Good evening and welcome. This is the June 24th City of Plantation Stormwater Utility Workshop is now called to order. It's 5 o'clock. Welcome City Engineer Ms. Shalon. Do I have to hit the cap even for a workshop? Do you want to do a roll call? Oh, yes. Ms. Beggereau, please call the roll. Council Member Anderson? Here. Council Member Andrean? Here. Council Member Fadgen? Here. Council Member Horland? Council Member Reinstein? Here. Mayor Sortel? Here. City Attorney Israel? Here. Take it away. Excellent. Good evening or good afternoon. Good evening. Samira Shalans, City Engineer. Tonight we're going to be presenting an update on the stormwater utility. What's a better day to discuss stormwater than a rainy South Florida day? We need the rain because we're in drought. We don't need a lot of rain or accumulation of rain. And how we manage the rain. So this is our goal today, to discuss with you guys how we have been managing the rain of City of Plantation and how the strategic steps to move forward with the stormwater management. So the agenda for tonight's meeting, we're going to be discussing the stormwater utility vision and mission, the organization. We're going to have a brief discussion about the equipment we purchased recently. Bill Mulder, our stormwater manager, going to go over the asset management briefly. And then we're going to update you on some of the engineering projects. And topics six and seven are the critical topics of tonight, which is parcel data analysis and the stormwater fund analysis. So what is the vision and the mission of our stormwater utility? The stormwater utility division is responsible for managing, maintaining, and improving the city's stormwater infrastructure to reduce flooding, risks, protect water quality, and preserve our waterway. So what we do and what our responsibilities is, is the drainage system maintenance, flood mitigations, stormwater engineering, managing the capital improvement projects, environmental compliance, and finally, and most importantly, is the public education. Our organization, we asked and you guys gave us. We improved our organization under the leadership of the mayor and the management of the city engineer. We have a dedicated stormwater manager, a stormwater specialist, and six dedicated field staff members. You guys approved the use of a supplemental fund to purchase new equipment. We used the Geobond fund, almost $600,000, to purchase jet vac truck, a street sweeper from the ARPA fund, a couple of other equipment, such as the mechanical harvester, backhoe, and a water pump from the ARPA fund. And since then, these equipment were on the streets and in operation. And Bill Mulder is going to go over some of that operation in the asset management. With that said, Bill. Council members, hello. Hi. Mayor Sordal, city attorney. Thank you for giving me a few minutes to quickly go over our asset management and what we have done over the last 12 months since my last presentation to you. I'd like to start off by saying that we have been able to identify and digitize all of our city-owned and maintained assets throughout. And since we've been able to digitize them with the leadership of our city engineer and help of our GIS department, we've been able to create a software, which is almost completed, where we can, instead of working off the 36 by 36 inch maps that the guys use every day, we're able to take this software, put it onto a tablet, kind of get to the 21st century like the surrounding cities around us are using. So it'll give us a more accurate and efficient accounting of what we're inspecting, what we're cleaning, any problems. And it'll just give us a more efficient operation. So we're very excited to work on that. My goal is that by the end of the year, we'll be in full operation working from tablets rather than the big maps and stop the printing costs of the paper and the ink and everything else for that. So we're excited to move in that direction. Starting off with our sweeping program, we can see that we've swept over 2,900 miles of road. We've removed 235 tons of material from the road surface. And this is good because it's a lot more cost effective and efficient to remove this from the street before it gets into the underground pipe system, which it just takes longer and costs more for us to remove this. And we would not be able to achieve these numbers as far as the amount of material removed if it wasn't for your support in allowing us to buy this new sweeper because the other two older sweepers that we do have, they honestly spend more time in the shop being diagnosed or waiting on parts than actually on the road. So moving forward, because I only have a limited amount of time here, we have over 3,600 of these catch basins, which are in different parts of the city, and we're able to manually inspect all 3,600 catch basins twice a year. It takes us about five months to do a complete sweep of the city. We're finding that 35 to 40 percent of these inspected do need to be cleaned. Every time that we inspect them, the dirt and debris just keeps coming back. So in order to keep the city from flooding, this is something that has to happen on a routine basis. So just last year, we cleaned almost 1,500 catch basins using the back truck and jetting system that we have. We now have 67 water bodies that the stormwater department is responsible for. And we have 42 miles of shoreline, 107 acres of water that we oversee. In the waterway maintenance program, we also have 830 outfalls, which are basically where all these underground stormwater pipes flow into these canals and waterways. We are also responsible for keeping the canal shoreline as clear as possible and navigable for our residents and their boats. And in the last 12 months, we've cleared just under 8,500 feet of canals. And when I say 8,500 feet, that includes both sides. So it could be a 16,000 linear foot number if we total that out. One of the things that, with the leadership of our city engineer, we're able to start putting together a proper stormwater website. This is one of the first parts of that website that our city engineer authorized the GIS department to work on. And it's an interactive map for the residents of Plantation. So they can zoom in on this map. They can find their home, click on the water body behind their house to see who is responsible for it. And we have, well, four different entities now that oversee the waterways. The city, which oversees the majority of the waterways. The old plantation water control district does the main waterways for us. And, of course, the Plantation Acres area and then the homeowners associations for these private communities. I think you'll notice that it's been very hot here the last few days. We're about four weeks ahead of schedule on these temperatures that we're getting. And this causes massive algae bloom and grass bloom. And I've been hearing this from residents and also from our contractor who does the aquatic weed control for us. And I go out and meet with them regularly when they're treating these different water bodies so I can keep up on the conditions of these waterways and keeping them as clean as possible. But I can tell you with this heat and this humidity, it really is taking off right now. So it's good to have Tigris is the name of the company that we use to do the aquatic weed control for us as far as the chemicals, any excess stuff. We actually use the aquatic weed harvester that we purchased to help keep the waterways clean. And I was going to say, as they click on these waterways, a screen will come up, as you see in the right corner, saying who the contact person is for that waterway with their contact details so that the resident can easily reach out and get some assistance for what their issue or concern is. The other assets that we have, which is the underground pipe system, we have over 360,000 linear feet of underground pipe in various sizes. This year we were able to inspect over 42,000 linear feet of that, and of that, almost 8,000 linear feet had to be cleaned. This is the most challenging part of my job, is being able to properly inspect these underground pipes because we did not have the equipment or the camera systems to do that. We did have a contractor come in, and they were able to do over 30,000 linear feet for us, but they backed out of the contract. So I think it was too much for them because they were a sweeper company that also had jet bags, and they thought they would be able to easily do this. When they got into our underground system and realized what a challenge it was, they asked to opt out. So we'll be coming forward in the next month or two, working with Samira and our crew to come up with a nice camera system that we can use to inspect these pipes ourselves and be able to increase this amount of linear footage that we're able to inspect. Unfortunately, I can't borrow any equipment from any other departments because the utilities, they have theirs in the sewer lines, and we're not allowed to put their camera system in ours. So we have to have our own dedicated camera system in order to properly inspect these pipes. A couple of years ago, well, the last two years when I've done this presentation, I told you some of the initial inspections that I've done on these pipes, I was concerned about the Park East area and the Historic District because they're the oldest, and they used these corrugated metal pipes back then when they were building these. And I call them now the corroded metal pipes because that is pretty much the condition. And we've had quite a challenge in the last 12 months with some of these locations. And you can see from this next slide, we have unbudgeted almost a million dollars we had to spend in pipe replacement and repair. We have a great stormwater team that is able to repair these pipes. If we only have to close part of the road down, it's something that we can do. But if it's a complete pipe replacement and we have to close the entire road, we do bring in an outside contractor to do that for us. And as the stormwater manager, this number is a bit concerning for me. I want to make sure that we are able to cover this because I do believe in the next 12 months from what I'm seeing now with new sinkholes happening in the roads that we do have more failing pipes, especially in these zones 3 and 6 that I had discussed. And I know that there is going to be more work that needs to be done there. So I just wanted to point out some of these numbers. So in the underground pipe system, you see we have removed over 220 tons of material. So between the streets and the pipe systems, we're about 470 tons of material removed and disposed of in the local landfills. I think that's pretty much going to be the end of my presentation. I'd just like to give a quick shout out if I could to – I'm sorry, go ahead. No, no, this is – we're correct. This was the final slide. It's part of the pipe inspection slide. So I was just saying this is – see, the picture up there is actually of the contractor we had that was doing some of this work for us. The pictures on the right are some of the pipes that we have found ourselves that were damaged and needed to be fixed. So this next slide was just to show you, based on what we found, emergency repairs. This is money that we had to spend. Otherwise, the roads would be collapsed and closed. So we didn't want that to happen. And obviously, none of this could be done without the great staff and crew that we have, not only our field guys, but also our administration of Jenny and David. I really do appreciate it. I have some – I have some – Robert is back there and some of our other staff, Ernest and Mitch. I just want to thank these guys because they work in this heat every single day. And they do a great job. And, you know, this is hot work being out there in the sun all day and cleaning out these pipes and stuff. So thank you for your time. I'll hand this back over to Samira. Thank you for your effort and work, you know, to manage our assets. Next step, I'm going to go over some of the engineering projects that we have been working on or will be working on. First, just a quick reminder, we just concluded the stormwater master plan. We conducted a workshop or a presentation in January where we – I presented to you the conclusion of the master plan. The master plan provided strategic priorities and identified capital improvement projects. And I just want to name a couple of the projects, zone 2 and 3, which I'm going to go in more details in the next slide. Some canal restoration program. Establishing a stormwater pipe rehabilitation and swayer rehabilitation program is a key and critical finding and strategic objective from the stormwater master plan. We identified some of the current priorities after substantial rain. First priority is basin 2, which is within the country club state community. This community had flooded in several rain events in 2020, 23, and subsequent rain event. You can see from the screen the amount of flooding. The area was challenged with 4 to 5 feet of standing water with no outlets because this is a standalone area that relies on infiltration with no outlet of the water. We have been working on this project for a couple of years where we authorize or you guys authorized us a study and the study identified the capital needs for this community, pump station, connection to the turnpike and 441, outfalls and storm drains and conveyance system. You guys authorized us to proceed with phase A on the southwest corner and phase A includes a stormwater pump station, a retention area and a conveyance system in addition to connection to the turnpike ditch system. This project is currently in design with anticipated design completion in February and permitting completion in May 2027. One of the budget requests that we're requesting for FY27 to allocate a million dollar in capital fund to construct to participate in the construction of phase A of this project. Next project, basin 2 or the impact of Park East community. This area, another area that experienced flooding in substantial rain. These pictures are from the April 2023 events and some other events that we experienced. Again, we did an additional engineering studies and we identified stormwater improvements such as flap gates and vials, some conveyance system improvement, ditch improvement. I highlighted over here the Plantation General Hospital because the hospital is going to be under redevelopment sometime soon and we're going to leverage private-public partnership in improving our system and this is a strategy administration encourage us to take advantage of any private-public partnership to have an efficiency in our capital improvement planning. We obtained a grant to proceed with the design of the improvement of Park East community drainage improvement. In this FY27, we're requesting $250,000 capital fund to supplement the grant fund to implement the construction of some of the improvements. Next project, Plantation Park Roadway Improvement. Plantation Park Roadways were identified as in fair shape and in need for rehabilitation or paving and milling and milling and resurfacing. And as we discussed in our strategic planning session, we talked about having a comprehensive review in our neighborhood capital planning. If there is sidewalk improvements, drainage improvement, we would like to work together with other improvements such as the paving improvement. With that said, we looked at the master plan and what the master plan identified in that area and there was a need for drainage improvement because when we look at paving, we don't only look at the surface paving but we also look at the infrastructure underneath the paving in order to have a sustainable and elongate the long-time health of the paving. With that said, the drainage improvement capital cost is $2 million. We're requesting $1 million of capital fund in FY27. The last project, the master plan, recommended an establishment of a canal restoration program. And why this project is important, canal systems are drainage facilities. They are drainage storage infrastructure. When the canal system is filled with sedimentation, then the storage capacity of these canals are reduced. So dredging the canals, rehabilitating the canals are restoring the storage capacity of these canal systems. And why that's important, because without restoration, we have higher risk of flooding. So it is important for City of Plantation to have a plan to restore our canal system. The canals that Bill had talked about, we have 65 of them that we own and maintain. With that said, our request of council through this FY27 is to allocate $400,000 of capital fund to establish a master plan of all our waterways. We are requesting to conduct bathymetric survey and create a master plan based on data-driven. Our decisions need to be data-driven. So we need to understand the amount of sedimentation in these canals and prioritize them based on the data that the surveys will provide. With that said, I will shift now gear to the next chapter of City of Plantation stormwater management. One question comes in mind after talking about the operation and talking about engineering, how we pay for all of this. So, before I go through the stormwater fund, I'm just going to allocate a couple of minutes to discuss the analysis and the data analysis that occurred in the last couple of months. So, what is our stormwater utilities and what is the structure, the current structure of our stormwater utility? The stormwater utility was established in 2012 and it is based on a unit of measurement called ERU. ERU stands for equivalent residential unit. What does that mean? The average single-family home in plantation and the impervious area of that home is the equivalent residential unit. So, in 2012, when the city did the study, they found that the impervious area and the definition of impervious area, any area that doesn't drain. So, the roofs, the driveways, the pools, the sidewalk, the patios, anything that doesn't drain is impervious area. They measured the average in 2012 and came up with this magic number, 4,489. And in 2012, it established the unit of measurement of ERU as 4,489 square footage. So, our current stormwater utility methodology is based on that ERU. One single-family home in plantation, regardless of the size of the home, small home, big home, average home, it's one ERU. Commercial property, we create an equation. We calculate the impervious area. We divide by the 4,489. We found how many ERU. Multi-family. This apartment building is 48 units. It's 48 ERU. So, that's the current methodology. Moving forward. As you can see, we moved City of Plantation's stormwater division into the new technology and utilizing the GIS system in our operation, in our analysis. So, we analyzed all city parcels. And we digitized all the impervious area. In order to validate, is this magic number of 4,489 still valid? Plantation grew since 2012. People widened their driveway. They changed their single driveway into a circular driveway. They built pools. They added patios. So, is this number still valid? So, we did comprehensive digital analysis on all the parcels of the residential parcels of City of Plantation. And what did we found? The growth of Plantation resulted in the new number is 4,838. What does that mean? The average house of City of Plantation, residential house and City of Plantation, have an impervious area of 4,838. With that said, our first request to Council is to modify the code to identify the new definition of ERU as 4,838 square foot. Then we looked at our residential homes. And they are very diverse. They are very, very small parcels, small homes, to very large homes. So, during the analysis, we analyzed that all these homes contribute differently toward the stormwater. Because there you have larger roofs. You have houses with pools. And you have houses with no pools. So, under the current methodology, all the homes of plantations are assessed when ERU. However, what we are introducing to you today is a concept of tiering the residential community. So, small home from 0 to 2,500 square foot. We would like to recommend it's tier one. We're creating five tiers in City of Plantation, ranging from 2,500 square feet to larger than 10,000. It's an increment of half an ERU or 2,500 square feet. So, every 2,500 square feet, it goes to the next tier. So, as we can see in the exhibit before us. And we did comprehensive analysis on these parcels. And these are the numbers and the percentage of homes within each tier. For example, we have 23.3% of homes in plantation within tier one, less than 2,500. And we have only 2.6% of homes in tier five. So, out of the 18,800 parcels, for example, there is 1704 parcels in tier four, which ranges in square footage of impervious between 75.01 to the 10,000. I'm going to pause over here now and go back to the question. How are we going to pay for things? How are we paying currently for things? And how are we going to move forward paying for all the operations, all the equipment moving forward, and all the capital needs? Before we do that, I want to highlight where we are today. So, the red line that we see on the screen is our current revenue, which is $2.6 million. The blue on the graph, this is our operation need. And as you guys recall, last year when I stood before you, I requested to pull almost half a million dollars from fund balance to balance the operation. So, as we speak today, our revenue stream is not adequate to sustain our operation. And there is $0 for capital project, which is the yellow on the graph over here. With that said, we needed to review the revenue. We needed to review the fund. We needed to review the stormwater assessment and come before you with options. Before you over here, we ran a couple of funding options that, if you allow me, I'm going to go over very quickly. So, option one is to keep our current rate. Our current rate is at $4.54 per month, which equates to $54.47 annually. This funding options, annual revenue, is $2.6 million. And as you can see the thermostat over here, it's on bread because our revenue stream is not adequate to support acceptable level of service. And we're going to depend on annual pulling from the fund balance. And as Bill went over the unbudgeted emergency repair, this fund balance is less and less every day. Option two is to increase the monthly rate from $4.54 to $7.50. And this option will generate $4.6 million. And as you can see, the thermostat moved from the red to the yellow. So, under this option, we will sustain our operation. However, we will not have enough fund to implement the capital projects recommended by the master plan. And we will not sustain long-term infrastructure replacement need and neighborhood improvement projects. Under this option, since it's $7.50, $90 ERU, I just want to go over an example of the tiering and how it will work. Tier 1, which is half ERU, will be paying $45 yearly. Tier 5 will be paying $225. So, under this tiering option, not all the homes are going to pay the same. It's going to be more fair share. The more impervious the single-family home, the more contribution toward the stormwater fund, as we can see over here. We run another option, option three. So, on option three, the needle had moved from the yellow into the green. What does that mean? Oops, that was too quick. What does that mean? Under this option, we're going to generate $5.5 million revenue. We will sustain our operation. We will start to implement our capital improvement project. However, the long-term infrastructure replacement, major dredging project, major neighborhood project, we will still have a shortfall in this condition. And under this option, a tier 1 home will pay $54. And I just want to note, that's our current rate. So, the fee is going to range from our current rate to a $270 in tier 5. The last option, which is the recommended option for you this evening. And as we can see also, the needle had moved again. That's why we're recommending this option. Because under this option, we will sustain our operation. We will have enough capital needs to sustain somewhat long range. We're still going to hunt for supplemental grant funding and some public-private partnerships, like we discussed. But we will be in a better position to implement the long-term improvements that the Stormwater Master Plan had recommended. And under this option, a tier 1 will be paying $62.50, and a tier 5 will be paying $312.50. Where Plantation stands among our neighboring cities? Today, we're here. We're at the low end of Broward County with the $4.56. As we can see, neighboring cities like City of Sunrise, they are at $11.03. City of Auckland Park, which they finished their master plan not too long ago, they are at $12.50. So our recommended option of $10.42 will align Plantation in the middle of, closer to the middle and the average in Broward County. With that said, our recommendation to you tonight is to amend the stormwater utility fee and increase the stormwater rate from its current rate to $125 per ARU annually and implement the residential tiering concept. I just want to go over the timeline for your consideration tonight. Tonight, it's a discussion and we're requesting Council to give us guidance and consensus on both items, the stormwater rate and the tiering concept. Also, on tonight's agenda, there is a legislative item to amend the Code of Ordinance to revise the ARU definition with the $4,800 that I discussed with you. Based on your guidance and your consensus tonight, we will be drafting the preliminary stormwater rate resolution and bring it to your attention for the July 29th meeting. And that's important because we send that information to Broward County Property Appraisal for the trim notices to be sent to our residents. And then the final hearing to adapt the final stormwater rate is scheduled for September 14th. With that said, that concludes the presentation and I'm available for any questions and discussion. There is a printout of the presentation. The presentation that was attached to the agenda item was a draft. I amended the presentation and added some slides. So for your reference, there's a printout also of the presentation. Okay. Council Member Fadgen, go ahead. Thank you, President Anderson. Maybe I missed it and forgot from our meeting that we had. How is the commercial properties and how are the apartments allocated to ERUs? I didn't see that. It is there, April, if you can put it. I will point it out again. The commercial properties are based on an equation, the impervious area divided by the number. Is that how it was done before? How it was done before and it will continue to have, we are not changing the methodology. However, it is, I want to note something. Since the impervious area increased, the number of ERUs generated by the commercial property going to be reduced. Because you're dividing into a higher number. And in apartments? The apartments, number of units. I was thinking about, like, you know, if there's a multifamily complex that's approved in the city and they give us a lot of permanent ability, you know, shouldn't they get a benefit out of that as opposed to just allocating per their, per unit? Does that make sense, what I'm suggesting? The chapter nine of the code. We know that's not going to happen. Yes, and that's what I wanted to say. Chapter nine of the code limits the impervious area to 65%. In my six years tenure in plantation, almost every development maximized that. So when you plan a development, whether it is multifamily, you want to maximize that usage. And what the trend that I'm seeing analyzing these, almost every complex had maximized and used the maximum allowable. So with this new definition and the increase in the square footage, basically commercial properties are going to carry less of the burden of the stormwater load. We're talking a little, it's light. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but from memory, I recall the number of ERUs for the, generated by the commercial properties were 9,300 by the new equation, because it's higher dominators. The higher square footage. It's 8,900. So it was reduced slightly. So what I said is they're going to carry less of the stormwater mitigation burden. Correct. Is there something that down the line we should be considering that they should have a separate calculation? One thing. Are we allowed to give them a separate calculation? Because I don't necessarily see, I'm sorry, I just don't necessarily see how it's fair to the residents that most of the impermeability is probably being generated by our commercial properties, even though they're allowed to go up to 65%. Correct. It is a standard, this kind of equation is standard in the industry of stormwater utility, that's number one. Number two, one of the things we're talking to administration about is potential stormwater impact fee with redevelopment. So when redevelopment occur, there may be additional. So this is the minimum. I'm kind of looking more, and I don't want to go too much longer because I know the rest of the council has questions. I guess I'll just make one last comment. I'm just thinking from along the lines of, you know, the impact fee is more of a capital infusion to make sure capital infrastructure is not necessary for the repair and the maintenance. That's true. Of, um, and the operations of the stormwater operation. But, um, I don't know. I think, I think after we get this implemented, I think we should go circle back and look at, are we, um, are the commercial properties carrying their fair share? Definitely. And when we're reducing their ER use, I tend to, I think this calculation's pointing to that, but they're not carrying the same share as the, uh, residents of the, of the city. All right. Thank you. No problem. Um, but your apartment buildings, a one, one or a three, two apartment is one ERU, isn't it? Correct. Because we don't, we don't use the same scale analogy of size of a home. No. To a, um, apartment. Correct. Um, but now that we're adding more apartments, you could argue we are giving, they're taking on more of the share of our stormwater. The problem with a lot more, one, one high rise has a certain amount of impervious availability, but you have a lot of units in it. So it's helping to defray the costs for the homes. Correct. But, uh, apartment building, the footprint of the building is one footprint. So when you calculate the impervious, it's the footprint of the building. Right. But it is shared among the number of units. Right. If it makes sense. Yeah. Council Member Andrea, go ahead. But could you, along the same lines as President Anderson, could you though, um, look at each unit separately? So if it's a three bedroom and they could be charged more. Phase two of the analysis, you know, you guys bringing now, uh, good points for the future. Um, we need also to manage the expectation. When we did the analysis, we concentrated on the residential, but if you, if your guidance is to dig deep into commercial and multifamily, then we will do that in the next phase. Well, I think to Council Member Fagin's point, we just want to make sure there's equity. Mm-hmm. And right now it does not seem like it's absolutely fair for some of the homeowners. Mm-hmm. Can you go back and I'm sorry, the page numbers aren't, they're not numbered, the pages aren't numbered. So if you could just go to one of the tiering pages. I have a question about the tiers. Any of them. I'm trying to understand, um, the equation. So is the tiering based on, will it match, I guess, is my real question. The property appraisers, um, when he sends us our, our rate in the mail. It has under air, it has your entire square footage of your lot. Mm-hmm. So are you basing it on that or is it based on just the, um, impervious area? The square footage of the lot itself was taken from the Broward County property appraisal. But the impervious area was calculated based on the digitizing every parcel. So the, um, equation is based on the impervious area. So the parcel itself, gonna match. Mm-hmm. But the impervious, the, um, a Broward County property appraisal does not have calculation for the impervious. It has a sketch of your house but doesn't capture all the impervious in it. So, okay. I just wonder, will people question what tier they're in? Well, I, um, failed to, um, mention that this, all this analysis gonna be published on the Stormwater website. There will be an interactive app. There will be based on the guidance of the council tonight. We didn't wanna publish anything before we discuss, uh, this topic publicly. Um, if it gets... Can I add a comment that I asked her? Mm-hmm. That'll address that? I asked, is there an appeals process if someone disagrees with it? And she said there... Yes, yes. In the code there is appeal process. But also this app gonna be publicly facing. So, any resident will be clicking on their property. They will see, uh, their total square footage, which will match the Broward County property appraisal. Their impervious square footage. Their percentage of square footage. In case they wanna do home improvement. Adding a pool. Widening the driveway. So they see what's their limitation. And they will see the tier also. What tier. If they are planning a pool. And this pool will, uh, uh, make them move from tier three to tier four. And actually one of the slides, I have a statement over there. Encouraging, um, uh, preserving the green. Meaning, you may think twice. You know, saying like, okay, this widening the driveway gonna change me from tier three to tier four. Is it really the need of my family to widen this driveway versus, so as a homeowner, it may help you make those decision. And engineering department, you know, we will be there to assist and guide and guide the resident as questions arise. And I think that, um, when will that be live by the way? Um, in, uh, two to three weeks. Okay. Because your, your next, the real point I was trying to make is your next door neighbor could be a tier one. Correct. And you could be a tier two based on exactly that. You know, one person has a pool, one doesn't. And so I think people need to understand that. The other page I wanted to go to, um, was, and I want to thank you and your staff because you, you did a great job. I think you've met with all of us. So we appreciate the time that you spent with all of us understanding this and asking a lot of questions during that meeting. But the page you have that shows all of the various counties. I do think that page is a little, um, I don't want to say disingenuous. It's the data isn't absolutely aligned because it shows a lot of Miami date as well. It's not just the Broward County, um, areas. And so I went and looked a little more and like Davey is our next door neighbor, as you know, and it's $5 and they recently raised theirs. I don't remember. They actually recently established theirs. So they are actually over here. And Brian is our, from GovRates. For the record, Brian is from GovRates. I was actually involved in establishing, um, Davey, Davey's, uh, $40 initial rate. And that's what it is. They just wanted to start a rate. We were justifying a much, much higher rate. That's, uh, closer to what is being proposed to, to plantation. But they just, like I said, they just, uh, were starting their, uh, their rate. They're still heavily subsidized by the general fund. And that is a very key takeaway is that while a comparison is a good discussion, it's a discussion topic, but there are just so many reasons why stormwater rates differ among utilities. And one of the key reasons is that a lot of stormwater operations are subsidized by the general fund. Whereas, uh, plantation's stormwater fund is an enterprise fund, uh, with the intent. Uh, and the intent is for, to, for it to be self, uh, sufficient. Right. And we, we want to keep it that way. Um, but I think there were, you know, just a lot of our other Broward municipalities that were missing from here. So we can get, you know, just the entire picture. I will, and I don't want to, I know my colleagues want to also, um, ask some questions. So I don't want to monopolize this, but I have a hard time supporting the $10 and 42 monthly increase. Um, it's just a lot right now. And we had this conversation with everything that we're seeing in terms of inflation for homeowners. Um, so I personally would be more supportive of, I actually wrote $8, but you had in your presentation, $7.50. So, um, anywhere in that neighborhood. So I, I don't remember if that was option three or C, but, um, that would, uh, be where I'm leaning to. And I know that's what you need us to accomplish here in the next 15 minutes, uh, so that you can get some consensus around what the will is of the council. So thank you again, though, for all of the hard work and for putting this presentation together. It's very informative. I also want to point out one thing I saw on Davie's website was a great Q and A and, um, that would be something I would want us to model too. It had some really good questions and answers for the lay person that goes on to navigate this and understand, uh, some of the things that you explained today. Thank you. Can I ask a quick question before I pass it off to Councilmember Reinstein? Yes. You said you used the Broward County property appraiser for our lot footage and our under air. Sure. How do you calculate if someone added a pool deck on and so forth? We digitize. So we use the technology. I heard you say digitize. Yeah. Is it overhead? Yes. So what about trees that are blocking paths? So the areas that were heavily, um, have tree shades or we couldn't see, we pulled the surveys. We pulled any permits, any recent permits, and we looked at the square footage. So if you applied. So you got that granular. Yes. So if you applied for a driveway permit, the building department would ask you for a survey. So we pulled these property and we digitized, we outlined the impervious area and we calculated. So we went granular into property by property to calculate that average. So if someone put a shed in, would that be captured as an impervious area? Yes. And if they bought just the stepping stones at Home Depot and laid a path down the side of their house without a permit? We tried our best. And to Council Member Fagin point, as we deploy this, if that's the direction from Council, and you look at your property and you said city of plantation engineering, this is like, no, this is like not pervious. We will be, um, adjusting that. So there's a way to, yeah. Okay. And again, if your property, where it makes a difference, if you guys approve the tiering concept, if that area, uh, shifts you from one tier to another, or actually downgrade you from one tier to another. But if it is 2,300 and removing that, it's going to be corrected in our GIS. But if it keeps you in the same tier from stormwater utility fee, doesn't make a difference. But what's correct is correct and what's wrong is wrong. So we will be working with our residents on that. Yep. Thank you. Council Member Reinstein, go ahead. With not too much time left, I feel like the guy in jeopardy trying to click in here. Um, so a few points. One of the things that, um, I just want to also be clear is that despite the fact that we are all talking about throughout the state of Florida, this potential, um, this, the referendum and the, the, the changes in revenue, um, this need has nothing to do with that. This need is something that, um, has been in the plans long before we were faced with that and are faced with that. And regardless of what happens to the revenue stream or regardless of what happens to the decisions as to how we as a city need to respond to that. Uh, if at all, um, this is necessary. That's absolutely correct. So let, let's just leave it at that. Yes. And so the answer is yes to that. And then, um, so just to be quick is that I will say that in my analysis of this, despite the fact that, um, you know, I don't want to see any increase, right? Um, I don't think anybody does. Um, I think anytime we talk about the need to pay more than we're already paying, um, it immediately, um, alarms red flags and it should be. Um, the problem is, is that we're also in the customer service business and, um, our residents, um, would rather know that we are anticipating what happens every year. And that is flooding flooding concerns, right? It's the, you know, we have the big H word that we don't want to talk about. Well, there's also the F word, right? And not that one, but a different one. And, um, and you know, the, the flooding word is throughout this presentation because the risk is real. The risk is, uh, is imminent. We know it's happening. It's going to happen. And it's just, what do we do to prepare for it? And so, um, with that being said, I like the tiering approach. So I, I do believe that the tiering approach is good. Um, it may need to be changed again. We may need to revise it some good comments from my colleagues. Um, and I'm looking at the numbers that you have suggested with the different, um, funding options. Um, and you know, the, the, the mediator in me also goes to, I think council member Andrea mentioned the eight dollars, which you have it at seven 50 and you have it at nine. So if it, if you, if you revised it to eight, it would be smack in the middle. And then it would be something that, um, you know, the old, uh, um, right, uh, King Solomon splitting the baby. So I, I, I would go with that. So you recommend the eight. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your hard work on this. Okay. So you need a consensus from us? Yes. So if I can, yes. So how about, cause we have a short time. We'll try to expedite it. The tiering approach. Do you all, how about, how do you feel about the tiering approach? I'm in agreement. Oh, that's, that's right. That's an item. So you don't need, that's, that's right. That's the item. So we have to, it's the, which rate were. So again, the, we are recommending the 125. What I'm hearing to council members are supporting $8 per month. I need other council members. The 125. It was how much a month? $10 42 cents. Mm-hmm. I did, I did ask a few residents that they definitely love the tiering idea and they definitely liked the plantations proactive when that's what I wanted to ask you. I know you can't put a number on this and I know it's kind of rushed, but when you have an emergency repair and you have to call an emergency commercial crew to shut a road down, you immediately inconvenience all the neighborhood to reroute. And I'm sure they gouged the heck out of us in costs. Correct. When we plan it out and we map out where we're going and it's all, you know, we're on, on a much better schedule. It's expensive, but it's not nearly as expensive before. It's not nearly as convenient as before. I think the residents that they like that were not Fort Lauderdale and so forth. That's constantly reactionary when we're proactive. I mean, they, they don't mind and they didn't realize we only paid around $54. A year. So yes, we could quote double it, but it'd go to a hundred. But with the tiered approach, some would be a lot more. So, um, I, I would probably what it was 10, eight, it was seven 50 and then 10. So can I, can I ask council, can I, can I ask council if they would support the $9? Can you go back to the, um, the mediator in me. Can you go back to the tier one? Because I think the first two tiers is a little over 50%. Um, so tier one would have no raise at all. Yeah. Essentially almost no raise. Tier two would double, but it would still go to from 54 to 90. If you did all the way up to tier five, I mean the, the highest rate. So, uh, uh, funding option two is the $7, uh, 50 cent, um, which, uh, $90 per year. And then. Wait, stop. Go backwards one. That, that one. Which will pay $54, which some 4,000 resident will not see an increase at all. And 486 resident will see maximum $270 per year. So that's the $7 and 50 cent option. Mm-hmm The, why I keep, I'm sorry. I'm just going. The, um, that's the seven 50. We talked about the $9, which now I'm recommending to you based on your comments. Um, so it is $108 yearly. The, uh, tier one will pay. Actually the, I, I was mistaking. The, uh, option three is the $54 where no increase for 4,000 residents. And 274, 486 resident and in between. So that's actually, if we wanna, um, a second recommendation. I, if I can ask you to consider this rate and have your consensus on the nine instead of the eight, if you would. As much as I know how tough the economy is, I, I realize how I've been on all these canals as a kid and even as an adult. I know we need to address it. It, it, it's, it's just a fact. Um, it's a necessity to me. So I would lean towards the higher, but I respect consensus. Um, so I would lean towards the nine probably. But they're at what? Seven 50. Did you go up to as high as eight? You got, you went as eight. She didn't have that as an option. So I, I. Can I get, can I get a nine? Can I get a nine? Can I get a nine? That was before I saw the presentation. That was, I came up with eight after our meeting. So I had not seen her presentation updated at that point. I, I could compromise at nine, but we cannot be under the impression that this is not going to be painful for people. This is a huge increase. You're talking about still the majority of the residents are going to feel this increase. And it's going to be double or in some cases, quadruple. You're talking $5 a month for, for, for. It's not, that's, it's annually. Right. And. So it's not $180 charge more. It's only from 54 to 108. It's $54 divided by 12. Correct. So it's. That's still. $5 to prevent flooding and fix everything. And I don't know. I would, I would go with nine. I can, I can meet you halfway at nine. Okay. So I have two nines. Can I have two other council members too? We got, you got the last 45 seconds. Council member Fadgen. What, what do you think? You're not going to like what I have to say. I'm close to the eight. Let's just go seven 50, but we already had a couple of eights and a nine. So. We'll have a large discussion. Yeah. So with a seven 50 and we began with eight. So the question council member Anderson is if you'd agree to eight, then it's a consensus. Okay. I'll do it. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your support. We will bring the resolution on January, uh, July 29 with eight monthly rate and the tiering option to your consideration. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you to your team. Thank you very much to the team. Seriously, that you guys in the back and, and Bill, thank you very much. And Samir, a great presentation. Thank you for all the data. And I can't wait for the residents to be able to see it. Thank you. This concludes the stormwater utility workshop.