we're going to get started. Whoa. We're going to get started. No play to that. You're coming in looking like a moot? All right. We're going to call to order the executive committee meeting of July 17, 2026. I apologize for the echo. It's bad enough listening to me first. Echo's even worse. Go ahead and call the roll, please. Here. Here. Member Dunn. Here. Member Rydell. Here. Member Me. Here. President. All right. Do we have a quorum? Yes, we do. All right. Let's go ahead and move forward. If you would, please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which you stand. One gate, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. We'll begin with public comment. Richard Ramchartar. Testing. Good morning. Good morning, Chair, Vice Chair, Executive Committee members, Governing Board members, and Municipal Representatives. Today, I encourage every member of city to look beyond short-term uncertainty and focus on the long-term benefits of regional collaboration. The decisions you make today will shape Broward County's solid waste and recycling system for decades to come. The question before us is simple. Are we stronger working together or are we stronger working alone? I believe the answer is clear. Working together provides economies of scale, stronger purchasing power, coordinated long-term planning, shared technical expertise, greater financial stability, and a stronger regional voice. It allows municipalities to develop innovative solutions for waste reduction, recycling, composting, construction and demolition material recovery, public education, and other zero-waste initiatives that are far more effective when pursued as regional partners. I want to especially encourage the City of Miramar to vote yes and maintain its seat at the table. Miramar's voice is important. Your residents deserve representation as regional policies, budgets, infrastructure, investments, and future solid waste strategies are developed. By remaining a member of the authority, Miramar helps shape the future rather than simply reacting to it. Broward County is also fortunate to have experienced local zero-waste professionals available to support its municipalities. As a certified zero-waste professional and member of a nationally recognized consulting team, I have participated in the development of the Miami-Dade County Zero-Waste Master Plan, including the Miami International Airport Closed Recycling Strategy, and our team is currently assisting the Town of Southwest Ranches in developing strategic zero-waste initiatives tailored to its unique rural and agricultural community. Our team stands ready to assist every Broward municipality with zero-waste workshops, stakeholder engagement, strategic planning, cost analyses, technical support, and implementation. The expertise needed to help communities achieve practical, cost-effective zero-waste solutions already exists right here in South Florida. Broward County has the opportunity to become a national leader in sustainable materials management. That future will be built through collaboration, local leadership, and shared commitment to serving our communities. I respectfully encourage the City of Miramar and all remaining Remembers Cities to vote yes, keep your seat at the table, and continue building a stronger, more resilient, and more sustainable Broward County. Thank you. Anyone else who wishes to speak during public comment, please raise your hand or come forward. All right, I'll close public comment. Do I have a motion on the meeting minutes? Motion by Member Horland, second by Member Rydell. Any discussion or comments on the meeting minutes? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. Executive Director update. Just before we get there, I just want to inform everybody that with respect to the Second Amendment, all but four cities who've already approved have passed the Second Amendment, and all four of those cities have it on their agenda before August 14th, and we have no expectation that that will be an issue. We're presently at 79.2%. We have a few more cities coming up in the coming weeks, and I have every expectation we're going to achieve the 80%. At that point, the work begins, and it begins hard. That's where everything's going to start, and so to the credit of Daniel and his team, we've already begun planning for the eventuality of us passing the 80% threshold. When we come back in August, we'll have an initial report on the RFP process, and we'll begin right away. We're not going to wait until September after the August 14th. We'll be ready to go August 21st for a significant discussion on that. I encourage the TAC and the members, the governing board, and the executive committee once you come back from summer break to really take some time to focus on the RFP process, what that looks like, the concerns of your own staff, so that we can make that process as streamlined as possible. Mr. May. Thank you. Thank you, Ronald. You hit a lot of my report there, but I'd also like to get direction from the executive committee to begin preparing the 26-27 budget. I'd like to develop a draft budget with the accountants and consultants for a presentation at the August 21st meeting if I can get that direction. Yeah. Are we all in agreement? Let's get started on that. Okay. All right. So you have the consensus. Anything further? Yes. All right. Perfect. C&D and Commercial Recycling Subcommittee update. Thank you, Chair. We've been working on a couple items, kind of holding fire until the final vote is taken, and until then, we'll have some more. We've been working on the 803, which is going to have an impact on it, and a few other things. Sam, do you have any contributory remarks? So for the members, if you don't know, and I'm sure your cities are already trying to figure out what the impact of House Bill 803 is on your permitting process, it has implications for the C&D process. That is Lee County, which is a permit-based program there's some serious questions about whether we can implement a similar program now after HB 803. Mr. Cole and his office and the county are looking at this, and they're going to be prepared to provide the C&D subcommittee and the TAC a report on that. I would encourage, since you're going to have to know it anyway, for all the members to get with your own staff to understand 803, and it's broad-ranging implications. It's a very large bill, very complex, but it has huge implications for how we move forward on the C&D process. You have a parallel track that you all have been considering. One is a permit-based, and the other is just a direct-haul ban. And so, to your credit, stepping back to make sure we don't put a lot of work into a permit-based process like Lee County, only to find out we're preempted. Exactly. All right. I don't know. Do you want to add anything else to that? Yeah, we are trying to get together with the county attorney's office, so we are having the same opinion as to how we're going to tackle 803 and how we're going to implement C&D ordinance. And to the TAC, since all of the members of the TAC are within municipal administration or county administration, it's going to be very important that their insight and what they've learned from their own staff and from their own loop council become part of that. So, the next TAC meeting, there really should be a very robust discussion about the impact of 803 and what we can do. We have to guard against analysis paralysis on this and have to make some really significant high-level decisions. If it's clear that 803 displaces or preempts, let's not waste time trying to build a permit-based process and let's try to get to it. But I'll rely on the C&D subcommittee and the TAC to bring that forward and at the August 21st meeting, we will need a pretty lengthy report on that. Is that fair? Exactly. Okay. Sam, you want to add anything? No, I think you covered it all. Thank you. Any questions from the members regarding the C&D or 803? Okay. Education and outreach subcommittee update. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are moving forward and we actually have a Q3, Q2 report to share with outcomes. So, please. Good morning. Good morning. Hi, everybody. I'm Haley Nicoletto with Conceptual Communications. Next slide, please. Thank you. Okay. So, first update is with Broward County Public Schools. A representative will be coming to the August Education Outreach Subcommittee meeting to talk through the recycling curriculum rollout timeline. And then in September, our staff is going to be presenting that curriculum to you all at the Executive Committee meeting. And we also have compiled a list of all the private and charter schools in the county as well as we get through, yes. Next slide. All right. An update on the Put Waste in Its Place campaign. All right. So, as you all know, this campaign has been running starting in April. Some big numbers to report. Over 10 million eyes on the authority. This is inclusive of all the traditional media, social media, digital, and influencers that we've worked with. And again, this campaign was run in the target audience groups that the city has identified as their hard-to-reach areas. Elisa, if you could please play. This is an example with Nikki Says YOLO and Island TV Network. So good. Such a good piece. Yes. So, thank you to them and all of our partners that we worked with on this campaign to really amplify the message. Next slide. All right. And I want to give a shout-out to the League of Women Voters, the Sierra Club, and Climate Reality Project. Yes. Big claps. For writing a joint op-ed. And then our three... Yep. Shout-out. And our three high school... You guys have done a great job at all these commission meetings. Just unbelievable. Yeah. Okay. And another round of applause for our three high school students from American Heritage and Plantation and Western High School and Davie. They also wrote and submitted a joint op-ed to the Sun-Sentinel in support. Yeah. Good job. And then finally, also not pictured here, but Linda Thompson-Gonzalez with the League of Women Voters also wrote and submitted an op-ed to the New Pelican newspaper in support of the authority. So we are very thankful for that. All of them. Okay. Next slide, please. Quick update on the pledge. We have crossed the 1,000 mark of pledges and counting with Plantation, Hollywood, and Fort Lauderdale leading the way. And then finally, just a... Yes. I'm sending an email right now. Sorry. QR code is large. Please scan. If anyone has not taken it yet, take the time now to scan the QR code and take the pledge, please. Thank you. At sunrise.com. Okay. And then last piece, fiscal year to date, huge number, huge reach of the authority getting the message out there. 38.3 million. A lot of that coming from the earned media across radio, TV, print, and opportunities that a lot of you have been a part of. I do want to shout out that number right there, the total AVE. That's the added value. It's over 1 million. It's what it would have cost if we had paid for that coverage. But all of that was through earned efforts. And then lastly, I hope you don't mind, Chair Ryan, but I would want to skip ahead in this piece to the 2 minute, 35 second mark so we can just play the little bit with our Fort Lauderdale High School student, his interview. It is a 5 minute long segment, so I want to give him some shout out time. And it replayed multiple times. We can pause it now. Thank you. And that's my report. So first of all, I want to thank you and your team. There's a lot of work that goes into getting these spots and getting folks ready to be part of this and to keep everyone on message and to focus on it. And it's been throughout the community, small papers and obviously television media. It's been comprehensive from encouraging the op-eds from different groups that have been supportive of this to the effort to engage directly with the newspapers and make sure they're fully aware and updated on what's happening. It's been very transparent and there's been plenty of opportunity to have more and more discussions on it. And I particularly appreciate the effort to try to include the various members of the executive committee and the governing board in their opportunities to be able to speak because they've all worked so hard and all know passionately why this is important those that have passed it. So we'll continue to do that because our work is just getting started after we get by August 14th and this effort is going to need to be sustained. So we truly appreciate your not only the work you're doing but also the guidance you give us on where we should be going. Let's give them a big round of applause for that. Thank you. And don't go anywhere so we can turn it over to the chair. You said it all chair. So kudos and one of the things that I think is so powerful about this campaign is multi-layered and we've considered all of the voices and make sure that we have messaging targeting to them and we're meeting people where they are. So the committee now is anticipating a win. We're starting to think through what's the next phase and so that's the conversation that we'll be having at our next education and outreach meeting. Thank you Mr. Chair. Thank you Madam Chair before you we're not going to close up we have some more comments on this. I want to point out the work that the education subcommittee which was the first subcommittee really started was credit to the governing board and the executive committee understanding how important education was from the outside. There was a very brief period of time where folks would say hey but isn't education important and we could say we're already doing that now they don't ask that question anymore. This has been an investment not only in getting to yes because that's not really the big issue it's about why this is important and the education subcommittee has done a lot of work untold hours and efforts and analyzing and moving money around and trying to pivot when necessary and to your committee to everyone involved and the consultants that's exactly what we're going to need to keep doing going forward so we thank you for your leadership let's give her a round of applause for that. and having those students on there particularly McHale and there was another girl on Lily Reed they're the actual representatives for students on the school board so they represent all the students they're actually representatives like we are you know and they're going to help push this thing through all the things that the school board needs to be looking at because I do think that's our kind of first line of attack in terms of being able to get everybody on board with this and they are fantastic speakers both of them so I am so glad to see their part of the school board has a student government association that has every school almost like what we have here they have all this presence of their student government and those two are the ones that represent them so it's like having you know some really great allies on board all right any further comments from the members okay thank you very much all right new and old business informational any new or old business anyone wishes to raise member Horland thank you mr. chair i just want to make a couple of comments and kind of following up on our acknowledgement of our public that it's been supporting us this road to yes has been long it has been insightful but some of these meetings there was one meeting recently where we were there for seven and a half hours so it hasn't been easy but what i want to say is we showed up in support of the swa and also to show respect for the member cities when we're asking for their support but the team of the stephanie stephanie jaffe stephanie pearson dr julie long and linda thompson gonzalez have showed up and stayed with us throughout these meetings when they didn't have to and susan steinhauser yes i'm sorry because susan was with us also in parkland the other night so i just really want to thank you from the bottom of my heart your unwavering support for this such an important generational decision has not gone unnoticed and we appreciate you sitting there with us when we were hungry and we're eating altoid mints to get us through the meeting but really i just i want to thank you publicly for your support and your dedication to this and then mr chair i'd like to ask if we add an item to the agenda in september i think that when we hired mr may we did not have the consideration at that point that we would have this opt-out second amendment opt-out agreement so i'd like to have an item on the september agenda where we negotiate a contract for mr may to stay on to get us through this next phase okay perfect we'll put that on the agenda thank you sir while we're acknowledging i do need to acknowledge the broward league and its effort to feed us with altoids throughout these meetings that went very long thank you mary lou and we'll make sure to resupply your altoids to the folks that as member horland said who have been showing up if we go back in time it was not certain you'd be standing there shoulder to shoulder with us there was a lot of doubt about where this was going and what the focus would be what our mission was and what ultimately this master plan would look like i say that because it's not just you but the business community as well had its own doubts but through your effort of being here at all of these meetings being engaged reading the materials understanding what we're trying to do to your credit and the credit of the swa we've been able to galvanize a community from those who are most concerned about the environmental issues to those that are most concerned about the economic issues and that's a very unique position to be in and as member horland said you've been to more of the city commission meetings than i have i'm sure you have a lot of insight now on how you think meetings should be run i look forward to hearing that but i i we could not emphasize more not only your support but your continued engagement your effort to make sure that we're considering new ideas and what needs to be included and that will continue through this process so there will not be a moment at august 14th where your effort your work and your support stops we're going to need to continue that so thank you again let's give them another big round of applause for that well done i want to add one one other while we're praising everybody is brower league of cities you guys have done you know from the minute from the from way back when when you convened all the cities i'm looking you mayor but when you convened us that i can't remember the hotel well there was a couple of them that you kept pulling everybody into and just getting this thing started that's almost 10 years ago almost 10 years ago but i have also noticed while we've gone from city to city that you have met you have been contacting people different commissioners because you have your own way of doing things and it has been it has made a huge difference because you've been able to kind of help us navigate you know the different commissions and different personalities and things like that so i just want to you know could not have done it without you all thank you well done okay i think she's on a conference call that's why she can't participate good thing we don't yeah on property tax yeah she's off what's going on with that is there something going on with property taxes all right um okay any further business you have a motion to adjourn motion by member dunn second by member katiana all in favor say aye aye we're right on time we've got two minutes before the governing board you can talk it's not a library it's okay i'm gonna call to order the solid waste authorities governing board meeting of july 17 2026 if you would please call the roll chair ryan present vice chair for member sorenson member shoeham member colborne member sarah online present via phone member luis here i'm sorry member luis we hadn't set up yet for the governing board just have a seat anywhere you want come sit over here come sit with us sorry member lewis member horland member drosky member dunn member patterson member mead member caggiano present member rydell here member ernst member bordelin member murphy solomone here member thomas present member curran member aj ryan member eva yard member newton member stafford here member brightcruz here member strauss member morissette member rovanese thank you member tomlinson i do not see any other alternates online are there any alternates that i have not called thank you we do not have quorum but let me just make a comment on that that's not a reflection on lack of commitment or dedication of the governing board the governing board when it was structured was meant to meet maybe twice a year and at the request of the members we've added more meetings and we are in the middle of july and most folks are gone and we understand that but to the credit of the executive committee we did have a quorum and to the credit of those that have attended on behalf of the governing board so we can continue to have a discussion we just won't be able to vote on any items so we'll go ahead and proceed with public comment we'll go ahead and have an update for the members that weren't here for the executive committee so public comment stephanie pearson oh first let's do the pledge i apologize please stand for the pledge and you can stand while you're here steph you can you can lead us if you like all right back to public comment thank you for leading the pledge stephanie pearson legal women voters first of all thank you very much for all your kind words it's very gratifying working with you all on such an important project and we will continue to help you in the future as much as we can when this whole process started about eight years ago with the solid waste working group and especially the past three years with the solid waste authority of broward county it seemed an impossible task to create a uniform county wide solid waste plan based on zero waste principles not just to burn everything and try to landfill everything but to develop programs to reduce waste reuse and effectively recycle what we can the master plan is flexible able to take advantage of evolving technologies and the cities are in control we desperately need this plan to manage our enormous amount of solid waste and to control costs we are now so close to making it a reality thank you to all of you our dedicated elected representatives of our cities the county leadership you have been patient creative and welcoming to all thank you also to our schools local industry city and county staff for all that you've done to those few cities which have votes coming up please vote yes you will benefit we will all benefit and it will give you a seat at the table to those cities which are not part of the ILA take this opportunity to join as well we'd like to see all our common amenities the airport the seaport our hospitals and our parks all with the same messaging and programs it will clear up the confusion and distrust that exists in our communities making it all more successful we need everyone and we can't afford to fail thank you very much thank you Stephanie Jaffe I'd like to echo what Stephanie said this to me is a no-brainer but but I'm really here just to thank you all for your incredibly hard work and dedication to getting TS we're almost there I know politicians always take a pledge to work for their constituents but you've gone way beyond expectations a special shout out to Commissioner Horland Mary Lou Tye has been to every single meeting Mayor Ryan Sam May Commissioner Ferb you guys spoke at almost every commission meeting and I'm sure spent countless hours working behind the scenes to get us TS also our unsung hero Elisa Jones who advocated for the master plan at innumerable fairs in 95 degree heat over the past few months and Commissioner Dunn and Mayor Bright Cruz who have already rolled out a fabulous education plan for the schools and the community I think I speak for many of us here when I say how grateful we are for your hard work listening to the public like Stephanie said you know when we first started this we never dreamed how things that were important to us would be listened to and incorporated and to me this has just been an amazing partnership yeah so including us in this effort I've never been so proud of my elected officials we're almost to yes and it's because of you so thank you all thank you Stephanie Richard yes good morning I'd like to highlight Chair Ryan's comments about us not all being on the same board at the beginning thank you to the Solid Waste Authority for listening and partnering with concerned citizens and businesses I believe it is important once we get past this finish line and we have a Solid Waste Authority I believe it is important that we have an honest and balanced discussion about the future of waste management in Broward County residents deserve transparency regarding costs service levels and implementation timelines however we must also avoid creating unnecessary fear by suggesting that approval of this master plan automatically means every resident will experience reduced garbage collection or that every municipality will immediately be required to implement a green bin program the master plan is a regional strategy designed to address a very real challenge Broward County generates millions of tons of waste annually while existing disposal capacity is becoming increasingly constrained the purpose of this effort is to reduce dependence on landfilling and waste energy trash incineration through increased recycling recovery and diversion strategies at the same time taxpayer concerns must be taken seriously any future organics collection program including potential green bin services must include a thorough cost benefit analysis transparent financial planning contamination reduction strategies and meaningful public engagement a zero-waste strategy should not simply shift costs onto residents it should demonstrate long-term value through avoided disposal costs resource recovery compost production and environmental benefits the conversation should also recognize that food scraps and other organics represent one of the largest opportunities for diversion sending these materials to disposal facilities waste valuable resources that can instead support soil health agriculture and a circular economy the question before us is not whether change has a cost the question is whether we are willing to invest responsibly today to avoid much larger costs tomorrow as disposal capacity becomes more limited I encourage the Broward Solid Waste Authority to continue providing municipality and residents with clear information about projected costs and funding sources which programs are mandatory versus optional how service levels will be protected how equity and affordability will be addressed and how performance will be measured Broward County has an opportunity to become a leader in modern waste management but success will require trust transparency and a commitment to data-driven decisions thank you thank you Richard all right any further public comments if so raise your hand or come forward or close public comments executive director update for those members that weren't here just to let you know where we're at we are really close we're at 79.2% next coming week we will have it and all of the cities that have passed the facilities amendment have passed the second amendment with the exception of four cities and all of those cities have it on their agenda to Sam's credit he's had to work the phones a whole second time to make sure the facilities amendment gets on there we are on course to meet the conditional passage by the cities that required that to be done by August 14th and I feel very comfortable that with Sam's effort Lisa's effort and others that we will have that done that's pretty much the update we do have the second amendment the last voting date will be August 13th and that will seal the deal and the county signed it as well just FYI so thank you we saw that come through any questions from the members for Mr. May okay Cohen Resnick financial statements June 2026 and as he comes forward we've given direction to the executive director during the executive committee meeting to begin working on the budget and to present that on August 21st as a draft budget we work together with Cohen Resnick to see where we are go ahead and give us the financial sir thank you Alex Patron here from the accounting firm of Cohen Resnick here today to discuss the financial position of Broward SWA as of the end of June 2026 the authority had cash and cash equivalents at the end of the month at two totaling $2,832,000 it's accounts receivable balances stood at $186,000 down significantly from the previous month of $668,000 as there was significant collection activity in the month of June when subtracting the entity's liabilities from their assets the authority's net equity position stood at $2,883,000 the authority recently completed its second fiscal year audited financial statements with the SCPA firm Citrin Cooperman we expect a clean audit opinion also known as an unqualified audit opinion based on its current financial position Broward SWA does have sufficient liquidity to meet its budgetary spending needs through the fiscal year ending September of 2026 all right thank you any questions on the financial thank you sir we did have a presentation remember Thomas I hesitate to go back through we had a presentation from the education committee I would encourage we can do it because it was really great but I would encourage you to get with conceptual really powerful videos and some discussions about where we are on that in addition on the C&D subcommittee which has been working hard they've had to pause to wait for legal advice because of House Bill 803 which preempts a lot of permitting so as the TAC and the C&D subcommittee continue to work on that with legal counsel to figure out whether or not we could still use an analogy or equivalent of the Lee County permitting process versus a different model for it so they're going to report to us all on August 21st I don't know if remember Thomas you have any questions or any concerns otherwise okay one thing that we should think about we don't have a governing board meeting in August I think it would be advisable on the 21st to combine that with a governing board meeting because we're going to be moving rapidly once we move forward we had not planned to do it initially but I think it might be advisable to do so depending on the will of the governing board that's here we don't need a motion or anything it's just a matter of setting it but what are the members feelings on that I'm on vacation and I'll be seen on the seas with my husband fair enough perhaps your alternate to the governing board could attend I think there's going to be a lot of reporting and a lot of discussions about the timelines the work effort on the 21st can we come with you it hadn't crossed my mind until you said it so now I don't think you protested too much I think we should still do it and make the effort to do it there will be plenty of members that will have some insight and there's some other broader discussions we're going to need to talk about in governance that we need to at least begin initiating that what anybody have any objection to us trying to schedule that Mr. Chair I think that'd be a great idea because as you heard us say that we're going to try and engage by our county schools too for the August meeting that's a great it'd be good to have everybody's thoughts and input okay all right so Mr. May will will work with the council to notice that and notice it as a governing board meeting and get everyone on any additional new or old business questions all right this is the least work the governing boards had to do so I I'm grateful to the members who've come I hope it was helpful today with nothing else do I have a motion to adjourn motion by member Dante by member Catiano all in favor say aye all right we're adjourned we're adjourned we're adjourned we're adjourned we're adjourned we're adjourned we're adjourned we're adjourned we're adjourned we're adjourned we're adjourned we're adjourned we're adjourned we're adjourned we're adjourned we're adjourned we're adjourned we're adjourned we're adjourned we're adjourned we're adjourned we're adjourned we're adjourned we're adjourned we're 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