Everybody take their seat, please. Mr. Vice Mayor, I need you up here. You're my security blanket. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Broward County Board of Commissioner meeting. Today is April 28th, and I would like to ask everybody to first to please rise for our Pledge of Allegiance, and then please remain standing after that. And I'd like to ask somebody that we're going to call our new Mr. GQ, Lamar Fisher, to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Please remain standing. It's customary that we observe a moment of silence in honor of the notable persons in our community who have recently passed. So I'm going to go around the dais and ask if anybody wants to be recognized. Mr. GQ? Stop that. You know, our Supervised Elections, Joe Scott, presented a Purple Heart to the family members of Corporal Joshua Carruth. They found his remains after 50-something years or whatever it was, and he actually was born in Deerfield and raised in Pompano. So I just wanted to recognize his family in prayer. Thank you. Yes, Robert Hughes, local photographer a lot of us know in the community taking community pictures, was with me last Wednesday for the 100th birthday party for Mrs. Gurley at the nursing home here in the 1300 block of Andrews. And on yesterday morning, he was found on the floor of his home deceased. So I just want to send my prayers out to that family. But a lot of folks in this, Dale Holders and others, know who I'm talking about. Robert Hughes, the photographer. Senator Rich? Also, 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. Thank them for their service, and I'd like to pause for a moment of silence. Thank you. Please take your seats. Thank you. I'm told the breakfast of music was brought by Commissioner McKenzie. Thank you for that. And this morning we have three proclamations, but first, Monica, I think first we're going to do a presentation from the greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance. That's correct. Okay, is Bob Swindell, the honorable? I don't see him. The only? Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance going once, going twice? Sold to Fisher. Poor Lamar, we're picking on Lamar today. We will check to see where he is. We can always come back to him. Next, we're going to, our next proclamation, hold on one second here. That's right. So our next proclamation is going to be presented to the United States Small Business Administration. Ms. Harris, Deputy Director, District Director, South Florida District Office. Please come on down to the podium. As well as the Broward County Small Business Development Advisory Board. Whereas small businesses are the engine of the American economy and the foundation of a prosperous nation. And whereas, according to the United States Small Business Administration, small businesses create approximately two out of every three new jobs in the United States each year, demonstrating their vital role in creating economic opportunity. And whereas small businesses are the heartbeat of our communities, driving innovation, weaving the unique character of our neighborhoods, providing products and services that keep Broward County competitive and driving local economic growth. And whereas small business owners are risk-takers, pioneers, and hard workers who anchor our local economy from Main Street storefronts to cutting-edge startups and contribute to our shared prosperity. And whereas during National Small Business Week, we recognize the resilience, passion, and spirit of entrepreneurs who pour their souls into making their dreams a reality, enriching our lives. And whereas the Broward County Board of County Commissioners is committed to supporting small local businesses through the implementation of the Business Opportunity Act, affording contracting opportunities and creating local jobs. And whereas the National Small Business Week has been proclaimed by the President of the United States since 1963, honoring the vital role of small businesses in creating jobs, growing the economy, and anchoring our communities. And whereas in 2026, the United States will commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, known as Freedom 250, marking a historic opportunity to reflect on our nation's founding principle of free enterprise. Now, therefore, be proclaimed by the Board of County Commissioners that the Board hereby designates May 3rd to May 9th, 2026, as National Small Business Week in Broward County, Florida, and encourage all citizens to support small businesses, celebrate their many achievements, and acknowledge their contributions to our vibrant, growing community. Thank you. Please. Good morning. Good morning. I want to take this opportunity to thank the mayor and the commissioners and our partners for having us here today. I'm Malcolm Richards. I'm the Director for the United States Small Business Administration, South Florida District Office. This proclamation represents more than, you know, visibility. It recognizes shared commitment that Broward County Economic and Small Business collaborate with the SBA. To put it in context, in 2025, SBA, we supported over 400 million, yes, $400 million to help small businesses in the county. So Broward contributes. It moves the engine in South Florida. You are second behind Miami-Dade. The past five years, Broward, SBA, we supported $1.7 billion toward the economic, helping small businesses to scale, innovate within the county. And this is excluding, you know, the COVID programs like the PPP and idle loans. So again, I want to, you know, some of you, you know us not only because of our financing, but, you know, government contracting, so federal contracting to underserved and underrepresented small businesses. And when disaster strikes, SBA, we help not only businesses, homeowners, renters, anyone that is seeking financial assistance. So again, I want to thank Broward continues to move the engine of South Florida. And I want to, again, thank the mayor and the commissioners and the partner for this opportunity. Thank you. Our next proclamation will be given by Commissioner Hazel Rogers for Small Business Appreciation Week. Presented to Luis Fernandez, is it Joyous Jean, and Anthony Arno. Good morning, everyone, and to those viewing online. As the mayor stated and read in his proclamation, it's the same theme, the same type of recognitions for our small business. And I did a tour over the past two weeks and bumped into a few businesses, and my staff made sure I showcased them today. The first business is, let me see, Luis from the Colombian restaurant in the city of Sunrise. We have also, that's Luis Marico Fernandez. Then we have Joyce M. Jean from the Caribbean Creole Cuisine and Bar Owner. City of Oakland Park. Anthony Amo, Jamaica House. He owns a restaurant. Bordering Commissioner McKenzie's district and mine. So, I got permission to step into his district, okay? And I needed a visa to do it. So, just, whenever you see that, Commissioner, just make sure you say hi, all right? Beautiful. And whereas National Small Business Week is an annual observance across the United States dedicated to recognizing the vital contributions of small businesses to the nation's economy and communities. Whereas, established by the U.S. Small Business Administration, this observance, I like the innovation, resilience, and the determination of entrepreneurs who drive economic growth and create jobs throughout the country. And whereas, small businesses are the backbone of the American economy, providing essential goods and services, strengthening local identity and fostering a sense of community pride throughout Broward County. And we'll hear about community pride later on today, if you guys can wait. Whereas, from family-owned establishments to emerging startups, small businesses demonstrate preservance, preservation in the face of economic challenges, evolving markets, and changing consumer needs. And whereas, National Small Business Week also serves as an opportunity to promote education, resources, and networking opportunity that empowers entrepreneurs and inspire future innovators to pursue their dreams. And whereas, supporting small businesses contributes to a stronger, more vibrant, and sustainable economy, ensuring continued prosperity for present and future generations. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the Board of County Commissioners of Broward County, Florida, that the Board hereby designate the week of March 3rd through the 9th, 2026, as National Small Business Week. And I would invite Uwe, the boldest person, to join me in representing your business. Go ahead. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Hello, guys. My name is Kim. This is my sister, Yolikot, and my mother, Joyous. We are the owners of Joyous Caribbean Creole Cuisine. We are honored to be here. I want to just give a shout-out to Mrs. Rogers and Aisa Gordon for supporting us all this time. It's been a long couple years since we opened up, and we're just, again, honored to be here. Our goal for this community is just to share the flavors of Haiti with our community so everybody knows how good Haitian food is. But, again, thank you so much for having us here. We are so honored. Thank you. Again, just wanted to say, in touring my district, I bumped into this restaurant. We are working with them because there are some needs that they are challenged with right now, and I know there are some resources here at the county, so we are calling this Open Doors. You've been here today. It's showing you that Broward County cares, and we have some good programs, but it's all in the know, and small businesses are challenged with attending all of these meetings at 10 o'clock and 11 o'clock and 12 o'clock. So I'm glad that we are receptive to having events in the evening and including you. So we thank you for being here. Thank you. Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. I represent Jamaica House Restaurant, and with me today is Anthony Amos, his sister, Georgia McDowell, and his daughter, Alexi Amos. On behalf of our entire team, we extend our sincere gratitude to the Broward County Commission for this incredible recognition. It is truly an honor to stand before you today representing a business built on passion, perseverance, and community. Our journey started in 1995 with the opening of Jamaica House Restaurant in Miami. What started as a humble vision quickly grew, fueled by consistent, flavorful Caribbean cuisine, and a genuine commitment to service. Today, we're proud to be, I think, one of the only Caribbean restaurants that are open 24 hours. A fun fact our customers love, especially when these late-night cravings kick in for jerk chicken and curry goat. As demand grew, so did our mission. We expanded in Broward County, opening our location at 3351 West Broward Boulevard in Lauderhill, and that was in August 2024, when we introduced not only our full cabin menu, but also our 24-hour drive-thru service. Because great food should always be within reach. But beyond the food, what truly defines us is our connection to the community. We listened. We showed up. From food drives to local events, we have remained committed to giving back to the same community that has supported us for decades. And we're just getting started. With our plan to expand further in Broward County very soon, so look out. We look forward to continue to serve, as our motto says, home away from home for so many. So when you're just looking for that authentic taste of Jamaican food and the islands, whether it's breakfast, lunch, or dinner, Jamaica House is always open. Always ready. Always grateful. I must make mention, especially to Commissioner Hazel Rogers, for helping us through this path. She has remained committed to Jamaica House Restaurant, and she has dedicated time, effort, which we really, truly appreciate. Thank you again, the Broward County Commissioners, for this honor. And on behalf of my entire team, we really appreciate it. Thank you very much. How did you get here, like in this spot? Your staff asked me to come down for the photograph, and I support you in everything that you do, so therefore, I am here. Good morning, everybody. My name is Luis Fernandez. I am the owner of Typical Inconcito Colombiano. Just to give you a little bit of background, Typical Inconcito Colombiano opened in Hollywood 32 years ago. It was the first Colombian restaurant in Broward County. We own it for the past almost 10 years. I want to thank every single person that has contributed to the success of our business, including the elected officials. Thank you, Commissioner Roberts, and I know Mayor Josh Levy is here as well, and Edelma. So on behalf of our entire team, I'm truly honored to receive this proclamation. What started as a small idea has grown thanks to the support of this amazing community. We share this recognition with our customers, our staff, and everyone who has believed in us. We remain committed to serving with passion, quality, pride. Thank you for this meaningful recognition. Thank you. And the best Colombian lunch specials around. I forgot to mention, we expanded to Sunrise, and that's how we are here today. So we have two locations, one in Hollywood and one in Sunrise. Mayor, excuse me. Mayor, did you say free food for everyone? Thank you, Mayor. That's very generous of you. Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to say that too. Thank you guys for being here. Can you join us for a photo opportunity? Quick photo. Quick photo. We're time for us. Quick photo. Okay. I know. No, right down here. I'll listen to you. Can I open the door for... Watch out. Ready? Right here. One right here. One more. One more. One more. One more. Right here. Right here. All right. Long love for you. Okay, folks. We need to get to our next our next proclamation. Where's Senator Rich? There she is. Our next proclamation is Presented to the Broward Sheriff's Office crime lab director Claudine is a pure pure This is a proclamation on sexual assault awareness month and Senator Rich take it away Our director of human services is with us to all involved in this incredible program in Broward County whereas sexual violence is an insidious issue that continues to plague our community and Merits awareness and prevention efforts and whereas nationwide 81% of women and 43% of men reported Experiencing some form of sexual harassment or an assault in their lifetime And whereas the theme of sexual assault awareness month is 25 years stronger looking back moving forward Honoring the history and growth of the movement and confirming the commitment to a safer future for all and celebrates the resilience of survivors and the communities that have worked for change and Whereas we honor the survivors who have shared their stories and the advocates who have led the way their courage reminds us that That prevention is possible and that each of us has a role to play and where is denim day with the exception of Senator Geller who's not wearing denim today Whereas Denim Day has a staff but he has golf links No, his shorts are denim Denim day was established to educate advocate activate and empower and Call attention to the many misconceptions about rape that still exist and And whereas the Broward sheriff's office crime laboratory's mission is to serve criminal justice needs of Broward County by applying sound scientific principles to the examination of physical evidence and Whereas the crime laboratory provides scientific analysis of physical evidence for all public law enforcement agencies and is part of the Multidisciplinary team responding to sexual violence Providing impartial and reliable analysis to hold offenders accountable and whereas Broward County's Nancy J. Cotterman Center of which we are very proud has been an integral part of this movement for 49 years Continues to provide services to hundreds of victims of sexual violence yearly and supports education and prevention Efforts to lessen the incidence of sexual violence now therefore be it proclaimed by the board of Broward County Commissioners of Broward County, Florida that The board hereby designates and mark I'm you're gonna I'm gonna ask you to add the add made of this because it's already the 28th of April So the month is just about gone. So we'll have to do it for the next month to and for it Yeah, as sexual assault awareness month and Tuesday April 28th as Denim Day and joins the Nancy J. Cotterman Center in Solidarity to bring awareness to these issues and help build a future free from sexual violence and create a world where everyone is safe Valued and respected hi. Thank you so much I'm Claudine Carter-Pereida the crime lab director with the Broward Sheriff's Office and I'm truly honored to accept this Proclamation on behalf of the Broward Sheriff's Office Crime Laboratory Often the work that we do is quiet and behind the scenes and it really does affect so many lives that we often don't realize and on this day Denim day and sexual awareness month It brings a lot to bring awareness to the importance of the work that we do and I just want to take a moment to recognize to thank you for recognizing our scientists and The importance of the work that we do at the Sheriff's Office and once again, I just want to really thank you for Letting us and I want to thank the partnership that we have and just it's very important to us and thank you so much Thank you so much. Our other two partners are shy I Do you want a picture up here picture, please? Where's your where's your daughter? Where's Lexi? Where's Lexi? I don't see Lexi He is Let's do one first There's more people coming Where was everybody sitting? All right, guys, you have to be right behind me, or behind me. Yeah, I always send you the ticket. All right, guys, come on in, come on. Yeah, come on. Okay. Go on the other side, ma'am. You guys go on that side? Go on the other side, please. Oh, there's me. There's me? Yeah. You have to fill in the middle, please. In the middle? Down, down, down. Yeah. Don't block Anna. Don't block Anna. He's blocking. Thank you. I'll be ready. Ready, ready? Come on. . We're going to take a two-hour break. Where's the honorable Bob Swindell in the front? Bob, why don't you come on up and take your time. You've got 60 seconds. Bob, can I help you here for a second? Of course, sir. Give them the money, and we're done. Let's go. This is sort of a – so thanks for the opportunity. I apologize for mixing up your agenda, Mr. Mayor. But I appreciate the opportunity just to talk to you all for a few minutes, talk a little bit about what the Alliance has been working on. We've talked to a lot of the commissioners one-on-one. Mayor, Vice Mayor, County Administrator, thank you for having me this morning. I wanted to give a little bit of insight. Alliance was founded over 50 years ago with the intent to diversify our economy and build on the strong foundation we had here. So we have targeted industries. And I think we've come up or not. We've got a PowerPoint. Yeah, the problem is is that this corporation – There we go. I'll sit up. Only three slides, Commissioner, so this is not going to be long. That's three. This is a great illustration of what those targeted industries are. So, you know, and this first slide just shows the job growth over the last 10 years. Aviation, I think, is one of our best opportunities in Broward County. But a 78% increase in jobs in aviation. These are high-paying jobs. Financial services, a 31% growth. Headquarters, 36% growth. High-tech manufacturing. Companies like ATI and Margate that are using powdered metals to build things for the Department of Defense, for aviation and aerospace. Information technology has seen a 17% growth. And life sciences is an 81% growth. While those are small bars on that chart, that shows phenomenal growth in that area. And our growth is largely in pharmaceutical manufacturing. Now, that's tablet pharmaceuticals for generics. It's transdermal, so drugs that you absorb through your skin. And some of our latest projects, we just announced one in Coral Springs, Lupin, their drug delivery is through inhalation. So if you think about it, other than directing drugs directly into your bud stream, the quickest way to get a drug absorbed into your body is through your lungs, right? But they have to make sure the molecules don't impact your lungs in a negative way. So Lupin is building a $250 million manufacturing facility in Coral Springs. That was one of the projects we announced this year. But that's just some examples of pharmaceutical, medical device. I think a couple of you have been to the Stryker facility out in Weston. They acquired Mako Surgical, a local homegrown company that makes robotic arm that does knee and hip replacement surgeries. You know, I was afraid they were going to move that workforce to Michigan, where a lot of the manufacturing for Stryker is done. They kept it here. I'd like to say we were the prevailing reason. But a lot of their employees, surprisingly enough, went to stay in South Florida and not moved to Michigan. Patent holders, so the company decided really to double down. They went from making 40 of those machines a year, they make 40 a month now. So again, just phenomenal growth. When you look at the wage growth, and again, this is the other side when we talk about the affordability, we need to approach it from a housing inventory as one component of that, but also raising the wages so people have more income that they can spend for their housing and other expenses in Broward County. But a 69% growth in aviation wages, a 49% growth in financial services wages, a 40% growth in headquarter wages, high-tech manufacturing at 54% growth over the last 10 years, information technology at 43% growth, and life sciences at 91% growth. So we're seeing tremendous growth in those specific industries as well. A little bit more about aviation. I just came back. I was up at a show in Orlando, the maintenance, repair, and overhaul. And when we talk about aviation in Broward, it's really about maintenance, repair, and overhaul. So it's breaking down these engines, remanufacturing them, sending parts outside of Broward County, bringing all those parts back and reassembling the engines. One of our projects last year in Coral Springs, CTS Jet Engines, they repaired the engine for the A380, which is the largest airplane the Airbus makes. It's a GP7200 engine. There's only two places in the world, and I've shared this with a couple of you already, two places in the world where that engine is serviced. Coral Springs, Florida, and Dubai. They also repair the engine for the Boeing. It's called the Night Watch, which is the doomsday plane that's always in the air. There's only one place in the world that engine gets serviced. That's in Coral Springs, Florida. It has to be a domestic, because it's national security, it has to be a domestic service company. If it's always in the air, how are they repairing it? So that's a good question, Senator. I think they have two. But it's a modified 747. But the aviation industry in itself is a $2.75 billion industry just in Broward County. That's the economic impact of aviation in our county. We have over 120 jobs in South Florida in aviation. 3,000 facilities, aviation businesses in South Florida. But 1,000 FAA-certified repair stations in Broward alone. Our current campaign, and I was in Orlando, I was talking to a lot of the aviation companies there. It's nice because we have such a nice concentration of Broward businesses that were at the MRO show. And they're our best introduction to other companies, right? Because I always ask them, are there suppliers? Are there customers that you'd like to have in a geographic proximity to you? If you have some, let me know who those are, and we will go after those manufacturers and suppliers and customers. But, you know, what I was talking with the MRO folks about, and they actually clipped a, they did a video recording, talking about Select 954. A few years ago, David Coddington and I went to the Paris Air Show with Mark Gale. And it was great having our aviation director with us. We talked to airlines, but more importantly, we talked for us. We talked to maintenance repair and overhaul companies, talking about the scale of the businesses here in Broward. But first time they looked at my business card, it was a European aviation company. He said, oh, 954. I didn't think much about it. Second time it happened, I'm like, well, that's curious. The third time it happened, I actually have to ask the business person. I said, so you're the third person that's commented on 954. Can you explain to me why? He's like, well, you don't know? He said, in aviation circles, 954 has a phenomenal reputation, not only for quality craftsmanship, but for record keeping. Aviation, the chain of custody for an aviation part is critically important. If a landing gear has been reserviced, it goes on different aircraft, they need to know where that landing gear has been through its lifespan. And it's on different aircraft, different parts of the country, sometimes even different parts of the world. And that custodial record chain is really important to the aviation business. And Broward has a phenomenal reputation of taking that as seriously as the craftsmanship side. And that's really important to aviation. So, I mean, we have aviation throughout our county. As Commissioner Davis knows, we've got a strong group of aviation companies in Miramar. We're seeing Coral Springs grow now. We'd love to see a northern education center. Broward College has a phenomenal job. And that's the other part of this. These are good jobs for our local residents. You know, we take brace advisors out three times a year for leadership days. And we take them to visit some of the companies we work with. We've taken them to Stryker. We've taken them to CTS Jet Engines. Where the brace advisors who are advising high school students on what their careers might be, can actually walk it, feel it, talk to the employees that are there. What was your background? You know, were you good at math? You know, what's your certification? Do you have a four-year degree, a two-year degree? Same type of visit to Stryker, right? So these brace advisors, it's a great way to get them out, meeting some of the companies that we work with on a daily basis. And it's really for them to be able to share with students what a high-tech manufacturing job looks like in today's world. The last thing I want to talk about is just our region. You've probably heard there's been a big splash with a $10 million campaign, $5 million funded by Ken Griffin down in Miami and $5 million funded by Steven Ross in West Palm Beach to market and promote the South Florida region as the Gold Coast. It's under the Ambition Accelerated Campaign. They're doing a huge activation for the F1 race that's coming up. But their, you know, their CEOs are talking to CEOs from around the country about why South Florida is a place for them to be located. We didn't want to get lost in that because we've got both anchors. And, you know, Mr. Ross would compare San Francisco to Miami and West Palm Beach to San Jose. That makes us like Redwood City or Palo Alto. I voted for Palo Alto. But we want to make sure that Broward is not overlooked in this campaign. So we've been working with the Florida Council of 100. The local Broward business community is stepping up in a big way. And we're going to be doing a press release with Mr. Ross in a few weeks talking about, you know, our engagement with this program. But this just shows you for the last 24 years they've been recording gross domestic product by county. They haven't done it, you know, forever. But this slide gives you a good perception of what's going on in the Tri-County area and how we stack up with our counties to the north and south. You can see, you know, for the last 24 years we're even with Miami-Dade and Palm Beach county is two tenths of a percentage point ahead of us for gross domestic product. Now gross domestic product is payroll. It's things that are spent in restaurants. All those transactions are what go into counting gross domestic product. But, you know, there's a lot of stories about Miami. Miami is a beautiful, very photogenic city. Sometimes we get overlooked from the press standpoint. But I want you to know that we're hitting, you know, we're competing with our counterparts extremely well. And we think that this accelerated ambition campaign is going to even strengthen that regional approach. I'd be happy to answer any questions. But Mayor, Vice Mayor, County Administrator, thank you so much for the opportunity to talk to you all this morning. Any questions? I just wanted to ask you one and then I'll go around. It's kind of, you're saying, so for an A380 engine to be taken care of, they come to Coral Springs. But Fort Lauderdale doesn't land in the A380s. The Palm Beach doesn't land in the A380s. Miami, I think, just has one airline, British airline, that lands an A380. But otherwise, how do they get their engines here? See, that's the thing. The world has changed dramatically, right? Aviation, MROs in particular, thought they needed to be near an airport. The engines are all shipped in now, right? Oh, is it? They're trucked in, they're brought in by train. They don't need to be near a runway anymore. Interesting thing, though, an engine's got to run for 72 consistent hours before it goes back on a plane. They'll, you know, they re-service an engine, they put it on a, they call it a test cell. They run the engine, they have to make adjustments, they pull the engine off, they work on it, they put it back. But it has to run for three consecutive days, 72 hours straight, which, for the flying public, that's important for us to know, right? That they're really making sure that engine is top-notch before it goes back on a plane. But that's, you know, I didn't realize that that was, I was talking to a company that uses test cells, and CTS is one of those. And when they shared that with me, I was like, wow, that's pretty impressive. So, Commissioner Udine and Commissioner Geller, anybody else? Well, sorry, go ahead. So, I just want to compliment you, and I mean, I've seen a lot of the work you've done, and David Coddington, as far as what he's doing. I think that, and we've spoken about this before, I think you're doing a good job with a lot of disadvantages around how we have to bring businesses to Broward County. But I think you're really pushing the envelope and doing a good job in doing that. A couple things I want to add to what you said, just because, you know, to bring up. I know when we spoke at one of the Board of Directors meeting, you wanted to try and do more with Steve Ross in this area, and he has now purchased a building in Coral Springs and is expanding now into the middle of the donut from Palm Beach and Miami-Dade. So, when you see these business leaders that are starting to come more into Broward County, I think that that's a big win for the region. And I agree with you, this is all based on the region. There are a lot of businesses that are coming to Miami-Dade County that are really coming to Broward. They're just using Miami because it's an easier thing to sell to their boards of directors overseas. I personally think we should embrace that. I don't think we should, when we talk about a competition, I think we should talk about the cohesiveness that we have together as a unit. I'd like to see the Alliance do more, and I know you were down at Emerge this week. I think that we should be trying to partner with as many as the tech conferences that they're having in Miami and at least bringing an outpost to Broward. We're not going to do, we don't have to reinvent the wheel, but when you have Emerge, when you have Melissa Medina doing her things, bring them out here to do something at the Levan Center like they've been trying to do, and we should support more of that. I think we should do more of the tech week type and digital asset type of events. Whether we support it as a commission or not is irrelevant. It's becoming a very big portion of how the businesses, if you go to Miami-Dade County, there must be a hundred fintech digital asset startups that are in there providing high-end jobs, and a lot of them will come to Broward. We're starting to see now more of the office space come here, and I sent you guys the one in Hallandale. They're building the big square office project that's going to bring emerging companies into Broward County. Fat Village has multiple office buildings that are going up, and all throughout the county. You have high-end stores now coming. You saw in the paper today there will be a little bit of a pushback or whatever about the five-story Rolex that Weston Jewelers is bringing down to Las Olas. It's just moving us to the next level where we can bring those businesses into Broward County, be it through the Galleria, through that whole area. And I want to just end with Motorola, who just had their grand opening. I know the Alliance has worked with them before, but the Motorola facility and plantation actually makes all of the emergency radios that 99% of your police and fire are carrying. That's all coming out of Broward County. It's designed. It's tested. All of the backup is done there. Maybe the fabrication is done in other areas, but they're doing it all in Broward County, and there's thousands of employees there. So I think that we've made an improvement as far as generating what we need to generate here. I think there's some collaborations that we can have with the other counties, but I think that you're doing a good job, and I think your team should be complemented for doing that job with a lot of obstacles when it comes to bringing businesses. There's a lot of competition, and there's a lot of fight. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Senator Gellar. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Swindell, I also think you all are doing a great job, and congratulations on that. I would also parenthetically like to congratulate Commissioner Udean, who I know has taken the lead on a lot of these issues and has really also been doing a good job on behalf of the commission. So thank you, Commissioner Udean. I wanted two quick comments. Number one, you were talking about Miami getting all the attention. If you all don't know this, if you look at the average income in Broward, it is lower than that in Palm Beach, but it is higher than that in Miami. And most people don't realize that. They think, oh, Miami, big bad city. Well, I grew up in Miami, but the average income in Broward is higher than Miami-Dade. And secondly, I also want to thank you, as you know, I have been working for years and years on trying to get jobs in the building trades, mechanics, working with the Marine Research Hub and the MIASF and all of that. Because these trade jobs, I think, are really unfortunate jobs of the past and jobs of the future. I'm worried about the white-collar job apocalypse. And I think a lot of the well-paying, you know, low six-figure jobs are in the trades. And you guys have attended all of my meetings that we've been working. You guys have your own program on that. And while we're working in the tech, it's also important that we work in the apprenticeships, in the building trades, things like that. Because I think those are the non-exportable jobs that will survive AI, at least survive longer until the robots take over everything. And we just, you know, I saw the movie The Matrix, all of them. Well, your work in building trades, that cascades directly into marine industries, right? If you're doing carpentry work on a yacht, you are at the pinnacle of the carpentry industry. So, you know, that's an important business we want to make sure we retain. And I think, you know, according to your story about some of the high-end brands that are coming to Las Olas, you know, the yachts are really like floating corporations, right? The captain's the CEO, but the owner of the yacht are the shareholders. And if they're visiting a community and the captain wants to come here because there's great service for the yacht, if the owners aren't getting the amenities, they look for, you know, the pressures on the captain to maybe go to a different location. So it's important that we compete and not lose sight of the fact that marine industries is such an important industry for us. And I would just close with, you know, I'm very fortunate having done this for a while. And the support from the county commission, from county administration, and Maribel's office, the Office of Economic and Small Business Development, with Sandy McDonald before her, is invaluable. I mean, you helped us create a local incentive so we weren't at the mercy of the state doing away with the statewide incentive. It's a little bit, it's not as large a scale as what the state incentive was, but it's something. And I often say, my team gets hard at me saying this, but economic development is like a romance. Right? People want to feel pursued. You don't have to, we don't have to beat Texas or beat Georgia per se for an incentive. We've got to put something on the table that we really want you here. So workforce training programs, our team brings over a million dollars of state dollars into Broward for workforce training. It's a $7.5 million budget. So we're getting a lion's share of that out of 67 counties. And that's coming to Broward County. So, you know, the team does a great job, but we couldn't do it without it. It is a team effort and really appreciate the support from the commission and the team at the county. Thank you, Bob. Thank you, Mayor. Next, we're going to start reading the Tuesday morning memo. Would the reading clerk do a little speed reading? Thank you. Thank you. Broward County Board of County Commissioners, April 28th, 2026 Tuesday agenda memorandum. The following are submitted for your consideration. Consent items are one through 38. Public hearing items are 39 to 42. Regular items are 43 to 55. I request the following withdrawals and other modifications to the agenda and note the following additional information. Withdrawals. Item 15. Withdrawn at the request of the board appointee to the EMS Council due to the withdrawal of the updated draft of Chapter 3 1⁄2. Items 16 and 17. Withdrawn pending EMS Council Review Committee recommendation and at the request of the board appointee to the EMS Council due to the withdrawal of the updated draft of Chapter 3 1⁄2. Item 20. Withdrawn for further review. Item 22. Withdrawn for further review. Item 37. Withdrawn for further review at the request of the Sponsoring Commissioner. Item 45. Withdrawn. Item 46. Withdrawn at the request of the Biscayne Bay Waterkeeper, Inc. Other modifications. Item 35. The board's consideration of this item is based upon the item as amended by additional material. Number 35A. Submitted by Senator Nan Rich. Item 36. The board's consideration of this item is based upon the item as amended by additional material. Item 36A. Submitted by the County Attorney's Office. Item 38. The board's consideration of this item is based upon the item as amended by additional material. Number 38A. Submitted by Commissioner Davis. Item 48. Commissioner Furrier has requested to be added as a co-sponsor. Item 48. Commissioner Lamar P. Fisher has requested to be added as a co-sponsor. Scrivener's errors. Item 1A and 47. Item 47. The board's consideration of these items is based on the item with the correction shown in the attached page. Attachment A of Scrivener's errors. Time certain. Item 48 is scheduled at 11 a.m. Item 47 is scheduled at 12 p.m. Items 42, 43, and 49 are scheduled at 1 p.m. or immediately following the conclusion of the 12 p.m. Time certain. Item 53 is scheduled at 2 p.m. or immediately following the 1 p.m. Time certain. Item 54 is scheduled immediately following item 53. Additional material. Item 1A, board appointment. Item 2A, memo to the board submitted by Port Everglades Department. Item 7A, letter from Charles Dodge, city manager, city of Pembroke Pines, and conflict of interest forms submitted by Intergovernmental Affairs Board section. Item 29A, memo to the board submitted by Housing and Urban Planning Division. Item 35A, amended motion statement submitted by Senator Nan Rich. Item 36A, amended motion statement submitted by County Attorney's Office. Item 38A, amended motion statement submitted by Commissioner Alexander P. Davis. Item 44A, Broward County Historical Images submitted by Dennis Mealy Esquire. Item 44B, letter to the board submitted by Andrew Shen Esquire. Item 48A, email and letter of support submitted by Mayor Mark D. Bogan. Item 50A, updated project dashboards submitted by County Administration. Okay, let's go around the dais and start with Commissioner Davis. Nothing. Commissioner Dean. Senator Rich. Yes, an abstention. I have to pull number 5. Vice Mayor. 35 and 38. Council, can you be happy to formulate that, or do you want me to? From the audience polls, we have item 38, and item 15 was pulled by the public, but it's been withdrawn. So, but it's been resubmitted as item 55, so the person who's pulled it can speak on it with item 55. I'm sorry, 15 withdrawn and now it's number 55? So whoever pulled 15 will speak on number 55? Correct. Okay. Okay. Mayor, if I can just confirm, Commissioner Furrier, you pulled 35 and 38, correct? Yes. Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you. So the consent agenda today consists of items 1 through 38, less the following items, 5 was pulled for an abstention, item 15 was withdrawn, 16 was withdrawn, 17 was withdrawn, 20 was withdrawn, 22 was withdrawn, item 35 was pulled by Commissioner Furrier, item 37 was withdrawn, and item 38 was pulled both by a member of the public and Commissioner Furrier. Council, I got an issue, you said 1 through 38, what about 39, 40, 41, 42? Those are public hearings, Mayor. Okay. Mr. Mayor, move approval of the consent agenda as read by the county attorney. Second. I have a motion, a second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? I'll show that passing unanimously. Let's go, I'm going to skip and go out so we can get Mayor Levy, is here, item number 44, just to set for public hearing, so I'd like to skip right now to item number 44, and hold on one second, item 44, is a motion to discuss, is that right, number 44? Council? Motion set for public hearing. Motion set for public hearing. Motion set for public hearing. Do you want to read that or do you want me to read it? Item 44 is a motion to discuss request from the city of Hollywood for county commission review of the Broward County land use plan formal interpretation of the Broward County Planning Council related to 1301 South Ocean Drive and to provide direction to the county administrator to set a public hearing to review the interpretation. Four members of the public, sorry, two members of the public have signed up to speak on the item. That is Mayor Josh Levy. The next member is Dennis Mealy. Okay. Questions only. Do you guys, this is just to set for public hearing. Can I bring back to the dais and Commissioner Furr? Okay. Thank you. This is an item that is, was, is the, the city of Hollywood is asking us to review the Broward County land use plan formal interpretation. Um, I went to that meeting where they, they, they were looking at the interpretation and I think commissioner Fisher, you're, you're on the planning council. What I have, I have some issues on this. And the, and the main issue is that, um, I think our, our planning council does a fantastic job. And I think they're the way that they've looked, they don't have a dog in this fight. They've done a very good job at looking at, at the maps, at the, at all of the historical data to, to determine what is the right, right ruling on this. They've, they have, they gave their, their, uh, interpretation. The planning council voted in favor of what the planning council said. I also talked to my day who is on our legal. I said, and I answered, I said, well, are you in concurrence with what the planning council, uh, what the, with, with their interpretation? And she could speak to it, but she said, yes, I am. I don't think we need to see this again. And what this is that just so you know, this is a, uh, an interpretate or a piece of land that, um, is owned by the city. It's our library is on that piece of land. Uh, it is the main access for on the Southern part of the beach for Hollywood for people to go, uh, to get to the beach. Um, and it's been there, it's been there a long time. Uh, it used to be the art and culture center, uh, many, many years ago, back in the seventies. Uh, what, what I'm concerned with is what, and I mean, I know that the city commission is, they took a, a, an unsolicited bid for this project. I'm not going to speak on the merits of the project, but what is happening is I, is that I think by going through this, there's an effort to, to avoid a land review. You, the, the, the, a land, a land use plan review. I think there's a right way to do things and a wrong way to do things. And I don't think this is the right way to do this. Because the, by trying to avoid a land use review, it's not allowing for public input. It's not allowing for all kinds of things where the public should be a part of it. I think the interpretation is, is right. In addition, the, the, the city of Hollywood has it on their charter with any land that is to be disposed of. This is, again, this is a piece of city property. 2008, the voters voted that any land over $250,000 should go to the voters to be disposed of. This is, there's an end around here. And that's by doing a 99 year lease. So the voters are not having an opportunity to speak on this. I don't think that's right. I don't think, and I, and I think what, and now there's a, a law that is being about to be signed from the state legislature that was essentially written for cities to kind of do an end around on this kind of stuff. That for the live local, that if it, that it can, they can, you know, developers can work, can use city land regardless. That's not going to be good because that's going to take local control out of it. I think we should support the planning council. I think they've done a good job. Um, commissioner Fisher, I think voted if I'm not saying vote, it was 13 to two, um, in favor of the interpretation of, of what, of what the planning council put forth there. We don't need to see this again, and it should go now through the processes. It should go through the process of a land use review. Okay. So I'm, I'm going to, um, I'm, I'm not, I'm not sure what the motion is. The motion is to, um, set this for public hearing. By setting this for public hearing, it is, and a, in my opinion, an attempt to delay this till that bill goes through the state to avoid having a land use review. This is not what we should be doing. This is not the right thing to do. So I'm asking you not to set reset this for public hearing. I thought this was going to be a quick item. I'm sorry. Are you going to be? Are you going to be? Because otherwise I'm going to table this because we have an 11 o'clock time certain. If you've got two minutes. Let me just give a quick counterpoint. Sure. The first of all, my understanding, first of all, and I would be interested in hearing later, not now, the position of Maite Escudia, our attorney, because I met with her recently, and that was not her position. I don't believe. I talked to her yesterday. So did I. So we'll discuss that, but at the appropriate time. The only item that is in front of us right now is whether or not the, not whether we like the project, not whether we think the only item is whether or not we agree with the legal interpretation of the planning council, which commissioner Fisher was on and voted, not voted against that interpretation. And I've examined this very carefully. I think we should at least set it for public hearing and then take up the issue at the public hearing. To not have a public hearing on this item, I think would absolutely go against what we stand for on our public policy. So I'm not right now, assuming that we have the public hearing, we're not going to get into the merits right now, but I think we should have a public hearing on that. And that's all that the motion is today. Okay. Well, do we have any else, anyone else that wants to talk on this? I'm, I'm in agreement with, uh, Commissioner Gallo, which is not often, but I, I do believe that, um, we should, uh, ensure that there's a public hearing. Okay. Do you want to just take a vote on this right now? Okay. Can I say one thing before you, before you do that? Of course. If you're going to, if we're going to set this for a public hearing, I would ask that it be done as soon as possible, so that it doesn't conflict with what the legal, what's that trying to be happening, that the work around is happening on the state level. So if you're going to set it, set it for immediate as soon as possible. Okay. I would have suggested we do this because these are very complicated issues, particularly if you're not a zoning and land use lawyer. And I was thinking that we were going to do this because we're approaching summer break already, you know, as soon as we get back from summer break. Uh, I will make a make, I will make a motion to set this for me. Okay. Let's take, do I have a second on his, do I have a second? I was going to try to get the record straight. So when on the planning council, the item came before the planning council and there was two votes that were taken. The first ones to, um, vote in favor of the city that failed, and then it came back and voted in favor of the planning council on that one. And so I was voting first in favor, but then I voted for the second vote because of them have failed. I voted for the, uh, planning council. That's how my vote is. Something that was a record was straight for that. But go ahead. I'm sorry. So, so we're going to set it for public hearing. Uh, commissioner for wants to set it for May. Um, let's take that. That's a motion. Uh, so you're mending the current, the current motion to add in a May date. Yes. This is just a motion to discuss and determine whether you want to set a public hearing. It sounds like what commissioner for is moving for is to set a public hearing for either the first or the second May meeting. Correct. Did you, and will you choose one and, uh, then see if you get a second? Um, second one's okay. Second. Second. So I have a motion and a second. I'd like to amend that motion if I can to schedule it at, as soon as summer break is over. Let's first hear his motion. His motion is, and I got a second on his motion to have a second meeting in May on the motion. Yeah. Yeah. Counsel. Yeah. No, it's a, Senator Geller's motion would take priority as a, as an amended motion. His motion would take priority. Okay. Uh, Senator, Senator Geller, you're amending Senator. I think we should have public hearing. I think it's a complicated issue. Let's schedule it as soon as we're back from summer break. I just don't think we have time between now. Okay. Do I have a second on that? Second. So I have a motion and a second on Geller's amended motion. Uh, can I call for a vote on that, on that one? Okay. Can we, can we? Yeah. You want to have comments? Sure. So, while we've always kind of deferred to the local commissioner, if it's something in this district, especially if it's on a land use that's not a regional type issue. Clear to me that commissioner for doesn't want this to go to public hearing, but I think he's compromising to do this in May and putting it on public hearing. So that's why I'm going to support commissioner for because I think he's making the compromise as far as putting this on. I can hear what he's saying in his comments. He would prefer this to go away, but if that's not going to work, he'd like the hearing the second week in May before the state gets through this. So just vote, you would vote no on Geller's amended motion, right? Yeah. Okay. So let's just, let's vote on Geller's motion to be, bring it back after summer break. All in favor of Geller's motion? Aye. Aye. Let's do by raise of hands. I got one. I got two. I got three. I got four. And then. I'll make a motion. I'll make a motion to sit here. This in May. Wait, hold on. One, two, three. Right. Four. Well, all right. Well, I have to defer it. I have to defer to the, I always defer to the commission committee. Well, it's. I think we need a public hearing. Okay. So I'll make, I'll make a motion that we hear this in May. Second meeting. Second. I have a motion to second all in favor of that motion. Aye. And he opposed. Opposed. Okay. You'll be here the first meeting. We won't count him. All right. So that's in favor. So that passes eight zero or eight one. That passes eight one. Okay. He's the one. And, and everybody else. So we're going to bring this back as a public hearing and the end of May, but he didn't say what year. So it'd be 2027. Yes. We didn't say what year. He didn't say what year. So, uh, we got that 2027 date. Okay. No problem. Don't they have like so many things to do something after. Okay. Come on. Right. And Mr. Mayor, that was my original question. That's from my understanding. Hold on a second. That's what you're saying. So we're going to discuss it, but isn't there a timeframe. They have 45 days for us to take action. And I wanted to verify with the county attorney's office that the setting for public hearing. Yes. Is actually taking that action. Yes. We believe today's action suffices to meet that 45 day. Okay. Put me back in. Am I here? You're changing your vote. Make it nine zero proof. Let's go on. We have a time certain 11 11 a.m. Number 48. Um, I'd like to ask, uh, is, is Dr. Jurado here? Yes, Mr. Mayor. Did she come up real quickly? Yes. Dr. Jurado. Maybe we could dispose of this like in three minutes. I'm joking. And then we should have people who signed up to speak on this item. For those of you that want to speak on this item. I hope that you will sign up down there. Okay. Yeah, I'm going to introduce this. It has two motions. Motion A is a motion to direct county administrator to develop a resilience implementation program based on the 2025 Broward County resilience plan to provide match funding for capital projects to address current and projected flooding issues in Broward County. Motion B is a motion to approve funding for the resilience implementation implementation program through a transfer from the general fund reserves. Four members of the public have signed up to speak on this item. You know what? I, uh, um, Jennifer, you see the seat right there? I'm gonna ask you to have a seat. Sure. I, I, so I was trying to be courteous on our previous one. I have, I need to be also courteous. We have somebody sitting here that also has to leave. On what number? On what number? On number 35, I believe that was pulled. So, uh, let's just take a couple minutes on number 35. Would you read 35 real quickly, please? Or you know what? I'm gonna do it. How does that sound? I got it. You got it. Okay. Item 35 has two motions. Motion A is a motion to authorize county administration to negotiate and execute a sponsorship agreement with the American Jewish committee to fund one catering books and materials for the family friendly programs and displays in coordination with the Broward County Librarians for Jewish American Heritage Month events. Okay. Okay. Okay. We have a motion to approve the fourth annual anti-Semitism summit. Motion B is a motion to adopt budget resolution transferring funds from reserve. Okay, so- Within the general fund for the purpose of providing fiscal year 2026 funding to the American Jewish committee for reserve sponsorship agreement. The board's consideration of this item is based upon the item as amended by additional material 35A submitted by Senator Manan Rich. Mayor, just to point out, the motion statement was revised. It's stated on Exhibit A. Everybody has it. It's okay. Okay. Do you want to introduce it or do you want me just to go to Commissioner Furrier that pulled it? Okay. Commissioner Furrier, you pulled it. I'm 100% behind doing the books and the materials. I'm a little concerned about the catering part. And only because I've been consistent on this whenever we're having, whether it's Water Matters Day or when it was Juneteenth, all those. I thought we shouldn't be doing the catering part. I thought that could get out of hand. And with all the Doge stuff, I'm just trying to kind of make sure. Doing the collection development, the materials, I think it's great. I think that's a fantastic part. It's within our mission with our libraries. But I can, you know, I'd like to hear, would you be willing to? Let me just open it up and let me just, first of all, introduce Wendy Lipsich, who's here from the American Jewish Committee. This would be the fourth year that we're doing the summit, fourth annual anti-Semitism summit. And that was what was omitted in the original, that's why I had to do a supplemental. Because that's the most, you know, it's not the most important, but it is one of the most important pieces of this. Last year we had Van Jones here. We've had incredible speakers, and we've had turnouts from the entire community, not just the Jewish community, not just one community, but across our community. People understand that anti-Semitism is one form of hate. There are lots of forms of hate, and unfortunately there are more and more of them going on. So we felt it was extremely important to continue this concept. So I would let Wendy speak to the catering, because I don't think that that's a, you know, particularly thing. My thing was the libraries have been incredible with what they have done with this. And then the summit is, you know, obviously the... Wendy, can you... So if you want to clarify that, I'd appreciate it. I would be happy to. First of all, I want to say thank you to each and every one of you for your continued partnership and support. We still see numerous, numerous incidences of anti-Semitism, but I can say Broward County, leading by example, has been extremely proactive and working with our community partners, and we continue to do so. So this is a little tricky with this line item, because we actually already saved funds, because we've been very good. And being very careful about how we spend these funds in our partnership. So we have leftover funds we're using with the libraries to purchase books and whatnot. The catering we do, because we have kids coming. When we say catering, it's basically like cookies, some very small things. And if you're not comfortable, we can always cover that also. We do work with many of our partners who can then cover food or the logistics and things like that. So I absolutely respect that. And we also want to be very careful about spending your funds as well. And then as far as the big summit that we did, for example, with Van Jones, we did provide food so people stay there for the lunch. We don't want people to leave right after Van spoke. Again, it's very minimal, but if it's an issue, then we can address it and take care of it with other funds. I know this is kind of minor, but I'm also trying to be aware of some of the stuff that I saw happening with all the Doge stuff. And so I'm trying to, so that we don't get targeted on this stuff. The materials, all the collection development, I think are fantastic. And the summit as well. So it's just, it's a minor part. I'm just trying to, I'm just trying to, I'm just trying to kind of keep us out of the target area. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, so how do you want to proceed? Do you want to amend it or do you want to, do you guys, based on what she said, what do you want, what do you guys, you pulled it. Senator Rich, I think, would be willing to amend it. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm fine with amending it. However, I, I do feel that, you know, part of the summit obviously is you invite people there for hours for speakers and you need to have the, the, the, the food there for, for them. And it, as, as she said, it's minimal, but, you know, it's there. And I don't personally have a problem with that, but if someone is not going to support it because of it, and I just don't think that, you know, this is considered, you know, I understand Doge and everything, but I don't think this fits under that category personally, but, um, if someone wants to. Mayor, could you refer to refreshments? Would that help? I, I, I mean, that's. I think we're, it's really refreshments. It's water. It's not, it's not catering. It's refreshments. Then let's change our word. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Why don't we just change the word from catering to refreshments? Thank you. Fine. And, and would you be okay with that? Fine. Okay. Okay. So we're going to amend it, um, your, your, your motion to amend from catering to refreshments. Do I have a second on that? I don't even need to make an amend. Do I need to make a, uh, if Senator Rich is willing to accept that. Thank you all so much. Great to see everyone. They're there. There you are. Thank you. I had to reset them. Thank you. Okay. I'm, I'm just going to take two minutes to introduce this. I'd like you to answer it. If you don't mind. I'm, I think we need to make a motion for a new sound system. We've been talking about your soundtrack. We're back. Can I, can I do something really quickly? One little thing that just got from Tallahassee. Just so, okay. What's that? It says, what a move by the speaker this morning. The house will not take up any legislation on vaccines. No medical freedom legislation will be heard by the house. Just a second. Let me just get back to it. Just a minute. Just a minute. I'm trying to keep this meeting on time. Nor will the house take up AI legislation, leaving that for the feds. Speaker referenced his small children and that vaccine policy has protected children in school for decades. It's dead. Okay. Okay. All right. Dr. Rado, just, if I could just take 60 seconds. Here we go. You guys, if I could just grab your attention real quickly. We have 1800 miles of canals, correct? Correct. Okay. Built about 80 years ago. Yes. They've been breaking down. I'll use that layman term, correct? Yes. Is it fair to say that if we do not act, that in less than 10 years, every neighborhood in Broward County is at risk of massive flooding? Is that correct? Yes. Okay. But we are seeing flooding now because of the breakdown, correct? Correct. Okay. On a scale of one to 10, one being we don't need to do anything, five being we need to get moving kind of soon, but no rush. And 10 being it's urgent now. We need to act now. One to 10, what number are we at? Ten. Okay. We need new pumps, correct? Yes. We need new culverts and we need new control structures, correct? Correct. And we're talking about $20 million for 15 years, which would help parlay that into a billion dollars to help pay for the 1,800 miles of canals that goes to every person sitting here neighborhood, correct? Yes. Through leveraging, yes. Okay. You also brought out the Council of 100, which I read here. The Council of 100 is a nonprofit organization of more than 200 business leaders, CEOs representing major industries across Florida. Are they supporting this? They've identified resilience as one of the most critical issues to be addressed in our state. Okay. So as far as your concern and your area of expertise at the county, this is one of the most important issues that we need to undertake now. Yes. It takes a lot of work to get here. Yes. I'll just call for a vote. We're done. No. I'm joking. I'm totally joking. I'm joking. Thank you very much. Do we want to get speakers first and then we'll come back to the DAIS? Okay. We've got speakers. The first speaker is Alan Hooper. The second speaker is Rob Corderans. Mayor, as he comes forward, as you well know, that you received letters from the workshop and from State Representative Lamarca and some other ones. So we're glad to have the support. Thank you. Please just state your name and let's do it. Hi. My name is Alan Hooper. I'm with the Broward Workshop. Thank you so much for allowing me to speak. I wish Rob would go first because the guy, he knows it better than anybody, but the leadership you guys are showing at this moment is critical. I know we're talking about things that are going to happen over the next 50 years, but it's starting now and the communities and the counties that get ahead of this, it's actually going to be something where you've saved money over the long haul by investing this money now. So I'm in full support of the agenda item. Thank you. So I'm going to correct one thing you're saying. While we have a resiliency plan of $28 billion for so many things, Dr. Arato didn't say this is over 50 years. She said if we don't do anything now within the next 10 years, every neighborhood is at risk of massive flooding. Well, and, you know, I sat on the surtax board and we were shown neighborhoods all over the county that were flooding horribly in any type of rain event. So anything like this that you do is a very positive thing for the community. Thank you. Who's next? The next speaker is Rob Cornerins and then followed by Tom Green. Good morning. Rob Cornerins, Advanced Trofing, 100% employee owned. And thank you for my proclamation in January. So I've been on the Climate Change Task Force since its inception. So I've been following all this for over 17 years. And this is real. You know, Keith Coney in City Furniture said to Dr. Arato, like, give us a plan. We're business people. We can work it. But we need to know. So we spent over two years in some good money. The Hayden McKenzie report came out showing how much it's needed and also the financial ROI. And it's a great ROI, over close to three ROI in the investment. And this action here today will start that. It's also going to show what, you know, Broward County is around the state. I just got back from EarthX in Dallas. It's the largest environmental conference in the world. And there's a lot of people who are doing things. But this is going to show action. And I'd like to get Dr. Arato to speak next year on it, if you approve it. I also sit on the Guy Harvey Foundation and friends who had alligator on. And we do education, K through 12. We have one on the sawgrass, the seagrass, how the water from the sawgrass affects the seagrass and vice versa. So we have oceans that are rising, pushing the salt water into the Everglades. And our pumps are got, I think, six inches left. If we don't do something shortly, we're really going to have problems. We already have problems. So I respectfully ask that you pass this today. Thank you. Thank you. Who's next? The next speaker is Tom Green, followed by Tim Petrillo. Good morning, Mayor, Commissioners, County staff. Thank you for your time. My name is Tom Green. I'm a resident of Broward County up in Pompano Beach. I also work for Keith. We're a local engineering company and also members of the Broward Workshop. We're in full support of this item. Resiliency is a critical item that the county is facing. And speed to market of how we spend dollars is really how you're going to leverage it. So the faster this can get approved, the faster you can put dollars to work, that's where you're going to leverage your dollars. Everything is going up. You see inflation, construction costs going up. So speed to market is critical to get this done. It's a great program. It also leverages, you know, what the state is doing with the federal, what the Fed is doing as well. So it's a really great way to piggyback and continue to leverage the dollars that are going to be spent for every corner of this county, for all 31 municipalities. It affects everybody, drainage is a huge critical issue, and this item tackles it. It's a really smart idea, and we're in full support of it. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker is Tim Petrillo. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor, Commissioners, and Administrator Shapiro. I am the chair of the Broward Workshop. We are, this has been an ongoing top goal of ours, initiative of ours. We feel it's super important to our community. We appreciate your leadership on this. It's only getting worse, and with time, it's only going to get more expensive. So your acting now certainly gives us that advantage in the future, and we certainly appreciate your leadership on this. So thank you. Thank you, Tim. Anybody else? No? Let's bring it back to the dais. Go around the dais. I'm sorry. We have somebody else? Come on down. Please just state your name. Good morning. Doug Kuhlman. I'm a little late this morning. Security was a little strong. That's good. I'm here as a longtime member of the Broward Workshop. This is common sense. State your name, please. Doug Kuhlman. Got it. I'm also here officially as part of the Broward Workshop, but as a longtime land planner here, this is really common sense. I'm also a member of the Surtax Oversight Board. We're spending a lot of money. We need to continue with the program that you're starting. It's time to move. I appeal to you to move this along. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. We got a number of someone. Can you just state your name, sir? Yeah. Good morning. I'm Jeremy Straub. I've been a resident for 20 years, 26 years in business. It's my first time ever addressing you guys. Appreciate you being here. I'm also on the Broward Workshop, and I also represent, and I'm on the Florida Council 100, which you brought up earlier when you first started. My business is, I employ 120 people inside Broward County, Coastal Wealth, which does financial planning, which we sit with a lot of clients' personal finances, along with that around property insurance. I'm a large agency and aggregator in the property insurance space. Two pieces that I think are really important here. One is the money that we're unlocking from the general account. It is really an investment to get the grants for tens of millions of dollars afterwards. It is leveraging our dollars to be able to go a lot farther. And then the second part, being in the insurance business, is around flooding. I sit with clients all the time. I see their homeowner's premium going up for a lot of reasons, but a large piece is because of the flood zones, and it's getting worse as the years go on. This is something that we can invest for our community to be able to actually save them cash on a regular basis. Thank you for the conversation. Thank you. Last person, Randall. I'm sorry. I want to say your name for the record. Good afternoon. I'm Randall Vitale, president and CEO of Vitale Partners. Really happy to be here today. I am the vice chair of the Broward Workshop. I also chair the appointing authority for the Surtax Oversight Board. I'm here to speak in support of this obviously important initiative. You've heard from a lot of my fellow Broward Workshop colleagues as to why it's important. The business community really feels strongly about this, and we wanted you to hear from us directly. Why you should support it. There's a saying about trees, which I think is really, really important here, which is the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today. We should have potentially made some investments in the past. We're ahead of the game now with this plan, which I think is great. The time to move forward is now. So thank you, Mayor and Commissioners. Thank you. Let's bring it back to Deus. Let's go, how about let's go around, Senator Geller? Thank you, Mayor. You've got two minutes. Okay. I should be able to do that. Three quick items first. I generally oppose taking money out of our reserves. I think that the reserves are there for a reason. This, however, is really an absolute emergency for Broward County, and so I, under this limited set of circumstances, I don't object to taking money out of, for the reserves, I think it's important. I want to point out the match when the, we did this last year, or actually this fiscal year, we put a million and a half dollars in, and that turned into ten and a half million dollars. We got a seven-to-one match from local governments. If we get the same seven-to-one match from local governments, and I think that this requires a minimum of a five-to-one match, we're hoping for seven, but requiring five. Even at a five-to-one match, it's $100 million, and if it's seven, then it's $140 million based on our $20 million investment. But the third is just a warning. As we've discussed before, and you've heard me talking about, are being flooded for years. We have the big canals and the small canals. If we don't get, fix our small canals, excuse me, the big canals, the small canals drain into the big canals. If we don't have capacity in the big canals, we're going to be flooded anyhow. But on the other hand, if we're able to get, and we're hoping to be funded in the 2026 congressional water bill, if we are able to fix the big canals, and we haven't fixed the small canals, we're also going to be flooded. So I'm just letting everybody know, it's not just what we're doing today that is going to help if we're not able to fix the six and a half, the six entirely large canals owned by the Army Corps of Engineers, and the half, which is one on the Dade-Broward border, half Broward, half Dade. If we don't fix those, fixing this isn't going to help. But we have to fix this, because if we're able to get that, it won't help if we don't do what you want. Thank you. Two minutes. Thank you, Mayor. It will definitely be two minutes. I want to thank the board's support last year of the million and a half that I brought forward for the culverts, and I think it was a great success, and it's kind of parlays into it, and I was obviously one of the co-sponsors of this with Commissioner Furr. And I witnessed it in 23 when I was mayor, when we had those big floods, and was an integral part of it. So this is obviously a huge step for us. And I think it's important. Ms. Shapiro, when we talk about general fund dollars, are there any other ways to connect this $20 million into another type of fund that's available to us now, so we don't necessarily touch, I'm okay with touching general funds, but is there any other ways? I think there's maybe an item coming up, I think, when a quarterly you come forward with the accounts. Don't you? Can I ask for that? Sure. Well, you ask her whatever you want. I'm still okay with the $20 million reserves. I'm still okay with that. So there would be two options. Well, wait a second. If you're okay with the $20 million reserves, why don't we just see if at some point, and we don't need to hear from our administrator on this. Thank you. I am thrilled that we're finally getting here today, because having been on the Climate Change Task Force for almost 10 years, I think, it's been a pleasure watching that resilience plan get shepherded through, and watching how the Broward Workshop, and I'm glad so many people from the Broward Workshop here, and as much as they challenged us to make this kind of a resiliency plan, one that was based on metrics, and that required the economic metrics that, well, you see a lot of resiliency plans throughout the country. You don't see them with this kind of attention to detail with regard to the economic aspects of it, and what you're seeing, to your point, Mayor, and others, this is an investment. This actually saves us money and saves us over the long period of time. The one thing I would like to add on this is I would like to add or make an amendment. You'll like the amendment. You'll like the amendment. I want to amend it to say that we are adopting the resiliency plan, which we haven't had a chance to do yet, and I think that's important for when we're going for grants. We need to officially adopt it, so I'm going to make a motion to add to this to adopt the resiliency plan. I don't know if we can do that, Council. We do? That's a whole different reason. It's a closed call. I think it's safer to do at a subsequent meeting. I'll put it on the agenda next meeting. I'll put it on the agenda next meeting. Okay. That's fine. As long as we're doing it, because it's important that to be part of it. It's an agenda item next meeting. Kevin, would you note that, please? That's subsection A, adopting? Yes. Okay. I wasn't going to say anything, but let me just, the administration heard from me yesterday about how I feel, and I see all my buddies from the city, all the stuff, great things that we did over the years. I think we've been talking about it for three years, I mean, three and a half years about resiliency, the plan that you just spoke of, and my concern is to me that this is like a moneyless pit. This is, you can hump all you want to, but this is a big number that we're talking about. I know we're going to start here, and I support it in concept and theory, but as I ask the questions, I mean, I just can't get an answer on how we're going to pay for this in the long long term, the taking from the reserve, I guess no time is better than now to do that, but yeah, if we, it's difficult. I'm going to support it, but I just want to be clear about there's no end in sight in terms of what this is going to be. We're talking about something that's nature. We're talking about something that God is doing, and we're not successful in a lot of things that we do in terms of infrastructure and things that we try to get in front of it, but this is a big, big lift, and I asked administration yesterday, when we did the surtax dollars that all of us in the room who've spoken today were part of, is there any way we can capture some of those dollars because sea level rise, it's impacting the floods in the streets and things of that nature, so it's a question I even propose to legal to try to get more money in this pot to pay for what we're doing, and I got some answers, but I don't know if I got the answer that I want to, I don't want to adopt your plan, but I do want to see if there's more money we can get to help offset what we're about to embark on today, and I think some of those dollars can be used to help us in this process, and just help me if you can, either one of you that can answer that question. Yeah, we'd have to analyze the expenditure, but yes, I mean, if it's for a transportation improvement to preserve it to make sure that it's effective and the focus is on that, then guarding it against, you know, making sure. So, so, so, so, so could it offset this, this 20 million ask, or dip from the, from the reserve form? I just need this for my own clarification. Once, once we see the implementation plan, you can figure out the extent to which any of those projects may be fundable from a different source, which could help leverage these dollars as well. Because I know we're talking about the canals, I get that, but all of this is, is, is tied together. So, so, in Fort Lauderdale, you know better than anybody, you know, about what we're experiencing with our, with our streets right now. So, so that question can't be answered right now. The answer is, in all likelihood, yes, but just for some subset of projects, and they'd have to be analyzed individually once we see them. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. Senator Rich. Yeah. Thank you. Three minutes. Mr. Mayor. Um, I just, I just want to say, um, I guess the way to put it is that other counties don't have a Jennifer Gerardo, and we do. And, uh, it is amazing, I think. I've been, as, as with Beam, I've been on the Climate Change Task Force and the co-chair with him for a number of years, but I've been on it for 10 years. The community, uh, comes together on that task force. Some of the people, like, uh, Rob, here today, has been on it as long as I can remember. Um, so we're, we're, we're getting input from all across the, the community. But I, I just truly believe that it doesn't, it doesn't happen without a tremendous leader, uh, an extremely knowledgeable person, uh, like Dr. Gerardo, she has a wonderful staff as well. But I just want to thank her because I think we're here, we're here asking because we have a legitimate plan. We have an excellent plan. Um, and I do believe that we do need to, uh, approve the resilience plan because I think that helps also with grant funding. But, uh, I'm sure that we'll be able to do that at another time. But, um, I just think we just need to, to give, uh, kind of credit where credit is due here. And, uh, just, um, I'm, I, I'm, I'm proud to be a part of this and I'm proud to support this item. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Dean. Just a couple questions. Um, in, in subsection A of this, that's what the plan that was presented to us by Dr. Gerardo a few months ago. I would be willing to vote on that part today to adopt that today and take any risks that we might have with it. I don't think that needs to come back. I think the plan is well thought out. It was presented to us. And I think it's a plan that we should have in place right now today. We don't need to wait on that. So if beam was to make a motion to approve subsection A as amended with the word adopted in there, I would second it and hope see if we could get to five votes. I understand what Drew's saying, but I think it's still would be something that we could have in there. That's my, that's my first, my second question is in subsection B when I read the statement. So, so we're looking for $20 million. But then when I read the back up on page two that they talk about, is that $20 million one time this year is $20 million a year for 15 years. Okay. So that's not what's in subsection B. Um, as counsel. Okay. One commission can't buy. Well, that that's what I want to understand. I want to understand what we're actually asking for today because the backup says we're asking to put $20 million a year for the next $15 million. 15 years. 15 years. Is that what this is, what we're voting on? No, you're, you're voting on, and it does say that in there and that's the full leverage would, would presume that, but you're doing it every year. This is a $20 million transfer to reserves development of an implementation program. And the way we read it when it's developed, because there'll be a needed authority for contracting and grants, et cetera, that would come back to the board and you would, you would implement it. Okay. So, so for this year, what we're voting on is $20 million transfer from reserves or from somewhere. Um, that I, that I have an easier time supporting than a, than $20 million for 15 years. Here's the reason I say that and Commissioner McKenzie was kind of getting to it. Um, but I'll take it a step further. Uh, resiliency plan is amazing. The dollar should be there to help support what we want to do on a year by year basis for resiliency. We should get grants off of that, but we should have specific projects that are identified and that are approved by somebody because I don't want to get into the point where we have a pot of money sitting somewhere. And then you get per terra buses where you go, because you just have to spend these dollars on something. And then you get something that becomes a major problem later on. I can support 48 B if we're talking about $20 million from the reserves for this year, but I wouldn't support it if we're binding us for 15 years. So if that's clarified, then I would vote in the affirmative on B. So, so if I can just, uh, take off, um, council, we're talking about the canals. Now, based on the way this is written, does admin have the authority to say, you know what, now that the board voted on this, let's not do the canals right now. Let's do project B, C, D. Can they change like what commissioner Udine is saying? There's this pot of money. Can they decide to change that and say, you know what, uh, let's do this. Forget the canals right now. Let's do this. Can they do that? No, the reason why I wanted to add what I said before, which is the way I interpreted this, uh, is that you're allocating the $20 million. So it's set aside so people understand the money is going to be there one time money. You're not committing beyond this year, but administration is developing a resilience implementation program that's going to show what they're spending the dollars on, what the anticipated match, et cetera, bring it back to the board. If that doesn't align with what your priorities are, the canals, you're going to have a check in place. I'm being represented to me from day one is that the canals right now are of utmost urgent priority. And I just want to make sure that this can't all of a sudden turn around and, and, you know, uh, you know, we decided to change that. We, you know, without coming back to the board. Mr. Mayor and Drew, if I might, uh, so I want to just clarify so that there's no question whatsoever. So our intent will always be to come back to the board with the projects, just like we did in the projects a couple of meetings ago. Okay. So you guys will be bringing, so on May 8th, Dr. Gerardo had committed to bringing back that implementation strategy to you all. Okay. That will be done there on May 12th. You will have a board workshop. That will be another topic there. And once this dollars, if they get supported and appropriated today, then we will be bringing back an agenda item with the RFA. So you guys are perfect. Thank you. I got it, Mr. Mayor. So wait, I said, I'm going to depend on where we get the matching funds from. If, if Margate gives us matching funds, we're going to do it in Margate. If Cooper City will, it depends. Let her come back. She'll come back with a program. She'll come back with something solid. Okay. So I still have the floor. Yep. Okay. So I, that, that being said, I'll wait to see the implementation plan because I, I, if this plan was not just about canals, this is, this was a fully comprehensive plan for environmental resiliency. So that's different than what, what I agree with you. Can I interrupt you a second? Sure. So we have a $28 billion plan. Right. So when I asked Dr. Gerardo, what is the priority? She said, focus 1 billion out of the 28 billion on the canals because it's going to affect everyone's neighborhood. Agreed. But that's not what's in the motion statement that what we're voting on. So I just want to be careful because I want to make sure that these dollars are going for where they're intended to go and someone doesn't come back to us and say, yeah, we have an implementation plan. And part of this is if we have AI robotics taking over the world, we're using the money for that. She said that can't happen because it's coming back to the board. But canals include culverts and includes the pumps. Right. Of course. Of course. Right. That was what my concern was when I read B because it was confusing to me between the statement. Right. So. So wouldn't it be all canals not who gives us matching money? Because they said that this affects all of our neighborhoods. So are we going to select it based on them? But I would think that if somebody's coming with a matching grant so we can leverage the dollars better, it would have a higher priority. Because these really aren't all even municipalities. You have water drain and drainage districts that are going to be doing this. Right. You have you have you have special improvement districts. There's a lot more to this than we're just taking money and throwing it in a pot. So I would want to see the ordinance requires the five to one match if you read it. I was going to chime in about the match. So what you guys have before you that would include the matching just like what happened with those other projects. There are. Where is that in what I have? I have two pages. So we'll bring we're bringing this back to you all. So you will see that and part of. The vote today does not bind you if they come back with some crazy plan. It doesn't bind you to move forward. My if I may Mr. Mayor. So what I just wanted to make sure it's very clear. So Dr. Rada will be bringing back something on May 8th that will show and this is what she'd been working on with the mayor because when he'd asked for some input on this what that shows is it will be for tier one capital projects which are part of the plan and all of those there are other things in tier one but the but this 20 million would be there's plenty of canal projects which are the water control structures culverts and pumps that we talked about that she talked about. Those were all the canal system projects and those would be leveraged this 20 million dollars would be leveraged with municipalities water controls districts and all of that that would maximize the dollars. That's the whole point of the 20 million is to leverage. Okay as long as there's some kind of methodology I want to be respectful of the Broward workshop. These are sharp business people that would never just take dollars from their businesses and throw them into a pot and just mix it up. I want to see something so that we know we're getting the best bang for our buck just like the Broward workshop wants the best bang for their buck and their businesses and I think it's incumbent upon us to do that so that we can show progress in a very important issue. Right. We'll be bringing it back. Commissioner Davis anything? You're good. Commissioner Rogers did you want to add anything? Yes okay. Thank you Mr. Mayor and colleagues. To get to where we need to be I this five to one match if a city they have the need they have the flooding but they don't have the money. Where do they stand? I think we need to ask our administrator. Monica? So hold on if it's a five to one requirement and a city doesn't have the money they have the need but they don't have the money what happens? That would be a policy decision of this board. If you guys wanted us to award a project to a municipality that did not have a matching funds that would come back to this board and it would be the parameters set by. The statute I thought requires that so how do we get around a statute counsel? You mean the ordinance? It's an ordinance? It's not a state statute. That's what we're adopting. Okay. So then we can do it. Okay. There is not. Is there an ordinance? I'm not aware of there being a five to one match. It would be part of the plan that she'd be bringing back as a proposal. So again you all will have an opportunity and we have a workshop on May 12th. So you will have already had her implementation strategy plan proposal on May 8th and then you guys can look at that and have the conversation. Whatever the will of the board is we will make that policy. We'll implement that policy. Thank you Monica. I still have the floor. Dr. Arado we had our conversation and in that conversation you were shared with me so proudly that the federal government respect our county so much for the work that we are doing on our with our resilience plan and they take our numbers take the information that we share and they use that to determine our flood zone policies. Could you explain that further forward. Yes thank you commissioner. What I was sharing and I think the board has acknowledged in the past is that through our hydrologic modeling it is so robust and advanced that FEMA now uses what is the county model as well as the South Florida water management district. So the work that we do and the projects that we construct part of the strategy would be to ensure that those projects are integrated into our model and so the next time that FEMA is utilizing our model the benefits of those projects will be ingrained in the results which then immediately translate to the improved flood elevations by virtue of these projects being constructed. That's it. And lower flood insurance rates. And lower flood insurance rates is the whole. Thank you for clarifying is the whole point. That's where we're going so that the public and all of us know this is an awesome investment 20 million. I think we should invest in our resilient part. I don't want to hear Steve talk about we're going to be flooded and there will be no more Broward County. All right. Thank you for people. One more one more time on this. I do think it's important to adopt this at the same time. And the reason is what Commissioner Udine said is it gives the parameters. It gives a guardrail as to where this money can be spent. It can't go outside of that. If you were adopted. We're adopting the resiliency plan. And this money is to be spent to implement that that plan. That's why that's why I was doing that. So and I think and I think for good reason. County attorney wants to kind of look over it and make sure that because of. Yeah. So so we can't the how we're spending it will align with the plan because something's going to be brought back to you. And I would probably ask whenever you make the motion here to just add the word subject to approval by the board at a subsequent meeting just so everyone's comfortable with that. I want to have eyes. So we already have some lawyers who've looked at it. I'd like to look at the plan just because of some state legislation just to make sure that there's no terminology in there that may be difficult for us or create risk. OK, so I will make that motion again with with what the caveat caveat that you just mentioned. Subject to approval of the board. Right. Exactly. But we should still have people speak. I got I got placed there. So I'm not clear because Senator Geller is saying that if a city doesn't have it, the city doesn't give a match, they don't get a lift. My question is the intent of what we're doing is 20 million was I thought to go out the federal state and other dollars are bringing a bigger return. than a city doing something. So is it all three? I mean, the intent of this 20 million was to go where and do what? So I will I will start and then I'm going to ask Dr. Harada to come up. But the intent of this is there are already established projects and canals that are out there that we know are part of that tier one capital infrastructure for the resilience plan, which includes canals that are in all these different cities. Right. And and when we had the one and a half million, we had four projects immediately out of the chute that were ready. We I'm sure we will have a lot more because we only had the one and a half million and we had three cities and one of our own county agencies that took advantage of that as well. And that leverage that one was actually seven to one was the leverage and we got over 11 million dollars worth of projects for a million and a half dollars. So the intent of this 20 million would be to knock out as many infrastructure projects as we could get that are shovel ready, ready to go right now. So we can make the most impact quickly. The idea would be that this 20 million could be used for canals and municipalities or water control district areas that they would give that matching four and a half, five to one that you would see. That are so ready now that already have gotten their grants from somewhere else. Or or or not. No one's answering the question. This. But where's this five to one coming from? From municipalities. We got three right now in the books. We're going to get 20 million now to try to leverage that to 300 million. Am I correct? One hundred and forty. One hundred. So 90 million if it's five. Where's the match coming from? So where is that? The city. But we only have three that's shovel ready. No, no, no. Those were ones you already approved. For the one point five. One point five. Yeah. Well, we would come back and do an. So we're going to we're trying to get cities now to we're trying to incentivize them. That's correct. To come up with projects. I want to be clear for the public. Yes. This is 20 million dollars that, you know, is going to be printed on front on the front page tomorrow about what we did. Have no problem with it. Want to make sure that they're clear on the intent and how this works out. That's the only reason why I'm asking these questions. Yes, sir. So they're they're really valid and very important for the public to understand. So it would be that these this item would have an item that comes back. The RFA request for applications will go out and we will get a lot of interest. And then those projects will be done in those municipalities and areas that those projects are ready. And those dollars were matching dollars come from the municipalities or control district. All this does is let this let Jennifer Gerardo and the admin to come back with planning on what will approve on how the money will be used. That's all this vote is right now. Say let's move forward. Can we vote on this now? There is an amendment. OK. The only amendment that he's adding is subject to the approval by the board. No, I thought no, he wants to adopt the resilience plan. I thought your council said he wanted time to look at it. He's just asking for a caveat. Well, it's better to wait. But if you're going to approve it, I'd like if you would to include a caveat in there that would allow us to review it. I don't. And the reason I'm saying that is because much of what Commissioner Udina and Commissioner McKenzie said, you want to have some guardrails and say this is where this money is going to be going in between. So what it's going to be going to be for your amendment. OK, I will say it one more time. If you don't mind. What if we just why can't we just do it separately and get it done? And we make sure that those things are in the next time instead of trying to I'm not gonna say hijack a force, but this that one go and we know that we're working on the plan that we all have worked so diligently on. At least since I've been here. I mean, I can wait. But I'm I'm thinking when you're when you're putting out twenty million dollars, you want to be saying it's it's tied to this plan and not and it's not to go outside of that. You know, you guys were just you don't want all of a sudden money going here, here, here. Right now, I just want to get it out of the gates and then come back with it. It might be it what you're talking about. I agree with me. If you don't mind. All right. Look, I agree with me. You want to make an amended motion of what let's let's let's why don't we be why don't you move agenda item A with the caveat and then let's talk about B. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Mayor, I just really need to do this. OK. All right. Look, I'll do this on the next meeting. OK, I do think it's important to do it. I think this sets the parameters. We're going to do it. It's going to be an agenda next meeting. All right. OK, so we've got 48. Both A and B. We're voting on both. And if you could just if you wouldn't mind, Mayor, whenever the motions may just add just to make it express, you know, subject to approval by the board. A is subject and B is subject. Move as stated by the attorney. Second. OK, I have a motion to second with the amended words. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Show the passing 9-0 and it's 12-01. We have a special set at 12. We're going to go do that. We'll come back at 1 o'clock for a special set at 1. What are you pointing at? Thank you. Let's point at you. OK. Are we going to 4.30? Yeah. All right. So we have a special set right now in another room and then we're coming back at 1 o'clock. Monica's not here, but we're going to start the meeting anyway. Is that OK? And my vice mayor is not here. OK. Vice mayor is here. OK. Drew, you'll correct me if I am not doing this procedurally correct, right? Thank you. So what I want to do is go into the public hearing. We're going to go straight to 42A and I just want you to know what 42A is. 42A. All of 42, mayor. All of 42. All of 42. Sorry. First of all, we have no speakers on 42? We have no speakers on 42. Pardon me? No speakers on 42. Thank you. And mayor, can she just open the item? Sure. Open the item. The public hearing on item 42 is now open. Item 42 has two parts. The board will consider both parts at the same time, but vote on the parts separately. Motion A. Part A is a motion to waive section 18.5.8.1 of the county administrative code, which requires that the board first direct the county attorney's office to draft a proposed ordinance. OK. Hold on for a second after that. Why would we do B? I mean, 42A is what you said allows this thing to bring up, but 42B is more in-depth. Yes, but let's just to open the item. You don't have to discuss. You can vote on 42A. So we're only going to vote on 42A. OK. Initial. OK. Go ahead. Part B is a motion to enact ordinance creating the Broward County Health Care Plan ordinance, creating Article 7 of Chapter 31.5 of the County Code of Ordinances for the purpose of levying subject to approval by referendum a quarter percent health care surtax for a period of five years, creating a segregated trust fund into which all health care surtax funds will be deposited and providing for the use of the health care surtax funds in accordance with the Broward County Health Care Plan. No, member of the public has signed up to speak on this item. 42A only. Can I have a second? I'll second. 42A allows me just to bring this item up. It's not on any of the substance that you know what I'm going to talk about. OK. I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Any opposed? Show that passing 9-0. Now we're going to go into 42B, right, Councillor, 43 and 49. No, Mayor, 43 and 49 would be opened afterwards. I would recommend taking 42B on its own, which is the ordinance. So I can give my quick little presentation on that? Yes, sir. It would be appropriate this time? We don't have, there are several people that are wanting to speak, but I'm going to go first. If you guys don't mind, I'm going to do a quick little presentation for you. All right. Let me do this first. You have two minutes. Thank you. I love that. Listen, I can speak fast. I can speak fast. OK. So what I want to first do is something that is not normally done. I want to argue against this. I'm going to first present to you why people, the argument that people made to me, why somebody would be against this. So the first argument is that you're giving the voters a question here, a ballot question, to implement a quarter of a penny sales tax. But how do you do that when rents are going up? Rents are going up. Mortgages are going up. Groceries are going up. Gasoline is going up. Medication, health care costs are going up. Insurance is going up. Even the water bill is going up. And here you are, Bogan, now wanting to do a quarter penny tax. The person on the limited income, fixed income, and all these things are going, you can't afford, the person that just gets their medication, none of it. So that defeats the argument where somebody emotionally wants to say, you should be against this because everything's going up. Well, this has nothing to do with that. First argument. Second is that last time we were here, there was some comments about- So you're out of order. Come on. Let me just do this quickly. I know you guys are having a fun time at this. So look at hospital districts because, thank you, it's going to put a tax on every property. Every property owner, if they're hurting or they're wealthy or no matter what it is, it goes for every property owner. Where this, I believe, up to 20% is paid by visitors. People who can't afford it aren't going to pay it. So by doing it this way, you're actually not going to hurt or touch people who are really, I'll call it the lower economic strata. But let me talk about, real quickly, what it does. Because 99% of the residents here, maybe some of you can afford a $2,500 body scan for cancer or a $1,000 or $1,500 scan for cardiac. But 99% of our residents cannot afford this, okay? 99% of our residents can't afford expensive preventative tests. 99% of our residents don't have access to the modern technology at the hospitals. So whether somebody is making $15,000 a year or $15 million a year, we're now leveling the playing field. But because this quarter penny will let everybody get the same technology, the same test, the same opportunity to have the find-out problems, whether it's cancer or cardiac, it puts everybody on the same playing field. What about somebody who is poor, they find out they have cancer and they need surgery or they need open-heart surgery or whatever it might be? This puts money away for indigent care. So people who can't afford the care, people who have no insurance or the insurance won't cover it, this plan also covers for those people. I'm trying to cut through it real fast. Again, I guess I'm going to just cut to the chase. This quarter of a penny. So that means if somebody goes and gets a burger at a fast food restaurant and it costs $4, it's a penny. It's $0.01. $8.00 might be $2.00. I'm not going to do the exact calculation, but we're talking a penny on $4.00. And it will allow all residents to get access to all the hospital testing for preventative care. And if they need care, again, as I just said, it doesn't have an impact on the most challenged economic. Four years ago, I made a presentation to all of you, and we had six or seven doctors. Those of you that were here, you may remember. And the doctors predicted that 50% of everybody that went through the test would need something. Well, they were wrong. It wasn't 50%. It was 57%. And an additional 5% of people who had clear arteries also found that they had beginning stage of lung cancer or AFib. So it helped 57%. I had another 5% to that of the people it helped. When I asked to put this on the ballot four years ago, most of your comments were, let's prove it. Okay? People thought I was crazy. They didn't believe that would happen. So we proved it. We proved the numbers. We have saved lives. I don't care if this is not your priority. I don't care. You've got to admit, you saw even the baseball player in November, the video of a guy who was in great shape. I mean, it saved his life. We've saved and affected the lives of over 4,500 people. I've been told that every, I'm not sure if this is accurate, every man has, one in two men will get cancer in their lifetime. One in three women will get cancer in their lifetime. Just be concerned, one in three people in their lifetime will get cancer. We have 2 million residents. Okay? So if you just do the divide, you're talking about over 600,000 people in Broward County at some point will get a cancer diagnosis. Now add the cardiac. You're now up to a million out of our 2 million at some point in their life may have a cardiac and cancer issue. If we could just help 5% or 10% of those people, you're talking about saving or helping the lives of 50,000 to 100,000 people. I think I've kind of covered what I wanted to say. I have some people here that would like to speak on the matter. I guess what I want to leave you is what's in front of you is also different from four years ago. I'm asking for a five-year sunset. This is not something that's going to be on forever. It's five years, and then it's done. If the voters like it, they can vote it again. Most importantly, I want to say is I'm not asking you to implement a tax. You could be up there and say, I hate taxes. Let the voters decide. You're not agreeing to any tax. This is not asking you to agree to any tax. It's asking you to say, I'll let the voters decide I'm against it, I'm for it, whatever you are, but I'm asking you to let the voters decide. We've proven the stats, and this could save, I think, hundreds of thousands of lives, and we're the only county so far that's been doing this and showing what success we've had. So with that, I wanted to bring up real quickly, 60 seconds, Vice Mayor, Dr. Claudio Shepaklavisky, who's been our consultant. We've paid him to be our consultant for three years just to verify the statistics. Where's Claudio? Come on up. Don't be shy. He looks familiar. What? He looks very familiar. He's the master. A lot of you know me, and I've actually had the test yourselves and have experienced what this means. I'm not a politician, I'm a person of science, and I'm all skeptical, and Mayor Bogan actually pursued me for two years to actually get involved, and I was very hesitant because I'm allergic to politics, and I understand there's, you know, my concern was, you know, waste and, you know, the things that government does, and from personal experience, not only was he sincere and wonderful through it, but the people that were involved on the professional side, I mean, I stood here in 23 and told you we expect 50% to be positive, and actually, it was much higher than we actually expected to be at 57%, and our only limitation that we had was post-COVID, and so many people moving into Broward County, the hospitals didn't have the capacity to just suddenly absorb this large population, but we did over 7,000 patients, which is an enormous amount, and over 800 of those patients. Now, again, I remind you, these patients were no cardiac history. They had to be between 45 and 70, no prior stents. They just needed to have one hard risk factor, meaning hyperlipidemia, diabetes, hypertension, strong family history. These were walking, talking patients, and these were younger patients that weren't aware they had anything. Over 800 of them ended up having to go to the hospital to have a stent or open heart surgery, so the impact has been enormous. Now, I'm personally against taxes, but this is something I think that's very special that the people can think about and vote on, because this actually works, and it actually saves lives, and from the insurance aspect, I mean, I don't know what kind of insurance you have, but most people that have insurance now, because of the cost, there's a high deductible, so you have to meet a certain deductible that most people can't afford to access, and it's not very, very simple. Even if you have Medicare and Medigap, if you go to see your annual visit, it costs you nothing if he just says, are you okay? Yes, but if he puts his hand on you, then there's a charge, so on average, with Medigap, a hospital will charge you in the range of $1,500 for the office visit and labs, so it's a huge strain, and this can actually and will save lives if done properly, and we showed that we could do this properly, and it was extremely successful to the point I still get calls, where can I go, and Cleveland Clinic has taken this on. I mean, we had Broward Health, Cleveland Clinic, Holy Cross, and Baptist Health. They all embraced it. They want to continue it. But I just hope you really consider it, because it will save lives over our population. Any questions? So do I need to return the gavel back to him, since it's his issue, or how do we do that legally? I got it. I'm getting a legal opinion before I turn it over. Unless and until he's ready to make a motion, the mayor can have the gavel. Thank you, doctor. Thank you. Real quickly, Dr. Ross and Alex, I don't know if you're both here. Dr. Ross is the chief medical officer of Cleveland Clinic, and they are the ones leading it right now. Before, first it was at Holy Cross, then Holy Cross Broward. Now they're the ones leading the charge. So I'll take less than a minute. Scott Ross, I'm the hospital president of the Cleveland Clinic in Western Florida. We do administer this program on your behalf. I was a skeptic at first, only because I didn't understand the criteria to rule in, in order to take the test. Seeing the abnormal findings, not only on the cardiac side, but on the lung side, I know we're changing lives. But in addition, when the mayor mentioned, where do we go next with cancer treatments, my mind immediately went to me 20 years ago this month. But I was a 36-year-old gentleman that found out for the first time that I should have been screened for colon cancer because my mom had died at the age of 42. I was asset limited, income constrained, but I was employed. I had no insurance, I didn't qualify for any governmental assistant, and I got told that I needed a colonoscopy. I found a physician to do it, I ended up going on a payment plan with a hospital, $5 a month is all that I could afford at that time, and I actually had six polyps at the age of 36. Had I not done that, I'd have been dead within 10 years. Health or cancer screenings work. We need to find a way to make it available to more of our population here in Broward. Thank you. Thank you, Doctor. Pastor Robert Stanley, you want to come on up? Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, all the commissioners. I made a great sacrifice to come this afternoon. This is my evening to prepare for the Tuesday Inspirational Service. But something as important as this, the Lord gave me permission to leave my study to come and share with you all this afternoon. I am in total agreement. My name, again, is Robert Stanley, Senior Pastor of the Hopewell Baptist Church, where I've been for 36 years. In addition, I'm standing for the Broward-Southbroward Ministerial Alliance, where I serve as the Vice President. Dr. Jones is the President. And the Alliance, along and myself, we completely support this quarter of a penny sale tax. Just imagine that this county has distinguished itself as not just being concerned about constructing projects, but caring for people. And not the people who, like myself, can afford health care and can go and get these critical screenings, but for those individuals who can't. Many of them are in my congregation and congregations all over Broward County. In fact, let me commend this commission for providing already the screening for cardiac screening, as the doctor just alluded to, which has distinguished you all as individuals that can be associated with scripture. And I did say I'm a pastor, so let me indulge just for a half second. I think it's 1 John 3 and 17 that says, Whoever have this world's goods, see that their brother have need, and shed up their bowels of compassion. How dwelleth the love of God in them. And so you all have distinguished yourself because you see the need of those who are not as fortunate as others, which is demonstrating the compassion of our Savior. There's another scripture. I know the elephant in the room is the word poor, but in Proverbs, Solomon says, 19 and 17, He that pities the poor lend to God, and that which he has given, God will repay. I like the way Eugene Peterson says it. It might sound a little more familiar to you. He says, mercy to the needy is a loan to God, and God always pays his loans. So this commission has positioned our county to experience continual blessings and success. And not to put this on the ballot, I am good friends with Mayor Fisher for over 36 years, but I would have to put all of the no votes on my special prayer list to make sure that you are deserving of all the credit that this commission is due. So thank you for the privilege to stand, and thank you, Mayor Bogan, for inviting us. Thank you. Real quickly, we've got two more people. Pastor McLemore. Good evening. Well, you've got a half a dozen in one hand and six in the other. Nothing is actually free anymore. I wish we could eliminate poverty, but it's here with us. But it's the way to serve people. I wish we'd have had it eight years ago. My daughter probably wouldn't be alive. So I'm for this. I hate it has to go through politics, though. This is a humanity thing, and it's going to cost us. Five years is enough to test it to see if people want it. But it's not so much about wanting it, needing it. And so now when you're talking about needs, that's a concern. If needs need to be met, I'm sure you guys are going to find a way to help people who have it pay for it. Because what happens after you get diagnosed, I don't know if I quite understood what you were saying, if they have it, whether it's a heart or cancer, how do we pay for it if it's been diagnosed and they need to be treated? I didn't hear that. Can you help me with that? Part of this is required to put away for indigent care. So that would pay for people who can't afford to pay for treatment, who don't have insurance. It would be for indigent care, pay for the treatment. Okay. Well, I believe we should have it. Because if it's going to save lives as a pastor, I certainly mean the business of doing, saving lives. Thank you. Thank you. I also, Vincente, did you want to comment? Vincente Thrower, who's a very active individual in good old Pompano. Vincente Thrower. Good afternoon. I'm here to support this item. And as I was coming to support this item, I thought about when former State Senator Nan Richards was running for governor, she had reached out to a good friend of hers, Hazel in Bristol, who has passed. She passed the council. Imagine if she had been able to be here today, which side she would be standing on today. It is important that when we have an opportunity to let the voters make a decision, this is not a county commission decision. This is a voter's decision. I think it is good for the voters, and we would like to have our say so on it. And that is how this governing body should be governing, because when you all come to us, you say that you are here for us. So for us and our communities, let us have a decision and vote for this, up or down. Thank you. Thank you. Come on up, Chris. Sure. I was going to use it. Hello, Commissioners. Chris Nelson. And I'm going to do a little bit like what Commissioner Bogan did, is I argued against this in the past. And mainly because when you have something like this where you're taking money via tax and using it for a health care program, that there can be corruption involved. It can be used for things that it wasn't intended to. That might not be from you, but from future commissions or bureaucracies. But I will say it's good to see something where I'm paying out taxes or taxes are being paid out, and I'm getting something back for it, because a lot of these taxes go to other things in the thin air and to benefit other people, and we don't really know. I got the heart scan, and it was great, and the Cleveland Clinic was wonderful. And getting a cancer scan would be a great thing as well. Now, I did not take the COVID vaccine, so I probably won't have the high risk for cancer, but I have done other things that haven't been as good. But a full scan for cancer would be a great thing. I see you giggling over there. But then also, what happens next? Once you get to a point where you get diagnosed with something, then how do you pay for the treatment? Now, Broward County has the best homeless insurance program in America, where you get free insurance and medical care for a year. Could this possibly be extended to more people in Broward County so we could be taking care of our own residents? And I know it might be a little bit strange to hear me agreeing with something like this, but something that does bring a great benefit to people of Broward County and make sure it's for residents only. We wouldn't want people coming in or moving in just to get this or buying a second home or something just to get this. We'd want to put something like you have to have been a resident for so many years and really show we take care of our own. Because if the money's there, then we should be able to provide this for people. So thank you. Thank you, Chris. Anybody else that I'm missing? Anybody else wants to? I guess I'll bring it back to the dais then. Anybody want to speak on it or do a vote? Anybody? And you're going to kill me like you did last night? I'm actually not going to kill you. All right. No, no. Actually, it might even surprise you that I'm going to vote for this. I appreciate it. Okay? No, I'll tell you why. I don't think it's the right place to do the taxing, and I'll never change my mind on that. We have two public hospital districts who have taxing authority, and I believe they should be doing this. Okay, but they haven't, and you have shown that this has saved lives, and with a lot of incredible, 50%, I think they said, positive results. And I have a problem because we only have, I believe, just 1% tax left that we can tax, and there are things that come up that are extremely important. Can I interrupt you a second? I forgot to tell all of you that not only is this a five-year sunset, but exactly what you're saying, if there's an infrastructure need, this tax comes off right away. It will not interfere with anything. Thank you. You've thought about a lot of things, right? And last but not least is the fact that it will go to the public, and the voters will decide what they want to do. We'll support it. Thank you. Okay. I'll go around this way. Okay. Let me start with Commissioner Davis. I'll come around this way. Go ahead, Commissioner. Thank you. I like the item. I was just hoping that it could include, and maybe it can't, any provision for mental health. I don't know. Counsel, I'm sorry. She wants to know if this can, at some point, even if we have to amend it later, can this include mental health? Yes. I mean, the plan is a living, breathing document that can be addressed, but I am going to defer specific questions on plan contents to Ms. Harrod, who's our internal expert on this. Sure. Thank you, Drew. Commissioner, the plan includes primary care and preventive care as one of the critical components to it, and that includes a broad range of primary and preventive care services for people who are indigent and medically poor. That could include services as they are developed along the way that would include mental health. Yeah, because I just think that if that mental health component, because you're not just going to put this on a ballot just for putting it on a ballot. You should be, if you want it to pass and you want to put it on a ballot, there are some things that, to me, are critical. The heart scan cancer is good, but there's a lot of need for mental health resources. And I think the public could identify with that because whether you know somebody with cancer or heart disease, almost everybody knows people are walking around and they're not well. And, you know, a lot of times that's where we have the crime, that's where we have the domestic violence, as they claim some of it is because of that. There's all sorts of reasons why, you know, mental health is an issue that is not being addressed the way it should be addressed. And so if there's any way to specifically put that wording in there, I think that will, you know, pique the interest of the general public because currently there is a need to focus on mental health as well. So that would be something that I would want to see if the mayor, if it can happen, if some element of mental health is actually in the language. Thank you, Commissioner. I'm not sure if that has to be, because they already published, so that would be amended. I don't know if you can get in now, but. Mr. Mayor, I had asked for a couple of amendments and staff told me that if we amended it at this point in time, it rendered it constitutional. So what I can promise you is, is that once this is enacted, we would be able to come back and address all the needs of the community. Yeah, I mean, it's, so the ballot question is a different item also in terms of what might theoretically be referenced in a ballot question. Uh, but in terms of this plan, the plan is, is flexible. You see what the focus of the plan is, uh, if this were to pass this board and then this were to pass, uh, the voters test, if it goes forward in November, uh, you're going to be interacting, continuing to interact with experts, seeing what resources are available and obviously addressing things that are permissible under the statute in terms of greatest need. Mr. D. Um, I was very proud when I was mayor is when this plan passed and became part of you, probably because of me. No, actually, I was very skeptical about this. Um, I, I remember when we debated this and, you know, I knew the numbers were going to prove themselves out though. I said that at many of the meetings, we knew what the numbers were going to be. And I remember we were, we were talking about the debate on this to see if we could take these findings through a, some kind of calculated study and send this up to make sure insurance companies would then cover these kinds of tests in the future. Um, but this evolved as we went forward and this, I've, I took the heart scan. I, I, I did this, this whole thing's evolved. And I think that our country has evolved and, and, and, and we're seeing that the, the discussion of health and, and, and being healthier and biohacking and a lot of different things that are coming up. I think the public has a lot greater tolerance as they're learning about different kinds of things that are there for health. Um, here's a couple things that I think about as I look at that. I have, I voted for subsection a, because I know that we have to get an ordinance done in short order because the ordinance has to go up to Alpaga and they have to review all this and they have to bless this before we would be able to put this on the ballot. Or they actually don't have to bless it. Uh, they will review it and they can comment on it. Okay. So that, that's why I voted for 42 a, um, couple things. I have on 42 day and I'm, um, I'm like I said, I was skeptical, but I'm getting more comfortable on the whole concept because I think it provides a valuable service. And I think there's been some guardrails put in place that I'm happy with. Um, my thoughts are in the, and one of the pastors mentioned it when the second pastor that spoke, what happens if you find something here? If they're, if they find something, well, luckily in Broward County, we do have a very robust public safety net hospital system. And that's really where the people were going to go if they're, if they do find something, no matter how we enacted. And I think that's a good thing. I think that that would be what it's there for. We have a public safety hospital met and I know we have to do the primary and indigent care as part of this so that it passes Alpaga's rules and guidance. I would like to see as this plan changes, because you've said before, this plan is like a living, breathing document that's going to change a lot. I'd like to see us use for the primary and indigent care, something where we will work in coordination with the public safety hospitals, where it was almost like, and I'm thinking of it the same way we have, like, to use a loose example, the Sheriff's Law Enforcement Trust Fund, where there's a certain dollars that we can then go to these public safety hospitals and say, listen, if you can find some funding gaps that you need us to help. Maybe you want to put a maternity ward in an underserved area. There's different things where we can offset some of the costs because we have this. That's where I would like to see the poor and indigent care money go to. They're already geared up. They're already doing it. If we do it, it becomes a lot of duplication of resources. So that's on that. As to the testing, I'm supportive of the different type of testing that we're going to try and be able to do here. Between you and I, I mean, I'm not really as in favor as 0.25%. I think the amount of money that that raises over five years is in excess of a billion in change. I'd love to see us do it. I thought that was. I mean, I don't know. I think it's the estimate. $610 million. If the economy stays the same, it's $120 a year. $120 million. Oh, I thought, okay. So it's $120. I thought it was 10 years. But, okay, so $600 million. And then any excess funds that are not used can be used, I assume, for future years. Is that correct, Tom? Yes. I mean, you're going to bring in proceeds at the end that wouldn't have been expended by then. Right. So, I mean, yeah, I just think that that dollar amount, I don't know if there's a way we, because we had a tough time. We still have a lot of money left in the original $10 million when we started some of this testing, I thought. I don't know. We have $2 million. Yeah, so this is going to be something where it's going to be tough for us to spend this level of dollars. Maybe it's something more palatable if we could lower the 0.25%. But, in general, I'm supportive of the concept of doing this. Now, I don't know if I'm supportive of the next vote today to vote to put it on the ballot. I'm not supportive of it, but I think that if we could get the ordinance, get this up to OPAGA, maybe hear what they have to see here, and give us some time to go within our districts, just like we did with the penny tax for transportation, to be able to talk to some... I just don't want to have something that comes on after the meeting, last meeting, and then the next meeting there's already something on the ballot. I want this to be thought out for the public, so there's certain things that we have to do to make it comply with the law that we have to do today. I'm supportive of that. I don't think we have to vote to put it on the ballot until months from now, so... Anyway, just to respond, the cancer screening could be three to four times the expense that cardiac screening is. That's what you want to talk about. No, no, I agree. I'm in favor of it. I agree. But we won't spend that level of dollars. Vice Mayor. I support the item, both A and B. And I do remember four years ago when you were out there, and I used an example of you. I thought you were out of your mind. But I was out there talking about the placement... And he could still be out of his mind. And the placement of the medical examiner's office at the time, which my community deemed the morgue. But you had a passion, something hit your spirit, you did the research, and you brought something back to save lives. So you knocked it out of the park. Now here again, you know, this is where you put the studies in. You did the hard work, and you brought it to us, and again, I think it's a great idea. I think it's a piece that we missed the first time. But as we keep going down this road, and as Senator Dan Rich said, you know, it should be provided by those districts, those hospital districts. But it's not happening, and I'm glad that we're here making an effort, and maybe they'll join in and tackle this in the future. So I just want to give you kudos for it, and I will support it. Just to make sure... But what I don't want to do is over-amend it, over-opine it, let the legal people, you know, get it all mixed up for us, and we move forward to do something and save lives here in Brown County. Just to make sure, you know, your vote is not to approve a tax, it's just to put it out of the ballot. Moving forward. Yeah, thank you, sir. No way. You know, ever since you brought this to the board, I've said, I think what's been good is you've gotten a lot of input from all of us. And part of that kind of made sure that it took its time, went through the study, went through all the stuff, and now you have something that I feel comfortable in supporting. You know, the pilot proved itself. I, like Senator Rich, I still feel like the hospital district should be doing this, and to this point, the reason I want to support it is I want to show them even more so that they should be doing this. And five years from now, you know, hopefully they're the ones doing it, because that's what should probably happen. I think that's it. Happy to support it today. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. You know, sometimes you're informed, you get information that's not correct. And I heard information being corrected today that changes minds, right? Because I was, people were telling me different things what was going on with this, and I was taking that in and speaking it out, and it really isn't true. So sometimes you speak too soon, sometimes you think too soon on something rather than dissect it. And hearing the debate today, I think Senator Rich actually said it the best, really. Because she began, talked about how she surprised you, right? But the reason why she surprised you is I'm going to surprise you too, because I think she was spot on about it. And really, at the end of the day, it is the voters are going to decide. We can only educate. We can't obviously promote or advocate on it. So some things can change, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. No, I did not. It just seemed like I had. I'll wait. Be quiet. So I've had questions in the past, but I voted in the past to keep this alive so that this study could go forward. And I think that this one is actually shows, Mr. Mayor, that you listened to us as we listened to you. Because this one, I think, is one that is a lot better than the ones that have come to us in the past. With both the auto repeal, if there is a one, the need, because that's always been my biggest concern, that we would need that penny for resilience or we would need that, you know, half a penny for resilience and half a penny for seniors or whatever. And yours, this one has an auto repeal if we need the other penny, and it has the five-year sunset. I think this is a lot better shows, Mr. Mayor, you listened to us on that. And again, it does require voter approval. I'll be honest, I had some questions on this because you have proven to us that the heart scan works. We have not yet seen on the cancer screening, and I was trying to ascertain what this is going to be. Is it going to be everybody can get a full-body PET scan? Is it going to be the mammogram vehicle that you were talking about? Is this going to be, you know, colonoscopy? What exactly would be covered, and I would like to see that as a test. Now, in my conversation with staff, they indicated to me, and I just would like confirmation from you that it is your intent, that we'll, on the cancer part, you know, we'll try different things as a series of pilot programs and then come up with whatever works best, most comprehensively, because I don't know that we should start off on the cancer with full-body PET scans as opposed to, you know, mammograms, as opposed to colonoscopies, as opposed to, you know, prostate, as opposed to any of the other. And so we'll need to develop that plan. But having said that, Mr. Mayor, based on the fact, well, two things. Number one, you've improved this. But number two, it also matters to me how deeply you care about this and how you've pushed so hard for this. And I think that your fellow commissioners appreciate that. And so I'll be supporting this today. Thank you, Stan. Thank you, Senator. Mr. Mayor, do I have the floor? You have the floor. It's all yours. Thank you. I just want to add to the conversation with one question. Okay. When we speak to indigent care, tell me if fibroids is included in that care, that classification. What is it? Fibroids, uterine fibroids. I'm going to defer to counsel. Sure. Commissioner, I would refer back to the same answer I gave your colleague earlier, which is that the plan includes, as a significant portion of it, primary care and preventive care services to the indigent and the medically poor. The specific services are not detailed at this stage of the board's consideration, but would be part of the administration of the plan. So it certainly could be included in those primary care and preventive care services. Okay, so that will be detailed at some point, because we do have a lot of, as we consider moving forward, I just wanted you to know that there were requests that I advance an amendment to this. But because I did not want to further delay this conversation, I know the deadline for us to get it over to APAGA and do all the things, understand that process. But just so that you know that fibroids impacts a lot of women. And we're talking about our population here. That's a huge population that we should not ignore, and they cannot afford the various tests that goes with it. I won't explain all of what trauma they were telling me they go through just to be able to survive and live and all that good stuff. So I'm glad to hear that under the indigent care section, that fibroids, uterine fibroids, will be included. I like to see things in writing, because when you and I are not here, then we don't know what will happen. We're not, we like to say that we don't want to put burden on the next generation of elected officials. But there are times that we have to do things, because this will not go away. It is really important. I do want to highlight there's an issue that affects a large number of women in Broadcom County. It truly does affect a large number of us. So if Nan and I are the only voices, we truly believe when we started out that the hospital districts should be taking care of certain things. But I agree with my colleagues. The more we show them what we are doing here as a county, hopefully that will become a part of their priority, to do things that are medically related, so we can take care of the infrastructure that we have to take care of on this side. And one other concern. I know there's a gap on sales tax, how much it can be. We're at 6.25 if we advance the 0.25 pennies sales tax. What is the maximum? Is there a maximum? I don't know what the maximum is. There are other taxes that could be levied, including an infrastructure tax. But right now we're at 7. And this, if the voters approved it and it passes the board today, would take it up to 7.25. That would not be our cap. I mean, I'm not. The repeal, I love. I got you. The repeal, I love that component. Because you know all the things that is coming that we need to get fixed. We were talking about canal bank stabilization and how much million that will cost over how many years, 40 or whatever that is. So we know what it is. If not, we're going to be underwater. And I don't want to be underwater. Right. So let's take care of business. But I'll be supporting this item today. I just wanted to let you know, if this got on the ballot and then got approved by the voters, I would take into account whether commissioner Davis talks about mental health, whatever you're talking, what everybody here talks about. And also to answer, Senator Geller, I've spent many hours with the doctors about cancer. And the first focus was, let's take the top five most popular cancers, whether it be breast cancer, colon cancer, pancreatic, whatever the cancers are, and let's see how we can meet the needs. And then based on the amount of money, you know, we would go down from there. But it would be the most popular cancers for people that's going on in the community. The one thing I do not share with you. Just to respond to that. I had wanted to do an amendment on that and to lower it to an eighth so that just to ensure that we had a plan like that. But once advised by county attorney that if I did any amendments that could jeopardize, I withdrew all of my amendments, which I did not want to jeopardize. Thank you. With that said, I'm going to move the gavel. And I'd like to move the second. I'd like to move 42. Is it B, 43 and 40? No, 42B. 42B. Can I get a second? I seconded it twice. Aye. Do I have to give him the gavel back? I wouldn't. What do I do? What about what is 43 and 49? So, Mayor, we're going to move on to 43 and 49 next. And the reading clerk could read both items if that's okay with you. You're going to ultimately vote on them separately, though. So this is the same thing, just separate. Okay. 43, would you read it, please? Item 43 is a motion to adopt resolution, the title of which is as follows, a resolution of the Board of County Commissioners of Broward County, Florida, providing for a referendum election to be held on November 3, 2026, to determine whether to approve a 0.2% sales surtax for a period of five years to fund the Broward County health care plan and provide for severability and an effective date. Two members of the public have signed up to speak on this item. Did you want me to read 49 now also? Did you say nobody's signed up to speak? Two members. On which number? On 43. Okay. Did you want me to read 49 also? No, Chris said he spoke already. I'd like you to read 49 also, please. Item 49 is a motion to approve Broward County health care plan to establish the initial uses and allocation of the proceeds of the proposed 0.25% health care surtax for a period of five years. There's a second person that said that it was speaking. No, one member of the public has signed up to speak on that item. Who's that? Chris Nelson. Chris, you good? Same thing. Who's the other person? You said two people on 43. I have Douglas Meyer and Dale Holness. Dale, did you want to speak on this? Come on up. So these are all speakers on 43 and 49, correct? Thank you. Thank you, Dale Holness. It's already done. I support the item. Thank you, Dale. When you started, I was here. You were. And I wanted to make sure that we were able to reach people who couldn't afford the services that are being provided. And as I hear today, efforts are made to ensure that those who are indigent and not able to afford these services get the services that they need. So certainly this item will be determined by the voters, whether or not they tax themselves. The education and information will go out, and they will make that determination. This is our democratic system. Our democratic system ought to work, empower the people to make a decision as to what they want for their government. Thank you, Dale. By the way, are you running for Congress? I think you're running for Congress. Do I get that plug? I am. Yes. Who's the other person? Who's the other person? Who's the other person? Was it Chris Nelson or? Okay. And 49, who's speaking? Douglas Meyer. I'm 43. Is Douglas here? Going once. Douglas, going two. All right. I'm going to bring up 49 first, according to Council. Are you moving it? I'm going to move 49 first. I've just seconded his motion. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? This is on 49, correct? Yes, sir. Okay. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That passes unanimously. No, 8-0. Oh, sorry. 8-0. Okay. I'll hand it back. We have a motion and a second on item 43. On 43, can I comment? Let me hand this back over to the Vice Mayor. I want to add my vote to 49, please. We're down 43. You want to say something? Yeah. 43. I want to support this, but I think that it's prudent if we bring this back. Just to put it on the ballot, the last meeting we have before we break on summer break, by then maybe we'll have something back from Opaga. If not, we could get conflicting things. At some point, I'd like to put this on the ballot, but to do this today without giving the community a little chance to let this season, like we did with the penny tax, and without getting a chance for Opaga, I'd prefer, and I'd move to table this, just this only one, everything else is passed, to the last meeting before we go on break, which is timely for the supervisor's office, and it could then get on the ballot. Go ahead. I'm the chair right now. Oh, that's right. Go ahead. Do you have any idea how long it takes to go through Opaga? Probably not even a time. They may have some prescribed amounts of time. Yeah. I believe their deadline is going to be after recess. Is that correct? So it's 90 days, 60 days, or 90 days before November? Right. They must complete the performance audit within at least 60 days before the referendum. And when do we have to have the wording in to the... I mean, the SOE prefers the wording in June before recess. It's not going to make it in time. It's not going to make it in time. I mean, the SOE prefers that. The SOE in the past has sometimes taken August. I don't know if it's going to be ready for August either. So what happens if we say we want to do this, we put it on the ballot, and then Opaga says no? I don't believe Opaga can say no. I believe Opaga can just comment on it. I cannot say no. It's just an opinion, right? They review it, and then they provide their comments on it. So it doesn't hurt us to move forward with it. So is there a... I'll withdraw my motion. All right. Is there a motion on the floor? I moved the motion. Second? Already seconded. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposers? 9-0. Galva back. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Where are we going? Mayor, you have number five. You still have number five, I think, that's been sitting out since this morning. So we're going to go back to the consent agenda, correct? You want me to do that one, too? No, I got Commissioner Rich, number five. Thank you, everybody, for coming. Thank you. And then, Mayor, just to mention, you do have some time certions that you do show on the agenda for... Let's get this, okay? Let's get this. So item five, did you call? Item five. Are you going to read item five? Item five is a motion to approve contract between Area-Wide Council of Aging of Broward County, Inc. and Broward County to provide caregiver training and support services to eligible Broward County residents. No member of the public has signed up to speak on the item. Wait, Senator Rich, you pulled it? Yes. To abstain from it, right? Abstain. Yeah, I haven't abstained. Senator Rich pulled to abstain. I got Vice Mayor to move it. I move it. Excuse me, can I just read? Let me just read what I need to say. I serve on the board of the Area-Wide Council on Aging. It's really tough around here, I'll tell you, which would be financially impacted if item five is approved. I do not receive any compensation for serving on this board, and I therefore have no actual statutory voting conflict. However, to avoid the appearance of a conflict, I'm extending from item five and ask that this be reflected in the minutes. I move it with the disclosure. Do I have a second? Second. I have a motion, a second, on number five. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Show that passing 8-0 with one extension. Did we cover 55 of the public? No, the time's certain, Mr. Mayor. I'm sorry. Yes, we're going to go to yours. I just want to make sure the consent is done. You still have 38 from this morning, but you have a time certain now. Okay, let's go to time certain. Time certain, 2 p.m., item number 53. Is that correct? Okay, Commissioner Davis, your item. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, this item I'm bringing before you, do you want me to do something with it? Mayor. Item 53 has two motions. Motion A is the motion to authorize county administrator to negotiate and execute agreements with Broward County municipalities to support community events and activities directly related to the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Motion B is a motion to adopt budget resolution authorizing the transfer from the reserves within the general fund to provide fiscal year 2026 funding to Broward County municipalities to support community events and activities directly related to the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Two members of the public have signed up to speak on the item. I'm sorry, you say two members? Yes, two members. Can you call those names, please? Dale Holness and Justin Porter. Justin? Good. You brought your soccer ball. I brought it back. All right. Yes, thank you. Throw it around. Ready? I'm ready. There you go. Good catch. You better be a goalie. My name is Justin Porter here on behalf of the city of Lauderhill. Hold on, guys. Go ahead. Yeah, and the city of Broward welcomes the World Steering Committee. I want to thank commissioners Davis and Rogers for understanding the importance. While the tournament brings the people here for the World Cup and brings the world to Broward, we're here to introduce them to the best that we have to offer and encourage them to stay longer. As I said, I'm here on behalf of the steering committee that represents other municipalities in Broward County, such as Deerfield Beach, and we have a representative from Deerfield Beach here with us in the audience for Lauderdale, North Lauderdale, and the city of Lauderhill. However, we also are working with the city of Oakland Park, Lauderdale Lakes, Miramar, and Tamarack, and there are others interested as well in taking part of this initiative. What we are seeking today is a $250,000 to fund our countywide kickoff event at Broward Regional Park on June 7th with matching dollars for our municipal... That's not the item. Okay. Well, we're also asking for matching dollars for municipal activations in the cities across Broward County. I think it's important to note that, like I said, while we're having these events in Miami-Dade, there's only seven games that are going to be played out of the 33 days of the tournament. What are the other people going to be doing on the other days when there isn't a soccer game being played? We need to have activities for them that surround soccer so that they are actively engaged in our community and taking part in what we're doing. Given this investment, we expect up to an additional 105,000 of hotel stays in Broward by extending an additional day. Like I said, they're coming for the game. If we give them an incentive to stay longer through soccer, we can expect additional hotel stays. And with that, I'll yield the rest of my time. Thank you, sir. Thank you. I think is Mayor Porchelin here? Did you want to speak, sir? Let Dale? All right. I'm sorry. State your name, please. My name is Dale Holness, and I know Mayor Sampson-Borchelin will speak after I do. I'm here to support the items. There are two of them, which pretty much coincides. Different language, different way of allocating the funds. I think it's really, really important that we utilize this opportunity to further get more investments from these games with hosting the various activities that these cities are proposing. I know in the city of Lauder Hill, they have secured the blessing to get Haitian under-19 team to play against the Jamaican under-19 team, which will bring people to Broad County from different parts of the world to enjoy soccer. Other cities are doing similar situations, and I know that there's some conversation now also to bring other teams, I think Honduras and New Zealand, to play friendly matches with the Haitian team. There's some conversation going on regarding that. Having these funds in place to help facilitate these events, I think, is critical. Now how it's allocated and how it's done, I guess that's where the nuance is. But I believe we ought to make this investment to enhance the hotel stays that we can get right here in Broad County. And I certainly believe that making this investment, targeting those expenditures right here in Broad County, will be beneficial to the people of Broad County economically. Thank you. Thank you, sir. By the way, are you running for Congress? Yes, I'm running for Congress this weekend. Hold it for Congress, not Congress. I heard that rumor. Is it Borsley? Yes, I'm Mayor Borsley. Samson Borsley for the city of Lauder. I want to say good evening to everyone. You're doing a great job. And I'm very pleased to be here to support this idea. Because personally, I can see how investment in this program is great for not just the county but for each city. Our own city in North Florida, we benefit from at least one of my sons. He's playing professional international because he started very small in the city. And now we're looking for other kids to take advantage of that. While FIFA is here, and this is exactly what we're trying to do. And schools also want to have some activities to make sure that those kids, first time they have a big impact. The World Cup will have a big impact. So this is a great investment in them. We never know how many new professionals we're going to have in the broad county for the United States also. But for the cities, those children really need this opportunity while it's doing and it's happening in our backyard. So economically, it's going to help the cities. But also to expand their knowledge there to make sure they have a brighter future. I think this is a great thing we're doing. Let's go after the dollars. Let's go after the opportunities to give those children something they'll never forget because it's happening right now. They can say, I participated in the World Cup 2026. So thank you for what you do. And we're supporting you. We'll do everything we can. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Do you want to bring it back? Any other speakers? No. Okay. Let's bring it back. And again, Commissioner Davis, is your item you want to open it with? Yeah, thank you. So this item is really to bring opportunities to all of the cities who want to participate. And I'm really glad that the city of Lauderhill has taken the lead with other cities. But there are some other cities that have not been part of your delegation, so to speak, that we want to make sure they have also the opportunity. And so what this does, it offers up to $25,000 grant matching per municipality up to $250,000. So obviously, once that money is depleted, and it may not even be enough, but once this is depleted, then that's it. So it's first come, first qualified to get the grant, and it opens it up to all of the municipalities. In fact, it was just today, it was brought to my attention, which I didn't even know he had that in the city of Hollywood, where they had with Copa America in 2024, they had a watch party, and the mayor was saying there was over 10,000 people there at the watch party in downtown Hollywood, and he would love to be able to participate with the matching grant opportunity, because they wanted to do a fan, you know, fair there, a fan fest there, watch party. And so there are cities that haven't come forward to us, but they are also looking to us for support. And with the $2 million that's already been basically given to the FIFA World Cup organization, which we have very little control over, as we heard the last time we had a presentation, most of these cities are not going to be involved at all. And so I think it's just prudent on us to, as other counties have done, Miami Data has given a whole lot more. We want to make sure that everybody has an opportunity. Some of them, it's the first time they're going to see any semblance of the FIFA World Cup in their communities. They can't go to the games. And so if a city wants to match 5,000 to do a clinic, it will be available. If a city wants to match 25,000 for a watch party, it can be available. And this would come out of our commission funding reserves. So I'd ask my colleagues to support this. It's once they have to use it for FIFA-related events, after the FIFA World Cup games are done, it's no longer available to be used. So there are time limits on this. And we would hope that we were able to pass this today so that our cities can start preparing. And those who already have events planned can then start quickly applying for the grant money. Thank you. Okay. The mayor stepped out. What I'd like to do with this item is get a clarity. Is this the one and the same? You want to speak? I'm trying to give you an opportunity. If it's the same or are they going to be separate? Yes, I would like an opportunity. So please, you have the floor. If you follow the process, I do have an opportunity. I want clarity for the item itself. So you now have the floor. Two minutes, please. I'm just kidding. It's 53. No. My item is... So hold on a second. Are they separate? Should be separate. Okay. They're separate. Then we'll wait. So with that, they're separate. Am I correct? Just as a point of information, Exhibit 1 to Item 54 is the same thing that Commissioner Davis just mentioned. Right. There's a little difference on the funding allocation. So don't worry about that. Different type of programs. What we're going to do is deal with your item first. Okay. And we're going to deal with her item first. And I'm going to hear from my right, go around the room from the Commissioners, and then we'll come back to it itself. 53 is an item where cities get up to $25,000 in a matching grant program, dollar for dollar, for FIFA. Okay. When I read 54 in their motion statement in Exhibit 1 of 54, Broward welcomes the world funding request, talks about the same $25,000 matching grant, city for city. Is it the same thing? Yes, Chair. Okay. All right. So in ranking the items, in my opinion, I support more 53 than 54 because of the matching grant type of scenario that 53 seems to be. It's open to more cities, and it gives the ability for more cities to participate in it. So if I was picking one over the other, I would pick 53 if I'm being asked to support one over the other. Are you going to support that? Can we? Hold on. And when do we? Hold on a second. Okay, Ms. I'm starting on my right, and I'm coming to the left. That's why we're going to do this. You're supporting it. I would support 53 more than I would support 54. I don't support moving $500,000 to a FIFA block. That's clear. So now, Senator Rich? Yeah. I would like a little clarification here because when we discussed this last time and we passed the $2 million for FIFA, there was discussion that you were going to present some kind of a plan. And we were talking more of a couple, maybe a few centralized events, like at the Central Park, like, you know, not all of this $25,000 for each city and so forth. And I'm having issues with that. But I thought we were going to do some centralized events where people could come, congregate, you know, and those would be our events. It could be one in Miramar, but, you know, it would not be in every single city. It would be more centralized. And I thought you were going to come back with some kind of a plan of how we could do that. And I didn't know whether some of the $2 million could be used. You said at the time maybe a little could be used, maybe not. You were going to check that out. So if you could just clarify. So if I may, Mr. Vice Mayor, Mayor. Go ahead, please. Okay. So how it was explained last time and how you all gave direction was that the $2 million at that last meeting was to be within the $2 million to come back to see what FIFA, the host committee, what we could negotiate with them about. I'm going to let Mr. Keller-Hertel give an update to where that is. In addition to that, these two items are separate, and that was, you know, based on potentially that FIFA would not be sharing in those dollars or doing anything additional. That is my understanding. And so, Mr. Keller, with that. Yes. And so for the $2 million, we've been negotiating with the host committee, and we've come close to finalizing the deliverables. It's actually with their attorneys now. We're waiting for their attorney's response. But the framework of it, you know, there's a bunch of marketing, you know, use of their approved logos. There's the hotel stays that come with it that's identified. But from, to your point, from a plan, on the events, they're committing to two practice sites. This is when the teams are coming into town to play. They need a practice site to play. We're going to have two in the county. When they're there, they're staying at two-team hotels, which will also be in the county. They've committed to run four watch parties for us, and they've committed to running one. They're going to run one clinic, and then they're going to provide us some support to run a second clinic. When we were here the last time, it was identified that the Central Broward Regional Park would be the location. The four watch parties will be at the Amrit Bank Arena, the county-owned arena. And there's other stuff in there, too, but that's from a plan standpoint. That's what we did from a central regional aspect for this. There's other things, other coordination that's going on. Our parks department is leading a steering committee and communications team that's going to help implement this. We have our transit that's involved in coming up with a plan to get people not only to the stadium but also to our watch parties. And CVB has also increased their marketing, so there's other areas where we're taking advantage of this from a holistic standpoint. Okay. That's what I... Let her finish. So, I mean, you wanted our opinion, so that's what I wanted to see because that's what I thought I heard the last time. It was one more thing he needed. And we did make the ask of the host committee for $250,000 of that funding, and they declined that ask. Yeah, okay. And I believe now that sets up the framework for the two agenda items. Because they did ask, and they said no. Thank you. Dan, are you... So now, I'm just from my sense, I would like us to move ahead with the plan that we were talking about of having... Senator, hey, can you let her finish? Everyone's got a chance to talk and get clarity, so please, Dan. About having three more centralized type, north, south, central, whatever, and having big watch parties that we could bring people to, the Amaranth Center, have bus transportation, rather than... I will not support both of these, that's for sure. And I would prefer to do the ones with the centralized things and not having the individual cities and having to deal with all of that. Thank you. Commissioner Farrah? I got into this, let me finish it right quick. Appreciate that. I actually think we're doing a lot with what we're doing, with the tourism TDC money. I'm feeling pretty good. I actually feel pretty good about that. And I think you're not mentioning some of this stuff, all the in-kind transportation that's involved, that I was just made aware of at CEFTEC, and all the coordination with Miami-Dade and Palm Beach. There's an enormous amount of money that we're already putting into this, with transportation. The one thing I worry about by doing this is that we're going to be hurting businesses. And I was in Hollywood when the COPA was there. Those businesses did great. And they didn't have a big watch. Every single bar that was a sports bar, they were packed. And there wasn't any extra money going on, and they were there. And they didn't have to... Now, I know the city of Hollywood wants this, because I just got an email on this. But I'm imagining, okay, they're going to put a big... Like they do movies on Friday night. Then they're not in the business, where they would be normally making the money. So I'm like, why... You know, all those businesses, this is their... This is a wonderful day for them, and we're about to take it away. I don't get it. I don't know why we would want to do that. So I need to be convinced on this. I'm not really seeing why we would do this. I do want to see something at Lauderdale. I think we made mention of that, that if we could do a practice site or... I think that kind of thing makes sense. And those... Or if that's... I don't know where those are going to be, but... Just to clarify, it wasn't a practice site at Central Bar. It was a soccer clinic. Whatever. Yeah, something like that. That distinction. But those are the kind of things that I think make some difference. But, you know, I don't... It's kind of late in the game to do this with all these cities. And I'm not sure... Honestly, every city, if they wanted to be having something going, they should already have this... They should already have their plans going. They've known this is coming for years. And, you know, I don't... I'm not sure why we're being asked to take money out of our general fund for this. I think this is perfect for the TDC, from where it came from. I think taking $2 million from the TDC was the right thing to do. I'm just not quite convinced yet that this is the right idea. Thank you. Commissioner Fisher. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just a couple of quick questions on the agreements themselves. It says, County Administrator to negotiate and execute agreements with the county municipalities that we have. It would be only $25,000 per municipality. It wouldn't be... The municipality couldn't get $50,000, right? It would only be up to $25,000 per municipality. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. Yes. And so, are these agreements already written? No, I'm looking at the legal, sir, not you. I'm looking at the legal department. Are these agreements already written to be executed? I haven't seen them if they are. No, they're not. They're not written. So, how long is it going to take to write such agreement? And then how long is it going to take to get the municipality? They have to go back to, I guess, to their elected body to get that passed as well. I'm talking about time frame, right? When's the games happen? June 6th and 7th, is it? June 11th? So, today's basically May 1st, right? So, you've got a little bit over 30 days. I'm just figuring out the timeline even to get this municipality engaged. Because what I would want to do if this passed, I'd want to get this agreement immediately in the hands of my nine cities that I represent to be able to apply to. And I just don't know what the time frame is going to have. So, give me a timeline when it's going to be written, when it's going to be approved, and what the process is to get the municipality approved. I can answer the first question, which is it won't take long to write these agreements. They're pretty standard. How long? Is it two days? Two days? One day? End of the week. I don't want to commit for people who actually have to do the work in my office. But, yeah. So, go ahead, Renee. And I know Anika is very familiar with these items also, Anika, if you could bring perhaps some clarity. There's a process here. But in terms of what we'll take from the county attorney's office, it's a matter of probably a couple of hours of work just using something that we have as a base. So, come to the mic. Who's going to do it? Whoever's going to do it. We just need to know how long. So, Commissioner, you talked about getting the agreements in the hands of the cities. I think what we'd imagine is that we'd actually just get the proposals from the cities, right? They would submit a proposal, and then once we have that, that would just be a scope that's attached to a fairly standard kind of sponsorship grant agreement that we would offer to the cities. So, it says, something to review to approval of legal simplicity by the county's attorney of office for the execute of the agreements. Is the agreement between the Broward County and the city of Pompano Beach, is it available for the city of Pompano Beach to have in their hands now? No, we don't have the form. But what we would imagine is that the city would submit a proposal, and once they've submitted that, county administration would write, or each of the 31 municipalities in Broward County would submit a proposal. Well, the first of the 10 that get approval, we would then put together the agreement for that. So, what's the criteria for a proposal, right? So, you have to have something available for Pompano Beach to say, A to Z, this is what I need to provide in order to get in the running to get the money. Or is it just going to say, hey, I just want $25,000 because I'm going to do a watch party at the amphitheater? I mean, there's got to be some criteria from a municipality that you give them the money to. So, hold on a second. Am I missing something? I don't know. Hold on. Monica, is that something you can answer, Commissioner? So, we have not gotten the criteria set up because we don't know. But let me ask you a question. Is this something that we can do? I mean, I'm just trying to. No, I want you to get your question answered. Commissioner Davis. Of course. Commissioner Davis. No, I'm asking. Let him get clarity on what he's trying to do. I'm asking the administration and my attorneys, what is the criteria to qualify to get to 25, and what that package looks like. Is that package available today? It's not. I can get it to my nine cities. It's not. It's not available today, and I think what we would need is to get guidance from you all as to what, because I know there's two different proposals today, and they are different. So, based on what you all say you would like to see, whether it be matching or in-kind or what would be eligible, then we can set that, we can put that criteria together fairly quickly based on what you guys tell us you would like to see. But this particular 53 we're talking about is a match. It requires a match. Correct. Correct. And we would just need to understand what the will is. Does it mean for watch parties? Could it be a clinic? Could it be, you know, whatever it is. And if it's all of it, that's even larger. Would it be fair to each municipality? What if one municipality says, I want to do a watch party, and the next one says, I want to be a clinic? Which takes precedence? Because this is first come, first serve, right? So, which takes precedence? I mean, you've got to have some criteria for these, otherwise they're not going to participate because they don't have the guidance. I don't think we can tell the city. Please let him finish so we can get around the days and come back and make a decision up or down and the particulars in the what we're trying to do. So, please, Commissioner. Thank you. So, I'm just trying to get what I need to get to my cities to be able to compete for the money. And it sounds like I don't have that yet. And yet we're a little bit over 30 days from games here. So, I'm just trying to figure out. Can we deliver that? We can deliver that as long as I hear from you as a body what you would like to see as a criteria. So, I would think yes to that question. I would think yes. Okay. So, we're going to decide the criteria today. I would need to hear the guidance. If it's just simply, it can be any of those things, then that's easy. And so, if you guys tell me what you want as the requirement, so to speak, if it's one-to-one match or if it's two-to-one, whatever it is. So, you're saying we get to decide that if we decide to do this? If you decide to do it, I just need to get the guidance and we will put it up by the end of the week. You're good, Lamar? I cannot create a criteria without the guidance of what the will of the board is. You're recognized. You're recognized for what you want to bring up. Thank you. Okay. Hold on. First, Kevin, you said that the FIFA agreed to do four watch parties at the Panthers Arena. At the Arena, correct. What does a watch party include? What would they be paying for? Or are they just saying you can have the watch party go and spend your money? Can you elaborate, please? Well, first, there's licensing that comes with it, and then, like with any event, there's security, there's setup, there's cleanup, there's cleanup, there's... And are they paying for it? Different. They are giving us money for that, yes. Okay. So, they would be giving us money for the setup, the cleanup, the security, and how much would they be giving us? $300,000. Okay. All right. For all four events. Gotcha. $75,000 event is what they think it'll cost? Correct. Okay. Thank you. First of all, I'm not supportive of doing both of these, as I heard several other commissioners say. So, when you say both these, please clarify, because there's three things... I might be supportive of one, but I would not be supportive of... When you say both of these, are you talking about... 53 and 54. Item 53 and item 54, each of which are for $250,000. If we pass both, that's $500,000. But we're only dealing with the one on this one. Yes. 53. But we've already discussed, and Commissioner Udean had already said, you know, if we pass 53, that would automatically make me a no on 54, because I'm... But we'll deal with that. We'll get this. So, I just need to know what you're doing on 53. So, respectfully, sir, it's a valid argument, a statement for me to make, that if I vote for 53, that would... Okay. Okay. So... Respectfully so, for the record. I would not be prepared to vote to submit to do $500,000. I have a concern about the county spending money on parties in local cities. I don't know why we would particularly want to do that. I'm not sure what the benefit is to the county on that. Now, if we're talking, and back to Kevin, Kevin, Kevin, when they, clinics, so if we had other, in addition to the one at Central Broward, are they saying if they would make soccer players available, if they did a clinic in Miramar, in Waterhill, and other places? Because if they're talking about that, that is something that's not just a party, that's something that I think would actually be very helpful. Are they... Have they indicated that they would make some of the soccer players available for clinics, for programs in different cities? So, for the clinics, what they are providing is they will be providing coaches. There's different aspects of the clinics. A lot of the clinics are dealing with children, but another part of the clinic is dealing with youth coaches out there, so they have professional coaches that come in. I'm not... They have committed to running one clinic for us at Central Broward Regional Park because they're resource-strapped and they're time-strapped because, as you noted, it's 44 days until the first game. There's only so many weekends, which is when you have to have these clinics if you want to have maximum participation. So, they're resource-strapped. So, but they have agreed to provide us some support if we were to... If our county parks was to run one as well, too. So, basically, we have two clinics from them, one where they're running, the other one where we would run in and they would provide support for. But, as far as soccer players coming in, they don't have control. This is the FIFA host committee. This is not FIFA, so they don't have control over the players. So, they can't get the... They're not offering the players. They're offering coaches. Well, and back to Monica, this is something that, while I am not, I don't believe I am supportive of parties in different cities. I would be more supportive of Commissioner Rogers' issue at the Central Broward Park, or is it there? And if there are, if you're looking for criteria, if it's at cities, I would not be supportive of parties. I would be supportive of clinics if we can get the, you know, professional coaches there or players or something like that, as opposed to just a watch party, which I agree with Commissioner Furr. It would be like saying, hey, great, we're going to have a great big Super Bowl party in each city. And that's the day that the bars and restaurants do their best business. I would not want to take that away from them. So, I would be, although we're discussing 53, I think right now it'd be a no on 53 and a yes on 54. Because I think that I've heard several commissioners say they're not going to support both items. I am concerned that it is getting a little too late to do this. And another item is if it's first come, first serve, then it sounds like we're not reviewing what the cities are going to be asking for. It's whoever comes in with the first as opposed to the best, because you won't have time for that. And it also sounds like if you're, I have no idea whether plantation has already planned anything. But if they haven't, it sounds like they would be unable to do it because other cities have already moved ahead of them. And I don't think that's fair either. So, based on this, I've now listened to myself talk. And I think that I am, I've talked myself into not supporting 53 but supporting 54, because I do not want to support both. And I think a lot of the members here don't want to do both. Thank you, sir. Commissioner Rogers. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you. Let me just add to the conversation. I believe strongly that we truly do not recognize what is being advanced here. We recognize that everyone will not be able to afford to go to the games. So, when we are talking about Fun Zone, it includes all of the components that you're talking about. Catering to our children, providing an opportunity for those kids to be associated, touch, you know, an international player or a coach that is willing to invest in the children in our community. I think that will be more lasting, that connection, the memories of that child and the community that we're talking about activating. And I would like if you'll give me an opportunity to bring the representative that has been coordinating Central Broward at this time. No. Just for a moment. He can clarify one thing for me. No. Hold on a second. Hold on. I think we're getting ahead of ourselves here. On 54, when, Commissioner, we can bring him up. We had the speakers. I want to bring this to Atlanta. So, I want you to get all your questions out for 53. Oh. Okay. So, you're talking about 53, like, as you should. So, I have nothing to say because I support getting $250,000. Okay. Thank you. But I'm going to tell you, I'm burning plans that we have in 54 and what it will do. But I love the idea that we're both going off to the same money, not asking you for $500,000. You want a second? I haven't gone yet, either. Okay. You want a clarification? Just a clarification. Would that be $25,000 per district? I don't think that's the way they're proposing. I think it's going to be on first come, first serve. Whatever city that responds to whatever we come out of committee with today, they'll respond. You probably won't get no more than 10 cities, as it has been already explained to us. Not every city is going to want to do this. So, I want us to be also perfectly clear that there's two things here. We're here because the host committee said no to the additional request from two commissioners asking for additional dollars. So, when they said no, we, as a commission, said that we would entertain this once we got an answer through Kevin's hard work and heavy lifting to go back and negotiate. Can we do these things that these commissioners are asking for now? So, the first question is no. Now, what we're entertaining is 53 to do events. And I know we crown the phrase as parties when we don't want to do it in other areas. But we're talking about a World Cup. We're talking about something we gave $2 million to, which if you look at it as a party, it's a party. If you look at it as an event, it's an event. I would like to say events so that you feel good with it. These are events for our residents. These are events for our visitors. These are events for what we call tourists. These are events. So, let's look at it as events we're going to support, not so much parties that some people don't want to touch. And let's just stay focused on the items. Let's vote this up or down. But I would like to go back to the sponsor of this to give it an opportunity to clarify a few things. And we bring this in for a landing. You're going to get a chance. Oh, I'm sorry. You got a hold. You go. You were missing, sir. I just want to make sure I got one thing correct. On 53, it's allocating up to $25,000 per municipality. So, if it's $20,000, $15,000, $25,000, one time. Municipality can't ask for two, three, four, five times. Just one shot. And then at the end of $250,000, it's done. Even if all the cities didn't participate, first come, first serve. Right? Exactly. And it doesn't have to be $25,000. It could be $5,000. It could be everything that can match. So, if two cities ask for it, you've given $50,000. You haven't given the $250,000. That's correct. Correct? Okay. That takes care of that one. And a motion to adopt. Okay. That's my clarification. Okay. Can you just clarify, bring it to the landing, and see if we get an appetite? You're going to lose the mayoral thing. No. Okay. You can come back. Go ahead. I need your vote. All right. So, what this requires, again, it gives the opportunity for matching, which we want people to have skin in the game. So, the cities can match. Some of the same cities who have been working with the organization to come up with ideas for the major event that you want to do at the park can be participating in this. Because then they can decide, now, I've got my 25. I want to now utilize it to be part, some of it to be part of that, and maybe to have some of it in their own communities. It allows for the cities themselves to apply, which I think is more open to more cities. I mentioned the city of Hollywood. They may not need 25. They may just need 10. The other cities, they're smaller. You talk about the city of West Park. They may just want to do a soccer clinic. You know, they may want to just have something in their little small community. That's what we're talking about. Everybody is not going to take up themselves, go in a transit bus, and go to the amaranth back of the arena. It's not going to happen. Because people like to be in their local communities. That's one of the reasons why we have districts in the first place. Because people want to do things in their local district, in their communities. And we need to be able to facilitate that. So this basically helps with that. It allows cities to apply. Some cities are not going to be ready. They maybe not want to participate. They may want to just go next door to maybe Lauderdale, Lauderdale Lakes, or Miramar and participate. But this allows cities to join in, have a situation where it may not be a party or an event. It may just be a soccer clinic. It may be that they want to have... We've had folks that want to do informational sessions on sports and sporting activities. There can be a myriad of things that can come out of this. And it would have to be the cities who will tell you what their plans are. And then you can decide to support it based on what they're asking for in their matching funds. To me, this is a no-brainer. We didn't ask any questions when FIFA came up here looking for $2 million. In fact, we just said, we'll give it to you. Don't even come back. Because whatever you negotiate, we've already committed $2 million to this organization. Yet, when it comes to our districts and our municipalities, we're having second thoughts at allowing them to get a matching grant. It could be $5,000, $10,000, $25,000. We're having second thoughts about helping our individual cities and districts. But we're willing to give, you know, whether it was the college folks that came here, the Orange Bowl, all these other organizations that never have to come back and explain how they're going to spend this money in our communities. We've got to do better. This is not a whole bunch of money, okay? And each of us, you've got letters already from... You've heard from people here. You've got a letter in your email from Hollywood, and we're finding it hard to come up with a small amount of funds for these cities to do things in their communities. So I hope that we can, you know, allow these cities to make the decision. You may not even spend up to $250,000. It's a possibility we go up to $250,000, but you may only expend $100,000. So that's what I'm saying, and I hope that you can support this item. Thank you for that clarification. Can I clarify one more thing publicly just when I said $25,000? So if a city would have to put up, let's say they put up $10,000, then they get $10,000. So they're going to have to put in money to get money. Okay, all right. Do you want to speak now? I'm going to let Lamar go first, and I'll just go last. No, I think, Mayor, you answered my question also, too, about does in-kind match? Does in-kind things match as well? In other words, is in-kind match as well? What does that mean? In other words, if you give police officers, does that go towards that money, or is it? It's a money match. It's only cash money match? Yeah, I would think it would be a money match. Okay. All right. You have your chair back. I have my wife. You have the chair back. Okay. As a commissioner, I'm just going to say I support the item now that we've digested it, and I got more clarity on it, because if you don't give your match, we don't give you anything, is what we're saying. So all of these hypotheticals that we all came up with in our heads won't even matter. And I go back to even when we had FIFA here and the group spoke. I don't think all 31 cities are going to participate in this. I think the cities that like this culture or this game, they will participate. And I do think that we did a good job on the other sporting events that you mentioned coming through here. So I don't have a problem with it, because if they don't put it up, we don't put it up. So it's not like it's going in her coffer, my coffer, or district, so any city can participate. And I think the details will be up to our legal department to put the safeguards in there that we don't run off the rail, if you will. So, Monica, we'll be able to just write the language. And I don't think it's that hard. It's going to be based on what a city wants to do. And I think we just take the word watch parties out. And these are for events for SOC is what I would recommend as a commissioner. And if I may have some clarity on what you just said, also, if I might. One of the questions we had also is the types of events, if you guys want to put any parameters around that, just so that we know what things would be eligible. It says directly related to the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Okay. Just like what they're doing, you know, soccer clinics, you know, come on. You guys can think outside the box. Absolutely. We will do that. I just want to make sure if there's anything that the board wants us to include or exclude, just so that we know as we go back and develop this, because there's not going to be a lot of time to turn this around. A baseball camp wouldn't be included. No, sir, it would not. May I comment on that? Sure. Ms. Sapera, speaking only for myself, and I don't know where the other commissioners are, but as I said, I think if we're looking at criteria, I think it's more important to bring in. If a soccer coach is available, a soccer player from one of the teams is available, or a soccer coach from one of the teams, I think that is more important, more impactful on the kids in the community than just a watch party where you're watching it on TV. So speaking just for me, and maybe the other commissioners will comment, I think that is more, if you're looking for criteria, that is more important, having the access to the professional coaches and players than watching something on a big screen. I'd like to make a motion, if 53. 53 right now, and if you vote yes on 53 to give them the $250,000, where does 54 falls in line? That's next. And suppose you vote yes for that one too. But in my perspective, and I want everyone to be clear or correct me, if they both did, I know they were separate, The city is still only entitled to $25,000, am I correct? No, he's $25,000 per person. No, I'm asking a question. It's maximum $25,000 max. And just remember, this is reimbursable. No, not. If both of them pass, it's only $125,000 a city can get. Am I correct? Oh, I don't know. Yes, one time. Okay. Can I just... So on 53, go ahead. No, you got the chair. Let me take the chair. Excuse me. Council, Administrator, this is what I want to just, what we're voting on. It's a one-time up to $25,000 for a city, but it has to match the exact amount of money in cash directly related to a FIFO World Cup, first come, first serve, and the maximum is $250,000, but if a city can only come up with $10,000, they get $10,000. If a city comes up with $5,000, they get $5,000. Regardless, if they want $25,000 or $50,000, they get the exact match that they come up with. It has to be directly related to the FIFO World Cup activity. Those are the items. Those are the points. Is it we all agree? Mr. Mayor, what Commissioner Rogers said is if $54,000 also passes, can the city get another $25,000 under that? No. The answer to that, I think, is yes. Why don't we take $54,000 separately? Let's just take $53,000. Do I have a motion on $53,000? There was fear. I have a motion to move on. This is outrageous. I have a motion to move on $53,000. Do I have a second? So we got a motion. Did you want to say something, Council? Yeah, I just, I mean, administration is going to have to administer this, and I don't, I look at this right now, and I worry that they don't have what they need to do it. Just for example, first come, first serve. So people asked about the process. It's not going to be the contract that we draft, which will take us, it will be very easy to draft the process. It's going to be something else. So what is going to trigger the process? What's going to enable each municipality to have equal access, you know, to seek these dollars? Secondly, I didn't, I apologize, Commissioner Davis. Secondly, I mean, I just don't want my silence to be seen as agreement that these two items, and I understand keeping the items separate, but I don't want it to be seen as me saying, yes, no one's going to get more than $25,000 if both items are approved. These items, to a certain extent, have a, so my only point is you can vote on this item, but understand that what you do on 54 may have impact. And here, Monica, you speak up. I mean, legally, this is really easy for us to put together a template agreement and basically, as Anika said, attach a scope to it. That's really easy. Mayor, related to World Cup, really easy. It was asked about in-kind or actual dollars. That added clarity. What the criteria, some sort of hierarchy as to whether clinics are higher than something else, well, we're saying no, I guess, because it's not part of the motion. That's not related to, right, it's not a restriction on this item, but what about the beginning point? And it's not a legal issue. I just, I know that we'll end up talking to administration about it and trying to talk through it, and I don't know that there's adequate direction on that. I just want to recognize Senator Ridge, who wants to say something. Yeah, I agree with you. There's not enough direction here at all. We had a discussion today earlier about food at a couple of events. Are we paying, if someone puts in from a city for a restaurant or a bar for $10,000, are we matching that at the bar? Well, that's not an activity directly related to the World Cup. You know what, if the city decides they want to have it there, and that's what they put in for, that's what, I'm sorry, but this is just not something I think we have enough direction of anything. At least the other things were these watch parties where you had people coming together, or you had the clinics where you had children. This is a wide-open, you know, like Wild West show. So are you saying that if it just said soccer clinics, limited to soccer clinics, would that change your mind? It's not going to be limited to soccer clinics. No, but if she said it's limited to soccer clinics, would that change what you're saying? If it were for children, I might consider it. I don't know. But right now I wouldn't consider it at all because I have no idea where it's going and who's going to be in charge of making sure that it's spent properly and that we're not having a big liquor party. Commissioner Davis, are you able to clarify? Okay, listen, municipalities, give them some credit. They're not just in this to run amok and have parties like we're the overarching, we're the, I don't know how to call it. They do this as a matter of course, many of them. Clearly, this will come back to the administrator who we pay a whole lot of money to administer. And so between the administration and legal, this is a first come. Obviously, they have to be perimeters in place. A soccer clinic is clear. It's a soccer clinic. You're going to have, they're going to have to outline what it is that they're doing. We are not in the business. Again, you just gave money to FIFA. No questions asked. I'm confident that these municipalities know what they're doing. And when they bring the information to the administrator, she also has, you know, wherewithal to know what she's doing. Somebody wants to do a soccer clinic. It's outlined 5,000. We're going to have this amount of people. We expect this amount of, you know, soccer folks there. It's all going to be spelled out. Many of them already have it spelled out. So, you know, we can always find a reason not to support our local municipalities. But don't use this as one. Mr. Yudin. The only thing that I would state, just to kind of correct the record a little bit, we didn't just willy-nilly hand FIFA $2 million of general reserve dollars. There's a procedure in the law where they can use tourist development dollars, which is going to be paid for, which we can't use in other places. So these are, and I get what the municipalities want to do. They want to celebrate in FIFA. It's really not our job to do this. We don't have Little League clinics for the municipalities. These are municipal functions that they're now, because FIFA is here, they're coming to ask us for a little bit of help because they want to do a little bit more because of FIFA. That's all this is. It's not going to be any more than this. And that's what we boiled down to. When the Stanley Cup was here, we didn't have all the municipalities do a matching grant type of thing. But it's really not the right thing to compare this to the money that we gave to FIFA. Getting FIFA into South Florida, it was huge for this region. And I don't think Broward County should be a free rider off of Miami-Dade for making Miami-Dade do all the heavy lifting and we get all the benefits. We're going to get a ton of tourism development dollars back on this. And I guess you could argue we would have gotten that anyway. But in the future, when we're looking in the South Florida region to compete for these things, they should know that they have a partner in Broward County. Otherwise, let's stop having these presentations from the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance. Let's stop having these Visit Lauderdale presentations. We're part of a team in South Florida to bring these things here. And there's going to be a ton of stuff. Now, I agree with the thing. I would never go to a FIFA watch party within a municipality. Most people, even within the municipalities, aren't going to go to these things because they're going to want to go to the business. When these World Cup games come, you walk down the street, every bar, every restaurant is packed to the gills. That's the way it works. The question is, do I want to help the municipalities? This is a gift from the County Commission. They pay some dollars in municipal things, but we don't do municipal services up here on the County Commission. This is unfair for the unincorporated area to the extent that the small sliver of percentage would matter. It's unfair to the cities that aren't going to be participating in this. I think there should be some level of dollars that I'm comfortable with putting in for them to do some kind of FIFA events. I don't think they're going to be particularly successful, but I think we should try. I don't think they're going to be particularly successful, but we're not talking about a whole lot of money if a few cities are doing a dollar-for-dollar match grant. So I support 50 Commissioner Davises. I'm then going to vote no on Commissioner Rogers. If it was flipped around the other way, I might be able to get there. I'm not into doing a half a million dollars of reserves. Our reserves just got audited. How many days ago did they ask for all our reserves? On Tuesday, the state of Florida asked for all our reserves. They wanted a full breakdown of all our reserves, what we're using them for, where they're going, and why they have them. So this puts us at some level of risk, but I'm willing to support it to support one help for some of these cities. That's what my vote's going to be, but my next vote's going to be, no, nothing personal, but... I'll recognize you. Commissioner Fisher's next. You know, Commissioner Dean, you bring up a good point is, you know, and I had that down on my notes too, is with the current CFO looking at the reserves, you know, does that put us in a position of questioning this commission, right? I'm not saying I'm afraid of them at all, but I'm concerned that they can come back and say, well, you know what, you just gave this for whatever, and we don't like it, and boop, you're gone. Definitely what Bruce brought up about throwing a watch party at a restaurant, a private business, which is good, but this money needs to stay into the municipality's own properties, right? So it doesn't need to go to John Jones Bar and Grill. We're going to throw a party there. It has to be at a municipality-owned facility. But what I'm really concerned now was what really Commissioner Udine spoke about. I have reservations about that. Thank you. Could I just say we just approved money from the reserves for another event earlier today? Did you realize that? No, which event are we talking about? Yeah. $50,000. I think it was $100,000 from the reserves, and nobody mentioned anything. $50,000. Okay. I have Commissioner McKenzie and Commissioner Rogers. That needs to be. We did approve that. We approved the AJC thing. $50,000. For programs within our library, which is a county library and a county... But it was the reserves. I'm just making the same about the reserves. I understand, but we do county programs. We have dollars that we put in there for different heritage months, different things. Juneteenth, Islamic Heritage Month. AGC is doing something. Our libraries, that's our county responsibility. And I voted yes. I support this. And the only thing I would say to my friend Commissioner Fisher, I agree with him, but I'm sure that the CFO will be down at FIFA events in South Florida, and he'll be watching. Can I ask you, before I recognize anybody, Commissioner Davis, I might say something you don't like, so you'll tell me you don't like it. Okay, here we go. What if we split the baby between you and Commissioner Rogers? And, you know, sometimes a good settlement is where both people are not happy. I don't know if you've ever heard of that before. But instead of 25, you get 12-5, 12-5 equals 250 total. And then maybe you both can get, I don't know if you guys want to consider that, but instead of 25, it's 12-5. If the city comes up with 12-5, it's 25 grand total. You're helping the municipalities with 12-5 based on what Commissioner Eugene said, and then there's still money for what Commissioner Rogers wants to do, so it's a total of 250. I'm not sure what Commissioner Rogers wants to do. We haven't discussed that. Would you be open first to that? Mine's a matching grant, but hers is not. I know. I understand that. So then I would... Would you be open to... If it's not matching? You can say, no, I'm not open to that. I don't give you... It just depends on how we work it out, because one is matching, one is not. Lauder Hill can be matching, but I would prefer for the city that truly has a partnership. Lauder Hill does have a partnership with other cities in Central Brown, so I can't just sit here and make that decision. It's not mine alone. So I would like... Can you move fast, just saying, and get up here. Thank you. And sir? Yes. So our event at the regional park on June 7th is going to be with all municipalities who want to participate, and it's not just, you know, we're receiving funds to have this initiative, and that's the only money that we're talking about. We're also talking about reinvesting those dollars, equivalently, you know, from ticket sales or, you know, vendor sales back into the respective parks and recreation departments within those municipalities. So I think that there is a pathway forward with... Would you accept the $1,250? Right, $1,000. Yes. Right? Yes. So you split the baby. We'll call it split the baby. Exactly. You know what I'm saying? Yes. And if it has to be matching funds, actual dollars... Everybody's happy. That is good. Senator Geller? More flexibility. I think that you have hit on it because I'm prepared to do $250, not $250 and $250, which is why I would have voted against $53 and $454, but under your proposal, if you look at $54, the bulk of that is to one big function at the county park there, and then Commissioner Davis has other municipals which are included in $54, so I think you've come up with a very wise strategy that we would put half of that towards the big county function... Instead of $25,000, all five in municipality, a total of $125,000, and yours would be $125, and that way it's capped out at $250,000. Right. And, Mr. Mayor, the $125,000 under $54,000 would go towards the one big function at the county park, and then we'd have the other $125,000. Hold on. And then the same thing, are you open to that? I'm open if I could hear more about 54. So 54 has about 10 cities that are coming together with you at the park. Correct. Yes. Okay. So as long as that's the case, it's not just one city. You have cities, 10 cities coming together at the park. You've worked with those cities, and you're in agreement. And then other cities, that same city can apply for the grant as well. Correct? Good idea. So, yeah. It doesn't preclude them from applying for the grant. I have a couple of questions, and certainly of this gentleman. I never went. He mentioned ticket sales, and the reason I'm bringing this up is because we're already a sponsor. The county's a sponsor of the event you're speaking about. I think we're either giving free space or discounted space. And so we've never heard of ticket sales because we thought it was going to be a free event for the public. And so that would be a criteria that I definitely would need to get clarity from the commission because if the commission is giving money for matching, however this works out, my expectation is that it would be free to the public. So when you said ticket sales, that caused me some... Well, we've got conflicting answers from the park in terms of what's being compensated for and what's not. So we don't have that in writing yet. As far as the county sponsoring your event already? Correct. In-kind stuff. It gets kind of tricky when you get to these parks. So what he's trying to say is they don't have it in writing yet for him to come up with his agreement. So if you're saying, what you just said, we're giving in-kind and you didn't know anything about ticket sales, so that needs to be cleared up because you're saying one thing, he's saying one thing, you both are understanding something different. So clear that up so that if we're giving the park and all the amenities to them, he wants that in writing. And if parks is saying, you got to pay for police and fire, then he needs to understand because he's got to pay for it. I think that's where the misunderstanding... No, because we keep throwing hand grenades at this. This is very simple. Yeah, but it only came up because we split the baby. Her baby's different than this baby. This baby is matching grants, matching funds. Her baby is supporting a single event with 10 cities, which is a different understanding of an agreement. So, and Monica just came in and said, hey, wait, well, we're giving you something already, so you can't sell tickets. Just clear it up so we know who's on first. In the agreement. Am I correct? We're able to fund it. Are you willing to do the event without selling admission? Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. So why can't we give tentative approval to what we're talking about with the admin or council to negotiate the agreement and bring it back to us in, what, two weeks? When we meet again, it'll be fine. You know, everything will be satisfied. Are you guys open to that? No. No, this is now like the fifth time we've talked about this for $250,000. This is the fifth meeting we've had on this. This is a municipal function. Let's come up with a plan, give them some dollars that we can have, and let all the people that are paid, this is costing more than $250,000 to keep fighting about this every meeting. Oh, it hasn't been, it hasn't been five meetings. It's been 20, 25. No, I'm joking. All right. Okay, so I'm, I'm going to do a proposal based on what I've heard. How can we frame this with 53 and 54? How do we frame it where we're going to call split the baby? So for 53, just marking it up, and you're talking about $12,500 per, for up to 10. So. Up to 125. Up to 125. So what we did was for Part A, it's motion to authorize county administrator to negotiate and execute agreements with Broward County Municipality subject to review and approvals to legal sufficiency by the CAO, which will be subject, which shall be effective upon final execution through July 19th, 2026, to provide matching funds up to, instead of $25,000, it's now $12,500 per municipality, comma, requiring a municipal cash match. You asked for cash, right? Yep. Comma, excluding watch parties if someone didn't watch watch parties in there. No, no, no, that's not the, no. You said events. Events, don't. So we're not. I'm sorry. No, no, no, excluding. I'm saying so. You said excluding watch parties. Excluding. It's not, and that watch party is not an event, correct? It's an event. You're going to watch the event? Yeah. It was invested. You want to watch the event on a big screen. Okay, so what language do you want to say? Excluding? Excluding nothing, as long as it is to do with FIFA. Okay. It's events. So I withdraw that last part. So it's requiring a municipal cash match that you, everyone agrees with, with total aggregate funding not to exceed $125,000. I hope you forgot first come, first serve. Well, that's still, that's still in here. First come, first serve basis is still in here. And as long as what, I think what you're trying to say is it's as long as it's directly related to a FIFA World Cup. Yeah, all, yeah, all of, yeah, yes, yes, absolutely. It's got to be related to that. The balance of the item would stand. The description would stand. You're basically modifying the motion statement. And then how do you do 54? Motion, port B, you're just changing 250,000. Mayor, I've got to stop you because I want to make sure that whatever event it is, it's on a municipality property. Okay. I do not want it to be on private property or county or municipal property. And if the county's putting money into an event, anybody from the county can go to any event. They can't limit it just to their city because my cities may not do all of them, but they may want to go to. Fine. Okay, you ready? Let me try again. All right? Nothing more fun than doing this on the fly, I must tell you. Thank you. Motion to authorize county administrator to negotiate and execute agreements to support A with Broward County municipalities, comma, subject to review and approval for legal sufficiency, blah, blah, blah, comma, which shall be effective upon full execution through July 19, 20, 26, to provide matching funds up to $12,500 per municipality requiring a municipal cash match with the event to occur on public property within Broward County and not be limited to just residents of any particular municipality, so open to all county residents, okay, with total... No ticket sales. And no ticket sales. No, right, on this item. So free to the public. Yes, this is good. Free to the public. With total aggregate funding not to exceed $125,000, comma, to support community events and activities directly related to the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Part B, the resolution, the only change in the resolution is to change the $250,000 amount to $125,000. That's item 53. There were two more points on that and that the commissioner had clarified as well and I believe... The reimbursable. So it would be on a reimbursement basis is what she had mentioned. What does that mean? Meaning that they would have to show receipts for expenditures. So let's say they spent $50,000, they put $25,000 and they would only get $12,500 now because of this amendment, that they would have the receipts to show back and that we would pay them on the back end after verifiable documentation and then the other piece was that the... They also show that they put up... That's correct. That's correct, correct. And that it would be by a city, not a private entity that could apply for this. It would be the city. Those were the two points that she had also shared. Okay, but... Thank you. In kind for police services. Well, first of all, may I? In kind. Yes, Commissioner. McKenzie, you're right. I know, but I'm just saying police services, we can't accept police services. You can accept it, but it doesn't count as a cash. I hear you. We were trying to make sure it counts. It's so costly. Well, it's up to the commission. That would take away everything that you have just given to us. So let me ask you a question. Having... You were saying cash match. On hers, she said... Right, mine's cash match, but yours is just the cash. It's 53. Yours is not a match, so you should be fine. Going together now, right? No, he's separating them out. We have to open 54 separately because I think we have speakers. Okay. So do we have 53 now? Okay. Does someone want to make a motion on 53? I wouldn't even know what a motion would consist of right now. I'll make the... I'll clarify. The motion is... The motion is 53A, and except for 25,000, it's now 12,500. Not to exceed, instead of 250, it's 125. And as council said, it's a one-time. It has to be a cash match. It has to be directly related to the World Cup. The event has to be directly related to the World Cup. First come, first serve. That's the motion. And mayor... And no ticket sales free to the public. And on a public property within Broward County and open to all county residents. Okay. We got it. Do I have a motion on that? I have a... I move the motion. And mayor, we do Part B at the same time. You can be done with it. That's 125,000... So we're talking about 53A and B. Sir, and that's just changing the number to 125. I have... Commissioner Davis moved it. Vice mayor seconded it. Why don't we do... All in favor. Aye. Why don't we do hands. All in favor. We got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... Oh, we got... Okay. So we're talking 8-1. I'm sorry. Who voted against? Who's against? Nan, you're against. And Beam's against. Okay. 7-2. Okay. All right. We're done now with 53. Okay. Now let's go to 54. Oh, let's open it up. Who's here to speak? Item 54 has two motions. Motion A is a motion to authorize county administrator to negotiate and execute an agreement with the city of Waterhill providing funding to support a signature Broward kickoff event and underwrite county-wide promotion and city-wide activation related to the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Motion B is a motion to adopt budget resolution transferring funds from the reserve within the general fund for the purpose of providing fiscal year 2026 funding for the referenced agreement. Two members of the public have signed up to speak on this item. The first person is Dale Holness. The second is Justin Porter. Dale Holness again. The congressional candidate. The congressional candidate, Dale Holness. Dale everywhere. Well, the debate is robust. Thanks for the opportunity to be here. I've been engaged in this for quite a number of years. I'm part of Caribbean America Soccer Association. The second largest soccer league in the state of Florida. Richard Campbell, who's championed that for many years, vice mayor of the city of Lauderhill, is unable to be here today. And as such, he says, you've got to be there because I was there at the beginning of the start of that. The city of Lauderhill is here. The city of Darefield Beach is here. The city of North Lauderhill is here. Those are three of the cities, the eight cities that Lauderhill reached out through through Scott Newton, the Parks and Recreation Director from Lauderhill, reach out to every city in Broad County to get them engaged and involved with this. Eight municipalities have joined with them to put forward proposal. Deerfield Beach has representation here in Mr. Bernard Jones, and they already have plans in place to host events, to have clinics. They're going to have an event that will include a free section for the public, but a VIP section that they will be ticketed. So part of the nuance here is that they need to raise funds to defray the costs also because this is always budgeted from cities to have FIFA come to the United States. So there's a nuance there. The other issue is this, that at Central Broad Regional Park, where through the city of Lauderhill efforts, they have gained the okay from FIFA, from the governing bodies, to have an under-19 Haitian team and an under-19 Jamaican team hosted here. This is outside of what FIFA does with the World Cup. This is not World Cup related, but related in the fact that it's soccer. So they have reached out to ensure that they're drawing more people to Broad County to put more heads in beds as a result of these games and that will occur. So Deerfield Beach has that exception that they need. Lauderhill has clinics already planned and these cities, some of them already voted on what they need to do before they got here today. The funding that you have, the way you have it split, it's okay. Here's a challenge for us. At Central Broad Regional Park, BSO is required to be on the inside. So even if Lauderhill paid for their own city, they're going to have to pay BSO for being at the park because that's the way it is. So if you just make it cash, the cities that need to have police forces, they have to be paid. It's money that they have to come up with. So please put that in your consideration as these cities don't always have a whole lot of funds and many of them that have large soccer groups are not the wealthiest of our cities in Broad County. Thank you. Thank you, former mayor. Good afternoon. This is Justin Porter again on behalf of the city of Lauderhill and the Broad Welcomes. I think I've seen you already three times today, right? A couple times. Maybe 25, maybe five. I don't know. Well, I just wanted to talk a little bit about the kickoff event at Briar Regional Park on June 7th. We plan to open the doors at 2 p.m. for a youth soccer clinic, hundreds of kids learning a game of soccer, maybe being introduced to a game of soccer for the first time. We plan on bringing those international coaches as well. You know, we're working with the limited budget, so maybe not the high-profile ones, but the ones who have always been in the community and have a dear passion and have been training our kids for, you know, over a generation. After the youth soccer clinic, we plan on having two international friendly matches, one with the Jamaica versus Haiti under-20 teams and then a Jamaica versus Haiti Masters soccer match and then a final closing ceremony match. During that time, we plan on having fan zones, kid zones with bounce houses, so really this is a family-friendly event for everybody in the county to participate and enjoy. During that time, we'll have the participating cities as well showcasing the best of what they have to offer within their distinct municipalities and introducing it to people in the county who maybe somebody in Tamarack who doesn't visit North Lauderdale or visit Miramar. Now they're being introduced to the businesses and the programs and the opportunities and the municipalities that they have to offer. So, yeah, just wanted to highlight that signature event. Sir, can I ask you on the games with Haiti and other, are you organizing that and paying for that? Correct. Not out of these funds. Not out of these funds. Correct. So out of these funds, what's being paid for? We're going to be paying for the police. Okay. So, I'm sorry. Yes, part of the funds will be used for the logistics of the international matches. Okay. You just said, I'm sorry, Commissioner Rogers, you just said that they're not being paid for. Now you're saying they are partially being paid. And the clarification came from another member of the team that yes, it is resort. Yeah. What is being paid for? I'm very familiar with the soccer events from Chicago. Can you tell me what portion is being paid for on these international matches? What portion is being paid for? We'll be paying for a portion of the flights, a portion of the hotel, which part of the hotel stay will be in kind, donated, a portion of the nights there, and some meals. Okay. So flights, stay, and meals. Okay. And then you also said you're paying for some coaches to come and do clinics? Yes. Well, that's a part of the youth soccer clinic. So to pay for the coaches. And do you have an idea of what that will cost? The total cost of a youth clinic is about $5,600. How much? About $5,600. And that's for everything included. $5,600. And how many do you plan on putting on? At this event, there will be one. Okay. So you have $5,600. You're paying for some hotels, some airfares, some stuff. I mean, please correct me. I'm hearing like maybe $20,000. Commissioner has allocated $125,000. Where is all the other money going to? Other citizens and other events. Yeah, we have, we have. Do you guys, don't we, I mean, should we see like a list of where the money is? Yes, yes. And we can, we can always provide that. We've been working on it. Part of, part of the thing that we've been working on is when we're talking to these cities is what is the, the first question is what is the county doing? So that's why we're up front in front of you today to have these conversations so that we know where the funding is coming for police, for fire, for the various permitting that we need and then for the activations of the other municipalities at the event. Okay. I'm going to pass it to anybody who else wants to ask questions. I just think, I'm all, I was in favor of the 125, but I just think that it's incumbent upon them to show where the money is being spent and how it's being spent. Otherwise, what if they need 175 or they only need 95 or, I mean, I think it's only prudent to show where, you know, how the money is being spent. Mr. Mayor, what was being discussed was one event. That one event, right? There are other events that other cities who are participating, we have to, they have to take care of those cities also. He was talking about three different soccer matches, not one event, three different soccer matches. He was talking about Children's Clinic. That's soccer. Four events. Yeah, there's going to be two to three events per city. So, between 20 and 30 events county-wide, that will be taking place over the six weeks of this initiative. Okay. I'm going to go around the dais. I got everybody's hands. I'll start, if you don't mind, I'll start with Senator and move it around. Okay, I just have a question. I thought, under your motion, Mr. Mayor, that what we were doing was 125,000 was going to go to cities and 125,000 was going to go to one large county-wide event to be held at the park, Central Park in Waterhill, and that 125,000 would include rental for the park, would include police. The county's already a sponsor of that and is already giving that space for free. That's valued at $11,000. Okay. I was under the impression that all of the money to the cities was coming from the 125,000 that's going, that was Commissioner Davis, 53, and there was one large event that was going to occur and maybe more than one day, maybe a two- or three-day event, at the Waterhill, whatever the name, the Central Park in Waterhill, whatever it's named, was going to go there. Now we're being told it's actually going to be a series of events at different cities around the county, which I thought was what 53 was for. So I am now officially confused. So is the money not all money, the 125, is that all not going to one large, perhaps, multi-day event at the county park, Central Park in Waterhill? That is a question. Can somebody answer that? More than one location in Central Broward that they have already engaged. So my specific- So it's Lauderhill, North Lauderdale, and come on, Justin, help me quickly. Lauderhill, North Lauderdale, Deerfield Beach, Tamarack, Oakland Park, Fort Lauderdale, Tamarack, and other cities want to participate as well. Okay, so the answer is it's not all going to a major county-wide event. It's going to multiple cities. No, I'm sorry. The funding is not going to multiple, it's going to one event and it's promoting their cities at the event. Okay, then I've now heard a conflicting answer. Wait, I just asked you when I started, where's the money going? And then you were saying there's three major soccer events, there's going to be, the fourth was kids clinics, and then somebody came up and then you said, well, there's 20 other cities and 20 other events. But at the same time, if we're utilizing the space of a big cricket stadium, I mean, what we're talking about is only happening on the field. There's other places around the cricket stadium that can be activated for others. Point of information, who's the we you keep talking about? Who's this group? The Broward Welcomes the World. Who's Broward, who's on that group? So right now, it's myself from the city of Lauderhill. We have our president of the Lauderhill Chamber of Commerce and we have dignitaries and representatives from each of the cities. We have Mayor Sampson from... Who from the county is on that board? No one. So you just made a statement before. You said the first thing you're hearing in that board is what's the county going to come up with for all the different services. So there's been nobody on the county from this whole board but that's the first question that the cities are coming up with. Can't the cities do this on their own? There's a municipal projects that the city wants to do. They want to have a big event at our cricket stadium. It becomes a county event and we should do a county event there but I personally think they're much better to be done at the Amarant Bank Arena and get the people there. People that live in Lauderhill go to the Amarant Bank Arena all the time. People that live in Lauderdale Lakes go to the Amarant Bank Arena all the time. Let's do it right if we're going to do it. Let's not do it... I lived in Broward County for 25 plus years. I've never been to Amarant Bank Arena. I don't know what that says about me but... Well, if you're not a Panther fan we can't vote for you. But I'm saying you've gotten yourself here a few times. It's not that hard to get to the Amarant Bank Arena. It's easier to get there than it is to get here. Peter Parker. Commissioner, nothing beats being at home or close to home. Hazel, you know what? I want to support this and I'm willing to support it but I don't think they got their numbers at all ready and you can check ask everybody up here. I understand where you are. They're really giving conflicting information. They don't have... They should have a sheet. Okay, I got 10 grand for this and 5 grand for this and 20 grand for this and boom, boom, boom. It should be an itemized sheet. Like, who would we write the check to? Who would we write the check to? You would write it to the City of Lauderhill. We'd be accepting of the funds and be able to disperse it with the county administration's supervision. City of Lauderhill. So the City of Lauderhill would be... And we have our City of Lauderhill. The City of Lauderhill would be paying for all the expenses with this money. Correct. With the money that you provide them. Right. Okay, that's a good answer. I mean, I just... Okay, your lack of detail is hurting you. I mean, I just think you need to have your detail. Just know that the community wants it. It's going to be at your regional park with other... No, no. ...stand guys. That's fine. You know what? It would be better if you guys came back and have details of where the money's going. We have details and we have plans. We're trusted with taxpayer money and it's only incumbent on us to know where the money is going. And before you sign the agreement, Mr. Mayor, before staff sign the agreement, that could be a request that that must be granted. Okay. Okay, so... Anything tentative subject to an itemized list of where all the money's going, you know, I'm up here talking... Mayor of North Lauderdale? I'm done talking. I agree with you, Mayor. Mayor? The Mayor of North Lauderdale would like to make... Sure. Yes. Thank you for this opportunity. I'm giving you an example of a part of that. We worked together with Vice Mayor Campbell on that since then. Our city of North Lauderdale who has three different events, different dates. It's all related to World Cup. We have the nine schools in North Lauderdale. All of them, we're going to have one city cup. It's already... The city's taking care of that. It's part of that. And also, we have... We have... Men's... Adults teams. Four of them are going to be playing, providing for the public there. But it's all the men's health program. It's all related to that. By the way, all those kids, those nine schools, about 18 teams will be having each of a national team to be proud for those students to know because of the diversity we have in the city. So all of them will be wearing those same names. And then, we have another group that's going to be working around June again just to make sure that they get the students and the public involved in that one. Just to promote that. It's all part of that. I'm sorry. I don't understand a lot of what you're saying. Say that again? I really don't understand. Yes. Okay. It's just to show that even the $125,000 is not enough. Do you want to move forward with this item now even though they have no item as I's list? The money's not going anywhere until they sign the agreement, Mr. Mayor. So we can close it out if they don't come with what is required What are we voting on? on events happening that they're going to be at the regional park, at the city of North Lauderdale they can spend that $125,000 in a heartbeat just by hosting three events or four events. You already just said one's already paid for. One of the three is paid for. You just said one is paid for. So now we're talking to you. That's not what he said. Okay. I'm totally confused. I'm sorry. It's planned. But it hasn't been funded. It's planned and it's coordinated but it hasn't been funded. Okay. Mr. Mayor, my request of my colleagues. Why don't you move whatever you want to move. I'm sorry. Sorry. Senator Gellar, did I already call on you? You did. And I am very confused. So my question is are all of these events, like I said, I think it's, I thought we were voting on one event which could be two or three or four consecutive days but was going to be one location, location, one time event which could be more than one day at the Water Hill City Park and then you said no, different cities will I'm trying to get a straight answer here. From the start when I was speaking on item 53 I said that this was a six week initiative. The event on June 7th at the regional park is the main event, the kickoff event which is going to set off a chain of events across municipalities in Broward County. So now you're again saying across municipalities so it's not all at the For this item, for this event at the regional park, the funding that we're asking for right now is for this event at the regional park. So I want to be clear, all you're asking for is for one multi-day event but consecutive, like maybe a Friday, Saturday, Sunday. One day, June 7th. A one day event. I see the people in the audience shaking their head no. I don't know how to deal with where I can get a straight answer. If I may, Senator, the main events will be at Central Broward Regional Park. However, we heard of clinics before. Other cities will be having clinics like North Lauderdale to have the kids. They will also help to participate within the main event at Central Broward Regional Park. where we're bringing international teams that are not attached to FIFA to Broward County. That's the essence of this. And as Commissioner Rogers stated, before any money is dispersed, there'll be accountability put in place through your agreements with the county, written by your county attorney, that will safeguard the public funds. But Mayor... So we're looking at 250 before. 150 was set aside there. 125. The other 125 is set here. Again, it's the same money. It's the same $250,000. Dale, the problem is it's being done backwards. When people have events, they want sponsorship for money. Here they go and they go, here's the events. One, two, three, four events. Here's what we're going to pay the coaches and the airfare and the hotel and the food and the blah, blah, blah. It's going to... This is what we're paying for. And then the bottom line is the total number. You're talking... There will be documentation, Mayor, to show where all... Every penny that will be spent. No, I understand it, but you want an agreement of us to vote now before that thing comes before us. I hear what you're saying. You're a smart guy. What is being done here is that we have cities that are participating in this. All the documentation, every penny that's to be spent will be documented. It's not all in place right now. I agree. But time is of the essence to know that these funding are in place to ensure that these events can complement what's going on with FIFA and how we enhance it and make sure our children and economic output... One last question. So, just to confirm, this is... We would not be paying $125,000 for a multi-day to three-day event at the park. It would include meant things in other cities. Absolutely. Good. Okay, thank you. That's not what I thought. Mayor, can I go now? Yes, please. I lose you. So, it's going to... It's going to include other city events, correct, Mr. Holness? Yes, sir. Okay. We will. We'll be supporting Deerfield with what they have. Mr. Jones, please come forward. So, I'm going to... This is Mr. Jones from Deerfield Beach. So, Economic Development. I've known Bernard for years. So, you're part of this opportunity is what you're saying. City of Deerfield Beach is, right? Yes. Let me see if I can... Because I think you're going to put... You're going to put a... I can bring this back. You're going to put a watch party on your beach parking lot, right? Yes, sir. I... Let... May I start with what we're doing in the city of Deerfield? So, you're going to do that. Are you going to also apply for the 12-5 that we just passed in 53? Right now? Mm-hmm. I want to kind of bring all this together because it's going this way. It has. You know me long enough. I don't even think your mayor, my understanding of... I don't think your mayor even knows that you're doing a watch party on the beach, by the way. Actually, sir, let's... Last Tuesday, our city commission voted... Because I was just told you might not even know. ...for the Deerfield Beach activation. The activation would be 100 teams, 14 you, coming to the city of Deerfield Beach. Okay. Our event planner is FIFA certified. He's a former soccer player, plays professional athlete. Right. He does this for a living. He has a soccer academy. He goes around the country putting on events. He selected Deerfield Beach as one of the host cities to do the soccer event. Okay. Our city commission voted on a 100-team tournament, 14 you, and a corporate that would be 21 and above. One-day event on city property, parks and rec, ours. We did that. Now, the second event that was added was a watch party on the city parking lot. Backdrop is the water. We would set up a stage and watch the three games. Our 9 o'clock game would be Brazil versus Haiti. Okay. You know our demographics. That will be a huge event. We are partnering with the Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, local businesses, to create this event. The city's not spending money other than the city opportunity. Our job is to deal with the chamber, local businesses, and partners to expand this. Our goal in the city of Deerfield is to start, the event will be, the watch party is the 19th of June and the tournament is the 27th. We already established those dates. So, throughout the month, we will take athletes and put them in Brazilian restaurants, Haitian businesses. So, we are partnering within our community to extend and create the business opportunities. That's it. So, is the city of Deerfield Beach funding all this, correct? No. No, sir. Just the sponsorships will fund it. Just the two-day event. So, in other words, the sponsorships, you'll have all the money raised to pay for the event itself, right? Not all of it. Okay, but you've already agreed to do these events. We've agreed. That was in our resolution. But what did the city commission say? Did they say, hey, we'll read to this, but you're going to have to get sponsorship? Our city commission said they would approve the two events pending paying for fire and police. We have some entities that are looking to pay that. I'm talking about it as of today. Okay. So, once that's done, the event and what we're doing is complete. Our goal then is to enhance through our local businesses. Got it. That's it. So, you're part of this consortium of these folks. So, they're going to decide how much money to give to you, right? Yes. Okay. Got it. Now, I'm pretty clear now. So, where does the money go? In other words, if we write a check to, are we writing a check to the city of Lauderhill? So, we're writing a check to a city, okay? Understand that. And then, that city's going to disperse to your partnerships. Like, for instance, Deerfield Beach, right? Yes. Okay. We will have an itemized list of what our expenses are, which I have half of them now. Okay. So, would the, it would be on a reimbursed basis, right? You have to show your receipts first, right? And then, we would reimburse you these monies up to $125,000, right? We just can't write you a check. We have to, like we did the last one, right? We will have expenses. In the city of Deerfield, we're going to have expenses as to what we're... What I'm saying is, for the $125,000 that we just did on Commissioner Davis' item, it was reimbursables, right? This would be the same here, correct? Yes. All right, so we're just not going to write a check, so you have to prove to us that you spent X amount of dollars for the reimbursable. Okay, just want to make sure that's correct. Subject to legal, and would it be matching funds? Are you going to match? Do you feel going to match the money that you're going to get from this $125,000? Our goal was to see what the dollar amount was. It's limited, but depending on what the cost is, we would come up, and what we were looking at was the $25,000, up to $25,000. I'm just looking at the framework, because that's my problem here. We don't have a framework. We don't have these things that the mayor was talking about. I'm sorry, but gentlemen, would you come forward? So is this a matching fund? Are you looking for Deerfield Beach? If you give them $25,000, are you looking to match that? I think that with item 53, that has now shifted. Okay, so they can apply for that too. In other words, Deerfield Beach could apply for that number 53 as well, and plus get money from you. Correct. So that's kind of, okay, got it. Okay. And all the events will be free to the public? Or will there be ticket sales? No, I'm talking about your sale. Any other, all the seats will be all totally free to the public? Yes. No ticket sales or anything like that? Okay, great. Okay. Thank you, Mayor. Commissioner, we'll have a VIP tent at our watch party, because we're looking to enhance the business opportunities. We have one of the sponsors is Monster. They want to do stuff for the kids' event. We have Patron, which will be part of the VIP, not the kids' tournament. So we're working and collaborating with other businesses to do it. So that section would be a ticketed item, gated off, roped off, and it's free for the rest of the public out on our beach. Food trucks, police, fire, stage, music, and it would be the local vendors at food trucks and some of the local business selling their food. Thank you. Commissioner Rogers, did you want to say something? I would like to move this conversation forward, and I was talking to the attorney, and I know this is to direct staff and the group to come up with the agreement, taking into consideration everything that we are concerned about, Mr. Mayor. So we're going to stop what we're doing. You're directing, you want to direct staff to come back, everything flushed out, all the numbers flushed out, and when that's done, meet with everybody that needs to be met with, and then come back and try it again. No. And present your motion. Yeah, so what we discussed generally was motion to direct staff to meet with the city of Lauderhill to flesh out this item, to bring it back for May 12th, okay, which is probably going to have to go supplemental, with a cap of $125,000 with an itemized list of the permissible public activities that will be funded by the county on a reimbursement basis, public property, open to all county residents, subject to legal review. All of that will be in there. It's probably going to take a conversation, but this is a conversation we could certainly have in private and bring it back on May 12th. Can we stop our conversation then and do this? Guys, can we get... I asked about the park and Monica gave me an answer, $11,000 something that's not a part of this $125,000. No one answered the part about police and fire yet. Those were my questions earlier. They're going to flush that out. That's what she's saying. I want that answer. The police and fire, how is that going to... So it would just depend on the will of the board. I know on 53, you want a cash match. On this item, I understand the request might be, Commissioner, it's your item. You correct me if I'm wrong, that your intent would be that the provision of police and fire would count towards the match. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. I still don't understand that. So if the city of Lauder Hill or if the city of Lauder Hill and Commissioner, again, this is your item, but as I understand it, if the city, since if the county were to pay $125 on a reimbursable basis to the city of Lauder Hill for this, you know, kind of coordination of all of these events for different cities that their provision of police and fire at those events would count towards a match, if you will, that would count as their skin in the game for this money from the county. Is that correct? Is that what you meant? Yes. It would be included as part of the cost is what you're saying. I want to make sure. Thank you. Thank you. I have a motion to what we just heard with the motion. Do I have a second on that motion? The motion, why don't you say it again, Drew, would you please listen to what the council is saying? So a motion to the county staff to meet with the city of Lauder Hill to flesh out this proposal to bring it back on May 12th, which everyone needs to understand will probably go supplemental, okay, at a cap of $125,000. When the item comes back, it will have an itemized list of the permissible public activities that will be funded by the county. The funding will be on a reimbursement basis. The activities will be on public property, be open to all county residents, subject to legal review, the rest of it to be fleshed out. I have a motion. Do I have a second? She's second. Second. I have a motion, second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Only because I would have made a motion to table this indefinitely and just end it here. They're not going to be able to do it the right way. It's too late. You're out of line. Show that passing 8 to 1. Let's move on to number 38. Oh, no. 38. I think that's... Item 38 is a motion to direct county administrators to implement a small business sign grant pilot program targeting underserved commercial corridors. One member of the public has signed up for this item. Stacey, I'm sorry. That's the wrong motion statement. There was an amended motion statement. If you could please read that. It was additional material. 38A. I have it if you don't have it handy. I've got it as well. Monica, would you read the 38A, please? I've got it right here. Motion to direct county administrator to develop a small business signed grant pilot program targeting underserved commercial quarters to be brought back to the board for consideration. Okay. We have a motion to direct on number 38. I was pulled by... Is there a public speaker? There's one speaker on the item. Chris Nelson. Chris, the Honorable Chris Nelson. I was just sitting there through all that thinking, we need some windows in here, you know? It gets a little stuffy in here. Thanks for supporting our new governmental center. Thank you, Chris. Yes. Oh, well, I don't know about that, but maybe a different room. Maybe by the school board building. But anyway, so I guess while we're all handing out money for things, now there's another item brought by Commissioner Davis that we, the taxpayers, need to pay for signs for people with businesses and underserved corridors, whatever that means, and basically give people money so they can put up like a bigger sign or something like that. So I'm against this because I don't think this is something that really benefits like every taxpayer. This is, I'm not saying that Commissioner Davis has certain friends of hers that she has this in mind for, but, you know, this kind of thing is, it could be used for something like that. And it's something that really just, I mean, who's going to pick who is and isn't underserved? I feel underserved sometimes, you know. My wife and I both have businesses, you know. Maybe we should come in here or if I was the commissioner I could put forth motions to, for my wife's supplies for her business maybe. So I just think that this is something that a business needs to pay for their own signs. I mean, the commission shouldn't be deciding who gets a sign, who gets money for a sign. Because let's say you give money to a business for this big grand sign somewhere and it, and it, there's a bird population nearby that gets scared off by the signs. Or let's say that this business goes out of business and the Broward taxpayers put forth all this money for this business to have a great sign. Does Broward County then get that money back? So, not definitely a no to this and I hope that this is something that you'll shoot down. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Number 38 was pulled by Commissioner Furr. Thank you. This is not unlike a lot of the property improvement loans that are throughout the county and has worked for a lot of cities to help or businesses to help get them going. What I, what I wonder is with the micro business grants that are going through, we had tremendous amount of people trying to get them. We ran out of money on that and I wondered if it would make, if we were doing something like that, wouldn't it make more sense to put this money into that but allow for signage to be included. In other words, if you want to, if this is one of the things you need, then you apply for the signage of it and it could be included within that. I think, you know, given the success of that, this, what I'm worried about, this only, this would like maybe do 20 signs. Yeah, yeah, but, and the other part is I think it needs to be, if we're doing it, limited to LMI areas, low to moderate income areas, which I think you're already trying to do, but do it by census track so that, so it's, you know, you can kind of aim it but I think that would make, that would, putting that into that program, tying it in there and then adding the eligible items to be signage. I don't know if the maker of the, of this is willing or would consider that. Yeah, thank you. This, this is, different to the micro, and maybe, is Maribel here because she can explain the differences between this and that program and this would, I think the micro grant is for all over. It's not in certain areas only. That, that is correct and, and, and Miss Feliciano is here and she can come up and address and just as a reminder, this item is for, for me and my team to bring back, to develop and bring something back to you all. So, it would still come back to you but it's good to get some feedback and we'll bring it back. If you'd like Miss Feliciano to come up, please. Good afternoon. Yes, this item, the way they differentiate the micro grant is, is basically a reimbursement program. right now this year is $5,000 that we're reimbursing operational expenses on Broward County businesses and yes, it has been extremely successful this year. We have received over 450 phone calls for the appointments. Design program, the way it is proposed, we have 16 cities that currently have programs, similar programs and other 16 cities that are, including the BMSD, that are interested in participating in the program if this program is approved and the way the design program would work is also going to be reimbursement for those cities that already have a program. It will be a 50-50 match and the funding will be going to those cities. The cities that don't have a program, what is being proposed is that there's still going to be funding available for those cities. However, those cities need to administer design program. The county will not be administering programs for the cities. The other thing that I thought we probably may want to be considering is a lot of the sign programs throughout the county are done through the CRAs. If the CRA is doing the match, then the county would be doing 100%. So we may want to, you know what I mean? Because the money that would be held back on the CRA, some of that money would be used to do the city's match, which would mean that the county would be doing almost 100%. So we may want to exclude money from CRAs on that. So we will take a look at that and make sure that that's taken into consideration. Yeah, otherwise you can, I mean, CRAs have a lot of signed programs. No, that's a great point and we'll make sure that that's taken care of in the proposal bringing back. Okay. And again, I think, you know, to designate LMI census tracts would be a good idea to do it. That's all. Thank you. Thank you. Can I move the item? Okay, so just to make, so this item will be coming back, correct? Yes. Okay, so I have a motion on number 38. Do I have a second? Do I have a second? I have no second. Going once. Second. This is a motion for them to come back with something. It's not it. So there's no second for that? Yeah, there will have to be six objectors because this is basically, well, actually this is, no, no, you're right. I guess this has to pass with five. This is not doing code. This is a program. Right, but it's not going to pass unless I get a second. I can't ask for a vote unless I get a second. So I have a motion with anybody going to second it. So I have a second. Okay, I have a motion and a second. All in favor, raise your hands. One, two. I mean, I'm going to just come back, but I got three that does not pass. So that means this is not coming back. Is that right, counsel? Correct. Okay. Do I have anything? We still have some, pardon me? Three public hearing items and then we have item 47, item 55 and the dashboard if people want to get into that. Okay, so, okay, public hearing items today are items 39 through 42, although we've done 42, right? We've done 42. The reading clerk will open each item and recognize any members of the public signed up to speak. Upon completion of the public comment, the item will come back to the day as for any discussion. The public hearing item 39 is now open. This is the first of two required public hearings. No action on the motion will be taken at today's meeting. The second public hearing will be held on May 12, 2026. Item 39 is a motion to approve first amendment to lease agreement between Broward County and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for an 11,585 square foot building with related improvements located on 2.3 acres of land at Port Everglades to extend the term through December 31, 2035 and to update various provisions. No member of the public has signed up to speak on the item. Motion to approve. No motion. I got it. No, you don't. The public hearing on item 40 is now... Hold up, watch out. So no vote on 39 today. That'll come back for a second. Okay. Number 40. The public hearing on item 40 is now open. Item 40 is a motion to adopt resolution levying a land clearance lien against certain described properties in unincorporated Breyer County for nonpayment of land clearance costs pursuant to Chapter 39, Article 10 of the County Code of Ordinances. No member of the public has signed up to speak on this item. I can take a motion. I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Show that passing 9-0. Next. Public hearing on item 41 is now open. Item 41 is a motion to adopt resolution pertaining to grant awards and sponsorship agreements amending Section 29.15 through 29.17 and repealing Part 4 of Chapter 33 of the County Administrative Code. No member of the public has signed up to speak on this item. Second it. I have a motion and a second. All in favor? Any opposed? No opposed? That was a final public hearing item. Hold on. Hold on. It shows item 41 passing 9-0. What's the next one? That was the final public hearing item. Yeah, that's why I'm getting confused. 55. 55? 50? No, but we don't need we're going to skip 50. Let's go to 55. Item 55 is a motion to adopt resolution directing the county administrator to publish notice of public hearing to be held on June 9, 2026 at 10 a.m. in room 422 of the Government Center East to consider the award of a class of a class 2 advanced life support transfer certificate of public conveyance and necessity and a class 3 basic life support transport certificate of a public conveyance and necessity to eCare Ambulance, Inc. There are six members of the public signed up to speak on this item. The first member of the public is Charles Maimon. The second is Yama Acosta. Okay. Charles, do you want to come on up? Yeah. You were able to stay awake this whole time, huh? We made it, Mayor. All right. You did good. Mayor, Commissioners, good afternoon. Charles Maimon for MCT Express. As you all know, you have, the commission has tasked the EMS Council to take a look at Chapter 3 1⁄2, the ordinance that governs EMS in Broward County. The EMS Council has done that through a series of meetings. They've also, one of the items that was associated with that was the small business enterprise that came before the commission some months ago that's on hold. Subsequent to that, there have been three applications for new COPCNs. And all of, the EMS Council has put a lot of time, energy, and effort into doing what the commission asked by taking a hard look at, the ordinance making changes. I think they're ready to bring that back to you at some point, although I guess there's some, there's issues at hand with it still. We're not there yet. So, the, what's coming before you today is a request to bring one of the COPCN applicants to you. There are two others that need to come, aside from this one, along at some point with the recommendations of the EMS Council. So, to listen to or hear one applicant on, that's being requested on June 9th would certainly not be in the best interest of Broward County residents or anything surrounding the work that the EMS Council has done. So, I would certainly ask that you say no to this. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Who's next to speak? The next speaker is Yema Acosta, followed by Dale Holness. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Yema Acosta. I'm the director of operations for AMR Broward and I am here today to speak regarding this, this motion. The Broward County EMS Advisory Committee reviewed the application and recommended denial based on two points. Point number one, the application did not demonstrate the need of the county or the need for this in the county. Point number two is that the current COPCN ordinance is presently under review. So, given that the EMS ordinance is under review, I respectfully request that the commission consider deferring any action on items that rely on or interpreted by this ordinance until the revision is completed. In closing, I respectfully ask that the commission to consider the established process and the EMS Advisory Committee's recommendation and to take the course of action that best supports consistency, transparency, and equitable approach for all providers while the ordinance review is underway. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it. Thank you. Hold on. Sure. Before our next speaker, Senator Rich, would like to ask Monica a quick question. I just would like a little clarification before we go any further on this. This one was removed originally along with 16 and 17 and now it's back with this. So, I'm not really understanding. You know, I thought, we have not had a report back yet. I don't know what the EMS committee is, you know, suggesting, recommending. So, I'm not sure why we have this here now. So, if you could just clarify. So, procedurally, I'll just explain. So, there were three items on the printed agenda, 15, 16, and 17, that were all kind of similar for the COPCN process. 16 and 17, there's, well, let me go back. So, on the Monday Night Memo originally, I had asked for the board and considering those were county administration items bringing forward, they were withdrawn at the request of the board appointee to the EMS council due to the withdrawal of item number 20, which was the updated draft of three and a half. In addition to that, 16 and 17, those two groups did not get their hearing because there was not a quorum at the meeting that they would have received the recommendation or not. So, those two were always going to be coming off because they didn't have the meeting and there would not be a recommendation for the board for you all to consider. At that point, I believe, given some timing considerations on that they would need to have 30 days of a notice, I understand at that point, Commissioner Davis had requested to have a supplemental item so that this particular item, number 15, that was originally withdrawn, could have that opportunity to have a set for public hearing and then have that public hearing on the, I believe, the June 9th meeting. So, that's procedurally how that happened. Is that your question? I'm sorry. The first recommendation, I mean, why you pulled all three off was because Senator Geller, who is the representative and he recommended that they all come off. He did, and as a courtesy and as I've done with many of you all whenever you've asked for certain things, that was procedurally why I did that. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker is Dale Holness followed by Alberto Naranjo. Mr. Holness, long time no see. Alberto, come on up. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor and Commissioners, Senator as well. I just want to take the time to introduce myself. My name is Alberto. I'm the General Outside Counsel for E-Care Ambulance and just to give you a little bit of framework of where we stand here. The county has this power to grant this license because the state has a statute that grants the county this power. When you look at the county, at the state ordinance that grants the county this power which is 401-25, it says that you have to come up with reasonable standards and that you must consider the state standards. What I'm saying here today is that it's unreasonable not to have deadlines to process an application given the fact that the state has deadlines, very, very specific deadlines. If you miss those deadlines, by default, the application is granted. very quickly, just overall arching, especially with the senator's concerns, the courts, what they say is that the North Star when it comes to granting these licenses is necessity. So the day that our hearing comes, and this is all we're asking for, is an opportunity to be heard, kind of like what was done today earlier in the meeting. We want to be heard to show the necessity. We want the opportunity to prove that there is a necessity and convenience, right? And the courts say, and the law is very clear, it's burden shifting. Once we show the burden, once we show the necessity, it's on the current providers to rebut that. And if they can't rebut that, then at that point there should be an approval. So all we want is an opportunity to be heard and to fight to show you that there is a necessity and you'll hear from the rest of the team, there's a very big necessity and not only necessity, but convenience. It's convenience for the residents. Thank you very much. Mr. Holness, oh, next. And after Mr. Holness is Mike Arreglas. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, and Senator. My name is Mike Arguelles and I'm here on behalf of eCare Ambulance. We respectfully ask for one simple and fair outcome today, that our application be allowed to proceed through the full due process and be heard in a public hearing. eCare Ambulance is a small business but not new to this space. We currently operate in Monroe, Citrus, and Palm Beach counties. We have successfully entered competitive markets and delivered measurable improvements. In each of those counties, our presence has helped reduce response times, improve on-time performance, and elevate the overall level of service being provided to patients and healthcare facilities. Competition as EMS is not a disruption, it's a catalyst. When a new provider enters the market with high standards, it pushes everyone to better perform, to perform better. We've seen that firsthand. Other providers step up, systems improve, and ultimately the community benefits. At eCare, we take great pride in our on-time performance and operational reliability. We don't just meet expectations, we build our deployment models around exceeding them. Our focus is always getting the right level of care to the patient at the right time. We also bring capabilities that are not currently available in Broad County. For example, we provide high-flow oxygen therapy up to 60 liters per minute, an advanced level of respiratory support that can make a critical difference in patient outcomes. This, paired with highly trained clinical staff and state-of-the-art equipment designed to support even the most complex patient needs. Our commitment is not just to operate, but to elevate the standard of care. In fact, members of the EMS Council described our submission was the best application they have seen in nearly 30 years. We believe that speaks to the level of thought, planning, and commitment brought forward. Today, it's not about awarding a certificate, it's about ensuring a fair process, it's about allowing transparency, public input, and full evaluation of eCare to bring to Broward County. We are simply asking for an opportunity to be heard. We are confident when our application is reviewed in full through the proper public process, it will be clear that eCare represents a strong, capable, and community-focused addition to Broward County's EMS system. Thank you for your time, your consideration, and your commitment to fair and open process. Thank you. Thank you. After Mr. Holness, we'll be Mark Ellis. Thank you. Due process, due process, fairness, and a just hearing. That's all we are asking for. This application was made eight months ago. Eight months that we've been waiting for due process, for just hearing, and for fairness. I sat where you sat when we opened this process up, and we had six providers. We're down to four, with one entity owning two, so we really only have three. Two applicants came in February, and they were already put on the agenda even before they had their hearing through the EMS Council. That's not fairness. That's not just. When this entity application was in place since October last year, is that fair? Is that just? It is not. Is that in the best interest of the people of Broward County that we serve? It is not. If we want to be fair and just, the hearing ought to be held. The public hearing. Hear from the public. Hear what the needs are and what the necessities are. That's all we're asking for. No special favors. The state has requirements. And in fact, according to the state, reasonable time would have been 90 days to a hearing. This is now eight months. Eight months. Yes, I know there are interests that I hear that don't want to see that happen. You heard that those two speeches before. It's about fairness. It's about due process. It's about a just hearing. That's all we're asking for today. And that was granted earlier to the city of Hollywood. We should get that also. Thank you. Commissioner. Mark Ellis. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commission, City staff, or County staff. My name is Mark Ellis. I represent National Health Transport. As you're seeking to make your decision today regarding this issue, I want to remind the commission of the unbiased and apolitical work that was done by the Briarity AMS Council. The doctors, the nurses, the fire chiefs, the other members of the council debated and discussed and even argued this issue at your request. And in the end, they came to a consensus. A consensus that was based upon the data. The data showed that Broward County did not need any additional ambulances or ambulance companies and to the contrary, actually had plenty of ambulances already. Adding additional ambulance companies will only cause oversaturation and oversaturation in this particular market is not a good thing. So you also risk destabilizing the system as a whole. You're empowering of the EMS Advisory Council to guide you in this process. They're some of the leading experts and not just Broward County but in the nation. They discussed and debated the issue. They examined the data. They'd done the work. They'd made some solid recommendations and I, for one, think you should trust them and the process. There's a right way and wrong way of doing things as Commissioner Fur mentioned earlier today. The wrong way is to do this by politics. The right way is to base your decision on what the experts are telling you in the field and base it on the data. And a COPCN is in fact a request for a certificate of need. And they have shown that there is not a need. Thank you. Are we dealing with speakers? Public speakers? Yes. Thank you. This is Commissioner Davis' item. Commissioner Davis, I'll let you open it up. Thank you. And then, Mr. Mayor. So this really is, as was mentioned, quite aptly by a former mayor of Broward County, Dale Honus, is an opportunity for them to have the public hearing. This is not about whether we're going to be issuing the COPN today. This is for them to have a hearing. And from what I've heard, there is no reason why they shouldn't have one. They've been waiting way before I even brought up some of the items for this. The item that is before is going to come before us that I've delayed Chapter 3 1⁄2 revision. They have put in an application way before that. So we're basing on a system that's currently in place where they have every right to apply and to be heard. And that's all they want to do. In terms of having someone on the council, that was my idea. And in fact, nobody else thought of it. So just come and say, well, you know, I'm on the council, so we should, you know, that was not, this has nothing to do with that. This is part of the current process where folks can come before you with an application at any time in the process. And then the application goes to a public hearing. And again, that's all this is about. I'm hoping that this goes forward so they can have their public hearing and both sides, if they can show that there's a need and somebody else wants to show there isn't a need, that's the opportunity to do that and to get public input. And that's what we're asking for today. Before I go to Senator Geller, I'm going to recognize you, I just want to ask council, this item is just asking for a public hearing, they're not asking for a vote, they're just asking for a public hearing, is that correct, council? Senator Geller? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The couple items here. First, the, we have asked for a rewrite of chapter three and a half. I have, Who's we? The county commission. Thank you. I have just been appointed by you, Mr. Mayor, as the county commission representative to the EMS council. I have not even yet attended my first meeting of that. I believe, however, that the draft that we have from the EMS council for the rewrite is probably not going to be the final version of what we have. I think it is very appropriate since we asked for a rewrite of chapters three and a half specifically on the issue of ambulances, what we're going to be doing, we should be waiting for that rewrite and as part of that, we should be waiting for me to attend some meetings, see what the EMS council ends up with presenting to us. And so, I am asking not to reject them and by the way, your county attorney will tell you that we can postpone this without any legal question. I am asking my fellow commissioners since I have just been appointed to the EMS council not to vote on this until I have the opportunity to give my input at the EMS council and until we adopt the final report from the EMS council. Why would we want to, first of all, why would we want to vote on one when there's three amendments pending, three applications, I don't know that there's anybody who's going to say we need three new ambulance companies, but if we are asking for a rewrite, let's adopt the rewrite and then have the hearings. And so, I am moving, Mr. Mayor, that we postpone this until the adoption of the report of the EMS council. I have a motion. Is there a second on this? Second. Okay, before we call for a vote, I just wanted to ask one question. What's the harm in having a public hearing? Let me hear me. Let me hear you. Having a public hearing even until the things are adopted, what's the harm in that? Presumably, it would, the purpose would be to have a public hearing and a vote on it. I assure you that that would be the reason they would want the public hearing. I really doubt that they would come in and say, yeah, give us a hearing, but don't vote on us. That, I mean, they would want a public hearing to have a vote, which I understand if I was them, I would want it. As a lawyer, you know, you would never want to give away your hand to the other side without a jury, without a vote. So, a public hearing would come with the vote. So, I move to postpone. I got a motion and a second. Now, I'm going to go around any comments on this before we vote. Sir, go ahead, but I said, so if we have a public hearing, what happens? Drew? What happens? Council. You would, you would consider the application and, you know, the question is, if you have the public hearing under the current code, that's, that's one set of standards, that's due diligence by staff based upon one process. And then you have the new code, which is, Senator Geller mentioned, we were directed to draft. We were awaiting EMS Council input. And under, under the new code, you had a set for public hearing that was on the agenda for today. It was item 20, but at the request of multiple parties, we pulled it off the agenda. So the question is, and there's no right or wrong answer here. I'm not worried that we're violating due process. I don't think we're running afoul of a state statute here. The question is, when you're revamping the process in a pretty material way, I can't speak to the specifics. Adam Katzman's here. He certainly can. Staff can, and the gentleman from the applicant also can. But when you're doing it, is it more logical to have a hearing under a process that's about to be replaced under standards that are about to be modified? Or is it more logical to have them under the standards that are going to be adopted and may still be modified based upon the EMS Council's input on it? And that might sound rhetorical. It isn't. I don't think it's legally right or wrong either way. If we weren't close to being done with the amended ordinance, with the new standards being in effect, I would stand next to them and I would say, look, at some point they're entitled to a hearing and I think they have waited and I think they've been patient about it. But I don't see any material legal risk in delaying this to let the process play out and have the new standards put into effect. Anybody else? Mr. Davis? Thank you. From what it sounds like with the new appointment, that there's going to be more and more delays for this chapter for the rewrite and that was basically said, you basically said so you're going to have to go to meetings, you're going to have to review it, look over it, then we're going to recess. It's going to be a while before that comes back to us. I think in good conscience we need to go ahead and allow for the discussion to come up. It's for June 9th and as the attorney said, there's no right or wrong in here. So I move that. You have a motion already so let your motion go and then depending on where that goes, I would move that this go forward. Mr. Dean? When would the rewrite of the new ordinance be completed? So my guess is that we would take this up at either the first or second meeting after summer break. The first meeting after summer break is normally very crowded but I would believe that it would be either the first or second meeting after summer break depending on how busy we are. At least four or five months. So at that point what happens to a company that applies under one set of standards and the decision is not made if it was to be made like what happens to this process? Does this company have to start all over again? You know, it's a very good question, Commissioner, and I'm not really sure what without looking into it further what the best answer would be. Normally, you would want to see a company judged or a decision made based upon the applicable standards and based upon the applicable review process. So without looking at it, I would probably say that there would be and I think Adam can speak to this, there's the goal I think was to have an open application window. Adam, does that maybe come up? That would open and I think the presumption was this would have been ready a little bit sooner, there wouldn't be further delays, but that it would open maybe by August and then decisions would be made on whatever applications were received by December, is that correct? Good afternoon, Adam Kassman, county attorney's office. The proposed ordinance, which was item 20, set forth an application window for people to apply. The current ordinance has a rolling application period, you can apply whenever you want. The proposed ordinance would have basically a window, which is, it would open in two ways. One is if there's a determination of need found by county administration through set standards in the ordinance, or second, every three years it would open to try and allow competition and new companies to apply. So the proposal also was to open the application window in this fiscal year in 2026. So that's what the proposal was. And so there's three, or I guess four companies. Well, is there three or is there four? Well, it's four companies. One owns two of them. So there's three. Well, they're separate companies, but yes. There's four entities. Correct. Two of the entities are owned by one company. Or owned by three. But so those certificates and the contracts are set to expire in December. So what happens in December? So the goal was to have all of this in place, correct, Adam? To have the applications vetted, come before the board, and to have certificates awarded based upon whatever the need is determined to be, to have them in place before these expire. Correct. So this coming 2027, there would be new contracts entered to whoever those companies may be. So all the companies have to reapply for the next year? Again, it all depends on how the ordinance is done. I mean, the proposed ordinance opens the application window. So you could have, for instance, the three companies that have already applied, you could say, well, you've already applied, so that application is in, and then the other companies could apply if they wanted to, and during the open application period. This is all a policy decision on how the commission wants to do this. And what about the companies that are there already presently now that have the certificates of need? They expire in December? So at that point, there's no certificate of needs that are given to any companies. It's a clean slate. Correct, except for I believe one company does have one. There's one company that still would have one based on how things played out over the years, that they're kind of off the cycle. So three or four, three or four coming due, basically. Correct. Commissioner Yudin? Hold on, hold on. I want to ask two quick questions then I'll recognize you. This company claims they applied in October of 2025, correct? I believe that's correct. When was the EMS Council talking about changing, when talking about changing this, when did they start that discussion? We requested them to do that and they were supposed to have something on the agenda this meeting. When did they start doing it? I believe it was in December. So I just want to be fair. You know, if I'm in business, if you're in business, I want fairness, right? So October, they don't get a hearing. They apply in October. How come October, November, December? I mean, they haven't had a hearing. They haven't had anything. It's October, November, December, January, February, March, April. I mean, seven, eight months. If I was a business, I want to do business. I mean, it just, there's a fairness issue that bothers me with this about being fair. And why are they being kept out eight months, seven months? You know, let's not wait another until December. Let's wait another six months. I mean, it just doesn't seem fair in the process. They applied. I know the other two companies applied much later, but these guys are being treated differently. I mean, where, why isn't admin, us, Kevin, Kevin, how come admin didn't give them this type of hearing six months ago? Before the EMS Council even talked about it. We, the County Commission, asked the EMS Council to take this item up and to give us our new rules before the hearing. Not until December, January, you told me. Exactly. I'm sorry? Not until December or January, obviously. Okay. So they're not going to January. If they applied in October, there's not a hearing the next day. I understand, but why not? The County Commission voted to say we wanted the EMS council to do recommendations. I'm missing my point. My point is, if I apply at the beginning of October, 30 days of getting a hearing? 60 days of getting a hearing? 90 days? I mean, before we told the EMS council anything, I'm wondering why they weren't given a hearing within 30, 60, or 90 days. We already had rules. We had been talking about it before then. Right. Mayor, remember, there were a variety of things being proposed. There were a number of different classes and different applications, and actually, I think it was Commissioner Davis who logically, I believe, said, put an item on the agenda and forgive me if I'm falsely attributing this, but let's look at this holistically. Let's get the EMS council to tell us, since there could have been if you create a new class here, there could have been an impact here, and obviously, this is very important stuff. Right. So that was about the classes. It wasn't about the application. So this application was October 25th. The EMS council is looking at various aspects, but that should not negate them having a hearing since they applied under the old system way before we asked the EMS council to weigh in. And that's what we're saying. There's no harm and no foul. The attorney already said it doesn't matter either way. They're here. They've been waiting. Okay. Mr. Mayor, if you're looking at fairness, there are, it's highly unlikely that there will be three additional certificates granted as COPCNs. If you're, there were three on the agenda for today. if we take up one and not the other two, we're probably saying we're only, if we approve it, which I would not be supportive of today, if we approve that, we're probably turning down the other two. How is that fair? So again, all of you have been on committees, have been appointed to committees. And as far as I recall, whenever any of you have been appointed to a committee and said, hey, I've just been appointed. Give me a chance to do something before you vote. We've always done that. And that's what I'm asking. And I'm surprised there's so much debate over it. Okay. But if we had give it to them, then they were saying no, probably the other two who have also applied. Can I say something since this item? As was said, in December, everybody will have an opportunity. These folks in December, there's going to be opportunities for other people to apply because it's renewal. The fact of the matter is these folks applied before these other folks applied. These other folks applied after we'd already gone to the EMS Council. So in all fairness, these folks need to be heard. Let's vote. One quick question, Mayor. So I'm trying to understand the process. So did these folks go in front of the EMS Council on a timely manner? So y'all went in front of them and they actually said no, right? They recommended no. That's correct. So they did go in front of the council in a timely manner on that part of it. Yeah. So I'm just kind of confused. So we were in front of the EMS Council in January, which still is a delayed timeline from when we applied. It's a long time for us to get there. However, the debate from the EMS Application Council, it's not the whole council, it's only a committee from the council that hears the application. What they said is this, and you can listen to the tape, all of you may listen to that interview, it's the best application they have seen. And one of the persons on that council was there for 30 years. The best that they have seen. And we've been denied an opportunity to be heard? Their debate wasn't whether or not it was needs or it was necessary. Their debate was the fact that they're thinking of changing the rules. The rules that were in place in October is what legally ought to be applied to this situation. Not some rules that you're thinking of changing in the future that you may change or may not change. That is not fairness. That's not a just system. We ought to be treating this entity fairly and justly. That's the American way. Commissioner Honus, you need to be careful. We'll get you for unauthorized practice of law giving legal opinions. But I do want to just mention one point and I do think that if our application comes even later on, the old rules apply. I don't, okay. Do you entertain a motion this time? The report of the EMS council beginning of summer break. You know what's difficult here is you've got this and you've got somebody like you said we put on a committee to do the job so it's a very difficult situation. But I'm also on the committee. I'm also an alternate. Let's vote. Wait, wait, wait. Is there a way that we could push the hearing back into October or November but then that would give you the time so then we can have the hearing based on what else? I mean, I just don't know the logistics. I think we're pushing it back to the first or second meeting after summer break which is probably August. So this motion asked to set this on a public hearing in June. What if we set it for a public hearing at the end of August? I'm fine with that. Or I would recommend that it be set for public hearing either at the first or second meeting at the call of the mayor whether I don't know the dates but first or second meeting should be either end of August or beginning of September at the call of the mayor just to set a public hearing in June instead of June we're saying it in August. Either August or September your call depending on how busy the agenda is. Okay. You're changing your motion then? That's what I meant it to be all along. Okay. May I just ask was the intention for the code three and a half to go through the amendments? Yes, but we'll push that. Okay. So I mean you may want to do it's September. Look at Drew the motion is this the motion the motion set forth is that we're going to grant this motion but change amended to change date from June to a meeting to either be in September or August or September at the call of the mayor. I have to call. I think so so that's the motion do we have a second on that? I have a motion to second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Showing that passed 8-1 okay split the baby on that one. That's actually what I was asking for all of all. What else do we have? I'm lost. Drew, do we have any more besides the dashboard? I'm skipping the dashboard. I think you have reports and then we have to finish item 47 which is in close session. What? 47? That's security that is item 47 the shade meeting. The security so yes reports and then we're clearing out chambers. Do you guys want to waive reports? I have something that I have to say please. Oh okay. I have three pages okay I'm gonna I'm gonna run to the little boys room but you why don't you start there and we can go on the dais and have fun talking. Thank you. First I'd like to thank staff the resilient department parks department the volunteers everyone who was involved in the tree giveaway recently that was held in Miramar. I also would like to thank our public works for the community meeting that they held in Miramar as well. The cultural division they supported two great events in Miramar and we're grateful for their support for those two events that were held last weekend as well and I just wanted to bring a point to the visit Lauderdale and the the logo that they are currently using. Unlike Fort Lauderdale's logo which includes Broward County unlike the Port Everglades logo that also includes the saying Broward County visit Lauderdale's logo says nothing about Broward County. In fact I felt compelled the other day at an event to explain visit Lauderdale because folks don't immediately know that they are being sponsored through the county. As a county agency I think it's important that excuse me I think it's important that county agencies have a designation that they are Broward County and I would like to think that we would want visit Lauderdale to have that underneath their name. So they still visit Lauderdale but just to say visit Lauderdale Broward County. That happens with Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance. Yes it's a Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance but their logo specifically says there Broward County. I think it's important that when we're out and about there should be no second guessing whether an agency is affiliated with Broward County and the support that it gets from the county. So I'm asking if there's consensus to allow for that logo to add that on it. I know Mr. Mayor you just came but I heard you. You did? Yeah. I can't even get away from you in the bathroom. Okay. So if I can get consensus that that happens because I'm tired of explaining visit Lauderdale is not the city of Fort Lauderdale. I thought we were talking about it. I'm sorry. Do you guys want to go around real quickly and say you either agree or don't agree to add Broward County to the name visit Lauderdale? We're just going to go around. Yes. Do you agree or not? I know that they did a whole marketing study on all this stuff and came I mean this is something that really the professionals look at. I mean I haven't really thought too much about it. It doesn't bother me one way or another. There's no vote. I've thought a lot about it. I think everything that we do should have Broward County's name on it. That's my senator talking and we're going together on this one. I honestly totally disagree. I've heard from the business community time and time again they're trying to promote this county and everybody outside this county understands where Lauderdale Fort Lauderdale is. Nobody knows outside the county. I'm talking about when they promote companies to come here from other states. Broward where's Broward do you have Miami's name and Miami's name. You have Palm Beach's name. I'm just telling. That's what she's saying. No, I would not. There's no the whole purpose to the whole let me let me just speak. I just want to say that that visit Lauderdale you know exactly where we're talking about Broward nobody outside the county knows about Broward County and all I've been getting from is as Commissioner Udine said there's been a ton of studies on this that it's only hurting us. We spent a million dollars on a float in Pasadena Broward County. Do you think anybody most people there even knew where Broward County was? It's anyway look at I'm totally against using the name Broward. Keep going right. When we're talking about Lauderdale I would promote Lauderdale and I don't think we need Broward. I'll be the minority. Go ahead. It's gone back and forth. I'm fine with it. It goes back and forth all the time. They're trying to figure out should it be Broward? They're doing the best they can in terms of marketing. I don't know which one is better. Right now she says it's just Lauderdale. Add it to what we have now and that we represent and we move to this big marketing. I would think you may want to listen to the marketing. No one's not saying not listening. We're just saying right now. Let's finish. Go next. I agree with that. I agree. Thank you for bringing that up. I agree with you. Visit Waterdale. Keep Visit Waterdale. Nobody's saying eliminate that. Just stand underneath Broward County. Good idea. I support it. I think you guys are crazy. Good. Senator Rich. Thank you. Next. I just want to tell you I got an email from Patrice Paldino who heads up Haas, our homeless division. I just need to read it quickly to you. I sent her a thank you for sharing this beautiful story. She's writing to share a good story with you. She's saying it to me. Last night our airport street outreach team and Nick Pascucci of Haas D conducted an early morning airport sweep. I think they arrived around 3.30 this morning. They met with a young man who was from Texas and who came to Fort Lauderdale for vacation. He apparently had an argument with his friend and he was no longer able to stay with him. His return flight was not for another week. He was placed into a shelter. But the team recognized that he was inappropriate for a shelter setting and indeed was better served by going home. His parents are on social security and he only had $20 with him. Therefore we paid his cost to send him home on a flight to leave today at 3pm instead of having him remain in the shelter and wander the streets for a week. This is just an example of the amazing teamwork that is being accomplished with this extraordinary collaboration at the airport. I just wanted you to hear that. I wanted there was some things said today about parties and I think we use that word party when it's not convenient but something we want to gravitate to. And I've been talking about this from day one. We're talking about a logo that when you go to an event or the event I just attended. I know you had an emergency you couldn't come Lamar to the Pompano Beach Jazz Fest. It was phenomenal. But when you look up and you don't see Broward County's name, it's concerning when it's an event that we support. all in our districts need to listen to the district representatives and things that they may want or need. Even with FIFA today, no one was talking about going to a bar and having a beer. But we got so deep in the area just to say yes or no about that. I think we're trying to promote FIFA. We're trying to promote the championship game. We're trying to promote cricket. We're trying to promote anyone that comes and presents to us that they want to have an event in our cities. And along with events, as long as I can remember, to where the boys are at the elbow room back in the day, it was an event promoting spring break. These are events. Events in our cities and there just happens to be businesses along those corridors that people are going to go in there and have a cold one. So I want to see more events. I don't know how that looks and we got this visit Lauderdale thing. We got this cultural thing. Now we have these things that I just think in the harmony of Broward County, let's look at events differently when someone brings it to your attention. I go to events in most cities. I would have made the event out in Miramar but Pompano Jazz Fest was so good Lamar. It was so good that I couldn't get out there so I apologize but I want to make them all. It didn't have to be in my backyard but let's look at events differently as we move forward. I'm very serious about the charter workshop. I think it will help us. navigate our way around this day because I don't want to see the tension that I see building up now here with us with just little things that somebody wants. I think we're all responsible. I think we're all representing our districts very well and I don't know what goes on in your district. I'm fortunate enough to share with some of you districts and I think we do a very good job, the ones that are contiguous to me and how we handle that. Let's promote Broward County. Let's promote the events in this city. We all know that the definition that I read the other day from Webster's, it can almost be anything that we want to do. Okay, I'll go next. Voting has begun from all the cities for the passage of the Solid Waste Authority. Four cities have already voted yes. All of the cities unanimously passed the master plan. They all passed the facilities amendment unanimously. So it has gone already to Coconut Creek, South Post Ranches, Sea Ranch Lakes, Sunrise is tonight and it's moving very quickly through. So hopefully it's unanimous. That would be great. It's got a ways to go, but we'll see. I was at the Broward County Animal Care Volunteer Appreciation Event Saturday. What a great group of people. They got 270 people over there walking dogs and doing everything. And honestly, we couldn't do it without them. So just a great group. Transportation, we had the vision plan last night in District 6. Packed house. They loved it. They loved what they were seeing. Transportation group did fantastic. Last thing, this is something you all want to know about for your district. Florida Commerce is seeking recommendations for census tracts to be designated as opportunity zones. It has to be in by May 1st. You've got a couple days to tell your cities, where those are. Mirabelle has all the census tracts. You can ask her for them and then send it to the cities real quick. And all they have to do is say, I'm interested. But if they don't do that, they don't even have a chance. So they've got two or three days to get that done. Other than that, I felt like I had FIFA fever today. FIFA fever. I guess I never felt like I needed a city to celebrate a big event like this, like a World Series or NBA or anything. I'm not sure. I felt like we were almost out of our lane in some ways of trying to do this. And we were struggling to figure out what our lane was here. And the reality is individuals are going to celebrate however they want to do it. If you're a big soccer fan, you're going to go to wherever you want to celebrate. And they honestly, they probably don't need us to be doing some of this. But hopefully it all works out good. And that's it. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Just a couple things. Corey, where are you? I think Corey's still here. Is Corey still here? She'll leave? She just... She had to leave. She has another town hall tonight. I just wanted to thank her and her BCT team. We did the Transit Forward meeting in District 4 in Walton Manors. I know that District 6 had a big... I thought I had your crowd beat, but I think you might have beat me, but I had more elected officials than mine. In all seriousness, I was so surprised that people came out for that, really. It was great. I want to thank her. She's an amazing team leader. Thank you, Corey, for all you do for us. SFRTA reported the second highest Saturday ridership in its history. On Saturday, April 25th, the surge obviously was directly tied to the inner Miami soccer games at the new stadium and obviously steps away from our tri-rail Miami airport stations. On the weekends, by the way, we have $5 one-shop fare, so you don't have to worry about it. Just $5 buys you the round-trip fare for that. I would be remiss, I'm not here for a downer, but I would be remiss because when I first was elected here almost eight years ago, as a matter of fact, one of the things I was always concerned about was getting supplementals and additional material the night before a meeting. So we did put a policy in place and my understanding is supplementals are to be there Wednesday before the meeting on Tuesday. And I know there's circumstances where you cannot avoid that, right? But it seems like it's happening more and more and you put in there the excuse why, but the excuse could be because I was traveling the day before and I couldn't get in, whatever it may be, so it seems to get more and more relaxed, Mayor. I'm not faulting you at all. It's my fault. I'm the one that allowed the supplementals. No, but I'm just saying we need to be conscious of that for us ourselves to get the supplemental in earlier so that my point is so we can have an opportunity as a board to be able to study that item. We got a supplement last night at 730 and I get that. Mr. Davis said that. I didn't have a chance to even talk to my attorney or my staff to get the fullness of it, right? So I think it's just injustice to us as a board to get items like that that late. So please try to adhere to the system. The rule is if you have a supplemental, it needs to be in by the Wednesday before the Tuesday before the Tuesday. That's the Fisher rule. Correct. And we should keep to the rule. And also additional material like when I was going to additional material at 6 o'clock last night, that letter might have been dated three days ago. Why am I getting it at 630 at night when that item just came now? Somebody might have a member of the commission should have put it on? I don't know. But just be conscious of us because we're here to do a job and we cannot do our job until we understand the items properly to make an intelligent decision and not just make it on the fly. Again, it's not a downer. It's just let's respect each other at the end of the day so we can get our job quality done. Okay? Thank you so much. Thank you. Commissioner McKenzie first. The reason I referred to it as a party was everybody was calling it a watch party. If they had quoted a watch meeting, I'd have quoted a meeting. If they had said a watch function, I'd have quoted a function. But they were saying it was a watch party, so I used the word party. But I think, just so we can deal with that, even with elections, we have election parties that watch the results. I mean, everything we do is a party. But I don't think we just need to make light of, when I'm trying to do an event that is a party, they're all parties watching something or a result of something. That's all I'm saying. So I want to just be clear about it's an event that we're trying to promote. Okay, and depends what it is. They're all parties. You get to discuss it all again May 12th. Right. You'll have a great time. The other issue that I want, the one issue I wanted to discuss, all of us received a letter from Corrie Cough Lonergan on Friday, April 17th, about the bus BRT, and I wanted to discuss that briefly, only briefly because Corrie's not in the room, and candidly even if she was, I won't want to bring up a substantive issue at this late in the day. but that issue was talking that the state is not going to permit rapid bus BRT or light rail down Oakland Park, and I think they've already said no on Broward, because the state does not want to be closing lanes of traffic for either light rail or bus BRT. I'm sorry? It just had to do that. I did not, but I happened to agree with them. It sounds like it. You know, I have been repeatedly saying it doesn't make sense. My unit of measurement is how many butts in seats get transported, and they, every time that we've discussed this, I've been told that whether it's light rail BRT, we will be transporting less butts in seats than on rubber-tired vehicles if we have to close lanes of traffic. So, if we're not going to realistically be doing east-west light rail or east-west BRT, where we're closing lanes of traffic, I'll get back to something that I've been saying frequently. We need to improve our bus system here in Broward County. We need, if we have all of this money from surtax, and we've been planning on spending a lot of it on light rail, and we're not going to be able to spend it on light rail, it is important. It is, and I've said time and time again, unconscionable that if you live in Waterhill, Waterdale Lakes, that it takes you two hours on buses to get to downtown Waterdale or Waterdale Beach, where a lot of people are working. And so, I believe, now that there is finally clarity that we're not closing lanes of traffic for light rail or BRT, it's time that we turn our attention more to our bus system here in Broward. Commissioner Rogers? Thank you. I'm tired. Good. You're done? I second that. I tried. You did. But I want to clarify, gentlemen, we want to clarify, international games, cultural events are not going to go away. We need to recognize we did it for Cricket, that we asked and requested funding and great events in partnership with Broward County. So I think it will be the right thing to do is to establish a fund so that you know we're coming, you know the community, so whenever we come, there's something in that pool for us and it can roll over however you do it but it's going to come whenever there's a world event happening in Broward County. So just know that and I want to share that with you. Then you're talking about communities. I prefer going one mile to my city hall and having a good time with my constituents. So that's why we're asking. And then don't believe that if I live in Orlando and I come to Broward County or Miami-Dade County for an event, I'm considered a tourist and there's whatever you do in using, utilizing our transit, taxis or going to a restaurant, that is a tourist that you consider everybody to be a tourist if they come to you by boat or plane. No sir, they drive to Broward County also and on the way they are doing different things and enjoying different programs. So we, cities, do those type of events. We generate heads and beds for some of the events that we do but we get no return on those dollars. So I would like for you to factor that in during our discussion around the budget because we generate money in our small cities that someone is getting and we're not getting our return on those investments. And I just want to say we're doing good in my cities. I had an awesome time visiting our cities. I'm hearing that yes, the launch of the micro grant went through and money is already spent or incumbent. That means it's a good program. It's a successful program and we're helping small businesses and they are not just on the beach, they're all over Broward County and I think we all should be proud of ourselves because I've taken the tap on you. Just wanted to say that and today was another learning experience for those of us that have not gone through a long meeting like this. Won't we start at 9 o'clock? 10 o'clock this morning and now we're going to do something else? Yes ma'am. Okay, so it'll be 7 before I get home because the transit is not going to be good. Thank you, thank you. I want to just confirm with everybody the two rules that I've been asked to enforce. One is three, no more than three proclamations at a meeting and do not accept unless it's an emergency, do not accept supplementals unless it's the week before the meeting. Tuesday before a Tuesday, Thursday before Thursday. That's the second thing. I want to make sure everybody's on the same page. I also want to say that this Saturday I will be on Dodger Field in Dodger uniform playing in Dodger Stadium and if I get her killed he's going to take over so I just want to let you know I will be playing in my annual fantasy camp and and yeah picture. I know I always do. I only want to take over because I'm an old fogey that's why I get hurt. I don't want you hurt up there. Okay, come back here. Anyway, thank you. Thank all of you for your support on the health thing and I'm going to make you proud. We're going to sell we're going to save a ton of lives. You're going to say we're going to save a lot of lives. No, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It'll make you proud. All right. I think we're done. Oh, no. Come on. One very important thing. I think all of you are going to really love to hear. We just got informed yesterday late yesterday. He's going up that our very own Omni Hotel has received a triple a four diamond designation. That was a huge, huge news we got. Very prestigious designation. It was just announced. It's not five star? It's four diamonds. That's what we always were hoping to achieve, the four diamond designation. It's a different rating scale. This is a triple a diamond scale. So we got the four diamond designation. It's a giant feat. It's very, very big deal. So for the four C's, cleanliness, comfort, cuisine, and consistency. So, yeah, well, but with all of the amenities that are there, they have to have certain amenities in a property in order to get received that designation. So it's, I would not put it against that rating. Anyway, there's only one, it's one of 1,754 diamond hotels over the entire world. So it's a very big deal. Monica, did we also just get the 203 funding? Is that what we just got? I can't hear you. I'm sorry. Did we also just get the 203 funding? That was, so the 203 for the federal government, they just transmitted the 203, which is the CNSF combination at the, you're talking about the 203 from the water management district. I mean, they transmitted that. And I think the one, the reason we got that 203 funding, much like what we did today with investing ourselves, putting some skin in the game on resilience. They gave that to us because that's what we've been doing. And that is huge. Yeah. Yeah. So that's going to be huge. And thank you. We have 15 minutes of training. Everyone else needs to leave their own. Council, anything? Thank you. Nothing. Okay. What are we going to need to do for 15 minutes? Mr. Melton. I'm sorry. Mr. Melton, any corruption or fraud that you found lately? Not that you could talk about. You mean you found that you're, you're, you're, you're, you're own, you just, you found stuff on yourself? Okay. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, get back here. We've got another train. No, no. No, no. Get back in that seat. This meeting is adjourned. This meeting is adjourned. So. We'll be right back.