City Council — Mar 25, 2026

Good evening and welcome. The March 25, 2026 City of Plantation City Council meeting is now called to order at 6 p.m. Ms. Beggarow, please call the roll. Councilmember Anderson? Here. Councilmember Andreu? Here. Councilmember Fadgen? Here. Councilmember Horland? Here. Councilmember Reinstein? Here. Mayor Sortel? Here. City Attorney Ezra? Here. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Beggarow. Tonight's opening remarks and Pledge of Allegiance will be provided by Councilmember Anderson. Good evening, everybody, and welcome. To our residents, our city employees, and my fellow elected officials, thank you for being here tonight and for being part of the life of our city. As we gather this evening, we find ourselves in the season of spring, which began March 20th and is marked by the sun crossing directly over the equator, which is called the spring equinox, March equinox, or vernal equinox. They're all the same thing. Spring has a way of reminding us of some very important truths about nature, about community, and about ourselves. In spring, we see flowers begin to bloom. They don't arrive all at once, and they don't rush the process. They grow quietly, steadily, and in their own time. And in many ways, that's how progress happens in a city. It's built through patience, care, and consistent effort, often unseen at first, but meaningful all the same. Every program launched, every neighborhood strengthened, every family supported is like one of those first blooms, small on its own, but powerful together. We also see trees stretching taller this time of year. Trees remind us that growth depends on strong roots. For our city, those roots are people, our residents who care deeply about their neighborhoods, employees who serve with dedication, and leaders who strive to make thoughtful decisions. When those roots are healthy and connected, our city can continue to grow upward and outward, strong enough to weather any storm. Spring brings warmer sunshine as well. That sunlight doesn't discriminate. It reaches every corner, every street, every home. It's a reminder of the importance of openness and transparency in our public service. When we lead with clarity, honesty, and a shared purpose, we create an environment where trust can grow and where everyone has the opportunity to thrive. And spring is, at its heart, a season of renewal. It teaches us that even after difficult seasons, after uncertainty, challenge, or loss, there's always the possibility of new beginnings. In city life, renewal might look like fresh ideas, renewed partnerships, or a recommitment to listening and working together. It's the understanding that tomorrow can be better than yesterday, when we choose collaboration over division, and hope over hesitation. Our city, like spring itself, is alive. It's shaped by cycles of planning and action, of challenge and solution, and learning and growth. And each person in this room plays a role in that cycle. Whether you're here as a resident, an employee, or elected official, you are part of what helps this city bloom. As we begin tonight's meeting, let's carry the spirit of spring with us, the patience of growth, the strength of deep roots, and the warmth of shared light, and the promise of renewal. If we do that, if we stay grounded in service and focused on the future, we can continue building a city that not only grows, but flourishes. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance. Thank you, Council Member Anderson. Item submitted by the Mayor. Mayor Sordal. Thank you very much. First off, we have a special guest, County Commissioner Hazel Rogers, who is going to give us all kinds of updates. Is that right? All right. Then you're going to give us good news. Good evening, Commissioner. Commissioner, just make sure the light is on there, the green light. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Oh, yes, I can hear me now. That's better. Okay, let me start to my left, Mr. Mayor, you know, when we get to that meeting, I'm not talking to you. Council Member, Timothy Fadden, Commissioner Louis Weinstein, the dancer in the group. Madam, you are also, you're a Council Member, you're Denise Whirland, and you are with the League of Cities. Are you the new President? I am the President. Okay, I know that position very well. So, okay, Eric Anderson, I like your introduction, how you reflect on where we're going and what the mood is and the theme around everything. That's awesome. And, of course, Council Member, Jennifer Andreu. Good to see everyone. Madam City Clerk, Mr. City Attorney. It is good to be here. And I can tell it's a good time to be in Broward County because we're remaining focused. We have a budget that we must implement, and we know where the focus should be. We recognize everyone is talking housing. But whenever I speak to affordable housing, I'm asking everyone, please do not forget, homeownership option is what we should make happen. Rentals doesn't do anything for your community. But we have to have rentals. So there must be diversity in the housing that you choose. So that is where I'm at. Of course, you know, whenever we're having challenges with funding, one of the first things that we consider is whether or not we should do our recreational programs or cultural programs, and we start thinking of cutting those programs. We're going to ask you more than ever our residents need to be outside. Okay, that mental health issue has now become one of the other focuses that we have to address. And it's a matter of pride, too. We have to let everyone know. All of us are going through these challenges and thinking about how we can do things better. But we must take care of each other. So please keep our humanitarian programs going because our communities need it. My office is open to each and every one of you. What I've done and will continue to do whenever I see anything on the agenda, when I review the agenda, and it says plantation, whenever you see an email from me, you know something is going on that I just want to bring to your attention. So that is my update for today and to your residents that's behind me and those that are on social media. Yes, this is where I'm at right now, and I'm celebrating 30 years, as you know, and I'm Madam President of the League of Cities, right? I did my tenure there, and it was a good experience. I know you'll have the same. So thank you very much to each and every one. Thank you, Commissioner Rogers. We are so thrilled to always welcome you in our chamber, and congratulations, and thank you for your 30 years of service as an elected official. I think the mayor would like to say something. So we have a bit of surprise for you, and Jennifer Andreu is going to be the one leading the ship here. I'm going to get out the way. No, you're not telling me what this is. It's a new car. I wish. We'll leave that to Plantation High. However, we do have a proclamation for you because we wanted to really let everyone know in our community that we appreciate you and your 30 years of public service. That does not go unnoticed. So the proclamation reads as follows. Whereas Hazel P. Rogers was born September 28th, we won't say the year. In Kingston, Jamaica, big up Jamaica. Whereas Honorable Hazel P. Rogers began her political career in Broward County in 1996, where she served as a commissioner for the city of Lauderdale Lakes and the only woman, and it is Women's History Month, on the commission, and later served as mayor of Lauderdale Lakes. And whereas in 2004, she was appointed as president of the Broward League of Cities, representing the 31 municipalities in Broward County. And whereas after Commissioner Rogers served 12 years in Lauderdale Lakes, she was then elected to state legislature, making her the first Jamaican to serve in the Florida House of Representatives. And whereas Representative Rogers formerly represented the 95th and 94th districts, which included North Lauderdale, Lauderdale Lakes, and Lauderdale from 2008 to 2016. And whereas in 2022, Hazel P. Rogers joined the Broward County Commission, District 9, encompassing Fort Lauderdale, Lauderdale Lakes, Lauderdale, Oakland Park, Sunrise, and Plantation. And whereas Hazel P. Rogers has served her community for 30 years, working on comprehensive programs that address housing affordability, grants for small businesses, food insecurity, hurricane relief efforts, and so much more. Now, therefore, Nick Sordle Mayor and the City Council of Plantation do hereby proclaim Wednesday, March 25th, 2026, as Hazel P. Rogers Day in the City of Plantation. And we encourage all of our residents to join us and recognize it. Thank you. Thank you. Councilor Heide. I think that's better than a car. Okay. Next up, we have the Mayor's Monarch Pledge. This is something we do every year. It's part of keeping our environment going, and we try to join, hop on the bus of everybody else doing this. So, whereas Monarch Butterfly is an iconic North American species. And whereas 26 years ago, more than a billion Eastern Monarch Butterflies migrated to Mexico, but in the winter of 2014, only 60 million made the trip. Whereas cities, towns, and counties have a critical role to play to help save the Monarch Butterfly. And whereas every resident of Plantation can make a difference for the Monarch by planting native milkweed and nectar plants to provide habitat for the Monarch. And whereas on behalf of the people of Plantation have already joined me in creating healthy habitat for these magnificent butterflies, I'm honored to sign the National Wildlife Federation's Mayor's Monarch Pledge. Therefore, I, Nick Sorrell, and City Council do hereby proclaim Wednesday, March 25th, is Mayor's Monarch Pledge Day. I guess I'll have to share it with Hazel. I guess I think we can have two days, okay? So, that's that. Council Member Reinstein, you got one? So, what I'd like to do is I'd like to call up Ms. Nicole Greggs from Plantation Park Elementary School. And she's brought some students with her. And we have a special treat that will accompany this proclamation. So, they'll join me and I will head down to read the proclamation. Okay. So, tonight we have a very special proclamation for Music in Our Schools Month. And what I'd like to start out with is that, you know, like my colleagues, we like to visit our schools in the city and to support all of the various activities in our schools. And I had the opportunity to visit Plantation Park Elementary when Ms. Greggs was doing a very special program throughout the entire day called Classroom Concert Series. And she had concert programs for kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade. And there were all kinds of instruments that the students were playing. And they made their own instruments. They were playing instruments that they were assigned. They had all kinds of different songs. And their family or various support was there to cheer them on. And when I saw them, and it reminded me of Mrs. Solomon from my days as an elementary school student when I had such a great experience learning music. I remember having to play the recorder back when I was your age. And I hope you're better than I was at playing the recorder. But I'm excited here to make this proclamation because I don't think we give enough attention to music in our schools. And so, I think this is important. So, here's the proclamation. Whereas, for more than 40 years, March has been officially designated by the National Association for Music Education as Music in Our Schools Month, encouraging communities across the nation to focus on music education. And whereas, music education is part of a well-rounded education for every student as outlined in the Every Student Succeeds Act signed into law in December 2015 that governs the United States K-12 public education policy. And whereas, the purpose of this celebration is to raise awareness of the lasting, positive impact of music education on the academic, personal, and professional growth of our students and to recognize the amazing music teachers in the city of Plantation. And whereas, music education shapes the way our students understand themselves and the world around them, allowing for a deep engagement with learning. And whereas, music in our schools month reminds us that school is where all children should have access to music. And whereas, music educators, students, and communities throughout the city of Plantation demonstrate the importance of quality music education programs to the lives of young people. Whereas, the city of Plantation joins our students, educators, and our entire community in celebrating the power of music education. Now, therefore, our mayor, Nick Sordal, and the city council of Plantation do hereby proclaim March, 2026, Music in Our Schools Month. Welcome. So, I'm going to present the copy of the proclamation to Ms. Greggs on behalf of the city. You will here represent all of the music teachers in our city, but you get the copy of the proclamation because it was you and your enthusiasm and your love for music that brought us here today for the proclamation. And I'm going to let you introduce what you have here with the students that are going to do for us for a moment. All right. Do I need to speak? Good evening. I didn't know I was going to say anything, but I have taught music at Plantation Park Elementary School since 1991, and throughout that entire time, it has been my honor and privilege to introduce students not only to singing on pitch, but to playing various instruments, to creativity, to lots and lots of wonderful things that develop their brains and their personhoods. So, I brought three third graders with me tonight, and they're just going to, they're just, how long have you played the recorder now? I think, a month? Maybe six weeks? So, they're learning just the first three notes, four notes, and they're going to show you what it's like to be nine or eight or so, right? And when you're first learning. And yeah, we performed a couple of simple songs for the, for the concerts and Hot Cross Buns and Baby Shark. Now the entire city can have that tune in their head for the rest of the evening, at least, right? So, can we take a picture together with the proclamation? Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Thank you so much. Have a good night, everyone. And finally, we have our Teacher of the Month presentations. I would like to call up the Education Advisory Board first, and we'll hand out the awards. Michael, come up and introduce. These are the people that do the vetting and the selecting, and they also do the prize-giving, right? So, okay. So, who's on your team? Michael? We'll introduce ourselves. All right. That's it. Hi, my name is Sunny Kraske. Good evening. I'm Jessica Valenzuela. Hello. I'm Christina Reier. Good evening. I'm Michael Tausig. And would the Teachers of the Month for February come on up, please? Do they know which ones they are? Sunny's got it. You got it? Okay. We got it right here. Oh, yeah. Wait, hold on. Which one do you have? Which one do I have? I'm going to read them all. All right. Why don't they all just come up, then? I'll read the proclamation, then you come up. You can tell I'm, yeah. All right. Here we go. Proclamation. Whereas the City of Plantation deeply values dedication, passion, and tireless commitment of its educators, whereas teachers play an essential role in building strong communities, fostering learning, and inspiring students to reach their full potential, whereas the City of Plantation and City Council wishes to recognize and celebrate the exceptional contributions of teachers, and whereas the individuals being honored this month have demonstrated excellence in teaching, innovative practices, compassion, and leadership. Now, therefore, I, Nick Soto Mayor, and the City Council of Plantation do hereby proclaim the following individuals as Teachers of the Month. So when I call your name, come on up. How's that doing? Yeah. That work? Okay. Well, okay. Okay. Okay. All right. Pamela Salke, Renaissance Charter School at Plantation. You got the prizes to give. Who's giving away the gifts? You got the gifts, Sonny. Swag. Congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations. And have her stand over there, Michael. And we have another one for Renaissance Charter. Charlene Almodovar. Almodovar. How'd I do? We got prizes for her. Congratulations. Cynthia Marcano, Mirror Lake Elementary School. I'm glad this one got here because I've never seen her in City Hall. Jennifer McGonigal, Collins, South Plantation High. So she's not here. So Darren Diaz. Okay. So we will go on to Darren Diaz, American Plantation High School. Is Leslie not here? Leslie's not here? Yes. Okay. He teaches construction, by the way. So we need to get to know them. So, yes. So the other two that aren't here. We're going to honor them next month. Yeah, but I'm going to say their names now. Jennifer McGonigal, Collins, South Plantation High. And Leslie Purgis, American Heritage School. So clap for them while we're here. Okay. Can we say their names again next month? We sure will. Okay. All right. So does everybody have their awards? Right. Okay. Oh, what do you want here? Go ahead. Okay. You got it. So we just wanted to give a shout-out to our sponsors. We have a lot of partners that have been helping us with gifts for the teachers. The Plantation Women's Club and Milky Moose is sponsoring every teacher every month for the whole project. So we're so excited about that. And tonight's specific sponsors, we have gifts from the Plantation Acres Homeowners Association, Forever Young Spa Gift Package, they donated, Florida Children's Theater Ticket Voucher, and also gift cards from Land Lover's Restaurant. So thank you to all of our sponsors for these two months. Yeah, and please support our sponsors. Since we have a county commissioner in the house, we're going to do a photo here first, and then do whatever you need, Michelle. Michelle will photo direct. Good luck, buddy. Thank you. Thank you, Education Advisory Board. All right. We'll wait until everybody files out. If we could just ask everybody to exit the chamber quietly. Thank you. Next up, our Parks and Recreation Director, Ms. Trish O'Toole, will give us an update. We're going to wait just a moment. O'Toole. Okay. They're leaving quietly, Ms. O'Toole. You can go ahead. All righty. Good evening. If I could stop singing Baby Shark, let's see if I can get through it. We've got several events coming up in the Parks and Recreation Department, starting with this Saturday. We've got two events. The first is the Spring Community Garage Sale at Volunteer Park from 7 a.m. to 12 noon. And also Saturday, the 28th, we've got a family bike ride and scavenger hunt, starting at the Plantation Community Center at 9 a.m. Friday, April 3rd, is our next Rock the Park concert, which will feature the ultimate Garth and That's So Shania, Garth Brooks and Shania Twain tribute band. That's at Pine Island Park. Food trucks open at 6. The music begins at 7 p.m. Saturday, April 4th, our Royal Egg Hunt at Pop Traverse Park starts at 10 a.m. sharp. Monday, April 6th, we have a kid's day off at Volunteer Park. Registration is now open. Saturday, April 11th, Candyland Express from 10 to 12 at the Plantation Community Center. That is for children ages 3 through 10. Sunday, April 12th, we've got an adult kickball tournament at Sunset Park. Saturday, April 18th, two events. Earth Day, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Seminole Park. And Relay for Life from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Central Park. In our aquatics division, we are registering for our Session 2 group swim lessons. And in our athletics division, we have a spring into softball tournament at Pop Traverse Park this weekend, Saturday and Sunday. And Monday, April 6th, registration opens for PAL flag football and summer basketball. And that's it for now. Thank you. As always, very busy. Thank you, Ms. O'Toole. At this time, we will now recess the City Council meeting and call to order the CRA meeting at 629. Ms. Beggro, would you please call the roll? Commissioner Anderson? Here. Commissioner Andreu? Here. Commissioner Fadgen? Here. Commissioner Horland? Yes, here. Commissioner Reinstein? Here. Commissioner Sortel? Here. City Attorney Ezra? Here. Thank you, Ms. Beggro. The CRA consent agenda consists of items 1 through 2 this evening and may be approved with one motion. Does any member of the commission wish to pull an item? Nope. Any member of the public? Hearing none, do I have a motion? Motion to approve item 1 and 2. Second. Thank you. Ms. Beggro, please call the roll. Commissioner Anderson? Yes. Commissioner Andreu? Yes. Commissioner Fadgen? Yes. Commissioner Horland? Yes. Commissioner Reinstein? Yes. Commissioner Sortel? Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much. Public request of the commissioners regarding the CRA. Mr. Conklin, please come up. Good evening, sir. Good evening. Dennis Conklin, 4581 Northwest Six Court. Heavenly hosts protect you and all of your families. My request is basically when Plantation General Hospital is demolished to please limit the redevelopment to three stories, like the next door neighbors, village on the green, condominiums, and I yield back my time. Thank you, Mr. Conklin. Is there any other member of the public that would wish to speak on CRA? All right. Hearing none, the CRA meeting is now adjourned at 631. We will now reconvene the City Council meeting, also at 631. And we will begin with public requests of the Council regarding municipal affairs. To those who wish to speak, we request that you complete a speaker form. If you have not done so already, please do so. When you are called, please approach the podium and make sure the green light is on the microphone. You will 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 the Mayor, nor individual members of the Council. Please keep your remarks to the allotted three minutes. 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. We have Mr. Conklin and then Ms. Jessica Valenzuela. Mr. Conklin? If I may approach. Yes, sir. Thank you. Dennis Conklin, 4581, Northwest Sixth Court. On the side, those children there with their music. Oh, my gosh. Everybody asks what I did with my money for my music lessons. So today is 25th of March, and it's the solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, which means nine months from today is Christmas. So everybody start your Christmas list. 82 days ago, Maduro was arrested and put into New York City jail, and now we have many people that have increased their prayers that Cuba will soon be free. Request number one, I pray for the conversion and salvation of the New York City mayor, and I'll jump down to Hamas and CARE. CARE is still right now in Texas trying to get our American history books changed, and as you know, we just had the educational committee up here. When Texas books are approved, it basically approves all the books for the United States, so we have to watch out for that. But jumping down to request number three, 196 days ago, Charlie Kirk, a Christian martyr, and the founder of Turning Point USA, and the Christian ministry to college campuses, was assassinated by, let's see, Charlie preached Matthew 5, verses 43-48. Love your enemies, and his wife, Erica Kirk, forgave his assassin. I've asked you to reach out for the Nova Southeast University chapter to begin interface with our high schools here, and go to the next. I mentioned that they released CIA and other intelligence agencies' actions against President Trump as a candidate and as a president. Seven days ago, it was just released that the CCP had interfered with elections in the United States in 2020, Hong Kongs, Taiwans, Australians, and Canadians in 2019, and Great Britons in 2021. One, it was all kept secret, because I thought it would help President Trump get re-elected. I think I'll give back my time. I left comments for you. I saw them. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Conklin. Ms. Valenzuela. Good evening. Good evening, Council President. My name is Jessica Valenzuela. My address is 10502 Northwest 10th Street in Plantation. I am standing before you tonight, and I didn't expect to be here, so I didn't expect to be making this comment. I was at a Seminole Middle School PTA meeting this morning, where I very proudly sit on their PTA, and I was very frustrated and incensed, if I am honest, about a request from school admin, which was a request to the PTA for over $4,000 for radios for their teachers, two-way radios, so that the, and forgive me, not the teachers, or the staff, and for security, as all of our schools have these radios. My frustration and sadness came in when I understood from admin that this purchase and replacement is the responsibility of our schools. So this price tag, regardless, or I guess depending upon how many walkie-talkies you, forgive me for not calling them two-way radios, because you may need, this is coming out of your school's budget. This, at this point in the year, there's no money left. Everything in the budget is spoken for. When these two-way radios fail us, we're talking whether the batteries no longer charge, or whether the chargers no longer efficiently charge the batteries. They need to be replaced, and that that is something that I consider an emergency. I don't think that schools should have to scrape money together to make these purchases. This is a vital security resource. The equipment is absolutely 100% necessary. And my ask tonight is that you use your collective voices to change this with the school district. This should not be something that our schools should have to ask our PTAs, PTOs, parent groups for. Also, our PTA doesn't have $4,000 to purchase these, because we would be very happy to plunk down the cash to do it, because this affects every person on our school campuses every single day. However, this is not something that we're able to do. By the end of my day, I was contacted by District 6 board member, Cervera, who did tell me that it would be handled by the district. However, this is Seminole Middle School, and we have how many other schools here in our district that have these two-way radios that need to have them, every single one of them. So my ask is that this becomes part of the district budget and not something that our schools need to pay for. And that is my ask of you this evening. Thank you, Ms. Valenzuela. Thank you. Is there any other, Council Member Einstein, you had a question on that? I just want to thank Ms. Valenzuela for bringing that to our attention. I mean, your advocacy is never-ending for our schools, and I'm thankful that the school board member that you reached out to has responded and responded quickly, and hopefully this will be the last that we will hear of it and that this will be something taken up school-wide. This council, though, has not shied away when necessary to make our voices heard for the students and residents in our schools. So I just ask that, and I'm sure you will, is to follow up with us, is that if the school board member that you spoke to finds that they are running into some type of roadblock or not able to accomplish the ask, I think you have a council here that will happily get involved. Thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate all of you. Thank you, Council Member Einstein. Is there any other member of the public that wishes to speak on public affairs before the council? No? All right. Hearing none, that is the last call. Public requests to the council regarding municipal affairs are now closed. We'll move to the consent agenda. The consent agenda consists of items 1 through 8 and may be approved with one motion. Does any member of the council wish to pull an item this evening? Item 4, please. Madam President, number 1. 1. Anybody else? Does any member of the public wish to pull an item? All right. So we're pulling 1, 2, and 4. Do I have a motion? Motion to approve items 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8. Thank you very much. Council Member Anderson? Did someone pull 9? It's 1 through 8. 9 is a legislative item. It's on the back page, yes. Was that a second? Second on that. Okay. 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. All right. Council Member Andreu, item number 1 is amendment number 2 associated with the master services agreement between the city and Paymentis Corporation for electronic bill payment services. Go ahead. Thank you. Mr. Spencer, thank you for coming up. Is this going to only be one year? Because it's my understanding that we are going to merge into another platform in the near future? So, Charles Spencer, for camera director. I don't want to commit to a one year because the process with the new ERP is going to be several years out. So, I don't want to say this is going to be one year. But, yes, it will, not necessarily Workday, but, thank you, SpryPoint will be taking over parts of the services that's going to be provided by Pementis. Pementis is also our merchant provider, so there's some shared services there. Pementis will still stay on board from a merchant service part, but the billing and the electronic payment processing that they're picking up will stay intact until SpryPoint comes into play. And I believe that's almost three years, if I'm not mistaken. Is that correct? About three years out. Yes. Okay. I asked the question because I feel that we're very behind in this area, and I know this is not the first time that we've addressed that. But, recently, I was in Miramar for an event, and they have iPads set up throughout the city hall and their property where, you know, residents can go and, at the top of a button, pay their utility bills. So, yes, we're still mailing out our utility bills. It's not user-friendly. It's definitely not up to 2026 standards and where we are with technology. So, I am concerned that we're now making a three-year commitment. I'd like to see us get on board with having it be more user-friendly for the residents in terms of payments. So, the process that we're going through right now, and I will let Danny speak more to the interfacing, but I do understand that the mailing process that we're going through now is a little antiquated, and that's the reason why we want to onboard Pementis. So, there is a user-friendly, more electronic payment process as we navigate through Workday and SpryPoint at some point so it can all be integrated into one platform. As to what is being offered through Pementis, through this program, I'll let Danny speak to the details of what's being offered specifically. Hi, good evening. Danny Polio, City Plantation Utilities Director. I couldn't be happier to have this before you guys tonight. This is going to solve the problem that everyone's been asking for for the last several years or since I've become director. This platform is going to do everything that you're saying. There's online bill pay. There is notices. The key benefits is a 24-7 portal for the residents, e-billing, paperless billing, whichever the customer prefers. They get to choose. If they want a bill mailed, we'll mail it to them. Advanced notifications and reminders. This is going to cut down on late payments and everything else. They can get text, e-mails, however they choose to set their program or their bill pay up. One of the major things that was done with this, too, is this is actually going to be a little bit of cost savings because during the process when we were reviewing what was going to be the best platform for this, we had an issue with velocity. The amount of money that could be paid, the maximum amount of money that could be paid on a bill, and this hurt the larger bill payers, your multifamilies and everything else because there was a fee attached. I think the number was $300 was the most you could pay before you had to make an additional payment and incur an additional charge to make that payment. So that's been increased over $5,000. So this is going to cover every residential issue, and it's going to also help the larger users as well. What is it going to do for the city? It's going to improve the on-time of payments and reduce delinquencies. It's going to lower our call volume. It's going to automate our reconciliation reporting. A single vendor, right now we're dealing with two vendors, a bill print and a payment center. So with this program, this is a big money savings using Paymentus. Paymentus has already been working with our system for some time. So the fact that they know our system, we've run our test, they're using our billing platform with Infor, which is the utility billing component, is the savings on the back end by utilizing a company that we already have is going to be substantial. One of the things that we encounter is an unknown with our current Infor. Okay, well, every time we go to implement something, we're not 100% sure what that cost is until we run the tests and everything else. Another big savings is this is the fastest way that we can provide this service to you and our residents. If we were to go out any other way to go with a vendor before we go to Spry Point, you're going to go through the testing procedures. It's going to cost a lot more. Many, many cities use Paymentus. It's a tried and true program that we have, and we support it 100% as far as your utilities go. So we've been using Paymentus and not utilizing these bells and whistles, if you will, these additional add-ons? Paymentus has evolved over the years. This is an older contract that is had with the city. Throughout the years, there's been modifications, which are in your backup, between the utilities and the building department. And I don't want to speak for the building department. Theirs is collected on a percentage. Ours is collected on a usage. There have been modifications through the years and advancements. This model of advancement that has Paymentus that we're putting before you tonight, it's not that old. It's less than a year old. These are advancements that they made within their program. And when will this be effective, Mr. Polio? It's going to take about, Paymentus says it's going to take three months to implement. IT thinks it'll take closer to six. I guess I'm going to roll with four. Okay. Four to six months to be safe. Okay. I guess we'll wait and see how. Let me know what you think. I think you're going to be happy. I think you all will be happy, as well as our residents. It's going to be a lot smoother and easier and more options for our residents. I think it's going to be a better customer experience. A lot of work went into trying to find the right thing for us. I still didn't see a lot of the options of it, like Zelle. You can, it's, it's, within the backup, there is, within the backup, there should be the whole brochure that it does. It has, there's multiple different pay platforms. You can pay at Walmart. There's a whole list of, and I apologize if I didn't put enough in the memo for it. However, this checks all of our boxes, what we were looking for. And I do have to, I, I, I've got, while I'm here, I have to thank our utility staff. As I said, a lot of work went into this. I have to thank administration, IT, and procurement. We have all worked really hard to try and get this here and get the best program for the residents. Okay. I'm hesitant, but I'm going to go ahead and approve today and make the motion to approve. But I, I'm still very hesitant, but we'll wait and see how it rolls out in four months. Okay. Thank you. Questions? Thank you, Mr. Polio. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Andreu, do we have a second on that motion? Second. Thank you. Any further discussion? The motion said she'll see him in four months, just to make clear. Thank you. Yes. Any further discussion, Council Members? Anyone from the public? All right. Ms. Fegaro, 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. Item number two is agreement number 072-22 asphalt rejuvenation project term contract amendment number three. Council Member Fadgen? Thank you, Council President Horland. First question is kind of rhetorical. So we can initiate the amendment, but they can decline it. It's not an automatic amendment at our? Correct. Yes. Every amendment that needs, requires a price change, we present to City Council. I understand that. Okay. Like if we say we don't want the price change, they could say no. That's correct. Okay. Yes. Second thing is, in the summary memo, it says Public Works and Procurement Department reviewed and concluded that the proposed price increase 2% is fair and reasonable. There was really no discussion as to what was involved with the review. How did we come to this conclusion that was fair and reasonable? So how did we get there? So we look at... I would suggest, let's put that... Sure. Absolutely. ...to get to our conclusions in the memos. Absolutely. Okay. So how did we get there? Oh, okay. We look at varying indexes, CPI, PPI, and the ENR, and we try to make sure that those indexes are balanced when we're looking at these increases, CPI being more geared for this type of work. Okay. And that's my assumption, but I don't want to make the assumption on someone else's conclusion. Sure. Second thing is, did we do any informal inquiries to other contractors that do asphalt work? So interesting enough, this particular product and process is only offered by this contractor. Okay. So we did not. No, we did not. Because it's unique to this... Yes, we are. For this application, yes. All right. I just want to make sure that when we have a conclusive statement saying that this is how we got there, that we put that narrative in there so we're not making assumptions. I mean, your response corresponded with what my assumption was, but okay. Thank you. I'll make a motion to approve. Thank you very much. Do we have a second? Second. Any further discussion? Any member of the public? Okay. Hearing none, Ms. Beggro, 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 four, automated license plate reader cameras for the Midtown District. Council Member Reinstein? Yes. Thank you very much. So this is one involving the license plate readers, the LPRs. And every time that this has come before us, and I see Chief Schlegel's already made his way to the front. So prior to Chief Schlegel, to you taking your position when Chief Harrison was here, I raised the question as to why we're doing this piecemeal. And initially, it was brought to us for Gateway first. The discussion at the time was that, well, we want to try it out. We want to see how it works. We want to get out the kinks. We want to make sure that we know exactly how many LPRs to place, how to place them, all those type of things, which made sense in terms of the very first installation in Gateway. So now before us is for Midtown. Is that correct? What's before you is specific to the Midtown. But if approved, the installation will be not just those cameras, but the remainder of the city as well. So that's where I'm going. Do you expect that this, so this will complete all the way to our westernmost border? It's not just Midtown, although it seemed to focus the discussion on Midtown, but it's going all the way west. So we won't see this again. This will cover the need that is expected to blanket our city with LPRs. Yes, sir. Okay. That's what I want to know. You're our expert. And so if this is all that we need to cover everyone, then I'm satisfied. So thank you very much. You're welcome. Would you like to make a motion? Yes. If there's no other questions, I'll make a motion to approve Item 4. All right. I'll second it. Is there any further discussion on the dais? None. Anyone from the public? All right. Moving along. Ms. Figueroa, would you please call the roll on Item 4? Council Member Fadgen? Yes. Council Member Reinstein? Yes. Council Member Anderson? Yes. Council Member Andreu? Yes. Council Member Horland? Yes. Thank you very much. Item number nine is the city logo and tagline options. Ms. Karba Vashute. Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. As you recall, during the strategic planning, we started this conversation about the branding and where we're going, and there was a direction given to our consultants to bring back some options for us to consider. They did do that, and as a result of that, we did only internal city staff survey to start with, so we wanted to bring them here to you to share that feedback and ask you for further direction regarding this project. So I'll ask Haley and Keisha to come up. Thank you very much. Hello, Haley and Keisha. Thank you for being here tonight. Good evening, Mayor, Council President, Council Members, and City staff. Thank you for having us. My name is Haley Nicoletto, and I am the Director of Client Strategy and Success at Conceptual Communications. I'm joined tonight by my colleague Keisha Eugene to present an update on the city's branding project to you all. Now, as Laura mentioned, when we last met with you all in January at Strategic Planning, we reviewed that first phase of work, so the big brand audit that we completed, as well as the first round of internal and external feedback that we received on the city's brand. At that meeting, you asked us to bring back a range of logo and tagline options for your consideration, from a slight refresh to a complete departure, so that's what we'll be showing you tonight. So at this time, I'd like to turn it over to Keisha to walk us through that creation process. Thank you, Haley. Good evening, Mayor, Council President, Council Members, City staff, the entire City of Plantation community. I am Keisha Eugene, the Public Information Lead for Conceptual Communications, and we took on an approach when we took on this project to really go through a rigorous research process because we find that best practice, although it's about sentiments and design and making things look aesthetically pleasing, we wanted to make sure that it was data-driven and also positioned the city as the most credible source of information to taxpayers. So the first step that we took on was to work with city staff and city administrator to go through over 580 assets. That includes logos, city wraps, signature, email signatures, anything that was public-facing like signage, et cetera. We went through it all. Our team reviewed it. And as we shared with you earlier in the process, that we did find some fragmentation and some areas of inconsistency that needed to be addressed. So just a little, just a few. Nothing that couldn't be handled by the firm. Yeah? We found that we wanted to also meet with you all one-on-one with all of the city departments, including fire and police, as well as send out surveys to the residents and businesses. Altogether, we received about, we processed 548 responses. And this is what we found. This is the underlying key perception themes found for the city of Plantation. Your community found that when you think of the city of Plantation, it's green, it's safe, it's family-oriented, community-driven, stable, and centrally located. So we used this as the baseline for our approach to coming up with the tagline options and also logo options for you to review and consider for this evening. When we sent out the survey, this is the results that we received back from residents. We asked them three key questions. One, with the current city logo, do you feel like it represented the city of Plantation well? And a little, close to 50% said that it resonated well or very well with them. The other half of that was split between neutral, not well, or slightly well. The second question that we asked was, how modern do you find the city logo? Again, you have just under 50 that said it's slightly outdated, very outdated, and then split again, neutral to slightly modern, very modern. The last question that we asked was, how do residents feel about the tagline? Again, a clear split that some felt not well or slightly well, that it resonated with them, that's 41%, and then again, another split, neutral, well, or very well. So we mirrored these questions and sent it out to your business community. And here we see, again, that the sentiment around the current logo is that it resonates well or very well, a little over 53%, and that half, again, split between not well or slightly well and neutral. We asked them, how modern, again, do they feel that the logo is? And then you have a little over 50% that said slightly outdated or very outdated. And then again, split between neutral, slightly modern, and very modern. And then you have the tagline finally, split across all three tiers, a little over 30% for not well or slightly well, neutral at 34%, and well or very well at 30%. So we asked ourselves as a team, what is the story in the data? And it's that it's fairly consistent among the surveyors that some feel that there's comfort in the current logo, and then you have a split again that says it's recognizable, but there may be time to strengthen it or refine it. Again, we took this data and we decided, hey, we're going to use the design and make sure that it's rooted in stakeholder feedback. And we also wanted to make sure that the designs were about credibility and usability as well. And Haley is going to speak to that a little more. Thank you. Okay, so as Keisha mentioned, we used a lot of the feedback, all the feedback that we received, to work through the logo and tagline process. So when we were creating these, we used this methodology and applied it for all. So all logos and taglines should speak to those stakeholder values of family, safety, greenery, stability, and progress, reflect both the tradition of the city, so where you were, where you're at now, and where the city's going, and then provide broad use cases for brand storytelling and initiatives, whether it's an initiative for your residents or for your business community. So taking this methodology, we definitely had some fun with this project. We started off with 37 tagline options, 30 logo options. You know, some are stronger than others. And we continued to refine them and really think through how can we present logo and tagline options that fit these criteria and methodology. From there, we narrowed it down to 10 logos and 9 taglines that were submitted to city staff for review. And they met, they reviewed, helped us further refine. We had a strategy session with the mayor and with staff to really talk through all the options that were on the table for you all to review. And so then finally, we narrowed it down to the four tagline options and three logo options that you will see today. And these were the options that were included in this city staff survey. So your tagline options, starting off with what you have now, the grass is greener. We wanted to definitely keep that on the table. Then we had where life takes root, strong roots, high standards, and perfectly centered, naturally set apart. So each of these taglines, whether you want to hit on the fact that plantation is a central Broward location, your connection to nature, the future growth of the city, or city pride and tradition, these taglines fall into those categories. Next, on the top left, you'll see just a slightly cleaned up version of your existing logo. So we applied best practice to it specifically. I have to check my notes. So we enlarged the name plantation. We also added the wording city of to really root and tie in the concept of the city's name, city of plantation. We also aligned the word plantation with the tagline. We stretched the trunk of the tree just a bit to tighten everything up and made the greens a little bit brighter. Next, we have our complete departure options. So on the top right, this one, some of the key elements I want to highlight is that it's really showing your movement from your tradition and your history and the growth and the forward progress that the city is making. You'll notice that that brick color is on the bottom. And then we're moving into the greens of the city because, again, everyone said the city was green. And then on the bottom option, this one, slightly more literally, we included the brick as an homage to the hardscaping that you have here in the city and the beautiful brick signage that you have. And it also includes a tree. It shows that the city is rooted and as well as it's growing. And, of course, then a nod to your beautiful tree canopy that you all have here. You'll notice also that the colors in this logo can work well with some of your special district branding. So those two have some opportunities to co-brand well. Okay. So quickly, the staff survey timeline was that it was distributed to all city staff on Friday, March 6th. It closed on March 13th. And we received 364 total responses. So, again, I definitely want to thank city staff for their time for taking the survey, giving us their honest feedback and opinions and ranking the logo and tagline options. So here's where it gets interesting. Again, you see a clear split. 50% of your staff who took the survey of the respondents, they selected your existing logo as their number one preferred choice. Then you had a split between the two newer options. And I'm sure you can guess where this is going. The tagline also revealed that same similar sentiment, slightly higher than 50%. You got 56% of staff chose that the grass is greener as their preferred number one choice. And then a split amongst the other three. So tonight we have three strategic paths forward that we want to talk through with you all. And we are just looking for direction on how you would like us to move forward with the project. So option A, we can maintain your current logo and tagline as is. And we'll move right into the next piece of the work, which is creating those brand standard guidelines that we've all talked about in the templates. As mentioned, I want to skip over to option C first. So as mentioned, we only surveyed your city staff right now. We only have internal feedback on their rankings. We could send that same survey out to your residents and your business owners to get that external feedback and see where the rankings lie there. We also have on the table focus groups should we need it. And then we would move into that, if we went with a new logo, move into that phased implementation plan and creating the standards and guidelines. Finally, of course, at your discretion, there is always the option for you all to select a new logo, a new tagline tonight as well. Thank you. Thank you, Haley and Keisha. So just looking at the survey results, if the decision was made to retain the updated tree and the updated tagline, there would still be some phasing in of that. So what would that look like? Yes. So any option, there will be some phasing. The good news is if you do choose to go with just the slightly refined, it might be an easier phasing and that's something you could do more gradually. For example, it's pretty easy, low-hanging fruit to modernize or not modernize, to standardize the email signatures, your digital templates, things like that. But, you know, thinking about it, if you're seeing a city sign, I don't know that most people are going to know right away that the length of the tree trunk didn't get updated. So you have some flexibility to roll this out more gradually. I do like the addition of the city of, and I'm looking at, you can't see, but in front of you, we have a cover on the lectern and it says the city of plantation. I just, I do like the addition of that. Clearly identifies. I'm going to turn it over to my colleagues and I may have some other questions. Councilmember Fadgen. Thank you. I think I like the cleaned up logo. I like that the name of the city and the tagline is justified to the bottom of the trunk as opposed to it was floating around, like in the top right corner there. I don't think that any of the taglines moved me. I think the grass is greener is the winner, in my opinion. I think option B would be the path that I would like to pursue. And then I also, I agree, I wasn't exactly, you know, what was the change? Obviously adding the city of, which I don't particularly like that the city of is sitting over the A in the end. It just looks off to me, but I do like adding the city of to it, but I wouldn't know how to incorporate that with the cleaned up logo. And then, and I also agree that the going with the cleaned up logo, you know, it wouldn't be such a rush to get a lot of the things changed because most people won't notice that the trunk is extended. So, um, for the phasing in, and I think that is all my comments. Thank you. Council Member Einstein. Thank you. Council Member Fadgen. Yeah, thank you very much. And, um, I, I have to also make sure to mention, um, that, uh, Ms. Eugene well played with the green jacket. So, um, uh, so first, uh, I, I hadn't really thought about it, um, until Council Member Fadgen just mentioned, um, the city of being a little larger. Um, I, I do see that that, um, may make sense that if we're going to add it, we might as well make sure it's, it's, um, clear enough, if not the bowl to match the plantation. Um, wherever it is, whether it's a little larger, it's, it's moved just so that if we're, if we're going to add it, then let's make sure it's, it matches or it's visible enough. Um, my real concern or question is in terms of the, um, the external feedback, can you talk a little bit about what that would look like if we were going to, um, take a little time and, um, it would be an extra cost in terms of, um, uh, seeking external feedback, feedback from the public? Certainly. So all three of these options, including the external feedback, are already budgeted for. So there's no additional cost associated with getting that feedback. It's already included. Um, it would look similar to the phase, the first phase of the feedback that we received the same survey that city staff received. We would put it out, work with city staff on sharing it on all of your different communications platforms. We also would likely look into doing another paid component because that really helped us get more responses by being able to geo target specifically your residents. Um, we also would be doing the same with businesses. I know last time we met, we discussed getting additional business feedback and I certainly have that note. So we will work with city staff and make sure we get it to the chamber and other groups and other places where we can make sure we drive up those business response numbers. Great. And you, you are spot on to what I was thinking. Um, and that was a continuation of our last discussion is that, uh, you know, if we're going to, um, if we're going to make a change, even if it's, um, essentially a small change, but it's a change. Uh, I would definitely would like to see the external feedback. Um, I think that, uh, um, I would be surprised if it was very different than what we currently have. I think that probably our staff, um, it well represents, um, our, our residents point of view. Um, but I would like to see that. And, you know, I think, um, going back to reaching out to the businesses, just to make sure I mention it again, is that I really think that we can utilize our chamber of commerce and, um, maybe we even ask the chamber to make an activity, activity out of it for 10 minutes, 15 minutes at, uh, at the chamber luncheon. Uh, we have these luncheons every month and I don't see why the chamber wouldn't want to participate and take a role in, um, putting some of this, uh, survey information, maybe even giving you an opportunity to, to speak for a few minutes, present something. And, um, you know, those are the businesses that are the most active in our city. Um, and dare I say care the most about, um, about our city, um, in terms of their, their attention to our residents and our, um, and participation. So those are my thoughts. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else before I jump in? Thank you, President Horland. Um, I wanted to know the difference between option A and B. So option A is without including the city at all the word city and just keeping it as is and B would be including the city. No. So option A would be using that slightly refreshed version. So I suppose it should have said maybe not maintain, but your, the, the slight update version is option A. Option B would be at your pleasure if you all had decided, Hey, I really love this one. And you wanted to give us that direction to. Cause I think council member Fadgen's comments when he said option B, but then chose that one. It threw me off. So I, to your point, uh, option A I interpreted as just keep as is. Right. So, um, I think we both are choosing option A. Thank you. Okay. So I also would like option A. I know that you said for C that, um, the funds were budgeted and they are, but we don't have just because they're budgeted, we don't need to expend them. Um, we can, you know, use that money elsewhere. So I would like to move towards option A and just work on our brand standards. Let me just clarify before we move on council member Andrea, but, uh, do you want to stay with option A with everything remaining it is, or do you want the updated? The updated option. Okay. And I think that we'll need to clarify that as we go forward. Haley. All right. Council member Anderson. Anything? So now I'm confused. Okay. Is, is, is, is the original maintain current level? No. Option A is this, this, I know, but that's what she was explaining. I think it might be easier. So it's really city of plantation. Yes. It might be easier looking at it this way. Option A, meaning your, the look and feel of what you have now, just the. A refresh. Lightly cleaned up refreshed. Yes. All right. So what council member Andrea just ended her comments on you, the money is already budgeted, but it's not spent. So if we don't do the option C, we don't spend that money and we recoup it. Yes. Right. Could we, um, simply less formally ask the chamber of commerce, like, like council member Reinstein was saying, without going to a full blown all businesses and mailings and a massive thing, you've got a pretty good sampling right there at a dedicated group. That would be more than happy to give us strong feedback. That's actionable for probably low time and low cost. So I wonder if we could just do a kind of a hybrid there of A and C where we actually solicit our chamber business owners. Certainly. Okay. Is that it? You had something else before I go? Yeah. I just want maybe a little further clarification because, um, in, in terms of the, the reach to the public. Um, while I agree that if we want to reach the businesses, as we, as, as I've mentioned, that the chamber is a good place to do it instead of having to, um, uh, take a visit to every single business. Right in our city, um, or try and mail something to every business in our city. I think the chamber is a good way to do it, but, um, I wouldn't want to neglect reaching out to the public in some way or another. Um, whether it was a, um, what I'm going to say is a simple survey that is, um, accessible through the city website or that is put out on our social media. Um, I, I, I wouldn't want to take this step, um, and, uh, and not take any steps to reach, reach our public. And to that point, we did survey the public. Did we not? So not on these options. We surveyed employees only just in case there is a strong preference on, on, on your behalf. So we only surveyed them on the feeling of the current logo. Okay. All right. Yes. And, and just, you know, in terms of doing more public outreach, obviously the survey has already been developed and we haven't used in the past mailing for this particular survey. It's, it's all digital. I think where the cost comes in is, uh, doing that digital outreach, like buying an ad to promote it. Um, it's, you know, it's not a huge cost. Like what was it? Like $500 or something like that. But you know, that's where the cost comes into, to get good number of responses. Uh, and, uh, and obviously it would be the time, um, of Haley's time and Keisha's time in terms of analyzing those results. Like that, that's where the cost is. But other than that, the survey has already been developed. I don't think we would be changing anything in terms of the survey itself. Right. So it's, again, at your pleasure. Okay. Councilmember Anderson. You basically, Laura, wait, please. Sorry. You basically just, I was waiting to get in and you got, spoke on that. Because Councilman Ryanstein brings up a point, but I was trying to save money. But if, if, if the survey's already developed and it's not a lot, is it not, would you say it's a nominal amount more? It's outreach. It will be analyzing the data. The survey's already done. It's their time and about $500 for the advertising, the digital advertising. We're talking a few thousand more? Yeah. Haley, do you know the number of hours approximately and what that estimate is? An approximate. We're not going to hold you exactly to it. One second. We know there's some money in the budget. All right. Let's see what we have on here. I did this piece of it. Under 70. Yeah. Like roughly under 70. We have 78 budgeted in this phase right now and then 100 hours budgeted for the implementation plan for your rollout, the how-to videos, your, your templates, things like that. Right. So that's what's remaining and that would encompass that. Does that answer your question? Yes. Okay. I'm going to jump in. First of all, I want to thank you for your work on this. We really appreciate it. I, I was leaning toward two, but you know, when I took the survey, I came back to the, to the refresh. I'm going to disagree with my colleagues a little bit on the city of, I think from a design standpoint, and unless you want to bring something back, I think the centering of where the city of over the plantation makes sense. I think it looks very clean. Where I will agree, I absolutely would not want to move forward unless we did get a little bit more feedback. Um, this is, it's a big deal for us. We're investing money in it. I don't think that we should be, um, while we are not being extravagant with the budget, I don't think we should be penny wise and dollar foolish, um, without some feedback. And it may come back that, you know, the survey results look very similar and I anticipate they might, but I do think that I would not be comfortable moving forward without that, uh, input from the residents and the business community. And I was going to also bring up the chamber. The city is a sponsor at the chamber luncheons. We are always offered a table. And so if that is something that would work out, I'm sure you could work with, um, Laura on that and get a table at one of the upcoming luncheons and have some materials out there, however you choose to do that and get some feedback. But I think that those two things would be important for me. Um, I like the refresh. Um, I think, you know, I, I've said to you and when Lori was here, my concern has always been the cost of implementation and what that means for the city, and especially when we're looking at potential budgetary constraints. But I do think that we need to get everybody on the same page. Got too many things going on. Um, and it needs to be modernized. So my, my, uh, vote tonight would be for the refresh, but to do that outreach to the residents and to the chamber. Further discussion? Councilmember Fadgen? So we're all in agreement with regarding the, okay, right now it's the preference of the refresh and the preference of the existing tagline. Mm-hmm. Okay. And then, um, all right. So you want me to make a motion for option C with a preference from the council of the refresh logo, but to get the external feedback. All right. I don't think we need a motion. Do we, um, Mr. Ezra? I think we could do a consensus. A consensus? You can certainly do a consensus for this. All right. My consensus is it doesn't hurt to get the external feedback, even though I think it's okay with the... So you basically go with what I said, get the external feedback and okay. Do we have a consensus on that? Yes. I know. You gave me the shoulder shrug. You're not really thrilled about that, but I will take that, that we have a consensus. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Good luck. Thank you, Councilmembers. I didn't mean to pick Yanya on that one, Councilmember Andrea. Thank you for being a good steward of our finances. All right. Legislative items. Item number 10 is an ordinance amending section 6-4.1, Special Magistrate. 6-7, same powers. 6-11, fines and liens and claims enforcement. And 6-14, service of notices of the code of ordinances. Mr. Ezra, would you like to read the summary? Yes. Thank you. Public hearing of an ordinance of the City of Plantation, Florida pertaining to the subject section 6-4.1, Special Magistrate 6-7, same powers. 6-11, fines and liens and claims enforcement. 6-14, service of notices of the code of ordinances of the City of Plantation, providing for severability, codification, conflicts, and an effective date. Thank you, Mr. Ezra. Councilmembers, do you need to hear anything on this, the second reading of this ordinance? Do you have any questions or discussion? I don't. I just want to say thank you. I think it was extremely well done. The edits were, I think, everything that we discussed and put in a way that was much better than I think we actually articulated at the last meeting. So I just want to say thank you for listening and putting in the sentiment of what we were asking for. Yes, absolutely. You were comfortable? Okay, great. I'd like to make a motion to approve. Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion? Anybody from the public? All right. Ms. Beggerel, please call the roll. Councilmember Fadgen. Yes. Councilmember Reinstein. Yes. Councilmember Anderson. Yes. Councilmember Andrew. Yes. Councilmember Horland. Yes. Thank you very much. Moving on to board and committee appointments. Number 11 is selection of your 2026-2027 board director alternate and second alternate for the Broward League of Cities. Anybody? I would like to nominate President Denise Horland as our director. Thank you. I would be honored to continue serving. Second. Thank you. Do we need a – is there going to be a coup attempt? Do we need to vote on the whole slate? Or individually? Or individually. Or individually? What would you like? It's your pleasure. You could do it either way. It's up to you all. How about we do the whole slate? That's fine. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And anybody else? Second alternate. Councilmember Andrew. Would you like to continue serving in that role? Sure. All right. I'll second that. All righty. Ms. Beggaroff, if you please call the role. I would make one final motion to select. Okay. Yes. So the final motion is for myself, Denise Horland, to be the board director. Councilmember Louis Reinstein, the alternate, and Councilmember Jennifer Andreo as the second alternate for the Broward League of Cities for 2026-2027. And then we need a second. Second. Thank you. Ms. Beggaroff, please call the role. Who was the mover, the final mover? You're going to make me repeat that? No, no, no. You were the mover. Okay. I just had to scratch out some stuff. Okay. All right. Councilmember Fadgen. Yes. Councilmember Reinstein. Yes. Councilmember Anderson. Yes. Councilmember Andreo. Yes. Councilmember Horland. Yes. Thank you for your confidence. It's been a pleasure representing the city, and thank you, the two of you, for stepping up in those alternate roles. Thank you. Comments by the mayor? I have no comments. All right. Thank you, Mayor. Comments by councilmembers. Councilmember Andreo, would you like to go first this evening? Thank you, President Horland. I do have a question. I want to thank Chief for sending us the information that we requested on the radars, but I want to make sure that I'm interpreting it correctly. So, you gave us all of the various cities just to kind of compare, and I'm assuming no? No. Oh. Okay. I'm going to jump in. Please explain it. And Chief was lovely enough to call yesterday and said, I've got data, it's not the month yet, and he can explain. Okay. I was curious, and I thought it would be an interesting baseline for all of us, how many warnings had been issued, and also what cities those drivers resided in. Oh. So, I just thought that would be very interesting, especially, I think, in regards, if you understand my thinking, when residents talk about traffic, and we often talk about pass-through traffic, I think it's very interesting to see what's coming through our city. And I think it was reflective, in my opinion, in the warnings. Okay. Because I did not understand when I saw the cities where that was coming from. Did I get that, Chief? So, if I'm understanding President Horland's explanation, after plantation, which was at about 36%, right, then the next highest was Fort Lauderdale. So, we're getting the other speeders, if you will, from Fort Lauderdale. So, what that second data set was, was showing where the registered owner of the vehicle that is getting that warning resides. And, again, I caution because, interestingly, that report didn't exist from the vendor until we asked for it. So, apparently, no other, right, no other city, nobody else. So, credit, Council President Horland. So, they created that for us. And, if you look at the two different data sets, right, there's a different number at the bottom. Again, we asked early so that we know what we're looking at. We know that when we get to the end of the warning period, what we present will hopefully make a little bit more sense. The difference in the numbers is, on the first one, it is the, on the higher number, it is the total number of warnings. The one that's less is the vendor. If you're a repeat offender, if you've gotten more than one warning at this point, they only count it once on that one where the resident lives. Okay. So, there's still fine-tuning that's happening in the report, in the cameras. So, hopefully, when we get to the end of the warning period, it'll be a much more accurate picture. But, would I be correct in saying, on the second report, that our, how can I phrase it? I want to make it positive. The most concerning area with these radar detectors is Peter's near Imagine Charter. I would caution on that, too, because there's some that show a real high number, and there's some, say, that show one, right? I, at this point, have a hard time believing that there's one violation, say, in a location. But, again, that may be fine-tuning of, you know, the camera angle or something along those lines from the vendor at this point. I didn't question that one because the police are physically there in front of Heritage, right? So, you have them physically there. Sure. So, that's probably an automatic deterrent. I did have a question, though, also about Heritage because maybe I missed it. I did not see the signs in front of Heritage. So, I thought maybe, when I drove by there, and I was, like, I thought I was looking for them, and I didn't see the signs. So, are there, and then I said maybe it's not going to impact the private schools, and I said maybe we're only doing it in front of the public. But are there signs, then, in front of all of these? There should be, yes. We went out and verified every single sign of placement, and then when they were originally placed and the times were wrong, we went out and verified that they were all bagged, and then we went out and verified that we unbagged them all, and then that the new signage was correct. Okay. I'll take another look. And then we went out again, I want to say, days before the warning period began, to verify every single sign, so. Okay. Maybe I just missed it. I'll take another look. But thank you. It was excellent data. So, thank you for that. Council member Andrea, would you mind, a couple of council members have comments before you proceed? Oh, okay. And first, I want to thank Chief. I was going to say to my remarks for getting us that data. We had a conversation yesterday, wanted everyone to understand this is preliminary, but I really thought it would be a great, you know, a baseline. So, as we go forward and get more data, you know, we can see where we are and hopefully behavior changes. So, thank you again for that, Chief. I'm going to ask, don't run away, you've got a couple of council members that have questions, Chief. When is the period going to be over? That was my last. Well, the warning period ends, well, it goes live April 15th, tax day. Tax day. Bummer. Council member Reinstein, you had a question of the Chief? Yeah, Chief, thank you very much. So, some of the data that you provided, you just identified to us that it was Red Speed that provided the demographics report. And that, as you said, it's something that they had never done before. Nobody had ever asked for it. I would ask that, since this is their first time doing it, maybe we'll excuse them, but if you can go back to them and also ask that they look through all of the identified locations. Fort Lauderdale appears more than once plantation. I mean, there's plantation that appears multiple times, just it's spelled differently. So, I don't know how, whether they're taking it from some document that was misspelled. My guess is they're taking it from the vehicle registration where it is probably misspelled. Yeah. So, you know, because there's multiple, I mean, plantation would actually be even larger than it currently is when you just look at the top identification because there's at least three or four different spellings of it that I caught. And like you said, Fort Lauderdale and others. We did identify those anomalies as well. And who are the six people from Tulsa, Oklahoma? I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. You're welcome. All right. Councilmember Anderson. He basically hit that. Okay. The way they spell F.T. Lauderdale versus Fort Lauderdale and all those variations. So, they're going to have to clean up the data. Again, preliminary. And we know it's preliminary data, so you're on it. Yeah. Right. And again, that's why we did it now because we didn't want to be at the end of the warning period. Right. And we appreciate that. I wonder if we can get it because it goes eastbound and westbound of each street. And so, you have some schools have two different roads, two different directions. So, they would have potentially four entries or more and then with all the misspellings. If we can get a total for each school, just total warnings for Central Park Elementary, total warnings for whatever. Just… Yes, we can. It's Council Lake's data, too. I know… There's a lot of data that… Peter's Road has got the biggest… Right. It's a lot of schools along it, a lot of cars. Yeah. So, it's going to have a heck of a lot. So, yes, we can. And we can fine-tune that as we move along to what data that you want to see. We already have gotten back with them and said that we want to run another report next week, even before we get to the end of this period. So, we'll continue to fine-tune. Oh, I'm so… I'm glad I paused my brain for a second. A resident did contact me. He did get a warning. He was leaving a shopping plaza. Leaving a shopping plaza and turning away from the school and going… It was Central Park and he was leaving the old Winn-Dixie Plaza. And he was heading westbound away from Central Park towards Sunset Park. Central Park Elementary towards Sunset Park. And he doesn't recall, and I don't recall, when you're on main roads, we have all these warnings about school zones. We have yellow lights flashing. Lesser intersection might have a sign saying the school zone. But if you're in businesses pulling into the area, is every single one of those businesses supposed to have something about a school? So, how would they know they're in a school zone if they're entering into it midway? Because he entered into it before the school zone started, went into the plaza, ate lunch, and then exited the other direction. He had no idea it was a school zone. Sounds like you're making his legal argument. I mean, I would say that the same applies, too, for even side streets, regardless of coming out of a business. But a lot of side streets do that, too. Come out into the middle of where a school zone would be. Okay. Last one, Councilmember Fadgen. Thank you. Might be a question for our city attorney. You know, with that ruling in the red light cameras, who bears the cost in the defense of that if we get sued before that's fully resolved? You're talking about the county court judge who ruled that if the city were to be sued challenging the constitutionality? Yeah. Is that the contractor, or is that going to be the cost? I'd have to look at the contract. Okay. If I may. Yeah. For our speed cameras, red speed, the vendor would bear that. Okay. A legal challenge at this point. I would like to get a copy of the contract. Sure. I had one other thing, but I can't remember. You know, I was on the phone with my first complaint about it. And I ended up, like, turning around and sort of driving around Central Park Elementary. And one thing, I felt, I know that the signage is dictated by state statute. But the signage is, I mean, that print, it seems even, or the size of the time, it just seems dangerous. Because, you know, you're going to be flying by that. You're not even, the sign doesn't really catch your attention. And then I also noticed on Knob Hill for the school zone, you have the big overhead structure for the flashing school zone. But there's no signage that says when the school zone's in effect on Knob Hill. On Cleary, there is. But I guess, I'm sure it's, you know, it's in compliance with what's supposed to be there. But I felt that there's a lack of signage for the active school, for the school zone itself, where it doesn't say the actual time of the school zone. It just has the flashing thing. I don't know if anybody else has noticed that. So, I don't know if we need to look into that or what. But just the warning signs, I just feel are inadequate. But I guess we'll find out. But I'm going to play devil's advocate and say, if you're following the speed limit, then it shouldn't be a problem. Why do you need to be warned? I mean, if you're driving, and I agree with you that signs, the times should be posted for school signs. But if you're driving and you see a light flashing that says school zone. I agree with you. But I'm also saying that the signs saying the time of the school zone, and we're kind of talking about two separate things. Also, if you see it when the school zone's not active, that also could possibly change your behavior, that you're going to slow down even if you don't see the flashing light. Let's say the flashing light's not working. I don't know. I go back to the original conversation I sent this to Chief. When the legislation passed, I was not originally in favor of this. But when the item came before us, and I saw the data, and I saw the speeding on the roads, I changed my mind. Because ultimately, what we're hoping with this program is going to change behavior once people start getting those fines. So that's my hope. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chief. You're welcome. All right. Last question before I change subjects. Chief, I'm sorry. Last question. I promise. Sorry, Chief. It could be 11 o'clock tonight, Chief. No. Going back, though, to private and public. So the calendars are also programmed because they are on a different calendar. So there are days like spring break. So the spring break is different for Heritage than it was for the other 10 public schools. So is that programmed? Every, I'm not going to say every single school, but even within the public schools, there's differences in the times, obviously, right? The elementary school, middle school, high school. And so every single camera, every single zone, we have the times, and they're all set. So it's not like it's set for all of the cameras. It's set for each individual camera, each individual school zone. That's the times, but I'm more concerned about the days. Yes. That is also set for that. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. I'll just stay. No. Thank you again. It's great data, and you can tell that we all have, you know, taken a deep dive, and we're invested in this. Of course. And as Council President said, we want to see change behavior. We want to see people slow down. Of course. And again, like to, I think it was Council Member Fadgen, on Knob Hill, you see those walkers. You see the bikers. You see the children and the parents on Knob Hill and Cleary. Slow down. Yes. Our goal is zero citations. Exactly. Right. So thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Chief. Go ahead, Council Member Andrea. Changing subjects. I want to just announce that Feeding South Florida is hosting a student art competition called Feed Your Creativity. It's now through April 30th. I did post it on my individual social media. But the winning piece, which I thought was really cool, is going to be featured on one of their 36-foot trailers for one year. So we encourage all of our K-12 students to participate in that art contest. Hopefully somebody from Plantation will win that. And I just want to wish a happy Easter to all who celebrate. Thank you. Thank you very much. Council Member Anderson. Other than recognizing Easter and Passover, nothing for me. Thank you. Council Member Reinstein. Yes. Thank you. So I wanted to bring up a concern that was recently brought to my attention and maybe others. And it's in regards to our process for responding to resident code complaints. And I've spoken to Mr. Noonamaker about it, and I just want to raise it here, is that there's been a concern that's been raised regarding the process for the intake of what are essentially complaints that are either incomplete, inaccurate, containing wrong, or maybe even fraudulent information. So that, you know, people are calling and making code complaints and giving an address that is not their address or giving a nonexistent address. Um, and so, um, I just, uh, Mr. Noonamaker just want to follow up with that in regards to, um, the commitment for the administration to look into this. Um, Jason. Okay. Um, so thank you. Thank you. So in terms of that, um, I will make sure to let the resident know if they're not listening that this is something that, um, that the administration is going to look into the, uh, the process. Um, I also wanted to remind everybody I mentioned at our last council meeting is that on April 22nd, um, there's going to be a free community legal resource presentation here at city hall at 530 PM. Um, um, it is going to be focused on presentations from coast to coast legal aid, which is located here in plantation. Um, two of their attorneys, one with the senior law unit and one with, um, victims rights is going to be presenting. It's also, um, timed with, um, victim victim rights week. So that will be a free presentation right here at city hall 530 PM on April 22nd. And then the last thing is that I wanted to mention that I recently had the opportunity to visit, um, in Fort Lauderdale, the Broward partnership for the homeless, um, at their downtown location. And, um, I was looking to get some more insight as to what they are doing, um, and how they are assisting and working with our cities. Um, they are working with the city of plantation with, um, with Mott and those, um, within our, um, plantation police department that are part of the homeless outreach. And, um, I specifically wanted to mention is that one of the things that they collect, um, in addition to clothing and shoes and the things that we would normally. Maybe expect that a place like that would collect is that they're also collecting new and gently used adult bicycles. And, um, you know, this is something that, um, they have an urgent need for, and it's part of the program to try and not only pull the people off of the streets who are willing to, to move off of the streets, but to assist them with travel to and from work. And so a big impediment for some of these, um, individuals is, is transportation. And so, um, if you find yourself, um, with a, a new or gently used adult bicycle that you are looking, uh, that you are no longer using or that, uh, you're clearing out of the garage. Or maybe that, uh, you, you just saw a great sale and you want to donate it. Um, you can either, you can reach out to me or just reach out directly to the Broward Partnership for the Homeless and you can drop it right off at their facility. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Fajal. Um, primarily covered everything with, uh, Councilmember Andreu's, uh, speed camera discussion. Um, just happy Easter, happy Passover, and, uh, looking forward to the council meeting on tax day. Great. Thank you, everyone. I am going to get us out of here before eight o'clock, but I have a couple of updates, um, that I'd like to bring up. First of all, um, I, in my role as president of the Broward League, I've been going out to the cities as they're doing their presentations on solid waste, on the solid waste authority that's going to be coming before us. Last night, I could not attend sunrise, but I wanted to tell everybody that there was a lot of love shown to the city of Plantation, um, by Mayor Mike Ryan. They were talking about our compost pilot program. Um, they were talking about South Plantation High School's initiative with composting, and Dr. Julie Long, uh, got up and spoke before there. But it was, somebody said to me, wow, it's a lot of plantation, plantation, plantation in the Sunrise Chamber, so I just wanted to pass that on. And I did, um, text, uh, Ms. Morris the other day. I was dropping off my composting on Sunday. A woman pulled up behind me, and I said, how's it going for you? And she said, I just feel so good doing this. So it was, it was lovely to see that people are doing it because they really, um, feel strongly about it. Um, I just want to give everybody a couple of updates on the end of the legislative session. I know we'll have a wrap up as we head into July, but there are a couple of things that I just want you to keep, um, top of mind, um, as we're going forward. When I say we, uh, Florida League of Cities, we had a lot of success. We were able to kill that business tax license bill again, but, um, Rep Botana has two more years in the House, and we're afraid it's probably going to come back. We'll put on their battle gear and fight that. But again, that was another attack on our revenue. We're happy that that failed this year. There are a couple of utility bills out there, stormwater standards. We're glad that that bill failed because it would have lessened the stormwater standards in our city. We're not sure if that'll come back, but we'll keep our eye on it. There were a lot of, uh, they're coming back at the live local. Every year there seems to be a new iteration. And unfortunately, uh, House Bill 1389 by Rep Redondo did pass. And this was one I was very concerned about because if you recall this one, it opens up religious properties of three acres or more to, uh, live local property, um, projects. And so that one is very concerning. And I, what I really want people to understand, there are some caveats that go with that, but that means a live local project can open on a, um, religious property of three acres or more within a single family residential neighborhood. And we have several properties like that. So that is one that we are concerned about. Yes, you may. Does that still fall under the, they can't ask for waivers? Um, they, I, you know, and I don't recall the details on that. And I know that the city attorney will come back with us. I'm pretty sure that is the case that it's just opens up the type of property available for live local, but all the other same standards would apply, uh, high density, floor area rate. Yes. Right. But, but we would have to approve it no matter what the underlying land use designation is. And so that's, you know, it, it opens it up and it's something that we didn't want to see, um, necessarily opened up. Um, the other one that did pass, there was some planning bills that we're concerned about, which was the qualified contractor bill. And basically what that's going to do, it must allow for a pre application review by a qualified contractor, not our staff. So we have to have, you know, the, if I'm going to look for a positive in this, I'd look for the positive and say that we will be able to choose who those qualified contractors are. However, if we do not have, um, a pool of contractors to approve, um, you know, this, these pre development reviews, then the applicant would have the right to have their own contractor. It's just one more attempt to take our local planning away from us. Um, and I continue to say that people choose to live in the community they do for various reasons. Um, those decisions should be left to our residents and to us sitting up here and to administration and not elected officials in Tallahassee. So that's one, but, um, just a couple more and we'll get you out here before, um, eight o'clock. There was a clerk of the court bill that seemed very innocuous and it passed. And basically what it's going to do, because as we start to talk about the budget, the city of plantation police department gets 50% revenue from any citations that are issued. That now reduces that to 28%. The rest of that will go to the clerk of the court. So, you know, think about chief as he starts to, I didn't want to throw this at chief and, you know, he, one more thing this year. But, you know, that's going to reduce the revenue that comes back for that. So I just wanted to mention that as well as we're talking about and going into budget. Yeah. Yeah. There, you know, I was so concerned with the property tax, all of that going out there. And I continue to say it was like a circus. And we're focused on that, that there were little bills that were, you know, attacks on our revenue, attacks on our home rule that were out there that we were afraid were slipping through. It's not that no one was paying attention, but they, they had some momentum. Can you give us that number? I didn't want to cut you off. Sure. Did I write the clerk of the court? I can get it for you. I didn't write the right number. I was trying to write these things down. But it's about an $8.3 million hit statewide. Doesn't sound like a lot, but again, when we're talking about budget, it's an issue. There were two bills that failed that the legislature, the lobbyists with League of Cities feel had a lot of momentum because there were several bills out there that are saying the same thing. And they, they believe this is where the legislature wants to go and it's going to come back. And this one is concerning and we're referring it to as the single family home killer. And basically what that is, is it would say that a applicant can come in with duplexes, townhomes, triplexes, any of that, and build by right in a single family residential neighborhood. And I know that we had had this discussion with Mr. Alpert and Mr. Holmes in deciding what we wanted to see in our single family residential neighborhoods. It would have no additional approvals or requirements. It would also reduce minimum lot sizes in all areas to 1,200 square feet and reduce open space and pervious areas. They feel strongly that that's going to come back. So I want to put that on everyone's radar so we're thinking about that. You know, the advice that they said to us is to take these concepts seriously. We may need to open up an area of the city if, if we can, that we implement some of these things so they don't come in and tell us where to put that. But I wanted to just give you an update on that. There were some positives, but a couple of negatives. They continue to come after our, our local decision making, which is unfortunate. But anyway, happy Passover. Happy Easter. And we're out before eight o'clock. It's 7 53 meetings adjourned.