The City Commission meeting this May 6th, 2025. I hope you've all recovered from us. You can't hear me? You're all better off. Can you turn up the mic? Is that better? Okay. I hope you all recovered well from Cinco de Mayo celebrations. Anyway, we're here to discuss a number of important topics here this afternoon. And I'd like to begin with the communications received by the Commission. We have one from the Infrastructure Task Force Advisory Committee. And is Peter Partington here? Oh, Peter. Hi. Want to come up to the podium, Peter? I see that a motion was made and approved by your committee and unanimously to discuss the future of the Infrastructure Task Force. I know your most recent work was in connection with the advisory capacity that the board played in connection with the City Hall project. So tell us a little bit about your thoughts, the committee's thoughts, and let the Commission have the chance to respond. Can you push the button at the bottom? Sorry about that. Thank you, Mr. Rogers. So the Infrastructure Task Force was set up with a specific task but has been reactivated, so to speak, at yearly and, more particularly, to yearly intervals. Our tenure ends in February of next year. And the Task Force believes there are still ongoing things that are needed to be done. And we would like to discuss the idea of, rather than being reactivated for a year or two years at a time, that you create a board related to infrastructure. And some of the things that we're currently doing, we're monitoring the City's consent orders. We're tracking progress on the bond-funded projects. We provided input, of course, on the public-private partnership for the water plant. We needed monitoring sewer and water breaks. We're looking at bond fund expenditures. And we have, when requested, taken input on major projects, such as City Hall, the water treatment plant. And we're also reviewing, particularly, the capacity of the Lomire sewage treatment plant. So those are the sorts of things we're doing on a kind of an ongoing basis. And we think it's necessary that they continue. The phrase I would use is that we think that we act as the conscience of the infrastructure. So we would like to discuss the creation of a board to do this. Three of the members, I should emphasize, are term-limited out at the end of the year. But that's kind of irrelevant. You know, it's better to bring in some new people. But it's the creation of a board, specifically, that we wanted to discuss. Okay. Thank you, Peter. Does anyone have any questions of Peter? Anyone from the commission? All right. So I do. So, first of all, Peter, thank you for the work you've been doing consistently since the beginning of the establishment of that task force. And I want to thank every member of that committee who has really devoted a lot of time and attention to a lot of crucial projects that the city has going forward. David, when does the committee sunset? Do you know off the top of your head? Nonetheless, as the committee will probably sunset soon, is there any appetite on the commission to continue it, to allow the committee to continue to do the work as defined by Mr. Partington, as they monitor a number of the projects that we have going forward? I would think that, considering your background and the background of a lot of people who are part of that committee, your expertise is definitely welcome. But, David, when is it? February 18, 2026. 26? Mm-hmm. All right. So it's a little less than a year off. But you're asking for an extension today. Yes. Ben, did you want to say something? Sure, but go ahead. Go ahead. No, no. I'm finished. Go ahead, David. We're not really asking for an extension at this point, but we're just aware of the February deadline, and we're saying rather than get close to that and then, you know, have that discussion, are you going to reactivate it for two more years, should we now have a discussion or soon on creating a board? Oh, on creating a board in a permanent capacity? Yes. Ah, okay. So, folks, what are your thoughts? Yeah, so first, Peter, thanks for all your work and the whole task force. I think it's important work. I like the idea of exploring permanency for the task force and transitioning it into a board. Dwayne, what's the process for creating a permanent structure? So you can adopt an ordinance creating a board for this purpose. There would be a new advisory board, and you would outset the purpose of that board in terms of the task that you would like that board to do. We had a similar situation where we had the sustainability advisory committee, and we converted that to a board some years ago. Can you, is the appointment process one where you can appoint current members to that newly constituted board? The newly constituted board would, you would appoint new members to that board. So they would start with fresh terms, and you could start their consecutive term limitation from the point of appointment to that new board. Right. Okay. Thank you. So that means that they are reset, they can start over? Is the time clock? Essentially, you can appoint members of this task force to the new board. To the new board. But also keep in mind that this is a committee, not a board. So if there was a person sitting on this committee that would now be converted to a board, and they were on another board, they would have to quit one or the other. Right? That's correct. Okay. Is it possible, D-Wayne, that we could actually, so we can continue the discussion? And by the way, thank you, Peter, and thank you to the entire task force. I think the work over the years has been invaluable. I would like to see, though, in writing something that shows us exactly what does it mean if we change to a board. In other words, how would their advice to us, how would their function change? What really is the difference between them being a task force versus them being a board? They're a committee now. No, they're a task force, I thought. It's a task force. It's a task force. In terms of how we treat them, we see it as akin to a committee. Our committees are set up for a specific purpose and for a shorter period of time than a board. A board is a longstanding advisory function here in the city. What I'm hearing in terms of what the request is is just the duration part of it, asking the city to establish an advisory board that has a standing, establish it as a standing board rather than a committee or a task force, in this case, with a shorter duration of time that you would have to consider each time you come up to the expiration or the sunset date. What have we been doing? What have we been doing? Two years we've been extending? Every two years we've been extending them? I'm not sure. David, do you know when they first were created as a task force slash committee? I thought it was 2018. Was it 2018? Can I take a go at that? I think about 2017, you set the task force up with a specific list of tasks which they accomplished, if you like, and brought back to you. And then ever since then, it's either been two years or one year reactivation. But you've been in existence for eight years? Yes. Okay. I think their work is valuable, very valuable, and I have no problem if we want to go in that direction of an advisory board versus a task force slash committee. But I think that we can't, whatever we have to do, we definitely have to extend past this coming, was it January 2026? Yes. February. All right. So does anyone else have any comments? Do you want to say anything else? I'm standing in agreement with this opportunity to make it become a board. So the information that Commissioner Glassman has requested, I think that's a good direction to go in. All right. So perhaps you can bring back an ordinance establishing the infrastructure task force committee as a permanent board. Sure. Okay. But along the lines also, I'm sorry to interrupt, but, DeWayne, can we also get some sort of, I don't know whether you want to call it a matrix or a fact sheet or whatever, but I would like to see exactly what additional responsibilities, roles, powers that we would be creating and making it a board as opposed to them just functioning as a task force. Understood. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else on the, okay. Very good. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Commissioners. Thank you, Peter. Thank you, Mayor. Okay. This afternoon, we have the opportunity to listen to three people who would like to give neighbor presentations. Our first neighbor presentation is from Tucina Martin, who'd like to talk about traffic, building, flooding, and emergency responses. Is Tucina here? Ah, come on. Did I pronounce that correctly? Okay. Thank you. Welcome to the Commission. Please proceed. First, I wanted to thank the commissioners for allowing me to speak on behalf of Monroe's Manor's HOA board and our community. To be respectful of the time limit we've been given, I've broken down the speech to the major issues impacting our community, and that require your partnership support and timely intervention. First point of action is our declaration and covenants being approved to protect our HOA and the privacy of our community. Action point number two, infrastructure changes to utilities, roads, lighting, and drainage. It's crucial to maintain safety and property values, and we also urge the commission to consider neighborhood input before approving new projects that impact density and green space in our community. Action point three is public safety, which is always a top concern. With increased traffic and occasional crime, stronger police presence and traffic calming measures would make a significant difference for us in our community, and we look forward to work together on these priorities to ensure our neighborhood remains safe and thriving as a part of this city. And that is a simple hello and thank you from the Monroe's Manor's board and the community and myself. So, Mr. Martin, have you had a chance to connect with the district commissioner, Pamela Beasley-Pittman, to discuss these matters? I have, and Ms. Pamela Beasley-Pittman has been absolutely phenomenal. And there is a thank you letter that goes with each of the packets that you received outlining all of the departments that we've worked with and that they've been instrumental in helping us to be able to prepare for this commission meeting. And when you're ready, we can actually go through the action points in the packets that I provided. Mr. Martin, I want to thank you for coming out this afternoon to discuss these matters with us. As you said, we have been in contact. We've had a conversation. And Mr. Martin is a new elected HOA president, a civic association president. And his direction that he's taking the community in, we're really excited. Because we do know that hearing from our neighbors is what keeps us in a position to align with what the neighbors are looking to achieve. So, you're off to a great start. And we get great feedback from the neighbors who we've been in contact with before your appointment. So, this is a great direction. And thank you. And the one comment about being a part of the input of what's coming to the community, as you know, we're working diligently to make sure that you're at the table with whatever's coming forth. And that's one of the main things that I drive for. You know that. Yes. I believe that anything that we're doing in our neighborhoods, we as those HOA civic association leaders, we need to be at the genesis of the conversation. So, when it comes to me and it's something that we know moving forward, we invite you to the table. Also, I'm not sure if we had this part of the conversation. I always invite our civic association presidents to find volunteers from our neighbors to be a part of those development review panels that we have through the planning and zoning. And that is an excellent place to be at the table. You get the opportunity to say, well, instead of a palm tree, I like a tree that gives a little bit more oxygen. So, again, great direction. And I look so forward to working where we can be what we need to be in this city and in our community together. Absolutely. Well, certainly we appreciate your coming today and bringing to the attention of the full commission all the highlights of the priorities of the neighborhood. Thank you. You know, Merrill's Manors became a part of Fort Lauderdale. I forget what year. It was an annexed part of the city during the early 2000s. And we have our work cut out for us. There's no doubt about it. And you have a great commissioner to work with, and she's on top of everything. And I think that working with her directly and her bringing to our attention the priorities of the neighborhood is how we're going to best accomplish the goals that you've come here to accomplish. So does anyone else have any questions for Mr. Martin? Mayor, one thing before you. If I'm not incorrect, we can do a fact check, but Merrill's Manor has always been a part. I thought they were annexed. That was Park. Merrill's Manor. Merrill's Manor has always been a part of the city. Okay. So I like to use the term, we are children of the city, so we should be embraced. Okay. But I want to make sure we acknowledge that for the clarity of it, because we've always been a part of the city, not part of the annex process. Got it. Thank you. Do you have anything else you'd like to add? Well, I wanted to make sure that we are clear that we're making the declarations and covenants that we adopted through our voting through the HOA community and through the board, and also that we did it under Title 40, Section 720, under the state-approved guidelines on how we're supposed to do it. And for that, we want to make sure that the city knows, because it does require us to make sure that it's made publicly and it will be going on our website. And on the papers that you were given on point number three, it's about the traffic by Walmart, which is Broward Boulevard on Southwest 27th, going north and south. We are requesting traffic studies and then also traffic devices in that area to help mitigate the problem. There's a map on page. Is this traffic coming out of the shopping center? So what it is is on Southwest 27th, you have traffic going north and south across Broward Boulevard. Right. And then you have vehicles within the plaza going straight across 27th, where they're not supposed to. It's only supposed to be northbound traffic. And you have them going across. They're cutting across to the other corner. Yes, and it's very dangerous. So I've outlined some plans, and I've also emailed the plans in PDF format to your team. Is there no median barrier there? Nothing. It's wide open. So that might be a solution. Yeah. All right, well, your commissioner can work with our transportation and mobility department and see what best solutions we can come up with to help mitigate those problems. Okay, and I do have one more question. Go right ahead. Another major concern we have is currently in our neighborhood, we have FPL and AT&T upgrading utilities, and they're asking for easement access on the properties of our homeowners. One, we didn't receive any notification as a board or HOA community that this was going to be done. And I did read that under the state and federal guidelines that we cannot stop the actual utility companies from coming in for the right of easement, but we can ask for information prior to them coming in and digging up the neighborhood and requiring our homeowners to sign papers without any explanation. So is there anything we can do to maybe get a representative from FPL or AT&T? Can the city help with that? Because we've tried to reach out, and all we got were blank faces and stares. Through Public Works, we can put out a request to have them attend your civic association meeting so you can get clarity and get a full understanding of the process. So we'll work with city manager to get that accomplished for us. That's awesome. Thank you. All right, great. Is there anything else? No, that's it. You guys have been awesome, and I want to say thank you guys. Thank you, Mr. Martin. We appreciate you coming. Mr. Martin, let me just ask one question. Yes. Thank you for being here. D. Wayne, question just on the declarations and covenants adoption. Is there anything else they need to do, or is that all making sense to you in terms of? So I haven't seen the document, so I'm not quite certain what the community is requesting in terms of a declaration. So we're not requesting. We're giving public notice that we've adopted our declaration and covenants through our HOA community, open voting with yeas and nays, and also through the board. So the community adopted because it was not present. So we're adopting declaration and covenants, which allows us to put our privacy policies and everything into place to limit solicitation. They need to record it in the public records? Yes, and it will be. Okay. And one other suggestion, you know we talked about this before, make sure that we become members of the Fort Lauderdale Leaders of Civic Associations. Yes. Okay? And that way we'll be in the opportunity to grow and gleam off of whatever else is being offered through that organization. Thank you so much. We will. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Martin. Thank you. Okay, moving on. Neighbor presentation, Barry Solomon, regarding a request to change policy regarding adjustments to high water bills caused by leaks. Mr. Solomon, are you here? Not you. Not you. Okay. Okay. It is an issue. I mean, we've been trying to address this for a very, very long time, and we're hoping that the rebuilding of our meter system over the next 24 months will help alleviate a lot of the anxiety and expense that many of us have suffered and expense that many of us have suffered. Neighbor presentation number three, Linda Patrick, regarding the Borrow Pit Reclamation Project and the Rock Pit Lake rezoning. Is Linda here? Linda, hello. Patrick is from District 3 as well. Yes. Well, I can tell she has some pretty glamorous sandals on her. Good afternoon, everyone. I have a short DVD. I mean, thumb drive for a short video. Can we help her? Okay. Before we do the video, I would like to say good afternoon to the mayor and all of the commissioners. My name is Mrs. Linda Patrick, and I'm the president of Lake Eyre Civic Association. I stand before you today on behalf of all the concerned residents of the neighborhood surrounding the Rock Pit Lake. We are here to express our strong and unified opposition to the proposed ProLogix project, which seeks to rezone this critical area for warehouse and residential development. This proposal threatens to bring irreversible harm to our community. The anticipated increase in traffic congestion along 31st Avenue, Wingate Road, Northwest 19th Street, West Sunrise Boulevard, and West Oakland Park Boulevard will create dangerous conditions for pedestrians, strain our infrastructure, and degrade the quality of life for everyone who lives and works in these neighborhoods. Rock Pit Lake is not just a body of water. It is an environmental buffer that plays a vital role in flood protection during the intense rains and storms we frequently experience. The ongoing excavation and filling of the pit have already caused ecological disruption, releasing toxins into the environment, and endangering local wildlife. Residents have reported serious illnesses, including respiratory issues caused by dust and debris from these activities. These are not isolated incidents. They are a growing public health concern. At our recent meeting on March 13, 2025, with Commissioners Robert McKenzie and Pam Beasley Pittman in attendance, our community made it abundantly clear we categorically reject any rezoning of this area, including proposals for designated three to five acres for single-family homes or townhouses within a warehouse district. This is not compatible with the well-being of our community. Commissioner Pittman has publicly voiced her support for the residents and her commitment to standing with us. We thank her for her support and ask that this commission as a whole reflect that same commitment in its actions. We urge you to consider what is truly at stake, the health and safety of your constituents, the protection of our environment, the preservation of our neighborhoods. We ask you to listen to the voices of those who live with the consequences of these decisions every day. Do not allow short-term development to destroy the long-term stability of our community. We deserve clean air, safe streets, and peace of mind, not warehouses and traffic. Thank you for your time and for your service to the people of Fort Lauderdale. Great. Thank you. Do we have the video prepared? Yeah. I mean, I feel like even if information came out that it could potentially hurt the surrounding area, they might still push forward and still do it. Yeah. I was told that some people, that's sick and died. I really don't know. Oh, yeah. It was definitely contamination. That's why they closed down the incinerator. But I do have a respiratory problem. I didn't have it before I moved here. So it's definitely our first option is to fight so that we wouldn't have to relocate or anything like that to protect our family. Hi, I'm Josephine Clark. My name is Jim Swanson. Robert Ricks. My name is Eddie Campbell. Can I call you Ms. Campbell? Yes. Air area. Well, before I moved into the house, my godmother lived here. We're talking over 50 years. Over 50? Yes. Well, of course I enjoy the lake, but there is sadness, I believe, this is from me, from the lake. My godmother and her husband died of cancer. The neighbor next door, the husband died of cancer. The one on the west side of me died of cancer. The people that live, a couple, died of cancer. And I have a respiratory problem. I'm not going to say that I got it from here, but I do have a respiratory problem. And I didn't have it before I moved here. And I've been living here, say, at least 15 years or more. The incinerator used to be over on 31st Avenue when I first bought back in 72. And they closed it down. And then it was contaminated. So when they closed down the incinerator, they even capped it because they wanted to keep whatever was there, you know, any chemicals or anything that was there under control. They had the incinerator back there at one time, and that was a problem. But once they got rid of that and they kind of cleaned the canal out, everything seemed to be fine so far. Okay. When you say canal. Yes, I am. Oh, yeah. It was definitely contamination. That's why they closed down the incinerator. Can I ask how long this video is? And I guess some type of a runoff or something. Can we pause the video for a second? How much longer is this video? Because we're really only given four or five minutes for neighbor presentations. Can we – I mean, I see that we're three, we're almost four minutes into it. It's another 12 minutes. It's kind of taking up all of our time. But can we – can you email to us this video to each of the members of the commission so we can see it set privately? I think we got the message. Okay. All right. Okay. But – and we appreciate you bringing – does anyone have any questions? Go ahead, Ben. Thanks for being here. Appreciate it. Just so, Mayor, I'm a little bit more educated, can you share with her, maybe Raquel or whoever might know, a little bit more about what the proposal is or what the project is? I think the project is to fill in the lake, as I understand it. Is that – is that – Chris? That's happening now. While we're waiting on that. They're working on it. They're filling it in now. They're filling it in now. And you don't – and the message I'm hearing is you don't want it filled in. It's a contaminated lake. Chris, give us a little update. There's a development project for Prologis over there. So Prologis is looking to come in and add some warehouses to it. That's right. They want to fill in a portion of the lake, and they're doing that. Which is part of the plan that the previous developer had. They were already planning on filling in the lake and had a permit to go ahead and do that. Prologis came in and is continuing with filling in the lake and hopes to build warehousing there. That's the general concept of the project. Okay. Well, Chris, is that – because we were under the impression that this is still an opportunity that has not been signed off. The owner of the property still owns it. Prologis seeks to purchase it. Is that correct? I'm not 100% clear on the ownership at this point in time. Okay. What I do know is – That's what we've been discussing. Right. That Prologis does not own the lake or they're waiting for it to be filled in. Yes. And that's the concern of the neighbors. Right. So Broward County permitted – that's through their regulatory function, the filling in of the lake. The development of the site will be within the city's regulatory purview. There's some land use and zoning conflicts for what the – at least the proposed development is that will have to be overcome. So there's processes in place that will come before ultimately you as a commission to make some decisions on in the future. But they're, I think, pretty far out from that point right now. Chris, I have a question because I'm hearing conflicting information on the dais. Does Prologis have anything to do with filling in of the lake? I don't know that at this point. I'd have to – I'd want to verify that before I put that on the record. So I can speak to that in the sense Prologis is, I believe, under contract with the owner, but the owner is the one that is filling in the lake. So the proposed project that we're hearing about with the warehouses has nothing to do with filling in of the lake? I know that the owner is filling in the lake. Which is not Prologis. Correct. Okay. Thanks. I guess you have some people that want to help out with some of the facts here. Do you want to come up? Give us a little – the reason why I want to give this oxygen here right now, because I know it's going to come back to us. So let's see what the story is. Can you please state your name for the record? First of all – Hi, Mayor. Is it but – okay, great. April Young. Hi, April. Vice from Lake Air. To address the commission, Prologic is actually owned by the owner, and there is a lot of mixed and conflicting information to this matter. So the owner himself actually owns Prologic. So there's an entity that owns the site today, but you're saying that entity is owned by Prologic? You have an individual. Right. Which is the owner. Okay. And then he has other companies that are actually – he's the owner as well as the president. Okay. Okay. So – So – but to your knowledge, the project is intended to fill in all or part of the lake? Is that what you're saying? Well, according to what was actually stated, and that was a question because of the runoff of the lake and what it does over there for the area in the community itself when it rains, it was said that he had intent to fill in the complete lake. So what I heard from the video, the part that we listened to, was that the lake is contaminated. So would filling in the lake help reduce the exposure of the contamination for the neighborhood? Right now, Commissioner and Mayor and everyone that sits on the panel, I would definitely like to enlighten you. The fact of filling in the lake is not an issue to, say, fill in the lake. It's bigger than that from the fact that you are now disturbing all the contamination that's on the site. And what the community is really concerned about is the fact that now that it's being disturbed, the more havoc and the more concerns that they had previously are more concerning because the remedification or the remedy that was established has not been conclusively satisfying. Okay. So there are still yet concerns in reference to that, and knowing that what's going on now, a lot of health hazards have been escalating to the point that the people are bawling, not because just filling in the lake, but the disturbance of that area and not having a conclusion. Okay. All right. That helps us. All right. Does anyone have any questions of Linda or Commissioner Beasley-Pittman? Is there anything more that we need to add to this conversation at this point? At this point, both Linda, Ms. Patrick, and April, they have expounded greatly on this. And as has been said, I stand in agreement with the neighbors of the community. Their concerns are valid. And knowing that we will discuss this in more detail as it comes forward. And I applaud you for getting in front of this because we know that this has been a discussion for a moment. And now that we see this action moving where plans are being made and things are in place to change the desire of the community, which includes a zoning change. And that's the key part that we're trying to avoid. That's ultimately what we're dealing with here, not just the filling in of the lake, but my understanding is that they want to rezone it so they can build certain types of structures there, including storage and retail and some other things, as well as housing. Which would disregard the restrictions that are currently there and override or mask the problems that are current. All right, so obviously this is really early in the conversation, but as the commissioner said, it's good that we're getting ahead of it right now so that the process can include the neighborhood and making sure that the neighborhood is finding the future use compatible with what the expectations are. So stick with your commissioner and help everyone through this process and you're welcome to come back again and give us a heads up of what's been going on. But the representative from the developer spoke with me today and is very eager to continue the conversations with the neighborhood. All right. Commission, Mayor, may I also address the fact that currently on to the site, there is a lot of activity that is current. The numbers for medical going to the hospital for respiratory is a concern and we do know that it's a hash area. So we have what you call dust balls that are going out in the air. So you're saying that the dust in the atmosphere is causing health problems? Definitely. Is that right? Yes, sir. Yes, that's correct. Yes, ma'am. And just as this last seven days, we received complaints from our office of the dust cloud and the dust that was floating in the area. So just validating what they're saying. Chris, do you know anything about this? Yeah, that's what I'm wondering. This is not the first time I'm hearing this because when I went to the neighborhood meeting a few weeks ago, I was informed of this and I thought we had resolved it. I know we've had our code enforcement, especially our building code enforcement, visit the site. Again, this permit itself for the fill of the lake, which includes filling and capping so that it can be contained within the lake, is regulated through Broward County and FDEP. So any sort of ongoing potential environmental concerns, we would want to refer to that agency to regulate. But we have been out there in terms of the dust, construction noise, things of that nature. Well, I mean, it doesn't sound like we're being too successful at it because the dust is still permeating the atmosphere and it's not getting, it's not, we're not succeeding. We need to stop the operation until, you know, until we know that we've, we're going to be successful in mitigating the impact of the dust. I don't know what's contained in the dust. It could be just sand, but it sounds to me like it's, it's emanating from a contaminated site and it might contain toxins within the, within that dust. I don't know what's causing the dust. I know you don't. At some point, if it's capped, the dust could be what's being filled into the lake to backfill the space. We need to go and investigate. Oh, I see what you're saying. We'll investigate. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Linda, do you have anything else to add? We, um, we also have one resident, her car is two months old, brand new vehicle, and she works at night. She goes to the car wash in the morning to wash her car. By the time she gets up in the evening to go to work, car is covered with dust. Not only that, she says when she looked under the hood, it doesn't look like it's a brand new car. She has pictures. I didn't, I didn't bring the pictures. And then they have, we have pictures of all the dust buildup at the residence. All right. So, um, Mr. Cooper was going to work on that for us and, uh, stay in touch with him and his office, as well as, uh, Commissioner Beasley Pittman. And we should get an update, uh, in a few weeks and see what the progress is there. Because, because as Mr. Cooper said, the dust may be from the fill that they're putting in there, not anything they're extracting. So if the dust is from the fill, that shouldn't be contaminated, but it's still creating a mess. Right. Okay. Um, Mayor, um, if we could, um, Director Portia, she's been up to the podium twice, kind of hanging around. Can we hear what she would like to add to this conversation? Good afternoon, Mayor, Commissioners. I don't have anything to add. We have met with Ms. Patrick and Ms. April offline and will continue to do so. Okay. Thank you for that commitment. Thank you. All right, ladies. Thank you so much. Mayor, if I could just make one other comment. Yeah, go right ahead. Linda, if you'd just come back up here. So, at times during construction activities, what happened to your neighbor's car happens. And so a lot of times what we ask is that the construction company, the developer, help make sure that the residences, the homes, the cars are cleaned. Um, that they pay for that because it's a result of their activity, if that makes sense. Yeah. So that she doesn't have to do that. She shouldn't have to pay for those things herself. Does that make sense? That makes sense. So, is, Mayor, is the, do you know if the representative is here from the developer or is anyone? I don't, I don't see them here. You don't see them? Okay. So, Chris, if they're not here, um, Chris, could you put Linda in touch with the developer representative? And so what will, what we can ask and Commissioner Beats, we've been just an idea is ask for them to, you know, pay for the cleaning, uh, uh, that's regularly going to happen as a result of this is, is just a thought, uh, commissioner and Linda, if that's all right. Okay. Does that mean they're going to stop working? They're going to stop? I don't think they're going to stop construction, but we're going to, if I heard Chris right, he's going to investigate to evaluate. Are they in the Broward County doing the right thing and overseeing this? And, uh, you know, my sense is if things are, if they're not doing things the right way, that that would be one of the options. Absolutely. To stop it. Um, but if, if things are going appropriately, they still need to be making sure that, um, I think that they're paying for, uh, the dirt and debris that's, that's falling. Okay. And, okay. Another thing, are they allowed to work seven days a week on seven days and before the sun comes up and after the sun goes down? They're, yeah, there are limited hours. Let's get Chris. Could you come up for what the hours or Portia? If you've got workers that are working that way, I want them to have to work at my house. Good afternoon again, mayor and commissioners. I know this is a Broward County permit. We did reach out to their engineer, to their engineering or environmental area, and they shared that they increased the truck from 2,000 to 4,000 gallons for the water to contain the dust and debris. We can check with Broward County to see what the hours are for their construction, but for us, it would be 7 a.m. And to what ending time? I believe it is 6 p.m. Monday through, uh, seven days a week? I have to check seven days, seven days a week. Okay. Okay. Thank you. A lot. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And, um, Lake Air and the other surrounding community that's standing with us to do what needs to be done. Thank you. Mayor, thank you. You're welcome. Mayor, once we find out additional information, we'll share a memorandum with you all before our next commission meeting. Okay, great. Thank you. That concludes our neighbor presentations. We'll now move on to our conference reports, CF1 City Attorney Recruitment Update, Mr. Spence. Oh, no, it's Ms. Sorry. Jerome. Good afternoon, Mayor and Commissioner. It's Jerome Post, Director of Human Resources. I have for you an update on the City Attorney Recruitment, after which I'll ask you for some guidance on how you'd like to proceed. Just to give you a little history, the position was posted for 30 days from January 15 to February 15 of this year. The search committee that you had appointed met on February 11th and revised that recruitment brochure, requested the position be posted an additional two weeks until March 2. As of March 3rd, 52 applications were received. The search committee perused through them and narrowed those candidates down to 14 that they wanted to interview by virtual means. Search committee conducted those virtual interviews on over two days, on April 3 and 11. And from that, seven candidates were selected to be interviewed in person. Those seven candidates were scheduled to be interviewed in person on April 30th. And I will tell you that on April 29th, Human Resources staff received notice from three of those candidates that they were withdrawing from the consideration. So that left four candidates for the committee to interview on the 30th. And that remains as the four candidates were interviewed and they are recommending three for the City Commission. They eliminated one from that. The three remaining are included in your packet with resumes and applications, including in no particular order. It's simply alphabetical. No ranking was done. But Alexander Boxner, James Saunders, and D. Wayne Spence were selected to be interviewed by the commission. We have notified those three individuals that they should hold the date of May 20th, which is the next City Commission date, the meeting dates, that they're going to hold those dates in anticipation of a special meeting or however else you would like to interview. But we can arrange however you want to proceed from there. So I'm just looking for some guidance, how you'd like to proceed. Okay. Thank you so much, Jerome. I appreciate that. So let's hear from the members of the commission. You know, we can either interview these candidates. I'm sorry. I'm fully aware of that. Please don't interrupt the meeting, Mark. So we can do it in different ways. We could either have the commission collectively interview them in an open forum one at a time, or I can encourage the members of the commission to set up individual meetings where we each interview the candidates that we seek to interview on our own, which I think we did that with regard to the city manager, right? We did a public interview. You did both. I think both of us met privately. We also met privately. As you did with the previous city attorney search. Right. So what's the pleasure of the commission? Any thoughts? Mayor, I had a question. Jerome, did you get any feedback from the folks that dropped out? Why? Uh, yes. Actually, on the last three that dropped out, one accepted a position as deputy attorney general for state of Kansas. Another one stayed with his own private law firm that he was principal of. And then a third accepted another position with a private law firm that would pay more money. Okay. Thanks for that. Jerome, I just have one question. When I was reading the backup, is it customary for us to ask of the candidates that they would accept the position if given after negotiations? Is that standard, I was wondering if that had anything to do with maybe why people dropped out. I mean, is that normal to ask someone if you are selected, will you accept it after a contract is negotiated? It is not normal, but it was put in place at the request of the search committee, particularly the chair, Chair Weiss, wanted to make sure that there was some full commitment from the candidates because there were some inclination through the course of the interviews that perhaps not all of them were fully committed to completing the full process. And they didn't want to waste the city commission's time interviewing people who would just turn around and turn the job down anyway. Do the three people that withdrew at the last day say that they were fully committed to accepting the position if it was given to them? Yes, they did. Well, there you go. Okay. When you said there you go, what does that mean? Well, there you go. And meaning like, so what good did that question do? It didn't really accomplish what we wanted to accomplish and it didn't even matter. Could have just been simple that they changed their mind. Oh, I understand. But three of them out of seven on the day before the last day. I'm just saying it's interesting to note. I'm just noting it. Just noting it. In terms of the interview process, Mayor, I'm – I don't – I think the private interviews one-on-one is the most helpful for me at least. I'm happy to do the public in front of the city commission as a whole. But my needs are really met one-on-one with each of the candidates. That's – I kind of think that's the most appropriate way also. And obviously out of the three, we already know one. So – We actually know two because Mr. Boxner was interviewed by us as a commission back in 20 – was it 19? 2018. 2018, we actually interviewed Mr. Boxner. Well, maybe a refresher might be in there. A refresher's always good. Okay. So I'll take your suggestion personally. And does that make sense for the rest of the commission to try to meet these individuals one-on-one? And if we decide we want to meet them collectively, we can always do that. What are your thoughts, Vice Mayor? So I, as with the city manager, prefer to do it one-on-one. The only thing I will request is to see if we can push this to June. There's a fairly good chance I'm not going to be able to participate in the second meeting in May. So if we could move this to June, I'd appreciate that. Okay. So between now and then, then, we should try to meet with the candidates one-on-one. Okay. What is the date of our June meeting? I'm sorry. June 3rd is what looks like the first meeting. Thank you. June. It's an early meeting. I appreciate the opportunity for the individual interviews. We did both with the city attorney search, but also, for me, it was more productive for me for the one-on-one, because I was able to really go into my questions. And some of the things that we asked from the dais were, in a sense, repeat-type questions, and just to avoid a little redundancy. Okay. So, Mayor, would the idea be on June 3rd? Would this be a conference item where we'd discuss, okay, we've had the interviews. Discuss our conclusions that we feel resulted from our individual meetings, and then we'll make a decision on whether or not to go forward with any of them, or whether, you know, we'll see where we stand on any of that. I don't remember these other two folks, so I'd like to have that opportunity to meet with them. Just one question, Mayor. When we interviewed for city manager, we actually, that was the entire conference meeting. Are we thinking of doing that again, or just one agenda item of the conference meeting? Why don't we wait and see what experiences we have with our interviews, and then we can decide how to move forward, all right? So then we should try and meet with everybody sooner than later? Exactly. So that the conference meeting can be scheduled properly? Right. Okay. And again, just for clarity, at the conference meeting, there's no interviews. Correct. It's just a discussion. It's just a discussion. Right. Okay. Do we then want an evening item to appoint the person? It depends what our experiences are. We don't know if we're even at that point. You know what I'm saying, Jerome? Because I understand the committee ended up with three recommendations, but the commission has to feel comfortable with them. So why don't we not second guess what that is, and let's just wait and bring it back on the first meeting of June to be able to discuss amongst ourselves what our experiences were with the candidates and whether or not we want to move forward with any of them. Okay. All right. Very good. All right. Thank you, Jerome. Mr. Dickerman, you wanted to come up and speak? Mark Dickerman, city activist, resident of the city of Fort Lauderdale. A couple things. First, I had the honor of attending the committee meetings as a citizen. The process was fair and open, and I thank Jerome. He worked hard on this. I felt that of the three candidates, there's only two that I personally think are qualified. Maybe not Dwayne. I don't know. No. There are two candidates that you'll meet. I'm not going to name names, but there are two candidates of the three that I think are qualified. As far as the interviews, yes, one-on-one is important, but I think for transparency, you should have some other questions to be asked here in the open at a commission meeting. All right. Thank you so much. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak on this item? Okay. There are being none. So, moving on to business one, storm season preparedness. Who's going to be talking about that? So, I'll start, Mayor. Oh, okay. Yeah, right? The voice of God. So, we wanted to be transparent about our proactive strategies and resources as it relates to storm preparedness, given that we are in the rainy season and coming up to our hurricane season, which starts June 1st and runs through November 30th. So, this presentation will include several members of our team, including our public works team, Melissa Doyle, Fire Department, our Emergency Manager, Assistant Chief Jermaine Frazier, Parks and Rec, our director, Carl Williams, Transportation and Mobility, Milos Mastrojevic, and STRATCOM, Ashley Dessard as a director. She practiced that a lot. I did. I just want you to know. I really did. Okay. I don't know if I got it right. So, we definitely wanted to share that we are collaborating internally as well as externally with our various partners and to demonstrate the resources that we have. And I know Commissioner Sorensen, he was very instrumental in wanting to have this item on the agenda. And so, we wanted to share with you and the entire community about what we're doing to make sure that we're as prepared as possible. Great. Thank you. We have a video now that we'll share before Melissa comes up. Okay. My name is Ed Washeula. I work with the Stormwater's Inspection Team. I'm the Inspection Chief. I've been with the city of Fort Lauderdale for 19 years. And today, we're going to show you how we expect the storm drains throughout the city of Fort Lauderdale. Our team's out every day, cleaning routine areas and doing inspections. But we also will take care of our neighbors' customer service calls. There are nearly 10,000 catch basins in the city. And last year, city teams conducted nearly 20,000 inspections, a combination of proactive and reactive, which were in response to resident calls. On average, every catch basin is inspected twice a year to ensure we're always ready for the next storm. Okay, everybody always asks, what's a catch basin? Catch basin is a stormwater at what we call an inlet. And it's a structure that holds water and it helps the water travel through the gravity main. Right now, he's inspecting the drain to make sure there's no cracks or any discrepancies around the basin and around the apron. He's also checking to see the depth of the water. If it's a half a pipe, which we call the pipe is halfway or full pipe. And now he's using the sediment stick. What the sediment stick does is it shows us the depth of the water that's inside the basin is holding at the bottom of the storm. It's normal for there to be water in the catch basin because several things that may occur may be a tight influence area or it can be perforated pipe. And if it's a perforated pipe, it may take anywhere from 48 to 72 hours to drain. We receive a lot of calls about when the storm is coming, the residents want us to come out and clean their basins and make sure they're clear. But we do have areas that we take. We call them high impact areas. But we do not necessarily just go to every area. We have some areas we key in on to go out and check their basins. But if you see any type of debris in your basin, any type of vegetation, call us and we'll come out and make sure you get clean. We decide a catch basin needs to be cleaned when we see sediments, when we see a close amount of water, any type of debris on the inside as far as vegetation, anything like that. And we get a crew to come out with a vector truck and they clean the basins out. This box has sediment in it, too. So what we're going to do is we're going to reposition the truck, put it on this side, and we're going to clean this box. The cleaning crew encounters a blockage in your pipe, and an advanced inspection will be done by the CCTV crew. What they did was they put a camera in the ground, a robotic camera, and they went across the street up on the road to make sure the pipe was clean, doesn't have any cracks, doesn't have any deficiencies. That's the result of a clean pipe and a great piece of infrastructure in the city of Fort Lauderdale. We are MTL. Got to make it for short, people. So good afternoon, Mayor and Commissioners. Melissa Doyle with Public Works, here to talk a little bit about the city's readiness related specifically to our stormwater system. Oh, I'm going to let them pull up the flood deck. Perfect. So as you heard from Mr. Schuller, the city of Fort Lauderdale has a pretty extensive stormwater management system that includes, among other things, 200 miles of gravity pipe and more than 10,000 inlets or catch basins. Stormwater is multi-jurisdictional, with both Broward County and FDOT also having dedicated systems on their roadways within the city. Overall, the city's drainage infrastructure accounts for just less than 60 percent of the inlets and underground pipes in our city. We rely on our partnerships with the county and FDOT to respond to maintain their systems and to address flooding concerns on their roadways. As part of phase one of the stormwater master plan projects, Edgewood, River Oaks, and DIRS stormwater improvements are now complete. This includes adding three new stormwater pumps. Historic Dorsey Riverbend is nearing completion with its own new pump station that is projected to be online mid-October of this year. That is ahead of schedule. Improvements are also underway currently in Progresso Village, with about 25 percent of that underground piping already complete. Phase two improvements will be coming to this commission in June for prioritization. In preparation for the upcoming wet season, city staff will be inspecting all 200 tidal valves, as well as the sumps installed in our flood-prone areas. This includes Melrose Manors, Shady Banks, Riverland, and Edgewood, to ensure that they are ready to support floodwater removal if necessary. We will continue proactive inspections and cleaning of the city-owned inlets and are investigating opportunities to increase our inspections in our flood-prone areas during the rainy season. So, staff are always monitoring local forecasts from the National Weather Center, the National Hurricane Center, and the South Florida Water Management District. We check our USGS groundwater levels and review the NOAA tide gauges. We base our preparation for upcoming events on this critical information. Rain gauges associated with our SCADA system help us to monitor and understand the spatial distribution of rainfall across the city. The city has been working in tandem with Broward County most recently to deploy a flood sensor network on the flood-prone county road intersections such as Andrews and Broward Boulevard. We are also working with a local university to expand our rain gauge network. Our in-house resources include a total of 24 mobile pumps, 11 Vactor trucks, and 4 tankers, supported by our amazing 38-member stormwater team. The city also has numerous contracts available to augment these resources during an emergency. During any extreme event, many departments coordinate to identify areas of concern and respond. The existing stormwater management system was built to handle 3 inches of rain in a 24-hour period. Ponding of water on roadways from these types of rainfall events will clear without intervention most times. Most of the retrofitted areas under Tranche 1 and upcoming Tranche 2 of the Stormwater Master Plan are designed to handle 7 inches of rainwater in that same 24-hour period. In flood-prone areas with undersized or no infrastructure, we have to be able to not only remove the water but dispose of it. The city may be able to deploy pumping systems in coordination with the county or state to discharge that stormwater into their piping system should that capacity be available. The coordination with these other agencies is a critical part of addressing the flooding in the city's roadways. With that, I'll turn it over to Chief Frazier. Before we do that, go ahead. I just had some questions. Go ahead. Go ahead. Okay. Great. Thanks, Melissa. Appreciate it. This is great. Can you give me the numbers again that we have right now? Vactor trucks, how many do we have? I'm going to read it verbatim. It's 24 mobile pumps, 11 Vactor trucks, and four tankers in-house. And we have multiple contracts that are prepositioned in the event that we need additional assets, specifically pumps and larger tankers. Great. And are those contracts currently working in the – even with a massive weather event where other municipalities are going to need resources, they will still be available to us? And do you have the numbers on what will be available to us? I do not have those currently, but I'll be happy to get those to you. Okay. Great. Thanks. And then from – so on this slide, if I'm tracking this right, so for Vactor trucks, basically the points below are when they would be deployed. Is that right? Correct. When it's appropriate to use a tanker or a Vactor versus when a pump is more appropriate. Great. With portable pumps, in terms of prepositioning, what's our thinking or analysis or mapping of that? So the Public Works Department has a flood emergency response plan, which we update every year going into season. And as we continue to do work through, again, both Tronch 1 and now Tronch 2 of the Stormwater Master Plan. So we update those with areas where sumps, for instance, have been installed, where new pump stations or infrastructure piping has been put online, so that we always know where there's availability for us to be able to either place pumps or to know where the system has the capacity and perhaps can be handled with a Vactor truck or a tanker. Typically, we use only the trucks when it's a contained area on a roadway where there isn't an area for it to discharge. Okay. Great. So, Raquel, great information. What I'd like to see is, and maybe citywide, is if it's the flood emergency response plan, like I'd love to see a map. And, okay, given existing infrastructure with the upgrades and so forth, where do we evaluate or where are we planning to deploy resources with a citywide weather event? Does that make sense? Does that make sense? Does that make sense? Because it sounds like that's what the map is doing currently to some degree? That is what the emergency response plan does entail, Commissioner, and it does actually have maps that are attached and updated. We actually just updated this morning to reflect a change in Chula Vista. Great. And those are updated as we get those infrastructure pieces back online. And we know where pumps should be placed, where we need pump masters or, again, external resources or internal resources to be directed in order to be able to manage the flooding. Okay, great. So, we can share that with you annually. Yeah, that'd be great. So, I'd like to see that as soon as possible. And that way, Raquel, I think all of us can go to our neighborhoods and say, okay, here's the city's response plan, and here's where they will anticipate deploying resources, given an impact, because that's, I think, what this plan does. And I think it's going to be important to educate and then get feedback and figure out if we think we've got enough or not. Understood. And I think we always need to have room for flexibility with these plans because conditions change. And based on the observations that we see, you know, with our staff going out, we may need to adjust the plans as needed. So, we always will have a plan, but on-the-ground observations will dictate how we respond. Right. And that's part of what I want to talk about with neighborhoods is saying, look, if, you know, a neighborhood somewhere else is really more heavily impacted in the moment, we've got to reallocate resources and so forth and be adjusting in real time, and here's the general kind of layout of resources and plans. I think that would be helpful. Okay. Just to continue from your conversation, Melissa, thank you. You gave reference to the removal and the disposal of the water. What does that look like with the conversation we've had with county and state? Is that already in place? It is. And we have a pretty good process to be able to reach out to our partners, both at Broward County as well as FDOT, when we recognize that pumping is the appropriate way to be able to move that water. And they have generally given us permission to use their infrastructure system to move it as long as they have that capacity. Okay. And adding to the conversation, from experience when we had the flood of the thousand-year flood, Melrose Park, the water that was being excavated, removed out of that area, we discovered in conversations later that the pump that was being utilized before is now owned by the city of Lauderhill, and there was a delay in opening that gateway. So is that conversation? I do. I know just enough on that one, Commissioner, to be dangerous. Okay. But I do know that those conversations are ongoing, and what I can do is ask that we provide an update through Manager Williams to get you that information. Okay, great. Because if it's going back over those conversations, then it was an indication that it was never a request. Yes, ma'am. And if it's just a request, we need to be proactive to make sure that everyone knows that we need to utilize that space. Understood. I'll make sure we get that information to you. So if I could ask a question also. You know, a lot of this, you talk about coordination with other agencies and other levels of government, and when we had our April 23 flood, there was some concern that many of us had with regard to the impact that the flooding that occurred outside the city, specifically the city, specifically the airport, and also 595, drained a lot of water onto the Edgewood neighborhood. And if you go out there, you see the storm drains coming down from the elevated 595 highway. They just dump right below the highway, and where does that go, right? Same with the airport itself. And it seems to me that we've had – I understand when Mr. Dodd was with us, I had a conversation with him, and he told me he had convened a meeting. I don't know if you were a part of that. You probably were. No. He said he had convened a meeting with all the different agencies. I'm aware of it. The FDOT and all those, and said, hey, guys, ladies and gentlemen, you know, what are we doing here? You're dumping all your water in our neighborhood, and all we have is Osceola Creek with no pump that pushes it out. So that's going to be an important – you know, that was a one-time incident, but it's not going to be – you know, we're still going to have flooding. And despite our best efforts to put in a drainage system in Edgewood, I just don't think that – if Edgewood had only itself to worry about, we'd be fine. But now having to anticipate the runoff from the highway as well as the airport, what can we do going forward to prevent future catastrophes like we've already experienced? So I do know that our stormwater engineering team, headed by Roberto Betancourt, have been in contact with the airport. They are doing some infrastructure improvements at the airport level that relate to stormwater. And so there has been a back and forth and some conversation between the city and the airport to make sure that we understand what's happening. We've asked for the as-built. We've looked at the modeling. That is a process that is currently ongoing and is beyond my scope to be able to explain. I'm the disaster girl. I'm not necessarily the stormwater girl. Everybody shakes when they see me walk in the EOC. It's her. Oh, gosh. But I do know that those conversations have been ongoing. And, again, for the interest in making sure that I get you accurate and correct information, I'd be glad to make sure that we collect that, get it through Manager Williams, and get that distributed to you. We'd appreciate that. Absolutely. And we want to know what efforts they are making, especially FDOT. You know, I mean, those are big drains. And you just see them. They just, all the runoff from the highway comes right into the area. And I think a lot of businesses were flooded out because of that. So, anyway, if we could give some update at some point as to what progress is being made to see what efforts they are making to help mitigate that impact. Thank you. We'll work with our engineering partners, absolutely. Thank you. And, Mary, you bring up good points. And I'm meeting with the airport, FDOT, about those specifically because there are many analyses have shown significant water flow from the airport into Edgewood and ultimately River Oaks. So, yeah, I'll give you updates as I'm having them in addition with Melissa's work. Excellent. Thank you so much. Did I scare you away? Marie Pierce, our stormwater manager. She was here to bail me out if I got in trouble. Chief? Good afternoon. Commissioner. So, I have here on the slides some of our preparedness things that we have put together for emergency management to prepare the city for our upcoming season and also ongoing as the year goes around. So, first bulletin here says our community emergency response team training. Say that three times. Yeah, right. We put together a full-scale exercise at Snyder Park, and it involved all of our county partners, all of our 31 municipalities, to come out with their emergency management coordinators as well as their community emergency response team volunteers to test our internal resources, such as our city departments. It consisted of our transportation and mobility, building department, police, fire, and what we did was we designed this exercise to show what it would look like if we had to deploy these resources real-time and how long it would actually take and what it would take to put all this together. The total time it took us to actually set up a deployment camp that consisted of a feeding shelter, a place to actually sleep overnight because the exercise lasted for 48 hours, as well as a corral station and training station, about two and a half to three hours to get everything done from start to finish. The amount of participants that we had in this exercise was 125 total, and overnight we had about 20 to 25 people stay from the CERC communities throughout Broward County, as well as the emergency management coordinators for each. It gave us the ability to kind of network ahead of time so we could pre-establish some of those relationships with the different cities and municipalities early on. So in the event that we do have a disaster, we know who we can reach out to, what are their capabilities, and then how we would be able to utilize it and work it into our particular matrix. Next up, the safety and preparedness training. We also conducted an exercise with our George T. Lohmeyer wastewater treatment facilities, where we actually meet with those annually, and we do their safety training, everything from stop the bleed, hands-only CPR, basically different mitigation techniques to allow them to be able to sustain themselves in that facility in the event that we had a disaster where they keep some of our water treatment chemicals that we utilize to sanitize the water. The drill took place over about a two- to three-hour time frame, and from that we do an after-action report to kind of reveal what went right, what went wrong. From the emergency management side of the house, I like to figure, I think my job is to actually try to break it before it happens, so when it does happen, we kind of know what resource we would like to utilize to do it, how long it would take to get these resources, and what it should actually look like as a finished product. Emergency operations center, our section-specific training, we do that also annually for all of our particular sections in the EOC, the five sections in the EOC, which govern all of our city departments, or have all of our city departments a part of it. That's operations, planning, logistics, finance, and policy. Our operations group are tactical departments, meaning PD, police, fire, public works, utilities, and all of our actual operational departments, along with logistics, which is our resources for any type of resource that we might need to mitigate that incident. It's consisted of human resources, transportation and mobility, parks for all of our facilities, logistics, of course. Our next group would be finance, which would be basically show me the money, how long can we do it, what's it going to cost us, what is that burn rate, when will we have to move our shift to a mutual aid or automatic aid status once our resources have been depleted, opening up emergency spending procedures, and what would that look like, and how long would it take to generate some of those processes. Finally, our planning group, which would be kind of oversee and give us some behind-the-scenes, our detailed, intimate knowledge on how to better make that plan work, mapping, permitting, and things of that nature. Once all of those are put together, our goal at the EOC is to come up with an incident action plan, and that incident action plan is to serve as the framework for how we mitigate the incident that we're placed in front of us, some of the resources that we might gather, how to utilize those resources based on three benchmarks, which are life safety, scene stabilization, and property conservation. And usually annually, around May or June, we do an EOC annual exercise, and that involves all of those key stakeholders to come there under one roof where we do an exercise, again, based on injects that we've had for particular incidents that have happened throughout the city of Fort Lauderdale over time frame, and to put in things that challenge us to figure out the how we would do it, what it would take to actually mitigate that incident, the amount of resources we would need, and who would be involved. Next up says FEMA and disaster response training. That's our incident command system training, our NIMS training, which allows us to be able to seek reimbursement when we do have an actual incident. Those are required based upon the Stafford Act and our emergency declarations. Once we actually go for a declaration, whether it be state or federal declaration, how we get our reimbursement back. Currently, the reimbursement rate is 75% from the actual state, and then 25% left for the cities and the county to be able to maintain to make that 100% total. So let me interrupt you there for a moment. I think we're all aware of the fact that there's been challenges with FEMA and being able to seek reimbursement. Has the city considered alternate planning for cost recovery when it comes to disaster situations if we cannot depend on FEMA? The reason why I bring this up is because it's been in the news recently where Arkansas was hit by 14 tornadoes and multiple disaster encounters causing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage and dislocating many, many people. An application was made to the federal government for reimbursement, and all the money was denied. So considering that kind of environment, has your department thought through alternative forms of reimbursement that we could consider if FEMA is no longer going to be a reliable partner in these situations? We've had some preliminary conversations on what that would look like. We have not been given a directive officially by FEMA on what the changes would entail or how that would look for the different cities and municipalities. Last that it was said to us that they would be putting the money back to the states to be able to distribute based upon the need for the 67 counties throughout the state, but no forward direction as of yet. Okay. Thank you. Our continuity of operations plan is next up, and that's basically our plans for how we are to operate or do business in the event of a physical location being displaced. An example I can give is at City Hall where our previous utility water billing was paid on that first floor. If that building or that particular space was eliminated, where will we go to continue to pay our water bills and to keep the services of the city maintained? Where would that particular location be and how they would get there? So a continuity of operation plan basically states where they would go, how they would continue to do business, and how that information would get out anywhere from three days up to three months, and then long-term as we are now. I talked on our emergency full-scale activation coming up. Broward Emergency Coordinating Council is our meeting that we have quarterly with all of our 31 municipalities who have an emergency management piece within the county. It's basically a networking opportunity as well as resource sharing for all the cities within the county to be able to share and talk about their resources, what they actually have going on, things that went right and what went wrong, and then a way for us to be able to have a contact for the different agencies throughout the county. And last, the Regional Domestic Security Task Force is more or less a larger version of that that bring all the statewide resources down. That is also a quarterly meeting that takes place, and that usually consists of about 300 to 400 people throughout the county from, excuse me, throughout the 67 counties in Florida to bring down their particular skill sets through training and different protocols or procedures to update everybody to basically the latest and greatest of what's going on. Fire rescue side, in regards to different assets or things that we have done to prepare post the April 23 floods was the addition of some high-water vehicles that we had. We maintained some of our vehicles that would have went out to auction in our fleet as a way to have a sort of low-cost method to be able to have a way to respond quickly without putting some of our larger fire apparatus in danger of being damaged, which are more million, $2 million apparatus. We have one-third of those particular units are for that rescues. We also adapt it and purchase some different type of jambos that could be readily deployed. They're easily manageable as compared to a larger unit where they can go in and out and do some reconnaissance, end our rescues, moving people from their particular houses to a safe place or to be able to utilize to distribute goods or services. We need to get stuff out to the residents to keep them at home where they're sheltered in place. The event we have up now here that's upcoming on May 31st from 10 to 5 at the Museum of Discovering Science. This is an annual event we also host with the FIU as one of the sponsoring partners. It's open to the entire county on this particular date of May 31st. The museum is free to admission for everyone to come, and it's an all-inclusive preparedness event teaching you everything from how to prepare go-kids whenever that comes up on what to put in the go-kids, having your one gallon of water per person per day, as well as your particular non-perishable items, food, clothing, medicine, to get you prepared for that event. And in the event that you shelter in place, choose to evacuate. They have different live demonstrations on safety. They have the different news teams there going over weather reports and things of that nature, as well as lots of giveaways and entertainment for the children if you choose to bring to keep them occupied. I usually bring my kids every year, and they definitely have a ball. And that's what I have. Okay, great. Thank you. Mayor, we're going to turn quickly to Carl. Carl, Milos, and Ashley. They're going to present really quickly and wrap this up. Okay. Good afternoon, Mayor and Commissioner. It's Carl Williams, Parks and Recreation Director. So in the Parks and Recreation Department, our role is to be proactive in dealing with the sandbag distribution. And so our efforts are forward-facing to provide this service to our residents. We've identified the first weekend of the month to provide sandbag distribution to our residents. And we've identified four locations. That's located at George English Park, Holiday Park, Mills Pond, and Floyd Hole. So in past years, we've made some advances from some of the feedback that we received from commission and our residents. And we've become a bit more efficient in our efforts. And so we've identified pods that we've placed strategically at each of those locations that have input filled sandbags for our team to disperse as the residents pull forward. In addition, you know, we've also been able to work with our team to efficiently identify the locations that I mentioned that strategically make sense for the areas. And as such, our plan is to give out 500 sandbags in order until supplies last, as mentioned, the first weekend of the month. We actually started this past weekend, and we provided roughly 289 to 300 sandbags for the first go-around. And so June kicks off hurricane season. We started in May. And then each first weekend of the preceding months, we will continue with this year effort. How many bags do you get? You get five bags per resident. Per resident, per visit? Yes. And, of course, this is also, you know, strictly for our residents, so we do car, you will, the residents as they come through. Mayor, if you need more, I can give you mine. Thank you. Thank you. But you live on the fourth floor. Thank you. Thank you, Carl. I would just like to say I'm excited about this. This is, you know, I'm a fan of sandbags. You know, I'm always ringing my bell about the opportunity for our neighbors to be able to receive the sandbags. And then also understanding the demand that we were putting on our staff to be able to fill those bags. Fill in the bags and then placing them in the trunks could be very common sense. So the pre-fill bags, I think, is a great way to go. And thank you, Manager Williams, for understanding that. And I'm sure a lot of our neighbors really appreciate it because we often get those calls I do in my office. You know, in line, one of my senior neighbors will say, I'm here, but no one's here to help me. I can't get the bag today. And that's, you know, that's disheartening when you have someone that's not able to receive a bag because there's not the proper help. So this is in the right direction. Thank you. Good afternoon, Amilos. Okay, bring it home, Amilos. Come on. Transportation and mobility. So during significant weather events, the city will provide opportunities to our general public to park and protect their vehicles by parking city-owned garages. During this time, parking enforcement is suspended and outreach is coordinated through our Office of Strategic Communications. Based on prior practices, some of the locations used for this purpose are listed in a slide. However, other locations might be also available based on specific event and real-time conditions. In this process, we also coordinate with any entities that we might have operating agreements in place with, such as the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, for the Arts and Science Garage, to make sure that there are no operating conflicts. We stay vigilant and flexible in order to properly respond and provide the best accommodation given any particular circumstances. And during activations, our department really provides support when it comes to mobilizing any transportation resources available to the city. And we coordinate with both county and state agencies in the process. At this point, I'll turn it over to Strategic Communications. Mr. Milish, I'm sorry, I have one question, one ask, actually. Can we maybe, to add to this list, look at the Bridgeside Square parking garage? In the past, we have used it. It's very helpful to folks in the northern part of District 2 and also District 1 as well, because it straddles. It's right there by the Oakland Park Bridge. Can we maybe just look at that? It has been used and helpful in the past. Yeah, we have used it in the past, and we'll absolutely make sure, and that's being considered, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so our job as Strategic Communications is to make sure that all of the residents are informed about all of these preparation opportunities and resources available to them. We have, we use all available channels. The city website is a wealth of information, fortlauderdale.gov slash hurricane. We have these preparedness guides. It comes with all of the phone numbers and information that you would need to be prepared in case of an emergency. It's available online, and I have physical copies here today in case anyone wants one. They're right outside with the agendas, and they're available to any members of the commission. I know if your residents would like physical copies, Commissioner Beasley-Pittman, we are having some delivered to your office as well. We send out e-mails, we have flyers, we put notices on the water bills, and we use social media. For emergency communications, please make sure that you sign up for Alert FTL, fortlauderdale.gov slash Alert FTL. We'll send you a text message or a phone call in the event of an emergency, and you can submit any requests through Fix-It FTL if you notice any problems. And I just want to reiterate the Register for Alert FTL. It's a great tool that we do use in the event of emergencies. Sign up for that. You don't want to wait to sign up until there's an emergency. I think one of the biggest things that we're trying to do right now is get information out before there's an emergency. The sandbags and everything like that, we want you to be prepared ahead of an emergency. There's also information on our city website about how to use sandbags effectively. It stars our fire chief walking us through exactly how to do that. So, fortlauderdale.gov slash hurricane. And does that complete the presentation? It does. And thank you so much. I have some more questions. I'm sorry. Please go right ahead. Go right ahead. This is a great presentation. I really appreciate it, and great, great information. There were some items that we did not touch on, and I believe it's very pertinent to be prepared. Regarding our comprehensive emergency management plan, I'm curious as to where we stand with that. Are there any updates since the last opportunity when we spoke about it? So, I would like to know where we stand regarding that. Can you push the button at the bottom there, please? No problem. So, our comprehensive emergency management plan, we usually update it on certain trigger points when we have, like, a large incident that has changed some of our existing, our current protocols, if you will. So, changing of staff, as far as leadership, as well as any type of after-action report that we have conducted that showed us to have, like, a deficiency or something that we can improve on. That being said, our last comprehensive emergency management plan was updated in 2023. We usually don't add anything or change anything to it unless something significant happens, as I just mentioned. We do have lots of new personnel, including Manager Williams and the city department. So, we will be going through it. Currently, during our section-specific training that we have scheduled throughout the remainder of this month, that is part of our training where we're going through the annex sections that each one of the city departments is responsible for taking care of. And they're responsible for updating it on what is still effective, what is new, or what we could actually add to it to enhance and make sure everything is up-to-date. And then that will be hopefully completed by the beginning of the hurricane season. Even if it's not completed by the beginning of hurricane season, it still is effective as it is. It's just going to enhance anything that we have learned over this time frame and anything new to be added by Manager Williams or the other department heads as they have brought their historical knowledge with them. Okay, great. Thank you. The other part of my question, in regards to the ordinance that speaks about our EOC, it talks about us being prepared and who actually sits at the table when we're in that emergency state. And when we had the flood of 2023, I had questions about the mayor only being sitting at the table. Great job you did, mayor, but also wanting the opportunity for myself to represent my district to be at that table. And in the conversation, it was told only the mayor, but when I look at the ordinance, it indicates that city commissioners, each city commissioner shall be a member of that task force. So are we able to give clarity to that and then let us know those who are interested? Is that something that we could definitely be a part of? So I'll allow the city attorney to speak to that from the perspective of the ordinance that's in place. Good evening. Good evening. So the ordinance does provide for a emergency management task force that includes, among other entities or individuals, it does list the city commissioners. I think the issue when we're talking about the actual emergency response, the task force is tasked with drafting up the plans and developing the strategy for dealing with the emergencies, so they have front plans. And once those are enacted, it is the mayor's responsibility as the executive director to implement those plans. I think what the concern may be in terms of the actual emergencies, if that's what you're referencing, is the compliance with the sunshine law. Unless we have an executive order from the governor in such time periods, we still have to comply when you have multiple members of the city commission involved in that type of a planning situation. Okay, so what I'm hearing is contingency to the sunshine law, is that what we're saying? Correct. And so we can evaluate how that impacts the actual emergency event, but in terms of other meetings of the task force, we could probably notice those meetings and the members of the commission can be involved with those. Okay, if we could do that, city manager, I'd appreciate that. It's my understanding that in the past we've had an opportunity for every member of the commission to be trained based on FEMA standards, and I know our chief can speak to that a little bit further. So I'd like to make sure that everyone on the commission has the most up-to-date understanding of our emergency management procedures and protocols in terms of that FEMA training. I've asked our chief to identify an opportunity in the month of May for that training to take place, and so I'm just pending some follow-up there. Okay, two points. First of all, we had the FEMA training right after the last flood, and I would imagine that the rules with regard to FEMA are now in flux. And so before we start meeting, I think FEMA needs to get its act together right now before we start learning one thing, and then they change the rules the next month. So it might be a little premature at this point to do FEMA training when I don't think FEMA knows what its rules and regulations are right now in terms of being able to access federal funding for reimbursement. And I think that's what we're talking about. Also, what the commissioner is talking about as far as the full commission convening in order to respond to emergencies, I think, as Dwayne indicated, I think that was meant to address policies and procedures. When it comes to the actual event, I don't think we can all work together, especially since during the April flood, I was even told to stay home because of the danger of going out. In fact, when the emergency order was signed, the fire department came to my house so that I could sign it. So, you know, in the throes of despair and emergencies, we have to be able to be more nimble than expect, you know, the whole commission to be noticed, the community to be noticed, and for us to be able to comply with Sunshine. Now, does Sunshine, Dwayne, I think the answer to this is no, but are the rules of Sunshine waived when there's a declaration of emergency? I don't think so. In most cases, not. Yeah. Okay. So, but I get it. We just want to act in accordance with what our charter is. Yeah. Yes. Okay. And one other item, I believe that will be it. We'll see. In regards to what we experienced with vehicles during the storm of 2023, people, cars were left by the road because of the flood. We had incidents where tow companies, they towed the vehicles. Then we had incidents where people could not get their cars out of tow because of the funds that were applied, the fees that would apply. So, my question is, how many towing agencies are we including in an event, and then could it be a understanding that these vehicles should be just moved out of the roadway and not towed to a yard? Because most people were coming back for their vehicles, and when they got back, then they had to do the search to identify where their vehicle was and then be faced with a towing fee. So, if there's any way we as a city could alleviate that as a situation, that needs to be a part of our conversation for being prepared for the storm. So, I'm not aware of the number of towing companies that are operating within the city of Fort Lauderdale. We could certainly provide that information. To the extent that we have any relationship with tow companies during a weather event, I think our emergency management team could speak to that. We can always have a conversation with those companies to see if we can identify opportunities for our neighbors to have special rates or protocols during times of emergencies. In my prior municipality, we did, as a condition of the tow companies having the opportunity to work within the city, there were certain rates that were negotiated. I think it was $50 at the time during the last major rain event where residents would have to pay $50 to be able to use their service. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commission, Stephen Gould, and your fire chief. So, we have one tow company that we currently do business with, which is Westway Towing. That does come up for contract every so many years. My memory, there was a couple hundred vehicles that were towed that night. But afterwards, you were heard, the community was heard, and I believe a majority of those tow fees were waived, if not all of them. Unfortunately, when a situation like that happens, we have to adapt and overcome to whatever that situation may be. That particular flooding event, we needed to clear the roadway so emergency vehicles could get through. There was no place to put those vehicles without getting them to a parking lot or getting them completely off the streets. In that particular situation, there were no place else to put those vehicles, so they were towed to the tow yard. It allowed us that bit of time to then come up with a plan and then ultimately waive those fees and get the vehicles back to the individuals. Also, in regards to the other question that you had, in a time of emergency, it's very, very important for all of you to be the face of our community and to be out there with your constituents, one-on-one, calming their fears, and making sure they're well aware that the City of Fort Lauderdale has it under control and that we're there for them. You know, often that's why we are listening to your concerns, and just like during the floods, you and I riding around in the vehicle and you pinpointing exactly where the resources would be most beneficial to be deployed. And then it's our job to take that back to the resources and to make sure that they're immediately deployed. Having you out there in the community, having your face, that calming sense to your neighbors is so incredibly important and way more valuable than having you in a room with all the others that are basically the duck on the water. You know, the duck's nice and calm and underneath the feet are going like crazy. Well, that's all of us in the EOC making sure that all those requests are coming together and making sure that everything looks absolutely pristine for the rest of the city. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else have any questions for any of the staff that have presented today? Okay. There being none, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. So with hurricane season ahead of us, we should all be prepared and make sure that our homes have been strengthened and be able to resist any kind of rising seawater, not seawater, rising water that comes from our lakes and our waterways. Mayor, I just had, Mayor, one comment I just wanted to ask Raquel. Raquel, I've experienced this in crisis situations in the city. I think it would be really just a thought. I think it could be helpful when we have something impacting citywide as a commissioner, mayor, if there's one person on city staff that we can each engage with from a city staff perspective to work to address whatever that situation is. You mean while the emergency is happening? While it's happening in real time. So in other words, what we're getting at Raquel is we could all call you as something's unfolding to ask for a request or give feedback or so forth. My concern is that can get overwhelming for one person, for you. And so just an idea I had is, you know, would it be helpful in times of crisis that, for example, an assistant city manager is assigned to each commissioner or mayor? Each district. Each district. Like a liaison, some kind of ombudsman that could help us get answers to questions that our neighbors contact us for. I get it. Exactly. That would be like a network, like a phone bank, a phone tree. Yeah. Work on that. I think we can explore that. And so the city manager's office is in flux at the moment. Right. So we will identify. I think it's a good point, right? I think it's a good point that we have a point person for each district so that because people do contact us, they know us, and they have our phone number. Right. But they don't have the phone number of the fire chief, and they don't have the phone number of any of the assistant chiefs or anything, which is they're already working on the emergency, so we don't want to bother them. But I think your point is well taken. Right. And I think we can definitely look at that as long as we have some protocols in place to make sure that each of you has access to the same level of information from a citywide perspective, but also from the perspective of your district. So I think we can accommodate that request. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Thanks, Mary. Yeah. Something like that. I think it would be good. Thanks. Okay. Moving on to business two, presentation on amendments to the Board of Adjustment process, administrative variance, vote threshold, and appeal process. Two or more members of the Board of Adjustment may be present and participate in the discussion of this item at this meeting. How many members of the Board of Adjustment are there here? I don't see – who's raising their hand? I don't see anybody here from the Board of Adjustment. Okay. So this is just a commission issue regarding do we want to change the process of Board of Adjustment applications and appeals process? Yes. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners. Carly Ann Devenish with Development Services Department. Yes. Today's presentation will focus on a few items that was requested by staff to gather information and bring back for discussion regarding Board of Adjustment processes. So those discussion items are on administrative variance, the voter requirements for Board of Adjustment, and then the appeal process for Board of Adjustment. The first discussion point was brought to the commission's attention when a neighbor did a presentation at a conference meeting in September of last year regarding administrative variance. And she brought this in front of the commission because she had a minor request to add a sliding gate to what is an existing legal non-conforming wall. And with that request, she realized that she would need a variance. Once she met with staff and staff explained the variance process to her, she found that it would be too burdensome and expensive for such a minor request. And so she did a presentation requesting the commission to consider implementing the administrative variance as a process improvement to the land development code. The concept of administrative variance is typically to consider reductions generally ranging in a small percentage of the development requirements. And that could range with different elements such as lot area, lot coverage, structure height, number of parking spaces, landscape requirements, and setback requirements. And with the city, through Board of Adjustment, we do see a lot of variance requests for setbacks, particularly for existing structures. So we did go ahead and do some research. We researched several cities across the state, and we did, in fact, found that the relief is generally between 10% to 25% off of the development requirements. So in the city of Miami, for example, applicants are able to get up to 25% relief on existing structures for setback requirements. And in the city of Jacksonville, there's a point system, but it's still regarding dimensional standards, being able to get relief on some of those requests. And so the recommendation would be to apply administrative variances only to existing single-family residential dwelling and accessory structures. So this would not be applicable to projects that were constructed without a permit or do not meet code requirements. And then the administrative review process would only reduce up to 10% or 1 feet, whichever is less, for yard setbacks and for height. And the review process would still be to go through the zoning administrator's division to apply for that variance. And the existing variance criteria would be applied. And if an administrative variance were to be denied, then an applicant would be able to go to Board of Adjustment to appeal. So just on this point, then, is the lion's share of variances that are requested, do they fall within the 1 foot? 10% or up to 1 feet? Well, it's 1 foot, because 10% could be a lot more than 1 foot. So it says 10% are 1 foot, whichever is less. So the maximum would be 1 foot. So, I mean, is the lion's share of requests within that 1 foot application? I mean, is everything with – is it just inches we're talking about that people come to Board of Adjustment for? Sometimes it is just inches, yes. But it does vary. We do also get requests for more than 1 foot. Right, but we're talking about the administrative process. It would just be for the administrative process would be about 1 foot or 10%, whichever is less. Chris, did you want to add to this? No, I think Carline handled it. I really just wanted to remind the commission this request was really for very de minimis variances. It wasn't meant to be for the wide scope. So when you ask, are most of them? Probably not. But in this case, it's looking at those ones that are very minor in nature, de minimis variances that, you know, we think you might be comfortable with us as staff approving rather than going through a longer process, more arduous process. Okay. Thank you. May I, if I could ask Carline a question? Carline, look at the second bullet, and I just – help me understand this. It says, not applicable to projects that were constructed without a permit and do not meet code requirements. But isn't that what a variance deals with, items that don't meet code requirements? Typically, yes. Typically, yes. But in this case, it would be for – if it's a legal non-conforming structure. So let's say it's an existing home, and a lot of times what we see is someone comes in to try to purchase a home, and the title company is requesting for staff to basically approve that the home is not meeting today's standards, which it typically don't because it's built sometimes in the 50s or 60s. So this is where the administrative variance would be able to be successful in processing a request like that. For the second bullet, if someone were to construct something without a permit and then it doesn't meet code requirement, we wouldn't have them come through the administrative variance process to get that approval. That request would have to go to Board of Adjustment. What if something was constructed on the property from a previous owner that the new owner inherited that was done without a permit? That would have to go to Board of Adjustment. Okay. Thanks. You're welcome. The next discussion topic would be on voting requirements. Currently, the requirement for Board of Adjustment is for a majority plus one vote. This supermajority aligns with other significant decisions either by the city's charter or by the land development code. Two examples of that is the sale or lease of property and rezoning a site to a plan development district. The supermajority for Board of Adjustment typically reviews nonconforming use permits, special exceptions, and variances. And the variance and special exceptions are held to a higher approval threshold, which is the reason why it has a higher burden of proof and most likely the reason for the majority plus one vote. However, we have received feedback from applicants that states that the supermajority requirement is excessive and a majority vote should be sufficient. For the appeal process, the current appeal process for Board of Adjustment would be for applicants to go to the circuit court and file a petition for a writ of Satori with the prescribed court requirements. This is likely a cry over from a state statute that provided for the review of Board of Adjustments in circuit court. However, it is not mandated and is authorized to hear Board of Adjustment appeals. And so if the city commission were to make that decision, be the decision-making body, a quasi-judicial hearing would have to be held to determine if the Board of Adjustment appropriately applied the criteria within the land development code to make that determination. And this is just some statistics for the last five years of the Board of Adjustment cases. In the last five years, we've only received three appeals, one in 2023 and two this year as of April. So the tentative next steps with direction, of course, if we were to move forward, then the proposed amendments would be drafted between now and June. And then a Board of Adjustment would be a presentation to the Board of Adjustment in July with the proposed amendments going to Planning and Zoning Board for recommendation. And then city commission approval and adoption later on this year in September and October for first and second reading and having the proposed amendments be effective January of 2026. That's the end of my presentation. If you have any questions, you're welcome. Great. Thank you. Very good. Anyone have any questions? I do. Carl Ann, if you could just look at the slide again that says appeal of BOA decision. So the last item about city commission, that currently is not happening. Correct. It is not. So that actually is a recommendation. Yes. And I like that recommendation. I think that's important. I've always wondered about that, why we force people to go to court when, if someone has an issue with planning and zoning, they can come to the city commission. We deal with it and hopefully resolve it before that step of going to court. So I agree with that. I think that the city commission should be the final stop after the Board of Adjustment. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Can I offer an alternative to that? So years ago, we used to have all the code violations come to the city commission during our workshop, and it became very painful and tedious for previous commissions to deal with that, and we offloaded that to the special magistrate. So I understand your point, Commissioner Glass, about not going straight to court, but I think the special magistrate, if we could use them, would probably be a better and cheaper, more efficient venue rather than having it come to us during conference meetings or things like that. So let me just offer that up as a suggestion. Well, I was sitting in those commissions when they did come to us and how painful it was because they were numerous. There were many of them, and it comes down to let me tell you my sad story and see how pathetic I can be. Right. And that's how you get your variants done. So that's why the commission kind of punted it to the magistrate. Or I thought we relegated it to the manager. You think it was to the magistrate? No, no. We gave it to the magistrate, special magistrate, so they resolve them now. Is there a way to parse out the different cases that only certain ones, meaning a certain threshold, would come to the commission so that we would avoid what you two just talked about? Or would we not be able to do something like that? I mean, subject matter, just separation. I'm thinking, you know how when things go to planning and zoning and we have level one, level two, level three, level four, are there ways that we could get creative and figure out what meets the threshold to come then to city commission versus a code case where, like you just said, we might be just talking about inches? Yeah, well, I would think that the de minimis matters should remain with staff. I don't know whether we want them appealable to the commission because if we're just talking about something under one foot, that could be – look at the number of cases. I don't want to deal with those. Right. But if you look at that slide that talked about appeals, the numbers were actually relatively low, correct? I mean, let me just look. Yeah, look at the BOA variance request from 20 – They were low because they didn't want to spend the money to go to court. Okay. It's not that they weren't meritorious. They just didn't want to spend the money. I understand. But to – again, I don't want to come back full circle in where the city commission ends up hearing this stuff. I think the point that we could be the form of last resort in some cases, but not – I don't want all the cases. No, I understand, and I understand perfectly. I'm just saying that I've seen some cases decided where I also wonder about the decision, and I'm thinking, really, was that a good decision? But then also I think, well, then you're putting the onus on that resident to go to court where maybe we could have just cleared it up and said, you know, perhaps the board did not act according to the way – Social requirements of law. So, again, I'm just throwing it out there. I don't know how everyone feels, but it's up to all of you. Yeah, here's an idea. DeWayne, could you – and sorry, was the – Vice Mayor, were you suggesting going to a special magistrate? Is that what your suggestion was? Vice Mayor, was – sorry, was it – I'm sorry, Commissioner, I was looking at it. Yeah, no, no, no, no. I apologize. Would you like to say that? I was just asking if – was your suggestion that the appeal would go to a special magistrate? Is that the – Yes. Okay. Okay, thanks. So rather than coming to us, the appeal can go to the special magistrate. We've already got that infrastructure set up for code enforcement appeals, and so it would go to them. They could take a look at it, and that would be an interim step before circuit court. It would certainly be – it would be cheaper. It would be easier. It would be quicker. And less onerous on the commission. And less onerous on the commission. And, again, because I want to make sure that we also keep it a, you know, kind of a hands-off from us. I, you know, I always worry that – and, again, this is procedural for me. It's just, you know, making sure that it's – that there's a process involved, that there's objectivity involved, and it's not a – And that there's a remedy. And that there's a remedy. And there's a remedy, right. So – And an interim one that doesn't involve substantial cost. Sure. So I just want to kind of distinguish today board of adjustment matters that they see versus something that, like, a code board request does. So the board of adjustment deals with variances, special exceptions, and challenges to interpretations of code. So these are extraordinary requests that ask the board of adjustment to consider waiving or varying from the established code provision. These should be for unique and hardship circumstances. The review of those requests are coming to the circuit court to determine whether or not the process that – the information that the board of adjustment saw or heard meets with due process of law. And if there's substantial evidence to support their findings based on the criteria in our code. Right. Which is slightly different than doing a de novo hearing each time to determine whether or not, you know, a person should be fined or not with regards to their cases. So that – Unfortunately, it always devolves into that. It all – it can. And so that's why – a kind of recognition of the volume of cases that the board of adjustment has seen is why they are recommending the administrative process that kind of alleviates some of the things that you were talking about, concerned about the commission experiencing by having these appeals. Is that you have this administrative process that would alleviate some of the – the minimus requests that come before the board of adjustment. But we can't kind of cut off the appeal process for individuals that are looking to appeal these things. The appeals will go forward, but there will be less because of the layered steps that you have. So you'll add a layer of the minimus administrative review. Right. Then you would have your board of adjustment review. Those who are dissatisfied with those would then appeal those. Those currently go up to circuit court, which are kind of better – I mean, I like legal professionals kind of making that kind of analysis. But to your point, our code does provide for, in the case of Historic Preservation Board and the case of Planning and Zoning Board, it does have an appeal process to the city commission. And if the city's commission overturns the decision of those boards, it comes back to the city commission for a de novo review. And then you would be reviewing those cases like brand-new cases. And then those are still appealable to circuit court. We just don't – right. So what have we accomplished? So let's back up then. So the de minimus cases, I think we can probably agree that that should be resolved at the staff level. Yeah, and I agree, Mayor, about that point. And what if we increase – some of these other city municipalities have increased the scope with which the staff can approve or deny requests. So you want to increase the – the – so you're developing that scope now. We don't – Exactly, yes. So you don't allow it impressively. So the – yes. So, yes, I'm suggesting increase the – So instead of one foot, two feet? Right. So I'm just looking. So Miami says up to 25% relief. Another one says 10%. So I think it might make sense to allow for greater flexibility administratively to make that determination is my suggestion, Mayor. Yeah. Okay. So let's say we do – whatever the parameters are, what – so if it's denied at the administrative level. Right. What's the next step for an applicant? That goes to the Board of Adjustment. That goes to the Board of Adjustment. If it's denied. If it's denied. Right. But it can be approved without having to go through the whole Board of Adjustment process. Correct. Correct. So the typical thing is a old house is built about a foot past the – into the setback. Right. And when they're coming in to do renovations, they discover it on the permit because I guess technology increases and surveys are more accurate. And then they find that they've encroached about a foot. When I installed a pool a few years ago and I have a fence on one side of the house and a fence on the other side. And when we did the survey, we found that the whole lot shifted five feet. Exactly. So it was crazy. And so those individuals end up having to pay the money to go for the Board of Adjustment. Yeah. And then we're saying, you know, that can be resolved with staff. I mean, those types of errors or changes can be addressed in that way. And so that's – if it's not administratively approved, then they go to the Board of Adjustment. If the Board of Adjustment denies it, I think what you're proposing now is – Then what? In the current system, it would go to – To circuit court. Circuit court for an appeal. And I think you're proposing now – The vice mayor is suggesting that to a magistrate. A special magistrate. So here's an idea is if we – so, for example, Miami is up to 25 percent relief administratively. So if we mirrored that, ideally fewer cases would come in front of the Board of Adjustment, possibly as a result of denial. And then I think fewer would – even fewer yet would ultimately come to the magistrate or the city commission. I still like the city commission as the kind of last resort. Just like – D. Wayne, what I'm thinking about is planning and zoning, right? There's – if something's denied at planning and zoning, what's – then ultimately it can come to the city commission? Is that right? That's correct. For both the planning and zoning board and historic preservation. Yeah. So – because I see this more planning and zoning – I see BOA more planning and zoning, historic preservation, a little bit more than kind of just purely code enforcement. So that's why I like the city commission. But, again, I think we'll really lessen that number by having that administrative variance up to, say, 25 percent. Well, is it 25 percent or a certain number of feet? Yeah. Well, if we look at the recommendation page, then we need to change that page, right? Right. That third bullet. And let's look at that bullet and decide if we want to change that third bullet on whatever that is, page five of – Yeah, so it would go administrative approval reduction of 25 percent or whatever the foot. Two feet? Two – Yeah, whatever. 25 percent is pretty – It's significant. Pretty indulgent. It's significant, but they – but administratively, it doesn't mean they're going to approve it. They can deny all those cases. You know, they have wide latitude, wider latitude. Maybe I can put this in the context for you. So a lot of times – Put this in context, would you? Yeah, please. So a lot of times a single-family home, the side setbacks are five feet. So when you think of 25 percent, you're less than a foot that you would give them if you stuck with that. But if you look at a 25-foot front yard setback, you'd be looking at a lot more, four feet plus. Do your math. So in that context, you know, those are probably the extremes between the setback type variants. Height could be, you know, up to 35 feet. So if you were looking at 25 percent of that, you're looking at a little bit less than six feet. Is my math right? Yeah, so maybe, you know, that one to three feet is probably the max you might want to go. Yeah, so in other words, 25 percent – are you saying 25 percent or three feet? Or up to and then picks, yeah. Up to three feet, whichever is less. Right, because your side setback, you're going to be less than a foot. But a front setback, you might get two or three feet max. I think it makes sense. I like that. So 25 percent or three feet, whichever is less. 25 percent or three feet, whichever is less. And if an applicant is denied, then they'd go to the Board of Adjustment. Board of Adjustment. The full Board of Adjustment. And then they would need a majority vote to approve something, correct? Majority vote, and then come the city commission for appeal. If they lose there. Right, because I think we're just – it's going to be very little. I hope we don't open a Pandora's box here. That's my question. Do we have any pending cases that are in circuit court now that we could do that would apply? I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, good question. Yeah, it's a good – go ahead, D. I think – There is one case that's pending. So if you wanted that to – wanted this new procedure to apply to that, then we would have to draft the ordinance in that way. I would, yeah. I'd like it to apply retroactively to those that are in appeal now. Okay. And that would allow them to fall under that without going to circuit. To fall under whatever procedure does. Okay, that's what I would agree with you as well. So like all pending – Include them in the new variants. Would it be all – so it is pending 2025 appeals included? Well, there's only one that's in circuit. There's only one that made it to circuit court. Okay. So that's the whole discussion, those that are in, to prevent from going to circuit court, correct? It says two. There are two – so what I mean is – the pending status means that we haven't – that it's not active in the sense that we have – or we filed a response, but they haven't filed a reply to us yet. So the court hasn't yet acted upon the case. Okay. All right. So we can go with that for now. We can make that change, which is to allow administrative appeal up to 25 percent or three feet if that happens to be the issue. Right. And any appeal would then be taken to the Board of Adjustment. And if it again is denied, then the City Commission would entertain a review, not de novo. Do we want to do it de novo? Whatever you think, Mayor. I mean, whatever it is. Oh, it would have to be – it would have to be – no, it wouldn't be – you would – I can give you the option after you reviewed the lower boards, but you have to review the lower board whether or not it's almost like a first-tier certiorari review of their decision-making. Right. But is that taking on the case from its merits or just whether or not the Board of Adjustment follow the rules of law? The latter. The latter. Okay. So it would not be a de novo hearing. Correct. It would just be an administrative – it would be an appeal. Okay. So – and I do understand the directive that the Commission has provided. As we draft the ordinance, we want to take a closer look at the threshold and the different situations that it applies and may come back with some recommendations in terms of the effect on maybe larger variance requests and probably give you some recommendations on how to do that, given that I think you discussed a tier system. That may be one of the solutions for that. Okay. So we can move forward. All right. So I just want everyone to understand what legalese we've been exchanging here. What we're saying is based on the recommendation of Commissioner Sorensen, he's recommending that there be the opportunity for administrative review of a code violation or a request for a permit that exceeds our existing zoning laws. An administrator would be able to review the case and make a decision provided it does not exceed 25% of the existing requirements of law or three feet, whichever is less. And if that application is denied, then it would go to the Board of Adjustment, who would then hear it de novo, which means it would hear it on the merits of the case. And then if that's in turn denied, it would come to the commission and the commission could review it, but not based on the merits of the case, but whether or not the Board of Adjustment followed the essential requirements of law and followed the law in applying the parameters that are in place in reviewing such applications. Does that make sense to everybody? I have one question. Are we going to discuss the item about the supermajority or are we just leaving that alone? You mean at the Board of Adjustment level? We're saying majority. I thought we had said simple majority. Simple majority. Okay. I just want to be clear. Thank you. Okay. Does that seem clear enough? It does. Okay. All right. All right. Do you have anything else to add? Okay. You caused enough trouble. Thank you. Thank you, Colin. Thank you. This is good. All right. Ellen Bogdanoff, you guys signed up to speak. Thank you, Commissioner and Mayor. I appreciate the discussion and I'll be very brief. What might also be helpful, and I represent the client that has the appeal before the circuit court, and we all know who are lawyers, how expensive that can get. The motion was made that he met the hardship during the meeting, but there was virtually no discussion among the members, and it went down based on the supermajority. So the simple majority would have definitely helped. And I don't know if we can do this or not, but to have the discussion was not indicative of the vote, and to have maybe some of the members discuss on the record their justification for the vote might have been helpful because there was also some confusion as to what they were voting on during that meeting. But one of the things we found is, like, when you're going to determine whether or not, because I find sometimes a hardship is a little bit more of an art than a science sometimes. So it is up for discretion. That's why you have people who kind of, like, review the facts and circumstances. And if the members of the Board of Adjustment would be required to have some statement on the record as to justifying their vote, it could be helpful in certain circumstances, especially in the review process. Okay. Thank you. All right. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak on this item? There being none. Okay. We'll now move on to – do we need to take a break at all? You all good? Okay. Business three, one-stop shop discussion. Anthony, do we have anyone from the applicant here? Oh, Jeff, John. Okay, great. You have not signed up to speak, but I'm going to ask you to speak. Okay. Go ahead, Anthony. Good afternoon. Anthony Fajardo, assistant city manager. Good afternoon, mayor, vice mayor, and commission. So I will be doing a presentation on one-stop shop. Just to go over the agenda, we're going to look at the history, the project scope, the location, the proposed site plan that was included as part of the agreement. And then I'll go over to some key terms of the agreement, the current status, and next steps. Great. So just a little bit on the history. The proposal was received by the city as an unsolicited proposal on June 19th of 2020. The city commission adopted resolution 2190, determining that it met a public purpose in October of 2020. And the city commission discussed an overview of the comprehensive agreement negotiations, as well as a project proposal presentation on September 21st of 2021 and February 15th of 2022. In March of 2022, the commission approved the comprehensive agreement with one-stop FTL LLC. A little bit of the project scope. So the site is 3.34 acres. It is fully owned by the city. The project proposal included a 50-year lease with two 25-year extensions. There's a cultural center, and I'll go over with a graphic here in a minute. But there's a cultural center with 75,000 square feet of interior and 45,000 square feet of exterior square footage, a 2,000-seat capacity live events venue, and a restaurant concept proposed at 200 seats. The marketplace was 54,000 square feet of interior and 4,000 square feet of exterior square footage with a restaurant of 800 seats and a distillery proposed with 150 seats and a 2.3-acre community park. So just to orient everybody, you can see the one-stop shop in the darker blue at the top of the screen. North is at the top of the screen. Former City Hall is to the southeast. The county bus deboned right line to the southwest. This is from the exhibit in the agreement. This is oriented differently on this page. North is on the right-hand side of the screen. You can see some of the trees that were offered up for protection as part of the agreement negotiations. And then this is zooming in. You can see the cultural center is proposed to be on the south end with the community park in the middle and then the marketplace at the north end. Some of the key agreement terms, so just so everyone's aware, the agreement was effective as of November 1, 2022, with an estimated project cost of $100 million to be fully financed by one-stop FTL LLC. There was two thresholds in that part of the agreement. One was a 90-day requirement to provide a financial commitment. This is the language from that statement in the agreement for financial commitment. I'll just read it really quick just so everyone's aware of what it says. The cost of the qualified project shall be fully financed by one-stop shop, I'm sorry, one-stop FTL through private funds to be evidenced by providing the city with appropriate and sufficient letters of credit or other documents from a financial institution evidencing one-stop FTL's ability to fully finance the qualified project to the city's satisfaction within 90 days of the execution of this agreement. I'll get into a little bit more detail on the information that was provided from one-stop on the finances. And second, there was also a phase one environmental assessment that was required 60 days after the effective date of the agreement. It should be noted that all revenue generated is going to be retained by one-stop FTL, but there is a yearly license fee. There's none in the first year. The second year, it goes to $250,000. And then it escalates year after year until it gets to a maximum of $1.5 million and then is capped based on the CIP or 3%. That wouldn't go into effect until there's a certificate of occupancy on the project under this current agreement language. So some of the key agreement terms, and this is not an exhaustive list. There are other things in the document. But there's a community arts park, as I mentioned earlier, that would be at the sole expense of one-stop. There's a list of $10 million maximum for that. The city would be allowed 12 events per year at no cost. The only cost we would have to incur is anything related to the actual event itself. And then the project completion is stated to be within three years of the building permit issuance. So the current status. So we received some letters from one-stop. One was from Truist, dated February 6, 2023, and another from Banyan, dated April 12, 2023. These were noncommittal letters, but they did demonstrate there was interest in providing financial backing to the project. So they were not letters of credit, and they were not other forms of financial – what was the terms of that? Letters of credit or other documents from a financial institution evidencing one-stop FTL's ability to fully finance the qualified project. Would you say that those letters were in compliance with that? So it's really not my expertise to be able to opine on these things. I would probably defer to Susan Grant, who did look at some of that information when it was provided, as well as the other document that was provided to her on November 25, 2024. Susan, can you come up and help us out here? Are you cold, too? Everyone seems to be cold. Good afternoon. Susan Grant, Assistant City Manager. And going back to that language, as Anthony had indicated, it says letter of credit, which these were not. That's very clear, but it says or other documents, and that language didn't give us a lot to opine on as it related to whether that met the criteria or not. The first letter, again, it was on, I think, Truist, or it said Truist, but we really didn't have a lot of information. The second from Banyan Development, which in that case wasn't a financial institution, but most recently we were able to look at Mr. John's iPad, and he did provide us with an updated financial commitment, and that was on November 25, 2024. Again, we weren't given a hard copy of that, but we were able to look at it on his iPad. Okay. Great. Thank you. Could I ask a question about that? So, many years as an auditor, we don't look at iPads. I understand. We get copies of stuff, and we call people up, and we verify it. We asked. Okay. And you didn't get one? We did not. What was the reason why you didn't get one? I think the confidentiality of the commitment is what was indicated. I don't think that's consistent with our comprehensive agreement. There's nothing confidential in what we do, but I'll just leave that aside. Okay. Thank you, Susan. Moving on, so we also received the Phase 1 environmental assessment on September of 2023, and there were some findings saying there were recognized environmental conditions, basically acknowledge some information that we already had. Next steps for this project would be a submittal to the DRC. Prior to submittal to DRC, though, there is a requirement in the agreement that three meetings be held with the local civic association as well as Riverwalk. In addition, annual meetings after that to discuss the design of the park. There's also some trees that are indicated to be preserved on the site and protected. And then after DRC and the approval process, it would go to building permitting. Are you aware of whether or not these neighborhood meetings ever took place? To my knowledge, they have not taken place. That's not true. I am aware. So I believe two out of the three have been concluded. Okay. And that ends my presentation. That's it? Okay, great. Thank you so much. You're welcome. We have Jeff John here, and I believe you're representative from the finance companies here, if you want to both come up. I don't see a suitcase full of cash, so it must be a letter that you're going to present to us. Hi there. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Mayor, Commissioners. It's a pleasure to be here with you today. So tell us what's going on. So I could tell you here today not only the appreciation for the city and the way you guys have operated and what you guys have been doing, but I am here today to tell you that obviously since we've been approved, brought back the economic environment that we've been dealing with, no surprise to anybody, we've had commitments on the table. So I am here to tell you we have a signed commitment for the full funding of this project. Did you bring that with you today? I think that would, from my understanding, that would be submitted to the city attorney, if I'm correct. You haven't received anything? No. No, not that it has been. I mean, I thought that that's the process that I was... Is this the gentleman with whom you have been dealing? Correct. How are you? Good, good afternoon. Your name is? Martin Mubarak. And your company is? Well, I work together with a financial company in New York that has secured this... Are you a broker? No, no, no. I work together with Nick DeFranco, who is one of the owners of the company that works together with him. One stop FTL? Yes. Okay. And so what is... Could you explain to us what your financial commitment is? So BCG has committed... They're a London-based company. They have committed $140 million for the initial phase and $54 million additional for the second phase. And has that been committed to writing? I have been provided a copy. I don't have, you know, quote authorization right now to release it because they were doing the last review, but I'm sure it can be sent sometime today or tomorrow in the next 24 hours. Okay. I'm sorry. What was the name of the company? BCG. Boston Consulting Group? Hold on one second. That's the only BCG I'm aware of, so I just want to know what BCG we're talking about. Just give me one second. It's a finance company out of London. So when I look at BCG London, I'm getting Boston Consulting Group. I'm sorry. It's BGC London. BGC. BGC. Okay. Sorry about my lexic. Okay. What does that, what does that stand for? I'll tell you some momentarily. BCG Brokers. Okay. Yeah. So it's an overseas funding source, right? It's an overseas funding source, yes. But they specialize in city type of projects like this. All right. Now, you kind of knew we were going to talk about this today, right? Well. Why wouldn't you have the documents with you instead of postponing it yet again? You know, we're going to make a decision today. Okay. And, and, and, you know, we've been talking about this for a while and this has been on the, on the agenda for a while. And I would have thought that you would, you know, in order to comply with the very first requirement of the comprehensive agreement, which was to have in writing this sort of letter of credit or other financial commitment, you're empty handed. How do we, why do we, why should we believe this? I got a community out here that wants to know. They've got people signed up to speak. A lot of doubters. Okay. So help us, help us get through this. Why would you not have it in hand today? Well, I'm actually just as an emergency replacement for my partner who was coming from New York, but his flight got canceled. So I was called last minute. So you can't go on your phone and say, please email this to us so we can print it out and get, you know, is, is, does it exist? I have it. You have it. I have it, but I don't have the authorization to release it because again, it was last minute. Unfortunately, he got stuck with it. What was last minute? The commitment was last minute? I'm sorry. The commitment was made last minute? No. My presence here was last minute. Ah, ah, ah. I live in Palm Beach and I was, he couldn't, he couldn't make his flight. So I was asked to come in and represent on his behalf. With all the trouble last night, Mayor, and today with Newark, he was coming out of Newark last night and unfortunately sat there all night. So, Lyle, where are you? All right. So maybe by the end of today, we might be able to get it? I'm pretty sure. I mean, we don't, I'm just saying electronically, these things can be transmitted. You know, I could call my office right now and ask them to email me something and they will send it to wherever I ask them and we can print it out and we'll have it in hand. That's, I mean, it's as simple as that. You've got to help us through this. This commission is, is trying to, trying to keep this comprehensive agreement together. And, and so far, the very first step, the very first requirement has not been fulfilled as far as we're concerned. And here we are, how many years later? All right, let's get to the site plan and the, and DRC submission. When does that plan to, when is that supposed to happen? Wait a minute, your, your, your mic went off again. My, it's still off. No, just press it. Just press it. Having a malfunction here. Are we there? Okay. Good. Now, now that we have the commitment in place, um, that is, we believe is going to be much more beneficial than the last commitments in place. This is, this is a better, better deal for everybody involved. And it's a faster deal in terms of the turnaround of the dollars. We will be able to move forward immediately in terms of, uh, the process with the city and getting everything into the city, into the process and moving along. So, so can you give us like a timetable? I think, um, from what I'm being told is, um, I think we can have this done in the next two, like be into the DRC process in the next month and a half is what I'm being told. So before, before our summer break, you'll have submitted that to our, our DRC committee. Our, our, our, all the consultants were, were a hundred percent on board and ready to roll. So, uh, now that we have the commitment, I believe that yes, sir, we can, um, we can, um, we can move forward with that in that timeframe. All right. Did, uh, did, do you recall having an opportunity for you or members of your team to go before the Flagler Village Civic Association to present the plan and to get feedback from them? Yes, sir. We have met with the Flagler Village Association either two or three times, and they have been, the last couple of times have been fully supportive of the plans that we have drawn up. We have met with Riverwalk as well, two or three times, they were fully supportive and on board with what we were doing. And, um, I think we've complied with all of those requests from the city. Okay. And, and, and again, I would re reiterate that the meetings, not only with Flagler Village Association, but also with Riverwalk were extremely positive, uh, moving forward. Okay. Okay. Um, my last question is, uh, are you intending to modify the most recent, um, site plan rendering that, uh, that we were given, I think a couple of years ago, are there any modifications being made to that? Because the last one we saw, there was a shrinking of the, of the projects, the food hall and so forth. Has that changed or is that, do you intend to change that in any way? Not, not at this moment, sir. The last, uh, when we redid it, uh, obviously when the economic downturn happened, we had to rescale it to meet today's terms and financeable. So that is the reason why we, we altered it, but, uh, we feel we have a wonderful design, a wonderful team, and we're beyond excited to deliver even more of a beautiful and greater project to this great city. Okay, great. Thank you. All right. Does anyone else have any questions? I do, Mayor. Thank you. So, Jeff, when is the last time that you have spoken with all of the consultants on this project that would be needed to go forward at DRC? I believe those conversations happened this week. With all of them? Yes, sir. And they're all still on board? Yes, sir. Okay. And they have also committed to getting to DRC, um, before we break, within a month and a half? Um, what, what we were told is immediately, and they believe it can get, we can get it done. So, going forward, um, would we be able to actually some sort of a timetable be given to us? If DRC is, let's say, in a month and a half, we're talking by, what, the end of, the end of June, right? Uh, we break, I think, on June 30th is perhaps our last meeting. Yeah. Um, before the break. That's correct. Uh, we would have to see this go to DRC before we break. That has to be initiated. And then I would also like to see a timetable, um, after that initial DRC in terms of what are the benchmarks? What's going to happen going forward? How long it's going to take to get this, this, this, this permit? Uh, when do we anticipate the shovel in the ground for groundbreaking? I, I would love to see some sort of timeline that lays it all out, um, so we have that confidence level, uh, as well. Is that something that we can work on and get done? Commissioner, I think, uh, our team would be happy to, to work with you in putting some of those criterias together, uh, to show you what we're doing. Regarding the park portion of this, um, and before I get into the park portion of this, I know the park is about two thirds of the site. Yes, sir. Uh, it's very important. So in the conversations with Flagler village and river walk, and I know that they are supportive. I've heard from their board. I, I understand that. Um, but I want to understand, um, going forward, have they actually sat down with you in terms of the design and what would go into the park portion? I understand that obviously they're not going to be designing their cultural center or the, uh, event center slash food hall, whatever we're calling that. But, um, where are we with them in terms of working on their needs and their wants for the open space, the two thirds of the site? Yes, sir. So, uh, to answer that question in our, in our meetings with let's, let's just say Flagler village and river walk. Uh, I think it was, it was asked to them what their, what their top requirements were, what they would like, what amenities, what, uh, would they like to see inside the park? We, we have listened. The consultants were there. They added into, into the plan. And again, I, I want to say not only were they asked, they submitted certain criteria to us. We took that feedback back and we implemented that into the plan. And was there anything that was said to be like undoable or that you said, no, we just can't do this. Or it's pretty much their input been incorporated into what's going to happen on that open space. I would tell you, I, I, you know, it's over the last year, year and a quarter that we've met with them. Um, the conversations were great. Um, there was lots of feedback back and forth based on, Hey, how this is going to, what, you know, how, what amenities are going to be in here, what, what they would like to see based on the, you know, the, the community there and the conversations were great. I think they appreciated that they had input into what's going to happen here. And, and again, I think when we stood here and had these conversations before we wanted their input, we want to make this what's best for this community. We want to, we want to bring education and culture here. So to your point, I think the input was very well received on both sides. We went back to the consultants and implemented their top, top couple, uh, requirements or suggestions. And again, it was a very healthy conversation. And when we left the rooms with both river walk and flag or village, we, we all shook hands and, and everybody seemed extremely happy and, uh, and, and, uh, appreciative that we're working with them and, and taking their considerations, uh, and putting it on the paper. Talk to me a little bit about the cultural center. Have there been any changes, um, from when we first saw this project several years ago, uh, in terms of the actual cultural center, or is that pretty much the same footprint, uh, you know, same square feet, all of that. Pretty, pretty much the same footprint, not to interrupt on you, pretty much the same footprint that hasn't changed. Um, what has changed and, and, and maybe I'll allude to is maybe some technology, um, because obviously as we're moving forward, uh, every day there's new technology coming out and there could be, you know, on a, on a positive note, there could be some very new and cutting edge technology that would be implemented into, into that. But other than that, that's, that's about it. And what about the other building? What about that? Um, I know that we've lost some floors, right? Originally we were looking at about maybe nine and would, what are we down to now? Six or seven? Yes. Uh, and that was what we did is we took off the, remember we had the blade and we had taken that off. So I believe we're down to four, four levels with a, with a roof. So you're really talking about a four or five story building. So four or five story building on the North part of the site. Yes, sir. Okay. Um, in that four or five story building, um, what are the elements? Are we still looking at some sort of open marketplace concept? Correct. None of those elements have changed commissioner. You're still looking at the open market. You're looking at, uh, restaurants. You're looking at some retail and an overall great mix, uh, that is going to be, I believe, a great amenity, uh, for the future of our city. So what did we actually see go away in those three to four stories that have been removed? They were, it was, it was flex space and it was private, extra private event space. Okay. So, so the square footage that was originally presented by Mr. Fajardo, uh, 54,000 square feet interior, um, 800 seat restaurant. Has that changed? I think that is, uh, mayor, if I'm correct without looking at it, I believe that is the current render rendition, uh, uh, where we're at currently. Okay. Will there still be any, um, space, any event space area at all? Absolutely. How many square feet? I couldn't tell you that without looking at it, but one thing I would like to tell you is, you know, I, I have operated here in town, a 35,000 square foot facility for about 24 years and the ability to add flex space and work with space. I believe both, both structures, the cultural center and the marketplace will both be able to house and hold private and corporate events. Okay. And, and lastly, so the footprint for the two buildings remaining the same, and we are still seeing two thirds of this site, green space, open space, park space. 100%. Two thirds. Yes, exactly. That was our, that was our, that was the criteria of our agreement and that is never going to, that's not going to change. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, mayor. Anyone else have any questions? Um, I do, um, Flagler village and also, um, you're saying Riverwalk has been in conversation and they are in agreement to move forward. They are, um, in alignment or satisfied with what's being presented at this time. Commissioner. Yes, they were extremely, um, as I said, they, they, they, it would, the conversations in the meetings, the multiple meetings we had with both groups, they were extremely supported. They were extremely grateful to be part of it and that we were implementing some of their suggestions. And both of those meetings, that conclusion of, I think we've met with each of them three times, um, two or three times, they were extremely positive. Um, my other part of that question, um, commissioner, um, glassman, um, view, have you verified this with those, um, um, civic associations? Cause I'm used to seeing river riverwalk and, um, those people in the audience when we have these type of conversations. And I don't know if anyone signed up, but, um, I'm used to seeing them here giving their voice and I don't see that I'm concerned about that. And I understand. And I, I have heard feedback, um, as, as Mr. John said, they have had those preliminary meetings with them. They're still not done. Uh, but I've heard everything that has been going well. In fact, when this project first came before us, the, the current president of Flagler Village Association was actually one of the speakers in favor of the project. I understand that, but where we are today, um, from 2020 to 2025, sometimes people get, um, disenchanted with, um, conversations like this and they're not interested anymore. No, actually, I would say actually the reverse is probably true here because the, when this project was first still going through the process in 2020, that current neighborhood association at that time was not pleased. Uh, all of those people were voted out of their positions in Flagler Village Civic Association, uh, and replaced with a very different board, uh, that has a very different view, uh, of the project. Uh, I, I have a feeling that, well, this is a discussion item, uh, in the conference. It's, it's not as if we're voting, um, on it, unless it's going to go to a nighttime. Um, so I can't, I can't ask the answer that question as to why people are not here or, or they are here. Um, but as I said, um, I feel very confident in what I've heard, uh, from the meetings that have taken place today. Okay, and, and just as a response to that, um, just being familiar as a commissioner that represents my, um, district, there's been time when you've asked the question, well, where are your neighbors? Why aren't they here? And you gave an answer, but I'm really surprised because I'm used to seeing those particular, um, civic associations in the room, retired, regardless of the time of the day or regardless how long the meeting goes. So I'm really not understanding. No, I understand. And perhaps if this was nighttime and people were not working, uh, I do know that most, I know that every single person there, uh, pretty much is working. Uh, again, I can't answer for them. Um, I can only tell you what I believe is the feelings of the Riverwalk board and also the neighborhood association. Um, and, um, to, to your point, I will also say that I do notice in the seven and a half years that I'm sitting here that the people that generally also will come to these meetings to typically are opposed to something as opposed to in favor of something. So I would just throw that out as well. Well, to your point, so to the, to the, to your point, uh, commissioner, just anecdotally, I do know that members of the current board of the flag of the flag of the flag of village civic association can have come up to me and keep asking, you know, when can we, when is just going to get done? Cause they are eager to see it happen. So I don't think the point of view of the, of the civic association has changed since, uh, in the last couple of years, I think everyone was just eager to see it happen. So I don't think that, I don't think they're disheartened by, uh, by the, the, the delays. And it's not just the civic association or the Riverwalk association. I will tell you that I hear constantly from many arts groups and artists, because if you remember, we had the conversation, Jeff, about how the cultural center would be accessible to our local artists at no cost. Uh, we were actually looking to house our cultural affairs officer in that building at the time. Um, and the, the local artists and arts organizations are very thrilled to be having a space, especially now when it's very expensive for them. If they try to go to the Broward center for the performing arts right here or Parker playhouse or even a wall memorial auditorium, uh, they are looking to this cultural center as a space that's accessible to the local arts community, uh, at, at, at, at, at no cost to them that you, they cannot find right now anywhere else. And they're looking to be able to have exhibits and they're looking to be able to have performances, uh, and they're looking to be able to participate and also, uh, take a bit. I think we had also talked about, uh, ArtServe perhaps moving there. We had talked, correct. At one point in time, we did talk about ArtServe because at that time we didn't know what the status was of their space, uh, in the library on Sunrise Boulevard. Uh, so there are a lot of people that have been waiting a long time. Um, I do hope you understand though, you know, the concern, not just from the folks that are here today, uh, in, in the room, but also from the commission. And this has not been an easy process and you know, cause you've heard from me as well as the district commissioner, how I have not been pleased with the speed at which this has been moving. Uh, but I will tell you, um, that if you're telling me that you have $150 million, 140 or $150 million, uh, for that first phase and another $50 million guaranteed, I do need to see that document though. I need to see the document. I, I can't just be shown an iPad. I need to see that, uh, ASAP. Um, and then, uh, other than that, I will say that there are many people, again, not just in Flagler, but in Riverwalk, but also the arts community mayor that are very much looking forward, uh, to seeing this project have a shovel in the ground. Thank you. I have another question, please. I'm sorry. I just, I am not understanding this conversation and how long this is going on. Um, with the, um, with anyone, I'm bringing in a different, um, venue that we're, that's pending, the YMCA that's going to come on, um, near the Parker. What is the square footage of that, um, vendor or that, um, the YMCA? Right. It's going to have also a cultural center. Next to the Parker. Next to the Parker. Right. What is its square foot? Could anyone, can we get that answer? We can get that information. Okay, if we can get that, because, um, this is what I'm saying. What do you see? The YMCA is on track. They're moving. They're going to do what they're going to do. YMCA is going to be up before this building. And then what? What are we waiting for then? My question is, are we, we're waiting. We've been waiting. Right. And that's the comment of the commissioner. We're waiting. We're going to allow you to do and present to us what, um, will allow this project to go forward. But if the YMCA is going to offer the same amenities that square footage or close to it, why are we leaning to wait for something that does not appear that's going to happen? What exactly is the cultural center component in the YMCA? I just. That's my question. I'm asking for someone to share. I don't even remember there being a cultural center component. That's what I'm saying. I need to, I, I've been working with them closely. That's also in my district. I'm not aware of the cultural center component in the YMCA. Is there a community center where there's space? I don't. I don't believe it's only office spaces. I don't. Am I correct? Does anyone have any information on that? Chris, do you have any information on that? No. Okay. All right. If we can get that information, city manager, if we can get that information to bring it back for this conversation. I just don't think there is a large space devoted for cultural or community center purposes. There may be a community room, but I don't think it's a major component. I think the two major components are Broward Health, as well as the typical YMCA facilities, which is a gymnasium and all the sporting facilities, workout area. But we can look into that. Please. And there's also a very big focus on that, that Y, on wellness and the pool and wellness and education in terms of wellness. But again, I'm just, nothing about a cultural center or community space is ringing a bell for me on that particular project. And actually, they wouldn't be programmed for the same reason. I mean, the cultural center here is more of an entertainment center as opposed to a passive space offered to the community for cultural purposes. This particular project intends to be programmed with concerts and other kinds of performances, which that would not happen at the YMCA. Correct. Okay. All right. Okay. I have. If you're all done, I'd like to. Yes, go ahead. Thank you. Appreciate it. So just kind of backing you up. I want to confirm this because I'm still not quite comfortable with who's provided the financing. So I just want to make sure. And so I have my good friend Wikipedia here. So we've got BGC Group, formerly BGC Partners, formerly Cantor Fitzgerald. I want to make sure we're talking about the same company. I want you on the record that you are working with BCG Group, successor to Cantor Fitzgerald, massive investment bank out of New York, has offices in London. Is that who we're talking about? Yes or no. On the record right now, definitively. I have to verify that. If I'm borrowing $140 million from somebody, I know who's giving it to me. Okay. This is a business I work in. Letters of credit. I do every day. This is a business I work in. I do finance for a living. This is my area of expertise. I work with companies that are doing capital fundraising. I'm all about capital stacks. Seed. Series A. Series B. Series C. I know who's giving me money, guys. I've never in my life, in all my years, when I was in investment banking up in New York, not knowing who was funding me is unheard of. I've never in my life experienced anything like this. You don't know who's giving you $140 million. Jeff, do you have the answer to that? I do, but I don't feel comfortable going on the record. I will be happy to submit the paperwork. I just want a name. I just want a name. I don't want the paperwork. I want a name. They are a global company that has – I apologize if I can't answer every question up here, but I can tell you it is a global company with – The name. So that is not a question. That is the single most important question. That is the single most – and the reason I say this is because – and look, we've talked a lot through the years. You know I've always been very skeptical of the business plan. First of all, because you didn't have a business plan to start with. I had to beat you guys up to get a business plan out of you. When we had Deloitte look at your business plan, they basically said it was never going to work. I've talked to everybody that I know in the finance community for years who said you were never going to get financed. And by the way, that was in one of the most robust financial markets that we've seen in the last 30 years, and you were struggling trying to get financing. If I could interject real quick, Commissioner. Sure. I believe that you guys hired Ernst & Young to do the review, and they came back, and their comment was the project is financially viable from your third party that you guys hired. Not quite. Not quite. That was not their takeaway, is not that the project was financially – Because what they were suggesting is that in this market space of performing arts, they had questions about the cost of construction. They didn't think that the cost of building out the facility was realistic. They didn't think that the projections that were in there were reflective. And I know I do a lot of work with PACA. I'm on their finance committee. I look at every performance that they hold. And by the way, that marketplace has changed radically since COVID. The financial success in the performing arts arena is not what it was. It was paper thin to begin with on margins, and it's gotten worse. So I don't see it. I didn't see it before. And look, I love your willingness to try and be creative and bring projects forward. This is – I've sat down with you, and we've had these conversations, and they've always been good conversations. I respect what you're trying to do. I just don't believe in the project because I don't think that the project makes sense. I never did. I've always been very straightforward with you about that. And I still don't think it does. And I think that's why there was difficulty in trying to get a firm financial commitment. Every letter that we looked at was very clear. It said in every letter that was proffered to the city, this is not a firm financial commitment. This is a willingness to take a look at a deal if one has ever brought forward. So, again, as somebody who deals with letters of credit, I know what those are. Those are guarantees from a bank that they will pay, nothing withstanding. They have already done all the underwriting to approve that deal is done when they issue a letter of credit. So, nothing we've had, nothing we've seen in all these years remotely resembles a letter of credit or a firm financial commitment that somebody is not going to back away from. So, I really want to see that. And so, again – so, I'm sorry. I forgot your name, sir? Martin Mubarak. Okay. So, you're saying it is, in fact, BGC Group, Inc.? No, BGC London, not Group. No, not BGC London. The name of the company is BGC Group, Inc. No, BGC London. Okay. So, Jeff, I need you to just explain something. Well, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, man. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Commissioner. I'm not done. That was just one of my questions. So, one of the things that Commissioner Glassman mentioned – and this has struggled me greatly since we embarked on this. And, unfortunately, the comprehensive agreement that we're working with here – this is not a shot at you guys. More power to you. It's one of the worst ones that I think I've ever seen in the history of Fort Lauderdale because there's no commencement date in there. We've given you a 99-year option to control 3.3 acres of city land for free. Now, again, in the financial world, we all know that options have value, right? I trade options. Options have value. You've got an option that you haven't paid a dime for. You have absolute site control for 99 years, 50 plus 25 plus 25, and haven't paid a dime for it. I've never seen that, again, in the history of finance where somebody gets control of real estate, gets an option to control real estate in relative perpetuity for free. And so I'm – Well, it's not for free. It is. He doesn't have to pay anything, Mayor, and he doesn't have to commence construction. Oh, I see what you're saying. So he can sit on it for 99 years and never build anything. Well, I don't – We'll have nice grass and nice trees, but the public can't use it because it's fenced off. It's not a park. It's not accessible to the general public. I think we have violated the public purpose on giving away city property for 99 years with nothing of value in exchange, and it's because of the lack of a commencement date in the agreement. Well, I don't think if we had a commencement date that says – You can all applaud, but that doesn't contribute to this conversation. No, no, and I'm not trying to do that. I know you. I'm trying to say we need a commencement date, and this is where I agree with Commissioner Glassman. So I don't just want to see a timeline. What I'd like to see is if this goes forward, if you come forward with a real financial commitment from a real company, not just showing something on an iPad to somebody. I want something in writing that I can go back and have my city auditor call up and do what auditors do, which is verify it. So we get that. We move forward. What I'd like to see is an amendment to the comprehensive agreement that actually has real dates in it that you are required to – Well, that's what I was hoping we'd lead to. Well, that's what I – We need to amend that tonight or in the next – by the next meeting for that, as well as I'm – You know, we were expecting income from this in year two and year three and all that. And I think that the city is entitled to some money while we're waiting, even though it wasn't intended to be charged to you until you actually got your CO. But this project has been sitting there, you know, dormant for several years, and the city has not received any money. And I think as part of the comprehensive agreement, we need to put in a cash payment as consideration for the changes that are about to take place to show good faith on their part because we allowed for free rent. And I think, you know, the city was expecting something in return, and we never got anything. So I think we should – honestly, Jeff, I think we should be entitled to something. You should work that into your financing agreement where the city is entitled to some kind of base rent until such time as, you know, we start to see some evidence of progress on the project. How long do you think – you know, let's say you got DRC approval and you got your building permit tomorrow. What's your construction schedule? Have you gone through that yet? Two years. Two years? Yes, sir. Okay. Well, I do think that the city is entitled to some compensation, and I'd like to see that put into a revised comprehensive agreement. So, Commissioner Glassman, what are you recommending – this is your district – what are you recommending that we add to this comprehensive agreement if we're to move forward? I would recommend everything that I've heard. Well, first of all, I mentioned the timeline when I first spoke. I need to know what those benchmarks are, what are we going to hit in terms of going to DRC, and then after that, all the way leading up to when is that shovel going in the ground. I agree with you and Commissioner Herbst in terms of the amendments, in terms of – obviously, I want to see that agreement. I have looked up, and I do see BGC London building the future of finance, and there's a whole thing here, and there's plenty of information on that online. But I want to see that document. I want to see, as was requested, that either that letter of credit or just something that proves that, yes, you did secure – I guess that totals, what, $194 million, roughly, the two phases that you mentioned? Yes, sir. Yes, and I agree with you, Mayor. I do think that because of the delay and because of the fact that we were counting on something already happening, I do agree with some sort of compensation for that. So everything that you have requested and that what Commissioner Herbst has requested and what I have requested, I think all of that should be done in terms of just an amendment to that agreement. And most importantly, I just want to see that that money is in place. And I want to know that before this commission breaks, you are going to be in DRCA. That, to me, is the most important thing. Okay. All right. So we have a couple of people who have signed up to speak. So can we just ask you to sit down for a minute, and then we'll get back to this. Mayor, before you go to public discussion, just Commissioner Beasley-Pittman, I reached out to Cheryl Woods at the Y just to see if she could give us clarity. And she said at the Y at Holiday Park, we will – let me see if I'm saying this right. I have that information as well if you – Sorry? I have that information if you want to – you want to read that? Okay, go ahead. Yeah. She's – go ahead. Sure. Go ahead. Okay. Yeah, so as proposed in DRC, the Y is about 46,000 square feet, about 1,700 to 2,000 square feet. That's community room space. The rest is mostly recreational facilities with some flex office space and some activity rooms. So it's a minor part of the – Mm-hmm. Understood. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you. Okay, so I'll call your names in threes to be prepared to come up and speak. Doug Kuhlman, followed by Ann Hilmer, followed by Ted and Sarah. Who are first? Good afternoon, Mayor and Commissioners. Good afternoon. My name is Doug Kuhlman. I've been a resident for almost 60 years in Fort Lauderdale planning – doing planning and landscape architecture. I'm not here to talk about Riverwalk or Flagler Village, but I think you need to check the timing of the meetings that they've had with Riverwalk and Flagler Village were far before the plan that they're now changing it into. So I'd be very cautious of that. What are you saying? I'm saying the meetings – my last discussions with the Flagler Village is they haven't had meetings with them recently at all. So I don't know that the plans that they've changed to, they've even seen the new plans, okay? Okay. I just think in knowing how the planning works, and it's been two, three years, they said they had meetings. Well, if they had three meetings, I'm not sure those meetings are even recent. So I just want to caution you on that. Oversimplified, this project has not met the comprehensive plan agreement as far as financing. In fact, all of their environmental timelines, they missed the timeline on them. In fact, they just – they haven't complied with what the – even though as vague as the comprehensive agreement is, they haven't met those requirements. The other thing I just want to point out, the urban forestry master plan that we're spending a couple hundred thousand dollars in the process of doing, Plymouth Area has identified we don't have enough green space in this town. And this site is one of the last green space in our downtown, even after we've added thousands of units. Independent of that, I think the issue – oh, I didn't know I had a time. Yes. Well, finish your thought. First, I want to say I think the direction you're going tonight that I've heard you say is very good. However, I think if they don't produce what they're saying they're going to do, you should simply vote this – terminate the agreement and let them come back to you and prove that they can. I would do that right away because I don't think they can comply. But I'm just saying I'm pleased with where you're going. But if they don't, I think the simplest thing is terminate the agreement and let them prove to you why they should have it. Okay. Thank you. Ann Hilmer. Good afternoon. It's been a while since I saw you all. When I Google BGC London, it says they facilitate transactions by acting as an intermediary between buyers and sellers. It says nothing about providing the money. This is all smoke and mirrors. This is another example of a bad P3 deal for the city. That's not the way this would happen if we were working with the private sector. Promising construction starting in 2024, and we have nothing yet. The land has not been usable for over three years. They ought to tear down the fences and allow the city residents to use it as a park. In the future, we need to build in more safeguards in our agreements on these P3s because this one stinks. Bottom line, if you go forward with this, you need to give them a date certain for DRC and a date certain for everything else with fines attached to their not meeting those dates. Thank you. Thank you. Ted and Sarah, followed by Laura Sue Walensky. Hello, everybody. Ted and Sarah, president of River Oaks. I think this shirt that I'm wearing sums it all up on the back. It's just a damn bad deal. I mean, I was prepared to say some things, but I was just stunned with the presentation that these guys gave. I mean, you kind of reminded me of Judge Judy, Mayor, because when somebody doesn't have documents, she always says, where did you think you were going? The beach? I mean, why didn't they have these things? I did dress up as Judge Judy for Halloween once. I thought you maybe knew that. I was the bailiff that one year. I remember. But and then, of course, with Commissioner Glassman, I guess I'm just your stereotypical against the I'm surprised. Somebody like you would throw out stereotypes like that, that only come here when they're speaking against something. I've spoken many, many times in favor of items, and I took that as a personal insult. But but I remember this. When was it been when you when you step 2020? Is that when we ran for the election when you stepped down and we had it? I remember, you know, the first time 2020, wasn't it? Is that are you asking when you ran for office the first time you when you ran for office? Yes, I don't I think 2020. Yeah, 2020. I remember this was a question on the Sun Sentinel interview about the one stop shop land. And that was, you know, how many years is this? But this whole deal just sounds so bad. I mean, just stumbling and fumbling. Now, you know, you guys are like cats. You know, these developers come in, they roll this shiny ball down the table and you guys just go nuts. And all you do is you just fall for everything. You know, you're just our city. You see it through a pinhole. You know, you just see the events. You just see the big, tall buildings. You just see all that stuff. You don't see the whole picture with the residents and the neighborhoods, what we want. You almost act like you're our landlords and that you are trying to evict us or get us to move out. All right. Thank you so much. Laura Sue Wolanski, followed by Sister Robin Merrill. Is Laura Sue here? Hi, Laura. Suitcase full of cash. Yeah. Tens and twenties unmarked, I hope. No, this is actually full of music. Thank you, Mayor and Commissioners, for the opportunity to... Are you going to play an instrument? ...be here? Oh, I play quite a few instruments. Most of them better than this one, but my accompanist is a teacher, and she couldn't come today, so I'm going to accompany myself. Again, I'm Laura Sue Wolanski, also known as the Silver Nightingale. And I'm here today to speak for the trees or sing for the trees. And I know we have some big supporters of the arts, Mr. Glassman and others among the commissioners. Me too, me too. Yes, Mr. Mayor, absolutely. I really hope this will be pleasing to you to have some music today. Okay. I'm here to say that I am not in favor of this project. I am so not in favor of it that I wrote a song about it. And this is that song. Once there was green space kissed by the sun. Once there was green grass where children used to run. Strong joy deal. Where is this that we streamed of? The space is gone now. All been developed. Our precious park now. Like concrete's been enveloped. Share beneath. Gone with the green space that we streamed. Dear, I'm sorry. Is it to say we'll keep on working? Save our green space. We'll keep on fighting to preserve this precious place. We'll survive. Nature needs people to protect and help her thrive. Stand up for our green space before it's too late. Is there a way that I can enter the lyrics into the official record? Give it to the clerk. And there's a recording of this on YouTube if you want to hear it played with the record. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you. That's smart. Mayor, Silver Nightingale, thank you. It's nice to see you again. And I did want you to understand something. One of the first reasons that I wanted to see this project succeed way back when. Um, this is 3.34 acres in Flagler Village. You know what Flagler Village is looking like. If this land was set free, I can guarantee you that you would not have 2.3 acres of green space that we're maintaining on this site. I would guarantee you that that 3.34 acres would be at least two high-rise towers and all of the concrete that you talked about in that song. The project that I have supported is supporting two-thirds of that acreage as green space, as a park. And again, that's one of the reasons that I supported this project from the very beginning because I know, I know what would happen to that site. Just look around. What exactly you sung about in that song would be what would be happening on that 3.34 acres. That's just, I wanted to make sure you understood where I was coming from. I do, and I very much appreciate that you are supporting an art center. I believe that Sister Robin is going to suggest another alternative. This land has been in our Fort Lauderdale master plan for decades to be green space, to be a park, not to be built over. There are many gray fields and places in our county that are already paved over and that could very easily be used and revitalized and really add to the community to create cultural space, art space, which I agree, we need. We need more of that, but not there. That is the wrong place. We need green space there. Thank you very much. Thank you. You're welcome. Robin Merrill, followed by Marilyn Mamano, followed by John Burns. Robin Merrill, I think we need to say game over. Time's up. This has been a real circus, not a good circus. I was a part of the Flagler Village group when we vehemently opposed all of this. And then, as you said, the board that opposed it was conveniently forced away, and their voices are no longer heard and bullied away, I might add. What would be the best use for this space is it's way more than five trees. There are 106 trees we've done, tree inventory. We walk, we listen to that land. We care for that land and that land for that space. What the city does as far as a park is like what it has done right now. It lays down St. Augustine's Sod. That doesn't allow for pollinators to grow, for wildflowers to grow. There's enough room there to create a tree sanctuary. Commissioner Pamela Beasley-Pittman, you had mentioned the YMCA about to be built, and I was just there last week. And I'm still heartbroken over the trees that are going to be destroyed on that space. And this city signs away the death warrants, and these trees get thrown into the wood chipper. It is a disgrace. We could use that space and create a tree sanctuary as a public-private, because I understand the need for public-private. Private nonprofit entities can do things like prohibit vagrancy, things that the city may not be able to do. And I'm asking that this current comprehensive agreement, an unsolicited P3, by the way, be removed immediately, because this is like an enormous farce. It's like a game. And that we open it up for other groups to be able to come forward for something such as a tree sanctuary that I propose and rewild that land for city. And I would love to be able to come forward to present that kind of a concept. I can't do it within two to three minutes. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Marilyn Romano, followed by John Burns. Mayor, can I just ask, Chris, didn't we identify trees that we made sure we were saving? Were they at least, how significant were they? And what, what we did, how did we determine what trees had to remain? So I don't know how we determined, but there are a number of trees out there that do have significant tree barricades around them to protect them from any sort of incursion in the future as, as we develop. So those would have been like what we consider to be the five most significant trees? They're probably specimen trees. So when this project makes its way through DRC, they will have to be a landscape plant, correct? Correct. So in other words, we know that we're keeping those five specimen trees, but then staff will have to work with the development team and add a lot of landscaping to the site. Right. There'll be a tree disposition plan and it'll include anything to be removed and anything to be replaced. Okay. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor and Commissioners. I'm Marilyn Romano. I'm speaking on behalf of Lauderdale Tomorrow today. I sent you, gave you the copy of our testimony. I'm not going to read it in the interest of time. I will just read the first sentence and the last sentence. The first sentence is promises made and promises not kept. That's what we're talking about tonight, promise today, promises not kept. And the last sentence, which is comprehensive agreements have consequences. And it's time to hold this one accountable to the public. Again, we could stand here today and talk endlessly about the inadequacy of the financing portion of this, but it's really a moot point. Anyway, they are in default. They are in default. There's no dancing around the fact that they are in default of the comprehensive agreement. So in my opinion, you have two choices. You can either declare them in default, take the property back, and we all go to court for years and years and years, which is not productive for anybody. Or you take the position that I think you're moving towards is let's renegotiate this comprehensive agreement because they're in default. They need to come to you and you need to sit down with them and tell them, since you're in default, here's what we'd like to do. We'd like to modify the comprehensive agreement, maybe even change it so that, yes, we have the cultural center, which you have been a stalwart champion of, which is needed and probably not a bad idea. The cultural center part, we don't need a restaurant and we don't need event space. We need a city hall, okay? Maybe what you ask him to do is, why don't you think about modifying this comprehensive agreement to build a city hall and a city park? Now, that's creative. Let's be bold. Let's try something like that rather than, oh, well, let's just wait another six weeks and he'll go to DRC and he'll never get that letter and we'll all be putzing around here for another six years. Okay, so that's my suggestion. I also want to go back and I want to say to you all that when this whole thing started, you know I was mad against this, but I sympathized with you, not only from the perspective of you genuinely believe a cultural space is necessary and it's a good thing. You genuinely believe it and I give you credit for that. You also genuinely believed that we would have a problem with a city park because at the time we were deep into the homeless situation and we were freaking out about the idea of, oh, let's not do a city park here because, oh, my God, it's going to be a homeless encampment. Times have changed. Everything has changed. You not only are not going to have a homeless encampment, you have a legal obligation to prevent a homeless encampment from being here. So times have changed. Things have changed. He hasn't met his obligations. We have a need for a new city hall now. Imagine if we could build a city hall here with a real public park, not a private space which he controls for 99 years, and sell the city hall parcel that we have for enough money to build a city hall. Think bold. Think creative. I urge you to do that and not just keep going down this rabbit hole with him. Think creatively. Get the staff to sit down with him and talk about a modification to the comprehensive agreement to get the things that we really need because he is in default. Thank you very much. I just want to ask. Please help me understand. Sure. Because staff has not told me he's in default. Why do you say he is in default of the comprehensive agreement? I have not heard that from staff at all up until this point. Where is he in default in the comprehensive agreement? I defer to Commissioner Herbst. He's in default. But tell me where. What do you mean he hasn't given you any financial lines of credit or any documentation which he owed you in 90 days with three years down the line? I understand. Okay, never mind. Okay. The mayor is getting frustrated. Yeah. I don't want to frustrate the mayor under any circumstances. Thank you very much, gentlemen. John Burns, followed by Mark Dickerman. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak on this item? Okay. Thank you. Great. I'm John Burns. Again, agreement terms approved, and three years later, agreement terms not fulfilled. You've heard about the lack of the financial commitment. You've heard about the delayed or delayed environmental assessment, and you've heard about the no money that we should have gotten in years two and three. I hope the next steps include a review on how we should create and sign contracts with default conditions and termination clauses that are enforceable before we waste three years. Today was like the big reveal you'd see on a home improvement show. That's when the homeowner gets to see what their designer and contractor has done, and they've moved the curtains, and you get to see the surprise of what they've done. We didn't get any of that. In fact, we're back where we started and probably worse than we began. So, here are some recommendations. They haven't met expectations. You shouldn't be telling the attorney to revise the contract. You should be telling the attorney to get out of the contract. Get out of this deal and make a city park per the Fort Lauderdale Building a Livable Downtown Master Plan that was adopted on November 18, 2003, and incorporated changes from the 2007 and 2020 Master Plan Updates. It reads on page 3.15, Maintain this publicly owned landscape at the corner of Northwest 2nd Avenue and Andrews Avenue, currently the one-stop shop, and preserve the mature trees behind the existing building. Redevelop the entire block into a neighborhood park as illustrated in the open space subsection of the framework. Agreements have consequences. It's time to hold this one accountable. Thank you. Thank you, John. And Mark? Commissioners, it's wonderful to spend my 62nd birthday with all my favorite people. Happy birthday. Yeah. Distincts. I was excited about this when it was first proposed. I felt, wow, great. Right downtown, I could actually walk to events. But it's beyond that. Why could they not give their partner in this a copy of a document that he said he wasn't able to release? We're partners. How can you not show your partner a document to help the cause? I mean, I was excited because we all remember when that was an unhoused camp, and you turned into a beautiful little park, but you fenced it off. If you're going to make a park and fence it off, that's fine. Just like you did with Stranahan Park to keep the unhoused from encamping in there at night. Can't keep them down on a day if it's a park. Let's turn it into a public park, and let's move away from this deal. But if you're going to go ahead with this deal, they should not just meet with the local civic associations. They need to meet all the stakeholders, which I'm a part of. Have a meeting for the community. We're giving away citizens' land, so let's meet with the citizens and discuss all the issues that are here and let all the questions come from just the citizens, not just the civic associations. So, like I said, I think this is a raw deal. I think you should terminate the contract, start over. Maybe they can come back with something better. But certainly, by not being able to provide even one document to your partner, then there's something that doesn't smell right here. And I yield back my 13 seconds. Okay. Thank you. Okay. No one else has signed up to speak. So, what is the direction of the commission? I think, so far, what I've heard from the commissioners is that we want to see a written verification of this financial commitment within 24 hours. We want to see a modification to the comprehensive agreement, which contains that clause, as well as a time certain within which they are to submit, make a submittal to DRC. And I also think that there should be something added to the comprehensive agreement, which calls for the first month's rent, first year's rent, I should say, to be paid as part of the consideration of this transaction so that the city is not completely, without having been, receiving its benefit that we anticipated by now. Those are some of the terms that I heard us discuss. Vice Mayor, do you want to add another thought to that? One of the things we haven't talked about that, just in terms of if we are going to be reconsidering the agreement, one of the things that I was always troubled by, and I know I've shared my thoughts with the city attorney on this, is that I think that the 99 year is, number one, I think the length of time is unreasonable, and number two, I think the way that we've done this by skirting around the charter and calling it a license and not a lease, I don't think is borne out by what we've got here. We've essentially got site control, and I think there's some case law on this. Again, he and I have debated it. I'm not the attorney. He is, but I have talked to other attorneys, and they've proffered the idea that a license and a lease are very much the same things, and I do think that this is problematic in terms of our charter. So I would like to see this cut back to 50 years. Let's be consistent with the spirit of the charter, if not the letter of the charter. So I'd be curious to know what attorneys you spoke to who's felt that a lease and a license are the same thing, because my understanding of a license is that they're revocable whenever the licensor chooses to revoke it, whereas a lease, there are certain requirements that must be followed under law of notice, cause, and so forth, none of which are required under a license arrangement. Right, and I think the idea behind that is that the conditions under which we can cancel this license are minimal, so therefore, it really doesn't act like a license. It acts like a lease. So with a typical license, we can revoke that license under a variety, as you say, under a variety of reasons. In this case, that's not the case. You don't even need a reason. Right, you don't even need a reason. In this case, we can't do that. We can't just come along one year into it and cancel it, and that makes sense. And look, the developer is going to make a significant commitment of financial resources here. Certainly, they don't want to put $140 million into a series of structures and then three years into it have us come along and cancel that. And that's why this license is structured in such a way that we don't have the ability to do that, and therefore, it doesn't really walk, quack, and act like a license. Well, I think we all agree that there are certain milestones that we thought would be achieved by now and have not. And aside from the environmental report, which was received but delayed, I think that the most important thing, I think we all think the most important thing, is the financial commitment. And we have not seen that yet. But the time commitment really is one, too, because when the Bahiamar was being discussed in terms of a 99-year agreement with them when we first started that conversation with Blackstone, the whole rationale behind that was in order to comply with state law for condominiums, they needed a 99-year lease. It wasn't predicated on any other reason that 99 years made sense. It had nothing to do with the size or scale or scope of the investment or anything else. It was simply because of the condo component that was wrapped into that. Without the necessity of complying with state law, we never would have entertained the legal yoga we went through to try and get to that one. And we went through a lot of machinations to get there. In this case, none of those precedents exist with respect to this. And if there's anything that I'm pretty sure of is that over the next 99 years, whatever we're putting in place at this location right now will no longer make sense. Entertainment is going to change dramatically in the next 5 to 10 years as virtual reality and artificial intelligence are taking over the entertainment space. So I don't think that it makes any sense for us to give up control of our site for the next 100 years for something that's likely not going to be there for 100 years. Well, whether that statement has merit or not, I don't know whether we have that option right now. Well, if we're amending the agreement, we certainly have the option. I think everything is on the table if we're amending the agreement. Well, I think we can only amend the agreement if we feel that the agreement has been breached in some way. Which I already do. I mean, we've passed that point where the evidence of financial commitment. So, again, I do this, right? So evidence of financial commitment is only valid for a certain period of time. When anybody gives, Mayor, you're a real estate attorney, you do a lot of closings, how long is a mortgage approval good for? 30, 60 days? Not three years, not four years, okay? They have a time limit to them because no bank is ever going to guarantee a financial commitment for anything beyond 30 or 60 days. So anything that they had proffered at a point in time expired. So when they should have come back with every 90 days, another evidence of financial commitment, but unfortunately staff didn't ask them to do that. And not being asked, they certainly weren't going to volunteer it. Okay. All right. Mayor, if I could clarify. Go ahead. Yes. Go ahead. I just want to clarify that under their current agreement, there is no license fee for year one. So I don't know if you want to. I understand that. But I'm saying for the first year in which a licensing fee was to be paid to the city, that's something that I would ask that the city be paid. So the year two amount? For the year two amount, correct. District Commissioner, your thoughts? Commissioner Sorensen. I'm about to speak. Go ahead. Thanks. So, Mayor, I have yet to see documented proof of financial commitment. I have not seen that. I have never seen it. I think we need to terminate the comprehensive agreement and it needs to be a new start. I support that. I don't know if that's an option. Dwayne, do you want to give us some guidance on that? Have they breached it? Is that such that are we, I don't know whether we're terminating it or they've already breached it. I mean, it's the question, I don't know the answer to that. I'm not in favor of that, but tell me what your suggestion is. So if it's the finding of the commission that they have breached the terms of 4.1 in the agreement, the agreement calls for us to provide them with notification and it does provide them with a period of time in which they can attempt to cure that breach. So they have like a 30-day period in which to do that. And if they're making a reasonable good faith effort towards that and the city still wants to breach that agreement, we have to provide them a notice again of 30 days. Can you read that for us? Can you read that language of 4.1? Yeah, language of 4.1. Well, you just mentioned 4.1? Yeah, that's the language that was on the screen earlier with regards to the financial commitment. So that would be what we would be claiming in terms of breaching the agreement? That's correct. But we have to give them notice. So then they have a period to cure it? They have a period to cure any alleged default in the agreement, correct. And they have how many days to cure it? 30. 30. All right. So can we – let us authorize you to give them notice of the commission's belief that there's been a breach of the agreement and that we're giving them 30 days to cure, and that breach would be evidence of financial commitment? Okay. And the comprehensive agreement states 30 days to cure? Yes. So if you look into Article 10 of the comprehensive agreement, so it states the default of the comprehensive agreement shall be deemed to be a failure of one-stop FTL to observe or perform any of the material, respect any covenant agreement, condition, or provision of the comprehensive agreement, including but not limited to the obligations, covenants, and agreements enumerated in Article 5 and 6, such failure, if such failure continues for 30 days after written notice thereof has been delivered by the city to one-stop FTL, provided, however, that one-stop FTL shall not be in default with respects to that matter, that matters that cannot reasonably be cured within 30 days, so long as within such 30-day period. One-stop FTL commences such cure and diligently proceeds to complete the same thereafter. So there's a 30-day period, so why don't we authorize the city attorney to give them notice, but I'm hopeful that they'll get that evidence of financing much sooner than 30 days, and also I think that we are expecting them to submit to DRC a site plan proposal prior to our summer break. Right, that was my only concern right now with this new direction that we seem to be taking is that how does that impact what we had earlier discussed about getting to DRC, all those timelines, all those benchmarks that we expect to be met, if we are, I mean, can these run down parallel paths, or do we have to wait now for this 30 days and then that 30 days, and tell me how that works, D-Wayne, can we accomplish everything we've talked about this afternoon in terms of moving forward, getting this done, getting those assurances, getting those timelines, getting those benchmarks, getting the DRC before summer break, and at the same time issue these default letters and giving time to cure, and tell me how that all works together. So for me, it all depends on what type of remedies we're looking for in terms of a cure. I know I've heard the commission talk about the idea, if we're looking at amending the agreement, how we would strengthen that, and then if you're viewing that as part of the reasonable action towards a cure, if that's something that you want to pursue. I wouldn't want them to necessarily pursue, if we're finding them in default and don't want to continue the relationship, I wouldn't necessarily want them to pursue any of those expenditures moving forward to contract. Kind of, in other words, I don't want them to create an argument in equity or something that stops us. We're saying that we're allowing them to proceed in the agreement on these other aspects that we haven't yet found them in breach of. So in other words, we could say we believe you're in breach and want to stop. Correct. We're only working on the cure for this breach. We find you in breach of this provision of the contract, and we're looking for you to cure that breach of that particular provision and stop work on everything else. Okay, so that's one option. But then that breach is just, so then we're just talking about we need to see the evidence or the line of credit or the document we're talking about, right? The satisfactory to the city, yes. But that sets us back 30 days, then, if we take that path, right? Potentially 60. Okay, so that's one option. What are the other options in notifying a breach? So you can notify a breach, and can you say, notify you of breach and do not wish to pursue further the relationship? I don't know if we have that option. Hold on, I'm asking the city attorney for that. Yeah, we have that option. So it depends if, not if it's that particular provision that you're finding them in breach. If you're finding them in breach and other aspects of the agreement in terms of the failure to use reasonable effort to perform in the contract, it's arguably, arguably that's not curable at the state. And you would give them notice. What are those other aspects? No, that's what I'm saying, in terms of making reasonable effort to move the project forward. Okay, so if I'm hearing you right, you're saying one option is finding in breach for a specific item and thus curing that specific item. Another option is saying breach kind of holistically, not moving forward, and thus kind of with the effort of, with the idea of not curing. And the last kind of nuclear option is, you know, arguing that the contract itself is illusory. Okay. So let us choose a path. And first of all, let's decide, do we want this project, do we not? And if we want the project, then let's find a path to success. If we don't want the project, then let's find a path to try to undo it. So, instead of just dancing around options and legalese and all that, let's make a decision as a commission. If, you know, do we want this project to go forward? Is it appropriate? I mean, at one point, the commission said it was appropriate. I personally feel it still is appropriate. I'd love to see it happen. And this was the last chance that we were giving one-stop FTL to show us what they're able to do to ensure the success of this project. So today they came with their financier. We have not seen anything in writing. We've not seen any commitment. But do we want to give them that chance to provide the written commitment that we thought was going to be tender today? I thought we were going to see it today, honestly. And so did I, Mayor. I'm just – I didn't see it. I didn't hear it. And I just don't see anything to substantiate moving forward. Unfortunately, I wish I did, but I don't. And there have been years of opportunity to do so. Well, I thought Jeff Johnson said we could see it tonight, by tonight. I thought I heard something about that. When can we see the document? Well, is that – is that the – Why not for tonight's meeting? Well, it's the close of businesses. Wait, wait. Jeff, can you come up here and speak? I want to ask your question now. Yes. So, Jeff, can we see this document? We have a meeting this evening. Can we see it tonight? Yes. I would just have to talk to the legal. That's fine. And I would get right back to you. Yes. I think we need to see it tonight. Okay. And I also want to ask you, because you've heard all of this today from members of the public, from the dais, why do you want to move forward with this project? Well, I believe it's a wonderful project for our city and the growth of our city, for education, for culture, for working with artists, for working with numerous programming and activities that is in the downtown sector that we don't have – we haven't had anything going on on that property for close to 20 years. And I think what we've come up with, you can see – and I would make an example, like if you look at Chicago, they're investing $7 billion into exactly what we're doing, the Wurtz family and the Reinsdorf family and cleaning up the west side of Chicago. It's almost identical to this, but they have no infrastructure there. They've done these projects around the world. I firmly believe we can – we have the commitment. We will show you that commitment. We will get to the finish line. There has been tireless years of work and resources invested in this day in, day out. And I apologize for the economic conditions over the last year and a half. It probably would have been a lot easier to raise $1 million, but this is $140 million. And, you know, when we're signing for $140 million, we wanted to make sure we had the best possible partners for ourselves, for the city, and for the community. Have you – you've signed that document? I have. You've signed the document for $140 million with another $50 million as a backup in the second phase. Correct. You have signed that? Yes, yes, sir. And who else has signed it? Uh, both of the – the funding partner and my – and Arias. Okay. So everyone that needs to sign it has signed it, and that – that money is – has been transferred to an account? It has – it has not been transferred yet. We would be looking to close the deal in 30 to 45 days. Okay. And we can get that document tonight? I would – we'll do everything I can to get it to you immediately. Okay. And you still believe that you have the wherewithal to do this project? I think – yes, to answer your question, and I hate to say, with the time and the delay, I know it's been an issue. It's been a – it's been a heartache on both ends. I – I can assure you that we have been working tirelessly day in, day out with trying to get the right partner, finding the right people to make this project bigger and better than when we brought it to you. Okay. And if this moves forward, and I'm really hoping that it is, I join the mayor in that, I want to see this project go forward. And I'm going to say that I really need to not just see that document this evening, but I also need to make sure that immediately, as you prepare to go to DRC before our break, because no matter what we decide as a dais here, I – I – I really want to see parallel paths. But if this commission decides that a default letter is going to you and you have 30 days to cure, and based on that document that hopefully we're going to see tonight, I'm okay with that, if that's the decision. I'm not okay with this commission saying we want to scrap this project. I think that after all these years, that would be a shame and a travesty and a loss for the district and a loss for the neighborhood. I have heard Phil Dunlop is out of the country. He can't be here. He's out of the country. I want to make sure that you're going to be immediately also sitting down with Flagler Village Civic Association, who, by the way, that board was not bullied out. They won a fair and free election. When you win an election in a neighborhood association, you're not bullied out. You're elected because people wanted to see a new direction, just like any election. So I would just say to you, I need all of those things to happen. And I still, depending on whatever we do here as a board, need you to still go forward and get this to DRC before we break, if we give you that opportunity, and I'm hoping we do. And I also want to make sure that at the same time, you're meeting with the neighborhood, you're meeting with Riverwalk, and all of these things are accelerated to make up for the loss of time. Can you give me your word that that's going to happen? You have my word. I will do everything I can to do that, 100%. Okay. Thank you. And I appreciate you. And again, I apologize for the situation. We have been working tirelessly through this economic downturn, and we can pull this off. No, I understand. And we didn't get into a lot of the weeds here. I know that the previous commitment, and by the way, I still want to say that I'm not so in favor of the default, but I understand if the commission decides to do that. Because I also relied on staff to tell me, and I know that they've asked you for things, and other letters have been accepted as examples of financial commitments. But I do know that the last time, this project was wrapped up with a whole bunch of projects. Correct me if I'm wrong. And the problem was, the reason that fell through was because something happened with all those other projects as well, and this project went down with that in terms of the financing. And you had to start again, a different path, a different company to get the financing, correct? That is correct. Right. And I know, because I've been living through this torture with you. Yes. So I understand. Again, I'm hoping this works out. I really want to see this project. Again, I think it's a great project. And I know that if we do not do this project, and please, I want everyone to understand, we will have high-rise towers on that site, and we will have no green space. And even if we have City Hall on that site, there won't be two-thirds of that site open space. How can it be? How can it be? If that site is developed even with City Hall, then where's the two-thirds of that site green space? Where is that? I don't know. I just don't know. Anyway, thank you. All right. I appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. All right. Anyone else on the commission wish to speak? So what direction are we giving the city attorney tonight? I think we've decided that, Mayor. Well, I think we've decided that default is the option. And if they can cure within 30 days in accordance with the agreement, then they will do that. Okay. So that's the direction we've given you. All right. Thank you. All right. Moving on to business four. This is a discussion draft ordinance regulating lobbyist appointments to boards and committees. I think we've all had an opportunity to speak with Duane on this. I just want you to know that I had recommended, and I'm wondering if I could get the approval of the commission, to change one word in the draft ordinance. And where it says on page two, it says, no member of a city board or committee shall, during a member's term of appointment, be a lobbyist. I would like to add a word, advisory board or committee, because we have boards or committees like PACA and DDA that are not advisory. And so I would like those not to be considered as part of this ordinance. What is it? It's DDA, PACA, and the housing authority. CRA? No, those are advisory. Yeah, CRA advisory board. So is that not included? No, that would be – anything that's advisory would be included. It's non-advisory that should be excluded. Why exclude some of these other boards? It seems to me that we should be consistent. Look, you know I don't agree with this in principle. I think it's – and the city attorney has gone at length, and I appreciate that, in pointing out the right of individuals to petition their government is the basis of the First Amendment. So I disagree with this profoundly on constitutional grounds. But if we're going to do it, let's be consistent about it. I mean we either like lobbyists or we don't like lobbyists. If we don't like lobbyists, let's not like them on any board that we appoint anybody to. Well, I'll explain to you to answer your question. Sure. The reason is because when the discussion came up regarding the involvement of lobbyists, it was felt that the participation of lobbyists might unduly or subjectively influence the decisions of some of these boards. And because there would perhaps be self-serving interests on these boards, which ultimately would make their way in an advisory capacity towards the commission. Those boards that are not advisory would not suffer that predicament because they're not advising the city commission. They're just – they operate independently, like the DDA, like PACA. That strikes me as being even worse, though, Mayor, because when you're on DDA and PACA, you've got spending authority. The last thing I want to do is actually have lobbyists that control spending. The advisory board doesn't control anything. They make recommendations to us, and we – frankly, we ignore our advisory boards half the time, going to – it doesn't suit our purposes. I'm not worried about advisory boards. I'm worried about the boards that actually make decisions and spend money. Okay. So, anyway, that's my recommendation that we add the word advisory because I feel that that would – that would be more consistent with the philosophy behind the reasoning for wanting to enact this ordinance. So, I just – I put that out there, and let me hear from everybody else. So, all right. So, Commissioner Herbst, your feeling is that you don't want this – you don't want this ordinance at all, correct? But if we're going to have it, let's be all or nothing. You know, it's – we're either jumping into the pool or we're staying on the side. So, if we're going to jump into the pool, let's be all in on it, Mayor. I'm happy to support this and say we don't like lobbyists. We don't like lobbyists anywhere. Well, the thing is the DDA and PACA – I think the DDA and the Housing Authority are created under state law. So, they're not really a creation of the city. But we appoint the board members, and we approve their budgets. Okay. I just want you to be aware of that. Oh, no. I know. Trust me. Independent and independent special districts and statutory – I get it. No. We approve the PACA budget? These budgets come before us. The PACA budget? The DDA budget comes before us, and I think the PACA budget comes – Does it? That's news to me. We have nothing to do with that. There is a component of it. Laura, do we do anything with the PACA budget? Doesn't something come before us from PACA? Good afternoon. For the DDA, we approve their budget after they approve it. Right. So, they do trim on their own, and then it comes to the city typically in October. Right. But it's a required step in the process. For PACA, we have a part in the garage. That's the part that we approve. That part comes through us, and we have a partnership for the – Performing their budget. One-third. Okay. But we don't approve their budget. I just want to be clear. Just the garage portion of the garage. Just the garage portion of the budget. Okay, right. I knew there was a component of PACA that we do that we approve. One-third. Thank you. Okay. Okay. So, Mayor, say again what you're – What I'm recommending is that if we're going to enact this ordinance where we're limiting the involvement of lobbyists, it would only be with regard to advisory boards, not the other boards, meaning not – this should not have – any DDA and the housing authority and PACA should not be impacted by this ordinance. I think that we should exclude them. Do we appoint the entire PACA board? No, but we have representatives. Okay. So, this would exclude – we could – this would exclude any – Our appointees. Our appointees to those boards. Okay. What other boards other than PACA and DDA? And the housing authority. And the housing authority. Right. That makes sense to me. Those three that we just identified are appointees now currently lobbyists? One or more maybe. But we don't – but they don't advise the commission. The whole DDA is a lobbyist. Yeah, they're all – but we don't – they don't advise the commission. They act independently. We're not – we don't – and therefore, decisions that might come from them are not – are not influenced by special interests that ultimately are advising the city commission. They act independently, and we don't get involved in their decision-making. Well, my comment with this, we – you know, we landed on this because we – there became an issue with who individuals or district commissioners were appointing, and that was the conversation about not appointing lobbyists. So this went to a higher level because when we began talking about this, my argument also was the fact that my consideration for appointees, in my opinion, is being taken away from me. So we've had this – several conversations, several meetings, and now it's being, okay, lobbyists – lobbyists for advisory? Is that what we're saying? Advisory boards. We want to add the term advisory, but still having the restriction with the other boards and committees. Right, because they act independently. Because they work independently. Okay, but also, D. Wayne, this ordinance that we draft confirmed for me – is this mirroring what the county has, or is this separate from – Yes, the language is taken from the Broward County version. Okay, from the Broward County version. Okay, so with us using this version, do they have advisory boards that are defined the same way that we are separating or we're declaring that our advisory boards should not be subject to lobbyists? No, the advisory boards should be subject to the rule, but the non-advisory boards should be excluded. That's what I'm saying. Okay, that's my question. Does that – is that the intent of Broward County's ordinance? The Broward County ordinance provides that it's for all of those established by the Broward County ordinance and resolution, as well as all persons appointed by the Broward County Commission to agencies, development, and redevelopment authorities, and regulatory and adjustment boards established pursuant to federal or state law. So it does provide for those. There's an exception where that is prohibited or would be inconsistent with their charter, special law, or general law. I'm going to need you to break that down for me a little bit more, Mr. Spence. They do not provide an exclusion for those. No exclusion. Correct. Okay. So if we are going to use this draft with the intent of Broward County's ordinance, I think we should follow the intent. Why are we going to change midstream? Because I think it would work in favor of trying to administer the business of the commission better than just following what the county commission has done. We don't have to follow everything the county does. We have different processes. We have different demands on our time and resources. And I think that we should be able to – it's great that we've been able to use some of the language from the county, but I know that it makes more sense to exclude those non-advisory boards from this prohibition. That's just my recommendation. Anyone else have any comments or questions? Yes, go ahead. Go ahead. Okay. Commissioner Glassman? Okay. Thank you, Mayor. My issue with the proposed language – and by the way, I do agree with you in terms of carving out DDA, PACA, and the Housing Authority. It makes sense to me. But I want to take a look at some of the other items that were in the backup. So I had – and it's actually in the backup. I received a letter from Tom Ansbrough in February of 2024 where I had requested what other cities do in terms of this issue. And he did provide – he provided the ordinances for Miami Beach, South Miami, and St. Pete Beach. And they have a whole different approach to it. They start right from the very beginning. They say if you are a lobbyist, you cannot be appointed to a board. Our proposed ordinance just talks about, well, once you're on a board, you can't lobby. But that's coming at it from the back end, not the front end. And I think that our intent, or at least what we've been expressing, is that we want to say, no, if you are a lobbyist, you will not be appointed to these advisory boards. And this proposed ordinance in front of us doesn't do that. As I said, if you look at what South Miami, Miami Beach, and St. Pete Beach say, they just cut it off right at the very beginning. Say if you are a lobbyist, you may not be appointed to a board. And we're coming at it from, well, you can be appointed, but you better not lobby when you're on the board. So that's the issue for me on this. Yeah, and I agree. D. Wayne, can we do that with Commissioner's suggestion? You can. You know, I think the only problem with that, though, is I may be a lobbyist today and find out two years from now that somebody wants to appoint me. I can't go back and retroactively undo something. I mean, it's hard for people to know that at some point down the road they may want to get involved or be appointed to something. It sort of creates a bit of a challenge, I think, for folks. I mean, I'm not saying we can't. I'm just saying it would be – it's very hard when you penalize people retroactively for something that they didn't know was going to be problematic. Well, that's true. So I don't think that's the intention here. And by the way, I want to go back. And, Laura, I hate to correct you, but I'm looking at Resolution 2024-09-1, a resolution of the Performing Arts Center Authority, Independent Special District of the State of Florida, adopting its final operating budget for fiscal year 2025 for the period commencing October 21-24 through September 2025, providing for severability and providing for an effective date. I don't do that as well as David. However, we adopt their budget. We approve their budget by resolution. October 1st. But they're not an advisory board. No, I know, but there was a question about whether we approve their budget. Everybody said no, and I'm telling you that we do, and there's a rezo approving it. So I'm just saying, when I say I know I do something, I know we do something. I've been doing it for 20 years. So in terms of addressing the issue that Vice Mayor raised earlier with regards to existing lobbyists, what the South Miami Ordinance does, it provides a nine-month period from the time that a person has registered as a lobbyist for them not to be appointed to the board so they can stop that lobbying activity, but has to have a period of nine months before they can be appointed. Right. That seems reasonable. And another thing in the ordinance I would recommend that we not include is that if a person, this two-year period after such term of appointment, if a person is currently engaged as a lobbyist and is now serving on a board and they're asked to step down, the way I read this is for two years they can't lobby the commission, and I don't think that makes any sense. Section A, Section 1, Subsection A. Right. So additionally, it's been brought to my attention that we have boards like the Citizens Committee on Recognition where individuals become members of those boards by virtue of them being honored. Right. That also creates an issue with those that are, you know. Correct. Have the minds. Well, for example, Robert Lockery, he's on there because of his being recognized previously, right? He's a family member, and if he's being asked to terminate his membership on that board, this ordinance says he cannot work in the city for two years. So there has to be some kind of grandfathering in or exclusion here to be able to vote for it. Well, my preference would be go with the Brewer County model, but I hear from both Commissioners Sorensen and Glassman a desire to go with one of the others. Is there a particular one that you all find as a better model moving forward that kind of captures? Well, I think our model is going to be good once we make these changes. And the others will follow. All right. Will you leave us to follow? Yeah. Can you – maybe we can bring this back. Sure. I mean this is what we're intending to get feedback from you all to kind of get a good idea. I understand now we don't want an after two-year penalty. That's clear. We want certain authorities not included. We just want to deal with advisory boards. That's pretty clear. Right. Well, and I like both. I like saying you can't – lobbyists cannot apply and no member of the board shall during the term member term. So it's both in my view. I agree. Both. Does that make sense to you, Wayne? Yes, it does. Okay. Eliminate the two-year. And also, I mean, I'm – just my view, I'm interested in this applying to all appointments without exception to city boards or where we make appointments. And, yeah, so that's just my thoughts. We have two people. Mayor, can I just ask DeWayne one question? I'm sorry. Sure. DeWayne, on the St. Pete Beach, Section 22-35, Qualifications of Members, how do you interpret this letter C? The city commission shall appoint only those persons whose personal and private interests are not likely to conflict with that of the general public. See, that language is too ambiguous for me. That's why I don't particularly like that one. Yeah, I agree. It's just – it's very subjective, and I think it relies on the appointing body, the commission, to determine whether or not a person has a personal or private interest. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. You're right. No, I appreciate that. Thank you. Okay. Two people signed up to speak, Mark Dickerman and Barbara Stern. Mark? Okay, great. And Barbara? Hi. Good evening. Barbara Stern. Just to clarify, I am not a lobbyist. Since I was called one at the last one, just want to make it clear, I am not a lobbyist. Steve, I know you get confused sometimes. Not a lobbyist. I do want to bring to the attention of the public why I think there's some discussion about excluding the DDA. There's only one lobbyist on the DDA. Seven members on there. Only one is a lobbyist. Her name is Stephanie Toothaker. She's vice chair. She's slated to become the chair. So as we're talking about having a carve-out, my concern is are we making a carve-out so that Stephanie can stay on that board and become the chair of the DDA, which 100% influences votes on this commission because they come out here, they speak on projects, they push their agenda, you approve their budget. To hear that they have no influence is the biggest joke because we adopt their plan. All of downtown is developed the way it is because of the recommendations from the DDA. So let's not tiptoe around that, but as we are dancing around the subject of who should be a lobbyist, who's not, I did bring tap shoes for this commission because we have danced around this topic long enough about who's a lobbyist, who's not a lobbyist, who should serve on the board. But in all due respect, I think the tap shoes belong to the finance people for one stop because that was some amazing, amazing discussions. I do want to commend this board because the last time there was a conversation about one stop with Commissioner Herbst that I recall it was February 15, 2022, you were opposing one stop for the financial reasons and you got fired that evening. So I commend you for getting along much better tonight. Hopefully it's because you finally got your code of conduct that you were all supposed to sign on. But I think that bringing this back is great. I agree with you, Ben. If you're going to exclude lobbyists, they should be excluded from all boards because otherwise you're protecting Stephanie Toothaker and I think she's the only lobbyist that would fall into that category. I think Greg Bruton serves on the DDA and I would classify him as a lobbyist. No, he's actually an urban planner consultant, so it doesn't really fall under the lobbyist. Design professionals, if you look in the backup materials, design professionals are actually excluded as the definition of a lobbyist from some other cities. So it really depends on which one you want to go with, but then that's only two people. There's nobody on the housing authority, but you did say all seven of them are lobbyists and they're not. They're all developers. And it used to be that you actually had to own land to be on the DDA. We've gotten away from that. So those are all the developers. Charlie Ladd, he's definitely not a lobbyist. Steve Hudson's not a lobbyist. I can go down the list, but I don't think we need to. But Stephanie Toothaker is the vice chair who's slated to come in as chair of the DDA. And I'm sure, you know, all the money that's been raised, I know you guys are trying to protect that seat for her. So with that, I agree with you, Ben. It might be one of the few times that I do. If you're going to block out lobbyists, block them out from all boards. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak on this item? We're not really getting those shoes? Wait. Oh, I'm happy to. Stop. Stop. They do fall under the give limit laws, so I'm happy to leave them in commission. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak on this item? There being none. Okay. That concludes that. So, D. Wayne, are you going to bring that back to us in an evening meeting, or do we need another conference item? I think there's significant enough changes that you may want to discuss it at conference, but I'm comfortable either way. Why don't you bring it up at a, I don't think we need it at a conference meeting. I agree. I think we can bring it up. Just go bring it, just bring it at an evening meeting. Okay. And if we need to make any changes, we could do it at that time. Okay. We'll do it. And it will be submitted ahead of time anyway, so I agree. Right. I agree. All right. Thanks. Now, we still haven't done commission reports, and we still have to do the CRA, but- I waived mine. Okay. But we're going to have to suspend this meeting until after the evening meeting. We're going to have to just take a, what do we need, 20 minutes? Ten minutes. Ten minutes. Twenty. No. I can't even. Fifteen. Twenty. Okay. Reconvene at 6.15. All right. All right.