Good evening. Clerk, call the roll please.
Mayor Joshua Diaz. Here. Michael Burke. Here. Iris. Here.
Jose Jimenez. Here.
Sharon Davis-Berro. Here. Mayor Stephen. Here. Rebecca Wakefield. Here. Do you have a quorum? A member's question?
We missed Commissioner Moss. Here.
Oh, Commissioner Moss, I'm sorry.
Alright, then why don't we begin with the Pledge of Allegiance.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Good evening, everybody. We'll start this meeting of the Charter Review Task Force with a listening session and a reasonable opportunity for the public to be heard. So, is there any member of the public that wishes to speak on any topic within the purview of this board? Please come forward and state your name and address for the record.
I'm here, and I don't know if this needs to be addressed in the Charter or not, but it deals with the Constitutional Officers. I've already addressed it with the state reps, but I just wanted to make sure that if it needs to be addressed in the Charter that you all have the opportunity to put it in there. One of the things that, as a former candidate for one of the Constitutional Offices, because they're new, there is nothing to do with term limits. And so, where I've asked the state to add term limits to all the constitutional positions. In addition to that, residency. There is nothing to do with residency. That they have to be living in the county at the time they run for office. Those two issues I've addressed, like I said, with the state. The last issue that I think is important is that has to do with the IG's office. The constitutional officers now have approximately almost 50% of the budget. Therefore, I don't, they're not under the Miami-Dade County Inspector General. So, I don't know if that can be included in the Inspector General for the county or the state needs to do a separate state IG that would address financial issues locally. So, I wanted to give you all the opportunity, especially in our county attorney's office, to see if this needs to be part of the Charter so that if it comes up, hopefully after that election, this issue can be addressed and then they can do a bill or something. But I just wanted, since we don't have another charter issues until five years from now, I want to make sure it's also looked at locally. All right. That's it. Thank you.
Thank you very much. That suggestion I think we can address briefly, which is that we're very limited by state law and what we can even do in the charter with regards to the constitutional law officers. It's generally handled by the state. So, thank you for your thoughts. I think it's going to have to be a state issue.
I was worried that if we missed the opportunity, then it might be a problem. Thank you again.
We appreciate it. Thank you. Anybody else, anyone else wish to speak on any matter within the purview of the board? Okay. Seeing no one else come forward, the reasonable opportunity for the public to be heard and the listening session is concluded. And now we'll move on to the next line of business, which is the president's staff starting with annexation incorporation. Chairman of the committee, can you all hear me okay?
Yes.
I know that the presentation was provided to you a little earlier in the agenda. Here's our presentation. It's a little, and I guess it's hard for you guys since you're back is through the walls. It's seven, seven. All right. On slide two, you give you a couple of definitions of what an annexation and incorporation is. Basically, in 1957, the Homeland Charter was adopted, provided that the county has authority for incorporation and annexation. And to me, there is no greater complex policy issue than incorporation. It's the balance of citizens' desire for self-determination and self-governance. The preservation of services to the remainder of the unincorporated area has led to years of debate, as Mr. Mawson testified before him. To give you an idea, Article 6 of the Charter provides incorporation annexation guidelines and requirements. So on the next slide, just to give you an idea of what was happening when the Charter was originally adopted, there were 26 municipalities and about 35% of the population lived in AMSA. Prior to the incorporation of Miami Lakes, there were 30 municipalities in existence and 53% of the population lived in AMSA, so a lot of broke in AMSA. Just to give you some of the idea of some of the cities that incorporated from the 90s to the last one in Copper Bay in 2005. So today, we have 34 municipalities and 43% of the population lives in AMSA, so 1.2 million residents reside in the unincorporated area. On the next slide, Section 6.04 basically sees you the outline where, after a public hearing, the Planning Advisory Board is a recommendation for over 250 residents electors in that area. The actual annexation goes into a book. So on slide 6, creation of municipalities, Section 6.05 . Municipalities can only be created after DCC approval, after the Planning Advisory Board reviews, and after a majority of the voters in the area. So just to give you an idea of the previous Charter changes, one of the biggest being creation of a petition process through the actual Charter. There was a petition process through Chapter 20 of the Code. This one actually placed it in the Charter itself. So the group of an incorporation committee of at least five members has to file a petition with the clerk. The clerk reviews and approves it, and they have to go out and get 20% of the resident electors. They have to hold, they have to actually create a proposed Charter and hold at least three public hearings and submit the material. The Board has the ability to either approve or reject that proposal at that time. Obviously, the Supervisor of Elections has to verify all the signatures on the petition, and then the signatures are sufficient. The BCC may call an election at that time. The majority is approved, the budgetary analysis is done, the vote on the Charter itself, and the municipality is created. So just to kind of, obviously, the Charter gives us those main guidelines, and Chapter 20 of the Code is where we have the specifics of how things actually, the questions on Chapter 20. So just to show you some recent changes that we've had, back in 22, expanded notice requirements. So we're required to provide notices to all registered voters, property address, and property owners within the area, and 600 feet thereof, as well as neighboring municipalities. One of the bigger things that occurred, as well, is for annexations that, where there are not 250 resident electors, it requires a survey. So it's not a petition, it's actually a survey that's mailed out to those owners, and they say whether or not they want to be annexed in 2 to 10. The previous BCC actions that occurred in 2013 that changed the petition requirements from 25 to 20, and also removed the Founders Committee. The most recent change was on February 1925 through 25-13. We suspended consideration of incorporations for two years, annexations for four years, with the exception of three annexation areas. Florida City, the incorporation area of North Central Mac, Doral annexation. Some of you asked at the last meeting that I attended, you know, revenue neutrality, how do we do it, how does it work? So since 2000, there were three municipalities that were not revenue, Miami Lakes, Palmetto Bay. So one thing the county did in order to try to keep the incorporated area somewhat whole required these areas to pay the mitigation payments. Initially it was gratuity, obviously the new municipalities came out in seven years, they paid these payments in a couple years, and after that they were done. Their charters were changed, the county's moving forward since. The policy might be accounting for any incorporation or annexation that takes a lot of money from an incorporated area to make sure that those things happen. So that's part of the process today. Just to give you an idea on slide 14, there were a couple of attempts to incorporate an incorporated area back in 1997, 2002, both failed, they never moved. So we have quite a large incorporated area as well, and there is no policy right now that requires us to incorporate all of that area by any time frame. I know that in the last meeting when someone mentioned Broward, which is a little different, obviously Broward does not have a Home Road Charter, and the state required Broward to incorporate all those areas, and I think they still have two small, unincorporated areas as of the last time we took a look. The next few slides kind of go into the detail of the annexation process itself, all the steps that municipalities have to take, everyone has to do and look at when they file these applications for annexation. I really don't want to get into too much detail. If anyone has a question at the end, I'll be more than happy to go back. But basically, for example, if you go to slide 20, these are the things that county requires that municipalities keep. So retention of fire and library services, retention of garbage and refuse collection, retention of utility taxes and franchise fees for annexations. They are responsible for bond indebtedness. We've issued bonds with utility taxes, so if an area is annexed, we make sure that the municipality knows, hey, out of those utility taxes you're going to get for that annexation area, we can make this bond payment whole. And areas of countywide significance where we retain jurisdiction and we retain the authority to modify or delete your student documents. The next slide 21 goes through the same thing as the annexation process with corporations, very detailed as to how that process occurs. The same on 22-23. If you go to slide 24, it's kind of the same as the annexation, these are the things that the county requires as well. Retention of garbage, state of fire rescue, district of perpetuity and library system, try to have neutral boundaries. So if the boundaries are not neutral, mitigation could come into play. Responsible for bond indebtedness, as I mentioned, areas of countywide significance, authority to modify the public indebtedness.
What's a revenue neutral boundary?
So we'll get into the financials in a little bit. I have a section on that. Oh, okay. But I think we can, it'll be a little bit better if I could do it a second. So, like I promised, financial information, just to give you an idea of what the UMSA budget is. The dentist is in a way, but $730 million. Here are the different revenues, and these are the same revenues that would be attributable to a municipality. UMSA is considered a municipality by the state. We get revenue sharing as well, like a municipality would. That's a big distinction. So, here's the, on the next slide, slide 27. It's basically just a little breakdown of what each tax is and where it comes from. Governed by the state. All of these are basically passed to its charges. Just to give you an idea of what expenses are in UMSA, we have four portion of commissioners, attorney's office, and different. The biggest portion of the UMSA budget, like most municipal budgets, is the sheriff. Anywhere from 50 to 80% municipal budget is public safety. Here, just using this next slide on 29, is our impact to UMSA. This is an analysis that we do in the office on each incorporation. We take all the revenue sources and break them down. Obviously, we know what the tax revenue is because all the parcels that are being proposed to be annexed or incorporated. So, that's, that definitely is a finite number. We may look at all the other revenues and kind of contribute those revenues to the area, either based on population, like the state does for some revenues, or when we don't have that, that nexus, we use a tax rule and population-based formula to come up with an average of what that area would mean in terms of those revenues themselves. So, for example, if it's a small annexation, we'll say, okay, in this, in this case, $48,000 are attributed to property tax revenue, about $10,000 in sales tax. So, when you add all these up, it's about $106,000. That's what this area means in terms of revenue for UMSA. So, then you look at the expenses. You say, okay, the biggest expense, obviously, like I mentioned, being police. So, we look at the cost of service, part one and two crimes, the area, and a couple of different metrics to come up with a formula that we use on that $560 million that you saw earlier, and say, okay, this area is attributable, about $600,000 in police expenses. And right away, we look at the center lane miles, and it's the cost of center lane mile maintenance, and we say, okay, it's $4,500 is what we spend a year here. And then for the others, we just use formulas based on that direct service. So, you'll see at the end, there is a minus there, right? So, that means this area is costing us more than what it produces in revenue. So, in that case, there wouldn't be mitigation. There wouldn't be a reverse mitigation. But let's give the example that you mentioned earlier. Let's say it was flipped. That area provides a million dollars in revenue, and it costs us $600,000 to operate. So, there's a $400,000 delta that would go to maintain other parts of the incorporated area. In that case, we would look at the area and say, okay, this is going to take $400,000 from AMSA. So, we're going to mitigate that. We're going to mitigate it for seven years. So, you're going to make those payments in the county for seven years. So, that's how mitigation has answered your question.
That's about it.
I don't know if you have any particular charter.
The one question I did have was, how does the transition to the Sheriff's Office change kind of the analysis in terms of police budget and how that affects the county?
The analysis itself doesn't change only because we work well with the Sheriff's Office. They provide us the data that we ask for. So, what we use to come up with the Sheriff's costs, the police costs, are basically the formula we come up with that has total calls for service in the area, part one and two crimes in the area, population in the area, and square miles in the area. So, we take those five factors, AMSA-wide, and then we say, okay, this is X amount of AMSA, and that's how, based on the cost that we have for the police department and AMSA, use that to come up with an estimate. So, it hasn't had an issue yet. But, again, we haven't had an annexation in a few years, so.
Any questions? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I had the pleasure of working with this gentleman for a number of years. He's a great professional, and really is a man in the county. Working with these very difficult issues, and sometimes some very hostile residents. A couple of questions. Are you aware of any studies that look at city services versus county services? And, you know, which of those particular institutions do the best job? Are you aware of any?
Commissioner, I'm not aware of anyone specific. You know, one of the things that involves me, because I tell individuals or corporations, I say, look, this is about what level of service you want in your community. You know what you have when you're part of AMSA. Is that okay? I don't know. For everyone, it's different. Maybe for someone, additional policing, parks, zoning. So, to me, it's all up to that group of individuals, what they want, and obviously, you know, there's costs associated with you.
What I would request, if you could take a look around and see if there are any studies that make that comparison. Also, could you go back and take a look at comparison tax rates? Because that's a major issue for residents who may be contemplating incorporation. And particularly, could you look at the cities that have been formed since the 1990s? You know, not so much the legacy cities who, you know, basically, their rates have been created because of other circumstances. But the newer cities that incorporate, let's say from 1990, and look at their particular tax rates as it relates to the county's tax rate. Have that information, Mr. Chairman, that would be helpful.
Signature petitions, 25 to 20%.
Have there ever been any signature petitions that have been brought before the board?
Yes.
So, during the entire history of Redade County since 1970 incorporated, there have been no successful petitions, basically, brought forward by the residents, you know, that sort of a thing. And that all of those incorporations have been started by county commissioner. Is that correct?
Commissioner, I can't speak for that.
So, the petition process, I'm not going to say that it doesn't work because it is what it is. But it's not the greatest, I guess, opportunity to try to bring an incorporation, you know, before the county because it's difficult to go out and get 20% or 25%, you know, of the residents to basically sign on. You've got to have resources, you know, in many cases to get that accomplished. And in annexations, I know my friend has been, Jose has been very, you know, passionate about potentially having the business owners, you know, to participate, you know, in the vote as it relates to that particular area. What's the fundamental reason why, in the past, it's been limited to, basically, the eligible voters of the area?
Answer that. There's some constitutional concerns with allowing property owners to vote on those.
Can you speak over? Yes. Can you speak over? Sure.
There's some... So there are constitutional concerns when you expand the right to vote to property owners and not just registered voters that would have to be seriously worked through and considered. Typically, almost all voting matters are reserved just for registered voters and you have to be a resident of the area in order to vote, not just a landowner or property holder.
So from what you understand right now, that in these kinds of affairs, only property voters in the area are allowed to vote as far as you know. Or is it different? Does that, you know, that situation play out differently in some other locales?
Commissioner Moss, I believe your question related to whether or not you can expand who gets to have a say on incorporations or annexations to also include the property owners. And to that, my answer was it raises some constitutional concerns to expand the right to vote to anyone that owns property in the area as opposed to registered voters. There's some practical concerns as well in terms of how do you decide how many votes the property owners would get. Is it per parcel? Is it per rata based on the square footage? There's a lot of unintended or things that would have to be worked out in addition to the legal and constitutional issues if those were able to be worked out. But typically, if you're talking about making something subject to popular vote or referendum, the only individuals that are allowed to have a say in a popular vote or referendum are registered voters themselves.
So annexations for most parts of the state of Florida are controlled by the state.
I believe that is correct.
George can confirm on that with me as well. So does the state have any provision that would allow property owners to vote and not registered voters in the area that you're aware of?
I believe you're talking about particularly other parts of the state. Yes. From a constitutional and legal standpoint, there's cases from the U.S. Supreme Court and others that have essentially said that local governments are subdivisions of the state and are essentially subject to the will of the state on a variety of issues. So if the state allows for anything to even be subject to popular vote, it would be by choice, not by requirement. The state could theoretically annex or incorporate or add territory as it sees fit without needing any consent of the people involved.
But are you, and maybe you're not, but are you aware of any annexations that have occurred in the state of Florida that are controlled by the state legislature where they have allowed property owners and not registered voters to participate?
That I'm not aware of. Okay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
That survey can be disregarded. It's just a piece of information. Correct. It's just information. Mr. Chairman has had comments or questions.
George, thanks for all the information. It's been very helpful. And I like that my opinion was mistaken for passion. I'm not advocating one, but I do sometimes speak that way, so I get it. George, so you were involved when Sweetwater annexed the Dolphin Mall area. How many residents were included in that?
Inquired vote.
And the annexation from 54th to 74th, it's right now like that Doral and Medley have been arguing about. There's no residents there at all, right? So, and you don't do business improvement districts, do you, in any way?
No, not us. Okay.
Um, because in those, for example, that's why I made the correlation that strictly businesses in a defined area. So I thought there might be an analogy, especially when the majority, because what I was saying was worth looking at was in addition to registered voters, whether a renter or property owner or anybody else, and especially in an area like the two that I mentioned that are so commercial. I mean, the Medley-Durall one is 100%. I'm not aware of any housing there. And I was surprised that it's less, even close to 250 out by Dolphin Mall.
Because the reason in Sweetwater never expressed.
Right, right, right, right. Um, so that's, and I get it, and I concur with the county attorney that it would be, whether it's a folio number, whether it's a, it would be a hard formula to come up with. I would just, even if it's somewhere along the lines of when there is none, when there is no resident in something, if giving, that might be something, because the survey, if by the time somebody gets that far, the survey is probably, it really doesn't, doesn't matter
much.
Vote.
Um, my other question is, if we're going to do an analysis on the finances, given all these annexation requirements that the county keeps, utility taxes, franchise fees, is there any way to figure out what that would do to a municipal budget? Well, if, if a, if a source of revenue for UMSA is not passed on to the annexed or incorporated area, then obviously their taxes, regardless of level of service, even to keep them the same, would have to be higher because that revenue would not be going to the new city. You see what, you see what I'm saying?
I mean, if the code can change, it's debt service. I guess it depends on, UMSA's at one point, two municipalities, maybe three that are under, it depends on the level of service that they're providing and what it costs. It may or may not be, it may have never had it, you just can't do it unless you may walk in.
But my point is that, by definition, even to keep the same level of service, they are going to have less revenue. Because part of this revenue is already, for valid reasons, I'm not saying not, but they will get less money. And my last question, out of curiosity, and this might not have anything to do with us, if Miami incorporates Little Gables or Coral Gables, High Pines or whatever, they have to stay with the county fire? Or is this for, like we make one of the five municipalities that have a fire department split their service?
We haven't gotten there yet. Okay.
No, no, it's just the first time I hear it, and given the Gables fight with incorporation, I'm surprised I hadn't heard it.
It's been an interesting time.
Thank you. I just, I did want to make clear, this was something that I just thought because of, I've been somewhat close to those two annexations, and I know that property owners in those areas have opinions, and I just thought it was worth pointing out that their opinion has no real voice in terms of, there's a survey, but it's not, it's not a place at the ballot box when their rights are affected the same way as anybody else's.
Anxation is over here. No, no, no.
Those two, yeah. I mean the other two that I mentioned before. There is no election when Doral and Medley split fifty-fourth to fifty-eighth to seventy-fourth. Good evening.
I'm Mayor Josh Diegis from the town of Miami Lakes. I just wanted to also put my own thoughts on the record here with respect to annexation. I personally feel that it was a shame that the county put a moratorium, especially when you had certain cities that were trying to incorporate these commercial areas in order to provide a property tax relief to their own residents. Like Miami Springs, for example, I know that was a big reason why they were pursuing annexation, speaking as well to Virginia Gardens and the mayor there. You know, so I just want us to keep that in mind as well that, you know, yeah, like, you know, sometimes these applications serve other purposes and it allows a primarily bedroom community like Miami Springs to have some diversified tax bases available to them and, again, to reduce the tax burden for their own residents. And speaking for Miami Lakes, we're very proud that, you know, since we've incorporated, we've brought our tax rate down to the fifth lowest in the entire county. So I think it's pretty good. And we haven't even maxed out many of our other available fees, like the FPL franchise fee, et cetera. So I just want to throw it out to that. Sometimes annexations can be a good thing and a tool to provide relief to other residents in this county. And as far as providing a voice to the business community, I understand, you know, why some people feel that they're being disenfranchised. But at the end of the day, I think it's important to remember the legal status of these companies as artificial people, right? They live, the business owners in many cases live outside of where they have their business located and that's their choice. But, you know, again, I think the current system that we have works. And if anything, I would like to see the county, although it's not before us, right? I would encourage our county commissioners to reconsider the moratorium that they had there and allow cities to have a right of self-determination to continue allowing residents in the affected areas to have the right of self-determination. I can tell you that I've been approached by members of the PSN community, Palm Springs North, that would like us to consider annexing them. But obviously right now with the moratorium, we're prohibited from doing that. So I just wanted to put a different view out there with respect to annexations and where it could be actually good for the cities and for OMSO, at least, you know, from our perspective.
I had one question. The survey of affected business owners, that's in the ordinance, not in the charter, correct? Correct. And then from the constitutional perspective, is there, I guess, a way to make the sentiments of, if you didn't even come up with a formula, something that's mandatory without it being considered a vote that would run a new constitutional issue?
I think there's ways in which we could think about that.
But the devil would be the need.
Right. In parallel, you have resident votes, also a business owner survey or something, also a necessary component to the process. That's something that could be thought about. And you have to think through a lot of it. But I would say that's a holistic approach than just allowing property ownership.
That's, I get the constitutional point. I was more, and then the second order question, of course, is, is that something that should be in the charter as opposed to something, or is it a mandate that the commission have to have? But before we go down this, I know we had someone from the sheriff's office who was here and we had some questions last time just about, in terms of budgeting and figuring out how police services factors into, from the initial proposal to where it ends up at the end. I remember that was one of the issues that came up. So, I don't know if you prepared something that you wanted to come forward and share from your perspective how the sheriff's office factors into this analysis. I guess it's a generic question. How does the, I guess, how does the transition to the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office change how a municipality, either an incorporation or an annexation, would factor in budget for police services? Does it make any difference? Does it make any difference?
It doesn't change anything, to my knowledge.
It's sustainable for your and most of our personnel and other application process.
Anybody have any questions for the sheriff's office? Ms. Daniels had the most comments last time, and unfortunately she's not with us today.
Go ahead.
I'm actually not sure how this works, but in like Palmetto Bay, for example, it's county, and now it's your office that patrols it in their cars, but there's like a cigarette. I think Miami Lakes is the same way. Right. So, how are, are those, do those remain prior to this Metro employee, they're now sheriff employees, or do they at all, does the chief, the commanding officer there at all answer to the mayor? And the council?
Nothing has changed. Same process.
No, no. I don't know which way it worked before, that's what I'm asking.
Nothing has changed for them. They're just now. So they don't.
Yeah, so the, our police major, or major reports to the town manager, well, directly to sheriff, Rosie, but it's, it's selected in conjunction with her, with the town manager. The town manager and her get together and, and whenever, we need to select a new major, and, and that person gets assigned to our area until they leave or retire or whatever the case might be. But yeah, same structure, nothing's changed, just like she said. And, you know, but generally the major works with the town manager very closely. Is there a formal supervisory relationship? That's right.
I, I wasn't asking if anything changed. I figured it didn't, but I don't know how is it worked. It works, period, in terms of the reporting structure of a manager or strong mayor, whatever it may be. They don't have any authority over, over these officers or the, or the major. They, they still remain completely under the sheriff and it's sort of resources allotted to the, to the municipality, but not controlled by the municipality.
Is that, is that right? I, I think I understand what you're trying to say.
Yeah, you're saying it in two different ways. Okay. So, um, the day-to-day process with their officers who are, yeah. And that's more for administrative than anything to ensure that they have the resources, they mitigate issues, personnel, facilitate transfers, et cetera. But they fall under their, their operations.
Yeah. So, you know, we can give direction. For example, you know, for example, recently the town, uh, had a Grinch busters operation, which was a way of stepping up our police presence during the holidays. Right. Um, and that was something that was, that the council had given direction for. Right. In addition to providing a yearly budget, um, and everything else. But yeah, like, uh, as, as she was explaining, they strictly fall within the sheriff organization, but they do take instruction and direction from the town manager and the council.
That's exactly right.
Not, it wasn't about changing the sheriff from before to now. It's, I didn't know how it worked back then. So, the fact that it didn't change still left me equally. Anybody has any other questions?
Your time? Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to add something. I want to add it because, as I stated in an earlier meeting, I was initially opposed to incorporations. I came around to look at having port because I just think that cities have got an opportunity to provide a higher level of services. One of the things about, uh, annexations, which may be different in, in other areas, that caused me a concern is the fact that when cities have incorporated or incorporated cities, when they want to do an annexation, they look to annex the commercial properties, the major tax base. And so, that was a problem for me in my district because I wanted to make sure that that tax base was available to a future incorporation effort. And if cities, surrounding cities, were allowed to annex all of the commercial properties in the area, that pretty much doomed any kind of incorporation area going forward. So, that's just sort of a balance. You know, and again, different areas, you know, are different. That's something that I just wanted to put on the record, you know, so that people can understand.
Commissioner, to the extent that we were to have a requirement that there be some input from the commercial or the non-residential community, the non-electors, would you treat it differently for incorporation versus annexation?
Well, that was one question I had here. You know, it seemed to be a focus in annexations, but not so much in incorporations, you know.
In my time serving, I didn't see as much of a push on the part of business owners or property
owners when it came down to incorporations as I saw with annexations. With annexations, you know, most definitely people were very, you know, business owners and the property owners were very engaged and outspoken in that sense. But again, we've got a constitutional issue, and there's a reason why you don't have the property owners, you know, voting, you know, in those particular areas. And I think the survey is good. And I also hope that you're going to talk to us about an alternative to the incorporation piece, because as, you know, we talked earlier, you know, in all the time that Miami Dade has been incorporated, there's never been a successful petition, you know, process. Even for those cities, those most recent cities that incorporated, they didn't go through the petition process, because I'm not sure that they would have been able to gain those petitions, even though you had some significant support. I just wish that I had had the foresight at that time to be an ally and to be on board with them as they were going through that process, and it was a great push, you know, throughout the county to move in that direction and whatnot. So I had to do it all over again when Cutler Bay and Palmetto Bay and Pinecrest and the rest of them were making their move, you know, to incorporate. I would have chosen, you know, had some part of my district, you know, to also at least explore the idea. And at the end of the day, the people vote, you know, and they would make the decision. But I just wish that I had given them that opportunity, you know, to at least vote and have a say on whether or not they wanted to do something in that particular area. Because I see what I consider to be, you know, great results, you know, really good results, you know, for the surrounding areas that did incorporate in terms of their being able to provide, you know, a greater level of services, you know, in their communities. And that's something that I think that all communities need to have the opportunity to at least vote on and make a decision about.
I'm still mulling having a proposal to put forward on the idea that I had floated, but I just haven't been able to formalize it. Any other comments or discussion? Swayfield.
You always make me think, Commissioner Moss. It made me think that the comment you made earlier about what happens when all that's left are the pieces no one wants, right? Do, is there something that the county should be doing to think about that, what that means in terms of when you get to that point? Is there, I don't have a specific idea in mind. It just, as you said that, I thought, you know, we could end up with a couple of pockets like that that are just not well supported, right? So that's, that may be something to consider how you, and thinking about the High Pines and Little Gables example. I know that one well. I know that one well. That was, you know, Coral Gables wanted High Pines to pay for Little Gables because Little Gables was a money sink and High Pines was the donor community, which is why there was a big fight over that. So that may be something to think about in terms of how you approach incorporations and annexations in terms of what you ask. It may not always be a mitigation, but a, you're also going to take this, if you're going to take that. Maybe. Maybe.
You achieve revenue neutrality by. In a different way, maybe.
Maybe. As a territory that you add. As a territory that you add. And the state.
If I could respond to that, and that was exactly our position. You know, that if you're going to be able to annex High Pines, then you need to also take Little Gables, you know. The city wanted High Pines. It really didn't want Little Gables. But that was, you know, what we felt, you know, should have, should have happened. Because again, I go back to the comments that I had made, you know, that, you know, cities, and I understand it, you know, they want to, you know, annex, you know, high value, you know, properties, you know, and commercial properties, in order to make sure that they can, you know, they can take care of their tax base. At the end of the day, then what happens to those areas, you know, that aren't annexed, that aren't in court? How are they going to be taken care of to do it? And they will be in a constant state of minimum services, you know. And whereas then all the surrounding areas, you know, would basically have a higher level of service because they've been able to, you know, annex additional properties and, you know, raise their rates and do whatever else they need to basically do as integration.
Is there any appetite on this board to do something in the charter with regard to input from the non-electors?
I don't know if there's anything that can be done in the charter. I wanted to bring it up to discuss it. I realize it's complicated and I think it is entirely too complicated to solve in the charter. It seems to be in chapter 20, if at all. And whether or not the survey is binding or requires the county commission to whatever. It's just too, I can't think of a way to put it in charter language rather than code. So as the proponent of this, I don't think there's anything there that we should do. If anything, I think Commissioner Moss's point is a lot more important that I'm against certain incorporations or annexations that create enclaves. And that should absolutely be forbidden by charter. Because unless I'm mistaken, I might be off by a street or two. Little Gables is surrounded by two cities. It is the only unincorporated section and it is the model of inefficiency for a fire department to have to drive through two different cities to get to the area that it services. Instead of either having Miami or Coral Gables take care of it. So, and that is absolutely the reason why, in a short sighted manner, the Gables back in the day didn't want little Gables. They certainly do now. It's a whole different story now. So, but it just, for UMSA being stretched thin as it is, to have UMSA dollars going to county firefighters to go take care of something that's locked, it's, that just sounds inefficient to me. So, at the very least, we should maybe, if we want to do anything, prohibit any enclave from ever being creative due to annexation or incorporation.
But, by the way, for the record, what I was thinking was something minimal, like that there had, that the code must account, must have some mechanism to account for, because it's not currently in the charter. Right. So, it might be as simple as the survey can never go away. Okay. But it would be more of a process, like they must have some process by which to assess. Impacts on the non-residential, non-elector area.
And look, and to the mayor's point earlier, you have commercial property owners that have owned commercial properties and have businesses before some of these places were even incorporated. There are plenty of businesses in Doral that are older than Doral. So, they don't necessarily, they didn't live in Doral when they started a business. They don't live there now. But they've grown with it. They pay taxes there. They've developed a business there. And as a business owner in a city that I don't live in, I'm very interested in the inner workings of the city that I own a business. And I'm sure, I'm sure the mayors both have long standing businesses in their cities that maybe the people don't live. Not, not as, not as any reflection on the city. Like I said, they just, they don't, they don't. So, I think they should be. And if that's something that, I'd be happy to propose that, Dennis. That at least the survey be moved from the code to the charter so that at least the business community, and I don't even like calling them the business community, non-resident property owners are asked. They own property there. They could be building property that somebody will live in one day as a resident. It doesn't have to be a business. They just, it could be a vacant field for all of them. But they should be at least asked what they think. If they're going to be represented by this city or new city or annexed.
And pay the taxes. You want to shepherd this along with the attorneys? Sure. All right. Hopefully, maybe for the next agenda, you can have that. And I am still intending on... If you doesn't mind, why do I have to... No, it's different. No, no, no, no. I mean, the issue that I had flagged a couple of years may have more of a chance of passing. Mayor Lossner.
Mr. Chair, and this is just one of those, you know, the cartoon bubbles that, the thoughts that come up during the conversation. So you could put it in terms of, you know, non-resident property owners are subject to the tyranny of the majority in either an annexation or incorporation. And again, thinking out loud, annexation or incorporation is a major step, just as is the amendment of the state constitution. Just the thought about raising the threshold of voter approval from 50 to 60% to take that major step of annexation or incorporation. You have more folks who are bought into it, and you don't have as few folks, let's call it what it is, voting to impose a new level of tax on non-resident property owners. Because typically, that's the objection. It's not how the city is run. It's about the new layer of tax burden that will be factored in on those non-resident owned parcels.
It may also be the permitting, not your city. Not mine. I mean that sincerely.
Let me just live up to my reputation tonight. The appetite for annexation and incorporation, in my personal opinion, is a reflection on a failure of the efficiency of county government or confidence of the people in the county government. And to talk about not being, you know, the Enclave train may have left the station a long time ago. Pinecrest, Cutler Bay and Palmetto Bay all got the cherry pick. They didn't step across the west side of US-1. So let's say in a hypothetical world, if I, what's that? So let's say in a hypothetical world, I wanted to go out west with an annexation either to the UDB or to my electric service area, my water and sewer service area. And the county was then going to tell me, but no, you have to take Leisure City, which is a war zone, and would take – Leisure City is a place name, not an incorporation – would force Homestead to quadruple, at least. It's police force and code enforcement, and it may very well be non-governable. So, you know, I kind of always had an issue with, if you're going to take this, you have to take that, because the VAT that nobody wants to take many times is a result of the failure of the county to maintain certain standards in certain areas. So, you know, that's kind of where I have a problem with, with the Enclave. If you want this, take that. And I get that, you know, in some of your more affluent areas that they fight over in other places, we don't have that. But south of Cutler Bay and west of U.S. 1, there are, I think, some areas, arguably, that no one would want to be the mayor, council member, or commissioner of New City ABC. You're just looking for something to do in retirement.
But I think, perhaps, through the prism of revenue neutrality, you maybe cast a different analysis on that, because it's not the whole area. It's just – it's enough to offset the positive revenue that you're taking out of the system for offset. Maybe that's a neutral way to do it.
But, you know, I always kind of look at it in view of if I'm going to annex it, I'm relieving the county of providing services there. So why do I still have to pay the county? Again, it comes back to my word of the night, inefficiency, that there's seemingly no ability to contract, to reduce their exposure for servicing an ever-shrinking UMSA.
Of course, it's not shrinking that fast at the moment.
Not now, and Walt, but that's a whole other issue. Comment, comment. Yeah, please.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. When you talk about the inefficiency of the county, the county is not the city. It's not set up to provide those city-like services. That's the reason why my thinking changed. So it's not that county are bad people or bad guys in this case. It's just that the county is not structured to do what a city can basically do. You know, I was the mayor of District 9, you know, and so the potholes and all of that and all those kinds of things, you know, I had to basically try to do my best to take care of those. But it's different if it was a part of the city, the city of Homestead. I mean, you know, you can... And a reaction time. Yes, absolutely, absolutely. You know, and a more focus on city-like services, you know, whereas the county, you've got the airport, the seaport, you've got solid waste, you've got, you know, environmental services, you've got all of these different major regional responsibilities. And so, you know, again, the county is not set up to be the city. It's a city by default. And so, you know, it's those areas that have been able to incorporate, I say to them, you know, congratulations, because, you know, they can get things accomplished a lot quicker, you know, and a lot more responsive because, you know, their focus is their city, whereas the county's focus is the entire regional area. And, you know, I would not have a problem with being the mayor of an area that included Leisure City, because I think that, you know, areas like Leisure City, you know, can be helped, can be turned around, can be made better.
And I certainly, you know, I can respect and appreciate, you know, from your side of the county, Dias, one other point I wanted to make that it's a whole new dynamic, particularly in Deep South Dade, U.S. 1 is becoming lined with high-density projects that are at least in part non-taxable, yet those folks are going to require police and fire services. So as that factors into the equation, and if, you know, enclaving is going to be prohibited, you know, it could very well quash any future attempts at annexation or incorporation due to the lack of tax base, yet very high demand, in theory, based on density, for services. You know, the live-local type projects and the RTZ, the workforce-type projects, are at least in part exempt from taxation.
Well, the RTZ is exempt from impact fees if they're workforce housing. It's live-local.
Yeah, but depending upon the type of housing, the RTZ project could be at least in part tax-exempt. Because of the live-local state. Because of the live-local. Just an added layer of financial issue going forward.
I think that weighs in favor of not doing anything too prescriptive in the charter, because there's a lot that's going to have to be worked out legislatively. But I think we've got one process issue. I keep promising to come forward with another one, which I will do for the next meeting. Anybody else want to be heard on annexation and incorporation? Okay. Mr. Attorney, you've got some direction for the next meeting. Our next topic is Article 7. We had asked the Parks Department to come forward and give us a little bit of a briefing and see if there's any projects that would merit any changes to Article 7 to allow them to move forward. Can you speak in the one way?
You're taller. Is that better?
Mr. Attorney, good evening, Chair.
Congrats. Thank you for inviting us back to make a presentation. Article 7.
In the presentation, we're going to cover information on the Parks Department, our government, Article 7. The County Parks operates as a two-tier system, providing park services at a regional level for the 2.8 million residents of Miami-Dade County, at a local level for the 1.4 million residents of AMSA, the unincorporated area. Area-wide parks that are serving the entire county. Example of those are Fallover Park or Cranston Park, as well as any of our Greenway Trails. Local parks are the smaller parks, mini parks, neighborhood parks that are nested within communities. For us, we are guided by our mission to create outstanding experiences to enhance the quality of life of our community, now and for future generations. Our vision is to connect people and parks to life. Our customers, what are our parks' customers, are the 2.8 million county residents, the 1.4 million AMSA residents, as well as the 27 million county visitors annually. Our goal is to improve health, happiness, and prosperity by fostering lifelong connections between communities and parks. We prioritize exceptional facilities, recreational opportunities, and foster stewardship while maintaining high standards of performance and effective management practices. We are the first nationally accredited park system that serves over 2 million residents. We have over 300 parks and 40,000 acres of passive, active, and endangered lands. We operate 60 recreation centers and maintain over 70 miles of each. We serve over 400,000 swimmers at our aquatic facilities and over 100,000 boat colleges in our communities. Our Sioux Miami is the fifth largest Sioux in the U.S., close to a million visitors a year, generating 20 million dollars for the county, and an economic impact to the county, probably $454 million. For governance, we are guided by three policy plan documents. The first one being Article 7, which I'll discuss a little bit further down. The second one being the Comprehensive Development Master Plan, which expresses the county's objectives and policies addressing where and how it intends to develop and conserve land and natural resources. The CRP, that's the Comprehensive Development Master Plan. You'll find the Recreation and Open Space Element, we like to call it the roles. Addresses open spaces and facilities that provide regional opportunities as their primary function. And the third document that guides us is the Arts Open Space Master Plan, the OSMP. And its vision and guiding principles are adopted by ECC and incorporated into the roles. Now, diving into Article 7, on the screen you'll see an image of a Madison cover that shows what was happening when Article 7 came about. In the 80s, during the economic-wide recession, rapid development left most land available, creating a boom-and-back economy. Later, in the 90s, pressure grew to develop apartments for profit with proposals for hotels, nightlife, and housing. Article 7 was created as a response to what was going on and still happens in South Korea in the 80s and the 90s. Provisions that are now Article 7 were initially adopted in 1993 as Article 6 of the Miami County Charter. This original inclusion came from a citizen-initiated petition to protect parks and is commonly known as the state or parks amendment. In the early 2000s, there was a number of the charter sections and articles that previously designated Article 6 was updated to Article 7. In 2014, the county made amendments following a 2012 referendum that allowed for certain structures and uses under Article 7. These amendments required a two-thirds majority for voter approval and the ballot question was approved. As a result, BCC proposed changes to allow libraries within parks, exempt the regional soccer park from Article 7 restrictions, and enhance protection for preserved lands. In 2022, the DCC established a rule requiring a supermayority both for questions related to Article 7 and ensuring broader consensus for proposed changes.
Article 7.
Now, specifically Article 7. Now, specifically Article 7, Parks, Acquire, Preservation, Preservation Lands. It protects parks and trees, parks acquired for parks needs to remain parks for future generations. It doesn't allow for commercialization of parks, and all uses within parkland need to serve a public park purpose. park purpose this policy is what the community of park activists and watchdogs have called us to there is no other requirements that has had a separate referendum voted unanimously by the public to set standards by which parks how we plan develop and store resources and protect them from inappropriate non-park uses or private for profit issues article 7 as it stands today remains critically important and relevant for protecting parks thank you very much um so i guess it's the
last uh since the last time there was a charter amendment related to article 7 are there any projects that the parks department had wanted to do um that ran into a difficulty because of article 7. one i can recall being involved was the metro zoo which ended up getting a referendum um but i don't know if there's anything you want to share about that not necessarily the uh we've
discussed internally uh and at this time we find that the article 7 really is doing what it intended to do but the community wants it to do from a park perspective which is ensuring that parks are protected in perpetuity and that uh non-park uses uh are not occurring on a park as well as uh making sure that
they are not so you don't uh the department doesn't have any recommendations for no we don't have
that thank you don't want to be heard with some of the stuff that's happening at the state with regards to property taxes right and impacts to funding and i know that last year during the budget season it came out in the media that the county was going to charge for parking at parks or something to generate revenue for funds and i noticed that you mentioned earlier that 27 million visit visitors to miami dean county is there anything that from the hotel bed tax or something like to me i have personally have a concern because i use a lot of the county parks um that there's not enough funding and there's going to be something that's going to happen to the parks if property taxes goes this way and those monies are lost or if something happens what opportunities are there to keep and looking at the budget you're 58 million you're like one of the largest departments of funding that's going to be needed so if property taxes are in fact amended if you know something happens is there other resources or something that should be you know looking forward to help you all to keep the funding because if not something's going to give yes definitely always been an issue with
the park department and we are struggling with uh funding and also funding uh are there future opportunities for uh making sure that there's uh let's say a dedicated some park that's something that would be looking at the future we're also always looking at partnering with other agencies to be able to uh provide services programs uh develop a park all within the uh constraints of uh restrictions and at the end of the day are to protect park i'm not saying to expand any anything that's in article 7.
i'm trying to figure out if there's a way to create opportunities to keep the first revenues like i don't know what the national park service does or what the florida park service does like what are different programs that they are doing in their parks that could help you all find more consistent revenue flow because i feel like after the last year and everything that's happening the property taxes your department is one of the biggest ones that would be impacted so i don't know within the within the park realm of what parks can do right because you have a list in article seven of one of the things that you can do um that's something that i just think that i don't know if there's an opportunity for the if for you guys to think about that look at those studies and come back and see if there's anything that this board can help you all in and kind of anticipating some of these things that may happen in the future and if there's something in article
seven that can help you there are yes there for me but they can be built over yeah properties outside the park i can see how do you determine whether it's primary we done what their reach is based on
so like if it was telecommunications 50 coverage to the park i don't know if you have a number
for example they're always looking for land yeah first meeting we had identified in section seven some
areas that needing we're going to be updated just due to the fact they go along in the tooth as far as they explain instead of having it labeled as zoo miami that's all being changed um that's part of the non-practical sections there just to stick on the financial question um on the deferred maintenance for county parks what is the current and you you mentioned that we have um how many parks in the county so over 300 parks and we have aging infrastructure and a deferred maintenance number that you don't have tonight but it's is it in the couple hundred million dollars 300 that that would be um that would be helpful and you mentioned also is there a parks advisory board citizen parks right mr chairman it might be useful to hear from there's any recommendations from those residents that are strong advocates for our county parks maybe they have potentially some ideas for that for section seven sure yeah is there
a way that you'd uh request to the parks advisory board to let us know if they have any suggestions or if they want to send a representative to our next meeting will be a county hall um if they have any thoughts that they want to share from their perspective i think that that's a good that's a good idea
i wanted to the next meeting if you can i would be interested in your department looking at the the finances and see if there's anything in here that you all would need help with to create opportunities for that i want to be clear on that so if you have existing leases that are set to expire things that are going to change property tax if there's a way to hotel bed tax if there's something in here that we can make a recommendation we really like you guys to think outside the box without within staying within the realm of what you are i'm not telling you to go that far but i'm but i am concerned about funding any other uh any other
discussion on uh on article seven all right so we've got a little bit of homework for the next meeting um i understand someone from the clerk's office was here to discuss going back to annexation
incorporation just wanted to confirm if as part of the changes that you're going to be looking at section 605 of the charter you're looking at the request that we made at the very first one of our very first meetings where we wanted to change how the clerk's role is reflected in that section i don't know if you recall we had some recommendations about moving certain functions or roles that we have about checking the forms of the petitions the boundaries verifying that the boundaries are correct those are things that typically we have to send to the county administration to approve um rather than having the clerk be the one that does that did we not already address that when we made the other changes about uh okay thank you for the reminder yes that's a useful function
um do we have that language uh readily available i don't believe so okay mr attorney i believe there
was some policy consideration in terms of whether or not i know that the clerk has a preference to
divest itself of some of those responsibilities but whether or not the county wants to divest the clerk of those responsibilities as a policy decision um and then who would you place those for that decision so i think that's part of the reason why i was tabled the first time since it wasn't just a ministerial change of indicating who now essentially has the function since this will actually require a decision to be made right yeah i wasn't thinking about making a motion on it this
evening i just wanted to know if we had the proposed language so that we can take it up
next meeting so we know what we're looking at i think yeah i think it would just be helpful to
have something but kind of like you did when we first took up constitutional officers to make sure that we're all clear on what we're looking at and what the request is um so uh if you can submit it in advance of the next meeting maybe circulate it with the agenda and then okay we need
like the mayor's office or somebody to also look at it and provide a suggestion that would also be helpful where we land yeah that would also be helpful
well yes to the extent that there i was i had started this only if it makes money i give it to
the parks department right if it doesn't make money then no no unfortunately the paper so
going to assume that since you're asking to offload it it's not a
revenue generator okay so that that being the proffer um if you could get the language you know sooner to
staff and then you all can as an administration team kind of look at it and give us your best recommendation as well we'll do sounds good thank you thank you for flagging that all right thank you okay any uh any other uh any other business for the good of the order uh oh do we have we don't have minutes then in that case uh our next meeting is miss henderson march 24th 10 a.m county hall or in chambers that's right okay great okay um there being no other business is there a motion to adjourn issue On favor anyone who should record it now