Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Fort Lauderdale City Commission conference meeting. Thank you all for being here today. We have some very important things to discuss and to decide today, so I'm very happy that we have people here to participate in the process. So for those of you who are here for the first time, we begin our conference meeting by going through the agenda. And tonight, excuse me, this afternoon, we have one communication from the Board of Adjustments. And let's see, it starts out with a motion made by Ms. Pat Rathburn, seconded by Mr. Hagopian, to communicate the following to the City Commission. The Board desires that the following be addressed, that the administrative variance does not apply to any new construction. City Commission may want to reconsider hearing appeals because of what the Board anticipated would be their sheer volume. That suggests that people would disagree with what the Board of Adjustment has to say and they would want to come to the City Commission. And are they saying that that would happen on a regular basis? Well, remember, we let them bypass the court process, right? And we said we would take those appeals. We would take that, right? Yes. Yes, Mr. Fajardo. I see you waltzing up to the podium. Just wanted to make sure I was here to answer any questions you might have regarding that. We have talked about it internally. Sorry, Anthony Fajardo, Director of Development Services. We've talked about that internally. If you want us to make a change to the ordinance, we could, but we think an interpretation will cover it. We're basically looking at anything that's brand new would have to go through the typical process. Anything that's subject to an existing structure and some kind of change to modify it would go through the administrative process. So we're not looking to make this change. So I think that we want the Board of Adjustment is asking that new construction not be able to appeal to the City Commission if there's an adverse ruling at the Board's meeting. Is there any appetite on the Commission to change that? I'm not sure that's correct. Yeah, Mayor, if I may. So on second reading tonight, we have the change to our ordinance that has the administrative review process for variances, and it also has a change for the appeal process that allows an order from the Board to be appealed directly to the City Commission, and that's what they're alerting you to as their concern. Right now, those appeals are taken to circuit court. Right. So this is to allow a homeowner to not have to go through the expense of going to court. They could instead come here to the City Commission. Correct. I believe that was the philosophy. That was the philosophy, and the Board of Adjustment, just based on the time that they take on reviewing these items, just wanted to point out to the Commission that it may take up a lot of your agenda space if you were to hear these appeals on a regular basis. Well, I think we anticipated anything like that. I think it's important that, you know, anything we could do to save a property owner the expense of going to court, because it could be expensive, and, I mean, I would just be in favor of keeping it. Okay, so we have the recommendation by the Board of Adjustment, and if there's any further discussion on that, we can take it up tonight when we discuss the item for vote. Correct? Okay. One clarification, Duane. The new construction part is handled okay, though, right? That is what Anthony was talking about with regards to the intent? Correct. We revised the language, and that, I believe, would be page 4, page 7 of the draft ordinance. We revised that language to ensure that it applies to only existing single-family residential dwellings or existing accessory structures to existing single-family dwellings. Thank you. Any further comments or questions from the Commission? And, Mayor, my thinking of why I was a proponent to change this from appeals to the court to appeals to the Commission is to allow neighbors to address us for concerns, challenges, frustrations, and so that we may support them. And, Mayor, my thinking is if it gets to be too onerous of a task in the number of appeals, then we can always adjust that process. We change it. Exactly. And I think it's going to be, in talking with staff, I mean, I think it's the expectation is this is going to be a reasonable amount that we can handle. Right. Okay. Thanks, Mayor. Duane, the other change that we made, the two years to one-year waiting period, that's still intact. No problem. Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you. All right. Very good. Pam, do you have any other comments? Okay. No. Thank you. All right. Great. All right. Moving on to, let's see, CF1. This is Car Rigs in Ingram, Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center, Renovation Consulting Report. Hello, Pat. Pat Riley, City Order. Before you begin, Pat, I forgot to make an announcement. Okay. Today is Sabrina's birthday. Happy birthday, Sabrina. Appreciate that, Mayor. I'm sure there'll be appropriate cake, Commissioner. Yes. We have already had a bit of a celebration with more to come. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Just don't want you to leave us out. Of course not. Okay. Pat, please proceed. Good afternoon, Honorable Mayor and Commissioners. This report covers the project cost verification related to the Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Center Renovation Project. It was a $37 million construction project that includes the spectacular 27-meter dive tower. As part of our annual audit, our external auditors provided services that included a construction contract review and a cost proposal review. They also performed multiple pay application reviews, and they did a closeout audit at the end of the renovation project. The audit identified cost recoveries during the pay application review and the closeout audit. And a final settlement of $148,486 was agreed to by the city and the design builder after the completion of the closeout audit. I would like to turn it over to Rob Broline of Car Rigs and Ingram, who performed the services to provide additional information. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. So I'm Rob Broline, a partner with Car Rigs and Ingram. I'm stalling until the presentation comes up. There it is. So Pat already gave a pretty good summary, so I'll just kind of go through it. Now, I know you have the full report that was given to you. This is kind of the highlights, and it was a comprehensive analysis of this project. And so here are the numbers at a summary level. So originally, the general, the GMP, the guaranteed maximum price was approximately $27 million. And then there were a number of change orders added, and you know some of the big scope changes. One of them was the big dive tower, which Pat said is, I just went and visited again. It is a beautiful site. And so that's a net number of $7.8 million to get you to an adjusted GMP of $34.8. Pat said the full cost was $37.2, which is accurate, because part of that reduction is when you made your own direct purchases of materials, that's still your cost. You do that to save on the sales tax savings, and you guys understand that. So that just kind of gives you the overview. Total cost recovery savings from all the procedures we did from the beginning of the project in 2018 to the close in 2022, total recovery and cost savings listed there for you is $652,701. And here's just kind of a, just gives you a description here. I mean, kind of talked about this, but the key thing here is that it's a cost reimbursable project, which means all of the costs that are being billed are subject to verification and support, which is very important, because as opposed to a lump sum bid where you go out and competitively come up with a price, then that's the price, right? That's the lump sum. It was competitively bid. Here, you come up with a price, and then they have to support it with all of their documentation, which is that's what we verified. And then Pat kind of already described this really well with the different stages of what we did. We looked at the contract. One thing to add, what he said about the contract review that we do is we go through that contract comprehensively, and we provide our own feedback to try to tighten up the contract, add clauses that we believe will better protect the city, and making sure everything is reasonable and transparent in terms of those costs, and there's no ambiguities around what is billable, what's allowable, what's not allowable. We also look at the guaranteed maximum price to make sure that lines up with the contract. There's no, again, there's transparency there. It's in line with what the contract says about what's allowable. And then what we spend a lot of time on throughout the project is doing the monthly payment reviews. Those are the monthly invoices. They can be 300 pages long where we go through those and validate the costs. And finally, at the end, we do the closeout. At the very end of the project, we do a final verification of all the costs. So here are our key findings by category. So overall, throughout the project, and we looked at 51 pay applications because the project was a little over four years, and there's one payout per month. So during the project, we identified 504,215, and those were real credits that went back to the city during the project. So that's one of the benefits of doing the real-time payout reviews is you don't wait until the end. You're getting that money credited as it's being identified. And we worked with, and it was much more congenial, I guess, because you could work with the contractor real-time, and we could go back and forth. And we identified some things, and then we worked through it, and we said, no, okay, and we agree on this. And so that was done during the project. All those credits were taken before the project got to close. The other items deal with the actual closeout at the end. So we identified some vehicle expense overpayments of $50,093. That included the associated profit from the design builder on that. That's the $50,000. And then in part of the negotiation process, as we're going through this, working with Hensel Phelps, they had $57,393. They had not yet, it was money not yet collected from the contracts. They offset as a credit. And the clause included a, if we've identified so much in audit findings, they had to pay a portion of the audit fees. And that's what the $41,000 is. And that, again, that'll add up to the $65,000, $65,000. So what this is, this is just kind of a recap, because this is, as Pat intimated, there was a negotiated settlement at the end. This kind of breaks it out so you can see it. So you're going to see those same numbers again. Pat mentioned the total of the $148,486. And if you see the report from Hensel Phelps, you'll see in there, those numbers line up. That's what was agreed to, the $148,486. Part of it was the credit saying, we're going to forego what's left in the contract. That's the $57,393. And then the $91093 as an actual check, then they're writing back to the city. That's how it gets you to recap. And then finally, these are just some things. Whenever we do these type of projects, we have some process improvements we identify as part of a report that could have value going forward to other projects. That concludes my presentation. I'll take any questions if you have any. Okay. So first of all, thank you very much. And are you comfortable with the fact that the expenditures that were incurred here were appropriate and consistent with your standard accounting principles? Yes. And it's important to note that we recommend, we have our recommendations and management has, we act in an advisory capacity to identify these things. And so ultimately, and this is very common, we'll identify what we identify, then there'll be a negotiation settlement that takes place. But yeah, in terms of what we did in our procedures, we're comfortable with that. Okay. Yeah. And when are we going to get this check for $91,000? I'll let management ask to answer that. Yes. We're in the process of invoicing them, and we expect it soon. Okay. All right. We'll be waiting. Okay. Any other questions of these gentlemen? There being none. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. Thanks for your work. Thank you. This brings up a question that I might as well bring it up now. So the utilization of these great facilities, we really need to have a close examination as to the utilization of the pools, the dive tower, and so forth. It's my understanding from people in the community that they're being underutilized and that the facility is hemorrhaging money because we're not bringing in events and participants to the extent that we originally anticipated when we first envisioned this project. So I wonder at some point if we could have a follow-up discussion on this so that we can determine, you know, full utilization, you know, what opportunities are out there for us to enhance the use of it. Because whenever we have significant events, I get invited and the place is absolutely empty. Even though we've had events here where, I remember the last one I went to was a women's swimming event and there were world records broken and there were 20 people by the pool. And most of those were other swimmers. So this is not what we had envisioned. And I've been asking for this for at least two years now. And now that you're here, Raquel, if you can collaborate with Carl and find out where are we going with this and making sure that we're, it's a pretty tower, but, you know, it wasn't meant to be an art object. It was meant to be a dive facility. We can provide information via a letter to the commission and also have a discussion at conference if that's what you're doing. Okay. I would like that. Mayor, thank you for bringing that up. This actually was a topic of conversation at my pre-agenda meeting last night. Um, I was asked the same things that you just brought up. And, um, so Raquel, when we have that discussion, let us look at what is the history of that site in terms of events, who was coming, what were those attendance figures like, what was that revenue to the city and what's happened since we reopened the facility. I'd like to know exactly what the history is of the events, the revenue, uh, the attendance, um, ever since those pools have been, um, back in action. Because I, I, I agree with the mayor, um, I'm hearing the same thing and, uh, we really do, I think, need to step it up in terms of whatever that marketing effort is, um, and whatever our outreach effort is. And, uh, again, uh, I just think it's a really important topic of conversation. Thank you. Mayor, um, I would like to add to this conversation as well. Um, this is a great opportunity citywide also, um, to introduce and be a part of, um, the swimming community. Are we as a city promoting, um, the opportunity for young people, anyone who has a desire to swim to become in a sense, um, where they're utilizing the pool and being a part of those leagues that we have at some of the parks and making this go from just a, um, an opportunity to learn how to swim, but also to perfect and become proficient swimmers where they could be a part of whatever, um, event and tournaments are coming to the city. Excellent idea. Very good point. And so if you can include that in the, uh, presentation that we next have, you know, how are we able to bring in the community into the overall community, into the swimming community? Yeah, because actually the International Swimming Hall of Fame has a great project, a great program, uh, called Every Child a Swimmer, uh, and we need to know what we're doing in terms of working in conjunction with the International Swimming Hall of Fame, uh, to actually bolster that program and make sure that folks are even aware of it. Thanks. Sure. So we'll add to that a description of all we're doing to promote swim safety across the city. I know we're contributing to the YMCA project. Speak into your microphone a little bit more. I know we're contributing to the YMCA project, uh, toward the pool. So we'll incorporate all of that into the memorandum. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Uh, moving on to business one, Broward Regional Safety Action Plan presentation. We have Akite Akwari. She is the deputy director of our transportation mobility department. She'll be introducing this item. Hi there. Good afternoon. Okay, perfect. Good afternoon, mayor and commissioners and everyone. My name is Akite Akwari and I am the new-ish deputy, recently promoted deputy director for transportation and mobility. Um, so I'm here to share that the Broward MPO is going to share, um, their update on the Broward Regional Safety Action Plan or BSAP. They've been working on this plan for the past two years. They received a $5 million grant from Safe Streets for All, um, through the USDOT. And so over the course of the past couple of years, they've been working with stakeholders, including city staff, um, to identify priority corridors throughout the county, um, where they want to reduce the number of fatal and serious crashes. So they're going to present on the corridors that are within the city. And then later tonight, there is a companion item to vote on the endorsement for the concepts to improve those corridors. I thought we already did. I thought we already did that. I thought we already gave money towards this project. I thought we already approved all this. What's taking so long for this to happen? I mean, I know you're new. I want answers. No, but seriously, uh, James, talk to us. James Cormer, Broward MPO, deputy executive director. So mayor, if I might ask you some questions too. So we've been involved with city of Fort Lauderdale on various projects. In this particular project, the city staff has participated in our technical working group and oversight committee. The city provided support in terms of hosting public meetings, but there was no cash, uh, transfer for this particular project. Can I see a backup here? Yeah. Cause for example, Tuesday we had the meeting for the railroad underpass study that the city generously. So what is this? This is the Broward safety action plan. This has nothing to do with the, with the, uh, commuter rail. Program not indirectly in terms of rail safety, but not, not, not with the crossings specifically. Okay. So these three projects then that are listed here, uh, Sistrunk Boulevard at 27th Avenue, Broward Boulevard at, um, I-95 to Northwest first Avenue, and then 31st Avenue to Northwest eighth place. What exactly is the money going to be used for? Okay. So if you would let, would indulge me, I'd like to do a little background on it and then, or I can tell you briefly real quick, if you'd like either way, give us, give us the background. Okay, good. You'll, we have graphics and everything, so you'll like it. All right. Um, appreciate being here. And again, I noted that the city staff was an active participant in this process and the city has been very supportive. The point of the discussion today is that the Broward MPO is looking to incorporate these three projects in our funding cycle. So with a resolution of support from the commission, we can then start the process to amend our metropolitan transportation plan. Um, there'll be a vote in later next year or early, early next year to support that. And then that will get into the funding stream for design and construction. And that's very important that we get the support from the local governments because we want to make sure that you as elected officials are, are aware of the different projects that may be moving forward. Um, it did a good introduction to the, uh, safety action plan. So I'll try to be a bit brief there, but the purpose of this safety action plan is created data driven action oriented plan. So we're working with the data that we have available. There's information we'd like to have that we don't, but we have certain information. So we, we've tried to make a fact based analysis, an action oriented plan that results in recommendations that move toward implementation. And so your action today will help us move these forward into design and construction. And then as a kite mentioned also to the goal is to reduce, uh, severe injury and death on our roadways to zero by the year 2050. Broward MPO, MPO applied for a grant received $5 million and Broward County is a partner with us on that providing, uh, 1.25 million in a local match of in-kind services on three different studies they're doing. And so I mentioned briefly, one of the outcomes is that we have set a goal to reduce to, uh, zero death and serious injuries on our roadways by the year 2050. We're identifying projects and figuring out how to move those forward and also different policies and programs. Overall in Broward, we have about a thousand death and serious injuries on our roadways every year. So overall crashes, 137 crashes per day, but every week there are about four people killed on our roadways and another 18 people are seriously injured. Um, this map that you'll see here with the red lines indicates where most of those severe injury crashes are occurring. 77% of those KSI killed seriously injury crashes are occurring on only 6% of our roadways. And you'll see there's quite a grouping of them in the eastern part of the county and Fort Lauderdale does have a, uh, large number of those crashes. Over half of those roadways on the, uh, high injury network are state facilities, about 25% are county facilities and the rest are local roads. And we also are aware of the economic impact. Um, somebody in your family gets seriously injured or killed in a crash. It can be a one to $10 million impact in terms of lost revenue treatments, all the different things going on cumulative, cumulatively over a five-year period, it's about $22 billion. And so we consider that as we look at the cost benefit of doing improvements to address safety. As I mentioned, Fort Lauderdale, unfortunately, total is very high in some of the crash statistics. Fort Lauderdale is typically on, on all of our different lists of, you know, the total number of death and serious injury crashes, the ped bike serious injury crashes, neighborhood crashes, school area crashes, all the different things. So we, um, appreciate your support in, in moving forward here. Without getting into the details of the safety action plan, we have over a thousand pages of, of documentation, but there are three main themes that have emerged. And so one is that speed reduction is crucial. The intensity and severity of a crash is directly related to the speed at which one is traveling. So getting hit going 20 miles per hour is much different than getting hit going 50 or 70. The speed limits are already established. It's just people's conduct that violates that. Both of those. Yes. Right. And so we're looking at places where the speeds that are set could maybe be decreased to encourage safer behavior. And then there's also the measures that we'll talk about that go along with how to encourage that safer behavior. Well, I saw one of them was changed the signal timing to reduce speeding along the corridor. That could help. Yes. It's not already frustrating enough that every single intersection has a red light. Yeah. Let me come back to that. Okay. Let me come back to that. We'll hit that. Yeah. Come back to that. Yeah. All right. Another issue that we face, though, is mid-block pedestrian crashes. A lot of times our Broward County bus stops are located away from intersections. So we've coordinated with Broward County to look at the locations of the bus stops and see if it's possible to move them closer to the corners where there are signalized intersections or look at opportunities for mid-block crossings to encourage safer movement. And then also with nighttime crashes, we have found that it's not a question of lighting not being in place where a lot of the nighttime crashes occur, but it may not be working properly or it is not in the right locations. And so those three conditions can make a major difference. And that's what we'll hit on as we talk about the proposed improvements. Our safety action plan came up with over 20 different policies, 20 different programs, about 60 project recommendations. Within that plan also, we had a series of focus plans. So we looked at 11 priority quarters that we'll talk about in a little bit. We've looked at some concepts for how to encourage quick build projects to improve safety. We did focus plans on specific areas such as lighting, such as neighborhoods. As I mentioned, Fort Lauderdale had some of the worst statistics in terms of crashes, death and serious injury on local roads, railroad crossings may, as you mentioned, with railroads, how to improve the safety where people cross and also trespass along the tracks, school zones. One of the statistics I'm pleased about is that with school zones where the flashes are going, the number of deaths and serious injuries of children under age 19 was only one in the five-year period. And so we'd like to encourage more of that safer behavior near schools. We also looked at different technologies that can be useful in the future. And along with that, mayor, is also this signal timing and getting people to move in a more smooth pattern. So I did want to highlight also, though, what does that mean in a more smooth pattern? We're going to get philosophical here. So there's a question of a speed limit and the average speed that people travel. So one way to travel is you get a green light, you zoom up to 30, 40, 50 miles per hour, and you get to the next red light. Same pattern emerges. And your average speed is, you know, it's aimed at 30, but it's different travel patterns. And so there are ways with the timing and signals of the lights that it is people learn and know that they will be catching the lights if they go a certain speed. The lights can be timed to encourage that smoother movement. Along with the congestion that we do have, especially at peak hours, that is one way that the speed limit, not speed limits, but actual speeds tend to decrease during the peak hour periods. And there's also the question, though, of maintaining the smooth flow and movement of the traffic. So there's technology balances that come into play. So I have seen it in other cities where they post signage saying that if you go 30 miles an hour, you'll hit all the green lights, right? Yes. And that's something that would be contemplated in this project? Yes. Okay. Yes. And there's some other measures, too, that I'll talk about. I did want to emphasize, though, that we did get to work with the local community. We had a public meeting this week, and I see some people who are there also. So it's good to know the community is involved. And I think Commissioner Beasley was at one of the meetings also. And so we did do education with social media, with signs on bus stops and bike kiosks. We did do a roadway safety assessment with outwalking the corridors of Broward, Sistrunk, Northwest 31st, State Road 7. And then we had some public meetings and received feedback from the community. We also did extensive coordination with the city staff, with county staff, and the state staff to make sure that the recommendations were feasible to go forward. With this, I'd like to hand it over to Christine Fanchi, our project consultant, project manager. And she can even get more technical for you if you'd like. Thank you, James. Commissioners, Mayor. I'm really excited that this project included basically putting together Safe Streets concepts for corridors so that we can really program those opportunities that James mentioned. So we were able to select these 11 corridors. They include a mix of state, county, and city roads. Within the city of Fort Lauderdale, of course, we have Broward, Sistrunk, and 31st Avenue. Each of the corridors, we did a concept development. We did a cost estimate, a benefit cost analysis, and any additional traffic analysis to make sure it's teed up properly so that we can move into implementation effectively. The projects included an evaluation of over 50 safety countermeasures, and they are a full range of things from simple things to more elaborate. As you can see, raised intersections like we have downtown Fort Lauderdale, raised crosswalks. We've got pedestrian crossings, pedestrian refuges here, protected intersections like in the center, looking at bus stops top left. Leading pedestrian intervals is top right like we have on 17th Street in Fort Lauderdale. Lighting, of course, high visibility markings, and speed management, as well as really simple things, like can we change the speed limit, add speed limit markings in the road, speed radar signs, and then corner treatments. So really a whole host of different things. Our first corridor in Fort Lauderdale is Sistrunk Boulevard. 27th Avenue to Andrews Avenue was the corridor that we looked at. We evaluated that. Oops, and it's not showing my actions. Okay. So we had over 25 safety countermeasures that we identified, a whole host of things. The key to the safe system approach from the federal government is to really have a layered approach to these elements. So not only the speed management, like we mentioned, so really getting those raised intersections in. Sistrunk, we had raised intersections, some raised crosswalks to really get the speeds down. When you have lower speeds, of course, you can react quicker. So if something were to jump in front of you, of course, you can slow down and avoid that crash, right, or the visibility is low. Lighting was a key element on Sistrunk as well. We have the decorative lighting there, but it's not giving off enough light. So really going in to see if we can retrofit those lights to make the corridor safer. But a whole host of things. I wish my list would show up. Sorry. We have a concept plan, as you see here. So it lays out all those elements along the corridor. As I mentioned, speed management, lighting, and high visibility crosswalks. Didn't we already enhance the lighting on Sistrunk once before? I know that the lighting that's out there now is through the project that was done previously where they widened the sidewalks and reconfigured Sistrunk Boulevard with the decorative streetlights. You've got kind of the gold streetlights out there now. I've been there once or twice, yes. I know, but I'm saying that since then, there was another program that we installed brighter lighting along the corridor because those lights were so ridiculously dim originally. And we later, I remember it was under Lee Feldman, that a program was, you were working for us then. I don't remember that happening, but it's still the case now that as you travel down Sistrunk, it's pretty dim. I think the commissioner wanted to see it. I'm sure it is, but I'm just wondering, you know, back then that was considered enough. So what is enough now? Do we know? Have we figured that out yet? Well, I will say that the lighting standards, because of Safe Streets for All and all the national desire to get to zero fatalities, the lighting standards have increased over the years, and so the new national best practice is higher than it used to be. And so one of the recommendations that's coming out of the safety action plan is to make sure that all of our lighting is up to that current best practice. Okay, so just a heads up, you know, there are some neighborhoods that don't want that. So be careful as to that, because you may hit a situation. Well, with pertaining to the corridor, pertaining to the six-struck corridor. The corridor, I understand that, but I'm just saying. That is an area that even conversation that I'm beginning to have with city manager to let them know that it is dark. And this is my opinion. Maybe the lights are just dim and need to be replaced. I don't know the lifespan of the lights, but at a time it was brighter, and now it's dim. Okay, because I remember what happened, that we went out and we got a price to change the lighting system there, just the internal lighting system, not the decorative part, and the price was outrageously expensive. And some guy who was in the business said, hey, I can do this for a fraction. I just have to rebuild the housing, and I can do it for a fraction of the cost. And I thought we had implemented that. So I know bulbs have a life expectancy. Maybe it's the bulb system we use. I don't know. But just keep in mind that you're going through a neighborhood. Of course. And be sensitive to that. Of course. Thank you. We understand that. The analysis that we did that James mentioned with the High Injury Network, Sistrunk Boulevard is one, unfortunately, of the highest fatal and serious injury crashes corridors in this county. It's the highest local-owned corridor. And so we really want to make sure this is on our priority corridor, that we evaluated it. And we're trying to come up with low-cost recommendations as well. And I believe that the light, to your point, Mayor, the light infrastructure could be changed out without replacing the whole light pole. So we're hopeful that it's a lower-cost solution. Okay. Great. All right. So I'm going to go to the next, which is Broward Boulevard. This is obviously an FDOT corridor from I-95 east into downtown, kind of the gateway into downtown Fort Lauderdale. And, again, my countermeasures aren't showing. But we identified over 25 safety countermeasures. We worked, as James mentioned, with the state. We walked the corridor. We really talked about what was kind of feasible. As you come off of the interstate there, we've got the school, the elementary school there. And the speed actually changes from 40 miles an hour to 35 miles an hour as you go into downtown Fort Lauderdale. And because we understand that speed has a lot to do with the safety, we actually recommended making it 35 from the interstate to the school and then 30 from the school into downtown. And then designed based on the Florida design manual using elements to manage that speed and make sure, you know, the signals are timed correctly and that the speeds are consistent. So, here's the layout of the corridor with those elements shown in redundancy. We added some crosswalks here as well. We've got a lot of transit on this corridor. So, making sure that we're aligning our transit and our crosswalks. And then the consistent speed management. We also recommended to widen the sidewalks, taking over the bike lane space there because people, it'll give people greater separation to be able to feel safer as they're walking and biking. So, that's another opportunity that we talked to the state about. And then 31st Avenue is the third corridor. Our limits are from northwest 8th Place up to McNabb. Of course, only a portion of this is within the city of Fort Lauderdale. There's four other cities that it touches. And I won't show you a blank screen. So, the corridor is about five miles long and it includes similar speed management, right, raised intersections, protected intersections, aligning the bus stops, speed radar signs, pavement markings, more trees, trying to get those speeds down and make it more walkable while separating the pedestrians and bikes onto the side. And I'll hand it back to James. Right. So, in conclusion, each of these corridors, Sistrunk is a locally owned road, northwest 31st is a county owned corridor, Broward Boulevard is a state owned corridor. And so, in our Metropolitan Transportation Plan, the MTP, we have different funding sources for roadways that are on the state system and on the off system, they call it the non-state system. And so, what we are asking for today is that the commission this evening vote in support of a resolution of support, which then gets this onto our list of prioritized projects, which then gets it moving forward for programming for design and construction. We have a pot of funds, as I mentioned, for the local roadways. Sistrunk is, as Christine mentioned, the number one worst locally owned roadway for safety. And so, we'd like to see that one move forward quickly. Northwest 31st Avenue, Broward County, has already begun the design of those improvements and has pursued some federal grant funding and already has some money set aside for this construction. And then Broward Boulevard would be another one that, over the future, we'd coordinate with FDOT and moving that forward. So, with that, if we can get the resolution of support, we're gathering those by November 10th. And then the NPO board would vote on that coming up in the coming year. With that, any questions, please? Okay. Any questions of Mr. Cromart? I do. Thank you, Mayor. First of all, James and Christine, so nice to see you both. Yeah, it's been a while. It's been a little while. Nice to see you. Thank you. Thank you for your work on this. I really appreciate it. I have a question. When we look at all of the slides that you showed for safety improvements, all of these street markings, any issues with that? We hear a lot about street markings these days, and a lot of your street markings show crosswalks and colors and patterns. I mean, I'm just curious. This is not just really tongue-in-cheek. I really do have that question. Is any of this running afoul of anything that we're dealing with now? And, I mean, I don't even know if there is a synergy with FDOT and you guys working together. But help me understand what is going on and why some of these things are okay, and is there going to be an issue? So there is a document called the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices, MUTCD. You all are very familiar with it. The recent release of the new standards. And so with it, they had some clear definitions of which colors are appropriate to use and which particular roadways. Our partners, I'm a planner, Christine's an engineer, and the engineers are a little more strict about following all the rules. So we pushed the limit as much as we could, but then also our engineering partners let us know what is acceptable and what isn't. So, for example, these examples, I think, all meet the standard. Christine, the red, that's a paving. The red does not. So the red crosswalk there does not. But we had to make sure that we were meeting all the different standards. And, James, all of our crosswalks that are now at issue all met FDOT standards when they were painted. Yep. So we never really know what the standard is from administration to administration. But I think to the commissioner's point, I guess the most plainest in terms of color and design is probably going to pass muster going forward. I mean, for example, this one with the green there, that's the acceptable color for bicycle facilities. And that yellow for the truncated domes for ADA accessibility. You know, those are accepted colors. Faisal Qureshi would like to say something. Good afternoon. My name is Faisal Qureshi from the Barrett MPO. Just something that I don't think James had touched on. So for all three of these projects, we had FDOT do their initial review of all the improvements along Broward Boulevard. And we have acceptance from them. We also had Broward County review all of the off-system facilities, all the non-FDOT facilities. And they also gave us their concurrence. For all the designs that are on here, let me just go here. The only color that's not acceptable on this screen is red. But we only have that as an example, not that that's what's going to be placed out there. If I just go back really quick. Well, by the time this gets approved and done, who knows what it's going to be. It could be five years from now. So we don't know. That is true. That is true. Or there might be more colors we could use that aren't currently accepted either. From our lips to God's ears. So the one advantage that we do have with this plan is we were able to at least get concurrence on where we could have certain types of crossings, certain types of speed management, certain types of countermeasures. Now, the colors and choices at the time that these projects will go into design, we're going to have to make sure at that given time, whenever the engineers get on board and start designing this corridor, we're going to have to make sure that at that specific time is when all the different type of elements have to be compliant with federal, state, and local standards and specifications. Mayor? Yes, ma'am. This corridor, of course, is the main artery in my district. Right. And I did attend those. An opportunity had to attend one of those meetings that was offered. I want to ask if you could share for the room, do we know the travel? How many cars are traveling on six trunk on a day? Because this artery is being used for, you know, from wherever to into downtown. And the citizens or the residents and neighbors that live in six trunk, they're just walking down the street. And individuals who are coming through the community is bringing in some hazards and causing some safety hazards. So I want to see if you could share that. Yeah. So the average daily traffic on six trunk is 15,400 cars per day. The posted speed is 30, and the 85th percentile of actual speed is 37 miles per hour. On a good sign, six trunk did not have as much speeding as other corridors do, but there's a lot more different kinds of activity going on in that corridor. I must confess with the lighting thing, yesterday I was coming from a meeting and going down six trunk, no, Tuesday night. And the lighting, there were some people coming to cross at the crosswalk, and I honestly could not see them until they were right there. And it just reiterated the importance of the different times of day, different activity going on in the lighting, all these different conditions. The YMCA that's over there, there are some proposals there to look at how to increase safety for people crossing the street. Because that community has a lot of younger children and a number of seniors, too, but people that are crossing, and so it needs to be safe. The other thing, too, is at different times of day, if, as I mentioned, during peak hour, people tend to go to the speed limit because of the congestion. But we know there's a history in Sistrunk of late night and evening speeding and crashes, that some of these different measures that give some vertical deflection will encourage safer behavior on the roadway. But most of those accidents, from what I know and experience, are usually during the day hours. It's not as many, if you can give me, if you have that. Yeah, and we did analysis of all the different crashes and some, you know what? You are actually very correct. 73% of the death and serious injury crashes are in the daytime and 27 at night. So with that point, understanding the importance of talking about those raised intersections and those crosswalks that are more amplified so everyone would know that they're there. Yes. Because, again, the artery is used to get to work as fast as you can. And even with that average of that 37, I don't think that's the average, but we'll roll with your data. But because we have our officers that they go out, you know, enough to be able to ticket and say, hey, we do have a problem where speed is not being respected and individuals are speeding through the area. So I appreciate this data because it's something that we as a community, as a district, has been ringing a bell for about four decades. Now it's out front where everyone knows that this particular corridor is the highest in the what? Repeat for me. Yeah, in the county. In the county. Thank you very much. And another thing you were mentioning with the speeds, too, the placement of the traffic signals, there's quite a big spacing. There's only one. Yeah, 15th and traffic signal. And so that's where some of these other measures can help encourage safer behavior. Exactly. And I know that's not this conversation, but we have neighbors who recall when there were multiple streetlights on Sixth Trunk. Okay. And they still, the ones, we need them back is what they always tell me. So those are conversations moving forward at another opportunity. I don't know if it fits in this category because we talked about that a little bit at that meeting. And we pointed that out where streetlights had been, traffic lights, excuse me, had been removed. And now it's maybe to be reconsidered should they go back. Thank you. Any other questions? Yeah, Mayor. Yes, thanks. Go ahead. Thank you all for being here. Appreciate it. You may be touching on it a little bit, but maybe I missed it, but the timing. Give me a sense. So resolution of support integrated into that MPO MTP 2026. Yes. Play that out a little bit. So the Broward MPO federal funding cycles, things take a long time. Right. The typical would be that if we get into our MTP, we do have funding in a pot, so that's very good. We won't have to wait for the availability of funding, but it's just getting it programmed. So typically once we get a project programmed, this year we're programming the design five years out. And then once the design is done, then construction can happen sooner. Now, the good thing we're looking at, for example, on Northwest 31st in the Broward County, they're pursuing a federal grant to accelerate the construction. So if they get that money, the construction could start in two years, I believe, because they're already doing the design. And just so you know, we had a conversation with another commission where they were saying, look, if we don't get in line, it's going to be another 10, 20 years. So getting in line is important, and then pursuing an opportunity to see if we can accelerate. We also, in the recommendations, include some short-term and long-term recommendations. So there's some things that can occur before the actual intensity of construction. As we talked about, the lights, looking at if it's switching out signals, the bulbs themselves. So great. That all makes sense, and we can work on our patience. Can, during that process, in terms of expediting via federal grant or other opportunities, will you help cue us as to, hey, City of Fort Lauderdale, here's something you could do to accelerate, or should we be doing that, or how does that work? So what's great is you've had great staff to work with, and there's a partnership. As one of the conditions of the federal grant, we need to report back each year the progress that we're making. So we have a list of the projects that we'll go through, and we'll be following up to indicate where we've made progress. So, you know, next year we hope to be able to show that a number of these short-term recommendations have moved forward or are in the process of moving forward. Okay. We'll continue to do that. Great. And so you're looking for us today to support a resolution from the City Commission on the City of Fort Lauderdale saying we're all in favor of in this direction. Yes. And in brief, for a project to move forward at the Broward MPO, we have four criteria, program-ready criteria. So there needs to be a scope of work, which we've defined, cost estimates, which we have, coordination of the local jurisdictions. So, again, this is a city-owned road, but on Broward. It's coordination with FDOT in Broward County with the signals and the bus stops. And then a resolution of support from the local commission to make sure that a project is not moving forward that the elected officials have not had a chance to review. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, three, for your work on this. Thanks, Mayor. Okay, great. Any other questions? Okay. See you in five years. No, I'm just kidding. We'll see you in a few months, though, with the MTP amendment. What always amazes me is that the hurdle that we always used to have to overcome was getting funding. Well, we have funding. So what's the hurdle now? Us are getting the plans together, the designs to those that need to approve it. So it's really incumbent upon us to move this forward. We're not waiting for anybody else. Yeah. Yeah. And there's some opportunities to see about it accelerating. Okay. So we'll continue to talk. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Okay. The item we've all been waiting for, business two, discussion of city attorney candidates. Jerome, city manager, how do you want to conduct this today? We have a few people to sign up to speak also. I'll turn it over to Jerome Post, our human resources director. Okay. Good afternoon, Mayor. Commissioners, Jerome Post, director of human resources. I'll just open with a brief statement that on the September 16 conference meeting, the search committee had produced three names of candidates that they recommend you interview for the position of city attorney. They included Paul Bengal as an internal candidate, Sherry McCartney, and Angela Rosenberg. Uh, the commission did ask for some time to be able to interview, interview those candidates and ask that we bring them back, uh, on today's meeting for your discussion. And we do have an evening meeting tonight, uh, in which there is an agenda item for you to vote if you so choose to do so. Okay. Um, so how does the commission want to move forward on this? Do we want to have the opportunity now again to ask any questions or allow the candidates to make a two or three minute, uh, summary of their, of their, uh, candidacy? That might be appropriate. Um, I, I'm sorry. I, I thought that we decided that we weren't going to have that at this meeting. I thought we were going to do it like we handled the last selection where we all just spoke with everybody individually. Um, and then we discussed among ourselves. I don't know if the candidates were prepared, but I, I thought we decided we were not going to hear from the candidates today. Okay. And that's fine. If that's, if that's the consensus. Um, there are three people who did sign up to speak, however, uh, and I'd like to give them the opportunity to, uh, make comments. Um, is commissioner done here? Oh, there you are. Come on up. How are you commissioner? Good afternoon, mayor, commissioners, colleagues. My name is commissioner Melissa P. Dunn, city of Lauderhill, seven, four, nine, five, Northwest 44th street, Lauderhill, Florida. And I wanted to come to support angel Rosenberg's petition to serve particular as your city attorney. I've had the pleasure of working with her for my first term. She served me with me for, um, over four years and I found her to be someone that was very responsive. There was never a time that I called her that I wasn't able to get her. I found her to be not only responsive to me, but responsive to the needs of the community. I can think of one particular story, um, in Lauderhill, we have this huge 250 acre golf course that there's always a struggle about developing it or not developing it. And, um, angel was very instrumental in helping to mitigate some of the challenges that arose with taking the community through that whole process. Um, in particular, you know, commission chamber sometimes got really full and really heated. Um, in one case, we had residents that was complaining about raccoons and foxes being on the golf course and it not being kept properly a lot of angry residents, but she walked the golf course with the property owner. She walked the golf course with our then city manager and was able to find a solution that made our residents happy, but it didn't trample on the rights of the developer. I mean, we know that you have to find the balance between growth and development. And in working with her, I found that she was able to help me as a commissioner, particularly a freshman commissioner to navigate that challenge. Um, so I really would, I'm actually quite sad that she's no longer in Lauderhill, but wherever she goes, I know that she will be a asset. And so I strongly support her. Um, well, I strongly support you considering her for, um, being your city attorney. And, um, the other thing that I want to say about her is that not only was she responsive to the, to my needs and the needs of the community, but I also found that her legal advice was sound, she kept me out of trouble and, uh, not always, uh, a city attorney is going to tell you exactly what you want to hear. Right. And I can always count on her to tell me the law. I can always count on her to tell me the truth. And if there was something that I wanted to do, she was really good about helping me to understand why perhaps my way is maybe not the legally sound way to do it. And so I'm really grateful for the support that she provided me and my colleagues, particularly in my first term. All right. Great. Well, thank you. Thank you, Commissioner, for being here. All right. My pleasure. Thank you. Uh, Earl Hall and followed by Mark Dickerman. Earl is also from Lauderhill. Good afternoon, Mr. Hall. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, Honorable City Commissioners. Uh, Earl Hall, I'm the former city attorney for the city of Lauderhill, where I served continuously for 27 years. It is my pledge to come before you to share a few words, uh, on behalf of Andrew Petty Rosenberg, candidate for city attorney. I am in the unique position to state that I've had the opportunity to observe Andrew practice law for almost 30 years. You see, I met her in 1994 when she was a law clerk at Conrad and Shear Law Firm. Andrew worked days at the firm while putting herself through law school. From the very first assignment, uh, while she was still a law clerk, I was impressed with her ability to grasp, research, and write solid memos on the legal issues. In 1996, I was appointed city attorney for the city of Lauderhill. Around the same time, Andrew graduated law school and passed the bar. She promptly became my lead associate. And soon thereafter, she was appointed my assistant city attorney. In 2005, we left Conrad and Shear and co-founded our own law firm, Hall & Rosenberg. Over the three decades that we worked together, Andrew had the opportunity to handle every aspect of local government law. Emergency hurricane debris removal contracts? Done. Fight with FEMA to get reimbursements? Done. General obligation bonds? Done. Negotiate solid waste contracts? Done. Draft local bills? Draft annotation legislation? Negotiate interlocal agreements? Done, done, done. You get the idea. Her experience is vast. Angel is what other lawyers call a lawyer's lawyer. She respects the law, the interpretation of the law, and the application of the law. She correctly leads politics to you, the elected officials. In closing, prior to my retirement in December 2022, the Lauderhill City Commission voted unanimously to appoint Angel city attorney. You know, two for two sounds like an awesome idea. Okay, thank you so much. And Mark Dickerman. Good afternoon, Mayor, Commissioners. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Mark Dickerman, citizen of Fort Lauderdale, community activist. I'm here to speak in favor of Sherry McCartney. I've worked with her before. I've gone through the resumes. And I'm very impressed with her background between Tripp and Conrad Sher. I think she'll make a great asset to the city of Fort Lauderdale, and I look forward to seeing your decision in a few minutes. Thank you. Okay, great. Thank you. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak on this item? Okay, there being none. Would someone like to begin the conversation? Well, Mayor, I just have a point that I want to make, and I don't know how the rest of my colleagues feel about this, but obviously there are four of us here right now. The vice mayor is not here right now. I don't know what we're planning on doing, but should we? You tell me. Is this appropriate that we just defer this entire conversation? Do we know? Is the vice mayor going to be in attendance this evening? Well, I don't think that this conduct of this commission should rely on the participation of any one member of the commission. If we have business on the agenda, we need to move forward with that business. If we find that his absence is frustrating our ability to move forward, that's one thing. But let's just see how, you know, what the pleasure of the commission is, and let's see where we're going to go with this. Okay, I just thought as a courtesy, I just thought that if we do know if he's attending, do we know whether he's attending this evening? Again, the participation or lack of participation of any member of this commission should not prevent us from moving forward. So whether he's here or not is irrelevant. I understand. I understand when you – I'm still asking that question. Do we know if he's attending this evening? Okay. All right. Thanks. I, you know, I'm allowed to ask a question. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to know if maybe we should wait until we had a full body here. I know what you've asked. You don't have to repeat it three times. Well, I'll repeat it a fourth time if you keep going with me. I think it's a good question. I think it's a concern that we have a full – this is a very important decision. It actually troubles me that there are only four of us sitting here right now for this discussion because I think it's important to participate in this discussion. In other words, to then have a decision this evening. But be it as it may, if no one else agrees with that, that's okay. I'm happy to participate. Thanks. All right. Would someone like to make a motion? Well, so just to be clear, Mayor, so we're having a discussion or making a motion. The idea would be tonight we would bring forward a resolution. Correct. That is correct. A resolution as to who we are nominating. Correct. Correct. So, D. Wayne, go ahead. Point of clarification. So, you're at a conference meeting, so you would not be making a motion. This is a discussion in terms of who you want to bring forward. Tonight's action would be selecting a candidate and selecting a city official to discuss the terms of an employment contract with that individual. That resolution appointing them will be at the next city commission meeting if those negotiations are successful. So, what would be the nature of the direction that we would be giving city staff in formulating the resolution tonight? It's not a motion. So, what are we going to call it? No, we have a motion on the agenda tonight. But don't we have to give direction to right now? Pardon me? Don't we have to, correct me if I'm wrong, but don't we have to give direction to you or members of the city staff to formulate the resolution for tonight? What are we doing now? Just taking public comment and having a conversation amongst ourselves as to the qualifications? That's correct. All right. But, D. Wayne, I thought my understanding is what we should do right now is say what does the majority of the people on this dais, who would they like to be the city commissioner? I thought that's what we're doing right now. And we can do that. And we can do that right now. To be the city attorney, that's correct. Right. So, we can do that right now. Yes. Have a discussion, come up with a consensus, and then that person would be brought forward in a resolution tonight. Okay. That's how you prefer to go, correct? In motion tonight, correct. In motion tonight, not in motion. Okay, great. So, Jerome, sorry, did you have something? Okay. So, Mayor, I'm just going to say a few things, and then we can kind of go from there. Go forward. So, number one, D. Wayne, correct me if I'm wrong, but we can tonight have the discussion tonight about the city attorney. We can, when we have the other member of the board that's here that will likely be here, it sounds like, tonight. We can change that resolution, motion. There can be movement tonight, if it's so wished by this commission. Is that right? Well, tonight will be the motion. And whoever's here to participate in the meeting will be able to vote on that motion, as well as participate in the discussion. But D. Wayne is saying, let's just have an open discussion now what our intentions are so that they have some indication. If it's two to two, then we'll need the vice mayor to participate. If it's three to one, then his participation doesn't really. So, Commissioner, I believe that the intent and following past practice is to have the item on the conference agenda so that you can have an open and robust discussion about the candidates, you know, have maybe a back and forth about, you know, the qualifications, your likes, your dislikes, and come to maybe a consensus about the candidate that you want to move forward with. So, tonight's motion is for selecting a candidate for the representative of the city to enter into discussions with to form an employment contract. Like we did last time. Pursuant to our charter, the appointment will be made by a resolution that will have the salary and attached to it will also be the terms of the employment contract that are discussed and that we've come to terms with the candidate. So, tonight's motion is to select the person that we're going to begin discussions about employment with. Right. Right. What I want to – sorry, go ahead, Mayor. No, go ahead. Okay. So, what I'd like to just validate is that we can have a discussion here right now. We can suggest a motion for tonight. We can have the meeting tonight. And we can come to a different conclusion. That is correct. So, tonight, when we have – if the vice mayor attends the meeting tonight, the vice mayor may have perspective, ideas that might lead to a change of the commission's view of the right candidate. That is possible. And that's perfectly fine. Is that right, Duane? Yes. So, in other words, we're going to have a conversation here, and even though the vice mayor is not here, he's going to be able to be here tonight, and we'll be able to fully participate, change the direction of the commission, change in any way that he likes and might desire. So, for tonight's item, there will still have to be one member of this commission that makes the motion to move forward with the name and, of course, be seconded and so forth. Perfect. And that can be voted down tonight? I mean, there's a whole host of possibilities, right? Okay. I just want to be clear on that. Right. Okay. So, it's just a conversation. Great. So, Mayor, second thing, just from my perspective, is just historically we went through initial search. Then we went through this second search with a search firm, and now we have, you know, three finalists. From my perspective, I think we've got great candidates. I'm very happy about this process where it's ultimately we are right now, and so I think we've got great caliber, and I'm looking forward to, you know, picking one of these folks to move forward. So, I'm really happy with the thoroughness we've engaged in, the contemplative process, and I just also want to make sure that we've all had a chance to interview all the candidates. Has everyone had that chance? I just want to make sure we're all prepared. Yes. Okay. Great. Great. Thank you, Mayor. Okay. So, let me begin the conversation. I agree with you 100% that we've got three very qualified candidates. We are very blessed to be able to choose amongst three qualified candidates. I don't know whether that's a blessing or a curse because it's going to be very difficult to make that choice. I've had the opportunity to discuss the candidacy with all three applicants, and there are many qualities that each one of them has, but the bottom line is I'm going to support Sherry McCartney tonight, and I feel she's the most qualified for the needs of Fort Lauderdale, and I too have worked with her in the past. I'm very comfortable with her, comfortable with her style, her knowledge, her experience, and her vision. So, she would be the person I'd be supporting tonight. Anyone else have any comments? If not, then we'll just leave it to tonight. All right. So, you have no direction, Dwayne. Leave it blank. All right. Well, isn't this sort of what I hinted at to begin with? Thanks. Sorry? No, that's okay. I didn't hear what you said. That's okay. Okay. Would you run that back, please? What I said was, wasn't that my point to begin with? Let's leave it till tonight. Thank you. Everything was going to be left till tonight because we can't vote on it this afternoon. We can only vote on it tonight. But you wanted to not even have the discussion today. Oh, that was a discussion of the candidates? Oh, I must have missed it. That's okay. We'll have that tonight. It's good. It's good. It's all good. Business three. Presentation on the city of Fort Lauderdale. Business tax and rate recommendations. Who will be making that presentation? Let me just, I just want to check with D-Wayne. So is that, is it okay to be this open for the city attorney? Yeah, it's fine. It's fine. Okay. That's fine. Okay. Great. Mayor, we have Portia Garcia, our director of our new community services department. So good afternoon, Mayor, Commissioners. I'll be giving you a presentation that provides an overview of business tax and also presenting four options for potential fee adjustments. As an overview to our business tax process, the city initially adopted the Occupational License Tax Ordinance in 1953. Later in 1994, this tax became known as a local business tax. And then in 2004, for the first and only time, the city provided a 5% increase to this tax amount. So in 2023, the city partnered with HDL companies to provide a business tax study. Earlier this year in March, we presented to the commission options for consolidation of our business tax categories. At the time, the commission supported that consolidation. We also presented at that time options for adjustments, and the commission at the time decided not to do any type of tax adjustments. Later in this fiscal year, when we went before our budget advisory board, they asked staff to find ways in the general fund to increase or add revenues to the general fund. And we saw business tax as an opportunity since there has not been an adjustment to the tax since 2004. An overview of our business tax process, this division has four employees. A supervisor is one of the employees, two business tax specialists, and one inspector. As of May of this year, we had more than 19,000 businesses registered in the city. As of now, that number is more than 20,000. The average and most common business tax paid for a business is $157.50. Our renewal period for business tax runs from July 1st to September 30th. What that means is that any business that pays their tax or renews their tax within that window is not assessed any late or penalty fees. And we'll get into what those penalties are a little later in our presentation. A majority of our revenue collected for business tax comes from our high-range contributor of attorney-at-law offices. Our mid-range of vacation rentals, those contribute 11% of the business tax that are paid. Apartments pay 6% of the tax. Our home office businesses pay 5% of that tax. And other business types contributing to our total revenues are at 49%. Taking a historical look at our business tax performance, in 2020, we saw a major decrease to the tax revenue collected. That was a result of our COVID-19 pandemic. We saw a lot of businesses go out of business at the time. In 2021 through 2023, the fiscal years, we began seeing a gradual increase to the amount of taxes collected. In 2023, we also saw a $66,000 assessment of late penalties that we received. And so that was businesses catching up on registration. Those businesses had not paid or renewed between July and September. And then in 2024 fiscal year, we began to see a significant increase in improvement to our tax collection, in part by our improvement in the registration process online. And also, it's just doing some internal process improvements to streamline that process. I mentioned earlier that our business tax collection, the most common fee assessed, is the $157.50 for registration. In FY 2023, we collected $3.3 million. That amount did not include the $66,000 in late penalties and fees. The way that our tax penalties are collected, so the base amount for a penalty to be collected is 10% of the business tax amount. Those amounts increase for up to $250 a flat fee, and those penalties are compounding. So if a business decides to do a late payment in March, they're paying the 10% from October, the 5% in November, the additional 5% in December and January, and then the $250 fee in addition to those amounts. As a point of benchmarking, HDL companies provided during the 2023 study a comparison of Fort Lauderdale with other cities. At first glance, it would appear that Fort Lauderdale's tax collection is high or even on trend. However, if you do a deeper dive and you look into the total amount of revenue collected and divide that by the number of businesses in Fort Lauderdale, you would actually realize that Fort Lauderdale is not yielding as much tax revenue as other comparable cities. What I mean by this is, on average, we collect $175 in taxes per business. West Palm Beach collects $271 per business in tax. The city of Orlando collects $284 per business in tax. So although it may appear through the chart that we're on trend, in fact, we're not in terms of our tax collection per business. This slide provides a high-level overview of the fee increase options that I'm going to address in the following slides. Our first increase option is a 1.5% increase. This is our most conservative option. There is a state statute that limits how much and how often cities and local governments can increase the business tax. So a city cannot increase the business tax beyond 5% every other year. Each of these models presents an increase over a nine-year span. With the 1.5% increase, we would generate about $300,000 in additional tax revenue over a nine-year period. Our option two increase would generate an additional nearly $500,000 in tax revenue over a nine-year period, and that's based on a 3% increase. So that amount is still fairly conservative. Option three, this is the recommendation of staff. This is our greatest increase that would still be state compliant. It proposes a 5% increase every other year for a period of nine years. Under this model, we would generate nearly $800,000 in additional revenue for the general fund. An option four, our final option, is a blended increase. With the blended increase over the nine-year period for the first two periods, year one, three, and five, we would have an increase of 3%. Over the last two years, period seven, or year seven and nine, we would have a 1.5% increase. With the blended approach, we would generate nearly $400,000 in additional tax revenue for the city. Taking a look at what that translates to in real time, we have several sample businesses. So for a coffee house that would be paying our $157.50, which is the most common tax paid by a business, during the first year, under option one with the 1.5% increase, the new tax paid would be $165.38. Oh, my apologies, would be $159.86. And that's with the 1.5% increase. Under our next option, for options three and four, with the blended increase, that same business would end up paying $165.38. That's if they're starting at $157.50. For a larger business, such as a retail company, that business would currently pay $692.50. So under option one, that tax would increase by $0.24, which is fairly small for a larger tax. That business, under options three and four, would increase by $23. So even with the most aggressive approach of increasing by 5%, a larger business that currently pays $692.50 would end up paying an additional $23. Are there any questions? Any questions from the commission? I have a question. Why are we taxing businesses? What are we using the money for? So the money that's collected from business tax is used in a general fund. A part of it is used for staff salary. Well, staff salaries to collect the business tax. Tax, and to process the business tax. Doesn't there have to be, and Dwayne, correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't there have to be a commensurate use for tax money that relates to the amount that we tax and collect? Other than just saying, well, we're taxing and then we use the money to collect the tax, what are we actually using? Why are we taxing businesses at all? So generally when you're talking about a benefit, you're talking about an assessment. But in this case, this is a statutorily authorized tax that we are allowed to levy upon businesses. With taxes, you don't need to have a reason. You just need to have an authorization from the state that allows you to do so. So this tax is allowed under Chapter 205 of the state statute. And as was mentioned in the presentation, there's a limitation on the number of times you can raise this tax, and there are severe limits on where you can set that fee. So it's a tax for the privilege of engaging in business within the municipality. All right, so we really don't have a purpose for it. Just the – I mean, every city does this. I know even where my law firm is, they tax too. But I've always asked them. I said, why are you taxing me? What do you use this for? They even have a sign tax. Like, why are you taxing my sign? Do we have a sign tax too in Fort Lauderdale? I don't believe we have a sign tax, but I know that there is a fee under development services for signage. Mayor, I'm assuming the tax revenue goes into the general fund. Is that – Raquel, is that right? So it goes to – I mean, it's just another tax and just another way to collect money off of people. And I'm just wondering why, you know, what's the benefit? What's the benefit that goes to businesses as a result of the collection of the tax? And so far, I've not heard one benefit for a business owner other than the pleasure of working and having – running a business in the city of Florida – at Fort Lauderdale. Well, from the standpoint of the city, we certainly want to know where businesses are operating within our city, what they are, what they're doing. We have a tremendous team that looks at where businesses are seeking to operate when they're applying for this business tax receipt to see if they're allowed to operate the type of business that they'd like to operate in the specific locations or zoning districts within our city. So it's to ensure compliance? That's part of it, yes. And to know the landscape of our business community, yes. Okay. All right. Well, that's a reasonable answer. Okay. All right. And also, Raquel, I'm assuming that our current tax revenue, which, Portia, thank you for this. What's our current – sorry, business tax revenue? So in fiscal year 2023, it was about $3.7 million. So up top, that $66,000 is the late penalties and fees. Okay. So $3.7 million. And so a portion of that – so I'm assuming all of that goes into the general fund. Is that right? I just want to kind of break this down simply. All that goes into the general fund. Now, if we wanted to kind of allocate how is that $3.7 million spent, we could say, hey, a portion of that is spent for collecting the tax if you wanted to. I don't know what that percent would be. Any sense of that, what the cost of collecting the tax is? I can follow up with that amount, Commissioner. No problem. Great. So I'm sure it's much less than the revenue. That's a reasonable assumption. Hopefully. Okay. Laura, it's giving me that. I'm guessing we're more efficient in that way. But so then it's a – whatever that delta is between basically the cost of collecting a tax and administering a tax is a revenue for the city just as we get revenue for selling water to other municipalities and so forth. So this all goes to benefit providing city services and so forth to business owners like me. I'm a business owner in the city of Fort Lauderdale. I'm taxed in the city of Fort Lauderdale. And so I'm one of many that are taxed this way. So, and I guess, Portia, what you're asking for today is what would the commission like to do? Would you like to increase that tax revenue, right, keep it the same, so forth? Is that your question? Okay. So, Commissioner, one of the things that I committed to as we were going through the budget development process for the current fiscal year is to identify revenue-generating opportunities and to look at any fees that we haven't taken a look at in a long time. So given that this fee has remained flat since 2004, we feel that it's an appropriate time to take a look at this and to increase this by the 5% that's allowed by law. Okay. And give us a little bit more of why you think that's important, Raquel, if you would, please. I think that we need to have appropriate revenue levels for our business tax receipt, but we also need to make sure that the community, as we continue to grow, as we continue to get more and more businesses, we need to have an understanding with our business community that over time fees will need to be increased. They cannot stay flat for 21 years. And we think that the 5% is a reasonable increase. And, again, it is permissible every other year. We're not intending to do this every other year, but we think that 21 years has been a long time since increasing this fee. And if you look at these dollar amounts, they're so tiny, the increases. It's like $3, $4 as a total increase. I mean, am I missing something? This is a year? Correct. It's like, okay. I mean, for us, it's almost a million dollars in revenue, but for the individual businesses, it's a very tiny increase, a couple of dollars. Okay. Okay, so what's the consensus of the commission with regard to any increase that we may want to consider with regard to this business tax? I support the staff's option three increase recommendation. Which is the full 5%? Yes. Anyone else have any thoughts or comments? Is that what everyone else thinks? Commissioner Beasley-Pittman? Yes, I'm in agreement with the option three. With the figures that are being shown, it is not a burden, I believe, about this being suggested. It is not a burden until the, onto the business owner. I think this is a fair amount. Okay. And Commissioner Sorensen? Yep, I agree. Okay. So, there we go. Thank you all. You're welcome. Portia, you just want to talk about next steps. Does the commission need to do something in the future? So, the next step would really be staff presenting the first ordinance draft reading for the commission. And so, following this meeting, I'll create that draft and run it through the manager's office for approval. Thank you all. Thanks, Portia. Okay, moving on to business four, presentation by Fellowship Recovery Community Organization, Inc. Chris. Good afternoon, Mayor and Commissioners. Chris Cooper, Assistant City Manager. So, as we've previously discussed our city's homeless initiatives and the ways we've addressed the commission's priority on addressing homelessness and having homelessness resources, we thought it important to really highlight our partners that help us in that endeavor. So, we are starting today with a presentation by Fellowship Recovery Organization to share a little bit about what they do for us as the city of Fort Lauderdale. We've worked with Fellowship for some time through our community court program and other endeavors. We became aligned with them through an agreement in March of this year, actually, to provide some direct services and shelters and housing to folks that we engage in our community that are homeless. So, I'm going to invite Sarah Barkley up to the podium. She's the Chief Executive Officer of Fellowship Recovery Organization, and she's going to tell us a little bit about what they do in general, but also what they do for us as the city of Fort Lauderdale. Thank you, Chris. Good afternoon, Mayor. Good afternoon, Commissioners and audience. My name is Sarah Barkley. I am the Chief Executive Officer of Fellowship Recovery Community Organization. I'm also a woman in long-term recovery, and more importantly, I'm alumni from our program, having graduated from Fellowship over 12 years ago. I don't have Kyle, our COO, with us today. He's actually hunting gator, for real, with a permit, so I want to introduce you to... Hello, everyone. My name is Dean Pasquale. I stand in for the gator hunter. I'm the Director of Peer Support at Fellowship Recovery Community Organization, also a man in long-term recovery. I'm a state and nationally certified peer specialist and peer specialist of the year at Broward County for 2023. I'll pass it off to Sarah. So, Fellowship, we provide supportive recovery housing for 200 men and women. Our men's facility is located in Margate. Our women's facility is in Fort Lauderdale by delivering peer-based recovery support services. Additionally, Fellowship operates two recovery community centers. One is located in Fort Lauderdale, positioned in a nice location off of Broward Boulevard. One, the other is in Margate, with a workforce of 16 certified peer specialists. Additionally, we operate the only substance use respite in Southeast Florida. Respite, for us, is a short-term safe place for someone to go who's had a reoccurrence, who might be in between the system of care so that they're not out on the street, and with 25 life-saving beds. So, through our recovery community center, recovery residences, respite facility, in the last 20 years, we've served over 30,000 people, providing housing, recovery support services, back-to-work programs, back-to-school programs, support group meetings, life skills training, and NARCAN training, and much more. Thank you, Sarah. So, what is peer support? Peer support encompasses a range of activities and interactions between people who share similar experiences of being diagnosed with mental health conditions and substance use disorders, or both. This promotes connection and inspires hope. Peer support offers a level of acceptance, understanding, and validation not found in many other professional relationships. By sharing their own lived experience and practical guidance, peer specialists help people to develop their own goals, create strategies for self-empowerment, and take concrete steps towards building fulfilling, self-determined lives for themselves. Next slide. So, also, peer support is mutual. Peer specialists have lived experience in recovery from a substance use disorder and or mental health condition. This lived experience builds a level of trust almost immediately. Peer support is also inspirational. Peer specialists are evidence that recovery is possible. They share hope with people they serve and provide inspiration for their recovery. It's motivational. Peer specialists use tools such as motivational interviewing to help guide participants to process their decision-making to make the best possible decisions in their recovery journey. It's also navigational. Peer specialists are well-versed in the system of care in Broward County and are highly effective in linking participants to the services that they need, such as mental health services, medical service, housing services, treatment, and identification services. Thank you. So, one of the things I wanted to share is that all of our staff, we're close to 50 staff now, we're all in recovery. So, we all have that lived experience. It's not uncomfortable for us to interact with the participants that we're interacting with. It's our, you know, it's our passion. We have that compassion. We have that empathy. So, in the program that we've been working with the City of Fort Lauderdale with, through the community court from March to September, the end of September is when our grant funding sunsetted, we interacted with 150 individuals. Of those 150 individuals, 73 met the criteria to actually come into either our respite program or into our housing. So, of those 73, we currently have 19 that are still residing at our recovery residence. 10 additional participants transitioned into independent living on their own. Eight were referred out to residential treatment, and two were unified with their family. The average time to self-sustainability is about 50 days. And what that entails is getting them engaged into the recovery housing, supportive services. Each individual that comes to us has different needs. And that's really our sweet spot is individualizing that care. So, having that peer specialist work one-on-one with somebody. What Bob needs is going to be completely different than what Susan needs. Somebody may need to get a job. They may never have used a computer before. Nowadays, you have to have an email address. You have to be able to fill out an application online. So, it's really about, you know, that one-on-one and identifying exactly what Bob needs, identifying exactly what Susan needs is vital to the success of their recovery and sustainability in recovery for a lifetime. So, this is just a photo of one of our facilities. This is actually the courtyard of our respite. Courtyards and sort of that interaction is vital, again, to sustained recovery, building and cultivating that connection. This is our housing facility. Each of our apartments has two bedrooms. So, there's two participants to a bedroom. And really what we like to see is the camaraderie. Once they're in a little bit longer in the housing, they develop relationships. They can, you know, those walls start to come down. And they realize that they're not alone, you know, and that's really the piece of what we cultivate within our community is community. They're not alone. There are other people like them. And because all of our staff are in recovery ourselves and we've all been through our program, all of our staff are alumni of our program. So, when we explain to them what is going to be expected, what they have to do, what the program entails, and we've been through it, you know, it's that lived experience. It's that peer-to-peer connection. It's indescribable, you know, the force that that change can make. And so, last, I just wanted to, I mean, I've talked about community enough already, but community purpose and recovery. And the beauty of our location, and Commissioner Sorensen, you've been out there to visit with us, is at our men's facility, it is a grouping of apartments on a lake. And so, we wanted to showcase you today the sunsets on Lemon Tree Lake. It is a source of meditation. It's a moment to take in, you know, natural beauty and allowing our participants to focus on that. You know, sometimes our participants have just not been given the opportunity, depending on where they've grown up, to experience certain things. So, on the right side is a photo of one of our events, and we do social events throughout the year. We do Thanksgiving. We do Christmas breakfast. If it's not too hot, Santa Claus usually comes out. And it's pretty amazing to see some grown men who have never had the opportunity to take a photo with Santa. You know, it's the little things. I say the little things because that's what people call it, but these little things are really the biggest things that can be life-changing. For Thanksgiving, we cook the Thanksgiving dinner together through donations, through the community. Last year, I think we had 15 turkeys. But we give the participants an opportunity to actually take part in that. Some people have never cooked a turkey, you know, a Thanksgiving meal. They wake up, you know, with the smells of Thanksgiving. And it's those pieces that help to rebuild their lives. We're treating them like a human being. You know, they're not a piece of furniture. They're not just an item. They're a human being. Do you want to talk about this one? All right, so here are some other community events that we have participated in. Up on the top left, that's Broward County National Recovery Month at Arts Park. Yes, look how everyone's smiling. Everyone is very happy in the picture. And then on our right side, this is everybody in this upper right-hand picture was celebrating at least a year or more of continuous recovery. You have a year there all the way to our founder there in the middle who was celebrating 30 years of continuous recovery. Then in the bottom left-hand corner, we do have a collaboration partnership with the Lucky Horse Sanctuary, which is located in Coconut Creek. They bring out the ponies for the 4th of July, a little equestrian therapy, if you will. We also have here our fun fund. Yes, fun fund. So participants in the program, they donate themselves, actually, to go and do fun activities in the community. We go to the water parks. This is a little paintball action. I had a couple bruises from that one. And then down here to the bottom right, this is, it looks like it was, this is two of our alumni. And that was our 4th of July event, which is amazing, a little bit dangerous sometimes. It depends on the year, but these are some of our community events. Thank you. And then this slide is, one of the things that is really important to us is community service. So by doing community service in our community, we can show people and fight the stigma of addiction because we do make those changes. We do become productive members of our society. So we take part in Adopt a Street. We do Adopt a Street in Fort Lauderdale and also in Margate. So our Adopt a Street location in Fort Lauderdale is on 27th Avenue. We have our little sign there. And so the top left is actually from the great Fort Lauderdale flood. We participated in cleaning the swales. I learned what a swale was that year because I did not know. And the bottom right is part of CARES Day? It was CARES Day. Yeah, National CARES Day, which was a national event. So what we ended up doing is cleaning up Broward Boulevard on both sides. And we got about 2,000? 2,000 pounds. 2,000 pounds of debris that day. And the other two is, you know, we take part in community service in Margate. So we're cleaning windows at the Margate Senior Center. And the last photos, we were fortunate enough to be invited to the State of the City address this year. We were able to showcase some of our success stories. And in the middle of the photo is Walk for Lives event. It's an event that took place just to identify that fentanyl, fatal overdoses still occur, that the opioid epidemic is still there and raging, and just showing that, you know, we do recover and we can maintain, you know, our recovery. So I wanted to open it up if anybody had any questions or any comments. Okay, so first of all, let me just say we appreciate all the work that you do for our community and with our community. And it's, you know, the work of angels that you do to help each and every one of these individuals come to you and be able to be better people and have more faith in themselves trying to step out into mainstream society. So we definitely appreciate all that. I think the reason why you're here today is because our staff indicated that many of these services that you perform, we kind of do the same thing for less money. Chris, do you want to come up here? You know, I think that's a different organization. Is that a different organization? It's a different organization. That's a task force. Task force. Oh, okay. Task force for homelessness. Task force for homelessness. Okay. Yeah, different. So what is the purpose? You just wanted to come and talk to us today? Chris, go ahead. Yeah, so, you know, when I come here and present here, we talk about our homeless programs in different forms. We often just, you know, say the names of these organizations and talk a little bit about what they do. But we really wanted to bring fellowship here as one of the first organizations, and we'll look to bring additional ones in the future when we have the opportunity to really tell you a little bit more about them, hear more about what they do for us and for the community to address the homelessness issues within our city. So that's really the goal of today is just to have them have fellowship share more about their mission and their services to the community. Do we fund any part of their mission? We do. So we began directly funding fellowship through an agreement in March of 2025 through a state grant. Those numbers you saw in terms of the interactions they had and the referrals that they've had with the city of Fort Lauderdale started back in March of 2025. So those were a lot of good results in a very short period of time. Since we had good success through the grant and that grant expired, we have funded them through our general fund. One of the items in the budget that you approved that started on October 1st was to continue funding this organization to help us with the homeless community. Okay. Thank you for correcting me. Anyone from the commission have any questions or comments that they'd like to make? Comment. First of all, I want to thank you all for your passion because this isn't something that you do. It has to be a passion. It's not just a job. You have to be connected and understand what the experience is. And a lot of times, if you have not experienced such, you can't relate. And to have individuals who are standing and identified as those who are in recovery stage, that you're still in here showing that this is possible. So I applaud you for that. And the numbers that are being shown here, that 150 individuals since March, I'm really like, wow, that's amazing. Because first of all, to be able to gain the trust, because we know a lot of times our neighbors who are in a situation where they're homeless, the first problem they have is a trust with individuals. So whatever you're doing, I applaud you, and I encourage you to continue doing what you're doing. And however we can, I'm speaking from myself. I sometimes talk out of turn. But I would love to see us continue at a place where we can, in our capability, to continue moving in a direction where we can begin to get individuals in a place where they're able to sustain and be sustainable and be who they are without stigma. So thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Commissioner. Anyone else have any comments or questions? Just to say thank you very much for what you do. Thank you. Thanks, Mayor. Yeah, and you can, you know, blame me basically for this idea, because what I was, when I asked Raquel, if we could just bring some of our providers here, is just to, one, help us all better understand what they're doing, and then also I think it helps us just talk about homelessness and addiction recovery in a way that I think would be good to regularly do, Mayor. And so I just have a couple of questions and thoughts around that, if that's all right. Great. So, Chris, the renewal of the contract with Fellowship, just give me an update where we are in that process, if you don't mind. Thanks. Yes, so we have a current agreement with Fellowship. Yep. Great. And the, because didn't we just renew it in June or July? We did. So the grant expired, I think, at the end of June, so we brought an item to you to extend that term, I think, for a year. For a year. It's an annual. Great. Okay. And if you stay up here, so, again, thank you for the work you're doing. And so, Raquel, this is kind of an idea that I thought could be helpful, but just can get feedback, or maybe I'll turn to the mayor, is, so there's, Mayor, there's multiple lines of effort in, as a city commission and as a city, that we're doing to support and address homelessness and those in recovery. So in my, one of the ways I try to kind of organize that in my head is just have a tracker, a way to identify, okay, here are the initiatives that we have in the city, here's what we're doing, here's the progress. And I follow up with Raquel and Chris to progress on that. And I think it would be helpful if we could have a little bit more, and it doesn't have to be a lengthy discussion, but just a tracker, in a sense, Mayor, or a list of here are some of the main lines of effort that we're engaging with in our homelessness efforts and recovery efforts, so that we, as a commission, have a comprehensive sense of, okay, here's some things, you know, that Ben might be working on or others might be working on, so that we're, one, aligned, and we can, two, also better provide some updates, I think, to the community about what we're doing as a city. I think it's a good idea, but didn't we kind of do some of that, Chris? Can you just give a report card on the progress that we've been making in regard to the last year? Didn't we do that during our budget process? We have done some summaries. I think maybe the request is maybe for a more frequent cadence of those summaries and information about what we're doing on a, probably a, I don't want to suggest a time frame, but on a more frequent basis. That's fine. Are you capable of doing that? Can you actually gauge progress on a quarterly basis? Is it more long-term? So I think the request, and the commissioner can correct me if I'm wrong, is not only to just showcase any progress made, but also just efforts that are underway. So it may be, you know, groups that we may be working with on this particular endeavor or paths that we're pursuing towards addressing homelessness, but not necessarily just the results of those efforts. Is that along the line? Yeah, exactly. So, Mayor, just a couple examples that I'm working on. You all may be working on these same efforts. I'm not sure. So Broward Partnership for the Homeless, for example, is interested in expanding their capacity, right, which is fantastic. That will, the city can be a partner in that. So I think, you know, making sure we're aware of that and then collectively, you know, as we would like supporting that, I'm engaging with some service riders to explore ways to increase the kind of engagement center abilities they might have. In other words, during the day, how can they best support some of the folks that need daytime shelter and supportive services. So I'm kind of working on that. And so I'd just, I'd like to be able to update, kind of share what we each might be working on. Okay, great. So I know Commissioner Beasley-Pittman's on the COC. Well, you're, you know, you have the prerogative to do that anytime you want. Yeah. So always keep that in mind. Okay. Great. Excellent. And, oh, Thanksgiving. Do you need more food for Thanksgiving? Always. Okay, tell the community and tell us what you need for, to make Thanksgiving special. So first of all, I just wanted to thank you for the opportunity to be here today to share about what we do. We can also deploy out to certain locations if we need to get a peer specialist out somewhere. So if any business owners or community members, if you're encountering someone who may be under the influence or may be unhoused, we're available. We'd like to come out and assist. It is our space that we work in, and we can work with this population. On to the Thanksgiving. We serve about 300 people every year. And so things that we could use are turkeys. They don't necessarily have to be, you know, that huge. But we do like to do it together, family style. So we implore our participants to take part. We have different crews, whether they want to, you know, prep the turkeys. Some of them have never done that. If they want to peel potatoes, that sort of thing. So just the usual fixings. Anything could assist us. So I appreciate that. What does that look like in terms of numbers? You say turkeys. How many? Last year we did 15. So the pounds of the turkey were anywhere from 15 to, I believe, 25 pounds. We had 15 last year. Yeah. Now, I know that he's not part of your program, but I just want to make sure. Would it be possible if Commissioner Glassman had the opportunity to have his picture taken with Santa this year? Absolutely. I don't know if he's ever had that done before. Yeah. But if it's a program that you have, I would like to answer it. Is that a religious joke, Mayor? I just want to make sure. I will tell you that I actually have a really adorable photo of me when I was about five years old. I'm going to bring it into the next commission meeting and show you when I did. I thought maybe you wanted an update or something. But that's okay. Okay. Did you have the BB gun? What is it? The Red Rider? Right. The Red Rider from... Yeah. It's a movie reference. Oh, I'm sorry. Christmas story. I'm sorry. I only watch Hanukkah movies. I apologize. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much for the time. We really greatly appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for your work. Okay. Thank you, folks, for being here. We really appreciate it. Let us move on to Commissioner's Reports. Commissioner Beasley-Pittman. We haven't done Commissioner Reports in a month. Well, you might have a lot to say to you. Do you want me to go through everything for the month? What are you up to these days? Let me share. I would like to say this. At our last opportunity, because of the time, we did not go into our reports, and that did not allow acknowledgement of Desiree Giles-Smith, who has transitioned. She passed away. She was the wife of Senator Chris Smith, great advocate and community leader. She was also city manager for the city of Lauderdale. Born and raised in Fort Lauderdale. We were actually classmates, so we have a history together. When I first began my advocacy work as the president for historic Dorsey Riverbend Civic Association, Des was actually my vice president. And she led me and taught me, began to show me how to interact and where to glean knowledge as to move forward as to be a true advocate for the city. So I wanted to make sure that we acknowledged her and her service. And in those last months of her life, she actually worked with us. She was a member of our budget advisory board, and she was a great advocate working with that board. So acknowledging her, thanking her for what she's done, thanking her family as well, and just remembering her and her spirit and who she was. So I wanted to make sure I shared that with us as a city, because she did also not only live in this city, but poured into this city as well. So thank you, Des. We love you, and we miss you. As to a short report, I want to acknowledge what, I think the name has been changed. I think they're now intergovernment affairs, intergovernment affairs. Intergovernmental affairs. Intergovernmental affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. Intergovernment affairs. cohort was addressing businesses that had been I believe a year or two years in existence and may have been I'm experiencing some challenges so we as a city we are being hands-on offering opportunities for that economic development and growth through our local businesses so hands-off to that unit I'm not gonna butcher the name again but we see you and we thank you for what you're doing thank you very much also I would like to share that let's see here got a little couple things here on October 17th the mayor myself and Glassman Commissioner Glassman we attended the core construction grand opening which was a wonderful event we were able to welcome them cut the ribbon with them and really excited that they chose the city of Fort Lauderdale to make their their home to do business in and also we know that they could have chose anywhere but you know Fort Lauderdale you know we are Fort Lauderdale people love us and we appreciate them making that choice also sharing that on that same evening at Carter Park we had the last Carter Park jams for this season the talent that was there entertaining our neighbors and the city overall was a entertainment group a singing group by the name of Miami Brown and they were really entertaining it was a great night out I also would like to thank our parks and recs for always making sure that that event is well put together car your staff and Nigeria Bobby all of those you know you start calling names you get in trouble but everyone you always hear what we would like to see and you execute it well also thanking our police for being on site and visible you know we're living in a time where we need to be a little bit more visible and they were there on the point and thank you for that that safety component as well also again we've been doing a trio thing here the mayor Commissioner Glassman and myself on the 18th Saturday the 18th we had the privilege of being a part of the Wally Celebration the Light Festival it was at the beach at the loop and this was my second time and I am I love the event it is so welcoming it's a positive event and you know whenever we're promoting life and prosperity and and positivity it is amazing to watch the community come together and and and just shine like that so thank you again also to parks and recs and all of those who were involved in it let's see here I'll say that when I say that's it my staff is gonna say you forgot to mention this we can come back we can come back this is good I I just want to thank everyone for everything that we're doing to come together in the community you know I'm always ringing that bell about opportunities for the unity and to really promote who the city of Fort Lauderdale is and the diversity that we have and again I just love my city and and I thank you for the time mayor and I'm gonna move aside and let the next commissioner come through all right thank you so much we appreciate it and uh commissioner Glassman yes thank you mayor uh I agree with commissioner Bezu Pittman there are so many amazing things that happen in this city every single day uh you cannot even make it to everything and it's just really incredible what happens here I thank all of our staff for always doing incredible job all of our volunteers uh all of these incredible community organizations it it truly is amazing to see what happens here um and you're right commissioner Bezu Pittman we love this city um it just great things are happening here so thank you to everyone uh last few weeks have been busy um we had the historic Stranahan House Capital Improvement Project groundbreaking uh so well attended uh all of my neighborhood association meetings have been uh happening again after the summer break uh I've been speaking at them Flagler Village Civic Association was in the middle of September so was the Central Beach Alliance always very well attended uh September 20th it was an absolute pleasure to attend the Urban League's 50th anniversary gala uh that was quite an evening uh and I'll tell you um folks really did uh know how to dress up for that one and uh it was a pleasure being there so much fun uh that was entitled Once Upon Our Legacy 50 years uh Urban League doing incredible work in our community um the 24th of September the uh I mean really amazing uh workforce housing project called the gallery in Fat Village uh we had the ribbon cutting again so nicely attended uh really a beautiful property congratulated to related congratulations rather to related that was a project that the city uh also partnered with the county uh and private enterprise to uh to make sure that that happened um the uh 26th of September sailboat bend uh we did a terrific terrific walk around um so pleased with the grant that the staff was able to get uh for signage throughout our historic sailboat bend uh that is our only residentially historically designated neighborhood in the city of Fort Lauderdale um really great signage now all around that neighborhood uh making it possible for people to see the history uh of that uh first neighborhood in the city of Fort Lauderdale I want to give a special thanks to Sophia and Thea the entire PIO team uh for a wonderful event uh the neighborhood really appreciates it I've been hearing really good feedback uh about that history uh at those key places uh throughout the neighborhood um September 27th uh I attended the uh benefit for uh Children of Light Foundation uh that also benefit Covenant House uh another uh agency on the barrier island that was at Thassos uh really well attended uh and raised some money to help those two organizations uh of course on the 29th we had the state of the city thank you mayor for that address uh October 3rd I attended on the barrier island again uh a terrific uh event at Birch State Park celebrating the 85th anniversary of the Terramar House which was the home uh Mr. Birch uh still there uh still active and what a special place if folks have not been uh to Birch State Park you really need to get there uh that and Bonnet House on the barrier island are two of my favorite places not just in my district but also in the entire city uh they are really very special uh and take you back time uh so that you really see what that barrier island at one time looked like uh it really is amazing uh and so important that we do preserve those spaces October 4th Commissioner Beasley Pittman mentioned uh the funeral services actually had a memorial on the third uh but I was able to attend on the fourth uh at Mount Olive that was such a moving ceremony uh so well attended um I actually go back with Desiree about 20 something years ago when I worked for the county and had the pleasure of working with her uh when I did some arts parks projects around the county in four locations one of them being Lauderhill um and uh again everything that Commissioner Beasley Pittman said it rings so true uh she contributed so much to our community um October 5th we had a great time honoring uh Romney Rogers law firm Rogers Morris and Ziegler uh not many businesses in Fort Lauderdale hit 100 years old uh so congratulations to Romney and his family um if you ever get a chance to see the dance that Romney did with his son uh you really must see that dances dances they they did a video actually they had a music video of uh obviously 100 years so every decade from the beginning of that business uh they took every decade and then Romney and his son did a famous dance from each of those decades uh it was hysterical uh and it was incredible so I'm sure they maybe have it on their website I don't know uh but that was a very special moment that I think everybody really just absolutely loved it was great it was really great um October 9th uh we had the uh Broward Alliance dinner at War Memorial if you have not been to War Memorial to see how we have seen that place transform you must get there it's a great venue very popular now um in Holiday Park uh October 11th Gallery 600 uh on the Barrier Island in the Central Beach area is a very special place that Abby Laughlin actually created uh if you get a chance get there uh it is everything mid-century modern uh that part of our Central Beach area is known for its mid-century modern architecture um and she's done a great job creating a space uh that really is uh a tribute and pays homage to everything mid-century modern it's really very very well done uh and I know that a lot of people are going to make their way over there there are gifts uh just beautiful artwork postcards paintings you name it uh very important October 16th two neighborhood associations meetings Central Beach Alliance and the Lake Ridge Civic Association um next day on the 17th as Commissioner Beasley Pittman mentioned uh the core ribbon cutting um thank you for again locating in not just the city but also uh in District 2 where the magic happens thank you so much um what can I say October 18th as Commissioner Beasley Pittman mentioned Diwali in La Sola's Oceanside Park an amazing event and Commissioner wouldn't you agree they really stepped it up with the cookies this year that was a whole new level uh so thank you to the Montwally family uh Ramola and her family uh Montwally's they do an amazing job with that entire organization uh bringing us that Diwali festival or as I like to say uh the Indian Hanukkah uh it is a festival of lights and it's really tremendous October 19th um uh we had an amazing ribbon cutting for the fort uh the fort if you don't know is uh a venue that's getting a lot of attention worldwide um 43 pickleball courts we have a beach lake restoration of a uh water that has not been able to be used in decades because it was so polluted uh the restaurant just opened up uh we cut the ribbon next week during the boat show we'll actually be hosting the world cup of pickleball at the fort over 60 countries are sending athletes we expect over 2 000 people uh the world cup of pickleball will be coming here from Peru uh and that's going to be the same week as the boat show so a lot going on i know that both of those uh events are working together to have some events together um but that's going to be an incredible week next week um that facility has uh i just think they've done an amazing job when you sit on the beach there and you look at that lake and the water activity that's happening um the restaurant overlooks on one side the first of its kind stadium court for pickleball and on the other side of the restaurant you look out uh at the lake side and the beach and folks recreating um it's really tremendous congratulations to that team for doing an absolutely amazing job in that space um october 20th we attended the uh convention center expansion um and also the ribbon cutting for that bypass they like to call it the connector road now they like the word connector uh better than bypass so we'll call it connector again that's going to be incredible for our tourism based economy uh i will say that the expansion of that convention center looks absolutely stunning uh great spaces incredibly huge uh ballrooms and meeting spaces they did a great job and now to be able to shave the time off to get from state road 84 and federal over to the 17th street bridge onto the beach uh is tremendous so again kudos to everyone uh that was involved in that october 21 i want to thank bread cane for attending my district two president's round table where our neighborhood association presidents get together every quarter uh and we get to meet new staff and it's always a great exercise for networking um coming up um tomorrow night on the beach the cafe del mar is going to be attempting to set a guinness book of records for the most uh variations on tiramisu this is very important um what time is that uh that well there's an event i think at 5 30 and then at 6 o'clock uh but i would say that uh it should be quite interesting the the uh the chef uh is from rome um and i'm looking forward to that event uh it should be incredible i have no idea what the current record is for variations on tiramisu but i guess we'll we'll find out um and then of course next week as i mentioned we have so much happening the boat show uh the global business luncheon all the events on the boat show the mayor's soiree uh it should be really uh quite a week next week um just a couple of comments that i've heard a lot in my district mayor and then i'll be finished um i'd like to say that um i'm hearing a lot from neighborhoods in our district that are going through issues now with too much construction in their neighborhoods uh the blockage of roads mail can't get through cars can't get through uh people are late to get wherever they have to get to um and it we need to do something i know that we had this issue once in one of our neighborhoods in lord of the beach and there was some sort of ticketing situation but i'm going to ask staff to come up with something uh to work with some of these neighborhoods because we can't inhibit some of these services like the mail or garbage pickup um and i know that i have at least six neighborhoods mostly along the lasolas aisles that are dealing with this issue so we need to figure out a way to give them some relief speaking of relief this is a little bit uh even more serious in terms of public safety but we're having some very serious issues in victoria park with regards to airbnbs um especially on 17th way um and we're seeing major raids we're seeing helicopters above we're seeing police in the streets uh some of the neighbors of these properties are really freaking out um because no one understands why we're allowing all of this criminal activity uh in these airbnbs i don't know how aggressive we can get um but we're seeing a lot of things the neighbors are saying they're seeing drug deals in the streets uh that there are guns being confiscated there's vehicle theft um this shouldn't be happening whether it's victoria park or anywhere else but we cannot let this continue um because it seems to be in one small centralized area in that neighborhood so i'm going to ask staff to come up with something uh chief we need to do something uh because the neighborhoods are really freaking out i don't know know if code uh can cut these licenses um these airbnbs i don't know what we can do but we have to just do something uh because right now uh it's at a critical time um in that neighborhood um i will be mentioning some more about bda later and some of our agendas this evening um and lastly i would like staff to come back to us um i've been meeting with a lot of people in the last few weeks about the one-stop shop site i've been meeting with people that have proposed ideas for the city hall i've been meeting with people i know we all got on the commission a letter from the dda i think that was yesterday um i've also been getting letters from other people uh riverwalk um a lot of folks are very interested they have ideas i think we need to have a conversation uh maybe uh an agenda item uh and maybe staff can give us some you know ideas or we can just brainstorm among ourselves but we have to take a look at that three acres and figure out what is it um that we're going to do um and that's about it for me mayor okay great thank you uh been a busy last couple of months yes uh commissioner sorenson yep thank you mayor as was mentioned really excited about the convention center expansion and the connector so not only is the connector going to alleviate traffic some degree of traffic on 17th mayor as you know working with the coast guard we had we were able to get the number of openings of 17th street bridge reduced so now you have a connector you have a reduced number of openings of 17th street bridge which will really help uh get folks on and off the beach and efficient way so fantastic thank you for everyone's work who's been working for years on the connector and the amazing impact that's going to have i got a chance to tour jack and jill center uh again which i'd done uh previously but it was great seeing all the good work they're doing at jack and jill center um also last saturday was uh honored to be part of the city's effort in collaboration with the cca and the urban farming institute of hanging oyster ropes uh across the city i saw that that was great did you good thanks mary again it is another groundbreaking never been done before in the city effort to protect our waterways we're hanging oyster ropes across the city in this collaborative effort oysters have the ability to filter 50 gallons of water a day each oyster amazing environmental natural way to protect our waterways and this is just the beginning and again chief waterway officer marco aguilera helping lead the effort and when you look at the amazing wins we're having in really starting to even more effectively address our waterways securing funding for a pump out boat oyster ropes over 100 mangroves planted in the last couple months increasing the monitoring and testing of our waterways through partnership with miami water keepers this is a unprecedented never seen before effort in the city that the city is leading with service providers with neighbors um to really do the right things in our waterway and i'm excited and and again i think mayor you're just going to keep seeing more and more of this as we all work towards this so so that's fantastic um had a uh great um celebration of um some of our updates of our park bond work going forward in the city uh in district four so that's all very exciting as you see not only in district four but across the city um so that's great a couple questions comments so raquel you're going to talk about city hall right in your report great thank you so i'll save uh those comments for then um okay let's see uh stratcom so strike is ashley here stratcom there you are ashley you don't you don't need to get up and come up but just wanted to uh raquel celebrate stratcom my view of stratcom is really doing a great job of proactively going out to the media and sharing successes that the city's having raquel and i'd love to see that continued effort when we talk about waterways when you talk about work for the homeless the more mayor that we can advocate for um to help people in the broader community understand what we're doing the better just a a recent example of that mayor was stratcom did a great job of getting out the good news about the pump out boat and that was caught up by local media and beyond to share the success we're having in getting a pump out boat so i just really want to emphasize the importance of that because so often mayor we we can hear some of the negativity but it's really important to get out the successes so well you're 100 correct and i think that has been the philosophy behind having the state of the city address agreed hundreds and hundreds of people about over 500 people attended in person and another 500 uh live streamed it and or saw it on youtube and uh and that's a way to get the message out because not not every publication or or you know or internet uh platform covers the full story and and shows the progress we've made year to year so um i agree with you 100 that's how we get our message out and so uh as stratcom has always done a great job in the past you know we have new folks now part of the that department so hopefully we'll see uh even you know an increased effort in getting our message out yeah thanks mayor and and mayor i see it as an economic development tool we want more employers coming to the city of fort lateral we want more jobs coming to the city of fort lateral and an integral part of that is strategic communications in our city advocating and sharing the good news that the city's doing and so fantastic work there another example of great work special obligation bond so this is a bond we passed as a city commission recently and raquel i just would like to hear you give us again just an overview of what this special obligation bond is going to do what are the dollars going to be spent toward and mayor one of the reasons why i want to emphasize it is because of the investment in our roads and sidewalks again unprecedented never been done before in the city and not only is the dollar amount really important just to emphasize again to get clarity so that we all can can share that win but i want to and we all got a memo about this the true interest cost in other words the the interest rate that the city received on the bond dollars matters here's why it matters it matters because the rate we get is reflective of the market's view of the health and direction of the city directly related so when the market sees a city that's on the move moving in the right direction with the right leadership with the right priorities they want to invest in us and we're viewed as a less of a risk and thus have a more a lower interest rate so what's called the true interest rate uh the true interest cost for this bond was 4.35 which is fantastic and it's a objective measure mayor of what we're doing as a city and so raquel i want to turn it over to you but just again if you can just share anything else about the bond but again just a reminder of what that what those dollars are going to and when because this is a fast moving bond over the next couple years it's going to be a real world impact sure i'm glad you asked about when because we are preparing a budget amendment to come forward to the commission in november to discuss how these dollars would be allocated so part of the special obligation bond includes about 27 million for roadway and sidewalk infrastructure and so we are addressing those roadways and sidewalks that are at the failing level primarily and for each district we're going to be allocating um millions of dollars to address these concerns going forward so yvette i don't know if you wanted to come and share a little bit more about the bond good afternoon um yes we're super excited about the way the bond sale actually went we'll be closing on the bonds on october 30th but we were projecting a four point five percent tick and we ended up at four point three five percent which is very favorable um this ensures that we have a lower interest cost throughout the life of the bonds as the manager mentioned we are advancing our roadway and sidewalk projects but we're also advancing some of our bridge and seawall related projects as well so this bond will make a monumental impact on our community in addition to supporting um some of that short-term financing for the police headquarters great thank you appreciate it thanks that raquel um next topic um mayor and raquel i've been doing a little bit of of research on how we can continue as a city to lead around stormwater management and so forth one of the kind of newer technologies or developing technologies is the idea mayor of permeable streets and sidewalks to creating material i wasn't that familiar with it but i'm sure many there is a material a concrete material in particular that's permeable exactly and it's expensive it yeah it tends to be a little bit more expensive i know i think it requires a little bit more maintenance but i'd like us to just i'd like to ask raquel if we're in agreement of just exploring this uh new ways of thinking of paving building sidewalks to to the extent possible and feasible and cost you know cost effective so just a little history on that we had a demonstration project done at city hall uh there were a few parking spaces between the city hall building and the parking garage where a company came in and did a demonstration project there um that was years and years ago i don't know what the result was i don't even know if anyone is here today who uh abby abby were you here at that time yeah we're the old timers here so we remember these things we appreciate the institutional knowledge hit it hit it again abby there you go good afternoon abby kuram assistant public course director yes mayor there was a pilot uh that was installed at the city hall the area adjacent to the building where we had took the northern part of that space the handicap areas we put in uh some previous material as a test and i believe that was successful because if i recall from my memory that portion used to flood but i don't know if that was taken and implemented in other part because at that time i moved to utilities yeah i think that was under uh when city when lee felman was our city manager so um i can follow up on that but there are other materials that are today manufactured by multiple manufacturers there is there's a lot of material out there uh you know in terms of the previous papers and the like that is used also in low impact uh areas and all that so there is there is a lot of materials out there that could be examined and look at well pavers kind of concern me because they they bring maintenance not maintenance but but pervious concrete or pervious asphalt whatever it is i know in the last 10 years 12 years i'm sure they've improved the products but i agree with you 100 percent especially sidewalks right right yeah yeah it seems like but going forward uh that as we're looking to find um materials as we're fulfilling that pledge to build more sidewalks and to improve our roadways that's certainly a product we could look into i'm not sure how much more it is than than more conventional materials but it's certainly something that should be presented to the commission so we can make that choice we can come back with an item to highlight some of the areas where we think we could incorporate this and talk about the pros and cons as well as if there are any regulatory options that we have for the development community great thank you and raquel i'm thinking about city hall too like wouldn't it be cool if the majority of the you know hard surfaces were permeable in some form of fashion and just okay great thank you abby appreciate it thank you next topic mayor um at a agenda review meeting i had um vanessa apotheker brought up what i thought was a great idea and um the neighbors really loved this idea the idea for the fourth of july um their suggestion was instead of fireworks use a drone show um for the environmental impact i know the impact on pets um and so forth so want to bring that up for discussion consideration i've seen some really really sophisticated drone shows exactly i don't know what they cost but i saw a video it was in china where i couldn't believe we were looking at a drone show i mean it's just amazing but i don't know how do we tap into the vendor uh or vendors that provide that a couple of years ago i actually did bring this up with staff and ben i think you got back to me or carl and it was pricing and it was availability and it was because when when some of the neighboring cities like pompano beach first implemented it i did ask that question a few years ago i'm sorry she's waving her hands i'm waving my hand i'm all excited we had a drone show at the carter parks excuse me the summer um jam session where um beautiful opportunity so yes i i love the idea i'm supporting it didn't mean to cut you off but i got really excited love it love it but um definitely something to look at i mean i don't know what the cost is compared to traditional fireworks but uh you know drone shows today are are really sophisticated and do some amazing uh visual optics you know it's just like uh and i think that would wow the crowd as much as anybody for you know our 250th anniversary uh especially if we have the images of everybody on the commission you know in drones right like like the mount rushmore visit come on come on i know ted would love that carl could you remind us was there a drone show at holiday park yes uh starlight musicals that was uh during parks right night okay and just to to answer your question about cost so the to have a a good show especially on the beach and having it being so open um you need at least 400 drones and those drones are about eighty dollars per drone and so depending on that cost if we want to go higher or lower we'll determine that particular rate what's the math on that again i'm sorry that's thirty eighty dollars per drone and so thirty two thousand dollars look at in the ballpark about eighty thousand and how does that compare with what fireworks are costing right now our fireworks including the tug and barge is roughly 140 000 yeah i mean i love it i love it we we've talked over the years about doing the integration of both of them um but of course that's a discussion we'll have at a later time yeah so can we get i don't know what the next step would be to consider this possibility and and my thinking is replace fireworks drone show big cost save but we can look at you know analyze both and options hybrid or whatever and we're also considering this for new year's this year so for new year's oh for new year's yes so we can provide a comparison of what the cost would be for implementing a drone show versus a fireworks show or a combination great thank you thanks carl appreciate it thanks for uh mayor this might be my last one um raquel so this is something you and i have talked about and i wanted to bring up for the city commission discussion sewer laterals so can we get someone that's smarter than me on this to up here to help me sure and and this will sort of connect with my city manager report because i'd like to introduce our new utility services director mr al carbon this is his fourth day welcome back al carbon unbelievable our carbon oh my gosh my gosh uh albert carbon utility services director uh for an encore performance uh so everything old is new exactly thank you commissioner uh this two-year-old must be in college now right uh when i took the job she was not even a concept okay okay and so and so she is now no longer a teenager she turned 20 uh she is for all those people she's a cane i know i knew it i know that's what i get all the time so no worries uh a wonderful girl wonderful woman uh so uh commissioner uh sewer laterals rob uh i i want to see here what your first question is sure so the question that we've been kind of navigating with um neighbors is whose responsibility is it to repair replace sewer laterals so that's a general question the more specific is my understanding of our current uh practice as a city is that the homeowner is responsible for the sewer lateral from their house to the main line the concern that i'm hearing from neighbors which i think is a fair concern is well why should a neighbor be responsible for the sewer lateral that's not on their property so when you go from the property line to the to the main line that's now city right of way city property many cities have the city is responsible for the lateral from the property line where the city person the person's property ends and where the main line connects so i'm interested in exploring the possibility of uh having the city responsible for their portion of the lateral from where the private property ends uh thank you commissioner uh first of all any of those residents call you about that please head contact our staff the utility staff it is the the city's responsibility from the main line to the property line and when our staff currently when our staff gets a call they take that responsibility and to expand on that when someone calls and says they have a sewer backup they will go out there to make sure it's not on our main line to the lat to the clean out if you will and they just had that experience just recently off and i was talking to the resident that's what they do when they get the call i can't tell you what other people are saying when they get the call that's what it is so in the code which someone was reviewing just yesterday the code does say that that the city's responsible there but there is a definition that makes it unclear it says the definition of a sewer lateral is the lateral that goes to the property to the individual property it doesn't define whose responsibility that lateral is but it just defines it as that service lateral from the main line to the service property but it doesn't say the responsibility of so that might be what the confusion is is that strict definition but if you go into the code it does say the city is responsible for the city right away portion great so just to be clear because we've not gotten that staff has said the opposite so that's correct we had this conversation yesterday it's great hearing this so love it so in other words what i'm hearing raquel just to be clear is the city is responsible for the lateral all the way to the homeowner's property line and the homeowner's responsible from the property line into the house okay just no i want to clarify that we want to bring clarifying language to the commission to eliminate what al is describing as uncertainty so go ahead yeah i just really wanted to clarify because we were talking about the maintenance of and and there is if there's a new construction it's it could possibly could different if they want if there's an existing ladder on their property and they choose to move that ladder to a different portion of the property they would be responsible for that reconnection to the city's main got it so that but if there's a if there's a blockage we're talking about maintenance yeah there's a blockage deterioration we'll check to make sure it's not it if it's on our side we'll we'll take it if it's on your side we'll let you know and advise you to go find a plumber yeah and show you that it's not on our side but it's on your side great and that's happened prior to me being that's our staff when our the utility staff goes out there and does that observation gets the call they will go out there and look at that yep awesome that's fantastic so then um and again you're much more of an expert in this than i'm so new construction i'm assuming so let's say there's a property newly constructed no sewer lateral going in there's a main line right but no sewer lateral going into it walk me through that i did that i'd have to look at the code okay and i will give you a assumption that's new construction that the property has been divided right okay so if the price has been divided then it's that there the one side of the property is going to be responsible to bring a new lateral in because when the sewer line went in when the city put the expense of putting the water in it was one property right so one lateral yeah we could not anticipate it being divided up into two properties so it'd be the responsibility of one of the other to put the new property line put the new sewer line okay that's an example the new construction is going to be clarified in the code and have to bid discussions okay and even if the property wasn't divided but it was just a property that was never divided but just never had a lateral same i think you're the same stance it was somebody that was zoned so for other purposes yes that's a correct statement also okay great so then raquel if i'm hearing you're right we're going to work to clean this up the cleanest language up so that it's clear to reflect exactly what al's saying that's right is that okay did you nope that's correct sir that's great okay great were you gonna did you do you want to say something join the party it's it's great over here uh no just back up robert vancourt stormwater engineering division manager um but he pretty much covered essentially there's language there there's the other scenario where there's an existing lateral and you're doing new construction and you want to reuse the existing lateral the code currently and also previously stated that it's the responsibility of the homeowner to the cctv yeah and if it's in good shape you're good to go you can reconnect if there's deficiencies they have to correct those deficiencies at least that's how it's worded today yep okay great uh fantastic thank you both appreciate it al welcome when were you last year i don't think i was i was here when you were last year so just you were just a concept oh just a concept yes yes i hope hope not so many moons ago march 2013 okay great well glad you're glad you're back thank you very much um raquel let me just see okay great so i think we'll we'll just work on the language a little bit more to make sure that's um uh well it's a big policy decision because that's going to be a significant cost to the city if anything if we're changing something so we probably need to bring that up to at a conference meeting to understand the cost potential that's going to be imposed upon the rest of the city we will bring it back with a draft yeah we can bring it at conference okay all right yeah that sounds great uh thank you mayor i think that's everything okay great thank you uh just a few things i'm not going to go back in time just what happened the last few weeks um uh participated at the ribbon cutting for uh blu blue by thrivewell over in uh uh um in the northern part of the city is an amazing amazing investment that these folks made in that in that facility so it's a it's a wellness facility that uh god just they there's not one part of you that they can't examine and thoroughly recommend on how to better better improve your health um october 8 excuse me october 11th um did the grand opening of the south florida greek film festival which ran for a little bit more than a week i had amazing participation at savor cinema and the gateway um also in this room on october 5th october 14th we um we're here to help celebrate the farewell and retirement of mr george platt who's been an iconic figure in our community for many many years and uh uh and met much of the contributions he made to the the development of what we see here today in briar county uh on october 15th i was uh um on a panel discussion with uh jenny mora hone on with the florida design and construction organization talking about p3s and how they've been implemented in our city and how they've improved uh much of the um uh the facilities that have been installed in fort lauderdale from private uh private investment to uh to many of the sporting facilities that we see here today the next day october 16th um i launched the white cane awareness day walk that we had in which um uh persons who are uh handicapped visually handicapped uh participated in this event i want to thank the uh the folks at aarp uh yay aarp i'm sorry you're not there yet but uh uh but they uh they helped facilitate that walk and i want to thank our uh our police department for the full-scale motorcade that accompanied them and protecting them as they walked down the street uh let's see again uh commissioner beasley pitman talked about the the recognition of of core industries locating here in fort lauderdale um and we did the ribbon cutting for them it was a great opportunity for them to assemble all their partners from throughout the state and throughout the county um in recognizing that uh that celebration on the 18th i i attended the imperial point fall harvest which was at the dotty mancini park very well attended they just love the fact that we've been able to reopen that park so thank you susan uh and uh looking forward to many many years how many years is that at least 20 30 30 yeah yeah that's what i thought so um very happy about that and uh um and there are many happy families that will now continue to be able to uh uh enjoy that park in the neighborhood um on october 18th i uh also did the introduction to the outshine film festival here in fort lauderdale that was uh 10 days of uh of uh films that recognize achievements and uh uh successes in the lgbt community um unfortunately more than half of those films were uh in other languages so it was uh unless you're a quick reader uh it was it was a tough go but uh the films were great and i'm very thankful to the organization that brought that event here uh on october 20th as was mentioned earlier we did the convention center expansion let me tell you a little bit about that um i attended the fitzy conference this week which was the first event that uh that pretty much christened the new expansion of the convention center and uh we are very blessed to have that in our city i know it's a county uh facility but it's in fort lauderdale and that combined with the new hotel is a real game changer for uh entertaining uh conventions and and exhibitions that for many many years overlooked our city because we did not have the capacity to handle the larger events uh with the connector road hopefully we'll see um less traffic on 17th street causeway because people go going to the port and going to the convention center and going to the hotel will not have to use 17th street anymore they i mean this this fiasco occurred as a result of 9-11 we all know that we used to be able to use the the port to cut through and uh when that access was denied us after 9-11 um you know that's when we really um um developed the uh the congestion more so than had been before so i appreciate the county for making the 50 plus million dollar investment in that connector road and uh and they actually did it ahead of the opening of the uh of the hotel and alongside the opening of the convention center so great partnerships and i have to tell you kevin kelleher who's the deputy county administrator came up to me and thanked our building department for working so aggressively with them uh to try to get permits uh approved and to get plans approved uh he said no other city in broward county is as cooperative as our building department so my hats off to our building department for and thank you okay you get all the credit no but seriously i just wanted to convey that message to you i i appreciate uh uh mr kelleher for for uh letting us know that and uh keep up the good work anthony they usually also have the best booth at neighbor support night just so you know who does uh building service do they oh yeah you always they always win wow wow well they know what they're doing there then okay um also that that evening october 20th we had the uh launch party for the las olas magazine uh but that was a special launch party not just because of the great magazine that the las olas magazine is but that was that was it was also inclusive of a charity guide and they recognized seven individuals or seven couples who um who have really given a lot to our community from the miniaches to leslie jones to just people throughout the community who um who have made a significant impact on the the quality of life here in our city all out of their own personal generosity um and then finally fitzy the uh the florida international trade convention expo uh over 70 countries are represented this year and uh this was the brainchild of the former commissioner mayor uh dale holness who who was also in attendance there but this is a legacy that i have to say that we were recognized as being the first government to participate financially uh in this even before the county uh had any faith in it because we knew at that time that this was going to be important to our city so i'm very happy that the city continues its partnership with the county in in bringing this forward obviously the county has stepped ahead and really supports this in a much bigger way than we do now but uh but it really brings people from all over the world um almost half the number of nations of the united nations came to fort lauderdale so um we're very pleased i met people from italy i met people from central america i met people from africa um it was amazing what we're able to bring to our to our community and and and we couldn't have asked for a better weather week uh as the chamber of commerce uh week for so many of the visitors here who are so pleased to be able to participate and enjoy what we do on an everyday basis here in our city um i want uh going forward a couple of announcements on october 28th which is next week um i'm going to be hosting a town hall forum at 6 p.m at the coral ridge yacht club to discuss the galleria mall project the purpose of this town hall meeting is to allow the community to understand a little bit better what this live local act means and how it works in a community i think there's a lot of misinformation there i think the folks have a right to know what live local means we've already approved one project over on 17th street causeway with a related group when i say we i mean the city it never came to planning and zoning it never came to the commission uh but this is how the live local act works so i'd like to uh i think going forward the galleria project is going to be one of the most significant building projects that the city uh has had to entertain and i think that the community needs to weigh in on it and i think that uh at the same time the community needs to understand what choices we have or don't have when it comes to this project um moving forward so that will be again at 6 p.m it will be live streamed so you do not have to personally attend but we will be live streaming on all of our city channels and um uh and we want to be able to make sure it will not be zoomed it just be live streamed so people can witness what's going on and uh and again it will be at the coral ridge yacht club at 6 p.m on october 28th uh uh the next day october 29th at 10 a.m we're going to have the official opening of the fort lauderdale international boat show uh another amazing event that the city hosts uh i understand it's going to be even bigger than last year uh very excited how much how many jobs this brings to our community how much financial impact it brings to our community and uh uh and it's just a fun time and uh that evening we'll be hosting the uh the mayor's soiree the opening reception at the superyacht uh village so um again that will be the kickoff event and uh hopefully there'll be a lot of excitement and a lot of economic opportunity for all who participate uh october 31st uh we're doing a ribbon cutting for the twin lakes north park that will be 10 15 at the park and then november 1st the day of the dead uh the what is it the de los muertos uh which is uh a celebration often celebrated in mexico and other places and uh fort lauderdale will once again participate in this uh annual celebration unfortunately jim hammond who was the person who brought this to fort lauderdale and who was the visionary on this project will not be participating this year he needs to take a break he said and so uh the river walk river walk folks will be heading this up along with the many many sponsors who will be participating we want to thank everybody who's going to be a part of this event uh thank you for participating um maybe this year i'll even get my face painted again i think it's time to cover these lines uh and uh we're really looking forward to that and that will be at esplanade park um and you'll see more details in the days ahead so having said that um uh i think that's it for me and any any um any more amended comments from anybody that you thought of you're all sir did you i might have missed this in your comments did you mention veterans day that we'll probably have another meeting before then right so i just want to but great but i just want to make sure we're planning so there's american legion event at sandy nininger that's i think that's the only thing we do is the sandy nininger event so are we at 11 o'clock is great and is someone court like raquel who's coordinating that in the city i see the hand in the back okay our strategic communications department is tuesday november 11 you should have either a hold on your calendar or the invitation should be there okay great and are we getting a um a graphic or something we can share on social media something we will have a shareable invitation yes okay that we can put out to the community just like okay great thank you excellent thanks mayor no problem okay uh city manager thank you mayor so first i want to highlight our team we are getting ready for the boat show just like everyone else a lot of people don't realize the commitment of staff and preparing for the boat show so last week we put out a letter to the commission outlining everything that we do to support the boat show so i just want to thank our community services development services fire rescue information technology parks and recreation police public works strategic communications and transportation mobility departments for all they do to support that event on an annual basis thank you thank you t and m transportation mobility okay i also want to highlight our community redevelopment agency clarence woods isn't here with us this evening but just so you know our cra is award-winning yet again at the florida redevelopment association annual conference last week our cra was awarded two awards making it our fifth and sixth of these awards one was for outstanding rehabilitation renovation and reuse project for the thrive art district and then the other award yes it was for outstanding housing project for the mount herman apartments so i just want you to know that our cra competes with other redevelopment agencies across the state and it's very competitive so it's great to see our cra come home with two trophies this year we'll also have our eighth and final iteration of our sandbag distribution on november 1st and 2nd throughout all of our districts that's saturday and sunday from 10 to 1 pm i also want to thank our parks and rec department for ensuring that that that process has been seamless all rainy and hurricane season long and i appreciate our efforts to make it more convenient for our neighbors and we'll be issuing a report on that after the eighth iteration okay now i want to go into some attachments you'll notice that we're doing things a little bit differently to provide more transparency and clarity around some of the heavier discussions that i'd like to have at the commission level so you'll see attachments with the city manager's report that you haven't seen before we haven't discussed before some of this at this point is a little bit dated considering that we didn't have an opportunity at the october 7th meeting but the first letter to commission is regarding the new river crossing tunnel initiative as i've shared with you all we sent a letter to broward county asking for an extension on that october 1st deadline to present a viable tunnel alternative among other deliverables we did ask for a july 1st extension the county came back with february 13th and we are working toward putting out a request for information for interested development partners in the tunnel industry and so our hope is that we'll have more substantial information to provide to the county by february so any questions on that all right next up we have a letter to commission related to task force for ending homelessness you may have received some communications from that organization we had an agreement with them that expired at the end of last fiscal year we were having some discussion surrounding the payment and fee structure and ultimately we felt that it was in the city's best interest to move forward with a solicitation process for those services so we'd like to explore other organizations that may offer similar services and see what's in the best interests of the city so we'll be following up on that with you in the coming months next we have what i call the first update for the fort lauderdale beach park it was followed up with another memo update number two we had provided concept plans or alternatives for incorporating two new basketball courts on the beach as you are aware and as we've discussed in the past we have obligations related to an interlocal agreement with the bahia mar community development district we have also had conversations with the developer of the bahia mar who would like to contribute up to five hundred thousand dollars toward the new basketball courts that we would like to implement on the beach we provided three alternatives via the first letter to commission and followed up with alternative 1a which refines the initial alternative one that is the staff recommendation based on the fact that that alternative is fully funded and is west of the coastal construction control line and has no impacts to parking so we just wanted to get your feedback today before we move forward with this okay uh anyone have any questions or comments with regard to that i do all right thank you uh so i appreciate the alternative 1a it makes sense and we've had this discussion so i'm not going to repeat all of that um i agree the others did not cut it because of their locations i believe too close to the b ocean and also um the loss of parking spaces so this alleviates that issue the only thing i think we need to be cognizant of is because now those basketball courts are going to be um well one's a little bit further east than the other but we have to have some sort of buffer i think between the two so that there's no danger of folks you know either running or the ball going you know what i mean they're no longer going to be side by side now they're going to be east i'm sorry north and south of each other so i think we just have to make sure that that's taken care of from a design standpoint um and then i i would like to discuss the pickleball briefly um i think two pickleball courses a waste of time and money on that area um but yet the the plan for the three is kind of weird i i've never really seen that kind of a setup where um two are headed well in this instance two are north south and then there's one bucked up against them facing east west i think east west because of the sun um traveling east west that's not a good idea for that court uh that will interfere greatly i think with folks playing on that court um but i think that we have enough space i think we need to have um four courts i think it needs to be um two facing north south and then two to the south of it facing north south and i think we can do that and that would be my suggestion to staff that we would do that because um if we're going to be building pickleball there as i said two is a waste of time and money um three doesn't seem to work well in terms of how people are going to play and the way that the sun uh would affect that court and i think that we can do it so that it makes sense what's the agreement what is what's in the agreement at least two the agreement requires that we provide for two pickleball courts at the site of the existing basketball courts and so based on the fact that that location is to the east of the coastal construction control line we anticipate that there could be some challenges with trying to accommodate four pickleball courts we think three is probably doable and we're going to work toward that uh at a minimum but four may be beyond what we're able to do if we run into some permitting hurdles but we will make every attempt to have as many pickleball courts at the existing side of the basketball courts as we can well i have had discussions we have we do have lobbyists that take care of a lot of our issues and i people have volunteered to step up and help us with any kind of issues with the coastal construction line and getting permits improve approved in tallahassee i'm just saying from a practical standpoint the way the three are laid out here it's it's not really going to work it's just not well first of all we did agree in the agreement to two and if we do more we're going to be taking up more sand number one and number two if we do more than two is the developer planning to increase their their contribution since it's going to cost more money to do more than two the developer has stated that they would be willing to contribute up to five hundred thousand dollars for what for the basketball courts okay so we believe that the three pickleball courts are probably what we can accommodate with the budget if alternative 1a was to be selected doing four basketball courts and expanding the footprint of the existing i'm sorry four pickleball courts and expanding the footprint of the existing basketball courts could create a challenge from a budgetary and permitting perspective but we could explore it further but at this time i would not be able to commit to that again the agreement requires that we have two pickleball courts okay thank you i just think it's worth a little bit further discussion with the taxing district there and see what we can do and um again having a pickleball court face east west it it it's really not a good idea that's all that's my two cents um anyone else have any comments or questions just a question um for clarity for me um you said the taxing district they will be the ones who who would um give additional funding is that what's being um indicated or suggested um so the mckee amara community development district based on the interlocal agreement with will reimburse the city for up to one million dollars in eligible expenses for the improvements listed in the interlocal agreement and those improvements include uh replacement of the movement of the operational equipment or relocation of that as well as those two new pickleball courts so we anticipate that the cost of those three improvements or eligible improvements based on the interlocal agreement would cost somewhere in the ballpark of five hundred thousand dollars so it's not that the cdd would contribute more money than what those eligible improvements would cost the city thank you for that and honestly i think that we need to be smart in terms of how we are going to get bids and who's going to do this work there are plenty of people out there i i have actually spoken to a lot of people um the cdd is giving us a million dollars um a basketball court a pickleball court and even some of that new fitness equipment i think we have funding no it's going to be far in excess of a million you saw the budget it was a lot more than a million dollars we have 1.3 million as part of our park spawn program thank you the cdd will reimburse us for up to a million but we don't believe that we will spend that million we think we will spend five hundred thousand on the improvements listed in the interlocal agreement right that is my point we we are i think sufficiently funded um for this uh a pickleball court if you spend between 50 and 75 thousand dollars that's a lot so i'm just saying that i just think yeah i just think that we need to be able to just talk about it a little bit more with the cdd talk about it with our lobby people talk about it um and also again if you look at the site especially with the two you still have a lot of footprint left on on the basketball site for the pickleball i'm just trying to alleviate the problem where there's going to be such a demand that i just think two courts is not going to cut it that's all i'm just trying to anticipate what we're going to face going into the future all right so i mean i think i i mean personally i think when we talked about putting pickleball there it wasn't to create a pickleball center it was just an accommodation for some uh for for people who live or visiting the bahia mar site to have a pickleball area on the beach um and you know having i mean we agreed to two i just i just feel that you know it's a beach you know so i think that and now we're moving the the the basketball um courts now the footprint for the basketball court is that do we know if that's going to be greater than what we currently have do we know that the footprint for the basketball new basketball yeah i think it'll be similar similarly sized because basketball courts are regulation so right so we're not taking up any more space on the beach and for the basketball courts what about the what about the picnic tables and the barbecue area we keeping that about the same size too well we plan to utilize the parks bond funding to have those amenities enhanced and so we're not exactly sure about how many pickle um i'm sorry picnic tables and the barbecue girls that we'll be able to have at this point we're still very early in the design process okay so that's something that we could bring forward at a later date but at this point it's still very preliminary and conceptual all right as long as we're not shrinking any of this i you know because i think a lot of families do appreciate coming to the beach wanting to utilize those picnic tables and the and the grills so you know we want to still keep keep that opportunity there for people to come to the beach um okay ma'am i just want to correct one thing you said the pickleball is not just for people that are visiting the behemar these will be public courts uh and obviously i'm not calling it a center you said a pickleball center um two courts three courts even four courts are not a pickleball center um i'm just trying to do as much as we can within that footprint um i mean four pickleball courts if you spend two hundred and fifty thousand dollars you're spending a lot the exercise equipment i think can be done for a hundred thousand dollars i i just know that you know we're we're good with our funding between the parks bond and then the money that the that the behemar cdd is putting up um again uh what what it's going to cost for the basketball courts and the landscaping i think we're well within the budget i'm just saying that if we're doing this we should just do it correctly that's all okay and we'll have more information on the cost we haven't bid anything out yet so these are cost estimates and everything is conceptual at this time all right any other questions for raquel on this side yes ben thanks um okay raquel all thanks so for the basketball court so 1a i think we're going to need more separation between the courts north south that's they're right back up to each other i think we could accommodate that so it's gonna you're gonna we're gonna have to move i think one of them south a little bit because that he um so one of the advantages to 1a is no impact on the wave wall which has a cost savings impact which is great um but i think we've got to space them out a little bit more so that's gonna move things south a little bit um yeah move the south court a little bit farther south so there's a little bit of space there um okay so that's just my neighbors have shared that uh concern too which i thought makes sense so um it uh i think that alternative makes the most sense out of the options we have so what what happens next in this process raquel for pickleball and basketball i'm going to turn it over to ben rogers at this time to talk about next steps good afternoon mayor commission ben rogers assistant city manager uh so right now we're working with a com the parks bond consultant on the initial planning concept and so we're looking for feedback and direction which i think we heard today is alternative 1a by shifting to make the amendment of shifting the south court a little bit farther south we'll also take in the other feedback we've heard in consideration with them the next step would be to move it to the next phase in the project with aecom so we'd have to issue a task order there's going to be a lot of um permitting back and forth so there won't be an immediate next deliverable from a public perspective but there'll be a lot of conversation between aecom city staff and the regulatory agencies on this this plan trying to figure out and determine exactly what permits we would need to get go through the magnitude of the impacts and working through that so i think that's probably the immediate next step we didn't want to engage in those conversations until we had some direction or feedback from the commission on which one we're going to move forward with and then i mean if for the existing basketball courts my understanding but correct me if i'm wrong is that any changes improvements to the basketball court um i don't know foundation or that that we can't go beyond that or are we able to go beyond that concrete foundation we are it would be going through again the regulatory process of understanding the impacts and it might be a little more challenging to expand the existing basketball court footprint um because it is east of the construction line but those are the conversations that we needed to have with the permitting agencies and we need the direction from the commission on what specifically we're going to be asking for okay okay so you'll come back to us with cost and evaluation of that yeah i think the next thing would be let us have the initial conversations and get some timelines uh kind of memorialized these processes can take a long time when you start looking at some of the environmental regulatory agencies and their processes so that's our our next due diligence step is to start those conversations understand the timelines understand the magnitude of the impacts from their lens and then come back to the commission with an update great so in other words you'd come back to us with an update of here are the here are the possibilities for basketball and pickleball and then we'll here's the conversations we've had and then we as a commission will decide do we how many pickleball courts do we want how many basketball courts do we want where do we want them is that right i think what we are looking to do is taking the amended 1a alternative and use that as the sole uh review document that we'll be working with the agencies on getting their feedback coming back to the commission with an update on that element and i think that's a point of clarification is if we are looking to expand the square footage of the existing basketball court that would be converted to pickleball court of getting that direction today so that way we can make sure we incorporate that in the site plan and then have that conversation with regulatory agencies yeah so i just want to add commissioner because we are on a timeline based on the interlocal agreement to have these improvements done by january of 2027 so it's not that we would want to have a lot of moments of coming back to the commission we really want to get started and sure you know move this forward but certainly keep the commission apprised of how much progress we're making and uh how refined the concept is becoming uh but we do have that deadline that's incorporated in in the interlocal yeah yeah great yeah i'm just very sensitive to more concrete on the beach um generally i i want to preserve as much of the beach as possible so that's one of my concerns as we think about all these options so i think for um the new basketball courts 1a i think with the adjustment of moving the south court a little bit farther south i think we have agreement there is that right well can we accomplish what we need to do with just a buffer or does it actually have to move and take more of a footprint are we able to do a landscaping buffer or something between those two courts or do we actually have to move it we can explore all options i mean we might be able to accomplish that by not increasing the footprint on the sand if we are able to i'm happy to look at it i'm happy to explore it but but there's there's an advantage to having distant separation between courts um that but like a buffer can't necessarily stop balls from bouncing over well well it depends on the buffer you could have you could have a hedge okay you could have a wall i'm just saying if we well no he's not talking about that but anyway you're not at the podium the uh the problem is that we can explore it and then we'll explore because we might not have to i mean if we are concerned about taking up more footprint with concrete or asphalt or whatever maybe there's a way not to take up that extra sand if we do a hedge or something i don't know it's yeah i mean it wouldn't be concrete i would not want concrete as a buffer like okay so i won't want concrete between the courts yeah yeah but according to the design there's there's it's there's it's back to back it's back to back but no one no one's further east no no they're back to back so you need to you need to separate the slab so you can insert landscaping between the two courts but they're not parallel one is one yes the southern court is further east than the northern court yeah i understand that okay a little bit but they're askew it's it's yeah yeah but now the question i want to ask you ben has the b ocean been consulted at all in terms of the proximity of the court to to their hotel i mean i i can't it's hard to tell from the drawing right uh it seems like there's a safe distance enough right where you know the activity is not going to interfere with the operation of the hotel yeah i haven't talked to them um and then you have a but you know you would have a buffer and it's articulated on the photo of the diagram a buffer around that southern end of the basketball court so yeah yeah i think so yeah so yeah look open to that option um so i think we're good on 1a clarity is that ben do you have what you need for that for 1a yes okay great so then with pickleball again i'm sensitive to expanding to you know huge a much bigger footprint than what's already there but you know i'm open to to looking at options so you'll come back to us with that for options okay we will share what we discover through the process of trying to advance the design and talking to those regulatory agencies and we will share with the commission our progress yeah all right so is commissioner glassman are you saying that four pickleball courts will constitute the same footprint as the existing uh footprint of the basketball courts is that what you said earlier i'm sorry i'm not an architect or a designer but if you look at the footprints that were provided to us um there does seem to be a lot of space on the side again i think that's something that says going to need to figure out but it looks like there is a lot of space um on the side and i do think you can do uh for there it might spill over like a couple of feet but really not much um they're not that big those courts that's all i don't know i don't play pickleball yeah they're nowhere near the size of the basketball court so um and correct me if i'm wrong but the basketball courts now have a north-south orientation don't they they do yeah they're north-south side by side north-south they do so okay same thing all right if you can get back to us uh uh on those dimensions so we have a better idea as to what we're working with that would be helpful thank you you may continue okay moving on to the final letter to commission included on this agenda uh the city hall project update so at the last meeting the commission uh discussed the short list and also asked staff to make recommendations as to what the evaluation criteria would look like for the next phase of the evaluation process and we took that feedback and did a lot of homework over the past couple of weeks weeks and the information provided to you includes a supplemental information request package that was sent to the shortlisted developers and also included as an exhibit to the letter to the commission today we'd like your feedback on anything that was included in that package we can make modifications and share with those development firms or teams any changes that the commission may wish to approve going forward so could we just talk a little bit about that letter that was sent to us this week um you know i'm waiting i might i have an open mind about it but i i'm hesitate i'm i hesitate to want retail on the ground floor because i just think it opens us up to um safety risk it's a it's a you know we don't have any control over the operations of a store or or some kind of whatever kind of business would go in there um you know in this day and age i think we need to keep the city hall as as tight as can be when it comes to safety and having a retail operation on the first floor i've been to other city halls around the country and around the world where they do have uh activities where children are are allowed in and like one one city hall i've been they have a they had a they had a uh preschool in the first floor which i thought was not smart um i just think that we need to keep the security of our city hall as tight as possible going forward and um so that would be one of the recommendations that was presented by staff i would i personally would not be in favor of i just don't think that makes a lot of sense if you want to internalize you know where staff alone has the you know like they do in hospitals where they have like an internalized restaurant or whatever or or cafe or whatever um that's fine but just to have it open to the public generally i'm just i'm just concerned about the the safety aspect of that one of the other thoughts surrounding that retail component was to potentially have offices for an external elected official maybe a state rep wants to have space on the ground floor and service the community that way so well that's the office purpose that's an office thing but but to have a retail i just you know if someone wants to open an office if you know a state representative or a congressman or somebody wants to open an office in there or or even a even a um a contractor or or you know consulting firm that might be a little different i'm not sure why we want that um but uh if you're thinking it's a rental income opportunity i don't know again the risks of having the just people in and out of that building i just am very concerned in this day and age you know our exposure to that that's all okay so where what's the next steps then we have a presentation available okay and we can talk through how we got to this point and where we're going next okay mr rogers so as the manager indicated since the last meeting we've done a lot of due diligence a lot of research uh we went back and dusted off some documents and and try to produce this uh footprint for consideration so i'm going to walk through just a couple slides here to kind of explain how we got to some of the the information and findings that we came up with and then take any questions that you may have so the first thing is we we took this approach uh in three phases the first phase was for city staff to go back and refine uh what it would go into the city hall building uh to understand the square footages the amenity types um and and really put together the expectation of what the building would look and feel like with that we distributed the information package which leads us to phase two the short list of proposers have approximately two weeks to review it and provide responses to the specific information that's requested in there and return it back to the city staff once we have it back we'll start doing an evaluation we have some consultants identified that will serve different roles financial analysis we'll have construction validation and then we'll look at other factors like the litigation history and things that the city commission has provided feedback in the past right now we're tentatively scheduled for december 2nd to have the short list of proposers come back to commission and present at conference uh where they all have the 30 minutes to uh share their vision of what city hall could could be uh and at that point the city commission at the nighttime meeting would then rank the proposals and then staff would bring a subsequent resolution to move the process forward at the december 16th meeting i would like to that to happen the same night the same night yeah there's no reason why we have to keep delaying agreed right and also um uh you just said something uh i forgot while you're thinking about this i have a question about this right now the process i i think public always has a right to know what we're going to be discussing especially as important as this i'm i have a concern about this just being sort of not actually part of the printed information that went out to the public in terms of um our agenda maybe i'm crazy but this is important and i i don't know in terms of transparency i think everyone has a right to understand this and know this well this is just part of the city manager's report right now it's not really an agenda item that's what i'm saying that's my problem well we're going to come it's going to come back as an agenda item okay i'm just saying that this is important information i think it's process this isn't we're not making decisions tonight i understand okay i understand we're not going to take any public comment anyway on it because we're just getting instruction from staff as to the process that's being followed i'm just saying if we're going to change the way we do city manager reports i would appreciate a little bit more disclosure and transparency for not just us but also for the public okay i i also appreciate reading things in advance i don't think i have this to read this i don't have that either so i again i'm just saying i would appreciate having it i think the public should have it that's all i'm not not gonna you know be today um i know i remember what i was going to say so when we do schedule that with the uh in the first meeting of december um uh that should be the only item on the conference the conference agenda the presentations by the by the proponents right we're allocating up to 30 minutes yeah but we're not gonna between 30 30 30 and 30 that's two hours so i'm agreeing that right because yeah yeah i just want we need to have just just that decision actually just that item on the as a conference agenda item and nothing else okay thank you go ahead okay and so uh i'll get with attorney spence and city manager to talk through the the bringing that forth on december 2nd i think we've done in the past where it's been voted on the same night as the presentation so we'll make sure we can accommodate that and get back to you if there's any concerns with that approach um and to it to respond to commissioner glassman's comment on the uh the information uh totally understand the concern and apologize on the timeliness of this we did however send a letter to commission out that did indicate that there would be a conversation at this meeting these materials i did we did create just to again provide that understanding of how the document became and happy to do any outreach if uh additional outreach is needed to address the concerns so the and inside the hold on a sec uh ben i'm just gonna need uh okay so i just want to assign some dates so i'm tracking this okay so where are we yep great yeah so where are we today so we're city manager report proposer questions to the city um yeah if you want me to just highlight so right now we're at the conclusion of phase one uh which is a quick update at the city manager's report uh phase two is already in the hands of the proposers they have the the information that we've asked for we in this process identified if they have any questions or clarifications that need they need from us that they need to provide that to us by october 29th uh that's mid next week and then we will respond to those questions by october 31st if we have additional information we want to ask or request of them we'll also be doing that before the question period is up the proposers have until november 10th to provide their responses of the information that's requested in the package once we get that back we will be working with our consulting teams to evaluate that information okay so let me let me just pause you right there just so i'm tracking so last commission meeting we talked about the criteria right what's the criteria we're going to evaluate each proposer on okay so this is okay great thank you so this is the criteria that they're going to be evaluated on is that right so these are the primary criteria that we're asking them to respond supplemental information on in addition to that we're going to be following up with them on the things that the commission asked us for like the litigation history the city attorney's office is going to help us do that background on litigation history uh and then we'll also be looking for like audited financials okay so these are 11 evaluation criteria is this so you just listed a couple things in addition to this or included in this yeah like the footnote at the bottom is the the litigation history okay okay great so um where do is this in the memo that you that we got this criteria uh the the letter to commission the attachment yes this would be in i believe section eight okay let me just go there section eight evaluation criteria yeah so i'd like this um so section eight says evaluation criteria it's just more high level than this right if i'm looking at it right number eight yes so section eight is reflective of it's more detailed yeah it is reflective of what's on okay and then in section seven of the supplemental thing there's specific questions that we're asking there's 18 specific questions that we're asking them to respond to yeah number seven says that section seven that's correct okay so i'm look i don't know if i'm looking at the right attachment so i'm looking at a letter to the commission that's five pages is there and number seven on five number seven which is on page four says 18 questions correct there's an attachment that goes with the letter to commission that has those 18 attached yeah that's the package that was submitted out to the proposers okay and do i'm just trying to see where okay that's in the attachment to the email right you're saying i think where the questions are that's correct okay so so where on that attachment are the questions uh in uh section seven which starts on page 12 page 12 page 12 okay so these are the the response expectations got you that they'll be providing okay great now i'm and so on the attachment page let's see it's page 12 response expectations this is a these 11 or 12 items here are a summary of those questions that's correct is that okay now i'm tracking okay um great so keep going thank you so the uh package contents again uh just a summary quick summary uh we didn't we're not looking for the guaranteed maximum price we understand there's a lot of things that still need to go in the planning design phase we still need to understand uh the commission's feedback on the size of the building and all the elements that we proposed in it but what we are seeking is a document that can can equally compare the proposers responses and that we can validate for reliability credibility and understanding of the south florida market we did ask for two different potentially potential delivery methods uh with a 30-year term the first one is a design build finance operate maintain the second one is a design build and finance i know that in previous conversations we've talked about also asking for a design build with the city financing that's an exercise that we can do outside of this because we can evaluate our own cost of capital and then determine if we want to exchange the financial terms or not so we didn't ask for a third model uh just for simplicity and based on the timelines that we put forth uh we again we defined the amenities uh the space needs and the evaluation criteria that we're going to be uh reviewing the responses on and as part of the amenities and space needs we looked at some alternate options the what-if scenarios um to make sure that if the commission has a question or would like to see something that we have the information all at once uh and we understand that some of the the elements that we asked for might be adjusted might be changed might be uh modified in the future but we thought it was best to have the information now uh and then work back from that because one of the elements that you added is the uh the idea of a parking garage now um you know we have a parking garage if we if we decide to put the the uh the city hall on the existing site my concern is that parking garage are very very expensive and um uh and oftentimes they change the whole design of a building so um how are we really going to be able to entertain that added aspect uh because it can completely throw off the the cost of a new city hall by adding uh a component that we really didn't anticipate originally that's what i'm concerned about that could add another 100 million dollars correct that's a perfect example mayor and that's what we wanted to get back from the developers to understand what that impact could be because there have been conversations in the past of the best use of that parcel if it's the will the commission to keep it a parking garage then that information is no longer needed but we wanted to have it in case the questions came up from the commission of if we looked at developing the existing parking garage site what would that mean to the project okay thank you uh and so as the actual space planning efforts went we started with the joint government center a document the design criteria package is the baseline and then we went through and we looked at all of the staff positions that we have and we identified who we who would report to city hall and who would not once we had the short list of who would report to city hall we then reviewed it by the management category which is a human resources classification to determine positions and we assigned a square footage based off of each management category to kind of understand who would have an office who would have a cubicle who would have a workspace so that way it wasn't all just a standard approach for every person reporting to the building and then we looked at the conference rooms and special needs for each department we talked with each charter officer to understand what their needs are to really just kind of get that basic basic growth square footage understanding of what the the city side would need to be we then looked at the community spaces building amenities we went back and looked at the reimagining exercises that we went through with the community we looked at the oli report we looked at the joint government center report to really try to understand what we saw as as commonalities between all of the inputs and we identified those uh amenities we looked at the spaces that we currently have uh leased we have for example this building we use as an example for chambers to make sure we get the right size for chambers and then we modified the space to add things like back of house and support needs for a future chamber we looked at our lease spaces at the 101 tower we looked at all of those type of external factors we have now we also compared it with the joint government center to ensure that we're right sizing the square footage based off of our current needs and not just speculating on what we think would be great and then on the building support side we used gsa circulation standards to kind of just apply a gross square footage or a percentage to the building support side and then we looked at the back of house operational areas and storage spaces that uh that are utilized to opt to support the building as we briefly touched on already you know we're looking at two two lenses uh for the evaluation criteria the financing and the development again we'll all be onboarding consulting teams to help us do that evaluation in a timely method so that's what will be happening from that november 10th deadline until we get to the december 2nd presentations we'll be working on that and providing the feedback that those evaluations provide and then the last slide was the timeline again commissioner sorensen we would get the proposals back by november 10th evaluate during the month of november have december 2nd presentations and it sounds like the commission would would prefer to move the december 16th resolution to december 2nd outside of that is there any other feedback or building considerations we need to take into at this time um anyone have any questions or comments for ben i do mayor but go ahead uh great okay so thanks ben thanks for your work on this i know this is a lot so okay i want to just go through and this is something you and i are shared with some of the ideas for um criteria and just see if some of the criteria just want to get your feedback on some additional criteria making sure so um do in our existing criteria do we talk about experience doing p3s in broward or anywhere else so most of that for the qualifications of p3s and and the development team was done as part of the jacobs review there's nothing specific and the requests that talk about that i don't believe but that could be something that the commission considers when they hear the presentations that would make a lot of sense yeah so here's my concern is that that's why i wanted us to get clear on the criteria before we send it out so it's it's we've just we've sent this out already so i just so raquel i think experience and doing p3s matters um give me your feedback on that i guess first of all i i think that that is something to consider when determining which development team to go forward with and a lot of the evaluation process that jacob went through and presented on at the last meeting incorporates that type of information okay but i think it's i think it should be a very specific requirement not just you know we'll think about it if if it i mean we need to really make it a specific requirement because that that's going to be important to the success of uh of of any any one of the applicants so yeah maybe uh okay let me um so staff is going to do an analysis of the four in part based on the criteria the 18 questions how is is so is that analysis going to be provided to the commission in a way jacob's analysis was which is here's the criteria jacob's evaluated and here's who meets that criteria or doesn't is are these 18 questions going to be presented in a similar way so what we envision is putting together a summary of the findings from both of our consulting teams uh the the financial side uh and we'll be utilizing pfm will look very similar to a lot of the other p3 financial analysis that we've done where it talks about the cost of capital it talks about their approach to funding it it talks about risk factors and validates that the financing plan that they would be putting forward is reasonable uh on the other side we're working right now on trying to to to work through what the construction review will look like um but i assume that will come through with a very similar document and then there'll be a combination of those documents into probably a summary memo or a letter to commission or something along those lines that would memorialize the combined efforts okay i so raquel i'm trying to um the maybe i'll the jacobs form the jacobs analysis which is here's a criteria here's who meets or not meets it that's a helpful lens for at least me maybe that's just me but that's a helpful quick assessment evaluation so i think it'd be helpful to have something like that for the key criteria that we're thinking about for the four i think that we can produce something similar but a lot of this criteria is more nuanced than meets or doesn't meet and i think we have to highlight the distinguishing factors between the different development teams when you're looking at financials everyone on those teams or each team will have a different financial picture and so it may be it may be challenging to just say meets or doesn't meet but maybe we can highlight some areas that we think the commission should be looking at more carefully in the decision making process so i think we can do what you're describing but i also think that we would need to follow that up with some additional information and context okay um uh let's try okay let's let's look at this criteria for example is bonding does bound bonding capacity matter of a developer yes yes okay what amount of bonding capacity should they have part of what we want to look at in their supplemental response is what they're saying would be the cost of the project okay and so each team may come back to us and say this may cost this number or that number we would want to make sure that when they're submitting their bonding capacity or letting us know what that is and we're looking at their financial statements that we're comparing that to what they're estimating to be the cost of the project okay i'm sorry for the record i never okay um so i i guess what i'm hearing is city's going to do an evaluation staff's going to do evaluation of whatever they how what they think is important and helpful and then as a commission will take whatever they've done and then evaluate that i guess as um yeah evaluate that with the presentation it um so things that we think are important like i think bonding capacity really matters so basically what i'm hearing is we'll just see if staff includes that if the staff thinks that's important if they do and it's included in there somehow great if not then i've got to kind of just figure that out of for things that i think are important we'll ensure that that's included and you know their financial statements would also be something that we'll ask for our consultants will be asking for additional backup documentation as well so i think this is the moment that we wanted to get that feedback on anything that you felt was critical and necessary so what i'm hearing is that bonding capacity is one of those things i think that's something that matters so why don't i just tick through what i think is important and maybe it's not important i don't you know so for bonding you know we'll do a couple different exercises we'll work with our procurement department right because all of our construction projects now have bonding requirements i think it's 100 of construction cost okay as our rule of thumb so we have some metrics internally we use for other projects and then we'll also be seeking advice from pfm on their subject matter expert in dealing with large projects like this if they agree with that or if it needs to be modified but i do think we have standards in place that we just need to consolidate and and apply to the evaluation okay great i mean so my concern raquel is with there's times when other projects we've had in the city we haven't been as clear with uh requirements and so okay so great so bonding capacity is one of them um i think experience doing p3s mayor in broward county matters like that's not the end all be all but that that matters okay i believe the advisor the citizen advisory committee even recommended that approach did they okay yeah great so that's another component um the you know and i think this was part of jacobs but designing delivering city halls government centers you know in the u.s matters okay um facility management i think it sounds like we're seriously interested in having a exploring the possibilities of an fm in this so the experience and success of the fm component of the uh team for each of the four matter and again maybe jacobs did a little bit i don't know if they did much of that but anyway that's another component that i think matters um financial standing obviously we talked about so i think there's you know strength there um uh i think some degree of um safety efficacy track record right matters again maybe that's applied somewhere even during the construction or yep yep so are you relying would you want us to rely on litigation history as a measure of that or it it may be challenging for us to understand the safety elements of their prior work yeah yeah so have they had how many accidents they've had yeah safe safety statistics emr of less than one i guess is industry standard or something like that i don't so there's some basics they should be able to provide around safety um and then let's see if that gave me a great memo on the construction project delivery methods right so there's all these men let me open it up just so we're clear all right so there's definitely different delivery methods there's design bid build design bit uh design build cmr right so various ones so how are we contemplating contemplating or their experience or willingness to deliver in those so in the uh supplemental package we ask them to respond with to our information with two of those design build finance operate maintain and then design build finance and then internally we can review the design build finance and make a decision if we would want to move forward just a design build and then city have it finance uh responsibilities or not yeah okay all right great so those are some of the those are most of the ones i wanted to okay touch on is just an included so raquel let me just pause if that's well earlier you mentioned uh delivering p3s or projects in broward county so it could be anywhere really but i just wanted to clarify that because um they may or may not have done a project specifically in broward county but if they've done it in palm beach or well if they've done the state of florida their act they're operating under the state statute yeah maybe that's a better one better be a better state of florida yeah i think and again it's not an end-all be-all criteria but i think that's helpful for us to recognize so yes and commissioner sorenson i could ask is some of this information you're looking for stuff that you want us to ask for and then evaluate or do you want us to make sure that they include this in their presentation material so they can talk to you about their safety plans their safety records and have more of a direct connection of that i'd like to ask for it and then provide it then provide it okay yeah so i'd like to basically add whatever you think is helpful or additive out of what i've shared i think it'd be great to send a supplement to the four applicants to say in addition the commission would like this information why i like that approach but mayor and commissioner these have been opening but that way we get the information then you all can evaluate is this accurate is this are there gaps or whatever we might be missing um so that then they can then we can have all that the public can have all that information we can have all that information we can digest and evaluate it and then they can you know talk about whatever they want for their half hour presentation and i think mayor for the half hour presentation i think we keep it loose in terms of just they can speak about whatever they want to speak about right and we'll you know we'll ask questions as exactly yeah okay okay great thank you man all right thank you mayor is there anything anything further in your presentation no sir anybody else have any questions pam no more okay and commissioner glassman had to step out so um um dwayne do you have any report to me uh yes mayor um uh first i i have a couple of uh closed door requests um the first one is we we just received a uh a settlement offer and the fire station 51 matter with uh pierce goodwin alexander lenville that matter is set for trial on november 3rd which is going to be unlike the day before our next meeting um we'd like to have an opportunity to um have the offer considered by the commission and presented um and what we're thinking is if if you would accommodate us sometime today um probably after the evening's meeting uh statute does require that we give reasonable public notice of the time and date of client uh attorney sessions uh but the case law does suggest that um because reasonable is not defined that um when you you think about it you think about the rights of the natures of the rights of the members of the public who were providing notice whether how those are affected and since they aren't and you know required to be a part and participate in in the meeting we think the adequate notice um to provide them if we if you agree to have the session tonight well again um you know we would turn to you as to the um adequacy of notice but again it's a closed door session so um i don't know what notice we really need to give to the public i just think we just need to give notice to the public as to what our decision is going to be so so then pursuant to floor statute section 286.0118a i'm seeking advice in the matter of the city of fort lauderdale versus pierce goodwin alexander lynnville inc case number cace uh 2400625 uh to be held october uh 23rd at approximately 8 p.m or shortly thereafter okay that's okay with the commission okay is that the only other is that the only other secondly i'm requesting to have a session on november 4th on the matter of the city of fort lauderdale versus the florida department of transportation um the the florida division of administrative hearings case number 25-004856 uh r u uh the administrative law judge has asked us to start settlement talks with the department and so we'd like to discuss that we'd like to discuss that um also with the related cases we have the district court case um and two cases pending in uh florida district court so we're asking for those sessions to occur on the november 4th meeting okay that's okay all right very good all right is there any further business of the of the conference meeting there being none this concluded we'll we'll begin our meeting at 6 p.m