County Commission Meeting - Feb 17, 2026

Booing and cheering is not permitted. Thank you for joining us. The meeting will begin shortly. I would wonder why I'm mentioning him in Broward County, because he also served as a state rep, and everything we do in Tallahassee is for the entire state of Florida. Edward Powell was a man of grace. He also passed wisdom and quiet strength, whose presence touched many lives. He lived behind a grieving wife, and we offer our condolences to the family. Teddy J. McCall Sr., and this one was requested by the vice mayor of Aisha Gordon, Oakland Park, in my district. 65, beloved husband, father, son, brother, and grandfather was born October 18, 1960, to the late Hattie Mae Sales and Larry McCall Jr. in Fort Lauderdale. Teddy was an Oakland Park local, as he was well known throughout the city. He was very passionate about family and helping others. He found joy in making others laugh and wasn't afraid to speak his mind. Man of my own heart, he had a generous spirit and would give the shirt off his back, as we would say. To know him was to love him, and he will be truly missed. Mr. Clarence Wright, life well lived in service. Clarence did this by serving in the United States Air Force, first class communications specialist from 1954 to 58, civil leader, civic leader in Broward County for 35 years, and I know vice mayor knows him well also. Broward County Parks, he served in Broward County Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, Broward County Chapter of the NAACP, lifetime member of Florida AMN University, Alumni Association, Broward County Action Agency, Kiwanis of Northeast Broward County, member of Broward County Development Board, served on the Husher Board of Evergreen Missionary Church and Broward County Sheriff Council, Vice President, Dillard High School Band Association. He served well and will be missed by all. I thank you for indulging me this morning. Can you imagine? I don't like it. Too many. Gone too soon. Thank you. I thank you for mentioning Jesse Jackson as well. He was a North Star on moral clarity, on civil rights, and it's going to require a lot of people to step up with his passing. So thank you. Keep hope alive. You know, the one thing you forgot about Jesse Jackson, the most important thing, is he was from Chicago, okay? And being from Chicago, both former Commissioner Tim Ryan and I met with him in Chicago and got the chance to meet him and talk to him. But he is a good man from Chicago. Anybody else? Okay. Let us also honor all the brave men and women who have served and continue to serve in our armed forces, both here and abroad, and thank them for their service. I'd like to pause for a moment of silence. Thank you. Please take your seats. Well, good morning, everybody. And good morning. I'd like to talk to you today. Today's music selection was a South Florida Symphony Orchestra. And Steve Gellar, why don't you do an introduction and introduce these wonderful musicians? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I believe all of you have in front of you a card from the South Florida Symphony Orchestra. This is, as you can see, a string quartet. I will say that when Governor DeSantis did the Doge report saying how Broward County had wasted millions or hundreds or gazillions of dollars, one of the specific examples he gave was our funding of the cultural arts. I respectfully disagree. Funding of the cultural arts is not a waste of money. It is a demonstration by the county that we care about things. Today's musical selection will be hearing one additional piece from the South Florida Symphony Orchestra. Musicians that will be playing are Weifang Chen on violin, David Kertek on violin, Rosa Ortega-Ianelli on the viola, and Kevin Philip Jones on the cello. I'd like to give special thanks to Jacqueline Lorber for facilitating this performance. I'm very happy to be able to provide live music today as a continuation of some of what some of you might remember, might call the Geller series. I think it important. I know every other commissioner plays recorded music, and that's very appropriate. But as the longtime representative to the Cultural Council, I think it's important that we showcase just how talented the artists and the musicians in Broward County are. Special thanks to Phil Dunlap, the Director of Broward County Cultural Division, and Executive Assistant Ava Stringfellow for helping to coordinate today's performance. I see that Ms. Lorber would like to make a few comments. Is that correct? Thank you. Thank you, Senator. We are very honored and privileged to have our concert series at the Parker, where we're the partner in the arts at the Broward Center. Throughout the communities, Weston, Pembroke Pines, our education program permeates almost every school that is in Broward in Title I category. We have a performance program teaching students the business of the arts at Junior Achievement, where 20,000 children go through that program. And this year, we are featuring a very special education program that is based on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, where we have explorers are viewing, a diverse group of students are viewing history through the lens of what happened 250 years ago. And we empower them to take advantage of their role in the civic component of their lives and participate in justice for all. And so today, we are performing the second movement from the Dvorak symphony that we're going to be doing in reflection of that. Tomorrow night, we are at the Parker for part of our 28th season program. And we are grateful to the commission and all of the support that we receive from Phil Dunlap's group, Culture Division, for letting us be under the umbrella of the arts programs that you fund here with great gratitude. Thank you. And now take it away. Would you guys come down for a picture? Come down. We have five proclamations today? No, we don't have any proclamations today. Just want to make sure you're awake. We're going to start by reading the Tuesday morning memo. Would the reading clerk please read the memo? Tuesday agenda memorandum. The following are submitted for your consideration. Consent items are 1 through 27. Public hearing items are 28 through 30. Regular items are 31 through 35. I request the following withdrawals and other modifications to the agenda and note the following additional information. Withdrawals or deferrals, none. Other modifications. Item 30, the board's consideration of the proposed resolution will be based upon Exhibit 1 as proposed by Commissioner Davis, inclusive of the amendment shown in Exhibit 3, which were developed by the county attorney's office in consultation with county administration and the county auditor's office. Scrivener errors. Item 18, the board's consideration of this item is based upon the item with the correction shown on the attached page. Attachment A of Scrivener errors. Move to consent items 34 and 35 to be moved to consent. Additional material items 1A through 1D board appointments. Item 16A, business impact statement submitted by county attorney's office. Item 17A, memo to the board submitted by Office of Management and Budget. Item 31A, project dashboard exhibit submitted by county administration. Thank you. I'd like to go around the dais and see if any commissioners have any polls from the consent agenda. We'll start with Commissioner Rogers. Item 16. Commissioner Furr? No. Commissioner Rick? Item 4 for an abstention. 4? 4. Commissioner Udine? Polls. You're thinking about it. A joke. Commissioner Davis? 27. Okay. I have no polls. We have three from the public? Three polls from the public. We have item 21, 27, and 34. 21, 27, and 34? Correct. Okay. County attorney, would you like to phrase what the motion should read? Yes, sir. Thank you, Mayor. May I just ask administration, has item 35 been physically distributed? If it hasn't, that's okay. We just can't move it to consent. Yeah, I don't know if physical hard copy was distributed or not. Okay. So 35 is the calendar update dealing with the workshop for today, basically postponing it. But technically, you should have the item in front of you before you vote on that. So I'm going to ask if we can please leave 35 off of consent for now. So the consent agenda, then, would consist of items 1 through 27, less the following items. Item 4 was pulled for an abstention. Item 16 was pulled. Item 21 was pulled. And item 27 was pulled. Mr. Mayor, I move approval of the consent agenda as read by the county attorney. I have a second. Second. Second. I have a motion. Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Show that passing 8-0. Let's move on now to the items that were pulled. We'll start with number 4, Commissioner, Senator Rich. Thank you. I serve on the board of the Prior Behavioral Health Coalition, which would be financially impacted if item 4 is approved. I do not receive any compensation for serving on this board. And therefore, I have no actual statutory voting conflict. However, to avoid the appearance of a conflict, I am abstaining on item 4 and ask this this be reflected in the minutes. Do I have anybody moving item 4? I'll move it. Oh, second. I have a motion to second on item 4. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Show that passing 8-0. One abstention. One abstention. Thank you. 7-0 an abstention. Thank you, counsel. Commissioner Geller, item 16. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Many of you may have received letters from either Publix or the Retail Federation about this item. And they both have it completely backwards. So, we already passed an ordinance. I remember Commissioner Furr pulled it from consent so we could comment on how important it was. Requiring recycling of batteries, all types of batteries. That is scheduled to take effect. It was scheduled January 1st. We postponed it until March 1st. Publix, and they apparently got the Retail Federation because they've raised the exact same backwards argument that Publix did. Publix came to us and complained that said that they thought we should limit it to only recyclable batteries, rechargeable batteries, and they were concerned that we were requiring too much signage. I said I thought it was okay the way it was, but trying to work with people, I agreed to do another ordinance, which is the one that is in front of you now, that would reduce the required signage and say that they would only have to recycle the rechargeable batteries. So, let me explain why this is so important, lithium batteries. A, lithium is an important material for U.S. national defense. We need more lithium. It should be recycled. But B, the way this whole thing came about is lithium batteries, and we see this with certain electric cars, burst into fire when they get wet. So, we are having on average more than one garbage truck a day and substantial number of our solid waste facilities catch fire because of lithium batteries not being recycled, just, you know, being discarded and then getting wet and setting the garbage trucks on fire. So, I agreed, providing that there were no additional changes, I agreed that we would do another ordinance making it, eliminating the requirement to recycle alkaline, and further reducing the signage. Everybody was happy. Now, they are opposing the current ordinance thinking that this will help them. They have this backwards. If we don't pass the current ordinance, then the prior ordinance, which is scheduled to take place March 1st, will be the one that takes place. That's the one that they hate. I filed this one to reduce the requirements on the private sector, but they have it backwards and they're opposing this one, not realizing that if this one doesn't pass, then they will do this. I've discussed this with Lenny. The things that they're asking for would basically make it impossible to enforce recycling of any types of batteries. They just don't want to have to do anything. You know, Publix, I guess, wants to go from Publix where shopping is a pleasure to Publix where we cause your garbage trucks to catch fire. So, in summary, I just wanted to point out if there are any amendments that come up on this on the next thing when we have our final hearing. I'll just pull the ordinance completely and they will be left with what I thought was a better ordinance, which required recycling of all batteries, but this falls under the no good deed goes unpunished. Because I tried to work with them, they're now causing issues that I'm, like I said, if there's any amendments, I'll just pull it completely at the next time and they'll be left with the original ordinance, which they really hate. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Senator Gellar, I just want to let you know, I was contacted by Publix and the, I didn't have a chance to do a deep dive, but what they kind of said was that the certain batteries that they barely sell, they're being required and I really didn't get into the specifics. They liked and appreciated the ordinance. They didn't say anything negative about you or the ordinance. They were just hoping that it could be tweaked to something, a product that they don't sell. So there's some product they claim that they shouldn't be involved with that they don't sell hardly at all. I don't know if it's true. I don't know. I just wanted to let you know and, and, um, and they asked if, you know, would we put an amendment in? I go, I don't have the time right now. It's going to be for next hearing. But, you know, if something makes sense, I want to come back to you and you'll tell me why it doesn't make sense, if that's okay? Well, of course, through the county attorney. No, I'm talking about our next meeting. Okay. Yes, sir. I'll be happy to. But the, to respond to that, the, the problem they say, well, you should only look at the rechargeable batteries should be the trigger. The trigger right now, we've exempted any small stores. Um, you have to have, I believe the trigger is nine linear feet for sale of batteries. They mix their batteries together. The rechargeable and the alkaline are mixed together. And again, you're welcome to discuss it with Mr. Villalpondo. But he'll tell you that if we do the way they want, it's impossible for his office to enforce. And by the way, the fires that are caused, maybe now we could talk using that as a waste energy. We could start burning it instead of putting it in the landfill. Maybe that's a good thing. If we can recapture the heat. Thank you. Um, do I have a motion on 16? I have a second. I have a motion and a second on 16. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Show that passing 8-0. Uh, next, let's go to item, uh, 20-7 and we'll come back to 21-34. Where's, who, who pulled out? Commissioner Davis. Thank you. I, I just pulled it to thank all justice for the work that they do in the community and for bringing this forward to the county, um, where we could actually put it as an item today. Uh, I want to thank our, uh, uh, county attorneys for working with them and working together to come up with the language that we feel is more suitable. And, um, certainly I know they'll get an opportunity to speak, but I did want to just point that out and, and thank all parties involved in getting this to where it is today. Thank you. I believe we had somebody from the public at number 27. Uh, uh, Senator Rich, did you want to speak on this? Okay. Somebody from the public, please come on up. There are three members from the public that have signed up to speak on the item. We have Sue White-Baisley followed by brother Brian Anthony Campbell. Okay. Uh, first person is, I'm sorry, say the name. Sue White-Baisley. Sue, Sue, you're first. Sir, you want to step back for one second. Hi, Sue. Hello. Just state your name, please. Susan White-Baisley. Great. It's all yours. I moved to Broward from Homestead in 1993 as a refugee from Hurricane Andrew. Although I was challenged financially from the hurricane, I did manage to purchase a home in which I still reside. Shortly after I closed on my home in 1994, I gave birth to my daughter, Caitlin. Fast forward to now. Caitlin is 31. She works in retail. She's wanted to leave her mama's nest for years. She has searched high and low for affordable housing. Everything that is decent and livable is way out of her financial reach. She loves living in Broward. She doesn't want to move away, as so many other people have been forced to do. At one point, my daughter shopped for a van so she could live in it. I was worried. I was frightened for her safety. I was distraught that the situation is so bad here that my daughter was seriously planning to live in a motor vehicle because it's the only affordable housing available to her. I couldn't believe that I live in a community where my daughter contemplated living in a car. It used to be that young adults that couldn't afford to buy a house would rent a place until they could manage to purchase a home. Now they can't afford to rent because the prices are too high. What are they going to do? I have since convinced my daughter to live with me. I'm happy she has a roof over her head, but what about how she feels about this? She works so hard hard and she deserves to have a place to call her own home. Every human does. As a mother, I want my daughter's future back. I'm angry about this. There are 150,000 other families who feel the same. We need you to vote yes today. Thank you, ma'am. Who's next? Brother Brian Anthony Campbell. Good morning. Good morning. Brian Anthony Campbell, 390 Northwest 15th Street in Pompano Beach, Florida. I serve as the senior minister of the 15th Street Church of Christ. Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, you've heard a testimony from one of our county residents. Over the past few months and years, I'm sure you've heard about many families who are going through what our fellow resident is going through. You know what is happening in this county. The policy before you today is not symbolic. It is a choice about direction. It is a choice about whether Broward County will respond to this housing crisis at a scale it demands, or do we continue to let the crises deepen further? If this body does not commit to a policy direction that indicates an approach of sustained long-term investment, then families will continue to struggle year after year. That will not be an accident. It will be the result of decisions made in this room, starting with the choice you make today. You are elected to safeguard the well-being of this community. We are counting on you. The crises is here. The responsibility is yours. The choice you make today will determine that people can afford to live in Broward County. That's why we are praying that you keep hope alive and make the righteous decision today and pass the resolution that is before you. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Who's next? Pastor Aaron Lauer. Good morning, commissioners. My name is Reverend Aaron Lauer from the United Church of Christ Fort Lauderdale, where I am the senior pastor. And I want to begin today by talking about the reality that we are facing today in Broward County. Broward County ranks last in the state of Florida on housing affordability for low-income renters. We have over 6,000 students in Broward County public school system experiencing homelessness. Nearly 62% of our renters, which is more than 154,000 households, are paying more than they can afford just to put a roof over their heads. And when it comes to affordable rental homes, we are short by roughly 75,000 units. These are not abstract statistics, my friends. There are thousands of stories behind every single one of them. These are the people we see every day, who sit in our church pews, the waitress serving you breakfast at your favorite restaurant, the home health aide caring for your parents, the teachers instructing your children and grandchildren, the family parked in a car overnight, the child who cannot focus because they don't have a home. The reality is we are living in a crisis of affordable housing right now in Broward County, but the Broward County Ten-Year Housing Master Plan states this crisis clearly. The question today is not whether the crisis exists. The question is, does Broward County have the courage and the compassion to respond? I believe you do. And I believe you will do the right thing and address this affordable housing crisis head on because you care about the people of Broward County and the future we are building together. Thank you. Thank you. Is that it for the public speakers? Okay, let's bring it back to the dais at Senator Rich. Thank you. We got a whole queue that's going to go. Do you want to speak last? Yeah. Okay. Okay. That's fine. I just want to say that I appreciate bold justice coming here today. And I have met with you and many of our members have met with you. And I believe that we are and have risen to this crisis. Is it is it fixed? No. But we have committed year after year now to put this 90 percent of CRA sunsetting money into affordable housing into our affordable housing trust fund. A lot of us work very hard to get that trust fund passed by the voters, which the voters did. And we are able to keep that money in the trust fund, unlike the Sadowski fund in Tallahassee, which gets raided all the time. We have money, significant money that we have been using. It was mentioned about the 10-year plan. We are focusing and we are following that plan. And we are now we're in the process of having a review of it, because we're already into a couple of years of it. We want to see how much progress we've made. We have, we know there's a lot more that has to be done. Um, you know, it is, and I've tried to explain this or talk about this, that and maybe, uh, Monica, you may want to comment on it at some point. But, um, you know, each year, since we've had this affordable housing plan, we have committed this 90 percent of the money to affordable housing. And unfortunately, we cannot commit, one commission cannot commit another commission. So we can't say that we're going to do it for the next 10 years. That's why so many of us up here, we talk about it, we've, we're supporting it. And I, and I'm, I feel sure that we are going to continue to do this. But we technically cannot vote here to say for the next nine, 10 years that this money is going here because one commission cannot commit the other. Um, I, I hope that you all know that it is our intent to do this. We understand what's going on here. We hear it all the time from constituents. And I appreciate the young, the woman who came and spoke. Um, but as I said, you know, we, we are, we are working as fast as we can. As a matter of fact, we, we, we no longer go to the RFP process. Uh, our housing finance director is here. We, as much, we go to an RFA where we can get through this much faster and get the money and the projects out faster. Uh, we have a county that is built out, very difficult. Uh, we, we have to do multifamily and I want to say, you know, we know we are last. Um, it's the whole South Florida happens to be last, but combined, combined with the affordable housing are wages. And we also have the lowest wages. So those things together really give us, uh, you know, a mountain to climb. Um, but I want to assure you that from my point of view, I've spent my years on the county commission focused on affordable housing. And I can, I expect to continue to do that till I am completed with my last term. Uh, and, and, uh, and I promise you that, um, you know, that I personally, and I feel that my commissioners join me in wanting to do as much as they possibly can within our power to continue to solve this problem and this crisis in our community. Thank you, Senator, um, Senator Geller. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I agree with almost everything that Senator Nanrich said. Um, I think that this commission has in fact been responsible and I think we've given more than any other county in the state of Florida towards affordable housing by substantial amounts. Uh, I have some concerns about this resolution for two reasons. Number one, as Senator Rich says, it is black letter law that one legislature can't bind to future legislature's actions. One county commission can't bind a future county commission's action. So this, if we do pass something today, it will just be a statement of our intent, but we've been doing that every year anyhow. But the bigger issue that I have is if somebody can tell me what our fiscal situation will be next year, if it's comparable to this year, I tell you that if it's comparable, I would vote for put 90% again, as I think everybody knows, there are multiple attempts, uh, in Tallahassee going on literally today in the middle of the legislative session to take steps that would dramatically impair our property tax. Uh, should something like this occur if they were to eliminate our, um, either, I don't think they're still talking about eliminating all of our property tax, but if they eliminate our residential property tax, roughly 36%, give or take of our budget, we're not going to have money to do everything that we are required to do much less things that we want to do. So without, uh, I'll be happy to say that I would vote next year, assuming that there's no changes to our property tax to still do the 90% for of the expiring CRA money for affordable housing. But since we don't know what will happen, if they do do something that will have a dramatic impact and we have to cut at all of our spending in different areas, but you know, as I've said before, although it is not our only priority or certainly our top priority is, uh, funding public safety police fire, we have so many different agencies that we are required to fund. I just won't be able to say if, and I I'm for those of you that know, I fought as hard as anybody against the reduction in the property taxes, which I think is wrong. But if they do that, we may not have money to put into affordable housing. We may not have money to put into culture. We may not have money to put into many of the items that I regard as our priority. So I don't think it appropriate. And as I've been listening, I've talked myself into saying that today I'm a no on this, because I don't think that we should be doing this without knowing what next year's budget will be. Thank you. Uh, Commissioner Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Mayor colleagues. I have heard this discussion for a long time and I see where we are today. And I can tell you, I am not, um, advocate for 90% of the CRA funding to go to one type of housing, one type of affordable housing. I am not in support of not having home ownership wealth. That's how certain communities grow. That's how that young lady that spoke about her daughter's situation. I feel her passion because we can no longer own a home here in Broward County. It's no longer affordable. So we are in agreement with you. But as my colleague stated, we're in crisis. We're in the not knowing where we're going. So we're waiting on the legislature to give us their, what they want us to do. Tell us what they want us to do. Mandate what they want us to do. Local government is not in charge like before. All right. So we are waiting session will be over end of March, end of March. We don't, you know, it's coming soon. And we're hoping that whatever the threats are, they will not, that will not be the final and that will not be the end result. So I'm supporting this bill today, this resolution today. And I can tell you my reason, because we have to pass a budget every year. It's not as if we pass this budget and we are tied to it forever. We have to pass a budget every year. So 2027 will be different than where we are today. But this commissioner supports affordable housing, support my seniors not becoming homeless, because they can't afford even to pay their maintenance and their hospital bill and for their medication. So I would like to see some additional funding go into a pilot program that will keep our seniors in their homes, especially those in condos. And I've never said this before. I would like, here I go, for this county to start a pilot program, working with the banks that we take our monies to every Monday and Tuesday and deposit in the bank. Where do we go with the banks to have their commitment to putting some monies into our communities? That's where we need to have that conversation also. Every Monday and Tuesday, we take our deposits or offering to the banks. They are not at the table. I don't hear them talking about this. So if we want to continue our conversation, I appreciated the visit. Looking forward to a continued conversation around affordable housing. But it includes a lot of people and those that are currently in their homes that will be losing their homes. That's why we have attorneys in that coast to coast and legal aid. We have them there helping our seniors. Please refer your seniors to those two agencies before they are foreclosed on and placed on the road. All right. So thank you for being here. Thank you for your advocacy. But I know you do understand that our hands are tied by law. We cannot encumber the next group of elected official. We have to approve a budget every year. And we will always think about housing. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, thank you very much. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Furr. Thank you. I would echo all the comments that have been made because it shows all the concerns. And I think we've been doing a pretty good job. Obviously, this issue permeates almost every issue that we have, wages and everything. One of the things that I'd like to challenge Bull Justice on, one of the issues we have in trying to solve this crisis has to do with the lack of land. And we've done an inventory of where most of the land and available land is in the county. It's actually mainly on church land. And what you've seen in places like South Carolina and other places, they've started to actually build on those lands. And it's actually increased their flock. And they've been able to solve the crisis in some places by using the land that they have, the churches, to build on. And I challenge you for that because we are looking for places to build. We're looking for places to be able to do this. We're looking for places that it makes sense to do it, where people make sure that they have the kind of support system, the wraparound services that are needed to make this workable. So, I mean, I think, you know, as long as the environment is the same as it was last year, I think you're going to see us continue to support this. That's, you know, what we did in Hollywood. We actually extended it and found places to take the money that the city was even putting in. They've even gone beyond what the county's doing and as a very good model. But I do think, um, I would like Bull Justice to start to look at the inventory of church lands and start to think this is, this can be a workable model. This is where, and I really appreciate Commissioner Rogers bringing up the home ownership issue, part of it, because I do think that generational wealth makes all the difference in the world. You know, if all you're doing is renting, somebody else is making the money and nobody's building wealth and you don't have that kind of wealth passed on, that we've seen for years and years, what a difference that makes. I know, I know for myself, I was able to get one of those first time homeowner home, you know, I got one myself. I own my home now and that it makes all the difference in the world, you know, so I've seen it. I know what it means and the more we can do that, the better. But we don't have the land. There is no, there is almost no land in this county. So I hope that you all might be able to take an inventory. I know I've worked with many ministers and we actually did the inventory and looked at it and it's a surprising amount of land. So I hope you'll think about that and join, join hands with us on that. Thank you. Commissioner Fisher. Thank you, Mayor. Just 30 seconds. Mr. Myers, this is obviously a current intent. It's not to bind a next year's commission or a year after obviously our intent is to continue to do it, but it's just an intent issue. It's not binding future commissioners, correct? Correct. Thank you. Commissioner Udine. Thank you. I was going to ask that same question. I'm going to vote in favor of this and I thank Commissioner Davis for bringing this and putting this on the agenda. The reason why is I think it gives good direction to our administrative team to know that this year we want to see that 90% just like we've done in the past few years. What will happen in the future, I don't know how that will play out. Who knows, I mean, if the taxes, property taxes are reduced, then these dollars that are coming in from expired CRAs are also going to be reduced by a like amount. So who knows how that will play out. I don't think there's been anybody up here on this day, maybe some close, that have done as much as I have on affordable housing, you know, throughout the years. I believe in it. It's something that I fight strongly for as far as making sure that there's affordable housing in all levels of income by building these things out as quickly as possible. We were at a beautiful event in Hollywood and they did an amazing job with one of their affordable housing projects. And I was joking around with our transportation director, how many police and firefighters were living in that. And I think the answer was none because they didn't qualify in the adjustable minimal amounts. This is an incredibly complicated issue and it will be solved when supply exceeds demand. Until then, I look forward to seeing you guys next year at this time. I think you do a great job advocating. We could put a hundred percent of this expired TIF this year. It's not going to make a dent on this, but I think we should continue to do the ninety percent this year. So I'm going to vote in favor of this and I thank you for bringing it up. I've got two quick comments. Oh, did you want to, please, Vice Mayor? Yeah. First of all, I want to thank them for coming back out. I've met with you several times. I think you're going to hear the same thing from all of us, mostly. And the illustration that Mr. Furr gave is what I've challenged you with time and time again. Each time I've been in your presence, which is the inventory of land. The inventory of land. And I know that Commissioner Furr said it was the availability of land. There's no more land. What he didn't detail in that is the land that is available is in the hands of the private sector. And the other land that we found available is the land in the hands of churches. We were surprised when it came back that that's where it was. So I keep asking, every time I get with this group, asking you about the land that you might have, or maybe you can go out and inventory the land of churches through some consortium that you all participate with. Pastor Aaron, does your church have land? You don't have land. Can you come up to the microphone real quick? We have two parking lots and they are completely full every every Sunday, which is a blessing. But we don't have land. We're in Coral Ridge. There's no, yeah, there's no opportunity for building on our property. So you, so I'll give you an example. Uh, and I know someone else said up here that, uh, uh, they did it somewhere else. But I'm thinking about the South Carolina. We can go right here to 4th Street and 7th Avenue, Mount Hermon. They had a parking lot, a parking lot. They now have a six or seven story building there, uh, with, Oh, on the, on the current surface parking lot. And it's a senior, uh, fixed income building, great building. Go look at it, touch it, feel it. Maybe that's something we could bring to Coral Ridge. Yeah. Um, but we've done it. I'm doing it with New Hope. Um, we've done it at Mount, Mount Olive. There's places right here, less than a half a mile where it's working, but it's with churches, um, faith-based organizations, non-profits who care about community, just like the hearts of the people up here. We care about community. The issue is we don't have land to do that. And every opportunity we get to have land, we even talked about if we, not if, when we move our governmental center across the street, this could become an opportunity for affordable housing. So we're doing everything we can. They, they were doing it before I got here. I participated for years and years and years with affordable housing. And no, um, Mr. Udeen is not the only one that has the most. I am because I've been working with Ralph Stone for years. No way. I am. And we've been doing, and we've been doing affordable housing, home ownership. Um, even going back to, uh, to Commissioner, uh, uh, Fir when they built this house. I was one of the contractors back then. It was building houses in Liberia, building houses in, um, uh, Hollywood, building houses in, uh, Washington Park, building houses in, uh, Cargill City, building houses in Roseburg Garden, building houses in Franklin, Franklin Park, building houses all over this county, affordable, single family housing. And I think Ralph, maybe you can help me out. Hold me. Hold on, Aaron. We can still participate with a single family project if we had the land with this money. Am I correct? I'm correct. So the answers that you need is in the document that we've been talking to you about the whole time. All we need is you to bring us somebody, bring us some land and we will do everything within our powers. I think I can speak on behalf of this, this day is to make the projects work. His biggest challenge is a lack of land. Pastor Campbell, you want to step up here for a minute? Does your church have any land? Our church does have land and we're actually committed to doing something with that land for our community, not only for our church, but our community as well. So we do have property. So you don't have. We're trying to do our part. But you're doing an affordable housing project? No, no. You're not. So how do you, how do we, how do we solve this issue? I mean, you, this group has been the loudest group there is. I saw you on television tonight standing on the New River in front of some stuff that I'm sure those, those developers are not or did not intend when they started this, this whole domino effect, did not intend for those to be affordable units. But some of them took advantage. Am I correct, Ralph? And use some of the, uh, the money from the CRAs back then or, or, or, or economic development money that Ralph had over in his program to make some of those units affordable. That's 25 years ago, but you, you fast forward, we're talking about affordable housing the way that we see it now. And I say it all the time. He's talking about affordable housing. We're talking about affordable housing, but I think we're all looking for housing that we can afford. And the only way we can make this happen is we, if we get the land. One more example of how it works. We have a private company that does senior living. They purchased a piece of property in unincorporated parts of Broward County, which is the only piece where we even have authority over. You got 31 cities out here that we need to challenge to, to bring their land and bring their opportunities to us and drink from this lock box that we have, uh, that provide these opportunities. But landmark is breaking ground right now on 27th Avenue and Broward Boulevard, 85 units. Know what the rents are going to be there between I think 500 to $1,100 Ralph, or am I just $100 off? But it's based on income. It's based on age. If you come to us, we can make these projects work. That's the only way it's going to work. We bring land or opportunities to us. We can sit, we can march all day long. I don't believe in marching. I told you the other night, I don't march. I do. I don't march. I do. Bring it to us. This commission I know will do. Thank you. Do I get to respond or? No, I'm just hang there. Okay. Okay. Senator Rich, did you want to? Um, I just wanted to add a couple of things, uh, now that the conversation is, I just want to, you know, go back to again, single family. There are other opportunities, uh, there. We, we go over this over and over again that we don't have land, but people are doing unique things now. So you have, when you look at, um, Urban League, they are doing a large development and it's going to be both rental and home ownership. There are gonna be over a hundred units there that will be home ownership. That's something new. We haven't had that. We work with Habitat for Humanity, uh, and, and, and the people are moving now to townhomes, less land necessary, but home ownership. So the money that we have from gap financing goes for all of these different things. I want people to, to really recognize that it is not only going to rental, but that's where most of it has to go. Well, there's no option here for us other than that. So, and I want to just mention about cities because the gap financing program has done something that has never happened before. I mean, we used to have a few cities that gave us some money. Okay. So we now have 61 million dollars. Uh, the gap financing program has leveraged in local, uh, government contributions. And then we also have the housing finance authority, which is 649 million. So we are looking everywhere we can to find, to find it. Um, and, and I, I think you're hearing, I mean, there's a, there's a, there's definitely just a commitment to this. I ought to want to mention, even with our partnership for the homeless and right in, in Fort Lauderdale, they built, they built their apartments on top of a parking garage. They built a parking garage and then they built their, you know, that you, you maybe might, you might be able to do that at your church. I don't know, but I mean, we, we need to all look at these different options. And as far as seniors, I want to say we just opened up, I go to almost every opening. We opened up a 400. Well, we're going to have a final ribbon cutting for 400 senior units, 200 units already filled, uh, in Pembroke Pines. And it's in association with the Miami Jewish health system. So there's healthcare there. They just broke ground on another one in Pembroke Pines for 150 units. And these are all 62 and over. So we're trying to hit every different kind of population. I just, it just, I just want people to understand. And hopefully you do that. We are looking under every rock to try and find, uh, opportunities and, and things where we can include affordable housing. Thank you. I just got one quick thing. I just want to, because pastor Campbell knows this, but I want to put it on the record. Say thank you St. Joseph that across from Blanchett High School. Yes. Their property, the Catholic diocese took their property and they have built two, two high rise buildings there. One for seniors that they're in is approximately two to $300 a month, right? So that church property came to, came to formation as well. And of course you have Habitat. I'm going to jump on that because Habitat and Pompano Beach purchased property next to Hopewell from a church and built 77 single family homes. It's the largest single family home development that Habitat has ever done. Pompano Beach has stepped up and pastor Campbell knows that. Talking about other landmark projects along there. But I go back to what the vice mayor says. St. Joseph has done it and others have done it. Thank you for that emphasis because I think we can capitalize so much on our church properties. Thank you. Commissioner Furr. The other part of that is if you, if you actually build on your own properties, you have control over who's going to work there, who's going to build it. Though like somebody had mentioned that we have an issue with wages. You have a chance to be able to make those wages whatever you want. And you can create, and you can actually create a stream for employment and high wages. And so the combination of building housing and the wages is a powerful combination. We're going to stop. We're going to hold it. I got, I'm going to finish up with two comments if I can. You know, when elected officials talk, there's people that talk and there's people that do. And you guys should look at what people's actions are and not what people say, right? Last year we allocated 27 million dollars. Over the past five years we've allocated over 154 million dollars for affordable housing. So our actions speak loud and clear. I wanted to ask Commissioner Davis, first of all thank you for bringing this. I would like to see if you'd be open to a friendly amendment to this. Because at the end you say, uh, for affordable housing and economic development purposes, I would like to take out economic development purposes and put the needs for the homeless. So if, so I didn't know if you'd be open to that where, you know, uh, revenue for, you know, because you were talking about homeless, you guys were talking about people sleeping in their cars. And so if we do have money for this type of projects, affordable housing and the needs for the homeless, um, or add needs for the homeless. Yeah. And I wouldn't take our economic development. That's very important. Would you, would you be open to adding the needs for the homeless to this? Yeah. Just so we have showed the community we have intent for that as well. Oh, uh, I know it was said that it's included in the housing, but if you want that specific language, I don't have a problem with that. Um, how do I do that council? Because I have the gavel. Yeah. I mean, I think you're talking about section three on lines 56 through 58, uh, which currently says the board also, uh, currently intends that the remaining portion of expired CRA TIF revenue shall be allocated to support economic development activities or other strategies and programs consistent with the goal, uh, county's goals for community investment. You could say, you know, including homelessness programs, including the needs for the homeless. That's all I want to add. Okay. So what is your wording exactly? Including needs for the homeless. Okay. So that would be your amendment is to, uh, uh, revise line 58, add that wording at the very end. Yes, sir. But can I, since I have the gavel, I can't make it. Technically you're supposed to hand it over. Uh, I'll move it. I like to, uh, add that those words to that number. Do I, would I have a second on that? You got a second on that? A second. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Question. Uh, just verifying that this, this is, uh, I have a question on this for the county attorney and I'm just verifying county attorney that the way you phrased it is not eliminating the 10% for economic development, correct? Uh, correct. It just says an including at the end. Yes. And I think we covered it in the other language you just mentioned prior to that. So hold on a second. I think you're, I think you're correct. I think you're right. Yeah. Vice mayor, I think you're right. I think you're right. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Ayes have it. That was on the amendment. Now we're going to do the, uh, you can have it back. Thank you. Just for temporary. So I'd like to move the item now, the, the, as amended. Okay. I can't move it. I'd like a motion. A motion to move the item. I'll second. I have a motion to second to move the item as amended. Sorry. As amended. Move the item as amended. And I gave my second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thank you very much. Bring me some land. Us some land. Right? Wow. Mayor, so it's 8-1, just for the record. We need a hand. 8-1. Okay. All right. Let's go to number 21. Uh, there was, uh, I believe a public poll. 21. Motion to direct county administrator to return without evaluation an unsolicited public-private partnership proposal from Filthy Organics LLC. We have three members of the the public that has signed up to speak on the item. How many people? Three. Okay. Who's first? Linda Thompson Gonzalez, followed by Dustin Dubois. Dubois. Dubois. I like that name. Dubois. Dubois. Dubois. Potato. Good morning. Good morning, Mayor and Commissioners. It's a pleasure to be here. Um, as you know, I often wear many volunteer hats, but today I'm here in my personal capacity as a proud resident of Broward and Commissioner Fisher's district. So, um, as we know, we have a solid waste crisis with Broward over 5 million tons of trash filling our landfill and incinerator to past capacity. Thanks to the Broward Solid Waste Authority and excellent leadership of Commissioner Beam Furr. Um, we now have a comprehensive county-wide master plan, yes, cheers, in the works to divert useful trash and keep it out of our landfill and recover the market value of these materials. But approval of this master plan is urgent and public support is essential. I believe the item 21 proposal to construct a revenue generating composting facility on county property is an important opportunity to build public support for the plan with an example of a specific project that's already working locally to generate cash from our trash. This revenue producing partnership is a clear and present example for residents of a positive outcome. Small business participation, not just charts and graphs. We need public support and we need small business participation to maintain the momentum for success. The project is really a shout out to all of our doubters that yes, we really do recycle this stuff. The specific power line parcel may not be appropriate for several very important reasons that I understand fully. But I respectfully urge the staff to work with Mr. Dubois, Dubois, to identify one of an available sites and take a second look at his capacity for several reasons. First, Mr. Dubois is already working on composting in several projects in several cities, including Coconut Creek, Deerfield Beach, Lighthouse Point, Oakland Park Plantation, Southwest Ranches, as well as the Green Schools Project, which I personally have visited and seen in action. Second, Mr. Dubois' proposal is not asking for 20 acres. He's requesting 8 acres. Because as a savvy business person that he is, he wants to start out small and grow with success. Thirdly, Mr. Dubois is really a highly successful businessman. His real job is the owner of a major 70 million dollar construction company, partly in affordable housing, by the way. He's part of a Broward family that has worked over many generations in our community to solve problems and help us all do the right thing for our environment. We need a clean green yard trash solution. He's worked over many years to test and build his small business. As Mr. Dubois has said, the real challenge, and as we've just heard, the real challenge is land, not his business capability. He's worked for years to try to identify a site. I would very respectfully urge the commission to request the review of their findings, work to find an alternate site for a solution we all need. We have an experienced and trustworthy partner who can help educate the public, build confidence in our master plan. This is vital. ProZill is an opportunity for a clear and present example with a local champion to show the positive revenue generating potential of recycling and build support for a master plan. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Who's next? Dustin Dubois followed by Nick Matthews. Good morning, sir. Good morning. Thank you for having me. My name is Dustin Dubois. I'm the president of Filthy Organics. Just for quick background, I'm a third generation resident of Broward County. I'm raised in the fourth generation with my wife right now at home. Broward's been my home for my entire life with the exception of about five years I spent in the Navy. I say that because my roots are deep here. I am deeply invested in the success of Broward County as a whole. What I've presented to you guys is a partnership to establish a yard waste recycling facility on a piece of land that otherwise is kind of useless. It's a project that directly aligns with the solid waste authority's master plan as a first priority in every scenario that they've done. And it's an opportunity to generate some revenue here for the county as well. Now, I understand that you guys have a recommendation from staff to reject this. And I think it's really three main reasons that they've come into the biggest one is environmental concerns, right? This is a former ash landfill. And there's a disagreement on whether or not it's been covered, right? We believe it has. I've given you guys kind of handouts on why we think that's the case. Staff believes it hasn't. And a lot of that is based on a report from WGI that says while they admit that the project was intended to cover the landfill with two feet of fill, they have evidence that that never happened. Now, the evidence that they cite is a report from four years before the project was ever planned. So it just doesn't make sense. Now, on the other side of that, kind of doesn't matter. A very simple soils testing with an engineering firm can be done to confirm that one way or the other. The second issue that they come up with is conflicts with future use. Now, our operation is on top of the mound only. We understand that there is projects planned for the north side of that mound, some on the west side, and then some in the future ultimately on the southern side of that property. So the only conflict that we can see ultimately with our operation is potentially an access road. We do need access to get to the mound, but whatever you're going to build there in the future on that southern side, you're going to need a road too as well, right? So there's no reason that we can't get together, collaborate, and figure out where to put that road so it makes sense for everybody. It's what we do in the construction business every day. And then the last one is my experience. I've been doing food waste now for six years. The reality is yard waste is a far simpler feed stock to deal with. You don't have to deal with vectors. You don't have to deal with odors. You don't have to deal with leachate. So it's a simple thing. Again, I'm only asking for eight acres. I know the report says 20. I don't know where that came from. And our plan is to start small within that eight acres and grow ultimately into that full eight acres to use. And as it's been mentioned on my real job, I'm a general contractor. I think we're pretty successful here in South Florida. We build exclusive, almost exclusively affordable multifamily. Most of the projects you guys were just mentioning were actually my projects, seven-on-seventh, St. Joseph Manor, and some of the others as well. So you guys have been to the groundbreakings. I've been cuttings for myself as well. So that's all I got for you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Nick Matthews. Sir, we have someone like to ask you a question. Senator Rich, we'd like to ask you a question. It's not so much a question as a thank you. And Commissioner Furr and I co-chair the Climate Change Task Force. And at the last quarterly meeting, we were kind of thrilled to welcome all the young people who were beneficiaries of the grants from the Bloomberg Philanthropies. And most of those projects were composting projects with filthy organics. And the kids were phenomenal. And they've learned so much. And I just wanted to thank you. Thank you. It's been a great program. Thank you. Thank you. Nick Matthews. Good morning, sir. Good morning. Thank you, Mayor, members of the Broward County Commission. Nick Matthews with the Southern Group on behalf of Filthy Organics. It's kind of obvious that Dustin's commitment to this project and his commitment to Broward is very, very real. We've got an incredible partner you should be proud of and excited to work with on a submittal like this. The kind of concerning part of this process is the recommendation before you was to not even consider. It's kind of, I think, the wording in there. Don't even consider this. And you're being asked to not consider something based on information that I think is kind of incomplete. The backup is just, there's a lot of stuff in here. There's no silver bullet in here. There's nothing definitive in here that says, or that's determinative, that says absolutely shouldn't do that on that particular piece of land. It's kind of a list of kind of questions and kind of open-ended thoughts that, you know, and I'm happy to kind of go through this and run real quickly. One of the memos says there was a finding that there was no cover to the ash landfill. I would argue that's not true. There's a conclusion being drawn that there is maybe, it's maybe not covered, but there's no finding. There is no factual record that says it absolutely is not. The WGI report didn't do core samples to confirm anything. If anything, they cite a 1990 soil study that says, but that was prior, again, like Dustin said, prior to some of the documents we saw where the plan was to dismantle the incinerator and cover the landfill. Another kind of flawed thing is the eight, we need eight acres on top of the landfill, though I guess the whole landfill is 20. We never asked for 20, but the report says, oh, that's, you couldn't possibly do this on 20 acres. We didn't, we didn't ask for that. Your memo says, there's a concern with mixing and heavy equipment. The type of composting Dustin's planning to do doesn't require the big rows with the big heavy mixer. It sits on top and it's aerobated. You don't use that type of equipment in this, this type of proposal. Another kind of undermining thought in here is the proposal does not demonstrate sufficient detail regarding compliance with required environmental permits, buffer zones, odor and vector controls and stormwater management or potential impacts on adjacent. No one solicited a proposal in the history of Florida has all that kind of detail in an unsolicited proposal. You just don't, you don't submit with environmental permits on a project that's a proposal. That's kind of an unfair undermining of kind of our proposal. I think, you know, kind of moving on, again, we have records that show there were meetings and discussions to plan to cover the landfill. The WGI report says, well, we have evidence that it wasn't because in 1990, we have a report saying it wasn't covered. Well, the project was kicked off in 94-95 to dismantle the incinerator and cover the landfill. A document in 1990 couldn't possibly confirm that the landfill's covered yet. So, at the end of the day, I notice my time's winding down here, we would respectfully ask perhaps hold off the decision to not consider this. Perhaps have staff meet with us again to better understand things like the roadway and how we could work together and concerns about encroachment and let's go, and I'm volunteering you at Dustin's expense to do a core sample on the landfill or not. Let's deal with facts. Let's know whether it's safe to operate on there or not. We've talked with DEP. They feel pretty comfortable that we can operate a safe process up there. And we really, really, please, there's no need to take action on this today. Let's get some facts and let's come back with a honed in proposal. Thank you, Mr. Matthews. Thank you. Thank you. I want to just start off by saying, this sounds like a great, you could have a seat, sir. This sounds like a very interesting project and I know that I think you've been, you know, I'm going to hand it up to you and take it away. Yeah, I mean, this is, first of all, Dustin's been part of the, at every solid waste meeting, I think, and has actually helped inform the group tremendously. So I was actually hoping we'd find a way to get the yes on this. I understand why we're not, but I don't want to discount and find, I'd like to find somewhere that you're able to do this because you're kind of acting as a pilot for the county in many ways of what, I mean, how we, how can we deal with this? This adds up to 17% of our waste stream of the yard waste. That is a huge amount. And so we want to figure out a way to do this. You're the kind of vendor that would be ideal for this. This may not be the perfect spot for it. The other part is we're at, we're at an inflection point right now where we're about to hopefully have flow control where every, where all the cities will be deciding and, and be saying, here's where you can take your, your yard waste. Well, it has hopefully by August 6th, we have enough cities that have gone on. If we're able to do that, we're able to determine where things can be delivered to. Um, so I think, you know, given, given what's coming up over the next couple of months, I think, I think for the county, I think it's worth trying to find places that we can do this at and start to see which vendors would make, it would make the most sense. Um, because right now we're, we're planning on, I think using the BIC, the Broward Canyon landfill for yard waste, but that's all the way on the western side of the, of the county. You really want to kind of spread it out a little bit. So I think we want to start looking at that. Um, the sooner the better. Um, I appreciate you, you doing this. I'm, I'm happy to take another look at it, but, um, there were, there were some reasons that made sense to me as well. Let's take a, let's look for another piece of property on this. Um, but hopefully we can get to yes on this on another one. Thank you, Commissioner. I, I, my understanding, uh, to our county administrator, there's some inaccuracies in, like I said, as they mentioned 20 acres, when they're only talking about eight acres, uh, why wouldn't this land be a suitable, uh, suitable land? I'm going to ask Mr. Keller to chime in cause he's been closer to this. Yeah. There's why this land is not suitable for a couple of reasons. One is from a logistical standpoint, cause there's other plan development, you know, uh, the, uh, biosolids, thermal drying would be in that, in that same area as well too. So there's a logistical getting in and out and then on the acreage, uh, on the actual landfill, there's, there was the environmental concerns of, you know, whether it was capped or not, because if you can't alleviate those concerns if they come back, I mean, we're, we're willing to have further discussions, uh, with them and Mr. Matthews, you want to come up? Um, are you able to discuss in the ways to alleviate any concerns for environmental issues? Mr. Mayor, thank you. Certainly that, that was one of the things we wanted to do was kind of, uh, understanding whether it's been capped would, would be a clear, clear understanding, uh, and help us in the whole environmental understanding. And again, with the encroaching and the different uses, Broward's the most built out counties you guys talked about earlier. Like, if we don't get creative with some of the land that we do have, but let's sit down and let's understand ours of operation and the traffic impact and can we share a roadway and what does that look like? As opposed to just being told not to consider it, let's, let's figure those things out. How about we continue the discussion? Can we bring it back? Because this really sounds like a great project and, uh, and maybe there's ways to kind of work it out. You're right. There is not much land. I mean, it sounds really great. We go somewhere else, but where are you going? And, and so Mr. Mayor, I think what we need to do is postpone this, not, not adopt. I think I got it. Yes. Yes. So if I might, I believe there might be some time constraints on, um, from the legal perspective. I don't know, uh, that to be the case, but of when we have to take action on once we receive an unsolicited proposal. But that being said, um, Mr. Villalpondo, if I can ask him to come up, there was a couple of things he wanted to share. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So from the, from the environmental perspective, um, we do believe it was not capped and that if you're doing composting, you're going to be stirring up the soil and you're then going to be distributing that product to people to use for compost. And so if we accidentally mix toxins in with that, then we would be spreading contamination all over the county. And if we start to do environmental assessments on this site to find out if it was capped and we find contamination, then we'll be obligated to begin a cleanup. And the minute that we do that, we would be opening that Pandora's box, which is why it's being, you know, done as part of future development plans. And in fact, the WGI report recommends staying away from the mound for that reason. And we would be working around it to build these other products. And he wants to work directly on top of it, which to us promotes or presents a significant cross-contamination issue and would be spreading that. We don't want to even begin that process. The other thing is, is that we are under a deadline under the current legislature to finish our biosolids plant by 2028. If, if Marty is successful with what he's doing, it'll be 2030. But the biosolids plant is literally on top of this. And that's a 500 million dollar plant. And if we don't build the biosolids treatment facility, then we could be under consent decrees and fines for not processing our biosolids. But why can't they go parallel? I don't understand. Because, because he's literally building right where all of our construction is going to be occurring. And there's vehicles that that site already is used for septic receiving, which has trucks coming in and out regularly. It would be used for biosolids, processing, and like I said, a four-year major 500 million dollar construction project. And then it's got, sorry. Thank you. Yeah, I think it's, as much as I hate to do this, because I think we have to reject this and look for another place for you. And that's, I think that would be best. This biosolids is one of the biggest things we're going to be doing. You don't mean reject what he wants to do, but reject the location. We're having to reject the unsolicited site. Yeah. How about we come back on this? Is that possible? Well, to be honest, that biosolids is way bigger. Right. That's probably one of the biggest things we're going to be doing for the next couple of years. For this site. For this site. Okay. For this site. But we try to find another site. And help county maybe go find another site. Yeah. Work with them to get another site that they can do it on. Right. Right. So I'm going to make, I'm going to make a motion that we, I don't know how this is. A motion to reject. Yeah. A motion to reject the unsolicited bid. Um, not, not to put it off for, they can maybe. Not to, we, yeah, we, because this land, we, we, yes. Counselor. Yeah. Uh, there's just so the board's comfortable with it. Uh, if it's rejected, it can be resubmitted without prejudice at a different site. Yeah. Um, you know, without, uh, uh, basically without concern on that. Uh, we also, uh, noted some things that, there might be technical noncompliance with the statute. So if they were ever going to resubmit, it would probably make sense for us to have a discussion with them as well. So, uh, we, we think, uh, there's really no downside in rejecting it today. Uh, and, and there's some potential. I think this is the kind of projects we really want to see. So whether extending it or rejecting it, you still can come back. Yeah. You understand that. Okay. Do I get a motion? You just, I just made one to reject. I'll say a second. I'll second it. Directing the county administrator to reject. Yeah. I'll second the motion. I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Show that passing unanimously. We'll work with you, Dustin. Please come on back. Mayor, mayor, just a point of reference. I, I just, again, want to thank this incredible family. Um, no Dustin's grandmother, uh, just truly an outstanding family in Pompano beach and have been for many years a given back. And Jerry, for you to do what you've done with your company and to build affordable housing has just been outstanding. So I feel confident we're going to find another site for you somewhere to get this done, Dustin. But you've heard the reasons why, and I don't want you to get discouraged. I want you to keep your head up and we'll, we'll, we'll figure this out somewhere else. But I just want to thank you for the bottom of my heart of all you do for, for Pompano and for Broward County. Thank you, sir. Let's move on to number 34. Um, who pulled that? Item 34, motion to direct County administrator to establish a formal sister port program for Port Everglades. We have one member of the public that has signed up to speak on the item. Who's that? Chris Nelson. Chris Nelson in person. This is not AI. This is actually him in person, right? Yes, it is. Isn't it awesome? It's unbelievable. All right. Thanks mayor Bogan. And, uh, I did take my, uh, heart test. So yes, how'd it go? Um, it went good. I'm going to live for a long time, so everybody should be happy up here, but I was having pains in my chest. Did it hurt? No, no, it was actually pretty cool. You know, they inject you with this stuff and it like goes all throughout your body and, and then you can tell you're really getting a scan and they see all within the heart that an EKG doesn't see. Right. And, uh, cause I was having chest pains and, uh, and I got an EKG and it didn't say anything. So, uh, I went, got this. So now I know that's, that my heart's good and I'll be living for a long time. Well, I mean, my heart's good. I don't know about everything else. So no blockages, no blockages. Yeah. You're lucky. So I know, cause I'm getting up there now and my dad had a heart attack. So, so I was happy to take advantage of that program. Five years. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So, uh, so thank you, Mayor Bogan. But, uh, for this, uh, sister port thing, I'm just wondering what exactly is this for and how is this going to benefit, uh, Broward County? Because if this is just some way for certain commissioners to be able to take vacations to visit their family or something like that, like there's a problem with that. Well, if it's on the taxpayer dime, I mean, cause I mean, we're talking about affordable housing and all these things and, and, uh, how, you know, letting people who are in homes keep their own money so they can afford their homes via property tax cuts is somehow, uh, so then you can take that money and give it to other people. Um, so they can have a, do you understand the irony in that? Like, like saying, we're not going to have proper, we shouldn't have property tax cuts. You shouldn't let people like me and my wife keep our money, which we had to sell our condo. We're not, we can't keep more of our money so we can afford our house. You want to take that money and then give it to other people like, so they can have a cheaper house or something. So they can be a cashier and live in a mansion or something like it doesn't make any sense. So, so, you know, I had to, you know, decide to make more money is what I had to do. It's expensive to live in Broward, but, but anyway, I think I've made my point. Thanks. Thank you, sir. Um, I'm going to let Commissioner Rogers open that item up. It's our item. Please explain what you're trying to do. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I would like to thank you for your question, because it surely did not have anything to do with what you just commented on. So I'll share with you why Broward County need a comprehensive sister port, um, program. Um, I will start with letting everyone on this side know that while I was in the legislature and we were talking about bringing in ships and dredging and all of these things that we needed to do to be competitive with other ports that these larger ships were going to traverse, where was Broward County on that item. And then I recognized that most cities weren't aware of the foreign trade zones that are in their communities. So I decided to work with my colleagues and got them to fund a pilot program while I was in Tallahassee. So this group that I used was the Greater Caribbean American Chamber of Commerce and also Broward College. They were the conduit that received the funding and worked with the chamber and the city in designing the program. So this is just an extension of that program. Our port director, whenever you talk to him, he just came before us and offered a reduction in fees, right? We recognize that we have to compete. So those are some of the things we're doing, not taking trips and using your money. Okay, we are strengthening Broward County's global competitiveness. And we are talking about the new workforce that will be needed to compete, to help us to compete. So that's where I'm at. Formal partnership is so crucial to what we are going to be doing at the port. Enhancing trade, tourism and economic development. Okay, how did that become taking vacation and you losing, not having money? So I'm going there, but not personal. I just want anyone else that's out there that's thinking that would ask the same questions you just did. I wanted to make it clear. That was not where the intent. Improving operational efficiency and innovation. We are going to be challenged, so we are preparing ourselves and the broader community to understand fully how the port becomes so critical to Broward County. They are self-supporting there at Broward County, but they do traverse our roadways. So we're going to be having conversation as to how the port works and also how it benefits the community and the roadways that they travel and all that we're trying to do. We have those conversations when we were looking at the casino and we had to justify why the casino, all the traffic the casino was bringing into Broward County and certain communities, that they should benefit from some of that revenue. And it was done. Yeah. So I'm saying if we're not having those conversations, then we are not serving the people that we represent because we must be competitive. So I won't read through everything, colleagues, because I know you guys did. You weren't one of the ones that... Okay, Mr. Mayor, thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'm glad none of you pulled this item. So I'm looking forward to... One second. Yes, sir. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, Commissioner. I wanted to ask Monica, because I really didn't understand the impacts about it. Is there someone that can come up and also from your staff and explain the benefits of this? Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Morris. We have no backup. I'm sorry you don't... And Mr. Morris, if you can explain a little bit of the informal kind of program we've had and what this item would do would be to direct us to actually establish a more formal sister port program that we would be bringing back to the board. I know what a sister city program is, three years, but what is a sister port program? So thank you, Academy Administrator and the Commission. Good morning. So if this is voted in the affirmative, what we would end up doing is working with county administration to formalize what has been an informal program for not only our port, but majority of the ports around the world, where they work in cooperation, where it's legally permitted, right? No price fixing or anything along those lines, but to share best practices, to share information, and to bolster trade, to bolster those relationships that, you know, potentially lead to improved and increased trade amongst ports, but also to share innovation, to share those best practices that lead to operational efficiencies, job creation, and so much more that benefits either party or both parties in certain circumstances. So as we would look to take our informal program that at Port Everglades has existed for many years, and we have some existing memorandum of understandings with ports around the world, we would look to formalize those, but then also formalize the entire program of how it gets defined for how a sister seaport relationship would get started and be managed. Can you just give a quick example? So in my experience, those examples are primarily focused on operational and innovative technologies. So most recently, we actually had a port from Israel that came to our port and shared some innovation that's happening at their facility they're supporting, and not only can we learn about what they're doing that's a little bit different, look to deploy similar strategies, but also share what problems, what challenges they're facing as an operating port, as a landlord port, and how we might be able to learn from those and deploy different strategies at our own port. As the gentleman brought up, is there a cost to this? Typically, the cost is time and staff effort, primarily. No paradise vacations, huh? Not in my experience, sir. Okay. Mr. Mayor. Yes. Were you planning on traveling? Every day. Tonight, I'm leaving for Chicago. Comments, please. Okay. Mr. Mayor. Yes. Well, Senator Geller was next in the queue. Yes. Two things. First, Mr. Morris, if we pass this, would you expect any different result? But I agree with Commissioner Rogers, I think we all do, about the importance of the airport seaport, what I refer to as Megazone, on our economy in Broward. It's very important. We need to do whatever we can to increase that, the high-paid jobs. Would you expect any different result if we have the informal versus the formal sister port relationships? So not knowing exactly what the scope of such a formal program would end up looking like here, I don't know if I can speculate, but I think any time that there's some boundaries set on a program, it'll focus that program to deliver the desired results. Okay. One other last thing is, Commissioner Rogers, I think the second time that you mentioned that we should try and look towards the port to help fund other programs. No, off the port, the off-port foreign trade zones, that relationship. You had commented on just the way that the casinos had an impact and should have, right. Casinos aren't an enterprise fund, so I just would caution you that we should not be, the purpose of the enterprise funds is to ensure if the funds stay in the counties, in the area of that, so I just caution you on that. Okay. All right, I'm done, Mr. Mayor. Commissioner Udine. You mentioned the port of Ashdod that we, well, we were there on Friday. Are they a sister port of ours? No. At this time, they're not. No. Okay, so they do 14 to 18 million dollars worth of business with us. Is there anything, I mean, I just want to see the port get as much business as they can handle and that benefits Broward County residents and jobs and whatever. I'm for this, if that helps doing that. If you say that formalizing a sister port program, I mean, how does it affect the port's businesses? I mean, we do this already. Sometimes when you go on different things, they become a sister port. I don't know what that means one way or another. I know that there's a lot of memorandums of understanding, kind of like with the sister cities type of thing. How does this, like, explain it to me in relation to what we did on Friday when we had that meeting with, what are they? So, the purpose of these sister port agreements that have existed in the past, and again, under any formal program, you know, that direction and that guidance could change. But as it exists today, it really just establishes a relationship where you've got, you know, that a certain person on the other side of the phone is going to pick up and there's an open relationship that's been established through port leadership to share information. Again, what's legally permitted, to share information, to be a sounding board for potential opportunities, whether that's trade or innovation or anything related to the respective ports business line. For the agreements that exist today, primarily it's been focused on where our trading partners exist. Now, what we do with that is we ensure that our tenants and our sister ports have their own tenants, right, and make sure that the opportunities that are being discussed at various levels in the organization and even at a country level are aware for the tenants and users to potentially grow business and increase trade. Does this put us in any kind of disadvantage or advantage with our other statewide ports in the state of Florida? So, most ports have a very informal program. In fact, to my knowledge, no port that I've got experience with or here in the state of Florida has a formal program to define how sister seaports will be managed, engaged, etc. But to answer your question, any disadvantage, at this time I can't see one. So, if another port, another area of the country was not, if they called you in the future in another area of the world and said, we want to start doing business with you and we want to be a sister port with you, you would have to say to them on that phone call, I can't do that with you until we go through this formalized process and and check certain boxes that are going to come out later. I think in working with county administration we'd have to determine if that would put a halt on any any discussions that are in motion right now, which I will say there are some. Okay, that's all. Thank you. Okay. Yes, Commissioner Davis. Thank you. Um, I am in agreement with the item. If you have an informal, you might as well put it formally. I think that's what you've done with Sister Cities, right? Mr. Mayor, if I... Sorry, is that what we've done with Sister Cities? No, I just want... So, yeah, Sister Cities, there was something brought to the board by Mayor Bogan and that was a formalized process. There's a formal international program for that. There's not a formal international program for this, but again, we see no downside. Yeah, because I do know other major ports like Port of Miami and others have Sister Cities all over the world and then there's there's a benefit to that as you've just pointed out. So, if you're doing it informally, you might as well formalize it and and hopefully get input and bring it back to the board. Thank you. Mr. Mayor. Can we vote on it? Uh, I'm sorry. Yes. County Attorney, I'm just, this is a motion to it's to establish a former where we don't have any document in front of us. Is this should we treat this as a motion to direct? Is that what this is? So that way... It says motion to direct, Senator. It's a motion to direct to establish. So is this something that will be coming back to us then? I don't I don't think it's preliminary the way I read it to the last sentence in the summary explanation says this item directs County Administrator to develop and implement a formal program for the establishment. So if your direction is is to bring it back to you to see it and then bring it back for a vote and approval, I think that that should be modified an amended motion. This was on consent. Not one of us pulled it. It was pulled by the audience. So I don't understand what the discussion is about. But okay, Mr. Mayor, since I saw Commissioner Rogers nodding or had an agreement, I would move what the county attorney just said that we this be a motion to direct that it would come back to us so that you know staff can determine as they get into it that it works. Well, if you want to try to do amendment, you could try to do that. But um, Yes, yeah, I think it might have been Commissioner Davis who a second ago did you know, I think interpreted it as it would be coming back But then I think that's inconsistent with the language of the summary not with the motion I think it seems like Commissioner Davis is excuse me. Commissioner Rogers is comfortable with it coming back to the board after development for approval. So maybe a motion to direct to is to develop this program and then to bring it back to the board for further consideration. It's her motion. Okay. Are you okay with it? I'm good with that motion. I'll second the you want to phrase the motion so we know what we're voting on. Sure. So how about just a motion to direct the county administrator working with the with the port director to to establish a A formal sister port program for port everglades and to bring it back to for the board's consideration prior to implementation. Do I have motion? Do I have a second second? I have a motion and second on item 34 all in favor? Any opposed show that passing unanimously. Let's go on to our um our public here our public hearing Sure, 35 um I have a motion. I have a second all in favor aye any opposed show that passing unanimously Let's go to public hearings public hearing items today are items 28 through 30 The reading clerk will open each item recognize any members of the public who want to speak Uh, let's let's take it away The public hearing on item 28 is now open item 28 is a motion to adopt resolution Transmitting to designated state agencies a proposed amendment to the deep water port component of the comprehensive plan No, no member of the public has signed up to speak on the item. I have a motion and uh And uh second second okay. I have a motion and a second all in favor any opposed show that passing unanimously next the public hearing on item 29 is now open item 29 is a motion to an act ordinance pertaining to the brow regional emergency medical services Council amending article 5 of chapter 15 of the county code of ordinances To include a commissioner on the ems council and clarify responsibilities Of the ems review committee no member of the public has signed up to speak on the item I got a motion motion on the item commissioner davis moved it Senator geller second all in favor any opposed show that passing unanimously next Our final public hearing item is item 30 the public hearing on item 30 is now open item 30 is a motion to adopt Resolution pertaining to the purchasing card program amending section 21.31 of the county administrative code One member of the public has signed up to speak on the item chris nelson Mr. Nelson, please come up. Hello. Thank you commissioners mayor bogan. So Let me get this straight with this item. Oh i'm chris nelson If you didn't know so one of the commissioners wants to have a credit card to spend on travel food expenses office expenses for her and her staff So, uh, that's charged directly to the taxpayer basically and i'm just curious how we would know that Who's going to be auditing this to say that that a meal like if uh one of you decides to go to uh You know go go party at elbow room No, I'm just kidding you go just somebody decides to go have a a nice meal at catch and cut You know, you're you're taking one of your lobbyist friends out to dinner And uh charge it to the card charge of the taxpayer How do we know that that is is something that's in the best interest of the taxpayers? And i'm wondering why isn't sun sentinel covering this do they even cover these commission meetings anymore? Because this is something that needs to be asked because we have our florida ceo Or cfo who says that local governments like yourselves are Using taxpayers like myself as an atm machine and here you're asking for a literal card A literal atm card to charge the taxpayers using us like a tax machine in this climate Is it really logical to be doing something like this? And I know this is something that was done in the past and you got rid of it because there were uh problems with it So i'm surprised this is even being considered I mean this is pretty brazen to put this on the agenda But uh you can already get these expenses recouped uh by filling out the proper forms charging it yourself Uh and then and then getting it getting it recouped That's the way it should keep going and I just want to remind you that 189 million dollars in excessive wasteful spending was found to be done by the broward government And this was easily done by taking 2019 numbers 2019 numbers adding for inflation and population growth and comparing them to 2025 numbers Minosing subtracting one from the other and coming up 187 million So when you hear a um commissioner geller say that we're going to not be able to pay for firefighters or law enforcement if this property tax elimination goes through That's just simply not true because in 2019 you absolutely could and this uh formula was just taking that number Taking the 2025 subtracting one from another. That's all he did. That's all he did You're shaking your head, but that's all he did And let me tell you something the I hear all this stuff about affordable housing and it seems like it's taking money It's from one group of people and then hate giving handouts to other people whilst other people in the middle skim off the top What you can do to um really give? Affordable housing is cut your spending and get rid of these property taxes So middle-class people like myself and my wife can afford our house. Thank you. Thank you, mr Nelson just to let you know about cutting spending We've eliminated a hundred and eighty positions 159 in this year's budget positions and but anyway, he's got one question I would like if county administrator can answer if one of if if somebody uses a p card, how is it audited? I think it's a fair question. How is that audited? So we have very strict rules over You know the issuance of p cards and the the training that is involved That goes through accounting in this instance. It will also be provided to the auditor uh, an independent um, uh appointed Person from this uh from this dais Um, and if you want to get into all the details, uh, we've got the entire process laid out There's attachments and it we also have Um information on all the other government of many other governments that that allow it's a permissive Use of it and also might also mr. Nelson just so you know um, while some of us, uh Can afford to put on credit cards there could be elected officials that can't afford to put it on credit cards And so when they go on a on a on a business if they do something for for the county Um, which there are activities i've seen in 10 years where we we might be somewhere with the county Um, you know It's county business. So, you know, it's easy to say that but uh, it should not be a Elected officials of wealthy people that can afford to put out on their you know charge and they get reimbursed And so, uh, anyway, i'm gonna let commissioner davis. This is your item. Why don't you uh Mr. Belton. Yes, I just Mr. Belton Mr. Belton you're here Yes I would just like to add that the language does provide that All charges would come through my office for a review that would in essence we would make sure we would do a continuous audit on those and We'll implement procedures to make sure we do see those and we would definitely be commenting if there was a problem Mr. Davis do you want to you want to open it or do you want to just move it? I just I just want I will definitely move it but I just want to say For the record that having a County issued card is one of the most stringent ways you can keep track of how dollars are being spent This is not some willy-nilly thing. It has to go through proper processes Staff already has Maybe hundreds of cards out there in circulation That are used by staff members and they are also very stringent in how they are used This is not something new And I like what was said, you know, some people don't even want to use credit cards Why should I front the money if I don't want to use my card or if I don't have a card? So that means I can't serve if I'm poor And so we have to be careful of that Some of the pros I looked it up Cash flow friendly You're not fronting your own money No waiting weeks to get reimbursed while using your personal funds Cleaner bookkeeping Expense flow directly straight to the company's accounting system Fewer mistakes Less back and forth with finance Less personal risk If something gets disputed, audited or questioned It's on the company card, not your personal credit Easier compliance Company cards often auto-enforce spending limits Approved vendors Which keeps you within policy Simpler at tax time No need to separate business versus personal expenses later And so there is certainly more stringent regards when you're using a company card Most people here probably don't want to have that because it's just too much oversight And you know, I'm not doing it just because of myself I'm looking at future people as well There could be seniors that take up this position That no longer use credit cards As much as I'm a senior myself It shouldn't exclude you from being a commissioner And so, again, this is optional And I don't see any reason why other cities and counties Have their elected officials using cards And we are saying because of something that happened Many, many years ago with a few That everybody now is subject to that That makes no sense Absolutely no sense So, I myself have used credit cards for companies for many years And I know exactly how it's used I've never had a problem Thank you Motion No, no We have some people that want to speak I got Commissioner Fisher, Senator Geller Anybody else that wants to speak? Yeah, I just want to clarify with Mr. Myers too that if this passes It would be a choice of the commissioner We're having to pick cards If I don't want one, which I'm not going to want one I don't have to get one, right? I can deny and not have one That's correct, Commissioner Okay, good So, personally, I'm not going to get one But I understand the procedure behind it Thank you Senator Geller Thank you, Mr. Mayor Two points First, Mr. Nelson In the I'll be happy to meet with you afterwards But the CFO His numbers are fictitious In terms of And I've shown this And he was interviewed on TV And couldn't respond The numbers that he used The entire state uses University of Florida Bureau of Economic and Demographic Research For the population growth He did not And he would not reveal the source he used The entire The best source for inflation Is actually U.S. Department of Labor Division of I think it's Bureau Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI for the Dade Broward Palm Beach MSA That's not the number he used And he would not reveal Where he got his number And finally There are two separate items We have our budget book number And we have our annual Comprehensive financial report Annual comprehensive financial report Is always 6% higher Than budget book Because it measures something else And actually If you take those three We meet his Using the correct number We meet his formula I'll be happy to meet with you And show you that Having said that Back onto the debate Actually Commissioner Davis Let me just say first Because it seemed that You felt like we were picking on you At the last meeting I promise Raise my hand This is not I swear to you It's nothing personal Having said that We only pick on people we love So that's what we got I'm not picking on anybody But having said that I oppose the motion Because very very reluctantly I have to agree With Mr. Nelson On the other half Of what he said Which is I have very grave concerns About this Quis custodiat Ipsos custodis That's Latin Because we learned this In law school For who will guard the guardians And my concern here Is with our employees They answer to us But ultimately They answer to The county administrator When we hire everybody That could be reviewing Our budget items We hire county administrator We hire county attorney And we hire the county auditor And I'm not comfortable I mean I won't take a card But I am not comfortable With having the review Of any of the nine of us Handled by somebody That we hire And theoretically Could also fire So I'm not comfortable With that I do have concerns That when we had this before You know we had to take it away Because there was abuse And I've been in politics Long enough to know That the headline Isn't going to say Commissioner Geller abuses card It'll be Broward County Commission Abuses And if there is any problem It won't come down And I'll say That I'm the one misusing it Because I don't want to pick On anybody else But it would not come down Just on me It would come down On every member of the commission That we have done this And as I've said before The only time that I've traveled Is to Florida Association of Counties And we arranged that Through whatever process I arranged that in advance And they would pay for the hotel Which is all that I charge And that's already done In most cases That can be done I don't think any of us Would charge a meal I wouldn't But you know You get into the questions Is charging a meal Acceptable To this I will be voting now Even if I'm the only one Who is I'd like to say Since I get in the mic for a minute I'm going to support your item And I want to tell you why At first I was You know Like I don't use a P card I don't need it I went to Canada For this commission To promote Broward business I should have used I could have used a P card It's not my I was promoting We did exchange of business So I was able to put it on my credit card I got reimbursed I didn't have to use my P card But I think If you know There's people that Don't have availability What if there's an emergency And you don't have enough availability On your card As long as it's for business We're adults We've got to be responsible And if it's misused The person will be dealt with And just like I think years ago Somebody was prosecuted for it So you know I think we need to be adults And abide by the rules And any business If you don't abide by the rules You suffer the consequences And I think that Without passing this You're setting up a commission Of either You know Anytime you travel Better have room on your credit card Better be able to charge it Better be able to do it I don't need to I don't need a P card But you know Some people may And that's why I'm going to support it So with that said Do I have You want to move it I'll move it I make a motion to approve I have a motion and second How Yes It was listed in the Monday Night Memo But I want to make sure Or confirm that the motion Would include Exhibit 3 Which is basically The process For vetting by the auditor Of these expenses And by the way Commissioner Geller The auditor Can only be terminated For cause Not like If we want to Terminate Drew today Because we don't like The way he's dressed We can do that Or Yeah So But But you know You just can't terminate The auditor Because we don't like His stuff So anyway I got a motion I got a second All in favor Aye Any opposed So I got How many Raise your hands If you oppose I got So we have a Six to six Approved Three opposed Show it passing Six to three And mayor Just to confirm Because I don't think We separately voted On the amendment That was the vote On the item As amended By exhibit three Correct That's exactly What we were saying Thank you I like the way You're dressed Yeah Yeah We're not terminating You because You're dressed today All right Let's go on To regular items 31 is dashboard I don't need To say anything On it But if anybody Wants to We can Looking at Everybody Nope Moving on 32 and 33 are reports 32 reports Let's go around The dais We'll start On the right side Commissioner Davis Do you want To start With your report Thank you I just have I know we had Our retreat And I mentioned About marketing And how We should be Marketing Broward County more And precisely Based on what's Going on in Tallahassee To really let Folks know What we do I just want To bring Attention to One of our Signature events Which is Ignite Broward Beautiful I went there I went to The kickoff But there Was no Real There was No press There was No after Press There was No real Outreach into The community That I saw I saw One It was Mentioned On WSVN Seven But I Have seen However The city Of Hollywood Take advantage Of it And are Promoting An ad On tv About Broward Ignite And City of Hollywood So all Is You would Think It was Their Event And so Here you Have Another city Taking up What we Have created And putting It out There I don't Blame them And they Have some Skin in The game But they Actually Paid ads To talk About what They're Doing Off of Something That we Created I've seen No sponsored Posts I've seen No real Effort To ensure That That gets Out We don't Do too Many Events But if You're Telling me This is A signature Event And if I was To ask Somebody Now in South Broward Have you Ever heard Of Ignite It would Be a no Do you Know who Puts it On Oh I Know City of Hollywood Is advertising It Oh So city Hollywood Event We have To do Better And we Have to Do Better Now It cannot Wait And so We have Broward and Beyond Coming up We have Water Matters Day Folks Need to Know Just because Broward County They're not Going to Know it's The government It's a County It's occurring In Broward County We have To make Sure our Marketing Department Has a True Direction About what Needs to Happen With Broward County We can No longer Depend on Our partners To talk About what We do And we Give a Lot of Money A lot Of grants Cities Everywhere Nonprofits But we Got to Tell our Story So I Would Challenge That the Administrator Ensures She gets With Marketing Devise A plan Really We're Late In the Game To get Us Out in Front of It I remember In the City of Merriman I'm Going to Finish When I Used to Turn on The TV It would Always be There was A shooting That took Place here There's a Robbery Took place There They would Never Carry the Good news Stories And what I did I took Administration And we Went to Each of The news Stations Spoke with Their Presidents And told Them We Understand You know Sensationalism Things that Happen You know You want To report Those But what About the Good news Stories We got the Names of Individuals we Need to Contact Act and We made So ever Since then We've Had no Problem Getting Good news Stories They come To our Events When we're Having a Kickoff Which we Did Over by Si Strong They would Have been There But you Had nobody There And you Didn't send Anything to The stations Even after The fact We have To build Those kind Of Relationships Otherwise All you're Going to See from Them Is when Something Happens over At Perry Airport That's the News they're Going to Carry Nothing good Out of Broward County So please Let's make A concerted Effort in That area Thank you Commissioner Dean I just Wanted to Call We probably All got In our Email Boxes But I Just wanted To mention The report That came Out from Visit Lauderdale On the Sports Tourism Benefits I ended Up putting Some of That on My own Social media Which got Picked up By some Of the News Outlets I encourage Everyone to Read those Slides There I mean The tourist Room Nights And the Dollars And the Direct Impact Of dollars In Broward County From the National Championship Game The Orange Bowl They had The Stanley Cup Stuff In there The boat Show And a lot Of other Different items Throughout the Way I think Renfest And a Bunch Of them And I Thought that That was Some great Marketing Stuff that We should Be using More As we Promote What we're Doing in Broward County I know That we Have some Stuff coming Up with The Omni Hotel Grand Openings There's I think Something in March There's another Grand Opening I don't Know if It's Invitation Or how It works But I'm getting Great feedback On the Omni Hotel A lot Of people From all Over the Place Are talking About The hotel And what They're Doing As far As Staycations People Coming in From out Of the Area I think I think The Omni Hotel And Are Rolling That Out Is Going To Be A Game Changer And It's Going To Compliment A lot Of What We're Doing I Know We Have The Big They spoke About it When we Talked About the Taxis That Time We Have The Big I Don't Know What It's Called But The National Tourist Board That's Coming Down Here The Travel Agents That Are Going To Come Here And Then They're Going To Promote This So It All Kind Of Works Together And I Think That Those Are Some Of The Things That Really Are Letting Broward County Kind Of You Thank You Mr. Mayor I Just Wanted To I'm Sorry You Had To Miss This Event But Yes You Not You Not You Excuse Me Not Excuse Me Not You No I Was I Was Looking At The Mayor Thank You Thank You What Is Going On Here Jesus No I Said I Was Sorry That The Mayor Had To Miss The Triple A I Know The Triple A Event We Celebrated The 44th Annual Installation Dinner For The Area Agency On Aging Of Broward And I Have To Tell You I Had The Privilege Of Presenting Lisa Goldberg Who Is The Executive Director Of Coast To Coast Legal Aid With The Project Leader Of The Year Award And Lisa Is Just A Passionate Advocate For Justice Anyone Who Knows Her She She Is A Trusted Leader And She Really Cares About Senior Citizens Which Is Why I Want To Remind Everyone As We Were Talking About Affordable Housing And Seniors That We Have An Excellent Program Now With Coast To Coast Legal Aid And Children's Services Council Also Has A Program With Them Too So We Are Helping To Get Them Out There And Prevent People From Being Evicted Particularly In Coast To Coast Legal Aids Consideration It's Seniors And The Dinner Marked Also The Passing Of The Torch I Completed Two Years As President Of The Agency And I Always Say That The Best Thing You Can Do Is Get A Good Successor Find A Good Successor And I Did Tim Curtin From Memorial Is Now The President Of The Area Agency And I Know He'll Do A Great Job Additionally I Was Honored To Year We Recognize Cities Municipalities Mainly Since There's Only One County For The Years That They Have Participated In Fair Share Which Helps Draw Down The Federal Money To Our Community And I Wanted To Particularly Thank Commissioner Davis For Being There We Accepted It Together And Also We Had Two Of Our Top County Administrators We Had Tara Williams Head Of Human Services And Of Course Andrea Posada Who Heads Up Elderly And Veterans Services Also And She's Phenomenal And Is Just A Treasure When It Comes To What We Do At The Area Agency And I Just Feel It's So Important That We Have Been A Contributor There For 30 Years We Accepted A 30 Year Award And It's Very Exciting And When You Are Doing It Too So It So Glad That We Were We Were Able To Be Part Of That And Also Of The Tremendous Effort That We Did With Them Giving Them Funding During COVID For Feeding And And And Being Being Able To Provide Meals Directly To Seniors In Their Homes And Also I Just I Am Really Kind Of Proud Because Barrett County Is Just And Our Administrator Charlotte Mather Taylor Is Unbelievable And We Are Recognized In This State As Having The Best Area Agency Of Any Of The Area Agencies Around The State Of Florida So Thank You Vice Mayor Thank You Vice Mayor I Want To Agree With The Marketing Issue That We All Kind Of Hended On A Little Bit And I Think I Said Something Prior To Monica And I Don't Know How We Going To Get This Done Because Everyone Is Talking About It But It Needs To Be A Regionalized Effort From Within We Have All These Arms And These Agencies And These Other Entities That Do All This Stuff But Then You Show Up To The Event They Show Up To Which I Wasn't Even There That's What I Thought Man Was Talking About And There's 12 People There Well 15 Let Let me Just Tell You About My History Since When I Do Events I Want The Message To Get Out I Want People To Be In Attendance I Do Not Want To Do Events Just For People Are Going To Enjoy I I Not Saying Ignite Wasn't It But I Been Talking To You Your Staff Three Years Now About What My Plan Is And What I Want To Do And Maybe As We Move Forward In The Future We Need To Look At The Bigger Scheme Of Marketing Could Have Been The Reason Why Or Listening To The District Commission As To What Will Work And Won't Work In Their District So I Know You Want To Say Just Now That There's More People That Caused Me To Talk More Because I Don't Like Events That Aren't Well Attended And I Think The Marketing Piece Could Have Been Better I Wish I Was Here I Think Valentine's Weekend Was Wrong Weekend To Such A Do A Deeper Dive Into What I Want To See And How I Want To See Things Done In My District And Then I Want To Also Talk To You About I Know Commissioner Udine Just Brought Up Heads And Beds Basically Visit Lauderdale And I Talk About It A lot And If These Facts And Figures Are True Then We Need To Get The Facts And Figures On All And We Want To Talk About It More In Detail Because I See Again The Events That Are Being Personally Victimized If You Will And If We Are Going To Do Things On The Processes And The Facts And Those Demos Need To Aaron C Show These Are Big Events That They're Not Robert McKenzie Events They're Broward County Events That Have Bought Tons And Tons Of People Here And Now They Don't Fit A Criteria I Said The Year Before We Had To Bring It Back To To To Prove What It Is And How It Works But I Don't Know Maybe It's Time For To Move In A Different Direction Air Show Is Number Two Free For Broward County Residents Those Hotels Are Full Full As A Result Of That Event People Come From Broward And Dade It's Not Just The Residents In Broward It's Once You Enter Into Broward From A Different County Or State You Become A Factor In How You Determine What A Tourist Looks Like Or Tourism But We Keep Talking About It Nothing Is Being Done No One Checking The Checker And I'm Getting A Bit Flustered About This Whole Process I Planned To Go In As The Chairman This Year Open Minded And See Where We Need To Go But From The People Within I'm Just Hearing Rumbling About The Temperature Of How We Do Things And Where We're Going I Didn't Mean To Bring It Up But When You Talked About 15 People Being At My Event You Didn't Bought Up The Facts And Figures We Hear The Misrepresentation Of The Horse Race The Other Day I'm Watching The News They're Saying Miami Did It That's That's Frustrating We Put Our Heart And Souls Into What We Do Up Here And Another Entity State County Says That's Our Event It's Something That We're Doing Wrong We're Dropping The Ball Somewhere I Want To Know How Do We Recapture That Reimagine It And Move Forward Real Quickly I Actually Went Through The Video For When We Had A Workshop And Really Wanted To Make Sure One Of The Consistent Things That A lot Of Us Talked About Was How Did You We Like To Move Things Faster I Think Commissioner You Dean You Were Talking About Something With Six Years And Or Whatever Might Be And So I Am Going To Work With Monica And Admin And Hopefully Other People Here To See How We Can Make Things More Efficient And Get Things Done Faster And Monica Look Forward To Working With You On That So With That Said That That I Hand It Off To You Okay A Couple Things Real Quick On Thursday February 26 There's A Workshop Second Annual Resilience Broward Economic Strategies Meeting The Good Part About This Is The Broward Workshop Is Back Is They Challenged Us To Provide The Metrics For The Resilience Plan And They Are Helping Us In Terms Of Validating It So Mayor Bogan You're Going To Be Speaking At That At The Resilience On The 26 Yeah Also Yeah Yeah And On This Week Waste Management The Actual New Recycling Center Is Going To Be Opening Which Is Huge It's Probably It's A State Of The Art Recycling Center Probably The Most Advanced One In The United States Right Now And Capable The Capacity Is Crazy And The Recycling Rates Should Be Crazy You're Seeing With The Robotics And AI Things Going Through Multiple Times Being Do You Know It's Able To Actually I Think From What Pretty Big Advance For Us One Thing I Would Like Us To Take A Look At And Look At The Feasibility Is And I Mentioned This In The Retreat Of Using The Von Meisel Eula Johnson State Park That's A Huge State Park And It's Got A Huge Parking Lot That's Under Utilized We're Having To Grow Over A Million Corals Before We Can Open Up The Park I There But I Think It's Worth Looking At I Know We'd Have To Go Through The State Park System And I Know It Have To Be Able To Be Kind Of Weathered In Case Of Hurricanes But Trying To Use That Area With FAU And Nova Nova Is Right There Both Educational Institutions Are Right There It's An Ideal Spot But We Have To Make Those Overtures To Find Out It Will Show The Army Corps Of Engineers That We're Serious On This And That We've Seen The Headlines About What Could Happen To The Corals If You're Doing The Dredging We Need To Get On Top Of This And In Front Of This And Show That We're Serious About Making Sure That The Particularly The One That I Mean The One At Mad Arts Is The Best The One In Dania Yeah The Other Ones Are Out Outdoor Events Hollywood Got One They Put Some Skin In The Game And Did It Delibos Got It But The One That Is Really They're All Good But The One That's Inside Mad Arts Is Fantastic And Well They're All Good They're All Good But They Tootin Our Horn On That That's All Commissioner Fisher Thank You Mayor And Can The County Provide Heaters Because It's Thall Out When I Leave This Room Here Because It Is So Great Cold Heaters You're Cold My Teeth Be To Chatter And Also In All Serious I Don't Know How We Can Regulate That But It Is Dog Got It Cold All Right Usually There's A Lot Of And All Seriously Just Just Work On That Just Want To Really Brag About SFRTA Again And What We Worked With In Boca Raton On Yamada Road At Our Station There We Opened Up Last Week A Ground Breaking For The Link Boca Partnerships With With Multiple Developers Actually Two Developers Into One But It Was Really A Great Kick Off And What We Can Do At Our Tri Real And Talk About Affordable Housing Where We Can Do It Right There With Land That We Own This Is Going To Be A Dynamic Opportunity For Incredible Housing I Mean It It Beautiful Project And They Will Be Able To Use Tri Rail Right There God Willing If We Can Get Our Funding Done In 20 27 So Good News There I Don't Want To Talk About Ignite Sorry Been Talked About Other Than WSVN Does A Great Job They Have An Article On Their Website That You Can Go To And Listen To What We're Doing There As Well This Coming Saturday I'm Going To Be Working With Patrice And The Haas Staff To Do Our Tenth Annual Community Symposium In That Is Our Vice Mayor McKenzie Last Saturday Night I Believe It Is We Had Our Tiger Trail Festival Our 30th Year In Pompano Beach For Really Talking About Black History Month And Really Bringing It Together And This Year Was Honoring Pastors And Churches So We Had Over 30 Churches And Pastors There And Really Was A Unique Event But Our Vice Mayor Was The Keynote Speaker And I Was The Opportunity To Introduce Him There But When The Vice Mayor Got Up And Started Speaking I Was Like The Wow Effect I Mean He Was So Dynamic So Good And Talked About The Churches Being Part Of Getting Their Land Together For Affordable Housing And And Really Challenging Them At The End Of The Day Challenging Our Faith Based Organizations To Really Not Only Through Housing But Multiple Issues In Our Community And So Again If That Is Tape We Need To Get The Tape Of That Speech To To My Colleagues Because It Really Was Outstanding I Thought He Was Going To Begin To Preach There For A Moment He Really Just Just The Way He Wrapped It Around Together And Talked About How He Had Speeches Down But He Went Away From That And He Came Back To It Just Tied In So Vice Mayor Kudos To You My Friend God Bless Thank You Thank You Mr. Mayor I Will Join With Commissioner Davis Commissioner Fur And I Guess Not My Friend Commissioner Fisher Because He Said He Wouldn't Mention Ignite But To The Two That Did Mention Ignite I Did Go To The Dania Med Arts Again If You Haven't Seen It You Really Need To Go It Really Speaks Well On Broward It Is Growing I Expect In Another Three Four Five Years It Will Begin To Attract National Attention I Will Also Say That Last Friday Several Of Us Went To The Port To Welcome A Delegation From The Port Of Ashdat This Wednesday I Am Actually Going To A Dinner In Hallandale For The Mayor Of Sderot In Israel Last Thursday We Gave A Recognition To Andrea Bocelli Who Is Performing At The Guitar Hotel In My District And Finally Mr. Mayor In Reference Something That You Said I I Had Written It Down Before You Made Your Comments But On How Slow Things Take Monica I Had Meant To Mention At The Our Retreat One Concern That I Had And I Had It Written Down But Since We're Going Quickly I Skipped Over It Which Is Purchasing It Just I Mean I Continuously Hear From The Entire World How Slow Purchasing Moves Here In Broward County And I Know We Can Never Meet Move At The Speed Of The Private Sector Because We Have Safeguards Built In Private Sector Can Just Go To Their Favorite Vendor And Say How Might Negotiate A Price We Can't We Have Because Of Our P Process Whether It's You Know Invitation To Bid All Of Our Procurement Things It Does Take Longer I Recognize That But I Still Think It Takes Too Long To Get Anything Through A Procurement Process And I Would Ask You To Continue To Look At That That's All I Have Mr. Mayor Thank you Mr. Mayor I Just Received A Text If We Heard That There's A Bill Being Heard On The Floor That Will Take Away The Authorization For The County To Be One To Rename The Airport And I'll Put That In The Ends Of The State That Is On The Floor Being Discussed We Know That Okay Thank You Mr. Mayor And I Will Continue Briefly My Explanation Of The Item The Sister Port Program I Have To Go There Because I Need For Everyone To Understand I Am Focused On Making Sure That There Is Communication Internationally And Globally And That We Are Part Of The Communication And I Can Tell You I Learned A Lot From The Visit Of The Israeli Team I Mean If They're Doing That We Know There Are Are Doing Amazing Things That We Can Connect With This Is All About Connecting Okay And Not Because We Didn't Do It 15 Years Ago We Just Now Realizing How Important Ports Are And Because Of Our Government We Realize Very Important And Finding Ways Of Communicating Outside Of The Political Rem It's All About Economics Then We Need To Look At It And Those Are The Lens That I Am Wearing As It Relates To This Also In As Much As We Say Broward County Does We Have 31 Municipalities Some Are More Far More Advanced Based On Their Infrastructure Others Aren't So We Are Putting These Off-site Foreign Trade Zones In Communities And Doing Nothing To Help Them Or To Grow That Industry In The City That It Was Placed No One Is Aware Smaller Cities Are Different Than My Larger Cities Or Cities That I Chuckled When Filthy Organics Because I Never Heard Of It Before Was Talking And I Was Reminded Of My Comments Around What Do We Do With Dog Poops And I Still Concerned Is It Again I Did Not Want To Talk About It At Our Retreat Okay Tell Me About The Poop And How Do You Dispose Of It I Know It Has No Value Everybody Talk About Poop Yes But There Is Some Poop That We're Not Paying Attention To And They're All Over The Neighborhood Okay The Dog One That's The Only One That We Have No Control Over And We Have Our Children Walking In It And All This Kind Of Crazy Stuff It's Not Being Televised It is Okay So That's Where We Are So Commissioner Rogers Can I Have A New Nickname For You We're Going To Call You The Poop Commissioner Don't Call me No Poop Commissioner It's Not Gonna Work I Don't Have A Dog I Was Annoyed By That Sorry Those Dog Owners Walk Around With Your Bags And Put It In A Place That We Create So That We Can Collect It All Right But It Should Not Be Just Disposed In Your Regular Garbage And The Persons Who Are Working For These Waste Companies Don't Know They're Touching And Feeling And Being Contaminated By All Of This County Administrator I'm Done Thank You Very Much Yeah She's Done County Administrator Thank You To Share Thank You I Thought We Had A Good Retreat Thank You Board Last Week And We Will Be Sending Out A Follow Up Because We Did Take Copious Notes And Making Sure We're Following Up On On The Feedback That We Heard From The Retreat And That's It Thank You County Attorney County This means Journey