It is now 5.37 p.m. and we will call to order the City of Plantation Workshop on Solid Waste Master Plan Workshop. And I'll ask Ms. Beggarrow, please call the roll. Council Member Anderson? Here. Council Member Andreu? Here. Council Member Fadgen? Here. Council Member Horland? Here. Council Member Reinstein? Here. Mayor Sortel? Here. City Attorney Israel? Here. Thank you. Thank you very much, and I will turn it over to Ms. Morris. Real briefly, I'm going to try and walk you through the Solid Waste Master Plan at 75,000 feet, because we don't have a lot of time, and if we are going to make comments on the Draft Master Plan, they are due this week. So time is sort of of the essence. Charles, could you hit the button for me real quick? Thank you. Just by virtue of where we are at and how we got here, as most of you know, the Resource Recovery Board dissolved in the 80s. In 2019, there was an MOU that established the Solid Waste Working Group. Thank you. And from that evolved the Broward County Solid Waste and Recycling Authority. The ILA that created the authority has a 40-year term with two 10-year extensions. The ILA at the present time includes Broward County and 28 of the 31 municipalities. The goal of the Solid Waste Authority is to address the final resolution disposition of solid waste and recycling that's generated here in Broward County. The goal is to meet the state's 75% recycling goal, and we're a long way from it at this point in time. And the whole plan contemplates the concept of zero waste. So while zero waste is a wonderful idea, I just need to step back and caution everybody that there's sort of no such thing as zero waste. There is always going to be some residual materials that have to be disposed of. In terms of where we're at on the ILA, like I said, it has a 40-year term. As a part of the formation conditions, there are two things that have to happen. One is the master plan of operations, which is the draft we're talking about, has to be approved. And the second is the facilities amendment, which is the facilities that will be built, the financial arrangements, if you will, the meat and potatoes, the detail behind the master plan has to be approved. If those two things don't happen within 36 months, the Solid Waste Authority dissolves. That said, if we approve or if it moves forward and it does not dissolve, your only opportunity for that first 40 years to opt out is within 120 days of receipt of the facilities plan. So you have a very limited window there. This thing's fancy. Key points of the master plan. We had a consultant come in. They modeled waste in the county. They looked at what kind of tonnage it is, what makes it up. They generated projections as to what it looks like through 2065. They looked at available land in the county that is county or municipally owned that conceivably could be used to build facilities. They also reviewed the usefulness or lack of usefulness of the Alpha 250 site. They developed a menu of five different scenarios of what combination of facilities and services would get us at or close to that 75 percentage. They have settled on recommendation of scenario A, and in a minute we'll talk a little bit more about what that means. They're looking at a phased implementation timeline. And a key piece of all of this is education and outreach, and you're going to hear that over and over and over again. That is built throughout this document. So scenario A gets us to a 62% diversion rate. Once it's fully implemented, you potentially start to look at services that look like municipal solid waste collection one time a week. Recycling, it would be single stream, which is where we're at now, one time per week. Yard waste being collected one time per week. You would look at food waste scenarios, and they offer a couple drop-off special events or regular drop-off stations or curbside-type facilities. So there's a couple of options on that. They also are proposing household hazardous waste electronics and recycling drop-off centers. So on the second column are the facilities that would be needed to get us to that level of operations. So you're talking about new recycling facilities, organics processing, C&D facilities, drop-off facilities, transfer stations, potentially a landfill, or taking the residual waste out of the county. And it does assume the continued operation of the WTE plant, the waste-to-energy plant, which I'm sure some of you have read the newspaper and recognize that that is in the process of being sold. And I'm going to say, based on what they said at the meeting the other day, the county seems comfortable that it will continue in the relationship that it's in, but it is in the process of being sold. Facilities, they talk about new facilities, funding sources, what we're possibly looking at there. Sustained communication and outreach. Again, the phrase you will hear over and over is becoming a trusted voice to the community. One of the things that they've learned in the outreach is that many residents don't believe that we really recycle when we say we recycle. Flow control is a big topic, and flow control is a way of stabilizing the amount of recyclables or garbage that is going to a specific source. We can control it, we can calculate it, we know where it's going. It allows us to build to scale more accurately, and it allows us to keep costs down. And the last thing you're going to hear a lot is harmonization. And right now, as you know, there's 31 cities in Broward County, and there's 31 different ways to pick up garbage and recycling and to dispose of garbage and recycling, and some cities don't recycle. So the thought is that if we harmonize the services or the menu of services across the county, it becomes eager to send consistent messaging and raise participation. Now, at the same time, without being alarmist, I just need to tell you that there's some language in the master plan that could give you a little bit of pause. How strongly the county is going to move on this stuff, Council Member Horland may have better insight than I do, but I just don't know the answer. There is language in there that would provide templates for franchise agreements for all member cities, and there is language in there that could consider breaking the county into zones and using single providers for each of those zones. And those zones may or may not fall along municipal boundaries. So there's that piece. And last but not least, this is the master plan roadmap, and where we are right now is between steps 11 and 12. They have conducted a couple of public workshops. I saw some of you online at some of those meetings, so I know that some of you sat through the conversations. We are looking at the final master plan hopefully being available sometime in August. The master plan sort of has to get settled before the final touches can be put on the facilities amendment. But then you will see those things coming back out to the cities for review and approval. Again, formation conditions, we have to get through the approval process on both of those documents countywide, August of 2026. Okay. That was 75,000 feet and 75 miles per hour. Does anybody have any questions at this point in time? And I think, honestly, and I'm going to speak for you, Ms. Torland, I think we'd both love to have any feedback or any comments that you want to share. Again, if we have comments on the draft master plan, I'm supposed to get them in this week. So if you have comments or thoughts that you care to share with us, that would be very helpful. And the way the adoption goes on the master plan is it's your representative who will be voting on it. The facilities plan comes back to you as a board. Thank you very much. And I was one of those. I did attend one of those workshops. And there's a lot of information to digest, but very important information. So, Council Member Hoyland. Thank you, Mr. President. Very quickly, and thank you, Ms. Morris. We really had discussed this and thought it was important to bring something back to you before that vote's going to come up. And I'm grateful that you were able to attend one of those workshops. I know there's information online if anybody wants to go. It's a lot of information. One of the reasons that I agreed to take that position to sit on that board, obviously for City of Plantation to have a seat at the table, but I knew that I was going into it without a bias. There are a lot of cities that are either absolutely against waste energy plans, and then you have the ones that are against landfilling. And I think what we've been really tasked with is evaluating all the data, and there's pros and cons with both, right? There's going to be potential health implications if you have, you know, exposure to methane. Now, other people, we just received a paper this week that says, no, there's no problem with the methane coming out of landfills. So the bottom line is we need to reduce the waste. And as Ms. Morris said, zero waste is aspirational, but we need to get to a much better place than we are now. As I had mentioned a couple of weeks ago, one of the things that we need to keep in mind is it really is a crisis. We need to figure out, this is a 40-year plan, what we're going to do with waste in this county because we're running out of room. And, you know, I think option A is probably the best. It doesn't require building a new waste-to-energy plant. That's going to be prohibitive cost-wise. However we look at this, costs are going to go up. We have to figure out a way to dispose of this waste. But one of the things that the authority has done, and we've brought in facilitators for this, is how do we recover the most material that we can. I think I've mentioned before, Austin, Texas has done a great job with their C&D, using recycling centers where they can sell that back to the building community, sometimes offering that for affordable housing. So there are a lot of options that we need to explore as a county, but I really wanted this opportunity to hear back from you if you feel strongly either way or just want to have some input. Council Member Andreyu. Thank you, President Weinstein. Ms. Morse, you said we're going to receive the plan in August. Is that correct? So another question that I have is, are we hard and fast on the 120-day turnaround? I mean, because we're also all of, not just unique to plantation, all of the municipalities will be going through budget season as well. A couple of different things. Hopefully, we'll get the final draft of the master plan in August. We haven't done a great job of adhering to time schedules thus far. August could very well become October. We have to complete what they call the formation conditions, which is the approval of the master plan of operations and the facilities plan by August of 2026, again, or the authority goes away. The opt-out is a little different. Once we get through the master plan of operations and the facilities amendment, cities will be notified and given 120 days. That is their opportunity if they want to opt out. Don't know exactly when that's going to happen, but that's 120 days pursuant to the ILA. So it is, I would say, a hard 120 days. Not just for the opt-out, but for us to take the vote as well, even if we're going to choose to remain in. Again, we have three years to complete the formation conditions, and three years was from August of 2023, and that includes approval of the master plan and approval of the facilities amendment by participating cities and Broward County. So it is, it's coming down to a tight timeline. Yes, ma'am. And as Council Member Horland said, we know that the cost is going to increase. Do we also know, and if you could maybe go back to this slide, will we all be reducing to once a week? Again, that is potentially what could happen once we get the plan fully implemented. So it's not going to happen right away. It is something that ideally, again, this whole plan focuses on reduction and diversion. So the idea is that if we are successful in diverting things like recycling, diverting yard waste, diverting food waste, we would then be able to reduce solid waste collection to one time per week. So it's an, I'm going to call it aspirational. Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's a large change because it's. It is. We're used to, for many, as long as I can remember, twice a week. So that is a huge change. And I, I, I'll just say that my observation watching the executive committee react to that the first time it was said was everybody on the table had the same reaction. It is a lot. And there are a lot of potential changes. And again, this is a whole mindset change for us as a community and as a society. It's getting away from being a throwaway society and looking at reusing, recycling, repairing instead of getting rid of. And we've kind of gotten away from that. Composting. Yes. Thank you. That too. Organics waste. They're proposing all sorts of interesting drop-off centers. Thank you. So just to maybe have you answer it is that what, what then takes place, what then happens with our carts in some neighborhoods and our blue bags? At this point in time, I can't answer that question for you. Okay. We are, we have a franchise agreement with waste management that runs through 2028. So unless you choose to negotiate a change with waste management prior to that date, it is what it is. I will tell you that my gut, for lack of a better way to say it, tells me that if we go to some sort of county-wide system, and they actually do look at dividing the county into service areas and things like that, I would be very surprised if we were not required to go to carts. And I say that just in large part because of the operational economies, but also the workers' comp issues. Garbage men have some of the highest workers' comp rates and injury rates of any profession. I just wanted to reiterate to remember this is a 40-year plan, so that was a concern when that was put on paper for all of us. But remember, that is where they are looking to be as we progress toward the end of this agreement, that if we're able to, as Ms. Morris said, retrieve a lot of those items and reduce what's going into the waste cycle, that we could get down to other ones. One of the things with the education piece that everyone can start implementing now before the draft master plan comes out and before we are tied into that agreement next year is the education piece on recycle. And they've been using a company, Conceptual Communications, to get that information out there so that every city can start to get on the same page with the recycling information. Yeah, I think you're going to see a lot more information coming out on recycling, a lot more hopefully unified messaging on that. I think another thing that we've had a lot of conversation with is C&D recycling because a lot of C&D is not presently recycled. It's landfilled. And the executive committee is looking at that as low-hanging fruit and something that could be implemented fairly quickly. Councilman Arjaya. One more question. So I was advocating for us to put out a new RFP. In lieu of everything going on, will we press pause on that because we'll still start maybe drafting some language in 2026? We have started preparing an RFSP to look at a consultant to assist us with those pieces. And one of the things that we have written into the RFSP is that this person needs to have knowledge and understanding of what is going on with the Solid Waste Authority so that as we look at recrafting, revising, renegotiating agreements, we are building into the future. Thank you very much, Ms. Morris. Thank you. Seeing no further questions, it is 5.56 p.m. and we will adjourn the workshop and we will reconvene at 6 p.m. for our city council meeting.