City Commission Conference Meeting and CRA Meeting on 2025-03-18 1:30 PM - Mar 18, 2025

This 18th day of March, 2025, and thank you all for being here. Commissioner Herbst has indicated he's going to be absent from today's meetings, and Commissioner Pamela Beasley-Pittman says she's going to be a little late, so we thought we'd just get a jump on things before she gets here, maybe cover a couple of the preliminary matters like the communications to the city. We have a communication from the Central City Redevelopment Advisory Board. This is a motion by Mr. Liggett, seconded by Mr. Catalano, to adopt a new policy that the election of officers for the CRA board be conducted annually. Anyone have any questions regarding this? Commissioner Glassman, do you have any input on this? No, I understand why it was pushed forward and what they wanted, and I think it's fine. I don't know if they really need our intervention in something like this. Whatever that board decides is fine with me. Okay, all right. Anyone here from the CRA, Central City CRA? Yes. Oh, do you want us to comment on this? No. You're good? He's good. We're good? Okay. Anything else you want to comment on? Don't ask. Is that what you're going to say? Moving on to Business One, outdoor special events. Who wants to discuss this? Oh, Carl? Here. You're on. You have to speak a little louder into the mic. Well, you have to adjust the – also, there are no lights. I'm used to bright lights. Have you – you hear me complain enough and you turn them off completely now? The mayor's used to bright lights. It's too easy. All right. You can hear me. Yes. Go ahead. All right. So I'm here before you to discuss the outdoor event process. And for context, this particular presentation specifically talks about how we administer our outdoor events, which is permitted outside events. These are the events that require commission approval if there is less – if there is 500 or more attendance, alcohol, road closures, et cetera, amplified music. So that's for the purpose of this conversation. Now, in prior conversations, we have classified our events in minor, intermediate, and major. Minor, of course, constitutes events that have a sustained attendance of less than 500. Those also have road closures, music, exemptions, and amplified music with the alcohol. Intermediate, 500, and more, up to 5,000. And then our large events, which we consider in classifying as major, are sustained attendance of over 5,000. To give a little context as far as how our process works is once we receive an application, which we recently started allowing these here applications coming through our online portal. We coordinate with various departments. That includes police, fire, transportation, mobility, fire. And we also include the HOA presidents of those impacted in the area to further discuss and review the application and talk through those details. Once that process is completed, we then go into conversations with our attorney's office, and they draft the agreement. And then that comes before you all at commission. We currently have, for rates as it pertains, is the application fee and the beach usage fee. Those are the only fees that we assess. The only other charge that we include is city services that are billed to the third party. Can we stop there for a second? Yes, sir. So the beach sand usage fee, $500 per day. I know we've had some discussions here on the commission about the wear and tear that takes place whenever somebody uses the beach, whether it be for a large event, small event, or whatever. Do we find that there is significant wear and tear on the beach when an event takes place there? And are we compensating ourselves sufficiently in order to rehabilitate the beach to bring it back to where it was before the event occurred as opposed to where it exists after the event occurs? So that's a good question. And the best way that I can answer is that all event producers are made equal. Like some take care of what they have and what their approval. To give you an example, we've had some runs in the very recent past, didn't necessarily clean up, and so we had to bill them for that because we ended up having to do it. And we do bill them? Absolutely. And they do pay it? Yes. Okay. But that's in terms of debris. What about just the natural resource itself, the sand? Yep. If there's any hedges that are damaged, if there's cement that is damaged associated with that, we also bill them for that as well. Okay. All right. Thank you. So as it pertains to kind of why we're here today, we were tasked with looking at our events and our process from a holistic perspective and understanding the fees that we're charged now and, you know, based on some feedback that we have from our budget advisory board is that we needed to look at doing more of a cost recovery associated with these here events, which is kind of also alluding to what you and I just discussed here recently. And so with that said, we developed a matrix, if you will, and this matrix includes a variety of different variables that measure impact, whether that's road closures, alcohol, amplified music, in turtle season, outside of turtle season, et cetera. And so on this particular slide, you'll kind of see the matrix that I'm referring to, and you'll see that, you know, for a variety of impacts, this is kind of what it would look like. Now, that being said, looking at this, we've kind of looked at this also from a standpoint of, you know, we can, you know, change this, and we believe that it will probably be a fluid process as we kind of, you know, dig into this a bit more. But this is kind of like a transparent way for us to apply to all of the third-party vendors that come in to utilize our cities and cities' resources. As such, we did a little outreach to our stakeholders. We reached out to our Parks and Recreation Advisory Board. We've also had conversations and provided a presentation to the Central Beach Alliance. And we've also done the same with the Beach Improvement District as well. So a couple things to kind of point out here as it pertains to that outreach is that the Central Beach Alliance, although supportive of it, also mentioned to the possibility and the feasibility of having an assessment, a charge to ticket sales. So for events that have ticketed events, that the city is kind of compensated from a percentage perspective. And, Carla, is anything happening with that? Are you moving forward with taking a look at that and analyzing it? So I think that's kind of part of the conversation today is if that's something that you all are interested into, we would have to, of course, consult with our legal group and see if that's something that we can also entail. And we certainly can look into that now. That also is a resource impact to departmentally because that's the next step that we'd have to kind of adjust to looking at that. But it's doable. I think it's worth looking at, and I know that it's not something that's uncommon across the country. So I think that maybe we could, without reinventing the wheel, look at some of the best practices and take advantage of some of that information. I think that, for the most part, and I hear this a lot from beach residents in particular, that they feel that, especially with some of the really large, large events that make a lot of money, that we don't get quite as much as we should. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Yeah, I agree, Vice Mayor. Dwayne, are you familiar with a mechanism like that for municipalities? I am not, but what we're talking about in terms of the fees that you can charge are the difference between regulatory fees and your role as a proprietary fees for city properties. And so I think we can look at mechanisms for charging those fees for certain properties and certain types of events. Okay. Great. Thanks. Okay. And we also, of course, had a conversation with the Beach Improvement District. They were also very supportive of this. However, they also want some consideration to be made for those events that we're just mentioning here, like our larger events like the Air Shore, Tortuga, those events that provide an economic value to the Barrier Island. And so that's the feedback that we received from those groups. I'm sorry, Carl. Was there any feedback in regards to any of those events that may be nonprofit? Not sure how many, like, 5K runs that are utilized. So, no, because the challenge with nonprofits is that a lot of events can also partner with a nonprofit, which would then take away some of what we're trying to accomplish today, which is to get more revenue and impact less of our beach. Because I believe Tortuga has a nonprofit as well. Okay. Thank you for sharing. Thank you. As we talk through the matrix portion and we talk about the proposed fees, so if an application is received 90 days in advance, that's a $500 nonrefundable application fee. If the application is received less than 90 days but more than 75 days, there is a $500 late fee that is attributed to their account. Applications less than 75 days is $500 plus an additional $500, which for a total application processing fee would be $1,500. And, of course, if it's less than 60 days, we'll require our city manager to approve it, and that would also include a $1,500 fee. Now, as we talk through the matrix and those numbers that attribute to the overall score, if there's very little impact, which would be less than 10, they would be identified as an event that has no impact with a score of less than 10. If there's limited impact, you're talking 11 to 14, which is an overall score, and then so forth and so on. And your major one would be 18 plus. And these are also broken into what we would consider our event impacts for city park or recreation facilities as well as beach property use. To kind of bring some context to what this change would impact the third parties here, you'll notice that there is a relatively significant jump here. Now, just so that, you know, you're aware that these here fees that I talked about here with these here fees, those are on a per-day basis. And so to give you an idea here, if there is an event that, and it all varies, too, on the impacts associated with them. So one year it could cost more, but if they have more road closures, it could cost more the following year. So it's really very fluid and a very way for us to transparently impose these here fees. As we kind of close out this particular segment here, we'd like to get some direction from you as it pertains to do we want to implement this here matrix, if there's any adjustments you'd like to make regarding the matrix. Do we want to entertain the percentage of tickets? And do we want to actually define the number of events that we have on the barrier island? Because that's also a conversation that we've had in the past. And then lastly, as I kind of started the presentation, there is a confusion at times when it pertains to our third-party events versus our city-produced events. And so when we revisit this here ordinance, we want to define what that is. And so outdoor permitted events would be your third party, and our city-produced community events or city-produced signature events would be what we do as a city. And with that said, okay, anyone have any questions? I do, Mayor. Thank you, Carl, for the information. So with this proposed matrix, have you tested it with just about every event that we see coming to us every single year to see if it makes sense, if it is exactly where you think it should be falling? So we did. So we tested out several. We didn't test all of them. We do produce somewhere about or administer roughly about 350 events, but we did do about maybe 15 or so, and it did kind of show some impacts. And some of them, for the events that have little to no impact, it reduced them. But those that does have an impact source, it certainly is an increase. Okay. What I also would request, and this came up at my district pre-agenda meeting last night, there was a request for, is there a place that someone can go and see a list of all the events that we typically have? Like you just mentioned, 350 events. It was requested, I don't know if we have such a list that actually is, we pretty much have the same events over and over and over. But is there an all-inclusive list that shows the event and the location of the event? So we do have a calendar of events, and we have them, so when we permit our events, we don't allow them to be permitted a year or more. So we basically have a calendar, and we receive those applications as we get, and as we get them, we install them into the calendar, and that's how we look. But we don't have like a set number of events that we have a year because we don't know if they're going to come back or not every year. The reason I ask is I think it might be helpful. I mean, a lot of them do come back. I mean, it might even be its own chart of like the years that they have had the event and where they hold the event. I think people, you know, as you said earlier, sometimes people feel, oh, we have too many events, especially on the Barrier Island. But we don't really know that. And also, as we discussed last night at my pre-agenda meeting, what's too many? I mean, for some people, you know, a certain number is too many, and for others it's not. But the only way to really have that conversation is to see that kind of a list so that you see what is that total and where are these events happening. And maybe if we could do that, that would be helpful. Okay. And also, too, to add to your point, so we have, and I'm kind of taking this off of memory, but I believe we have somewhere around 45 events on the beach annually. Okay. Well, thank you, Carl. Yes, sir. Okay. Commissioner Sorensen? Yeah. Thanks, Mayor. Carl, thanks for doing this. So I think this is helpful. I like where we're going on this. If you can roll back to the matrix, please. And you and I touched on this, Carl. We did. I'd love to add into this a parking impact. So, in other words, Mayor, what I'm thinking is we're reimbursed when parking spaces are used, but I'd like that to be part of the analysis is if it's impacting a certain number of parking spaces, that that is then scored as well. Don't we, like on these large events, don't we charge them like a flat fee for the use of a south parking lot? Yeah, we do. And so I think it's good we're being compensated for that, but there's just the additional impact on our neighbors to not be able to use those. So I'd just like that as part of the matrix as well. Yeah, so we actually talked about this. Should we give that money to the neighbors? Yeah. If you have a – We're going to need it. Yeah, so we actually talked about this internally, and it is a good point. Okay, great. There is a difference in parking at the South Beach Lob versus parking there on the Esplanade that has a few spaces. So internally we would need to kind of structure it similar to how we have here, but based on level of impact. Okay. So, yeah. So they could add that to the major. Okay, great. Then if you – sorry, if you can advance forward to that, just that last, I think, slide you have. This one? The last one. The last of this. Oh, okay. The last of the deck. Yeah, so I would like to limit the number of events. I know the Barrier Island impacts many of us, but I really would like to limit the number of events on the Barrier Island, Mayor, and I'd really also like to look at limiting the number of events in the downtown. I think it's fair to say at these very high-impact areas that we really set a number that the residents can understand and be comfortable with. Because I frankly think we're doing too many. I think we're doing too many events on the Barrier Island, and I think we can do a better job of limiting the number of downtown too. So in terms of major events, we don't have that many major events. Correct. We have – we have – we have the Tortuga, we have the Air Show, we have the Boat Show, and we have – Riptide, which we had Riptide. Yeah, but it's – there's a new incarnation now, right? I think it's called Odyssey, right? Odyssey. Odyssey. Okay. Oh, and Oceans of Soul. Right, Oceans of Soul. That's supposed to premiere this year, correct? Yeah. So those would be the five. We don't have Odyssey, so it's four. So it's four major events. But I don't think the major events are as impactful as these mini events. Exactly, because you're looking – I mean, let's say it's five majors, so then you have 40 other ones in the Barrier Island. Right, it's those marathon, those runners. It's too much. They keep running up and down our beach. It's too much. So those are the ones I think we should probably look at more, because the others – I know that the – Are you about to sing, Commissioner Beasley Pittman? Yes. I don't know. I have rainbow colors on me all of a sudden. Ah! There is no pot of gold at the end of this rainbow. So anyway, the – I lost my train of thought – the smaller events, clearly, you know, even though a lot of them take place in the early morning and aren't as intrusive, but to the Commissioner's point, I do think we should probably be more discriminating in the type and the number. And I know we've talked about this over and over again, but perhaps the advisory board can come back to us with some recommendations as to what they feel might be most appropriate for us to consider in the future. Yeah, I think that'd be – thanks, Mayor. I think that'd be great. And, Carl, if I heard you right from the vice mayor, I don't know if it's an Excel spreadsheet, but kind of listing all the events, where they are, I think that could be helpful for us to kind of understand fully what's happening, what's scheduled, and then being able to sort by location and saying, okay, let's set some numbers here to limit. Okay. It'd be great. And also date. I would suggest date as well, and that way we can see in correlation of how frequent these are going on as well. Yep. And so with regard to the downtown events, what are we talking about there? So I bring that up. I mean, there's different events that just cause lane closures, road closures. And, I mean, just this weekend, neighbors were reaching out to me very frustrated. And so a multitude of different events. All right. Well, we have St. Patrick's Day Parade. We have – That's a city event. Four art shows now? Yeah. Is it four art shows now? I believe there's four or five. Yeah. Four or five. And then there's the Mercedes-Benz. Which has a lot of road closures. And that's – but I don't know of any other events. Yeah, there's other wrongs. Well, that's – is that in connection with the whole St. Patrick's Day weekend? Week later. So, yeah, I think it's on a different date. But, yeah, it's within a week or two period. Okay. All right. I'm just trying to see – I'm trying to remember what actual events take place downtown. But you're right. I mean, typically for those runs, they do require road closures for safety reasons. But not entire road closures, just partial road closures, right? Just like half of a Seabreeze and half of A1A. It's not the whole road. And depending on the run structure, I think some of them may be rolling as far as like a rolling closure. But, yeah. Well, but that's confusing for someone that lives there. They don't know when it's open, when it's not. Right. All right. So, okay. If you could bring that message to the advisory board and have them come back to us, that would be helpful. All right. Thank you. Yes. Go ahead. Yeah, I'm done. Thanks. I'm sorry. Being a little tardy, I'm not sure if this was addressed already. But page 10, referring to the proposed fees. Yes. I would like clarity in regards to special event impact city or recreation facilities. I see moderate impact, $1,500. And then when we go down to city beach property, moderate impact is $1,000. Could you explain why a facility. It's $1,000 per day. Oh, okay. That's what I meant. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Thank you for outlining that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, because I didn't understand. Yeah. Got it. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for pointing it out. Yep. And so if I'm hearing the direction, go back to our parks board, have a conversation with them about this, especially as it pertains to the number of events, the ticket assessment, and the matrix introduction to have a further conversation on that. And then once they have their recommendation, bring it back to the commission. Yes. Very good. Exactly. And just one addition is, I think, bringing to them that list of all the events. Yes. Perfect. Great. Very good. All righty. Very good. Any other questions, comments? All right. Thank you so much, Carl. Thank you. Moving on to business two. This is city event sponsorships. I guess this sort of dovetails into the conversation that we're just having. Don't go away. Yes. Don't go away. Let's move on to that. There is a presentation there. Please go ahead. All right. So, again, Carl Williams, Parks and Recreation Director. This particular presentation slides deals with specifically city-sponsored events. You know, over the course of the past couple years, we have a very transparent assessment or indication of the funding that's associated with each of our events. And as part of that, you know, kind of budget, we do run into some challenges with kind of doing some new and fresh and inviting things for our, for the public to come and enjoy in our events. And so, being able to provide some additional funding to subsidize some of the nuances that we'd like to add would go a long way for us. And so, that is the sentiment of this particular conversation. And we'll also have a conversation, too, about the hospitality areas as well for these events. We have about 60 or so events that we produce annually as a department. We break these out into signature and community events. You know, of course, you have our 4th of July, our Great American Beach Party, which is coming up here in May, as, like, our signature events, as you see there. And then some of our smaller events where we have Diwali, Virenese Musicales, and Carter Park Jams, just so you kind of have an idea of the differentiation between the two. Our recommendation for this particular method here is to identify a third party to work on the city's behalf to acquire sponsorships for the city. You know, it's our belief that, you know, internally we don't really have the expertise or the resources to do this on our own. And so, we'd like to look at the idea of outsourcing that service to a company that has that expertise and that can really go after some of these here larger companies that we can maybe possibly get multi-year sponsorships and, you know, kind of enhance our events that way as well. How would we go about doing that, putting out an RFP? Yes, sir. We work with procurement, and whether it's an RFP or ITB, we kind of figure that out and kind of structure the parameters around that. I think we should have done this 20 years ago, but I'm glad you're finally bringing it up to us again. I mean, this would be wonderful. Not just the events you spoke of, but also events at the aquatic center. Just all the things that are going on in the city, if we could get commercial sponsorship for these things. Absolutely. It would certainly enhance the whole profile of any of the events that we do, right? Mm-hmm. One end of the city versus the other. Absolutely. And so, last year, almost around this time last year, we came and we presented kind of like our new vision for sponsorships for the city. And we kind of articulated that instead of having a set dollar amount, let's look at percentages of the overall budget. And so, as you'll see here on this here slide, that, you know, we've looked at 25% of the total budget of an event, which would be the title sponsor, 15% of the entire budget would be a gold sponsor, so forth and so on. One of the things that we face when we are engaged with this is oftentimes we get asked about, hey, can we participate in the event? And it might be two weeks before the event happens. And so, we certainly don't want to turn away in-kind services or funding sources to help enhance an event. And so, here's your tiers here, and these will kind of, you know, help us as we move through this particular slide deck. So, we've had a limited history, if you would, of sponsorship opportunities for our events. We have a long-term tenure relationship with the Bank of America. They sponsor our Starlight Musicals. Recently, we had Core Construction as our title sponsor for St. Paddy's Day, as well as Anchor Mechanical. They provided the hospitality area. And then we had, during Summer Jams, Westway Towing was a sponsor. You know, when we presented this the first time, although it was kind of mentioned, the length of time that it takes to process this has really been a challenge. You know, case in point, for St. Paddy's, we couldn't promote that until three weeks prior to the event when we really like to get out four to eight weeks lead time. And so, our recommendation at this point is to, for staff to review the sponsorship request. And then, if it fits under a certain threshold, allow the manager, the authority to approve it and to eliminate the Parks Board, as well as bringing it to you to commission. Adding those extra steps as probably two and a half months to the process. Now, kind of illuminating what I was just discussed here is that, so, if we look at managing this from an efficiency standpoint, I'm thinking that for multi-year agreements or sponsors that are in excess of $50,000, those certainly we would want to bring forth to the Parks Board for recommendation to commission for final approval. But for sponsorships and single-year agreements, we'll allow our city manager to make that kind of call on acceptance. Now, kind of moving into the hospitality here, and this is completely flexible and fluid, if you will, but, you know, having a hospitality area does have its benefits. But there also needs to be some transparency associated with it, as well. And so, we've identified a few events of our signature events that we feel that probably would be a worthwhile investment for companies to come and sponsor or be a part of an event. And so, I kind of hear, as you see on the screen here, is you've got the 4th of July, which is our largest premier event. We also have the New Year's Eve Downtown Countdown and, of course, Summer Jams, as well. Those are three of our larger events that we have annually. But that's totally amenable to however you all deem appropriate. Well, you're suggesting having corporate sponsors provide hospitality areas as well as other amenity features to enhance the experience of those particular events? Correct. So, from the thought processes and how we've kind of done it the last couple of years is that we didn't have a hospitality area unless we were able to source a sponsor. Now, moving forward to now, the discussion could be had is that we build it in our budget, and then we have it essentially the same service that we would have for each of these events that you deem appropriate. Or we just don't have them and continue as we have them, have been doing, which is only allowing them for sponsored events through the process. I think to maintain consistency of quality, I think it might be best if we made it as part of our budget, and then that would be part of the sponsorship cost. And then we would provide whatever services that we wanted to associate with that particular event because to rely on the sponsor themselves is going to be inconsistencies and different levels of quality. And I'd like to think that we could maintain a minimum level of quality if we were in charge. Okay. That's my opinion. Carl, just curious, the numbers that you mentioned about the attendance, where does Great American Beach Party fall in with attendance with those events, those three that you just highlighted for us, Fourth of July, New Year's Eve and Summer Jam? So Great American Beach Party typically falls on a Saturday before Memorial Day, and so that's a highly attended event too. We don't have any major events. We typically have like cover bands, and it's more of like your family-friendly kind of environment. I think I'm going to say a few years back, I think we had a hot dog eating contest, that type of thing. I was just wondering why you limited it just to these three events that you had on there. Right. So we can add to that however you deem for it, but those were just some examples of kind of what our thought process was. This wasn't exclusive. This wasn't exclusive. No, not exclusive. It could be all of them. It could be limited to five or six. No, but the Great American Beach Party is a signature event. Yes, it is. It seems to me if we bring on someone who knows what they're doing about seeking sponsorships, I mean, hey, the more sponsorships they're able to get, the better. For as many events as possible, it seems like a win for the city, right? Yes. And so just to here, I'm going to go back a couple slides here. So when we talk about, and these aren't all the events we produce, but I did kind of give you an idea here. So these are what we all consider like a signature event, and I want to highlight Jazz Brunch just because we've had, like, I want to say it's close to 20 years and maybe longer with the Bank of America. They have provided us with a sponsorship, and, you know, they're a really great partner, and, you know, they're present there at all of the Starlight Musicals. And it's very nice. Yes, very nice. And so the idea would be that we would mimic that for all of our events, or we mimic it to however you deem with the numbers, completely up to kind of however your vision is. So, again, I think that might be a responsibility for the advisory board to come up with some suggestions. Okay. And we can entertain them. You know, I'd rather they define them. I will say this. I did have an opportunity last week to meet with the Beach Improvement District, and one of the things I was wondering is whether or not Tortuga, that, you know, in order to, you know, they never really brand Fort Lauderdale. In fact, one year, I remember one of the main singers said, isn't it so wonderful to be here in Miami? So they've now agreed to put on top of their stage, welcome Fort Lauderdale. So these are little things, but they go a long way. And I think that we need to start branding ourselves and not feel like we're being absorbed by the adjacent cities, right? So just an example of things we can do to try to fulfill, you know, the expectations of what we invest in our events and in our community as well. So, all right. All right. So just to kind of close out here. So what I'm hearing is to kind of go back to our Parks Board, have them kind of identify which events we should have a hospitality area. We do, if I'm hearing you correctly, we are good with having an RFP for a third party to come in to provide the sponsorship outreach. Absolutely. Very good. I think there's unanimity there, yeah. And, Carl, also the streamlining of the process. That way we have a shorter cycle time for that and make that administrative. I think that's important to make that administrative. Very good. Thank you. All right. Thank you. I've got a couple people signed up to speak. Joseph Carter. Is Joseph Carter here? I can't see. Oh, there you are. Joseph C. Carter. How are you, sir? I'm fine. How are you? I'm here with the funding for the Signature Parks. One thing I'm curious about is how is the total cost, what is the total cost of the redesign for Carter Park? And I know that that funding is being allocated to four different parks. The $1.6 million? No, no, I got it wrong. No, it's not. $6.4 million. It's $1.6 million that is being allocated to each park. What is the total cost of the Carter Park, the redesign, and is Lockhart Park, because I travel down that street all the time, is it currently there? Because I know there's a funding gap with that one also. So is Lockhart Park currently built, and why is that $1.6 million that's being allocated to a park that's not built cannot be allocated to Carter Park to complete, to lessen the funding gap at Carter Park? Well, very good questions. Lockhart Park is still in design. And when the original bond was proposed and passed, there was a certain amount of money that was identified for the revisioning of Lockhart Park, in addition to the stadium that's there. And so you're asking, if that's not built, why don't we just put all that money into Carter Park, because there's a funding gap. Is that what you're saying? Correct. Okay. I don't know the answer to that, number one. I don't know what the funding gap is right now. But I do know that there has been money allocated to District 3 for a number of parks, and I don't think we were going to put all of it in Carter Park. Some of it was going to go into Carter Park, and some of it went into other parks. But I know there's a funding gap, because I think that the, and correct me if I'm wrong, did we originally plan to do a reconstruction of the buildings on Carter Park when we passed the parks bond? I don't know if that was ever envisioned. That came later. Did it not? And Carl can probably answer some of those questions. Carl, can you respond to that? Yeah, so the idea with Carter was to kind of reduce the amount of buildings in the park, because right now I want to say we have somewhere close to six buildings, and so we want to kind of shrink that to maybe two or three. But was it, what was the funding that's now being sought, which is like, what, 25 million or something? Was that part of the original bond request when we were – So, yes, so when the bond was originally done, that was the premise then. The only changes in that, which I think the budget's somewhere around 15 million or so, which was allocated to Carter, that kind of changed course with some of the inflationary rates, which is kind of the funding gap where we are now. And, Carl, was the original plan to have the single gem versus the double gem, and that was another piece of the data in the costs? Yes. So that was added later. Correct. Okay, that's what I thought. That wasn't the original plan. For the double gem, that was not original? So the gem itself was looked at to be, of course, demoed down and built up to basically whatever the scale. Now, the thought was to add multiple gems because we wanted to have more impact to the area and not just kind of do what we currently have there now. So there was a discussion to have multiple gems associated with the project. I understand that, but was that contemplating the original budget? Maybe, Ben, you can help us out here. Mayor, this is going to be an agenda item one of these days. This is not what we're talking about right now. So with all due respect, we're talking about city event sponsorships. Why are we going off into this whole other tangent now? I just want to know. I don't have all of my information with me right now. This is not the agenda item with all due respect. We're talking about city event sponsorships. I know that Ben's going to come back to us. I don't want to get into the weeds in this right now. I don't have all of my information right in front of me. This is not what we're supposed to be discussing right now. So I'm just going to throw that out there. Of course, you can do what you want, but this is not the agenda item. That's all I'm going to say. Okay. Ben, if you could just respond to my question. And then we'll move on. Absolutely. Ben Rogers is his acting assistant city manager. So Vice Mayor Glassman is correct. We are in the process now of coming back to the commission probably in April with an update from the December presentation that we had. At that point, we identified all the funding gaps that we have in the signature parks. And since that time, we've been working on scope modifications, procurement methodologies, and ways that we can fully fund these projects. So I'm hoping that in April we come back with solutions to all of our problems, if not most of them. Okay. All right. Come back, Mr. Carter. Okay. And thank you, Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Carter, for coming out today. Yes. Thank you. Don Campbell? Okay. So we'll come back to that. All right? Okay. Great. Thank you. Mayor, before you go, just recognizing Don Carter, Joe Carter, Leslie Carter, Campbell, that is the Carter family who the park, Joseph C. Carter Park, is named after. These are his children. Very nice. So thank you for being here today. Yeah. Thank you. And, Mayor, real quick, I just want to also make sure that we're okay with moving forward with the ordinance, because I want to get started on that, with the ordinance information. And we can still, of course, include the board with the sponsorship portions and the allotted events that we want to have. But we do want to kind of get started on some of these, because they are kind of time sensitive for us. As far as hiring a third party to do, yeah. Hiring. I think there's unanimity on that. Very good. Thank you, sir. Anyone else wish to speak on this? Okay. Business 3, City Homeless Initiatives Update. Who will be speaking on that? Okay. Are you waiting for? There we go. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Commissioners. Chris Cooper, Acting Assistant City Manager. I'm here today to give a monthly update on the City Commission's priority towards homelessness. I'm going to start with a quick overview of House Bill 1365 in our ordinance, Section 1632. Just as a reminder for everybody, House Bill 1365 created a section of Florida statute that compelled municipalities and counties to prohibit overnight camping on public property. It provided jurisdictions up to five days to take reasonable action to address a violation of that prohibition. And it provided a path for the public to hold jurisdictions accountable for noncompliance. In October 1 of last year, the City, to comply with the statute, created Ordinance Section 1632. This ordinance prohibits camping on public property 24-7. We do defer to parks rules for areas like the beach and our city parks. In our ordinance, camping is defined as having a tent, hut, lean-to, shack, or temporary shelter of any kind which provides a cover from the elements for the purpose of sleeping, resting, or conducting activities of daily living, and that includes laying down a bedding. And I want to reiterate that definition because we do get several service requests into the city where folks are alleging that there's a violation of our ordinance for folks simply sitting on a bench or enjoying a park. And so I want to make sure, just public, we were continuing to reiterate what our definition of camping is, and it's also in line with the state definition of camping. Our ordinance also provides enforcement methods, everything from a warning issued to somebody through offering of services up to and including citation and arrest. We also subsequently created Ordinance Section 1633, which created the written reporting method, which was also required by the state statute. So looking back to February, this is March, so we're looking back at our February numbers on our enforcement and activity related to our camping ordinance. We had 234 homeless-related requests. Of those requests, 149 were for public camping. Month to month, from January the month prior to February, we saw a 22% decrease in the number of service requests received. The issues and number of requests were pretty consistent district to district from the month before. As a result of those service requests, when our homeless outreach team did their inspection, again, within five days, I want to reiterate that we were compliant. There were no instances where we exceeded the five days as required by law. 109 folks that were reported were not there when the outreach team did their inspection. 54 received the information about the ordinance. They were engaged, but they chose to pack up and move and remove themselves from being in violation. We issued three NTAs. Those are notices to appear to community court. Those were not related to the service request that was submitted through Fix-It, so those were likely things like trespassing or impacting one of our critical intersections. 17 of those requests were on private property and 29 of those were no violation. A lot of those no violations were what I mentioned before and, again, why it's important to remember what that definition of camping is because they were folks that were simply sitting on a bench, enjoying a park, or just out in public without camping. Our homeless outreach team, this is data from October 1st till March of 2025, so we're going to continue to update this every month, but I want you to see the whole picture fiscal year to date. Our homeless outreach team, just to remind you, is comprised of Fort Lauderdale police officers. It was four police officers up till October 1st, and with the advent of House Bill 1365, we added two additional officers to the homeless outreach team. When the homeless outreach team engages an individual, they're able to take actions such as placing that person into a shelter if they're willing and shelter is available. They can purchase bus tickets for reunification, and they can also refer to services such as substance treatment and mental health treatment. A couple key numbers in this slide, 1,700 individuals were encountered. Some of those may be duplicates, but a majority of those are individual encounters by our homeless outreach team where they engage folks and try to understand what their needs are and what their situation is. Fourteen individuals were reunified. All of our homeless outreach team officers are equipped with a credit card and the ability to immediately buy somebody a bus ticket to go someplace if they have a person at the other end of the line who's willing to support them when they arrive there. We also issued 41 notices to appear. Again, notices to appear are for somewhat minor infractions, which directs that person to a community court, which we'll talk about in the next slide. And then we also were able to place 38 individuals into the Caring Place, which is a shelter-slash-transitional housing facility that the city contracts with to have dedicated beds for those folks that we are able to place that come from the city of Fort Lauderdale. Chris, before you move on, regarding the reunification, where are these people? Is there an average? Is it mid-state, out-of-state? Where are they being? It varies, so they're all out of the area, obviously, because we're putting them on a bus, but it does vary between in-state versus out-of-state. The main criteria is that when an individual is offered a reunification from our homeless outreach team, we reach out and contact whoever the person is on the receiving end to make sure that person's there, they're real, there is a person on the other end, so that we're just not putting them on a bus and sending them somewhere. And once they do that, the officer will purchase a ticket and a lot of times transport that individual to the bus station to make sure they get where they need to be and can get on that bus to get to that place that somebody's on the other end to take care of that person. Okay. I'm just curious if there was a trend, like, from a specific demographic of where maybe an influx is coming into the area. Oh, I see what you're saying. So could we see where they're coming from based on where they're going? Yeah. Not necessarily. It may not be their point of origin. So we do have our point-in-time survey, which was done in January by task force. We're still waiting on that data, but one of the things that we will see in that data is where that person likely came from, whether it was from out-of-state, out-of-area, you know, maybe a different city in Broward County. So we'll have more info on that level of detail. Thank you. Community court, again, for the public, community court occurs each Wednesday at 18 Northwest 1st Avenue. There had been prior conversations about potentially purchasing that building for community court, which we have ceased those conversations, but we do have a lease agreement for the use so that we do have some stability in where we hold that function. We continue to explore opportunities, so we're working with real estate. We visited several sites. We haven't found something that works both in terms of what we need, what the owner needs, and, you know, the price involved in those transactions, but we continue to look. We are working very closely. We've engaged with the adjacent property owners and the Broward County Transit Facility Services to really work together to try to lessen impacts to that area, both on community court days and otherwise, for folks that are congregated in that area. So we're continuing to engage. And there seems to be a strong partnership amongst the private property owners, us as the city, and then the county in terms of managing that area a little bit better. So there's ongoing conversations and projects going on to lessen the impacts of our community court function to that area that it's adjacent to. Since October 1st, we've said this a number of times, and we continue to see it. There's been a significant increase in the number of folks that come to community court for walk-in services. These are the folks that aren't there because they've received a notice to appear. They're just folks that know that if they come to our community court on Wednesday, that there are at least 30 or more service providers who offer various things available to them at one place. In February, we saw 366 walk-in visitors. We had 18 notice-to-appear respondents. Out of those notice-to-appear respondents, we had two program graduates. What that means is those were individuals that received a notice to appear in a judgment from our community court judge. That judgment could include a program that consists of community service, some sort of treatment, counseling, or a combination of those items. Once they complete that, they graduate from the program, and it resolves whatever infraction that they were charged with that led them to community court in the first place. Okay, let's stop right here. You had 366 people walk in there. Right. What were they looking for? The number one visit by far is for housing services. How they want a place to- Yeah, some are there for multiple things. So primarily they come for housing. Folks may come for housing, but they may also look for, you know, they may just want to grab a shower in our mobile shower service. They may need- They may have food insecurity, so they meet with somebody that can provide some food assistance. They may need mental health or some other treatment. So there's multiple visits, but by far the number one reason anybody comes to community court is to meet with task force and other housing providers. And we don't have 366 places for them. We don't, but it puts them into the system to hopefully get into something. So everybody's situation is a little bit different. So somebody may come there. They don't have any resources, any benefits, anything of that nature. So their path is different from somebody that comes in. Maybe they're a veteran. Maybe they have Social Security. Maybe they have disability where one of the case managers can help them figure out what resources they have, and then that leads to them using those resources to get in some sort of housing situation, whether it's in Fort Lauderdale, Broward County, or somewhere else. So we may not have the shelter, the housing, but there's multiple reasons and multiple situations that people find themselves in that come there that this starts them on the path of finding out what they may have available to them to eventually get into a housing situation. But they need to come to this point to become engaged in the continuum of care process, coordinated entry, which is the process to get into housing in Broward County, and to be put in the HMIS, the Homeless Management Information System, so that they can track what resources they need. So this has essentially become the intake method for Fort Lauderdale. It's one of the primary intake methods. It has become. Okay. So, and this is every Wednesday morning at 10 o'clock? It starts at 9 o'clock for walk-ins. If anybody's listening, I encourage folks to get there early because there is a crowd. And these providers do congregate in other areas. They go to some churches and things like that, so they're in different places around the city and the county. But the community court is where the most providers are available on-site at any given time where somebody can walk in and meet with multiple providers to navigate the system and figure out how to get into the system and then hopefully get through the system. Do we have, with regard to what we have with nonprofits like Salvation Army and the county, we still have a deficit in the amount of shelter beds or whatever here in our area, right? We do. One of the big deficits we had recently was the Central Homeless Assistance Center, which is the Broward Partnerships facility on 7th Avenue and Sunrise. They had a large capital project. That capital project has wrapped up, so they're ramping back up to full capacity. So that will provide, I think it's around 60 immediate beds available to folks that are already in the queue for entry into the system. But past that, there will be a deficit in the number of beds to people. Okay. All right. Thank you. So some good news. We do have some new and upcoming programs. This slide represents a little over a million dollars in grants and aid that we've received as a city that we're putting into use. At the last commission meeting, the commission approved agreements with two entities that we're using DCF, which is Department of Children's and Families, grants for. We received $250,000 from that agency for one year. So $125,000 of that money will be spent through Homes United for 10 mental health treatment beds. The other $125,000 will be spent through Fellowship Recovery Community Organization for substance abuse treatment beds. That one includes a daily rate per client, so it's not a per bed amount that we're paying. But there is a, you know, at some point we'll spend that money. So there's a set amount of service that we'll get through that $125,000. But those are services that prior to this we didn't have directly, and this will allow our homeless outreach team and task force to have additional services for those two types of treatment facilities that we'll be able to place people in from the city of Fort Lauderdale if we find they're in need. We also are working on finalizing our agreement with the Housing and Community Development through a community project funding grant for $850,000 over two years, so $425,000 a year. This should come back to commission if we can get through the process with finalizing the agreement with HUD. We're shooting for by June 1, 2025 to have that agreement in place and be able to spend those funds. The focus of the funds are to focus on our impacted intersections and homeless hotspots. So the funding will provide overtime for additional homeless outreach team and police patrol. Fire rescue response, because there is a component of fire rescue and EMS response to homeless services that this will help fund. It will also help fund parks and recreation cleaning and their cleaning contractor for debris removal and site cleaning of these areas. And one thing it will also help pay for is something that the commission recently asked us to look into and implement is signage to address those critical intersections where panhandling occurs, as well as areas where, you know, camping and things like that, those hotspots where we experience those types of activities. So it will help further several commission goals towards this priority. Lastly, we are a finalist for a Bloomberg Harvard City Hall fellow. This is a program through Bloomberg and Harvard where we will hopefully be able to onboard a graduate of a Harvard master's or professional degree program. The fellow will be provided to us for two years at no cost to the city. We will be interviewing candidates in April, and we should have a final decision by May, June, on which of those candidates comes to the city as a fellow to help us with our homeless efforts. If we look at what we spend on an ICMA fellow or something of that sort, the value to that in terms of dollars to the city is a little bit over $100,000 a year. So, again, this represents a little bit over a million dollars in resources that have come into the city or we're expecting to come into the city by this summer towards homelessness and our homeless priority. One thing we talked a lot about in previous presentations is outreach and engagement. I think you might have used the term we're going to take this show on the road and make sure we're educating our community on the House bill and our efforts towards our homeless priority. So just to run through what we've been doing in the last month, February 5th, we attended the Downtown Fort Lauderdale Civic Association. February 7th, we met with a group of concerned residents that live and are around the Riverwalk area. February 19th, we participated in the District 2 President's Roundtable. February 19th, we were at the Poinciana Heights Civic Association. February 25th, we held a town hall with the police department at Symphony Condominium. And March 12th, we were at the Poinciana Park Civic Association. To add to that, we have several meetings coming up over the next month. We're in Harbordale, River Oaks, Rio Vista, Coral Ridge, Lauderdale Isles, the Sunset Civic Association, and Coral Ridge Estates. So anybody watching that's part of a civic association, we are more than happy and willing to come to your meetings and talk about the City Commission's work and effort towards their priority on homelessness. In terms of engagement with other entities and agencies, we've said before that we're continuing to look for opportunities to partner or assist other agencies that are focused on homelessness to help achieve their goals as well as our goals to help manage the homeless situation in the city. On January 27th, me and a group from Neighbor Support, we toured the Central Homeless Assistance Center to discuss their plans to reopen, which I mentioned earlier, and the possibility of adding additional shelter space. They're interested in using some of their more administrative space in that building to create some more shelter space. So we're talking to them about how they can achieve that goal. On February 5th and the 21st, we met with the Salvation Army. They submitted a proposal to expand their shelter. That's still something that we're talking to them about. There's a lot of questions and details that need to be worked out, but that's something that they came forward with a goal of helping us to create more space here in the community. Part of that conversation did include Broward County. On March 11th, we received safe parking proposals. That's something that we've talked about here at the commission, where there's a facility opened up for folks that are living in vehicles to not only have a safe place to park, but also receive the services that they need to help transition back into a more permanent housing situation. We reviewed those proposals with our staff here at the city, with Broward County staff, and the United Way, and we continue to have that conversation to see if there's opportunities to partner on potentially establishing one of those programs here in the city of Fort Lauderdale with those partners. And last but not least, I want to make sure we continue to push out our Fix-It FTL app. This is the app that the city has established not only to report issues related to homelessness and public camping, but also a plethora of city service requests, everything from streetlights out, potholes, sidewalks and disrepair, things of that nature. So this QR code works. If anybody's watching and they scan that QR code, it should take them to the site that they could download that on their Apple or Android device. It's an excellent way to reach the city and submit service requests so it gets to the right person at the right time to make sure that that issue is handled and resolved in a timely manner. Chris, if you could go back one slide, page 7, in regards to March 11th and the receding of the proposals for safe parking, how many proposals did you actually receive? So I want to make sure I'm clear. We didn't solicit proposals per se. We just, you know, the conversation's been out there that the city could be interested in looking at safe parking. So we received two proposals to establish safe parking programs, mainly budgets in terms of this is what they believe it would cost, how many vehicles, how many individuals or family units they could serve with that money, and some basic operational information. Which districts were being discussed? So there was one proposal that was specific to a district, and that's District 3. The other proposal was not specific towards any location at all. So that's one of the follow-up questions we obviously have for them is where do you contemplate this taking place? Thank you. The folks at Hope South Florida, where did they contemplate the location to be? Was it on their campus at Calvary? No, no. They are contemplating partnering with the church, but they are also very cognizant, and we're very cognizant and also communicate our concern with them that this needs to be in the right place so that there's not an impact to an adjacent property owner or community. But it's not at the location on North Andrews. So it has not yet been defined. Correct. All right. Any other questions? Does that conclude your remarks? Yes, it does. Dan, did you want to ask something? Yeah, Mayor. Thanks. Good morning, Chris. Thank you. This is great. Mayor Chris has been making great progress. I've been meeting with some of the service riders just on an informal basis to try to advance our collective efforts. One of the things we've been really working on with service riders but also bringing in some affordable and workforce housing developers to explore ways to possibly repurpose existing apartment buildings or hotels for workforce, affordable, short-term housing. So we're making really good progress there. It's going to be a funding mechanism that we're really exploring collaboratively. So I think we're making some good progress there. I was meeting with some folks this morning that are very interested in trying to solution, as you heard, at community court, the number one issue is housing, right? So my view and national best practice is, you know, wrap around case management support with long-term supportive housing. So I'm really encouraged by what some of these developers, downtown business leaders. I know, Mayor, you're involved with the United Way Business Council. I'm engaging with some of those folks as well to really find solutions, private, public sector, working together. So I really anticipate in the next several months seeing some good movement towards getting units that really can increase our housing inventory for these folks. So we continue to make good progress there, and Chris is really helpful in that. So I just want to share that. That's great news. Great. Thank you for doing that. Yeah, absolutely. I know Commissioner Beasley-Pimmons on the COC, so it's just united effort. And, again, I want to appreciate the business community. We have a lot of business leaders who are stepping forward and just saying, hey, we want to be part of the solution. So that's been really helpful as we kind of work together. Also, as Chris alluded to, there are several faith-based organizations that really want to be part of the solution too, which I'm really encouraged about as well. So I think we've got some good progress there. Somewhat unrelated question, Anthony, fix-it-for-lateral. You and I talked about when neighbors submit requests on fix-it-for-lateral to have the response back, more of that two-way communication, right? So updates, what happened, why is the service request closed, and so forth. How is that coming in terms of updating the app for that functionality? So I'd have to – sorry, Anthony Fajardo is the city manager. I'd have to check with IT and public works on the interaction because I think what you're talking about is the communication between CityWorks and fix-it-FTL, which allows for that back and forth. The software we purchased was designed to interface directly with that and Acela, but we have been having some issues. And the last time I checked, it was related to the version that we have of CityWorks. Okay. So I know they're working on a patch for it, but I haven't got an update right now. Great. I'll get you one. Okay. That sounds good. Thanks. And, Mayor, I mean, just when I'm out in the community, I'm hearing really good feedback about fix-it-for-Lauderdale. I'm encouraging everyone to use it because it's just such an efficient way to communicate, but then also for us to get data for, okay, where are we having challenges, where are we seeing repeated, whether it's issues with roads or so forth, so that we can be more data-driven. And so I think it's been a great addition. All right. Yeah, I agree. I've heard many positive things about it. So whoever invented it, thank you. Okay. We have one person who signed up to speak, Mr. Nsera. I see you're wearing a spring break outfit for us. Yes, indeed. Hello, Ted Nsera, president of the River Oaks Civic Association. I guess Chris says he's coming to River Oaks, so I guess we'll talk more when he comes to River Oaks. We were mentioned in that when he comes there. Be nice. Be nice. Oh, yeah. I don't know. You know about our reputation. The Republic of River Oaks. The Republic of River Oaks. But my main concern, you guys are going in a lot of great directions in some of this stuff with the community court and all this stuff. That is needed. That is good. The part that us residents are worried about is the people that are not going to community court. The more criminal element that's out there and that are plagiarizing. I mean, taking over our parks in the morning. We have taking over part of the streets, the intersections. And every time we can check off each boxes of these where it says sleeping, resting, conducting daily activities, check, check, check. And still there is some reason why nothing can be done. And, like, I worked last night since it was St. Patrick's Day at the Southport Raw Bar. So I was riding home down 17th Street on the bike. My goodness. From almost the intersection of US 1 west, you know, down by the Whole Foods Market in that area on the curve right there to 3rd Avenue. It was just, like, lined with sleeping bags after sleeping bags. And if that doesn't check all these boxes, I don't know what does. But for some reason, there's always a reason why it cannot be done. I don't know if we've got to sit down with a Broward County sheriff because that seems to be always the response. Well, we can't or he won't arrest him, so we can't do anything. But, you know, I've been hearing that, and the residents have for quite a while. So it's now time to figure something out when, you know, you guys figured it out with the county as far as the bridge and tunnel. So we are working on that. Yeah, that is something that is very important. So it's not going to happen tomorrow. But, in fact, just today, you know, I met with the chief, the two chiefs, and the two city managers. And, you know, we are working on it. We are working on something, and hopefully we'll have it done sooner than later. But you are correct in stating that we're not getting the cooperation with the county jail system. And it's very frustrating for all of us. Of course, if you see something, fix it. So, you know. Oh, that is a good app. I use it a lot. No, it is good. If you do see something, if you put it on, fix it. Hopefully we'll be able to respond. But our resources are limited, as you've heard today. Yeah. We can only go so far. Repatriation, you know, very limited numbers there. You know, maybe, I don't know, does somebody really have to be on the other end of that bus trip, but we just can't say, where do you want to go? You know. We can send them to Venezuela, like the president's doing. Yeah, you want to go. Yeah, exactly. You want to go to Nashville? We'll use your plane. One other thing that is completely off topic. But I would like to see the city commission recognize the four-time state champion, Stranahan Dragons, for basketball, four times out of seven years, which is actually constituents a dynasty, and have them come in here, be represented. Their gym is in such bad repair. They could only play four home games the entire season, and yet they became state champions for the fourth time in seven years. I would rather see them come before and given a proclamation instead of, like, the CFLCA board, which are the same people that are on every other board, and let's honor some real people that are really doing good in the city of Fort Lauderdale. And, Mayor, we're in the process of getting that scheduled. I'm sorry? We're in the process of getting that scheduled. Yeah, they're going to be coming here. We're going to celebrate them. Yes, indeed. I'm pushing for a parade as well, Ted. I'd love to have you there for that as well. Stranding in class of 74. There you go. Go Dragons. Yeah, I was going to comment. Someone had reached out to our office, and we did pass it on to Ben, so we know it is in process. So thank you. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else wish to speak on this item? I see none. Okay. Oh, my God. Out of the crypt comes Chris Nelson. Of course, you didn't sign up, but I'll forgive you this time. I didn't. Make it quick. Thank you, Mayor Dean. And my name is Chris Nelson. I live in Fort Lauderdale. And today I come to sing the praises of BARC, the Broward Addiction Recovery Center. It's doing wonderful work to help people without means who struggle with drugs and alcohol. I, myself, today, stand here 75 days clean and sober. And I owe that very much to the great work that the Broward Addiction Recovery Center does. Their nurses, their medical staff, the techs, amazing people work there. And they also have a program that if you lack the means, they will fund you to go into a halfway house or a sober living house for a month. It used to be 60 days. But now funding on that's getting cut back. So people that are struggling with drugs and alcohol and homelessness can go through the 60-day program, first get detox, go through the 60-day program, and then go on to sober living for free for 30 days. Where they can look for a job and get back on their feet. So if this commission or if anybody at the state might be listening, it's very important to continue funding for the Broward Addiction Recovery Center because funding is getting cut back. This is the other part. Who's cutting it back? The state? It runs a lot through grants. I believe the state is where it comes from, where it would be cutting back. And if we're going to have laws against public camping that we're going to be enforcing, the other end of it is where should they go. And the best place, and I'd go because I've been there through experience, BARC, the Broward Addiction Recovery Center. I didn't even know this place existed. But everybody really should know of it and the great things those guys are doing over there. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, moving on to business four. Chief? Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners. Happy Commission Tuesday. Stephen Golan, your fire chief. So today I'm here to just give you a brief update on Fire Station 13. Fire Station 13 is located on East Sunrise Boulevard at 2871, just over the Sunrise Boulevard bridge in the park there. So we've been working on this project for quite some time, but we're finally starting to see a solution at the end of the road here. Go to the next slide, please. Or do I have it here? Perfect. So the background on this project is this is part of the fire bond that started in 2004. This is the last fire station to be built in that bond. We were making forward progress with Akai Associates, and they were brought on the project in 420. However, they dissolved the corporation last year at a 90% completion. During that time, a decision was made to change our approach and to look more towards a design build process rather than the design bid build that we had originally started off on. Just recently, in February of this year, a contract was awarded to H2M to move forward with the DCP. That DCP is scheduled to be completed later this year on 725. And then from that point, we would move forward with putting it out to bid with hopeful to have construction begin by the end of the year. Our total construction costs with this project, we expect to have those sometime around the June-July mark and right before we go out to bid. The available budget for this project right now is just shy of $10 million, and we're forecasting right now that the projected costs are going to be just shy of the $14 million, giving approximately a $4 million difference there. However, as mentioned before, we'll have those real numbers coming in June or July of this year. So I know there's been some concern in regards to why there is that delta and what exactly that looks like. You know, obviously, over the years and since the inception of this bond, the cost of construction has gone up significantly. Originally, there was only $40 million that was to rebuild all of the fire stations, and this being the last one, the reserves that are there. Construction costs are up just in the last year at 5%, and so a substantial difference in just the last 12 months. We've also looked at some of the soft costs, estimates, but those obviously will be a variable until we get moving forward with the project. So we're hopeful to mid-summer or after the summer break to be able to come back and provide you with more definitive costs on the project. That's all I have for today. Okay. Anyone have any questions? Okay. There being none, thank you. Perfect. Thank you for your good work. Yes, I do recall when we originally passed that program, the bond, to get all of them done for $40 million. Why did we wait so long for $13 million? Never understood. Okay. Last on our agenda for new business is Business 5, New River Crossing discussion. Now, you may recall that the city of Fort Lauderdale received a letter from Broward County Mayor Beam Furr. That was sent to us on March 3rd. I believe everyone got a copy of that. And while it was addressed to me, I assume it was addressed to our commission. And so I took it upon myself to come up with a response. But before I sent it, I wanted to discuss it with everybody here today to be sure that it is the position that we take collectively, not just what my thoughts are, and we distributed that this morning. I don't know if any of you had a chance to read it, but it's open for discussion. Basically, what we did here in the letter was we took all the expectations that the county had for us in terms of providing a viable tunnel alternative, and I turned it around, and I said, well, what makes us think that all the things that you expect of us with regard to the tunnel are available to us with regard to the bridge in terms of cost, viability, construction, interference with marine traffic, all the things, as well as the impact to the historic and downtown neighborhoods. So does anyone have any questions with regard to it? Ben. Yeah, Mayor. Thanks. So maybe I'll just share some of the conversations that I've had so we're all – Yes, you've been telling us that you've been having discussions with the mayor and other members of the commission. So let's talk about that. Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Mayor. I appreciate it. And so – and I might have said this already, but I just want to make sure I'm capturing everything, the folks that I've been talking with. So I went down to the Port of Miami Tunnel, gosh, I guess a week ago, and met with Chris Hodgkins, who was one of the leaders in helping get that built there and toured the facility and talked with him. I brought the letter from Mayor Furr so that we could kind of talk through that and make sure he had digested that. Chris's feedback was that the combination of the city, Fort Lauderdale in December, you know, voting in favor of the tunnel and saying that's what we'd like, in addition with the county's letter from Mayor Furr, presented a great combination for Chris to go out to international tunnel builders to say, hey, City of Fort Lauderdale is in favor of the tunnel. The county is open to tunnel or the bridge. And would you, this international tunnel builders, be interested in this project now that there's some degree of alignment there? And he reported back to me that there is significant interest in some of these international builders on the basis of those two events, the letter and the city vote. I asked him if, from his experience in building tunnels, that if the county's letter, if he had concerns about some of the framework and the suggestions that the county had in the letter. And he said, no, he said, this is exactly what we can use. He said, we can really work on getting proposals forward to the city and the county about a tunnel and that it provides a really good framework. So that was positive. Then I met with Bob Ledoux from FECR. This was last week, I think Tuesday, again, to talk about the tunnel option. And as you know, Mayor, in the county letter, it stipulates that the county would like support from FECR to articulate that they're comfortable with a tunnel being built. In their right-of-way. In their right-of-way, exactly. And just for folks who might not know, the FECR is basically the entity that owns the rail, owns the land the rail is on. And I shared with Bob the letter from Mayor Furr, and Bob got a chance to read that and give us feedback. And his feedback was, hey, I'm very much open to FECR supporting and being open to a tunnel being built in our right-of-way. So very positive. And Susan was in there in that meeting with me. And I think, Susan, correct me if I'm wrong on any of that, but I think his response was he was going to go back to FECR leadership, work on a letter of support for the tunnel. He said there might be some caveats that we'll have to include in our letter of support, but that that would be a very fair possibility to drive forward. Am I capturing that all right, Susan? Yep, you are. What he said, okay. Was Susan with you? Susan was there, yeah. Okay. Yeah, as Susan and D. Wayne was there. And Ben Rogers. And Ben Rogers was there as well. And we also talked about the right-of-way lease. Oh, yeah, thank you. Yeah, thanks for bringing out that. So this is another item ancillary, but just want to mention it because it was at the same meeting, was the city had a long-term lease with FECR, what's called a maintenance lease, which is, and many of you may already know this, but to maintain the FECR right-of-way through the city of Fort Lauderdale. And that's just to make sure it's landscaped in a way that actually we, the city, would like it. And FECR is very, it really seemed like very comfortable with us providing landscaping that we feel is best suited for the city and openness to that. And that lease was terminated by the city, what, Susan, a year, a couple years ago? I forget the. I think about a year and a half. About a year and a half ago. And so FECR expressed an interest in seeing if the city might be reinterested in participating in that lease. The advantage of the FECR for that lease is that they don't have to worry as much about the maintenance of it and that we would partner with that. The upside for the city there is that it allows us, again, to kind of landscape it as we would like. It also allows us, part of the FECR right-of-way goes right across Riverwalk on the north side of the. So what exactly does this agreement require us to do? It requires us to maintain the landscaping and mow the right-of-way on either side. The entire length through the city? Yeah. And sometimes the right-of-way is on one side. Sometimes it's on both. But currently I think we spend, I got a number of $40,000 a year approximately on the mowing and maintenance of that area. Well, if we've been responsible for that, and I never thought we were responsible. If you're telling us now we're responsible, there are sections of that that are just a disaster, especially just south of 13th Street, that whole section behind those warehouses where we see garbage and homeless people and debris all the time. So are we still under a lease agreement with them to do that? So the lease did expire, or we canceled it several years ago. Yeah. And Mayor, that's exactly part of the reason why I think for limited costs, but we can make sure the right-of-way is cleaned in a way that we're comfortable with. If we want to put some landscaping that FECR is okay with, we can do some of that. Or fencing. Yeah, exactly. We can do some of the fencing and so forth. And also for Riverwalk, we can maintain Riverwalk crossing across the new river because if we don't have a lease for that area, FECR kind of indicated that there might be challenges with us continuing to use that crossing, which obviously we don't want to have happen. So very, very positive with FECR. Then I reached out to one of the consultants that's been kind of engaged in this process, Taft, the Taft Group. I'm sure you're probably talking with as well, Mayor, but part of what they do is also work with these very big international tunnel construction companies. And they also share that, hey, with the vote of the city, with the letter from Mayor Furr, we, Taft, have great renewed interest from many of these international tunnel builders to say, hey, we're very interested in coming forward with a proposal to the city, to the county, with specifics about cost, timing, funding, and all of those possibilities. So they feel very enthusiastic about the possibilities. And I asked Chris and the Taft Group, how soon could we possibly receive a proposal for a tunnel from some of these folks who are interested? And they said, you know, within six months, they think they could get some really strong proposals with detail, funding, costs, and so forth. So I think we're in a really good spot to get, you know, continue forward with the tunnel. Now, I think in your letter, Mayor, I think you raised some good points. One of them is your concern about timing and not wanting to feel limited in the sense that Mayor Furr's letter indicates, hey, I think it was a seven-month kind of timeline to really make progress. My question to the county today that I asked was, if we're making progress, and I shared with them the good feedback we're hearing from some of these international tunnel developers, if we're making progress and showing, you know, I shared with them FECR openness and so forth, you know, would there be latitude as we're making progress to extend that seven-month timeline further out as we're making progress so that it's not a rigid timeline. Not a drop-dead date. Right, exactly, exactly, because that would concern me as well, Mayor. If there's some drop-dead date that even if we're making progress, we can't continue in that effort, that I don't think is a good kind of alignment. And the county shared back with me today, hey, if you're making progress and we're staying in touch and you're driving forward towards the tunnel, hey, we, the county, would be very much open to extending that seventh month as we're going along these next several months going forward. So I think we're really heading in a good direction. And so I'll pause there. But I think, look, I would love it if the county would say, Mayor, hey, we, the county, are all in for the tunnel and we want to see that happen. I'd love if that were the case. We're not there yet. So I think we're in as good a spot as we can be right now with the latitude, this new latitude the county is suggesting today, of the flexibility around timing combined with the real interest I think we're starting to see on this in driving forward. And so, yeah. So, you know, when I received this letter, I read it once, but then I read it a second time thoroughly. And, honestly, while conversations that you're having, and I haven't had those same conversations, but conversations that you're having with individuals from the county may seem reassuring. This is, you know, this is always what I advise my clients. I say, you know, you can never rely on oral representations. You can only rely on what's in the written document. So all those things that you feel good about having been told, by the way, you can't rely on any of that stuff because we can only rely on what is in the document. So I read this letter, and these are the things that I saw that kind of shot out at me. First of all, the seven-month thing, which, you know, they can't, even if we look at the bridge versus the tunnel, you know, the expectations that we're going to have this within seven months in no way guarantees that they can do the same thing within seven months with regard to their bridge. They're nowhere near getting final numbers or feasibility or even someone to construct the bridge approach. So they're imposing deadlines on us that they themselves cannot achieve. But more importantly, to me, it was like you either do it this way or you're going to agree that the bridge option is the default option. This commission has never agreed that the bridge option is the default option. To me, it's not an LPA. It's an OPA. I know that sounds like Greek, but OPA means the only preferred alternative, and the only preferred alternative is the tunnel. We are not saying that we're going to agree to a bridge just because we're all focused on getting commuter rail. My opinion is, and it may not be the opinion of the rest of the commission, but my opinion is we're not going to compromise the good things we're doing in Fort Lauderdale and that we've accomplished and will continue to accomplish just to have commuter rail run through our city. Commuter rail can go through our city. There's a viable option to have it go through our city without compromising all the great gains and investments that have taken place here. But they don't see it that way. They don't see the need to put commuter rail here as an imperative that supersedes any of the concerns that we have with regard to what we have done in our downtown. So going forward, they've given us two years. They told us that we have to come up with a proposal that will take only two years for the tunnel to be built. Well, to me, that's a poison pill right there. There's no way that we're going to get any contractor, even if Chris Hodgkins thought this was a very positive letter, but if you read the details, telling us that we have to come up with a contractor that's going to build this tunnel in two years is impossible. There's no way no one has ever, even BDO said it would take four years and four months. So right away, it's a poison pill clause in their letter, which we cannot accept. You know, they're talking about uncertainties to date of the viability and costs associated with the tunnel. Well, the same holds true with them. There are uncertainties as to cost and timeline, even in their own four-track concept, to construct those two bridges that ultimately will require four bridges because they're going to build four and tear down two. And what is that going to do with regard to obstructing the waterways during that time? We've been told that they're going to have to put permanent barges in the middle of the river to be able to accommodate the construction and the tear down of those so-called temporary bridges. You know, these things have to be taken into consideration, and none of that is taken into consideration in the county's letter. So I just thought it was important to point those things out in a response. But as you will see in my last paragraph in my letter, I very kindly say that this is the time to take a pause because we're not sure, first of all, what's happening at the federal level, if there's even money available for this project, whether it be a bridge or a tunnel. And I said let's gather the needed information on the bridge plans as well as our plans, and I think that by working together we can achieve a successful outcome here, one that helps address South Florida's traffic issue as well as protecting the future of downtown and our vital marine industry. So we're still reaching out. We haven't closed any door to them, but they've got to understand that it's more than just the things that they talk about. We have a downtown. We have a marine industry. We have investments. We have people living along the track here that we have to be responsible to. So that's why I felt it was important to respond to them and to still hold out opportunities for us to work together and to make the new river crossing something that makes sense for everybody. So as you feel, I feel similarly about my conviction that a tunnel is absolutely the right way to go. I truly believe that the county is what their, with their, the mayor's letter to us, is saying, hey, we are open to you all really continuing to explore the tunnel, and we will support that exploration. They are not moving forward with a bridge right now. They really aren't. They are very interested in seeing, giving us the time to see if we can really make traction on the tunnel. And I don't want to pause it because I think we really have great momentum. And, Mayor, this is because of your leadership, because you've been driving the tunnel conversation without ceasing and without compromising, which I really appreciate and which has helped get us here. And I think we really are making progress now. And let's see if we can continue to make progress in these next six months. And I'm really convinced we will. Well, there's nothing in this letter that says that they're going to change their mind with regard to the seven-month deadline, nor are they going to change their mind on the two years that they expect us to be able to build the tunnel, nor are they said anything in here about consideration for the impact on the neighborhood and the marine industry. To me, those override anything to do with commuter rail. Marine industry is a multibillion-dollar economic engine for an entire South Florida, and nothing in the letter talks about that. And we have to be cognizant of what's important to us, too. So I do want to respond, and I do want to respond with the letter. I do want to respond with this letter because I think it goes point by point. And at the end, you know, we have to work together to try to achieve an outcome. That's what we're doing, Mayor, right now. You know what the problem is? From day one, from day one, I always feel like we have to prove ourselves to the county. Every time I've met with them, I've said, let's work together as partners. Let's try to work together and focus on getting this tunnel built. And never have they ever said, yes, we're willing to do that. All they said is you have to prove to us that you're viable. Prove to us that you're affordable. Prove to us that, you know, it's doable. Prove it, prove it, prove it, like we're begging at their feet. And it's just very, very difficult to think that I'm going to think of them as partners in something when they constantly are putting barriers up to us with these requirements that they know are impossible to be able to achieve. Again, whatever they say verbally is not what's in writing, and we can't assume that what they're going to say to us, they'll say, oh, I didn't really mean that, you know, when I talked to you. So whatever has to be said can be put in writing, and I'd like to see that in writing before we can agree to move forward. In the meantime, I think we need to respond to their letter. I'd like to have a meeting with them, like they've reached out to us, and I'd like to be able to put on the record some of these oral representations that they've presented to us. So far, they're just conversations between you and them, and that doesn't hold any water in terms of trying to, you know, negotiate contract terms. Do we have a meeting plan with them? Do we have a joint meeting plan with the county? I thought we did. We do not have a date currently. We had one that they kind of threw. So, Mayor, just – Yes, sir. So what would you – so to have the county – what would you like them to memorialize to us that would make you more comfortable? All the things that I say in my letter, I'd like them to respond to. All the things that – everything that you pointed out is what I pointed out as well. For example, I say I think your offer of a seven-month window to provide feasible and viable public-private partnership tunnel development proposal is a starting point but should be extended. I lay all that out here. All these things that you've talked about plus the additional things that I spoke of are all laid out here in writing, and let them respond to that. I'd like to – their response is the continuation of our dialogue, and I think that will get us moving forward. In the meantime, I have yet to see anyone, us or them, say that there's money at the federal level because if we don't have money at the federal level, this is dead on arrival. There is money available at the federal level. How do you know that? There is because as I'm talking to these – Who are you talking to? I want to hear. Chris Hodgkins. Chris is not the Department of Transportation. He's just the operator of the Marine of the Miami Tunnel. I completely agree. Part of it is engaging Sean Duffy as a secretary of the Department of Transportation at the federal level right now, right? And we – through Taft and other organizations, we're proactively reaching out to engage. Okay. So the conversation – That's new to me. Taft is Umer – Oh, okay. Yeah, Umer – I forget his last name. And Umer represented to you that he has contacts with the Department of Transportation? So they are working on engaging, yes. Absolutely. Because I met with them yesterday, and they never said any such thing to me. Yep. They have team members that – Yeah. Don't think you're going to sit in the shadows there, Ben. Help us out here. What is our connection with the Department of Transportation? Federal Department. Yeah, so, Mayor, to your point, I think some of our existing relationships have changed, and we're in a fluid environment right now. So we're doing our homework and trying to make sure we can solidify some opportunities. To Commissioner Sorenson's point, I do think that Taft has already started trying to piece together the financing plan, different strategies to connect things, and they've started having some initial conversations with their existing contacts in D.C. Okay, so there we go. We don't have any real connections. We're going to try to regroup and try to establish connections. People have approached me from – who have contacts with the Republican Party and the Republican administration who are local folks who want to see this tunnel get done. And so, you know, as I pursue those leads, you know, I'll certainly report back to the commission once I have those interactions. But I do think it's important that – I think it's – that they're entitled to a response, and I think that, you know, we need to continue this discussion. And I don't think anything I said in this letter quashes any of that. But I think it's – in fact, what I try to do is refine the discussion so that all the important points that are being discussed here at our commission will be discussed at their commission, and especially the impact to our downtown, the impact to our marine industry. Neither of those points are discussed in their letter. And to me, those are the two most important things that I see that Melinda wants to speak. Those are the two most important things that I feel that we need to preserve and defend before we move forward on a commuter rail service. So – sorry. So, great. And so say those two things again, Mayor? The marine industry, the sustainability of the marine industry so that there's no negative impact during construction and after completion of the bridge, and also the impact to the neighborhood in and around the proposed bridge area during construction and afterwards. Great. And finally, one thing I need to mention is the underpasses that they propose. We are still – MPO in the city has contracted with a third party to come up with an estimate. We have yet to – when do we say that the study is going to come back on that? It's a couple of months, right? The impact on the underpassed study. We paid money with the MPO, remember? You don't remember. No. Yeah. We'll get that answer in a moment. Ben, do you remember? He's pointing at someone. Who are we pointing to? Milos. There you go. Because we entered into an agreement with the MPO to do that underpass viability study. Good afternoon, Milos Mastodovic, acting director for city's transportation and mobility department. So back in December of 2024, there was a resolution in here approving the reimbursement agreement for the implementation of the Reconnecting Communities grant program. The study is a planning-level study. It is for $1.9 million. At that point, following that approval, the MPO was to be in a better position to proceed with executing the agreement with the U.S. DOT. So we'll follow up with the MPO and see where they are at in the process. So I do not have that timeline at this point. So – but has the analysis process begun yet? No, no, it hasn't. We haven't even started? No, we have not. Okay, so this analysis was the cost and the impact of the underpass, and I think it was specific to Broward Boulevard as well as Sistrunk? No, that is correct. So it's Davey, Broward, Sistrunk, Andrews, and Santa Rice, five areas. Okay, those five areas. Okay. And none of that is addressed in Mayor Furr's letter. And to me, that's, you know, significant. And so we need to know what the cost is there. We need to know what the impact is. Let me give an example. In speaking with Umer yesterday, we talked about this, and he said it would – if you put an underpass at the Broward Boulevard intersection with the train tracks, you'd have to shut down Broward Boulevard for over two years. How could we ever possibly contemplate that? So none of that is brought up here. So to me, you know, they even said to me, you know, you can't wish a bridge in place. You can't just wish a bridge is going to happen. You have to consider what it takes to get there. And one of the things it's going to take to get there is shutting down Broward Boulevard for two years. It's shutting down the marine traffic intermittently during a five-year construction project for the bridge, which is going to require barges to be in the middle of the river in order to provide the base for construction materials and also when you tear down those bridges to provide the base for the debris. So all this is not discussed. I bring it up in my letter because those are important considerations when we talk about bridge versus tunnel. The great thing about the tunnel is there's absolutely zero impact to the neighborhood. There's zero impact to the marine industry. There's zero impact to anything. It just gets built underground, and then we cut the ribbon, you know. And for some reason, that message isn't being understood at the county level, and we need to continue to bring those things up and not just assume that they're saying nice things to you or me are the reality because there is a reality here that needs to be highlighted, and I think that my letter is a beginning of that conversation of how they're going to satisfy the needs of our city when it comes to the impact of building a bridge. Right, and, Mayor, the county is open to us driving towards a tunnel, to getting a tunnel and not having any of these impacts to, as you mentioned, marine neighborhoods and the number of underpasses. So they're good with us driving forward with that. We don't have to convince them right now that, hey, the tunnel is a horrible idea. Let's just show that – sorry, that the bridge is a horrible idea. We don't have to convince them of that. They're giving us the opportunity to say, hey, you all work towards the tunnel, and if you can show traction on the tunnel, we are open to that solution. So we don't have to go back and re-litigate the bridge at all. They're giving us the opening to drive forward with the tunnel, and that's the awesome opportunity we have. Well, I don't see it that way at all. I think that they completely gloss over all those horrible things that they expect our city to submit to, and I can tell you right now that the neighborhoods, especially in your district, will have nothing to do. In fact, Melinda, you want to speak on this issue? Come on up. Let's hear from you. Could you push the button under the speaker? I should know this by now. Mayor, vice mayor, commissioners. Yeah, just on this item, I guess you guys – I don't know exactly what your response letter says. You've kind of delineated it, mayor. But I can just let you know that we did discuss the Mayor Furr's letter as a downtown Fort Lauderdale Civic Association board. I believe it was the date that I got it on March 5th, and I will say that we do have some concerns, particularly – I guess, first of all, you know, I can just report back what my board has relayed in that meeting, but we are concerned that the county is not doing a similar study or requirements for a bridge. Secondly, I think that we're a little concerned about the timing, and also, like you said, the construction within two years. Thirdly, I was able to go visit Port Miami Tunnel and meet with Chris Hodgkins with Commissioner Sorenson on March 10th, so fairly recently. We're very encouraged by that meeting. I went with another board member of mine, Bill Ott. But I would just say that we're happy this dialogue is happening with the county, but we don't want this to be a test that we can't pass, in a sense. And I guess, in general, those are the concerns that we have about this specific letter. I know there's wording at the end of the letter about the city doing a resolution. I'm not sure where that stands as far as commission. And so it's not all bad. I like the dialogue, but we're just concerned. And I know, Ben, you and I talked about this a little bit, you know, what happens October 1st and if we haven't met these conditions. Then we continue to engage – then thank you. We continue to engage with the county and say, here's the progress we've made. A lot of big deals have flexibility to show progress and momentum. And so as I talked with the county today at the highest levels, they're saying, hey, if you're showing progress in the next several months, we are completely open to extending the time you need to make this work. Yeah, but Ben, it doesn't say that in here. It doesn't say, well, if you don't have it in seven months, we'll give you an extension. And I'm happy to get that in writing from them. Well, then – Would that make you feel better? What would make me feel better is if they responded to the points that I bring out in my letter. I don't think your letter is going to help, Mayor. It's not going to be – what is your – Tell me your objections to the letter. Let's go over. Yeah, sure. I'm going to sit down with them now. But that's just a brief – Sit down with them. I appreciate it. Obviously, in the downtown civic association completely – we did re-vote, again, just to let you know in favor of the tunnel as the only option that we won. And I am optimistic that we're going to get there. But that's a few brief comments. So let's go through the letter. And you tell me what you find offensive. Happy to do that. And what I'd share is here's my suggestion for our – I agree with you. We should absolutely respond to the county. And I think our response should be thank you for your letter, Mayor Fur. Thank you for your willingness to have an agnostic LPA, right, that says bridge or tunnel the county is open to. Thank you for the terms, and we acknowledge the terms and look forward to continuing to work together. That's it. Sorry. Doesn't – that doesn't – Let's not be naive here. There is a mission that they intend to corner us into accepting terms that cannot be achieved, and then they're going to say, oh, you already agreed to the bridge as a default. If you can't achieve them, sorry, commission. You know, you said that you were going to do this. You can't change your mind now. So I'm going to go – They are not trying to corner us, Mayor. They're not trying – they are not. They are not ill-willed. Man, I've been dealing with this longer than you have. And they have been. I disagree, Mayor. They're not ill-willed. They're really operating in good faith. Let's give them a chance, Mayor. That's all I'm asking. Let's give them a chance, Mayor. I've been giving them a chance for the last five years. But this is a new commission now. We've got good momentum now. It's not a new commission. It's a new commission. I'm new to the commission. It's a new commission now. So I apologize for interjecting. Dwayne Spence here. Just for clarity in terms of what my counterparts at the county attorney's office, they have reached out to our office. And what they plan on doing is getting a resolution before the city commission that kind of outlines the agreement between the city and the county. And they wanted to coordinate with our office. And the outcome of this discussion is important in terms of outlining what that resolution would say. But the terms of the letter are kind of important in understanding. I believe they're – we've asked for a copy of it, and they said, well, they haven't finalized their draft. And based on your conversation, we'll determine how that goes. But that the spirit of the letter will kind of guide what that resolution says. The spirit of their letter? Of their letter. I don't think – I don't know if you've sent your letter. No, I haven't. No, no, no. I want to get permission from the commission before I send it. But I just want to kind of highlight and focus on a key term in this letter, which is that it outlines the terms of what they view as a viable tunnel. And the commitment from the city that they're asking for is within the next six months – seven months, October 1st being the drop-dead deadline that the city finds a – or gets a commitment with a private partnership for a viable tunnel alternative, which they outlined the considerations for. But if we do not meet that deadline, that the city no longer opposes the county's intention to pursue what they believe to be the most prudent and economic system for crossing the tunnel, which is a bridge-crossing option. So in terms of the extension, this particular provision in the letter, if there is a response that needs to be had, that needs to be clarified strongly by the city that – that drop – what they're saying needs to be the commitment by the city at the end of the seven months. It's great. How do you want to respond? Absolutely. Fantastic. I'm happy to ask the county to include in the language of if the city is making substantial progress, that they would be open to extending that deadline. So you want – so in their paragraph, they said here – So the city would not be committing to supporting the other option at the end of the seven months period? Okay. I think your offer – let's see. It's on the last page, the top paragraph. Yeah, hold on. On the county letter. Let me get that. I believe that the county – yeah, I got it. I believe that the county's consideration of further delaying its identification of the preferred crossing method of the new river will be based on the city's commitment that if it cannot provide a viable tunnel alternative for the county's consideration within the next seven months, the city will no longer oppose the county's intentions to pursue what it believes is the most prudent and economic system for crossing the new river, which is a bridge crossing. That is the poison pill. Right. And that's what they are willing to extend. And I'm happy to work to get – So we'll have to change that. We'll have to change that paragraph. Yep. They'll have to change that paragraph. So let me just go – Got it. Let me go through my letter, and let's just see what you find – what you find uncomfortable with and what you're comfortable with. Okay. So I'm reading from page two of my letter at the top. Your letter speaks of, quote, the uncertainties to date of the viability and costs associated with a tunnel alternative, unquote. Well, the same holds true of the latest iteration of the bridge concept. The county has not proven that its four-track concept is constructible, nor that you have shown that what disruptions would be created for car, pedestrian, rail, or marine traffic during construction. You also have not provided an in-depth, comprehensive cost analysis that includes the bridge construction, the iconic features they promise, a commuter station, and the promise underpasses at critical intersections. Do you find that to be untrue? So why are we still talking about the bridge, Mayor? They're talking about the bridge. We're not. They are. So why – they are giving us an opening to push forward with the tunnel. All right. So paragraph – that last paragraph that we read that's at the top of page three of their letter, that has to be modified because they're saying that their tunnel alternative is the most prudent and economic system for crossing the new river when, in fact, they've never given us anything. On any basis, there are no facts and figures to support that position, and that's all I point out here. Sure. I completely understand, and my suggestion is yes – so they're saying two things in their letter. They're saying yes, they think the bridge is the best solution, right? The most prudent and economic system. Absolutely. So they're saying that. Got it. They're also saying we are open to the city pursuing a tunnel. Yeah, but we're not there yet. We're not there yet. So – We're not there yet. But that's why I don't think we need to address the bridge because we're already past that and able to drive towards the tunnel. Are you willing to accept the bridge if they feel that – if they feel that a tunnel is not viable? No. I do not want a bridge. Okay. I want a tunnel. So we have to point out to them – I'm trying to – I'm trying to take their letter and address each of their conclusions that I feel have no basis in fact. And I just want them to come back to us and say these are the bases in fact upon which we are asserting our position because the public needs to know how is it that they get from a statement like most prudent and economic system when they have absolutely never submitted any concept whatsoever that has been created by any consultant or bridge builder. to support any of the analyses that they have put forward to us in the past. They've done absolutely nothing except just generalities and assertions. And then yet they expect us to come up with detailed analyses within seven months, okay? And you're saying, okay, well, we can maybe massage that deadline. But I'm wondering, based on the way they're approaching it in their own language, whether they will ever agree that whatever we come up with is ever going to satisfy them. That is my concern. Yeah, and I think it will satisfy them when we show the viability of the tunnel. And they will, I think, with – when seeing the progress we're making in the viability, I think their bridge arguments will dissipate. Okay. I really do. Let's continue. Further, it has not been demonstrated whether these underpasses are indeed constructible and viable. Okay. Finally, it has not been conclusively proven that these multiple bridge structures and the equipment needed to operate them can be placed entirely within the right-of-way owned by the Florida East Coast Railway. In other words, everything I mentioned earlier in terms of the underpasses, closing down Broward Boulevard, the barges that have to be placed in the river that are not in the right-of-way, they have to be placed in the river in order to construct these bridges, none of that has been addressed in their letter. Then I go on to say, even if I were to accept the comment as true, that the county could choose a bridge as a locally preferred alternative over our objection, I strongly doubt if such a decision would be received well either in Tallahassee or Washington. You'll recall that in their letter they said, well, we really don't need your opinion, but we're just putting it out there. I mean, for them to say that is so offensive. Instead of saying, look, we want to work together with you, but just keep in mind we don't have to listen to you. I mean, that's at the beginning of their letter. And so you talk about good faith? Come on. All right. Mr. Mayor, can I interject real quick? Yeah, go ahead. So one of the, I guess, questions I have is there's some ambiguity on the interpretation of the letter and the spirit of the letter. And so from a staff-to-staff perspective, I think we can follow up with them and get that understanding. And what I would like to do. Clarification. Clarifications, yep. So one of the things I'd like to ask the commission is, rather than focusing on the letter response, is there a conversation or discussion that could occur with staff and the commission on how we should respond to the county attorney's office on a proposed resolution and what the city would or wouldn't accept in a resolution, then we can take that back. We can work with the county attorney's office on a potential draft resolution or at least make our points known of what we would or wouldn't put in a resolution should that happen. What I might suggest, in fairness to you, is to take my proposed letter, not as an official response from the city to them, but use it as a guideline to address each of these points and see if we can then incorporate them in a mutually agreeable resolution that makes sense for us to go forward. And it cannot have the language that Duane talked to us about. With their draft, it is not acceptable to us. Exactly. So I think one of the important things that I need direction on in terms of what the commission thinks a viable tunnel project is, so the county kind of outlined what that is, the time frame for it. Duane, it's a very good question, because what is viable in our eyes versus what is viable in their eyes? In their eyes, a viable project is two years to construct, all right? No real price point put on there, but they would agree to give up to $250 million towards the construction. Guaranteeing that the maintenance would only be $250,000 a year, when we know it's never going to be $250,000 a year. We've been told by Chris Hodgkins it will probably be about $1,000,000 a year. So who's going to make up that difference? And the impact that it would have on our city, the ability to build a tunnel without any measurable impact on the neighborhood. And then somehow we're to prove to them that that's a better approach than if they were to build a bridge. But they're not defining all those same elements on the bridge side of the column and the impact that the bridge building would have. They're just assuming that there's no excessive financial impact on the surtax money and that somehow anything that we would do would be far more expensive than what the bridge would be. Well, we all know that the tunnel is probably going to be more money. But they don't talk about the longevity of a tunnel versus the longevity of a bridge. They don't talk about the fact that the bridge is going to have to come down in 50 years because it's going to fall down and that the tunnel has twice the lifespan. So we're going to talk about building in the price of what it's going to take to build a second bridge in the year 2075 using $2075. I mean, none of that is even discussed. So I guess what I hear from you is moving from their position, which is a default position, to the bridge, to a resolution that points out what we view as a viable option for either crossing. They need to demonstrate for the bridge certain items. We need to demonstrate certain items for the tunnel to be chosen as the LPA moving forward. And so would we subject them to the same time frame? Would we both have the same time frame for providing these deliverables within this window? I think what's fair is fair. I don't – I disagree, Mayor. I don't – they are comfortable with us moving forward with the tunnel. Why prolong the entire process by asking them to do some further evaluation and spend taxpayer dollars on studies for a bridge? When – because they want to put a bridge – they want to put a bridge through our city. They don't. They're open to us doing a tunnel, Mayor. They really are. They really are open to us doing that. So I will – Ben, I will read you – So I will read you this. In terms of getting the resolution, so the way that I read the proposed – well, I don't have the proposed resolution, but they're asking me to kind of glean what the resolution would look like from the letter. The way that it reads is if they want to get this project moving, they are already set with the bridge as a solution, but are willing to go with the tunnel if the city can meet certain threshold criteria within a seven-month time period. If the city does not do so, they want us to agree in this commitment of a resolution that we will also go with the bridge solution. So that's why I'm trying to – Are you okay with that? If we're crafting – if we're crafting joint resolutions, I want to get a clear direction from our commission as to what is it that we want the county to do in this relationship. So they are very clear on what they're requesting from us in terms of deliverables. Do we have deliverables from them, or are you just saying that the opportunity to prove to them that the tunnel is a viable option is – Yes, I don't think we need to – right now, I don't think we need to have them stipulate the – what their defense is of the bridge. Let's have them focus on supporting us in the tunnel effort. But where are our deliverables, though, in terms of what DeWayne just mentioned? They want certain deliverables that we can show them that the tunnel is the option. Yeah, they want commitment from FECR. Why can't we give them all of those deliverables? Yeah, agreed. And just move forward and not even acknowledge, Mayor, that the bridge is an option. Agreed. Well, but you heard what he said. But we're not going to agree to that language at the end of that resolution. We're going to just push forward and say, here are the deliverables you want. This is why the tunnel is the way to go. End of story. But we also need all of our friends in the community to push as hard as we are, everyone from the Broward Workshop, everybody that – all of the connections that these folks have as well. But I think – can we give them the deliverables that they're asking for on the tunnel? I think we can get the majority of the commitments, yes, in the next six months. So that's what we should be pushing for. Agreed. Well, I – but that's – I mean, the point – I guess the – I guess one of the points that the mayor raised, for example, for the – what they've defined as a viable tunnel option has that 24-month period for it to be fully operational. Is that something that we need to – Well, that's not realistic. So that's what we're saying. There are terms here that they have already defined as a viable tunnel alternative that they want us to memorialize in the resolution. And I'm asking you all to tell me if this is viable. Is it viable to get a tunnel done in 24 months? When we get them the deliverables that they want in terms of why the tunnel is the way to go and we get them all of that detail, why aren't we also getting from those same folks the timeline in which this would be operational? Absolutely. That's all. Yep. Yep. Agreed. But the default language, we all agree, is not acceptable. Correct. Correct. The default language is not acceptable. Sure. So add some flexibility in the timeline. Yes. But, okay, let's take this – what is the end game here? So let's say we come up with criteria, we check certain boxes that we feel would be the correct approach to building a tunnel. And let's say they come back to us and say, we don't find that acceptable. And so we're going to assume you're going to want us to build a bridge. And obviously we're going to say, no, that's not the – that's not what we're concluding. We're just saying this is what it's going to take to build a tunnel, and we want you to partner with us. Right. And they're going to say, well, we're not going to do that. So where have we gone? Because you know they're going to say that. I don't think they're going to say that. Well, let's see what they're saying. Let's see. Let's see. We have to lay out our case. Chris Nelson, would you take bets with me? We have to lay out our case. A little too soon. Yeah. A little too soon. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So – But I think that we really have to prove our case. We have to have everything, all the T's crossed, I's dotted, all of our experts. We have to make the case. That's all. Okay. So we'll do something in very general terms. I mean, I think we should take what Ben Rogers says, and that is – I mean, he's still standing there, the poor man. If we could let him, at a staff level, work out a resolution, okay? Great. You've heard the conversation. You've heard our concerns. And let's not do anything tonight. We're just going to – now you've heard – I think you understand where the commission's mind is at. But at the end of the day, the bridge is not a default option to this commission. We know that. So if I can just point by point in order to help us out with this. So in terms of the commitment that this has to be a P3 proposal, the city's okay with that? We're okay with that. Yeah. That means like an unsolicited proposal? Yes. And solicited a proposal for this. Yeah. In terms of getting written approval from Brightline and FECR, confirming that we can use it right away and that Brightline will only use this as the sole means for their services to cross the New River. Are we okay with that as a commission? Yeah. We basically already have – we're already making progress with that. That's never been a question. Exactly. So great. Yep. Great. All right. You've already said 24 months is not a viable solution. That's a non-starter. And I'm already getting feedback from the county saying that, hey, flexible on two years. So they're flexible on the two-year commitment you just said. And we're okay with whoever our partner and the P3 provider having 30 years of experience with operating railroad tunnels under navigable waterways. That limits it to one person. You know, you can't – where does that 30 years come from? Tell me why that's – All right. So we'll scratch that. Scratch that. But let's change it to whatever is the right – mayor, you know better than I do – legal term, substantive experience or whatever. Yeah. Whoever has substantial experience. Are we limiting it to railroad tunnels or tunnels, period? Because I know your prior discussions have been for operators that – for instance, we've always talked about the folks that built the Miami tunnel. I don't know what their experience with railway tunnels have been or – Would just be with tunnel operation. Tunnel operations. Okay. I'm not sure what this one means. Commit to no less than 90 percent – 99 percent tunnel annual availability schemes that minimize disruptions to all passenger train operations. I'm not quite sure what that is. So, Mayor, again, as D.U.N. is going through these bullet points, I think the commission feedback is important. But I also want to make sure there's flexibility for staff to hash out some of these things. Because, for example, in the letters for Brightline or FECR, some of their opinions might be based off of what the final design is, right? So their letters might have a lot of contingencies, as Commissioner Sorensen said, his conversations with FECR. And what I don't want to do, to your point, Mayor, is provide a letter that has contingencies in it and then the county not accept it. So why don't we just do something very simple? Why don't we just pass a resolution saying that the city commission will maintain its commitment to working with the county in trying to secure a viable tunnel option, okay, and will do so within the next seven months or as long as it takes to establish that viable tunnel option. Why do we need to do a resolution now? I don't know. They seem to want one, so. No, I don't think they do. No, they want one at the end of the day. So I think we've gotten some direction on these key terms, and I'll work with staff on that on April 1st if we need to bring a resolution forward at that time. Great. Yeah. Mayor Furze's last line said our county attorney's office is ready to work with the city attorney's office to draft appropriate resolutions that can be brought to our respective boards for consideration. So I don't think we have to do anything now, you know, laterally. Well, but do you want some direction on it? I think we're giving it to him. Yeah, I know. But then also Mr. Rogers wants some direction too because he's going to be working with them. Right. But I think you've heard the conversation. I think they get it. And you've got the gist. Yeah. I think we have a basis to create the resolution draft and bring it back to the commission for feedback on April 1st. Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Good work. We're heading in a good direction. So just talking to the city attorney, the county's expectation might be that it is a joint resolution that mirrors each other. So obviously that's going to propose some challenges. And one other thing I'd like you to do, since somebody has contacts with the – I ate them all. Since somebody has contacts with the U.S. Department of Transportation, from what I'm hearing, I'd like to know if Mayor Beam Furr's interpretation of a locally preferred alternative can be so vague as to say simply that an LPA means only that we jointly agree in having commuter rail through Broward County. Does it require us to choose a tunnel versus a bridge as a so-called alternative? Because my understanding and my talking with the Department of Transportation these last four years has been that locally preferred alternative means either a bridge or tunnel. It doesn't mean just in general we prefer commuter rail. So we need some certainty on that because if we have to choose one or the other when we make a statement about jointly agreeing to a locally preferred alternative, then all this is meaningless. Anyone else wish to speak on this item? Did you sign up? Thank you, Mr. Rogers. Hello, Chris Nelson. I see not much has changed since I went away. We can use some rehabilitation ourselves. All right. Maybe Elon Musk will invent a hovercraft to go across the bridge as a viable alternative, right? But from what I understand is that this is something that we need to have funding from the federal government for the Broward Commission to even take a look at. And I'm surprised that it didn't get done in the last four years. I don't know why it didn't. Because we could not agree on a locally preferred alternative. Well, not going to do the bridge is what you guys said. So it's either tunnel or bust. But put yourself in the shoes of the Broward Commission. By the way, Senator Blazingolia has put forth some legislation to cap the amount of time that people can serve in office at 16 years. And that should go down to the commission level, too, because a lot of these guys, they've been in office for a pretty long time. It would be nice to see some new blood over there on the Broward Commission. They have a 12-year cap also. Okay. Because they go from senator to state rep and to commission and to that commission and to this. Oh, it's 16 years for public service in everything or just in the one office that they're holding? I think – no, everything. But I think his bill is just legislative. I don't think it goes all the way down to the county. I need to read it. But it's advanced out of committee. I think that's a great idea. But anyway, putting yourself in their position so you don't have another joint meeting where barely anything gets done like the last one. It was just – I don't know if anything ever came out of that. But you've got people in the Broward Commission that are representing different areas that they don't think this pertains to their constituents in any way because they're like, okay, I represent Coral Springs and Parkland or Pembroke Pines. You know, Gellar represents Pembroke Pines. Why should Gellar vote yes for this if it's going to put his people on the hook for maintenance of this thing and they don't – he doesn't see that they live there? I'm just using him as an example or that the tunnel is going to matter to the people he represents. Because I'll tell you the response to that. But the surtax money is based on sales tax, and 25% of all that surtax money comes from Fort Lauderdale. So if the Cooper City people think that they're paying for Fort Lauderdale, they're really not. In fact, we are a donor city. The amount of money we collect in our city actually is not really spent in Fort Lauderdale. It's spent to help other cities, which we're happy to do. But at the same time, we want to protect our own folks and do the right thing in our own city. Well, they need to see that their constituencies are going to benefit from this tunnel, and also they need to see that the federal government – now, I see we're paying a new city manager $350,000 a year, so I don't know if this was going to fall under her purview. But is there a system for approaching the federal government, or I don't know who Trump put in charge of the Department of Transportation. Was it Hulk Hogan or something? I don't know who he put in that position. Why does the city manager's salary have anything to do with this, and why would you mention that? Well, I mean, if she's the one that's going to do this, she should earn her keep a little. Is she in charge of – See, I guess a lot has not changed with you, has it? Boy, it's a shame that you haven't learned anything in the last four months since you've been away. It's really a shame. I'm done. It's okay. Oh, Commissioner, I see nothing's definitely changed with you. All right. All right. But if we're going to be paying somebody this much, is it her job to – what I'm asking, is it her job to go to the federal government to seal a deal with them to get them to cover this thing? Because I believe that is the key, if Vice Mayor Glassman is interested in getting this tunnel, that that is the key to getting the county to get on board with this. Sure, Chris. So it's – yeah, good question. So it's all of our responsibilities, especially as your elected representatives up here, to engage across government entities. So a chunk of this money will come from the federal government. So that's where we're engaging. Secretary Duffy is the head of the U.S. Department of Transportation. So it's engaging with him, which we've already started to do. So that's part of it. It's engaging with FDOT, State Department of Transportation, right, which we've already started to do. Some good conversations there. Funding will also come from the county. It's engaging with the county, which we've done and will continue to do. It's funding from the city, which we're working on. So it's going to be all these entities all working together, man. So we're already – we're on it. And if you want to be part of it, love to have your help. I would love to. I think a tunnel would be a cool thing to have. Okay. We're going to count you in. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, appreciate it. Okay. All right. Moving – that's it. Anything else, Susan, you want to add to this? Dwayne? Anything else? No. Okay. All right. We'll bring a draft back at the meeting on April 1st. Okay. Okay. Commissioner Reports. Commissioner Beasley-Pittman. Let's see you follow that action. Exactly. Thank you for this time. This discussion, we know, has been for a time period. Since I've been here, this has been a major discussion. So not surprised of the time that we spend on it today. But moving forward with opportunity to share my reports, we'll start with March 5th. Attended the 17th Annual State of the County Forum. Always impressive with the information that comes out and that is shared through the forum. Always engaged with what they share pertaining to the 33311 area, which is a large part of our city. Highlighting those areas that we know to have need and need areas of attention. Dealing with early education, dealing with job opportunities, dealing with also economic development. So with that being part of that conversation, I know as a DAIS, as a commission group, this is something that we will also pay attention to, to begin to move in a direction where we are addressing those deficits as well. But wonderful event. I'm not sure who else was there. It was huge. There were so many people in that room. It was a very large room, and we were in different locations. I think 800. Yeah, it was. Well, I do know the mayor was there. I was there. The mayor did the pledge, so I will. Yes. I do remember him being there, reciting the pledge. And again, it was a great opportunity to hear the state of the county. Also, on March 6th, with my responsibility as being a member of the Broward League of Cities, I did attend the monthly board meeting. It was hosted by the city of Lauderdale Lakes Mayor Veronica Phillips. Also, as a member of the board for the Broward League of Cities, I have been recently appointed to the Broward County Water Advisory Board. In this role, I have the opportunity to discuss all things water. All things water is the term that was shared with me. I actually did attend the first meeting last week with them. Also, Abby from – hey, Abby – from Public Works, she's a part of that board as well. I'm really excited to be a part of it, being appointed to learn and be able to give our input from the city as to everything water, what we're doing to preserve our water, the water tables, and even how we are experiencing climate change and how we are going to address it overall for years to come. So I am now a member representing the Broward League of Cities as well as the city of Fort Lauderdale with the Broward Water Advisory Board. Can I ask you, in your discussions, if you could ask the group to entertain a discussion on how we're going to better drain the area between Edgewood neighborhood and the airport? When we had the flooding on April 13th of 2023, one of the big problems was not just the amount of water we got, but also our drainage capacity. And it seems that our drainage capacity is deficient in that part of the city, which caused much of the flooding in the Edgewood neighborhood. So if you could bring that up as a point of discussion, because the Osceola Creek is just not adequate, and we understand that the county recognizes the need for a pumping system to help push the water out into the ocean and actually through the canals and out of the ocean, but they haven't funded it. Okay. A study has been completed. It just hasn't been funded. If you could bring that up and see where the county is on that. Okay. I will do that. And as I said, first meeting, what I've done, I request minutes for the last year. I can see what has been discussed. Okay. Thank you. And also to be on the same page where we are and what may not have been addressed for our city as well. So I can add that. Thank you. Okay. All right. Also, moving forward, on March 7th and March 8th, regarding our St. Patrick's Day festivities and activities. On that Friday, we gathered and we actually did the street striping. Great event. And also the parade, always a wonderful event. I'd like to share with everybody, if you weren't there, you didn't get an opportunity to see our Ben Searnson and his green shamrock blazer. You have to see this. You have to look at some pictures. But Ben is always sharp when it comes to that. So you have to see it. Thank you. You have to see it. I appreciate that. The vice mayor may not agree with you on that one. I'm sure we'll see it every year going forward. Don't worry. Thank you very much. Don't worry. But you have to see it. I agree. I agree. And I'm going to have to do a little better. I'm going to have to get a hat and then come a little better. Come on. We'll be twins. It's a little hard with my updo, but we can figure out something where I can be a little bit more festive. I will say I really enjoy this parade. It's the neighbors, everyone who comes out to participate. Really have a good time. And it's a great day within the city where we come together and have a good time representing and enjoying St. Patrick's Day. On March 10th through the 12th, I actually traveled to Washington, D.C. for the National League of Cities, the Congressional Conference. Great event, as always. This year, as a conference, we were addressed by Vice Mayor Vance. He, during the conference, he addressed and highlighted information pertaining to President Trump's agendas, again, about homelessness. Well, excuse me, about deportation, about homelessness, in a sense, and just sharing his time to talk to us, about 15 minutes. In the past, other speakers were like 30 minutes, a little longer. So it was a short encounter, but we were able to hear him address the audience. Also, attending that meeting or that conference was Daphne Sandville, along with Susan Leon, and then also from our police chief, Stephen Sherfo. So we had a good representation there and had an opportunity to meet with Sheila McCormick. She was there. We had an opportunity. She actually came over to meet with us at the Florida Leagues of Cities reception. Hill Day, we had appointments with several representatives, and that went well also. Okay? So great opportunity. On Saturday, coming back Saturday, March 15th, had our opportunity to participate in the Trailblazers of Fort Lauderdale. Their actual name is the Trailblazers of Broward County, but organized and founded in Fort Lauderdale, always sharing information regarding the Trailblazers and all those pioneers here in Broward County who have set and done great accomplishments in our area. It was an opportunity to show homage to the Sankofa Bird Monument, which is on Six Trunk right at the railroad tracks at the Six Trunk Park. Thank you to the staff and those who, when they understood that we were having this event, they went out and they actually cleaned the monument. It's been a while since the monument had some maintenance, and it looks amazing. It looks really good. It's shiny again. So getting a lot of conversation and a lot of input for the thank yous regarding that. And this event is slated to be annual. It was on delay because of the pandemic with COVID and everything, but the goal is to get back on track. So next year, hoping that with everyone's schedule, that we can see that that is in its entirety there to be a part of the event. Also, on Saturday, March 15th, had a great opportunity. One of our neighbors in Lauderdale Manors, the family of the Kates, Robert and Jerry Kates and family, they host a front porch roll call with our police. And this is something, an initiative, I should say, that I'm really encouraging the neighbors in District 3 to participate in. It's an opportunity where we invite PD to come over to the home, and the neighbors in that area get to meet and have a conversation with the officers who are patrolling the area. Great turnout, great opportunity, great fellowship. A lot of times, you know, we see the officers in passing, but being able to put an actual face and a name to the face and begin to build relationship. And that's one of the things that we are really, overall in District 3, hoping to build that gap where we have that true relationship with law enforcement. And we do have an additional one that's going to be this Saturday as well. So looking to let this be something continuous, something that we're seeing often within the district from the north end, central, and the south end of the district. So thank you for PD for being a part of that. And then also to the Cates family and Lauderdale Manors for hosting at their home. Also Sunday, March 16th, I had the pleasure of reading a proclamation that was issued through our mayor's office at our request for Mount Nebo, Mount Nebo Missionary Baptist Church, celebrating 100 years in the city, in the community. Always been a beacon of light, beacon of hope in the community, servicing, providing services, impacting the community tremendously. And it was an honor to be there to present them with their proclamation, acknowledging 100 years. And that's amazing to me. Stuff like that made me think about 100 years ago, what did Fort Lauderdale look like? How did you travel around? And then being in a community at that time, due to legislation, how things were actually moving about, and now today that there's more liberty, and we're able to move about more freely. So this was a great opportunity to be a part of that history. I want to remind everyone, on March 21st, Broward County Animal Care has a pet clinic that will be host at the Tyrone Bryant Branch Library, which is at Oswald Park. It is an opportunity for pet wellness clinic. They're doing sterilizations. Also, it's an opportunity for vaccinations, microchipping, and also vaccinations for cats. These services are free for the vaccinations for the dogs and the cats, and microchipping is free. That's major. So if you are in need of that service, understand it's being offered, Oswald Park at Tyrone Bryant Library on Saturday, March 21st. It's 10, 30 to 2, 30, okay? And I believe that's it, Mayor. Okay. All right. Thank you. Vice Mayor? Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Saturday, March 1, attended, Mayor, I know that you were there as well, the Stonewall Library Gala, a really nice turnout for a very important venue. I think the largest of its kind, or one of the largest of its kind in terms of LGBTQ archives in the country. It's the largest. It's the largest? Yeah. Well, there you go. It is the largest. Wednesday, March 5th, as Commissioner Beasley Pittman mentioned, was the Broward Workshops, Broward County State of the County Address. I think they were like, I heard 1,100 people were there. Was it 1,100? Yeah, some of our closest friends for breakfast. It was really nice. Yes. I'm thinking about 1,100 I heard. Yeah, that was incredible. And I thought the speaker did a really interesting job. The data that was presented in terms of all of the economic impacts and just the growth and the trends and what's happening in our county, I found it really fascinating, and really I thought they did a really good job with that information from the state level. That day I also attended the International Swimming Hall of Fame Board of Directors meeting. And that night a really nice event put on by History Fort Lauderdale, honoring women trailblazers in our city and county. And that was a really nice event and perfect fitting for Women's History Month. Thursday, March 6th, was the grand opening for the Pier 66 site. Quite a gathering, an amazing crowd, and a really good vibe there in terms of what has happened on that site and really well attended. As Commissioner Beasley Pittman mentioned, Friday, March 7th, was the street striping across from Tunnel Top Plaza, also on the 8th, the St. Patrick's Day Parade. Always so much fun. Again, thank you to everyone involved in that. Great community spirit. I think that was probably the largest crowd I think I've ever seen for a St. Patrick's Day Parade. I don't know if anyone actually measures the number of folks that come to these parades, but it looked really, really busy and crowded on both sides of La Sola. So kudos to everyone. It was a beautiful day. Monday, March 10th, I participated on a panel at the Greater Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce's Real Estate and Construction Council. It was an excellent panel, and we talked about a lot of issues with regards to growth and development in our city. So thank you to that council and, of course, the Chamber of Commerce as well. Tuesday, March 11th, attended the relaunch for the Las Olas Isles and Boulevard magazine. That magazine covers District 2 and District 4 primarily, but also covers a lot of city issues as well. It's a really well-done publication. I want to thank George and Ann Mihai for all of their work over the years in building that publication into what it is and wishing Tracy Roloff all the best and her new team for the relaunch of that magazine. And I'm sure that it will continue to be one of our premier publications in the city. So good luck to all of those folks as well. Tuesday, March 12th, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Sailboat Bend Civic Association meeting. Always a really good discussion, and thanks there. We always attend at the historic firehouse, and that's always a great place to spend some time. Saturday, March 15th, Mayor, thank you for your remarks that evening as well. I attended the Human Rights Campaign's South Florida 2025 dinner. The Human Rights Campaign, for those of you that do not know, is one of the nation's largest LGBTQ plus advocacy organizations, and they do a tremendous amount of work throughout the country. This was basically the South Florida dinner. Very well attended. A little under 500 folks gathered at the Marriott Harbor Beach. Some excellent speakers. Congressman Maxwell Frost, I thought, did a great job that evening from Florida speaking to the folks in attendance. Sunday, March 16th, I want to thank the Hendricks Isle, Isle of Venice Neighborhood Association, for inviting me to speak at their annual meeting as well. And I want to thank all of the staff that showed up that day, taking time on a Sunday to be with that neighborhood association. It was a beautiful day. We covered a lot of ground. So, again, thank you to staff for that, and thank you to that association led by the President, Debbie Isinger, for inviting me to speak and address all of the issues and questions that were on everyone's mind. This Thursday, I will be presenting a city proclamation at Jewish Family Services annual gala. They're going to be honoring. We're going to be honoring the Goodman family for all of their philanthropic work in the community. The Jewish Family Services does an amazing amount of work for folks that really are in need, and they always step up to the plate. It's a great organization, and the Goodmans are very much responsible for all of the success and the philanthropy that goes along with that organization. So that will be this Thursday. Friday, March 21, I will look forward to being with all of the school principals from Fort Lauderdale at FXC. They are going to have their meeting, and I'll be welcoming them and looking forward to seeing them on that day as well. I do want to just take a moment, some comments. I want to thank Mary Pelican for her service on the Council of Civic Associations as the departing president. She did a great job in her tenure in that role. And I want to congratulate Bill Brown, the president of the Central Beach Alliance, who will be taking over as the new president of the Council of Fort Lauderdale Civic Associations, and to all of the neighborhood presidents and representatives that serve voluntarily on that council. Again, Mary, thank you very much for your service and what you did in your tenure as the president. I'm also very happy to report that actually a couple of years ago I met with the FDOT secretary, the developers and staff. We talked about trying to fix that intersection of Sunrise and Federal as you come across where Searstown around the curve there and head south on Federal Highway. I didn't really want to wait until the Searstown project got going to really make that a very attractive area, and I'm happy to report that very shortly we will be seeing those medians as you make that curve and head towards downtown. They will be landscaped. FDOT will be responsible for maintaining those medians for the first 12 months, and then our city's Parks and Rec Department will be maintaining that. So look for that installation to begin next week. That should make that area much more attractive. You know, FDOT did a great job on the addition of the lanes there. Traffic moves much better. Where is this? Right on the curve of Federal and Sunrise. If you're coming west on Sunrise and then you curve towards downtown by Searstown, south on Federal. Well, all those medians that are there, bare now, they're all going to be landscaped. Okay, good. Eventually, the developer has agreed to also public art installation, and that will be a really nice gateway, entranceway feature into our downtown as you approach that area from that Flagler Village spot. I never understood why they cut those trees down to begin with, but there were some beautiful trees around that curve a few years back, and they cut them all down. I think it had to do, though, with the addition of the lanes and just – Realignment? Yeah, and all of that realignment, but they'll be adding landscaping now. You're going to put them back there now? Okay. Yeah, not those same trees. Okay. But they will be landscaping and making that a much nicer area. And I've already spoken with staff about Sear Bo Pen archeological testing, but, again, I want to make sure that we don't make living in a historic district too onerous for folks, and I want to make sure that we can do what we can to help them identify what's happening with archeological testing and saving them from perhaps always having to appear in front of the Historic Preservation Board, but I have discussed that with staff. Pat, I want to thank you for the report that the commission received, but I do have a few questions. You gave us a report comparing Lockhart Park and our agreement and all of our dealings with Inter-Miami in comparison to what's happening with Inter-Miami in actually Miami, Freedom Park, I think it's called. Again, I went through that several times. I thought it was very detailed. I really enjoyed reading all of that. But my question is why. I don't understand what the actual purpose or conclusion was. Is there anything that we should be taking away that I just missed or that should be jumping out at us about that comparison between our Lockhart and also Freedom Park? Because they're such different animals. It's like comparing apples to oranges, the scope of the work, the dollars involved. But I don't know exactly what it proved. Right. I guess it was in January of this year at the commission meeting on the 7th, Commissioner Herbst asked about a comparison. And so I didn't really get too deep into it, so I thought he would send me a memo or something about it. And on February 18th, he said, what's the status of the comparison I was asking you for? And I said, well, I can put something together. I thought he was going to send me some specific more details. But he basically just wanted a comparison. I wasn't sure why he wanted that. So I went ahead and got some information. I knew our city's information, and I got the information from the city of Miami basically through their procurement department and a couple people that helped me from there. And then I just wanted to give a comparison because, like you said, it's two different apples and oranges. You've got something that's really completed and that we've been using for almost four years or almost five years now and something that's not even completed yet or built. So I think he wanted to know the terms. So I took, like, 21 of the main terms between our comprehensive agreement and their agreement and just put that information. And there wasn't really a specific, in my point of view, a conclusion that I wanted to make other than basically, you know, one has the potential when it's completed to be probably better compared to what we're doing. But our point was, you know, from what I'm trying to point out is that we built something to meet their needs that was supposed to be temporary with certain benefits to them and to us. And then their all-along plan was to build a soccer arena in their project down there. So I'm not sure. I hadn't gotten any feedback yet from Commissioner Herbst. But I was basically also trying to follow the city's charter as to, you know, responding to Commissioner's requests. Again, I've probably done, like, seven or eight of these over the last two years on basically requesting an answer or a follow-up to a question or, and I don't look at this as an audit. It's really not an audit following, you know, our generally auditing requirements. But I try to just kind of give an update on that, and that's what I tried to do here. But, you know, I would like to get with Commissioner Herbst and see if this was what he was looking for and that it suffices what he was requesting. Because usually when you do give us reports or audits, there's a lot of give and take. There's a lot of back and forth. There's a lot of finding of fact. There's also, you know, to your credit, areas that you point out where maybe we could have done better or the city can do better. And then we get managers' responses oftentimes to what your findings were. None of that was involved in this. This was just a simple. It was just a commission memo responding to a specific question of what were some of the term differences and the terms between our agreement and their agreement. Okay, and just one last question. How many hours was spent on that report? I would say my time and some typing time and some review, at least like 25 hours, something like that. All right. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it. That's it for me, Mayor. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Commissioner Sorensen. Thank you, Mayor. I had a good meeting this last week with the Coast Guard, the Marine Industries Association of South Florida, to talk about 17th Street Bridge and how possibly exploring, like, efficiencies and opening and how possibly open less. So good conversation, more to come there. That would be nice. But wouldn't it be, yeah, just there's got to be some synergy. It wasn't supposed to open at all. Yeah, yeah. Well, so that was positive. The Coast Guard has been amazing in our conversations. Milos and Ben have been part of that. So good progress there. Las Olas is getting paved, as you all have probably seen, which thank you, city staff. It's amazing. Really looking great. Thank you, the businesses. Everyone's been working together, communicating. So that's just very, very exciting news. And then lastly, at our Lauderdale Isles Water Management District, we met with a living seawall manufacturer. I don't know if you all are familiar with this concept. It was basically the idea you manufacture with environmentally friendly concrete living seawalls that allow marine life and marine plants to adhere to the marine, the living seawall, promote more growth, more marine life quality, and so forth, while also mitigating wave impact and so forth. Anyway, great conversation. We're piloting that effort in coordination with Church by the Sea on the Barrier Islands, so very exciting and possibly exploring, also doing that on the seawalls of Riverwalk, so just a great way to really further protect our environment. One of the things that was brought up to me is the city or town of North Bay Village, they have a 40% rebate for their permit fees for living seawalls. So, in other words, when someone installs, instead of a regular seawall, a living seawall, the city reduces that permit fee by 40%. And so I was just wondering if that's something maybe we could look at as a possible incentive for better caring for our marine life. I think it's a great idea. Is that something like that? Is that all right? Okay. So, Susan, is that something we can kind of look at? Yeah, we'll add that to the follow-up list. Okay. Great. Thank you, Mr. Cooper. Oh, Chris looks like he is. Yeah. Mr. Cooper wants to weigh in on that. Yeah. Oysters. Oysters. So, as we go through that evaluation, I just want to remind the commission that when we look to offset an enterprise fund like the building fund, we have to look for funds to subsidize the loss of revenue to that program. So, there are some general funds associated with the review of a seawall permit. But when we bring that back to you, there may be a cost associated with waiving or reducing certain fees for those projects. Well, if you could estimate what would be, yeah, what the estimate would be for the impact so we have a better idea, is it $50,000, $5 million, you know? Yeah, so our building permit fees are roughly based on a percentage of the overall value of the project. So, I think it's like 1.2 percent, 1.25 percent. So, that gives you an idea if it's a – Yeah, we'll bring you back the map on that. I don't know how much the seawalls are going to cost. Okay. Thank you. Great. Thanks, Mayor. Thanks, Chris. Appreciate it. Lastly, Mayor, I have to go pick up my daughter from school. Is there any way we can go – do we have – I think is CRA the only last meeting today before the 6 o'clock? Correct. I'm going to give you my Uber card. Please. She's 8. Can she take Uber right now? Yes, she can. She's 8. Okay, good. Can I – What time do you have to leave? I can – maybe like 15 more minutes. Okay, we'll get to this. Is that all right? Okay. That's all I have. Thank you. I'll be quick. Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate it. All right. Okay. Just want to point out a couple more things. First of all, the vice mayor mentioned the grand opening of Pier 66. I don't think people really appreciate what really went on there. Over a billion dollars was invested in that site, and it's been, you know, in need of redevelopment for so many years. And, you know, I'm so thankful that this community can support an investment such as that. But not only that, but for investors to look at Fort Lauderdale to see that it's worthwhile for them to invest that kind of money into our city. My hat's off to our city staff and our neighbors who continue to make Fort Lauderdale such a great place to live and work and travel and invest in. And I just think that, you know, we've just got to keep this momentum going. And clearly they've been very successful and continue to be successful at that site. We didn't mention the Employee Appreciation Day. That was March 7th, yes. That was a great day. We saw hundreds of our employees appreciating each other. And I think that we, as a commissioner, as members of the commission, truly appreciate everything that everyone does day in and day out to make our city as beautiful as it is. We also, this past week, entertained a delegation from our sister city, Duisburg, Germany. The mayor was here with about 20 other people from his commission. Their city commission is over 120 people. So imagine getting consensus there. Yeah, I know. It's almost like a legislature. And, yeah. So they were here last week, and we're very happy to host them. Thank you to Daphne Sanville for taking them around town and showing them a good time, from what I understand. On March 11th, I attended the police department promotional ceremony at the Lauderdale Yacht Club. Certainly a heartwarming event for our city to be able to see such dedicated individuals who continue to serve our city and to keep it safe. And thanks, Chief, for inviting me to that event. I appreciate it. And it was certainly a wonderful opportunity to see and meet with families whose family member was recognized that day. I also attended last week the Beaux Arts of Fort Lauderdale charity lunch benefiting the NSU Art Museum. That was at the Crystal Ballroom. Anyone ever been to the Crystal Ballroom there on Federal Highway? Yeah. Yeah, it's a – That's the old sublime restaurant. The old sublime restaurant. Well, I've never seen so many crystal chandeliers in my life except maybe the – at Versailles in Paris. That's probably why it's called the Crystal Ballroom. You know what? Yeah. That's why they pay you the big bucks. You think these things out. Okay, thank you. I also was a participant in a panel discussion on the state of the county that was hosted by Keith & Associates. Along with myself, there was the state representative, Chip Lamarca, as well as the new mayor of Deerfield Beach and several other people. So it was really great to participate in that conversation. This past Saturday was the Florida AIDS Walk, hosted by AIDS Healthcare Foundation. Hundreds of people participated and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, which AHF matched dollar for dollar. So we're very thankful for that, especially as we hear that the current administration is planning on reducing funding for HIV prevention and research. So we're very thankful to everyone who participated and donated to that event. So, yes, I did attend the HRC dinner this past Saturday as well, and I want to thank the organizers for asking me to give the opening remarks there. That same evening, I attended, along with Commissioner Sorensen, the NSU Art Museum fundraising banquet to recognize the new Cristo exhibit that is now found as permanent place, permanent home here in our museum. It was a great event, and meeting with a lot of great people, wonderful, organized event that the museum has done. Let's see. March 25th, we have the Fleet Week kickoff reception. That's at 6 p.m. at the Allied Kitchen store at 616 West Oakland Park Boulevard. Everyone's welcome to attend. March 26th, we're holding a reception for a Brazilian business group, along with the Council General from Brazil. Excuse me. Yeah, Council General from Brazil at 6 p.m. at the Tower Club. That's March 26th. And then, last but not least, March 29th, our City Employee Family Fun Day. That starts at 10 a.m. at Snyder Park. Hope everyone can attend. Great day to get to know one another. All the employees get to have a fun day with one another. There will be rides, food, and hopefully it will be a beautiful, sunny day like it has been these last few weeks. So, having said all that, I have nothing further. Madam City Manager, any thoughts? Yeah, just a brief report on some current legislation that's pending regarding CRAs. City staff is watching it closely. The current legislation that's on the table would prevent new CRAs for forming, wouldn't let new ones form after July 1, and would basically put an ending date for all CRAs at 2045. We're working on the legislative end to provide some amendments to that legislation and also with the League of Cities opposing the legislation as it exists. Right. But on top of that, though, go ahead. Yes. We're working very closely with the county. Had conversations with them today with a goal of getting our ILA for the renewal of the CRA completed before the summer break. So, yeah, we're doing on both ends. Okay. So, we want to be able to complete our efforts to continue our Northwest CRA and to be basically grandfathered in so they won't be impacted by this new legislation should it be passed. Absolutely. So, we're doing parallel paths to make sure we're doing both ends. Okay, great. Thank you. That's all I have. Okay. Duane, do you have any comments? Nothing from me. Okay, great. Thank you. All right. So, the conference meeting is now concluded and will now go into our CRA board meeting. Mr. Clerk, would you please call the roll? Commissioner Herbst is not present. Vice Chair Glossman? Here. Commissioner Beasley-Pittman? Here. Commissioner Sorensen? Here. Chair Trantals? Here. So, moving on to our agenda, we have M1, motion approving in minutes for the February 18, 2025 Community Redevelopment Agency Board Meeting. Minutes. Someone would like to approve? Move to approve. Second. Move to seconded. Please call the roll. Commissioner Sorensen? Yes. Vice Chair Glossman? Yes. Commissioner Beasley-Pittman? Yes. Chair Trantals? Yes. And M1 is now approved. M2, motion approving a $225,000 property and business improvement program forgivable loan, $125,000 non-residential facade improvement program forgivable loan, and a $54,562 streetscape enhancement program forgivable loan to Call of Africa Realty for the renovation project located at 920 Northeast 13th Street. Do I hear a motion? Do I hear a motion? Yes. Second. We moved and seconded. Any questions? Please call the roll. Commissioner Sorensen? Yes. Vice Chair Glossman? Great project. Yes. Commissioner Beasley-Pittman? Yes. Chair Trantals? Yes. Thank you. And M2 is now approved. Thank you for your patience here. I know you got here early, but it's now been approved, so make it look pretty. M3, motion accepting the Fort Lauderdale Community Redevelopment Agency's annual report and audit report and authorization to transmit to the taxing districts. Do I hear a motion to approve? Moved and seconded. They moved and seconded. Please call the roll. Commissioner Sorensen? Yes. Vice Chair Glossman? Yes. Commissioner Beasley-Pittman? Yes. Chair Trantals? Yes. And M3 is now approved. Moving on to R1, resolution amending the interlocal agreement, ILA, with Broward County to extend the duration of the beach area of the Community Redevelopment Agency, a non-tax increment finance basis, for an additional two years to allow for the completion of CRA-funded beach area projects. Keep in mind that this is not to add any additional funding to the projects. This is just to take the existing funding and to complete the projects that are already in process. Does someone like to introduce the resolution? Introduce. Resolution has been introduced. Anyone have any questions? There being none, please call the roll. A resolution of the Board of Commissioners of the Fort Lauderdale Community Redevelopment Agency approving a first amendment to an interlocal agreement among Broward County, the City of Fort Lauderdale, and the City of Fort Lauderdale Community Redevelopment Agency for extension of the term of the Fort Lauderdale Beach Community Redevelopment Area and providing an effective date. Commissioner Sorensen? Yes. Vice Chair Glassman? Yes. Commissioner Beasley-Pittman? Yes. Chair Trentals? Yes. And R1 is now approved. R2, a resolution approving a 10% increase in the sales price of single-family homes constructed by the Fort Lauderdale Community Redevelopment Agency's scattered site infill housing developers. And they include Oasis of Hope, Lemon City, the Fort Lauderdale Community Development Corporation, and WWA Development. And to authorize the Executive Director to execute any and all related instruments and delegating authority to the Executive Director to take certain actions. Would someone like to introduce the resolution? Introduce. It's been introduced. Anyone have any questions? Boy, if you can build those houses at those prices, that would be great. Someone sign up to speak? Okay. Just for questions, Mr. Gibson? Where are you, Mr. Gibson? He left. Mr. McNair? Just for questions? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Wait a minute. One more person. And Edgar Palencia? Again, just for questions. Are you still here? Yes. Did he leave? Oh. Oh, okay. Great. Okay. All righty. There being no one else who signed up to speak, someone like, sorry to be introduced, so please call the roll. A resolution of the Board of Commissioners of the Fort Lauderdale Community Redevelopment Agency amending resolution number 21-05 approving an increase in the purchase price of residential homes for the scattered site infill housing project delegating authority to the Executive Director to prepare and execute an amendment to each development agreement and other documents delegating authority to the Executive Director to take certain actions in providing for an effective date. Commissioner Soardson? Yes. Vice Chair Glassman? Yes. Commissioner Beasley-Pittman? Yes. Chair Trent Hulls? Yes. And that resolution is approved. Is there any further business of the Community Redevelopment Agency Board? There being none, that meeting is now concluded, and the evening meeting will commence tonight at 6 p.m. Thank you. Thank you.