Good evening. The City of Plantation Advisory Board Workshop is now called to order at 5 p.m. Ms. Begaro, will you please call the roll? Councilmember Anderson? Here. Councilmember Andrew? Here. Councilmember Fadgen? Here. Councilmember Horland? Here. Councilmember Reinstein? Here. Mayor Sortel? Here. City Attorney Ezra? Here. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Begaro. All right. We're going to jump right into it. We are going to hear from the Advisory Board. They'll be providing an update of their 2025 accomplishments and goals for 2026. First up is the Affordable Housing Advisory Board. Do we have the Chair here? Mr. Alpert? Do we have any information on that? Good afternoon. I'm Michael Alpert, Assistant Director, Planning, Zoning, and Economic Development. So I will read the statement and answer any questions that Mr. Dotko had written. So obviously the Committee is committed to reviewing the statutorily mandated considerations and providing the City with novel recommendations as well. To that end, our 2025 AHAC report demonstrates a year's worth of considerable effort to promote affordable housing within the City. We intend to continue that momentum through 2026. The Committee recognizes the 11 areas for recommendations are the minimum standards for our responsibilities as a Committee. We dedicated 2025 to going above and beyond these minimum requirements and thinking outside the box to develop additional actions or initiatives. that we believe will encourage or facilitate affordable housing in the City. One such area where we've been significant, seen significant progress over the... Oh, okay. Saved by the Chair. Saved by the Chair. Thank you, Mr. Alpert. Sure. Good evening, Mr. Dotko. Good evening. Terrific. Thank you, Michael. Oh, here's your coffee if you want. And the other mic. Apologies for the delay. That's all right. I was out in the hallway trying to finish a conference call for work. As Mike was saying, last year we had a tremendous year. We focused a lot of our attention in trying to develop innovative solutions to the affordable housing crisis in the City of Plantation. One thing we've noticed is that it's pretty important for us to identify an issue or a target that we want to explore more in depth with throughout the course of the year. We meet once a month, so it's hard for us to give recommendations comprehensively, you know, if we're kind of scattered and all over the place. We had our first meeting of the year last week, and as a board, we decided that this year we're going to focus our attention. We'll continue to entertain all areas of affordable housing, but we're going to focus our attention this year on the issue of senior affordable living in the City of Plantation. It's a major issue here, and we had a town hall last year that was incredibly – it was well-attended and very successful. So we want to build on that and try to develop recommendations for this council this year, in 2026, to address the affordable housing crisis, especially as it pertains to senior citizens. Thank you, Mr. Dudko. First, I want to thank you personally for your leadership on the advisory board and for that initiative in the Silver Linings Town Hall. I know some people had their doubts, but it was very successful, and there's been a ripple effect from that, and I think we're going to be able to build on that, so thank you very much. Thank you, and I thank you as well for all the work that you put into that. My pleasure. Council or Mayor, any questions for Mr. Dudko? Mayor? It's more of a comment. I think the other accomplishment that AHAC has done is we've raised awareness with the council. So now every time council looks at a development, affordable housing component, you guys bring it up more and more. And I think that's a credit to the personalities on the board, and it's a credit to the council for listening and being open to hearing the ideas. And I think some of it has made its way up to the top. And we really do have a great board. It's a diverse board in terms of backgrounds, so it really helps us to attack problems and not have any blind spots by having those diverse members and viewpoints sitting on the dais. I know there are some holes to fill still in terms of members of the committee that we hope are filled soon, but we are looking forward to a productive 2026. Wonderful. And I think to the mayor's point, you know, between the Planning and Zoning Board, your board and the council and administration, I think we're in such a good place. And we're making very thoughtful decisions about where we want to see the city go, especially in terms of affordability. So thank you so much for that. Thank you. Mr. Alper? I just want to add that we have our ADU workshop on February 5th right after the AHAC meeting. It will start at 6 o'clock, and the purpose of this is to inform residents about the ability to do it. And our building official and our city engineer will also be present to answer questions about construction so we can help move things along for people that are interested in doing that. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Dutko. Thank you. All right. Next up, Education Advisory Board, Mr. Towsig. Good afternoon. Nice to see you. Thank you for being here tonight. You're welcome. First, I'd like to thank the council and the mayor from all the members of the EAB for our appointments. I think we have a pretty good crew going. Several members have been on the board for a while. We finally think we've gotten our footing down to what we can do. And obviously, trying to move this with the school board is like moving Plymouth Rock. But what we can do inside the city and things we can do to help with our citizens as well as the members of the city to give a better opportunity for later on in the future. This year, we started with a – we instituted the Teacher of the Month Recognition Program, and I want to thank the Plantation Women's Club as our title sponsor for that. Each teacher gets a $100 gift card, plus we have some other businesses through the city and in the general area. They get a gift or two each month. We have December and January. December and January is coming for the 28th meeting to be recognized because we didn't meet in December. So we have that, and we're starting to really get our footing in with the schools to get teachers and administrators to come to the EAB board to tell us what's going on, as well as to getting in there with our EAB members that have schools. Each member has three schools, and keeping in the education, the information back and forth with them. We're going to continue, as I said, the relations with the – and advocate for the needs of the schools. We're – for the next 2026, we're going to encourage more of the free little libraries throughout the city. We're looking to increase the community outreach with the city boards at city events. We were talking about at all the different events the city has, having a table and being maybe one or two boards could be there to – just to push the people in the right direction of what we're doing in the city, have a QR code, and obviously it's something that we'll have to work with the city because everything has to go through that, having a QR code. And people that may not know what – the other boards that we have, we have so many boards in the city and other events, but also to get pushed into the website to see what the city does as the advisory boards as well as other organizations in the city. We're looking to reinvent a couple of the school contests that we had to encourage businesses and literacy and getting more of the business involved. We're looking to add, possibly for the high schools, a student liaison from the three high schools we have in the city to kind of give us the insight of what's going on as far as from their perspective, making sure we're hitting the mark. Again, I'd like to thank the council and the city for our appointments. Obviously, Laura for keeping us on board and keeping us educated and rather informed of all the things that we get. The Plantation Women's Club, which, you know, we can't say enough about the Plantation Women's Club. And also, like I said, we finally found our groove, I think. And we have a couple new members on the Education Advisory Board, some reappointments that just we need to get on. So hopefully we're moving in the right direction for another year and be much more successful as we finally found our groove. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Taussig. Councilmember Reinstein has a question before you leave. Yes, Chair. Thank you for being here, Mr. Taussig. Thanks for everything the EAB does. One of the things that I think the EAB does a great job of is giving our principals an opportunity to come before the EAB and promote the good things that are going on in their schools and see where there may be ways we can assist. This is really directed more to the administration than to you directly is that one of the great things that the current administration does is communication and promoting all of the things that are going on throughout our city. I'd like to see maybe even more promotion of what goes on in our advisory board meetings to the extent that maybe even in the mayor's notes or maybe something separate from the mayor's minute would be to promote our advisory board and advisory board corner where you give some kind of information. Because, you know, we hear so much about the schools and we probably all get questions all the time about what's going on in our schools and not enough of what goes on at the EAB meeting is promoted throughout the city. And so we're doing a great job of bringing it to the forefront and you're doing that chair, Taussig, but it may be in collaboration with the administration we could we could do that even even further this year. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Einstein. Mayor. I had a couple of thoughts on that. I'm glad you brought it up. Number one, if we wanted to share positive info about every one of our schools, every EAB member has three schools, they could send one sentence a month about what's going on in their schools if there was somebody to compile it and we would give it a wash and we would dictate kind of what things we want. So we don't just cause your team on a ball game that doesn't make it. You know what I mean? And somebody could compile it and we could send it out on our platforms. Problem is doing the work, right? The problem is doing the work. But the other thing I thought of was the same with advisory boards the night after an advisory board meeting, the chair could send a paragraph. What we did, what happened, what's next? Compile it, put it all in a list and ship it out. Is that what you're thinking, Councilmember Reinstein? Go ahead, Councilmember Reinstein. Thank you. So any number of ways I think it could accomplish that. And it just so happens that I'm not ever to want to give our staff any more work. But, you know, Laura's work on communication and Laura's work in getting, doing the surveys and communication throughout our department, throughout our city, would probably be primed to also assist with that. I think really that our staff members can assist the chairs with trying to filter a few tidbits of information from each of our meetings that can be highlighted. And, you know, it's another way to try and empower our various advisory boards to, you know, to be visible and present throughout the city. Thank you. Go ahead, Mayor. And the reason we have these boards is you all can drill down on things that we don't have the time or the energy to do. So if we could take advantage of their drill downs and share what they get with the public, if you all are comfortable with that, that's one option, how to actually do it. Chair Taussig, do you believe that you have somebody on your board currently who might be able to, you know, collate that information from one of your meetings? Well, we can talk at the next board meeting if somebody has that. Obviously, the minutes are available. I don't know if you get a copy of the minutes as well as the getting out there. What we're saying is getting out with the other boards and at city events, having a table, and that way people can – and my thing is I'm very proactive to the QR code. Everybody has a smartphone, but they have some information to get to it and can kind of find out what's going on as well. So I think we're hearing two things, but really the same thing. Yeah, but I'm just looking at communication is the best. You can take advantage of the mayor's news and notes, which is widely read throughout the city. And if we could get just – not just minutes of the meeting, but a couple of positive things that are happening in the schools, which your advisory board members and or the principals coming to your meetings might be best able to provide that to us. So I think yours would be the best avenue to gather that information. So – okay. Mayor and then Councilman Reinstein. The real quick and dirty one, though, is whenever the minutes are available, we could send them out. Sure. Sure. If people will read them. But, yeah. Right. That's the easier one, actually. I think your newsletter is a little easier read. But Councilman Reinstein. Yeah. One more real quick. Chair Tosik, I think at your last meeting that I attended, there was some discussion about wanting a student member on the EAB. And I didn't hear you bring that up here. But is that something that you are – that the board is still looking at and wants to bring to our attention? You mentioned the liaison, right? Would that be the same thing? Right. With the high schools. We're going to start with the high schools. Okay. The liaison. The three high schools. We have American Heritage, South, and Plantation. So we're looking to get a – we kicked it around a little bit as far as either another person on the board, but at least a liaison that would come and give us the student's perspective. Many years ago we talked about maybe a liaison from the PTA, PTOs, or whatever, to find out from the parent's side, not just from the school's side. So we had our first meeting, like many of the other boards, just this month. So we had a longer meeting than usual, but it's something that's on our list to try to get done. And so we're going to look into it and find somebody in the student council or students that would like to be a liaison. The biggest thing is we can think of everything we want that is right for us, but maybe we need to see from the student's perspective. That's great, but it doesn't really affect us. I mean, as Councilman Anderson probably knows, the students – we look at things from one perspective. They look at a different perspective, and we kind of need to get together. And, I mean, everything looks good on paper, but if it doesn't work, it's – so just make sure we're all on the same page and on the same playbook to get what's best for our students and our citizens of the city. Great. We look forward to that. Thank you so much, Mr. Talsik, for being here tonight. Bye-bye. All right. Next up, library board. Ms. Heward? Good evening. We're looking forward to that signature event and seeing what happens with that, so thank you. Yeah, it's changed it up a little bit, and you have quite a dynamic group, and we appreciate everything you do, especially with the fundraising, with the youth's book sale, and the luncheon, so – okay. And how might people make a donation or drop off gift cards to you? Okay. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. Any questions? Thank you so much for everything you do. All right. Next up, moving into Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, Mr. Lees. Hello, sir. How are you this evening? Tier, e-box art, and our goals for next year, a lot of the same. We're going to provide few types of events that come up, with the capital parks and profits, the playground design, venue upgrades, provide input and support for grant opportunities and long-range planning, volunteer at various events, continue to make suggestions to improve existing programs as needed, continue to assist with summer campus scholarship program as needed, and review and promote support Plantation Parking Rec Foundation efforts in supporting the department. Great. Mr. Lees, I do have a question. Do you currently have a representative from PAL who regularly attends your meetings? Okay. Years ago, a member of PAL was actually an appointee on the board. I don't think that we necessarily need to do that, but I think that it might be advantageous for your board to reach out to the president of PAL and try to get someone to come and give you updates. As one of the largest users of our fields, I think it would be important to hear from them on occasion. All right. Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Lees? No? Thank you, and thank you for your leadership on the board. Bye-bye. Good night. All right. Planning and Zoning Advisory Board, Mr. Corman. Good evening. Good evening. Hello. Y'all have gotten the report. I assume you read it. I wasn't originally going to be here, schedule change, so I'm here. As far as what we did in 2025, a lot of our regulatory per code oversight was related to the comp plan. And there were several iterations and pauses that we went through because everybody on the Planning and Zoning Board took it very seriously because we were aware that this was setting the tone for the next at least 15, probably 25 years or so. And that that is coinciding with a growth and development, in particular, large density projects that are out there. So we wanted to make sure that things were in line and that what was ultimately presented to you all was acceptable and comprehensive. To that end, I do want to thank two members, Max Goldstein and alternate Macintosh, who were very crucial. It's not coincidental that as the younger members of the group that they were looking forward in a very particular way, which was making sure that staff put into writing. Some of the same language that the county was using. And that was so that our plan and the county's plan overlaps and we're not in a position of having to get jumped over by the county or possibly even the state when it comes to potential preemption. So their work and the agreeableness on the part of staff to do that resulted in a comp plan that I think was actually really, really well done in that particular case. As far as the goals for 2026, there's a slight overlap with what we did in 2025, namely with regards to the regulatory piece that we have, which deals with the practical difficulty waivers and the stuff that we as the Planning and Zoning Board can actually help our residents with. When it comes to those sitting on the dais, again, thank you all for allowing us to sub in a different alternate, not necessarily the aligned alternate, because we've had full dais, actually up until last night, pretty much every single time with at least one non-scheduled alternate sitting on there. But it allows us to give seven votes up there, six, seven, seven votes, sorry, math, seven votes up there to weigh these practical difficulty waivers for our residents. And many of us feel that I said the tie should go to the runner, but we want to give all fair and due diligence to our residents when they have issues that come before us, because most of them are results of oversights or lack of knowledge about a process that, frankly, is a rather large one and involved. We have, last year, we had three practical difficulty waivers that we rejected, and we rejected them mostly because it was issues of maintaining the character of the neighborhood and also not setting up a potential for a precedent to allow for deviations to the codes, because we have several different characters of neighborhoods that are out there, and we want to make sure that we're maintaining them. So we did have some that we held in advance. One was actually in December. The resident didn't show up, and to the staff's credit, they explained that it was somewhat unusual that that did not occur, that they didn't show up for this hearing because they've been very involved in this particular difficulty waiver. Well, we heard it last night. And what was interesting, and I want to commend the staff, and I hope you all do the same thing, is that because we tabled the event in December, or the action in December, staff called to say, hey, what's going on? That resident answered the phone and was like, oh, we got an email, and it said all we had to do was pay a check. It had passed. And so somehow fraud had crept into the system there, and our staff caught it. And one of the reasons why the staff caught it, fortunately, was because the board didn't feel comfortable deciding in favor, which probably would have happened in absentia, we wanted them to have that fair representation in front of us. And in doing so, that fraud was caught. And again, I commend the planning and zoning staff on that one because they have put in place a couple of backstops to prevent that from happening again. And one thing I would encourage, and I put it on the record last night as well for the administration, is to cross-check some of the other departments that might have such forward-facing pieces of information, stuff that might need to be approved, but that is out in the public realm because obviously criminals are a little on the more savvy side. So our goal with regards to difficulty waivers moving forward is to do the same thing, to try to make sure that everybody is living up to the code, but also that we are maintaining that particular character of the neighborhood so that it does not change as much. One item of note also as we go forward is that as a board, yes, we do hear the first of the site plans and development options that are out there with regards to high density. And as was mentioned earlier, affordable housing is a big component of that. And we try to convince the developers early on to be proactive in that regard. There are some cases where we disagree with the manner in which the developers are doing that. When that happens, usually there's a vote that's going to be split. If it's split and extreme enough, I will come in and let you know what the thinking was on the board with that one. But what I would encourage you to do is make sure that when those votes occurs or when those issues are up there, that you all have a good conversation with your reps on the board to try to figure out exactly what was going on. And there's one, hasn't been voted on you yet, at the intersection of Broward and Cleary, where the issue of a drainage pond is at play. And there was... Pine Island and Cleary? Pine Island and Cleary. Sorry, thank you. I knew what I was thinking in my mind. Sorry. Pine Island and Cleary. And that particular issue was a little bit contentious at our meeting, but we are fully aware that we are advisory and capacity in that regard. And so to that end, again, I would encourage that that advise and consent component of what we do is drilled down on when something like that comes up, because you all will ultimately be the final arbiters on that one. But other than that, I just want to officially thank Planning and Zoning staff for putting out reports and presenting stuff that is very comprehensive, well thought out, makes our job up there much easier. And I'll take any questions you may have. Thank you, Mr. Corman, and thank you for the detailed report. And I meant what I said to Mr. Dutko. I think we are where we are in the development process and being able to work with the applicants the way we are and get better projects because of the input, the excellent input we're receiving from your board, from AHAC, and for the work of the council administration. So we really appreciate your leadership and for the thought that's going into the decision making. So we do appreciate that. Any questions for Mr. Corman? No? Thank you, sir. Good to see you. All right. Moving on to Gateway Advisory Board. Mr. Hall? Hello, sir. Good evening. Good evening. Actually, it's Mike Hooley, Plantation Ford. I'm just joking. Standing in for him again. Good evening. You have the full reports. I don't want to go into all the details, but I just wanted to highlight a couple of things for the audience. I know I mentioned there was some mention about affordable housing earlier. And last year, we put almost $2 million for fee-simple multifamily and workforce housing, which is a big deal. Not only rental multifamily, but also fee-simple. We purchased some property. That's probably the first time in many, many years for that fee-simple portion, additional townhomes. We also spent or put together $300,000 in commercial facade funding for reimbursement on the street also. So they're generating a lot of activity. Also, too, we're working on the enhancement study for State Road 7 and 441. That's going to be beautifying from Broward all the way up to Sunrise and West. And also, I wanted to really highlight, too, that we completed a successful state performance review with no findings, which is a major thing also. I wanted to read very quickly the goals and objectives into the record. Goal number one is redevelop and utilize State Road 7 corridor, which includes strategic and catalytic investments. That's what we're going to be doing. Infrastructure upgrades, commercial side programs, zoning and land use revisions, improving safety of residents, visitors, and businesses to sustain and increase economic activity, enhancing law law and code enforcement services, license plate recognition and video surveillance systems, no trespass program, homeless outreach, also evaluating fire and EMA service delivery, community engagement, transparency, and quality of life enhancements. We continue our barbecue with the hero events, utilizing local businesses and city of plantation first responders. We're promoting health and wellness through park and district amenity enhancements, grant-funded public art, increasing community awareness and engagement regarding district activities. And official responsibility and budget management is also a big portion, effective budget management to meet operational, catalytic, and infrastructure investment needs, maintaining a balanced budget with a sustainable fund balance, and compliance with legislative mandates and ensure compliance with enabling legislation and state laws. Thank you. Any questions? I just want to make a comment, and then I'm going to turn it over to Council Member Reinstein. I just had this conversation with Mr. Noonemaker last night. It's exciting what's going on in the Gateway. And the investment that we're seeing in the Gateway, and that's to you as liaison, planning and zoning staff, administration, and the input of that board. But I think being able to purchase the properties that we have and to see the developments that are coming, especially the affordable housing, is incredibly exciting. And I don't think any of us, as long as we've been – we've all lived in this city a long time – have seen the movement in that corridor that we're seeing now. So I want to thank you, and I want to thank Mr. Hooley as chair for facilitating that. Thank you. You're welcome. Council Member Reinstein. Thank you, Mr. Hall. Just a quick follow-up regarding the Barbecue with the Hero event. It's been very successful that I've seen the past couple years. Do you have a date scheduled – do you have it planned for 2026 or have a date that you can share with us just yet? Well, I don't have a date yet. Typically, we use Natasha's organization. She – last time I talked with her about a month ago, she doesn't have the food truck anymore. She's kind of transitioning and all that. So we're going to have to find another vendor. She was very successful doing that. So once we find that, we'll probably schedule another one. But we typically try and do it in different parts of the gateway. You know, we've done it in certain parks, Park East. We've done it on 441 directly in the businesses. So – So no date just yet, but you're looking into it. No date just yet. We're planning on it, yeah. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Mr. Hall. Any other questions for Mr. Hall? Comments? No? Thank you very much, Mr. Hall. Midtown Advisory Board. Are you back, Mr. Hall? Yes. Barry was going to be coming. He sent his regards. But he didn't come through this time again. So I'm here again also. And I also wanted to read some of the highlights into the record since, you know, you have all this information. Some of the key accomplishments from 2025 was really following on the grant process for the bridge project. From my understanding, it's 90% design complete, currently under permit, full design permitted by May 2026. And also continuing investigating the possibility of the spine road that will connect to that. We're trying to get the traffic of Pine Island and University. That helps with the development internally. 3B was launched July 1st. Again, we completed a successful State Office of Program Policy Analysis of Government Accountability Performance Review with no findings, also. And we had a successful second annual regular genealogy event. So some of the goals we have kind of goes back into the accomplishments. We're really trying to make sure that we, on the spine road, put together some sort of traffic study, et cetera, to get an understanding of how that's going to flow, possibly get easements to actually modify that path, that roadway to provide access to the bridge. Also, following up on the implementation of an activity zone for Midtown Area, which is going to be very important. And also, infrastructure and stormwater funding support for future development. I also want to read very quickly the goals and objectives. Goal 1, the vibrant and blessed environment, mixed-use community, balanced, affordability of quality, modern, residential choices, enhancing and assisting in new office, commercial retail sector jobs, high-quality amenities, entertainment and recreational options, urban design, focus on zoning, land, and use revisions, walkable, pedestrian, friendly with multimodal transit options, improving traffic flow and relieving congestion, spine road bridge, improving safety of residents, visitors, visitors, and business disdain, and increase economic activity, enhanced law enforcement services that we've done in the gateways occurring also in Midtown. Liesel place recognition of video surveillance systems are coming to the area also. No trespass programs being promoted in both, you know, gateway and in Midtown, and associated with the homeless outreach. Community engagement, transparency, and quality of life enhancements, school three. Annual Reggae Genealogy Concerts, community events utilizing local businesses. As you know, genealogy is February 7th. Providing health, wellness throughout park and district amenities, enhancements, public art, increased community awareness and engagement regarding district activities, fiscal responsibility and budget management, effective budget management to meet operational catalytic and infrastructure investment needs, maintain a balanced budget with sustainable fund balance, and last, compliance with legislative mandates, ensure compliance with enabling legislation and state laws, and adhere to statutory requirements for tax levies and budget approvals. Thank you. Perfect. Before I turn it over to the mayor, I had a question for you about the Spine Road. We were long told that the difficulty in getting that done was because we had the five owners of the mall. Do you know, does that not appear to be an obstacle anymore if we're going to move forward with a mobility study there? I don't think it's so much the mall. I think it's the ownership in, I guess, associated with UM and I guess it's Crossroads. So with the business park more so? Yeah, that area. Okay. Okay. So it's not really associated with Midtown. Okay. The mall and me. Okay. Yeah. All right. I don't think it's going to be that much of a major lift because I think whatever we do there is going to benefit all the properties in that area anyway. Because when you have future development, they're going to be doing traffic studies and need access and need, you know, throughput. We just needed to get to the point where everybody understood that. Yeah. And finally, when you mentioned homeless outreach, just so you know, I had a conversation with Ms. Morris this past week about taking a look at some of the bus shelters in the city and perhaps changing out those benches because we're having, and it's not going to solve the problem, but we need to start to address that. A little bit of counts, but what we've been doing is working on, you know, making business sign up, we're doing a lot of hardening, you know, covering up outlets, and also some of the buildings that actually have benches that have closed down, removing some sections of the benches so they can't be used. We've been very aggressive on that because we don't want to enable anything, you know. It's a heartbreaking problem, but we also can't allow it to affect the businesses in that area. So thank you. Mayor. Yeah, I just thought I'd let you all know, this year's regular genealogy is going to be a volunteer park. You guys know that? Okay, because we couldn't get the dates. Okay. Do we have the date on that? Do we have the date? February 7th. February 7th, but it's still February 7th. Yeah, they need to keep that date, and we had rock the park. Okay. And so, yeah. So we'll be speaking up, we have a mid-time meeting tomorrow, so we'll be running, putting a presentation there, a very quick one. Okay, wonderful. We look forward to that. Thank you, Mr. Hall. You're welcome. All right, and last but not least, Sustainability and Resiliency Advisory Board, Mr. Wynn. Does he get all 23 minutes remaining? No, he does not. I can, though. We're going to start running the clock, Mr. Wynn. Good evening. Good evening, Council Joe Wynn. I'm currently the chair of the Sustainability and Resiliency Advisory Board. I can say it correctly. It just, you know, randomly doesn't come out. I do want to thank the council for the appointment of a wonderful team, as well as the board members who are sitting there, as well as our newest one, who was just appointed for Monday's meeting and immediately got thrown into it by being elected co-chair. So, vice chair, I believe, is the language. So that's wonderful. Again, thanks to Nerissa and Carol for keeping everybody organized and recorded. As well, I know it came up a few times with other boards through this session and workshop with student members. And I think we are the first of the boards to bring on a student member. And I can speak to that. It's really valuable. We were hoping for, oh, we'd get somebody with that slightly different perspective, different age, different environment, you know, this and that. She's great. She does not hesitate to speak up and share those different perspectives. And we get insights that you wouldn't normally get, I mean, even from school-type environments and the dismissal and arrival at high schools and how kids behave and just all sorts of things that maybe parents just driving in or waiting for buses, they'd never know. So a lot of different areas that she has not hesitated to speak up on. So that's really wonderful. If you are another board, I would encourage you to go through the process to get a student member. As far as accomplishments from the past year, we did produce a set of recommendations, sustainability recommendations, after hearing presentations from all the city departments. We provided that to them with a list of things that advised based on the practices that they were already doing, planning and things that our board had discussed. Those were submitted to those departments. We will be revisiting that biannually so that we don't spend all our time just discussing that and pestering the city's departments who have a city to run. So I appreciate all of them for coming and receiving that message and being engaging about that. As far as the comprehensive plan, we did provide insight and input into the sustainability and resiliency portion of that, which we're really excited that that exists. And we're happy to see that, you know, balancing potential preemption issues and things like that. But essentially trying to keep the idea of sustainability top of mind for all decisions the city moves forward with makes all of our jobs a little easier when it's just already in a document. As far as partnerships with other boards, I think that there's potential for that. Even things like the Women's Club and the Garden Club because of practices like our composting program that we're advising and helping get started at the, both at the, what is it, the community center, the Jim Ward Community Center, and also potentially where people could take home bins and bring them in. Some of those other organizations and boards may have people who don't know about that or don't have access to learning about that, especially midtown potentially, where they might actually have the ability to have a, you know, a ledge, a balcony, a composting bin, but would never consider that because, you know, they don't have a yard and everything like that, as well as the Garden Club who is, you know, out there practicing all those things. As far as continued engagement, we're looking at staying in touch with city departments and welcoming their questions, their input on decisions within the city, we're kind of unique in that we're not specific to a geographic area or a topic. It's more everything that's done. We want to make sure that we have that concept embedded in it all without thinking of it as this silo over here to try to integrate sustainability and resiliency into everything. So that's just keeping that out for best practices on wildlife conservation, pollinator areas, incorporating with developers so that when they do put in things, it is beneficial to the area, not just in affordable housing, but also in connectivity and making those areas pleasant and welcoming. That also complements things like, you know, mosquitoes. I mean, you develop an area without the right guidelines and whatnot, you end up with some standing water and mosquitoes. Nobody likes that. But if you put in some plants, native plants that are pollinators, now you created a welcoming spot, and that might even encourage more people to walk or bike in that area, which down the line, less pollution, less heat, all of those things. Really, you know, our goal is just to be kind of the big picture in the background to help residents and the city make sure that they're, as we move forward and evolve into the future, however that looks, we're doing so with the most respectful impact on the planet and making the place a better place for the residents as well, including the animal ones, not humans. Thank you, guys. Wonderful. Mr. Nguyen, I have a comment before I turn it over to my colleagues. I mentioned to Ms. Morris this week that my initial conversation with Ms. McAndrew, who is Council Member Reinstein's appointment, almost mirrored a conversation with our new Parks and Rec Assistant Director, Mike Ambrosio. And that was about creating wildlife habitats and connectivity within the city, which you've heard me talk about quite frequently. So my suggestion to you and to Ms. Morris is perhaps you can work with Ms. O'Toole and invite Mr. Ambrosio to a meeting to perhaps explore that. And I think that would be something tangible that we can do and look around the city as we have done with the garden at Jim Ward and see what we can do to create some of those habitats. Yeah, that would be fantastic. We look forward to having that conversation. Council Member Vajon. Thank you, Council President Horland. I was going to make this comment during my council comments and then the meeting, but since it's been brought up, I'll speak to it now. I was in attendance at the last Sustainability and Resiliency Advisory Board, and the student representative was impressive. She didn't believe in a crawl start. Not at all. Participated, and she had, and better, anybody can participate, but not everybody can participate with good ideas. So I was impressed. I wasn't sure what to expect with our first student representative. So along those lines, I'd like to see that we advance getting a student representative on the EAB. I think that's a natural next step. And like I said before, when we were discussing adding this position, and my comments was that, you know, this is an opportunity to let them know that there's ways that you can participate in your city when you get out of school, and we're giving them a taste of it now, and hopefully it'll light that fire for public service. I think that's all I had for that. But it was a good meeting, and keep up the good work. Thank you. And one last contribution on the student member thing, just because it was brought up to think you may have been there when the student member advised on it, was if you are looking to bring one on, if you can get the advertisement for it out at the end of the school year. So she was saying, like, to get the advertisement out in May for the selection to be done in whenever the school gets back on the street. This way they're ready to go at the beginning of the school year. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. Thank you for those comments. Council Member Reinstein. Yes, thank you, Council President Horland. Mr. Wynn, I know you mentioned it, and it's in your report in regards to the green business program. And there's a reference to the need for simplification of the green business program. Are you finding that businesses are no longer coming forward seeking it, or they just don't know about it? Can you just speak to that for a second? Yeah, great question. We found both of those things to be the case, and we kind of engaged on a simplification journey on that. We're considering it. Our language we're going to use is streamlining. And I'm happy to say that that process is probably going to be done by the next meeting. And we'll have that streamlined application available on the site, and then we can kind of reconnect with businesses again. Because we do believe it may have chased some people away because it was a number of pages long, and, you know, they might sit down for it and just kind of go, oh. So we're trying to address that while still keeping it as something that is aspirational to an extent that they have to do more than just, oh, we're doing these things, if that makes sense. It does, and just maybe a further suggestion in terms of the board members' responsibilities is that maybe some outreach on their part to actually bring the information to the businesses instead of waiting for the businesses to come to us and find out about it is that, you know, any of the businesses that either they frequent or that they should be frequenting in our city to bring that new simplified application so we can try and encourage more businesses to participate. Yeah, absolutely. They've already started some of that, but I agree, when the new one is ready, it would kind of come out there. And there's also two bus benches, I believe, that have the QR code and the logo for it for people to pass by and hopefully not scan while they're driving. All right. Thank you, Mr. Wynn. Thank you. Council Member Andrea. Oh, I'm sorry. No. You don't go around. Mr. Wynn, have you considered in that process that maybe it could be a two-step process? So if I frequent a particular business, I could recommend them or nominate them, and then they would follow through with this abbreviated application because I think that, too, if they know that someone already kind of endorsed their application and nominated them, it might urge them to go ahead and complete the application. Yeah. I mean, that's another good idea. I think once things like that come into play, it becomes a little more of the logistics of how the technologies essentially talk. So what system says they're nominated or something rather than just a board member saying that. I don't know if we can legally say, hey, you're nominated as a green business in the city without them having done anything. So that would be something we'd have to probably speak with staff and Carol potentially on. But I do agree having the phases. I passed along some information to Carol, I think, yesterday on the idea of potentially using the abbreviated, more streamlined program, but then also providing essentially a sustainability plan following that for a bit of a timeline that they can continue to do because it isn't something that it's one and done and then you forget about it forever. But that is another, that step of giving that impetus for them to step up and go, oh, wow, okay. Right. And ultimately they need to see and understand the benefit of being named a green business, right? Absolutely. And some of that comes from hitting a degree of mass in the city because we do have plans for having a map that will have, you know, green leaf pins on it and stuff. But when there's only one, two, three, it makes the program look, why aren't we doing it? Sure. Thank you, Mr. Wynn. I don't see any other questions. So thank you very much for chairing. And we're excited about the new members, including the students. We are as well. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. All right, council members, with that, I'm going to adjourn the workshop at 549.