main issue there the initial one had had the buildings at about 15 ft we're now allowing for full driveway cars to park in front of the building and all the green again is what I just said that we'd Rec you know I'm recommending on top of our our own recommendations it's really an error on our my part that when shap making that change the language locked in that the driveway that the garage would have to be behind the front door we want to allow it to go both ways to allow somebody to have stairs coming to the bottom and a door at the top um just tweaking some of the metrics we um pulled back this we had a 10-ft requirement on side setback interior side setbacks looking at the R2 R3 R4 I'm sorry at the R3 R4 R5 which are the residential categories that most frequently would abut these Concepts from the m that I showed you um those are seven and a half so we thought to me again this is a very tight sort of envelope so we gave it a little relief and put another 2 and 1/2 ft in there which which makes everything work a little better um the parking um has been changed a little bit so what we have when we put the driveways in the front um so imagine um 100t minimum lot width we can have four units in that and each unit is 22 and a half feet with the side setbacks if it was that building when we do that we have a driveway that takes 10 ft we have a sidewalk that has a a green planting area where a park a car can park um on the street we're using the street parking as allowable towards the the parking requirement for these units so basically you have to have two car spaces on site one in the driveway one in the garage for the main unit for the live work or for the uh Adu we're requiring a half a space and that's all we get in that envelope of 100 feet on the street when we put the driveways in we get less spaces on the street um so we've reduced that to a half a space for either one of those and then finally the signage um um that's a lot of language there I I'll put it in short version um so what we did is we took all a lot of the requirements that are in the signage part of the code and replace them with this and then refer it back to the signage code for some of the things that are are more generic and more required for every place in the city but basically this is requiring that a live work unit a live work unit which is basically a home office with a door you can have clients come but we want to keep the signage very subtle so the this comes down to basically a plaque of two square feet 17 x 17 if it's a square attached to the wall no backlighting it could be metal any kind of permanent material but not something that's a piece of paper taped to the wall or it could be um a painted or otherwise permanently colored signage on if the door has a transom a window above the door or a sidelight a window to the side of the door they could use that still limited to the square footage what we don't want is any kind of sign protruding from the wall any kind of sign hanging over no back lighting no special lighting it can only be lit by a scon that's architecturally part of the building um that's the short version of all of that and then finally just some very you know sort of uh images of what we're going for here this is where the parking is in the front this has the version where we would have stairs going up to the main unit and that's why we want to make sure we still allow that right now the language that's in um in the document that you have would not actually allow this we want to make sure that we still allow this um when they're stuck together we allow and we can have the parking in the back not every instance can have that but say if we did have this along 62nd Avenue if we had it a long red Road some of those properties would allow for parking in the back and then we can have a more of a storefront type design on the front without the garages interrupting it and then finally we just you all the studies we've done we've been looking at how these would look from a neighborhood in their backyard and we're trying to keep the scale so that we always work with that so that's what that is just a study of and again that's actually 62nd where we have the alley to work with uh and that's the easiest situation so we have criteria for evaluation this code would meet all of those criter IIA um it's consistent in every way with the comprehensive plan as it is now and as it will be it's consistent with the code there's no internal consistencies that meet state requirements and we would recommend to approve it on first reading with your your comments Incorporated one thing I wanted to make a comment on um we're doing this code as a standalone we'll probably do a number of them as as Standalone this is the kind of code that really requires its own chapter so we can put in the diagrams and the pictures and easy charts so I it's very soft comment right now that probably by the end of the study we don't need to do it for Todd it has its own section but we'll have a number of zoning districts that we create that would be well served by those kinds of diagrams and similar to if you're familiar with the Miami 21 code they have an article four which is just a summary of all the zoning codes with the diagrams the lot diagrams it's very very very helpful for people who want to invest in the city and they can look in one place to see how it all comes together um so we would you know in subsequent presentations I'll probably suggest that again uh and that's it thank you very much colleagues questions or comments I had a couple questions your recogniz sir um can we go back to the the the um planning board recommendations versus your initial recommendations real quick please thanks and specifically Mr Albert I was um concerned with the back slide John this one works fine either that won if you go backwards fine two slides which one the recommendations the recommendations keep going back their recommendations their recommendations were changed the check marks can you help me one more one more there it is okay one more not that one no next one that one this one um why do you think the recommendations what was their reasoning from the planning board to uh increase the impervious area from 65 to 82 building coverage at 72 and Landscaping from 35 to 18 that's a big difference what I mean look so one of the things that we always spoke about was to have a little bit more green um Miami 21 is not what we're trying to replicate so um and this is just my opinion sorry this is just my opinion it's not it's not trust me I'm not I'm in agreement in some respects um so my my I'm not understanding why the recommendations are so harsh on on those three aspects and you give me a little bit more feedback and my apologies I haven't watched the planning no that's fine I the um there was there was a little bit of that they were actually correct in that the 35% was too uh too onerous when we put the driveways in the front of course we not including the concept of previous driveways we lose the driveway space as Green Space um when we took the so many of Mark can I can I interrupt you for one second because I I'm gonna jump on his train here I I I watched the whole hearing and frankly probably disagree with 50% of what the changes are based on the recommendations so on that point why aren't we encouraging particularly where we're using this is a transitional District that faces a major Urban Corridor something that has more of an urban aesthetic as opposed to a Suburban town home or duple duplex aesthetic so I think the building setback with a larger setback for the driveway is probably the opposite of what I would want to see I think the last slide that had the condition that was more that you showed for 60 Second Avenue these Lots don't have alleys today but they they they do have the ability to create an alley at the rear you know it's just a matter of replatting and dedicating that space for that purpose and so can you kind of tease out why you think that actually makes sense uh that that recommendation that change actually makes sense because I I I thought it was kind of counter to the aesthetic that I thought we were trying to initially move towards with this uh with this Zoning transect for lack of a better weight so that wait because you were in I just want to make sure I follow along with them because you were envisioning more of a brownstone looking correct yes and so and and and to that point I know that you're suggesting that we allow for external stairs I I just came back from Montreal in March Montreal is like the epitome of town homes small scale buildings with external stairs I will tell you that initially I did not have a negative reaction to that aesthetic but I'm not sure that the execution is going to be quite as deaf as the one you've highlighted and so I mean I my other question is how do we mitigate a poor execution of an external stair with an internal stair the building has a uniform facade it meets the ground it presents in a in a way that is controlled um when we allow that stere to be externalized you know it could be done very well could be done with marble steps up to a second level or could be done with something much less attractive pvers yeah sorry to jump on to your question commissioner Kane no that's good good point yeah and Montreal is probably the worst example of external stairs and they're all hundred years old and could never be but we but but we're not but we're not again we're not there's no design aesthetic just it's aample though I think it's it's it is and I hadn't thought about it till I drove through it with my son in March after a ski trip and what I realized is without any design controls we could end up with something similar [Music] so back let's go backwards through the questions I think on the stairs it's probably useful to allow the flexibility but we'll have to introduce uh we have to dig into the building code building code has a lot of requirements for that but we'll have to look at it a little more carefully for the Aesthetics to make sure that we get something of some quality because yes we we put them with the Planters on the side and and made them look really good um the the urban aspect of it pulling it forward to the road and the alley in the back I think what what happened at the planning board was there was a my interpretations they felt that it was not realistic or buildable and feasible to to finance to always have this parking in the back most of a lot of the the locations where we'd like to put this do have the depth but somebody does have to assemble all the way to the street to the corner so that they can have an access from a side street um and I think the planning board was not convinced that that was necessarily feasible or it would hold back the development of town houses so they were looking for something a little more easy to implement if it was just 100 if it was the minimum lot um you know without getting my my own personal Direction I liked keeping it more urban and and keeping the little tighter but I absolutely appreciate where they're trying to go because they want to make sure that something gets built we are trying to fit a lot of locations and a lot of situations with the same code and there are some places where um for example and one of the things when we were doing these models we used behind Bird Road 4 the street it's one of the hardest places um and that one is very difficult to get the alley in unless you go to the street to the side street and can assemble that much so I think that was the feeling of what they wanted um as far as the Green Space the on that point if I can interrupt I'm sorry colleagues you have questions please jump in I I think could we not have a default standard which would be to encourage the rear condition but allow them to ask for an exception of some sort to provide front loaded parking if in fact that condition is not one they can create at a location okay but which method by variance that was my question I I don't know that I would want to raise it to level of variance because I don't know that there's going to be any finding of a particular hardship but maybe some sort of a special exception that that's has a has a lesser legal standard uh might be a way to do this and retain some architectural control over what gets executed as well have we seen that before maybe C her you're shaking your head like you've done it before and I and I would just highlight I think that might be a solution to allowing for the external stairs again we default to a standard where we want the stairs internalized but we can allow for it based on some sort of additional Architectural Review or again uh some some board approval sorry just thought so what I I guess what I'm hearing is if we we rear parking the rear required um unless they can show we have to come up with some standard maybe like a practical difficulty standard where they they can't park in the rear and U and maybe designate what board would approve that does it have to go yeah I I I I'm I'm I'm I'm of the opinion that when we do these things I don't need to see every project that gets executed under the standard if it meets the Baseline but maybe if in fact they want to Avail themselves of the alternative standards for an execution it would come here for some sort of site plan approval okay that's a Vari well the standard without the standard it could be a it could be a variance process but it has a a practical difficulties hardship as opposed to a unique hardship based on the laot configuration design yeah well I guess my only concern with that mayor I mean not with that but like with what we had initially is I understand what we're doing from an urban perspective but I do want the green I don't know how how to incorporate a a greenage uh height restriction on trees or shade requirement that that I would want to see I do not want to see small you know when a development's made I don't want to see a 3in live oak at six feet that's not what I want to see I want to see Lush so I mean the idea that we're all doing or that we've been speaking about as a commission was lushness throughout Sunset lushness through 602 and how do we incorporate that and I think that's where my problem was with reducing a lot of this landscape maybe it's the area in the square footage that might be fine but if we can incorporate somehow shaded you know lack of a better word but shade um as a reference I don't know I don't know what the commission thinks about that no I agree I think the impervious area is pretty high at 82% um as is the building coverage um yeah that's but but you know I think we can we can we can have some more conversation with staff about that okay between readings for sure and I I don't know if we want to have I think you're proposing a 15ot setback at the front at the front you it's 15 foot uh no actually we just switched that around the build two became 20 foot and well no as it's written right now that you're saying it is 15 foot and what I proposed in the green writing was to switch that around so we would allow so the full building would be set back 20 ft right okay 15 and 20 15 15 for the building 20 he for the garage right so the so essentially the building would be staggered corre okay in part okay pardon me mayor if if we default to parking in the rear unless unless there's a practical difficulty that's shown would you want to keep that configuration in the front because you have I would prefer something that's 10 feet in terms of a bill to set back so you do have the chance to have you know a a tree on private property that provides or or some Landscaping at the front that softens the um Hardscape but that's just my opinion is there an easement uh in the particular areas only um only one actually uh so and do 60 seconds and and that another reason why we need that requirement right we it's not an easement that we can go take care of ourselves we can do the Buffalo I mean the uh bicycle Bob and start planting trees on there but it's it's not something that we want to go do yeah we a lot of the a lot of the properties where we uh a lot of the locations where we would like to do this do have more than 100 foot depth but not all of them some are are at 100 ft so again it's been the problem of trying to make this fit for the minimum condition and when you read these these are for the minimum lot Dimension so they're the toughest ones to deal with I mean that's really the hardest ones for example when it's it's it has a residential buffer in the back of an additional 10t that has to be green space any additional residential buffers have to be green but I I understand what the mayor is saying that we could look at it the other way and have the highest standard or a higher standard and and have exceptions I think we just have to work out whether we want to do those administratively or through a board I I and I would just add into that basket as well um I understood the comments around the continuous building Frontage issue we didn't want to limited to eight units again I've seen mg developers they build beautiful stuff in Coral Gables it's the full block not sure we're going to get that execution everywhere in South Miami for example I would rather default to the more restrictive standard and require the openings and allow people to present an architectural treatment that may be very acceptable May in fact render a more beautiful building but allowing for it as a matter of right essentially could end up with a very massive unattractive set of town homes um along a street Frontage for 350 feet right I'm not sure that that's talking about talking about I'm not referencing any particular condition I'm just speaking to the theoretical so yeah well I well taken because we were considering I think it still in the Todd and one or the the TSD um when it comes before you be working with a 200 square 200 foot width there too break up the building masses Madam vice mayor I obviously like the garages in the back because it lends to more interest in the front I think that saying that you're going to have half of a parking space in the front it especially if you're expecting somebody to come and visit there is unrealistic we continue I think to say we want less parking and less parking and less parking but I don't know about you guys I don't know anybody who's going yeah let me have no car or let me have one car and whoever visits me can visit me in like a Ford Fiesta you know that takes up half a space but if you have a regular car don't come over a smart car actually didn't mean a smart car and somewhere in the regulations it suggests that the driveways have to be Siamese so that we have a full space for each two units yeah and and so has smart cars I exactly so I I think we need to continue to be practical versus Whimsical when it comes to parking in our city because we are not all of us three steps from the Metro Rail they've removed actual buses now on 62nd Avenue you know this better bus plan has removed buses that service our neighborhoods so now we have removed buses some of us do not live within walking distance of the train and we're not giving up our cars so then we're we're essentially forcing the perfect storm in some of these neighborhoods and 62nd Avenue is a perfect example of that where the bus no longer exists and now we want to give people half of a parking space so I caution us and I'd love to see when this comes back again what we've come up with so that we can at least start to tackle that because I don't have a smart car vice mayor so I had a question for youn you sorry the mayor he's taking a page from my book so we we have parking in the garage and in the driveway you have two spots there are dedicating Street parking half a spot because of the driveway and the width of the yes but if the parking is in the back which is what we're seeing we would still you could still you could still build a street cross-section that would have parking on the side parallel parking so I think what is trying to make sure is when you build the block you're building a half spot that's dedicated from each lot essentially so you're getting one full space now whether that's enough or not we can have a conversation about that but that's it and we had if you look at it from ail we had one spot and we've somehow made it half a spot and the recommendation from planning was half a spot no I understand I understand where it's coming from and that's why I'm saying if we can I think it's actually very clever what you said about having the parking in the back unless we can come up with a reason why they cannot I think we should be very critical and I'd love to see what you come up with to make it more than half a spot if it's possible if the parking is in the back there's three per unit because you have two parallel each other in the back and then one and in fact you can have driveways in the back you have no space so you can get four or five so it's it's I I think it's definitely an interesting thing because half of parking space doesn't work I don't know my work for you guys doesn't work for me any any other questions or comments and we have this is a public hearing item so to open up for public hearing I I yes sir go ahead you recognized yeah quickly I've always wanted more Town Homes I love Town Homes think the perfect big product think there's a void of town homes in uh Dade County you see them across the rest of the country and in Broward and I honest going back that was the perfect medium at medium for South Miami they didn't want height but the fee simple you own the property underneath you you can do three stories um but the density was ridiculous her code before was the minimum was 7500 square feet per town home but my my question is to is are these going to be fee simple I for this project maybe that's a question for the for the project we we're not GNA it could be executed out of the way commissioner we're not going to legislate the code's agnostic whether it's for sale or for for rent yeah yeah I mean I'd prefer fee simple you own the the homeowner owns the dirt okay thanks Mark one La my my last comment and we'll open the Public Public hearing the signage I mean it's the size of a paper I'm not sure it's really that valuable so my sense would be just to not allow it honestly it's my personal preference I'll throw that just as a comment we can discuss on second reading uh if we go go to the slide where you showed the locations that we intend to use this Citywide in the future the map here yeah that this is the perfect map my other concern with I know we're trying to immunize ourselves from live local but I I don't want to create other issues for property owners um I live in the neighborhood to the south of adth street right that's section north of 8 Street along 57th Avenue is a concern because of live local have had neighbors speak to me about it particularly the ones that live in those single family neighborhoods but my concern is those are office buildings today we're going to render them non-conforming by virtue of adopting this text change right and so I I I just want to the City attorney not really to you uh understand that they can rebuild if we need to build in some you know uh restoration Provisions to give them more time in the event there's a you know some sort of a you know uh Act of God or whatnot mayor just to be clear are you talking about the areas in blue I'm talking about the areas in blue right the last two on the right uh rightmost part of the the map the eastern most part of the map got it now those nothing is being rezoned by this this is a new category that's being created I understand what we're doing today talking about the future my concern is I understand that we concerned about the conflicts and live local and hopefully with a bill sponsor that's not the Senate President right whose baby this was will have the opportunity to have a conversation about these conflicts in the next session what I don't want to do I want to be very I want to be very deliberate that if we go forward and we deploy it in that location and some others that are Zone R today that we're not doing it to service to those property owners that they can't reinvest and improve the asset right because essentially they're not allowed to rebuild it right uh I don't want to make I don't want to I want to understand and I don't understand what impact it has to the insurability those buildings those are very nice Office Buildings for the most part some have been had the benefit of some significant reinvestment I don't want to preclude owners from doing that because I think that there's the possibility that that their rights may be somehow impacted negatively by this change so mayor generally speaking if it's a legal non-conformity yeah under our code um if it gets destroyed you can't rebuild it um however Mr Alvarez and I had discussed the savings Clause potentially where you know to to to insert something like that we we absolutely need one if we're going to do this again I I am you know it's unfortunate that we're in this position because of what you know we've done with respect to this one act but I just don't want that to our our our zealousness to protect the single family neighborhoods I do not want to destroy the economic value also that is attended in those buildings right and and in some way disincentivize the owners from continuing to invest and maintain the physical plan of those assets because I know one has made substantial upgrades in recent years we're hoping um and the one I think further north will as well uh I I just you know I don't know what impacts it has on the insurability of those assets in an already difficult Insurance Market you know if we can tease that out and you know this may be an application as bad as the alternative may be I just don't want to be the one responsible for having put those those Office Buildings in in worse economic shape than they are today yes sir so live local has to be affordable right it does yes yes so I honest I just want you to explain I don't get it that address so what happens is you can 57th Avenue well it only has to be 40% affordable and remember it's affordable up to 120% of Ami which and those are very successful office well they are and and but you know if you can build um a base of 8 to 12 stories at that location it becomes may be very attractive to the height correct yeah the height and the density they can import our maximum density for anywhere that's a commercial industrial or mixed use category and so those sites are vulnerable to being used for for huge buildings uh not huge but large buildings particularly um so what does that have to do with the townhouse category my point is we we are talking about changing the category to in a way take a you know enact a defensive measure against maximum height for this for the townhouse category because it's made residential it's no longer eligible for the local right now it has a mixed commercial designation and so arguably it's eligible for a live local execution okay okay thank you thank you for the question oh thank you no problem yes sir so just in curiosity in creating this category it would allow potentially somebody to come forward and use this category in one specific Place potentially would that happen that could happen before we sort of Z choose the Zoning for all of those areas if someone did come forward with one area could we use that opportunity to do it in all areas on the map or or upon the SEC upon the the zoning code as it is before you now or with modifications on second reading pass that map that comprehensive plan map would allow someone to apply for the townhouse Zone and will be compatible with the underlying land use so it would be res multif family residential mixed used mu4 mix use commercial residential 4 and um and mixed residential moderate density which is a fairly limited so we would be moving the change in the map for that then there's no change in are on the map that would just be somebody who wants to apply for townhouse designation if they have that underlying there's two maps there's two maps we're talking about yeah one is today the future land use map designations that are shown on this slide would allow you to come in and make an application for an atlas change in the zoning map to rt18 sorry okay now there are future land use map amendments that we're going to contemplate that would allow for the deployment in the areas that were shown on the prior slide right okay okay so that clear yeah okay mark thank you thank you uh at this time we'll open up this item for a public hearing anyone would like to address this Commission on this item please come forward at this time if you can have your name and address for the record sir thank you thank you Mr Mayor Jerry Proctor attorney 7600 Red Road uh thank you for moving the item forward earlier um um I represent a brood development who already has developed and operates a mixed use property in the city specifically Madison Square um he is looking at a couple of different Parcels one of which he already owns one of which he doesn't yet and we're looking at this rt18 we're intrigued we uh I agree with Mark's description as an urban townhouse because that's really what it is and I think it's something the city needs um we are still in the process of laying out on at least one of our sites uh what this would look like and where things will go where will the building go where will the parking go the access and so on and that fact in addition to what what I've heard from you um I would hope that you do pass this on first reading meing but that you allow at least four weeks if not more before we come back because we have work to do we want to work with uh Mark and with the city attorney which we always enjoy doing and it sounds like you have a lot of questions too um I I'm I don't want to get too far in the Weeds on this but I'm very encouraged at the comments and it really Falls in line with with our thinking we we like about 90% of this ordinance um we're concerned about little parts of it that require instead of having flexibility they require certain things uh Landscaping 18% um we're okay with that requiring 8% in the front and requiring 10% in the rear which is in the new draft we don't understand why it's mandating it in a certain place we may have a situation where we have less in the front more in the rear or vice versa um things like that and I think it falls in line generally with what you've been saying and that is you want to have a set of requirements or preferences and you have another set which I will call more flexible where you might have to come to a public hearing um so without getting too far in the weeds um we like what we're hearing we're not sure if it's going to work I will tell you one other thing uh Carl Gables was mentioned early on WE investigated what they have in Carl Gables what they have in Carl Gables is 20 units per acre uh one of the biggest projects is right across to the North of city hall uh it is very Urban uh some of those units are three and $4 million that's not what we plan um but it is 20 units an acre I think your number is a good sweet spot of 18 uh we'll probably fall under 18 in what we're looking at so far but um I think I think the city is on the right track I applaud the city for looking at it I think it's needed U there's some work to be done including by us and uh we appreciate your work thank you for your comments sir thank you any other member of the public who' like to come forward at this time on this item please do so anyone on Zoom please raise your virtual hand seeing No One in the Chamber and no one online we will close the public hearing uh colleagues any final comments or questions or directions to staff seeing none is there a motion the item is there a second second oh sir no okay okay we have a motion by commissioner leben and a second by commissioner Corey U Madam clerk if you can call um if you can if you can call the role on first reading yes commissioner K yes commissioner Cory yes commissioner Leeman yes Vice May Bon yes mayor Fernandez yes and hopefully we'll work on the modifications pass is 5 first thank you for that mayor this the second reading would probably take about four weeks to get through as as Mr Proctor had mentioned just to wanted to give you I think that's I think that's uh perfectly advisable in this case thank you okay is there anyone else in the chamber who is that item like like addressed see a couple faces that are not typically here so I want to make sure I'm respectful of your time and we get you out of here is there an item you like her thank you Mr par how are you um if we can read item 18 please or you have an item you want to take up I well mayor cheero um Dominique in the back is here for item 11 okay but considering this meeting is dragging on and I think that'll entail some some debate um and we don't have the information back on the title if the commission would like either at this time you want an hour or later on we can defer it you want to move to defer to the 21st any whatever the commission the 21st of this month I know but isn't there some what is it that we're looking at at the 21st that we have the whole meeting the conversation at 5:30 not to overload the 21st so we have to be really aware of what we're putting on the 21st well I mean again I again this is an equally important project I just want to give them both their due time so we can look at what else is on there but I I know you're eager to move it forward will we have the title work by that date by that date Mr City attorney and and my motivation isn't necessary the title we can go for without it's just that this meeting's dragging on and we still have a long agenda I'm hopeful we can get through some very quickly don't know it's possible we could have it for the 21st but there's no guarantee they told us the 31st but we've been trying to push them okay the if it we think we could have the deed into South Miami by next week so that that's an important aspect of it it's not full title but at least that would indicate whether we fall into a plating exception which was I think one of the one of the question the question I really I'm more concerned about are do we have any easements on the yeah mhm um not recently so as of right now as as of 1976 the computer search has not revealed anything like that okay colleagues what's your preference on that item do you want to discuss it or not why wouldn't we let the person who brought it would be the one I I'm I'm asking okay then we'll just then we'll just keep going I was just disting I mean suggest here for the sake of time more than the we'll try to move forward more quickly today I apolog no it's not you okay at all okay Let's uh is so we have someone here on item 18 anyone else in any other items just so I'm aware I seeing no one else item 11 Dominique's here for 11 okay so let's take 11 up and or 18 do 18 first okay whatever you we'll read item 18 please for the record item 18 in ordinance amending chapter 2 Administration and city government article three boards and Committees of the city code of ordinances by deleting sections 2- 26.3 Parks and Recreation board 2- 26.9 commission for senior citizens 2-6 226.11 affordable housing advising committee and 2- 26.3 audit committee to abolish the affirmation boards and committees okay um sorry who's the sponsored this item yes Madam vice mayor recognized to introduce the item what I I've brought forth today as a matter of fact first I'd like to remove the audit committee from there because taking it off if and when we come up to audit in a couple years we just have to bring it back on and so doing busy work of taking it off and putting it back on is not feasible for us so I suggest we leave the audit Committee in but as far as the other ones that are on there there boards that have not been used in a while and I am of the thought process that if we are adding somewhere we need to be deleting what we are not using right now we've brought forth the the board that commissioner Kai actually has on the agenda for this evening which I think is great it's actually talking to where we are today as a community when we look at the I'll just use I'm going backwards the affordable housing advisory committee we've tackled in in a substantive way so far affordable housing in our neighborhoods by putting it as part of the building process and so a board that is defunct has no movement and is being addressed as part of the way that we do business doesn't need to stay on the books for no reason the commission for senior citizens likewise I think we'd all agree that we are very focused on our senior citizens and our community and doing things for them but having active team members of the city being the ones that are putting this together means we don't need a commission for it we actually are extremely active in making sure that our senior citizens are being looked after having cool things happen for them same thing for parts and wreck I think we have kind of crossed a hump for in a big way I think in moving things forward so if things are defunct and they're not being used and they haven't been used in years there's no reason for them to be junking up what we look at on a daily basis both as members of this deis and the offices that have to take care of the paperwork that goes with them so I am suggesting we get these off of the books because they are not being used further comments yes or we could roll everything up into the community relations board oh my gosh no that was deserved well yes we're gonna open up in a minute sir so not a public hearing sorry reading it's first reading it's not a public hearing if you've got a quick comment I'll entertain it Mr Ward but before that let me finish up with some comments here sir if that's okay give me one second sir any further any commission K you're recognized so vice mayor I I I I I I'm usually of the same thought process right if we're adding we should figure out if something is not being used we should delete it in this particular case though I I do believe that there's a need there's a need and we haven't really paid much attention to it from a commission from a city's perspective and collectively as a process for which one are you talking about one I'll be I'll give I'll give you specifics in a second so you know going back and I took uh commissioner lean's idea to go to uh to uh you know the special special needs um board and I went in Coral Gables and I really wanted to understand like what it looks like like you know we we've been to boards here and they you know I've been on we've all been on boards except the mayor um you know calling you out and committees in Tass it's okay so but we've all been on boards and and we've seen how fruitful they could be and I and I saw in cor gaes how if a community really gets together and get brings really good ideas and how the process goes from that community board to the commissioner to the city level and how he gets Incorporated it really is a really nice thing and and and brings a community together um I think that's what we need I've been we've we've all been asking how do we communicate better with our with with a lot of different different people I've started attending different boards whether it's the neighborhood board or you know the green task force just CU I wanted to understand what they're working on because it doesn't get to us right it doesn't get to you know commissioner Corey we we hear stuff right like you you spoking I'll be specific now you spoke about the um which one was it the senior citizens we both were today at the mo Mother's Day at the senior citizen Center and I'm getting a lot of complaints about different things things one or the other and there's no real committee process-wise to get from their voices to our ears or to the city manager's ears right we're we're not doing that and I think this is an Avenue and I applaud this but I think this is a way for us actually start incorporating some of these boards and doing it correctly so we can hear what our community is saying to us that's that's my thought process do you feel that wa before before we have a colloquy are there any other comments you want to um I guess I just uh wanted to add that I I just think the city's been going through a lot of changes even since I've been on the board from having a newsletter to having an app that connects everybody from the soon to increase quite substantially density in the city to hiring marketing and community outreach and I think there will be a higher level of Engagement in the city there will be a lot more people interested in in participating and we are as uh um as commissioner K mentioned we are products of boards bringing people into committees that move their way up and and become much more civically engaged so yeah I do have some reticence about um removing boards and removing boards in areas that I still feel um we need a lot more of community voice and and and frankly I think we just need to be improving services in some of these areas so if be hard for me to vote um to eliminate the idea of these boards ever existing again obviously we could bring them back the popularity existed but we could be a year two years three years away from a lot of these boards becoming active again so M Vice may had a comment yes I have a a a question and a com and actually then a question to the clerk we all actually I'll start with Nikki we all were given lists of boards that we did not have people on and I'm wondering did we substantially bite into that Apple no right nobody's I mean with the exception of maybe one we haven't done anything so that speaks to how we're looking at the boards that are active right now number two I think and and I'm looking at parks and wreck and senior citizens we actually have active staff interacting with the people that are using these Services daily if there are concerns they should be addressed by the people that we are currently paying to do this the idea that we would have some at this point nameless faceless person who would be sitting on a board addressing this I find not I'm trying to find the right word it's almost counterintuitive to what we're trying to do in connecting our staff with our constituents and I understand the wanting to have all of these things on the books there's some things that sunrise and other things that should Sunset adding to a list without removing something that hasn't been used in 10 years 15 15 years 20 years whatever that number may be I think is extremely optimistic considering we haven't tackled what we have before us in saying we're going to open other things it's perfectly fine and Nikki will continue to keep that list that has 30 things where four are active I just think that we do a disservice when we keep things on the books that are essentially dead and have been for a very long time if you all want to keep it there so you can keep staring at them every time we get the board list that's fine business-wise I don't think it's a clever thing to do to add to something that has 50,000 in active things we can't get people we know to be on the boards we have now the Erb was a disappointing example Le a couple weeks ago when we couldn't get Quorum so things had to be pushed back I'll leave it there so I I'll I'll just share my two cents on this I think um I I understand the sentiment and I I don't disagree with it but I think the disservice is in us not prioritizing the community engagement and criticism of myself in that regard right um I think it's also incumbent about staff and and and and staff we should Embrace these committees as an opportunity to crowdsource ideas right today I had a wonderful conversation with three young girls who are 10 years old and the energy and ideas they brought to a discussion about public spaces is something that we should be encouraging right probably would be good to have a youth advisory committee to give them a a platform and a forum to feel apart youth commission yeah to feel to feel like they have the opportunity to come and speak and be engaged uh in fact they my my opinion they recognize something that was so obvious that we should all recognize it's things we should be doing this was just enhancing public spaces where they came forward and said we want to take a public a public uh area that we as a city has neglected for a long time and transform it whatever they call The Secret Garden right through landscaping and other enhancements so and I and I feel the same way about these boards am I frustrated they're inactive and under utilized absolutely right I think it's it's it is a crime but it's a crime that we're respons for part um I would tell you that I think the leading the Parks and Recreation board um I don't know that has exist forever but I know that the maner and I have been having a conversation as we've been talking about a bond or whatever we're going to do some Pro facilities that should be the platform for soliciting ideas to inform a master plan which I know that our Parks director wants to do right we should have Beyond ourselves we should be sourcing ideas from a cross-section of residents who care about recreational opportunities and that board could be the vehicle for it right so I think there's a role for it I think we we need to do a better job of defining the mission and task for these boards and sending that information out and saying here's what we're looking for by way of feedback you know a board we created which is the town C Advisory Board frankly in my opinion has not kind of crowdsourced enough good ideas for us to try to execute but I think that's that's what I see is the value of these boards on the senior citizen front yes we have staff working with members of Community but it's a very narrow cross-section of people that are in for the most part in two buildings or a handful of buildings and you know should we be thinking about a wider you know soliciting feedback from a wider compliment of people who are uh seniors in our community about the kinds of services and Facilities physical improvements of the right ways they want to see across the city that maybe aren't being addressed today it could be another opportunity now we've got to figure out a way to staff these people staff these boards right I mean staff them finding people to a point I think staff I mean the ideas don't have to come from us all the time right we got plenty of good ideas that can come from staff in terms of not only who can serve right they could they could Source recommendations to us we have to do a better job of sourcing them but I think the Lost opportunity here in sunsetting these boards is that we're narrowing the windows for engagement formal engagement that lets people also provide feedback with the benefit of the information that our staff can provide them so it's not just an observation born of misinformation but observations and refined ideas born of refined and information coming from the people that do the work to move the city forward every day that's I think the Lost opportunity I mean I I agree having it on the books to have it sit on the books and have had them do nothing is is is a waste I I would like to have more conversation with the you know uh our green task force understand what they can do to help us move an agenda forward I'll also say this in closing you know we cannot be the only source of ideas for the city to function and so I think that is that's how I boards we're crowdsourcing ideas to the extent that we try to absorb all this onto our shoulders we're taking on a lot more work uh we are a part-time legislature and board and I think you know there's a lot of good people that want to contribute and be of service part time that works fulltime part time works fulltime and I think we want to make sure that we give them a platform and opportunity to do that on the issues they care about now do we do need to do a better job to staff and and operate the boards no doubt I agree because right now what we're doing is a disservice to ourselves and to the community and and I I want to say it's not just us that have been doing this some of these are decades that have not been used and I think that we need to fair enough you guys want to leave all this on the books that is definitely a choice but you are now on record as saying you want to staff them so it'll be interesting to see how y all manage how we all manage no for we you don't you don't you don't want to you don't want to help like get some of these boards going you know Steve I think when we can't manage to get and and all of us are guilty of this including me including you you you you all of us when we can't get people our predecessors show up yeah know but we're not talking about them anymore we about us no I know we we're saying this stuff that's on these books this and another four or five of them that have nothing happening nothing for over a decade for 20 years for 30 years we roll them in and out of this or in and out of that we put it on we take it off that's somebody else's problem already right because we're saying we're better so if we're better I want to see us be better and we haven't managed for us as a group right here to make our selections better in something as pivotal and I say I'm guilty as well in our choices for the Erb soon to be a whole new ACR if we can't manage right if we can't manage the staff what we consider the two or three most important things I I'll be interested to see how we manage these could I just uh could I just say I think and I don't I don't know if we'd be able to do this or not but given that this is a reflection on all of us and it's something that you know certainly uh commissioner leman's institutional knowledge could be lend to some of the work that I've done can be lent to as well if we could find a way to perhaps Workshop this as a way to really look at the boards as a whole and figure out what we want to focus on have a strategy together on how we're going to do this so that it can reflect better on us it can reflect better on the city and we can uh maybe even hold these boards accountable for getting us these ideas because I think that is one of the things where we're setting these boards up and we have to make sure that they are giving us their suggestions and just I mean the only reason that I'm and and I agree with you and I actually applaud you for taking a step toward fixing this since we've been talking about it and this is a step toward fixing it but I think if it's not looked at comprehensively you know we can lose some I I think there's I think there's like I want to if I can just interject really quickly I think there's um I think you've highlighted an important point this is a kind of an important call to action right oh there's a whole bunch more of them no there are so but but I think I think by the same token these are issues that should be concern to all of us right having a robust Parks and Recreation system should be a Paramount concern making sure that we're the needs of the whitest cross-section seniors in our community should be a priority right uh addressing affordable housing in the middle of the greatest affordable housing crisis in our community's history should be a priority to this community you know making sure that we are operating with good systems to prevent theft and and proper management should be a priority and so I think you know I'm going to take a Playbook from my colleague over there on the left yeah there you go commissioner leedman which is you know if we want to encourage participation right we should all raise our hand and serve on one of these boards as an elected official and I and I think that would because I think I think we'd all be hardpressed to say these are not priority areas that we should not have some focus on and just because they've been areas that been ignored historically doesn't mean they should be continu to be ignored so I I I'd be perfectly willing to take I mean I I very much want to work on you know a master plan with our staff I'd be happy to I think we should amend these ordinances to make the chair of these committees un elected official from this body so we serve shoulder-to-shoulder with our our our constituents on these issues and I'd be happy to take up and share the Parks and Recreation I think before you before you uh volunteer you should see the rest of the list okay well that's this is just the first stab at a long long long long again again there there are others that you know you may want to eliminate I may frankly agree with you are not as important but you know again these these all may not have a purpose all the time but there's a temporal purpose for some of these and there are things that we may want to do that you know frankly would warrant I think more citizen engagement and I know we' made you know we took the step of creating a donor advice fund at the Miami foundation around raising money for senior programs I think a committee of seniors focused on helping us come up with a plan to raise the money and execute it would be a very one wonderful thing to charge this Commission on seniors with right we've not given a platform to raise and and pursue the P pursue funding and recommend how that funding should be allocated for what kind of activities I think there's a whole lot of stuff that can be done and I think we should take the opportunity to put our neighbors to work to improve our community now again I think it's going to require us to lean in right and maybe take one of these priority committees by the by the by the by the then I will I will send you all a list if you do the other no one will want to join no no exactly so anyhow that those are my thoughts so may so what do you think about commissioner Cory's idea to kind of Workshop this really we can I I think you know if there's a if there's a longer list which it sounds like there is then let's yeah maybe go through the list and and call out the ones we think are not that important I want to touch on some things before I do yeah only thing I shared was bad joke did you want to hear from as long as you're not touching me okay our our former uh Parks and Rec chair did you want to hear from we can absolutely did you want to hear from I Mr Mr Ward did you want to say a a quick word on on this item yes he was and I don't know if you want me to share a quote do you remember what you said after you left the parks and wck board Mr Ward I don't know you said at that Podium I have to say this commissioner leave you said they never got any oh smart man you after you after you took a break from the parks and W board you said that very Podium they never got anything done until I left oh well uh the Parks and Recreation board and the senior citizens board at one time were very effective uh I was chairman of the recck committee for 20 years and the reason I left it was because the politicians were appointing people that didn't know the first thing about Recreation but they supported them in their election so they paid them off by letting them be on a committee and we tried for a long time to keep it going but after a point you just you know they'd appoint somebody and they'd come to the meeting one or two times in the beginning but they just like being told they were on a committee that was a Prestige thing to them and I can tell you there are lot Recreation you could start it easily and the way we had Recreation is that if you don't know something about or you're interested in Recreation then don't come near but we had a case of where we had people participating in baseball football basketball every track and soccer everything and we always had Parents that would be glad to serve you'd recommend them and it's not anybody's fault except former Commissioners started patronizing rather than giving the the board somebody that really knew what Recreation was all about and you know yourself if you were appointed a board and knew nothing about Recreation and I agree with the FL if it's not going to if if these committees are not going to function they ought to be dropped from the books it's ridiculous to keep them but I think you can get Recreation I'll bet you go across the street to that old senior citizen building you probably get it again thank you thank you for your comments so um Mr Ward I actually do the antithesis I always appoint people who do not support me to boards oh my God so um a few a few things uh thank you Mr Warren thank you for your uh for your service one is just start off with something positive I love the idea and mayor remember when you suggested it a young uh young commission or young Advocates board um but I am uh I'm in complete agreement with the vice mayor I'm all about efficiency I think government needs a lot more efficiency a lot more streamlining we're small City Coral Gables has four times the amount of the number of residents that we do and um I also you just we had an issue come up a couple meetings ago where we were taking two defunct committees that hadn't met in in decades and I agree with the vice mayor then too and really agree with the need for those committees and we rolled them up into another committee which if we applied the the same burden that we place on the members the committee itself we would had to dissolve the committee because if a member of any committee misses two meetings in a row they're off the the committee and uh that that committee hadn't met since uh since September and no one could said it best and this is on the record it was said at that Podium the chairman of that committee came up in defense of the committee and said this is a quote we do not meet because we have nothing to meet about it's the chairman of the committee in defense of their own committee not even meeting said we do not meet because we have nothing to meet about that chair said it best so it begs the question uh Vice May why why do we have these committees that the chair of the committee says we have nothing to meet about in addition to that we are rolling other committees that were def question we have the right chair so the other thing I want to say is this is representative government we here represent everyone four them are much more accessible than I am I've paid my dues but they couldn't be more accessible I wasn't joking before and I said to the mayor it's part-time but everyone works full-time in addition to that we have a city manager we have a deputy city manager and as you heard a couple of us mention earlier we just hired a constituent Services director so there's so many layers in addition to that I always say our police are propest ambassadors they are the most approachable they're very visible as our Public Works and parks department we're very accessible um and now we have a lot of new Outreach and Communications with the app with the newsletter with the social media presence we couldn't be more accessible um and um you know I said um commissioner Kaya you you asked the vice mayor if she was available you were questioning I guess her commitment to boards I asked you in the previous meeting I said you want to establish a board you should be responsible for going to the board and your response was I don't have time so um yeah I don't understand you could ask someone else why they should go to a meeting when you said you don't have time to go to the a new board that you wanted to uh you wanted to create and I've said that before every commissioner and mayor you brought it up again should be assigned to a board and not just to sit in that board but to report back to the um uh report back to the commission and what you see up here is and the vice mayor said it we've had a multiple opportunities to appoint people with these boards and no one has it reminds me of a child when you try to take away a toy they haven't touched in multiple years they say no I want that toy I want to play with that toy if these boards were important we could have appointed people to these boards for and some of us have only been up here for a year but there's been there's been plenty of time and I think it's selfless to the vice mayor because one of the one of the board she um she listed first is a senior citizen board and I don't think we've ever had a bigger senior citizen Advocate than the um than the vice mayor I think we need to focus on what's important and not create more work and not create more layers and if we're going to have these boards then Commissioners and let's remove the planning board and or not include the planning board budget and finance and Erb but all the other boards if it's so important then the com then the commissioner should be assigned to that board and assigned to report back to the commission and start there before you start Reviving all these other boards and it should be quality over quantity quality over quantity before we revive old boards and start new boards let's see what what's going on with how do we even know what's going on with the uh with the green task force there's no liaison so let's start there and then if that works well and the commission wants to spread themselves thinner then we can start more boards but if we're not maintaining the boards we have now and if if there were not communicating with the commission then why would even consider reactivating boards or starting more boards I I actually excuse me can I say I I that's actually not a bad idea i' I'd like I know which ones I was you know thinking in including these that should be removed but I think it would behoove us to have us you know maybe the the clerk can send us an email and say these are the active boards and before we start talking about Reviving and actually seriously consider removing we need to see what what do we even have because right now the community relations board I know I've never sat in any of those meetings I imagine maybe one of us or two of us have visited one of those meetings the green task force I've listened to their meetings I'm not going um like it's not for me but you know what let's say that there's five active boards there's five of us sitting here we've act we in one year have added two boards and rolled another one into two into another one so that's three we're not even talking about what exist we also eliminated we also eliminated one no we we didn't we roll it in no the um the Town Center Advisory Board eliminated yeah but we added the other one in its place well there was two that got rolled into one essentially so I think we're trying to kind of like ideate solutions to this year I do think that so then what is what do we suggest I don't I don't know if that's the best solution there are some unintended consequences of that of creating bias within the boards because there's a single member in there that's also bringing it to the commission but like I do think that I I'm still in favor of the idea of us workshopping a way to promote these boards and for even for all of us individually to use our talents to staff these boards because it's why don't we say can I can I can I just add this reference this this information point so I'm I'm actually on our website as a city looking at the web page that has the listing of our boards and committees okay the commission on senior citizens is not listed the parks and recreations board is not listed the affordable housing advisory committee not listed the audit committee is listed and so I think you know uh you know I think we should go through a process of trying to Source people who want to participate I mean I I can think of plenty of people I mean I I Gonzalo dorta who's a lawyer doesn't reside in South Miami but has been involved with the South Miami grade go for forever I'd love to give that person a platform he writes checks to that program every single year his kids graduate out of football there more than a decade ago I'd love to give him a platform to work on improving you know that program informing what kind of facilities we're going to develop at that park right you know I didn't know Frankly Speaking honestly that this board even existed yeah so why don't we do this why don't we say that at the next first Tuesday meeting we're going to look at the list of the boards and how they exist and we'll talk about what we are possibly removing and what we're Reviving and what that means I'm okay with that yeah I'm good with nobody would have been paying any attention if I and I I think again I think it's a good call to action I will say also Mr manager I'd like to figure out a way that we can communicate these board opportunities they're there there huh they're there huh they're there they're all there so we have the AIT committee Board of Trustees budget community relations environmental I don't see I don't see the senior I now see Parks and Recreation my apologies pension board planning board sister city committee town center and urban landscape committee but yeah I didn't see this or the affordable housing right so so so I I I would just ask Mr manager is there a way for I mean how are we soliciting do we regularly solicit from it was on in our newslet I got like six applications that I for you from the newsletter from the one time that they put on a newslet I think we should have the audit committee audit our committee there you go exactly okay when let's so okay so the I I think the direction here is are we tabling this item then well I think we should discuss it at our next okay so we're going to workot up at next 5:30 meeting so if you could schedule this for the 5:30 meeting on June what's a date June what the first meeting okay first meeting June okay and we will table this meeting until that conversation has been had yes any objections Madam vice mayor okay and thank you thank you for bringing it Forward no seriously I don't have any um we have item 11 we have we have a a cons here for item 11 do you want to take that item up okay commiss lein clerk if you can read resolution 11 please item 11 a resolution authorizing the city manager to issue a request for proposal for the development of Hometown District Lot B I move the item I can make it work I'll second so we can have the conversation so we have Motion in a second foral discussion I just go ahead sir you want to start us off please I'm sorry it's a short meeting so I'm not going to be redundant commission you've heard me before I just say the only thing that for me is is non-negotiable in the item is that the money stays on on Sunset Drive I'm just finding looking for alternative ways to fund reinvestment into that area and then the the history on that is the CRA in order to make the numbers work we had to include Sunset Place that site is Sunset Drive that money was siphoned off it didn't go into reinvesting in that in that area um little context that area or commercial area counts for two-thirds of our budget will spend their lives trying to create wealth once people retrieve wealth which is what that area is for the city they look to protect that to preserve it and we are my not doing enough to protect that tax base and and reinvest in that area we've been dependent on that area and we've siphoned money out of it we haven't reinvested in it so the the whole genis to this of this is even I know when I was running for office when I Heth that would be a great driver which will also help the area and be a stop Gap in between The Fresh Market project and Sunset Place or more a bridge but um I'm also trying to create Revenue to fund the uh the place making and streetscape so which is the all Al in addition to protecting our tax base is the most visible and visited area in the city so thank you everything else is is negotiable yes mam vice mayor I actually have some notes so that I didn't forget I as everybody heard earlier have real issues with how we're treating parking in our city and I understand that on this RFP it does mention that it has to preserve parking it has to preserve parking for us and for them because we can't be siphoning off our parking and thinking oh they're going to park at the parking garage on the corner no they're going to park here they're going to park there when we start thinking about we now have no overnight parking in our garage we are basing our decisions on parking in that area on having an overabundance of available parking but that's just because nothing in that downtown area is working as it should that lot exists because at one point we needed the parking for that so to kind of roll ourselves backwards and say oh by the way we're going to build this up and we're going to keep the public parking we're not going to have them do the private parking they can park on the street here there wherever I think is is a problem because we're not building for now we're building for later and I don't see any of that happening I'm interested in you know parking studies what they've said about that area and I actually got an email I don't know if you guys got it um from oh I you did from Akashi Japanese restaurant where they you know they're like my name is Larry Chi I'm the owner of aashi Japanese restaurant I've been a proud business owner in South Miami for over 30 years I understand the city is now thinking of selling the parking lot that our customers have used for many years I wanted to add my voice of concern all of our customers use this parking lot and without this parking lot our I fear our business will be severely impacted we survived the covid-19 pandemic and economic downturns but I don't think we can survive without parking I would please ask you take this into consideration when you're making your decision we would very much like for the parking to remain in place or at a minimum that any new development include the same amount of public parking for local businesses outside of the development As you move to reinvent South Miami into a better place please do not forget about the businesses that have remained we want to be a part of that future too I don't know them I've never met them but reading an email like that if it doesn't affect you we're in the wrong we're we're sitting in the wrong seats right now because they exist and because they exist we have a functioning City taking away or forcing that parking to move somewhere else and and I say this because we saw it here live and in person two different developers one saying I've Incorporated the parking for the public and for the people who will live there and another one who said I am incorporating parking for no one and the incorporating parking for no one and having us then be the ones that have to figure out how those people are going to park not to mention the people that are not going to be parking at Sunset Place because they you know they're going to be under construction so all of those people are going to have to park in our garage we're seeing the construction people Park in our garage and nothing's even happened yet so I think we need to be really careful about how we deal with this further comments CH Cory I think I think that concern and then maybe some other concerns I would just say perhaps on timing I think one of the reasons this is up and it's important is obviously we have to find ways to fund improvements in downtown particular placemaking study but at the same time I'm a little concerned that this item could jeopardize what's really the most important thing happening in our city right now which is the development of Sunset Place and just from a timing perspective we're looking at potentially putting this RFP out and maybe starting to get some ideas or some people who are interested in that project around the same time were supposed to be seeing the designs or concepts for Sunset Place and those potentially getting delayed because of what could come here um and I believe that everybody on this board is their number one priority to move that project expeditiously and to have the best possible project out of that particular lot and I I'm a little concerned just timing wise that maybe if we are approving this right now that we could be setting oursel up for a situation where we're putting two developments head to-head with each other when we didn't have to so it's just a it's it's a it's a concern that I have for this of course if um I also understand the timing need for this to be done to afford to pay um the other improvements that we want to make so anyways that's my thoughts have any comments I stay most of my comments before I think that timing here is a is a big deal I think there's a lot of moving parts what we want to do in in the Town Center uh there's a need for Parks there's there's a need for um development in some of the areas that we're looking to so I just have a concern that we're you know we can go ahead and open I agree with you by the way vice mayor that it needs to include parking I think parking is going to be a big issue moving forward um as we continue to do what we say we're going to go do um so I'm just I'm a little hesitant with this particular one I you I don't I don't necessarily think this is the right time to go do this but we let's see let's see how this progresses so my thoughts and I'm apologize I didn't get a chance to participate in the last conversation on this item I think um but I appreciate you guys at least considering the um the things are reduced to writing by way of comments one is I I would like to see the results of the title work because I think the concern that I have is there may be some old easement that would limit the use of that alley and it is represented as part of the footprint and of of the site at least on the folio um second I think it's important to be clear to the market if we're going to issue the solicitation that they know that they're buying a plating obligation as well which is not an in consequential uh time and cost in terms of an investment more globally um you know I think we absolutely should require the replacement public parking um I don't think we're going to get 37 spaces we'll probably get 30 in in return I'm a little concerned about the language as it drafted that requires that the parking be located on the first floor because I don't think that necessarily results in the best building for uh that Urban context that is going to be built into and so realistically we're going to probably I think if we wanted to mandate replacement Park is going to happen on the second floor right segregated from the private Parky that they would provide uh that's probably a better outcome for the street it's probably going to reduce the utilization of the parking period by the public because you know again we know from experience people don't particularly women don't like parking and structured parking garages right they prefer what's there which is uh a surface parking lot um in terms of the substance of the RFP the only other issue I'd want to see address it's not is in response to the comment we got from The Neighbors which is what's the transition plan for parking to service those businesses because because commissioner Le and I applaud your intent to want to introduce a use that would kind of animate and provide more traffic to those businesses but particularly those businesses rice aashi uh lza um calamara thank you very much I having a senior moment that are that are right at that intersection are are going to be hard pressed to uh Park their customers demand today not that the 37 spases Park all that demand but it's certainly probably the most substantial part of any available parking inventory for those businesses the rest is illegal parking um nonetheless parking they use so you know there's no plan or no requirement and coming upon the respondent to kind of provide some sort of a transition plan so I would probably want that by way of a a modification I I I think we should defer this item to June 18th okay so we can have the benefit of the title work if we're going to get it back to 31st I I would have put it on suggested we put it on the June 4th agenda but I don't think that's enough time for staff to kind of review the material it gets back at the end of the window that they're expecting um that said I just want to be realistic about what we think the economics of this transaction are going to yield probably for it may be that the highest and best use is exactly what we have there right um and why do I say that because we have 37 spaces there that generate a quarter million dollars in revenue for the city and uh from what I have seen talking to the prior respondent which I spent a lot of time talking to um you're probably going to get a footprint that generates 30 parking spaces on an 18,000 ft lot which is what they have to work with and so for the you have to replace our spaces with at least 30 which should be one FL you know if you want to provide a parking at a one to1 ratio if you did 60 units that's 60 parking spaces that's two levels of parking of an eight-story building right with a ground floor that's activated for some sort of other either uh support use right or or um reception used in the lobby uh so that's four floors that are not income producing right that's about 50 okay but that's 50% of the base Building height right so again the more units you add the more parking if we're going to require them to park all that demand it's going to substantially impair the economics so and and and the last proposal I'll just finish with this the last two proposals certainly we had we had one proposer who was very bullish about parking off site the main respondant who brought for the economic proposal was trying to come up with a hybrid and I think that's just a recognition the fact if we want to get to any real economics to your point which seems to be the motivator of this we're going to have to accept a hybrid parking solution because otherwise the economics aren't there to justify this and so you know again I want to be realistic about what we're doing you know if I I I think I have similar timing concerns I don't think this is the tail that should Wag the Dog I think this is a piece we should hold in reserve frankly uh if we want to if we want to dedicate money for uh the downtown I would say let's figure out to find the quarter million dollars that the parking lot generates in Savings in our next budget and we can either borrow right with that quarter million dollars and reinvest in the downtown to finance you know $3 million of streetscape enhancements we could do that that's within our power if we if we if we establish the budget discipline to do it you know I I would prefer to do that than selling the asset or we're leasing it long term I I think over time frankly as the rest of downtown develops this piece properly will become more valuable so but that's those are my thoughts for today thank you I I want to speak to uh a number of these points one thing I also didn't mention is that uh the two other properties are also in in play which I think everyone on the day is uh knows one of the owners of the the third parcel um is here Dominique in the back and and he was here just to make sure that should a new development go forward and if I'm not speaking to your concerns and you may not understand entirely just wave your head no but he wanted to make sure that there would at least be replacement uh parking for for La Pizza they own La Pizza as well as the uh the Mediterranean restaurant I and and the building itself so that's one thing I wanted to mention the other thing is we we've brought up uh Sunset Place and that we're focused on Sunset Place and I met with the city manager really appreciate that that was one of uh his concerns how would impact that project and what the proprietor of that project's position was so the proprietor of that project was here earlier they more than anything they want to see a hotel there and a hotel but a hotel with with parking even though they may may uh plan an additional hotel or some sort of hybrid in their project they'd still like to see a hotel and why because people who stay in hotels frequent the retailers and the uh the dining and drinking establishments um which would in turn support the ground floor of of Sunset Place but was most important to the proprietor of sunset placees is parking because they're going to have 1500 employees and they're going to cancel about I think over 650 the numberers the exact number I think it's 682 but call it 650 monthly parking passholders which the city's going to have to the city's going to have to absorb in terms of um the the asset being worth more in the future like nothing's guaranteed but just assum assuming market conditions we're familiar with absolutely it will be but I've always argued that you put on a different hat when you're in government versus when you're in the private sector you want to lead and when you lead create the private sector which will follow and then when you lead what are you doing you're creating tax revenue number there's ancillary Revenue with sales tax and so forth and then you're also leading for other investment which will also generate further F tax revenue and the worst thing you can have I I understand how profitable that surface lot is and I understand the limitations with the lot but the worst thing you can have in any downtown especially one that's Urban become more isn't that Urban now but it will be as small as ours is surface parking lots and um and we all complain about the other surface parking lots but it was just like in this proceed everyone up here we used to always complain that the whole point of a CRA is to attract investment and remove summon blade in the city was not encouraging development of the CRA with our low height and density restrictions I mean restrictions and we were contributing to summon blight with the uh with the inspection station structure so my point is we've got a lead we can't complain about the other surface parking lots if we're not going to do anything with ours again they they generate heat and in this case it generates Revenue but it's certainly not the highest and uh best use but what this really comes down to is uh yes commissioner Cory you said our number one priority Sunset Place but what we' really set our number one priority is isn't Sunset Place it's the revitalization of our our commercial area and through um Place making right through beautification because although there will be plenty that sun of place will be be a big driver and there be plenty of spillover the placem it touches everybody and every and every business so we have a plan for the placemaking but we have no plan to fund it so it's fine it's not personal not any of that but vote in place of voting this down we go ahead and vote it there postpone it but find me another way to fund the placemaking that that's what I'm asking of this commission and even if financing is one option going into a bond it's it's not going to be an easy process it's going to have passed by a majority on a November ballot so and we spending a lot of money on this plan so we don't want that money to go right for nothing so F find a way to fund that or come up with the revenue just find another financing vehicle or some other option where we can fund the improvements because it's I don't want to repeat but just walk down just walk down Sunset Drive and look at the condition of the sidewalks and the trees so yeah that's that's it okay so further comments or everyone okay I I I'd like to move to defer the item to June 18 I actually we had a motion in a second my apologies so do you want to move the item as no you had a second so which you want to you had seconded the motion to approve I guess to approve the solicitation I don't know if we wanted to commerci my only two modifications were again to give people more FX ability on the placement of the replacement parking and sorry another comment to what you said mayor so number one the ratio isn't one to one maybe it's more marketable product our ratio right now is 3/4 to one and then it's to a one-bedroom and then it's one spot to a two-bedroom and if it's a hotel there's zero requirement so um it may not be as parking intensive right it it might not be but I just want to be practical about the fact that parking the more parking we require on site the less sellable or leasable square footage is in the building and so that's going to impact the economics it's it's again it's not I'm not I agree we there's we have to park some of that Demand on site but I think even the most aggressive proposal we got the last time in terms of parking did not contemplate fully parking the demand on on on property so yes ma'am and I I just have a question instead of differing and differing and kind of like because we keep kind of moving this around if three of us feel like this is not something we want to look at then let's vote it down let's vote it down yeah have no problem with that yeah because then but then we stop kicking the can around I I you know what I mean not not for me because I I've been very clear on I'm looking for a funding vehicle for Place making through the mayor yes sir I I would but I really do want to understand the title commitment and see what we can actually do with that particular property and that way maybe we can make it more marketable so I'm okay with defer one more time so we have that in place and then we can make it better decision by that time we can also like there's a lot of ideas that we've had and I applaud commissioner Leman for bringing that up we do want to look for Solutions there's a lot of different solutions out there um but I don't want to get tied down to this right we we I don't want to commit to an RFQ or an RFB process and not really want to go execute it that's the way I feel right now would we make a commitment that knowing the title that we're going to make a decision and not keep pushing this because I it's wasting our time too it is that was my concern with this item from the beginning when it first got when when the proposal first came forward was the amount of time it would take to us to work through it so I I I share the concern I'm certainly committed to voting it up or down on the 18th I I would like to have the benefit of the information it may change my opinion you know but I I do appreciate your desire to the last thing I want to do is put something out and make people spend money responding to something ultimately not to be all that enthusiastic about it that's not fair to the folks who would who are going to spend the time and money to actually evaluate this all right let me I don't even know how this works legally but what if um one of the owners the other Parcels here the restaurant parcel and the former dry clean parcel is not really they want to divest themselves of it's a mess yeah and if there's right it's not a positive thing so what if how do how would that work if they agreed because they need to have a bigger footprint for the um very high cost basis but you have a bigger footprint for the parking garage what if they agreed to be part of that sale there's you can't do that right because it's public private separate transactions any I'm sorry so you're you you're I want to understand what just to make it more attractive if we wanted to issue a solicitation jointly with the owners of the parcels to the West I mean but it's not sorry through the go ahead so I we I mean I I spoke to him as well a long time ago and I spoke a long time ago to the owners of the of the D I spoke spoke about this before my my my first option was to make an assembly there and I had had everyone conversated but the dry cleaners is a major part of that assembly it's the middle it's the middle so it makes it very difficult to Market that i' I've you know I've I've looked into well that's no longer in uh in litigation right I I have no idea I mean that was a joint venture that went sideways and okay the partners were suing each other I don't I haven't followed his disposition of that litigation so I don't know all right we'll just defer this I mean all right and actually if you want you can defer contingent upon the title and if the title isn't I mean I think I think actually to your point um what I I would still like to defer it but it might be another homework item for Council would be to find out what the status is of the litigation that's encumbering the the um dry CLE the dry cleaning parcel because again I I do think there was an opportunity for us to kind of jointly Market our piece with the neighboring pieces we we would get something that would be substantially of value to the town center Ag and I think we much more attractive from a development perspective so if we could get that information as well Council we would appreciate it okay is there would you like to re uh revisit your motion and make it a motion to defer to June 18th okay motion to defer to June 18th okay second by the vice mayor second just yes just for context yes sir your rules do not require a second meeting in June if you're going to have one anyway then there's no problem I'm just reminding you of that this grp likes to work so I mean I don't know did anyone have plans to be out of town on the 18 I'm asking no I do now I do now I think I think you guys should take it off everyone's been working really hard and we're going to have a lot to do before I'll be in town I will I will probably ask us to not meet the second meeting in July because I will not I will not be in town so if that's one that we have the option as well second we so I don't know if that's something but so let's let's for the moment let's defer to that item if not it can roll over to the first agenda in July okay so we're done with so we have a motion in a second Madam clerk if you can call the B please yes commissioner cayen yes commissioner Cory yes commissioner Leman yes Vice B yes mayor Fernandez yes item deferred thank you uh what's everyone's pleasure what I item would you like to take next why don't we take number nine number nine can you read item nine please item nine a resolution amending the schedule fees and fines to set Planning and Zoning fees thank you uh Madam director do you want to quickly summarize this item for us and for the benefit of the public at 10:43 p.m. at 10:43 p.m. good evening development services director so the Planning and Zoning fees were restructured so that we have an application fee which will cover staff's time and a cost recovery portion that will be to pay the consultant to do the reviews it's basically the beum B of it okay any questions no no questions is there a motion I'll put forth a motion second okay a motion by the vice mayor a second by commissioner Corey uh Madam clerk if you can call a rooll on item nine please yes commission Caillou yes commission Cory yes commission Le yes Bon yes mayor Fernandez yes item passes 5 should we take up item 10 you read item 10 please item 10 a resolution selecting jrd and Associates for building permit study Services authorizing a city manager to transfer contingency funds for this purpose and to negotiate an execute an agreement for the services and amount not to receive $25,000 thank you uh Madam director you're recognized um so this item is basically we' like to do a study so we could uh make sure that we're in compliance with the state statute on permit fees I don't think there's ever been a permit fee study in this city and um it was one of the first items that I wanted to take on when I was here which is to do a prop permit fee study and make sure that the bilding department is self-funded and has the necessary funds so that if construction goes down it's not going to be subsidized by the general fund understand any questions yes Madam vice mayor I have a question and it might be like completely way off base but would it make sense to find out what our neighboring cities are charging and then see kind of where we land in there versus paying somebody to do the study if it was as simple as just what your permit fees be just in general yes but uh it depends on the volume of work um that you have it depends on the Staffing that you have it depends on what your minimum fees you feel comfortable with as a commission do you expect future grow growth in your single family residential or do you expect future growth in your big projects a lot of cities will have you know if you look at their permit fees they have large projects that are basically funding the entire building department so the day those big projects stop coming in there's no way to fund the building department so it's I really feel that it's Unique to the city and what the city's future growth is and you know are we going to see more big projects are we going to see more residential I mean what is it that we're going to be seeing and that all be part of the study hey M director if I can ask by way of followup are are we also looking at and I apologize I did not scrutinize the scope of this engagement like I have a bunch of the other items but we've talked about this before I know you did some this similar work in Coral Gables are we looking at doing the same kind of cost allocation analysis that you did in Coral Gables because part of the exercise is also allowing you know in reviewing our permit fees also seeing what cost we can rightly attribute to this permitting activity off of the general fund so it's also a way to justify the allocation of certain costs that right now may be born of the general fund that could be paid from the permitting fees so is that is that part of the scope yes he will be interviewing all the Departments to see how they um how what kind of service they provide or what the cost is of the building department to those departments like a legal department how much do we really use the legal department and how much we should pay for that the um rental of the space that we're in all that should be paid by building permit fees and right now we don't know if any of that is really truly being paid by permit fees and the second thing is that we also want to simplify our permit fee structure a lot of cities are moving to a cost of construction and it's a much simpler way of doing permit fees there's no real exact way that um permit fees should be calculated it just needs to be that it covers the cost of the building department and that's what we want to do simplify the permit fee studies but make sure that we are paying to run the building department and then and all the support that we get from the other departments for the building department so thank you thank you yes thank you um mayor thank you planning director not required no conflict I just feel more comfortable the vendor George Duos is a good friend he contributed to uh campaign when the limits were still low um and I had zero to do with championing in this item so not required again there's no conflict I just feel more comfortable disclosing it thank you further questions see none the z a motion I'll move the motion we have a motion by commissioner Kai is there a second second second by commissioner Corey Madam clerk if you can call the role please yes commissioner C yes commissioner Cory yes commissioner Le yes Bon yes mayor Fernandez yes item passes 5 great if we can read item 12 into the record please it a resolution of the Commission of the city of South Miami granting approving of denying a request to release a Unity of title pursuance to section 20516 of the Land Development code for the property located at 6167 Southwest 64 street thank you um sorry actually mayor yes sir so before we start I would read I would normally read part but uh I don't believe the applicant is here or online okay it's up to this Commission whether they want to hear this tonight or or not I'd like to move to defer the item because I have questions fair enough second okay we have a motion and a second to defer uh to the next city city commission meeting on the 20 well let's let's let's let's let's leave it to a date a date not certain and have the applicant request the date and we'll read advertise have the applicant request to dat okay and we'll re okay thank you perfect so it's again a motion to definitely defer the item correct okay your life fo would you're willing to modify your second commissioner oh s certainly I'll modify it okay gu a motion and second to defer definitely initely yes okay okay okay may may make a commenters better not to you you can if you'd like yes yes so I I took me a long time I I Champion making non-conforming lots conforming because these homes were in tiny lots and if they were lost to Hurricane Fire terminates they couldn't be rebuilt and there was a low income Mary and I didn't think that was fair either whether someone's house or someone's Equity I even argue they had negative value because you could pay property tax on them and not build them but that was the whole intent was to create value make sure you could still build a house in a small lot but that said small lot wasn't by choice Uber small at 2,000 square fet so given the choice two or four I'm not in favor of reducing a 4,000 squ foot lot to 50% of the size we'll have that conversation okay yeah just want to I'm have similar questions yeah okay a motion to defer uh in a second Madam clerk if you can call the role please yes commission C yes commissioner Coran yes commissioner Leeman yes B yes mayor Fernandez yes item pass it to Def first without opposition like to withdraw item 13 withdraw yes I mean I just a quick comment I I had presented the item because we'll deal with this at a later point in time my intention is to if if we get to a point possibly bring referendum item for November that's always been my intention um we'll revisit this at a later point in time it's not urgent my concern is everything we do here going forward fortunately think our Charter is set up to preclude us from acting I didn't want there was a since I came late there was a recommendation to amend or limit the dates on which they could be heard this is suggested that we comply with the state statute which limits it to a August or November ballot so it would be four times every four years where a bond item could be considered but we'll we'll deal with in the future it's not urgent from my perspective okay um item 14 please if you can read in the record item 14 ordinance creating the unique abilities board under Section 20 2- 26.7 of the city code of ordinances and provided for purpose composition and duties of the board and other related matters thank you uh commissioner K this is your item would you like to introduce it well it's a second reading so um nothing changes I Chang huh there are no changes there no changes um like I said I went over to the coral Gable's board just to understand how that board was working um I saw a lot of Engagement theyve done a lot of thanks to that board okay I think my heart's yeah did it did here as well so he just withdrew it he withdrew it sorry Mr Ward I withdrew item 13 I'm sorry sir I'm sorry Mr Ward if I know if I known you were here I had asked before if there's anyone here who wanted to speak on a specific item so I could take it out of sequence so you wouldn't keep you here the whole night no I withdrew it because it's not it's procedurally it's it's a dimin DI Minimus change well it's it's it was already approved sir at the last meeting so okay well have a good evening sorry to keep you here late okay item 14 we have no changes Mo forward any any questions or comments yes commissioner a question not a criticism and thank you so much commissioner Kay for going to the Coral Gables board I was suggesting when we sort of Broach tonight is you know we all select a board but I speaking with the city manager in our agenda review and like any other board we be tasked with appointing someone to this board but I was in the impression that this board was sort of on an as need basis right so is this the board that I'll meet regularly or we'll I don't know yet okay the I mean we're going to start building the board up I have Comm 10 different people so we'll we'll I don't I don't know the answer yet to that question so should we assemble people that should we appoint someone to the board or wait there's a need for the board we've got to adopt it and then we can begin appointing people if that's the will of this board we need to adopt it then we can begin appointing people so let's I think at this point yeah we can discuss the details specifically when we have a special meeting but the idea is was to have a five person board member we have the ideas of what specifics we want on there and yes it'll be board appointed that's what we had discussed before okay so do we have a motion would like to move the item sir and it's a public hearing okay okay so let's call the public hearing uh if there's anyone in the chambers who would like to speak on item 14 regarding the creation of a unique abilities board uh please come forward at this time Madam clerk seeing no in the chamber is there anyone online no okay with that we'll close the public hearing uh commissioner C again would you like to move the item yeah I'll move the item okay is there a second second so we have a motion by commissioner Caya and a second by commissioner Corey um any final comment on the item Madam clerk if you can call the role please commissioner Cay yes commissioner Cory yes commissioner Leeman yes Vice B yep mayor Fernandez yes I don't pass 5 okay can we read item 15 into the record please item 15 ordinance comprehensively amending the city code of city code and the development code to restructure the development approval process and the role of the environmental review preservation board including renaming the board and amending its composition powers and duties and procedures thank you uh Mr City attorney uh or Madam vice mayor would you like to introduce the item well no I was just going to say do I do we have changes from last time to this time the yeah we we do the changes that were directed uh where the uh the late stage coordination review uh with regarded utilities and and the relationship the RightWay um we have included uh you know as criteria that they ensure that utilities are coordinating location of other buildings utility and public infrastructure that might impact the right away um basically to give teeth to that and then um let's see we have an affirmation from the applicant um that basically says that that that an approval doesn't wave zoning you know if something was missed still they're still on the hook to fix it and lastly I to do with the membership of the board at least five of the SE seven members uh that would be appointed would come from that list uh two members would be uh could be not from the list so residents of any kind were those changes to your satisfaction yes I think they were all common s any any comments from the board on the ordinance yes commission I just want to say this is long over do it's been discussed for a very long time so I just want to thank the vice mayor and and commissioner Cay I think they they spearheaded this I know everyone the attorney mayor all contributed but uh yeah thank you yes thank you to both of you is there a motion Madam vice mayor um open the public sorry thank you uh if any member of the public would like to come forward and speak on item 15 which is um an amendment to restructure Our Land Development process please come forward at this time seeing No One in the Chamber is there anyone online in park no we will therefore close the public hearing um again we have a motion by the vice mayor I'm second it thank you and we have a second by commissioner CA uh Madam clerk if you can call the rooll please yes commissioner C yes commissioner Cory yes commissioner Leeman yes VI B yes mayor Fernandez yes item passes 5 and we need to extend the meeting can I have a motion to extend the meeting to 1110 please I'll move the motion second okay what about the parking presentation it's it's going to be eight minutes okay okay or or okay or I'm going to make or I'm going to make him sit on the donut the next we'll give him a give him a late we'll give him a ticket no I have a ticket don't worry all right so all in favor I okay let's go okay item 16 in ordinance amending section 4-6 definitions hours of operation of chapter 4 alcoholic beverages of the city code of ordinances to allow issuance of reval permit for extended service hours for alcoholic beverages consumed on premises so colleagues this is the same ordinance we considered on first reading last time there have not been any changes correct Mr Z attorney okay so we had to remain to the same posture any questions we can answer about it okay seeing none I will move the item is there a second I'll second a motion by myself a second by the vice mayor uh Madam clerk uh this is a public hearing item so I forgot to call the public hearing uh is there any member of the public who'd like to speak on item 16 uh this is an ordinance amending hours of service for certain alcoholic beverage establishments seeing No One in the Chamber is there anyone online Madam clerk no seeing no one online as well we will close a public hearing we have a motion by the mayor a second by the vice mayor Madam clerk if you can call the RO please yes commissioner Cay no commissioner Cory yes commissioner Leeman yes Vice B yes mayor Fernandez yes IEM passes 41 thank you with that Mr riveral you're on the hot seat almost almost got out of here without having to give this presentation but we had to hear parking yes it wouldn't be a night without parking yes it's already been quite a night of parking everybody I think knows Carlos marinko last parking he's my parking manager or the city's parking manager you made him stay till 11 good job there this is what you get for giving everybody he didn't want he didn't Alo did not want to go first so anyhow I just I'm gonna I'm going to go through my presentation any questions by all means please uh feel free I know that we're on it's 11:00 at night I think some people want to go home I am happy to give this presentation he's been looking forward to it for weeks so parking enforcement program I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to give you a a summary of how the program currently is and things that are coming on the horizon which I think are very important to the to the to the program itself um so parking division our mission very simple main objective of parking enforcement is to obtain the highest level of compliance that is why we enforce we do not enforce to balance the budget we do not enforce because we like ruining people's days we don't we enforce strictly so that we can maintain the highest level of compliance that is why if we don't enforce people won't pay um and that's that's there's a direct correlation with that um just some parking division facts LAZ Parking uh flat fee doesn't get a commission we can issue one ticket or issue 100 tickets the same monthly fee every month so I want to make that clear because there have been some uh sometimes you'll hear some oh they must make money off every tick there is no money to be had other than if they write one or two they're just doing a good service um it is a 24hour 7 days a week 365 day operation our code of ordinance is stay state that if you park in the city on a public space that is designated paid you must pay it's 24 hours 7 days a week 365 we have enforcement hours which I'll share with you in a short bit but the ordinance itself if you even if it's 4 in the morning if you park you're supposed to pay for parking now we developed a parking enforcement program which was what solicited we developed this program how long have we had these hours right I think when I started I we know it's been tweaked back and forth but this is what we find to be the best opportunity and the best times to enforce um which it just doesn't make any sense to do it 24 hours a day so that's why our parking enforcement is Sunday through Thursday to midnight from 9:00 am. to midnight and then on Fridays and Saturdays up to 2: a.m. so from 9:00 a.m. to 2: p.m. 2 a.m. those are our Park import our enforc hours and again it's just a cost benefit analysis of why we run these hours but it is important to note if you park any paid parking space you are supposed to pay irrelevant of what time it is any questions on our our enforcement hours okay um so parking citation Revenue just I'll give you a brief um in 2018 uh 660 2019 as stated there we've we've since after covid which on October 1st of 2019 Miami day County changed their part for many years they had the same rates um of of of citation so expired meter which is by far the the most that we actually write it used to be $18 now it's at 36 that's started on October 1st of 2019 now what that did was and that was all of us jurisdictions that have parking programs must use the click of Courts that's there's nothing we we can't get away from that um some some jurisdictions like Coral Gables has uh threatened to get out and when the litigation starts they come to see that it's it's no way out of it um so with that said there are a lot of jurisdictions that said were have been lobbying for many years to increase the citations because at $18 in Miami Beach for example it was cheaper just to take the ticket than actually to pay in some certain areas in downtown MPA suffered the same um but once they changed it for one they changed it for everybody so we are under the same fine structure as every other jurisdiction in Miami day County and some of those fines again they took place on October 1st of 2019 and you'll see they went from 18 to 36 on some 23 to 36 some went from 23 to 75 so uh those those fees and citation and fines we must follow those we have no leeway on if we wanted to after 8 o00 the citation would go down from 36 to 20 some jurisdictions outside in Florida outside of Miami County can do that we don't have that option um October 1st 2019 you see that's when the change when they did make that change our citations went down so we used to write 64,000 citations we're writing last year we wrote 41,000 so now 2020 is a it's an anomaly because obviously that's when covid um and then you know it's been take it's been so wait can you very I I just want to make sure I heard that correct 41,000 41,9 40 down down from a high of what 6424 so the public should know that they're getting some relief well TR during covid it was it wasn't just just business it was free parking and then one thing that's contributed to less ticket writing is there's a the penalty is greater correct that has and that took place October 1st of 2019 which was fiscal year 20 get 41,000 in a calendar year 365 day year yeah okay so I mean I'm just doing the that's 112 a day yeah okay okay all right okay we're moving 15-minute grace period something that we we we we we've championed for a while where if somebody's meter expired as long as they paid if it expired we wait 15 minutes our enforcement officers are instructed to wait 15 minutes and not site um you know six minutes past their expiration time we give a 15minute grace period so which is also helped in reducing the number of citations that we issued so that's important to note um parking citation fine amounts um again paid within 30 days these are the amounts the greatest amount of citations that we write are for uh expired time and then after that those are pretty much the the uh the the fins for the most uh citations that we write so this is a graph what we did we manually put this together to show the different times we did a four-week process it's it's uh we have to use multiple systems to generate this information um so it's a little uh it takes a a while to put this together but we did it so that we can show in a picture when are we writing when are we collecting the most revenue and when are we writing the most citations or at least earning so this is at 100% citation in other words and we calculated it based on on $36 our our greatest amount of citations is expired meter which is $36 so the blue line is the revenue and it intersects with the red line at some points um on when we write our our citations and if you look I'll just scroll through real fast uh it's pretty consistent in the later parts of the evenings you can see where there's more enforcement uh citation Revenue than there is paid Revenue at 100% citation which we do not collect 100% of Revenue citation we collect about 66% of it and again you you'll see that across the four weeks in March which if you remember from the last presentation I sort of had similar for for January and February one week in January one week in February it's pretty consistent there's nothing that later parts of the day it just is when when parking revenues come down um citation Revenue Financial impact we just did an analysis if we reduce enforcement by two hours on each of the days so if we're enforcing till midnight reducing it to 10: p.m. and if we're enforcing on that day Friday and Saturday to 2 enforcing up to midnight and we're just looking at what the impact would be to citation revenue from that standpoint so if we reduce it by two hours each of those days it'll be about $134,000 reduction in citation Revenue uh 287 if we reduce it by four hours we analyze both um something that we're contemplating you know reducing hours uh to bring more in line this this and I'll show you the graph um to bring this to a closer so you don't at the later parts of the day have more enforcement Revenue than parking Revenue the mayor yes interrup your can you I if we're going to have conversation I think we're need another motion to extend I I it's okay I move to extend okay move there's no point having a presentation without correct so why don't we why don't we why don't but I want I want I want to keep it I want to keep a time limit on it so we can go with the most two rounds of comments okay just to kind of get us out of here let's move let's move to extend to 11:30 at the latest please let's try to keep it short of that cuz I do want to get home as well so is there a second I'll second okay uh without objection hurry up it's not my motion our our meter expires at 113 exped half an hour luckily we don't get tickets sitting up here so I I beg to differ oh when when you're driving your own car cuz I got a ticket driving someone else's car so uh we have a motion to extend best time to get a ticket let's go let's go okay yes yay yay let's go afredo so if we if we lose the two hours or the 4 hours uh the revenue is there any Opex or anything being lost on the expenditure side whether it's re uh expenses and pay uh enforcement I don't know I'm just asking the question is if we reduce two hours do we what savings are there on the operational side if any thank you no problem I right now we have a fixed contract with last it's on a monthly so I would have to talk to last and see if if we reduce it there's two things we can make the parking enforcement more like ambassadors during that time for safety reasons which is something I think that is great in the parking garage because especially at the latter later parts of the time when it's nighttime so I think that's what we would do if we were to do that I would probably recommend that we still have LZ on Prem um helping and keeping being eyes also for the police department which we have a good communication expensive security system yeah so um so other than that really we don't have any do you have another slide do you not I have just two more slides and I'm done let's let you finish yeah um parking study as everybody knows the commission um we put out a solicitation we received responses um an evaluation committee is going to be evaluating the proposals we received four proposals um all from good vendors uh you the idea is to have a study done to analyze our parking our fees our residential programs the entire parking structure the whole not just in downtown but as for the city um and the idea is to have that available and ready for presentation to the Commission in in the middle of July assuming we go before commission and the commission agrees with hiring uh the recommended vendor at the recommended price or the solicited price which it's not insignificant it's it's about roughly about $48,000 on the low end on the low end on the lowest most responsive uh bidder um so that's something that I think is something that's important that information that'll be provided to you so that you can make maybe some additional policy decisions and it'll be sometime within the budget process so that'll be I think something that is useful to all of us and then second we are now in the process of and we've been evaluating handhelds something that we've been asking the clerk of courts for years to have our own handhelds and not have to use Civic smart which is their product that they make all of us use they have agreed and we have till November to transition to our own handels that is going to do that is going to be a phenomenal tool for us to gather information to present to you to to to bring it all together instead of doing those graphs that we have to that are so uh extremely uh employee employee right it it just takes us forever this is something that we can actually look at the zones what are the times maybe in certain zones we need to enforce more and it would correlate with our paid program uh paid parking programs and apps so that is something that I I is great and we're hoping to have something before commission for approval sometime in the next month or two uh we're having our last demonstration on Friday of this week and then we're preparing the memo resolution for consideration but having that providers uh with us is going to be uh a huge Improvement for our reporting which is something that we lack right now not by choice by restrictions that were placed upon us by the clinical courts okay and other than that I'm we can go home okay so yeah good luck questions of uh Mr riverol Mr marinko looks like your person Cory you're recognized do do you know if our 15-minute grace period or any of our other tactics are seen like compared to other cities if they're liberal or onerous or very liberal that's very liberal and I have Carlos we we have good relationships with other parking programs Carlos does anybody else give 15minute Grace per nobody gives 15 minutes does anyone else write 112 tickets a day on 400 surface parking spaces honestly that's a straightup question sorry to be a Savage about asking the question that way but I but if we're going to throw that out there I want to be clear we're going to compare 112 tickets on an inventory of like I'm going say 400 on Street spaces what what do other what do other jurisdictions do on a percentage basis so so I mean again that's that's the kind of data I want I I I just want to make this point because I think you know we talk about what we can do for our town center today certainly want to make physical improvements but we have to acknowledge and I'm not saying this is the reason that our businesses aren't performing at the level they want to perform I've had this conversation with the manager but the perception it's indisputable this is the most hostile place to park in all ofate County I mean but it's not accurate well I'm I I I from myp the perception it's it's not accurate but it's the perception and perception unfortunately is reality so I mean I will tell you what I see is the biggest problem that we have and that graph we've talked about it with the lines up and down puts us in the most Pleasant perspective but I had the benefit of seeing Mr River's information when you when you juxtapose for the two weeks the Christmas tree that is you know citations versus revenue for spaces the evening hours there's really no reason for us to to enforce on Mondays Tuesdays Wednesdays late Saturdays meaning after 10 o'clock late late Fridays and probably so on the evenings right so the evening hours we are way over enforcing the demand from my perspective the measure should not be you know uh I forget what the standard is that you say we have the code the the point should be we should protecting the inventory on street so that we're allowing Commerce to happen fluidly within the businesses right we want to make sure people are paying so you're turning over the spaces and keeping them available to people to frequent the businesses that we're servicing by providing the public inventory right we're not doing that what we're doing now is we it's a value extraction mechanism it's a tax on the commercial tax base to basically subsidize our GF and I think that's the imbalance that we have that we need to course correct on because we're not doing ourselves any favors in the short term in terms of encouraging people to come here during what's going to be a very difficult transition period for this downtown if we do all the things that we want to do so yes ma'am should we after a certain time be issuing warnings instead of tickets because if if if I understood Alfredo correctly we have a static contract so whether they're writing a ticket or writing a warning they're here anyway look I think I think we should EnV visit I mean I I I would like I mean I think Laz has been a great partner but I think that we are engaging in a in a in a self-destructive activity with the way we're enforcing our self-destructive I mean for our town center and the businesses that are there okay it's not an indictment on on LS because they're doing what we are have contracted for them to do right you're doing it super efficiently like you are guys are amazing at your job like honestly 112 tickets a day you just blew my mind with that number because they don't all happen on they happen probably I mean I can see the numbers I have them right so I think you know I I would rather renegotiate the contract and extend the term right and allow us more flexibility in how we incur costs so we can have more enforcement flexibility particularly what I'm seeing is in the evening hours and Sundays are days where we really don't have that much traffic downtown uh where we're penalizing people for staying late and having an extra glass of wine or whatever they're doing right uh and where there's no I mean I I the last time we had this presentation I left this chamber I had a rental car I parked with John Edward Smith at ver across from verage we sat down at the table I hadn't paid cuz I'm not used to it so I'm driving my vehicle's registered and I have now the privilege of parking for free and I had a parking on my windshield within literally 35 seconds and I and you can ask him about it it's literally what happened and I and I don't have any problem with that generally except that the entire Street was empty every stall on that side of the street there was not a car parked in it mine was the only one so what we're doing is we're taxing people that want to come into our downtown when there's zero Demand right and the and the and the and the courtesy gift we give them is a $36 ticket right and so I don't know that that helps Drive business into our town center I think that should be the reason for enforcement is preserving the availability of parking when there's Peak demand and then you know in when there's soft when the demand is soft right we should probably just say take a More Les a fair approach or have more irregular enforcement so that we at least continue compliance but the strict compliance approach I think is being is self-defeating right now and I mean the numbers show it and I think it's indisputable your graph did a better job of masking it than the numbers that how I would have presented it but that's what I see I think the data is very clear on that point I don't need a study to tell me what the numbers very clearly tell me personally at $48,000 for the study I think there are other issues we need to study as part of that that study but this is not one of them and so I think this does have may have a real bottom line impact on our current Revenue projections for the year so I'd like to understand from you where we are against projected revenues thus far this year and come back with a a recommendation on how we dial down enforcement to kind of come in on on budget this year and then next year talk about how we budget to something very different than what we're doing right now because I I don't think we I don't think it's a service that we're doing to those business owners who were trying to promote on Saturday to be enforcing parking in this particular way again that's been your mandate historically that's not the Mandate I would I would want to direct you all to continue I think we need to change the approach and focus on preserving inventory we have peak time hey we when there's a line of people wanting to park on 73rd and you're in that space more than 15 minutes thank you you get to get out because somebody else wants to get in but then when there's no demand and we're doing that all we're telling people is don't come here that's my two cents you want to say something you want me to say something I know I just I look forward to your thing because you know how I feel how do you feel for you guys are really good at doing your job all right and you know what we've hired you to do that and I applaud you for doing the best possible job that you could because guess what the numbers are showing that we are getting one heck of a service from last we are and let's be real we paid for something and we're getting it and we should be super proud of the partnership that we have we as a body need to come up with what we feel is accurate or appealing to us or whatever and then work from there but realistically we have to say you guys are amazing at doing your job okay so to that point shout out to David I can't say David without Alfredo smiling ear to ear but um and ironically pray every other week pray twice a month someone compliments Me On David just this past Friday someone complimented me on David and I always respond the same way oh he must not have given you a ticket they would say know he did and I said you like him said yeah he's so nice about it he always tries to help he's doing his job he's a good guy they always say that about him and they always get a ticket so maybe there is a balance yeah I want to talk about a couple other things I know people don't think I grew up but I was a kid I lived down 57th Avenue so I've always been in this area South Miami was like just cool place to go it was very small town and it had the reputation back then I'm talking 40 over 40 years ago as giving tickets everyone knew it was accepted there was more of a demand back then and people because of that made sure they paid but they still got tickets now agree with uh the mayor right perceptions reality but it's not reality we give 15minute we give a 15minute grace period And if we're going to LAX enforcement on slower days Sunday Monday evenings then we should reduce that during peak times because the point of parking which the mayor said and he is right and always argued against free parking just like in a restaurant you want to turn over that table you want to turn over that space that's a service to the businesses you're making sure people aren't aren't camping out there all day and I notice people park at City Hall or they'll park at Donnie fael or they'll park at the community center because there's no ticketing they'll just leave their leave their car there so um can also argue it uh it helps business now a couple things that we need to address because we need to be realistic we can't all be so altruistic right we're up here to make some hard decisions how much is the last contract and how long is the last contract our contract expires uh June of next year okay so then we have to renegotiate that because I don't want to pay for Less service I thought to keep L remember so yeah to that point because I'm I'm curious I want to pay no no I I agree I don't want to pay for service we're not using but I also want I also know that kind of a standard procurement policy most places is that we have termination for convenience provision so do we have a termination for convenience provision of this contract or do we not if I'm remember correctly I don't have the contract or but the last time I revaluated I believe we have a 30-day termination so we do have the ability to terminate with no I just wanted to ask that for the and I don't want to do that but don't hold me to it but I'm almost certain that's not my intention either I mean again and then the other thing it's simple math but Mr riveral does the parking Revenue okay not the so Revenue dependent but we're just talked earlier about the bond how close we are right in Revenue in terms of our budget does that account for approximately 10% of our budget not including CIP of the revenue maybe not exactly 10% but in total the entire parking program is 16% of the revenue citations I don't believe reaches 10% no but total parking so 16% okay 16% of our Revenue we really look we need to consider that we just looked at our numbers we're talking about a loan or a lot of things we want to do so talking you say earlier about placemaking find me another Revenue Source or realistically we need add Revenue not cut um revenue and anyone who gets a ticket honestly it's just like anything else in life you're training people people to follow the law right to follow the norms and also it's never been easier to pay in your in your life so my my proposal would be the following you get a notification on your phone it's never been easier to pay I I I think I think we feel I don't disagree with you I know I think but I think I think the there's there's two ways of dealing with this in my mind we can we can ramp we can ramp down the enforcement which I think would help over over time this perception is not going to change overnight so I you know we've talked about assumptions around Revenue declines I don't think there I don't think it's goingon to have any real re Revenue collection impact because people still are going to have this perception for a while it's going to take a while for for there to be a level set event commissioner and so I think for in the near term it's probably going to be Revenue neutral or have a DI Minimus impact on Revenue I will tell you it's going to certainly affect citation Revenue but I I would tell you we have no business I'm looking at the numbers we have no business enforcing on street parking when all we're doing is extracting Revenue more revenue from those spaces out of citation that we do out of actual paid parking and any for if anything we should actually make the parking free doing those windows right if we were doing it on a market demand related basis that's that's and that's what then that's the difficulty in doing that and having variable pricing the difficulty is people don't know when they're required to pay so it's suffer to trct so I think the only way you level set for that and and you get some incremental revenue for people who don't know any better right and pay any ways because they're not aware that we may be doing less than 4% an hour so I I I really think In fairness we talk about what things we can do closer to today right and I certainly think that Sunset Drive improvements are and improvements generally are the most important thing we can do for the district but this is something we can do that that you know is easy to sacrifice around we can find the Savings in our budget we have the capacity we have the fund balance to do it right secondly it's also something that involves no disruption to the local businesses anything that we do by way of improvements also brings some attended dislocation and impact this is something I will tell you again if we wanted to say to our our our businesses that we are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with you and what would probably be the most disruptive but positive time in our City's history where we're Transforming Our Town Center I think this is where we can show the most good faith and Good Will and that's why I've been so dogged about it and I apologize for interrupting you it's not my style but again I I it just I think that the the perception and the real impact are very tangible and I think the benefits would be very real and very Qui quick to realize and with that thank you for the presentation any any final comments yeah I have a question just a hybrid what if we offered instead of an hour two hours whatever that number is just to make sure we still have our monthly monthly tenants and people are pay not going to park there all day but two hours free in the garage that way we keep everything in place but we're still being very friendly two hours free in the garage it's it's a hybrid that way we're not going to disrupt this service and that way it's I look I I want to leave it to Alfredo come back with a proposal I don't want and that's possibly something we can offer I again I just you know people are going to use the on Street inventory it's the most convenient um you know I think I you know I'd like to leave it to him I I'm not trying to dictate what we do I know where the problem is I think we need to dial out enforcement in the evenings the numbers tell us what the policy probably should be but how we get there because again I understand that it's not an inconsequential part of our Revenue we got to break this add and I'm not talking about the parking Revenue I'm talking about the enforcement Revenue addiction right it's $700,000 it's it's it's Rich it is we just did talk about alcohol that's the irony but it's a it's it's it's something that we've structured a budget around that we' become dependent on substantially and I think we need to figure out a way to rat it back because the returns are are they're diminishing returns on this activity from my perspective thank you for allowing us the extra time I appreciate all of you any any last questions I'm sorry to dominate that conversation no sir well we I mean we'll wait until Alfredo says but I had recommended the two hours and I I've spoken to Alfredo about a lot of different things on the parking garage that will affect this as well and there's a new system that's coming that's going to let us do a lot of that stuff so I told him before that we should wait until that system comes in he's going to have a lot of different proposals different a lot of different ideas with that system that system is the one that we have right now is really limiting and we will have more solutions so you're talking about the Civic the the new handholds no no doubt difference no doubt and things of that stuff that we've never been able to do will be a possibility it will issuing warnings depending on how many citations a history of a vehicle then we can see that yeah it's it's a big yes sir can we hear from Carlos for the last minut or two you would so what would you suggest you're the man you can say whatever you want you're the manager you have the most experience you you sorry you hear the commission's concern absolutely one of the things that I recommended to a Fredo was actually what the vice mayor mentioned uh giving a a warning like let's say after 10 p.m. like instead of enforcing until midnight keep that the enforcement offic as ambassadors will drive around and if the vehicle is expired instead of issuing a ticket issue a warning but that would be only like a one time warning because the tag will stay registered with the new system and then if the offender comes next week then the enforcement officer will issue a citation because that vehicle already got a warning I I think that's a good idea I'm open to it again I we we have again it's no offense to Laz you do an excellent job and I do agree David and the team for do a very difficult job and they do it with a lot of Grace and a lot of good humor and I get very positive feedback about them as well so it's the people are great we could have better ambassadors for a very difficult moment but I think again I just the number to me the utilization by the public doesn't justify the level of enforcement we have and I think given the perception that we built we can probably get by with a little bit less enforcement and I think it would be a good show of Faith to our our businesses that a lot of which are struggling so anyhow thank you all I appreciate you putting together presentation Alfredo good night e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e 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