Okay, good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the City Commission meeting this afternoon. So I think the Commission had requested that going forward we should do the CRA board meeting. In particular, today is just a couple of simple items, so why don't we go ahead and do that, and that way those who are here for the CRA board meeting don't have to sit through the entire conference meeting. So I'm going to call the CRA boarding to order, and if you could please call the roll. Mr. Clerk. Vice Chair Herbst? Present. Commissioner Glossman? Here. Commissioner Beasley-Pittman? Here. Commissioner Sorensen? Here. Chair Trentals? Here. So we begin with M1, which is a motion approving the minutes for the January 20th, 2026 Community Redevelopment Agency Board meeting. Someone please move the item? So moved. Do I hear a second? I've been moved and seconded. Please call the roll. Commissioner Glossman? Yes. Commissioner Beasley-Pittman? Yes. Commissioner Sorensen? Yes. Vice Chair Herbst? Yes. Chair Trentals? Yes. And M1 is now approved. Moving on to R1, this is a resolution approving the budget amendment. This is to appropriate unspent Central City Community Redevelopment Area fiscal year ending 2025 fund balance. Anyone have any questions with regard to this item? There being none, would someone like to introduce the item? Mayor? I'm sorry? Before it's introduced, I just want to highlight that we provided an updated CAM. Yes. Some of the funding boxes were updated, so I just wanted to draw the attention of the commission to that. So why don't you all take a moment and look to see the revisions on page 3 of the revised memo. It goes on to page 4, page 5. So, Raquel, this addresses the issue that we discussed yesterday? Yes, Vice Mayor. Perfect. Thank you. What was that issue? It has to do with an appropriate allocation. So you can't carry over funds for operating purposes. You're only allowed to carry over funds for project purposes. So the methodology is to transfer the funds back to the general fund and then from the general fund back to the CRA. Right. So it's a circular pattern, and we just wanted to make sure that all the appropriate accounts were reflected for the audit trail. Okay, great. Anyone else have any comments or questions? I do. Thank you, Mayor. So, and I have had this discussion yesterday with staff, but I just wanted to reiterate for the record. So it is totally acceptable for us to be giving money from the Central City CRA to the Northwest CRA for the offices at the Adderley. That's okay? So the Adderley is located within the Northwest District. The Central City CRA staff members will work out of that office location once it's built out. At present time, the Central City staff members work within the offices of the CRA that are currently in the Northwest District. So it's not a new concept. It's just a different building location that they would be utilizing. Okay. I just want to make sure legally it's okay because actually the physical structure is not in the Central City CRA, but we're giving funds from the Central City CRA to the Northwest CRA for the office space. I understand that. I just want to make sure that with the location not being located within the Central City CRA, we're still okay. That is my understanding. And I also understand that CRAs can own property in areas outside of the district. This is an opportunity for us to consolidate the staff members and not have them in separate offices, which we are currently doing at this time. Raquel, let me help you with this. So I think where the commissioner needs some clarity on this is the apportionment between staff that's working on the Central City CRA and staff that's working on Northwest Progresso CRA so that there is no crossover subsidization between those two. So I think that's really all we need at some point. Maybe not today, but I think we all need clarity that the disaggregation of the cost is being appropriately apportioned amongst the two categories. Yes, that is correct. And there's 600,000 that is coming from the Northwest CRA district, and then this 150,000 would be from Central City. And that really covers the level of staffing appropriated for each group. Okay. As long as we're fine. And city attorney, you're concurring with all of this? Yes, sir. Okay, great. Thank you. And then just a reminder, I have been trying to get a project going actually in the Central City CRA. So now that I see that we did have about $900,000 left, I just want to remind staff that I'm really looking forward to have some progress on that merge. On 13th Street, which is right in the spine of the Central City CRA, it seems to me that if we can find dollars for these five other things, we can certainly find dollars for something that's actually located within the Central City CRA. Thank you. And we'll evaluate the budget going forward, and if possible, we can bring back a budget amendment. That would be great. Thank you so much. Okay. Would someone like to introduce a resolution? Introduced. The resolution has been introduced. Please call the roll. And, Commissioner, that's as amended as the? Yes. Thank you. A resolution of the Board of Commissioners of the Fort Lauderdale Community Redevelopment Agency, approving a budget amendment and providing for an effective date. Commissioner Glossman? Yes. Commissioner Beasley-Pittman? Yes. Commissioner Sorensen? Yes. Vice Chair Herbst? Yes. Chair Herbst? Or Chair Trantalis? Yes. And that resolution is now approved. Is there any further business of the CRA? There being none, that meeting is now concluded. So let us now move into our conference meeting. And there are no communications. I don't see any communications from the advisory board, but we do have two people who have signed up to speak for neighbor presentations. Is Chuck Hanson here? Hey, Chuck. Want to come up? Now, when you get to the podium, I'll need you to press the button at the bottom of the speaker to turn on your microphone. You can give it to the clerk after you finish. You have three minutes. Good afternoon, Mayor and City Commission. My name is Chuck Hanson, and I've been a resident on A1A of this beautiful city for the past 56 years. I've seen more changes in this city's landscape than most people in this building. It is because of one of these new proposals that I'm speaking to you today. The proposal that I'm referencing is the removal of the basketball courts on the beach across from the Bahia Mar Hotel and replacing them with pickleball courts. On the surface, that sounds like a good idea, considering the popularity of the activity. However, my concern is the noise factor. The pickleballs used today are made of a hard compound that is inflexible, unlike tennis balls or any other air-filled ball. So when these pickleballs are struck by composite paddles, it results on a very loud thwack. That's an awful lot of thwacking when you have eight courses going pretty much day and night. The noise is all well and good, provided that the residents living in the area cannot hear it. If the residents had to endure it, it would be comparable to the infamous Chinese water torture. Beside the residents of the Illini condominium located at 545 South Fort Lauderdale Beach Boulevard, that could be affected. You would also have the guests at the Mariner Hotel, people aboard their yachts in the marina, and all of the people on the beach adjacent to the courts who just want to relax or read, none of which want to be disturbed by the constant noise of thwack, thwack, thwack, all day and perhaps all evening. Just a few months ago in Carmel, California, the city had to remove the pickleball courts for the same reason, disturbing the peace of the nearby residents. Here in Fort Lauderdale, we have an additional problem to deal with, and that is the prevailing wind coming off the beach. It comes in off the beach from the southeast and will carry the noise far from the courts towards the northwest, which will directly impact the Illini condominium as well as the Mariner Hotel. To not repeat what happened in Carmel, California, I'm asking the decision makers to appoint a committee to do a noise impact study, which I would volunteer to be part of before you make any final decision. My contact information is myfriendchuck at gmail.com. Thank you very much for your time and consideration regarding this matter. Respectfully submitted. Chuck Hanson. Last night, I spoke with my brother on the same topic, and he's a Boeing engineer, and he tells me he plays golf on a heavily wooded golf course. And at some time while he's playing, he can hear the pickleball courts, and I asked him approximately how far is he away from the courts when he hears it. Six or 700 yards, which is about 2,000 feet. I thank you. Thank you, sir. Do you live – did you say – where did you – Chuck? The Illini. You live in the Illini. Okay. Thank you. Our next neighbor presentation, Juliet Gray Williams. Juliet, how are you? You staying warm? Juliet is from the Rock Island Homeowners Association, our caring community. Thank you so much. And not too long ago, you guys gave me a proclamation on behalf of my husband, President James Williams. I sure miss my man. I miss real, but it's two years it's been now. But nonetheless, I'm here standing before you. It's history in the room. You know that? If you're here this morning, we're making history. And I was sitting there, and I saw the brother, Roosevelt Walters, walk in the room. I was like, dang, I remember him. He's history, yes. To the city commissioner, mayor. I think he's been designated as a stork. See, I'm not the only one remembering him. And to the mayor and the rest of you all, the staff and residents in the Zoom on watching, I am Juliet Gray Williams. I am a native, a proud native of Fort Lauderdale. I was born in Dixie Court, because I'm history, too. And I am a resident of Rock Island since I was five years old. And I'm at the ripe age of 68 now. I'm just a little bit about myself, because you need to know where it's coming from. Product of the Broward District Schools. I attended Rock Island Elementary. All that's in the neighborhood still. William Dandy, which was Everglades. Cradle Nursery. I started out over there. See, I'm throwing some names at you. And I graduated from Boyd Anderson High School, class of 75. We just did 50 years. And graduated from Florida Atlantic University. Retired recently as a teacher in the Broward School District, 30 years. So, I love our city. As I said, 68 years old. And I'm a resident, and I have not decided to move away. So, applaud those who take a stand and still want to be here and patronize our city. Because many of us don't stay around, right? Okay. So, a little bit about Rock Island. Our homeowners association boundaries are west of I-95, south of Northwest 26th Street. East of Northwest 31st Avenue and north of Northwest 19th Street. We are a caring community. But we have some issues that's going on in our community, and we need to bring forth to just let you know. You know, we're watching all of the development around here. And I was just listening about that CRA money that we don't get none over where we live. And I was like, dang, we need to speak on that, too. So, I'm just saying that's why we come to the meeting, so we can learn some stuff. All right. So, here we go. In our community, we have illegal dumping. I had some pictures somewhere around, but I asked them if they would display the pictures. Okay. All right. Thank you. See, I did my homework. All right. We have eyesores in the community that we want you to see what we're looking at 24-7. Illegal dumping. We have facilities that have noise. The gentleman just talking about the noise in his community. Boy, we have music playing all the way to whenever the window's shaking and everything carrying on over there. We have auto wreckage, body yards with just auto parts all over the place, pulled in the middle of the road, on the side of the road, with their businesses. We have trucks that are coming through, backing in. And not recently, a while back, we had a young lady got killed over there from the trucks coming in and out. But we're still looking at these, and we have concerns. Recently, let me tell you this one. We got a tire shop in our community that stays open almost at midnight. Who does that? There's something wrong with that. I couldn't do that in Las Olas or anywhere else in the city of Fort Lauderdale. There are decent hours that you must recognize and shut down your business. They told me there wasn't a code for that. Really? Well, we need to make one. So these are our concerns, and we just want to make sure you recognize us, too, over in the Northwest community, where we could use some support, assistance, and also let us know we are a caring community to our side of the town. Was that buzzer mean that was it? Yeah. Okay, I'm going to stop there. Well, I'm a school teacher. You know I could go on and on. So this is the thing. I know. There's a lot of issues and a lot of things that you want to improve the community. So I would suggest working with your district commissioner and trying to get through each one of those situations. We'll do what we can as a city to help out. And I think your commissioner is ready, willing, and able to work with you and try to resolve those issues. I thank you for listening to me. Ms. Williams, thank you so much for standing before us. And through conversation, so the daisies know, I suggested that Ms. Gray come and share what some of the issues are that we are facing in District 3. And she, and along with other civic associations in District 3, these are common, in a sense, issues that we're facing. And we are addressing them, but it's a slow process. And what I, with her inviting here, I want everyone to understand that when I also bring these complaints and issues to the dais, they're real. And we need the support of the dais to make sure that we move forward to get these items addressed. The roadway, the corridor that she was addressing was the Northwest 19th Street corridor. And that has been an issue for, I'm going to say decades. It's not anything that's new. Right now, FDOT is doing road work, putting medians in that corridor, which we believe will make some change with the travel and the safety of the roadway. So we're looking at that. We've been talking about that tire shop at the corner of 31st Avenue and 19th Street. She said 12 midnight, but I've gone by those times I am out with my husband, 3 o'clock in the morning. That tire shop is open, and we are concerned about what activity is going on at a tire shop at 3 a.m. I can't understand how many tires are in need of repair at that location at 3 a.m. in the morning. So with that, we've been talking with CODE. They are listening to us, and we are looking at opportunities, how to address that. The legal dumping, we are talking about that. CODE is also working with us to address that. Also, that will be a little south from the Rock Island area, which is the Lake Eyre area. We have illegal dumping where it's being identified, and police is helping us to remedy that. But to bring attention to what is going on in the district and wanting full cooperation, because we're not a district. We are a city, and we want to make sure that we get all the cooperation that we need to move forward. Because I'm excited for the day that the tourism, it goes beyond the beach, because there's so much in District 3 that's waiting to be explored and enjoyed. So thank you, my neighbor. Thank you very much for coming. Can I say one thing? You know, this is February, and February is Black History Month. It's also American history. We are history, and it's 365 days a year. My homeowners association is here. Just raise your hand, because we're here. We're here. Thank you for being in the room. You know, we love our city, and we're here to support everybody on every district. We love you all. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, those are the only two people who have signed up to speak. Thank you both for being here today, and we'll move on now to CF1. This is the presentation on the preparation of the City of Fort Lauderdale operations during Spring Break 2026. City Manager. Thank you, Mayor. I just would like to let the Commission know that staff has been actively preparing for the Spring Break season. We've had several operational meetings, two of which I've been at the helm of, and I'm going to call Chris Cooper, Deputy City Manager, forward to provide a presentation. He will be joined by other members of the team. We would appreciate your feedback as we finalize our plans and approach for the season. Good afternoon, Mayor, City Commission. Chris Cooper, Deputy City Manager. So as the manager said, this presentation is to share with the City Commission and the public the City's preparations for the Spring Break season and key department operations during that time. Through this presentation, you'll receive information about the high-impact period, and from police, fire, transportation, and mobility, community enhancement and compliance, strategic communications, parks, and sanitation. So our Spring Break season begins around February 23rd. I know that seems early, but it's right around the corner and extends through April 17th. We see a peak of Spring Break visitors from the week of March 8th through the week of March 22nd. We base that peak season on the Spring Break schedules of colleges and universities that frequent Fort Lauderdale, travel and hotel bookings, and our past experiences with Spring Break here in the city. What you'll hear throughout this presentation is how the city strategically deploys resources from multiple city departments to manage the high volume of tourists and the crowds that gather on the Barrier Island and in our downtown. This strategy includes the use of the high-impact event ordinance, which I will talk about in a moment. All of what we do is communicated so that there is an awareness in the community and those visiting the area for Spring Break, as well as transparency and expectations set with our business community that engages with our Spring Break visitors. So during our Spring Break, the city has used the high-impact event ordinance to mitigate potential issues with the large crowds that gather on our Barrier Island. If the city commission approves the amended high-impact event ordinance this evening, portions of our downtown, including the entertainment district, may be designated as a high-impact zone. Our staff is currently evaluating the high-impact zone areas and the potential measures that may be applied in each zone. Once those zones are identified and measures are developed, the city manager will provide a memo that provides those details, and the memo will apply to the zones and measures to be enforced. So when we look at those measures that could be enforced or included in a high-impact zone, those measures include no coolers or tents, tables, or similar structures on our beach, the prohibition of alcohol, possession, or consumption on the beach, and this goes along with the prohibition of coolers on the beach, so those will be checked in and out of the area. However, this prohibition does not include the areas of the beach that are licensed to sell and consume alcohol, which are the beach hotels that are licensed to provide that service in the chairs designated through our city's beach chair vendor. We'll also consider a limitation of live or amplified music, and what that primarily applies to are individuals using devices to amplify music or establishments that direct their sound outward from their business. We can also consider the suspension of sidewalk cafe permits. We can look to age limitations that prohibit those under the age of 18 without a parent or legal guardian in some of those high-impact zones, and we can also look to modify the operating hours for the parks and city facilities within those areas. The high-impact ordinance does allow us flexibility, so some measures may be applied throughout spring break, and others may be used as needed. The ordinance also allows for measures to be applied differently in high-impact zones based on the needs of that zone. For example, coolers or tents, tables, and similar structures, as well as the possession or consumption of alcohol on the beach, has historically been prohibited throughout spring break, but the suspension of sidewalk cafe permits may only be used when there is a large influx of people that creates crowded sidewalks. To ensure clarity and transparency, you'll see later in this presentation how the city will communicate to businesses and visitors within the high-impact zones to manage those expectations and share what our plans are ahead of time. So with that said, I'm going to turn the presentation over to our first presenter, which is Assistant Police Chief Pat Hart. Before you do that, can I just ask you a question regarding the suspension of this cafe permit? Yes. Does that mean they have to move all the tables and chairs off the sidewalk? How does that work? So potentially, we can look at that in terms of the context of the situation. So if there's a large influx of people, like we saw last year when some high school kids came down through the beach from Pompano, we may want to have the owners completely open up the sidewalk and move their sidewalk cafes. Some of those sidewalk cafes are double-stacked, so there may be opportunities to just remove one row of that to allow for better traffic flow along our sidewalks. But that will be something as we see these things unfold and as we're responding to or predicting certain instances, we may work with those business owners to modify or completely remove those sidewalk cafes. So I would think that a business owner would need some clarity, number one, and some certainty and predictability. So instead of it being on an hour-by-hour basis, what are you prepared to do to try to help these folks out? Yeah, so what you'll see later in the presentation in our communication strategies are meetings that we have set up in advance of the spring break season, and those meetings do include direct communication and meetings with those business owners, particularly on the beach, but also now in the Hemerslee area, to have those conversations about what that coordination may look like. But our staff, particularly through our police department, who manages our spring break operations on the beach, have already built those relationships with the owners that have those sidewalk cafes, so there's always that coordination and communication with them about what could be, what might be, and how those things could be implemented. So it's very open and transparent. Great. All right. Thank you. Chris, question for you. Yes, sir. And I'm just not seeing it. Geographic boundaries for these, is that how it's grown up? So we're making those determinations now on the beach. Typically it's from around Sunrise South to Harbor Beach, which encompasses the area where a majority of our spring break visitors are on the beach during the day in the hotels that they're within. Right. The Hemerslee and the downtown opportunities are new to us. That's part of the ordinance that you'll consider this evening on second reading. So, you know, we are looking very closely at the Hemerslee Entertainment District. Now the possible measures that we might apply there, you know, we're still having that conversation about to know what makes the most sense and what we think is going to be the most impactful or mitigate those potentially impactful issues. But aside from that, those are the two main areas that we've considered. Okay. Great. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor, Commissioners. Patrick Hart, Assistant Chief of Police. So today I just wanted to cover the police perspective as it relates to spring break. We will be upstaffing our personnel on the beach as well as downtown for the Hemerslee area. That upstaffing will start every day. It will cover from the end of February, roughly the February 25th, 26th, all the way through to the first week of April. April 4th or 5th, we'll go through with that upstaffing. On a daily basis, our officers will start at 11 a.m., and we'll have staffing covering both of those locations all the way through to about 5 a.m. in the morning. And we'll make sure that we have not only ample enough officers to deal with the spring breakers, but we also have enough officers to handle our cost of service, and we do not shorten our residents and have the ability to respond to any issues as it relates to cost of service. We are bringing all our specialty units to bear as it relates to spring break. We do every year, just like you see in the picture, we'll have our safety lanes on the beach. We'll have our mounted unit out there. We'll have our canine officers out there. We will have a DUI officer assigned every night for the month of March. So we will make sure that we're enforcing DUI as well. And we've also invited the Davey Mounted Police Unit to assist in force multiplier for the Fort Lauderdale Mounted Unit. We've requested and got confirmation from Florida's alcohol, beverage, and tobacco to assist with underage drinking on the beach as well as downtown in the Hemisphere area. And we've requested FHP to assist us with traffic enforcement throughout the city, and we're still waiting for confirmation from them to assist us for spring break. We've redesigned our signage for the beach and for downtown. We're just waiting for those signs to be made. You will have A-frame signs on all the beach openings and all the access points to Hemisphere. So pedestrians can see all the ordinances that are in requirements of rules as it relates to how to conduct yourself on the beach as well as downtown. We're also putting out message boards for access, ingress and egress for the beach as well as downtown. So not only spring breakers, but our residents can see what requirements are expected while they're in those areas. We're going to initiate bar watch program like we do every year. That requires that we put up signages in all the bathrooms for all the establishments that serve alcohol in those areas to educate the spring breakers to make sure that they do not become victimized. We've actually designed some handout material like koozies and other flyers to go out to the students on the beach. We put up different locations to make sure that that information gets pushed out. We'll also be doing a training seminar with the staffs of these licensed establishments to teach them on what to recognize if somebody may become victimized or had their drinks potentially drugged, what signs they should be looking for, and if they do notice that, what steps do they have to do to get us involved so we can help prevent somebody from becoming a victim. And then with the messaging for spring break, we've sent out the chief's letter to all the past colleges that have attended spring break that we've documented, but also the other major universities that we kind of anticipate possibly coming to Fort Lauderdale. We've also are in the process of delivering the ordinance letter to all the hotels so they can give that to all the registries that show up for during spring break. So the residents can be educated on what the rules are when they step either on the sand or go downtown. And then for the most part, that's how we're educating those people, and I'll be happy to take any questions. Okay. Any questions of the police officer? Yes, I have a question. Training with the bar watch, I understand, with the notifications of what to watch for if anyone's been on drug, beer, like do their drinks. Are we doing anything in regards to Narcan? Are we doing anything where we are having that available in the city for those who are visiting the Narcan drug? So, yes, our officers. You want to? So our officers are issued Narcan. I have them, and I believe FIRE is actually working. They can speak a little bit more. They have their own program to help pass out and distribute Narcan. Okay. Thank you. And the other question, you indicated that FPH, I'm sorry, Florida Highway Patrol, will be working with us as well. That's historical. That's nothing new. They're with us every year, right? Yes. We have to make the formal request. We're just waiting for them this year to get back to us to confirm that they'll be there. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Mayor, may I ask the question? Yes, go ahead. Thanks. Thank you, Chief. Thanks for your service. Thank you for the plan. I just want to make sure, I know you talked about the upstaffing for spring break. During the peak time of, I think that's March 8th to March 22nd, will we have even more upstaffing in the peak part than actually the entire spring break? Will that even be more intense in terms of coverage? Yes, you are correct. So we kind of do a phase-in program and a phase-out program. So we initially start at the end of February, lower numbers but upstaffing. And then as we slowly get into that first, second week of March, which is roughly about March 8th, we really start to upstaff a larger amount of officers for both the beach and downtown, which also complements patrol as well. And then towards the end, as we get to the end of March and in the first week of April, we then start to phase down again to mitigate some of those overtime costs but also still be able to manage the situation. We do see a dramatic change in populations as it relates at the beginning and at the very end. The biggest population of attendance is during the middle. Okay, great. Thank you for that. You're welcome. Commissioner, you mentioned the March 22nd date. So in the backup, it speaks to the week of March 22nd, so going through the end of March, like Assistant Chief Hart mentioned. You're welcome. All right, Mayor, next up is our Assistant Fire Rescue Chief, Leslie St. Floor, and he'll talk about Fire Rescue's response as well as the point Commissioner B.C. Pittman brought up regarding the NARCAN availability. Good afternoon, Mayor, Commissioners. My name is Leslie St. Floor, Assistant Fire Chief over at Fire Rescue. And to pick up where we left off in terms of the NARCAN for public education, we will be hosting a public seminar over at the W Hotel on the 20th at 1 p.m. And, again, we did this last year. The goal is to actually pass out NARCAN to the public and also education as to how to administer it. And we'll also be providing AD training and stop the bleed. And you guys are welcome to join us. The EOC, the Emergency Operations Center, will be at our Level 3 monitoring, so pretty much we'll be watching everything that's going on from day to day. The biggest key to this success is going to be information sharing. That's between all departments. So as information comes day to day, if we see a peak or if we see a concern, we will address it collectively. For staffing, ocean rescue staffing will be increased with additional personnel deployed in the high-traffic beach areas, specifically between Las Olas and A1A and Pointe Seattle and A1A. We'll also have the jet skis deployed in the water for the beachgoers. We are working closely with our EMS partners and local hospitals to ensure coordination during peak hours, which includes maintaining open communication channels with the hospitals to ensure that EMS units are positioned to support both routine calls as well as, excuse me, surge incidents. Excuse me. Yes, sir. You took away our view. I don't know who took away your view, but this is the first time seeing this feature. I'm going to be forced to listen to the speakers. I'm sorry. Go ahead. It's okay. Go ahead. And most importantly, what's going to be helping us make sure that we are ready for spring break is that we, through our patient care reporting system, that's how we're tracking underage drinking. If we see any peaks within the Barrier Island or the Southwest 2th Street area at a specific location based on address, we will definitely share that information over to PD so that way the necessary actions can be taken. So let me ask you a question about that. You know, young people are very smart, and the Internet is very resourceful. And we're hearing repeated episodes where ID cards, traffic, excuse me, driver's licenses can be forged or replicated. Do we have a system of knowing how to figure out what's a fraudulent driver's license or ID card? Because, you know, we're going to get underage drinking, or at least attempts at it. And it doesn't necessarily mean it comes from people from outside of Fort Lauderdale. A lot of them come from the area, somewhere in Burrard County. Many of the high schoolers want to join in the party, and they think they can just show up there, and they're a 16-, 17-year-old, maybe even sometimes younger. What precautions do you think we should undertake? I see Chief Schultz is here. Not to interrupt your presentation, but just since you brought up the subject, I'd like to know what resources do we have to try to mitigate that possibility? Good afternoon, Commission. Yes. I'm Mayor, Vice Mayor, Chief Bill Schultz, Police Department. There are currently various types of scanners that the establishments in our city and other cities use. To scan for DLs, driver's licenses. However, there are many sites that sell very realistic driver's licenses now. There are scanners who use multi types of verification, and those are effective. So those are really truly the only way to detect a fraudulent driver's license. There's currently nothing in our code that would require an establishment to have that type of scanner, but at this point we are encouraging all of them to purchase those types of scanners that use the multi-verification system. Okay, because, you know, a lot of kids may look older but aren't, and we're seeing episodes of that even on a regular basis here in our own bars and entertainment establishments. So I'm just curious what our enforcement mechanisms are to be able to counter this ingenuity. In combination with the State Alcohol Bureau, we do various operations. We test the bars that are checking at the door. We test bartenders. We will utilize sources that will assist us in that operation without getting into too much detail. But we do run operations throughout spring break, actually throughout the year, but especially during spring break, to look for that and enforce it. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Anyone else have any questions of the Chief while he's up here? Mayor, I have a question. Yes. Yeah. I don't think it will be for Chief, maybe City Manager, and then code inspectors. Specifically, nighttime vacation rentals during spring break get challenging at times. So can we have seven-day-a-week nighttime code inspectors during this period? Yes, and we will have Katrina, our Deputy Director of Community Services, ready to present on that. We intend to have 24-7 code enforcement available for our city during certain peak periods. Okay, great. Seven days a week. And I'd love to hear what's the duration of that peak period that we're – is it mimic what's covered in the presentation? Yes. The same duration? Yes. Okay, great. Thank you. Thanks, Mayor. Thank you. Does that conclude your presentation? Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you. You're very welcome. Your view's back, by the way. I knew you could bring light into the situation. And just to clarify, that's until 3.30 a.m., seven days a week until 3.30 a.m. Okay, great. Thank you. Milos. Good afternoon. Milos Maestrovic, Director for City's Transportation and Mobility Department. So, on our side, our micro-mover transit service will continue normal operation. In addition to that, during the month of March, we will have up to six additional vehicles that will be staged at A1A and Las Olas in order to help move visitors from the barrier island towards downtown. From the parking services standpoint, we will have additional resources during the peak of the event, which will help manage, really, demand and supply in our parking garage on Barrier Island, as well as any parking lots and facilities. Our parking enforcement will also be adjusted and modified as needed in order to meet any operational needs. From the standpoint of maintenance of traffic plans, in order to maximize roadway capacity, we will be mindful and we won't be approving any lane closures that lead to barrier island. We will also be coordinating with the Florida Department of Transportation, who really owns and operates A1A and Seabreeze Boulevard in order to minimize any and not approve any road closures unless it's really for purpose of emergency. And we will also – this is simply just to ensure that the full roadway capacity is available to anyone who is coming and visiting the barrier island. For the ride share services, we will be establishing geofence locations for the purpose of passenger pickup and drop-off, both in barrier island and downtown areas. This is communicated and coordinated with the ride share services such as Uber, Lyft, and also vehicle for hire businesses. These restrictions will be effective in the downtown area during the month of March, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., actually for Burial Island, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and for the downtown between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. Our police department will also help us with an educational campaign for the vehicles for hire services related to both permitting requirements and operational requirements. They have helped us last year on this aspect as well. From the standpoint of traffic signal timing and traffic monitoring, our partner agency, Broward County Traffic Engineering, has conducted proactive site visits in order to make sure that all traffic signals are operational. They are actually making some modifications to signal timing in order to establish what we call optimized signal timing patterns along the corridors, which will be implemented by mid-February. So, within the next week or so. We will also coordinate with the Florida Department of Transportation, Regional Transportation Management Center, to help us monitor traffic conditions to and from barrier island and leading to barrier island. And we will be communicating to Broward County Traffic Engineering if there are any signal timing changes that are warranted in order to improve mobility to and from the island. Finally, we have coordinated with Broward County Transit, and they will provide any support related to potential transportation of large crowds if needed. That concludes my portion of presentation. If there are any questions now or later, I'll be around, and I can turn it over to Community Services Department. Great. Anyone have any questions? There being none. Thank you so much. Thank you. Are we going to have additional vehicles roaming up and down A1A during the spring break period, or are we just going to use the existing amount of vehicles? I see someone's about to walk up and answer my question. No? Okay. Is that question related to our microtransit service? Yes. So for microtransit service, we'll adjust based on demand that we expect in there, depending really what operational feedback is, we may or we may not. So we want to make sure that we still focus our services where it makes a difference in terms of moving people, and not only necessarily along barrier island, particularly if we are moving people short distances and providing services to just short distances between the bars. But absolutely, that is operational. We can adjust. Okay. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, Katrina Johnson, Acting Assistant Director for Community Services Department. The Community Enhancement and Compliance Division, also known as Code Enforcement, is implementing a coordinated, data-driven operational plan for this year's spring break. That begins with strengthening and our staffing and coverage. So we currently provide nighttime enforcement Thursday through Sunday from 5 p.m. to 3.30 a.m. beginning March 1st. We will expand that coverage to include Monday through Wednesdays from 5 p.m. to 3.30 a.m. That ensures that we have our code officers in the field seven nights a week during the hours where activity historically increases. We will also continue maintaining our full Sunday through Saturday daytime enforcement staffing. Our enforcement priorities for spring break. Our enforcement priorities for spring break are these three. noise in noise in commercial and residential areas, vacation rental enforcement for the most common violations of parking, trash, noise, maximum occupancy, and gathering occupancy, and our entertainment venues and our nightlife. Where we will focus on business licensing, noise, signage, our sidewalk cafes, and outdoor displays. We began our community outreach to our residents to ensure that they understand what they can expect from our division during this time. We started this messaging through STRATCOM, our HOA and Civic Association meetings, where we are reporting the instructions for how to lodge your complaints either through our vacation rental hotline or through our Fix-It FTL portal or by dialing our 954-828-8000 customer support line. We reached out to all of the vacation rental operators throughout the city of Fort Lauderdale. We've advised them as a reminder on noise levels, occupancy levels, trash, and parking requirements, and what the penalties for violations during this time will be. Vacation rentals that are found operating during this time, as we do have pop-up vacation rentals during spring break, they will be issued an automatic notice for hearing, and we will request a fine of $1,000 per day for each day that we find the vacation rental operating without their certificate of compliance from the city. For our businesses, we have scheduled on-site meetings with each venue operator in the high-impact areas of downtown, Las Olas, Himishi, and the Barrier Islands. We are reinforcing our noise ordinance, signage and outdoor displays, and exterior maintenance requirements, including the sidewalks and the alleyways. Each week, during spring break, our code leadership will review the complaint volume, our code enforcement cases, and vacation rental enforcement activity to ensure that we are continuing to advance our operations each week. Our plan has been aligned with our police, fire rescue, transportation and mobility, public works, STRATCOM, and the city manager's office to ensure that we are prepared for this spring break season. Can I ask a couple questions? Yes, sir. Is that complete your presentation? It does, sir. Okay. I see a couple of gaps in enforcement, so help me out here. So with regard to the levy of fines for noise and so forth, against whom would that fine be levied? The property owner. The property owner, who's probably an absentee owner. And so we fine the property owner, and if they fail to pay it, is that a lien on the property? Yes. It is, and we can enforce that lien and foreclose on that lien? Yes. Is that true? Well, ultimately, you would lien the property, whether you would foreclose on it or wait until a sale, for example. Right, but we can have that as an option if the city chooses to. You're able to do that. Okay, great. Secondly, not that I'm trying to keep your people up late at night, but you know we have entertainment districts, and they go past 3 o'clock. So when the word gets out that no one's watching after 3 o'clock, and these bars stay open until 4, and sometimes they can only serve until 4, but they stay open until 5 and even later, who's going to be watching and paying attention to the enforcement if no one from the city is there during those Friday and Saturdays when they're allowed to stay open until 4? Did I miss something? No. No. So during those times— Portia, do you want to say something? No? Okay. During those times when code enforcement is not available, all violations that are reported to the city are then sent over to teletype, and then they request PD backup. During those times from 3.30, our code staff comes back online at 6.30, and so there's three hours that there is no coverage, but those types of calls— That's what I'm concerned about, and those are the times when people get crazy. Those calls will go to the police department. Yeah, but those are the non-emergency number calls. No one's going to call 911 because it's noisy, and I would understand the police would resent being called on the emergency basis for a noise complaint. So I would just ask that you perhaps revise your schedule so that you cover those time periods that are now open and unattended because I just, from experience, I have seen and heard complaints that can come after 3 o'clock that cause the environment to deteriorate. And residents and business owners alike find themselves victims to these people that race up and down the street, that twerk on hoods of cars, that will do anything that they know that no one is watching. Okay? Mayor, we can look at additional staffing for code to cover those gaps. The commission did identify about $900,000 in overtime resources for police personnel to augment our enforcement during this time period. So between police and code, we can make sure that we have the amount of coverage that we need. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. Is there any further—any additional aspects to this presentation? Oh, I'm sorry. Hi there. I'm sorry. Hi. Good afternoon. Kevin Polito, Director of Strategic Communications. So to really bring everything together, we're working very closely with all our colleagues in the different, excuse me, departments. We're going to have coordinated messaging throughout the spring break period that you're going to start to see from police, fire, our partners in code compliance. What that's going to look like is a lot of different mechanisms, including direct outreach directly to our stakeholders. I have some email outreach as well. So we're going to also rely on our media partners. There's going to be a press conference towards the end of February that you'll all be invited to where we're going to share our spring break messaging. And what we're looking for is for those that are coming to enjoy our city to do it responsibly and to have a—as they come, they know the rules, they understand where to find the information. There's going to be a website that's going to go live, and it's going to tie everything together. So if any residents, stakeholders, even visitors have questions, they'll go on that website, and they'll be able to see where to find the circuit carts, the schedule for the circuit carts, where to find the different police information. That's all going to be on our comprehensive spring break page. On the right of that slide, you're also going to see some of the direct outreach that's going to be taking place as early as next week. So February 9th, February 11th, the 19th, and the 20th, those are different stakeholder touchpoints where we're going to be speaking to the businesses and those directly affected. Some of the other initiatives that our department's doing, we're working closely with police and fire to revamp some of the signage that you're going to see throughout the area and make sure it's clear and legible for people to understand what not to bring onto the beach and what not to bring into the area. And especially in those entertainment districts that we were just talking about, to go ahead and have some of the information there, also referring back to our website. So with that, happy to answer any questions that you all may have. Any questions of Kevin? Okay. There are none. Thank you so much. And last but not least. Good afternoon, Mayor and Commissioners. Carl Williams, Parks and Recreation Director. I am going to be speaking a little bit about our restrooms, specifically our Southeast restroom. We have an existing contract with Image, whom is our current contractor, that provides services for restroom cleanliness on the Southeast restroom. And as such, the service levels are Monday through Friday. They are serviced three times a day, and on the weekends, six times per day. If there comes an event where we need to increase those services, we can do that, as that is part of our existing contract. In addition, as part of that, we can also look at any other needs, but historically, we haven't had to increase our service levels for our restroom needs there at South Beach Restroom. In addition, as we normally have, our cabana rentals, as well as our hotel food and beverages, which will continue to take place during this time. And Carl is actually second to last. I'm Troy Geist, Assistant Director of Public Works Operations, so I guess that makes me last and least, perhaps. So just very, very briefly, for Public Works, we're going to be upstaffing our sanitation staff on the beach. And we'll be doing similar to the model that PD had introduced, that it'll be ramping up as the season goes along, and we have the flexibility to adjust the scheduling during the week to meet both the demand and the predicted situations. The biggest complaint we've had in the past is the emptying of the garbage cans every few hours instead of at the end of the day or the next morning because the trash piles up all along the sidewalks and everything because there's just, you know, obviously increased use of the trash cans. And we appreciate people trying to use the trash cans rather than the sidewalks and the gutters to throw away their beer cans. But the point is that we really need to have, you know, enhanced service on the beach to make sure that, you know, trash is removed on a regular basis because all it does is deteriorate the environment. Yeah, we'll make sure that we have adequate staff on there throughout the day. We are going to be placing... Throughout the night, too. Yeah, exactly. We will go... So our afternoon and evening staff will actually stay on as the police department closes the beach. Our staff stays on along with them, and we'll clean up the beach. Our schedule is tentatively stated to be until about 9, but that depends on how quickly the... Well, you see, that doesn't make sense because the bars are open. Well, but I'm talking about the beach. Once the beach is closed, then we go through and we do... Beach cleaning. ...cleaning of the beach. Right. Yes. And then we will still have pressure cleaning overnight, both along the beach on A1A and in downtown, and we'll do nightly street sweeping as well. Right, but that doesn't answer my question. After 9 o'clock, when the party begins, okay, and people are going in and out of these restaurants, in and out of these bars, they're throwing garbage in these garbage receptacles that we have placed along A1A, for example, and they overflow. And you're telling me no one's there to empty them. We need to have people emptying them after 9 o'clock into the wee hours of the night because otherwise, I've seen it myself where it just cascades onto the sidewalk and it looks like it's a disaster. So we need to have personnel there, if you don't mind, after 9 o'clock so that we can address the, you know, the refuse that gets disposed of, you know, late into the night rather than waiting until the next morning to do it. That's all I'm asking. Okay. No, and you make a very good point. And so I know we will have the additional receptacles on the business side, but yeah, we'll make sure that those are emptied, especially so that there's, everything is clean in the morning. Okay. That's our intent. Thank you. Mayor, if I may. Also, if we could just pay attention to some of the curb areas, and I'm talking about when you come over the bridges, especially Sunrise and Oakland Park, I notice typically along the curbs, especially along the medians, there always seems to be an accumulation of whether it's the landscaping clippings like on Sunrise or just garbage or something. I think we just need to step that up, not just even for spring break, but also in general because I get those kinds of complaints and I see it myself when I go over the bridges. Those bridges are like gateways to the beach. So I think that that entire area should be as pristine as possible. Also, there are many light poles that always seem to be not lit. And in and around, for instance, the Oakland Park Bridge, there are a lot of decorative light poles that on any given night, I can just count numerous ones that just are not lit. I don't know why. These are not the typical overhead lights. These are, you know what I'm saying, the decorative poles. Some have two lamps on them. Some have one lamp on them. But we just need to, I think, just pay more attention to that, especially because now that there will be more people in that area, the lighting is important. Thank you. Commissioner, we can have our street lighting team in Parks and Recreation take a look at that. Great. Thank you. Yes, Commissioner. And the only thing I'll add to that is that we will be doing, we do regular assessments and we'll do another one as well just to ensure that our lights are operating and also, of course, work with our partners in lighting to address that. Great. I'm getting a lot of compliments, by the way. So thank you for the median on A1A. That was just completed with the, not just the interior landscaping, but also the rocks as the border. That was the one to the north to compliment the one just south of it. Getting a lot of nice compliments about that. Excellent. So thank you for that. Thank you. Okay. Any other speakers? All right. Any other questions? There being none. Thank you so much. Moving on to business two. This is a presentation of the City of Fort Lauderdale Grant Program Update, Office of Management and Budget. Thank you, Mayor. We will have our, did you skip business one intentionally? What's that? Business two. Oh, I'm sorry. I apologize. Yeah, it's just business. I meant Office of Management and Budget, but only with regard to the City Commission priorities. That's something. Thank you, Mayor. We have Erica Johnson, Strategy and Innovation Manager from the Office of Management and Budget. Good afternoon. It's good to see you all again. As I was introduced, Erica Johnson, Strategy and Innovation Manager. We spent some time together earlier in January at your annual Commission Prioritization Workshop. So that's really what I'm here today to discuss. We received lots of notes and action items and ideas and priorities and areas of focus as a part of that workshop. So as staff, we took that back and we spent some time consolidating it, seeing where different pieces fit, and also reacting to the feedback that you all had, which was the priorities really should stay largely the same over the next year for fiscal year 2027. So with that, we have, in no particular order, four priorities for fiscal year 2027, public safety, homelessness response, infrastructure and resilience, and a fourth one, public spaces and thriving communities. In Exhibit 1, they are outlined in detail, but I'm just going to take a couple of moments to touch on a few key themes that we heard. So the first one for public safety, we heard one of the key themes was to continue to expand the gun violence and intervention program, address concerns related to e-bikes, and look at adding more cameras and license plate readers throughout the city. For homelessness response, comments were made about deterring panhandling, connecting those experiencing homelessness with available shelter beds, partnering more closely with nonprofits, and then also providing more frequent updates on homelessness and are the city's response to both the city commission and the community. The third priority, infrastructure and resilience, is a two-pronged priority. So the first part is focused on utilities and flood mitigation. So continuing to advance, fortify Lauderdale, accelerating construction of seawall improvements, and again, you're seeing that theme of communication on key projects and where we're at with those. For the other side of that priority, transportation and traffic, we recognized and heard the comments about planning for the La Solis Mobility Project, addressing the root causes of sinkholes in roadways, making sure that we're more coordinated when we're doing roadway repairs or installing utilities, and also likewise ensuring external contractors return properties, roadways, sidewalks to their original state when they're completing their work. We're going to continue to advocate for a commuter rail tunnel, addressing the challenges associated with illegal parking and delivery trucks, and then also investigating opportunities for implementing traffic calming measures. Then the last priority would be public spaces and thriving communities, and this one has a couple of different elements related to parks, public spaces, economic development. So the key things that we heard there were to create opportunities so that every child can learn to swim, taking advantage of our public pools and the aquatic center, discouraging illegal dumping and pump-outs into our waterways, continuing the progress on improving medians and landscape and maintenance on those, accelerating our public art installations, and then on the economic development side, incentivizing business operators to increase their amenities, specifically in Flagler Village, continue to advance economic development programs to attract and retain businesses, and then again, we've kind of seen this woven throughout several of the priorities, but in terms of communication, enhancing our communication specifically with civic associations, marketing the city under a more unified brand, and then lastly, expanding broadband access. So with that, I'm here today to receive any additional feedback or clarification you want to provide on these priorities before we bring them forward at a future meeting for formal adoption. Anyone have any questions? Mayor? Yes, please go ahead. Thank you. Thank you for putting this all together. City Manager, a question on the incentivizing business operators to increase amenities. This is something I know is a challenge in Flagler Village. It's also a challenge in a lot of other neighborhoods, so Edgewood, Creuson Park, River Oaks is some example. I'm sure maybe others have other neighborhoods as well. So could we expand that to really include those neighborhoods as well? We could look at targeted areas across the city that might have this challenge. I think for grocery stores, we can more readily identify where there are food deserts in the city and where there might be an opportunity for a grocery store to come in through an incentive. So that is a possibility. It's something that we would be putting together through the budget process in terms of a financial incentive. That'd be great. And yeah, I'd love to hear more about the incentive options that we can articulate to business owners and so forth to encourage that in those neighborhoods. Sure. We can do that. So we can make that adjustment on here. Yes. Great. I think instead of saying offered in Flagler Village, maybe offered in areas throughout the city as needed. Yeah. I think that's nice. Yes. I like that verbiage because it would include district three, and we know that is recognized also as a food desert. Exactly. So thank you. Thank you. Thanks, City Manager. Okay, so we'll make that adjustment, and we'll bring it forward for a future meeting, and then those priorities will be built into the 27 budget. Okay, great. So I have a few questions. Either you or the City Manager. I want to refer to the memorandum that was also attached here, the Commission Agenda memo. So there are six items here. I'd like to go through them. The first one is infiltration and inflow update. City staff provided an update on efforts and key milestones to address, as well as the funding that is in place to support the improvements. I think we also wanted to know when are we going to get an evaluation of what the status is on our project. What percent of the INI project have we reached so far, and what is the plan going forward to complete the INI project? How many years more are we going to take to complete that? And I think that was one of the requests of the Commission at the time. So I don't see that in here. I just want to make sure that we are in agreement that that's what the Commission is looking for. Because I also understand as part of the consent order, and so I want to make sure that we're in compliance with that. But also, more importantly, you know, an infiltration infrastructure supports our sewage treatment plant and doesn't overwhelm it when we have a compromised INI system. So that's really important to us as we continue to grow as a city. Number two, the broadband access, I think, is really important. It says the city staff presented options to enhance broadband access across the city. I don't remember hearing a city staff presentation, but I do remember the city commission asking for a presentation, showing what parts of the city and at what cost we could attempt to secure more broadband access throughout the city, especially in underserved areas. You know, broadband access is so important in this day and age where everyone's on a computer or a phone. And I think that we need to see more detailed plans on where we're going with that. Mayor? Yes. At the meeting, we provided the commission with some background information, including four options for expanding broadband throughout the city. And there was consensus from the commission at that time to explore all four of those avenues, which included education and access and expanding the pilot program that we currently have in place. And so our intention is to move forward with those recommendations from the commission. And if there is a need to come back to the commission to seek any funding support or to get any additional feedback, we would do so. But we took that feedback, and we are going to be incorporating that going forward into our plans, especially as we embark on the budget development process. Okay. All right. Great. Good to hear that. Next is the police district number four. The city staff presented options to enhance police response through the creation of a fourth police district. I think we were waiting to hear more detail on that, correct? And I don't know whether that requires more police staffing or just a rearrangement of existing police officers and infrastructure. So at some point, we need to know where we are with that and how we're going to implement that if, in fact, we do decide to go forward. Number four, disposal of federal courthouse. I hate that word, disposal. City staff presented options. And I do know that there are options, and I think we need to have a more full-throated commission agenda item on this to discuss what options there are. I understand that it's not really up to us entirely. I know the federal government limits the types of purposes that we could seek to put there. So if we could coordinate that with the GSA and get back to the city commission, because, well, we do have time, because the federal government is not moving into their new building until the beginning of next year, I believe. And even then, they're not going to be ready to even talk to us about how they would like to repurpose that site and at what cost. But I would like to have a more complete discussion on what our options are based on what options the federal government does give us. We have been in communication with GSA since the commission prioritization workshop, and they provided some feedback. We have a draft letter to the commission that we're working on to provide some more clarification. GSA is refining the eligibility criteria, and they're looking at potentially options to determine how the transfer could occur, whether it would be at market rate or whether it be at a reduced rate or free to the city, essentially. So we will be providing more information via letter to the commission, and we intend to bring an item back to the commission at conference to discuss further. Great. Thank you. The next is one-stop shop that the previous proposal that we had entertained is no longer an option for us, so we are looking forward to hearing what opportunities there are for this commission to consider. And I see in your statement here the staff will explore a solicited public-private partnership to develop the site. I'm not sure whether the commission needs to have a conversation on what we're looking to see there, or are we going to wait until we hear P3 unsolicited proposals that might come to us? Because I have some ideas. I'm sure every member of the commission, especially the district commissioner, might have some ideas. And I think the district commissioner is probably best suited to hear or to be heard on this subject because he's in touch with his neighborhood associations and all the associations that are affected by this particular site. And I think that it is something that we should probably have a more fuller discussion on what we need to do going forward on this site. Does that make sense? Without a doubt, I appreciate it. No, I have had conversations with the neighborhood associations all in that area. Right. And then I was going to actually mention this when we do our reports later, but, you know, attending the Huizinga Park reopening, which I thought is just a stunning place, I really want to find out what we think DDA might have to offer on the one-stop shops. Has DDA made an overture? Well, I've had several conversations with them, yes. So I want to be able to explore that option as well. And perhaps I don't know if that would be in tandem with soliciting public-private partnerships or just to have that information at hand to see if we even need to do that. But I definitely was impressed with Huizinga Park to the point of thinking, well, why reinvent the wheel? There's a whole team there that just created that space. I think they did a really, really excellent job. So there are other factors. I think that one-stop Flagler Village is still very much interested in seeing more of an art component, which is a little bit more than just the one piece that you see in Huizinga. But we can have those conversations. But, yes, I think when we first had a conversation at the goal-setting workshop, the communities around there are very interested in really not traveling that far away from what was originally presented there. I don't think they would mind if we don't have two structures there. But I think that they really did like the open space, and they also really liked the cultural. The food emporium? Yeah. I mean, some sort of event space might not be a bad idea, but we can, again, explore all that. But they really did like the cultural component, whether it be the cultural actual structure, where at one time we envisioned our cultural affairs officer moving and staff. But they really did like the emphasis on the arts and culture of that park as an arts park. So what would be next steps going forward then? So based on the direction that we received or the consensus that we heard at the goal-setting meeting, the commission wanted to ensure that whatever happened there included active and passive public uses to include a park amenity. And so our intention was to draft a solicited proposal for a public-private partnership and come back to the commission to review that, provide any feedback and input, and then go out to the market and advertise this opportunity. The kind of what we're looking to see happen there. Yes. The thought was that if we expressed to the community our mandatory requirements, so those active and passive uses, including a park, then the development community or the private sector could add to those ideas and bring their creativity and hopefully some capital in order to leverage the public asset and provide a development opportunity that has multiple purposes. And so we didn't want to be very prescriptive, but our understanding from the commission at the time at that meeting was that as long as we mentioned to the public that those are the needs of the community, those active and passive public uses, then the development community could provide input and creativity and innovation and hopefully bring a project before the commission that would be pleasing to the community as well. Got it. Commissioner Glassman, do you think a joint workshop with the Neighborhood Association might be part of the process going forward, or do you feel that your interaction with them and your reporting to us, their sentiments would be sufficient? What do you think would be the next steps? Well, either I or my... Because they have to live with it. Right, exactly. And either I go or my staff goes to the Flagler Village Civic Association meetings. They meet every month. There's no reason why perhaps we can devote one of those entire meetings to the subject. I mean, I think we can certainly figure that out. All right, so if you could take that upon yourself and try to get back to us on that, because it's sitting idle and, you know, we'd like to be able to activate it in some way. Yes, we do. Okay, great. Thank you. Just for clarity, Mayor, is the approach that staff is taking now, is that still agreeable that we come back with a draft for the commission to provide feedback? You see, that's the thing. It's... I think we should listen to the community to see what the community wants, right, rather than what staff thinks should go there. And I think that, you know, we're more successful when we listen to people rather than telling people what to do. So I think that perhaps having a meeting either with the DDA or with the Neighborhood Association or any combination thereof is something that I would like to assign the district commissioner and either have a joint workshop with those groups or meet with them separately and report back to us what the findings are. Because we need to move forward on it, and I think staff could then take those recommendations and try to formulate a public-private partnership agenda that they can put out to the private sector. Mayor, can I offer a suggestion on that? Yeah, go ahead. So I think we'd be best served, and we've got a past history of doing a lot of charrettes where we engage the community. And because this is, you know, this is not just a neighborhood park. It's also our downtown park. This is also the folks that work in the offices down here. And so there's a lot more stakeholders, I think, than just Flagler Village, although they're a big part of it. So, you know, the folks that work in these offices want to be able to walk across the street and have lunch and sit in a park. So I think we've got a lot of people who have a stake in it. And so I think a charrette or a series of charrettes that engages all the stakeholders in the community would be advantageous. And then I think a workshop with the commission where we get to weigh in before staff gets involved because staff struggles when they don't know what we want. When they're trying to figure out what our direction is and divine the tea leaves puts them into a very awkward position. So I'd rather progress from a position of what do our various stakeholders want, come to us, we give them sort of our larger oversight. What do we want to see in that? And then out of that dialogue, I think we can then give a better direction to staff so whatever they bring back to us more accurately reflects the larger needs of the community and the commission. All right. So who would head that up then? Do we ask staff to initiate a charrette program that would include the neighborhood? Yeah, and they've done that on many instances and throughout the city. In every district, they've coordinated charrettes for a variety of different, you know, instances. I think they're perfectly capable. You know, DSD has done this. Okay. So it would include the adjacent neighborhood associations, the DDA. Yeah. Okay. Is that something you think you can put together? Okay, great. Yes, we can do that. While I don't object to that, that was not the consensus at the goal-setting workshop. If I remember, all these options were presented to us, and I'd have to go back and look at the minutes, but maybe we can. This was one of the options that we just sort of did not go in that direction. Correct me if I'm wrong. We did. You would have seen at the bottom of the presentation sheet or the slide that we offered that maybe there's additional public input that could be garnered to help guide the direction of the one-stop shop development or whatever would happen next. There wasn't a lot of communication at the time of that meeting that suggested that the commission wanted us to re-engage the community and understand what the current desires might be. So that is not the impression that I walked away with at that meeting. However, there's nothing binding at that time. So if the commission wants to change course, of course, staff is amenable. Okay. Whatever. Whatever I want. Okay. But whatever we do, let's just get started. I just think we need to start moving on it because it's been sitting idle for a number of years. And while it's great to have open space, but there's a big fence around it, and the only people that are using it are the pigeons. Can we take the fence now? The iguanas. Can we take the fence now? No, we can't. Kind of like Riverside did? Create an open space? Okay. Thank you. And finally, City Hall. It says city staff provided an update on considerations for the framework of the interim agreement that will guide the construction and operation of the new City Hall site, including costs, financing, and maintenance. The city commission supported a target budget of $200 million. Now, reading this, I'm led to believe that we're talking about the response to the unsolicited proposal and the commission's selection of one of the proposers, and we're going to at some point get a term sheet from you. And when were you planning on presenting that? So we have been meeting on a weekly basis with the development team that was selected for us to move forward with the public-private partnership. We have multiple meetings every week, and our intention is to bring forward a draft term sheet for the February 17th conference meeting to get feedback from the commission. The commission had previously asked for touch points for engagement and opportunities for the public to weigh in, and we feel that bringing the draft term sheet is one of those opportunities. At the time of the goal-setting meeting, the context by which we provided the framework for the budget, it was based on the public-private partnership, based on the selection of the commission during the December 2nd meeting. Okay, and what day did you say? Which meeting are you going to present the term sheet? Our intention is for February 17th. That's what we're working for. So the next meeting. Yes. Okay. So I also want to bring up, so it's my understanding that you and or staff members had been communicating with the folks at the 101 building as early as July of last year. A number of emails and meetings. Actually, I know of one meeting in particular in December in which you met with the owners of the 101 building. I'm just wondering, you know, when we were talking about the city hall and next steps, why you would not have brought that up at the time of the goal-setting session to at least alert the city commission of what you had been doing and where you were taking this when at the meeting that we had, when we selected the core industries or core construction, that the city commission had made a decision on the direction it was going. And there were multiple meetings that took place of the city commission since July. And at no time was any of that ever brought up. And now I understand that the people in One East Broward have submitted a request for us to review purchasing their building. So tell us where this is all going and what direction did you expect this commission to go considering decisions that have been made so far? Thank you for that question, Mayor. And just to address One East Broward, we did receive an email, or at least I did, and I think members of the commission received the same email, offering that if the city was considering the purchase of an existing building, that the One East Broward building property owners would like to be considered. To frame the discussion, we have a landlord-tenant relationship, whereas we rent space in the 101 building now, and we periodically and regularly, staff, meets with the property owner to discuss landlord-tenant issues. Last year, in July, the landlord did represent to staff that they were interested in an opportunity for the city to either purchase or lease the property. Staff was provided with an offer from the property owner and felt that the offer was incomplete and not viable. The property owner was also told that there is an ongoing private partnership. Not viable in relation to the unsolicited proposal process or just not viable in general? Not viable or incomplete because there wasn't information provided related to the structure and condition of the building and the details that would be required to make a proper determination as to whether this was a feasible opportunity. So there wasn't a lot of information provided at that time. Staff also made the property owner aware that there was a public-private partnership competition period that was currently in place. The property owner, for whatever reason, opted not to participate in that process. It could be, and I don't want to speak for the property owner, but it could be that the public-private partnership process called for a design, build, finance, operate, and maintain type of structure, which is what the commission agreed to put out to the community. Being that the offer was a sale or a lease of the building, my assumption is that the property owner did not feel they qualified to be part of the P3 process. In any event, the property owner went back to the drawing board, noting that the offer was incomplete and not seen as viable and provided additional information to staff in October of 2025. At that time, we were fully engaged in the process of the public-private partnership as directed by the commission, and so we have moved forward with that direction ever since we have been told to advance this project. And this city hall project has advanced more in the last nine months than it has in several years, and that's because we've taken the direction of the commission, and we've advanced it at its fullest speed. But there were still meetings taking place or still communications taking place after October, even though you were fully engaged in the other process. Correct. The property owner reached out to my staff and asked for a meeting with me. I did have that meeting in late December with the property owner. At that time, they asked for us to look at their proposal and also to share that proposal with the city commission. They asked that I connect them with the city commission, and I did so via email, and that was shared with every member of the city commission. So it's not that we were... But that took place after the goal-setting session. It did take place after the goal-setting session. So my question is, why didn't you bring it up at the goal-setting session, knowing that it was a key point, and it's even part of your memo here, it was a key point in the discussions that we were having at that time, and it would have provided us an opportunity to discuss in the sunshine at a time when we're all prepared to discuss the city hall going forward. I just am curious as to why you kept it a secret from us and then finally disclosed it to us at midnight at our last meeting. I did not disclose it at midnight at a meeting. I shared it via email the Friday before the meeting where it was brought up from the body, so staff did not bring up the 101 proposal at any commission meeting or any public meeting. I did share an email a few days before the commission meeting, and I assume that's why it was brought up at the next meeting. You may recall that the conference meeting was paused because of the length and the discussion that took place and was resumed after the regular meeting, which is why the commission discussion occurred toward midnight. I understand that, but again, okay, I don't want to belabor the point. I'm just pointing out to you that if you have information and you're pursuing something that is inconsistent with what the policy direction of this commission has been, and you're on your own pursuing things that this commission did not ask you to do, and then you later tell us after the opportunity, did it already exist for you to disclose this to us? I'm just saying that going forward, we need to know what you're doing, especially if you're doing it against or contrary to what the commission had agreed to. I want to make clear that there was no pursuit of the 101 proposal or offer. There was no pursuit by staff or myself to engage them in an opportunity for there to be city hall. We took the direction from the commission, and we have done everything within our power to advance the P3 project as directed by the commission. There was no attempt to circumvent the commission or to deviate from the path that the commission laid out, not by me and not by staff. Thank you. Thank you. I have no further questions. Anyone else have any questions? Yep. Mayor, I do. Thanks. Raquel, thanks for that update information. Is staff doing an analysis of the 101 Tower? The request at the last city commission meeting where it was discussed during conference, there was a request for staff to explore the Tower 101 offer, and so we have began that process of exploration. There are a few things that we are not necessarily engaging with at this time. We wanted to get some additional feedback from the commission. We've been having various conversations. We intend to do an appraisal, a property survey, and a title search. We'd like to do a market analysis of office space in the downtown area, and should the commission like us to go even further, we can do a structural examination of the building with the consent of the property owner. It is my understanding that the property owner has already done some work in terms of evaluating the condition of the building and may have completed reports at this time, but none of those reports have been provided to the city. It's my understanding that the property owner may seek to do some additional due diligence to provide to the city, but has not done so at this time. Okay, thanks. And when will you be able to provide an analysis of 101? So we can do a preliminary review of the offer as proposed with the information that has been provided. We will not be able to fact check every single thing unless we have some information, some additional information from the property owner. Some of the things that we would need to do in order to give the commission a more robust opportunity to make a determination on the viability would take anywhere between 30 and 45 days from issuance of a notice to proceed depending on what the scope would be. So for example, if we wanted to do an environmental analysis or archaeological analysis, building inspection, tenancy review, market survey, those things could happen concurrently but may take anywhere between 30 and 45 days following a notice to proceed. Some of the two appraisals that we would want to do as well as a survey and title search, that would take anywhere between 30 and 45 days. So we could come to the commission with a preliminary review based on what was proposed. We can look at the price per square foot. We can try to identify, hey, what might it cost to retrofit floors? We may need to get some additional information like floor plans from the property owner in order to start to make that assessment. but our development services team is already looking into this. They've already started to review the plans that we currently have on file and we intend to provide the commission with as much information as the commission would like in order to capture the exploration that we were asked to do. Thanks. I want to be respectful of the kind of time and investment the builder is making in the P3 process. So I would want to as much as possible get the analysis done as quickly as possible so that the commission can have the data to make the valuation. Is there information we can request from the Tower 101 owner that would expedite possibly this analysis? I think so. I believe that the structural report has been completed by the property owner. We just have not obtained that report and I think the full building inspection is something that the property owner would be willing to engage in subject to the commission desiring to go further in the exploratory phase. So, okay, thanks. So, Mayor, I'd like to get to ask if we could just to get as much information as fast as possible from the owner of 101 so that that can just help Raquel's analysis. That's all right. Well, then, what do we do? Now that we've opened the door and one East Broward now would like to also offer up their building for sale, I mean, it's like how many buildings are we going to accept these offers from? How many analyses are we going to go through? How far are we taking this? I mean, how deep into the weeds are we just saying to every building owner in the city? Give us your tired, your poor, your old buildings yearning to be free. Like, how far down that road are we going? If that question is directed to me, I would say that that is based on the will of the commission. So we will do as directed and take the lead of the commission. I think we absolutely have to look at the one East Broward building. I mean, that is the premier corner in all of Fort Lauderdale. That is an opportunity to buy below replacement cost, 350,000 square feet for $120 million. You know, right now, commercial office space is on sale. I mean, this is a buying opportunity that is once in a lifetime. We will never get property this cheap ever again. It's connected to our existing parking garage by a flyover bridge. It is a great building. We already occupy it. We thought about putting our commission chambers on the ground floor. It would be derelict for us not to consider this. So I think we absolutely have to look at this. We absolutely have to evaluate it. It would be, again, financially irresponsible to the taxpayers not to do our due diligence. We could always reject it, but we have to look at it. And I'd also like to point out that several years ago with Chris Lagerbloom, we approached them to buy that building for City Hall and they blew us off. The market's crashed since then. We're looking at vacancy rates around the country in places like San Francisco and Chicago of 40%. We've got buildings in San Francisco that sold for $260 million a couple of years ago that are going for $60. So this is, I'm telling you, Mayor, this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to buy commercial office space at prices that we're never going to see again. It behooves us to look at it. Well, you know, to Commissioner Glassman's statement, you know, I want to make sure that whatever money we spend is not putting good money after bad, especially these older buildings. I think that building was built in the... I think they just redid that one, didn't they? Let me finish. I'm sorry. I apologize. I thought they just redid that building. Well, they didn't redo the whole building. The building's still, you know, it's over 30 years, I believe it's 30 years old. I'm not sure, but I thought it was built in the late 80s. And it was... I agree with you, it's on a wonderful site, much better than the 101 building. The 101 building never made any sense to me. And this site has... it has atrium space that we can accommodate commission chambers. And the layout is much more suitable to what we would want. It'd be less expensive for us to accommodate the city needs. And because it's a larger building, it could be income producing. It's scalable. Yeah. As we go up or down, you know, we can rent space out in that building. We can go up, we can go down as our needs fluctuate through the years. You know, you all know I hate the word iconic. I think I've been outspoken about that. But this is actually an iconic location for us. Well, the location maybe, but not the building. The location. But honestly, you know, to Commissioner Glassman's point, where does this end? Every building on the block is going to come to us now and say, hey, buy me, buy me. You know, I felt we made a commitment. I thought we had a vision. I thought we were looking to the future. I thought we had, you didn't, Vice Mayor, I know that. But the rest of us had voted to do that. Now, has that changed? Commissioner Beasley-Pittman, what are your thoughts on this? Well, when I asked to, I believe I used the word entertain, let's look at what 101 Tower was presenting, I was more interested in what it looked like, as in financial and what else could be done with the building. I was not moving in the direction of saying, let's shift from what we were looking at, but also what, if the building was going up, is it a good price? If it's going up for sale, is it a good price? Is it something that we as a city could assume this building? And we've talked about several things about the federal courthouse, things that we want to do with that building. And I was looking at what that whole block or campus block would look like, but not in an attempt to deviate from the plans that we have moving forward. So you still want to move forward with the unsolicited proposal that we had originally engaged? Yes, I still want to move forward with that. Again, if there's a possibility, we as a city, we make commitments, we look at things, we purchase different opportunities. and if there's an opportunity where the 101 or even East Broward, there's something that we can utilize that space for and it becomes productive, iconic, and it all works together, let's make it happen. You know, it is a true point about the value of the building and the price that it's going for. So, but again, my initial response and the reason I asked to see what it would look like because I wanted to know the opportunities for the building, not an opportunity to move away from what we had voted for. All right, so that changes things and... Mayor, can I add just a couple more thoughts? Thank you. So, you bring up a good point about, you know, where do we stop? So, I think the thing that I find attractive about 1 East Broward and the 101 building is they're both directly adjacent to our existing parking garage. So, I'm not looking to go five blocks away, ten blocks away where people have to walk to the parking garage. I think the thing that makes those two buildings unique is they are attached to our parking garage and so we can utilize that facility. So, I think that's what makes them somewhat different. I also think there's an opportunity if we were to look at, say, the 1 East Broward building, you know, there's always a potential that we can continue to include the folks that were participating in the proposed new building as partners in the 1 East Broward building. We're going to need somebody to come in and reconfigure that building. There's a massive contract for reconfiguration of that space. You know, Stiles can still come in and do the property management of it. This isn't necessarily excluding the people who have participated in that process. There's still a lot of money to be made partnering with the folks who have been part of this process. This isn't necessarily exclusionary. It's maybe just reconsidering how we partner. All right. But there seems to be now a majority that wants to continue moving forward on the original... So be it. It is what it is. Right. So I don't think we really want to... I mean, you can come back to us with an analysis, you know, a cursory analysis of the 101 building and maybe the 1 East Broward building, but I think we still... You know, it might present other opportunities for the city, but I think that the commission seems to now want to just move forward on the original decision that it made and let's await the term sheet that you are going to present to us at the next meeting. Can I ask one additional question too as you're looking at it? So one of the things that I think would be very useful to know with these buildings is their possibility of owner-provided financing. with them as well. I think that would be an attractive inducement. Well, you know, it's interesting because each of those other buildings, you know, they have tenants in them and tenant commitments. So I don't know how much space there's going to be allotted to us at what point. You know, we have to wait five years, do we have to wait three years, do we have to wait seven years? You know, if we do... I know that was one of the things in Ivy's proposal for 101. I haven't obviously had an opportunity to look through one East Broward because it just came in last night, but I know Ivy's proposal for 101 said that they could work expeditiously with their team to get their tenants out within a reasonable amount of time, and I think it gives us an opportunity to phase our move-in. You know, we've got people geographically dispersed around the city. Obviously, parking is over on 3rd. We've got, you know, different folks in different locations throughout the city, so they don't all need to be in there all on day one. We can move them in as space frees up. We already occupy 20% of that building, so we're in there. Again, I've been in that building for, I think, 15 years, and happily so. So, you know, I think we could do a phase move-in. You're already in the One East Broward building, and so we could do a phase move-in with that. There's vacant space in there right now. I think there's lots of opportunities. Mayor, at the end of the day, you know, I know I'm probably going to be on the losing end of this vote, and that's fine, but I think it behooves us to take a long, hard look at it. This is a huge financial decision that the city is going to be burdened with for the next, you know, 30 years financially paying for it, and we're going to be living with the building for anywhere from 50 to 75 years depending on how well built the building is. So I think we really need to take some time, think about it, make sure we're making the right decisions for our taxpayers. Remember, we're looking at losing homestead over the next 10 years. I have no doubt that this is going to pass. I'm voting for it. I'm pretty sure everybody in this room that owns a house is voting for elimination of homestead. So, you know, we need to be planning for that. What do you mean eliminate? You mean eliminating taxes on homestead? Eliminating taxes, right. Eliminating taxes on homesteaded property. So our tax base is going to be declining. We need to be leaning into the fact that we've got to start scaling down operations and preparing. My favorite show, Game of Thrones, winter is coming, and we need to be preparing for a leaner, more revenue declining environment. And so let's think about that as we look at our cost structures going forward. You know, all these Stantex proposals that we've looked at whenever we do our budget, nothing that they've ever done takes into account this cataclysmic decline and property taxes. Well, that's exactly the word, cataclysmic. We'll end up firing police officers, firing... Nope, because that's what the law is going to say is that you can't get rid of police officers and firefighters. We get rid of everybody else. So raise our taxes and double tax businesses and double tax seasonal owners, employers, and that's certainly the best message to send around the world, that Florida no longer is the tax-free place. Mayor, I'm not arguing about that. I'm telling you it's going to pass. Okay, whether you like it or not, I can't see the people in the state of Florida voting against it. That's a subject for another time. We'll worry about that later. It's not something that's going to... Let's just not put our heads in the sand, I'm telling you. Okay, Mayor, I just want to clarify, because I heard about getting rid of tenants really quickly, but don't those leases carry over no matter what, no matter who owns? You can't just throw out tenants that have a lease, right? Correct. So that's... I mean, I just think that the items that you mentioned, City Manager, in terms of what we're going to take a look at, it's not even comprehensive enough. And we're talking about a city hall for the future of our city. These buildings are what? 25, 35 years old that we're looking at now? I mean, what is the life cycle of those buildings? I'm not sure that that's going to really take care of our needs going into the future. Well, whatever money we spend, okay, you have to take into consideration that we're not going to have the same longevity in a used building than in a new building. So it might be a little cheaper to go into a used building, but ultimately, we're going to be spending more money to keep it up and to reinforce its utility because we don't have the benefit of a new structure, which means new electrical systems, newer plumbing systems, everything about it. So any price tag associated with a used building has to somehow be discounted in terms of its viability. I mean, just the retrofitting, and I have been speaking to a lot of folks in the construction field and the development field the last couple of weeks since our last meeting, and I'm almost unanimously getting that you might get these buildings for a good cost, but you'll probably spend that exact amount also in retrofitting. So at the end of the day, at the end of the day, the savings is not really that much. And you talk about, you know, these buildings and the infrastructure in these buildings. I know that in my offices alone in one hour now, there's no heat, and we found out there's just no heat at all. The offices are freezing, and if we have cold spells like this, we're blowing fuses all the time. I mean, you're looking at 25, 35-year-old buildings that are going to need a lot of work. I just don't see the sense in looking at these buildings at all. I wouldn't even waste any time looking at it, studying it, analyzing it. I think we just have to move forward in good faith with the team that we selected, and then just wrap this up. I don't really want to spend a lot of time. I personally agree with you. Commissioner Beasley-Pittman, do you agree with that? I have a question before that what is the cost for these studies that are being cited that need to be done for these buildings? Do we have an estimated cost of what it would cost us as a city? On the low end, we're estimating about $120,000 for the two appraisals, survey, title search, environmental, archaeological, historical, building inspection, tenancy review, and market survey. So in total, that'll be about $120,000. We do have, I believe, about $9 million in the city hall budget right now that we're utilizing. We also have the owner's rep. That's how we're paying them for their services and other consultants that we have. It's a lot of money to squander if you know we're not going to go in that direction. City manager, go ahead, commissioner. I'm pondering. Go ahead. I'm pondering those figures. Sure. Thanks. Thanks, city manager. For an analysis in a couple weeks, what the, you know, I think, financial pro forma, basics in terms of square footage, structural integrity that we might know, in the next couple weeks doing an analysis, what would be the cost of that analysis? I think everything outside of the structural analysis would be relatively inexpensive. We could do a financial analysis. We can look at a pro forma. We can, you know, utilize our in-house and external resources to do that. I don't think that it would cost the city, you know, more than $20,000. We don't know what a build-out is going to cost. No, we don't know what a build-out for the 101 building would cost. No, we do not. So here would be my suggestion, is that I think a very tight budget, limited cost analysis of 101, as well as 1 East Broward, in addition to continuing the discussions with the builder over the next couple weeks, continuing to progress forward, and in two weeks presenting the analysis for 101, 1 East Broward, and then the updated term sheet or whatever you're able to provide us for the builders, I think would be a great concept. And then we can, you know, discard ideas at that point or, you know, move forward with the plan that we have. For 1 East Broward, the information that we have been provided with to date or that I've seen is very preliminary, and we would need to request more information from that property owner in order to do what we could do on the Tower 101 analysis. So right now, 1 East Broward has only provided, I think, price per square foot. We don't know their tenant base. We don't know to what year their leases go out to. So there are a lot of nuances that we don't yet understand from the 1 East Broward offer as opposed to Tower 101. Okay. So, Commissioner Beasley-Pittman, would it be okay if we ask the city manager to ask both 1 East Broward and 101, Tower 101, those owners for as much information as they can get, do a low-cost analysis over the next two weeks and then bring forward on February 17th what we have at that point? What are you defining as low cost because I'm looking at the figures and I'm really thinking that this is it. I would like to know what's the end game there? What is the end game? What is the end game? So let's say there's an analysis. You come up with an analysis. We've spent X amount of thousands, tens of thousands of dollars for the analysis. What's the end game? So this isn't going to cost tens of thousands of dollars in the next two weeks. City manager, you want to maybe get specifics on the next two weeks. And I don't know if Ben Rogers might have an estimate on what that might cost. Good afternoon, Mayor and Commissioner Ben Rogers, assistant city manager. So I want to take a step back before I answer the question and just say that whatever we do is the next step. There's a lot of components to go into between getting a contract with someone to do the work, with the work being performed, what level of detail you want in that, and then the turnaround time for the report to be prepared. So I think it will be challenging for the next meeting, Commissioner Sorensen. But with that, I do know that we have some contracts that we have on place already. We have an owner's rep for the city hall project that we could probably leverage that contract. We have a real estate broker contract that we could leverage. I can't answer the cost because I don't know what level of specificity that you are looking for at this point in the game. But I can tell you that it will take 30 to 45 days, and it will probably be in excess of $25,000. May I just want to answer? Go ahead. Go ahead. So, Commissioner Beesley-Pittman, a little more info there. And I think if the cost of the analysis is a concern, then we ask for a limited cost analysis with what we have available. Didn't you say the praises were $120,000? No, I listed about nine different deliverables or scopes of work, which in totality would be $120,000. For each building? Yes, if we were to exercise all of those options for each building. For each building? Correct. So that's $240,000. That's a quarter of a million dollars, and that's why I asked the question, what is the end game here? What is the end game? Are we going to then want to buy one of these buildings, or are we going to go with the original decision that we made to go with City Hall Partners? Well, without the information, I don't know that we can make a valid decision. So spending $250,000 and saving $100 million, I think, is well worth the investment. I'm going to leave you with one thought. I agree. This is important. You guys are all talking about how this is a 20-year-old building. My high school in New York City was built in 1904. They're still using it. Okay? A 122-year-old building. Stuyvesant High School. They don't build it like they used to. No. Hasn't fallen down. Okay? Just letting you know. Still in use. There are buildings in Rome that are 2,000 years old. Exactly. There's an aqueduct in Segovia that's still in use. No, it's not. Okay? It's 2,000 years old. Come on. Let's stop suggesting that 20 years old is, like, ancient. Okay? No. Well, in South Florida, those buildings are ending, they're ending their useful life. I also want to remind everyone that when we first went down this path of building a new city hall, we solicited it. We got how many? Five, six people entered the bidding? There were six proposals. Correct me if I'm wrong, but one of them was an existing building already. Correct? There was a proposal that included an existing building. And how far did that proposal go? It did not make the short list. Did not make the short list. That is a perfect example, a perfect reason why I don't know what we're doing now by looking at every building that wants to be sold in downtown Fort Lauderdale. And again, we've just gotten two now, but I can predict that the floodgates will open. And then when do we cut it off? Do we spend $120,000 for 10 buildings that are going to offer their building for sale at a great deal, at a great cost and savings to the taxpayers? I just think this is like a rabbit hole we're going down right now. And I don't get it. We made a commitment. I think that we owe it to the teams that entered the process, paid their $25,000. None of these buildings paid $25,000 to enter this process, did they? If they're really serious about selling their buildings, they should pay for the analysis. They should pay for the appraisals. They should pay for all of the stuff that we would need to do to really consider whether or not to purchase. We should not be paying one nickel for any of the things that we would need to do to analyze any of these buildings that are going to come forward. I think right now we have a discussion among ourselves and we decide, is this worth it or not, or do we just move forward down the path that we started? And then we put an end to this one way or the other. If a majority of us feel that we should keep analyzing and keep looking at buildings and keep going down that path, great. Then we do. If a majority don't think so, then we end this discussion, you move forward in good faith negotiations with the team we selected, and end the story. With that being said, I'm saying that we move forward with the plan that we're already working with, with the developers that we're speaking with. My concern, I'm making this decision based on what it will cost us to have this analyzed to get to a point to decide if one of these pre-existing buildings would be something or an option we would really entertain. I'm, if, you all may not appreciate this, but whatever we're doing, I'm looking for more restrooms for the females. I just cannot deal with the restroom problem. You can take it light, take it however you want to take it, but these existing buildings do not have adequate facilities for females. Okay? So, I guess, I see you back there. Yes, okay. But with that being said, seriously, the dollar amount that's being considered, I think we should move forward understanding what the build-out may be, the cost assessment that's being discussed about build-out, I believe that we could put that into a new structure. So, we should just move forward with the new structure. We should move forward. That is what I am recommending. Okay. All right. Move forward. So, let's just, so. That's it. That's it. That's it. So, just so I'm clear, so stop all analyses of all other possible possibilities here. Correct. This is the will of Commissioner, Mayor, and Commissioner. Yep. Okay. I think that's, I think we're missing an opportunity just to analyze, but thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Moving on to business two. Mayor, before we get to that, so. Yes. I just want to comment on this. Obviously, as you all know, I missed the goal-setting session due to a personal tragedy in my life, but I do have one or two more comments. That was one of them. I do want to offer up a comment as it relates to the federal courthouse. So, I'm not fully in support of the suggestions that I've seen made about a charter school. I don't think that's the right direction. The school board is getting rid of schools, and I think if there's an opportunity for a charter school, and I think we should utilize one of the existing schools. Take a school and make a charter school. Don't take a courthouse and turn it into a charter school. I think that would be a mistake. I don't think it's also suitable for affordable housing. Retrofitting that building for affordable housing is not cost-effective. There are a lot of cities around the country that are retrofitting office buildings for affordable housing, or any types of housing, but typically the only buildings that that work with are office buildings that were built roughly around the turn of the last century, and it's because of how they were constructed, the floor plates, the light, the air shafts, and things like that. Those are the ones that are typically worthwhile converting over. Well, maybe 101 should be converted to an affordable housing project. No, it doesn't have the air shafts. The floor plates are not suitable for it. But what I would suggest, what I think the courthouse would be phenomenal for, and I'm trying to build support for this, so I hope my commissioners will get on board with me. I've already, I've socialized this idea. Everybody likes it, so I hope you guys will get on board. I think this would be an amazing museum. Museum. Because the one thing you don't want in a museum is windows and light, because it damages the art. We could, if you think about that space, we could have artist studios in there. We could have different floors that are devoted to different types of art. I mean, think about kids, you know, coming from the school district, you know, out on that open plaza. I mean, that is an amazing, you know, it's a cultural institution. It's an interesting idea. Yeah. The only concern that I have is the height of the ceilings. We'd have to break through a lot of floors, but I don't know if that would compromise the structural integrity of it, but it's certainly worthwhile looking into. I don't dispute that. I'm not sure it's one of the options. You know, GSA says, I've talked with GSA all during that federal court facility. I was on that for 15 years, and this is a topic that I broached with GSA because they want to maintain the cultural and artistic and historic fabric of the building. And I believe from my conversations with GSA that they would be receptive to this to an art museum. Right. I think there's grants that we can look at at the federal level and at the state level for, you know, a cultural repurposing of this. I think we can bring everybody together. I think this would be, and I, again, I hate to use the word it, it, it, I choke on it when I say it, but this could be iconic. I know it's, it's stuck in my mouth when I say it, but. Well, you know, the art museum has been looking, you know, NSU art museum has been looking for a larger space. I know, I know, but they could, they could transfer their entire collection over to this. It's just the height, you know, John, it's just the height. That's the only thing I'm concerned about. There's, there's the ceremonial courtroom, which is not very big. Right. But you've got gallery spaces. The courtrooms are essentially gallery spaces where you walk from room to room. And I would love to see art serve move there. Yeah. Art serve could move there. I mean, we, you know, we, we talked years ago about creating an African-American museum. Right. That could take up an entire floor. Entire floor. I mean, you've got 300,000 square feet. Imagine the things we could do with it. I've been to the African-American museum in Washington. Yeah. And it's amazing how you can create in a space, uh, the things you're trying to, you know, project. So it's certainly, I mean, I, I, right. And again, artist space too. We could take, we could take, we can make studios for artists. And I mean, there's so much opportunity for that. So anyway, I hope we can, we can coalesce around this. I've, I've kind of threw this out to the Broward workshop. They, you know, seem to think it's a good idea. Again, I think we can, we can build a coalition around this with the County, with the state and get everybody on board with us. If you think it's a good idea. Well, the state, the state doesn't give a lot of money for arts. There's a dollar or two left left up there. So mayor, you're probably going to remember that the charrettes that were done. And a lot of them actually did include the idea of a museum in Tropic magazine. I'm going to, I know I can't send everything to my colleagues, but I'm going to request that my staff sends to the city manager. They have, and I can share it with the commission. Can you share that with the entire commission? Was the art museum part of that? I think one of them was a museum, Tropic magazine, although artist studios generally require light. But let's, let's at least take a look at the, the charrettes that were conducted about 10 years ago with local architects and other organizations. They came up with a lot of good ideas. Uh, and as I said, I've already sent that information to the city manager and she can share it with all of you. Thank you. We can flesh out that idea and come back to the commission at conference. As I mentioned, we have a letter to the commission that's in draft form, uh, that will provide some additional clarification that we've received since the goal setting meeting. Thank you. Yeah. I just think, I think this is a perfect time for it. I think it's intriguing. Yeah. I think it's an intrigue, but again, it has to suit the needs of, uh, of the curators who've, you know, are looking for the appropriate space. Sure. Lighting could always be added. Sure. To a space. Yep. And you're right. They don't usually like, like, they don't usually like natural light because it tends to fade. I mean, think of like the Guggenheim and places like that. There's no light, you know? Right. Okay. Moving forward, uh, business two office manage office of management and budget regarding the presentation of the Fort Lauderdale grant program update. We have Laura Reese, director of OMB and Tameka McGibbon, principal budget and management analyst. Laura. Thank you. City manager, mayor, vice mayor commission, Laura Reese, director of office of management and budget. And I'm here today with some good news. So I'm going to tell you a little bit about the grants management program in the city. And then my colleague Tameka McGibbon is going to share with you some of the results from 2025 and our awards efforts. Um, why are grants important? Um, so grants are important because every dollar we get from the federal state or a not-for-profit organization means that we can move forward one of the city commission's initiatives without asking our neighbors to pay. So it provides funding to enhance programs, supports the city's strategic plan, and allows city funds to be redirected to other priorities. Um, as everything else in the city, the city commission leads our grant initiatives. Um, you all establish your priorities as you've, um, just been speaking about in the last presentation. In our government affairs, um, Daphne and Ashley, they really partner with our lobbyists to look for, um, opportunities to request allocations at the federal and state level and to share those grant opportunities with our teams. And the city manager in OMB, we make sure that there's a consistent process, um, to align grant opportunities with priorities, and one of the key things we do is make sure that we're not competing against ourselves. So we don't want two different departments competing for the same grant without some, uh, some analysis being done, and we want to make sure that match is in place when we apply. Um, so Tameka McGibbon leads that effort on behalf of OMB. Um, we have other grant coordinators throughout the departments that do really the real work. Um, so some of them are here with us today, so if they might stand up, um, I'd appreciate it, Courtney Harris from Public Works, Dana Bagden from Police, Akilah Holloway, and John St. Hubert from Fire, and Rachel Williams. So I don't know if anyone, uh, Rachel Williams, so Rachel Williams is here. So the others are probably remotely watching, so, um, but they do the real work. They're the ones who are actually drafting the applications, they are monitoring the grants, and OMB gets to centrally coordinate that with the city manager to make sure everything is done in a clear and consistent way. Um, grant oversight and communication is a key part of our grants program. Um, at any given time, we have around 100 grants open. So, um, those are grants from prior years that are currently being administered, grants that were closing out, or they're in some form of being monitored. So that's a lot of grants for a city. Um, centralized grants administration is really a best practice, and the city follows this best practice to allow for consistent centralized processes and to ensure that the city is strategic with its grants seeking and monitoring activities. Um, a few items that I'd highlight from our process are the grant pre-application form. So if there's a department that is interested in applying for a grant, they'll fill out a pre- application form, very brief process that indicates what they would like to apply for. Is there a city match required? They identify if a match is already in place or if we need to appropriate additional funds or come to the commission. And, um, in that way, we try to make sure it's aligned with the priorities of the commission, that we have a match if we are committing to a match during the application process, and that the city manager is aware of what we're pursuing. And again, we make sure that we're not competing against ourselves through that process. Um, we make sure there's commission approval for each grant as it's accepted and the associated appropriation of grant funds on the budget amendment. And then this time of year, we share with you a grant year in review, which you got a few weeks ago, and then we present to you the results from that review. And, um, Linda's team in finance, um, they head up the annual single audit, which is required by federal law to make sure that we're complying with all of the regulations. There's a few resources that we purchased and some that are for free. Um, so there's grant finder grants.gov. Um, and then we create a resource guide in partnership with the departments. So we memorialize each year and that comes out in your grant year in review. We identify all of the grants we plan to our plan to apply for in the coming year so that everyone's aligned with which grants are being pursued by which departments. Um, our application strategy, um, is that we align with the 20 to 35 vision and strategic plan. We pursue the highest priority. We leverage existing funding to serve as a match. So we publish a five-year, um, CIP plan. A lot of times you'll see that the grants that we're applying for are the parks bond initiatives where we know funding's in place and maybe we could use some additional funds or other capital projects that have been identified. If we secure funding, then we can reappropriate existing funding to other high priorities of the commission. So we're not just applying for nice-to-haves, we're really strategically aligning it with the city's goals. And with that, I'm going to turn over the presentation to Tamika, and she's going to get into the nuts and bolts. Good afternoon. Mayor and city commissioners, Tamika McGibbon, principal budget and management analyst with the Office of Management and Budget. And so I wanted to highlight a few of the grants that we have received in fiscal year 2025. So we received for the airport from FAA, the $8.8 million grant for the runway 927 pavement rehabilitation. We also received $3 million for the Breakers Avenue resiliency. Yes, Mayor. Did I look like I wanted to say? Where is that? Where are we going there? What's happening there? I just wanted to... Are we fully funded for that project? For the runway 927? No, for Breakers. For Breakers Avenue with $3 million? I'll have. Did I scare you? I'm sorry. I saw your face. I knew that you wanted to say something. Good afternoon, Miloš Marisodovic again. So we have some internal funding and based on opinion of probably the cost before we issue solicitation to industry to advise what they would build the project for, we should be fully funded. We should be what? We should have all funding that we need at this point of time. Because every year we wait. You know, I've been asking for repurposing of Breakers since 2003. Okay? That's 23 years. How much... And it would have cost a million dollars back then. So every year that we wait, Milos, is costing us. And I thought we decided to go ahead with the money that we had and then eventually we would cobble together the rest. Are we in design phase? Yes. So it is, the plans are about 100%, and my understanding is that right now Capital Projects Department is handling this project. But within the next couple of months, the intent is to issue solicitation for the construction. Again, 100% plans over the last year, we were very successful in receiving a lot of money. So $3 million is from the state, $850,000 from the HUD, and another $3 million that we received from the grant match program from the SIRTAG. So that's how we were able to close the funding gap because we really had only a very small portion of the funding. So we have the money, we have the designs, we just need one. We are moving forward, yes. So when are we having groundbreaking? So that really depends on the outcome of solicitation that is upcoming in the next few months. Well, correct me if I'm wrong, I think FDOT has asked for some tweaks, and we're waiting to do that before we actually can start. I'll allow Assistant City Manager Pew to provide some updates as I've shared with your office this week. Yes. Good afternoon, Quinton Pew, Assistant City Manager. Come on, you're the expediter. All right, I'll start with the end in mind. So we're anticipating construction commencing October 2026. 2026, did you say? Yes. Okay, well, that's a good year. Yeah, the initial start date was in March, so we're slightly behind. Yeah. As far as timeline-wise, we'll be initiating the ITB for procurement in March. We hope to come before you with an award in June. Notice to proceed for number one, which would be sort of the administrative tasks and the community outreach will be done in, you know, August and September, and then actual construction, which is notice to proceed number two, will be in October 2026. So October 2026, we're going to begin the construction? That is correct. When do you think construction will end? We're estimating about 10 months. Nine months? Yeah, nine months. It's just a shame we're doing it in the middle of season. Understood. Trying to get this done as soon as possible. Okay. The total budget, I know you all were just talking about that, it's roughly about $12 million for the project. Right. And we actually started with five from the city. That was at the beginning with five. So we're looking to expedite this project. I know it's been on hold for quite some time, and with the help of the commission and other stakeholders in getting the funding in place, staff has worked very diligently to go after all funding opportunities, and we're ready to move forward. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. I didn't mean to interrupt you, but... No, that's perfectly fine. We've also received $195,000 for the enhanced marine law enforcement that we received from Broward County, and that would be our police department that actually manages that grant. Looking at for mental health and substance abuse housing programs, so our homelessness initiatives team actually manages this grant we got for $250,000 from the Department of Children and Family. And then we also received $1.1 million for the emergency operations center safe room and upgraded generator, and our fire department actually manages that grant, and we got that from the Florida Department of Emergency Management. We also wanted to give you an award summary looking at a number of different buckets with our awards. So for infrastructure, which is, of course, very important for our city, we've applied for 36 grants. That total $105 million. We received 14 grants for $17.8 million. Public safety was 21 applications at $3.7 million. We received 15 for $2 million, and $28,000. Public spaces and community events, we had five grants that we applied for at $1.6 million. We received two for $405,000. Education, two grants for $506,000. We received one for $6,000, and we've recently been advised that we are receiving about $350,000 of the $500,000 that we did request from the state. Economic development, we had two for $30,000 that we applied for. We received one for $20,000. And historic preservation, we had two for $100,000, and we received one for $50,000. And finally, homelessness, we had two grants for $1,250,000. We received one for $250,000. So we had a total of 70 applications that totaled $112 million, and we've received 35 grants for $20.5 million. We wanted to note that 10 of those grants were applied for in prior fiscal years, and those award amounts are about $1.3 million. We also wanted to show you, based on our grant sources, where we were receiving these grant awards from. So for federal government, we received 10 grants. Yes, sir. No. You're good? Okay. I'm good. We received 10 grants. That was a wink. It was a wink. All right. We received 10 grants for $10.2 million, and we have grant match of $103,000. From our state grants, we had 21 awards that we received for also $10 million with grant match of $1.4 million. From the count we received, one, this is going to be the MLA grant for $195,000, and then we had three private grants that we received for $30,222. So that's going to be the breakdown of the awards that we received this year. Oh, every bit helps. Yes, every bit helps. We wanted to also talk about our active portfolio, the active grant portfolio, which is about $128.5 million. Majority of this is going to be our entitlement grants for HCD at $40 million. And then Next Public Works is also pretty big, up $36 million. We did want to note that we are not right now accounting for that CDBG disaster recovery grant for the $88 million, because right now there is a bit of a hold with HUD when it comes to the action plan. Finally, our five-year entitlement grant summary. We wanted to just give you an idea of over the five years when it comes to our grants through our HCD department, the awards that we have received. So in 2025, we do account right now in this number, the $88 million that we got for the disaster recovery grant. But if we were to take that out of the mix, we were still getting pretty much in line with what we received in 2024. We received $11,495,000. And that concludes my presentation. If we have any other questions or concerns. Any questions or comments? Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. And keep up the good work. Thank you so much. Okay. Moving on to business three, New River Crossing Initiative Update. City Manager. We have Milos Mastrodovic presenting on behalf of the Transportation and Mobility Department with additional follow-up from Ben Rogers. I just want to remind the commission that we were given an extended deadline from Broward County for February 13th to respond to them based on that letter. We received from then-Mayor Beam Furr. The commission passed a resolution, and we have been working to ensure that we can respond to the county appropriately before that time period. We would like to get feedback from the commission as we prepare our response to the county. Thank you, Manager. Good afternoon. Once again, Milos Mastrovic, Department Director for City's Transportation and Mobility Department. So our presentation will cover the project background progress we have made so far, as well as some of the challenges and external factors that we might be facing. So in terms of the background implementation of the commuter rail service throughout Miami-Dade, Broward County has been in works for a number of years. Currently, throughout our city or in our city, both freight and passenger rail traffic are really using a two-track vascular bridge, which was constructed years ago back in 1978. There are approximately 60 trains per day that use that bridge every day. And with the proposed Broward commuter rail service, that number is expected to double. The current bridge is really outdated, visually unappealing, and prone to a lot of mechanical breakdowns. So given the low clearance of the bridge also of about four feet above the river, any time there is a train traffic bridge really needs to be down, any time there is a marine traffic bridge needs to go up. And understanding all these challenges, both FDOT County and the city have conducted a number of studies over the last couple of years in order to come up with a feasible solution that would help deliver this project with the increased number of trains. So the city has determined that the tunnel alternative provides the most benefits, and our consultants over the last couple of years have developed some conceptual designs. including some of the opinion will probably cost for the preferred tunnel alternative. Stop, stop, stop. This $887 million figure, is that the figure we're going to present to the county city manager? So that was the figure that was developed by our consultant BDO a couple of years ago, and that was for the shorter tunnel. That would be basically the numbers that we received from the consultant a couple of years ago, back in 2023. So, all right, so the city manager is telling us that we have a deadline in another week or so, two weeks. So what are we going to, what are we, what's our, are you going to do that? Yes, I didn't see it in the presentation. All I saw was this. Yeah, we will take you through everything, including the next steps and some of the challenges we are facing. Well, I know about all that, but I want, but they want a dollar number, okay? And I looked at your presentation. The only dollar number I saw was $887 million. Is there any other dollar number in your, in your... There is no other dollar number for the tunnel alternative, not at this point of time. But I can cover other portion of, a portion of presentation, which include also the feedback that we have received from the industry. So everyone is willing and able to provide assistance related to delivery of the tunnel. But really, the most accurate cost that we would be able to do is, or receive, is if there was a competitive procurement for this process, and also some type of pre-design effort, including some geotechnical exploration, that would need to be done in order for us to get a better estimate of the cost. Because this is really level cost, level four cost estimates, which, similar to what County did with our bridge project, we did with our tunnel project, right? Which accuracy of those cost estimates are pretty accurate, but there is still some level of... There's wiggle room. That is right. I get that. But, again, we're being charged with coming up with a number. So where are we going to go with that? All right, I'll let you finish. Thank you. And then we still have to come to that question. Thank you. I will. So on March 3rd of last year, Mayor Ferb, County's Mayor Ferb, sent a letter to Mayor Trantalis, requesting that the city provides information pursuant to request from the county by October 1st. City Manager Williams already stated that the deadline was moved to February 13th of 2026. And in March of last year and April of last year, City Commission discussed the letter from the county, and ultimately, as a result, adopted resolution number 2571, reaffirming the construction of a tunnel as a locally preferred alternative for the city and for this project. And specifically, this resolution directed the city manager to continue collaborating with our county on a tunnel solution and concept. Also promote the city's desire to advance the tunnel concept by engaging private entities and qualified firms with tunneling experience and receive potentially proposal, formal proposal for the construction, operation, and maintenance of the tunnel. Also engage Brightline and Florida East Coast Railways as they are the major stakeholders for the operation of the BCR project. And also explore grant opportunities and financial strategies that would basically make this construction operation and maintenance of the solution feasible. Additionally, we were tasked with providing updates, which we are doing today. In terms of now some of the elements of the resolution, so we have conducted a significant amount of outreach with federal, state, and local agencies, stakeholders, and the public. Federal agencies are very well aware of our preferred solution, and we did receive funding from USDOT for technical assistance with the new river crossing project. Members of USDOT's Build America Bureau also participated in our industry review day, which happened in July, and they provided an overview of some of the federal programs available to fund this project. We also participated in the calls with the Federal Transit Administration and Federal Railroad Administration as well to discuss our preferred solution and the steps for next steps. And local agencies and stakeholders were also notified, and many participated in our industry review day. In October of 2020, the United States Department of Transportation, Build America Bureau, did provide us with a grant for $974,000 for a regional infrastructure accelerator program. This is for technical assistance with the new river crossing project. And really, the program funds any planning and technical aspects of the project to expedite regional transportation projects. Where are we in that study? All right. So the first phase for which we received the grant funding has five different tasks, which are listed here. They are to be delivered to the city by June of 2026, so within the next couple of months. And last year, in June of 2025, we also submitted a phase two funding request for about $2 million as a continuation of this effort in order to do some pre-design or preliminary design and also geotechnical explorations of the area and the soil in order to get it closer to design. So we haven't heard back yet due to government shutdown on that, previous government shutdown on that effort, but we're looking forward to... Make up your mind, which government shutdown are we talking about? Yeah, just kidding. Previously. In terms of Broward County and coordination, we continue to collaborate with Broward County. Their leaders were really here during industry review day. They provided the overview of premium mobility plan and also certain tax program for the county. We had a number of meetings with the leadership and also with the members of the staff. We continue having those on a monthly level, and we actually twice a month. One is with leadership, one is with staff, and we cover all the aspects of the project, including the tunnel itself and the updates, our REIA grant, next phase of REIA grant, and also their Broward commuter rail north and south project. We did a number of different efforts in order to promote the tunnel concept that the resolution was requesting. For example, the staff attended a 2025 P3 conference and expo, which was an opportunity for public sector to showcase the projects that are basically spearheaded in the local communities. We did present our new river crossing and made sure that everyone understands that the project is feasible. We met with Build America Bureau Executive Director to further discuss the project and the financing options and also hosted a number of different reviews during that P3 conference and participated. As a follow-up to P3 conference, we also participated in a number of webinars to describe New River Project and make sure that we answer any questions from the industry in preparation for Industry Review Day, which took place back in July. So when it comes to Industry Review Day, on July 28 of 2025, we hosted the New River Crossing Industry Day. The event included presentations from the city staff. We had county there. We had FDOT and USDOT as well. We had about 56 participants attending Industry Review Day. And in the afternoon, we also had the breakout sessions with the private sector firms to provide an opportunity for suggestions in terms of procurement models, financing structures, project delivery options, and also risk allocations. There were about 15 separate breakout sessions that we conducted that day. Based on the feedback that we received from industry experts and local agencies and stakeholders, Industry Review Day was a very successful event. Finally, in order to memorialize everything that has happened during Industry Review Day, on October 27 of last year, we also issued RFI, a request for information. And again, the goal was to receive a formal response as a follow-up to Industry Review Day that happened earlier that year. While the RFI did not really seek proposals, it did invite qualified firms to share feedback on project delivering methods, financing structures, innovating technologies, and so forth, in order to help us with developing future procurement strategies for the New River Crossing Tunnel Project. So, the RFI submission deadline for this project was due on December 1st of 2025, and we received a total of 13 responses. We did share all the details via LTC 26013. And out of these 13 responses, 10 responses were from experienced global private sector organizations, including design-build contractors and tunneling experts. The remaining three were really from engineering firms who were offering their assistance with delivering the project. Everyone really showed a very high level of interest in pursuing delivery of the tunnel for the New River Crossing and helping us out. Some of the valuable feedback that we received through this effort was for some pre-construction activities to take place to better understand the soil and undergrounding conditions, including underground conflicts. Also, to advance design to approximately 30% design development. The higher design development is, the more accurate we are in terms of the cost as well. Also, conduct constructability reviews and consider using refurbished tunnel boring machine in order to save on cost. And also seek federal financing for the project and private activity bonds. Resolve, again, as many unknowns as possible during this pre-design effort in order to reduce both risk for the city and other parties involved, and also reduce project cost. Industry feedback is really in alignment with what we are also seeking in terms of the grant for RIA Phase 2, Regional Infrastructure Accelerator Phase 2 funding. And, again, it has to do with some of the pre-designed work and geotechnical work as well. So at this time, I will turn it over to Assistant City Manager Rogers, who will cover some financing strategies and also talk about some of the external challenges. Thank you. And so as we talk about the financial strategies, you know, there's been a lot of changes in the federal administration, a lot of different approaches on transportation and the grant funding environment. We've seen a reduction in grant funding opportunities, which means the remaining funds or grants that are open have a lot more competition to them and make them more challenging. So if you take a look back three or four years ago compared to where we are now, I think it is more challenging for us to be able to secure federal grants to support this project. And so what we did is we looked at other factors out there, financing programs, the private activity bonds, to see if there's a different upfront revenue sources that we could utilize to get this project funded, and then how would we pay back the debt service or the annualized cost associated with those financing programs. So we'll talk a little bit about that in just a second. I do want to take a second to note that there were a lot of different external environmental factors. You know, in the funding world right now, the New York City tunnel that is currently under construction, there is actually a dispute going on between the developer and the federal government, where the federal government is withholding some of the payments that they were committed to. And so I believe, as recent as today, that there has actually been a suit filed from the development company seeking $200 million of reimbursable associated with that project. So, again, just providing context of some of the federal grant opportunities or federal funding opportunities that are out there. As we look at the federal financing options, there's really two that kind of stood out, the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation, known as TIFIA. I think we've shared this with the commission in previous presentations. And the one thing to note, as I referenced earlier, that this is a wide-ranging or wide net for financing programs, and so it does become extremely competitive, and it does finance up to 49%. Compared to the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing, or RIF, this is really one that we're looking at as probably the primary funding source. I think we have the most flexibility because of the criteria of which you would have to qualify. It doesn't, you know, go to roadway projects. It doesn't go to freight projects. It's focused on the railroads, and so I think there's a narrow competition pool. It provides more flexibility on the financing side, and then it provides longer-term periods for the funds to be paid back. And so as we looked at how we could pay them back, we thought through different scenarios of existing funds. Obviously, grants were one of the primary drivers at the beginning, but we explored what would a special taxing district look like. If we went around the corridor and we said an eighth of the mile on both sides or a quarter of a mile of each station, what taxing could be generated, what value or revenue capture could be created. And so we kind of have some ideas and some frameworks of it, but with it and to advance it to the next stage, we really need to have a dollar figure, and then we need to have some funding behind it to have some consultant help resources to help us move that forward. So we have some preliminary constructs, we have ideas, we have frameworks, but until we have that dollar figure, which you alluded to, Mayor, it makes it challenging for us to really pinpoint the dollars and cents. I will also go back to your question earlier, Mayor, of what is our number that we'll go back to the county with. I think that's a difficult question because the county challenged us with giving them a proposal. They asked for something that a contractor or a developer would commit to. We can update the dollars that we have projected before. We can fine-tune them. We can update them to today's dollars. But at the end of the day, the county challenged us to have a developer's commitment on that price. So are you telling us that we're not going to be able to respond to the county? That's one of the criteria that we need to consider is how we frame our response back to the county is we do not have a developer's commitment or an unsolicited proposal at this point that says that dollar figure. We have the resources. We've done all the math in the back of the house to give an updated number. We've done some refinement on some of the design elements that can, again, refine the number. But we do not have the proposal from a developer as requested by the county. So what are we going to do? Are we going to give, like, a range of costs then to the county just to give them a heads-up as to the kind of dollars we're looking at? I think once we conclude the presentation, I think that's the feedback we're going to be looking for from the commission is how you want us to respond to the county because when we originally asked for the extension from October, we asked for through July, and so that way we could get through some of the current environment of what the next funding cycle will look like at the state and federal levels, if they're going to be reverting back to past practices, keep this current environment with the financial constraints on some of these programs or not. And so with what we've developed so far and the content we have, we'll need direction from the commission if that's what we're going to put back and finalize, if we want to ask for more time, if we want to stop working on this project, really what the position of the commission is based off of our findings at this point. All right. I'll wait until you finish, and then I'll follow up with that. The other thing to consider, again, is these external factors. One of the tasks was to continue coordination with Brightline and FECR. They are involved in a suit right now, and so we didn't fully engage with them based on that limiting factor. There's a lot of challenges that that brings to advancing not only the tunnel but the Broward Commuter Rail negotiations. My understanding is that the suit is still active and being resolved or arbitrated and mediated at this time. And then, as I noticed or indicated earlier, the financial environment, again, continues to change, and what was past practice might not be current practice. What's current practice might not be future practice. And so it's kind of an evolving scenario. And so until we get some firm numbers, until we are at a point in time where we can take strong next steps, giving a dollar figure, giving a specific funding model is challenging to deliver. And so with that, I think this is where we're seeking commission feedback on just the project status, where we're at at this point, how we want to respond to the February 13th deadline, and then if there's any other considerations, do we want to go after grant opportunities, do we want to invest in further developing a financial plan at this time and utilizing city funds or resources to advance those, and then same thing with the initiate geotechnical exploration. As Milos said, that was one of the very primary drivers from the industry was the unknowns of the project, create them some resistance or hesitancy to move forward in it. And so further defining the site conditions and the financing revenue source are two things that the industry is saying would be key factors for us to move the process forward. Okay, very good. Is there anyone else going to participate in this presentation? That concludes the participation. That concludes the presentation? Okay, thank you. Does anyone have any questions or comments with regard to the presentation? Commissioner Sorensen? Yep. Thanks, Mayor. Thank you, Ben, for your work. Appreciate it. So we continue to have good conversations, Mayor, with U.S. Department of Transportation. Within U.S. DOT is FRA, Federal Rail Administration, who are the main authority on significant grant funding. We had a recent great call with them, and they're interested in continuing to move forward with the tunnel possibility. Part of that process is, as Ben mentioned, is us continuing to partner with Broward County. Basically, Broward County, in coordination, collaboration with the city, would present a proposal for the tunnel in the north section of the commuter rail to FRA. To make that step possible has been well covered. Broward County's desire is for us to have a proposal from a tunnel builder. The conversations, as you've seen here, with tunnel builders continue, and there are tunnel builders that are very interested in this. So my initial thoughts are relaying all of that that I've just shared with the county. When I was in Tallahassee lobbying our state legislature, I had a chance to talk with Mayor Bogan, give him an update that I just provided to you all. And Mayor Bogan's very interested to meet and continue the conversation. I gave him this update, and I shared with him that hopefully we could have additional time to continue to work towards a proposal from a tunnel builder. And I'm going to continue my conversations with him and other county commissioners towards that. So those are a couple initial thoughts for the type of communication I think that could be helpful to the county. All right. Great. Thank you. I have a couple questions. Milos and Ben also. Milos, could you just – it's hard to read from the diagram. What is the beginning location and the end location? What are the terminuses of this tunnel? The tunnel, as I recall, would start about southwest 7th, and then it would go all the way to about Seastrunk, just south of Seastrunk. So that's the shortened tunnel? That would be the short one, yes. Okay. All right. When I look at the – and maybe, Ben Rogers, you may be able to answer this better. In terms of the financing, I notice the two agencies that you described are loans. I don't see any grant funding opportunities. Aren't there grant funding opportunities? There are grant funding opportunities. There are more competitive opportunities than in the past practice. And I think where we need to be in order to be seriously considered for them is have a little more project development in this project. Another challenge of the grant opportunity is, again, does the city pursue these grant opportunities, or does a project sponsor pursue these opportunities, which in most cases is probably the county. So I think there's some things we'd have to work through. I think that if we're looking for planning grants, there's opportunities that may exist. But if we're looking for more of the construction and the large-ticket grants, we're not far enough along in the process to submit and be a serious contender for some of those big-ticket grants. I understand. Well, to the extent that we're looking at loans as a possibility, and we also look to the county for grant money. And have we ever thought about talking about a loan from the county, from the surtax? I mean, they've got plenty of money there, and if they know that it's a loan, has that ever been part of the conversation in terms of applying for funds with the county, or we haven't gotten there yet? We have not talked to the county about a loan for surtax. We have talked about how they plan on utilizing surtax dollars and that there is only a certain amount that could go towards this project. As a grant. As a contribution to the project, correct. Right, but not as a loan. I don't think that subject has ever come up before. Not to my knowledge. No. And so what are you all going to recommend that we do in response to the county's request that we have some answer to them in another week or so? What's going to be our strategy? I think one suggestion that we have is to share with the county what we've been able to ascertain to date, what our activities have been, and memorialize that in the response. And, you know, should the commission want to also ask for additional time from the county, if that might be satisfactory to them, I think it would provide two approaches in one, both providing a response and asking for some additional time. Are we going to give them a dollar number, a range, and then qualify it with all these different contingencies that you described? We could. If we're going to ask for an extension, I think that based on Commissioner Sorensen's update and some of the things that he has been involved in, it sounds like there could be an opportunity for a proposal coming forward. That might be worth the extra time. Again, if we want to put a dollar figure in there and update it, we can do so. It just doesn't meet the deliverable that the county wants to. And I remember there was a point in time in which the county was still talking about their bridge concept or their four-bridge concept, and part of that was a discussion on an underpass that would have to be built under Broward Boulevard, or making Broward Boulevard underpass under the railroad tracks. And money from the MPO was allocated for a study. Do you know, have you been keeping up with the status of that study? Do we know where we are with that? Milos, do you know where we are with that? Yes, so a couple of years ago, there was funding that the MPO received for $1.5 million to do the planning study. The city participated about $375,000, so it is close to $1.9 million. The study is currently ongoing. It is to cover underpasses or look into feasibility of underpasses at a couple of railroad crossings, such as Andrews Avenue, Seastrunk, Broward, and Davie. Yep. And there was a public meeting that was held on January 29th just last week for Davie Boulevard Crossing. There will be additional public meetings throughout calendar year 26, and they hope to provide their recommendations for the feasibility study before the end of this year. Again, it is only a planning study. They do not have any funding for design or construction at this point of time. And there will be... I'm sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. There will be some also opinion or probable cost as to what that would look like in terms of construction. Would that be part of the feasibility study? That is correct, yes. Because that's what we're looking for because, you know, they keep saying a bridge is cheaper, but is it really if you have to build these underpasses at these connecting points? Okay, so that's the end of the year? End of the year for findings of the feasibility study, yes. Okay, great. Thank you so much. Anyone else have any questions or comments? Sure. So, you know, when we were having our conversations with staff in the pre-agenda, there's a lot of these same questions that I asked. You know, so the first thing I said is, you know, has the state shown any willingness to start funding trains again since they shut down all the funding for TriRail and the executive director for TriRail has resigned because he's going to be out of a job in a couple of months? And the answer is no. And then we talked a little bit about the federal government since the Trump administration has pulled $18 billion away from the most heavily congested tunnel in the entire country. Clearly, they're anti-train and anti-tunnel, so no funding coming from New York. Well, they're also anti-New York. Well, they're that too, yeah. That was political. Well, but no, actually, they were anti-train long before they were anti- – well, let's just say they've always been anti-Schumer. He's not anti-New York, so a little bit different there. But they've been hostile to trains. Their focus has been on highways, okay, that – they've cut funding from Amtrak. They're not train forward. They're highway forward. So my conversations with USDOT are a little bit different. When I talk to them, what they've told me is that this is a county project. This is not a city project. This is a county project. When I talk to my colleagues at the county, they've reiterated to me the same thing that they've been reiterating for the last, I don't know, what, three years? That they've got a set amount of money that they're willing to put forward. That hasn't changed. I don't see anything in this project that is substantially different from where we were years ago. This is a zombie project. I don't know why we continue to move forward with this. I don't see any of the folks that might be interested in doing this project moving forward on it because they know that we have no money. They know this project's never going to get done, at least not in the foreseeable future. I don't understand the purpose of continuing to drag this thing along. Put a stake in it, call it dead, and be done with it. Well, so what you're saying is that since the federal government and or the state government is not interested in participating in train projects, that means even the bridge proposal would not be funded either. I agree. Yeah, I think commuter rail for the foreseeable future in South Florida is just not going to happen. I don't think we're getting a bridge. I don't think we're getting a tunnel. I don't think we're getting a train. I just think that's the reality of it. I think we missed our window of opportunity was during the Biden administration when we had a better relationship with some of the folks that were willing to fund projects like this under a different set of guidelines when they were looking to reunite communities under Buttigieg and so forth. We missed that window, sadly. And I don't know that it is going to come back anytime soon. I think we're dragging the developer community along on a trip where everybody knows. They know that we're not going to do this. That's why they're not going to do feasibility studies. They're not going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a project that they know we can't fund. We're not going to fund it. The county's not going to fund it. The state's not going to fund it. And the feds aren't going to fund it. So I don't know where this, you know, manna from heaven is going to come from for a project that is not going to get done. I don't understand why we're continuing to talk about it. Well, I think we should at least respond to the county's request. And to your point, you know, there's nothing more we can do. It has to be, it's now on the lap of the private sector to be able to come forward with a proposal. So that being said, let us at least give direction to staff of what we want staff to say to the county. My recommendation is that we update our figures, list the various caveats as to what the figures represent and what they don't represent. And at least we've been compliant with their request and we'll see where it goes from there. Because to the extent that you've outlined challenges with regard to the tunnel, the county has those exact same challenges with regard to their bridges. And I've left out two more, Mayor, too. So Brightline is going into default bankruptcy. Yeah, I know. And they're currently in litigation with FECR. Right. So the only other two partners that might, you know, those pesky little details that kind of get in the way. But every partner that we could potentially have in getting this done is all running in the opposite direction. I understand that, but I think in terms of just maintaining the conversation with the county, we should at least respond to their request. And we have all the data now. We just need to compile it, formulate a written response, submit it to the county, and then there's really nothing more we can do at that point. So I know that you've been speaking with FDOT and Commissioner Sorensen has been speaking with FDOT, I mean U.S.DOT, and we understand the biggest challenge, of course, with U.S.DOT is they just want to know that the county and the city agree. And they don't even want to go to the next step until, you know, we know that they know that they have a locally preferred alternative that's agreed to by both parties. So having said that, can we at least instruct city staff to formulate a response based on the parameters that Mr. Rogers has indicated and let that go to the county, and at least we've complied with everything that we were supposed to, and we'll see where it goes from there. Does that make sense? Okay, let's do that. Yes, and that communication will come from the staff level to the county administration, correct? Correct. From the manager's office? Correct. Okay, not at the elected office. Well, do you want me to sign it? I mean, I'll... I just wanted to clarify since... Is that what you're asking me? I just wanted to clarify since it was a communication between the mayors when this process started. Who was it written to? Who was their original... What is the letter from Beam Fur? Was that written to me? It was, mayor. All right, so I'll be happy to sign the letter. I rely on your expertise. I know you wouldn't take me in the wrong direction. Okay, I'll be happy to sign it. Okay. All right, so we're going to take a break here because we're going to go into a closed-door session. I cannot believe we're actually finishing this portion exactly on time. But we still have commission reports, which I guess we'll do at the end of the evening meeting. And so at this point, at the public meeting, at this time, the city commission shall meet privately to conduct discussions between the city manager, the city attorney, and the city commission relative to pending litigation pursuant to Section 286.011, parentheses 8, Florida statutes, in connection with the following matter, Jane Grazioso versus the City of Fort Lauderdale, case number CACE24-011198, parentheses 11. Present at the attorney-client session will be myself, Vice Mayor Commissioner John Herbst, Commissioner Stephen Glassman, Commissioner Pamela Beasley-Pittman, Commissioner Ben Sorensen, City Manager Raquel Williams, City Attorney Sherry L. McCartney, Assistant City Attorney Robert M. Oldershaw, Outside Counsel Scott D. Alexander, and Certified Court Reporter from Bailey Enten Court Reporting. The estimated length of the session will be approximately 30 minutes.