the meeting of the broward county commission is about to begin will all audience members please silence your cell phones for those viewing from home or on mobile devices thank you for watching to stay informed about broward county government please visit broward.org or follow us on social media county commission meetings are open to the public members of the public wishing to be heard on any agenda item can register one of two ways visit register to speak dot broward dot org and fill out the online registration form or scan the qr code posted in various locations inside and just outside the commission chambers to register on your mobile device a registration form must be completed for each item you wish to speak on if you have trouble registering digitally visit county administration on the fourth floor for assistance all speakers must appear in person no further speaker signups will be accepted after an item has been called please show respect for others and refrain from making impertinent slanderous remarks or personal attacks boisterous behavior including applause booing and cheering is not permitted thank you for joining us the meeting will begin shortly can everyone grab a seat please hey in the back can we make it a little louder please wow everyone grab their seat please this is a recording this is a recording would everyone please take their seats would i need a little louder would everyone please take their seats come on guys can everyone please take their seats good morning everyone today is tuesday may 12 2026 welcome to the brower county board commissioners meeting um i'd like to ask everyone to please rise for a pledge of allegiance and and afterwards please remain standing um and i'm uh our uh our honorable uh shane strom to lead us today in our pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states and to the republic you can remain standing uh it's customer that we observe a moment of silence and honorable notable persons from our community who have recently passed and uh i'll go around the day i'll start with the left side uh commissioner rogers mr fisher i just want to recognize uh congressman larry smith passed away um he was obviously a big part of our community and serving us well and be with grant and his family in prayer thank you and the same thing um larry was from hollywood and just did a you know was involved for many many years with on all kinds of levels uh a real family man um i actually had a chance to play golf with him and his kids and a bunch of times just a good guy that that just for many many years has been a part of um the political circles here and has always tried to do some good stuff so uh he'll be missed vice mayor mckenzie is on line good morning uh no i don't have any uh mayor and commissioners thank you vice mayor um i also would like to mention larry smith i worked with him for many many years when i long before i came to elected office when i was going to tallahassee and washington working on uh same kinds of issues i work on here and uh we always met with him because he was always uh there to support uh human services and civil rights and uh uh israel many of the things that uh that uh the community cared about um and i also want to mention at the funeral just to say that there's something that's there's something about a person when you can see how their his grandchildren stood up there and talked about him and the kind of relationship that he caring loving amazing relationship that he had with them was very moving so he will be missed i can't believe i forgot to mention larry since i had to change my plans i was supposed to be out of town and i changed my plans to be at his funeral uh at larry and i went to the same temple i've known larry i knew larry for many many years we actually overlapped in office i was elected in 88 and he left office in 92 so we overlapped in the same area we had the same constituents for four years but i knew larry consistently after that because as i said larry was very active in my congregation and um i'd like to share what senator rich said the single best eulogy and unfortunately i've been to far too many funerals uh the single best eulogy that i heard was from grant smith larry's son and it was just uh amazing larry served the community for many years and i wanted to add my thoughts as well thank you let us also honor all the brave men and women who have served and continue to serve in the armed forces both here and abroad and thank them for their service and i'd like to pause for a moment of silence thank you please take your seats this morning our music was provided by commissioner rogers thank you commissioner and we have three proclamations to start out with the first one will be with commissioner davis um the maternal mental health awareness month and we'll be providing uh let's see one two three do you want to call them up uh commissioner so healthy mothers healthy babies dawn liberta ceo healthy star monica king ceo bowered health system shane strong ceo bowered county department of health amy temeglio director of wick memorial hospital system shane strong ceo journey institute dr harleen hutchinson executive director children's services council cindy aremberg seltzer president ceo could you come up perfect we got even more um than announced but that's great let me go ahead and we have a proclamation for each of you proclamation requested by commissioner alexandra p davis barrow county whereas maternal health sorry could you kind of come a little bit so when i look i can actually look at somebody perfect thank you um whereas maternal mental health awareness month is recognized annually in may to bring awareness to the challenges and barriers that mothers experience in receiving maternal and infant health care and whereas according to the 2024 report from the u.s office of the assistant secretary of health the leading underlying causes of pregnancy related death are mental health and substance abuse abuse use conditions and other related causes contributing to 53 of all pregnancy related deaths and whereas the maternal mental health leadership alliance reports that as many as one in ten fathers experience postpartum depression with maternal depression as the number one predictor of paternal depression and whereas the policy center for maternal mental health reports that untreated maternal mental health disorders are estimated to have an an annual economic cost of 14.2 billion dollars and whereas the national head start association reports that early head start services positively impacts the care provided for perinatal women sharing crucial information and support through home visits and whereas broward county board of county commissioners recognizes recognizes the community partnerships divisions healthcare services section and its maternal mental health community partners and providers for their forward thinking approach and commitment to making meaningful changes to eliminate maternal health disparities now therefore be proclaimed by the board of county commissioners of broward county florida that the board hereby designates may 2026 as maternal mental health awareness month in broward county florida thank you so much for all you do each of you will have one of these and so i know there's somebody who's going to speak or a couple of you want to speak certainly and it's not about uh you buying spirit airlines as headquarters because you know we couldn't be here today one without you thank you for your support but all the folks that are up here all the associations organizations and not-for-profit make a difference 365 days a year so we thank you for supporting broward health and all the other entities and health care systems you'll hear from some of our other people but we are putting up great numbers because of the people standing here today so thank you thank you commissioner just real quick so monica king with healthy start coalition so healthy start is your maternal child health designated from the state of florida and one in five women experience a perinatal disorder thank you commissioner davis all of your statistics were right on and so we are here every day as value i i did have a resource table um there's a national maternal mental health hotline so you if you know a woman who's pregnant there's probably a concern so make sure you have that hotline number and thank you it's great to work with so many partners cindy erenberg seltzer president ceo of the children's services council of broward county thanks to the brilliance of the voters back in 2000 the children's services council has been here to lead the charge on so many issues affecting children and families and this one in particular we fund many of the agencies that you see before us today to focus on this issue as well as very forward-thinking back in 2004 we began funding supporting moms which is moms overcoming maternal stress so we have had a focus on this issue of maternal mental health for 22 years so thank you for this recognition commissioner and for those on the dais who have served so well commissioner fur and now of course commissioner rich for their commitment to the children of broward county good morning vice chair commissioners i just want to um talk about maternal mental health because it also express the need in our community to really elevate maternal mental health i would also extend heartfelt gratitude to commissioner davis for really honoring this proclamation to our systems of care because maternal mental health is a critical issue impacting families in throughout broward county and your leadership as commissioners and your willingness to really recognize this issue it sends a very powerful message to the emotional wellness of families in our community and the visibility of investing early while we have made meaningful stride in maternal mental health in maternal health we have ways to go and improve in maternal mental health across our communities because we know it continues to be a significant issue that plague our families in our communities and conditions such as substance use suicide goes unrecognized each day in our community and yet mothers really are not able to seek treatment data from cdc also found that in 2022 27 of pregnancy related conditions were due to much too much mental issues so that only speaks to the quality of why this issue needs to be elevated and these debts like i said before include overdose suicide and substance use disorder so behind these numbers i want you to know that real mothers are really carrying depression anxiety trauma and fear and the overwhelming stressors that they deal with every day that impacts our community black and brown mothers in particular are really um battled with mental health issues in our community and this is why the work that we do is so critical and this is why as commissioners we're asking you to really shift the trajectory as to how we see mothers and babies across our communities because you have the opportunities to really change policies change funding and put more investment into mothers into our communities to really address their maternal mental health issues thank you for all you do let's uh move forward to take a photo with the commission ready right here right here thank you next uh commissioner fisher will be presenting a proclamation on dan linblade appreciation day come on down down dan come on down dan anybody want to join us your daughter you got more stuff what's that just the mayor and uh commissioners it's an honor to be able to present this proclamation this morning to an incredible individual who has made such an impact in brower county and that is our own dan linblade and it reads as follows whereas dan linblade has served with distinction as a respective business leader and economic development professional dedicating his entire career to strengthening communities and fostering economic opportunity whereas as president and chief executive officer of the greater fort lardale chamber of commerce mr linblade has provided visionary leadership for over 20 years advancing brower county's economic development efforts and positioning our region as a premier destination for business investment and growth whereas throughout his two decades of leadership mr linblade has led initiatives that have attracted and retained a wide range of industries resulting in the creation of thousands of jobs significant capital investments and more competitive local economy whereas his commitment to collaboration has brought together public and private sectors as partners educational institutions and community stakeholders and aligns workforce development with the needs of a dynamic and evolving economy whereas mr linblade has championed economic growth ensuring that opportunities extend to all of our residents and contribute to the enhanced quality of life throughout our county so after 20 years of exemplary leadership mr linblade will retire this june 1st 2026 leaving behind a legacy of innovation partnership and measurable success that will continue to benefit brower county for many years to come his professionalism integrity and i say integrity is most important an unwavering commitment to excellence has earned him the admiration and respect of colleagues and community leaders throughout south florida and beyond now therefore be it proclaimed by the brower county board of county commissioners that the board hereby designates today tuesday may 12 2026 says dan linblade day in brower county florida and extends a sincere appreciation and best wishes to mr linblade for a fulfilling and well-deserved retirement signed by our maver mark bogan dan we love you brother we got to give you a little you got to talk to us now sit down come on thank you thank you thank you all mayor uh some people are surprised when i announced my retirement in december but i've been actually not at the chamber two decades but doing this for 42 years so that's a long time to be doing what i do and i can't thank you enough lamar for for all your support my chair of the board here janna loda from holland tonight my daughter ally limblade at styles they're here with me today and i want to thank you all and all the divisions of broward county county manager administrator of what what a joy it was to work with you and i know that all you do with your team has nothing but the best for broward county in its future so thank you for all you do port everglades the airport you name it we were involved with it in washington and tallahassee and here and resiliency my that was going to be my legacy the epicenter for solutions is broward county right beam so lots left to do i i didn't get everything done uh but it was a great ride and thank you all very much our next proclamation commissioner rogers take it away it's the proclamation has to do with the haitian heritage month and commissioner you'll uh you want to uh state come up state the names of those good morning everyone good morning colleagues those that are behind me those that are out in space somewhere it's a good day it's a blessed day and i'm so proud and honored to be in this position and to be representing and bringing together and engaging all parts of my district culturally socially politically but today it's all about haitian heritage month and of course the first person i'm inviting up i'm inviting everyone but i just wanted to say something about norma altidore phd make some noise y'all come on okay there's some rules i have to share we can make some noise we can do the fan thing we just don't clap that's something we learn here when we get from cities to county all right so you just come on let's try it you got it thank you mr mayor i took back that noise all right let me go uh director in business and finance support florida panthers come on down i'm not looking this way honey i'm looking out there okay thanks your first one so the first one to sign close to me of course then we have princeton gene claude co-founder owner primary medical care throughout numerous locations but we brag on broward county and miami dade princeton you're funny he's to my right honorable florence taylor banner barner county court judge district 17 where are you that's my dearest judge dearest love her okay guyleen berry founder cozy farm where are you come on now and of course fabiola alexis founder sac passe kitchen and it was good hanging out with you on small business week visiting your restaurant and i can tell you mayor and colleagues we are working on engaging you making sure you understand the benefits of being a small business here in broward county and what we can do all right to help you to grow your business that's what it's all about thank you for joining me today whereas the month of may is nationally recognized as haitian heritage month a time to celebrate the rich history culture resilience and enduring contribution of the haitian people and the haitian diaspora haiti holds a distinguished place in world history as the first free black republic and the first independent nation in latin america and the caribbean symbolizing courage freedom and the pursuit of justice and whereas haitian americans throughout the united states have made remarkable contributions across all sector included education health care public service business the arts the civic leadership strengthening the social and economic fabric of the nation and whereas in broward county the haitian american community has played a vital role in shaping the cultural diversity the economic vitality of the region contributing significantly as entrepreneurs professionals educators health care workers and community advocates and whereas as asian american both locally and nationwide continue to demonstrate extraordinary resilience and optimism maintaining strong cultural pride and unity even in the face of harsh economic political and civic challenges affecting their homeland of haiti and whereas haitian american organization leaders and residents in broward county continue to uplift their heritage while fostering unity civic engagement and cross-cultural understanding within the broader caribbean american diaspora whereas the observance of haitian heritage month provides an opportunity to honor the achievements tradition language and cultural pride of haitian americans while recognizing their ongoing impact and contribution locally and nationally now therefore be it proclaimed by broward county board of county commissioners that the board hereby designate the mayor the the month of may as haitian heritage month and encourages all residents to join in celebrating the history culture the strength the endurance and everything else that we go through because we are resilient people and we are able to contribute even when we're stressed we're able to participate even when we're not feeling like it but we understand that we must stand strong and that's why why i recognize you my colleagues join in recognizing you for all you do in your individual roles thank you for being here today and okay good morning everyone really come on guys we can talk good morning everyone good morning i did write a speech no i'm not going to read it because you wrote you pretty much said everything i was going to say but i'm really excited to be here my name is judge florence taylor barner for those who don't know me i am a first generation american i am the first in my family to graduate from high school in this country the first to go to law school first to go to college first to do a lot of things but not the last and i wanted to share that with you all here today thank you because the reason that i get to stand here today before you is because of that man right there my father my watched my parents sacrifice everything to leave haiti to flee a dictatorship to come to this country to work harder than anyone i've ever known in my life to push their kids to do more than they thought that they could ever dream and i'm just so grateful to my dad for believing in me for all of you because i remember when i was running for judge nobody knew me but you all took a chance on me and that's what my dad taught me take a chance because what's the worst that could happen right and i did and because of you we were able to do some wonderful things we have started the first and only community courts in the state of florida if you don't know what that is that is a court for those who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless and they get a chance at a really a fresh start and the folks in this room every one of you have contributed to it truthfully you really have whether that be broward health that has helped healthy start healthy babies pretty much everyone in this room i like to say we have a village in broward county but we really do and it is that close and i'm just so grateful to all of you and one more piece of history because i know my children are watching in 18 january 1st 1804 haiti got its its independence but it did not stop there haiti helped bolivia a lot of other countries gain their independence and on the condition that they would end slavery in those countries and that is something that is an impetus that has pretty much gone pervasive around the world that haiti has really started a lot of things and we have not finished those things and with your help i know that we can do a lot more wonderful things for the people of broward county those who are haitian american non-haitian american and everything else and for the little bit of history if you did not know 23 of the united states is attributed directly to haiti because haiti stopped napoleon bonaparte and that is why we have i believe 15 full states i could give you the list but i'm not gonna but that is 23 of the united states so thank you very much everyone good morning i want to begin by saying what a profound honor it is to receive this proclamation not just in my hometown but also during haitian heritage month i'd like to express my um gratitude to the broward county commission there's some familiar faces um broward county administrator monica sapiro commissioner alexandra david davis but especially commissioner rogers thank you all for taking the time to celebrate the diversity contributions and legacy of the haitian community when i was first informed of this proclamation i was in disbelief i think i still am so many cameras um the first thought that came to mind is the opening lines from a verse in scripture specifically in first chronicles and it starts off by saying who am i and who are my people i am the daughter of haitian immigrants who came to this country with very little but who gave me everything they gave me their languages their unwavering faith in god their resilience and their unshakable uh sense of who i am growing up in fort lauderdale uh surrounded by a vibrant haitian community i learned early that our culture is not just something we carry it's something we celebrate protect and we pass it on our guiding principles were summed up in the three l's l'eglis l'école and lacay which mean church school and home but our values stemmed from the interactions and the experiences we had in those places at the time i wasn't old enough to understand what my parents were teaching me as well which was travail and that is work um the the opportunity to work with an organization to be employed and entrusted to do meaningful work is something i do with a high sense of responsibility and courage even while navigating uncertainties being haitian has shaped every part of my journey it's why i chose to dedicate my doctoral research to study the identity development experiences of haitian college students um the young people navigating two worlds just as i once did and still am doing many times most days chaotically but always beautifully and uniquely in our own ways it's also why i show up to work every day in my work environment committed to creating spaces for people who don't look like me so that they can feel seen valued and know that they belong to the haitian community here in broward county my family friends my church family and my colleagues at the florida panthers this recognition belongs to all of us to every haitian parent who sacrificed every haitian student who persisted and every haitian elder who kept our traditions nula we are here messy appeal good morning my name is princeton junglard it's it's great honor for me to be i'm going to be short um i broad county i call it home and not only i call it home i have about maybe five businesses in broad county and i'm great honor to say thank you to commissioner rogers when she was the mayor of lauderdale lakes um she was gracious to open our first clinic in broad county i just want to say thank you to her and i received this honor on behalf of all haitians out there um i came here when i was 19 and i am number six on eight kids but i'm probably the only one in business but i wonder why some time but i want to say thank you thank you for all haitians out there and all my colleagues that receiving this book for commission it means a lot to us but one day i would say if you're not haitian it's haitian heritage month i encourage you to find a haitian restaurant to taste our food we love you thank you i'll brief you then my name is marie fabiola alexis and i wanted to thank every one of you guys who gather here today to make sure that on behalf of all of us that we got this proclamation i came here when i was 11 i moved to new york grew up here so i felt like as much as i am getting acclimated to the american culture i'm extremely haitian so of course as you know like i've been extremely sensitive to what's going on in the current climate so to have this room with all these these beautiful people coming together to celebrate us it means the world to us so i want to dedicate this proclamation to my people the diaspora community as well as the new immigrants that recently migrated to the states and we all follow in the news we know what's going on so i'm very sensitive to that and i want to thank commissioner hazel rogers for this proclamation as well as all of you guys and i think the recipient have said like everything that needs to be said so thank you so much i want to thank you all for this proclamation i started in woward court a few years ago and 20 years ago i saw that there were a lot of resources that were not trickling down to my haitian community i started a radio talk show called cozy farm and it's been 20 years so this year i'm celebrating 20 years since being on cozy farm radio show one thing i know for sure god's timing is everything and today i want to specially thank commissioner hazel rogers for this proclamation and this is to all of our people our ancestors and i praise god for this day thank you very much okay next i'm going to recognize uh commissioner rich i'm doing the status of the women update okay thank you mayor um so we have um we have um uh the second vice chair of the commission on the status of women with us today nelly bisram and just want to give you a little background um we have uh our commission county commission on the status of women uh all of us have appointees to it and um we're very proud of the work that the commission does and there was a big celebration uh this last month that where a lot of people were honored and i had uh the privilege of uh talking with nelly about the fact that she was going to uh the um united nations uh uh conference on the status of women and she was going to be representing basically us there as a as a part of that so um she asked uh if she could do a little presentation about it and she is also the in addition to being the second vice chair of the commission on the status of women she's the chair of the mindfulness committee of the broward county commission on the status of women so i know that uh she has this presentation and we thank you so much and just sorry that selena silverio the chair could not be here today um but uh uh she you know we're we're happy that you're able to report on what happened at the united nations conference thank you good morning um mayor vice mayor commissioners and county administration and everyone here all the broward county residents um i really appreciate this opportunity to address you all today and especially on the heels of those feel-good moments um for the three proclamations that we just witnessed i also want to give a special thanks to senator nanrich for inviting me to speak today um to commissioner beam fur who actually was the one that recommended me to the uh broward commission on the status of women and a special shout out to commissioner hazel rogers because as a trinidadian american who's now been a broward county resident for more than half my life it was really a warm feeling to walk into the room hearing trini music so i and i heard that you were responsible for that so thank you um so i wear many hats and today i want to talk a little bit um about the ways in which our engagement locally and globally connect but also what is the what is the promise of the work that we're doing in broward county um and what are the ways in which um we can lift up the great work that we're doing um on a national and a global stage because it helps us to grow and it helps us to to find relevance um so our intention my intentions today is is to really um give a little status report on on what is the engagement at the united nations commission and status of women i'm also a representative to the united nations for my ngo aham education so through that role we have accreditation to the economic and social council of the united nations which is what established the commission on the status of women in 1946 and led to the local chapters of the commission on the status of women and then in my role as the chair of the mindfulness committee and i'm also the co-chair of the mind body resiliency coalition which is a committee under the um broward it's now called the broward for kids um the partnerships for for kids for broward county it used to be the um the committees under the brow of children's strategic strategic plan um so that work in the community has really informed kind of where we are how this work is showing up in in the commission and then how how is it moving forward and connected across across different um agencies and just different bodies in in the county and so to really understand what is that impact and why it's important and why we even have a mindfulness committee and then what are the lessons from our engagement globally but then also understanding um how we are actually leading a lot of work in broward county that oftentimes in our own community we don't even know kind of what's happening but on the global stage or on the national stage we were able to to showcase that those strides that we're making the community so um just because i mentioned my the organization that i also represent which is what was responsible for me being able to show up at the united nations we've been doing this work for 12 years um and i've been a representative to the un now for five years and so um i'm going to talk more about our engagement this year but just to say that this has been a journey of learning and also showing up and and um along the way there have been many browad county residents that have been part of that journey so many of you may not know what the commission on the status of women is and i invite you to to come to our monthly meetings um which is in held in this building on the second actually the next meeting is tomorrow um at six o'clock uh it's the second wednesday of the month usually and and how it's connected to the united nations uh commission on the status of women so you'll see on the screen csw 70 that means it's been 70 years since the commission on the status of women uh and hosted by un women has been meeting and every year there is a priority theme um there's a lot of information i can share on the history to give you some context but because of time i'll just share that this year the priority theme was around promoting inclusive and equitable legal systems um eliminating discriminatory discriminatory laws policies and practices and addressing structural barriers and there's always a review theme um that this year had to do with the elimination of violence specifically gender-based violence and the empowerment of women and girls now the work that we do or or the i would say our engagement is largely i would say um dependent on our priorities so in broward county this year our priority is is maternal health um and the preparation the we always try to connect our work to the to the united nation theme of the year but we contribute to that process um through statement writing and through through showing up for events and through talking about our work in our local community um and through connecting to other communities around the world in lifting up the same issues and the same work so on the screen now you'll see this is just a summary of the preparation i think it's really important to understand that it's not just a matter of showing up and talking about the issues um as a mindfulness practitioner and um someone who has been really um steadfast i believe over many years of bringing this lens to all of the work we do whether it's around mental health or women's health or what have you the understanding that embodying this work um is ultimately the most important thing if we're not embodying these principles then it becomes really difficult to talk about them or to advocate for them so we take our every year a delegation of 20 to 30 individuals that range from ages 12 to 70. some are from broward county some are from different countries around the world because with my organization we have um there there is a a program that allows global citizenship to be part of that process where we learn across communities um and and there's some skill building that happens before we show up as advocates for issues like maternal health or mental health well-being mindful use of of technology etc all of all of the connected issues and so the socio-emotional empowerment the the the leadership skills that young girls and the women learn it's an intergenerational process allows um not just to talk about again mental health and mindfulness but to embody those practices as we show up in different spaces um and i just want to share with you this might be something interesting that some of you may want to look up the inner development goals so we connect the inner development goals to the sustainable development goals in our local uh work in broward county and in our advocacy for these issues and and making those connections are really important because again it's about embodying the being right understanding how the ways in which we relate to ourselves to our community to each other to the environment matters not just for us to be able to show up as well adjusted self-regulated individuals but it matters in terms of the kinds of decisions we make and from what ground we're making those decisions around change in anything whether it's related to women the environment mental health etc so so this is kind of just a visual on on on the process that we've been infusing not just into our advocacy at the un but that we've actually been infusing um if i dare say into the csw process in our mindfulness committee and these are the sustainable development goals so if you're not familiar with these i think it's really beneficial to become familiar with them because you may we are all here already working towards these goals in our local community and i think understanding how we're acting locally to make a global impact is really important uh i can say more about this but you know just to be obvious sdg we call them sdgs sdg5 on gender equality three on good health and well-being quality education climate action peace and justice those are the ones that we have been actively working towards and then through the work that um something i didn't mention before is that all of the young people the young and and and and wiser people that are engaged in this process of what you know we're going to show up to the un we're going to advocate for mental health etc within that preparation process there's also an opportunity to to do local work in our community that's connected to the sustainable development goals and then that work is presented at the un every year we've been doing this for four years and i want i'm very very proud that broward county youth um and elders um i'm somewhere in the middle um have been we've been actively involved in that process and so um you know there are many um uh committees and working groups um that un women host and that we've been involved in and i just want to tell a couple stories um you all remember on for the the unfortunate events that happened um in parkland and as a result of that um there was a community-wide training that happened thanks to the children's services council and broward county public schools that we were involved in as well as partners and some of the young people that were trained um who attended cypress spray i think it was cypress cypress bay high school to the jaberi sisters i call them so shriya and shivy um then started working with us and we trained young people from around the world to teach mindfulness um to within within and to prepare them in the in this process of showing up as advocates for mental health and for women's rights and so shriya um because of funding was not able to attend in person but she was asked to facilitate mindfulness to a group of young women um from around the world um and in that event you and women was present and so i just want to want to share that these are the investments that we're making locally is having an impact nationally and globally the other story that i'll share is because of the work that shriya and shivy has done with me we have now trained other facilitators and those facilitators i'd like to call them like the second or third sort of generation of young facilitators are now also presenting and leading um practices and they're leading talks when we go to the united nations so some of the things that we've we've also been involved in is contributing to the statements um that so every year there there are agreed conclusions that come out as a result of those negotiations and the young girls and the the mentors uh women like myself that work with them we actually contribute to those statements and in some instances they have spoken on the floor we've had um uh from indian ridge i think it's indian ridge middle in in davie um we had three young ladies who were part of the program a couple years ago and they um they were not able again to attend in person but virtually they they talked about the local work they're doing in broward county to advance the rights of women and girls so um another highlight and you'll see the photo on the on the on the screen there this was broward led it was the very first mindfulness retreat that was ever led within an official united nations event and it was centered on women and girls and the attendees ages were from ages 15 to 70 and why this matters is that we had major stakeholders there that understood that we we cannot continue to um again aim for social change or to advance the rights of women without understanding and without practicing those inner skills and that inner skill development is now seen not only by u.n women but also by the u.n youth office who we've been establishing a relationship with that it's fundamental to addressing the mental health crisis it's fundamental to addressing the gender gap which has been widening especially since covet and it's fundamental to addressing the climate crisis because of the mental health and the climate health issues that arise from that from what we're facing so there's a lot more i can say but i want to just pause here before i close with what does this mean for us in broward what might this mean for all of us here today so this is actually the foundation of i would say uh the quality of our presence is our activism or we can replace the word activism with advocacy whatever our platforms are it it's it's it's a it's something that we practice in our meetings it's something that we practice in our um committee meetings uh mindfulness committee meetings it's something we practice um when we are showing up in these spaces and they may seem as simple they may seem as simple but not easy to do and and we all we're all here with a common agenda but oftentimes we're not paying attention to the basics and so i want to invite all of us to consider what would it be like if we felt our breath connected listen deeply to each other focused on the other person listening to the sound of our own voices and the sound of the other's voice and recognizing that the way that we are able to advance change is really about the experiences we create together not how much we explain the facts to each other so um i actually wanted to lead a practice this morning but i don't think i have time to do that but i really i really want this to stick and i don't want you to take it lightly because the quality of how we're showing up is really what brings change and i think this is why we have a mindfulness committee and so finally i think one i was really happy to witness the proclamation on maternal mental health this year our focus is mental health for the broward csw and so we we're launching a campaign on mindful living that we hope to share with all of you short soon after a meeting tomorrow um and to invite you to join us on that journey and and and and what i also want to recommend or perhaps just leave with you is that um building there are opportunities where we can build relationships with local groups with a lot of the groups that are here today um because we're working towards common goals that integrating mindfulness and inner skills i know broward county schools already has been doing some of that work that i've been involved in but recognizing that the inner skill development is fundamental to the work that we're all doing um and that one of the challenges that we're facing so that young people can continue to have this opportunity in broward county is funding is funding for them to be able to to go to the united nations or to even show up and and and to be able to talk about the great work that they're doing um and there's um perhaps i can share later on there are some issues that from attending um the the u.n uh commission and status of women this year that came up around incarcerated women it was the first time that incarcerated women were recognized in the agreed conclusions um and there was a young lady from the united states that um spoke to the work that's happening in the united states and i didn't know about this so this is something that you know this is just one example of how sometimes we step out of our own community just to learn about what our own community is doing and so finally i just want to maybe open it up for questions i always have a picture of my cat there because i think it's always good to stay curious but if there are any questions for me i'll just leave it there and i just want to again thank you all for this opportunity it's been a real honor and i hope that we continue to be able to come back another time and report on our progress thank you thank you i just i just i just would like to thank you for the really good work that the commission on the status of women is doing particularly when we hear a report like that thank you so much okay uh we're not going to go around the dais to see if any polls from the uh consent agenda start with starting there's something oh i'm sorry let's start with the morning memo prower county board of county commissioners may 12 2026 tuesday agenda memorandum the following are submitted for your consideration consent items are one through 34 public hearing items are 35 through 38 regular items are 39 to 45 i request the following withdrawals and other modifications to the agenda and note the following additional information withdrawals item 26 withdrawn for further with review item 34 withdrawn for further review other modifications item 11 the board's consideration is based upon the item as amended by additional material number 11a submitted by the office of intergovernmental affairs slash grant section scrivener's errors item 19 the board's consideration of this item is based upon the item with the correction shown on the attached page attachment a of scrivener's errors move to consent item 45 be moved to consent time certain item 33 time certain at 11 30 a.m. other information please note as previously shared the resiliency plan portion of the may 12th board workshop has been removed additional material item 1a board appointment item 10a nomination letters submitted by office of intergovernmental affairs grant section item 11a revised summary background information submitted by office of intergovernmental affairs grant section item 21a business impact state estimate submitted by county attorney's office item 25a memo to the board and replacement exhibit one submitted by public works and environmental services department item 39a submitted by county attorney's office item 39b memo to the board submitted by county administration item 40a updated project dashboards submitted by county administration item 43a memorandum of understanding and supporting documents submitted by commissioner hazel p rogers item 43b letters of interest and letter of intent submitted by commissioner hazel p rogers item 44a spare presentation submitted by commissioner michael udine okay thank you let's go around the desk we're running a little late so i'm going to try to speed it up commission rogers senator geller yes i'll say it does not put on your mark on your mic you're going to pull number 45 yeah okay i have no polls but i just request that we do item 39 first once we are done with this yes do 39 and then we can move item seven please pull i'm sorry what number seven okay hold on seven four and i'm going to pull number um i'm pulling number um i'm pulling number is it five or six i'm pulling number six mr mayor yes the vice the vice mayor yes i don't know if he has any polls vice mayor none sir thank you none okay you can go back to sleep now um yeah you you woke me up thank you no problem no no problem any yeah any no no public polls no public polls uh council can you uh put the motion together with uh poll of six seven and 45. thank you mayor yes the consent agenda today consists of items one through 34 minus the following items uh six was pulled seven was pulled 26 was withdrawn and 34 was withdrawn i have a motion to approve what second i have a motion second all in favor aye any opposed show that passing uh 9-0 i can count him on the phone correct okay absolutely okay um since 45 was my item uh nan you you wanted to pull it um yeah um i i am still supporting the item but i am concerned about the switch in the language uh originally the the language had the the um section on indigent health on on uh uh would would be would be coming first and i i just believe that that's the way it should be i mean we are talking about people all across our county who are in need of health care and i i i i mean that's how it was originally presented and i feel that it should be flipped back again and i think that the health care issue should come first and the the um and the um uh and the preventive heart and cancer test should come second i think that the the primary preventive health for for residents who are indigent and or and medically poor is is an overriding issue in this whole community and it's only getting worse with what's happening with health care so i would like to suggest or i would i would you know i would like to offer an amendment to switch it back to the way it was okay mayor can we just open the item just one thing and have it just read just so the public knows what it is it's a it's a three-part item item number 45 it's involved suspending a rule as part a part b would be rescinding the commission action on uh that you took uh april 28th and item number 43 which adopted a budget resolution excuse me that adopted a uh a ballot question and then item c if parts a and b are passed item c is to adopt a resolution that would put forward a new ballot question uh on this council i just want a couple of quick questions does the language change does it change the effect of the of the entire uh ordinance if it was passed no okay so it's the same and and is it fair to say that i met with you and your staff and for better clarity you you recommended the language as it is today yes but just just to be clear mayor uh i think that the change of one quarter of one percent spelling that out does add clarity and because we were at the word limit we spent five or six iterations trying to come up with wording that we thought was clear and not misleading and that would fit within the 75 words so just for my fellow commissioners i held actually a kind of a informal focus group there was some issue on the on the 0.25 and and everything indigent care is still covered everything's still covered it's just the way it's phrased and the council i went with his staff and i hope nobody supports her seconds for motion honestly because this makes it more clear if there was ever a challenge and so i'm i'm asking that there's not a second to that change i don't know that it i don't know that's correct you've made a motion if there's is there a second to that but but okay there's excuse me senator there's no second to your change there's no second i understand and then i'm to clarify something that the attorney said that's all so forget it okay and then i'm gonna have bsl put her in time out when we're done okay i'm just joking with you now all right yeah mayor if we could just i just want to make sure because it is a ballot question i want to just make sure we got all of our eyes here and and we discussed it with senator rich also i understand her point completely uh but i i know there's no second and we're just going to move on with it uh you could pass all three parts if you want uh at one time or you may want to do a waiver a part a i would probably vote separately uh and then part b and then part c whatever you tell me yeah i would do them separately approval of part a okay let's first start with approval of part a i have a motion i have a second all in favor aye any opposed mr mayor move approval of part b i know uh i have a motion for approval part b thank you senator i have a second all in favor aye any opposed mr mayor move approval of part c i have a motion and a second for part c all in favor aye any opposed passing all separately a b and c uh with senator geller making the motion each time and and commissioner rich i mean commissioner fisher uh second yet uh we also go to number um also no we got to just do two more that were pulled uh number uh commissioner davis i think you had number seven yes mr mayor so for seven i just wanted a presentation so that the public can understand the direction we're heading as far as the sister city relationship wait i'm sorry you you want to make a presentation no i would like staff through monica to make a presentation to explain the sister city relationship for the public that we're entering into okay well this is a motion to adopt a resolution approving a sister city relationship with this uh county in taiwan uh it would be part of my trip to japan um yeah i understand i'm i'm all for it but i would like a presentation that would be a separate item this is just a motion to adopt the resolution so there's no discussion no discuss whatever you want right that's why i need staff do you know what to discuss yeah i want to discuss the item so as i understand you would like um i would like the item to be discussed to be explained okay so the residents so if i may then miss feliciano if you can please come to the podium i think that's you know something they should understand good morning i can provide a brief overview of um basically the process that we're um undertaking uh we have briefed all the commissioners uh the county commission um basically joined sister cities back in 2023 uh in november 2024 um the county commission approved the sister cities guide which basically is the step-by-step process that staff is following for the sister cities twinning process um and for this agenda item we have followed all the steps that are part of the guide the item in front of you today is basically on april 7th we transmitted to the to the board um the justification paper for this twinning process and all the commissioners were briefed uh basically explaining what the collaboration is for we received the application from uh pinkton county taiwan and which is part of the process and the application um basically outlined um the various areas we can collaborate economic development cultural exchange tourism and in addition to that climate resiliency um as part of the justification paper that has been transmitted to the board um the staff has i um basically in collaboration with pinkton county identified some actions that we can work as part of the various focus areas that you have received the next step in the process after uh the agreement is signed is basically for staff to develop a work plan the work plan is going to have detailed actions that we're going to be working in collaboration with pinkton county to basically have that cultural exchange economic development exchange and the climate resiliency exchange of best practices etc um and that's basically what the process is uh as it relates to to sister cities and the information that you have received to date thank you thank you and so um for the public this is our first sister city engagement that's correct congratulations and also i know in the process eventually you will have a sister city board because is that part of the whole process because i know we don't have a board currently we don't have a as part of the 10-step process there is no such thing as the board uh the way the process have been designed is there is an evaluation criteria on the front end that staffs works on completing in collaboration with the other sister city that's submitting the proposal uh or the person that's recommending uh the proposal and then we have a criteria which is part of the sister cities guide where we evaluate the different components that are part of that criteria to ensure that our goals and the goal of the county commission align with that sister city yeah so maybe for a future agenda i would like to suggest maybe a board a sister city board because most other cities that engage in sister city programs do have a board also that's appointed by our board but they're specific to sister cities so i think that would be helpful thank you thank you yeah i think that if we decide to do a board we should have a discussion and an agenda item on that uh in the future we're in a rush so i'm gonna uh yes thank you maribel we had our discussion around this item and i reminded you we know of sister cities relationship is this a sister county relationship that you all are trying to develop so why not call it a sister county relationship you're confusing we know of sister cities we have as cities we have been out there creating those opportunities for our individual cities i don't fully understand what you're gonna be doing so i'm waiting for this item and the relationships that it will bring to broad county but i like the idea of having relationship with other counties but i think we need to call it a sister county group it is not a sister city in its full sense and we had that discussion commissioner the only reason we're calling it is because their name is sister cities i know but we can name or sister county because it's the first one we're doing i'm just saying it can remain the same but i'm saying it's not a sister city as we know it you're starting something and this is the first one i love it that counties are collaborating and doing other things but there's a sister cities program there can be a sister county stop confusing all of us i was asked the same question thank you and the international organization is called sister cities international and they encourage the twinning between sisters and cities and cities and cities cities and counties etc thank you mary bell thank you mary bell someone move motion number seven so move i i i i have a motion by uh senator galler second by commissioner rogers all in favor any pose the last one is number six will take 60 seconds i just want to point out one thing on number six we are giving a hundred thousand dollars to coast to coast legal aid only we're doing it directly because if we gave the money to legal aid of brower county they take 15% of the money off the top and what a shame it is and it really infuriates me that if we give money for a pass-through to coast to coast legal aid has to take money that i don't feel they deserve they don't do anything for it but this is the item that gives it directly to coast to coast so i want everyone to understand why we're doing it direct and why we can't just give all the money to one entity because legal aids contract says they're taking 15% on the front end and they're taking 15% on the back end thank you administration for going direct uh somebody want to move this sure you got to put in your mic yeah okay i have a comment because i don't want anyone to think that legal aid of broward county is doing anything wrong they haven't done anything wrong at all all all all nonprofits take a certain amount of administration one of the reasons that i i asked for this last year to be separated is because i felt if there was administration being taken that it that legal that coast to coast legal aid should have their own contract so that that money if they needed to use it for administration that they would be able to do that okay it turns out as i recall county administrators saying administrators saying that legal aid of broward did not take the the uh okay is that correct that's correct okay i want to just clarify that because these two these two nonprofits are working so hard in this community to keep people from being evicted and i just don't want anyone to to think that they are doing anything that's untoward because they're not they're doing a great job and i support it and i would make the motion and by the way just to respond i never said they were doing anything wrong i just said it's a shame that they have to take 15 on the front end and the back end which legally they're allowed to by contract for doing barely nothing 15 000 on the front end and 15 000 on the back end for barely doing nothing so anyway but they didn't take it and the administrators do do things for the money that they take okay okay anyway mr motion motion to go second i have a motion to second all in favor aye any opposed we're going to first do number 39 you bet thank you mayor should i start yes please great whose item is 39 uh i think it's mine it's mine commissioner may my mayor may we just read it sure be great item 39 is a motion to approve first amendment to the interlocal agreement for solid waste disposal and recyclable materials processing authority of brower county florida two members of the public have signed up to speak on this item okay who are those two members first member is stephanie joe followed by linda thompson gonzalez hold on do you want to do first they speak first that'd be fine those two individuals come on up you just please one of you just take the mic hi my name is stephanie jopi i've been a brower county resident for 37 years and i'm here to urge this commission to approve the solid waste facilities plan allowing the solid waste authority to move forward with the solid waste master plan the status quo is not sustainable we are running out of landfill and incineration capacity and every year we delay the cost both financial and environmental goes up the good news the solution is affordable prioritizing reuse recycling and composting saves taxpayer money creates local jobs sorry lowers insurance costs and keeps our communities cleaner and cooler the price tag less than a cup of coffee per household per year i am particularly encouraged by the diligence and leadership demonstrated by the swa governing board which voted unanimously to recommend both plans their work reflects extensive public engagement collaboration with municipalities local businesses and industry stakeholders and a thoughtful practical approach to reducing waste and cost through education maximizing the use of existing infrastructure and leveraging the economies of scale that only county-wide collaboration makes possible please vote yes our families our businesses and our future depend on it thank you thank you next please thank you good morning um my name is linda thompson gonzalez i would like to simply reiterate what stephanie jopi has said as a member of the public you'll be hearing from many consultants and experts on the topic i just want to reiterate the public strong support um i wish to express our strong support to this facility's uh amendment as well as to the master plan it's a solid forward looking solution uh it would enable us we are now recycling approximately 35 percent we have a plan that will enable us to raise that to 64 percent of the waste we now send to the landfill and to the incinerator could be diverted we need this plan now i thank you for all of your work on this long fought issue please vote to approve it thank you i just see the motion and see if we get this passed well let me let me recognize some people first okay uh first i want to uh today we're going to be passing the facilities amendment and it is the lynchpin to all the facilities all the amendments that we've been doing and all the we've we've passed the ila we've passed the master plan we've passed the landfill legislation this is the lynchpin that pulls it all together today we have a number of people from the executive committee we have uh melissa dunn uh commissioner melissa dunn from from lauderhill we have denise horland from plantation also uh acting as the president of the league of cities we have henry mead from weston we also have the executive director of the broward league of cities mary lou tai and our the executive director of the solid waste authority is here sam may as well as daniel deech who is our consultant um but i don't want to forget the people that on our staff who've done an amazing amount of job kevin unbelievable amount of work um natasha from solid waste and on the attorneys yeah and on the attorney's side whoo unbelievable uh nathaniel and matt oh my gosh unbelievable work there have been over 160 meetings on this it has taken over six years to get here uh true just a long time um the you know they went over a lot of the pros and cons i'll just say real quick this is has been a long time in waiting you know if we if we owned the landfill if we owned the um waste energy plant we would probably we as a county would probably be able to mandate some of this stuff but we don't so we need cooperation we need all the cities working together and we need what is and this facilities amendment essentially puts together flow control it allows us to stand up all the facilities that are finally going to be able to that we've been needing it's going to allow us to set up stand up yard waste glass recycling composting all those kind of things and for from the county's perspective what we're needing we we are dealing with disposal it preserves our landfill it preserves our waste energy plan all these things are very important um it gives us also most favored nation status on you know by through that flow control we are enjoying that as our 20 how many cities kevin 21 in the global agreement or 19 i'm always get this wrong how many cities in the global agreement i believe it's 20 plus the bmsd omega 21 that global agreement has allowed all of those cities to keep their prices down um and keep it stabilized that's what again that's what's going to happen if all 20 of if those 28 cities all agree to do this we're going to be able to have dependable pricing we're going to have most favored nation status um being whenever we you know whoever we do contracts with and we'll be doing the environment environmentally the right thing um i think i'm just going to make a motion to approve and just kind of get this i know our i know our executive director and consultant are here and they could talk for a while let's just see if we get this going i know senator guillard may who has been thank you thank you very much has been at a lot of our meetings taking a lot of this in and adding adding a a lot and actually i forgot to mention just the commission itself you guys have been a good um buffer here in many ways and have made this agreement much better than what it is you've you've kind of stopped it cold at a couple places and said no you have to go back to the drawing board and you and the and those decisions were right were good decisions um i think this board has weighed in when it needed to at the right time and has made for a much better much better agreement so with that i'm going to make a motion to approve and i'll second but then i'd like to speak mr mayor okay motion second senator gillard thank you mr mayor i'll be very brief this is an incredibly complex issue um and it's one we simply don't have a choice on yeah because nobody wants the change but the change is coming because the landfill is filling up and it's going to cost uh right now tonnage it's about 55 a ton to landfill it's going to cost if we do nothing it'll cost 25 a ton more when we're shipping it up to okeechobee until they close or fill up their landfill we have to do something and this is doing it but what i really wanted to do is say that commissioner furr has been thanking everybody else this i don't believe this would have occurred without the efforts of commissioner for he has been tireless on working on this and and beam congratulations you are officially mr garbage and broward but this could not have occurred without your efforts thank you i got a motion a second all in favor any opposed show that passing uh vice mayor are you still there sure i am you just woke me up again yes nine zero thank you very good all right we have a time certain at uh number 43 commissioner rogers item 43 has two motions motion a is a motion to authorize county administrator to negotiate and execute a sponsorship agreement between brower county and the city of water hill to support community events related to the 2026 world cup item b is a motion to adopt budget resolution transferring funds from reserve within the general fund for the purpose of providing funding for the referenced agreement three members of the public have signed up to speak on this item the first member of the public is kenny hobbs with sharon mcclennan on deck okay hold on one second commissioner rogers whenever you're ready to uh i see the thank you mr mayor and i see the city manager from lauder hill has taken the podium and he's ready to go we got i just we have plenty of time we got you know yeah we got 60 seconds go ahead you need to tell nana and myself what time all right 90 seconds let's go mind us right thank you go ahead throughout this process um kenny just go ahead because i know you've done the work the commission has provided clear direction and raised detailed questions to ensure that any investment aligns with broward county's broader goal for sports tourism economic impact and municipal readiness we have all of that and you will start that discussion for us this this morning yes thank you again greetings to the mayor the vice mayor and the commission uh the county administrator deputy county administrator as well as the city attorney thank you for allowing us uh to have this discussion in the presentation uh first i'd like to thank the county staff specifically uh kevin kelleher and dan west for working diligently with us through this process to work through the details of the agreement as set forth by the county commission uh one of the things we just want to assure the county is that we agree to be the lead agency as outlined by the county so we will administer the 125 000 assuming that it is approved uh here today we've been in communications with all 31 yes when you say we will administer who's we the city of lauderdale thank you thank you so i'm i know i know i just want to make sure clarifying you're not talking for an entity as well all right thank you so so we have been in communication with all 31 cities uh relating to an agreement a collaborative agreement to move this item forward we can tell you to date that we have signed agreements uh from three of those 31 cities uh which include the city of north lauderdale hollandale beach and lauderdale lakes in addition to that we've have verbal commitments uh from fort lauderdale as well as deerfield beach and we are awaiting additional written commitments from seven additional cities uh by the june 2nd deadline so again we agree to adhere to all of the regulations and requirements that are set forth in the proposed agreement uh before the county there is a memorandum of understanding that has been circulated with the other cities uh that outline the same specifics that are part of the agreement that we would agree to we understand that the funds are reimbursable and we understand that they will come to the city of lauderdale we will administer those and hold the same hold the parting the other parties to the same requirements that are set forth uh by the city of lauderdale at this point i'll answer any questions that you may have anybody any questions commissioner just a quick question you mentioned seven other cities yes ma'am which ones are those do you have the the the cities that we are waiting to receive written communications from are the city of sunrise city of plantation city of tamarack city of coconut creek city of cooper city city of west park and then there were some discussions with the city of miramar as well thank you yes ma'am sure just to administration you're comfortable with this and the auditor's comfortable with this we're just writing a check to the city of lauderdale that's a good question yeah the answer is is what the board had uh decided last time to is to divide up the 250 125 for one program and 125 for the other program we were asked to work with the city of of lauderdale to come up with the program guidelines and have the details based on our conversation with them if it's the board's desire to have the 125 for this type of program they have documented it and when we put in um enough guard rails and protections in there that would make sure it gets done uh in that fashion any other uh mr melton as long as there are proper controls and i would be comfortable with it are there are there proper controls are there i haven't seen the controls i suspect they're not developed yet yeah they include audit rights and then documentation requirements mayor so there'll be a series of contracts here there'll be one between us and lauder hill and then there'll be sub grant agreements we'll we'll make sure that there's transparency that there's responsibility that it's consistent uh with what's been laid out on the item so it's you have a policy decision but from a legal standpoint uh we'll make sure that what you're supposed to be spending money on uh is either spent on that or we're going to get it back okay any other yes senator geller no mr and druids um i'm going to vote yes on this today um i would have voted no at the last meeting because we have no answers we have people who kept changing their statements i know mr hobbs to be a highly reputable individual i i'm much more comfortable today than i was at the last meeting and we kind of said we'd split it half under commissioner davis's and half under commissioner roger so i'll be voting yes today however in the future i really did not like this the way that we did this budgeting the way that we've done did this at last minute and on things that i just don't really think are county priorities in fairness since we did vote for commissioner davis's item last week uh at the last meeting i'm going to vote for commissioner rogers because of the involvement of mr hobs in the city but i i did don't like it and i'm not going to vote in the future for last second bunch of things that i don't think are really on county basis the county simply doesn't have the the money to fund every you know city project commissioner fisher thank you mayor just mr manager just want to i received an email from commissioner kalari from city of hollywood i didn't hear the city of hollywood's name that you mentioned there so we've communicated with them we have not received an agreement or written agreement from them at this point and i did not have any person excuse me you have not received an agreement we have not okay would you just please put on your radar because again there's this highly interest love to have hollywood be considered uh for the funding as you make your decision today regarding lauder hill so please make that a priority for you okay yes thank you commissioner ferr i just want to reiterate that i've heard from the mayor there and i have they are they have they received the application so we so we've provided a copy of a memorandum of understanding to all 31 cities as well as uh some specifics outlining the agreement that was proposed by the county so we provided that information to them we asked that they provide a letter of interest ahead of today's meeting but if they could not to sign or at least provide uh guidance on or before june the second before june the second yes sir that's a deadline okay thank you very much senator rich yeah i just want to make sure that it's publicly stated that this is a reimbursable contract that they they don't they get reimbursed after they spend it and with uh documentation for the spending it is a reimbursable with a one-to-one match meaning that the city has to put forth one to one it does allow for in-kind services such as uh municipal police fire and maintenance will count as far as the match but is not subject to reimbursement thank you okay with that said uh i just want to say that that i support the item um uh unlike uh commissioner getter i think it was timely um we supported the money for fifa which came suddenly and um i think this is certainly appropriate use of of the money that we are putting forth for both my item and commissioner hails of roger's item thank you so much for all you've done and for collaborating with these other cities to get this over the hump thank you i think we have two more speakers okay the next speaker signed up to speak is sharon mclennan followed by richard campbell sharon good morning mr mayor vice mayor and county commissioners thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today my name is sharon mclennan i'm the current president of the lotto hill chamber of commerce and i'm here today in support of the initiative that mr hopps just spoke to the funding of broad welcomes the world i know that this topic has appeared before the commission several times over the last few meetings and it occurred to me that perhaps we have not done as clear a job as we could have in communicating the broader vision behind this initiative i'd like to take a few moments today to help frame that vision as you consider funding when it was first announced that fifa would be hosting games in miami there was tremendous excitement throughout broward county about a one what a once in a lifetime opportunity it represented but as time went on many businesses and community organizations still did not have a clear understanding of what meaningful participation would look like for them certainly there were businesses that were able to directly engage with fifa or related vendors and secure opportunities connected to the games themselves but for the broader business community throughout broward county there was still uncertainty about how local businesses cities and residents could participate in any meaningful way earlier this year vice mayor richard campbell of lardahill who has been working with the fifa host committee convened a meeting in lardahill during that time it became clear that there was still no defined pathway for broader participation by many of our local communities and small businesses as a result during that meeting a group of cities along with the lardahill chamber of commerce came together and formed a steering committee we began meeting weekly to explore how we could work collaboratively to create something that would be more impactful for our cities our residents and our business communities from those meetings the concept of broward welcomes the world was born the vision includes a signature included a signature regional event at the lardahill sports park but it extended far beyond a single event the broader goal was to create a collaborative platform where participating cities could submit and promote their calendars of events during the fifa cycle through a centralized website in addition small businesses throughout broward county would have the opportunity to showcase special offers experiences and promotions in the area so for example if a visitor wanted caribbean food they might discover a restaurant in lardahill or a lot of the lakes or even coral springs if they were looking for a family event another city could be an option more importantly this this initiative was intended to create a blueprint not just for fifa but for future international and large-scale events that south florida will inevitably continue to attract hard rock stadium is not going away south florida will continue to host major global events the question before us is how do we ensure that the economic impact of those events reaches deeper into broward county and creates opportunities for businesses and communities that may not traditionally benefit at the last commission meeting i know there was some discussion about whether i need you to end your uh i will sir thank you this initiative was never intended to compete with existing businesses so today as you consider funding opportunities i simply ask that we continue to think of beyond a single event and let's think about how we can collaborate so that cities that are not uh coastline cities can have an opportunity to benefit from the economic engine around thank you so much thank you who's next the last member of the public sign up to speak is richard campbell yes come on vice mayor for this it's all yours sir go ahead yes yes yes no i'm not going to speak there are moments when you realize there is not much more to say and i think this is the moment i just want to say thanks for facilitating us and your patience and listening to us thank you very much thank you does someone want to you want to move the item so we can get i just want to say thank you to my colleagues so i know we're going to do this but i truly wanted to say thank you but i also want to make it very very clear okay lauder hill has taken the responsibility seriously the city has responded to every inquiry supplied all requested documentation and worked diligently to meet the standards and expectation of this commission i'm part of this commission i want to make sure everything is done is done with transparency and because we are professional i know it will be done in that space so i'm not worried this request is about more than a single event this activation represented a rare opportunity to join in elevating broward county in broward county on a global stage strengthen our position as a premier sports tourism destination and drive significant economic activity into our hotels restaurants and local businesses don't take it lightly you've seen the response from cities even hollywood is calling about engaging in this so i don't want us to have a closed mind on it we know our value to broward county or economic development as small businesses and small business and small cities and cities that are not on the coastline we know our values we created activities to entertain ourselves now it's time that we showcase it to all of broward county so this initiative is very very important and i'm so glad and proud of the collaboration of this group and i thank you for listening and move the motion i'm going to defer the item second we're deferring the item oh it's next i have a motion do i have a second second i have a motion i have a motion second all in favor aye any opposed show that it didn't pass passing nine zero okay we've got uh do you want to do the the public hearing will take 60 seconds you got to do the public hearing items number 36 35 sorry 35 36 37 38 let's go public hearing item on 30 item 35 is now open this is the second of two required public hearings the first public hearing was held on april 28 2026 item 35 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 the related improvements located on 2.3 acres of land at port everglades to extend the term through december 31st 2035 and update various positions provisions no member of the public is starting to speak on the item that motion i senator ridge um moved it commissioner commissioner fisher second all in favor any opposed show passing nine zero vice mayor you're for it correct sorry to wait absolutely sir sorry to wait absolutely i'm sleeping yeah i'm sleeping but wait keep waking me up please number 36 just for folks to vote vote audibly the public hearing item on the public hearing on item 36 is now open item 36 is a motion to adopt resolution granting renewal of a non-exclusive unrestricted port everglades cargo handler franchise to florida international terminal llc for a new 10-year term no members of the public have signed up to speak on the item senator geller moves it second by commissioner ferr all in favor any post show uh vice mayor uh your silence means you're approving it that is correct sir okay nine zero thank you i'll pass right that approved it okay number 37 please the public hearing on item 37 is now open item 37 is a motion to adopt resolution granting renewal of a non-exclusive unrestricted port everglades stevedorf franchise to florida international terminal llc for a new 10-year term no members of the public could sign up to speak on the item senator geller moves approval second commissioner ferr all in favor aye uh any opposed show that passing 9-0 i'll read 38 ready an ordinance of brower county commissioners of brower county florida pertaining to aquatic and water resource management wetland resource protection hazardous material and cooling towers amending various sections of chapter 27 of the brower county code of commit ordinances to update several regulated programs related aquatic and water resource management wetland resource protection hazardous material amending sections 34-168 of the code relating to cooling towers providing for general housekeeping amendments providing for severability inclusion in the code and effective date no members of the public are here to speak i have a motion senator geller a second senator rich vice mayor aye all in favor but i would suggest that you let the reader read next time i could i it's called the evelyn wood speed reading i don't know if you ever heard of evelyn wood i know i know i know lamar fisher he can do it show that passing 9-0 number 39 we're just gonna no that was 30 that was 30 uh 38 that's what i said 38. um okay we got done with the public hearing the public hearing now is closed yes no charge now closed okay we're now gonna do um we're gonna just go straight to number 44 for one minute opening and then we're gonna go out to discuss more on the uh workshop item 44 is a motion to discuss if there would be costs and timing savings in the county purchase of the spirit airlines headquarters for the location of the new county governmental center one member of the public assigned to speak on the item and that is chris nelson i also want to be shown as co-sponsor of that um come on down wait i don't know if i'm going to accept you as a co-sponsor that's i don't have to ask it it's man excellent move mayor bogan you could point it's mandated huh excellent move mayor thank you we'll just save 300 million all right so chris nelson here how are you doing good morning commissioners and i could be outside uh enjoying this beautiful weather but when i saw that commissioner udine put up buying the spirit airlines building and saving hundreds of millions of dollars for the county that we can use for things like health care programs uh commissioner rich affordable housing i mean we can take that and i mean think about what could be done with the hundreds of millions of dollars that we would save by buying the spirit airlines building we could do health care plans we could do affordable housing so um the right now you've got the city of fort lauderdale and now the county commission that are i mean fort lauderdale wants to build this ridiculous like uh glass tower um like out of like star wars or something and uh i got into it you know and uh and this thing they want this this thing is going to cost almost a billion dollars and now i'm over to you guys that uh you want to build a new government center too that's going to cost 600 million dollars okay and uh right now it's really sad what's happened with spirit airlines um i think it's probably because of the gas prices uh and uh it's really sad what's happened there with the people that are being laid off and then there's that beautiful building down there okay now um this building is on eight acres it has a built-in parking garage uh 200 unit residential building and it's valued at approximately 200 million dollars which three four five six 400 million dollars in savings that you could do yes i use my fingers to count so this is an excellent plan i'm glad that sun sentinel was paying attention to a meeting and uh put in a write-up about this uh i hope that uh you will approve it and you could name it something like the spirit of broward county or uh do a an homage to spirit airlines the great airline that once was whoever the mayor is you can name it after that whoever the mayor is well you can do that and and think about what this will mean for the legacy of this commission you know say you build this 600 million dollar thing and it makes the county go broke and people are shaking their fists like 20 years in the future going why did they need to build this giant monstrosity and it's got all your name on it or you could buy the spirit airlines building save all this money put a plaque on there with all your names on it saying that uh and and showing that we saved the community a lot of money and i think that would be much better for your legacy so thanks for that dude appreciate your support but you're killing my vibes so let me go first and then we can go up here all right michael good luck following that michael before you before you before you start i would know if you wanted to nominate um nominate him as a citizen honorary citizen commissioner right maybe we'll give him a proclamation at some point okay so um it's important to understand a little bit of factual background why i brought this up so i brought this up obviously because i know we have a workshop scheduled to talk about the government center and i was going to bring it up in a workshop but i did not want to um undercut the county the county administration and their real estate team i wanted to telegraph to them that that's why i was doing this so what they have when we when issame brought us the presentation back in february of the government center there was a slide where they took a square that they looked at in the county about potential places that the government center could be it went up to cypress creek it went down to 595 it went from east and it went from west everyone remembers the slide that was there the spot where this land is is just on the south part of the spot from 90 of the county to get to that area is a lot easier than getting here it's just easier based on where it is the second reason that i brought it up is when we got the the skinny version of the government center that they're talking about they're talking about 280 uh 280 000 square feet of office space besides podium and and other stuff the spirit building is 180 000 square feet of contiguous office space they house over 1100 employees in that building we're looking per our last presentation to house up to 750 people in the building that we're going to build so there there's space compatibility we're looking to build a parking garage in our new facility to cover i think eight or 900 spaces this area is already built with 1100 spaces dedicated in a parking garage and surface parking the number that chris nelson mentioned that got out of the that that he saw the paper it's been appraised at around 200 million dollars for this property but this property also includes a 200 unit multi-family development right there built latest and greatest within the last few years now somebody's going to do something with this property and that multi-family is a lot of value that can save money for taxpayers when we look at this so when when when we look at this when i looked at this in totality i wanted to bring this up so that we can have these conversations in a workshop i didn't expect anybody to vote on anything today i think that our lawyers would have to look at this and see what we could do in the bankruptcy court maybe we could be a stalking horse bidder at a number maybe we could make money for our residents if in fact somebody outbids us but i think that there's a lot of potential to make this as our government center and save the taxpayers you know four or five hundred million dollars possibly because we would have two spaces here that we can then go and and and probably deal so i think this could satisfy our entire needs for a government center and get it done where we would have a government center you know within the next five years or so because if we start building on our own i i understand the presentations we made we won't be there in five years from now i would bet virtually anything on it so i'm going to request that we bring this up at the workshop i know management is ready for it or snap is ready for it and and and that's why i wanted to put this on the agenda and i thank you for indulging me um you guys have more than two minutes speaking okay okay go ahead yeah mayor just just kind of just give me a minute because if we're going to discuss this item here in this workshop i just need to kind of kind of give you some experience here um because this is kind of my arena i want everybody to understand the process and it not that it can't be done but i want to stay in the process because this is of course a united states federal bankruptcy court this is not a state court this is not a court so it is out of new york unfortunately it's in the north in the new york district versus the southern district here in florida and bankruptcies can be very complicated and obviously spirit airlines is one of those i mean it has tremendous cases and there's two main chapters there's a chapter 11 which means that there's a debtor in possession so this spirit airline is the debtor here and they're in possession of of a chapter 11 case there's been talk to whether the court is going to make it will be called a chapter 7 case chapter 7 means that a trustee is appointed uh by the court and that trustee is in charge of doing a liquidation plan of the assets of spirit airlines so no whether where it's going to go this is a very issue that we deal with as far as bankruptcy now the purchasing of a of a bankruptcy court transaction when you purchase assets and commissioner dean knows this the transactions are as is where is no contingencies what that simply means that you're there's no due diligence period normally if you buy a property like the county does or government does they say okay i need 60 days due diligence i need to do phase ones i need to do appraisals i need to do all these wonderful things well in the court system you don't have that luxury right because they're interested in getting the assets sold and also during a bid procedures which i don't want to get in the weeds here there's bid procedures that are formed through the court and you follow those bid procedures in order to buy an asset and part of that is you not only cash as is where is no contingencies you have a quick closing time usually anywhere from 15 to 20 days upon sale motion approval by signed by the court so the process is very stringent it's very it's very targeted then you have a layer of what we call creditors secured creditors and unsecured creditors secured creditors are your lenders your hard money lenders whatever it may be and obviously spirit has a layer of creditors they have first they have seconds they have thursday but most importantly have what we call the dip lender which means that they came into bankruptcy and so they got this debtor and possession lender to lend them money to continue to operate until they can come out of bankruptcy they are a priority number one so they have a priority so now you not only have your first your seconds but you have your dip lender that they're in default with well what happens in bankruptcy is that interest default interest goes about 18 plus percent so once the default occurs then your interest your back interest your default interest starts to accrue and so what you are owed at the end of the day plus they add attorney's fees onto that so you might just take it for instance a hundred million dollar loan but by the time that that's their principal note by the time they go into their default interest they might be able to have a hundred and fifty million dollar loan on that so what happens is they appoint they are appointed and they become a credit bidder at that point when they sell an asset that credit bidder is allowed to bid up to that hundred and fifty million dollar number so again i'm not saying this is a this is a challenge is a challenge for government but it's also how do you how do you we as a government participate so now you have credit bidders are able to bid their position and ultimately they if they win then they get the asset back and they either use the asset or they put the asset back on the market and sell it so i want everybody to understand the process it's not friendly to the governmental agencies such as ourselves and i understand what we want to do here might want to do it's up for discussion but then you get into stalking horses and that's what commissioner dean talked about you can become a stalking horse which simply means that a buyer says okay i will pay and i don't know where the value came in at 200 million but it's this i'll pay 200 million dollars and for that i'm going to pay as is where it is all cash no contingency close in 20 days before that i get a breakup fee if i'm outbid right so say my bid is 200 million and somebody outbids me at 220 million then i get what what we call a breakup fee as a stalking horse it's like an insurance policy in the bankruptcy court they like that but the also court also likes competitive nature they like transparency fiduciary arms length so they're not going to sell to broward county they're going to open it up to a competitive process so what another layer is i don't even know if if drew can answer this or not so as a government agency we need to say to the public we will bid up to 200 million dollars let's say we have to say that in public we can't say that my understanding is in a closed session so now the whole world knows what our bid is 200 million dollars so somebody else can come in okay i'm gonna bid 201 million dollars and outbid us so again the competitive nature of a bankruptcy sale is not favorable to government agencies not to say it can't be done but i wanted everybody to understand the process because i live in this environment every day and i understand when you deal with creditors you deal with that and they have they have play money because they have all this interest in these attorney's fees that are added upon their principal ultimately the judge is going to decide what it is so we just have to be very cautious in in in public statements we have to be very cautious if we want to go down that road but i want everybody to understand it is not something that we can just say hey we want to buy this building here's a contract and we want our due diligence and we want to go we don't 90 day closing it just doesn't work in this arena so i voted i didn't want this i wanted not that you brought it up i wanted the public to understand exactly what we're dealing with at the end of the day thank you mayor senator geller thank you i believe i'll be much faster thank you um first though i'd like to congratulate our learned council here um very good um first of all commissioner i'd like to thank you for bringing this up as usual you are fiscally prudent with the taxpayer dollars which i i i highly approve of thank you for doing this but i think it's very clear as we're going to find out that we simply lack sufficient information at this point in time i presume staff has not uh monica or kevin or whoever has not yet had the chance to analyze uh this property as to how it would meet our criteria in terms of space how much it would cost us to do the conversion but before like commission chambers and things of the you know i think that the result of what we're going to end up today is something we already know that it's absolutely worth examining but we don't have the slightest idea yet on whether or not it's actually suitable uh staff i assume you have not yet done that analysis correct we our team has um initially begun that process when when he put the item on and um and commissioner dean had given us a few folks to speak with we received this deck last night late last night that you guys received this morning as additional materials so there's a significant amount of due diligence that's still needed but they have begun that process when he first if it works and we'll save money i'm all for it but i know that our discussion today is going to be please give us an analysis and so we can save a lot of time by knowing that and the one other thing mr mayor is i did receive a call from a dania beach city commissioner i used to represent dania beach in the florida senate and if i've represented a city at one time i still assume i try and help them and they were very concerned about the impact on their tax base if the county buys that and we're wondering if there would be some sort of like payment in lieu or something of they were just concerned about their tax base and i'm passing that on thank you mr mayor in close i think commissioner dean's proposal to us is brilliant it saves us hundreds of millions of dollars commissioner fisher i understand all the issues that may have to a bankruptcy i think i'm going to put an item if you don't want to put an item we need to hire a bankruptcy lawyer immediately in my opinion to unless drew your team knows how to do this and and see um how how efficiently we you know how we can go about and seeing uh if this is possible yeah i i i think you know we have a basic bankruptcy practice which we we do okay with uh this would uh involve certain procedures that we would need to figure out uh nothing commissioner fisher said surprised me uh at all there must be an opportunity for due diligence that's front-loaded not afterwards you don't submit a contract and then conduct your due diligence you're gonna have to take it as is whereas you should be able to take it free and clear uh you know it's this would be a front-loaded very fast assuming it converts to a chapter uh seven and that this asset's not needed i mean assuming i mean i i guess i've been assuming that but if they're still in 11 i'm looking at scott no still scott still in 11 it right now so so but we don't want to want to prolong it but yeah i mean i uh i haven't done bankruptcy in a while but i remember the terminology and i know enough to know that to make sure we're not making any mistakes we would want to spend a little bit of money on outside bankruptcy counsel and even if even if we needed 50 million extra 25 million extra whatever it is to make the building as senator geller you're talking about to configure it it still saves us hundreds of millions of dollars it gets us in a new building soon it just makes all the sense and then then spending an extra 300 million dollars it's a lot of money 400 million uh didn't you tell me uh if i'm wrong to get everybody in a building it's more than 600 million wasn't it a billion it's about 630 630 is the skinny version that was the skinny version but the full version was it close to a billion wasn't it i've got no it's 600 and 663 so it's almost 663 for the skinny version yes and how much is the full version that was about a billion right but it was so this building gets this building has the capacity to get all these 700 employees in there more than that right 300 more employees so so if i could i i really prefer to just do this in the workshop but i agree with everything lamar says that's why i can't talk with him about i knew he was going to know this and he's he's not incorrect but what he's saying is not a prohibition of doing this i know we would have to be a stalking horse bidder i know there would be a potential breakup fee i know we take it as is whereas this is a brand new building that just there's environmentals that were done you can speak this is this is all teed up and ready if there's the ability and i do know that staff has to look at the at their due diligence staff has to do due diligence on everything we're nowhere near building on the property that we have because we never really did we're doing the environmentals there that land was contaminated that we're fixing this land is going to be clear and open it's not a die on the sword issue for me it's an issue that really puts us in a pretty good position and our bankruptcy people this i don't think we need to engage different bankruptcy council if you wanted to you can but we're credit bidders too broward county has a credit bid for some of this too we have something in through our airport so maybe it can be done maybe it can't be done we'll see mayor real quick i didn't say we we have to be a stalking horse you don't have to be a stalking horse bidder you could be a competitive bidder once a stalking horse is selected through the court system so you have two options you can be it can't be i would highly recommend this is a very intense case i would highly recommend outside council uh not nothing against god at all but i think outside council will be able to direct us more efficiently especially out of the new york case thank you can i ask one more one question lamar in your experience which is clearly vast do you believe that we need outside council now or is this something that we should ask staff to do their analysis and report back at our next meeting or do you think we that for time purposes we need to do so now because i'm going to follow your lead on this because you know this better than i do definitely if we decide to proceed forward yes i think at this point we can have discussions with staff and i think drew's staff can answer those questions but if we proceed forward i would definitely want outside council so you think though for timing and hiring outside council that we can wait till our next meeting on that it's not time sensitive yes but drew want to jump in yeah i mean if it's if it's in 11 if it's in 11 right now i agree with that what i was going to say is when the time is is right if the time is ever right and you would authorize me to spend up to even 25 000 just so we can ask questions and make sure that we're following well and then and just initially to make sure we're complying and then if it needs to be expanded we can first of all mr mayor would you agree to amend your motion to the 25 000 in 11 you can still buy it of a chapter 11 you have to go to a seven i i miss if i if i misunderstood that that's wrong you could still buy in a dip i'm not i'm not saying you can't buy in a dip what i'm saying if it's if it's an 11 it's if it's a seven it's it's going whether there are secure creditors and whatever if it's an 11 we don't know we don't know we don't know we don't even know if they're going to liquidate the real estate this particular time exactly in 11 there could be a plan where they can liquidate all the other assets and not the real estate so again it's very early stages but i think that if again if we make a decision that we're going to pursue i think we need outside council you can't pursue until you do until he's able to ask an attorney until he's able to do some due diligence with outside council you really need outside council now if we want to pursue we need to get outside council correct if we want to pursue yeah mr mayor would you agree to amend your motion to what he said which was to authorize him to pay up to 25 000 now to ask questions of outside council if he needs absolutely i'm amending his motion to authorize the county to spend up to 25 grand for outside council council that'll get us 12 12 or so hours anyway of what we may need you know what i cannot make the motion and it's a motion i'm happy to have spent 25 000 they can take it out of the environmental fund that they're using because they didn't do the due diligence prior to last time while they're looking at the environmental in the gore property because the gore property were delayed because there's an environmental so ever you can throw you know i like i'm i'm old school i'm old school when i do this and and some of you will appreciate this i don't ask lawyers to tell me every detail of how something can't be done i like to see if there's an ability to do something have the lawyers figure out a way that it can be done i don't think it's unreasonable to spend a few dollars to kick the tires to see if there's something here we have the money in our budget to do it it has the potential the county attorney should be able to if he needs to get more expertise to look at something i want him to be able to do that so i would make that motion if that needs to be done and i think that county staff can look at this and see if there's a potential to have a government headquarters there if county staff says there's no potential and this board agrees with it then we would move on you know can i can i just say something yeah um is this being done in conjunction with what we're already doing with with the east building yes okay thanks not stopping anything so i have a motion in a second the motion is to authorize up to 25 grand to seek outside counsel regarding the purchase of this building all in all in favor aye aye any opposed show that passes uh vice mayor wake up i mean i do want to make a comment i just and i think uh commissioner davis hit it on the head in the mar you do the superb job and this opportunity is awesome we've invested hours time um and purchasing a building for a future um governmental center i do want to see that process continue i don't know if this uh can or cannot work but i do know that the number we're using for construction to repurpose or to accommodate our staff is going to probably double the number that you all put on the table today based on my knowledge in that area but i haven't seen the building like nobody in this room hasn't to know that or to assess that but uh i do want us to continue down the road environmentals will be found on any site you stick a shovel in or heavy piece of equipment that's just the real estate and landscape we live in so as long as we move forward i don't mind supporting uh the 25 grand to explore i just think that uh this won't work for us and i would like to see us continue the path that we've already started okay just i just want you senator rich one second i the vote was ready taken we have a nine zero senator rich you want to say something well i wanted to say it before if it's just to ask the question if you felt i know we have people that have bankruptcy expertise on our staff and do you think that it is necessary at this time before we know whether we're going to do this or not to move forward with getting outside counsel for yep senator and just so i'm clear the answer to that is is yes and also i just don't want anyone to be misled in any way by anything i've said 25 000 is sticking your you know toe in the water to understand so we can make sure we're not missing anything while staff is doing its due diligence if we end up going into this we might need a little bit more and i'll come back to you but right now i think it is prudent to have the motion and monica who are you assigning on your staff to move forward with this project immediately assistant county administrator is to me ayala is to me yep okay so meeting is adjourned going to um to i'm missing something just so you you you have non agenda and you have one more reports now yeah you're skipping your dashboard mayor i just want uh yeah i'm going to talk about next week about next meeting about what you guys have done with the dashboard okay um reports um can we keep it short it's up to you guys start them i've been going left to right so i'll finish going left to right commissioner rogers thank you senator geller thank you uh commissioner fisher you're done okay i'm joking i'm joking i'm totally joking i have the davietown meeting tonight thank you that's it mr fisher passing i'll be quick uh we had a great meeting with the south florida water management district and passed the 203 bill they did it in time and an amazing year of work i know senator geller you've been a big part of this to get to have them get this done astonishing and now it's on its way to congress uh for to get become a part of the word of the word of the bill um this this commission should congratulate itself for getting that that done it's an amazing piece of work uh that is good there we are asking for 1.8 billion dollars so it's a lot of money to get done um a lot of us we're only asking for like 5 million well this is a first this year right uh we're not yeah well yeah exactly uh a lot of us were at the project the uh habitat for humanity this last saturday um great project multi-family hadn't had a chance to see one of those yet uh vice mayor mckenzie represented us really well nice job um vice mayor thank you but the uh all the people there were just all the families were just thrilled and and for good reason uh we also had the p3 eco challenge where i think they gave up around fifty thousand dollars in cash to all these teachers and all these students had some great projects environmental projects that went great we've been doing it for 14 years um great work and then lastly i'd like to put the i think a lot of us have been getting uh emails on the mangroves and dania i'd like to put that on the dashboard and figure out what to do with this can we put the mangroves on the dashboard um you know we we voted eight zero to not allow for but now i'm not sure what's going to happen so we need to figure this out okay that's it thank you senator rich oh last thank you all for the for the vote today no charge senator rich okay thank you welcome um the first thing i want to mention is um and my colleagues uh commissioner davis and commissioner uh rogers were there the alcee hastings um exhibit grand opening at the broward county african-american library and cultural center um it was amazing um just a lot of people there that have go back a long way um with the congressman um i kind of count myself among those people um and uh he was definitely recognized as a man of the people which he was a champion of civil rights and social justice and um really advocating for the state for the state's most i guess marginalized communities um i had the privilege of working with him throughout my years um uh with the national council of jewish women and uh uh he was always there on all the issues that that we cared about um and um i i i do want to thank um allison grubbs and her team it was just the the library did a fabulous fabulous job and and also special thanks to evan goldman from the jewish federation uh there is a an organization that um that were the uh the black and the jewish community worked together and um he's uh kind of headed up that uh with senator osgood so he was there and it was a special part of making it happen so i wanted to congratulate him as well and it was a wonderful exhibit everybody should go um also i just do want to mention i participated in a panel that congresswoman debbie wasterman schultz had on affordable housing it also had to do with homeless and she had a really broad range of people um ralph stone of course was there but she had um it was it took place at the dania beach housing authority and uh we had a cross-section of people dealing with affordable housing and homeless um and she really was looking for us to um let her know what the needs were here that are being disrupted by the federal government so that she can go back as someone who's involved heavily with appropriations and uh helping to get funding for for broward county uh in so many areas so she was looking at at that and how to correct a couple of things that have happened with um with with hud um we also had um by the way broward about um the director of coast to coast legal aid excuse me the director of coast to coast legal aid was there um and discussed part of the wonderful program that he has regarding um eviction prevention and i know that she went back she let me know she's going back with very valuable information and important suggestions uh to bring back to uh dc to enable her to work on behalf of broward um also i just want to mention uh i also was there for the p3 challenge um and uh and i have to tell you well i mean we we can't say enough about our own staff dr gerato and monica ponion and and the whole staff the amazing job that they did in conjunction with broward county public schools but the highlight for me from the recipients was this little boy he was a third grade student i i still can see him he's just like just like kind of a little short you know and he's standing there and everyone else is very all the it goes from age range all the way up to high school and he's standing there and he's got this biggest smile on his face and he got presented with i i presented him with a hundred dollar mock check and uh you know all the others all the other it was bigger than he was i swear and he was and these kids all of them i mean but they were standing there so stoically and here he is mike has got so much energy he was a a student um uh at central park elementary and he's a dedicated everglades student ambassador already who exemplifies outstanding environmental leadership so think about what we're doing to educate young people uh for for the future and the last one that i went also another education for young people these are high school i was pleased to attend again uh the um weston city commission they have a um a program called weston university and they had they honor 26 students from cypress bay and western high sagemont prep and exceed prep academy uh these students participated in a lengthy all-year program learning about the importance of city government so another wonderful thing i would recommend it to every city to pick that program up uh thank you that's it thank you just very quickly so we have at our next meeting we voted on it last time on the city of hollywood 1301 project or we do we still have the public hearing on that if they're doing the live local do we get that i i don't know the answer to that but i just want i wanted to bring it up here somebody look into that if they're in running us on this then it would very likely be withdrawn i would think if that were approved we're gonna wait i'll wait till the 20th okay all right so that was one the second thing is i see my friends from herzog here i had since the last meeting i was on bright line and on tri-rail which is a little bit rare i did both of them so they do a great job tri-rail and bright line this the the experience all the way around is pretty cool to see what's going on with the rail in south florida so go and on the weekends it's five bucks you can go anywhere on the weekends even in miami airport anywhere so good job to our team at herzog there just briefly i i don't want i did want to um thank career source broward for their support in that of spirit airline shutdown all the work that was conducted at their facility in district seven in hollywood um and thank you to the leadership of carol hilton on that and then just lastly to remind folks that there is the port everglades career fair and expo that's coming up on may 27th at the broward county convention center between 9 and 1 pm and we have been you know able to get many of the airlines to commit to coming to that event uh american airlines united airlines jet blue and other aviation uh companies and so we're pleased about that we want folks to be able to sign up at port everglades fair and expo 2026.eventbrite.com once again port everglades fair and expo 2026.eventbrite.com the event is free and so is the parking at the broward county convention center thank you those fairs normally we've provided transportation to the career source fairs not on this one so so for the career source fairs those have been um that has been we have been a partner to career source for those types of things this is a port everglades okay um event separately thank you mr mayor i'll be brief i just want to let everyone know i continue to engage with my city and whatever i hear from my cities or the community while i'm out i'm going to share so i start by saying one hundred thousand dollars for to help 40 people this i'm talking about coast of coast this is what i see in the budget one hundred thousand dollars and i look at the numbers 40 challenge residents are the maximum they can support so i'm asking that we look at that number some more we want to brag brag on something it is impacting our foreclosure homeless situation when we have landlords still evicting when we have such awesome programs here so i'm saying one hundred thousand is not a good number we need to look at that number special thanks to corey and her team we had a great showing at the public meeting for transit broad for 2040 and it's all about sharing with our communities sometimes they don't hear it the first time the second time around it's more successful so i'm encouraged by doing these little community events and putting hard work into it also thanks to ftz team and oesbd for their efforts we had an amazing inaugural ftz workshop in the city of lauder hill we had over let's say 50 to 60 individuals who came because they wanted information and they felt the resources was in place and they truly did participate so thank you to the team and lastly sports tourism in broward county is here to stay cultural programs remains with the diversity of our community so we have to address it every time we look at our budget and if we truly want to help our residents that needs us the most that can't travel but will stay in their cities and enjoy the events that cities with support from sometimes from the county but when you have a major netball tournament a major 50 plus domino tournament in cities it's bringing tourism because they come from all over the state of florida and sometimes georgia and new york depending on how much you know how we do it so don't diminish the activities of cities it is truly helping the mental capacity of everyone who participate that's a good break to have in our communities so whatever you can do to help us as we look at the budget i'll be talking about that some more because tourism does not always just come from the coastline in central broward we are doing our part and bringing numbers of people into our communities and they're staying in hotels also so i thank you very much and thank you for indulging me early i like always thank you commissioner i see mark gill in the audience uh i i can't i don't have anything sir i'm good are you good yeah i thought yes i was i was i thought you were sleeping so i was leaving you alone no you no you were sleeping i caught you sleeping i see you i was gonna make a joke with you mark but i did jet blue move in already or no all right administrator county administrator no sir we're looking forward to the workshop all right all right mr belton uh just one quick thing on your agenda this morning we had our audit of lost and found and i had quite a few issues in it but i wanted to commend mr gale and also county administration for their responses they everything in the report is either already implemented or in the process of being implemented and they serve as model responses so anyone that's looking on how to respond to an audit this is the example thank you yes senator rich i i want to just say something good about lost and found i i worked with uh with mr gale and with selena who went over and and a friend of mine was going up for a weekend at the at the for the holocaust memorial council for a big event left a suitcase you know on the plane and i i have to tell you and they went up uh on a like a friday morning i guess it was and by friday night this thing this suitcase got got up there got found it had lost and found and taken to jet blue to get back on a plane it was just amazing and mr gale delivered it personally i assume i called him and you know that's it and it it was it was really you know so wonderful to think that we are able to do something like that for somebody that was you know just like in distress he was in a wheelchair and he didn't have anything his clothes anyway it was just it was amazing so thank you so much and please again thank selena we have a workshop we have food waiting uh we're going to room 430 this meeting adjourn