Hey, good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the City Commission Conference meeting this May 5th, 2026. Thank you all for being here today. We have quite a bit to cover today. Can you all hear me? Okay, maybe I should just speak into the microphone. Anyway, we have a lot to cover this afternoon, a lot of presentations, so why don't we just get started? City Manager, well set. City Attorney, okay. All right, so let me, thank you. Okay, so let us begin. So we'll begin with the City Commission reports. Commissioner. Mayor Trantales, would you like to begin with the CRA agenda since it's noticed first? It's just one item. It's noticed first. Okay, that is true. All right, let us begin with that. So we will suspend the conference meeting for the moment, and we'll convene the CRA board meeting. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. Commissioner Herbst. Present. Commissioner Glassman. Here. Commissioner Beasley-Pittman. Here. Vice Chair Sorensen. Here. Chair Trantales. Here. Start with M1. Motion approving the minutes for the March 19, 2026 Community Redevelopment Agency board meeting. Would someone like to move that item? Moved. Second. Moved and seconded. Please call the roll. Commissioner Herbst. Yes. Commissioner Glassman. Yes. Commissioner Beasley-Pittman. Yes. Vice Chair Sorensen. Yes. Chair Trantales. Yes. And M1 is now approved. Moving on to R1. This is a resolution approving the addition of the Property Safety Enhancement Program to the Community Redevelopment Agency Incentive Programs, authorizing funding for the program and delegating authority to the Executive Director to execute the related documents. Does anyone have any questions with regard to R1? Mayor, I'm asking if we could have CRA Manager to come and just expound on this a little bit more for the neighbors who would be fully aware of how it works. Sure. Thank you. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone. Vanessa Martin, Acting CRA Manager. So, the program was established. We're very excited. It's for Central City and Northwest, where everyone can be eligible to receive up to $10,000 for property enhancement, security enhancement features. We're just asking whoever receives the award that they maintain the security enhancement features with their building over the course of the time to be forgiven. So, give us an example of security enhancement features. So, we partnered with the police department, whereby they're going to go in and provide an assessment of what security enhancements may be needed. So, an example would be, so, tree hedging or cutting down for visibility to deter crime, or coming in and making sure we have motion detectors or lighting, or any of those features within the building, so that we can, you know, make sure that, you know, we can deter the crime that comes within the CRA boundaries. Okay. Do you have any further questions, Commissioner? No other questions. Thank you for expounding. Okay. Very good. Mayor, I had a question on that. Yes, go ahead. Thanks. One other question for you on this, and maybe for City Manager as well, is fire sprinklers. So, someone reached out to me interested in a project that would cost more than the $10,000. So, what my ask is, is there, could that, could we increase that allowance for fire suppression or maybe the other components? Well, right now the cap is at $10,000, and we would probably have to revisit that at a later date. But aren't we approving that now? Yeah. So, we can amend it because we are allocating additional funds for fiscal year 2027. But right now, the cap is at $10,000, so there aren't any excess funds available for that feature. Okay. So, City Manager. So, there are various projects that could be eligible for funding under this program, and those are listed in Exhibit 2, I'm sorry, Exhibit 5, page 12 of your backup. I think that the fire safety systems, signage alarms, sprinkler systems, panic buttons, and such, fall under the general category of security measures. Right now, the program is established, whereas in the focus area, an applicant could receive up to $10,000, and then within the broader boundaries of the CRA district, the applicant could receive a lesser amount of $7,500. Yes. If the commission sought to promote a certain safety or security measure above another, I think that's certainly within the purview of the commission. I think that perhaps for those projects that are within the boundaries but not within the focus area, maybe if there is a fire suppression element as part of that project, then maybe they could go up to that $10,000 max as opposed to the $7,500. That might be one way to address it. Right. What if it's a higher need than $10,000? That's what I'm asking. Could that be increased? Well, the current budget allocation for the central city is $150,000. And then for the NPF district, it's $130,000 for a combined total of $280,000. So I think the intent was to implement a cap that would allow as much participation as possible, but if the commission wanted to increase the cap, we would just get the consensus from the commission to do so. And I think that's something that could be implemented. Okay. Okay. That's fine. Then I'll kind of come back with that. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Any questions? Okay. There being none, someone would like to introduce the resolution? Introduced. Resolution has been introduced. Please call the roll. A resolution of the Board of Commissioners of the Fort Lauderdale Community Redevelopment Agency approving the Property Safety Enhancement Program for the Northwest Progressive Flagler Heights Community Redevelopment Area and the Central City Community Redevelopment Area delegating authority to the Executive Director to approve all awards and execute any and all agreements relating to such awards under the program providing for an effective date. Commissioner Herbst? Yes. Commissioner Glassman? Yes. Commissioner Beasley-Pittman? Yes. Vice Chair Sorensen? Yes. Chair Trent Tauss? Yes. And R1 is now approved. Is there any further business of the CRA, CRA Director? None. Okay. All right. That meeting is now concluded. Now we'll return to the conference meeting, and we'll begin with Commission Reports. Commissioner Herbst. Thank you, Mayor. Do you have an announcement to make? I do. So we have a former resident of District 1. Her name was Mary Cotton, and she was a resident of Coral Ridge Isles. She was a welcoming ambassador, a friend, and tireless advocate for the neighborhood. She was an award-winning realtor since 1996, and she worked in Coral Ridge Isles and loved that community very deeply. She's passed away, and the neighborhood has asked if we could name a street in her honor as a tribute to her contributions to the neighborhood and as a lasting legacy for her. They're looking to do this on 60th Street, as Mary lived on that street for many years and spent a lot of time welcoming newcomers into the home, into the neighborhoods, hosting neighborhood gatherings, and helping to make the streets very festive around the holidays. And so I'm just asking my commission would support this on behalf of Coral Ridge Isles and Mary Cotton. Thank you. So isn't there a process that we follow to make that happen? I think there's like a formal request to a certain department. Who's in charge of that? So as I understand, there's two processes. There's ones that can be initiated by the neighborhood, and there's another one that could be initiated by a district commissioner. And so that's why they've asked me if I would advance this. And I see Ben Rogers and Milos Mastorovic coming forward, but I think what we would need is consensus from the commission to take one of those approaches. Good afternoon, everyone. Ben Rogers, Assistant City Manager. You are correct, Commissioner Herbst. There is a policy in place that follows the protocol if the neighborhood is requesting it. If it requests from the body of the commission, then the process will be followed, and we can just move straight into the renaming process. So we would be seeking city commission commission direction on that action. So what segment of 60th Street would be named after her? I guess this is my first question. So I guess that would be something that we would explore once we decide whether or not we wanted to move forward with this as a body. Then we could explore the exact area and then sort of take it from there. Is that typically how it's done? That's correct. If you want to turn it over to staff, we can reach out. We can get the boundaries. We can talk through. We get a narrative of the background of the person, the character, the impact of the neighborhood, and then provide that to the commission for future consideration. All right. Sounds good. Sounds good with me. Thank you very much. I appreciate the support. Sure. Does that complete your report? Yes, it does. Okay. Commissioner Beasley-Pittman. Mayor, could you come back to me? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Glassman. Yes. Thank you, Mayor. Good afternoon, everyone. Always busy in District 2. Just a couple of highlights. On April 22nd, I had the pleasure of joining about 150 real estate agents from 1 Sotheby's. It was a very fascinating discussion about the markets, particularly the luxury real estate market and the folks from around the world that seem to be finding their way to Fort Lauderdale. And I want to just say thank you to them for the invitation to participate on that panel. It was really quite an interesting evening. April 28th, I had the absolute pleasure. Mayor, I know that you were also there. We were at the Chabad Las Olas Jewish Center on Las Olas Boulevard, paying tribute to folks that make the Friendship Circle happen for the Chabad. For those of you that do not know the program that they do there, this is all about assisting young adults with special needs, or as I like to say, unique abilities. They actually operate a restaurant right next door to the Chabad, and the school is incredible. The students are incredible. Listening to these young adults speak at this thank you lunch to the businesses that make their school possible, it was very touching. It was really a beautiful afternoon, and those young people, the words that they spoke and how they told their stories about how never really feeling listened to or wanted or never a purpose, their parents talked about how they really just slept all day. Now, these young adults actually spoke to a rather large crowd. The synagogue was full and just talked about the joy that they feel now and the friends that they have and the purpose and all of the skills that they are actually learning. It was really a really beautiful afternoon, so I wanted to say thank you to the rabbi and his wife and the entire group of folks that were there. Many businesses were there that support this effort. So congratulations and thank you to them for making this possible. April 29th, I had the pleasure of speaking on a panel. This was the Realtors Association from Broward, Palm Beach, and Port St. Lucie. They're also about to join with Miami, and they will be the largest association of its kind, I think, in the country. We had an excellent discussion, basically looking at how realtors can act as stewards of their community. We talked about primarily the role of historic preservation and neighborhood identity, and also making sure that these realtors knew what that really meant, how local history and historic preservation can really affect the redevelopment, and also talked about that in terms of real estate values. It was a very interesting discussion, excellent panel, and I wanted to thank the association, the Realtors Association, for inviting me to be a part of that. That night I also spoke at the Las Olas Isles Homeowners Association. This is their annual meeting, and I must take a moment to thank the chief of police, also Chief Greenlaw, and the entire team that they brought along. There were a lot of concerns from all of these aisles about what's happening in terms of just security and public safety, and they had a lot of questions. They've never had an opportunity to really just sit and chat with the chief and everyone else on that team. So I really wanted to say thank you to our incredible police department who spent more than an hour at this meeting, kicking off their annual homeowners association meeting, fielding just an entire variety of questions, and really giving the folks a comfort level. I heard from many, many people on those eight streets that make up that association about how really impressed they were and how really very, very satisfied and happy they were that the police actually spent, as opposed to just giving the crime stats for the last month or two, actually getting into the weeds and talking to them for over an hour. So thank you for that. Also that night, we had the District 2 water billing informational meeting with our neighbors at Holiday Park. April 30th, I wanted to thank staff for the excellent presentation that we had at the Beach Community Center. We looked at the Sunrise Lane Improvement Project, which is about 60% design now. This was a project that really came from the ground up. We had had so many charrettes over the last couple of years talking about how we can really make that corner special. For those of you that don't know, that's right by Sunrise and A1A. It really has a certain charm. It's almost like the Greenwich Village, I think, its look of the beach, of the beach area. And we're going to really make it so much nicer. The plans are great for the streetscape improvement. Excellent feedback that night from the neighbors, and I'm hoping that staff took really good notes. I know that we did, because we need to tweak the presentation just a little bit as we head towards 90% design. May 2nd, a lot of fun this past Saturday at Holiday Park. As many of you know, we are building a brand-new YMCA, along with a Broward Health facility, right at the entrance to Holiday Park. And the YMCA hosted a Little Builders Fun Fest. It was a really nice, nice program for the children, because they really had a very hands-on learning experience of what it is to design and build a facility such as this. And all of the activities were geared towards making them feel that they had such a good part to play in the feedback and how we were going to do this. They even got a chance to, you know, paint their hands into a steel beam, a handprint, which will be used in the YMCA in the construction. So I wanted to thank staff. I wanted to thank the YMCA, Cheryl Woods, and also Broward Health for that. It was really a great, great, great activity, and the kids really had a good time. Upcoming tomorrow, we have our annual Fallen Officers Memorial Ceremony right over here at Esplanade Park. It was a very moving ceremony and so really very important. May 7th, Thursday night, I will be speaking at the Chairman's Circle Reception at the International Swimming Hall of Fame. This is a very big networking event for not just the Chamber, but everyone involved in the Swimming Hall of Fame. We'll also see a, the feature of the evening will be the signing of ISHOP's first athlete, James Lichtenstein, who I believe is the top male diver in the United States. He will be present. There will also be a dive show, and that should be a really nice evening for the Greater Fort Laurel Chamber of Commerce's Circle Reception. Looking forward to that. This weekend, we know we have our air show on the beach, always a great event. I'm sure they'll start flying over probably Thursday, and we'll see the rehearsals. May 11th, as you know, we have several bridges that are getting rehabilitated over the Intracosal Waterway, particularly Las Olas and Sunrise. We've gone through all of the charrettes for Las Olas, and on May 11th, we will have a discussion of the Sunrise Bridge and what's going to happen there. There'll be a 5 o'clock virtual meeting, and then just like we did with Las Olas, there'll be a 6 o'clock in-person meeting at ArtServe. Wednesday, May 13th, we have the groundbreaking ceremony for the pantry lofts on 6th, so I'm really looking forward to that. It's been a while. That's a great project, affordable housing project, and we'll be having that this coming, what is that, May 6th. I'm sorry, May 13th, Wednesday, May 13th. I would also like to add to the moment of silence this evening, if that's possible. He recently passed away, Joseph Amaturo, for those of you that attend the theater right here at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. There are two theaters across the street. One is the Amaturo Theater, and one is the Aureen Theater. Joseph Amaturo was an amazing person in Fort Lauderdale. He just passed away at 102 years of age. A pioneer in radio and television, bless you, a pioneer in radio and television broadcasting, he built quite a fortune, and yet he always gave back. He always said that wealth was a tool for service, and he used that wealth with his foundation that was established in 1986. It focused on a wide range of missions, particularly arts, elementary school literacy, high school, university, Catholic education, and also a focus on at-risk and homeless youth. That foundation is still in existence, still contributing to all of those causes. His wife, Winnie, still survives him, and he actually, the Amaturo Theater across the way, he had that named in honor of his parents. So I just wanted to add his name for this evening. He was really quite a citizen in Fort Lauderdale. And my last thing is a comment. I know I brought this up before. I still continue to hear from condominium associations about this issue of the BDA systems and how they're finding this a really tough road to navigate, facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs, not getting the answers that they want from all of the vendors that are out there, not feeling that people are being honest with them in terms of what they can do. They believe they can just do these simple little booster programs on a floor or two in a building, not have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a new system. A lot of misinformation out there. So I'm going to again ask, where are we in making sure that we, and I believe it is our responsibility to make sure that our first responders can communicate with each other? I still do not understand why this onus is being placed on all of these buildings, and they're all getting a wide, wide range of information. I believe that we should be doing a better job with our cell towers. We should be ensuring that our first responders can communicate whenever they need to communicate, with whomever they need to communicate if they go into a building. And I'm asking again, what are we doing? Are we making any progress to assist these many, many, many buildings that are facing a hardship with this? At a time when they are already facing an incredible hardship with everything else that's coming on top of them from the state, with all of the mandates, with all of the special assessments, with the 40-year renewals of their buildings, with all of the property insurance rises for the condominium buildings, and really just the structural integrity reserve studies, all of these mandates on top of them from Tallahassee. And now we're saying to them, well, our first responders aren't really getting a good signal, so do you mind spending $200,000 or $300,000 to boost your signal in your building? There's just something wrong here, and yet I'm not getting any updates on this at all, and I've been asking about it for months and months and months. Chief, do you have any response to that? Thank you, Commissioner. While the chief is coming forward, I do want to share that we have recently concluded negotiations for the city's P25 radio system, and we will be bringing that to the commission for consideration at the next meeting. Chief Golan, would you come forward and share any information you may have? Exactly what the city manager said. We're one meeting away. You know, I think if you look at what has been accomplished over the last year since this problem has been brought to light, it's a multifocal response based upon IT being a part of the solution and then fire rescue having the enforcement side of it. The state laws have not changed in any way. They still require that radio communication to be in place, and then also the county ordinances are in place as well that are requiring this. What we are seeing a lot is with emergency life safety systems inspections that are taking place, we're starting to see more of these coming in. As they progress through the process, there's a very detailed, there's a very robust communication that helps them through it. From once they start to put the plan in all the way through, our fire prevention bureau and also the IT department are there to help them through it. Just going over, you know, some of the last year, we've crafted handouts and disseminated them to the community. We've had webinars. The fire inspectors are providing communication in the field. We've gone out and offered to do free inspections to see what buildings are needed or not needed after the fire inspectors have been there. We've authored LTCs and getting us all the way to the point to where we're at now. The final piece of this is the enhancements to our current radio system, which you should be seeing come next meeting. And I appreciate that, all of that, and I understand all of that. And I can't think of anything more important than that public safety, especially in these mid to high rises. But still, I'm not getting the answer. What is being told or how are the associations finding any financial relief in terms of what they're still being told they need to do? And then when they go out on their own and try and engage with these different vendors, they're just getting, you know, a plethora of solutions that it's very hard for them to understand. And it's still everything you just said and everything you just said, city manager, it's great. But it's not helping the bottom line of these kind of minimum associations. It's just not because no one is giving them that piece. No one is helping them with that piece. And I'm still not understanding. I've asked for this to be part of our legislative package lobbying in Tallahassee. I have never seen that. I don't know why. I've spoken to our state reps, but we're just not getting any movement on this at all. We should be coordinating with the county. We should be talking. Staff should be working with the county and the state and really making sure that people understand these financial pressures that this is bringing upon all of these residents. That's the missing piece. Not everything that you just went through. I love everything you went through. But it's not the piece that matters to the folks that are saying we can't afford $200,000, $300,000 in our building. That's all. Commissioner, when this was brought up recently, it was recommended that we include language in our legislative package to account for this issue. And we did take those steps. We also explored utilization of building fund revenue in order to offset costs for these buildings. And the opinion on that was that the city could not utilize that revenue source. On tonight's agenda, you will notice in the budget amendment, there is an item related to the radio communications project, which we feel is the city's best opportunity to try to mitigate this issue. We don't know that it will be the end-all, be-all, but we know that there should be some significant improvements. So when all of the buildings, they get inspected, what, once a year? Yes, sir. And then they get maybe up to a year to show some sort of progress on this whole BDA system? The other part of that is a lot of them are at that 40-year life cycle where they're going through their ELSS. And so that would also be a part of that inspection that's taking place. Right. So what are we doing to communicate, because I'm sure this is just not my district issue, what are we doing to communicate with all of these building associations and saying, hey, we're doing all of these things, and we're really hoping that this will help mitigate this issue. We're really hoping that this will increase the signal capacity so that we are able to communicate from your building, wherever you're having a problem before, on floor two, floor three, in a stairwell, whatever. What are we doing to educate and also give these folks a little help in knowing that we're working on it? Because this, to me, is really a citywide issue. It's not, I mean, I know I have a lot of condominiums in my district, but it's citywide. So city staff conducted an educational webinar on this matter a few months ago, and we could certainly have another round of that. We could also produce collateral that we could share with these building associations. You know, whatever avenue to educate, I think we're open to that, and we're hopeful that it is actually yielding results in terms of these building associations understanding their options and where the city stands. In addition to what the city manager had said, I would also like to encourage the community to call the fire marshal's office. That's what we're there for. We're there to answer their questions. We're able to help them navigate it. We have a robust website. Just call us. They can send us e-mails. However they feel most comfortable communicating with the fire marshal's office, we're there for them. See, also the missing piece in this, and we have never really discussed this at length, but when some of these vendors come in and explain to them what they'll do for that $200,000 or $300,000, it's always involving, like, structural work, like, because it's, for some reason, these systems, they're not wireless. It's like you would think that technology today could fix this easily, both on our end and on their end, but it's not that simple. And these vendors are telling them, well, we have to go through the rebar and we have to wire here, and that makes some of these buildings very nervous and very afraid that there's going to be this structural work done to wire this system through floors, to wire this system when they don't even want all of that drilling. They don't want anything to happen, the integrity of the rebar or anything else structurally. That makes folks really uncomfortable when these vendors are telling them that's what we have to do to fix this system, to install this system. We've got to do all of this wiring. I mean, it's complicated. And I just don't think that we as a city are appreciating this kind of issue that's happening right now. That's all. I have a question along those lines. So just walk me through the process, Chief. So when we upgrade our comms system and that's in place, do we then go out to condominiums to evaluate what impact that's having on comms throughout that building? So during their annual fire inspection, or should we have an incident at that location? Right. If a radio failure is reported, at that time, then we go back and we get the IT team in place and then start to look for a solution for that building. What we're looking at is failures within the elevator shafts, emergency stairwells. Commissioner Glassman's 100% right on the systems and what's required of the systems. But the importance of these systems is that they have to be operational while the building is on fire. So there are fire ratings on the wires. It's not just normal wires. They have to be in conduit that the fire can't get through. There's fire stops when they're going through walls. There's all kinds of things to take place to make sure that we're able to effectively communicate when the building is at the worst possible scenario it could be in. Okay. So that's needed if our comms system does not work. Is that right? Do you want to take the comms? You said if the comms system doesn't work? Correct. So those things are to make sure that it does work. Please introduce yourself. Please introduce yourself. I'm sorry. Ron McKenzie, Chief Information Officer, Director of IT. And your question was if the comms don't work, those systems are in place to make sure that it does work. It's a backup to make sure things are working or to make sure that things are clear. So that way, like he was saying, in those areas that are a little bit more volatile, stairways, elevators, et cetera, to make sure that the signal can get to them. And that signal has to be there. That's why it's wired in as opposed to anything. In its worst conditions, it has to be able to connect and make sure that people are saying, okay, this is what's going on for the safety of not only the people in the building but of our prior people who are actually helping them out. Okay. So if I heard you right, you're saying it's the wired system is a backup to the primary comm system. And I misspoke. That wired system is part of the system to make sure that it can go through. That's what we're saying. When those changes are done in the building is to make sure that the signal is there no matter what. In its worst condition, the signal is there. So do you need the wired infrastructure regardless of the wireless comms? Only in those, no, in those places where the signal does not go because it's not able to be wireless, then you need a wired system to make sure that it happens. Great. So will we not know if wireless comms work until we've upgraded to the wireless comms system? You're saying will it be improved? I think that's what you're saying. Exactly. Once it's improved, what will happen is the signal will be stronger going into the building, right? So for the most part of the whole city of Fort Lauderdale, it will be stronger. The makeup of that particular building may stop the signal from transversing through the building to see what's going on. And you won't know that until that happens. Great. So in other words, condos don't know if our upgraded system will improve comms in their building or not. We won't know until we install it. Is that right? Correct. Okay. So it may significantly improve comms in many buildings. Correct. It may have very little impact in some buildings, right? Correct. So should buildings then, I don't know if they're even by law and so forth allowed to, but it would seem to make sense before they invest significantly, Commissioner Glassman, before they invest significantly to see if this upgrade actually improves comms, because if it does to the level that you're comfortable with, then they would not need the wired infrastructure. Is that right? And that will happen at the inspection, the annual inspection, correct? We would know at that, after the inspection, after all the system has been put in, what exactly that looks like. There are so many variables that play into this from weather. But we also are not afforded the opportunity to pause a state statute and not enforce it. We have to continue with enforcement, and the individuals need to continue with the progress forward. To date, we have not fined anybody for not having operational radio systems in their building, although it does put police and firefighters at risk every single day that it's not operational. What we ask from the community is that they begin to work towards a solution, whatever that may possibly be, and most of that is just communicating with our office that they're working towards a solution, that they have identified and acknowledged that there is a problem, and that from both directions, from a city's standpoint of view, we're hopeful to move this project forward in the next meeting, and then also from their standpoint of view that they're also working towards a solution as well. And then, best case, if we move forward with this new system, when would that be fully integrated in place? I'm going to bring up James Baker for that, for when the system will fully be installed. Communications Manager, City of Fort Lauderdale. Your question, Commissioner, I apologize. If we move forward with this new comms system, when would it be fully instituted? So, presently, the vendor is committed to an 18-month timeline, assuming that there's no civil impacts. Okay. So, that's a year and a half from now, assuming that everything moves quickly. Yes, sir. Okay. So, then, in that interim, when it's instituted, some condos may be in great shape once it's instituted, right? Could be approved. We don't know. Correct. We don't know. Some will be, some may not be. So, in that interim, if I'm understanding you right, they should continue exploring options as condos with what to do and how to meet the state statute. And they can also say to themselves, in 18 months, hopefully this system's instituted and we won't need to hardwire anything. Is that right? There is a likelihood, yes, sir. Okay. So, is it, just from a policy standpoint and public safety standpoint, is it okay for condos continue to dialogue and update you during these next 18 months without making the investment that they may not need to make ultimately? So, once again, the challenge there is that there's a Florida State statute and we're required to enforce that Florida State statute. What we would ask them to do is to be in contact with our office so we can help them navigate the process in a timely fashion. Like, this has been years of some of these buildings that have not been in compliance. And our goal is not to create more financial hardship on them by finding them. Our goal is to help them navigate a solution, whatever that solution may look like. Okay. Great. So, I think there's a solution there of continuing to communicate with you, us moving ahead with a news comm system as fast as possible. And hopefully that's instituted and addresses all of these challenges. Right? I mean, that's the hope. Okay. Yes, sir. Well, there's also, and by the way, I certainly understand the importance of this, and yet I also understand the enforcement piece. Because we know that we always enforce everything in Fort Lauderdale. Enforcement's always, right. What? Nothing going on. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, you didn't take me seriously? Yes, I didn't. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Here's the rub. And I know of a building that went through this. You can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on one of these systems. And then if a building goes up near you and it's new construction, or if you change your own windows to impact glass, all of a sudden, guess what? The next year, you fail. And people are being told that buildings that have never had an issue for 20 years, 25 years, all of a sudden they're having issues, and they're being told it's because, it's because of the increase in development, it's because of the increased downtown density that's blocking our signals, it's because of the fact that you changed from just regular old 50-year-old windows and now you have hurricane glass. That's a big investment for a condominium association, thinking they were doing the right thing to make their buildings harder and being more resistant to storms, and yet the catch-22 is now you're being told that you have a problem with the BDA system. But, again, there's too many moving parts. We still have to work harder to get our signal right. I still believe that this is our problem as a city, not these buildings' problems. These buildings all passed muster when they were built. They all got COs. They all signed off that they met every single responsibility that they had to meet, including a BDA system. But now they're being told, because our city is growing, guess what? It's not good anymore. And you might do this, but guess what? If a building goes up near you or blocks another one of our towers, next year you're going to fail. It's just too haphazard. It's too random. It's too willy-nilly. We have to do better. I'm not going to beat this to death, but it's frustrating because I still hear it, and I've been bringing this up for the last year, and I'm just not seeing the necessary progress. That's all. That's all I'm going to say about it. Thanks. City Manager, is there a way to expedite the 18-month integration of the system? We will do everything we can to expedite. I think that 18-month period was already looking at advancing it as fast as possible, but we can evaluate that. Thank you. So I have a question. 18 months is up. New technology. Now we're functionally obsolete. When does this end? When does the process end? I can't believe a new building built next door to an older building is going to frustrate the efforts that have been invested in by that first building. What system is going to be fail-safe so that we can continue to invest and make sure that our community is safe? Is there an answer to that question? I don't think so, Mayor, because technology is going to change, just to be honest, right? And so, therefore, there may be. This system is going to be the best system that we have at the time. That's exactly what it is. They've been negotiating to try to make sure that we've got everything situated. We've got newer radios with LTE. We've got various different things to make sure it's current right now and it's going to be the best that we have. But five years from now, we don't know what the situation is going to be. But I think it's going to be solid for a while. So while the state mandates the investment by these individual buildings, the state doesn't take into consideration the possibility that that investment could be obsolete in five years or three years or what it may be. In other words, as technology, especially Bluetooth technologies, continue to advance, it would seem to me that there's got to be some way to protect those that have made the initial investment from not being frustrated by new technologies or other impacts on their building that are going to interfere with their ability to get radio responses. I think they've taken that into consideration and even as technology comes to try to make sure things happen, we try to make things backward compatible to make sure that things are straight. But as we say, construction, there's various different things that come into play that are not considered. And so therefore, if physical things happen, because that's the problem, it's a physical thing. It comes to the building, but it can't go through. So physical things may change that and that's not something that, you know, we can predict. Okay. All right. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. Commissioner Glassman, does that conclude your comments? It certainly does. Thank you. Vice Mayor? Thank you, Mayor. Busy couple weeks. Was happy to participate in Fort Lauderdale Cares Day, helping neighborhoods clean up, make a difference. So thank you to all the neighborhood leaders out there who really made this possible. And thank you to city staff for being a great part of that. We had some great activities in District 4. Had the honor of speaking to the Urban Leadership Institute class about resiliency and what our city is doing. That was fantastic. One of our own urban planners. Tyler Laform as part of that class and Angela Salmon, who is a Capstone mentor. So it was great having our city team members part of that. Also attended the Broward Health Medical Center groundbreaking to build more office space and doctor's offices, which is going to be just fantastic. Better serve patients in the city, which is excellent news. I like to say we're a city of champions. We've got the champion Panthers that practice here in the city of Fort Lauderdale. Two-time Stanley Cup winners. We got the Inter-Miami MLS Cup champions and went to TYR Pro Swim Meet at the Aquatic Center and saw more records broken here in Fort Lauderdale. So it's just an exciting time. It was awesome to see Olympian Katie Legdecki crushing it in the pool. And she says Fort Lauderdale is her favorite pool in the world. It's the fastest pool. It's the fastest, right? It's the fastest pool, she says. So it comes from a knowledgeable source. Well, this is a woman that I saw the 800-meter freestyle. Oh, did you? Good. Yeah. And, you know, at the end of the race, she's at least one pool length. Right. So it's always a race for second in her competition. It's amazing. She's just an amazing swimmer. It's stunning. And, you know, and it all happens here in Fort Lauderdale, which I think we should all be proud of. So I'm happy to be part of our city's effort of eat and shop local Fort Lauderdale. We're supporting small businesses. So just encourage everyone, please, support your small businesses here in the city doing such great work. Had a chance to go out with my daughter and be part of Sleep in Heavenly Peace, which is a great nonprofit. They basically identify residents in Fort Lauderdale who don't have beds for their children. And just think about that. You know, many people in our city do not have a bed to sleep in, sleep on the ground, on the sofa. So what this nonprofit does is they go in, they bring bunk beds or single beds, and within 10 minutes, build a bed, put the mattress, the bedding that the child chose, put it on there, and leave the child and the family in just this amazing, amazing place afterwards. And it's just very moving to see what impact that has. So I just thank that organization, the great work they do in our city. Had a chance to go to the Tarpon River Civic Association and see their association party in the park, which was great. Then another great part of Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale United, which is our women's professional soccer team in Fort Lauderdale. They play out at NSU's campus, so got a chance to go to their game. We're developing as a city a new partnership with them. So it was City of Fort Lauderdale staff members night there on Saturday night, which was fantastic. Then celebrated Harold Sotsky's 104th birthday. Harold Sotsky, 104 years old, World War II veteran, Coast Guard, amazing, amazing individual, and so it was special being there. And that was Honor Flight and Mission United who helped make that possible. So thank you for everyone. Chief of Police was there, gave Harold a patch, and it was a very special time for our greatest generation who set our country up for where we are today. So I just want to thank them. Happy early Mother's Day to all the mothers or mother figures out there coming up. So thank you for who you are and what you do. I'm very grateful for all of you. Additionally, we have, I see Broward County Commissioner Beam Furr is here. Hello, Commissioner. Thanks for being here. Appreciate you being here. One just question. City Manager, could you give us an update on City Hall? What kind of are the next steps for City Hall, or what are you working on? Thank you. As directed at the last commission meeting, we are exploring the feasibility of existing properties, more specifically the Tower 101 building, the 1 East Broward building, and the courthouse building. While we are doing that exploration with Jacobs, our owner's representative, we are also continuing to have conversations with the developer based on the feedback provided at that commission meeting. We are working to see if there is a refined project approach for a new build that could also be evaluated by the commission in addition to those existing properties. So we do have quite a bit of work to do to come back to the commission on June 2nd. I plan to issue a letter to the commission likely tomorrow once we have more details from Jacobs. It could be that we have a preliminary update on June 2nd and a more substantial update on July 2nd based on all of the deliverables that will be needed to fully evaluate all the opportunities. Okay, great. So if I'm hearing you right, Tower 101, 1 East Broward, and Federal Courthouse, we're exploring those as well as continuing to work with the developer for that option as well. Are we talking to GSA about the federal courthouse possible usage? We are having those conversations with GSA, and they have been very open to allowing the city to have access in order to do those evaluations through consultants. Okay, great. And is a government function in there as, you know, commission or administrative? Is that one of the options? They haven't said so definitively, but based on their openness to having us explore the property, we feel that they are open to it. Okay, great. Thank you. So it sounds like that analysis of with the developer, Tower 101, East Broward, Federal Courthouse, might have some initial findings June 2nd, but might need more time until July 2nd, you're saying? I think that we can come to the commission on July 2nd with a lot more material, but I think in order to honor the commission's request of having some information on June 2nd, we can certainly do that as well. Well, the thing is, you know, if June 2nd doesn't provide the engineer enough time, we don't want just a, you know, haphazard response because, you know, when you try to take over an existing building, there are many things that have to be examined that just can't be looked at in a cursory way. So maybe we have to wait until July in order to be able to have a more realistic understanding of what these buildings are going to require in order to adapt to a new city hall. And if that is the case based on information that is pending, I intend to make that clear to the commission via letter to the commission, which will likely go out to you tomorrow. May I just ask a question about that? We deferred M3 to June 2nd, right? We, that was the motion that was passed that we deferred it to June 2nd. Correct. So we would have to deal with that, that we actually have. We'll address it on June 2nd, but also, and so from there we'll know whether or not it makes sense to continue to examine going, you know, examine to, to get a more in-depth understanding of what the adaptation process would consist of. Who's making the decision of how deep we're going on those evaluations on the three buildings? Well, we are. No, that's not my question. My question is that I'm hearing now that we think we might have to go until July 2nd. So my question is, what is the scope of these investigations? I mean, you could, I mean, you look at that federal courthouse, you look at, you know, I'm just picking that one of the three. You know, we could, you could be bogged down in investigations and details for quite a while, depending on your scope of how far you want to go. So I'm just trying to figure out what we were expecting on June 2nd versus are we kicking it down to July and then in July we say, oh, we don't have enough information, we should get deeper, and then we're kicking it to August, and then we're kicking it to whenever. Well, in terms of the federal courthouse, for example, they've already done an investigation. So we can certainly draw from their conclusions. I believe they took almost a year to do an analysis as to whether or not that building could be rehabilitated in order to remain in there. So as far as, and they made the decision that they couldn't remain in there for whatever reason, maybe the size, maybe the structural viability of the building. We don't know, but certainly I know Quentin can follow up and get that information from the GSA to find out what their conclusions were when they did their own self-analysis of the federal building. At least we know that. As far as the other buildings are concerned, 101 and 1 East Broward, I mean, why don't we just wait and see what the consultant is going to say to us and what recommendations they may have as to whether or not they need to go farther and deeper in order to be able to do a complete analysis. And then just a question, because you had mentioned, Mayor, at the last meeting when we deferred that item, that you had thought that those buildings were already looked at and investigated and researched from the county. We found out that that wasn't the case. That was not the case? Correct. We connected with Broward County, and they identified that at that time they did not investigate these buildings because the property owners were not interested in selling to the county. So there's no backup documentation from the county that speaks to those existing buildings and what was evaluated. Thank you. Would it be possible for us to see what exactly you charge? Is Jacobs leading this investigation for us? Yes, Jacobs is our owner's rep, yes. Okay, so may I eventually see what exactly was told to them in terms of what is their scope in these investigations? I'd like to just see what their charge is and just how deep they're actually going. So Quentin Pugh, Assistant City Manager, can give some information on what that scope entails, but we're still finalizing that. So I don't know that we have the fee finalized at this time, but I think Quentin can speak to the intended scope, which is crafted to address the questions and requests from the commission. Thank you, Manager. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, Quentin Pugh, Assistant City Manager. So as the manager just stated, Jacobs Management is being consulted to spearhead this assessment. What we're looking at or the scope that was provided to Jacobs in a nutshell is to do a high-level property condition assessment, structural analyses, look at MEP, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, spatial assessment. We also ask them to provide us with a cost estimate for any renovations. One of these particular buildings may have an opportunity to incorporate a chamber. So at a very high level, provide us with that estimate. We ask them to look at the cost per square footage of other recently developed city hall at the last commission meeting or when we were discussing the city hall. There was numbers thrown around regarding 500, 600. We were using a 1,200 cost per square footage. So we asked Jacobs to do a high-level assessment on recent city hall improvements, city of Miami, one in Pompano, et cetera. So the goal here is just to perform a very high-level report summary, bring that forth as soon as possible. Jacobs has told us that they're anticipating at least six to eight weeks that they would need to produce such report. That high-level report, once it comes before you, the goal would be if further analysis is needed, then where we need more detail or technical information beyond what's been provided, you would pick one of those buildings, and then we'll bring that forth in the following 45 to 60 days after that. But we want to provide you with enough information where you can actually deliberate and let us know whether you want to proceed or not proceed when we come with that report. Six to eight weeks, Quentin, does not bring us to June 2nd. I mean, we're already four weeks away from there. So we would need to wait until July then is what you're saying in order to give them the time that they need to do something that's more realistic, correct? That is correct. As the manager stated, we're fine-tuning some things. We may want to cut some items out of that particular work scope that was provided to them in order to achieve that June 2nd deadline. Well, but everything you said is what we want to hear. All those analyses and every one of those elements we need to hear because every one of them is significant and will have a cost associated with them if we're looking to rehabilitate and adapt, not just rehabilitate but adapt, adapt our needs, our uses to an existing structure that wasn't intended to have those uses. So, you know, let's be fair to the process and give it the time it needs. What did you say? Mayor, some of the work scope could be produced and provided to the commission by the June date, but what Quentin is saying is that the full breadth of the scope as contemplated would take more time. So they haven't even started yet. They have started some work on this. I thought you said we haven't completed the scope of work assignments. So how did we get them started when we haven't even submitted it to them? We have been refining the work scope. However, Jacobs Management has contacted building owners. The city has provided them contact information for the GSA representative, scheduling. Oh, for GSA? Not for the other buildings? For all three. They have received the property's owner's information. Jacobs Management has made contact with those owners. Also has started scheduling some of those site visits. So work has been done. Have we issued a notice to proceed? No. Have we started talking about costs and things like that in the work scope? Absolutely. But things are ongoing and it's moving along. So are we paying them for the work that they're doing now? Everything has been at a very sort of discussion level. They haven't visited any particular building as of today. They just had phone conversations. So we've done all of this just to get where we are today in order to provide you with this information. All right. Great. Go ahead. Thanks, Mayor. Thanks, Quentin. Could I just ask Quentin one more? I'm sorry. You have a question for Quentin? Well, no. I'm going to keep talking, but you can go ahead. No, but for Quentin? Yeah, yeah. Oh, go ahead. No. I thought you had other items on your... Oh, no. We'll stay on this. So, City Manager and Quentin, I think if I heard you right in terms of the optionality for a chamber, so I think what we'd want to do, City Manager, is make sure we're comparing apples to apples here. So, we'd want an evaluation of the cost of a chamber in 101, the cost of a chamber in 1 East Broward, and the cost of the renovation for the federal courthouse having a chamber there. I just want to make sure we're... That way we can evaluate build option, buy option, and across the similarities, if that makes sense. So, I think part of the evaluation is looking at the renovation cost estimate based on price per square footage, and the chamber would be included in that estimate. And I do also want to share, Mayor, we have already ordered appraisals for all of these properties, and those appraisals should be delivered to the city in advance of that June 2nd meeting. So, there is work being done, and although Jacobs hasn't received the task order, there are certain aspects of the project that, no matter what the task order says, Jacobs will need to do those preliminary steps. So, we already anticipate that those will be some baseline expectations. Okay. Thanks. Go ahead, Commissioner. Oh, thank you. Quentin, has Jacobs been provided with the ULI report and the Infrastructure Task Force report on what the public wanted in City Hall? Not to my knowledge. What they have been provided is reports from the current Tower 101 and the One East Broward, any available reports from those particular facilities. We have requested a report from GSA as far as any due diligence or analyses that they have, and that's what's been sent over to Jacobs as of today. I think what the commissioner is asking, though, is when Jacobs does their analysis to see how we can adapt the buildings to the needs that have been expected of our community, they need to have that list to see whether or not that those requirements that the community has come up with can be put into those buildings and at what cost. That's what the commissioner is asking. Yes, and not only in those buildings but around those buildings. There was a lot of discussion on both of those reports about the civic engagement, civic plaza, things like that. So I just think it's really important that they be given those two reports, the ULI and the Infrastructure Task Force. I also believe that the ULI has done a report. You might want to contact them about the federal courthouse. It was not a good report, but you might want to just ask them if they actually looked at the federal courthouse as well. Absolutely will do, Commissioner. Thank you. Commissioner Glassman, just to add to that, we have established a work program based on all the work we've done with the developer on the potential new build, City Hall. And so if we are looking to have an apples-to-apples comparison or something that is comparable, we would want to take that work program or that space program that has already been developed based on some of the merits of the Infrastructure Task Force and what the community has said. But we have since evolved from that moment, and we have... What does that mean, evolve from that moment? So the things that the Infrastructure Task Force weighed in on or opined on, we summarized, and we shared that with the development community before we went out to the competition period for the City Hall. The developers came in, and based on that information, they proposed a program. We have since refined that space program with the developer on the proposed new City Hall. So we've identified how much square footage we'd like to have, what types of spaces. And so if the request from the commission is to compare the opportunity for existing buildings to become the new City Hall, then I think that we need to compare the space program that we have been working on under the new build project with the existing buildings so that we can have that comparison. That's absolutely correct, without compromising the expectations that the Infrastructure Task Force had put forth. When you say evolve, it sounds to me like, well, we're going to get rid of this and get rid of that, and we'll just come down and accept these two or three things. That's not what we're looking for. I think the goal of any alternative for City Hall will be based on meeting the needs of the community, based on the Infrastructure Task Force feedback that was done at that time. In their report. Yes, yes. And so we want to make sure that in comparing apples to apples, that the new construction project that was offered, which contains all of those elements that the Infrastructure Task Force had proposed, can also be incorporated in any existing building. And if they can and at what cost, that's all we're saying. We can do a side-by-side checklist of what the Infrastructure Task Force requested, and then we can, for all the alternatives, check whether or not the project meets that criteria. Exactly. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Quint. Great. Thank you, Quint. Appreciate it. And I think the analysis of the federal courthouse makes a lot of sense, too, because we've talked about many uses for the federal courthouse. We've talked about a museum, a school, city commission chamber. So that will help all of that for us to kind of analyze what that could be useful for. And then one other question is, as we're talking about public engagement and the ITF, Mayor, if our memory serves me right, we talked about Budget Advisory Board being able to analyze these findings, and I think the Council of Fort Lauderdale Civic Association, right, looking at those as well. So I just want to think about sequencing. When would they get a chance to kind of evaluate this? Well, I think we should get the chance first to see what's going on here and then make a determination and then get feedback from the, you know, we make a decision, and then the Budget Advisory Board can come back and say, okay, this is, you can't afford it, you can't afford it. This makes sense. This doesn't make sense. But I think we should at least, I mean, they're welcome to see the results at the same time we're seeing the results. But I think that we need to, before it gets put out to the community to make any further discussion, I think the commission needs to see what we're dealing with and how realistic or unrealistic some of these expectations are. So, but it sounds to me like we're not going to see much until July anyway. So, I mean, it's an interesting process, and I think we need to go through it, and we'll just see. But I just don't want to compromise the expectations that the community has proffered when we're dealing with a city hall that's going to be our city hall for the next two, three, four generations. Right. So, yeah, agree, and I want to, and for me, it's helpful to have the Budget Advisory Board and the Council for the Art of Civic Associations, at least for me, give me their feedback so that I can be best informed. So, okay, great. I think we're all on the same page. City Manager, one other question. I think we had talked about you developing a budget for city hall. In other words, I think we said we don't want to dip into the reserves, right, these multiple guardrails. So is that part of what you're working on as well? Yes, that was part of the direction from the commission, and that information could be available on June 2nd or July 2nd. We're already actively working on that based on the parameters provided by the commission. Okay, great. Fantastic. That all sounds very good. Last topic, unless there's anything else on city hall. Just one comment. Go ahead. Thank you. We keep saying June 2nd or July 2nd. There is a meeting on June 16th, right? I always get nervous when we schedule things on the last meeting before the summer break because you never know what happens. I'm thinking that if we are really seriously thinking that we're going to need more time on studying these buildings, that it needs to be done by June 16th, not July 2nd because, as I said, we go on break until almost the end of August. So I would encourage us to figure out what we need to figure out. If we can't do it June 2nd, can we do it by June 16th and figure it out? I know that the mayor intended to be absent on June 16th, and so that's why we were pushing for June 2nd, and if there's any follow-up, July 2nd. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. One other unrelated. I just want to congratulate Brad Cain, Public Works Director. He was appointed to serve as Chair of the South Florida Branch of the American Public Works Association Florida Chapter. So congratulations, Brad. Thank you. And just thank you for your and your team's quick response. When we have infrastructure needs in the city, I just appreciate your timely response and helping the neighbors. So thank you, Mayor. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Beasley-Pittman, are you ready? Yes, I am. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to share. My colleague, Steve Glassman, I like to say busy. I like to say productive. Busy makes me spaz. So I've been a little productive here. Had the opportunity on Thursday, April 23rd, to attend the memorial for the Korean veteran Corporal Joshua Koronk. And he was actually missing in action, and his remains were identified, and he was able to be brought home. And it was an honor to be able to attend the memorial service that was held at Boyd Funeral Home in the city of Fort Lauderdale, to be able to speak of his accomplishments and how he's fought for our country. Being a young man, he was actually 20 years old when he went missing, and he was identified as presumed dead in December of 1956. So we were given that opportunity to be able to be with the family and, again, just being able to acknowledge his sacrifice for this country and for all of us who are experiencing democracy at this time. Also, I was able to attend on Monday, April 27th, a Rotary Connection ride-along, which was a great opportunity. The Rotary Connection is a free bus that helps our unhomed, unhoused citizens or residents of our city to get to appointments regarding anything from the driver's license bureau to get ID replaced, Social Security to get paperwork taken care of with them. There's 61 actual stops on the loop that they do Monday through Friday on this opportunity, this bus ride that's given. I was really impressed with the individuals that were on the route with me. They were going to take care of their business. And then also I had conversations with the driver, with also Mr. Smith, and we talked a lot about the opportunity that the Rotary Club has for reunification. And with their track record right now, they're averaging one or two unifications with those individuals to return them home to other counties, other cities, other states where loved ones are waiting for them. And what I wanted to ask as far as us from the commission, we know that we have our homeless committee, that board. I want to see if there's an opportunity that we can also collaborate to see how we could work together to be able to increase that number for reunification for those individuals who are desiring to return home. Because if there is, on the route that they're going, if they're daily coming against one individual that wants to return home, are there other opportunities within the city that we may not be capitalizing on? So is there a city manager, is there any way that we could make that type of opportunity for collaboration between the Rotary Club and then our homeless outreach or homeless advisory board? Certainly, I think there are opportunities, and I know that's a subject that we've been discussing lately through our budget process, how to augment services and how the city can be a participant. So I'm going to ask Portia Garcia, our community services director, to come forward. Thank you, Manager Williams. Good afternoon, Mayor, Commissioners. Two things. One, there are funds in the police department's budget for reunifications. That's the first thing. The second thing is that staff from Community Services Department met with Rotary Connection and Fellowship on yesterday to discuss a partnership. We are looking for an agreement to come before the city commission in June or July to formalize that partnership. We also are in the process of meeting with the landlord for our community court space to see if we'll have their permission, which is a requirement of our lease for that space, to bring Rotary Connection services to the community court building during non-community court days. Thank you. Commissioner, can I just ask a question while we have Portia up here? Yes. So recently I was sent pictures of a feeding program that's taking place right next to the county library with tents and all kinds of temporary but visible structures where I guess an organization had sought the permission of the city to do a feeding program there. I thought we don't allow that anymore. What is going on there? So through Community Services Department, there is a permit required for any type of feeding. The feedings that are issued a permit are shared with our police department so that we know where they are and the dates as well as any type of setup of tables or parking. Whenever there is a feeding occurring without that permit, we partner with the homeless outreach team to do enforcement and have that feeding stopped. I understand that. I'm more concerned about the fact that we even give permits because it was my understanding that a number of years ago we passed an ordinance saying there could be no more outdoor public feedings and it all had to be done within a structure and undertaken by the owner of that particular structure. Now we're going back to where we were years ago where we specifically said we don't, do not, because now it creates, I mean, just because the nonprofit leaves and packs up all their tents and their cooking equipment and all that, the mess is there. We see, and not just the mess that they leave behind, but also the image that we, that this has become another central feeding area for homeless people that continue to congregate in an area that we tried to clean up years ago. This is back to the future here. What is going on here? So, Mayor, what I'm familiar with is that the feedings are permitted. However, a city permit is required. I can research and look into if that should not be the case, but to my knowledge there is an ordinance that does allow the feedings as long as they have a city-issued permit. All right. I wish you could research that. Chris, did you want to add to that? Yes. Mayor, Commission, Chris Cooper, Deputy City Manager. So there is an ordinance on the books right now for outdoor social service events that includes food distribution and a variety of other types of events. The reason that we have that is because it was opined that we could not treat different events differently and we couldn't restrict people's ability under the First Amendment to carry out certain activities. So there is not a limitation about how and where somebody can have these events as long as they come in and obtain the permit that we offer and they, you know, they can't create a situation that's either dangerous or hazardous for the participants, the providers, or the general public. So we do have some ability to address certain aspects of those events when they come in for a permit to make sure that they're not causing any issues for themselves or others. But we have limitations on being able to outright deny the ability to do it. We are taking a look at those along with the city attorney's office to try to create more of a reasonable program so we can have a little bit more control over, you know, some of the aspects of those types of events. But, you know, the expectation that we wouldn't be able to, that we'd be able to prohibit those events is probably not the case. Right. And I suspect that would be because of the Food Not Bombs lawsuit. Right. I understand that. But the reality is that in the aftermath of a feeding hour or two or three, it creates a disaster for the area on which they just recently occupied. And, first of all, they're taking up the whole sidewalk so that it obstructs the sidewalk. The county, I don't know when the county is going to ever rehabilitate the plaza in front of the library, but we're still waiting, Commissioner. And we want to, you know, this continues to be ground zero for homelessness. So when are we going to learn that we've got to find legal, humane, but realistic ways in which to rehabilitate our city streets so that they're not inundated with this kind of activity? Yeah, I agree. And, you know, from experience, we're finding that the events that are permitted, because we know they're going on, because we are in more communication with the folks that are coordinating those events, we have a better outcome in terms of the aftermath of those events. A lot of the ones that you're seeing and that were in the photographs that you received, you know, were not a permitted event, and so those are the ones that we see that kind of come and go, and they leave evidence of their being there, trash and other things. So part of what we're trying to do is, one, be more upfront about making sure people are aware of our process and our permits so that we can go through these things the right way, but also, as Portia Garcia mentioned, coordinating between our CSD staff and our police department staff to make sure that there's a broad awareness of what is permitted and what's not so that we can take appropriate action when things aren't permitted properly. Okay. Thank you. Portia, if you could come back, please, to finish the conversation about the opportunity for reunification with those unhoused individuals that are in our community. Could you expound a little bit, if you would, on the meeting that occurred on yesterday and what the object it is to make this be a productive opportunity for us as a city? Absolutely. So what we discussed on yesterday, Commissioner, is Rotary Connection. A majority of their operation is in the city of Fort Lauderdale. They do have stops that are in Plantation as well as Oakland Park along their route. However, they would like to expand their operation in Fort Lauderdale for our unhoused community. They believe that they have a better opportunity to connect our population with resources that they need that ultimately assist with their reunification, things such as providing a driver's license or identification, helping them to receive benefits that they need to have some source of income, helping them to make contact with family members, and also they mentioned the opportunity to provide bus tickets or other means of transport so that they can reconnect with family members. They believe that in partnering here in the city and then also having a physical location, they would be better able to provide those services. They mentioned that they have a social worker that is on the bus. They have a 14-passenger bus. They have social workers that are on that bus that are able to assist them. They also have partnerships with, like, the DMV and other agencies that allow people to have dignity as they go into these locations to receive services. They shared that they do not allow any minors on the bus. A question that was asked of them is if there is opportunity to provide, like, programming for a day or a few hours of a day to allow families, especially with the summertime approaching. So there may be opportunity for that. What they also expressed is that they have had some communication with Barrett County as well as with Pompano in their community court program to see if there is opportunity for them to expand their program in those municipalities. We did express that if we, in our partnership with Rotary Connection, that we do not want the quality of services to dwindle as they expand their operation, and they understood and honored that. But their basic interest is helping us to really have full Monday through Friday programming and support to the community so that they can do more reunifications. All right. Thank you for expounding. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. Also, to share additionally, I had the great opportunity on Wednesday, April 29th, to attend a Spelling Bee. Yes, the Spelling Bee was a competition between Oswald Park and Warfield Park. And when I tell you those young people, they were having so much fun from kindergarten to fifth grade, great opportunity to inspire the young people and allow them to shine in their light. It's my understanding that to prepare for the Spelling Bee, they were given, of course, the list of words that would be a part of the list and given a time period to study and to prepare. And when I tell you they came and they followed the rules, they said the word, they spelled the word, said the word, asked for it to be used in a sentence, and just it was a great opportunity. And I was really impressed and excited to witness our young participants. I said to one, I said, you know, when I was young, I hated Spelling Bees. It was just like, ah, don't freak me out. But they were so prepared. And I encouraged the parents to continue to encourage them to embrace education. A big thank you to our city parks and recs, the staff at Oswald Park, as well as Warfield Park. Just kudos, a job well done, and a way to increase literacy, build confidence, and also encourage our future leaders. So that was a highlight of my activities of this month. Also wanted to share upcoming events. Tonight, as a matter of fact, the 5th Annual Providence Hospital Legacy Celebration that's taken place this evening at 5.30 to 8.30 at the YMCA L.A. Lee Mizell Community Center. This is a celebration of the individuals who were actually born at Providence Hospital. More than likely at that time, it was Dr. Sixthrunk who delivered those babies. And to add to the history, to give you a trivia to that, Dr. Sixthrunk birthed over 5,000 babies in the Northwest Corridor during that era. So they come together and they celebrate it and just remember the history of over 5,000 babies. Yes. Okay. And there's still many of our neighbors who were actually birthed at the hand of Dr. Sixthrunk. And then also at Providence Hospital. It's like one a day. Uh-huh. Over 20 years. Okay. And here we go for Friday, May 8th. It's the Relay for Life, American Cancer Society Relay for Life. As we know, that is an annual event that is held at Carter Park. It starts at 6 p.m. and will end at 12 midnight. This is an opportunity for us all citywide to come out and support the efforts of the American Cancer Society, bringing awareness and giving information prior as being proactive about our health, being proactive about being tested, and learning about all the different cancers that have been identified. A great opportunity for fellowship and front and for the community to come together. Again, that's this Friday, Carter Park. On May 15th, we have Carter Park Jams. That would be at 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. And then I want you to mark your calendars and be prepared for Saturday, June 20th, 5 to 8 p.m. Carter Park. That would be the Juneteenth celebration. There's three things that I wanted to ask that we as a commission would consider. I, too, have a request for a named street being renamed or a renaming of a street. This would be in honor of Mr. Levi Henry Jr. The street that we are asking for renaming is Northwest 7th Terrace. As we know, Mr. Levi Henry is the founder of the West Side Gazette and has been in our community for decades. And we wanted to remember him and honor him through naming the street there. So, as it was explained earlier, we would like to take the same process, allowing from my commission, from the commission, being able to move this forward. And everything that's required, we will get with Ben Rogers and that team to make sure the community is connected and we can make this move forward. So, the question is, could I have the support of the commission to move forward with this? Definitely. Thank you. Thank you very much. We talked about the homeless outreach and the unification, excuse me, making a relationship with the Rotary Club. So, we don't have to talk about that anymore. I also wanted to bring to our attention, asking for a moment of silence as well. Last week, Commissioner Sorensen and I, we were able to celebrate Ms. Hattie Mae Curley. And she celebrated 100 years. And the following Tuesday, she passed away. So, we want to have a moment of silence for her as well today. And one other neighbor, Ms. Dorothy Bailey Young, she passed away. And the community celebrated her celebration of life last week as well. This young lady, she actually, as a young lady, I believe they said she was 12, she named Sunland Park. She was the one, a part of a contest. She submitted the name to be known as Sunland Park. So, she's been, as a young person in the community, advocating and making change. So, as well, Ms. Dorothy Bailey Young. So, with that, Mayor, that concludes my report. Okay, great. Thank you. Just a few things. Last week, on April 28th, I participated with the Salvation Army, celebrating their centennial celebration. I was there with Commissioner Herbst. It was a great turnout. And we're very thankful for the Salvation Army for all the great work that they do with our community. On April 30th, I was part of a panel discussion with the Bill Zinn-Sumberg Annual Development Conference. It was in Miami, but all we did was talk about Broward County. And the room was full with several hundred people, investors, realtors, and other stakeholders, who talked about the promising opportunities there are in Broward County. And lots of comparisons were made to Palm Beach County and Miami-Dade. And at the end of the day, most people believe that Broward County is the place where opportunity exists. And developers are looking forward to the future in that regard. On this past Saturday, I participated in the Mayor's Annual Chess Challenge. I was doing battle with some 12- and 16-year-olds. I came out even. I beat one, and one beat me. But it was fun. These kids are really, really bright. And I'm glad that my hat's off to Mayor Mike Ryan, who heads this thing up and continues this program year after year. So thank you, Mayor Ryan, and to all the young kids who are participating in this. Also that day, it's a busy day on Saturday. I, along with the Vice Mayor, were at the Tarpon River Party in the Park. Tarpon Bend Neighborhood Association always has their wonderful party in the park. And it was a great day. The weather held out and got to see all the neighbors, took a lot of pictures, and helped hand out a lot of raffle prizes. That same afternoon was, as mentioned earlier, the Speedo Fort Lauderdale Open at the Aquatic Center. Hundreds of parents and family members were there. My hat's off to Laura Voet for organizing that and her team. We finally brought Lauderdale's back as being the center of swimming competition. Spoke with quite a few swimmers and quite a few parents and a lot of coaches who were so happy to be back in Fort Lauderdale after so many years of absence because we didn't have a facility that was capable of accommodating these swim competitions. And, yes, we met with Katie Ledeckay and many other champions or future champions who continue to see Fort Lauderdale as the best place for their practice and their success. Also that evening, I attended the South Florida Pride Concert Band 40th Anniversary. It was at the Parker, 40 years. Starting out is the Flamingo Freedom Band with about eight members. And now, over the years, several hundred people have been part of that orchestra. But what's most rewarding is the fact that, in addition to the concert band, there's a youth orchestra, and it was started by the band with the expectation to help young kids, especially high school kids, whose high schools did not have music programs. So it was a way for them to be able to practice and play and perform. And over the years, there's been over 900 students who have matriculated through the youth orchestra. And some who had even gone out to college have come back and participated. So that's a great contribution to our community. The next night, I participated in the closing night of the Alstein Film Festival. I think the noise issue that was brought up at our last meeting never materialized because it started to rain. Oh, did it? Okay, yeah. I didn't hear any concerns. So, okay. That explains it. So, yeah. So we didn't really have much of a street festival. Pain is good. Yes. So, upcoming things. As been mentioned earlier on May 6th this week, actually tomorrow, the FOP Fallen Officers Memorial. We'll be doing it right down the steps over here in front of the Esplanade Park. It's at 1.30. Hopefully, the members of our community can come and participate and recognize the fallen officers in our community. Also, that evening, I'll be speaking at the Victoria Park Civic Association. I usually do that once a year, so looking forward to that. The next day, the Sailing Foundation of Florida, the annual fundraising dinner at Lauderdale Yacht Club. I'll be presenting a proclamation and attending that as well. So, on Friday, we have the opening of Go Grocer at 540 North Andrews Avenue. This is the first, yes, this is the first grocery store that's west of U.S. 1. And this has been – this is an important milestone. Why do I say that? It's a small store, but it's exactly what we're looking for as we try to populate Flagler Village with not just housing but amenities, where people don't need to go into their cars to get – to go to the grocery store, go to a restaurant or whatever, go get their hair done. You know, the things that everyday experiences, people can walk to, and that's how you reduce traffic in a city, making pedestrian options the best option rather than people having to get into their car. As was mentioned by the commissioner, Fort Lauderdale Air Show this weekend. And I noticed that in Miami, I saw an advertisement that Miami has a sponsor, the Hyundai Air and Sea Show. But we don't – these folks don't have a sponsor, do they? I don't – I've never – in the last few years, we haven't really seen a headline sponsor. The city is a major sponsor via FXC. We haven't had an outside sponsor since McDonald's did the Air and Sea Show, what, 12, 15 years ago? Well, McDonald's – I think Shell Oil was also a sponsor. But the point that I'm trying to make is we need to start encouraging these events and these promoters by going back and relying on sponsors rather than taxpayer money. You know, we've given a lot of money. I think it's time to pull back on that. And I'm hopeful that in the years ahead that we can find ways to encourage them to depend less on the city and more on private sponsors. May 13th is the groundbreaking for the lofts on 6th. That's at 610 Northwest 3rd Avenue. And then that same day, we're also doing a groundbreaking for – oh, excuse me, ribbon cutting for Aldridge and Larimore? Yeah, ribbon cutting. Yeah. Is it groundbreaking? Groundbreaking. I'm sorry, groundbreaking. It does say groundbreaking here, yeah. For the Aldridge and Larimore at 1204 Sistrunk Boulevard, continuing to see opportunities for housing, affordable housing, and ways to redevelop an area that has often been overlooked. On May 15th, we're honoring Dan Lindblad in the Downtowner of the Year. That's at the Global Events Center at 1130 a.m. Dan Lindblad has been part of our community for so many, many years. Both as a realtor and then later as the CEO of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce. He's taken that organization to great heights. He's been a great host over the years in organizing the Washington Summit, which I know many of us have been on. And it's going to be a very rewarding opportunity for us to honor Dan Lindblad at that event. On the 16th, the International Swimming Hall of Fame honoree ceremony at the Embassy Suites by Hilton will be taking place at 6 p.m. I'll be attending that. And on the 17th, I'll be speaking at the Solomon Leadership Graduation at the Downtown Jewish Center. I was invited by Rabbi Kaplan to participate in that event. That's at 3 p.m. Again, on May 17th. A couple issues I'd like to bring up. One, city attorney, what's going on? I know I should have prepped you first. What's going on with the Abreu Pathway litigation in Rio Vista? That is pending. My recollection is that there's been some discovery and motion for summer judgments pending in that phase. So it's moving along, but at its usual litigation pace. Are we the defendants in that case? In that particular matter, I think that, well, there are two different cases. There are two different cases. Can you speak into your microphone? I apologize. There are two different cases. I will get the details on that. Can you get the details on that? Absolutely. Because I got a call this morning from an attorney representing the association and wanting to know what was our further interest in seeing that those spaces may be maintained as open public spaces. And he represents the association, the neighborhood, and I certainly would love to just see that kept as open space. So if you can come back to us in a future meeting with an update on that. I will do that. Okay, great. Thank you. And then, as many of you know, Commissioner Herbst has decided he's going to step down effective in November 2nd, I believe. I forgot to mention that. And so we want to thank him for his service to our community, both as our auditor as well as the commissioner. But at this time, the commission now needs to make a decision about having to pass a resolution. I think it's a resolution to have a special election, which would be November 3rd, which is the election cycle this year. Does the commission agree that we should have a special election on November 3rd so we can give direction to our city staff to move forward and maybe do a walk-on tonight? Yes. Does that make sense for everybody? Mayor, we have a resolution prepared if that's what you'd like to do. Okay, great. Okay, excellent. All right. And that's it for me. So you're saying I don't get to pick my successor? You can try. No kings. Mayor, are you done? I just wanted to say something. Sure, go ahead. I'm watching the audience, and I know as a commission we decided to move the order of our reports, but I really think we're boring these people. They have come to address matters that are on this agenda, and I believe, I'm just watching and I'm seeing, I believe that we should consider going back to the original way that we were doing this, and that gives them an opportunity to give their opinions. If they want to leave, they're able to leave, but we are forcing them to listen through the reports. That's my take on it. So if we could have a short conversation. I find what you have to say very interesting, but that's okay. I don't know if I can leave. You know, well, we do. Why did we switch it to beginning? Why did we switch it to beginning? I don't remember, but we all agreed because it was getting late, and I don't even remember. The reason was because our conference meetings ran late. We were pushing our commission reports past the evening meeting. So sometimes we were giving reports at 9.30, 10, 10.30 at night, and we didn't feel that our announcements were being heard by the community or any of our comments were being heard by the community. We wanted to give them more exposure by doing it at the beginning of the conference meeting. That was the reason why we chose that. Okay. All right. But just watching, and even the meeting before, just watching the interaction or lack of interaction, I believe that our neighbors are here to hear more about what's on the agenda, and we could work out a way to... We can go back. It's an ethical sense that I don't want to... I have no problem going back to the old ways. I have no problem. Okay. So whatever we decide is where I stand. And I've just been watching what's going on from my neighbors, and that's my take. Got it. Is that... What do you all think? Fine. I like what we're doing because we're bringing up really important topics. Like, you just brought up an election. You know, you just... We've talked about City Hall, so I think those are really important... And we talked about the... Topics. ...the radio systems. Right. I mean, these are really important topics, so it ensures that some of these, you know, we have full discussion around those topics. So I think that's important to really have together and not sometimes... Because sometimes what happens is we run late, and then we don't get to have those important conversations. So I like kind of what we've been doing. Can we do what we do with neighbor presentations? Alternate? We split that up. Well, we split that up between afternoon and evening. Maybe we split... Maybe we alternate, right, the commission reports to sometimes in the beginning and alternate beginning and end. I don't know. Just a thought. All right. Something to think about. Yeah. Something to think about just to give a balance to what we're doing. And I agree, too, that we have given... And we often... We always give important information, but also just to keep a balance and being in alignment with what the expectations are for my neighbors as well. I understand. Okay. All right. City manager. I will be as quick as I can be, given the conversation. Take your time. Take your time. So at the last commission meeting, there was a discussion about school resource officers. And the day after, we received notification from the school board that they were rescinding the communication that indicated that they would no longer need the city's police department to provide security services. So we are basically at the status quo position, except that one of the schools will no longer be open next school year. So that will impact one police officer, but we anticipate that that officer will transition into another facet of policing. So I just wanted to be... So how does that help us in our strategic planning for assigning police officers where they're needed most? I mean, just to say, oh, by the way, we're changing our mind, you know, after all the press play and all the anticipated communications that took place. How do we adjust to that? I mean, when are they going to say again, oh, by the way, we changed our mind again? Well, I think we're in a good position considering that we likely will have vacancies at whatever point that a new announcement might come forward. We always have a need for sworn personnel, so it's not that it would completely take away from the city's ability to navigate in that situation. All right. Okay. Please continue. At a recent meeting, the commission inquired about Mary Brickle Avenue. I think it was Commissioner Glassman. I shared a letter to the commission on April 24th. We do need some feedback. We did some research, and it looks like about 20 years ago, the city did approve a resolution. However, that resolution was not transmitted to Broward County. And so now if the city does want to move forward with a street naming for Mary Brickle, we do have some considerations. I'm going to ask Milos to come forward very quickly so that we can get some feedback. Good afternoon. Milos Mastori, director for the city's transportation and mobility department. So as manager stated, we can come back and present a resolution for the city commission to support secondary naming of Brickle Avenue or northwest 1st Avenue to Brickle Avenue. A couple of clarifications that we would love to get from the city commission is number one is the south section is already named Brickle Avenue as a primary naming. And it has a southwest 1st Avenue as a secondary naming, right? So would the city commission like for us to bring a resolution naming the street north of Brower Boulevard to be called Brickle Avenue as a primary or a secondary? If we want to be consistent with what's called south of Brower Boulevard, it would be a primary name. So just correct me if I'm wrong, but in the early 2000s, I could have sworn the commission designated northwest 1st Avenue, so that's the portion above Broward, for six blocks Mary Brickle Street. That is correct. It is correct. That is correct, and unfortunately the city never shared that resolution with Brower County, and therefore the signs were never changed. So given that this request dates from 2004 and that there is inconsistency in naming, if we are to proceed with what the resolution called back from 2004, we are seeking some direction from the city commission. Okay, so are you looking today then to name the south of Broward also, Mayor Brickle? That section of 1st Avenue is already called Brickle Avenue as a primary naming, and the secondary naming is southwest 1st Avenue. What we are looking for is a direction from the city commission as to north of Broward Boulevard, whether we would like to have Brickle Avenue as a primary or secondary naming. Mr. Commissioner, what are your thoughts? I think it should be consistent, and I like it. It's primary on one side, right? I mean, is it possible to just move forward with that so it's consistent? It is. That makes the most sense. Why would you not have it be consistent? So we would have it as a Brickle Avenue as a primary name, northwest 1st Avenue as a secondary name, and when it comes to the limits, we just wanted to confirm it would be from Broward Boulevard all the way to Seastrunk Boulevard. There is a little jog that northwest 1st Avenue makes at about northwest 4th Street, but if a direction from the city commission is to extend this to Seastrunk Boulevard, we can do so. Milos, could you clarify if it's Brickle Avenue or Mary Brickle Avenue? It's Mary Brickle Avenue. So the section south, thank you, Manager William, so section south of Broward Boulevard is called Brickle Avenue. But north is Mary Brickle. That was a resolution from 2004. Now, if we want to be consistent with the south section, one option is to have it as a Brickle Avenue, simply Brickle Avenue. But I, just because I was on the commission back then, the reason why we wanted it Mary Brickle is because it added a little charm. I mean, Brickle, people think of Brickle as a big commercial financial district down in Miami, so we didn't want to associate ourselves with that. And by calling it Mary Brickle, I think there's a Mary Brickle village in Miami also, but I think giving it the full name Mary Brickle, I think, don't you think it lends itself better to the kind of family-oriented community we're trying to create in Flagler Village? So is that what you, okay. Then to be consistent, would you want us also to include as part of a resolution request to change the naming on the south side to be consistent with the north side and to read for Mary Brickle Avenue? Yes. Perfect. And then I would not wait another 20 years for us to do this again. You have our promise. 23. We won't wait. 22. 22. 22. It's the year of acceleration. I tell the team we're accelerating this year. Right. Thank you. I'm going to expedite it. Okay. So I also shared with you that we received a grant, a regional infrastructure accelerator grant related to the New River Crossing project. I did get some feedback from many of you on the dais. We did request $2 million. We were awarded $650 million. We anticipate that we would need to $650,000. We can build two city halls. And a tunnel. And a tunnel. Yes. Yes. So we anticipate that we would need to reduce or modify the intended scope for that grant program. I know that we've discussed various challenges with the New River Crossing project as a whole at various levels, including funding and some of the partnerships that are currently less than stable. So I just wanted to make sure that we were all on the same page on whether or not city staff should move forward with utilizing this grant, noting that there is no required city match. It would allow us to do some due diligence that could help us as we look ahead. If conditions were to change, we might be more prepared to advance a tunnel project. However, it does require some staff time and administrative work in order to utilize this grant funding. So I just wanted to check in with the commission and get a feel for interest in utilizing this grant. I personally feel we should utilize it for the purposes intended. We're just going to have to reduce the scope of our analysis. But I think since there's no match, there's no downside. I agree, Mayor. I'm with you. Yep. Okay. Not surprisingly, I disagree. I don't think there's going to be any money coming from the federal government under the current administration. I think any planning that you do right now will be absolutely irrelevant if there is a change in administration and there is, you know, a billion dollars forthcoming. There will be a change in administration in three years. Well, it may be J.D. Vance, so it may not be a change in administrative philosophy. So we don't know who is going to be our next president, so we may or may not have a change in philosophy as it relates to tunnels and trains and bridges and lions and tigers and bears. So I think this is a waste of staff time. I, again, think this is a zombie project. We should be done with it, move forward, and recognize that we missed our window of opportunity back when we had a previous administration, and we should have moved faster on it. So I think this is a waste of still taxpayer dollars, whether it's city taxpayer dollars or federal taxpayer dollars. They're still taxpayer dollars, and I object philosophically to wasting those funds. Okay. Well, I think the majority still agrees to go forward. So we're happy. Yeah. Thank you for the feedback. I also want to highlight the city's participation and preparation for the IPW convention. The commission had asked how will the city be engaging, and so various members of our team, especially our economic development division and our strategic communications department, have been actively engaging with Visit Lauderdale and the event promoters. You would have seen in the letter to commission various events taking place right here in the city of Fort Lauderdale. And so I want to make sure that you're aware that we will be putting up some poll banners, basically welcoming event attendees. Can we do something more exciting than that? Oh, there's a whole list of things that we're doing, Mayor. We're going to have an activation at the convention center. There is a press brunch occurring at the fort. There's an opening night event right here on Fort Lauderdale Beach. So there's so many moments to highlight our city. Our public works, parks and recreation, and police departments are working together to beautify, enhance, and provide a safe experience for those event attendees. We also have our transportation mobility department strategically planning to utilize circuit to allow attendees to move throughout the city seamlessly. So we're very prepared, and we're excited about it. Okay. We also have America 250, another commission request for us to become more engaged and involved. You should have seen a communication related to America 250 poll banners. We're going to do a commemorative logo. We have various events coming up that we are going to tie to the America 250 celebration, including the air show, the Great American Beach Party, 4th of July Spectacular, with the Winterfest boat parade closing out the year. So we're really excited about that as well. With regard to the air show, I was corrected. It's called the Air Dot Air Show. I don't know who Air Dot is, but they do have a sponsor. So that might be new to this year. I don't remember it being there last year. Or is that just Brian Lilly's company name? I'm not sure if that's a sponsor. Is that right? I think it's just his company. Just his name? I think it's his company. Okay. All right. Well, my position stands, you know. Because they do them not just in Fort Lauderdale. They do them all around. I think it's called Air Dot. Like, it's a whole series. Okay. Thank you. No problem. Okay. So our city is the recipient of the Gold Bell Seal for Workplace Mental Health from Mental Health America, as well as we earned the 2026 Best Wellness Employer Gold Certification through the Wellness Workday Certification. So I just want to highlight our Human Resources Department for always promoting wellness for our employees. This week, the mayor and I received a communication from Commissioner Lamar Fisher from Broward County indicating that the county would be rolling out an application for funding support for FIFA World Cup-related events and activations. So if the city wanted to host an event, the county is providing some matching dollars that would allow the city to offset costs for any related event that's eligible, including a watch party, soccer clinics, and the like. So I'm not sure if the commission is interested in us activating for FIFA World Cup, but it's an opportunity made available through Broward County. Again, I have no – I really think this is a county undertaking. I don't really see any benefit to the city. It is matching money, so we've got to put up money ourselves, and it's up to $10,000. So, you know, none of the events are taking place in our city. None of them are taking place in Broward County. I know that there are – our hotels are being occupied by many of the players and the administrative staff, but, you know, again, I don't see a return on investment here. Do we know – do we know at all if Inter-Miami is going to be doing any events, watching any of the performances up at Chase Stadium? I have not been made aware of any events to be hosted or programmed by Inter-Miami. I do believe that the stadium may be a training facility or practice facility for some of the teams that are engaging. Right. Okay. No appetite on the commission. Okay. I haven't heard – I haven't heard consensus on that. Okay. Last but not least, we are starting our sandbag distribution program, which is enhanced. Last year, we took some of the effort out of it on the part of our residents, and we have pre-filled bags available May through November, starting the weekend of May 16th. So every third Saturday and Sunday of the month, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., we will be distributing sandbags at the following locations, Floyd Hall Stadium, George English Park, Holiday Park, Mills Pond Park, and Riverland Park. Last year, we distributed over 4,000 bags. We will also have the self-serve sandbag operation. We will continue that. Some people do enjoy that and would like to have bags on those off periods when we're not doing our own distribution program. So that is still available. And that concludes my report, Mayor. Okay. Before I proceed, I was handed a card by a person who wanted to speak. His name is Michael Gerhardt, and I don't know what item he's here for because it doesn't indicate it. It just says city manager's office. Is Michael here? Oh, because it wasn't listed on item 4. So you want business 4? Okay. Okay. We'll get there. Okay. Okay. Thank you, city manager, city attorney. Nothing, Mayor. Do you have a report? No, Mayor. None today. Okay. Great. Okay. All right. So let us proceed with the agenda. We'll go on to business 1, Broward Solid Waste Authority to provide the city commission with an update on its master plan and facilities amendment, public works department. I want to also recognize Commissioner Beam Furr, who's here on this, and he'll be the first one to speak. But I thank you for being here today, Commissioner. Why don't you sit up front? This isn't church. We have Brad Cain, public works director. But, Mayor, did you indicate that Commissioner Furr would be the first to speak? Well, after the presentation. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Good afternoon, Mayor Trance Dallas, Vice Mayor Sorensen, and thank you for those kind words, fellow commissioners. I'm just going to just do a brief introduction on the item, and I will leave it to Commissioner Furr and staff to present the item. But what you're going to hear today is a presentation from the interim executive director of the Broward County Solid Waste Authority on the benefits of joining the SWA going forward, a decision that the city commission will have to make over the next couple of months. Today is not for any decision-making. It's for informational purposes only. And if the commission has any questions, Mr. May will certainly answer them or Commissioner Furr. Our steps going forward, just for everybody to know, is staff will come back on May 19th with a presentation to discuss the Solid Waste Master Plan and the Facilities Amendment key points for further discussion and future recommendations going forward. And we will either have that discussion on the 19th or set another date in June for further discussion on whether or not the city of Fort Lauderdale will join the SWA or not. But that's what I just wanted to share with everybody. So there is no decisions that need to be made today. This is just a presentation by the interim executive director on the benefits of the SWA. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Furr? Mayor, while Commissioner Furr is coming up, did the city attorney leave? Chief? Or Chief? Okay. City Mayor, I just want to make sure Commissioner Furr and I are both members of the Solid Waste Authority, the board. It was noticed. It was noticed, so I think we're fine. Okay, Mayor, I just want to double check. No, no, I'm good as long as it's appropriate to stay. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you for that, Ben. Thanks. First of all, good afternoon, everybody. Good afternoon, Mayor, Commissioners, City Manager, City Attorney, We're kind of here on a road show tour. We're going from city to city to try to get to yes. No guitar? Yeah, I know. Somewhere. I'm here with Sam Mays, the Executive Director. Oh, you moved up. Daniel Deitch, who's our consultant, and Mary Lou Tai from the Broward League of Cities. You know, it wasn't that long ago where I was sitting in your seat as a Hollywood City Commissioner. And when I was a Hollywood City Commissioner, the one thing I always had to worry about was whether or not the garbage got picked up. I didn't have to worry about anything else. And if it didn't get picked up, as you guys do, you make a call and make sure it gets picked up. As a county commissioner, I've had to worry about where it goes when it gets picked up and then what happens to it. I was on the RRB as a Hollywood City Commissioner. So I've had a breadth of experience on it. And I became a county commissioner after the RRB had dissolved. So I kind of had an eye on what was going to happen. And I watched as there was a lot of chaos, a lot of struggle, everybody trying to figure out where do we go, who are we going to be with, where are we going to take our garbage. I saw 13 cities take their garbage to Palm Beach Waste Energy Plant. I saw all of our recycling rates plummet from 60% down to 30%. I saw our landfill rates skyrocket up above 60%, not to mention they were taking garbage from Broward County to places all over the state. So it was a mess. And so around 2015, 2016, a number of city commissioners throughout the county and I got together. And we said, maybe there's a better way to do this. And so we started trying to put something together. It's been 10 years of meetings, literally hundreds of meetings. Of trying to put this solid waste authority together, taking pictures of garbage all over the, in people's garbage to find out what kind of garbage is in this county. Well, you know, what, you know, what, if you're looking at how much glass, how much plastic, all these kind of things we've been doing for just a number of years. Throughout that whole time, there has been one consistent part of it. And it has been the global agreement, which Fort Lauderdale was a part of. It has been the one consistent agreement for the last 35 years that has kept your rates and those cities that are part of the global agreement has kept them stable and has kept them low. When you look at all, because we have a most favored nation status, nobody can have a lower price than us. And that's where we're trying to get to again. And we're going to, we'll stay that with the global agreement. But my hope is that we get to doing that same thing, that same most favored nation status through recycling. But what I think what you're going to see is over the next couple of years, if this happens, is we knew that we were running out of landfill space. We also knew we were running, that the waste energy is capped. It can't get, you know, it's, it can't get any more. At the same time, we're still using that waste energy facility, right? Sure, absolutely. But it was a time, I mean, there was a time when we weren't using enough of it and we were being charged but not using enough of it. Well, not only were we not using enough of it after the dissolution of the RRB, that's when the other one got dismantled because of that, which is a, we don't even want to go there. Right. Don't want to go there. Through all this, you know, we, over the last year, we have made, changed our, from the county's perspective. We've had some legislation on the landfill. We have now said no more organics will be going into the landfill. Why? Because that is a, the prime generator of methane. That, that landfill is one of the biggest in the world. And we don't want to be adding any more to that. You all have been one of the main people with climate change. You guys have done a great job with it, with the county. So we decided we're not going to do that anymore. We're going to take all of our organics to Okeechobee and compost all of it. That's part of what the SW is looking to do, divert all of these organics there, out to the BIC, which is a Broward County landfill. So where you can take all your yard waste, start to do glass recycling out there, start to do mulching out there, all those different things that are not happening right now. So there's lots of good possibilities that I think would be good. We're trying to get to a recycling rate of 75%. Why that? That is not an arbitrary number. If we can get to that, we don't have to build another waste energy plant. If we don't get there, we're going to have to. So we're going to have – that's part of – and that's another billion-dollar proposition. We don't want to have to do that. So the only way to not do that is to divert, reduce, all the things – recycle, and all those things that I think you're going to see all the cities are trying to do it. Thank you all for being a part of the Solid Waste Authority. Steve, I know you were part of this at the beginning of this. And I do think – Just for the first seven of the ten years. Okay. Yeah, that's okay. And I do think Port Lauderdale has a unique position on this. You have more tonnage than everybody. Many of these decisions are based on tonnage. The decisions have to be – have to reach a threshold of certain tonnage. You have a unique position that you would have – be able to steer and have a lot of influence in how this goes, on what things go where and all of that. I think you guys need to be the leaders on this. I really do. You need to be there, and you need to be a part of it. I can't imagine trying to go it alone. If you try to go it alone, there's a big difference in terms of economies of scale. When we're doing a contract, if we're doing a contract with somebody and we come in and we say we've got 2 million tons of garbage, it's a lot different from coming in and say I've got 100,000. And we've seen – and I think Daniel can tell you what's happening in Orlando when he was able to do tiered rates. Huge difference. Huge difference. And so you want to be a part of that. You want to be part of that, and you want to be part of the evolution of all this. There's a real connection. I've seen over the years of between not only garbage but environment, climate change, all these things. They're all interconnected. And this is a place where I think we're going to be able to make a huge difference in the world, to be honest, because I've just gotten back from both Brazil at COP and London at the Brazilian cities. When we talked about what we were doing with landfills, they're wanting to do the same thing now. So we have a chance to be a leader here, and you guys have a chance to be part of that, and I'd like to see that. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions, but our technical people are here, and they know it a lot better than I do. But I'm happy to answer what you do. Actually, Commissioner, if I may, thank you. Sure, sure. So unfortunately, I, too, was involved with the RRB. I believe you were the auditor. I was the auditor, and I was there when the county refused to give me access to the records, despite the fact that our interlocal agreement required them to give me access to the records. We had to sue them to get access to the records. So the county has not been a good partner to the cities with the RRB, and I was actually at the table during the mediation sessions, and I know how we got the Alpha 250 site and everything else that went along with it. So what are you going to share with me that I can tell my residents about two things? Number one, for the, what, 30 years of the RRB, we paid some of the highest rates possible for tipping. And number two, when it came time to amicably dissolve, the county was not a good partner in amicably dissolving and distributing the resources in accordance with an interlocal agreement that we had. So what's different? Let me, I'll take, I'll take both of them. First of all, this is much more city-centric. This is not run by the county. This is run by cities. And if you look at the governing board, it is, I'm one vote on that, on that governing board, and I'm one vote on the executive committee. So this is a city-centric. You are, you are the, you are the SWA. It is not the county. Well, how come we were kicked off the executive board then? You were never kicked off. You didn't get, see, what happened is there's, there's a certain number of people that are, there's, there's 10, I believe it's 10 members on the large cities, 10 on the middle cities. I mean, I'm sorry, nine, nine, and nine, and small cities. So on the executive committee, there are five cities out of those 10 that are elected to be on the executive committee. And there were, there was, you know, for whatever reason. Shouldn't Fort L'Oreal be a member ex officio because we are the largest user? I actually, I actually agree with you on that. Yeah. I actually agree with you. And much like on, like with CareerSource where, and the TDC. Right. The largest cities is, I actually agree with you on that. Let me go back to what you were talking about. One, it's city centric. And when you were talking about the higher fees, as you know, that was a, that was paying off a bond. There was an, there was an escalator that was going on. And yeah, it got over a hundred dollars per ton. Right. As you know, we were also all, and I remember with Hollywood, getting a rebate every year. I remember when Hollywood got a $2 million rebate one year. Once those bonds were paid off, then what should have been happening is all the champagne corks popping. And I, because the rate should have just plummeted. And it did. Not to, not to where we all wanted to go to. That was a lot of negotiation and part of why the dissolution happened. But the bond, that bond escalator is what caused that up to over a hundred. And then the, the, as soon as it paid off, it went down to 57, I believe. But I think what you also saw at the time, what, what drove that was competition. Because prior to the dissolution of the RRB, waste management had exclusive flow direction under the ILA. Right. And so once we had competition, Bergeron came in and competed. Once we had competition in the marketplace, then rates fell. And so what I'm concerned about is we're not, we're basically going to lock ourselves into another one of these long-term contracts where we have exclusivity and we don't have competition in the marketplace. The only thing that guarantees low rates is marketplace competition. I would disagree with you because the global agreement has made sure that is the lowest rate right now. And you get most favored nation status. If you have a, right now, if you have, with our agreement with, um, Wheel of Rater now, FCC, requires that our, our rate is lower than anybody's. Any spot market. We get the lowest one. We expect the same thing with, when we go out for a recycling bid. We will be asking that same thing. And then, if anybody has a, tries to undercut us, we'll go for most favored nation and soak at the lower rate. Let me ask you another. Because we're coming in with, we have all the leverage in the world. So, so, you know, two other interesting things happened when we got to the end of that. So you talk about the bonds. I believe there were $500 million for the two waste-to-energy plants. So we, the residents of Broward County, paid for two waste-to-energy plants. We turned them over. We didn't turn them over. Part of the agreement at the very beginning was, here's what I've heard. Right. And, and I wasn't there. But the county wasn't, didn't want to take on the risk because it was a new, um, technology. In exchange for that, what they said is, you build it, you'll still own it. We never turned them over. They, they were still owning it with the tipping fees that we're paying for it. So let me, let me see if I understand that. So we issued the bonds. We paid off the bonds. Through tipping fees. Through tipping fees. Correct. So they owned it, but we paid for it? Yes. Because those bonds, we financed it. So we financed it, which typically would have made us the owners. I'm not saying that was a great deal. Okay. Okay. Because then at the end of it. I'm not just trying to say that was. I, I, I came in after, way after that. I mean, because at the end of it, they shut down one of the plants. And so now we're saying we don't have enough, we don't have enough, uh, ability to, to, you know, um. They shut it down because there wasn't enough. Because all, we were sending all of our garbage to Palm Beach. And, and they ended up getting, their recycling rates went sky high. Ours plummeted. And then they said, well, we're not going to, we're, nobody's sending stuff to our plant. We're going to dismantle because they, I think they probably do make more money landfilling. So, you know, it's an interesting thing, right? So Palm Beach County built a waste to energy plant while we were shutting our second one down. Exactly. There's something odd in that dynamic there that they found that there was a, that there was enough flow to build a brand new plant and finance it while we here in Broward were saying there was not enough garbage to support our two plants. And they were using, they were using our garbage. They were using our garbage. And apparently it made more sense market-wise for our provider to ship their trash north and shut down the facility here rather than keep both of them operating at capacity. Yeah. No, but my last question, Mayor, my last question on this, I apologize, one last one. So we talk about getting to 75% recycling. Yeah. And there's only a, only a handful of cities in the country at 75%. San Francisco, L.A., San Jose, the entire state of California is only at 37%. The most progressive state in the entire country is only at 37% recycling. It is a stretch goal to say the least. The only one locally here is Palm Beach. And it's because they're sending it all to their ways to, but we'll leave that aside. The likelihood of us giving the 75% when China has stopped buying, buying most of the recycled goods that most of the world used to ship is not going to happen. Palm Beach is at 90% right now, which is, but that's with those recycling credits. And I'm sure you know about that. 75% is a very, I'm not disagreeing. That's a very hard one to reach. But you, and you have to have a very good plan, a very good educational outreach for that to happen. But the, you know, the other way to go is not to try at all, which doesn't make sense at all. But we've been trying for the better part of 40 years right now, and we've never cracked 50% across the country. Well, no, that's not true. We got 60% in 2012. And it fell back immediately. So we got there. When everything fell back. Yeah, I mean, so, so no, but I want to, I want to know how this makes sense for us to try and get to something that we've never gotten to. We've never been able to sustain. Let me put it that way. Nobody else across the country has been able to sustain it. So I, I, I would, I would agree with you if we were saying, hey, let's try this and see if it works. But we've tried it. We already know it doesn't work. I would, I would disagree. We have tried it and it did work and it was working and it worked. While we were all together, it didn't work when we were apart. That's the big difference. That's the big difference. The ask is that you become part of the SWA. You are, you are going to pass a facilities amendment. Um, and we, and the master plan has already been adopted by the governing board. So that the ask is that you pass the facilities amendment and you become part of the SWA. All right. And what's the, and what's the downside from your perspective if we don't become what, I mean, we have to find our own place to, to dump our garbage. Correct. You would be, you would be out on your own doing your own contracts, you know, at the mercy of the private sector. So you would be, you would be negotiating by yourself, not having the leverage of saying we have 5 million tons of garbage. Right. So you're saying that that's that, that the advantage of piggybacking on the contract that, that the County and the associated cities would have would be to our advantage. And, and where's the ultimate, uh, where's the ultimate destination of all this garbage? There's numerous places. And that's the difference. You would also have access to being able to compost in Okeechobee. You'd be, you'd have the access to mulching at the BIC, glass recycling at the BIC, C&D, all those different things become at your disposal. By not doing that, you don't have access to that. Okay. Okay. Did waste management build a recycling plant out west? They did. And state of the art. Right. Pretty amazing. So worth a, worth a tour. Right. But I mean, is, is the, is the SWA planning to contract with waste management or does waste management contract privately and separately with different cities? We would be putting out an RFP and they would be, um, I'm sure responding to that. Right. And then we would, if, you know, I'm sure whoever it is, we would be, um, negotiating with them. All right. So you're saying that, you're saying that by, by joining the, uh, the SWA, we would have more leverage in getting a lower price for recycling our products, regardless of what level of recycling we achieve, um, rather than doing it on our own. Correct. I see. Okay. Okay. Any other questions? Mayor? Yes. Actually. Yes. Thank you. And I know that we, as a board, Brad just told us we're going to discuss this on May 19th and we'll, we'll figure this out, but just a couple of things. And I think it's really important. First, I want to commend you for your passion and your knowledge. And I mean, I know how important this is to you and you've been a real driving force in this. So I want to say thank you for all of your work. It's, it's greatly appreciated. Um, I want to know what are you doing maybe personally or, um, SWA in terms of getting cities like Hallandale beach, Pompano beach, Pembroke pines. These are major cities that are not participating right now. So I know you said it's important that Fort Lauderdale participates, but I know that they still can participate if they want, but is there an aggressive campaign? These are major cities that are not participating. What are we doing about that? Good quote. Very good question. Pompano beach has kind of a, a sweetheart deal with waste management. I'll just say, you know, a very good deal with them that ends in 2027. So they can't leave that contract until then. I think they will be, they're very interested in what's going on at, with the SWA after that. Pembroke pines, Angelo and I, mayor Cascio and I were having a, a, a, a, quite a Facebook discussion yesterday. Um, you know, I'll just leave it at that. And I, and I, yeah, right. It's a discussion, exactly. And, um, you know, Pembroke pines is, a lot of these things are going to be happening very close to Pembroke pines. He, they were, they wanted to see the master plan first, which I totally respect. He didn't want to, he didn't want to get out ahead of it, um, till it was adopted. It just got adopted. So now he's taking a good look at it. I've just written him a five page letter yesterday. Uh, he's, he's reading over it, but I, but because, uh, the, the BIC is right in his backyard as is a recycling center. Um, these things make a lot of sense for Pembroke pines to me, um, they, they didn't, they never were part of the RRB either. And neither was Hollandale or Pompano. So they kind of have their own individualistic nature. We'll just leave it at that. I understand. I think so. It's important if they could participate. Yeah. And, and lastly, I just want to emphasize how important it is. I don't know what you can do as one person. Um, but the SWA must include Fort Lauderdale on the executive committee. It's ludicrous that our city was not voted on to be on that. You mentioned the governing board. Every city is part of the governing board. Right. Right. Whoopie doo. But the Fort Lauderdale, the city of Fort Lauderdale must be on the executive committee where those decisions are being made. It makes no sense. And there makes no sense at all. So I totally, whatever you can do, because I think that's really important for us to participate even. I mean, that's like, you know, I agree with that's a game changer. And there's an opening coming in November that, that I think that is what would happen. Okay. For sure. All right. Thank you for whatever you can do to make that happen. Thank you. Thank you guys. Don't go, don't go far, but thank you. I'll sit up here. Okay. Stephanie Jaffe. Stephanie, you here? I can't give you the same amount of time as the commissioner, but please. I can't give you the same amount of time as the commissioner, but. Okay, good. I give you two minutes. Okay. As a Broward County resident, I urge the city of Fort Lauderdale to follow the Broward County Solid Waste Authority Governing Board's unanimous recommendation to approve the Solid Waste Master Plan and Facilities Plan. You may be asking, can we afford this? But the more pressing question is, can we afford not to? Broward County faces a solid waste crisis that is already here. We generate approximately 20,000 pounds of waste every minute, and we are rapidly exhausted our landfill and incineration capacity. The consequences of inaction are not abstract. They mean higher costs, fewer options, and a diminished quality of life for every resident and business in our county. By contrast, prioritizing reuse, recycling, and composting saves taxpayer money. It reduces government spending on waste and resilience infrastructure, creates local jobs, cuts our dependence on foreign raw materials, lowers insurance costs for cities and businesses and residents, and keeps our land, air, and water cleaner and cooler for our families and communities. The cost of not approving this plan is simply too high, especially when weighed against moving forward at less than $3 per household per year. I mean, to me, that's pretty amazing. I am particularly encouraged by the diligence and leadership demonstrated by the SWA Governing Board, which voted unanimously, so that includes Fort Lauderdale, to recommend both plans. Their work reflects extensive public engagement, collaboration with municipalities, local businesses, and industry stakeholders, and is a thoughtful, practical approach to reducing waste through education, maximizing the use of existing infrastructure, and leveraging economies of scale that only county-wide cooperation makes possible. Notably, this plan achieves meaningful progress at a cost to households that is less than a single cup of coffee per year. I respectfully urge your commission to vote in favor on May 19th of this plan and continue the collaborative effort that municipalities across Broward County have helped shape from the outset. Thank you for your service to our community and to the generations who will inherit it. Great. Thank you so much. Thank you. I just also want to say to Mr. Herbst about the recycling. The new plant is amazing, and I really encourage all of you to go look at that recycling plant, because they can do things they've never done before, and they sell these stuff, their commodities, which is new, and it's really incredible. So I urge you to go see it. The problem is not the plant where the recycling takes place. The problem is the global market for recycling has collapsed. So recycling programs used to generate money. Now they cost money. They are. And if you go take that tour, you'll be really impressed. No, it's not the tour of the camp. They have people who deal with the commodities market full-time. They're a huge organization, and they're really selling this stuff for profit. It's amazing. China was the number one buyer of recycled material, and they no longer buy from us. The only things that are being profitably recycled are glass and aluminum. That's it. And cardboard for all the Amazon boxes that we all have delivered every day to our house. That's it. There really is no... But that's a lot. All right. Okay. All right. And plastics. No, actually, plastic doesn't work. Plastic doesn't work. The market for that has collapsed globally. They don't want our trash. It doesn't work anymore. It needs to. Just take the tour. Just take the tour. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Linda Gonzalez, followed by Sam May. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak on this item? Okay. Hello, Linda. Thank you, Mayor Trantales. Thank you to all of the commissioners for all of your hard work that we've had the pleasure of listening to before this discussion. I just want to say that as the Sierra Club member and as the League of Women Voters member, we have been, for the many years that we have been working on this and led by Mayor of Broward, Beam Furr, we've been following these meetings very closely for the last many, many years, attending many of the meetings. And I will just say at the outset, we are heartily in support of this master plan. As residents of our county and of our individual cities, we need this. It is a forward-looking, market-based plan that will reduce the cost long-term for all of us. It will help save our environment, our clean water, our clean air, and we need it. Fort Lauderdale is a leader. You have always been a leader. You're the big kids on the block, and we need you to be part of this plan. We need your leadership in our county now more than ever so that the residents in Broward can work together for this market-based, forward-looking plan to solve this looming crisis. We have over 5 million tons of solid waste that we dispose of somewhere every year. That's over 200,000 pounds per minute, if you can imagine that. So, yes, we do have a looming crisis. We need all of us to work together. We finally have a comprehensive plan that will work, but it's precisely because it is a comprehensive plan that eliminates the confusion of our residents. Because right now we have many diverse individual city programs, there's confusion among our county residents. With this comprehensive plan, our residents can all work together to achieve the economies of scale that we need to realize the full market value of the products that can be recycled and be used, far more than the glass and the plastics. There are experts here who can talk about it. But we need to recover the potential. We've talked about the state-required 75% recycling requirement, but approximately 64% of the waste that we now send to the landfill or our single remaining incinerator could be diverted if we work together to achieve the goals of this plan. But we need your participation to make it happen. As we found, as Miami-Dade has found out, transporting the solid waste elsewhere costs millions of dollars, and we're losing the elsewhere. There is no elsewhere to transport it. So we must recover the economic value, the market value of these goods. There's construction and demolition products that we can recover. There's yard waste. There are all sorts of items that are just ending up in that landfill, filling it up. That can be diverted, and we must work together. Please conclude your remarks. Rather than each city barring alone, this multi-city approach leverages our bargaining authority, as Mayor Furr has mentioned, gives us the most favored nation that rates. This gives you the ability to better plan your budgets with the long-term predictable costs that are negotiated by the Solid Waste Authority, of which you will all be voting members. All right. Thank you, Linda. I've got to cut you off. Thank you very much. I appreciate your consideration of this. Please do the right thing and vote yes. We need this plan. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Sam May, did you want to add to your comments? Do you have any additional comments? You signed up to speak. Is it just for questions you wanted to respond to? No, no questions. I mean, I'm not. Oh, no. I didn't realize when I signed up. Oh, okay. Okay. All right. Okay, great. Anyone else wish to speak on this? Brad, could you come up here for a second? So, bottom line, why do they need us? And why do we need them? Two questions. Well, I will say this to start. I think that when we come back with our presentation on the 19th, we're going to discuss the key points of the Solid Waste Master Plan and the facilities amendment, and we'll be able to have more of a robust discussion. And the tonnage, there are requirements that the SWA needs for it to exist, and for Lauderdale having some of the most tons in the system, it's key. Key to what? For them to go forward. Go forward with what? To exist. The SWA wouldn't exist if certain cities dropped out of it. So, bottom line is, where does this all go? Does it matter? I mean, we're going to all send it to the same place. Does it matter whether it goes through the SWA, or does it matter if we just did it on our own? There's different. I mean, there's different places it can go. If the city, just for instance, did a competitive solicitation just for its tonnages by itself, there would certainly be market players that would be interested in having our business. That wouldn't necessarily go to the incinerator, but there are other disposal options as well. But Commissioner Furr said that we'd get a better rate if we went through the SWA because of the capacity that Fort Lauderdale would add to the total amount of disposal. We get very good rates now, don't we? We get rates as part of the existing interlocal agreement, yes. Could we get better rates on our own? Potentially. I mean, again, I don't want to get into all the details of all of that because I think it's important to go through the items in the two agreements and kind of give you where staff is at that point. But, again, I always think there's volume in numbers is good, but Fort Lauderdale is one of the largest cities in South Florida. So, you know, our tons make a big difference. Okay. Mayor, I think the issue is the facility is going to cost in excess of a billion dollars, and in order for it to make sense from an economic perspective, they need a certain volume of trash to come into it. And without our participation in one or two other cities, the volume simply isn't there. And the billion dollars is no longer economically feasible without a guarantee of a certain level of flow to the facility. So without our participation, it may not make sense. Okay. So the facility is a trash-to-energy facility again? So what the SWA has been proposing, and correct me if I'm wrong, is what's going to be roughly a billion-dollar facility. Yeah, but what kind of facility is it going to be? Is it an existing facility, right? No. What kind of facility is it going to be? The SWA on the scenario A does not look at doing a waste energy plant right now. The idea is that if we're able to divert, reduce everything, we don't have to buy one. So our plan for everybody to do this together is to avoid having to do a billion-dollar plant. And let me answer one part if it's okay. The reason Fort Lauderdale is important on this is that we have to get 80% of the cities and the tonnage for this SWA to exist. Otherwise, on August 14th, it all goes away, literally. Okay. So I get that part. Okay. But I'm just saying, so what's the solution that the SWA offers that makes… Flow control. What's that? Flow control. Flow control. Flow control, yes. In other words, by all the cities saying together, we're going to send our stuff here, here, and here, you are able to leverage your economies of scale. Economies of scale. That's what it comes down to. That's really what it is. That's what it comes down to. Okay. All right. Thank you. So let me see if I understand it. So there's no planned facility. When I'm reading about the 40-year master plan and this billion-dollar facility that's planning to be built, that's not part of your plan? Apparently not. Okay. So apparently all the reports I've ever read are wrong? No. That is – if you look in the master plan, there's scenario A, B, C, D, and E. Okay. So there is one in there. I just want to make sure I'm not wrong. There is one. Okay. But we have all voted to do scenario A. Okay? So what you want to do is look at the master plan, look at scenario A. That's not in there. Okay. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. Vice Mayor, did you want to say something? Yeah. Thanks, Mayor. Appreciate it. Thank you, Brad, and thank you, Sam and Commissioner, for being here. So just being a new member of the SWA board, just a couple thoughts here. So my sense is that – let's start off with this. In my view, City of Fort Lauderdale offers trash and recycling yard waste services that, in my view, is the gold standard. So – and, Brad, I want to, you know, check in with you here – but we offer, you know, twice a week curbside trash pickup, once a week yard pickup, once a week recycling pickup, bulk pickup. That is a level of service that really few other, if any, cities in Broward County offer. Is that fair? To the extent we offer it, correct. Yeah. So that is fantastic. Not – there are a lot of other cities that do not offer, for example, recycling at the curbside. Is that right? Right. So, Mayor, in my view, what this does is from a – just a service for the moment, and I want to talk about finances. From a service standpoint, this would help other municipalities that don't have the level of amazing service we have in the City of Fort Lauderdale get to that level of service. Is that – Brad, is that – I don't want to speak for them, but I think it's to try to – No. If it's no, Sam, you're saying no, it sounds like. Okay. Sam May interim executive director of the Broward Solid Waste Authority. I don't believe it's going to help those cities get that level of service. You have that level of service because of the haulers that you have. The hauling contracts have nothing to do with this. This is all about disposal. It's a great level of service you have, and you provide that level of service, and you're doing all – most of the things that the – SWA. The Solid Waste Authority would be kind of, as you said, like the gold standard. They're going to be looking at composting, as the mayor said. All the organics will be going to – the goal is for all the organics to be processed at one location. Right now, they're not processed at one location. They're being commingled in and going to the waste-of-energy plant for the most part. So some of those things are – the big thing is the economy is the scale. You have – you know, you're about somewhere around 20 percent, something like that, of all of the waste that's generated in Broward County. But you're not that whole amount of it. So, yes, you can – as a Solid Waste Authority, you're going to be able to get a better rate by going and going to these disposal facilities and bringing in there, you know, ten times – not ten times as much, five times as much as what you're bringing in there. But also, those facilities then can – they can plan. They can budget for what they're going to be doing, you know, 10, 20 years from now. Because right now, they don't have 20-year commitments, and that's what we're looking to give them is a 20-year commitment so they can get the best bang for their buck, basically. You know, they can maximize their efficiencies in their plants. And that's what we're looking to do is for them to be able to maximize their efficiencies and utilize those plants to the maximum amount and then having the lowest cost by doing that. So how will SWA then – it sounds like – how will SWA encourage other municipalities to recycle? If they are not recycling to the level that we want them to. Through education and outreach. That's the main thing, the education and outreach. Because they've got to spend the money on the hauling. That's the problem. Most of the people have curbside pickup. There's a few that don't, but most of them have curbside pickup. Okay. So how are we going to achieve that 70% if it's already happening? That's the lofty goal, I can tell you. It's the lofty goal. It really is. It's the lofty goal. It is. I mean, and there's a lot of the – there's a lot of credits that you get with that. When you're looking at true recycling, it's not quite 75%. But a lot of it is through C&D also, through commercial C&D. There's a lot of – What's C&D? A lot of weight is construction and demolition debris. Okay. A lot of weight in commercial construction and demolition debris. And that's one of the key areas we're looking at also. So it may not necessarily be on your municipal side as far as the heavy weight on the recycling to reach that 75% level. Okay. I mean, I think we're at 38% right now, if I remember correctly. Ballpark, right? 38% of the idea. 38, yeah. And, again, that's roughly comparable to the entire state of California, which last time I checked is about as progressive as it gets in terms of recycling. I know when I was out there, they kept giving me dirty looks every time I threw anything away. Well, if you go to any of the disposal facilities and you look and see what's going in there, you'll be able to say that we can do better. Because I was at one recently, and I was looking at all the cardboard that came in there, and I'm going, that's just unbelievable, the amount of cardboard that's going in there. And that cardboard is, like, one of the best commodities right now is cardboard. And it's just going right to either the waste of energy or being landfilled. And there's no reason for that, you know. So the SWA, if I'm hearing you right, you're saying the SWA is not going to, by leveraging economies of scale, the SWA is not going to create greater ability incentive for recycling. Everyone's already recycling. It's just through the SWA's education that you're going to get more recycling. Not necessarily true. Yeah, there will be, because right now there's recycling is not going, it's not all going to MERS. They're going to, some of it's going to waste of energy. And so we don't want the recycling to go to waste of energy. We'd like for the recycling to go to, you know, to actually be recycled and not to be converted to waste of energy. We'd like to save that capacity of waste of energy for the things that can't be recycled and utilize the waste of energy facilities for that, for the things that can't be recycled, can't be composted, things of that nature. And so SWA will allow for greater bifurcation of recycled materials to go to those places, you're saying? Yes. I believe that would be correct. It's going to be flow control. And the flow control is going to have the compost, will be going to the compostable facilities. The recycled material will be going to the recycling facilities. And the solid waste, things that can't be burned and converted to waste of energy, will go to the landfills. But that's the last option that we want to do is go into the landfills. Okay. Thanks. Hopefully that answers some of the questions, I hope. Thank you, sir. We appreciate it. Thank you. And if you'd like to speak to Daniel, he's our technical consultant. We're going to bring this up again at our next meeting, so we'll be able to talk then. Okay, great. Sir, before we leave that topic, I just have one other. So, City Manager, Brad, I think an important component of this is the financial component. So, an analysis of what are we currently paying per resident for all of the disposal we currently have, and then what would be the projected cost of the same service levels within the SWA. So, I think that's important. Those would be the answers that we'll be seeking at our meeting. Exactly. Okay. So, is that City Manager or Brad? Is that because? It's really going to be more just on the disposal component, what we're currently paying today as part of the ILA with the county versus what the SWA is proposing going forward. It really doesn't have anything to do with our hauling agreement with waste management. That's all stuff that we have through our own procurement. This is just really focusing on the disposal component of things. Okay. I just want to be clear to that because it really doesn't have anything to do with those other services. Right. That's great. So, just, again, apples to apples, where are we now, totality of services, where would we be, totality of services, and broken down by service component, if that makes sense. I understand what you're looking for, and we will give an apples to apples comparison. I know it's for disposal as to where we are versus what they're proposing. Great. Thank you. Vice Chair, I know that there's a long-term component to the SWA, and I think the information that we have today is based on our existing level. And so, is it that the Commission would want us to project out for the duration of the SWA, which I think is proposed at 40 years? You know, we don't have information on our side as to what we think it's going to cost over a 40-year period, but that's something that we could try to make some assumptions on and share with the Commission. Yeah. I think that would be very helpful, and I'm sure Sam and others would be helpful to, you know, give us the best information they have. Okay, great. Sure. Thank you so much. Oh, Sam. Okay. If you don't mind if I could add one thing in there, because you're asking about the rates. Basically, right now, you know, we're paying, all the cities are paying based on a population base, and that's going to be for FY26 and 27. Currently, in FY27, Fort Lauderdale will be paying $229,000 for all of the people that are in Fort Lauderdale. It's going to go to a tonnage-based, starting in FY28, and it'll be FY28, 29, 30. After that, it'll still be tonnage-based, but it won't be billed to the cities directly. It'll go right then through a solid waste authority. But it'll be still based on tonnages. And the tonnage-based rate is going to go down from $229,000 to $143,000 to the residential units that are serviced. The commercial will pay an additional amount also. They'll pay an additional amount based on it'll be about 11 cents per cubic yard. So if they have a four-yard dumpster that they're getting empty twice a week, you're talking about 88 cents more a week. For the residential side, it's based on a dollar rate per ton, which is starting out in FY28 will be $2.22 per ton, which equates to about $143,000 overall for the residential units that are in Fort Lauderdale. You have about 39,000 residential units in Fort Lauderdale. And therefore, dividing that out, it comes out to about – and you pay by your solid waste – you pay your solid waste through your utility bill. So it comes out to about 31 cents per month. That's what the addition is. It's 31 cents a month on the utility bill. If you're paying on a solid waste assessment, it would be about $3.60 based on the tonnages that you have right now in the city. So that's what you're looking at is 31 cents a month for the residential unit. Thanks. And that was – part of that was my sense of why economies of scale could induce greater recycling, as an example, because my sense – but I may be – please let me know – is that by having a lower cost, for example, of commercial recycling would further incentivize commercial recycling. Correct. You are 100 percent correct. Which thus increases recycling. You are 100 percent correct on that. Okay. 100 percent. All right. Thank you. And we had that discussion, you know, with all the providers, the haulers, the disposal facilities, everything about that, you know. And that's what's going to incentivize the commercial people. And that's what we're trying to – that's what we're trying to achieve. So they – it makes sense for them to recycle. You know, you don't want to make it where it costs them more to recycle. You don't want to make it where it makes it cheaper to recycle. Yep. Yep. Thanks. Okay. Thank you. Great. Okay. Any further questions or comments with regard to this item? Okay. There being none, we'll move – we're going to make some changes in the – in this conference agenda because we seem to be running out of time. And I don't want people to be sitting here expecting their writing to be taken up. And we're going to probably have to defer to – thank you, Commissioner – to another night. So we're going to take up – we're going to – CF1, we're going to defer to another meeting. We'll take up business 2. Business 3, we're going to defer to another meeting. So those of you who have signed up to speak on business 3, we're not going to be able to take it up tonight. City Manager, we said business 4 also we're taking up tonight. We're taking up – I'm recommending that business 5 and 6 be tabled until later this evening so that – 5 and 6 be later this evening. Yes. So we're going to take 2 and 4 this afternoon, correct? Yes. All right. Very good. All right. I apologize. We're just running out of time. So Chris Stachowski and Ed Catalano, we're going to have to reschedule that item. Okay. So moving on to business 2, presentation on charter revision ballot questions. City Attorney. Thank you, Mayor. In the interest of time, I'll tee up this matter to give you a little summary of where we are for your – you'll recall that you had selected of the nearly 25 questions, 12 that you would like to see put into questions. The team has put the 12 into five questions. A packet was delivered to you which would include a draft resolution and the draft ordinance. The draft resolution clearly shows the actual ballot questions that they'd be proposed. And the ordinance also shows where the changes remain, a red-lined version of the changes that would be implemented if you chose these. This is five. There's still a lot. So you may want to consider what, of any of them, you would not want to pursue. And then I'll have Gabby Bush, Paul Rangel, and Anthony Fajardo here to make a presentation on that if you would like it or to answer any questions. Sounds good. So in looking at the resolution, which is Exhibit 2, it lists the specific charter amendments that are going to be presented to the public if they're approved tonight. And, Paul, do you want to run through them? Oh, sorry. Good afternoon. Paul Bengel, City Attorney's Office. We have consolidated several of the questions, and we've come up with five proposed ballot questions, as the City Attorney mentioned. I can go through them and tell you which sections are being addressed in each question, if you would like to do that. Well, why don't we go through the charter amendments themselves and the resolution? The amendments themselves are in the ordinance. Well, yes, we see that. So looking at the resolution, Exhibit 2, we see qualifications for eligibility to hold office, organizational meeting, and designation of vice mayor. Should the City of Fort Lauderdale charter be amended to update the qualifications for the office of mayor and city commissioner and provide that elected officials assume office in the first regularly? This has just changed the date in which we take office, which is the meeting right after the November election. Correct. So that's all number one is about, correct? Yes, and also it addresses vice mayor. And the vice mayor is designated at that same meeting, right? Yes, and annually thereafter, instead of the first meeting in April. Right. So are we all good with that, folks? I think we all agree with that. Okay. Moving on to amendment number two. Explain what that is. So this adds that the city clerk receives the documentation of the candidates and does a ministerial review of them. This eliminates the process of receiving affidavits alleging that a candidate for the office of mayor or commissioner has violated the charter or is unqualified and the commission making a finding as to those allegations. So the city commission is not the authority that makes those decisions, right? Correct. It moves the city commission's authority to receive affidavits alleging that a candidate for office of mayor has violated the charter. And where does that responsibility rest? Well, the discussion of the charter revision board was that that is a matter for the courts and anyone who would have a complaint could file a complaint with the court. Right. Should that be in the actual language? The law would speak for itself. I don't know that that would be necessary. And also, let's not forget that for the ballot questions, we only have 75 words. Okay. So you can't add a phrase there to be otherwise determined by a court of competent jurisdiction? We can see if something will fit, but I'm just trying to eliminate ambiguity. Mayor. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. Question. Just going back, the overall purpose of this is to clean up and align our charter with also with what is allowed in the state, correct? Yes. Yes. Okay. So I'm still, when I look at this, yes, it has been condensed. It's getting to the point, but I'm still, as a layperson, being just overwhelmed with what I'm seeing. Is there no way for us to say what we're changing with basically saying to be in alignment with the state requirements? Because this is a, when you get in a ballot box and you begin to read these things, the average person is going to be, they're going to close down. They're not going to go and they're not necessarily going to understand. And they may not even vote, but if we can at least put the language where it's reader-friendly, for lack of a better term. But is there any way we could come up with a verbiage that would basically summarize to say what we're doing is in alignment with the state? Is it law or legislation? Whatever the alignment is, that we could write a statement like that. Well, but you're assuming that a person knows what the state law is when you do something like that. But most people will say, okay, the state is doing it, it must be right. I mean, the first amendment is pretty clear what we're trying to do, right? It's changing it from one date and putting it instead. So if we could go back to the first one, the first question? Yeah. Let's go back to the first question and let's kind of walk through it. Should the City of Fort Lauderdale Charter be amended to update the qualifications of the officers of mayor and city commissioner and provide that elected officials assume office at the first regular city commission meeting following certification of their election and that a vice mayor be designated at the city commission's first meeting after all elected officials assume office following a regular municipal election and annually thereafter instead of at the first meeting in April? Mayor? Who's saying that? Yes. Commissioner Beasley-Pittman, so one of the things that we were faced with is a balance because we're faced with a limit of 75 words per question. But on the other hand, if we separated them out more and added more explanation, it would increase the number of questions. Because, for example, in question one, we've managed to consolidate four charter section changes into one question. So if we were to separate it out any further, we could end up adding questions or going over the 75-word limit, which we cannot do. So it's a difficult balance to come up with this. And, by the way, Mayor, to respond to something that you were asking before about stating the remedy in the courts, that actually is existing language in the current section because there is already language in Section 3.04 subject to review by the courts. So that part is not changing. Okay. Yeah, that's not underlined. It's not crossed out. It's not changing. Can't we also realize that we're going to have until November, I think it will be our job, and then the Council for Rural Civic Associations and all the organizations to try and hopefully let people understand. We have six months to educate, right? I know we can't take a position and we can't do that, but we can educate, right? We can explain what we're doing and why, and then I guess the Council for Rural Civic Associations can do that. We can't advocate one way or the other, but we can explain. Can I explain? Yeah. Like, we've been through that with the Parks bond. We did that with the police bond. We're used to doing that kind of a campaign to make sure people understand what we're doing and why, and I think that will just be our challenge because we've already, I mean, we've put all these here. We've discussed all these already, have we not? But what Commissioner Beasley Pittman is saying is that this language to the casual reader, the person who's just reading these subject matter areas for the first time, it may not, it doesn't give them any context for them to understand what they're voting on. No, I understand that, and I guess Paul can tell us that there's a way to do that, but I still think that we have six months to educate. I agree about the education part, but what we are, my conversation, what we're having right now, is to make sure what we're bringing forward to the average reader is something that they can comprehend, and it's not overwhelming because, again, we're talking about how many ballot questions, how many are we bringing forward? What does it say? Five. Five. Okay. Five. And, again, you know, understanding, and I understand what has taken place and what's being brought forward, but I see that there's an opportunity for us to make this a little tighter, not extending more wording, understanding the 75%, but being able to present it where... Seventy-five words. Seventy-five words, where our residents to be able to grasp it, understand it, and be comfortable with what's being presented, because to me, this is still just, to me, it's not a friendly read for me. Mayor, may I offer a suggestion? Well, you'll remember that this is our process, right? So now we're going through them to determine whether you still want these five. They were cobbled together from the 12 that you said you did want. So these points are essential, the points you're making this evening, so that we can now go back and hone them in some way. And I hear, and I completely understand, that they could be written perhaps more plainly. It's difficult, but I think that is something that we will go back and do with all of them, Commissioner. I think that's essential. So tonight you'll give us the opportunity of that feedback, I hear, as an overarching issue. Two, let's make them read more plainly, please. And then secondarily, do you want all of them would be some direction that we would like to have. And then, of course, an education campaign would help when you've decided, finally, which ones you want. All right. Thank you, because that is the direction I'm going in. So, Mayor, we can continue to go through the five, but that's the point that I did want to point to the table. Okay. All right. Very good. All right. Charter amendment number three, should the City of Fort Lauderdale Charter be amended so that special meetings of the City Commission may be called upon at least 72 hours' notice, except that in the event of an emergency where there is a potential for imminent harm or the ability to lessen or avert a catastrophe, special meeting of the City Commission may be called upon such notice as is practical under those circumstances. Pretty straightforward. Okay. Charter four, should the City of Fort Lauderdale Charter be amended to prescribe a method for resolving a tie in nominations to the Civil Service Board Nominating Committee, modify the composition of the election board that certifies the results of elections for the classified employee's recommendation for appointment to the Civil Service Board, and remove Civil Service Board's duty to review, consider, and advise the City Manager concerning job class specifications. I don't know what this means. I think it's a cleanup language, but I know what we're getting at. So that's that. And number five, should the City of Fort Lauderdale Charter be amended to delete references to primary elections? And that we all know. Remove the requirement of two newspaper publications for public hearings and other types of notice and distinguish the title of interim City Manager who is appointed in the event of the City Manager's resignation or termination from that of acting City Manager who is appointed during temporary absences of the City Manager. Again, a cleanup reference. I have another question. Yes, ma'am. Any of these that we are looking at to do our cleanup, do any of these have an opportunity for to be changed through our ordinance or resolution? Are we at the point where everything that we're naming must go on the ballot just to kind of see what we can pull back to eliminate some of this? The thing is, the Charter is our Constitution, right? Right, that part I know. Right, so anything that's already regulated by the Charter, we could remove from the Charter if you want. But we can't do it as a commission. It has to be done by the people removing it. In other words, if we wanted to take out a section of the Charter, it has to be done by popular vote. We can't, by ordinance, modify the Charter. Nor a resolution. Right. Okay. Mayor? Yes. To further answer Commissioner Beasley-Pittman's question, also, Charter amendments, the process is to adopt an ordinance, but the way the ordinance would work is that the sections of the ordinance changing the Charter would not go into effect unless they're approved by the voters. Right, that's what I said to him. Yeah. Everything has to be approved by the voters when it comes to Charter changes. Just trying to avoid this, understand and avoid voter fatigue with this. We are putting this out and we want the best results. Well, that's why this hasn't been done in 20 years, because it's this arduous, very cumbersome process to change the Charter. Especially with question five, we were able to consolidate the amendment of five different sections into one question. Again, they can be separated. I think you did a great job, Paul. Thank you. I think you did a great job. I agree. I agree. I'm not, you know, what's being presented is well done. I'm just thinking at the other side of what our neighbors, when they come to the ballot box. Sure. Not the work that's been presented. No, I appreciate that, and one thing, another thing that I wanted to add is that the ordinance amending the Charter through the ballot process would be available in the clerk's office as soon as it's passed, obviously, and in advance. So the plan is to have the ordinance on first reading at your next meeting. So it would be available for the public, not only for the meeting, but between now and November also. Anyone can see what's being changed. Is the county putting any questions on the ballot? Do we know? I don't know the answer to that. All right. Or the state? Or the state? Is the state doing anything? Where is that? We don't know. I think the state is. I don't know. I think, okay, all right. All right, we have a couple people who signed up to speak. Mary, is she here still? Mary Fertig, followed by Barbara Stern, followed by Maggie Hunt. Anyone else wish to speak on this other than those three folks? Okay. Barbara, you want to come up first? Sure. Thank you, Barbara Stern. I just want to say I'm glad some of this is being finally addressed, but it's a shame that we didn't start this two years ago since all of these issues were brought before the commission two years ago. And unfortunately, personal feelings intervened, and they didn't go forward. So here we are two years later addressing ministerial matters versus something of substance, and that's a shame. I do want to bring up, I believe, the third set of amendments where it talks about qualifications. It's confusing the way I read it. And great job consolidating, but the way I read it, it still says ultimately the commission would be the final say on qualifications. And I don't think that was the intent. You mean the second amendment? You mean the second amendment? Yeah, sorry, second amendment. So it was a little confusing in the final wording. I think it'll be hard for the general public if we have time to educate. There was some reference to the Parks Bond and what we did back then and the police headquarters bond. I know consultants that have worked on campaigns got a contract to do some of that PR. I hope that we don't go down that road for this upcoming time to educate our voters. It is a shame we are not tackling more substantive issues such as protecting our public lands. It's a real shame that it's going to be at least another two years, if not longer, before we do something of true meaning. And with that, I will save my last 30 seconds because I know Mary Friedrich has a statement and I will in all likelihood join in everything Mary has to say because I know she's done a great job analyzing all of this. Good afternoon. Can you all hear me? Yeah, we can hear you. Okay. Thank you. Four weeks ago, I spoke with you on behalf of Lauderdale Tomorrow regarding the charter amendments. Our focus was on Section 8 and public lands. We agreed with much of the language in the proposals but made some suggestions for modifications that would protect our public lands. While we noted that there were 26 proposed items in your presentation, we encouraged you to narrow this down and focus on public lands. Well, you did narrow it down to 12, and I see you've combined those to five, and Paul's done a great job. But you specifically excluded all proposed amendments on the public lands section of our charter. Two years ago, Lauderdale Tomorrow came forward to support the then-revisioned charter board proposals to amend the city charter. It was May, and you used the excuse that you did not have enough time to include the public in the conversation, even though members of the public had regularly attended the meetings and the proposals had been presented to the Council of Civic Associations. After trashing your volunteers on the committee, you decided not to give the public a voice by not putting anything on the ballot. Even though Commissioner Herbst and Commissioner Sturman made a valiant effort to just get the proposals on public lands on the ballot, still nothing. Here we are two years later, we have a new charter revision board, and again, you are declining to put forward the proposals to amend Section 8 on public lands. This has been a 10-year journey for Lauderdale Tomorrow, beginning with a petition, as required by the charter, to support Public Purpose for Public Lands, why we ask ourselves, is it so hard to get anything on the ballot to protect our public lands? But our hearts know the answers. The short version? One-stop shop. Lockhart Stadium. Holiday Park. War Memorial. Snyder Park. Bahia Mar. Fort Lauderdale Beach Park. Oh, and I almost forgot the Hall of Fame. I'm sure I've forgotten others. I hope in two years we'll see something different. And by the way, we get the message, if we want it done, we better do it ourselves. Thank you. Hi, I definitely agree with everything Mary said. I'd like to see the public lands portion put back in the charter. And I know there's a lot of things that are going to be on the ballot for the charter, and that's probably a concern. But this is so important. And these portions that have been written about preserving public property are great. And, for instance, the referendum on having, you know, in order to sell something's own parks, you've got to have a referendum now instead of just being a majority or whatever it was. But we have, the main thing is there's a lot of development pressure now. And recently the county suggested allowing affordable housing to go on parkland, which they backed off on, thank goodness. But when you have things like that going on and so much development pressure, it's really necessary to protect our public lands, even if it's a lot to put on the charter. Thank you. I mean, on the ballot. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak on this item? Okay. There being none. So the city manager would like some direction from the commission. We prepared to go forward with these items. And I guess a resolution is necessary, city attorney, to be able to go forward and put these on the ballot. Well, you're still looking for us to come back and refine them, are you not? I mean, that was the plan that we get to. And to Commissioner Beasley's point, we could probably make these things a little more plain. That would be our goal, to come back to you. And next would be ordinance first reading and then second. Okay. Very good. So, Mayor, along the lines of what Mary said, and I have to agree with her, I genuinely think that these ministerial things, while nice to do, are not necessarily that important. And I do think that the public lands thing that has come forward to us, both from the last charter review and from the current one, is probably the most important thing that we could do for our residents. And I would hope that we could reconsider and include that on this go-round. I know, obviously, we have another shot at this again in two years. But I think this is truly a missed opportunity, and I would hope that the commission would consider including that. I do think it's critical. I do think it's one of the things that I've heard over and over and over again from, you know, folks in my district when I have my meetings with them. They talk about this. They talk about public lands and the desire of the residents to have, you know, more say in what goes on and for the – just the process to reflect more of the intent and the will of the community. So I would hope that we would consider that. Thank you. All right. So to follow up with those comments, let's just talk about that. We don't have to do anything on that, but I just want to see if I understand what's being said correctly. So the recommendation from the charter board was to require public participation, public vote on the sale of any public land. Is that correct? Who's here from the board? Or does anyone have the exact language that they could give us or distribute? I mean, I want to recall what the language was. That was a recommendation from the charter. If we don't have that, it's okay. I don't mean to put you on the spot. But it keeps coming up. And I'd like to know what was the exact recommendation from the charter revision board regarding public lands? Only if you know. Well, I have the proposed revisions. So, for example, sale or lease of city property to public bodies. Not to public bodies, but to non-public bodies. That was one of them. But, okay, to non-public bodies. I think that's the one they're most concerned about. Okay. So the proposal would have provided for any agreement for a term exceeding one year but not more than three would be pursuant to resolution adopted by the affirmative vote of at least four commissioners. An agreement for a term exceeding three years but not more than ten would require a resolution with an affirmative vote of at least four commissioners. When it says at least four, does that mean five or does it mean four? Four or five. Well, that's not the answer. Anything that says at least four means not four. It means five. I don't think that was the intent. All right. So it's four then? It means four. Okay. Mayor, I think it was intended to be a supermajority. Correct. But not a unanimous vote. So I'll jump down to it. One of them is, yeah. I'll jump down to, so there's another one exceeding ten years but not more than 50. That's also four commissioners. The next one, though, an agreement for a term exceeding 50 years would be unanimous affirmative vote of the entire city commission. And then there are also other requirements that were being proposed. For example, in that one, the resolution needed to contain a finding based on a fair market value analysis of the property and an evaluation of the qualifications of the private party prepared by a qualified independent consultant hired by the city at the private party's expense and a finding that such use of the property would be in the city's best interest. Those are requirements that the Charter Revision Board wanted to add. Also, in that tier, it would include – so included in the city commission's consideration shall be the consideration of a business viability report, again, prepared by a qualified independent consultant hired by the city at the private party's expense. So personally, except for the 5-0 vote, because I don't think any commissioner should have veto power on any decisions of this commission, and that's what a 5-vote does. It gives somebody a veto power. The 4-0 – excuse me, the 4-1 votes, you know, I – for sale or lease, right? That's what it says? This is – well, it's actually more, because it's lease agreements, license agreements, concession agreements, facility use agreements, or other types of use agreements with private parties. So it elaborated also on what types of agreements are covered. And this – we're talking about Section 8.09. I mean, personally, I think that there should be a high threshold of approval when it comes to the use or the use or the lease of public lands. I've never been against that. I think it makes a lot of sense. But I don't believe in the 5-0 portion of that because, again, it gives one commissioner a veto power over it, and I don't think that should ever – we'll never be able to get anything moving forward. So, Mr. Mary, did you want to say something? Yeah. Yeah, I agree with you, Mayor. And I thought – when we last talked about this, I thought the discussion was we were concerned about the total number of questions on the ballot, like not being overwhelming. But if the commission's willing, I mean, I think we should put everything we want on there all at once. I think the voters can handle it, and I agree with you about the supermajority for public lands. I think that makes sense. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. And I think, again, in terms of, yes, we have to pay more money for more questions to have on the ballot, but this is important and substantive, and we should do it. And let the people vote it up or down. Yeah. People can digest it, I think. I agree. But here's my concern. Tell me. We do this a lot, whether it's this, whether it's City Hall. Name a project. Name something. We meet. We discuss. We talked about what we wanted to put on the charter like a month ago, right? Did this conversation come up a month ago when we decided what we wanted to do moving forward on the charter? Did we talk about this? We don't even have the language in front of us. It hasn't been noticed to the public. Everyone's, you know, concerned, and I understand that, but it hasn't even been noticed to the public. This was not part of this agenda item. True. So no one would even know that we were going to maybe just change it totally from what we talked about a month ago. But we seem to have a habit of this, and I don't know why, as a commission, we don't – why do we always seem to have amnesia? Or why do we always just, like, say, oh, why didn't we do that? Like, that's a good question. Why didn't we do that? Well, Commissioner, I think – But it hasn't been noticed to the public. And you're right. And today's no final decision. Right. We're still in a process. Right. Maybe we can ask Paul to come back with language for a charter amendment that incorporates what you've just described to us in a way that is 75 words or less, that talks about public lands and how we manage our public lands. And I think that gives the community a sense of a comfort level, knowing that, you know, three people on this commission aren't going to, you know, dispose of our public lands in a wholesale fashion. I think that it does take maybe four votes on a commission to be able to – and we've had four votes. I mean, Inter-Miami was 5-0. War Memorial. War Memorial was 5-0. So, I mean, most of these decisions that we have made have been supermajority anyway. So I'm not really concerned about the ability to get supermajority. And the things that Mary Fertrick talked about, you know, we had supermajorities on most of those things, on just about every one of them, if I'm not mistaken, maybe one or two. But all the big ones, we've had, you know, at least four votes on all of them. So I'm not concerned, personally, I'm not concerned about the impact that a 4-1 vote might require. But, you know, but why don't you see if you can cobble together an amendment that incorporates the spirit, at least, if not the intent, of what the Charter Revision Board has requested. There are a couple of things that work, though. So I described one section, 8.09, and the proposal to amend it. There was also 8.02, and there was also 8.21. So from what I'm seeing from the last meeting, I believe there were three sections in Article 8. But maybe the clerk can help, though, because for the next meeting, we have to prepare the ordinance, which has the sections that would be changed if the questions are answered in the affirmative by the electors. But the key, though, is advertising at least 10 days before passage, before second reading, I should say. So I'm not sure. We may have to advertise, even if we advertise so-called between first and second reading, I think it has to go to the press before first meeting. I mean before first reading. That makes it a little tricky, because we won't know what really to put in the ad before first reading. When is first reading? May 19th. And I believe we have to get it. There may be some wiggle room there, and maybe the clerk can help in terms of dates. But I think we need to get it to the press before first reading, even for advertising between first and second readings, I think. Paul and City Clerk, the timeline that we have in the backup with May 19th, June 2nd, June 8th, and October 4th, I know there was a little kerfuffle. The editorial board of the Sun-Sentinel said that we were wrong on these dates, compared us to Pembroke Pines, whatever. I disagree with that. But are these dates set in stone, the May 19th, June 2nd, June 8th, and October 4th? It really comes down to when it has to be at the Supervisor of Elections Office. Now, the resolution, the October date for the resolution, that's a matter of the city charter, the way it's written now. A resolution calling a special election has to be at least 30 days before the election. So, I mean, that's almost a giveaway. We can do that with the ordinances, the resolution. We can do them a lot sooner. But is October 4th to November 3rd 30 days, is it? Whatever date was there, I counted them. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. But that can be much earlier. But the key, though, is when the questions have to get to the Supervisor of Elections. So, for clarification, when that article came out, I did confirm with the Supervisor of Elections that the questions do have to be submitted on June 8th. Now, up until August after the primaries, when they finalize the ballot, there can be some minor changes to the ballot question, but the actual question itself has to be submitted to them on June 8th. So, we were correct. The Sun Sentinel was incorrect. I don't exactly remember what they said. Well, they said we had much longer than June 8th. So, our deadline is June 8th. The deadline is June 8th to submit the questions so that they can start the review of them. And they said that up until, I don't remember the specific date in August, but minor changes could be made to the questions if necessary. Okay. So, why don't we... Can I interject one second? Because my conversation was June 8th is for submittal of a draft language so that they can make sure that there's nothing ostensibly wrong with it. And if we don't submit it until August, well, whatever we submit by August is going to be final, right, wrong, or indifferent. So, that's the message I got from the SOE, is that June 8th is for submittal of a draft, so it gives them time to review it. And if we need to make changes to it, we have up until August. And that August date is August 18th. August 18th, yes. So, I understand that June 8th is submittal of a draft, which then allows time for revision to get it correct so that the final version is due by August 18th. That's my understanding. If I could ask, then why didn't the CAMP say draft? Why does the CAMP say June 8th deadline for the city clerk's office to submit the adopted ballot questions to the supervisor of elections? I didn't know that it could be a draft. And August 18th is our first meeting back from June 8th. We don't have that in front of us today. So, the communication I saw from the supervisor of election to the city clerk was that the working deadline is June 8th, and that the final deadline is August 18th. But I think when it comes to final, it couldn't be different questions. The draft questions, as they call draft, it's if we need to make tweaks to the questions we're submitting. That's my understanding. Okay. So, how about this? How about we... Wait until the city manager is ready. How do you deal with the May 19th? How about we ask the supervisor of election if June 19th, if we could submit the questions on June 19th? June. I think we did inquire with them about the schedule. I don't know if we gave them... David, you can... It's eight days. ...up the pine. I did not officially ask for an extension, but I certainly can. I think the supervisor will be amenable to that, is my guess. Paul, more importantly, how do we get around what you said about publication before the May 19th first reading of the ordinance? Right. There may be some wiggle room. Maybe we can get it to the press the day after the meeting of first reading. I'll have to check the schedule. I'll let you know. So, yeah, so I regret saying this, but special meeting? Well, again, I would just urge all of us to try and flesh out these kinds of questions and thoughts when we first have these discussions, like a month ago, so we don't find ourselves in a situation where you don't even know if we can publish this in time for our first reading on May 19th. I just don't know why we always do these after-the-fact things, that's all. Okay, your point is well taken, but the reality is I think there's a sense in this commission that we'd like to see a ballot measure on there concerning public lands. So see what you can do to put together a language so that by our next – and use that draft language in the publication of notice, okay? And then if we need to tweak it, we'll do it at the meeting. I think we're allowed to do that, and I know we're allowed to do that. Well, we have to get the title of the – Yeah, if you could figure that out over the next few days, and then at least we have something the public's aware of so that our first reading will be able to craft the final language. But I think you understand the sense of the commission now of what we're looking for. And actually, once we get it to the press, there's some wiggle room in making revisions before it's actually published, I believe. But the other thing is, though, we discussed 8.09, the leasing and sale to private parties. But do you want me to come up with questions or try to consolidate them all into one regarding the other two sections that were recommended or only that 8.09? I guess that's another thing we need some direction on. I think everything, Mayor. Let's just – this is, you know, a rare opportunity for us to get everything moving forward. Right. So repeat your question again. So there were three sections that they recommended for revision. There's sale of public lands and public property to public bodies. There were some revisions there. And the 8.09, which I discussed, and the third one is actually park property. There's a proposed revision to 8.21. So should I try to incorporate them all? You're not going to be able to incorporate them into one and have them make sense. You may have to divide it up into two. And that's my question. Yeah. I think divide, which in whatever means is most easily understood by voters. And if that's a few questions or there's a consolidation effort, that's fine. I think we've been tossing around these questions for many, many years, so I think we should finally put it on the ballot. People approve it, they approve it. If they don't approve it, they don't approve it. So – but if you could put something together, I think the commission would appreciate that. And, Mayor, I'd just say I think if we have to have a special meeting to make this all work, we should have a special meeting. I mean, just to – we might not need to, but let's move forward. Yeah, I don't think – If we need – I don't think we will, but – Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. All right. All right. So we're going to skip business three, business four, conceptual site plan for the Fort Lauderdale Beach Park project. We have about 20 people who sign up to speak. We're never going to finish this by the end of this meeting. City Manager, what do you want to do? I mean, you scheduled all these things. I just want to – I don't want to frustrate your – I did not realize that the reports would take as much time as they did, but we are prepared to provide the presentation, Mayor, whatever is the will of the commission. All right. So let's do the – start with the presentation, see how far. We've got to quit in about 20 minutes, so – and then we're going to have to continue it into the evening meeting. So, Quentin. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, Quentin Pugh, Assistant City Manager. Coming before you is a revised conceptual site plan for Fort Lauderdale Beach Park. This item returns to you following the December 16, 2025 deferral, which directs staff to continue discussions with the Bahiamar Community Development District. I will briefly cover the project history, proposed scope, financials. Michael Gerhardt from EDSA will come up and walk through the conceptual site plan, and ultimately, staff is seeking commission feedback and general consensus that the proposed site plan reflects your direction before we advance to design development. The parts bond program earmarked $1.3 million for Fort Lauderdale Beach Park improvements in 2019. Fast forward to January 2024, the city executed an interlocal agreement with the Bahiamar Community Development District. That agreement provides up to $1 million for eligible improvements, including the conversion of basketball courts to pickleball courts. In 2025, multiple site plan alternatives, which were funded through the Parks Bond Program, were presented that included relocating the basketball courts, as well as incorporating pickleball courts at the current basketball site. In December 2025, the resolution to proceed with Site Plan Alternative 1A was deferred for further dialogue with the Bahiamar Community Development District, or CDD. Since then, staff has engaged in continued dialogue with both the developer and the CDD regarding retaining the basketball courts in their current location and pursuing an amendment to the interlocal agreement, consistent with how the city regularly leverages grants, donations, and other outside contributions to stretch the public dollars. And in an effort to preserve park bond funding, the developer offered to cover the costs for producing this conceptual site plan for city commission feedback. Proposed improvements entail resurfacing and retaining the existing basketball courts in their current location, four new pickleball courts with lighting, new outdoor fitness equipment, roughly 5,000 square feet of synthetic turf for passive use, landscaping, new site amenities such as benches, picnic tables, barbecue grills, bike racks, signage, and waste receptacles. Not part of this plan, but other elements were discussed during the discussions, such as beverage and food concessions, storage under the Bahiamar Bridge, shade structures came up during discussions, but also not reflected again in today's high-level conceptual site plan. Staff can bring back those items further for consideration by the commission if you would like to explore them. Currently, project funding includes $1.3 million from the Parks Bond Program and up to $1 million from CDD contributions. The opinion of probable cost is approximately $2.5 million. Options for closing the funding gap include pursuing external funding opportunities, refining pricing in the design, or even as far as evaluating value engineering opportunities to close the funding gap. Again, staff is seeking commission feedback and general consensus on the conceptual site plan. City staff is also working on extending the interlocal agreement with the CDD ahead of the January 2027 expiration. We are targeting and bringing back an amendment for your approval no later than July 2, 2026. From there, the project follows an estimated standard delivery sequence from design development to construction. All in, we're looking at an estimated 35 to 40 months from today's directions to anticipate a substantial completion. To walk you through the conceptual site plan, I will now turn it over to Michael Gayhart, Vice President of EDSA. Thanks, Quentin. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners. As Quentin had noted, Michael Gayhart, landscape architect here in the state of Florida, working alongside with some of my partners and colleagues at EDSA. We are a global planning and landscape urban design firm with headquarters based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, actually going 66 years strong. So that shows a true testament to the time and really seeing how the city has evolved and we're really vested in projects in the community and making sure what's put forth actually works for everyone. So with that being said, I get to flip through a handful of pretty pictures and conceptual design layouts for this proposed amenity for the public. What a good, good picture. One of my favorite pictures, just understanding the beach and the great asset that we have as a city. All these wonderful public amenities that are sprinkled from the north all the way down to the south. And really what we're here to talk about today is how we can further bolster our public amenity package and offerings along such a strong asset that we have as a city. So, as you know, we have the Bonnet House up north, Hugh Birch Tate State Gardens, Las Olas Oceanside Park, DC Alexander Park, Big Brother, Little Sister to it. And then also, again, really providing a strong southern anchor, a really nice activated public amenity space. So this proposal, as briefly mentioned, is looking at maintaining the two existing basketball courts, but fully refurbishing them. Brand new surface material, brand new backboards, rims, nets, and really just enhancing the character, but preserving their location and their identity of where it is. We understand that it has a very, very deep history for the city, and it's truly something special that we want to make sure that we do celebrate. And how can we elevate it going forward at the same time? Another asset to this proposal is putting forth additional recreational amenities, but not just necessarily sprinkling them out throughout the city haphazardly, but really consolidating them and making it a feature to where people can gather and actually recreate and socialize together. Additional offerings that we're looking at doing is having a dedicated fitness area and zone. As we know that there is existing fitness equipment that's on the beach right now, currently. It does need to get a little bit elevated, I would say. It's a little bit dated, and I think part of this proposal would look at elevating that fitness zone and the actual equipment that's located on the site. So the current site plan, as many of you are aware, it's positioned directly east of the Bahir Mar property. There is the pedestrian bridge that kind of sits central to that with the basketball courts just positioned to the north. We really felt like there was a strong opportunity to play off the basketball courts position and also that central kind of node as a central plaza feature that can really anchor the space. And that's the opening, kind of the welcome plaza that really sits nicely, dedicated right in the center, still maintaining beach access. So it is a public park, and we want to have the public out there. We want to draw in the public, the community, let them utilize the space and actually provide something that is something special for the city. To the south would be the proposed new four pickleball courts that would be enclosed so they'd be fenced off, and so there would be some control within there to where balls are not flying. I would like to say another very important piece to the puzzle, too, would how can we create a space but elevate it and elevate the landscape and the ecological re-nourishment and protecting and introducing a new dune within that zone. So it's providing public space but then also being conscious of the environment and stewards of the environment when we're looking at the space. Where is the exercise component of this? So just south of the four pickleball courts, there's a dedicated fitness zone. Right now it's just an open space. That's where it would be programmed to go. Outdoor gym? Outdoor gym, yeah. And I would like to also point out that existing barbecue area, that stays intact. We're still integrating that. We want to extend the canopy, the tree canopy that's over there, and actually bring that north. And so it's a system. It's not just sprinkled pieces, but it's a connected, cohesive park space to where people can actually circulate and utilize the whole entire park. Eric, please, please, please, please, please, have some respect for this speaker. Thank you. Can you go back to that? Sure. A couple questions. So the Flex Lawn. So Flex Lawn we are, and like some of the parks that you see, like up in Pompano, for instance, right, they have turf grass that's out there. And there's a mixture between synthetic and real turf grass all the way along that whole stretch of beach. What we would like to do is it says Flex Lawn, but that space, again, it's a passive open space to where families can utilize it. Whether, you know, you're a little bit more advantageous, and that's where you practice sunrise or sunset yoga or tai chi or what have you, you can picnic out there. It's meant to, again, be that kind of knuckle or that node right in the central that bridges, you know, the north and the south spaces together. So is that real grass or fake grass? We're proposing it as a synthetic fake. Okay, so I don't think there's, at least from my neighbors, not a lot of interest for fake grass there. Understood, and that's totally fine. So could real grass be there? It could. I mean, seashore, past bellum, maintenance, right? And so when you say fake grass, yeah, fake grass, it has a stigma or a connotation that it's, like, going to degrade, right, the environment. It still percolates. It still drains, okay? It minimizes the maintenance and the operations that it takes to actually upkeep real grass, right? And so... Excuse me. Stop the moans and groans. You have your chance to speak. Sign up. This is childish, all right? Go ahead. Totally fine. No, it's not totally fine. It's a contentious... I understand it's a contentious project, but it has its place. You know, it's a very controlled kind of environment. We're not being, you know, non-eco-sensitive and conscious about spreading it. Well, let me ask you something. Can you grow grass on sand? Of course you can. Okay. Beachfront properties along the whole coast. So grass can grow on sand. It does, but then you've got to think about the additional irrigation requirements that it takes to maintain. Okay. The operations, the maintenance, the fertilizers, the mowing, you know? It's like, you say fake grass, but there's two sides to the coin, right? Could that... Thank you. Could that just be sand? Sure, but who wants to, like, sit? I mean, everyone can sit on the sand, just do in the front, but at the same time, it's a little bit different to, you know, roll out a blanket. You're covered in shade. You've got more additional shade canopy on there. You're controlled. Sometimes it's easier to access, right? So when we talk about all-inclusive accessibility, you know, you could literally take, you know, people that need assistance can get to that space a lot easier and still partake in those opportunities that they may not be as easily be able to on the sand itself. But, yes, of course it could be sand. So it could be regular grass, real grass. It could be sand. The outdoor gym, could that... So right now, the outdoor gym is just south of the basketball courts, I think, just, right? Right. So could the outdoor gym remain where it is in that general location? So right now, just south of the... And if you look at the size, right, they're both kind of illustrated in that tannish kind of color, right? And roughly, they're approximately around the same size. Short answer to your question, can there be fitness equipment over there? Of course there can be fitness equipment over there. Can it be, you know, a network of stations that are around the park? Of course there can be. We're just looking at what was there historically and how we can put something back that's a little bit more future forward, I would say, than, you know, the status quo of 1980 or pre that, whenever it was put in. Right. So you could update the fitness equipment but keep it where it is. Sure. Yeah. Okay. Trees. Talk to me. So how many additional trees would we put in? Love them. Love them. And we actually extracted some of the more technical information that was on there. But what we would obviously like to do is incorporate indigenous plant material that's of its place. You know, we have cocos. We have sables. Sables are a state palm that's going to go in there. Sea grapes, native grasses, and really try to bring back that dunescape that we don't have, frankly, right there. And how many trees would that be, or maybe you don't know? Off the top of my head, I would say probably close to 80 additional trees. And just for clarity, the picnic area that we've got, the grills, the benches, and those great pines, that all would be unaffected by this? Yeah, so when we were doing the concept layout of the plan, we were definitely conscious of existing conditions. You've got the restrooms that are just south, right? Right. You've got the barbecue areas, the pines that are in there, which some are maybe invasive, but that's another topic of discussion. The portals and how it all works with existing openings and access to the park space is something that we considered when we laid this out. Okay, and maybe this is for Quentin, but there's a playground just a little bit farther south that's unaffected. And I think that's part of one of the improvements we're working on is the playground. Is that right, Quentin? That is correct. Part of the parks bond portion of the funding. Yeah, that's what I thought. Playground is incorporated into that portion of it. But on this particular plan, you wouldn't see it. Right, because it's farther. I also want to clarify that the barbecue grills and picnic tables, as you are probably aware, they are not fixed elements. Right. They're constantly being relocated on the beach. And those pickleball courts, while there are some picnic tables in that area, they will be likely shifted or whatever it may be as they are done today when a family comes to a picnic at the beach. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for those questions for right now. Thanks. Go ahead. And a lot of the rest of the presentation is just more visuals that help further elaborate and explain about what we're talking about right now. Just a handful, a series of character images all over the place from landscape, dune restoration, design vernacular, and architecture. You know, you've got the wave wall, the Fort Lauderdale Beach, which our company proudly was part of. But we're very conscious about how this all works together, again, not just as a one-off, but what is the system of Fort Lauderdale Beach as a whole? Okay. Sorry, can you go back, Juan? And this might be for city manager or Carl, I'm not sure, city manager. The concessions, the allowing, you know, certain parts of the beach, we allow hotels and so forth to have beach chairs. And so walk me through where that would be allowed, or does this change that, or what does that look like? I'm going to ask Carl to come forward. Good afternoon. Carl Williams, Parks and Recreation Director. So if you're referring to our current agreement that we have now to allow food, beverage, and alcohol throughout the beach, those are located more so on the north end there where you get your hotels where we have, like, the W and some of those hotels that we have there along that path there that do allow, that we do allow to have that service there in the beach area. I think what the vice mayor is asking, though, is does Bahia Mar, excuse me, or the St. Regis, intend to have beachside concession across from their property onto the beach because we don't see it incorporated in this design? Is that still contemplated? Because I've seen previous renderings that there was a suggestion for that, and now I'm not seeing that. So I have heard that, but I can't answer that. But it's not part of this design. Correct. Okay. Yeah, thanks, Mayor, exactly. And what, if that, I just, I don't know the ordinance allowance for that. Like, in other words, could they have that if they wanted it in this eastern part? Do you know? So I believe it can. I don't believe the ordinance would prevent us from allowing it, but it would be an item that would come before you to be added as part of that. So that doesn't have any connection to this. I mean, we would be able to decide that separately. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. And I guess there's a handful of, you know, more comments that I can go on and on about this, about why it's programmed the way that it is. But being spatial conscious, right, and understanding that cross-section of the space, making sure it's not exaggerated too far. Just as a landscape architect, you know, just as a landscape architect, you know, I would want us to extend it, but there's a practicality upon, you know, what we're working with right now. So making sure that it is kind of making sure that it is kind of making sure that it is kind of a true, tried, tested park space that works. All right. And just images. So some of that flex lawn that you can see, you know, creating different pockets and microclimates that have more of that shade, usable type seating to where, you know, a family can go in there. And so it is passive and active space that we're promoting. Some of the new fitness equipment, again, you know, right now you kind of have that old school metal kind of rail on there. But we're looking at, again, being future forward. What is the next kind of identity of our beach park that we can be proud of and show off, really, and making sure that community can utilize the space. And then finally, the landscape, you know, really the dune. You can see how much dune we're trying to bring in here to actually, you know, restore some of the ecosystem that's on there. And it's doing a two-fold type job. Not only is it good for the environment, but it's also protecting the park space. I know there's probably concern about the activity or what happens or the hard court surfaces being blown with sand. But we're utilizing, again, these dune-type systems to create these microclimates that will keep the sand to the best of its ability off of the courts. Not only for the pickleball courts, but also for the northern basketball courts, too. It's not just going to be, you know, three small pockets of dune, but a system that all works together. And it has movement to it like the environment does. This last image really just shows that, you know, we're promoting this interconnected system, okay? It has hard-packed sand pathways that are all through there, so you can easily meander from north to the south of the space. People can jog, they can walk, but it's all connected through, you know, walkable landscape. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much. Do you have any further comments, Quentin? No, sir. Okay. So there are a number of people who have signed up to speak. So let me ask the commission. It's now 530, and I know we want to take a break. You know, we can begin some of the public comment. I've got about 20 people who have signed up to speak, but it's going to end up spilling over into our evening meeting. What do we recommend? How are we going to move forward on this? Mayor, are we having the executive session today? We plan for that during the hospitality period. We can probably eat during the executive session. I'm sorry? Yeah, we can probably do both. Okay. We do need to have our executive session, though. So if we're going to have that, and we're still going to start at 6 o'clock for the commission meeting. All right. So, folks, we're going to have to resume. The evening meeting will begin at 6.15. We'll do the presentations. We'll do the consent agenda, and then we'll get back to this. Does that make sense? All right. All right. So this meeting is – I'm sorry. I can't hear a word you're saying. I'm old and deaf. Approximate time? I would say about 6.30, maybe later. All right. Quarter to 7. We'll pick this up at quarter to 7. Well, we're going to do just the presentations and the consent agenda and the Pledge of Allegiance. Okay. We'll be back.