##VIDEO ID:A3P0mPVMl5E## [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] or [Music] rep official be at the renissance good good evening everyone regular Commission meeting meeting date Monday November M 4th 2024 at 6 p.m. commission Chambers 500 Southwest 101 Avenue roll call Madam clerk thank you madam clerk let's stand for the plag of allegion remain standing for invocation of the United States of America and to the repblic for it stands nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for dear heavenly father we pray um we pray for this beautiful city this amazing City bless this beautiful city and and thank you that we have the opportunity to lead this city and make decision for this city give us the wisdom and the Revelation to make the best decisions we pray for also for our entire nation and state as tomorrow's election day we pray that there's peace that nothing crazy happens and we pray that uh your will be done in Jesus name we pray amen amen amen so we'll have a special presentation or presentation for Mr Javier banur executive director of Citizens Independent Transportation trust CIT on the status of PTP and smart plan mayor good evening uh Mr chairman Commissioners Mr Mayor it's great to see you again we miss you back at the county you're doing great things here I know thank you so my name is Javier beton Court I'm executive director of the Citizens Independent Transportation trust or CIT I do want to uh point out Mariana price who just came in from traffic uh she's our Municipal program manager and also our deputy director Monica Seas so we have three members of our team here thank you for allowing us some time on your agenda to talk about us what we do and um what you're doing with our funds so um my gosh tomorrow is election day so go back about 20 years from tomorrow and there was an item on the ballot that the voters approved uh agreeing to increase their sales tax at the time from 6 and a half to 7% that was known as the half penny sales tax or Transportation Ser tax and that item was approved by the voters at the time and we've been collecting that tax ever since that last line in that referendum language is important because the voters were also asked to create the Citizens Independent Transportation trust to oversee those funds and make sure they were spent appropriately by the county money and then also by the cities that receive about 20% a little over 20% now of those funds so who are we at the CIT okay we're not Transit we're not Public Works we're not even the TPO we don't operate build maintain transit or Transportation we're simply a watchdog uh an oversight uh group over those funds to make sure it's spent appropriately and that the projects that were promised to the people to the voters are implemented so we are governed by a 15 member Board of volunteers one appointed by the county mayor one by the league of cities representing cities such as yourself and then 13 represent uh appointed by each of the 13 County Commissioners we currently have a vacancy in your district and so please if you're interested in serving as a volunteer on the CIT we are looking for applications anyone interested in being a part of the solution you know is interested in Transportation uh is qualified you can't be an elected official um a candidate for office um and you have to reside in the district right so other than that we'd be interested in having you so please apply and to do so just go to our website m.gov CIT our application is on there you can learn all about us so again anyone here anybody watching anyone you may know who's interested in transportation and Can Be an Effective advocate for your city and for your residents please please we really need people to apply we have no applicants on file okay so uh the CIT of uh is the board of volunteers they're supported by Prof professional staff that's myself my colleagues here and a few others and again we review projects before we take them to the trust we provide professional recommendations the trust then takes that recommendation and makes its own recommendation to the County Commission the County Commission at the end of the day has the final Authority on how the county can spend its share of cerx funds it does not weigh in on how cities can uh use their sh tax funds that ultimately is your decision here at this body but we provide the professional oversight in support of our volunteer uh trust one of the key functions of our organization is auditing I know it's not a fun word but it is important that we audit not only the county uh which we do but also all of the Cities which we do in a semi- regular basis so we're constantly auditing all of you through the County's audit and Management Services Department which is now called internal compliance Department um and uh you know we work really well with your great staff here and I want to give a shout out to Scott to uh I think that's Andy uh shelle and Stephanie um we really have great working relationships with your staff they're responsive um they're responsible they turn everything in on time and any issues that come up in an audit are you know addressed in a timely fashion so thank you for that thank you to your staff so enough about us let's talk about the money right a half a penny doesn't sound like a lot right Med s what do you do with that well it generates a lot of money uh when you collected um countywide so on an annual basis we're now collecting about $400 million with that little half penny since the beginning of the half penny 20 years ago we have collected nearly billion so that little half penny adds up two-thirds of it has in fact gone to Transit there's a lot of misinformation in the community that the money has been misspent on other things the reality is it has gone to Transit less than 10% has gone to public works for roadway projects and again those projects were part of the original promise 21% now so over the 20% is going to all the municipalities and that is distributed to the cities on a PR basis so based on population the larger the population a city has the more money they get the less they have the less money they get um okay and then less than 1% goes to our office for oversight so we're allowed by law to take that up to 5% but we want to keep it under 1% so that the majority of the money is going out onto the street into the services into the projects that are ultimately helping people to move this is the same information kind of over time so you can see how the sales tax and the expenditures have gone up as you would imagine over time as we continue to grow the only major dips there are during the Great Recession and then more recently during covid and this is our um the current annual budget so now we're actually spending even more on Transit so as the roadway projects get completed we're not adding more roadway projects into the mix we really want to focus the doll moving forward on Transit because that's where we're really lacking as a community we've done a good job on roadways even though it's congested it'll always be congested but we really have a lot of catching up to do on Transit if you're really interested in the numbers if you're one of those guys that you know wants to geek out there's a 40-year performa on our website every every penny in every penny out every project is listed on this over 40 years so go to town but over 40 years we do have an8 billion program to expand trans in Mii day County and again when I say we this is really the TPO Office of Management and budget that uh that put this together so enough about the money now let's talk about what people really care about which is the projects and services and programs that we're paying for so there were a number of promises made and mayor Diaz you may have been around you may remember these a lot of promises everyone remembers Metro Rail but it was a lot more than just Metro Rail the county promised people yes we're going to expand Metro Rail along six quarters in the county but we're also going to um increase the bus fleet and enhance the bus fleet we're also going to give again 20% to the cities we're also going to make Transit Fair free for all seniors regardless of income what's now called the Golden Passport uh we are going to build out and expand and improve major highways and roadways there were over 40 individual projects that were part of the original promises um and uh you know we're going to upgrade buses we're going to upgrade the Metro mover we're going to make Metro mover free laundry list of promises that were made under the banner people's Transportation plan or PTP and many of them were in fact achieved the most successful program I would argue has been the municipal program your city along with your other colleagues 33 other cities have taken that 20% and done great things with it you've used it for you know roadway projects you've used it for Transit and now you're also using it even for what we call on demand Transportation freebie right and so I know that the city uh has done some great things I'm going to ask Mariana to come up and just speak specifically to what your city is doing I know you know but maybe some of your residents don't Marana yeah yeah now would be good here just so you know like you said this is all the cities in the county and what they're running and you could see all the lines um again 33 different transit systems being operated by all the cities but here's more about you good evening everyone I'm the municipal program manager for the office of the CIT so I oversee 33 municipalities that participated in our program uh city of Sweetwater especially ever since Scott came on board um you guys have been very good very proactive about spending funds you had a lot of carryover funds that were important to be allocated towards projects because when you don't have it allocated towards projects within five years you're at risk of losing them so Scott and his team Chanel and Stephanie they've been really good about getting you guys all set and on board with that so um in terms of ridership with your trolley um sweet wer doesn't have On Demand right now that I know of in quarter three as of this past fiscal year they um you guys have had 40,000 boardings and that's more than last year total you had just under 39,000 so you're already you've already exceeded what you had last year and that's it that's it okay short and sweet um the short end of it is you're running a great service I know with more money you could do more and we often try to point your professional staff towards grant opportunities if we could give you more we would um really the more people spend the more sales taxes generated the more you get but that's the extent of how much we can give you um and um one of the other things that the city does well is connect to others I know that you're connecting for instance to FIU and and to Major employment centers um and I believe even Metro Rail if I'm not mistak so the more you can connect to the surrounding system the better off your residents your Riders are going to be because it helps them get to where they need to go so let me just uh continue on here again three quarters of the major roadway and Highway projects have been completed the other quarter are in some state of being completed and again as those are finished we're not adding roadway projects we're really focused on Transit but one of the major roadway projects is what we call Advanced traffic management system ATMs I'm sure the mayor remembers this so this is smart signals right everybody hates sitting at a signal with the red light when you know that there's no traffic flowing the other way and you wish it would just turn and let you go well this system would allow you to do that it's going to monitor the traffic and the congestion at an intersection and adapt to the changing conditions so that's not just on a simple timer it's going to be much more intelligent and move people along intersections more quickly so that's something the county is currently working towards uh again many other the transit promises were in fact made we completely replaced all the Metro Vehicles the Metro Bus Vehicles the Metro mover Vehicles we did expand Metro Rail to the airport that was the only expansion of metro rail that was accomplished um but there are many other transit services that were in fact implemented but again what people remember uh we'll skip that for a second and here's the the expansion to the airport what people remember is the failure to expand Metro Rail throughout the county because that was probably the the sexiest part of the plan right um the good news is the county has now for a number of years has been committed to to accomplishing that it's now called the smart plan the smart what is it strategic Miami Area Rapid Transit plan or program uh the good news is one is already under construction that's going to be bus Rapid Transit uh down to Homestead along what they call the South Daye Corridor and all the others are in some state of development or planning um there are six corridors in total again I mentioned the South Corridor but you also have the beach Corridor linking downtown to the beach and up to the Design District you have the East West Corridor which is probably the the most important one to you it's the one that would serve this city most directly you have the Kendall Corridor along Kendall Drive the Northeast Corridor which there's been some news about and the north quarter along 27th Avenue up to the Broward County Line and the stadium as I said South Quarter is currently under construction bus Rapid Transit yes it's a bus it's not Metro Rail but it's going to behave a lot like a train okay beautiful stations level boarding prepaid fairs and they'll be able to get through the intersections without stopping uh the beach quarter lated to be Metro mover most likely uh again connecting downtown to the beach and then up north to The Design District that uh also received some recent good news from the FTA that allows it to continue to move forward the East West quarter is tricky the original suggestion was to have bus Rapid Transit along the dolphin Expressway State Road 836 the County's kind of taken a step back and said well maybe that's not the best idea maybe we can do better so I know that they are actively uh studying the possibility of using the CSX Rail lines to run some kind of commuter type train like TR rail that's been actively studied um but no definitive decisions on that they're also looking at Flagler Street what if we ran metr mover for instance on Flagler Street instead of doing something on A36 so all of that is being studied by the TP by the Consultants um no final decisions have been made I'm sure your City is an active discussions with the county on what you want to see because this is the one that's going to serve this community Kendo Corridor it's kind of on hold we'll see what happens but that at some point was uh proposed to be bus Rapid Transit but it's really difficult there because you'd have to lose a lane of traffic to make it happen the Northeast Corridor this is likely going to be the next one to actually take place after the South Corridor um there were some news recently that the federal government has committed $400 million for this project these are the same tracks that bright Line run on today but bright line is too expensive for your normal resident uh no one's going to use that to get to work every day you can't afford it what we need is a complimentary service on the same tracks that does serve the general population at an accessible fee you know $2.50 not $30 each way and that has multiple stations throughout the line right uh Little Haiti North Miami Windwood Etc so this one we're very hopeful will happen in the next few years North Corridor this one is proposed to be Metro Rail going up 27th Avenue to the Broward line and serving the stadium it's going to be the most expensive the most difficult to do and so we'll see what happens with the north Corridor but currently the promise is Metro a number of par parking ride facilities um you know have also been invested in including a couple that serve your community we have the dolphin uh parking ride and I believe the tamami parking ride or near here and I know a lot of your residents are probably using that today but all of this takes money and we don't have enough money today so we really have to look under every Rock for additional sources of funding I call it the funding lasagna and I'm sorry for the picture because I know you're hungry hungry at this time of night and uh this is making you even hungrier but um really we need to identify more funding sources I'm going to just skip ahead I know I'm taking too long we have an ambassador program where we ask our writers to be our eyes and ears on the system and to give us feedback and an exchange they get points uh for their feedback and they can exchange those points for rewards so if your residents are writing your system or the county system and they want to be our ambassadors please encourage them to apply uh it's a great program and it's uh more information is available on our website and finally I'm hosting a podcast uh to discuss transportation and Mobility it's been a great success it runs every other Thursday from 9:00 to 10 I would love to have you as a guest Mr Mayor come on the podcast I'd love to have you uh I think you'd be wonderful um so let me know and and we'll make that happen with that I'd be happy to answer any questions and thank you again for the time Mr President thank you once again my dear friend thank you for doing the job that you're doing and we've been we've been out this for quite a while but uh some things we just need to really kind of keep doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome one of them and I know I'm probably going to speak right to wisdom real fast it's the east to west the east to west project we have started it in nazium we have spent millions and millions of dollars we had something finally going I took me 18 years to get the park and ride the dolphin park and ride the temporary name they gave it um the dolphin Park and right which is the first to of his magnitude probably in the State of Florida when and it's finished we're talking 2,000 units a school a a semi stores in the bottom and a hotel for not mistaken it's done by Mr David and that project is going to change everything now the reason for the Tod and for that park and ride because I wanted to make it the oh God what's the name of that place the where by day the the day TR Center the day TR center of the West yeah and the reason I did the red lines if you can remember M was because we need to get some kind of Transit going now we're starting to see that parking lot and more and more people riding and especially as a the cost of things get high but if we're going to study Flagler Street to switch over per se Flagler Street does not have a band withd it has been stated the only way it'll work if you put a double deck type uh Road on top and work on it the only transportation that with the lines I don't want to get into the whole thing because we don't have the time I think we'll do it on your podcast so is that we develop that east to west and Final that and that is what we're all together I I really am really disappointed to hear that they're changing the plans again because that just continues to delay something that needs at least I got that built which right now have a direct line to and from day County from this side now with the 836 that drops off right at the station we're going to be getting more wrers ships from the people that live further west and and so on so I would love to get together with you I want to thank Scott that's been working really close with you and I've asked them to really dig in with you on on the issues and and what we could do along with Stephanie bua that's heading my Grands program together they worked and I know there's several people that work with her uh but especially Chanel and George uh we're we're blessed to have you and your team here and I'm blessed to work with you and see how we could expand a horizon to create more services for the people Sweet Water in the adjacent areas because I think uh this used to be I'm not going to say the way my father and mother used to say it was the name they gave it all the way west when we moved in here in 1968 there was nothing and today it's probably Central day County and probably the most uh thought after real estate St there is out there so uh I think we're in a good place I think we're going to work together but we really got to find a way to keep one project going strong and finish it through and see it finish once and for all and then start with another one before we go a little bit uh changing the flavors again of things so that's just my little piece of wisdom to this so thank you so much again I appreciate that thank you Mr Mayor and we're happy to of course continue working with you and and your staff um facilitate those discussions at the end of the day as you know those decisions on what Corridor and what to do on those corridors are ultimately up to the TPO and the County Commission and dtpw more so than ourselves we just as get asked to turn the money over um but um to the extent that we can help facilitate those conversations and make sure something gets done sooner rather than later because I agree with you the demand is there people live West and they travel east and nobody wants to be on A36 if they can help it um the good news is those buses are running on the the red shoulders and the parking ride was built uh and people are using it and it's a great service so I think we need to Market it better A lot of people don't know it exists but I agree with you that is not enough we need to have this Corridor built um it to me probably the most important Corridor in the smart plan just because that is the majority of the the traffic uh it's it's people in this community and the communities out west going east to work in downtown and by the way the first study that was done 19 years ago that started was was the rail line it failed miserably yeah so I don't know why we have to go back but that's fine I guess that'll be a discussion for another day and we'll uh we'll look at it again but um you're right I think it is the most important coridor that we have and by the way when we created the red lines that I worked hard to make sure they were done it was to set the pace for a future maybe a r rail or some type of Rapid transition Light Rail not heavy rail uh so it could reduce cost and do something something like we did to from the south Corridor that uh we'll see how it works out in the future but at least it's prepared for the for the future yeah and that's where we're so thank you so much again my pleasure uh well Mr bener first of all thank you for you know that inform informative uh special presentation and do you have any information you could leave to the Commissioners um I didn't bring any handouts I could leave you my business card um if you can leave it to the to the CL you'll share inform and I could also mail you some information I apologize that we get you guys whatever we have um we will also yeah please feel free to share the PowerPoint they have it um all the information is on there and we have a ton of information on our website again m.gov SL CIT awesome thank you thank you very much thank you have a great night all right moving forward to passing through Employee of the Month um Mr M you had a yeah I have a special I have a special presentation that I uh I want to make sure but before I go into the special presentation I want to make sure we understand that I didn't have all the Departments come out as they should have for the Halloween giving the trophy I already have a decision uh I have a decision up here too uh so we're going to probably move it to the 1 of uh December since we have some people that are out because of business issues so at this time uh there's somebody really important that happens to be issues you know that manages to have a birthday the same day as a meeting so we want to make sure that we congratulate Saia commissioner and get a little cake and wish you Happy Birthday that's a surprise mayor thank you thank you so let's uh not light a fire but oh don't cry don't cry that was that was good you got me here you got me mayor thank you very much guys sing happy birthday she's getting the C no of course I mean we're getting the C on everything that actually looks pretty good and you're right I am hungry that's a good one that's a good one not supposed to ask but I believe today he is 37 years old that was 36 you're giving him one more year he's 37 years old so Comm so thank you very much guys thank you mayor thank you appreciate it what was that no I don't want to say that is a good one so I understand that you had a very good lunch today I sure did Sir sure did with my family yes sir that's good yeah and I saw some good pictures on your site there yes sir thank you very much appreciate it you know so I think it's something that here we go go supposed to be a scooter by the way got me goodard all right birthday to you happy birthday to you here the first happy birth Happy Birthday to you yeah you can it there let it away it ler no no we're going to divide that up thank you thank you again guys thank you welcome by the way I got to get credits to julito I told him like 15 minutes before the meeting so I got to give a lot of credit to him he went and res made it happen thank you Julie appreciate okay all right happy birthday too officer all right so moving over to presentation of Officer of the month award good evening major Messa operations here for uh officer of the month September 2024 on Wednesday September 18th at approximately 1:44 a.m. there was a call for assistance put out over main frequency by the Sea Shi Lieutenant George us he requested backup reference a vehicle that had pulled up on him while on an unrelated scene from this vehicle four people exited three of which had recently been involved in a fight as evident by the visible injuries that they had after concluding the investigation they placed two subjects into custody regarding this event and requested fire rescue for those people with injuries on scene Miami day fire rescue Personnel decided that both subjects needed to be transported to the hospital for their wounds the first defend defendant was placed into the back of an ambulance and transported without an issue the second one however while being placed onto a stretcher managed to escape from the paramedics and officers and began running southbound officer Risco who was standing nearby observed as the defendant broke away from officers and he immediately gave chase the defendant made a last ditch effort to evade capture and jumped into the canal on seven Terrors officer Risco without hesitation jumped in after him in full uniform he was able to keep the defendant who was still handcuffed behind his back from drowning kept him afloat until responding units were able to remove him and officer Risco as well from the water officer rco's quick thinking his lack of hesitation and his willingness to put the defendant's life above his own ultimately prevented the defendant from drowning and allowed him to be transported to the hospital for further care for these reasons officer Risco is being recognized as officer of the month September 2024 yeah yeah get the family you take a picture for her you'll get to see this 20 years from now is much older that's I one with this one thank you thank you Chief come on do whatever you like [Applause] [Music] everybody see yeah it's okay this way two three [Applause] all right thank you so moving to seven reports of officers boards and committees n thank you I and deletion to the agenda we have a deletion on consent agenda which is item C and we also have an addition to the consent agenda which is item D and also an addition to staff items which is J deletion C dels deletions is C from consent agenda and additions are D from consent agenda and J for staff items all right so moving on to consent agenda so we have any uh Mo second the second we call clerk commissioner y yes re yes yes yes Mar yes yes yes thank you madam clerk we moving over to staff items staff item go ahead I I had a situation where as you know we got um rid of one of the companies that uh was doing work in this case cap inside the building department um I understand that we need to fill that position with another company and I need to do it on kind of an emergency basis before we start having issues which were delayed already on some things and I want to address you and basically jump on a a contract Piggy that dado has with a company by the name of BCC engineering okay it's a well-known company strong company and I don't want we promised the developers and the people that are coming to our city to invest that we would not delay their projects and um Mr Ruby would tell you clearly that that's not the goal that we have in this city to delay anybody so I want to Mr attorney could you lure me through this sure so the um the charter and city code of ordinances and and the state statutes uh permit an executive to act um with a wide range of powers in emergent circumstances it does They Don't Really Define what an emergent circumstance is so it could be anything from uh obviously a hurricane tornado cival Insurrection down to Simply needing to get something done right away with an unforeseen absence in labor or contracts and as a result it gives the executive the power to go ahead and wave uh all um bidding requirements and uh and formalities for the period of time of the of an emerging circumstance my recommendation is that if you believe you need to enter into this contract now and you have an emerging circumstance that you do so and then simply the matter can be cured in December by bringing the contract back bring the the the piggy back back and having the uh the commission at that point adopt it so we could move on it now and then bring it back and formalize it in the December meeting exactly and that's only because this is an emergence circumstance so the the language exactly reads as [Music] follows further the mayor has the power and authority to wave the procedures and formalities otherwise required by the by city law pertaining to entering into contracts and incurring obligations and this is uh section 3-1 uh of the city code of ordinances uh dealing with uh emergencies and emergency plans uh and again the the definition of an emergency is not contained within this ordinance it does cite to Florida statute 252 or chapter 252 and uh chapter and statutes 87042 in both circumstances the definitions are left rather loose because as you can imagine it's impossible to identify ify all circumstances in advance if if in your professional opinion you believe you're facing an Emergen circumstance and need to get work out that you are bottlenecked then you have a situation where you can enter into the contract now and then come back either we're at the beginning of November come back either at a special meeting in November or come back into the December meeting and formalize the process that's my recommendation okay we could I need to move because I need to make sure that I could get the people to do the work because I can't afford them to get more and more delayed and then we'll bring it back because we're piggybacking on a contract that exist already with a wide scope that we could use and remember we got we got rid of one and we need to replace it and this is the fastest way I think based on the situation in need I don't know if any of you got in calls already yes but uh I've got in calls and that something we gave our word that we will not fall behind on right so through the chair go um Mr Mar you can go ahead just like the charter reads and how the attorney mentioned you can go ahead and begin uh the relationship with that organization and then at next month's meeting uh present the contract so it's suitably noticed but this is an emergency and as far as I'm concerned this doesn't need to go we don't need to vote today the mayor can actually to vote the mayor can actually go ahead and present uh that relationship and a next month's meeting actually present the contract to us is that accurate exactly that is exactly correct commissioner the the mayor presents meeting informs you as as you have the right to be informed is informing you of an emerging circumstance his cure for the emergence circumstance and his plan for bringing the contract back to the commission at some point in the immediate future this is exactly according to her code again and moving forward we gave our word as to all the people that this is a new government and we're going to do things differently um and I hate to hear oh you guys are back to the old I said no we're not just standby we'll be moving forward so I am going to start immediately I'll bring the paperwork I'm going to start getting things done and then present it to you in the next uh meeting thank for letting us know and then to vote upon it at that point important thing so we're good to go okay thank you all right moving to staff item a an ordinance of the city of Sweetwater Florida amending the city code of ordinances by adopting and creating chapter 2 article 7 division 2 Section 2- 275 captured public restrooms in City buildings providing for separate restrooms for genetically male and female persons providing for penalties providing for exceptions providing for findings providing for cability providing for codification providing for an effective date first meeting commissioner V thank you Mr President uh I'm presenting this legislation for several reasons number one if you look at maso's hierarchy of needs in the hierarchy of needs you have food shelter and security this is a security piece of legislation unfortunately in today's society we need to protect our children I think our children in our city are our strongest resource our most vulnerable resource and the last thing that we need is for a sexual predator uh to be in a young girl's bathroom uh or a young boy's bathroom this makes it an ordinance in the city of Sweetwater men go to men bathroom women go to women's bathroom this is a security issue and I'm asking for unanimous consent on this item and I'm also asking for all of my colleagues and my mayor to co-sponsor this legislation with that I yield on the co-sponsor in may go ahead I concur thank you commissioner IA on this I I believe that this is a very simple situation this is to protect our citizens um this does not take away from when we have independent bathrooms that is just restrooms MH this is when you have restrooms that are labeled male and female and they have multi facets inside multi-units within that that is something that I personally uh believe that it should stay separate uh especially in the public bathrooms that we have within our city and I Concur and support uh what you're doing thank you and I wanted to make it public and state in front of this commission thank you Mr Mayor so I believe we have a motion and then we have a second right roll call Madam clerk yes ma'am yes yes thank you yes yes yes yes thank you madam clerk moving over to B an ordinance of the city of City Commission of the city of Sweetwater Florida considering an amendment to the city's official zoning map from intern District IU single family residential SRS and industrial Light manufacturing District i1 to industrial Light manufacturing district i1 for property identified for folio numbers 25-30 31-- 0315 also 25-30 31-1 d260 also 0270 0280 0290 0295 030 0305 and 0310 AKA 10800 Northwest 25th Street providing for findings of fact providing for cability providing for codification providing for an effective date first reading mayor Diaz thank you Mr President you want to join us good evening uh George Vera zoning director um this uh property is this property is coming before you it's west of 108 and just south of 25th it's uh several Parcels put together however one parcel was still in that area still RS which is single family residential and the applicant would like to build a a warehouse complex there and he needed to change that zone so everything will be industrial if you remember where the flower shop where the flower shop used to be the old flower shop got you in the corner okay yeah but uh this is why I wanted him to explain it first and basically explain to you as we're moving forward uh that used to be a pretty uncomfortable situation there so it's now a better use and I think a better aspect of what that area could be used for yes George is this this this item is this going to the zoning board it already went you he pass yes thank you sir second all right so we have a move by V second by commissioner Yan call CL yes yes commissioner Martin yes commissioner V yes commissioner Yan yes commissioner ree yes president Ray yes he passes on first reading thank you madam clerk moving on to staff item C an ordinance of the city of Sweetwater Florida an Ord an ordinance of the city commission amending the city's official zoning map for property identified under folio number 25301 30 31- z-640 AKA 10750 Northwest 14 Terrace from special commercial District C2 to Liberal commercial District liable Lial commercial District C3 providing for finding the fact providing for stability providing for codification providing for an effective date first reading mayor Diaz George good evening uh this property is just North of uh s uh 14th Street and just west of 108th um the property is vacant right now and the applicant would like to change the zone to C3 they would like to put a mini uh storage Warehouse uh building there um like four or five stories uh the representative for the applicant is here uh if you have any questions regarding the the application but it's just right now it's a straight zone change I'm going to be coming before you show for a special exception to show you the site plan go ahead uh boy is this a um what's the name of this storage uh is yeah no the the company other Cube okay they call it Cube and it's going to be just storage like we have like in it's air conditioned storage yeah like storage and stuff again did this go through the uh any any pass yeah thank you sir I'll go ahead and move this item second second by commissioner b roll call Madam clerk yes commission Martin yes commissioner V yes commissioner Yan yes commissioner ree yes ma'am commissioner Diaz yes president Ray yes he passes thank you madam clerk moving on to staff items d a resolution of the city Commission of the city of Sweetwater approving acquis Acquisitions of Police mobile command vehicle from mobile Concepts specialty Vehicles approving for expenditures of funds adopting contract providing for further Authority and providing for an effective date mayor Diaz as you know we have the command uh mobile unit uh it's uh basically ready to go they've uh deputy chief they've already been to the the factory where this is going to be done uh we received the grant monies from the state and we're ready to move forward and also from arpa we're going to have to put a little more to make sure that we get everything we want on this mobile command center so we as you saw the we already have the truck uh downstairs uh F450 that's been already been prepped to prepared to be to pull that uh particular trailer to whatever we need to do as a mobile command and we prefer it that way because once you set up that mobile command then you unhook the truck in is another vehicle to be able to use in case of an emergency and I I think that's pretty much it but if you want to add something uh deputy chief uh no sir uh good evening all Noel Gil Deputy Chief of Police for City Sweetwater uh 500 Southwest 109th Avenue as a mayor stated we have uh already accepted the Grant from the state that was uh signed under resolution 5111 and uh all this is to go ahead and um and basically schedule it with mobile Concepts uh in essence a soul Source provider uh that concentrates on doing these kinds of command posts that are fifth wheel uh command posts uh that uh are greatly lesser uh in cost than a command post that basically like an RB or something kind of drives itself we ended up uh putting a sketch up there this would give us about you know 400 uh square feet a little over 400 square feet of uh of of a command center that would enable us to uh enhance our Communications Central Iz command and control uh rapid deployment in case of any kind of uh actual uh event out there and um you know assistant chief uh Frank Fernandez has really been uh the center point of this and uh and doing this and I'll I'll I'll hand it over to him who can better answer any questions that that you may have good evening Frank Fernandez assistant chief of police operations um see the diagram up there uh I'm going to go through the unit from uh right to left and kind of let you know what's in there uh what the capabilities are but this is a standalone system and I call it a system because it's more than what you see here um that can be used that can be self-sufficient it used for a prolonged amount of time without any uh any any connections or any other needs um also able to handle any critical incidents that's thrown at us whether locally or or any other agency that may ask for the help uh and it had to be versatile so we started by looking at different manufacturers different concepts we visited different local agencies federal and state that had these type of units and uh Deputy Chief and I made a decision that this was the best unit that meets our mission profile and uh increases our operational Readiness so if we can go back to to the sketch i' like to go over the unit and give you a little bit of of a u of an overview it is a 42 foot uh system it's a fifth wheel like the mayor stated connects to our to our pickup truck in the back it is has two slide outs which are electrical in nature and it is a 50 amp capability uh type of hookup and it has um it's insulated for both cold and heat it has one conference room with 13 seats available it has a vestibule in the middle and an incident command area with five workstations three 13,500 BTU air conditioners on the roof and a 12,000 kilowatt generator if we go from right to left you're looking at the front of the unit to the right the first box or the first square that you see looks like a room it's not actually a room that's actually a an area where the generator uh is stationed and uh storage also inside there there's some electrical components and some spare tires if you move to the left of that you will see the main conference room with the two slide outs what's called opposing slide outs so they slide out from from either side extending that area to a larger area and in that conference room it'll have like I said capability for 13 persons table in the middle which six chairs and bench benches on both sides with televisions on the on both sides of the slide outs if you move to the left of that you'll see the center piece what we call the vestibule the vestibule will be the area where the person controlling the command center will be stationed and there will also be a galley there small Galley containing a microwave um and a small refrigerator it'll also have the equipment rack housing all of our computers and all our the brain of the uh the brain of the uh of the command post to the left of that or all the way to the back on the left you'll see the incident command workstation it is a five position workstation and in there you have uh computers in each station with monitors and it'll give us the capability to work in a simple configuration or a UniFi command configuration where we would have other agencies involved if needed in addition to to the mobile command post and we call this a system because it comes with an accessory trailer that is also is it is it loaded up okay so this this command system uh will have barricades to protect it it'll have lighting to light up the the uh the environment around the uh the command bus or the command trailer it'll have cones it'll have tables it'll have chairs we pick it up and we go and we deliver wherever you set it it's basically a police station on wheels that will just incredibly enhance our capabilities and give us give us the ability to go to that next level and be able to you know to manage any critical incident whether it'll be a fire uh uh an aircraft crash anything of any magnitude can be handled from here any questions to the chair go ahead Mr re uh Chief rnis thank you Chief Gil thank you Chief Diaz thank you sir Mr Mayor thank you for bringing um that level of professional to our Police Department I also want to reiterate here in the legislation this uh piece of equipment is expensive it's $560,000 but what's amazing is this is not coming out of City coffers this is coming out of grant funding and uh I wna I want to thank the Command Staff even though it's a lot of money this is not coming out of our budget thank you for busting your butts and getting this done I I can't wait to see it um by when will it be ready we are shooting for early early hurricane season looking at May potentially May May June maybe June July so we're we're still we're we're now in the uh we're now finally uh on the books with them uh we all the only thing that they're requiring from us is is the $60,000 to put us on the uh on the books and start the process uh final payment will be done when it's completed uh so great company to work with and yes we're looking they'll give us a better idea probably in the next two to three months thank you so much I'm not even going to move this because everybody already knows chair go ahead uh Mr M I move couple questions Chief where are we putting this and will this be covered that uh go ahead that let me take care of that one okay um we we're in the midst of trying to create uh a new building and I'm looking at different solutions especially into the little property that we have uh Jason to 117 uh unfortunately when I started to see the cost of the property it went uh spiraling up into couple of million dollars actually more almost $3 million so what I've asked uh the chief and the deputy chief and of course the assistant chief to start looking is to probably look into some type of uh warehousing and leasing space because it's not just this one piece of equipment that we have it's also several other pieces of equipment that we have that we are acquiring um and we need to make sure that that equipment is protected it's not left out for the environment to deal with we already learned what's happened in maintenance with some of the equipment that was bought some time ago it looks like it's older than anything because of the environment that's hit it because not having a place to put it in so I've asked them today to start looking for facility because right now we're not in the position to create the kind of building um because of the cost and so on it doesn't mean we won't in the future it means that we need to prepare for all the equipment that's coming in and making sure that we start putting and protecting it for us so to answer your question it uh we will adjust according to the need and move forward based on that need and I think that's the best way I could put it for you through the chair let me just finish and does this have every Bell and whistle you need or is there anything you're missing no we uh we actually uh Deputy Chief and I took a trip out to the manufacturer we toured the uh the location and and research the best practices the best equipment to put in there we've covered everything we can think of that we will need and then some uh to make sure that we are we are we're not just the standard basic so we we're moving for for years to come we'll be ready for for years to come this is could you tell them a couple of the clients that uh yes uh we're looking uh this this particular outfit out of central Pennsylvania uh has worked closely with the uh US Department of Defense uh every Branch uh you know creating these uh command posts uh all federal agencies to include locally the CBP has a very similar unit not too far from here for for dis pastors uh and many law enforcement agencies throughout the country I actually got to walk do a walk through to uh through one that was being built for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and a very similar uh quality and amazing workmanship uh and we're happy what we saw we're happy with the way they maintained uh their plant and and how they make progress through different stations very methodical uh way of of building these things out and they also include the client throughout the building process to make sure that we get um you know frequent updates and and we're able to visit if we want to during the building process so it's a partnership and we liked what we saw we like the way we were treated there very good thank you like Chief excellent job thanks guys I appreci just to give you some some highlights real quick uh among some of the things that we have we're obviously going to have a starlink that's going to give us uh satellite Communications both the internet uh VoIP and all that kind of of things that we may need uh it has a um a mast in the back that can go up to about uh 25 to 30 feet uh that is going to have a a lighting system uh plus a camera system uh that basically reaches out Far Far Away uh we have a device on the inside that would enable us to get just through simple handhelds enable us to connect multiple uh Radio Systems into one from multiple departments right so especially if we go out of the county to do something we could connect uh multiple uh Communications uh a a plethora of monitors and stuff on the inside that would enable us to look at everything from local to international news to our video cameras in and around our area so uh we are basically getting it with all the bells and whistles needed uh to to be able to uh function as a as a police department Mr P have by real quick Ju Just real quick this was the the state senator that helped us with this was Brian AA correct it was the the state senator was Brian Aila and the uh representative Perez the speaker of the house was the other on the on the representative side all right well both of them together they did a good job along with uh the team uh our lobbying team to make sure that was Secure uh because other other other entities did not meet the same fate that we did thank God uh so that's where we're at to answer your question also everything that could be put into this unit I was very clear every type of communication every type of camera that we could use every type of linkage uh so when we're in a command situation that we hope we have this and never end up but we know better that something will always take place so I'd rather be prepared and as time goes on and things get improved we keep improving too that also keeps the safety not only our citizens but also of our officers and First Responders so I wanted to make sure you guys understood that if you haven't seen the 4 450 the back you got to go by and check it out it is the one that's going to pull the the the dly that's a couple of the officers are trying to make sure that they drive that around and uh I'm trying to hold back on that one so um so it's actually really good and we're doing could you also mention the other two units that are coming that uh we went out for uh well we recently the trailer that so we recently acquired um a couple of camera uh trailers of video trailers that enable us to basically put it anywhere around the city uh we believe that it'll be here for our first event uh of November 11th we're hoping to receive delivery here between uh Thursday and Friday of it is basically a system one of the things that we're doing uh just to be judicious with the money of the citizens of Sweetwater and the State of Florida is that whatever we are buying we're doing it with multi-year uh contracts to ensure that you know we're getting the best bank for our buck right so for the next three years complete service everything from uh down links to storage of video and everything else that we need this would enable us to connect it to this command post enable us to connect it downstairs it will connect over with with our Motorola uh command Central aware which is part of our Cad and RMS system that we're getting so uh all that system will be interconnected uh and these are coming here pretty soon and uh oh yes and and and let me not forget that we are we're also we also obtained a drone that now gives us the ability to fly at night so we did H we do have a drone uh it's a it's a much it's a smaller drone but you can only fly during the day now we have a drone that is allowed to fly at night and has infrared uh and uh everything that we need to ensure that you know we have the tools necessary to combat crime and make our citizens safe thank you thank you so I believe we have a motion and I'll second this item we call Madam clerk yes commissioner yes commissioner Yan yes commissioner re yes commissioner Diaz yes commissioner via yes president Ray yes he passes thank you madam clerk to staff staff item e a resolution of City Commission of the city of Sweetwater approving software as a service agreement with Sarah software Inc providing for Authority providing for an effective date mayor Diaz want to go ahead and get it yes uh so uh once again uh Noel Gil Deputy Chief and uh this is this is actually a a a program it's an application for the officer phone uh which is getting paid for by the uh margorie stowman Douglas public safety act so it's no it's no investment to the city currently this is a uh for the next uh still year and a half that's left till the end of fiscal year 26 it's being funded by the state directly paid for by the state but there's obviously a contract that we need to get into hence the reason that we're here today and what this does is basically it gives the office uh the ability through their phone and eventually through the command Central aware as well because it also ties in with Motorola's command Central aware uh so that the officers are receiving real time information that is being put out uh by the our agency other agencies in in cases of mass uh attack or some kind of mass casualty event or some kind of crisis that is going out uh it's a really interesting program uh looks really uh nice on the on the phone uh there are already multiple agencies within the county that are utilizing this and this would give us inner uh Communications with all these other agencies again it's you know it's something that will uh interconnect with our systems and uh right now they don't know if they're going to get um if the state will look to to uh renegotiate the contract with them maybe for another two or three years uh that is up and coming but we'll revisit that at that time and if it's worth the while then you know we'll present it to you again uh if the price is right and uh basically again something that will uh increase Public Safety any questions through chair go ahead yeah this is going to be um what's the contract on this is going to be one year so currently is all the way to the end of fiscal year 26 uh it it it gets paid directly uh by the state to the Sarah Corporation right so it doesn't uh it doesn't um uh we're not basically charging anything nor are we receiving the grant money okay but we are signing a contract with them uh for this time period to the end of the uh current contract with the state do we have to obviously we're going to have to pay in the long term right potentially yes potentially this would be a payment in the long term uh right now they're they're uh believing that uh every three years would be approximately uh $9,000 19,000 9,000 9,000 right so we would look at it obviously negotiate you know we haven't negotiated with them yet because you know at this point it's it's moot uh because you know we're we're going to wait till this cont and you know also look at the feedback of what our officers give us okay so basically you guys going to do like a try it out first and see what happen if it work yeah we're going to do a trial for the next you know around 18 months that's left appreciate it thank you move second call M clerk yes commiss yes commissioner re yes Commission commission Diaz yes commissioner via yes commissioner Martin yes president Ray yes passes thank you madam clerk moving over to staff item f a resolution of the city Commission of the city of Sweetwater establishing limit limited term early retirement program for certain Law Enforcement Officers providing for terms of qualifications providing for Authority providing for an effective date nomination and consideration and oh no it's moved over for an effective date um let me see here commissioner vwell thank you Mr President uh to my colleagues in the commission to those in the audience and watching on TV we've been talking about this for two years this is uh the early retirement window that we've been discussing offering the early retirement window to members of our agency that qualify that have over 20 years of service offering five years of service and five years of insurance if you remember in 2016 the city of Sweetwater offered excuse me a similar retirement option window back then was seven years of service and seven years of insurance and ultimately uh it occurred also pass presidents in the city of Miami in 1991 uh and again in 1996 you had a retirement window where approximately 140 police officers decided to uh take the retirement option window saving the city of Miami uh you know I think it was close to100 million at the time the city of North Miami also took a retirement window not only for their law enforcement but also for their civilian and they did that last year uh the mayor was gracious enough to allow me to to sit down with our finance department director um with our Consultants um we looked at the numbers and we decided to take a deeper dive to get actual figures and we decided to use the actuary for the police pension and the act the actuary determined that offering five years of service to five members of our agency and five years of insurance would be a cost savings if you look at exhibit two of approximately $971,000 182 so we're talking about basically saving a million dollars over a 7-year period if we offer uh a window of five years of service five years of insurance Now understand that there are only five members of our agency that qualify for this one of the members has 30 years of service within our agency and the way that our retirement system works is they can only receive 100% of their pay they cannot go higher than that which means for example our most senior officer would only need three years and two months so we don't need to offer that officer the five years of service our second the second uh senior officer who qualifies has 29 years of service and this study was done uh about I think three months ago and that officer only needs four years of service the three additional officers uh would qualify for the five years of service so I've been talking about this for two years um I sat with the mayor uh before um he was sworn in as mayor we we decided that it would be it would be best for him to take a look at this so he could digest it um I most certainly you know agreed to delay this process delay this presentation we have been talking about this and most certainly we've been kicking this can down the road so um I also spoke to our City attorney and our City attorney advised me um that well you know what I don't want to speak on behalf of the City attorney I I'll let the City attorney um through the chair if the City attorney can if I can turn the floor to City attorney because I believe he has a legal opinion on this item and then I'd like to speak after if I can so I can yield to him Mr President yes sir Mr attorney Mr attorney so just very briefly um my opinion here concerns the question as to whether this may possibly rise to a mandatory aspect of bargaining and thus whether the passage by the commission would constitute an unfair Labor practice this is not an opinion as to the merits of this resolution nor is it an opinion as to the Finance of the resolution I have not done the numbers I have no idea whether the numbers make sense or not okay so generally speaking uh there are various items with regard to unions that are considered mandatory aspects of bargaining those are aspects that affect really you know either the entire bargaining unit or substantial set of the bargaining unit um and rather than one officer alone so if you are discussing with one particular officer you who might you know in terms that person's employment then that as long as it doesn't violate the the contract then you're fine once you start adding multiple officers to it then you're in the area at that point of um mandatory bargaining with the the union um this uh the Florida Supreme Court has ruled that quote retirement pensions and benefit that are mandatory subjects of collective bargaining close quote that's city of Tallahassee versus perk um a First District Court of Appeal case from 1981 and then uh also and affirmed by the Supreme Court in 1981 the Florida Supreme Court and also Scott versus Williams uh from 2013 which is also a uh a state supreme court decision uh this also goes back to nlrb versus habberman um nlrb versus cats nlrb versus Sac construction that's National Labor Relations Board and these are all either um United States Supreme Court cases or um the either fifth or 11th Circuit Court of Appeal cases depending on what time Florida was in which of the two so um does this constitute a uh a mandatory aspect of bargaining in my opinion yes it does um because it affects more than one officer and the the aspects of of the bargaining are done excuse me the aspects of the plan are done in such a way that the city would realize a one supposedly a $1 million savings and in exchange for that benefits of the city the PBA might want to extract a second concession aside above and beyond simply just um the early retirement of the officers uh so I do believe that it it it probably does constitute that I also do do want to explain what a legal opinion actually is a legal opinion is the opinion of one lawyer going back to the first day of law school one of those one of the phrases you hear constantly is that it's not the law until a judge says it's the law no matter what you think no matter what the statute says no matter what the Constitution says or the charter or ordinances or a contract until a court says something it's simply just an opinion however I'm in charge of making legal opinions on behalf of the city and my opinion is that this should be submitted to the PBA as an as a mandatory aspect of bargaining may I take over again okay go ahead thank you Mr attorney uh and and I just want to ask one question uh did uh the PBA uh lead counsel call you this afternoon no sir okay so um so I spoke to the PBA lead counsel uh Andrew Axel red um and I asked him to give you a call uh because it is um he actually gave me permission to say this I just wanted him to speak to you that way you can verify the conversation his exact words were the PBA stands behind this legislation 1,000% % the PBA does not believe this is an unfair Labor practice uh and I said well can you please call our City attorney that way he can hear it and that can quell any concerns so um I I'm most certainly reach out to him thank you for your legal opinion uh but I I did my due diligence and I contact the PBA and he spoke um and he made that statement I also want to reiterate that the city of Sweetwater offered a similar window in 2016 and the only way that this becomes an issue is if somebody goes ahead and Grieves this I don't believe that it's an unfair Labor practice because it's talking about officers eligibility the only officers that are eligible to take this retirement window based on this legislation is anybody that has more than 20 years of service and we're talking about a $970,000 savings basically a million dollars over 7 years years now before I go ahead and yield the floor I want to make this abundantly clear that not only I'm well aware that everybody here supports our officers and nobody there's not one elected official in Miami day County that's been more supportive of Law Enforcement Officers than our mayor that's hands down he's been the biggest suppor of law enforcement and our firefighters uh hands down as a former policeman I'm obviously biased towards this but I want to make it abundantly clear this is not an emotional decision for me this is a business decision per our budget a brand new rookie officer cost the city $100,000 and right now Sergeant George Alvarez cost the city $250,000 it's a business decision um all of these off officers averaged out cost the city roughly $137,000 a year less I'm sorry $137,000 a year more than just hiring a rookie policeman these five officers and I won't speak on their behalf I'm going to give my opinion have suffered through a lot in this city Iggy manol has been a police officer for 44 years and he's a freaking Legend in this town sou Fernand has been a policeman for 32 years he was a SWAT operator hell of a SWAT operator K9 operator dedicated cop dive cop um and they've gone through the woes in this agency I also want to reiterate that every single member that this is being offered to these five law enforcement officers at one point or another were supervisors in this agency igy menac call has been an officer a Corporal a sergeant a lieutenant three times a captain now he's an officer on midnights and I want to make it abundantly clear this has no bearing on our current Command Staff because my opinion is the best Command Staff we've ever had in this city since 1941 and I challenge any Command Staff to be better than this one and I'll say that to anybody and the reality is that when this Command Staff came in when this mayor came in it is not fair to go ahead and demote an existing Command Staff to majors and and lieutenants just because you have senior guys that's not fair to those incumbent Command Staff members but it's also not fair to these five senior season cops and I'm going to tell you I've spoken to them privately individually they are exhausted they are unfortunately considered dinosaurs and police work they started this job when we didn't have cell phones when we had pagers and smoke signals they started their this career when they had six shooters not semi-automatic weapons it's a young man's game and I love them wholeheartedly but I most certainly have seen the troubles the tribulations that they've gone through with previous command staffs now as a business decision I see that it's costing the city less money if we simply offer this buyout but I also want to make it abundantly clear that there are options i' I've asked the city commission if they've had an appetite for this and I've talked about this for two years I sat down at Great Lengths with the mayor uh the mayor has his reservations which I most certainly respect and again reiterate there's nobody who's more supportive of law enforcement he's allowed me to sit down with Scott and by the way Scott you're doing a kickass job job man and I appreciate you um if we don't have an appetite for a five years of service and five years of insurance for every year that we knock out we save more money so if we decide to offer four years of service and four years of insurance we're saving $700,000 if we decide to knock out and offer three years of service and three years of insurance now it's $2.4 million savings over s years now I'm a business owner and an entrepreneur and the bottom line is always money but I also look at the longevity I also see that their experience is not going to be able to be replaced but unfortunately this is a young man's game and police work nowadays and these guys are exhausted they're beat they're injured and I for one know that everybody up here supports law enforcement I know this is this city no City in Miami day County of South Florida is more supportive of our Police Department than us I want to be able to say thank you to these guys for going through the suck and they've all gone through the suck this Command Staff has been gracious to them Command Staff has been nothing but gentlemen to our senior guys but ultimately we are the stewards of the city and we hold the purse and the responsibility to our residents I think that this is not all we no long have a fiduciary obligation but I honestly believe that this is a financially responsible decision if we go ahead and open up a retirement window it doesn't mean they're all going to take it but if they do we're gonna save money so I only ask Mr President that after I yield before we call the vote just let me have a few final words and with that I yield I anyone have through the chair go ahead my Mr M you've made some uh some interesting comments uh Mr Yan we've uh we haven't really been kicking this can around you've been kicking in this can around for years now when this mayor came in office and and it's not personal like came it's business for me when this mayor came in office we didn't hire the missing officers that we needed because we had a problem with our pension and we bargained in good faith with the with the PBA if this was an issue for the PBA to bargain with they would have brought it up you should have brought it up you've been 10 acious with this I can't deny that you you're like a dog to a bone dude you're like tenacious with it this issue never came up we bargained in good faith our officer signed off on an agreement and now you're asking this commission to come in and say let's throw a million dollar at this when they didn't ask for it at at the table Scott if you would be so kind as to come up to the podium please and give us the reality of the numbers please explain to us the numbers cuz if there's anyone I trust with the numbers here it's you what would be the savings to this community in 5 years if all of them took the buyout and if only four and not Lieutenant Alvarez took the buy out the fiveyear savings with the fiveyear buyout is $237,100 after 7 years because of the savings of years six and seven but you have officers that are 65 years old is that officer going to be here 72 if you do nothing probably not if you do something probably not so that's why you look at fiveyear windows and fiveyear savings because the ages of your officers and knowing who is going to take this and who's not going to take it knowing what we know about who's probably not going to take it the number comes down to 76,000 after 5 years it's not a huge financial windfall for the city it cost you a million dollars almost in your pension immediately that you have to pay off over the five years at a couple hundred, a year and hope the market keeps performing so that you can get back and be having a minor savings at the end of five years unless of course only four of them take it and then you're you know really really down so um I don't think it's a great deal I don't think the savings are worth it um that's my opinion thank you Scott um I'd like to go on and talk about talk about our pension I've got the GRS report here that was uh completed in October of 23 if you go to the back of the report and I've got copies for you guys so you can look at you can look at the numbers that I'm talking about in 2019 you can pass that pass that down in 2019 the city's obligation on the police department was 9 $972,000 and 23 it was $1.7 Million we've got an average increase of 18% a year that means every five years our pension cost is doubling if you ran your business like this you'd be out of business in no time so this is not a good financial decision for us at any turn let's talk about your chapter 185 distribution I wrote this ordinance for you guys I got you 50% of the state money so you guys can get this Share account money in the second page here it says after the money reaches 40% of covered payroll all the money reverts back to the city if we keep pushing these numbers everyone will lose the 185 money our collective bargaining agreement that we just signed off with with you guys that you guys voted in your contribution went down from 12 to 10 who do you think pays for the extra two we do next year it goes down another point and the following year another point we're taking that hit the math just isn't there guys $76,000 is just not worth it for us how do you replace 25 years of service when you go to the doctor you want the doctor that's got three years on the job or the doctor that's got 25 when that guy shows up on the scene the young guys they look to those guys for guidance when we only have young guys who's going to guide those guys and you know what they're all eligible to leave right now if they want to retire they can retire but the math just isn't there for us financially it's not a good business decision and with that I yield any anyone else have something want thank you Mr President uh commissioner M you know that I love you and I respect you I appreciate your tenacity I appreciate your dedication and the reality is that in this Democratic Republic in this beautiful system we can't always agree I believe that you are a retirement Guru which is why I Lobby to make sure that you were the chair of our police pension board even though you're a fireman and I'm a policeman that's okay I'm not going to hold that against you um but I disagree with the numbers I disagree with the numbers wholeheartedly because one I look at the numbers that were presented to me by GRS GRS are actuary they came out with actual data not hypothesis and as much as I respect Scott as much as Scott is doing a phenomenal job and I'll continue to reiterate Scott is doing a phenomenal job Scott gave us a hypothesis Scott gave us an opinion these GRS numbers are fact they're fact-based it's data it's not emotion but I also want to reiterate I'll give you an example Lieutenant George Alvarez and detective Wilson Medina have been on the pension board for the last 15 years they brought the pension from $3 million to what it is today 20s something million dollar and with their tenacity and experience that you're talking about they were voted out of office by officers who have two years on in our agency right wrong or indifferent politics or whatever the agency no longer wanted their experience in that position the agency members voted them out of office and I respect that Democratic process the majority of the officers voted for two members without s Lieutenant Alvarez and detective Medina Lieutenant Alvarez and detective Medina were also our PDA reps for 15 years and they were voted out of office by the members of this agency what that tells me is that the temperature of the agency the rank and file says thank you for your service but we just want to go a different route and I respect that I may not agree with the decision that was made but they voted and they decided and as much as I agree with you as far as experience is concerned I've worked with these guys hand inand I've bled with them we have gone through the suck together sou Fernandez deployed to New York for September 11th and was there for 30 days dealing with that hell and that horror so I've watched these guys work over the last 27 years here in the city of Sweetwater I know that they're great cops igy menac call is a legend in police work so when I look at the actual IAL numbers if we look at the numbers and we don't have an appetite for 5 years of service we can say well guess what if we even go down to two years of service and two years of insurance guys the savings is $3.5 million these aren't my numbers this is not my hypothesis not my opinion this is the actuary giving us raw data so before we call a vote does anybody have an appetite to lower the years of service and lower the years of insurance and maybe we can actually get this thing done through the chair also we get the mayor first yeah go ahead thank you let me see how I could do this because to me business is business friendship is friendship but there's times where you deal with people that are friends but business is also in the way commissioner yaneva I know that you've been trying to deal with this for a very long time and I understand your passion and I en I endorse your passion and I endorse the will of this body to always support and help those that protect us and keep the norm of life in the city as we were whether it's those two gentlemen sitting right there that I consider personal friends for many years and by the way when 911 occurred I was up there with them leading that with a team of people and went from the city so I've been along with them for a while and for many years so I understand well was in play but the thing that you guys might not know you know how the sweet waterer pension got Revisited again a young man back in the day was told by sedoro quas we need to start the pension in the city of Sweetwater because there was one and it didn't continue on for the police so I went to Southeast bank that was told to go to and to see about the account and we were negative $75 from there we started many many years ago so I don't know if you guys knew that and we took that pension by the time we finished it was already over $800,000 in the years that I was involved so I say this for a Reason Not only am I the mayor and the administrator and the person that does the negotiation in the city due to our Charter but I'm also the person that did in those seats in the past so I know the job and I know how hard it is to make these decisions but the one thing I'm going to tell you right now why I do not support this is it because it touches the pensions if the person of the years that they have and I'm not again not saying not great individuals they're outstanding individuals but based on one commiss MAA said very clearly and what Scott said this deal and I tend to concur because I'm having a phone call tonight with the PBA because a shter says explicitly that I Am The Negotiator of this city with a PBA none of you directly or indirectly by yourselves can negotiate with a PBA that is a violation of the charter clean and simple Mr attorney if I'm wrong you tell me the mayor is the head of the executive branch of government and executes the laws of the city and acts essentially as the negotiating person on behalf of contracts for the city the city commission then takes the proposals from the mayor and um either approves or disapproves those proposals so essentially yes you are correct thank you and I say this because I don't want anything to happen or anything to get done wrong up here I respect each and one of you and I think I have never failed in my word which any of you because I understand what is entitled to be done here now what I will do because I think it's not fair for you to be brought into this situation like this and once again I'm going to contact the PBA directly because that temples on our agreement and I know there's a PBA representative sitting right there that cannot be done and I will not stand for it and I will not allow that to be done and that's to the point because I don't believe that we could least lose the control that we're moving forward all working together to get something done now if it may political sense it's one thing but it's got to make the sense of financial IAL it's got to make all the senses to help not only the gentlemen involved but the citizens of Sweet Water at all times and you are sworn to protect the citizens of the city of Sweetwater as they are so with that said I believe that there something like this to do in good faith I will look to see and talk to these gentlemen myself as The Negotiator of the city as you've entrusted me many times to do and I will try to see where they lie on this issue but I will tell you right now cutting years of pension in this unstable Market that we're looking into I don't know which way it's going to be going through in fact I want to see who could bring their crystal ball tell me which way it's going to go because nobody could do they don't even know what's going to happen tomorrow with the elections and that could determine our market so yeah if the pension continues to receive as commissioner Marti said this an extraordinary return yeah man it looks good but what if it doesn't what if it goes the other way then the citizens of Sweetwater end up owing that tap to pay those and by the way for everybody's information the payment that is done is not has to be covered fully by the city it all depends after Services what's left over that could then be given to the payment to make that pension as whole as possible so that means there is no insurances that that could be paid if the situation goes astray so we got to make sure always that that pension and I know and let me be very clear because I don't want anybody to take this wrong I know everybody that is in this day will protect not only the CI re water the penion and everything this is a matter of flavor at this point to decide which way goes until the point of negotiation takes place then it is now the law of the city is reward so I wanted to be clear on this because I've been straightforward I have never pulled a punch I've said I've negotiated in the sense of trying to figure out which is the best Solutions but it's gotten to the point already that this cannot not become a bargaining situation up here and I've been very quiet until I got to that point I think if this is a vote and you want to vote on it with what was stated according to our attorney you could do so if you want but I suggest right now that this is something that I will take up as the mayor and look at those gentlemen and decide if there could be a possible B because obviously if they don't want to be here I understand but I want to hear that from them directly and because 25 years 30 years of service in a place those are my senior guys and I respect them as each one of you do and the citizens do too as the younger rookies and those that have been in for a couple of years do also so you're right commissioner re I wholeheartedly agree that the men are incredibly good and been through a lot as many of our officers have but at this point I think it's my physicial duty if this board so THS I will move forward and deal with this matter myself with these gentlemen I will bring back to this commission if and all I see a negotiation will come out of it but I will tell you right now giving away pension years to the citizens of that the money comes from the citizens of Sweetwater I don't see it happening I don't see the math and Scott was very precise and um M miti you call on the guru a pension well I do too uh I think he's incredibly good in in what he does but at this point we all got to make make sure that what we swore for and that's protecting the charter and the City of Sweet Water always so I'm asking you at this point to drop this item or you decide to take a vote that's on you I can't tell you what to do that's your decision I'm just telling you that if you STI continue this path I don't want to be moving forward that way if possible please thank you chair Mr pin um you might rebuttal that real quick I'd like to hang on uh Ralph and and Mr Mayor I would never tell you what to do but I just want you to be cautious because what you're insinuating is that you're going to go to the pension with a reopener no that's not what I said well potentially no I would never say that I want to be clear just just potentially so um Mr attorney would we be open to a u from the general employees because we have a number of General employees that are above 25 years and they could say where's my bu where's my buyout that is a theoretical possibility yes so the the Pandora's Box here is a lot bigger than we think oh I may I through the chair yeah yeah with that I gu may I okay I want to make it abundantly clear Mr Mayor I would never violate Charter and when I contacted the lead counsil of the PBA it was asking the PBA not not negotiating I was asking the PBA their legal position on this because I wanted to make sure when I have our City attorney telling me his legal opinion and what he believes in unfair Labor practice well the people who would be moving forward with that unfair Labor practice is a PBA so I want to make it abundantly clear during the entire PBA negotiation I sat in all the meetings and and just reuting what commissioner miti said everyone knew my stance I've been talking about this for two years at no point in time did I ever interject in the PB negotiations at no point in time did I ever ask the mayor please can you include this because I thought my opinion was this was not a PBA negotiated item this is something that we have the purview to do so I want to make it abundantly clear I never negotiated with the PBA nor will I negotiate on behalf of the city of Sweet Water that's not my job that's your job my job is to give you support you know give you advice I mean if I could I mean you've been an elected official for 35 years and the president of the United States Donald Trump said your name at a rally I mean who the hell am I so I don't think anybody can give you advice and give you my feelings and emotions but I want to make it abundantly clear and no point in time did I ever do that so I I just want app uh and as as far as the numbers are concerned I think that we're on on Polar Opposites here I disagree with everyone wholeheartedly I got the numbers from the actuary and I also want to reiterate every time that I've spoken about numbers in my seven and a half years here have I ever been wrong every time I talk about numbers when I said the former mayor's hiding money I was ridiculed and then the mayor mayor Diaz his first meeting said there's missing money and everybody up here said Marcos is right so we're talking about numbers I think I've proven the fact that my my past performance record I know numbers I wholeheartedly disagree with the finance director I disagree with the city attorney I disagree with everyone's opinion whoever's against this I respect you and I love you guys we're just we're just we're not in agreement now if anybody doesn't like the fiveyear option like I said if you guys sit there and you start knocking out years of service because if you only offer two years of of service and two years of insurance it's now a $3.5 million savings so I leave this up to you guys I leave this on your conscience um you know if you guys don't have an appetite for it I wholeheartedly respect you and yes I am tenacious I I don't have to every piece of legislation but the reality is that when I'm passionate about something I'm going to present it in a professional manner I'm going to come with data not my opinion I'm going to come with data from our actuary and here's the last thing I'm going to say if we don't believe our actuary then we need to fire our actuary the actuary gave us these numbers so thank you for everyone and with that I yield you have any anyone has something to say you have a motion on the item motion motion dies all right so moving over to I'm going to move over our last item that was added one second which is item J it's going to be a resolution of the city Commission of the city of Sweet Water authorizing purchase of ammunition from Florida bullet Inc providing for funding providing for authorization and providing for an effective date mayor Diaz as you could tell uh it's a simple explicit item we need to get the bullets for training we want to make sure our officers have adequate round amounts of rounds to that they could uh uh practice with Mr I was going to ask the deputy chief to come up and at least say something I saw you don't want to talk to him okay I don't blame I roll call Madam Clerk yes yes yes yes yes yes it passes thank you and now moving oh oh got to go to G moving over back to G nomination consideration and appointment uh to the Planning and Zoning Board anyone none nomination and consideration and appointment of members to the neighborhood Improvement Advisory Board no that's s and nomination consideration appointment of the youth Advisory Board none moving over to reports Mr Mayor go ahead um I know some of you saw the ronelli park I got a bet with commissioner vuel because he says that somebody's going to hit the ball over the uh the net you haven't seen so hit you're GNA lose well run the bases well only bet a dollar it's a wager by the way so uh it the field is coming together as you saw it's really a professional professional field I'm very proud of it if if you haven't gone by go by it's got the Seal of the city 52 feet in diameter uh I think it could be seen out of space maybe but uh it's uh important that we understand that we're keeping our promise from day one that we're giving the best possible Park uh to our children and and those that are going to be using it um we have worked with everything we got security cameras that are come in and Mario's worked hard to make sure we put those security cameras all over the parks uh we want to make sure that everybody's protected now the one thing we have to understand that that's a Turf that we need to protect it's not one that you could go with food and everything else on it that's where you have the give and take either you have the beautiful fields that are made with this which is every worse now getting these type of fields um but at the same time it's a different type of taking care of so hopefully I I pray that we could finish up before the end of the year as you know there's been a lot of delays in getting uh the things done uh but we're almost done as far as Carlo uh Park we should have that finish pretty soon I just got the the last bit I was waiting on and I'm going to finish to we had to redo one of the courts I'm not proud of that uh unfortunately it was not done to our specification but even with that and what we're going to do to repair it we're still going to come in under the lws um excuse me under the next highest bidder that would have got the job if we didn't give it to this person so we didn't do bat in negotiations we just want to get it done our residents have been asking for that part and when it gets down even my own family is asking me every day for that Park so it doesn't get worse than that so uh but we'll have it soon and uh we'll be having pickle ball craze is uh out of control I saw the heads pop up when uh I said that and and um we will be working with several of the different teams uh to be sponsoring some of the baseballs and and field and stuff I had just uh brought on board a program manager so you know uh for all the sports that are going to be taking place in the fields professional baseball player by working for the city of Sweetwater former professional place while working for the city of Sweetwater and also knows all the other uh Sports too and we needed to do that so we could make sure that we could give the ultimate service to to our Citizen and I know that's something the the birthday board all commissioner Diaz uh you asked for and we wanted to make sure we got the best Services possible uh I want to thank the park director uh she did an incredible job along with uh sister Park director uh for Halloween along with our maintenance crew that did an incredible job uh preparing the park we doubled the amount from last year uh Chief uh assistant chief Fernandez is uh is very well versed in County crowds especially we had to do it and many of the events in the city of Miami and I would calculate we were looking at 4,000 more or less that we calculated went in and out of the uh of the Halloween event that is a record for the city of Sweetwater we have not seen every of those numbers so I wanted to tell you I tell everybody thank you now the event as everybody's calling it Balor Fest it is here thank you for all your support I know several of you reached out and said what could I do I'll be talking to you to to help out and anything you can we'll be giving you all the specifications everything about the uh uh event I would tell you that the city of Sweetwater has never seen anything like this and I hope the God everything comes out good I hope the rain stays away but intercal rains are coming in and out the clouds are moving fast so hopefully it's not anything close to wash out we might get a little rain here and there so we got great entertainment we should have our residents out having a good time but doing the most important thing which is saying thank you to our veterans and those that are currently serving and those that will be serving in the future so basically that's the latest the rest of you I think I've talked to you on all the other issues and hand and I know I'm probably missing a couple of things but I see the hunger in the in the face so I I try to keep it limited oh by the way in the Halloween once again I'll I'll repeat the trophies are there and I will be giving them out on either a special event that we do with all the employees or the December uh meeting whatever comes first okay so I know that uh yeah we you'll be surprised the competition was out of control I have never seen the talent anywhere and by the way all the residents I'm sure you heard it were amazed and thankful um but let me tell you something there was one one of you that had an a trunk or treat that had some really really scary things in it that I went up to it it wasn't a lot and it wasn't much but what it was scary so with that thank you for your participation thank you for your support your help on the event we could put another you know check mark on another great event and many more to come with God's help thank you awesome thank you Mr Mayor uh moving over to commissioner's report to the share go ahead Miss uh um mayor I saw that you know the big antenna that we have here the US Antenna that we have all the way up that normally used to have like a red light you know because it's so high if they don't have it anymore it's not working you know which one I'm talking about the one that we have right here in this building yes right here the one that is next to it the the the big one that we have okay I'll check that now yeah just for safety reason I just noticed that uh you know normally right all the way to the top it have like a red light flash in I will check it out it in fact so just to uh I let you know that was about it uh we send somebody to check out please real fast the light okay for safety reason sir that's what I noticed thank you yes mayor I'm Sor can go ahead go ahead mayor are we going to have the um first Friday of every month with the farm chair for next year again the same program I have not looked into that that's Stephanie bua that that's running that because they asked me and I mean right the corner the residents yeah I I'll I'll let you know yeah please I will let you know as soon as I get that uh because Farm share is very connected it was s water and very supportive very supportive yeah but you know we got December right around the corner so we got the last one this year so thank you man I got it app people appreciate that oh I know they do and we getting a lot of people more than before and by the way I appreciate each one of you going out there and taking turns and going and and helping and U making sure that uh there's months that seem more needy than others but the need is there so we'll continue to do that as long as we can yes sir and by the way we getting a lot of people from other it's not only for Sweet Water yeah I saw that too it's it's incredible and then they appreciate the city thank you sir thank you anyone else for commission report no uh city clerk's report none oh we got here okay city attorney's report very just very quickly uh we have reached the final settlement with a owners of the 300 building and I have not briefed the mayor on this but I received an email today saying that they have all the signatures in place except one that should they should have gotten her today after 6 so hopefully sometime before noon tomorrow we'll have a fully executed set that I can forward to you for your review thank you sir okay it this has been a heavy lift it's been a nightmare it's been okay yeah nightmare but we got in the in the right you guys asked me to to stay firm and I appreciate those that did go and that were in the here in the way you spoke I think uh make sure that they understood that we were not kidding if something's going to be done in the city of Sweetwater and it's done the way it's done to malice and to hurt our citizens we will prosecute or do whatever it is to the highest level of the law and that's something how many changes did you have to do we've been through at least 10 separate drafts how many 10 at least and I know because I keep each one of the drafts in my file so they're all there but at least 10 separate drafts how about the second one oh um the K2 matter uh we're right there I just need to uh to speak to their lawyer tomorrow she emailed me today but I wasn't able to talk to her today but uh we're we're there I'm pretty sure that's on the on the street signs that they dedicated uh that they would pay for us and that's what we just want to make sure and I make sure that Ralph handled that for me yes sir thank you thank you thank you Mr attorney uh so the following uh reports are have been attached it's a uh police report have a building and Zoning report attached code of compliance report is attached Public Public Works Department report is attached Finance report attached community and elderly service report attached and Parks and Recreations report is attached when order unfinished business new business good of the order motion for jman all in favor any n thank you