City Council - Aug 12, 2026

Right. Good evening and welcome to the August 11th, 2026 City of Plantation Council meeting is now called to – did I say 11th? It's the 12th, isn't it? I'm a day behind. It's the 12th. It's now called to order at 6 p.m. Ms. Biggerow, please call the roll. Councilmember Anderson. Here. Councilmember Andrew. Here. Councilmember Fadgen. Here. Councilmember Horland. Here. Councilmember Reinstein. Here. Mayor Sortel. Here. Assistant City Attorney Morgan. Here. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Biggerow and Assistant City Attorney Quentin Morgan. It's good to see you with us tonight. Thank you for being here. I will be providing the opening remarks tonight, and then we have a very special guest leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance when I'm done. So we are all familiar with the line in Emma Lazarus' poem, Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, of Lady Liberty lifting her lamp beside the golden door that is America. We are a nation built on the backs and the optimism of immigrants. Nowhere is that more evident than in our beautifully vibrant South Florida community, where today, many of our neighbors who have been living in our country under the legal protection of TPS, contributing to our economy, paying taxes, neighbors who work in our schools, our hospitals, our restaurants, our municipal governments, have been fired from their jobs, living in fear that they may be deported back to a country that is plagued by instability and violence. Cardinal Chilby Langos this week said, temporary protections may come to an end, but God's grace never ends. Human decisions may bring uncertainty and suffering, but God's love and his faithful presence never cease. We are all called to be signs of that love by standing with those who are vulnerable and by working for justice with hope, charity, and perseverance. He also prayed that God would grant wisdom, compassion, and enlightenment to the leaders of nations so that they may always protect the dignity of every human person and work for the common good, especially for the Haitian people. So I ask for a prayer for peace and protection, for comfort, for quiet the fear in the hearts of parents, workers, and children who call this country home, for strength and solidarity, to strengthen local networks, legal advocates, churches, and neighbors standing alongside vulnerable families and bring peace to troubled minds by legal limbo, peace to minds troubled by legal limbo. And for justice and wisdom, soften and open the hearts of leaders and decision-makers, grant them wisdom, compassion, and a commitment to human dignity. May we all strive to protect the dignity of every human person and work for the common good, not only for the Haitian people. And that I ask that all of us in this room tonight put our troubles and our disagreements in perspective when so many in our community and our country are in despair. And now I would like to ask Mr. Conor Gresham to come up and lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Please stand. Please stand. Pledge of 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. Great job. Conor, Conor, don't run away. Conor, Conor, come back to the microphone. So it is the first week of school, isn't it, Conor? Yeah. Yes. And first is very special for you, right? What else is first this year? You're in real. Yeah, I'm in first grade. You're in first grade. And is this the first time you've ever led the Pledge of Allegiance in City Hall? I've never been, but it is. It is. It is. And who is the beautiful lady standing next to you? Moni. Okay. And what does Moni do for work? Teacher. She's a teacher in the most important job in the world. And what does she teach? Nothing. I don't. What grade? First grade. So it's a night of first, right? Yeah. Well, Conor, thank you for being here tonight at this very important government meeting and leading our meeting in the Pledge of Allegiance. We hope that you have a wonderful school year. You're welcome. Thank you. Good night. All righty. I just want to make an announcement. If you were here from item 20, that item has been deferred to the August 26th meeting. And now we turn to items submitted by the mayor. Mayor, we've got a big night. The crowd is so big, I'm going to go half and half. Everybody's good. So I am delighted to, if you're a University of Plantation graduate, please start making your way up. I am delighted to present diplomas to graduates of the University of Plantation. And there might be 200 people asking themselves, what is the University of Plantation? So a couple years ago, we wanted ways to get our residents involved and educated. So we have, here's what it says, learn how your city works, meet elected officials and staff, ask questions, get involved. So we have seven sessions once a month on Thursdays in the evening. And we talk about everything. Matt Thompson has talked public works. Police has talked. I talk about being a mayor. They talk about being a council. We went with the name University of Plantation up UP because I wanted Plantation University, but the initials were problematic. Think about that. These are the jokes. They do not get any better. So let's give away some diplomas. Oh, and LARPA Carpevichutti is the administrator of the program, assistant city administrator. And I would say everybody in this row would agree that she is beloved. Yeah, that's an easy call. So first up is Sue Anderson. What are you going to do? Everybody wants to. Group picture. Group picture? Group. All right. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Susan Bethel. Thank you. Renata Bergman. We didn't do GPAs, but Renata might have been valedictorian. Just saying, okay. Catherine Darcy. Just asking. Alan Darcy. Francois Foumet. Francois Foumet. Constance Guzzi. Lou Valadson. Thank you. Thank you. My friend Paula Pompa. I didn't think you graduated. I did graduate. I got a bonus from you. I'm putting up with me. I know. Like we say, we have seven classes. If you attend four, you get a diploma. Nancy Olson. That's a 57% attendance. Thank you. Michelle Macielski. Is that close? I can correct it. Close enough. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Barbara Herrera. Christy Woods. And Christine Berg. How are you? So because we're never one to miss an opportunity, we see a lot of potential students in this room here. We have this flyer back there. You point where it's at, Michelle. So on your way out or any time, if you pick up this flyer and read about University Plantation, if you think it's something you might want to do, she will help coordinate. And if we have too many, we'll have more classes. We want people involved who care about the city and want to learn things. So appreciate you all. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. And now we have Parks and Recreation Upcoming Events. Director, Trish O'Toole. Good evening. Council, Mayor, Mr. Morgan. A couple of events before we gear up for our fall season. On Saturday, August 22nd, we are hosting a family skate day at the Central Park Skating Rink from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. That's a free event. On Saturday, September 12th, it's Grandparents Day. We're celebrating with a Slice of Love event at the Plantation Community Center from 10 a.m. to 12 noon. In our aquatics division, Friday, August 14th through the 16th, we've got a Red Cross lifeguard training course. Minimum age is 15 years old. Sunday, August 23rd, Pool 1 will be closed to the public for a special event, which is the Swim for Nick Clinic. Nick was one of the 17 victims of the MSD shooting, and they do a charity clinic every year at our pool. In our athletics division, we're currently registering for PAL baseball, basketball, and soccer, and we're currently registering for our adult basketball league. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. All right. At this time, we temporarily recess the City Council meeting. It is 6-11. And call the CRA meeting to order. Ms. Begaro? Commissioner Anderson? Here. Commissioner Andreu? Here. Commissioner Fadgen? Here. Commissioner Horland? Here. Commissioner Reinstein? Here. Commissioner Sortle? Here. Assistant City Attorney Morgan? Here. Thank you, Ms. Begaro. The CRA agenda consists of consent items 1 through 2 and may be approved with one motion. Does anyone wish to pull one of those items? Do we have a motion? Motion to approve the CRA consent agenda. And I don't see any member of the public that wishes to pull. May we call the roll, please? Mr. Council Member Anderson. Anderson. Commissioner Anderson? Yes. Commissioner Andreu? Yes. Commissioner Fadgen? Yes. Commissioner Horland? Yes. Commissioner Reinstein? Yes. Commissioner Sortle? Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Begaro. Public request of the Council for the CRA, Mr. Conklin? I wasn't sure you were going to make it tonight. Good evening. Your regular seat has been taken. Dennis Conklin, 4581 Northwest District Court. Heavenly hosts protect you and all of your families. My request is the usual from the six members. You never get your name tags up there as commissioners. When you demolish the old Plantation General Hospital, kindly, I know you're going to go in there with housing, please do not let it exceed three stories. And again, kudos to our CRA director, Mr. Hall. Outstanding. I'm not sure if he's here, but I yield back my time. Thank you, Mr. Conklin. And with that, at 613, the CRA meeting is adjourned and we'll call the City Council meeting back to order. We will now begin with public requests of the Council regarding municipal affairs. This is not the agenda items that you have signed up to speak on. For those who wish to speak, we request that you, hold on, request a speaker form. If you have not done so already, please do so. When you're called, please approach the podium and make sure the green light is on the microphone. You have three minutes to make your request to Council. Please state your name and address and please address your remarks to the Council President, not to the Mayor nor individual members of the Council. Please keep your remarks to the allotted three minutes and please use your time efficiently. If extra time will be needed to conclude your remarks, please ask for it as your time is expiring and not prior to beginning your remarks. First up, I have Mr. Rob Corman, then Ms. Tiffany Hudson, and Mr. Conklin. Good evening, Mr. Corman. Hello. Rob Corman, 11095 White Hawk Street. So, back in July, sitting Council Member President Anderson, I requested a resolution or some kind of statement to the effect that as sitting members or anybody with a position of trust within the city should refrain from getting involved in the political races. I have realized that that is, after several years, a waste of my breath to apparently ask for such things. I did send Council Member Horland an email, never got a response on that email. And what I'm fundamentally, you did not respond, I never got it. So, if you did, I didn't get it. But, point is, what I'm asking for now is simply a statement. And that statement goes to the suddenly effect that as sitting Council Members, you will not either explicitly or implicitly endorse anybody who is running in the race because it does have the appearance and smell, frankly, of a Council picking who they're going to serve with as opposed to letting the people behind here do that on their behalf. We have a mayor who has a check in his reports from somebody who is running for office. Now, I get that the Supreme Court has said that when it comes to donations, pretty much anything is allowed at this point. Just because anything is allowed doesn't mean it's necessarily ethical and right because what it does is it sets up the appearance that there is now something beholden to somebody else. And that is exacerbated by that individual having the mayor's picture on their website. Same thing for two of the other members who are sitting up here. So, Council President, my request is simply that in one form or another, in the public, it is expressed that either, yep, Mr. Corman, too freaking bad. We're going to do it because we can. Go ahead and say that. At least then everybody back here understands that y'all are picking your candidates. Or say, you know what? Perhaps you're right and we should stay away from it. In my position as chair of planning and zoning, I would never explicitly endorse anybody because I don't believe that that's right. I get that I have a different ethical standard than several of you. That's fine. But my point is you should not be picking your candidates, nor should you be endorsing anybody who is on the ballot. That is all. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Corman. I'll make sure that you get that email that I had sent the reply. Ms. Hudson and then Mr. Conklin. I'm sorry you had a bit of a walk from the back tonight, didn't you? Welcome. Tiffany Hudson, 8951 North New River Canal. Three minutes is not nearly enough time to list all of the flaws in Red Speed and Axon systems. This is why I'm educating my fellow residents through my Facebook groups, bringing awareness and transparency to the public. Because the people deserve to know and my promise to them is that I will not stop until these cameras are gone. Tonight, I come before City Council to represent the people. I represent the people of Plantation, of Florida, and of America. The message from the people, if you have not heard already, is that we do not want mass surveillance. We do not consent to these cameras. As a longtime resident of Plantation, I'm very disturbed that my City Council did not respect its constituents enough to include them in these decisions. Maybe the Council has mistaken great responsibility for great power, because it is we the people who actually hold the power, and we've entrusted this Council with great responsibility. The Council should be forever grateful to the people for electing them to these honorable positions that exist only to represent the people and protect their constitutional rights above all else. This decision will change the landscape of Plantation, put a financial burden on its citizens, and change the character of our community. The school speed cameras and the invasive Axon cameras are very serious violations of our Fourth Amendment rights, and will most definitely result in serious problems. These cameras are posted outside of our children's schools, collecting images and data all the time. Greg Parks of Red Speed stated in a Council meeting in June of 2024, that these cameras operate 24-7, always collecting data, which is exactly what the City requested from the beginning. Now, every law-abiding Plantation resident becomes a suspect. This AI Robocop doesn't see as the human sees. It is cold, mechanical, and prone to error. It lacks human compassion and discernment. This AI system treats every Plantation resident as a potential criminal. It is inevitable, then, that the law-abiding citizens of Plantation will lose trust and respect in these systems and in the police officers using them. These cameras and those operating them treat every citizen as a potential threat. Of course, the real threat is the misuse and abuse of these cameras. Because of the Council's decision, the City will lose. The citizens lose when they receive a $100 citation. That to many could be devastating in these rough financial times. Parents lose peace of mind because officers will be removed from our school zones and replaced with a camera. I think every parent would agree that our children are the most precious and vulnerable among us and should be protected above all else. Removing police officers from school zones will not make our children safer. And worst of all, the children lose because a speed camera cannot protect a child today. It's only good for sending tickets tomorrow. So, tonight, representing the people, I ask this Council, listen to the people, remove the cameras that violate our Fourth Amendment rights, and begin to restore the trust and respect of the community. Thank you very much, Hudson. Thank you. Mr. Conklin? Dennis Conklin, 4581 Northwest State Court. I'd like to jump through my request to 267 days ago, Governor Greg Abbott from Texas designated the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and CARE foreign organizations of terrorism and transnational criminal organizations. Back in 2020, there was a public health emergency that was declared, and we all went through COVID. They closed the houses of worship, and that's when I knew that we weren't in America anymore. They didn't close houses of worship during the Black Plague in Europe, and it wiped out 30% of the population. What's just been revealed in our Congress is that the people in charge of the government, particularly the health, knew what it was all about because they created it. Biological weapon and the shot, never referred to in public government records as a vaccine, was a countermeasure. So I'm asking that the mayor, the administration, the city council members read and sign the Great Barrington Declaration, which can be found at www.gbdeclaration.org. I signed it way back in 2021, I guess. Anybody can sign it. I'll yield back my time. Mr. Conklin, I don't know if you heard, if you walked in a little late, item number 20, you asked to speak on that. That's been deferred until the 20th. Thank you for your courtesy. Thank you very much. Absolutely. All right. Is there anyone else who wants to make a public request of the council? No? Hearing none, then we will close public comments. We will move on to the consent agenda, which this evening consists of items 1 through 18 and may be approved with one motion. Does any member of the council wish to pull an item? 2 and 3. 2. 1, 2, and 12. 2 and 12. 1 and 3. Did you say 2 and 3, Councilmember Fadgen, or 1 and 3? You said 2 and 3? 2 and 3. Okay. Mr. Conklin would like 11, 13, and 17. Anybody else on the dais? We have a motion for the remaining items, please. Motion to approve the consent agenda with the exception of 1, 2, 3, 11, 12, 13, 17. Great job. Thank you. Do I have a second? Second. Ms. Beggarow, please call the roll. Councilmember Fadgen? Yes. Councilmember Reinstein? Yes. Councilmember Anderson? Yes. Councilmember Andreu? Yes. Councilmember Horland? Yes. Thank you very much, Ms. Beggarow. All right. Item number one was pulled by Councilmember Reinstein, the adoption of a revised REV resolution of support. Councilmember Reinstein? Yes. I just wanted to reiterate what was put on the record during our prior council meeting where we discussed the same resolution, and that was that while we're approving this resolution of support, I want to incorporate my prior comments and the discussion on that item where we confirm that this could be canceled in the future if it was determined by the council not to move forward. Can I get a confirmation from the administration on that, please? Yes, sir. That's correct. Thank you very much. That's all I have. Okay. Do we have a motion? Any further comment? Motion? Motion to approve item number one. You have a second? Second. Thank you. Ms. Beggarow, please call the roll. Any public comment on that? Councilmember Fadgen? Yes. Councilmember Reinstein? Yes. Councilmember Anderson? Yes. Councilmember Andreu? Yes. Councilmember Horland? Yes. Thank you, Ms. Beggarow. Item number two is agreement number 059-26, Federal Lobbying Services. Councilmember Fadgen? First, I have a question. Is this the first renewal? Because I think the last time we engaged them was the first time in a while that we've engaged a federal lobbyist. Yes. Oh, sorry. Charles, Mr. Procurement Director. The renewals on the prior agreement have been exhausted. This is a new agreement. Right, but this is the second time we're doing a new agreement with them. That's correct. That was the first time we've engaged them and we used the renewals. Yes, sir. Okay. So how long was that, the original agreement with them? It would have been for five years. Okay. What have they brought home? I'll have to defer to... What's that? I'll have to defer to Carol. As I indicated to you all previously, the city has applied for basically four federal grants since we employed Becker, the first one being the body-worn cameras, which is a grant we did get. That's about a half a million dollars. We did apply for an SS4 grant, which is a Safe Roads and Streets for All grant, that we did not receive. We did the debrief with the division, and they advised us that they simply ran out of money, but they liked our project and encouraged us to reapply. We did reapply. We received that grant. That one's about $2 million. And then the last grant is the one we just recently received, which is the BUILD grant that's $7.5 million. NPO's going to take credit for that. And lots of people are going to want to take credit for it, but it was a heavy lift. I just wanted to get that out in the public. Thank you. Councilmember Weinstein, you pulled the item on as well. Yes, thank you. So the current item before us is for an agreement that will continue for a period of four years as the initial term. Is there any reason why we've decided for a four-year term instead of year-to-year? So even with the initial four-year term, it does have a termination for convenience clause. We wanted to lock in the pricing rates for the four years, so you notice that there's a multiplier for each year consecutive of that four years. That was the reason just for more of a streamlined process. So I just want to say is that the Becker firm does amazing work, and we've seen some results. And it should be impressed upon our residents that we have received back a multitude from what we're spending on this contract. Although I would like to see, and I've spoken to Ms. Morris about this previously, more personalized updates to our city. So we often get updates from the Becker firm. And there's a lot that goes on in D.C., and so we get a lot of information forwarded to us. Some of it is hard to discern as to how much of it is applicable to current issues that are facing plantation as opposed to just the rest of the country. And while we can do that on our own, it would be nice to have a little bit more personalized response from Becker, and I'm sure they would do it if we asked them. So I just would make that request. Otherwise, I think they've been doing great work for us. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'd just like to add, I have not publicly spoken about my trip to D.C., we just haven't had the opportunity. But when I was up there in July, that was with the Federal Action Strike Team with the Florida League of Cities, and I went. City of Plantation did not pay for me to go up there, but our League of Cities did. But we met with the Director of EPA and also with the Assistant Director of Transportation, and we spoke about the Bill Grant. And that was right before we were awarded the Bill Grant, so I wanted him to make sure that he knew who the city of Plantation was. And as Ms. Morris said, it was a very heavy lift. You and your team deserve a lot of credit for that, not the MPO and the Becker team. But what I want to say is you've often hear me speak about the Eric's team when we're in Tallahassee and the relationship building that they've done up there, and I think it benefits the city. But what I saw with Omar Franco in Washington, D.C. was quite impressive. And the way he's dialed in up there and what we talked about is the position that the state of Florida is in right now, not because of the president, but because of our delegation. While they may have political and philosophical differences, they actually get along and work very well together. And if Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz wins her election, we could quite possibly have the chair and co-chair of the Appropriations Committee with her and Mario Diaz-Balart, who Omar Franco is very close with. So the access that we have specifically through Becker and Omar Franco cannot be understated. And what I was told when we were up there is there's other pots of money that we could possibly get into. And that $7.5 million for the BUILD grant was just stunning and such a great success. So I just wanted to add that. All right. Council Member Andrea. And Ms. Morris, correct me if I'm wrong, but this is about a 50 percent reduction from the previous year, correct? So I think, again, the return on investment is well worth it. So, again, thank you for your work, and I appreciate the work that Becker is doing. Great job. Thank you, everyone. Any comments from the public on that item? None. Hearing no further discussion, Ms. Biggerow, please call. Oh, do we have a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Do we have a second? Second. All right. Ms. Biggerow, please call the roll. Council Member Fadgen. Yes. Council Member Einstein. Yes. Council Member Anderson. Yes. Council Member Andreu. Yes. Council Member Horland. Yes. Thank you, Ms. Biggerow. Item number 11 is agreement number 024-25, roadway. And sidewalk restoration and repair, term contract group 2, primary contractor, amendment number 1. Mr. Conklin, you pulled this item, sir? What? Mr. Conklin, I thought. Number 3. We need item 3 also. Oh, you had 3 also. Can we do 11 and come back to 3? Since I already read it? It's your show. It's my show. I already called Mr. Conklin up. Thank you. Sorry about 3. I'm trying to move it along. It's not way too long. Hi. Yes, sir. Dennis Conklin, 4581 Northwest District Court. Basically, just to speak on the subject of the sidewalk replacement, for years now I've sent pictures of the only sidewalk to get to Plantation Elementary School because, as you know, on the east side of 42nd Avenue, there is no sidewalk. So our kids have to go over, what, Mount Kinabalu. That's the highest mountain peak in Southeast Asia. So they did, in the last year, put up, I guess you would call them horses. And sometimes they've been moved and sometimes they're not moved and sometimes they're there and not there. So please get this thing done because, as I say, I've been sending pictures for over four years now. I'll yield back my time. Okay. Mr. Conklin, our Public Works Director, Matt Thompson, is in the back. I'm sure he heard you. Mr. Thompson, you acknowledge that? Okay. They've got the pictures. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anyone else on item number 11? Okay. Do we have a motion? Motion to approve item 11. Do we have a second? Second. Ms. Beggro, please call the roll. Council Member Fajan. Yes. Council Member Reinstein. Yes. Council Member Anderson. Yes. Council Member Andrew. Yes. Council Member Horland. Yes. Thank you. And my apologies again, Council Member Fajan. Item number three is agreement number 035-26, tree trimming services term contract. Go ahead, sir. Thank you, Council President Horland. Mr. Spencer, I've got two questions. So in the back up, it says, whereas cost for any renewal term shall be subject to adjustment only if increase occur in the industry. So is there an index? Like, what does that mean? It's the CPI, and I believe it does. Yes, yeah, and we'd adjust it by the all-urban user CPI index, CPI-U, is in the agreement. Yes. Second part of that in the back up, it says, such increase it shall not exceed 3% or whichever is greater. So if it's less than 3%, it's 3%. If it's over 3%, it's greater. It says not to exceed 3% or whichever is greater. So that just means it has to be 3% so we don't even look at the index? Correct. So what's happening in the marketplace, especially in tree trimming, is that most contractors won't even engage in a contract with us without an index. So we just say that we're going to look at the CPI-U index, and then the second sentence says, such increases shall not exceed 3% or whichever is greater. So I'm taking that if it's 2.5%, 3% is the greater. No, we will, if the index is 2.5%, it will be 2.5% increase. So if that's, yeah, if it's, if it's, if it's not reading correctly, it will be corrected. It was a long day. No, it's fine. Agreed. No, it should be what the CPI is going to be. So whatever is less not to exceed 3%. That is correct, sir. Okay. Is that in the agreement? It is currently in agreement, but the agreement has not been signed by the contractor. I'm just looking at the back up. Yes, I'm looking at the agreement right now. All right, I'll make a motion to approve, saying that the proper, what we just discussed, motion to approve. Thank you, Council Member Fadgen. Any comments from the public on that item? Anyone on the dais? Should we second it? No, I need a second. Second. All right, Ms. Biggerow, please call the roll. Council Member Fadgen? Yes. Council Member Reinstein? Yes. Council Member Anderson? Yes. Council Member Andreu? Yes. Council Member Horland? Yes. Thank you. Item number 12, Department of Building Safety Officer Furniture. Council Member Reinstein? Yes. So, I'm going to ask if, Director Holbrook, Carmen, if you'll come up, please. Thank you. So, this is a request for authorization and approval regarding waiving competitive procurement, as well as regarding a purchase order and process for furniture. You and I had an opportunity to speak quite a bit earlier. I came by the office in order to get a sense of what the request was. Is there, in looking at the entirety of this request, same thing that I discussed with you, and I will say it publicly, is that my ask was whether it was all necessary or it was wanted. When there were possibly some items that were necessary, but the sense was that if placing an order, it would make sense to place it all together in order for consistency and make sure that everything worked well and interchanged as well. So, my question for you is that, as it is now before us, are you still making the full request, or is there any of it that could be compromised that may be unnecessary at this point in time? Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. For the record, my name is Carmen Herbert, and the building official and the director for the Department of Building Safety. I would like to have a straight answer, yes or no, and sometimes this type of thing is a little bit complicated. Yes, we need to change some of the workstations. They are in no working condition. They are too old to receive the new equipment, which is going to come in front of you very soon. You know, we are going to upgrade screen monitors and computers. We are going to send out now virtual inspections to keep ourselves competitive and serve the public better. But the workstations that we have right now are made for all technology. You know, they are heavy. They are not made to make the computers workable. We have people working 10 hours a day just sitting down. Now we want some of them to go uplift, you know, up and down. It says several things. Some of them definitely we need to change, and they are at the end of their working life. But changing one and know the other ones, and now we have new computers coming in, it just doesn't make sense to me. Thank you, and I appreciate it. And, you know, we had an opportunity to speak in advance, so you knew that I'd be asking the question in terms of concern that, you know, whenever we're presented with an item, whether it's a budget item or a purchase order, and there's always a question of how it will best serve the residents, how it best serves our staff and the team. And so I appreciate you taking the time with me to answer those questions earlier and to respond tonight. My pleasure. Any further discussion? Any questions? Anyone from the public? No? Do we have a motion? Thank you, Ms. Harbert. I'll make a motion to approve. Do we have a second? Second. Thank you. Ms. Fagaro, please call the roll. Councilmember Fagin? Yes. Councilmember Einstein? No. Councilmember Anderson? Yes. Councilmember Andrew? No. Councilmember Horland? Yes. Thank you. The July 29th, 2026 Maximum Millage Meeting Minutes. Mr. Conklin, you pulled this item? Sir? I can't find you tonight. Mr. Conklin, please, I mean, feel, you know, feel free. I was going to say take a seat. No, come back. You have the second item, too. No. You're ready. You're up. You're up. You're up. No. I read it. I read it. Yeah. I was going to say you could stay up here for the following item, the next item. You're up. Conklin, 4581 Northwest District Court. At the last meeting when this was passed, it was passed with no revisions to existing millage rates. I always ask that the millage rate for the Gateway 7 or the CRA, which overlaps the Gateway 7, be zeroed out since the creation of the CRA. And after three years, it zoomed way past the millage rate additions, which they pay already the base real estate rate for the millage anyway. Over the last six years, what has happened is a reverse of sort of the 1980s when the government has put in an excise tax on windfall profits. And what's happened for the last six years is, to change the words around, there has been a windfall tax profit by the government. You've seen the mountain of money. Started tracking it when it hit 100 million bucks. It's at $388 million. A hundred and some odd million of it is in U.S. Treasuries. Every sovereign fund is not buying our treasuries because the dollar right now isn't worth a plugged nickel. We have to get rid of the treasuries. If we do, you could pay off the unfunded liability of the general employee's pension fund and the unfunded liability of our police officer's pension fund and still have $14 million left of the just treasuries. In 2011, that was 15 years ago, if I'm not mistaken, a 401k was included in the police officer's retirement pension fund. It never turned the ignition on. The average rate of return for the S&P 500 since its creation has been about 11%. What that means, using the law of 72, the money has doubled since the 2011 401k was put into the police officer's fund. I don't know why you didn't do it for the general employee's fund. But it's not doubled once. Because what? There's two periods. So it's doubled and then doubled again. Please wrap up, Mr. Hahn. Okay, we'll wrap up. All right. Ten seconds. I think a lot of this has to do, you're afraid, because the employees don't understand investments, which they would own as a 401k, and IOUs that they get from a pension. Okay, thank you, Mr. Conklin. So I'll yield back my time, but I've got plenty more to say, but I don't have the time. All right. Don't go away, because you're up on item 17. Under the original resolution number one when the city was created, this was five minutes for citizens. Okay. Mr. Conklin, stay at the podium. You're going to be up next. Do we have a motion to approve? Do we have a second? Thank you. Do we have a second? Do we have a second? Any other further discussion? Ms. Figueroa, please call the roll. Councilmember Fudgen? Yes. Councilmember Reinstein? Yes. Councilmember Anderson? Yes. Councilmember Andrew? Yes. Councilmember Horland? Yes. Thank you, Ms. Figueroa. Item number 17. Could I have a clarification? Does that mean the millage rates stay the same? That's just the minutes, and we set the maximum, so we have not had the other hearings yet. Thank you, because I really can't hear them. The hearings are coming. Item number 17. Mr. Conklin? Mr. Conklin? You pulled the next item. Don't run away from me. Is it? Gateway. I'll use my time. I'll use my time. I'll use my time. Thank you. You don't want the item pulled? Okay. Thank you. Motion to approve item number 17. Second. All right. Ms. Figueroa, please call the roll on item number 17. Councilmember Fajan? Yes. Councilmember Reinstein? Yes. Councilmember Anderson? Yes. Councilmember Andrew? Yes. Councilmember Horland? Yes. Thank you very much. Colleagues, I would like to call for a consensus to move item 19, which is purely an administrative discussion item to the back of the agenda so that we can get all these folks in tonight. I agree. Decline. Okay. I don't agree, because most of the people here, for the last items of the thing, I think we should have a discussion. There's people who want to speak to this. I was told we're not going to take public comment for the administration. It's administrative discussion item. I know that. And when I asked for this to be on the agenda, I did request for public comment. It's your discretion not to do that. But there are some people who would like to hear the comments regarding the red speed. We said we were going to do this before the school year. Today's the third day of school. I think that needs to be said now. But the majority of the people are here for the last items that we're going to be doing. So I'm not in agreement with moving this to the end. It's going to be midnight when that happens. Well, hopefully it won't be. But I'm trying to get through this agenda tonight in an efficient way. I don't think it'll be a long discussion. I would like to do the administrative item as the one that requested to be on here. Okay. All right. If that's the consensus of the council, we'll leave it where it is. But we do not take public comment on administrative items. I understand that. But I did request that. And that's fine if you chose not to. Okay. But I do want to do the agenda item now. If you would like to keep it now, then I will keep it where it is. Colleagues? I could go either way. But I also don't think it'll be that long of a discussion without public comment. I have some things I don't want to talk about. And we'll go from there. Okay. I have no objection to moving the administrative item to the end. And I see that most of the people that are here are for the quasi-judicial items. So for the benefit of the majority of the public, I don't mind moving it up so that they get their opportunity to speak as well. Well, I'll tell you what I do. And I did ask for a consensus because Councilmember Fajans feels so passionate about this. We did have one public comment on this item. I don't know if anybody else – no one else has signed up to speak on this item. But I will go ahead and leave it where it is. And I'm going to ask for everybody's respect on the dais that we keep this discussion to 15, 20 minutes because we do have a lot of people here that want to speak tonight. I have my points organized and I'm going to try to go through it as quickly as possible. Okay, great. So item number 19 is school zone speed camera update. And who will be speaking on this item tonight? Chief, is it going to be you or is it going to be administration? Probably several of us. All right, great. Welcome. Chief, would you like to introduce yourself for the crowd? Sure. Jeff Schlegel, Police Chief. Thank you very much. All right. I don't know if he has any. I didn't have any prepared remarks. You just have the backup materials. So Councilmember Fajan, would you like to go ahead and proceed with some questions? Yes. And I appreciate that we're keeping it where it is. But I think we can get through this fairly quickly and then move on to the other business of the Council. So, like we said at the end of the, when we approved this, when the Council approved this, I don't remember when, we were talking about the cameras being active for the speed zones during flashing and non-flashing, beginning at half hour before the school day starts when the lights are flashing, and then at the end of drop off, they were going to be maintained in the middle of the day and then continue through the end of the flashing at the pickup. So, for the short period of time that we, and we have this in the backup, the short period of time that we had these cameras active, beginning sometime in April through the end of the school year, 22,000 notices of violations were recorded, of which 65.9% of just under 15,000 of those notices of violations were issued when the lights were not flashing in the middle of the day, when the kids were secure inside their schools. So, looking at these statistics, 13,900 were paid, 144 dismissed, 75 administrative hearing, I'm assuming that means the magistrate, that's my first question regarding that? Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you, Chief. 6,107 uniform traffic citation eligible. So, that means that they get the notice of violation, they have 30 days for it to not respond to it, and then it gets brought back to us to be approved for the UTC? Correct. Okay. So, only 12 have been turned into UTCs at this point. Okay. If the UTC goes to traffic court, does the distribution mandated by state statute remains the same, or does the money go in a different direction? No. When it goes to traffic court, it becomes a non-moving violation, as I understand it. We have had none go there yet, so… Yeah. But the allocation, if they lose and they still have to pay the ticket, that allocation, does that go by that breakout, where some of it's going to the school zone crossing guards, and then the, I forget that category, that $500,000 we were talking about when we spoke earlier, the public safety initiative? Right. So, statutorily, there's the breakdown of the original $100 violation. Once it goes to a traffic court… The allocation's the same as if a police officer actually… Right. I can't say definitively once it goes to traffic court. Okay. Okay. I would like to know what that is, so if we could follow up on that. Okay. So, who is reviewing the NOVs? For us here… Yeah. …it is a service aide. Okay. Service aide… Nobody else? Just service aides? So, there's also been… All of our traffic unit is knowledgeable on how to review and approve those. Okay. But primarily, it is the duty of a service aide. So, the traffic unit, a sworn law enforcement officer? Correct. Okay. So, for the service aides, a question was brought to my attention. Per Florida Statute 316-640, all civilians must go through the STEP course to issue NOVs or UTCs. Are we up to proper certification and qualification for that? Yes, sir. The Statute 316-640-5A says that any Sheriff's Office, Police Department of Municipality may employ as a traffic infraction enforcement officer any individual who successfully completes instruction in traffic enforcement procedures and court presentation through the Selective Traffic Enforcement Program as approved by the Colonel Justice Standards and Training Commission. And obviously, our law enforcement officers get that in the academy and our service aides get that when they go to the Institute of Public Safety for the academy. Okay. So, yes, we are compliant. And then… I wasn't worried about the law enforcement officers. That's just part of their duties. But I wanted to make sure that, you know, the community service aides, which are civilian employees, have that proper certification. Yes, sir. So, when we spoke earlier, we anticipated that one community service aide would be sufficient to administer these notice of violations and UTCs. Is that the case? Are we using more than one person? And I would probably look at it as a full-time equivalent. Or are we overwhelmed by the number? Because that was a short period of time. No, right. And I think that it's too early to tell, right? We had originally budgeted for one position. That's what we have. And I think it's too early to tell. Again, the program's been in effect for a month and a half. Do you think by December we'll have a better idea with the new school year? I think we'll have a much better idea by the end of this year, yeah, when we get to that winter break. By the end of the school year or the end of the calendar year? No, by the end of the calendar year, which would be about the winter break from school. How long does it take someone to get a notice of violation? Is it timely? So if I get one tomorrow, when can I expect to get it? So if you go through, it has to be approved on the vendor side. It has to be approved on our side. And then it is sent out. How long that is taking? I know we have a representative from Red Speed. We do have a representative from Red Speed. Would you like to come up and introduce yourself and perhaps you can answer that question? But also, there's going to be, it's also going to depend on how many are particularly in the queue at the time too, so. Right, yeah. And that's part of where my concern is, that if you get a notice of violation and it's so far into the future that you get notified, there's an unfairness to that because you can't remember where you were. So then you automatically can't defend yourself. Whereas if you pull me over, I'm going to remember that. So, I'm sorry, what's your name? My name is, I'm sorry, my name is Kevin Milan on behalf of Red Speed. Welcome, Mr. Milan. Thank you for being here. So what is the, how quickly does the notice of violation get issued? So once it goes into, once there's a violation, it goes into our queue, we run for the registered owner. Then, you know, and in the process, it's also being approved by two personnel on our end. And then it'll go to the police review queue. Once the, somebody in the police department reviews it and says, yes, it's a good violation, then it's going to go back to Red Speed. It's going to go into our print, our print violation queue, and then it'll be mailed out. So from when it's, from when it is approved by the police, that's when the time will start taking that 30 days. So it'll probably take, from that point, it'll probably take maximum of probably a week. It's, it's mailed out via the postal service. If I get one tomorrow, it'll be issued. It will be in the mail by Tuesday, assuming that on our side, we're doing it in a timely matter. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. And they are doing an excellent job in doing those reviews. So we're keeping pace so far. Yes, sir. Who installed the signage? That's by Red Speed as well. Okay. So City Public Works has not done any of the installation of the signage. So the, the photo enforced signs are the Red Speed signs, which we are responsible for, for doing. Any other signage, like, you know, school zone type signs, we're not responsible for. And I'm going to ask it again. None of the public, City Public Works has installed any of these signs. Not to my knowledge, it's been Red Speed personnel and our, our subcontractors. Um, who bought the signs? We buy the signs. Okay. None were bought by or made by our, our sign shop in our city. Not to my knowledge. They've, we have our own sign shop now as well. I think that'd be a more appropriate question for administration and stuff. I just want to interject that. That's fine. Jason, now the maker CAO. The city, we did install signs at the, uh, periphery of the city to give advance notice to people that you're. So we basically just told everyone that the entire city's under speed, camera, uh, camera speed monitoring? But yes, essentially. I'm going to come to that. Because we wanted to put people on maximum notice because we heard some comments that, you know, how are we supposed to know? You know, do, are we aware of this? So we wanted to be more as forthright as we could be. I think it'd be more forthright if those signs were at the entrance of where you're entering the zones as opposed to a blanket for the entire city. Because it's, ah, I had some comments about that when I, um, regarding that. The administration's overall goal is to get compliance with the speed limit. So our preference would be that people, uh, be mindful of their speed wherever they are in the city. Well, cameras or no cameras, we want people not to speed. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. So we, we prefer it that way. Thank you. Thank you, Jason. Um, after the signage was installed, um, was it inspected for compliance with state statute? Do we do anything to, uh, verify that it's got proper distances, proper height, proper offset off the road? I believe it was on, uh, it was all run through, uh, engineering prior to being installed. But was it inspected to make sure that it met the compliance of FDOT regulation and any all appropriate regulation? All of our signs are, are posted, um, and established within the guidelines of FDOT. Yes. Well, I'm getting. And it, uh, they are in our plans and our engineering documents as well. I'm getting comments that they don't meet specification for multiple people. So that's why I'm asking the question. I know you probably tried to, but I'm being told that we're not. They're not off the proper set, um, set, um, step off based on if it's a curb or not a curb. And then the height of them are, might not be in compliance. Um. Sure. Uh, I know after, uh, after the, the school year ended, we went out to then, uh, inspect every sign, or to look at every sign throughout the city. And at that point, uh, I know with us in engineering, we reviewed everyone. So if there is something that is, I guess, purportedly out of compliance, I will take that information. Were there any waivers, um, issued, um, that allowed, allowed any, uh, installed signs not to be installed within compliance? I'm assuming the answer is no, but I'm gonna, I'm asking the question. I wouldn't know the answer to that. No, and I would actually say that we have probably have more signage, uh, in this jurisdiction than in many of the other jurisdictions that we are, that we are in. So there's signage that we're required to do, feeder streets, the main streets. Um, and we've actually go, gone above and beyond in plantation to exceed those, those limits. Okay. Um, kind of already asked this. You're, you're, you have already made the comment that all signs have, have met FDOT and other regulatory compliance requirements. I'll take you at your word. Um, the height distance, people are telling me that the distance between sign A to sign B is not the appropriate distance. It needs to be longer. So I will find out specifically where these locations are and, and we'll, I'll, we'll put a ring up to your attention to make sure. And then you can tell us, no, it is compliant because of this or not compliant because of this and we're going to fix it. Um, there was council member Reinstein, uh, supplied a picture where some of the signs were modified. They weren't replaced, but they're modified with stickers. Um, have those been replaced? To my knowledge, every one of those was being redone. Although the ones with stickers were still compliant. They were, they were the correct time. That's my secondary question. I think the red speed, the last word I got was working on replacing every one of them. So my question with the stickers was, was as letter sizes, the appropriate size. And was the retro reflectability proper for the sign, uh, for modifying that sign. And I've never gone to any city and I saw a manually modified with stickers street sign. So I don't find that acceptable. Um, if we have the wrong sign, we got to get that sign replaced immediately because we're, we're basically allowing, uh, uh, public company to enforce, um, traffic. And, uh, it has to be, uh, my personal opinion has to be perfect. It can't be just enough. Uh, council member, I'm just going to introduce, uh, interrupt you for a moment there. Um, if you recall, there was an issue with the school, uh, times changed and that was a modification made. Um, I'm just going to ask you if you, this was, I thought was going to be a discussion tonight. Um, and perhaps some of these things, especially with the distance of sign, if you would put that in an email, I'll give you time to wrap it up. Because I know council member Reinstein wants to get in, um, because I think we have a couple of others. I would just like to go through my notes. Okay. And then, um, if there's anybody who wants to have any discussion about what, anything I'm bringing up, that's fine. And then council member Reinstein. Okay. But I would also follow up and I'd ask you to put these in an email so that we can get some more details on the spacing and the signs. I would put them in an email, but I'd like to get through this. Okay. Go ahead. I'm going as fast as I can. Um, all right. So Knob Hill to that blanket signage. You know, when you're heading south on Knob Hill, you have like, um, uh, I think there's like four intersections that you could turn and start heading north. I'm sorry, south on Knob Hill before you approach the school zone where the speed camera is. So I don't think you're, you're only going to see it if you're outside, uh, if you're entering the city from the outside in. And then on, when you're heading north on Knob Hill, you see the sign at the monument sign, uh, uh, welcome the plantation. There's six, um, driveways and intersections that you can be, um, that you could pull in there and not realize that you're heading towards a monitored, uh, a camera speed zone. I'm going to, I'm moving on to the next thing. So the magistrate, what does the procedure go to the magistrate? Like if you choose, you want to, um, contest the, uh, notice of violation, you just sign up for it. You have to pay a fee to, um, be. You have the 30 days in order to, uh, go to the magistrate. If the fee question, if, um, if you plead not guilty, but are found guilty, there's an administrative fee of $100 plus the original $100 violation fee. If the violator does not show the fee is $250 plus the $100 violation, if the violator is found not guilty, there are no penalties assessed. Is there a fee to, um, pursue that, uh, that not guilty? No. There is no, there is no fee for requesting a hearing. Okay. So if you, okay, if you request to go to the hearing, you're found not guilty or it gets dismissed, it doesn't cost you a dime. Correct. Okay. That's, that's what I'm looking for because there's, um, there's questions about, there's some improper information out there regarding, um, what it takes to fight it. And someone told me it was like $400 just to go before the magistrate. So I'm glad that we got that clarified. No, sir. Our first hearing is on the 20th. Yes. I'm probably going to be there. Um, do the CSAs have the, um, have to testify for the magistrate and UTC hearings? Um, they are available to. Are, are they going to? I suppose they probably could. I don't know. We haven't had a hearing yet. Well, we got one next week. I don't know what our plan is. So my question regarding that, do they have proper training and experience to testify in a court, um, a court setting? Yes. Okay. That's part of that STEP training? It's part of the initial training that they get in the, in their Service Aid Academy. Okay. For the cameras, where are the images stored? Locally? On the cloud? In the United States? Outside of the country? So there, uh, there are proprietary information. They're stored. You want to speak to that? With Red Speed on the, on our, on our servers. In the United States? Yes. Do we have them locally stored? We just have, um, cloud access to them? No, we do not have them locally stored, to my knowledge. Okay. Um, how long are the images stored for? So... Are they there forever? No, they're not there forever. Okay. By statute, they're not there forever. How long are they there for? They're there, so if, uh, if we dismiss a citation, it's going to be there for 90 days and then it's purged. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, I, I asked Chief this, um, on the phone. So when the cameras are not active from the morning to the end of the day, if there was a crime, an accident, there's, there's nothing to be found. The cameras are actually off. They're not passively collecting images or data. Is that accurate? That has been, yes, that has been accurate. So when the cameras are active, starting 30 minutes before school, 30 minutes after school, through the whole day, um, can they passively collect data? Like if we had an accident or emergency, uh, whatever, that we wanted to get evidence, is that information there? Or is it only triggering when someone hits that 11 mile per hour mark? We cannot, we cannot collect anything that it's not capturing when somebody goes through speeding. So if we had a crime that we're trying to investigate, we would not be able to find that, um, we would not be able to mine any information from those cameras? We had two of them cut down and we couldn't get any information. All right. Um, are these images being used for any third party, um, sources, data collection? Have we opted out of everything? We are the only ones in, through the court system, are the only ones that are using any of these, uh, images. And those are only images that are violations of, of the speeding laws, basically. Okay. And they don't, beyond, uh, being used by the police department in the city and red speed, they don't go anywhere else. And that's in our contract, Mr. Milan, isn't it? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Um, I, now this came from someone else outside of the city. I don't know how they know, but they're saying that the customer service with red speed is, is, hasn't been good. So chief, is the customer service being, um, adequate when we have to call red speed? You mean if we have to call it? Yes. And, and the example they gave over two, you know, two weeks to get the poles replaced for the two ones that got taken down. Our, if we have to call red speed for something, our customer service is fine. Okay. Another question. Someone said that if we terminated the contract, we would have to pay $400,000. Is that, is that in the contract? I, I do not think so. No. No. We can leave the contract with no clause correct? I read the contract. I didn't see it, but I wanted to ask the question. Um, I remember when, when I entered office in 2020 with council member Andreu, she was, um, she was, um, she was the driving force as to why we have body cams. Um, and I was remembering when I first heard about the speed cameras, um, and I never remember having a council meeting about it. It was just sort of presented to us. The first time I heard about it was at, uh, I believe the education advisory board and the mayor, mayor sort of was presenting to them saying that we're looking to implement these speed cameras into our school zones and stuff. So I guess my question is where did, where was this initiated? Was this an initiative of the mayor or it was something else, uh, one of our, uh, the administration? I don't know. Where was this initiative? Council member Fadgen, why is that germane? We had the discussion on the dais when the item came before us and we voted in a public hearing to go forward with this. And we, several of us up here had reservations until we were presented with the data. So I'm not sure why that is germane. And I'm going to ask you to wrap up your comments, please, so other people can participate. That's basically my last question. I would like to know where it came from. Since then, we've, I'm not saying we've done anything wrong with the way that this has gone about. We've been properly notified, um, for the meetings for when we approved this. Um, but I would like to know where it came from. Sure. So, uh, Jason Undermaker, CAO. It's been a collaboration with administration and PD. I can tell you since I've been here in 2019, speeding has been one of our top complaints along with congestion. So we welcome any opportunity to address it. Um, you know, and we're also collaborating now on the public safety initiatives. We'll be taking in deference to that. One of the things we'll be consulting for that is the recent update to the citizen survey. Um, it's been made very clear by the residents. They're concerned about, uh, speed, um, traffic enforcement, um, amenities such as the safety, particularly approximate to schools. So, uh, we feel confident there's a variety of things that we can address. Um, but yeah, it's been a collaboration. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Manamaker. So my last comment is I do think we still, we should be turning these cameras off in the middle of the, um, of the school day. Sixty-nine, sixty-five point nine percent of the, uh, notice of violations are issued when the lights are not flashing. Um, which kind of says that there's a problem with signage. When the school zone's active, people know that they're in a school zone. They're still getting tickets, but most people know what they're taking. I would think they would be more evenly distributed if it was, um, um, if, uh, if, if the signage was proper. So I appreciate your, uh, everyone's time. If I could just comment real quickly to that. I would ask y'all to consider as our, our sister cities also, uh, engage this program. We would love people to think that this part of Broward County is a place you don't speed. And so we know, all right, we're going to central Broward, you know, 10 miles an hour or less. I was at, I had a, uh, lunch with a friend recently, used to be an employee here. He was griping me about two tickets he received. I said, how fast are you going chief? 55 and a 40. I said, suck it up. That's inappropriate. So, um, it's, it's something we we've, we've heard this for years, the frustration with speeding. So I understand the, the, the concern, but, um, it's a serious problem. So anything we can do to try to address it citywide, we want to take that effort. Thank you, Mr. Nightmaker. Thank you. Councilman Fadgen. Councilman Ryan state, would you like to participate in the discussion? I would. Thank you. Councilman Fadgen for your questions. And, um, the, the reason why I wanted to move the administrative item toward later was because, um, I also have some questions. And, um, I, I know everybody's patiently waiting to move on. But, uh, I, I want to start with, um, speeding is a problem. And you just heard from our CAO, Nunamaker, that, uh, that the, the goal with the, uh, with the cameras and the video enforcement is to curtail speeding. The benefit of our, um, of our, um, of our children, of our residents, of our visitors. Um, I do want to, um, start with, um, clarifying something. Chief, uh, I heard earlier, um, today that, uh, a resident said that the cameras are a violation of our Fourth Amendment rights. Um, are there, is there any current case law, um, from any controlling court that has ruled that the video speed enforcement that we're currently utilizing is a violation of our Fourth Amendment rights? No, sir, not to my knowledge. So, um, so we're not doing something that is a violation of Fourth Amendment rights according to, um, controlling law that, um, that we're required to follow in our city? No. So, that being said, um, I, I will add, is that, and, and Councilmember Fadgen, you mentioned that I was the one that brought up at a prior meeting my concern with some of the signage. And, uh, and I am still concerned with the signage. Um, I voiced it previously, and I will voice it again now, is that I've been very dissatisfied and disappointed with the signage. And, you know, you, you, you asked a number of questions, Councilmember Fadgen, but I don't think that there was 100% clarity from the, the answers that were given. And the reason is because you have Red Speed signage, and then you also have signage that has been put up by the city. And so, when Red Speed sign, when, um, when Mr. Mullen from Red Speed mentioned about Red Speed signage, he's confirming that those signages are in compliance. And, um, there have been some recent signs that have been put up at the entryways to our city, which were not put up by Red Speed. Um, and, um, those signage, um, I believe there have been concerns as to compliance. And, um, there was a sign put up, um, we, we, we actually removed signs that were up at our entryways to welcome residents to our city, which were our Purple Heart signs. Um, inviting people to celebrate and honor, um, Purple Heart veterans in our city so that the speed limit photo enforcement signs could be put up. And while, um, that's the prerogative of the administration as to where to place these signage, the problem that I want to particularly bring to the attention in this discussion with Red Speed is that, um, my understanding of the contract. Um, particularly in, um, the exhibit A of the negotiated scope of services is that Red Speed, and this is paragraph 29, is that Red Speed at the direction of the city won't stall and maintain any required signage, including flashers. And that's why I think, um, it, it looked like you may have been surprised to be asked about other signage because there have been new signs that have been put up that have not been put up by Red Speed. And my concern is that while the goal is to give as much notice to our residents as to where these video enforcement is taking place, um, putting the signs up at the entryways to our city, um, does not actually notify residents as to where the video enforcement is taking place other than suggesting, um, speed limit photo enforced in our city. And it reminded me back when, um, we used to, uh, every time we used to take a trip, we'd go to triple A and you get a triple, uh, a tick, you know, trip tick. Right. And they would always stamp on where the speed traps were. And I remember that, um, you know, we paid extra attention to avoid those towns that had speed traps. And, um, well, and these signs suggest that our, our whole, our whole city now is, uh, is a speed trap. And so while speeding is a problem and we need to, um, we need to do everything possible to protect our, um, protect everybody in our city, particularly our students. Um, I don't think that, um, we're, we're doing a very good job with the noticing either. The signs that are in the speed zone have, have not been, um, up to par. Um, and now the signs that are entryways are, are actually not making the situation better and instead creating other problems. Um, I see Mr. Noonemaker has gotten up. I don't know, um, if any, um, if the administration wants to respond. If I can, if I can one second, uh, regarding the signage, we actually, in the past, uh, you know, starting late last week and through the weekend, we replaced most of our signage, um, in order to not have stickers and not have things that are unsightly. So we've, we've re replaced the majority of that signage. And a lot of that, that signage, the photo enforced is required by the statute. We have to have it there and where it is. So let me just be clear. My, my comments were not particularly directed at you. Um, it's, it's the other signs that I don't believe are in full compliance. But, but I just want to make sure everybody understands that we've, we've actually gone back. We've replaced a lot of signage and a lot of the signage is required, uh, by the statute as well. Understood. And I have the statute here in front of me, so I understand that. Thank you. Uh, councilman, just to address, and I tried to address previously, um, you brought to our attention your concern regarding those entryway signs and they were subsequently changed. Um, so they do now meet that standard. But I would also say to your point, they're not required. And in that agreement that you referenced, it talks about required signage. Now we, you know, one of the things we want to look at is when you compare, uh, the, uh, the flashing light versus non flashing. And obviously it seems to be a lot higher where they're not flashing. So when we get off those primary roads that have the flashers, we want to investigate putting flashing signs, uh, because our goal is most particularly for the school zones. Um, so that is something we're going to be looking towards, but at least based on my interpretation, that's not required, but obviously we'll collaborate with red speed. If we can get them to pay for those, we absolutely will. But we also want to consult with the school district and the county to make sure that those are adequately maintained when the school times change and whatnot. And Mr. Newray, I appreciate that response. However, um, I would think that the discussion as whether we are requiring those signage and that request would have come before. Those signs were created by the city and before the city put those up is that we would have asked red speed first and said, um, would you. Put up additional signage for us in order to determine if, um, if, uh, it was part of the agreement and they agreed to that. But I, I also want to be clear though is that, you know, when council member Fadgen was asking his questions is that, um, even the gentleman from red speed wasn't sure what he was talking about. Those signs weren't put up by him and I still have the same concern. You're, you're correct and I know council president asked about emailing this, uh, in advance. Well, I did email this in advance and, and you're, you're right is that through a conversation with the engineering department. Um, I was informed that, uh, um, through further research that the decision was to revise those signs. But that doesn't change the fact that I still believe and this is something that I voiced months ago. So this is not a, um, something new that I've shared with the administration is that the placement of those signs should not be at the entryways to our city. Uh, when you see a sign, um, at every one of our entryways to our city that says speed limit photo enforced. So it's welcome to the city of plantation speed limit photo enforced. And so even though we're not here to talk about the removal of the purple heart city signs that was removed to put this sign. And when you pass that sign, there is, um, multiple communities and lights before you get to those speed zones. And I don't think that's proper notice for our residents. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Council member Andrea. Just to see if we can, um, offer a solution. Do the red speed signs have the times on them? Um, because I was at plantation park elementary earlier this week, Monday for the first day of school. And it seemed as if there were two separate signs. Um, the red speed sign. And then what I assume was a city sign with the times. And it did have, I guess, previously the incorrect times. And then a sticker was placed over. And that was as of Monday. So if we could just have one sign, the red speed sign and have the, the times on that red speed sign, I think it would offer a lot of clarity. I will say that I am in favor of keeping the cameras on all throughout the day. I think that, um, it definitely makes a difference with the speeding. Again, I see it on Peters. I see it on Nob Hill. I called, uh, Miss Shallon about two, three weeks ago. Horrible crash again at the corner of Nob Hill and six. We must slow down. And that is what this is about. I know some people might think, or I've seen it stated that it's a money grab. It, it's not about the money. It's about safety to life. And so if people will slow down for this, the student staff of the schools, the residents, the pedestrians, and we can also avoid crashes at some of these very busy intersections. So for me, that is why I voted in favor of this and I'm still in favor of it. And I'm sensitive to people's, um, fourth amendment rights. I understand that. But I, again, I think the pros outweigh the cons. Uh, but I, we do to council member Reinstein's point. We have to fix the signage and that needs to be done immediately. Thank you, council member Andrea. Uh, council member Anderson, I'm going to let you wrap it up, but I just like to interject so that we can bring this home. Um, because I know these benches are uncomfortable. We're going to try to get everybody out of here. This was, uh, when we made this decision two years ago, we deliberated, um, over this quite a bit. And what changed our minds to go forward with these cameras was the amount of speeding in the city. And as council member Andrea alluded to, um, we had in a couple of month period in Knob Hill and sixth street, three accidents or fatalities. So that was really deciding factor. Um, just so you know, the three months of these cameras have been up, almost 23,000 citations have been issued, but only 23% of those are plantation residents. So, um, I personally have only had one complaint and I met with that, uh, individual and we, we talked through it. So it is not that we've had an overwhelming amount of complaints, but while we're talking about the signage, and I just want to bring this up. The city of Sunrise is working with a different vendor. They do have the beacons on their signs, uh, the flashing beacons. And they also have the speed limit that you are, you know, the radar sign that detects how fast you're going. I know that there was a Senate bill last year by Senator Disigli that it was laid on the table. It did not go, um, get passed into law. Is there any discussion with red speed? Can you provide that type of signage? Because I do think you've heard us, our biggest issue, my biggest issue is that we're talking about. My biggest issue is with the signage. Um, we want people to slow down. It's not a, I gotcha, but if we could do something with the flashing beacons and even the radar sign. Um, and I'd like to just hear if you are, uh, entertaining that or offering that as a company. It's something that we can discuss for the future. Okay. Because the state of Georgia has just implemented that, that it's going to be law that you have to have the flashing beacons and the radar sign. So I'd like to be ahead of the law and, um, see that in the city so we can get people to slow down. And thank you very much, Mr. Milan, for being here. Thank you. Councilmember Anderson, please bring it home. Yes. And I'll just be very brief. I, I, when we debated this a couple of years ago, I was open-minded but leaning towards against it. But the data was overwhelming, massive amount of speeding. And I was stunned. And I did this for safety and only safety. I could care less about the money. And I'm still stunned at how many tickets with all the education we did. I'm stunned with all the signs, how much tickets we have gotten. And you said three months. Really, it was mid-April to, to early June. The school year ended. So I wouldn't even call it that long because then summer hit. So really it's in a, like a month and a half. Stunning. Um, so that, it was about safety. And I have talked to Chief informally. It's too early to develop a pattern. But I would like to look, if safety was my priority, I would like to look at, it's very hard to compare. But past accidents, past pedestrian events, anything you want to qualify before we had the cameras versus after the cameras over a period of time and see if it minimized them. And if it was, or if it was no change. That'll give us more data to evaluate the effectiveness of these cameras. So that'll take a little bit more time. I want the more signs, basically all the things you said. So there you go. Thank you very much. Thank you for the discussion. It was very valuable. Thank you, Chief. And thank you, Mr. Milan, for being here this evening. Thank you. All right. Moving on to legislative items. We have item number 21, which is a second reading of an ordinance creating a section entitled Standards for Florida Friendly Fertilizer Use on Urban Landscapes. Do we have any discussion, or would someone like to make a motion? Motion to approve. Second. I still need to read it. Yes. I was, go ahead. I was going to get you in. Okay. Go ahead. All right. I know. Read that summary, please. Public hearing, second reading of the ordinance of the City of Plantation, Florida pertaining to landscaping, amending article 10 landscape standards by amending section 27251 and title landscape definitions. Amending article 10 landscaping standards by creating section 27268, title standards for Florida Friendly Fertilizer Use on Urban Landscapes. The code ordinances for the City of Plantation, Florida, providing for servability, providing for codification, providing for conflicts, and providing an effective date. Thank you, Mr. Morgan. We have a first and a second motion. Any discussion, Council Members? Ms. Spigaro, please call the roll. Council Member Fadgen? Yes. Council Member Reinstein? Yes. Council Member Anderson? Yes. Council Member Andreu? Yes. Council Member Horland? Yes. Thank you very much. All right. We're moving on to quasi-judicial proceedings. We're getting close. So this is how this works, and we're going to do a couple of things a little bit differently tonight. So the quasi-judicial proceedings require that if you are going to speak on the item, the City Clerk is going to swear you in. The City Attorney will read the rules. We operate on a different platform because it is quasi-judicial, which means we have to evaluate the proposals before us. And we have two, basically two projects tonight, that we have to evaluate them on the legal facts before us. So what I'm going to ask tonight, we have more. First of all, in the eight years I've been here, we've never opened those doors for meetings. So congratulations, another first tonight. So thank you all for being here. And we're going to ask you not to be strangers and come back and visit us sometimes. So this is how we're going to do this tonight. I've just been handed some more sheets. As you see the way we proceed with the meeting, speakers have three minutes to speak. So here's what I'm going to ask you. And I'm going to thank you for all the communication. I've tried to respond personally to each of you. We appreciate the thoughtful and heartfelt letters. There's a lot of passion on both sides of this issue, and we appreciate this. And this is what our democracy is all about. What I'm going to ask tonight is if someone gets up to speak and they said exactly what you wanted to say, when I call your name, I'm going to ask you either to, if you don't want to speak, just say, I'm in opposition, I wave in opposition, I wave in approval, just so that we can move this along, because we could be here until midnight if every beat. And I know some of you already wrote that you don't want to speak, but you wanted to be on the record. And all of your emails have been entered into the public record, so please be assured that your voice will be heard. I'm just going to read a couple other things. There will be no clapping. There will be no shouting out. And I'm asking that we treat one another with dignity and respect and stick to the facts. We'll provide everyone who wishes to speak your three minutes again unless you wave. We, again, thank you for all the emails. There was a lot of, there's been some misinformation and I'm hoping and conjecture that I'm hoping that the presentation tonight will clear that up. And I want to say whichever way the vote goes this evening, please know that we're voting, again, on the facts of the presentation and the evidence before us. And a vote for the proposal is not a vote against the residents and a vote against the proposal is not a vote against the church. And we have two church proposals up tonight, so there is enough division in the world. So I hope that when all of this is over tonight, we can all get back to being neighbors. So I am going to ask Mr. Morgan to read the rules and then the city clerk to wave to swear everybody in. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, sir. The quasi-judicial proceedings on the agenda tonight will be heard. The city clerk will swear on all witnesses. Before speaking, please state your name and whether you have been administered an oath when you come up to speak. Any speaker may be cross-examined. If you refuse to be cross-examined, your testimony may not be considered. Cross-examination shall be conducted in a courteous manner. The material in the city clerk's agenda packet and all the emails that were presented will be a part of the record tonight. The city staff will make the first presentation followed by presentations by the applicant. I don't believe, madam clerk, we have any affected parties tonight, so we won't have any affected parties. And then the public will be given their time to speak. The elected officials will set a reasonable time for limits for speaker, which is three minutes. And the hearing will then be closed and the matter decided. The city council's decision will be delineated in this motion and rendered in writing by way of resolution. Evidencing the decision. The city council may also decide to continue the matter to a designated time to allow for additional research or review. Madam President. Thank you, Mr. Morgan. Okay. Ms. Begaro, would you like to proceed? Those of you speaking on this, on any of the quasi-judicial topics, please stand and raise your right hand. And this is on item number 22, 23, and 24, and 25. All right. Do you swear or affirm that the evidence you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Thank you, everyone. I appreciate that. All righty. So the first item up tonight is item number 22, PP26-0016, consideration of request for conditional use approval for Unica Early Learning Center. The property is located 4671 NW 2nd Street and Zone CF-P Community Facilities and RS-4K Residential Single Family. Good evening, Ms. Zilk. I don't think your mic's on. Good evening. I'm Lisa Zilk with the City of Plantation Planning, Zoning, and Economic Development Department. Okay. This application is PP26-0016 for Unica Daycare. Okay. The conditional use of a request is for an approval of a 4,100-square-foot daycare in an existing building on the church campus. The location is depicted where the star is at 201 Northwest 2nd Street, also 4671 Northwest 2nd Street. Okay. Here's the zoning map. I just want to point out that there's split zoning. The church campus, where's the, right here, is zoned CFP. And then they've got a grass parking area here that is zoned RS-4K. Okay. Here's the aerial showing the notification boundary. There were 64 notices sent out. And here's a blowup of the aerial where you can see, here's the proposed location of the daycare. And here's the parking area and the grass parking area for the church. Okay. The subject site is currently developed with an existing house of worship. And the daycare would be occupying that freestanding building that I showed you. Okay. So the building was originally served as the original house of the original building for the house of worship. And it also housed a former daycare called Sine Daycare and Learning Center. Okay. This application was actually before you two years ago. It was heard by you guys for twice. The first time failed, the motion failed for approval. The second time it was approved. The original request was for 73 students. The approval that you guys gave them was for 40. Okay. So the current application is going to be for 75 children. She does have a DCF certification stating that 75 children would be the max. It's going to encompass 65 kids from 6 months old to about 5 years old and 10 kids for aftercare. Okay. So that just kind of goes over. Oh, the operating hours are going to be Monday through Thursday, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. And Friday, 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. with 15 staff. Okay. She also included in her application some community surveys, which hopefully you guys got a chance to look at that. And a parking, we'll go for that, drop off locations and that type of thing. Here's the floor plan that kind of shows. You have the infant room here. Where is this? On the far right, you've got the one-year-olds, the two-year-olds, and the three-year-olds. The aftercare is going to be in the middle. There we go. Right here. And then we have the two VBK classrooms on the west side. Okay. Here's the survey showing the location of the building in blue. We've got 47th Avenue on the west, 2nd Street on the south, and 46th Avenue on the east. Okay. And here's the traffic management plan. The plan initiated by the applicant is the parents will come in off of 46th Avenue over here, park, and walk their children into the daycare, and then go back to their vehicles and leave on 2nd Street. Ms. Self, none of that has changed in the past two years? No material changes to the plans? No. Just the number of students. Okay. So in summary, we find it consistent, compatible, and should not adversely affect the neighborhood. Okay. And we have, to date, we personally have not gotten any written or verbal communications in objection or in support of the application. And that's just the DCF calculations, and we are recommending approval. Thank you. We have five residents signed in to speak. Okay. And Councilmember Andrea would like to speak. Okay. Thank you, President Horland. I want to make a Jennings disclosure because I have driven by the daycare several times throughout the year at different times because I know we had, the first time this was approved, we had some concerns about parking and if we were going to be good neighbors. And I am happy to report that every time I drove by, they were in compliance and they have been good neighbors. And I look forward to supporting the additional, I think, 35 students tonight. So I want to thank the members, the leadership of the church. I believe that Mayor Sordal was there the other day for a service, maybe. I don't know how his Creole is, but he's getting there. But again- I could fake it with French. Bonjour, mademoiselle. Comment allez-vous? That's it. But again, I want to thank the leadership of the church because they told us, they made a commitment a year ago that they would handle the parking situation, that they would reach out to neighbors, and they have done that. So thank you. For Andreu, thank you. Councilmember Reinstein and then Councilmember Badger. So first I'll make a Jennings disclosure that I have driven by the property and I have talked to residents in regards to the property, but it won't affect my consideration of the item tonight. Councilmember Andreu, it's wonderful to hear what you just reported. Unfortunately, as sometimes is the case, is that there are two sides to every story. And I knocked on at least one house and spoke to some other residents that were finding the opposite. That they were reporting that the same concerns that were raised the last time this was before us, that they're still finding. And when I drove by, I was particularly looking at the grass lawn area, the landscape area that abuts the residence that is on the through street where we had had a lot of discussion about that. Do we have a picture of the property we could put up, the ones that has the cones in front of it? Maybe more helpful to, do you have the one with the cones? No, that was part of her application and we did not include it in the PowerPoint. So if we could just point to the driveway. There's a driveway right, somewhere right here, right underneath the tree. So you can't see it in this picture. And actually, there was a picture that looked like this was in the back up. And it's a home. It looks like a home. It's a residence. It's designed to be a residence. And the issues that were raised the last time around that we spoke quite a bit about was that when families were coming for drop off, they were parking on that grass area and they were coming right up to the driveway even though there were cones to block off. And I appreciate that the church in their presentation has really solidified that they were not using that area as a drop off, that the drop off would have to come around on the other side. Yes. And my concern is that when I've driven by that property, I am still seeing cars that are parked along on the grass. And so while understandably there may be other times that people are driving by or that people are not, I've seen it myself. And the residents that I've spoken to have also described that people are still parking on that grass way. And so that was one of the things that I was hoping to hear was that, you know, that that wasn't taking place at all. And something contrary to what I've seen and what some of the residents that I've spoken to. And the other thing is that if you were to, thank you, that's the image. Okay. If, well, we have it on our screen. Oh. Not up there. But. Okay. The other thing was that if you drive down that street in that grass area, there's actually an incredible amount of litter. And while that's not necessarily about the parking issue, it concerned me to see that it wasn't being upkept. And maybe it was just the day I drove by. But, you know, I, and I admittedly didn't stop to pick up all the litter. But there were water bottles strewn throughout the whole side there. And so, you know, it means that people are, whether they're walking by and dropping the litter or they're parking there and dropping it, I don't know. But it was consistent with what at least one of the residents across the street spoke to me about. So, you know, the same concerns that I raised the last time, these are being raised again. I, I, I'm sorry. I wish I was hearing otherwise. Okay. And I don't know if the applicant's here or not. Would you like the applicant to come up, Council Member Einstein? I'd like to hear from all the people that want to speak. So, if there's also people that have signed up to speak about their, their experience is positive or, or otherwise, I'd like to hear from everyone. I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to turn to Council Member Fadgen, and then I'd like the applicant to come up and address some of the concerns, and then we'll turn to the public. Okay. Council Member Fadgen? Thank you, Council President Horland. Um, so, but when this was presented to us before, nothing's really significantly changed. Their approval expired because they didn't start the process of permitting within 12 months. Right. So, I guess what I remember from that discussion, um, being led by Council Member Andreo and Council Member Anderson, being the educators on the dais, that they had a lot of questions about the enrollment of the school, and that we put a condition on it that they start with 40 and then go up to, I forget what the request was. So, I'm just curious what their opinion is on, you know, we did give them that conditional approval first. Um, do you have any opinions or say regarding their higher enrollment? I just want to clarify, the original, the original request that was before you in June of 24 was 73. Right. And you guys reduced it down to 40. 40, correct. And now they're back at 75. And now they're asking for 75. Right. I'm going to turn, you'd like an answer from Council Member Andreo? Yeah. Thank you. So, I, again, I'm in agreement with the higher number because they have shown that they managed the 43 or 45 students well. Um, I had not received any negative feedback whatsoever. Uh, again. Wait. Um. I'm confused. They, they had students? I thought they never opened. No, they absolutely have students, right? When expired. I don't, maybe I'm. They're, they're here. You have 40 or so now? This is because they've shown that the 40 is fine and now they're, now they're requesting to go up? No. I thought you already had some now. Correct me if I'm wrong. Is the school opened? They, they were approved and then their, their, their approval expired by the time that they applied for their business tax receipt. They never opened. So they didn't have the 40. Yeah. So they were. Oh. I thought you already had the 40. Okay. So. I'll let them. Oh, I thought you already had the 40. Okay. Well, um, again, DCF, DCF has approved it for these up to 75. And so I'm okay going along with the DCF guidelines. Anything else? Can we address the. We were. We do. Okay. Okay. So they're. Yep. Okay. I'm going to ask you to introduce yourself again. Nice to see you. And please, uh, tell us, uh, where you're at and, um, please address some of the concerns you've heard on the day. Thank you to all of you. And, um, most importantly, I want to just say thank you again to the neighbors that are here with us. Uh, I do want to, uh, speak on behalf of what, um, the council member Reinstein mentioned about the. I'm going to ask you to identify yourself. Oh, pastor JT. Thank you. St. Fleur. Okay. So I'm, I'm the assistant pastor at Sinai. All right. And you've been sworn in pastor. I have. Yes. Wonderful. Thank you. The water bottles that you see. We, you know, the campus, that area is not closed off. We have a lot of people who walk their dogs who, you know, walk by and everything. We do our best to keep it clean, uh, specifically on Mondays when we have the outreach, where we feed, um, uh, those that are in the neighborhood that sometimes you'll find that debris. I don't know if it was a Monday or not, but, um, but we do our best with the deacons and deaconesses to make sure that we pick them up, whether it be on the front lawn or towards the back where the parking is. Okay. Anything else? Do you wish to seek, speak to the increase, um, as we did approve the conditional use for 40? Two years ago. Hi there. Good evening. Juana Caleximus. I sworn in. Okay. Great. In regards of the capacity, I know the number might have seemed confusing from 73 to 75. When this paper first came by, there was a classroom that was not fully set up yet for her to have a proper measurement. Now, when she came by for the second time, she gave us the 75 on the most restrictive guideline. With that being said, from last time, if we were to go with the 40, that would literally put us at a deficit drastically, not only not being able to serve as many families as we would love to, but also that would put five students in each class and that would minimize the capacity for us to sustain our staff. Right. Financially, it would not be sustainable. Yes. And I think we did discuss that. So, and I think you heard what Councilmember Andreas said. As long as that TCF report came back and they approved you for that, she was certainly, you know, much more in favor of proceeding with that. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Reinstein, you have another question? Yeah. I want to follow up just to make sure I understand in terms of the current use. So, since the last time that you were here before us through to this very moment, has there been any use of the inside of that building? No. Because although we do, we did have the city council approval, we did need to have the TCF license in order to operate. And in the meantime, I did have some, I did have some hard time personally. I did. I have to go into it. That's okay. There were some complications along the way. We had some complications. Sure. And what I'm trying to say is, it's been a lot and I don't want to be emotional. Okay. But you don't have to. And you answered the question. I appreciate that. The church really supported the project, yes. And we're happy to see you back before us. Thank you. Council President, can I ask a follow up question to Mr. Alpert, please? Yes, you may. Yes. Mr. Alpert, so this question goes towards the staff comments. You and I had a conversation with the staff, regarding the staff comments previously. And I wasn't sure whether or not the agenda had been corrected since then or whether or not you needed to make a statement in regards to that. Because my question is in regards to the local business tax recede and the time period for that. Can you comment on that? Yes. So comment number five from planning and zoning staff comments reads that the conditional use approval will become null and void if a building permit is not issued or a local business tax receipt not obtained within a year after the date of the final approval of a conditional use. Those should have been actually written as two separate ones because you need the LBTR before you begin operating. You also need a building permit for any work that you need, you know, to comply with building code. So they should be separated out as two different things and both of them would apply before the use begins operating. Have you had a chance to speak to the applicant regarding item five prior to this meeting? We did speak yesterday about a couple of things. I believe I did mention that to her. I don't remember having the conversation, but I think they understand that part of it. So let me follow up though is that and I had asked you previously and I'm not sure that I remember if you had gotten back to me on it is that at this time has the applicant obtained a business tax receipt? They have not. And so talk to us just because I want to make sure that I'm understanding again the corrected staff comment and the requirement in our city. So is the requirement to have the business tax receipt prior to admitting students into this building and beginning the program there? Yes. And what is, and at this point in time have you received an application for the local business tax receipt from the applicant? There was an application that was submitted, but the conditional use had expired so we could not approve it. So do they have to submit a new, so there is no current application for a business tax receipt? Correct. Okay. Okay. And so, thank you. I understand that they are doing this first. I just want to make sure that since item five needed to be amended that it's clear as to what we may be approving tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Is that all? Thank you. Great. Thank you very much. I'm going to turn to public comment if you'd like to find a space along the wall. I know there are no seats. I'm going to ask Mr. Conklin to come up, and the next on deck is Mr. Robin Howard Ardun and then Jamie Rojas. Mr. Conklin, you want to speak on this item, sir? Thank you. Dennis Conklin, 4581 Northwest Sixth Court. I have been sworn in to understand the rules. When we moved into Plantation, you know, 40 years plus ago, both of our daughters went to Parkway Christian, which were in the main classroom areas that you saw. I believe that the property we were talking about was Parsonage, actually. And now it's been basically approved with the child services and whatnot. Before there was trouble with the parking on the observant day, but that's been remedied. And I haven't seen a problem, basically, for parking and so forth and so on. I do live up on Sixth Street, and this is down on First, but basically Parkway Christian benefited my family at the time. Now, I know that my daughters, they've got lifetime friends, and I don't want to say how old they are because they're – but I'm just saying I think that this community should have the opportunity to have that same experience. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Conklin. Great. And Robin Howard Ardun? Arduny. Arduny. I'm sorry. I couldn't read it. My name is Robin Howard Arduny. I did get sworn in. Thank you. I am opposed to it because of the fact that we have seen, time and time again, no matter whether it was Saturday, Sunday, they park outside of that fenced area. I'm afraid that it will bring in more of a traffic problem for the residents, especially if they're trying to get out in the morning to go to work or coming back in in the evening. I also know that when I was reading some of the stuff that that house, it was a house. It was built after the church was there. The guy who was – I've been in the house since – my house since 1960. So the kid across the street from me was Seventh-day Adventist. And so his father was a pastor, I believe, at the time, and they lived across the street. Eventually, they built that as a house for the pastor. So that's something that I think was incorrectly stated on that thing you put up on the wall. But I just think that it's too much, they've grown too big, and I really think that they need to branch out and maybe go somewhere else with some of their facilities. Even if they just buy land from somewhere else in the community somewhere in the plantation, if there's something available. Maybe there's not, and maybe it's too expensive for them. But there's just too many – I mean, every time I turn around, I see cars parked outside of the church area, or I see the people who are coming for the food gifts. And what kind of people are you bringing into my neighborhood? You know, I'm concerned because, you know, maybe they're good people, but maybe they're not. So who knows what, you know, what you're doing. And it's like I've got a neighbor who's rented out, he's basically renting a house. I don't know who's coming into that house and what they could be doing. We have children in that neighborhood, and they're not all from the same denominations. So what are you saying and doing that – so this is my opposed to it. Okay. Thank you very much for your comments. Jamie Rojas and Anna Maria Rosinski. Good evening. Jamie Rojas, 4811 Northwest First Court, and I have been sworn in. Good. Thank you. So I live in that area. I walk my dogs every day. Unfortunately, I do see the issues that we've seen before over the last three years since we've been here. Lots of parking, illegal parking, essentially parking on the swale. You can drive by that area. You can see how the property is beginning to deteriorate because they're parking on the swale. There's no grass, like, in the parking areas anymore. The same problems that we had before where, like, there was, like, service vehicles that were, like, illegally parked. Those have also been, like, kind of moved around, but you can still see them, and they're still there. All those issues are kind of, like, the set of precedent, I guess, for when we talked to them last time and we spoke. We had, like, an agreement, essentially, like, hey, you can do this. You can set up your daycare, and we can try it out. And it was all based on them having, like, good faith, being good to the neighbors, reaching out to different, like, the HOA, reaching out to the different. I think there was a service with the mayor where he recommended that they use, like, an interfaith thing in the plantation. So the question is, has that happened? Me, personally, and I know that a lot of you guys come to our HOA meetings, I haven't really seen anybody from the church. Nobody's come to talk to us. Nobody's really, like, addressed any of the concerns that we had. You know, our biggest concern was always that that is a house. It's part of the church, and it is a community zone or zone for community. But that specific area is a residential home. So we kind of had concerns about how many people you could fit in there. Their original number was somewhere around 100, and then we had that impact of what that would mean during rush hour. That was three years ago. Rush hour isn't any better today. You know, so we're, again, really, really concerned with what we're seeing. It doesn't seem like kind of like what we talked about really occurred. And, you know, to a certain extent, I felt a little bad because I was like, man, you know, like, has the traffic really been that bad? You know, you question, has it really been that bad? But now realizing that the daycare wasn't even open, that question mark is still there. It's still there for my neighbors. It's still there for everybody else around that neighborhood. You can look at the comments. There's some areas, some houses that were looked at. But there's some houses and some residents that are really, really upset with that church. And I don't know if that's going to be able to be fixed, but that's it. That's it. Thank you, Mr. Rojas. Thank you. Mr. Rosinski? Good evening. Don't feel like you're walking the gauntlet. I know that's a good fee failure tonight. Anna Marie Rosinski. I'm at 4811 Northwest First Court. I have concerns that most of us in this neighborhood don't live where we were notified about this. I have similar feelings of the person that got up before me, all those things. But I also remember when it was a parson's house and, you know, there was daycare there and everything. But it was all walk up then. Now it's drive up, you know, drop them off and everything. And the traffic in our neighborhood is 100 times worse than it was when that was designed. So I just feel like it's not appropriate for the area. And, you know, I have nothing against any of the churches there, but it's a matter of traffic and safety. And the property is really not kept up. If you go to the back side of the church, it's an eyesore, that whole parking area. For the neighbors that live behind it, I feel sorry for them. I walk dogs over there, too. And it's, you know, it looks horrible. You wouldn't want it in your back, in your front yard. You wouldn't want to look at it. So just from that standpoint, you know, I am not for it. Okay. Thank you, Mrs. Brzezinski. All right. Pastor, would you mind coming up to the podium, please? You both come up. If you could introduce yourself as well, please. Aubin's Pierre Antoine. Thank you very much. You've heard the same concerns that we heard two years ago. So what I'm going to ask you is I am well aware that your community needs extra support. And this community would like to support you. Thank you. But we all need to be good neighbors. So whatever you can do to make sure that that church property is maintained and cleaned up, as Councilmember Reinstein said. With that driveway, which we brought up before, is there a possibility of maybe moving those cones further down to where the apron is? I'm going to ask staff if we can do that. Or even maybe put some of those little concrete, you know, balls of that. I know there's a technical term. The bollocks. Yeah. Ballards. There. Not bollocks. Ballards. They're something so that people are not parking on that apron of the driveway. Because I think you are within the zoning code. Staff is recommending approval. I don't know how the vote will go tonight. But we know that there is a need in the community for the daycare. And I'm sure that we would like to approve it. But we really need the church to be better neighbors. And I'm going to reiterate what I said two years ago. The Park East HOA meets the third Tuesday of the month at Jim Ward at 7 p.m. And I know they would love for you to come in and have you be welcomed and be a part of the community. We all attend those meetings. We would love to see you there. I'm going to ask you tonight if you leave me your number because I've tried to call the church and reach out to you. And I haven't been able to reach anybody. So I'd love to be able to make sure that you are more integrated into that community. Most definitely. It's a promise. Councilmember Fajan has a question. Thank you, Council President. Council President Horland covered many of the comments that I have or concerns. What's concerning to me is that when you were here the last time, we gave you the approval in good faith that you were going to make amends with the community and the property has not improved. And I don't really think some of the problems that have been stated by your neighbors is a money issue. It's more of just getting out there, cleaning it up every night and trying, you know, nobody wants to look across the street in an eyesore. So whatever you can do to improve that, I would love for people to come here. You know, they really made a genuine effort and then they came through this time. You had, I guess, two years at this point to really show us that what your intent was. And even though, you know, the original approval did not happen or you didn't take action on the approval that was given to you, you could have been in a better spot right now because you would have shown that what you promised was going to happen. So I have a little doubt in the vote that I have to make in a minute here, as my colleagues probably do. So I hope you listen to the concerns of your neighbors and that there's going to be a better effort of getting your property up to snuff that you, that they don't have to have the stress of looking out the front door and seeing, seeing garbage or brown grass. And I don't know if there's a way to fix your parking problem because overflowing and parking in people's yards is not going to be acceptable. So thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Reinstein. Yeah. Thank you, Councilmember Fadgen. I just want to follow up on that and I want to refer back to the memorandum that was provided by staff. And I want to be clear that my concerns are whether or not the proposed location will create a traffic hazard or traffic nuisance. And whether or not it will affect the quality of life of neighboring residents. And I think as you heard just now from Councilmember Fadgen is that the comments that you just heard particularly from Mr. Rojas is that he was here saying the same exact thing the last time around. And I would have very much liked to have heard Mr. Rojas say it has been the time that has passed since the last time you were here that there's been no parking on the grass in front of his home. And that there have been no concerns with whether it's littering or traffic or whatever it may be. And unfortunately my concern tonight is that we're hearing that even though there were all these promises that these efforts were going to be made. We're hearing the same thing that we heard the last time around. Thank you. Can I say something? Yes, Pastor, please. Yes. Thank you so very much for allowing us to speak at this moment. We've been the pastors of the church for the past three and a half years. When we came to this church, the church had almost 30 violations with the city, things that were not working. Today if you go to the city, there is not one violation that already says that we've tried our best. Physically speaking, anybody who knew this church two, three years ago and that passed by the church today, they see literally a little paradise in comparison to what it was before. Because we spent tons of money and we did everything that's in our power. To beautify the place, cut the trees, make sure that we plant flowers, pave the ways, making sure that the building represents the beauty and the standard of plantation city. That's number two. Even the lighting is different. We put a beautiful seal on the wall that can be seen everywhere you come from. And thirdly of all, the noise was a main issue. We did everything that's in our power to keep the noise down. And we even spent almost $121,000 to install impact windows to contain the noise in between the walls. To make sure that we do not mess with the peace of the community. Now when it comes to cars, parking, sometimes you all can understand that not everything that happens on the outside of the church, we have power over it. Because we are not there 24-7. We cannot ask somebody not to park outside of the fence. If we have church on Saturday morning, that may be a little different. But considering what's going on now with the Haitians in the city and all over Florida, it's very difficult to explain that we would have an outflow of cars that would park all around. That may happen once in the blue moon when we have funeral on Sunday morning. But we don't have funeral every Sunday morning. And when we have funeral, it's a church. We do not have control over the people that are coming. We don't know who's coming, where they come from. Sometimes the funeral is not even our funeral. In spite of everything that we tried, everything that we do, something may still happen. And when you look at the church on the outside, it looks like a place, a free space for everybody that's passing by. When I would not throw something on somebody's driveway, on a house, a grass, but somebody may feel more comfortable throwing a litter by the fence because this fence is nobody watching over it and nobody is going to say anything about it. And it is our responsibility to come and pick up. And we've done it carefully. So looking at the church today in comparison to what it used to be, I believe that in all good faith, we've done everything that's in our power to well represent the beauty and the standard of Plantation City. And some things we may try our best, but we cannot change somebody's mind who only wants to see the bad in what's happening. We know what we've done in all honesty. As the pastors, I would raise my hand before God and the city council that we did everything that was asked of us, except, except the HOE. That I cannot lie. I received the emails. If I don't receive the email, of course, I'm not going to show. But I promise, I promise on my God's name that if we are granted and the email comes to the church, I receive it, I make sure that either myself or my co-pastor pays presents in any meeting that the city is having. We did it. And we have other meetings that we are invited. They come. They give us letters. If I cannot make it, Pastor JT always is present. So we do everything that we can do. And the daycare, I believe it's education. The value, the power of America resides in good education. George Washington precises that the best way of forming happy people is by educating the young people. And without that foundation, he said, all other means of forming people will fail. We've tried our best to do that. Now, the church may have had a bad reputation in the past. And I think it would be unfair to our children to be the victims of that bad reputation in the past. Raising good kids, that's helping the community. And I know the concern of somebody regarding the people that we are bringing to the community. In all fairness, we've been in this community for 28 years. No gangsters, no drug dealers ever reported, no crime in the community. We are still blacks. We are still Haitians. We've been there for over 30 years. We never heard any story of scandal, crime, drug whatsoever. So if we had not done it yesterday, why would we do it today? So if we never brought any bad people in the community, why would we bring them today when the Haitians are in all the situations that we know they are now? We have to be forever careful with the people that we are bringing. And if the church has not been a scandal for the community, they may talk about the beauty of the space, but not about the reputation, not about the value that we uphold. And we've been upholding good values with the people that we bring. I think kids grew up in this community. Never have we had one of our church members arrested for crime, for drug, for gang members, for activities that are completely in opposition to what the city of Plantation represents. And I do remember, Plantation is a green city, and we tried our best to keep it green. Now, I will let it to you. If you give it to us, we will praise the Lord, and we will pray for you every day. If you choose not to give it to us, we will know that it's not because we didn't do what we were supposed to do. It's just because probably you don't feel like we are qualified enough to receive it, and we will still continue to pray for you. Because we promise to the Lord that no matter what the result is here today, we will continue to praise God and to pray for the city because we are in the city. We are members of the city. We love the city, and we will continue to love it. Thank you so very much. Please no clapping. Pat, I will get you in. We're going to wrap this up. Pastor, please make no mistake. We want you here in the city. We welcome you here. Thank you very much. We want that church to be a safe and comforting place for your community. Thank you. We want the community surrounding you to accept you. And again, I'm glad you brought it up. There are no code violations on that property. You have invested a lot of money in cleaning it up, and you've done much of what we asked. We just want you to be more integrated into the community and have the community get to know you a little bit better. So that's why the comments were made. I'm going to turn it over to Councilmember Fadgen and Reinstein, and hopefully we can take a vote shortly. Pastor, I'm glad you brought up the code violations. You reminded me of some of the discussion regarding the noise and stuff like that. So, yes, I do think that's showing good faith that you are looking to improve it, and I'm glad you have no violations. And I have driven by it going to different events, and I do notice a difference in your property. I think the comments that you heard from your neighbors is saying to you there's still work to be done, and that's all we're asking of you. So if you can make the good faith effort to continue improving that property, that's what we're looking for. So promise. Thank you. Councilmember Fadgen, Councilmember Reinstein. Pastor, you've done a wonderful job of preaching. If you were passing around the hat, I'd put in money myself. So, you know, just to be clear is that while I understand everything that you said and I appreciate your comments, my comments were very specific to the parking concern. And so, you know, what I did hear what you explained is that you're feeling that much of the parking concerns are not caused by, are not within your control. So it's not saying that there's not a parking concern. It's not saying that there may be people that are parking along the grass. You drive by there now, you see that the grass is all worn out with Mr. Rojas even mentioned. So I just want to be clear is that, you know, my analysis of this is not in regard to the use. It's not in regard to the people. It's in regards to the very concern that was raised the last time you were before us. And we had talked about the parking. You had assured us and even talked about people that would be out there from the church to, in order to make sure that there was no parking problem. So while you didn't say it this time, the last time you had actually agreed to make sure that you had people from the church to ensure that there was no parking problem along the way. So, you know, I just want to make sure you understand is that I would love to be able to make sure that the needs that you are describing are met. My concern is something very specific, and that was what I was asking about. Right. Thank you. Mr. Lewis, definitely. The parking issue was worse before. We're not saying that it is completely eradicated. We are trying our best, and we do have people on a regular basis, not every day, but it happens, for instance, if a funeral is from the church, you will not have that, because we will make sure we don't have that. I understand, and I appreciate your answer. On Saturday, we have everybody working tirelessly to make sure that nobody parks on anybody's grass on the outside. So we do our best. It may happen that somebody is passing, because it's a fence, a big space. Anybody can park there. Anybody can try to park there. But if we are not around during the week or on a Sunday morning, we may not see it. But we try our best, because we have two churches, you see, and we do whatever it takes to make sure that we respect everything that we promised the last time we came here. Thank you very much. It may happen, but we promise, and I will continue to make that promise to you, that that will not happen if we get approved again today. Thank you, Pastor. Mayor? I have two quick comments. Number one, I came to visit you all for a community event there about two or three weeks ago. You had somebody there opening the door for me, then you had somebody escort me to somebody, then you handed me off to somebody, and you handed me off to somebody else. And I was treated like a king, which I appreciate. But the point is, you have enough people. May I suggest that you've got to have somebody standing outside where they shouldn't be parking, do the Tiananmen Square thing if you have to, and just say, don't park here. You have to have somebody outside and to do that. And the second thing I'd like to suggest is the residents here who are experiencing problems, give them a phone number of somebody at your church that they can call and say, yo, you've got a problem here, you've got a problem here. It shouldn't be you two because you're running the church. But they should have a hotline number of somebody's cell phone that they could call, and I think that would make you a better neighbor. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for those comments, Mayor. Thank you, Pastor. Yes, Pastor, do you want to add something? Just to add on to, thank you, Mayor, and we're happy to have you, and also we welcome all of you as well to come and visit the campus. As it pertains to, even as you guys were talking about the speeding that goes on with that, even within that area, you know, some of the members that come and park, like we don't have members that come and park on there, but we'll have somebody from, you know, off the road that comes in and pulls in my parking, or Pastor Robbins is parking in their park, and they do it. You have police officers who do it as well. They'll come in and they'll park over. The thing is, this is why when you reference for us to go ahead and put in those barriers on the ground, those rocks, yeah, I think it would be best to do that because, again, we can't control, especially during the week when there's probably not a service going on. You have people who park in and we come up and you say, hey, are you a member? And those will not as easily removed as they come. Correct, correct, correct. And that is something that's very, you know, it's intriguing how it happens because, and also it's an open space. Right. People walk there all the time. You have the park gym ward, which is right there. You have the kids that come for basketball. They're tired. They throw it. I see them. I don't yell at them. I say, guys, come on. Yeah. You know, so it's not, I just don't want the neighbors to assume or think that it's purposely being done. No. Because we don't want to be dirty. Right. We want to have a green campus just as plantation, you know? So that's just what I want to do. And we only make these suggestions because we want the neighbors to look upon you favorably as well, because we want you to be welcome. So thank you all for that. I'm going to move on to the vote if you don't mind. And so if we don't have any further comment, I'm going to ask for a motion, please, on item 22. Motion to approve item 22. Okay. Do we have a second? Thank you. Is that subject to staff? Thank you, attorney. Subject to staff comments. Yes. Thank you. All right. We have a motion to approve and a second. Ms. Beggerel, please call the roll. Councilmember Fajan? Yes. Councilmember Reinstein? No. Councilmember Anderson? Yes. Councilmember Andrew? Yes. Councilmember Horland? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember. Please, please, no clapping. Please. You forgot the rules from earlier in the evening. Yes. President Horland, if I may. Yes. Councilmember Andrew. I know you said it earlier, but Pastor. Pastor. August 18th, 7 p.m., Jim Ward. I want you to mark your calendar. Please. It's the next HOA meeting, August 18th at Jim Ward, 7 p.m. This is your invitation. I will see you there. Good night. Have a good evening. Good night. I'm going to wait until they move on. Out quietly. Okay. There are some seats open if some of you would like to come up to the front. All right. I'm just going to do a quick refresher on how we're going to move through this. Sure. I'm going to read the descriptions for item 23, 24, 25, which are all related to Plantation Baptist Church. We will take the comments all together, and then we will vote on those items individually. I'd please like to remind everyone no shouting, no speaking out unless you're standing before this microphone, and no clapping. Again, I will read the first three people slated to speak. I will say your names, and when I call you to the podium, if you choose at that moment to not speak because someone else has covered your points, we've got a lot of comments tonight. So if somebody has said exactly what you wanted to say, just please, when I call your name, I say I waive in opposition or I waive in approval. Okay? I'm going to wait until everyone takes their seat, and then we'll get started. It does. Because we're looking outside. I know. Yeah. Louis left. Okay. I'm going to start. Yeah, we don't need her. Okay. Wait. I'm losing control already. I haven't even started. All right. Mayor, we didn't plan on a seventh-inning stretch, so I'm going to ask you to take a seat. Okay. I'm going to get started. Is our city clerk returning to find? Okay. All right. All right. So we're going to start with item number 23. Again, I'm going to read these three descriptions, which is PP25-0041, Consideration of a Request for Conditional Use Approval, Plantation Baptist Church, Gym Edition. The property is located at 11700 Northwest 28th Court and is zoned CF-P Community Facility. The description for item number 24 is also PP25-0041, Consideration of a Request for Approval of the Landscape Waiver Request for Plantation Baptist Church, same address. Item number 25 is also PP25-0041, Consideration of a Request for a Site Plan, Elevations, and a Landscape Plan Approval for Plantation Baptist Church. Mr. Alpert. Good evening, sir. You are? Good evening, Council. City Attorney, City Clerk, Michael Alpert, Interim Director of Planning, Zoning, and Economic Development. Just a second to get the presentation. The property is located at 11700 Northwest 28th Court, pretty much at the boundary of Plantation Acres with the City of Sunrise. The applicant is Plantation Baptist Church. The zoning is CFP, Community Facility. It's approximately 8.14-acre site and is surrounded by single-family zoning on three sides in Plantation, and also across 28th Court in homes in the City of Sunrise. So here's an aerial view, again, surrounded by single-family homes on all perimeters. There was a public notification boundary of 500 feet and 221 notices were mailed to surrounding property owners. So the requests are for site plan, elevation, conditional use, landscape plan approval for a proposed gymnasium in the CFP Community Facilities Zoning District. So the proposal is a two-story, 33,677 square foot gymnasium building that will have basketball courts, retractable seating, a stage storage, seven classrooms, a commercial kitchen, a formal lobby, support offices, restrooms, and locker rooms. Places of worship and their accessory and ancillary buildings require conditional use approval in the CFP zoning district. And one landscape waiver is being requested for the landscape pedestrian zone, which I will speak about in another slide. Here's an aerial view showing the entire property, approximately eight acres, the entire campus. So this is the zoning map, city's zoning map, and the property is located here, CFP zoning in blue. And it is surrounded, actually, by homes that have the same zoning, which is RS3K. I know it's a little bit hard to read, but just to highlight, the two zoning districts in that box that are marked in red, the top one is the zoning for this property, CFP, Community Facilities. The other one that's in red is RS3K, so that happens to be the zoning for the homes that surround this property to the south, to the east, and to the west. That zoning is RS3K, so for the CFP zoning, they're permitted to have 60-foot height, or five stories, whichever is less. There are 50-foot setbacks, unless they go over two stories, and then it begins to have a step back, which is not the case here. And the uses in this area of North Acres that currently have this zoning are two properties, which is this church, as well as most of North Acres Park. RS3K, on the other hand, the height restriction, as it is for most homes, most single-family zoning districts, is 35 feet. Setbacks are different for each RS zoning district. We have plenty of them throughout the city. Of course, those are single-family residential zoning districts. There are also a few other districts in the surrounding area, including RS1EP, which is the majority of the homes within Plantation Acres. The entire Plantation Acres have that zoning, but none of the properties out about this church have that zoning. For RS1EP, the height allowance is 40 feet, but there's also a step back provision, and there's a little footnote, which is a little hard to read. So, in that case, but none of the properties that are adjacent to this subject property have that zoning. Here's an overall rendered site plan. The existing church has been existing for a few decades, and in the red box is the proposed gymnasium building, which is similar in footprint, and aligned to be right next to the church to the east. There is one landscape waiver, which is for a landscape pedestrian zone, and that is basically foundation plantings, which are required around buildings. The formula is basically to be the width of that zone should be half the height of the building. So, in this case, it would be 21 feet required. They're providing a little over six feet. Staff supports this because otherwise it would push the building down by another 15 feet. It is aligning with the existing church building as well as the driveway, the drive aisle in front of them. So, we are able to get plantings within that area. So, we are supporting that waiver. I believe that the applicant's architect house is going to show a presentation, so he will probably talk more about the architecture and site. So, I just wanted to give you some renderings here for the elevations. These are showing the church and the gym side by side, roughly comparable in height. These are the elevations facades of the gym as well on the other two sides. And then, here's a floor plan for the first floor. The primary space, of course, being the gymnasium, but there's also classrooms, offices, lobby, locker rooms, restrooms, and so forth. On the second floor, there's classrooms, a game room, additional restrooms, and administrative offices. So, a little bit about the background and history of this site. 2008 was the first conditional use approved by the Plans Adjustment Committee back in 2008 with an enrollment of 40 students pre-K through 12th grade. In 2019, the City Council at the time approved an enrollment of 200. The year that just passed, 2025-2026 school year, the confirmed enrollment was 97 students, pre-K through 12th grade. And the church is not requesting to increase enrollment from what they were approved for back in 2019. For this upcoming school year, the confirmed enrollment is 94 students. A little bit about traffic. The review committee looked at this property when it's, and based on the enrollment that was approved in 2019 of 200 students with that original conditional use, we found that the weekday school use would be negligible additional traffic. The estimated trips at vested capacity would be about 75 to 100 peak hour, two-way trips. Events are intermittent and typically outside the commuter peak hours. And the estimated internal capture is roughly 30 to 60 percent, typical for a combined church-school campus. Engineering department, as part of the review committee, the final conclusion is that the proposed development is expected to create modest traffic impacts and does not warrant a full traffic impact study. A couple of recommendations, that event scheduling management to avoid overlapping major activities. On-site traffic control during large events, encouraging carpooling and church-shuttle usage. There was a community meeting held at Volunteer Park on April 15th. To date, the city has received both numerous written objections and phone calls, and letters of support from citizens objecting to or supporting this application. In summary, staff's analysis of the conditional use, the waiver request, and the site plan. The proposed conditional use is compatible with the general plan for the district and the surrounding property. The proposed conditional use is in harmony with the general's character of the community. And the proposed gymnasium building is consistent with the community facilities land use plan designation, which is the underlying land use. In conclusion, staff, based on the findings and conclusions outlined in the staff report, staff recommends approval subject to staff conditions noted in Section 5B of the report. Thank you, Mr. Alpert. Before we ask the applicant if they'd like to present, do you know, at the top of your head, how many houses of worship are in the acres total? Nine. Nine? Yeah. And am I correct that there are also two of those nine have, I believe it might be the Seventh-day Adventist Church and Calvary, which just came before us, also have schools attached? Are there? To my knowledge, yes. Okay. All right. I just wanted to be clear on that. Thank you very much. Sure. Any questions from Mr. Alpert, would you like to hear the presentation from the applicant? Want to save? Okay. All right. Who wants the applicant to come up and identify themselves and present? Good evening. Good evening. Matt Forge, the agent for Plantation Baptist Church. I'm the owner and principal of Five Architecture. Okay. Five Architecture. I have with me Pastor Tom, as well as Mr. Joey here with me. And I just wanted to kind of just introduce us and then I'll let Pastor Tom speak. And then I'll continue on with the full presentation. Okay. Good evening, Mayor, members of City Council. My name is Matt Forge, the architect and representative for the Plantation Baptist Church project. I'm the principal of Five Architecture and I'm joined tonight by Pastor Tom. He will speak about the church's vision and purpose for this building. Tonight, we're presenting for your consideration a site plan modification, conditional use expansion for the new gymnasium building at the church located at 20th Court, as already presented to you. I'll let Pastor Tom speak and then I'll kind of continue on with the depth of our presentation. Good evening, Council. Good evening, Pastor. Good evening, Mayor. Good evening, everybody. It's an honor and a privilege to be here tonight. We're excited. The pastor and the people are here. We came and I'm so thankful that they came as well. I want to thank you for all your work and effort and reading that you have done in preparation for this. It's much appreciated. I learned a lot in this journey. A whole lot in this journey. And I've learned some things even coming through and building here. And I kind of just want to share my heart as the pastor in the heart of Plantation Baptist Church. I appreciated the remarks earlier about maybe some misinformation, confusion and so on. Listening to the people, the church prior to us. Churches and neighborhoods are important. Churches are to be good neighbors. There is a good situation there. That is important. Churches are community facilities. They're there when the neighborhood hurts, when the neighborhood is excited. There does need to be care and concern for that. And I appreciate that so much. Plantation Baptist Church in its heart has been since 1978 a local community church. They bought that land there. The 10 acres, they've sold some of that. But at its heart then and at its heart now, it is a local community church. And I want the community to know that. I want you to know that. Having said that, we've learned some things through planning and zoning that I think we needed to clearly communicate for us tonight for our building project. We are not in any way, shape or form looking to be any type of megish church or bring any type of extra activity outside of church situation to our neighborhood. We understand we have done that in the past with the Christmas lights and much of the traffic complaints that you will hear tonight are going to be from frustration for the Christmas light ministry that we have had. What we are looking to do with this building, I do believe, meets the needs of our church. And I do believe also it will help the community with their concerns and their situation. We are asking for this permission to build this building for current use that we have. Everything that this building is designed to do. And it was called a gymnasium just because that's all I knew how to call it. I didn't know how to. We called it a gym. So it's a gym. It really is a multi-purpose building that meets the ministries of our church. And churches have multiple, multiple ministries from children all the way up through adults. We have ministries on Sundays, Wednesdays. You have care ministries. You have all kinds of things. You guys understand that. One of the ministries of our church is our school. It is a ministry of our church. This building, as it is being proposed and built, everything that this building is designed to do, we are already doing in the ministry. We're already doing it. It's designed to have an inside playground for the kids. They're already playing basketball outside. It's designed to have classrooms because we need more space in our classrooms on elementary level, adult level, everywhere. We've got classes combined and kids going to classes together, and we would like to separate that out. Nothing that we are asking to do will be outside of the normal church life that we have. And so this building is designed to meet our needs and in helping with the community as well. I think that it's evident by it does not create traffic. This building is going to eliminate the traffic concerns of our community because it eliminates the Christmas lights. The Christmas lights will end with the building of this building. They end this year. Most of the traffic you're going to hear tonight complaints come from that. So not only does this building help us with our ministries, it puts an end to the Christmas lights. It frees up the whole month of half a month of November, the whole month of December. It brings all of the noise that the residents complain about sometimes to children. It brings much of that inside. And so I can see it being a win-win situation where it wins for the church and it wins for the community. And so to just allure or just to alleviate concerns, no desire to have a megachurch, no desire to have evening events, no desire to bring any schools or thousands of people in. This is a local community church with a building designed to fit our situation. And if I can just correct one thing that was on the slide, there's no stage in this building. That was in an initial drawing. And you'll see that in just a moment. There's no stage in this building. We came out of planning and zoning. And one thing you'll notice, too, is we did not unstack the building. We were asked about unstacking the building. We looked at unstacking the building. And I just want to say the reason we didn't unstack the building was for space and security. We use grass parking. We have a fall festival. We need grass. Even in our civil situation, we're close in our drainage. So we didn't take it and put it there because that would push the parking further. And then when we have the two levels there, it's easier to have all the kids on one side and secure them. Right now we're trying to secure three hallways in our building with children. That is not easy. So we're able to secure them and keep them close to that situation with all of that. And so as we move through, there's no stage. We're not looking to present that. We're not looking to rent out our facility. We're not looking to make money. We're not doing anything. We're simply looking to do what normal church life would be. Coming out of planning and zoning, we listened to the community's concerns and we made adjustments. And I think as the architect, Matt, goes through these, you will see where we made adjustments based on the voice of our residents to show that we met their need. So I'd ask Matt to finish his slide down. Thank you, Pastor. Matt, go to the next slide. Thank you, Pastor. We can go to, I think, probably like two slides forward. In the interest of time, I will skip through some slides here just because it is a duplication of information we've already shared. So we can go to the next slide. As Pastor mentioned, we've discussed the use. We've discussed the purpose of this building. I won't repeat anything that he said. We can come down to the next slide, please. Again, we're looking at a new building, 33,000 square feet, as well as some parking and supplementary site circulation. Okay. I lost my track. I'm sorry. Okay. The building area. This was a clarification that I wanted to make. Our previous application grouped the building area of the existing church and the proposed gym. On the current slide, you will see now a breakdown of the areas. Our existing church ground floor area is 27,800 and some odd square feet. The proposed gym multipurpose building ground floor area is 21,800 some square feet. The proposed building is in its footprint smaller than the existing church building. However, the total area, when you combine the second floor, is a larger building by square footage. I do want to clarify that so that it is known and clear that our footprint is smaller than what's on site today. We're taking up less green area than the original building, the existing building has. We can jump to the next slide, please. As Pastor mentioned, and as I will clarify for everyone today, this is the first floor plan of the gym and the supporting classroom spaces. There is not a stage, and I will just for the record clarify that that was an item and an issue that was brought up at P&Z. There is no stage, questions about a stage, there is no stage inside of this facility. It is not there, it is not present, and it is not part of the application. As our planner described, we do have a landscape waiver that is part of the application. It was very clearly identified on staff's slides. That waiver is located at the northern edge of the building. And just to reiterate, this was a safety, security, pedestrian, friendly and traffic decision in order to allow vehicles to pass from the west to the east, from the existing church building over to the gymnasium building without any sort of changes in direction of the vehicle traffic, as well as to allow passengers to exit the vehicle and get into the building in a relatively reasonable amount of time. Okay. So this is a graphic that we put together for everyone. And we heard the public's opinion about the building, about the scale of the building, and we spent quite a bit of time working to find places where we could bring the scale of the building down. By its function, this is a gymnasium. A gymnasium that supports basketball, volleyball, and other indoor activities does have some spatial requirements. When we work through the design of the gym and the interior space, you come to basically a height when you kind of subtract out structure and other elements of the building, you come to a height of a building that is around 30 feet. What we've done in order to maintain and meet all the requirements of the architectural facade requirements of planning and zoning and land development code is we've articulated the building in a way where we have stepped wells, multiple materials, et cetera, as predicated in the code. But in and since our planning and zoning meeting, we have scaled down the building. So this graphic that you can see on the screen, for those of you that can't see it in the back, there is a red outline that was the building that was presented at planning and zoning. The rendered building in front of it is our proposed building. And I'll walk through with you some of the changes that we made just to show that the scale of the building definitely has come down. The roof peak, there's a roof peak, the very highest point of the building originally was set at 43 feet and 10 inches. That has been brought down to 42 feet, which is a lower height than the top of the existing church steeple. The portico share building portion of the building. So the cover drop off area scale was reduced significantly. The original peak of the roof was 33 feet. We have been able to bring that down to 27 feet, 6 inches, just enough to allow for life safety vehicles to pass underneath that drop off area to service the building. And then lastly, there are some bumps on the building on the east elevation. They will be visible on one of the additional slides. But in that area there, we're at the gym and we were able to pull a few inches out. We were able to reduce the overall height of those bumps by 10 inches, still maintaining the functionality of the gym on the inside. The rest of the slide outlines the material variation that we have provided in order to give this building an appearance of materiality, blending in color, and overall just being a very visually appealing structure for the neighbors. We can go to the next slide, please. This is the east elevation here, so you can see our peak. That 42 foot high peak is not at the entire facade. It is only at two locations where we have a sloped roof element to complement the architecture. And this shows some of the landscaping as well within the landscape buffer area on the east side. This elevation here is our west elevation, same as the east. So we have the same vertical dimensions and data lines on this side. This side faces the existing church. It will not be a dominant face to the public, but it is a elevation and it was treated with the same care and attention to detail as the rest of the building. Okay. This is our south elevation here. So I'm going to dive into this rather deeply with you all. I know this is the side of the building that faces our neighbors. What you see here is a rendering of our building. If you remove the fences from our neighbors homes and we stood and stared at the entire length of the property going from east to west. The landscaping that you see here is the landscaping either that is existing. We're preserving existing trees that are of size and putting in a hedge. And I'll ask staff if you could just jump one more slide for me. I appreciate it. So the top view is our south elevation with our landscaping at planting. So we have a three foot Colusia hedge. The visual of that right now is a little bit misleading because a portion of it, the eastern portion of that is going to be new. The western portion of that is actually going to, is existing and it is actually higher than we're showing here on this graphic. When all of the shrubbery develops to full maturity, this is a Colusia hedge. The landscape architect has advised us that that hedge can climb up to and be maintained at a 20 foot height. So this graphic shows that hedge at that height and it shows an assumption of growth on the oak trees and the shade trees that are within the landscape buffer as well. The obvious, as you can visually see here, the proposed building in this view is fully obscured from view at this perspective. Mr. Forge, can I just ask, since you're on that slide, what size of plantings are you starting out with? The, from the trees? From the Colusia hedge. Oh, the Colusia hedge is starting at three feet. Okay. And like I mentioned, the existing. They do grow quite rapidly. Correct. Yes. The, yeah, the, the church has, you know, committed to starting the growth of that hedge as soon as possible so that we're not waiting for construction to end, to start that growth. Right. So there, there are with, obviously with the proper permission, they're ready to implement the landscape plan as needed. Right. Did I fully answer your question? Yes. Okay. So we can jump down to the next slide here. Um, in response to our planning and zoning meeting, we have, um, also put together a line of sight study, uh, for everyone to visualize the view of the, um, property from the road to the south. Um, so this is a visual of the, it's 20, 28, 27th, 27th court. Um, on the left, uh, the single family, single story home. And you have a little person there looking up over the home, uh, and their sight line, um, at this viewpoint would be obscured by the, um, the, uh, oak trees and the shade trees, um, here. So this, this is a graphic just to kind of show you what in on paper, this would look like. Um, and what I'd like to do next is show you, uh, what it looks like today. So we can go to the next slide here. Uh, so we've, um, surveyed the entire street along 27th court, starting on the west, um, at 11761 and moving all the way to the east. Uh, at, um, the photos stop at 11521. Um, walking you through, there are three, um, addresses that line up with the existing church. So that's 11731 on the top right corner. Uh, where the yellow arrow is, is the existing church building. You can't see it. The next slide, uh, next photo down 11711 is the adjacent neighbor. Uh, that property is straddling between the existing church building and the proposed. The yellow arrow is showing you where the church building is. You can't see it. Uh, lastly, 11701 is, I'm sorry, 11701 is the property straddling the two. Um, where the yellow arrow is, if you do look at it in close context, you can slightly see the roof of the existing church building. These photos were, were all taken, um, from the street, from the public right away, um, for everyone's knowledge, just so you know. Um, and then lastly, if you look at, um, 11691, 11681, and 11551, uh, those would be the next parcels that would be affected by the new building. Uh, currently there is open sky that's visible from, uh, the street at those locations. The intended and proposed landscaping, um, would shield the new building, um, as, uh, exhibited in the graphics to a similar manner of the existing, uh, landscaping at the three properties that are directly behind the church building. Okay. Um, and then just for, for, uh, visual reference, we do have included a rendering of the proposed, uh, north elevation of the church, um, for everyone's reference to, uh, understand the depth of detail, um, care and, um, focus that's been put into this, um, for the church and their investment in this facility. Um, that, um, that concludes my presentation. I don't know if Pastor, if you have anything else to add. Okay. I wanted to just to cover a couple of things about the use. I wanted to talk about the school because I think that's going to come up tonight. Um, 2008, we started our school. 2000, we started with 40 students. 2019, council approved us to go to 200 students. Um, and, um, planning and zoning. There was question as to our intent with that number of 200, um, even desire for a commitment to not go past those 200. I'm sure you know about that. Um, as the pastor, I'm standing here to let you know that we are committed to that 200 number. We are not seeking any, any ask in our, um, capacities. Um, we're held to that by you as the city council. Uh, you have the prerogative and the say over that. Um, we don't, um, interpret or we don't want, we don't think that we have any plans to come back for that number. Nobody can speak for the decades to come. Nobody can do that. What I'm telling you is the pastor with good faith. And I want the other pastor to come up here and make this announcement because he did a good job. But I'm telling you as the pastor with good faith, that's our number. We asked for that number. We're sticking with that number. We're happy with that number. We are not looking to go past that number. If in the future, anybody ever wanted a pastor ever wanted to come, they would have to come back to the city. You would have to approve that. You have prerogative over that. I think that provides protection for the residents as well. And so I know that question is going to come up. So we are not seeking any capacity enlargement with this building. We simply are trying to accomplish and meet the needs of the folks that we are currently serving right now in those ministries. And with that, we're open to questions. Thank you very much, Pastor. Councilmember Andreu. Thank you, President Horland. The structure that I believe is to the west, is that a walkway between the two buildings? Yes. And you didn't want it to be fully attached to the two? No, it's kind of like just a courtyard type of thing where you would go out after church and fellowship and have coffee and so on and so forth. We weren't looking to attach it to the two buildings. Okay. But it's a permanent structure that's only attached to the gymnasium. Yes. Okay. Yes. I don't – was that always in the original plan? Yes. Okay. Yes. All right. I missed that the first time. I do want to make a Jennings disclosure. I did go out to Plantation Baptist Church. I've spoken to what feels like hundreds of residents and members of the church community. I tried to answer all of you. I apologize in advance if I didn't get to some of you. But I did read every single email and those that came through the clerk as well. So we appreciate this level of engagement. My visit, nor any of those communications, will impact my vote tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Fadgen and then Council Member Reinstein. Thank you, Council President Horland. I'll make my Jennings disclosure. I've met with the applicant. I went out to the property. I had many phone calls with many residents. I did not reply to emails, but I reviewed all the emails. So I did see them. And all that will not affect my vote. Pastor, you answered a bunch of my questions. So that's great. And staff answered a couple questions as well. So in 2019, you were at 40 students. You were authorized by the Council of the 200. You're about 90 what students now? We started school today with, I believe, 84. And we had a good day. They all finished as students. Okay. So from 2019 to 2026, your current year, what's your year-over-year increase in your student body? Well, in 2019, we had 117 students. Oh, so you were over. Okay, that's when you got the authorization. That's when we got the approval. 2020, we were at 101. 2021, we were at 108. 2022, we were at 110. 2023, we were at 102. 2024, we were at 103. 2025, we were at 98. And 2026, we were at 84. Okay. It seems like you kind of top out around 110, 120. Yeah, our school is really unique. It honestly is a ministry of our church, okay? So what does the pastor mean when he says a ministry of our church? 95% of those students come from our church. Our school is not necessarily open to the public. It's a Christian school. How did you use that? About 95% of them come to our church. Right. So that's the pool of students that we get. So, and that kind of leads to one of my other questions. How are you marketing the school? It's really just to your congregants. It's to our congregation. We've never put an ad up. We've never asked for students. Word of mouth goes forward there. But even then, there's an interview process. And we're a Christian education school, so the interview process is pretty stringent. I understand. What about the, how many congregants do you have now? On a Sunday morning, we'll have about 600 people come. 200 at 830 and 400 at the 11 o'clock service. And then, like, how many registered congregants do you have? Probably between members and regular attenders, about 1,000. 1,000. And is that number, 200 and 400, that's pretty consistent year in, year out? Yeah, it's pretty consistent year in. I wish it would, but it's been consistent year in and year out. Some come, they get mad, they go. Other ones come happy, they get mad, they go. I hear similar stories at my church. How are you marketing the church? Well, we market, excuse me, we market the church through word of mouth, neighbor to neighbor. We're on YouTube for our services. We're, you know, we live stream our services and so on. But other than that, it's just evangelism that way. Come on into your home and then they like it and they stay. Yeah. We like to think that. Okay. All right. Trying to think here. I thought I had another question. Sorry. No problem. So, currently, you have about 84. You can, how many students can you accommodate with your current physical setup? We could accommodate close to 200 with our current setup, but it would be, it would be tight. So, this is just to add like PE locations and other. Yeah, exactly. So, right now the kids are outside for PE. We have the gymnasium for there. We have some, we have very small sports teams, like very small. Like this year, we don't even have high school volleyball. We have a middle school volleyball. We have an elementary volleyball. Now, do you play other schools? We play about four or five other schools in the community. Okay. And when those schools come to our property, right now they're currently playing on cement out next to our shed. Okay. And we, and we put up stuff to try to keep the heat. Balls are going everywhere. The thing is. And do fans come, like the parents of the other schools? Yeah, small, small. A ruckus? Yeah, I mean, parents do come. But you're talking about eight kids on our team. Okay. Right? So, you're not talking about. And that's typically what the other schools are bringing in. It's not like. When the other schools come, rarely do they bring parents. No, sir. It's not like American Airs. It's not like St. Thomas. It's not like any of those schools. Okay. And I think you already said this, but I'm going to ask the question. The intention is to service your congregation, your students. It's not to rent it to outsiders. It's not to, you know, at my church, we don't even rent our gym to parishioners. It's just solely used for the purpose of our church and for our student body of our school. Yes, that is the intention of our, we do not rent out our facility. It is used for church situations. Now, there are times when there's a difference. For example, Paja had a picnic years ago there. Fire department has come out to use the building for that. We had a young man in the community that tried to rescue another young man, and he died in the process of that. They called us and said, would you host that funeral? Of course. Well, a funeral service is a different matter. I mean, we do host, but we don't, we get asked all the time. Church properties are sought after, man. I mean, all the way from the new things that are coming in now for people renting. So we get a lot of requests for that, and we have never done that. You're not looking for it as a revenue stream? No, sir. Our church is supported by the tithes and offerings of the people. Okay. I think that's all. Thank you. Before I turn it over to Council Member Weinstein, can I just follow up on that? Pastor Tom, I would make the assumption, and correct me if I'm wrong, that you could potentially put your tax-exempt status in jeopardy if you were to be renting that out to other organizations. You could have answered that. Yes. I could have answered that. It wasn't one of your questions. Yeah. No, we're very careful about that. Okay. We also have a statement of faith that prohibits us from doing that. All right. So we have our own documents that prohibit us from doing that. Thank you very much. Council Member Weinstein, I'm sorry to interrupt. Thank you very much for the presentation. I also want to begin with what we describe as a Jennings disclosure is that, thank you, Pastor. You and your wife gave me a tour of the whole property, and I think the last count that I got from the city clerk was that there were at least 120 emails that were sent to us, and that doesn't include the letters and text messages that were above and beyond the emails. But I will say is that I want to thank all of the residents for participating in the process, for engaging and for sharing your thoughts, your history with the community, with the neighborhood, with the church. It was really wonderful to read some of the stories of people's connection to the church members as well as people outside the church and the community that have been here for a very long time. And, you know, I think that there were some concerns that talk about the concerns for walking on the street because there are no sidewalks, but there's never been a sidewalk there. So that's not an issue I'm going to ask you about because the sidewalks were not there when you got here, and they're still not there, right? And so, you know, that's something that, you know, frankly, in walking our city over the years, you know, my neighborhood has a sidewalk, and it's easy to walk there. There are lots of neighborhoods throughout our city that don't have sidewalks, and we've had discussions up here on the dais before when we've had some residents that have come and said that they want sidewalks in their community, and they were very passionate about it and gave very good explanations why they should have sidewalks. And then there were other residents right across the street from where they live who are adamant that they don't want sidewalks, right? They moved into that neighborhood, and they bought it without sidewalks, so why should a sidewalk be there? And I only say that because that was something that stuck out for some of the concerns that were raised in terms of, you know, traffic concerns and the lack of sidewalks. But my colleagues have already asked a lot of questions. I did want to particularly thank the Church for the height reduction because it shows that you responded to some of the issues and concerns that were raised at the planning and zoning meeting. And I know there was also some discussion at PNC, as I read the minutes from there, that there was a request regarding higher canopy trees and more buffer, and you've shown that here, and you've shown us how it will look as it grows. And I heard the gentleman whisper behind, tell them how quickly it's going to, you know, we're ready to put them in, right? So, you know, I appreciate that. I did want to ask a question in terms of the student population and the student numbers, and Councilmember Fadgen asked, and you went through all of those numbers. You have the ability to go up to 200, and that was granted by an earlier council a number of years ago. So you currently have 84. Are you doing anything? I think I heard you answer it, but are you doing anything to actively work towards raising that number up to 200? No, sir. We are not doing anything actively other than making an announcement from our pulpit on a Sunday morning. If you're part of our church and you're interested in Christian education, come see one of our pastors. And so, you know, you would probably love to have more students. It's always wonderful. It's a blessing to have more students. I'm sure that would always be, but currently it's at 84, and so, and you've already been approved for 200, so that's not an issue for today. Right. It's not an issue. Okay. Also, again, our school being a ministry of our church, we charge a small tuition, but it doesn't come close to covering what it costs to educate the kids. Never does. No. Never does. So, again, that's supplemented by the tithes and offerings of the people. Yeah. I may have some questions later, but thank you very much. Okay. Thank you, sir. Steve, Council Member Anderson. Most of the things I was going to ask have been asked already. Wonderful. I want to make a Jennings Disclosure. I think this is a record. I'm finishing my eighth year on council, and this was probably the most e-mails from the letters. Right. And I'm a lifelong, literally, lifelong resident of Plantation. I've been to the church. I've been to the light show. I did not go recently, and I also pulled the Google Maps up just to re-familiarize myself and orient all that. But I'll tell you, just a testament to your parishioners, such heartfelt letters, much like what my colleague said, such heartfelt letters. And the longevity, the dedication, the passion for that church, it was very evident, the love for the church. But that's not what we're here. Sure. That's not really what's in question. The other side was mainly safety traffic. Right. And you brought up an excellent point that most of that is from the lights. Right. And I'm sad to see it go, but that will alleviate a lot of that. And I'm very happy to hear you put it here on record, just to cut through any rumors, that you're self-limited to an insular, community, local, long, long, long church serving the community. So it's funny. I'm a lifelong educator, too. Your decline, most of public education has declined along with COVID. The numbers have dropped. You kind of marched right down with that, unfortunately. Right. We're noticing that. And can I just say something about the letters that came in opposition to our thing? I understand the frustration with the traffic. They spent the Christmas light traffic. They have a right to be upset at that, and I respect that. We've tried to mitigate that. We tried our best to mitigate that. We worked with the police department. We did everything we could. You know, the pastor before me said, there are some things you can control, and there are some things you can't control. We try to control everything. I know the neighborhood. Many of them, everybody loved the Christmas lights. But they, it'll be nice to have peace. And I do understand that. And this building brings that. I don't know why I just did a tangent. The gathering place you called it between the two buildings? Yes. It looks like it's connected to the gym. But why wouldn't you connect it at least the walkway to get to it from the church in case it's raining? It's Florida. I don't mean connect the entire thing against, but at least the little eight-foot wide. So why don't you take a Joey Callahan Plantation Baptist Church that has been sworn in. Once you connect that courtyard from the gym to the existing church, you have to bring the existing church up to recent codes. Okay. Regulation. Okay. So you know how you asked the other pastor to have men there to wave the trap? We have men there with umbrellas. Women, too, maybe? Men, women, children, if you can hold one, you're there. So really your opening remarks covered a lot of it and what my colleagues have already asked. And then your total members also. You've really answered it all. Okay. I'm just ready to hear the speakers and then make my decision. Thank you. I'd just like to wrap it up. Thank you very much, Pastor. I will make the same Jennings disclosure. I did go out to the church. I wanted to see the space constraints that I was hearing so much about, especially from the parishioners. Who really spoke very eloquently to their experiences within the church and how that space was working. I think there were, I said at the beginning of the evening, a lot of misconceptions. There were. And I think a lot of people that perhaps are not churchgoers did not understand ministry and what that means. And I think many people from the emails I received thought that meant you were bringing in people from the outside and is really the things that you do on a weekly basis within the church. And they're just referred to as ministries. Yes. So I did come out and we'd received, I think it was more than 120. But, you know, what I want everyone to understand, and I know I said it earlier, we have to evaluate this on what is before us in the presentation. And there's currently nothing in this presentation legally that prevents us from approving this. So we have to really evaluate it on the legal basis of our zoning and what the rules of the city plantation are. Of course, we take in the comments and, you know, the public concerns. What I don't want anyone to walk away from tonight, especially if you're on the other side of this, that this is a matter of numbers. This is wonderful. We love seeing so many people in our chambers. I know it's a little uncomfortable back there, but this is what the public participation is about. But we don't sit up here and weigh it, okay? So it's really the quality of the comments and the details and the facts that have been conveyed to us. So I just want to say that, and I want to thank you for coming out tonight. We're going to start to get to the public comments. Oh, yeah. And I'm going to ask you to take a seat and buckle up, Pastor. All right. Everybody remembers the rules. I don't want the pastor to have a sermon on Sunday about not following rules. Okay. So, again, I'm going to name the first three people that will be up. Amanda Gracie on deck, Novia Ingram, and Elizabeth Kasten. And, again, once I call you to come to the podium, you can certainly save you wave in support. Is Amanda Gracie here? She's way in the back. Good evening, Ms. Gracie. Hi. My name is Amanda Gracie, and I'm a resident of the Acres 11850 Northwest 6th Street, Plantation 33325. It's been a long night. Good evening. As a resident of Plantation Acres and a member of Plantation Baptist Church for almost four years, I am here to express my support for the church's proposed expansion. As a mother, I respectfully ask the council to consider the positive impact this building will have, not only on my own children, but on the many children and families of our church and the surrounding community. This expansion would provide our children with a safe and welcoming place to gather, play, learn, and grow together. It would give families a space where children can build friendship and experience a true sense of community. I believe this expansion will be a meaningful investment in our children, our families, and our community for years to come. I respectfully ask for your support and approval. Thank you for all you do for our city. We appreciate all of you. Thank you very much, Ms. Gracie. Next up, Novia Ingram and then Elizabeth Caston. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening, everyone. My name is Novia Ingram. My address is 2660 Northwest 25th Street, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 33311. So I travel from the beach to church. I've been a member there for almost 18 years. I volunteer from the day pastor accepted me as a member there. I work with kids from all different sizes, ages. I do not work with my face. I work with my heart. I treat them as though they are all mine. From the first day, my family and I set feet into Plantation Baptist Church. We never went back to the one we were attending in Hollywood. Number one, because they had gotten rid of the children's ministry there, and my kids were tormented. So when we discovered Plantation Baptist and realized they had a very good, to this day, kids' ministry, my kids, I wasn't driving at the time and leaving from the east to come here. Sometimes they would say, Mommy, let's take a taxi. Let's take the bus. We would call church members to drive us to and from, and they would gladly come take us. I did not write anything. I'm just speaking from my heart. I would please greatly appreciate if you approve the plan that we have in store for our children, for our middle age, and elderlies. We'll all participate, and even who as visitors could come and fellowship. Well, we hope we'll be invited. Thank you. Thank you for coming tonight. My pleasure. All right. Next up, Ms. Elizabeth Kasten, then Kathleen Von Hull, and Ms. Jean Johnson. Good evening. Good evening. Elizabeth Ann Kasten, 5360 Cypress Road Plantation. Good evening, honored council members and Pastor Hunter. I come here to address you on a matter of vital importance, the building of the school gymnasium and classrooms adjacent to the Plantation Baptist Church, who herein makes this petition. As inhabitants of this great community and supporters of its greater good, the Plantation Baptist Church endeavors to meet the demands of its people by constructing this new building. Its express purpose, a gymnasium, more and better equipped classrooms enabling better education for our youth. We consider the education of our youth a paramount importance for the growth and health of our nation going forward. Because of its growth, our nation and school has long outgrown its ability to adequately house its students and provide for the safety of their sports activity required for the healthy development of sound mind in a fit body. Further, our church body encompasses a body of loving, dedicated people. As such, we are saddened that we can no longer fellowship as we are accustomed due to our present numbers having become too great. Our fellowship hall is just too small. Honored members of this council, I plead with you to search your hearts and join with us. Become one with this great endeavor. Again, our main focus of such prodigious importance to us, the education and development of our youth for the betterment of our America. Christ cares not for your background, previous education, or what your political affiliation is or is not. He only cares about you this day. Galatians 3.28 states, There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither bond nor free. There is neither male nor female. For ye are all one in Christ Jesus. With greatest respect and with gratitude for your service to our community, for the betterment of all within your purview, I remain Elizabeth Ann Kasten, member, Plantation Baptist Church since 2015. Thank you for hearing me. Thank you very much for coming out. Okay, Ms. Von Hull, Jean Johnson, and then Christine Cipurano. Good evening, Ms. Von Hull. Kathleen Von Hull, 11901 Northwest 24th Street, Plantations Acres North resident. I'd be happy to support the church building a 10,000-square-foot gym for their children they already have. We were told by Pastor Tom on several occasions that that was the intended use for the space that they wished to build. But it seems the building is more for growth of the church and its many, many groups, missions, classes that they hold. They already have 27,000-square-foot building and now need more space. My opposition has nothing at all to do with the Christmas lights. That was one month a year. What about the traffic on the weekends when there are 300 to 600 parishioners? As you can see, just by looking in this room, that is already a huge group of folks, most of which do not live in North Acres, and now they want to bring even more folks into the neighborhood. Over the years, the church community has grown, and as a churchgoer myself, I personally think that is a good thing. As Pastor Tom has said, he is marketing for more congregants. If he is approved, he will most definitely be marketing for more because these buildings do not pay for themselves. The problem is where the church is located. We are a single-family home community. We have only 118th Avenue and old hiatus in and out of our streets. We do not have sidewalks. Every Sunday, we are locked in by traffic. Everyone can tell you that they cannot walk to the park as it is. Hundreds of cars in and out for every service. If they build all this more space, they will allow more activities to take place, and our neighborhood just cannot handle it. Possibly that is why planning and zoning did not approve this request. As the saying goes, if you build it, they will come. Please consider how this will negatively affect our neighborhood. There are plenty of empty acres in plantation. The church should consider moving to a spot that will not harm the community. Thank you. Ms. Johnson, welcome. Hi, good evening. My name is Jean Johnson. I reside at 11230 Northwest 27th Street. I do live in North Place Plantation Acres. I am opposed to the construction of this at the size that it is. I'm not against the church. I'm not against them having rooms for the kids to go to school and the rest of it. It's just this is overbuilt. It does not fit in our community. We vote for our council members with the intention of the best interest of our city and our residents. And we expect youth, the council members, to maintain and improve where we live for obvious reasons. Property values, fire police protection, parks, recreation, and being able to move around. And I also, it's not just the Christmas lights. It's every church service that they have. I mean, if they've got potential with 1,000 members coming in, that's a potential of another 500 cars at least coming. Our neighborhoods are important to us. Plantation Acres is a very unique neighborhood because we are rural and urban. We have horses still in our area, and this proposed building is not comparable to our neighborhood. They said they're not geared to develop a larger congregation, but why build such a huge facility? They already say that they can school the kids that they have coming there, but yet they're going to add seven more classrooms. My concerns are traffic, which would surely increase. The current traffic is not going to be the standard. It's going to grow. Parking at the church is already bleeding over into the grass. Property values around that. We've spoken to realtors in the area, and they say our property values probably would go down, which is going to affect our taxes that we pay you all. But I don't think that this is compatible with the neighborhood, and they're saying they're not going to run out for future. But, I mean, that's the maintenance on that building is going to – they're going to have to get the money somewhere in that. And if they're getting it from all their parishioners, that's great and wonderful. And their website already says that they are reaching out to all of Broward County to go and read their website. And that's just why I'm opposed to it in this form. If it was smaller, that would be great. Thank you, Ms. Johnson, for coming out tonight. All right. Christine Seperano and then Mary Phillips and Todd – and I'm going to apologize now if I don't pronounce your name properly, if I can't read it. Okay, thank you. Hi. Ms. Seperano? Hello. Thank you. My name is Christine Seperano. Christine, yep. Yes. I have been sworn in. I am a Plantation Acres North Acres resident. I live right down the street. I am on old hiatus, so I see all the traffic coming in and out from that entrance. I am a Plantation North Acres resident, a parent, a volleyball mom, and a longtime member of Plantation Baptist Church. My family has lived in Plantation for 10 years, and we chose Plantation as our home in large part because of this church. We live just three blocks away, so this is not simply a church I attend. It is part of the community where my family lives. I have attended Plantation Baptist Church for 11 years. Our children have attended the school. They've grown up in the church, and I have taught P.E. there for several years. I was teaching the K-4, K-5, and first grade. We did P.E. on the playground. There were iguanas and neighborhood dogs who would poop. My kids would go home with poop on their shoes. Several times I had to leave extra pair of shoes in their cubbies, and that is just because they would leave the gate open and invite the community in, and oftentimes it was the community across the street as well, and that's just the heart. They want to be a part of the community and a service to the people in the community. I have personally seen why this additional space is needed. One of the greatest needs is for our youth. I have a daughter who just entered into middle school, and so she has just started youth group, and I see the need. They are currently meeting on the balcony. They don't have a private space. They split up boys and girls, and they don't have a space. They are in the auditorium, on the balcony, and anybody can come in and go, and there's no privacy, and they need that. They need a space where they can fellowship, where they can build friendships, and where they can have a safe place to be open and comfortable with their leaders. And they need somewhere safe to gather, build friendships, participate in activities. At their age, that sense of community matters tremendously. There's also a very real need for a safe indoor space for PE and sports practices. As I said, I was the PE teacher. We regularly had to cancel outdoor activities because of lightning. Florida is the lightning capital of the U.S. To not permit the building of a gym is to deny a safe place for our youth. During extreme heat, I had to closely monitor the children to make sure they stayed safe and hydrated. The space on the map that's right next to the playground is just an open grass. There's gravel and a little bit of asphalt. That's where the second to fourth grade had their PE. There's no shade. Okay? So I just thank you for your time and your consideration. Thank you for coming out tonight. Thank you. All right. Mary Phillips and then Todd. I'm not going to try to pronounce it again. And then after that is George Kalam. Mary Phillips here? No? Colin wants? All right. Mary says she is in support of the project. Todd? You're going to come up and pronounce it correctly for me? See, I can't read it. It's my bad handwriting. I should have been a doctor. Please identify yourself. Yeah. Todd, I just live at 9547 Northwest 52nd Manor Sunrise. I just want to come before you. Thank you for this opportunity. I've been a member of Plantation Baptist Church for, it's hard to believe, 31 years. I went there as a young 20-year-old, lost, found his way back home. I met my wife there. I got married there. My three kids graduated from school there. As you see the shirts behind you, this church has been part of the community since 1978, building a legacy ever since. 48 years of serving the lost and the needy, 48 years of being the light to darkness. Pastor Hunter, I can attest, being there when he first started the ministry, he's a man of his word. And he is a man of his heart for the people and his ministry. And that the purpose of this building is to enhance the existing ministries, to further a sense of community and belonging within the congregation. So during this process, you're going to hear from both sides, as you have heard. And although it may be difficult to come to consensus on which direction to proceed, as you eloquently stated, Madam Chair, we do have a code of ordinances. And there is professional staff at the city of Plantation that are impartial. And they provide professional guidance to you all as the decision makers. So I do commend the staff on the thoroughness of their review and their due diligence on this item. And I do support the recommendation of approval as a state under August 12, 2026 memo. Thank you. Thank you very much for coming out tonight. Mr. George Kalam and then Ben Branch and Mr. Corman. George Kalam, you here? You're Mr. Branch or you're George? Okay. Okay, so is George not here? All right. Mr. Branch, you're up. Mr. George Kalam, if he comes back up, says he's opposed. Okay. Good evening. Good evening, Ben Branch, head of household at 11951 Northwest 27th Street Plantation. I'd like to first acknowledge that I have been sworn in and thank the council for presiding this evening. I do formally request your vote for approval. My family and I moved to the North Acres largely to be close to Plantation Baptist Church after becoming members. And we, those of us that attend Plantation Baptist Church, are a family united by faith. And that faith, of course, in Jesus Christ as Lord. I would add that since moving to the North Acres in 2016, my wife and I are pleased to see that our property values have increased. My wife is a real estate agent by trade and she has ability to witness property value fluctuations. And with regard to living in the North Acres, we also enjoy some wonderful, respectful neighbors. We further believe we have good news to share. And we do that through outreach, including to our local community, which includes the Christmas lights, which unfortunately you've heard are coming to a close. Our exercise of liberty afforded in this great nation include raising our children with focus on their education and on Christian teachings. Keeping our children close with school, including physical activity through the addition of this project, fits within that focus. Living close to Plantation Baptist Church is and has been a great blessing to my family. And we often gather for worship, fellowship, and in service in ministry. We respectfully request your approval of this project because, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Korman. Just one point of order before we begin, I guess, for the attorney. This is three minutes, but is that three per each one of the items or just three per? And I only ask that because I'm going to be giving comments, one, as chair of planning and zoning, but also to give a personal opinion. If I run over three, I just want to know that I can have a little bit extra. Is it at my discretion? It is. That's what I was going to say. I really, because we have such a packed house, Mr. Korman. I get it. I just wanted to figure it out before the clock started. Okay. If you can go ahead and start, please. Thank you. So, Rob Korman, I've been sworn in. I understand the rules. First thing is, as chair of planning and zoning, Council Member Reinstein was there. Thank you. You know we're in advisory capacity only. My hope is that you discussed this issue with those that you appointed because the vote for that particular item was 3-4 against. And it was against because we had had only 48 letters as opposed to 120-plus you had. Had several people show up, 16 negative comments, 7 positive comments. And a lot of the issues boiled down. You might have heard the term megachurch used. And when I was talking to the applicants and the architect, a lot of it boiled down to the mass of the building that I believe that they were looking at was a massive structure, not just in size, but in presence. And what I took away from the commentary that we heard earlier is that the process that we have here in the city works sometimes, namely in that between DRC going to planning and zoning and then coming to you all, certain things are brought out and certain things can potentially change. And it was heartening to hear that the architect heard some of the comments. They did not split the building, which was actually my recommendation, only in order to match the profile of the existing building. But what they did do, and even though it's only a foot and a half, by dropping some of the elements, by dropping the height of the portico, what they've done is they've made the scale of that building much more reasonable. Combine that with the landscaping in the back, and what you have now is less of a massive structure, less of an eyesore and a sticking out of a thumb from what it was to something that is much more reasonable from an aesthetic standpoint. As for the uses of the building, I believe that the applicant adequately addressed that, and they addressed it in the meeting as well. So when I told everybody at the close of that meeting that we were advisory capacity only, that you all would be making the final decision, obviously, here's the result. A lot of people are here to speak to you about it. What I can say is based upon the changes that were indicated there, based upon the drawings and the eventual growout of both the hedges and the large trees, I think a lot of the problems that were brought up in the original meeting have been addressed in a way that is a net positive. Having said that, if presented with this now at planning and zoning, my vote probably would have been different, which would have made it at the very least a 4-3-4. So as you are considering this overall, I would like to, as in the previous applicant, trust the pastors at their word, as men of God, that they will limit everything that's going on. So the net impact to the communities, I see it, is not as big as it would have been had this building remained with the original design. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Korman, I listened to that entire P&Z meeting online, and I want to commend you again for the manner in which you conduct those meetings. And I know there were a lot of people in opposition that night, and you're always very thoughtful in your comments and suggestions. And I think some of the suggestions you made were taken into consideration tonight, and that's why I think we added a lot of clarity to the project. So thank you for that. Thank you. All right. I didn't give you on decks because I'm going to go through these people who wave in support and do not wish to speak. Ms. Francois, Mr. Rizzo Patron, Ms. Blanca Valdez, Mandy Nunez, Carol, I can't read your last name, but you live on 29th Street, Shirley Wong. These are all in support. John Ng, Esther Pontiff, Angela Fernandez, Ruth Keeble, Kaylee Callahan, Nelson and Susan Fernandez, Rosa Paria. Mr. Yeager and Mr. and Mrs. Yeager, all in support. All right. Now we'll go back to on decks. We've got Ms. Karen Fuller, Mr. William Randall, and Mr. Winsome Curlew. So is Karen Fuller here? Okay. Do you want to come up and speak, or do you want to wave in support? All right. Thank you, Ms. Fuller. You're my hero tonight. That would be the only time I would allow you to applaud, but you're not going to. Okay. Mr. William Randall? Good evening. Good evening, sir. Good evening. I've been sworn in. I'm William Randall. My address is 1220, Melissa Lane in Davie, Florida. I'm wearing a white shirt, even though I usher at the church, conduct Sunday school at the church. I decided I was going to wear my uniform, WPR, contracting. I do a lot of work since 1995 in plantation. I actually found Plantation Baptist Church back in 2010 when they were clearing the Melaleuca trees off the property. That's where the storage shed is and where the Christmas lights were. And we met the pastor out there raking rocks. So I've been a member of the church since 2010, done a lot of projects with them. We started out. We did the metal building, did a lot of planning and zoning with that. We had to match the stucco of the church to kind of keep it uniform. So I've been involved in a lot of the projects, and I want to just give you that insight to allow that. The student population, when it went over 100, we had to fire sprinkler the entire church building. That was a project, and we didn't know we'd have enough water, but we did that. We also did, when we did the metal building, we did drainage for the whole property, which included a lot of the houses behind us. I think there was like 19 houses that we provided drainage for. We also did a new parking lot, a concrete parking lot on the west side of the property, along with landscaping with Diane back then. So, and I guess it's evolution. And evolution, I know, with the classrooms, we've been dual utilizing that church building for Sunday school, for church, and for classrooms. So they have to be converted. After Sunday, after Wednesday, that's all converted. And the need for this building and the evolution and the needs, from what I see on my side, this building is needed drastically. It's overgrown. Even though it's 100 students, it's having to convert the student rooms to the Sunday school and the different uses. And just on my side of it, it's a definite need. And I appreciate your time. It's 10 o'clock at night, whatever. Thank you so much. Thank you for coming out. Okay, Mr. Winsome Curlew? Or Miss, I apologize. I apologize. Miss Curlew. And then Melissa Fitzgerald and Yasmin Kalam on deck. Good evening. Good evening. I get a mistake every time, so I forgive you. And my husband, Paul Curlew. Hi there. So we live in... Just identify yourself for the record properly, please. Your name. I'm Winsome Curlew. Thank you. Paul Curlew. Thank you. We live in North Acres on 119 Avenue, so pretty close to the church. And I understand the zoning. We have some public events, and we have some residential. But overall, I personally think it's a residential area. And I don't think we're designed for this growth for the church. I do respect the church and what it does. But we only have two entrances. We have old hiatus and 118. And oftentimes, we are inconvenienced coming in and leaving our property because it's just too much traffic. On a Sunday, and for Christmas, when you say it's not an issue anymore, but on a Sunday, multiple times throughout the day, we have to plan our day around the traffic. And that is an inconvenience. So now having a school five days a week and plus the Sundays, it's going to definitely be an inconvenience. We sometimes have the safety issues for the overflow of traffic on that back road for the kids and for the students. And a lot of the kids that go to that church, I personally don't think they are from the community. So it's an influx of people, and it's not necessarily supporting our residents. And the other thing that I have is even when we are on the road as residents using our community, people are leaving the church, we feel, at least I feel, some kind of disrespect in the way that they do not show the accommodation for the residents. Okay. And thank you both for coming out and waiting tonight. All right. Thank you. Next is Melissa Fitzgerald and then Yasmin Kalam. I don't know how you guys do this. I'm cross-eyed, but I'm going to try to – listen, the concept of what they're – Please identify yourself. Sorry. I know. Melissa Fitzgerald. I live in North Acres, 11240 Northwest 27th Court. Oh, yeah. Okay. So I'm speaking in opposition to the proposal as it's stated. I've written you emails. My husband has written you emails. I continue to feel that just by state and national standards that the scope of this proposal is really large compared to what the standard is, even if it was looked at as a school on its own without considering the space that already exists in the church. It's at least several thousand square feet larger than – and that considers a high school that is much larger than it is right now. So it's – it probably right now the needs are less. I have concerns about the fact that at the PNZ meeting that the pastor was asked directly if he would commit to the fact that it would – that they would agree not to use it for public, you know, rentable, whatever kind of uses. And I'm paraphrasing, but his comment was basically that he couldn't – you know, he couldn't say that would never happen. But, you know, so I appreciate everyone saying that they want us to take it – them at their word. But it would be much more sensible to have something specific that's decided that says that that is not appropriate use. The thing I don't know that anyone has made clear enough yet is that these two access roads come off of Sunrise and they end at 28th Court. The notice that was given for this was given predominantly to people who live on the other side of a fence that makes it inaccessible by road. So traffic considerations are not a consideration. Most of those residents, when you look at the map, are in Sunrise. So the fact that there is space to build on this lot shouldn't be the only reason that you think you have to approve it. If someone – if a resident in that area that is defined by its rural nature and by the greenery – if a resident who had a two-acre plot wanted to propose to you that they were going to build a one-acre or one-and-a-half-acre home where they have a much smaller home now, it wouldn't be that someone would say, well, we have to let them do it because it's their property and it's owned for residential. And the same kind of criteria should be applied in this case. I haven't heard of anyone who objects to the idea of a gym, of, you know, of the space that's appropriate for the existing church and a school. But this is poised for someone to come back in future years. It's a slippery slope for someone to come back and say, we have this huge building and we're not utilizing it and our church loves us and it's great that everyone's here. But we didn't get the same notice. We didn't have email lists to be able to notify all of the residents of our community. So – Thank you. I hope it won't be just on that basis that you decide that it's different tonight than it was at PNZ. Thank you for coming out, Ms. Fitzgerald. Yasmin Kalam? Yasmin? No. Waves in opposition. Claudia Pico and Jorge Moreno wave in support. And then we have Malcolm Trosclare, Keitha Ito, and Kathleen Seperano and Alfonso Seperano on deck. Malcolm Trosclare, 36 Southeast 8th Street, Dania Beach. My wife and I have been members of Plantation Baptist Church for three years. I've been looking for a church like this for 30 years and I'm very glad to have found it. Plantation Acres, Plantation Florida is very fortunate to have such a church. The building as it sits today has to combine different age groups of children in the same room and that's not the best use of our educational system. We need a classroom for first grade, second grade, third grade, not a classroom for three grades. And these are the kinds of things that this building addresses. And again, the fact that the Christmas lights is going away should be a very positive thing for people who have been having problems with the driving. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming out. I just see Ms. Keitha Ito waves in support. Kathleen and Alfonso Seperano, are they here? Yep. Okay. Waves and they both wave in support. We have Pilar Patron also waving in support. On deck, let's see. We – let's not go to on deck. Speaking now will be Daniel – Daniel Segara with Lizette Colombe and Bill Keeble on deck. Mr. Segara, good evening. My name is Daniel Segara. I live in 1701 Northwest 107th Avenue in Plantation, Florida. Thank you, Madam Chair, Councilmembers, for allowing us all to express our thoughts. I've been a city plantation resident for over 10 years and a member of Plantation Baptist Church for nine. I'm here to talk about the false propaganda that I've been seeing on social media platforms like Nextdoor against my church. This disinformation against the building mentioned things like safety issues, traffic hazards, noise nuisance, and light intrusion. Let me share the true facts of what this building will create. First, our new building will provide a safe environment for our church and school activities. Key word, safe. I'm standing here as a husband and a father and representing my wife and children. My eldest daughter is entering her second year of school at our church, and we have plans to enroll my second daughter next year. I'm sure those of you who are parents can understand the importance of having a safe environment for our children to play. That this gymnasium will allow us to be protected from harsh heat, waves of 110 degrees like today it was. Terrible thunderstorms like just happened that we all experienced living in South Florida. Safety should be a priority, and having this building will not only protect us from the weather, it will also protect them from uninvited intruders having a building. Secondly, the misinformation that this new building will create traffic is completely false. Our school pickup line usually has a maximum of 12 cars in the line at a time. I go there constantly to pick up my daughter, and I go in and out in practically minutes. For over a decade, the school has never exceeded more than 120 students, as you heard. Also, the current traffic pattern for church days will be exactly the same as it was. Thirdly, is the misinformation of the noise nuisance, which doesn't make sense to me at all, because if someone's concerned with noise, don't you think having all the church members and children inside, playing inside a building, would reduce some of the noise of the community other than outside? The last concern people have is light intrusion, which again, doesn't make sense, because having this building will eliminate the famous Christmas lights in the acres. Which taking that away and having all church and school activities inside the new building will absolutely reduce on any light intrusion in the acres. In summary, this new building will improve the safety, will reduce on overall noise. The termination of the Christmas lights will decrease traffic, diminish the concern of light intrusion. I'm kindly requesting that City Plantation Council members to please consider the true facts and vote to approve the new gymnasium, so my daughters and our church children can have a safe place to play, socialize, and enjoy their home away from home without concerns of weather-permitting activities. Thank you for your time and attention to this matter. Thank you, Mr. Seguero. Ms. Lizette Colombe, are you waving in support? Okay, thanks for the wave. Mr. Bill Keeble? Mr. Keeble here? Okay. While he's making his way up, I've got Sybil Green waving in support, Robert Colissimo waving in support, as well as Danielle Colissimo, Alexander Lopez waving in opposition, and Ms. Peralta in opposition. Good evening, Mr. Keeble. Good evening, ma'am. First, thank you for allowing us to come out, and greetings to the council members. My name is Bill Keeble. I live at 2707 Meadowood Court in Weston, so you don't have to worry about me. I'm not a voter, at least here. We don't worry about that. But I did want to come out because I want to first thank and show great respect for those that have come up here in opposition. There's a lot of people here with the green shirts. Not all of them as pretty as me, but we thank them for coming. It had to have been a little intimidating, and for them to have the courage to step up, to speak their mind. I respect that. I respect their opinion. Because when I first went to Plantation, five or six years ago we moved here. I was taking my grandson, my wife and I had taken my grandson, to Christmas lights. We didn't get within miles of that place because of the crowds. People were parked in people's yards. And I was sitting there going, man, if I lived here, I would be, well, I'm not going to use that word because my pastor's here, but it would not have made me happy. And then the next year I worked at the Christmas lights parking cars, and a man approached me and he said, do you go to this church? I said, yeah. And I said, I can't stand this Christmas lights because of this traffic. You make it impossible for us to get anywhere. I said, man, I understand. I drove in here myself. And I got it. And he had his children with me as he was walking his dog. And I said, have y'all been yet? Oh, yeah, we went the night before last. And I said, how did, and I looked, I cheated. I looked at the little kids and I said, how did you guys like it? Their face beamed. We loved it. And I looked at the man and he went, yeah, good night. And he went, but I still got the thing. So I'm not, I get the idea that people are afraid of the traffic going on. But when you look at the schematics and you look at the plans, there's nothing about that place that increases our ability to take in more people. Frankly, I'm part of the church there. And I told them, I said, hey, maybe expand, bigger area, do this. The church, the sanctuary of the church is as big as it's going to get. It's not designed to bring more people in. It's designed to reach out to the youth, to touch them, to change their lives. The reason I know, I started going when I was a kid to a church that offered that. I hated church. I didn't want to be there. But I went because my mother made me. And that facility put me around people like these leaders. And it changed my life. Changed the lives of this community. Counsel, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Cable. All right. I've got John and Michelle Burnden. And then on deck is Rina Lorca and Candace White. Burnden's here? Waving in which direction? Okay. And you're Candace? All right. Thank you very much. Hi there. How are you? John Burnden. Hi, Mr. Burnden. On 191 Northwest 24th Street. My sister had to go to work. Okay. So she left. I'm sorry it's so late. Yes. I've been living in Plantation Acres for over 30 years. It's always been a horse community. It's been, we've been seeing more density come. But as a community, for historically speaking, we've kind of been against higher densities. Plantation Acres North Park, we've, at one point, was supposed to be a special facility housing, you know, 150 people from, like, they were in a building there. And we ended up not, like, fighting against it. We've fought against other higher density structures and the elements coming into the community. Recently, I think in 2005, there was going to be 50-something houses to be built, and we wanted them to stay on at one house per acre. We have drainage issues. It's quite a big infrastructure problem. And I've been adding more impervious asphalt-type structures to the acres. One thing I didn't hear brought up was how this structure, what they're doing with drainage. Are they going to build a retention pond? How are they going to be allowed to do this without also thinking about where the water's going to go? Whereas before, it was going into the ground. I know that you guys said that there's not much keeping you guys from approving it, but with our Plantation Acres Improvement District being gone, it's up to the city to approve these sort of things. So there's not really another element to say whether or not this drainage is okay. And I don't think that's been, anybody's been concerned about our drainage is one thing. I haven't heard anybody say anything about currently. So drainage is, like if anything, I had other things written, but drainage would be the one thing that nobody has even brought up tonight, which would be, you know, something to be considered in the future. But traffic, we don't have sidewalks. We won't have sidewalks on 118th. We'll never have sidewalks because we need the easement for that. And so when all, with all these cars coming in and out, everybody says traffic one thing or the other, but getting to the park, I live on 24th Street, which is right close by, but I still got to get off the highway, off the road. And there's ant piles in the grass, you know, and I have a bad back. It kind of hurts me to, to be on the uneven, you know, swales. So with this, what are we going to do with all the traffic, you know, that's, that's going to be coming in in the mornings when they're coming to school? It already is an issue where you do see it affecting us. And they have enough room for 200 now. These 600 square foot rooms can house up to maybe what, 20, 24 students per room, as could be another 168. Anyways, but thank you for listening. Mr. Bergen, I didn't want to interrupt you, but our city engineer, our professional city engineer did evaluate the project and approved it, and PAID is still in place until October 1st. So I want to alleviate your concern on that. Okay? Thank you so much for coming out. All right. So next up, we have Neil Warren and Helen Warren. Are they here? Yep. Yep. Okay. And Rena Lorca. Yep. Oh, I'm sorry. Mr. Warren, can you hold up? I'm sorry. I'd already called the Lorcas up. Just take a seat right here. They were on deck. Please identify yourselves. Good evening. Hello. Good evening. I brought my husband, Ray, here for support. My name is Rena Lorca. I live in 2800 Northwest 118th Avenue. I am right on the corner of 28th Court and 118th Avenue. Like many residents in our neighborhood, we are deeply concerned about the proposed 33,000 square foot expansion of the church and oppose it as it's proposed. While we respect the role of faith-based institutions in our community, the scale, impact, and ongoing disruptions caused by the particular church have reached a point where they are materially degrading our quality of life, property enjoyment, and neighborhood safety. Since the church's ongoing growth, we've endured a disruptive parking lot. We've had lights, horns, revving of trucks. Our property is right on the west side of that parking lot. I've literally gotten up at 2 in the morning for kids, hanging out there, playing music at various different times, and I've talked to neighbors at Sunrise who have also encountered the same problems. We've also, you know, issues with we understand the Christmas lights, which have created numerous dangerous conditions to conclude not even being able to enter my own driveway at times. We, as residents, have tried to respectfully address Pastor Hunter several times, our concerns for the neighborhood and proposed church expansion, only to have our concerns dismissed by him. His response is usually the same, the church can do whatever it wants because it owns the land. The expansion of the church is a major development project that will dramatically increase traffic, noise, and overall activity. It will fundamentally change the character of our rural neighborhood, and it is a beautiful rural neighborhood, and we want to keep it that way. The church, with Pastor Hunter's leadership, has moved far beyond typical religious gatherings. These event functions, like commercial attractions, generating heavy traffic, noise, and crowds that are incompatible with a residential neighborhood. The proposed expansion of the church project would only intensify this issue. We aren't opposed to the church, the church's existence. We are opposed to unchecked and commercial-scale activities that harm the neighborhood we call home. We want to see, you know, we respect the church. We respect the people that go there, but they don't live in the neighborhood, and they don't endure what we endure on a daily basis. So, thank you very much for your time. Thank you for both of you coming out tonight. I did want to thank Joey from the church. He's always been a good neighbor, always helped us out whenever we needed to get in and out of our driveway, and the church lights we're going. He helped us get in and out, and thank you, Joey. Thank you. Neil Warren and Helen Warren, I apologize for cutting you off. How are you? Neil Warren, 961, Northwest 16th Street, Plantation, Florida. 26 years. I just want to say thank you, you guys. We need this for our church. We need this for our kids. Right now, my kids are old. We need this for my great-grandkids. Thank you for listening to us. We need it for our kids. Thank you. Thank you for coming out. Did you want to have anything? I'm Warren, 961, Northwest 16th Street. Yeah, the church is like an extension of my family. I know without it, I would be in a different place than I am today. They've helped me in my day-to-day decisions and comforted me in times of despair. They've always supported our family, our grandkids, our great-grandkids. I've seen the children of our church grow and enter into society as very well-rounded adults. This extension of our church will help in the current programs we currently have in place. Our youth group, they meet in the balcony, so there's not enough room for them. And specifically, this will help with having a specific place for them. Also, some of our elementary groups, they have to meet together, too, as well. And this will help with that room capacity as well. So I'm voting for to pass this extension of our gym for our current church and my family, church members, and my grandkids to come. Thank you. Thank you for coming out tonight and waiting. All right. Alina Button, Marlena Button, and then Cheryl Albert. My name's Alina Button. I live at 9-117 Northwest. You don't have to give the rest of it. Okay, thank you. You're a minor, it's okay. And do you have a school tomorrow? I go to school today, my first day, and we need the gym because I go to two classes now. And at the end of the day, high school has one class in my classroom, so I have to go into a different classroom. So when we have study hall, we can't go and do our stuff in our classroom, so we can't do it. And then I also do volleyball. And then so when we do it outside, when we're outside, if it rains, we just have to stop doing volleyball without practice because we have a lot of games this year. So if we have, when it rains or something, we can't, we have to stop practice because we have barely any practice. And when we have practice, it's outside, so it's like really hot outside, and the sun's on us, and we like fall and scratch our knees when we're trying to get the ball back up and all that. So, yeah, I'm done. Well, I think... And I'm sorry we kept you so late on the school night. Thank you for staying tonight. Marlena Button, and then Cheryl Albert. Good evening. Good evening. I'm Marlena Button. I live in Sunrise, Alpha 9-1-1-7 with her. And I teach the K-4 class there, and this is my third year teaching K-4. We have to share a classroom with the K-5 class. We do have a portable wall, which we pull and we close and we pull and we close, and we've pulled it, we've closed it so many times that my side, like the door is broken, and the company that installed it can't fix it because they're gone now. But we're sharing a classroom. Well, not only that, but the purpose of the classroom on Sundays is also a Sunday school class, and for the age group that it is for on Sunday mornings, there has to be a glass door and glass windows. So, any school, you know the main priority right now is safety. For me and my class and the K-5 classes share a classroom, if we go on lockdown, there's two huge glass windows on both sides of our classroom. We cannot close off that window. We cannot block that window. We cannot cover that window. We have no place of safety for us to pull our kids and to be seen. My son, he goes to Western High School. They did a lockdown today. There's no place for us to lock down in that room because of the purpose. And so, once the building gets built, because of the age of our kids, we don't get to move into the brand-new, beautiful building. We get to move to another building still in the same building that we're in, but we will be in a safer room for our purpose, for our class. And, again, like for my daughter with the volleyball, like when they're outside, they go to schools and they play against these other schools. And, like, my daughter's like, Mommy, can I go to school there? They have a job. Mommy, can I go to school there? That school is so huge. It's so great. And it's almost embarrassing for them when they have other schools come that they know have gyms, and they're looking into the sun and hitting the ball. And I told her, I said, well, you guys have the advantage. This is what you're practicing in. But they deserve better. They're small. They're learning. And this building would really help all of us. Okay. Thank you so much for coming out. Cheryl Albert. Cheryl here. Cheryl then waves against the project. We've got Danny Moreno, Horace McHugh, and Ian and Yana McWilliams. So, Danny Moreno. Is Danny here? Okay, Danny, and then Mr. McHugh, and then the McWilliams. Good evening. Good evening. Hello, I am. No, it's the way it was given to me. Yeah, I'm Danny Moreno. I live in 11880 Northwest 24th Street. A lot of stuff was talked about. I think the only concern that I grew up with was I grew up in a lot of HOA communities. And we all know that a facility of such sort wouldn't be allowed even in a residential community. So, you know, I'm new to community also. I moved here about six months ago, so I'm getting used to the area. Yeah, so I guess the main thing that I'm considering is I wouldn't want to take the chance of bringing so much traffic to the area. I also wouldn't want to risk the liability of our kids walking down the street and, you know, getting hit by a car and whatnot. I get the gym. I'm in support of that. That's understandable. But why not just build a gym to support the sport activities, okay? And the thing is, none of us know what will happen in the future. So with the fact of having an extra seven classrooms, that can bring the possibility of mega church, mega population to a residential community. So I personally wouldn't vote against it just to not take the chance of in the future when no one knows what's going to happen later on of a potential pastor that will come with that mega mentality and want to make it a mega church and bring that extra traffic to a residential community. So I personally wouldn't want to take the chance of our values going down. This is my life savings is in the home we just finished buying. And I wouldn't want to take the chance of this type of facility and this type of size coming to my community. And that's about it. I can't think of anything else. Hope you understand where I'm coming from. And it's like, why take the risk? Thank you for choosing to move to Plantation. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. Mr. McHugh and then the Williams. Good evening. Thank you. So nice to see you in this chamber again. Good afternoon, Mayor, Council, and members of the body. My name is Horace McHugh, 2055 Classic Drive. I also have been a member for Plantation Baptist Church for over 11 years. And I can attest to a number of the positive comments that have been said by other members. I can talk about the ministry, the member support, whether it's in Bible studies, whether it's in normal issues like funerals and weddings and fellowship. But I can also speak to the school and the educational benefits that is provided through 12th grade. In addition to the position as a church member, I have the unique position of having served you and the community as a chief administrative officer for four years in 2015, working with most of you. And in that capacity, I had the opportunity to review these type of items and provide some recommendations to the council. So looking at the request before you tonight, some of the things that I'd ask you to consider is the fact that this is a facility is an accessory use to a school, allowing for classroom to support the uses. The school itself has a conditional use of 200, and the current enrollment is 97, less than 50%. They're not seeking an increase in enrollment. The facility would not be an expansion of the use, but it would allow for the use at the levels that have been already approved by the council in 2019. If there are concerns the peak usage of the church and the school, they're at different times. So there is compatibility in terms of parking and traffic. There would not be any net increase. Any analysis of impact is marginal. But any analysis has already been factored in the support that you did in 2019. To summarize your professional staff assessment, they essentially said in their report it's consistent with the comp plan and the zoning. It's a permitted use. The building is in harmony with the neighborhood. There are no detrimental impacts. And your DRC review indicate no objections from planning and zoning, building, fire, utilities, police, the water control district. There's a waiver that's requested for landscaping. But with that exception, the project summary suggests staff recommendation for approval. In closing, several of you are teachers, principals, and educators, and I thank you for that service, which depends and requires a unique level of trust. Without the education and good moral direction, there's greater potential for our kids to be incarcerated or negatively impacted in the juvenile justice system and in law enforcement, which has a burden on the city. I realize the value of quality education for our youth and the long-term impacts of our community. And this request supports Plantation Baptist's efforts to provide that level of education to 200 students. I thank you for your time and request your support of the approval of the site plan, elevation, and landscape plans. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McHugh. Mr. and Mrs. McWilliam. We're coming up separately. Okay. No, that's fine. Yeah. It's good evening. Ian McWilliam, 11690 Northwest 27th Court. My property will be the property looking directly at the back of this church. The presentation done with the 20-foot hedges and the trees will definitely – I'm that little man standing on the street looking at the church. So if that's truly what happens, that addresses one of my big concerns. My other concern is this is not just a gym. It's a multi-purpose event center. The thing is huge. It can do more than – it's not just a gymnasium. The concern is what other uses can this structure be used. Pastor Tom has told us what his plans are, but the building being there will have a life of its own. It will last – not that I want to suggest beyond Pastor Tom. So we are left with the concerns of potential use down the line. So I'm suggesting we need – during the planning and zoning meeting, Pastor Tom refused to commit to restricting the venue solely to internal church and school functions. I believe we need binding limitations on this site to prevent external event rental venues that would introduce commercial traffic, parking overflow, late-night noise, and that type of thing. The city council has the ability to place conditional use permit limitations on this building with a declaration of restrictions signed into the record of Broward County public records on this building. So I would recommend that we have a total prohibition on renting or leasing the facility for non-church, non-school functions and strict limitations on late-night operating hours and external facility bookings. The concern is beyond the commitments of Pastor Tom today, but into the future, if we had these restrictions on the book, it would allow us to feel more comfortable that the future will not – this building will not be exploited for those reasons. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McWilliam. Mrs. McWilliam? And after Mrs. McWilliam will be Jorge and Jaime Valdez, Louise Williams, and Ruth Silva. Hi, how are you? Hello, City Council members and Mayor. Yona Weiner McWilliam, 11690 Northwest 27th Court. I also appreciate the changes that have been made on these renderings. Honestly, I wish they had come initially like this because I feel a lot more respected. The way this presentation is, the way this presentation is, and I felt very disrespected with the initial presentation. I would like to know that the church elders' body thinks of the neighborhood and considers what the impacts will be, and it doesn't have to come to city council for those things to be resolved. So that would make me feel a lot more comfortable if I saw initiatives rather than by mandate. I also want to reinforce that at the planning and zoning meeting, the church was asked to sign and to commit to the uses that we are constantly hearing that this big building will be used as. How we need that commitment, and why are we not able to get that commitment in writing, and also maybe a deed restriction. I mean, that way we know what the uses will be rather than wondering. Clearly the church needs a gymnasium. Clearly they need more space for the children. But why this size? Why a 33,000-foot building? That just doesn't make sense. Like one of the parishioners said, they've run out of fellowship hall. It has become too small. Well, obviously, you make a bigger fellowship hall. It's larger. You can accommodate more people. More people come because apparently people love Pastor Tom, and more people will come. That's just the point. You have the space. It's going to be filled. There's no two ways about it. So why create the space that we are saying we won't fill because our community can't absorb that? I mean, that just doesn't make any sense. Create a space that they're saying they need for the children, for their current use, but that will not blow open our neighborhood. We need to be able to walk. I have a neighbor who was almost run over with a walker. We can't go in this rail. Some people cannot go in this rail. That means they won't be able to walk on the streets. We want to be able to age in place in our community, and this actually could be very detrimental to that. So I ask you to really, you know, put those. I want to say I want to start with this is a difficult situation that calls for the wisdom of King Solomon, and it really does. You've got to consider two very good causes. There's nothing wrong with their cause. It's just where is it, and can it be in this community? So we ask you to be like surgeons and separate what has to be kept, what has to be cut, so that both sides can win. Thank you so much. So we've got Jorge and Jaime Valdez, Louise Williams, and Ruth Silva. If you'll excuse me for a moment, I'm going to turn it over to my colleague while I run to get some water. I am Jaime Valdez, not Jaime, but that's okay. I've lived in Plantation Acres for over 26 years. I've raised two children in this neighborhood where there has not been sidewalks or North Acres Park or anything, and I used to be a runner, although I don't look like it now thanks to lupus and various medical problems. But I still walk the neighborhood. I used to push my kids in the stroller in the streets in the neighborhood before that, and I saw the Acres Christmas lights when they were on a residential street. Before they moved them to the church where they started creating massive traffic problems. They have gotten better by doing tickets and things like that, so it has gotten a little better. But people that we don't know come park in our cul-de-sac because we live on 119th Avenue, which, 27th and 28th Court, corner of 118th and 28th Court. So the church is to the right. Our house is the first street to the left. So to get in and out, even just during church hours, is a nightmare. So we're just worried what's going to happen when we only have two ways in. One way in, two ways in and out. That's it. So at the corner where they're going to build this church, what's going to happen with construction? I haven't heard one person raise the issue about construction of this building and what it's going to do. Are there going to be closures? How many closures? How long? How are we going to be able to get to and from our properties while said building is being built? So I know you can understand this because I know I used to have friends that had kids at Tropical Elementary, and this is going to dwarf Tropical Elementary if you look at their property from start to where the shed finishes. So I don't understand with 200 why they would need such space when our public schools don't have such space. So those are our concerns. Thank you for hearing us, and we do oppose. Thank you. Thank you. I think we're up to Louise Williams. Louise Williams? Oh, God, sorry. And then we have Ruth Silva on deck. Ruth Silva, wave and support for Ruth Silva. Thank you. Support. And Louise, go ahead. My name is Louise Williams, and I live in 2950 Sunrise Lake, Sunrise, Florida. I've been a member of Plantation Baptist Church for a few years since I moved from Miami. I used to live in Miami, belong to a church just like Plantation Baptist Church. My kids grow up in the same school environment like Plantation Baptist, a Christian school. But after Andrews, we have to move. And I moved to Weston. We looked for church. I've been searching for church until one day, through Google, I got a phone number. I was trying to find this church. And I called, and I said, show me how to get there. Who may I speak in, please? Pastor Hunter. So he showed me how to get to the church. And that became my church, my family, my second home. And I don't know the reason people oppose this building, because it's not going to attract more traffic, because we're going to have the same level quantity of children in the school. The church is not getting large. It's just the gym and the classes, because right now they're very crowded. They're two classes together. So I'm really, I'm really here to support my church that I love. And I believe we're doing the right thing by accommodating our ministry, our children, making them more comfortable. But the church is not going to be a mega church. It's going to be the same building for the church. It's just the school classes and the gym. Please, I support. And let me go to the second page. I get very nervous. I'm sorry. And my English go away when I'm talking from public. I support this building project, and I ask you to support as well. Thank you very much, council. Thank you, Rory, there. Thank you, Louise. Next, we have James Buddy Jennings, and on deck, Kathy Jennings. Waving support. And Kathy Jennings, she's going to come up. Okay. And on deck, we have Brian Cagliano. Kathy, go ahead. Hi, I'm Kathy Jennings. I live at 6050 Southwest, 6th Street and Plantation. I had more to say. I agree with so many people that are wearing the green shirts, and they've already covered it. But I have one point I just want to cover. We all know that we live in an increasingly dark world. Should we not embrace a church that offers so much for the community? Should we not give it what it needs to flourish? The building of a gymnasium will provide a comfortable, air-conditioned, recreational space for all ages. The children and young adults in Plantation need a safe place to socialize face-to-face with real people. Indeed, it will be a forum to develop interactive social skills, skills that are declining rapidly in a world dominated by social media interactions. I have grown children, but I know my community will benefit from a place like this, and I want to live in that kind of community. A thriving, God-centered church has always been the backbone of every American town. We should be proud to have it right next door to us. Please consider how useful this building will be in helping our city of Plantation raise up our next generation of good citizens. I pray that you will view this building project to be vitally important and beneficial to all citizens in Plantation. Thank you. Thank you, Kathy. Another call for Brian Caggiano from Sunrise. And then next up we have Chris Caffey. Chris Caffey? Cariff? Cariff? Cariffy. Sorry. And then on deck we have Arlene Presno and Dean Hubel. I'm not sure. Go ahead, Chris. So my name is Chris Cariffy. I live in 11401 Northwest 27th Court. And while I appreciate all these support people coming here, I oppose this. And I also question, most of the people that you're hearing don't live in North Acres. A majority do not. I've counted 11 out of everybody. Why is it, I'm very disappointed in the distribution of the information about this. You sent it to a very small subset of the population that are going to be affected by this. North Acres, everybody told you, has two trunks in from Sunrise. Everybody that lives in North Acres will be affected by this. We were affected by it when they did the construction of their giant parking lot. We're going to be affected by this. We're going to be affected by more traffic. People say there isn't traffic problems. Come on out just before 8 o'clock in the morning or whenever they start classes now on 112. Watch all the late people coming. They speed up 112 because we don't have speed bumps on 112. So they decide, rather than taking 118, they take 112. Every single school day, you'll see it. But instead, what we do see is at 10 in the morning, we'll see the police with speed traps on 118 that have the speed bumps. Basically, probably picking up very few people and not really hitting where we really need the traffic police. I'd also like to reiterate the fact that people have not heard any commitment of these events that they're going to hold or not hold. You know, the pastor danced around it today saying that he doesn't have any plans. It's not on their mission statements. He will not commit to it. I think the council should make him commit to no extracurricular events outside of church events, outside of school, scholastic gym facility use. And that's about it. Thank you all. Thank you. Arlene, you have the floor. Hi, my name is Arlene Presno, and I live in 11710 Northwest 27th Court in North Acres, a block from the church. My husband actually had to leave, and he's been in lawn and landscaping for 35 years. As far as the landscaping they were talking about, the three-foot hedges are not going to grow 20 feet right away. And it's going to take three years at least, and any trees that they put in have to be 18 to 24 feet mature trees so that the view will be obstructed when looking from the front yard. And also another concern was when you're enjoying your pool in your backyard, you know, what about the lighting? Who's also going to maintain the residential side of these hedges and the trees? Because is that going to be another expense? I know Judy Gorman, I don't know if she's here today, but I used to babysit her daughters when I was a teenager. And I lived near Ian and Yona, who also spoke. Her backyard is to the church, and I know that's one of her concerns with the hedges and the privacy of her property. So I just wanted to say I'm a longtime resident of Plantation Acres, having grown up on Northwest 27th Court, where my parents built our home in 1980. And at that time, our community was defined by dirt roads, the absence of streetlights, a strong sense of peace and tranquility. While the area has grown and evolved, Plantation Acres remains a unique rural and family-oriented neighborhood that residents deeply value for its quiet character and safety. I'm writing to formally express my strong opposition to the pending application submitted by Plantation Baptist Church and School to construct a 33,677-square-foot building addition onto its existing campus on Northwest 28th Court. This proposed development is incompatible with the nature of the community and would bring significant negative impacts. I know I don't have a lot of time, so one of the things that they were saying about the planning and zoning meeting, the pastor did say during the meeting, commitment is a big word, and I'm not going to say we're going to commit. I'm not going to lock the church along those lines, talking about a proposed facility, like using it for basketball leagues or volleyball leagues. That's one of our concerns. There's going to be a lot more people coming if there's nothing in writing. So those are some of my concerns. Thank you so much for coming out tonight. All right. Next up is Jeremy Henson with Linda Williams and Joey Callahan on deck. And who are you? Jeremy Henson. Thank you. Thank you so much, Linda. There was a Mr. Hubbell that I missed. I think Councilmember Anderson had said on deck was a Dean Hubbell. I wave in support. Oh, thank you, Mr. Hubbell. So we've got Joey Callahan coming up. Nice to see you again. Go on up. And just for the record, we've got Brian Caggiano, Patricia Dunstan, and Tammy Callahan. You're waving? Thank you. I'm waving right back at you. Okay. Hello, Joey. Hello. Joey Callahan, 11480 Northwest 26th Street. When I moved to the Acres 23 years ago in 2003, I spent three months from January 2003 to March wanting to know where I wanted to live in the Acres. I moved from Davie to the Acres. I spent months driving every street, South Acres, Central Acres, North Acres. I picked North Acres because that's what I felt was best for me and my family. What people are saying is Acres. It's called the Acres for a reason. It was one to five acre parcel. These people that live in the North Acres now, along with me, are living on a third acre lot. These lots, acres, had to be divided up into third acres, which had to be approved by the city. So theoretically, the people that live on one third acres, two thirds of these people shouldn't be here tonight because they're acre lots, right? So they got divided up. So they were part of a zoning issue that got changed to one third acres, right? Okay. That's good. You're good. Please don't sneak out. Also, the church I know is I work there now. I knew the church was there. I never went to church before now. But I knew they had eight acres, and I knew they could build on 50% of their property. It didn't bother me at that time because I lived on 26th Street. Okay, they have spent a lot of money on drainage to offset people's backyards. And if they ever want to sell the property, I will buy it, and I will build low-income housing on that property, five stories hall, and I don't have to come see you all for it. It goes right past you all. So when you want to sell, you let me know, and we're good. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Callahan. All right, we've got Brian Caggiano and Patricia Dunstan. Mr. Caggiano, are you here? No? Okay. Patricia Dunstan, let me just say, Mr. Caggiano is against. I'm waving. Are you waving? Support. Thank you. Allie Hunter, waving in support. Katie Mayfield. Thank you. Armando Fernandez, coming on up. And after that, after Mr. Fernandez, Luca Pupo and Mal McConnell. Armando Fernandez, I live in Plantation. Good evening. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I live in Plantation, 11001 Northwest 18th Drive. I will make it short. So far, you've heard a tremendous amount of information, positive, negative. I'm not going to get into that, except for just a couple of points. First of all, it goes without saying, the pastor, when he gives you his word, that's the last word. He, I've known him for three, four years, and every time he says something, he goes through with it. So there's no possibility that he could be lying. In fact, he would be afraid to lie. He would be afraid to lie. Because one day, he's going to have to meet his creator. He's going to have to explain that. So I know that for a fact. Number one. Number two, the fact that the church needs the building has been proven. The kids need it. Nothing is going to change other than the fact that the whole church will be more comfortable. Kids are not going to have to play in 110 weather. And basically, it's a health hazard. I'm a physician, and I can tell you it's a health hazard. People die of that. On the flip side, I understand the people at the local area there, Plantation Acres. I can understand what they're concerned about. I've been going to church for three or four years, and I can be honest with you, I don't see the traffic. I don't see the traffic. I go to 8 o'clock in the morning. I go to 11. Two services. Two on one day. I just don't see this traffic that they're talking about. I see more traffic in other streets right around the area that is scary. Scary. Hiators, and so on and so forth. I don't see the negativity of the traffic. I just don't see it. And I'm honest. I just don't see, and in fact, when that building goes up, that area there, it's going to look better than it looks right now. If you stand in front of it, and you look to the left, and you picture this building, it's going to be prettier. If you're concerned about whether you look better or not, to me, the whole concept of this building and all the trees and so on and so forth, it's going to look better than it is now. And lastly, it makes me a little bit upset of the things that they've said about the pastor. That he said, it didn't say, it's going to do and not going to do. That's just not the way he is. Not the way he is. Thank you, Mr. Fernandez, for coming out tonight. Luca Pupo. Thank you very much. Mal McConnell. And just to give everyone an update, we have 31 comment cards left, so you do the math. Okay? So it's roughly about 90 minutes. If you choose to wave in support or opposition, that's your choice when I get to your name. Good evening. Hi. Good evening. Thank you very much. My name is Mac McConnell, 320 Northwest 100 Avenue Plantation. I have been sworn in by way of introduction. I am also past president of the Plantation Chamber of Commerce. I had a business in University of the Artful Framework for 30 years, which was nominated and won the Small Business of the Year of the Award, written up in Inc. Magazine and in Fort Lauderdale, and received a key to the city of Plantation from Mel Valtry, so that'll give you an idea how long ago that was. A couple of things I want to assure you of. Pastor Tom did not pay any of us to send you those emails, and he gave us these beautiful shirts. Thanks again for listening to us. I, too, am a little surprised about the conversation about traffic because I've been to just about every activity at the church at different times and haven't had any travel and haven't gotten any park tickets for speeding because we were warned about doing that. I'm surprised to hear the gentleman say something about Pastor Tom dancing. He can't dance. But I do support the new facility. One of the main reasons, I think, is safety, is we hear there's so much danger and attacks on our facilities, both churches and in schools. And so this will provide much-needed space that's going to be much safer. I want to say this about the church. Linda and I were between churches for a couple of years from COVID and other reasons. I had been to another church for 40 years, and we started visiting several churches, and we always fill out the Connect card, the visitor's card, and didn't hear from any churches. In fact, it was a month later on one church. We got a form letter. It was very obvious. When we attended church at Plantation Baptist Church on Sunday, Monday, we got a call from a deacon. Tuesday, I got a call from the pastor. And that said, that's where we want to be because this is a church that cares about people, cares about the visitors, and wants to administer them. So proud to be a member of Plantation Baptist Church, and I support the project 100%. Thanks so much. Thank you very much for coming. All right. We've got Tommy Hunter, Trenton Mayfield, and Jacqueline Furman. And while Mr. Hunter is coming up, Misty Parito, Brad Parito, Andrew Nero, and Calise Graham wave in support. Good evening. Hello there. I'm Tommy Hunter. I live at 11391 Northwest 26th Street. Yes, if the name sounds familiar, Pastor Hunter is my father. Today, I'm coming not only as an ex-student of our school, but a current employee. And a topic that no one's touched on that I would like to explain because it's a big part of my job is our commercial-sized kitchen. At our current building right now, we have a 400-square-foot cooking area. It's important to know that they deviate between a cooking area and then your cafeteria space. So, to help prove our point that we are not a megachurch, I would first off like to read this incredible definition. A regular kitchen is built for a family or single home. It focuses on comfort and looks. A commercial kitchen is a professional space built to cook a lot of food for the public. Very detailed. However, if you've ever tried cooking for 100 people, a 400-square-foot area with just a normal gas stove is very difficult. Me and my sous chef, my mother, we cook every single Friday for roughly about 70 kids and then the staff. So, it comes out to close to 100 people every single Friday. And then, like the people are saying, this building is not just for the gym. It is for all of our ministries. We do all the cooking in-house, so when we do have our events and I'm cooking a Mother's Day event for 400 ladies and their daughters and their family, it is very hard to do so on one stove. Another lady, which I loved, she said that we are trying to compete with Tropical Acres. It's very funny because just to help you guys understand, I got all this information off thebrowardschool.com. So, this is from the Broward County. Tropical Acres, not only is their kitchen and their cafeteria space large, it's actually 19,158 square feet. That's about half of the building we're trying to even build where we can dunk a basketball. Not only, I would like to go to even larger schools that they recommend that their square footage is actually 40,000 square feet. However, according to the Broward County records, they say that an average kitchen of 600 students should be 3,000 square feet. Yes, we have only 83 students or 84 students. However, like I said, we are cooking for our church as well. We have about 600 members, and our current kitchen right now is 400 square feet cooking area. We should be all the way up to 3,000. The one that we proposed on the screen, I believe, is approximately 820. Now, I don't know if you know how big that is or how small it is, but when you're swinging around a pan with 1,000-degree oil, you're swinging knives around, there's people walking back and forth, it gets a little dodgy. So I would just like to explain to you guys, no, we're not a mega school. I would really like the gym to be built because I need a bigger kitchen. That way, me and my mom get in less fights, and we can feed you guys, and you guys should come out and see us. And I also agree with the one member of the community, and I am a resident as well, like I said. You guys really should come out and see the traffic. See for yourself. See that our church isn't lying. We've had the cops out. We have police reports to show it. I encourage you guys, come out and see for yourself. I stand with him. So thank you for your time. Thank you, Mr. Hunter. Trenton Mayfield, thank you very much. Jacqueline Furman, thank you. Those are my favorite people in the chamber right now. And I'm joking, folks. I'm joking. It's been great hearing from all of you. It really has been. Grant Smith, thank you. Madison Smith, thank you. Lee Fontenot, is Lee here? Okay. Is support Jackie Rutkowski? Jackie's coming up. And then Tim Ellis, and okay, thank you very much. Then I have Vicente and Janet Lomiton. Okay, thank you very much. And I've got one for Janet. Then I've got Norma Lorca. Okay. Jackie Rutkowski? Hi, I'm Jackie Rutkowski. Hi. I have been a resident of Plantation Acres North for 38 years on 27th Street. I'm blocks away. One thing I want to mention right up about the traffic. Every day, I walk the breezeway in the morning, 730, 738 for a good 40, 50 minutes. I see the traffic coming into the neighborhood on that road, therefore. I don't see an issue. I see Plantation running radar now and again, and I'm motioning slow down because I've been a victim of them. 118, I'm not over there. I can't comment on that traffic over there, but being in the acres, I've seen growth. New homes, the new park on 21st Court, the breezeway, welcomed additions definitely to the community. Even though I've lived in the acres all these years, I wasn't aware of the church until I started riding my bike and walking the community. I went by there one day, and they were very welcoming just walking by, and so I started to attend the church. I love it. I love all the people. They've been very friendly. Joined some of the ministries, enjoying that. One of the activities we did recently, and this will add on to what Tommy had to say, was the Mother's Day breakfast, lunch. Because that area where they serve us is not large enough to accommodate everyone, it was like we had to go in shifts with our families. So I was in there with my family, and it might have been Tommy, actually, that came through and was kind of motioning, like, wrap it up. You know, we've got people waiting to come in, and it happened. So I can see the need for that, and having kids and now grandkids, which I'd love for my grandkids to go to that school if I could get them there. It's a wonderful facility. There's so much there to offer to the families, and if you live in the area, go there. If you live in that community, like I said, I've been there 38 years. And I just recently started going there. So I definitely support it, and that's about it. Thank you so much for coming out. All right, we have Jorge Valdez, Morgan Hanson, and Mark Tasson. Are they still here? Okay. Morgan? Yeah. You coming up? Oh, yeah. That's okay. Is Jorge Valdez here? Okay. Hi, Ms. Hanson. How are you? Hi, I'm Morgan Hanson, 1345, Northwest Fifth Courts. So mine's very just, like, simple. Mr. Rogers, I think, said it best. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. It's a beautiful day for a neighbor. Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Those simple words feel especially fitting tonight. Like myself, I'm sure many of you can feel that in recent years we've lost a little bit of what it truly means to be neighbors. To know one another. To look out for each other. Sorry, I have double vision. And to treat the people who live beside us with kindness and respect. Plantation Baptist Church has been part of the plantation community and a neighbor to the residents of the acres since 1978. That's nearly 50 years. As little children, we're taught to tell the truth, speak to people instead of about them, have integrity, and above all, be kind to your neighbors. These are lessons simple enough for Mr. Rogers to teach a child, yet somehow as adults we seem to forget them when they matter the most. Unfortunately, the spread of negativity, misinformed gossip, and false information has led many of us into this room this evening. And maybe tonight is an opportunity to remember that before we are churches, homeowners, organizations, or opposing sides of an issue, we are neighbors. I've heard a few things said this evening that simply are not true, so I'd like to take a moment to clear some of those things up and share my perspective. One of the things that people keep hearing is that the building will cause school enrollment to increase. That is false. The truth is the school is already approved for up to 200 students with no plans to increase enrollment. Perspective? I'm one of the first 10 students that attended the school when they opened. My son now goes to the school, and they've never exceeded an average of 100 students in all those years since I graduated. I'm not going to say when that was to give away my age, but so that's for some perspective. As far as congregation and Sunday school, they literally have groups meeting in the balcony, and it's been this way for a long time. This isn't from recent growth. So this is literally, we need space to not be meeting in, like, little backroom closets and, like, the balcony space. And also, like, my son attends the school, and it is hot, you know, when they're out there playing. And also false that the new business will increase school and church traffic. The gymnasium is not to expand the congregation, as already stated, and it's not to increase the school, as they're already approved for 200 students, and they're at less than half of that right now and have averaged less than half of that. And really, at the end of it, when this meeting is over and decisions have been made, we are all going to walk out of this room together, and we're still going to be neighbors. So let's treat each other with respect, lead with kindness, and remember what it actually means to be a good neighbor. Thank you so much. I'll give it one more chance. Is Jorge Valdez here? No? Mark Tasson? Mark? Next up will be Brian Joint with Ruben Nunez on deck. Good evening. Good evening, Council President. My name is Mark Tasson. I live at 2261 Northwest 121st Avenue in the North Acres. I moved from Cooper City about a year and a half ago to Plantation Acres in the North Acres, and we love it here. My wife and I have been attending the church for about the last four years, and we have two boys that currently attend the school. It's a great school. I'm not going to beat a dead horse into the ground, but as you've heard, there is a need for more room, as my son does share a classroom with the younger K-4 kids in kindergarten. The church has been a blessing, and we just love the acres, and we definitely love the rural feel of that. As far as the traffic on 118th, I'm out in the neighborhood running the neighborhood in and out on 118th every single day, and there's cars, but they're moving. So thank you for your time. Thank you so much. All right. Brian Joint, Ruben Nunez, and then Daniel Seperano. Hi. Brian Joint, 7700 Northwest 13th Court. I've been a resident for 28 years, and we've been going to the church for about 20 years. I'm sure on almost a daily basis, you guys probably hear, I don't want that in my neighborhood. It's probably a very constant thing that you hear. A few years ago, some of my neighbors were upset because you guys were putting up a radio tower for the police and fire department. They wanted us to come and complain about it, and I said, no, I'm not going to because we need it. The city needs this. Well, the city needs churches. The city needs schools. We need these things. And one of the ladies earlier said, well, we don't think that the people in this neighborhood, that the kids in this neighborhood go to this school anyway, but they go to a school in somebody's neighborhood. They're going to a school somewhere. So we need the school. We need the building for the kids to grow. As far as the issue with the – I heard somebody earlier who was talking about the people speeding to church or something like that. Plantation traffic department, the traffic unit has been out there writing tickets. Ask them. Ask the chief. Is it mostly the church people or mostly the residents? Because I got $100 in my pocket that will give you the answer. It's not the church people. You might have gotten one or two of us, but for the most part, it's the residents, and that's normal. I was a police officer for 30 years. Every time we would get a complaint about speeding, it was always the people in the neighborhood who were the ones that were doing it. And then they were very upset when we wrote them the ticket, and they were the one that was up complaining. I believe it's the same thing here. And ask your chief. He'll be able to tell you. Thank you. So much for him and that. Mr. Ruben Nunez, thank you very much. Daniel Seperano, I think the Seperano's still here. Then Mark Laffler. Okay, thanks. He's shaven in support. And Jordan Wong. Good evening, counsel. Daniel Seperano, 8414 Northwest 10th Street. I've been sworn in. So I'm in support of the project for Plantation Baptist Church. And I would just – you guys have been here a long time, and I could see it. So thank you very much for your time. Unless somebody has – my recommendation is if anybody has anything that, like Mark over there said, you know, the Lord has put it in your heart, you know, let's be courteous to this council here. Thank you so much. John Ebanks, Jamie Phillips, Lindsay Hanson. You are – oh, you are coming up? Yeah. Okay. I'll shave you, not waving. You're welcome. But I'm going to get them on deck. Is John Ebanks here? Jamie Phillips? Okay. We're going to say John Ebanks is waving in – well, didn't wave. So that will be a noncommittal. Jamie Phillips, waving in support. Lindsay Hanson. Thank you. All right. You are on deck. My name is Mark Laffler. I live at 11550 Northwest 21st Street. I'm going to save the first page. We all heard about the traffic. Their plans comply with both city standards and the city traffic study. I just want to take my time on this first page to let you guys know, thank you very much for North Acres Park. It's a beautiful park. It's got the fountain. It's got a mile-long track. You let us walk the dogs there. I think everybody should be walking at that park instead of walking up and down 118th. Looking at each of your – I'm going to page two now, straight through. Looking at each of your backgrounds, I feel this council is uniquely qualified to make this decision. Mayor Sortel. After years of coaching high school basketball, you know that a gym is more than just a court. It's a safe place to learn, compete, and gather, rain, or shine. Mr. Anderson. As a principal, you've seen firsthand why every school needs adequate classroom space, especially one serving pre-K all the way to 12th grade. Ms. Andreu, did I get right? Andreu, right? Your career in education and involvement in your church reminds us that ministry extends well beyond Sunday mornings. Fellowship, youth activities, Bible studies, and outreach all need gathering space. Mr. Fadgen, your church and school finance experience gives you a unique understanding of the cost of Christian education. PBC's tuition is about a third of what many faith-based schools charge. This project is about serving families, not profit. Ms. Horland, your lifelong dedication to our schools and our children reflects the same commitment this project seeks to support. And Mr. Reinstein, as a practicing attorney with a degree in religious studies, you understand both the legal and religious dimensions surrounding this application. That brings me to one final point. Where's Mr. Morgan? Mr. Morgan? Thank you. Federal law. Congress enacted our lupa, the Religious Land Use Act, which protects churches from government decisions that substantially burden their religious exercise. I trust this council has carefully considered its responsibilities under our lupa. Tonight, you're deciding whether this application complies with the city's standards and whether there is a lawful basis to deny it. The answer is clear, because I don't believe the facts, the city review, or federal law support a no vote. Thank you for your time, and most importantly, your service to the city of Plantation. Thank you, Mr. Laffler. Mr. Steven Williamson? No? Okay. Thank you very much. Anita Manning? Anita Manning? Oh, she's coming. Okay. And then after Ms. Manning, be Robbie Davis. Robbie Davis will be waving in support. Christian Davis? Thank you very much. Rena Williamson? Rena Williamson? Okay. Waving in support? And I'm not just making this up. They just indicate on their sheet. Viviana Gomez? Thank you very much. Janie Mandel? Thank you. Ms. Manning? You're the last one. Oh. And I'm going to allow the support? Evening. Councilman, attorney, and staff. Anita Manning, 11551 Southwest 3rd Street. I live in South Acres. I've been here before. I heard how they, I heard what was said at the previous meeting. And I think our pastor did here. He has agreed and has made lots of changes. He's not lying. He has been able to accommodate different organizations that truly needed to be there at our church. Our Plantation Anchors Homeowners Association, they've approached him and he was able to accommodate. Our police department, our fire department, they've approached him. So his commitment is truly to the church. He's not going to say something he can't do and he's not going to be honest for. I just want to make sure that you understand our church does need this space. We service so many ministries. We service the homeless. We have women who create blankets and give them out. We do have double uses, triple uses of our classes. We have a very small kitchen. Our pastor's wife actually cooks in it. She's great. One of the best things that I live at our church, and I've been a member for over 25 years, living in the Acres for 34. We have a safe environment. We have, and I want you all to come to our fall festival. So you'll leave there with lots of goldfish, free, free goldfishes. No, it's a free service. We grant it to all of the children. We do a lot of volunteering. We're there for the community, and we are there to support and offer and grow our ministries to support our communities and service them. I'm for this amendment. I'm for this modification. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Manning. Council members, before we get into comments, I just will need a motion to extend the meeting past 1130, if so needed. Yeah, I want to do it now. Can we do it now, just so we? Or do you want me to wait? Yes, you can do it now. Yeah, let's do it now. Motion to extend the meeting, if necessary, beyond 1130. Thank you, thank you. I'll second. All right, Ms. Beggarrow, please call the roll. Council Member Fadgen. Yeah. Council Member Reinstein. Yes. Council Member Anderson. Can't wait. Council Member Andre. Yes. Council Member Horland. Yes, I'm going to get a shout before 1130. Before I turn it over, Council Member Reinstein's buzzed in. And I want to thank everybody for being respectful tonight and for hanging in with us. And I hope you did not feel rushed. We certainly wanted to give everybody their time to speak. I appreciate those who waved at the end, because I think much of what you wanted to hear had been said. We want to hear from you. So this is, while it's a late night, it's actually, for me, quite enjoyable to see the community come out like this and get to know so many of you. So I'm going to turn it over to my colleague, and we'll finish up comments. I was ready to make a motion. Okay. I'd just like to – yes, great. I'm glad. I just want to say one thing before we vote. Mr. Lafler brought up our lupa, and I think it's important, if anyone does not know what the federal law is, that we cannot treat a church property any more stringently than we can a non-church property. So there are certain things that are in place there by federal law that we have to abide by. And one other thing that was alluded to tonight, if you have not heard about Live Local, which has come out of the state legislature, Live Local is now Live Local 3.0. And what it did is it allowed church properties and religious properties, if there are three acres or more, to be developed with affordable housing, at least 40% affordable housing. And neither anybody in this room or anyone up here would have anything to say about it, if it fits with our zoning. So I just want to remind people that sometimes you might not get everything that you want, but we have to be cognizant of what land is out there and what legislation has come down from Tallahassee that may – you know, that may affect the character of our neighborhoods in the future, so it's important that we compromise. So, Council Member Reinstein. Yes. So, before I make the motion, I want to add, when I made my Jennings disclosure earlier, I heard so many people mention about attending the Christmas lights displays. I have attended those many times with my family as well, and that won't affect my vote. In addition, Mr. Laffler mentioned some of our backgrounds, and you mentioned mine as a lawyer. I also was a religious school teacher at a middle school and high school for a number of years before I went to law school. But all that being said, my review of this and my motion is based on listening to the testimony and my review of the documentation, and particularly the very careful staff analysis. And as we've said before, I appreciate the opinions on both sides. I know people on both sides and care very much for people who are opposing this and supporting this. But with that being said, I'm going to start with Item 23 and make a motion to approve Item 23. Second. Okay. Ms. Beggarow, please call the roll. With the conditions. With all of the conditions that are set forth in the staff comments. Thank you. Who was second? And I concur with his amendment. All right. Council Member Fadgen. Yes. Council Member Reinstein. Yes. Council Member Anderson. Yes. Council Member Andreu. Yes. Council Member Moreland. Item 24. Oh, yes. Okay. Motion to approve Item 24. Second. Ms. Beggarow, please call the roll. Council Member Fadgen. Yes. Council Member Reinstein. Yes. Council Member Anderson. Yes. Council Member Andreu. Yes. Council Member Horland. Yes. Item number 25. Motion to approve Item 25. Second. Ms. Beggarow. Council Member Fadgen. Yes. Council Member Reinstein. Yes. Council Member Anderson. Yes. Council Member Andreu. Yes. Council Member Horland. Yes. And with that, the project's approved. Thank you very much for coming. Okay. We're going to, we're not done, so we're going to ask you just to exit quietly or just hang out for a minute while we wrap up the main, please. Thank you. Mayor, any comments? Since you're all quiet, grab one of these university plantation flyers on the way out. Okay. Anything else? Council comments. Council Member Fadgen. I think everything that's had to be said was said, so good night. Thank you. Council Member Reinstein. While I do have some comments that I would normally like to make right now, I will reserve those for our next meeting, and thank you, everybody, again. Thank you much. Council Member Anderson. Just, it was a lot of contact from all of you, but it was a very, it wasn't arduous. It was actually very nice to hear, hear it also. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Andrea. Just one quick comment. A very important meeting is also happening, and I hope we have this same number of people that turn out on Monday, August 17th, 6.30 p.m. at Jim Ward Community Center. Our state representative, Dr. Osgood, our senator, will be hosting a session on Property Tax Amendment 3 as part of her Dr. Osgood tour, so please mark your calendars Monday, the 17th, at 6.30. We need the same level of engagement so people can know the facts regarding this Amendment 3 that will be on the November ballot. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Andrea, and I promise I'd get us out before 11.30. Meeting adjourned at 11.10. Thank you.