City Commission Conference Meeting on 2025-06-30 1:30 PM - Jun 30, 2025

Good afternoon, everybody, if you all take your seats. So this is a day I've been waiting for my whole life. John Herbst now gets to be mayor for the day. Thank you, Dean, for giving me this opportunity. I appreciate it. Meeting adjourned. No, sorry, I can't do that. Hope everybody's enjoying our summer so far and getting ready for the 4th of July. Yeah, should be on. Yep, yep, we're on. We're good. All right, well, once again, thank you, everybody, for coming on in. I appreciate your making the time to come on down and be part of our government. So it's a conference meeting for the city of Lauderdale for Monday, June 30th, 2025. And we will start off. We have one neighbor presentation, and then we're going to move on after that to our end-of-session state legislative update. So, Troy Liggett, you've got your turn at the mic. Thank you, Commissioner Herbst, Vice Chair Herbst, I should say, and members of the commission. Thank you for this opportunity. I'm Troy Liggett, resident of Fort Lauderdale, representing the Middle River Terrace Neighborhood Association, where I'm serving as my 4th term as president. I'm a former member and chair of the Central City Redevelopment Advisory Board, commonly known as the CRAB, which is what I'm here to make my presentation about. I'm here to ask for your support and action on three issues involving the CRAB, which advises you on the Central City Community Redevelopment Area. As background, the Central City CRA was established in 2012 to combat blight across parts of several neighborhoods north of Sunrise Boulevard. The CRA runs from Lauderdale Manors in District 3 to South Middle River, Middle River Terrace, and Lake Ridge in District 2, and is important to Poinsettia Heights Neighborhood in District 1. As I mentioned, I have three requests for you. First, I ask that you consider extending the three-year term of service of the CRAB to mirror that of the nine-year term of service for the Northwest Progresso Flagler Heights Advisory Board. The Central City Advisory Board can serve three one-year terms. Thus, you appoint them every year, and they can serve for only three years total. This is unlike almost all other city boards except for the short-term ones that you appoint for specific reasons and is very different from the other CRAs board. I ask that you extend the terms for two important reasons. First, there is an extensive learning curve for new advisory board members, and the CRAB spends an inordinate amount of time simply bringing the constant flow of new members up to speed. By the time they figure out what's going on, and I can attest as a former board member, they're gone, and we start over. Second, the CRA has a lifespan of 30 years with 17 years remaining, and redevelopment is a long-term task that needs consistency. The lengthy nature of CRA projects is generally longer than the short three-year terms of advisory members, so the board that was involved with creating a project is almost never around to serve for its implementation, which has caused problems specifically on the recent 4th Avenue Streetscape project, which was designed five years ago and faced many delays. It also has been a significant problem with the Central City rezoning initiative that's underway. There are many reasons why it's taken over a decade for the CRAB to endorse the rezoning proposal, but I suggest one of the most significant is the constant turnover of the board. We're on our fifth new board since the initiative began. The constant turnover also directly led to the CRAB's recent endorsement of a rezoning plan for parts of the southern part of Middle River Terrace. They passed the plan by an 8-2 vote, and I suggest that that vote total is incredibly deceiving because six of the 8 votes were by members appointed just a couple of months before the vote and had never been engaged in the rezoning process before their appointment. Indeed, five of the six were recruited by one South Meadow River resident on behalf of commercial property developers who were not pleased with the compromise and plan endorsed by an equally lopsided vote the other way just 10 months earlier. This back and forth has damaged the CRAB's credibility, and I suggest extending the board member's term is a good way to avoid this problem in the future. My second request is to ask that you direct the CRA staff to fulfill their obligation of updating the CRA's redevelopment plan, which has been overdue for two years. The central city CRA, like the other CRA, was established for a 30-year term. In 2012, when it was established, the commission adopted a comprehensive plan that authorized very specific objectives and goals. You, the commission at the time, directed the CRA to review the plan every five years and to submit updates to you for amendment if needed. That's common sense because things change. In 2017, the CRA staff at the time and the CRA reviewed the plan and offered suggestions to you, and you adopted those amendments in 2018. Troy, we're kind of running over here. Could I ask you just to kind of sum it up in the next 30 seconds if you would? Sure thing. Thank you. I ask you to update this because the central issue in this, it is built around a commuter rail station on 13th Street, which no longer exists. And so to implement this plan, you need to adopt this, and I suggest that's important. My third request is the Middle River Terrace Neighborhood Association has serious issues with the management of the CRA, and we request a meeting with the city manager to discuss those issues. Thank you. Thank you. So one question to DeWayne. I know we've got a lot of things in our charter or in our ordinance code that kind of relate back to when we had three-year terms. It sounds like that term for the South Middle River CRA board members might be tied to that. Does that make sense? So this CRA was adopted later than most of those boards that are governed by the Code of Ordinance restriction on the consecutive terms, and they have a specific consecutive term in their establishing ordinance that limits them, that first off gives them a term of office of one year and limits it to three consecutive one-year terms. So that restriction is in their enabling ordinance. Okay, but that's in the ordinance code. That's not a charter issue. That's an ordinance code. That's correct. So I do think it makes sense because, to Troy's point, you know, it does take a while for a lot of people to get up to speed. So how do my colleagues feel about that? Is that something that you'd like to revisit? Well, Vice Mayor, I agree. I think it would be important. I actually like the model that the Planning and Zoning Board has of the two three-year terms, six years max. It's obviously not as much as the Northwest nine years, but it's certainly a lot better than three one-year terms. I think that's way too short, and I think we should revisit it. And I think we actually just modified that for kind of the same reason to tie it into the commission terms. We did that last year, if I remember correctly, didn't we? Or did we just extend by one year? I'm trying to recall what this was. We extended by one year, so it used to be three years before the Planning and Zoning Board is now four years. So those boards are special in the sense that they're quasi-judicial, but the two, three years is consistent with what our code provides for other boards. So in general, we have a maximum of six total years, consecutive years. If it's a one-year term, it's six consecutive one-year terms. It's usually the limitation. If it's a two-year term, it's three consecutive two-year terms and so forth. So six years is the general limitation on the number of years in our code. Pam, any thoughts? Yes. Troy, you mentioned that there's been five new boards since the intercession. I'm just saying it was established in 2012. So it was the original one in 2012, 2015, 2018, 21, 2024. I guess, yeah, that's five. So, yeah, it's turned over five times since then while they've been trying to do the rezoning. And every new board has had to figure out what rezoning is all about, and they start over in a way. All right. I agree that we should extend it and allow them to have that total of six-year terms. I think that would be more productive, what you're saying. It's just a restart. And, you know, I'm one of those ones, so why are we restarting every time? Let's continue to do what we need to do. Thank you. So, yes, I'm in agreement with that part. Dwayne, you've got a consensus. Thank you, Troy. Yeah, well, Vice Mayor, if I can chime in there. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were on the line. My apologies, Commissioner Bernson. Thank you. Please. Yeah, no problem. Appreciate it. Yeah, Troy, thanks for your service and Vice Mayor and Commissioners. Yeah, I agree. I think extending the term makes sense. If it sounds like the consensus is six years, that sounds like a good plan for me. Thank you. Thanks, Vice Mayor. Thank you, Commissioner. So, for clarification, we're doing two, three-year terms. Yes. All right. Will do. Thank you. Vice Mayor, to his request to have a meeting, definitely we can sit down and discuss any of your concerns. Thank you. That would be wonderful. Thank you. And I also hope you... Sorry. And, Raquel, the CRA plan updating, is that something that we can have done? Yes, it is best practice to update periodically, so we can take a look at that. Okay. Great. Is that... Did I say that right, Troy, what you were seeking? Yes. Exactly. Thank you. So, is that... Are we batting 1,000, three for three, Troy? Three for three. Okay. Awesome. Thank you. I don't know. Thanks, Pastor. I don't like people to be that happy walking away, but we'll give it to you. Exactly. People are going to start to expect that now. All right. That's right. All right. Next item is our 2025 end-of-session state legislative update, and I just want to say thank you, by the way, to everybody for all the hard work that you do up in Tallahassee. Better you than me. So, we have Senator Osgood here. We have Representative Cassell, Representative Lamarca, Representative Rosenwald, and Representative Campbell. I understand that Representative Dunkley couldn't make it today, so thank you, all of you, for taking the time to come here and be part of this with us today. And this was actually fun for me. I haven't seen Mr. Rosenwald. He reminded me, 2007 was the first time he and I met at a party with Kate McCaffrey. Goes back five city managers ago. So, yeah, good to see you. Good to see you. All right. Take it away, Daphne. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayors, Commissioners, and Honorable Members, as well as my great lobbying team. This is the 2025 state regular legislative session update. It was defined by significant budget reductions, dynamic power shifts, and intensive negotiations. I think that's the greatest way to put it. Delicately phrased. Yes, I like that. Commencing on March 4th, 2025, and concluding on June 16th, six weeks beyond the original scheduled adjournment of May 2nd, session was marked by extended budget negotiations. So I would also like to welcome our Fort Lauderdale legislative delegation, Senator Osgood, Representatives LaMarca, Representatives Campbell, Dunkley, who could not make it, Representative Cassell, and Representative Rosenwald. Senator Pizzo was also unable to make it, but he does extend his hellos to everybody. I would also like to thank each of them for their hard work and dedication representing our interest in Tallahassee. And I would also like to introduce our contract lobbying teams, Ron Book PA, Eric's Consultants, Ruben Turnbull and Associates, and Capital City Consulting, and thank them for their tireless efforts advocating on the city's behalf. Before I have our delegation come up, I just want to quickly run through the appropriations that we received this year. The governor's veto list so far has not come out. Okay, I got no's. So first and foremost, I'd like to say on page five of the exhibit, you'll see the beginning of our city appropriations, the fire rescue special event ambulances. We requested $320,000 and we received $320,000. For the homeless transitional housing program, we requested $1 million and received half of that at $500,000. For the educational enrichment program, we requested $500,000 and received $350,000. And the Galt Mile Improvement Project, we requested $2 million and we received $500,000. Moving on to the top of page six, you'll see the roadway resurfacing project. We requested $750,000 and we received that amount that we requested. The sidewalk repair safety project, we requested $750,000 and received that same amount. And the Southeast 13th bridge replacement project, we requested $1.5 million. We received $500,000. The La Sola Safety Improvements and ADA Upgrade Project, we requested $1 million and we received that amount in the budget at $1 million. For the violence interruption program, which is a Fort Lauderdale Police Department project, we requested $900,000. We initially received, I want to say $250,000. And in the supplemental package, we received an additional $425,000 to total $650,000. Last but not least, we did request Fort Lauderdale's Growth Opportunities Program for $500,000. However, that one was not included in the budget. I would now like to have Senator Osgood come up to give a little insight as to her experience and what she did for us this session. Good evening to all of you on the day as to Commissioner Surin on the Zoom. And I want to first start off by thanking the city of Fort Lauderdale for employing Daphne. Daphne made my life in Tallahassee much better. I was a stronger senator because of Daphne. If I'm texting 1 and 2 o'clock in the morning, she's responding. I appreciate her attention to the city and making sure that I have what I need to represent the city in a very, very factual and strong way. I'm also going to ask the Fort Lauderdale legislative delegation to stand, if you could stand. And I want you to see them, and Senator Pizzo is not here, but we take pride and we are just so honored to represent you. And I want to thank each of you, both Democrats and Republicans, for how hard you work with us in the city, in the Senate, to represent the city of Fort Lauderdale. Can you guys celebrate them? I know what, we know what happens in Tallahassee, you guys. Thank you. You may be seated. And I am happy to report that it is truly a bipartisan effort, working with Rep. Cassell, Rep. LaMarca. We get the job done for the people. So just a few highlights from this year. I want to paint the picture so you understand. Our state budget is about $115.1 billion. That's a $3.5 billion cut from last year. COVID money went away. There were changes. Things changed in the federal government. So we have to make some cuts, whether it's the city commission or the school board. And I want to say that so you don't come and yell at the commission. You send emails and yell at us in Tallahassee. But we're trying to get our budget in line that we don't have a deficit over the next several years. So we're working in a very bipartisan way to make sure that we're physically sound. So that budget is resulting in about $1.3 billion in cuts, eliminating the business rent tax with remaining relief through limited sales tax holidays exemptions. A permanent sales tax holiday exemption on any clothing and shoes that you buy that's under $75, which will result in about $100 billion savings a year. A one-time exemption on hurricane supplies. An exemption on electronic and school supplies up to $1,500 per person. And that means backpacks, school computers, and things that our children need for school. There is a hunting and fishing and camping tax holiday exemption. A 1.75% deduction from residential homestead and flood policies. And new limits on duration for local surtaxes. So there's also money that we set aside to add $1.5 billion to the stabilization fund. And I kind of came away from this legislative session with mixed feelings. As I looked at the budget process and where we are listening at the governor today, we kind of prioritize business tax relief. And we know that if our businesses are stronger, then there are more jobs available. It helps us with our workforce and it helps us with our economy. Our job in Tallahassee is to kind of find a balance. Even when we have different perspectives and different political views, we try to work real hard. Sometimes we fight it out. You see a lot of stuff in the media. Some of it is true. A lot of it is not. But that's what we do in a democracy is we share. So I'm going to highlight a few more things that I think are important. House Bill 1105 was the education bill. And I was very excited and happy for this bill. I'm going to lose some cool points with my children, but it's okay. This bill prohibited students in K through 8th grade from using cell phones during the day. And people say, oh, you can't take away the phones. We need to take away the phones. The children need to focus on their education. Not texting, not monitoring social media, not having fights at lunch because somebody didn't like something on somebody's social media page. If I had my way, I would have done it from K through 12. So we compromised. So for high school students, we're studying what it looks like to prohibit high school students from using a cell phone. Now, how many of you all in here use your cell phone? I had a cell phone when you was in school. Raise your hand. Yeah, a few of y'all. I can tell what age y'all are, but we came out just fine, right? It wasn't a distraction. Also, there was legislation passed to prohibit people from causing someone else to call 9-1-1 and make a false report. We can't overburden 9-1-1 with false reports. We have to be truthful when we call 9-1-1 and we make reports. The legislator also expanded the hazard walking condition for school children that have to walk to school with hazard conditions, whether it's high traffic volumes or construction that's taking place. So now the school districts will have to really consider providing transportation for that student, even if they're not two miles away. It was an unfunded mandate, and it could be challenging for some of the districts. The one bill that keeps resonating with me, and I'm, you know, giving honor to God because I gave up my Camaro and I now drive a Trax, which is the dangerous speeding law that classifies driving 50 miles per hour over the speed limit or 100 miles an hour over the speed limit a dangerous matter and a criminal offense. And you can go to jail for 30 days and pay a $500 fine for the first offense and 90 days and a $1,000 fine for the repeat offense. This was one of Senator Pizzo's brainchild based on an experience, and he loves me so much. He didn't name it the Rosalyn Osgood bill because he knew that in the past I did speed a little too much. Another bill was commercial squatter removal, which enables quicker exemption of squatters from commercial properties. Sometimes squatters move into commercial properties, and the way that our rules were is you have to go through a whole kind of like an eviction process to get them out. This bill gives the sheriffs greater authority to just address the problem without the overwhelming burden on the tax on the court system, which we pay for as taxpayers. We also passed legislation to have a fentanyl awareness day, which will be August 21st, and fentanyl is a problem. Please monitor medication. Please pay attention to what's going on with our children. There was another bill, Senate Bill 612, that established a new category of a third-degree murder for those younger than 18 years old who illegally distribute controlled substance that result in overdose. And there's a list that go along with that. We have a lot of our kids that are overdosing because they don't understand the severity of these drugs and all the combination drugs that we have on the street. And I have the other legislators. They're going to cover a lot of the other things. I want to make sure that I didn't miss some of the things that I wanted to highlight. And also, a lot of these laws go in effect on July 1st. I think another law that we need to be made aware of is the new texting law. So, if you get caught texting and driving, the first time, it's a $500 offense. The second time, it's $500 and your license is suspended for six months. The third time, I think it's $500 and your license could be suspended indefinitely. So, we have to make sure that we're driving safely. And ladies, you know, there was a lot of conversation about ladies putting on their makeup while they're driving. I can't even put my makeup on when I'm not driving. I'm still learning. So, I don't know how we do that. But there were about almost 3,000 bills, somewhere I think around 2,600 bills that were filed. And I may be a little off on the numbers, but I think we got across the floor maybe around 260-plus bills. Tallahassee is heavy lifting. Bills have to go through the House and the Senate, and then we have to compromise. It is a lot of work that go into passing legislation and trying to make sure that we're positioning the residents in the state of Florida in the best posture. And sometimes it's not easy because we all have our different perspectives. But I just wanted to lift those highlights, and I thank you guys for giving me the opportunity to serve you in Senate District 32. And I can say the same thing for my colleague who I just enjoy working with, Senator Jason Pizzo. And again, hats off to the members of the House of Representatives, and I just so appreciate you and how we work together to get things done for the city of Fort Lauderdale. Next up, I will have Representative Daryl Campbell. Well, good afternoon, everybody. It's an honor and a pleasure to be back home. It's relieving, to say the least. It takes a lot of work. This session has been interesting, to say the least. We're kind of on an ebb and stop and go flow where we extended session for an extra amount of days. But, you know, the work had to be done in making sure that we get a budget that was passed for the state. You know, my thoughts about this session was it was a learning process of a new speaker, new Senate president, and just getting a feel of, you know, what's going to be like for not only this year, but for next year as well. For those who may not be aware, it's a new leadership every two years, and it's constant getting familiar with what is their priorities and how can we make sure that we align with the city priorities and our priorities up there in the state. And so that is one of the challenges that you find that you run into this year. You know, as you saw in the headlines, you saw a lot of us standing up against and really bringing back power to the legislature when it came to what the House, what the Senate plans to do, and not only being ran by a governor who's trying to, you know, take full control of both sides. And so I was proud of that to see the unified stance that we all stood in fighting for that. Some of the highlights that I want to talk about is that we really pushed back and really stood our ground on making sure that we want to make sure that we focused on the community, on the people. You know, I was proud to bring back $3.6 million to the community. As you all are aware, the bill, the budget had been signed today. We're still going through that budget to see what the veto list is looking like. So we can't bring you any updates because it literally just got signed. But once we get more details on that, we'll definitely be able to provide more updates on that. In regards to some of the bills that I one of the bills that I got passed was the spectrum alert bill, which is near and dear to my heart. What this bill does is simply like Amber Alert. You get notification to your phones about a child that's on the on the spectrum. Once they get missing, you get notified. And it provides that opportunity for the community to be on the lookout for this individual as they are, you know, missing and trying to figure out where this person is. It also helps our law enforcement to provide better training on a lot of how to handle kids on the spectrum. As we've seen in years past, we've seen there were situations where law enforcement was not well equipped. And we always ask so much for law enforcement. This is another opportunity that we have to to really have a bonding and more collaboration between community and law enforcement as they as they figure out how to handle a child on the spectrum. And so being a mental health professional, that was near and dear to my heart. Another thing that we had we had we had discussed and we had got across, but going to continue working on is trying to get more social workers involved in our communities. We had a bill that came across where it would expand a compact of social workers across across not only here, but across comparing across other states, allowing Florida to be part of this compact. We weren't we were unfortunately get that across, but we're still in conversations and we're looking forward for that to come back for next session. But as far as this session goes, I'm glad to wrap. I'm glad to be home. I'm glad to see the sun. My sinuses are intact. And, you know, but I do want to say thank you to my colleagues for the tremendous support given in and helping to to work across the aisle and to to figure out what's going on this session. Because there were times where I'm not going to kid you not, I felt lost, but it's it's kind of a unifying and bonding thing when you when you realize that your colleagues are just as lost as you are. And so trying to figure out the process and how we're going to move this process. But I'm looking forward to what what's to come and and how do we how we move forward to making sure Fort Lauderdale is the highest ranked cities and one of the highest ranked cities down here in the state. So I'm looking forward to that conversation. So thank you for your time and thank you for your efforts. Representative Lamarca, I'm going a little bit out of order. I appreciate you, Representative Cassell must be the gray hair. Well, good afternoon. It's good to be here with you. I want to take a quick moment and highlight that my both my legislative aid and district aid are here. Justin Sasarczyk, who's in the back row, and then K.R. Coleman, district aid here. So thank you for the opportunity to represent the city of Fort Lauderdale. And as you heard from some of those preliminary numbers, Vice Mayor Herbst looks like we have another million and a half to try to get for Galt Mile this next year. So that means Mr. Rosenstein will be working hard in my last year. So I'm in my last term and my last year of my last term. So I want to highlight a few things with respect to probes. And if they come in, as we heard, I know the governor was throwing red pens at the audience this morning at the press conference. Hopefully he is out of red pens. Having said that, Fort Lauderdale has always been a priority for me, whether I was serving on the county commission or here in the legislature and a place where I grew up and spend a great deal of time. So the projects that we worked on here are very important, not all city related, but all in the city. I want to highlight a few. One was the Las Olas Chabad Jewish Center, the Friendship Circle job skills training program, which we had some funds from last year. We put in again this year. Next up was the Seafarers House at Port Everglades, supporting our maritime community. Our amazing Museum of Discovery and Science. I think I saw Joe Cox here. And if you haven't seen the F1 movie, you need to get over there and see that. And finally, not for the city, but within the city, the Stranahan House, which goes to a big priority of mine being arts and culture and history. And for the city of Fort Lauderdale, the Fire Rescue Special Events Ambulances, which if you've been to the Panther celebration or Riptide or Tortuga Fest, you understand that we need to make sure that our first responders get around on the beach, as well as the Southeast 13th Street Bridge Replacement Project. And top priority for me, no offense to the other districts, but the Galt Mile Street Safety Improvement Projects, which is something that I'll be putting in the remainder of next year, which I don't typically do that and say, hey, I'm committed to doing this next year. But that project's near and dear to my heart, policy-wise. I think Daryl and Representative Campbell and Senator Osgood, my good friends that we've worked on some projects together, they were right. I mean, there was an adjustment of the legislature with respect to the executive office of the governor. There was also some settling between the House and the Senate, which is always fun. But either way, I think the word you heard and when people say to me, how does it work up there? How do you do that? I said, it's all about compromise. And if we don't see that in Washington over the next few days, nothing will get done. Gretchen's here from the county. She knows that I had to compromise every Tuesday. So I understand how to do that and get priorities over the finish line. And so a few of the bills that passed that were signed that were important to me were the Fort Lauderdale DDA, the Downtown Development Authority bill, which dissolves the current sunset law, which will allow the Downtown Development Authority to continue doing amazing projects like Huizinga Park and other projects like that. Why that was important was it's not funded by residential tax dollars or resident payments. It's funded by the businesses. And if they choose to do that, then that's investment back into the city where those businesses are. The other two bills that are really important, I think, to a lot of our community, not all, but the condo bills that passed. House Bill 913 was a bill that kind of adjusted. You'll hear glitch bill. You'll hear other terms for it. But ultimately, I saw Ellen Bogdanoff is here, and she knows what a glitch bill is. Sometimes it's eight years of glitch bills. Well, condo legislation requires updates as you go through the process. And from the tragedy at Surfside came a much-needed piece of legislation to try to make sure our buildings are safe. But it also was probably a little bit aggressive from the time frame of working on issues like reserves and having residents who have not put into reserves do that all at once. So this bill gives a glide path, gives more time for the structural integrity reserve studies, and it also allows them to get a letter of credit for the condominium as opposed to putting reserves in before the work is done. So I think it gave folks a little bit of time to get the work done. We know that we'll stay on them to get the work done and make sure they're safe. But I think this is, again, a good compromise. And finally, House Bill 393 tags on to some work that I've been working on for the last few years, mostly for residential homeowners. It's the My Safe Florida Home program, and this was the condo pilot program. And what this program will do is put additional dollars into a grant program for condominiums to be able to reinvest in hardening and making their buildings more resilient. Finally, I'll finish up with one of the things I think is important for us when we talk about folks going to Tallahassee. You're going to hear from four representatives. You heard from one member of the Senate. Look, it's our job to go up there and not forget where we came from. I happen to be – and actually have a partner in my Broward delegation as another Republican, but I happen to be on the Republican side, which right now there's a supermajority. But that doesn't mean you forget about who you serve, what their issues are, and why it's important that you're there to represent everybody. Hillary will talk about some projects that she's done, but one of the things that we need to make sure we do when we're up there is it's easy to get caught up in this team versus that team, this house versus that house, debates with the first floor of the governor's office. I think the more we embrace and work together with the governor's office, the more we'll see how that veto list, A, will come out. But important to me is to make sure we bring issues home. And the biggest issue, I think – and I can't stress this enough, although it didn't – it's not something that would keep somebody from dying in their condominium or something like that or being unsafe on the streets or whatever it might be. The arts and culture funding was something that we needed to make sure we got back in check. And while the bill that I was running for the Department of State, the Division of Arts and Culture, didn't go through in its form as a bill, a vast majority of the language was in the funding for the budget. And a lot of those arts and culture projects will get through this year. I think they're either at 90 or 95 when they finally did the scoring. It's my goal to go back next year and bring that probably to at least down to 90 to get more projects in there. But I also think that when those projects are being scored, people should be very – the members that have been put on the arts and culture board should be honest about evaluating projects and make sure that they highlight the great projects and make sure they get through. I think you'll see the budget signed with a lot of arts and culture funding. I think it was up to $39 million with respect to arts and culture, historic grants, and library grants. So that is my presentation, Mr. Vice Mayor, Madam Commissioner, and Mr. Commissioner. Thank you so much, Chip. Appreciate it. Thank you, Representative. Now I will have Representative Cassell. Is it on? Okay, great. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you, Commission, for having me. Members of the community, thank you so much for being here. What we do, we do on your behalf. So I hope my presentation satisfies your need for understanding what happened this legislative session in Tallahassee. And so far, my colleagues have really hit the nail on the head. Going to Tallahassee really is a bipartisan effort. And I always like to talk about the statistics. There were 1,958 bills, total bills, filed in the House this year. Of those bills that were filed between the House and the Senate, 269 bills passed. Over 70% of the bills that passed were passed unanimously with full bipartisan support, meaning 100% of every elected official voted yes in support of the bill 70% of the time. Over 90% of the 269 bills that passed passed with bipartisan support, meaning you had members on both sides of the aisle voting yes in support of legislation. Less than 10%, only 8.6% of the bills that passed passed on a party line vote. So less than 10% of the time, this legislative session, we had disagreement that was based on your party affiliation. I had the honor of the $115 billion budget of securing $57,324,528. Of 28 of my appropriations, 24 of those appropriations will directly impact Broward County. And more specifically, as it pertains to Fort Lauderdale, over $3 million between the Broward County Forensic Center, Henderson Behavioral Health, which is located here in Fort Lauderdale, and an appropriation for Broward Health, all coming back to Fort Lauderdale. Additionally, I was honored to support. We have a very vibrant Jewish community here in Broward County, and specifically in Fort Lauderdale. There's over 15,000 Jewish residents that call Fort Lauderdale home. Fort Lauderdale also is home to one of the largest Jewish day schools, Maimonides, which is actually right across the street from my house in Fort Lauderdale. And I secured over $20 million in Jewish day school security funding that will go across the state to ensure that Jewish students have the security that they need at their schools to provide them with that safety. Obviously, my colleagues have talked really at length about bills that are important to Fort Lauderdale, bills that were impactful. So I want to just talk a little bit about my experience. I have the honor and privilege of serving as the vice chair for the insurance and banking subcommittee in the House. And one of the most impactful things that I think that came out of this legislative session is the work that we did in the House to investigate the claims made by the insurance industry several years ago, which a lot of reforms were passed that were really anti-consumer and really negatively impacted consumers in the state of Florida to look into this affiliate companies where $14 billion of money was transferred from the insurance companies to the affiliated companies at a time where insurance companies were claiming basically bankruptcy. And that if the legislature didn't step in and pass significant reforms that were really pro-insurance and anti-consumer, that our insurance market would collapse. We are still involved in that investigation in the House. We had several meetings where we called the former insurance commissioner as well as the current insurance commissioner to investigate that transfer of funds. We are continuing that investigation into this legislative session in the hopes to get a better understanding of why our insurance marketplace continues to fail. Property insurance is my area of expertise. It's why I ran for office. So to have the ability to serve as the vice chair of insurance and banking is a huge opportunity for me to provide my expertise to the legislature at a time where we have a speaker who is really dedicated to getting a better understanding of a very complicated issue. Rather than passing legislation that's reactionary and can negatively impact Floridians, whether it be raising rates or causing the marketplace to disrupt, we have a speaker who is extremely focused on getting to the bottom of this issue so we can move forward in a positive way to help Floridians. I am happy to report legislation that I filed two legislative sessions ago that would allow Citizens Windstorm Insurance Company to take over the wind portion of the policy statewide, something that we already do in Monroe County and is very successful, is now being studied by the Florida legislature at FSU, which is the number one school pretty much in the country to look into the insurance market. So that legislation wasn't ready quite for prime time, but I'm very happy to report that the speaker has taken the initiative to really dig into this issue, get a better understanding of in the event. I always say it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. We know that we have a very volatile insurance market here in the state of Florida. We know that. It's not a matter of if, but when, when the hurricanes come. And I do have the original filer of that bill, Senator Bogdanoff, here. I always like to say I can't take credit for the bill. It's been an idea that's been around for a really long time, but we finally, for the first time, are actually taking that initiative and really digging into how we can better stabilize this market for the foreseeable future so we don't continue to be in that circular cycle of a failing market and trying to rebuild it. So I'm very happy to report that we are taking those additional steps and looking into that. I also have the great opportunity to serve on the property committee. I know that's something near and dear to everyone's minds right now, and I do just want to take the opportunity to thank your staff. I've gone around to all of my cities and the county specifically to sit down and get a better understanding of property taxes for each individual city that I represent and to discuss what that impact would be. Your staff was absolutely incredible. They took a significant amount of time with me because it's an issue that I know will have a direct impact on the city and the services that you'll be able to provide. Again, another issue that our speaker is really thoughtfully taking a look at rather than being reactionary and just putting something together. He's empowering the legislature through this committee process to take a deep dive into how can we provide relief to homeowners. We know that affordability is such a big issue on everyone's mind. Is there a way to provide relief in the form of property tax relief, but still making sure that our cities are successful and can thrive and provide those services that property taxes do pay for. So I'm happy to report three of my bills passed. One really near and dear to me and to Broward County is after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas tragedy that happened here in Broward, we created the Mental Health Commission, and since that tragedy, over $800 million has been spent on providing mental health services to our children throughout the state, but unfortunately we have not been measuring those metrics. We have no idea if our students are getting healthier. We have no idea if the services we're providing are actually helping them and getting them healthier. So the legislation that I passed will allow the stakeholders to collaborate. We will gather that data and actually begin to take a deep dive into whether the services we are providing in that space is working, and if not, how can we pivot to make sure that our students are safe and they're healthy and that our money is going to the right places. So that is my update. Thank you. And we have Representative Rosenwald. Good afternoon, Vice Mayor and Commission to everyone here. I'm the new guy on the block, right? Replimark is in his senior year of his going into his eighth term, and I'm just finishing my first. I've got to tell you, as a former mayor of Oakland Park, as a former city commissioner yourself, Replimark, it's very different serving in state government. You all have a lot more pulse to the people and can move things a lot quicker than we can. When I first moved here in 2007, I actually was a Fort Lauderdale resident. I lived in Middle River Terrace. So Fort Lauderdale is my original home here in Broward County, and I'm very happy to represent it. Specifically, I represent the Rock Island neighborhood in Commissioner Beasley's district, and then I represent two neighborhoods in Commissioner Herbst's district, Twin Lakes North, and Palm Air North. So happy to serve with the other five cities that I have. What's my take? Well, it was a whirlwind up there, to be sure. Like I said, you go from being mayor in Oakland Park, and it's the five of you to 160 of you, and a governor and a Supreme Court, and it's also eight hours away. So it's a little bit of a learning curve. Rep Cassell and I actually serve on the Health Care Budget Committee, and you've heard in the news about Hope South Florida, and it's really not about Hope South Florida. It's the Hope Florida Foundation. So I think in terms of being a government watchdog, we asked important questions about where taxpayer funds that should go to taxpayers from a settlement and where they went to. So we'll stay tuned on that. My five colleagues or four colleagues did a tremendous job of giving you updates. Let me just give you a few that are also on my list that I don't think have been mentioned. We talked about condos. What also passed was the Condominium and Cooperative Associations Bills, where there's a lot of condos, of course, in Fort Lauderdale. And so this has a lot of condo owners that have needed relief, right, as the rents go up or as their fees go up. So there's now a two-year pause. So a two-year pause in setting aside money for reserves to pay for repairs. There's also condo boards can now have a secure line of credit and also to help pay for this. And there's now virtual voting. So I know some of you represent condo associations. That's House Bill 913. A great bill. I know you all put in – I know you all in the Fort Lauderdale Commission championed pickleball courts, and you have now national pickleball tournaments, I think, here. Is it called Griffin? What's the name of it? It's called the Fort. In the Fort. The Fort. The Fort, yes. So – and that – pickleball courts belong in city parks, but in state parks they don't belong. And I think we're all very happy – I think it may have passed unanimously, I'm not positive – a state land management bill, the State Park Preservation Act. So golf courts, pickleball courts, yes, put them in our city parks, but we're going to leave hotels and all of those out of our state parks. So I think we had some great unanimity on that. We also had an aggravated animal cruelty. It's sad to talk about this, but when there are – you know, when people – you all saw the news years ago or a few years ago with that poor dog who actually lived but was found chained after the hurricane, who was adopted and is fine now. But we have some increased offenses for people who just do some unspeakable stuff for aggravated animal cruelty. Also, my colleague, Representative Tendrick, in the House, we all passed the Holocaust Remembrance Day. So that's very important to honor our Jewish and really all of our residents for Florida. That's all – let me tell you a couple things that didn't pass. So this is what's important. Again, sometimes, you know, bills are important and they pass because we want them to pass, but it's also about the work we do that they don't arrive to the – even to the committee level or they don't get out of the committee. I'm actually happy as the first openly gay state representative from Broward County. I'm happy to report that the flag bill didn't – went to one or two committees in the Senate and died. The emphasis of this was to have banned pride flags from government buildings, and that did not go anywhere. Thankfully, it never made a committee in the House, so I'm appreciated about that. Also, I think a bill that I think we can all agree in this room that was good that it didn't happen – well, maybe mixed. But you mentioned the CRAs earlier, the speaker, you were just speaking about CRAs before us. And the community redevelopment associations, there was some movement to eliminate them based on – sure, there's a couple bad actors. There's a dozen of – there's tons of them in the state, but you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. So that – the elimination of CRAs was – did have some movement, but that did not make it. And I think that's a win for local governments. With that, I'm glad to take a little bit of rest. This is actually my last official event, and I'm taking a two-week vacation, literally, when I drive out of the parking lot. But I think a lot of you might be, too. But I just want to thank you all for your service. I want to thank my staff, Brian Sievert and Tom Wilmoth, and our intern, Shania, who are here representing the District 98. And if my office can be of availability to you, I'm happy to. We have – we actually do do office hours, right, Tom, in Fort Lauderdale. Actually, it's right by – not Oswald Park, but right by in Lauderdale Lakes. We also have our – everyone knows Peter Pan Diner, and the main office is right north of Peter Pan Diner on Dixie. So my office can be of help to you with veterans' benefits, medical assistance. And also what some of you may not know is while we do now have an elected tax collector who will be taking on the driver's licenses, that's still going to be about a two-year. Okay? So for about another year or two, we in the state can help cut red tape for you in terms of – we all know about those lines, right, for the driver's licenses and state IDs. So feel free to call mine or any of our offices to help you with that. So thank you for your time. I just want to say, again, thank you to our legislative delegation. Without them, we wouldn't be as successful as we are in Tallahassee. It's always a pleasure working with them each and every year. So I will say you are free to go if you do need to handle any other obligations. And in the interest of time, I will also call up our contract lobbying teams to briefly give their remarks about what they worked on for us during legislative session. So first up, I will call Ron Book and Ronna Brown from Ron Book. Daphne, while you're standing there, may I ask you one question? Absolutely. Because I always wonder about this, how we fit in with the rest of the state. So I know that the city submitted 12 projects for city appropriations, totaled about $12 million. And we did get funding for nine for a total of $5,300,000. How does that measure up with the rest of the cities in the state of Florida? How do we do when you look at not just what we requested but what we received? What is that $5 million figure with regards to appropriations and when you look at all of the cities in the state of Florida? That's a good question. So when we look at where we stand with all 423 cities, I would say it's relative because of the amount of projects and the number of projects and the amount we request versus other cities. So the city of Miami could request two projects that totaled $20 million and get $10 million, where we as the city of Fort Lauderdale will request 12 projects at $11 million, but only get $5 million. So relatively speaking, that's doing well against the city of Miami because we received funding for more projects. So we can't really have a true comparison against other cities because of, A, the number of projects or what the project does and the amount that's asked for. I would just love to see sometime, I don't want to take up a lot of time here, a comparison to the other cities in the state, dollars requested for appropriations, dollars received for appropriations, and a list in where we fit in all of those cities in the state. Thank you. Daniel, we're all here, and so know that we appreciate the opportunity. Let me, before I get into somewhat of a presentation, come back, if I could, to Commissioner Glassman's question about how we compare to other municipalities. I think it's hard to do. You have a great delegation. You have a bipartisan delegation. You have a delegation that has done extraordinarily well for you as an entity. When you look at the fact that we did away in 1980 with multi-member districts, you have a multi-member district-type delegation. You've got two Senate members. You've got four or five House members who represent you. And you have a bipartisanship in it which allows them to play and work off of one another from a political perspective in getting the things done. I can tell you that on Saturday afternoon, I was on the phone with the governor directly on behalf of this city on one of your projects. And I can tell you that they specifically spoke about a conversation that they had had with Representative LaMarca Friday afternoon on a number of the projects here in the area. Specifically, I will use, Chip, the mods project because they specifically raised that. Lita Kelly and Jason Weida, when I was on with the governor, raised that as an issue. The fact that they work together and row the boat together brings you results that other, if you will, municipalities do not have the benefit of. Daphne, who I want to praise as well. I heard Senator Osgood talk about Daphne before she talked about anything else. The fact is, you have leadership within the city that helps drive your lobbying team to achieve the results that you get, not only on a budget, but on those global issues that you don't want to see happen. And using the issue that I think Representative LaMarca or Mitch may have raised, the CRA issue, again, those are critical issues that your staff drives your lobbying team to focus on on your behalf. It is not always, Commissioner, about how much money did we get, but was there a substantive issue that was of greater importance to you than maybe it would have been somewhere else? There are tradeoffs along the way. I will tell you that I believe that if you were to compare, and Daphne chose to use the city of Miami, if you look at the projects they submitted, look at the projects you submitted, they're very different, if you will, but from a perspective of water and transportation and the arts, your projects are very similar. If you take a look around Broward County, Fort Lauderdale has a larger delegation representing you, which gets you larger returns than most other cities. If you look at the other cities in your county, most of them get one project or two projects in the budget, and they're content and they're happy because they got their fair share back. So it's not always easy to compare, but I would say to you comparatively, and our firm represents 30-plus local governments around the state. It's not just Dade County and Broward County. It's Seminole County. It's Brevard County. It's Pinellas Park. It's Marco Island. We have a broad cross-section of cities that we can look to you and say comparatively, you are doing very well. But you're doing well not because of us. It's because of the people sitting in the front row there. They're the ones that do the work. We're the ones who try to put blinders on them, whether it's the Gulf Ocean Mile Project, whether it's the Mods Project, or it's the Hospital District's Project. And I didn't hear anybody talk about what, if you will, north of State Road 84, Broward Health got. But those are issues that affect you and your taxpayers because at the end of the day, if the ad valorem taxes are lower in those districts because they got funding for projects at those hospital districts, that counts as a win for you even though it's not on your list of projects. So I wanted to at least start by responding further to the question. I think a couple of things you need to know that didn't pass that are important. And for those of you that have been on the commission, you know that I've come here for at least eight years and said sovereign immunity limits matter to you. And that bill failed again this year. And that bill had momentum this year greater than it's had the last several years. But defeating the sovereign immunity limit bill is a big deal to you and every other local government in the state because at the end of the day, what people don't necessarily understand, it's great to say we're going to raise the sovereign limit for how much the taxpayers have to pay when somebody has an unfortunate incident. But if you go back to the 15th, 16th century and protecting the king's money, either you believe in protecting it or you don't. I'm one who believes that I wrote a law review article in 1977 on sovereign immunity. Either you believe in protecting taxpayers' dollars or you don't. If you don't, then let's just remove sovereign limits altogether. Let's just repeal it altogether. Stop playing with whether or not we should increase the limits. You heard about the CRA issue. I think an issue you need to understand that's coming. And I'm going to look right at the manager or look right at her because there are two actually major issues that are going to seriously affect the administration. Number one, doge, doge, doge. And while it's in the implementing bill, which means it only has one year life, it's retroactive to 2024, which means that not only are your expenditures subject to review by the Office of Planning and Budgeting, so are your procedures, so are your policies, and there is language in that law that allows them to withhold money from local governments. I strongly urge, whether you like it or you don't, and Commissioner Glassman, you and I had a little bit of a conversation about this yesterday unrelated to this conversation. I would simply say to you, Madam Manager, that is an issue that you need to deal with, unfortunately, for the next 12 to 18 months because it's the law. And I can tell you they're looking, they're watching, and they've got a tremendous focus on Broward County, period. Next issue, I think, of great concern, Madam Manager. Not only do you have to deal with the loss of revenue-sharing dollars at the elimination of the commercial rental tax, which all of us hate paying, all of us have hated it, but unfortunately, the way it was lifted out of the statute, it has a detrimental impact on the transportation surcharge in this community because currently, until October 1, you will continue as a local government to get a share of commercial rental tax, if you will, at the 1% number. October 1, the county's ability, which means it cuts the portion that the local governments get, not only on total revenue-sharing, but on the portion of the surtax. For transit, that now goes away, and that is a $50 million hit county-wide. I've had the conversation repeatedly. I saw Gretchen here. I think she may have left, but I can tell you I've had that conversation across the street on Andrews Avenue as it relates to the county on that. You've heard about vetoes. The list is not yet released. We looked as of the time I got up out of my chair to come forward. That list is coming forth. I am optimistic that a number of our projects will have made it through. I can tell you several of our projects were on the veto list as of Saturday afternoon. Hopefully, our advocacy on your behalf is there. Live local. Amendments passed. Emergency preparedness. And I suspect that Joe Rosenstein will talk a little bit about that. But, Madam Manager, there are preemptions in there as to things you can do and not do during the state of emergency when it occurs, specifically relating to moratoriums, specifically related to issuance of permits, and duration of permits are all contained within that. Condo law has been touched. Tax package has been touched. I simply want to add one last thing. Actually, two. Number one, I should have started with this. Not since 1955 has the legislature been forced to stay in town for as long as they've stayed in town. They were in town for 115 days. 115 days instead of 60. In 1955, the legislative session went on for a little over 550 days. It went through an election cycle. But you'd have to go back to 1955 to have seen a legislative session quite like this. You've heard it described by members on both sides of the aisle. Back to the matter is, I think that debate and pushback in the world of separation of powers is healthy for the system. And I think a lot of good things passed and a lot of bad things died as a result of that effort on behalf of both sides of the aisle, your House and your Senate delegation. And while Senator Pizzo is not here and Representative Tendridge is not here, the folks that are sitting on that front row didn't just go, they engaged. And engagement is what you're looking for on behalf of yourself and your taxpayers. Add to law on property tax relief, ladies and gentlemen, that issue isn't going away. And while the governor this morning spoke specifically about the ad delorum issue, he no longer was talking about $1,000 back to every homesteaded property owner. He was talking about the broader issue. How we address that and how your delegation is educated by the manager and the commissioners of this city will be how they proceed on the issue. I don't know how anybody thinks if you eliminate ad delorum taxes, you're going to pay for police and fire. I don't get it. I don't understand where that comes from. But something has to occur in there. And if we don't participate, if we choose to put our heads in the ground instead of engaging in the dialogue with those people that go back and toil in the halls of the legislature, it's shame on all of us. It's shame on us as your advocates, but it's shame on us as local government not to do that. We have the opportunity to spend time with all members of our delegation. Shame on us if we fail to do that. Thank you, Mr. Book. I will have Lauren Jackson from AIRS Consultants just briefly go through three important bills that they advocated on. Thank you, and hi. Nice to be here with everybody. I'm sorry Candace couldn't make it today, so I'm here representing. And every year we kind of wonder, will it get a little bit easier when it comes to home rule or a tax on revenue sources for local governments? And I think every year we see that this session was no different than all the previous sessions. So there's a lot of bills that impact local governments, and all of our lobby team works very closely on that. And your delegation is one of the best, I think, when it comes to recognizing the differences between local governments and the importance of home rule and how one-size-fits-all doesn't exactly work always. But just really quickly to touch on, and I know Mr. Book went over a lot of things that impacted local governments this year, but just quickly to touch on three things that we worked on. One thing that we were able to get passed related to school mitigation fees, and these were additional fees that were being charged onto developments that were really hampering our ability to bring affordable housing developments, because sometimes it would total into the millions on top of what it would cost a developer to build a specific development. They were really put into place when the schools were overcrowded, but our schools have had an enrollment decline for over the past five years. What the language does, and it was in SB 1080 where it eventually passed, what it would do is it would place the burden on the school district to prove that those fees, that there was still that nexus there in order to charge those fees. So hopefully that will help us provide more affordable housing development at a more affordable cost. And then two bills that started from a much more extreme position when they were first filed or as they moved through the process that we were able to at least reach compromises on. They weren't perfect at the end of the day, but there's still more work to be done on it. One of those was SB 954 that was recovery residences. Originally, it was going to be a full-on preemption of a lot of different issues, but by the end of it, we actually were able to at least codify a process in place. We were able to work out a compromise with the sponsors and with the League of Cities. Again, not perfect, but we've gotten some guarantees that we can still continue to work on that and revisit that and try to reach an even better package or statute as we go forward. And then the second one was utility relocation. At one point, this bill would have put all local governments and actually the state, all right-of-way owners, on the hook for paying the cost for relocating all communication service provider utilities that were located in the right-of-way. If you had a project that required that, it would have essentially required you to use all your CST funds for that, and we do not collect enough CST revenue to afford even probably a fraction of the cost that it would have cost us in total, and it probably would have stopped all transportation projects around the state had that bill passed in the way that it was. The compromise that we reached is that there would be a distribution of the local share of communication services taxes. About $50 million of that would be taken off the top upstream, so not before it gets to you, but as a whole for the state. That would be put aside into a pot, and then communication services providers could apply to that fund. It would not be replenished after that. It would be a first-come, first-served for those providers. But it specifically said in the language that passed that right-of-way owners would not be on the hook, and local governments would not be liable or responsible for paying for those costs of utility relocation. The tax package also did impact CST revenues as well, unfortunately, but those were the least compromises that we were able to make in order to prevent worse legislation from passing. Thank you. Thank you, Lauren. Thank you, Lauren. I will now have Ruben Turnbull and Associates, Sharonda Placid. Hi. Good afternoon, Vice Mayor and Commission. I'm sorry. I'm Sharonda Placid. Sorry, Billy Ruben couldn't be here today, but I'm here representing Ruben Turnbull and Associates. And a lot of the policy things have been covered by my colleagues and our delegation. And I just wanted to add on when it comes to the budget, because I know that that is very important. And, Commissioner Lassman, you are very concerned about how we match up. One of the projects that I just wanted to give you an example of when, which is one of the ones that our firm was responsible for, which is violence interruption. When you look at the fact that we requested the $9 million, but when we came in, we were only at $250,000, and we ended at $650,000. So we went from $9 million to the $250,000, which was adamantly significantly less, and still ended up landing at the $650,000. That is a testament to your delegation, as my colleagues have said. And our team, as Ron Book did say very eloquently, trying to put those blinders on them, because they represent a number of constituents and cities, and they have to make sure, we have to make sure that we are assisting them. And through the help of definitely, as Senator Osgood said, Daphne, making sure that we are getting the information that she's accessible, and we are being a conduit for her to give the city's priorities and what is important, it's a real testament to what your delegation and our team are able to work together through Daphne. So I just wanted to reiterate, when it comes to how we match up, the city of Fort Lauderdale matches up very well with the rest of the cities in the state of Florida. I've saved the best for last. Jared Rosenstein with Capital City Consulting. Aye, aye, aye. All right. Hi, Daphne. How are you? Hey, everybody. Jared Rosenstein with Capital City Consulting. So a couple of things. I mean, you can see us all obsessively holding our phones, because the veto list is coming out, I guess, any minute now. A little behind the scenes, you know, trickery here. What the governor signed was a ceremonial signing of the budget, right? So when he actually signs the budget, it's when they transmit the veto list. So it could be in, you know, literally any minute. I believe he's back in Tallahassee. Look, the team here is really cohesive. The communication is fantastic. Our delegation is really strong. We have a really good team leader, Daphne, you know, really make sure that we all row in the same direction. We make sure that we have the city's priorities top of mind. And that's our job, right? Our job is we advocate for you guys. A couple of things. This session, yes, was unique and colorful and wacky. But I actually think that benefited local governments, right? A lot of the infighting you saw in Tallahassee between the House and the Senate and the governor's office actually killed some of those really bad proposals, right? The CRA bill died. Changes to TDT died. You know, the property tax conversation kind of whittled away to the point where, I mean, today when the governor was signing the budget, he vetoed the property tax reduction study because he didn't think it was enough. You know, he's going to revisit it and it's going to come back on the ballot. It's a number one priority for him. But, you know, I wasn't alive when Ron wrote his law review article on sovereign immunity. But what I will say is he's 100% correct, right? Sovereign immunity, sovereign immunity, sovereign immunity. The fact that we were able to kill that this year is a huge benefit. It's a huge benefit to the city. Last but not least, Senate Bill 180. I know Mr. Book did talk about it. And yes, you were right. It was in my notes. Section 18 specifically is what city staff needs to look at. That is the moratorium on construction development, comp plan changes, site plan changes. And it's a really broad piece of language, right? Any city or county in the cone of a federally declared hurricane, then within 100 miles of that radius, which essentially is almost the whole state sometimes, right? This moratorium prohibition applies to. So just be wary post-storm moratoriums on construction. You have to really, you know, take a look at Senate Bill 180. Again, I'm closing in and out here, so I got to say our team did a really fantastic job. We'll know tonight what the budget really looks like altogether. On Saturday, when we were all able to brief the governor's team at different times, right? I mean, I know Representative Lamarco, we brought up the Galt Mile project is very important. And we're going to get that fully funded next year, bring it to its conclusion. And with that, I got to say we have a really good team. And thank you, Daphne. Thank you. Thank you. I'm a little shorter than you, Jared. There were actually, there was one more thing that we did not discuss that was an issue, was the tourist development tax. And the TDT, that ended up in the tax package. So we can now use the TDT to employ, train, and equip lifeguards. And Gulf Coast counties are permitted to use TDT for infrastructure projects. We definitely fought against using TDT or expanding TDT for local government projects or just for infrastructure projects that would take away from the tourism marketing. And I know this is an issue that's going to come back. And that we will sit at the table using our teams, both our members in the delegation and our lobbying team, to go through TDT. And that closes out this end of session update. If there's any questions, we are here to answer them. Thank you very much, Daphne. Thank you again to all of our elected officials and to our lobbyists and to staff for everything that you've done for us during this session. It was a long, hard one for everybody. But I'm glad you carried our priorities forward. We're able to bring back as much as you did. So thank you. Please stop complimenting Daphne. It's going to cost me more when she has an annual review. So every time you speak up, I'm like, no, no, no. But no, Daphne, you do a great job. So I just want to thank you. I appreciate it. You've always been very accessible to me. So I'll let my colleagues chime in. Commissioner Glassman, I'll let you start. No, just thank you to all of you. We really do appreciate what you do for us. And we know it's not always easy. So I just want to say thank you and echo the sentiments of everyone else up here. Thank you. Commissioner Beasley-Pittman? Yes, thank you for a job well done. And thank you for keeping us informed, Daphne. And I'm waiting for that time for that final veto. But thank you for everything. Thank you. Commissioner Sorensen? Yeah, thanks, Vice Mayor. Thank you all for representing us. And appreciate all your work up there. And keep at it. Thank you. And I'll just leave with one final thing. You know, one of the issues that's been our biggest concern here in the city over the last year has been dealing with the anti-camping ordinance that was legislation that was passed last year and our own local ordinance and what we're trying to accomplish here in Broward County, working with the county as our partners. And obviously, there's been some challenges for everybody, and we're working through this, as I'm sure everybody else is. So, Ron, any recommendations? I know you are a homeless guru, so I benefit from your experience. Mr. Chair, through you, direct. First of all, I think many of us expected some form of a glitch bill this year. It did not come to pass. We had a lot of conversation with Senator Martin and Speaker-designate Representative Garrison about the issue. I would simply say I don't know of any lawsuits that have been filed under 1365 as of the effective date of January 1, 2025. We all know that it went into effect on October 1st as a general law. I am aware of about a half a dozen letters to local governments under the five-day cure period that occurred. I've said repeatedly, Commissioner, that we need to look at 1365 as an opportunity, as an opportunity to stand up more navigation centers, more shelter opportunities. I think the coordination of that between this city and the county is critical if we're ever going to maximize. I think the biggest problem we have today facing us on the homeless front is whether or not, in big and beautiful, are they going to block grant and basically do away with the continuum of care system, block grant to the state, and have the state basically based on grant applications award accordingly. I think it will be a disaster. I think it's going to hurt local communities that have advanced COCs like Dade and Broward do. But I would say to you that I don't know whether the city has gotten any five-day notices. I'm not unmindful of where people are sleeping in the city. I would suspect that at some point people are going to realize they have an ability to sue for damages, and those suits are coming. I think that's the point in time hopefully the legislature will figure out that we need to make some adjustments to what we did under 1365. Thank you, Ron. Have we gotten any of those to the best of your knowledge? Not to my knowledge, no. Okay. Thank you. Again, thank you all. I appreciate everything you've done for us up there and for spending your time here with us today at Educating Us. We appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, moving along, we have business two, which is Holiday Park Parking Unsolicited Proposals Update. Do we have business one? I see business one. My apologies. Sorry, jumping ahead, trying to get through this. So 2025 amended and restated transportation system surtax into local agreement, third amendment update. Thank you, Mr. Vice Mayor. It's like, what happened to my friend? Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Milos Mestorovic, Acting Director for City's Transportation and Mobility Department. So the Broward County Surtax Program was established back in 2018. It became effective in early 2019. And the interlocal agreement was amended twice, both in 2019 and 2021. Today, we have a Broward County staff who will provide an overview of the third amendment, which has been in works really from 2021. The third amendment was approved by the Broward County Board of County Commission on June 10th. And it's already approved by approximately about a dozen of participating municipalities so far. To become effective, the municipalities with at least 50% of the county's total population must approve this third amendment. Tonight's commission agenda includes the third amendment for the city commission consideration. And I do want to express our gratitude to county staff. Gretchen Cassini, she's here. I know there are a couple of more members of the county's team, Lena Silva and Nathaniel. He's an attorney who worked on this agreement for all their help and assistance. Anytime, whether we're working through this third amendment or before, through the application process, they have been very helpful. So I want to thank them, and I'll turn it over to Gretchen. Good afternoon, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, City Manager, City Attorney, and members of the public. I'm very grateful to be here today. And to be able to provide you with an overview of what the restated amended third amendment is going to do for the municipal surtax program. Should I ask for the slides to be advanced? Or do I have a clicker? Thank you. Sorry about that. Sorry, it's not working. And I did want to mention that I do have Nathaniel Klitzberg, who is the Transportation Surtax General Counsel here with me today, if there are any questions with respect to the actual terms and conditions of the agreement. So, as Milos mentioned, we do have 29 of 31 participating municipalities in the program under the second amendment. We expect to actually increase that to 30 with the third amendment, so we're excited about that. We're going to be hopefully inviting Lazy Lakes to join us. And the Broward County City Managers Association, the BCCMA, actually created a surtax subcommittee to work through the negotiations. One of the major issues I think that you are aware of is that there were some issues around process, streamlining, being able to make sure that there were significant amounts of funds available for all of the participating municipalities each year. So, the objectives, besides what I just mentioned to you, besides the streamlining and simplifying and the annual formula allocation, is also to clarify the eligible uses of the local option sales tax. We are also clarifying that certain decorative and functional art elements are eligible. Yay! And also, having revenue-generated parking structures, which I know was an issue for the City of Fort Lauderdale at one point, we are going to eliminate the prohibition if our county commission amends the enacting ordinance, which we do expect to occur. However, we hope that we will be able to eliminate the prohibition on using surtax revenues to maintain assets that are paid for, capital assets that are paid for with the surtax. So, with respect to updates on eligibility under the statute, which is 2-1-2-0-5-5, stand-alone sidewalks, bike paths, and greenways that are used as transportation facilities are eligible for the surtax. As I mentioned, revenue-generated parking projects, certain decorative elements, and functional public arts. And moving on, we will maintain a minimum annual guarantee of surtax revenues to the municipal surtax program of 10% annually. That is made up of three main components. The municipal community shuttle program, R&M, which is rehabilitation and maintenance, operations and maintenance, as well as capital projects. And we are adding in a grant match program, which I'll talk a little bit about in a few minutes. The timing for the implementation, we wanted to provide a visual of how this is going to work over the next five to seven years. Because we have a very significant number of projects that are already programmed into five-year plans, and in negotiations with the other participating municipalities, it was very clear that all of our cities would like to maintain access to the funding that's programmed into that five-year plan. So this just gives you kind of an idea of, over time, how the priorities will line up. So right now, from 26 through 29, we expect that the community shuttle remains the highest priority. Then those existing projects that are in the five-year plan, then formula funding for the rehabilitation and microtransit, which in the Third Amendment, you'll see an exhibit that indicates that $30 million will be set aside for that formula allocation in fiscal year 2026, which begins on October 1. And then we have the grant match program, and beginning in 2030, that changes so that we have community shuttle, municipal capital projects, formula funding for microtransit grant match program. Sorry, and then it changes in 2034 so that the formula funding becomes our number two priority right after we finish funding the community shuttle program. This is, again, just an overview of what you'll see in your exhibits that you'll be taking action on this evening, the amount of funding that is expected to go to all of the municipalities based on their proportion of center-line miles. That's roads that are owned, the center-line miles of those roads in each municipal jurisdiction. So that's how the formula allocation is being calculated. And that was at the request of the Broward County City Managers Association, and the county did agree to that. Eligible uses of that formula allocation, as we mentioned, you would have the option of utilizing those funds for rehabilitation and maintenance of existing facilities. That includes bridges, which I know is important to the city, as well as for community shuttle programs. So, I'm sorry, for microtransit programs. Microtransit programs are things that several of the municipalities have indicated they would like to have access to surtax funds to help them pay for. So, this R&M and microtransit formula allocation is intended to give you all the flexibility necessary to utilize some of those funds for microtransit. But, again, not as a substitute for the community shuttle program. And there's more information in the Third Amendment about the municipal use of funding for the microtransit. Get into a little bit more here. You would have to annually provide the county with your contract with each microtransit provider, a copy of their certificate of insurance. And there would have to be information that we could review that showed that the city and that microtransit provider were complying with all ADA, FTA requirements, and Florida laws. With respect to rehabilitation and maintenance projects, we are looking for each participating municipality to provide information and attestation that they will be supplementing and not supplanting their budgets. I think I mentioned that one of the important parts about this negotiation was protecting the existing projects that are programmed all the way through 2029 and then the tails of those projects. So this slide is just intended to give you a little bit more detail about what that entails and why that was important to the parties. The grant match program, something of real interest to, I know, the city of Fort Lauderdale. We're looking for creating a pot of money that municipalities that participate in the municipal surtax program can access to go after competitive state and federal grant programs as well as appropriations. And we just heard from some of your great lobbyists and your lobby contract and internal team about some of the appropriations that you all have pursued at the state level. And there are other municipalities that are also interested in pursuing appropriations at the state and federal level. This pot would be an opportunity for you to access surtax funding as your local match to those efforts. Cycle 1 projects, for those of you that have been around from the very beginning, from 2019, as Milos just mentioned, Cycle 1 was the 2020 process. There were over 140 municipal projects that were awarded back in 2020. And some of those projects are still not under agreement. So the Third Amendment provides some information about how we will treat those 2020 Cycle 1 projects moving forward. And then just some miscellaneous information that might be of interest to the commission. A formula-based allocation can be fully advanced upon request. Right now, we utilize funding schedules in our project funding agreements, and they tend to, if there's funding over $250,000 in value, we tend to break it up into at least quarterly payments. This gives the city the option to take a full advance, whether that's $1 million, $2 million, $3 million, all at once, for the R&M formula. A municipal capital project that's under a funding agreement that's less than $500,000 can be advanced, or it can be paid using a schedule. Again, at the request of all of our cities, we're just trying to give you all a little bit more flexibility around your cash flow and the way that you manage these surtax funds. We do have the option of canceling capital projects, and then the cities can appeal that decision to our oversight board. That's laid out in the Third Amendment as well. And in summary, I just, again, I would like to emphasize that the purpose of this Third Amendment is really to maintain the integrity of the program, our commitment to transparency and accountability, increase the fairness associated with distribution of surtax funds to our cities, and simplify the overall process. And with that, I'd be happy to entertain any questions that you all might have. If I may, I do. And thank you, Gretchen, for this. I'm very appreciative of the Third Amendment, as I'm sure you can well imagine. I just have one question. So I know that in Exhibit 1, page 2, the last bullet talks about how this becomes effective if cities representing at least 50% of the population must adopt it. So is there a deadline for that? And I was also wondering, once we hit that 50% threshold, does this immediately go into effect? Now, Nathaniel, I don't know if you'd like to come up and make sure that I get this right, but I believe that the county still has to execute in order for it to become effective. The way that the Third Amendment reads is that once 50% of the population through the municipalities and their city commissions have approved the agreement, it will then be executed by the Board of County Commissioners and becomes effective immediately at that point. So should this commission adopt it tonight, I believe that that's what crosses the 50% line, actually. So I'm hoping that tomorrow morning I will be forwarding a copy of the agreement to the Broward County mayor being for execution. Excellent. Thank you for that information. Thank you for your work on this. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Pam? Ben, any questions? No. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thanks. Thank you. Gretchen and Nathaniel, this is great news. I'm excited to hear we're going to be the ones to push it over the 50%. So that's awesome. Thank you. Do we get a trophy or anything? Do we get a chance? Okay. Party favors, fireworks, something nice. Thank you. Thank you. It doesn't have to be big. Thank you. And there's some very important components to this. So, you know, having the fixed funding allocation, I think, is going to be very helpful for us from a planning and budgeting perspective going forward. I think it just makes a lot more sense. You know, applying and hoping that we're going to get selected for programs just doesn't give us a certainty that we really need to move forward, you know, on behalf of our community. So I think that's important, and I'm glad that the county has signified its willingness to entertain the micro-mobility transportation concept. This is something I've been asking for for the last year and a half or so, and I kept getting pushback that it's not allowed, it's not allowed, because we'd really like to expand that option. It's really working great in a lot of our neighborhoods, and we get a lot of demand for a lot more calls to expand our service coverage areas. So I'm glad that we can do that. So thank you very much and appreciate that. All right, now we'll move on to business, too. Holiday Park Parking unsolicited proposals update. Good afternoon, Vice Mayor, Commission. Ben Rogers, Acting Assistant City Manager. While IT's pulling up the presentation, just wanted to let you know today we're here to talk a little bit more about Holiday Park Parking. We were last here on May 20th where we provided an overview of city efforts on the design criteria package, also provided some information about two unsolicited proposals that were submitted. Following that meeting, staff was given direction to go back, meet with the proposers, get more information about their proposals and their visions for the park, which we've done, and we wanted just to highlight some of that information today and then seek direction from the Commission on next steps. So while IT pulls that up, the first slide talks about Holiday Park and the components of the park. We highlighted a lot of the new demand generators the park has, the Parker Playhouse, the Panthers, the War Memorial, Iceplex, the future YMCA, but today we would also highlight a lot of the park amenities and the park bond improvements that are going to be delivered to the site. Holiday Park is 94 acres in size. It currently has a little under 800 paved parking spaces on site. Most of those paved parking spaces reach capacity during the peak times where there's park events, park programs, and sports going on. Those 784 spaces are scattered throughout the park with the Bridge Club having 150, the baseball field's 175, Jimmy Everett Tennis Center 100, Art Serve 100, and the gym was 75. IT, if we can go to slide three, please. One of the questions that the Commission asked last meeting was, what is the size of the garage? What are the needs that we have? And so what we did is we took a technical perspective of this and said, why don't we look at two different methodologies for parking requirements? And so we put together the Institute of Traffic Engineers, and we also looked at the city's ULDR to figure out what the minimum parking space need would be. So I'm not here today to say that we need 1,000 spaces or 1,145 spaces, but just to show kind of a placeholder for the Commission's understanding. And so this is taking the use types from the facilities, putting together those requirements, and getting up what would be the minimum parking requirement. So last time we talked about a 1,000 space parking garage plus a 300 space surface lot, I think that falls right in line with this. We would be doing a parking study as we would advance through this process to get more input from the parker, from the Panthers, and to determine what that end number ultimately would be. But this, again, shows proof of concept that the 1,000 space garage would be right in the line with what is being proposed. On the next slide, again, the two unsuitous proposals were one from Holiday Park Parking Partners. One was from Park Place Garages. It is important to note that the Holiday Park Parking Partners team did add a couple other organizations to their group. That's Siles, CES, and Walker Parking. And so we met with them as a follow-up, next slide, please, based off of the Commission's direction. And we went through a longer list of criteria with them, really to make sure that we understand what they're looking to do, how they envision this project, and to answer questions that the Commission posed to staff. And so we went through, as you can see on the screen, and some of these were very defined in the agreements, and some of them weren't, or in the proposals, some of them weren't. And so we had a lot of discussion talking through these type of things and making sure that there's no fatal flaws, there's no major issues, should you decide to move forward with one of these proposals. And so I'm just going to highlight a couple things. You know, parking garage delivery, Holiday Park Park Parking Partners, Stiles has delivered over 14.5 million square feet of parking garages. CORE, a part of that team, is a national leader in P3s, and they do have Walker Consultant as well. On the other side, the Park Place Garages group has extensive experience with Gulf Building and Craven Thompson, and they talked about some of the projects they've done locally with Broward County, the FAU garages, the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, and others. So they both showed a strong sense of experience in delivering parking garages. Same with P3s. They both delivered multiple P3s. And in that, we talked about some of the risk transfer, the risk share. We talked about, especially on the VertiPort concept, how that impacts the city should that industry not take off or have timelines. And they shared with us, you know, that the elements associated with the VertiPort are being funded outside of this proposal or the city's contribution, and that the lease payment would be guaranteed lease payment regardless of performance. So we had a lot of those type of discussions, worked through a lot of kind of the concerns that staff had, and ultimately feel comfortable sitting here today saying that both of these proposals could move forward. I know that Commissioner Herbst had some questions last time about the financials and the evaluation process. And like we said then, and just to reiterate for the record, if you would move forward, that's when we'd be doing a more stringent review. We'd be onboarding a financial consultant firm to do a financial model and really put some teeth to this. So, again, this exercise was to go through a higher-level evaluation, make sure that we met the minimum criteria, the minimum qualifications needed to advance this project, and then bring it back to the commission for their direction. And if we go to the last slide, please. There's really three options that we've come up with for city commission consideration. The first one is very similar to the decision you made for the city hall unsolicited proposal, where you would select one or both of these, create a competition period. We'd wait for other bids, and then at the end of that period, we would come back to the commission for direction on next steps. The second option is a little bit different. You could pick one of the two unsolicited proposals. You could bypass the competitive bidding or public bidding process and go to two public meetings at which comments are heard and then move forward with that one. Or three, take no action, provide us with different direction, or kind of identify what you'd like to see as a next step. So with that, I see Mr. Mayor's back at the dais. Did I miss anything, Ben? And so I turn it over to maybe Mayor, to you, or to the Vice Mayor, depending on who I'm back. Thank you for your patience. I had some personal matters to take care of today. Thank you, Ben, for your presentation. And open the floor up to comments from the commission. Commissioner Herbst, do you have any comments on this? Not at this time. Excuse me, sorry. Not at this time? Not at this time, thank you. Okay. District Commissioner, do you have any? Thank you, Mayor. I do have some comments. I would like us to move as we did with the City Hall item. Actually, I know that this is our last meeting until August 19th. I think because of the sense of urgency that we have here in Holiday Park and providing parking, I, for one, don't want to wait until August 19th to start considering this. I would request that we have a walk-on item tonight and move this forward so we can get this competitive process going. Just as we did with City Hall. In fact, I'm wondering why we didn't do this just as we did with City Hall. We could have done that same exact process and move that forward as we move this one forward. But I think that we need to have a walk-on this evening. I like option one for that walk-on and just get this rolling so that when we come back on August 19th, we're ready to go. Thank you, Mayor. Which one is option one? Both of them? It says one or both. I don't think we have to choose, do we? You could choose to accept both or one, but I'd defer to the city attorney on further. I'd get $50,000 if you'd accept both. Well, I think they've already paid the $25,000 each. Well, they tendered it. They tendered it. We haven't cashed the checks yet. So, Dwayne, what's the nuance here? Correct. You don't have to select one. Our resolution acknowledges the receipt of both proposals or our resolution would acknowledge the receipt of both proposals and it would put out a notice to other proposers that the city commission intends to enter into a comprehensive agreement for a similar project. And I'm fine with that, so we don't have to choose one. And I would also like to set the timeline as 30 days. Okay. Commissioner Beasley-Pittman, do you have any comments? Yes. I'm in favor of option one with both considerations, both proposals being considered. So we can move forward. The 30 days, Commissioner, if we could talk about that a little bit more, 30 days. 45? I, you know, 15 days. I say 30 days because, actually, we could go as low as 21, right? Yeah, but we won't be back in 30 days. Between 21 and 120. We won't be back in 30 days. Well, the clock would start when on the 30 days or the 45 is Commissioner Beasley-Pittman. I only said 30 because I don't know when this would actually hit the streets and that would maybe coincide with staff being able to evaluate so that when we came back on August 19th, we'd be able to do some work on this. That's why I said 30. Commissioner Beasley-Pittman, I also said 30 because I've met with, I think, everybody that's been interested in doing something here. I don't think, I think if we would have had other interests, we would have heard about it, or at least I would have heard about it as the District Commissioner. But, I mean, I'm okay, 30, 45. But when would the clock start, Dwayne? From the initial dates of publication. And when would that be? Whenever our clerk's office gets that notice to the Florida Recorder and the Sun Sentinel. Do we have any idea when that would be? For the City Hall project, it's just about a week, about seven days. So that would take us until July 7th, and then August 7th would be 30 days, and August, whatever, 15 days and seven days. So August 22nd, we come back August 19th, I don't know, whatever my colleagues do. I think we should do 45 days. Let's do 45 days. That's fine. Does that complete your comments? Yes, that complete my comments, yes. So a couple things. There are some significant differences between these two garages. I think the most obvious difference is the vertiport that's on one garage and missing from the other. So as a commission and as a community, we have to decide whether or not we want that as a component. If you look at the evaluation considerations, it's not even listed as an item. And so I think we have to decide whether or not we want a green space on top with a shading, which is certainly an option, or to eliminate that completely and use it in a more utilitarian sense by anticipating this new form of transportation that would land on top of this parking garage. So by accepting both of them, we're not comparing apples to apples here in some significant way. I do notice that both of them now contain the fire station option. I don't think that was always the original proposal on both of them. But now that there's a fire station option on both of them, that's good. They both have about the same number of parking spaces, correct? Yeah. And I'll say one other thing. They're both missing aesthetic appeal. I've spoken with both developers, and I've said they're both inappropriate for Holiday Park. They look like parking garages, and there's nothing appealing about them in terms of putting them in a park setting. And I was told, oh, when the meeting comes up, they'll have some architectural changes. Have you received any architectural changes other than the ones that are here? Yeah, I've seen some. And so I know that they're continuing to develop it, and I think if that's one of the things that we want to have worked on over the competition period, we can work with each of the development companies on that. But, Mayor, wouldn't some of these things that you've mentioned, whether we wanted the rooftop features one way or the other, wouldn't that be something that we would get into the weeds with once we actually had the competition and the presentations, and that would be a decision we would make at a later time? It is. I just want to give them a heads up of some of the things that are important. I didn't ask Ben Sorensen if he had any questions. Ben, are you on the line? Yeah. Thanks, Mayor. Yeah, appreciate it. I apologize. Do you have any – please share your thoughts on this. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it. Dwayne, can you remind me of sequentially what follows the competition period? So if you choose to go through the competition period rather than the public meeting option that's provided, you enter into – there's an evaluation of the proposals that come in after the period of time. If it's 45 days that you select, there's an evaluation of those projects, and then there is, similar to your regular competitive process, a recommendation made for an award to one of the proposers, at which time the city commission will authorize us to negotiate a comprehensive agreement with the proposer that you desire to award the proposal to. Great. Thanks. For City Hall, did we – am I remembering that we tried to combine evaluation and competition period? No. What you're recalling is Commissioner – what Commissioner Glassman is pointing to with regards to this item. Rather than going immediately to the competition phase, I advise the commission to go out and have this project go through an initial evaluation stage, whereas with the City Hall, the city commission decided to immediately declare its intent to accept additional proposals and go into the competition phase. Okay, great. So, yeah, so I'm interested in going directly into the competition phase for the parking garage. Now, so, D. Wayne, if I'm hearing you right, after the competition period, then the close of that date of the competition period, then the city staff begins evaluating all received proposals. Is that right? That is correct. So, is any city commission action necessitate moving into the evaluation period? The action tonight and declaring your intent to enter into a comprehensive agreement for the same project triggers the time period and setting the time period where you're receiving proposals. So, whether it's the 30 days or the 45 days, what happens tonight if you do a walk-on is you declare your intent. The clerk is then directed to publish the notice. From the date of the publication of the notice, there's a time frame in which all of the proposers who are interested in presenting a proposal for this type of project submits their proposal. So, that window of time is to allow for proposers to get their proposals in. And then when that window is closed, that's when staff does their evaluation of all the proposals that they receive. So, the only thing you need to do now in terms of the commission is direct staff to begin this process and will provide you with the walk-on resolution to declare the intent to enter into a comprehensive agreement and setting the time frame under which you will receive the proposals. After the evaluation period is concluded, then an item will be brought forward to you for consideration or direction to enter into a comprehensive agreement with a particular proposer. So, at this stage, you're not selecting a particular proposer to enter into a comprehensive agreement with, but after the evaluation phase, you will make that decision and our office will begin the negotiations, likely through an outside counsel that we would select. So, we can get ahead of that by interviewing possible outside counsels to evaluate both of these proposals and bring that item forward concurrently with the review of these proposals. Just to clarify, the outside counsel would not be evaluating the proposals, but helping to negotiate alongside staff. Great. Okay. So, just to recap, to make sure I'm tracking, if we move ahead with a defined competition period, nothing is needed from city commission action to transition from competition period whenever that ends, 30 or 45 days, into evaluation. Staff seamlessly enters into evaluation the day after competition ends. That's correct. All right. Okay. Do we need to set the duration of the evaluation period? Do you? You do not. Commissioner Swanson, you don't need to set that. What will happen is staff will take the proposals, depending on the quantity. We'll work with some of our existing contracts. We'll do financial analysis. We might onboard another consulting firm to help us do pros and cons and kind of give you some supplemental information about the different proposals. So, that way, you're looking at apples to apples. And once that period is done, then we schedule a commission meeting for the next step. Fantastic. Okay. Great. Thank you. So, Mayor, in summary, my suggestion is move forward with both, both proposals. Set the competition period for 45 days, starting as soon as it's published, which hopefully happens in the next week. Thank you. I think that's pretty much the consensus here now. All right. Thank you, Ben. I have a few people who signed up to speak. And I just want to make sure we will have a walk-on item this evening to codify all of this. Yes. Okay. Thanks. We have Gary Olson. Is Gary still here? Hi, Gary. Followed by Scott Zroik. And Cody Kears is just here for questions. Hello, Gary. Good afternoon. Just to follow up on what Commissioner Sorensen said, where does the public comment come in? I noticed on option two, it's presented for public comments. But where do the public get to comment on this? Duane, do you want to respond to that, please? I think there are two opportunities, correct, for public comment after the 45 days has expired. Sure. So at the time that the evaluation is completed, staff will bring the ranking of the proposals. At that period of time, it's a public meeting, and the public will have an opportunity to speak at that meeting. And also when the city commission directs us to negotiate a comprehensive agreement, the actual agreement itself will come back to the commission for approval, and the public will have an opportunity to speak at that meeting as well. So do we have any idea on the timing of that? We just indicated that a 45-day period is the competition period, and then staff will have the opportunity to review it, and it depends how long it takes for them to do that. But it will be publicized, it will be noticed, and everyone will be entitled to speak at that time. Very good. All righty? Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Scott? Good afternoon. Thanks for having me. I'm Scott Finfrock. Finfrock is Florida's largest design builder of parking structures. We have compiled a team for a third unsolicited proposal that we're prepared to submit to the commission. That proposal, unfortunately, did not make it to this agenda today. But I can tell you that that proposal is able to be delivered within a week to you guys for immediate review. Well, you have 45 days. Yeah. I just wanted to say that we have a third unsolicited proposal. You can thank Commissioner Beasley-Pittman for that. Yep. And happy to answer any questions with that. I just want to let you guys know that we have a third proposal ready to submit on behalf of my team. Great. Thank you. Thanks. And, Cody, do you have anything to say just for questions, right? Anyone else wish to speak on this item? Okay. There being none. So I think there's a consensus on the commission to move forward accepting the two and begin the, and after publication, 45 days for competition, and then bring it back to the commission at the appropriate time. Make sense? Understood. It's clear. Very good. Okay. Moving on to business three. This is a review of the Hemershee Entertainment – I'm sorry? Okay. The view of the Hemershee Entertainment District, 111 properties, and potential amendments to Article III, Special Entertainment Overlay District of Chapter 5 of the Code of Ordinances of the City of Fort Lauderdale. So a number of people have signed up to speak, but I know there's a staff presentation. Trish, hi. Hi. Good afternoon, Mayor and Commissioners. I'm here this afternoon to present on the Special Entertainment Districts and specifically the 111 properties Special Entertainment District that intersects with the Hemershee Historic District. So before you begin, do you want to explain to the public what's the genesis of this proposal today? Sure. So primarily we're here to ask for direction to move forward with code amendments. So I'll go to the next slide potentially, if this works. Here we go. So I'll give you an overview of the background of Special Entertainment Districts. I'll also talk about the Hemershee Revitalization Plan, which we presented to the commission about a year ago. We'll talk about the current status of the 111 properties. We'll go over a few of the requests that we've received, specifically from the Downtown Hemershee Village Association, which includes a number of tenants in the area and business operators. We also received a letter to the commission from the Downtown Development Authority, the Broward Center for the Performing Arts and the Museum of Discovery and Science. And then we'll review the potential code amendments, which it's really just an outline of goals that we would want to achieve in developing a code amendment. We don't have a draft developed at this time. And then we'll talk about options for moving forward to get direction from the commission. So to give you a little bit of background about Special Entertainment Districts, it was created in 1992, and there were certain goals as part of that ordinance that was developed to help development spur in the area where the regional activity centers are, to promote cultural tourism, and to eliminate blight in the areas that these were going to be located. And then enhance the visibility and public awareness of publicly funded projects. Along with the ordinance are several incentives that a business can take part in, or a property owner, as part of a Special Entertainment District, and that includes extended hours of operation, no minimum distance separation requirements for alcohol sales, the allowance of alcohol sales outside, and the allowance of open containers outside of the businesses, but within the boundaries of the district, and higher noise levels within the boundary of the district. So in order to create a Special Entertainment District, the way the ordinance talks about it is it really just requires a letter to the city commission, or the city manager outlining how the area meets the minimum district criteria, and also providing some supporting documentation, such as the security plan, a memorandum of understanding, and some other documents that would be provided at that time. One of the primary aspects of having a Special Entertainment District is having common ownership or common control of that area. Common control is what the 111 properties falls under, where they have a lease agreement with all of the different properties that are within the boundary of the Special Entertainment District for a period of 10 years. And right now, the city has a total of five Special Entertainment Districts. Three of them are located in the downtown area, including the 111 properties. So you can see on the map where those are located in close proximity to one another. And we have two on the beach that are also within close proximity of one another. So 111 properties is not an owner. They're just tenants in those properties. So 111 properties is actually, it was an owner. They've sold their properties to another entity. And the district representative of the 111 properties, Special Entertainment District, did pass away several years ago. So... Was that Betsy? Betsy, yeah. So this is related to the him or she revitalization plan that was presented to the commission in March of 2024. That plan included an outline of the stakeholder feedback and recommendations for the him or she area. And as part of that, there was a focus on the Special Entertainment District's governance and management specifically, and primarily because it intersects with that him or she historic district. We heard a lot from the community at that time. We did hold several community feedback sessions with different stakeholders in the area. We also had an open house in November of 2023. And the feedback related to the Special Entertainment District was really related to safety and security of the area, but also to that management of the Special Entertainment District itself. I think there was a lot of positive feedback about the area in the past. And, you know, there's an interest from the community to get back to that. So right now, the Special Entertainment District, there are certain structures within the him or she area that are identified as being located within that Special Entertainment District. But part of having a common control is having a regular report to the city manager to identify which businesses are included and which are not included. We have not had an updated version of that for the 111 property since 2013. And as of right now, we have seven businesses that were included in that 2013 rendition. But 14 businesses that are currently operating within the Special Entertainment District were not included in that. And that means that we probably, we don't have a high majority of our businesses operating within the Special Entertainment District that are aware of the rules and regulations that go along with a Special Entertainment District itself. We also have an outdated document for the Special Entertainment District. So in addition to the fact that we don't have an updated version of that document, and we have a lot of businesses that aren't really aware of those rules and regulations, we have a few common elements of feedback that we receive from stakeholders. And it comes along with the concerns of having an open container or open containers within the area, the extended hours of operation, the limited daytime activity within the district, concerns of safety and security of the area, and just general requests for more maintenance and upkeep of the streets and sidewalks. We took a look at some of the current conditions within the area and some of the data that we have for the him or she area. So we have information from police, which does indicate that there has been a minor decrease over the last 40 months of calls for service in the him or she area. And the him or she area is a broader area than just the Special Entertainment District. It's showing on your map. There's also kind of a noticeable decrease in the service calls that occurred during the spring break period between March 2022 and March 2025. We also received data from FHIR where they are reporting consistently higher volume of calls during the midnight to 4 a.m. hours. And there's consistently more calls during spring break period. A lot of this is related to medical-related incidents. People pulling out? I don't have the exact data, but we can revisit that. So with code enforcement, there's data that's provided from June 2023 to June 2025. A lot of those complaints are related to noise, but also property maintenance. And then it goes down from there. Along the bottom of your screen, you see an outline of the less common complaints where they've only received one complaint over the last two years. The city does provide regular cleaning and maintenance of the streets and sidewalks. There's pressure washing that occurs on the sidewalks themselves quarterly or as needed. Street sweeping is done by public works on a daily basis. And the trash containers, there's about 20 of them along that section of Hemershi between the FEC and 7th Avenue that are collected daily by parks as well. And then there are several aspects of cleanliness that is related to the property owners and tenants themselves where the maintenance of alleyways and dumpsters are to be maintained by the tenants. And the sidewalks also are to be maintained to a level of cleanliness, just getting loose debris and making sure trash is picked up. Within the Special Entertainment District Memorandum of Understanding and Operating Rules, there are additional elements that are outlined within that document, specifically related to cleanliness of the sidewalks and streets and a schedule that goes along with that. So getting to some of the specific requests from the Downtown Hemershi Village Association, there's a few things that they've outlined as far as what they'd like to see kept as part of a future agreement. And that would be not allowing open containers, which is one of the current incentives. No underage advertised parties. Have a rule about those that are under 21 entering restaurants before 10 p.m. Recommend that an establishment can be granted a street cafe license for consumption of alcohol on their premises. They would like to keep the 4 a.m. benefit. And they also want to ensure that there's payment into a fund by participants within the district. This is actually something that's already included in the MOU, but hasn't been enforced. So within that memorandum of understanding, there is a requirement to pay the district controller on a regular basis to ensure that the sidewalks and streets are kept clean and additional security is provided during special events. They also want to make sure that there's a way to enforce this through consequences and regular action that could ensure that everyone is complying with the regulations. We also, as I mentioned, received a letter from the DDA, Broward Center, and MODS. It was a letter that was provided to the city commissioners directly from all of them collectively. They had mentioned that they would like to revert to a standard schedule of operation for the city and not allow the extended hours of operation. They would like to prohibit off-premises and outdoor consumption of alcohol. And they would like to have better maintenance and security plans in place and better code enforcement within the area. Within that letter, they did not mention anything about noise levels or the elimination of minimum distance separation requirements. With that feedback, but along with the feedback that we received through the Hemershee Revitalization Plan, we, as staff, came up with a list of options that could be incorporated into a code amendment moving forward. So there would be an allowance instead of a common control agreement to allow a group of property owners from within a special entertainment district to form a committee to provide oversight to the area. There would also be the ability to provide more locations of the details of which businesses are participating within the special entertainment district. And we would encourage a mix of businesses to participate with a required time of operation. So having businesses open during the daytime, making a more active street. We would also ask that the process for establishing a district and decertifying a district be established and be clarified and update the security plan requirements. We would also re-review the incentives, such as the hours of operation, but continue the ability to operate without the minimum district requirements. And so this is the final slide for options for consideration. There are primarily two options for moving forward. One would be to update the code of ordinances in its entirety for the special entertainment districts. And we would allow the current special entertainment districts that are not out of compliance to continue operation and be grandfathered in. The second option would be to create a new subsection within the special entertainment district ordinance to address the needs of the 111 properties or the properties within the him or she area. But in considering both options, the city commission may make a motion to decertify the 111 properties special entertainment district once an ordinance is set in place. So there still needs to be some sort of action for the 111 special entertainment district once we finalize a plan and an ordinance to move forward. And I'm happy to take any questions. Great. Thank you so much. We really appreciate your work on this. District commissioner, what are your thoughts on this? Thank you, Mayor. Trish, thanks for the work. I know that we've been working on this for a long time. Lots of public input, lots of meetings, lots of workshops and charrettes. Just a couple of questions before I express just some sentiments, and I also am looking forward to hearing from the folks that have joined us today. If you look at the, and again, some of this, I guess, is dealing with enforcement, but when I go back to the CAM, I'm wondering why is someone able to operate as if they're in the district, if they're not within the boundary right now? And there was an example of that made in the CAM. Why is that permitted? I can't tell you exactly why. I think over time there's been misunderstandings and not really quite getting a grasp of what the special entertainment district really is and what those boundaries are. And there's been kind of communications that have gone back and forth, maybe with prior city managers. And it created a level of uncertainty for probably everyone. So a lot of this process has been to kind of unravel what's been happening and what we can do to make improvements and make the district better operationally. Thank you. So, Mayor, as I said, we've been having this discussion now for about two years, right? I mean... Yeah, we started in the fall of 2023, really diving into the Hemershee revitalization plan. So almost two, almost. And I think that the reason that we're having this discussion, and actually we added this to our goal-setting workshop as one of our priorities, not this past January, but the January prior, is because I think that the Hemershee corridor has lost its way over the years. And I get that sense from not just the Selbo Bend neighborhood, which is right there, but also the historic district, all of our very popular venues along the way, whether it's MADS or the Broward Center. And also I had a really good meeting at one time with the downtown Hemershee Village Association. I'm glad to see they've reconstituted themselves. I think that's really, really important because that was a big missing piece over the time. When we went from a corridor that not that many years ago really was active daytime and nighttime, people felt very safe there. People would go there for lunch. People would go there to shop. People would actually go there for dinner and then walk over to the theater or walk over to MADS. And we don't see that really anymore. The biggest complaints that we receive in my office are just about feeling safe and also cleanliness and the fact that we have had a few bad actors over the years. We've had shootings. It's really become a different vibe there than what it was and what people remembered it and really appreciated it at the time. So we have to find our way back. There's so much coming on this corridor, not just on Hemershee but also on Broward. We've been working on changes with regards to some flexibility with the historic ordinance where we might be seeing pretty soon some development, keeping the historic facades, but seeing development right behind it. We also know that we have big changes coming on Broward as well. So we have got to clean this up because not just for the sake of what's happening right there, but also for the entire neighborhood and all of the stakeholders in that area. I think staff has come up with some really good ideas. They've condensed, I think, what we've heard from the Downtown Hemershee Village Association, what we've also heard from the venues along the corridor, and also the Downtown Development Authority. There's a lot of good information here. It's just going to be up to us to pick and choose. I'm not ready to take the drastic action of decertifying the district because I think we need to really see what we can do to improve the district for everybody. I'm very well aware that we have to be cognizant of the business in that district. We have to make sure that we are not hurting business in that district. But at the same time, we have to make sure that we're respecting the quality of life that everyone that either works or lives or plays in that area wants to feel. They want to have that consistency, and they want to feel that that's an area that works for everybody. So I would love to be able to go through some of these things. I think the biggest thing right now that I've been struggling with is the actual hours of alcohol sales. And I know, Trish, actually right now, citywide, you can sell outside of the entertainment districts, you can sell till 3, and it must be consumed by 3.30, right? Am I correct on that? I want to say it's 2. 2. Well, what about, I thought that the other, am I just thinking of the other entertainment districts then? Fridays and Saturdays have the 3 o'clock. They do. That's what I thought. Fridays, Saturdays. The weekends are different, and they have to sell by 3 and consume by 3.30. That's correct. Right. So what we're looking at doing here is we're looking at maybe a half an hour at most, but we have to figure that out. But I think that the potential code amendments that staff has put forward make a lot of sense. Again, I'm not willing to throw this whole district out right now, but we just have to keep working. We've made a lot of progress in bringing folks together, and, again, I'm interested in hearing from everyone that's with us today. But I do believe that we can get there. We can get there with the code amendments that I think the city staff is presenting. We can get there with the requests from DDA, Broward Center, and MODS, and we can get there with the requests from the Downtown Hemisphere Village Association. There's not much. If you look at these pages, there's really not that much that's separating all of these wants and all of these recommendations. But I think the most important thing is we're going to have to just get this back on track, and we're going to have to really look at enforcement. I think that's been our biggest lacking of a situation is we just have not been really enforcing. I hear from people that say it smells down there, it's greasy on the streets, it's dirty, and those are the things that I think we can address rather easily. That's its charm. Well, your definition of charm might be different than my definition of charm. But I think that we can get there. There's enough information here in front of us that we can make this work for everyone, and I don't think we have a choice other than to make it work for everyone. That's how I feel. Okay. Anyone else on the commission have any thoughts? I do. In regards to enforcement, we're hearing everything in the presentation. Trish, a district controller, is that the term you use? District representative and common control. Okay. All right. At one point, there was someone I heard you say that's no longer with us that was doing that? Correct. Yeah. That was the property owner of the 111 properties. Okay. My question is, why wasn't that person replaced, or is this part of this conversation to put someone in that position to bring this back under control? So it's not entirely a position to fill. It was a property owner that- Just took responsibility for the area. Yeah, took responsibility to- Her name is Betsy. I don't recall her last name. Great lady. She was one of the pioneers in this area in generating interest in investing in the area and creating a nightlife scene there with other owners. But when she passed away, I guess her estate just went and leased out the property to other operators. And you're saying today that they're not taking the same sense of responsibility and keeping the place up. Okay. So with that being said, whose responsibility is it? If we're going to make this balance, how do we get to this place? Well, if we make it the owner's or the occupant's responsibility, the question of enforcement comes into play. And we do have code enforcement. Code enforcement is operational until 3 a.m. So it would become the burden of the city to ensure that these guidelines are followed going forward. How is that handled on the beach? You said that the district also has properties on the beach. How is it handled compared to Hemishy? So there are five different special entertainment districts. And each of them are kind of made up a little bit differently. So some work as the same as the 111 properties where it's common control, where they have lease agreements with different property owners to form that district. But others are, it's simply one property owner. Like Beach Place is one property owner, and they control their own area and functions within it. Okay. I'm trying to follow. I'm sorry. If, say Beach Place, that's what you just said. If it changes the method in which they are controlling, what do we as the city do for enforcement for Beach Place? So there's general code enforcement that's occurring for all of these properties. But each of the special entertainment districts has their own separate memorandum of understanding that is with the city manager's office. And they continuously operate in accordance with what the rules for operation are within those documents. That's another thing that could be improved upon within the code of ordinances is a better way of establishing a special entertainment district and understanding what the different rules are within them. But there's some commonalities as far as needing a security plan and providing cleanliness and making sure that everybody is following those regulations from someone in management. Beach Place is a really simple one because it is just one property owner. They just have 20 tenants. And I will say, if I could add to that, obviously the entertainment districts on the beach are also in District 2, but I have not been hearing the concerns and the complaints as much in terms of the way that those districts are being run. Do you hear any of that? And that's why I'm actually more open to just concentrating on Hemisphere. When you look at the options for consideration that you've given to us, I'm not sure if we have to go global on this and look at all five entertainment districts. Perhaps we're better off just focusing in on this one and then take the others if that becomes an issue. Or maybe using whatever changes we do for the Hemisphere corridor to then use for the other districts. But right now what I'm hearing is not rising to the same level as I'm hearing from Hemisphere. And, again, that's with both Beach Place and also I think it's called Tumi, the district, right? The Tumi properties, again, very small, not anything like this. Wait, I think let's not forget the problems we had with Beach Place. I mean, there was a time there when Lulu's Bait Shack and all the others were just driving the people at the Ritz-Carlton crazy with all the noise and all the commotion and drug dealing at the Beach Place. And it was between the city and the owners that cleaned it up. So it's not unlike, you know, this is, you know, Beach Place is not like an outlier. They, too, had a history. I don't think they have – I think the Beach Place history was actually worse than what's going on in Himishi. Himishi is just messy, you know. It's just a messy place. And I agree with you. The quality of hospitality there was different a number of years ago as of not even that long. There were nice restaurants. I don't recommend a daytime, you know, activity if you're saying that we should just open the bars at 10 a.m. Because I see that on Wilton Drive, and it doesn't necessarily contribute to a quality environment. But especially when people are waiting at the door at 10 o'clock to get in. So – but if we're looking to – I'm not looking at you, Chris Cooper. So – so, no, but seriously, I mean the mix of hospitality is definitely a goal. I'm not sure if changing the – if changing the special entertainment district rules is going to bring better quality entertainment. It's all up to the owners of these buildings to rent to whom they want to rent. A lot of the entertainment areas for young kids have actually moved to Las Olas. And we see an upscale version of what used to be on Himishi. So – but I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I'm just saying that, you know, Beach Place is definitely not, you know, a place where we can say, oh, well, they're a good example of how – of how the special entertainment district has been – has been respected because we've had our problems with Beach Place. So – But that's my point, Mayor. That's why I brought up – I want to see the comparison of how now it's being regulated in a sense. Well, that's, again, a self-regulated. Beach Place, you know. That's what's my question. I didn't understand. Again, that's one owner, though. That's one owner. That's one owner. One owner. And I didn't mean – Well, say it was 111. Right. And I didn't – right. But I didn't mean to say that that's not an issue at all. But it's just easier to get your arms around Beach Place or to me, those entertainment districts on the beach – Because it's one owner. Than it is to get your arms around this one. That's why I was saying I would rather see us just focus for now here and then deal with the other entertainment districts as needed. That's all. Pam, can I just add one extra thought to that? Because I remember all that. That was a very painful experience for all of us here at the city. It was to the point where we actually threatened to pull the entire entertainment district from Beach Place. And the way we resolved that problem is we flooded it with police officers. And we scared the property owner to death by telling him you were going to lose your ability to operate because we were having all kinds of problems there. It took drastic measures to get that back under the control. So, yeah, to the mayor's point, it was increasingly problematic with drug dealing and criminal activity that was taking place there. And it took extraordinary efforts by the city to get the property owners to rein it in because, candidly, they didn't care. And it wasn't until they were threatened with the loss of their livelihood that they suddenly developed an interest in cleaning up their property. Okay. Okay. All right. Because I believe in opportunity, as the commissioner has said, to allow for the area to revamp and clean up, if that's the direction we can go. But do we have that commitment from those property owners? That's why I'm asking these questions. Because if this has been the atmosphere for him and she and it's known for that, and if we can get it back to that level when that one property owner was, in a sense, I said direct control. I heard that, but however it's going to be managed, is that if it's going to be a collaborative effort from all of the property owners to ensure that we don't have these after-hour, young people drinking in the area, noise if that's the incident, whatever it's going to take. Like, is the community those properties on is committing to a change? Because when we think about our Performing Arts Center, the – I think the quality of the environment needs to change. Yes, exactly. Because we have children there. We have families coming to the Performing Arts Center, the Science Museum. And there's interest in the development community to build housing in the area, and we don't want to have an environment there that seems threatening or at risk and is too licentious. And I think that some of the recommendations that you're making today might help, like let's take baby steps and see no open carry, maybe not – I don't know about the advertising for underage parties. I mean, I don't know how that negatively impacts the area. Well, there is a tempo of this. This is a hangout place for young people to drink, underage drinking. So to discourage the presence of underage individuals, and that's what you're saying. We should probably not allow that. But all these recommendations seem well thought out, and we have a number of people sign up to speak. But I think that if we take baby steps without throwing the baby out with the bathwater, because as you said at the beginning of your presentation, the whole idea of these special entertainment districts was to encourage people to come to them, come to the areas. Something they could find here where they couldn't find anywhere else. Now, the liquor license, the drinking time is until 3 a.m. throughout the city? Weekend. Throughout the city on weekends. Throughout the city, for weekdays, it's 2 a.m. and you get to 2.30 to finish your drink if you purchase it before 2.00. And on Fridays and Saturdays, it's 3.00. Okay. So, you know, to that extent, you know, I don't know, are we really crimping on their ability to, you know, to stay solvent by cutting it back an hour? It's up to the commission what it wants to do. I obviously want to hear what the community has to say. But I think your recommendations of trying to establish a balance, which I think we were maybe a little too free-handed with the special entertainment district because we were kind of desperate. I mean, there was a time when you couldn't get anybody to go to the beach, and definitely it worked. So, and same with the downtown. But anyway, I didn't mean to interrupt you, Commissioner. Do you have any further thoughts on this? No. For right now, I'm good. I would love to hear what our neighbors in the him or she area have to say. So I'll just add a photo to that, Mayor, if I may. Yes, please. So, you know, I've been going down to Two Street now for 20 years, and it really has changed over that time. You know, I would go down there just as much for lunch at Criolinas as I would for dinner at Tarpon Bend and then, you know, drinks at one of the other bars down there later in the night. And so it used to be more of a balanced food and entertainment district. And now it seems to have become more of a Bourbon Street-type destination. So through the years, I think it's lost that restaurant presence that brought out people all day and in the earlier part of the evenings. And then you would just see a shift as the night got on, you know, later in the evening where it went more towards nightlife and entertainment. But I always think the district, you know, had a different vibe to it, a different feel. Again, more of a balanced one. I think that's changed over the years. It's become more nightlife-focused. And I think we've lost something in that transition. If we could get that back, if we can bring operators in there that want to establish that different kind of a presence, I think that would change the character. So I think it's a good idea to start looking at it again because I can tell you, when people come to town, I don't take them down to him or she anymore. I don't take folks down to that part of town where I used to. The kids do. And that's what it is. It's become a destination for folks, and not just from Fort Lauderdale, but throughout the county. It's become known as a party destination. And so, again, that's why I use that Bourbon Street analogy. People come down there with the, you know, from our neighboring communities out west, and they're like, let's go party in Fort Lauderdale. And I don't know that that's entirely what we want. I mean, that's not entirely bad. It's not a bad thing. But if that's the only thing it's known for, then I think that's problematic. Again, it used to be more of a destination where office workers would go over there and have lunch, and some of the folks would get after work and go have dinner and drinks and so forth. And I don't think we're getting that as much. I think it's become just known as a party destination, and I think that's why we're seeing the problems that we have down there with drug dealing and with, as you said, some of the trash that's accumulating and all the other things that's impacting the entire area and making it less attractive for folks. You know, it used to be when I'd go to a show over at PACA, I'd go have dinner first and then go down to PACA. I'm not doing that anymore. I'd just go park, enjoy a show, and I leave. So I think the neighborhood, the environment down there, the culture down there has shifted again over time, gradually, and I don't know that that's where we want it to be. So just some thoughts. Okay. Commissioner Sorensen, do you have any thoughts you'd like to add? Thanks, Mayor. Thanks, Commissioner Glassman, for working on this. I like where we're heading on these, exploring these possibilities. Look, I – and I really like a lot of him or she. In fact, my wife and I, we'll take our girls down there to eat and then go to a show. So, I mean, there's good things there that we really enjoy going down to him or she, and I think there can be some improvements. Mayor, I'd like to talk – if I could ask the police chief and fire chiefs. I just had a few questions for them. Mayor, if that's all right. Sure. Chief Golan, I want to come up here and talk to us about the 911 calls you've been receiving there. What kinds of – and Chief Schultz, if you can come up here, tell us a little bit about what's going on there, some of the activity. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, Chief Schultz, Police Department. In general, I know there's been a discussion about the busier times – excuse me – the times that we have the most activity down in that area. And when we reviewed our statistics, it's usually between the 1 o'clock and 2 o'clock hours are the busiest times for calls for service. And that's not only the calls for service, but also when we look at our Part 1 crime analysis. Same thing, right around the 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock hours are the busiest. I will tell you, as it stands right now, we are on a trend for a potential 13% increase right now. But that's hard to predict because June, July, and August are so much slower. Downtown people are vacationing. They're not necessarily in town. So by the end of the year, I don't know where we're going to fall exactly when we compare our statistics to the other years. But that is what we're looking at. And at a potential 6% increase in Part 1 crimes at this point now, that's just the trend we're looking at now. But again, the next three months are very telling when it comes to that. Chief, great. Thanks, Chief. So just if you could educate everyone, what are Part 1 crimes? And you're saying 6% increase specifically in the Hemershey area? Yes. So if you look at the geofenced area in the presentation, it actually goes a little bit out of the entertainment district. It goes all the way up to Broward Boulevard and all the way west to 7th and then Andrews to the east. So it's a much larger area than just the businesses that we're talking about on Hemershey. Yep. And from your experience, the businesses on Hemershey, is that representative of an equal increase, unknown? Increase in which part? You said there's a 6% overall increase in the zoned area. And so my question is, within the businesses there, is that similar increase? So if you look at the list of the businesses included in the geofenced area, there's five businesses that are not considered part of the entertainment district. 7-Eleven, society, which is the apartment complex, Burger King, the wharf, and the Museum of Science. If you take those five businesses, that's about 42% of all of the calls for service. And they're not technically part of the entertainment district. Yep. And by seeing – could you define part one crimes for everyone, please? Part one crimes are going to be your more serious crimes, robberies, burglaries, homicides, stabbing, shootings, of that nature. Okay. What – any thoughts or reactions as you look to some of these suggestions? I mean, if you're saying, you know, 1 to 2 a.m., any thoughts of what we could be doing better to curtail some of these – some of this increase? Well, the natural increase around that time is simply because that's when the majority of people are out at the establishments. And that's – if you look at that, that's going to be a citywide statistics. That's when people are primarily there. It drops off dramatically in the 3 and 4 o'clock hours as far as those activity stats. And anything specifically in him or she you think we should consider to reduce some of the increasing trend lines? At this point, I think what we have been doing with our off-duty detail program as well as our patrol program, that's impacting it. And if you look at the – across the board, if we look years across, it's actually been a decrease if you look at multiple years. So what we've been doing, I think, has had that impact on that. Okay. Great. Thank you. You're welcome. Mayor, I had a question for the fire chief, but whenever you're ready for that. Yes, go ahead. Okay. Thanks, Mayor. Chief Golan, hey, thanks. Thanks for being here. Can you give me a little bit more insight into the reports for higher call volumes between midnight and 4 a.m. Since 2021, maybe it looks like 56 percent increase. What do you see and what's happening? So good afternoon, Commissioner. So our data pretty much mirrors what PD's data looks like. We pulled a date range from 21 to 25, and we're showing an increase in call volume from midnight until about that 5 a.m. mark. During that time frame, from 21 to 24, we've seen a 56 percent increase in substance-related calls, and we're continuing to see that go up each year. Most of the calls are substance-related, intoxication or other substance abuse. There are some others, such as fighting. We've seen our response to fights for transports have gone up last year. We had 20 of those. That was 14 the year before. Shootings are normally about two a year that we respond to in that area. And stabbings, there's been four in the past year that we responded to. And sexual batteries that we've responded to have been a constant three per year over the last three years. Okay, great. Any thoughts or suggestions of considerations for us as a commission from your perspective to try to trend this the opposite way? During the spring break time frame, we normally deploy a detail unit down there from normally about 9, 10 o'clock at night until all of the establishments closed. This has been very, very helpful in curving our call volume in that area. During the spring break time, it's an overtime unit that's supplied by the city. We may want to look at advancing that so that it's there over the weekends, at least on Friday and Saturday nights, so that there can be medical units immediately in the area available to respond and not putting that burden on the rest of the community or taking the availability of those units from responding to other areas in the city. Yeah. Okay. Chief, thank you. That helps. Yeah, Mayor, I appreciate that. I want to get a little more there. I mean, so I think the imperative is clear as we've got to work together with the businesses and stakeholders to try to, you know, correct these trends a little bit, going in the right direction. Okay, thank you. Mayor, can I just add the chief's one question? Yeah, go ahead. So, gentlemen, and I know that we were getting in my office a lot of complaints about the Performing Arts Center garage and the activity that was happening there. I believe in our last fiscal year budget, this fiscal year, I believe we actually hired an extra security person. You know, we have that partnership with the DDA, Broward Center, and ourselves. Have you noticed a decrease since we added extra security in that garage since, I guess that would have been since October? Right. Yeah, there has been a decrease in activity in that garage for certain. Yes. What about the county garage on the east side of the tracks? Is that an issue, that garage? So that garage has off-duty detail as well. It's obviously a much larger garage, and there have been calls for service in there, but as of recent, we have not had any major issues there either. Okay. That's good to know. Thank you. You're welcome. Do you gentlemen want to add anything to your comments? You're good with the questions that were asked of you? Okay. Thank you. All right. So we have a number of people signed up to speak. However, out of respect and a deference to former Mayor Jack Seiler, who's here today to discuss item five, I believe, we established a time certain of 430. So before we continue with the public comment on the him or she item, I'd like to suspend that item on business three and move on to business five so we can discuss that and dispose of that matter today. So Mayor Seiler, if you can please come up now, just to give the folks a background on this, the city commission back in 2019 entered into a comprehensive agreement with Inter-Miami Beckham to do various things. And since that time, we've seen the creation of the new soccer stadium, the football field for the high schools and various other aspects of that project materializing in our city. However, there arose a dispute over certain items, which the city hired Mr. Seiler to proceed with mediation to try to see if we could resolve the issues. Um, I think Jack is here to talk about what has occurred over the last few months and to tell us what, if any, um, conclusions or agreements that, uh, we are going to present to the commission for approval. Well, for review and approval, Jack, push at the bottom. There we go. Thank you, Mayor. And I've never seen Ben look that big to my left before. This is a, sorry, it's a lot. It's a lot, Mayor. Maybe then you look at this screen. It's better. I got Ben all around me here. This is, uh, I'll, I'll turn my video off. I look even better with it off. There you go. Thank you. Yes. So this is a, uh, mediation that, uh, as, uh, Mayor Trentalus correctly stated, actually started back in 2019. It was a series of, uh, events and votes and agreements and activities that, uh, quite honestly, um, could have been handled better, might've been handled better. But at the end of the day, um, we are where we are, um, and it's a situation where I think the result is one that will eventually benefit, um, most importantly, the citizens of Fort Lauderdale and the citizens of northeast Fort Lauderdale as relates to this property. Um, just to kind of run through some of these facts, as, as, uh, Mayor Trentalus pointed out, this started out with an unsolicited proposal in January of 2019. Uh, and, um, it moved forward to have an MLS training facility and stadium. Uh, there was a resolution done by the city in February of 2019. Uh, there were votes done in March of night, uh, 2019. The Miami Beckham unsolicited proposal was accepted. It was ranked number one. They had a comprehensive agreement entered into, um, activities were started based upon an interim agreement. And, uh, as I said, things could have been handled differently. It might've been handled differently, but again, it doesn't benefit anybody at this stage. Seven years later, look back how things were addressed. Um, and, and again, when you look at how it might've been handled differently, I'm not in any way placing any blame. It was just a series of, let's get this done. It's an exciting time for the city to build a facility, exciting time for the city to be able to host a team. I don't think anybody ever thought that team would end up being the team that has been so successful and bringing in, you know, messy to South Florida. And you realize the impact that's had on our community, but, uh, through a series of activities, um, they got to a final agreement, which required, and this is where the thing to gridlock, um, happened that both parties had to agree on the park plan. Um, and, um, I don't know, um, you know, I, I served on this commission for three terms. Um, I look up here, one of your commissioners now was my auditor. I think my auditor would have looked at me back then and said, do not allow an agreement to go where both parties have a veto. But that, that happened and that's, you know, regardless of how that happened, we ended up with a demolition moving forward, uh, permits being applied for, uh, you'll see that, uh, the team, um, paid about $6.3 million in demolition costs. Uh, those estimates were, uh, those costs were higher than the estimates we saw when we were looking at doing that project back when it was Lockhart Stadium, the old Lockhart and the old, um, you know, baseball stadium. But they spent, uh, $6.3 million in demolition costs. They spent $1.6 million to improve what is now known as AutoNation High School Sports Field. And they spent about $1.4 million in building permit fees. So from that standpoint, Miami Beckham's out about $9.3 million on a project that they were expecting to be reimbursed on. At the same time, the city, uh, incurred a number of things. And, uh, as, as we got to the mediation a couple of years ago, um, the issue became clear. It's either going to agree on a resolution or this park's not going to get completed, um, because of the language in the agreement. Um, it required, it would take three of you to reach an agreement with Miami Beckham United on to how this park was going to be designed. Um, you all could reach three, you could reach four, you could even reach five. But if Miami Beckham United looked at this and said, it doesn't make sense for us, we've got to be able to host the team, we've got to host events, we've got to host activities, uh, this gridlock would continue. So through a series of mediations initially attended by, um, Commissioner Herbst as a district commissioner, and then subsequently attended by Mayor Trent Allis on behalf of the city, uh, we mediated a couple more times. And we have a proposal that is a, I believe it's fair. I believe it's reasonable. I think both sides are going to be critical of it. Um, and I often say sometimes the best settlement is one that neither party's extremely happy about or excited about, but I think it is a compromise that moves us forward. And most importantly, it moves it forward quickly. So we end up with a park up there and, uh, Cypress Creek, uh, Commercial Boulevard between Commercial Boulevard and Cypress Creek. We actually get a park that can get open, uh, at the current pace with the current arrangement of these agreements. This park would not have been open anytime in the next couple of years. In fact, I would submit to you that, uh, the team would probably be moving to Miami about the time this park got completed, if, if at all, because of the requirement that both parties had to agree on everything. So there was compromise made. Let me just kind of run through a little bit of it. The city recognizes the contributions of 9.3 million already put into the project by Miami-Beckham United, that being the demolition, the building permit fees, and the building in the sports field. As was pointed out in the dispute, um, there's an argument all the way around as to whether that cost should be the cities or should be Miami-Beckham United. Certain documents allowed them to go forward. Those documents implied that they were going to get reimbursed for these costs. Subsequent documents, uh, caused some confusion on that. And I think, uh, from that standpoint, the city's position was probably a little stronger on some of these costs. However, at the same time, um, this requirement of this mutual agreement is, there's no other way to interpret it. I think any judge, I don't care if you go to state court, federal court, would look at this and say, well, you guys agreed. You all had to agree on a plan. Uh, there was an original estimate of the cost. And by the way, this box that I brought up here, years of plans, years of communications, years of back and forth. But initially, the thought process was the cost for the park improvements that I think at that time, Commissioner Moraitis was requesting, was about $2.4 million. And there were about eight items identified as being included in that $2.4 million. Um, that obviously is a substantially different number than AECOM presented for the park improvements. And the thing we had to try to figure out at mediation was, all right, which park improvements were implied, if you will, or contemplated, if you will, during the agreement. And which ones were sort of, uh, you know, wishlist by the city. And then you get into issues of, okay, well, this improvement, is it going to be a simple dog park or an upscale dog park? All those issues weren't resolved, uh, ahead of time. So having, looking at the credit for the $9.3 million given to Beckham United, they are going to contribute another $4 million, um, as set forth in two main payments. One is $2.5 million towards the community site improvements. So they are actually going to just put that amount of money in for the community site improvements. And, uh, that is about $100,000 more than originally anticipated. There's an argument on both sides. Should there be pre-judgment interest or not? That's one, again, there was a compromise there. And then secondly, and I think more importantly, I think the item that triggered the, the compromise as importantly as the issue of timing, and this is the parking. So the agreement is, um, there is going to be a parking facility constructed on the north side of the property. It'll be constructed by Miami Beckham to, um, um, construct as part of constructing the whole park, but they are going to build this parking facility, which is going to provide parking for the park. So you're putting in this park is, I can run through here in a second, but you got a 10,000 square foot community center. You got a playground, you got a fitness area, you got shade structures, you have a multi-purpose play field, you have lighted pickleball courts, which was something that was never even contemplated back in 2019. And now it's obviously become popular all over the city. You have open green space for active activity or active events, and then passive open green space. There's also going to be a maintenance building back in the old agreement that was called a maintenance shed. Uh, there's going to be restrooms, uh, pathways, paved parking lot, a drop-off area, four pedestrian access points to the park and pedestrian crosswalks. Along with that, um, the parking is going to be established on the north side. And what it'll do is it'll run between the park and the stadium. And the parking is going to be, uh, a $1.5 million contribution from Beckham United to build that parking so that it's clear, um, you know, that that'll get done. It'll get done on time because a lot of this you're going to hear about in a second, the timing. But in addition, that parking is only to be used by Beckham United for three hours before a game of interactivity and three hours after. The rest of the time, as, uh, we addressed in the mediation, I should comment, too. I know Commissioner Hurst was involved in the early mediations. Uh, Mayor Trent Dallas was involved in the later ones. Uh, Dwayne Spence was very helpful in the mediations. Uh, they were held truthfully all over the place. We had numerous meetings at various places, but as to that parking lot, once it's, uh, constructed, uh, three hours before, three hours after will be Miami Beckham's use. At three hours and one minute, that becomes city parking the rest of the year. And when you start looking at the number of events and activities, uh, the city's going to get that parking, you know, 75, 80% of the time. Uh, and it'll be used for the park. In addition, there's other parking that'll be available in the park for those rare occasions when the event, the games are going on. Um, this is not going to be set up as a nighttime park. It's to be more of an active daytime park, but, uh, there is parking available if there happens to be a game, an event, or an activity at the stadium. Um, the city, like I said, is extending that courtesy for all major league soccer events held at the stadium, including what they call exhibition games, friendlies, tournaments, and other post-season games. Um, this work will be done. The permit fees now will be the city's responsibility in this agreement. There was an argument and it was supposed to be the city's responsibility in the other one, but again, uh, that, uh, issue would be one that a court would have to resolve. Um, that, that, that's just for the, not for the stadium, but for the new, uh, for the park site. For the, uh, these improvements to the property. Right. So, so. Parking and park improvements. I don't want anyone to be confused. The permit fees that they have paid, 1.4 million, stays with the city. That's not, that, that has been resolved. Those do stay with the city as part of the overall compromise. Yes. Okay. So what we're going to do here, as I mentioned, you're going to run through all of these, um, things that from the community center down to pedestrian costs, crosswalks. Uh, the parties have 90 days to draft a second amendment to the comprehensive agreement for execution. Um, regardless of that, this, this needs to get done. Um, the parties, they'll start working on design and construction documents. It's within 30 days of the execution of the second amendment. So we're looking at 90 days and 30 days. You're talking 120 days. You'd like to get this, uh, construction agreement done. Uh, then they are going to build the park for the city. There is an anticipated cost that they have priced out. I believe it is less than the cost we saw from a e-comm in their proposal. Um, but it has to commence, um, it's supposed to commence next, uh, by April 30th, 2026. That's actual, the construction commencing. So I think you're probably getting a couple of years ahead of schedule had you not reached some compromise. Other than that, there's mutual releases. Parties voluntarily participated. I think there was an agreement that, um, my, uh, my costs were to be split equally between the city and the, um, Miami-Beckham United. And, uh, this requires a vote of the Fort Lauderdale City Commission. It's got to get in, that has to be inserted in here. Um, time is of the essence. I think if I direct the commission to a couple of paragraphs that need to be specifically approved. Uh, one, this is the proposed settlement agreement and mutual general release. If you go to page four, there needs to be a discussion about the date of the payment of the lump sum contribution. It's by wire transfer from Miami-Beckham to the city. And then secondly, in, uh, subparagraph B, there needs to be a date, uh, for the insertion of the, uh, the city. If it decides that it's sold at exclusive cost and expense to construct the parking facility and the number of vehicles. Um, so that needs to be discussed. And I'm trying to see if there's, I believe on 11. Do we have this document? I'm just not. Yeah, I think it was passed out. We, um, I think the last draft was. I can, I can send a, uh, copy of the agreements to the city commissioners. I'll, I'll email that now. I think you just have passed out a. Okay. Am I, so I just, we just got it. Dwayne, what, uh, what you finalized this draft. I know we were going back and forth, but I think it was. I'll, I'll, I'll shoot an email out to the commissioners with the draft agreement. Okay. Yeah. If you could, please. Thank you. So, so this is the proposed compromise. Um, let me just, uh, I'll close with this. Is it perfect? No. Is there something in here that both sides would be a little bit upset about? Yes. Is there something in here that both sides can be happy about? Yes. I think at the end of the day, um, the park's going to get built. At the end of the day, the parking is going to get resolved, both as it relates to inter-Miami and as to the city. And, and I think at the end of the day, it brings closure to this issue. Um, and like I said, I, uh, throughout this whole process, there were items of, uh, dispute and contention. There were, you know, we looked at emails, we looked at exchanges, um, as this commission knows, I think there were two different city managers involved in this through the process. Um, there were times when there were city commission meetings scheduled on this and postponed. And so, um, I know, uh, Ms. Williams is probably delighted that she was not in on this early on. She was sitting down on Miami beach dealing with other issues at the time. But, um, I, I think this can bring some closure. Um, I'm not sure that, um, you know, again, it's, it's, it's a good compromise. It's, uh, it's a good result, but, uh, there'll be, uh, things that both sides will complain about and I'll take questions. First of all, thank you very, very much for the, the commitment that you gave towards this process. It's going on for quite a while. And, uh, and I know there were a lot of issues out there that had to be resolved. Uh, and, uh, I think, uh, uh, Jackie really brought this home and, uh, I want to thank you for that. Uh, uh, uh, it wasn't easy and we had a lot of opinions on this, um, but in the bottom line, I think we're going to get an amazing deal for the city. Um, the city is going to, uh, benefit by millions of dollars. And, um, and, uh, I'd like to augment your comments if I can, because you're speaking to the, to the, um, proposed agreement, which, uh, which Duane is about to, uh, send to all of us, but I just want to talk a little bit about, um, some of the things you said. So as we all know, one of the big issues, one of the big issues that was a bone of contention between the parties was who's going to pay for the demolition costs. That was over $6 million. And, um, there was, there was, you know, from Miami, Miami's point of view, you know, they thought that that was just an agreement that, um, Chris Lagerbloom had come to with them and it was a handshake deal that they were going to go get started on the demolition before we even contemplated what the site plan would look like for the stadium and the rest of it. Um, we did, there are those on, on the city side that disagreed with that, but the end of the day, at the end of the day, Miami Beckham decided to cover that cost. So they're no longer seeking reimbursement from the city on that. They're just going to agree that they're not going to expect that reimbursement from the city. The other bone of contention was the, uh, permit fees. Uh, during the process, they were saying that, uh, that was their understanding that the city would eat the permit fees of 1.4 million. Um, and during the negotiation process, we were able to get them to pay that. And they're no longer seeking, uh, reimbursement for that either. Um, those two major points, I think were amazing, uh, concessions that you were able to achieve out of this process, Jack. So I want to thank you very, very much for what you were able to do there because that those were important sticking points. Moving forward, we got a presentation by AECOM early on, and I do recall almost $35 million was their proposed budget for the, the park that we have contemplated here. And, um, and we only had 25 million to pay for this and it was not going to happen based on their proposal and their site plan. Um, and, and based on your negotiations, I see that you were able to come up with a, uh, very similar site plan to what we originally contemplated. Now it includes, um, uh, 16 pickleball courts. It includes the community center. It includes, um, you know, dog park play field. Um, it includes all the main features that, that we originally proposed. The only thing that isn't here is the splash pad, which, um, during the negotiations, uh, I want the commission to know that I had, I would ask that we eliminate the splash pad because they're more trouble than it's worth. And they're very costly and they heart, they're hard to maintain. And I, I don't know if that would really be added, added value to the overall park experience. What Jack was talking about, as far as the parking is concerned, uh, because they've been asking the city to build a parking deck on their site, the compromise that we agreed on was to build parking on the North side of the, of the site, which they would pay for. I think it's up there at 14. Right. Yeah. And it's on their page. It's on their handout too. Um, they would pay for the parking on the North side of the site. So I said to them during negotiations, I said, well, if you're going to build the parking, why don't you build the rest of it? Because you could probably build it faster and cheaper than we can. And so they're prepared to do that. And that's where, uh, Jack has indicated that they could probably come in, uh, all in for under 25 million, which is within our budget and $10 million less than what AECOM was proposing. So overall the city would end up saving almost $20 million in all of this that we're now speaking of. And, uh, and I applaud Jack for, um, getting them to sharpen their pencil and bring this home and with construction on the site starting in April of next year, less than a year from now. So I just wanted to add those, uh, elements to the discussion for further, um, feedback from the commission and, uh, and any questions that you have of, uh, of, uh, Jack, uh, now would be the time to do it. So, uh, um, who'd like to speak first on the item? Well, since it's my district, please go ahead. You won't be surprised that I don't share your enthusiasm for the deal. I appreciate the effort that went into it, but candidly, uh, this is an absolute travesty. This is a complete abdication of everything that my district and my residents have been waiting for, for all these years. You took out the multi-purpose playing fields where the kids were to go out there and play. My fields are gone and you've turned them into parking lots. You took one third of the park and paved it. That's horrible. That's absolutely horrible. How do I go back to my residents and say, you lost your playing fields for your kids so we could provide parking for into Miami? Well, number nine shows a huge, no, they're not there. They are the multi-purpose playing fields. I'm not the open passive space where people are going to run around and throw Frisbees at each other. The actual multi-purpose playing field. The reason you save $10 million is you took out three multi-purpose playing fields with turf and with the drainage and everything else that went under that. Of course it got cheaper. You eliminated one third of the park. That's not rocket science. So, so, so from your point of view, you would like to add that component in? Yes. I've argued against all that. I'm sorry, but this is very emotional for me because this is incredibly important. I specifically made this point and Jack knows because Jack brought this up in the earlier mediation about putting parking over there. And I adamantly refuse that because that's not what my district wants. Children don't want parking lots. Children want playing fields. Well, where were the people who were playing pickleball going to park? We had plenty of parking. So if you go to AECOM, we had plenty of parking in the original design that AECOM did. We worked through the parking that was needed for the playing fields, for the pickleball, for the community center. All that was designed based on parking standards. So we've completely changed the design of the park here. We've moved everything around. Nothing is where it was in the original design that we've worked on since 2021. I mean, this doesn't look anything like what we designed. Well, there's a reason for that because maybe that original design wasn't so great. But how, you know how many meetings Heather and I both had with our district to come up with that design? We vetted it through the commission multiple times. This commission signed off on it repeatedly. And now we're just taking that entire four years worth of effort and ripping it up and throwing it away. But let me keep moving along. Heather had seven designs. It's not like she had one design. But they were almost all minor iterations of the same design. We came to a conclusion in, it was either June or July of 2021. That was the final one that was presented. And subsequent to that, we had minor tweaks. The only difference was when, as we went through all the discussions on pickleball, we thought it would be a good idea to reduce the size of one of the multi-purpose fields and add the pickleball courts. Other than that, there were no substantive changes to the design from 2021 onward. So all of the earlier iterations, you're right, Mayor, as a result of community input, we went through a variety of design concepts and iterations. And we came to a conclusion with the community and with the commission. And we built a consensus around all that. And now we're starting from scratch. But let me just kind of walk through some of these things. Because again, I just, you know, the demonstration handshake deal. I just want to, if you go to the original, this was a very important when we were sitting in these meetings. And I just, and I know you've spent a lot of time with me on this. And I know, you know, you had a very strong feeling on this. But if you go to the comprehensive agreement on page two of 36, it's defines community site improvements as a running and walking trail, a public park, a playground, a dog park, public fields, and a field maintenance building. Those are what's defined. And I believe those are all in here as for if you go to 1.02b. So as we got into the argument about best use, and I, yes, you could remove the pickleball and maybe add some more, you know, another field there. But the way it's worded, and again, I know you didn't draft it. In fact, I think one of the comments I made to you, Commissioner, I think had you been more active, it just been brought to you before all this went down, it probably would have ended up differently. But the community site improvement definition says walking trail, public park, playground, dog park, public fields, and a field maintenance building. That's by definition in the agreement. So as public fields, number nine, we have the open passive space. Is that now what we're considering public fields? That's what I would call a public field based upon the compromise. You could do stuff with that field if there's a desire. And I think that's, but what I'm saying is, I was stuck with trying to resolve this as set forth in the original agreement from 2019. And I'm sitting there trying to interpret it. And every time, and in fairness, I mean, because you sat through a lot of these, they got, there's no question, we all, we worked on this. Every time it came up, and our Miami would come back and say community and site improvement is defined as follows. And they're listed there. And then we would get to the diagram, which I was going to pull out of one of these boxes where there were the eight items. And it doesn't say the active ball fields. But I will say this, they did put the stadium field over there at Auto Nation field. Now that is a turf field available for, I think, Stranahan, Fort Lauderdale High, and that. But yes, you are right. Which are not in my district, by the way. I'll point that out. That's not helping my kids in my district. I am aware of that. I love Stranahan. I just want you to be, I mean. I absolutely love them. And I'm glad they can come up there and play. In fact, we can even talk about how much it's costing those folks to come up and play games when they want to do that. Because I know I've gotten a lot of feedback on that from, from folks that are more tied to the school community. But I want to know where, where my kids in district one are going to play soccer or where are they going to have, where are they going to have games to play? Where are they going to go? They got to drive downtown? No, no. Where? There's a field just next to the football stadium. They currently play, um, they currently play, um, what's it called? What is it? Rugby. Rugby. The rugby field. You know, it's a multi-purpose field. So any kid can go out there all day long and play on a rugby field? You know, um, I think you're exaggerating what's going on here. I'm not, man. I'm not. We've got a magnificent site plan here. I think this is a horrible site plan. I take exception to that. You, at the last minute, added pickleball courts, which was never contemplated in the original comprehensive agreement. We added that. We added the cost. And it all comes under $10 million under what AECOM came up with. We have a much more usable site, usable for us, usable for the team. It, it, it really is a win-win for everyone. I don't think so, Mayor. Well, I know you don't. So can I, can I continue with my recitation? You may continue. Thank you. So the, I'll go back to the handshake deal on demolition. So you, you make a good point, Jack. You know, they're going to be sticklers about what's in the agreement. Well, I want to be a stickler. Guess what's not in the agreement? This handshake deal on demolition. So strike that $6 million that they paid. That was their responsibility. That is what is in the comprehensive agreement. There's no ambiguity about that whatsoever. Permit fees that they're taking credit for, $1.3 million. Same thing in the comprehensive agreement. No ambiguity about it whatsoever. They don't get credit for that. So that's $9.3 million they don't get credit for. So this idea that somehow they're giving us a gift of $9.3 million is an absolute fallacy. The comprehensive agreement is abundantly clear. And by the way, this is a multi-billion dollar company that's made all of its money. I'm talking Mass Tech doing government contracts. This is not an unsophisticated party. Nobody knows a government contract better than somebody who's built their entire business model on government contracts. They can't claim for one second that a city manager with no authority to execute an amendment to a multi-million dollar deal gave them a handshake deal. That's ludicrous. Nobody would buy that. There were conversations. It never came to the commission for a vote. They knew it had to come to the commission for a vote. So what we're seeing here is that... A compromise. Hold on. No. Mayor, please. Mayor, let me finish. I'm letting you finish. No, you're not. You're interrupting me. But you're twisting the facts. You didn't interrupt. I'm not twisting the facts. Those are the facts. Read the comprehensive agreement. I have. Trust me. I read it. So again, please allow me to finish, Mayor. I shouldn't have to fight for the microphone. Go ahead. Thank you. So they like to construe the comprehensive agreement to their advantage when they say there's some ambiguity, and I disagree with the ambiguity that's been suggested. But when the language is abundantly clear, somehow it doesn't matter. So I take exception to this. I think this is an abandonment of District 1. You have collectively failed to give them what they've expected, what they've been told they're going to get for the last four years. It's a horrible deal for the city financially, and I just can't support this. Okay. Any other comments? Dan, do you have any comments on this? Yeah. Yeah, Mayor. Yeah, yeah. Thanks. Jack, thanks for your work on this. So, Vice Mayor, if I'm hearing you right, you want more playing fields, right? Yes, Commissioner Sorensen. So if you go back and look at every single plan that the city commission has approved over the last couple of years that I've been on the dais, you'll see that there are three multi-purpose playing fields where the parking lot is currently located adjacent to the stadium. So that's what we've been talking about. That's what we've always talked about. It's always been in there. It's been part of what the community has asked for, and it's what the commission has agreed to provide to them. Okay. So how about removing, I'm just looking at the site plan, how about removing the pickleball courts and putting playing fields? No, what we don't need is parking. What we want is recreational opportunities. This is a park that's going to need to attract people to it. One of the things that will help do that is pickleball, because what we learned during the pickleball conversations for your district, for the fort, is that people will drive to play pickleball. So encouraging people to drive to this park and making it a destination park, it's key to have those types of amenities and activities that are going to bring people there. Pickleball is something that we keep talking about. We talk about pickleball at the beach. We talk about pickleball down at Snyder Park. We know pickleball is a draw for people. And so that's why we included it. Exactly. So you want pickleball, it sounds like you want pickleball more than playing fields. We want, so what we had in there was two large playing fields. We had originally had in there three large playing fields, three large multi-purpose fields, which could be used for football, which could be used for soccer, anything of that nature. And what we did in order to accommodate the pickleball courts is we put, we left two large fields and we reduced one of the fields down to half size. So it's a smaller field. So we now still have three fields and we have pickleball. What we don't need is acres of parking. And what was suggested during our initial mediation was approximately one third of my total green space will now be paved over. What is it? Pave paradise and put up a parking lot? That's what this does. Okay. And so you always, you always planned on one, try to see two, four, six, eight, two, four, six, eight. You always planned on 16 pickleball courts, if I'm tracking that right. That is correct. Okay. And you don't want to give any of those up. Okay. I think, I think, I think those are, I think those are critical to the neighborhood, but if we cut it down to eight pickleball courts, fine. But if I can get my three playing fields back, yes. Okay. So then, I mean, again, I'm, I'm not a pro on site design here, but I mean, mayor, can you put feel if you do what the vice mayor said, you cut down half the number of pickleball courts, put, you know, a field there between, uh, the North pickle, or I don't know what side it is, but part of the pickleball courts and number 10, which is a passive green space. And then put fields where nine is there. So commissioner, commissioner, mayor, mayor, if I may, Dwayne, Dwayne here. Yes, go ahead. So I just wanted to point out, uh, commissioners, you should have, um, in your emails, the actual agreement, but I want to point out the actual agreement, which agreement, the draft, the draft draft agreement. Right. So one, what I want to point out is, uh, page five, uh, paragraph five talks about improvements to the community side. And the only reason why I'm interrupting is, uh, because it provides for, um, further discussions and amendment of the comprehensive plan to, uh, define, further define the community side improvements, which would encompass some of the discussion that you're having now in terms of actually designing the site. It outlines some of the things that are going to be required as part of the, uh, community side improvements to be included. But in terms of the design, uh, that still is to be discussed and, um, uh, discussed and approved by both Miami Beckham and the city through the amendment of the comprehensive plan. Uh, the only design aspect that is truly contemplated by this agreement is that Northern parking lot, which may be a part of that discussion, but you'll see listed the items that are to be included as community side improvements on that page five, paragraph nine. Okay. Thank you. Um, I also want to point out that in terms of playing fields, the fact that football field that's being referenced is a playing field. The, the, the high school teams do not play there 24 seven. It is available for public use. It can be programmed for public use. Furthermore, the, um, uh, the rugby field is also available for public use. And, and, you know, because, uh, the playing area, the public fields recognizes number nine on the proposed site plan, um, that too can be marked out as a playing area, but we already have, we have multiple playing areas in this area. So to suggest that we're, we are somehow compromising the public by not having playing areas doesn't take into consideration the entire site, all the entire site, North, South, East, and West, some of which has been already developed and some of which is already programmed. We have a, we have teams already there. We have, uh, a lot of public participation. Um, and so, you know, the point of this, um, uh, exercise right now is to get feedback and I, you know, I appreciate everyone's feedback. We can go back to the drawing board to see what further we could, uh, augment this site plan with. But, um, again, whatever we do is going to raise the price of it. I was, I, in trying to compromise as, um, as Mayor Seiler indicated, we try to, uh, come to terms that were affordable and that were as close to what each party was hoping to achieve. And like he said, not everyone's going to be happy, but we at least got to a point where we think we can finally, you know, stick a shovel in the ground and get this thing going. And, uh, and I think that, um, through the efforts of everyone, since this process began, I think we finally came to that point and I'm hoping that we can move forward with this and get a, at least a majority of the people on the commission to give direction to the city manager, uh, move going forward on this commissioner Beasley Pittman. Do you have any thoughts? No, I'm still taking it in. The email that, um, Dwayne, that you're referring, that you sent, I, I'm not seeing it in my, it may be just a connection here, but I, I would, I don't have any comment at this moment. Okay. So it should have been sent, um, at 440, 447, 446. All right. In the meantime, um, uh, Commissioner Glassman, do you have any thoughts? Yes. Thank you, Mayor. So if Jack may be, and thank you so much for your work on this, I, I, I'm very appreciative. And I, I, I, this six years, folks, six years of this discussion. Okay. So thank you for bringing us to this point. Uh, I have a couple of questions cause I want to just make sure I understand. So when I look at this site plan that you came up with as a compromise, how large is that space that's labeled nine public fields? Well, I don't think he got a measuring tape out, but I think it's a couple of acres, right? Yeah. No, it's, it's a, it's a good size. And yeah, it looks big. And I, it's almost three acres. What I'm saying is three acres. If you look at what's labeled here as public fields, nine, I mean, 13 is labeled as running and walking trails. Now you have a lot of dog park area. If there's a demand for that, that's great. If not, you could certainly take that, the top number five dog park and incorporate that with number nine and have even more playing fields. 13 is, uh, again, more running and walking trails. In other words, if you look at what's labeled here as 16, five, 13 and nine, that's a lot of green space labeled as public fields, isn't it? I mean, I don't know if you need all the dog park area, but there's a lot of green space there. And then if you also look at even three, three is a playground, right? So I cut out half of the pickleball courts too. Well, well, I don't want to cut out the pickleball. I'm going to tell you that will be your attraction to this park. First of all, I personally think that you'll probably have more people from Tamarack using this park than the city of Fort Lauderdale. Uh, okay. That's just my, that's just my impression. Um, and what will bring them here will be that pickleball. And if you're going to have 16 pickleball courts, I'm going to tell you right now, I play every day. You're going to need that parking. Okay. Cause you're going to have a lot of angry people. If you're going to have 16 pickleball courts and nowhere to park. So I'm just saying that I think you did a great job here, Jack compromise folks, six years. I I'm ready to move forward with this already. It's enough. Okay. Thank you. All right. Any other comments? Ben? Yeah. I still have quite. Yeah. I still have questions and comments. Yeah. Uh, thank you. Um, okay. So Jack, um, just a couple questions here. So, okay. Um, the park facility, including the parking is estimated 25 million costs. The total cost is 25 million. I think the proposal from a e-com came in higher. Part of this negotiation was to, um, scale it back and 25 million and deliver everything that's listed under community site improvements under the agreement. And that's, what's important. And again, the pickleball courts were something that, uh, both commissioner, uh, Maritis and commissioner Herbst asked for after the fact. And that got worked in there. I'm listen, I spent 25 years in public service. I recognize there are, there's a lot of give and take. There may be a lot more give and take with this breakdown of the 25 million. The issue is this, and it's important to note one, that the dispute over the 9.3 million is gone. They're, they've agreed they are going to be responsible for that. They're not getting reimbursed or not getting refunded. That item's over to the community site improvements has set forth in the agreement from 2019 are all checked off. There are more community site improvements in addition, but they're checked off and three, we get rid of this language. And I do want to read this into the record. Cause I know I dealt with Tom Ansborough on this and I dealt with Dwayne on this. And it says here in this agreement, the qualified projects design and construction must be acceptable to Miami Beckham and city period. I've never seen an agreement that gives each side the right to say it's acceptable or not. And then everything freezes. I mean, if you want to move this thing forward, there ought to be a process that if they, you know, how do you break a tie? How do you break an unacceptable situation? That's not in here. And the problem was is, and again, there was a series of agreements. There was an interim agreement. And I think through the years and all water under the bridge, this, we could be sitting here in 2028 saying, well, it's not acceptable to the city or it's not acceptable to enter Miami. And so those, those two things, I think you can check the box and say, those are done. I recognize that, you know, this, this parking part of this compromise, why this was all done is you have had parking issues out there. Those parking issues will also get resolved in this, uh, in the process. And the city gets the use of this parking space probably for, like I said, 75, 80% of the time, if not more, it's now the city's parking except for three hours before and three hours after a game. And so, um, I mean, that's, that's a win-win. Great. Um, thanks. So the, I'm trying to just review the agreement as I'm, as we're going through this. So the, thanks the 2.5 million or let me see here. My Beckham shall pay 2.5, 2 million, 500,000 towards a computer community site. Okay. Does the community, is a community site inclusive of the 25 million park and parking lot cost? Yes. But is the 2.5 million part of the 25? Yes. Yes. But that is the contribution coming. Remember under the community site improvements, they had to contribute 2.4. So we, we just, that was raised to 2.5 as a compromise. They were giving 2.4. Um, and again, the, so it is part of that. Yes. Okay. And then it says the total contribution of, I'm looking at section number three, total contribution of $4 million as here in described. Next sentence, Miami Beckhamshire will pay 2 million, 500,000 towards the community site. So is it, is it 404 million plus 2.5 million or is 2.5 part of the 4 million? 2.5 is part. The other part is the 1.5 million for the parking. Got it. So the total estimated cost of the park and parking lot is 25 million of that 25 million estimated cost. Regardless of what that cost ends up being Miami Beckham will contribute 4 million. They're contributing 4 million towards it. Yes. Towards it. Okay. Great. Then the next, and the city will contribute if it is 25 million, then the city would contribute 21 million for the park and the parking lot. Right. Yeah. But it depends on the design. I mean, if you guys want to change things around, you can change things around. I mean, this is just, this has sort of drawn up. And again, I, I'm, I'm going to, I think you all know this. I'm not an architect. I'm not a designer. I'm not an engineer. Yep. I'm a, an attorney who happened to mediate a few cases here and there to help out. And, um, as you all are going to probably negotiate some more details as to this park. I mean, I, obviously green space costs less than pickleball courts and, you know, but, but we're putting up, you know, like one of the things we did is we combined the, um, shade structures coming off rather than separate and apart, uh, for the shade structures come off the community center. Some will be over in the other playground area. If you see in, um, five over in the dog park, but the other shade structures are actually connected. Hope the goal being it saves money. Yep. Got it. Okay, great. So Jack, what in your mind, if you, as you hope to seek agreement here, what would be the next step, uh, in this process in your mind, uh, for this? Well, I think you all have to agree on the, the, the global settlement concept, right? This is what, I mean, Dwayne will get into the details with you as the, uh, city attorney, but you have to agree on the global concept, the issue that we've been fighting over. And, and look, in fairness to John, he was very passionate about, there were issues over these permit fees and demolition costs. Right. And, you know, and if you saw the back and forth with, well, we thought the city was responsible for that. And no, we thought you were responsible for that. And then, you know, both parties relied on the agreement when it suited them. And then both parties said, well, that part of the agreement wasn't clear when it did soon. And so, you know, you got, you know, get into these issues and that's why, you know, specifically like they said, the site improvements. I mean, if Miami Beckham had their way, you would have eight things out there, right? They'd say, okay, fine. We'll, we'll put our 2.5 million towards the site improvements. And guess what? It's, it's the eight things I already ran recited. And it doesn't include a lot of the items on here. In fact, you know, if I go back to it, there's no reference, pull this up. When I go to the site improvements, there is no reference to a community center, right? You're getting a 10,000 square foot community center, but let's look at what was in the agreement. A walking, running and walking trail, not very expensive to build. A public park, again, without defining what constitutes the public park, it can be not very expensive to build. It can be open green space. A playground, again, doesn't say, you know, I mean, I've seen playgrounds. I know Dural just finished a playground that cost somewhere close to 5 million. I've seen playgrounds built for a hundred thousand. A dog park, same thing. You see that, that public fields and a field maintenance building. Well, the field maintenance building as was understood by Beckham United, Miami Beckham United was, this is a place where you're going to keep like a maintenance shed where you're going to keep the equipment. Well, of course the city's position is, well, we want, you know, a community center. So from those eight things that are specifically laid out in the agreement to now, those items that, I don't know if they can put that, keep moving things around up here. Yeah. Now you have a 10,000 square foot building, community center, which was never contemplated. So that's obviously was going to be a city expense. The, the entrance ways, you know, ingress and egress, um, the fitness stations, they were not defined in this agreement, but they're being added in, you know, the dog, the dog park was defined. The shade areas was not defined. Um, pickleball courts were certainly, like I said, I don't even think in 2019, any city was talking about pickleball except for commissioner Glassman. But, um, you got the, uh, the green space, the maintenance building instead of a shed. If you look up top that 11 is a maintenance building, not a shed. Um, you know, restrooms, guess what, guess what's not mentioned in the original agreement on community site improvement restrooms. I mean, these are all things we're having to plug and plug in and compromise. So, um, again, I, as I said, you look, you guys have the hard decisions to make, but there's a lot in here that could upset you. And there's a lot in here that you like, but at the end of the day, the most important thing is the timing and the fact that that language that said each party can nix the agreement at any time. I mean, it would drive, it would drive me crazy. I mean, saying when we did Carter park, if we had an agreement between orange bowl and the city and eat both sides could nix it. I mean, that's just unacceptable, but that's what happened. You know, we could have. So mayor, thanks Jack. So mayor, and maybe this question for you, mayor Trent Ellis or D Wayne is what would be the next steps in, in moving forward. I'll leave that up to you. Procedurally, what's the next step? Get a majority decision from the commission. And then, uh, and then are we agreeing to the, to the agreement that, uh, that's a draft formed that you've submitted? Is that what we're doing tonight? So correct. So the next steps would be to consider the agreement, the settlement agreement. If you, as a commission, um, are looking forward to approving it. And if you approve it, the settlement agreement under its terms, gives us 90 days to negotiate an amendment to the comprehensive agreement to address, uh, the community site improvements. D Wayne, one of the, thank you, D Wayne. One of the questions I have is around the actual, uh, design of the park. Um, what flexibility is there with designing of the park and adjust making some adjustments? So the payment for the parking, the Northern parking facility is, uh, deemed a contingent payment contingent upon city constructing that facility at that Northern location. So that according in accordance with the settlement agreement, we do not get that payment. If that Northern parking facility is not constructed, the, the remaining design aspects are to be negotiated as part of the amendment to the comprehensive agreement. Okay. But to answer his question though, uh, in the, in the agreement that you've submitted tonight, the pair, the, I forget the number of the paragraph, but it contemplates another agreement to talk about the construction of the park. Correct. That would be the amendment to the comprehensive agreement. Correct. And so to answer your question, Ben, that if we want to tweak this design, that would be the time to do it. Okay. And mayor, I think that's important. I think, you know, the district commissioner and stakeholders, I mean, I think the design is still, you know, should be a discussion and worked on. Has anyone signed up to speak on business five tonight? Okay. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. So mayor, I'd like to, I'd like to, I support moving this forward with that, um, inclusion of ensuring design work can still be, um, you know, navigated. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Beasley Pittman, did you want to just have a question? I'm still looking at the site plan here. Um, again, it's not final. It's just, it's just proposed. There's one, um, green space here that does, it's not included. It's not included on the ledger. It falls under, um, just below the maintenance building, below 11, but below 11. What is that? It's just open space. So is it considered passive green space or it is passive? Yeah, it's passive. There's nothing, there's, it hasn't been, uh, programmed. So it's, it's programmable. Okay. Do, okay. I was going to ask, so we know how large it is. Is it how much? I don't know the answer to that question. Okay. All right. Just wondering, trying to figure out what's available. We can find that out for you. If bocce ball takes off, it might be a great location for it there. All right. So, um, all right. So, uh, I, I support it, of course, uh, commissioner Glassman supports it. Commissioner, uh, Sorenson supported, uh, commissioner, uh, vice mayor, I noticed you don't support it. Commissioner Beasley Pittman, do you have an opinion on this? This is a hard one. Um, I'm in favor of us moving forward towards the park and we'll be at least getting the direction of the park that we're looking for. Okay. So I'm going to move forward with what's before us. Okay. All right. Thank you. Mayor. Yes. There, there are a couple of blanks in the agreement that I would need direction on in terms of filling out. Um, there is a date for the lump sum payment to be paid by. And then there is the, um, time period for the construction of the parking facility and the number of cars or automobiles that that facility, um, would accommodate. And those were, were left blank. Jack, uh, what was, what were, what was the number of spaces? The number of spaces? Yeah. Um, I know we talked about it. We did. Um, let me just, Ms. Toothaker, do you have a number for us? I know you represent them. You want to come forward if you could. And mayor, while, while they're doing that, um, is, do I have it right? If I was looking at that, right, it's all surface parking versus Yes. It's surface parking. Is that right? Correct. Okay. It's all no parking garage. Okay. Thanks. The number of, uh, Stephanie Toothaker on behalf of Miami Beckham United, the number of parking spaces was 260. But is that all the entire site? Just what's on the, just the portion that Miami Beckham is paying for. Okay. So that's on the Northern part. Correct. That's the Northern part. Boy, the pickleball take up that all 16. I know. Yeah. It's a lot. It's about 70 people. It's about 70. So, um, okay. So that answers the one question. Um, two other, two other, two other, two other questions you had asked. Uh, there's a time, there's a date for the construction of the parking facility. It says, uh, prior to, uh, and it's left blank. The city at its sole, uh, an exclusive cost and expense construct the parking facility large enough to accommodate no less than 260 automobiles. Do we have a date for that? Well, I thought on the lump sum payment, my recollection was we discussed like 30 or 45 days to come up with on the lump sum, the lump sum, the first payment. Yeah. The 2.5, I believe it was either 30 or 45 days from approval. So play it safe. Just make it 45 days. It seems to be the number one. Yes. What was the other question? And the third question is when is, when is construction going to commence? You know, that's why I wanted them to do it. Why don't you turn to the person to your left and ask her? Well, if you remember, if I could just comment on that, if you remember, they wanted to start the parking sooner rather than later because the parking has a dual benefit to both the city and to I agree Beckham. And I think they are going to be, you know, at some point in time, the team is supposed to move South, but it's supposed to move South, but in the, you know, to get it, to get it paved sooner than later helps the neighborhood. So fewer cars are parked on side streets and so forth. So, um, the idea was to, I mean, during the negotiations, I thought that they were going to do the construction. They could do it cheaper and faster. Right. And they wanted to do it sooner rather than later. Right. They wanted to do it. So I don't know the answer to that question. What's a good day for the payments? That would be challenging for me to answer at this moment. We don't have plans, permits. I know you. I know the, I know. I totally know that. That's why I'm a little. So yeah, the language says the city at its sole and exclusive cost and expense constructs that parking garage, parking, not a garage, parking facilities. So let me make sure I understand this. So the only thing that's going to get built is parking to benefit the team. That's the first thing that's going to get built. No, wait, no, I'm sorry. That's what I just heard. The first thing that gets built is the only thing that benefits the team that doesn't benefit the community. Well, I know I think you're going to be getting the check for 2.5 million in 45 days. And I, obviously you can start whenever you guys want to start. All I'm saying is they said they wanted to start the parking too. I would suspect that they build this. They want to move everything forward. So we have, we have a, uh, an RFP ready to hit the street to build the park right now. We're just waiting to be $35 million. Well, for God's sake, 35 million, we can spend 25. If they had paid the 16 million, that is their share of the park, then we get ours for less than that mayor. When did they ever say they would have spent 16 million for the park? That is their share of the amenities that are outlined in the comprehensive agreement. As the mayor has pointed out, there's eight components. We never expected them to pay for the community center. We never expected them to pay for pickleball. We always knew we were going to pay for those ourselves. And we asked AECOM when they designed the park to apportion the cost based on what was in the comprehensive agreement between the city share and the team share. The team share, if I remember correctly, the last time we did this before it was a $35 million iteration. When it was a $30 million iteration was 16 million for them and 14 million for us. So I would say the last thing I want to see get built is the parking that benefits the team, because I have absolutely no confidence that they're actually going to build the rest of the park or anything else. If they're offering to do that, they're going to build what suits them just as they've done all along. And no mayor, this doesn't help the neighborhood because they're already parking there. That's the parking lot they're using right now. So paving it doesn't put more cars in there. All right. So you're not benefiting anything. I do want to comment just for it. So it's clear for the record. I think they had said they would move everything sooner rather than later. They, they would like. So why is that April? You guys want to move their dates up? I mean, cause I think it was the city trying to figure out when you all could get agreement on such. We don't need to wait till April of next year. That's almost a year out again. Why don't you put or sooner in there if there's an agreement from the city. The last problem was, is that it took three years under this agreement when you read it for the city to come to a plan and they never did. And so you've got a situation where Miami Beckham, and again, I recognize there's plenty of dispute in here, but Miami Beckham had eight obligations. That's it. Eight obligations. And that's all I've ever asked them to do is those eight obligations. But John, you, respectfully, vice mayor, you know, it predated you and there were six or seven plans on those eight obligations presented to them. So you've got an entity that's saying, look, all we know is whatever is done, we have the right to approve and whatever is done, the city has the right to approve. And I know you were frustrated during mediation by that language as we all were. And so our attorneys disagreed with that interpretation that they have a perpetual right to approve the plans. So our side, our side absolutely disagreed with that interpretation. They do not have a perpetual right for the 50 year run of their lease to approve any designs and changes that we make to that part. So I would, I'm happy to litigate that one. Okay. We're not here to litigate. We're here to come to all I can say is we've taken the worst financial deal. The city has ever done and amazingly managed to make it worse. I didn't think it could get any worse, but by God, you did it. Okay. Thank you. Um, so let's, let's see if we can get some clarity here on the construction and what these cities expected. I, I, I think I had always voiced my concern about the city taking on the construction aspect of this because we have different requirements as a public entity that a private entity does not have, and therefore can probably accelerate the process. And that's why, um, you know, I'm, I'm happy that they want to give us a check for the amount of the, of the public space for two and a half million. That's great. And, you know, the million and a half dollars to build the parking, but the reality is we need to get them built and we want to get them done sooner or later, because as Jack said, they're building another facility, their, their other facility in Miami, which they'll probably start using sometime next year. Um, which I, we all thought was going to happen two years ago. So we're, they've been here for a very long time. And, uh, um, and, uh, and I feel that it's important for us to, for us to have an understanding as to how this is going to be, um, how this construction aspect is going to be accelerated. And Stephanie, I think that was the thing that, uh, I know you and I had discussed and I don't know if we came to a conclusion. Well, isn't the team supposed to, uh, play in Miami in the spring of 2026? That's correct. Okay. And what, what we had, what we had discussed is that, is that this agreement contemplates that there needs to be a separate construction agreement. We all agree that needs to happen. And in this document, it says that within 90 days, the parties will agree on a construction agreement. And then Miami Beckham United would frankly, it would be their preference because of economies of scale and construction to just do it all at one time. Right. So it's better for everybody. The language here says that they're going, they're depending upon us to build it. So, so to clarify, so it says here separately, if prior to an, a date that's left blank. So it's, it's contingent upon the city constructing the parking facility before this blank date. That's not doing, I'm so sorry. With all due respect. I'll go ahead and read it into the record separately. If prior to blank of 20 blank, the city at its sole and exclusive cost and expense constructs a parking facility large enough to accommodate no less than 260 automobiles and locates the same on the North side of the community site and adjacent to the stadium, which is, which currently exists on the North side of the property. And if once constructed, Miami Beckham is granted the right to shared use of the said parking facility as contemplated in the comprehensive agreement as amended. Miami Beckham will, after the North parking facility is completed, contribute to the city $1,500,000. That's only if, but that's only if the parties can't come to an agreement on a construction agreement, which is the first part of the document that says the parties were within. So I'm asking, what is that date that this facility needs to be constructed by? That's left blank. That's what I'm asking. Right. And I think, Dwayne, I think you guys are both saying the same thing that the, the agreement said, you guys are going to look at a date. If you can't agree, then the city can go forward and then they contribute 1.5 million. If you can agree, then they go forward and they're still building that. I agree. We're saying the same thing. I'm saying I have a document with a blank spot that I would like to fill out. It says that the, the, the, that the contingent contribution will not be paid. If this garage is not built by this blank state, the facility, the facility, parking facility, unless it's constructed by this blank date, I'm asking the parties, what is that date that this needs to be constructed? As I understand what I've heard is that the desire is to have Miami Beckham do it when they start working on the park. Yes. So I think you put a short date in there that the city declines to do it. And now the burden shifts to Miami Beckham to complete that parking facility as contemplated by the settlement, because the goal was to just have, and I'm not sure I see how that's worded, but I believe the intent was that Miami Beckham was going to do this parking facility and do it sooner rather than later. And they also said they'd like to do the park at the same time sooner rather than later. So they're not, they weren't the ones asking for the delay because I think they just would rather from a, uh, from an economy of scale standpoint, they mobilize, they get out here, they get this thing done and they do it while they have it. Yeah. So we don't want to exercise this possibility. So what if we said separately, if prior to December 31st, 2026, why don't you go a lot sooner? Yeah. Yeah. Why don't we do it by the end of July? Right. Jack, I don't, I don't think I, so I think we disagree in terms of reading. I would say that this needs to go out further. This date, the built by date is the, the, the payment of the 1.5 is contingent upon the parking facility being completed by the state. At least that's how I'm bringing it. Right. But if we don't complete it, then, then we don't get the 1.5. No, we'll let them just go ahead and build it themselves at their expense. We don't have an agreement to that. Well, this is what we're going to do. What we're going to do is between now and the walk on tonight, we're going to change the language so that it says just that. And I don't think we'll have any disagreement with, uh, with Miami Beckham. If you were to insert April 1, 2026, no, we don't want to do that. No, this is for, if we, the city doesn't come up with a, if the city does not complete the improvement by, you know, August 1st, 2025, then they, they hold back the 1.5 million and they go ahead and build it themselves. Right. But I think you're going to see the, well, I don't know if it needs to be that soon is what I'm getting at. Well, that's the point. Yeah. We're not going to build it at all. Right. We want Miami Beckham to build it at their expense. Right. But we have to make that clearer than it seems to be. Right. So we can, we can interlineate the, the paragraph. Why do we need to even entertain this possibility of paragraph? Well, why don't we just articulate that? I agree. Just articulate the Miami Beckham will build this facility. Right. Why can't we just do that? And they'll, it will forego the 1.5 million. Let them just go ahead and build it. Right. And they're much cleaner. Yes. That's consistent with our mediation. Except in fairness to the city's position. Yes. My comment to them had been, if you build it for less, they're going to get a discount at this way. There's at least the commitment of the one five, but that's fine. If you guys are fine with that, then that's, that's fine. Yeah. Yeah. Cause you know, yes. We're fine. Yeah. Fine. So between now and whenever, um, if, uh, we can change the wording there, Dwayne, so that the city, the city agrees to forego the 1.5 million and allow them to build the, I don't think it can be built for 1.5 million, to be honest with you. I think it's going to take more. So I think that we should forego the 1.5 million right in the agreement and say, uh, and we defer to, uh, Miami Beckham to go ahead and build the 264 parking spaces. So we, we, we, and Jack, I don't know if you can facilitate this, but we would need a representative from Miami Beckham to talk to them. Cause if you would, she's right there. Can I just get off the clock, please? I think we anticipated that being April of 2026 is what I think. And it was April of 2026 was to commence construction on the whole thing. Right. Right. But that was then before that date, you just have to let them know that you want them to do it. We can do it tonight. We'll tell them we can do it tonight, but it's still going to commence. Yeah. Dwayne needs a date. Some date needs to be in there. Well, to commence the construction. No, the construction commencements, the April one, 2026. So you have to let them know before that date is what the issue is. That's why I said, I think we were talking about April one, 2026. If you want to put an earlier date in, I just need to clear it with them because I think the contemplation was that was going to be April one. Yeah. She just said, make it January. Well, the thing is, the thing is, as Ben pointed out, why even bother toying with the idea of the city thinking it's going to get back to Miami Beckham with a start date on the, on the parking site? Because it'll be, it'll excuse me, it'll be moot because within 90 days, we have to agree on an amendment to the comprehensive agreement and a construction agreement. So this, this whole paragraph will become moot, but it's for the city's protection. Okay. I understand. So put in there January one, 2026. Okay. Okay. All right. Upon your recommendation, we'll put January one, 2026. Right. Okay. And then city manager, I have a question for you because this brings up another issue of this parking. So right now I, we, we have given an into Miami, the ability to park till August 7th, right on this site. And then what happens? You just continue granting extensions until we get to this time in March when they leave and go to Miami and we start construction on April one of 2026. So we have been granting them the opportunity to park on an ongoing basis and periodically updating or amending that agreement. And we would continue as such. Okay. Because obviously they're going to finish here in March. Well, they're going to go in Miami in March, right? Roughly. I think originally, if you remember the discussion was, they would be there by now. Right. So I, four years ago, it was four years ago. The discussion was they would be playing their first games at the Miami stadium. Yeah. And it was going to be the spring of 25. Yeah. Originally we were supposed to have them for two years. We've had them for six, I think. Exactly. Okay. Yes. Longer than two. And it's, uh, I just want to make sure, cause I can't see us actually starting the construction on all of this while at the same time they're in the middle of the season. Would that even work? Well, that's, I think to your bent to their benefit and your benefit with them doing the work, they can stage it. Okay. And they can do it without disrupting. That's one of the benefits. If you had a third party contractor doing it, then you'd have this constant tension, right? You're going to have them doing it and they can work this park around their events and activities and move this park forward. I think that's one of the benefits we saw in the cost savings. Yes. I agree. Thank you. Okay. So just so I'm clear. So this settlement agreement is going to be updated to say that Miami Beckham will build the parking facility. No. Say the city is going to elect by January one of 2026. And I suspect that will be a mood issue because of the deadlines in here on the second amendment to the comprehensive agreement. It should all be resolved well in advance, but this was a protection that if for some reason, the negotiations bogged down, there was a dead, a date that this needed to get done by. So I think the way we've worded this, uh, the comprehensive agreement should be done within 90 days. And does that go, is that the same for the construction agreement as well? Yeah. Well, they should be done, you know, together, but the comprehensive agreement will be the construction agreement. We, we, we, okay. And I'm going to encourage you all to do not allow both sides to have veto authority on anything in that construction agreement. Okay. Okay. So hold on. I'm, I'm still not, um, not there. Uh, okay. So I'm looking at number five. It says as such, the second amendment shall define the community site improvements include the following. It says, um, parking, let's see, paved parking lot. Is that the parking facility you're articulating? Where are you? No. Okay. What parking facility is that? Which document are you in? He's in the five. He's in the settlement agreement draft. Settlement agreement, page five, section five, section five improvements to the community site. Yeah. Go back to three B. Okay. Right. Yep. Three B is the one that governs the North parking lot. That's going to be the shared lot. They build, you have it for three hours and longer before any game and three hours and later after any game. That's the shared parking. Great. So where does it articulate that Miami Beckham will be building that? That's what is discussed above that. It is going to be Miami Beckham building everything. But if they don't separately, if prior to that date and the city elects to build it, where does it say Miami Beckham will build everything? It's covered in the site plan. Hang on. Yep. I'm sorry, Jack. I don't think the agreement says that. And so, um, so commissioner, what is contemplated is during the, uh, during the discussion of the amendment to the comprehensive plan, that discussion's dealing with the entire community site. This would be part of that discussion. It's part of the community site and they're building the community site. Great. Where's that stated? It has to be. That's what's negotiated in the comprehensive, the second limit of the comprehensive agreement. So the comprehensive agreement, remember the original community site was, you had different proposals to build it. As you've heard some as high as 30 some million. Now, uh, they are going to be responsible for building the community site improvements. And that is what is contemplated when you talk about this total cost of 25 million. Right. And the community site elements are articulated in section five, right? Improvements to community site. Yes. But I thought you were asking about the parking, the North parking. That's the way that's broken out is in four, is in three B. But yes, the community site includes the parking as in five. Commissioner, I can put that, I can put the North parking in their contingents, uh, that, that language that they were discussing earlier in terms of if the city does not complete that by the right date, it shall be listed as one of these community site improvements. Exactly. That's the protection I think we need. It's not stated anywhere. Okay. So you're saying that, well, what I think you're saying is under 12, under five would be pay parking lot, including I should say, we want to say pay parking lots, plural, uh, that, that could, we could do that. Yep. And I think articulating less that would take care of it. Yeah. I'm, I'm comfortable with that or articulating the cardinal direction orientation of them, which I'm not sure exactly what, what is that orientation, but yes. Yeah. And then, sorry. No, I think you're right. That's what I just think it's plural pay parking lots. Right. Right. And then Jack go down to still in section five. The intent also would be that last paragraph of section five. The intent also would be to draft a construction agreement between the city and Miami Beckham United in which they, can we just say that I think they refers to Miami Beckham United. Correct. Versus a plural Miami Beckham United city. So can we just, I think that day is, is Miami Beckham United. Right. Build a park for the city. Then just a cost recovery. Great. See that Dwayne. Does that make sense Dwayne? Dwayne. It's where it says the word they, and I think it's, it implies it's Miami Beckham United, but I think if you just change the they to MBU, that would be it. Well done. Yeah. Okay. Great. Thank you. Now I'm good. Thank you for helping me with that. Jack. Yeah. I have one question. So let's go back to, to their use of the parking for the hours before the game. It seems to me we need some term date in there. So when they're no longer playing here, that should cease. Otherwise that runs for 50 years. Right. Well, so how do we, how do we, how do we, how do we look at that? So is it, is it just games of the team? Is it some future use of the park down the road? If they bring women's soccer here, do they get that parking for women's soccer here? What, what does, what all does their use of the parking encompass? And for how long does that run? Because the biggest problem we've had with this agreement since it was first drafted, um, is, is the lack of specificity and deadlines and obligations and everything else in there. So I don't like this open-ended three hours before every game. Let's, let's, let's, well, I think that would be something you would negotiate in the second amendment to the comprehensive agreement, but yes, the, just so we're clear, the original agreement provided 50 years. Right. And that's not changing. Right. So that means I would guess that they're still going to have the parking for events and activities there for the next 50 years. But what events and what activities? Is it, is it strictly games of men's professional soccer or is it? Well, no, it says games, friendlies, tournaments, qualify. I think the, the, my understanding of the negotiations was if they're hosting a game there, whether that is a professional soccer game, women's or men's, whether they host a college tournament there, whatever it is, if they have one of their events there that requires the use of the field, they're trying to resolve the parking. And this is a 50 year parking arrangement. The city has all the rest of the time. So you basically, if you're assuming a game is three hours. So in certain days, there's going to be nine hours. The rest of that time is going to be the cities. And this is being built at their expense. Now, now part of that though, that's contemplated in that is their games are played at night, right on Friday nights, if I remember correctly. So if they're doing a Saturday afternoon game for something else, then that means we lose the use of parking for Saturday afternoon while they're having some other kind of game. See, at least we know when their current games are going to be played. We know that it's, it's, you know, we know what the burden is on the community and the loss of use of the park. But if they still, let's, let's say they have a concert, right? And they do a concert that goes from noon to five, you know, it's, it's a, it's a sun fest kind of a thing runs all day runs for three days. So we lose parking for all of that time. I think we just need to put some specificity here in what we are giving up because otherwise, again, it's, it's an open-ended undefined. We're going to be arguing about this all the time. Commissioner, I don't disagree, but if I were to be asked to plot out the next 50 years of events and, I mean, the understanding was, is this stadium is available for 50 years as part of their investment. The city has the use of it for, I think for six, six events, four times a year, four, and we have never used it for we used it once. I think it was used once. And I think it was used for that football game, but I'm not going to even try to negotiate parking for the next 50 years. That's why we put a window. We said, let's just be clear. If they are using it and we chose three hours, cause we, I kind of looked at a truthfully, a Miami Dolphin situation, a Florida Panther situation. Okay. Up until a certain time that needs to be public. And then they have to have whatever pregame activities, whatever post game. But I would submit to you guys that when you're negotiating, negotiated this comprehensive, if you want to look at additional, I just, I will tell you, I can't possibly speculate on what events and activities, and there is a use agreement that's already in place. And all we're trying to provide is the parking, that there has to be a window so they can't, you know, they can block off the parking lot for their visitor. You know, the problem with that is they came to the city for a parking reduction. They were the ones who said they didn't need any parking. They had a parking study done. Our city code required them to put in, I think, 4,900 parking spaces. And they came back and convinced the city that that was absolutely absurd. They didn't need 4,900 parking spaces. 900 would be more than sufficient. And now, again, we're, we're taking, we're taking play space for children and we're turning it into a parking lot and we're giving them absolute control over how often they're going to use it because it's whenever they want. Okay. I, I, again, again, like I said, taking a horrible deal and making it even worse in ways that I couldn't even have imagined. Okay. Mayor, I have a question. Yes. Is it the intent that for the times when Miami-Beckham does not have exclusive use of the parking, that the city has exclusive use of the parking? Yes. Yes. That's the, that was the thing. You're getting all this parking. It's not all the parking, by the way. It's just the parking on the north side. There's still parking in the middle of the site, which, uh, is tended to service all the other activities, including if there's something happening at the community center, certainly for the pickleball and anybody else, the dog park. And there's, there's about 70 or 80 spots that are still available. And once the team, uh, does move to Miami for, for its exhibition, uh, for its exhibitions, uh, uh, games, um, the frequency within which they're going to use this site is going to be diminished significantly. You will barely see them there. And is that articulated in the agreement as drafted? Yes. We can, we can certainly make sure that's clear. We can make that clear. It's, it's the city's part. I mean, that was part of the win-win here. The two win-wins that I saw was one that you have this parking being built by them. They have a window of usage and you have the remaining larger windows of usage. And two, this issue on the timing that you're finally going to get this to move forward and not have to wait till both sides, you know, keep vetoing each other's plans going forward. So I understand where the intent is and where we're going with that. But, um, as we amend portions of the, the agreement, I think sort of have a kind of a domino effect going, um, the language that deals with the usage also talks about that usage being granted as consideration for the contingency contribution. And that contingency contribution, as you all were discussing today is not paid if the city doesn't build the parking garage. And I don't know if that's the intent. So how I read that, it says in consideration of the payment of the considered, the contingency contribution, the city agrees to grant Miami Beckham, the exclusive use of the North parking facility. So if we don't build it, we don't get the contingency contribution and you no longer have consideration for the exclusive use of the parking garage. So, I mean, I remember there's no parking garage. I'm sorry. Okay. Parking facility. Yes. It's contingent on that parking facility being built, whether it's built by the city and they give the one five or it's built by them and they turn it over to have their windows. Perhaps you can fine tune that language if that's the issue, but it is clearly contingent. There's, they are not, I mean, part of the compromise was they're going to provide parking that they can use, but can be used by the city. Like I said, the majority of the time that was, you know, that was part of the compromise that was negotiated. And that would be the consideration. Okay. Ben, does you have anything further you'd like to add? No, I'm good. I'm good. The only thing I still don't quite understand, but if Dwayne and you all think it's right, I just don't understand why we just don't strike that language of the date for the Northern parking area. But if that's, if that makes sense to you all, then go ahead. I'm good. Okay. All right. Um, anything further, Jack? No, I've had just a wonderful time coming back to the city commission. Welcome back. How does it feel to be on the other side of the table? The only nice thing I'll say, I never, I never had this view before. That's true. You used to have a solid wall. I did. I had a, well, okay. Um, well, and a much more rough crowd. Um, okay. Thank you so much. Um, so we'll take that up tonight. Um, now it's five minutes to six. And as many of you know, uh, our meetings begin at six, but also as, uh, as an accommodation to the commission, we do need a break. So what I'd like to do is, um, ask the indulgence of the public to be able to return here. We're going to return at six 30, uh, to begin our evening meeting. But before we begin the business of the evening, we will, we will continue with the, uh, public comments on business three. And, um, we're going to, I'm going to ask, I'm going to ask the commission, uh, the city manager and I discussed, uh, removing business four from the agenda. No one has signed up to speak on business four, and we're going to, um, carry it over to an, uh, another meeting to have a, uh, to have the opportunity to discuss that at another meeting. That's way, uh, we can, uh, um, make sure that we give it full consideration. So with that being said, we will, uh, we will continue the, uh, the conference meeting tonight after the presentations, uh, and we will then begin our evening agenda.